On his third day of what was supposed to be an 80-mile swim from Wisconsin to West Michigan across Lake Michigan, Chris Lechner began hearing a voice in his head telling him he was in trouble.

He began struggling with 6-foot waves during his last stretch of solo swimming which he started on Saturday, August 8. Only a quarter of a mile from shore, he began getting pulled by a riptide pulling him south of his planned destination.

He started to become paranoid once he realized that no matter how much he pushed and how hard, he was not getting any closer to shore. What he was doing, however, was swimming in circles.

He claimed he was beginning to lose his ability to make judgements and felt as if his mind was getting fuzzier regardless of how strong he felt.

Lechner called a friend for help using his satellite phone. The friend then alerted the Coast Guard which came and rescued Lechner around 11pm Monday close to Saugatuck Dunes State Park. Read the rest of this entry »

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is made to regulate the amount of hours that truck drivers are allowed to operate to keep them from driving fatigued and improve highway safety. The US Department of Transportation is duty-bound and required to use the best science available when developing these regulations.

The Hours of Service regulation was published in December 2011 in the Federal Register for the Drivers Final Rule was effective in February 2012 and the remaining provisions compliance date was July 1, 2013.

Basically, although the rule was complicated, it came down to a couple of updated requirements. The first was that drivers were required to take a 30 minute break to rest within their first eight hours of their shift. This is to keep them alert while driving on the road. The second was for them to take a ‘restart’ which is a 34-hour rest period once every 7 days.

Also required was that at least two periods of resting should be between the hours of 1am and 5am. This would allow the drivers to get a very real rest allowing them to catch up on their sleep before they began another long work week. This would reduce the drivers’ hours from 82 hours to 70 hours. Read the rest of this entry »

Technology has certainly come a very long way, and hitchBOT is the prime example of just how far. This robot, which was equipped with a GPS tracking, hitchhiked its way across Canada last summer. It started out in Halifax, Nova Scotia and journeyed all the way to Victoria, British Columbia, covering a total of 10,000 kilometers in a span of 26 days. During its journey across Canada, hitchBOT was picked up by a 19 different travelers.

And that’s not the only adventure that this high-tech robot had; it has also visited cities across Germany, including Munich, Cologne, Berlin and Hamburg, as well as the Netherlands.

hitchBOT was slated to run its wheels again on a trip across the United States this past summer. Outfitted with a sticker that read, ‘San Francisco or Bust’. The trip across the US started in Salem, Massachusetts and was supposed to end in San Francisco , California.

However, just two weeks into his journey, hitchBOT hit a bump in the road and his trip was cut short. It did manage to cross a few items off of its travel itinerary, including landmarks in Boston and New York City, thanks to the help of strangers, but on August 1, 2015, his trip was halted when it was destroyed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Read the rest of this entry »

GPS tracking provides invaluable services and tools for junk removal companies – many you may not even realize. If you’re like most junk removal businesses, you’re already using GPS tracking for navigation. Today’s GPS fleet tracking services offer so much more than simple directions to out of the way locations.

More Efficient Routing

In addition to planning days according to helping route traffic from one job to the next, GPS fleet tracking allows dispatchers to plan drivers’ routes for an entire day according to the most efficient route for fuel and labor costs.

It might not seem like that big of a deal at first glance, but it can save junk removal companies a great deal of money on fuel, labor, and vehicle maintenance year after year. Over time, these savings add up to higher wages for employees and bigger profits for your junk removal business.

Improves Record Keeping

How many times have you had to chase drivers around begging for logs and records so that you can handle billing, file the appropriate papers with local or state authorities, or even take care of payroll and tax obligations? It can be one of the most frustrating aspects of owning a junk removal company. Read the rest of this entry »

Researchers are attempting to learn how endangered manatees are traveling along the Georgia coast; particularly the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base.

According to Georgia Department of Natural Resources, partnering on the project are scientists and wildlife organizations from both Florida and Georgia. The goal of the project is to map out the migratory paths and habitat use of the mammals and assess their health.

Manatees were caught last week by scientists so they could place a GPS tracking device on them and release them back off the Georgia coast into Cumberland Sound.

Satellite transmitters have now been fitted on five manatees which will enable the scientists to track them while they are moving along the Atlantic Ocean.

Researchers will be able to identify high-use habitats and travel corridors thanks to the GPS tracking technology, Georgia DNR’s marine mammal researcher for the Nongame Conservation Section, Clay George said in a statement. Read the rest of this entry »