I’m fascinated by the life of the truck driver. As an occupation, it is the modern equivalent of what being a sailor used to be three hundred years ago. Long stretches of time away from home and hearth, a crusty disresgard for landlubbers, and a life spent in unfamiliar places in the society of other rootless nomads. Instead of islands and ports, truckers have truckstops and loading docks. Like ships, their trucks are made for long distance and for living. At a modern truckstop, you will find all the modern necessities of life. When I stopped into the “Flying J” truckstop in Waco, I was amazed at how specialized the facilities were. There are private rentable shower rooms, sit-down telephone booths for private conversation, WiFi internet access, laundry facilities, DVD rental, and even a television lounge where you can sit and unwind (see photo to the right). You could live your life entirely on the road, especially these days with the Internet and cell phones. The only challenges as I see it, intense boredom and the need to sit for long periods of time.
-
This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Personal, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
-
1 Comment
Take a look at some of the responses we've had to this article.
-
Post a Comment
Let us know what you thought.
Flickr Photos
Twitter- sivori: @randyjensen Firefox has been replaced for the most part, especially now that Chrome 4 supports Greasemonkey extensions.
- sivori: @mathowie The fan pages are for sure. Although, I have noticed that some things release info via FB that they don't via their blog feeds.
- sivori: I much recommend investing in an additional power supply for your Macbook. After market knockoffs can be had on eBay for twenty bucks.
- sivori: @randyjensen Yeah, looks good. I'm hoping someone else releases something soon, just so's there's some more competition.
- sivori: @loverlymle One of my friends is looking for a little help with some PHP. No rush.
-
There’s actually a book called Sailors of the Concrete Sea. It’s all dry statistics and not any stories. The boredom factor is taken care of by hobbies, computer or TV and movies, just like at a house on a day off. The good parts are the independence and the greatest view of any office.