Archive for the Fuel for Thought Category

If you didn’t know better, you might think it was a cautionary tale, or even a bad practical joke: A shepherd-boy, who watched a flock of sheep near a village, brought out the villagers several times by crying out, “Wolf! Wolf!” and each time his neighbors came to help him, the wolf was never there. In our industry, the shepherd-boy has been The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. For years, the FMCSA tried to implement an ELD mandate. ELD stands for Electronic Logging Device. Those of us in the industry (the villagers) kept hearing

Have you ever taken your frustrations out on Siri? “That’s not what I said!” “No, not that one!” “You stupid —phone!” While I wouldn’t take such a tone with a real person, it’s easy to get annoyed with the voice inside the iPhone. Siri, as she’s better known to iPhone users, is someone we’ve talked about before. She’s not a human being, but rather the name of the voice-activated digital assistant that iPhone users can talk to when asking for directions, food delivery options, facts that need Googling, and more. The programmers behind the app added

  This week, September 10-16th, is Truck Driver Appreciation Week, an event we celebrate annually. The work of truck drivers has been featured in the news recently as deadly hurricanes batter the coasts and wildfires rage in the West. In the affected areas, folks are reminded of what truckers do for us, as shelves go bare weeks before a weather event. (This photo was taken in Texas where the grocery store shelves were bare – except for the soy meat!) We’ve all lived through preparation for bad weather, and it seems like the trucks can’t come fast enough. Water,

For the third and final installment of our Signs of Summer series (you can read the first and second on our blog), we’re featuring a piece of roadside Americana that’s legendary here in the deep South. If you’ve never made the drive down I-95, crossing from North Carolina into South Carolina, you may not be familiar with the strange billboards lining the highway. Some of them encourage bad behavior from the passengers in the backseat – “KEEP YELLING, KIDS – THEY’LL STOP!” Some rely on silly puns – like the enormous roadside salami with the phrase

In my last post, I talked about blue highway exit signs. This week’s addition to our Signs of Summer series is about a more hi-tech evolution in road signs – the electronic DOT (Department of Transportation) marquees. Typically, these signs are used to communicate traffic information, emergencies, or road conditions. When not in use for immediate updates or warnings, the signs often display safety reminders or local weather information. But, when two of the cleverest comedy minds in Iowa happened to find themselves behind desks at the Department of Transportation, they used their powers to get drivers laughing. Willy Sorenson

This summer, I’ve spent a lot of time on the road, chauffeuring my daughters to and from summer camps. My time on the open highway inspired me to devote the next few posts to the Signs of the Summer. We’ll look at some of the classic signs of the highway and answer a few questions. First, let’s look at the blue highway exit signs. Called interstate logo signs or specific service signs, we often think of them as the signs for gas, food and lodging. But did you know that they also promote other

Does your household know about the Charger Wars? No, it’s not the next big summer blockbuster movie franchise – the Charger Wars are the ongoing battles at my house over cell phone chargers. It might be the same in your household – each person has the charger that came with their phone, a travel charger, an extra charger for vacation, the replacement charger that was purchased when they forgot the travel charger on vacation…and yet, somehow, no one can every find a charger when they need one! The wars part comes in when a

Camp. It’s a rite of passage for many youth, and this year, my eldest daughter, Emily, will be going to two sleep-away ‘camps’ for the first time ever. I’ve written before about her love of singing and musical theater. This summer, Emily will have the opportunity to participate in two programs – one at The University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem; the other, Broadway Artists Alliance in New York City. She’ll be at the first program in Winston-Salem for a few weeks, rooming with her best friend in a campus