Our Baby Girl

This has been along time comming. I guess there are some that wonder where I have been. It is really hard to type with trembling hands caused by the grasp of sorrow. It is so hard to see because of the flooding of tears from a torn heart. It is so hard to concentrate hearing the mornful sobs coming from every part of you. These are the things that you can't see, feel or see. You will be able to read the words that are the reasons for my state of being.

As most of you know, we lost Baby Girl. What perhaps some of you do not know is how close we were, are. Even now I can hardly get through this. She was so much more then a pet. She was as close to being human as a pet could be. We called her our alternative child and she was.

We lived, breathed, played, slept did everthing togeather 24/7 365. Every little thing we did included her in way or another. Get a hamburger, shopping, stopping what ever we did she was apart of it.

The way she laid between the pillow and dared you to move her, the way she demaned to cuddle next to you, the way she insisted you cover her and you up even if you did not want to be covered. The way she laid and stared at you till she heard the fork scrap the bottom of the pan you were eating out of then jump to the floor to finish off no matter what ever it was that you was having.

When she had to go out she let you know. I miss the way she jumped on my shoulder when I took her. The way she laid in my arms as I carried her. OH MY GOD, I miss everything about her.

She is in my mind, heart, breath, blood and soul. She will always be. I love and miss you Baby Girl.

Love, Dad

"Sometimes you just got to stop and pull up your big people pants."

If I was to look at someone in a policemans hat, a policemans uniform, wearing a policemans gun and badge, I am pretty sure that he is a policman. If I went to a hospital and saw a woman wearing a nurses hat and a nurses uniform with her name saying she was a nurse....I am pretty sure that she is a nurse. It only stands to reason that if some one protrays themself as a professional and there are cirtificates on the wall and they are wearing the attire of that person and they have the tools of their trade then I should be able to make a rational decission as to the fact they are who the say they are. "YOU WOULD THINK!!!!"

Evadently, I was mistaking in my assumtion. Now, I am very up frount in the fact that I am not by no means, shape or form any kind of a mechcanic. If there is something wrong with the vehical rather it be motor or anyother part I can tell you what it looks like, smells like or sounds like and that is the extent on my mechanicism. So when I call a professional mechicanic I expect that person to tell me what is wrong and or fix it. Is this expecting to much? Ney ney I say. I expecting nothing less.

So here I am, I have a low beam headlight out and the bulb is hologen. I am so impressed that I know the type of bulb. I raise the hood and find the low beams socked. I am able to disconnect the wire from the bulb, I am so immpressed with myself. I take hold of the back of the bulb and pull.....nothing. Okay, so I try to twist the bulb.....nope. It did twist a little but I am afraid that if I try to froce it that it might break. Now what to do? Crap, I have to call Breakdown to ask how this damn thing comes out. Breakdowns phone lines are on the blink, they need the telephone breakdown to come fix the breakdown phones...hahahaha...not so funny, sorry. Anyway, I call one of the company's shops, you know, the mechcanics hut. There is were all the professional work-on-truck people are at anyhow. I tell the professional on the other end of the phone line just what my problem is and if he could just tell me how to get the bulb out I would do so and replace it with a new one. The professional tells me that he has no clue on as to how to get the bulb out and that he and the other professional mechcanics did not know or even how to work on the type of truck we have....O__M__G....it is a Freightliner...they do not know how to work on their company trucks...He, the professinal, gives me the telephone number of the local Frieghtliner dealer and shop in the area. I call and the service manager...not that I did not capitalize service or manager, it did not deserve to be...and told of my problem and that I was happy to talk to someone that I knew could help...not...the service manager did not know and tried to ask one of the techicians....big word for labor...on how to fix the problem. The service manager told me that no techicians were able to help. "WHAT THE HELL!!!"

I go into the shop at the T.A. truckstop we are at and ask if anyone there could please help me and tell me how to get the ^^%$Q#!#@@! bulb out. They said oh yes, they could most certianly help me, all I had to do was let them make up a work order and bring me in the shop and they would be more then happy to show me how to mend the problem at $65 hour and parts. No, I went back to the truck and called the company shop back and told them what the T.A. had told me. I bought the bulb and just wanted to have someone show me how to replace it. The shop called the T.A. and one of the professionals came out and took the old bulb out..you twist it hard and it comes out. They told me to be sure not to touch the lens of the new bulb or it would not work..this I did know. I put the new bulb in and wella..it works. I am now a professional mechcanic..just like the rest of them. Sometime you just have to bend over and pull your big people pants up and do the job yourself.



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

"Oral Exam"

Okay, just so that you are amused, here is another H.I.G.H. saga.

I was a teen and working at Steak n Shake as a car hop. It was a Friday night in the summer. I was 16, which will add to the humor for you I am sure. Anyway, I was working and it was about 10:00pm. My girlfriend and her sister and her sisters boyfriend came by, and wanted me to leave work and go with them. Her sister is older then my girlfriend and her sisters boyfriends mom and dad were not going to be at home. Now, at the age of 16 this was to hard to pass up. I left work and went with them. We got to his house and like he said, we were ALONE. We went into the den and he put on some records, that is right..records....no CD's then...get over it already. Have you stopped laughing yet, good..now perhaps I can go on. The lights were off and they, her sister and boyfriend were in one corner of the den and we were in the other. We danced a little then I sat down and she sat on my lap. The kissing started and a little petting. Then something strange happened. Everytime I tried to kiss her my lips kept hitting her teeth. I did not want to say anything for fear of embarassing her and have her stop the kissing and petting. But after several attempts of running into her teeth I pulled back and looked at her and before I could say anything she said..."What is wrong with you? Why don't you kiss me?" I said that she should close her mouth because I was trying to but every time I went to kiss her I kept running into her teeth. She looked at me, and I could here giggles from the other side of the den, and asked..."Have you never FRENCHED kissed before?" I said "WHAT"? What is french kiss? She told her sister and boyfriend to stop laughing and shut up and mind their own business. She then told me to follow her lead. She kissed me in the usual way then I felt her tongue on my lips and then between my lips and O..M..G.. she put her tongue into my mouth all the way....I would have thought that I would have spit it out but instead I liked it and I was a very fast learner there after.



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

"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

"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

"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

" CALL ME CRAZY !!! ??? "

Day in and day out I sit in this truck with many thoughts going through my mind. I watch people go by in cars, trucks, buses and motorcycles wondering just what they were thinking when they left the house. Most of thier expressions are that of a mannequin. They all just seem to be staring off into space with blank faces. They get out of bed and seem normal, they sit at the table and have whatever kind of breakfast they have and act normal. They get dressed and are normal, perhaps not in our choice of fashion, but still somewhat normal. They leave their home in a normal way.......then it happens, the normal slips away into the yard and the zombie effect creeps into them. They drive in that state of mind, not knowing and or caring what may be around them. They swerve, cut across numerous lanes, hit brakes for no reason, text, apply make-up, change clothes ( this one I enjoy if it is a female doing it), talk on the phone, read the paper, read books, work on the computer and eat. WHAT THE HELL !!!!! ????? I on the other hand, have to be aware of all of this at all times because I am the one that will be in trouble if anything should happen between them and me. I am the one that has to take responiblity for thier idiotict behavior. I am the one who will be held accountable for their indiscrections. Me, I , myself, uno, #1 and no one else. How in the hell is that fair. This blog page is called "Politically Correct.....not" and this is where it is going to become real. All you dumbasses out there that just can't seem to go a day without getting under my skin, rather it be with your driving, serving, politics,religion, shipping or recieving, dispatching or where you might stand in my world. BITE ME. I have my own agenda that I let very special people into. For all you other numbskulls, OH WELL !!!

I know, there he goes again. Yep, there I go again. I have to say stuff sometimes so that my head does not explode. But what else would you expect from a...........




Actually, this last picture is the only reason I wrote this blog, it is just to funny not to put out there.


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