Posted by admin on Nov 28, 2008 in
Where Am I? Once again it’s been a while since I updated this thing…been running and time slips by…
Got done with the load in Robert, LA and spent three days at Knuckleheads place…enjoyed a Thanksgiving dinner (Southern style turkey – deep fried of course! VERY yummy!)… then we headed to Memphis, TN for a FedEx load to Denver, CO.
From there we swung by Halcomb, KS for a fresh frozen load of “scraped tripe”… whatever the “scraped” means…either way, disgusting! That headed for Laredo, TX where I “sit” now… delivers in the morning.
Saw some really bad accidents today…will post the couple of pics I took later… hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!
Posted by admin on Nov 21, 2008 in
Where Am I? Well, we finally got to Memphis last night… had to meet up with another driver this morning to swap loads…our going to Alabama for this one going to Robert, Louisiana in the morning. Ended up waiting around all day for the other guy to show up… he was late getting loaded, which made him late to his first stop… THEY were late getting him unloaded there, which made him even LATER getting to us!
So, now I’m bedding down at a Petro truck stop in Hammond, LA with an 0600 wake-up call… “Knuckle-head” left with his wife a few hours ago so I have the “house” to myself tonight and get to practice “solo” tomorrow for the unload! After I’m empty, I drop the trailer and bobtail the 80 miles to his house for a couple of days off in Mississippi before heading out again Monday.
Talk about your teenager having the parents gone for the weekend and they asking you to drive their VERY expensive car for them! ROFLMAO
On a side note… I’d like to know / catch the little cocksucker that broke into our house yesterday and stole the flat-panel TV AND remote while Hammie was at work. She called the cops and filed the reports and they dusted for finger prints (only a partial) and such… luckily her two sons were kind enough to screw some plywood over the smashed in rear-door-window so that’s now secured. But that’s ALL they took… not the laptops, not the desktops, not the Xbox or external hard drive sitting under the TV… JUST the flat panel and remote for it.
Anyways…send out some good vibes for my sweetheart and think bad thoughts of the little shit-head sitting somewhere watching OUR tv!!
Posted by admin on Nov 19, 2008 in
Uncategorized,
Where Am I? Short update… got into Ventura without a problem… didn’t see any flames, but did see a lot of smoke (mostly when we were leaving Cali via I15). We then went up to Santa Maria to pick up a load of brussell sprouts (yuck!) and took them up to Salt Lake City (our drop yard there).
Had to deadhead up to Idaho Falls, ID for this load we have now… again, can’t tell you while we still have it… but you know about the ONLY thing coming out of Idaho!! Yeah.. and it’s HEAVY! We’re draggin it to the yard in Springfield where we hope to drop it (it’s going to Albertville, AL) so that we can get a load into Florida or something so “knucklehead” can take his four days off at home in Mississippi before delivering.
Lastly… again, I just can’t say enough about this nice truck and what fun / how easy it is to drive… after almost two months on my other co-drivers’ Freight-shaker I couldn’t get the hang of “floating” my gears. Floating is the term used in trucking where you don’t double-clutch, instead getting your timing of RPM’s and speed right to just slide from one gear to another.
So, to make a long story short… it took me all of about ten minutes to learn / finally get how to float today…both up-shifting AND down-shifting!! WHOO HOOO!! Now, the ONLY time I need / have to use the clutch is when stopped, first starting in 2nd gear!! Sa-weet!!
Posted by admin on Nov 17, 2008 in
Where Am I? Haven’t updated in a couple of days… we finished up in Florida and got OUR load (they gave us the wrong trailer number), so off to Ventura, California we went. In case you haven’t been watching National news, California (specifically the LA area) has had three major wildfires going over the weekend… destroying some 800 homes and such… well, we’re heading about 20 miles North of where those fires are still burning… I’ll try to post how THAT goes… we’re almost there and I can already smell the distinctive smell of burning brush, homes, trash etc.
On a good note, “Knucklehead” (his CB handle and nickname) has agreed to let me photograph his truck and post out here… so…
Posted by admin on Nov 14, 2008 in
Uncategorized,
Where Am I? Been a couple of days since I had the chance to update…
So let me begin with last Monday being in Cali…
Saw this little beaut on I10 and thought of my sweetie… for those that don’t know, it’s a 67 Datsun convertable… in mint condition of course!
(Yeah babe, I COULD see you getting groceries in that!)
I also saw this tooling (well, sitting on the trailer) on I10 in Cali:
And lastly, saw this one on I15 heading East out of Cali (you’ll need to hit flickr and zoom in to read it):
So Charles and I did the hot-foot shuffle from Cali to Springfield. We’d had several “hot” loads in a row that demanded that we hammer down to get there in time… we finally got a load with some time on it…and we had to hammer down to get ME to my 90 in time! LOL
Arrived in Springfield around 0300 Wednesday morning where my new co-driver was waiting. He had a load going to Virginia that was getting close on time, we would need to beet-feet. Got my stuff transferred over to his truck (more on that later) and we decided to bed down for a couple of hours before heading out.
We got up a few hours later, went to get our load… yup, the trailer’s missing! Go into Driver Lineup… “Oh! We had to give that to a team to get it there in time, as we thought you (co-driver) was a solo and didn’t have enough time to get it there in time”
<sigh>
So, we took the next best thing… a load going to Jacksonville, FL for Friday 1500 delivery. No problem! Off we go!
Rolled down the highway allowing me to get used to the new truck and getting to know my new co-driver, we ended up getting down here Thursday morning. Kill some time and head over to the Walmart DC (the 90) for our 1500hrs delivery…. and wait… and wait… (it was THEN we realized we were 24 hours early!).
They finally got us unloaded and we headed off to our next load in Bradenton, FL heading for… yup, you guessed it! CALIFORNIA… LA!!
So we scoot over here and drop our MTY and pick up the loaded trailer… the refer’s not turned on. It’s supposed to be at 34… there’s product in the box. Hmmm…
Head out to the guard shack to check out… he hands us our BOL’s and we tell him about the refer… start it up and life’s good right?
WRONG! It’s a full moon people!
Checking the BOL’s before we roll out, my co-driver notices that there’s actually three sets of BOL’s for three different orders in the box. Our load assignment has only one order. To top that off, if you add up the BOL’s weight listed, we’re pushing 52,000lbs… our max (in the box) is about 45,000. WTF?!!??
So we park, the co-driver goes in to talk to security to find out what’s going on, gets dispatch (a.k.a., the “Night Monkeys” on the phone and they start trying to figure out why there’s three BOL’s, two order numbers and everything is FUBAR.
Some hauncho comes out and tries to figure things out, but nope, can’t do. We’ll have to wait for shipping to come in later this morning to figure out where they screwed up and what we’re REALLY supposed to have in the box.
So.. that means I have time to update the blog and grab a nap! WHOO HOOO!!!
Lastly, let me tell you about my new co-drivers’ truck…
This, of course isn’t my co-drivers’ truck (I need to get his permission to photograph and post images of his first), but it’s the same model. Instead of White, his is a champagne color and his interior is slightly different.
When I climbed on the truck, he had just a hair over 9000 miles on it… It’s a Peterbilt 387 and let me tell you, this baby is like a Cadillac! It rides and drives like a new vehicle of course, but I also think it’s part of the way it’s bilt (pun intended) as it just drives sooo effortlessly!
The interior is more roomy than the Century Class Freight-shaker I just came off of, however the top bunk is about 4″ narrower than the Century. And of course being a new truck, it’s QUIET!!! No shakes, rattles…it just rolls!
Anyways… we’re waiting on shipping in Bradenton, FL, I have about 25,000 miles to go to finish up my teaming portion (by the way, rumor has it that a few company drivers are getting the new Cascadia’s and 387’s!! I can only hope!!!).