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Showing posts from December, 2011

x-mas eve

Fatigue and exhaustion is taking it's toll. My whole body aches beyond the point of tolerance. I slept for a solid 10 hours and if it weren't for my back screaming in pain, I'd go back for a few more hours. I may still yet nap today. I called in sick late last night. I hated to do it, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do. And since I know people I work with will read this, I will apologize for the inconvenience which my absence today has created. But with the absolute exhaustion I'm dealing with (as I know many of my coworkers are too) I just can't justify risking the lives of so many today. I'll not be spending this day with my family nor friends. I will certainly not be spending it in any form of actual merriment. I will be taking regularly scheduled doses of Tylenol, sitting to rest when my body screams for me to do so, using ice packs when and where needed. I will likely nap at least once, maybe even twice between bursts of minute activi

Safety First... and Always?

My life before becoming driving professional was one of quiet caution, thanks to bumps and cuts and bruises received doing things "unsafely". When I became an OTR truck driver and was properly "pumpkinized" in Green Bay, WI I adopted the mantra "Safety First and Always!" and held fast to all it stood for. I became ever more safety conscious, resulting in fewer bumps, cuts and bruises. I believe living this simple statement all day every day while I was out there on the road saved me many a headache and heartache. I had incidents here and there, a few of which were rookie mistakes and a few of which were a result of me getting temporarily complacent. But overall I'd say that "Safety First and Always" really saved my ass. Flash forward to today. I'm in an altogether different type of driving job, one where safety (to me) is of the utmost importance. I'm not only responsible for myself and the rest of the motoring public's safe

Obsessive Compulsive Disordely Conduct

I was walking across the parking lot at work the other day when I impuslviely reached down to check the zipper on my pants. I realized at that moment that this is something I do EVERY day and something I don't even really realize I'm doing most of the time. It's not like I have a habit of leaving my fly down. I have a very strict sequence of events that I follow when getting dressed and in that sequence is "button, zip, buckle, stuff". The stuff part is actually "stuff 1, 2, 3" because my uniform pants have three pockets and I have to check each one to make sure they're where they are supposed to be. "Right , left and butt cheek" is how I say it in my head as I stuff my hands into each pocket in order. This is part of my morning routine, and sometimes my mid-day routine if I've changed out of my uniform for my split and have to redress for work a second time for the day. So checking my fly after exiting the car in the parking lot a

Open Up and Say Ahhhh - no please not the drill!!!

So today I went to the dentist for the first time in a period long enough that I don't want to admit it openly. The intention was a cleaning and check up and get setup with a new family dentist. But that's not all that I got the pleasure of today. No no. It was a full service visit, taking care of business as only dentists can do it. The cleaning part of my visit was a lot easier than I'd expected. I figured after the amount of time that had passed since my last professional cleaning it'd take a lot longer to scrape the gunk off. But it was quick and mostly painless thanks to the skilled hands of the hygienist and the fact that I've taken to brushing with an electric toothbrush and started flossing more frequently. Once the cleaning was done in came the dentist to look things over and assess the situation. I knew from my last dental exam "x" amount of years ago that I had two small cavities that needed tending to. So I expected them and considered

Facebook Punked

So I'd been posting my happy little heart out for all my friends and family to see on Facebook. I thought some of my posts were pretty clever. Some were downright awesome. But I kept wondering why only one friend was "liking" or commenting on them. Today I found out that it was because some how I'd managed to set my status updates to a custom setting where only that particular friend had the privilege of seeing what I posted. I fixed it and went thru and changed the viewablity of a majority of the posts so that my followers could catch up. Apparently this happened either on the 8th or 9th of this month so there has been nearly a week that has passed since my last public posting. And it was just today that a friend of mine sent me a message asking me if I was okay. I was confused by this because as I said I'd been posting my happy little heart out, multiple times a day every day. Of course now that I posted about what happened, folks on my friends list are al

Happy Holidays

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Just wanted to take a moment to wish everyone celebrating the various seasonal holidays a merry time of it.