I will try to address all of the issues here but please, do let me know if I have missed any.
Ask my wife and she will tell you I was opposed to the entire baby in the truck thing from the beginning, she was curious about it and wanted the opinions of others here so I asked. If complying with my wife's desire for a more informed and current opinion than my own makes me a troll, so be it. If asking for information on a site that is supposedly specifically made for that purpose makes me a troll, than perhaps I am asking the wrong people, though given the good information I have received both here and in other posts doing searches rather than asking the same old tired questions, I doubt I am in the wrong place.
The fact that I mentioned here that I am very likely to be six months to a year from taking any action at all should indicate that some thought and planning is being done BEFORE making any decisions and certainly before signing any contracts or buying a truck.
As for selfish dreams, anybody (or more specifically any male) who has ever lived in the SE Asia regions for any length of time may very well dispute that. Granted, the same apathy that makes it so wonderful and relaxing to live here also makes it difficult to do business here ... at least to the extent I would like and to take good care of my family. I say male because here, even at nearly fifty, I am considered "exotic" and nearly every gal from 15 to 50 flirts with me. My wife will not go shopping with me because she knows all the girls wear mini skirts and I will get flashed tens of times on any trip to the store. While I am a practicing (never reaching perfection) Christian and do not partake of their wares or their company, I must admit that it is inherently more pleasant than the average shopping trip with the people of walmart. Add to that the tropical environment, the cheap, cold beer, relatively good food and all things being equal, it is not a bad place to live at all, just a very difficult place to build a future for a family.
As for building a future ... I run a non-profit here which I do for free. I lost everything I owned in two of the three worst storms in local history ... two months and three days apart ... I also lost everything I had in the US due to things beyond my control and which I am happy to share, though it would take too much room here. I have made my living working online, building websites, writing and other such work ... which had I been in a position to stay online without issues, may have been okay but with the electrical power here, even with protection computers often die quick and painful deaths. Turtle, if you want to talk tech, I have built custom (international) networks for Emergency Response with physical locations in all five FEMA zones, Mexico and Canada. I have also built custom networks for the casinos running fiber optics for interstate and intrastate connections. Which brings up the question, why would I not just look for a job in IT right?
Except it is not that easy. Nothing ever is ... or at least nothing worth having. I am also a high school dropout and with real unemployment rates hovering around twenty percent and up to 37% when you factor in the lost jobs, the number of people who are under-employed and the people who "no longer exist" because they have been out of work so long they are no longer recorded in the system and just maybe you can see that it is a little difficult for me to get a high tech job.
Which takes me back to "my selfish dream". Actually, I have a friend from Jr. High School who is a driver with her husband. My wife has been following their adventures on my facebook page and truth be told, the OTR part is her dream and not my own ... however it also happens to be among the easiest places to get work, something I do have extensive experience with and the idea of doing it in a straight truck, with my wife, making a semi-decent living is something that yes, I do find appealing. If that offends or bothers anyone here, than so be it. Again, if complying with my wife's wishes and helping her to pursue her dreams makes me evil in your eyes, than so be it.
As for my current situation, I worked online and ultimately ended up buying into a net cafe. I own half a net cafe but computer prices are coming down so fast that even here nearly everybody can afford one and personally, I am tired of living on borrowed money so that I can work sixteen to eighteen hours a day. I can work online and I can work in the net cafe but I cannot do both. Selling a bunch of used computers would not very likely get me anything in return for my time or investment so that really is not an option. We are exploring other options there as well, and should we decide on something else, again, it will be an informed and well thought decision, not any spur of the moment actions of desperation grasping at straws.
I have considered local runs as well but the money is not nearly as good for someone willing to run (and work) for their money. We both are. Still, my wife prefers running her first few hundred thousand miles with me and does not like the idea of local runs or driving alone. Again, I am looking at options which my wife has expressed a desire to pursue, if it were just me, I seriously doubt I would have a difficult time finding an O/O to hire me today ... though I would need to renew my CDL and begin piling up my hazmat certs one at a time again ... and that would still leave both my wife and child here in the Philippines ... which yes, is another option we are looking at though we would still be looking at finding ways to do team OTR runs.
Finally, no matter what my dreams may be, what hers may be or what decision we ultimately make, legally complying with all of the immigration issues does take some time. Having a job waiting for us would certainly make that a lot easier to accomplish however.
As for calling the cops, I do not personally believe in such actions unless absolutely necessary or in rare instances when someone is openly and blatantly endangering the lives of others. As was previously mentioned here, I would probably just shake my head and walk away in the case of seeing a baby with a parent on a lot or not. It could be that the parent was stranded in a snow bank, their car broke down or a hundred other different scenarios where the trucker you are f'ing with by calling the cops, was just doing his civic duty to help a fellow citizen in trouble. It could be that the driver just picked them up for a short haul for all you know and frankly, I do not see the need to intervene my "opinion" or "personal interpretation" of circumstances I am not familiar with. If there were some drunk driving down the road with an open beer and the baby in the car, yeah, I can see it but just seeing a baby in the cab? Not going to happen.
Please, do let me know if I have missed any of your observations or still left you with "concerns" about my authenticity, my strong work ethic, my personal abilities, my personal situations or other private affairs which are not at all related to the original post or the topic at hand. I really will be happy to address them.
Again, with thanks,
Mark and Ruth
