2/28/08

After spending last night at home, I found myself inclined to lounge around all morning. I got some laundry done, but I wasn't in any real hurry to get on the road. I actually think this worked to my advantage, as I wound up rolling into New Jersey in the middle of the night. The directions from my employer would have been fine, if only I were coming from New England. To use them as I approached from the west, I would have had to go about thirty miles out of the way. So I came up with my own route. It was fine in the end, but nothing in New Jersey is ever simple. I spotted a couple of turns at the last second, forcing me to react quickly, and it was helpful not to have any traffic around. I guess that wasting a morning can sometimes have its advantages.

I found the nice big place that I had identified on Google Earth. Yeah, that wasn't my customer. Bummer. So I headed a little further up the street. I didn't see my customer, but I saw (from an address on a mailbox) that I had passed them. Then it was time for a New Jersey turnaround. Up half a mile, right turn, up two miles, right/U turn, back down two miles, left turn... I rolled down the street around five miles per hour, hoping that nobody would approach me from behind. I got lucky there, and managed to spot the customer's name atop a building sitting back a few hundred yards from the road. The driveway looked pretty dicey, but I gave it a shot. It opened up nicely, everything worked out fine, and I had plenty of room to park. So here I am.

After I get unloaded in the morning, I'll have decent hours available again. The next few days I'll be picking up hours from long days that I worked last week. The check that will hit my bank account in the morning is once again missing my $35 from UPS. Now it's a crusade. The money won't make or break me, but I've been asking for it for over a month now. Since this is the first time I've had missing pay, and I've been told more than once that the paperwork was submitted, I guess I might have to ask some friends to pay a visit to CTL. Aside from that, it's a nice paycheck from my 3,500 mile week last week. No mystery detention pay though. (I was starting to like that.)