I screwed up last night...

[SidecarFlip]

Forgot to put the lid on the 30 gallon trash can I get my pellet-corn mix out of (I load 4 of them at a time with the mix and take in a 5 gallon bucket for the unit twice a day...

Anyway, left the lid off so this AM went to get a bucket of fuel and discovered my mistake so I had wet snow on the fuel mix and some of the pellets turned into sawdust. I out it in the hopper anyway and cranked up the PPH feed a bit plus I have the hopper lid cracked open a bit to let the moisture escape.

She's throwing some sparks from the pot, an indication of wet fuel.

I need to remember to put the lid on from here on out. Getting old is getting forgetful.

Snowing here, wet snow. 1-3 forecast for this afternoon. I'm excited...not.

No point in worrying about the snow anyway. I don't even think about plowing or blowing it until we get over 5 in one shot. Not worth fiddling around with and wasting diesel in the tractor.

 

[03Jarhead]

They’re calling for the same amount of snow here in Southeast Ohio....you’d think it was the end of times the way people act when it’s going to snow around here.

 

[SidecarFlip]

They’re calling for the same amount of snow here in Southeast Ohio....you’d think it was the end of times the way people act when it’s going to snow around here.

I like to stay off the road, especially first snow because people drive stupid. Especially in their AWD SUV's. They cannot stop any better than a 2wd sedan. Crunch..

 

[Mt Bob]

I like to stay off the road, especially first snow because people drive stupid. Especially in their AWD SUV's. They cannot stop any better than a 2wd sedan. Crunch..

LOL,no first snow here,it can and does snow every month of the year.But you are right,many stupid people thinking ABS and 4WD allow them to drive the same as if it is summer.Jeep drivers surpassed subaru drivers,for being the most stupid,in our state,but may has changed nowadays.

 

[tbear853]

LOL,no first snow here,it can and does snow every month of the year.But you are right,many stupid people thinking ABS and 4WD allow them to drive the same as if it is summer.Jeep drivers surpassed subaru drivers,for being the most stupid,in our state,but may has changed nowadays.

Owned a Subaru continuously since 1986, they are good.

Back in 1993 I was still a Trooper, it was a blizzard weekend, Interstate covered still with snow over ice, I was driving my issued red unmarked police car with chains going to a wreck, running about 40, Jeep passed me like I was on blocks, easily running 70 or better, I flipped on my emergency lights & siren, still going maybe 40, Jeep driver saw my grill mounted blue lights or maybe heard the siren, I forget which, but he panicked, hit his brakes, and went spinning into a wide snow filled median strip. I eased up to the wreck, he climbed out, I said "Let me guess, your middle name is Dumba55". His middle initial was a D. Reckless Driving.

Pulled up to the wreck I was originally responding to, damn if it wasn't a Jeep too, lady sitting on cold guard rail, her jeep down in the median with big long looping tracks in the snow, I bet was 20" snow drifted then there. The lady said she was going the speed limit and not speeding. I said "Mam, I had to help you walk across the road to get your purse out of your jeep and you're driving speed limits", she said .... "But I was in four wheel drive". Reckless Driving.

True story. It was a March blizzard as I recall.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Owned a Subaru continuously since 1986, they are good.

Back in 1993 I was still a Trooper, it was a blizzard weekend, Interstate covered still with snow over ice, I was driving my issued red unmarked police car with chains going to a wreck, running about 40, Jeep passed me like I was on blocks, easily running 70 or better, I flipped on my emergency lights & siren, still going maybe 40, Jeep driver saw my grill mounted blue lights or maybe heard the siren, I forget which, but he panicked, hit his brakes, and went spinning into a wide snow filled median strip. I eased up to the wreck, he climbed out, I said "Let me guess, your middle name is Dumba55". His middle initial was a D. Reckless Driving.

Pulled up to the wreck I was originally responding to, damn if it wasn't a Jeep too, lady sitting on cold guard rail, her jeep down in the median with big long looping tracks in the snow, I bet was 20" snow drifted then there. The lady said she was going the speed limit and not speeding. I said "Mam, I had to help you walk across the road to get your purse out of your jeep and you're driving speed limits", she said .... "But I was in four wheel drive". Reckless Driving.

True story. It was a March blizzard as I recall.

Give her a citation for driving too fast for conditions? I would have. Same with the DA that blew by you. People have no sense at all and while I was never an LE, I've seen a lot in 29 years of driving a big steel hauler (before I retired). I used to think to myself about those idiots in their 16 gauge steel coffins... I don't ever drive fast anyway. I've learned on the e-way even in dry conditions. I drive 5 under. That way I'm usually in the open and not bunched up with the tailgaters.

My favorite is distracted drivers. Being in a big truck and looking down, you'd be amazed at what I saw. People do some wacky stuff, they think no one can see them. Wrong, I can and so can every truck driver they pass.....lol

 

[tbear853]

That is Reckless Driving with 6 points, up to $2500 fine and or 12 months jail ... depending on circumstances, etc ... here,

(broken link removed)

But then the judge ofttimes reduced them in fowl weather wrecks to improper driving, with a fine only, and 3 points

(broken link removed)

 

[Mt Bob]

LOL,"distracted drivers", out here in Montana,I see more over the road trucks making unsafe maneuvers,than cars and small trucks.Constantly weaving amoungst the lanes.True over the road truck drivers went away when they put power steering and automatic transmission's them.

 

[tbear853]

I'll just add that while it was two Jeep drivers that day back to back, by no means do Jeep drivers have a monopoly. It was just a funny coincidence that I was on the way to one when the other "happened". No injuries.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Way back when, I owned a Jeep. Problem with them besides being light is, the short wheelbase. They like to swap ends on slippery roads anyway. Been there and did that way back when. Nothing better to tighten up your butt hole than doing doughnuts in the middle of a 2 lane with no control whatsoever. No one impacted but my shorts were soiled.

Got rid of it soon after. Lesson learned. Short wheelbase + 4wd + ice = a bad situation at any speed. Everyone around here has one. The farm we own is about 18 miles north of Toledo Jeep on Stickney Avenue in Toledo. Everyone except us that is. Lesson learned with no casualties .

 

[SidecarFlip]

What really tightens up the old butthole is wadding up a tractor trailer on ice-snow covered highway. Did that too. Tractor trailers have a real bad habit of the trailer trying to pass the tractor (jack knife) and there is nothing you can do but hang on and watch and you have a ringside seat for the spectacle. Wadded one up in Southern Ohio one time. Should have stayed in the truck stop snoozing. Oh well, it was insured. Made a heck of a mess though. Trailer spilled it's guts all over the road and in the ditch and the tractor (that I owned) had about 30 grand in damage of which I paid a grand and was out my income for a month while it was being repaired. I was hauling 45,000 pounds of plastic pellets in cardboard Gaylords in a 45 foot box trailer. About half the load went all over the Interstate and that had to be cleaned up too. Interesting times back then.

Once a tractor trailer starts to get sideways, not much you can do, in fact, nothing you can do except pray, and quickly.

 

[tbear853]

Tractor Trailers ..... one winter day I was working wreck after wreck, my issed police car then was a 1994 Chevrolet Caprice with the LT-1 350, it would scat. Anyway, it was green unmarked, and the department had put one blue strobe on the rear package shelf on left right in line with a driver's head, facing rearwards. I bought a second just like it and placed it along side, over on the right though, wired in with the dept. provided light.

I-81 south, cold, snowing heavy, car was wrecked on SB side over on right, front wedged under the guard rail, I was waiting on a tow truck to come & remove it. The rear of it was a foot or two out into the right lane. Behind me, I-81 was a curve that as you came south, was a left hander. All this on a gentle down hill grade.

I was seriously worried about being hit so I was watching the mirror. I knew those two little blue strobes were of little use so near a curve in a snow storm. Then I seen a tractor trailer in the right lane come around the curve. was a big box trailer. Then I saw something else in my mirror, it was what really scared me, it was a second trailer, an empty flatbed, angled out from it's tractor which was hidden behind the truck ahead with the box trailer. I think the first tractor trailer slowed, the F-B driver applied his brakes, his unloaded FB skidded outwards across the shoulder all the way to the guardrail.

I had no "out" of this "sandwich in the making".

I was ever so thankful to see the F-B go back into the right lane before getting to my police car, maybe the FB driver let up off the brakes. He passed by missing me, but he skimmed that guard rail. I don't know if he even knew I was there.

 

[Connecticut Yankee]

They’re calling for the same amount of snow here in Southeast Ohio....you’d think it was the end of times the way people act when it’s going to snow around here.

When I was nine, we moved from Buffalo, where the snow often reaches the second story windows, to Connecticut. I still remember how hilarious it was watching people try to cope with an inch or two of snow. Guess it's all what you're used to. If Buffalo ground to a halt for a little bit of snow, nothing would ever get done between October and March! Mind you, I've seen some bad blizzards here in the Connecticut-New York-New Jersey area, but they have been much fewer and farther between.

Of course, idiots are everywhere. Even in the mid-Hudson Valley, where heavy snowfall is fairly common, the mindset is that four-wheel drive means never having to worry about skidding. Sheesh!

I worked for ten years for a brilliant software engineer, who was a very wise man. I still remember him pointing out that, in your entire lifetime, you can't possibly save enough time by speeding and running red lights, to make up for the time lost to a single accident. That observation has stuck with me in the decades since.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Tractor Trailers ..... one winter day I was working wreck after wreck, my issed police car then was a 1994 Chevrolet Caprice with the LT-1 350, it would scat. Anyway, it was green unmarked, and the department had put one blue strobe on the rear package shelf on left right in line with a driver's head, facing rearwards. I bought a second just like it and placed it along side, over on the right though, wired in with the dept. provided light.

I-81 south, cold, snowing heavy, car was wrecked on SB side over on right, front wedged under the guard rail, I was waiting on a tow truck to come & remove it. The rear of it was a foot or two out into the right lane. Behind me, I-81 was a curve that as you came south, was a left hander. All this on a gentle down hill grade.

I was seriously worried about being hit so I was watching the mirror. I knew those two little blue strobes were of little use so near a curve in a snow storm. Then I seen a tractor trailer in the right lane come around the curve. was a big box trailer. Then I saw something else in my mirror, it was what really scared me, it was a second trailer, an empty flatbed, angled out from it's tractor which was hidden behind the truck ahead with the box trailer. I think the first tractor trailer slowed, the F-B driver applied his brakes, his unloaded FB skidded outwards across the shoulder all the way to the guardrail.

I had no "out" of this "sandwich in the making".

I was ever so thankful to see the F-B go back into the right lane before getting to my police car, maybe the FB driver let up off the brakes. He passed by missing me, but he skimmed that guard rail. I don't know if he even knew I was there.

My son is a highway patrol officer, K9 specialty but he's in Georgia so he don't get to experience the joys of winter driving anymore. Lucky him. Now, when it's bad out, I just stay home and enjoy the fire in the biomass stove. Much safer that way. I not so fondly remember my on the road days. Least the last 28 years I worked for a great company, have a fantastic retirement and pension. Best move I made was selling my rolling stock and becoming a company driver. Always drove 2 year old or less Western Star long nose conventionals with curtain side flatbed trailers and got paid very well for my time. Every 2 years, new truck and trailer. All I did was fuel them and check the fluids and kick the tires. Everything was handled by the shop. In a way I miss it and in a way I don't.

I own a pristine International Eagle conventional twin screw tractor with a Caterpillar 3406B and a 13 double over and I pull a grain hopper at harvest time from the farm to the grain elevator, about 20 miles each way. Enough trucking for me anymore. Tractor and trailer, long paid for, owes me nothing. Don't even need a CDL because it's ag related intrastate. Have it anyway.

 

[tbear853]

My son is a highway patrol officer, K9 specialty but he's in Georgia so ... etc ...

Good for him. It is an exciting career, never dulls, one you look forward to coming back to after vacation, in a way. Every day different, it gets easier with time in some respects, harder in others. Boredom, glee, terror, sadness, awesome moments, peace, buddies, even the public, thankfulness.

My specialty in addition to patrol, was "Accident Reconstruction" (22+ of my 31+ yrs in) and instructor for RADAR, SFSTs, Acc Invest. & Recon., DUI. Even taught some photography. Drove in Georgia a lot up until recently as my BIL & his family lived Marietta, Douglasville, Carrolton, Muscadine (Al.), then back to Conyers, then they moved up here in '17. He worked @ Alston & Byrd, and when in east Al. he commuted 1.5 hrs one way. I used to remind him when he lamented long commutes ... that I walked to and from work every day, heat, cold, all alone too with no radio to keep me company, the distance depended on where I parked my car the day before. My commute could be really rough if I parked out in the driveway and it was raining the next day.

Oddly, I grew up from as young as 6 or 8 years old wanting to be either a truck driver or a Trooper. The C&W songs made the former sound romantic, but several uncles dissuaded me from truck driving ... & then they acted surprised when I got on with the state. If you ever ran up/down I-81 in Va., Crystal Pistol was out there through the '80s on up into "20tens".