1/7/08

Any gamblers out there... I would be all over Ohio State plus the points tonight, so you might as well mortgage your house and bet on LSU.

Ole ConWay Truckload (no more CFI apparently) just keeps moving me along. I have heard, off and on since I started here, about how some people have trouble getting miles. For a week here and there, maybe. Over the long haul, I just don't see it. The religious show that I heard last night said that I shouldn't think I'm lucky, so I will just say that I must be blessed. On the way to Rockford I got a pre-plan for a load picking up at the other end of town and heading to Laredo. 1,353 more miles and another few days of solid work. Good enough for me.

I got into Rockford about an hour early, having taken the scenic route through Iowa for the better part of the morning. Once I checked in there, I was unloaded in short order and dispatched for the other place in Rockford. They may have been the friendliest bunch I've met out here in quite some time. On my way in, the yard dog motioned for me to stop. "Just drop it right here. That will be fine." I asked if he wanted me to slide the tandems as the instructions said. Nope, he just took it as it was. He cranked up the landing gear while I disconnected the air and electric lines. Didn't make me back it into a slot or anything. Then the ladies inside were really nice. After I signed the bills, they even gave me three cases of Dentyne gum. I assume they give the gum to everyone, but they were really friendly nonetheless.

Once I hooked to my loaded trailer, I got myself into a little predicament (as I tend to do). I pulled forward and, seeing that I couldn't possibly clear the trailer on my left, I turned right. Nope, too tight that way too. The yard dog had mentioned that he would pull the trailer out if I needed him to, but I didn't see him around at the time. I saw a line that I could drive up a ramp near the scale. Then I could loop back out by the loading docks and all would be well. So I went up the ramp and turned right. Fence. I couldn't see from where I started that the path I intended to travel was not in fact a path I could take. The ramp was a one-way ticket to a dead end. So I wiggled and shimmied and got my tractor swung around enough to angle my trailer in the opposite direction. Then I managed to back my way over the ramp and across the scale in order to get sorted out. There were about three inches to spare outside my right steer tire at one point when I got out to look. But, at least that fiasco saved me a step. The load is 43,000 pounds so I needed to scale it. I was going to have a hell of a tight turn to make in getting to the scale. In point of fact, I hadn't quite figured out how I was going to do it. By screwing up so badly in the first place, I left myself sitting squarely on the scale without having made that tight turn. Blessed, not lucky.

So, loaded and inspected, I was ready to lock up the trailer and go. We'll just grab the padlock here and... no freaking padlock. Yeah, I set it on the bumper of my trailer as I opened the doors at the first place. Then I drove off without it. Shit. So I could either drive back to the other place and hope to find it or I could just head to Laredo and have ConWay Truckload (heretofore referred to as CTL) force me to buy a new one. They issue us some kind of special lock for which they have a master key. Supposedly they're tamper-proof as well. I don't know about the tamper-proof part, but I have dropped a few trailers in Taylor and left my lock on them. Each time, the dispatchers pulled the lock off and gave it back when I returned to work. I would normally just blow the whole thing off, but the security guards in Laredo won't let us leave the terminal without a company lock on the trailer.

So I asked myself, "What would the real fenians do?" As it turns out, that is a really stupid question to ask. I'm not under any kind of oppression or religious persecution from a foreign empire. Besides, they would just blow shit up and demand their freedom. That really wouldn't serve any purpose for me. So I was left to make my own decision. I chose to detour back to the first customer and take a look around. Nothing. I rang the bell and asked if anyone had picked up a lock. Nothing. I walked out toward the road to see if it had fallen when I turned out of the lot. Nothing. Well shit, it looks like the first hundred miles of this trip will be earmarked toward the purchase of a new lock. A quarter mile down the road... what do my eyes behold? There it was, sitting in the middle of the street. The little bastard had held on until I went over a pretty rough patch of road. So I threw on the brakes, pissed off a few motorists, hopped out of the truck, and grabbed my lock. Beauty.

I headed south a little ways and decided to call it an early night. I'm sick of driving, I want to watch the game, and the 70 hour rule is breathing down my neck. Here's the conundrum of the damn 70 hour rule. I didn't work hard at all last week. Then I had a very long weekend. I'm tired. Right now I need a break. I could have driven a couple more hours tonight though, within the rules. Next I'll have a couple of short days and get some relaxation. Then what? I'll be fine, but until next weekend (when I pick up big chunks of time) I'll still be hamstrung by the rule. What do the events of eight days ago have to do with how tired someone may be today? I'm not even one of those guys who wants to drive 4,000 miles a week. I just wish there was a logical reason behind the regulations. There isn't.

I'm due in Laredo early in the morning on the 10th, which should work perfectly toward my goal of getting home on the 15th. The last time I highlighted from Laredo, they sent me straight to Taylor with a load. Since I don't do Canada runs, and 90% of the stuff I've pulled to Taylor was bound for Canada, I am curious to see how they will work this situation. Does the 'no Canada' selection mean that I never get those runs in the first place? Or does it mean that I can still be given the load to Taylor and one of the guys on the Canada fleet will deliver it? I guess we'll have to see.