The work day starts off with what I already knew: take some material to a contractor at the Intel plant.  But, then I am informed that I will have to make a trip to Tucson for a fusion machine and it's generator.  These 2 machines will take up about 2'3rd's of the truck and by the time you get your chains on, you're limited on space.

The drive down there was interesting in the fact of seeing so many Highway Patrol vehicles sitting off the side of the road, yet not having anyone pulled over.  I was followed by a Mini Cooper the entire trip down to Tucson.  I have no idea what that was about.  I really don't.  It appeared out of the blue and mimicked my every move.  At times it was right on my bumper, other times it backed off a bit. I did not cut that car off, I observe my mirrors quite frequently.  I don't make lane changes until it is safe to do so and then, only after my signal light is on.  Heck, I indicate I am changing a lane with my signal lights even if there isn't anyone behind or in front of me to see it.  Just a habit.

After loading the machines and getting them chained down, I am looking for a place to eat.  I decided that I would stop at a Dairy Queen at Picacho Peak.  It has truck parking and well, probably not the greatest food for a dietary minded person, but oh well, give in and eat the good stuff.  After that stop, I got off of I-10 westbound and got onto SR 87 north bound. It's a 2 lane highway with a speed limit of 65 mph until you get to a blip-the-road-town called Randolph, where it goes down to 50mph and then Coolidge - 35mph.

I am going the speed limit. There are MANY side roads that connect with this highway.  I come up to another highway that ends at the highway I am on.  It has a stop sign, I have open road with no speed limitations because of the road that ends.  Why should it?  If a car is coming, you don't just decide to pull out in front of it.

But that's exactly what happened. I'm going 65mph and this woman driving this little tin can car decides to pull away from the stop sign, cross  the highway and make a left hand turn which puts her vehicle directly in front of me. I did not know if I would be able to slow the truck down in time to avoid a collision, but avoiding collisions is part of the life in day of a local truck driver.

Moving on - I don't want to experience those feelings again - I get to the jobsite which is out in the middle of the desert.  The only thing around is a dilapidated old house.  Whether anyone lives there is hard to tell, no vehicles.  I get out of the truck and speak with the foreman, who thinks it's hilarious that I just came out there with a machine that he will need, but doesn't need today. His attitude sucked.  From this morning until the time I had arrived, the situation had changed and the man stated that he could not take that machine off of the truck.  Not because he didn't have equipment.  Well I'm not going to go into it, between that guy and that woman in the car I will become extremely irritated.

I watched the debate tonight. Obama looked better than the last debate, but I definitely think that if you want to call one or the other a winner, Romney took it away.

But I won't go into that, as my bedtime is here.

ben

So here it is, the second Presidential debate is today.  Both candidates holed up, though the Obama campaign seems happy to churn out to the press the sticking points they are going to bring up with Romney, while Romney is pretty much keeping quiet (I would think a better strategy, don't tip your hand).  I would expect Obama to put out a better performance this time, but in reality, I hope he doesn't, lol.

After finding out yesterday that our branch is not going to be open on the day after Thanksgiving, I wrote my dad and told him both Caleb and I would be down for Thanksgiving.  He wrote back with elated tones and basically informed me he would be paying for our hotel room while we are down there.  I won't refuse the offer.  My finances are slowly starting to improve now that summer is - almost - over (still getting up into the mid 90's here!) and high electric usage and high water usage will be reduced substantially, thus lowering my expenses quite a lot.

I'm trying my best to stay out of the way of ADOT/Highway Patrol as well.  If I can make it to the end of the year without any warnings or tickets, I get 2 week's worth of pay for getting the Safe Driver Award.  Look, I just try to avoid their hot spots.  Places where they are sitting on the side of the highway and waiting to pull over trucks and do inspections.  I drove by several of them on I-10 the other day, holding my breath.  None of them had anyone pulled over and they were looking.  I also had one on the opposing side of the freeway yesterday who was using his radar gun to try and catch speeders on my side of the freeway!  The problem with that?  There is a cement divider there.  I don't know who he thought he got - there was a whole slew of us together - but he got on his motorcycle and he was GONE to the next exit, presumable to turn around and come back.

I was taking no chances, I got off at the next exit that takes to a different freeway.  It's not just the safe driver award, it's all the crap that goes into getting even a warning nowadays.  But I don't have time to go into all of that.

Anyway, time to be off to work.

ben