4/11/09

I managed to drag myself from my bed to my couch in time to watch the Masters today. That has to count for something. And I got off the couch long enough to answer the door and pay the pizza man. If only I had taken Kenny Perry in Group 2 instead of Henrik Stenson...



The prize standings are based on cumulative earnings for my nine players though, so I may have a shot. A few of my guys missed the cut so I would need to get a few people in the top five. If things really went my way and I got Cabrera and Campbell to finish 1-2 with Flesch making a run at the top five, I could be headed south for a golf weekend of my own. Well, a boy can dream anyway.

Gotta go now. More lying around on the couch to do.

4/10/09

At least they paid me the 192 miles to get home. One day after sending in my request, I think the policy is that I'm supposed to drive home for free. Whatevs. We'll just forgive and forget that they left me sitting in a parking lot for a day and a half before deciding that there's no freight.

Two bottles of wine, when you have gone a couple of months without drinking alcohol, will get you pretty shnockered... or so I'm told.

4/9/09

Well, after staring down the home time dilemma, I blinked. After making my delivery this morning, I was talking with one of my colleagues who was unloaded right ahead of me. She asked if I had received a pre-plan. No, I hadn't. Neither had she. Then I mentioned that I was in limbo regarding whether or not I should request time off today or try to grab another load first. Then she asked if I had listened to the latest recorded message from our CEO. Truth be told, I almost never listen to those messages. They've always seemed like a bunch of empty sloganeering and rah rah nonsense to me, but apparently sometimes they contain important news. (I also appear to have missed one explaining the 401(k) situation.) My coworker told me that they have changed the home time policy. So I called and listened.

It used to be that, if you weren't headed home with a load within five days of sending the request, you would get a paid deadhead on day six. Now the 5/6 has been changed to 7/8. As a convoluted and meaningless tradeoff, we now get to request home time after being out for 7 days instead of 10. Oh joy. The thing that sucks about it isn't that they can take up to a week. It's that they're still going to try to get us home as soon as possible. Sometimes that means one day, sometimes it means seven. I wouldn't give a damn if they took a week to get me home every time, as long as I knew that they would take at least four days. Having to account for such a wide window and being so close to home pretty much sucks balls.

So I got on the board at #5. I was thinking that I would just roll the dice and see what happened. Then after a while I had only moved up to #4. I blinked. Missing Wednesday's festivities would be one thing, but missing next weekend's football and tailgating is non-negotiable. I sent in my request and accepted that I just might have to eat a few extra non-earning days as part of the deal. I'm feeling pretty burned out anyway. Whatever dude.

And the morning became the afternoon. And I was still #4. And my Tigers lost their third game out of four against the Jays. And I was still #4. And my pool entry in the Masters is in pretty decent shape after the first day. And I was still #4. Somewhere during the day people started leaving. We had all parked in the lot of a vacant warehouse across from the consignee after getting unloaded this morning. One after another, the three trucks remaining ahead of me were gone. I was up to #1 on the board, requested home. And here I sit, #1 on the board and requested home. Bummer.

I found a gas station with a SubWay right down the street, so at least I got a delicious Italian BMT with double meat to keep me going. As far as we know, I never saw the sign that said no semi trucks were allowed in their parking lot. Maybe tomorrow will bring some good news on the driving front. We'll see.

With lots of time to kill, I think I did manage to stumble across a video that explains the female gender in four short minutes. Now I understand completely... or something.

4/8/09

In a day and age when the news tends to be bad more often than it is good, I'm going to throw a little curveball here. As long as the bona fide geniuses who run our government are in charge, and as long as the companies think it's a good idea to sink money into projects like this one, I'm inclined to think that the auto industry is in for some rough times. However, a recent article by that odd little Mitch Albom fella tells us that one man back home is standing behind them. Insignificant? Sure, in the grand scheme of things. It's exactly as insignificant as the company deciding not to spend the advertising money in the first place. Merely symbolism? Yeah, pretty much. As symbolic in making Ilitch look good as the advertising was in making GM look bad. But you know what? He's doing something. Mr. Ilitch used his own judgment and did what he thought was right, using his own money, instead of running to Debbie Stabenow or Barack Obama for a handout or a subsidy. (You listening, Mr. Gates?) As soon as the rest of the country starts approaching things this way, we'll start to hear more good news than bad. So buy an extra hot dog the next time you're at Comerica Park.

Today began with a quick hop over to the consignee in Milton. It was nice to see that they are such big Notre Dame fans, naming their company after the head coach and whatnot...

After I checked in and the guy told me to talk to the lumpers, I headed out and backed into the dock. Then I headed inside and got the good news. The shipper has made arrangements to handle the unloading so I didn't have to pay a lumper. Any time I can get by without loaning money to my employer, I take this as good news.

I got an assignment while I was at the dock, for a load picking up in Mechanicsburg and heading to Ohio. Given my intended home time in the near future, we can take this as bad news. More on that later. I had to go down to a trucking company in Cumberland and get a sticker to put on my trailer before I could make the pickup. That was easy enough. Once my trailer was properly stickered, I was told to stay in the area but not to go to the shipper until receiving word that the load was ready. Okay then. Or maybe not so okay then...

Pennsylvania has these weird little things called hills and mountains all over the place. Scouting out a location to hide a 70 foot long vehicle tends to be a challenge when you can't see more than a quarter mile in any direction. I hopped on the turnpike and headed toward Mechanicsburg, thinking that I could duck off at one of the parking areas along the highway. I didn't see any such areas before my exit was coming up, but I did spot a warehouse under construction. Good deal. Finding the warehouse... well, that was a different story. The first right turn off the freeway had signs saying that no trucks were allowed. I doubt that I could have made that turn anyway. It looked pretty tight. After going north for a half mile, then east on another state highway for a half mile, I found an entrance to the office park where I thought I might find the empty warehouse. I went all the way through and never saw the warehouse in question.

I decided to take a second trip through the office park and just park on the road if I didn't find anything better. I saw a sign for a construction company with an arrow pointing to a skinny driveway going up a big hill. That couldn't be the company building the empty warehouse, could it? One way to find out. Up we go. Haha, I found 'er! Only five miles from the shipper too. How 'bout them apples?

As my 1pm appointment approached, I still had not received the go ahead to make the pickup. I sent a message asking if my 1pm appointment was a firm arrival time. The reply said that I just need to let them know when I'm released with the load. Yeah, thanks for nothing there. I needed to know if I was supposed to continue waiting or if I needed to be at the shipper by 1pm. So I sent another message asking for clarification. I never got a reply. At 12:50pm, I received the automatic message saying that my arrival call had not been received and that I needed to send it once i arrived at the customer. Here we go... This time around I opted for a phone call to sort out the situation. After a few minutes on hold, I was told to head to the shipper. Whatever dude.

I went through the trailer inspection process and then gave my pickup number to the shipping boss. My number coincided with a shipment that had been cancelled. Good deal. I hung around for a while, thinking that I would likely have to get back on the board and wait for a new assignment. Then the shipping guy said that there was another shipment going to the same consignee. It was supposed to be taken by another carrier but they had screwed up and put it on one of our trailers. Works for me.

I made my drop/hook there and then headed west. Nice easy 12,000 pound load and fairly light traffic in the hills. Good deal. The delays throughout the day conspired to make sure that my 14 hour clock would run out before I reached Columbus, so I couldn't get all the way to the consignee tonight. In reality though, I probably was going to stop before Columbus anyway. I'm not sure if I could have parked at the consignee. This nice big rest area on I-70 is always a reliable place to find a parking spot at night.

So I'll head past Columbus and make my delivery in the morning. Then we get to do the good old home time dance. I have some engagements planned for next Wednesday. This would mean that Friday will be five days before I want to get home. This would mean that tomorrow is the 'play it safe' date for me to send in my request. Sending my request tomorrow could very well earn me an unpaid ticket directly home without passing 'GO.' This would be bad. I could wait and try to grab one more load and get a little further from home before sending my request. It would be helpful to make a few more bucks this week (only 900 miles so far). Then, with the weekend approaching, I would run the risk of getting a long run with a Monday delivery. Not much chance of getting home by Wednesday in that case. This also would be bad. I don't know. We'll see what kind of mood I'm in once I make my delivery.

Hey, bonus! I see that I got $415 from the fine folks at ConWay in my 401(k) today. I read a press report not too long ago saying that they were suspending company contributions until financial conditions improve. Maybe we (profitable) OTR employees were spared from some of the cutbacks. Or maybe they'll start with the second quarter. I don't know. For now though, four hundred bucks is four hundred bucks.

4/7/09

Yeah, so my Tigers lost their opening game of the season again. Well, so did the Yankees. And the Yankees have like this crazy huge payroll. Serves 'em right. The Tigers are clearly superior because they lost with a smaller payroll. (Yeah, this was dumb. I know. Humor me. The wealth envy thing isn't really my style but I'm trying to get with the program.)

Crossing I-80 with a heavy load is a royal pain in the ass. That much I actually do believe. When you mix in the assorted stretches of fairly intense snowfall, and the accompanying slower traffic... oy. This was a long, long, seven hour day. At least the last hundred miles or so consisted of clean dry roads. Good enough.

I wasn't in the mood to stop at an ATM and get cash for the toll roads so I started eastward on the U.S. highways in Ohio. Everything was pretty smooth and steady until somewhere around Akron after I caught up with I-76. That's when more global warming started falling from the sky. It was starting to clear up a bit as I entered Pennsylvania. Then the next round kicked in. I flipped on the CB to see if the westbound guys had any good news. Three or four miles of snow? Well, that ain't bad. Yeah, bullshit. It snowed like a mutha for about forty miles. As was the case yesterday, the road itself held up pretty well. Most of the snow was melting on contact. The other drivers were another story altogether. I had to curse a lot. Loudly. During Holy Week and everything. Oy.

I pulled into some little ghetto truck stop in Milton a little while ago and put my feet up for the night. I'll be dropping off a few miles from here in the morning. My internet connection is good and shitty, so I guess I won't be watching my working class baseball team in action tonight. I think there's a conspiracy between the wireless providers and the baseball aristocracy to deny the Tigers the support that they truly need and deserve.

4/6/09

Well, the global warming wasn't too hard on this little chunk of the Midwest today. It snowed off and on from Columbus on up but the roads weren't cold enough to get too slick. I was running a few hours ahead of schedule by the time I got to Perrysburg, so I was planning to hang out at the Petro until my appointment was a little closer. Then I figured what the hell. I was going to pass the consignee on the way to the truck stop anyway so I pulled in to see what the security guard might say. Long story short... I was empty an hour and a half before I was supposed to be there.

As soon as I sent in my empty call, I received my next assignment. Today didn't bring a whole lot of activity but tomorrow should be decent. I had to head over to Napoleon, where I'll pick up a load bound for Pennsylvania in the morning. That 400-something miles per day is about the kind of pace that I like. Of course, today's 30-something doesn't add much, but that's okay. I'll be requesting home time in a few days so I'm only looking for 2,000 or so miles this week. Business has been pretty good lately. I don't think I'll have any trouble making a few more dollars before I take some time off.

I was sleeping pretty soundly this morning in the nice chilly CO² laden air when an obnoxious beeping woke me. The battery rundown thing again. I've had decent luck sleeping with my truck turned off lately, so I had almost started to accept that the North Carolina incident was a fluke. Guess not. The truck just barely fired up after a few lackluster cranks of the starter. I guess we'll have to add some new batteries to the clutch brake repairs for the fellas in Dearborn next week. Better leave 'er running tonight just in case.

4/5/09

I somehow got suckered into a commitment to bake a batch of my famous lasagna for a friend of mine and her husband the next time I get home. Now I can't wait to get home and have some of my famous lasagna. It wouldn't seem that a few more days would make much difference, but even my standard delicious SubWay Italian BMT with double meat just seemed a little disappointing today. Ahh, the trials and tribulations of a pudgy truck driver with a rather boring life...

The actual driving part didn't do a whole lot to help my patience today either. After around a hundred miles of cruising up I-77, things came to a dead stop. Trained monkey that I am, I reached over and clicked on the CB. "I don't know why the hell y'all are backed up like that. It's just a little construction up 'ere about ten miles ahead." Man, how I hate to hear that. One of these days I'm just gonna start ramming people. If they refuse to keep moving, I'll move 'em. One of these days...

After spending fifty-three minutes covering seven miles, I got back onto the throttle and things started to look up for a bit. I had the run of the hills for the most part since I only have an 8,000 pound payload and most of the trucks are far heavier. Of course though, there's always the one dickhead who wants to ruin the ride. Entering Virginia... Some broad in a pickup truck kept slowing down well below the speed limit until I started to pass, then speeding up a little and keeping me hanging until the next hill slowed me down and all of the traffic piled up behind me. One of these days...

I managed to navigate West Virginia in better than average fashion until I got up to US-35 on the way to Ohio. A good old Landstar driver decided that he was going to vary his speed between 35mph and 50mph on the 55mph two-lane. Good road, good weather, just a dumbass bastard I guess. There was just enough oncoming traffic to keep the rest of us trapped behind him. I don't know how long the backup behind me wound up being but it was definitely a long one. Aren't Landstar drivers all owner-operators? I would tend to think that someone in CDL school could do a little better than that. One of these days...

So I pulled into the truck stop in Jackson, Ohio for some dinner and concluded that I'm probably not in the state of mind to head up the road any more tonight. I have no idea where I would park between here and my final destination anyway. I think there are a few more truck stops along my route but they are on the smaller side. Maybe I could get all the way to Perrysburg but I doubt it. I'm running state and U.S. highways and I lost a lot of time earlier while I was stuck in traffic. I'm due at the consignee by 5:30pm tomorrow so a couple hundred miles in the morning won't kill me.