The Long Drive with the Long Trailer

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I move my mobile mansion from Wenatchee to Lake Powell.

I’ve been traveling for the past week or so, starting in Wenatchee Heights, WA and ending in Phoenix, AZ.

Day 1I left Wenatchee Heights with my 5th wheel RV hooked up behind my husband’s Chevy pickup. The first day’s drive was relatively short: from Wenatchee Heights to Walla Walla, a distance of only 190 miles. Only a small portion of the drive was on a freeway (I-90); the rest was on back roads through farmland.

It rained for part of the drive, but never enough to make the road slick. I took my time. The trailer weighs in at 15,000 pounds and although it tows well, I can never really forget that it’s back there.

At Walla WallaIn Walla Walla, I stayed at the Blue Valley RV Park. It was a relatively pleasant place, with average sized RV spots, full hookups, picnic tables and grass. The trees were too young to give shade, but I bet they’ll be nice in about 5 years. The main building had a pool table, laundry room, and restrooms. Everything was clean and the place was quiet. I got some laundry done, wrote an article for AircraftOwner Online, and relaxed.

I had dinner at two excellent local restaurants: T. Maccarone’s and Saffron Mediterranean Kitchen. It was nice to have a change of scenery. I was there for four nights. The wine with my dinner at T.Maccarone’s is what sent me to Dusted Valley Winery for a tasting, where I bought four bottles of wine.

Day 2 of the DriveOn Friday night, I got the trailer hooked up again and mostly ready to go. I needed to be on the road early for the next leg of my trip: from Walla Walla, WA to Draper, UT (south of Salt Lake City), a distance of 606 miles. I was on the road not long after dawn. The route took me south almost to Pendleton, OR, then onto I-84 through Oregon and Idaho and down into Utah, where I picked up I-15. The landscape started with farmland, then mountains, then more flat farmland, then more mountains, and then finally into the Salt Lake basin. I’d driven the route before with my underpowered Ford F150 pickup towing my old 22-foot Starcraft. It wasn’t fun then; Saturday’s drive was much more tolerable. I stopped three times for fuel and twice for food. It was very unlike me to make so many stops; I usually try to get food and fuel on the same stop, but the situation made that tough. I rolled into Draper, UT’s Camping World parking lot at 6:15 PM local time, just 15 minutes after the store closed. I’d called the week before and knew I could park out back, so I did. I even got to hook up 50 amp power.

Ann TorrenceOn Sunday, @AnnTorrence picked me up for a drive to Ft. Bridger, WY. There was a Mountain Man Rendezvous there with hundreds of people in period clothes set up with period campsites. The “period” was apparently mid 1800s. Ann was there to take photos and research a possibly future book project. I was there to take pictures and look around and have a day off from driving. I didn’t take a single photo, although I carried my camera bag around all day. Well, that’s not true. I did use my BlackBerry to take this shot of Ann. She, in turn, used her iPhone to take a shot of me with my only purchase: a genuine raccoon skin, which I hope to turn into a hat.

After a very pleasant lunch at Cafe Trio in Salt Lake City with Ann and her husband, Robert, I went back to their house to relax on the front porch. @BWJones showed up and I finally got to meet him in person. After a tour of the garden, Ann and Robert returned me to Draper for the evening. Again, Camping World had just closed for the day. No one had left any notes on the RV or truck (which was still attached) and the power was still connected. Alex the Bird entertained us for a while.

Day 3Monday — Labor Day — was my last drive day. I drove from Draper, UT to Page, AZ, a distance of 370 miles. I got a very early start, pulling out of the parking lot at 6:30 AM local time. By the time I stopped for fuel two hours later, I’d already gone more than 100 miles. (I parked with the big rig trucks and discovered that my rig was about as long as theirs.) This part of the drive was mostly on I-15, but started east on route 20 to Highway 89, which took us all the way to Page. The roads were mountainous and there was a lot of climbing and descending. There were also a lot more vehicles on the road, making driving a bit more of a chore.

Thunderbird RestaurantThe only food stop I made along the way was at the Thunderbird Restaurant at Mount Carmel Junction. The place is a bit of a tourist trap, but it does have good “ho-made” pies (whatever that means). Odd thing happened when I tried to leave. They couldn’t give me a bill because the computer was down. Apparently no one knows how to do basic math. All I had was a piece of pie with ice cream and an iced tea. They apparently expected me to wait until the computers came back online. With Alex the Bird in the front seat of the car, that was not an option. Finally, my waitress disappeared into the kitchen where she may have used her “lifeline” to get help with this difficult math problem. The verdict was $7.79. I was afraid to count my change.

I arrived at the Lake Powell Resort just west of Page, AZ at around 11:30 local time. I’d been on the road for 7 hours.

Mike and PlaneMy husband, who’d flown up in his plane and spent a few hours swimming in the lake, met me at the lodge restaurant for lunch. Afterwards, we put fuel in the truck and parked it (temporarily) at Page Municipal Airport. I gathered my belongings — forgetting only two things, one of which was vital — and we loaded into Mike’s plane. Then we started the long (90 minutes), hot (90°F+), and bumpy (I almost got sick) flight to Wickenburg. The only sights of interest along the way — keeping in mind that I make that flight about 1000 feet lower at least a dozen times a year — were a handful of forest fires east of our Howard Mesa place and a heavy rain shower coming out of a remarkably small cloud near Granite Mountain.

Back in Wickenburg, we put the plane away and went straight home. Hot and sweaty, it was good to take a shower in a real bathroom.

I was asleep by 8:30 PM.

How the U.S. Can Balance the Budget and Reduce Unemployment

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The answer is simple.

In their never-ending search for ways to cut costs, U.S. businesses have turned to outsourcing to offshore companies to reduce labor costs. As a result, more and more jobs are being shipped overseas and more and more customer/technical service phones are being answered in by comparatively low-paid labor forces in India and other Asian countries. The U.S. workers who had these jobs are given pink slips and sent on their way. Jobless, they can no longer afford anything beyond the essentials, thus reducing the demand for products and services their former employers offered.

This, I believe, is the irony of outsourcing.

The U.S. government can help balance the budget and create new jobs easily. Just levy a tax on every job sent overseas. Fire 10 people in New York and replace them with 15 people in India? Well, that’ll cost you $5,000 per person or $50,000 a year. Or maybe it should work based on a hefty percentage of the salary no longer paid. 25%? Replace a $50K employee with an Indian? That’ll cost you $12,500. Do that with 100 employees? Write that check for $1,250,000. So not only will you alienate your customers by supporting them with foreigners reading off scripts, but you won’t save all that much money in the process.

After all, extended unemployment benefits, food stamps, welfare, Medicaid, and other benefits for unemployed people should be paid by the people who caused the unemployment, no?

Think of all the tax money the country is losing by not having these U.S. employees. Think of all the Social Security tax money not being paid — that alone is 15% of a person’s income (up to certain limits, of course). By greedy companies sending jobs overseas, they’re screwing our country out of important tax revenues we’ll need to maintain our standard of living — and get retirement benefits under Social Security and Medicare. Why are companies being allowed to do this?

And while they’re at it, why not levy higher tariffs on imports? The other day, I bought a perfectly good, 100% cotton polo shirt at a Walmart for $8. The only reason it was so cheap is because it was made in Pakistan. Meanwhile, towns across the United States are slipping into local depressions because fabric mills and clothing factories are closing down. People are losing jobs they’ve held for their entire adult lives. Why? Because companies can have these things made cheaper in China or Taiwan or Pakistan. Do they do.

Don’t you see it? Our drive to buy the cheapest of everything is causing people to lose jobs, This, in turn, is fueling this recession and requiring more and more of our tax dollars to help support the people who can’t get work.

Our greed and cheapness is screwing up our economy.

Why not make these companies pay for it? Yes, it’ll trickle down to us, but in the long term, wouldn’t you rather have a strong economy than a cheap polo shirt?

A Real, Old-Fashioned Payphone

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Yes, these still exist.

A Real Phone Booth

A real phone booth. You can find this in the main post office on 2nd Street in Walla Walla, WA.

In this day and age when everyone has a cell phone — including kids — the payphone is dying part of our culture. Recently, I got into a discussion about payphones with one of my Twitter friends, @Jen4Web. I started photographing the real ones I saw. I knew there was a good one at the Walla Walla Post Office, where I’d be going in a few days, and told her about it. On Wednesday, I snapped a shot with my BlackBerry and put it on TwitPic.

That got @StuartOswald interested. Apparently, he’s involved with a Web site called Payphone Org UK that shares photos of payphones. He asked for the phone number of the one I photographed. I promised to get it and a better shot. That’s what this post is all about.

I went back to the Post Office to take a few better photos of the phone booth and get its phone number: (509) 525 – 9958. I also took a shot of the post office from the outside. You can see the best of these photos here.

Payphone Close Up

A closeup of the phone booth.

The phone booth you see here is one like I remember from when I was a kid. It’s a wooden booth with a sliding panel door, light, and fan. There’s a shelf under the phone and a shelf to sit on. There’s even a phone book. The only thing different is the phone — this one is modern; when I was a kid, phone booths like this still had dial phones.

The phone booth is in the outer lobby, adjacent to the post office boxes in the Main Post Office on 2nd Street in Walla Walla, WA. Don’t let the name of the town fool you — Walla Walla is a great little town with a vibrant Main Street (actually named Main Street). There are shops and restaurants, and enough wine tasting that you don’t need to get into your car and drive. The town is surrounded by vineyards and wheat fields. It’s located in southeastern Washington state, south of the picturesque Palouse area and north of Pendleton of blanket fame.

Walla Walla Post Office
The main Post Office in Walla Walla, WA as seen from 2nd Street.

If you’re ever in Walla Walla, stop by and visit this piece of history. Tell you kids about it.

Freelancers Don’t Get Sick Pay

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We actually work for a living.

It occurred to me the other day that there’s a huge difference between employees and freelancers. I don’t mean to say that I suddenly saw the light — I didn’t. I’ve known the differences for a long time. But the other day, I actually stopped for a moment to think about them. I thought I’d share some of my thoughts here, laid out in a simple table to make comparison easier.

EmployeesFreelancers
Employees can stop looking for work once they get a job. The only times they need to look for work again is if they want to change jobs, they get fired, or they need a second job.Freelancers are always looking for work, even when they’re working. The ability to earn a living depends on having the next job lined up.
Employees seldom have to worry about losing their jobs to someone who claims he can do it cheaper.Freelancers are constantly competing for work with others who claim they can do the same job for less money.
Employees usual do one job at a time, although that job might entail several concurrent projects for the same employer.Freelancers often work on several jobs for several clients concurrently.
Employees are usually given all of the tools and equipment they need to perform their jobs. These tools are usually purchased, maintained, and updated by their employers.Freelancers usually have to buy, maintain, and update all of the tools and equipment they need to perform their jobs.
Employees often spend part of their workday socializing with coworkers around the water cooler, coffee room, offices/cubicles, cafeteria, etc.Freelancers often work alone. Most time spent socializing is not time they’re being paid for.
Employees often get benefits that include paid vacations, paid holidays, paid sick days, health care, pension contributions, profit sharing, and bonuses. There are holiday parties, company picnics, and sometimes even birthday cakes.Freelancers don’t get benefits. If they can’t work because of illness, they don’t make money. In the U.S. (and some other countries), they have to pay for their own health care, often at extremely high rates. There are no holiday parties, company picnics, or birthday cakes.
Employees have a predetermined workday, such as 9 to 5. They also get scheduled days off, like weekends and holidays. If they don’t feel like coming into work, they can take a paid sick or personal day off. The flip side of this is that an employee has a limited amount of time off.Freelancers work as long as they need to to get the job done. If that means 12 hour days and lost weekends, so be it. If they don’t feel like working in the middle of a job, that’s too darn bad; the job needs to get done on time. The flip side of this is that a freelancer can have as much time off as he wants, as long as he works enough to earn enough money to survive.
Employees are usually not bothered by their bosses outside their normally scheduled workday.Freelancers can be bothered by clients any time the client wants to make contact (although most clients keep contact within their working hours).
Employees can have annoying or even stupid bosses.Freelancers can have annoying or even stupid clients.
As long as an employee performs his job to some level of satisfaction, he’ll likely remain employed.A freelancer needs to perform high quality work for every job to set himself apart from the competition, with the hope that the client will either give him future work or recommend him to others.
Employees get paychecks. The government ensures that they get paid.Freelancers issue invoices and spend time following up on accounts receivable. They sometimes have to remind, nag, and then possibly sue clients to get paid.
Employees have payroll taxes taken from their pay and remitted to the government. In the U.S., their employers pay 50% of their social security tax liability.Freelancers don’t usually have taxes taken from their pay and remitted to the government. They are required to submit taxes quarterly, along with the related paperwork. If they don’t submit on time, they could be penalized. In the U.S., they are personally responsible for 100% of their social security tax liability.

What did I leave out? Employees and freelancers, use the Comments link or form to fill us in.

Telemarketing Gone Very Wrong

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A telemarketer goes postal on me.

TelephoneAll of my phone numbers are listed in the Do Not Call Registry. I have zero tolerance for telemarketing calls and report every single one I get.

Today, I received a call from 347-982-0051. It was a recording. I pressed 1 and got a company representative. He said he was from YourSearchListing.com. I told him I was on a No Call list and would be reporting his company. They would likely receive a $5,000 fine. I then told him to get a real job and I hung up on him.

I filed the complaint.

Next, I got a call from 714-869-1805. The man on the line was barely understandable. It sounded as if he were looking for someone. I told him he had Flying M Air and asked him if I could help him. He hung up.

I called back, angry. The phone was answered by a recording for YourSearchListing.com, which is “affiliated with Google.” I pressed 7 when prompted and likely wound up with the same guy I spoke to the first time. I told him to stop calling me and hung up.

I filed another complaint.

I was in the supermarket when I got a call from a “private” number. The man on the line, who had some kind of Hispanic accent, asked me if I got his e-mail. I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about. He sounded confused. I realized he was the same guy who’d called the second time. He asked if he was speaking to Maria and I told him he wasn’t. He asked again if I was Maria and I denied it. He then said he made a mistake. I told him he probably had a wrong number and hung up.

When I got back to my RV, I found an e-mail message sent using Flying M Air’s contact form with the following text.

Subject: you bitch

http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/flying-m-air-c370249.html
look at your link bitch
you should get a real fucken job u peace of shit

I followed the link. It was a compliant against my company on ComplaintsBoard.com:

They took me in a tour and what they did is get a girl to give me a blowjob in the air, they are realy an escort service. At the end of it all i let her give me a blowjob for $100 then i decided to fuck her she loved it. I RECOMEND FOR HORNEY GUYS

I understand now why telemarketers are telemarketers. They lack the simple social skills needed to get real jobs and do real work that benefits others. All they know how to do is interrupt people’s lives and then, when people fight back, pull immature and obscene stunts like this.

On the advice of several Twitter friends, I tracked them down via the BBB and filed a complaint. I included the text you see above.

My advice: Do NOT do any business with YourSearchListing.com. They’re likely as fraudulent as the complaint they filed against me.