Downtime

A Friend

2012-01-15T05:42:00.003-06:00

A friend of mine is starting a health blog for truckers. Check him out at www.cdldiet.com.

New years resolutions

2011-12-17T06:56:00.003-06:00

The other day my wife found a New Years resolution I typed out. It stated:

"I Steve hereby make the following resolutions:
1. Lose weight
2. Defeat procrastination
3. To rid the house of all clutter
4. To spend more quality time with family

I also stated:

The purpose of these resolutions are to improve my life and by doing so improve the lives of those around me. These resolutions that WILL be kept all year when executed will help my overall being. This will create less stress and tension making me feel better about myself, and be more enjoyable to be around. These will also improve my health. I would like to see my kids graduate college or make something of their lives. The end result (hopefully) will be a dramatic transformation of the positive kind. And maybe this time next year most people that know me will not recognize me."

When did I type this gung ho piece of work? For the year 2006. I am heavily into the laws of attraction and felt that if I typed it it would come true or at least help. But notice the word "hopefully" in parentheses. This showed I had doubt. That doubt plagues me to this day. Since 2006 I have probably gained 50 pounds. The house is still cluttered. Oh and my procrastination is still an enemy. Not as bad but is still there. I did improve with the spending time with family part.

Yesterday was not a good day in my head. I beat myself up because I knew that once my wife said she found this document she must think "What a loser!" But she didn't. She gave me words of encouragement. I know she probably has a "I believe it when I see it." approach with me because I tend to get fired up but then lose my momentum. Ten years ago she dropped many pounds and has managed to keep it off despite stress of being a trucker's wife and having 2 kids. We used to do Weight Watchers together and I lost 20 pounds doing that. But because of some inner demon, some lack of confidence I gained it back and then some.

In short I hate what I have become. I hate myself for the failure I am. A really good heavy metal band has some lyrics that said, "Time to progress, time for a change, Forget the past, for now I am shedding skin." That band is mine. Those lyrics are mine. Time for me to practice what I preach.........But how?

Progress Report

2011-11-26T10:33:00.003-06:00

So far I am following my calorie counting consistently. And while I don't come under my calories every day I am at least logging it. I even logged Thanksgiving this year. Not sure if I have lost weight but I am feeling better. Less mood swings, more energy, sleeping better, and my stomach is shrinking. I have been to two buffets in the last month and stopped happily at 2 plates. I don't snack going down the road as much. So here is what's working:

1. Calorie counting. My daily target is 1860 a day. Myfitnesspal.com has an app that is awesome. The app has a killer search engine and has never failed me. It even will read a product's barcode and will have all the nutrition info. Calorie counting has helped me before and I am glad to be with it. The difference is that it's easier and you can have friends that track and lose with you. Dieting with friends makes it a lot easier. I am good friends with James at www.cdldiet.com and answering and trading ideas with him has made a difference. I am learning about my habits and what I can do. I seem to hover around the 2000 mark when I drive a 2am to mid-afternoon shift. It's like having a certain amount of money you can spend so you learn to be thrifty. Same concept.

2. Meal replacement. I bought a small blender with some advice from James and I make a protien heavy smoothie to help with hunger. The trick is to listen to my body only when it is hungry. Not craving. I don't do a smoothie everyday but I am increasing my frequency.

3. Meal replacement part 2. Instead of a full foot long sandwich at Subway I get the salad. I eat it slow. The salad is only a third of the calories and twice as filling. A whole bag of steamed in the bag frozen veggies is 100 calories and will fill you up. Add one chicken breast and I have a filling meal under 300 calories.

Challenges:

Breakfast. I tend to wake up and have to drive right off the bat. It was suggested to find one thing and stick with it. That is a work in progress.

Long days. If I am working a 14 hour shift I tend to eat more. More hours one is awake the one eats more. It's basic science.

Sitting. Waiting for a load or sitting at a customer kills me. I am like a bird in the cage and I want out. So I nibble then a snowball of craving hit. next thing I know I have concumed 500 calories and wasn't even hungry. Boredom hunger is a major issue with me.

I have cut out 90 percent of processed foods I used to consume. I am reading every label before I buy/consume the product. Sometimes I will log the calories before I eat it just in case I have to get something different or know what I getting into. I am getting obsessed about this. Which can be a good thing.

Enter insomniac title here.

2011-11-06T02:24:00.005-06:00

Well here I sit at 3am unable to sleep. I have to be back at work in 2 hours but it's an easy run except for where I deliver tomorrow doesn't have overnight parking and has a 04:30 appointment time. That doesn't mix well for e-logs.

This week has been an interesting week as far as hearing what my trucker friends have been going through. There are four drivers from Transland I talk to regularly and three from other companies I talk to as well. I wish I could do a reality trucking show similar to Ice road truckers Starring all my friends. I think it would make great TV.

This latest trainee I have is doing well. I was really nervous at first because he did not get along with his first trainer at all so I thought I was getting someone with an attitude. Thankfully that has not been the case with me and this dude is easy to get along with. I am gonna chalk it up to personality conflicts for the first trainer fail. Sometimes these old school truckers just don't understand what a newbie has to go through with trucking school and having to be in someone else's truck for a long period.

Another development I used my smart phone and downloaded an app from myfitnesspal.com It is awesome. I now have a couple of friends on there as well. So now my healthy change is not gonna be by myself but with the help and support of others. A friend of mine even decided to start blogging and I encourage my followers to follow his blog. It's http://cdldiet.blogspot.com

How are my changes going? Well.... let's say I know what not to do.

Trial and Error

2011-10-18T07:58:00.003-05:00

Well here is the update. Upon counting calories again I saw how much I was eating. It had gone up like I suspected due to my experiments.

One experiment was to not snack at all. All that did was made me buy more at the truck stops. So I picked low carb items but still it kinda screwed everything up. Plus it became expensive.

So I saw a thing on youtube about Juicing. Having a juicer on the truck just isn't a doable thing. But I went through the juice isle and found the juices with the best ingredients. This is a work in progress as I wasn't able to do a juice fast and here is why. When I sit at a customer, or wait for a load, or drive long hours I get bored. I have discovered that I snack/eat out of boredom. Because of this revelation I am loading up on cut veggies again. So even if I am snacking most of the day it's fresh veggies. I did this at my most productive weight loss period and it keeps me from devouring the good smelling bad food out of starvation.

For this week I have cut squash, celery, radishes, bell peppers, pineapple, and cucumbers. I still have a decent supply of juices. Oh and I am supposed to have a trainee this week which will help the boredom. Either way I am still on this journey.

The Struggle Within

2011-09-24T12:36:00.001-05:00

I have to admit. I have been struggling. Struggling with willpower. Even when I can view convenience store food as vile I still find myself when I am tired my viewpoints change. I end up with the corn dogs and then I am off to bed. Or if I cook in the truck I have trouble with portion sizes because I went all day without stopping to eat something. Even when I eat healthy I still have trouble with portion sizes.When I am waiting to be dispatched or at a dock I find myself eating out of anxiousness. Since I got my new smart phone I am more occupied but that only lasts so long. Waiting to be dispatched I have to be in or near the truck. At a dock I usually have to wait in or near the truck plus some places don't want a driver to be walking around. But this is exercise and that's another post.This post is my struggle with food. It's time for a new strategy. Going without the cooler doesn't work. Filling the cooler to capacity with stuff that spoils in a couple of days isn't working. I have to find the middle ground. Time to reevaluate. I did download an app that counts my calories. A friend of mine used it and he has lost almost 100 lbs. I was losing weight well with calorie counting so I am going back to that. This week I have a game plan. I won't post it until I know it's working.

Hey it's a post!!

2011-09-12T06:28:00.000-05:00

So here I am. Getting ready to go to work. Even though I only have 6 hours left of my 70, and I don't gain until midnight I have to do a run to Jefferson City. It's gonna be a short day. I would like to stay home with my family another day and get a reset but I guess we have a lot of freight. Oh well. It's part of the job.To be honest several things have happened. My company actually has been pretty good to me so far. They have bent over backwards to get me home when I request in. This week was the first week that I missed a requested day but only because of the adventure I had last weekend. More on that on another post. The head honcho of my company got to witness a video I made. The one of me doing a difficult back in New Orleans. I showed it to our recruiter and she spread it around the office. Then one day I get a call from her telling me the owner of Transland was impressed. Add that to my brownie points.For the month of June I was driver of the month. Another brownie point.Miles have been good. My last week with my most recent trainee we did 3700 miles from Monday to Saturday. Things at home have gotten WAY better so I am feeling pretty good about things right now.So my next posts I will try from my new phone. I have a teaming story to tell you and some training adventures to go over. Stay tuned.Oh and here is my latest video.http://youtu.be/Di-gZ4M3JgE

2011-09-05T03:03:00.001-05:00

Testing

Doing Some Good

2011-08-14T14:33:00.003-05:00

Just when I was gonna give up the Ghost I got a message on facebook. A guy who reads my blog as part as his research on starting a career in trucking said I had helped him and was starting at Transland. He is gonna finish his training with me. It makes me feel good that I can help others as I was helped when I did my research. So I guess I am gonna keep this blog around for awhile.

As far as my company goes things are doing well. I am driving a new truck, they made me a trainer, I was driver of the month for June, and it feels like they generally like me driving for them. I must be doing something right.

My current struggle is staying healthy on the road. So I am gonna start listing changes I am making to accomplish this. I have gained probably 50 pounds since I have become a truckdriver and it's starting to take it's toll.

I like it when I have a full weekend at home. It gives me time to prep food. Buying pre-cut fruit and veggies can be expensive. For example one can buy a quart size dish of watermelon for 3 to 4 dollars or for 5 you can buy a whole watermelon that will yield four more quarts.

Now I am researching food, health and wellness for drivers or people with sedentary jobs. Seems like this is virgin territory. There are a lot of bloggers who will tell you how to slide your tandems but not nearly the same amount who are talking about health.

I need to get moving as well. I used to have an exercise bike in my Volvo but the Kenworth doesn't have the room for it. Not that it really helped. It was hard staying motivated to ride the thing. Stationary bikes and treadmills just aren't very exhilarating. It was nice to have when the weather sucked though.

This week I have various colored bell peppers. I eat them like apples and don't require a fridge. I have watermelon cut up, yogurt, and I am trying some almond milk for my cereal. A good source of info I have found on Twitter. I follow @EatThisNotThat and I get some great info sent to my phone.

This is going to be my focus on this blog now. as of today I am flirting with 300 pounds and I am 6 foot even. Time for a change.

2011-08-06T19:44:00.001-05:00

A new attitude

2011-07-23T23:08:00.002-05:00

I have decided that this blog will become an outlet. I have grown tired of my older format of giving you the details of my weeks. Frankly not much to tell. When I am doing turn and burn I find that I am too busy and the details are pretty routine. When there is something to write about time at home is taken up by more important things.

So from here on out this blog will be ramblings and rants. Trucking is a job that I am somewhat happy to do providing someone else isn't ruining it with ignorance. But this seems to be happening more often. I will still give detailed accounts of something that might be worthy or out of the ordinary. At this point I have become jaded and discontented.

New truck pics.

2011-04-25T05:01:00.007-05:00

I had a new long blog posted about my new truck but I find myself not really giving a rat's arse so here is a picture instead.

And then after only 7900 miles here is a new picture.

A trip to the desert.

2011-04-02T09:27:00.003-05:00

The week before last things changed in my life that had me in a much better state of mind. Something I had struggled with finally had a breakthrough. It was a good thing because my morale out here on the road has been getting lower and lower. But every now and then my job rewards me with a trip that makes this job a lot easier.

My travel agent called with a good news/bad news scenario. Bad news I was leaving Saturday but good news is that I was going to Phoenix, AZ. I love driving out west. I use to live in Phoenix and I still have a piece of me there. The Ozarks and the desert is where I am most comfortable. I love driving out west. Sure I have no issue with going into the northeast but I feel best out west.

I delivered in Phoenix and had a load going from Phoenix to Las Cruces New Mexico. After an easy and early morning delivery I found myself waiting and waiting. The worst part of trucking. They had to get me to the yard so I knew they were searching for the right load. Well I was finally sent a brokered load to deadhead to El Paso, TX where I was picking up a load going to Connecticut.

The reason they had to get me to the yard is because I was to have a trainee start with me Sunday. So Thursday morning I get a message that I was gonna get a new truck. I was going from my Volvo to a Kenworth T660. A much smaller truck in interior so I knew moving was gonna be difficult. More on this story in the next post.

Change is in the air....

2011-03-19T07:36:00.000-05:00

When I first decided to become a truckdriver I had a plan. The plan was to do Over The Road - OTR for two years and then look for something local. Well it has been close to three years and a change is needed.

Now trucking is a love/hate relationship for me. There are many aspects of trucking I do like. When I am moving and I know what my next load is I like this job. When I can run close to 3000 miles a week and still make it home for the weekend, I love this job. My Dad's last driving job was for a private carrier. He had a dedicated route that was warehouse to warehouse, drop and hook, and he had three different routes he could go. All three were good miles and he left on Sunday afternoon and was home Thursday morning. No sitting. no waiting for the next load. He knew what needed to be done and was able to do it. It wasn't like that his whole career but he did his time in the trenches and earned that particular situation.

So I am looking for either something similar or a day cab job where I am home every night.

I have learned a lot about life and about myself out here. In many ways I was born to do this work. It comes natural to me. BUT I also miss my family. I miss playing music. I miss having a social life. My family needs me home and I need to be home. So my days out here are numbered. Within this year I will be doing something different. Either a dedicated regional run or something where I am home every night. I will keep everyone posted.

Long cold winter

2011-03-19T06:59:00.002-05:00

Well again I start another blog post with the statement of "sorry I haven't blogged in awhile" but a lot of things were going on. A lot of inner struggles and inner victories were going on. Things are starting to get back on track. It seemed like I hit a harsh winter both in the world and in my life. But Spring is here and is bringing about growth and change. Details. Not now.

One thing I can share is I started to be a driver trainer. I know some of you might think "Why/how would a driver who has driven a truck for only three years become a trainer?" I am just training drivers who need one or two week refresher training. Basically someone who has driving experience but not RECENT experience.

It all started one day when our safety director approached me for being a trainer. She said that I would be good because of my skills in using the qualcomm and electronic logs. I am good at trip planning and time management. So I agreed to try it.

So a couple of weeks ago I trained a driver who had 10 years of daycab experience and maybe 4 years of some OTR but he had never been east of Colorado. His OTR was regional and was years ago. Most of his experience was with 45 and 48 foot trailers so he needed some help setting up to back but other than that this guy was a better driver than me. BUT he had no experience with the Electronic side of this job and we spent two weeks doing just that. Overall this guy was cool and easy to work with. But it was nice to get my truck back to myself.

I guess I did ok because I have another possible trainee who is gonna run one week with me.

In other news I am gonna be recieving a new truck soon. I will be losing my Volvo and will be getting a brand new Kenworth T660. This will be a major change because I have never driven a KW. For the three years I have been driving two and half of that has been with a Volvo. I know a KW handles different, steers different, and there will be WAY less room so it will be a new experience for me. The cool part is the truck will be brand spanking new and will be similar to what my dad use to drive.

I am not sure if my exercise bike will fit but if not I think I will seriously look into bringing a real bike with me and mounting it on the back. I would almost rather do that anyways.

I have other news but this will just have to do for now. I don't want to post a lot of long boring post. Of course this might be too late.

WIPE ON, WIPE OFF

2011-01-20T13:57:00.003-06:00

So here I sit at the terminal. This morning I was on my way to the yard in the middle of a snow storm. Now with the wet snow and temps in the teens it is guaranteed for a truck driver to have to pull over every ten miles to clean the wiper blades. After my fourth cleaning my left blade decided to retire. Instantly my visibility went to zero. I managed to pull off and enter a parking lot where I waited one hour for a repair guy to jerry rig so I can go ten miles to the yard where they are now replacing EVERYTHING. At least the terminal has free coffee and internet.

I wonder why a truck manufacturer from Sweden doesn't have a better system for dealing with winter driving. Oh well. I leave for Wisconsin. Open drop and hook so no worries.

rules

2010-12-06T21:39:00.000-06:00

My next load was short haul. I was going to Lenexa, KS picking up sodie pop going 230 miles to Rolla, MO.

This was all done without incident. Tuesday morning I get unloaded and waited at the Loves parking lot for my next load. It was a two hour wait but then my next message from headquarters sent a shiver down my spine.

I was to deadhead to Jefferson City, MO where I was to pull FIVE trailers that were loaded off the customer's lot and bring them to a storage place. The loads by contract had to be off the lot by midnight and the last one was gonna be mine going to my favorite city of Newark, NJ.

Despite the lack of good directions, proper trailer and load numbers, getting lost looking for a storage place that had moved from across the street to 15 miles west of jeff city, I managed to finish my daycab work day within the hours I had. EXCEPT for my trailer which I was just gonna spend the night at the customer which is what we have to do all the time. The shipping clerk said I had to have this trailer gone by midnight so I had to drive off duty all the way to Kingdom City where I finally got some rest.

This week is just full of stupid rules.

Post thanksgiving

2010-12-06T21:36:00.001-06:00

Well hello readers. I have returned with an actual post. Here it goes.

After Thanksgiving and four days of annoying people at home the road called out and I headed for Malta Bend, MO. When I got there I learned that not only did this place have a dock but everything was going to get unloaded by hand. As I am waiting for the truck in front of me getting unloaded I get approached by one of the workers who wants to see if my stuff had any of the damage the other truck had.

I open the doors and luckily my stuff hadn't taken a fall like the other trucks cargo. What was in my trailer was some kind of plastic liners for water cooling towers. The stuff was very thin and very easy to damage. Then the forklift guy and I had a conversation:

Fork guy: "Ok hop up there and start putting the stuff on this pallet."
ME: "Am I supposed to unload this?"
Fork guy: "Yeah"
Me:"Well we aren't supposed to unload our trucks, but I will help if it will get me out of here faster. This stuff is awkward and I don't want to damage this so can you help me real quick?"
Fork guy:"I am not allowed to get in your trailer. It's against my company rules."
ME: "So you expect me to break my company rules but you can't break yours?"
Fork guy:"Sorry."

So I hopped off the trailer and proceeded to tell his boss that a 53 foot trailer that no one was allowed to enter wasn't gonna unload itself. They had a "meeting" and decided that they could enter the trailer which was lacking in the magical unloading itself fairy dust.

Now don't get me wrong. There are many times I wish I could have been the one unloading. It would go quicker and it beats sitting on my arse but this stuff was fragile and it became more of a principal matter as well.

Thirty minutes later I was on my way to waiting for my next load. It was a good beginning to what would be an interesting week.

Turkey Blues

2010-11-27T07:31:00.003-06:00

Sorry I haven't been blogging awhile. The irony here is that I have more followers now than I did when I was updating this thing every week. Since it's Thanksgiving weekend and all I would like to say I a thankful for everyone who reads my blog.

Now down to business. I have been doing a lot of runs south here lately. I have been to Florida three times in the last couple of months. Two times I was deadheaded all the way to Georgia to get my next load. But one time I had to go further south to South Bay to pick up sugar. South bay is a rough looking area that had me intimidated more than once so I just kept the windows and doors locked and shut and didn't make eye contact. I also saw my second alligator since I have been an OTR guy. The runs down there was plastic pallets going to Fort Pierce. An easy 1134 paid miles backed up with a 585 mile deadhead (also paid)the Florida runs have been nice on the paycheck and fuel mileage.

I actually made it home for turkey day this year and will be home awhile. have a good holiday everyone.

Diet of a trucker!

2010-10-24T12:33:00.003-05:00

Instead of trucking I am gonna blog about my diet stuff. First of all my bike in my truck is getting it's use but I could be on it more. It's hard to get motivated after a full 11 hours driving. I like to start early in the AM so I decided that when I am waiting to be unloaded or loaded I will ride it. So of course my company for the last three weeks has given me loads that were drop and hook or turn and burns so hardly any sitting, but I will get on it.

Diet. I am not on a specific diet but I am actually watching and recording everything I eat. I found a cool website that I can access on my phone that gives me calories of anything I eat. I am trying to keep it under 2000 calories a day. What I learned is that even though I have cut out 90 percent of bad foods I was still eating around 3000 a day.

So I have made some adjustments and I am at least on the right track. I have lost 4 pounds in the last couple of weeks which is about right. I have reduced processed food (ie made in a factory) by 95%. I avoid any foods containing nitrites (example, hot dogs, sausage, deli meats, etc). Vegetables and fruit I eat are raw for the most part. The big part that has really helped is me keeping a food journal.

What have I noticed? My mood swings are almost all but gone. I haven't felt this clearheaded since I was on Wellbutrim several years ago. My energy is getting higher both physically and mentally. Now when I see fast food I think of how it will send me to depression so it's way easier to avoid. The words of "What's the point?" have disappeared. Also the majority of my calories are in the morning now and that has helped. In the last two weeks I have had only one day over 2000 calories and it was a special occasion.

Now I just need to stay on course and bring up my activity level. I will post updates here. I figured if I have to answer to my friends and family who read this I will stay on course.

Updates

2010-10-10T10:50:00.002-05:00

Well I thought I can update with my phone but it separates the message if it's too long. I have a twitter account for short updates. It's http://twitter.com/snorelord

Eventually I will find a way for this to be easier so I am not updating only at home. Maybe I can look at some smart phones or a wifi plan.

None the less I have been extremely busy. Mostly drop and hooks and I have been out for three weeks straight. I don't want to use the little time I have at home so I will have a real good update next time. I have a lot of improvements I wish to share with you.

2010-09-29T21:03:00.003-05:00

(1/2) Wednesday 9-29-10.
I did a good 623 miles today bringing me within a couple of hours of my destination of Mechanicsburg, PA. Not bad for having 45000 lbs

2010-09-29T21:03:00.001-05:00

(2/2) and all the construction on I70/76. Who knows what tomorrow brings.

What did I say?

2010-09-28T14:06:00.001-05:00

Yeah I know I said daily updates but......Been doing more driving than sitting lately. In fact I have been doing some turn and burns to PA. I am waiting for a trailer at the yard so I can head for mechanicsburg.

2010-09-19T10:46:00.001-05:00

Well I just put this blog on my phone. Daily updates here we come!

2010-09-19T10:43:00.001-05:00

Testing

Batman!

2010-09-19T10:12:00.003-05:00

Just a short update. The last three weeks have been good. I have made it home every weekend. But this weekend was cool because from Monday AM I put in 3300 miles and I get to do my reset at the house. I got home yesterday and then took the family to a local park where we got to see bats fly out of a cave and buzz around our heads. Very cool. Monday I head for Minnesota.

New jersey shuffle

2010-09-05T12:11:00.002-05:00

With my week starting on Tuesday I knew I was a perfect candidate for running the weekend. Sure enough Friday I had a load going from Jefferson City to Jamesburg, NJ. An easy run made easier because my delivery wasn't until Tuesday morning. Four days to do a two day run. So I drove and took my sweet time.

Sunday am I arrive at a travel plaza on I95 and found ways to entertain myself.

Monday dispatch tells me my future. My next load was a two pick up load. First pick up was in Newark. Second one was in Clifton. It was to be delivered in Columbus, OH by Wednesday morning at 0600. So they expect me to unload, drive to newark get a load, drive in more NJ, get loaded some more and still pull off 587 miles on elogs? I am not that good. BUT I was gonna give it a shot. I get 4 days for a two day run and then I have to cram all of this in a 14 hour shift. Consistency I guess is overrated.

Tuesday by some miracle I get unloaded in 30 minutes. I drive 40 miles to Newark. By some miracle I95 was flowing good during morning rush hour. I get hand loaded ie no pallets within an hour. I only had 6 miles to my next pick up. I thought to my self I might pull this miracle out my butt after all.

The only snag was that my appointment was 1300 and it was only 1100. But the first place loaded me despite being early so maybe this place would be cool. Their office informs me I would not be started until 1300.

So I sat, and sat, and sat, and well you get the picture. 1400 I get a dock. 1800 pieces totaling 5000 lbs were being hand loaded onto the floor. This was gonna take awhile. 1600 I get loaded. BUT before I close the doors I noticed the boxes were stacked uneven and sloppy. It didn't fill the whole trailer so I knew these were gonna fall before I hit Ohio. I put my loadlock on for effect knowing it wasn't gonna help. Imagine stacking a stack of index cards unevenly on a table then use a rubber band while you tipped the table to stop them from falling.

Now I drudged through afternoon rush hour and I still had to fuel in Clinton, NJ which usually turns me into a monster. I would be lucky to pull off 200 miles today before my 14 was up.

Wednesday I determined I can make 1200 and the company made the necessary appointment changed. I was told to expect a four hour unload. But I had my next load lined up and I had until 2100 to get there. I arrive at the customer and after a snag about my appointment number I get a dock. I open the trailer and found the mess I predicted. About 10 minutes later I get called to their office. here's the conversation:

Me: Yes?
Them: Yeah we have a problem the load shifted, we are taking pictures and sending them to your company.
Me: yeah I figured that. It was loaded poorly,Not much i could have done.
Them: Oh we know but we can't unload you today because it's gonna take too long. So you will have to come back tomorrow at 0630.
Me: Can I leave the trailer here?
Them: your company says you can't.
Me: But the load will shift and fall even more if I move the trailer.
Them: Well make a phone call. We have no problem with you leaving it here.

So I make the call and convinced all parties that it was best for me to bobtail out of there. I go to a cramped Pilot and found it a lot easier to deal with not having a trailer. I get a much needed bike ride and shower.

My next load was pushed to be picked up Thursday which would put me in the yard Friday which works better for me being home this weekend. The weird part is I needed to be back at the customer at 630 just to take their time to unload me which is moronic because it starts my 14 hour clock instead of just telling me when I can pick up the trailer. Oh well.

The next morning I get to the customer and get a surprise. I am empty. Apparently they unloaded me yesterday after all. But my next shipper decided to take their sweet time putting me in Springfield friday at just the right time. now I get a full weekend for labor day.

Misery Loves Company

2010-08-15T10:29:00.001-05:00

This week was one of those weeks where I question my career choice and find myself wanting to toss the keys in a pit and walk away.

Sunday started innocent enough. My first load was a drop in Tyler, TX. A friend was heading the same direction so we ran together through Oklahoma. All was well til we left Muskogee. That's when I discovered my A/C stopped blowing cold air. By the time I hit Sulpher Springs, TX I was miserable. I bought a fan at The Pilot and noticed my APU had stopped working as well.

I dropped my trailer in Tyler and got to the Pilot. Then began the longest night of my life. At one point I realized the fan was draining my batteries because they were weak. So now I am idling a truck, blowing hot air. I might have a heat stroke at this point. About 2am I go in the mcdonalds and buy a shake and enjoyed the A/C inside for an hour. I tried the APU again and this time it worked. Made a HUGE difference. Apparently the APU would get hot and shutdown so I just ran it on a lighter setting and it stayed on.

Monday I knew I wouldn't have a reload so off to the local Volvo shop where I would sit for eight hours waiting on repairs. Next up I had a load picking up 40 miles away going to Houston, TX. I get to the shipper and I am truck number 5 in line. This was at 6:30 pm. I find out that a truck that was lucky to have a dock had been there since noon. Incredible. At 1 am I was finally loaded. Monday night I drove until I got dangerously tired and pulled in for the night.

Tuesday I wake and head for Houston. Made decent time. I was unloaded in 20 minutes. But I was now waiting for the nest load assignment. Only an hour later I was told to head to Brenham, TX to load in the morning. Drove to a truck stop 20 miles away from the shipper and went to bed.

Wednesday I only had 400 some miles going to Broken Arrow, OK for a thursday am delivery. Finally the week was getting better.

Thursday After Broken Arrow I was picking up in Okmulgee and it went to the yard in Springfield. Then just to make sure I wasn't enjoying my job too much I had a load of scrap paper going to the woods in Louisiana. Made it as far as Little Rock, AR and hit the bed.

Friday about 1pm I arrive. I am truck number 9 in line and truck one had been docked since 7am. AAARRRGGGHHH!!! I was looking at another long customer time. It's a good thing my next pick up was 24 hours because I didn't get to the next shipper until midnight. I was loaded with another heavy paper load that went back to the yard. Now that I could have used a long load time so I could sleep I was loaded in an hour. Go figure.

Saturday was spent dealing with 45000 lbs of paper on the beat up old roads of Louisiana, and the winding mountains of Arkansas. I made it the yard spent and burned out.

Why did this week suck? Well it shouldn't take six hours to load empty beer cans. It shouldn't take eight hours to unload 18 bales of scrap paper. Add that with my mechanical problems I am spent.

Captain's log date 8-8-10

2010-08-08T06:36:00.003-05:00

After a long weekend last week which would be the first in three weeks I was sent to Belle Mead, NJ for a Wednesday night delivery. So Monday afternoon I left out with no reason to hurry. I shut down in Vandalia, IL and started at a not so early time the next day.

Tuesday I got to a travel plaza in PA. At this point I was sent my next load assignment. It was a drop and hook picking up in Topton, PA. So now I had to time things right. If I started wednesday morning too early and I don't get unloaded until after my appointment time I could run out of time and not make it to the friday delivery time in Indianapolis. But if I started too late well, that could make me late.

Wednesday I decided to start out around 11am. It was perfect. The receiver did take awhile to get to me but I was only there for 2 hours and I was unloaded. I got to PA and picked up my next load. Routing should be simple. Just go back the same way I came in. Straight down I70. I get my paperwork and some hazmat placards that put an end to my simple routing dream. I cant take this load through the tunnels of the PA turnpike. So instead I need to take I81 down to I68 then up I79 and then get back on I70. I shut down in Carlisle, PA hoping I wouldn't be pushing more miles thursday than can be done legally.

Thursday morning I get some decent news that my new route wasn't too many extra miles. I was only looking at 540 miles to drive today. My appointment was for Friday am at 0930. But I was pushing my luck. I discovered (I am still new at this job.)that I 68 is very mountainous and I was pulling 45,000 lbs. After four hours my average speed was only 54 miles per hour. Jiminy Cricket. I made it to Spiceland, IN where I fueled and spent the night. I could have slept at the receiver but I wanted a shower so I stayed put.

Friday I roll to the customer. I am assigned a dock, back in. after an hour I am told to switch docks. Apparently I needed to be at the magic dock. I was unloaaded in 15 minutes once I moved. I pull out, sweep my trailer, found a corner to hide in and await my next load.

It never fails. I will sit for two hours. I will finally get an assignment with barely time to get to shipper before appointment. This time I couldn't even look this up on my laptop to know how to get there. So I was following my GPS blindly which is never a good idea. While rolling I finally get the phone number I needed and listened to the auto-voice directions and found my way to the shipper with only a minute to spare. My trailer needed to be food grade clean. After sweeping it three more times they finally accepted it and loaded me. This load was going to the yard but due to my 14 running down I wasn't gonna be home until Saturday morning.

So I shutdown in Vandalia where my week began and cruised into town yesterday. I won't even get a reset because I am rolling in a couple of hours towards Tyler, TX.

Where did July go?

2010-07-31T11:56:00.004-05:00

Again my blogging suffers but I have been BUSY. Theoretically anyway. I got home for the fourth of July and then my eight year old son was gonna be my co-driver for a week or two.

Our first destination was all the way to El Paso, TX. A city I haven't been in for 20 years. This would actually take us through a big part of New Mexico which would be a new state for Eddie. We stayed ahead of the thunderstorms in Oklahoma just barely and had a good trip into the Texas border town. Next load assignment was from Las Cruces, NM to Olathe, KS. Another good trip with no problems except I noticed a small weird noise coming from my APU.

We get empty in Olathe and then I get my next load. Kansas City to BUCKEYE, AZ!! I was ecstatic. I have been wanting to get a load to my old home of Phoenix, AZ for the whole two years I have been with my company. I finally get my wish and I get to take my son with me. We would arrive Sunday afternoon where we would get to visit my sister in Tempe and swim in their pool. After hanging out in the pool we had dinner and went back to the truck. I found the battery low alarm on and the truck not feeling very cool. My APU was about to crap out.

After a long night of dealing with the heat, the apu, and my truck shutting off after 15 minutes, we make our delivery and I call the shop. After my next pick up I was to take the truck to a shop and get the idle shutdown shut off so I can idle the truck until I can bring it into the yard to get the APU fixed. Something our shop was supposed to do but didn't.

We picked up in Tollison, AZ and it went to Springfield, MO. Due to my 70 rolling over we had all week to do it. We get to springfield Thursday. I drop my son off and I get one more load going to TX and back before I get my APU fixed. In the end Eddie did 4700 miles with me and the stretch of I40 from AZ to Sgf, MO was one that my Dad and I did when I was young.

The rest of July was me dealing with slow freight and more APU problems but eventually I make it home.

Finally june is over!

2010-07-03T11:18:00.002-05:00

June has been a hectic month for me. I requested three sets of weekends off that were very important dates and found myself extremely stressed out not knowing if my fleet manager pulls it off. In the end the worst that happened was I got home on a friday night instead of morning on the day my band had a show. Each weekend was cut short and basically all were just 34 hour resets. This is the first weekend that I actually get a weekend. But I have a ton of stuff to do, not to mention getting ready for the next run which means shopping, laundry, plus I need to mow the lawn and get some computer stuff done. Oh yeah and squeeze a trip to the grandparents for the fourth.

I am especially excited because this week I take my son with me. He's eight years old and is ready to become a truckdriver. He loves it out on the open road. I like having the company. Although I have to be careful. I have been known to drive my full 11 hours with only one bathroom break. I can't really do that with an 8 year old in the truck. My next run is set. We leave for El Paso, TX for an open window appointment due wednesday.

Hopefully I can keep up with this blog. I have been kinda bored with the usual driving updates but will start posting again. Judging by the other blogs I read I am not the only one that has had a busy month. Cheers.

Montana

2010-06-25T15:03:00.003-05:00

I know it's been awhile since my last post so here is my last two weeks in video form.

Montana

Music

Going nowhere but somewhere

2010-05-29T08:42:00.006-05:00

Well I finally get home after a two week adventure. My doctor's appointment went ok. He said the lump was just a cist and nothing to worry about. My blood work came back this week. Everything seems around the normal range. So now the pressure is on me to lose weight. You see I used to be one of them annoying BMX Freestylers. Up until I was 20 this was how I kept the weight off.

Cute wasn't I?

When I was about 21 this gal was born.

This is a picture of my eldest child who had her graduation ceremony on Monday May 17th. When she was born I went into work mode and ended up selling my last bike which was a Haro Master. My bike hobby eventually led to a guitar hobby and well I stopped burning the fuel I was taking in. I have friends, family, and coworkers who are losing their lives due to poor health. I want to be at the graduation ceremonies of my remaining children so I need to do something. Trucking makes it hard but I have friends and followers of this blog who make it work. I just need to make it work.

The stationary bike is almost an insult to me considering my past. But it gets my activity level up no matter what the weather holds. Like this week I was glad I had it because I ended up resetting in the middle of the week in Amish Country. Although I wish I had a real bike with me because where I was parked looked like a good riding area. At times I have been tempted to take the bike out of the truck because it's in the way but my will power has triumphed. I shouldn't let a little inconvenience get the best of me.

A highlight this week was seeing terry. She was the first driver I have heard about having a stationary bike in the truck and she has given me some good advice. Her bike folds in so it doesn't take up as much room and I would like to find one just like it. It would be perfect for my truck because she has the same truck I do.

So I am starting a new venture while my health is decent enough to do so. I will keep updating my progress here mixed in with my trucking adventures. Have a good Memorial Day.

I wanna ride my bicycle

2010-05-15T20:33:00.003-05:00

After some inspiration from a friend and the need to do something I put something in my truck that might be a good start toward a leaner me.

It's not in the way too bad. It is enough where I can't ignore it though. So far I used it every day but one this week. Monday I have a doctor's appointment to talk about my weight and what I need to do. Plus I need to have my shoulder looked at for a lump.

Pressed For Time

2010-05-15T19:37:00.002-05:00

This week's theme is Pressed for time. Every run after the first one was tight.

Sunday started with a casual stroll to Waco, TX. I had an open window monday appointment time. So I could leave at 3:30 am Monday and drive it all in one shot or start Sunday afternoon drive 200 miles and be in Waco in good time. I drove to Muskogee and shut down for the night. It was a good thing I was leaving Oklahoma because they were expecting a big tornado outbreak the next day.

Monday I got to Waco and on the way I got my next load assignment. Deadhead was 140 miles to Schulenburg, TX. I bumped dock in Waco and noticed some confused individuals were running the joint. So after I docked I had to make a friendly reminder I was there. They needed to have me unloaded by 12:30 pm if I was gonna make it to the shipper by 3:30. I got there just in time. While backing into the spot one of my trailer doors became unhooked and thanks to the wind it swung and but barely missed the orange truck in the dock next to me. Later I would learn that Jesus saved the orange truck from being hit. During a conversation the orange truck driver gave me a pamphlet. I was loaded just in time for me to find parking in the town. I would have to start a 3am and it was gonna be tight.

Tuesday - This load was going to St. Louis, MO. I drove all day and made good time. I should be at the consignee one hour early wednesday. I shut down at The Hungry House Cafe in Missouri on I44 and my day would start at 3am again tomorrow.

Wednesday - Got to the receiver an hour early like I planned and headed 7 miles to my next load. St. Louis to Aurora, MO. Not very many miles so i thought I had the rest of the day in the bag. After an easy loading I strolled down I44 with a long break in Pacific to shower and eat. This is where my week becomes annoying. About an hour from Springfield I am told to drop my load at the yard and pick up another load that goes to Shreveport, LA. It had to be delivered by 10 am the next day. Due to my hours I didn't think I was gonna get my ten hour break in and make there in time. To top it off it was 45,000 lbs and routing takes me straight down US 65. Not a fun combo when you are in a hurry. I hauled butt from the yard to Harrison, AR where I shut down with only 10 minutes to spare on my clock.

Thursday started at 4am as well which was nice because I avoided a lot of traffic hold ups that occur on 65 and then little Rock, AR rush hour. This load was due at 10:40 am. I called the customer for directions and was told where to go. It dawned on me that I had been here a long time ago. By some miracle, luck, and non stop driving I pulled up to the guard shack at exactly 10:39am. As I was feeling all fuzzy inside I am given directions to the new warehouse where I was supposed to go. ARRRGGHHHH! To add insult to injury the place was ten miles closer so if I had the right info I would have been early. Communication people. I get to the right place where I was third in line for a one dock operation. To top it off it was a scrap paper load that I was gonna have to sweep out my trailer. It's a good thing I did a good job. My next load picked up 7 miles away and it was glass and they usually want the trailer spotless. But now I am pressed for time. I had to be at the shipper by 1pm. I pulled up at exactly 1:04. Jeez this was getting old. This place was a nice brand new building with plenty of room. that is rare in these parts. My load was going to Lawrence, KS and again I was pressed for time. I shut down in the Sulpher Springs, TX where I lucked out with the last parking spot and exactly 00:00 left on my clock. Too close.

Friday started out at 4am again and I made it to Lawrence with an hour to spare. Only stopping once to pee and fix a ruptured windshield wiper. I was nervous because I am supposed to be home this weekend for my daughter's graduation. I waited for an hour after being unloaded and my next load wasn't assigned yet. Next I am told to head toward KC. I get parked at the Quick trip and I am finally given my next load. It was a preloaded trailer sitting in Olathe, KS and I could pick it up in the morning. It goes to Louisiana but I am taking it to the yard.

Saturday I started at 6am. Got my trailer, changed my wiper blade and headed home.

Now I like running early in the morning and shutting down early BUT I like to have 2 hours of BS room for my appointment times. Barely making it to each delivery or shutdown time can be stressful if one does it all the time. Let's see what next week brings.

Happy You Gave Birth Day!!

2010-05-09T09:29:00.002-05:00

Didn't work very hard this week. Sunday started with a run to Tyler, TX. Monday had me going to Pryor, OK. Tuesday loaded in Okmulgee and that went to Springfield, MO. Then I was home until Wednesday morning where I left for Davenport, IA. Delivered that Thursday and then I picked up some beef stew that had two deliveries. One in St. louis and the second stop in Springfield. This was a test of my new fleet manager to see if he could get me in on a weekend I asked off. I volunteered for the Tyler run knowing that I would be flirting with my 70 hours. I got to the yard on Friday with only 2 hours to spare. The volunteering hopefully showed him the "scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" philosophy I have.

Next week I am supposed to in again for my daughter's graduation and a doctor appointment. My week starts by going to Waco, TX. Sorry for the lack of details but I am feeling lazy.

Happy Mother's day to all the mother's out there.

Would you like fries?

2010-05-03T21:32:00.002-05:00

Last week was one of those weeks where I contemplated going back to welding or flipping burgers.

Sunday I left early in the morning heading to Carlisle, PA for a Tuesday 17:00 appointment hauling flavored coffee in a can. I drove around 600 miles and then called it a day. This is when the week took a dive. I was in the bunk half asleep watching tv when I heard on the cb radio "Wow that guy is gonna HIT THAT TRUCK!" I look out and it was MY TRUCK THAT WAS ABOUT TO GET HIT! I laid on my horn, put my shoes on, and got outside. There was a truck trying to back in the spot next to me. The guy in a panic gets on the gas making the trailer lean and that when he "rubbed" my mirror. I yelled stop! At this point there is 4 drivers outside trying to help this guy and one of them handed me a wrench. The trailer was pinned against my fender mirror. If it moved it would tear the mirror and damage the hood. I took the mirror off real quick and crossed my fingers. Finally after ten minutes of maneuvering and almost taking another mirror off another truck. The guy was parked and in very broken english apologized and went inside the truckstop. I thanked the drivers for their help, put my mirror back on and the only damage was a scratch on the main mirror. It could have been a lot worse.

Monday started out peaceful enough until I just about hit a ladder that was stretched out across the interstate in Columbus, OH. Somebody dropped it and didn't realize it was missing. This is not a new phenomenon as this is a rampant problem around cities. People don't know how to tie their ladders down. I made my delivery early and ended up at the Petro.

Tuesday I had an unusual assignment. Take my empty trailer to Topton, PA and then bobtail to Flanders, NJ to pick up another empty trailer. That was it. No new assignment so I had to drive 20 miles to the closest truckstop. It took 30 minutes just to get in there but I finally got in and managed to get a spot. A whole 198 miles for the day.

Wednesday I sat until 13:00 when I was given my next assignment. Deadhead was 35 miles to Flemmington, NJ and loaded miles was 56! I would have made more money for layover than to do this load. On top of that the shipper refused to give me directions. Imagine you want to send a package and the UPS guy calls you for directions to your house and you hang up on him. That's pretty much what happened to me. I was 30 minutes late due to the challenge of finding this place. But when I walked into the shipping office I was suddenly two hours late according to their schedule. Thankfully they loaded me in 20 minutes and I was off on my "huge" run to some city in PA that I can't spell.

Thursday I made my delivery and had another load going from Harrisburg, PA to Plymouth, MI. My appointment was 13:00. BUT when I get to the shipper I was informed that I wasn't even on their schedule! I heard the somebody forgot to email somebody song and then my appointment became 17:00. Luckily there was a big parking lot nearby and I was told I can sit there until my load time.

This is when the next incident happened. Trying to make a wide right turn I get out in the street when I guy on a motorcycle runs a stop sign. He was so surprised to see my grill he completely stops in time but his foot gets caught in the pedal and falls off the bike. I asked him if he was ok. He said yes and then I mentioned the stop sign. He was angry but knew not to argue and I proceeded to the parking lot.

At about 2pm I get a message to go over to the shipper. he had a cancellation and was gonna load me now. Finally things are looking up.

Friday I get to Plymouth. I was told to drop the trailer, pick up an empty in Livonia, MI but this time I had an assignment to deadhead to Monroeville, OH. This is where things get weird. I found the place with no problem, my appointment time was right, they loaded me with no issues and it was a drop in Springfield, MO. A smooth process that makes me forget about alternatives like flipping burgers.

"working"

2010-04-21T19:48:00.005-05:00

So It's been a hell of a week and a half. After my rare trek to Bismark, ND I actually made it to the house for the weekend. Monday at 3am I was off to Kansas City to a cave then I ran into a familiar run. The infamous KC to Salt Lake City, UT run. Normally there is barely any time on this run but because of our elog situation I guess we convinced the customer to give us three days to run instead of two. Three days to do 1100 miles equals to 366 miles a day which means a real yawner of a run. I do enjoy the scenery though.

I get a return load to KC and then I am off to Waxahachie, TX and I had a preplan to get reloaded at the same place. The bad part was it was going to a Home Depot and the appointment time hasn't been decided on yet. First weekend I have had to work in awhile. I hung out with a friend in Dallas after getting loaded. I had plenty of time to get to Little Rock so I shut down just 15 miles from the customer at the Benton Pilot. I sat and sat until monday night. My appointment has finally been made for ten pm. I get there about 8pm to give them a chance to get ready for me. Something told me I was in for a long night. How long. I finally was empty at 6AM.
My next load was to Springfield and I was given a load to Wisconsin where I sit again. Trucking is fun.

Finally.........

2010-04-14T14:52:00.003-05:00

I know that the title of my blog says I am a trucker who plays in a death metal band but I rarely blog about the band happenings. That's because not much was happening due to other things in our lives that has made the band take a back seat. So after no playing out for over a year we finally have a gig set up. It's no ordinary gig, it's a gig opening up for the legendary death metal band Obituary from Florida.

This is a huge deal for me because Obituary was one of the first death metal bands I ever heard back in 1989 and I have been hooked since. I would have never imagined that I would finally get to share the stage with them. Their first album Slowly We Rot still gets me in a mosh mood after 20 years.

Not too long ago the Vocalist and drummer put out another project called Tardy Brothers that has the coolest cover for someone in my profession.

So there you go. My band will be playing at The Marquee with Obituary and our friends Vore (thanks for the help Page!)on June 5th which is a saturday. I can't wait.

Some pictures from this week

2010-04-10T22:03:00.005-05:00

Here is a cool driver.

I try to make my own coffee as much as possible. Makes the inside of my truck smell yummy.

I am eating healthier and it tastes good. This was breakfast thursday morning. These were fresh too.

And this was lunch.

In Bismark North Dakota the truck stop had carpet squares for 2 dollars a peice so I indulged.

Short Run Monday

2010-04-06T09:29:00.005-05:00

Tuesday April 5, 2010

Yesterday started at 4am and I made it to the McDonalds that goes over I44 in Oklahoma for a coffee and bathroom break. I also used the opportunity to call the receiver to find the job site I was going to. No answer. Of course. So I head down to Jenks' OK hoping my GPS knew what the heck it was doing. Ten minutes later I get a call from the job site guy and I was scribbling directions while driving which is what I was trying to avoid.

Turns out that Google maps that I had looked at the night before was WAY off as I suspected and that's why I didn't have much faith in the GPS. I discovered that job site guy doesn't know how to count traffic lights and the GPS did know how to find this place.

Once I got there the next challenge was making sure I didn't get trapped. If I remember correctly apartment complexes are usually not truck friendly. I find a place for them to unload me. This takes awhile because the forklift had to drag these pallets to the back with a chain. This made for a longer unload time and a messy trailer that I had to sweep up.

My next assignment had me taking a double take. It was supposed to be picked up Friday in Muskogee, OK and delivered in Springfield, MO by Monday at 1400. It was now 1100 and I wasn't even to Muskogee yet. Must have been a dispatch mishap but me the driver gets the heat at both the shipper and receiver. Oh well.

I drop, hook, fuel, and scale in Muskogee and drove 188 miles to the customer. I was pleasntly surprised when there were no empty trailers and was told to bobtail home and wait for the next load at home. Looks like it might be another slow week.

Easter Run From Hell

2010-04-04T17:50:00.004-05:00

Friday found me getting up at 2:30 am. My strategy worked on beating the Atlanta rush hour. There was traffic but it was flowing smoothly. I pulled into the customer's yard and dropped my trailer. I was told by the boss to make sure I grabbed a later model trailer. This kind of worried me because it usually means a paper load from Conyers which can take a long time to load.

An hour later I was zapped a new assignment. I was picking up at a stucco/cement place in Newnan. GA. Good deal. I was just in Newnan not to long ago so I kinda knew where I was going and it wasn't a paper load. Plus I was allowed to bring it through the yard so I could be home for Easter. This is where things got ugly for awhile.

I show up and find myself going in the wrong direction. It was TIGHT and I had to pull back and move my tandems all the way up. As I was backing to retry I scraped the bumper on my right side on a pile trash that had wood and drywall sticking out.

The forklift guy seemed amused as he told me they had no dock and other trucks didn't have a problem getting in. He was amused until he found out that I wasn't allowed to touch freight and he had to load the truck by himself. Then he proceeded to go off the deep end. Cursing, babbling about somebody and he basically told me he wasn't gonna load me and I would be waiting a long time. Great this meant my Easter might be ruined due to some butthead who was too lazy to do his job. My 14 hour clock was ticking away.

I make a phone call and my people talked to the broker's people, who talked to the customer's people. Ten minutes later I was told I would be loaded and that we were just waiting on another guy to run the pallet jack. All this for just ten pallets. Twenty minutes later the calvery arrives. This is when they discovered that the pallet jack wasn't gonna work. Each pallet weighed 3800 lbs and the pallets were not gonna work with that particular jack. Luckily for this place they were neighbors with a heavy equipment place that happened to have a dock ramp.

So the waiting for the Calvery, the griping of the forklift driver, and my scratched bumper was all in vain because someone somewhere didn't know what the heck was going on. I maneuver out of the tight lot and went next door to a much nicer, much bigger place and was loaded in 30 minutes. I was smart this time and told them how the pallets should go in so I wouldn't be heavy on my drive tires. I made it to Lincoln, AL to shut down.

This is when I discovered it was gonna be tight on time getting to the yard. I had 9hours and 54 minutes left of my 70 hours of the week.

The next morning I found myself having to get the manager to get a truck that was parked at the only ULSD fuel lane that was open. the truck was an older truck that didn't even need the new fuel and the driver was just sitting there. He wasn't even at the pump just behind it. I had already started my clock and this nimrod didn't know what he was doing. After he moved I was getting my fuel when another driver came up to me and asked me what town we were in.

Here's the conversation:
Driver - "What town are we in?"
Me - "Lincoln."
Driver - "Lincoln where? Texas?"
Me - "No Texas is three states away. You are in Alabama."
Driver now looking confused - "Uhm....Thanks."

I followed this guy to Birmingham. There was definitely issues going on.

It was tight on the time. I made it to the yard with six minutes OVER my 70 hours. if it wasn't for the fuel fiasco I would have been right on the money. SIGH. The yard was packed with trailers but I managed to squeeze into a spot and called it a week. Happy Easter.

That was close!!

2010-04-01T19:50:00.003-05:00

Thursday, April 01, 2010

Since I had a 5am appointment time I thought it would be best to put 8 hours in the sleeper berth which will let me go to Associated Grocers or AG for short without a log violation. Then I would gain some hours after a 2 hour break which I knew this place would probably take that long to unload me. I had it all planned out.

I show up on the off ramp that goes to AG where all the trucks line up at about 3am. I see trucks going in so I figured I would call to see how early they could get me in. After all my dispatcher said they would probably take 6 hours. I was told 4am and to turn my CB radio to channel 16. As I am sitting there like a dufus I hear on the radio "Now taking all trucks!" I was over there before the other drivers could probably get out of their sleepers. Within Minutes I was docked annd I hit the bunk. Just two hours later I wake up to someone knocking on my door. I was done.
Woohoo!!

I make my way to the yard and drop my empty. Then the overnight guy sees that I have some hours so he gets me a Macon, GA load. Due to my 14 hour clock that was running I had to haul arse. I did a quick fuel up in Oak Grove, KY. I did some math. If I can maintain an average speed of 60 MPH I can make it to Monteagle to shut down and only use up 4.5 hours tomorrow before I get to Macon.

Well Nashville had other plans. After a surprise early start to rush hour I found myself looking in my truckstop book for the next possible shutdown place. I decided that my elog would get me to MM 114. This is what I had left when I set my brakes.

Tomorrow starts at 2am. Yup. Hopefully tomorrow I will get a back haul to Springfield so I can spend Easter with my family.

Oh yeah 3rd night in a row of free internet. Cool.

A quiet day..

2010-03-31T21:22:00.001-05:00

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

I made decent time this morning in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. 30 miles in an hour. Not bad. I get to the shipper with no problems (after a quick Uturn) and I discover that this particular beverage place is just a warehouse for overflow rather than the beverage plant itself. What this meant was that I was loaded in an hour with no BS.

I stopped in Muskogee, OK for fuel, a shower, and the Subway for a sandwich. I think the lady working there was giving me googly eyes but it was probably just a ploy to sell me cookies.

After hitting every red light on US69 between Muskogee and Big Cabin I had a nice leisurely stroll down I 44 to Springfield, MO where I have a 5am appointment to deal with. AND dispatch says I should expect a 6 hour unload. Awesome. Today was a pretty quiet day. Even the CB radio was quiet today. It seems I have chased all my phone buddies away (since I have no life) so I am glad I got my Sirius radio. I did get some new cds this week. If you get a chance listen to the song "Powershift" by Fear Factory. it's off their new album which is decent.

Oh yeah don't buy catfish from the Circle K on Glenstone. And I know I said I would do pics but I forgot the cord that plugs my camera to the puter. I am stealing the internet from one of the 12 hotels I am near so I thought I would do some quick posts. Toodles.

Everything's Better In Texas

2010-03-31T21:02:00.002-05:00

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

On my way to the mall I stopped at the yard yesterday I mentioned to my new dispatcher how much I like running in Texas. I even went as far as telling him I could be dedicated there if given the chance. So he whipped me up a load of dunnage going to a beer place in Ft. Worth and took me off the Illinois load he had me planned on. Good.

With our off-duty driving taken away this job has become a lot more challenging. But I sense change in the air. Halfway to Texas I get my next assignment. I am picking up in Grand Prairie in the morning and it goes to Springfield, MO for Thursday morning. HOPEFULLY the beer place will have me unloaded in good time where I can shutdown and have enough time to brave Dallas morning rush. I got unloaded within the hour and I am resting at the loves just a few miles away with no HOS violation. Good deal.

Daddy! Take us to the mall!!

2010-03-31T20:57:00.001-05:00

Sunday May 28, 2010

Sunday started out normal enough. I leave the house about 5am and do my walmart shopping. After stocking the cooler I was heading towards DeKalb, IL. It was a drop and hook which was simple enough but it was my next assignment that things stray from routine.

I had to be at The Cherryvale Mall in Rockford, IL by 9pm. All I had was a phone number of the guy who was gonna load my truck and unload it. The "load" was going to the mall in my hometown of Springfield, MO. Cherryvale was actually easy getting in with my 53 footer. After a phone call I find where I needed to park. The place was not a dock but an entrance. The customer asked me if I had a liftgate or moving blankets to which I replied no. This is when I realized that I was playing "moving van".

It was basically a portable store also known as a kiosk. two large aluminum tables, a lighting stand, Two cabinets and a sink along with miscellaneous pans were all loaded and secured. I had my doubts that these items would not survive I39's infamous potholes but I was proved wrong.

Since I only had to drive 486 miles and couldn't unload until 9pm I took my time and even swung by the house for a shower and a meal. About 8pm I head for the challenging task of looking for a way into the Battlefield mall. This proved to be challenging because the parking lot was filled with many curbs and signs where my 53 footer couldn't make the turn. The looks I got were classic. After circling the entire parking lot I find the store people and spent the next hour unloading. After a $20 tip I found a hiding place in Kmart and went to bed. Hmm maybe this moving van stuff isn't too bad.

Quickie...

2010-03-31T20:51:00.005-05:00

Basically a quick note. I am gonna make a couple of changes. Instead of my weeks being updated at once I am gonna try a one or two day format. Just highlights of the day or a single trip. I still will probably do a whole weeks worth on each blog update but it will be more separated. I am also on a picture kick so expect a lot of pictures to help with my stories.

Oh and I am on a quest to lose weight so I might update that stuff here too.

One for the record books.

2010-03-26T21:24:00.003-05:00

This was my absolute worst week in miles as a truck driver.

Monday morning I make a phone call. I have a load going to Madison, WI. An easy 597 miles. The catch, it wasn't due until 12:30pm Tuesday and to expect an 8 HR UNLOAD TIME. Sure enough it was true and tuesday went into the crapper.

Wednesday my next load assignment had me deadheading to Morrison, IL. Appointment time was 12:30pm and delivery was two drops. One in Buffalo, MO and the second in Gainesville, MO with open window appointments on Thursday. I just had to be in Gainsville by 4pm. No big deal right?

That's where things get really screwed up. The directions to this place and my GPS had me going down roads with signs saying "10 Ton limit". I finally get around that mess and show up only ten minutes to spare from my appointment time. I am given my papers and told to get in the line of trucks. I was third in line so I thought that things might go well. Wrong. Several hours later I finally get my turn. I felt really sorry for the trucks that were behind me. Fifteen was the count when I got to the dock.

Now thanks to the elogs my 14 hours were ticking away. I wouldn't make buffalo, MO tonight. the other catch was if I took a full ten hour break I wasn't gonna make it to the second stop before they closed. Add rain, backwoods roads at night, a fuel stop ten miles out of the way to the mix as well. I got fuel In Walcott, IA and shut it down. If I did the eight hour split sleeper birth move This could be done. As long as Buffalo didn't take their time to unload their 9 pallets.

So on thursday at 3am I was off. I made it to Buffalo an hour ahead of schedule. BUT by the time they got there stuff I only had 90 minutes left of my 14. The next stop was 120 miles away. Not gonna happen. So I drive the 30 miles to the yard and was told to deliver friday am. Since I had an appointment with the tax people I had to be in this weekend. Giving me a total of 1200 miles for the week.

Two other things happened this week. We don't have the off Duty driving feature on our logs anymore. AND I was given a new dispatcher this week.

There is a bright side to this. My son was on Spring break this week so he got to ride in the truck with me all week. Even though we sat a lot he was thrilled to be out there on the road with me. And he pretty much kept my sanity in check because all my phone friends were on vacation so he was good to talk to. If the Government doesn't outlaw trucking in 15 years I expect to see him out here. Shuttting down in Walcott got us a long time to hang out at the infamous Iowa 80 truckstop. My son was the kid in the candy store and got a hat for a souvenir. So now Monday am at school he will have some good stories to tell. He also got to see the Arch in St. Louis and got to see a bunch of windmills in Illinois. He brought his video camera and we will be working on a video soon.

Sunday I head out to Illinois for hopefully a better week.

Let's see what next week brings.

Easy Breezy

2010-03-21T09:30:00.002-05:00

If every week was like this I might be inclined to say I love my job.

Monday am I had to drive a whole 70 miles to Camdenton, MO where I delivered in a tight area but was done in good time. Then I drove to the yard where I was given a load going to Mechanicsburg, PA. I was about 20 miles from Carlisle when I heard on my CB "Transland you got it on?" "Yes." I replied. "You are dragging your trailer airlines." Sure enough I pulled over and the spring that holds the airlines off the ground was broke and I had already was losing air from the ground making a hole in one of the lines. So I hauled tail to the Petro in Carlisle. I waited in my line for three hours. Once I pulled in the bay the repair was done in ten minutes. It took longer to deal with the paperwork than the repair if you subtract the three hour wait. I finished my drive to the customer and hit the bunk.

Wednesday I got unloaded. My next load was to meet one of our drivers and finish his load that was a double stop. One in Auburn, NY and then Foxborro, MA. So I headed for the Pilot, took a nice shower and got some resting time. About 3pm the other driver arrives and I head out for a short 275 mile run. I make it to the mall where we deliver and hit the bunk. Unload time was 5am thursday. On the way there I learn that I get the load of returns from the Foxboro customer and it went back to Springfield. Holy hell yeah.

This whole week I have been blessed with clear blue skies and 70 degree weather. I slept at the customers' lots instead of a noisy dirty truckstops. Instead of waiting to be loaded I got to relax and just wait for my next trailer. The difference was I knew exactly what the load was going to be, I knew exactly when I was gonna get the load, therefore I was able to get a shower in and do a few spring cleaning things inside my truck.

The irony is that on the first official day of spring I hit bad weather inside my own home town. After being in the northeast with perfect spring weather I don't get to enjoy any when I get a day off. Instead I get an ice storm. oh well.

Three hours = four palletts.

2010-03-13T16:44:00.003-06:00

Monday found me leaving at 4am again so I could fit a 34 hour reset. I was due in Ennis, TX anytime before 2:30pm. As soon as I bumped dock I was very tired and hit the bunk. After an hour my truck stopped shaking and had to find the dock worker to get my paperwork. It seems he forgot about me. No big deal seeing that I was still waiting for a new load. I parked in their staging area and took another snooze while waiting for my next destination.

An hour later my qualcomm squawks at me. I had to pick up at a steel place in Madill, OK. The deadhead was 130 miles and I had only 2 and a half hours left on my clock. I still had the beginning of rush hour in Dallas to go through and some small towns on US70. I realized that it would be tight if not I would probably have to use some precious off duty driving time. But I got a message from the boss that said to try my best but I could pick up tomorrow. Hmmmm.

So I had a choice. I could burn my off duty driving time tonight, wait in line in a muddy dark place in the rain in a line of ten trucks, while not getting good rest, then have to find a truckstop without getting a violation, OR find a truckstop now legally, get a good night's rest, be first in line in the morning and be on my merry way. Guess which one I chose? As a sign from the gods that I made a good decision I got to see a cool double rainbow as I shut down for the evening.

Tuesday found me patting myself on the back. I was first in line, the weather was perfect and I was fully rested. I still had to deal with knee deep mud but there could be a drought and this place would still be muddy. This load was going to Moberly, MO but I would soon find out I was taking it to the yard so I can get on something else. I pulled in the yard and was put on a load due thursday in Columbia, SC.

Wednesday I intended to get almost all the way to the customer but thanks to my ignorance and Atlanta rush hour I was forced to shut down a mere 90 minutes from the customer which meant my clock would be ticking as I delivered in the morning.

Thursday morning I wake up at 4am and make my delivery all went well until I started to leave. The security guard had me stopped which didn't fair well with the driver behind me. He started honking and showing his impatience. So I got out of my truck and told him to settle down because I was just doing what I was told to do. Each truck had to drive by the guard shack with doors open and then drive about 100 feet to the THIRD SIGN to shut your doors so there is no delays. I pulled up to shut my doors and started to pull out when I almost get hit by Mr. Impatience because he decided to shut his doors in the wrong spot and was trying to beat me to the traffic light. After about a mile up the road I get ahead of him because he got trapped behind some slow cars and I mentioned the irony of the situation on the CB. He grunts some kind of reaction and I was on my merry way to Evans, GA. It was an 80 mile deadhead but going only 140 miles to Macon, GA.

I get to the shipper and stand in the window of the office being totally ignored by a snail paced office grunt for 20 minutes. I finally get the "wait for a dock door" command and wait. Meanwhile my next assignment was to go to Conyers after leaving macon and pick up a paper load. This place in conyers was notorious for 10 hour load times. I was not a happy camper. Tick tock. Finally 3 hours later I am loaded. To my disgust I only had four pallets on the trailer. THREE HOURS FOR FOUR PALLETTS??

But finally things swing in my favor. My load of paper was cancelled so instead I got a different Conyers load. that didn't pick up until friday am. Fine by me. So I drop and hook in Macon and shut down in Jackson.

Friday I cut through the woods and get to conyers no problem. BUT my simple drop and hook turned into me playing yard dog and putting three of our trailers into docks before getting my own. I get as far as Oak Grove, KY and take a nice long shower. I endure fog, rain, an eight car pile up, an almost head on collision if front of me, Atlanta traffic and people rushing home for the weekend and then Six hours later I am at the house.

Graveyard Shift

2010-03-05T19:18:00.002-06:00

This week has been fun. Started Monday at 3am. Delivered Tuesday in Virginia. Deadheaded to Mechanicsburg, PA and had to run all of tuesday night/wednesday am to deliver in OH. Picked up in OH and had to leave Thursday at 2am to get to McDonough, GA by Friday am. Then I picked up in Alabama where I only made it to just south of Birmingham before my 14 ran out. Tomorrow I head back to Springfield with a start of 2am. Next week looks to be the same because I will be leaving for Texas about 3am Monday morning after my 34 hour reset.

Advantages to this shift, less traffic, easy to find parking after my driving time is up. Disadvantages, all my phone friends are sleeping and I have no one to talk too. Oh well. I am probably just annoying them anyways. At least I haven't seen the Black Dog.

Quit following me.

2010-02-13T10:14:00.003-06:00

As most of you probably know the Northeast part of the country has been hit with snow storm after snow storm. Here in Missouri we have had our share as well. I got in last Saturday and was home for Superbowl Sunday. We had plans for a gathering with friends in Joplin. Shortly after the game I noticed a snow storm heading right in our direction so we took off. We managed to stay ahead of it but soon it would consume Springfield.

Monday AM I get a call from Dispatch. I had a Macon, GA load. I was relieved due to the fact that I wasn't going Northeast yet. A fellow driver told me she was leaving for her run early because the the entire NE was gonna be hit hard. I headed out. I had to deal with my own storm once I got to the eastern part of Missouri. I had to shut down in Charleston, MO which was gonna make the run tight. But I knew that once I got into KY I would drive out of that storm. I had to be in Macon by 4pm and got there at 3:57. Whew.

Now I was nervous about getting a northeast run but my fears were soon taken away as I was going to pick up in Mcintrye, GA and it was going to Dallas, TX Woo Hoo! So I drive the 40 miles and arrive at the shipper. This became an adventure because of an under qualified forklift operator but that will be another blog. the instructions on the load assignment stated that I was to either keep moving or idle the truck if parked and the temperature was below freezing to prevent product from freezing. I called my dispatcher to confirm these instructions. They were right but his words were "I don't think that freezing temps will be an issue on I20 going to Dallas." The next day I get as far as Monroe, LA when I turned on the news I saw the words "WINTER STORM WARNING". Hmmm.

The next morning I got to dallas just in time for rush hour and this:

Turns out Dallas was gonna get close to a foot of snow. Looks like it was time to get the heck out of dodge. I got my next assignment and headed North to Madill, OK. Where a mass muddy/snowy/long mess awaited me. I shut down at a truckstop on US69 and then the next day headed to the yard. Today I am off to Mechanicsburg, PA where I hope things have cleared up because no matter where I go I am gonna get snow.

Expect the Unexpected

2010-01-27T16:53:00.002-06:00

Always expect the unexpected. This is my slogan for trucking.

My weekend stay at The Hagerstown, Pilot was cut short with a phone call. It was the sunday dispatcher. One of our drivers had run out of hours and needed to hand off the load to me since I was the only one near him. Actually we were just 5 spaces apart at the Pilot discussing the E-logs when I got the call.

It was the Auburn/Foxborro run that I had done just last week.
Problem 1. I needed a total of 12.5 hours to do this. I only had 11.25.

Apparently that was more than the other driver so off I went. I was bummed because I was gonna watch football and I was gonna have to take another violation. Oh well.
I got smart though I got past Syracuse, NY and parked at a Toll road plaza/rest area and watched the Saint/vikings game. Then I drove to the customer in Auburn.

Monday morning I noticed the wind picking up. As I made my way to Foxborro the wind got crazy. I was light enough I could have been blown over. 300 miles of white knuckled driving including three moments where I thought I was going over. The sideways rain didn't help either.

So I get to Foxborro where the backing is always tight. I thought I was gonna get a break because the snow that was making it hard to back in should be all melted. It was melted and replaced by two service vehicles which forced me to blindside in. After being soaked and my truck inside being soaked because I had to roll windows down to see my mirrors I traded trailers and made it to the 6 dollar a day to park truck stop. I parked just in time. There was a high wind warning in the area and trucks lighter than 20000 lbs were suggested to park. But I was out of hours anyways.

I have several credits for showers at Pilot but I was no where near a Pilot and I was needing to shower badly. So 7 dollars and an hour later I get relief. I play some video games, build my little exercise bike (basically pedals on a stand) and then hit the bunk.

Next day I sat and sat and sat. 4:30 pm rolls around. I get a message, "here's a brokered load, you have to be in Boston 35 miles away by 5pm." AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!

But surprisingly I picked up a load in Boston during rush hour and managed to avoid the traffic jams of rush hour. It goes to Alliance, OH. I am now sitting at a cool truckstop called Truckworld in OH. Tommorrow after unloading I go to PA to pick up a load of baby gates going to TX. Trouble is they are forecasting 10 inches of snow in Springfield around the time I am rolling through. The guesswork of what each day brings carries on.

Dirty picture

2010-01-23T20:28:00.002-06:00

Ha like I would post a pic of me. This is what the NE is doing to my nice new truck. I did happen to find one of those quarter wash bay places and reduced some of this filth. It killed an hour. Now what do I do?

Fed Ex = aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhh!

2010-01-23T15:03:00.003-06:00

I have noticed something. People are either really uptight or they are non-responsive. A middle ground would be nice. Here's the story:

I get to the delivery point in Hagerstown, MD. It's a saturday drop and hook which makes me wonder if there will be someone to sign off on my paperwork. But it's fed Ex and they should have their crap together right?

I pull up to this nice new facility. It's got a new gate and everything else. Except a security guard. Hmmm. I use the call box and it just rings over and over. I peak in the guard shack. Inside is a jacket, some food, and the looks of being occupied at some time recently. In the parking lot is one lonely car which I am assuming is the guard's car. I honk my city horn thinking maybe he is in the bathroom. Nothing. Meanwhile a fed ex driver pulls up to his gate and his badge doesn't work. Now he is looking for this "guard". But he gets someone on his call box and they open the gate for him but I was told to wait for the security "guard". So I wait. Finally I am annoyed and call the number on my paperwork.

Frazzled lady - What.

me - Yeah I am trying to do a drop an..

lady - Where's the security guard? Are you delivering? There is no one here. No one is here to unload you. Are you an outside company? where's the guard? I can't leave the building. There is no one here, Are you dropping. You probably shouldn't be here until monday anyways. Where's the guard? Who are you?

Me - Ma'am please calm down a second. If there is supposed to be a security guard I can't find him. I am not mad. I am just trying to deliver this trailer and I have never been here before.

Gate opens and I think that maybe now security sees me so I push the call box. The annoyed frazzled lady answers. Apparently this box and my number are the same phone.

lady - Are you dropping? I hope so because no one will be here until sunday to unload you.

me - Yes I am dropping, where do.....

lady - just drop it on the lot. Ok that's all I can do. Find the security guard he can sign your bills. I can't there is no one else here.

me - uhm ok thanks.

I pull through the gate. Still no sign of the "guard". I guestemate where I need to drop my trailer. Drop it. I find one empty but I get another load while dealing with this mess. It's a paper load that needs a trailer that is newer then ten years. Uh oh. sure enough my empty was made in may of 1999. I find another trailer but it's in a dock. I bobtail to the guard shack to see if this "guard" has returned form outer space and sure enough he is in there. I knock.

Surprised "guard" - Can I help you?

me - I need an empty. If I find one at a door can I grab it.

"guard"- Who are you?

me - I am from.....

"guard" - how did you get in here? did you make a delivery? What do you need? Oh a trailer yeah just make sure it's empty. Who let you in?

me - This lady I am not sure....

"guard" who else is here? who let you in?

me - uhm...this lady let me in. Another driver is the only person I have seen.

"guard" - Yeah I know. he told me you were here.

me - Uhm.. ok well I will be right back.

During this stimulating conversation the fed ex driver pulls up and tells the guard his badge doesn't work. The "guard" yells - look I can only handle one issue at a time!

I drive off and come back with the old trailer. the one I needed was still loaded. I hand the "guard" my bills.

"guard"- I hope you remember your seal number. You need to fill this form out.

me - No problem I have it all written down.

I fill out the form, hand it to him. He checks the back of my trailer.

"guard" - Thanks have a nice day!

me - uhm.. I need a copy of the bills signed and given to me.

"guard" oh.. wow I have never seen this kind before. That lady who let you in is probably gonna have my butt in a slinger. I am gonna get in trouble.

me - Sorry. Just trying to do my job.

He makes a copy, signs it and I am off. Since my trailer is too old I get rewarded with a weekend stay at the local pilot here in Maryland. Oh well. I hope I can get the game on tv.

Let's Get Physical pt2

2010-01-23T14:08:00.003-06:00

So after running the "extra" mile I got some brownie points. Also a recent D.O.T. inspection where I got 100 percent helped on top of being in the top three for fuel mileage was helping too.

Or so I thought. I asked to be in this weekend (Jan 23-24)for two reasons. There was a show I wanted to see and my DOT medical card expires on the 23rd. My plan was to be home saturday see the show, watch football on sunday and get my physical done on monday. That is a good plan in a perfect world. Throw that dream out the window.

I was rewarded with a load going to Auburn, NY with a second stop in Foxborro, MA. A good run with good miles and plenty of time to do it. Weather was gonna cooperate as well. I was told "we will find a clinic to get your DOT medical card done somewhere on the road." Great.

Thursday delivered the loads no problem. I was told to dead head to Maine and that load goes to Hagerstown, MD. I was set up with a place in Portland, ME to do my physical that supposedly had parking for my truck.

The word supposedly means hell no in Maine. I pulled up to the clinic and stopped before going in their lot because of the size. I called the clinic to confirm my fears as I blocked traffic in the left hand lane. "There is room in the back to swing around. You should be ok." Hmmm I sat for a moment. Then I went for it. I approached the back my worst fears were confirmed. THERE WAS NO ROOM for even a schoolbus to turn around. So I took a deep breath, backed, maneuvered, wiggled, and squeezed my way through the obstacle course of trees, land islands, and cars. This apparently amused the other CDL holders that were there for the same reason I was except they got to bring their cars.

After performing my small miracle I find what I thought was a good spot. At this point my feeling of accomplishment was wiped away with a building person saying I can't park there because the ambulances can't get through. I assured the nervous woman that the ambulance parking was not blocked but she argued. I guess ambulances are really big in Maine. Then she points to a parking area which was hidden to me because of snow that was way off in the distance. "That's where you need to park." So I moved my truck to the area she told me. Luckily it was just a straight back so my little miracle didn't have to be performed twice. Not only that but this area was big enough for a truck barely but a lot better than where I had gone. This whole adventure took a whole hour.

I got my physical done and my card was granted 2 years and all is well now. Or is it?

Let's Get Physical pt 1

2010-01-23T13:27:00.001-06:00

After sitting around in Foxboro, MA the weekend before last I made some miles for the week and found myself pulling into the yard late Saturday night.

Monday morning I am awakened with a phone call. It was my boss telling me I had a Macon, GA load and it was ready NOW. In 30 minutes I managed to get showered, pack my things, and drive across town. I was pretty damn impressed with myself.

Problem 1. I can't find my truck in the yard. That means one thing. Yup it's in the shop. I just had it serviced so I was confused. As I walked in the shop, the foreman had that look on his face. He told me that the APU was being serviced now. "Do you have 10 minutes?" He asked. Sure. He was curious about how long I knew I had this load I was on and I told him 30 minutes. He was mad at my dispatch because they didn't tell him that my truck needed to be ready to go. So I go tell my dispatcher. His eyes literally rolled up into his head. I put my belongings in my truck and parked my fourwheeler. Now comes the good part.

Problem 2. Truck will not start. It said NO! I am beginning to think that my truck feels so violated by the shop workers that it refuses to cooperate. It runs well with nothing done to it for weeks, but the minute it LEAVES the shop something is wrong. A little backwards if you ask me. What's the problem? It needed the batteries replaced. They didn't even last a year?!

I tell my dispatcher the situation. His reply was just the load there when you can...no big deal. Cool. These Macon loads are drop but usually we are only allowed 26 hours to get there.

An hour later I pulled out of the yard I stop at the truckstop down the street for a quick cup of coffee and some food for later. I was in and out within 15 minutes. My phone was LIT up with missed calls and a qualcomm message telling me to call. Dang! Before I could call back the big boss called me. This was my boss's boss. The only ones he can't boss around is the owners. Pretty high up. He says,"Steve here's the deal. That load HAS to be there in Macon by 9AM. No ifs, ands, or buts. If you fell you can't, pleas bring it back to the yard."

Problem 3. This trip is 750 miles. I have a 65 mph truck. One could legally log on paper 714 miles at 65 miles per hour in 11 hours driving time. But we aren't on paper. The highest one can get on elogs with a 65 mph truck is maybe 670. So I told the big boss ok I can do it. I made an immediate call to dispatch, "What's better? Logging out of the truck (then keep a paper log) or just taking the violation when I go over my hours?" My plan was to just go all the way there in one shot so I didn't have to worry about it. I was told to take the violation and it could be remedied.

So I drove over 750 miles straight only stopping for fuel and two bathroom/coffee refills. There was only one scale to cross while I was out of hours but they were closed and I had a story about how I am looking for safe parking but none could be had in Atlanta (which is where my hours ran out.)ready to use if pulled over.

Why was my boss like this for this load? My guess is that a much larger, cheaper trucking company is moving in on this customer so we are doing everything we can to make this customer happy so we can keep them. But it looks like the larger company might be winning anyways because they are cheaper. Quantity over quality can bite you in the behind. Oh well.

2010 bang part 2

2010-01-11T20:02:00.003-06:00

The bang was so big it needed 2 posts.

So after my trip I get a load from Muskogee to Springfield, MO.

Problem 1: This was supposed to be a 188 mile drop and hook. Easy breezy right? Nope. I get to the shipper and all I have to do is give a pick up # and grab the trailer they tell me. BUT apparently the shipper person has a two hour lunch break. So I wait and wait and finally about 2pm I am on my way. I fight to slide the tandems, weigh and fuel and my eta for Springfield in 1700.

Problem 2: My next load assignment was to be picked up at 1600. It was a Macon, GA load which usually leaves very little extra time and I would be an hour down already.

Problem 3: Due to the time crunch I have been eating fast food crap instead of fresh food due to me not making it to Wally world. I pick up the macon load and get all the way to Charleston, MO.

Problem 4: Pilot Travel Plazas are run by idiots. My fuel stop was in Murfreesburo, TN which only has two lanes of the special diesel my nice new truck needs. The brilliant minds at Pilot made them the first two islands and the way the place is laid out anyone waiting for ULSD blocks the trucks that need just regular diesel (LSD). I get stuck in a line to fuel that takes me 45 minutes to get through.

Problem 5: Chattanooga residents have some driving issues. An hour to go through the middle of town due to a minor fender bender on THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY DUE TO RUBBERNECKERS was ridiculous.

Problem 6: Incoming weather. I delivered my load an hour and a half late and sat at a hole in the wall convenience store wondering what I was gonna get tomorrow. Atlanta was having snow in the forecast. I figured I had until 3pm the next day to get out before the crap hits the fan. Knowing that Atlanta drivers weren't gonna handle snow too well. I went to bed not feeling too good about the next day.

Problem 7: Foxboro, MA. Why is this a problem? It was my next load. Somewhere in this blog page I posted about a trip where I get hassled by a rentacop the last time I did this run.

I pick up the load with no issues and watched the weather radar on my phone. I was in a race to get through Atlanta before the storm hits. I stay ahead of the storm until I get to Greenville, VA.

Problem 8: Remember problem 4 about Pilot Travel Centers? It becomes an issue again at the Pilot in Greenville, VA. Another 45 minutes shot to hell.

I drive another hour by this time I was in the snow and stopped at a surprisingly empty rest area.

Another day of driving and at sometimes feeling like an ice road trucker and I get 15 miles of where I needed.

Problem 9: This is a saturday delivery so I get to spend 2 days in a crap hole truckstop. At least I had football to keep me company. But I am still eating crap.

Problem 10: Today I put in for layover pay. And I get a bullcrap corporate excuse that I am not getting it. So this week is off to a good start.

2010 comes in with a bang.....PT1

2010-01-11T19:17:00.002-06:00

I can honestly say that 2010 is not off to a great start.

My first run of the year started on January 4th. It was a supposedly easy run to Shawnee, OK. It was due at 13:30 Monday. As long as I left around 0600 I would be good to go. I skipped my walmart trip and headed to the yard. I knew my truck had been serviced and washed so I set out looking in the yard. I found it ok but this is when the problems start.

Problem 1: Due to my truck being washed in artic temps both my locks were frozen. Some WD-40 and some Fonzi-like tapping on the door I got one open.

Problem 2: Truck will not start. Despite the fact that my APU was on (but suspiciously not running) my truck said NO! So I beef up the settings on the APU and waited. Truck still said NO! So I tell the night dispatch guy and he agrees to grab the mechanic's jump starter and help me out. It would be after 7am before the real mechanics would be on duty. Of course this doesn't work. As we struggle with it the shop lead guy saw our dilemma. He blames a plastic nut in the wrong place is why the jump start wouldn't work (even though I have jump started a fellow driver's truck before, but hey I don't argue) and said I would have to wait until 7am for a mechanic. He jump starts the truck and tells me to go to a bay so they can see why the truck didn't start.

Problem 3: A bad alternator. The lead guy asks me if I had time to wait around for them to put a new one on. I thought it a silly question because I thought vehicles needed alternators to run. He said it would only be 45 minutes. I was already running late so sure why not. I would love to have the luxury of having my truck running. I tell my Fleet manager and waited in the breakroom.

Problem 4: 45 minutes turns into 2 hours. Plus the alternator he was talking about was for the APU not the truck. I could have ran with that and just idled my truck for warmth. Oh well.

Problem 5: So I finally get my truck fixed, got everything loaded, and all the load info written down. Now I need my trailer. So I circle like a vulture in the dessert throughout the yard. After three passes in an icy parking lot I managed to go back to the shop (much to the dismay of lead guy)and discover my trailer in the shop as well.

I pull out exactly 5 hours later than planned. As I approach Shawnee, OK I learned that my new appointment time was 0800 the next day. Tuesday am and I wouldn't even have 300 miles. Great.

The Early Bird Gets The Worm PT II

2009-12-23T19:47:00.002-06:00

As soon as I got to Macon I had a load going from Macon to Olive Branch, MS that was due Monday morning. I was watching my hours and made it to Olive Branch no problem. I pulled into the Flying J and found that all the spaces were full (despite it being only 4pm) and half of them were bobtails. This irks me to no end. A bobtail only area would be nice. But I parked "creatively". The next morning I drove 4 miles to the customer. I had an 0800 appointment time. I got there at 0730. As I rolled in I noticed two other Transland trucks. I walk up to one and asked where to check in. He asks me if I was late for my 0700 and I informed him I was the 0800. The other driver points to the other Transland truck who has his curtains drawn and says he must be the 0700 then. I walked in the receiving area and was told since I was early I get drop and hook and the other guy being late would have to do a live unload. I dropped my trailer and hooked up to an empty.

My luck was in vain because it turns out I would wait for a load while he waited to be unloaded. When he was done I got my load assignment. I looked and he was hightailing out of there so he must have gotten one as well. I called on the CB to see where he was going but he didn't answer. Oh well. I started my trek towards Selmer,Tennessee. The good news was it was going to Moberly, MO which is inside my hours window and close enough to the house I could be dead headed home if needed. Home for Christmas!

So I get to Selmer and found the customer no thanks to my GPS. The residential street I traveled probably didn't like me. It takes a minute for me to find the door to this warehouse. When I do I was challenged to find a worker. Finally I located the right person (he was in a forklift pow wow) and he told me to back into door one. As I am leaving I meet up with the Transland driver that over slept. He was amazed that I beat him there even though he had a 15 minute head start.

I start backing into the door and found the other Transland driver telling me we were both sent the same load by accident. Great. Maybe we can split it. Nope, this load had only 9 pallets. We both waited for an hour to see what the overlords would decide. Since I was first I got the load. Yay me. I drive to Moberly and hit the bunk.

The next morning I found myself going to Quincy, IL to pick up going to Springfield, MO. I had just enough time to pick it up and make it to Kingdom City, MO. I rolled into Springfield today and shut down with only 30 minutes to spare and now my weekend starts. Merry Christmas everyone.

Early Bird Gets The Worm part I

2009-12-23T19:06:00.003-06:00

Since my dispatcher got me home for December 5th I told him I would run until the week of Christmas and that I want in on wednesday the 23rd. He definitely utilized that and have been running against my 70 hours this week. So the trick now was on Monday the 21st to be within a days drive with no chance of being stranded due to weather.

I pull into the yard on friday and had a choice. One load going to Mechanicsburg, PA. One load going to New Jersey (a double stop load too). Or a load going to Macon, GA.

Now since the introduction of The Weather Channel I am religious on checking the weather. Even more so since I got a CDL. I can't tell you how many times I came to a place having a jacket on hand in warm weather knowing the cold would be there by the time I left. Here in Missouri I have seen it go from 80 degrees to below freezing in 24 hours. Why is this important?

Well I don't want to get stranded somewhere due to weather and miss Christmas at home so I have been paying attention to the weather. I knew about a heavy band of snow that was gonna hit the north east. So I turned down the PA load. The Jersey load wasn't even a consideration (even during good weather). Macon was my choice. Sure enough halfway down there I here reports of I77 shut down, the whole area seeing up to 20 inches or better. So I dodged that bullet.

New video

2009-12-02T12:57:00.001-06:00

Here is my latest creation.

I HATE CHICAGO.

2009-12-01T21:16:00.002-06:00

Forgive my lack of coming up with a more imaginative title for this post but this speaks the truth. It all started where on Friday I was asked if I wanted to work over Thanksgiving. I said yes because I wanted off on December 5th instead. But I was gonna need a reset so I could work through next week. No problem. So after 34 hours I was sent to Wisconsin. A good run that I have done many times. before I get there I get my next load. This surprises me because my dispatcher was on vacation which usually spells trouble. I was picking up in Neenah, WI to Youngstown OH. It delivered wednesday am. My pick up time was at 1 pm. Well that would make it tight so I try to get loaded early. Then I get my next assignment. It picked up in Perrysville, OH which was two hours away from Youngstown. It was going to Midlothian, TX with a sunday am delivery. This meant that if I pulled it off I would have Thankgiving at home.

Now in my paper log days this would have been no problem. But with e-logs I was sweating it. Only one thing could ruin my master plan. Chicago. My routing had me going straight down 94 through Milwaukee and then into Chicago. With my flashbacks of holiday driving through Baltimore/Washington DC last year I shuddered at the thought of Chicago traffic for the holiday. Now I pondered at the thought of I43 to I39 and going WAY around but I figured I was screwed once I got to I80 east anyways. So I go for it. Milwaukee was smooth sailing. So much so that I had my hopes up. Maybe I can just stay ahead of the storm. NOPE. All my hope was shattered once I hit near the airport. ( I was going down I290 because I thought that 94 would not be much better.)

Let me explain Chicago drivers to you. They are so tired of all the construction zones and gridlock traffic jams that they have become very impatient and are willing ready to risk life and limb to get the spot in front of you. When I am not in a hurry it's quite entertaining for me in a twisted way but today I need to GO! Then It starts to rain while dusk settles in the Windy city. Traffic was stop and go for a long time. Every now and then there would be a break but then a sea of brake lights would have me backing it down before we could get it rolling again.

So I get to the end of my 14 hours. I am still 67 miles away with a 5am appointment. I didn't get shut down until 11pm. So I have grab line 5 (off duty driving) at 4am. I get to the reciever. If they take forever to unload me I can blame them for not getting me out in time for the next pick up. I can't log in until 945 am and I had to be in Perrysville by 10 am? Yeah that wasn't gonna happen. This place had been known to take like up to 8 hours to unload before. The one time I needed them to take their time they had me done within a couple of hours. Great.

So now these were my choices. Drive off duty but taking a huge chance at maxing that out so it would screw up my hours. Second choice was to call dispatch and see if they could move the pick up appointment. After a phone call explaining the situation they were switched me with another load that picked up the same place with a later pick up time. BUT (here is the kicker...) it was due FRIDAY AT 5 AM.

Instead of being home for a couple of days, this gave me a whole 2 hour window to have thanksgiving with my family. And you know what? I was thankful for that because I know that a lot of drivers didn't even get that. My family was grateful as well.

I still hate Chicago. BTW.

The bar.

2009-11-18T22:00:00.004-06:00

Last Friday I found myself at the TA in Foristell, MO which is just west of St. Louis off of I70. I parked the truck with literally two minutes left on my e-log. I had some cash and was not in the mood for canned goods so I treated myself to a meal inside the restaurant.

Now in a typical truck stop a driver has several options where to sit. One is a table. Two would be a booth. Or three sit at the bar. Normally I take my laptop with me and hide in a booth away from everyone else in the corner. I usually avoid the bar because of several reasons. First, smoking is usually allowed at the driver's bar. If there is two things that don't mix well with me it's cigarettes and food. Second, there is usually a driver or two that have had almost no live conversation for awhile and decide to let it all out for the nearest driver that is willing to listen. I can deal with that ONLY if they aren't the jaded griping veterans who think the whole world is out to get them and swear that the trucking industry has a personal vendetta against them and only them. I might as well be eating my food in my truck with the CB radio on if I want to hear that crap. At least I can avoid the smoke eating in my truck.

But tonight I was in a social mood so I took my place at the bar. Two other drivers sat down and like clockwork the conversation started. Typical trucker jargon proceeded but after a few minutes an older fellow who was with a big company started to tell the rest of us some stories. It was the most entertainment I have had in a long time. He had about four other driver besides me laughing, hollering. We were having a good time. Even the management thought we needed to calm down at one point.

If more drivers had more positive energy like this old man did I might never hang out in the booth by myself again. That and rid the smoking.

Appreciation?

2009-11-08T11:49:00.003-06:00

Terry's post on Roadrage kind of inspired this rant.

This week was National Trucker Appreciation Week. I was listening to the Lockridge report one day last week and the talk got on this subject. I know truckers gripe and whine about everything but I was surprised to hear drivers calling in complaining about the Appreciation Week. Some griped about how their companies are only doing free food on friday for drivers at the terminal. Some complained that the world was not doing enough to show appreciation. Some drivers thought that four wheelers not making stupid maneuvers around us would be thanks enough. But then a driver called in and mentioned that we need to be reminded that we are out here DOING A JOB. Jobs have their bad points and that most of what we deal with out here is PART OF THE JOB. In other words why complain even if the attempt to honor truckers is small but at least it's an effort.

Every now and then I get depressed or mad but no worse than when I was doing dead end factory work. When things get difficult I just say to myself this is what I signed up for. And I do have it pretty good compared to some drivers with other companies. I guess what I am saying is that it's hard sometimes to be positive in a negative world understandingly. But adding to the negative just gives it more power. I am on a quest to rid the trucking world of negativity. Wish me luck.

Kids love trucks.

2009-10-30T09:59:00.001-05:00

On rare occasion I can bobtail to the house. Since my little girl can't ride in it she loves to sit in the big ole truck. I took this right before we hung out in the truck and listened to halloween radio on Sirius/XM. She is barely as tall as the wheel.

Not quite New York

2009-10-27T08:38:00.000-05:00

Well it's been awhile since I have blogged here. Mainly I haven't had much to say while being around the internet and I am sure the typical trucker stories were getting boring. But mostly I haven't been around the internet.

Last week I played around the Wisconsin area after one turn and burn in Texas. For several days I experienced nothing but cold blowing nonstop rain between WI, IL, and MO. I almost went into shock when I saw the sun saturday morning but I had a run going to New Jersey from Jefferson City, MO and couldn't take a full advantage of the weather. It made for a nice drive into the Newark area though. This run took me closest to New York City as a driver. Everything went well and my new load was to be picked up in PA.

Since I have been a busy beaver I am sitting in Ohio until midnight due to me only having two hours left of my 70. I will gain just enough to make it to my destination of MT. Pleasant, IA. Yay me. I think I will work on a video today.

This trip has been interesting. Besides the Jersey thing I saw a black bear on the side of the road. I also ran into a friend/ex-coworker who got into trucking inspired by a talk with me. I thought he would deck me but no we talked shop and showed off our rides. What started as a quick trip to get a sandwich turned into an hour long break. After leaving the Pilot I was running with a group of trucks that kept the conversation interesting on the CB and a lead truck with a good radio to warn us of the smokeys sitting at the bottoms of hills to get speeding trucks. It made the miles go fast. I like that.

News: I44 competes with NASCAR on the amount of wrecks in a day.

2009-10-10T16:40:00.002-05:00

Well after leaving PA I got a load that went to Joliet, IL. After that a load that went from South Bend, IN to Springfield, MO. I got as far as a rest area in Illinois and hit the bunk. I awoke to rain.

This is where the fun starts. As soon as I hit I44 it was like an ice storm hit. The only problem is that it was at least 65 degrees. Every ten miles there was at least a spin off or a small fender bender. I am not exaggerating. Even as bad as drivers can be here in the show-me state it was far more than the average I see on a typical rainstorm. I was on the phone with my wife telling her about all this when I got word that westbound I44 was closed at mile marker 107. So I led a convoy of trucks through the side roads to Marshfield. Then I heard Springfield had accidents on I44 but were cleaned up. Luckily I got through but I did see a lady sobbing, sitting in her car. She had just spun out and narrowly missed the center wire thingie. She was ok. I unloaded by the airport and then headed back to the yard. That's when I saw eastbound was at a stop because of an 18 wheeler in the median. So I took the city way into the yard.

This trip took an extra two hours off my e-log clock because of these accidents. Then I get a load going back towards chicago. Ugh. Eastbound I44 was just as riddled with accidents. the grand finale was just before the I255 loop a big truck went off an embankment and into the service road. It looked brutal and I hope that the driver is ok. Combine the extra time because of these incidents pluc Chicago driving I ran out my 70 two hours from home. So now I sit until midnight so I can be home.

That reminds me. When is the next Talledega race?

October

2009-10-03T07:40:00.002-05:00

Not much to report. I spent all week doing short runs between Dallas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. My dispatcher must have felt sorry for me so he sent me on a Mechanicsburg, PA run due Monday AM. At least this time I have the EZpass. Last time I did this run I was out quite a bit of money. Yesterday I scaled the load so all I have to do is get in and go.

October has begun and it's my favorite month out of the year. Time to bust out the Halloween stuff along with the King Diamond and Mercyful Fate albums.

Chicago Blues and the Land of Cheese

2009-09-26T04:56:00.004-05:00

Well this week was tiring. I wasn't gonna leave until Monday but the Sunday Dispatcher needed a load covered due to another driver's garage getting burned down. It was a familiar run to South Bend , IN. and was a better run than my original destination of Shreveport, LA so I took it.

If I left around 3pm I would be alright.When I got to the yard my truck was in the shop. I was told it would be ready in 30 minutes so I went to the c-store down the road, got some coffee and last minute trip stuff. I came back and waited. THREE HOURS LATER my truck was done. On top of that my E-log was messed up and was showing I only had 8 hours to drive and I needed 10 to get to my destination. Great. Well that can't be fixed until Monday morning so I start a paper log and start my drive. I was gonna have to drive until 4am just to make it on time now. This was probably one of the longest, hardest drives I have ever done. I hate the unexpected.

Monday I pull in about 4am to the Pilot next door to the customer and hit the sack. About 9am I wake up go deliver and then go back to bed. I slept hard until my Qualcomm went off. around noon. I had a pick up in Chicago. Blech. Now I get this assignment at 12. I cant leave until 1300 hours. It was a 93 mile deadhead and I have to be there at 14:45. If I averaged 60 miles an hour it would still be tight. But look where I am going. I rolled in at 1530 thanks to construction. Once I got to this place I realized I had been here before back when I first started driving. I had sat for two hours waiting for a load that had been cancelled. Hopefully history won't repeat itself. I get a dock right away but waited 4 more hours until I was loaded. The only good part was that this load was going to Springfield and I just missed the worst of Chicago rush hour. Bad part was there wasn't enough hours to make it back to Springfield on time after my mandatory 10 hour break. I had to deliver at 1400. After just 2 hours on the road I went to bed. I was still worn out from my all nighter and since the load was gonna be late I might as well get some rest.

Tuesday AM I woke up and decided to try the DOT 8-2 split. My computer told me at 8 hours in the sleeper birth I gained 8.5 hours to drive. I went for it. I pulled into Springfield to the customer at exactly 13:47. After the delivery I get back to the yard and I get to sleep at home for the night.

Wednesday I am on my way to Appleton, WI. I was well rested and the drive was uneventful. Found a nice truck stop on US41 and after some dinner and a couple of phone conversations I went to bed.

Thursday I get to the customer and make my delivery. My next pick up was just 5 miles away and it was a two stop load. First stop is in Topka, KS for a Friday open window appointment. The second stop goes to OKC for Monday. My cool trucking company allowed me to come back to the yard so I don't have to spend a weekend in OKC.

Friday I deliver and was home in time to take the family out for dinner. Oh yeah almost forgot. Monday e-log fixed it self and everything was fine. Stupid computers.

Texas Slow Burn

2009-09-20T08:37:00.004-05:00

After spending a 34 hour restart in the San Antonio, TX Petro I was ready to get the heck out of there. I arrived at the other end of this beer load and wondered if robots would unload me as well. I get to the gate at 7am Thursday and was given a dock door right off the bat. I was told not to break the seal or open the doors and someone would be out there at my appointment time (which was 7:30 am)to break my seal. Well about 8:00am is when I finally got my doors open. Then I waited. About 9am my truck still hasn't been touched. When the human forklift guys finally started it was 9:45 and they were in no hurry. I was tempted to tell them about the robots who might replace them some day and how they might have had me unloaded by now, but I was a good boy and waited patiently. I had my next assignment which had me deadheading south to Laredo, TX. Luckily it was an open appointment to pick up. I get empty at 10:30 and start heading south.

I have been to Laredo once before and it was picking up toys in a big warehouse. Pretty easy. This time I was picking up at a hub where Mexican trucks bring in freight and American trucks take it the rest of the way to wherever over here. I get a dock number. First thing I noticed that this place was cramped. Very tight. Tight enough that only one truck at a time can back into a dock. I was third in line and I was feeling grateful that I had my tiny Volvo and not my old Pete 387. That's because I watched a Pete 387 who was the first truck take literally 25 minutes to get backed into a dock. he had like five drivers all trying to help him. Finally the truck in front of me was far enough from me that I started my backing. With the help of a fellow driver I make it in barely. This place might have gotten to me a year ago but I handled it like a pro. Then I noticed the line of trucks that had clogged up the lot while the first guy was backing. What a mess. I finally get loaded four hours later and I make the difficult task of braving the TA to scale the load. It was packed because Pilot had no water pressure and Flying J had no power so every one was hitting the TA. I should have scaled the load further up the road. I know I am still learning.

Original plan was to get to as far as just south of Dallas and hit the bunk. some lane closures in Austin and me getting tired through that plan out the window. I find a hole in the wall and go to bed.

Friday night I roll into the yard and I am home until an early monday am pick up in Lebanon, Mo that goes to Shreveport, LA.

New video

2009-09-19T00:53:00.000-05:00

Attack of the Robot Forklifts!

2009-09-15T11:22:00.005-05:00

I took two days vacation. One over Labor Day and the following day. I worked my butt off Monday cleaning out the garage and Tuesday went to the dump to get rid of the crap. Wednesday I found myself hooking to a trailer in the rain that goes to Macon, GA.

This means that my next load will either go from Atlanta to Oklahoma, or a return load back to Springfield, or a load going NE to either Auburn, NY or Foxboro, MA. After the last episode at Foxboro I didn't expect to be sent there. My prediction was right. I was sent to Auburn, NY which is good for several reasons. Easy in and out, I can spend the night there without being harassed by security, it's at a mall so I can kill time, and I have a sister that lives just 25 miles away. That meant if I was stuck with no load for the weekend I can hang out at her house and see a town I did some growing up in.

Friday Morning I get a nice fresh shower and got the news that I was to actually pick up a load on a Saturday. I had a pick up after my saturday morning delivery. So much for family, oh well. Friday night I dodge a few cars in the parking lot and docked. That was the last good thing for awhile.

Saturday AM I awake to a knock at 04:30. I pulled up to open the doors and now I need to slide the tandems. (trailer wheels) I fight, beat, pound, rock, yank, and pulled and nothing. I sprayed the tracks, pins,and myself accidently with WD40 and still nothing. The culprit, a bolt was out that goes from the lever to the pin which meant only three pins go in. After a half an hour the store manager says they can deal with the tandems where they were. I bumped dock and at 5 am (which is 4am MO time), then I was underneath the trailer playing MacGyver. My next load was going to be beer and I definitely needed to slide the wheels for that. After an hour I was done and I had ruined the recent shower. Another hour passes and I am off to Baldwinsville, NY to pick up a load of beer.

Sure enough I pull up and I have to slide the tandems before I can even enter the plant. I go to slide the wheels and nothing. Well I didn't do a good job fixing the trailer and now I am in everyone's way and I could possibly lose this load. I turn around and thanks to a helpful driver I got them slid back so I can at least enter the plant. I get scaled and was told horrible directions on where to stage when I go to the shipping office. I park in a "guess" spot and go to an empty shipping office. Me and two others sat there waiting for someone and then I saw something I have never seen before. This place had unmanned automatic robot forklifts that were loading the trucks. Freaky because in all the activity that was going on not one human being could be seen to flag down to get a door assignment. After 30 minutes I get a door and I start a more permanent solution to my trailer. Another hour passes and I get it fixed. I luck out and this place gives you axle weights as you leave. Sweet. On the second attempt I get the wheels where I need them. Weary and dirty I head down the road.

Next problem I was feeling ill and had to stop at every travel plaza for the next 100 miles. Luckily I have plenty of time to deliver. It's due in San Antonio, TX thursday. Of course I am already here putting in a 34 reset. Say Hi if you see me here.

Inside Crystal Mountain

2009-09-06T08:17:00.002-05:00

You know this blog post was gonna be long but I have decided that I am feeling lazy and just give you highlights of my 3400 mile week.

Monday I had several drop and hooks after I got the tires unloaded. Four trailers ended up in my pretrip sheet. It felt like real work for a minute.

Tuesday I drive 650 miles to Eau Claire, WI. Four hours to unload. Went to truck stop and hit the bunk.

Wednesday picked up a load in Shakopee, MN that went to Springfield, MO.

Thursday delivered the Springfield load and pulled a turn and burn going to a suburb of Milwaukee, WI.

Friday I dropped my trailer at customer and then had to go into the heart of Milwaukee to pick up one of those dreaded XTRA Lease trailers and then deadhead to Stevens point, WI for a load that went to Jefferson City.

Saturday I drove the rest of the way to Jefferson City, dropped my trailer, gabbed an MT and deadheaded home. I said hello to my oldest daughter who was celebrating her 18 birthday. (YIKES)

Saturday night my wife and I went out on a date (with each other this time, HA!) and had some good mexican food. Afterwords we met up with some friends and had some drinks.

Oh and I took two vacation days so I don't need to be in the truck until wednesday.

Everyone have a good labor day weekend. Oh and enjoy this awesome picture of a mountain of broken glass that was at the glass place in Shakopee where I picked up this week.

Deja Vu

2009-08-29T07:41:00.003-05:00

This week started with the exact same two runs that started the week before. Monday drive to South bend, IN, Tuesday deliver then pick up soda in Paw Paw, MI for a thursday delivery in Robert, LA. For my third run though this week I went to pick up in Moselle, MS instead of last week's New Orleans. But I traded one bad city for another and it delivered in Memphis, TN. With the bad comes the good I had a preloaded trailer to pick up in Memphis and that is going to Tulsa for a monday morning delivery. I was told I can bring through the yard so I can reset my hours. Woo hoo.

Memphis was going to prove difficult. I had my laptop mapping software and the atlas sprawled out to help make sense of the company directions. Of course the source of the problem was a 13' 5" (standard for trucks needs to be over 13' 6") railroad overpass that the company was trying to route us around. Oh yeah and the original exit was closed for construction. This made my GPS just good for seeing the streets instead of routing. I could tell I was going into a forgotton realm of Memphis. A not very good area. In fact I had to turn around once and found a lot big enough but it proved difficult because I was trying not to hit the abandoned cars, tipped over semi trailers and broken pallets among other things. I get my trailer dropped and started heading to the better side of town for my load of tires. I mentioned to the yard dog about the overpass and he informed me it was ok to go under it. so all the rerouting was wasted. It's 13' 9" but they don't want to change the sign.

I get to the place that supposed to have a preloaded trailer full of tires ready for me and was told to wait. In the process I pulled a stupid move trying to drop my empty trailer and tried turning around in a place way to tight to do so. DOH! The yard dog rescued me by pulling a trailer out of my way and I sat in humiliation for an hour before my new trailer was ready. It was gonna be ready just in time for me to be leaving during rush hour.

The trucker gods thought I had been punished enough for the day and allowed an easy time out of Memphis. The traffic wasn't bad except for the four car pile up on the other side of the Interstate. Yay me.

I am destined to deliver the goods in Tulsa, OK Monday morning. Hand unloading 1000+ tires will probably be a long process. Oh well.

Generic title

2009-08-22T17:39:00.003-05:00

Well after busting booty last week to get home on the weekend I figured I would be out awhile. Nope. My last run brought me back to Springfield and I find myself with another weekend off. All is not lost as I have 3000 miles for this week.

I went as far north to Michigan and all the way south to New Orleans, LA. I had a delivery in Robert, LA from Paw Paw, MI. The kind lady asked me where it's going. I replied "To some guy named Robert in Los Angeles, CA." By her look she was only slightly amused at my potential ignorance. I am good at aggravating women.

This week may have been a nightmare for me a year ago due to my lack of knowledge because I had some actual difficult driving adventures to deal with. Including the hardest rain ever and a docking at a customer that involved me blindside backing in a question mark shaped area. I would have taken pictures or video but I have been lazy on that part. I might make a new video this weekend. I am already starting to run out of ideas.

Oh yeah I almost forgot. Just to make sure I don't get to cocky about being a better driver I had to use the CAT scale three times for my load of soda. I scaled the first time and parked next to a car carrier. I come back to find a bunch of people staring at the back of the car carrier. Another truck backed into the car truck and a very large trucker was super peed off. Apparently I was distracted by the drama unfolding next to me enough to slide my tandems five holes the WRONG direction. The look on my face when I saw the reweigh ticket was probably a little dopey at best. After I reslid and reweighed I was right on the money but not before wasting a half an hour of my 14.

Perception Of The Innocent

2009-08-12T22:09:00.004-05:00

Years ago I had the great pleasure of riding in the truck with my dad. I remember truckers being friendly. Trucking was a great community of people. When I became a driver I didn't see that anymore. I hear the veterans talk about how much has changed. No one looks out for anyone blah blah. I believed the hype until today.

You see I continued the tradition and brought my son along with me in my truck. He loved it. I had to basically pry him from the truck at the end of his trip. We went to Macon, GA to Foxboro, MA to Maine, to the caves in KCMO then to DFW to home.

I saw something I thought was long gone. The community was back. A lot of drivers waved to him. They talked to him. They were friendly to him. In his eyes all truckers are friends and this is a fun job. Perception is reality.

The Crime Of Delivering

2009-08-08T05:37:00.002-05:00

My weekend was cut short. I was kinda hoping for a long trip because I was taking my son so this seemed a good opportunity. Plus my original load was north and 100 miles less and this would put some miles behind me quicker.So we hauled arse to Macon, GA. Before I left I told dispatch that I was happy to do the run as long as I wasn't stuck with the Foxboro, MA run. I did that run last Thanksgiving and it was a newbie's nightmare. We do runs to NY and MA for this retailer who I will call BPS out of Macon and the chance is there when I do this run. We got there in good time, dropped our trailer and was told nothing until Monday am which is what I expected. So we headhead to Jackson and hit the bunk. Monday morning rolls around. Well guess what run I got Monday AM?

This time I was prepared. Awhile back I had been assigned this load and wrote down the best possible route. I busted out google maps, street and trips, and called the fuel desk. Plus I had my GPS. I didn't have any of these tools last Thanksgiving and just winged it and made some horrible decisions last time. I had showed up and a miscommunication occured that had the load scrapped. But I kept the notes I made just in case and they came in handy. I have learned a few things out here in the last year. Why is this a big deal? Because going NE there is a hundred different ways one could go. I don't know the area that well and made some key mistakes.

So we get to Foxboro about 9pm. My appointment time is at 5am and the stadium security is real strict on not letting in people early. So we pay the $6 to park at the truckstop a couple of miles from the stadium and hit the bunk. I woke up at 4:30am and drove slowly down to the customer. Here is where things get good. I find the wrong entrance. 1st security guard is a nice fellow. He tells me that I need to turn around and he believed that the store personel would not be there until 7am. He calls his boss on the two-way radio and boss confirms. I know that they are wrong but I don't argue I will just find the right entrance.

I go to entrance #2. This time a guy with a golf cart and another mobile security guy stop me and try to tell me not to comeback til 7am. If I did that I will get a service failure for being late so I call the overnight dispatcher. A few words were exchanged pleading our case that we deliver here several times a week and it's always at 5am. No dice. By this time it is 5am and now things are looking grim.

I know that entrance #3 is the right one or is at least the same one I used nearly a year ago so after a tight U-turn I go in. This time the mobile security guard parks in front of my rig forcing me to stop. He says "We have told you THREE F*&%*ING TIMES to come back at 7 and now we are gonna have the police here if you don't leave here now!!" By this time I go from annoyed to mildly amused. I am gonna get arrested for doing my job. This is awesome!! So I point to the employees who are bright and early to unload my truck who are parking their cars as we speak and I point to them. "See they are here at 5am. Can I go now?" "NO" yelled the cop wannabe. So I called BPS and luckily the manager answers. I told him my ridiculous dilemma and he comes out of the store. Now the security guard argues and cusses with the store manager. One boss has to call another boss, more words are exchanged and I get to bump dock at a little past 5AM. Apparently security is so good here that 3 deliveries a week are made here at 5am without them knowing it. I was only guilty of trying the wrong entrance and making our existence known. I guess before me it was easy to sneak in and deliver stuff without their knowledge.

So now my next load has me picking up 200 miles north in MAINE. The furthest NE I went with my dad was Boston so this was gonna be new for me and my son. We pick up without incident and we are heading for the caves in Independence, MO which my son is also excited about. Me not so much. We pull in the truckstop just outside of KC. We don't have to deliver until 4am monday am so we are getting in a 34 hour reset. When I set the brakes last night my e-log said I had 17 minutes left of my 70. Yay.

Turn and Burn

2009-08-01T13:16:00.000-05:00

Just when all plans were almost final. Blam! A load to macon, GA. This will give me a day head start with 100 miles more than what I would have made with my original load assignment. Turn and burn baby!

2009-07-31T09:31:00.003-05:00

Last Thursday I got in after delivering in Jefferson City, MO. I basically had two runs with a total of 1400 miles. I waited all day after unloading at 9am and then was told to deadhead to the yard. Friday morning I was given a choice of leaving out Sunday or Monday. I chose Sunday and it was a wise choice because another friend/co-worker chose Monday and didn't get out until tuesday.

My first run was to Kinderfalls, IN. Within minutes of my departure I get the next assignment. Deadhead to Muncie, IN and it delivers tuesday morning to the caves of Independence, MO. The exact one in my video. Each trip I barely get there within minutes of my clock running out. When I finally got to Independence I had to go to off-duty driving at the first stoplight. I had two minutes to spare. I got parked a couple miles away and was done I thought until 5am. Nope.

When one delivers in this particular cave you have an early morning appointment, Park your truck in the staging lot and wait for security to knock on your door.Last time I delivered here my time was 1am and was wakened at that time. I figured I would be able to sleep until 5am since that was my appointment time but I was soon proven wrong. I had trouble going to sleep thanks to a small but intense thunderstorm. When I did finally get to sleep it was good sleep with real clear vivid dreams and such. Suddenly I am awakened by a knock. First thought was "Wow I slept good". After giving the security guy my paperwork our little convoy is directed into the cave with security's golf cart at the front door. As we go in I realize it's only midnight. Blah!

With help from the other drivers I squeeze into my dock and shut the truck off. This has to be the only cave that is not cool in temperature. It's hot and muggy in there. We are not allowed to idle or have our APUs on. The next three hours were hot, sticky, muggy, interrupted sleep attempts that were miserable at best. I finally get unloaded at 3am and I go back to the parking outside and cranked the A/C. I was gonna sleep until my Qualcomm or cell phone woke me.

The next morning I had a load going from independence to Waco, TX. I had to take a double take on the deadhead it was 111 miles. Thats because it was Independence, KS not MO. It was scrap aluminum. The last time I did this run it was a major pain to axle out the weight. That was on my ultra heavy peterbilt 387. But this time my nice light volvo was no challenge and I got it right on the first try. Yay me.

Again within minutes of departure I had my next assignment which went from FT. Worth back to the house. This worked out well because I had a friend visiting I haven't seen in awhile who is in the military and served in Iraq. But the company had attempts to foil this plan. Thursday morning I fuel and depart from Muskogee, OK. Within a minute my QC E-logs says it is malfunctioning and to keep paper logs. Well I am not gonna pull over just to fill out one sheet so my plan was to do it in the rest area if I get a red light at the Joplin scale. I get a green light and a phone call wondering why it was taking me 2 1/2 hours to fuel. I explain my issue to my boss. He said it was no big deal since there was no freight and I will be in at least until Sunday. So I call the wife and we coordinate the complex schedule of the weekend.

I should know better. Us OTR guys aren't allowed to preplan anything. I get to the yard and they wanted to send me to Illinois. Gaahhh! But I asked if I can keep a paper log and was told they would rather fix my truck. The shop doesn't even have any idea what it could be so thanks to the malfunction I get my weekend with 2300 miles which is just fine. Hopefully it won't come back to bite me in the butt.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

2009-07-21T10:59:00.001-05:00

Apparently from the blogs I have been reading freight is slow for everyone. I am at the house, it's tuesday and I might have a load that delivers 500 miles anytime tomorrow.

Butt rubbin and the flemenco cow

2009-07-19T08:46:00.004-05:00

This week I had a whopping 1800 miles. The E-log had nothing to do with it. Freight has dropped off for us. I have been doing pretty good up to July 4th weekend, but since then things have been sketchy. Here is how my week went:

This time around I brought my eight year old son with me. he wants to see the ups and downs of trucking and he got just what the doctor ordered. We didn't depart until tuesday morning. I had a load of plastic pallets going to Atlanta, GA with a noon appointment time. So we headed out and about 100 miles from destination we found a TS and hit the bunk. The area of Atlanta we were heading to I didn't know if it had parking or not and since I had my son with me didn't want to take a chance and put us in a dangerous situation. Beside there was no hurry and I knew that if we got there early I would just be sitting there all day anyways.

Wednesday we departed and got there with an hour to spare. Atlanta traffic wasn't bad at all this time. My timing was perfect and I just missed rush hour. When I got to the customer I spotted another Transland truck and we chatted for awhile. After about two hours I was unloaded and sat in the parking lot waiting for another load. Just as I thought I was sitting. I was gonna get kicked out of the lot at 5pm and the clock was ticking so just as I am looking at my truck stop book I get a call to head towards Conyers. now we have a drop and hook in Conyers and this made me happy because this load always goes to Oklahoma. An easy run and we have plenty of freight in OK. BUT just as I release the brakes I get the message that it's a brokered paper load in Conyers. DOH! I had an hour to go 48 miles and Atlanta rush our to boot. By some miracle we made it out without any major back ups to go through. A friend I called said that they had called ahead for me and told Atlanta to get out of my way. That works. Thanks!

Now I am bummed because I detest paper loads. they are heavy, dangerous, usually brokered, and paper mills don't realize the hardship they put on drivers with their wait and wait policies. This place wins hands down as the worst for me so far. I get there and tell security on the CB my pick up #. I was told to go to the staging area. I go in and I see skeletons behind the seats of trucks that have long been forgotton. A mood of despair and misery hung over the place. There were trucks sitting there that had been there since 0900 I knew it wasn't gonna be good. I was smart and put my e-log on off duty driving right away. Sitting wasn't an easy feat for my eight year old. But he was a trooper and a nice lady trucker parked near us gave him a bag of cheetos. Unfortunately the msg made it worse so I cooked a meal in the truck for him and we hit the bunk. To make this short I was finally loaded at 3am and I had officially put my ten hour break in. I had to drive until my hours were up and then barely squeeze a ten in and then depart at 0200 to get to the destination this time. Destination was Oklahoma City, OK on friday 8am.

Friday am I was unloaded in 20 minutes. Paper load recievers don't mess around. I wish they would tell their friends in the shipping department. My son and I head to the Pilot to get a much needed shower. We head north to Perry, OK and get a load of Smokers goin to Bass Pro in Springfield.

We dont quite make it to Springfield but we get to check out the massive shop at the Petro in Joplin. This place is like a mini Iowa 80. After buying a few trinkets we get a good meal and spend some time looking at the junk guitars that Petro is selling. We hit the bunk and headed home in the morning.

Did the negative side of trucking thwart my son's ambitions to become a trucker? Well my dad didn't want me to be a trucker and I rode with him and look at me now. That should answer the question. Oh almost forgot. If you are wondering about the title of this post here are a couple of pics I took this week. Enjoy life.

Shaking the cobwebs off.

2009-07-13T08:56:00.004-05:00

Finally my band got a practice in. You see when I am not grinding gears in my truck I make music. Well some consider it noise but I call it music. Death Metal is an acquired taste. I like all kinds of music but the old-school thrash and death metal is what gets my blood flowing.

I was kind of worried that my band might be getting impatient with me because we haven't practiced in a looong time. But everyone seemed ok. With no call from dispatch we finally get in a long needed jamming session. Sometimes I will plan on a sunday night practice and then I will get a call from work telling me I need to leave ASAP.

This music is a mental release and a physical release. It puts one in the zone. We were doing pretty good last night. We have been working on a new song and it is kicking butt. It felt good and I am reasonably in a decent mood this morning. Although as I type this I am wondering when dispatch will call.

We also discussed doing a video so some works are gonna go into that. The best low budget idea I had was to film each of us playing the song and then it's just a matter of editing. We will see what happens.

For those of you who want to know what my noise sounds like go to www.myspace.com/apneadeathmetal
If you listen to Freewheelin' on the Road Dog channel (Satellite radio) you may have heard me as Snorelord call in on the show. One time they even featured the band and played a few seconds of my noise on there. Because of the show I learned I wasn't the only trucking metal head out there.

Thanks for reading...time to make a phonecall so I can go back to being a trucker.

Blue light Special.

2009-07-11T14:36:00.003-05:00

Thursday morning I am awakened by my "dispatcher". I was offered a drop an hook in Tyler, TX and a preplanned to get me home by Saturday. So I didn't have to take vacation time, I get a few more miles, and I get a weekend off at the house, and it's a gravy run to boot. I knew my company would deliver...ha pun intended. I know that was bad..sue me.

The bad part was I couldn't leave out until about three pm but that gave me a chance to go grass slaughtering and displace the snakes and bugs that were quite happy with the tall lawn. But this also meant I was driving until about 2am. When I get to the yard I find myself going into Safety and getting handed stickers. Apparently I am doing well on the elogs and I am on it full time now. Safety puts my fancy stickers on the hood and I no longer have to keep track of both the QC and the paper logs. It's funny the looks I get when another driver sees those stickers.

So I find myself trucking down US 69 (huh huh) and I am ready to get on the Indian Nation turnpike in OK. I breeze through the Pike Pass lane as I have done many many times before and started on the dark stretch of highway when suddenly some flashing blue lights come up behind me. What the hell I wasn't speeding. The cop walks up to my door and tells me my pass didn't go off. I hand it to him and my license and takes about ten minutes. First I was relieved that I hadn't done anything wrong but now was a chance to test my elog with this guy. Of course he doesn't ask about my log book. He gave my stuff back to me, tells me my pass is good and sends me on my way. Hmm I can't tell you how many times I have been up and down those OK roads with my log book completely out of wack. I am sure that I wouldn't have been that lucky if I hadn't been legal. But it sure was nice knowing that I had nothing to worry about. The next morning I go to Ft. Worth with a beer load going to Springfield. Yay for weekends.

Next time I head out I am gonna have a co-driver. My son is coming with me. Ok he can't drive since he is a youngin but I will make him do the pretrips. HA.

Black clouds and silver linings.

2009-07-08T22:57:00.004-05:00

Black clouds and silver linings: that is the name of the new Dream Theater cd and pretty much describes my day today. This was a day where the electronic log bit me in the ass but saved it later.

I'll explain. 8AM I drive a mile to the consignee in Siloam Springs, AR. I drive on the line 5 off duty option to keep my 14 hours from starting. I knew I was gonna need all of them because my next load had THREE STOPS before it went to the customer. This is only the second time I have had a 3 stop pick up. i had a feeling it was gonna be a loooong day. Anyways I back into the dock and the forklift guy acted like he was getting ready to start. I only had ten large tanks so I knew it wouldn't take long so I started my duty status. After a half an hour I went off duty because they hadn't started unloading me yet. But the damage was done and my 14 was starting.

It was at this time that I told the temp dispatcher (since mine went on vacation) that I wanted in on saturday because I had family visiting. Even if it was a ten hour break. I get a nasty note saying that when I came back to the yard (which was today) that I will probably be stuck until sunday due to slow freight. That was supposed to scare me and I replied with, "I have some vacation time I can claim some vacation time so it's no big deal." An hour later I was told that suddenly frieght has picked up and I might have something when I deliver at home base. Grrrrr.

Meanwhile back at the ranch I am finally unloaded. I deadhead to what I thought was my 1st stop 70 miles away in Alma. All three stops are from different facilities from the same company. I am told that the order I had the stops in was wrong and I had to start 10 more miles away in Mullberry for the first stop. Each stop it took forever to find some one that knew something about anything. Then each place was a challenge to bump dock. At one point I was doing a uturn in a farmer's field. another time found me crossing us 71 backwards to dock with a blind hill on one side of me. each stop they hand loaded this stuff. On the last stop I had my bills and was ready to go when one of the dock workers came running out. he stopped me because he had lost his wallet in my trailer. So they had to practically unload it to get his wallet. As he thanked me i showed him the miracle of a chain wallet.

So now my patience is low I have three hours to drive to springfield and only 6 hours left of my 14! Normally in a log book I can "adjust" times to make my 14 start later since I have only driven 70 miles. But because of the elogs I can't do that. BUT......Then I get a beep over the qualcomm. It stated, "We have a load that will be ready at 22:00 and it needs to be in council Bluffs, Iowa tomorrow 6am. Can you do it?" This would mean I would have to adjust the book and drive all night. No way. But with the elogs I couldn't do that anyway. yay. Not my fault.

So I roll into the yard and I got to see my sister I haven't seen in years when I got home tonight. So there it is. if you have read this far I salute you and apologize for the length. Bottom line the elog worked against me all day, but then saved me from a long tired night drive that may have been dangerous. So just like everything else in trucking it's a love hate relationship.

BTW the new Dream Theater rocks.

Electronic logging and the "freedom" of driving.

2009-07-03T11:26:00.002-05:00

Long ago a job driving a truck meant Independence. It meant no boss looking over your shoulder. Just the driver and the open road. Those days are gone. I have a computer screen that tells me very loudly how much driving time I have left for the day and A GPS tracks my every movement. So short of a webcam hooked up to watch me drive my boss is not only over my shoulder but in my truck.

My first week of electronic logging has been ok under the circumstances. It's nice knowing that if I get DOTed or hit by some moron that I do not have to worry about my log book. At the end of the day I just change status and not have to do anything like math or figuring out when my logbook will catch up to me. Another worry is not having enough time to find parking etc. but we have a "line 5" option that allows us to move the truck if needed without ruining our duty status. I got to use that function in Pendergrass, GA when I needed to get to the truckstop from the customer.

Bad parts: Gone are the 714 mile days. With a 65 mph truck I could log 11 hrs driving X 65 and be legal. Of course one cannot average 65 in a governed truck all day. I think the most recorded was 680 something. if I hit a traffic snafu or the customer takes their sweet time I am screwed.
Good parts: Most DOT officers aren't fmiliar with this new system. I had heard one driver say that a DOT officer asked for his logbook and he handed him the computer keyboard. he just waved the driver on once he saw it. We get these stickers put on our hoods that say ELECTRONIC LOGGING and it's like a get out of jail for free card.
I still managed to get over 3500 miles last week so I am not complaining.........yet.

I get a nice weekend off for the 4th and I head back out Sunday am to a beautiful suburb of Chicago. Happy Independence day!!

Ramblin' man and his electronic book.

2009-06-26T06:20:00.001-05:00

Well I am having one of those good weeks where I see home base a couple of times but I still manage over three thousand miles for the week. The week started off in Texas, brought a load back to Springfield. Then I was sent to Pendergrass, GA. Next load was back to Springfield. And now I am returning to GA over to Macon where I hope (fingers crossed) I get a backhaul back to home. If not I risk doing a reset in GA where there is nothing for me to do. I have a guitar with me now so that may not be so bad.
I have some great video of me crossing a narrow shortcut via US60 between I57 and I24. Not sure what music I am gonna use. I am also doing some comp footage of Atlanta since the four wheelers tend to demonstrate repeatedly what not to do near a big rig. I will be using some brutal music for that.
Last week I bought a tripod that wraps around anything and I have the camera mounted on the handle near the door. I am gonna start getting creative with some outside shots.

Electronic logging is going ok. I am not bound by it yet so I still get my paper book to sketch in. After some confusion with the controls I think I have the jist of it. Remembering to change duty status when I stop is the worst part. Between the check calls and all the log stuff, plus my regular book it takes me forever to get rolling. I guess since our company has been using this system the DOT doesn't even bother us anymore. I have been getting green lights everywhere including the nasty Joplin scales. The only scale I had to pull in was one in KY where they had the prepass turned off. Once I am on the system full time I get these fancy stickers that say "electronic logs" put on my hood and it's like a get out of jail free card. Yay!

I will post more opinions, pros and cons about this in the next week or so. All I can say for now is "It's not that bad."
Well I have rambled enough. Time to go to macon to see where I end up for the weekend.

Happy father's day!

2009-06-21T08:52:00.002-05:00

Last year I spent father's day in Tye, TX. I was still wet behind the ears in my truck. I have been reflecting on that because it seems like yesterday but also a long time ago. The road has taught me so much since then. This week has been slow so when I got a trip through Springfield I thought at least I was gonna have a father's day at home. I got in friday am and was told to wait for a phone call. Sure enough friday pm I get a call saying I was gonna have to leave in the morning, deliver in WI for sunday am, and get layover for sitting until monday. So I thought my plans were shot. Just as I was fully prepared to go out I get another call saying nevermind. My new assignment was to go to midlothian, TX with a D&h due Monday. That will make my check next week low but my family happy. That's what matters. I have had a good month in miles so I can take an occasional slow week.

Another thing happened on friday. I was trotting along and safety caught me. "Hey Steve, what's your truck number? he asked. I replied, "Uhmmmm I don't know." I followed with a big grin. I knew what was coming. Starting Monday I will be on a trial period of ELECTRONIC LOGGING. Swell. I will keep everyone updated on that. Well gotta go to texas. See ya.

Long trek and the new video

2009-06-05T10:57:00.003-05:00

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Had a long trek from Salt lake City to Pittsburgh, PA. I got our Salt lake run from KC. It's a run that I did frequently last summer. It can be boring but the scenery is nice once you get to Wyoming. After the delivery I had just enough time to go to the shipper which was literally in the middle of nothing, WY. Directions had me going 12 miles down a lonely road from the interstate. At one point I had to slow from cattle casually crossing the road. The amount of Pronghorn deer that I saw had me feeling I was in a safari. This load will take me the weekend over into Pittsburg on an island. According to my GPS I was in the water making my delivery. The next load was to deadhead to Cleveland and take it to Arkansas. Now I am at the house not knowing if I will have a weekend or not. While resetting in OH I bought a camera with some truckstop points and did my first video with it.

Downtime for real.

2009-05-23T09:32:00.003-05:00

Well here I sit having breakfast with my kids. I get a full two days off this week. Even though the load I'm under goes to Topeka and Springfield was out of the way, my company let me bring it through the yard so I can spend time at home. The load isn't due until Tuesday AM thanks to the holiday. So I get some real hometime for a change.

Good thing because I am burned out. Had to spend last weekend in a truck stop in the Atlanta area after running out of hours and only ran 1200 miles this week. If I am running hard I don't burn out as easily as I do sitting doing nothing. I get stressed that I am wasting time. Time is such an expensive commodity in my household.

Wednesday I picked up a load in Van Buren, AR. It was a 700 mile load going to Chicago but wasn't due til friday PM. Ick. This is also a difficult area to get loads out of on Fridays before holidays as I learned on easter weekend. But my dispatcher who was thinking ahead was gonna have me drop it it the yard and take an Indiana load that was due thursday afternoon. I told him I wanted in this weekend so he was trying to get me available sooner.

As I am rolling north on I540 I get just out of the tunnel when my engine light came on and I was losing power fast. I managed to get pulled over and called the shop. Gave them some codes my truck was spitting out and they told me to take it to Volvo in Springfield. Well, it wasn't gonna make Springfield and I limped to the Springdale, AR Volvo dealership instead. This sucked because if I didn't make it back to the yard in time for the Indiana load I was gonna be stuck in chicago. I spent four hours while my truck was fixed and barely got to the yard in time (after a small nap). I departed the yard and had to be in Kouts, IN by 5pm.

I am ten miles from making it to the customer and it's 4:30pm. yay, I am gonna make it. But then I see the dreaded "ROAD CLOSED FOLLOW DETOUR" sign. AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHH!! I think that's what I said. But I see another truck coming from the other end so I thought maybe I can make it. It looked promising until I got to the sign that said: "ROAD CLOSED 1 MILE AHEAD. NO TRUCKS!! $500 FINE" Yah me stupid. now came the next problem. I was at an intersection. To my left road sign telling me 12 ton limit traffic only, to my right the same. So I turn right and have to BACK through the intersection to turn around. By this time I am livid at my ignorance, and running out of time. I was literally within one mile of my destination. So after the 20 mile detour I get there with 5 minutes to spare. Whew! And I was rewarded with a back haul which has brought me my home time.

Now I sit with my awesome wife and kids, i have plans tonight and I might even get a band practice in before my work week starts. Life is good.

Back to the NM

2009-05-17T08:39:00.002-05:00

Another busy week with only a mere 34 hour reset at the house. I did find time to take the kids with me to Walmart where they affectionately picked out flowers for Mother's day for their Mom. As I stated before I got this device to hook up my old video camera to the computers. it works fine on the home camera but for some reason I am having traoble getting it to work on the laptop. This means that my editing will have to be done at home. I can't wait to get the new camera.

This week I was also swamped and ran out of hours for the week in Jackson, GA. I did record footage of me going from OK, to TN. The footage needs to be edited and will even have a traffic jam/accident in Nashville. I am gonna record my trek through Atlanta next.

Monday I delivered in Plainview TX then Tuesday I was deadheaded to New Mexico. I haven't been to NM since 1986. It was everything I remembered. It brought back some memories of the trips I used to take with my Dad. This was a load of peanut butter that was going to Chattanooga, TN. After that I picked up a load that went from Cleveland, TN back to Springfield, MO. Once I dropped in Springfield, I got a nights rest at home and then took a hot load down to Macon, GA

So here I sit but for how long.

Trucking videos here I come!!

2009-05-10T21:06:00.007-05:00

I had one hell of a week this week. Did over 3500 miles. Started in Wisconsin and ended in Texas with a trip to the house. I had to scale every single load this week I am getting good at this. Here is one that I put the tandems in the "sweet spot" and guessed. One load was a live beer unload where a dangerous bumper eating curb was eagerly awaiting me to make a mistake. One is just inches away when you bump dock. You can see in the photo the past mistakes drivers had made.

I finally got the stuff I need to hook my computers to my old-school video camera. I think Dallas is where I am gonna do my first video. I was rolling through there yesterday when I avoided a car that jumped across a couple of lanes and it wiped out another car. On the advice of Littletrucker1972 I checked out these "Flip" cameras and as soon as I acquire the cash I am getting one. Thanks LT.

Happy mother's day to those of you who read this and are mothers.

Finally some action!

2009-04-29T17:47:00.003-05:00

Well here goes an update. Last week my band had it's first show this year, and the second show since I have been a trucker. It looked grim as I thought I wouldn't make it.

You see I hadn't seen the house for almost three weeks due to being stuck places on the weekend due to slow freight. I spent Easter in Minooka, IL at the Pilot. I spent the next weekend in Higginsville, MO under a load to Lee's Summitt. I finally get a load to the west after spending a couple of weeks east. Anyone who knows me I prefer running Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and I don't mind our Leeds, Alabama and Macon, Georgia runs either. But I get a load from KS to TX and then got a paper load out of Forney, TX to Springfield. Why is this important? Because I had asked off for April 25th for our show. The closer I was to Sprngfield the easier it would be to deadhead home. The downside was it was only tuesday when I got back to sleeping in my bed. I knew I was gonna be sent out again but nothing too far from Springfield right? My next load took me to Springfield alright, Springfield, OH. After sleeping in my bed tuesday night I get back to work wednesday and drive almost to the reciever. It was a place I have been to and I knew there was no overnight parking. This created a dilemma. There was only one truckstop listed in Springfield, OH and it said paid parking only. I decided on a rest area 60 miles from Springfield and I would have to drive the rest in the morning. This means my 14 hour clock will be ticking when I get unloaded and they are trying to find freight for me. As I am sitting at the dock I inquired about this mystery truckstop in Springfield. No one had a good answer so after being unloaded I checked it out. Good news, it wasn't paid parking and there was plenty of room. Bad news, this placed sucked bigtime. The bathrooms barely worked, the food part of the establishment was horrible and this place wasn't 24 hours either.

But it was thursday morning. Surely they can find something to get me back to the house right? So I walked, cleaned my wheels, messed around on my laptop but not too much due to no internet, napped, and waited. Nothing. About 5:30 I was told to hang it up and that dispatch would try again in the morning. Well hopefully this place is pretty safe. There was about 20 trucks here some being left for the night by the locals that were home so that was a good sign. Well about ten pm the store closes and within minutes I get approached by yes you got it lot lizards. One girl was behind the wheel of a minivan that had it's glory days behind it. Her friend was doing the footwork. Sure enough I hear a light tapping at my door. Me: "What do you want?" Chick: "Do you have a cigarette?" "No." I said. Then she says, "Well if you are alone my friend is looking to hang out with you." I replied, "No thanks." and off they went. I guess I was below the standard of the smoking lizard that she was gonna pawn me off to her friend driving. I guess she doesn't like scummy long-haired trucking metalheads. Oh well. I guess it's to my benefit.

Friday morning arrives. I am officially worried and restless. Finally about noon I get my assignment. Versailles, KY to Jefferson City, MO drop and hook. Then I could deadhead home. Woohoo! I barely make it in saturday in time for a rehearsal and loading the gear. Whew!

All in all it had been an interesting week. I got to plug our show on Satellite radio and that was fun. I got to see some friends and made some new ones on the internet. Apnea had a good show despite our lack of practice. Right now I am sitting in Little Rock, AR where some friends of mine and I are gonna get dinner. I deliver at 5am and I hope I am not sitting all day.

Interesting side note. I have only been approached by lot lizards four times. Once in Orangeburg, SC and the other three in Springfield, OH, Springfield, IL, and Springfield, MO. Hmm....

2009-04-19T22:01:00.002-05:00

Dang, it's been almost a year since I posted here. I use a thread on a message board that has my weekly updates and I have for the most part kept up on that but the reasons for not coming here are as follows:
First, time. I barely have time for my family so internet time is a low on the list.
Second, computer. My old computer took a dump and I lost my old bookmarks.
Third, I don't think too many read this but one reader did comment that he noticed no posts so I will start this up again.

So far my year at transland has been good. I have been making the money my family has needed and I have fulfilled my dream of becoming a truckdriver. I started in a volvo, and then for three months I drove a peterbilt 387, Just a month ago I was issued a brand new 2010 Vovlo which has been a good truck. My depression moments have been less and less but I still wish I did my music thing a bit more.

Well it's time for this blog post to end. I have an early appointment time to deliver in the morning. I will start posting here more often. promise.

Week 6

2008-05-31T12:44:00.001-05:00

Week 6
This week has been an adventurous one and showed me the darker side of truckdriving.
Monday -
This week I had a four day weekend. We got in last week on Wednesday and didn't leave this week until Monday (Memorial Day). As usual I showed up a little early and I loaded the truck with my weekly necessities. Our destination: New Orleans, LA. While doing that the trainer started the truck up and it showed a fault. Low coolant. He says we will bring it through the shop. Well we get to the shop and no one is there. This is rare because they usually have at least someone there during all but three hours in the early morning but this day is a holiday and the maintence shop seems to be going through some mangement/employee issues. We proceed with me driving and we hook to our trailer. We get thirty miles out when the truck overheats and I pull over. We see a major antifreeze leak and the truck shuts off. We pour more in, start up and limp the truck back to the empty shop. The only mechanic that shows up who was on call was the trailer mechanic. But at least he can look at it and determine to bring someone else in or take to the Pete dealership down the road. Fortunately he was able to fix the broken hose and four hours later we were back on the road again. I drive 400 miles to Winona, MS where we fuel at a Pilot. Miraculously (probably due to the holiday) there is parking we stay there for the night. Yay I will have morning coffee and a real bathroom to use in the morning.
Tuesday -
Trainer was super tired and he stayed in the bunk later than scheduled but wasn't too worried due to the fact that the load was gonna be late anyways due to our breakdown. He starts the day of driving. We get past the one mile marker into LA and suddenly BOOM! I look out the mirror and see our trailer tire blow apart. Luckily we were right next to a rest area/welcome center and we could be comfortly and safely off the road. We couldn't limp to the next service place because a scale was a mile ahead and according to the CB the scales were open. We pull up to the rest area and see another truck getting tire service. We make the appropriate arrangements and wait. Meanwhile we discover that a mudflap was also the victim of a blown tire and we needed a new one. Four hours later the service truck finishes the truck before us and returns with what we needed almost. The tire gets fixed but they don't have a start wrench that was neede for the mudflap. I looked at and asked if he had a socket and a pair of visegrips. No. Hmm. So the trainer finds some wire and ties the mudflap on. It will do to get across the scale and we would head into the Petro to get it put on the right way. It was only twenty miles up the road. We get to the petro and get a two hour wait to get five bolts put on. What did they use? A socket and a pair of visegrips. I make a mental note to bring tools on my truck once I get one and we park at the Petro. We get a large meal and just chill for awhile so we wouldn't have NOLA rush hour traffic to contend with.
Here is where it gets interesting. I have been to most of the 48 states. But one place I have never been is Louisiana. Since I was back at being a professional passenger I got to take in the sites of the bayou, swamplands, and the multitude of bridges. I even saw a gator swimming around. I also saw the worst parts of the Katrina damage and the amount of trash and poverty that has plagued NOLA. Now our destination. We find our consignee and it is in an abandoned looking small warehouse that is right on the outskirts of a residential area. One wrong turn into each direction and a truck would be taking a lot of powerlines down. Luckily we made the correct turns and we get to this "warehouse". We squeeze into the dock and I was told we were staying there until morning. I notice that the neighborhood was possibly a bad area for us but my trainer said before Katrina we would not be sleeping there but now it wasn't that bad. Ok but I still slept light. During the night we get one person knocking at the door. Some crackhead looking to score and the trainer politely told it to leave. I say it because he couldn't tell if it was woman or man. The rest of the night went without incident but I still made some more menatl notes for future use.
Wednesday - This is indeed the longest day we have had out here.
I wake up early and start looking for the convenience store I saw last night to see if I wanted to walk to it for coffee and bathroom. We had to go through a roundabout and while yesterday it was passable by foot now it wasn't. Too much traffic. In fact there was two cop cars that circled this roundabout to make sure people slowed down. I put a tire fire out and noticed another big truck asking for directions from one of the cops. It was easy to notice because big trucks stuck out like a sore thumb around this area. Sure enough he got in his truck and headed our direction. I flag him down and asked he was looking for this particular consignee. He said yes and I told him he was in the right spot. I could tell he had the same questions I had when I first saw this place. This was an off site warehouse for a particular store chain that they had set up. It looks like they aquired this abandoned building and was using it temporarily. Now that fact that we were already backed into the dock proved to be a good move because shortly thereafter two more trucks showed up. There is almost no room for four big trucks on this street and you could only half arsed fir two trucks in the lot. Amazingly this warehouse came to life. Within a half an hour about ten employees showed up and started to unload us.
We get our backhaul assignment. Head to the port side and pick up a load of plywood. The bill said make sure we tarp the load. Uhm... ok ( we are dry van not flatbed) we show up and wait for a dock. As we were waiting we noticed it was an open dock and we started wondering if there was a mistake. Transland has a flatbed division so a mixup was possible. Well it wasnt a mistake. We bump dock and start to get loaded. The trainer jokingly asked the dispatcher if he gets tarp pay for this load and we get our plywood. We pull out and go across thr street to a "truckstop" where we though we could scale and use the bathrooms. Apparently it was just a casino with a fuel island as an after thought so we drive 40 miles to the nearest Cat scale at Laplace. We also noticed that the airconditioning fan has gone out. It still worked for the bunks area but not up front. Going down the road blew some of the a/c in but not much. This wasn't a big deal to me because I brought shorts but the trainer likes to keep the truck a cool 65 degrees inside at all times.
We scale the truck it was a gross of 88,280!!!!! So we hightail it back to the shipper and we told them they had to strip the load or unload it all. We do the math and figure out how much each bundle weighed and told them what needed to be done. Take four bundles off. So they take two off. Luckily they had an onsite scale that was for "account holders only" but they let us use it versus driving back and forth to Laplace. Still too heavy but we had to play the "my people will call your people etc" and finally before they closed got two more bundles taken off. We scale ok but the weight on the drives are still too heavy. We go back to the Pilot in Laplace and break open a bundle and took weight off the drives and put it in the rear of the trailer BY HAND. It had to been at least 120 F degrees inside the trailer. An hour later we take some well deserved showers and we headed back towards the Petro of no tools to get our A/C fixed. This made me laugh uncontrolably. The petro was in Hammond, LA. We get there and the petro was packed for the solar trucks trying to park. We get in pretty fast but they took an hour to figure out that they couldn't do the repair because we needed a part they didn't have. Imagine that. We get back on the road and finally fuel at Winona, MS again and sleep at a rest area just up the road. The trainer has done all the driving at this point except the first 400 miles that I did.
Thursday -
I get the first drive and we head back to Springfield, MO. Around Black Rock, AR we stop at a convenience store where I had a deepfried chicken shiskabob. It was good but only to be enjoyed as a treat once a year maybe. We drop at our yard in Springfield and we get the a/c fixed. This week my trainer agreed to work this friday and we head out to Kansas city for a short run. We spend the night in KC at the consignee.
Friday -
The next morning we make the second drop and head to a beer shipper for our backhaul to springfield. We scale the load and I do the drive back. I get to bump the dock and drive into the yard. We fuel and I head home.
Next week is my last week training and apparently it's national harassment week meaning DOT will have an extra 10,000 employees out in full force. I learned a lot this week and saw some of the bad sides of trucking. I already knew about thses particular situations but to experience them made it even a more learning experience.

Week 5

2008-05-23T19:59:00.000-05:00

This week started with a sunday time of about 3pm. A load going to Allen, TX. My trainer drove and we slept at the shipper. The next morning I am the one who bumped the dock which thanks to the touchy clutch I hit harder than I should have done with the trainer in the sleeper. oops. He didn't give me too much hell and was joking about it.

Next we Deadhead to Dallas in the middle of rush hour where we had a pick up time of 9am. We got there at 905 and bumped dock after cleaning trailer out. It was just in time because this place was tight but no trucks were docked yet. Five minutes after we get docked about five more trucks approached each having a harder time docking due to the disappearing space. The load is going to Ok City and off we go. When we get to Ok. city we arrive at shipper and had to go through this elaborate security gate. ( I suppose it was too much to pay a guard at a booth like other places. At the gate is a phone. The person tells us that recieiving has been moved to the other side of the building. It took my trainer 15 minutes to turn the rig around in a space meant for city pup trucks. We get to the other side and finally deliver. We eat lunch while being off loaded and I go search for a bathroom. After the security doors and a chaperone practically. I get my relief and we head BACK to the other side where we were to pick up a load. We get assigned a door and bump dock. Three hours later my trainer goes in to see why were weren't loaded yet. After a discussion I feel the truck rattle and we finally get loaded. Apparently some one messed up on communication. Jeez. After were loaded we scale at a local Pilot and I get to drive all the way back to Springfield. I get to sleep in my own bed and arrive the next morning at the yard.

Tuesday is uneventful and we head for our next destination. I drive all the way to Muskogee, OK and do a d/h. My trainer drives back to the yard in springfield. I get another night in my own bed. Because the trailer we are taking isn't due back to the yard until midnight and delivery was only a couple of hours away.

Wednesday I get to the yard at 5 am and we head to Van Buren, AR. MY trainer drives and we get off loaded by lunch time. At this point I get to deadhead to Muskogee again and we do a D/H and I drive to springfield. My trainer requested thurs through sunday off for a fishing tournament so my week is done.

We don't leave until Monday and I think we are headed for NOLA. My trainer also told safety I was gonna be done by June 5th and to hopefully get me a truck by then. I am shooting for either a Pete or KW but I might end up with a Volvo so who knows. Two more weeks.

week 4

2008-05-17T20:14:00.001-05:00

Sunday started with my trainer driving. We went on to Okmulgee, OK. Stopped at the shippers where we slept. It was a load of pallets, and cardboard.

Monday morning we unloaded. The deal with this shipper was you walked into a booth and got on an old crusty phone. There was signs all around stating how to do the delivery process and a form to fill out. Plus a hundred signs stating there were NO RESTROOMS for drivers. If the public complains about drivers releiving themselves just anywhere or throwing urine bottles on the ground then maybe there there should be more driver facilities. After a quick unload we deadhead to Muskogee. We do a D/H and head back to springfield. Our next load I drove from Springfield to Omaha, NE. I29 is a nice smooth road until you get close to the border and then it throws you. Pretty drive none the less. Parked at shipper and spent the night.

Tuesday we walk into the office and we are COMPLETELY ignored. After making a comment they finally acknowledge us and get a butt chewing on how the appointment was made the previous day at 7am and not today. Well don't shoot the messenger jeez. They inform us that we would get unloaded "whenever we can get to you" we bump dock and the shipping department was completely opposite. They were cheerful, got us unloaded quickly and helped make fun of the office people. We leave Omaha and hang out in a truck stop in Council Bluff. IA. Shower have breakfast while we wait for the next load. I go check out the area while the trainer napped. After an hour we were heading back to Omaha to Pepsi. After a three hour load wait we are off with a load on MT. Dew and it goes to Wichita, KS. We hurry as fast as a governed truck will let us to the shipper and we unload within a couple of hours. We spend the night at a parking lot outside of Mcdonalds.

Wednesday I finally get some good coffee at the mcdonalds and we take off to Coke in Wichita. You know mcdonalds has the worst food but the best coffee. Boggles my mind. This load of prized soda goes to springfield. We drop the trailer at the yard and we hook to another one and I drive to Ardmore, OK. Again we sleep at the shipper.

Thursday Morning my trainer says I am in charge so he wakes me up and I listen for our truck to be called on the CB. Once called I bump dock and take the paperwork in. This place is a Dollar General distribution center and is nice. A lot of room to manuever and they have good bathrooms and a decent breakroom with good vending machines including a coffee machine. Our next destination is Wichita Falls, TX. We deadhead there and wait a couple of hours to get loaded. I drive to just outside Tulsa and then the trainer takes it the rest of the way to Springfield. We get in about 9pm and I head home. Next up is Allen TX. We leave Sunday afternoon. Our mileage this week is 2260. That's just under 500 miles a day average. This is just how my trainer runs and this is the shorthaul division. I will be doing much more when I am in long haul.
This weekend our company had a hiring fair/picnic. It seems for now I chose decently. I got to meet some of the veteran drivers and the owner of the company. My son got to see the inside of some new trucks and got to bring home some free stuff. My trainer is still saying the first week of June is when I will be on my own. I can't wait.

Week 3

2008-05-08T21:29:00.000-05:00

This week started early with a phone call for us to leave staurday night instead of early sunday morning. No problem I am packed and ready at a moments notice. I am thinking this is the life of a trucker so get used to it.
Sunday. Our first load was to go to Ardmore, Oklahoma. We delivered early and then we DH to our next load which is in Pryor, OK. When we get there we find out that there are no papers for the load and we would have to come back the next morning. So this early start just shot us in the foot. So now we are at a convenience store with truck parking in the middle of nowhere oklahoma. My trainer sits in his truck, watching his tv, sitting on his bed, and calls in on his layover pay. Meanwhile I am bored out of my mind and there wasn't anything interesting within walking distance. It was only five PM and we were due to the shipper until 8 am which is just five minutes drive away. About 6pm we go to eat at this hole in the wall within walking distance and I payed $12 for 12 hours of serious heartburn and greasy nauseia. About 9pm I settle in the bunk and tryed not to throw up and get some sleep in.
This is where training kinda stinks. I am a guest in someone's home. My trainer is considerate to me but I have no control where we sleep or eat. As we were leaving Pryor I see just a couple of miles down the road were plenty of better restaurants and a superwalmart. If I had known that existed in this town and I was in my own truck I would have spent my time and money a lot better. Hell I would have at least bought a dvd player and some movies to watch at the walmart. At least I brought my MP3 player and could listen to my music on my headphones. I had that and a deck of cards for solitaire for my entertainment.
Monday rolls around FINALLY and we get our papers. While we were there switching trailers a lady at the dock kindly tells us that we could have gotten the papers early if security had done their job right. How was this info supposed to help us now? Great now we are even angrier about it. Yay. Thanks! (sarcasm)
Finally I get behind the wheel and I drive almost the whole trip up to Franklin, Indiana. We get lost due to bad directions and started seeing roads where big trucks were never meant to be. Luckily we find a construction site for a housing development to turn around in and after a quick phone call we found the right way. We do a L/UL and head to the shipper which is just down the road. Going back to Pryor. My trainer drives to about an hour outside of St. Louis and it's sleeper time.
Tuesday. In the morning he drives to Pacific, MO where we shower. I drive afterwards and we get a call to drop this at the yard in Springfield. After I drive to the yard we drop and then we pick up another trailer in the yard which goes to Olathe, KS. Since we are home I eat dinner at my house and spend a couple of hours with the family. I head back to the yard and trainer drives to KS.
Wednesday. We arrive at the shipper late tuesday night and we hit the sleeper until 5 am which is our appointment time. Then he drives to Independence, MO for our second pt of the load which goes back to Springfield. I drive to the shipper in SGF and then we pick up another load that goes back to KC in which I drive again. Finally I feel like I am getting more seat time. In KC we pick up and have another load back to Springfield. He drives all the way to Springfield. We get in and our next load is ready at the yard to go to Nowata, OK. We wait for maintenence to fix the lights and then he drives to Joplin where we get sleeper time.
Thursday he drives to the little don't blink town and we do a double drop. After that we get deliver that load in Joplin. They refuse the load and we take it back to the yard. I get to drive from Joplin. Now I am home until Sunday.
This week was more driving for me. Especially in rainy weather which was the case most of the week. I am looking at training as boot camp but I am definitely wanting to be in my own truck. Good news is that my trainer says since I am doing so well that I won't have to go the whole 10 weeks to train I just need to get the paperwork aspect down and build up my stamina. That part's hard when I am on someone else's schedule. Let's see what next week brings.

Week 2

2008-05-01T21:25:00.001-05:00

Sunday I had off and I awaited instructions from my trainer. The truck was in the shop and wasn't due to be done until Wednesday which is when the trainer requested some time off. So Monday morning I show up and we grab a day cab off the lot and the trainer sets up cones. I do a few backings and he tells me I am doing well. After a couple of hours of this he says I have this down and to return the next day.

Tuesday - we do the same thing. About 11 am the trainer says go get lunch, come back and you will go with a city guy today and the rest of this week. Cool! This will get me into some real backing experience in the real world.

Basically our company has these local drivers in daycabs that drop empty trailers and bring back the loaded ones to the yard. Most of the trucks dispatched take the loads from the yard. If they bring them back to springfield then they drop in the yard and pick another one to take to the destination. The city trucks do most of the inner springfield work.

Tuesday afternoon - I meet the city guy and he seems cool. I ride for a little and then get behind the wheel after an hour. I bobtail for the first time, city guy helps me with my floating and gives me a ton of useful tips. Our first pickup is at my old work where I was a welder. Ha!! I got to say hi to a few ex-coworkers.

Wednesday - I get to drive a pup trailer and make some tight maneuvers. That lasted about two hours and then went back to a 53 footer. Did some two lane road driving and I am learning quick on dropping, hooking and connecting trailers. One particular drop was at a scrap metal place where everything was tight and so much was going on. A dangerous busy place indeed.

Thursday/today - Did more of the same but I was behind the wheel all day. I have learned a lot in the last few days. My turning, shifting, backing, and overall confidence is a lot stronger now. I am getting a good word said to safety about me and was issued a mailbox etc. Tomorrow I will go a half day with city and I go back with my otr trainer Sunday at ...get this 1:00 AM. Taking a load to OK and then picking up and going to Indiana.

Now don't get me wrong. My OTR trainer is training me well but having this week of city experience is gonna help a lot. Think about this. If I am being trained and we go 1000 miles that's a long time before I have to worry about driving in loading docks etc. It's all highway. Now when we get to the destinations I will have more confidence in my backing. Not to mention all the shifting practice I got running city where as highway it's not as much. I am going to tell the office that this should be a standard in training because it's helped me tremendously.

Sunday I will be back in the "bigtruck" and we will start my third week.