Cluck-Cluck

It's been a while since my last US versus UK differences post, to be honest it all (mostly) seems normal after living here for over a year! However there were a few things lately that reminded me I still have more to learn (and share!).

A recent twitter convo with Todd McCann (don't forget to check out his blog and podcast, good stuff) brought to light one of those things...it's not unusual for people who live in cities and towns here in the UK to own a few chickens if they have enough of a back garden (yard to us Americans) to allow it. Unlike most urban and suburban areas in the states, it is perfectly legal to own what is traditionally considered a farm only animal--I'm sure there are exceptions but even in London you can have chickens. Of course there are guidelines that have to be followed, proper housing and noise ordinances are at the top of the list.  You can even adopt Ex Battery* hens! Unfortunately from my experience in working at poultry farms as a teen and then at a factory of the largest poultry processors in the world, I don't think this will ever catch on in the US.

Because I don't have pictures of chickens you get to watch this video of re-homed Ex Battery hens instead :-) 

Oh dear, I've got a giggle going now because of mentioning a truck driver and chickens in the same post and I can't get "cluck, cluck, chicken truck" out of my head. A chicken truck is slang for a very shiny, chromed out 18-wheeler with lots of extra lights (aka chicken lights) on it. Unfortunately I never drove a chicken truck--was always too cheap to spend my own money for chrome and lights on a company owned truck.

*Ex Battery Hens are commercial laying hens that are re-homed instead of going straight to a poultry processing plant. Poultry Keeper seems to be an excellent resource of information about what you need to get started with learning how to keep them.

Perceptions

Ah perceptions, they can be a double-edged sword at times.  Yesterday there were two new people in the Thursday morning Nordic Walk session, a very lovely couple who had seen us walking about the park a few times who finally decided to see about joining us.  I had a chance to chat with them towards the end of the class and we discussed how walking with the poles was fun but there was more to learning it than expected.  The subject then got around to how going to the gym was intimidating when you were older, heavier, and seemingly less fit than everyone else in there and I got the "but you're slim" comment.  The thing is for a few years I wasn't slim, I weighed over 2 stone (34 pounds) more than I do now when I began the Couch to 5k program in 2007 and I was a truck driver so most of my runs started and ended with an audience.  That amount of weight might not sound like much but I am 5'3" and smallish boned so for me it was quite a bit and knowing that yes you are being stared and talked about makes you VERY self-conscious.

Not quite my heaviest but close

It took about a year before I got over the worry of being scrutinised and realising that yes, the other drivers were watching but they were going to do so anyway because a huge part of the job is staring out the window so anything new broke up the monotony of the day.  I just hope that seeing me climb out of the truck in my running gear inspired a few others to get out of the drivers seat and start exercising as well.  As far as the gym goes, most people there are too involved with their own workouts and body issues to pay attention to anyone else--and if you find yourself in one where the employees/personal trainers are being rude, go to another one ASAP, that place is not deserving of your patronage and it's YOUR money paying their wages!

With THE Marathon Trucker, 7 years after the first photo

Anyway, a bit of a rant at end of the last paragraph but I did want to share this Psychology Today article that a friend posted on facebook about exercise embarrassment.  Talk about great timing, eh and hopefully it shows that most of us have a lot of the same issues that we are self-conscious about. Get out, have fun, try something new, and don't be afraid to make an idiot of yourself occasionally--that philosophy has created lots of memories and introduced me to people I wouldn't have met otherwise.

Pic via Pinterest

Monday meanderings

Monday.  We have an appointment to go look at a car this afternoon--hopefully it ends up being the one because I am tired of shopping, I love cars/trucks/motorcycles but the searching and test driving absolutely pushes all the wrong buttons for me.

What does push the right buttons? Being less than half a mile from 30 plus miles of a multi-use trail network if I take the sidewalk (aka pavement in the UK) to the trail start or just outside my gate if I cut through the horse pasture.  Every morning I meander out on it has been amazing, you are right next to the road but it feels so serene and I don't think I will ever tire of hearing "G'morning luv" while I'm out running.  The only "downsides" are dodging the piles of horse crap and the stinging nettles--my right ankle is stinging a bit from a brush against some this morning--but how amazing is it being able to see horse-back riders sharing the trail with you every day??? The mutts seem to be loving it as much as I am :-)

Speaking of horses, I had a moment when I thought I'd been transported back to south Texas last week when what looked like a Hispanic man in full working western gear and saddle rode by outside our office window. Kind of made me miss my trucking days down I35 south of San Antonio.

Another thing I love is that we have blackberries growing along our back garden fence and they were ripe in October!!!! That's something you don't get in the muggy south of the US.

blackberries and red currants

Snack! 

The dog in the picture above is Ben, I need to formally introduce him on the blog but he has been in our family since this time last year.  

Open post to the trucking industry

I've been doing a bit of research on trucking companies lately and oh wow, for the most part they seem to be lagging behind on useful content for the drivers. Site after site simply state (paraphrasing here) call for more information.......Guess what, while there are still some luddites in the industry, quite a large percentage of us ARE tech savvy and we wish to do our research online without the bias of a recruiter who is paid bonuses on the number of bodies they get into orientation--quite a few of whom aren't actually qualified which is sussed out within the first day.  So come on, let's get with the program and put at least a little more data on what's required, pay rates, benefits, etc without time and money being wasted on both sides to find out if it's a viable option for either.

Second grumble........the health and fitness issues facing drivers.  Even though this is a major cost it doesn't seem like many trucking companies are doing anything more than superficial "band-aid" lip-service to solving the obesity and inactivity status of their employees/team members/associates/whatever the current human resource term is.

Sure there are a handful that offer fitness centers but usually only in the main headquarters where drivers are not exactly encouraged to utilize them or they are so under-stocked with out-dated equipment that they are nigh on useless.  I'm not hearing many drivers talk about their companies actively offering programs to help lose weight/get healthy/start fitness routines.  And yes, between the social media outlets like facebook, blogs, and twitter I am still in touch with a fair number of drivers.  To go even further, of the drivers I know who are proactive in taking their health and physical fitness very seriously, most of their employers seem to be quite blase in recognizing or even wanting to hear about those achievements they've attained in spite of the challenges of the industry.  This industry needs to get with it and start providing information/support/facilities/motivation to ALL their employees, not just the ones they see every day walking into the office.

Mini-rant over, there are several resources available for truckdrivers who want to take charge of their health, Sparkpeople is a great place to start and there is a Truckin' Runners group on facebook while the Ride and Roll provides info for the cyclists (which is also useful for the runners/walkers).

Her grumpiness

Has it really been almost a month since I last blogged? Wow, bad blogger. Bad, bad blogger. There probably is some appropriate punishment for the lazy bloggers--a bit of time in the stockade being flogged maybe?  Hmmm, just a case of declining interest by people more likely, certainly a case of oh my gosh she's still around, we'd forgotten all about her, lol.

So what's gone on since Lola was turned into a human crock pot.......I tentatively think the truck is finally fixed, only a few minor issues with the air conditioning for the past 2 weeks.  However I did stop to fuel in south Arkansas night before last and was confronted with this image when I stepped back into the truck and started to buckle up as I always do

Yep, that is my seat belt, snapped in half. Scary, eh?  Fortunately I was near a wal-mart so was able to buy a star driver hex head set to swap out seatbelts from the passenger seat to the driver's seat.  Those seatbelts aren't meant to come loose though........there was some grumbling, grunting, pushing and pulling with the socket wrench to get them undone.........Oh and liberal use of WD-40!!!  Afterwards, while putting away my tools and the oh so handy can of aforementioned WD-40, what did I find but a star driver set hidden away in a nook just like the one I had purchased only an hour prior........there went $23.97 plus tax, grrrrr.

Other work news....the new dispatcher is a very nice lady but she has our dedicated lanes so futzed up it's ridiculous.  Instead of keeping trailers down at Laredo for those of us who are dedicateds, she sees there's a trailer sitting there and thinks it must be dispatched out immediately and is doing so on OTR drivers. This in turn causes us to have to wait for trailers here, last weekend I was sitting from Thursday night until Sunday afternoon and having to check in with the office every 2-3 hours to see if one had crossed.  Not fun.  Today, I was at least assigned a trailer although I'm having to wait on it to cross.

Training, hey I've got a new plan now after it all went to hell last month.  There will be no personal records at the Marine Corps Marathon but I will do my level best to get across that finish line.  Last Sunday's long run was a 10-miler was 8 miles on the side of Loop 20 in Laredo, then 2 miles in a nearby neighborhood with Elsie.  Too much concrete, my legs and body were suffering from the no-give surface.  Tuesday, ran 6 miles with friends at home, then did a 5.55 mile run here in Laredo again.  This time I explored a neighborhood where there was a lot of new home construction so porta-potty score!!!!!!!!  Oh, probably only runners will get the importance of that, lol.

There's been lots more going on but this is turning into too long of a post already

It's a bit toasty

I seem to keep disappearing from the blogosphere........but I'm not racing, barely training, hating my job and I really don't think y'all want to hear my repeated complaints......I also kinda have been avoiding facebook for the same reason.  So what has made me re-surface momentarily?  72.5 hours in a truck with a non-functioning air-conditioner down to Laredo and back, sigh. Yeah, call me broiled, lol.  Kinda resembled those onion rings above, all shiny and wrinkly from the excess of sweat.

Sorry for the blurry pic, it actually hit just over 120F a few moments later

There are several posts I should write though.........I have new shoes (well not so new by now)--heels, trainers for the trails, and boots that I need to write reviews for.

Chinese Laundry heels (have 2 pairs of these in luggage and black)

 Yay for Brooks Running shoes!!

Yes, I have omitted pics of my new boots, they're too good to not be featured in a post all on their own. There's also a new phone to brag on but that's gonna have to wait until I replace the screen on it--apparently sharp gravel and smartphone screens don't play well together, grrrr.

Oh yeah, back to my job............nah, really don't feel like going there again.  As it stands, I am prolly gonna take an extended vacation once my seniority date rolls around to decompress a bit and see about seeing some new (and not so new) sights.

Overdue......

Ok, I'm here, still trucking and running along although the trucking part is kind of wearing on me more and more. The imminent open border with Mexico is probably going to cause my dedicated route to disappear and then I will either have to scramble along with all our other Laredo drivers to look for other routes or (most likely) go over the road.  I really have no desire to be an OTR driver again, I've seen as much of the U.S. from the interstates as I care to from the seat of a big truck.  Now as far as traveling and exploring things at my leisure, well now that's an entirely different matter but unless I win the lottery that's not gonna happen right away.  Not to mention companies are slashing pay and benefits left and right, increasing regulation worries about our hours of service, etc, etc.....Actually there was an editorial piece in the Manteca Bulletin that explains all this much better than I can, I highly encourage everyone to go read this because it's one of the rare articles that is not ANTI-trucking from outside the industry.

While I'm sorta on the subject of trucking industry publications, I have a bit of a rant about one of the freebie mags that you can pick up at the entrance to any truckstop.  This one focuses on driver's health..........That is an absolutely fantastic thing but upon checking it out online I discovered that one of the contributors is a somewhat well-known blogger who also happens to be obese and has very openly discussed their disdain about getting sweaty and working out on said blog.  Ummm, yeah.  Can we agree that maybe choosing a writer based on their "name" and web numbers might be just a little lazy?  There are many drivers out here that ARE making healthy choices and do write about their experiences--NO, I am not volunteering, either--I just feel it might have been a great opportunity to have a driver that does take their health and fitness seriously write for them, not just someone who is doing it for the money.  Right, rant over but I highly encourage any of the drivers who read my blog that are into healthy choices to contact said publication to see if they can do some articles for them.

Shhh, I'm wabbit hunting

Yesterday was a somewhat full day of driving, made it to Laredo before the sun went down. No other trucks in line at our terminal nor Penske so that all went quickly. Experienced a bit of on the job sexual harassment from one of the guards there at Penske--hate using that term but not sure what else you'd call being asked about your personal life in detail (which I didn't answer) and then being told that if I ever got a few days off in Laredo to call him and we'd go party.  I'm trying to do my job, he's on duty, so yeah to me that's harassment.  By the way this is a married man with kids, grrrr.

Other than that all went well.........at least until I found where my northbound trailer was dropped.  Right in front of where the trucks queue up for inspection, lol.  Had to wait for one truck to move and try to beat the other guy that was waiting to pull forward in order to back under my trailer, even so had to do it at an angle.........got that done and the floodgates opened!!!!!!  It seemed like everyone came in for their inspections all at once.  I couldn't turn left because there were signs and posts at the front of the inspection area that I would've taken out with the midsection of my trailer even if I got everyone to hold up for me.  Couldn't turn right because of all the trucks lined up and the queue extended around the corner of the dropped trailer line.  Had to sit there and wait for it to clear out.  Once it did I walked up to the next driver and asked him to hold up so I could swing out and the guy wouldn't unroll his window to talk to me!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL, I'm in the terminal, I got out of the driver's seat of a company truck and he thinks I'm gonna hit him up for money or something worse I guess, lmao.  Anyways finally got that sorted, got my truck out of there and spun back around for MY exit inspection.

Ok grumble over.  Really it was quite a funny night except for the creepy guard :D.

This morning once I finally drug my lazy arse out of bed I went for a little 3 miler about Pearsall, going along minding my own business when I came upon these cute little guys in the middle of the street.  Unfortunately couldn't get my phone out in time for THAT sight but they stood still long enough for some other pics.

Now down here I'm used to dogs, cats, chickens, wild rabbits, armadillos, rattlesnakes, an occasional dead wild hog, and even almost tripped over a squashed alligator once.  But cute domestic bunnies running loose in the town streets? That's a new one for me.

Airborne Bovines

Fortunately there were no flying cow sightings but I did catch the back edge of a storm that produced a tornado warning in the Nashville area.  Sorry if I got everyone's hopes up with the blog post title :D.  

First truck I followed this morning

Not looking good

Don't really want to see these signs

A bit of the storm damage along I40

Pink skies and hellacious winds

Introducing Igor

My loaner truck for the duration is a 9400 International.........oh thrill.  These are totally driver unfriendly trucks and then some, especially if you're small like me.  To top it off, the driver who had it before left out of it in a hurry and left it in a complete and utter mess.  I'm not even going to post any pics because it simply doesn't reflect well on any of us drivers :-(.  I will say that he's lucky that it was me who cleaned the thing out because I sent a message to dispatch letting them know that I'd boxed up his stuff and was leaving it in the shop for him to pick up when he came back through.  That is if he's still employed here......Among the items I found was a birth certificate, med card, debit card, and credit card. These of course were handed over to the appropriate people to be sent to his last known address.

But I digress.......back to Igor the Horrible the behemoth beast.......Mechanically it's a sound truck--should be since it just came out of the shop with a new drive shaft and various other items repaired.....but trying to reach anything is nigh impossible for me.  The steering wheel is also this giant monstrosity that takes forever to spin around and due to the limited tilt/telescoping capabilities, I literally found myself looking through the thing while going down the road.

This same steering wheel took several times of scrubbing with glass cleaner and 8 clorox wipes before my hands kept coming away grimy black, yuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Next issue......to buckle the seat belt I have to scoot the seat all the way back, latch the belt, pulling lots of slack then sliding the seat all the way forward.......very poor design and it's malfunctioning with the inability to pull any slack in the belt while in my needed driving position.  Also if there's an emergency exit required, it is not gonna happen. Can't unbuckle the seat belt unless seat is in the furthest back position.....

The stereo, cruise, light controls are all on the dash to the right of the steering wheel and requires me to lean forward and stretch my arm waaaaay out to access any of them.  Yeah, there's a bit of swerving involved.  Sorry fellow motorists, I'm not texting just trying to reach stuff  :(.

Absolutely the worst part of this truck though is the pedals.......the gas and brake are same size and approximately an inch apart so it's hard to differentiate.......also the gas pedal is extremely stiff and I just can't rest my foot on the floor and lightly press on it to get on down the road.  Nope, my foot is positioned at the top of the thing with my heel lifted up off the floor and most of the time my left foot is wedged under my right foot to give it some support.  This means I either use the cruise control way more than I feel comfortable with or I'm twisted around in the seat........Can we say back spasms?  I ended up sending a message saying I could only do one round in this truck because I didn't think my back could hold up to several days in a row.  That by the way was met with absolutely no complaints, at least where I could hear them because it's a workplace injury waiting to happen.

However just in case you think I have nothing good to say about Igor, he does have a proper air horn!!! The line for it is just in an unfortunate spot for when I have to stretch as those parked around me found out one morning.  OOPS!!!!!!

continuing travails of Lola

So Lola has continued to ail and I've continued to get all kinds of perturbed but she's currently in the truck hospital aka shop being gone over with a fine tooth comb......errrr, wrench. Last week though she developed a new symptom...........the dreaded stop engine buzzer and light.  First time or two, I pull over, shut it down (dreading and not knowing if she would start back without persuasion), check all the fluids and various items that a person checks when you have all this obnoxious beep, beep, beep that comes with the red flashing stop sign on the dash.  Mind you, all my gauges are reading absolutely normal and nothing appears to be amiss so quick diagnosis was the egr valve going (again).  This is nothing uncommon, they tend to go out quite often sadly.

So what does an egr valve do?  Here's a link to a quick explanation of what one does on a car. Couldn't find one for a big truck but essentially very similar.

Anyway, back to last Tuesday, after the 3rd time the stop engine light came on and I had to find a safe place to pull over and shut the engine off, I told myself that the next time I was calling in and telling them the load had to be relayed once I made it back to N. Little Rock.  Sure enough, less than 20 miles down the road, I had the stop engine warning AGAIN.  I also had to wiggle the wire and cable cluster that led from the starter to get the engine to turn over (2nd time that day).  I'm dirty, greasy, and way past aggravated at this point.

Yep, call was made along with a frustrated sigh from my dispatcher.  I didn't care, no way was the truck gonna make it to Laredo and back with having to stop so much.........however I wasn't liking the thought of sitting without pay even if it was at home so I qualcommed the cranky dispatcher telling him that I would take the load on down to Laredo if HE could get me a loaner truck--I'd already tried to no avail on Monday.  Sure enough, that's what it took, 15 minutes later I had a truck number along with a note saying it was mine to use as long as needed.  Lola in the meantime continued her cantankerous ways by making me shut the engine down 3 more times before reaching the terminal.......grand total of 7 times for the day.

Set the brakes and move

With the title I'm probably having truck drivers collectively shaking their heads at me and saying I've got it backwards, but bear with me here, I'm going into a bit of lecture mode.  This month a twitter trucker friend ended up in the ICU with what started as a blood clot in the leg and broke up into several more in his lungs.  He was in a truck stop shower at the time when he started feeling like something wasn't right and made it out to the payphones to call 911.

How scary is that?  What could've/would've happened if he hadn't made it out to the payphones in time?  How long would it have taken someone to check on him?  To me that is extremely scary.  Hell, I don't even carry my ID with me 95% of the time when I walk into a truckstop/customer/rest area.  Anyways, this is happening entirely too much and we're allowing it to occur.  Whether it's fighting the clock on the 14 hour rule, allowing dispatch to push us too much, or just plain stupid machismo.  Yes, machismo.  How many times have you heard drivers bragging about how many miles they go without stopping for food or bathroom breaks?  If you happen to be someone like me who does stop approximately every 2-3 hours to stretch and move about, there are always those who think it's cute to point out they arrived somewhere an hour (or less) earlier.

Well, guess what?  We're just killing ourselves. Sometimes slowly, other times it's an extended process but we are killing ourselves.  The driver I mentioned earlier?  Not only were there blood clots, he'd also developed diabetes since his last physical only 5 months prior.  Yeah. That quick.  And if I'm not mistaken, he's younger than I am.

So here's my lecture/challenge/plea, however you choose to take it:  Get out of the truck and stretch your legs by walking at least into the truck stop or where ever minimum every 2-3 hours.  Drink water. Lots of water, yes it's a hassle having to stop and pee all the time (try hydrating for a race sometime while driving a big truck, lol) but it'll also help with the stretching and moving.  Try cutting out the fried foods at least a bit, maybe starting with one meal per day.  Eat more fruits and vegetables, helps with the hydration and damn near everywhere carries apples and oranges now, even McDonalds does.  Add in additional exercise, walking, calisthenics, etc.  Yes, people are gonna stare. Get over it, they'll stare anyways.  Do I even have to mention smoking?  Try and cut down a bit and there's absolutely no reason why you can't still add in exercise and eat better while smoking (not ideal but it's a horribly hard habit/addiction to break).

If you don't want to do this for yourselves, at least think about your family.  Who's gonna take care of them if you die or are permanently disabled?

Whoa, I've managed to go on a proper rant here but please at least try to add in some of this while you're out on the road.  I'm not saying it's easy by any means but it can be done, just takes commitment.  Here's a facebook link to the Truckin' Runners group, it's a great place to ask questions and get support.  There's also a website in the works posting routes that are easily accessible to us but I'm drawing a blank on the link right now and rushing to get this written. Hopefully someone (Jeff!!!) will email me the link or better yet put it in the comments section.

Be safe everyone!




A bit of an addendum to this post, the driver that was the inspiration for this post messaged me to say that this wasn't a sudden thing, he'd noticed being severely out of breath the week prior and had thought it was just some type of respiratory infection.  So please, please, please don't ignore symptoms.

A few more websites
Sparkpeople
Daily Mile
Cool Running Couch to 5k

The trials and tribulations of Lola

I have been having a recurring issue with Lola the truck over the past couple of months.....I honestly never know if she's gonna start or not when I shut off the engine so my weeks lately have resulted in me not shutting the engine off at all while I'm working.  The problem seems to be one of the wires/cables leading to the starter or starter solenoid.....starter has been replaced.....and a couple of bolts happened to not get replaced and the positive cable was crimped and touching metal.  It's a wonder the truck didn't catch fire on that particular week.  Now there's a ground or loose cable that seems to not be connecting correctly and to get the truck started I have to crawl underneath or reach from the top to start kinda jiggling at wires, crawl back out if I can't find anyone to sit in the drivers seat and repeatedly turn the key while I'm checking said connections. A complete and utter hassle which has resulted in me being wet, cold, and filthy muddy more times than I can stand.  So now I don't shut the truck engine off after each stint in the shop unless it's on a relatively clean surface.

The truck that's causing me all kinds of grief

Handy, dandy latch that unclips to allow the front bumper to be lowered

Bumper in lowered position

The tire that I have to crawl behind in order to reach the starter

Part of the wiring that leads from starter and solenoid

My view from under the truck and behind the left steer tire

Yup, there's the part causing me the problem

Oooh, bent license plate bracket and bumper from where somebody didn't use the tow hooks to pull my truck into the shop when it wouldn't start



Go away snow

This winter really isn't much fun anymore. Between recurrring truck problems (let's just say I've spent more time than I care to under the engine) and the snow/ice I'm just plain old ready for winter to be over with.  Part of the reason that I like my route is that I do normally get to avoid the vast majority of winter precipitation but I do believe Mother Nature is taking her revenge on the south this year. 

Here's a bit of Wednesday and Thursday in pictures for your viewing pleasure

Hwy 70, attempting to get to the International dealer

Overpass at Galloway over I40

Returning to terminal, all these trucks are parked for the night in the road, nowhere else to go

Hwy 70 on Thursday, the trucks up ahead are parked

The great white expanse of I40 outside of Little Rock

Let the backups begin

This lovely guy "Elmer" decided to throw his trash out his window while we were sittng in a traffic jam

Snow chains!

The next series of pics are a very good example of why you shouldn't drive right on the bumper of the truck in front of you during inclement weather.  The first one or two mess up and there's absolutely nowhere to go.

View of the underneath of my trailer between the trailer duals, lots of ugly dirty ice

Closing with a pretty shot :-)