Ok folks here’s my dilemma what do you think?

Ok folks here’s my dilemma. What do you think?

Ok so that title maybe a tad bit self deceiving. I know what I want. I’ve been saying I wanted it for 3 generations of iPads now. I’ve always felt that it(this iPad that I’m blogging on )was just a little too big to be really useful as a portable device.

Now don’t get me wrong I love it. As I loved the original as well as the ipad2.

My point is the same now as its always been-it was too big. But now that the iPad mini is a reality. What do I do?

I would’ve loved to jump on it and get one when it was launched. But. Unfortunately the mini that apple released is inferior to the new iPad with retina that I currently own.

It’s basically an iPad 2 that shrunk.

Come on apple. Really now. I’m sure it was a good move business wise, but it has left me And I’m sure many other of your fans, disgruntled to say the least. I’m sure they’ll improve and eventually perfect it(retina,superior processor etc). That’s what apple does best

But in the mean while, while I wait patiently, I hope

Here’s the other part of the dilemma

Do I buy a Verizon 4g model or do I go with. Wifi only version for $130 less????

The new iPad that I currently on is a 4g LTE version. Previously I had only owned the wifi only versions.

It is nice to have the always present connection instead of having to rely on wifi, or the unreliable signal from my verizon hotspot

But the issue with that is that syncing between devices. Photo stream etc. won’t work between my iPad and iPhone as long as I’m using the ‘personal hotspot’ on my iPad as the 4g wifi hotspot.

I understand that verizon has a new 4g hotspot out called ‘jet pack’. So if any1 has any experience with that device please let me know.

Or here’s the kicker. Should I buy a wifi only ipad mini. Keep my new iPad and continue to use it as my wifi signal via its personal hotspot.

I’m starting to think that might be the winning combination. So if I can stand it. Ill wait till March of next year when hopefully the iPhone 5s comes out and see if they are bringing out an improved iPad mini. 😉

Free Wi-Fi: Should it be free or are we getting spoiled

Free wi-Fi. Should it be free or are we getting spoiled. We’ve all seen one or more of these signs advertising free Wi-Fi at restaurants, coffee shops, libraries etc. In addition if your a trucker. (If you drive a truck). I say truckers but some drivers don’t call themselves that so I clarified. If your a trucker you’ve most likely seen one or more of these signs at Iowa rest areas( I’m sure there are other states that do it too) but that was the one that came to my mind. McDonalds w/ truck parking, certain truck stops. Mostly smaller independent ones except for Sapp brothers. They offer free wi-Fi if you happen to be lucky enough to stop at one of their locations in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois or Pennsylvania. But other than that we are expected to pay,with money or points, for the wi-Fi service.

Is that really fair to ask us truckers to pay for wi-fi simply because we are truck drivers and have to park in certain places, mostly truck stops. Is it. In my humble opinion it’s not fair.

I look at it in much the same way as I look at paying for apps. As a friend once tweeted me “they have us trained wrong on apps. Music was never free. ” He was of course referring to the fact that I had no hesitation whatsoever in paying to download music from iTunes (the music was never free he was referring to was from back in the day when we would go to the record store to purchase music whether that be on vinyl, cassette or more recently CD’s )but I was reluctant to download an app,unless it was free. They used to all be free for the most part,or at least that’s my understanding of it. Again if I’m wrong feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this post.

Or maybe I’m just becoming a cheapskate, like some of my twitter buddies. Call me what you will. Agree with me or have your own opinion. That’s what the comment section down below is for. I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

This is certainly not a new thing. Pilot, Flying J, TA, Petro and Loves, they have all been charging us to use their wifi service for as long as, we’ll at least as long as I’ve been driving.

However I know that you can use your driver reward points to pay for it now instead of cash money(credit/debit cards). So that’s just as good as free. Right? Sort of. Well I guess that all depends on how you look at it and how you usually use your reward points.

Personally if I did that I would still consider myself paying for it, but at least the cash money wouldn’t be coming out of my bank account. So I guess that’s some sort of consolation. Or is it? Like I said you can and should leave me your comments down below.

The reason that I’m writing this blog is because it came to my attention earlier today. Me and the wife had driven to the Flying J in Aurora CO, after a delivery. To park and wait for our next load assignment.

I took this iPad and my iPhone, of course, into Denny’s with me. I was expecting to use their free wi-Fi to work on my blog and also I had an update available for an app on my iPhone which required wi-Fi to download,since it was over 50mb.

I really don’t like that Verizon policy(having to use wifi to download an app over 50mb) either but I see it as the lesser of two evils I certainly wouldn’t want to have to deal with the other big player who’s only claim to fame seems to be “you can talk and surf the web at the same time using your iphone on our network.”

Ooh wow excuse me if I’m not impressed. LMFAO

I could have turned on this iPads personal hotspot to use as wifi on my iPhone. But I figured if I could get it free inside why use up part of my data allowance that I pay verizon for.
Which brings another subject to mind but I’m going to save that for another post.

Like I was saying before I got off on that tangent to my dismay the only wi-fi signal available to me inside Denny’s was the flying j wifi. Which like I said we are expected to pay for. The reason I expected to get the free signal from Denny’s is that they usually offer it in their restaurant unless they are in a flying j. I suspect the reasoning for that is that Pilot, who now owns all the J’s, won’t allow it because they want to force us to pay for their wifi. I’m sure I’m correct on that point. However I have on occasion still found the Denny’s free wifi still available in some of the flying j locations. I’d share with you but at the moment memory escapes me.

Anyway I just though I’d share with you my thoughts on the subject and ask for your comments. I had another subject, a dilemma if you will that I wanted to share with you. But since I’ve recently learned it makes for a better blog if you stay on point, in other words from now on instead of writing my multi subject blogs. Ill try to stay on point and just write a separate blog post if I have something else to discuss with you or enlighten you with. LMFAO

Stay safe out there truckers. driverchrismc
Chris McFadden

iMc112612 Special Christmas Video Blog

Well its Monday after Thanksgiving and we’re back out on the road, sort of, that is to say that we left home this morning to go pickup an empty trailer.  Now we are sitting at a truckstop in Memphis, West Memphis actually, but if your a driver you already know where I’m talkin about.

We are going to pickup a load here over here in the morning.  So since we’re already here I had nothing better to do than write this blog for your enjoyment. 😉

@ToddMcCann posted a new guest blog last night.  Thanks to input from @KevinofMI  Check it out.  Its pretty good maybe Kevin should consider writing his own blog.  Anyway Todd’s still doing these guest posts while we await the premiere of his website.  There maybe some surprises for some of you, i may or may not have some inside information. I can neither confirm nor deny what links and or features it may or may not include.  Hope thats vague enough for you.

For this weeks blog post I wanted to share with you a video that was taken on my or rather my wifes iPhone 4s, it used to be mine before i got the iphone5 .

But your not gonna get off quite that easy.  I would like to think you read my blog rather than just scrolling to the bottom to see the video.

so ill wait and post the video at the end.  Believe me it’ll be worth the wait.  If you like Christmas lights and music You don’t want to miss this. It is a drive thru display of many many thousands of Christmas lights brilliantly synchronized to Christmas music.

We actually stumbled upon it by accident. Myself and Tammy had taken two of our daughters and grandson over to Nashville for pictures with Santa, Starbucks for me, where I got to use passbook for the first time on my iPhone.  If you haven’t tried it out yet you must, its awesome. Oh and also a trip to the apple store.  Not just for me people!  My youngest daughter needed to have her iPhone fixed.  Although It was my first opportunity to see the iPad mini.  First reaction:  perfect in size that is otherwise its an ipad2 which is so two years ago.  Thats why I’m just going to have to wait until they come out with a new one with at least an A6 chip and retina display.

So after we left the mall in Nashville we headed over towards Opryland, my daughters wanted to go to the mall over there but the place was jam packed.  So we decided to grab something to eat at Shoneys.  Well when we were leaving there I decided to take a right instead of going left, traffic was mega terrible, something about the Rockettes being at Opryland that night. I just so happened to see a sign for a Christmas light drive thru display at an RV park located off of the frontage road.  So I decided to go check it out.  I wasn’t disappointed.  It was an absolutely beautiful display of lights synchronized to music.  This is something I would’ve never seen in a truck or in a drivers lounge, you know where that comes from if you read Kevins guest post on Todds blog.

so ok I’ve tortured you long enough.   Let me see if the videos are uploaded yet. Yeah thats right theres two of them.  The video ended up being almost 28 minutes long on tammys iPhone, so I had to cut it in two to get it uploaded to you tube.  Hope you enjoy as much as me and my family did and if i don’t write you another blog before then MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

iMc

Ok this was originally going to be a special Thursday edition of the #trucker Tuesday twitter recap, because I started thinking of these ideas while I was driving last Wednesday night. But after I finished driving at 2330. My laziness kicked in and well the special Thursday edition just didn’t happen.

So then I was gonna post this on Friday, but once again when I was done driving Thursday night, it was actually 0200 friday. So I said oh well guess ill just post this on Tuesday as usual.

But then as I was writing this Friday, while waiting for our APU to be serviced, if your not a trucker in the know that’s an auxiliary power unit. That allows us to have AC or heat while we sleep without having to idle the truck.
I thought that perhaps I had given my blog the wrong name.

The reasons I’m thinking that are:
1-although I do post on Tuesdays. I don’t post every tuesday(which was the original idea)

2-although I do recap or repost things from twitter. My paper.li already does that for me.

3-and my usual subject matter revolves around anything that starts with an ‘i’ made by apple.

So I’ve decided Henceforth this will be known as the iMc blog(pronounced I Mac).

I decided I I couldn’t actually use the name iMac. I wouldn’t want to get a cease and desist from apple. But since my last name is McFadden. iMc would sound the same as iMac. And it more accurately reflects my usual subject matter.

Now having said all that I wanted to start off talking about some things that have absolutely nothing to do with apple. I know your all shocked. But let me get this stuff outta the way then ill return to my usual apple ‘fan’atic subject matter.

There are two subjects I usually never discuss. Politics and religion. I’m sure all you truck drivers know the fastest way to start an argument at a truckstop or over the CB is to have a conversation involving either politics or religion. No matter what your opinion is I

Guarantee

somebody will disagree with you. But lets face it folks this is America and you have the inalienable right to be wrong.

Now speaking of America and rights how you like that Segway lol

The presidential election was last Tuesday. I’ve always heard. “If you don’t vote. You don’t have a right to bitch”

That may be true and I am not going to bitch. I just want to explain to you why I believe my/your vote doesn’t count especially in the case of the presidential election. In case you are unaware or didn’t learn it in your high school civics class. Let me enlighten you folks. We the people do not elect the president. He is elected by the electoral college. It’s a fact you can google it.

Furthermore it is possible, and it has happened, the candidate that wins the popular vote. Can lose the election because of the electoral college votes.

It has happened four times before and it can and will, I believe, happen again. here’s the proof

Nuff said about that. Moving forward. In other election news. They legalized marijuana for recreational use in CO and WA. But I’m pretty sure it’s still a big no no for us truck drivers. And I’m pretty sure transporting it from Colorado to Washington or vice versa. Would be a federal crime

Now to totally switch gears here. Lets talk about the Rock and Roll hall of fame or hall of shame as Axel rose stated. KISS isn’t in it. But Madonna Michael Jackson and the beastie boys are in it. Now I’m not saying that I don’t like these pop and rap artists. But they are not purely Rock and Roll. KISS is rock and roll. Now of course that’s just my opinion and you’re welcome to disagree with me in the comments section below. Like I said this is America and you have the right to be wrong. LMFAO

In other geek news. Disney has acquired Lucasfilm, from George Lucas, and they have announced plans to make the long anticipated and rumored sequels. Episodes VII, VIII and IX.

And there is no truth to the rumor that Darth Vaders helmet will be replaced with Mickey Mouse ears.

He’s dead folks. You should already know that

And for you Star Wars and angry bird fans you can now download the angry birds Star Wars edition from the App Store.

In other apple related news. I recently started listening to the ‘cult cast’ put out on Thursdays by the fine folks over at @cultofmac

 Check em out on twitter @erfon Buster Heine @lkahney and John Brownlee Its the best 30 minute apple conversation you’ll here all week

Also speaking of podcasts you may like iMore recommended to me by my good friend @ericdblacker, fellow apple fan and soon to be back with us On the road. (Actually as you read this Eric is in orientation at his old company)

Now getting back to my i focus.
Apple On October 23rd announced to us via live stream keynote. Something that I’ve hoped for since the introduction of iPad. But also probably something that never would have happened while the late great Steve Jobs was alive.

They announced the iPad mini! I’ve always said the iPad was a little too big, of course that hasn’t stopped me from purchasing all three previous generations. But more than likely I won’t be buying the 4th.

Before I go on to my rave review of the mini , if I can call it that since I don’t own one yet. I want to express my anger and disappointment with apple.

Ok now that you’ve regained your composure. I am going to say something negative about my beloved apple. Hard to believe. I know but I feel like I need to say it.

First of all my new 3rd generation iPad, with retina display, isn’t new anymore. Apple is now selling the 4th generation iPad alongside the mini. The ipad3 was only announced and available six months ago. Thanks apple you have betrayed us on this one I think.

But never mind my disappointment over that. I still want an iPad mini. If for no other reason than the form factor(size). I love it. IMHO it’s the perfect tablet size.

But like I said I can’t do a hands on review since I don’t own one yet. I’ll just reiterate what’s already been said and provide you the links to those reviews.

Here’s what they had to say about it on the cultcast

So there you have it. The iPad mini doesn’t yet have a retina display, like the ipad3 I’m working on, and It doesn’t have as fast a processor as either this ipad3 or the new ipad4.

So what did we get. We got an iPad mini which is perfect in size

BUT

has a terrible screen and it uses the same processor/chip that was in the ipad2.

So I’m just going to have to wait this one out. But luckily for me, based on apples current schedule, i wont have to wait too long we would expect a new iPad mini around March of next year. Incidentally my birthdays March 24th if anyone would like to buy me one. Email me ill send you my address. Or I will accept donations on driverchrismc.com LMFAO

That’s a joke folks.

Well on that note ill wrap this thing up. Until next time. Ill see you on twitter, and all my fellow truckers. Be safe out there.

This weeks blog does not mention Todd McCann

Ok so I started thinking last Monday night that I should start working on tomorrow’s blog. I started thinking up ideas based on something I had just tweeted and a reply I got. Then all of a sudden I realized. Crap it’s already Tuesday. Guess this will have to wait till next week.

Well anyway as I was saying. I tweeted “Am I sick. I just told @tammymcfadden 2 stop 4 the night at a loves. Well yes actually I am. Your rude comments may commence now LMFAO”
Well as matter of fact I was feeling somewhat under the weather. I believe my wife had given me a touch of a stomach virus she had had over the weekend. That’s true love ain’t it folks.

That elicited a reply from someone who I’m not going to mention in this blog. Simply because I think I’ve probably mentioned him and his blog in just about every one of my blog posts. People might start to think that he was paying me and oh by the way

Your check is late. Again

Anyway like I was saying his reply was

“You got a major vendetta with Love’s or what?
Sheez. Remind me to never get on your bad side.”

So that gave me the idea. Not that I felt I owed him or any of you an explanation. Not that I thought any of you would give a rats ass as to why I hate loves. But I figured it would give me something to blog about.

So where should I begin. Well how about at the beginning

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away

Ok scratch that. That’s the beginning of Star Wars not the beginning of my explanation. But I’m sure you all knew that. If you didn’t know that you shouldn’t be following me. LMFAO

To be perfectly clear up front I don’t hate all loves locations. As a matter of fact I stop occasionally at the ones that have Hardee’s in them. I love their frisco burgers and curly fries with a large ice cold cherry coke.

And as a company driver now I usually have to stop for fuel wherever I’m told to. Occasionally that happens to be a loves. But not often thankfully.

You see it all started with their shower procedures. In case you other drivers haven’t noticed. They don’t trust us. They hold your rewards card until you bring back their key and towels. like we really want to steal a key on a stick

But then it got a little more intense.

When my preferred truck stop chain, Pilot, bought out the Flying J. (Their coffee is the best option we got)
Loves went crying to-like a little two year old goes to mommy when daddy says no-

The government; more specifically the FTC.
It was reported on the web that:

Pilot Flying J is selling 26 locations to Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores as required by the Federal Trade Commission as a condition for the merger. For a list of the affected locations and for additional information about the merger, visit http://www.pilotflyingj.com.

Now I’m sorry but to me I just see that as bad business. Personally I don’t condone any person or business “suing” someone else to get ahead. But that’s just my opinion and you’re welcome to disagree with it in the comments section down below.

Loves took over those locations and pretty much destroyed all that we had become accustomed to. Especially with the Flying J locations they bought. They closed the restaurants. Now I know all of you are screaming at me that pilot closed the Flying J restaurants but Denny’s isn’t half bad IMHO.

At least it’s still a place we can go in sit down and eat a meal. After driving 11 hours sometimes we need that.

So that’s it in a nutshell. Nothing real earth shattering. Just a difference of opinion I guess you could say.

Now back to the #truckertuesday twitter recap:

8 cool things you can do with your new apple earbuds: tweeted by @mactrast

http://www.mactrast.com/2012/09/8-cool-things-you-can-do-with-your-apple-headphones/

This from one of my new followers @Jim_Gresham, writer for iDownloadBlog and mactrast

http://www.imore.com/the-magazine

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/10/11/ipod-touch-5th-generation-review/idownloadblog will keep you up to date on all the latest apple,iOS and iPhone news. If you care to follow

Also make sure to check out this weeks edition of my Paper.li I would like to thank keithbanta1956 bulkloadsnow amishtrucker and the rest of you for the retweets of my panorama pictures I’ve posted on twitter.

That’s definitely become my favorite ios6/iphone5 feature. It just works. Simply and beautifully. No stitching and or cropping is required. You basically point shoot move your iPhone then shoot again when your done.
The default is left to right, but you can change the direction by clicking on the arrow. You can even turn your iPhone sideways and shoot a vertical panorama. I’m hoping to find a use for that soon. Here are a few of the panoramas I’ve made so far:

;

Now an unplanned update to the blog before it posts on Tuesday morning. The wife and I are currently staying in a hotel room in Columbus OH. We have been here since Saturday afternoon when our truck broke down and had to be “rigged” up so i could get it to Freightliner. They had to have another driver come get our load on the shoulder of I70 so that it could be delivered. The air tank under the drivers side of the truck fell off again. I already knew from our experience last month, in OKC, that they wouldn’t stock the part we needed to have it fixed. So being that it was a weekend when we broke down. The part couldn’t be ordered until today(I’m writing this on monday) They should get it in tomorrow and have us back on the road. I hope, but i won’t cross my fingers or hold my breath. Im sure some of you know how ‘efficient’ a truck dealer can be.

;

Ok thats all for now Till next time be safe #truckers

I’m back. Can’t believe I been gone since April 3

Wow after reading Todd McCanns latest post. Which was merely a guest post with some snark thrown in for good measure.
I realized I had been absent for at least as long maybe longer. He claims to have been workin on some super secret website. That we may never get to see. I on the other hand have no excuse. Other than my ADD and extreme laziness.

So welcome back. I’m sure your all thrilled to be here. Right? Right!

Well ok I hope in my absence you’ve all been reading my paper.li which auto posts on twitter every Tuesday.

But I decided as a treat for you this week I would actually write something. But what?!

A lot has happened in four months. I could tell you all about it. But if you follow me you probably know already more than you wanted to. So I’ll spare you.

Suffice to say its been interesting.

As of last week when we went home I got my new iPhone 5. Todd had already beaten me to it. But I had to catch up.

So last Monday when we got home. After many phone calls. I immediately headed out to a verizon store 45 minutes away from where we live. I usually go to the one in Jackson but they didn’t have any left. That’s still 45 minutes in the opposite direction from where I live.
But like I was sayin. I drove to the Verizon store in Dickson Not bad 45 minutes. Hell I would’ve driven an hour and a half but the Apple store in Nashville was out of them as well

So anyway I ended up with the last remaining white 64gb iPhone 5
Yep white. Partly because of what I had heard about the black ones scratching very easily and partly because that’s all they had. I hate to wait and I don’t like to order. I’m just a hands on type.

So what do I think. I love it of course. It’s apple. Sometimes I think us apple fans would by ipoop. If apple convinced us we needed it. That’s just an exaggeration now. But you get the idea

So what’s new you ask. Well other than this being my first white device.
It’s thinner, lighter, has the new lightning connector.
The screen is bigger. I mean taller but skinnier. Not really its exactly the same width. But it’s an optical illusion that makes it appear skinnier

It’s faster with the new A6 chip, and of course as many had hoped for its 4g LTE capable(at least for us verizon folks) which is scary fast

Of course it comes with the new iOS 6. Which has so many improvements. But that’s available on older iPhones. So you probably already know about it.

The new ear pods are far superior to the ear buds that have come with our previous iPhones.

The only problem I had with it, which actually turned out to be a problem with my Mac book pro. Was that I couldn’t get a complete sync of all my iTunes music. So I ended up making that trip to the apple store in Nashville after all.

After sitting at their “genius bar” for about 3 hours. The problem was solved. They really had no definitive explanation for me. They said they had never seen that particular problem before. The best they could say was that my iTunes media folder ‘blew up’ and scattered my music files all over. But. They were able to fix it. Guess they don’t call em geniuses for nothin.
Todd said I should write a book about it called “How to go in the apple store without spending a dime”. He says it would be a best seller. But since I’m not as long winded as he is and suffer from the aforementioned ADD. I seriously doubt it would ever get finished

One more thing….
Before I get to the actual #truckertuesday twitter recap. This Friday. October 5th is a special day. It’s Tammy McFadden’s birthday. Now I can’t tell you how old she is. That’s just rude. But our little inside joke is that I could trade her in for 2 21 year olds. LMFAO

Also sadly it is the anniversary of the death of Steve Jobs.

On a more personal note it will also be 15 years since I lost my Grandad on 10-5-1997.

Anyway back to the blog. Most of the important news(for us apple fan-atics). Comes from idownload blog

Eric. Known to us on twitter as darkstaff has as usual been posting some pretty outstanding #iphoneography pictures.
Most of his pics now adays revolve around his beautiful baby girl, Hannah

For the rest of what’s happening on twitter be sure to read my paper

Until next week #truckers. Be safe out there

TTTR04.03.2012 with a special tumblr pictorial and my paper.li

Welcome back to this weeks #truckertuesday twitter recap.

Unless you won the mega millions this weekend and been off the grid for a few days. You undoubtedly already know that I am writing this weeks blog on my brand new iPad which runs on Verizon’s 4G LTE service. Which to say the least is amazing. I ran some speed tests on my new iPad as well as my other devices(so that you could see the difference). Those are posted on my tumblr blog

Glad you came back and I hope you were as impressed as I am with those 4G LTE speeds.

Folks this new iPad is blazing. Almost literally. That brings me to this point(I threw this part in to be fair). I am 98.6% satisfied with my new 3rd generation iPad. Way to throw us a curve on that one apple. It should’ve logically been called the ipad3. But it wasn’t. Guess that’s why my name isn’t Tim Cook.

Anyway my point being the 1.4% that I’m not totally satisfied with

First off the smart cover which I mentioned in an earlier blog as the best feature of the ipad2. It doesn’t turn the new iPad on and off as it was originally designed to do. Something about the polarity of the magnets.

Secondly we have, what is being called “heat gate”. Yes it is true it gets a little hotter than normal when charging or when you are using the mobile hotspot function. But that has been reasonably explained by apple. It is due to the larger sized battery in the device, which is necessary to run the awesome 4G LTE speed. If you are lucky enough to have the Verizon 4G LTE model.

The final thing that makes me not totally satisfied with it is ‘photo stream’. Which was a part of iCloud, a feature that apple gave to us in ios5. Ok here’s the deal with that. It is designed to keep your photos in sync between your devices(iPhone,iPad). It only works when both of the devices are using the same wifi signal.
Now since I replaced my Mifi device with the mobile hotspot feature of the new iPad. My iPhone is running on wifi courtesy of the new iPad. But the iPad itself is running on Verizon’s 4G LTE. As a result photo stream won’t work. Oh well no big hairy deal.

So should these minor drawbacks stop you from buying a new iPad. Certainly not IMHO

The retina display. It’s resolutionary , according to apple.com, the 5mp iSight camera, the ultra fast 4G LTE(again that’s just for us verizon customers)

There are more than enough reasons why I would recommend the new iPad.

Anyway enough of that. Apples not paying me to recommend their products. Although sometimes I think they should. Lmfao

As usual I would like to thank some folks for their RTs of my blog last week. @BTDTruckingjobs @HTDTruckingjobs my wife @tammymcfadden and @toddmccann

And a special word of thanks goes out to Heather@trkrsvoice who in addition to the blog RT has also posted a link to DriverChrismc.com on her Dark side of trucking website

Also on her website you may now find Todd’s rumblings as well as a link to his blog

Well I’ve said my piece for the week. As far as the actual TTTR part of this blog please read my paper.li

Ok now that you’ve read my paper and come back let me explain. I chose the paper format because it’s more professional looking.

Ok honestly folks I did it because it saves me time and well let’s face it I’m lazy.

That’s all for this week hope you enjoyed it and I hope you will be back for next weeks edition. Until then drivers Be Safe out there.

This blog was written in its entirety on my new iPad. All material used in it was either my own intellectual property or gathered on twitter by paper.li and the respective tweeters were credited.

Any comments suggestions or submissions may be sent to me by email driverchrismc@gmail.com

TTTR 03.27.12

This weeks blog is gonna start off a little differently. Normally I start by mentioning the folks who retweeted and said good things about my blog last week. I’ll get to that in a minute, but first I’d like to apologize for last weeks blog.
The version of my blog that so many of you read last week was not the final, polished, updated version I had prepared to be published.
I learned a valuable lesson. I usually write my blog on my iPad and then update it on my MBP. However last week I did that and then I tried to reupdate, if you will, or update my updates using my iPad once again.
Unfortunately in doing that the original updates that I had made using my MBP were lost.
This was due to, I believe a flaw in the wordpress app for iPad.

Now that that’s out of the way let me start off by thanking Challenge Magazine they tweeted ” Our fav quote ‘Like other twitter fiends we had in common, vampire movies, light sabers, being geeks rather than nerds'”

Also BTDTrucking tweeted this endorsement “Follow Chris” “Read his blog”. “Be entertained! And no, I’m not paid to say this!”

HTDTruckingjobs had this to say about last weeks blog “LOVE the real conversation tone! Thanks for the inclusion, Chris ! Everybody enjoy!”

Now as I was saying some of my updates were lost last week. So I’ll include them here first:
Tachoblogs weekly View from the cab was posted a couple days late, but better late than never su.pr/21PYct and included darkstaff, driverchrismc, jayceebigrig,trkrsvoice and AZVern

I was also going to mention Smart_Trucking they have an informative website for drivers as well as LifeOTR who is going to be posting photos I send them on their Facebook page as well as linking back to my blog here.
One of my many new followers this week also writes for life on the road. @trkrsvoice

Her website is called The Dark Side of Trucking
Lastly I’d like to say before we get started with this weeks #truckertuesday twitter recap. I’ve made some improvements to my WordPress blog site and with a little luck by the time your reading this, you’ll be able to go to driverchrismc.com. And directly go to my WordPress blog site!

So here’s this weeks TTTR:

Check out this article: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/03/25/top-10-mar252012/
We start out with that from @idownloadblog it’s a recap of their 10 top iOS news tweets of the week

Boy I just saved a lot of space with that one! LMFAO

Then we have this by a new writer over at idownloadblog
Weekend reading: Detailed iPad 3 review which takes a long, hard look at both the little things and the big picture http://t.co/1IqHsY0e

Then we had these tweets from the folks over at iPhone news

Some Smart Covers Not Working With The New iPad:
iLounge reports that based on their testing, they have f… http://t.co/Ih4poV1c

iOS 5.1 confirms that Apple is working on a 4G capable iPhone: Now that Apple has finally ventured into 4G terri… http://t.co/HGTB27uE

Rumor: next iPhone to feature 4.6-inch display: Now that the rumors for the third-generation iPad are over, rumo… http://t.co/wbPkRLOX

And then when we had this tweet by Smart Trucking whose website I mentioned earlier

Tips for #truckers for handling #Department of Transportation inspections! http://t.co/zXki47jU

Alright that’s it folks. Kinda short and sweet. After last weeks monster sized blog. I figured y’all would appreciate me taking it easy on you. I’ll be back with another blog next Tuesday. So keep comin back and reading I’ll keep writing. Be safe out there drivers!

This blog was composed in its entirety on my ipad2. Cause I don’t have my new one yet. Dammit LMFAO. Comments can be emailed to driverchrismc

This shot was taken from the Flying J in Tucumcari NM

TTTR 03.20.2012

Your gonna love this first part i know i do
Ok folks here we go it’s Friday afternoon. Im on the way down to Nogales from Albuquerque to pickup our next load in the morning. I was thinking while I was driving. So then I stopped. Cause well I had to stop at a rest area and I hear tell that it is now illegal for us truck drivers to text while driving. I can only assume that would apply to twitter as well.

Anyway I was going to put all this on twitter. But then I thought. Wait. This is way more than 140 characters and you would all have to read your timelines backwards. So I put it here.

I was gonna start by saying EXCUSE ME MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE NO don’t worry this is not the lyric to a slim shady(Eminem) song. So if you are over the age of 25. Please keep reading. I promise your safe. Well my next tweet would have been. Thank you that’s better. Now that I have your attention I wanted to let you know that I’ve started work on next weeks blog already. Mainly because I’m getting older and have early Alzheimer’s or as I like to call it CRS. if you don’t know what that means. Send me a DM and I’ll spell it out for you.
Like I said I was driving and thinking of ideas for the blog and what usually happens is if I wait a week to write it down I’ll forget my brilliant ideas.
I was going to tweet that I was going to give you a rare inside glimpse of next weeks blog
I wanted to let y’all know that it would include what I like to call my list of UNusual suspects. Confused? Don’t be. Let me explain. If I may ramble on. Gotta be careful here I’m becoming a little bit too much like Todd ‘long winded’ McCann LMFAO
Anyway my list That’s my blanket way of referring to people on twitter, friends, publications, organizations or anyone who as helped me with this blog. They are names that I @mention on a regular basis. They all either RT my tweets. Mention my blog, post a link on their Facebook page, or website, or post my photos. I was going to let you know that I was adding a couple new names to the list. That list is pretty much anyone that strokes my ego and that’s a pretty big job. Believe me I’m one of the most egotistical arrogant bastards you’ll ever meet. I’m number one and i know it. People in four wheelers tell me everyday that’s a truck drivers joke.

But then I thought. No I can’t do that. Surely I will offend someone’s delicate sensibilitys because they come after someone else. Or they’ll think their special because their listed first. So no list. Well now wait a minute. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I can list them alphabetically. Let’s face it the alphabet has always been the same 26 letters in exactly the same order and is often the basis for creating lists
I was also going to tweet that next weeks blog was going to be a little more me and a little more snarky than usual
Oh and one more thing. Thanks Steve.
That inside glimpse I promised you
I’m pretty sure you just read it haha

So anyway. Wait for it. Wait for it. Saturday Sunday Monday ok now it’s Tuesday and you can read my blog. And it goes a little something like this.

Welcome back friends, followers,enemies. I don’t really care who you are as long as your reading my blog
I’ll start off this week by thanking @challengemagwho tweeted last week that I had a sweet trucking blog. That was seconded by @todaystruckingthank you as well as @HTDTruckingjobsAndrea tweeted This was great! thank you!
And to all those who Retweeted or read and commented on my blog THANKS!!!

Anyway here’s that list I promised you earlier @alanqbristol, @BTDTruckingJobs, @ChallengeMag, @darksaff. I could’ve used Eric’s real name. Wouldn’t have changed the order of the list. @hnldriver,@HTDTruckingJobs,@lifeotr, @raysunshine77, @tachoblog,@toddmccann
We met @toddmccann last Wednesday evening 4 a tweet up at the flyin hook in Amarillo TX
We had a good meal at Denny’s
Good conversation I thought but according to todd it was “interesting. Three people with their faces buried in their iPhones “HaHa! My wife @tammymcfadden thinks he’s funny. Funny HaHa! Not funny queer>;;;;;;;;>;;;;;;;;said in my best Billy Bob Thornton voice.

Anyway now I know the best kept secret on twitter. He drives for…….???

You won’t here it from me. Especially not you Eric @darkstaff
I had to swear an oath in blood not to tell you he’s with JB H…
Oops!

No really he’s not. He has a good reason for not revealing his company.
So as a man of my word. I won’t reveal my friends secret.

As you might have guessed we discussed twitter over dinner. Who woulda guessed that LMFAO
I also asked @toddmccann if I was doing something wrong. I remarked that I could no longer post more than one picture at a time on twitter. He agreed it was maddening and support couldn’t give him a good answer as to why.
UPDATE. @Toddmccann figured it out Sunday morning and sent me an email. All we had 2 do was change our settings in #tweetbot to use an image upload service other than twitter or twitpic. I’m using img.ly. And it works hallelujah.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

Oddly enough we hardly talked about trucking at all-strange 4 a table with 3 truck drivers
We talked about all sorts of different things. Like other twitter friends we had in common, vampire movies, light sabers, being geeks rather than nerds, the new iPad and the list goes on

In particular the new 3rd generation iPad. Will Todd get an iPad? Will the evil overlord,that’s Todd’s wife in case y’all been livin under a rock and didn’t know, get a new iPad. I really can’t say. But as for me I can say I’m startin 2 warm up 2 the idea. Especially now that I found out the Verizon 4g model have a 4g hotspot at no extra charge. It will of course count towards your data limit. so really it’s not free it just doesn’t cost you any extra

That option is particularly appealing to me since my 4g Mifi is about as unreliable as I don’t know what. I think my old 3G Mifi worked better sometimes or maybe I’m just using that as an excuse to get a new iPad. Either way. That’s my story n I’m stickin to it. LMFAO

But no folks I won’t stand in line on launch day to get one, I’ll wait at least a week or till my birthday on the 24th. I’ll be 41. I wasn’t going to announce that but @tammymcfadden already put me on blast on twitter

But anyway enough of me On with the #truckertuesday twitter recap. If I’m not careful here I’ll end up bein as long winded as you know who JK LMFAO

Good news for truckers as U.S. Senate passes highway bill http://t.co/cb8LNa8z via The Vindicator

by ChallengeMag at 3/15/12 12:47 PM

(Source: http://twitter.com/ChallengeMag/status/180364663291252736)

Rob W (@hnldriver)
3/15/12 12:24 AM
I’ve just updated my site: thetrucker.yolasite.com

Didn’t know he had a site but we all do now

New iPad confirmed to sport 1GB of RAM and 1 GHz CPU: Tinhte, the Vietnamese tech blog who got its hands of the … http://t.co/lqJsicMs

by iPhone_News at 3/13/12 1:30 PM

(Source: http://twitter.com/iPhone_News/status/179620462907764737)

Camera+ 3 is Out and Here is the Gigantic Change List: Camera+ 3 is out a day earlier than expected, and the lis… http://t.co/dDSnTjar

by iPhone_News at 3/13/12 1:30 PM
I LOVE THIS APP THINK @darkstaff and @toddmccann would both agree with me
(Source: http://twitter.com/iPhone_News/status/179620480309919744)
As a matter of fact Eric@darkstaff tweeted us this link:
RT @iOSPhotoApps: “Camera+ Goes To 3.0” http://t.co/iIStlyql #Camera+ #iphoneography <;;;;;;;<;;;;;;;Sweet. #fb

by darkstaff at 3/13/12 10:01 AM

(Source: http://twitter.com/darkstaff/status/179567949206659072)

Speaking of #camera+. I found out, while waiting on my wife in the ER, by googling yours truly @driverchrismc that all of the #camera+ photos I’ve shared on twitter are available on http://campl.us/user/DriverChrisMc. Pretty cool. It made a website for me I didn’t know I had!!!

Andrea also let us know on twitter>;;;;;;;>;;;;;;; Here are some apps for your phone that can help on the road http://t.co/i9EwIsmr Food, gas, audio books, & speed traps!

by HTDTruckingJobs at 3/13/12 10:56 AM Thanks Andrea

(Source: http://twitter.com/HTDTruckingJobs/status/179581596389736448)

Oh BTW let me go back to tooting my own horn 4 a minute. My wife and I are slated to be driver profiled in the may edition of Challenge Magazine as I was informed in the following email
Hi Chris,

We’re hoping to have you as the driver profile for the May issue of Challenge Magazine. Do you have any high-resolution photos of your wife and you with your truck? If you could send a couple, that would be great. It’s always nice for the art department to have some choices.

Thanks again for being one of our driver profiles!
Amanda

Amanda Jakl
Assistant Editor
Social Media Manager

Well that’s all I can come up with for now,as I sit here at the flying hook in Albuquerque
And my Mifi signal isn’t the greatest here, kinda frustrating for what should be 4g!

So anyway where was I in my story oh yeah. B4 we left for California and Todd got on his way 2 Houston. I decided to take a picture of us in front of his truck. Just in case y’all were still wondering who he drives for.

As usual this blog was written on my ipad2 using info gathered on twitter. Please leave your comments below. Till next week. Be Safe Drivers.

TTTR 03.13.2012

Welcome back friends. I’ll start off this weeks edition by letting u know I’ve officially named this blog now it’s TTTR. Thats trucker Tuesday twitter recap.
It will be published weekly, or as often as I get around to it.

I would like to thank Challenge Magazine @challengemag
Last week they tweeted about my blog “We love his writing style! Check it out.”

And on that point I also received word from them this morning that they are going to feature my wife and I in their driver profile in may. Very excited! Be sure and pick up the latest issue at any Pilot or Flying J

I wanted to pass along a friendly word of warning to all my fellow truckers OTR. I was informed last week by our companies safety director that the state of Indiana DOT does 35000 inspections annually! Compared to 5000 in the rest of the states. That’s 7 times the national average. They are to say the least ‘aggressive’

They are, by their own admission, more interested in radar than creepers. In other words they are more interested in our safe driving than they are performing inspections to look for mechanical problems.

They are looking at us for violations such as speeding, following too close, improper lane change etc.

Their also NOT a probable cause state according to my safety director. Meaning they can just pull us over because they want to.

So let’s be careful when driving thru Indiana. If we drive safely,like we should anyway as Proffesional drivers. We shouldn’t have any problems.

Apple held a keynote last Wednesday to announce the highly anticipated ipad3, although they are not calling it ‘3’ it’s simply ‘the new iPad’. Leave it to apple to do something unexpected. Lol

Check it out the new iPad It has quite an impressive list of features.
Although it wasn’t, as I was hoping for, smaller(guess I got spoiled on the first android tablet I had by Samsung). It is worth getting. Most notably is the improved retina display and of course the fact that its 4G LTE capable! If your on verizon like I am. They have announced that it’s 4G hotspot will be FREE. That’s good news right!.?

Ok enough of me lets get down to the TTTR for this week.

@tachoblog posts pictures weekly in what they call their View from the cab. Last Fridays post bit.ly/Akuigq included photos from yours truly As well as an awesome shot of a cloud that looks like a UFO from the movie Independence Day. It was taken by my wife Tammy I was so impressed that I had to send it to them for her. There were also pictures from our friend Eric who is back with us now after taking his break from the socials. He says you need that once in awhile. LMFAO @darkstaff as he is known to us on twitter also shared with us these spectacular night shots flic.kr/p/bp6LQo
flic.kr/p/bC1CnX
flic.kr/p/bp6DDw
and “the imprisoned moon” https://twitter.com/darkstaff/status/177712970292404224

There was no new blog post from my friend @todd mccann. But he did mention to us on twitter that he recently did an interview with job shadow.com. He was very informative, and by that I mean long winded as usual LMFAO. Give it a read folks

Wanted to say welcome and thanks to my new followers. I hope you’ll consider subscribing to this blog as well. Andrea@HTD @raysunshine77 and Randy Nose who according to Tachoblog is leaving us for another line of work. Like they said Randy good luck

Well that’s all for this week. As always please feel free to leave me your comments. Hope you’ll come back next week

All info for this blog was gathered on twitter and was written in its entirety on my ipad2
Any material not my own has been credited to its respective owner

Till next week Be safe drivers. Chris McFadden

parting shot clouds after sunset from I80 eastbound in PA