Going through the motions... I guess that's the usual routine for me, but now we're getting closer to a trip home so it all just seems like the tedious countdown. It was the standard Louisiana to Laredo routine today. Up in the morning, inspect the truck. Ho hum. Get through Houston and stop for lunch. Ho hum. Cruise down US-59 and pull into the inspection bay. Ho hum. Drop my trailer on the repair line so that a clearance light can be replaced. Ho hum. Grab a tail light from the parts room and replace the bad one on my truck. Ho hum. Check in with the dispatcher to get on the board. Ho hum.
The whole day was like one long sleepwalking episode. I don't remember any part of it distinctly, but here I am in Laredo. I was #74 on the board when I got here. I'm up to #66 now. Since I'm on the list to go home, I guess there's a chance that I'll get out of here tomorrow. There seem to be quite a few trailers on the yard this time around. Hopefully a lot of them are loaded and heading north. The week wraps up with 1,923 miles plus the $25 for the local run. That's the second $750 week in the last month or so. Ho hum.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
1/16/09
Back in CDL school, we would go out for road trips around the streets of Detroit. The first few trips took us along fairly easy routes on the south end of town and then later trips were along more challenging routes. One day I was rolling along and a man stepped out from between two parked vans, right in front of me. I had been watching my mirrors as I was taught to do, so I knew that I could move to my left without hitting anyone. I moved over and drove past the careless fella and then got back in my lane. So I didn't kill the guy. The instructor was a grizzled old former driver who proceeded to lecture me about the nature of 'preventable' vs. 'non-preventable' accidents in this line of work. Moving over and sideswiping someone was more likely to be considered preventable than hitting someone who stepped in front of me at the last second. He was sure to include the obligatory line about not wanting to hurt anyone, but essentially he told me that the safest move with respect to my career would have been to step on the brakes and hope that the guy got out of the way. Interesting.
After sleeping with no alarm clock and then getting on the road a little late this morning, I had been making pretty good time out of Florida, through Alabama and Mississippi, and into Louisiana. I reached the point where I-10 continues westward and I-110 veers off into Baton Rouge. A jackass in a Mustang swerved out of the left lane at a high rate of speed. Listen to the old instructor and let him hit slam into my drive tires or move right and hope that I don't hit the car hanging around my rear bumper? One option was a certain wreck that would definitely not be my fault but probably kill the driver on my left. The other option was one that I was pretty sure wouldn't be a wreck, but if there was a wreck it would be my fault. Half a second (or probably less) to decide, no time to weigh the options. I trusted my instinct that the car on my right wasn't next to me yet and I moved over. No accident. That's good.
So now I was on I-110 going into Baton Rouge when I needed to be on I-10 going toward Lafayette. Asshole. I decided to take the next exit and flip myself back southbound, so that I could catch I-10 and continue on my way. Bad call. I failed to consider the fact that I was still close to the interchanges and the river and all the rest of that nonsense, so the return route wasn't nearly as simple as I thought it would be. I don't recall the exact route that I took, as I was watching for wide streets rather than street signs at that point. After a few turns onto streets that appeared wide enough to suit my needs, I managed to find my way onto I-10... eastbound. The next exit had a 'No Trucks' sign. The one after that was a two part deal. I assumed that the second one would allow me to get back to the other side of the road so I took it. I would just have to hope that there was an on-ramp for me to use over there. That one worked out just fine and I was back on my way to the west.
I got to the truck stop in Duson before deciding to call it a night. I should have no trouble reaching Laredo in one shot from here tomorrow. Beauty.
After sleeping with no alarm clock and then getting on the road a little late this morning, I had been making pretty good time out of Florida, through Alabama and Mississippi, and into Louisiana. I reached the point where I-10 continues westward and I-110 veers off into Baton Rouge. A jackass in a Mustang swerved out of the left lane at a high rate of speed. Listen to the old instructor and let him hit slam into my drive tires or move right and hope that I don't hit the car hanging around my rear bumper? One option was a certain wreck that would definitely not be my fault but probably kill the driver on my left. The other option was one that I was pretty sure wouldn't be a wreck, but if there was a wreck it would be my fault. Half a second (or probably less) to decide, no time to weigh the options. I trusted my instinct that the car on my right wasn't next to me yet and I moved over. No accident. That's good.
So now I was on I-110 going into Baton Rouge when I needed to be on I-10 going toward Lafayette. Asshole. I decided to take the next exit and flip myself back southbound, so that I could catch I-10 and continue on my way. Bad call. I failed to consider the fact that I was still close to the interchanges and the river and all the rest of that nonsense, so the return route wasn't nearly as simple as I thought it would be. I don't recall the exact route that I took, as I was watching for wide streets rather than street signs at that point. After a few turns onto streets that appeared wide enough to suit my needs, I managed to find my way onto I-10... eastbound. The next exit had a 'No Trucks' sign. The one after that was a two part deal. I assumed that the second one would allow me to get back to the other side of the road so I took it. I would just have to hope that there was an on-ramp for me to use over there. That one worked out just fine and I was back on my way to the west.
I got to the truck stop in Duson before deciding to call it a night. I should have no trouble reaching Laredo in one shot from here tomorrow. Beauty.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
1/15/09
I forgot to shut off my phone when I went to bed last night. A friend of mine decided to send me a text message on her way to work this morning. The text said, "Ready to come home yet?" The image...
That took some of the sting away from being awakened at 5am again. The temperature only got down into the high 40's in Orlando last night. 60's today. I was able to sleep peacefully through the night with my engine turned off.
Since I was awake after receiving the text message, I called the 800 line to check on my board status. I was up to #2 at the time. Then I went back to bed. The next time I woke was around 8:30am. I called again. I had a message pending and was assigned to a load. That power saving mode on the Qualcomm is a definite liability then. What if I had needed to be somewhere before 8:30am and I had remembered to shut off my phone last night? The satellite messages never came through and nobody could have reached me by phone. Yeah, major design flaw in my book.
I turned on the truck and waited for the messages to come through. I was assigned to make a drop/hook in Lakeland and haul the load to Daytona Beach. Eh? A 55 mile deadhead and a 109 mile run? Oy. A couple of seconds later I got another plan summary. This one had the same Lakeland-to-Daytona run with another one stacked behind it. Okay then. That's better.
My dispatch said that I had to arrive at the shipper by 10:30am. I was to deliver at 10pm. I was to pick up the next load by midnight. Bounce those times around in your head for a minute. Yeah, exactly. I could have called to see if I could make the pickup later, since it was a pre-loaded trailer. This would have pushed today's 14-hour clock well past midnight and probably made everything work out fine. This also would have sucked ass, since I slept well last night. I had no desire to sit around all day and then end up with an overnighter out of Florida. I headed down and made the drop/hook as scheduled, thinking that I would just go to the consignee and see what happened.
Once I had my loaded trailer, I got my dispatch to Daytona Beach. The dispatch included the number of an empty trailer that I was to retrieve, meaning that the delivery was also a drop/hook. Beauty. Since the consignee was a retail store, I had assumed that it would be a live unload. With a drop/hook I might have a better shot at getting rid of it early. I pulled into the lot and saw the empty that I was told to take. That was a good sign. Upon checking in with a guy in the receiving area, I was told that they presently didn't have an open dock for me to make my drop. The trailers at the docks were all full. I would have to check back tonight. Damn. Might end up with that 'suck ass' schedule after all.
The guy was very friendly and told me that it would be no problem to stay parked behind the store until tonight. He pointed out a couple of local restaurants within walking distance. There was also a WalMart next door, so I was able to grab a few supplies and make my break enjoyable enough.
As I walked around though, something stood out to me. People don't make eye contact anymore. I don't mean the usual level of social indifference. That doesn't seem odd to me in the least. I'm perfectly content to be left alone and I don't really concern myself with what other people are doing. What stood out to me is that people seem to make a conscious effort to avoid looking another person in the eye and saying, "Hello." It's not that they don't notice you. It's that they do notice you and seem to wish that they hadn't. It's like somehow everyone has been defeated at some unknown game. The clerks at the store, the passersby on the sidewalk, the vendors pulling into the parking lot. Virtually every person that I passed today made a real effort not to acknowledge the proximity of another human. It struck me that we, as a society, have been gradually conditioned to be cowards, afraid of even a customary greeting or a polite nod. 'Pathetic' was the word that came to mind at the time. Then I started to drift into my own silent lamentations about the 'how' and 'why' of the things that are going on in the country these days. A bunch of people who are afraid to look each other in the eye seemed quite fitting to me.
Then again, an old employee of mine once told me that I looked mean (as I was counseling her to do her freaking job). There was a girl living with me at the time, so I went home and asked her about it. "Oh, hell yeah you do!... oh... I mean... you can be very intimidating... until someone gets to know you." I appreciated her honesty, but I could have done without the enthusiasm. Maybe she was right though. Maybe I'm just the problem and people are all happy to acknowledge one another when I'm not around. I don't know. Whatever. I still say it's pathetic.
I picked up some blank DVD's while I was at WalMart. This gave me a chance to get some movies onto discs and clean up my hard drive a little. It also killed some time for me. Finding ways to kill the down time seems to be my biggest challenge on the road. After wasting a few more hours, I checked back in and made my drop/hook.
I was out of Daytona Beach early enough to get up to the paper plant in Palatka and make another drop/hook, then move up the road a little ways before shutting down for the night. Four trailers in one day. Hmm, that's something. This load will take me to Laredo, well below the wicked cold weather. Beauty. My dispatch says that I'm due by Sunday morning, but I'm going to try and knock it out in two shots and get there Saturday night. I need to get home by next weekend. I would prefer to get my request placed as soon as possible. I usually tend to get home swiftly from Laredo but these days it's best to leave some margin for error.
That took some of the sting away from being awakened at 5am again. The temperature only got down into the high 40's in Orlando last night. 60's today. I was able to sleep peacefully through the night with my engine turned off.
Since I was awake after receiving the text message, I called the 800 line to check on my board status. I was up to #2 at the time. Then I went back to bed. The next time I woke was around 8:30am. I called again. I had a message pending and was assigned to a load. That power saving mode on the Qualcomm is a definite liability then. What if I had needed to be somewhere before 8:30am and I had remembered to shut off my phone last night? The satellite messages never came through and nobody could have reached me by phone. Yeah, major design flaw in my book.
I turned on the truck and waited for the messages to come through. I was assigned to make a drop/hook in Lakeland and haul the load to Daytona Beach. Eh? A 55 mile deadhead and a 109 mile run? Oy. A couple of seconds later I got another plan summary. This one had the same Lakeland-to-Daytona run with another one stacked behind it. Okay then. That's better.
My dispatch said that I had to arrive at the shipper by 10:30am. I was to deliver at 10pm. I was to pick up the next load by midnight. Bounce those times around in your head for a minute. Yeah, exactly. I could have called to see if I could make the pickup later, since it was a pre-loaded trailer. This would have pushed today's 14-hour clock well past midnight and probably made everything work out fine. This also would have sucked ass, since I slept well last night. I had no desire to sit around all day and then end up with an overnighter out of Florida. I headed down and made the drop/hook as scheduled, thinking that I would just go to the consignee and see what happened.
Once I had my loaded trailer, I got my dispatch to Daytona Beach. The dispatch included the number of an empty trailer that I was to retrieve, meaning that the delivery was also a drop/hook. Beauty. Since the consignee was a retail store, I had assumed that it would be a live unload. With a drop/hook I might have a better shot at getting rid of it early. I pulled into the lot and saw the empty that I was told to take. That was a good sign. Upon checking in with a guy in the receiving area, I was told that they presently didn't have an open dock for me to make my drop. The trailers at the docks were all full. I would have to check back tonight. Damn. Might end up with that 'suck ass' schedule after all.
The guy was very friendly and told me that it would be no problem to stay parked behind the store until tonight. He pointed out a couple of local restaurants within walking distance. There was also a WalMart next door, so I was able to grab a few supplies and make my break enjoyable enough.
As I walked around though, something stood out to me. People don't make eye contact anymore. I don't mean the usual level of social indifference. That doesn't seem odd to me in the least. I'm perfectly content to be left alone and I don't really concern myself with what other people are doing. What stood out to me is that people seem to make a conscious effort to avoid looking another person in the eye and saying, "Hello." It's not that they don't notice you. It's that they do notice you and seem to wish that they hadn't. It's like somehow everyone has been defeated at some unknown game. The clerks at the store, the passersby on the sidewalk, the vendors pulling into the parking lot. Virtually every person that I passed today made a real effort not to acknowledge the proximity of another human. It struck me that we, as a society, have been gradually conditioned to be cowards, afraid of even a customary greeting or a polite nod. 'Pathetic' was the word that came to mind at the time. Then I started to drift into my own silent lamentations about the 'how' and 'why' of the things that are going on in the country these days. A bunch of people who are afraid to look each other in the eye seemed quite fitting to me.
Then again, an old employee of mine once told me that I looked mean (as I was counseling her to do her freaking job). There was a girl living with me at the time, so I went home and asked her about it. "Oh, hell yeah you do!... oh... I mean... you can be very intimidating... until someone gets to know you." I appreciated her honesty, but I could have done without the enthusiasm. Maybe she was right though. Maybe I'm just the problem and people are all happy to acknowledge one another when I'm not around. I don't know. Whatever. I still say it's pathetic.
I picked up some blank DVD's while I was at WalMart. This gave me a chance to get some movies onto discs and clean up my hard drive a little. It also killed some time for me. Finding ways to kill the down time seems to be my biggest challenge on the road. After wasting a few more hours, I checked back in and made my drop/hook.
I was out of Daytona Beach early enough to get up to the paper plant in Palatka and make another drop/hook, then move up the road a little ways before shutting down for the night. Four trailers in one day. Hmm, that's something. This load will take me to Laredo, well below the wicked cold weather. Beauty. My dispatch says that I'm due by Sunday morning, but I'm going to try and knock it out in two shots and get there Saturday night. I need to get home by next weekend. I would prefer to get my request placed as soon as possible. I usually tend to get home swiftly from Laredo but these days it's best to leave some margin for error.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
1/14/09
The CTL folks have this clever little thing that they do when we're going to receive a ConWay relay from another driver. Once the first driver is loaded, they send us a message with the inbound truck and trailer number so that we will know for whom to watch. Sensible enough, right? The cool part is that the first driver is usually loaded while the second driver is sound asleep. And thus began my day.
When I got the assignment yesterday, the schedule said that I would leave Atlanta by 9:30am today. When I got beeped in the wee hours of this morning, I was told that the relay would reach Atlanta by 10am. Therefore it should come as little surprise to anyone that the inbound driver rolled in at 10:30am. In fairness, our yard is all the way around to the south side of Atlanta. It may very well take an extra half hour to get there, compared with a delivery into the main part of town. Whatever the reasons may have been, my day began later than expected. I never got back to sleep after the early message woke me so I had a long morning of sitting around and waiting.
My drive down to Orlando was pretty decent. The weather was good and the traffic was lighter than the last time. I've been sent to the Orlando ConWay yard on two previous occasions. Both times, I've received a pre-planned load en route. Around 11am today, the satellite unit beeped at me. Pre-plans usually come with a second beep, asking for updated hours from me, so I waited a few seconds. No second beep followed. I pushed the button on my dash and the computer voice chick read the message to me. Some crap about permits for hauling alcohol in Indiana and such. Bummer.
Around 11:30am the thing beeped again. Okay, here comes the pre-plan. No second beep followed. Okay voice chick, read this one to me. Our W-2 info is now available on the ConWay website for us to print whenever we like. This is good to know when you have a pretty healthy wad of cash coming from the feds for last year's per diem deductions. Hopefully my few 1099's will be waiting for me the next time I get home. That way I can get everything filed nice and early this year. A little infusion of dough certainly wouldn't hurt right now.
The next beep came at noon. Surely this would be the pre-plan for which I was hoping. It wasn't, and I apologize again for calling you Shirley. This message said that our W-2's will be mailed out by January 31st if we haven't accessed them before then. Whatever.
5pm... satellite beep... no, not this time either. It was a message asking people to drive safely and shut down if the weather is too bad. Duh. It said that we've had a handful of accidents lately and most of them were in bad weather. On what may be a related note (if my flimsy theory is correct) or may just be a coincidence, I got another red light on my PrePass today in Georgia. In the warm weather months I almost never get a red. In the winter I get them on a somewhat regular basis. I have no idea how the intricacies of the system work but I do know that our safety rating is somehow related to how often we're supposed to be inspected. I still think that a bunch of our drivers crash their trucks every winter and earn us more red lights.
So I got to the ConWay terminal with no pre-plan and nowhere to park for the night. I checked in and made my drop/hook. I was lucky enough to be handing in my paperwork when the boss was sending home a bunch of guys due to a lack of freight. Yeah, festive environment in that place tonight. It seems that driving to work only to be told to go home isn't a real big plus for these guys. Nothing awkward about being in the middle of that exchange and trying to get a signature on my bills. Nothing awkward at all. A couple of our trucks were parked on the grassy area across the street so I went ahead and joined them. Screw it. Good enough.
How would we summarize the start to this week? 476 miles so far, vending machine food for dinner, #3 on the board, in a state that doesn't exactly produce a whole lot of freight, and the gay security guy wasn't even there to flirt with me this time around. The Irish did hire a new offensive line coach today though. Things are most definitely looking up.
When I got the assignment yesterday, the schedule said that I would leave Atlanta by 9:30am today. When I got beeped in the wee hours of this morning, I was told that the relay would reach Atlanta by 10am. Therefore it should come as little surprise to anyone that the inbound driver rolled in at 10:30am. In fairness, our yard is all the way around to the south side of Atlanta. It may very well take an extra half hour to get there, compared with a delivery into the main part of town. Whatever the reasons may have been, my day began later than expected. I never got back to sleep after the early message woke me so I had a long morning of sitting around and waiting.
My drive down to Orlando was pretty decent. The weather was good and the traffic was lighter than the last time. I've been sent to the Orlando ConWay yard on two previous occasions. Both times, I've received a pre-planned load en route. Around 11am today, the satellite unit beeped at me. Pre-plans usually come with a second beep, asking for updated hours from me, so I waited a few seconds. No second beep followed. I pushed the button on my dash and the computer voice chick read the message to me. Some crap about permits for hauling alcohol in Indiana and such. Bummer.
Around 11:30am the thing beeped again. Okay, here comes the pre-plan. No second beep followed. Okay voice chick, read this one to me. Our W-2 info is now available on the ConWay website for us to print whenever we like. This is good to know when you have a pretty healthy wad of cash coming from the feds for last year's per diem deductions. Hopefully my few 1099's will be waiting for me the next time I get home. That way I can get everything filed nice and early this year. A little infusion of dough certainly wouldn't hurt right now.
The next beep came at noon. Surely this would be the pre-plan for which I was hoping. It wasn't, and I apologize again for calling you Shirley. This message said that our W-2's will be mailed out by January 31st if we haven't accessed them before then. Whatever.
5pm... satellite beep... no, not this time either. It was a message asking people to drive safely and shut down if the weather is too bad. Duh. It said that we've had a handful of accidents lately and most of them were in bad weather. On what may be a related note (if my flimsy theory is correct) or may just be a coincidence, I got another red light on my PrePass today in Georgia. In the warm weather months I almost never get a red. In the winter I get them on a somewhat regular basis. I have no idea how the intricacies of the system work but I do know that our safety rating is somehow related to how often we're supposed to be inspected. I still think that a bunch of our drivers crash their trucks every winter and earn us more red lights.
So I got to the ConWay terminal with no pre-plan and nowhere to park for the night. I checked in and made my drop/hook. I was lucky enough to be handing in my paperwork when the boss was sending home a bunch of guys due to a lack of freight. Yeah, festive environment in that place tonight. It seems that driving to work only to be told to go home isn't a real big plus for these guys. Nothing awkward about being in the middle of that exchange and trying to get a signature on my bills. Nothing awkward at all. A couple of our trucks were parked on the grassy area across the street so I went ahead and joined them. Screw it. Good enough.
How would we summarize the start to this week? 476 miles so far, vending machine food for dinner, #3 on the board, in a state that doesn't exactly produce a whole lot of freight, and the gay security guy wasn't even there to flirt with me this time around. The Irish did hire a new offensive line coach today though. Things are most definitely looking up.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
1/13/09
The first thing that I saw this morning when I looked out my window was a CRST truck parked nearby. I don't suppose that the presence of a CRST truck has any intrinsic value, but it was good news as far as I was concerned. My bill of lading had CRST listed as the carrier, then crossed out and replaced with Menlo. So, at the very least, I wasn't the only one who had been sent to the 'For Lease' warehouse. A couple of cars pulled into the parking lot a short time later and the guys confirmed that I was indeed at the right place. Beauty.
Once I was empty, I was dispatched on the pre-planned load that I received yesterday. I had to go ten miles to the east and get a loaded trailer from our Atlanta drop yard and take it... back to the 'For Lease' warehouse. At least I knew where I was going. Our Atlanta drop yards seem to get less and less desirable as time goes on. The latest incarnation is in the same general neighborhood as the last one, but it's down a skinny residential street with a couple of blind turns mixed in. To leave and return to the freeway, you have to make a left turn from a stop sign onto a six-lane road. The angle is such that your view is obscured by trees and signs and so forth. But hey, I'm a truck driver, right? This is what I do, or something. I checked in with the guys back in Forest Park for a second time and kicked back for a bit.
Once I was empty the second time around, I headed over to the local truck stop. There was a sign with some mumbo jumbo about paying for a parking permit and other assorted nonsense. No thanks. I ran into the convenience store to grab some food and then went back over to the warehouse where I spent last night. I was #1 on the board and nothing was assigned right away, so we can safely conclude that there was no bigger plan behind that local run. There was just a trailer that needed to be delivered today and I was in the neighborhood. After a nice and peaceful nap, I was jolted back to consciousness by the Qualcomm's lovely chirp. I rolled out of bed expecting to see a recruiting contest update or some other bullshit. (So cynical these days. Terrible.) No, this time it was actually an assignment.
I had to drag my empty trailer back over to our Atlanta yard and set up for a ConWay relay leaving tomorrow morning. It's going to Orlando, so at least I can continue to assume that an 'Alberta clipper' is a Canadian hairstylist for another couple of days. My pay currently shows 36 miles for the week on the company web portal. I sent a message requesting my local pay for this morning's run and got the dreaded reply about "submitting the paperwork." The last time I heard that line was during the infamous UPS episode. We'll see what happens. I've never pulled local runs when I've been away from home before. They've given them to me a couple of times in Taylor, but then the local dispatcher just made a copy of my logbook and my local pay showed up the next day. Maybe it works the same way coming from Joplin. Just like with the UPS thing, we're not talking about enough money to make anyone freak out, but I did the work. I'll trust that my compensation will be processed properly this time around.
A Tuesday delivery, combined with a 36 mile day, has us looking at the all-too-familiar shitty start to this week. I'll be somewhere in the mid-400 mile neighborhood by the time I deliver in Orlando tomorrow night. Then it will likely be Thursday before anything else comes up and the weekend will be staring me in the face. Oh well, what can you do? Maybe I'll get a nice surprise tomorrow and end up with a decent week somehow. At least I can play The Bailout Game and remind myself that I'll probably be paying 90% income taxes at some point in my life. Things are looking pretty good today from that standpoint.
Once I was empty, I was dispatched on the pre-planned load that I received yesterday. I had to go ten miles to the east and get a loaded trailer from our Atlanta drop yard and take it... back to the 'For Lease' warehouse. At least I knew where I was going. Our Atlanta drop yards seem to get less and less desirable as time goes on. The latest incarnation is in the same general neighborhood as the last one, but it's down a skinny residential street with a couple of blind turns mixed in. To leave and return to the freeway, you have to make a left turn from a stop sign onto a six-lane road. The angle is such that your view is obscured by trees and signs and so forth. But hey, I'm a truck driver, right? This is what I do, or something. I checked in with the guys back in Forest Park for a second time and kicked back for a bit.
Once I was empty the second time around, I headed over to the local truck stop. There was a sign with some mumbo jumbo about paying for a parking permit and other assorted nonsense. No thanks. I ran into the convenience store to grab some food and then went back over to the warehouse where I spent last night. I was #1 on the board and nothing was assigned right away, so we can safely conclude that there was no bigger plan behind that local run. There was just a trailer that needed to be delivered today and I was in the neighborhood. After a nice and peaceful nap, I was jolted back to consciousness by the Qualcomm's lovely chirp. I rolled out of bed expecting to see a recruiting contest update or some other bullshit. (So cynical these days. Terrible.) No, this time it was actually an assignment.
I had to drag my empty trailer back over to our Atlanta yard and set up for a ConWay relay leaving tomorrow morning. It's going to Orlando, so at least I can continue to assume that an 'Alberta clipper' is a Canadian hairstylist for another couple of days. My pay currently shows 36 miles for the week on the company web portal. I sent a message requesting my local pay for this morning's run and got the dreaded reply about "submitting the paperwork." The last time I heard that line was during the infamous UPS episode. We'll see what happens. I've never pulled local runs when I've been away from home before. They've given them to me a couple of times in Taylor, but then the local dispatcher just made a copy of my logbook and my local pay showed up the next day. Maybe it works the same way coming from Joplin. Just like with the UPS thing, we're not talking about enough money to make anyone freak out, but I did the work. I'll trust that my compensation will be processed properly this time around.
A Tuesday delivery, combined with a 36 mile day, has us looking at the all-too-familiar shitty start to this week. I'll be somewhere in the mid-400 mile neighborhood by the time I deliver in Orlando tomorrow night. Then it will likely be Thursday before anything else comes up and the weekend will be staring me in the face. Oh well, what can you do? Maybe I'll get a nice surprise tomorrow and end up with a decent week somehow. At least I can play The Bailout Game and remind myself that I'll probably be paying 90% income taxes at some point in my life. Things are looking pretty good today from that standpoint.
Monday, January 12, 2009
1/12/09
Some people are always searching for ways to put their lives in perspective. Then you have guys like me. I'm somehow content to wander along and accept the notion that things just tend to work out okay. So, having accomplished very little of relevance in my first 32 years on this lovely planet, I didn't appreciate being hit with a major dose of perspective this morning. Head coach of the Broncos, eh? Well, he is five months older than I am. I have time to catch up.
I hadn't really resolved my scheduling plans for today when I got out of bed this morning. I could drive down early and try a couple of the local truck stops or I could wait until later and try to park at the consignee. I had an audiobook that I've been meaning to burn onto CD's, so I started that up and figured that I would head down the road once it was ready. The files were in four folders, named 'CD1,' 'CD2,' 'CD3, and 'CD4.' That should take what, a half hour or so to burn? Yeah, each folder had around 80 ten-minute files. 45 discs in all. Wowsers. Once I had started though, I was committed to getting it done. Scheduling drama solved. That took all damn day.
My drive down to Georgia was nice and easy in the late evening. Then we ran into a new set of circumstances. I'm delivering to 5165 Kennedy Road in Forest Park, Georgia (according to my dispatch). That's a nice simple address, right? My directions from my employer told me to take Exit 237 from I-75 and make a right on Kennedy. Okay, no problem there. Now let's just find 5165.
Microsoft Live Maps:
I hadn't really resolved my scheduling plans for today when I got out of bed this morning. I could drive down early and try a couple of the local truck stops or I could wait until later and try to park at the consignee. I had an audiobook that I've been meaning to burn onto CD's, so I started that up and figured that I would head down the road once it was ready. The files were in four folders, named 'CD1,' 'CD2,' 'CD3, and 'CD4.' That should take what, a half hour or so to burn? Yeah, each folder had around 80 ten-minute files. 45 discs in all. Wowsers. Once I had started though, I was committed to getting it done. Scheduling drama solved. That took all damn day.
My drive down to Georgia was nice and easy in the late evening. Then we ran into a new set of circumstances. I'm delivering to 5165 Kennedy Road in Forest Park, Georgia (according to my dispatch). That's a nice simple address, right? My directions from my employer told me to take Exit 237 from I-75 and make a right on Kennedy. Okay, no problem there. Now let's just find 5165.
Microsoft Live Maps:
Google Earth:
Two pretty detailed photos from two different providers, showing the same warehouse. I'm parked at that warehouse right now. There is some kind of Red Cross deal at one end. The address on the windows says 200. Then there's some kind of air conditioning outfit in the middle. The address on the window says 300. I'm at the northern end, where the sign out front says, "For Lease." So I took a look at the address on my bills. I checked them when I was leaving Kansas City, to make sure that I had the right trailer, and saw that they had an address in College Park on them. This is not entirely unusual. It's a neighboring suburb and sometimes these shipments go to different warehouses. I work for a large multi-national corporation, so surely they would know where one of their own shipments was going, right? After all, this is a load being pulled by one ConWay company on behalf of another ConWay company.
I placed a call to Joplin and got some fairly reassuring news. Apparently the dispatcher who took my call received the same call from a different driver last night. She said that the driver told her that there was a 'For Lease' sign in front of the building and he needed to know where to go. Apparently he was at the right place. Either that, or she was gone when he found out that he was at the wrong place this morning. Maybe she just never heard about the conclusion. Either way, I have a place to park for the night so that's good enough. The place on the bills is a couple miles from here, back across I-75. It's right off of this same main road so I'll just camp out here until morning and then see what's what.
As I was in my marathon CD-making session this afternoon, I got beeped with a pre-plan. That's always nice... or, maybe? It says that I am to pick up a load in Atlanta tomorrow and take it to Forest Park. Eh? I don't know. There's probably (or hopefully) some kind of logic behind that one. We'll just have to wait and see how it pans out. At the very least, I'll get my $25 for the local run and take it from there.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
1/11/09
If I pick your team to win, then your quarterback will suck the proverbial big one. There's just no getting around it.
I was up pretty late working on some things last night. Since it has been so cold and dreary outside, I thought I would sleep soundly through the morning. The sun came out today though. Damn greenhouse effect. Oh well, might as well get rolling.
It was an easy day on the freeways out of Illinois, through Kentucky, and into Tennessee. Once I got through Nashville I decided to call it a day. I was feeling a little tired from last night's lack of sleep, so I pulled into the T/A in Antioch. Yeah, we'll be scratching that place off the list. What the hell? It was 3:20pm locally and there wasn't a single parking space open. Further to that, the bastards who are too lazy to acknowledge that there were no spaces were parked all over the damn lot. It was a pain in the ass just trying to maneuver my way back out to the exit.
Once I got back onto the freeway I drove another half hour or so down to the Love's in Christiana. Plenty of parking here. Tomorrow's drive should be somewhere under four hours. I haven't decided yet how to attack the parking situation outside Atlanta. Today's clusterfuck has given me pause. Atlanta has more truck traffic than Nashville does and I'll be closer to the city than I was today. There's a small truck stop listed in my directory near my consignee. There are a few bigger ones along the loop, a little further out of the way. Or I might just arrive later in the evening and try to park in the consignee's lot. I don't know. Whatever. I always seem to come up with something.
In any case, I'll get a full break in before I'm empty on Tuesday. This will mean that I've done my part in terms of being ready to run. The rest will be up to the freight assigner people.
If I can just get this false advertising lawsuit rolling and reach a settlement though, I won't ever have to drive again...
I was up pretty late working on some things last night. Since it has been so cold and dreary outside, I thought I would sleep soundly through the morning. The sun came out today though. Damn greenhouse effect. Oh well, might as well get rolling.
It was an easy day on the freeways out of Illinois, through Kentucky, and into Tennessee. Once I got through Nashville I decided to call it a day. I was feeling a little tired from last night's lack of sleep, so I pulled into the T/A in Antioch. Yeah, we'll be scratching that place off the list. What the hell? It was 3:20pm locally and there wasn't a single parking space open. Further to that, the bastards who are too lazy to acknowledge that there were no spaces were parked all over the damn lot. It was a pain in the ass just trying to maneuver my way back out to the exit.
Once I got back onto the freeway I drove another half hour or so down to the Love's in Christiana. Plenty of parking here. Tomorrow's drive should be somewhere under four hours. I haven't decided yet how to attack the parking situation outside Atlanta. Today's clusterfuck has given me pause. Atlanta has more truck traffic than Nashville does and I'll be closer to the city than I was today. There's a small truck stop listed in my directory near my consignee. There are a few bigger ones along the loop, a little further out of the way. Or I might just arrive later in the evening and try to park in the consignee's lot. I don't know. Whatever. I always seem to come up with something.
In any case, I'll get a full break in before I'm empty on Tuesday. This will mean that I've done my part in terms of being ready to run. The rest will be up to the freight assigner people.
If I can just get this false advertising lawsuit rolling and reach a settlement though, I won't ever have to drive again...
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