Saturday, October 31, 2009

"The Halloween Brew"





What do you do on Halloween when you are staying at home? HHmmmmmmmm. I got it, let's make a big ole pot of some tasty, enticing, spell binding, exotic hot brew. I grab all the ingredients.....water,cherries, raisins, cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, cardamon seeds, orange peels, sugar, port wine, brandy and rum. Put all the spices and water into a sauce pan and stir and boil and simmer. Pour that into a big pot and add all the spirits and stir and boil and simmer. Then take this elixir and funnel it into quart jars and seal them till the top goes "PING". hhhaaaaaahhhhhhaaaaaaaaaa...the deed is done. Now just sit back and wait till some unsuspecting goblin or ghoul takes a drink of this magic potion. They will be mine because they will want more and they will have to do some mighty fine tricks to pry another taste of this mystical Witch's Brew from my clinched hands....hahhahahahahhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE



You all be safe...................Later, Brad

Thursday, October 29, 2009

"GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY___GGGGRRRRRRRR!!!!!"


Look, I have been out here way to long this time and I want to go home. I tell dispatch and they just don't get it. I tell the customers, and they just don't care. I tell my wife and she is in agreement with me. So here we are in Californication trying to get to Wild and Wonderful Almost Heaven. We get a load that will deliver to Belle, WV.....about 100 miles from home. It is a hot hoT hOT HOT load..you know the kind..and we roll our eyes because the only way a load gets there faster then we get it there is when we are backing it up to the dock. Anyway, gotta go gotta go. Everything is going great "TILL" we are about 60 miles from Flagstaff,AZ on I-17. Then engine decides it wants a break, I guess it did not get the memo about the hot load crap. It, the engine, decides it really wants to rest and shuts its self off. I coast the truck to the shoulder and pop the hood. The engine is really pushing my buttons, the anti-freeze in the reservoir is but a hair width below the add line. I tell it that is really walking a fine line with me and add some anti-freeze to the piece of_____well, you know____ and close the hood and take off on up the mountain. Now we are about 35 miles from Flagstaff and "IT"____it seems to want to have another conversation with me_____lets go with a cloud of smoke from under the hood and shuts its self off again leaving me to man handle the steering wheel in order to get it to the side of the road. I come out of the drivers seat and on to the ground in one swift movement, I am not a happy camper. I yank open the hood to find myself in a cloud of smoke, steam and god awful anti-freeze smell. All of the fluid that was in the radiator is now on the ground under the engine, truck, trailer and flowing down the hill. "CRAP!!!" Not only is there no water left in the reservoir, the radiator cap is also missing, I left it loose the last time we stopped. Now I have to open the side box to get out the damn triangles, I really hate putting these out, they never go back in the box right. Had to call breakdown to send someone out here in the middle of know where. I told them about the missing cap, I told them about the missing fluid and I told them that there was a hose that seemed to be leaking. Four hours latter the Bubba shade tree wanna be mechanic showed up. Golly gee, what kind of engine is that, what model truck is that, what is that bottom part of the resevoir for????????? AAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYHHHHHHHHH ARE YOU FRIGGIN KIDDING ME????!!!! I ask if he brought a hose....nope....did he bring any anti-freeze...nope. Gosh driver, I got 9 gallons of water to put in that there thing. Well, alrighty then there Bubba, you go right ahead and do your mechanican so I can get going. Glug glug glug, water in. The engine starts. Bubba makes a make-shift cover for the missing cap and off we go. This time we get 5 miles and yelp, you guessed it, on the side again. Why, his cover did not hold. He makes another and we make it to Flagstaff. He goes buys a real cap and then comes back and drains about 3 gallons out of the radiator and replaces it with real honest to goodness anti-freeze. He leaves and we leave. The next day we are in Oklahoma City,OK and
Bubba calls and ask how far we got______not even he trusted himself_____ and was surprised to hear we had made it that far, you could almost hear him slapping his leg. He says that he guessed he would go ahead then and call the company with the work invoice, that in its self is a joke...the "WORK" invoice. What work?

Now dispatching starts there childish games wondering how fast we can get to Belle,WV. I tell them and they say ok, then I get another message wanting me to get it there 3 hours sooner then I said. "WHY DO YOU EVEN ASK IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO ACCEPT WHAT I SAY???"___on the inside, on the outside..ok, I will try.

Don't they know that this load is taking us home and we are going to get there as fast as we can and aren't they lucky that there load just happens to be in that plan?

Anyway, we get there and then we drive a little more and we are home. There just has to be an easier way.


You all be safe........Later, Brad

Saturday, October 3, 2009

"JUST who in the ##@@%% do YOU think YOU are??!!"


Well, I shall enlighten you on the question of to Who the #@#$%^I think I am. To begin with, I am a human, much to the surpise of some. I was just barely born to start with. My mother had my brother then a miscarrage, then me, then a miscarrage and then my sister. Not only was I almost deleted before I even got started I wound up as the middle child. Oh yea me, stuck in the middle, sounds like a song title or something. Anyway, there I am, in the middle. If any of you are a middle child then you know what that means and for those of you who are the first or the baby, BITE ME!!

I have been everything from a soda jerk to an office manager. From a punch press operator to an Tupperware manager. From a Jewel Tea man to a minister. From a aircraft handler to an accountant. I have gone to college and I have been in the Navy.

I believe in God and I gave my life to Jesus. I am not a fanatic in no sense of the word. I deal with MY religion the way I deal with it. I was a minister and stopped being one because I believe if you are the teacher then you should live the way that you are teaching others to live. As I am only human, as I mentioned in the beginning, I fall short of the devine walk by many steps. Oh, i still will perform weddings if asked and I will sit and counsel if asked. But I feel that everyone has the right to their choice and the way that they want to worship, rather it be in a building or in their heart. So, there you go.

I feel the same about politics to point. I am registered as a Democrat, the key word is registered. I am one that hates to be pigieon-holed into anything. I vote the way I think, feel or wished things should be. I will get in your face so quick when I feel I am being attacked in stupidity. I am an American, I am a Veteran. If I do not vote the way you think I should and you tell me that I don't care about this country, or that if I say i am against the war (to which I am very much so) that i am against the troops, then stand by...and ready yourself to hear, see and feel the wrath of Brad. I stand behind the troops you dumb asses, it is the war I am against. I would do anything for the troops, even re-enlist if I could. SO BACK OFF!!!!! Gay people, yeah, i love em.....nuff said.

Now i drive a truck, I have been doing so for the past 25 years. I have driven everything from a six-wheeler to 24-wheeler. From envelopes to cranes and everything in between accept live-stock. I have recieved many safe driving awards and have driven way over a million miles. I have never gotten a ticket and I drive legal. So when some idiot tells me how to drive and that they know best and that the closest that they have ever been to a truck is if they pass one then I get a little off nerve. I am not saying that I know it all because I do not. I learn everyday. But I also know what I am capable of and what my truck is capable of. So do this, do that, be there then and do it now or else...well, you have no clue of what "OR ELSE" means and I would tell you but "YOU can't HANDLE OR ELSE!!!!" I do my job and I get the freight there and I get it there in one piece. Let me stop right here and say that I do not do this alone. My wife, Ruth Ann, is my team mate and she drives also. So, it is not I, it is WE. Anyway, We do out job, and we don't need any wanna be MR. I AM THE BOSS upsetting our little apple cart.

So, just who the #@$#@ do I think I am...I am just a guy that makes his own decisions on how they best suit me. I know that I make rash, quick decisions but that is me. I judge on first impressions, right or wrong, that is me. If you find yourself in my little nitch consider yourself special. Not that I am special, it is you that I find special and unique. There is something about you that I do not want to let slip by and want you as a friend, relative and or a companion. I am not all cold and hard, I do have a heart. I am not easy to get to know and a lot of people who think they know me are not looking at the "BIG PICTURE". I have been waiting a long time to use that phase....it is so stupid it is funny. Anyway, there you go...ME.


You all be safe..............later, Brad