12/31/09

There is apparently an endless list of things that can piss me off. I heard on the radio a few days ago that tonight would bring the rare 'blue moon' for all of us to see. I had always heard the expression and looked forward to having a chance to check it out. Then, as I was angry to learn, I found that a 'blue moon' isn't blue at all. It's just a second full moon in a month. What a bunch of bullshit. That one pissed me right off.

I had time for a nice long nap in Deming, New Mexico during my overnight trip to El Paso. Then I got back out and scooted over to our drop yard before the morning traffic on I-10 started to pick up. I sent in my 'relay made' form and found myself on the board at #15. Beauty. Should be plenty of time to get some sleep.

I was out like a light as soon as I hit the bunk. Then, around three and a half hours later, my satellite unit chirped at me with a new assignment. When it comes to loads out of El Paso, there is one main criterion for which I look - I want the load to start from our drop yard. Otherwise I have to drive twenty miles back to the west for free, since I'm still considered to be in El Paso. Then I have to wait to get loaded and often drive the other twenty miles back to where I started before I actually begin to earn any money. When the loaded trailer is already at the yard (as this one turned out to be), I get to grab it and go.

Err, I would get to grab it and go, if not for the folks who will soon be running... oh, forget it. You know the rant by now. Our federal government and so forth. No, you see, by the time I got my assignment, 14 hours had passed since I left Avondale last night. Regardless of how I felt or how my day was going, the career bureaucrats dictated that I was staying put in El Paso all day. I walked over and made sure that the assigned trailer was actually present (not always a given) and then confirmed my assignment. After going back to bed for another few hours, I woke feeling very refreshed and ready to take on the world. Or, you know, to sit around in a drop yard with my thumb up my ass. It's pretty much the same thing.

After my ten hour break was complete, I hooked to my loaded trailer and scooted out of town. This trip is a nice solid 1,640 mile deal taking me to Western Michigan for Monday evening. I drove up to the Flying J in Pecos tonight before deciding to shut down and try to get back on a more normal schedule for a while. My Swedish buddy Sjoe is no longer thirsty this evening, shall we say, so a good night of sleep with no alarm clock will probably have us right on track.

This dispatch is obviously my last for the year, so the total miles will finish at 117,891. What is that, a little over 6,000 miles below last year? I think that's the case. Probably to be expected as I look back over some of those pay periods in February and March of this year. Some lean times in the trucking business overall and some wild fluctuations in my little slice of that business. I did spend 70 days at home though so, in a bit of a surprise, I was on the road a little less than I was last year. Still, there's no doubt that business was a bit slower.

On the 'dollars and cents' end, this is the first full year of this job during which my pay rate didn't change. I leveled off at 38 cents per mile in the summer of '08 and won't get my next (half cent) pay raise for a few more months. My safety bonus inched up a little at some point this year but it goes in quarter-cent increments, so the increases are not all that notable. Layover pay and such are irregular but their rates too were unchanged from '08 to '09. I finished the year right at $51,000, slightly more than $3,000 down from 2008's final number.

Overall, given the tales of woe from around the country (and especially from where I live), I have no complaints. I had hoped to keep this year's earnings fairly close to last year's and it looks like we were at least in the ballpark. Obviously I would have preferred another $54K, but $51K will do. Fortunately for me, I'm not living from paycheck to paycheck like some of my counterparts on the road are, so good enough. My impression as the months went by had been that I was home even less this year but, after reviewing things, I see that this was not the case. It does make sense though, in hindsight. I took at least a week off each time I went home (in addition to catching a day or two here and there as the freight took me to Michigan). So, while I may not have taken as many stretches of time off, those stretches lasted a little longer than in previous years. Our friend in Alaska will no doubt be relieved to know that I'm not in the poor house just yet, given his concern for us underpaid "coolie carrier" suckers and such.

The rest of this trip should set up pretty nicely in terms of scheduling. Between six and seven hours of driving per day should find me right where I need to be, assuming that no weather issues interfere. On a somewhat related note, my preferred amount of driving is between six and seven hours per day. Beauty.

You've seen and heard all of the year-in-review crap for a few days now, I'm sure. I still think that the folks at JibJab sum it up more effectively than anybody though. Happy New Year everyone...

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12/30/09

Erratic sleep patterns can occasionally come in handy. Given my tendency to toss and turn until 4am or 5am and then fall asleep for a few hours, I often find myself battling an early wake-up call until I get settled into my day. This time around, the timeline appears to have fit perfectly. I took off from Carson last night and cruised for a couple hundred miles. Then, right around 5am (Eastern time) it felt like I needed to go to bed for a while. I ducked into a rest area and slept for a few hours, then headed back out to the freeway. My natural sleep pattern turned out to be a perfect fit.

The nature of this trip across I-10 allowed for me to take a ten hour break in Avondale, Arizona this afternoon, where I was able to visit with some friends. Some folks from back home are down here visiting their retired parents, so that was a pretty cool coincidence. Then I was able to catch up with a local guy who had extended an invite quite some time ago, but the timing and routing had failed to materialize since then. Good deal all around, even if he did have to mock my Redskins for a minute.

Now, after my ten hour break is up, I can hit the road to El Paso and get there in the wee hours of the morning, right when I'll be ready for another round of sleep. Driving through the night should provide plenty of easy time with the cruise control engaged and light traffic around me. I'm taking this load to our drop yard so I won't have any customers with which to contend. I'll be able to drop my trailer and go right to bed. Beauty. I would say that I love it when a plan comes together, but this one really wasn't planned. Just sort of fell together when the shipper took so long yesterday.

And have no fear. There will be no distractions for me in my preparation for the trip. None of those pudgy engineering students here in Arizona. We're gonna miss you, Mike.

12/29/09

Dude, where did all the people go? I haven't been to the Los Angeles area very often but, during the few previous trips out here that I have made, I've always encountered at least some traffic. Not today. Ontario to Brea at 6am - nothing. Brea to Fontana at 7:30am - nothing. Fontana to Santa Ana at 8:30am - nothing. Santa Ana to Carson at 11:15am - nothing. From Carson back out to I-10... well, there's more to that story, but I'm pretty sure traffic won't be an issue. So exactly where did everybody go?

The day's first delivery, in Brea, was quick and easy. Once the guys showed up at 7am they did the old 'tag team' forklift routine and sent me on my way. Then my drop/hook in Fontana was at the Con-way yard and it too was quick and easy.

The Santa Ana delivery turned out to be an interesting one...


For starters, I drove past the office park where the consignee was located and missed my turn. As I looked over the addresses on the buildings and saw that I was right where I needed to be, I thought to myself, "There's no way that can be the place." It was the place. I doubled back and then said a quick prayer as I turned the tight corner between a building and some parked cars. I couldn't tell from the street whether or not there would be any way out if it turned out to be the wrong driveway. It was the right driveway though. Things opened up a little bit as I got further from the main road, but not a whole lot. Not surprisingly, there were no loading docks. So the unloading process took a little while, as you might imagine. My customer was in that building at the top of the picture, just right of center. I wound up having to turn the corner between those rows of parked cars (to the left of the building) and set up in the alley on the north side of the building. Fire lane, eh? Hah! We laugh at fire lanes here at Fenian Godfather, Inc... or something. Making my way out through the driveway on the east side was no picnic either, for what it's worth.

Then it was over to Carson for some good old ghetto trucking. Carson is right by Compton, after all. Yeah, I still have a few NWA CD's hanging around in my collection. I know the deal. The drive over, as I already mentioned, was nice and easy. Then I got there and, dude, what the hell? Just a typical suburban industrial park. Nary a gangsta to be found. No freaking L.A. traffic. No freaking rough neighborhoods. I really got cheated on this trip.

I had to park on the street and then check in with the security gal at the shipper. She took my phone number and said that she would call me when my loaded trailer was ready. I'll acknowledge that there's absolutely zero chance that she was hitting on me, but come on. You know what I'm telling myself whenever a chick asks for my phone number. Yeah, she wants me, dude.

And... this is where my day came to a grinding halt. I checked in with the shipper at noon. My appointment time was 1pm. I got my phone call at 6pm. And the security chick was gone for the night so, to add insult to injury, it was a guy who called. I didn't even get to hang on to my delusion for a single night. But hey, my trailer is ready.

The timing has left me in a less than desirable situation. I wouldn't have enough time on today's 14 hour clock to get anywhere useful, so I'm stuck hanging out at the shipper until I've been here for ten hours. I guess I could stay here until tomorrow morning if I wanted to but I really don't want to. I'll head out once my break is up and then take some down time tomorrow. I'm due in El Paso by Thursday morning so there will be plenty of time to catch up on my rest if I end up getting tired along the way. (In case you haven't put two and two together yet, I was only kidding about feeling cheated by the light traffic. I'm expecting that I can keep a good thing going by cruising out of this area in the middle of the night.)

Now let's see if I can catch a little nap before it's time to roll. I doubt it but it's worth a shot.

12/28/09

Well, there were no Qualcomm messages to wake me this morning. One came through after I started driving, saying that three of our trucks crashed over the weekend, but I don't know when it was sent. If it was sent earlier, then my Qualcomm's power saving feature was a good thing. No, today it was a text message that woke me...


Apparently she had the camera sideways in order to capture the full splendor. That's the GM factory in Lordstown, Ohio. An old girlfriend of mine used to always complain that it was such an ugly color whenever we traveled down the turnpike. So now, whenever I drive past, I snap a picture and send it to her. Probably not quite as funny as it seems to me, but I guess it's one of those 'you had to be there' things. Turns out that she was crossing Ohio toward Michigan as I slept this morning.

I was able to nod off for another couple of hours before I got up and hit the road. The drive across I-40 and then down I-15 was uneventful. Just set the cruise at 55mph and roll along. I do wonder if you could coast all the way from Cajon Summit down to San Bernardino if you were the only one on the road. I think so.

The T/A in Ontario is split into two gigantic truck stops. I decided to hang a left and go to the one on the eastern side of the street so that I could make right turns in the morning, perhaps cutting out a few minutes of waiting. Then I was dismayed to see that only the one on the western side has a SubWay. I wasn't dismayed enough to leave here and go to the other one though. Burger King ain't so bad once in a while.

After heading down to Brea and making my delivery in the morning, I'll have a pretty fun day of bouncing around Southern California. My next planned load information came through this afternoon. I'm picking up in Fontana and making a short hop to deliver in Santa Ana. I have no idea what that's all about, but I suspect that someone left a loaded trailer at the Con-way yard before going home for Christmas or something. We'll find out soon enough. Then I have to shoot over to Carson and pick up a load going to El Paso, Texas. So at least I'll get a few miles and I'll be off the West Coast shortly after arriving. Can't complain about that. I've been stuck going up and down I-5 a few times and I don't like it.

Long afternoon to kill now. Guess I might as well fire up a few movies.

12/27/09

Well I did my part, by golly. I was standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. No sign of that girl in the flatbed Ford though, so I just ate my lunch and got back on the highway.

Another easy day of driving was certainly welcome. The temperature actually started to rise as I made the climb toward Flagstaff, reaching 40° at the top. Then it continued to rise as I came down the other side. By the time I got to Lake Havasu City and did my part to dodge California's onerous fuel prices topped off my fuel tanks, I had done plenty of driving for today. I decided to press on into California though, since a night of sleep without any idling trucks around me sounded pretty okay.

I got to the rest area outside Essex and found plenty of parking spaces open. Also, in a bit of a surprise, my Sprint card has broadband speed out here in the sticks. Guess I'll get to watch my Redskins lose after all.

Tomorrow's drive will most likely take me from here to the T/A in Ontario unless I come up with a bright idea regarding parking. My consignee in Brea doesn't allow overnight parking, so Ontario will probably have to suffice. Good enough. The 7am delivery on Tuesday is actually 10am for those of use from the civilized world (aka Eastern time). I'm sure I can manage the last 20 miles before then without too much difficulty.

12/26/09

Many if you are aware of this, but it bears repeating that good days on the road tend to produce bad posts here on Tales from the Road.

In terms of traffic, holiday weekends are as good as it gets. Today was no exception. I cruised right across the rest of Texas and most of New Mexico without any delays. Even my fuel stop in Amarillo was wide open today. Usually I get stuck waiting in line at that place.

In terms of moronic interactions with my employers, most of the people in Joplin have the weekend off. With no asinine satellite messages to wake me, I was able to sleep well into the morning, waking only when my body decided that it was good and ready.

In terms of moronic interactions with customers, well, all I had to do today was drive. No customers until Tuesday morning, so that takes care of that part.

In terms of weather, nothing to report. Sunny skies and dry roads. It was pretty cold in the higher elevations, but my truck is equipped with a heater.

I stopped at the truck stop in Jamestown, New Mexico for an Italian BMT with double meat and then decided that I had gone far enough today. Another 434 miles on the odometer this time around, so we're staying ahead of the game. I have somewhere around 670 miles to go and two full days of driving in which to do it. Nice and easy, at least until I get to the L.A. area on Tuesday.

The pay week wraps up with 2,531 miles plus my holiday pay for Christmas. Steady as she goes. Now as long as we can get through Flagstaff tomorrow without any snow issues, all will be well.

Happy Boxing Day, hosers.

12/25/09

This post had the potential to be a bitter and negative one. In honor of the baby Jesus though, we're gonna keep it positive. Therefore, I'm telling you that the okies are really a brilliant bunch of people. They found that the holiday season had become far too secular and commercialized, so they decided to do something about it. First, the highway maintenance people decided to ignore the eastern half of the state. Then, the citizens decided to go barrel-assing down I-40 in a wide range of vehicles that many of us would think were inappropriate for such an icy freeway. You know, pickup trucks with empty beds, Corvette convertibles, RV's, and so forth. And here is where the brilliance of the plan emerges. What might you do when you've lost control of your vehicle and you're hurtling into the trees at 55mph? In many cases, especially in that part of the country, you would likely pray. And to whom would you be praying? There you have it. Brilliant.

Things went from horrible to weird once I got to Oklahoma City. The highways there had been plowed and apparently salted, as they were clean and wet for the most part. Every so often though, for no apparent reason, there would be a two-foot deep pile of snow in the middle of the road. Sometimes the snow would be in the right lane. Sometimes it would be in the left lane. Strangest of all, sometimes it would be in the center lane. Just a big ass pile of snow sitting there. It appeared as if the plow drivers had been snapped up by an alien tractor beam in the middle of their routes or something. This made for some interesting scenes as people weaved in and out of lanes in an effort to dodge the snow piles.

Things normalized once I got out past the truck stops on the west side of Oklahoma City and I was able to drive the rest of the way at 65mph. Clean and dry roads all the way across. Maybe the folks out on that side of the state didn't get the memo about the 'real meaning of Christmas' plot that was being carried out on the eastern side. I don't know. Whatever.

I had a blown headlight from last night's drive, so I stopped in at the T/A in Sayre, Oklahoma to get it replaced. The lady behind the counter said that it would take a little while for the electronic work order thing to come back from Joplin, so I hiked over to the SubWay and grabbed a sandwich. (Yeah, you know the one.) By the time I got back to the shop, my headlight had been replaced and I was sent on my way. Groovy.

The sun was setting and I was getting sick of driving by the time I reached Conway, Texas. This seemed like as logical a place as any for me to stop and call it a night. I asked for a discount on my sodas, since I am employed by the town's namesake. The blank stare from the cashier served as a 'no.' I had my freaking company logo hat on and everything. Oh well. Perhaps if we drop that hyphen in the middle of Con-way...

My eight hours of driving managed to cover 410 miles despite the slow start, so I guess that's good enough. With 1,100 miles to go and three days to get there, we're right on pace. Let's see what kind of brilliant plots the people of New Mexico have in store for me tomorrow.

Merry Christmas everyone.

12/24/09

Didn't some goofball once suggest that Bob Stoops should stay in Oklahoma for better weather? Yeah, kiss my ass, Bubba. I don't think I'll be able to open the door of my truck in the morning if this ice keeps coming down at its current pace. At least the snow in the Midwest looks nice.

Most of the day was pretty easy before I got here though. It was pretty rainy for a while in Kentucky but the traffic was light. Then the rain stopped while I was rolling down US-51 toward Memphis. It did start raining again in time for me to cruise through the ghetto looking for my consignee, of course. My directions were pretty good though, so there were no issues finding the place.

Once I got there, different story. The place was locked up, dark, and deserted. Not a huge surprise on Christmas Eve, I suppose. Also not a huge surprise that I would be sent somewhere that was closed for a holiday. I've had this privilege at least two or three times before. I placed a call to the dispatcher in West Memphis. The dispatcher placed a call to the customer service representative in charge of that particular consignee. Then the dispatcher called me back. Once again, no huge surprise. I was to take the loaded trailer to the terminal and drop it off for a local driver to deliver on Monday.

After I handed in my paperwork for the Memphis load, I was glad to learn that my loaded trailer going to California was ready and waiting. Until global warming changes the earth's rotation or whatever the newest dire prediction will be, storms will tend to move from west to east. Since I would be moving from east to west (a head-on collision course with the storm), I wanted to cover as many miles as possible before the bad stuff on TV became the bad stuff on my window. So the sooner I got out of West Memphis, the better.

The temperature rose as I crossed Arkansas, reaching 57° and holding steady through most of the state. By the time I came out of the hills near Fort Smith, the temperature was falling and falling rapidly. That 57° reading had turned into a 44° reading in a matter of ten miles. I resolved that I would look for somewhere to park once it got to 38°. This seemed like a reasonable way to balance my intention to cover as many miles as possible against my intention not to skid along an icy highway. At the Oklahoma state line, my truck's readout said 37° and the rain hitting my windshield had turned into the always pleasant 'wintry mix.' By the time I covered the last couple of miles to the truck stop in Roland, we were at 33° and my wiper blades were encased in ice. Damn. That was quick. As of the time that this is posted, we're down to 30°.

I have all of Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday left to cover the remaining miles for the trip so I don't think I'll have any major issues. I have no idea how well these people deal with winter weather, in terms of road maintenance. I suspect not very well. I've caught some icy stuff in Texas before and it was a joke. Since the weather forecast said that there was a 20% chance of precipitation in Fort Smith tonight and there is a 100% chance that it rained/froze/snowed like hell, I won't put too much stock in tomorrow's forecast. We'll just have to see how things look when I get out of bed in the morning.

I don't know if Santa is going to be able to find me here, but I'm thinking about trying to see if I can find whatever he left for me in the casino. You never know...

12/23/09

Over the last four winters, I've consistently tried to take some time off in the middle of December and then get back on the road before Christmas. My theory holds that, with most of our drivers at home, I stand a better chance of getting some nice long runs to pad the year's pay right at the end. So, of course, today I chose to turn down the nice long run that was offered to me.

I woke a little after 7am and called the terminal to put myself on the board. The local dispatcher said that he had nobody on the board and there were two runs that he could assign. The first was a load sitting on the yard and making a couple of drops. The first drop was in Joplin, Missouri (strike one). The second drop would take me across the mountains out west (strike two) for a Monday delivery in California (strike three). Next.

The other run was much shorter, but more to my liking. It too was sitting on the yard and was waiting to be delivered in Memphis, Tennessee by tomorrow afternoon. That'll do. I went back to bed for a while and then headed to work, hoping to get out and reach some warmer air before the shitty weather rolled across the Great Lakes region. This worked pretty well. The temperature climbed steadily as I made my way down through Ohio and into Kentucky, ending up at 55º, and I never caught more than a few raindrops on my windshield.

I got a call from the local dispatcher in West Memphis after I had been on the road for an hour and a half or so. She said that she wanted to check and make sure that I wasn't trying to get home, since I wasn't highlighted on her computer screen, before she assigned me to another load. I told her to bring it on. Then, a half hour later, she brought it on. Shit. The damned People's Republic got me after all. I'll be taking a load from the West Memphis terminal to Southern California for a delivery next week. I saw a nice 20-car pileup in Flagstaff on the Weather Channel while I was at the terminal this morning. Maybe I'll have better luck during my trip. Maybe.

I took my customary route across the Kentucky parkways this evening and settled in at the big truck stop in Kuttawa. I had been vacillating on whether or not to stay on I-65 down toward Nashville this time until a very scientific process helped me to make a decision. Another CTL truck pulled onto the freeway somewhere below Louisville and it was gradually gaining on me. We reached the point where, if I stayed on I-65, it would pass me within another five miles or so. If I took the parkway it would never pass me and I would thus be the winner of the imaginary race. So I took the parkway. Yeah, like I said, very scientific.

I have a little under 200 miles to go from here to Memphis before tomorrow afternoon's delivery. Then we'll have to see how the next run plays out. My plan summary says that it's leaving West Memphis on Saturday morning and delivering on Tuesday morning. I'm hoping that someone will be dropping off the trailer in West Memphis on his way home for Christmas. In that case I can get it tomorrow and enjoy a nice leisurely pace over the weekend. In any event, I'll have 2,500+ miles, in addition to my holiday pay, in the books before the pay period ends. Not so bad for a week during which I was home until Wednesday. The Left Coast issue notwithstanding, my long mile holiday strategy seems to have worked this time around.

12/22/09

As is eventually the case with all vacations, this one is drawing to a conclusion. I didn't have a lot on the agenda today. Just a few errands and such, so it didn't matter much that I slept until noon. I'll have to call the terminal by 7:30am tomorrow though. Guess it's time to try sleeping like a responsible adult again. Bummer.

12/21/09

I was born in September of 1976. Therefore, if my math is correct, I've been on this planet for a little more than 33 years. For reasons largely beyond my control I've spent many of those years studying the human psyche. Given ten minutes of interaction, I'm reasonably confident that I could understand 99% of you. Myself, on the other hand, well that one's a mystery.

I got up this morning and had some breakfast, then helped to get things packed before heading home. A four-hour drive is noticeably easier when you're not the one behind the wheel, for whatever that's worth. I was able to catch a nice long afternoon nap before it was time to head out and do some running around.

So here's where odd decision number one is made. After handling that which needed to be handled, I was in a position to decide how to spend the rest of my evening. My 'Skins were slated to make their annual appearance on Monday Night Football (on ESPN) and I don't have cable, so I was compelled to visit a local drinking establishment and watch the game. There were a few people with whom I had failed to commiserate during this trip home though. Decision time. I, a man who spends the bulk of his time alone in a fiberglass box, decided that I would rather watch the game by myself. The long weekend of forced involvement with my family likely played a role, but come on. I'm always alone. Whatever. Okay then.

I stopped at a local pub, ordered a beer, and settled in for what promised to be an entertaining contest. The Redskins have been playing fairly well lately, after all. Ten minutes later, the promising contest didn't look like it was going to materialize. I then decided to call one of those with whom I had failed to connect during the previous week. A close friend? No. A drinking buddy? No? Someone who might enjoy the game with me? No. Odd decision number two - I called a woman that I don't know very well at all. (It does bear mention that the woman in question is quite attractive.) She headed up to the pub and joined me for a few drinks.

The football game progressed in a manner that should come as no surprise. The Redskins shit the bed on national television and played in a manner unbefitting an NFL franchise. My mood was foul, to say the least. Surprisingly though, my friend seemed to be having a good time. I'm pretty sure that I had her diagnosed accurately. As for me, not so much. Who gives a damn about a football team with no shot at the playoffs, after all? Why should the game have any discernible impact on my night? I'm a freaking mystery to myself. I decided to call it an early night and head home... alone. What the hell is up with that? I'm about to head out on the road for at least a month or two. Surely I could have used some company tonight. Whatever man. I don't know. I'll figure myself out sooner or later.

Tomorrow stands to include a pretty severe morning hangover and then an afternoon of tying up loose ends before leaving town. Nothing new, I suppose. As for life here in the Detroit area being a joke... also nothing new. I'm the son of a long line of loyal Detroit union Democrats. Why can't I argue with anything that is said in the following video? I don't know man. I actually think this is one sense in which I'm pretty rational. C'est la vie...

12/20/09

There is most definitely an expiration date concerning my patience for dealing with certain unnamed family members, children, and in-laws. We reached that expiration date tonight. I won't be going into any gratuitous detail or anything, as they are still relatives of mine, but there came a point in the night where I had had enough. I thus found it prudent to grab the remaining four beers from the fridge and retire to my sleeping quarters to do some reading. 'Tis better not to open my mouth in such a situation, I have learned over the years.

Long drive home tomorrow and then a day off on Tuesday. Hopefully I can get a good break concerning Wednesday's weather and we'll be back in the swing of things.

12/19/09

I don't know exactly how the word 'vacation' is defined, but I suspect that I got suckered today. I went for a ride over to Gaylord with my father so that we could pick up a few supplies and get out of the house for a while. My brothers and my sister-in-law had already left to go snowboarding and my sister's kids were getting pretty loud. Getting out and about sounded like a good idea. At some point during the drive, the topic of firewood arose. We had some left from last night but not enough to get through the weekend. Dad mentioned that he had spotted some dead trees along one of the streets near our rental house. So, on my vacation, I got to trudge up the side of a mountain and carry logs back to the truck. Then, back at the house, I got to take turns with Dad as we sawed the logs into pieces that would fit in the fireplace. We were using a simple hand saw. That was big fun... or something.

Plenty of relaxation by the fire through the rest of the night helped to make it feel more like a vacation though. Good enough.

12/18/09

It often gets overlooked, but Northern Michigan really is a beautiful slice of America at this time of year. Unfortunately I (along with everyone else) just lost to my youngest brother in a poker tournament to round out the night. Such is life. The drive up north was pleasant and relaxing. The weather was good. Our rental house at Boyne Mountain is rather impressive and the beer has flowed freely thus far. I can't complain.

12/17/09

Spite is underrated. I had some unfinished business from my last trip back home. Today was the day that I was forced (in a liberal use of the term) to tend to this unfinished business. Never one to make things easy though, I left my full winter beard on prominent display. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry about it. Just accept the fact that bald dudes with grizzly beards are not exactly on the cutting edge of masculine attractiveness. The result of tonight's sociological experiment - it really doesn't matter. I'm an ugly bearded mofo and she just had to deal with it. Unfinished business concluded. Spiteful nature satisfied. Yeah, I can't stand that chick. So obviously it's amusing to me that things went as they did. I'm pretty manly... or something along those lines.

I think I'm riding up to Traverse City with my father tomorrow but I really don't know. Whatever. Somebody will call me in the morning and give me some kind of direction. Good enough. For now, I'm just pretty manly... or something along those lines.

12/16/09

Learning to deal with disappointment can be one of the biggest challenges in life. So, when I looked in the fridge a few minutes ago and found that there were only three beers left, I had to act like an adult and accept the situation. It's really freaking cold outside and I don't feel like going out for more provisions. I'm pretty disappointed, but not too badly. Thus, I'm overcoming life's challenges as we speak. Tony Robbins would be proud.

I'm almost to Season 8 of Seinfeld too. Such a successful streak of television watching can only serve to mitigate the consequences of a beer shortage. I don't know. I should probably do something productive tomorrow. Don't hold your breath though. It's really freaking cold outside.

12/15/09

Today probably wouldn't be classified as a productive one by many observers, but it's kind of a sliding scale. After all, I did make it to the bank in order to deposit my Christmas bonus. And I did make it to the post office in order to mail some correspondence. And I did make it to my truck in order to retrieve my dirty laundry and supplant my 2009 permits with their 2010 replacements. And I did make it to the party store on the corner in order to buy some beer. See there? Today was really a productive one after all.

On the subject of the Christmas bonus, I'm as confused as ever. Last year's bonus didn't seem to correspond with any number that I could track down. The CFI system was $25 for each year of service but the Con-way system is different. I never did figure out where the gross pay for last year's bonus originated. It must have related to something though, because this year's bonus was exactly 1.5 times last year's bonus, down to the penny. Weird. No complaints from me though. Free money is free money.

One more productive bit about today - I've watched a whole lot of Seinfeld episodes. We're almost to the end of Season 4. Beer and sitcoms... the stuff that dreams are made of.

12/14/09

Might as well mix in at least a little drama before it was time to go home, right? I rolled over to the consignee this morning and checked in with the forklift guy. He gave me the instructions that I expected - wait for the other trucks to leave the docks and then it would be my turn. After an hour or so, my turn came around.

One pallet came off without incident. A second came off without incident. The third had some busted boards on the pallet, but it was in somewhat decent shape. Then things got ugly. I was waiting for someone to point the finger at me as if I had ramped the trailer off a ski jump or something. The forklift guy seemed to have known that the issue was coming though. He said that he had been told to watch out for exactly this issue. Apparently the product had come from overseas on a boat. Then the shipping container was pulled to a logistics warehouse by truck. At the logistics place, the pallets were pulled out of the shipping container and put into our trailer. At some point along the way, something went wrong to the extent that a phone call was made to the consignee and a notation was made on the bills. "Few pallets damaged from container," the notation said. Understatement.

Long story short - there were several pallets that were completely crushed. The freight consisted of thick-walled metal cylinders and they were quite heavy. Thus, the boxes holding the freight had been torn apart as the weight shifted on the broken pallets. The forklift guy, his boss, and my Swedish buddy Sjoe wound up filling a couple of portable hoppers by hand. That took a little while. The other pallets stayed mostly intact to the extent that they could be unloaded by forklift. Good enough.

After bouncing over to the Flying J and parking to await my next assignment, I found myself on the board at #10. I tried to take a nap. You know... either I work for a bunch of morons (who send idiotic messages for no reason) or I work with a bunch of morons (who are confused by the first idiotic messages, requiring more to be sent). The answer, I assume, would depend on whom you ask. A series of satellite messages conspired to keep me from getting any sleep. First came a message to say that they need to know by the 16th if people are going home for Christmas. Another message to tell people that the first had been sent to everyone. Then another clarifying whatever the first one meant. Then something about locking trailers even when they're empty or whatever. I think there was something else along the way, but the point is that I never got a chance to fall asleep.

At 10:30am, after two hours on the board, I received the assignment that I expected - homeward bound. The benefit of sitting for two hours was that I missed the heaviest of the morning traffic on I-96. It was a little bit rainy outside and the roads were slick, so things weren't moving terribly quickly, but it was an easy enough drive.

After dropping my empty trailer and heading home, I found that I wasn't in the mood to do much of anything. Just taking a day to kick back and relax. The smart money would be on tomorrow following a similar pattern. I'll probably be forced to drink some beer tomorrow though. You know how that goes.

12/13/09

With an easy day of work behind me and plenty of time to kill, I fired up a game of Civilization III. I hadn't played it in quite some time. Now I remember why. Time can get away from you in a hurry if you're not paying attention. The damned Russians tried to sneak-attack from my southern border and, by the time I exterminated them (and the Koreans who came to their aid), the night had gone far later than I intended. Bummer.

I was glad to see that the temperature got into the 40's during today's drive, meaning rain instead of snow or ice. The weather screen at the service plaza where I spent last night seemed to indicate that there was some icy weather in Pennsylvania. It would then seem that I'm still one day ahead of the trouble. Maybe this can remain true for just a little longer. Ice storms don't bother me much when I'm on my couch, after all.

The 280 mile drive up to Saginaw was about as easy as one might expect. Aside from the low-flow shower heads at the Pilot in Blissfield, I would have to say that everything was peachy keen. Tomorrow brings a 6am wake-up call though, so I had better try and nod off for a little while. I only have around two miles to drive in order to reach the consignee but I'm not sure what's in store after that.

12/12/09

90 miles. That's all I needed. If I could get through 90 miles without any major issues, then the day would surely be an easy one. Once I got to the west side of D.C., there would be no reason to expect any traffic for the rest of my route on a Saturday. So did I make it? The dude in the minivan cutting across to the off ramp should be your main clue.

Ahh yes, good old I-95. There was a stalled bus in the center lane and it had traffic backed up for about five or six miles. C'est la vie.

The traffic wasn't too heavy once I got out into the mountains. My 44,000 pound payload was obviously not a lot of fun, but that just goes with the territory sometimes. I wanted to cover at least half the trip today, meaning that around 350 miles would do the trick. The 350 mile mark would have had me somewhere around Pittsburgh though, so I continued on to Ohio. The second service plaza has a Sbarro and I had been thinking that some pasta sounded good, so there you have it. 420 miles down and 280 left for tomorrow. Not bad.

The pay week wraps up with 3,283 miles plus around $54 in northeast pay. Not too shabby at all. There's a distinct chance that I'll get sent home with no miles on Monday, so next week won't be too profitable. For now though, a week over $1,300 ain't too bad.

12/11/09

The light at the end of the tunnel has been spotted. It will take a few more days of work to reach it, but I can see it by golly. And no, I'm not talking about Brian Kelly. He may be the next Frank Leahy for all I know, but I'll just let him prove it to me. You could say that I've grown rather skeptical over the years. No, the light at the end of this particular metaphorical tunnel is the light above the bar at Kelly's Pub (no relation). I can see it from here. Mmmm... Guinness.

I got my loaded trailer in Charlotte a half hour early, then saw from the paperwork that it had been ready for at least an hour. Bummer. I never did manage to sleep yesterday, so getting on the road an hour sooner would have been cool. The drive itself turned out to be surprisingly easy though. I-81 usually tends to be a tedious pain in the ass, but that's the flip side of working overnight - there's hardly any traffic. My 31,000 pound payload did have me dragging ass a little bit on some of the longer climbs. Nothing too bad though. I rolled into the Con-way yard in Greencastle just before 4am and made my drop.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that we've commandeered the vacant Yellow Freight terminal next door for use as a drop lot. This means that I had a place to park and go to bed. Beauty. I forgot to shut off my phone though, so the first call in the morning had me cursing the caller rather vehemently. After that I managed to sleep for a few hours and all was right with the world.

Upon waking at some point later in the morning, I checked my board status on the company's web portal. It said that I was #0, meaning that I was assigned to a load. I fired up the truck for a minute, forcing the Qualcomm to turn on, so that I could see what kind of messages were waiting. None. That's weird. It was around twenty minutes later that the message notifications started coming through. The news was pretty good though. I would be picking up a load in Pennsylvania and passing it off to another driver in Richmond, Virginia. Then I would be getting a load in Richmond and heading to Saginaw, Michigan. Sometimes there's southbound freight from Central Michigan and sometimes they just send me home empty, but either way I'll be drawing nearer to a few of those delicious bubbly pints before too long.

The only catch with the assignment was that the first load was scheduled to pick up at 3pm in Mountville, Pennsylvania. That, as nearly as I could guess, would be around a two hour drive from Greencastle. My 14 hour clock (going back to last night) wouldn't allow me enough time to make it there, since it ran out at 11:30am today. Thus, I would have to stay in Greencastle and complete a ten hour break. I went off duty at 4:30am, making the ten hour mark 2:30pm. So add two hours for the deadhead and you see the issue. 3pm couldn't happen. I could have used a split break and left for Mountville at 12:30pm, but then the next couple of dispatches would have been screwy. It doesn't seem to me that the dispatching software is equipped to account for split breaks very effectively. Long story short... I sent a message asking if I could pick up at 4:30pm. I received a reply in the affirmative. Good enough.

So I had a few more hours to kill, then it was time to shove off for Mountville. I'm not sure if there's a specific cause or not, but for some reason big trucks are not allowed through Gettysburg on US-30. Since US-30 is the main thoroughfare through that part of Pennsylvania, this can make for some tricky routing. One option was to take I-81 up to Harrisburg and then angle back down toward Lancaster. Harrisburg, the last time I went through in the afternoon, was a damned parking lot. That route didn't sound very good. Another option was to take PA-16 to the east, drop down into Maryland, then catch US-15 up to US-30. Despite the fact that I had no idea what kinds of roads I would encounter, I chose to give this second route a try. I would have exactly two hours to cover ~80 miles. Couldn't be too tough, could it?

It turned out that my expectations were backward. I was a little concerned about how long the first part of the trip might take. It was on a winding two-lane road up into the mountains and through a few towns. That part of the drive turned out to be quick and easy. I was less concerned about the last part, along US-30 toward Lancaster. I rolled into York at 3:55pm. With a 4:30pm ETA, I had 35 minutes with which to cover the last 15 miles. No worries, right? I rolled out of York at 4:28pm. So I had 2 minutes with which to cover the last 12 miles. What a joke. There was traffic lined up on US-30 in both directions as far as the eye could see. At each red light, there would be one or two cars along the side streets. So it would be perfectly natural then that the lights were timed to give the side streets equal treatment with the main drag, right? I mean, why on earth would they let the miles and miles of traffic on US-30 have a couple of extra minutes to move through? One more in a long list of examples of bureaucratic idiocy, as far as I'm concerned.

I fired off a message as I sat at one of the red lights, advising the operations people that my 4:30pm ETA wasn't looking too good. As I pulled into the shipper's lot at 4:45pm I received a reply from my fleet manager. 5pm was my new ETA and that was the latest he could go. Good enough then. I was already there. I sent in my arrival call and everything was fine.

The drop/hook at the shipper was quick and painless, after which I headed southward with my nice and easy 13,000 pound payload. Traffic going back to York wasn't quite as bad as it had been on the eastbound trip, but it was pretty heavy. Then I got the pleasure of Baltimore, D.C., and Northern Virginia, all on a Friday evening. That's about as good as it gets if you're into the whole 'road rage' thing. Two or three lanes (depending on the location) moving at 45mph and the 'no trucks' left lane completely unoccupied. One more in a long list of examples of bureaucratic idiocy, as far as I'm concerned.

By the time I got out of the traffic, I still had not received any information regarding the outbound truck with which I would be making the relay. I sent a message asking for some information and then rolled onward to the T/A in Ashland. (The dispatch setup calls it Richmond for some reason, but I'm glad to accept the 15 free miles.) My loaded trailer had been left to me with a torn mud flap and I didn't want to stick another driver with it, so I proceeded straight to the shop. The guy at the counter said that it would be "a while" before they could put on a new one. I asked him to define "a while" and he informed me that it would be around two hours. You've got to be shitting me. So I bought a mud flap (on sale for $10.99) and installed it myself. It took five minutes. We all know that I have mad mechanical skills, what with my two adjustable wrenches and such, so I'm curious to know what the T/A shop would have billed the company if they had actually installed the mud flap for me.

I still had not received a reply to my request for information about the relay, so I headed into the truck stop to see a man about a dog... or something to that effect. Once my business was concluded, I walked back out to my truck and found that I had two satellite messages and a voice mail waiting for me. The other driver was at the T/A, looking for me, yada yada yada. Armed with the other driver's truck number, I pulled out of my parking space and started to drive off in search of him. Just then a dude walked in front of my truck, waving his arms. The other driver, clearly. He told me where he was parked, so I drove up and found a nearby spot. We made the swap, each of us taking a minute to complain about the fact that neither of us had been given any specifics about the relay. He had gotten the worst of the deal, as far as I can tell. The load going to North Carolina was his ticket home for the weekend and he had been waiting at the T/A since 5pm. After a few more choice words about nights and weekends and dispatchers and such, he was on his way.

As for me, I was going nowhere. When I received the assignment this morning, I thought that I would be swapping my loaded trailer for an empty, then picking up a load bound for Michigan. It turns out that the other driver and I were actually swapping two loaded trailers. I had picked up his ticket to North Carolina and he had picked up my ticket to Michigan. Good deal. I didn't have to go and get another load tonight after all. My patience for driving had long since reached its breaking point so I decided to stay at the T/A and call it a night.

I'm due in Saginaw by 6:30am on Monday and the trip is somewhere around 700 miles, so I'll probably use the 'divide and conquer' approach, covering roughly 350 miles a day over the weekend. This trailer is a lot heavier than the one that I gave away, so the drive up through Maryland and Pennsylvania will likely get to be annoying after a while. I can handle six or seven hours a day though, especially since I will be going sans alarm until Monday morning.

12/10/09

My erratic sleep patterns have been well documented. On most nights, I toss and turn until the wee hours of the morning and then get a few hours of sound sleep before it's time to get up and start working again. I enjoy a nice nap in the afternoon when I can, but rarely do I get the recommended eight hours (or whatever it is) during a single stretch. That's just not how I'm wired. So last night, after several late nights followed by early mornings, I was feeling a little run down and I knew that I had another early morning in store. A dose of Tylenol PM from the truck stop took care of my headache and knocked me out for a solid ten hours of sleep before this morning's alarm went off.

I got up and rolling by 6:45am. This is clearly earlier than my preferred start time of 10am, but I was well-rested and relieved to see that I still had good weather in which to drive. So I was all set up for a good day. I rolled into Winston-Salem, sent in my home time request, made my drop/hook, and got on the board. I was basically SOL in terms of finding somewhere to park and await my next assignment, so I decided to head up to I-40 and see what I could find. As I approached the entrance to US-52 that would take me back up to I-40, I received a new assignment. I hurried and did some quick stenographer-style typing to confirm the assignment before the traffic light turned green, then had to change course. I wouldn't be going up to I-40 after all. I would be going southward to Charlotte. Fortunately, there was no traffic on my left. I cut across to the southbound freeway entrance and that was that.

Now for the shitty part. My load leaving Charlotte is a 10pm deal going overnight to Pennsylvania. After covering the sleep situation in that first paragraph, you can probably guess how thrilled I am right now. Normally the schedule wouldn't have been much of an issue at all, since I'm often awake until 4am or 5am anyway. I slept so much last night though that I have no idea how today will go. I'll try to take a nap in the afternoon but I won't hold my breath in anticipation of getting any sleep. Bummer.

The schedule left me with plenty of time for ten hours off (with two extra hours to spare, even) so there's nothing technically wrong with it. And it is heading in the general direction of home, which is the idea whenever I request home time. It's just one of those things that probably ain't gonna be a whole lot of fun. Curse of the working class, I suppose.

On the good side it looks like I'm still dodging the bad weather, at least for one more day. And this assignment gets my miles for the week up to 2,248 with Friday and Saturday still to come. And, if enough people decide to turn them down, I may end up with the Notre Dame head coaching job. You know, maybe... or something.

12/9/09

You can find absolutely anything on the internet if you really feel like looking for it. In thinking about how today went, a specific movie scene came to mind. I typed a few words into the search box on YouTube, and voila..



My working day lasted just over eleven hours. The first half hour seemed like forty-five minutes. Then the next hour seemed like two days. Then the next few hours only seemed like an hour. Then the next few hours seemed like two weeks. Then the next couple of hours seemed like two and a half hours. Or something to that effect. You get the picture.

It wasn't raining any longer when I woke this morning, but I did drive into some very steady snowfall and extremely high (by Indiana standards) winds on my way toward Indianapolis. Once I got out between Indy and Cincinnati, the snow cleared up and the temperature started to rise. Thus, the drive got easier for a while. I caught KY-9 out of the suburbs in Northern Kentucky and ran that down to I-64. It was pretty hilly and my payload is over 42,000 pounds, but overall that stretch was a pretty easy cruise through Appalachia. Then came West Virginia. We've already covered the weight of the payload, so I have nothing further to say about West Virginia.

My eleven hours were running low by the time I got down to the part of Virginia where I-81 and I-77 run together. The safe bet would have been to stop at one of the Flying J's and call it a night. I decided to press on a little further though. I remembered staying at a little truck stop in Austinville, just to the south on I-77, once upon a time. (That reference to I-77 in West Virginia made me chuckle, considering that I had already typed today's reference before doing my Google search for 'Austinville.') It was early enough in the evening tonight that I was confident in the potential to find a parking space. I wasn't disappointed. Nobody here but lil' old me, at least thus far.

I'll have to cover around 75 miles or so in the morning, so yet another early wake-up call appears to be in store. Sometimes I think I should get a job plowing roads in Iowa or something. It seemed to me that those guys don't start working until noon. Anyhow, it's off to bed for me. In the immortal words of Bishop Sheen - Bye now!

12/8/09

A foolish man once wrote - "Here's hoping for no unpleasant surprises as far as road conditions go. The temperature got steadily warmer as I proceeded eastward today, so plowing and salting should be plenty effective, assuming they actually do that in this neck of the woods." Yeah, that was pretty silly of me, wasn't it?

When I woke this morning, I found that the roads were in far worse shape than I anticipated. Along US-218 I would encounter a random plow here and there, but it was a pretty shitty ride. I found my comfort zone at around 45-50mph and held 'er steady on down the highway. I am one who firmly believes that braking is by far the most dangerous part of that kind of trip, so I found myself feeling compelled to pass a few cars along the way. With a heavy load in tow I consider it neither safe nor desirable to be riding the brakes down hills and around curves. The cars in question, of course, would tend to wander over into my lane as I went by, as they were trying to avoid the deeper snow along the edges of the road. This can make for some white-knuckle driving, to say the least. All in a day's work.

I found that IA-2 was in decent shape for the most part once I got to it, at least on the eastbound side. Glad I wasn't westbound. That side looked pretty dicey. Once I caught up with US-61, it was only a few miles further until I reached my consignee. Their lot wasn't yet plowed when I arrived, so I got the pleasure of trying (unsuccessfully) to slide my trailer axles back. Then I got the pleasure of trying (successfully) to keep the trailer straight as I slid back into the dock. The forklift guy had me empty very quickly and I was ready to head back out. By the time I came around to the front of the facility, the snow removal guys had done their thing. I pulled into the customer's staging area and parked to await whatever came next.

My mother called while I was sitting there, to see if I was safe. Apparently she saw the weather reports on television and got worried, as mothers tend to do. I told her that I had scooted out ahead of the bad stuff in Nebraska and held my own in Iowa up to that point. I only needed to catch a break for a few more days and then I would be headed toward home. It's those bullshit roads out west that are cause for worry, so the best prescription would be a trip back to the east and preferably to the south. Then, even if I hit some bad stuff on the way home, I would be in the part of the country where they actually make an effort to make the highways safe for travel. Illinois and Indiana do a pretty decent job. Michigan is good everywhere except Wayne County (where all of our tax revenue is wasted on Detroit). Ohio can be hit and miss, but we've had a mild season so far. They should have plenty of salt on hand.

After an hour and a half or so, I still had not received a new assignment. There are two tricks that are guaranteed to bring a dispatch. One is to hop in the bunk and try to take a nap. That'll get you a beep in a hurry. I slept pretty soundly for a few hours last night though, meaning that I wasn't tired this morning, so I decided to try the other option. I drove down the street to a little gas station with truck parking (not listed in my directory but recommended by the security guard). Usually, as soon as I leave the safety and comfort of a parking spot, the next assignment will come through. This time, however, they waited until I was inside the store buying some food and beverages. I had a message waiting when I got back out to my truck. Good deal.

What was it that I said earlier about being glad that I wasn't heading westward on IA-2? Yeah. The next pickup was a drop/hook in Corydon, Iowa. Back to the west we go. 112 miles, all along IA-2, with an empty trailer. It turns out that the bad westbound part of the road that I saw on my way to Fort Madison was actually the good part. Holy smokes. The last fifty miles or so found me dirt-tracking my way up and down hills on completely snow packed roads. All in a day's work.

At the shipper, things didn't get a whole lot easier. I got lucky enough when my trailer axles broke free on the first try, so that was nice. Getting into the dock turned out to be quite another story. The surface was so slippery that I had to get a steady rolling start in order to maintain enough momentum to get the trailer back to the dock. That rolling start, however, didn't provide me with any opportunity to make the usual small corrections needed to steer the trailer. Any loss of inertia left me completely unable to move backward, forcing me to pull forward and try again. Then, on the first few times that I actually got backed in without the trailer sliding sideways, I would bounce off the bumpers on the dock and slide forward before I could get my damned brakes to grab. Eventually I got it in there. The ass end of the trailer was about an inch and a half from the bumpers but that will have to do.

I expected to have some trouble getting out from under the empty trailer, but that part went pretty smoothly. The trouble this time around would be getting the axles on the loaded trailer to slide forward. I gave up on trying to do so in the area where the trailer had been sitting. It was seriously like a hockey rink out there. I pulled around to the other side of the building where the surface under the snow appeared to be a little more sound. It took some cruising back and forth and jamming on the trailer brakes, but eventually I got the axles to slide. Of course I overshot the mark by a couple of feet, leaving the axles too far forward. So I had to try a few more times to get them to come loose and slide back. All's well that ends well though. I got them locked in and headed back out once more.

There is plenty of good news to wrap up this little saga though. My trip is taking me to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. (That's east and south from Iowa, for those of you keeping score at home. A tip of the cap to the load planner people for that little blessing.) As I pulled back onto IA-2 in anticipation of several more hours of frustration, I found that the snow plows had gone through during my 45 minute drop/hook fiasco. The road surface still wasn't ideal but it wasn't too bad now that I had some weight on the tires. Further to the east, the air actually warmed up and it started to rain. For the remainder of today's drive I had clean wet roads with which to contend, but no slippery stuff. Nice.

I cruised into Illinois on US-34 and then caught up with I-74. After a fuel stop in Bloomington, I had just enough time to reach the truck stop in Le Roy before my 14 hour clock ran out. 473 miles on the odometer in ten hours of driving might not sound terribly efficient, but I was surprised that I was able to get that far. Given the way things looked earlier in the day I expected much worse. Hopefully tomorrow morning's drive will get me below the snow before it gets too nasty around here. I will be putting in a long day and then finishing off the trip early Thursday morning. Rain and mountains and a heavy load will provide plenty of intrigue of their own.

I'm already over 1,700 miles for the week so I think I'll go ahead and request home time once I get down to Winston-Salem. I had intended to make the request on Friday but I don't want to take the chance of a long trans-weekend assignment coming through and screwing up my plans. Whatever miles I get between Friday and Saturday should push this week at least into the $900-1,000 range. If I can get a few miles for next week along the way back home, so much the better. If not, there's a stool at Kelly's Pub with my name on it. I think next week's check should be the one with my safety bonus on it, if memory serves correctly, so it won't kill me to take the whole week off if that's how it works out. Things seem to be falling into place... for now.

12/7/09

With all due respect to Horace Greely, the last thing that I wanted to do today was to "go west." The temperature readout on my dashboard said that it was 5º outside and a pretty fair amount of snow had fallen overnight. The Rockies are nice in the summer and all, but not so much at this time of year.

As I sat waiting for my 7am appointment to roll around, I received my next planned load information. Eastbound and down. Good deal. The pickup time was listed as yesterday at 6:30am so I guessed that there was something unusual about the assignment. Once my trailer was empty I received the rest of the information. It was a relay leaving the Bosselman's truck stop in Grand Island and going to Fort Madison, Iowa. The relay time that I was given was 2pm, so I headed over to the truck stop and put my feet up for a while.

Around noon, the inbound truck pulled up next to me and we made the swap. It turns out that this assignment was the result of the other driver's misfortune and none of my own. He got the pleasure of picking it up at the molybdenum mine in Henderson, Colorado. Then he drove to Grand Island and found a mechanical problem with his truck. I'm not entirely sure why the relay was scheduled for 2pm today, on account of the fact that he had been in Grand Island since Friday, but I was glad that he spotted me early. This allowed for a more workable schedule on my end.

The forklift guy at this morning's consignee mentioned that a big snowstorm was coming up from Kansas into Nebraska today, so I hauled ass out of town and tried to stay ahead of it. I was glad to find that I-80 was clean and dry all the way across. My first look at the atlas had me thinking that I would come out of Lincoln on NE-2 and stay in IA-2 through Iowa. My truck stop directory didn't show any parking options along that route though, so I wound up on the interstate all the way to Des Moines. Then I dropped down on IA-163 to IA-92. The truck stop at the corner of IA-92 and US-218 had plenty of parking when I arrived. Beauty.

I'll have between 60 and 70 miles to cover in the morning ahead of an 8:30am delivery appointment. The snowfall here tonight has been light so far. Here's hoping for no unpleasant surprises as far as road conditions go. The temperature got steadily warmer as I proceeded eastward today, so plowing and salting should be plenty effective, assuming they actually do that in this neck of the woods.

This run was 479 dispatched miles, so the week is off to a decent start thus far. I'm due to request home time on Friday. Four more days to try and avoid the Rockies. We'll see...

12/6/09

I'm not in Central Texas and I'm still not a regional driver, but the same pattern with the same customer seems to be repeating. As I was slumbering away this morning, tucked into my cozy sleeping bag, my satellite unit chirped and woke me with a new assignment. I would be heading back to the place in Waverly where I delivered yesterday (48 miles), then making a drop/hook to pick up a load headed for Grand Island (109 miles). Given that our pay periods run from 12am Sunday to 11:59pm Saturday, most weekends are spent finishing off the prior week's work. In that context, 157 miles for Sunday isn't a bad start to the week. Most weeks start on Monday or Tuesday with zero miles. As long as I don't get trapped in this regional business for a few days I should be fine.

The timeline that I was given, much like those of the short Texas regional runs, left me sort of in-between. The plan summary said that I was to pick up at 1am and deliver at 7am. If I picked up at 1am, then tomorrow's 14 hour clock would expire at 3pm (or sooner, given that I still had to drive to the shipper). Obviously this would be undesirable. My dispatch included the number of my loaded trailer though, so I was pretty sure that I would be able to pick it up early. I decided to hang around and see if my 'Skins could put an end to the Saints' undefeated season and then head over. At some point in the afternoon, the wind kicked up and a pretty steady snowfall began so I changed my mind. I decided that it would be best to knock out some miles this afternoon before the roads got too bad.

The cold temperatures, heavy winds, and steady traffic were enough to keep I-80 clear of any accumulation for the most part. There were a few tree-lined spots where the snow was building up along the edges of the road but nothing to really slow me down. At the shipper I found that my loaded trailer was in fact ready for me, so I made my drop/hook and continued on down the highway. I planned on spending the night at the Bosselman's in Grand Island and then heading over to the consignee in the morning.

By the time I got to the truck stop I found that the surface roads were already quite a bit worse than the freeway. So, after topping off the fuel tanks and grabbing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I decided that it would be best to go to the consignee tonight. I have no idea how much snow is going to fall overnight, but I would rather not wait and see. Plus it was easier to get into the shopping center area on a Sunday night than it would be on a Monday morning when people are driving to work. All told, things worked out pretty well.

For my Redskins on the other hand, things apparently didn't work out so well. In a perfectly predictable outcome, their kicker missed a 23 yard field goal that would have put the game away and the Saints came back to win in overtime. Probably best that I didn't hang around to watch that garbage after all. One giant year of frustration for me as a football fan, one might say. There's always next year though... or something.

12/5/09

There are various reasons that people choose to drive a truck for a living. I'm pretty sure that the quality of conversations on the road isn't one of those reasons. It surely isn't for me.

I received a satellite message this morning telling me that I would be bobtailing to Omaha to retrieve an empty trailer after making my drop in Waverly today. (This was not one of today's dumb conversations, for the record.) I shot back a note acknowledging the message and then checked to see which coaches were rumored to be taking over the Irish today. I had a half hour to kill before I could leave Sioux City, so I figured some amusement would do the trick.

Once my ten hour break was over I hit the road. Just to the south of Sioux City, the scale house was open and I pulled in. I weighed each axle and then got the message to park and bring in my logs and permits. It was 9:15am Eastern time. The following is exactly what was said;

Cop: How are you?

Me: Cold, and you?

Cop: Cold. Is yesterday's log in the back there? (My log sheets are attached at the top and folded back as the days go by.)

Me: Yeah, they're all there.

Cop: (After flipping through a few pages) How were you off duty until 9am?

Me: I got out of bed at 8:30 and hung around the truck stop until 9.

Cop: {Confused stare}

Me: I live in Michigan. I'm on Eastern Time.

Cop: You need to be on Central Standard Time.

Me: {Confused stare}

Cop: Unless your company has a terminal in the Eastern time zone.

Me: Yeah, it says right there that my home terminal is in Taylor, Michigan.

Cop: (After flipping through the pages again) How many terminals does Con-way have?

Me: Somewhere around 400.

Cop: Okay, you can go.

Them there's the educated folks keeping your highways safe from guys like me, America. Good luck with that.

I got back on the road and finished the trip to Waverly without any further incidents. The consignee is closed on Saturdays so I was able to avoid any conversation there. I just had to enter a security code to open the gate and then leave my paperwork in the nose of the trailer after I dropped it.

Then I was headed over to a customer on the west end of Omaha, where I found the assigned trailer waiting for me. Let's see what they left me this time. One blinker didn't blink and one marker light didn't light. Par for the course I'm afraid when it comes to my esteemed colleagues. I bounced over to the Sapp Brothers truck stop a couple of miles away and bought some lights to fix my trailer, then stepped over to SubWay for some lunch.

SubWay Guy: You watching the Huskers today?

Me: Probably. Isn't that one on at the same time as one of the other games?

SubWay Guy: I think Texas is playing Auburn or something.

(We're in Omaha, mind you.)

Me: Texas is playing Nebraska.

SubWay Guy: Yeah, that's what I meant.

Me: I'll probably watch some of the game if I'm not driving. I think the ACC game is on at the same time.

SubWay Guy: There's a UFC fight tonight. Are you gonna watch that?

Me: No.

Another asinine conversation, but my Italian BMT with double meat was quite delicious. We'll call it a fair trade.

I was #2 on the board, so I kicked back to watch some football. In the first game, I was hoping to see Pitt put a whipping on Cincinnati. Anything to make the Notre Dame folks realize that Brian Kelly has built his resume on squeaking past weak opponents. Since Big Game Bob finally gave us the dreaded "I will not be the next coach at Notre Dame" today, I fear that people will start to see Kelly as the inevitable pick. The 'Stache managed to blow a big lead and Kelly's team won, so no luck there.

In the next game, I was hoping for the rules of the game to be suspended in some way so that both teams could lose by fifty points. That didn't happen obviously, but the bigger douchebag of the two douchebag coaches lost, so good enough.

The ACC game didn't hold much intrigue so I moved on to the Big XII game to wrap up the night. Obviously I wanted Nebraska to win and throw the BCS into chaos. And they would have done it too if it weren't for those meddling kids. Seriously, Nebraska's defense-to-offense disparity is like a mirror image of Notre Dame's offense-to-defense. That was painful to watch. After seeing that defense shut down Texas for the whole game though, it just didn't seem right for them to give up that last field goal drive. A kickoff out of bounds and a freaking horse collar tackle? Seriously? Bummer.

The inevitable conclusion of the day was that neither Colt McCoy nor Tim Tebow could hold Jimmy Clausen's jock when it comes to playing quarterback. And Alabama will probably stomp Texas by three scores. And that Suh guy from Nebraska is probably the best player in the country. And Golden Tate is probably the second best player in the country. And spread offenses are terribly boring to watch, no matter who is running them (meaning big fun for me if any of the rumored candidates come to South Bend next season).

I never left my #2 position on the board today so the pay week will wrap up in an hour or so with 2,386 miles plus $120 in layover pay and another $70 in stop pay. Just a shade under $1,100 in total and I got to spend a full Saturday watching football. Beauty.

I have 14 hours left on my 70 going into tomorrow so, in the event that there's any freight to haul, I'll be ready. You never know.

12/4/09

You know... I like to read the Wall Street Journal. Their reporting is generally pretty sound and I have always taken an interest in things related to the financial world. So what in the hell am I supposed to make of today's article by Ray A. Smith? I ain't gonna lie to you, man. I could easily play the Charlton Heston role in The Greatest Story Ever Told. Am I to understand that now I need to shave my chest periodically and wear low-cut shirts? This is bullshit. I now know, more than ever, that I was supposed to be born fifty years earlier. At least the college chick quoted at the end of the article has a little common sense.

Last night was generally annoying, beyond the point when I stopped driving. It was pretty damned cold so I had my bunk heater running. A couple of hours after I went to bed, my truck's battery rundown warning thing started beeping. I got up and started the engine, then went back to bed. The next time I woke (for no apparent reason, as I'm prone to do), I reached over and turned off the truck, then kicked the bunk heater back on. A couple of hours later, the damned beeping woke me again. I started the truck one more time and resolved that I would just leave it running until it was time to get up.

An hour or so after that, my satellite unit woke me with a pre-planned assignment to follow the one that I had to deliver this afternoon. I replied with my confirmation and then managed to doze off for one last half hour before I had to get to work.

The drive into Minnesota was nice and easy. There was some light snowfall but it was so cold that the flakes were light and they were blown off the road before they could cause any trouble. I checked in at my consignee in Rogers and kicked back for a while as they unloaded the freight. Once I was empty (or so I thought), I pulled away from the dock and walked back to close the doors to my trailer. There were two cases of bleach sitting inside. Shit. So I headed in and got my paperwork, complete with the notation that 2 cases were damaged and refused. The lady was kind enough to note that I had arrived with the seal intact, so that was good.

Next I had to call our claims department and get some direction from them. The first part was fairly standard - note 'seal intact,' write the claim number, etc. Then the guy told me to write down that the shipper had advised us to donate the product. Yeah, donate it to a dumpster, right? He said that we're not supposed to dump bleach and that I should find a fire department or some other place where it could be put to good or charitable use. No, I'm not making this up. I understand that it's best not to waste things and all that jazz, but seriously. I have a job to do. Moseying on up to a fire station in a 70 foot tractor-trailer combination is not commensurate with my need to perform this job. Not to mention that it was rush hour on a Friday afternoon in a busy suburban area. It was about all I could do just to get back to the freeway.

I decided to head to my next shipper and try to think of something along the way. By the time I made the 70 mile trip down to Le Sueue amidst fairly heavy traffic, I had forgotten all about the bleach. After I opened my trailer doors and realized that it was still there, I asked the guy in the office at the shipper if their janitor or someone else might have a use for it. He said that he would find someone to use it and took it off my hands. Good enough for me. I guess it may not have been completely within the spirit of 'donating' to someone, but what can you do? They didn't want me to throw the stuff away and I couldn't exactly take it with me. Carrying all that bleach in my truck likely would have been more problematic than those paper towels in Miami.

Once I was loaded with another 40,000 pounds of goodies, I was off and running again. This time I'm headed down to Waverly, Nebraska. Out of Le Sueue, the route was along US-169 to MN-60, which later became IA-60. I passed on a chance to park in Worthington, Minnesota in hopes that I could reach Sioux City, Iowa before today's 14 hour clock expired. I wasn't sure just how much further it would be to Sioux City, but I had two and a half hours left so I was pretty optimistic. It turned out that Sioux City was only another 90 miles or so along the way and the route (IA-60 onto US-75) was mostly a divided highway with a 65mph speed limit. There was virtually no traffic and I made it with plenty of time to spare.

The first truck stop that I saw was completely full. I headed over to the other (bigger) one and found a couple of open spaces. All told, it turned out to be a pretty productive day. I'll have around 140 miles left to drive from here. The delivery in Waverly is a drop/hook and my dispatch says that I'm due at the perfectly logical time of 10:53am. Another early morning wake-up call appears to be in store. At least it looks like the weather should be cooperative in the morning (notwithstanding the fact that it's 15º outside right now). Dry roads are happy roads... or something.

12/3/09

Has it ever occurred to the people who run local and county governments that the money they save by not plowing and salting the freeways in a timely manner is more than wasted by sending police, tow trucks, and ambulances to handle the numerous crashes that result from their negligence? The answer is no. It has not occurred to them. I just can't wait to get me some of that government health care though. I'll bet it's gonna be super efficient, timely, and effective.

Things were rolling along pretty nicely for the most part today. I got past the Chicago area before the traffic got too heavy and then stopped at the service plaza in Belvidere for a late lunch or early dinner or whatever. As I sat and looked out the window, a pretty heavy snowstorm blew through. By the time I was done eating, it was gone. Beauty.

Once I got into Wisconsin and passed Beloit, the traffic on the freeway came to a dead stop. Then the rate of travel over the next several miles varied between 2mph and 10mph. We were driving into a light snowfall and there was a little bit of accumulation in some spots. Count 'em up - 1, 2, 3, 4 accidents over the next twenty miles. Just brilliant. Hopefully nobody died this time around. I've seen some severe carnage on previous trips through this state. I swear I don't understand it.

Once I got through Madison the roads dried out for the most part and I was able to put my foot to the floor for a while. My only objective for today was to cover at least 500 miles, so once I saw that there was a truck stop in New Lisbon I pulled off the road and called it a night. 499 miles, all told. Close enough. I should have a little over 200 miles to go from here. Hopefully there won't be a whole lot of snow overnight or in the morning, but I'll take off a little early just in case. It's always good to make sure I have a buffer. We know damn well that they won't have the freeway plowed and salted if the weather does get bad tonight.

Pretty good football game going on in Oregon right now, for those of you who are into that sort of thing.

12/2/09

The ole Godfather has a couple of nuggets for you fine folks this evening.

#1 - If you really hate your job, to the extent that you feel the need to do it poorly and swear about it without restraint, then you should quit. If you've determined that you need the money and you can't make a lifestyle change during a rough economy, then shut the hell up and do the job for which you're being paid. (We'll have more on this in a minute.)

#2 - Men who think they can get away with it will often find it difficult to resist the temptation to cheat on their wives. Some men have decency and virtue, but others are pigs. Some women, meanwhile, are skanks who will knowingly sleep with married men. The results don't tend to be pretty. Life goes on. (We'll have more on this in a minute.)

Bright and early, I headed back over to my consignee and checked in with the security guard at Entry Point 13. He told me that I would have to hang around until 6am when the receivers showed up. My appointment was for 6am so I saw no problem with this. A few minutes before 6am, a dude in a car drove up to the gate. The security guard showed him my bills. The guy in the car said that I had to go to Entry Point 9, a mile away. (Chalk one up for wrong directions.)

I hauled ass over to the other entry point and got there at 5:58am. On time, good enough. The security guard over there was all worked up about the fact that there were two purchase orders listed on one page. His department was getting 150 items (on one order) while a different department was getting a single item (on the other order). He made a phone call and then told me that I could head over to the loading dock. The receiver would take the extra item and see to it that it was delivered to the right place. The security guard made an extra copy of the bill of lading so that he would have one for each purchase order, then sent me on my way. I was to get two signatures - one on each copy. Easy enough.

I got settled in at the dock and then watched as a dude on a forklift unloaded some lumber from a flatbed. Once he finished, he drove toward my truck so I got out and handed him the bills. He started swearing up a storm about something. He was half mumbling though and I really didn't care to make an effort to figure out what was his problem, so I hopped back in the truck for a while. After an hour or so, the guy came out and handed the bills to me. "All set?" I asked. He grunted some phrase involving the word "fuck," got back on his forklift, and drove away. What the hell, dude?

As I edged away from the loading dock I heard a metallic sound. I walked to the back of my trailer and took a look. The consignee's dock was just a basic outdoor concrete slab, so they used a portable metal bridge to get in and out of the trailer. That peckerhead had left the bridge sitting across the tailgate of my trailer and it had fallen when I pulled away from the dock. What a dick. It turns out that those metal bridges are pretty heavy. Since I haven't managed to become a completely disgruntled cocksucker just yet (unlike that guy), I wasn't willing to leave the damned thing lying on the ground. I got the pleasure of picking it up and tossing it onto the dock. I would never have known that they weighed so much.

As I started to close the doors to my trailer, I made one more discovery. There was some freight (for the last two stops) in the front of my trailer, restrained by load straps. There was also one box at the rear of the trailer, secured to the side wall by a single nylon strap of its own. No, he didn't, did he? I took a look at the bills. The one for the 150 items had been signed. The other had not. I hopped into the trailer and took a look at the numbers on the box. They matched the purchase order for the single item that had so troubled the security guard. The forklift guy saw me walking toward him, then pulled a quick U-turn on his forklift and drove out of sight. What the hell, dude? Seriously, there's a time when you should just quit your job.

I drove over to the security shack and explained the situation to the guard. I told him that the best thing to do would be for me to take the box out of my trailer and leave it with him. He could then call whichever department was supposed to receive it and someone could drive over and pick it up. The box wasn't too big, after all. He seemed rather content with this arrangement so I hopped in the trailer and grabbed the box. I think it was a window encased in wood or something. In any case, my freight finally had been delivered and I was on my way to Ohio.

I decided to listen to sports radio as I was driving today. There are some excellent games coming up this weekend. Plus the rumors and counter-rumors surrounding my Irish are changing by the minute, so I was flipping around the sports channels to see what was the latest news. Not today, it turned out. All Tiger Woods, all the time. Voicemails and text messages and police reports and other assorted things about which no sane adult should care. I was getting tired and bored so I pulled into a little truck stop and took a long nap. After waking and getting back on the road, I tried the radio again. All Tiger Woods, all the time.

Look people, here's the deal. Tiger Woods is a dork. He has always been a dork and he will always be a dork. He grew up with overbearing parents - dork. He was on the high school golf team - dork. He went to Stanford - dork. He was on the college golf team - dork. He practiced tirelessly while the other kids were doing bong hits and Jell-o shots - dork. Oh, and have you seen what he looks like? - dork. If I had to guess, I would say that he never enjoyed the company of an attractive woman before he turned 25 years old.

Suddenly he became rich and famous and it's not surprising that, at that point, a few lasses were willing to give him some entertainment. Plenty of wealthy men will chase skirts and plenty of hot women will chase wallets. This is a fact of life that pre-dates the current generation of philandering celebrities by several centuries. If it turns out that Tiger can or can't restrict his desires to his gorgeous Swedish wife, then so be it. That's their problem. When this stuff is still in the news next month, ask yourself why. Someone out there is demanding more coverage. That's why. But there's nothing to cover. A horny scumbag cheated on a hot chick who happened to 'fall in love' with a wealthy dork. They got in a fight and he hit a tree. Bummer. Shit happens. Case closed. Let Greta Van Susteren do a forensic analysis on the fire hydrant if she needs to, but get this garbage off the sports stations. Please.

Okay then. I popped a CD in the radio and then finished my drive over to Perrysburg, Ohio. After checking in with my next consignee, I was unloaded within a couple of hours. The drive from Perrysburg to the terminal in Taylor took another hour, after which I dropped my trailer and checked in with the dispatcher. He said that I was #2 on the board so I decided to hang around the terminal and see what would come along next.

After a little while I got an assignment. There was a load due to arrive at the terminal this evening and deliver in Minnesota on Friday afternoon. 708 miles and no reason for me to wait around tonight - beauty. I can take off in the morning, drive until I've had my fill, and then finish off the trip on Friday. So I headed back home and hung around for a while. Nothing really exciting going on this evening but hey, why not get out of the truck when I get the chance?

The miles for the week are starting to creep up toward 2,000 and I have a healthy chunk of layover and stop pay coming, so all in all the work week is going pretty well. Can't say the same for that forklift dude or the Woods family, I'm afraid.

12/1/09

The reason that this morning was nice and easy is the same reason that I wonder why presidential primaries are organized as they are. There are no freaking people in Iowa. That's good for driving, bad for setting the course for the country's politics. After making my drop/hook in Pella, I had to get to I-80 in order to cross Illinois on my way to Indiana. There was no straight route, so I could either go all the way across to Davenport on state highways or I could head straight northward and then come across on the interstate. I only had to cover 400 miles and I had plenty of time, so I figured that the state routes couldn't be too bad. I was correct. Pretty much nothing but fields and farms.

I caught up with I-280 outside Davenport and then got onto I-80 on the other side of the river. Any day when you can get all the way across Illinois with the cruise control engaged is a pretty good day. It was even 4:30pm locally in the Chicago area as I went by. There was some construction traffic once I got into Indiana, but it wasn't too terrible. The rest of the drive through Indiana was on US-6. I seem to remember taking that road before, but I wasn't sure what kind of ride to expect. It turned out to be pretty smooth as well. Only a few towns and not a lot of traffic.

I didn't see any kind of truck stops or anything along US-6, so I decided to drive straight to the consignee and take my chances. The security guard was quick to send me packing, but he did suggest that I could hole up for the night at a vacant store down the street. I thanked him (only half sarcastically) for his help and headed on my way.

Upon turning the corner and seeing the vacant store in question, I also was treated to an unwelcome sight. There was a local cop hanging out in the parking lot. When you're intending to park somewhere that you may or may not belong, you don't usually want to do so in front of an officer of the law. I pulled into the lot, then walked over to him and explained the conversation that I had with the security guard. I asked if it was going to be a problem for me to spend the night and then head back over to the customer at 6am. The cop said that he couldn't give me permission to park in the lot, given that it's private property, but he had seen trucks parked there before. I took his statement under advisement and didn't press the issue any further.

By the time I walked around the building to assess the best way to park my truck, the officer had been kind enough to drive away. Plausible deniability perhaps. I don't know. I got settled in along the side of the building and that was that. Guess I should go to bed now. Back to the damned early morning schedule we go.