NO RELIEF FOR THE FROZEN

As I write these words, it's a brisk, invigorating 14 freakin' degrees outside and my cable TV and internet connection has gone blooey. Noise ("snow") on the tube, on every channel, and my cable modem could be declared legally insane, the way it's behaving -- one light blinking uselessly, the PC activity light on steady, with the computer turned off, and the damned thing won't shut down and go into standby mode at all. Totally crazy. I called the cable company and the gal there said something was "down" somewhere and to call back in a couple of hours. Apparently, there's nobody there to perform CATV surgery at 6 A.M. on a Sunday morning. Par for the course.

So, I went out to the truck to grab this trusty laptop, with the "instant internet" device I pay $60 per month for -- and nearly froze my butt off on that short trip!! Global warming?? Yeah. Right. Tell me another one, Al Gore!! Welcome to Alaska South, Nanook!! And the ice cap is melting?? The polar bears are in danger?? Hell, tell 'em all to head south, toward Tennessee. We got perfect weather for them down here this morning!! They can frolic, play and have all kinds of fun in this deep freeze. Hell, the damned cable equipment probably froze to death sometime last night! That's my theory, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

Back in my warm Dawg House now, it's much nicer, and after my fingers loosened up enough to type and my underwear thawed out a little, I've got this laptop fired up and am sitting here bitching to all of you about the weather. I can't help it. I am a decidedly warm weather person, to the core! And this sub-arctic deep freeze crap cramps my style tremendously. First day of winter comes and I'm like, "How long till spring??" That's me.  If I could, I'd cram all this cold air in a box and ship it back to Canada, one-way! We need a wall buillt on the Canadian border, too. Not to keep the Canucks out, but to keep all their cold air and snow up there, where it belongs!! They live there, they can deal with it. End of story.

I'm home for a little longer this week, because of a dental appointment tomorrow. Told dispatch this one would take a little longer than a routine appointment because it's my initial visit to a new dentist and he'll likely take umpteen x-rays, do a complete exam on me, and all sort of other time-consuming activities. So I swapped my loaded trailer for an empty one and will pick up a load somewhere around here, probably on Tuesday morning. My former dentist, Dr. Thomas Lane, whom I went to for the past twelve years or so, retired at the end of last year. I hated to see him go a lot, as he was about the best dentist I've ever had. But he's earned his retirement, after fifty-five years in practice, and I wish him all the best.

I was in South Carolina on Friday and if you couldn't tell that a presidential primary was about to happen, I'd adivse you to have your vision examined. Signs all over the place, most for Congressman Ron Paul, who won't get that many votes, but whose supporters like to stick signs up in every nook and cranny they can find. I saw Sen. John McCain's huge campaign bus roaming around in the Columbia area, as well as former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson's. Don't know if either candidate was "at home," so to speak, but I was a man on a mission, as usual, and in a hurry to get my load home and relay it to the other driver, so I couldn't stop and play autograph hound. No signs of any of the Democrat candidates, as their primary won't be held till next weekend. South Carolina has a weird wrinkle, in that each party's primary is held a week apart, instead of on the same day, like most states.

We have early voting in Tennesse, so I went and cast my ballot yesterday, because as a trucker, if I don't vote early, I won't get to vote at all. I'll be God-knows-where on Super Tuesday, when my state's regular primary is held. Not telling who I voted for until after the primary, to be fair about it. Those of you who are readers of my private political blog will learn of my choice later. Those of you who are not current readers, are conservative-minded, and would like to become readers, let me know and I'll add you to the reader list. If you're liberal-minded, that blog's not for you. Enough said.

Got to go brave the elements again and make a cigarette run and I'm also going to start up my Big Truck and let it run an hour or so, to keep the batteries up on it and make sure the fuel won't gel up in the lines. There's not a lot of wind here, thank God, so that helps with that particular issue, anyway. But I'm going to wait until it warms up a little bit. I'm rationing my smokes now, as I want to avoid "nicotine fits" if I run out. That's not a pretty sight to see and nobody would want to be around me if that happens!

Supposed to warm back up a little by tomorrow. We'll see.

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