Saturday, December 27, 2008

12/27/08

Well now I'm all twisted around. Day is night. Night is day. I'm not sure how I'll fall asleep later, but I really don't feel like driving anymore tonight. I got up into Georgia last night before I had to stop and finish my split. I heard my alarm go off after I slept for two hours this morning and decided, "To hell with this." I went back to bed and then hung out long enough to get a full ten hour break to get out of the split. This afternoon's drive got me into Kentucky so I did manage to cover plenty of miles overall. The weather was good and the traffic, while heavy for a Saturday, was flowing nicely. I think I have six or seven hours to go from here. I suppose that I won't have to wake up too early tomorrow, so whatever time I manage to fall asleep will have to be good enough.

We wrap up the pay week with a nice 2,861 miles plus $60 in holiday pay. Back over $1,100 for the week, where I belong. My first year on the road, I got a lot of miles during the week of Christmas but my base pay was significantly lower. Last year, I don't think I was all that busy. 2,800 miles is always a solid week as far as I'm concerned, so now I'm 2 for 3 in the 'making money while other people are off the road' department. As our good friend Meatloaf would say - two out of three ain't bad.

You know what is bad though? False advertising. Bastards...

Friday, December 26, 2008

12/26/08

Well, if we try to piece together a few words to describe today, we can leave the word "efficient" out of the conversation. It was about 140 miles from the rest area where I spent the night to my consignee. That took three and a half hours. More accurately, 130 miles took two hours and change. The last ten miles took the rest. Clusterfuck.

Things weren't running a whole lot more smoothly once I got to the ConWay yard in Orlando. On account of the holidays, none (or almost none) of their equipment was on the road. It was all parked at the yard. I got the old "drop here, no, there" and "take that empty, no, that one" routine. I am pretty sure that the little Cuban security guard was flirting with me though. Not really my type but it's at least a little flattering. He seemed like a nice guy.

Then I was headed north from Orlando to Palatka. First I had to retrace the same ten miles that sucked ass on the way to the yard. They weren't any better leaving the yard. Worse probably. Once I got to the freeway it shook out okay for a while. Then back onto US-17 for the last several miles. I can tell you this much - rumors of me getting old have been greatly exaggerated. Spend a day in blue hair country and you'll tend to agree. These people aren't in a hurry to do shit! That took a while.

My pickup was a drop/hook scheduled for 11pm. 11pm would be after my 14 hour window had closed for today, so I was hoping to find a loaded trailer when I got to the shipper. I found no such thing. They inspected my empty and told me where to drop it. Then I had to sit and wait. The inspector dude told me to check back around 8pm, as the load might be ready by then. It wasn't.

A few minutes ago, the chick at the desk told me that it would probably be around 11pm before my load is ready. I'm not really inclined to spend the night at this place, so I think I'll take a nap now. Once I've been here for eight hours, I can go into a split and get up the road a little ways with the hours that I have left from today. Then, depending on how I feel, I can take two hours off to pick up more driving time or just take ten hours off and get out of the split. I have to deliver in the Chicago suburbs on Monday morning. The trip is something along the lines of 1,100 miles from here. If I get 200 miles gone by tonight, I can do 450 and 450 over the weekend. That should work out just fine.

A quick review of the calendar indicates that today's paycheck will be my last of the year. My paystub shows that I just managed to squeak over $54,000 for 2008. This amounts to about a $6,500 increase from '07. Most of the increase would probably be due to pay raises that kicked in at various stages. We got a penny per mile as part of the ConWay merger deal at the start of 2008. Then I got another penny around May or something like that, as a result of reaching 250,000 miles of service. My safety bonus probably went up a quarter cent too this year, since I somehow haven't managed to hit anything.

I suspect that I was probably home a little less than last year as well, but we'll dig into the miles and all of that once I get my last dispatch of the year in a few days. I don't know how much I was home or what my miles were, but my (considerable) gut tells me that I was home slightly less and yet drove slightly fewer miles. Oh well, we'll get to the details in due time. I'm gonna try to get some rest now.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

12/25/08

Before I went to bed last night, I got a thoroughly dominating performance by the Fighting Irish. That's what is supposed to happen when you play a lower level bowl game, but the lads were underdogs to the mighty Rainbow Warriors. It was nice to see the offense finally come to play.

After I fell asleep last night, I was joined in a luxurious jacuzzi by Julia Roberts and Cindy Crawford. Sure it wasn't reality, but when your reality is as mundane as mine you learn to appreciate a nice dream every now and then.

After I woke this morning, I received a pre-plan for a load that will pick up in Florida tomorrow and make good use of my weekend. This hasn't been happening much lately, so it looks like my gambit of working through the holiday has paid off this time around.

When I fueled up this morning, I got $13.50 worth of driver reward points from Pilot when I bought enough fuel to earn $1.75. I must have eclipsed the 1,000 gallons for the month and got my free 1,000 points, but they were also giving double points on each gallon. Can't beat free money.

During today's drive, I found sunny skies and light traffic all the way down to Florida. A brief shower popped up, just enough to rinse the bugs from my windshield, but otherwise the day was perfect. I was able to cover 675 miles today, leaving me a short hop in the morning to make my delivery.

The check that will hit my bank account in the morning has some detention pay that I wasn't expecting plus my fourth quarter safety bonus on it. After a couple of sluggish weeks this month, a little shot in the arm for the old bank account will suit me quite nicely.

Overall I guess the old Godfather managed to find his way onto Santa's 'nice' list this time around. Hopefully the rest of you can say the same. Merry Christmas everyone.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

12/24/08

After slugging my way through the snow last night to get to my shipper, I received a phone call. My mother had turned on the TV and seen the tales of woe and carnage from the area freeways. I told her not to worry and that things weren't that bad. Yeah, so I was lying. What are you gonna do? She said that she would pray for me to make it safely and to get somewhere warm. Aww, how sweet. My mother is probably the least religious person that I know.

Once I was loaded I got the smorgasbord of bad freeway conditions. There was deep snow. There was plowed and packed snow. There was the always fun "wintry mix." There were spots where the salt was working and the roads were just wet. There were patches of ice along the edge lines in some areas. Once I got into Ohio, it seemed that wet roads would be the only issue. The temperature was steadily rising and things were rolling along just fine. Then I saw people with their flashers on in the right lane, going wicked slow. Then a big truck parked in the median, lucky not to have tipped over. Ahh, fuck me! Yep. Black ice. Sixty miles of it. That'll ruin your morning in a hurry.

After spending a little over two hours covering fifty miles, I decided that the best thing to do would be to park for a while and let the temperature get high enough for the salt to work a little better. My only issue would be the infamous 'expected time of arrival.' I was told as I sat on my couch yesterday that the load had to deliver between 8am and 10am today. I was dispatched for 8am, which is standard procedure for this company. I didn't want to risk missing the 8am dispatched time, so I shot a message to CTL informing them of the bad roads and asking if I could get an ETA of 9:30am. I never got an answer.

As it turned out, I got out of the ice ten miles later so I just kept rolling along. I got to the consignee at 6:30am and hopped in the bunk for a nap. Five minutes later a dude knocked on my door. I was directed to the dock and they got to work unloading me immediately. The guy said that they were looking to get done as quickly as possible today on account of it being Christmas Eve. I guess they were pretty glad nobody in Joplin ever answered my message, weren't they?

Not long after I was empty, I received my next assignment. I would have to head across past Indianapolis and make a drop/hook at the ConWay yard in Plainfield. By the time that was all said and done, I needed to take a ten hour break as my 14 hours had run out. Where to on this fine occasion? Orlando, by golly. Maybe Mom should have started praying for me a long time ago. I might not have been such a degenerate.

This dispatch had me arriving in Orlando at 2:30am on Friday. Bullshit. That ain't happening. I would have to run two more overnighters and then show up in the middle of the night with no place to park. The paperwork says that the load is due at 9pm. I know that the dispatching software defaults to use all available hours and get me there as soon as legally possible, but I had to nip this one in the bud. After having my message ignored this morning, I went ahead and called Joplin this afternoon. I asked the fella to change the time to noon. He said no problem and that was that.

Following my break, I shot down to Kentucky and then parked it for the night. We'll pick up the trip from here in the morning. I wanted to get off the road by 8pm for obvious reasons...

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

12/23/08

Up with the sun, it was time to call in to the terminal and have the dispatcher put me on the board. I saw the massive number of trucks parked there yesterday and wasn't sure what to expect for today. #2 when I got on the board though. Not too shabby. Most of those trucks probably belong to people headed home for Christmas. I hung around home, keeping an eye on the company's web portal to monitor my status. By 10:30am I was assigned to a load.

In good economic times and tough times economic times, there are a few constants. People will always have to buy diapers. People will always have to eat. And while they may not have to do so, people will always choose to drink beer. That's my payload for tonight. I have to head up to the beer warehouse in Howell and then make a 300 mile overnighter down to Indiana. I got plenty of notice on this one so I could take a nap before I get rolling. Beats the hell out of sitting around all day and then finding out that I'll be up all night. I'll have several hours of wiggle room on the way to Indiana for bad weather or another nap or whatever else may come up along the way. From some of the forecasts, it looks like I may need the extra time. We've definitely gotten plenty more snow in Michigan today.

So this afternoon was a leisurely one of lounging around and finding ways to blow money. I reserved a suite in Traverse City for my brother's wedding next June, so that should be pretty nice. I got a few things from the Notre Dame bookstore catalog. I ordered a few late Christmas gifts for people that I won't be seeing this month. Easy come, easy go.

My parents were meeting some of my aunts and uncles for dinner tonight, so I tagged along. What the hell, why not? It's back to the SubWay and beef jerky routine for the next month or so once I get rolling. Might as well have one more good meal. Now I'm off to Howell to get some beer (that I don't get to taste). I have to pick up by 11pm but these guys loaded me early the last time I drove out there. Here's hoping for a repeat. Cheers.

Monday, December 22, 2008

12/22/08

You know what really rocks about making a 6am delivery out in the sticks on a Monday morning? Unplowed streets and parking lots from the weekend. Just for shits and giggles, this route included a neat little double hairpin thing along the way. I had to make a really hard left from M-60 eastbound onto Business 60 westbound. Then, before that turn was even complete, I had to make an insane right almost u-turn onto some side street. Good times. Good times.

There was a truck at the consignee's dock when I arrived so I assumed that I was in for a long morning. Yes sir. The freight consisted of racks of glass, carefully nailed and placed along the floor of the trailer. As would be expected, it took a long time to get them unloaded. Long story short - arrived before 6am, left at 11:45am.

I did get my paid deadhead to Taylor immediately once I was empty. I guess there's really no reason that I should have expected otherwise. It has been right around two years since I went past the five days though, so I wasn't sure if anything had changed after the ConWay buyout. I guess not.

Going into the consignee this morning, I was around 77,000 pounds and there was a foot of snow on the ground. This made cornering a little tricky, mainly because I didn't really know where the roads ended and the ditches began, but the traction was pretty good. Leaving the consignee, I was around 33,000 pounds and the roads had been plowed down to a nicely packed layer of frozen snow. This made for a slipping and sliding pain in the ass. I only got stuck once though. Not so bad I guess. The state highway out of Niles was in decent shape, all things considered, but traffic was moving quite slowly. I was hoping for better once I reached I-94. No, it wasn't better. Worse maybe. The conventional wisdom holds that salt is ineffective when the temperature is incredibly low, so they just plow the snow off and leave a nice slick coating on the road surface. I think that the sunlight and the traffic would have generated plenty of heat to make the salt work today, but that's not my call. What can you do? Just drive along and deal with it.

After resisting my urge to wreak havoc on slow people in the left lane for a while, I ducked off for a lunch break outside Battle Creek. Then I got back on the road and found clean dry pavement all the way to Taylor. I'll be damned. Maybe the counties in the western part of the state were just saving their salt for a rainy day or something.

Back at the yard I had to clean out my trailer. There were still some boards nailed to the floor and it was generally pretty dirty and dusty. Funny little thing - when it's fifteen degrees outside, the inside of the trailer... is fifteen degrees. I can't say that I enjoyed that too much. Glamorous life of a truck driver and so forth.

I had time to grab some dinner with Mom, Dad, and the rev tonight. My mother had her knee scoped last week. Between her with her knee and me with my bashed up kneecap and squirrely ankle, we must have looked pretty funny walking through the icy parking lot. Then back home to read the mail and catch up some laundry. I told the dispatcher that I would be on the board tomorrow morning so I suppose I'll try to get some sleep. There's kinda sorta someone that I should meet for a few drinks tonight, but this was just a damn long day. I think I would rather go to bed. How pathetic is that? I think I'm getting old.

One last bit of whining from me tonight. Al Gore is lucky that he hasn't crossed my path lately. I will seriously kick that guy in the jimmy if I ever see him. I don't even care if he's in tight with The One. They can throw me in the gulag if they have to. I'll hurt him. Michigan should be warm and dry in the winter by now, damnit. SUV's as far as the eye can see and single digit overnight temps. That's horseshit. If they want more tax money and higher energy prices, I want some damn global warming.

I won't leave you on such a sour note though. Oh no, not tonight. Tonight I have news that fills my heart with joy. I happen to know a thing or two about the good old beer goggles. It's pretty hard not to notice the effect if you drink enough. You could safely say that I have drunk enough. There's new research though. Oh yes, there's new research. Beer goggles last longer for women. Money quote - "Researchers found that women who drink even moderately develop a reduced ability to rate attractiveness in male faces, even when they are sober." Hallelujah! There's hope for me yet.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

12/21/08

As I drift along through this rather ho-hum life of mine, I find very few opportunities to present myself as any kind of respectable individual. So, on that rare occasion when the situation allows, you bet your ass you're gonna hear about it.

The wind kicked up overnight and kept me from getting any kind of decent sleep as it rocked my truck to and fro. One other thing that it did was to blow the six inches of snow away from the parking lot where I spent the night. Underneath - hockey rink. I'll be damned. I honestly had no idea that the ice was that thick under there. My truck's thermometer displayed a perfect zero degrees, so I did the quickest pre-trip inspection known to man and then started to drive away.

As I got to the main driveway of the truck stop, I saw someone blocking the way. Have you ever seen those shitty little minivans towing those shitty little cars? I see them all over the country and I have no idea what they are all about. Anyhow, one of those guys was stuck on the ice and couldn't get moving. Go around through the car parking area or get out to help the guy? Zero degrees outside. Hmm...

So I tried getting the guy to rock back and then go forward whenever I gave his van a shove. After a few tries it became clear that this wasn't going to work. The slight slope of the driveway caused the trailing car to want to go to the left, meaning that any time the van's wheels started spinning the ass end of the van was going left too. Even though we could get the van to inch forward, it got more and more jackknifed as we did so. I tried to think of another way to get him moving as the first truck behind mine drove through the car parking area and onto the road. And this was when my hands went numb.

The first thing that we would have to do was to get him backed up and unwind that jackknife situation. Then we could find a dry patch somewhere to get him started forward. Then he could stay on the gas while I walked alongside and leaned my fat ass against his van to try to keep it from jackknifing. That was the best plan that I could produce. You got it? Good. Now translate it into Spanish. Yeah, seriously. And this was when my vision went blurry.

Phase One of the plan was to get him rolling backward, but this would be no easy feat. I headed over to my truck and grabbed my crowbar. I don't have one of those standard little crowbars with the one flat end and the one hooked end. Well actually I do have one of those. It came with my truck. But I also have a big ass beast of a crowbar. It's four and a half feet of thick manly steel. That's the one that I grabbed. Through some language-neutral hand gestures, I managed to show the fella how I needed him to set up his steer tires. Then I wedged the crowbar under one of them and against the icy driveway. I got a good dig into the ice and then lifted with all of my less than considerable might. The tire gave a little against the crowbar, so I knew I had some decent leverage applied to the van. My hope was that, once the guy started spinning the wheels backward, gravity would seek the path of least resistance and take the van away from the crowbar. Much to my surprise, it actually worked. I had to reposition every couple of feet and restart the thing, but it worked by golly. And this was when I started gasping for air.

By this time there was a JB Hunt truck stopped beside mine, watching the action. He must not have realized that he could get out through the car parking area. Otherwise why sit there if he wasn't going to help? Our next challenge would be to get the van moving forward while keeping it from jackknifing again. I gave it a few good shoves and we managed to rock it forward a bit. "Easy on the gas" must mean "Give it hell!" once translated, because that's what my new amigo kept doing. So there I was trying to keep the weight of the van from sliding sideways as we slowly but surely managed to inch it forward. And this was when I slipped on the ice and bashed my knee.

Once we got the van started on a nice straight line toward the exit, the fella seemed to be on his way so I struggled back to my truck. We had gotten it moving just in time to cut off a Schneider driver who was trying to go around through the car parking area. Poetic justice, I thought. Then the guy got stuck again. Son of a... I was bleeding. I could hardly see. My hands were numb. I was coughing up phlegm. And now he was stuck again? I had to catch my breath before I could even think about heading back out there. Maybe that Schneider dude could give the guy a hand since I had already taken care of the tricky part. All he needed by this point was a little shove to get him started up a hill. You know what that pumpkin driver did? He jumped the curb on the right side of the driveway to get around the guy. Ain't that something?

Once the numbness from my hands had turned into acute pain in my hands, I decided to head out and finish the job. Just then, the Mexican fella managed to rock himself forward enough to get up the hill and proceed on his way. The JB Hunt driver patiently waited for me to get my act together and then followed me out of the truck stop. I couldn't see much until my eyes warmed up a little, but I was rolling before too long.

Once I got on the road I was relieved to see clean and dry pavement. It was too cold last night for anything to melt and the wind had blown all of the snow off the road. There was no traffic at all going past Chicago and the drive was nice and easy. The only slick spots showed up as I got to South Bend. The wind was blowing snow off the fields and onto the road there, causing some pretty lousy visibility in some spots. Yeah, the snow isn't the only thing that blows in South Bend these days, but anyway...

I pulled into another icy hole of a truck stop on US-12 in Niles to call it a day. I have to deliver a few miles away from here by 6am, so that should be pretty fun. Looking for a customer on icy roads before the sun comes up, that's usually a treat.

Now for the disclaimer: If I had known then what I know now, I would most definitely have driven around through the car parking area and let that van driver handle his own problems. I guess I'm not such a respectable individual after all.
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