Trucker Tuesday #13-What do you do during your downtime?

A few months back KatDaddy and I talked about what we did during our downtime on Truck Talk. Since my interest have changed, I’m going to share with you what I do during my downtime while I’m on the road now.

One of my favorie things to do is getting my guitar out and playing it. I’m still very much a beginner but since I have Internet in the truck I’m able to learn new songs and chords. Like other guitar players, I find doing this very relaxing and stress relieving.

I also like to read. Sometimes I actually read a book but most of the time I will read something on the iPhone. I also like reading some of the trucking magazines.

Lastly, of course, I blog and check out the social networking sites that I belong. I seldom watch videos on the iPod or the computer because I would rather be more productive in my limited downtime. Most of my blogging is done during this time.

If you would like to share what you do during your downtime, please feel free to write it in the comments section.

Next week I’ll be bringing to you a story or two from a 30+ year trucking veteran.

Childhood Memories #4-What Time?

Welcome to this months edition of Childhood Memories. In this edition, we will look at a funny story that I’ve told a few times over the years. I remember this almost like it was yesterday but some of the detail are a little foggy.

I don’t remember this time of year but I do know that it was warm weather because I had walked down to the neighbors house to use the phone (see note below). My family and I were living outside of Corinth and our neighbors Glidewells. I still remember their names but won’t list them here to protect their identities, although the daddy of the family is now deceased.

I had called my granddaddy, who was coming to get me and take me to his house. At the beginning of the conversation, he had told me that he would pick me up at 9:15. We then talked for a couple more minutes and then he told me that he would pick me up at a quarter after nine. I didn’t know why he had told me two different times.

I returned to the house and told me folks what Granddaddy had said and they started laughing. I didn’t know why. After they had finished laughing they told me that “9:15″ and “quarter after nine” meant the same thing. I still didn’t understand. A quarter was twenty-five cents so a “quarter after nine” should be 9:25, right? They then explained to me why the times were the same and it made sense to me.

I remember many things that happened around that little house in the short time we were there. One thing was I turned nine years old and mowed the grass for the first time. We also lived there during the summer of 1980 and had to sleep in the living room with the rest of the house shut off because it was so hot that summer. I’ll have to save more for later.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you again next month when I’ll share some of my memories about my Granddaddy Floyd.

Tech Talk Thursday #16-Schedule Tweets for Later

Hello and welcome to this weeks edition of Triple T. Have you ever wanted to send out a tweet at a certain time but knew you weren’t going to be at a computer or be able to use text messaging to send a tweet? Well, it is now available and for the low price of FREE! The website is free but the iPhone application is $1.99.

The name of the site is Hootsuite. All you need to do is sign up for an account and then add your Twitter account(s), Facebook account, your Ping.fm account and your Linkedin account. When you update your status all you have to do is choose the ones you want to update and it’s done. One site to update all other sites.

But, I told you that you could update your status at a later time. All you have to do is click the “Send Later” button and choose the date and time you want it to be sent and optionally you can have an email sent to you when it is done. What more could you ask for at no cost?

Another thing you can do with Hootsuite is shorten a URL using the ow.ly service. Hootsuite will also give you stats but I have found them to not be very accurate.

In addition to all of that, you can also add RSS feeds so they will be tweeted when you post a new blog post or a new podcast. I was using Twitterfeed to do this for me but it was having some problems and sometimes not getting my status updated until hours after the post was published. So far I haven’t experienced this with Hootsuite.

Now that was just for the web interface. What can you do with the iPhone app? Almost as much as you can on the web except you can only update your Twitter account(s). If there is a way to update the other sites I haven’t figured it out yet. You can also schedule tweets with the app, which is the main reason I bought it. For $1.99 I don’t think you can go wrong with it. As the service get better I believe the price of the app will go up and the developers may even have some premium services available. Take a look at it and let me know what you think.

I do know of one other web-based only service that will schedule tweets and send them is TweetLater but I have only used it a few times.

That’s going to do it for this weeks edition. Thanks for stopping.

Trucker Tuesday #12-Where’s My Glasses?

Welcome and thanks for stopping by for this weeks edition of Trucker Tuesday. As some of you may know, on the first Friday of the month I release a post on my blog about one of my childhood memories. Well, today I am going to share with you one of KatDaddy’s memories. He told this to me a couple of weeks ago and thought it would make for a funny little story to tell all of my readers.

KatDaddy was out hunting one day and his glasses kept on fogging up and he just put them on the top of his head. He sat there for a while and didn’t see anything and thought to himself, “Man, it’s getting too cold out here. I’m gonna head back toward the house.” It was at that moment that he realized that he didn’t have his glasses.

He searched his pockets, nothing. He searched the ground around him and still couldn’t find them. He just knew that his daddy was going to give him a whipping for losing his glasses. He kept on looking around for a few minutes and then gave up and started walking toward the house.

After getting to the house, his daddy was outside and he walked up to him and said, “Daddy, I lost my glasses and can’t find them.” Seeing them on KatDaddy’s head, he said, “When did you last see them?”

“I laid them on the ground and could find them.”

“Are you sure you laid them on the ground?”, his dad asked.

KatDaddy answered, “I’m sure and I looked all over for them.”

“Ok then. We’ll go look for em then.”

KatDaddy turned around to go and when his dad got behind him he put his hand on KatDaddy’s head and then it dawned on him where he had put his glasses.

I couldn’t help but laugh when KatDaddy told me this. It was too funny. Thanks again for stopping by.

Why Blog?

I’ve been thinking over the last few days about the reasons I continue to blog at least two times a week and sometimes three times. I could only come up with a couple of things and they are as follows:

I Have Something to Say

I have something to say and I want to let the whole world know. It may be an opinion or even just stating a fact about a subject. I realize that no everyone will read all of my post and some of the ones that do won’t always like what I had to say. That’s alright because this is my blog and it’s about me. I will try to express my opinion with gentleness but won’t beat around the bush either. You can take it or leave it. I won’t intentionally offend you but if I do then please share with me what you think and we can have a discussion.

I Want to Leave a Legacy

Why do I want to leave a legacy? Because this will probably be something that my kids will want to read in the future and know who I am and what I stood for. Wouldn’t you like to have something like a blog or journal that your parents or grandparents had kept all these years. I would. This generation has the opportunity to leave behind what no other generation before us could unless it was written on paper. That would have been alright but most people don’t have the discipline to write on paper. I know that I find it much easier to write on the computer.

Now that you know the reason that I blog then what is holding you back? Think you have nothing to say? I thought the same thing for a long time and now I have made almost 50 post in a short period of time. Give it a try and do it on a regular basis and the words will come.

Thanks for reading.

Tech Talk Thursday #15-The New Apple iPad

I’m not going to bore you with all the new information about the new iPad and try to rehash all that is being said on the other blogs. I’m just going to tell you how I see it and how I felt about it.

I have a lot of different feeling about the Apple event yesterday. First, I was a little disappointed because there was no iLife ‘10, multi-tasking, or iPhone 4.0 announced. Although most of the rumors about the new tablet computer were true, the rumors about the other things turned up being just that.

Second, what kind of a name is iPad? Is that all Apple could come up with? Give me a break! Look how creative Macbook and iPod were and now just an iPad? I think the other names would have suited it better. I really liked iSlate, which is what the new gadget looks like. And the name iPad sounds so, you know, feminine. It’s Steve’s product and he can call it what he wants.

You’re probably thinking at this point that I don’t like the iPad. The couldn’t be farther from the truth. In fact, I love it and I haven’t even seen it except for the pictures. What do I like? Everything! I really like the fact that most iPhone apps will run on it.

I like the idea of the iBook app. That will give both the Kindle and Nook a run for their money if they aren’t dead already. If I was in the market for an eBook reader then I would wait for the iPad.

The iWork apps are another thing. Since I don’t have iWork on my Mac then I don’t feel like I am in a position to have an opinion but I do like the idea of being able to create things with out a computer.

The best thing about the new iPad has got the be the price. I couldn’t believe it. Something that look like that for only $499? The same price as the original iPhone? You have go to be kidding me! I also like the different flavors it is going to come it. Mainly, without 3G connectivity. I give AT&T enough of my money every month as it is. Besides, how long is 250MB going to last? I have used over 600MB of data on my iPhone since January 1 and that doesn’t count the data over WIFI.

There you have my comments about the big event. Thanks for stopping by and be sure to check out TupeloGeek’s blog with his comments and reaction too. Next week I’ll be touching on an app that is a web app and has an iPhone app. You don’t want to miss it.

Trucker Tuesday #11-Hours of Service

I know that some of my readers aren’t truckers and may not be familiar with the current hours of service regulations or may not even know that we have them. I did a Google search for them and found the regulations here.

Last Tuesday there was some buzz about the HOS and couldn’t help but have a few bad thoughts. First and foremost, we have a bunch of idiots that know nothing about the trucking industry or even what driving is all about telling us how to do our jobs. The so-called safety groups that what the feds to make rules that are so ridiculous need to find a real job and leave us alone.

Here are some of the proposals:

reduce total number of on-duty hours
electronic on board recorders
go back to the old 10 hours of driving rules
no split sleeper berth (which is the way it is now)
regulate shippers and receivers (that’s just funny)
regulate sleep disorders but not driver pay

I will be the first to admit that things need to change but until the public stops thinking that a driver and his company has deep pockets then they aren’t. We are out here trying to make a living and are being regulated to no end. How many times have you heard a medical student or doctors tell stories of having to work for 48 hours straight? I don’t guess they make mistakes.

Another example is a person can go down to the local RV center and start out on a trip in a brand new RV and drive for as long as he/she wants. What about a U-haul truck or even a car? Get in a drive as far as you like. Nobody will care until you go to sleep passing a truck and are killed when you go up under the trailer. It will be on the driver to prove that he had the right to be on the road in the first place.

I also saw on twitter that these “safety groups” won’t be satisfied until we have an eight hours work day. I don’t think they will be satisfied until we are all off the road and that way our roads will be safer without all these truckers.

I’m sure they’ll begin to wonder where all the food was coming from since shelves in the store will be bear. I really think some people think that the groceries just grow on the shelves.

I’ll get back down off my soap box now. Thanks for dropping by and if you have any opinions you’d like to share please do so in the comments. If you have a blog that deals with this issue or any issues please feel free to post a link to in in the comments too.

Special thanks to Jami Jones from Landline Magazine for keeping us up-to-date on the happenings in the hearing. I stole some of this information from her tweets.

Tech Talk Thursday #14-Come See Our Latest Creation

Apple Scheduled Event

I’m sure you’ve heard by now the big event that Apple is having next Wednesday. They obviously have something big to announce and I’d love to be there but I’ll just have to follow the event on MacRumors. That is where I followed the last two events including the announcement of iPhone 3.0.

I’d be really surprised if Apple didn’t reveal to us the rumored tablet. I’m not sure what I’m expecting but if it’s anything like the iPhone then I’m game. I’ve enjoyed my PowerBook G4 for a while now and really not sure if I want to give it up because I just like it. I also have a Windows XP netbook but find the keyboard hard to type on because of it’s size and that is why I mostly use the Mac. If the tablet has a real keyboard then I’m probably not interested.

New iPhone in April?

Like many others, including TupeloGeek, I feel an April release of the new iPhone is a little early. But on the other hand, Apple may be wanting to get iPhone 4.0 out a little early too. Who knows what Apple has come up with in the new OS. Some are suggesting multi-tasking and a revamped user interface. I’m not one for change but if Apple thinks I need a new UI then I’m drinking the Kool-Aid.

App Reviews

Flickr

This is my favorite way of getting my pictures up on the Web. I don’t upload every picture that I share on Facebook or Twitter but I do upload the best. If you’ll look on the right side of my page you can see the latest picture that I uploaded to Flickr.

Photoshop Mobile

I very seldom make any changes to my pictures but this is the app that I use when on the go. I don’t know what took them so long since I was using the mobile version on my Palm Treo about two years ago. This app will make modifying your pictures easy and add a little something different. Although not for the professional it works great.

That’s gonna do me for this week. Be sure to join me again next week for my take on Apple’s announcement.

Facebook to Charge $4.99/month

The title of this post if false. I have seen a lot people post in their status that they were against paying $4.99/month for Facebook. You can visit snopes.com and read this article about this hoax.

Now to all of you opposed to paying for the Facebook service-STOP complaining every time it goes down. Your aren’t charge anything for it and if it goes down just go about your business and do something else until it comes back up. I get sick and tired of people complaining about how Facebook isn’t working right or is too slow. If you would actually go out and plant a real garden and stop playing Farmville, Farmtown, or whatever the name is then you could have some fresh produce with little effort and very little cost.

The same thing goes for those complaining about Twitter or Gmail being down. We pay nothing for these services and it makes national news. Go figure.

Trucker Tuesday #10-Airborne

Welcome to this special edition of Trucker Tuesday. Since this is the third Tuesday of the month I’m going to take a break from telling some of my stories and tell one from a friend of mine, who is also a trucker.

Airborne is named this probably because he was a paratrooper in the United States Army. He tells me he’s been driving over the road since 1980 but started out driving in 1978 locally.

I asked Airborne what he liked about trucking or the trucking industry and he told me the things he liked best was the opportunity to travel and see different places.

His dislike is one that many of us have and that is the way that the industry is changing. “Companies used to care about their drivers but now it just goes down to the bottom line,” he says. “I used to work for a company where the dispatchers were promoted on the inside of the company but then they thought it would be best to get some outside help and hired someone from the banking industry and that is where it went to crap.”

“Another thing that I don’t like about trucking is being gone for so long. If it wasn’t for that I’d really love it.”

I also asked him about someone that he met that had a positive influence on him and he didn’t hesitate to tell me about Roy. “Roy was my mentor in trucking and he took care of me and showed me the ropes. One time while in Henderson, NC, I was going up and almost straight up hill and couldn’t get the trucker to move. I woke him up and he didn’t say a word. He simply got out of the truck in his underwear and went around to the driver’s side and made me move and got the truck to the top of the hill and then got back out and got in the passenger side and went back to bed. I didn’t have the problem again. I didn’t ask him to get up anymore after that, ” he said laughing.

Thanks, Airborne, for chatting with me for a little while and thank you, the reader, for stopping by. This will be a regular thing on the third Tuesday of the month so if you’d like to share you thoughts, then please send me an email or comment below and I’ll get back with you. Your regular comments are welcome too.