Crazy days of summer.

Well in the trucking side of my life summer is the busy time. Longer hours of daylight means more hours to run and less sitting time. Right now it is even crazier since we have made special plans for my vacation this year. Friends are coming up to the ranch from Wyoming and it promises to be a time of good food, shooting and who knows what else. Just by a stroke of luck it seems that I am on the way to finishing my next book too. So a lot is happening and that is part of the reason my posts here have been so infrequent.
The book is taking on a life of it's own and there are some ideas floating around for the one after that. While this one is a sci-fi dealing with a dystopian future the next one will be a modern day western. It will bring back characters from the short story Christmas on the Mesa and pair them with a veteran suffering with PTSD. It could get interesting and hopefully it will help in some little way. I am hoping to also include some real life options for dealing with the problems being faced by many vets today. Only time will tell.

In Congress July 4 1776

When in the course of human events.... These simple words set things in motion that would take the world from outdoor plumbing, horse drawn wagons, and slow communication by courier to what we have today. They unleashed the entrepreneurial spirit so that people could profit from the fruits of their own labors. While we have stumbled and made some very shameful mistakes, we have also fought and died to try and right those same faults. Freedom was what allowed Edison, Ford, Carnegie, Jobs, Gates, and a million others to flourish and take us in a span of just 236 years farther than we had come in the entire history of mankind. I think of all of this every year on Independence Day, and I thank God that I was lucky enough to be born in the United States of America, where I can either succeed or fail according to my own efforts. Since I have recently ventured into the Independent Publishing phenomenon it is even more poignant this year. No longer is my ability to reach an audience for my writing being controlled by a few publishing houses in New York City, but only by my writing talent and marketing efforts. It is with that in mind I will close this post with the final sentence of the Declaration as a way of offering my own affirmation of the principles that we as a Nation have tried to adhere to.   And for the Support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honour.

The trucking side.

Some people have mentioned that this would be a great place to blog about my life as a truck driver. While it has given me the time to think up the stories that I write and has been good to me financially, trucking is not where I want to spend the rest of my life. After twenty-two years of it, there is a ranch in Washington State I would rather spend more time on, writing and staying in one spot for a while.

For those who are interested in the trucking side here is what has been going on for the last three weeks. First for those who don't already know I don't drive your average truck and trailer. What I do is referred to as Heavy Haul. There are varying degrees from hauling wide, tall, and heavy loads on trailers with as few as five axles (the same as the average truck and trailer) on up to monster rigs that require two trucks just to move the trailer. The trailer I have been pulling for the last seven years has an axle that flips up or down as needed for weight, it also stretches from as short as forty-eight feet (average length for most trailers is up to fifty-three feet) to as long as seventy three feet. Because of this feature I can end up in some crazy places with some crazy loads. My last three loads have been an example, they were identical fiberglass storage tanks, and when loaded onto the trailer my over all dimensions came out to, seventeen feet six inches tall (four feet taller than the average truck) fifteen feet six inches wide (seven feet wider than the average truck) and over all my truck and trailer measured in at ninety-one feet long a full twenty feet longer than the average truck. Here is what one of the loads looked like sitting next to an average truck.

 

Needless to say these were high stress loads. Most of the route was on small back roads to avoid low overpasses and other overhead obstacles. The entire route there was someone out in front of me with a pole set up to measure everything that I passed under including power lines and tree branches, another car followed behind me and for most of the trip there were three California Highway Patrol cars with us.

The first day of each run was spent loading the trailer and getting from Anaheim up to the high desert and the town of Hesperia. Second day was spent going the four hundred miles from Hesperia to a little town called Santa Nella. Once there it was spend the night and most of the following day till night and taking the load in after dark. Now dodging low wires is bad enough in the daylight when you can see them but it is much worse at night when they blend in with the sky. While the trips were rough in places we got them all done without incident. Each trip took almost a week to make because of the scheduling and other restrictions.  One of the side benefits of it all was that I managed to get a considerable amount of writing done.

There you have it a glimpse into the trucking side of my life.

Memorial Day 2012

When it comes to our service men and women I am a big softy. It doesn't take much to get the water works flowing when talking about the troops. Part of that I think is that I remember those that I served with. Most of them are still around and for the most part we weren't in any really hot spots. Korea would get a little crazy from time to time but the Korean troops were outstanding at handling most situations that arose. I also recall seeing my brother in his uniform and thinking how brave and cool he was. Growing up I was always taught that this is the only country in the world where son of a single mother and of mixed race could make it to the White House as the President. There were Europeans who were saying that we should elect him because it would show that we were no longer racists. My reaction was along the lines of, "When the Prime Minister of England, or the President of France is something other than white let me know." I usually keep my politics off this blog, but seeing as how this is a day to remember the sacrifices of those who fought and died in service to this country I can't help myself. Personally, I hate the policies of this administration, but that doesn't mean that I don't see how the very fact that it exists, is proof that this is the only country in the world where it could happen. If it wasn't for those who have given the last full measure, then it would have been a much different story.

To my fellow Veterans who have given friends in the defense of America I can only say that you should not mourn that they died, for all men die, rather rejoice that they lived, and that they graced your life if only for a little while.

Quebec again.

I spent most of last week in Canada again. I went in through Michigan and drove across Ontario Provence which has its moments, but nothing quite like the stretch of Quebec that I had the pleasure of seeing this trip. In the past I have been pretty far up in the northern part of the Provence, but this trip was along the St. Lawrence Seaway, almost to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It was a long hard drive out there, with a lot of steep grades and of course a lot of downgrades to deal with, but the scenery was spectacular. At one point I thought I had gotten off route. As I came around a bend in the road it came to an end at the banks of a large river.One that didn't show up on my map or the GPS the company had installed in my truck. Fortunately there was a ferry there to take traffic across and it was no charge. Reaching my destination I found a quaint seaside town cloaked in a fine mist. It was a beautiful town and the people were friendly even if I didn't speak French. Along the way I passed numerous signs that were shaped like whales. I later learned that it is not unusual for whales to swim up the river and that there are whale watching tours. All in all it was a fairly good trip. My one big complaint about going to Canada is being out of touch, since my wife hates paying the roaming charges if I use my phone up there. I did use the time to work on the latest Shade tale while I was there.

Update.

There has been a lot going on since leaving home. Mainly trucking but some writing too. Still working on the Shade sequel when I can find the time and inspiration. I have also run into a dilemma with another author, who has written a really good book. In my opinion with a few corrections it could be a really great book. He didn't ask me to read his book so this is all on me. It is just one of my personal quirks. As a writer I can be a bit touchy about my creations and I would never knowingly trash another persons work in public. If I see something that really bothers me enough that I feel the need to comment on it, I will do it via private means. With regard to my work, I try to do as much research as I can before putting it on the page. Before anything I write hits the list at Amazon or anywhere else it is read by a number of people, who are reading it for the express purpose to see if I got it right. If there is something wrong I want to know it so that I can correct it before it is published. I only wish that some other writers would do the same. There is a certain military author, who I am told is very good when writing about the Armor or Artillery, but his one book about a Special Forces Unit was so full of mistakes that I haven't picked up another one of his books. I hope that other authors will take the time to do their research. One of the reasons that I read the authors that I do is that most of them are very good at getting the facts right. Some like Brad Thor make me keep the laptop close so that I can check what he is writing about. He has always had it right so far. Others like Dean Koontz even when he is making things up he keeps it pretty close to reality. What do you think?

Back to work

Actually it is more like back to my routine. All the things that were broken on the truck are now fixed. While the honey-do list didn't get completely finished a major portion of it is done. There is something very gratifying about working on your own land. Slowly but surely we are getting it cleaned up and the landscape looking better all the time. Part of cleaning it up includes yarding downed trees out of the woods. These trees have been down now for a year or more and will be cut up for firewood later on this summer. Our tractor isn't that big so we ended up leaving some of the downed timber to be pulled out later, when we can get a larger machine in there. While leaving them laying would be easier, it also would provide fuel if we ever get a fire up there. Most people don't understand the need to thin the timber and clean out the deadwood, but it is all part of owning property in timber country. It also keeps me thinking about how it was so much harder for our ancestors who had to do it using horses, mules, and oxen. When I think about how hard it can be to find time to write on the road, I wonder how much harder it would be at home, with all the work that needs to be done there.