There are a lot of 'truckstop lawyers' who will tell you things about the HOS (Hours Of Service) regulations that will get you in a lot of trouble. The DOT (Department Of Transportation) takes HOS very seriously.

We are allowed to be on duty 70 hours over the previous 8 days. The right column on this sample log book page shows my hours for the last 7 days. They are added up and subtracted from 70. The result is how many hours I have available today. It's a revolving total. Tomorrow the hours on line 1 (7.75) will drop off, the other hours move up one line & the hours I worked today (10.50) will be put on line 7.

If I'm off duty for 34 straight hours everything resets to zero & I have 70 hours available again.

I'm allowed to drive up 11 hours in a shift. The moment I go on duty the '14 hour clock' starts. After 14 hours count down I can no longer drive, regardless of how much I have driven. In this sample, my 14 hour clock ran out at 1730 (5:30 PM). On some days you spend all day at a shipper and are lucky to get 100 miles in.

The only way to reset the 14 hour clock is to be off duty for 10 continuous hours. This period must consist of 8 continuous hours in the sleeper berth & 2 continuous hours of any combination of sleeper berth & off duty. In this example I can go on duty 45 minutes after midnight.

Only a truck driver would work 70 hours a week & cheat to get more!

I was just asked what I want for Christmas. Hmmm.... A winning lottery ticket would be nice! So would a house or new car.

Or

Something from my Amazon.com wish list

Or if you are feeling really generous:

Kenwood TS-480HX
Kenwood TH-D7AG

Books, gadgets, just about anything is cool.

Got a few emails this morning from some fellow amateur radio operators who like the camera. Lars SM3KOR in Sweden & Philip HB9HFD in Switzerland.

Ronald SM7WDL sent me a message via APRS. This his website: www.sm7wdl.se I wish I could read Swedish!

I just got an APRS message from Antonio KP4IA in Puerto Rico.

This thing really gets around!

Just discovered Amazon Friends on Amazon.com. Kinda fun to play with. I'm a huge fan of Amazon.com. I signed up for their $79 per year Prime membership; unlimited 2nd day shipping for me plus four family members. With as much as I like to read, it's an awesome deal.

This is my Amazon.com profile

I'm going to up the image upload rate to every 20 seconds instead of every 30. Let's see what happens..

Update

There are different speeds that I can connect to the internet at. Old school 1X, EVDO & EVDO Revision A. It all depends on what system is installed in the area I'm driving through. If the whole country were EVDO Revision A I could upload a new image every 5 seconds. I'll run into trouble if I set the upload rate faster than the images can actually go through. It looks like every 20 seconds is as fast as I can go.

Each blip is one image in a 1X area. As you can see, they are almost touching.

I went through a Border Patrol checkpoint in Texas the other night. The agent climbed up the steps on my fuel tank to ask a few standard questions. One of them was "How many people do you have in back?" I answered "Just one, my co-driver" As I was leaving it dawned on me that he was asking a trick question. This is a Border Patrol checkpoint. By 'in back' he was referring to the trailer, not to the sleeper on back of the cab.

It's really hard to eat a reasonable diet on the road. There are an awful lot of OTR drivers who exist on nothing but batter dipped, deep fried, truckstop garbage. With about 100Lbs I need to get rid of, I can't be that lazy about what I eat. I'm a candidate for Lap-Band surgery, we'll see what the insurance company says. A good WN friend had the procedure and is very happy with the results. It is much less invasive than Gastric Bypass and is adjustable. I've been obese, or morbidly obese, since.....well I only weighed 3Lbs 13oz when I was born.

The microwave & fridge helps a lot. It allows me to keep real food in the truck. The toaster is cool too. It sits behind the Personal Nuclear Device. (microwave) Just picked up the rice cooker. Maybe steamed carbs are not as bad as deep fried carbs.

He made it!!


I don't have many details yet, as he is currently collapsed in bed utterly unconscious, but Cow Boss Jimmy just finished the 3 Day Walk for Breast Cancer!! He has the blisters to prove it.

Jim's wife, Diane(the brains of the operation) was diagnosed with a rather aggressive stage 3/4 breast cancer about a year ago. It wasn't easy, but with prayer, surgery, prayer, chemo, prayer, radiation & prayer she & they made it. Did I mention many prayers were said?

Film at 1100, or whenever Jim wakes up and sends me the pics.

Drove across Wyoming last night. Will be one of the last times this year without snow. During a winter storm several trucks a day roll over in Wyoming. Hopefully I won't be one of them!

Had a close call with a rather large deer last night north of SLC. It missed damaging my bumper by about a foot. I would have been mad, this is a new truck!

Sitting in Oak Grove, MO. The shipper canceled the load we were going to pick up at 1100. We're picking up a load from the same shipper going to Blythe, CA at 1900.

RT was wondering what was going on with the map. I installed Microsoft Streets & Trips 2008, the program I use for navigation. The program that transmits my position over the internet (my radio is broken right now) APRSPoint 4.4, interfaces with Microsoft Map Point 2004. When I upgraded Streets & Trips everything went haywire. No GPS, no maps, nothing. After a lot of work, everything seems to be working & stable now.

The problem with the laptop that runs the truck cam turned out to be overheating due to a combination of dust & an inoperative fan. More work, it's fixed.

I finally set up my HP F340 Printer/Scanner/Copier in this truck. Had to hit the Wal Mart for a new black cartridge. It's fixed.

Now I'm going to take a look at my Kenwood TM-D700A radio to see if I can fix it.

It's also time to hit the Truck-O-Mat for a desperately needed truck-o-bath!

I just dropped a load in Lakeland, FL.
Maybe I can find a freshwater lake to go swimming in.

My new co-driver is working out great. He's just out of training so he still has lots to learn, but he seems to be picking things up pretty quick.

Normally I figure my ETA by dividing the mileage by 50 MPH and rounding to the next higher hour. I don't think I'll need to add the Anthus Factor anymore. I used to add 2-3 hours to the ETA for each shift Anthus would drive.

If your laptop starts flaking out, suddenly turning off without a warning, beep, or even a blink, Make sure the battery is firmly latched in place!
If one of the latches vibrates halfway loose, it will give you nothing but trouble!

Oh yeah, by the way, the camera works now.

Heading for Florida with my new co-driver, Chris. So far he seems reasonably mentally stable.

Having a strange problem with the truck cam computer, still working on it.

I was hangin' out with my old 5th grade teacher the other day. I bet I'm not the only student he's had a lasting effect on.