5/16/09

I guess the load assignments were turbocharged this morning or something. I slept late yesterday so I wasn't in a sleepy mood until really, really late last night. I was still #8 on the board when I went to bed though. Surely I would have plenty of time to sleep this morning until they found some work for me. Yeah, the beep came at 7am. I got up and responded and then saw that I didn't have to pick up until tomorrow morning. Beauty. Back to bed for a few hours.

Once I woke again, this time of my own accord, I took a look at the details of my next assignment. I had to bobtail around 45 miles to the north and pick up a load in Old Forge. My pickup was scheduled for tomorrow at 8am. Guess we might as well play a hunch on this one. Since I was picking up a pre-loaded trailer and most places don't do a whole lot of loading between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, I headed over to see if I could grab it today. It was ready to roll when I got there. Beauty. It probably doesn't make a huge difference if the miles went on this week's paycheck or next week's, but with all other things being equal I'll take my cash a week sooner.

The bigger benefit to me was that I got to knock out part of the trip today instead of waiting until tomorrow. That beats the hell out of sitting around all day today and then having to drive longer shifts for the next couple of days. Where are we headed on this particular voyage? I think we'll let Mr. Corleone answer that one...

Yeah, back down I-95 to Florida we go. It would have been nice to get away from this route for a little while. The Beltway was an absolute mess today and Northern Virginia was even worse. It has been a long time since i saw it that bad on a weekend. You take the good with the bad though. The bad is another couple of days on I-95. I am delivering in Miami on Tuesday and I don't seem to have fond memories of driving my truck down there either. The good side of the equation is a week with 3,543 miles and $47 in northeast pay. My total pay for the week will be just a cheeseburger short of $1,400. Good enough.

I got down to Ruther Glen and decided to call it a night. I remember hearing somewhere that I could get three sexy t-shirts at the Flying J for ten bucks, so I thought I would park there. They were full and then some... at 6:30pm on a Saturday. Over to the Petro then... full. What the hell? I was about to head back out to the highway (the Pilot isn't even worth trying) when I spotted an empty parking space at Mr. Fuel next to the Petro. That'll work.

I think I'll try to get an early start tomorrow and knock out a good chunk of miles before the hockey game starts. Hopefully I can find a good fast connection somewhere along the way. Long before we learned to hate the Ducks and long before we learned to hate the Avalanche, we knew exactly how to hate the Blackhawks. Damn that Chelios... err... nevermind.

5/15/09

A quick public service announcement for the youngsters out there - If you choose to procrastinate, then you will have to accept the consequences.

I wasn't in the mood to get going this morning so I wound up dawdling around until around 11am. I had plenty of time to cover today's miles so it wasn't a big issue on the scheduling front. What my lazy morning earned me, however, was a trip around the Beltway during rush hour on a Friday afternoon. Thus I procrastinated and the consequence pretty much sucked.

By the time I got past D.C. I was pretty fed up with the world. I've never tried LSD, but I was definitely suffering an ASA flashback. (That's Austin-San Antonio for the uninitiated. You fight your way through one pain in the ass city and get onto the open road for a half hour, just in time to hit another pain in the ass city.) I decided to park at a rest area between D.C. and Baltimore for a couple of hours and let the traffic in Baltimore mellow out before I finished the trip. This worked out pretty well as the traffic was light on the rest of the trip into Pennsylvania.

I checked in at the consignee in Hazleton and got directions to a warehouse down the street where I had to drop my trailer. That part was easy enough but procrastination round #2 (the break at the rest area) got me another unintended consequence. The guy who dropped a half hour before I got here was able to grab the last empty trailer. This consignee doesn't have a weekend shift so there won't be any empties here until Monday at the earliest. Oh well, you win some and you lose some.

I got on the board without an empty (at #8) so we'll have to see what happens from here. The last time that I had to find an empty in Pennsylvania, this is where they sent me. That strategy obviously won't work this time around. My best hope would be that they have a weekend run leaving this shipper, on a pre-loaded trailer. I've had weekend runs out of here before. The fact that there are seven trucks ahead of me on the board will probably keep me from getting one of those loads though. I don't know. Whatever. It's out of my hands so I won't sweat it. I'm at 2,190 miles so far for the week. I would prefer a few hundred more miles but it's not a huge deal.

5/14/09

When every day brings a new town and a new highway, I suppose that it's inevitable to find oneself in an awkward spot every now and then. I hopped over to my shipper this morning and followed the signs to the shipping office. I found a locked door but I was a little early so I sat in my truck and waited for my scheduled time. A gentleman came out and told me to go to a different building. So I went to a different building. Yeah, I know, a regular renegade here. Once at the other building, I found an open door but nobody was inside. At my scheduled arrival time I went back in to see if anyone had arrived.

And here we come to the awkward part. The guy who had sent me away from the first building was some sort of boss man. He was inside the second building by this point in time, giving the employees a thorough ass chewing. I tried to stick by the door and keep to myself but, from what I did hear, they seem to have shipped four truckloads of stuff to the wrong stores this week. The cost to their employer was given as $10,000. Yikes. I think I'd get an updated resumé together in a hurry if I were on that staff.

Oh, but the awkwardness wasn't over. After the reaming was finished and the boss man left, it was time for a little pre-shift prayer. Now I won't even begin to be some sort of holy individual. Anybody who has seen a few postings on this blog would have to know as much. I do have my beliefs though and hanging around the fringes of someone else's morning prayer is more than a little weird. I also had a personal aversion to some of the content of the prayer but this would hardly be the place for that discussion. You follow your path and I'll follow mine, so to speak.

Enough with the awkwardness then. I was loaded fairly quickly and headed north. RV's were the dominant theme on I-95 today. I have no idea why but the damn things were everywhere. They did their best to snarl the traffic (successfully at times) but the overall volume was pretty light. I have until midnight tomorrow night to drop my trailer in Pennsylvania, so I really didn't have a specific agenda for today's drive. I figured that I would try to cover at least half the trip today and then take it from there. I saw the sign for the T/A in Kenly (with a Wendy's) and decided to stop for some dinner. Every now and then, you just need to eat a Baconator. Then we probably know what follows a hearty meal. Sloth. No more driving today then. A little more than half the trip will have to wait for tomorrow.

I'm hoping that my connection will be fast enough for me to watch Game 7 here. Something has to get the taste of this afternoon's baseball game out of my mouth. When I wake from a nap and hear the boys take a 5-0 lead and then they lose 6-5... Oh, my kingdom for a bullpen.

5/13/09

You know those sleeveless shirts that aren't really tank tops. I don't know what they're called, but they look like you took a regular T-shirt and lopped off the sleeves. Quite a few truck drivers wear those. Now, I know what you're thinking - "I wear those when I go for a jog." Yeah, so do I. But quite a few truck drivers wear them to work. Now, I know what you're thinking - "I've seen construction workers and lawn care guys wearing them before." Yeah, so have I. But quite a few truck drivers wear them into the receiving office when dealing with their customers. That's just wrong.

So what exactly jarred this bit of sartorial critique out of your humble blogger? Well, I arrived at my consignee bright and early this morning and checked in with the security guard. He directed me to the drop lot and told me where I would be able to find an empty trailer. As I backed in, the yard dog pulled around next to me and said that I was scheduled for a live unload. My assignment said drop/hook. The security guard said drop/hook. Whatever dude. I just do what I'm told. I drove around to the receiving office and checked in with the lady inside. She directed me to a door and told me to drop my trailer and bobtail back toward the receiving office and park. Once she called me on Channel 15, I was free to get my trailer and go. I watched five other drivers arrive within the next fifteen minutes. Four of them were wearing those shirts. The physiques in question would not lend one to wanting to show off 'the guns' either. That's just wrong.

Then I hopped into bed and relaxed for a while. I wasn't sure if I should fall asleep since I needed to hear the lady call me on the CB when I was ready to leave. I didn't know if she would be loud enough to retrieve me from Dreamland. As it turns out I didn't have a say in the matter. I was out like a light within a few minutes, whether I liked it or not. Then, just as Natalie Portman and I were about to get to know each other a little better, I heard, "ConWay in door 1924 come and grab your paperwork." Question answered. She was loud enough. I was awake again. Damn.

I grabbed my empty and headed over to that darned Love's in Polk City. Lots of parking at 7am, as many drivers were off to their jobs on the highways and byways by then. Back to bed we go. I wasn't able to watch that hockey game last night but I was up pretty late nonetheless. I got a solid two-hour nap this morning before my beep came from outer space. Perfect.

From Polk City, I headed southeastward to West Palm Beach for my next pickup. I'm still on strike against paying cash tolls, so the first part of the drive was a little slow. Once I caught up with FL-60 over to I-95 though, all was well. Compared to most places, this shipper was a real dump. Well, actually it was a real dump even if you had nothing to compare. Some may call it a landfill but you know... details. I got 43,000 pounds of cardboard to haul up to Jacksonville to be recycled. That trip up the Blue Hair Expressway, much to my surprise, was quick and smooth. There were maybe three or four Cadillacs cruising in the center lane at 45mph but that's a pretty low number based on my experience. The afternoon traffic had largely cleared out of Jacksonville by the time I got up there as well.

Along with my dispatch to Jacksonville, I received a pre-planned load picking up in Georgia tomorrow morning. So I got out of Florida without paper or beer. I can't even remember the last time this happened. The guys at the paper plant unloaded me a little early and I had a little time left on my logbook once I was empty, so I hopped back on I-95 and headed northward. The scales in Georgia proved to be the perfect place to park for the night once my hours ran out. There is a sign that says, "No Overnight Parking," so we'll have to see if I get harassed. There are quite a few other trucks parked here so I'm inclined to think I should be okay.

From here I'll have a quick 25-30 miles up to Midway for my pickup in the morning. Then I'm headed back up I-95 past D.C. and over to I-81 into Pennsylvania. I have a drop/hook in Hazleton to make at some point on Friday. It's probably time for bed now but this ballgame is pretty entertaining. I flipped the radio on when I left Jacksonville and they've been trading homeruns since then. Can't beat extra innings when you're working at night.

5/12/09

If my fuel tanks are 3/4 full and I have a 25,000 pound payload, I don't think I can float away. I'm too heavy, right? There's some real Noah's Ark business going on outside right now. Glad I got parked at that highly recommended rest area when I did. I never did figure out who "they" are, but they often say that timing is everything.

Speaking of timing, the portly gent at the tire shop in Brunswick took his sweet ass time putting on my two shiny new steer tires this morning, likely sparing me a frustrating trip through Jacksonville. By the time I got there, in early afternoon, the traffic was relatively light. Then I hit the early part of the afternoon rush in Orlando. It was raining off and on in that area and the cops were out creating their mischief, so things were moving at around 30mph. 30mph is better than 25mph though. It was only slow for a few miles right in the middle of town and then the traffic shook out and things got back to normal. Then the skies started unleashing a hell of a fury about fifteen minutes after I parked.

I can't decide what worries me more right now - the thought that I'm about to get swept out to sea or the thought that the damned Japanese might be plotting to take us over again while everybody is worried about the ChiComs. I ain't even kidding. This one freaked me out. Seen anything strange creeping around your neighborhood lately?

5/11/09

"It just takes one of y'all to walk in here and then everybody does. Let me guess. All y'all are CFI guys and you all have a six o'clock appointment, right?" Yes ma'am. All seven of us. And thus begun another glorious day in the life of this here freight relocation technician. I got my assignment late last night and had to pick up in Richmond by 6am, so of course I couldn't get to sleep. By the time I got to the shipper and received my warm welcome from that little peach of a lady, I would have been perfectly content to go back to bed for a few hours. I told Little Miss Sunshine that I could go to sleep for a while if she didn't want to handle us all at once. "Door #4," she replied.

Door #4 had a trailer in it, but America's sweetheart had come out to the steps to yell "#5!" by the time I started walking back toward the building. About five seconds after I set my brakes at the dock, the forklifts started bouncing my trailer around. A few minutes later I was on my way. Efficiency. Beauty. No rest for the weary.

Then I got the inimitable pleasure of heading down I-95 all day.  In point of fact though, the stretch that I traveled was probably the best one on the whole road.  My shipper was on the south side of Richmond and I stopped once I got through Savannah.  From Richmond on up to the north, there's one pain in the ass after another.  Tomorrow brings Jacksonville and then the blue hairs a little further to the south. Today's drive was quite uneventful by comparison.  I did have to stop and take a pretty lengthy nap before the morning was over.  Then I needed to stop and get my fuel filters changed and tractor lubed.  By the time I was done with the T/A shop in Richmond Hill, the night was getting on so I decided to park and call it a day.

My delivery is set for Wednesday morning at 5:30am so I'll be looking to get as close as possible to Lakeland tomorrow.  Polk City looks like it will probably be my best bet.  That's a few miles up the road from Lakeland and only around five hours from here.  My delivery is a drop/hook so I would be inclined to think that I could show up tomorrow afternoon.  I sent a message today, asking if I could deliver early, and got a rather unambiguous 'no' in response.  I know that some of these consignees get all pissy if we're too early so I'll just have to get up at 5am on Wednesday and drive over there.

Too bad it's not earlier in the year.  I never have made it down to Lakeland for a Spring Training game.  I could start early in the morning from here and have an afternoon to kill in Florida if I wanted to.  One of these years...

5/10/09

Who's #1 in the East tonight? I am. That's right. The top dog. I guess that doesn't really count for a whole lot in the grand scheme of things but I'll take it. Nothing came up today, so at the very least I got to the top of the board by getting rid of my load a day early.

The Tigers swept the Tribe. The Wings got within one win of moving on. That's all pretty nice. If only David Feherty hadn't been shamed into apologizing for a pretty funny joke, the day would have been complete. Probably inappropriate for public consumption and whatnot, but it did give me a little chuckle.