Sunny skies, wide open spaces, and cruise control will make for a pretty good day in my vocation. That's exactly what I got today. My relay showed up at the truck stop around a half hour ahead of schedule. I was hooked up and rolling in short order and the drive was about as good as they get. I ran up U.S. highways from Amarillo to Limon and then took I-70 over to Denver.
I got the red light on my PrePass at the scale in Limon. It seems to me that I get almost nothing but green lights for most of the year and then I get the occasional red light in the winter. Maybe a bunch of our drivers crash their trucks in the winter and drag down our safety rating or something. I don't know. In any case, I rolled across the scales and then got the message to park and come inside.
Once I was inside, the cop fella asked for various registrations and permits and so forth. As I grabbed the stuff from my little envelope, I saw something troubling... They teach you in truck driving school how to do a pre-trip inspection, right? Well, during my orientation week at Crowder College they went through it with us again. They included one thing that the CDL schools didn't mention. Check to see that your truck has an IFTA sticker on each side. Yeah, that little part of the inspection apparently got lost in the shuffle of my daily routine. My 2009 IFTA stickers were still in the envelope with my 2009 permits. You could then conclude that they were not on my truck. Had I not been called into that inspection station, I'm not sure how long it would have been until I noticed. I fully expected to get a ticket, but the guy typed a few things into a computer and then handed back my stuff and said that I was all set. Beauty.
I got to the ConWay yard in Henderson and made a quick drop/hook. They told me to drop out in a given corner of the yard and that the empties were in the same area. That was nice and convenient. I stuck the IFTA stickers on my truck while they were on my mind as well.
Clearly it would be too bothersome for my employer to allow its (non-LTL) employees to park a bobtail in the gigantinormous ConWay yard for the night and drag out an empty trailer in the morning. Therefore I had to drag my empty out tonight and find somewhere to park. The T/A and Sapp Brothers in Commerce City were looking pretty damn full when I came up I-270 on my way to the drop. Notwithstanding the fact that I once had a rather entertaining evening with someone who works at that T/A, I didn't think that it would make any sense to drive all the way over there and find that I had nowhere to park. I headed east on I-76 instead and found a spot at the truck stop by the airport. The drive over here wasn't any kind of major hardship for me, but I still say that it's a screwjob to make us deliver to our own damn company at night and not allow us to park there.
I saw a bunch of CTL trucks while I was at the ConWay terminal, but I'm #1 on the board right now. I don't know exactly what that means but I won't complain. Maybe they were already assigned to work or maybe they just hadn't sent in their empty calls yet. All I know is that I need to get a few miles on the books for this weekend one way or another.
I have nice fast internet access again so I think I'll kick back and enjoy this second half. My hunch is that we're going to see one of these offenses just blow the doors off the other team. Which offense though? I have no clue. Should be fun.
J what site do you watch the game on through net? Keep safe man.
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The usual routine is to see what kind of feed they link at channelsurfing.net. Lately they have been linking some garbage feeds though. Their NFL streams tend to be pretty good.
ReplyDeleteNext would be a visit to justin.tv. I think people have been harassing the members there about copyrights though, because their highest quality streamers seem to have gone dormant.
Then we get to the p2p method. The sports section of myp2p.eu has links to all kinds of stuff. Those streamers use various software platforms (Sopcast, TVU, TVAnts, UUSee, PPStream, etc.). If you can manage to download the right software from non-English websites and then find the right sources for the stream, that site is useful.
Between the three approaches above, you can usually manage to see just about any live sporting event that's worth watching.
(If anything listed above is illegal wherever you are, the author of this comment will not be held responsible.)
How was the cavity search at the scales at Limon..?
ReplyDeleteThat guy actually wasn't very thorough at all. He said, "I need your registration, IFTA form, and anything related to Colorado." I handed him my license and three pieces of paper and that was that. We have some kind of hazmat form for Colorado, but I don't haul hazmat so I've never read what the form says.
ReplyDeleteThey probably just stopped me to check on the IFTA since I didn't have my stickers on, but he never mentioned anything to me about it.
Colorado scales pull you in every year the first time you cross. They also pull you in with a new truck and then when that truck has it's permanent license. CFI recycled their plates so that was fun the first time. You should be good to go the rest of the year.
ReplyDeleteI see. Well, let's hope I'm not in Colorado for the rest of the year anyway. Wouldn't bother me any.
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