With Memorial Day behind us and summer on the horizon, grilling season is here. Like many other men, I’ll find myself helping with weekend meals by taking up my station behind the grill. What is it about us men and our love for grilling? Does it tap into our primal prehistoric instincts – Fire! Spears! Danger! – or does it give us a reason to indulge in our favorite things – Meat! Beer! More Meat! Whatever the reason, it’s one of the best parts of summertime meals. There’s nothing like firing up the grill
Read more →Archive for the Thought for the Weekend Category
Fox Point, Wisconsin, population 6,698, is just 10 miles north of Milwaukee. The village’s Memorial Day parade used to be well attended, but attendance had dwindled to the point where locals weren’t even sure it existed anymore. (It didn’t). But on Memorial Day 2013, a dozen determined Boy Scouts and their two troop leaders decided it was time to revive the village parade. There were no bands, no floats, no elected officials, no local beauty queens. It was just the 12 boys of Troop 391 and their leaders marching ¾ of a mile toward
Read more →A few weeks ago, I shared information presented at the TIA conference about the serious driver shortage we’ll be facing in coming years. How will we recruit a new generation of great drivers? One solution is to focus on female truckers. Recently, a local news channel highlighted increased enrollment by women in the truck driver training program at the community college. The story comes on the heels of a National Public Radio report: To Reverse Driver Shortage, Trucking Industry Steers Women To Jobs. Currently females comprise around 5% of the professional truck driving population, which is
Read more →Brad Bird may not be a household name, but you know his work. Touted by some as “the modern-day Walt Disney” and considered to be one of the smartest people in Hollywood, he is the creative force behind Ratatouille, The Simpsons, and The Incredibles. He is married with three children. In fact, Bird based the story of The Incredibles on his own experiences trying to balance a career with family. Ranking #40 on the Top 100 Grossing Movies of All Time ($261,437,578), it was the first Pixar film to feature a nuclear family (mother,
Read more →Like it or loathe it, reality television is here to stay. Approximately 20% of current television programming is “Reality TV”. Name a subject, and there is likely a show about it — from singing, modeling, cooking, and dancing competitions to shows about antique hunters, bounty hunters, crocodile hunters and husband hunters. The trucking industry is also represented with a handful of shows: Big Rig Bounty Hunters, Ice Road Truckers, American Truckers, Truck Stop USA and Shipping Wars. If reality television has taught us anything, it’s that you don’t need good looks, talent, morals or
Read more →Before you start reading, try answering this question: Is truck capacity up or down, and by what percentage? Now, hold that thought! They say that life is all about perspective–even the sinking of the Titanic was a miracle to the lobsters in the ship’s kitchen. John Le Carre wrote: “A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.” And fellow author Dan Brown wrote: “Sometimes, all it takes is a tiny shift of perspective to see something familiar in a totally new light.” It can be a challenge to get up
Read more →There are a lot of rules in our industry, and sometimes those rules are as clear as mud. That seems to be the case with a revised tanker definition passed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) in 2011. The Feds changed the definition of a tanker or tank vehicle as one designed to transport liquids or gasses in tanks that are either permanently or temporarily attached to the chassis and are rated at more than 119 gallons or aggregated to 1,000 gallons or more. This means that drivers of a flatbeds or
Read more →Next week, I’m headed to the TIA conference in Orlando, FL. It is billed as the world’s largest gathering of third-party logistics providers, and is a great opportunity to learn new things, connect with others in our field, and discover the latest tools available to our industry. I’m looking forward to it, and if you plan on being there too, please drop me a line so we can connect. I have to confess, I waited a little too long to book my hotel room. The hotel hosting the conference is completely sold out, which
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Okay, you got us! It seems we’re not nearly as clever as the Easter Bunny when it comes to hiding things. To get to know our shipper and carrier customers better, we implemented a new habit of asking a Question of the Week during our business conversations: “Do you own pets? Who will win the Super Bowl? Which college basketball team do you cheer for?” Some of our savvy clients caught on to our habit of asking a weekly question. It wasn’t long before shipping customer and friend, Amanda (shout out to one of
Read more →Over the past few weeks, this flap over flying the flag at the University of California-Irvine student government center had me seeing red, white and blue. If you didn’t hear the whole story, here’s the condensed version: At the first of the year, an American flag appeared on the wall at UC-Irvine’s sitting lounge. Instead of serving as the symbol it is intended to be, the students turned it into a symbol of their own power struggle: some students wanted to leave it up and some wanted to take it down. On March 5,
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