1/11/10

When I left home a few weeks ago, I forgot to grab my hair clippers out of the bathroom. Consequently, I haven't shaved my head in a few weeks. Consequently, my hair is longer than it generally tends to be. Consequently, I'm becoming more and more aware of just how freaking bald I am. 33 years old, man. Ain't that a bitch. As uninteresting as this may seem to the average reader, I'm not just cruising toward the next warehouse each day on this here web log. I'm also cruising toward my inevitable demise and you'll just have to come along for the ride.

That whole going to bed early thing didn't pan out last night, so I got started a little later in the morning. After a shower and a shave, I came back out to my truck just before noon and fired up the engine. My satellite unit kicked on and the lovely voice announced, "Attention! You have twenty unread messages." Twenty? Holy smokes. I've never heard that before. What did I do this time?

It took a minute for me to figure out what was going on. There were messages for relay assignments and new dispatches and all kinds of weird stuff on the screen. Then I realized what had happened. My extra miles relating to the North Carolina rock slide had been added by setting up relays to alter the route and bypass the road closure. I'm not sure what sorts of things are encouraged or discouraged over there in Missouri, so I won't get into a whole lot more detail, but we'll just say that common sense has prevailed in the end. If I am going to cyber-whine when things don't make sense (as you know I do), then I feel compelled to take note when issues are resolved appropriately. Good lookin' out, my brother.

Southern Georgia is something of an anomaly when it comes to driving. Quite a bit of I-75 is under construction but there are rarely any delays or traffic. Although the speed limit drops to 60mph in some spots and 50mph for a few miles, and although there are a few lane closures here and there, people seem to keep rolling right along. Come to think of it, I'm not really sure why most of the road has three lanes in the first place. Today, everything was nice and easy. The weather was sunny and the drive down to Florida was quick and smooth. Ditto for the rest of the ride along I-10 into Jacksonville.

Shortly before I reached my destination, I received a message from one of the office guys asking me to take an inventory of the trailers at the Con-way terminal. We get our basic $17.50 one-hour pay for doing so and it doesn't take anywhere near an hour, so that message was a pleasant little surprise. In point of fact, the terminal in Jacksonville is quite small compared to the one in Atlanta, where I last performed a yard check. Today's version took about six or seven minutes, the bulk of which was spent walking to the far side of the terminal only to find that none of our trailers were over there.

Once I had called and given the trailer numbers to the equipment guy, I hooked to an empty and checked on my board position. #5. Hmm. The nearest truck stop where I could be confident in finding a parking space would be fifteen miles back to the west. There was a pretty strong chance that my next load would be beer out of Jacksonville or paper out of Palatka (to the northeast or southeast, respectively). What to do, what to do? I hadn't asked if I could stay parked at the Con-way yard. So... I hadn't been told not to stay parked at the Con-way yard, right? This sort of logic may not fly on every occasion, but it was going to have to work today. Plus there was already one of our trucks hooked to an empty trailer when I arrived. If I was going to get the boot, at least I wouldn't be the only one. Strength in numbers, power to the people!

After five and a half hours on the board, I find myself at... #6. This happens all the time when I get on the board at home and I'm still not quite sure what it means. What it means to me today is that I'm probably spending the night at the Con-way yard. So let me get this straight. I got paid to take a walk this afternoon and now I'm being compelled to stay somewhere with no restaurants? What are they trying to tell me here? I know I'm not in great shape these days and all, but come on. I get the last laugh though. I scrounged together $3.85 for the vending machine. Tonight's odd little assortment of sodium and sugar will definitely take us one step closer to my inevitable demise.