There is a sign over the highway that lists how many people have died so far on Texas roads this year. (It’s warning us to be careful.) The number I last saw was 2,157. 2,157 people died. That’s a lot of people, but it’s just a sign over a roadway. It’s just a number. Minimal impact. A crazy person goes into an elementary school, guns down 20 children, and rips our hearts out. 20 innocent children. It’s unbearable to ponder. Still. There had to be at least 20 children killed in that traffic toll of 2,157, but somehow it’s just not the same. It’s a mind boggling disconnect. Of course the death of a friend or loved one has a greater impact than the death of a stranger, yet there is more to it than just proximity and knowledge. The children killed in an elementary school on the other coast are no nearer or known to us than the nameless children killed in traffic right here in our own state. Death is so absolute, yet at the same time so relative; the impact is relative and I don’t even know relative to what.
Long haul trailer odometers
Followup. Do truck trailers have odometers to track miles traveled? Turns out a lot of people knew the answer to this one. There is a hub meter to track how far trailers have gone. They need to know that for monitoring tires, brakes, and wheel bearings. Not all trailers have them, but many do.
Arie’s birthday
A year ago today.
It was an exciting, exhausting, rewarding time.
It was an exciting, exhausting, rewarding time. They must have odometers on long-haul trailers
That’s my guess anyway. Since trailers get dragged from place to place, and not always by the same tractor, they must have really good logs, or have their own odometers. Trucks need speedometers and odometers so they can monitor their speed and distance and track service intervals. Trailers don’t need speedometers but they must need to track distance for service intervals. If they’re not always attached to the same truck, they must have odometers of their own too. A trucker would know…
We have a winner!
Fox Sparrow. That’s the bird I most want next. It’s a good one because it’s not extremely difficult to find and also because it lives in the north part of Texas in the winter. We don’t even have to travel out of state to see it; we just have to go to a part of Texas we don’t usually go to in the winter. Not only do we have a winner, we have an alternate. The next most wanted bird after the Fox Sparrow: Mountain Quail. It’s nowhere around here, it lives in the High Sierras in California up through Oregon so it will have to wait, but we’re going to the family reunion on the eastern slope of the Cascades next year. That will put us within a state of him. Maybe we can drop down a state and get him then.