Are You Lost? from - Highway Ramblings

 

If you can't place yourself on a map, you're as good as lost. 

I'm an old OTR truck driver... Did it for years, enjoyed most ever mile. OTR is short for 'Over the Road.' I've been from sea to shinning sea, from the gulf coast to Canada. In fact I've been to all the bordering Canadian Provinces. I always knew where I was, cause I drove there.

When I was a young fellow, a friend of mine was learning to fly. We were up flying once with his instructor, when Byron (my friend) said, “I'm lost,” which Fred (the instructor) replied immediately, “No you're not, you just haven't thought about it.” Then this liturgy followed.

Fred “What country are you in?”

Byron, “Well the US.”

Fred, “What state?”

Byron, “Well Texas, hell I know that..!!”

Fred, “Shut up... What county.?

Byron, “Galveston.”

Fred, “ See, you're not lost.? You just hadn't thought about it. Start with what you already know, you know the direction you're going, so get this plane down low enough, and fly a wide circle until you recognize something, and wa-la you're not lost.” And we did just that. I have a feeling we were never lost. I think his point was, if you're in the plane alone, and trouble arises, there's nobody to ask, except yourself. Get asking. Get answering.

In trucking, or any over the road travel, or even flying, the trick, as simple as it is, is to know where you are, know where you are going, and knowing what route you're going to use to get there. Kind of sounds like life. Choose carefully, consider weather, construction, low overpasses, under-rated bridges, don't be afraid of the smaller roads, if they are rated.

Like I said, I was never lost, cause I was the one that drove there. When you train as an OTR Driver, one of the thing you have to master is map reading. Now my daddy taught me to read a map when we went on vacations.... So I thought I knew how to read a map. Turns out, when I took the class, there was much about a good road map I didn't know. It's full of information if you know how to read it. A trucker treasures his Rand McNally.

Where am I going with this. Well, I been watching Youtube, on Youtube truckers put up videos of their dash cameras as they go down the road. Sometimes they give you an idea of where they are in the title, and sometimes they don't. What I have discovered, (and I am sure many of you have, I am usually late to the party), is, that you can watch one of these trucker's videos going down the road, and within ten miles, you know exactly where you are on google earth, I mean to the mile marker.

There is enough information along most any stretch of highway that within ten miles, you can pinpoint yourself on a map. You can't ask for any better road markings. If you get lost, you can't read. Our fathers did a marvelous job putting together our Interstate, highway, byway, roadway and drive way system we utilized today. To ask for a railroad, or drones or anything else is like bitching about gold. Ahhhh...I don't like my gold...

Not only are the highways well marked, everybody and their dawg wants to tell you something, so the variety of signage out there is remarkable, and each one tells you a little something about what's down the road a ways, sometimes about what you just missed, 'Turn Around!' In many cases they are an art form, and in many cases they are intriguing. In many cases you don't even know what they are selling. Those people need to be fired. I should at least know what you're selling.

There is a serious of billboards west bound on I-10 that run from Louisiana to Arizona, the closer to Arizona, the closer the signs, “The Thing.” The Thing, was in the desert, on the edge of Texas Canyon, which is a place where God hand stacked the rocks. (A place worth seeing.)

I guess one of my points is, You Drivers, don't put your videos up live, put them up after the fact. We are at war, if you put it up live, you can be tracked to within a mile, you're a sitting duck. Quack, Quack..... Put them up after the fact. I enjoy them I do, as an old Driver, but don't put yourself and your cargo at risk for my entertainment. I am just fine with seeing them after the fact. You and your cargo are important, to you, your family, the company, the shipper, the receiver, the consumer, for goodness sake, the country. So be smart and safe out there.

As for anyone else reading this, it's kind of fun. Give it a try, pick a video of a trucker just going down the road, and see how long it takes you to figure out where you are, using google earth as your map. You can even drop yourself on the road to see if you see what the trucker sees. It's an interesting exercise.

Too many people don't know their way to the corner store. Too many people can't place themselves on a map sitting in their house. If you're one of these, then the schools failed you. Reading a map is basic, goes back thousands of years. Learn to read a map, and find out where you are on it. If you have a phone, everybody else knows. So be smart and be safe.

Do you realize that from Orange, Texas to El Paso, Texas is just as far as from Houston, Texas to Chicago, Illinois. I just bragging now, It's as far from Brownsville, Texas to the state line with Oklahoma there in the panhandle, as it is from there to Bismark, North Dakota. As a trucker you learn this, when you finally get out of Texas, state lines start going by, instead of just county lines. It's as far from Houston to El Paso as it is from El Paso to LA.... It's all good driving.

Can be tough in the winter, but what a site. Wisconsin in the winter, is a wonderland, around Christmas, you can't touch it. The beauty is story book stuff. Do you even know where Wisconsin is on a map? There is about two-weeks in Wisconsin when nobody goes to work, they go hunting. So don't pull no stunts in Wisconsin, you might get shot. Wisconsin was one of those states where in the winter, instead of cars outside the bars, it's snowmobiles. You'd see them weaving up and down the ditches.... Were there is a will, there is a way. So..... learn to read a map, find out were you are on it, and find out where your favorite places are on it. You are an American, you should know how to read a map.

July 10^th 2025

George Henry Nichols

Houston Control, Time to Ditch the Networks

 

An open letter to KPRC, KTRK and KHOU in Houston.

To Whom it may concern,

KPRC, KTRK and KHOU, you affiliate yourselves with the NBC, ABC and CBS networks respectively. Through these networks you brought me national news, which I quit watching around nineteen-eighty-two because they were lying, and I knew it, we all new it. But I did watch the locals, Dave Ward, Sara Fryer, Ron Stone, Marvin Zennler, Ron Paul, and I watched a few of the shows....

You have failed me. You should have gotten rid of the networks long ago. They offer you, (us) crap, and nothing more... I know none of the news peoples names anymore, because television has gotten so bad, I don't even turn it on. If it ain't on Youtube, I don't bother... The selection on Youtube for exceeds anything Television has to offer.....

You find things like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H9RtjPVpLU

and this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l67uOu4bU0

and everything in between.

You're HOUSTON...!!!! (the name sake of Sam Houston,) Do you really need the networks anymore..? Is Houston really void of talent..? Is Houston void of truth? The networks seem to be. There's what...? Six million people in five counties.... There's talent out there, don't think there's not, go look at Youtube, yes, there is talent out there, go find it, and open a door.

Time to drop the networks and do something new, bold, and give me a reason to turn the damn TV on again. Hollywood and New York are dead. Don't follow them into the grave. Instead, rise up and dust off the ashes from Hollywood and the self-centered world, and take us, Houston, and the rest of the country in a new direction.

If I stand alone in this opinion, so be it.

George Henry Nichols

Hitchcock, Texas

The pool

 

All you people who are afraid to try something new, let me tell a story.... (I'm keeping it short and sweet)

I once bought a house, and it came with a pool. A small in ground pool, about eighteen thousand gallons. All my friends thought it was nice. I told them I was going to turn it into a pond, they all laughed and said I was crazy. I told them to come over anytime and swim and enjoy it. No body ever did... Six months went by....

So I mentioned again, I going to turn it into a pond, “You're crazy,” is what I heard, “then we can't use it...” So nobody used it, another six months went by....

Well then came the big storm and blew thing all around, filling the pool with limbs and various debris. What a mess... The lights where out, the water was out for quite awhile.

In this big mess I saw opportunity to do what I had been longing to do.... I had kept an aquarium, a nice one, I new how it worked... I was filling the pool from a well, so treated city water wasn't going to be a problem, so I sat down and laid out a plan.

I just let it sit, so all the pool chlorine would dissipate. I went to work on the filter system, which didn't take much, mainly a good cleaning, with the introduction of some batting. After about two week of sitting, I filled it back up and started filtering, stirring it from time to time to get all the fine dirt out of it...

Then I introduced some lily pads and other plants to control the algae growth, and continued filtering for another two weeks.

Now I have a friend, who was coming over pretty regular for coffee telling me I was nuts, and all the things that were going to go wrong... I kept telling him, it's an eighteen thousand gallon aquarium, once it's set up, it pretty much maintains itself, just add to and filter the water.

So while I am arguing with my buddy on the state of my sanity, I get creative with some pcv pipe and make a fountain and a small water fall.

So.....after about a month of prepping, I put a couple of Wal-Mart goldfish in it. What do you know, they didn't die.. So after a couple more weeks I got some koi and through in there. They didn't die.

Then one morning, there are rings around the pool, back ones, all the way around the pool. Looking a little closer, it's eggs, thousands upon thousands of eggs. Fish eggs..? But they are not quite in the water, not quite.

Well this is a mess.... then I thought, leave it along, see what happens... After a couple of days, I had a pool full of tad-poles, it was amazing... The fish were eating tad-poles.... After a few more days there were tiny little frogs everywhere, hopping all over the place....Then after another couple of days, they all hopped away.

In the months that followed, I had friends, in their fifties, in their sixties, one fellow who was seventy-five on their bellies, petting the fish in the pond.... They were getting in the water and swimming with them, with tiny baby fish eating the dead skin off of them, telling me I was a genus.... After months of telling me I was crazy.

So..... If you have an idea.... and everybody thinks you're crazy... So what...

The fellows who were telling me I was crazy, were well educated, well rounded airline pilots.... But they didn't know squat about an aquarium, and only one of them had had a pool.

Build it, and they will come...

George Henry Nichols

April 9^th 2025

With a little Cooperation

 

I have a video here, a music video, and I want to talk about it a little. So go give it a watch, and then come back.-> https://youtu.be/unau6nthttg?si=qkeUhcyfsRbwvJQB

Marvelous wasn't it..? I want to talk about some of the things that made this possible. For instanced, did you notice in the beginning when all the lights in the stadium came on at once... (!!!) That is not easy to do, there would be a huge power surge, that they of course were ready for. But somebody there had to know how to pull that off, at the moment the artist appointed.

The artist... Have no idea who it is, but he's(she) there somewhere, directing his (her) vision. Because of the vision, and the faith the people around the artist have in him, the work began to bring it about.

Someone designed the stage, for it was a vision to itself, someone had to place and operate all the cameras, someone had to make sure the audio was ready, each mic set up, all fed into a central control panel. Just how many people you figure are involved, and have to cooperate.

Someone had to write all the software to control the backgrounds on the stage and all the various flashing lights, no to mention the lasers, think of all the wiring, all the wi-fi signals that have to be kept straight...

How do you get that many girls together, in one place to preform as one. From looking at them, I believe they are high school age. There appears to be five separate teams. A rainbow, I believe they are the core, then the light blue, a dark blue, a red and a violet.

Somebody, took the artist's vision and put clothes on those girls. Look at those outfits, they are marvelous. You can tell they are well made, and if you look closely, no two are alike, yet overall, they have a uniform look. I promise you, that is not easy to do. There are about twelve girls in each team, think about that. Those clothes had to be cut from whole cloth and sewn together to fit each girl. Give a thought to how many people had to be involved, and cooperating to put clothes on those girls.

Somebody had to write the music, and the lyrics, and the harmony, and somebody (ies) had to perform it. Make it real. Some where there is a band. Wonder how many people involved there...? Actually, the music is quite good.

Somebody had to come up with the choreograph, and teach it to how many girls...? And if you notice, as it goes on, each girl has her own choreograph, just like the members of the band, each one has his own sheet of music, giving you, once again, the artist vision.

Now, we got these girls on stage, preforming, and we have all these cameras running..... Now somebody had to sit down, maybe working from a story board, and go through all that data and edit together the video you just watched.

Anybody notice the audience...? The place was packed, and it was packed because every one involved did what they where suppose to do to fulfill the artist's vision. They cooperated....

Now I believe (not going to swear to it), but I believe AKB48 is a school. Now just think, if we as a nation, were to get behind Donald Trump, our New President, and his vision, and cooperate with one another in an honest and earnest way, well... just imagine.

George Henry Nichols

January 20^th 2025

Observation #423 Male and Female

 

Everyone is really overthinking male and female. Ain't neither of you happy, male or female. And you're not going to be happy as long as you're bucking the truth. You can't go against what it true, and be happy, you just can't, man has spent his entire history proving that. So pay attention, if you want to be happy (an overrated word, the word is content), you have to work within the parameters of truth. You can not expect me to accept, nor tolerate something which isn't true.

Now take a moment, and listen to what we are speaking of. ..... Male and Female....(say it out loud). Male and Female. Has a nice ring to it. Don't you think...? Kind of poetic. . God created them Male and Female....... That statement alone... Think about that.....???? Male and Female..... Seems to me that infers, or perhaps even implies.... That one is not complete without the other. ...and the two shall be as one flesh... Hummm...... isn't this what we find in nature.... Isn't this the truth...? One is not complete without the other. Well duhhh.....

Quit over thinking it...... Screw your feelings...! Feelings lie..! Screw what other people think...!! People lie...!!! You know the truth. Quit trying to be something you're not. ...Think about this.... If one is not complete without the other.....(?????) Than you are different.... Hummm...... Seems your functions would be different... Hummm.... Quit expecting otherwise. You are male and female, you are different. To be jealous of one another is folly ( to lie to one's self and believe it).... God provided to each their own, in a wide variety. There are butch women and frail men, get over it, you are who God made you. Quit believing all the lies, quit judging each other and just look at each other.... God made you pleasing to one another... in different ways..... Explore what God as done..... and quit over thinking it. Good grief people this is basic, the foundation. Without this, you have nothing. Is there even a mating dance anymore..? Every generation had a mating dance, or two, or three. Earliest one I know of is the Minuet... Yeah, I'm a little old.... but I've picked up a few things along the way. ....and one of them is.....'and God created them Male and Female.' ....and it's a beautiful thing, and that's just the way it is.

George Henry Nichols

Observation #419

 

You know, one makes observations as one goes through life, you can't help but gather information as you go along. I want to talk about one of those things.....

There is a granite monument at 23^rd and Boulevard in Galveston, sitting right atop the seawall. I grew up with it, it was there before I was around.... I am told it was put there in 1923, so this year it will be 100 years old, that is to say, it was cut into shape a hundred years ago. Now they will tell you that granite is millions of years old, maybe billions.... Granite is number seven on the hardness scale, granite pretty tough stuff.

When I was a kid, we (the family) went on an Indian hunt... We were looking for one particular dead Indian., as a result we went though a lot of cemeteries, looked at a lot of tombstones. There is one cemetery behind the Mobile, Alabama Library that goes back to the first French settlement in the mid 1700's. Some of those tombstones were granite..... Remember I said Mobile, Alabama. It's on the bay, on the gulf, it's mud, there ain't no granite. Somebody had to go find a granite outcropping, and quarry it, and haul it to Mobile, for a tombstone, in the 1700's, (just a side note I found interesting). Let's just say I've seen lots and lots of tombstones, of all different ages....

The granite monument there in Galveston has worn down to the point, in a hundred years, they had to renew it so it would remain readable. The ones behind the library in mobile, you can't read at all, you can make out writing, but you can't read it. They are only three-hundred years old... In three hundred years, that granite has worn down to the point you can't read the inscription. Make that six-hundred years..? A million years...? A hundred million years...? Really..? Seems to me that tombstone would be gone. Dust in the wind. Yet you look at the mountains, you see jagged edges, you see sharp ridges, you see steady landslides.... What you don't see is anything that looks like millions of years. Other than the plant growth (another topic), most of it looks rather fresh.

If science is going to lie to us, and tell us fairy-tales so they look smart, you would think they would be smart enough to tell a story that looks like what we see.

As an Over-the-Road Driver, I have seen this country from sea to sea, corner to corner. None of it looks millions of years old, in fact in looks like it was laid out with beauty in mind. If one knows anything of beauty, it is awe inspiring. It is almost as if it was laid out by hand. An ongoing painting, in motion with day and night. A creation that creates. In many places signs of the great flood are obvious and they are everywhere, once you notice them. There are great oddities, like the Delaware Water Gap, something that really isn't possible, yet there it is, and you can drive through it, truly a signature of the artist.

I remember the first time I saw the Grand Canyon, I knew instantly, this is a big ole wash out. This happened very quickly and involved a lot of water. A lot of water...!!! Yet, there is room for two huge lakes above it, I've driven through them, indeed they look like lake bottoms, No millions of years there, just a real big ole wash out, and two empty lakes. It's obvious.

So don't tell me millions of years, I wasn't born yesterday, and by the light of Christ, I can see. Anyway, that's my rant, I'm just so sick of science lying and avoiding the truth. Teaching their lies to the kids, and testing them on it. It's crap, it's all crap.

George Henry Nichols

November15th,   2024

PS – I'm not really in a bad mood, just a rant.

My take on Election 2024

 

Okay, now that some of the dust has settled. I have a few observations and a question are two.

I am retired, and I watched this election, I watched it on NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, News Max, Epoch Times, Shy News, The Daily Wire, ect...ect...ect...

Now I believe in Language, and it can take many forms, linguistics, math, visual art, music. Now two of these languages are very exacting, linguistics and math. Numbers & math symbols mean things so that an exact idea can be communicated. Words mean things, just like numbers, words add up to communicate an exact idea. Now if a word is misused, just like a number, it conveys a lie. An ole saying, watch your p's and q's.

Okay, with that said – How is it Harris got 69 million votes..? Seems to me, there was an awful lot of voter fraud going on, which needs to be uncovered now, and exposed to the light. “Or..!!"
There are 69 million stupid people in this country. I find that hard to comprehend. Now I know we have our stupid people and I know many are high profile. Too many are news readers, who claim to be journalist, I don't know who's writing the news. Many are rich celebrities from the entertainment industries, but all you have to do is listen to them and know they're stupid. Then there is the nosy groups chasing false gods, pretty obvious they're stupid. But 69 million..? Really..? If this is true, we have a serious problem on our hands. Stupidity multiplies and wrecks havoc. We need to take a hard look at our education system, maybe close it down and start over. We need to question our so-called experts who are no more than high paid lairs. We need to, at a fundamental level, return to what is true, for only on truth can one build.

George Henry Nichols

November 10th, 2024