Area 51 Alien Center

          OMG I finally made it!  For five years, I’ve wanted a load that would take me up US 95 in Nevada from Las Vegas to Reno so I could go to THIS truck stop.  Last week, I finally got one.  (Thank you, Joey!)

          I don’t know if I believe in the existence of alien life.  I don’t know if I believe that aliens have landed on our planet and the government is denying it.  What I do believe in is the possibility.  For me, the idea of aliens is fun to think and speculate about, but I don’t believe I will have definite answers in my lifetime. 

          I’m a Trekkie.  My two favorite Star Trek episodes are the Next Generation episode where people from the 20^th Century are found cryogenically frozen and brought back to a state of consciousness where they find out they’re hundreds of years in the future and having to adjust, and the Next Generation movie, First Contact, where the crew goes back in time to when the Vulcans first made contact with the inhabitants of Earth.  (Told you I was a nerd!)

          Star Trek and portrayed aliens as mostly friendly, whereas most other movies portrayed aliens as aggressors.  I like friendly aliens better.

          A local resident was nice enough to indulge me and take this picture.  I talked to him for a few minutes and he told me he does this for travelers all the time.  I was there less than an hour, but I had a blast.

          What do you think about aliens?  Have they been here?  Are they here now, walking among us and we just don’t know it?  Am I a loon?

Is There Anything Good About E-logs?

          I’ve heard plenty of complaints about e-logs.  There hasn’t been a wide variety of complaints, what I hear is the same three or four complaints echoed by many people.  What I’m not hearing is much good about e-logs.  

          Is there anything good about e-logs?  Believe it or not, there are some advantages to e-logs.  The two main advantages that I’ve experienced are that they do the math for me and they “trained” me while I was trying to understand the changes in the HOS that happened while I was a stay at home mom.

          When I was on paper logs, I was a nightmare with my recap.  I’m a reasonably intelligent person, but I kept adding 7 days instead of 8 and couldn’t figure out why I had 10 more hours than I had yesterday when I drove 10 and gained 10.  My e-logs don’t get tired and make rookie mistakes.

          I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… the 8/2 split rule wouldn’t have been anymore confusing to learn if it had been written in Greek or Swahili.  Once I finally got it, I realized I’d been making it a whole lot harder than it was… but until I had that “AHA moment,” holy guacamole!  Thankfully, my e-logs don’t try to overthink things like I do.

          A friend of mine (who drives for another company) told me that when he was on paper logs he abused them like crazy.  One of the biggest advantages for him is now that he has no choice but to run legal, he doesn’t experience the high level of anxiety about DOT asking to see his log book like he used to. 

          What about you?  What is something good that you’ve found about being on e-logs?