Nisstyre's Corner

Funny, I didn't think I would turn into a "journal" guy, I've tried journals, when I was young, even in recent years, but just never got into the groove. Hell, can't say this is a Journal as most people think of one, its more of a "let me vent about my day" area, or talk about shit that's on my mind, when its there.

What I do find odd is, Nisstyre's Corner was more to go on about shit like the pot commericals, and other "life" things, but not my life, which is where it has gone. And yeah, I'm not one to open up to what I call Mud people, my life is mine, and there are other people who actually have attempted to do shit to my life. But I'd have to re-read the 15 entries I got piled up now, I don't think I talk too much about my life.

So for all the leering eyes of the internet, click on in, see what I'm talking about today.

And that is PIGS, and not the pink kind. They are known by many names, espcially when yer za trucker. And we have many names, I haven't heard them all yet, but of course "Smokey" is known by all, from Smokey and the Bandit. Around in Northern NY its usually a Brownie or Bear. I think Bear might be local, cause in alot of areas, it wouldn't be unusual to see a "Bear in the woods". Cops do listen to channel 19 on the CBs sometimes, they usually have them in case they need to communicate or "bitch" at one. You know, sometimes you get two asshole rigs on a dual lane interstate, riding side by side, which is illegal, cause basically they're a wall, and slow down to 25, you'd get a shitload of people. But I bear does fit, cause they're always in the woods, mostly woods around here, and along the interstates, the north/south whatever lanes are seperated by grass and trees, with little cross-overs not made for you inbetween. The cops sit there.

So guess what I got tonight, a shiney brand spanking new TICKET. Just what I always not wanted. And of course its not the first, nor even anyting important in my eyes, even for what the ticket is for, most people wouldn't care anything about their DMV record, more just the pain of paying it. And so my great offense, my great law breakage that makes me a bad citizen that must pay the man probably 75 bucks to 100 bucks after court tax.

RUNNING A MOTHER FUCKING GOD DAMN STOP SIGN.

This is the second time I've had one of these. First Time I was hella pissed. I live on a dead-end road, so anytime I go anywhere, I pass by a 4 way stop with a highway at the end of my road. Cop busted me for not stopping at the stop sign. For this I cannot bitch, the cop had a choice, cause its not the only thing I was doing. Running a stop sign, and it took him about a mile and a half to catch up to me...cause I was doing 80. He didn't know that, clocked me I think at 72, but when a car that was really really far behind you suddenly appears very close in a matter of a few seconds...yeah.

TIP ONE: If you think a cop has come up behind you while you are speeding, NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER, touch your brakes. Let go of the gas and coast. Touching that brake is like saying "Oh Shit, I'm Guilty".

So that was nice, he gave me the running the stop sign ticket, cause I probably did roll through the sign, sorry about that, I only go through that intersection 5000 times a day. But I got another one, just when that one has vanished off my DMV record. Lovely. I wasn't in a great mood today either, so that was gas on the fire. Thankfully Mr.Green came on over and while he's around, you cannot feel anger.

Fucking cops, Village Cop Two, we have two kinds around here as most people do. The Village Cops, and The State Troopers. All but one of my tickets have been been by the State Troopers, but tonight it was a village cop. Now I'm sure I can go say the name to everyone, and I'm going to hear "oh god that fucking asshole", cause all cops are assholes, and the odd part I've found since I got a driver's licence eons ago, I've yet to meet an asshole cop. Maybe the 300 pound 6'4" tall man stuffed in a compact dodge (but I will say its very roomy compared to most, else I wouldn't drive it, not like an OLD VW Bug...), but never meet an asshole cop yet. This guy was fine, asked why I didn't stop, I said I personally don't know, cause I really don't "think" when I'm in a car, its more like a natural thing to me to drive, I'm pretty sure I did do a rolling stop, cause I do it all the time. He shined his maglite into my car, saw the milk and cigs, checked my plates and tags, and then vanished into his car for a long time, which of course I knew meant ticket writing. But all this is, is the village fucking me out of money I do not have at the moment, I don't even have enough right now to cover my bills. Even tonight I had the money for one bill, but milk was needed (and cigs), and I had to pick holding off on the check until this friday. Which sucks, along with a few "added" bills these next few months I gotta pay. Damn village, damn pigs, damn fucking world. Yeah, its 60 bucks, but THAT HURTS me. Damn the man, save the empire.

I did want to go on about not having meet an asshole cop. So lets turn the clocks back (not that far though) to when I started to drive. I've been driving since I was 4, of course not on the public road, but I am one who can drive pretty much anything, show me the controls, and I'll whip that fucking around the parking lot. So bing, I got my licence, in NY State you got a 6 month Probation Period. So about after a week of "trained" driving, I started exploring, speeding, and whatnot. Now none of that has nothing to do with my compared to many short list of tickets. I had one bad year that consumed most of the list.

First Ticket of course was speeding, 55 in a 35, but it was down the main highway of the town, which is a dual lane highway (we have no real need traffic wise for dual lanes, so...its pretty much comfort room), and nothing is built on the highway itself, all structures are along side, behind fences, or you turn off on a side-street to pull into the place. And yeah, 35 is pointless for an area with no humans or animals, most peopel do 40 to 45, I was hyper that day. Busted, speeding ticket, I threw the keys down with the tickets to my parents, they didn't take the care, but were not happy.

Flip the calandar a few pages. I take one of my good friends known as "The Jew" who isn't jewish, but is the spitting image of one so its an age old joke, he was called this before South Park too (bastards). He was going to prom, so I drive him (I was the only one with a licence, my friends were lazy, and hell, the jew got his only a couple years ago, and my other friend doesn't even have one) to where his father worked, a bank, to pick it up. So yeah, he picks it up, and I go to back out, and some crazy old guy doing 90 through the parking lot wizzes by me, and of course my bumper kissed his car...pretty good. And of course it wasn't some blind old man, was some pissy fat round guy who claimed to have "special" paint on his car. The K-9 Unit came on this call, filled out at ticket, cop said he knew the guy, and the guy was an asshole.

Two Cops, No Assholes.

Couple more months was Expired Inspection Sticker. Very fucking minor, I think if you go get it inspected, they just throw the ticket out. Road Block got me on this, and it wasn't really my fault, at this time all my car expensives were being done by my old man, and sometime he requires a poke with a stick to get him to get shit done. The cop was nice and quick about this, espcially since I had the car full of my friends...and we're not exactly business people.

These three I call my "bad period" which ended November of that year with my head going through a windshield. Hey, not my fault, some guy crossing the highway in his car didn't see me (due to a car pulling off, so the angle was just right). BAM, my passanger front corner kissing his driver corner. Luckly he had turned to the right and I turned to the left, so when we hit, he went off in one way, and of course lucky me goes off the highway, off a cement colvert which I kind of flew off (3 feet down) after running over some little metal reflective poles into mud. With all of this, my body was flung forward to the center of the windshied, luckly my head was turned sideways so I didn't hurt my pretty face, but I did take out my rear-view with my skull, and cracked the windshield, with my skull. In the end I was kind of in my passanger seat, luckly not on the shifter. Sat for about 5 seconds while I contemplated what happened, jumped out the driver side, looked around for a second, leaned back in and got me glasses. Axle Foley was the guy (ok, not the character from the movies, his last name was Foley though, which stuck with me). Of course his car still moved, he asked if I was ok. My car, well, the fender molded quite well around the engine block. And hey, I got luckly. 500 feet down the road was a Rest-Area, with a state trooper sitting in it, about to give a guy a ticket for doing 80 in a 55. That cop was nice.

4 Cops, 0 Assholes

TIP TWO: When pulled over, the best thing to do is sit looking forward with your hands on the wheels until the cop speaks to you. This way he knows you are not reaching for your gat to pop his ass to next tuesday.

Shit, now that I think about it, I don't have many tickets. After that I pretty much played it safe...or just haven't been caught. 3 Years ago I got the running the stop sign ticket, and of course over the summer I got pulled over in my truck doing 70 in a 55. And now this.

And I'm spent. No one probably read this far, except one person I know who will, the one who would of heard me rant about the cop tonight, but I hope she is resting, and watching law and order. I hope you enjoyed my rant, probably not, this is more of place to drain my mind. Now I need to go post in my other blog, if you don't know where that is, well then, go search.

Posted by Nisstyre I. Bloodstoner at 09:58 PM | Permalink

If you live in California, then you don't need to read this. You guys along with too many others get yer asses kicked, what I get is minor. Have you ever had that trust in the earth shaken, literally. Is the ground really that solid, or can it just uproot itself. And when someone says Earthquake, no one ever thinks of New York.

THE SAINT LAWRENCE VALLEY RIFT

Maybe a little more today than in the past, but most people do not related earthquakes and New York State. I've read that in the past several years, a few have happened in New York City, so the earthquakes of New England are probably a little more known. Of course it is nothing so far that compares with what California and many other places around the world are force to face. In general these earthquakes are small, ranging from a 2 something as felt recently in the past 5 years in NYC, up to 5.5.

One area of major activity is known as the Saint Lawrence Valley Rift. The above picture (thank you BoR FAQ Section) shows a geological map of New York and surrounding areas. I'll guess that knowledge on how to read these maps is common also, this is the 21st century. If you cannot find this valley, then do the following, locate NYC, which I hope everyone knows where that is, and follow the map up the State Line. The Saint Lawrence River Valley is of course the massive green area, running northeast / southwest between the mountains in New York, Vermont and South-East Canada. The river itself dumps into the Atlanic Ocean from the St.Lawrence Gulf, which can be located on any world map. The river runs southwest to Lake Ontario, creating the angled northwest border of NY.

On September 5th 1944 a "major" New England Earthquake happened in the early hours of the morning. The quake itself measured around 5.6 on the scale, and was felt by New York, Vermont, Ohio, and detected into Maryland and Maine. The damage to the area was moderate, roughtly 2 Million in 1944 Cash. Some buildings were heavily damaged, most wide spread damage was chimneys which fell. It was reported head stones in some cemetaries rotated on their small foundations. Its epicenter was located to an area on the american side, between the US Town of Massena and the Canadian Town of Cornwall.

Earthquakes make people uneasy, it takes away that sense of solid earth. That suddenly with little warning, the ground can began to shake and vibrate, rattle to the point it could destroy everything if strong enough. It makes you nervous to think about, and I don't know how people live in California with the constant attacks of earthquakes.

And so, why the fuck am I going on about Earthquakes. For many reasons, lets begin...I am a resident of Massena, yes I don't tell people my town, and I"m sure people from my mud look at this thing, I've heard comments, but personally I don't give a shit anymore. Step on my land and you get a face full of 410 buckshots. So I live in the town of the great NY earthquake. But hey, lets throw another log on the fire. I'm less than a mile away from the epicenter, shit, I can go stand on the mother fucker.

I also take up residence in a almost 200 year old farm house, who foundation is made of rocks with a dirt floor, with the support beams of the underhouse actually trees cut in half, almost 2 century old bark still on them. The frame of the house is not nailed, but pegged. Its outter walls ancient brick, which sadly is turning into dust. Sadly more over the brick is stucko, so basically the outter walls are crumbling now. In 1944 the house recieved damage, the falling chimney, a massive crack on the east side of the house, and foundation damage to the southern wall. Several rocks fell from the stone foundation walls, causing the center beam to fall slightly. This has caused the western wall of the house to slowly "run away" from the structure. In almost a half of century, its only moved an inch. The house itself needs repairs.

I have witnessed about 4 earthquakes in my life. Of course many more have happened, there is at least 2 to 3 each year, but typically not in my area. Two of these earthquakes were basically un-noticable, what happen to catch my eye was my desk lamp swaying back and forth, a sign of a earthquake. And low and behold the next day the newspaper talking about the earthquake, cause in this area, nothing else happens.

On April 20th 2002 though, I got a good taste of an earthquake. 6:50am an earthquake, epicenter located southwest of a city in the northeast corner of NY State, a 5.2, was felt from Maine to Maryland. This was an odd experience, and sadly I knew almost instantly what it was. It was only 30 seconds, but I'll remember it. It started as a dull vibration, like a truck going by, and picked up speed and sound. It got intense for about 10 seconds and died out. And that was it. Yeah, people are laughing at me, but I grew up not knowing this area was earthquake prone. Also sadly at the time I was stoned and tired.

September 3rd 2004.......Yeah, lovely, and yes I was also stoned and tired. I'm still kind of freaked by it. This was not like the 2002 one, it felt as if a truck or car had smashed into the house. Quick 2 second blurp, a jolt. This is the second one we've had this year. Oddly enough, we do not feel them at my own house, I happen to be at a friends house when this occured. The previous one was also not felt at my house, but within the area of my friends house. Fun fun fun. And yeah, of course they're talking about how we are due for the next big one, and that these small jolts are just the intro to our doom.

So, if I wasn't paranoid enough. Lets get to another aspect of my area. This deals with the Saint Lawrence River itself. Unknown to most Americans, except people in the area, there is a series of Dams and Locks (those things that make boats go up and down) along this river. Since most the river is in canada, the american's part was smaller, but we still lent a major hand. Its known as the St.Lawrence Seaway, and if for some god unknown reason you are up here on vacation, unless you want to watch a boat float into a cement tank, get raised 50 feet and take off, avoid this tour trap.

The seaway allows large ships to travel between the atlantic and the great lakes. Before this seaway, only smaller ships could travel along the river, which in one section was major rapids. So in the 1950s as America got fat, we built this seaway. We also drowned about 20 towns, and a shitload of land. In my area a massive hydro-power dam was built, which gives a good deal of power to NYC and New York. The dam is split in half, 1/2 belongs to the United States, the other half belongs to Canada. On the American Side, exclusive to my town only, is our half of the power dam, a massive control dam which tamed the rapids, and created a man-made lake, and two locks. The lake itself is large, consisting of islands, many shoals, and even remains of ancient lands and towns. In Canada alone 10 towns were relocated. In areas you can find old roads that go directly into the water. Buildings and trees of course were removed, but some areas larger structures remains, such as sunken ancient dams and bridges. To flood this area they had to create a series of dikes, large mounds of work of hold back the water. A mixture of stone, gravel, dirt and clay was used to construct them. The clay used is a special type of clay, basically a major pain in the ass to remove from the ground, and unstable. Something my entire town sits on.

The Seaway, besides being a highlighted possible terrorist attack zone, was built with many flaws. The first fuck up was the locks were built to accomidate the size of the ships of the early 1950s. By the late 1950s the ships had become vastly larger, thus making ocean going vessals impossible to navigate the river. Included in this was the depth of the shipping lanes. Their third mistake was building the dikes out of clay. If shaken up, the clay will turn to liquid and the dikes will fail. And if they were not fucking complete morons yet, they built the power dam directly over the ancient fault line.

So after the earthquake tonight, and the fabled talk of the big one, do I feel safe. Not really. Luckly it has been studied and shown if the hydro-dam is to be blown up, or collapsed cause the fault line opened up and swallowed it, it was actually do no damage to my town. Sadly the neighboring city of Cornwall would, well, go bye bye. And it was cause destruction, even taking a large chunk of Montreal some odd 80 miles down river. But I must fear the failure of the dikes. A brief flood would destroy my home. And of course terrorist attacks. Sadly my town is somewhat a target. We have the locks, which if taken out would cause all shipping between the great lakes and atlanic to become impossible. Second we have the power dam, which if taken out would cause major blackouts and problems, since we sell part of our power to NYC itself. And no, we were not the cause of the blackout, that "NY-Canadian" suspect was someone down river.

So how am I going to die, you can pick from this list.

[1] Ye Olde Earth Opening Up, Swallowing Me and Closing Back Up.
[2] The Dikes will fail and I will be swept away by a small tidel wave.
[3] My house is ancient and wall cave in at the slightest tremor.
[4] They were wrong about if the power dam exploded/broke.
[5] Earthquake, hehe.

But this ends my rant. This entry has little meaning, except to settle my nerves after my small event tonight. Makes me uneasy, and it sucks. Mother Nature is a cunt sometime.....

Peace Out Fuckers

Posted by Nisstyre I. Bloodstoner at 02:39 AM | Permalink

Enter the forbidden dungeon of...oddness.

Before everyone had electric refrigerators, ice was delivered by icemen who travelled regular routes with trucks and earlier with horse-drawn wagons.

If we were back in the early 20th century, it would be that time of year again; time to start ice harvesting so that the housewife, restaurants, bars, railroads, and other large users of ice will have their regular supply of ice. The iceman would start his regular deliveries around Memorial Day, and continued until Labor Day. (IT'S ICE HARVESTING TIME By LARRY GORMALLY)

(----) Space Cataz!

And thus the circle of life comes back to me. The Iceman of the 21st Century. This is just a couple things I found poking around on the internet, something I rarely do anymore. I've seen the net, it holds no new pleasures for me, that is until I get some broadband. Too bad they still don't offer it in this part of NY, and not just this part, just my road, the rest of the town has dsl and cable. My road gets shit-canned, no cable, and ancient phone lines. I guess there was still "party lines" setup here in the 70s, you know, where three houses would be on a single phone number, and if someone was using it, no one else could. Fuck man.

But I found a couple passages, and had to reflect on them, because I do find my job kind of odd, in todays world I am a Vendor, such as you see the Bread Trucks, Pepsi Trucks, Beer Trucks. We are vendors, and we make all those good things in stores appear. You probably don't take too much notice, but in a general idea, we are a swarm travelling around. Its not uncommon to see the same "other" vendors at different locations. Or my favorite, the poor clerk at that one store 20 trucks converge on. I call those Vendor Conventions. I've sat outside super markets, in line for the loading dock, with a Pepsi truck and the Beer Truck in front of me. At the dock was Mr.Coke A Cola. Behind me was the Hostess Truck, The Bread Truck, The Chip Truck....You get the idea. Beware the back of super markets on Tuesday Mornings, that seems to be the gathering time.

But out of all of these guys, I am the ancient Vendor. Before any of them, there was the icemen. Before there was electric fridges, there was iceboxes, which was like a fridge, but you shoved a block of ice in the bottom. Its a good trick when camping if you have a fridge but no power, put a block of ice in the veggie drawers. But basically they'd come to your door and give you what you needed. Of course, in those days, they were chopping the ice from the rivers, covering them in sawdust so they didn't melt as fast, and placed them in store houses. Yummy industrial water too, you wounder why people died all the time, heh.

What is even stranger is I basically work for a company that was hauling ice like that, from the river, delivery with horses. The company is only 50 years old, but to my knowledge basically the old icehouse business was bought up in the 50s by my retired boss, who's son now runs the place, and from there the ancient wooden structures were torn down, and a cinder block structure built, which is my place of business.

Oddly, much of what was quoted holds true. Our time of business for the year is from Memorial Day to Labor Day, one reason I'm reflected on this shit. Of course I have set routes, more or less terroritories I cover, but you get yourself a good map of NY State that shows most highways, find the city of Watertown, and you'll see NY Route 3. Follow that route all the way to Vermont. That is our terroritory. And all that area is covered by two trucks, and not overly large trucks, you can get about the same size from Budget. The only reason that regular drivers can rent these vehicles is because you haul no weight. A Commerical Drivers Licence or CDL, is basically the licence you get to drive a vehicle of any sort of weight. A Tractor Trailer can weight a max of 80,000 pounds. That is 40 tons. Deadly. To drive a tractor trailer, you must have what is commonly called a CLASS A Licence. Regular Drivers are CLASS D. This is where you'll get confused. Basically from the bottom. CLASS D drivers can drive cars and pickups, and large vehicles that can only haul so much weight. After that weight is exceeded, you then require a CLASS B Licence. This licence lets you drive large vehicles that do not articulate, or bend. After that, its all CLASS A. I am a Class A, with these things called Endorsements, which means I"m allowed to haul certain types of cargo. I have Tank and Hazardous Materials. Scary enough this combo can make me a deadly weapon, and what is even more shocking is I took the test to get Hazardous Materials, expecting fully to fail it badly because during my training, I slept through that video tape, and I passed. But if I'm not mistaken as of last January that all changed, the instructors told us to get it now, or else we'd be fucked with some new twisted post-911 system.

So I'm driving a truck that is below my skills, a truck meant for Class B Drivers. Can hold up to I think almost half the weight of a tractor trailer, but the max I get is 18 tons. The trick with this though, is the fact that all the weight is placed onto a single frame, which makes the damn thing tipsy. And of course, I get to drive through the mountains. Just the Adirondacks, which are ancient, tamed and worn down mountains, but still a bitch.

But that is the business, fill those little chests you see that say ICE. Or the ones inside, super markets, anybody who needs ice. Its a simple business, and oddly enough at only 70 cents a bag, can earn some cold, heh, cash. My truck gets filled with 9 pallets of "cubed" bagged ice. These are pallets of 7 pound bags of ice, chopped. 285 bags on a pallet, and usually 8 out of 10 pallets in my truck are these cubes. The other 2 out of 10 pallets is Blocked Ice. Can you guess what that is...heh. 10 Pound Blocks, either a block box, which is a wooden crate used over and over again holds 120, or a pallet which is all the blocks stacked and wrapped in plastic, as are the other pallets, 210. Blocks are not made from solid ice, as the cubed ice is being bagged, the smaller pieces drop out from the "tunnels" that feed the machines that bag the ice. Those pieces are compressed at 1800 PSI to create a block.

Inside the factor the ice is feed to machines, things that look like regular small factory bagging machines. In the bagging room we have three, a new more automated one that flings you a bag a second. The old semi-rusted one which was done manually with a big red button. And the block machine. Along the ceiling which is not too high up, enough head room but right there, are large U shaped tunnels, enclosed. Inside is basically a big metal cork-screw, or if you're a farm boy, An Auger, which moves the ice. The block and auto-machine feed from a giant bin that holds the chopped ice. In this bin metal belts move the ice to rotating teeth that make sure it breaks apart into small peices. Those are collected, and moved into the tunnel to feed the machines. This bin is feed by another tunnel, which disappears into the next room.

In the next room you find a machine that is probably about the size of a small out. Its giant, loud, has giant hatches on it, electric motors the size of a refridgerator, compressors, a giant tank of water and two cooler towers outside. Basically its a house sized ice maker. From this beast when cranked to full pours forth 33 tons of ice per day. The water unliked the olden days is supplied by our town water system, cleaner than the river.

The ice is made tunneled to the bin which tunnels to the machines which is bagged and placed on pallets that get wrapped in plastic and stuck in a freezer to be loaded into my truck to be moved to your local store to fill that freezer or chest for the low low price of 70 cents a bag when everyone else is ass fucked at a 1.25, 1.50, 1.75 heh. Well, I get it for free, so HA.

And that is the business of the Iceman.

Posted by Nisstyre I. Bloodstoner at 01:38 AM | Permalink