Well, long drives home are what they are, but so far I'm beginning to wonder if I might have been less annoyed by staying on the road. The Taylor terminal was overflowing with trucks and trailers at 1:30am when I rolled into town. (1:30am is a half hour before last call, just for your reference.) I had to circle back around and check with the dispatcher to make sure I wouldn't cause an international crisis by dropping my trailer in the hazmat area. If not there, then I would have to leave it sitting in the middle of the yard. There literally were no other spaces. She said that the hazmat spot would be fine, so I backed all the way to the far end of the yard and made my drop. Then, by the time I walked back to the front of the yard and drove to the nearest convenience store, I found a locked door. Bastards.
I came home and found some awesome news in my mail, or rather in the mail that I don't have. I was a National City banking customer when National City was acquired by PNC. Last week, PNC sent out information on the changeover. New account numbers, new debit card, new PIN, etc. I got the information for my savings account, but not for my checking account. Well that ain't cool. I went to the PNC website and migrated my login from the National City website without any issues. Then I looked at my account information. My savings account had my home address listed correctly. My checking account listed an address at which I haven't lived since 2005. So there's a debit card, some paperwork with my account numbers, and a paper with my new PIN just drifting around out there. Awesome. Fortunately, that account serves largely as a conduit for my paychecks to move into other accounts, such that there is never a ton of money in it. Unfortunately, there's a debit card, some paperwork with my account numbers, and a paper with my new PIN just drifting around out there! Bastards.
The paperwork for my savings account says that I can call for service between 8am and 5pm tomorrow, so I guess we'll have to start there and see if there's a way to keep my money in my own hands. I've already redirected my future paycheck deposits to a different checking account via the Con-way website, so my exposure should at least remain limited. I was already going to have to update all of my investment and savings accounts with the new PNC routing number and so forth, so I guess I'll just spend some time attaching them to my new Chase account instead. This hadn't been my intention when I opened the new account to get the free $100, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Once all of that is sorted out, assuming I can actually find the motivation, I need to drag everything out of my truck and subject it to the '1 month' test. Anything that I haven't touched in the last month needs to be removed from the truck. It's getting a little too cluttered in there. I have the next eight days off though, so we won't be surprised if I just take it easy tomorrow instead.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
4/16/10
One of the odd things about the nature of my job is that memories of different days will often blur together. I'll think that I remember a sequence of events happening one way and then, when I use this blog's Google search to find the page to link, I'll find that it didn't happen quite as I recalled. So I'm thinking that one day, when it's all said and done, I might take the time to read through from beginning to end and formulate a better understanding of what I've seen and done on the road. For example, thus far I really don't know what has been the coolest thing that I've seen from behind the wheel. Tonight's drive brought a strong new contender to the game though. I'm sure of that much.
Upon completion of last night's eight hour break, it was time to set out and try my hand at creative routing. I usually just look for whatever seems simplest, since I'm prone to miss a turn here and there. I really didn't feel like taking the freeway route though, so I changed it up a bit this time. I must say - I did a pretty decent job. US-412 to US-45 to US-72 to AL-20 to AL-67 to US-231 to US-278 to US-431 to CR-278 to GA-109. Aside from missing the turn for the truck route and going straight through Jackson, Tennessee, I pulled it off without a hitch. Not a bad route either. I managed to take every major city out of play and only caught a little bit of traffic during the morning portion of the drive.
I was getting pretty close to the point where I would need to park for my two hour break when I spotted some trucks at a little gas station near Cherokee, Alabama. I swung in and found that there were no parking spaces. I was going to be gone before the place opened though, so I just set up shop at the fuel island and hopped in the bunk for a much-needed power nap. After my alarm went off, I felt good and shitty. I was a good little soldier though and went on my way.
I was feeling a lot better when the sun came up and then I got a little more excited when I saw that I was approaching Anniston. Alas, it was just a city with a bunch of red lights, not that other Aniston. I wouldn't mind approaching her, if you catch my drift. Once I got past there, I was back onto uncongested roads and the rest of the drive was nice and easy.
After my quick drop/hook in La Grange, I rolled down to the Pilot at Exit 13 on I-85. That place has one of the most bizarre parking configurations that I've ever seen. There were a few open spaces along the back row and I was able to spin around and take one without too much trouble. With one hour left on my split 14, I was #1 on the board and highlighted for a trip home. Beauty.
After a half hour I received an assignment that said it was picking up in Eufaula, Alabama at 8am. Since the assignment came through at noon, obviously the 8am part wasn't important. Just to make sure I wouldn't run into any issues, I sent a note asking if I would be able to pick it up after a break. I received a quick response in the affirmative, sent in my confirmation, and then kicked back to relax. The load is heading to Canada, meaning that it's taking me home to Michigan along the way. Pretty efficient.
Once I had been at the truck stop for ten hours, I headed southward and made my drop/hook. My scheduled arrival in Taylor, Michigan is set for 5am on Sunday. That's two driving shifts and one ten-hour break from the time that I made the pickup. Obviously I have no desire to get up and drive before 5am on Sunday, so I'm going to roll into town late tomorrow night. As such, I needed to knock out enough miles tonight to get me within striking distance. I figured that 300 miles tonight should do the trick, leaving around 600 miles for tomorrow. And back to the north we go...
I was flipping through the stations on my XM radio when I found a pretty good sequence of songs on Channel 9 (90's music). As I made my way through Columbus, Georgia, Sir Mix-a-Lot's Baby Got Back came on. It's written in the bylaws here at Fenian Godfather Inc. that I'm required to crank up the volume and sing along whenever I hear that song late at night. (Full disclosure: I'm not really into the big booty gals. It's just an awesome song.) So I did the right thing and followed the rules. I was jamming along when I stopped at a red light. A pickup truck stopped next to me. Right in the middle of the song, as an emphatic "back!" was about to roll off my tongue, I looked over at the guy in the passenger's seat of the pickup. One of two things happened next. Either that guy had some reason to throw his hands in the air and enthusiastically exclaim "Back!" or he was listening to the same XM channel as I was and singing along.
He had looked over in my direction at the same time as I had looked in his. Before either of us realized what was going on, another few words had come streaming out of our respective sing-alongs. Yep. Same song at the same time. I started laughing. He grinned and shook his head in that 'look at this crazy white boy' sorta way. Then the light turned green and that was that. This, my friends, may have been the single coolest thing that I've seen from behind the wheel of this truck. Or maybe I was just tired. I don't know.
Armed with a much more reasonable 20,000 pound payload this time around, I rolled past Atlanta and into Tennessee before grabbing a spot at the Love's off Exit 33 to call it a night. The federales will allow me to start driving again at 4pm, so I guess I won't be home in time to catch last call at Kelly's Pub. Bummer. Still, getting home the night after I sent my request is just fine with me. Normally it sucks when I get there too quickly, as I end up sitting around for a few extra days before I really intended to be home. This time though, I'll take it. Gladly.
I have to touch on one last topic before I hit the sack for a while. Much is made of the editorial slants of various news organizations. For instance, you tend to have the New York Times on one end of the spectrum and Fox News on the other end. Conventional wisdom holds that the Times is a liberal outfit whereas Fox is a conservative one. After what I've seen in the last few days, I'm not sure that this is the proper distinction. Think of the least political topic you can find. Women's grooming, right? I know. That's what I thought of too. New York Times - Dear Lord no. Fox News - Oh hell yes. It's entirely possible that one organization is simply evil. Just a little food for thought on a weekend.
Upon completion of last night's eight hour break, it was time to set out and try my hand at creative routing. I usually just look for whatever seems simplest, since I'm prone to miss a turn here and there. I really didn't feel like taking the freeway route though, so I changed it up a bit this time. I must say - I did a pretty decent job. US-412 to US-45 to US-72 to AL-20 to AL-67 to US-231 to US-278 to US-431 to CR-278 to GA-109. Aside from missing the turn for the truck route and going straight through Jackson, Tennessee, I pulled it off without a hitch. Not a bad route either. I managed to take every major city out of play and only caught a little bit of traffic during the morning portion of the drive.
I was getting pretty close to the point where I would need to park for my two hour break when I spotted some trucks at a little gas station near Cherokee, Alabama. I swung in and found that there were no parking spaces. I was going to be gone before the place opened though, so I just set up shop at the fuel island and hopped in the bunk for a much-needed power nap. After my alarm went off, I felt good and shitty. I was a good little soldier though and went on my way.
I was feeling a lot better when the sun came up and then I got a little more excited when I saw that I was approaching Anniston. Alas, it was just a city with a bunch of red lights, not that other Aniston. I wouldn't mind approaching her, if you catch my drift. Once I got past there, I was back onto uncongested roads and the rest of the drive was nice and easy.
After my quick drop/hook in La Grange, I rolled down to the Pilot at Exit 13 on I-85. That place has one of the most bizarre parking configurations that I've ever seen. There were a few open spaces along the back row and I was able to spin around and take one without too much trouble. With one hour left on my split 14, I was #1 on the board and highlighted for a trip home. Beauty.
After a half hour I received an assignment that said it was picking up in Eufaula, Alabama at 8am. Since the assignment came through at noon, obviously the 8am part wasn't important. Just to make sure I wouldn't run into any issues, I sent a note asking if I would be able to pick it up after a break. I received a quick response in the affirmative, sent in my confirmation, and then kicked back to relax. The load is heading to Canada, meaning that it's taking me home to Michigan along the way. Pretty efficient.
Once I had been at the truck stop for ten hours, I headed southward and made my drop/hook. My scheduled arrival in Taylor, Michigan is set for 5am on Sunday. That's two driving shifts and one ten-hour break from the time that I made the pickup. Obviously I have no desire to get up and drive before 5am on Sunday, so I'm going to roll into town late tomorrow night. As such, I needed to knock out enough miles tonight to get me within striking distance. I figured that 300 miles tonight should do the trick, leaving around 600 miles for tomorrow. And back to the north we go...
I was flipping through the stations on my XM radio when I found a pretty good sequence of songs on Channel 9 (90's music). As I made my way through Columbus, Georgia, Sir Mix-a-Lot's Baby Got Back came on. It's written in the bylaws here at Fenian Godfather Inc. that I'm required to crank up the volume and sing along whenever I hear that song late at night. (Full disclosure: I'm not really into the big booty gals. It's just an awesome song.) So I did the right thing and followed the rules. I was jamming along when I stopped at a red light. A pickup truck stopped next to me. Right in the middle of the song, as an emphatic "back!" was about to roll off my tongue, I looked over at the guy in the passenger's seat of the pickup. One of two things happened next. Either that guy had some reason to throw his hands in the air and enthusiastically exclaim "Back!" or he was listening to the same XM channel as I was and singing along.
He had looked over in my direction at the same time as I had looked in his. Before either of us realized what was going on, another few words had come streaming out of our respective sing-alongs. Yep. Same song at the same time. I started laughing. He grinned and shook his head in that 'look at this crazy white boy' sorta way. Then the light turned green and that was that. This, my friends, may have been the single coolest thing that I've seen from behind the wheel of this truck. Or maybe I was just tired. I don't know.
Armed with a much more reasonable 20,000 pound payload this time around, I rolled past Atlanta and into Tennessee before grabbing a spot at the Love's off Exit 33 to call it a night. The federales will allow me to start driving again at 4pm, so I guess I won't be home in time to catch last call at Kelly's Pub. Bummer. Still, getting home the night after I sent my request is just fine with me. Normally it sucks when I get there too quickly, as I end up sitting around for a few extra days before I really intended to be home. This time though, I'll take it. Gladly.
I have to touch on one last topic before I hit the sack for a while. Much is made of the editorial slants of various news organizations. For instance, you tend to have the New York Times on one end of the spectrum and Fox News on the other end. Conventional wisdom holds that the Times is a liberal outfit whereas Fox is a conservative one. After what I've seen in the last few days, I'm not sure that this is the proper distinction. Think of the least political topic you can find. Women's grooming, right? I know. That's what I thought of too. New York Times - Dear Lord no. Fox News - Oh hell yes. It's entirely possible that one organization is simply evil. Just a little food for thought on a weekend.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
4/15/10
Yeah I'm plenty angry at the federal government today, but it has nothing to do with taxes. To be perfectly honest, I don't have a huge beef with my current tax burden. I get thousands of dollars in deductions for money that I don't actually spend, so my effective tax rate is fairly reasonable. On matters of taxation, it's the economic cost of an over-reaching government and the inevitable day of reckoning that concern me. But no, that's not the issue this evening. This evening we're back to bitching about the good old FMCSA.
First though, let's bitch about my employers for a minute. This seems to be a theme for the last week or two. So, I got rolling from Alorton, Illinois at 4:45am this morning. I arrived at my consignee just before 7am and found that there were only three trucks ahead of me and none of them were CTL trucks. Okay then, not too bad. I walked into the receiving office and learned that the consignee opens at 8am. Dispatched to arrive an hour before the customer opened, on both the pickup end and the delivery end. Hey, there's something to be said for consistency. (You'll see shortly how getting started that extra hour early, once again, made a huge difference in how badly I got screwed by the 14 hour rule.)
As I sat waiting for the place to open, I received my next assignment. I would be heading down into Missouri this evening and getting a load headed to La Grange, Georgia. This would work well with respect to my pending home time request, but not so well with respect to my federal government's idea of common sense. I was unloaded quickly after the consignee opened, then sent on my way at 8:30am.
My pickup was set for 6pm in Bloomington, Missouri. (You'll of course recall the 4:45am part of this conversation, meaning that 6:45pm is shutdown time.) I had to drive 120 miles along a mixture of highways and through various towns to reach the shipper, meaning that there wasn't time for an eight hour break before arriving. I also had instructions saying that the shipper doesn't allow us to park on location, meaning that I shouldn't arrive too early. I stopped for a nap in Charleston, Missouri and then finished the drive over to the shipper. I arrived at 2pm in hopes that they wouldn't kick me out and I might get loaded a little early, leaving me at least enough time to drive to a truck stop or rest area tonight. They had enough room for me to stick around, so that part was good. No such luck on the getting loaded early part.
I got my paperwork right at 6:45pm. Out of hours and out of luck. The nearest truck stops would be around a half hour away, back over along I-55. Gee, if only I had started my day an hour later. I sweet-talked the security guard into letting me hide out among the empty trailers until I could get myself legal again. She said that they're not supposed to let us do so, but that she would make an exception as long as I took off within a few hours. I told her that I could roll out of here at 10pm and thanked her very sincerely.
At this point I raise a practical question. Given that I took a nap this afternoon and I'm a half hour from a tuck stop, which makes more sense - Driving that half hour to the truck stop, calling it a night, and taking a full break; or staying at the shipper to complete an eight hour break and then getting stuck in the split shift from Hell? (That's a rhetorical question.) Since the 14 hour clock continued ticking until I started my bunk time at the shipper, I can work for 4.75 hours once I get rolling again. Then I have to take a two-hour break, assuming that I can find somewhere to park in the middle of the night. Then I'll be able to work whatever portion of the 11/14 deal I don't use between now and the two-hour break, but the two-hour break will count against the 14. Then, once I've made my delivery, I'll be running up against the other side of the split again. Fucking stupid. I'm telling you - just limit us to 600 miles a day, 3,500 miles a week, and just get rid of all this clock management bullshit. We can earn a comfortable living at that pace and it would prevent people from going completely overboard with the tired driving. This clock shit makes no sense.
At this point in time, I honestly have no idea how this trip will play out. My lamentations about the 45,000 pound payload out of Arizona were rewarded with a 46,000 pound payload out of Missouri, so that part should be fun. I can't decide whether I would prefer to deal with Nashville, Chattanooga, and Atlanta or if I would rather deal with state and U.S. highways and the varying conditions that they present. I have a half hour to figure it out, I guess.
The money end of the equation should be starting to take shape at least. Today's 673 miles will kick the week over $800 with Saturday still to come. I don't have any high hopes for tomorrow evening, in light of the logbook/split situation, but we'll just have to see what kind of freight comes out of the Southeast. As long as I can make enough on the way back home to buy beer and food for next Saturday's tailgater, we'll be well on our way to forgetting the obnoxious nature of my job over the past couple of weeks.
First though, let's bitch about my employers for a minute. This seems to be a theme for the last week or two. So, I got rolling from Alorton, Illinois at 4:45am this morning. I arrived at my consignee just before 7am and found that there were only three trucks ahead of me and none of them were CTL trucks. Okay then, not too bad. I walked into the receiving office and learned that the consignee opens at 8am. Dispatched to arrive an hour before the customer opened, on both the pickup end and the delivery end. Hey, there's something to be said for consistency. (You'll see shortly how getting started that extra hour early, once again, made a huge difference in how badly I got screwed by the 14 hour rule.)
As I sat waiting for the place to open, I received my next assignment. I would be heading down into Missouri this evening and getting a load headed to La Grange, Georgia. This would work well with respect to my pending home time request, but not so well with respect to my federal government's idea of common sense. I was unloaded quickly after the consignee opened, then sent on my way at 8:30am.
My pickup was set for 6pm in Bloomington, Missouri. (You'll of course recall the 4:45am part of this conversation, meaning that 6:45pm is shutdown time.) I had to drive 120 miles along a mixture of highways and through various towns to reach the shipper, meaning that there wasn't time for an eight hour break before arriving. I also had instructions saying that the shipper doesn't allow us to park on location, meaning that I shouldn't arrive too early. I stopped for a nap in Charleston, Missouri and then finished the drive over to the shipper. I arrived at 2pm in hopes that they wouldn't kick me out and I might get loaded a little early, leaving me at least enough time to drive to a truck stop or rest area tonight. They had enough room for me to stick around, so that part was good. No such luck on the getting loaded early part.
I got my paperwork right at 6:45pm. Out of hours and out of luck. The nearest truck stops would be around a half hour away, back over along I-55. Gee, if only I had started my day an hour later. I sweet-talked the security guard into letting me hide out among the empty trailers until I could get myself legal again. She said that they're not supposed to let us do so, but that she would make an exception as long as I took off within a few hours. I told her that I could roll out of here at 10pm and thanked her very sincerely.
At this point I raise a practical question. Given that I took a nap this afternoon and I'm a half hour from a tuck stop, which makes more sense - Driving that half hour to the truck stop, calling it a night, and taking a full break; or staying at the shipper to complete an eight hour break and then getting stuck in the split shift from Hell? (That's a rhetorical question.) Since the 14 hour clock continued ticking until I started my bunk time at the shipper, I can work for 4.75 hours once I get rolling again. Then I have to take a two-hour break, assuming that I can find somewhere to park in the middle of the night. Then I'll be able to work whatever portion of the 11/14 deal I don't use between now and the two-hour break, but the two-hour break will count against the 14. Then, once I've made my delivery, I'll be running up against the other side of the split again. Fucking stupid. I'm telling you - just limit us to 600 miles a day, 3,500 miles a week, and just get rid of all this clock management bullshit. We can earn a comfortable living at that pace and it would prevent people from going completely overboard with the tired driving. This clock shit makes no sense.
At this point in time, I honestly have no idea how this trip will play out. My lamentations about the 45,000 pound payload out of Arizona were rewarded with a 46,000 pound payload out of Missouri, so that part should be fun. I can't decide whether I would prefer to deal with Nashville, Chattanooga, and Atlanta or if I would rather deal with state and U.S. highways and the varying conditions that they present. I have a half hour to figure it out, I guess.
The money end of the equation should be starting to take shape at least. Today's 673 miles will kick the week over $800 with Saturday still to come. I don't have any high hopes for tomorrow evening, in light of the logbook/split situation, but we'll just have to see what kind of freight comes out of the Southeast. As long as I can make enough on the way back home to buy beer and food for next Saturday's tailgater, we'll be well on our way to forgetting the obnoxious nature of my job over the past couple of weeks.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
4/14/10
Back when I had season tickets for the Tigers, I was working in a profession that allowed for a great deal of scheduling flexibility. As such, I was able to attend around 50-60 games each year. I had three seats so various combinations of people would attend the games with me, but most often I was accompanied by my girlfriend at the time and her daughter. The daughter actually became quite a baseball fan, much to my surprise (given how young she was), but her mother said that she just liked to "people watch." I would submit to anyone who shares this philosophy that the drivers' lounge at your local truck stop will get you far more bang for the buck.
After an uneventful drive across the rest of Oklahoma and all of Missouri today, I took the loop into Illinois and parked for the night at the Flying J off Exit 17A. The temperature was around 90° and the sun was shining, so I decided to sit in the lounge for a while after I had some dinner and took a shower. These heavy loads and mountains aren't doing anything to help my 'bad employee' status in terms of fuel mileage, so I figured I might as well kill some time inside the truck stop (rather than idling my truck) until the temperature dropped for the night. The variety of people in these places is interesting. From the outward appearances to the speech patterns to the topics of the cell phone conversations that you can't help but overhear... it's something. I'd take a $9 beer and a seat behind the dugout any day of the week, but then again, I'm not the "people watching" type.
My cheap little power inverter stopped working last night, so I bought a new one at the service plaza in Oklahoma before I headed out this morning. The only kind that they sold was rated at 100 watts, so I wasn't sure if it would be adequate to power my computer. (The old one was a 200 watt model.) What the hell though. It was only $20. Might as well give it a shot. As I type this post, my computer's power display says that it's working just fine. As an unexpected bonus, I can actually use the touchpad while the computer is plugged in now. For the last month, since I headed out from home with this new computer, this has not been the case. I'm not an electrical engineer but we'll have to proceed on the assumption that the old inverter, and not the new computer, was the problem. Beauty.
Looks like around 75-80 miles from here to my consignee in the morning. I'm gonna angle down on some state highways and hope to dodge the morning traffic for the most part. Then, if my hunch is correct, I'll get to sit in line behind a bunch of other trucks (all with 7am dispatches) before I get unloaded. The 34-hour restart that I got in Arizona should work in my favor with respect to this weekend so, assuming that there's actually some freight to haul, I may end up making a few bucks this week. As long as I can get something to keep me occupied for a couple more days, the timing should work out for my upcoming home time request. It has been time to head home for a couple of weeks now, I think.
Make sure you get those taxes paid, suckers.
After an uneventful drive across the rest of Oklahoma and all of Missouri today, I took the loop into Illinois and parked for the night at the Flying J off Exit 17A. The temperature was around 90° and the sun was shining, so I decided to sit in the lounge for a while after I had some dinner and took a shower. These heavy loads and mountains aren't doing anything to help my 'bad employee' status in terms of fuel mileage, so I figured I might as well kill some time inside the truck stop (rather than idling my truck) until the temperature dropped for the night. The variety of people in these places is interesting. From the outward appearances to the speech patterns to the topics of the cell phone conversations that you can't help but overhear... it's something. I'd take a $9 beer and a seat behind the dugout any day of the week, but then again, I'm not the "people watching" type.
My cheap little power inverter stopped working last night, so I bought a new one at the service plaza in Oklahoma before I headed out this morning. The only kind that they sold was rated at 100 watts, so I wasn't sure if it would be adequate to power my computer. (The old one was a 200 watt model.) What the hell though. It was only $20. Might as well give it a shot. As I type this post, my computer's power display says that it's working just fine. As an unexpected bonus, I can actually use the touchpad while the computer is plugged in now. For the last month, since I headed out from home with this new computer, this has not been the case. I'm not an electrical engineer but we'll have to proceed on the assumption that the old inverter, and not the new computer, was the problem. Beauty.
Looks like around 75-80 miles from here to my consignee in the morning. I'm gonna angle down on some state highways and hope to dodge the morning traffic for the most part. Then, if my hunch is correct, I'll get to sit in line behind a bunch of other trucks (all with 7am dispatches) before I get unloaded. The 34-hour restart that I got in Arizona should work in my favor with respect to this weekend so, assuming that there's actually some freight to haul, I may end up making a few bucks this week. As long as I can get something to keep me occupied for a couple more days, the timing should work out for my upcoming home time request. It has been time to head home for a couple of weeks now, I think.
Make sure you get those taxes paid, suckers.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
4/13/10
It has been a common refrain on this blog that I am not a huge fan of driving anywhere near eleven hours on a given day. I'm paid by the mile though, and it takes a lot of time to drive a lot of miles, so the conundrum persists. Take heart though. We finally may have found a way that I can get the money without doing the work. In short, I need to move to England, get married, and have my wife start churning out some young'uns. Better car than I drive now? Yep. Bigger TV than I've ever had, with cable (that I also don't have)? Of course. Video game systems, a computer, and mobile phones. Yes, yes, and yes. And no taxes paid? That's the ticket, baby.
Until I manage to embark on that new career though, I guess I'll just keep slugging out the miles. I always seem to have enough money in the bank for a case of beer and that ain't half bad. A steady 10.5 hours on the road today got me to Stroud, Oklahoma. Battling the wind and the hills all day wasn't terribly frustrating this time around, since the traffic was fairly light and I had another afternoon ballgame on the radio. From here I'll have another 500+ miles' worth of hilly terrain to cover tomorrow. Then an evening of searching online for my British princess will be followed by an early morning delivery.
(If any lovely ladies from across the pond are reading this post, ahem, you know what they say about bald dudes and testosterone. And I'm a good cook too. Help a brother out here. It seems that my dream job in Denmark isn't quite what it used to be.)
Until I manage to embark on that new career though, I guess I'll just keep slugging out the miles. I always seem to have enough money in the bank for a case of beer and that ain't half bad. A steady 10.5 hours on the road today got me to Stroud, Oklahoma. Battling the wind and the hills all day wasn't terribly frustrating this time around, since the traffic was fairly light and I had another afternoon ballgame on the radio. From here I'll have another 500+ miles' worth of hilly terrain to cover tomorrow. Then an evening of searching online for my British princess will be followed by an early morning delivery.
(If any lovely ladies from across the pond are reading this post, ahem, you know what they say about bald dudes and testosterone. And I'm a good cook too. Help a brother out here. It seems that my dream job in Denmark isn't quite what it used to be.)
Monday, April 12, 2010
4/12/10
Nonsensical dispatches, when combined with the 14 hour rule, can do a number on a driver's schedule. In related news, I'm a driver trying to keep a schedule. We've already covered the fact that my whole day yesterday was wasted in Buckeye, after which I received a dispatch to pick up in Miami at 7am today. Since I wouldn't have time for a ten hour break if I drove to the shipper last night, I had to wait and drive across to Miami this morning. Getting that assignment a couple of hours sooner sure would have come in handy, but hey, I'm sure the shipper just called us on a Sunday night (when they weren't even open) and requested a truck... or something.
So cue the start of my 14 hour clock this morning at 3:45am MST. The trek into the mountains went a little more quickly than anticipated and I reached the shipper at 5:45am MST. After checking in with the security guard, I was informed that they opened at 8am and loaded trucks until 3pm - first come, first served. More information that my benevolent employers apparently didn't care to share with me. I got settled into the loading dock shortly after 8am and I was released with my load just before 11am. It took all of ten minutes for the guy to load my truck, so those extra hours of sitting around and waiting for him to get started weren't very helpful to the cause.
As I suspected, there is nothing light about this load. With a cool 45,000 pounds in the wagon, it was bound to be a long afternoon of dragging my ass up and down the mountains. According to my web log here, I was hauling 29,000 pounds when I made my first trip through the Salt River Canyon a couple of years ago. Today's 16,000 additional pounds were certainly enough to take the fun out of the ride. The drive into the canyon consisted of me trying to maintaining a safe speed and navigate the hairpin corners without burning up my brakes a I dodged the locals who just had to speed past me in a 35mph zone. The drive out of the canyon consisted of me repeatedly getting fooled into thinking that I might be able to shift into sixth gear for a few minutes. Every time I thought I was going to get some flat ground for a few seconds, the next ascent would begin. Tedious.
Since I was working more than taking in the scenery this time around, I held up my phone and pressed the camera button a few times whenever I got onto a straightaway. Maybe I could enjoy the view after I was parked for the night, I thought. The photos were mostly garbage, since I couldn't really look to see where the camera was pointed, but a couple turned out okay.
So cue the start of my 14 hour clock this morning at 3:45am MST. The trek into the mountains went a little more quickly than anticipated and I reached the shipper at 5:45am MST. After checking in with the security guard, I was informed that they opened at 8am and loaded trucks until 3pm - first come, first served. More information that my benevolent employers apparently didn't care to share with me. I got settled into the loading dock shortly after 8am and I was released with my load just before 11am. It took all of ten minutes for the guy to load my truck, so those extra hours of sitting around and waiting for him to get started weren't very helpful to the cause.
As I suspected, there is nothing light about this load. With a cool 45,000 pounds in the wagon, it was bound to be a long afternoon of dragging my ass up and down the mountains. According to my web log here, I was hauling 29,000 pounds when I made my first trip through the Salt River Canyon a couple of years ago. Today's 16,000 additional pounds were certainly enough to take the fun out of the ride. The drive into the canyon consisted of me trying to maintaining a safe speed and navigate the hairpin corners without burning up my brakes a I dodged the locals who just had to speed past me in a 35mph zone. The drive out of the canyon consisted of me repeatedly getting fooled into thinking that I might be able to shift into sixth gear for a few minutes. Every time I thought I was going to get some flat ground for a few seconds, the next ascent would begin. Tedious.
Since I was working more than taking in the scenery this time around, I held up my phone and pressed the camera button a few times whenever I got onto a straightaway. Maybe I could enjoy the view after I was parked for the night, I thought. The photos were mostly garbage, since I couldn't really look to see where the camera was pointed, but a couple turned out okay.
The steepness of the remaining stretch taking me out of Arizona and into New Mexico didn't exactly help he cause. It seemed like, every time I got into high gear for thirty seconds, I would have to start downshifting again. It's not like stepping on the clutch and moving the shifter are strenuous activities or anything. Just a test of patience when you're trying to cover some ground with the hours available to you under the law.
Which brings us back to the topic of nonsensical dispatches. I'm due in some podunk town in southern Illinois by 7am on Thursday. I was able to reach the little truck stop in Lemitar, New Mexico just before my 14 hours ran out today, leaving me somewhere around 1200 miles from here to my destination. Stating the obvious here, but I'll need to cover around 600 miles a day for the next two days. If any of the aforementioned dispatching shenanigans had been avoided (allowing me either to drive to Miami last night or to start later this morning), then today's time under the 14 hour rule would have carried me further and allowed for a more reasonable pace. Further to that, there is no reason for me to get to the consignee by 7am. The receiving hours are 7am to 2:30pm and I have no appointment. Our asinine dispatch system just puts me in at the earliest time on the scheduled day, at which point I'll sit in line behind ten other trucks that were told to arrive at the same time.
So yeah, it's all perfectly legal and it's all perfectly stupid. I know they think drivers are all idiots and we would show up late if they told us when we were actually required to deliver, but it would be just as easy to lie and say I have to arrive by 11am as it is to lie and say I have to arrive by 7am. This still would leave 3.5 hours of 'screw up' time and I would have the option of parking somewhere convenient on Wednesday and then finishing off the drive on Thursday, without having to get up at the crack of dawn and deal with all the motorists rushing to work. Peckerheads.
At least I'll have some decent miles to start this week with a few days' worth of (potential) work still to come. Since I'd like to grab another run or two before heading home, and it's most profitable to be pretty far away before I start working my way back toward Detroit, nobody should be surprised when my next assignment takes me from Illinois to Michigan or something along those lines. It certainly wouldn't shock me.
Update (10:48pm): For anyone who has been getting the blank rss feeds lately, I've put in a workaround and it seems that the issue has been corrected. On my end, I am now getting the actual content from the feed. If there's still an issue, I would apreciate it if someone could let me know so I can keep working to fix the problem.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
4/11/10
On the positive side of the ledger for today, I found a nice reliable video stream of the Tigers game. They were basically getting killed for most of the game and then put on a ferocious rally to come back, eventually tying the score and then winning the game with two out in the bottom of the ninth. I also found a video stream of the Red Wings game. It was a tough back-and-forth affair that the Wings ultimately won in overtime. I also found a video stream of final round coverage of the Masters. I'm not a big Mickelson fan, but it was pretty cool that his wife was able to be there and celebrate the win with him, after all that she has been through.
On the negative side of the ledger, I had time to watch all three of those broadcasts... and a couple of movies... and a handful of assorted YouTube clips. Yeah, one of those days. I was #1 on the board after making my delivery this morning and heading over to the local truck stop in Buckeye. I stayed at #1 all day until a little while ago. Now, since nobody was kind enough to pass along my assignment earlier in the day, all of the truck stops are full and I'll just have to stay here until the crack of dawn. My next pickup is scheduled for 7am in Miami, Arizona, around 120 miles from here. Peckerheads.
I'm picking up at some kind of mining outfit so it's a pretty safe bet that I'll be pulling yet another wicked heavy load across to Illinois this week. Another few days of shitty MPG and frustrating travels are probably in store. Such is life.
On the negative side of the ledger, I had time to watch all three of those broadcasts... and a couple of movies... and a handful of assorted YouTube clips. Yeah, one of those days. I was #1 on the board after making my delivery this morning and heading over to the local truck stop in Buckeye. I stayed at #1 all day until a little while ago. Now, since nobody was kind enough to pass along my assignment earlier in the day, all of the truck stops are full and I'll just have to stay here until the crack of dawn. My next pickup is scheduled for 7am in Miami, Arizona, around 120 miles from here. Peckerheads.
I'm picking up at some kind of mining outfit so it's a pretty safe bet that I'll be pulling yet another wicked heavy load across to Illinois this week. Another few days of shitty MPG and frustrating travels are probably in store. Such is life.
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