6/19/10

Guess what will get your attention in a hurry.  Sitting at a CBP checkpoint and seeing the guy with the dog coming barrel-assing toward the cab of your truck.  Honestly officer, the trailer was sealed up when I got it.  Turns out he wasn't coming for me.  He was after the cargo van next to me.  Some might think that his dog had smelled drugs or something, but this is Arizona, home of SB1070.  We know the real story, don't we?

I get waved through those checkpoints (all of 'em, not just Arizona's) with a smile and a nod. Sometimes it ain't so bad to be Whitey. Speaking of which, have you ever noticed that the white people in the Southwest are some of the whitest white people in America? Hell, even in Michigan we get tanned a little in the summer. The white folks out here must go hogwild with the SPF 30 or something. I don't know.

I don't recall a lot of specifics about today's driving, which usually means that the drive was pretty good.  It also usually means that I was pretty tired.  I was up and rolling wicked early this morning in order to keep to my noon dispatch, so that part wasn't so peachy.  Otherwise just a long and steady drive. 

After I made my drop at the border (as in - 30 yards from the fence, no kidding), I sent in my 'dropped trailer' form.  I expected my new assignment to come through, but instead I got a message telling me that I had sent the wrong forms.  I was not at Stop 2.  I was at a relay point.  I needed to send the corresponding forms so that I could be dispatched to my next pickup.  I muttered something about weekend dispatchers and did as I was told, then checked my Qualcomm to confirm that I was right.  It says right there on the relay form that we don't send that one at a border location... err... nevermind.  I guess I'm the bonehead this time around.  In my defense though, that form used to say it wasn't for border locations.  I swear.

Anyhow, I had to scoot over to our drop yard a couple of miles away and grab my next loaded trailer.  It was ready and waiting, paperwork and all.  That's always a plus.  1,725 kilograms of foam should make for a nice and easy ride across to Texas.  Beauty.  I had managed to preserve enough of my 70 hour clock to get through that border checkpoint and on to Benson before my time ran out.

And that, my friends, brings several days of hard driving to a merciful end.  I'm not too proud to say that I am worn out.  Nobody will ever mistake me for a super trucker.  The week wraps up with a beefy 3,874 miles in the books.  I'll spend the next couple of days finishing out this run, but next payday will reflect just under $1,500 in earnings.  I'm guessing that my safety bonus will be on that check too, so the tax withholding will be a sight to behold.

I can work nine hours tomorrow and seven hours on Monday.  That should be enough to get me to the Dallas area ahead of Tuesday morning's delivery.  For now though, relaxation and baseball.  I am parked close enough to a Motel 6 so I have a speedy wi-fi connection.  The Tigers are going for eight in a row against these pitiful National League teams.  This is good.

6/18/10

I'd like to start by congratulating the great state of Nevada.  It couldn't have been easy to end Michigan's four-year reign as the unemployedest state in the union, but you've managed to take the top spot... for now.  Something tells me that we're not going away any time soon.  Don't rest on your laurels.

I think that today may have involved more hypothetical logbook calculations than any day that I've ever had on the road.  For starters, we had the D.O.T. medical exam situation to sort out.  After consulting the compliance department here at Fenian Godfather Inc., I decided against dropping my trailer in Lancaster.  I could have fit the extra stops into today, but my 70 hours were starting to dwindle.  Wasting the extra time dropping and hooking and driving back and forth seemed like a bad idea.  So I cruised into that parking lot that I showed you yesterday and found that it belongs to a vacant business.  There still were signs posted saying that I couldn't park there, but you know how it is.  Fortune favors the bold... or something.

After the clinic opened at 8am, I filled out a couple of forms and gave them back to the receptionist.  She told me that there would be a two-hour wait.  Yikes.  That ain't good.  She said that she would call me when they were ready, so I gave her my phone number and then headed out to my truck to do some calculating.  Long story short - 11am.  As long as I was out of there by 11am I would be able to reach Nogales in time, provided that there weren't any major delays along the way.

I got my phone call after 45 minutes and the exam only took a half hour or so.  Good deal.  And thus it will be another two years until I have to let another dude fondle my nads.  Back out to the road...

It's uncanny. I don't feel motivated enough to do the digging and provide you with links to all of the old posts tonight, but it's uncanny. Whenever I tell you fine people that I'm ready to head home and have a few beers, the high-paying pre-plans seem to come out of the woodwork before I get a chance to send in my home time request. Some of you have been reading this blog for quite some time, so you already know that this has happened numerous times. For those of you who are less familiar with the historical tendencies, you'll just have to take my word for it.

Yeah, again.  I was rolling across West Texas with my foot to the floor when the next pre-plan came across the satellite.  It was an 1,816 mile run from Nogales to the Atlanta suburbs.  Immediate reaction - "Holy shit!  What is that, a 4,800 mile week?"  Delayed reaction (about a half hour after I confirmed the assignment) - "Wait, what?  When does that thing deliver?"  I took another look and saw that the schedule said Tuesday at 11am.  Time for more calculating.  I have this many hours left on my 70... I'll use this many in getting to Nogales...  I'll pick up this many tomorrow... This many Sunday... This many Monday... This many Tuesday... Wait, what?
 
The schedule itself was doable.  I would have to drive full shifts every day and keep my breaks to ten hours, but I could do it.  The problem was that I wasn't picking up enough hours to drive full shifts every day.  So what gives then?  I checked the satellite forms that I've sent on the last couple of mornings, thinking that maybe I had sent the wrong hours or something.  Nope.  Everything was right.  I don't know then.  Maybe the load didn't actually have to deliver on Tuesday.  If it were an open-ended delivery, then I could use the hours that I picked up on Wednesday and everything would work out okay.  Yeah, I was sure that this was the explanation.  I ran some more calculations in my head and satisfied myself that a Wednesday delivery would make everything legal.
 
After rolling down the road a little further, I started to have my doubts.  An open-ended delivery would usually have the time listed as 00:00.  This one said 11:00.  Hmmm, something wasn't right.  So I sent a note explaining the situation with my hours and suggesting that I might have to relay the load on Monday.  I expected to get a reply asking where and when I could relay it, but instead I got a message asking when I would be able to deliver.  This seemed to indicate that the delivery time may in fact have been flexible.  Keeping in mind that I was still 600 miles from Nogales at this point, I did some more calculating.  Something along the lines of 3am on Wednesday was my best guess.  I would run out of hours on Tuesday, then pick up more hours at midnight.  It seemed that I would be somewhere in eastern Alabama by the time the hours ran out, so roughly three more hours... there you go.
 
After a few minutes, I got a note saying that the load was unassigned.  Guess that delivery wasn't so flexible after all.  A couple of minutes later I got a new assignment.  Instead of the Atlanta suburbs, I'll be going to the Dallas suburbs.  Same Tuesday morning delivery but ~800 fewer miles.  Okay then, this I can do.
 
My 14 hour clock for today was going to run out somewhere between Van Horn and El Paso.  Seeing no good parking options in that region, I decided to duck off in Van Horn and call it a night.  After a ten-hour break here, I'll have to hit the road bright and early.  I have around 500 miles to go from here.  Assuming that there are no catastrophes along the way, I should make it with an hour or so to spare.  Good enough.
 
The fact that my medical card has been renewed means that there's no longer a specific date by which I need to get home.  I had some things to do with friends next weekend, so it would be nice to get something toward home once I make it back to Texas.  It's not critical though.  The drop-dead date would be the holiday weekend, seeing as I have a bunch of explosive devices at home (and a Swedish buddy who intends to detonate every one of them).  I definitely won't want to miss that display.
 
My Tigers are spanking Dontrelle Willis at the moment, so I'm going to bed with the expectation that I'll wake to find a suitable outcome.  If only they could play these National League tomato cans every night...

6/17/10

I don't know.  What do you think?  Should I try dragging a trailer into that parking lot tomorrow?  I know I won't have any problems getting in there.  Just not really fond of parking tickets.  The little building on the upper left (with the orange "pin" by it) is a medical clinic where I can get my D.O.T. card renewed.  I have no idea what kind of business occupies the large building behind that big parking lot.  The clinic opens at 8am so, in theory, I could be in and out before the lot started to fill up tomorrow.  This is, of course, assuming that it ever does fill up.  The aerial view here is from Microsoft and I also checked an image from Google.  The lot is completely empty in both pictures.  I don't know.

If I decide against pulling a trailer into that parking lot, then I'm inclined to stick with yesterday's assessment and forget about stopping.  I would have to go to our terminal in Lancaster, drop my trailer, scoot across the 2-3 miles to the clinic, get the physical done, go back to the terminal, get my trailer, and head back out to the highway.  I haven't done the math yet to see if I would have time for this sort of diversion.  Possibly, I suppose.  A lot of the calculus would also depend on how quickly the clinic operates.  At the one back in Michigan, I was in and out within an hour.  Assuming that I'm ready and waiting when this one in Texas opens its doors tomorrow, it's probably not unreasonable to think that I could be finished in short order.  I don't know.

I knocked out a solid ten hours of driving today, getting me through Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.  By the time I got into Texas, it became clear that I wouldn't reach the Dallas area before my hours ran out tonight.  As I started this morning, I thought that I would end up somewhere in Louisiana today.  So in that sense I guess I was pleasantly surprised to see that my estimation was a little off.  In a practical sense though, it's the miles that count - not the states.  Still lots of miles to go from here.

The drive across I-20 was a pretty simple affair.  Traffic was fairly light and I had an afternoon ballgame to break up the monotony a little bit.  I'm not a big fan of interleague play, generally speaking.  As long as my Tigers can keep beating up on these National League tomato cans though, I may have to rethink my position.

Tomorrow's drive, once I get clear of the Dallas area, looks to be another long and boring one.  I probably can't get to El Paso from here in one shift, so I'll most likely end up spending the night somewhere in the mountains.  Then, Lord willing, I'll be able to complete one more ten-hour break and finish the trip to Nogales on time.  One thing's for certain - there won't be any of that cruising slowly to save fuel.  This is one of those runs where I wish my truck could still go 70mph.

6/16/10

It's uncanny.  I don't feel motivated enough to do the digging and provide you with links to all of the old posts tonight, but it's uncanny.  Whenever I tell you fine people that I'm ready to head home and have a few beers, the high-paying pre-plans seem to come out of the woodwork before I get a chance to send in my home time request.  Some of you have been reading this blog for quite some time, so you already know that this has happened numerous times.  For those of you who are less familiar with the historical tendencies, you'll just have to take my word for it.

I got rolling around 10am this morning.  10am, incidentally, is the correct time to get rolling in the morning.  So one might say that the day was off to a good start.  I was due in Matthews, North Carolina by 5pm but I was going to try my luck at getting rid of the load a little early.  3pm was my targeted time - not ridiculously early such that I would be sent away from the consignee, but still early enough to beat the afternoon traffic around Charlotte.  If I were able to get rid of the load early as I hoped, then I would be able to send in my request for home time and possibly catch another assignment today.

Having encountered no traffic at all during the first half of the drive, I was running way ahead of schedule.  I saw a sign for a truck stop on I-77 in Columbia so I decided to duck off and take a lunch break.  Cue the telltale double chirp of the satellite unit.  At first I was kinda glad to see that I had a pre-plan.  I wasn't going to have much luck in finding parking once I was empty, so this way I would at least have somewhere to go.  And requesting home time today wasn't an absolute imperative.  I needed to get back and renew my medical card by June 24th, so taking one more run and sending the request in a day or two wouldn't kill me.  From anywhere in that part of the country, I'm only a couple of days from home.

Once I got backed into a parking space at the truck stop, I took a look at the new assignment.  In light of yesterday's remark about getting home to a fridge full of beer and a comfy couch, sometimes you just gotta chuckle...

Oh well, it's kinda hard to complain about squeezing in an extra $800 before heading home for a couple of weeks. Between this extra trip and my upcoming safety bonus, there should be plenty of cash to keep the fridge stocked.

My delivery in Matthews turned out to be a drop/hook, so that was a nice surprise. The folks at the distribution center were polite and friendly as well. This was an even bigger surprise. After making a quick and easy swap of my loaded trailer for an empty one, it was time to retrace my steps down toward Columbia.

My next pickup was at the tire place in Lexington. I had been there once before. On that previous trip, there had been a paperwork issue that made for one big hassle. On today's trip, everything went smoothly. I made another quick and easy drop/hook, sent in my loaded call, and hit the road.

My original plan summary (pictured above) said that the load would deliver in Nogales at 8am on Saturday.  That's just crazy talk though.  The paperwork says that the load must deliver no later than 8am on Monday.  In all likelihood, we would be looking at something in the middle.  Depending on the broker's hours of operation, I was expecting to deliver either on Sunday afternoon (if they were open) or on Monday morning.  As I merged back onto I-20, the dispatch came over the satellite.  Assholes.

I'm due in Nogales by noon (3pm in the civilized world) on Saturday.  2009 miles in less than 72 hours is a pretty shitty deal in my book.  After I drive my balls off for the next few days, that damned broker had better not be closed for the weekend.  These jokers have pulled that shit on me once or twice before.  I wasn't amused.

My own personal distaste for 600+ mile driving shifts is not the only issue with my schedule for the next few days.  Now it's not entirely clear to me where or when I'll be able to renew my medical card.  I'm probably not making it back to Michigan by the 24th, so it'll have to be handled somewhere on the road.  When I first saw this assignment, I thought that I would be able to stop at our terminal in Lancaster, Texas and go to a clinic somewhere around there.  With this kind of balls to the wall dispatch though, I can't really fool around.  Lancaster will fall somewhere in the middle of Friday's drive.  I won't have time to stop there and then resume the trip after getting my physical done.  I guess I'll just have to get to Nogales and then take it from there.  I'll have five days left on my current card at that point.  I'm sure we'll come up with something.

I got through South Carolina and Georgia tonight before parking at a little truck stop in Heflin, Alabama.  I think this leaves me somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,700 miles from Nogales, depending on whether or not I cut the corner on one of those "not recommended" state highways.  This load is a shade under 30,000 pounds, so it might behoove me to stick with the freeways and go through Tucson.  In any case, I'll have to get cracking bright and early tomorrow.  Lots of ground to cover.

6/15/10

This job does provide me with a steady income and the opportunity for a seemingly endless variety of daily experiences.  At a more fundamental level though, I think it's mainly just one long psychology experiment.  I'm not sure where or when we'll get the answers to the deeper questions as they relate to me personally (Running from something or chasing something? Who knows?), but there seems to be no shortage of smaller observations to make along the way.  For instance - a nice and easy four-hour drive, along a nice and easy route, amidst nice and easy traffic, on a bright and sunny day, can seem like a long and arduous task when you have your mind on a fridge full of beer and a seat on your comfy couch.  Short-timer's disease is starting to take hold.

Another of today's observations would involve a CTL colleague of mine.  Since I have a ton of extra time on this run and I've been idling all day and night to stay cool lately, I've been cruising along at 60-62mph and trying to save a little fuel.  My MPG has begun to inch upward a little and there hasn't been a follow-up to my original reprimand, so I might as well try to continue the trend and stay out of the doghouse for a while.  Anyhow, I was kicking it in the right lane and listening to an endless stream of shitty songs on XM Radio when I saw a red Kenworth approaching rapidly from behind me, passing a couple of other slow trucks along the way.  My comrade clearly was driving at his maximum 65mph.  Then, when he got close behind me, he slowed down and stayed there.  Mile after mile after mile after mile.  He never did go around.  I pulled off and stopped for a break at some point, after which I assume that the dude went back to driving at 65mph.

I'm not sure which way we go in terms of analysis here.  I can only muster a guess as to why he didn't pass me.  We get satellite messages at least once a week, bitching about the price of fuel and asking us to drive more slowly.  Perhaps my colleague thought that I was some sort of goody-two-shoes driver and he shouldn't zip on by.  Honestly, I'm not all that concerned with the bosses' and shareholders' bottom lines, especially as long as they continue to dick me out of my 401(k) matching funds.  All I keep hearing is how they did such an awesome job of navigating the economic crisis, yet my income has gone down and my $1,800 annual 401(k) giveback hasn't been restored, so they can kiss my ass when it comes to dollars and cents.  If they go out of business, I can go somewhere else.  So no, I'm just looking out for #1 and trying to keep the safety people off my back.  But maybe this guy thought I would be inclined to say something to somebody.  I don't know.

The notion that one driver would be concerned with what another driver might say would seem bizarre to me, if only I didn't actually work here.  My ~2,700 fellow drivers include at least a thousand major assholes.  Case in point - shortly after I started this job, I heard from another guy who had been at Crowder College when I was there.  He had kept in touch with a few of our classmates after we each went our separate ways.  One of those classmates had pulled forward into a parking pace and grazed the trailer of the truck in the space next to him.  He and the 'victim,' as it were, got out and took a look.  Nothing really to report.  The other guy's hinges had been shined up a little and my classmate's trailer hadn't suffered any damage that was visible through the numerous nicks and scrapes that were already on it.  They shook hands.  No harm, no foul.  No need to pursue the matter any further.  Another CFI driver came walking over from across the lot and said that he would be calling to report the incident if my unfortunate classmate didn't do so himself.  For realsies.  (The account was later corroborated by another guy who was at the same truck stop that day.)

So yeah, maybe today's timid fella thought that I was one of those guys or something.  I haven't been able to come up with any other logical explanation.  As far as I understand it though, there's not an actual policy saying that we can't drive 65mph if we feel like it.  We'll just get in trouble if our fuel mileage gets too poor.  Our driving speed is only one factor in that equation.  Whatever.  I don't know.  (It was a boring day today and there's not much to talk about, as you can see.)

I've stopped at the truck stop in Canadys, South Carolina and parked for the night.  Tomorrow's delivery is in the suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina, so I'm guessing that I'll have a few hours of driving left to go from here.  Then I get to send in my home time request and let the clock watching begin in earnest.

Guess who gets to have an Italian BMT with double meat for dinner.  Ahh yes, every guy loves a good sandwich...

6/14/10

It's just a faint dot far off in the distance at the moment, but I think we can now say that the light at the end of the tunnel has been spotted.  It's basically the same chicken-or-egg deal every time I'm ready to get off the road for a while.  Either I run out of patience and therefore can't wait to get home, or I know that I'm heading home soon so I have no patience.  In related news...

I got rolling out of Pompano Beach at 6:15am today.  The drive from last night's parking space to this morning's consignee covered 29 miles and took a little over an hour.  The general flow of traffic wasn't too terrible for the most part, but there was an accident on I-95 around 135th Street that had everything tangled up.  By the time I got through that mess and made my way off the freeway, the streets were virtually deserted.

I rolled up to the consignee's gate at 7:20am and found it locked.  There was an intercom outside the gate and a sign saying "ring bell."  Guess what I did next.  Yep.  No answer though.  I hopped back into my truck and figured that I would try again once it got closer to my 8am appointment time.  There was a solid dirt area along the side of the road where I was able to park and wait.  Then... oh dear Lord no...

The ominous rumble from my belly was an unwelcome signal.  I actually had managed to sleep for a while last night, having consumed four Immodium tablets throughout the evening, so I was optimistic that things may have been back to normal.  Nope.  Not yet.  Parked along the side of a rinky-dink little industrial street with nary a toilet in sight - bad news.  I saw a box truck backing into another warehouse on the same street, so I walked over and hoped for the best.  The guy in the truck escorted me into the building and showed me to the restroom, at which point I... well, there's no need to go into that.

By this point it was time to head back over and try again to check in with my consignee.  A gentleman answered the intercom and opened the gate for me.  Once inside, I was assigned to a dock and unloaded very quickly.

Then one of those interesting transitions took place.  As I sat at the loading dock, I was hoping to get a new assignment so that I had somewhere to go once I was empty.  Such an assignment never came.  Then I found myself on the board at #2, so I pulled back into the same spot where I had parked and waited for the consignee to open.  Immediately after I set the brakes, I went from hoping for a new assignment to hoping for time to take a nap.

So of course I would end up somewhere squarely in the middle.  By the time I ingested another Immodium tablet and then tried to get to sleep, the satellite unit chirped at me with a new assignment.  Story of life.  My next pickup was only a few miles away, so I wrote down my order number and checked my directions, then headed over to the shipper.  I had to back in from the street, but it was a wide open street and the loading dock was easy to access.  No worries.

After a little over an hour, it was time to hit the road one more time.  [Note to self: Always bring cash when traveling to Miami. Always.]  I'm heading up to North Carolina for a Wednesday delivery, so I headed across to I-95 and started back out of town.  I didn't have enough money for the tolls to get from Miami to Fort Pierce, so I just stayed on the free road.  After all, I thought to myself, how bad could it be at 11:30am?  Much frustration ensued.  There was a recent study saying that a man can decide if he finds a woman attractive within a fraction of a second.  I don't disagree with that.  Personally, I think it's getting to the point where I can identify an asshole driver just as quickly. 

You know the deal.  Approach someone driving slowly → I slow down a little myself → The other driver slows down even more → There is a line of cars on my left → I wait (im)patiently for an opening → I move over to pass → The slow driver speeds up → Everyone else starts to pass me on the right → I finally get an opening and move back into the right lane →  The cocksucker slows back down → I start shouting → My head hurts → We repeat this process too many times to count.  A lot of people are piling on this humble and misunderstood public servant today, but I think he probably had just spent some time driving on I-95.  I feel your pain, homey.

Once I got up to Fort Pierce, the traffic shook out and things weren't so bad.  After a long break at the T/A in Vero Beach, I continued northward to the rest area below St. Augustine.  Good enough for today.  I'll have an easy day tomorrow and then finish off the ride on Wednesday before my scheduled delivery in the afternoon.

Hey, maybe I'll stop in South Carolina and try to get an autograph from Al Sharpton tomorrow.  He hasn't said that he'll be there or anything, but I'm sure he'll have to show up when he learns that the white guy who lost in the primary is now planning to try stealing the nomination from the black guy.  Reverand Al wouldn't be a hypocrite, after all.  Right?  However... err... awesome their reasons may have been, 59% of the voters in South Carolina chose Mr. Greene.  It's just a primary to see who loses to Jim Demint, but still, the election wasn't even close.  You get the representatives that you deserve.  I'll keep saying it until I die.

Once I make my delivery in North Carolina, I'm going to send in my request for home time and start working my way back to Michigan.  That light at the end of the tunnel should get a little brighter over the next few days.  For now though, we'll just hope that the present gastrointestinal status quo can be maintained.  So far, so good.

6/13/10

One of the underrated things about Florida is that every day, even the sunny ones, will bring a brief rain shower to wash the bugs off the windshield.  Of course the heat and humidity that come along for the ride aren't so great, but nobody's perfect.

Today's nice and easy drive down I-95 got me to the farmer's market in Pompano Beach, where I was able to catch up with Rick, the local seafood connoisseur.  I'm not sure that either of us managed to eat as much as we did on my last trip into the area (and my Swedish buddy Sjoe didn't join us for very long either), but dinner was good nonetheless.  After hanging out and watching another movie on that giant television, it was time for me to head back to the office.  Unfortunately I have an early morning tomorrow.

I'm due in Miami by 8am and it looks like I'm around 25 miles away.  That's easy, right?  Just leave around 7am and I should be a half hour early.  Yeah, no, not around here.  I'm going to head out at 6:30am and try to beat the heaviest part of the morning rush.  Even allowing for an 18mph pace though, there are no guarantees.  We'll hope for the best.  The volatile blend of blue hairs and young punks on the highway can be rather unpredictable sometimes.

Speaking of hoping for the best, let's hope that medical advice dispensed via anonymous blog comments is accurate.  The nearest restroom is clear across the parking lot from here and I'd rather not spend another night running back and forth.  I've bought my bottle of Immodium and consumed my first few doses.  The rest is up to fate.