5/17/08

I used to go fishing every now and then. I'm more of an active type, so the laid back scene doesn't suit me too well, but sometimes it's nice to get out on a boat and knock a few beers back and enjoy our spot at the top of the food chain. They were fishing on Chesapeake Bay today. I was jealous. I believe I should get out with my father once or twice the next time I'm home.

Anyway, this drive down US-13 seemed a lot easier than the last one. I imagine the lighter weekend traffic was a big part of that, but I also didn't seem to catch as many red lights as last time. I dropped my trailer at the customer in Chesapeake, but they didn't have any empties. The security guard said that the empties were all locked up in a different yard, and that that yard wasn't open until Monday. A collection of CTL guys were already hanging around when I showed up, but I had received a pre-plan while I was in Delaware. This meant that hanging around until some unknown date and time was not an option. I needed to get an empty and head to Williamsburg for a beer run leaving tomorrow morning. So I called Joplin. Yeah, my favorite thing to do.

The nice young lady on the phone went to work in trying to find an empty. Beer runs are drop/hook deals, but she wasn't sure if they would let me pick up without taking in an empty. I was on the phone for a few minutes, then she said that they would send me a message and let me know what they would do with me. Not long after that, I got a satellite message saying that I would bobtail to the pick up. Works for me. Good lookin' out, my sister.

The dispatched miles to Williamsburg were 59, but it was more like a 35 mile drive. The customer in Chesapeake was along I-664, well outside what you and I would call Chesapeake, but Virginia is weird that way sometimes. I went back across the bay and up I-64 to look for a shopping mall. I've been spending a little too much time reading drivel on the internet lately and I think it's shrinking my brain. Usually a few good books will get that sorted out. The Patrick Henry Mall was pretty easy to access with my bobtail. I forgot that it was Saturday, so the packed parking lot caught me off guard. I wound up having to park WAY out in left field, and the bookstore was WAY out behind the first base side of the mall.

Once I killed some time, walking and shopping, I headed back out and called the automated load info line at the brewery. The scheduled time for me to pick up was 7am tomorrow, but I could jam the loaded dispatch onto this week's paycheck if I could get it before midnight (Joplin time). The load wasn't ready at that point, so my chances of getting it before my 14 hour clock ran out didn't look too good. When I called again a half hour later, we were in business.

It was maybe fifteen miles or so from the mall to the brewery. My trailer was in fact loaded, but hadn't been pulled from the dock area. I stopped and let the yard dog know that I would take it when he pulled it out, saving him a trip to the drop yard and back. By the time I found a bobtail parking spot, he was coming around the corner with my trailer. So I was loaded and dispatched for Myrtle Beach, with enough time left to get to the VA/NC border tonight.

That, my friends, is what we call a coup. Tomorrow, instead of getting loaded at 7am, I'll wake up whenever I wake up and drive for five or six hours. And I'll gladly take the pay for this run a week ahead of schedule, even if it does all wash out in the end. So we wrap up this week with 2,680 miles, plus a healthy dose of northeast pay. And there wasn't a drop of rain in sight today. As shitty as yesterday was, today may have been the exact opposite.

Somewhere within the past few days, I passed 240,000 miles driven. According to the company web portal, 240K is the level for my next "service award," whatever that means. I think 250K means a pay raise, so that sounds a lot more important to me. Maybe my service award will be a major award...

5/16/08

What a miserable day...

Starting at the beautiful hour of 3am, I kicked the tires and headed north. Rain, rain, and more rain was the order of the day. I heard on Coast to Coast that the earthquake in China and the cyclone in Burma were not actually natural disasters. They were intentional acts by the Illuminati designed to wipe out millions of people who are not part of the chosen race. The rest of us will be targets in the near future. Great. That's just what I need.

Slowly but surely, I got to York and turned down the street toward my consignee's location. Yeah, wrong street. In fact, it wasn't a street at all. Rather it was a driveway for a neighboring business. I saw some loading docks, so I went back and tried to turn around. Nope. No room. I could see my customer's docks approximately sixty feet away, but there was no way to get through. So I backed out away from the loading docks and got out to assess the situation. I could maybe... no. Or how about... nope.

The only way out was to back onto the street from which I came. That was a busy road with constant traffic in both directions. After a few minutes of inching back toward the road, I saw an opening. A pickup truck coming from the south flashed his headlights to indicate that he was letting me out, and there was nobody approaching from the north. So I started angling the trailer back. A truck approached from the north, but stopped to allow plenty of room for me to get out.

On the first try, I swung a little too wide and didn't get the trailer turned quickly enough. I flipped on my CB and, risking damage to the (uncalibrated) transmitter, asked the other truck driver to hold back the traffic for another minute while I pulled up and adjusted my line. He did, and I got it out okay on the second try. By that time, the line of traffic was pretty long in both directions. I was dubbed "JB," "Swift," "Schneider," and the rest of the usual suspects by the people waiting to get through. Yeah, I guess I had that coming. Some of the CB Rambos were real pricks, bitching about the delay, but that's life sometimes. Nothing hit, no harm done.

Around the corner, I checked in and got unloaded pretty quickly. I guess I was a little flustered at the time, as I sent in 'stop 1' on my arrival call, when I was actually at stop 2. I got a quick reply from my fleet manager and then sent the correct stop number before my 7am appointment had passed. Again, no harm no foul.

By the time I headed up to the nearest truck stop, or what I thought would be a truck stop, I had received my next assignment. The truck stop was closed and blocked off, but there was room in front of a repair shop for me to park and check my directions. I was headed north and east to Breinigsville to pick up a load headed for Chesapeake. So, lots more rain and lots more slow traffic notwithstanding, onward I drove. The instructions said that we can't arrive early (pick up time was 2pm), so I stopped at a place on I-78 for a few hours and kicked back.

When I fired up the truck to head to the shipper, it was running like shit, so I guess I'll have to keep an eye on that tomorrow. It got a little better as I drove along, but it's probably due for new filters pretty soon here. Along the way, I was reminded of one reason that I don't drive a flatbed. The main reason is that I'm a lazy bastard, but that big ass steel beam that went through some dude's sleeper berth on I-78 was another one. Hopefully nobody was back there.

At the shipper, I was checked in and then told to wait for a door assignment. There were a bunch of trucks in the waiting area, so I pulled off to the side and watched my 14 hour clock dwindle. I got a door at 4:30pm, two and a half hours after my appointment. In keeping with today's theme, they got me loaded and on my way just as I had been there for three hours. Three hours meant no detention pay. Three hours also meant that my 14 hours were up, so I'll have to get rolling before the sun comes up again and do the full 328 miles (or thereabouts) tomorrow. That means I'll be in 14 hour purgatory by tomorrow afternoon, when I'm hoping to jam in another decent run to close out my pay week.

And it's still raining. And there was nowhere near the shipper to park, so I had to roll along on the crooked side of the law until I found a spot. And I have to do that damn US-13 through Maryland for the second time in a week or two.

What a miserable day.

5/15/08

Pop quiz time, all you DOT pencil pushers... Will I be more alert and prepared to drive my last 200 miles (a) right now or (b) at 3am tomorrow? Idiots. You're making people less rested.

There was construction in Knoxville, forcing all of the traffic onto the bypass. Luckily I didn't wake up when my alarm went off this morning, so I got there after most people had already made it to work. It was one of those situations where leaving two hours earlier may have seemed smart, but I probably would have covered thirty fewer miles by the time my hours ran out. As it stands, I made it to Harrisonburg, so the day was fairly efficient (at least until the feds decided that I was tired). I'll have around three and a half hours to go in the morning, with a 7am appointment, so I guess 3am it is.

Next pop quiz, you DOT peckerheads... Will I have a better chance at a productive day, once I'm empty tomorrow, if I start my 14 hour clock (a) four hours before my appointment or (b) right at my appointment time? Morons. You're costing people money.

This load is 27,000 pounds. What this means in Virginia is that it's an exercise in patience. I'm light enough to pass quite a few trucks on the hills, but not light enough to do so very quickly. Thus, I generally end up dragging ass in the right lane behind trucks that are going slower than I really should be going, rather than pass them and tie up the passenger cars in the left lane. I can't say the same for all my 65mph colleagues out here.

Oh, and this dude was NOT in the crease.


Oh well. Now I'm all bitter so I might as well grab some guns and a bible so I have something to cling to as I try to sleep on command. 3am comes early.

5/14/08

Nice light traffic all day today - that's what I'm talking about. Even Chattanooga, which for some reason is always jammed up, presented no delays. I had enough hours to go about an hour longer tonight, but that would have left me in Knoxville and pretty much SOL for parking. So I'm in Niota at Crazy Ed's truck stop. Man this place is crazy! Well, not really, but I'll bet that Ed guy is just nuts!

I'll leave you tonight with some food for thought, as I go to watch the hockey game. If you really hate Notre Dame, you should know who shares your views...

Yeah, you bunch of wackos. One of your own, formerly one of our own.

5/13/08

I expected to get beeped pretty early today, so I hopped in bed last night at midnight. I got beeped at 12:02am. Story of life. In a neat little change of pace, they actually had a bunch of options from which to choose, and it wasn't the old 'Fort Worth or Denton' routine. After hearing the dispatcher rattle off at least ten destinations and the corresponding miles, I wound up taking the first one that he read to me - York, Pennsylvania for Friday morning.

This one pays 1,837 miles and, since the practical route goes up I-35 and I avoid that route whenever possible, I'll actually drive right around 1,800. There were some runs available with more miles on them, but this one seemed best for a few reasons. First is that I've usually gotten decent runs, and quickly, when I've been empty in that part of Pennsylvania. I'm hoping for another solid weekend and I think I should be positioned well. Second is that the 600 miles each for today, tomorrow, and Thursday/Friday will gobble up all of my available hours under the 70 hour rule. I'll have to finish off the run on Friday morning, but that's better than leaving hours on the table. Third, and this is important, I could angle out on US-59 and avoid that Austin/San Antonio debacle without adding any miles to my route.

There's a funny thing that those of us who have descended from the Irish people have learned through the generations. In essence, when things are going poorly, keep your head up and it will get better. More importantly though, when things go well you should expect some serious bullshit in the near future. So I wake up this morning, I check my trailer over, I go through the wash bay, I top off the fuel tanks, and I hit the road. I head out on Loop 20 to US-59, I breeze out of Laredo, say hello to the border guys as they take a peek at my bills, and mosey on up the highway without any traffic in sight. What could possibly be wrong with this day? For starters, Houston. Houston presented what we city folk like to call a convergence. Or is it confluence? Whatever you call it, I had the great fortune to hit a massive city (1), at rush hour (2), just as it started raining (3). Three strikes you're out, I guess. That sucked, in no uncertain terms.

Out of Houston and headed past Beaumont, traffic came to another dead stop. We had made it out of the rain and there didn't appear to be any reason for traffic not to move, so I flipped on the CB. You know, I probably should have just stayed without a CB. Hearing, "There ain't shit blocking the road. I don't know why y'all ain't movin," just pisses me right off. At least without a CB I could assume that there must be a reason for the delay. Then construction in Louisiana, blah blah blah. It was a long day. I put myself on this load with a pretty tight timeline though, so I had to grin and bear it. I made it to exit 151, just west of Baton Rouge, tonight. I can do a full eleven hours of driving tomorrow, then use up whatever hours I have left on Thursday before finishing the trip on Friday.

After finishing up my audiobook today, I feel like I understand the 'okies' a little better. I had no idea how much you folks had in common with today's illegal immigrants. I kid because I care, or something like that. Seriously though, for anyone who hasn't read that one, I recommend it. Good story.

So I guess that's that. Cajun country tonight, Tennessee tomorrow night. Cheers.

5/12/08

Today was more leisurely than the last couple have been. I made sure to stay up late last night so I would sleep late this morning. That way I would get rolling after rush hour was over in Houston. That worked pretty well. Then I had plenty of time for a nap in Ganado and a dinner break in George West. I was due in Laredo at something like 4:22am tomorrow, so I took my time and got here around 8:30pm locally, after the traffic had died down for the day.

In the inspection bay, I got a bit of good news. The load had instructions to hold it at the terminal until the consignee provided further guidance. That meant that I could drop it and be done with it. Beauty.

I headed inside to drop off my paperwork and get on the board. The guy in there saw that I was holding bills and said that I needed to deliver the load after 9am tomorrow. I informed him of the aforementioned instructions from the inspection bay. He fiddled around with his computer for a few minutes, found the note saying that the load stays here, and signed my receipt for me. I was #9 when I got on the board, so that sounds pretty good too. I should be on my way out of here tomorrow morning. Now if they can give me something that won't take me up I-35, I'll be a happy camper.

I hooked onto the IdleAire internet service from the CalArk terminal across the street so I could watch the third period of the hockey game. My Sprint service is too slow here, so for $4.50 I can buy a day of higher speed. The Wings have now put yet another ass-kicking on Dallas. Nice. I'm sticking to my guns on the Detroit trifecta this year. The Wings and Pistons are doing their part. As bad as they seem to suck so far, the Tigers are only four and a half games back as I write this. We'll get there Pop. We'll get there.

5/11/08

If you live in the state of Louisiana, there's a pretty good chance that I said some nasty things about you today. Sorry about that. Even if you weren't driving, there comes a point when my anger at incompetent drivers becomes expanded to include pretty much everyone they've ever met. The people who haul ass in the left lane to keep me from moving around a slower vehicle and then slow down next to me - there's a special place in hell for you.

Sundays usually come with pretty light traffic, but that wasn't the case today. I-10 and I-12 were pretty packed. I fired up The Grapes of Wrath before I left this morning, so at least I had something to divert my attention from the road rage. I burned that one onto CDs a long time ago and never listened to it. By the time I stopped for the night in Orange, I had made it through seven and a half discs, so the rest should carry me to Laredo and then some. The talk on the radio lately has gotten to be quite stale, so it's good to switch things up sometimes.

On that note, how can we really bitch about our lives in the year 2008? I know it's just a book, but for Christ's sake, that stuff actually happened. Now it's a tragedy if people have to come up with a 20% down payment on a mortgage? This country is losing its sense of perspective.