...and my mother told me to pick the very best one...

I think we may have found a truck that will work for us. We haven’t worked out all the details yet but this is what we are looking at. For all you trucking gurus out there here are the specs:

2006 Freightliner CL12064ST-COLUMBIA 120

525,xxx to 545,xxx miles depending on the unit we pick

14.0L  Detroit    515 horsepower

Ultrashift tranny (aka autoshift… hurrah!)

3:58 ratio

22.5LP tires on all aluminum wheels

235″ wheelbase

air ride suspension

sliding 5th wheel

double bunks with pretty much basic interior blah blah blah

thermo-king tri pac apu installed (hurrah!)

some misc color to be determined later (whatever)

So there you have it, truck fans. That’s what we’re working with right now. They are asking around $24,500 depending on which model we end up picking. That’s about $5,000 less than they were asking for a similar truck without an APU back in November… Hurrah! We had figured out a brilliant scheme to get the truck without paying any interest at all on it but it’s not going to work out after all. See our thought was to pay $10,000 down and split the $15,000 remaining between two different credit cards that were offering 0% interest for a year. That way we could pay the vast majority of it off before any interest kicked in… hurrah! But in the end it wouldn’t work because they can’t accept credit cards. Oh well. Guess we’ll just have to finance it the old fashioned interest-paying way.

Also, if we end up leasing on with this tiny little company that we’re considering we will need to buy a trailer. Not a huge deal though since I think we can buy a good ‘02 or ‘03 trailer for around $5,000 or so. This little company is tiny — they only have six or seven O/O leased on with them. They are offering us 80% of the linehaul and right now they are averaging about $1.85 per mile fleet-wide. Not like we would be getting rich on that or anything but in the current state of the trucking industry it really isn’t a terribly bad deal.

Well that’s the current state of affairs. We’re working on all the paperwork and taking things one step at a time. There is just so much to do and it all has to be done at the exact right point in the process. It can get confusing. For example we have to be signed on with the carrier before we apply for financing for the truck… but the carrier wants to know what truck we have before they want to sign us on with them. Sigh. Also, we have to actually go and check out the trucks and pick one and have it put on the dyno and have the fluids tested and hire an independent mechanic to go over every square inch of the truck to see exactly what we’re getting. Some drivers also say you should get a complete dump of the ECM but to be honest I’m not sure that I would understand all the info I would be getting so I don’t know how helpful that would be to us.

Oh well, we’re slowly inching our way forward. Hopefully good things come to those who take baby steps. Tiny, confused, bumbling, stumbling baby steps.

Finally something interesting happened that I can write about. Not that tons of interesting things have been going on left and right but I wasn’t able to post about them due to national security issues or something… not much has been happening around the Hagstead lately.

Anyway, I forgot to get tomatoes and we were planning to have tacos for supper. I ran out to our little country store to grab some. Rushed into the store, grabbed the tomatoes and was heading back outside. As I walked up to the glass door there was an older lady who was approaching it from the outside about a half-step slower than me. Since I was at the door first, and she was an older lady, I opened the door, stepped through it and then held it open for her to walk into the store.

Now I’m not one to base a lot on a person’s appearance or anything, but I did notice that while she was quite well-dressed she also appeared somewhat… well… snooty. All I mean by that is her mouth was all pursed up in that older-lady-expression-of-disapproval and she didn’t even make eye contact or acknowledge me as I opened the door for her.

As I stepped through the door, I heard a ruckus and looked across the parking lot to where three young men were whooping and hollering. They didn’t seem to be causing any trouble or anything just goofing around. Well the older lady heard them too and stopped half-way through the door and turned around to glare at them. Meanwhile I was still standing there holding the door open for her. So there we were… me holding the door while she glared at the whooping teens. We stood like that for about 15 to 20 seconds.

I don’t know if you’ve ever stood there holding the door open for someone for about 20 seconds but that is a surprisingly long time to just stand there like a doofus holding the door. So eventually I decided that she wasn’t going to go in the store after all and I could go on about my business. I smiled at her again — which she ignored again — and let go of the door to head on home with my tomatoes.

That’s when it all sort of shifted into slow motion. The giant heavy glass door started swinging straight toward the old woman. She never moved. She just kept standing there starring at the rowdy teens. That door smashed straight into her disapproving face. She never even lifted a hand to stop it. Next thing I know I’ve given this elderly lady a bloody nose. Who just stands there and lets a door smash them in the face?!

Obviously I immediately freaked out and jerked the door open to say, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, Ma’am. Are you alright?”

She said, “Get away from me you… you… beast!”

I said, “I’m so sorry. I thought you had decided not to go in after all…”

She started digging through her purse and pulled out a tissue to wipe the blood off her nose. Then she stamped her foot and said, “Just get away from me you white-trash, welfare, ghetto beast.”

So I stepped back outside with one of the clerks. I was still quite shocked by the whole thing and said to the clerk, “I thought she had decided to go back to her car. I mean I had been standing there a long time.”

The clerk said, “I know you did. I was standing there wishing you two would close the door and quit letting all the cold air inside. I wouldn’t worry about it. She’s a real bitch.”

So there I stood… after a lifetime of respecting and honoring older people, I had just given an old woman a bloody nose. I was momentarily rooted to the spot, but after a few moments of consideration I did what any white-trash, welfare, ghetto beast would do in that situation… I grabbed my tomatoes and went home. I mean who does she think she is that people should just stand around and hold the door for her all night, anyway?

Man this time at home has gone on forever. So much has happened that I don’t even know where to begin. Guess we’ll just pick a topic and go from there. How about… hmmm… weight loss. Those of you who have been keeping track might remember that when Stace and I came in off the road she had lost like a thousand pounds and I had only lost something like 24 overall. I wasn’t freaking out or anything but I will admit to being a little concerned about my lack of progress.

This led to my increased urges to get a Wii asap. I figured we were going to be home for a while and any increased physical activity would be a good thing. So we got the Wii and set to work. Boxing. Tennis. Bowling. We even worked the speed skating and synchronized swimming. Granted, we did figure out how to do virtually all of the various sports from our great big recliners, but lets be honest just flailing our arms around wildly was going to be an improvement over passively watching tv like a slack-jawed yokel. Wii-related arm flailing seemed to be making a difference and I lost a few pounds once we were finally home.

I thought the Wii workout was really worthwhile but it was surpassed by an even more intense exercise plan. I like to call this plan the Chase-The-LittleOne-Around-The-House-Work-Out. See what happened was that Chaos and LittleOne came up to the house for Christmas. They got to stay a few days then Chaos had to go home to go back to work cause she still has her crappy menial food-service job that she hates. (Woo Hoo!) Anyway, Chaos had to go home, but Stace and I weren’t ready to give up LittleOne yet. So I suggested that we keep LittleOne up at our house for just a couple more days. How hard could it be? I would take Chaos home and bring LittleOne back to Missouri then we would keep LittleOne for a couple more days and finally take her home. Easy, right?

No. Not easy. Not easy at all. Here’s the thing… I forgot to consider the weather. Due to the stupid weather we ended up keeping LittleOne by ourselves for nine days. Nine days, people. Now don’t get me wrong, LittleOne was a great kid the entire time. She never acted up. She behaved very well. As a matter of fact, she was a real joy. But she was a two-year-old-massive-bundle-of-energy joy. She sort of unknowingly created her own work out routine for the grandmas. I can’t say for sure that she was channeling Jillian from the Biggest Loser, but it did seem likely based on the workout plan she came up with:

237 complete outfit changes into and out of fairy princess outfit.

367 trips escorting LittleOne to the back of the house to see what the dog was getting up to back there

163 sinks full of dishes washed by me and rinsed by LittleOne.

479 horsey rides.

821 diaper changes.

1,482 trips to the bathroom to brush LittleOne’s teeth with her fancy new spinning toothbrush.

3,841 other trips to the bathroom so LittleOne could wash her hands.

1 trip to Walmart immediately after Christmas so LittleOne could be more properly spoiled.

2,347 games of Somebody’s-In-My-Chair which involved much tickling and ended with picking LittleOne up and flinging her around a bit before flopping into the recliner together.

8,631 games of Let’s-All-Squeal-Really-Loudly-And-Chase-The-Dog-Down-The-Hall

All in all it was a hell of a work-out. I was exhausted by the time we took her home. But between the Wii and the LittleOne I ended up losing a ton more weight. I was at 24 pounds after all those months on the road and after less than two moths at home I am now at 47 pounds down. WooHoo!! I am this close to fifty pounds lost. Hurrah!! Maybe I should go get LittleOne for a few more days.

Some pictures from Christmas and yesterday.

It's rough being a princess. Get on my foot already!

Santa's cute helper

Does pushing this button make lots of noise? Awesome!

You mean I get this bike two days AFTER Christmas? Works for me. Now look at my foot.

I like staying with my grandmas. Or at any rate, Grandma Stace caught me at an opportune moment.