So, I'm at work today. It's pouring rain starting early this morning.  I mean, there are 4 drivers standing around doing nothing.  The rain has been going on for quite a long time now, it has hit our business hard.  Hours cut back for drivers - from 50 per week to 45. Gonna hit hard the first paycheck that sees that kind of hour cut.  I came out here expecting 50 hours of work per week because that is what I was promised.

Anyway, I'm standing in the shed - they call it a shed it's a very large metal building used for material storage. Pretty much when there's nothing to do we go out there and hang out.  Eddie - another driver - comes walking out from the building across the way yelling my name. Ben!!! Ben!!! He gets close enough to respond without yelling and I'm like - what?  Why the hell didn't you tell us?  Why didn't I tell you WHAT?!!
What the bleep are you talking about?

These new phones! You knew what they could do and you didn't tell any of us about it!  He starts telling me he had a friend technician take a look at it.  Well that's heavier than a phone and that ain't no phone.  Nope, I said, it isn't a phone.  It has phone capabilities but it's far from a phone.  It is Big Brother.  These things are the newest generation of delivery tracking devices such as you see FedEx or UPS using - but it's smaller than an Iphone and is all touch screen.  The first time I looked at it I told them - management - what I thought about such technology being used "against" it's own personnel.

They can listen to your phone conversations, see every text message, see where you are at anywhere at anytime. But this thing can be used to remotely listen to your private conversations.  Both the microphone and the camera can be turned on remotely.  It can be turned on remotely AND you, the driver, won't know it's watching and listening to you.  I spoke my extreme resistance to the thing and told management I would be bundling the thing in a towel so it can see or hear NOTHING of my private life inside a truck.  They don't NEED to know that.  Humanity has survived - forever - without such s*** and can go on without it.

How did I know the thing could do that? I didn't know, I just knew.  Technology is going too far.  It is intruding into our personal lives and taking over society.  Some of it was good in the beginning, but it is going to far.  Scientists are attempting to devise a system that literally reads your mind.  Do you really want that? Because if they persist, I believe they will eventually get it.  How far do we let this stuff go before we say gee, this isn't such a great idea after  all?  I grew up without all of this stuff and life was grand.

How Eddie knew I knew I have no idea.  I didn't ask him as the conversation went directly into what this thing's capabilities are.  You don't spend the kind of money the company spent on it for something that doesn't give them the information they are looking for.  Data and research be damned, this world is going to hell and technology is making it happen much faster.  But then again, the Bible speaks of such.

It is no secret the advancement of technology. Police cars can be equipped with readers. The car is parked facing traffic with this reader reading license plates. Traffic tickets are mailed and all kinds of information is acquired.  It's outrageous. I don't care what "good" they affix to it, it's total bulls***. Just like when police want to search your car or home.  What do you have to hide? When you tell them no, which I have done. I have nothing to hide, I have everything to resist.  You have no right to search anything unless you have probable cause and nowadays, that is a slippery slope. A lot of "probable cause" issues that have come before courts have been tossed when the facts come out and it's established there WAS no probable cause.

The conversation in the shed ended with gee, yes, if you don't want them to hear your personal conversations or be able to video record what you are doing, take that freaking thing and wrap it up to the point it can see or hear nothing.

Driver's license renewal.
Gag.
I was first told that I had to make an appointment in both Texas and Arizona  to do any CDL transactions.
In other words, to show up at a drivers license office, I had to make an appointment in either state.
The lady I finally spoke with, however, contradicted that. No honey, you just show up here with proper
credentials and we will get it done.
Arizona? Found on their website two locations that don't need an appointment, one of them a place I have been going to for a long, long time anyway.

The dilemma is simply that my commercial driver's license is about to expire.  To renew it in Texas I need a birth certificate, which I don't have since I never replaced it after my house burned down some years ago and almost everything in the house burned up with it.

To get a Texas CDL, I need proof of residency. To get proof of residency, I have to register my vehicle.  To register my vehicle, I have to have an inspection done on the car.  Etc etc etc.  Yes, I am going to try doing all of that, register the car, already have a new birth certificate ordered, have the rest of the documentation but in the end?  I may have to end up flying back to Arizona to get this done.

The worst part of all of this is this is a complete oversight on my part.  I should have seen this coming and started this process LONG ago.  But I didn't even realize my license was going to expire until last week when my company sent my manager a notification that it is about to expire and it needs to be renewed and sent into corporate.  I'll give my company credit for catching this in time for me to have enough time - hopefully - to get this resolved.

It's fairly stressful since my livelihood depends on that license.

Oh well.