Posted by admin on Jan 28, 2009 in
Where Am I? My first VERY close call… was traveling along on I71 in Kentucky today… you know where they had the really, REALLY bad ice storm? The one that’s dumping all the snow shit on your guys?
So I’m traveling along in the slow lane… doing about 50 because the lane is fairly clear. I have a truck coming up on me fairly quick… know he’s gonna go out around me… when I see some clown in a grey Jeep Cherokee coming up the get-on ramp, we’re matching speed when he looks over at me and I look at him.
So what does the rocket surgerist do?
Yup… he punches it to get on the highway ahead of me!!
He’s got a good long ramp and he gets ahead of me… except the moron didn’t think about the foot high pile of snow at the end of the ramp from the highway where the plow guys had just pushed it aside.
He hits that… goes slide ways… and does a donut RIGHT in front of me
Comes to a stop passenger’s side to me… blocking both lanes
I have JUST enough time to hit the four ways to let the guy behind me know… and swerve to the hammer lane
Just as I’m about to hit this asshole, he gets enough of his senses to punch the gas and I can hear the cherokee smoking the tires as he’s heading back up the get-on ramp, out of my way JUST in the nick of time for my trailer to go through the space his vehicle occupied a split second before
I saw him turn aournd and get back on the highway… but he never got above about 40 when I left him in my dust
All because he didn’t want to get stuck behind a big truck
If I had hit him… I probably would have killed him… certainly seriously injured him
I sooo wanted to stop and ask him what the fuck he was thinking
I didn’t dare hit the brakes… I had already started to wander towards the hammer lane and my truck tires were in shit… knew if I hit them I’d start skidding
so… hit the four ways, turn wheel and hope like hell
I will give him credit that he stomped on that V8 and gave it all it had to get out of the way in time
It must have been pretty scary to him to0… I mean I had literally less than a car length away when he mashed the gas, all he could have seen was this GINORMOUS Frieghtliner grill bearing down on him in a hurry!
Of course by that time I was already having to swerve back to the right so I didn’t go into the median and with the trailer tracking slower (called off-tracking – the difference between where your rig tires go and where the trailer follows)… it would have run him right over!!
I say again people… especially in bad weather… if a big rig doesn’t move over to let you on… SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!! Wait YOUR turn to get on the highway, don’t “force” your way in, or try to “slide” in ahead of (or RIGHT behind) a big truck! Fully loaded we’re carrying upwards of 20 TONS.. it is literally like a freight train hitting your puny little car… even if you drive an SUV… I WILL crush, maim and probably kill you just TRYING to slow down, never mind actually stopping.
Okay… lecture over… for now.
Sitting in the rest area just East of Columbus, OH for the night.. roads are getting too shitty and I’m tired… I still have 744 miles to go before Friday at 0800 when this load delivers so tomorrow’s gonna be a long day!
PS… Shout-out to my sweetie for letting me use part of our IM chat tonight so I didn’t have to retype all this! 
Posted by admin on Jan 27, 2009 in
Where Am I? Just a quick update… delivered my load of “Go-Gurt” that I picked up in Murfreesboro, TN yesterday and dropped at Washington Court House, OH… the Walmart DC there.
Damn yard monkeys
Spent an hour and a half waiting on “Asset Protection” (security) to come and do a report… some yard monkey decided to “trim” the side-skin on the MTY trailer I was picking up… when they backed it into the spot, they rubbed the corner of the trailer next to it and gashed open the side. <sigh>
Got a load picking up tomorrow morning at 0900 in New Albany, Indiana… going to Haverhill, MA for the 30th at 0800.
Been raining / freezing rain / sleeting all damn trip today… got about a half a ton of ice on my truck:
MY office "view" today
Saw this “unique” vehicle while driving today… it’s a mid-80’s Buick Century that’s been… how shall I put it… “altered”?
And lastly… saw this last night at the truck stop in Glendale, KY where I bedded down… who can resist a cute puppy photo?
Posted by admin on Jan 26, 2009 in
Where Am I? So I dropped my load of Eggo’s Friday morning… and sat Sat… and sat Sun.
BUT… I’m rolling again this morning! Got a nice “easy” load going from Murfreesboro, TN to Washington Court House, OH. The appointment time wasn’t until 1800 tonight… but having nothing much else to do, I took a gamble and showed up about 6 hours early. No love… they had only barely backed the trailer in the door. But I could park in front of the trailer and they’d let me know when it was ready!
So that’s what I did… and low and behold… no sooner had I settle down (and nearly asleep) watching “The Dirty Dozen” when the dock dude came a’bangin’! Sweet! Rolled out of there, headed up I24 North into Nashville, then rolled on I65 North towards Louisville, KY. Made it as fas as x86 Glendale, KT and the Petro there. The Petro’s have a pretty decent resaurant chain in them called “The Iron Skillet”. You can guess what the dishes are made of… anyways, a good meal later and I’m hunkering down in the sleeper for the night. I have another 229 miles to do tomorrow (about 5 hours), and the 90 is a drop and hook so it’s at my convienence!
The down-side? They’re calling for an ice-storm / winter weather watch tonight from Midnight until tomorrow night (what you guys are supposed to be getting this weekend I guess?), so I’m not sure how far / how quick I’ll get moving in the morning, but I’m gonna try! I figure I’ll try to head outta here around 8 or 9 (after rush-hour)… hopefully even with weather, that’ll put me at the 90 around 2 or 3… maybe even 4. I have until about 1600 to finish the load and get to a truck stop to scan my paperwork in by 1630 to be included in this week’s check… other-wise it’ll have to wait until next week’s check.
Working my way up into New England… should be (hopefully) home this weekend… I won’t have much of any time to “visit” with folks this trip as it’ll only be a day or three to get my stuff on the truck and see my sweetie… so you may have to wait until next trip dear avid reader to see “De Big Truk”!
Posted by admin on Jan 24, 2009 in
Where Am I? Okay, been a few days… let’s see… after I got the pig-tail replaced, I drove… and drove… and drove! Duh! That’s what I do for a living!
Got to Brownsville, TN Friday morning right on time and delivered the load without incident… the children around the area will be “happy” to know that 44,000 lbs of brussel sprouts are now available for purchase and consumption!
Me, personally… I’m damn glad to have the nasty little f***ers off my truck! Talk about needing a thorough trailer wash-out! But I digress…
Got a load right after that… in Rossville, TN going to Antioch, TN… pickup was at the Kellogs bakery there… you roll into the place and it smells SOOOOO good! Got loaded up last night with 27,000 lbs of Eggo Waffles! I was looking for a tanker of maple syrup and a gasoline tanker to crash into so we could light the whole damn thing up and have some BBQ waffles for breakfast this morning! ROFLMAO
Delivered that load earlier this morning without incident… dropped my nice clean trailer (I think it STILL smelled of brussel sprouts…) and got this nasty-ass dirty trailer that the salt was so caked on, I had to use windex to clean the lights to see if there were even working!!
Anyways… I’ve hunkered down at the TA on I24 x62 for the night… nothing doing right now according to dispatch… which is okay, allows me some “breathing” time… although the miles would be nice too!
By the way… those of you in Maine don’t get the enjoyment of bill boards… there are TONS of them across the highways of America. Most of them are dull and ordinary, but every now and again you run across one that’s so damn funny you have to pull over and take a picture of it. I didn’t take this photo, but you’ll see what I mean:
It looks like the Prime main yard here tonight… there’s at least a dozen other trucks here so I guess I may be here a bit! Until we meet further down the road dear avid reader!
Posted by admin on Jan 20, 2009 in
Where Am I? Well, I went up to Sugar City, UT and grabbed my first load. Headed out of there about 2130hrs… and all of about a mile down the road when I realized that my trailer lights were flaking out. I also noticed that every time I hit the brake, my left marker light would come on. AND I noticed that if I had my left directional on and hit the brakes, it would kill the directional. So I pulled off on a ramp and checked the electrical “pig-tail” that connects my truck to the trailer, it was loose, but plugged in. Then I noticed that when I wiggled the pig-tail, the trailer lights winked on and off. <sigh>
Grabbed a small bungee cord I had and “rigged” the pig-tail to be pulled to one side which made it LESS bad… rolled on to the next Rest Area and shut ‘er down and called it a night.
Called my FM first thing this morning, he wanted me to call Road Assist… they said to try to drive it to Salt Lake City (about 75 miles out of route).
So I got in here this afternoon, lost my load (there was no longer enough time for a solo person to be able to make the appointment time, so a team truck will take it from here) and I sent my truck into the shop… not 24 hours after getting it! <sigh>
The GOOD news is that the shop only took about an hour to diagnose the problem with the pig-tail.. apparently two wires were broken inside it and were shorting out… back-feeding into the cab causing all kinds of problems.
So, I now I have a new pig-tail and a new load!
I have to pick up at 2100hrs local in Ogden, UT going to Brownsville, TN for Friday afternoon at 1630… a trip total of 1563 miles. Hope I actually can DO the run this time!! LOL