Spreading the wealth

Regular Land Line readers may be tiring of the magazine Web site’s repeated coverage lately of new truck emissions restrictions launched by the California Air Resources Board. We swear, we’re only trying to keep readers informed about upcoming rules and provide access to public comment opportunities.Next year will offer the first in a new wave of restrictive rules that won’t allow most drivers to

From classical to free verse, sonnets to haiku

When we announced our poetry contest months ago, we thought we might receive a hundred or so entries. Imagine our surprise when the Aug. 1 entry deadline rolled around and we had more than 500 poems to judge.Not only did the sheer number of entries catch us off guard, but the remarkable sincerity of the verse and free-form prose we received caused our judges to insist on an “Honorable Mention”

Mind your own business?

Last week, we reported a story on truck driver Rick Tower and how he saved an 82-year-old woman’s life. He was hauling a load of wood chips on Highway 96 near his hometown of Yreka, CA, when he saw a car fishtail out of control. It careened off the road and into the nearby Klamath River.Tower slammed on his brakes, ran down to the river, swam out to the car and with the help of another driver,

Dole makes house calls

Even huge corporations like Dole Foods have to make house calls every once in a while to keep their customers happy.After Dole Foods recently announced it was recalling bags of their “Hearts Delight” salad mix because of possible E.coli contamination, Marty Ordman, vice president of marketing and communications, said some of their customers who had the affected product called in asking company

Macquarie makes a Fortune

There is nothing more satisfying as a writer than seeing the big picture come together.That’s why the staff here at Land Line was ecstatic to receive the Oct. 1 issue of Fortune magazine.To say the piece about “The Real Macquarie” is in-depth would be as big of an understatement as saying Macquarie has a few bucks lying around.Fortune Editor-at-large Bethany McLean really dives into what makes

The Land Line Web site: A guided tour

Have you ever been flipping through the channels and gotten caught up in one of those weekend marathons on the VH1 or E! television networks that tells the story behind the story of some famous band or actor?If not, take heed – they’re completely addicting, and watching one hour-long episode is virtually impossible. Pretty soon, you’ll be spending a sunny afternoon at home learning about Blue

Chilly wind, hot lights

When folks in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula complain about the cold, you know it’s doggone chilly. And they were chillin’ in St. Ignace over the weekend of Sept. 14-16, as a record-setting cold front greeted the 12th Annual Richard Crane Truck Show competitors.The cold snap, which produced record-low high temps deep into the Midwest, also brought squally waves of showers that had truck polishers

Dollar takes a trip to the loonie bin

The money market can be crazy at times, but this week, the U.S. dollar officially took a trip to the loonie bin.For the first time in more than 30 years, the American dollar dipped in world markets to trade at par and even slightly below the Canadian dollar.I grew up in Canada, and the last time the dollars were equal was in 1976.For most of 2007, the Canadian and U.S. dollars have been close,

Sync-ing feeling

Ford Motor Co. and Microsoft Corp. made news this week when they announced a voice-operated computer system called Sync that would be available in Ford Focus 2008 models. Or maybe the cars equipped with this system should be called the “Unfocused”?The 4-1-1 on Sync is that it allows drivers (or passengers) to run their music players, radios, cell phones, and other gizmos with voice commands. It

Why California is preparing for an environmental war

One by one they lined up to speak Monday at the microphone inside the California Air Resource Board’s Byron Sher Auditorium.Representatives from the Sierra Club, the Environmental Health Coalition, the California Forestry Association, and a host of others approached the podium and vigorously thanked CARB for pursuing aggressive early action items related to AB32 – the states’ strategy to reduce

The truth will set you free

“Accuracy first.”That message was painted in black letters, outlined in red, on a yellow sign that was about 12 feet long and 3 feet high on the wall of the first newsroom I worked in as a professional. It was in the building housing the St. Joseph News-Press and Gazette, two daily newspapers owned by the Bradley family in St. Joseph, MO.To a fresh J-school grad from KU, the sign seemed to state

Beefing up the bees

I knew very little “buzz on bees” until Sandi Soendker, Land Line’s managing editor, pitched the idea about doing a story on the disappearance of the honeybees last Friday at our daily news budget meeting.Since then, I have been researching away on “colony collapse disorder” – or CCD – which could have devastating effects on our economy if the bees don’t thrive and have a good pollination season.

Color me PO’d

Despite the shade and hue my name may suggest to some, I’m green.A corner of my kitchen is devoted to an in-house recycling center and anyone who has ever been a passenger in my car knows that I consider littering to be a deadly sin.I have literally hugged trees – the California Redwoods left an indelible image on my 8-year-old brain during a family vacation in the late ’60s – and

Goin’ UP

On Thursday, Sept. 13, I’ll be packing my suntan lotion and down parka for my almost-annual trek to the Richard Crane Memorial Truck Show in St. Ignace, MI. Located on the southern tip of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, or UP as everyone calls it, St. Ignace sits between Lakes Huron and Michigan. The show is always in mid-September, yet there have been years when you could walk around in shorts and

What more can be said about 9/11?

Today’s reminder of the 9/11 attack on America comes with its traditional images of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers, and the smoldering Pentagon and the Shooting Star song, “Let’s Roll,” on the radio. We all realize that life in America changed that day.Aside from an annual memorial, 9/11 also comes with the question: “Are we more prepared for attack than we were?”An acquaintance of mine

A light in the Forrest

I don’t know why, but for some reason “Forrest Gump” seemed to be on non-stop last month. I hadn’t seen it in a long time, and managed to watch most of it, out of order, by hitting the channel at various times of the day (and night).I came to the conclusion that, like the Bible and the U.S. Constitution, you could apply some part of this wonderful movie to just about any situation in life.Take

What a tangled Web

Every morning I walk into the office, grab a cup of mud, sit down and Google up news searches to see what’s going on with drivers, truck emissions regs and border initiatives.The stories I find range from the bizarre, to the sad, and finally, the obvious.As any trucker will tell you, aside from the occasional feature about a feel-good story, most of the trucking news isn’t good. Too many

Write it down, will ya?

Having written policies and procedures are crucial to any company’s long-term success, right? That has always been my experience. I am actually looking at the binder on my shelf at work right now that I was given when I hired on at Land Line Magazine more than a year ago. I don’t use it every day, but it is a handy reference tool to have in front of me if needed.However, if you are a produce

What’s in Osama’s tape?

The sixth anniversary of Sept. 11 is Tuesday. And as a special gift, Osama bin Laden has apparently made a tape for us.According to media outlets and the guy in the window of the local Shanghai Boy Chinese and Vietnamese food drive-thru, the U.S. government is now analyzing the footage.MSNBC says an anonymous source confirmed that the tape is in the government’s possession, but wouldn’t talk

Putting two and two together

We’ve been telling you about the feds’ pilot program to allow a number of Mexican motor carriers to operate on U.S. highways.We’ve been telling you about the Trans-Texas Corridor proposal – a swath of proposed toll roads and railway lines linking Mexico to the Oklahoma border.We’ve been telling you about SmartPort, a futuristic trade hub in the Kansas City metro area that will one day link

Mexican trucks my foot

There are a lot of videos posted to YouTube right now about Mexican trucks and the cross-border program.The lion’s share is obviously outlining the problems with the program. But someone, purporting to be from Mexico, has begun posting videos of trucking in Mexico – obviously in an attempt to give us the “real scoop” on what it’s like down there.These videos are the biggest crock I have ever seen

A pickled peck of Pennsylvania politics

Politicians and transportation officials in Pennsylvania continue to spew rhetoric by the barrowful, and it’s getting heavy.Officials continue to launch verbal projectiles at one another over Gov. Ed Rendell’s proposals to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike to private investors and to toll Interstate 80.U.S. Reps. Phil English and John Peterson – both Republicans – have lashed out at the plan, while

Making sure the CARB cure doesn’t kill us

The rigorous course of treatment that California is pushing to heal its filthy air reminds me of a personal situation that has helped me understand the predicament.During the past year, my mom was diagnosed with cancer and went through chemotherapy, radiation and surgery that was brutal. It’s no stretch to say the cure nearly killed her. Family members were with her every step, making sure that

Now that’s an unusual load

What do big rigs and hippies have in common?Probably not much. But this year, they both made it out to Burning Man.If you’re unfamiliar with Burning Man, it’s an eight-day festival held each summer in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. About 40,000 people attended this year’s event, which has become synonymous with self-expression, naked people, illicit drug use, and of course, tripped-out,

Merry Labor Day?

I wasn’t surprised to see the Halloween decorations out in full force when I went to the local Sprawl-Mart during the Labor Day weekend. But I had forgotten that this is also the traditional start of Christmas shopping, and that the clerks have almost four months of electronic caroling to endure.The never-idle Mart-Elves evidently had been busy moving out the yard and lawn-care stuff to make room