Odds and ends

Sitting in a Subway(tm) waiting for the truck to cool down. I just fueled, so I've got a shower waiting for me if I want it.

(I want it, of course. But is it worth it, when I'll probably spend part of the night sweating into my sleeping bag? I might wait 'til morning and see if I'm awake enough to find the soap...)

Not especially disposed to lecturing tonight for some reason. I'm sure there are those who will want to know what's special about tonight and bottling it, but that's another story. Meanwhile I need to say something here, don't I?

How 'bout a few of the "uncategorized" little notes I've made while trundling around out here? For example:

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The lady who rode carefully by me this morning on one of those new "superscooters." With training wheels.

I kid you not. At first I thought she had one of those Harleys or Gold Wings you see now that have been converted to trikes, but it wasn't. It was a superscooter. And it had its standard rear end, complete with rear wheel. And two more rear wheels. One to each side, with suspension.

I had vaguely heard of such things, but had never seen one before. I gather they, like the trikes, are aimed at people who want the sensation of riding a motorbike but don't trust their sense of balance. Judging by this lady's demeanor, she wasn't really enjoying the experience as such, though. I suspect she was more interested in a SMALL car. The fuel crisis marches on...

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Some time back (I WISH I'd made a note of where) I wandered into a rest stop and discovered something I could have sworn was impossible. A hot-air hand dryer that works.

It took me a moment to figure out how to use it. It had a depression in the top, as if it thought it was a water fountain. You put your hands into the depression, and a narrow, high-speed stream of air roared DOWNWARD onto your hands. It was warm, yes, but it worked mostly by blasting the water off your skin into the bottom of the depression.

I think it was developed by the same guy that did the Dyson vacuum cleaner. It would have to be someone that off-the-wall, I guess. It worked, anyway. The first time I went into an ecologically aware restroom and didn't leave wiping my hands on my pants legs.

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Seen on a billboard advertising a casino near Memphis:

A 50's pinup-type photo. Actually fairly modest, as such things went even in the 50's. But the caption:

"Ample Space to Park Your Big Rig"

Ewwwwwww...

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From a journal entry I made to myself in February:

While picking up a load in Texas, I saw a couple of pilot trucks leading a "Work Convoy" down the road--then up the drive and into the parking lot where I was waiting at a dock. The "Work Convoy" was three odd-looking vehicles--four-wheel drive on what looked like tractor tires, with a great big diesel engine in the back and a big platter-looking thing underneath. They would trundle earnestly along for a hundred or two feet, and then stop, lower their "platters," rev up the diesels, and make the ground hum beneath them. After a few minutes of this, they would pick up the "platters" and trundle earnestly along again.

I finally couldn't stand it any longer, so I asked one of the drivers what he was doing. "Looking for minerals," he said. "Especially gas and oil."

As best I can tell, these things have replaced the old "dynamite and seismograph" method of underground mapping--for some purposes at least. The "platters" are apparently subsonic transducers, and need the kind of horsepower the engines in the back supply to power them. Think of a fishfinder that works through solid rock.

I tried to get a picture of them but I was using my phone. I haven't figured out the camera yet. I may have to find a picture online...those great big rumbly sonic thingies and the earnest-bug looking vehicles that carried them...

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Interstates in Texas and Arkansas (and other broad flat places) are sometimes laid out on a very wide right-of-way, with an access road parallelling the interstate on both sides. Every so often, a cutover allows entrance and exit.

If you've got the room it makes a lot of sense, but for someone who hasn't seen it before it can be a little odd. Or even disorienting, especially at night. Imagine driving through the darkness on an Interstate and suddenly seeing headlights DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF YOU. A few seconds later you realize the interstate is curving slightly to the left, and the headlights are on the access road, which has curved just enough to put him in your line of sight. Sure, that makes sense. But for that first second or so...

The other thing it does is make access "ramps" VERY short. As in, less than a hundred feet. As in two truck lengths? Slowing from 65 to 35 or less before hitting the end of one of those...

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Sign on a warehouse snack machine: "At Work & Play, Let Saftey Lead The Way"

So who's Saftey, I wonder?

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Hmph. That should do for now. G'night.