Profile For Harvey C.

We visited Michael in Texas and lucked out with clouds clearing 10 minutes before totality. We watched from his back yard. It was very impressive.

According to Google Maps, there were not any significant traffic delays in the Dallas area.

Harvey says:

“I'm 66 and this may very well my last chance to see a solar eclipse during my lifetime (at least here in the continental U.S.)”

Next eclipse is Aug 23, 2044. Harvey, you will only be 86! You can come over to my nursing home to watch it with me. You bring the beer.

I'll be 87 by then! (birthday in July) :) The following year has a much bigger audience area Eclipse paths 2041-2050

But I might try catching one in 2026 crossing mainland Portugal or perhaps catch a 50 mile boat ride heading north of our Madeira, Portugal vacation home in 2027. Come join me, I'll bring the beer, wind, and poncha!

Stay safe everyone!

My nephew is a tugboat captain and shared this story about a marine accident with the captain having 45 years of experience and admitting he had become complacent. I think it's a useful reminder to everyone, including truck drivers.

Complacent Captain

A new article discussing travel warnings issued by states in the path of the eclipse next week. This eclipse is expected to have a greater impact than in 2017 as it crosses more heavily populated areas.

Eclipse travel warnings

Sorry to hijack, but I also saw an article with this odd coincidental accident:

fish in wrong river

Hi Harvey!

Hey, good to hear from you. Also, I hadn’t heard about the eclipse yet but it will be a must see for me also. The link you posted is very helpful and hopefully I’ll be in Texas when it happens.

What about the farm? Is it on the market? What’s going on with Michael in Texas since he moved?

Now I gotta check out the eclipse info for other locations if I’m not going to be in Texas.

Hello Bruce, I check in from time to time and have been doing well. I hope you are doing well. Are farm is listed for sale and we expect to receive an offer this week and we look forward to retiring. We are weary right now as we've been busy shipping fig cutting orders for the past four weeks (over 1,200 orders with 13,000 cuttings thus far) and we have other farm work waiting. We plan to remain living here locally for the time being but might eventually move to Texas if Michael stays settled there.

I'm amazed that Kearsey has been a real life Playboy bunny hiding out as a trucker.

Michael has been doing well but has been frustrated with frequently sitting too long and may try out a flatbed gig.

Have any of you thought about scheduling your drive on April 8th to be off the road during the upcoming solar eclipse on April 8th (if you are in its path)? A month or so ago I read that it can be a bit dangerous to be driving during an eclipse as some unpredictable drivers will pull off to the shoulder of the road, etc.

We are thinking of flying to Texas to visit Michael during the eclipse and he's going to try to extend his current segment so that he takes home time during the eclipse so he can visit with us. I'm 66 and this may very well my last chance to see a solar eclipse during my lifetime (at least here in the continental U.S.)

Texas eclipse timeline

My perception when Michael worked at CR England was that Werner handed off some of the inferior Dollar General routes to CR England. I expect it would be the same with Dollar Tree.

Also, though Michael worked for CR England, he once had a trailer with brakes that were locking up and he was told to work with Werner road service to deal with it but Werner didn't seem interested in handling it since he wasn't their driver.

Our son Michael did Dollar General with CR England stories for about five months and only took that fleet as he was worried about not getting offered something else after his co-driver took off with their truck into another fleet when Michael took home time. He very much hated the Dollar General account and looking back at things it's hard not to laugh at some of the crazy things. Several of his loads had milk spilling out of them because the rolltainers were not secured properly at the DC (one time before he even got out of the DC yard). Often spent nights behind a store in a sketchy area. Sometimes stores would not take their delivery at the appointment time because the store was under staffed and only the manager was on duty and needed to attend to customers coming into the store. Michael got lots of backing experience and, thankfully, got good at it and didn't have any incidents. Sometimes stores didn't want some of the product they were supposed to take and that involved discussion with the DC, etc. The PapaPig thread is a good one and he had good mechanic skills and repaired his lift gate himself which Michael was unable to do. There were other equipment problems. These dollar stores have grown so quickly that they can't keep up with maintaining their equipment, staffing, etc. Michael left CRE and went to Marten in March 2021 and is glad he made the move.