6/23/09

Those people at American Express are some strange characters. Following their cancellation of my account and my subsequent payment of the outstanding balance, I was entitled to redeem my remaining Membership Rewards points. I haven't had any luck getting the Membership Rewards website to work so I wasn't sure exactly how I would spend the points. No big deal though. We all know that I like to eat. I happen to know that they have restaurant partners. Several hundred dollars' worth of restaurant gift cards will do just fine. None of that is terribly weird, but here's the strange part. The gal on the phone, after fulfilling my order, said that the normal shipping time is 7-10 days. However, since I've been a valued cardmember since 1999, my order will arrive via UPS in 2-3 days. Valued, really? Is this why I was unceremoniously dumped in April? And now they're going to do me a favor on the shipping (or at least pretend to do me a favor)? If cost-cutting is their new game and their business with me is finished, why not send the order by the slowest and cheapest method possible? Those people make no sense. Anyhow...

No alarm clock this morning. That's always a good start. The greenhousing of my truck did kick in fairly early, but I was able to get back to sleep for a little while after I turned on the engine and cranked up the A/C. Then today's drive was along the stretch of I-95 that won't usually cause a whole lot of road rage. I got out of Georgia and through South Carolina, then stopped in Wilson, North Carolina for the night. Tomorrow's segment (Richmond, D.C., Baltimore, Delaware) has the potential to be a royal pain in the ass. Today's was merely the appetizer, so to speak. Good enough.

I seem to be tempting fate with these heavy loads on a somewhat regular basis lately. I really should weigh them once in a while. At 45,000 pounds, this load generally would elicit a visit to a CAT Scale. I wasn't in the mood yesterday though, and I'm usually pretty good at judging the balance by way of the air pressure gauge connected to my drive axles. Somewhere just under 60psi on the gauge tends to reflect 32-33,000 pounds on the drives and a similar weight on the rears. That's where the gauge was when I left my shipper. My new steer tires are rated at 7,100 pounds each, so I don't even pay attention to that axle. There's no way it's going to crack 14,000 without a 50,000 pound payload. My truck is wicked light. So... I got rolled across the scales in both Georgia and North Carolina today and... No worries. We're all good.

I have a little over 400 miles left to cover tomorrow. My intention is to proceed directly to the consignee's location and leave the rest up to the Almighty, so I don't imagine there's any reason to set an alarm for tomorrow either. I'll get rolling whenever I get rolling and I'll arrive whenever I arrive. Beauty.

WALK OFF HOMER FOR RABURN! WHAT A FREAKING GAME!