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Thu.Mar.23.2006

4:24 am EST        33°F (1°C) in Cleveland, TN

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It only took three days, but I am finally out of the shop and back on the road with this truck. The Freightliner dealership about 60 miles north of here, a bit west of Knoxville on Interstate 40/75, ended up replacing the four rearmost fuel injector units earlier today. (These are inline six-cylinder engines mounted longitudinally, or front-to-back, on the frame rails, so in other words, it was the #3, #4, #5, and #6 cylinders that got new injectors.) Apparently, the old injectors were allowing fuel to become aerated at the connection to the fuel rail in the cylinder head; as a result, at the “action” end of the injectors (inside the cylinder), hardly any fuel was being sprayed into the cylinder. No fuel = no run.

I have to wait awake here at this shipper until 6:00 am EST because somebody within my company has dropped the communication ball. Ordinarily, this customer is open 24/7 for pick-ups, but as I was told by the security guard when I arrived here an hour ago, during this week they are only permitting pick-ups between 6:00 am EST and 6:00 pm EST for some reason. Of course, my load assignment message said nothing at all about this temporary change in business hours, so here I sit without shit to do for a few hours. (Then again, how is that really any different from the last three days, other than the fact that this time, I know the term of my confinement?)

My latest obsession seems to be trying to commit all 11 Big Ten fight songs to memory. Even before my most recent push to download a whole bunch of university fight songs, I already knew the fight songs of Michigan (duh!), Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Illinois (assuming “Oskee Wow-Wow” is considered to be the Fighting Illini’s fight song), Northwestern, Minnesota (the “Rouser”), and Wisconsin. At this point, I think I’ve got “Hail Purdue” and the Iowa fight song down pretty well, so that leaves what is, in my opinion, by far the suckiest fight song in the Big Ten — Indiana. I know that an old high school classmate of mine who went to IU will probably put me on his death list for saying that, but hey, it’s true.

(Yes, for all you non-Big Ten kiddlies out there, there is no such thing as the “University of Indiana.” When you say “UI” or “U of I” about a Big Ten school, you are referring to either Illinois or Iowa. The school in Bloomington, IN, is properly called Indiana University and is therefore abbreviated “IU.” There are two more schools (other than the “____ State” schools) in the Big Ten that are the same way with the word “University”: Northwestern University (NU) and Purdue University (PU), not the other way around.)

In addition to all 11 of the Big Ten fight songs, I have gone after several other famous ones from other NCAA Division I-A schools, as well as some Big Ten alma maters and other famous tunes. The University of Tennessee’s “Rocky Top,” UCLA’s “Sons of Westwood,” Southern California’s “Fight On,” Wisconsin’s “Budweiser Song” and alma mater “Varsity,” and the Purdue marching band’s yearly contribution (along with actor/singer Jim Nabors) of “Back Home Again in Indiana” to the Indianapolis 500, are just some of the other ones I’ve picked up on my recent (100% legal!) downloading rampage.

I’m too tired to come up with much more in the way of coherent thought, so I’m going to call it a night and grab a mini-nap here until this shipper opens.