Occasionally, things kinda sorta look like those people in Missouri have a plan and know exactly what they're doing. Not always, mind you, but occasionally. When miles are hard to come by and our parent company owns an LTL company and a logistics outfit... So yeah, I got a Menlo load today. How about that. And I got a ConWay load before this one. Yeah, I know. Go figure. Maybe they're starting to get this merger thing sorted out. Or maybe it's just a coincidence. I pulled a few Menlo loads a long time ago and then never saw another one, so I won't put the cart before the horse yet. For now though, it looks like some logical planning is going on.
The satellite gadget woke me around 7:30am. I hopped out of bed and took a look. Grab a trailer from the yard and take it to the Atlanta suburbs for a Tuesday delivery. Ain't that something. We damn near got to a thousand bucks ($997.34) this week after all. The 1,993 miles aren't really going to set the world on fire though. I can't exactly count on $240 in layover pay every week. Georgia is better for freight than North Texas, I think, so here's hoping next week gets off to a quicker start than this week did.
I dropped my empty trailer and hooked my loaded one. Everything checked out okay and the security dude actually had my paperwork this time. Yeah, they're still using Trip Paks in lieu of regular envelopes. No issues today though. Off to the road...
It was a little over sixty degrees when I got to Kansas City yesterday. As I sat there last night the temperature started dropping like a rock. This morning's reading was twenty degrees and a light snow was falling. Pretty tame compared to what they're getting back home. Anyhow, the ground was warmer than the air but the air was well below freezing. So you get the snowfall --> snow melt --> icy glaze situation. I never did lose traction, but the road looked awfully shiny so I had to take it easy this morning. A little further to the east I got onto drier roads and dropped the hammer (kicking it up to a blazing 65mph). My 28,000 pound load is not exactly light, but it's reasonable in the hills. Definitely not heavy enough to cause me any major frustration. Good enough.
This trip is around 820 miles and I have three days' worth of driving to get there. I got into Illinois this afternoon and decided to find a truck stop to check out my internet connection. I have no major interest in any of the playoff teams this year, but I have the time so I figure I might as well watch. Last night, on the edge of a major city (K.C.), my connection was awful. Today, on the edge of a major corn field in the middle of nowhere (Okawville), it's fast as hell. Weird. At the time of this posting, 87% of respondents in this week's highly scientific Godfather Poll have picked the Titans. I think the Ravens will win. 62.5% have picked the Cardinals. I think the Panthers will win. A couple dozen of you have managed to distill my entire life into a simple metaphor. Congratulations.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
1/9/09
A few random thoughts on football: I still think Urban Meyer is a weasel, but if he ever gets around to coaching my Irish he'll probably become a pretty cool guy.
In order to lose 5 BCS games in a row, you have to get to 5 BCS games in a row. Okies might want to keep that in mind before they go jumping off of any bridges.
I'm pretty sure that USC would tear Utah apart, but after seeing all of the bowls I would vote Utah #1 this year. They beat everyone on their schedule, including the team that was #1 until a few weeks earlier. If those lads in South Bend played the same schedule and went undefeated, they would be national champs.
I don't know how Tebow got the Player of the Game award when he didn't even cure cancer during the last timeout. Give it a rest with this guy for at least a little while, please.
Anyhow... I don't know exactly how many times I've delivered in the Denver area, but there have been a handful. I was sitting around last night and recalling a few of the routes that I've taken out of that area. I've picked up in the suburbs and gone across the Rockies and Sierra on my way into the People's Republic. I've picked up right in Denver and taken a wicked heavy load of Pepsi down I-25. I've picked up a heavy load of beer in Fort Collins and dragged that across the Rockies and Cascades into Portland.
After the football game ended last night, I took a look at the weather forecasts for the next few days. Snow to the west, eh? Guess we had better get some sleep and prepare for an early morning beer load going into the mountains. I actually got my next assignment before I went to bed though. Oh yeah, I forgot about that other option...
There was one time that I was empty in Colorado and they sent me to Salina, Kansas to get on the board. After I sat in Kansas for a day, I was sent to our yard in Kansas City to pick up my next load. This time around they just cut out the part about spending a day in Salina. I was dispatched to deadhead the 602 miles to Kansas City and then get back on the board. No Rockies? No heavy load? No snow? $228 for the day's work, for a nice easy drive across I-70? Yeah, I'm sure you can imagine how much this one broke my heart.
After a relaxing ride with hardly any traffic other than that in the immediate K.C. area, I pulled into the yard a little while ago. I sent in my message to get myself back on the board and saw that I was #5. Within an hour I was up to #4 so we'll just have to see what lies ahead. These drop yards are sometimes the places that weekends go to die, but it seems that I've had better luck here than I have in any of the border lots down south.
I've seen the local dudes coming and going with various trailers since I got here, so hopefully there is some kind of freight leaving town tomorrow. At 1,173 miles so far for the week, there's virtually no chance that I'll end up with a large paycheck, but that layover pay from the beginning of the week will definitely help. As long as I can get at least 500 miles or so for the weekend I'll count myself among the fortunate.
In order to lose 5 BCS games in a row, you have to get to 5 BCS games in a row. Okies might want to keep that in mind before they go jumping off of any bridges.
I'm pretty sure that USC would tear Utah apart, but after seeing all of the bowls I would vote Utah #1 this year. They beat everyone on their schedule, including the team that was #1 until a few weeks earlier. If those lads in South Bend played the same schedule and went undefeated, they would be national champs.
I don't know how Tebow got the Player of the Game award when he didn't even cure cancer during the last timeout. Give it a rest with this guy for at least a little while, please.
Anyhow... I don't know exactly how many times I've delivered in the Denver area, but there have been a handful. I was sitting around last night and recalling a few of the routes that I've taken out of that area. I've picked up in the suburbs and gone across the Rockies and Sierra on my way into the People's Republic. I've picked up right in Denver and taken a wicked heavy load of Pepsi down I-25. I've picked up a heavy load of beer in Fort Collins and dragged that across the Rockies and Cascades into Portland.
After the football game ended last night, I took a look at the weather forecasts for the next few days. Snow to the west, eh? Guess we had better get some sleep and prepare for an early morning beer load going into the mountains. I actually got my next assignment before I went to bed though. Oh yeah, I forgot about that other option...
There was one time that I was empty in Colorado and they sent me to Salina, Kansas to get on the board. After I sat in Kansas for a day, I was sent to our yard in Kansas City to pick up my next load. This time around they just cut out the part about spending a day in Salina. I was dispatched to deadhead the 602 miles to Kansas City and then get back on the board. No Rockies? No heavy load? No snow? $228 for the day's work, for a nice easy drive across I-70? Yeah, I'm sure you can imagine how much this one broke my heart.
After a relaxing ride with hardly any traffic other than that in the immediate K.C. area, I pulled into the yard a little while ago. I sent in my message to get myself back on the board and saw that I was #5. Within an hour I was up to #4 so we'll just have to see what lies ahead. These drop yards are sometimes the places that weekends go to die, but it seems that I've had better luck here than I have in any of the border lots down south.
I've seen the local dudes coming and going with various trailers since I got here, so hopefully there is some kind of freight leaving town tomorrow. At 1,173 miles so far for the week, there's virtually no chance that I'll end up with a large paycheck, but that layover pay from the beginning of the week will definitely help. As long as I can get at least 500 miles or so for the weekend I'll count myself among the fortunate.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
1/8/09
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
1/7/09
I used to have a cooler in my truck. I would stop and grab some cold cuts and iced tea and stuff like that whenever I had a chance, trying to spend wisely on food and such. People had told me that you have to buy food from WalMart or you'll go broke buying it at truck stops. With food in the cooler, I found that I tended to eat whenever I was bored. Let's face it - I'm bored all the damn time out here. So the cooler was tossed and I began stopping for food, usually at truck stops, whenever I was hungry. This seems to be a more effective approach for me. Things might be slightly more expensive but it's really not that noticeable. I wasn't exactly a thrift store shopper back home anyway. The chances are pretty good that I still spend less than I used to spend.
That 'no cooler, no food' thing bites me in the ass every once in a while. I awoke this morning and found that I was still #2 on the board. The chick who delivered before I did yesterday was still parked nearby. A junior gumshoe might then deduce that she was #1 on the board at the time. In any event I was damn hungry by the time this morning rolled around. Not my usual I'm a fat guy and I want a cheeseburger hungry. Oh no, this time was for real. I sat around all morning thinking that I should be given an assignment at any minute. Then (I thought), once I knew which way I was heading, I could stop for some food. By 11am, that assignment still hadn't come. Guessing game time; Should I go east or west? A brother's gotta eat at some point. I chose east, thinking that there was a better chance of my next load coming from that direction.
It turns out that the east vs. west drama never panned out. As soon as I went down the highway a few miles I saw a restaurant with truck parking. It was one of those places that the locals would probably swear to you is great. In point of fact the food was the same generic stuff that they serve at every greasy spoon. That was good enough for me though. Starvation avoided.
Back to the waiting game... I drove back over to the gravel parking area where I spent the night. After a couple of hours I still hadn't received an assignment and I was still #2 on the board. Well isn't that just special? By this time I was getting to be in need of something to drink and, more importantly, what they refer to in these parts as el baño. I'll piss in the trees with the best of them, but eat a greasy breakfast and, well, you know, it gets a little more complicated. Gotta find a potty.
Back to the east we went. Hey, what do you know? It turns out that there's a gas station with a diesel island in that little town as well. I did my business and loaded up on beverages. I grabbed some SubWay for later while I was at it, since my confidence in the freight situation was teetering around zero today. Might as well be prepared this time around. Back over to the good old gravel parking area...
I sat a while longer and started to wonder why they couldn't at least set me up with a ConWay relay or something to get me moving. Then my phone rang. "Joseph, do you know you have a load assignment?" asked the young lady. Nope. My truck was shut off so the Qualcomm thing was in some kind of power saving mode. I never got the message. In a business where it's best to have the truck shut off whenever possible, I consider this to be a design flaw, but I digress. She gave me the rundown on the ConWay relay to which I was being assigned and said that she needed to get me dispatched in order to process my layover pay. Good lookin' out, my sister.
After I turned the truck on, everything came through and I was dispatched to make a relay tomorrow at noon in Amarillo. (Glad I never actually got a chance to head east.) My layover pay notification followed closely behind. If we take the rules verbatim and do a thorough calculation of how soon I could legally have arrived at my consignee, I was owed $240 by this afternoon. The afternoon of the 2nd (legal arrival time) to this afternoon was five days of down time, with one day free, so 4 x $60 = $240. I'm not entirely sure what the information looks like on the other end, so I was pleased to see that $240 was paid today without me having to explain anything. Good lookin' out, my sister.
When I rolled into the Pilot in Amarillo this afternoon, I can't say that I was surprised to find the parking lot pretty damn full. Just something about this town. I got a spot way in the back though, so here I await tomorrow's run. I have to take it up to the ConWay yard outside Denver and then pray for a parking space at one of the local truck stops. We're still the bastard stepchildren of the ConWay 'family' apparently, as my directions to the yard specify that we're not allowed to park there. Tomorrow's run is 420-something miles, today's deadhead was 144 miles, and the $240 in layover pay covers a little more ground. All hope is not lost for this week just yet.
I've spent the last few nights in some pretty damn rustic environs. My internet connection speed has been exceptional in each of them. Now tonight I'm in a place that almost seems similar to an actual city. The freaking thing is working like one of those old 2400 baud modem connections to Prodigy or Compuserve. Weird.
That 'no cooler, no food' thing bites me in the ass every once in a while. I awoke this morning and found that I was still #2 on the board. The chick who delivered before I did yesterday was still parked nearby. A junior gumshoe might then deduce that she was #1 on the board at the time. In any event I was damn hungry by the time this morning rolled around. Not my usual I'm a fat guy and I want a cheeseburger hungry. Oh no, this time was for real. I sat around all morning thinking that I should be given an assignment at any minute. Then (I thought), once I knew which way I was heading, I could stop for some food. By 11am, that assignment still hadn't come. Guessing game time; Should I go east or west? A brother's gotta eat at some point. I chose east, thinking that there was a better chance of my next load coming from that direction.
It turns out that the east vs. west drama never panned out. As soon as I went down the highway a few miles I saw a restaurant with truck parking. It was one of those places that the locals would probably swear to you is great. In point of fact the food was the same generic stuff that they serve at every greasy spoon. That was good enough for me though. Starvation avoided.
Back to the waiting game... I drove back over to the gravel parking area where I spent the night. After a couple of hours I still hadn't received an assignment and I was still #2 on the board. Well isn't that just special? By this time I was getting to be in need of something to drink and, more importantly, what they refer to in these parts as el baño. I'll piss in the trees with the best of them, but eat a greasy breakfast and, well, you know, it gets a little more complicated. Gotta find a potty.
Back to the east we went. Hey, what do you know? It turns out that there's a gas station with a diesel island in that little town as well. I did my business and loaded up on beverages. I grabbed some SubWay for later while I was at it, since my confidence in the freight situation was teetering around zero today. Might as well be prepared this time around. Back over to the good old gravel parking area...
I sat a while longer and started to wonder why they couldn't at least set me up with a ConWay relay or something to get me moving. Then my phone rang. "Joseph, do you know you have a load assignment?" asked the young lady. Nope. My truck was shut off so the Qualcomm thing was in some kind of power saving mode. I never got the message. In a business where it's best to have the truck shut off whenever possible, I consider this to be a design flaw, but I digress. She gave me the rundown on the ConWay relay to which I was being assigned and said that she needed to get me dispatched in order to process my layover pay. Good lookin' out, my sister.
After I turned the truck on, everything came through and I was dispatched to make a relay tomorrow at noon in Amarillo. (Glad I never actually got a chance to head east.) My layover pay notification followed closely behind. If we take the rules verbatim and do a thorough calculation of how soon I could legally have arrived at my consignee, I was owed $240 by this afternoon. The afternoon of the 2nd (legal arrival time) to this afternoon was five days of down time, with one day free, so 4 x $60 = $240. I'm not entirely sure what the information looks like on the other end, so I was pleased to see that $240 was paid today without me having to explain anything. Good lookin' out, my sister.
When I rolled into the Pilot in Amarillo this afternoon, I can't say that I was surprised to find the parking lot pretty damn full. Just something about this town. I got a spot way in the back though, so here I await tomorrow's run. I have to take it up to the ConWay yard outside Denver and then pray for a parking space at one of the local truck stops. We're still the bastard stepchildren of the ConWay 'family' apparently, as my directions to the yard specify that we're not allowed to park there. Tomorrow's run is 420-something miles, today's deadhead was 144 miles, and the $240 in layover pay covers a little more ground. All hope is not lost for this week just yet.
I've spent the last few nights in some pretty damn rustic environs. My internet connection speed has been exceptional in each of them. Now tonight I'm in a place that almost seems similar to an actual city. The freaking thing is working like one of those old 2400 baud modem connections to Prodigy or Compuserve. Weird.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
1/6/09
After sleeping until noon-ish for the past several days, I actually had to get up and go this morning. You know what happens when you drive in the morning? The damn sun gets in your eyes. That sucks. My route today was such that my mirrors were basically rendered useless. Any time I thought I would check either of them I got a dose of solar radiation to the retina. Luckily it was an easy drive and there wasn't any lane changing involved.
I checked in with the security fella at the consignee. He was exceedingly pleasant, so I couldn't get too distressed when he told me that there were two trucks ahead of me and only one loading dock. After a couple of hours my turn had come and gone and I found myself on the board at #3. Yeah, two trucks ahead of me, I should have guessed. Out in the boondocks with zero miles so far this week and #3 on the board. By golly, I would have to say that this was less than ideal. There was a parking area across the street from my consignee, so I headed over there and put my feet up for a while.
And my feet stayed up for a while... No big surprise there, I suppose. And my feet remain up. That part does surprise me a little. I thought that, at the very least, I would get an assignment for something to pick up tomorrow. Alas, I've only made it to #2 on the board. Another $60 will get tacked onto my layover pay. I guess that's better than nothing. Gotta find the positives where we can these days.
The truck stop where I spent last night is 52 miles away from here. That's pretty far. My directory lists another small one 35 or 40 miles to the northwest of here. That's pretty far too. So I've spent the glorious day in a gravel lot in the middle of nowhere. And here I am with no chocolate animal crackers. I guess being fat pays off sometimes. I suspect that I'll survive until tomorrow.
I checked in with the security fella at the consignee. He was exceedingly pleasant, so I couldn't get too distressed when he told me that there were two trucks ahead of me and only one loading dock. After a couple of hours my turn had come and gone and I found myself on the board at #3. Yeah, two trucks ahead of me, I should have guessed. Out in the boondocks with zero miles so far this week and #3 on the board. By golly, I would have to say that this was less than ideal. There was a parking area across the street from my consignee, so I headed over there and put my feet up for a while.
And my feet stayed up for a while... No big surprise there, I suppose. And my feet remain up. That part does surprise me a little. I thought that, at the very least, I would get an assignment for something to pick up tomorrow. Alas, I've only made it to #2 on the board. Another $60 will get tacked onto my layover pay. I guess that's better than nothing. Gotta find the positives where we can these days.
The truck stop where I spent last night is 52 miles away from here. That's pretty far. My directory lists another small one 35 or 40 miles to the northwest of here. That's pretty far too. So I've spent the glorious day in a gravel lot in the middle of nowhere. And here I am with no chocolate animal crackers. I guess being fat pays off sometimes. I suspect that I'll survive until tomorrow.
Monday, January 5, 2009
1/5/09
A series of thoughts beginning at 6am:
What is that noise?
Just go back to sleep.
What the hell is that noise?
I'm sure it will stop soon.
Are there mice trying to scratch their way into my truck?
What the hell is that?
What is that noise?
Just go back to sleep.
What the hell is that noise?
I'm sure it will stop soon.
Are there mice trying to scratch their way into my truck?
What the hell is that?
Then I got up and looked. Freezing rain hitting the truck. That's nice. It did stop eventually and I got back to sleep. By the time I got up and rolling, several hours later, the ground was dry and there was no sign of anything frozen. An hour and a half after that, the day was done. There is a truck stop outside the lovely little hamlet of Harrold, Texas. This is a little closer than I thought I could get today. I'll have forty or fifty miles left in the morning. Good enough.
It only looks like I'm out in the sticks to the untrained eye, or something. I'm really in a booming metropolis, or something. In any case, I am getting over 1,300 kb/s on the download speed from my Sprint connection. Surprise, surprise. This is plenty of speed to allow me to watch tonight's Fiesta Bowl. I had been generally expecting a blowout win for Texas, but the Big XII's performances in bowls so far have given me even more pause than the Big Eleven's performances. Maybe they really don't play defense out here after all. I don't know.
So I had to agree with the poll voters this time around and replace my old fiancee with the lovely Ms. Julianne Hough. Then it turns out that she's dating some dude and rumors of an impending marriage are swirling around. Looks like my recent engagement might be short-lived. So what do you do then, in this kind of situation? You might think about looking online for a girlfriend, right? But you would be misled badly if you fell for an ad like this one, I can assure you...
It only looks like I'm out in the sticks to the untrained eye, or something. I'm really in a booming metropolis, or something. In any case, I am getting over 1,300 kb/s on the download speed from my Sprint connection. Surprise, surprise. This is plenty of speed to allow me to watch tonight's Fiesta Bowl. I had been generally expecting a blowout win for Texas, but the Big XII's performances in bowls so far have given me even more pause than the Big Eleven's performances. Maybe they really don't play defense out here after all. I don't know.
So I had to agree with the poll voters this time around and replace my old fiancee with the lovely Ms. Julianne Hough. Then it turns out that she's dating some dude and rumors of an impending marriage are swirling around. Looks like my recent engagement might be short-lived. So what do you do then, in this kind of situation? You might think about looking online for a girlfriend, right? But you would be misled badly if you fell for an ad like this one, I can assure you...
Those in the legal community don't seem to be taking me seriously at the moment, but there is no place in our society for such flagrant false advertising. Somebody needs to pay for this.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
1/4/09
Well, it was supposed to be about a 200 mile day. I was targeting the service plaza on I-44 outside Chickasha. When I got there, I found what was probably plenty of available parking. I didn't like the look of it though. There were these weird curved lines seeming to denote four lanes. What if you got parked in one of the inner lanes and people were behind and in front of you? That was strange. I'm sure that I would have been fine but I didn't like it, so I moved on down the road a few miles.
I tried the Valero off the next exit. There was about 95% of a parking space open. The trucks who were parked there were spaced much farther apart than they needed to be, so the one potential spot had been squeezed. I could have gotten in there. In fact, I did get in there. The only catch was that the trucks on either side of me would have had to take off my mirrors in order to leave. So I moved on down the road a few miles.
There was a picnic area along the side of the road. I suppose that would have done in a pinch, but I wanted access to restrooms and food and beverages and such. So I moved on down the road a few miles.
The Love's in Lawton was my next opportunity. You know the deal here. Sure, there were spots open - the spots that nobody else wanted. I got to pull into the fuel island and then make a serpentine move around the corner and into a blindside spot. Good enough. Hey, I'm a professional, right? Eh, not really, but I manage to play the part most of the time.
As a result of the parking hijinx, I drove a little further than anticipated today. That sounds pretty silly when I only covered 250 miles, but now I have 125 miles left to cover tomorrow. In point of fact, it doesn't look like there are any truck stops near my consignee so I may end up driving even less than that. My delivery appointment is for 10am on Tuesday so I might wind up running the last 80 miles or so on Tuesday morning, unless I find some better option.
Just because I know it will give my anonymous Keynesian comrade a chuckle, it looks like the hopenchange might have to wait a month or two, but the "conservative" leadership seems to be warming to the idea of spending another trillion bucks or so. Awesome. I'm still holding out for the trucking industry buyout and mandatory $90K salaries though. It's gotta come sooner or later.
And because I know that it will give that guy out in the People's Republic a chuckle, stay classy Rey Rey... (Okay, so I laughed a little. The lovely Ms. Andrews seemed to find him amusing.)
I tried the Valero off the next exit. There was about 95% of a parking space open. The trucks who were parked there were spaced much farther apart than they needed to be, so the one potential spot had been squeezed. I could have gotten in there. In fact, I did get in there. The only catch was that the trucks on either side of me would have had to take off my mirrors in order to leave. So I moved on down the road a few miles.
There was a picnic area along the side of the road. I suppose that would have done in a pinch, but I wanted access to restrooms and food and beverages and such. So I moved on down the road a few miles.
The Love's in Lawton was my next opportunity. You know the deal here. Sure, there were spots open - the spots that nobody else wanted. I got to pull into the fuel island and then make a serpentine move around the corner and into a blindside spot. Good enough. Hey, I'm a professional, right? Eh, not really, but I manage to play the part most of the time.
As a result of the parking hijinx, I drove a little further than anticipated today. That sounds pretty silly when I only covered 250 miles, but now I have 125 miles left to cover tomorrow. In point of fact, it doesn't look like there are any truck stops near my consignee so I may end up driving even less than that. My delivery appointment is for 10am on Tuesday so I might wind up running the last 80 miles or so on Tuesday morning, unless I find some better option.
Just because I know it will give my anonymous Keynesian comrade a chuckle, it looks like the hopenchange might have to wait a month or two, but the "conservative" leadership seems to be warming to the idea of spending another trillion bucks or so. Awesome. I'm still holding out for the trucking industry buyout and mandatory $90K salaries though. It's gotta come sooner or later.
And because I know that it will give that guy out in the People's Republic a chuckle, stay classy Rey Rey... (Okay, so I laughed a little. The lovely Ms. Andrews seemed to find him amusing.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)