In This Edition:
TWNA
Election Time
Dues Renewal Deadline Approaching
MATS 2002 Meeting Details
Member News - John Baxter
Media Tech - Digital Camera Tips
On The Lighter Side
Next Issue Due Out 2/28/02 - Deadline
For Materials 2/21/02!
WANTED: Officers For 2002-2004 Term
It’s time to start
thinking about who you would like to lead the TWNA for the next
two years. The election of officers will take place via fax and
mail-in ballots during late February. Election results will be
announced during TWNA’s annual Mid-America Trucking Show meeting.
Newly-elected
officers will begin their terms at the end of that meeting.
All officer positions
are to be filled: President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer,
and four Members of the Board of Directors (three Full and one
Associate). Officers serve a two-year term. As of this time, the
current officers and directors have already been nominated, although
TWNA Secretary Carol Birkland has declined to run for re-election.
Accordingly, nominations for additional candidates for all offices
are strongly encouraged.
NOMINATIONS
-- Nominations for officers may come from any TWNA member. Only
Full Members may serve as TWNA officers, with the exception of
the Associate Board Member position. Nominations should be faxed
or e-mailed to TWNA President Rolf Lockwood by no later than
February 15.
CANDIDATES
-- Nominated candidates must be willing
to serve, and must be able
to devote the time and effort necessary to perform
the specified duties of the office. If you nominate other individuals,
please contact them to receive their commitment to serve if nominated
and elected. You may nominate yourself.
Candidates must submit
a short biography and a brief statement of why they believe they
should be elected, by no later than February 18. This information
will be included as part of the election ballot.
OFFICERS’ DUTIES
& RESPONSIBILITIES -- What follows is the minimum duties and
responsibilities of each TWNA office:
President:
Direct association activities and oversee committees, represent
TWNA at appropriate functions, act as association spokesperson.
Vice President:
Assist president with directing association activities and committees,
generate appropriate press releases and public relations, help
build membership.
Secretary: Record
and report meeting minutes, collect agenda items for meetings,
maintain organization records and bylaws.
Treasurer:
Direct TWNA's financial matters, maintain TWNA's bank account
and books, keep track of membership.
Director #1:
Oversee TWNA electronic communications, including TWNA.org web
site and Dispatch e-mail newsletter.
Director #2:
Chair award/recognition programs and committees, including TWNA
Technical Achievement Award.
Director #3:
Handle "set-the-record-straight" responses to newspapers, magazines
and broadcast news organizations that inaccurately or incorrectly
report truck related subjects.
Associate Board
Member Director: Represent associate members and their interests,
assist with TWNA programs and projects.
- -
-
Is
Your Check "In The Mail?" - It's Dues Renewal Time
The treasury is now open...for 2002 dues. Annual dues are $35
for both full and associate members, rising to $40 after MATS.
Checks should be payable to TWNA and sent, along with vital statistics
(name, company, publication, title, address, phone, fax, e-mail,
etc.), to:
TWNA,
c/o Avery Vise, Treasurer,
134 Kentwood Way
Alabaster, AL 35007
Also, please note whether
or not you have a TWNA pin. Copies of the Application
Form or Renewal
Invoice are available on the website.
MATS
Meeting Details
We're Booked - We have the room for the annual TWNA meeting e
to be held during the Mid-America Trucking Show. The meeting data
is as follows:
Date: March 21, 2002
Day: Thursday
Time: 3:00 to 4:00
Location: South Wing Rooms 109 and 110
It's kind of a no-brainer
-- same day, same time and same place as last year. Please plan
to attend.
If you have an issue,
topic or concern you wish to have voiced at the meeting, please
forward it to TWNA secretary, Carol Birkland cbirkland@truklink.com.
She will pass them along to the president and the other board
members for consideration.
Please send your ideas ASAP so we will have ample time to process
requests and to publish an agenda prior to the meeting.
Toby Young of Exhibit
Management Associates has posted the preliminary Press
Event Schedule on the show website. Mike Pennington has passed
along the details regarding ArvinMeritor's offsite press event.
The event will be held Wednesday, March 20, from 6 to 9 pm at
the Brown
Theater in downtown
Louisville.
Member
News - John Baxter Publishes Diesel Combustion White Paper
John Baxter, Senior Associate Editor of CCJ at Randall Publishing,
recently published a paper entitled "Working Toward Homogeneous
Diesel Combustion: A Fresh Look at the Work of Max Fiedler."
The paper was published
by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers at its Fall 2001
Internal Combustion Engine Division Conference, held at the Argonne
National Laboratory, Argonne, IL last September.
The paper discusses
the work of an early researcher into homogeneous charge compression
ignition ("HCCI"), sometimes called "pre-mixed"
diesel combustion, and contrasts this work with more recent discoveries.
John's co-author was Dr. Joel Hiltner, a consultant in the field
of HCCI. John is a full member of ASME.
Media
Tech
As digital cameras are becoming increasingly popular with many
automotive journalists, a few tips are in order to help get the
most from the technology. SanDisk,
one of the leading suppliers of removable media for digital cameras,
passes this info along:
While the basic principles
of photography still apply, digital cameras have their own unique
characteristics that differ from traditional film cameras. To
compile this advice, SanDisk enlisted the help of Rick
Sammon, host of the Digital
Photography Workshop on the DIY
Television Network, photography instructor at leading photo
learning workshops around the U.S. and author of 21 books on photography.
Here are Rick's 10 tips for taking better pictures with a digital
camera:
1. Move in closer.
Most pictures will benefit if you take a few steps forward. Having
your subject fill most the frame helps your viewer understand
your photo and provides details that are often more interesting
than an overall view. To get the clearest picture, use the camera's
optical zoom if you can't move closer to your subject.
2. Use your viewfinder.
A digital camera's LCD screen uses lots of battery power so to
maximize battery life, use the camera's viewfinder.
3. Anticipate the moment.
Most point-and-shoot digital have an inherent delay between pressing
the shutter button and when the camera takes the picture. Try
to anticipate the action and always be ready to shoot.
4. Use available light
when possible. Indoors, the mood created by natural light is lost
with a flash. Whenever possible, position a subject by a door
or window and avoid using the on-camera flash.
5. Shoot at the highest
resolution available. If you want to print your images or enlarge
a part of the image, you'll get the best results from a larger
file. You can always decrease the resolution of the image on your
computer to email them, but starting off with a low-resolution
image does not give you the flexibility to print your picture.
6. Take as many pictures
as possible. The more images you take, the better your chances
are of getting that special shot. Because you don't incur any
costs until you print your images, take as many shots as you can.
7. Delete unwanted
images 'on-the-fly.' Immediately deleting images you don't want
minimizes the task of deleting images because you're running out
of storage capacity. When in doubt, save the image until you can
view it on your computer monitor.
8. Use rechargeable
batteries. Digital cameras are notorious for consuming batteries.
Consider investing in an extra rechargeable battery. You can continue
to take pictures while the other set is charging.
9. Think big. In most
cases, the 8 or 16 megabyte (MB) card that came with your camera
won't cut it. Get the highest capacity removable storage card
within your budget. For most occasions, a 128MB card will suffice.
Rapidly falling prices are making these cards very affordable-having
more capacity than you think you'll need lets you concentrate
on taking pictures and not filling up the card.
10. Get an external
card reader. One of the easiest and fastest ways to transfer images
between the camera and computer is to use a card reader. This
method is often faster than using the transfer cable that may
have been included with your camera. In addition, if your camera
does not have a docking/recharging station, the card readers avoid
tying up your camera and draining its batteries when it is left
on for long periods of time while transferring images.
"Whether you're new
to photography or an experienced picture taker, the important
thing to remember is that digital cameras offer shooting freedom
and flexibility," said Sammon. "Experiment with your camera. Try
new techniques. And above all, remember to have fun while you're
doing it."
On
The Lighter Side
CURING A PARROT
OF SWEARING
So there's this fellow with a parrot. And this parrot swears like
a sailor, I mean he's a pistol. He can swear for five minutes
straight without repeating himself. Trouble is, the guy who owns
him is a quiet, conservative type, and this bird's foul mouth
is driving him crazy.
One day, it gets to
be too much, so the guy grabs the bird by the throat, shakes him
really hard, and yells, "QUIT IT!" But this just makes the bird
mad and he swears more than ever.
Then the guy gets mad
and says, "OK for you," and locks the bird in a kitchen cabinet.
This really aggravates the bird and he claws and scratches, and
when the guy finally lets him out, the bird cuts loose with a
stream of invective that would make a veteran sailor blush.
At that point, the
guy is so mad that he throws the bird into the freezer. For the
first few seconds there is a terrible din. The bird kicks and
claws and thrashes. Then it suddenly gets VERY quiet.
At first the guy just
waits, but then he starts to think that the bird may be hurt.
After a couple of minutes of silence, he's so worried that he
opens up the freezer door.
The bird calmly climbs
onto the man's out-stretched arm and says, "Awfully sorry about
the trouble I gave you. I'll do my best to improve my vocabulary
from now on."
The man is astounded.
He can't understand the transformation that has come over the
parrot.
Then the parrot says,
"By the way, what did the chicken do?"
The 12-Step Program
For E-Mail Forwarders
1) I will NOT get bad
luck, lose my friends, or lose my mailing lists if I DON'T forward
an email!
2) I will NOT hear
any music or see a taco dog, if I do forward e-mail.
3) Bill Gates is NOT
going to send me money, Victoria Secret doesn't know anything
about a gift certificate they're supposed to send me.
4) Ford will NOT give
me a 50% discount even if I forward my e-mail to more than 50
people!
5) I will NEVER receive
gift certificates, coupons, or freebies Coca Cola, Cracker Barrel,
Old Navy, or anyone else if I an e-mail to 10 people.
6) I will NEVER see
a pop-up window if I forward an e-mail. NEVER-- EVER!!
7) There is NO SUCH
THING as an e-mail tracking program, and I am not STUPID enough
to think that someone will send me $100 forwarding an e-mail to
10 or more people!
8) There is NO kid
with cancer through the Make-a-Wish program in England or anywhere
else collecting anything!
9) The government does
not have an email postage bill in called 901B (or whatever they
named it this week), if passed, will enable them to charge us
5 cents for e-mail we send.
10) There will be NO
cool dancing, singing, waving, colorful flowers, characters, or
program that I will receive immediately after I forward an e-mail.
NONE, ZIP, ZERO, NADA!!
11) The American Red
Cross will NOT donate 50 cents to certain dying of some never-heard-of
disease for every e- address I send this to. The American Red
Cross RECEIVES donations!
12) And finally, I
WILL NOT let others guilt me into sending things by telling me
I am not their friend or that I don't participate in the right
religion. If my maker wants to send me a message, I believe the
bushes in my yard will burn before a PC is used to pass it on!
Now, repeat this to
yourself until you have it memorized, and send it along to at
least 5 of your friends before the next moon or you will surely
be irregular for the next three months and all of your hair will
fall out!
