Delay of game penalty!

I know I'm behind on my posts, so I'll try to catch everyone up as best I can.  (I get a delay of game penalty!)

$650!  That will buy you a new 42" flatscreen TV, set of 4 tires for an SUV, about 1 1/2 months worth of groceries for my house, a new laptop, 3 Nintendo Wii's, 2 roundtrip flights to Orlando, Florida & back, what could you buy with $650???  That was just one fuel up for me!!

You guys got it right!!  I got Mrs. Hnizdo's email.  Sounds like you've got some of this fuel island math down!!  Long division/multiplication is tough, but it will come in handy once you master it. 

So, in my last post, I was showing you guys our awesome rain storm.  We got 2 inches of rain out of that storm.  SO cool!!  We got a little shower Sunday morning as well but it was just 1/10 of an inch. 

My parents came into town over the weekend.  They own the farm where we live.  They were in town to visit with some friends and help do a few things around the farm.  They picked up a donkey and some firewood down in Clyde, TX - where my brother lives. 

My nephew Dalton riding Pedro the donkey.

Friday night I headed in to Midlothian to the mill and I got word from my boss that the mill had been evacuated!  Apparently something broke in the melt shop that has all the lava-hot melted steel and it was close enough to an oxygen pipeline that it could have been hazardous.  So, they took the safest bet and evacuated everyone & sent everyone home.  (SCIENCE TIDBIT:  Oxygen is one of the main fuel sources for a fire.  If something VERY hot gets a pure oxygen source, it would have been a very fast and quick burning fire!) 

I called my wife's grandmother (Grandma Joy!).  She lives there in Midlothian.  She sleeps in the afternoons and a little at night and she was up late.  I asked if I could snooze at her place for a little bit, so I parked the truck in a safe church parking lot and walked about 5-10 minutes to her house from there.  I got about 5 hours of sleep and went into the mill at about 9:00 AM.  (Thanks Grandma Joy!!)  That gave me the opportunity to get some good pictures of the Midlothian steel mill during the day!  Ready for it?  Here we go!

Acres of brand new steel

Shredder in Midlothian.  Good view of the conveyor that feeds it!

Grapple feeding the shredder conveyor.

Steel mill on the left, scale house middle bottom.  We have two scales.  Left one is for inbound traffic (loaded), Right one is for outbound traffic (empty).

More acres and tons of brand new steel ready to be picked up and hauled off to constructions sites around the world!

On Saturday, I made another run to Midlothian but thankfully it was very unventful.  I had a lot of traffic that day that I had to deal with.  I suppose lots of construction is done on the weekend when it's not as busy.  Then, there are some spots where the construction goes on for months.  Those are usually bigger projects.  Saturday, we had supper with my parents.  Then, we had some birthday cake.  Yes, folks - my birthday is in September.  September 26, 1979 is my birthday.  We celebrated it a little early since I don't get to be with my parents much.  It was great spending time with them!

Sunday, we spent the morning with my parents briefly before they had to leave.  We went to church and ate lunch with some friends and had a relaxing day at home on Sunday night. 

Monday was interesting.  I went to Sweetwater like usual and was there at about 5:00 AM.  My truck was dead!!  So, when I say dead - I mean it wouldn't crank!  My key was left on!  So, I tried charging it with jumper cables from my truck.  Then I put a battery charger on it.  Then I put an even BIGGER battery charger on it and still nothing.  Finally, I took the batteries off.  This truck has 3 huge 12 volt batteries with 600 cranking amps each (Most trucks have 4 of them!  Your parents' car has just 1!).  That's 1800 amps total!!  I had them tested and 2 of the 3 batteries were bad.  Sooooo.... I picked up 3 new batteries from our parts store and put them in.  I got inside, turned the key and it fired up like a champ!!  It was a little bit aggrivating to go through all of that work trying to get it to start just to find out I had a couple of bad batteries!!!  But it does feel good knowing that truck #10 has good, new, fresh batteries in it.

ALSO:  Truck 24 is back from the shop!!  The shop called that truck our 'Homing Pigeon'.  Since it likes to go back to the Freightliner shop all the time!!  Hopefully, it will be on the road for a good while before having to go back into the shop!!  I went and picked it up with another driver "James" today down in Abilene, TX.

This should catch you up to now.  It's Monday night & I'm watching a little bit of the Monday Night Football game.  My Broncos & Cowboys won, so that's cool!!  I watched Lindsey while my wife Kasey went to spend some time with some friends.  She played and ate dinner and then we read some books and she went to bed.  She's soooo cute!  I hope you guys had a great weekend and that school is going well!!  Until next time!  --Robbie