bob mcgeeney

Trucking - The Fifth Wheel

[Thu Sep 5 03:19:15 PM CDT 2024] So what is this fifth wheel thing? It is the mechansism mounted between the frame rails behind the cabin or the sleeper berth. It is extremely strong and is used to connect a trailer kingpin to the tractor. Tractor rear view

So when the trailer is at a proper height using it's landing gear, the driver backs under the trailer until the kingpin locks into the fifth wheel. A proper locking of the kingpin to the fifth wheel is exceedingly important. A good driver will hook the trailer and the get out of the truck, climb underneath the trailer and confirm the kingpin which is typically 36 inches from the front off the trailer. King Pin Picture

The king pin is welded to a the square steel plate, and in turn welded to the trailer. A 36 inch (914.4 mm) pin is standard but if you order a new trailer, or find a 30 inch (762 mm) pin in my opinion is much better for many reasons I won't go into here.

The Fifth Wheel Alone The picture on the left is a actual fifth wheel, you'll notice the locking jaw, and the release handle. Here is where a meat hook often came in handy for me. The fifth wheel is suspended on to pivoting trunion bearings, allowing it to tilt forward and backwards. The is to provide pitch of the tractor to the trailer. Furthermore the flat surface of the fifth wheel needs to be greased periodically for making turns or the yaw axis. This entire assemble can to moved forward and backwards by releasing locking pins on a rack.

These pins are pneumatically released by a switch on the drivers dashborad. What this does is shift weight onto the front axle, or off same. The best and optimal position is center the kingpin equally between the two drive axles. Don't forget to re-engage the locking pins.

Born Republican

[Sat April 6 06:46:18 PM CDT 2024] For those who don't know, Abraham Lincoln was the founder of (The GOP, The Grand Old Party). Also known as The Republican Party. He became the 16th president (1861–1865) and first Republican to hold the office, thus making American Politics a two party system. I've never been intested in politics, but I do claim to be a Republican. I quote, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states are, and henceforward shall be free.

So moving on... Americans are supposed to know The Pledge of Allegiance which states, I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So this does not mean you're free to do anything you f***ing want NO.. Justice for all means break the law and there will be consequences and victims will and should get justice. This applies to LEGAL citizens. It's actually on the test to get citizenship. Yeah, there is a test! Liberals, some democrats, illegal aliens et al,, think oh well we'll just cancel that sh*t and do it their way. WRONG, rules are rules. Wake the hell up Americans.

King Of The Road Peterbilt 389

2024 Peterbilt [Sat Mar 30 04:46:18 PM CDT 2024] This is a no frills Model 389 Peterbilt. You can get all sorts of options. Depending on a choice of two engines it's rated at 400 - 605 hp. Engines are a choice of Paccar (Paccar is the company that builds these trucks), and Cummins are available. The base configuration transmissions are 10 to 18 speed automatic. You can get a manual thank God. In my opinion, Paccar/Peterbilts are not what they used to be. They have always been over-rated and very expensive. If I was in the market I would buy a older model or switch to Kenworth W900.
There has always been a rivalry between Peterbilt, and all the rest. International Trucks, Freightliner et al. The one truck I will have nothing to do with is Volvo. I've driven all of these except Volvo and all were good looking and fast! All or most of these trucks, with amenities will cost you well over $100,000.00 USD. The Peterbilt drives like a dream but then again so do the others. With the price of fuel and everything else such as an abundance of idiot 4-wheelers and school taught truck drivers out there, I really don't miss it, but it was fun in the old days when we didn't have those damn DOT mandated computer tattle tales in the truck. That really must suck. On top of that the swinging beef days are long gone, personally I liked hauling swinging, never had a problem. Happy trails to you drivers out there. The country cannot do without you.

BeechCraft King Air 320

King Air [Mon Mar 18 12:07:04 PM CDT 2024] I have always been an aviation fan, and the picture is a smaller model of the plane I got to fly on which was maybe a 200?. Years ago the company that processed the swinging beef that I hauled for years. My uncle was a cattle buyer for that company. The company owned a smaller version of the KingAir Turbo-Prop, It seated eight people as I recall. So my uncle invited me to take a ride on that plane, it was worth well over 1.5 Million and perfect condition. We left the company's home base, flew to Chicago, dropped off some shoppers then flew direct to Louisville, Kentucky. After a couple hours my uncle concluded his business and took of for Chicago, Illinois.

The Captain's name was Bill Anderson and after he flew us up to maybe 7 to 10,000 feet, at well over 250 miles per hour. It so happens no aircraft is permitted to exceed 250 mph under 5,000 feet. Anyway, the captain asked me if I wanted to sit in the capatain's seat, of course I accepted. The plane had very modern avionics and it was on auto-pilot naturally, but that was so fun. The picture is a 320 model, about the only visable difference is the number of seats/windows. In my opinion, I'll take this type of airplane over any big jet. You can see a current King Air 260 here.

Sanctuary Cities

ICE [Tue Feb 27 07:15:56 PM CST 2024] According to Center For Immigration Studies, and I quote, These cities, counties, and states have laws, ordinances, regulations, resolutions, policies, or other practices that obstruct immigration enforcement and shield criminals from ICE — either by refusing to or prohibiting agencies from complying with ICE detainers, imposing unreasonable conditions on detainer acceptance, denying ICE access to interview incarcerated aliens, or otherwise impeding communication or information exchanges between their personnel and federal immigration officers.

Initially this appeared to be well intentioned but stupid. Berkeley, California was the first to pass a resolution designation as a Sanctuary City in 1971. More cities passed similar resolutions in the 1980's. No thanks to our now open borders, things are out of control. Criminals are ransacking these cities and not being held accountable. Or the commit felonies elsewhere and flee to these cities. We are in a crisis thanks to the Biden administration. It is a out of control travesty nationwide.

Rules And Tips For Truckers

[Sun Nov 12 4:43:09 PM CST 2023] A good place to start is here The Department of Transportation. Peterbilt

Heaven only knows todays rules and regulations for commercial carriers are numerous. Much of the information can be found at The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. But wait, there is much more. Some things any good driver knows. You should mark in your logbook a 15 minute vehicle inspection every day. I put this at the bottom line 'on duty not driving.' Atleast once a day you should do a walk around of your tractor trailer looking for anything broken. Inspect your tires, use a tire bat found at any truck stop. I used a meat hook. Thump each tire, if you hear a dead thump the tire is probably flat. As for wheels, Budd wheels are the de facto choice, they are a one piece wheel, on dual wheel setups the inner wheel is tightend by a stud with left hand threads. The outer wheel butts against the inner wheel over the stud and tightened with right handed threads. The wheels to avoid are dayton and Webb wheels. The main thing to watch for is rust working it's way out from behind loose lugs nuts. They are easy to spot. Due to water getting behind and between the nut and wheel small rust trails a few inches long created by centrifugal force means one or both lug nuts are loose. The rust streaks will be in a radial pattern. Last but not least is do not make U-turns, it's murder on your tires, make 3-point turns. Thats it for now. Happy trails.

Halloween And Truckers

[Sat Oct 28 3:29:09 PM CDT 2023]

Halloween happens to be the most dangerous night of the year for truckers and passenger vehicles but trucks are the favorite targets. You may ask yourself why? The holiday is celebrated on Tue, Oct 31 and it's been my experience kids love to toss pumpkins off overpasses at night attempting to hit vehicles as they drive underneath. You may see police cars sitting on these overpasses to keep this from happening.

About all you can do as you approach these these overpasses is look for kids hiding on top of the overpass and look for pumpkin fragments on the road. What I do is switch lanes at the last possible second and hope they miss you. I've never been hit but I've seen the debris and police cars on top and below these overpasses. If you're hauling swinging beef DO NOT switch lanes too fast, or you will flip over.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

[Thu Aug 17 10:43:30 AM CDT 2023] What is going on with America's economy? I am no expert, nor am I a conspiracy theorist but our economy is failing and has been for years. First of all this country is 32 trillion dollars in debt. We still continue to borrow more, this can't go on. People think that as long as the stock market is reasonably stable we must be okay. We are far from okay, President Biden says inflation is under control, it is not. The Federal Reserve and the world banks just buy up debt to make the markets seem okay. This debt-based system is by nature, inflationary. So how can our economy be solvent? It can't, but the Preident says everything is under control. Impossable, we import nearly everything and hardly export anything.

The USA has enough oil to meet our needs but we cannot drill for it nor run a pipeline from northern areas of the country, the Keystone Pipeline is a good example. Instead we buy foreign oil and ship it 8,000 miles to feed out energy needs. There are thousands of underground eight inch pipes carrying gas and oil from refineries all over the country, but we cannot pump our own oil? Why not? It is far more dangerous shipping it 8,000 miles, WTF this is a untenable situation. Among other poor decisions the government made is cutting the defense budget while China builds up their nevy, in my opinion China is preparing for war. All of these issues will come crashing down on us. Next stop, Socialism, but that's just my opinion. Peace.

Debian Linux

debian [Thu Jul 27 07:44:54 PM CDT 2023] Debian, also known as GNU Linux Debian Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. Source: Wikipedia. To be clear Linux it is just a kernel around which a distrobution runs on. Linux and it's approximately 500 to 600 different distrobution, Many of which are based of Debian Linux, the distro I use exclusively. So what makes Linux special? For one thing it's free and open-source software. You can install tons of programs very easily. All programs in each distrobution are cryptographically signed. Debian has roughly 60,000 programs you can choose and install as you wish.

I admit Linux has a rather steep learning curve, but it is worth the effort. Virus software is virtually not needed. It has software that Microsoft does not have, it would cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars to have on Windows. Linux is extremely stable, reboots are rarely needed. Books are written about Linux and what it can do, the best advice I got in my earlier days was Be careful what you type, you just might get it. The overall feeling from Windows users is you have to learn a million commands, while that may be true there are GUI apps that can do pretty much anything you may need to do. So if you are sick of MicroSoft, give a Linux distro a try. There are tons of tutorials out there and with Debian there is a entire community out there to help you out. If you want something more new user friendly try Ubuntu Linux.

Chicago Winter Of 1978-79

Propane Molecule [Sun 28 May 2023 10:43:20 AM CDT] It was early in my trucking career when I bought a 1978 R Model Mack truck. I only had 2+ years of driving semi-trucks at the time for Freymiller Trucking running west coast as second seat driver, I was only 19 years old at the time.. After a couple years and purchasing the Mack, I left Freymiller and leased it to Kaney Fuel Transport, Rockford Illinois, which took some convincing that being only 22 years old now they took me on. This brings me to the winter of 1978 which was nasty.

In wintertime, propane orders really stack up. Propane which is the molecule in the graphic (H₃C₈). So I had been hauling propane on short runs between Chicago and Rockford Illinois for weeks. Illinois Highway Patrol was shutting down highways by 5pm due to drifting snow and extreme cold. It was mid-afternoon on a Friday, the company fleet had shut down due to weather. I asked my dispatcher if he has anything left. He told me of a TV station on a gravel road that was heating with propane and was about to shutdown because thet were nearly out of propane and none of the company trucks didn't want to attempt to reach them. I accepted the challenge to reach them so I loaded up about 8,000 gallons. When I got to the TV station I had to blind side back the trailer into their parking lot, back it around a dozen cars, then up hill around the back of the building then try to get close enought to their tank for my hoses to reach.

I made it by a few inches. Their tank was down to 1 per cent, hardly enough for a day before they would run out and shutdown. I filled that tank to 100 per cent which you are not supposed to do. You are supposed to leave vapor credit in case it warms up, If the liquid propane expands a relief valve opens, spewing highly flammable propane. Needless to say they were extremely happy to be rescued, thanking me and signing my paperwork. I was a bit worried about filling them to 100 per cent so I called dispatch and informed him, but he said not to worry, the temperature was supposed to drop and the station was going to use a few per cent right away, not to worry. End of story, that topped off a very profitable week for me. Read about that winter. Chicago Winter 78-79

Pro Stock Racers

[Wed Dec 27 4:56:18 PM CST 2023] As a long time NHRA National Hot Rod Association fan, my favorite team was Reher-Morrison. As 2024 racing season approaches I'm looking forward to watching drag racing. While the Reher-Morrison Pro Stock team may have retired after 50 years of racing I had the opportunity to meet them in the 80's. Here is the short story.

I met Buddy Morrison, and David Reher and their current driver at the time, Lee Shepherd in Ohio. I was coming back from a trip to New York City, as I hauled ass across pennsylvania I passed a race car hauler, waved and kept going. Turns out I stopped at a rest area just across the Ohio border for a quick 10-100 and vending machine junk food when I bumped into a couple big guys wearing Reher-Morrison t-shirts along with a smaller man. The short guy turned out to be Lee Shepherd, Pro Stock NHRA driver.

I asked the guys if that was their race trailer I passed in Pennsylvania, they said yes. Turns out they were headed to the Norwalk Ohio track, having just raced at English Town, New Jersey. This was so cool! I shook their hands, wished them luck at the race, mentioned I was a fan of theirs. Really great guys. Sadly, some weeks or months later I heard Lee Shepherd was killed making 60 foot practice passes at some track which I forget. Needless to say, I was stunned, he was a championship driver. I've always wondered what went wrong, so sad. On the bright side Reher and Morrison have a great business going and they build killer engines. R.I.P. Lee.

The Last Of The Chevrolet Camaro

[Tue Dec 19 04:01:44 PM CST 2023] Apparently the 2024 ZL1 will be the last Camaro to roll off the line. In honor of the sixth-generation Camaro's production run in 2024, Chevrolet is offering a final unique Collector's Edition on the LT/RS, LT1, SS, and ZL1 versions in North America. What a pity, the "Poor Man's Corvette" has come to it's end after it's 6th generation. I was lucky enough to own a 2nd generation 1970 z28. I've always been a Chevrolet fan. I guess it's demise is due to the demand for SUV's for soccer mom's etc.

The 2024 Chevy Camaro Collector’s Edition sports a 6.2 Liter V8 making 650 horsepower. The El Dorado Edition is limited to 350 units, MSRP of $78,000 dollars USD. Ouch, higher versions sell for much more. Order one now right! Yeah, sure. Click on the picture to see the full size picture of this beauty.

Immaculate 1946 Ford

[Mon Dec 4 11:14:05 AM CST 2023] 46Ford

As a long time Chevrolet fan I do not see restored modified Chevrolets that compare to this 1946 Ford, not around here anyway. There is a reason I suppose, that reason being the car is too expensive to roam the streets. So I was very surprised to see this car up close. This Ford came off the assembly line a very long time before I was born.

So, as far as the car. All the factory badges are gone, the door handles have been shaved in true hot rodder fashion. The body sheet metal is flawless, being a base coat black paint, the sheet metal MUST be perfect. Black is the most difficult color to paint, the reason is black paint will reveal any imperfections in the body metal. Wait, there's more, in the shade, meaning no direct sunlight on it, the car is super gloss black, when sunlight hits the paint you'll see the red underneath. You can see the red reveal itself in the picture. We are talking thousands of dollars just in the paint job. Tack on fifty hours of body work prior to paint atleast.

I happen to have seen this in a parking lot, no owner around. Inside the building I spotted who must have been the owner. I had a few minutes to talk to him about the car. It so happens I was expecting a flat head ford but he said he tried, but it wouldn't fit so it got a small block Chevy engine. I'm not a fan of the white wall tires, but they are period correct. I never got to see the interior due to tinted windows, but it's one sweet Ford.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Debian Linux

Chicago Winter Of 1978-79

Big Trucks And Tourists

[Sat 28 Aug 2021 08:59:31 PM UTC -0500] Now I have nothing against tourists on the highways in particular, except for the fact trucks are out there on business, not pleasure. We basicaly live on highways, tourists are often taking the longest and seldom taken trips. Apparently they follow trucks to avoid cops. Maybe they think we know where they are, or they just follow (too closely). As a trucker, or the tourist this is dangerous for a few reasons. 1) They cannot see what is in front of that truck and decide to pass precisely when I need to. That's a problem, they suddenly see why I slowed down and stay in the left lane along side me, then I'm locked in the right lane. This is inherently dangerous. 2) By following trucks too closely, the car is getting their paint and windshield hammered with dust and rocks or whatever the draft from the truck is stirring up or heaven forbid, get a blown tire off the truck through their windshield. 3) It's just a stupid thing to do. If you have a radio, at least talk to the trucker so he or she knows whats up. In my experience a great majority of accidents happen from following too closely. Just don't do it. If you do, keep your distance.

Combustion versus Explosion

[Wed 04 Aug 2021 05:06:51 PM UTC -0500] I write this article because I am hearing too many engine builders, racers, et cetera call what happens inside a gasoline engines' combustion chamber an explosion. It is NOT an explosion, it is a carefully designed and fast moving flame ignited by a spark plug which ignites an air/fuel mixture and travels evenly across the piston and combustion chamber causing the expansion of gases to force a piston into it's bore. This flame travels at approximately 88 feet per second (ft/sec). This is relatively slow combustion compared to actual explosives.

Lets compare 88 ft/sec to an actual explosion, take TNT for example (Trinitrotoluene), it expands at 8800 ft/sec. Pretty big difference right! So it irritates me when these professionals call combustion an explosion. Semantics perhaps, but a huge difference. Being a gearhead and having built engines myself and tuned many there is a stark difference in the two. Just wanted to clear the air on the subject.

Trucking Hazardous Materials

HazMat Placard [Sun 18 Jul 2021 04:03:34 PM UTC -0500] During my trucking career I usually pulled refrigerated trailers hauling meat, produce etc., which I've previously mentioned. During my years trucking I spent approximately five years pulling tankers. Albeit extremely dangerous, it paid very well. Among the products hauled consisted of gasoline, diesel fuel, propane, toluene, anhydrous ammonia among others. Without going into boring detail I will say anhydrous ammonia (NH₃) is argueably the most dangerous. Although the stuff isn't flammable it will burn the hell out of you despite it being -200f below 0 degrees. The vapors alone will kill you, one whiff of vaporized anhydrous and your lungs literally lock up, you cannot breath it.

If you can't escape the white cloud it turns into when it's exposed to atmospheric pressure, you will die. Propane also pays well but as with all hazardous materials extreme caution must be taken or you die and probably others also. So if you're thinking of getting into that business, be prepared for a steep learning curve. Also I failed to mention with gasoline and diesel fuel the driver is resposible for loading and unloading product. With compressed gases and chemicals, the place you load at is done by the plant operators, unloading is up to the driver alone. Your hoses cannot leak, you can't over fill any tank, and must calculate the expansion of the product due to temperatures. Any mistake at this point can be deadly.

Total Disaster

[Wed 14 Jul 2021 10:54:05 PM UTC -0500] So, a couple weeks ago, I trashed my system and didn't have a backup snapshot to restore the system so I rebuilt everything. The backup files I had were a bit dated so I lost some articles. Good lesson for me to keep better backups. Anyway, that said I'll try to get writing when I finish ironing out the final touches on this machine. I still have some fine tuning to do. Mostly security stuff. It's amazing when you see the system logs of all the script kiddies trying to hack the box. That's what they do after all. More to come.

Dubuque County Fairgrounds Speedway

[Mon 17 May 2021 11:50:22 AM CDT] The picture on the left is a picture of a very good friend's race car. The car is a IMCA Modified, racing at a county fairgrounds 3/8th mile high banked dirt track. I was fortunate enough to work on the pit crew for this car and a couple pro stock cars the gentleman in the picture built. I dont care to use the man's name on the Internet, but I sincerely appreciated being part of his crew at the tracks he raced at.

I learned a ton of things working on his race cars when I wasn't on the road. At the time this picture was taken the racetrack was under NASCAR sponsorship, Racing for NASCAR points and money was really exciting, although NASCAR purses were smaller than other tracks. With NASCAR cash is king, so racers make less but the prestige makes up for smaller winnings. After all, it's about racing, and not completely money but the money helps. Its a damn expensive, time consuming sport. Click on the picture for a better view.

Ransomware - The Big Money Hack

[Thu 13 May 2021 11:01:17 AM CDT] One week ago Colonial Pipeline was hit by an alleged Russian hacker group known as Darkside. It seems ransomware is the popular thing these days. There is more money in it than the usual and also prevalent password, credit card number hacks etc. A great majority of these hacks would not happen if the target networks and computers were not so woefully insecure. Colonial Pipeline was penetration tested, security audited in 2018. Colonial was advised of 328 issues, but apparently did little to correct it. It is very very rare than one recovers from ransomware. Once a network is penetrated due to poor administration, code is injected, files are encrypted by very strong cyphers which are invariably impossible to crack. The only options are pay the ransom in bitcoin or restore from uninfected backups. I find it curious that no one has revealed the ransom amount, which I'm relatively certain is in the millions.

The same hacker group claimed three more networks today, one of them in the US. The number of american networks victimized by ransomware are many. The majority of these are reluctant to admit they were victims, and they pay the ransom in bitcoin which is virtually untraceable and hope the perpetrators send the key to decrypt their files. Most if not all of this can be avoided by proper security precautions, up to date software, and competent computer and network system administrators. We pay for that now or pay twice later. That is the bottom line and ransomware will continue as long as companies don't secure their systems.

The Police and the Public

[Thu 16 Apr 2021 12:50:21 AM CDT] It is an unfortunate fact that in most if not all societies in today's world need law enforcement. That said, it is incumbent on society to be aware of the fact that when a city or state hires a police department that society and or populace agrees to abide by the laws dictated by city, state, and federal law. This includes in no uncertain terms that when a peace officer gives you an order or command you, the citizen must comply.

Should an individual feel the order or command given is unfair, or illegal, you have the right to argue that in front of a judge, but you do that later. In the meantime you follow those commands like it or not. Argue it later, it's your constitutional right. It is NOT your right to ignore or disregard orders given by a peace officer. I am painfully aware that some officers can be overzealous or use excessive force. HOWEVER, this rarely happens when one complies with the authorities. Police officers have a very difficult duty to perform, their life can be and is on the line daily. If you don't want trouble, make those authorities comfortable, don't argue, do not make them uncomfortable because they will respond and probably not in a nice way. Do not ask for trouble.

These are things the public seems to have lost sight of. The majority of schools and universities do not teach civics and government. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, although it seems today's me ~~generation~~ culture is unaware of the fact that the people hire police to do their job and you have directly or indirectly given authorities permission to give you orders. This is a fact whether you know it or not. Be cool, they will be cool. Remember this, the police have to recruit from the human race, they are not infallable. I'm no angel, I've had experiences with good and not so good cops, but when I treat them with respect, they return in kind. Your mileage may vary.

Internet Relay Chat - IRC

[Tue 13 Apr 2021 05:51:21 PM CDT] Most people don't know about IRC, it predates Facebook and all the other social media sites. I started on UnderNet.Org where I learned about everything I know about computers. Now and for years I hangout on Freenode.net. Freenode is a world-wide network as undernet is but it is mainly a tech network but there are many social channels as well. IRC networks allow you to create, register if you wish, your own channel, and control who gets in and who doesn't. IRC has a rather steep learning curve for the un-initiated but there is much to learn. A friend of mine in Tunisia hosts a small network where I hangout and who I've learned a lot from. You can try his network from this website, http://Tchat.ZIDnet.ovh. Pay no attention to a warning your browser may give you, it is perfectly safe and easier to use than an actual IRC Client, of which there are many. By the way, be prepared to speak French.

Does Instagram Leak Phone Numbers?

[Thu 11 Mar 2021 07:12:19 PM CST] Answer: I think so, here's why. I signed up with Instagram yesterday using my phone number instead of email. I did this with two factor authentication in mind. So I get a code via smartphone to login. Less than 24 hours later I get about five robo-calls, which I don't answer, but two numbers left voice mails telling me, We will be forced to take legal action if you don't call this number. Well, this isn't the first time I've had these these calls, few leave threatening voicemails though. So, their numbers are blocked, but I do not think this was coincidence. Instagram seems to be leaking numbers. I don't do social media of his sort although I do use IRC. This is one reason why I don't use these services, they aren't to be trusted. I joined strictly because my daughter is on it. Just a word to the wise, join social media platforms and give up your privacy. This is just an example.

Department of Motor Vehicles

[Tue 02 Mar 2021 02:38:13 PM CST] The DMV, the place where everyone dreads to tread. So I pull into the parking lot pulling an empty gasoline trailer, I hauled chemicals and fuels for years but that's not the story. I walk in and I see every chair in the place was taken, probably about 20 to 25 people. I thought, damn this may take forever. I was just there to renew my license. So I stroll up to the desk, turns out my license was 31 days expired. In my state they give you 30 days grace period to renew or you take the written tests over again. Despite my plea to cut me some slack they of course refused, so I said okay I'll need these tests. I need operator, chauffeur, motorcycle, tractor-trailer, tankers, and hazardous materials, (Haz-Mat). Everything but double-trailers I told them.

I wasn't aware of the one computer terminal in the front of all those people still chewing on their pencils. They told me to use that, and they would send all the tests to it. Great I thought, I don't want to wait for an empty chair. I walk over to the computer and start ripping through the tests. I finished in maybe twenty or thirty minutes. Still, nobody sitting had finished what looked like one test on their desk!!! Amazing, anyway, I go to the counter and tell them I'm done. I passed everything with about three wrong answers. I looked at my mistakes and realized I hadn't read the questions properly, I did know the right answers. Well, I do the eye check, get my picture taken, pay them and they hand me the license. Walking out of that office, the SAME people were still working on a test. Amazing in a scary way. That's who you share the road with, awesome right!

Block IP Addresses With Linux Nftables

[Sat 06 Feb 2021 04:23:10 PM CST] As an avid Linux Operating System user, I recently migrated from an iptables firewall to the more recent packet filtering and firewall software to nftables. I tossed my old firewall rules and started fresh. The only stumbling block was to figure out how to block entire ip addresses, with or without a bit mask. Turns out after much googling and finding nothing but cryptic documentation the answer was simple. Here's how, I load my firewall configuration from /etc/nftables.conf, Instead of using the userspace nft binary, I simply added my rule in the incoming packet chain above rules that allow specific traffic. Reason being, rule sets are processed in the order they appear, so you want this rule above and before rules allowing packets in, such as http, https, ssh protocols etc. First, as root (or using sudo) open your configuration file with any non-formatting editor of course and add this line:

ip saddr { xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx,xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx } drop

Where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is any ip you do not want past your firewall. In this example there are two addresses which are blocked from all 65,535 ports saddr is the source address. Curly braces seem to be required for more than one ip. Also use one tab indentation on that line. IP's are separated with commas. At the end is the verdict, which could be one of many but we want to drop the packets on the floor. As in iptables the drop directive is case-sensitive. Save and close the file and run systemctl reload nftables.service Then check your ruleset with nft list ruleset -a as root. Rules will be listed with a handle number which the kernel assigns automatically. The handles are used when you use the nft command from userspace, which we just conveniently by passed. For complete details check out netfilter.org. Nftables are awesome in my opinion, forget iptables. There are ways to translate iptable rules to nftables, but I hear that can be somewhat buggy. I hope this helps.

Newport, Rhode Island

Newport,_Rhode_Island [Fri 29 Jan 2021 10:22:20 AM CST] Located on the shores of Narragansett Bay, south of the capital of Providence and 75 miles south of Boston, is one of the most beautiful cities on the east coast of America. The bay is full of sailboats and yachts, it has a long history as summer homes of US Presidents. Needless to say I really enjoyed getting loads of nursery stock out of Newport. I'll spare you the details, but the stuff paid well and usually went right back to Chicago. Perfect for me, I would leave Newport with a load and a check in hand for roughly $1000.00. Nursery stock is also an exempt commodity, meaning no Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration authorization needed. What is a exempt commodity you ask? In general, exempt commodities are things that have not been processed in any way such as fresh produce. Authority costs money.

Typically I would layoverone night before loading in the morning. What would I do? Right down on the water front at One Pelham East, is one of the many great clubs I've known. They always had super good bands playing, and it is a great club. The name of the club is the same as it's address, One Pelham East. I highly recommend visiting Newport.

South Water Street Mkt, Chicago

[Mon 28 Dec 2020 09:15:08 AM CST] South Water Street produce market Chicago, was probably one of the the biggest produce markets in Chicago since the early 1920's. I had delivered produce to customers there hundreds of times. Being such a crowded place, a Chicage cop would conduct traffic after daylight. It was a tough place to get a truck and trailer in there. I was there in the late 70's and 80's, I carried a .38 caliber revolver hidden in my sleeper berth as I did in New York City also until Mayor Ed Koch instituted a mandatory one year sentence at Riker's Island located in the lower East River, NYC. if caught in possession of a illegal firearm. I carried it in Chicago too, thankfully I never used it, but the market was a dangerous place. They closed this famous market in about 2001. You can see pictures from way back in it's early years HERE .

2000 Miles and No Sleep

[Sun 20 Dec 2020 10:54:03 AM CST] It's not unusual to run 1500 miles non-stop, but I hadn't expected this trip. I had been running Omaha to New York City for two weeks straight. I got home on a Friday afternoon, I got a decent night's sleep that night but the next morning at 6am my dispatcher calls and asks me if I would hook a trailer that someone didn't show up for. It was Saturday morning and the load was due in Richmond, California Monday morning. This meant I was going to need to run it wih no sleep, just a couple fuel stops. So I haul ass, no pills, just caffeine, I get to Reno, Nevada, I'm dead tired and I start climbing Donner Pass Interstate-80, this is a 25 mile stretch of death, but the weather was good. It was late Sunday night when I reached the summit at Truckee, California. This is where I messed up, my brakes hadn't been adjusted for two weeks and my trailer was brand new, with adjusted brakes.

I should have stopped and adjusted the tractor brakes but that's a dirty job and it was cold up there and I was dead tired so I started down the Humboldt which is about a 6 per cent downhill grade for miles. I could tell I had a tailwind, it's called the Diablo Winds they blow from the mountains to the ocean, in southern California they're called the Santa Ana winds. I had no jake brake to slow me down like most west coast trucks have, so I started down in seventh gear using as little braking as possible, but my 78,000 pound truck was speeding up fast, I had to pick up gears to keep from blowing the engine up due to overspeed and laying on more brakes. Well, the trailer brakes were doing all the work, I hit 90 miles per hour and the trailer brakes start billowing smoke, using as little brake as possible, I'm sure I was doing over 100mph. Finally got to the bottom but the smoke was still thick, but no fire. I'm coasting trying to cool them off but they were still hot by the time I hit Sacramento. I made Richmond at 3am. Just another day at the office, but my dispatcher was happy, as was the customer. Never under estimate Donner Pass.

Slipping and Sliding in Illinois

[Sat 28 Nov 2020 3:35:44 PM CST] It was an extremely cold night heading north in Illinois on I-57. A blizzard had passed through and left a few inches of ice and snow on the road, it was still snowing and blowing as I was coming out of Forida to Chicago. I was taking the long way to Chicago due to conditions that night and I kind of knew I wasn't going to make it, so I was aiming for the truck stops in Effingham, Illinois. Everything was going well considering the snow plows and everyone was off the highway. I was making good progress, running 50 mph maybe when I catch up to five freight haulers running about one truck length apart. The right lane was rutted with ice and snow so those boys were just easing on up the highway. I put my truck in the fast lane and passed them all naturally. About twenty miles later, and maybe five miles short of safety, my engine loses a lot of power. I thought, oh man, my fuel is gelling up, so I eased onto the shoulder ever so careful and got out to close up my winterfront. A winterfront is a sheet of vinyl that covers the air inlet to the radiator. I got back in the truck and prayed it was enough to warm up the fuel, the throttle was still lazy so I waited a few more minutes and sure enough, here comes the freighthaulers. They all went by, not a word on the radio, no surprise there. I seemed to have some power now, so it was do or die to get to the truck stop and pour some additive in my fuel tanks. I pulled back on the road and get to the interchange of I-70 and I-57, and what do I see, all five of the freight wagons were scattered in the ditches. They all looked okay but going nowhere, I was desperate to keep my truck and reefer going, so I run into the truckstop, bought a few quarts of fuel additive and dosed up the engines with it. It would have been foolish to keep going, it was 2am and the roads were basically closed so I found probably the last open spot to park and went to sleep. It was a close call. On the rare ocassions that I actually stay at a truck stop in terrible weather, is that the place will be full of trucks but ONE spot will be open because nobody has the balls to back into it. I can always count on that and I took it. Those guys in the ditch could have walked to safety, so I didn't worry about their fool asses. I had Georgia fuel in the tanks and should have known it would gel, but I didn't know it was quite that bad up north. Next morning I hauled ass to Chicago, unloaded and went home. Another successful trip.

Miami, Florida

[Tue 10 Nov 2020 12:36:25 PM CST] Among the many cities and places in Florida, Dade County, Miami is probably the place I spent the most time in. For three years running I had a regular run from Iowa to Miami, back to Chicago and then home. I typically did this in four to five days, every week. There is one person I miss in particular, his name is Black. Black was a very good friend of mine. He was a lumper, a lumper is a guy that hangs around places that get a lot of truck traffic and ask drivers if they want help loading or unloading their trucks. Black was my man in the 12th avenue market in Miami. I saw him nearly every week when I would pick up produce for my customer in Chicago. For a slight but fair fee, Black would count and load my trailer with whatever I was picking up. Black lived on the street, a street person and a swell guy. He lived in a vacant lot in the back of a straight truck box. I could trust him to load the trailer and watch my truck while I got something to eat or grab some sleep. He was a big guy, nobody messed with Black. On occasion, I'd hang out with him, I got to know him very well and I miss him.

Where I live in the midwest USA, people complain about the heat in the summer. OMG, they don't know real heat and humdity like Dade County. I spent New Years Eve one night in Miami, drinking beer and polishing my truck in a bad neighborhood parked in front of a cold storage place on 72nd street. My last pick up before heading to Chicago. It was 95 degrees at midnight. So humid there was a fog over the city, normal for Miami. I remember that night because a cop stopped and asked me if I knew I was in a bad neighborhood! I said, yes sirs, I certainly do and they smiled left. That's Miami for you. A shout out to my cousin the Professor at U. of Miami. I spent time with him whenever I had time, which was rare. Anyway, those are some memories of Miami.

New York, New York

[Thu 05 Nov 2020 11:54:08 AM CST] A city so nice they named it twice. I have a special place in my heart for NYC. I delivered beef to a great customer on 14th street west, between 9th and 10th Avenues. I also loaded off ships at the east side piers along side the East River. I can't express how exciting New York really is. It has an energy about it, an aura if you will. Nowhere in my experience have I ever been to a more exciting place than New York City. The city that never sleeps, there is always something to do, always places to eat 24/7/365. So many famous people have walked those streets, and still do. The rumor is the New Yorkers are rude, thats not true. The people mind their own business but they are very friendly once they know who are. A fair warning if you ever visit Manhattan, do not look like a tourist, stroll around like you own the place, if you don't you'll be targeted by con artists, thieves, and what not. Don't look like a mark.

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