2/2/09

Ahh yes, one of those kinda days. When I got up this morning and checked in with my first shipper, they said that they were running about an hour behind on account of a power failure. I can't say that I was terribly disappointed there, as an extra hour of sleep sounded fine with me. It was a late drive out there from Taylor after the game last night. There were far fewer parked cars on the lot when I finally did back in, compared to my last time at that shipper, so maneuvering wasn't too difficult this morning. At least I was off to a decent start today.

I got a few pallets of stuff there and then headed down to Lafayette for my second pickup. They didn't have their shit together today either. Some freight was ready but was missing paperwork. Some paperwork was ready but was missing freight. Long story short... another lengthy nap.

Okay now, on to Frankfort for the third pickup. Umm, maybe? The guy there said that he didn't have any shipments for me. There was a box of something with a packing list on it. The address on the packing list was the address to which I was delivering. Probably my freight, right? Not according to homeboy in the shipping office. I called Joplin and told them what was going on. Shortly thereafter, I received a message instructing me to proceed to my consignee in Anderson. Good enough for me. Whatever dude.

That drive across to Anderson was every bit the pain in the ass that I remembered it to be. I got there and checked in with the receiving guy. Go to this door... that door's occupied... no, go to that one... hang on, over there. While I was dicking around with that situation, I received a message saying that I was on the late board. I double checked to make sure that I had sent my forms on time. Yep. Whatever dude.

Once I was empty, I got my next assignment for the load heading to Laredo. I had just enough time to get to the shipper within today's 14 hour clock and they had overnight parking, so I headed back out to the road. Ten minutes later I got a call from the Taylor terminal, asking if I picked up in Frankfort. I explained to the dispatcher that I was at the shipper in Frankfort, I was told that they had no freight, and I was instructed to make my delivery in Anderson. "Yes or no, did you pick up any freight in Frankfort?" Uh, no. "Okay." Whatever dude.

I got down to the shipper in Madison and found a nice little hockey rink in front of the loading docks. Backing in to a tight spot when it's almost impossible to move backward... that's pretty fun. I'm sure they'll tell me to go somewhere else when I check in tomorrow, but this will do for now. Long day. Most of the driving was on two-lane roads, so I think I'll be glad to hit the interstates for a while tomorrow. If I keep the pedal down I should be able to make Laredo in two long shifts from here.

I found that my Sprint connection has no connectivity here and I had some things to do online tonight. That's unfortunate. After screwing around with my cell phone for a while, I figured out how to set it up as a bluetooth modem. The process of using the phone's browser to find a WAP website that showed how to set up the PC connection was a pretty tedious process, but I got 'er done by golly. I guess something good came from this day after all. I'll be damned. The connection is a little slower than my usual speed with my Sprint card but it's good enough. AT&T seems to have service in some areas where Sprint doesn't, so now I have a fallback option.