8/21/07

First I have to get something off my chest. I don't give a rat's ass about Michael Vick. There, I said it, that's better. I could not find anything on the radio all day without Michael Vick coming up at some point. Sports stations, talk stations, news stations, political stations. People need to let it go.

So anyway, today was a good day of running for a change. I hit very few slow spots, aside from my fuel stop. Here's a suggestion for people considering joining this business. If your prospective employer mentions the word 'Transflo,' run, don't walk, in the other direction. Most companies have you send your paperwork in via TripPak, an overnight envelope delivery service. Some have gone to scanning the documents at truck stops for instant delivery, aka Transflo. Screw that. After I got my fuel, I wanted to pay for the soda and bratwurst that I grabbed. There was a line of guys a mile long waiting to scan their paperwork. I just dropped mine in the box and I was done. Luckily the manager saw that I didn't need to wait among that conflagration so he took care of me at an open register. Otherwise I might still be there. Poor bastards.

Once I hit Illinois, it was time to kick back and watch people pass me. The speed limit is 55 here, so I drive 55 here. Nobody else does. The days are few and far between that the Swifties and Schneiders and JB's are flying by on my left, but this was one of them.

Since I was in the right lane going slowly and didn't really have to worry much about traffic, I got into a bit of a zone and didn't even realize how many miles I was covering. I had to answer nature's call by the time I got to Champaign, so I pulled into a little truck stop to handle my business. When I got back out and took a look at my log book, I realized I had driven eleven hours. Game over for today. That was a strange experience. Usually the last few hours of a long day drag and drag. Today it was almost like time travel or something.

I'll have a few hours left at the crack of dawn to run to my customer. I'm going to be skirting the west side of the Chicago scene, so I'm hoping for no major delays. Getting my ten hour break in and then finishing the run will not leave a lot of time for traffic jams.