AND THE RAINS CAME . . .

Well, let's see how this looks. Testing. Testing. Testing. Writer in search of a font.

Oh -- hi, there!!! Still getting used to things, here in New Blog-Land -- just another AOL Journals refugee, getting used to the new system. Y'all let me know how you like the fonts, as I'll continue to experiment, each week. Then, as usual, I'll pick one I like anyway, but I thank you for your input, regardless!

Don't look like I'm gonna make it home this weekend. Got handed a nifty little 6-stop LTL-style run yesterday and toured EasternWisconsin pretty well. With the last stop in Dixon, IL (Ronald Reagan's boyhood hometown) and winding up, finally, in Bartonville, just a few miles from my company's yard, it took up the entire day. And, just as I'd suspected, as soon as I dropped my trailer and asked for dispatch on another load, I got the "no load" message on my Qualcomm.

Thursday is Rookie Driver Graduation Day at Star Central, and if the class is large enough, they tend to eat up all the loads. And so they did this week. Loads in general have been in short supply at times lately, anyway, and when you add rookie first-loads to the equation, the leftovers can be skimpy, or non-existent. It looks, on this Saturday morning, like most of the newbies have gone on their way already, so I'm stranded here with a few other unlucky late arrivals. Can't afford a motel, and since the one I always stayed in before now has a "smoke-free" policy, I'll decline that, rather than be miserable all weekend. If I have to stand outside half the time, in order to indulge my nicotine craving, then I'm just as well-off in my truck. If you're a smoker and feel threatened, rest assured that you are NOT paranoid. They ARE out to get you!! Quite literally. Bad habit, I know. And I should quit. But maybe -- just maybe -- I would have done so long ago, if I didn't feel like I was being forced into it against my will. There's something about being forced to do something that brings out my most mega-stubborn streak. I think it's a freedom and liberty thing. And we have less and less of that, as time goes on. Sadly.

In other news. . . I'm sick of freakin' rain!! That's ALL it's done, where I've gone, for that last three or four days. Sick of soggy shoes, soggy socks, soggy pant cuffs, and soggy jackets that I have to drape across my sleeper cabinets, to dry out. Sick of water on my glasses. Or, in my glasses! Has anyone ever figured out why, when a raindrop splatters on your eyeglasses, that it always manges to land on the inside of the lens??!! GRRRRRRRRRR! Maddening!! Next rain trip I make, I'm gonna pack my biker goggles!! I guess it beats snow, in that you can drive faster on it (assuming you can get the 35 mph scaredy-cats in the cars out of your way), but snow rarely, if ever, soaks you to the skin the way rain does. They're both differing forms of misery.

Sick of mudhole trailer lots, too. The back of my tractor looks like I've been in an off-road endurance race in a swamp. Dried mud, slung up there by my spinning, sliding drive tires, at least two inches thick. Absolutely sick of backing under a loaded box, opening up my door, and finding that I'm parked in the middle of a 3-foot-deep mini-lake!! Double-GRRRRRRRRR!! Splop-splot-splash! Hook up the trailer. Splop-splop-splash! Crank up the dollies. Splop-splop-splash! Adjust the tandems. Get back in truck. Remove shoes and socks. Wring half-gallon of water out of socks. Pour other half-gallon out of shoes. Set all aside to dry out. Drive in my sandals. Stub big toe on pedals. Curse fluently and frequently. Q$X&X#X#-ING RAIN!!!! Dump the cluch in the mini-lake and blast off with a pretty nice "rooster tail" from my spinning drives. Hell, yeah -- CLEAN the bottom of that trailer!!! Freakin' rain!!!

It actually looked like in might clear off while ago. The sun (remember it??) came out for a short time. But it was "just kidding," I guess, because it's reverted back to solid overcast again now. Hasn't rained a drop, so far, though. Just looks like it wants to. And it probably will, if I have to walk any distance at all. That's Murphy's Law, y'know??