When we were traveling from Florida to Missouri over a month ago, we noticed these trucks pulling Fema trailers.
We had to notice them!!!
They were being pulled by anything thing that could pull them, at speeds up to MPH.
I had heard, from people in Mississippi, that the drivers were being paid $250 a trailer to pull them. The reason F350's and Dodge trucks got by with pulling them is that DOT relaxed its regs on log books, licensing, and states ignored the vehicles. So, anyone could haul the trailers.
The drivers pulling them were making up to $5 a mile!
I've also found out that FEMA paid around $40,000 a trailer (they're equipped with furniture, even microwave ovens).
10,000 trailers are in a lot in Hope, Alabama, where they sit, 8" apart.
The dirt is soft, and they leaning on each other. The frames are warped now because of no pad.
If any of this is true, who do I have to blow to start pulling them!!!

It's amazing just how many people take living for granted, and how few don't. =)
Becky and I were enjoying the free food at the sample stations, and loading up our cart with all sorts of useless items.
Then somebody turned up a demo stereo with Sinatra like music on it.
I grabbed Becky's hand and we began waltzing in the canned vegetable isle. 
A clerk giving out free samples agged a couple on and they started to dance.
For maybe 20 seconds, the 5 of us, with smiles on our faces, let our guards down long enough to enjoy life.
It was beautiful.

This should be fun. Hopefully she'll get it on time!

Anybody under the age of 15 should not read this, and if you should, you should not repost this. Just because you were born in '92 doesn't mean you're a 90's kid. It's not like you could remember the original Simpsons. I am sorry but three conscious years of the nineties just wont cut it.

Why? Well...


You're a 90's kid if:

You've ever ended a sentence with the word "PSYCH!"

You can sing the rap to "The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air"

You remember when Kurt Cobain, Tu Pac, River Phoenix, and Selena died.

You know that "Whoa!" comes from Joey from "Blossom" and that "How Rude!" comes from Stephanie from "Full House"

You remember when it was actually worth getting up early
on Saturday to watch cartoons.

You got excited when it was Oregon Trail day at school.

You got a new "Goosebumps" book every month.

You know the profound meaning of "Wax on, wax off"

You have pondered why Smurfette was the only female smurf.

You took plastic cartoon lunch boxes to school.

You danced to "wannabe" by the Spice Girls, and...

...females had a new motto, and males got a whole lot gayer.

You remember the craze and subsequent banning of slap bracelets and slam books.

You still get the urge to say "NOT" after (almost) every sentence... Not!

You played "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" at school and then went home to watch it on TV.

Captain Planet. Enough said.

You knew that Kimberly, the Pink Ranger, and Tommy, the Red Ranger, were meant to be together.

To the last sentence you said "Hey, Tommy was the green* ranger!"

Then you said "And he was the White Ranger!"

When playing Power Rangers with friends, you fought over who got to be who...

...and still all ended up being Tommy.

"The Console Wars" referred to Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis.

You watched Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York... and tried to pull the pranks on your "intruder" siblings.

"I've fallen and I can't get up!"

You remember going to the skating rink before there were inline skates

Two words... Trapper Keeper.

You ever got injured on a Slip 'n' Slide

You wore socks over leggings scrunched down

"Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black, with silver buttons, buttons, buttons, all down her back, back, back" SHE ASKED HER MOTHER MOTHER MOTHER FOR FIFTY CENTS CENTS CENTS TO SEE THE ELEPHANTS PHANTS PHANTS JUMP OVER THE FENCE THE FENCE THE FENCE
he jumped so high high high he touched the sky sky sky and he didnt come back back back til the forth of july ly ly he jumped so low ow ow he stubbed his toe toe toe and thats the end end end of the elephants show show show

You played your tapes on a boombox.

Your favorite song was "The Right Stuff" by New Kids on the Block...

...and when Joey McIntyre was on Dancing With the Stars, you felt like he was a real celebrity.

You knew all the characters names and their life stories on "Saved By The Bell"

You played and or collected "Pogs"

You had at least one Tamagotchi, GigaPet or Nano and brought it everywhere

You watched the original Care Bears, My Little Pony, and Ninja Turtles

Yikes pencils and erasers were the stuff!

All your school supplies were "Lisa Frank" brand.

You begged your parents for a new Beanie Baby every week.

You remember a time before the WB.

"Are You Afraid of the Dark?" was the scariest show ever.

You know the Macarena. (BPB people automatically get this one :-p)

"Talk to the hand."

You hoped Brain would finally take over the world.

You always said, "Then why don't you marry it!"

You wondered why the plastic Slinky didn't make it down the stairs like the metal one.


When we were younger...

We all wanted L.A. Gear... and L.A. Lights

You weren't allowed to get British Knights (BK) shoes because they looked like gang shoes.

We rented VHS tapes, not DVDs.

Gas was $0.95 a gallon and Caller ID was a technological revolution.

We recorded stuff on VCRs & paid $3.50 for a movie.

We called the radio station to request songs to hear off our walkmans.

2Pac and Biggie were still alive.

The Chicago Bulls were the best team ever.

We had something called The Dream Team.

Tag.

The phrase "Get Over Here!!!!" means something to you.

Hide-n-Go Seek at dusk.

Red Light, Green Light.

Heads Up 7 Up.

Playing Kickball & Dodgeball until your porch light came on.

Hopskotch.

REAL Slip-n-Slides

Hula Hoops.

"POWER OF LOVE" BY CELINE DION..ONLY COUPLES COULD SKATE TO THIS.

Annoying Nano Pets & Furbies.

When Mufasa died in The Lion King, you cried... in a movie theater.

Happy Meals where you chose a Barbie or a Hot Wheels car.

Squeeze It and CapriSun


We watched...

Saturday Morning Cartoons in your PJ's still wrapped up in your TMNT, Power Rangers, Barbie, Fairy Princess comforter.

Woody Woodpecker and Chilly Willy

ThunderCats

Hey Arnold!

Rugrats

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

More specifically, Bulk and Skull and Ernie the Juice Bar guy

CHiPs

Garfield and Friends


Or what about:

The Secret Life of Alex Mack

Ren & Stimpy

Double Dare

Family Double Dare

Rocco's Modern Life

Aaahh! Real Monsters

Wild & Crazy Kids

Clarissa Explains it All

Salute Your Shorts ("Caaaamp Anawaaaanaaaa...")

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

The ORIGINAL cast members of All That.

More specifically, "Vital Information" with Lori Beth Denberg.

Doug

The Magic School Bus

Nick Arcade.

The Adventures of Pete and Pete.

Legends of the Hidden Temple.

Hey Dude

Dinosaurs.

Pinky and the Brain.

Sailor Moon.

Blossom.

Hangin' With Mr. Cooper.

Wishbone.

Bill Nye the science guy!

Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood!

Who could forget Snick?

And the original Nick @ Nite with Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Get Smart, The Facts of Life and I Love Lucy.

Where everyone wanted to be in love after watching The Wonder Years.

Nick Jr... with Face

Gullah Gullah Island

Under the Umbrella Tree

Pee-Wee's Mother-F'ing Playhouse

The Big Comfy Couch



Go back to the time when:

Kool-Aid was the drink of choice.

Wearing your new shoes on the first day of school.

When Christmas was the most exciting time of year.

When $5 seemed like a million, & another dollar a miracle.

When you begged to go to McDonalds for dinner everyday.

When Toys R Us was cooler than the mall.

Decisions were made by going 'eeny-meeny-miney-moe'.

Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming 'do over!'

'Race issue' ment arguing about who ran the fastest.

Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in Monopoly.

It wasn't odd to have two or three "best" friends.

Being "old" referred to anyone over 20.

A chance to skate as a couple at the local roller rink was like winning the lottery.

Scrapes & bruises were kissed & made better.

Where the best form of protection was "circle circle dot dot now I've got my cootie shot, circle circle square square now I've got it everywhere"

It was a big deal to finally be tall enought to ride the 'big people' rides at the fair.

When playing Nintendo was the hardest thing ever.

When Ninja Turtles ruled the world. Who'd have thought you'd miss the 90s so much?

One line of code. hmmm.
I'm going to miss programming. Another end of an era.
Even though I'm still very very good at writing code in several languages, I can't do it. I don't know the stupid lingo.
That's what happens when you work in a vacuum.
Sonny was talking about how he took a valve off with a 380.
I asked him what a 380 was. He said it was a big pair of channel locks. I asked him why he didn't just say that? He said, cause he calls it a 380.
My point here is, that most people know what a channel lock is. They know its a big pair of pliers.
By Sonny using the lingo of 380 to describe a pair of channel locks, he alienated his audience, me, all for the sake of sounding like an expert.
And that, is what programming has done. It's alienated me with its stupid lingo.
An example of insane lingo in programming: If variable = "" Then ...
Now, programming lingo calls this a conditional statement. I call it an If statement.
Next year the lingo might call this a expressionate. I'd still call it an If statement.
Who would you rather talk to, someone that knows the lingo, or me?
If I wrote a manual on programming, it would be very precise, and compact.
It wouldn't be as beefy as the books you buy at Amazon...ya know, those 5,000 page monsters that would take a year to read.

Look out!

It's my BIG 50. I'm 50 cents short of a dollar today.
Strange, how I don't feel like an old fart at all.

It was pretty cool.
He kind of looks like me in the morning, doesn't he?

The technology I've added to this site is being developed elsewhere.
- The flexible menu exists in the Google Toolbar.
- The multiple search engine feature exists in Firefox.
- Its just a matter of time before easier ad placing follows suit.
Then there's the question of why my site doesn't show up in the search engines. Crap blog entries from other sites show up  before my site gets listed. I've read the Page Rankings formula. I followed its procedures. Still nothing.

Stove: $150
Refrigerator: $400
Curtains: $200
Genie Garage Opener: $159.98
Front Door: $150
Closet Doors: $250

The travelling notary public that we saw was twenty four, pulling down more money than I did in programming.
It takes about 1 week to study the material. In some states, you simply just sign a piece of paper and pay a fee.
You can make $100,000 a year these days, doing loans. Its a very good business.

What to do now? Hmmm.
In this life, I'm in a never ending delusion of control and its all good.

+ Heartland Express - Pay is around 44 cents a mile. Home every week. Good things
+ Barr-Nunn - Pay is around 47 cents a mile. Home every week. Good things.
+ Knight Transportation - Pay is good. Home every week.
+ Averitte Express - Good Pay. Home every week.
+ FeEx - Decent Pay. Home every week.
+ UPS - hmmm. Good Pay. Home every week.
- CFI - Low Pay. Home every month.
- CR England - Very Low Pay. Home every month.
- Swift - Low Pay. BiMonthly
- Ozark - Home Bimonthly.
- Werner - Medium Pay. Bimonthly.

I've been noticing the truck drivers along the way.
Many are older, male, caucasion. Some are couples.
Though they are professional drivers, many of them aren't paying attention.
A lot of them drive while on the cell phone.
It looks like there's plenty of room to be the best in this field.
Yesterday, we watched two movies coming from Oklahoma City.
It makes the time fly by.
Its easy to pay attention, because most of the time, I'd just be listenning to the movie.
We have surround sound in the truck.
I think my plan will be
- Get a CDL. After being in Missippi and talking to these guys, I know it isn't rocket science.
- Buy a truck outright.
- I want 500hp, 70"s headroom, Laptop station, GPS. It just makes sense.
- A rear view cam and an approximity monitor would be a good, cheap investment too.
One of the things I did right after deciding my Programming career
Was to investigate what was needed to become the best. Taking typing and accounting seemed obvious.
The same thing should be true with driving.
I think at this stage of life, I just want to fade away. I don't want power, advancement, or any of the things I wanted when I was younger. I just want back some of the life I missed while being a cube dweller.