This is vacation month. I picked an older photograph for the sidebar, because it spoke to me a little bit. I am still recovering from a bit of a cold, but not nearly at 100% yet. I will be glad when it is over.

The pains of the GPS

The new Overdryve 7 Pro II is getting on my nerves. It had a 6.5 GB update, but that did not take propertly. A full update is going to have to wait until I get home and have a more stable internet connection. I will try again when I hit a Love's and can park close to the repeater, but I am not really hopeful. It will do what I need it to do for the first mile and final mile runs, but it will be nice to have it working propertly. We shall see.

The Dallas Grump

I was headed down to Texas when I got a call from Brian in operations. He instructed me to do my drop and then hit the Dallas terminal to have my DriverTech replaced with the Tablet. I am not looking forward to this. I just have this bad feeling that it is not going to be as easy-peasy as they say it is. But you never know. Only time is going to tell.

The sub-header is a reference to an old movie. I don't remember what it was about, but I know that it has giant frogs that spoke english in it. Just a funny thought for today. And I need funny today.

The flow of the day

I hate it when I am right. So, I made it to the terminal by 830 in the morning and checked on my appointment for the afternoon. I got the truck turned in, went to the class, and that was suppsoed to be that. I lucked out, and they pulled my trailer into the shop for service, and it came out just as I was finishing up. Sounds like it would all be good, right? Yeah....NO. The old driverTech system and the new system are not compatible. They are unable to transfer the logs. I spent about two hours working on a resolution but could not get it fixed. I will deal with it tomorrow. But the initial resolution is that I will reset and go from there.

The rest of the story

I have had almost no sleep, so I ate some dinner, settle in and went to sleep. Tomorrow is another day. I am still not feeling 100% and I am still grumpy as hell. But I will get over it. It is almost home-time. Woo hoo. I am still pensive about the projects for hometime. It is going to take a lot of communication and cooperation to make things happen. I don't know what we will get done, but I am sure it will be fine.

I sat on my butt all day. I am really moody and I do not like being stuck in the terminal for all this time. It has me really grouchy. I sat for, quite literally, hours looking out the window. But tomorrow is another day, and I should be back in motion.

I spent most of the morning tracking down the right person to answer the right question. I went through Safety, Ops, Logs, Tablet Science, and a bunch of others, but no one knew how to fix my logs. I finally got hold of Monica in Logs and she entered eight days manally. All good. Sadly, I forgot that the class was on-duty time, so that delayed the end of my 34 for another six hours. Pfft.

On the road again

I finally got my timer up and was rolling. I headed into Ft. Worth, got loaded up and headed toward Cajun Country. It was a pretty easy drive once I got out of Dallas. Then I shut down in Port Allen, LA. I have to remember never to do that again. That is a tiny little place. I think they have under 20 parking spaces. But it was noonish when I got there, so I grabbed the last hole. I figured out what is wrong with the GPS.. There were 37 damaged files from when I interrupted the update right after I bought it. I started those updates, but by the time I left, there will still six to be fixed. Pfft. Hopefully in the next day or two. Luckily, I looked ahead and checked my maps. Pearl River, where I am headed, is one of those nasty places with the restrictions.

coming soon...

Thanks to Jinn Erudite, I have a new story to go on the main page. Jinn was nice enough to read "Sasquan" for me, and that should be up in the next day or so, watch for it. It is a fun little story about a pussy cat.

I have been rolling from Lousiana to Texas and back. I have had a bad few days with one thing popping in on top of another, so, since I cannot say anything good about anything, I am going to take two days off from the Blog. I will be back tomorrow and in a more positive frame of mind, gods willing. Nothing great or terrible has happened, just a serious of things that have gotten on my nerves to the point that I can't even hold a coversation without saying something nasty. It happens to us all.

I don't know if it is running through the South, or being in Texas, or just one thing after another, but I was in a terrible headspace. I was even provoking arguments with people. That is never a good thing. However, last night, I lit my candle, drank my mint tea, did yoga, meditation, and self-reflection, and I think that I am in a better place now. No, I am not writing from beyond the grave, and I am still in Texas. But I know part of the problem. This state stinks. I do not mean that in a general sense, I mean that in a literal sense. All through the state, there is something in the air. You can smell the oil, it gets on everything. The windows, the truck, my skin. I feel dirty all the time. The water, even treated, tastes like it. I don't know how people actually live here. And the people down here are really nasty. Just in general.

Rolling in Laredo

I have never hid the fact that I dislike Texas. But rolling Laredo is the worst. The roads are tight, the people are nasty, and it is just a negative experience. But I got it done. I hit the shipper and was sent around the block with the wrong address to pick up an entire load of hot sauce. I got loaded up, then it took 90 minutes to scale about five miles away because of the traffic. I got out of there and headed East. Not too terrible. I did have to shut down about 90 minutes ealier than I intended because they are closing portions of I10 at night and the detour was rough. Rough on the truck and rough on my patience. I set down in a little Sunoco and went to sleep. Not a terrible experience, but I am hoping that I can make up some time tomorrow.

I got about seven hours of sleep and hit the road just West of Houston. This has been one of the most uneventful days in a long time. I don't really like it, because that is usually a precursor to very bad things, and this close to home time, that doesn't make me a happy camper.

Rerouted

The only signficant event for today was that I received a message to reroute into Tunnle Hill GA to the terminal to have an updated GPS installed on the trailer. I have this run to Maryland planned almost down to the hour. If they take more than two hours to install the GPS, it is going to mess everything up. I have to consider if I should mention the brake on the trailer to the shop. But what harm could it do? They are legal, just barely.

So, I busted my ass and made it into Tunnle Hill as quickly as I could. Only about a six hour run, but I rolled through the gate at exactly 100pm, right when I told the shop I would be there. I spoke to the trailer shop desk, and they should have it out by 300pm. Righ on time, so away we go...

It was a nice dream

Before I could swing a dead cat, Ops was on the phone with me, telling me that the brakes, that I told them were messed up, were messed up. They were just barely legal. Which is what I told them, but it is good to hear it from a professional. Of course, this blows the entire timetable. They can't finish it today, and I only have nine hours left on 70. So decisions had to be made. But sadly, they will not be made today. I left it in the hands of Kevin, but he never got back to me. I am assuming I am down for 34 hours. Which actually pisses me off. I have not had a comfortable 34 break this entire cycle. At this point, the company is taking advantage.I have been rerouted repeatedly and each time, it costs me time and money. In the beginning, Variant was "for the driver" and "no more bullshit". But that does not seem to be the case anymore.

The rest of the story.

So, here I am for the day. I talked to a few people in operations, and a bunch of other drivers. The drivers are not happy. And things are just getting worse with these fuel prices. A bunch of lease/purchase drivers were through, and they can't meet payments with the added requirements for fuel. Ouch. I am glad I am not an owner operator. But I did what I usually do, I listened to coversations. I only engaged in a few of them, but I got a lot of opinions.

School - Winding down

I got my final post done for my current course, and set up the next course. I started the final paper and I am about 1/3 through it. But I was having problems bringing the thoughts together. I have 12-15 pages to bring together the causality and effect of Meghans Law. It is a fascinating case, especially since I found the entire court transcript. I am enjoying criminal justice, but in retrospect, I kinda which I had taken abnormal psychology. People are the cwayziest things. I still have a few days to get the paper done, and I am rolling at about 99.53 right now, so I am not really worried about it. But I can't take the easy way. I will nibble away at it.

The Muse

Finally, we come to the MUSE. She is not playing right now. I just can't get into anything creative. I am hoping that this is just a dry spell due to this tour of duty and that things will get back to normal after vacation. We shall see. I hold myself pensive over what will happen the next couple of days.

This is the run for home. I tooled around the terminal for most of the day and did some heavy work on my paper for my class. I double checked and have the new class set up, so I think that I am ready for school. Around mid-day, I checked with operations and they have a run for me. They were hesitant to give it to me that early, but did anyway. It is not a good thing. They have me running into central Pennsylvania after a live-load in North Carolina. They have me going almost 300 miles to pick up an empty trailer. This makes no sense. If there is a problem, then I am going to be stuck right near the shipper with no trailer. But I will cross my fingers. Then I have to do 550 miles to PA, and hope for a run headed the 1050 miles home. That is close to 2000 miles in four days. I don't understand why they can't run me like this all the time. I would never have anything to complain about. But they can only do this, and it is always down to the wire, when it comes close to home. And I am not the only one saying this. They did the same thing to a bunch of other drivers. I am seriously thinking that they have lost their commitment to the drivers.

Amusment

I did find out that I now have an ambassador website. Apparently, it has been there for a while, I just did not know about it. And they are now asking that we DO NOT vet drivers. Just get the meat in the seats and let the "process" weed out undesierable drivers. You know what? Many have taken advantage of this, and I am going to use home-time to reassess myself. They want drivers? They don't care about quality? Perhaps it is not my place to judge them. I have to weigh my moral compass. And of course, I will bounce this off the wife. She is good at being the angel (or devil) on my shoulder

The end of the day

I got some sleep, then worked the paper a bit more, then it was time to head out to North Carolina. It is a push against the clock right now, and I have a bad feeling about this. But all that I can do is drive onward.

Hey, look at that, shades of Tattoo. You remember Tattoo, right? Played by Hervé Jean-Pierre Villechaize on Fantasy Island? I miss that show. Boy that was long ago. And I just found out that the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer turns 25 years old this month. Oye, time sure flies, don't you think?

Anyhoo...

So while I am hanging out on Islands and with killer blondes and vampires, I am boiling like a crab pot left too long on the gas. I got my pre-assignment last night and rolled just before midnight to get an empty trailer in North Carolina. I did not even make it out of Chattanooga before I got a "priority" message saying, nah, you don't need to do that, because you are going to Byhalia, MS to go to Virgina, no wait, to Texas, no wait....You get the picture. Five change ups. But all the time, no empty. I sat in Jasper overnight waiting for an empty location, and you know what? I am pissed off. These games have got to stop. They do not understand why they are losing drivers hand over fist, and then they do something like this. I am about out of patience.

Making it short

Without going into the gnarly details, I can say that this is the closest that I have been to walking off the truck that I have been in a long long time. What finally happened, after three different empty locations, and then a 400+ mile drive to get one, is that I was running low on time. I called safety about this sleeper berth bullshit, and because I was not actually in the sleeper, instead waiting for the empty location, it would not fully apply. I let ops know this and shut down about 30 minutes from the pickup. I was then told that since I had X number of hours left (sleeper berth included) that the CSR wanted me to roll and check in at the shipper. I did. Only to find out that the load was cancelled five minutes before I got there. I almost went ballistic. But I bucked up, headed over to Olive Branch to the terminal and shut down for the night, watching the snow and ice come down. Tomorrow is another day.

I woke to a pre-assignment right down the street at 8:00am headed up toward Ohio. That is within range to get me home on time for Monday. I popped on over, rolled hard and made it to Monroe with about an hour to spare. They even had an empty trailer available. As soon as I listed my load as cleared, I had a new dispatch going from Brownsburg, IN to Tupelo, MS. This should be the home-run and this is how it is supposed to work. Back to back stacks of runs. No down time. Too bad they only seem to get it done correctly, right before we get home. Weird.

The evening

I shut down in a rest area in-route to the pickup. I was tired, so off to sleep right away. At least it is warming up a bit, so there is that. If things go right, I should be able to make it home about 300-500 Monday morning, which will give me time to clean and pack the truck for my vacation. WOO HOO

This is the home-run back toward Memphis, and of course, it is going to be very annoying. Regardless of which GPS I used, it was a backrun route running South through Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi. I could not make it all the way, and to find a place to shut down, I had to go about 10 miles out of route near Jackson, TN. I shut down in a rest area (again) and that was the end of the day. But tomorrow is hometime, so it's all good.

I was chomping at the bit as my timer ran down. I ran the last 120 miles into Tupelo, and wished that I had looked ahead. But then agian, NOT. I could have made it all the way and shut down at the Love's in Tupelo. But if I had done that, I probably would have been earlier than I was, and that would not have been a great thing. I did not realize that the delivery was to the Barnes Crossing mall to the Home Goods. I had to wait for them to get there. I had a 0700 appointment, but they did not show up until about 0830. That got me home about 90 minutes late. But it did give me time to get the truck prepped and cleaned, so I did not have to do that when I got to the yard, nor did I have to leave it for when I get back next week. So it is all good.

Good to be home

The wife set appointments for tomorrow, because I may not have made it home. But she got to the yard, we loaded up my stuff, and grabbed some lunch on the way home. I should feel a lot more relaxed than I am, but right now, I am pensive. There is not a good solid plan in place yet for the next seven days. But we will get there. There is a lot to do, and some of it is highly detailed and time-consuming. We went over the outside of the house and by the end of the day, we had a list.

I was up very early and got a few things knocked out, but not as much as I would have liked. I had the appointment with Wong, and that was a test of my "don't kick the puppy". There is just no sense of time with these professionals. Wong dragged his heels, and then I had to wait almost 45 minutes while the nurses in the lab discussed their love lives, sex lives, food, and lives in general. It was very annoying, but since I was listening in, I know at least three people that I would never be interested in associating with, EVER.

A git er done day

Once I finished with Wong, I hit the house for a rushed pseudo-breakfast, then it was off to the eye-doctor. Interestingly enough, my eyes have improved signficantly. And we have no idea why. Granted, I had to spend almost $500 on new glasses. Sigh. Then it was off to Sam's club and then Lowe's. We ended the day doing some odds and ends. I fixed the Joe saw, the wheelbarrow, and did a few other things. I was exhausted by the end of the day. Two days gone and five more to go.

Okay, a few people emailed me about what happened, if i am allright and all that. I am fine. I took a vacation and part of that was to not worry about the blog. But I am back on the road, and things are back to normal, whatever the hell that is.

So, what about the vacation?

It was not exactly a time to relax. It was a planned renovation vacation with me and the wife, with some help from the kiddies. We got a lot done, but not nearly as much as we hoped. The big things are that the back yard is mostly cleaned up, the pond in the front yard is filled in and ready to be seeded, and Laura and I built a gate for the backyard from scratch. That was really impressive. I will be uploading pictures of it shortly, I just have to find the time. Yep, time is a commodity that is still in short supply.

Nope, just not feeling it. I was up and in motion early. I double checked everything for school and finished packing up to get back to work. This time, it is going to be six-weeks out. Oye. But I think that I am ready for it. So on with the show.

The day

Laura ran me up to work after crossing guard. I really expected to sit and wait for hours for an empty trailer and a load. But nope, they have one right on the Olive Branch yard for me, headed up to Kansas City, MO. I grabbed it and was up the road. But still not feeling it. I was very tired. But I did get the truck set up before I left, the food fit perfectly. I got everything stowed away, and to the best of my knoweldge, only made one boo-boo. I put my Indiana coffee cup next to my salsa. Oops. Clickity clack, broken cup. But that is better than most things that could have happened, I can replace a cup. It would have been worse if the Salsa had broken.

Updates

A few updates to things. First of all, I don't have to struggle with the weekly update to my audiobooks for the road. I now have about 500 hours of them on a USB key. That should hold me for a while. So that is something. In addition, Laura gave me her Alexa Auto. I was able to get it up and running in the truck, so now I have access to all the things that I would with the DOT at home. I started with some trivia and a few song games. Tee-hee. Next is my ongoing patience adventure. Laura noticed it. I have an excessive amount of patience now. I am not letting anything get to me, at all. I know that there are those that would say that it is unhealthy, but that is only if you retain it and don't release it. I am using my meditation and lucid dreaming to release it as it backs up. Thus far, it is working quite well. I even stood in Lowe's druring vacation for the better part of 45 minutes while the customer service reps did the dance of the IDONNO (I don't know - get it?) and I did not make a peep. I don't know about the rest of you, but I am pretty damn impressed. Not even a snarky comment.

The rest of the story

Again, Osparia and the rest have suffered because of my neglect. But they are back into the daily regime starting at the end of this week. (I am using this week to get the routine set up) and they should be recieving daily attention soon. School is going well. I got my final grade for my third course, a 99.7, and I am into the new course on Victimology. Not bad while driving a truck full time. I am back to practicing the Sax at the end of the week as well. Woo hoo.

More to come

Time to get on the road to Kansas City, MO and go from there. But I have a routine for keeping notes during the day now, so things may become a bit more involved.

I slept okay. I woke once to the sound of the pitter patter of rain on the cab, but that was okay. I got my butt into motion and updated some email, the blog for yesterday, and checked school and all. Right on time. I checked my tablet and there is a pre-assignment for a 51 mile puddle hopper to St. Joseph. You know, everyone complains about those, and I don't see the problem as long as things keep moving. Oye.

The day continues

I would like to say that the day was uneventful, but I don't like to lie. I can't say that there was an invasion by aliens or anything like that. But there was a lot of zoomity zoom on the slickity slick, and cars in ditches, fender benders, and just generally a bad time driving. It was grey and overcast all day, with a big layer of fog the entire run. It was interesting as I traveled through windmill country. I could only see the bottom of the spinning blades, it was very eerie.

Today was a very uneventful day. Thank the gods. But I am already starting to feel the road. I have been working 14 hours a day while only getting about 500 miles a day. These long docks are really getting on my nerves. It is great that they are keeping me running, but these docks know where we start to charge them, and they run it right to the line. But tomorrow is another day. Right?

Yep, I am headed down to the land of plywood and blue hair. I managed to shut down last night with just a few minutes to spare, and was told to move quick-like-bunny this morning to get to MagickWoods materials to pick up a load that was overdue yesterday at 4:00pm. I gotta go go go and get this load because it has to be at the reciever in Florida by the 30th. In case you missed basic geography, that is 1000 miles in six days. But that is not the fun part, the fun part is that the load was not ready. I had to sit on site and wait for about five hours until they were ready for me. Again with the delays. They are nickle and dimeing me to death here. But I am loaded, and I am headed down to Kissimmee Florida to hang out with Mickey and Goofy and all the rest. Nah, just going to drop at Lowe's and then get out of there. I can't stand Florida.

Let's learn something

Just a quick school update. I am doing okay, but not really into the swing of school this go round. I am meeting my goals, and maintaining my 4.0, but my heart is not really in it. The topic this six weeks is Victimology, and I should be highly outspoken about it because it is a political trigger, but I am not. I am doing what I have to do to get by. I think that it may be time to retire very soon. Like maybe to ... COLORADO?

Disappointment

Laura told me that the recent storms in Memphis did some damage. Sadly, part of the damage was taking out that gate that we worked so hard on. Luckily, it looks like the retention screws were not tempered and just pulled through the holes on the hinge, easy enough to fix. At the same time, the choice about the pool has been made because a branch came down and took it out. Sigh. I know that Gaia is trying to be helpful, but she needs to back off. Luckily, the pool was empty, but now it has to be torn down and dragged to the curb.

A project complete

The new computer is finally set up fully. The final steps were completed this evening and I am up to 100% operation. Woo hoo. That took forever. I have said it before and I will say it againk, I am sick of this two-factor identificiation. It is nothing more than a way for companies to get your phone number and sell it to their vampire friends. I noticed since I had to do the two-factor on Facebook, my spam calls have increased by almost 10 a day. And I am done with spam calls. Every time they call me, I am as rude as I can possibly be. And it is going to stay that way. It is an intrusion. I am on the national do not call list. I have requested being removed from "the list". So if they call, then I am going to hurt their feelings. I don't need to sell my house to the flipper, I don't need to change car insurance, or life insurance, or home-owners insurance. I am not going to give money to a stranger over the phone to save the Ungarian Flatuating Doome Bird, I don't want to stop the nukes or save the whales, and I sure as hell don't think that we should nuke the whales. Biden is not the devil, and trump did not win. We don't need to stop the steal because the steal did not happen, and we don't need to kick the democrats out of office to stabilize gas prices (we need to look at the profit margins of big oil and understand who is making money in all this) And finally, I do not need to handle my erectile dysfunction by the use of a brand new credit card (at 27.99% interest), buying a Russian Bride and taking her on a cruise.
Wow, that got away a bit didn't it? But I think that you get the picture.

Another uneventful day, loaded up and headed toward Kissimmee Florida to drop off at Lowe's. Nothing really to tell because I am riding tired and not looking forward to a jaunt into the South. So on down the road, shut down, and sleep.

I got my tailbone out of the bunk, even though I did not want to. I should have had a six-hour drive ahead of me, but it turned into eight hours because of the routing. I have no idea why the routing software chooses the worst ways to go. The tablet, and my GPS actually routed me through downtown Kissimmee, FL. Right past old town. Even in the middle of the day, that should never be an option. But it added two hours to the trip. I made it into Lowe's and as expected, they did not have a trailer available. They have quite a few loaded trailers, but no empties. The way of life.

But wait, there is more

The area around the home of the great talking mouse, Mickey, sucks for truck drivers. There is very limited parking because let's face it, it is a vacation area. I left Lowe's, bobtail, and had very limited time. I had to hit the Love's in Davenport, FL, about 28 miles away, and it took me an hour to get there. But that is okay, because it is early afternoon, there will be plenty of parking. Right? Yeah, not right. The entire stop was loaded up and double stacked. So I am in Florida, no trailer, no prospects of a load, and only 11 hours left on my 70 hour clock. It does not bode well for our gentle adventurer. What could go wrong?

I will tell you what can go wrong.

They got me a load out of Jacksonville, FL headed to Houston, TX. And Time in operations asked me about it. Could I make it to the live unload on time, assuming they can find me a trailer? The answer is that I can only make that drop if they can find me an empty trailer in one go. Sadly, the South, especially Florida, is a black hole for empty trailers. In the end, we decided that the best solution was to take a 34 reset where I am instead of scooting around the sunshine state looking for an empty. Sad but true. So I am down in Davenport, parked on the backroad (they have extra truck parking off site), with no plans for my 34, and no access to anything, not even the good Columbian. Sigh. Not the best answer. It tossed my mood seriously off-kilter, and I did extra sleeping. Tomorrow is another day.

So, I am down for 34, got extra sleep, but not really restful, mostly because I am parked on an angle and there are cruncies in teh truck that have migrated into the bunk. But I can be proactive. I checked my points, and bought myself an airhose with nozzle to clean the truck. It took only a few minutes to disassemble my seat and get it installed. Amazing what you can do when you follow instructions. I blew out the bunk, cleaned the floor, and generally cleaned out the entire cab. It took almost two hours. I got some exercise before the temperature got too hot, and I did my meditation and yoga. It did not take me back to hugs and kittens, but at least it took me back to a place where I can tolerate the world around me. I finished up school, caught up on email, and watched a movie. I got a meal from Arby's, two fish sandwiches. One was really good, one sucked. So that is half a win. Then I settled in to run out my time until my 34 is up. I did not anticipate anything good from this area.

It is good to know I am right sometimes

So, I figured that I would get a message that would send me bouncing all over Florida looking for a trailer. Surprise, that did not happen. What I did get was a call from Stephen in planning. They have a hot-troubled load. A hot-troubled load is one that has an appointment that must be met, but a driver dropped the ball. Stephen was very honest. The driver dropped the trailer in the Orlando Dropyard, then kept pushing out his time available until he could NOT meet the appointment. I asked Stephen the name of the reciever. CVS. And now I know why the driver is avoiding taking the load in tomorrow morning. I have been to the Orlando CVS site. It is one of the worst in my experience. But I said that I would take it. I will hit the drop yard first thing in the morning, grab the trailer, and then head into the CVS DC and get it done. I will come out with an empty trailer, and then be headed up to Jackson, MS with a promise of an "excellent stack" out of Mississippi. yeah, we shall see. I know I have the Jackson run, but beyond that, we shall see. I settled in for the night and we will start this up tomorrow.

Usually on my 34 hour breaks, I will do my updates as to what is going on in the world of Chris. Since I am sitting on my butt running out time, I figured that I would do my update since I forgot about it yesterday while I was "on break". So here we go.

The state of the mood

I'm blue, dabba dee dabba die... I hate that song. But it fits. I have only been on the road a week and it is grating on me. Granted, I am putting that down to being in Florida, because none of my normal tactics of breaking the negative cycle are working. I just don't like it down here. Oppressive heat, rude people, geckos (no, they are not trying to sell me insurance), and just generally dirty. The water is slimy, and that translates to the coffee and tea. I am living off my bottled water in the truck. And I am not taking another shower until I get out of here.

Ah, Criminal Justice

I am headed into week 3 of victimology, and so far, it is an interesting course. I am not sure which degree I like best, my Master's in forensics, or the pending master's in criminology. They both have their merits. I got my final grade for my previous couse, a 3.97 GPA. So all good there. And I am rocking this class. The professor, Bard, is a bit strange, but in a good way. I can't explain it, he just seems to have a morbid sense of humor and vision of the world. The great thing is that him and I think quite a bit alike. Yesterday, I had to write my first annotated biography. I have never done one before, we will see how that works out. But all-in-all, everything is good there. I did find out that there will be a seven day break between this class and the next. That is good. Thus far, they have all been back to back, and without that break....ouch.

The creative edge

Ospira is taking a nap after her little trounce with Lilith, and Eve knows that she is sentanced to death along with her husband and master, Adam. Eve knows she got the sticky side of the stick, and the veil between the world of man and the world of magick is decending. For now, we will say goodbye to Lilith and Ospira and jump to current times, to a waitress and a day trader that are about to have their lives turned upside down.
I have finally gotten the time to weed out my photography class. I have weeded the lessons down to 10 that I find interesting and educational, and I have them worked into a daily plan. Hopefully, come April, I will have the time and drive to get the cameras out, clear the memory cards, clear the cards on the GPS, and do some interesting and hopefully, creative inclusions in the blog.
Blow daddy blow And, I have finally gotten back to the Sax. I have it out, and cleaned up, and I play it daily, even if it is only for a few minutes. Fun times.

Stuff man, gotta have stuff

I finally got back in on the Amazon account and I updated my want list. It has some pretty neat stuff on it. And for those gift-giving occations, I figured it would be a good idea. Go me.

And how did the day end?

So, I get a call from planning asking me to do them a favor. They had a hot/late run to the CVS distribution center that was a bit of a problem. The problem? Someone dropped the ball. So they asked me to pick it up, go ZERO paid miles and deliver a live unload using lumpers. I knew it was a half-day run. The return was that I would get a "decent" run out of Florida and be back on the road. I got the trailer from the drop yard, handled the dock and the lumpers, and then was sent over to Tampa to pick up at RC Moore. I got there, and was met by a surfer dude security guard that was nice enough to inform me that the run was reset for tomorrow night, almost 30 hours away. It was 500pm local, in Tampa. The chances of finding parking are pretty much null at that time of day. I wound up rolling North to Wesley Chapel, about five miles from my old house in Hillsboro. Gawd I hate this area. I set down and received notice that the RC Moore order was cancelled, but I can pick up at Cargill Salt at 1100am tomorrow, headed 420 miles to Locust Grove, GA. Not exactly the decent run I was told I would get. But i have no fight left in me. I did send Donald a message about the lumper issue, and a one-hour wait to get it authorized. We now have a specialist working on that. Hmmm. We shall see. I was a bit irked off, but I am working on patience, and took it in stride once I found a place to park. Good times.

Time is a funny thing. I feel like I have been out for a month, but it has only been eight days. It feels like yesterday was the first of March, but here we are rounding the last days. Time flies and rolls like a wagon through a bog, all at the same time. Isn't that fun?

The morning begins

I woke in the rest area in Wesley Chapel, FL. That is a good thing, because if I woke up somewhere else, that would have been a bad thing, because it would have meant that I moved and did not realize it. I did my Yoga, meditation, exercise, and centering rituals. I slept way too long, and it brought on body aches and a bit of a headache, but those went away with some movement. I looked around, and there were squirrles. A lot of squirrels. So, I grabbed a handful of nuts, and sat on the ground, tossing nuts. Closer and closer until I had one brave little tree rat come right up to me, stand on his or her hind legs, and look at me like "give up the nuts human!" I gave up the nuts. It was a moment. I like moments.

Extra time

I took advantage of the extra time and did a bit of saxophone, answered my pending emails, cleared out my spam, looked at properties in Trinidad, updated the blog, and then did an EH hacking lesson and a Photoshop lesson. I really need to get the camrera back to working order. It is pissing me off. But I think that it is okay again. Damn thing is just old and likes to act up. I tried to get a picture of my squirrel friends and the shutter jammed. It took half an hour to get it to release. Technology sucks! (says the computer tech). I am trying very hard not to let anything get on my nerves, but it is hard, and the fates brought me to Florida. Stop testing me Universe! Stop testing me.

PhotoCredit: Christopher Klein: Florida / Georgia State Line

It took me hours to get centered and balanced, and that was all blown away in a heartbeat. Sigh. So, today is mostly a work thing. Sorry. I hit my Home Depot drop nice and early and even managed to get checked in using their automated system without incident. However, as I suspected, they did not have any empty trailers. Of course, they had plenty of loaded ones. I discussed this with the big-dogs of Variant later in the day and they confirmed what I already knew. There is a serious issue in many docks right now with hiring and retaining workers on the docks. People just don't want to work, even on those docks that pay premium wages. So we have loaded trailer sitting at sites waiting to be unloaded. As we are not the premier company that deals with Locust Grove, GA, (Werner is), we are processed on an "as needed" basis. So our trailers sit. So I bobtailed out. I was pretty impressed, they found me an empty trailer, sort of, at the Dollar General DC just a few miles away. The trailer they sent me after was in a dock, but the guard pointed to two trailers and said "take one of those". I did. I had to clean out the trailer because it was a mess, but that only took about a half an hour. Then I got my next dispatch. And there went my COOL. It picked up eight hours later, just 15 miles away. Sigh. I tried to communicate my unhappiness, but it fell on deaf ears, even when I did get a response three hours later. Long and short, I used the "Sleeper berth" option to get the load then headed to Ellenwood. I was about two hours over my Hours-of-service at that point. I was not down for 15 minutes when the distributor called me and said "Ooops, we screwed up, we forgot to load four pallets on your truck". So I have to go back in the morning. To add insult to injury, the live-unload is for 900pm tomorrow night. Almost 30 hours to go 350 miles. I have requested that they reset the appointment, we will see what happens.

Communication

I am just about at the end of my rope. My health is starting to suffer and I have become lethargic and a bit depressed. That is not a good thing. So I shot an email over to Donald, that eventually got forwarded to Mohan and Ben, whoever they are. They are looking into it. But where I stand right now is that I am rolling into day FOUR of my work week and I have done about 550 miles. I am not happy. But I am trying.

Catching up

My drive is suffering, and that is never a good thing. I have had more than 30 hours since Monday where I have been down, and not on break, and I should have been doing stuff. But I didn't. A lot of it was just staring off into space. I did manage to get my first of two discussions finished, and hopefully, I will get the other one in the morning. Just hoping for a decent nights sleep.

The wish for a good night sleep did not happen. There is a storm running thorough the area, and the only way that I know I got any sleep is because I had some very weird dreams. I hit the road right at the 10 hour mark and made it over to Blue Buffalo to get the last four pallets. It is damp and rainy and I am grumpy. Drivers are being butts, and I saw one spin-out on the median on my way over. I got to the dock and did what I was told last night by parking in front of the shipping office. I got yelled at by a spotter that I could not park there. I kept my cool, but barely. I got into a spot, then watched another truck pull in and park right where I had been. The driver got out and bumped fists with the spotter and walked into the office - ahead of me! I did not scream, I did not yell, and I did not wish terrible things on both of their ancestors and every future born child. Things are looking up. Of course, it was funny to watch the driver that jumped ahead of me when he forgot to set his brake and got out of the truck...That was funny as hell. He did not hit anything, luckily, but I felt vindicated by the Universe.

Ah the rain

The rain continued after sunrise. More to come...and now comes the more. The drive to Greensboro, NC actually turned out pretty nice. I got to the distribution center about seven hours early. That kinda bites the big one. They did let me check in at 5:30PM, but it was a long time before they got me into a dock. I guess you have to take the good with the bad. Look, positivity.

Something New

I engaged the assistance of Nora Atkins to post the Variant information to CDL websites, and we will see how that goes. May take off, may not. Only time will tell.

The miles dance

After a bit of a twelve week audit, I am not exactly happy with the miles I am being given. I addressed this problem with the company, and right now, there are seven people looking into it. They appear to agree that "somethin' ain't right" so we will see what kind of fruit that bears. The bills are getting paid, but since the new year, I have only hit my 2500 mark 5/12 times. Have to get that fixed. The good thing about Variant is communication. When things go wrong, they toss teams at it! Team HO!

The downtime use

With the downtime, I got school caught up. I have to watch my data useage right now because I am very close to that 40GB cap that maxes out at midnight. So no cat vidoes! Awww. I wanted cat videos. But I am working on a few other things. I have a business plan loaded up, three of my books, and a few other things. I will have to do my paper that is due on Monday after the data resets, because I need some serious reference material. Ah, the life of a trucker.