1/3/09

I'm officially bored stiff now, but at least I'm warm. A nice sunny 75 degrees in Oklahoma today. It's a windy mofo out here, but you know, leave well enough alone and whatnot. After driving for a few hours I stopped for some lunch and found that my connection speed here should be plenty fast for some football watching. And thus concluded my day on the road.

I was hearing the callers to the sports radio shows whining about a college football playoff for the 20th year in a row, so I figured I might as well toss my 'vision' into the mix here. I think that a bracketed playoff like the one that they use in the lower college divisions would absolutely destroy college football as we know it. The "use the other bowls for the earlier rounds" nonsense is just goofy. The damn Orange Bowl couldn't even sell out for two conference champions this year. Does anyone think that fans will travel to a bowl/playoff game for three or four weeks in a row? Seriously, no. I would prefer to do things the way that they used to be done and let the fans argue once it was all over. That was fun for me, even though Notre Dame got hosed after the 1993 season. Most people want a "champion" decided on the field though.

So here's what you do... The conferences send their champions to whichever bowls have the tie-ins. The Cotton Bowl is used as the fifth major bowl and aligned with the Big East. Why? 'Cause I said so. This is my vision. The BCS rankings are used to fill the at-large positions, but not to pull a team away from another BCS game. In other words, you can steal Utah from the Las Vegas Bowl, but you can't pull Florida from the Sugar Bowl. The current rule limiting each conference to two teams is kept in place.

The highest-rated conference champ gets the lowest-rated at-large team, unless that team is from the same conference. Then they get the next lowest and the bowl with the second-highest rated champ takes the lowest-rated at-large. I'll acknowledge that this is pretty close to a bracketed playoff, but by keeping the tie-ins and preventing conference teams from playing one another in a bowl, it provides the potential for more interesting matchups.

All bowl games are played by January 1st, without exception. At the conclusion of the bowl games, you apply the BCS formula. Whether or not that formula needs tweaking is open to discussion. Then you take the top four teams in the BCS rankings and play on January 8th (or thereabouts). The only exception to the top four being used is that I would exclude any bowl game losers from participating. If the pre-bowl #1 lost a close bowl game and managed to stay ranked in the top four, they would get dumped and I would take the #5 team. Tough rocks. Better luck next year.

Since three straight weeks of travel arrangements and fan attendance will be virtually impossible to pull off, the top two teams host the playoff games at their home stadiums. #4 plays at #1 and #3 plays at #2. I don't want to hear about weather considerations or any of that noise. If the NFL can play in Buffalo in January, then college teams can play in the cold too. The two winners then meet on the following weekend at a neutral site to decide the champion.

There. We've kept the tradition and meaning of the bowls intact. We've given opportunities for the Utahs of the world to earn their way to the top. We've restored the fun and excitement of January 1st to what it used to be. We've helped TV ratings by giving numerous bowl games a potential influence in the final outcome.

This year's bowls would have been:

Fiesta - Oklahoma vs. Boise State
Sugar - Florida vs. Utah
Rose - USC vs. Penn State
Cotton - Cincinnati vs. Alabama
Orange - Virginia Tech vs. Texas

Play the games, pick your top four, and move along. If Cincinnati or Virginia Tech were to win, neither of them would be in the top four discussion. Then you would have a clean four teams leftover. In the worst case scenario, five winners would be arguing over four spots. The performance in the bowls would give the voters plenty of information from which to decide and every bowl game would matter. If you came in at #5 after the bowls and got left out, tough rocks. Better luck next year. If we saw a few upsets in these major bowl games, then the bowl performances of highly rated teams like Texas Tech and Ohio State in second-tier games could also have an impact on the final outcome of the standings. An imperfect system? Of course. A hell of a lot better than what we have now? I say yes.

1/2/09

That one seemed pretty applicable today. I fell asleep earlier than usual last night. It would follow then that I woke earlier than usual this morning. I got up and started my normal routine, preparing to hit the road for a while. Then I thought - why? I was only going to drive a few hours today anyway. What's the hurry? I went back to bed, for no particular reason. Later in the morning I got up and went to work for real.

Then I stopped after an hour and a half of driving for a delicious roast beef sandwich from Arby's and the delightfully decadent shower experience offered by the fine folks at the Pilot in Troy, Illinois. I wound up dragging my feet around there for a while before heading back out to the big road. That's one of those weird things about having way too much time to get somewhere. I somehow don't seem to be in a hurry to get there.

233 miles in total for today - good enough. I was listening to the Cotton Bowl on the radio and it sounds like a real barnburner. I figured I might as well stop and check out the second half. The radio guys keep saying that the defenses aren't that bad; that the offenses are just that good. I have my doubts. It sounds to me like the defenses are really that bad. Guess I'll see for myself. What good is having a bunch of time to watch football if I don't actually watch football, right?

1/1/09

So there I was, sitting at the Love's truck stop with nothing to do. The football games were mildly entertaining but my connection speed was not quite fast enough to allow for a smooth broadcast of any given game. I closed down the windows from the video streams and tried to find something else to keep me occupied. Then I got a phone call. Not the obligatory midnight Happy New Year phone calls, this one was much earlier. A friend of mine who lives outside Toledo called to ask where I was and what were my plans for the night. Sonofabitch. I picked up this damn load about five miles from her house. I could have gone out for the night with her and her (rather amusing) friends to welcome in the new year. Yeah, I'm dumb. It never occurred to me. Instead I spent the night in Indiana, reading about the day's news and weeping for the sorry state of the collective American intellect. Oh well. Such is life.

Today took me across the rest of Indiana and into Illinois. I thought about driving a little further but there is really no point in doing so. I might as well leave myself a little bit of driving for each of the next four days. I've parked in Effingham for the night to watch the second half of the Rose Bowl and then the Orange Bowl. I was pretty sure that USC got hosed by the BCS process before today. Now I'm a little more convinced.

12/31/08

Yeah, we got our snow overnight. It was enough to be a little annoying, but not really enough to cause any major snafus. I think the temperature drop affected me more. When I went to check in with the receiving people at the store, they didn't answer the damn doorbell. The door was locked so I got back in my truck to warm up a little bit. Then I saw a guy open the door. I ran back over there, but he had gone back inside without seeing me coming. I rang the bell a few more times, all the while freezing my nuts off. Then I called the store's phone number and spoke with some chick who sent the guy back to let me in. He was kind enough to point out that he had left the door unlocked for me when he opened it the first time. Yeah well... you know... okay. I hadn't thought of trying to open it a second time.

From us yanks to our hoser friends, I make the following plea: We appreciated the white Christmas and all. Now do you think perhaps you can keep your weather in the Great White North for just a little while? I think we've had our fill.

As I sat at the dock I got another planned load summary. That's becoming a welcome sight over these last few days. It's always good to know what's coming next before I'm empty. The planned load... oy. Not so much. I had to pick up in Maumee today and head for Texas. So we skipped over the piecemeal bit and tacked on some decent mileage to this week. And I'll get below all the cold weather that Canada keeps pawning off on the northern states. Sounds pretty good so far. What could possibly be the problem? Delivery - 1/6/09 10:00am. The trip is something like 1,150 miles. Next Tuesday? Oy! I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

As nearly as I can tell, my available hours would get me to my consignee on the afternoon of the 2nd. The 3rd, 4th, and 5th will then be counted as down time. One day free under the antiquated layover rules would mean that I get two days paid, or $120 added to next week's paycheck. Oy. That makes for a lean six days of work. Looks like I'll have lots of time to watch football. At least I haven't had to lecture anyone lately about paying my layover when it has applied. My guess is that quite a few guys have done some sitting in recent weeks so the office folks are paying closer attention than normal. We'll see what happens next week.

I headed over to the shipper, taking back roads since I didn't have any cash on me to pay the tolls. I think the mileage works out about the same and I had plenty of time. Conditions improved as I got closer to Toledo, where the roads were actually clean and dry. Once I was loaded I got to do some more off-interstate driving. US-24 heading into Indiana was also clean and dry and the traffic was a non-issue. I've stopped about an hour north of Indianapolis for the night. I have Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to drive 1,050 miles from here. Oy. [Okay, I'll shut up about it now. My pay for this week is actually well over $800 (tolerable) and next week could be decent if I catch a break on Tuesday morning.]

124,123 miles for the year and I was home for 65 days. That's about what I expected. I "worked" a couple weeks more and got fewer miles for the year. A hefty chunk (9) of those 12 extra days were spent in motel rooms drowning my sorrows or at the terminal eating to cure my boredom while my truck was in the shop (see: Laredo; Jackson), so the word "worked" is probably a bit of a stretch. I was away from home more this year. How's that sound? In July I passed two years of service, so I got about $1,200 more in vacation pay for '08 than I had for '07. Then the pay raises and breakdown pay and all the rest of it added on to make it a pretty decent year for me. I suppose I can expect to be on the road a little more and earn a little less in the year to come, but somehow I suspect that I'll survive. Only three more weeks until the hopenchange arrives though. I've heard that we'll be able to choose whatever miles we want and we'll get paid double to take our free college classes online while someone else does the driving. I suspect that this is just a rumor.

Happy New Year everyone.

12/30/08

That afternoon drop didn't wind up hurting me after all. The consignee required me to wait in the break room while they unloaded my trailer. Once I was empty I headed out to the truck, expecting to check my directory for a nearby parking place. I had a message waiting with my next planned load information. Beauty.

A short hop down to Lebanon, Kentucky got me to the next shipper. I was loaded after an hour or so and then headed north to Amherst, Ohio. The consignee is a retail store so I caught some luck with that one. I didn't have time for a ten hour break in the middle of this trip. My delivery time is 8am tomorrow. Being able to pull in behind the store and park for the night works out nicely. I had plenty of hours to get here in today's shift, but finding somewhere to spend the night and then driving here in the morning would have made the 8am time undoable (is that a word?). Hopefully they'll take at least an hour or so to get me unloaded. Then I'll be legal to use the 5.5 hours that remain on my 70. Sounds like an easy day is in store for tomorrow.

It was another day of good weather and light traffic, so I guess things are right with the world. The last stretch took me along OH-89 and OH-58. That's one of those kickass rollercoaster two-lane routes. I'm glad I got through when I did though. People are saying that there's snow expected at some point tonight. That route would suck major ass in bad weather.

We're doing it piecemeal this week, but we're getting there. I'm at 895 miles so far. After tomorrow's five and a half hours, I start to pick up big chunks of time starting the next day. As long as we can keep tacking on a few hundred miles each day, the week should turn out A-OK. I think New Year's Day is a paid holiday too, so that should be a few more bucks added into the mix.

You know how there are things that you would rather not think about? Yeah, try getting this story in your e-mail and then realizing that you were born in September. Damn internet.

12/29/08

Dude. I think everyone listened to me when I said that I like it when they stay home. Crazy. For those of you in Chicagoland, I made it from South Holland to Hodgkins in 28 minutes this morning. I left the service plaza at 7:30am and rolled into the consignee at 7:58am. For anyone not familiar with the area, that's 25 miles across I-294 past Chicago and up onto I-55, through construction zones, at or above the speed limit. That was creepy. I've never seen those roads so empty at any hour, let alone during the morning commute on a Monday.

I can still be bitter though. Oh yes, I can be bitter. My consignee was a grocery warehouse. Those places tend to suck. Yep. No exception today. It took forever to get checked in (as the chick at the desk ignored me) and then I was at the dock for quite a while. The extortionists lumpers charged $200 for the unloading. Sometimes I think I'm in the wrong racket. Since it's only Monday, I'll hopefully be able to get my reimbursement through the bureacracy before the pay period ends. I'm not really in the mood to loan anyone $200 right now.

I got a plan summary for my next load while I was sitting at the dock. This didn't help in my quest to become more bitter. Sitting around all day and thinking about how I was getting screwed would have been more effective. I would really rather be making money though, so I guess I should just be myself and enjoy it. I'll leave the angst to others who find it more natural... for now. There's always tomorrow.

Once I was empty I had to head north to Harvard, Illinois and grab a load bound for Louisville, Kentucky. I was scheduled to pick up at 5pm so I stopped for lunch and took my time, arriving at 1:30pm. My hope was that I could get loaded early and make my way south before my 14 hour clock ran out today. The fella doing the loading took my phone number and said that he would call when I had a dock, but pointed out that I had a 5pm appointment. Bummer. Man, life sucks! (See, I can still do it.)

I fell soundly asleep for a while. When I awoke I took a look at the clock. 5pm had long since come and gone. I checked my phone. Surely I must have missed a call. No, I hadn't missed any calls, and I apologize for calling you Shirley. At 6:30pm I got my phone call. "Aylo. Can you backin' in door nomber four pliz?" Si, Senor. Hey, I got to make a blindside back into an indoor dock in the dark! Sweet! I pulled that off without a whole lot of trouble and they had me loaded before much longer. Good enough.

This timeline didn't leave me with a whole lot of attractive options. I could stay at the shipper until I had been there for ten hours. This would get me to the consignee pretty early, but would burn up most of tomorrow's 11 and 14 hour clocks by the time I was empty. I could head out and use what was left on today's 14. This would leave more hours available once I was empty, but would get me to Louisville tomorrow afternoon. By then there would be a good chance that I wouldn't get a load tomorrow.

The dispatch took about ten minutes to come across the satellite and then the decision was made for me. The appointment time is 1pm tomorrow. If they were doing the usual 'earliest possible' thing, it would have been slightly earlier and it would have been a time like 12:34pm. The fact that it took ten minutes to come through and it's on the exact hour tells me that they had to make an appointment once I was loaded.

I had time to get down into Indiana before today's hours were gone. From here I'll have to cover a couple hundred miles in the morning. Empty in the afternoon. Holiday on Thursday. 70 hour rule catching up with me fast. I won't set my expectations too high for this week.

12/28/08

I think I liked driving on holiday weekends better when a tank of gas cost a hundred bucks and all you peckerheads just stayed home. At least most people managed to avoid crashing into each other today, so the slowdowns weren't all that lengthy. It was certainly tedious.

I got onto the toll road in Illinois and then realized that I hadn't thought about where I would park for the night. I stopped at the first service plaza and found a few parking spaces open, so that was that. 25 miles or so left for tomorrow morning. That shouldn't be too terrible... maybe.