9/4/07

tedium - n - dullness owing to length or slowness

If I ever become a celebrity truck driver and I have Drew Rosenhaus negotiating my next contract, the first stipulation will be that I don't run mountains with over 20,000 pounds of cargo. I lack the requisite patience to slog up a hill at 30mph in a 75mph zone.

Today's route took me up I-25 into Denver and over on 76 to the east. In Denver the traffic slowed to a crawl, so I thought I had a bright idea. I would cut the corner on state route 2, up US 6 to I-76, and get around the logjam. As with most of my bright ideas, this one sucked. There were red lights at almost every block and an inordinate amount of traffic for early afternoon. Oh well, such is life. Once I got out of there and caught 76 east, things shook out and it was a pretty mellow ride.

I made it to Sidney this afternoon and settled in at the Sapp Brothers truck stop. There aren't a ton of parking spots here, so I made sure to avoid the temptation to take a break along the way. Since I operate on Eastern time and out here it's Mountain time, I beat most of the other drivers off the road. Things are starting to fill up now, so if I had taken a break or two I may have run into some parking issues.

There are many things that I dislike about the west/southwest/any other generally unsettled area of the country. Among them is the sketchy or nonexistent wireless service. Wherever I am able to get internet access through my broadband card, I rarely find broadband speed. Most of the Sapp Brothers locations provide free wi-fi access so I have spent most of this evening catching up on things that I intended to do yesterday.

Once my business was handled I logged onto NBC.com and watched the replay of Saturday's game. With the high speed connection and plenty of time to kill, I may as well use the internet for all it's worth. Without commercial interruptions and with the time between plays condensed, you can go through a whole game in about a half hour. It's a pretty cool feature. In any case, as I watched the game Saturday the results left me thoroughly pissed off. It was hard to form any objective opinions when all that stood out were the blunders and the scoreboard. In light of today's announcement that Jimmy Clausen will start against Penn State, combined with my more objective review of the game, I think the lads will be fine this season, maybe losing two more games. I'm usually wrong though, so you might want to call your local bookie and bet the house on Penn State.

I'll make my drop early tomorrow morning right around the corner from here and then get on the board. After a holiday weekend of sitting around and blowing money, I need to keep the wheels rolling for a couple of weeks. I'm planning to highlight for home on the 14th, getting there sometime around the 19th or so. Between now and then I'd like to rack up one more solid paycheck. The paycheck that usually deposits on the 4th is a day behind on account of Labor Day, so it will hit my account after midnight tonight. That last August pay period was a good one, so I'll be able to bank a few bucks for my excursion to South Bend on the 22nd. As long as I can make some decent money between now and my trip home, the week I'll be spending at home shouldn't be too much of a problem.