Thursday - early

Not pretending I got up early because I wanted to hit the day running. I just woke up and wasn't able to get back to sleep so I decided I might as well get my butt out of bed and get the day rolling.  

Yesterday was long - longer than normal anyway.  I knew it would be before it started for I needed some new tires on the trailer.  I actually tried to get tires on it on Tuesday but Love's said it would be hours before they had anyone available to even get started on it. 

I just told them thank you and turned around and left.  I'm not going to voluntarily sit in a shop for hours waiting on tires.  That only happens if it's a blowout and that usually happens on the side of the road.  Love's is usually ridiculous on the wait times and I avoid them if possible, but if it's tires, I will go in and ask if there is a long wait.  You see no trucks in the bay? Yeah that means nothing. Their techs could be and probably are on the side of the highway somewhere fixing a truck or replacing a blow out. 

This time, I drove 35 miles to Hope, Arkansas and tried out the Southwest Tire Mart there.  We have a national account with them, but they aren't exactly known for their speedy service either.  I got there and it was a very old, dilapidated set of buildings but it was bustling with activity and a large number of tire techs working. Popular place apparently.  No other semis there tho.  It took a couple of hours to get 3 tires replaced.  

I had noticed a small but deep chunk of tire tread missing out of one of the drive axle tires, I had to have that replaced. Actually, I wanted their opinion on it but since it was at the edge of the tire, I knew they would say replace it.  I sat in the waiting room and played games the entire time, I'm not going to sit in boredom at least.

The part that got me about yesterday? I pulled into the Texas inspection station - I was forced in their by their flashing lights and the fact that I wasn't bypassed on the E-log device.  You run that device and hope that it says bypass on it, but usually I am pulled in there. You just roll through the scale and if they don't red light you or come out on the porch and wave you down, you just keep going.

Yeah, no. There was no rolling through. There was a trooped on the porch and waved me to stop.  He went to the trailer and started kicking the tires on the front axle of the trailer.  I saw what he was looking at, the outside tire was bulging - heavy load. Truck sitting at almost 78,000 pounds, the tires are going to bulge a little and if you happen to stop on a small bump, the tires on that bump will bulge out like that. 

He did that for a minute, completely missing the rather worn out tire on the axle behind it, was satisfied the tires weren't flat and waved me on.  I thought I was toast on that one.  Even one bad tire can get you put out of service and you have to have a tire truck come to the station to replace it.  Now let's get this straight, if you have a blow out on one tire, the world isn't ending.  You pull over, inspect the damage and you call for help. That's it.  The truck isn't going to blow up, roll over or otherwise magically disintegrate before your eyes. 

Anyway, all the tires on the truck and trailer are good and should be good for quite a while now.  I have negative feelings about constantly having to go into shops and spending endless hours in them.  I don't care if the company pays me for it - the pay isn't that much and it eats up a good portion of the day or even causes me to have to stay overnight.  

2 more days of work including today and then I get the weekend off.  No surprise there, I worked all last weekend and didn't say a word to them about it.  I just let it go, did the work and got it over with.  If they do that, I sure want my next weekend off or at the very least, Sunday off.  As for now? 

Well, the kids are getting up and it's soon time to get the daily grind going.

G'day