Hey--That Last One Was My 69th Post!

I just felt that that somehow deserved celebrating.

So what do I want to address today? Oh yeah--Trucking, Kids, Illness, Death, and many other things.

Starting with the very last thing first: Births and Deaths.

My sister just produced (as documented elsewhere in this blog) a baby. It is an American baby. Born in the U.S.A. But it would be difficult to verify this at the moment. It's sort of pink and squidgy, and as far as I know is completely without any identity papers of any kind.

In security terms, this is surely unacceptable. We are dependent, for security purposes, on the unreliable statements of two persons (in this case both foreigners from outside the Coalition of the Bribed, Cajoled, and Threatened) as to the origin and political affiliation of this potential threat.

This state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue.

For this reason, the Department of Homeland Insanity--I mean Security, will be investigating the outsourcing of infant production. The viability of offshore baby creation will be spec'd out and subjected to a speculative bidding process.

We suspect that Halliburton may wish to get the contract. . .*a-hem*--I mean tender a bid.

Of course this creates a small problem. If all Infant Creation Resources are outsourced, then logically these Infants will be Unamericans. Furthermore, since such outsourcing often takes place in such politically stable areas such as the Phillipines, Pakistan, and other enlightened areas which support our democratic standards (and I am here thinking particularly of China), most of these infants will not in fact be allowed to grow up US-ian.

For this reason, we have decided to in-source those world governments which are not currently up to the American Standard. Such insourcing will take place by degrees, beginning with non-viable governments such as Afghanistan's, then turning to tyrannies such as Iraq. Then possibly Norway, or maybe Kenya.

For differentiation purposes, the Iraq of pre-September 11th will be referred to as "Our Direct Democracy" (ODD) and the Iraq of Sept. 11th 2001 to March of 2003 will be referred to as "Weapons-Using Secretive State" (WUSS). The Iraq prior to June 2004 will be referred to as "Liberated Iraq At Risk" (LIAR), and the post-re-democratisation state as "Fully Unchained and Knowledgeable Iraqi New Government (never mind)) And is it just me, or does that last article sound as though the US wanted to wash its hands of the matter ASAP?

However, under the current new American Reproductive Rights Policy, children of any age, born or unborn, have rights and freedoms. Therefore we will act to protect these rights and freedoms by issuing US citizenship to any pre-born foreign citizen who requests it. As, clearly, no pre-born US citizen can hope to have their rights protected in a foreign land, we will shortly be launching a foreign-government-repatriation process. This process will bring closer co-operation from all national governments--even the ones not part of the Coalition of the Duped, Persuaded, and Threatened.

The new operation will be called "Operation Reproductive Freedom".

Deceit and Truckery

Okay, as I explained last post, the idea of returning to driving trucks is really bumming me out.

It's hard to explain to citizens or "four-wheelers". I mean it looks terrific, right? You cruise freely over the landscape, meeting new people and seeing places many folks won't ever get to see in their lifetimes, and best of all, you get paid to do it!

Brother!

Okay. I'll have a shot at this.

First off, trucking in my experience is more misunderstood and greeted with more hostility than being a member of the military. Yeah, I mean the comparatively inoffensive Canadian Forces (formerly the Canadian Armed Forces--wonder why they had to change the name?), but I have been both.

As a soldier, I ran into a few people who would accuse the Forces of all sorts of dirty dealings (although not me personally, as they always insisted on pointing out). I'd say about seven people, or one per year, were determined to either misunderstand or were actively hostile to the military in such a way that they'd have liked to see it abolished altogether.

Private comment: I have a friend with Joint Task Force Two. Nice guy, coaches little league hockey. Somehow the article, with its faceless agents provocateurs doesn't do him justice.

Truckers get less respect. I mean, not everyone has had any contact with the military culture of Canada (we don't like to talk about it--at all), but everyone has some story about when a truck did something they perceive as stupid (and I admit that some drivers {as distinct from 4-wheelers} are all too willing to encourage misperceptions).

Let's start with the big negatives:
Truckers are fat-bellied, misogynistic pigs who fuel themselves with amphetamines so that they can break the law. These drug/nicotine/caffeine-fueled maniacs are a risk to public life and limb, pollute the atmosphere and clog up our highways.

There are lotsa types of trucker. For the sake of this post, I'm restricting myself to discussion of the OTR (Over the Road) or "long-haul" driver. There are two main subcategories, both subject to the same essential law of commerce, which states: If you ain't loaded and rolling, you're losing money.

Owner Operators: Says what it means. Essentially, these guys have the same worries as the other sort, but squared and cubed with books added because of the extra taxes, maintenance costs, and regulatory compliance they have to do.

Company Drivers: Drive someone else's rig, theoretically for money.

The fundamental that joins the two is the First Rule, except that O/O's generally risk bigger, due to the enormous mortgages they carry on their equipment.

I want to concentrate on Company Drivers.

"Hey! I'd like to offer you a job. You'd have to leave your family alone for weeks on end, you wouldn't be permitted to put down any roots anywhere, and the rules might change arbitrarily--sometimes between states--with you solely responsible for any problems. And you wouldn't be welcome anywhere at all."

"In my what?"

In the careers section at my college, the book that deals with such things indicates that trucking has one of the highest turnover rates of any profession. Why? Because, basically, most people get sick of being abused by everyone.

Dramatis Personae
Fleet Owner/Manager: This is the man who owns your truck--or in some bigger outfits just acts like he does. His job is to make sure you don't expend uneccesary funds on fripperies such as maintenance, safety supplies, and permits.

Dispatcher: Liar and father of lies. The dispatcher will speak to a client in Los Angeles, knowing that you're five hundred miles (1 loooong day's travel) away and assure him that their freight will be picked up at noon. Then he'll turn around and tell the receiver to be ready for it on Wednesday at noon. Then he'll tell the driver that "I kinda said we'd have it there Wednesday afternoon". Then he phones up a new customer and says "Hey--I got a truck in your area on Wednesday morning--got any freight?"

The dispatcher has superhuman powers of persuasion and chutzpah--it takes a special breed to say "just one more run to Montreal and you'll get that time off with your family" when he knows full well your current run is headed for San Diego.

The Shipper:He doesn't care what it is, how much it costs, nor more to the point how much it weighs. All he knows is it's on his dock and he wants it off. If he can, he'll send you off ten thousand pounds overweight--after all, fines are your problem, not his.

The shipper has a schedule to keep. He wants it there just slightly before you picked it up. In this, he is not dissimilar to:

The Receiver: He's usually paying for the transportation, and he's determined to pinch every dime until the Queen screams. He too, wants it there before you pick it up, but the difference is he wants you to store it conveniently in your 53' trailer, rather than his warehouse--without cluttering up his 38' parking lot.

Enforcement: You remember the guy who used to kick over your sandcastles? Well he's all grown up now, and they dressed him up in a tight blue suit and stuck him either behind a billboard or in a scalehouse.

They're here to tak whatever fun there is in trucking away from you. They help enforce stupid laws (and good ones--but there are so very many stupid and petty ones). Regarding anti-idling laws. I'll turn off my engine in minus-or-plus 30 weather just so long as I can come stay at your house until I'm allowed to run again.

I gotta run--big meeting today. More later--possibly tomorrow.

What colour is the sky in your world?