12/3/09

Has it ever occurred to the people who run local and county governments that the money they save by not plowing and salting the freeways in a timely manner is more than wasted by sending police, tow trucks, and ambulances to handle the numerous crashes that result from their negligence? The answer is no. It has not occurred to them. I just can't wait to get me some of that government health care though. I'll bet it's gonna be super efficient, timely, and effective.

Things were rolling along pretty nicely for the most part today. I got past the Chicago area before the traffic got too heavy and then stopped at the service plaza in Belvidere for a late lunch or early dinner or whatever. As I sat and looked out the window, a pretty heavy snowstorm blew through. By the time I was done eating, it was gone. Beauty.

Once I got into Wisconsin and passed Beloit, the traffic on the freeway came to a dead stop. Then the rate of travel over the next several miles varied between 2mph and 10mph. We were driving into a light snowfall and there was a little bit of accumulation in some spots. Count 'em up - 1, 2, 3, 4 accidents over the next twenty miles. Just brilliant. Hopefully nobody died this time around. I've seen some severe carnage on previous trips through this state. I swear I don't understand it.

Once I got through Madison the roads dried out for the most part and I was able to put my foot to the floor for a while. My only objective for today was to cover at least 500 miles, so once I saw that there was a truck stop in New Lisbon I pulled off the road and called it a night. 499 miles, all told. Close enough. I should have a little over 200 miles to go from here. Hopefully there won't be a whole lot of snow overnight or in the morning, but I'll take off a little early just in case. It's always good to make sure I have a buffer. We know damn well that they won't have the freeway plowed and salted if the weather does get bad tonight.

Pretty good football game going on in Oregon right now, for those of you who are into that sort of thing.

12/2/09

The ole Godfather has a couple of nuggets for you fine folks this evening.

#1 - If you really hate your job, to the extent that you feel the need to do it poorly and swear about it without restraint, then you should quit. If you've determined that you need the money and you can't make a lifestyle change during a rough economy, then shut the hell up and do the job for which you're being paid. (We'll have more on this in a minute.)

#2 - Men who think they can get away with it will often find it difficult to resist the temptation to cheat on their wives. Some men have decency and virtue, but others are pigs. Some women, meanwhile, are skanks who will knowingly sleep with married men. The results don't tend to be pretty. Life goes on. (We'll have more on this in a minute.)

Bright and early, I headed back over to my consignee and checked in with the security guard at Entry Point 13. He told me that I would have to hang around until 6am when the receivers showed up. My appointment was for 6am so I saw no problem with this. A few minutes before 6am, a dude in a car drove up to the gate. The security guard showed him my bills. The guy in the car said that I had to go to Entry Point 9, a mile away. (Chalk one up for wrong directions.)

I hauled ass over to the other entry point and got there at 5:58am. On time, good enough. The security guard over there was all worked up about the fact that there were two purchase orders listed on one page. His department was getting 150 items (on one order) while a different department was getting a single item (on the other order). He made a phone call and then told me that I could head over to the loading dock. The receiver would take the extra item and see to it that it was delivered to the right place. The security guard made an extra copy of the bill of lading so that he would have one for each purchase order, then sent me on my way. I was to get two signatures - one on each copy. Easy enough.

I got settled in at the dock and then watched as a dude on a forklift unloaded some lumber from a flatbed. Once he finished, he drove toward my truck so I got out and handed him the bills. He started swearing up a storm about something. He was half mumbling though and I really didn't care to make an effort to figure out what was his problem, so I hopped back in the truck for a while. After an hour or so, the guy came out and handed the bills to me. "All set?" I asked. He grunted some phrase involving the word "fuck," got back on his forklift, and drove away. What the hell, dude?

As I edged away from the loading dock I heard a metallic sound. I walked to the back of my trailer and took a look. The consignee's dock was just a basic outdoor concrete slab, so they used a portable metal bridge to get in and out of the trailer. That peckerhead had left the bridge sitting across the tailgate of my trailer and it had fallen when I pulled away from the dock. What a dick. It turns out that those metal bridges are pretty heavy. Since I haven't managed to become a completely disgruntled cocksucker just yet (unlike that guy), I wasn't willing to leave the damned thing lying on the ground. I got the pleasure of picking it up and tossing it onto the dock. I would never have known that they weighed so much.

As I started to close the doors to my trailer, I made one more discovery. There was some freight (for the last two stops) in the front of my trailer, restrained by load straps. There was also one box at the rear of the trailer, secured to the side wall by a single nylon strap of its own. No, he didn't, did he? I took a look at the bills. The one for the 150 items had been signed. The other had not. I hopped into the trailer and took a look at the numbers on the box. They matched the purchase order for the single item that had so troubled the security guard. The forklift guy saw me walking toward him, then pulled a quick U-turn on his forklift and drove out of sight. What the hell, dude? Seriously, there's a time when you should just quit your job.

I drove over to the security shack and explained the situation to the guard. I told him that the best thing to do would be for me to take the box out of my trailer and leave it with him. He could then call whichever department was supposed to receive it and someone could drive over and pick it up. The box wasn't too big, after all. He seemed rather content with this arrangement so I hopped in the trailer and grabbed the box. I think it was a window encased in wood or something. In any case, my freight finally had been delivered and I was on my way to Ohio.

I decided to listen to sports radio as I was driving today. There are some excellent games coming up this weekend. Plus the rumors and counter-rumors surrounding my Irish are changing by the minute, so I was flipping around the sports channels to see what was the latest news. Not today, it turned out. All Tiger Woods, all the time. Voicemails and text messages and police reports and other assorted things about which no sane adult should care. I was getting tired and bored so I pulled into a little truck stop and took a long nap. After waking and getting back on the road, I tried the radio again. All Tiger Woods, all the time.

Look people, here's the deal. Tiger Woods is a dork. He has always been a dork and he will always be a dork. He grew up with overbearing parents - dork. He was on the high school golf team - dork. He went to Stanford - dork. He was on the college golf team - dork. He practiced tirelessly while the other kids were doing bong hits and Jell-o shots - dork. Oh, and have you seen what he looks like? - dork. If I had to guess, I would say that he never enjoyed the company of an attractive woman before he turned 25 years old.

Suddenly he became rich and famous and it's not surprising that, at that point, a few lasses were willing to give him some entertainment. Plenty of wealthy men will chase skirts and plenty of hot women will chase wallets. This is a fact of life that pre-dates the current generation of philandering celebrities by several centuries. If it turns out that Tiger can or can't restrict his desires to his gorgeous Swedish wife, then so be it. That's their problem. When this stuff is still in the news next month, ask yourself why. Someone out there is demanding more coverage. That's why. But there's nothing to cover. A horny scumbag cheated on a hot chick who happened to 'fall in love' with a wealthy dork. They got in a fight and he hit a tree. Bummer. Shit happens. Case closed. Let Greta Van Susteren do a forensic analysis on the fire hydrant if she needs to, but get this garbage off the sports stations. Please.

Okay then. I popped a CD in the radio and then finished my drive over to Perrysburg, Ohio. After checking in with my next consignee, I was unloaded within a couple of hours. The drive from Perrysburg to the terminal in Taylor took another hour, after which I dropped my trailer and checked in with the dispatcher. He said that I was #2 on the board so I decided to hang around the terminal and see what would come along next.

After a little while I got an assignment. There was a load due to arrive at the terminal this evening and deliver in Minnesota on Friday afternoon. 708 miles and no reason for me to wait around tonight - beauty. I can take off in the morning, drive until I've had my fill, and then finish off the trip on Friday. So I headed back home and hung around for a while. Nothing really exciting going on this evening but hey, why not get out of the truck when I get the chance?

The miles for the week are starting to creep up toward 2,000 and I have a healthy chunk of layover and stop pay coming, so all in all the work week is going pretty well. Can't say the same for that forklift dude or the Woods family, I'm afraid.

12/1/09

The reason that this morning was nice and easy is the same reason that I wonder why presidential primaries are organized as they are. There are no freaking people in Iowa. That's good for driving, bad for setting the course for the country's politics. After making my drop/hook in Pella, I had to get to I-80 in order to cross Illinois on my way to Indiana. There was no straight route, so I could either go all the way across to Davenport on state highways or I could head straight northward and then come across on the interstate. I only had to cover 400 miles and I had plenty of time, so I figured that the state routes couldn't be too bad. I was correct. Pretty much nothing but fields and farms.

I caught up with I-280 outside Davenport and then got onto I-80 on the other side of the river. Any day when you can get all the way across Illinois with the cruise control engaged is a pretty good day. It was even 4:30pm locally in the Chicago area as I went by. There was some construction traffic once I got into Indiana, but it wasn't too terrible. The rest of the drive through Indiana was on US-6. I seem to remember taking that road before, but I wasn't sure what kind of ride to expect. It turned out to be pretty smooth as well. Only a few towns and not a lot of traffic.

I didn't see any kind of truck stops or anything along US-6, so I decided to drive straight to the consignee and take my chances. The security guard was quick to send me packing, but he did suggest that I could hole up for the night at a vacant store down the street. I thanked him (only half sarcastically) for his help and headed on my way.

Upon turning the corner and seeing the vacant store in question, I also was treated to an unwelcome sight. There was a local cop hanging out in the parking lot. When you're intending to park somewhere that you may or may not belong, you don't usually want to do so in front of an officer of the law. I pulled into the lot, then walked over to him and explained the conversation that I had with the security guard. I asked if it was going to be a problem for me to spend the night and then head back over to the customer at 6am. The cop said that he couldn't give me permission to park in the lot, given that it's private property, but he had seen trucks parked there before. I took his statement under advisement and didn't press the issue any further.

By the time I walked around the building to assess the best way to park my truck, the officer had been kind enough to drive away. Plausible deniability perhaps. I don't know. I got settled in along the side of the building and that was that. Guess I should go to bed now. Back to the damned early morning schedule we go.

11/30/09

Compared to sitting around and trying to sort out Notre Dame coaching rumors all day, this driving thing is kinda cool. It's almost like nobody learned anything the last time around when Urban Meyer left us standing at the altar. People just need to chill out and give the process some time.

In stark contrast to the tea leaf reading among the college football fans, the day's work turned out to be quite productive. As I sat at the dock getting unloaded this morning, I received my next assignment. Once I was empty I had a nice easy drive up I-94 for a pickup in Eau Claire. The shippers worked quickly and then I was on my way over to I-35 and down into Iowa for a delivery in Chariton tomorrow morning. Just before I reached Des Moines, I received another assignment so things seem to be going pretty smoothly indeed.

My delivery appointment was for 7am tomorrow and my directions said that the consignee had overnight parking so I headed straight there. When I checked in with the security guard, she sent me to a door and said that they would unload me tonight. Well alrighty then. By the time the unloading was done though, my 14 hour clock had expired. The only issue was that the receiving guy said I would have to drive down the street to a local truck stop in order to park for the night. I guess we'll have to operate on the premise that I was using my unladen vehicle to drive to an en route meal/lodging stop, therefore I was legally allowed to be off duty for the half mile drive. Good enough for me.

Tomorrow will be another busy one from the look of things. I have a drop/hook in Pella and then I'll be headed to Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan for two drops and a relay. The last stop is in Canada (where I can't go) so I suppose I might be spending Wednesday night at home, unless there's a quick assignment once I get to Taylor in the afternoon. Time will tell how that part of the deal plays out, but the miles are looking good thus far. Today's total was 543 miles. Tomorrow morning's deadhead is 53 miles. Then the loaded legs of the trip are 406, 148, and 57 miles. Adding in the extra $70 in stop pay and with half the week still to come, I have no complaints.

I could have sworn that the forecast said I was headed for bad things yesterday and today. There was a little bit of drizzle as I went from Ohio to Indiana. Otherwise I've seen nothing but sunshine. Once again, I have no complaints. And just for good measure, I don't have to make my drop/hook until 11am tomorrow. It's 53 miles from here so I get at least a one-day break from the blue-hair schedule that I've bee keeping. I'll get back to complaining soon enough though. Wednesday's first drop is scheduled for a rather unpleasant 6am.