Evening folks.
Presently I'm at a McD's in Buffalo NY. Been in better and worse moods. I'm close enough to downtown that I spose I could head into town on my bike if I wanted, and it's unseasonably warm; but this is a bit of a dodgy neighborhood and I'm just parked in a parking lot, not a truck stop and I'm not entirely sure of the security of my truck. I could carry my laptop with me or lock it in one of my cargo bays I suppose.
I broke down and got myself a garmin GPS system because they're all but indispensable for this job. On the first day that I did this job by myself, I had two very easy stops to find and get into, and the last was a nightmare. I got to Poughkeepsie NY in plenty of time for my appt. But let's start before that. Finished last stop, called ahead to next stop to verify directions. Guy on other end did not sound very promising intelligencewise so I requested direxions through my satellite communication system. I thought those were suspect, and in fact they put me into a different town several miles away from where my stop was supposed to be. So I fell back on the ones printed on my bill of lading and they were all right as far as they got me, but then the last street I needed failed to appear. So i called my dispatcher in the hopes he would have the directions that ran over allocated space in my BOL, but he just got me into a conference call with the idiots at the store I was trying to find.
Store is on Hooker ave.
Me asking store idiot : " if i'm on main st, will hooker be a left or a right?"
idiot: -pause- "it's a left"
Me: when I get on main st from off of route 44, is it any particular distance down Main st? ( i had already been down main and not found it) half a mile, a mile, two miles?"
Idiot: -pause- "No."
Actually this conversation was before and not after I went up main and down church st looking for hooker ave.
So after I fruitlessly drove down main, and asked a crossing guard if he knew where hooker was, and he
said it was back uptown, he told me how to circle back uptown, whereupon i again did not find it, and found myself driving down a minor highway where I stopped in a grocery store parking lot and tried the store again.
This time I got a person with a brain, It is interesting how different someone with a functioning brain sounds on the phone; they have clearer and more pointed voices, and they don't have that pause while trying trying to focus a thought of the murk of their dim dim minds. The nonidiot included the important transitional street of south grand ave, which is the left off of main; Hooker runs parallel to main, and until that last phone call not one person had been able to tell me that I had to turn on south grand ave.
So when I got there I was late and massively stressed out, and the store has a small parking lot that I had to blindside into from where I was. The manager who came out told me that other truck drivers turned around a couple blocks ahead somewhere. I went ahead to try and find that place but no obvious place appeared and when I was nearing the river I had to try and turn so I did, all the while going through residential neighborhoods with lots of low trees that were beating the shit out of my trailer as I was driving through.
Finally got there, got truck unloaded, didn't know how the hell to get back to the highway. A woman in the store told me go two lights and turn left, but that didn't appear to be right, so I kept going and went on to a main road, and by good fortune got back onto a road I knew, got to the highway and ran flat out to a truck stop, just making it by the skin of my teeth before running over hours.
Incidentally, I can tell you, having been in an auto accident a few years ago where I got hit by a truck, that unloading severral tons of freight by hand from a truck has about the same effect on your body, only slower.
So tonight whe I got here I was a little stressed out as exit 13 does not exist heading south on 190 and I had to be a smartass and try going south cuz it looked easier and more straightforward than going north. Buffalo is a vastly easier city to fuck around in than Poughkeepsie, if you get lost. So I got here, and kind of debated what to do before hitting my bunk and drowsing for a while. From both physical and mental stress and some unwillingness to leave my truck unattended with my comp on it, or ride around with my comp on my back. Whatever, I spose I'll get used to it, or maybe not. These neighborhoods will often not be as secure as truck stops and that will never be totally ok I don't think. I'm thinking about bringing my nice SIG 220 along with me but I would have to carry it all the time, I couldn't leave it on the truck, and it's pretty big and people would likely notice, if I didn't wear a jacket all the time while unloading the truck. Which is a sweat intensive activity. Might also be a problem if I get pulled over for a DOT inspection.
So whatever. I really need to open up that Garmin box and get my gps system going, or at least do yahoo maps on this comp this evening, which I was going to do here in the restaurant but I forgot to bring the addresses in with me.
Werner is a lot like a kid you're driving around with who keeps demanding "are we there yet?", always wanting you to update your eta, not happy with you just being there on time. They have one hundred millon dollars cash reserve in the bank but they won't buy me a set of rollers that aren't half destroyed. I dislike them. Resent them.
There are things I could do to make my life easier, I could do more computer mapping to examine where I'm headed, and I could look harder for other work opportunities.
My last load was to Ipswich mass, north of boston. I had a hell of a time getting there, missed my turn and had a hell of a time figuring our where I was and turning around, but once I got there ipswich itself was beautiful sort of new england town. Streets were laid down about 300 years before anyone got the idea of trying to drive 75 foot long trucks down them, but at least the parking lot was big enough. I actually had to park the truck at a train station parking lot that was on the street I was looking for and get out and walk around town to find the store and its parking lot.
Well, here's hoping the GPS will save me some trouble and hoping noone will steal it out of my truck, knock on particle board with plastic verneer.
Love and kisses to all, I hope you're all finding your fortunes.
JBL
Presently I'm at a McD's in Buffalo NY. Been in better and worse moods. I'm close enough to downtown that I spose I could head into town on my bike if I wanted, and it's unseasonably warm; but this is a bit of a dodgy neighborhood and I'm just parked in a parking lot, not a truck stop and I'm not entirely sure of the security of my truck. I could carry my laptop with me or lock it in one of my cargo bays I suppose.
I broke down and got myself a garmin GPS system because they're all but indispensable for this job. On the first day that I did this job by myself, I had two very easy stops to find and get into, and the last was a nightmare. I got to Poughkeepsie NY in plenty of time for my appt. But let's start before that. Finished last stop, called ahead to next stop to verify directions. Guy on other end did not sound very promising intelligencewise so I requested direxions through my satellite communication system. I thought those were suspect, and in fact they put me into a different town several miles away from where my stop was supposed to be. So I fell back on the ones printed on my bill of lading and they were all right as far as they got me, but then the last street I needed failed to appear. So i called my dispatcher in the hopes he would have the directions that ran over allocated space in my BOL, but he just got me into a conference call with the idiots at the store I was trying to find.
Store is on Hooker ave.
Me asking store idiot : " if i'm on main st, will hooker be a left or a right?"
idiot: -pause- "it's a left"
Me: when I get on main st from off of route 44, is it any particular distance down Main st? ( i had already been down main and not found it) half a mile, a mile, two miles?"
Idiot: -pause- "No."
Actually this conversation was before and not after I went up main and down church st looking for hooker ave.
So after I fruitlessly drove down main, and asked a crossing guard if he knew where hooker was, and he
said it was back uptown, he told me how to circle back uptown, whereupon i again did not find it, and found myself driving down a minor highway where I stopped in a grocery store parking lot and tried the store again.
This time I got a person with a brain, It is interesting how different someone with a functioning brain sounds on the phone; they have clearer and more pointed voices, and they don't have that pause while trying trying to focus a thought of the murk of their dim dim minds. The nonidiot included the important transitional street of south grand ave, which is the left off of main; Hooker runs parallel to main, and until that last phone call not one person had been able to tell me that I had to turn on south grand ave.
So when I got there I was late and massively stressed out, and the store has a small parking lot that I had to blindside into from where I was. The manager who came out told me that other truck drivers turned around a couple blocks ahead somewhere. I went ahead to try and find that place but no obvious place appeared and when I was nearing the river I had to try and turn so I did, all the while going through residential neighborhoods with lots of low trees that were beating the shit out of my trailer as I was driving through.
Finally got there, got truck unloaded, didn't know how the hell to get back to the highway. A woman in the store told me go two lights and turn left, but that didn't appear to be right, so I kept going and went on to a main road, and by good fortune got back onto a road I knew, got to the highway and ran flat out to a truck stop, just making it by the skin of my teeth before running over hours.
Incidentally, I can tell you, having been in an auto accident a few years ago where I got hit by a truck, that unloading severral tons of freight by hand from a truck has about the same effect on your body, only slower.
So tonight whe I got here I was a little stressed out as exit 13 does not exist heading south on 190 and I had to be a smartass and try going south cuz it looked easier and more straightforward than going north. Buffalo is a vastly easier city to fuck around in than Poughkeepsie, if you get lost. So I got here, and kind of debated what to do before hitting my bunk and drowsing for a while. From both physical and mental stress and some unwillingness to leave my truck unattended with my comp on it, or ride around with my comp on my back. Whatever, I spose I'll get used to it, or maybe not. These neighborhoods will often not be as secure as truck stops and that will never be totally ok I don't think. I'm thinking about bringing my nice SIG 220 along with me but I would have to carry it all the time, I couldn't leave it on the truck, and it's pretty big and people would likely notice, if I didn't wear a jacket all the time while unloading the truck. Which is a sweat intensive activity. Might also be a problem if I get pulled over for a DOT inspection.
So whatever. I really need to open up that Garmin box and get my gps system going, or at least do yahoo maps on this comp this evening, which I was going to do here in the restaurant but I forgot to bring the addresses in with me.
Werner is a lot like a kid you're driving around with who keeps demanding "are we there yet?", always wanting you to update your eta, not happy with you just being there on time. They have one hundred millon dollars cash reserve in the bank but they won't buy me a set of rollers that aren't half destroyed. I dislike them. Resent them.
There are things I could do to make my life easier, I could do more computer mapping to examine where I'm headed, and I could look harder for other work opportunities.
My last load was to Ipswich mass, north of boston. I had a hell of a time getting there, missed my turn and had a hell of a time figuring our where I was and turning around, but once I got there ipswich itself was beautiful sort of new england town. Streets were laid down about 300 years before anyone got the idea of trying to drive 75 foot long trucks down them, but at least the parking lot was big enough. I actually had to park the truck at a train station parking lot that was on the street I was looking for and get out and walk around town to find the store and its parking lot.
Well, here's hoping the GPS will save me some trouble and hoping noone will steal it out of my truck, knock on particle board with plastic verneer.
Love and kisses to all, I hope you're all finding your fortunes.
JBL
VIEW 7 of 7 COMMENTS
this might be a bit of a silly question, but...you wouldn't happen to have a deviantart account, would you?
i seem to be the girl without any luck as far as holga shots go. ive only shot two rolls since i got it, though, andi bought mine from lomography.com so i paid way too much.......
i'm waiting til i get home (from college, for break) so i can get my film developed. i've done a lot of 35 on the holga, though, and those pretty much always turn out well. i'm kind of a cocksucker so i also bought the adapter instead of taping it or doing full frame. what can i say!
as far as light leaks with the brownie, electrical tape is incredible!
i have these glass plate negatives from the spanish american war. i found them in an old relative's attic......
i need to get back to a school that offers a reputable photography program so i can be a snob and thesis-ify them
so!
tell me things!
you interest me greatly.
www.anemicroyalty2025
.deviantart.com