Sleeperberth Cast

Cheyenne June 7 High Winds Rollover

Originally uploaded by crosseye_.

I had a dead head move preset for me by my planner from Albuquerque to Denver. Turned out I couldn’t find a trailer so I ended up Bobtailing. The interesting thing about this is that I informed dispatch that I might be delayed in getting to Denver because of reported high wind advisories. The response was a bit of good natured chiding. But this is where a problem can and as you can see by the picture I have posted, does occur. Forcing or “encouraging” a driver to drive a light or empty trailer in high winds is tantamount to ramming them from the side with a bulldozer. Sadly some newer drivers or ones more easily intimidated would attempt the run and put themselves in harms way.

Yes its true, that many do drive and get away with it. Slowly is the best course if attempted, but once that trailer is blown up on its side, the tractor will follow.

Be safe out there. Make the informed decision.

The Sleeperberth’s Suzuki

Originally uploaded by crosseye_.

While at home this last week for a day, Mrs. C and I decided to attempt to go a bit greener. Of course this won’t be an all season solution to the problem, but it does point us down the right path. Apparently the trucking industry is finally getting ready to roll out their initial efforts in riding the green wave. Wal-Mart is ordering a hybrid 386 Peterbilt with plans on growing their fleet with these trucks to increase fleet efficiency by up to 25 percent over the next few years.

The Hybrid technology utilized on this truck is designed by Eaton Corporation. The system (called Eaton Hybrid Power System) retains energy generated by the engine, which would normally be lost during braking, and stores it in batteries for later use. That electricity is then sent through the motor/generator and blended with engine torque to improve vehicle performance, operate the engine in a more fuel-efficient range for a given speed and/or operate only with electric power in certain situations. This innovative process has been shown to increase driving efficiency by 5-7 percent. The system’s batteries even power the heating, air conditioning, and electrical system when the engine is turned off. The improved miles per gallon, combined with the reduction of idle time, could result in approximately $9,000 in annual fuel savings based on an average cost of $2.50 per gallon.

Though the trucking industry emits a smaller percentage of carbon emissions comparatively with Building and Other Industry than what is commonly believed. We do work in symbiotic accord with these groups. They need us as we need them. Thus it is good to see some technological progress on this front as well towards the stabilization of climate change and in general just good breathing.

Been hard getting going lately. One would think that it would be easy to get things done when more time is available, but the opposite seems to happen. First there is the back up files and new hard drive that have been put off. Then there is that walk that keeps getting put off. And of course there are news items and blogs to be caught up on. A friend excitedly twitters he has beryl working in Ubuntu so you blow the morning you had planned catching up with other things to blow your xserver and then realizing you are not sure how to edit in Linux. (yes, that is a downside of having an easy Distro like Ubuntu. One doesn’t have to learn much of the command line.).

Ok, you get the picture. I do have a recording I did while at home and though I anticipate having a casual weekend to catch up and get back in the groove, the law seems to be: To get more done I need less time to do it in. Is that a law or rule of some such? Maybe I’d have to take the time to read David Allen’s book, “Getting Things Done” But do I have the time to read it?

Regardless, it is back on the road for the Sleeperberth Studios and back to at least some form of productivity. And the one that pays the bills….

Googlefight

Originally uploaded by crosseye_.

While I am waiting for a load, which amazingly is taking the load planner forever, I caught up with some of my videos on my hard drive, one of them being DL.TV. On todays episode they featured Googlefight. This website uses a google api to compare two different searches. So, I went and for the fun of it entered myself in along side my Arch Nemesis, Trucker Tom. The results completely caught me by surprise. Take a look and enter your own Arch Nemesis in the Googlefight search engine to see how you rate.

Halliburton Ambush Iraq

….you aren’t human. A quote from one of the comments on Youtube I found most applicable.

“Preston Wheeler who’s the driver in this video is a hero! 3 Haliburton drivers were killed in this ambush and the military should b held responsible as it was them who took the convoy of 12 trucks down the wrong road, and then didn’t give enough cover once things turned nasty, it’s lucky that Preston wasn’t killed to after being left. Amazing video and well done to Preston Wheeler who made this available.”

Hero’s don’t always die and no doubt they do quake in their boots just like Preston did. No matter what else one might think about their trucking job here in the states it can’t compare. Let it be known that there is no way you could pay me enough to go over there and do THAT job!

Southbound Toward Kanab

Posted straight from my phone with Nakama.

1167670925

Originally uploaded by crosseye_.

To the East of Lincoln, and on to the east into Iowa, were several scenes similar to this. The sudden drop in temperature and the snow/mix that happened from the fallout of the second Denver storm caught many in the plains states by surprise. Driving through the region, the impression I had was that God had simply had more important things to attend to and had hurriedly left his toys scattered around his sand (snow?) box as he left to deal with them.

More pictures can be found on my flickr page.

New Years Barbeque

Originally uploaded by crosseye_.

I hope any barbeque’s you have planned for New Years do not offer this as an entrée. It can really ruin a holiday…

This happened on the New Jersey Turnpike just to the north of the Pennsylvania/New Jersey Turnpike Split on Friday the 29th.

Tunneling Down

Posted straight from my phone with Nakama.

Have been running pretty hard this weekend. This is just a little clip taken from my LG VX8100 of the second northbound Chesapeake Bay Tunnel heading into Maryland.

Crazy Frog Truckin

Wait for it, wait for it………………………………………………………………………..Scary, huh?