The Batter's Box

In August of 2013, Ichiro Suzuki manufactured his 4000^th professional hit. Based on my rough calculations, Ichiro, as a professional baseball player (in Japan and the U.S.), has had well over something like 13,500 plate appearances as a professional – over 13,500 trips into the batter's box. Who knows how many he had before he turned pro.

I'm not sure how many plate appearances I had, but it was a bunch. I started playing baseball in 1962 as an eight-year-old, and finished when I was a 19-year old sophomore in College in the spring of 1974. I played 10 years of Summer ball, four years in High School and two years of JV ball in College. The year I was 14, I played in two City of Detroit Summer Leagues (on the same team in both leagues), and also played on a team in a much more informal City of Detroit Parks and Recreation league. That summer, I averaged playing in 6-7 games a week. In 1970, I played on a team of mostly 16-year-olds that won the City of Detroit title, and subsequently lost the in the National Championship game to a team from Cincinnati, OH, in Buffalo, NY. I hit about .275 that year, and actually hit .333 in the national tournament (1 for 3, but hey, .333 is .333). I had a few good years at the plate; other than that I was a simply a dime-a-dozen-good-glove-not-much-hit middle infielder that could play some outfield and fill in behind the plate when needed. So, story be told, I had a bunch of plate appearances.

There is no other place in all of sports as magical as the batter’s box. When you step in, you have the exclusive right to that space, and anyone who is paying attention to the game has a serious interest in what you do. Sure, in baseball, it all comes down to pitching, but pitchers face all batters all game long; batters only get a handful of shots a game against whomsoever is pitching. When you step to the plate you take center stage at that moment, and everybody that is watching or listening is hoping you either succeed greatly or fail miserably – there is no in-between. It's pretty heady stuff.

My best year, my last year in Little League when I was 12, I hit .455, and was only the third best hitter on my team. Based on that one stellar year (I just did that math), I would have had to have been a 12-year-old for 154 years to collect 4000 hits. Most of my career I was a lead-off hitter – so has been the case for Ichiro. To say I am jealous of the of the man would be an understatement.

It's been over 40 years now since I last stepped to the plate in a baseball game, into the batter's box, and I still remember my last time; a clean line-drive into right (not smoked, but a decent line drive) for a single. I know I didn't realize it at the time, but that was my last time ever. I played a couple of years of softball after that, but as anyone who has ever played hardball knows, softball just isn't the same game.

So, my confession here is simple, and I believe I can honestly speak for anyone who has ever played the game the way it should be played (and you know who you are), I miss stepping to the plate.

I miss the batter's box.

On Becoming Homeless

The automatic Gaussian filter of the mind is taking over as we move closer to becoming homeless. There is a sense of sunset about it, yet there is a new chapter emerging, still formless, still the ever recurring blank canvass of tomorrow or the next day. It is both intimidating and enticing. Fifty-seven years in the making; homeless without the fear that there will never be home again. Home has become, I guess, wherever we go now, and we go a lot of places. This is the next adventure becoming complete.

It's been a good house for twenty-one and a half years. Not huge, but big enough to raise four kids and still have a room or two where you could go and hide for a while. The kids could all walk to school (and for Baily and Max, from kindergarten though 12th grade). It was a great place to raise children, and now that's going to happen again: the new owners have a four-year-old and a two-year-old, and that makes me smile. We really haven't lived there for almost three years, Beth closer to four years. But, in the end, it's a just a house, not really home anymore. We figured out that we spent about 23-24 days there last year, and that works out to be a pretty expensive dollars-to-days-used place to live. So, we move on.

If not New Philadelphia, where then does that make home these days? Maybe sitting on the deck of a house on Sugden Lake, or watching the Tigers play on TV while we play in a great kitchen in Kalamazoo, MI, or playing with our grand-children in New Philadelphia or Reynoldsburg, Ohio, or roughing it in Florida in February, or it might be at a wedding or two near Charlotte, NC. Or, it could just be a few days with some friends or family members who have told us to make sure we stop by and stay when we get through the area (you know who you are, so be prepared in case we call to invade). Hey, we actually live in a truck, so we're comfortable in a lot of places these days. I guess maybe for us anyway, home is where we park our truck.

On that thought, perhaps some day we'll get to park overnight again at a rest area near the city of Weed in Northern California, and watch the sun rise over a cloud-shrouded Mount Shasta, and for a few hours we'll feel right at home right there, too.

A "Female Driver's" Perspective on Public Relief

This post is a special guest appearance by Beth Jensen

I love the average driver's nomenclature of the woman truck driver noted above. 

As most of you females know, the worst thing about a public bathroom is sitting down and discovering the seat is wet.  The saying "If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat" is so apropos, but like any other attempt to curb human behavior, you just can't be successful all of the time.  I have never used those seat papers.  I once read somewhere that you cannot get any diseases from sitting on a public toilet seat so what's the point?  However, I have not sat on a wet seat in a long time.  I have developed an eagle eye for droplets.

Now, the question is, which stall.  The first because most females will figure it's the most used and not use it?  Or the last, or the handicapped or somewhere in between?  I usually opt for the philosophy behind the first, but move down the line if it's not up to snuff.

I think we gals have an advantage when it comes to #1.  We have privacy for that.  We even have an edge on #2.  If a guy is in a stall, I guess they know what he's doing.  Of course we can give it away with noises and odors.  Frankly, I don't care about that unless there's a line.

My beef is about what happens after.  Rest areas seldom have paper towels.   I need these for brushing my teeth and washing my face.  So I now take a hand towel with me.  When working in nursing homes for 3 years, I became well acquainted with effective hand washing.  Well, some idiotic state, I will not mention here, got sold on a system that's totally ineffective.  You put your hands in the trough.  First comes soap, then comes water, then comes your boyfriend with your daughter.  Just kidding...then comes hot air.  The time you have to lather is no where near the 30 seconds required to remove germs.

Now it's time to exit the rest area...or truck stop or customer's lavatory and you use the handles the same people before you have.  Some didn't bother to wash their hands, most didn't lather for 30 seconds.  How I've not been sick or hospitalized regularly this past year is a mystery.

One last observation.  Texas has the prettiest rest areas overall.  They tend to be mosaics in tile but also tend to be open air between wall and ceilings so are buggy, hot or cold.  The one in Laredo is awesome.  I understand you can catch a ride in Laredo to Mexico in a limo for only $20 round trip.  I hope to do that sometime. The "male drivers" tend to do this for cheap sex.  I'm thinking shopping. I doubt it would be a good idea to do it for the tequila.  

Public Relief

Truck Stop stall - Tacoma, WA

I'm not sure you ever quite get used to always having to use public bathrooms when you live in a truck. I'm guessing there are those out here that don't give it much thought, but I'm certainly not one of them.

It's also pretty strange to think that we are becoming experts at knowing where the rest stop locations are, and where each respective stop rates on a scale of one to ten - with ten being about as good as a private bathroom, and one being the kind of place where once you enter your internal organs stop working completely and you have to leave before accomplishing anything of value. 

For the most part, rest areas along the interstates are not too bad. This is particularly true along the major ones, I-80-70-10-75-35, etc. However, there are some glaring exceptions. California comes to mind, especially I-5. In the North, there is a rest area in Weed, CA., that smells a little funky and sometimes is pretty cold, but it sits almost directly across from Mt. Shasta - so it does have that going for it.

California Rest Area - Midnight

On the other hand, there is one rest area in the middle of the state that plays home to so many flies (hundreds is my best guess - I tried counting them, but it's difficult 'cause they move pretty fast and so many of them look exactly alike), that the men's room rates as close to zero on the 1-10 scale as it gets. And, there is another rest area not far from Sacramento that is well guarded by a family of four (over-weight mom and dad and two 3-5 year-old boys) with signs that tell you exactly how poor they are and how the California welfare system has been extremely unkind to them. However, they do seem to always be drinking from store-bought water bottles, and the boys always seem to be munching on some sort of candy - the kindness of strangers, perhaps?

Public Relief can sometime be daunting here in Nebraska

Rest areas in Nebraska along I-80 are some of the nicer ones, however in February is gets brutally cold, and the trucks sometimes have to park 75-100 yards away from the buildings. One really has to be dedicated about needing to find a restroom when it's 8 degrees outside and the windchill contributes to another -20 degrees. On the other hand, we once stopped at at rest area in the Mojave Desert when it was 113 degrees. Even the water from the drinking fountain was hot.

Truck Stops vary just about as wildly as the rest areas. The larger Truck Stops are usually at least clean, but are often a serious assault on one's olfactory sensibilities. And, at certain times of the day, say right after breakfast, there can be lines. Women, so I'm told, are used to seeing the occasional line in the restroom, but men are not. So, we all just stand around shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other, trying not to make eye contact, and wondering why the hell it is taking people so long - and all the while trying to look manly-man about it.


Ultimately, we do have some control over where we stop, and to the best of our ability we do try to plan ahead. But, well, the bottom line here is that sometimes when ya gotta go ya gotta go...

What The Hell Is That? Part 2

As I mentioned in an earlier "What the Hell is That" rambling, we get to see a lot of really strange things - some are subtle, and some just smack you in the face. I'm not going to try to explain all of the things shown here - I'll just throw in a little commentary, and at least tell you where we found these curiosities. 

The first photo is of the Wild Horses Monument in Washington State. Beth is standing by the lead horse with the Columbia river Gorge far below. And, just as an early experiment, below is a brief video we shot after climbing a fairly steep hill to get a better look at the artwork.

Photo taken at a rest area in New Mexico. At the time I was in desperate need of a rest stop, so I heartily approved of this location. I'm sure the good citizens of New Mexico were greatly relieved upon hearing of my approval.

The designers of signs in Massachusetts have been getting really creative lately - they also apparently have inordinately long left arms.

Not quite sure what to make of this sign we found in Portland, Oregon. I've never seen a detour for bicycles before.

We saw this "thing" on the Beltway around Washington D.C. - we're pretty sure it has something to do with Martian weapons systems and Dick Cheney.

This one doesn't need much explanation. It's a billboard near Clinton, Montana.

Proof there are still dinosaurs living on a defunct Miniature Golf Course in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Spotted at a Service Plaza along the Ohio Turnpike. Your guess is as good as anyone's.

Also proof there are over-sized sculptures of oriental figures with targets on the backs of their heads near a U.S. Xpress drop yard in Stockton, California.

Always good words to live by.

A real buffalo chip on the floor of Painted Canyon in North Dakota (note the clip-on sunglasses nearby to give you a reference for size). Another good reason why not to approach wildlife.

 

This was also taken through the fence at our company's drop yard in Stockton, California. It's really quite a place - you should plan a visit or two.

Well kids, that's all the time we have for head-scratching fun today. See you next time with more "Places You Can Actually Visit, But Don't Really Want To."

What The Hell is That? Part 1

There are a lot of strange things in this country - and they're out there on public display. Some of the things we've run across over the past 20 months ultimately have sane and plausible explanations; actually most of them do, but they still leave you scratching your head and thinking, "Seriously, is that what you really meant to do?"

Take for example this monstrosity we found being used as an entryway art piece to a warehouse and distribution complex in Paris, Texas. We both both walked around it once or twice and tried to guess as to its purpose. Then, we started asking employees around the area if they knew what it was - and they all had to scratch their heads, too. Eventually we found a guy who said, "Yeah, I think it's some sort cotton press." Ah, but of course! How could we have missed that?

How could we have been so stupid? Just look at the size of the thing compared to the cars and buildings in the background. I'll bet the whole thing has to weigh 100,000 pounds. But, it is indeed a cotton press - Google would never lie to us. My guess is that some of the old Southerners had some German engineering in their blood. You could probably melt this thing down and build a bridge across a small river with the all the metal they used.

I'm not too sure exactly why they needed this much engineering to bale cotton (and, I can't help but wonder how many of these things were actually built - maybe it's just one of those "Texas" things). There is actually a wooden beam missing from this device; it sat across the top post, much like the blade of a helicopter. Apparently some horses, maybe three or four, were somehow hooked up to the top part of the contraption and they circled around it, turning the center post, which lowered the top "jaw" of the press and formed tightly packed bales suitable for shipping. I guess it took a zillion pound machine to do this properly.

Anymore, cotton baling machines are made offshore - mostly in China - and are powered by hydraulics and pneumatics. They still weigh more than a fully loaded tractor/trailer rig, but they are not nearly as interesting looking. And, somehow I have to believe that in 150 years, no one will be using one of the new machines as a piece of outdoor art to decorate their distribution center complex.

Ten Wheels

All big trucks have at least ten wheels, many have 14 and most still have 18. That's where the whole idea for the title of this ongoing series of ramblings came from. We never have more than 14 and occasionally we only have ten. So, sometimes ten wheels is all you need.

Over the past several years, the concept of Super Single tires has started to make its way into the trucking industry. Super Single tires are almost twice as wide as traditional tires (the normal drive tires on the tractor and the tandems on the trailer) and are designed to replace the eight sets of dual tires on a typical big rig. They are still getting mixed reviews by a lot of the long-time truckers. There are pros and cons to the new wider design. Personally, I think the pros outweigh the cons, but then again, I've only been driving for a year and a half, and have only driven a tractor with Super Singles.

Our company uses the new tires exclusively on tractors and trailers purchased in '08 and later. They do save money. The footprint they create is slightly smaller than the dual tires they replace, and this makes for better fuel mileage. Big trucks have traditionally averaged around 5.5 miles per gallon. Right now out truck averages closer to 6.5 to 7 MPG - which doesn't really sound like all that much until you consider that U.S. Xpress has literally thousands of tractors running around the country, and each one is averaging between 10,000 and 25,000 miles each month (depending on whether there are one or two drivers). The other major upside is when you have to "chain-up," and we had to do that twice this past winter, there are fewer chains to mess with. Also, these tires are supposed to last longer, which is a good thing because they are horrendously expensive.

The biggest downside is that when you blow a tire and you only have four drive tires or four trailer tires, you are losing 25% of the rubber you have on the road instead of the 12.5% you'd lose if you had the more traditional tire configuration. That hasn't happen to us, or anyone I've met, but it's bound to happen someday. On the other hand, the Super Singles do have their own monitoring system, and are tied into the truck's air compressors. So, if one starts losing pressure, the systems recognizes the problem and starts pumping replacement air into the tire, and lets you know what is happening so you can make a more permanent fix as soon as possible.


The other significant downside, so I'm told, is that the tires simply aren't as good when the roads get slick. Again, so far we haven't seen this ourselves, but I hear a lot of grumbling from some of the other drivers using the wide tires.

Anyway: the whole point here is that our tractor only has six wheels, and sometimes our trailers only have four wheels. I really don't know if this Super Single concept is here to stay or not. It still boggles my mind a bit to think that you can put up to 80,000 lbs. on ten tires when it used to always take at least 18. And, I hope I never get to find out what happens if very suddenly we have only 9 tires to roll on.