Author: Going. Walkabout

Comet 2019 Y4

Comets show up all the time and are observed by telescope. The rarity is of “naked eye visible” comets. My personal experience is that they show up about once per decade (click here).

I was due for another comet and it has shown up.

Figure 1.

The media are incorrectly calling it “Comet Atlas”. Search for that name and about three dozen comets will pop up because ATLAS is the acronym for the name of the observing system that discovered it, not that of the comet itself. The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System is – as the name reveals – a project to find asteroids. It does occasionally discover a comet and it finds thousands of supernovas – in other galaxies – none are even close to “naked-eye objects”.

As most nerdy people know, comets frequently defy prediction and disappoint millions of viewers. Thus far, Comet 2019 Y4 has only defied prediction by rapidly brightening far in excess of prediction. Please see graphic below.

Figure 2. Note that “Magnitude” goes to smaller numbers as things get brighter.

The green line plots the predicted brightness. Points in blue are from actual observations. Note that this comet has grown to near naked eye visibility (from a dark sky, not in city lights).

Where to see this? A screen grab of a sky map from Heavens-Above.com for 3/25 to 3/27 (with text and markings by your humble narrator to “Un-nerd” same) appears below.

Figure 3.

Update: I tried, unsuccessfully, to see this comet with binoculars – in glaringly lit-up Houston skies on March 24. The latest brightness observed (by professionals) is Mag. 7.6 as of 3/25. But, it will get brighter, soon.

Update: No luck on the 25th, either.

An up-to-date sky map for locating Comet 2019 Y4 is here.

That Heavens-Above.com map is at the link below:

https://heavens-above.com/comet.aspx?cid=C%2F2019%20Y4&lat=29.737972&lng=-95.633555&loc=Campbell_Patio&alt=25&tz=CST

Hasta Luego,

Steve

The Experience of Cataract Surgery

Steve Campbell February, 2016

   You may never have thought about surgery on your eyes, and with any luck you may never have to experience this problem.  Or, you may be facing this problem and wonder about what to expect.  It sounds very serious and, with any imagination at all you can come up with some really scary possibilities.

Well, you can stop worrying after you read about my surgery.

_________________________________________________________________________

   I vaguely remember – from my very early years – my Great Uncle Ben, who wore what we called “coke bottle bottom” glasses and was legally blind.  He came in to our house one time (yes, somebody drove him there) and he tried to hang his hat on the corner of the mirror on the wall.  I reckon he made out a vague figure of some old man trying to hang a hat there and when in Rome…

  I don’t know what Ben’s ailment was, but I doubt it was cataracts, since surgery has been possible for that, actually for centuries.  I mention him because I, too was losing my vision – and at a younger age (60) than Ben.  In my case, it was cataracts.  I looked up this definition:

“Normally, the lens in the eyes are clear or transparent. However, a cataract is an abnormal clouding or opacity of the eye’s crystalline lens. The opacity can lead to a decrease in vision and possibly blindness.

Cataracts are thought to develop as a result of age-related degenerative alterations to the proteins in the lens. Smoking, diabetes and steroid use may also be contributing factors to the development of cataracts.” (1) 

   It started when I noticed that my eyeglass prescription was quickly becoming inadequate.  In fact, I could now see better without my glasses.  However, the stars at night were now all “doubles” and all oriented the same way.  That orientation changed when I tilted my head.  A natural reaction to double vision – closing one eye – did nothing to change this.  This is called an astigmatism and I thought that was the only problem.  I even tried the Driver’s eye test, and to my surprise, my left eye could not read, nor even tell that the numbers existed.  With the right eye and with both eyes I could clearly read.  At no point did I notice any “clouding”.

  I made a visit to the eye doctor and he found that my vision had changed dramatically, especially on the left.  He also diagnosed cataracts developing in both eyes.  My father had cataracts when he was my age so, I was not surprised.  Worried yes, but not surprised.    While I had been a smoker, I quit in 1994, when my father was permanently on oxygen with chronic obstructive pulmonary syndrome, due directly to 50+ years of smoking.  Oddly, I still smoke in my dreams, but that is another story.  So, I don’t know if smoking did it, or just age, but the eye-doc referred me to a surgeon, who evaluated the left eye and scheduled surgery.

Choices

  There are several ways to do this and it will be your decision how your vision changes.

   First, you can opt, as I did, to have a fixed-focus lens implanted. This will give you 20/20 vision at a distance, but you will still need reading glasses.

   You can have one lens set for distance and one for reading.  That will let you read without glasses, but require glasses for driving.

   You can have a “multi-focal” lenses implanted, eliminating any need for corrective lenses, altogether.

   I did not choose the multi-focal option.  I asked how the eye “selected” which focus to use.  As I understand it, the brain pick which focus to use.  Think of a screen on a window.  You can focus on the view out the window or the screen itself.  I am afraid it was not very convincing.  I can only afford to do this once.  I did know some people with fixed-focus lenses and they seemed quite happy with them.  The multi-focus option also costs more.

  As for the near/far combination option, I figured that if I need glasses for driving, they would be prescription.  And, I would need a spare pair and sunglasses.  However, if I need glasses for reading, I can buy them at most dollar stores or get a six-pack at Sam’s for cheap.

Pre-Op

   As I pointed out to the pre-op crew, everything you do in this place would make your mom yell at you!  Do I put on pajamas?  No, they just cover my street clothes with a hospital gown.  Take off my shoes to go to bed?  No, they just cover those with a couple of shower caps.  The eye is rendered numb by some eye -drops that (rather inappropriately) sting like the Dickens!  After that they roll me off to keep my eye open while they poke it with sharp things.  Mom wouldn’t like that, either.

 Surgery

   The surgery sounds scary at first.  They will break up my natural lens and suck it out with a small tube.  The artificial lens will then be inserted through the same incision where it will expand and anchor itself in the “pouch” where the natural lens had been.  When you add in the fact that I will be conscious and that eye will be open –  I don’t know about you – but that scared the “willies” out of me!

   You may doubt me, but it is not as bad as it sounds.  The anesthesiologist served up an I.V. dose of something that made me think, “Shoot, this ain’t so scary!”.  They stain the natural lens with some dye, so all I “saw” was some shifting colors.  Once the implant lens is in place, the improvement is startlingly, impressively obvious. 

   The colors are suddenly brighter and more vivid.  The implant even allows a bit of the ultraviolet light that a natural lens would block.  During World War two the British used cataract patients to pass secret messages in light that was invisible to everyone else. I did some research on this and could only find a Car Talk puzzler that mentions this phenomenon. (2) I can tell you, though, that I heard this from an Astronomy professor back in the 70’s.  Also, it is mentioned somewhere in Isaac  Azimov’s vast body of work and an Astronomer named Walter Scott Houston used his new “super-vision” to observe stars that “normal” people could not see. (3)

   Comparing the “good” eye to the “bad” one was something I could not stop doing.  The “clouding” of the still-cataract affected eye was now “blindingly” obvious.  The walls in the recovery room were a light brown through the right eye or pure white through left.  The Moon is dirty brown (right) or bright silvery color (left).  The gas flame on the stove is a pale, grayish blue (right) or a deep, rich blue (left).

   You will need someone to drive you home. (And let me take this opportunity to thank Carmen and Cecilia, my drivers for the two separate operations.)  The eye will feel “scratchy” and inflamed for a few days and you may notice the edge of the lens in your peripheral vision.  Bright lights cause some headaches and I wore dark glasses (kindly provided in my hospital “swag bag”) for weeks afterward. 

   They told me that once I had the worst eye fixed, I would notice how bad the other really was.  I did and it got worse, so we did the right eye about two months later.  It is a different and very distinctly visible world, now.  I really did not know what I was missing. This is one thing that has really made me quite happy in the last few months, which have tried my soul otherwise.

  1. Cataracts Definition:     http://www.symptomfind.com/dictionary/c/cataracts/
  2. World War II Car Talk Puzzler: http://www.cartalk.com/content/inky-shadows-mystery
  3. UV Astronomy (scroll down):  http://ehilbert.wso.net/Starlight/deep_sky_wonders.htm

One Climate Fact – Introduction

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Scroll Down for More Posts   –   At the bottom, click “Older Posts”
    Once, I accepted – without examination – the idea that human activities might cause Global Warming.
   A Geologist colleague did not debate me, but rather challenged me to research the topic and come to an informed  conclusion.
   He was right and I am a Geophysicist with the tools, talent and temperament to do such  research.  That was over twenty years ago and I have since “done the math”, “paid my dues”, “done the due diligence” and examined the facts.
   My conclusion is that the idea of Man-made climate change is a political fiction.
   If I can get people to sit still and listen to me present the facts for an hour or so, I can show them (with facts, charts, graphs, data, references and quotes) exactly how I came to that conclusion.  That has happened a few times.  But, most people do not or will not willingly sit in a room and listen to a lecture.  It’s too much like going to school and they spent a large fraction of their youth doing that and most of them don’t want anything to do with further such activity.
   So, I have come up with this idea.  Take ONE FACT about the subject and present it with clarity and completeness.  Then, do that again with another fact.
Scroll down for more posts

I Went Back to Ohio

SteveTrucker2Sign123_Lone

Burbank, Ohio

August 10, 2016 – (“Republished” from the WordPress site on 11/01/2019)

The sentence in Purgatory was complete and I had a load assignment.

My load was sitting on the Yard waiting for someone to haul it to Ohio.  It was due to be there yesterday at 5:00 AM.  It came it from Laredo, having crossed the border from Mexico to the Yard, then apparently sat there until they assigned it to me. I don’t pretend to understand why things happen that way, they just do.

The cargo weighs 31080 pounds and is made up of 3215 pieces on 47 pallets.  It is described as “Freight – All Kinds” and must be maintained at 65° Fahrenheit.  The only clue as to what it is will be the destination – Nabisco.  It is a sealed load that I will probably never see. I did not bother to scale or balance the load, since it made it this far.

The first I do is make a trip plan, so I did that in about an hour.  The fuel stops are picked for me, so mostly I pick my 30 minute break stops (to qualify for the last three hours of driving time) and where I settle for the night for the ten hour break that gets me another eleven for the next day.  By this time I had been awake and busy with the new truck, safety and training for fourteen hours, so the first thing on the trip plan is to go to sleep.

You may find it odd, but I have found that the best time to start a trip is a half hour after midnight.  The road out of town is clear and traffic is at a minimum.  The bars are still open so the patrons are not yet driving.  Things are quiet and calm and that is appropriate for driving an unfamiliar truck on the first leg of a journey of 166 miles.  Usually there is a “deadhead” mileage to add to that, but for this case, it is one mile.  And I didn’t use that much.  As I eased to the stop sign at the gate, the guard came out and waved me to the inbound side because the outbound gate was under repair.  Off to a flying start!

The midnight advantage was working since backing out of the gate would be impossible in the exodus of Purgatory-fleeing drivers all day Monday.  I find the selection of music available on the radio to be unimpressive.  I won’t be the first old man to say this:  Music today is rather disappointing.  The Instructor listened to what “country” music has become.  Willie Nelson it ain’t.

Fortunately, I had found my old CD’s in a closet and brought along a shoebox full.  Call me picky but only maybe six of those are worth hearing more than once.  One is the Dire Straits album “Brothers in Arms”.  It includes “So Far Away” which, back in my Field Work Days (42 days in the jungle/desert/mountains, then 14 in Caracas with Marilu) was “our song”.  It is appropriate these days as well.  I am learning it by heart for an eventual Karaoke recording as an anniversary present.  So, don’t tell her, OK?

I will resort to tactics invented by people who are paid by the word and quote the full lyrics:

  • Here I am again in this mean old town
  • And you’re so far away from me.
  • And where are you when the Sun go down?
  • You’re so far away from me
  • So far away from me
  • So far I just can’t see
  • So far away from me
  • You’re so far away from me.
  • I’m tired of bein’ in love and bein’ all alone.
  • When you’re so far away from me.
  • I’m tired of making out on the telephone
  • And you’re so far away from me.
  • So far away from me
  • So far I just can’t see
  • So far away from me
  • You’re so far away from me.
  • And I get so tired when I have to explain
  • When you’re so far away from me
  • See, you’ve been in the sun and I’ve been in the rain
  • And you’re so far away from me.
  • So far away from me
  • So far I just can’t see
  • So far away from me
  • You’re so far away from me.

I promised more photos but the view from the truck is what?

BurbankTruckStop.jpg

Yep, another truck stop.  And, it’s raining so I will do an album of various truck types – later maybe.

There is a unique feature of the Kenworth passenger seat in combination with the non-piece-of-plywood desk.  Photographing it is difficult, given the close quarters in here, but I’ll try:

DEskAndChair.jpg

You see that the passenger chair rotates to face the desk.  And, yes, it is probably the most comfortable chair you will ever sit in.  I spend ten plus hours a day in its twin and I’ll testify that they went all out on designing these chairs.

Back in Ohio

Steve

Sunspots

Steve Campbell           November 2015  – Updated: December 14, 2019

Introduction

Sunspots have been studied for over 400 years by such notable scientists as Galileo. Many earlier observers had noticed that the sun was occasionally marked with darker spots. But, Galileo spread the word about sunspots and many of his contemporaries subsequently took up regular observations of same.

Observation of Sunspots

Right here is where I will repeat a warning that you may have heard a hundred times before: Do not look directly at the Sun and especially DO NOT look at the Sun in a telescope. The only exception to that last part is where a Qualified Astronomer is using a proper solar filter or is projecting an image from a telescope onto a screen.

That Galileo made use of a telescope around this time was strictly coincidental. Observations of the Sun were done during sunrise and again at sunset when it is possible to notice large sunspots with minimum damage to the eye. The sunlight passes obliquely through the atmosphere and is very much attenuated.

An image of the sun can be projected by a “camera obscura” which is essentially a darkened room with a tiny opening – literally, a “pin hole”- through which the sunlight enters. For reasons we won’t go into here, a pin hole acts like a lens and focuses light. By careful placement of a screen of cloth or paper, a focused image appears, large and bright enough to sketch.   The astronomer Johannes Kepler was known to have used this system to view the sun. In an interesting side note, Kepler thought he was seeing the planet Mercury passing between the Earth and the Sun, instead of a spot on the sun itself. Had he checked on the following day, he would have seen the same spot and because he knew that a Mercury transit would not last a day, he would have seen his error.

The method of projecting an image from a telescope onto a screen was developed by a protégé of Galileo named Benedetto Castelli.

“It was Castelli who developed the method of projecting the Sun’s image through the telescope, a technique that made it possible to study the Sun in detail even when it was high in the sky”. (1)

The following quote explains a bit about the “Sunspot Number” which was established as the metric of sunspot activity.

“Continuous daily observations were started at the Zurich Observatory in 1849 and earlier observations have been used to extend the records back to 1610. The sunspot number is calculated by first counting the number of sunspot groups and then the number of individual sunspots.” (2)

I would be remiss if I did not include actual images of sunspots with this discussion. Figure A shows a recent image of the sun taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). This is a NASA space probe that orbits between the Sun and the Earth constantly monitoring the Earth-facing side of the Sun.

11-22-2015
Figure A: SOHO image for November 22, 2015 22:30 UT

By the method described (Count the groups and multiply by ten then add the number of individual spots), I would estimate the sunspot number to be between 35 and 45. Don’t quote me. I know there are limits to how small individual spots can be and still be counted, but I don’t know what those rules are.

Figure B shows an image of the Sun during the Cycle 23 Maximum.

Peak2001_bigspotfd_prev
Figure B: Cycle 23 Maximum 

I am not sure of the origin of this image, it may not be from the SOHO probe, but in any case, it illustrates the difference between high and low sunspot counts. Again, I don’t do this for a living, but I would guess the count here to be well over 100.

Update Oct 2019:

10_06_2019_SOHO
Figure B.5  Update 10/06/2019  Deep in the Minimum of Cycle 24/25.  In case you were wondering, the sunspot number for this one is zero.

Update 10/06/2019:  Spotless Days plot:

THe following graph requires some explanation.  For the complete version, go to the SILSO Spotless Days Page 

For the mercifully short version read my explanation,  below the graph.

10_06_2019_SILSO_Spotless

The solar cycle, in all its years of observed activity, has had (arguably) two types of cycles.  Those with large peaks and short minimums between – and those with small peaks and long minimums between.  The graph above segregates the two types as averages (the solid red and blue lines) and plots the number af spotless days accumulated in the current cycle (solid green line).  The dotted pale blue and magenta lines are the “standard deviation” plots for the low-peak minimua (cyan) and high-peak minima (magenta).  “Standard deviation” is what science nerds say instead of “what is reasonable to expect”.  As you see, the current Solar Minimum has just revealed itself to be a big minimum like the other low-peak mimina.

Conclusion:  The chart indicates a long current minimum, with more than normal spotless days (even when averaging other spotless deep minima) and probably another low-peak maximum after that.

Summary:  Expect colder temperatures for the next decade or three.

Note:  NASA predictions are said to be for an extended solar minimum.  I am having trouble finding documentation of this (or any other prediction from NASA) – I’ll get back to you. -Steve

Update 10/07/2019:

The only “official” prediction of Solar Cycle 25 I can find (from NOAA and NASA) forecasts a peak in 2023 to 2026 and a peak value of 95 to 130.  That would make it a virtual “twin” of the already low Cycle 24.

Update 12/14/2019   (3)

Below:  The latest prediction is a bit more constrained.  Your humble narrator predicts that the double peak will again show up. – no doubt with greater separation as indicated by the last 3 cycles. (see figure D)

sollarcycle25prediction_12_09-1029

Figure below shows the accumulated sunspot numbers over the last 400 years of solar observations.

2020_FourHundredYears

It is ironic that Galileo took an interest in sunspots and popularized such observations just in time for the Maunder Minimum when sunspots gradually became rare phenomena. The Maunder Minimum is associated with the Little Ice Age, when weather was cooler than today. The numbers of that time are yearly averages due to the sparsity of observations. From about 1750 onward monthly averages are plotted – results of sustained, systematic observation. The Maunder Minimum is still a valid conclusion, but the data cannot be said to be “high resolution”. The later Dalton Minimum is much better defined and typically associated historically with “Dickensian Winters”. In recent years, those types of winters are returning to England.

Figure D is a plot of NASA Sunspot Numbers for the two previous and the current sunspot cycles. It clearly shows the declining trend.

ssn_predict_l
Figure D: Nasa Sunspot Numbers, Cycles 22, 23, & 24

Magnetism and the Climate Connection

It is the changing magnetic field of the Sun that drives the existence or absence of sunspots. The Solar magnetic field changes on a long time scale and with different periods of oscillation. The most obvious of these is an eleven-year cycle that dominates in Figures C &D. The magnetic properties actually reverse in polarity in each new cycle, which makes it a twenty-two-year cycle in reality. Periods of high sunspot activity are associated with high magnetic field strength and a dearth of sunspots is an indication of low magnetic intensity.

A plot of terrestrial magnetic field strength in Figure E demonstrates the cyclical nature of the terrestrial magnetic field as influenced by the sunspot cycle. (3)

archibald_ap_1932-2011
Figure E: Terrestrial Magnetic Index

As indicated by the note in the seventies, periods of lower terrestrial magnetic field strength are associated with colder weather. This effect has been explained by the work of Henrik Svensmark (6) who demonstrated that magnetism effectively blocks cosmic rays. But, when the field strength is low, the increase of cosmic rays makes cloud formation increase and global temperatures drop. Now that the Ap index has dropped to unprecedented lows and the global temperatures have failed to increase as predicted by many, this association would seem to be confirmed.

The fact that ”official” temperatures have not actually dropped may have something to do with the manipulation of those datasets by certain individuals who have reduced the number of weather stations averaged from over 6000 to about 400 and shifted the average latitude of those stations from that of Oklahoma City to that of Hawaii (5). Please note that before they began eliminating stations (circa 1975), the average was indeed, dropping! See figure F.

CHangesInLatitude
Figure F: Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) temperatures and station count.  Note that the average latitude of the stations has gone from 30° to 20°.  The station count, meanwhile has dropped to a fraction of the previous number.  This is like comparing a large number of (temperate climate) apples to a small number of (tropical) oranges. In other words, it is data fraud.

Conclusions

  • An examination of sunspot trends clearly indicates a new Solar Minimum (of Dalton or Maunder proportions) is in the works. A cooler environment is to be expected in the coming decades.
  • When climate considerations come into a subject, a thorough search always seems to reveal data manipulation has occurred. All with the same result – a cooler past and a warmer present.
  • A major audit of Climate Science seems in order.

1) https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/solar-cycle-25-preliminary-forecast

2)  https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2018/09/27/the-chill-of-solar-minimum/

3) https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/solar-cycle-25-forecast-update

Haute Cuisine de Camionneur

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October 29, 2016  (Reprinted from the WordPress site on 10/02/2019)

Flying J Truck Stop, Waterloo, Iowa – Highway 20, exit 68

This nomadic lifestyle that has taken over my existence has ramifications that reach every aspect of life.

Socially, I am pretty much a hermit with a cell phone.  Part of that is my life-long character, but it has been exaggerated by Over the Road Trucking. Even when I have some time and am feeling lonely, I have a total of about five contacts before I run out of people to call.  Three of them are my immediate family.

Physically, I have lost 70 pounds, my blood pressure has plummeted and I feel much more energetic and alert.

Emotionally, I feel great when I drive.  Pickups and deliveries are interesting, but frustrating sometimes.  The 34 hour breaks are difficult, but writing helps to alleviate the boredom and depression.

I am going now to drop my empty trailer at a meat plant.  I will “bobtail” out and find shelter in the other truck stop across the street.  After that, I call every hour or two to find out if my loaded trailer is ready, then I activate my clock and go pull the trailer back here to weigh it.  Then, we are Off on the Road to Rocky Hill, Connecticut.

Road Ranger/Pilot Truck Stop, Waterloo, Iowa – Highway 20, exit 68

Diet has also changed.  I buy deli meat, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes to make sandwiches, mostly.  I have not had a “meat and potatoes” meal since I left the house in August.  When supplies run down and I can’t manage to arrange a Walmart visit, I have to get creative.  I ran out of lunch meat and bread, but I have a secret stash of canned spiced ham*.  See photo below of my latest creation.

spampepperjackdillpickleletucewrapAbove: Haute Cuisine de Camionneur – Jambon épicé avec fromage et concombre sur la laitue

*Wikipedia:

Spam was introduced by Hormel in 1937. Ken Daigneau, brother of a company executive, won a $100 prize that year in a competition to name the new item.[3] Hormel claims that the meaning of the name “is known by only a small circle of former Hormel Foods executives”, but popular beliefs are that the name is an abbreviation of “spiced ham”, “spare meat”, or “shoulders of pork and ham”.[7] Another popular explanation is that Spam is an acronym standing for “Specially Processed American Meat” or “Specially Processed Army Meat”.[8]

The difficulty of delivering fresh meat to the front during World War II saw Spam become a ubiquitous part of the U.S. soldier’s diet. It became variously referred to as “ham that didn’t pass its physical”, “meatloaf without basic training”,[1] and “Special Army Meat”. Over 150 million pounds of Spam were purchased by the military before the war’s end.[9]

During World War II and the occupations which followed, Spam was introduced into Guam, Hawaii, Okinawa, the Philippines, and other islands in the Pacific. Immediately absorbed into native diets, it has become a unique part of the history and effects of U.S. influence in the Pacific.[10]

As a consequence of World War II rationing and the Lend-Lease Act, Spam also gained prominence in the United Kingdom. British prime minister during the 1980s Margaret Thatcher later referred to it as a “wartime delicacy”.[11][12] In addition to increasing production for the U.K., Hormel expanded Spam output as part of Allied aid to the similarly beleaguered Soviet Union.[13] Nikita Khrushchev declared: “Without Spam we wouldn’t have been able to feed our army”.[14] Throughout the war, countries ravaged by the conflict and faced with strict food rations came to appreciate Spam.[15]

spamAbove: Jambon épicé (Spam – Glorious Spam! – it says so right there on the can)

 Interstate 80 Service Area near Bryan, OH

I find myself in another of those giant service areas in Ohio.  Rigs were parked out the entrance ramps as usual in the Northeast.  I was lucky that I was arriving at 6 AM and the early risers were just leaving.  I could snake my way through the late arrivals and find spaces open near the exit.  My next leg will end about 2 AM and I will not be so fortunate then.  This is a tight schedule and I can’t delay arrival.  There are some parking-only areas on this route and those generally are big enough for all.  I will defer further updates until I am sitting in the door in Rocky Hill, Connecticut. 

Rest Area on Interstate 84 East of Scranton, near Paupack, Pensylvania

 Scranton, Pennsylvania was the site of the Ballad of Thirty Thousand Pounds of Bananas by Harry Chapin.

My own cargo of bananas was thirty eight thousand pounds, from Central America, by way of La Porte, Texas and I took them to Clarksville, Arkansas.  And while I did travel down “The hill that leads to Scranton, Pennsylvania” last night, my own voyage was much less exciting.

Is now 11:00 AM, Eastern Daylight Time and there are snow flurries outside the truck – which is why I am inside the truck.  My appointment is at 23:00 (11 PM) in Rocky Hill,  Connecticut, which is a bit less than three hours away.  I slept from 6 AM when I arrived until nature called and said I had to go out in the flurries to the “facilities”.  I’ll will have “clock” for this journey in a few hours, so I will go back to sleep now and pick this up later.

It is early afternoon and I am preparing to make the run into Connecticut now.  No snow is falling and the road is clear.  I see traffic zooming by from where I sit.

Pilot Truck Stop #255, I95, exit 40 Milford, Connecticut

Another on-time delivery (OTD) accomplished.  This one was a live un-load and they didn’’t have all the sissy rules about disconnecting the tractor.  So, I get to enjoy the earthquake-like gyrations of the truck while multi-ton forklifts race in and out of the trailer, ultimately a few feet from where I am falling asleep.  After I have paperwork in hand, I can leave.  Now with no load or destination I can find refuge only 38 miles away in this Pilot where I can have a shower and sleep.

Before I can “get my clock back”, there is a new assignment to take pick up a trailer in New Jersey that is already loaded and waiting patiently for me to take it to Joliet, Illinois.   That where Jake Blues was getting out of prison and Elwood showed up to take him back to the sleazy little apartment with the el train running just outside the window.  If you have never seen this movie, you owe it to yourself.

Jill tells me, “You have eight hours and zero minutes of remaining drive time.” So, I must go now.  I will be driving in daylight for the first time in four days.  I hope I can find the sunglasses.

Steve

Ad Hoc Ergo Dormio

SteveTrucker2Sign123_Lone

10/1/2019 – Reprinted from the WordPress site

Stop & Shop DC, Assonet, Massachusetts, September 6, 2016

How I Spent Labor Day

You may remember I was headed for the final stop on a meat load.  It was another part of Massachusetts over by the East Coast.  Once again, I back into a door and they unload the truck while I either write or try to sleep.  They finish and tell me that there were some damaged goods.  Four boxes of Beef Liver at fifteen pounds each.  I have to inspect this for the claims department and dispose of it – two more of my unpaid duties.  The cardboard of the boxes is bent, but the plastic wrapper on each liver is still sealed.  In other words, this is perfectly acceptable product and it is stupid to waste it.  In talking to the freight handlers (“Lumpers”) in Massachusetts and in most of the Northeast, I find that the language spoken among them is almost exclusively Spanish.  Conveniently, I am fluent same and given my Gringo Good Looks, I am able to spring a thunderbolt of a surprise on these unsuspecting obreros.  They are frankly astonished when – out of the blue – I speak their language more eloquently and correctly than they do.  This is because I worked with Colombians and Peruvians who are quite crisp in their pronunciation and grammar.  And Bolivians (I know you’re out there;-).  I can also adopt a mush-mouth Maracaibo accent when the fancy strikes me.  But it really hurts my head to do so.  I can muster a convincing “Gringo” accent as well.  Remind me to tell you the story of the country boy surveyor in Venezeula who told the local field crew to bring their coolers over to the truck so he could fill them with ice.

I did offer the 60 pounds of liver to the Receiving clerk, who politely asked me if I was crazy.  I made same offer in Spanish and English to the Lumpers and Drivers.  No dice!  As I pointed out to one of them, if it were sirloin, they would all take it.  Heck, for sixty pounds of sirloin I would find a way to get it home. I called (from the receiving phone) to the Salvation Army and another charity.  Neither was open for Labor Day, but the Salvation Army God-Blessed me on their voice mail message.  Finally I left with the 60 pounds of liver figuratively hung from a twine around my neck like an albatross.  At the gate I have to open the cargo doors to show that I’m not pilfering and I mentioned the liver to the guard.  He called a Catholic food bank director who came over personally to take the liver off my hands.  The guard let me linger in the 5 minute parking until the director showed up. Apparently this kind of scenario happens frequently.  That is, the damage is limited to the container while the product is completely intact.

While that was transpiring, I got a message that my load from New Hampshire to Pennsylvania had been canceled.  A new load from New Jersey to Laredo took its place.  While I was deadheading (driving with an empty trailer) to New Jersey,  that load was also canceled.  Fortunately, it was another New Jersey shipper, so the travel wasn’t wasted.  But, I ran into traffic coming back from Labor Day and decided that attempting New York City was best left to the wee small hours of the morning.  Every last space of the fuel stop parking was taken, but I found a “Service Plaza” before the Bronx.  It was from there, on the public WiFi that I got a message out about the “graveyard dead” iPhone.

On to New Jersey , Lucca Cold Storage Vineland, NJ

The drive in the morning was astonishingly uncomplicated.  Truckers complain about the George Washington Bridge mostly because the lanes are narrow, but I found both the bridge and the river quite  scenic.  Admittedly, it was like the following:  Jerk head to left, briefly look at river, then eyes back to the road in a hurry. The same on the right.  Yup, scenic!

I got to the new shipper where more Spanish speaking Lumpers loaded my truck with exactly four pallets that took up about the first six feet of the 53 foot trailer and did not rise above 4 feet in height.  The total weight is 590 pounds.  Frozen catfish – destined for two different Wal Mart distribution centers in Texas.  This trip makes no economic sense at all.  I will burn about 250 gallons of diesel fuel to get this relatively tiny load to Texas.  Between that, my pay and the overhead it already will cost over two dollars a pound just to put the product on the shelf.  But, as long as they  still pay the going rate, who am I to complain? Far from it.  The light load means I will not have to play the downshift game while climbing hills.

The loading was two hours late, there was confusion about the tiny size of the load and the flashing red light that told me not to move refused to go out.  The Company (that’s what I will call the people I work for, from now on) thinks that this is a produce load.  They have certain rules and procedures for produce that are stricter  and require more free work from the drivers.  There is no possibility of convincing the system that fish is not produce, so I need to report a set of read-outs from the refrigeration unit every 12 hours. I took care of all these niggling details, sent my required messages and hit the road.

All that took a lot of time out of the middle of my driving day.  So, now my 14 hour total on-duty span was eating up 11 hour clock, but I had about 4 hours left to drive.  It was counting down whether I was driving or not, so I hastened to make use of the time.  There is no “taking a break” in this situation.  The remaining drive hours just counts down at 60 seconds per minute, no matter what.

You Can’t Get There From Here

Ultimately, I was caught out.  I ran into traffic around Washington and Baltimore and wound up in a race to get to I-81 in Virginia and the truck stop at exit 323.  I lost.  Jill had routed me down state highways and I was paralleling I-81 and needed to jog over to it and go back North to the exit.  Time was running out and when I stopped in front of a restaurant to tell Jill where the truck stop was and check the mileage left. I found I had 24 miles to go and 15 minutes do it.  The truck doesn’t go that fast.

Panic ensued as my mind raced to think of a way out of this nightmare. A slow dawn arose in my brain as I realized I was looking about 150 feet past the closed restaurant at a patch of land with a long abandoned parking lot where grass was growing out of cracks in the asphalt.  I pulled up and backed the truck into it and managed to get 50 feet between the cab and the highway.   I was back toward the trees in a reasonably inconspicuous place to hide for 10 hours.  I was trapped there by Federal Regulations for the time being.

About an hour later, another truck shows up.  The driver is Russian and asks me if it’s OK to park.  He is in the same regulatory limbo as I am.  I generously welcome him to my new truck stop. I am calling it The Ad Hoc Truck Stop (#1).

Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning “for this”. In English, it generally signifies a solution designed for a specific problem or task, non-generalizable, and not intended to be able to be adapted to other purposes.

AdHocTruckStop.jpg

Above: Kenworth # 12946 at the Ad Hoc Truck Stop (#1).  I turned off the lights right after this and tried to “blend in” to the trees.

By the time I am fully charged with drive time at five AM, there are two more trucks parked over by the still closed restaurant.  There is a real estate broker’s sign here that advertises this as income producing property.  While the spot seems quite popular as a truck stop, the trouble is that unless you sell fuel, truckers are pretty self-sufficient.  For example, I have had dinner, watched television, slept comfortably through the night and then awakened and had breakfast with a cup of coffee. I have not spent a dime. No restroom facilities, but I did need to check the tires for leaks during the night.

Let’s See This Through to the End

Wal-Mart Distribution Center (DC) #6056, Terrell, Texas, September 9, 2016 9:40 AM

In the interest of having something complete to move on from, I will finish the sage of the frozen catfish.  By the way, these were “Farm Raised” catfish.  I had seen the words “Wild Caught” on the Bill of Lading earlier, but upon further investigation, it was only one item per pallet listed as such.  It is the data logger that records the temperature history of the cargo.  Somebody in New Jersey has a sense of humor.

I am waiting to be unloaded at the Wal-Mart DC in Terrell, Texas. I was 50 minutes early. Their system is for me to back in the door and then uncouple and move my tractor to a parking area. I had the trailer in the door about 7:45.  So, now my trailer’s refrigeration unit (“Reefer”) is trying its best to bring the entire warehouse down to 34° Fahrenheit while they ignore the now thawing two (2) pallets of frozen fish (that I had watched over like a new mother for 1500 miles).  It has been an hour and a half. The warehouse is kept cool, but it is nowhere near 34F.  The powered pallet jacks these guys drive can unload both pallets at once and get it to cold storage in less than 10 minutes.  I could have used an unpowered pallet jack and walked both to the freezer in 30 minutes.  I could have hand carried all the boxes in less than an hour.  The other DC’s cargo is also thawing in my now-opened-for-the-first-time-since-sealed trailer.

Very soon, I will again be into the 14 hour clock eating my driving time again.  I need at least 5 hours of drive time and to arrive at the truck stop near the final by 4:30 PM.  That will allow me to get to the last stop (another Wal-Mart Distribution Center) on time.  Being late will, of course be heaped at my door.  No matter that another Wal-Mart DC made me late.

Flying J Truck Stop, New Caney, Texas, September 9, 2016 8:50 PM

Once again, I exist at this Oasis in Limbo where all of us are prisoners of the Clock, serving out our 10 hour sentences so we may drive again.  Over the road truckers are adrift in time.  Some of us here are just waking up, some here for the 30 minute mandatory break in the middle of a driving day, some finally collapsing in the sleeper after a 600 mile sojourn.

Word came that Louis, my oldest son, is in the hospital for Diverticulitis again.  I called to talk to him.  They don’t think an operation will be necessary, but he has been in serious enough pain to merit a morphine IV.  He seems mostly irritated at the prospect of another boring hospital stay.  I am encouraged, because grumpy people are usually not seriously ill.  It’s when they give up and become polite and co-operative that you have to worry.  My father had been like that in his final hours.  I mentioned that I could possibly come by to see Number One Son, but he told me to get another load and earn more money.  He has no doubt been listening to his mother worry about expenses, now that I have joined the ranks of the underemployed.

At midnight, my eight day, 70 hour clock picks up the 10 hours and 43 minutes I used up nine days ago, making 11 hours and 29 minutes.  I will awaken at a quarter till two, when my 11 hour clock is renewed after the ten hours in Limbo.  The 14 hour clocks start when I log my pre trip inspection, shortly before I leave to deliver the last of the catfish.  That should take exactly two hours at the DC, since they would have to pay me to stay longer.  That is called “detention pay” and was a procedure adopted when drivers refused loads to certain abusive DC’s who burn up all their drive time while they wait to be unloaded.  I have it from knowledgeable sources that Wal-Mart DC 7010 would drag out unloading for seven hours, throwing away the drive time of drivers who – like me for the last few days –  have their 11 hour clock consumed by the 14 hour clock.  When they do that, it is like they reached into the driver’s pocket, pulled out a hundred dollars or so, and burned it in front of his eyes.

Now that they have to pay drivers some little pittance, they are suddenly all about efficiency, getting them in and out of the doors in exactly the free two hours.  We will pick up the story tomorrow at the End of Trip.  I’ll go use up one of my shower credits now.

Wal-Mart Distribution Center (DC) #7010, New Caney, Texas, September 10, 2016 3:53 AM

I hit the “rack” to have a short nap before going for a shower.  There had been 14 showers available at 3 PM.  At 8 PM there were 0 (Zero), so maybe after the final drop.

This DC has us break the seal, open the doors, bump the gate at the door and then uncouple and pull up about five feet.  All this is to assure they won’t find the trailer moving while they ignore the thawing load for an hour or so – oh, and when they actually unload.  I almost had an opportunity to unload myself and possibly capture the $50 they will pay to take two pallets to the freezer.  It would have taken me less than a half hour, with a human-powered pallet jack, or maybe an hour carrying the 112 Gorton’s boxes in by hand.  But, the Company has generously already agreed to pay that automatically to the illegal aliens – through a sub-contractor with legit credentials, of course.

It has been a full hour since I bumped the dock and the light in my mirror is still green, which means they have not even begun to think about unloading.  My “Arrived” message and the gate records say I got here at (actually 20 minutes before) my appointment.  I would bet you $100 that the call from Receiving telling me to pick up the paperwork will come at 5:10 AM – the “free” limit, before Detention Pay.

Detention Pay is really just a bunch of Fairy Dust, promised but never delivered.  I looked it up. I would be (would be) paid $12.50 per hour for up to ten hours after the two free hours (they actually call them “free hours” in the Driver’s manual).  This is payable in half hour increments, rounded off low. That price is about 80% of what I could make actually driving   I will never see it anyway, but at least the threat of detention pay keeps the Receivers from stealing the drivers’ time.  As we all know, Time is Money.

To sum up all this talk about clocks and limits:

  1. Drivers have a limited time per day – eleven hours – to drive, regardless of when it is done.
  2. Drivers must do all the day’s driving within a 14 hour window regardless of how much break time is done in that window – except when a continuous ten hour break occurs. Then another 14 hour window can begin.
  3. If pick up or delivery happens in the middle of the day and the delay exceeds three hours, now the Shipper/Receiver is taking hours that could be earning hours and turning them into “free” hours.
  4. The Eight Day 70 hour clock can also consume driving hours. On the 8th of September, for example, I had 11 driving hours and fourteen hours to do it.  But, because my eight day clock was down to 7 hours and 44 minutes, that is all I was allowed to drive. The next day I “got back” 10 hours and change that I had used nine days before.
  5. And why this obsession with driving? Because, my friends, driving is the ONLY thing that actually results in wages.  All the other stuff I have been telling you about is stuff I do for free so I can drive and make a living.
  6. By now you have heard more than you wanted to know about Federal regulations on trucker’s time and I will give that subject a rest, as well.

The empty call came about half an hour earlier than the two hours I expected.  I went to Receiving to get my paperwork and found out why.  There is a line of drivers waiting for documentation while the clerks finish it up.  Clever.  The call is the event logged as the end of the driver’s wait.  How long the driver stands in line for paperwork does not apply to detention pay.

To end the Saga of the Catfish, I will include a photo that captures the now empty trailer’s futile attempt to air condition the world as I pull it out of the door to close up and move on to a new cargo.

trailercoolstheearth

Above: Trailer 15820T makes a valiant effort to bring down the Earth’s temperature to 26° Fahrenheit. Alas, 53 feet away is the hot end of the refrigeration cycle dumping all the heat the trailer sucked out of its interior.