11/25/09

When I was in Pittsburgh with my brothers earlier in the month, we had a little catch phrase that was generally good for a laugh. Whenever something less than ideal would happen (someone cuts us off in traffic, there's a bump in the road, etc.), one of us would make up some goofy reason that the Quakers were behind it. It probably sounds dumb if you weren't there, but the phrase "damn Quakers" was good for a pretty hearty laugh by the time the weekend was over. Oh, I was muttering "damn Quakers" quite a bit this afternoon.

Last night's ten hour break was over at 6:30am today. In related news, I started driving at 6:30am today. The construction on the turnpike seems to have eased up since the last time I crossed Pennsylvania, so the traffic was moving accordingly. The light rain slowed some people down a little, as did the patches of dense fog, but overall it was a good morning drive. I received a pre-plan just before reaching my consignee and then my drop/hook went nicely and smoothly. The day was looking good indeed.

As regards the pre-plan, it appears that the load planners were trying to make use of my remaining hours of availability. That's about all I can ask of them, right? I suspect that they didn't know just how effectively they would be using my remaining hours. I had two hours left after this afternoon's delivery. I was given a 42 mile deadhead to the big warehouse in Topton. The ride wasn't a whole lot more than 42 miles in reality, so I should have had what, another hour to burn after I showed up? Yeah, the drive to the shipper took an hour and forty-five minutes. I shit you not. That was a pretty brutal 48 miles. Stop and go, stop and go. Damn Quakers.

So I had time to pull my truck out of the dock after it was loaded and do a post-trip inspection, and that was that. Out of hours. Thanks for playing. I was fortunate in that this shipper allows overnight parking and they have a 24-hour break room area with a vending machine and restrooms. I actually made sure to stock up on snacks and water last night (since I had no idea where I might end up today), so we're good there, but the presence of restrooms is always a plus. If the rain stops though, I suspect that my Swedish buddy Sjoe may want to walk into town and see what kind of trouble he can find. Day before Thanksgiving and all, he seems to think that the locals may be having a good time.

My trip will be taking me to De Forest, Wisconsin for a Monday morning delivery. I'll be crossing Ohio on the turnpike, so in a perfect world I could park in Toledo and Sjoe could catch a ride home to visit with family and friends tomorrow. In a world run by an out-of-control federal government, however, I can only work four and a half hours tomorrow. You know, after finishing work today at 3:30pm and taking the whole evening off, then sleeping the night away without setting an alarm for tomorrow, I'll be all worn out whenever I decide to get out of bed. These last few days while I was hardly getting any sleep and running my ass off, well on those days I was just fine, of course. It's only now that the magical 70/8 threshold has been reached that I'm not fine. Damn Quakers, probably running the FMCSA.

The four and a half hours won't even get me out of Pennsylvania. Probably just as well though. There seemed to be a bit of strife amongst the family when I was last home. I have no use for any of that. Much better to see if I can catch a good internet signal and watch some football in peace. Bad news if you're a Packer fan (I like Green Bay -11.5), a Cowboy fan (I Like Dallas -13.5), or a Bronco fan (I like Denver +6.5). Whenever I actually sit and watch football, the games go exactly the opposite of however I expected them to go.