5/30/09

I know that some of you think you had fun on this particular Saturday. Amateurs, all of you. If you really want to have fun you need to do what I did tonight - Back up all of your data and re-image a corrupt hard drive with the factory default settings. Yeah. Good times. Good times.

The old truck driving bit somehow seemed awfully easy in comparison. It wasn't totally easy though. By the time my alarm went off this morning, we were up to six CTL trucks in the shipper's lot. Shortly thereafter, two more rolled up to the gate. This time we do have some aerial photography with which we can work...

Interestingly enough, the dock situation this morning was somewhat similar to what is pictured here (but with an extra bunch of trucks hanging around just for good measure). The other CTL drivers started pulling off in various directions to make room for those of us who were assigned the first round of doors. Looking at this picture, the astute trucking aficionados among us might quickly identify the one door that would be a royal pain in the ass to access. Moving in around a dropped trailer? That wouldn't be so bad. Moving into a dock with a trailer on your right but some extra room on the left for a decent approach angle? That wouldn't be so bad. Coming around the one truck that is already backed in and hitting the door right next to it? Yeah, that was my job this morning. Of course, I didn't get the luxury of the extra open space that would be on my right in this picture. That one had a trailer in it this morning. There wasn't enough room on the outside to cut the wheel to the right and take a sharp angle around the parked truck, so I had to come in from a shallower angle. Thus, I couldn't exactly get my trailer turned all that quickly. Thus, I was cutting it pretty close to the aforementioned trailer on my right. Thus, I couldn't turn my wheel to the left and try to get under the trailer, lest it stop turning. Thus, my trailer was way past perpendicular by the time I got far enough from the trees to do anything about it. Thus, I had to do the old Austin Powers routine (two feet back, two feet forward) to swing my truck around, then more or less blindside it in the rest of the way. Still easier than dealing with this computer though.

In assessing last night's parking options, I seem to have overlooked the fact that today was a Saturday. I kept driving last night partly because I didn't want to fight the Philly traffic this morning. As it turns out there was no Philly traffic this morning. There was also no traffic anywhere else along my route today. I have another easy payload (15,000 pounds) as well, so the trucking part of the job was definitely a piece of cake.

I got to the first Flying J in Ohio and stopped driving for the day. In case I couldn't get a fast enough connection on my Sprint card, I wanted to have the option to use Flying J's internet service to watch the hockey game. Their wifi is usually fast and reliable. I fired up the machine, let the startup process cycle through, and then connected to my Sprint service to check on the speed. It was decent but not overly impressive. I read a few e-mails and then decided to wait until closer to game time before logging onto the wifi service. I clicked on another site to see what I had missed in the world today while I was jamming to some homespun CD's. And that was that. No more computer. I tried the old standby of turning it off and then back on. Everything worked again. Sweet. Five minutes later... dead. System Restore... failed. Safe Mode... wouldn't function. Every other step that you're supposed to take... worthless. I was stuck with a situation where my computer would work fine for five to ten minutes and then completely froze without any rhyme or reason.

With a fairly powerful machine, five minutes is just long enough to jam around 500MB onto a DVD before the system crashes again. My install codes and receipts are saved offsite in my e-mail account for the majority of the programs that I would have to whack, so I just needed to get my data backed up before nuking the hard drive. Luckily for me, I had enough blank DVD's handy to do the job. This took a few hours (in five minute increments) while I listened to the Tigers and Wings on the radio. Then the time-honored tradition of setting up a "new" computer... good times. I'll probably have everything back to normal by July, just in time for the sucker to crash again. See? I had more fun than you had tonight.

When a week during which I requested home time comes in at 2,688 miles plus $60 in holiday pay and another $37 in northeast pay, we have to say that it was a pretty good week even with the computer hassle. I'll cross Ohio and Indiana on US-30 tomorrow and then try to find somewhere to set up shop ahead of a Monday morning delivery.