11/1/07

Well, I got as far as Birmingham before my 70 hour clock was kaput. I'll have to play the wait for midnight game, which has become all too familiar.

[Following is half of an imaginary dialogue, with me playing the role of the feds:] Wide awake and feeling good? Oh, you had better shut down until midnight. Get some rest. Oh, you're not tired? Yes you are. We're in Washington and we know better. What do you mean you'll be more tired after midnight? Go to sleep now. So what if you're not sleepy. Go to sleep anyway. You'll just have to deal with it. Good luck driver.

I swear they are freaking retarded. The stated objective is to prevent tired driving, but the rules have the opposite effect. They really should just limit driving to 600 miles in a calendar day and 3,500 miles in a calendar week. Get rid of the log books and the convoluted 'clocks' altogether. Manipulation would be a non-issue, as the only thing the DOT would have to check are the odometer readings. It wouldn't do any good to say you drove at 6am when you really drove at 10am, because it wouldn't matter. Just rest when you're tired. Your company wouldn't have to try to fit weird schedules into the regulations. You can go 600 miles a day. Simple. If you drove 400 today, you have 200 left to use by midnight. If they need you somewhere 300 miles away, that's too far. 3,500 miles a week can be a little taxing if done in 11 on/10 off stretches, but limiting daily driving to 600 miles would alleviate a lot of that. Just my thoughts. Those, and a couple bucks, might get you a cup of coffee.

Anyhow... pretty decent overnight drive today. Art Bell had people on his Halloween show telling their ghost stories. Pretty lame. Believe in ghosts if you want to. I guess I will too if I ever see one, but until then I'm a skeptic. Either way, I was hoping for some entertaining and/or spooky ones. Nope. A bunch of half-assed generic crap. People repeating something they heard from someone else and passing it off as their own. Weak.

Speaking of ghost stories, the "scientific consensus" (whatever the hell that means) won't rest until I'm terrified. Well grab a cup of java boys, 'cause it will be a long wait. There was a pretty lively conversation on WLW this afternoon. Nobody can seem to handle the facts unless they support the designated viewpoint. Record amounts of ice at the north pole? Nah, that couldn't be true. The icecaps are almost gone, right? Prove it and I'll believe it. Until then you're just telling ghost stories.

Anyhow, time to sleep. Time to try at least.