Happy Happy Havre

Here in Havre, Mt, having my Schwans first drop unloaded and looking at the weather map on the computer with apprehension. There is snow moving in and I have three more stops at Great Falls, Conrad and Kalispell, Montana. The last drop worries me as there are some rather dicey roads on that route as well as a mountain pass or two as I recall. Well, I will just proceed like I always do and if it gets too nasty, I will let someone know about it and keep myself safe. That is the plan, and as the saying goes...the best battle plans seldom make it to the battle field. We will see...

I have been doing some shopping as I have to work and shop at the same time. Sorry honey, I will not be able to get that deep freeze as you wanted as it will not fit in the sleeper. I tried, honest. I have most of it that was to take place on the Internet done and that is in the hands of the tailgating, surly UPS drivers. What can Brown do for you? Rear end your slow ass if you don't get the #$@!! out of the @#$*!ing way. It is a wonder that the stuff we send makes it at all with some of the driving skill displayed by the boring brown idiots. Want to hear a good one?

I was listening to Dave Nemo and a postal semi driver called to say that he was hauling 390 pounds of priority mail to Houston from Charlston. They had nothing ready for his return trip to Charlston but they did have a load full for Atlanta. The driver offered to haul this load as it was on his way and he was going to be deadheading anyway. He was told that his company had a contract with USPS for Charlston to Houston only and that another truck would have to be hired to do the load that did have the contract. USPS efficiency at work. By the way, this drivers company has a contract that pays $2.05 per mile, loaded or empty. Your tax dollars pay for that guy to dead head all that way. Isn't it great? Something to think about when your letters cost .41 cents a pop to send...Gotta to and get ready for the Great Falls part of the run. Dedication:0

Sitting at the Beach

I am here in Beach, ND...what did you expect? I know there are those that are stupid enough to try to get a truck on the beach and all that. If you know of such a place, let me know and I will join your silly self and go swimming. I am on my way to Montana for a northern tour across highway 2 for four Schwans drops. I am thrilled, as all it will take is one good snow storm and I will not get home for Christmas. Christmas, you hear that you boner biting rag heads with Al Quaeda? Christ, and Christmas...you sand losers had better hope we do not decide to have a holy war of our own. Oh, I know what you are thinking...but I just love to stir the pot. Now, I have a cross to burn...

Anyway, I have to get after it as I have 354 miles to go by tomorrow at noon. I think I will make it. Peace, Love, Understanding. Dedication :/

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town...Please Don't Hit Him

Another Texas road sign that is truly a sign of the times. People are so darn impatient. I just think that if Jesus were to return to Earth and be somehow unlucky enough to land in Texas, well he just wouldn't last very long as a pedestrian. That is, unless he managed to bring a large "I am the Son Of God" sign. A matter of minutes and he would be sequestered by the ACLU to a deep, dark, dungeon where he would be cleansed of all the offending attributes that religious icons seem to carry o' plenty.

Anyway, on to more serious things. I am here in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and I am truly scared. I mean these streets are truly mean. There was even a traffic jam. The light turned green and it was over but there really has to be some excitement here. Everyone here is so drab during the winter. It is as though the whole persona is about winter suffering. It is 30 deg and sunny and all I have to say is that it could be one hell of a lot worse.

I just delivered a load of Coors to a distributor in Sioux and have taken my trailer to a Pizza supply house in Sioux Falls. Now Bret wants me to get that trailer loaded and then be bop over to the Pilot and drop it off and then go back to John Morrell and pick up an empty and then go to Marshall, MN and do the whole load up thing all over again. I am working on a compromise where I leave my empty trailer at Orion, pick up another empty trailer at John Morrell and hop, skip and jump my way up to Marshall, MN for a load of Schwans stuff. Going where, I have no Idea yet. We shall see how this all plays out. gotta go for now. Dedication.;0

Got Dirty Birds?

While driving on I 35 just south of Dallas there was the sign that is also the title of this blurb. It was a sign for a place that sells concrete figurines and birdbaths. I liked it.

I am once again in Wichita Falls resting up for the Sunday run like hell towards Denver 500. I deliver on Monday and decided that I would pool my energy today and get some needed rest. I have been rather down with a cold lately and felt that being lazy would somehow help. So far, so good. Gotta go for now. Dedication....

Just Catching Up At Long Last

I have had several opportunities to launch another missive towards this growing pile of words. It is just that I have either had to get going already or I just did not have the energy to fire the computer up and dedicate some heartfelt time in the name of endless drivel. I have no idea whether that is spelled right. So, for the sake of the uneducated...I mean crap.

I was being harassed by snow at last visit as I was trying to get my ass home for the family get together on the first of December. That turned out to be a nice outing and I was off until the 5th or so.

Then I had to get going to Jamestown and get a load of Potato Sticks and head out to Louisville, KY. My reefer broke down and I ended up losing a whole day on the deal. Jim Palmer paid nothing for this delay to me. Then I got rooked into the Schwan's load out of Walton KY going to Arlington, Texas. This load was kind of slow as I was late to my Louisville, KY drop due to the ice storm I was trying to cross in Illinois. I pulled over until it was safe and ended up 5 and 1/2 hours late to the Louisville show. I always err on the side of pulling over because simply, I do not want to know what it feels like to slide into a deep ditch at speed. All the losers at Jim Palmer are concerned with is the fact that if their load is late, they get docked. Well, I am not going to say all the losers because the safety guy is always saying on the quaalcomm to pull over and be safe. Funny though since every time I have a delay, that delay is followed by two or three very slow and non profitable loads. In fact, the drivers at Jim Palmer call it "getting spanked". Tell a driver manager that he is an asshole, get spanked. Refuse a load, definitely get spanked. Call and swear into the phone at someone, Spanky, spanka, spank, spank.

Back to safety. It seems that safety is really for the people at trucking companies to beat the driver over the head with when something goes wrong. It is also a good "cover your butt" measure when you are sending drivers with profit generating freight into harms way. The driver is the company source of income and at the same time the driver can be the biggest drain. In the form of lawsuits. It is really funny though, how quickly a driver gets thrown under the bus when something goes wrong. You can be the driver of the year and have 25 years at Jim Palmer Trucking. Just as soon as you slam into the side of a minivan full of people due to running a red light, they cast you into the fire. There is something terribly wrong with that. I mean, the driver does his job and the trucking company makes money the whole time for the most part. The fact is, that there are dispatchers, managers and all other employees making mistakes all the time that cost their companiy money. I don't even want to hear about the price of fuel going up and all that. You are preaching to the choir. It just seems that there could be a bit more loyalty on the part of a trucking company towards the driver. All this advertizing on the part of company owners and spokesmen, talking about how their respective company is so much better because they have been there, they pay more, they treat you like family, they want you to succeed in your "career" etc, etc.

Fact is, you are a number. You are a number that performs a task and provides your company with a positive number for their corporate equation. The more you perform that task, the more money they make. When you hit the icy road, they tell you to be safe and pull over. If you wreck, then there is a negative number that effects their business outlooks and forcasts. Pulling over is not what they want to tell the driver to do, but the truth in their hearts is too sick and disgusting to say out loud. There is an unwritten rule at trucking companies. That rule is, make the most money you can while shelling out the least amount of cash. There is also the rule that no one is to say this out loud much less utter the truth spoken above a whisper. There is no room for loyalty in that business equation. Frankly, I would rather be a porno shop attendent than to be one of the kiss ass losers that aspire to run trucking companies. Scumbags, one and all.

Think I am wrong? Try this on for size. My truck broke down in Washington, causing me to need a room for 2 nights while the truck was repaired. I call the dispatch and they say to find out if the hotel will take com check. Turns out, that this hotel does not. They tell me to pay for the room and they will reimburse me for it. This room was the last one the hotel had available and was not in a cheap neighborhood. I will say this...it cost $210.00 for 2 days total. The next week, the refund was $120.00. This is on top of the fact that I did not receive one dime for the time off. I could see if I let the truck go completely to hell and it broke. This was an issue with the motor I had addressed at the shop in Missoula not ten days before I broke down. I wanted to cool down before calling up these assholes to find out what fine print or needle headed policy was responsible for me being ripped off. I will let you know when I find out. dedication

Off Into The Snow

Of course, it always works out that the repair schedule does not meet the weather schedule on the dot. I could have gotten out of here last night but there was not any loads available when the truck was done yesterday evening. I chose to head out today...Snow has hit the snowqualmie pass requiring chains. I am empty and probably will be routed to Wenatchee. That seems to be the common routing out of Seattle. We shall see how many times I will have to chain up.

Down With A Loud Thump, Thump, Thump

I-5 North in Washington. Driving along about noon on Sunday and tuning the radio. Happy, in the fact that I was, in spite of all the shopping traffic, on schedule. I had just turned the XM to the Led Zeppelin channel to escape all the talk radio which at that point, was really going nowhere. Comes a point after all when at least it seems like it has all been said. At any rate, I was climbing this slow hill doing about 55 MPH when the sun got in behind me and gave me a great shadow of both the tractor and the stacks. That was when I noticed the smoke. I looked in the mirror and the smoke was going back a hundred yards. I was lowering the power and looking to find a place to pull over when the engine started thumping loudly and shaking the entire tractor. I just made it off the freeway with enough power and put on the brakes. It was kind of surreal. The engine wasn't leaking, smoking, or for that matter, not showing any outward signs of anything being wrong. The temperature was 195, oil pressure was 50 but rpm's were down as I was lugging down in 9th gear. I really couldn't find a thing wrong except that the oil was down 1.25 gallons. I had filled it 2 days prior. I hope Caterpillar can find out what the heck is wrong and quickly.

Really, all that mattered yesterday evidently was not what I did or was able to do. What mattered was what I had no control over. The dispatcher was all concerned about the delivery and how he was going to get another truck to pick up the load and rescue it. I was concerned about where I was going to stay and how to get there. My wife was concerned about whether I was going to make it home for our Thanksgiving get together for the family. The shop foreman at Cat was concerned about this truck being added to an already overloaded work roster. No matter where you are at in a situation, there are concerns and all of them will be different and will intersect at points. I think I will read a book. Dedication %\-