Well, noone seems to have found my last entry provocative enough to comment on. Sniff.
I had kind of a neurotic day today. It wasn't a really tough day in trucking terms, I just had a bobtail deadhead from dallas down to laredo and two whole days to do it. I thought to wander about austin a bit, and I decided to get off at the visitors' center exit, but the arrow indicating the way to the VC was down a narrow street i did not care to try getting my truck down. There was a pay parking lot nearby that I could have tried, but I was having trouble with the deep "can't" that lives in me and I didn't occur to me that I might actually pay a few dollars to park right near downtown. That's what I mean by having a neurotic day, among other things. I also managed to scare myself by pushing in the brake pressure button for my trailer brakes and blowing all the air out of my brake system. I didn't know what I had done and I thought that something had gone wrong with the system. I'm 99% sure the problem was just me but that 1% sticks in my mind and casts a shadow of neurotic doubt in my mind about whether I'm driving a safe truck.
But having passed neurotically by austin I decided to do san antonio, as I had determined that there was a truck stop within reasonable striking distance of dowtown. six miles is a trifle more than a stone's throw but on my racing bike it might just be attainable. when I got into san antonio it was hazy hot and humid and looking to thunderstorm, I hope it won't be that tomorrow. But when I stopped at the truck stop in san antonio i discovered that my truck had broken again the same way it did before easter weekend, there's a lot of fluid leaking out of my front differential. Bad smelling fluid.
At least swift is not making me stay in the truck until monday morning when the volvo dealership will be open to look at the problem. My truck has a touchy cruise control switch, and that means that the automatic heating and cooling systems are not reliably available. So I've scored two nights in a motel. Kind of a crappy motel but it's free.
I called my mentor about the truck breaking and he reassured me that it's not my fault, I'm not doing anything differently from anyone else. Very nice of him to say that.
I hope the weather is halfway tolerable tomorrow, suitablefor heading into town to see the botanical gardens or one of the missions. You can see things based from a big rig, but you've got to work at it, and you can't predict what you're going to have time to do.
My mentor john, on my first night out on the truck when I started my training period made the observation "the trucker's world" after we make a delivery of paper rolls to a print place outside of philadelphia. since then I've willed myself not to have my trucker's world be restriced to such things as trucks and truck stops, shippers and consignees. I go out wandering and see stuff. It's much easier to go out wandering in the middle of nowhere as truck stops tend to be a bit more accessible to places answering to that description than to the great cities. I've been disposed to say that the trucker's world includes all that you have the will to make it include, but I find I must amend that to saying that you gotta have somewhere to park.
I think my inner can't is me being my own worst enemy. It's so old and deep that I have no understanding of how to be any other way, or perhaps that's not quite it; it's kind of my learned and fairly innate natural state. It exists in others on both sides of my family. My mother has it, and my father's mother had it. You can see , or at least I can see it in her face in old photographs.
I guess I'm rambling. Monday's likely to be a waste of a day, waiting at a volvo dealer for the truck to get fixed, maybe another night in a motel if they have to order the parts. Bah
Well, just another day to make the best of things, like any other, no gaps in the dharma, my personality is just a little too brittle and high strung to take everything as easily in stride as I'd like to think I could.
I had kind of a neurotic day today. It wasn't a really tough day in trucking terms, I just had a bobtail deadhead from dallas down to laredo and two whole days to do it. I thought to wander about austin a bit, and I decided to get off at the visitors' center exit, but the arrow indicating the way to the VC was down a narrow street i did not care to try getting my truck down. There was a pay parking lot nearby that I could have tried, but I was having trouble with the deep "can't" that lives in me and I didn't occur to me that I might actually pay a few dollars to park right near downtown. That's what I mean by having a neurotic day, among other things. I also managed to scare myself by pushing in the brake pressure button for my trailer brakes and blowing all the air out of my brake system. I didn't know what I had done and I thought that something had gone wrong with the system. I'm 99% sure the problem was just me but that 1% sticks in my mind and casts a shadow of neurotic doubt in my mind about whether I'm driving a safe truck.
But having passed neurotically by austin I decided to do san antonio, as I had determined that there was a truck stop within reasonable striking distance of dowtown. six miles is a trifle more than a stone's throw but on my racing bike it might just be attainable. when I got into san antonio it was hazy hot and humid and looking to thunderstorm, I hope it won't be that tomorrow. But when I stopped at the truck stop in san antonio i discovered that my truck had broken again the same way it did before easter weekend, there's a lot of fluid leaking out of my front differential. Bad smelling fluid.
At least swift is not making me stay in the truck until monday morning when the volvo dealership will be open to look at the problem. My truck has a touchy cruise control switch, and that means that the automatic heating and cooling systems are not reliably available. So I've scored two nights in a motel. Kind of a crappy motel but it's free.
I called my mentor about the truck breaking and he reassured me that it's not my fault, I'm not doing anything differently from anyone else. Very nice of him to say that.
I hope the weather is halfway tolerable tomorrow, suitablefor heading into town to see the botanical gardens or one of the missions. You can see things based from a big rig, but you've got to work at it, and you can't predict what you're going to have time to do.
My mentor john, on my first night out on the truck when I started my training period made the observation "the trucker's world" after we make a delivery of paper rolls to a print place outside of philadelphia. since then I've willed myself not to have my trucker's world be restriced to such things as trucks and truck stops, shippers and consignees. I go out wandering and see stuff. It's much easier to go out wandering in the middle of nowhere as truck stops tend to be a bit more accessible to places answering to that description than to the great cities. I've been disposed to say that the trucker's world includes all that you have the will to make it include, but I find I must amend that to saying that you gotta have somewhere to park.
I think my inner can't is me being my own worst enemy. It's so old and deep that I have no understanding of how to be any other way, or perhaps that's not quite it; it's kind of my learned and fairly innate natural state. It exists in others on both sides of my family. My mother has it, and my father's mother had it. You can see , or at least I can see it in her face in old photographs.
I guess I'm rambling. Monday's likely to be a waste of a day, waiting at a volvo dealer for the truck to get fixed, maybe another night in a motel if they have to order the parts. Bah
Well, just another day to make the best of things, like any other, no gaps in the dharma, my personality is just a little too brittle and high strung to take everything as easily in stride as I'd like to think I could.
At least you have recognised "The Can't" Now you can call the bastard to account. Some folks have a "Can't" or "Shouldn't" inside themselves and don't even know it.
Pushing in your trailer brake supply while bobtailing will do that. You're essentially opening up a valve on the system without it being a closed circuit. No big deal.
I enjoy going down to Laredo. Pohl used to send me every couple of months or so. I'm thinking the customer who provided the trips must have switched to a cheaper carrier of the JBH or Swift variety however, since I haven't seen that run in a long time.