Truck Drivers Prohibited From Texting While Driving

Cnn article on recent announcement banning truck drivers from texting.

My husbands reaction to this, "No Sh&%."    You see it takes concentration to pilot 80,000 lb. down the road.  It's like common sense, one step above breathing in, out, in, out.

It also takes concentration to pilot a car down the road.  Nuff said?

I happen to think texting while driving anything should be punishable as stringently as say going 100 mph. I'm being reasonable here, I honestly think texting should be punished with drunk driving fines and sentences.

Cell phone usage?  I admit I have done that.  Weaving looking for a number or trying to punch it in.  PULL OVER!  If it's not available with two easily reached buttons fuggedabboutit!

We won't even go into the people who wear pajama bottoms to shop and have bluetooth, they are so important they must talk constantly.  I know that probably doesn't deserve a fine other than by the fashion police and Miss Manners.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Trucking

Here is the rest of the story of last week in the truck. It contains the good the bad and the ugly and we had all three.

1. (bad) The first thing was when we waited for our friends truck to get done in the shop last Tuesday. We won't say where but it's like the first truck stop in the valley in TX. Two brake chambers and a mudflap took almost all day to fix and they had the parts to start with!! The mudflap wasn't even torn off. For you non truck drivers this is like having your oil changed and maybe the tires replaced and balanced. NOT supposed to take forever but it took a great portion of the afternoon and some of the morning.

2. (bad good) The next thing was when the wheel came off of the truck. You say how could this be good but I'm just going on how people treated us which was excellent. Once again if you need a super mechanic around Prescott Arkansas I can tell you where to go (email tcscarlet at yahoo dot com). These people went out of their way to help us. Also I want to thank our friends that were with us John and Cindy and also Allan who stopped by with his pickup for their help and kindness.

3. (bad good) The next thing was driving through Illinois in the blizzard and then having to fix the filler tube on the truck in a parking lot. My husband did wonderfully and I was so proud he could fix it, it would have been a bad job under any circumstances but in blowing wind and snow@ 4 am I was amazed he got it done. Also the lady @ the fuel stop (exit 283 on I 57) was just as nice as she could be. the parking lot was full of trucks and truckdrivers, I KNOW some were awake but did anyone ask if they could help? Nope. They can run to open doors for me but they can't come hold a flashlight in a blizzard? (bad) Seriously though I'm not sure if my husband would have helped another guy in those circumstances but if his wife was obviously shaking as if pooping a peach seed (my husbands quote cleaned up)and holding the flashlight, in his defense he did try to get me to get back in the truck but I try to help as much as possible. I did buy a stocking cap after that. Stupid me forgot my mufflers and hat @ home.

4. (ugly) We FINALLY get to where we are going to deliver. SUPPOSEDLY the broker had changed the appointment to Tuesday. It's Friday and we had had a tire and wheel fall off, driven through a blizzard (saw an empty bus skidded off beside the road with all of it's lights on facing the wrong way and the door open...... SPOOKY), and fixed the truck in said blizzard and then my husband was told we were going to have to sit there 5 days because they were busy? I told my husband if I went to see the receiver I would ask him if his mama knew what a waste of valuable human skin he was. LUCKILY our friends knew one of the guys working on the dock (great guy) who told the receiver they weren't busy. They weren't busy in the first place (we were the only trucks @ that dock) but some people REALLY get off on making others lives miserable.

5.(bad bad) So we go to Springfield Illinois the Pilot on exit 100. Fuel card won't go through, it's not like it didn't have money on it or we hadn't bought fuel @ a Pilot before with it. They wouldn't even RUN the card through for my husband till I went in and immediately asked for the manager in my polite but don't cross me voice. We could have used cash but if you knew my husband you would know why he wouldn't even let me refill my thermos there after that incident. Our friend said they just didn't run the fuel card through right because it makes NO sense one Pilot could take it and not another? So we go to another truck stop, fuel up, it's COLD now and the wind is still blowing but it quit snowing. We've driven on some VERY slick roads. We are almost to our pickup point and...... the truck won't run right? It's been since we fueled up, we have additive in the fuel to stop it from gelling?? Water in the fuel filter, don't know if it came from the last fuel we got but......

6. (ugly good) We get to where we are supposed to pick up, Beardstown IL. My husband has a spare fuel filter and he is pretty sure that's what it was. I asked him why he didn't just change it and the single digit temp has something to do with it (I think he called me nuts right then and said something about freezing his tush off). So we are bob-tailing to town and a TransX driver is @ the stop sign. (I LOVE Canadians by the way but the last two TransX drivers we've ran into have been bad Canadian representatives). The TransX driver is bob-tailing too. We sit there and sit there and sit there, we sat 5 minutes. There is traffic on the road but our truck isn't running exactly right and the driver in front passes up several chances to pull out on the road. So we go around, there is plenty of room and when we pull out he could have actually followed. He gets irate and starts gesturing and yelling, I believe he said he WAS going to go, and I said when? smiled and waved. LOL Anyway we go to Ace Hardware in Beardstown and they were VERY helpful! WONDERFUL people, new fuel filter on it and truck purrs like a kitten.

7. (ugly good bad) So we are within rock throwing distance of the Mexican border now. We have to drop our trailer into a yard that has chugholes 2 ft deep in it and I"m not kidding. There are usually 10+ trucks here (30+ this morning) and we are supposed to go in in the order we got here....TransX again in front of us. Don't think it's the one from Beardstown but he let ANOTHER TransX in front of him. No big deal but my husband said something on the cb. The TransX driver came back on and said everyone always butted in front of him down here so he was butting in this time, real nice attitude, several people had the same attitude last week. So I know who TransX is now and I will stay way away from them. BUT the girl in the office had breakfast tacos for sale, we had a nice conversation about my Aeropostale shoes, that was the good. Then the foam cereal bowl broke on my husband and cereal, milk, and sugar went everywhere while I was writing this. I wanted to clean today but hadn't planned on doing it in the middle of writing this.

So this has been my week. I won't forget it for awhile. I'm just glad we are where it's warm now and we are alive and fine.

Stumbleupon, Digg, Del.icio.us and what I'm doing

For one thing I got rid of my google toolbar, sorry google, and delicious and all the rest, I installed bookmarklets which I admit I didn't know about since I just got back into the computer thing hot and heavy after several years absence. I was actually trying to figure out why firefox was using immense amounts of memory.
For another thing all my blogger friends!! WHEN you have a particularly good post I am submitting it to digg, del.icio.us, and stumbleupon. Not asking anyone to do the same for me but........no seriously we should use those tools more and even tweet about great articles, I don't always do that but I'm starting NOW. I've been stumbleing some etc. and am making a conscious effort to do so now.
Also since I can't put this plug in too many places, CHANGE your bookmarks to my NEW blog addresses and please change on your blog log if I'm so honored to be there?
Florence View is now Tresa's Blog and Animals that Give Pause is the same name just .com @ the end. Yes I own my own .com, LOL.
I need to get outside and get my fat lazy dog who is on my lap outside while it's not raining!!

Beaumont Texas Tornado And My Good Luck

Yesterday there was a tornado in Beaumont Texas. What is so remarkable about this tornado? No warning, no thunderstorm warning or watch. Just all of a sudden a tornado appeared and was on the ground a short period of time thank goodness. It hit Wal Mart and Kohls @ the Parkdale Mall and Barnes and Noble is closed today, I think Petco also, minor injuries but roofs torn off, cars piled up one on top of another in parking lots. Why do I mention this in my blog? I was in Beaumont yesterday 2 hours before the tornado. Why? if you knew me I would say I got a wild hair. My husband insists on wearing Levis 501 jeans and I needed internet. So I went to a coffee shop in Bridge City TX with wi fi and downloaded some software I needed for at&t internet (which I got hooked up all by myself at&t internet people, thank you very much). While I was on the internet I scoped out a J C Penny's that was close by, they have Levis (also Arizona t shirts and bras on sale but we won't talk about that). So I went to J C Penny's, I actually thought I was in Beaumont but was in Port Arthur. I remember the weird rain, off and on and the dark clouds but being from the midwest these storms are usually nothing down here. The clouds were a little droopy. So I decided to go home a different way so I could be a little more oriented. BTW Bridge City is named that for a reason and I'm not fond of high bridges. If you saw a caddy going about 50 yesterday that's because my body was frozen going up over that bridge. I had my laptop in my car, it's old but it's really precious to me, I could imagine how my car and laptop would have survived being tossed around in a parking lot.
So I went home through Beaumont, it was REALLY the long way around, I probably drove 40+ miles when 20 would have gotten me back the other way but I know how to get around a bit and how the highways are situated. In case you don't follow my life with bated breath I've only been down here in TX a couple days, I've never really been in this area before. So we are watching the news last night and there's been a tornado in Beaumont and it tore up jack. The bottom two pictures are of the normal sky today, there are supposed to be storms again later. I'm counting my lucky stars today. I could have easily decided I needed to go to Barnes and Noble or Petco (two of my favorite stores) up there in Parkdale Mall.

As I mentioned before this tornado came with no warning, the weather service would have said a 0% chance of tornadoes @ that time in Beaumont. Evidently there were two storms close together and when one was forming it caught the downdraft of the first one in it's updraft and that made a tornado? It's not funny but you should have seen the TV weather people trying to explain WHY there were no warnings or watches and HOW something like this could have happened in an area that isn't horribly tornado prone. I used to follow hurricane forecasting very closely and have always been interested in weather and tornadoes. I always said about the forecast down here by the coast if they say 30% chance of rain they mean it will rain 30% of the time, 40% ............

Oh and I get down here Saturday, (went to my first rodeo and had a great time otherwise) and then Sunday there are 3 storms in the Atlantic and it's going to rain, I think I draw these things maybe?

Wordless Wednesday (with captions)

Guess how old?

Log Cabin and Day Lillie's part of my ornamental grass too.

Day Lillie's





My boundary beds, divides the main lawn from the lawn
by the road? I just turned around from taking the ornamental
grass picture to take this one.



Hibiscus I (OK I doctored the picture a bit)

Hibiscus II

Cabin and planter. We never lived in the cabin, my dads nanny
did though with her mom and dad and sisters. This is where the
cats go when they want privacy or away from the dogs.

Revenge And Forgiveness

Fake Tracking Dog Sends Man To Prison Link

So long story short this supposed miracle dog tracks scents after a hurricane goes through, scents that were there before the hurricane. I've seen what a hurricane does, there were no snakes and not many insects for a couple years after, much less scent? Gimme a break! This guy is in prison for 26 years for a crime he didn't commit!

What is so horrible about the whole thing is the dog and his handler were found to be fakes twenty years before this guy got out of prison, he spent 20 years in prison because someone forgot to maybe check up on the cases this "star" witness testified against. I think the state of Florida should be held accountable and establish some sort of program so this can't happen again even though they are in financial straits like the rest of us, perhaps they could fire a few of the prosecutors who used the fake tracking dog and use that money?

I don't know whether this man is suing anyone or not, the article doesn't say. I'm not a sue-happy person @ all but I think he has grounds against someone?

So in cases that aren't as extreme as this in your own lives are you forgivers or grudge holders. Do you burst into flaming rage or simmer till it's like a volcano erupting? I must confess my husband is a forgiver with flaming rage, I'm a grudge holder that erupts. I don't get mad often but when I do it's not pretty and people will know about it. Like my step-son said, "Dad has a temper and you don't want to make him mad, but if you make TC mad, WATCH OUT."

So what do you think?

Triple Murder Suspect Arrested

You can read about the triple murder of the members of the Leutjen family here.
The Suspect is apprehended here.

It seems the murder suspect is Donnie and Sharon's nephew and they are speculating the motive was robbery. Does this make us feel any safer in our homes around here. Maybe a bit. I know if my nephew wanted money all he would have to do is ask, I'd probably tell him I'm broke but it would be close to the truth. I still lock the door when I'm in the other end of the house. Don't know if this botched robbery was because of the economy or just plain greed. I can't see how the nephew thought he was going to fence anything (most of Donnie's collections were quite famous, hard to fence stuff like that) or that Donnie would just keep money laying around the house but maybe there's more to it than that. They are still looking for other suspects or actually they said "We have evidence that links at least one more, if not multiple suspects to this homicide."

I'm lucky in that I have police officers living next door and we all work different shifts that change, like we have anything worth stealing but....... I know my security system works because the kids have came to the house unexpectedly more than once and been VERY surprised, IE I call the house and ask them what they are doing there or someone comes in in the middle of the night demanding to know WHO'S THERE. Also being known as slightly crazy and having a temper doesn't hurt either? :-)

So I've booked way too much into the next two weeks so my blogging will be on hold mostly. Suddenly realized my drivers license was up for renewal, need birth certificate here in MO now, need to get it because I spent two hours looking for it and nada, nothing. Wienie roast, need to clean house, trip to dentist, and there's that work thing that keeps getting in there.
Got the lawn mowed, yey me!!! but it will need it again soon because we have had like 2 real days totally without rain. Oh yeah, my daughter is coming to visit and I'm squeezing a short trip in there? Mountains of laundry, have to go pick up a vehicle....... better get busy. It's good to be able to walk and do again though! Here's the scoop on my bloodclot on that on Animals That Give Pause, this is the most recent post.