6/28/08

I really hate my phone sometimes. I think I was mud wrestling with Heidi Klum or something like that when my father woke me up this morning. He was heading up to the beer store and needed a hand. So I got up and drove to his house to help out. We got a little soaked as we were icing down the seventeen cases of beer. Yeah, you read that right. Seventeen cases. I guess Dad wasn't in the mood to play games this time around.

My little nephew turned one year old last week and my father turns fifty years old next week, so they had a combined party today for anyone who felt like stopping by. That was pretty fun I guess. There's always something weird about the relatives who insist on remembering the last time they've seen me though. For most of them, the answer is a long, long time ago. I did decide that, on my next birthday, I want to sit in my underwear and eat cake with my bare hands.
He's a fun little fella. I won't include any pictures of Dad after he got into the Crown Royal, although he too was a pretty fun fella today. The weather wound up clearing out as the day went on and things worked out great for everyone.

Upon waking up with a hangover today, I had no inclination to drink any beer. Upon cracking the first cold one, as a form of minor celebration that we got everything transported to the park and set up on time, I was certainly inclined to have a second beer... and a third... and, well you know how that goes. This has been quite a three-day run, so I guess I should get out of town soon and give my body a break.

6/27/08

Part of what we do here at Tales from the Road is provide answers to life's burning questions. We've shown, in some degree of detail (and co-opted by a certain political campaign, if I may say so), how to solve high gas prices. A more pressing question has presented itself however. That question is, "What would it look like if you grilled six pork chops, four chicken kabobs, six sirloin kabobs, six hamburgers, four hot dogs, eight bratwursts, six top sirloins, and a pan of potatoes, all at once?" Yeah, we have the answer.

Mmmmm, good. And we used charcoal, a fossil fuel. It's good to be at the top of the food chain and completely unconcerned about global warming. Beer? Let's not kid ourselves. There was plenty of that too. Cheers my friends. I'll be sleeping well tonight.

6/26/08

Two trips to Comerica Park this year - Two victories for the boys. I ain't sayin' that they are afraid to disappoint me... or am I? A friend of a friend came through with the tickets and parking pass this time around. It's always good when you can walk up to a sold-out game and get a view like this...
There's a funny clip at this link. I can't figure out how to embed it, so that's life. Anyhow, if you click the link... See that dude in the green hat, right above the number '1' in '1 out'? Yeah, you know who that is. Watch his reaction when the ball leaves the bat. I reckon I knew the deal a good second or two before everyone else around. That's what we call being locked in, boys and girls. Beauty. Extra innings and a Tiger victory is a good start to the day. Then we had some dinner in Detroit and I headed home to polish off the last few brews.

I have a couple more lazy days and then it's time to get back to the grind, I suppose.

6/25/08

Okay man, it was funny at first, but now it's getting weird. Every day I wake up and browse the headlines to find another one of my ideas being adopted. Now Senator McCain says we'll be free of foreign energy by 2025. I know I keep referring back to my pro-bono consulting work, but this was posted almost a month ago. Now, after forty years of buffoonery by our elected leaders, suddenly my strategy (with a few tweaks) starts showing up in a presidential campaign, piece by piece, day by day. Sure, I say by 2021 we're down to North America and by 2035 we don't import oil. McCain just splits the difference and says 2025. Obviously he's not using my plan without attribution. Yeah... obviously.

So I spent the day lounging around for the most part. That's kinda what I do. I stopped by and visited with a friend of mine for a while, then we headed out to dinner. His parents are 98 and 95 years old. His mother, being the older one, has trouble hearing. As such, we rigged a system several years ago to help her to watch television. Running RCA cables from the TV's A/V output, then cutting the cables and splicing them with speaker wire, we were able to link external speakers to the volume of the television set. It is something of a low budget setup, but it worked perfectly. Using a receiver and a surround sound system wasn't really an option, as the extra layers of things to power on and additional remote controls would defeat the purpose. The beauty was in the simplicity.

My friend recently bought a new LCD television. It has a slightly bigger screen and a nice sharp picture, so the old folks can see it a little better. When he plugged in the speaker cord, however, he found that our old setup no longer worked. Everybody at the electronics store told him that it still should work, but no sound comes from the speakers. So we find ourselves in Dearborn tonight, having dinner. I suggested that he might be able to find a pair of wireless speakers for around sixty or seventy bucks. The powered nature of the wireless transmitter, as opposed to the powerless setup that we used previously, may be the thing that would make the difference. If so, the folks would have speakers back close to their ears with independent volume knobs right on the speakers. They still wouldn't have to tune in through a receiver and everything should be fairly simple. We headed over to Best Buy. They had one set for $200. No. So then we hopped over to Circuit City. They had one outdoor system, with a single speaker, for $100. No. Radio Shack. Nothing even close.

We were resigned to the fact that we wouldn't have any luck, so I suggested that we stop by my parents' house and use their computer for a minute. My friend being 75 years old, he hasn't really felt the need to get internet access at his house. My parents live only a few blocks away from him, so I figured we might as well take one shot before I drove him back home. We headed in and I fired up my mother's computer. Within two minutes we found exactly what we were seeking. A pair of wireless hi-fi speakers with a 2.4GHz transmitter was only $56. Hopefully they'll do the trick. And that, in a nutshell, is why I don't shop in stores anymore.

My father was watching the ballgame and I don't have cable at home, so I swung back by after dropping off my friend. The game was all tied when it started to rain. After hanging around for an hour or so, they still had the tarp on the field so I headed home. It wound up being about a two-hour delay. The game turned out to be well worth the wait though, even if I did have to catch it on the radio. Some ninth innning heroics and we gain one more game on Chicago.

I think I'm going to head down to the ballpark for Thursday afternoon's game.

6/24/08

I know that most of you, as you peruse this here blog, are probably wondering whether or not it would be fun to mount a train horn on your car and drive around scaring people. Wonder no more, my friends. Your don is here to find the answer, and the answer is... 'yes.'

So, now that I've helped you to answer one of life's mysteries, let's move along.

I heard Senator McCain say today, in a soundbite, that the federal government's energy use will be moved away from foreign oil under his watch. You know, it's kinda funny I guess, but these peckerheads could at least throw a few bucks my way if they're going to use my ideas (note the dates in question). I have bills to pay just like everybody else.

Anyhow, I got up and headed over to the clinic this morning. My stats were all kosher, so it will be at least another two years until I have to let another man fondle my nads. So I have that going for me, which is nice.

I had dinner with the folks tonight. I stopped by earlier in the day to drop off Dad's cigarettes and Mom asked what I had planned for dinner. I mentioned that I was thinking of making lasagna. Apparently Mom had the same idea. Well, I guess that saves me the trouble then, now doesn't it? I don't have the heart to tell her that my lasagna is better. She runs a close second, so that's good enough.

So, since I passed my physical and then there was nothing left to lose... bottoms up, my friends. A plentitude of Miller Lites accompanied dinner. Then I stopped by the Arab party store around the corner and grabbed some Mickey's on the way home. I'm guessing that I'll be sleeping late tomorrow.

6/23/08

I had no idea that a famous politician from Arizona was a reader of my blog. Of course, the Senator should have read the recommendations of FGC more carefully. If so, he wouldn't have proposed a reward for battery powered cars, since they require excess energy production and would limit travel even in the most optimistic cases. He would have gone the route of hydrogen (limitless, clean, and not requiring a recharge). Whatever man. Washington will catch up with me sooner or later. Or maybe they won't.

Pretty lazy day today. I guess I'll head up to the clinic tomorrow and see if I'm still fit to drive a truck for a living.

6/22/08

Against my better judgment, I got dragged into a political debate last night and wound up spending several hours setting people straight. Before I knew it, the clock said 4am. Well shit. I had to get up at 7am in order to get my load to Taylor on time, so a few hours of sleep would be the best I could do.

The drive across the rest of the Ohio Turnpike and up to Taylor was nice and easy. There's a little game called 'guess which exit ramp I should take' that I get to play every time I head home. This time, the ramp to Eureka was open for right turns but not for lefts. On a weekday that's more of a problem, but the Sunday traffic on Eureka was light. I just used the next U-turn lane and flipped back north toward the terminal.

After dropping my trailer and checking in with the dispatcher, I headed home to unwind for a while. The Tigers came on at 4pm, which is incidentally exactly when I started feeling tired. I put the game on the radio in my bedroom and climbed in bed. After waking up at some point and hearing that the Tigers won the game, I shut the radio off. A few minutes later, I woke up and it was Monday. Damn.