And The New Job Begins

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Creator, Jesus Christ.  How is everyone doing?  I pray that this blog finds everyone in good health and spirits.  Things are going on schedule here.  Friday was my last day at Ball Pipe and Supply and I start orientation class at CRST tomorrow.  This made for a very busy Saturday.  Today we went to church and then my wife dropped me off at a hotel in Oklahoma City so that I can be at the CRST Oklahoma Terminal tomorrow morning.  I will be staying at the hotel this week while attending orientation and the lead driver class.  By Friday I will be in my truck and have my first student.  It is bitter sweet.  I don't like the idea of being away from my family again but on the other hand, the money will be good and I have to admit, I do like driving OTR and teaching new drivers.  It is in my blood.  The big reason for doing this is that I hate not being able to provide for my family.  It drives me nuts to see my family not being able to get what we need.  It drives me nuts to see vehicles breaking down and not being able to fix them.  It drives me nuts to see our house falling apart and not being able to fix it.  I also don't like having to depend on the government to provide for my family.  I get very short tempered and upset when I don't have the money to take care of my family and our needs.  I have driven trucks for over 12 years and have a pretty good record.  There is no reason that I can't take care of my family.  That is the main reason I must do this.  That is also why my wife and I knows that this is the job I must retire from.  I must drive OTR for at least 20 more years.  If CRST is as good as they were when I first drove for them, I will retire with them.  My goal is to bring home at least $1000 a week when I work the whole week.

I know not everyone is on board with me doing this.  They want me to be home with my wife and kids.  But what good is being home when I can't provide for them?  Things are getting more expensive, not less.  Oil fields are not dependable employment.  The scrap metal industry doesn't pay good.  I need something that pays real good and is dependable.  OTR is both because very few people is able and willing to do it and, as long as people need items, truck drivers are needed.

Well, I have to be up early tomorrow and I have to be well rested.  So, I will go ahead and end this blog.  I am planning to blog a lot more now that I am back on the road.  I have a lot of things to blog about and have gotten far behind.  Y'all take care and God Bless.

Love,
The Oklahoma Tomcat
http://goo.gl/9WrfPn

First mobile blog

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  How is everyone doing? Things are going good here. I am at Norit Americas in Marshall, TX waiting to get my trailer loaded. 

This blog is an experimental blog. I no longer have my mobile wifi.  The mobile wifi allowed me to access the internet on my netbook anywhere I had a Virgin Mobile cell phone signal.  I am leaving the mobile wifi at home so that my wife can use it. She is home schooling the kids and needs it more then I do. This also makes it so she can get rid of her smart phone which saves us money.  Only one problem I see with blogging on the smart phone.  No spell check.

We are not making progress on the remodeling of our house as fast as I want.  With our trucks not working, me not being home very much, and not having very much money. It looks like it will take forever to get our house remodled.  I have vacation pay coming and plan to use that to get our Ford Ranger fixed. We need the truck first so that we can pick up the supplies needed for the remodel.  We then need to get a propane heater and lines so we can heat the house. We were heating with wood but I want to switch over to propane so it will be easier for my wife. We also need to insulate the kitchen, front bedroom, and living room. We will then seal off the back of the house. The back part of the house is what needs the most work and I want to take care of that during the winter when the bugs are asleep.

Well, that is my plans. I kinda like this blog app. Wonder if there is a spell check app I can download to use with blogger. I will try to get on here more and keep y'all updated. Take care and God Bless.

Love,
The Oklahoma Tomcat

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Hampton Roads

A video I recorded yesterday. This video will take you across the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-tunnel that connects Suffolk, VA to Newport News, VA. In this video I play Sting, Meatloaf, and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Following the law

GoAnimate.com: Following the laws by The Oklahoma Tomcat

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

Following the Holy Spirit

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. How is everyone doing? I pray that this blog finds everyone in good health and spirits. Things have been going kinda rough out here. My student has not been following highway signs. He will end up in the wrong lane, taking wrong exits, missing exits, and taking wrong turns. I held him back from moving on in his training (pretty much failing him) and gave him lots of lectures. I even let him make the mistakes hoping that he will see that he must follow the signs. None of it worked. He just kept making excuses and telling me that he can pay attention to the signs. Well, this morning he continued to miss every exit and even changed lanes into an exit only lane when we are not supposed to exit. A couple of times he made last minute emergency lane changes to avoid exiting the highway. I was done. I took the steps needed to turn him over to safety for evaluation. After we got to our destination I told him the mistakes he made because he wasn't paying attention to signs. Again, he made excuses. I told him that he has been doing this for over a week now. I then told him that I will be taking him to the terminal and safety will evaluate him and determine where he goes from here. Then he started blaming me. He asked how many students have I turned back to safety. I told him that in the 8 years I have been training, he is the only one. He then drew the race card. He said that is probably because he is black. It is a good thing that I am well prepared for people who use the race card. I told him that it is interesting that he thinks that I can train truck drivers for 8 years and that he would be my first black student. It is also interesting that he thinks that I could work in the safety office and never have a black truck driver come into the office. I have found that people who pull the race card usually don't think before they speak. They act on emotion. I gave him a good speech about what he just insinuated and then told him that what he just said tells me that my training him is over with because he thinks I am racist and therefor he will never listen to me. But then I felt a little tug. Actually, it was a push. I was being pushed into giving him a test. A test to let him prove he can follow signs. The push was by the Holy Spirit. But why? Why would the Holy Spirit want me to even consider giving this student a second chance? I know he has not been following signs. I had my student pick up the map and route us to our drop yard in Kansas City, MO. I had him write down the route. I told him that I will give him one more chance to prove he can follow signs. He routed himself and he will do all the driving. I will not say a word. If he failed then there is no excuse we will head to Omaha, NE. He agreed and was excited. He double checked his route, triple checked. It was a real simple route. I-29 South, I-435 West, exit 54 and go east on Parvin Rd, then South on Kentucky. He gets going and all is going good so far. He makes it to I-435 without any problems. He then comes up on exit 54 and the exit sign says that the first road is 48th street and the second road is Parvin road. He comes up on the first road and stops. A sign in front of him says "No trucks east on 48th street." He turns on his blinker to turn east ... then makes the turn. I think to myself 'he actually missed that sign and is going to mess up.' He then comes to a red light and across the road there is a sign that says "No trucks." The light turned green and he continued east on 48th street. I waited until he got to the sign and I told him to stop. I pointed the sign to him. He tried to tell me that he saw the sign and was about to stop. I then had him turn around and we went to the other sign. We pulled over and I pointed it to him. He was silent. I then got us someplace safe to park and I reminded him of our agreement earlier. I told him that he has no excuse for missing the first sign and he should not have waited til we got up to the sign to stop. I believe he didn't even see the second sign and would have gone on past the sign. He didn't say a word and I actually saw his eyes water. I knew that he finally saw that he was missing the signs. I then had him continue taking us to the drop yard. Once at the yard I felt another push by the Holy Spirit. I saw that the Holy Spirit helped me get through to my student. He knew that my student was going to mess up real bad and knew that it would open my students eyes. The problem before was that my students eyes were not open to see his mistake. Now that my student's eyes were open, he now may learn and pay attention. Now the Holy Spirit was asking me to continue training the student. So I lectured to the student some more making sure that he saw what I have been getting onto him all this time. That he wasn't paying attention to signs and that it was something he had to be aware of and that he had to start paying attention. I can't teach someone how to pay attention. He also had to realize that I have been doing this for a long time. I am not knew at training and I have a very good record when it comes to students leaving my truck. Then I asked him if he wants to learn to drive professionally. He said yes. I told him he has to listen. He said he will. I let him know that I will continue to train him.

When we are given a gift we do have to remember who is ultimately in charge. I was ready to give up on this student. Especially when he played the race card. That is something people have to think about. If you play the race card, it will not always give you the results you want. Someone like me looks at it as you are not going to cooperate anyway cause you think I am racist. But in this case, my boss (God) told me not to give up on the student. God knew that if I give him a test where the student was going to make all the calls, the student would mess up and see that he has no one else to blame. Especially when I went back and showed him the signs he passed. God does know what best to do. God knows everything that will happen and if we follow Him then everything will work out. I am so glad that I followed the Holy Spirit because down deep inside. I never want to turn a student into safety.

Take care and God Bless.

Love,

The Oklahoma Tomcat

http://www.facebook.com/oktomat

Murphy's World - Backed up with a load of port-o-potties

The following comes from OTR Protrucker I was dispatched to deliver 5,000 pounds of Port-o-Potties to Port Republic, MD. Dispatch provided neither phone numbers nor bills. I looked on the map, planned my trip out and got to the area. I followed the arrows and signs until one pointed to turn left. So I turned left. No sign of a town, but there were houses and cars parked on both sides. Then the road dead-ended into a lake. It was 2 a.m. And there was no place to turn around, so I backed out for two miles. I found a parking lot, pulled in and went to sleep. Four hours later, I woke up and headed off to find a phone book and a phone to call the customer. The only place I could find that had a phone and a phone book was a liquor/general store. When they asked me who I was looking for, they got on the phone and made the call themselves. I thought I would have to find the customer and sleep in their yard until they came in the next morning, but, as it turned out, they came out and escorted me to their place. Coastie Elberton, GA Dear Coastie, Port Republic, MD is a small, rural town. Fortunately, in Small Town, USA, people still help each other out, so count your blessings that you ended up where you did when things went from bad to worse. I know that flies in the face of the usual Murphy story, but work with me on this. In this day and age, the thought that you are driving around without a cell phone is scary. The thought that you found a place with a dial-up phone and a phone book is even scarier. The thought that the proprietor of the place would make the call for you is scariest of all. Finally, the thought that the customer would come out at 6 a.m. And personally escort you to the delivery location is unbelievable. Like we said earlier, thank God for small towns and good people. That leaves us with just two questions: 1. How in the world do you back down two miles of road in a big rig at 2 o'clock in the morning, and 2. Why in the world would they need 5,000 pounds of port-o-potties in Port Republic, MD? On second thought, I don't want to know. Regards, Murphy and Lucky Dog

On the road again

The Last Week of Training

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. How is everyone doing? I pray that you all find this blog in good health and spirits. Everything is going smoothly and as planned out here on the road. We had some good runs this past week. The week started out slow but then our dispatcher took my trainer out of his normal Houston to Laredo run. We ran to Port Allen, LA, Concord, NC, and Newton, NC. I really enjoyed driving outside of Texas. Not only was I able to see more and get out of the routine I was getting into, but I was able to drive more hours. Remember, I have to drive 140 hours before I can get out of training and get into my own truck. I forgot to check how many more hours I need before leaving the truck yesterday. But if all goes well, this should be my last week in the training truck.

I am now back at the Americas Best Value Inn in Laredo, TX. I checked in yesterday afternoon. I took a shower, had some pizza, talked to my wife and then slept. I slept good. Today I plan to do laundry and relax. I will probably get some swimming in.

Things seem to be going pretty good at the house. Abigail seems to be testing Paula now that I am not home. But Paula seems to be handling it pretty good. She talked to one of the women on A Trucker's Wife to talk about this rebellious stage that Abigail seems to be in. Last week Paula and the kids went up to Claremore, OK to visit some friends. Well, the plan didn't go as planned. Micah ended up with a 102 deg temperature and Paula ended up taking him to the hospital. Our friends ended up meeting her their and watched Abigail while she took care of Micah. Even though things didn't go as planned, it still sounded like they had a good time. Micah is doing good now. Speaking of Micah, he is making good progress with therapy. He was able to tell Paula that he wanted a raisin using sign language. They even got Abigail involved, which I love. Looks like I will have to brush up on my sign language skills.

Well, the nights are getting colder in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma. Looks like one thing I must do when I get home is to get the wood stacked on the porch and the stoves and chimney cleaned out. Another thing we have planned is to take the 88 Oldsmobile to the shop so it can get fixed while I am on the road next time. We have chosen to get that car fixed first because it is completely down and my wife will need a vehicle while I am out. The van does still run so she will have that while the car is being fixed. When we have the car fixed then we will take either the van or the Ford Ranger to get fixed. Another reason for getting the car fixed first is because the car will do better on the roads in the winter time. I am leaning towards having the Ford Ranger fixed and waiting to have the van fixed since the van may not be needed in the winter. Not sure yet.

Well, I will go ahead and close for now. Take care and God Bless.

Love,
The Oklahoma Tomcat
http://www.myspace.com/oktomcat