Thursday, May 20, 2010
5/20/2010
I got my stop off in Kansas City the other day and headed to Springfield, MO and parked at the TA and got unloaded Monday morning. While parked at the dock there I fell asleep and had a very weird dream, one where you don't realize your dreaming because it seems so real. I dreamed that I had woke up and I was somehow back in a Navajo truck. I was freaking out trying to figure out how in the hell it happened. I was very depressed and I took my truck and was driving it all over the grass at the terminal and shit. They gave me a load of beer to deliver and I just ignored it then they wanted to know why I didn't deliver my load and I was like I don't give a F%^&, I'm not supposed to be here, I hate this place! Then I finally woke up and I had to get out of bed and check to see that I was indeed still in my Pete, and I felt a big relief it was only a dream, or more like a nightmare! Maybe they're putting something in that flavored water I'm not sure, I'm trying to cut out all the soda and junk food so I just been drinking the flavored water from Wal-Mart. LOL
After I got empty there I headed down to Oklahoma City for my final stop at Associated Wholesale Grocers there, my "appointment" was for 2030, of course so was about 100 other trucks... On the way I stopped off in Tulsa and had lunch with my buddy Andrew Marshall there at the QT truck stop.
I got to OKC and parked at the TA until 1930 then went down to the warehouse and trucks were backed up clean into the road already. I just made it in the gate and got checked in and everything stopped because the staging area was filled up and it wasn't until after 2030 they started calling trucks into the dock, eventually they moved me and a bunch of other trucks to another staging area so that the trucks in the street could check in and get out of the street. So I could see already this was one messed up operation. Eventually I got called into a dock and was there until about 0300 before I finally got out of there. Now I had a pick up at the caves in Carthage,MO at 0800, needed to be in Delphos,OH ASAP. I made it up to Carthage and got loaded at the caves about 0900.
I delivered that load in Delphos early Weds. morning and the final stop in Cleveland at 1000.
I went back to the yard and turned my truck into the shop to get my A/C fixed. I figured out why I didn't have any heat or bunk blower also, the fuse was blown that controls those things.
Also my CD player quit working, not sure what's wrong with that..LOL It just wasn't my trip, I was either burning up or freezing! I'm loading out tomorrow morning in IN for NJ then bring a load of bananas back to OH Sunday and I'll be home again until Monday night.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
5/16/2010
I got to the house Weds. after delivering in Pittsburgh and dropped the truck off at the shop. I wrote it up because my A/C went out on me the day before I got home. I came back to work Friday night and picked up a preloaded trailer delivering 0430 Sunday morning in Kansas City.
I noticed Saturday my A/C still wasn't working so I called the shop to ask if they got a chance to look at my truck, he said that he didn't and he was actually looking for me this morning. He felt pretty bad about it, but I said it's no big deal, I've dealt without A/C before I won't die or anything. LOL
He told me to try and switch the breakers around just to see if that would work, well I pulled into a rest area on I70 in IN and did that, I fired the truck up and turned the A/C on and I was looking down at my phone when another driver came running up to my window and I looked up and saw smoke coming out of the hood, so I turned the ignition off and opened the hood and seen the belts were burning that run the A/C compressor and the alternator. I called the shop back and he told me to unplug the compressor from the motor, so I did that and went on down the road, I stopped in Vandalia, IL for a few hours and took a nap and then I took off and about the time I got to the I270 split outside St. Louis I realized the alternator was not charging.
I pulled off at the Flying J and called the shop back and told him what happened, he had me check the compressor and confirm it had locked up. This is a major design flaw on the CAT motors because if the A/C locks up you're automatically going to lose your alternator too when the belt snaps. There are two shops right next door to the Flying J, both of which were closed!
So that wasn't going to be of much help, so they told me to take it to the TA back in Troy about 10 minutes away. I had completely forgotten about that or I would have just went there to begin with. So I hooked up the jumper cables to the reefer and put some charge to the batteries and drove over to the TA with just headlights and bottom lights on, shop told me to use only minimal necessary lights of course.
They got me right in and hooked up a single belt from the main pulley to the alternator in about 45 minutes and I was back on the road and made it to my destination in Kansas City about 0330.
After which I went to the little truck stop down the street and went to bed then got up this afternoon and drove down here to the TA in Strafford, MO for my 0600 delivery in the morning in Springfield, then onto Oklahoma City for 2030 tomorrow night. Luckily it's been very cool the last few days so no need for A/C, problem is it got a little to cool and I also have no heat, and the blower in the bunk doesn't work either. So I'm having all kinds of problems. LOL
I'll be on my way straight back to Ohio after I get empty in OKC though.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
This week
Last week I left the yard in Ohio on Monday and delivered a load in Harrisburg and Carlisle, PA on Tuesday Morning. Then I went up to Scranton area to pick up a load back to Ohio. I made my way through a tight little town and passed up the shipper and had to go through downtown and turn around and come back only to find that the load was shipping from another warehouse up the road.
I made my way up there and picked up the load and dropped it off in Sterling, OH then bobtailed down to Berlin and picked up a trailer for Kansas City and Aurora. I went to London, OH and passed out in the sleeper. I drove out to Eaton, OH and met up with my buddy Bruno from Navajo and followed him to Effingham, IL then I went on out to Kansas City and got unloaded the next morning then went onto Aurora, CO.
I met up with John, aka GDiesels at the TA, he came by and picked me up in his patrol car and we went into town for some Mexican dinner. He took me back and I went over to the customer and parked and got unloaded the next morning. They didn't have a load of potatoes for me out of CO so they sent all the way to Nogales, AZ, 900 miles. I got down there Saturday morning and got my 1st pick on but the 2nd pick took all day because they put the wrong product stickers on, so they had to redo everyone's loads.
Anyway I couldn't leave until Sunday morning because I was out of hours, so it was some pretty serious trailer truckin' to make it back to Pittsburgh by Weds. morning, but I got 'r done! Now
I'm at the house until Saturday.
At the new job
I finally got fed up with living the life of a big company driver and staying out on the road for months at a time, with only 2-3 days off. So after meeting up with my buddy Derek who works for a small company here in Ohio at a Pilot Travel Center in Boonville, MO one Saturday, and finding out they were hiring I decided to put in an application, and after getting a load to Ohio I went in for an interview and got the job.
Navajo wasn't able to bring me directly back to Denver so I relayed a load to AR then picked up a load going to Cheyenne, WY which I dropped off at the yard in Denver and turned my truck in.
I caught a midnight flight out of Denver which went to Detroit and connected in Akron, which I got for $100.00 and I was back Friday morning and drove straight down to my new company and got into my truck, a 2004 Peterbilt 379 with a 475 CAT. It's a big beautiful, powerful machine, I love it!
This is a great job, home 2-3 days a week and I still get at least 3,000 miles a week, .37 cpm and plenty of benefits and bonus programs. They wash and service the trucks every week, they polish the trucks with a high speed buffer and everything. After 9 years on the road, it feels great to work for a small company who really cares about the drivers who take care of them.
It allows me to do what I love, which is drive OTR, but still have plenty of time at home so I don't get burned out on trucking like I was before because I had to be gone for such long periods at a time. It's a well established, debt free company which has been in business for around 30 years, with a good customer base, so it's not like the last small company I worked for which relied solely on brokers and finding loads on the web.
Navajo wasn't able to bring me directly back to Denver so I relayed a load to AR then picked up a load going to Cheyenne, WY which I dropped off at the yard in Denver and turned my truck in.
I caught a midnight flight out of Denver which went to Detroit and connected in Akron, which I got for $100.00 and I was back Friday morning and drove straight down to my new company and got into my truck, a 2004 Peterbilt 379 with a 475 CAT. It's a big beautiful, powerful machine, I love it!
This is a great job, home 2-3 days a week and I still get at least 3,000 miles a week, .37 cpm and plenty of benefits and bonus programs. They wash and service the trucks every week, they polish the trucks with a high speed buffer and everything. After 9 years on the road, it feels great to work for a small company who really cares about the drivers who take care of them.
It allows me to do what I love, which is drive OTR, but still have plenty of time at home so I don't get burned out on trucking like I was before because I had to be gone for such long periods at a time. It's a well established, debt free company which has been in business for around 30 years, with a good customer base, so it's not like the last small company I worked for which relied solely on brokers and finding loads on the web.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Drowning in Budweiser!
Last week after getting my truck fixed after the break in while I was home I was called into dispatch with another driver and they told us we needed to take our trucks down to Cleveland, TX to recover a tractor and trailer that had been involved in a rollover accident and bring them back to Denver.
We would do this by hooking my truck to the back of his truck and driving team down to TX and he would bring the tractor back and I would bring the trailer back. So we hooked up and headed for TX. He drove the first 8 hours, and I drove the last 8 hours.
When we arrived at the towing company yard we found the truck and trailer locked behind the gate so we called and they said they would send someone down.
He arrived but only in a small truck, so we waited for the big KW rig to show up to help us unhook the truck from the trailer, but shortly after he arrived he had to go out on a call because a trash truck was about to flip over somewhere. So we waited a few hours, in the meantime we had to climb in the trailer and even out the load because all the beer was shifted to one side and it would have just rolled over again if we tried to pull the trailer out of there.
We finally got the truck unhooked and hooked up to Scott's truck and I hooked up to the trailer and we went to the Love's truck stop to park his truck, from there we headed for the local landfill because by federal law when a beer load is wrecked the product must be destroyed since it hasn't been taxed yet. We got to the landfill about 4 pm and they closed at 5, so we went back to the truck stop and called the company to have them send us 2 helpers from labor ready the next day. We were at the gate at 6am when they opened and our helpers were right behind us, it took us 8.5 hours to unload all the beer by hand into the landfill.
We finally got it all done and back to the Love's then the company decided they wanted to load the trailer back to Denver, so I had to go to a truck wash in Houston to have all the broken glass cleaned out, which costs 250.00 , Scott already took off and headed back to Denver pulling the twisted remains of the T600 and I loaded up the next morning down in Pasadena. Luckily the trailer is still in pretty good shape besides most of the passenger side panels will have to be replaced, I only had to replace one busted marker light on the back corner.
Apparently the driver was going north on hwy 59 when he got off the wrong exit and decided instead of going down the ramp and back onto the highway he would jerk the wheel and try to get back on, and the load shifted and down it went! That driver was terminated at the scene and sent to the bus station.
By the time we got done with this adventure we all smelled like a brewery! There was broken bottles and beer flowing everywhere. I left a 10 mile trail of Beer from the tow yard to the landfill, it was pouring out the back like a 53' keg! LOL
We would do this by hooking my truck to the back of his truck and driving team down to TX and he would bring the tractor back and I would bring the trailer back. So we hooked up and headed for TX. He drove the first 8 hours, and I drove the last 8 hours.
When we arrived at the towing company yard we found the truck and trailer locked behind the gate so we called and they said they would send someone down.
He arrived but only in a small truck, so we waited for the big KW rig to show up to help us unhook the truck from the trailer, but shortly after he arrived he had to go out on a call because a trash truck was about to flip over somewhere. So we waited a few hours, in the meantime we had to climb in the trailer and even out the load because all the beer was shifted to one side and it would have just rolled over again if we tried to pull the trailer out of there.
We finally got the truck unhooked and hooked up to Scott's truck and I hooked up to the trailer and we went to the Love's truck stop to park his truck, from there we headed for the local landfill because by federal law when a beer load is wrecked the product must be destroyed since it hasn't been taxed yet. We got to the landfill about 4 pm and they closed at 5, so we went back to the truck stop and called the company to have them send us 2 helpers from labor ready the next day. We were at the gate at 6am when they opened and our helpers were right behind us, it took us 8.5 hours to unload all the beer by hand into the landfill.
We finally got it all done and back to the Love's then the company decided they wanted to load the trailer back to Denver, so I had to go to a truck wash in Houston to have all the broken glass cleaned out, which costs 250.00 , Scott already took off and headed back to Denver pulling the twisted remains of the T600 and I loaded up the next morning down in Pasadena. Luckily the trailer is still in pretty good shape besides most of the passenger side panels will have to be replaced, I only had to replace one busted marker light on the back corner.
Apparently the driver was going north on hwy 59 when he got off the wrong exit and decided instead of going down the ramp and back onto the highway he would jerk the wheel and try to get back on, and the load shifted and down it went! That driver was terminated at the scene and sent to the bus station.
By the time we got done with this adventure we all smelled like a brewery! There was broken bottles and beer flowing everywhere. I left a 10 mile trail of Beer from the tow yard to the landfill, it was pouring out the back like a 53' keg! LOL
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