7/2/09

So we got paid a day early this week on account of the weekend holiday. As a result of some shenanigans that left my bank account without enough money to cover my rent check, this turned out to be pretty important. Today's paycheck was more than enough to cover the difference and my rent check for July was processed today. If I hadn't been paid until tomorrow I would have had some issues. I didn't find out about a returned check from a deposit that I made last week until this morning, so I wouldn't have had a chance to transfer money out of my savings before the rent check cleared. Early paycheck - no worries. Not lucky, of course. Blessed.

My work day got started with some good news, which is always nice. I was getting ready to head up toward Lufkin when my satellite unit chirped at me. Pre-plan. Good deal. Then the traffic through Houston was reasonable, if not light. Good deal. I made it to the consignee about an hour and a half ahead of my 3:30pm appointment, then checked in with the guy on the dock. He told me to take the next open door since the 2:30pm truck hadn't arrived yet. Good deal.

After a short time in Lufkin, I was dispatched to make my next pickup in Houston. I had a 10pm appointment but the load was a drop/hook, so there was a chance that it might be ready early. I wasn't sold on the idea of heading down there in the afternoon though. I've been to that shipper before and found it to be a general clusterfuck. As nice as it may have been to get the load early, I decided to take a break in Shepherd instead. This way the evening traffic in Houston could work its way through before I headed down there. Turns out I made a pretty good call on that one. There were no other trucks waiting to get in to the shipper's driveway and my drop/hook was quick and easy. Then there wasn't any significant traffic leaving Houston either. Good deal.

I didn't have enough hours left on my 14 to get past San Antonio tonight, so the sensible thing to do seemed to be to stop in Sealy and call it a day. I'm not sure how crowded the truck stops would be once I got closer to San Antonio but there was no reason to go any further. I'm due in Nogales, Arizona by 3pm on Saturday so I'll have two pretty decent days of driving to go from here. Isn't Mountain Standard time the same as Pacific Daylight time? I think I heard that on the radio recently. If the rest of you could just get on Eastern time like the civilized world, this would be more simple. I'm pretty sure that I'm due in Nogales by 6pm on my clock but I'll probably get there before 5pm just to make sure. Arriving on a Saturday (that also happens to be a holiday) could very well be a waste of my time in any event. That's what my dispatch says though. I guess we'll see.