After spending most of the day trying to sleep off a hangover, there's only one logical thing to do in the evening. So there was never a question that some beer would be consumed. The only question was where to go. Fortunately, I was able to cross paths with our friend Brent. Brent knows as much about beer as I know about battling hangovers. That is to say he's very learned on the subject. I'm sure I do more beer drinking than is healthy for me, but I've never been very informed about the ins and outs of various styles. I just know that beer tastes good and large quantities can make women look more attractive. I also know that even larger quantities can make me look more attractive, and that's scary. At any point when I look in the mirror and think I've got it goin' on, it's time for me to go home and get some sleep. But I digress...
My buddy Brian and I drove out to the Michigan Brewing Company in Webberville, where a discerning drinker can find a good variety of beers and a guy like me can find an adequate quantity of beers. Everybody wins. We all enjoyed some conversation and I only slightly annoyed the waitresses. Beauty.
After the pub closed and we made the drive back to Taylor, one thing and one thing only was on my mind. I needed to get some food in my belly before I went to bed. Better to take proactive anti-hangover measures than to wait for morning, you see. Satisfied with my omelet and hash browns, it's time to hit the sack and see how bad tomorrow morning's headache is going to be.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
3/5/10
It's weird to consider the things that people take for granted. In my case, I take Vice President Gore's two biggest inventions - global warming hysteria and the internet - as mere facts of life. Since my best friend is a semi-retired minister who was born in 1934, he's dumbfounded by what can be handled online. To a dude like me who spends his days in a truck, loosely connected to the rest of the world by a wireless link to Mr. Gore's more useful creation, it's just the way things are.
Internet task #1 - Mom's painting. My brother bought the usual gifts for his groomsmen before he got married last summer. Whiskey flasks, fishing poles, etc. In addition, my mother and I got unframed paintings. Mine was one of Knute Rockne in the locker room at Notre Dame and my mother's was a knockoff of a famous painting that I couldn't quite place at the time. I ordered a custom frame for my Rockne print last fall and I was happy with the outcome. So today, roughly nine months after my brother's wedding, it was time for Mom to order her frame.
I told her to go to pictureframes.com and find a color combination that she liked. That site allows you to upload an image of your painting in order to help you assess how the various frames and mats will look. Yeah, that didn't go over so well. You see, Mom just ventured into the world of forwarding generally unfunny and often misleading anti-Democrat chain e-mails within the last year or two. She's not yet up to speed on image uploads and such. So I got recruited to help.
I stopped by her house this afternoon and asked her to show me the picture - a chick with an umbrella and a little kid. Okay then, we'll hit up ole Google and see what we can find. Probably best to start by taking a guess at the artist, in order to narrow down the results a little. It looked to be something by one of those goofy French impressionists or something. Not quite edgy enough for Cézanne, but still prettier from a distance than up close. Maybe Renoir, I thought, but really a little light on the detail to be one of his works. Might as well try Monet. (Two observations here - First, that chick from the movie Clueless really did sum up Monet's work fairly well. And second, I'm somewhat familiar with the work of exactly three French impressionists. I would be hard-pressed to discuss a fourth. I've studied Manet a little, so perhaps that could be #4, but I'm not sold on the notion that he was an impressionist.)
It turns out that my knowledge ran just deep enough this time around. Search results = groovy. So then it was simply a matter of downloading an image, uploading it to the framing site, and playing around with various color combinations. We found a nice and simple arrangement that would do well in either the house in Lincoln Park or the one up north. Ten minutes and a web connection. That's all you need.
Internet Task #2 - Reverand Dan's Car Insurance. The aforementioned 74-year-old friend got his insurance renewal notice recently. His six-month premium was going up by $200 and he thought he was getting screwed. There really didn't seem to be a reason for his premiums to rise significantly, so I told him that I would stop by and see what we could find. Armed with the coverage information in his renewal notice fromGeithner Insurance Co. 21st Century, I started pulling quotes. The first place would charge roughly the same price as 21st Century. The second would charge around $50 less. The third was looking to be around $300 less, but some complications arose.
First things first - Reverand Dan's father, also named Dan, is 97 years old. He doesn't drive. For whatever reason though, he's still listed on the family's insurance policy. As I noted yesterday - you live to be 97 and you can say whatever you want. If you want to entertain the notion that you might feel like taking the car for a spin, then I'm sure as hell not the one to tell you otherwise. So he's part of the quote. And he's married... to a 100-year-old woman who hasn't driven a car in 30 years. According to this third company though, I couldn't leave the wife out of the quote unless I called and spoke to an agent. So I called and spoke to an agent.
Who am I? I'm the guy getting the quote. What do I have to do with it? Nothing. I just know how to use the internet. Why not the guy on the policy? He is not conversant with the internet. How will he handle his online policy information? He'll call me, of course. That's how I got involved in this conversation in the first place.
The agent got past the non-driving spouse issue and then started asking a bunch more questions. I handled things to the best of my ability and then handed over the phone to my friend for the transactional part of the deal. Somehow, in the wake of his paranoid repetition of the same question - "Will I have the exact same coverage as I had with 21st Century" - he managed to disclose that someone keyed his car a couple of years ago and he filed a claim. And thus the $300 in savings magically became $240 in savings. Good enough. A half hour, a web connection, and a cell phone. That's all you need.
Internet Task #3 - Reverand Dan's DVD Player. In the interest of full disclosure here, I should tell you that I had a DVD player before 90% of you knew what a DVD player was. I don't even remember how I came to discover the technology but I know that I bought an RCA machine for $700. Then, only in America... There was a website called reel.com. It's some kind of Hollywood Video deal now, but back then it was a site for DVD sales. The top 100 movies on reel.com were always on sale for $9.99. There was also an emerging website called ebay.com. Maybe you've heard of it. An enterprising young lad in Southeast Michigan could somehow manage to buy $10 movies from the one site and sell them for $25 on the other one. That's just stupid, but I shit you not. I made a lot of money.
Anyhow, where was I? The rev's DVD player? Okay then. My friend has started to see the writing on the wall. He knows that there will come a day when he can no longer buy a new VCR. He also has been buying DVD's since 2001 or so, well after I myself had shunned VHS technology. Yet he has a huge stockpile of VHS tapes. So he wants a DVD/VCR combo that will allow him to enjoy both technologies. He went to ABC Warehouse and checked with the salesmen. They did have some combo units. These combo units would allow him to convert his tapes to discs, but with a catch. No built-in tuner. It may sound silly, but my friend has basic cable with no converter box. In order for him to record an episode of American Idol (or whatever people like to record), he would need a VCR or DVD recorder with a tuner. Or he would need a converter box, but then you get into the topic of multiple connections and controllers and such. That ain't so good.
So I, once again, got recruited to make use of Mr. Gore's lovely creation - the interwebs. Sure thing. How hard could it be to find a DVD/VCR combo with a tuner? Eighty bucks at the most, I thought. I was wrong. Damn. Looks like 'obsolete' technology commands a premium. We managed to track down the kind of device that he wanted, but the price was a little over $200. If that's the best he could do, then that's the best he could do, my friend said. He didn't have his credit card handy at the moment though, so I bookmarked the page for future reference.
After dinner was over and everyone had gone home, I wound up back at my own residence. Something about the whole DVD/VCR conversation wasn't sitting right with me, so I started digging through my storage room. Sure as shit, there I found it. Once upon a time I bought a DVD/VCR combo and then, for whatever reason, stopped using it. So it's just sitting there, waiting for someone who is behind the times to come calling. My device has a built-in tuner. It's not a DVD recorder, so it won't be able to get him off the VHS standard, but he can record as many episodes of Judge Judy as he likes. An hour on the internet, five minutes off the internet, and a friend who tends to discard technology when it bores him. That's all you need.
Don't be fooled though. Even though you might find some useful information without the web, you won't find shit like this in your stack of videotapes...
Idiot.
Internet task #1 - Mom's painting. My brother bought the usual gifts for his groomsmen before he got married last summer. Whiskey flasks, fishing poles, etc. In addition, my mother and I got unframed paintings. Mine was one of Knute Rockne in the locker room at Notre Dame and my mother's was a knockoff of a famous painting that I couldn't quite place at the time. I ordered a custom frame for my Rockne print last fall and I was happy with the outcome. So today, roughly nine months after my brother's wedding, it was time for Mom to order her frame.
I told her to go to pictureframes.com and find a color combination that she liked. That site allows you to upload an image of your painting in order to help you assess how the various frames and mats will look. Yeah, that didn't go over so well. You see, Mom just ventured into the world of forwarding generally unfunny and often misleading anti-Democrat chain e-mails within the last year or two. She's not yet up to speed on image uploads and such. So I got recruited to help.
I stopped by her house this afternoon and asked her to show me the picture - a chick with an umbrella and a little kid. Okay then, we'll hit up ole Google and see what we can find. Probably best to start by taking a guess at the artist, in order to narrow down the results a little. It looked to be something by one of those goofy French impressionists or something. Not quite edgy enough for Cézanne, but still prettier from a distance than up close. Maybe Renoir, I thought, but really a little light on the detail to be one of his works. Might as well try Monet. (Two observations here - First, that chick from the movie Clueless really did sum up Monet's work fairly well. And second, I'm somewhat familiar with the work of exactly three French impressionists. I would be hard-pressed to discuss a fourth. I've studied Manet a little, so perhaps that could be #4, but I'm not sold on the notion that he was an impressionist.)
It turns out that my knowledge ran just deep enough this time around. Search results = groovy. So then it was simply a matter of downloading an image, uploading it to the framing site, and playing around with various color combinations. We found a nice and simple arrangement that would do well in either the house in Lincoln Park or the one up north. Ten minutes and a web connection. That's all you need.
Internet Task #2 - Reverand Dan's Car Insurance. The aforementioned 74-year-old friend got his insurance renewal notice recently. His six-month premium was going up by $200 and he thought he was getting screwed. There really didn't seem to be a reason for his premiums to rise significantly, so I told him that I would stop by and see what we could find. Armed with the coverage information in his renewal notice from
First things first - Reverand Dan's father, also named Dan, is 97 years old. He doesn't drive. For whatever reason though, he's still listed on the family's insurance policy. As I noted yesterday - you live to be 97 and you can say whatever you want. If you want to entertain the notion that you might feel like taking the car for a spin, then I'm sure as hell not the one to tell you otherwise. So he's part of the quote. And he's married... to a 100-year-old woman who hasn't driven a car in 30 years. According to this third company though, I couldn't leave the wife out of the quote unless I called and spoke to an agent. So I called and spoke to an agent.
Who am I? I'm the guy getting the quote. What do I have to do with it? Nothing. I just know how to use the internet. Why not the guy on the policy? He is not conversant with the internet. How will he handle his online policy information? He'll call me, of course. That's how I got involved in this conversation in the first place.
The agent got past the non-driving spouse issue and then started asking a bunch more questions. I handled things to the best of my ability and then handed over the phone to my friend for the transactional part of the deal. Somehow, in the wake of his paranoid repetition of the same question - "Will I have the exact same coverage as I had with 21st Century" - he managed to disclose that someone keyed his car a couple of years ago and he filed a claim. And thus the $300 in savings magically became $240 in savings. Good enough. A half hour, a web connection, and a cell phone. That's all you need.
Internet Task #3 - Reverand Dan's DVD Player. In the interest of full disclosure here, I should tell you that I had a DVD player before 90% of you knew what a DVD player was. I don't even remember how I came to discover the technology but I know that I bought an RCA machine for $700. Then, only in America... There was a website called reel.com. It's some kind of Hollywood Video deal now, but back then it was a site for DVD sales. The top 100 movies on reel.com were always on sale for $9.99. There was also an emerging website called ebay.com. Maybe you've heard of it. An enterprising young lad in Southeast Michigan could somehow manage to buy $10 movies from the one site and sell them for $25 on the other one. That's just stupid, but I shit you not. I made a lot of money.
Anyhow, where was I? The rev's DVD player? Okay then. My friend has started to see the writing on the wall. He knows that there will come a day when he can no longer buy a new VCR. He also has been buying DVD's since 2001 or so, well after I myself had shunned VHS technology. Yet he has a huge stockpile of VHS tapes. So he wants a DVD/VCR combo that will allow him to enjoy both technologies. He went to ABC Warehouse and checked with the salesmen. They did have some combo units. These combo units would allow him to convert his tapes to discs, but with a catch. No built-in tuner. It may sound silly, but my friend has basic cable with no converter box. In order for him to record an episode of American Idol (or whatever people like to record), he would need a VCR or DVD recorder with a tuner. Or he would need a converter box, but then you get into the topic of multiple connections and controllers and such. That ain't so good.
So I, once again, got recruited to make use of Mr. Gore's lovely creation - the interwebs. Sure thing. How hard could it be to find a DVD/VCR combo with a tuner? Eighty bucks at the most, I thought. I was wrong. Damn. Looks like 'obsolete' technology commands a premium. We managed to track down the kind of device that he wanted, but the price was a little over $200. If that's the best he could do, then that's the best he could do, my friend said. He didn't have his credit card handy at the moment though, so I bookmarked the page for future reference.
After dinner was over and everyone had gone home, I wound up back at my own residence. Something about the whole DVD/VCR conversation wasn't sitting right with me, so I started digging through my storage room. Sure as shit, there I found it. Once upon a time I bought a DVD/VCR combo and then, for whatever reason, stopped using it. So it's just sitting there, waiting for someone who is behind the times to come calling. My device has a built-in tuner. It's not a DVD recorder, so it won't be able to get him off the VHS standard, but he can record as many episodes of Judge Judy as he likes. An hour on the internet, five minutes off the internet, and a friend who tends to discard technology when it bores him. That's all you need.
Don't be fooled though. Even though you might find some useful information without the web, you won't find shit like this in your stack of videotapes...
Idiot.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
3/4/10
I allowed a friend of mine to write down the quantities of various ingredients as I threw them into a batch of lasagna tonight. Ostensibly this would mean that she can make the stuff next time and save me the trouble. However, I suspect that she plans to take this proprietary information and become the world's foremost lasagna maker. I have no proof yet, so I'll be keeping an eye on the situation. I'll let you know if any lawsuits become necessary.
Wrapping up the day with a good dinner is far better than starting out the day visiting people in the hospital. One friend of mine had to take both his elderly parents (97 and 100 years old) to the hospital this week, each for separate reasons. I was passing through Wyandotte on some other business of my own so I stopped and visited for a little while. Obviously the old man is no legislative expert, and some of his views of our first black president are influenced by the era in which he grew up, but his take on ObamaCare still was pretty funny. "If that fucker had his way, he'd just give me the needle and bury me. He has no use for old people. We cost too much." Yeah, bit of an overstatement, but hell, if you live to be 97 you can say whatever you want as far as I'm concerned.
I don't think I had been to that hospital since my first run-in with kidney stones several years ago. It looks a little nicer now, but it's still a hospital. A half hour was about all I could handle. Now it looks like most of my social obligations have been met. I have to spend a little time tomorrow helping people with some internet-based work, then have dinner with my parents and siblings, but that won't be too bad. A weekend of misbehavior sounds like just the thing to get me ready to go back to work.
Wrapping up the day with a good dinner is far better than starting out the day visiting people in the hospital. One friend of mine had to take both his elderly parents (97 and 100 years old) to the hospital this week, each for separate reasons. I was passing through Wyandotte on some other business of my own so I stopped and visited for a little while. Obviously the old man is no legislative expert, and some of his views of our first black president are influenced by the era in which he grew up, but his take on ObamaCare still was pretty funny. "If that fucker had his way, he'd just give me the needle and bury me. He has no use for old people. We cost too much." Yeah, bit of an overstatement, but hell, if you live to be 97 you can say whatever you want as far as I'm concerned.
I don't think I had been to that hospital since my first run-in with kidney stones several years ago. It looks a little nicer now, but it's still a hospital. A half hour was about all I could handle. Now it looks like most of my social obligations have been met. I have to spend a little time tomorrow helping people with some internet-based work, then have dinner with my parents and siblings, but that won't be too bad. A weekend of misbehavior sounds like just the thing to get me ready to go back to work.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
3/3/10
Marching right along... or something. I've managed to bounce around and catch up with quite a few people. A few others have managed to blow me off, which is probably just as well since I didn't manage the logistics of this trip home very effectively. Only so many hours in a day and so forth.
I happened to be at a local drinking establishment (big surprise) while the hockey game was on. Roberto Luongo... in Vancouver... for a second time this week? Boo! Roberto Luongo. Boo!
(Correction: The game was in Detroit, not Vancouver. Still sucks though.)
I happened to be at a local drinking establishment (big surprise) while the hockey game was on. Roberto Luongo... in Vancouver... for a second time this week? Boo! Roberto Luongo. Boo!
(Correction: The game was in Detroit, not Vancouver. Still sucks though.)
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
3/2/10
I think I screwed up a little bit this time around. I'm not a very likable dude but, in small doses and on an infrequent basis, people seem to find me tolerable. As I was working my way through the month of February, waking each day to find one more hassle around the corner, I had several conversations with friends back home. "Pretty soon," was the consistent message in terms of when I would be back in town. Then one thing leads to another, problems arise, delays are encountered, and I end up telling a few more people that I'll be home in the near future.
Once I finally got my chance to set my home time in motion, I had to decide how many days to request. For reasons that amount to nothing more than a gut instinct, I expect that we're going off an economic cliff at the end of this summer. I don't have data points to argue or any of that. I don't know anything that you don't know. Just playing a hunch. Anyhow, since nobody likes being caught off guard in an economic crisis (see 2008), I'm inclined to bank some extra cash and hunker down a little bit. In that light, and in light of all of the unintended down time that I've had lately, I didn't really feel like burning a whole week at home. So I settled on five days. In retrospect, that's probably not enough time.
I got into town last night and gave my paperwork to the local dispatcher. The impending time crunch had occurred to me on the way home, but I assumed that I would just take my five days and deal with it. He said to me, "You have 23 days available. When are you coming back?" No mention of the five day thing. Beauty. So I told him that I would be back on Monday morning. One extra day to spend socializing and whatnot. Then I had a few cold ones at the pub last night, whacked down a bunch more at home after hours, and slept through half of today. The rest of the day was spent running around and handling tedious business (deposit some checks at the bank, mail my state tax return, transfer files to a new computer, etc.). One day down, five to go. I'm not sure how the rest of the week is going to play out, but I suspect that I'll be on the move quite a bit. I probably should have gone for a week off when I had the chance.
Time for a side note: My new cell phone is a Blackberry, so I spent a few minutes browsing the applications that are available. For $2.99, I saw one called Call Blocker Professional. I thumbed over three bucks from my PayPal account, downloaded the application, and then blocked my buddy Brian's phone number. He tried to call me and, before the phone even rang, the app took his call and hung up on him. That... was... awesome! Quite possibly the best three bucks that I've ever spent.
Godfather - 1, Nuisance phone calls - 0. I win, mofos.
Once I finally got my chance to set my home time in motion, I had to decide how many days to request. For reasons that amount to nothing more than a gut instinct, I expect that we're going off an economic cliff at the end of this summer. I don't have data points to argue or any of that. I don't know anything that you don't know. Just playing a hunch. Anyhow, since nobody likes being caught off guard in an economic crisis (see 2008), I'm inclined to bank some extra cash and hunker down a little bit. In that light, and in light of all of the unintended down time that I've had lately, I didn't really feel like burning a whole week at home. So I settled on five days. In retrospect, that's probably not enough time.
I got into town last night and gave my paperwork to the local dispatcher. The impending time crunch had occurred to me on the way home, but I assumed that I would just take my five days and deal with it. He said to me, "You have 23 days available. When are you coming back?" No mention of the five day thing. Beauty. So I told him that I would be back on Monday morning. One extra day to spend socializing and whatnot. Then I had a few cold ones at the pub last night, whacked down a bunch more at home after hours, and slept through half of today. The rest of the day was spent running around and handling tedious business (deposit some checks at the bank, mail my state tax return, transfer files to a new computer, etc.). One day down, five to go. I'm not sure how the rest of the week is going to play out, but I suspect that I'll be on the move quite a bit. I probably should have gone for a week off when I had the chance.
Time for a side note: My new cell phone is a Blackberry, so I spent a few minutes browsing the applications that are available. For $2.99, I saw one called Call Blocker Professional. I thumbed over three bucks from my PayPal account, downloaded the application, and then blocked my buddy Brian's phone number. He tried to call me and, before the phone even rang, the app took his call and hung up on him. That... was... awesome! Quite possibly the best three bucks that I've ever spent.
Godfather - 1, Nuisance phone calls - 0. I win, mofos.
Monday, March 1, 2010
3/1/10
I'm gonna go ahead and post this one early tonight. Assuming that some people get to work pretty soon here, there's a distinct possibility that my vision will be too blurry for typing in a little while. 2am is closing time in the good old Wolverine State and I'm hoping to get my money's worth before then.
It just wouldn't be a trip back home without some inefficiency and shoddy planning, would it? After a quick drive up to Coldwater this morning, I found that the receiving folks at my consignee were all out of sorts. Go to this door, no, go to that door... you know the drill. I finally got a door assignment and dropped my trailer, then proceeded to the bobtail parking area to wait. The lady in the office said that she would call my cell phone when my trailer was empty and my paperwork was ready. During the time when I sat watching other trucks come and go, hour after hour, I received an assignment for a load that would take me home. That's nice, right? Yeah, nice, as long as I could get out of that consignee's parking lot within a reasonable time.
Four hours later... I got my call and went in to retrieve my paperwork. Surprisingly, they didn't bullshit about the arrival and departure times. Usually those peckerheads will stamp the paperwork as being available to me a half hour before they actually tell me it's ready, in order to dodge some of the detention pay. Not this time though. They kept it all on the level.
Now for the planning/communication/nuisance part of the deal. The load going to Canada (by way of Taylor) was one picking up in Fort Wayne, Indiana at 9pm tonight. 9pm would be well over 14 hours after I started work this morning (at 4:30am). And I got out of the consignee's lot in Coldwater at 11am, with Fort Wayne still 65 miles away. So there was no way for me to take a ten hour break and still make my appointed pickup time. If this particular sequence of events sounds familiar to you, then either you're really astute or you pay way too much attention to these daily ramblings. It sounded quite familiar to me though. There's a reason for this. It comes as no surprise that tonight's shipper, sending the load to Canada, is the same one from the infamous Wisconsin debacle.
As before, I got the pre-plan after my hours had been updated to reflect the work that I did in the morning. I got the same 'driver instructions' saying that the freight is time sensitive and must be delivered on time. I got the same 14-hour and 10-hour issues once the previous consignee had me at an unloading dock for several hours. The only saving grace this time around was that I could get by with an eight hour break in the bunk, allowing me to hang onto enough hours to make the short drive from Fort Wayne to Taylor. Had this run been a little longer, say, from Wisconsin to Michigan, then the split break option would have done me no good and we would have had another argument on our hands.
As it stood today, I was going to be inconvenienced a little but the hours would work out. I drove down to the shipper and checked in at noon, letting them know that I was picking up a load later in the evening. The guy in the shipping office told me to drop my trailer on the yard and come back after 8pm. Since my assignment said that the shipment was a drop/hook and I was due at 9pm, this worked fine for me. I dropped my trailer and went down the street to a truck stop to spend my eight hours in the bunk.
At 8:30pm, with six hours at my disposal, I rolled back over to the shipper and checked in again.
"Go ahead and back into Door 19."
"I was here earlier and the guy told me to drop my empty on the yard."
"No, it's a live load."
"I guess I'll go pick up my trailer and bring it over then."
No big deal, obviously, but it's just one more minor nuisance at the end of a day full of minor nuisances. All's well that ends well though. My dock light just turned green and I'm heading home. Save me a spot at the bar, boys.
It just wouldn't be a trip back home without some inefficiency and shoddy planning, would it? After a quick drive up to Coldwater this morning, I found that the receiving folks at my consignee were all out of sorts. Go to this door, no, go to that door... you know the drill. I finally got a door assignment and dropped my trailer, then proceeded to the bobtail parking area to wait. The lady in the office said that she would call my cell phone when my trailer was empty and my paperwork was ready. During the time when I sat watching other trucks come and go, hour after hour, I received an assignment for a load that would take me home. That's nice, right? Yeah, nice, as long as I could get out of that consignee's parking lot within a reasonable time.
Four hours later... I got my call and went in to retrieve my paperwork. Surprisingly, they didn't bullshit about the arrival and departure times. Usually those peckerheads will stamp the paperwork as being available to me a half hour before they actually tell me it's ready, in order to dodge some of the detention pay. Not this time though. They kept it all on the level.
Now for the planning/communication/nuisance part of the deal. The load going to Canada (by way of Taylor) was one picking up in Fort Wayne, Indiana at 9pm tonight. 9pm would be well over 14 hours after I started work this morning (at 4:30am). And I got out of the consignee's lot in Coldwater at 11am, with Fort Wayne still 65 miles away. So there was no way for me to take a ten hour break and still make my appointed pickup time. If this particular sequence of events sounds familiar to you, then either you're really astute or you pay way too much attention to these daily ramblings. It sounded quite familiar to me though. There's a reason for this. It comes as no surprise that tonight's shipper, sending the load to Canada, is the same one from the infamous Wisconsin debacle.
As before, I got the pre-plan after my hours had been updated to reflect the work that I did in the morning. I got the same 'driver instructions' saying that the freight is time sensitive and must be delivered on time. I got the same 14-hour and 10-hour issues once the previous consignee had me at an unloading dock for several hours. The only saving grace this time around was that I could get by with an eight hour break in the bunk, allowing me to hang onto enough hours to make the short drive from Fort Wayne to Taylor. Had this run been a little longer, say, from Wisconsin to Michigan, then the split break option would have done me no good and we would have had another argument on our hands.
As it stood today, I was going to be inconvenienced a little but the hours would work out. I drove down to the shipper and checked in at noon, letting them know that I was picking up a load later in the evening. The guy in the shipping office told me to drop my trailer on the yard and come back after 8pm. Since my assignment said that the shipment was a drop/hook and I was due at 9pm, this worked fine for me. I dropped my trailer and went down the street to a truck stop to spend my eight hours in the bunk.
At 8:30pm, with six hours at my disposal, I rolled back over to the shipper and checked in again.
"Go ahead and back into Door 19."
"I was here earlier and the guy told me to drop my empty on the yard."
"No, it's a live load."
"I guess I'll go pick up my trailer and bring it over then."
No big deal, obviously, but it's just one more minor nuisance at the end of a day full of minor nuisances. All's well that ends well though. My dock light just turned green and I'm heading home. Save me a spot at the bar, boys.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
2/28/10
I cut my teeth in the restaurant business at Pizza Hut. I started as a delivery driver, then picked up some occasional hours as a shift manager. When my general manager decided to move on to another career, I leapfrogged a handful of more experienced people and took over as the new general manager. Fortune took me from there to progressively bigger venues during that career, but I have never, at any point in my life, seen a pizza delivery take more than two hours... until last night. My horizons have been expanded. Here's to you - Pizza Hut in Joplin.
Since I hadn't managed to sleep much before I got hungry, and then I sat waiting all night for my dinner to arrive, I chose to hit the road as soon as my legally mandated break was over. With my delivery in Michigan scheduled for 7am on Monday, I was hoping to cover at least half the trip before I needed to go to bed and get some rest. As it turned out, I managed to pull off an almost full day of driving with a nice nap in Illinois along the way. There wasn't much traffic and the weather was good, so the drive was nice and easy. My morning nap was long enough to bring the 14 hour rule into play, so I couldn't get eleven hours of driving in, but ten hours is still pretty solid.
As luck would have it, I got off the road in time to catch the gold medal hockey game. Also as luck would have it, I wound up in an area with lousy internet access and no pubs or restaurants with televisions around. Setting aside the terribly slow data speed here, my Sprint internet card won't even hold a consistent connection. I found the radio broadcast on AM 720 (WGN out of Chicago) but the static was unbearable. After some tinkering, I got hooked to the internet through my cell phone and found an internet stream of that same radio broadcast. Not an ideal setup by any means, but it worked well enough. Since my AT&T data connection, much like the Sprint connection, wasn't fast enough to support a video stream, this was the best that I could do.
Sounds like it would have been a fun game to watch. Congrats, hosers.
From Warren, Indiana, where I'm spending the night, I'll have to cover around a hundred miles in the morning. I'm due at the consignee (the world's favorite symbol of capitalist greed) by 7am. I'll get in trouble if I'm too early, but sometimes there is a line of trucks waiting to get checked in. So I can't roll in right at 7am either. My best bet will be to leave here around 4:30am and see how the traffic is moving through Fort Wayne. There's a rest area in Michigan where I can take a little break if I'm going to get to Coldwater before 6:30am. If there are any delays or traffic issues, I'll have enough of a buffer that I still should be able to get through the check-in by 6:45am or so.
4:30am, eh? Alarm Clock -1, Godfather - 0. I lose, mofos.
Since I hadn't managed to sleep much before I got hungry, and then I sat waiting all night for my dinner to arrive, I chose to hit the road as soon as my legally mandated break was over. With my delivery in Michigan scheduled for 7am on Monday, I was hoping to cover at least half the trip before I needed to go to bed and get some rest. As it turned out, I managed to pull off an almost full day of driving with a nice nap in Illinois along the way. There wasn't much traffic and the weather was good, so the drive was nice and easy. My morning nap was long enough to bring the 14 hour rule into play, so I couldn't get eleven hours of driving in, but ten hours is still pretty solid.
As luck would have it, I got off the road in time to catch the gold medal hockey game. Also as luck would have it, I wound up in an area with lousy internet access and no pubs or restaurants with televisions around. Setting aside the terribly slow data speed here, my Sprint internet card won't even hold a consistent connection. I found the radio broadcast on AM 720 (WGN out of Chicago) but the static was unbearable. After some tinkering, I got hooked to the internet through my cell phone and found an internet stream of that same radio broadcast. Not an ideal setup by any means, but it worked well enough. Since my AT&T data connection, much like the Sprint connection, wasn't fast enough to support a video stream, this was the best that I could do.
Sounds like it would have been a fun game to watch. Congrats, hosers.
From Warren, Indiana, where I'm spending the night, I'll have to cover around a hundred miles in the morning. I'm due at the consignee (the world's favorite symbol of capitalist greed) by 7am. I'll get in trouble if I'm too early, but sometimes there is a line of trucks waiting to get checked in. So I can't roll in right at 7am either. My best bet will be to leave here around 4:30am and see how the traffic is moving through Fort Wayne. There's a rest area in Michigan where I can take a little break if I'm going to get to Coldwater before 6:30am. If there are any delays or traffic issues, I'll have enough of a buffer that I still should be able to get through the check-in by 6:45am or so.
4:30am, eh? Alarm Clock -1, Godfather - 0. I lose, mofos.
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