3/27/10

Continuing a theme...

I knew that the chances were better than 50/50 that I would sit at this truck stop all weekend.  My next assignment came through a little while ago - picking up in Waco tomorrow at 10pm and running overnight to Liberty.  Fine.  That's the kick in the balls that I expected.  A little layover pay and a reset of my log book will help to cushion that one.

It's the one that you didn't expect... 

My Swedish buddy Sjoe just went for a little stroll.  Nary a tavern, saloon, or public house in sight.  Saturday off... no work on Sunday until 10pm... Nothing would suit this schedule better than sending the Swede out on a bender among the locals.  Alas, here I sit.  Woe is me.

UPDATE (6:04pm): Strictly for our friend Drew, if he still happens to stop by here from time to time, an unenforceable mandate?  Who could have seen that one coming?  This guy, of course.  You're on your way to a single-payer win and I'm not sure that anybody even knows it.

UPDATE #2 (6:39pm): I failed to mention, but it does bear mention, that this is my new... worst... week... evah.  We managed to drop below the previous worst week by a solid $67, leaving this pay period at $448.06.  Adding insult to injury, my shithead little brothers had prosciutto, meatballs, and roasted red peppers at Lombardi's for dinner.

Bastards.

3/26/10

The kick in the balls that you knew was coming is never the most painful.  It's the unanticipated stuff that leaves the biggest impression.  At least that's how I see it.

My pickup on the north side of Lubbock today took a few hours, but that wasn't a huge deal.  I had a pretty good idea of how today was going to end up, so it didn't make a lot of difference whether I was rolling early or not.  I was on my way soon enough.  The load of bird seed was a hefty 42,000 pounds and the wind was whipping out of the south, keeping my truck working hard just to maintain 64mph with my foot to the floor.  All in all though, a pretty standard trip back down to Waco.

I dropped my loaded trailer and sent in my empty call.  For one reason or another, we're not pulling empty trailers out of that distribution center right now.  This obviously makes it a little easier to park at a crowded truck stop at night, so good enough.  The computer, however, won't put me on the board without an empty.  I called in and the dispatcher put me on the board... #15... at 10pm on a Friday.  That's the kick in the balls that I knew was coming.

What I didn't anticipate was that the SubWay in Robinson would be out of cheese pizzas.  That's certainly unfortunate.  I've never had a fish sandwich from Wendy's and I don't intend to try one any time soon, so a cheese pizza sounded like a pretty good dinner.  Peckerheads.  I didn't see that one coming.

But the biggest kick in the balls had nothing to do with truck driving or eating or any of that, although a loose correlation to the pizza saga could be made by way of Lombardi's in Little Italy.  My brothers were kind enough to let me know that they took off on a weekend road trip to New York tonight.  As I sit in a truck stop waiting for work that probably isn't coming, those two shitheads will be celebrating my youngest brother's 23rd birthday in my favorite place in the world.  That one stings a little.  Peckerheads.

3/25/10

My crusade against excessive text messages and my refusal to participate in the Facebook and Twitter nonsense have left me at odds with some people.  As far as I'm concerned, the inability to look another person in the eye and hold a conversation is a pervasive issue in our society.  Saying "What's up?" on a Facebook page and waiting for a "Nothing much" in return just seems stupid.  Exchanging 47 text messages to say what could be said in a two-minute phone call seems likewise.  The amusing irony that I think bloggers (of the political sort, mainly) are the biggest shitheads out there is not lost on me.  In my defense though, I make no serious representation that this stuff is actually worth reading, unlike those who are paid for their drivel.  And if you want to sit and chat over a beer, that will always sound a hell of a lot more appealing to me than typing a blog post.  Well, my friends, just a little more vindication has come my way.  By eschewing Facebook, I've managed to dodge syphillis... or something.  When was the last time you were tested?  Suckers.

When I wake from natural causes at 10am (which is 9am for the weirdos out here), things are generally off to a good start.  Today was no exception.  It took me a minute to figure out where I was, but then I realized that I had 45 minutes until Big Brother would declare me legal to drive, and then I'd have a quick hop over to Big Spring for my delivery.  Not bad.  The forklift gal at the consignee had me empty in short order, after which I cruised down the street to the T/A for a delicious Italian BMT with double meat.  How did Consuela know that I like my bread cooked a little on the lighter side?  Good lookin' out, mi hermana.  Delicious.

I played some poker on my cell phone and waited to see what would come next.  I was #1 on the board when I sent in my empty call but it was afternoon, so I made no assumptions.  Had I gone far enough from Waco to escape the density of the black hole?  Only time would tell.

No.  I hadn't gone far enough.  Still circling the drain.  I was awakened from a nap after a few hours by the delightful chirp of the satellite unit.  Lubbock to Waco.  Son of a...  My pickup is tomorrow afternoon but I got the assignment early enough that I thought I would be able to find a parking space, so off to Lubbock I went.  No Bobby Knight and no Mike Leach anymore in this town, but I did find a place to put up my feet.  Good enough. 

After I get loaded and roll down to Waco tomorrow evening, I'm pretty sure that my week will be screwed (somewhere around $450 once I'm empty, with one day to go).  We all remember the infamous San Marcos affair (no offense Jerry).  And that was in a week when I was empty early on Friday with hours to burn.  My Friday hours will be mostly gone by the time I deliver tomorrow and I won't even have the 130-mile buffer working in my favor.  I'll be right at the center of this regional debacle.  That road trip to South Bend is only a month away and I really don't want to go home before then, but this shit is going to tempt me to employ the new 'Texas = Go Home' rule sooner rather than later.  We'll have to see how it plays out from here, I suppose.

3/24/10

What is the story with that rest area near Salado?  Holy smokes.  After rolling up Satan's Driveway last night (and encountering lane closures in Austin to negate the light 2:15am traffic, just for the record) I started to get a little tired.  I thought that I would try to duck off and sleep for a few hours before finishing the trip.  I was wrong.  Quite a few of the Texas rest areas are tough to navigate late at night.  When the benevolent truck drivers of the world need to rest and they don't find a parking space, they're often inclined to say fuck everybody else and park in a manner that blocks the road.  It's pretty aggravating, but to an extent I do understand.  I would guess that the number of trucks on the road has grown much faster than the amount of available parking over the years.

That rest area on I-35 is one of the upgraded locations though.  Where there once were a few parallel parking spaces, it now has a nice big truck parking area.  I've stopped there before and found that there were people parked parallel to the road and behind the rows of angled parking spaces, blocking access to spots that become empty after someone leaves.  What I encountered last night was of a whole other magnitude.  Holy smokes.  The driveways, which are not wide enough for trucks to park on them, had trucks parked on them.  The parking spaces were full.  The rows of people blocking access to the parking spaces were three deep.  That's not an exaggeration.  Three rows of trucks were parked behind the actual parking area.  How in the hell could any of those people leave?  They were blocked from every direction.  And what in the hell was the attraction about that particular rest area?

In any event, it took some extremely slow maneuvering to make my way back out to the freeway.  I decided to suck it up and drive straight to the customer's location, where I would be able to take a nap before my 8am appointment.  I found a locked gate, parked along the little access road, and hopped in the sack.  A guy woke me at 6:30am and told me to back into a certain door, then said that they didn't start work until 7:15am.  Gee, could have let me sleep a little longer then, eh champ?

Once I was unloaded at the first stop, I drove across to the other side of Waco to make my second delivery.  It had been scheduled as a drop/hook but, on account of the fact that I only had two pallets of freight, they decided to make it a live unload.  So I got to sit at the dock for ten minutes instead of dropping and hooking trailers.  Works for me.

I scooted over to the Pilot in Robinson for some much-needed sleep.  That place looks like a de facto Con-way Truckload terminal more often than not nowadays, given the number of loads that we carry into and out of Waco.  Today was no exception.  After getting drawn into the obligatory 'this is bullshit' conversation with a CTL colleague who has apparently been stuck in the black hole for a week, I finally climbed into bed and I was out before the first sheep was counted.  The nice cloudy and cool weather was a big help.

At some point in the afternoon, my satellite unit woke me with a new assignment.  Predictable patterns tend to produce predictable outcomes.  The pattern in question would be that any delivery in the area between Dallas and Austin will tend to be followed by a regional load out of Waco.  No different today, although this Texas regional trip is probably a little better than most.  I had to pick up at 8pm.  My ten hour break would be over at 7:45pm.  Good enough.  The shipper was only a few miles away.

I rolled over there as soon as it was legal to do so and made a quick drop/hook.  From Waco, tonight's drive took me westward on TX-6 through the countryside and onto I-20.  Aside from some rain here and there, causing the Texans to panic (as is their custom), there wasn't much to talk about.  Just a pretty relaxing night on the road.  Now, getting to the part where this trip is better than most of those Waco runs - the dispatch clocks in at 294 miles and I'm scheduled to deliver in Big Spring at noon.  300 miles a day, with a few longer ones sprinkled in from time to time, is plenty for me.  And the noon delivery meant that I had time to take a ten hour break tonight and get back on something of a normal schedule.  All in all, not too bad.

I spotted a sign for a rest area between Clyde and Abilene, to bring the story full circle.  If I could find a parking spot, I would be able to get some rest and then drive the last 120 miles in the morning.  I wasn't too optimistic when I saw that it was one of the old-style rest areas with only a handful of parallel parking spaces.  Not much chance of having any luck in that case, given the late hour.  The place actually turned out not to be crowded at all though, so here we are.  And that, my friends, puts an end to a long, long day.  Goodnight.