IPOD
RADIO
New update time I spose.
I had a load out to boston today. I was not feeling real keen about heading out into my second major winter storm in a row. I got about a mile from my house in my car and I decided it just wasn't worth the risk of getting into an accident to be on time with few tons of dog food and bleach. I turned around under a bridge that didn't have any snow under it and phoned in that the delivery would have to be scheduled for tomorrow. I made up a little lie about getting my car stuck in a snowbank on my way to the truck stop where I park they truck.
On the other hand what is not a lie is that I did just that in the big rig during the storm on friday. I was heading from a delivery in western ct to another in west hartford. I got into standstill traffic where it took me about 2 hours to go about a mile. At one point i had to lock my rear axles; for those of you non truckers, normally only the rearmost of your two tractor axles is driving the truck forward, but if you need extra traction you can lock your axles and have both of them live. So at one point I locked them to get started going uphill, and then, because you're not sposta run continously with your axles locked, I stopped and unlocked them. Well that was pretty fuckin stupid cuz then I couln't take off again even relocking the axles. There ended up being nothing to do but to spin the wheels with the truck in third gear, the truck literally inched forward with the wheels spinning and the engine roaring and getting really hot. But I did make it to the top of the hill and got going and eventually made it to my stop in west hartford. I almost got her stuck turning onto the road my stop was on, I wanted to turn but the truck wanted to keep going straight, but fortunately my momentum carried me through and I got around the corner. then I got stuck twice in the parking lot at the store. Couple days before i was talking to the safety guy and he asked if I was ready for the winter months. I said i didn't have chains, he said don't even worry about chains you don't need them. Took me four hours in all, to get from the western ct stop to west hartford. maybe 30-40 miles.
Anyway It wouldn't suprise me one bit if in fact I were the only guy who didn't make a delivery today because of the weather, but fuckit. There were multiple trucks stuck in the harftord area on friday including me for while, though I was able to get unstuck. passed another guy who couldn't. There are diametrically opposed viewpoints of what people tell you to do in such situations. Back right when i started up with the family dollar account I was talking with another Werner driver at a truck stop, about gps nav systems, when an old timer just wandered by and started talking to us. at some point said that if the roads ever get bad, get off of em, i don't care what you're dispatcher says. some guys at trucking school seconded that, but the job placement person in particular said " you will drive on sheer ice " your dispatcher is never going to say "I'm not going to deliver that freight" he's going to have you rolling, whatever the conditions. when you're loaded you sink into the snow anyway. but not so much when you're empty.
Well, at least today noone got killed as a result of any decisions or actions on my part. Tomorrow I've got to be on the move as of 5am for a 7am delivery, but that should at least be in rather more civilized road conditions.
Felt a little self conscious this morning when my boss called me back on my cell phone, both my cats were sitting on me and purring.
Some decisions have big negatives either way you go.
_____________________
Last week I saw the move "Ratatouille" which I recommend. Or rather I don't recommend because most people seem to hate things I recommend.
The main character, Remy the rat, deals with a lot of exactly the same problems that I deal with in dealing with other people. His problem is that he has rarefied, sensitive tastes, and therefore a sense of and taste for the exquisite, which his kindred do not understand. He therefore has desires and ambitions that his father Django and brothe Emile do not understand or support, and they want him to do boring work that they understand, being a poison sniffer, to detect rat poison in food.
So being me growing up in the household I grew up in, i learned not to talk about art or music or ideas that noone else would understand. I didn't assimilate real well with other groups either, artistic musical types, people interested in ideas often are not real into hanging up dead deer in the garage in the fall or having a shitload of guns, or any of that sort of thing. Whatever.
In some ways you could say it makes me a judgemental elitisit bastard, if you want to take a negative view of what I'm like. I actually hate it when I instantly judge someone based on what their voice sounds like on the phone and I turn out to be exactly right. My boss brandon is an example of that happening. His voice is about like two rocks being scraped together.
When I got my arm broken in the auto accident a few years ago I had to get an orthopaedic surgeon to oversee the boneknitting process, and on a form that he filled out for my insurance company, there was a paragraph on me indicating that I was a 33 year old male of normal affect. Affect turned out to mean how expressive you are as a personality in interactions. My boss brandon has very little affect. About as much personallity as a rock. As I see it his being that way is exacltl;y why he has the job he has and is able to do it. He able to tell people to do things that are really annoying, and his perspective is always 100% that of the company. When the storm was going on on friday, he sends out a group message " we need to make our appointments early to get the freight delivered safely" nothing, about getting off the roads if they get dangerous. Stephanie my other boss, to give her due credit, did phone me to make sure I was safe when I was in that 2 hours/one mile section of my drive on friday. Anyway, back to brandon; AS IF there were any way in hell we could possiby be early driving around in a major winter storm, you asshole.
It seems to me that brandon's voice is so extraordiary unmusical specifically because he is a nearly emotionless toad. Ox. He looks just like mr potatohead made flesh. a blob of flesh with no capacity for any appreciation of beauty from any perspective.
So I was thinking that people could be viewed from the perspective of viewing them as "exquisites" or "mundanes" or Oxen. I guess a lot of the time I feel like I'm almost exquisite, I can appreciate music but I have vexingly little talent for making it. Same with art. I can throw pottery on the wheel and cook and I'm a great lover. I don't know if these things are as difficult or exquisite as painting or playing the piano, but maybe they are to people who don't have such ability to do them as I do. You might say that being exquisite or mundane is like how many megapixels are in a digital camera. The higher the pixel count, the finer the detail the camera can resolve, and minds are much the same. In a certain sense a higher megapixel count can be a curse if you have trouble finding a nice where your particular mixture of interests and abilities has a particular place. A curse that many artists have had to live with. Van Gogh only ever sold one painting, though picasso could walk into any restaurant, order anything, and pay with a drawing scribbled on a napkin.
One thing that's real noticeable though is that successful artists tend to have a bigtime work ethic. Zak smith puts in 14 hours 7days. I am a lazy bastard, and there's no escaping that my lack of being successful in the things that I love is my own damn fault, but to be fair to myself, even if ultimately it doesn't count as an exuse, is that growing up as an exquisite among mundanes my vison of work as being something that could be a vehicle for the expression of my passions. was utterly destroyed. Oxen view work solely from the perspective of what oxen can understand, and if they see you doing something they don't understand, they tell you to get to work, and teach you that work is something standing in opposition to your passions, which are meaningless.
Wish I were just a little more relaxed right now. Will have to get up ass early to make my delivery, and I hate that. I know that nothing about werner or family dollar is worth getting into a state of mental agitation over, but I can never feel just ok about the things I need to do to keep the pitiful money supply trickling in.
Well, gotta get some christmas cards done up and sent out. Feliz navidad, amigos.
JBL
I had a load out to boston today. I was not feeling real keen about heading out into my second major winter storm in a row. I got about a mile from my house in my car and I decided it just wasn't worth the risk of getting into an accident to be on time with few tons of dog food and bleach. I turned around under a bridge that didn't have any snow under it and phoned in that the delivery would have to be scheduled for tomorrow. I made up a little lie about getting my car stuck in a snowbank on my way to the truck stop where I park they truck.
On the other hand what is not a lie is that I did just that in the big rig during the storm on friday. I was heading from a delivery in western ct to another in west hartford. I got into standstill traffic where it took me about 2 hours to go about a mile. At one point i had to lock my rear axles; for those of you non truckers, normally only the rearmost of your two tractor axles is driving the truck forward, but if you need extra traction you can lock your axles and have both of them live. So at one point I locked them to get started going uphill, and then, because you're not sposta run continously with your axles locked, I stopped and unlocked them. Well that was pretty fuckin stupid cuz then I couln't take off again even relocking the axles. There ended up being nothing to do but to spin the wheels with the truck in third gear, the truck literally inched forward with the wheels spinning and the engine roaring and getting really hot. But I did make it to the top of the hill and got going and eventually made it to my stop in west hartford. I almost got her stuck turning onto the road my stop was on, I wanted to turn but the truck wanted to keep going straight, but fortunately my momentum carried me through and I got around the corner. then I got stuck twice in the parking lot at the store. Couple days before i was talking to the safety guy and he asked if I was ready for the winter months. I said i didn't have chains, he said don't even worry about chains you don't need them. Took me four hours in all, to get from the western ct stop to west hartford. maybe 30-40 miles.
Anyway It wouldn't suprise me one bit if in fact I were the only guy who didn't make a delivery today because of the weather, but fuckit. There were multiple trucks stuck in the harftord area on friday including me for while, though I was able to get unstuck. passed another guy who couldn't. There are diametrically opposed viewpoints of what people tell you to do in such situations. Back right when i started up with the family dollar account I was talking with another Werner driver at a truck stop, about gps nav systems, when an old timer just wandered by and started talking to us. at some point said that if the roads ever get bad, get off of em, i don't care what you're dispatcher says. some guys at trucking school seconded that, but the job placement person in particular said " you will drive on sheer ice " your dispatcher is never going to say "I'm not going to deliver that freight" he's going to have you rolling, whatever the conditions. when you're loaded you sink into the snow anyway. but not so much when you're empty.
Well, at least today noone got killed as a result of any decisions or actions on my part. Tomorrow I've got to be on the move as of 5am for a 7am delivery, but that should at least be in rather more civilized road conditions.
Felt a little self conscious this morning when my boss called me back on my cell phone, both my cats were sitting on me and purring.
Some decisions have big negatives either way you go.
_____________________
Last week I saw the move "Ratatouille" which I recommend. Or rather I don't recommend because most people seem to hate things I recommend.
The main character, Remy the rat, deals with a lot of exactly the same problems that I deal with in dealing with other people. His problem is that he has rarefied, sensitive tastes, and therefore a sense of and taste for the exquisite, which his kindred do not understand. He therefore has desires and ambitions that his father Django and brothe Emile do not understand or support, and they want him to do boring work that they understand, being a poison sniffer, to detect rat poison in food.
So being me growing up in the household I grew up in, i learned not to talk about art or music or ideas that noone else would understand. I didn't assimilate real well with other groups either, artistic musical types, people interested in ideas often are not real into hanging up dead deer in the garage in the fall or having a shitload of guns, or any of that sort of thing. Whatever.
In some ways you could say it makes me a judgemental elitisit bastard, if you want to take a negative view of what I'm like. I actually hate it when I instantly judge someone based on what their voice sounds like on the phone and I turn out to be exactly right. My boss brandon is an example of that happening. His voice is about like two rocks being scraped together.
When I got my arm broken in the auto accident a few years ago I had to get an orthopaedic surgeon to oversee the boneknitting process, and on a form that he filled out for my insurance company, there was a paragraph on me indicating that I was a 33 year old male of normal affect. Affect turned out to mean how expressive you are as a personality in interactions. My boss brandon has very little affect. About as much personallity as a rock. As I see it his being that way is exacltl;y why he has the job he has and is able to do it. He able to tell people to do things that are really annoying, and his perspective is always 100% that of the company. When the storm was going on on friday, he sends out a group message " we need to make our appointments early to get the freight delivered safely" nothing, about getting off the roads if they get dangerous. Stephanie my other boss, to give her due credit, did phone me to make sure I was safe when I was in that 2 hours/one mile section of my drive on friday. Anyway, back to brandon; AS IF there were any way in hell we could possiby be early driving around in a major winter storm, you asshole.
It seems to me that brandon's voice is so extraordiary unmusical specifically because he is a nearly emotionless toad. Ox. He looks just like mr potatohead made flesh. a blob of flesh with no capacity for any appreciation of beauty from any perspective.
So I was thinking that people could be viewed from the perspective of viewing them as "exquisites" or "mundanes" or Oxen. I guess a lot of the time I feel like I'm almost exquisite, I can appreciate music but I have vexingly little talent for making it. Same with art. I can throw pottery on the wheel and cook and I'm a great lover. I don't know if these things are as difficult or exquisite as painting or playing the piano, but maybe they are to people who don't have such ability to do them as I do. You might say that being exquisite or mundane is like how many megapixels are in a digital camera. The higher the pixel count, the finer the detail the camera can resolve, and minds are much the same. In a certain sense a higher megapixel count can be a curse if you have trouble finding a nice where your particular mixture of interests and abilities has a particular place. A curse that many artists have had to live with. Van Gogh only ever sold one painting, though picasso could walk into any restaurant, order anything, and pay with a drawing scribbled on a napkin.
One thing that's real noticeable though is that successful artists tend to have a bigtime work ethic. Zak smith puts in 14 hours 7days. I am a lazy bastard, and there's no escaping that my lack of being successful in the things that I love is my own damn fault, but to be fair to myself, even if ultimately it doesn't count as an exuse, is that growing up as an exquisite among mundanes my vison of work as being something that could be a vehicle for the expression of my passions. was utterly destroyed. Oxen view work solely from the perspective of what oxen can understand, and if they see you doing something they don't understand, they tell you to get to work, and teach you that work is something standing in opposition to your passions, which are meaningless.
Wish I were just a little more relaxed right now. Will have to get up ass early to make my delivery, and I hate that. I know that nothing about werner or family dollar is worth getting into a state of mental agitation over, but I can never feel just ok about the things I need to do to keep the pitiful money supply trickling in.
Well, gotta get some christmas cards done up and sent out. Feliz navidad, amigos.
JBL
DEC 19, 2007 05:18 PM
I have wanted to see rattatoui (sp?) for quite some time now 
I love rats, obviously, they are so much like little people with fur. Your work sounds so dangerous, I really hope it's worth it. Ive always been told that you have to "love" what u do for a living in order to be happy .. so I try so very hard to only work at those places (if I can help it). But for a career .. yeah, Id have to LOVE it if Im gonna do it for an extensive period of time. I hope u love what u do .. do you?
Id like to thank u for reccomending the psych grp, I cant believe I didnt join sooner! But sadly, I cant find your post! 
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