Hasta La Vista, Baby.

I got to be the terminator tonight. No more rastafarian for us. I feel sort of bad on one hand, but on the other, I feel okay with it. In this market, if you can't take your job seriously, we can find someone who does. The shit hitting the fan today means mas Manuel labor.

La Hidráulica No Son Buenos

Especially when you have 'em backwards. You see, garbage truck hydraulics work just like garbage truck electrical stuff. You have a pressure line (power) and a return to the tank (ground). Valves typically have the pressure input marked.

Today, I fixed the 17-yard McNeilus box that has mystified el mecánico. As it turns out, there's an electric safety valve that requires 12 volts for any of the pressure lines to work. It also helps when the pressure is flowing the right direction, dude.

Once we made it work, the Manuel Labor started. There was the classic sledge hammer usage (Manuel and I taking turns with the big hammer while José shouts "¡Otro!"), because the damn caja has been sitting around rusting and otherwise filthy. José says, "It's the Mexican way."

Either there's a lot of air in the system (put on your surprised face), or the ejection cylinder is broken, because it doesn't quite do it right. I'll worry about that some other time.

The worst part about hydraulic work is that getting oily is unavoidable. That crap makes my skin itch and break out in a gnarly rash. No me gusta eso.

They Fucked With The Wrong Mexican.

I still think that this is hilarious. Grindhouse is on the Encore tonight. (I thought that the satellite TV was going away. Apparently not.)

Jokes Courtesy Of José

I'm still trying to figure these out.

Q: How do you kill ten mexicans?
A: Go to Kmart.

Q: How do you kill ten wetos?
A: Go to Walmart.

mission accomplished

the small cat apparently is not a fan of home alone.

outside of an unfortunate cellphone disaster (no phonebook no more), the treep was okay. the truck is cool. one of the high points of the trip was jose regaling me with tales of corpus christi back in the day:

"we used to go to the part of town that we called the nigger town."
"i was maybe 13 or 14 years old."
"no one said shit and there they give me beer and there was music and girls."
"a lot of girls."
"they used to call me the nigger fucker."
"i never fucked a black girl."

certainly it's not the same if you're not in a "family restaurant" with a hard of hearing mexican diesel mechanic. it was hilarious, really.

Illinois, bitches!?!

Jose and I get to take a treep to pick up another truck in Illinois (Rangoon, as mahoney calls it--actually it's rantoul, IL--ought to be Indiana, really). Am I the only one that thinks that a Midwestern road trip in a strange vehicle in February is a bad idea? I suppose that it'll be no worse than the new jersey odyssey through the July 4th weekend. Weekends are best, because the weigh stations are mostly closed, so they won't be checking the (non-existent) logbook. Legally, 11 hours a day is the maximum for OTR drivers, but I prefer to do 15 or 16.

The truck is supposedly pretty sweet--a 2003 Sterling with a 16 yard NUWAY, a Benz motor (hinkey germans), an Allison tranny. It'll have AC and a radio. Whoot! This treep will be better than that last one. Any Jose teep should be memorable, with some Jose antiques, for sure. SALSA.

This means that Nitwit gets a vacation, and that Monkeypuss will be home alone. I'm a bit troubled by the travel since it means time away from my lady-friend (more about her another time).