9/4/10

Would it be distasteful to make a joke referencing Jerry's kids?  After all, my Irish did handle Purdue today and the only Purdue person with whom I'm familiar is named Jerry.  You know, the whole handi-capable thing as a parallel to the unfortunate Boilermakers.  Eh, this sort of thing is probably not allowed in the year 2010.  Therefore I'll just commend Purdue for a great effort.  You tried hard and that's what really matters... or something.

I was reduced to listening to the radio broadcast by way of my newly acquired Blackberry applications today, but I'll get around to watching the video on nbc.com before next week.  I need to spot enough flaws to convince me that Notre Dame will lose to Michigan.  When you live amongst these people, it's best to prepare for the worst.  Then, every now and again, you can be pleasantly surprised.  Otherwise you're ready to accept your fate.

For a day with two loads, today was a pretty simple affair.  My first run to Howell struck me as odd.  It had seven pallets of milk.  That was all.  Those guys even pull their own milk off the trailer, so I basically drove out there, hung around for a few minutes, shoved a few pallets of empties into my trailer, and headed back to the dairy.  Good deal.

The second load took a little more work.  My first stop was in Jackson, at the store on Argyle Street.  That one has a really bad loading dock, so I wound up having the dairy guy pull with the pallet jack while I pushed from behind.  It takes a little longer to do things this way, given that I have to wait for him to take each pallet down to the dairy cooler, but I wasn't in the mood to dump any pallets today.  Better to take our time and play it safe.

The second stop turned out to be a long one, mainly because the people there were so disorganized, but again we managed to avoid any major issues.  The last stop was quick and easy and that was that.

Tomorrow's workload is a heavy one.  I'll have one load going to Imlay City, Lapeer, and Burton, followed by a second load with three more stops in the Toledo area.  My second stop on that second run will take me back to the scene of the crime.  Four weeks to the day.  Here's hoping for a better outcome this time around.  After all, a single fella has to try and keep up in the world when the gals are holding us back... or something.

9/3/10

One of the timeless metaphors that everyone can recognize is that of the glass half full (or empty, as the case may be).  The 'half full' analysis of today would be that I caught a second run and earned enough extra money to pay for my new FloTV unit.  The 'half empty' would be that I wound up working until 1:30am, so I never got a chance to buy a FloTV unit.  Probably just as well though.  It looks like I'll be working pretty steadily tomorrow, with a one-stop load to Howell followed by a three-stop load to Jackson, Holt, and South Lyon.  I'll be sure to take my 12v charger and a pair of headphones so that I can listen to my Irish on my cell phone.

My nice and easy scheduled run went smoothly, aside from the fact that someone crashed on US-23 this afternoon and the cops had the freeway shut down before I got to Flint.  Once I made my way around, I unloaded four and a half pallets at my first stop and then headed up to Saginaw.  Dixie Highway was closed the last time I went to the store up there, so I took the detour route that had been posted.  Turns out there was no detour this time around.  I was just cruising through the neighborhoods for no reason.  After dropping off sixteen pallets of milk at that stop, I took the direct route back to the freeway and looked forward to wrapping up a quick day of work.

As I sat in the office and finished up my paperwork for the trip, the dispatcher got a call from a guy at the Country Fresh dairy.  This is the dairy for which we pull trailers to Grand Rapids on a regular basis.  Apparently there was a trailer over there waiting to ship out.  The problem was that it wasn't on our dispatch board.  Therefore our guys hadn't assigned anyone to make the run.  The night dispatcher was a little distressed about the whole deal, but I told her that I would have enough hours to cover the load as long as they didn't jerk me around on the Grand Rapids end.  The turn usually takes between 5.5 and 6 hours.  I had 7 hours left on my 14.  She was grateful.  I wasn't exactly thrilled, but $150 is $150.  Plus I get an extra $15 thrown in for pulling a second load, so that should cover the sales tax.

By the time I got over to the dairy, they had decided that they wanted to throw some more shit into the trailer before I took off.  I had to grab my loaded trailer from the yard and back into a door, then wait for the updated paperwork.  There went a half hour of my wiggle room.  Better get a quick drop/hook on the other end.

Out in Grand Rapids, the lady in the receiving office didn't seem to know a whole lot.  I had her sign my copy of the bills and then asked if she had anything for me to pull back to Livonia.  Sometimes we return with freight.  Sometimes we return with empty cases.  Sometimes we just bring back an empty trailer.  She couldn't find anything that needed to be sent to Livonia, so she directed me over to the neighboring drop yard for an empty trailer.  There were no empties over there and my log book's margin of error was damned near gone, so I wound up bobtailing back to Livonia in order to make sure I was off the road before my 14 ran out.  Good enough.

With a pull time of 12:30pm tomorrow staring me in the face, I should have headed home and tried to get to bed.  Another of those recognizable metaphors involves putting one's nose to the grindstone, however.  Off to the gym we go...  My workout was rather quick and efficient tonight.  When you roll in at 2am on a Friday night, you don't tend to find many people lifting weights.  Just a few people with odd work schedules or shitty social lives (or both, in my case).  Now that I've stayed on schedule with my weight training for the week, I can get by with only cardio tomorrow as I watch the ESPN hacks review the day's college football action.  Hell, maybe even my Irish can provide a highlight or two.

Heh.  You bring the green job talk and the Cadillac SUV... Detroit will smack you in the face with the irony.

9/2/10

I am able to make it through my two days off in a week without having a cookout.  That's something that we learned today.  We also learned that it really sucks to do my chest workout immediately after my leg workout.  Really though, I think we probably already knew about that part.

Unless any of you have any tales of woe to dissuade me, I think I'll grab one of those FloTV things from Target tomorrow after work.  I only have one load with two stops so I should be done somewhat early, with the usual caveat that things can always change.  My two stores are the shitty one on the southwest edge of Flint and the shitty one on Dixie Highway in Saginaw.  I've never delivered more than five or six pallets to either store, so I don't expect a terribly rough afternoon of work.  We'll see.  I got a pay raise yesterday, meaning that the new daily minimum has increased by a couple of bucks.  The new floor is just over $140 and this load pays less, so I'm set to make just over $140 tomorrow.

I tend to get a single load on Saturdays but that single load tends to carry me through the whole afternoon, so I've been kicking around the idea of getting a little portable TV to watch for a few minutes before and after each delivery.  My two newly acquired radio applications will certainly provide me with coverage of the games, but Don Criqui does a horrible job of keeping the listener up to speed on things.  (Not that the NBC television guys are a whole lot better, but at least the picture is helpful.)  The question is whether I'd rather have the free OTA channels in southeastern Michigan or whether I'd rather have the cable channels and pay fifteen bucks a month.  The idea that I can get ESPN and Fox Sports as part of the deal seems to make the FloTV a pretty good option.  I dunno.

9/1/10

As I earn my living on a day-to-day basis, I often find myself impugning the intelligence of various people whom I've never met.  My behavior often assumes a form such as - "You stupid so and so, why don't you learn how to merge?!?  Asshole!"  How funny then that, despite numerous so-called objective tests that purport to have found some merit in my intellectual capacity, sometimes I find that my own intelligence is lacking.

I drove from the bottom edge of Kentucky back to Michigan today.  The drive was an uneventful affair for the most part.  I did plenty of shouting at motorists who obviously couldn't hear me along the way, but this is par for the course.  The highlight must have been the final ten miles that just happened to carry me into a rain storm.  I was a bit frustrated at the time, given the somewhat slow pace of traffic, but at least I wasn't in Texas.  Driving in the rain with the freaks down there is a whole other kind of frustrating.  After dropping off my empty trailer at the dairy and giving my paperwork to the night dispatcher, it was time to hit the gym for a workout.  Yesterday was supposed to be 'leg day' but I was unable to make it to Novi, for obvious reasons.  Tonight I was back home, so here we go.

I got to the gym (or health club or fitness center or whatever they call it) around 9:15pm.  The parking lot was overflowing with cars.  Screw that.  I drove down to the local Meijer store and bought some new wiper blades for my car.  Somehow it seems that, when you drive your car in the rain, you become accutely aware if your wiper blades suck ass.  After I replaced mine I spent some time in my car listening to the ballgame.  Then, satisfied that the crowd at the gym had likely thinned out some, I drove back up the street to commence with my workout.

Just before I got back to the gym, the Tigers scored in the top of the eighth inning and tied the game.  Well hell.  There's a big fancy high-definition television in the locker room at my gym, so I plopped my ass down to watch the finish of the game.  The place is open 24/7 and I had nowhere to go tonight, so screw it.  Of course the game had to go to extra innings.  After the Tigers finally managed to lose in the tenth, I walked over to the locker area and started to get ready for my leg workout.  I set down my gym bag and took out my pants.  Then my shirt.  Then my notebook with tonight's workout scratched inside.  Then my sho... Dude, where are my shoes?  It appears that, in my haste to leave town on Tuesday morning, I forgot to put my running shoes in my bag. 

I don't do any running these days but those shoes are still part of the uniform.  Back when my ankles were somewhat functional, I bought a pair of Brooks Beast running shoes from a fancy little place in Ann Arbor.  Since that time I've managed to endure a few more injuries and I've managed to get a few years older, so the running is (at least temporarily) out of the question.  The shoes do still provide a great deal of support for walking and lifting though.  My work shoes for the time being are a pair of Dr. Martens.  My company will be buying me some work boots within the next few months here but, for now, my Docs are the only shoes that I have with non-slip soles.  Trailers with metal floors and the occasional milk spill are enough to require a fella to wear non-slip shoes.  I haven't felt compelled to buy anything else to wear on the job thus far, so here we are.

I spent a minute trying to decide if I should just go ahead and work out in my work shoes.  They're fairly comfortable for work, but what about strenuous exercising?  They certainly don't seem to offer the same level of support as those running shoes do.  At the end of the day, I decided to take a pass.  For an upper body workout, I could have skipped the cardio portion and dealt with the work shoes.  For a leg workout, I wasn't willing to try.  I have the day off tomorrow, so I'll just combine the leg workout with a chest workout and I'll be back on schedule.  I'll be in the gym for a few hours as a consequence, but that's the price of my own stupidity.

8/31/10

I mentioned not too long ago that iheartradio was quite helpful to me as I rolled through Kentucky.  There's already a new kid in Blackberry town though, and his name is WunderRadio.  Iheartradio has a much nicer interface, but its offerings are limited to around 750 ClearChannel stations.  WunderRadio has a freaking ton of channels and apparently no loyalty to any single distributor.  Now if only we could convince those hooligans at Major League Baseball to allow internet streams of the games without requiring a subscription.

As I started to put on my socks and shoes in preparation for work this morning, I got a call from the terminal.  I was given a one word question - "Tennessee?"  You betcha.  More money and less work than a typical milk run.  By golly, that's just my style.  I haven't lobbied openly for more runs to Murfreesboro but I certainly have made sure that each dispatcher knows I'm more than happy to head down there.  It seems that, for today at least, my efforts have paid off.

This trip seemed to be even better than my previous runs down to the Volunteer State.  I chalk up the difference to the fact that I started well after 10am.  I trust that we all know the significance of 10am by now.  I did hit Cincinnati right in the middle of rush hour, but otherwise the trip was a beauty.

After dropping off my trailer full of empty milk cases, I went on the hunt for an empty trailer to pull back to Michigan.  I found exactly one, so I hooked to it and headed for the exit.  Not so fast, my friend...  The security gal said that the trailer in question was a dedicated Mississippi trailer and that I couldn't take it.  Well shit, that was the only empty one.  What now?  I had to wait around for another trailer to be unloaded, after which I was free to take it and head back to the north.

A night of sleep at the good old Super 8 may prove to be even better than a day of sleep here.  We'll find out soon enough.

8/30/10

Ahh yes, you can smell it in the air.  We're merely five days away from the pure, unalduterated hate that ties us all together.  While I've never really had the energy to convince myself to hate fans of another college team (except maybe Boston College), I do appreciate those of you who harbor the animosity.  You make the football world go 'round.  On a nameless Saturday when I'm standing outside in an alley, waiting for some punk to open the stock room door to a Kroger, I'll be sure to hate every one of you who is watching the game and drinking a beer.  This is my promise.

I'm all discombobulated at this point, which comes as no surprise.  I got done at the gym around 4:30am this morning, then did a little grocery shopping.  Then after I got home I wasn't all that tired.  A couple of hours later I was exhausted, so I went to bed.  Then I was up again a few hours later.  Once I got tomorrow's assignment and knew that I wouldn't have to work until 11:30am, I went ahead and took another nap.  Now I'm up and kinda tired and terribly bored and all the rest of it. 

I have to drive out to that Godforsaken gym again at some point tonight, but otherwise I'm pretty much reduced to studying the manifesto of South Carolina's next senator and trying to figure out the following.  (1) Who actually wrote this article?  It's poorly written, to a large extent, but it's positively Shakespearean compared to what we've heard from Mr. Greene before.  (2) Is he aware that the British are not eligible to vote in South Carolina?

8/29/10

What's that old expression?  Another day in paradise?  Yeah, I think that one fits.

Sundays usually involve two loads and around $280-310 in earnings, so today's one load and $180 sounded pretty easy by comparison.  Then I woke with a wicked toothache.  Ever have that happen?  It's not a lot of fun.  I'm now in the odd position of hoping that I have an infection under the gum line.  If so, I'm confident that I can fight it off before too long with a steady stream of antiseptic and extra-aggressive flossing.  If not, then I suppose I'll have to get to a dentist at some point.  Pretty handy timing, dontcha think?  I had dental insurance until five weeks ago.  I'll have dental insurance again in another five weeks.  We'll see how it goes.  I have a hefty supply of ibuprofen at the ready, just in case.

I got to work and checked in with the dispatcher, then hopped into a truck.  I saw that the gas tanks were damned near empty, so screw that.  I don't mind making a fuel stop during a shift, but it's a lot more convenient for me to do so on the way back to the dairy at the end of the day.  I wanted a truck that had enough fuel for me to make my run.  My paid route today was 309 miles, so I would need close to half a tank.  I hopped into the next truck and then realized that its air conditioning wasn't working.  Screw that.  It was hot today.  Third time's the charm and so forth.  I found one with a full tank and a functional A/C.  That'll do.

As I rolled up to the guard shack at the dairy, another guy was rolling out with his loaded trailer.  He pulled up next to me and rolled down his window.  "Which load do you have?" he asked.  I told him my load number and he shook his head.  Then he informed me that my trailer had a flat tire.  Excellent.  He had already called to notify the dispatcher, who in turn had notified the on-call mechanic, so I prepared to wait for a new tire to arrive.  Then I got inside and saw the trailer for myself.  You've got to be kidding...

The first photo shows the flat tire in question. I'd say that it was well beyond flat, but you know, semantics. The second photo is the axle right behind the flat tire. If we pull out our CSI: Livonia script, we'll go ahead and conclude the following; The front tire exploded, the driver kept going, the fragments of the shredded tire blew out the glass on the end of the rear hub seal, oil spewed everywhere, the driver kept going, the side of the trailer (not pictured) was beaten to hell by the shredded tire, the driver kept going... all the way back to the dairy. Simply stunning.

I asked the shipping dude at the dairy if he could move my load onto another trailer. Nope, I was told. They were running too far behind. I called my dispatcher to let him know about the further damage to the trailer and that I still was waiting for a mechanic.  He seemed a bit disturbed about the notion that the dairy wouldn't move my load to a better trailer.  A few minutes later, the yard dog put my trailer in a door.  Then I saw the telltale bouncing that signifies the presence of a forklift inside.  Guess the dispatcher made a phone call, eh?

After a little while the yard dog walked over to where I was standing and told me that I should make a note on my bills.  That broken trailer had pulled Load #164 on Friday and then returned to the dairy.  "You sure that didn't happen in the yard here?" I quipped.  He was visibly offended at the question so I had to specify that I was kidding.  Obviously that tire had bashed the shit out of the trailer at a high rate of speed.  This wouldn't happen in the yard.  I had been hoping to hear that the trailer had been pulled from the dead line by accident or something.  Maybe it was the victim of a long-ago mishap and the mechanics had forgotten about it, then someone typed the wrong number into a computer and here we were.  Nope.  There was no reasonable explanation this time around.  One of my colleagues simply brought it to the dairy and dropped it off after his run.

My scheduled route was going to take me to Frankenmuth, Midland, and Mount Pleasant.  The unloading and reloading process changed the story though.  Rather than take everything off the old trailer and then put everything into the new trailer, the forklift guy was just moving the pallets straight from one to the other.  Therefore the pallets at the tail end of the old trailer wound up in the nose of the new trailer.  Reversing the trip wasn't a huge issue for me.  I already knew where each of the stores was located and the overall distance wouldn't change.  The only bummer was that I would end up coming down I-75 at the end of my shift, rather than going up I-75 at the beginning of the shift.  We all know about I-75 on Sundays in this state.

I got out to Mount Pleasant and took the exit for the business route where the Kroger store is located.  Kaboom!  Would you believe that I blew a trailer tire?  I didn't think to take a picture of it, so you can go ahead and assume that I'm lying about this part.  That's fine, except I'm not lying.  I blew a fucking trailer tire as I came off the ramp.  Unreal.  I was only a mile from the store so I went ahead and limped the rest of the way on my seven good trailer tires.  After yet another call to the dispatcher to report yet another blown tire, I headed inside to unload the seven pallets of milk for that store.

The dispatcher worked with the Michelin people and got me all set up with a shop in Saginaw before I was done with my unloading.  That wasn't bad.  The two and a half hours that it took for the guy to get to me - that was pretty bad.  He had my new tire installed within a half hour and I was back on the road once again. 

My last two stops went fairly well.  One ancillary benefit of the reversed route was that the Frankenmuth store was only getting three pallets of milk.  It was easier to get theirs rotated to the back of the trailer than it would have been to move Mount Pleasant's.  And the breakdown delay was long enough that the I-75 traffic had lightened up by the time I got over there.  Good enough.

My tire blowout had damaged a mud flap and severed a wire leading to a corner marker light on my trailer, so I took it to the terminal and dropped it off to be repaired.  After a conversation with the night dispatcher I was able to confirm that I have around $70 in extra pay coming for the time that I was detained - 1.5 hours at the dairy to start the day and 2.75 hours in Mount Pleasant in the middle of the day.  That's funny.  A couple of mishaps and suddenly my Sunday pay will be back up there where it usually is.

The only thing left to do now was to head over to the gym for a... what?  I forgot to grab my gym bag this morning?  Son of a...  Driving all the way home to get my workout clothes and then driving all the way back out to the gym is not exactly what I felt like doing tonight.  But that's exactly what I had to do.  As the dude from The Program once said - "Perfect ending to a fucked up day."  And my tooth still hurts.