Donner Party Kitchen Staff -- Cookin' up something different...

New living room

When everything I owned was boxed up and thrown into storage a few years ago, my soft furniture was junked. It was pretty beat up & not worth storing. While talking with my former boss at church this morning I mentioned that I didn't have a couch. The former tenant at the building he owns was a sofa retailer. I was able to pick up a brand new, still wrapped in plastic wrap-around sofa for free! :mrgreen: Not my first choice in color, but at that price, what can I say?

My place is still a mess, but it's getting better. I have my radio gear set up, but haven't been on the air much. My antenna tunes up great on 160 (Top Band), 80/75 & 40 meters. Anybody want to try to meet me on the air? (Hi Ronald SM7WDL!)

Home Sweet Home

I'm living in the middle of a huge avocado grove. Squirrels everywhere. Quiet, safe, nice neighbors, great landlord. Couldn't ask for more!

I'm renting the first floor of a three story house. It's built into the side of a mountain. My place is essentially a large one-bedroom apartment with it's own entrance, bathroom & kitchenette. I have access to the main house to use the real kitchen and laundry when needed.

Two and a half years ago when I became a long-haul trucker everything I owned was very hurriedly packed into boxes and stuffed into a storage unit. Now I'm trying to undo that mess. It's a slow, sometimes intimidating, process, but it's coming along.

Radio Station KI6FCI

I kinda carefully brought up the subject of installing an antenna this afternoon. My landlord, Karen, was totally cool with it! :mrgreen: I don't know exactly where I'll set it up on the property, but I'll make sure it doesn't block any windows.

I have my Operating Position just about set up, I'll be posting pictures soon. Awesome set up, custom 24" x 72" desk covered with an ESD safe conductive rubber pad. This is one sweet set up! Everything is within easy reach.

Bee Cool

OK, it's been a long time since I posted. Sorry. I've been busy moving into me new home, buying a new car & learning my new job. Whew!

If you haven't figured it out, I'm a beekeeper now. Monday & Tuesday I was out in the field pulling honey, which is when you remove the boxes of honey filled frames from each colony at a bee yard. Yesterday & today I spent extracting the honey from the frames. Probably the messiest job in the world. It takes 3 men to run the extracting machine. We each have a 5 gallon bucket of water to rinse our hands in every few minutes, no drying, honey doesn't stick well to wet hands. Also, this is the core of the business, the machine runs fast, you have to work full speed to keep up. It's loud, dirty & hot (everything is plumbed with hot water pipes to keep the honey flowing) work, but the challenge is kinda fun. You gotta be on top of your game.

To make it more fun, today the hoses that fed hot water to the vibrating knives burst, twice, spraying me from head to waist. Not hot enough to burn, but annoying. When something like that happens it's a minor emergency, as any water in the honey is a major problem and can make it unsaleable. Plus, the machine was down for an hour for repairs.

Oh yeah, I got stung in the middle of my left ring finger. A bad place to get stung. Hurt for a few minutes, no problem. But it swelled for a few hours. A hassle, but fine now.

I'm pooped, later I'll tell you about my new digs.

Bee Trailer Park

Getting Buzzed

Engineers....

This is an attachment point on NASA's Shuttle Carrier Aircraft used to move the shuttle across the country.

Reminds me of high school...

Check this out: INDEXED

Guard Duty

The way my church's building is set up, there are separate entrances for the main building and the part of the building used for the children's classrooms. Not the best set up, but it was an existing building and that's how it worked out. While it hasn't been a problem in the past, we have somebody sit outside the classrooms' entrance as a preventive measure to make sure nothing bad happens. I wish this wasn't a concern, but that's the world we live in. :(

This morning I had the duty for the first service. (we have two services on Sunday, too many people for one) My niece Rebekah was in class, there was no way somebody was getting past me! :wink:

Being able to do this is just one way my life is returning to normal after being gone for two and a half years. :mrgreen: The separation from the people who I care about & who care about me took a greater toll than I realized. It really hit me today that this is where I need to be.

Lunch time

We had our monthly SoCal WidowNet lunch get together today. WidowNet is an online support group for widows & widowers. We met at the Mission Inn in Riverside. Good food, great friends. 8)

I wonder where the hose is?

All good things must come to an end...

You may have noticed that the truck cam has been down for a while. Sorry, it will be down indefinitely.

I am no longer a OTR truck driver.

Feels like a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders. It was a lot of fun for 2 1/2 years, the experiences were incredible, but being on the road wasn't taking me where I needed to go. I'm going home.

Where do I begin:
5-7 weeks away from home at a time, missing family, church, holidays, birthdays, friends, everything. Being on the road was separating me from everything that is important to me.
OTR driving is a sleep-drive-sleep-drive cycle that continues day after day without break for weeks at a time. OTR truck drivers don't have weekends.
Working more than 70 hours a week for not-quite-the-money-they-said-I'd-make is rather discouraging.
Even with making as much real food in the truck as I could, there is still a lot of junk/fast food involved. I have 40 more pounds to lose since I left.
Then there is always the fun of finding and, usually, training compatible co-drivers. Not to mention every time you go to sleep in the winter, you don't know if you're going to wake up to your inexperienced co-driver rolling the truck over in the snow.
There are some less-pleasant aspects of OTR driving I won't miss, like bathing every few days, peeing in a bottle in the sleeper & being propositioned by lot lizards while parked at a truck stop.
I hope to meet another woman someday and settle down. You can't meet anybody on the road, much less build a relationship.

I've started using the phrase 'while I was gone' when referring to things that have changed around town.

I started my new job today, delivering for a local floral wholesaler to florists & supermarkets. I actually *gasp* got out of the truck, walked around & interacted with real, live people several times today.

I'm going home

This says it pretty well.

Turn up your volume

Good stuff

My truck is still stuck in Fontucky, my co-driver jumped ship, and my cell phone is on the fritz. Not too worried about it. Changes are afoot. Can't talk about it yet, but it's all good.

Nine years

It's been 9 years today. I still think about Jennifer every day. She made me a better person. It doesn't hurt the way it used to, but it still hurts. Some things you just can't change, dead is dead.

Stuck in Fontucky

Maintenance took my truck hostage yesterday, doing a PM & fixing this & that. The new front shocks are nice. My co-driver hasn't shown up yet, should have been here yesterday morning, looks like he abandoned ship. Just ran some city work today. If he's not here in the morning, I'll be looking for a new co. Not the way to make money. :?

Back to work

Samantha fell asleep in my arms today. It's going to be tough to drive away from that. Unfortunately, I have to. It's part of being a trucker.

I have to be at work Monday morning. I'm heading back Sunday afternoon to get the truck serviced, and get a good nights sleep before going on duty Monday morning. On the way home Friday night I was stopped at a weigh station & inspected. That's when I found out my company didn't file my Medical Certificate info with the DMV. They were cooler than they needed to be about it. The CHP let me go, and I took care of the problem while I was home.

Easter Bonnet

Samantha

My newest niece
7 Lbs, 3 Oz
20 Inches
8:13 AM

Goldfish

After almost 7 weeks I finally made it home.:mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen:

Miss Rebekah loves her Goldfish. Her shirt, from her Uncle Drew, says: 'I'm the little niece of a U.S. soldier'

Her little sis Samantha is due to be born tomorrow morning. I can't wait! I love her already & I plan on spoiling her rotten.:wink: I can only imagine what my bro is going through. :shock:

WidowNet SoCal GTG

As many of you know, I'm a member of WidowNet, an online support group for widows & widowers. Once a month a group of us have a lunch GTG (Get ToGether) in SoCal. I was finally able to make it again. We've been doing this in SoCal since January 2000.

Random Dilbert Entry

Firefox & Thunderbird

I knew this day was coming. If you can believe it, I was still using Netscape Navigator 7.2 for most of my internet browsing & as my email client. Compared to IE (Microsoft Internet Explorer) Navigator was much more stable, fault tolerant and had a cleaner & easier to use interface. Navigator didn't have all those unused toolbars at the top of the window that you couldn't get rid of.

Alas, more & more web sites had new features that wouldn't work. Netscape no longer supports Navigator, so it's time to change. :?

After downloading the Mozilla Firefox browser and Thunderbird email client, I installed them without a hitch. In fact they both automatically imported everything from Netscape! 8) All my bookmarks, saved passwords, history, email addys, accounts, folders & filters. Both programs even kinda look the same, and they allow you to get rid of toolbars that you don't use, to clean up your window. :mrgreen:

As I type this, Firefox is automatically spell checking, underlining suspicious words in red. Very cool! 8)8)

Homeward Bound (almost)

Impatiently waiting for my next load. One more load to get me to Fontana, then I GO HOME!

It's been almost 7 weeks this time. Had to schedule it so I could be home when my niece Samantha is going to be born! :mrgreen:8):mrgreen:

I drink your milkshake!!

If you haven't seen the movie There Will Be Blood, you're missing something good! :) Very few movies can get away with going 14 minutes before the first line of dialog is said. You have to watch it a few times to catch all the details.

Sitting in Nogales, AZ. Got here about 0315 this morning. They don't open till 1000. :? As long as I get home on time, I don't care.

Differed Maintenance

Bartucky

Sitting in Barstow, CA right now. It's where we are switching drivers. Our load can't deliver before 0800 tomorrow morning, so we're sitting here so I don't start my '14 hour clock' and get my hours messed up.

If you are on Match.com, I'm tws1969. 8)

Check this out: CaliforniaBeachWeather.com

Good grief!!

Fueled up in Birmingham last night.

$606.23

:shock::shock::shock:

Hard work

If you try really hard, you can jacknife a U-Haul trailer on a dry road! :roll:

Hang up

I didn't take this one.