So I get to Marriott Courtyard in Brownsville earlier.  I didn't ask for a high end hotel, at all. I just wanted  a bed to sleep on.  Remember that I am still driving a rental truck, that has no sleeper and therefore no bed.

I was sent down to Brownsville today. I reminded my manager last night of the need for a hotel. She said contact here wherever I ended up today (not sure why she didn't think I would end up down here) and she would get me a room.  So, 14 hours today.  It's not just driving. It's getting the truck loaded, getting on the road, 1/2 forced break, fuel, hills slowing the truck down, traffic in Houston. 

Oh!!!! I saw the most insane accident I have ever witnessed today!  This dude driving a very nice pickup - pulling what I guessed to be about a 25 foot long trailer.  Whatever caused the situation to start, I'm not sure.  It was just him in that accident, I think he hit the center concrete divider and that's what caused the trailer to shoot out sideways.  Whatever the cause, I watched this truck literally get booted up into the air, do an almost 380 degree turn - IN THE AIR - and the LAND ON HIS OWN TRAILER!!

I was coming from the other direction so I didn't stop.  But I did see the guy try to open the door to his pickup and then ? He slumped back on his seat and that was the last I saw of that.  I don't think he died, he just got messed up in being slung around like that.

Oh, well anyway. I mean, I drove all day long.  I got to the yard down here, dropped the trailer and then went over here to the Marriot.  Tractor only, I'll pick up the trailer in the yard in the morning.  Anyway, this dude behind the counter - really nice guy, not faulting him at all for this situation - looked up my name. Oh yes, I was talking to her earlier.  She said something about you having a CLC card?   I'm looking at him dumbfounded, I'm sure. What is a CLC card? It's a corporate card to make purchases.  Uhh, no, I don't have that.  My manager was supposed to take care of all of this.

I mean, I pushed it all day long to get to a hotel so I could get to a room and watch the entirety of the SOTU.  That's State of the Union Address - Trump.  After trying to call my manager numerous times and texting her, I gave up. Do you mind if I just go sit over there and have a beer or something? I really wanted to see the SOTU.  I gave up on that, but these people came behind me and set me down at a table at the lounge and walaah. This table had it's own 36 inch flatscreen tv, they turned the thing on and there was Trump, greeting people on his way in

So anyway, I wanted that beer.  There was a dude sitting up at the bar, alone, no one else around.  Is there anyone working here?  He smiled and said he could get me a beer if I wanted one.  Umm, he didn't look like a hotel worker, but what the heck.  About the time he was going to do it, the bartender showed up.  Well I started talking to this guy about politics since it was the SOTU and was all into that.  Well, I got up from there and went back to the table to watch the SOTU, he came over, uninvited, to watch it as well. Have a seat! No, he said, I 'like standing, I sit too much.

We talked back and forth for quite a while.  I was a little bit amazed to find out this cool, laid back dude, probably in his 30's, casual dress, was the CEO of whatever company, supplies custom tools to auto manufacturers to install certain parts into new vehicles that robots don't, apparently, do.  He never actually said who he was, he just went back behind the bar and helped himself enough times that I got the feeling he was more than he was coming off as. The encounter was interesting because he didn't come off as a rich "snoot". Just a laid back person.

Anyway, I never did get a hold of my manager, though I tried repeatedly, and finally just paid for the room myself. I was pretty disappointed that I was facing such a scenario yet again with this company, tho..  It's a $179 room, I asked because I considered just paying for it myself.  I was like, ohh. Well, the dude said he could bring the price down for me.  Why? I wondered.  Why were they giving me free food, beer and a lowered rate?  Well whatever, I didn't say that to them, I just was having fun, but inwardly, a but upset about all of this nonsense I have gone through with this company. They have good intentions, they just don't follow through, or, they simply don't have their act together.  I have jumped through numerous hoops for them, I would like to wish that they could at least get their act together. 

Well, I paid for the hotel.  I wasn't about to go looking for a place after working 14 hours and I had had a couple of beers, so totally illegal to drive a commercial vehicle even if only a tractor or the fact that it was only a couple of beers.  Not worth it. 

It was an hour and a half later my manager finally contacted me back. Texting. I had called her - several times.  Then I ended it with a text.  She got the situation resolved and I asked them at the desk, is this going back on my card? 

Welp. It's 11 pm.  I spent hours in that lobby.  I mean, I was starving and went back down there and asked this very energetic bar tender if she had any food. Why, sure! I have leftover stuff from the happy hour, would you like some? I made it myself! It's really good! Why yes!  She brought me a big plate of it, another beer and said no thanks for paying for it.  Ohhhhhkaaaayyyyy!!  I let her a nice cash tip after eating and drinking and here I am, in the room. 

I'm really trying to make this job work. But there have been so many negatives.  I think the worst part of it, for me, is that I"m in the 4th truck since starting here less than 3 months ago.  Obviously I'm not going to be staying in a rental truck and certainly not one without a sleeper and have to pay for a hotel every night.

Well whatever. Long day, tired, going to sleep.

So, I get up this morning - hotel - slept pretty darn good, actually.  Sat around and watched endless news for a couple of hours and got their version of a continental breakfast. Quite limited affair, but a bowl of cereal, couple cups of coffee and a blueberry yogurt were good enough. Around 10:00 am, I called the shop.  Uhh, hey, I just need to know what your prognosis is for fixing that truck? I need to know whether to ask my manager for another day at the hotel?  Yea, your truck isn't going to be finished until Monday and possibly even Tuesday.  Oh.

Well that was a bit disconcerting. I'm going to sit in a hotel room for 3 plus days?  My mind wandered to what, exactly, is there to do in Tulsa?  But, I called my manager instead and told her.  Yup, well she ended up on a conference call about this situation.  But, that call didn't end. It was getting close to 11:00 am, get out of the room or not?  At 10 of, she finally calls me back after I sent her a couple of texts.  Well, they've got a truck for you at a rental place, here's the address, etc etc etc.  Take a taxi or whatever and get over there, get the truck, get to the repair shop, get hooked to the trailer and then send me and email address where I can send your logs for the last 8 days. 

I'm on electronic logging now, I ditched the log book as soon as I got into the newest truck they dumped me in.  Much easier.  So, I had to dig out all the hazmat stuff in the truck in the shop and my PPE gear - quite a lot of it - and find a way to get all of that stuff and my own stuff into a daycab.  A daycab doesn't have much space in it. No sleeper and and just the area in front of the passenger chair, on the chair itself and a bit of room to the side of it.  I got all that stuff in there, got my logs printed out and got up to the plant.  I am now in a 4th truck since starting at this place - I haven't been working there very long.  The plan was - or is - to deliver that load, drive the rental back down here - I made it home today after that - get another load Sunday morning, deliver it Monday morning and then?  I dunno what they'll do.  Have me wait until the truck is fixed or go get another load.  I guess it depends on what the shop says. 

It's a pretty short run - 324 miles each way.  You'd have to do a lot of that per week to get any money out of it.  No thanks.  I'll take one of those per week but I want a longer run to get the miles.  I'm slowly finding out that there are a great deal many more gravy runs than I know.  But, I don't expect to know anything, I just find the stuff out as I go along - mostly because my manager sends me on a coveted run that I didn't ask for but definitely not turning down. 

I want one of the mythical new trucks they have been talking about forever but have never shown up.  And then, don't even think about taking me out of it.  Or do so and I'll have some thoughts about moving on to greener pastures.  For now, I'll deal with all this moving around from one truck to another. It's going to get old eventually. Or they can leave me in this day cab and then they have to get me a hotel room every night I'm out on the road lol. 

Oh, did I say my friends are moving back?  I don't think I did.  They're desperate to get out of Georgia. They tried a personal loan, but that was quite a lot of money they were asking for and not so great credit.  Well, then his mom decided to offer them a loan.  That was a "selfish" type of thing, it's a much closer trip and doable for her to come visit them here. Georgia is MUCH further away.  I just texted her to find out the situation with the loan.  My friends living here - I can call them friends now - asked for 2 months advance notice when they are coming back.  Which is fine. I already told them I would help them get into a place if necessary. They always pay their rent on time, that has never been an issue.  I'd have to find a 3rd renter for the place, tho.  2 don't cover all the bills even if the rent is cheaper for the house than here. That might be an interesting proposition, considering where I live. 

Anyway, it's midnight and I'm still wide awake. This job is really toying with my sleep/wake cycle.  But that doesn't really bother me as much as this truck situation. And I guess they figure they can do that as long as I'm on 90 day probation. Well, month 3 is coming up. I believe the 12th of next month is 90 days.  I'm starting to get used to the job and all of it's rather strange nuances, but this truck situation? Nahhh. None of the other drivers are going through any of this. 

Alright well I don't like staying up too late. Messes up the next day, I have stuff to do tomorrow since it's only a day off and then back to work. 

Well, an extremely long day, as it turns out.
I left early for the plant to get the trailer loaded. 
Got a quick bite to eat after that and headed north.  Up in Paris, I stopped for 50 gallons of fuel - loaded heavy, didn't want to add much weight by putting in too much fuel, but I had to put some in there at least.  I got up to this ridiculous turnpike called the Indian Nation Turnpike.  I call it ridiculous because the road is terrible and you are paying to drive on it.  I mean, if you are going to run a toll road, that damned thing should at least be a smooth ride?!!

Whatever.  I got 38 miles down that road and KABLAAAAAAM!!!!!  I thought I had blown out a tire, it was really loud.  I pulled over, got out and walked around the truck.  No tires blown.  All tires in excellent condition, in fact.  Got back in the truck and fired it back up.  A loud whirring noise from under the hood.

Well, I don't drive Volvo tractors and I saw no latches on the thing.  How do you open the hood?  I actually had to look up a youtube video to find out how.  There is a latch inside the truck underneath the steering wheel you pull. That's it, just pull it and it opens up. WAY easier than any other truck I've dealt with.  Well I found the culprit quickly: Line blown off the turbocharger, oil spewed all over the place, I wasn't even guessing: blown turbocharger.  Oil doesn't come out of them in that hose, lol, if there's oil, there's trouble.

I took a pic, sent it to manager, who didn't reply so I called her.  I'm walking around trying to find a place to get enough signal strength.  This is Indian reservation and my experience with being on them - which is not a little - is that you usually don't get any signal strength once you're well into it and in some cases, they have their own cell towers and no one else's are allowed.  If you want cell service, you have to buy their cell service and they won't even allow other carriers to use them for roaming and higher fees. 

Oh, forgot, I tried to drive it before calling anyone.  Well, take that back, I tried putting the hose back on and then driving it, just to make sure I wasn't making an error in judgment here. But I knew.  That thing wouldn't get up over 25 mph.  I got up the hill, coasted down to the bottom to an exit ramp and then pulled over into an area with ample room. Still next to the Turnpike, but 10 feet of space.  I'm not a fan of being broke down anywhere any more.  I mean, I never have been anyway, but people in this age don't pay attention to their driving.  I don't trust anyone else on the road, I have no reason to after all the carnage and wreckage I've seen in the last few years. 

So, calling her started the process - a very long process. I saw on a map that the next town was 35 miles down the road, I looked on Google and found truck repair shops there, amazingly enough.  But, that's not my problem.  this company has a corporate department devoted solely to this stuff.  The first question was could I limp it there? No.  Minimum speed limit is 50 mph.  No way I was going that fast and I don't want to get involved with DOT out there with a limping truck hauling hazardous materials, thanks. 

So, they decided to sent out a mechanic and try just rehooking the line. The thing had blasted off of there with a hose clamp, I knew that wasn't going to do anything, but, I'm not going to say anything, either. It's their call.  Their money, let them deal with it the way they want.  40 minutes later, this very old wrecker shows up. I've never seen anything like it.  this truck was so old the metal had rusted away showing the insulation inside on the sides of it.  They had taken foam insulation bottles and tried to fix the fenders, the doors, the entire truck was in terrible condition.  How is this even legal? I thought.  It got worse - but that portion of the story in a moment. 

But - at least - they did have the sense to call a wrecker. I have serious doubts my company had any idea who they were calling or what they were getting me into . 2 dudes get out of the thing, they were cool.  I dunno, just that old thing took me by surprise.  Looked like some ghost of a truck that had been resurrected and needed to be put down, lol.  Well, they were trying to get authorization to do the tow, but started dismantling the thing anyway.  I was on the phone - a lot - talking to managers and people in the company and people in another company that our company uses to deal with break downs. After 3 hours, the truck was hooked up, the thing was ready to go.

And yes, I told them straight up what they were hauling.  It's explosive, highly flammable and extremely cold.  Just in case that's gonna throw you off.  This guy wanted the business, quite obviously.  Freaked him out at first, visibly, like, really? Yeah.  We won't have any problems but I wanted you to know in advance before this goes anywher.e  He was looking at the tires, well there isn't any weight on it anyway.  Umm, no, that's not true. This truck wasn't loaded to 80 thousand but it's still up there at 75 thousand. 

He's just looking at me and was asking questions about it the entire trip - 135 miles worth.  I can't imagine what that tow bill must have cost.  The real shocker, however, at least for me, was yet to come.  We were well down the road when he looked at me and said:, did you know I was just in the hospital because of a heart attack? 

Now that freaked me out more then me telling him there is explosive chemicals in the trailer.  Or at least, IMO it did.  How do you have stints put in your lines and start driving a truck again 2 weeks later?  Is that even safe?  I can't possibly imagine it being so.  I thought about that the rest of the trip.  When we finally arrived in Tulsa, got the truck in the yard, the dude that runs the place - it was closed btw, he just showed up because I called and said we were coming before they all went home for the night - he told the tow truck driver to back the thing up to the top of the hill, he wants that trailer well away from everything - yes I told that guy too.  I'm not keeping secrets about this stuff.  No one is going to come back at me and say I didn't tell them. 

Well, this tow truck driver and his worker had hooked the connections up to the springs, not the axle.  After he had been backing up a while, he stopped.  My trailer was going off all whack because his truck, my tractor and then trailer. I told him to pull forward to straighten it out and then start backing again.  Wellllllll, when he did that and then put it in reverse again, the stinger - the thing that connects the to the truck to tow it - slid all the way back on the springs, causing unknown amounts of damage to the underside of the truck. Radiator fluid came gushing out, that's for sure.  So now, the problem went from a blown turbo charger to whatever this tow truck did to it and add to that the fact that the shop said they have several trucks ahead of me.  Lol.

After yet another call to my manager - they aren't going to let me stay here overnight, I told her. Yes, I asked the dude, yes I knew what he was going to say, yes I wanted him to tell me I couldn't so I could get the company to pay for a hotel and yes, she did get me a hotel.  I told her the closest place I saw was a Microtel.  Valerie actually got me started on these properties the first time I went up to meet her and spend a week with her.  I liked it.  It wasn't perfect but it was a good deal.  Ann was like, well I don't know if they have that on the corporate hotel list.  I mean, okay whatever works. This one is a mile away is all I'm saying. The rest of the hotels around are much further away from what I was told. 

She called me back -just as we were leaving the Volvo place - with the info.  Hotel room paid for.  Just one night tho.  Yeah, well, I have my doubts that truck is going to be fixed before I have to check out of here, but we'll see.  I don't blame them for only paying for a night at a time, tho.  This deal here is going to cost thousands of dollars in the end.  I just had to laugh when I saw the radiator fluid dumping all over the place.  Not because it was damaged, but just because the day was going.  She said, well, maybe this is a sign that truck isn't for you!  Yes, please find something else for me, thanks. I didn't say that, I just thought it. I don't want to be stuck in this thing forever. 

Well, that's it. I'm at a hotel.  It's got a 44 inch flat screen tv with Cox cable.  It's got a microwave, and fridge.  And wifi of course.  I'm getting paid to sit here. I really can't complain.  I like hotels : )

My new bed is coming tomorrow. I was hoping to be home for it, but turns out even without a broke down truck no way I would have made it back in time. 

Well, I'm getting off of here. Long day, getting sleepy. 

For the first time in a long time, I was able to pay almost all of next month's bills in advance. The only ones not paid are not due yet and aren't showing.  That isn't but a few of them.  That is a wonderful feeling.  I'm buying some things that I have put off for a long time before I start paying my debt down. I want it down to below 30% of my credit.  It's currently somewhere around 35%.  I think a couple thousand dollars thrown at it will take care of that problem. That will cause a rise in my credit in a few months after I do that.

The elusive 90 day probation period  is the only thing really holding me back from paying down debt.  I'm spending some money on things I want, but I'm also keeping a reserve in case that dreaded "worst" thing happens, they come along, do a review and tell me my services are no longer desired at their company.  I'm doing my best to get everything right and not complain about anything.  Like this truck I am in now. It isn't the worst thing on earth but it's older and the sleeper is smaller than newer models. Meaning there isn't room in the very narrow cabinets in it to put a refrigerator in it.

I was talking to the manager about it. It's yours if you want it.  Well, this thing is dinging me for running the engine all night long, I told her.  It doesn't have an APU in it so the only way to run cooling/heating is to idle the engine.  If a company doesn't provide an APU in the truck, that is the only way to keep it cool or warm in there. I was up in 30 degree weather in Ohio.  Not the coldest on earth but would you want to try and sleep like that?  I didn't say that to her, that's just my thinking. I also told her about the narrow cabinets and no room for a refrigerator.

In my mind, if you're going to be out 2 or 3 nights, you want to be able to bring some food with you and eat that instead of this junk food they serve at many truckstops.  Well, most truck stops really. It isn't really good for you to eat that much of that on a consistent basis and the only way out of it is to have a fridge stocked with leftoevers and lunch meats and whatever suits my fancy. It's also much cheaper to bring your own food. 3 days on the road I can spend $70 plus on food. I can get by with half that price tag or even less with my own stuff. A small microwave would also be good.

That rental truck I was in before was perfect for that.  It had huge cabinets with outlets in them for your appliances and it had a bunk bed - that I wouldn't need but used for my clothing.  I'm just thinking this claim of new trucks is either not realistic or they are so far off in the future that I have to figure out how to get used to this truck in the here and now. I'm still unhappy that I was put in this thing but the 2 other new drivers are still in their rentals.  I haven't said anything about it, it's just my feelings.  The money I'm making pretty much offsets everything, but that isn't going to last forever. I need a permanent truck - like all the rest of the drivers have besides us newbies - that I can deck out and know that I am not going to get slip-seated and put into yet another truck. That gets old, quick.

Anyway, I just made $1,200 or more in that 4 day run.  Tomorrow morning, I'm back up to the place in Oklahoma that I've been to twice now.  As long as they get it unloaded in a reasonable amount of time, it's a 2 day trip. Leave tomorrow, come back sometime Friday afternoon or early evening. That's around $400 to $500 depending the length of the wait.  A nice, small town restaurant right across the street from the plant.  We don't have to stick with the truck, they do all the unloading. And last two times, it took 3 to 6 hours to get unloaded.  It's all detention pay and I'm not going to make any more money by getting back quicker so might as well get it for all it's worth.  They don't even make you get out of the truck at this place while unloading, or turn off the truck. It's pretty cool to be able to take a long nap, get something to eat and not have to sit in a hard chair for hours.

As for this 34 hour reset.  I spent yesterday after I got back doing nothing.  Then today, I got up early, started cleaning my room and taking care of business.  I actually never made it to Walmart, now that i think of it. Oh well. I can deal with a 2 day trip without getting what I needed.  Anyway, I got online, started checking out mattress sales, found some good ones two towns over and headed that way.  I tried out a lot of beds. They wanted to sell me $1,500 and $2,000 beds, of course, but I wasn't biting on that. That would have meant going into debt for a bed, nothing I was interested in doing.

They also kept trying to insist on memory foam, but after I laid on several of those beds for enough time, I knew I wouldn't like it. I'm used to "traditional" beds and that's what I wanted.  So, they got me onto several of those. I picked one out, negotiated the price down a hundred bucks and that was that. They are bringing it Friday, hauling off the old bed - but not the one I'm using. The one we need to get rid of Rene is using and it's a piece of junk. She will get my bed - which is in far better condition.  I already have the comforter and sheet set for the new bed thanks to mom's Christmas present.  Just haven't had the time to get over there to Longview and get this done.

Alright. I've been wanting to do that for a long time now.  I got out of there, went home, doing laundry.  I dont have to be up near as early as the last run, which I'm thankful for. I am really not a fan of having to get up at 4 am to be on the scales by 6 am.  Which, it turned out, they actually wanted me on the scale at 5 am, meaning I would have had to get up at 3 am.  I think for future reference if they want me there that early, I'm going to get the truck and trailer over to their parking lot and sleep there for the night instead of trying to do all of this so early in the morning. But being there by 8? No problem. Start the day at 6 am and I'll be there on time.

So, I just ordered 5 new Henley shirts online. I like Henley's, they work for a lot of different types of things you want to do and they aren't radically expensive.  I have let my "wardrobe" go for a long time, mostly because my previous job wasn't paying anything and I couldn't really afford to buy new clothing.  As much as I hate the idea, a trip to the mall is in order to get even more new shirts.

So, that's it for now.  I think I"ll go to bed relatively early.  I have decided to get up at 5:45 am so I have ample time to get to the scale on time to get loaded. 

My 550 miles cashed and trashed. Meaning I got it over with.  Got up early - 5:15 - fueled the thing up and only stopped for mandatory 30 minute rest.  I was trying to get here as fast as possible to enjoy maximum time in this old motel.  Well hey, I didn't want to spend $100 on the hotel across the street, this was less than half that price.  And frankly, not bad!  44 inch flat screen TV with Direct TV, nice functioning AC/Heat unit (definitely heat at this time of year) fully ONE place to park a truck, a refrigerator, microwave, clean carpet, nice firm bed, funky bathroom haha but i can deal with that. 

In fact, the only thing that threw me off was the parking lot. It's a U shaped affair and I didn't see any place to park a truck contrary to their listing.  So I called.  I booked a room there but I don't see a place to park a truck?  Oh yes sir, right next to the dumpster.  Hey, if they want that big old thing in there, I don't care, but I was definitely asking first before pulling in there. 

Heck ya. I'm totally enjoying this room. It was $46 with tax lololol.  Watching the Jags V Patriots.  I'm afraid the Patriots are going to make a come back and win this one. They seem to do that a lot.  Next up after this one, Vikings v Eagles.  I'll root for Eagls.  Not a Vikings fan at all.

Anyway, I've got some decisions to make.  I want my new bed.  My mom gave me a $300 check at Christmas and I"m going to spend all of that and then some on a new bed, not a used one.  Not even sure what to get.  I"ve never bought a new bed, but I hate bed bugs and just want something I know no one else has slept on. Not that that's a big deal.  Next, thinking about paying down my debt to the 30% mark. That's what they claim is the max amount you should have - before it dings your credit.  After that is just paying everything on time, or at least not letting it get past 30 days due.

I keep thinking about a newer vehicle, but I keep getting held back by this 90 day probation. It seems like it's taking forever.  And I dunno if they do some kind of evaluation at the end or what?  The only thing I've been told is "you're doing good" by my manager.  I'm just tired of driving this old car.  I'm going on 10 years in this thing now.  That's long enough.  The question is, save the money up and pay cash, or get into a loan?  Well, just something I'm pondering at the moment. 

At 5:00, get up, get out of here, get to the plant and - do my first Ethylene unload.  They're dumping me into it now that I got the initial learning experience under my belt.  "They're very helpful".  I hope so, but I have this in my memory now.  Hook up the 2 lines, build up the pressure to whatever they want it at, open the vapor valve slightly - they equalize it, close that and then open the fill valve all the way. Then they just let it go, you hear all this pressure go swooosh! into the truck's tank.  Then, open the vapor valve up all the way and stand there and keep the pressure up.  I think Ethylene is 60 pounds. The LNG was 40 pounds. 

I'm no longer fretting it.  It is what it is. They just tell you what to do, their only deal is they don't want to touch the truck. They don't want the liability.  And they don't want us touching their plant controls.  Which is fine by me, lol. 

Rene's birthday today. I sent her an Amazon gift card - but she didn't get it at first. Amazon is loaded with anything on earth you want to find, I don't think she realized that.  Took a while to work through that.  So I'm waiting to hear if she found something. \

Well, I'm just relaxing.  I've got 3 more luxurious hours to just sit here and vegetate, and then off to bed and then, off to the races tomorrow. Cause as soon as that truck is empty, Im right back on the road and getting as many drive hours as I can in to make sure I can get home by Tuesday night.

So.  I got out of the truck down south after getting unloaded - and I mean directly after getting unloaded, just pulled off the scale to get out of the way and then take a look at everything - and saw this huge "ding" in the back of the trailer on the side.  I was shocked.  I started thinking about the entire trip. Nowhere on that run was there anything that could have happened to cause that kind of damage in the location it was at.

I literally dwelled on that from yesterday late afternoon until this morning around 10:00 am when I got back to the yard, went directly to the manager's office, sat down and told her what was going on with the trailer.  Oh, yes, she replied, is it on the passenger side on the back of the trailer?  Why yes, yes it is.  Gary Lewis - the guy that started all kinds of s*** with me for asking him a simple question - backed into a - whatever, I don't remember what she said since waves of nerves started leaving me.

I"m still on 90 day probation, another month or so to go.  Something like could likely get me hitting the road to find another job.  I'm like, ohhhhh, okay.  Well I gotta admit it got me going.  But I had thought about the entire route there - this damage was obviously caused by backing into something, I hadn't backed up the trailer the entire trip down there.

Anyway, that over, she said I'm on the scales early for the first load tomorrow. Okay - that IS early, btw.  In fact, so much so I'm going to take a nap in a few.  The load is going to somewhere in Ohio, I don't have the specifics yet.  I think the first load is at 5am?  I don't remember but when she sends me the text with the info on it, I'll know.  The day starts an hour and a half before that.

This period paycheck wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  Not near the amount of the last one, but considering the last one shocked me into numbness, I'll take this one.  It's 3 times the amount - well more than that 3-1/2 times the amount of my paychecks at Ferguson.  I'm getting all kinds of stuff done I had put on hold, so tho I'm getting a lot, I"m spending a lot too.  That will gradually slow down, but then, I'll start dumping money to pay down credit card debt.  Once I get it down to less than 30% of credit available, then I can think about some other things I'd like to do. _____________________________________

That was..yesterday?  I'm sitting at a Love's Truck stop in ...  Matthews, Missouri.  Heading to Stryker, Ohio. I should be there by mid afternoon tomorrow - providing I don't have any more issues with this truck or trailer.

The truck - I pulled up on a railroad scale this morning - it's the only level scale in that plant - and it showed the steer axle at 13, 640 pounds. That's 1,640 pounds over weight for that axle. I was not over gross on the entire truck, it was less than 79,000. But you can't pull into a weigh station and think they are going to let you go being that far over weight on the steer axle.

Anyway, I figured to fix the weight issue by sliding the 5th wheel back, effectively putting more weight on the drive axles and taking weight off of the steering axle. Problem? I pulled the  valve - it's pressurized air operated mechanism on the 5th wheel - and found out there were huge holes in the tub that supplies the actuator the pressurized air. 

Well anyway that set in motion having to call my manager, find this place, get them to fix it and replace a missing mud flap and then, finally get on the road. Well not so fast.  That fifth wheel hadn't been moved in a long, long time.  IT took forever to get it to loosen up so I could slide it forward and backward.  But it was so touchy, it would either slide all the way forward or all the way back before I could slam on the brakes and get it to stop.  It took another 45 minutes in a parking lot to get it where I guessed it would be close.

After that, drove to a Love's about 90 miles up the road, weighed it - the front axle was still 280 pounds overweight, but I was close! I had to try 2 more times - well I wanted to try 2 more times to figure out what the weights would be at different positions. 

Finally got out of there and drove almost 7 hours straight without stopping, until I was forced to stop for the day. On a "normal" day, I might have gotten another 100 more miles down the road.  Actually, even more than that if I'm really pushing it. I would have done it today, too if I hadn't had all these problems, so I could get to Ohio early tomorrow and just get a hotel room and hang out for the day. But it looks like I won't be there before 4 tomorrow after noon - not sure if it's worth a hotel to stay until around 5 am and then have to get up and go unload.

Oh, and that's what this is all about. I am being thrust into the world of unloading these Ehtylene trucks now.  I've already done LNG, almost the same exact set up but different pressures. The point is that learning how to unload opened up a lot of new potential for much longer runs.  Get a 2,000 mile run and maybe a 600 or more mile run every week and I"m sitting pretty.

Well I was going to write more, but I woke up at around 2 am last night. I don't know what work me up, but when I did, I started panicking.  Lol.  How come the truck isn't running? Where is the vibration? Is the truck broke down? I was looking around in pitch black - which turned out to be my bedroom. Lol again.  I just had it stuck in my mind that I was in the sleeper of the truck, not the bed in my bedroom.  So anway, maybe more tomorrow. I'll have plenty of time haha. 

Sitting at a truckstop for the night in Cleveland, Texas.  Took the plant way too long to load the trailer this morning and then another hour and a half for paperwork (which usually only takes 10 minutes).  No worries, I get paid for all that waiting.  Then, down to La Porte, Texas - just outside of Houston to the east of it - to make the delivery. 

I was pretty amazed at this operation.  Not because it was so great, quite the opposite, because they lacked even the most basic of safety protocols (hard hats, fire proof overalls, even steel toed boots and eye protection apparently not mandatory).  These people were in regular street clothing.  The real surprise, however, came at the end.  I had to unhitch the tractor - this is the only protocol they have in place here for safety - so I went all the way around and parked so I could watch what they were doing. I wanted to be ready to hook back up and get out of there and get as many miles as I could before my time ran out. 

Well, the pressure apparently was too high, so they just started releasing the vapor right there, at the plant!  Like what?!!  Every other plant I have been at, they have sensors installed. If the product gets near those sensors, alarms go off, the plant automatically shuts down and there is a lot of trouble ahead.  In fact, that happened up at UMASS after I left there. A driver from our company let the pressure build up wayyyyyy to high - to the point the safety valves went off automatically when it passed 70 PSI.  Sirens, automatic shut down, police and fire automatically called through some system they had set up. 

Well anyway, I got out of there just in time to hit Houston traffic, so I lost about an hour's worth of driving time.  I've still got almost 3 hours of driving to get back up to Longview.  Even so, I should still be able to get there by around 9 am and have a whole day at home for the most part.  Unless my manager sends me out on another run as soon as I get back, which I hope not cause I forgot some stuff for this - truck.

You see, they got rid of my rental truck while I was gone and had this old behemoth brought in from where ever. It's got 500k miles on and the worst part, it's got an automatic transmission  I like them in cars, I despise them in trucks. The last time I drove one, which was 15 years ago, the thing was an abomination.  Well, I had to change my tune a little with this thing.  It is quite clean in side - much better than the other trucks I have been in recently. It still needs a good vacuuming and the carpet is dirty, but not near as dirty as that thing I was driving up in PA/NY/MA.  It's in good condition though. The paint is good no body damage, the interior is mostly intact.  And, it doesn't even have a hint of cigarette smoke smell that I can detect.

But, the thing was a pain to figure out how to drive.  In fact, this morning, I backed under a trailer and it wouldn't budge.  I went over the lines, the hookups, the truck and valves 5 times before finally coming to the conclusion that the cold must have something frozen up in the trailer brake/air system.  I got under another trailer and - sort of took off lol.  Pretty much took me all day to get used to driving this thing.  I just wished I could have had enough time to get at least another hour down the road.  But, these trucks have Quaalcomm and that means everything you are doing with the truck is visible by corporate safety department.  You just don't get away with stuff like you used to be able to long ago with 3 or 4 or even 5 log books.

Anyway, tomorrow is payday, meaning it comes into my account tonight. I'm a bit nervous about this one.  I just didn't get the miles like I did on my last paycheck.  I have no idea what it's going to be, but I am quite sure it will be nothing even close to last paycheck's numbers. Plus, health insurance is going to start to be taken out, so I think it was $150 per paycheck. Speaking of miles, this run I am on now is pathetic. Round trip it's not even 500.  Wouldn't be bad, I guess, if you could do it in one day, but the time it takes to load these trailers and unload just eliminates that possibility. 

Moving on.  I had 4 full days off. I didn't really want that much time off, but I had to get the car and the Jeep registered and they were closed all the way up until yesterday at noon, same with the bank. Bad weather here shut down schools, government and even a lot of businesses shuttered their door and had employees stay home. 

When I left this morning, Addler knew exactly what was going on. He just sat on is bed giving me this extremely pathetic look lolol.  Gave him a hug but this trip isn't going to be that long. 

And, I got a call today from my friends in Georgia. They have been chomping at the bit for some time now to get out of Georgia and get back home - home being where I'm living.  So, last week they were saying they were planning on coming back in August if it were at all possible. Today, they are applying for a loan and hoping it will go through so they can move back in two months.  That was a bit surprising.

I thought I had at least til' August to get used to the idea of switching things around that drastically. From 2 older people to 4 younger people, 2 of which are a baby and a toddler, one of which has a very healthy set of lungs.  I'll have to move back to my old room - which isn't that bad but it needs some things.  Namely, a window ac/heat unit and new carpet. I intend on getting a new queen bed here very soon.  I would have already done it but time and motivation have held me up.  I have had so much other stuff to do that I just haven't had time to hook the trailer up to the Jeep and drag it over to Longview to see if I can find a deal . 

The thing I have really gotten used to is Rene's cooking. She cooks every day.  This is something she wants to do. We don't really do much on the cooking realm, she does all of it.  So, obviously, I'm going to miss that.  She also takes care of my dogs.  So, I'm going to ask them if they are going to get a place with a fenced yard, cause if they do, I can drop them both off at their new place, wherever that may be, on the way to work and then I know the dogs are well taken care of - versus being left outside for 10 to 12 hours per day to get into trouble.  That's pretty much what dogs do when they are left alone for a long time, they get into trouble. 

Well, I'm starting to get sleepy and I want to get up as soon as my 10 hour mandatory break is over and get rolling.

I'm finally home. Uneventful trip, besides the huge line at security checkpoint to get to the airport's gates.  That was utterly ridiculous.  I showed up early, thank goodness, because I didn't want to get caught up in any snafus.  The potential was the rental car company - but they dealt with that in short order and got me on a shuttle quickly.  Second could have been checking in baggage - and I ended up having to shell out yet another $60 to have my bags checked, but I'm going to turn that into the company for reimbursement.  Now THAT line - to use all of those kiosks - took quite a while. There were literally a hundred people in there at least waiting to use one.

And it becomes obvious that people aren't adept at using those things, so each person or group of people takes longer than it should.  Tho I'm not faulting those people. Not to mention there are endless screens you have to scroll through to actually get your boarding passes and get your tags for your luggage.  The only kind thing I have to say about it is, it gave me an option to change my seating.  They had me set up to sit in the middle again, and I was not doing that even if I had to pay to get a window or aisle seat.  Well, turns out, there were plenty of window seats available - for free - so I changed that.

But after that? The security line. We were in it so long I became friends with a complete stranger haha.  We talked about our companies, what we're doing there, etc.  They had a beautiful doggy going around in circles sniffing people for drugs, I am assuming.  Or bombs? I have no idea.  It stopped and sniffed at me for a while, but I assume that's my dogs. I'm certainly not a drug user and have never had a bomb in my possession in my entire life - and don't plan on acquiring any.

After that was done, finally through all of that junk and waiting for the plane.  This was an Airbus. A big, long thing. Not the double decker, but much bigger than Boeing's 737.  I can't say that I had ever been on that kind of aircraft before and I can tell ya, I was much happier on it. There were 2 inches beyond my rather long legs that normally would have been cramped up in the seat in front of me on a 737.  That was a super nice benefit.  THIS time, I knew to download the app for free inflight movies - go-go something or another.  Quite a few movies on that list, too, it wasn't a short, limited list. I hadn't seen the newer version of Planet of the Apes, so I watched that one.

___________________

Much later. We have all decided to go to Chili's to watch the first half of the Steeler's game. I'm hoping they come out of the gate kicking @$$.  I'd really love to see them get another ring in their repetroire.

....well that didn't turn out so great. Perhaps next year.  Amazing the Steelers could have such a great record and then get their butts toasted by a team running for a wild card.  The way stuff goes in the playoffs.

Anyway, I"ve spent a wonderful day at home.  Slept in.  Got a lot of stuff done. Went to Chili's. Had an excellent, smoked steak dinner at home. Visiting with my doggies.  I hate to stay off the road too long, but I have to stay out until Tuesday when the banks and more importantly, the court house is open so I can go re-register my vehicles. Slip of the mind, saw it too late and right when I was leaving for PA.  I don't even know if there is a truck at the yard for me now. They took the rental truck back.  I'm going to get a bit tired of getting thrown around from one truck to another to another.

Well here we go.
This morning, I texted the manager up here.  Done at UMASS, do I head back to UGI?  I wanted to actually do at least one more run to get a bit better paycheck. But he texted back, contact me after we're done, let's talk about the next steps.

Well, that was a dead giveaway to me that it is time to go home.  I gave it a 99% chance anyway.  So, I called him and sure enough, that was exactly the plan.  I got you a rental car to drive to a hotel and then to the airport for tomorrow. I just need you to go to Lancaster with me to get a tractor from a dealership.  New truck, not bad. Not for me obviously, he just wanted it transported back to the yard for whoever's going to get it. 

Now, before I get sidetracked with anything else, I can guess how this is going to go, based on his words after he said everything else.  We're going to drive to Lancaster, it's an hour's drive from here. He's going to try to talk me into coming back up and stay for several months, with home time at whatever intervals he prescribes. Okay, I had to throw that out there and see if what I'm thinking will come to pass.

Because...first off he wanted me to stay when I said I needed to go home.  When I gave him a respectful reply-  unfortunately I can't because of this, that and the other thing - he said ok.  But, today, he flatly stated that he would like me to come back up after I get whatever I need to get done at home - done.  I don't know how this company operates, but I'm getting a feel of it.  I dunno. I really don';t want to do it. I have a nice set up going there now.  I get sent out for 2 or 3 days and then I come back to Longview with the truck and then I go home, at least over night, sometimes for a day and a half.  Any way about, I always get to go home afterwards. 

That obviously isn't a happening event up here. It's life on the road baby.  You live in the truck, you get a hotel here and there, you don't go home.  I mean, local drivers get to go home, but not me.  The perplexing part of this is, my manager said she hired us because they were expanding their contracts and they needed more drivers.  This is why I'm going to go in and have a conversation with her about this.  Where do I stand?  What do you expect of me?  What do you expect me to do in this situation? 

I thought I had this clearly defined from her from the get -go - and maybe it really is, but I need to hear this from her.  From what I have heard, your direct manager has the final say in whatever is going to happen. 

So anyway, this morning.  Lol, I knew when I pulled into that hotel parking lot and seeing the "exit" that there would be issues come this morning.  I was on the top/3rd floor of this Econolodge.  I'ma telling you, for the money, it's an excellent hotel. It was sooo quiet. I never heard a single other person on that floor the 20 hours I was up there. Not even staff.  Just wonderful.  Comfy bed, I slept like a log, had a lot of bad nights of sleep to make up for. Tonight will be another of those nights.  I'm half tempted to rig something up to keep the gas pedal pushed forward a bit and just run the engine all night long. At least I would sleep. 

I was looking out the window of my hotel room and looking at the exit. It's basically an L turn.  I was like, I am pretty sure I can't make that turn without driving out into that thick drift of snow on the side.  Well I went out there this morning, heck no!  I would have had to drive over deep snow, over the landscaping and into the next driveway over. 

Well, the only other way out was the way I came in  - but in reverse.  It was a tight turn in and then around the curve into this small parking lot.  It was hard enough coming in here, I dreaded trying to back out, especially since they had driven 4 foot rebar into the ground all over the place at the curb edges.  I tried to take 3 of them out there were definitely going to be in the way, no dice. I ended up backing around that mess. It took 5 tries before I finally got the trailer headed towards a parking lot on the other side of a very busy road. That was the next challenge, getting out into traffic.

Well no worries, I saw a gap in the traffic on my side of the street, I quickly got the truck out there, blocking traffic. Then it was just a few seconds before a patient driver stopped and waved me out from the other side.  It didn't take that long, but by the time I got the truck on the road, there were at least 20 cars backed up either direction.  I have to tell ya tho, for the price, I would do it again if I had to. 

Anyway, after Lancaster tomorrow, I get into a rental car, I think I drive to a hotel near the airport and then spend the rest of tomorrow doing nothing - but in a hotel so I"m cool with that.  Then Saturday at whatever time I get on plane do Dallas and then catch an connector to Longview.

I'm getting tired and I have stuff to do to get ready.

Well, I knew I would end up here early in the day - and I knew I wouldn't want to spend 21 hours in a truck with absolutely nothing to do.  If I ever get my own, permanently assigned truck in this company, it's going to get set up with whatever I deem necessary to make it un-boring for extended periods of waiting times.  However, those long waiting times elsewhere I get paid for. Sitting around up here, I do not.

The weather has warmed up substantially, so the number of loads they need up here has dropped accordingly, meaning much less to do.  They no longer need us up here, they have enough of their own drivers to cover this work.  This was what all of this was about - to cover for drivers that needed  time off and for resets for drivers that had run out of hours.  Looks like that is all wrapped up, as an email is sent out daily with everyone on it and what they are assigned to do.

Anyway, I found a cheap - but fairly nice - hotel a few miles away from the University and am camped out here until tomorrow morning.

I have not been sleeping well in that truck. The mattress is very uncomfortable - too thin, old and worn out and the APU doesn't run constantly.  It turns on and shuts off all night long.  It wakes me up frequently.  I've never had a truck where the APU doesn't run the entire time you  have it on. Pretty crappy design.  I'm probably waking up 10 times per night, at least.

So, when I got into this hotel, I watched the rest of a movie that was on, drew the blinds and fell asleep - for several hours.  A fire truck coming by woke me up.  I was startled.  I had no idea where I was. I looked at the clock and thought, what the heck, I"m hours late for the pickup this morning!  It took a minute of looking around to understand that - that is not the case at all lol.

I'm kinda dreading getting out of here in the morning tho.  I saw a truck in here the other day, hence the reason I pulled in here.  But getting out?  That truck could move it's tandems forward and make a much tighter turn.  My are stuck at the very back of the trailer and they aren't sliding tandems.  I was looking at the exit and wondering how I was going to pull that one off, lol.  Not to mention this hotel put up rebar on the turns to keep vehicles from pulling over it.  Well, 3 of them are going to come out of the ground in the morning - it is running over 2 feet of snow, there aren't any plants and it will do nothing to whatever landscaping that is already dead for the winter underneath it.  But to swing wide enough, I'm going to have to go out into the snow on the other side and I'm just not sure how that is going to work out.  Well, I have no choice in the matter : ) I'll get it out of here one way or the other.

So anyway, it's Wednesday night now.  I've got 3 more days, I think, of hauling here and then I get to go home.  I want to finish out the week just so I can get a decent - or some resemblance - of a paycheck. I am definitely not making the money here that I do hauling out of Texas.  There are many cons to being up here, the money being the biggest one of them. 

Anyway, I don't really feel like talking about goals, future and current things elsewhere.  Just gonna chill.

So. I let the text from my manager go.  Didn't reply with anything, I just figured I would wait this out.  So, sometimes I write out my thoughts here, not anything I actually said to anyone.  Well today, I find out her best friend from child hood passed away. The 2 were, as explained to me, very close.  So that explains her not responding to me yesterday.  I wouldn't want to deal with work, either, in such circumstances.  I wrote her a text expressing my condolences and then she wrote back a thank you for that immediately.

Oh, I found that out from my new buddy in this company: a 60 something year old lady that has a great sense of humor. We hit it off the first time we met.  She's married, lol, we're just friends.  We talk on the phone every day tho, since I came up here. 

Anyway, I got a text from the manager up here.  Uhh, he wanted to know when I would be back at the plant in PA?  I replied I'm guessing around 4:30.  Much longer than it should take, but the mountains here slow you down and the speed limits aren't that great either.  Cops everywhere, not worth the risk.  I then gave im a reminded about my 2 weeks being up as of Saturday.  He asked if I would stay longer or no?  I gave him my version of a story - a true story - and said I couldn't stay out any later than Saturday.  He said cool, he'll work on getting me home. 

I don't live in Pennsylvania.  I agreed to being out up to 2 weeks at a time with this job, that is in writing, when I started.  I agreed to 2 weeks up here. It's going to be over as of Saturday. 

And let me say something here, this situation up here? Misrepresented.  There are no babies, children or older folks that are going to freeze to death up here if we didn't come and help.  This is what got me going in the first place.  I have the text, it says that.  When I got up here, I find out it's a huge university.  Yes, it's colder than frostbite up here.  But, there aren't any babies, children or senior citizens at this university. Well there may be some older folks, who knows. But, it's the holidays, the students aren't even here. 

The lady driver has been working at the company for 6 years.  She is going home as well. We were really only brought up here to deal with this unbelievably cold weather.  The minus zero stuff.  That was causing them to need to take up 4 loads per day, they didn't have enough drivers to cover that.  Well, the temps now came up to the 30's range and the orders for the fuel have gone down to 2 load per day, with the demand for Friday down to 1 load. 

Anyway, that's that.  I have no qualms telling anyone that I want to go home. Yes I miss my dogs. I miss my bed. I miss my home surrounding.  I don't  care if anyone else doesn't like this, I'll my life the way I want to live it.  I'm currently living in this little box.  It's old. It needs a complete cleaning. The carpet is dirty.  I don't even have a freaking blanket.  Somebody was smoking in this one, too. Not near as bad as that other truck, but it still smells in here.  And tomorrow, I"m up at the plant at 5 am, but the delivery isn't until 9:00 am the next morning.  I'm calculating 21 hours of sitting around in a truck waiting to make a delivery. 

Walk a mile in another man's shoes.....

I just posted last post.  I had left it as a draft and wasn't able to get back to it.  Figured post that, even tho not finished, and start fresh.

Well first, I left my power cord for my computer in the motel room.  I could kick myself.  I scoured through that room this morning making sure I wasn't leaving anything behind, but, I left something behind lol.  I called them, they have it, I'm going to stop in there tomorrow morning and pick it up.  Of course, that means I have limited time on my laptop tonight, which is fine, I can do my writing, put up the post and shut it down, use my Iphone for everything else.

So, today, I wanted to verify my going home this weekend.  I sent my manager a text, I need to go home this weekend. I'm willing to work through Saturday, etc.  Hours went by and then just now, I get a message: I'm going to be off until Monday.  Etc etc etc.  This is a text she sent out to everyone.  But I tried to contact her well before the work day was over.  I'm not staying another week.  I'm just not doing it. Or, if they try to force me to, they will be putting me up in a hotel every single night after the first 2 weeks are over, which will be Saturday.

I just can't believe she just decided to ignore it.  That doesn't give me a good feeling. Like they are going to try to pull a fast on on me and try to keep me up here longer.  I agreed to two weeks, it's in writing.  Well, anyway, I'm going to wait until about Thursday and then I'm going to talk to the manager up here about it.  He can get the same thing done she can, but she is my direct manager and takes responsibility for paying for hotels and airfare and such.  We'll see what happens. I"m a bit anxious about that because I really want to go home. I really do not want to stay up here another week after this one.   I'm getting home sick.  I've already been gone 10 days.  It's just too much for me to think of staying up here another week. 

Anyway, I think about Thursday is a good day to start talking with the manager up here about it, maybe even Wednesday.  I told him from the get-go that I was here for 2 weeks.  That discussion was brought up the first night I arrived. I wanted to make sure he knew that this was not an indefinite assignment.  I'm doing them a favor, thanks.

So, venting that out of my system.  I needed to get that off my chest.  The lady driver that came up after I did is also not liking it up here, at all.  She's got a bit better situation tho. She is in a day cab (tractor that does not have a sleeper) so they are getting her a hotel every single night.  I would be much happier if that were my situation, instead of being dumped in this old truck with all kinds of problems with it.  I can deal with it, I guess, but not indefinitely.  I'm just going to have to stand my ground on this one.  If they "beg" me to stay, I might agree to it, but with the string attached that I am staying in hotels, not this piece of s***. 

Right now? I'm sitting at a travel plaza off a toll road.  I had thought these places have truck parking. Sure, like enough for 10 trucks, maybe.  I pulled in here running out of hours.  I will have to take a pic of where I'm parked. I sat in the front of the truck for an hour to see if anyone would come out and object to where I"m at.  There are trucks parked all over. I would have stopped 30 miles back at a truck stop if I had known this. I wanted to get as far as I could up here so I wouldn't use up a lot of hours. I'm stuck here for like 15 hours. 

Oh and that's the other reason I don't like being up here: not enough miles.  I did over 500 today, not bad but not great.  Other days have been less than 500 and that's not good at all.  Sure, we get stop pay and detention pay up here, but you still have to rack up the miles to get a decent paycheck. 

And the final thing that really gets to me: eating out all the time.  It just makes you fat.  There aren't a lot of "healthy" choices at a McDonald's, the only thing at this travel plaza.  I don't have time to stop and eat along the road, you lose too much time.  It's a rat race in the trucking world. You have to keep moving as much as possible. The only time you stop is to load, deliver, fuel or take mandatory 30 minute break. Other than that, you are going going going trying to get the most out of your 11 hours driving/14 hours of on duty service every day.  The faster you get done, ,the faster you are off the clock and saving those hours for the rest of the week. Hence the idea of getting further up the road today. I can only hope and pray that they don't come out here knocking on my door telling me to move. There is nowhere to move to except on down the road. 

Alright, well at least I was able to get my clothes and my bed sheets washed before coming back out here.  That's a plus. 

I'm trying to decide whether I want to go into anything else.  I'll tell ya what got me going on getting home: Rene (lady roommate) sent me about a 5 minute video of Addler today.  She said: "Where's daddy" and he started romping around all over the place and going to the side of the house to look at the street and see if daddy is home. Of course, daddy is 1300 miles away in a strange, foreign place that daddy doesn't want to be in.

I mean, it's hard to really think about the things I want to do when I'm sitting in the sleeper of a truck that far from home.

Okay, well the other fresh bit of news is that Taylor and James (my friends, who own the house I'm living in) are contemplating moving back in August.  I don't know what happens in August, but he is thinking about getting his CDL license and going OTR. ATT is not really doing him any favors. They lay people off in that company frequently. They reassign them to different regions - or lose your job.  Meaning, get up, move the entire family and there ya go. 

But OTR? With a wife and 2 young children?  That doesn't really sound like a great plan to me.  Sure, he can make money, but at what cost? At least I'm not married and my son is out of the house.  I could live in a truck if I wanted to - I don't haha - it really wouldn't affect too many people. But his kids are very young - 8 month old and a 3 year old - who turned 3 today.  I dunno. I kept my mouth shut about that plan.  They have to be free to live their lives the way they want to. For some reason, he wants to go OTR. 

OTR has none of the allure it once did.  Trucking used to be lightly regulated.  You could drive, drive, drive and no one to tell you you couldn't.  You could get off the Interstates and check out the back country.  There are a lot of things that are different now, but the over-regulation is the biggest part of the problem with trucking today. Big Brother government wants to control you.  Granted there are a bunch of idiots that have no business driving trucks that are getting into the profession. But why do we all have to suffer over a few that make stupid mistakes or plain out doing stuff on purpose? 

I'm done with this one.  My mind is just cluttered with thoughts that have no useful purpose I need to kick back, refocus and get myself motivated. 

Well checking the trailer the pressure had risen more than I expected.  Had to blow off 8 pounds - which doesn't sound like much until you think of a tank that holds 10,000 gallons.  I'm going to have to go out yet again and check it again before going to bed.  I'm pretty much a bit on the overload side when it comes to safety with this stuff.  Any of it, it's all cryogenics and it's all highly flammable.   Anyway, I'll be checking that through the weekend.  I have until Monday morning, basically What time Monday morning I don't know, I'm guessing I'll be given an early slot to get loaded which will mean getting up really early  Pay for this time off, I suppose, but I'll take it however I can get it.
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That was around 8 pm last night.  3:30 am, I had to get up and go check it again. I might have just let it wait until later in the morning when I got out of bed, but this trailer seems to be having problems. And sure enough, up to 31, blow it down to 20 again and then, at around 9 am, blow it down from 29 to 20 yet again.  I contacted the manager up here - is this normal?  No, we'll have to check it out when we this all slows down.  Just keep doing what you're doing and it will be find.

Okay.  I fully expect to have to blow the thing down at least 3 more time before I leave out of here tomorrow morning.  It wouldn't be such a big deal, but a check of the temp a while ago pegged it at 12 below zero.  Since then, the temp has come up to 3 degrees. In my world, that is still bitter cold, especially with wind chill taking it down to well below zero.

And, attempting to stay in this room another day, I was informed that I would have to change rooms.  Well, turns out the change was for the better.  I ended up at the back of the hotel on the first floor instead of the front of the hotel on the second floor. Well where I'm at now is close to where the truck is.  And, someone wasn't having a good morning.  I was out there releasing pressure and watched a brand new looking GMC pickup back up into a late model Toyota.  That ordeal cost them a couple of hours, it appeared.

Well other than that I'm starting to consider getting into a much newer - and nicer - vehicle.  I'm not the biggest fan of car payments, but if my paychecks stay anywhere even remotely close to what I got this week, affording the payments and higher insurance rate won't even be an issue.  Something like a 12k pickup and try to get a 3 year loan on it.  I'm not going to do that right away, I still have to make sure I pass their 90 day probation period which is a bit over another month off and I want to see a few more checks before I make a decision.  In fact, tho, if I get enough checks like that one, I won't need a car loan.  I'll have enough cash to just buy one outright.

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Another lapse. I took Uber to Chili's. I'm now finding out that Lyft is cheaper. From now on I'll compare the prices on any given trip. On Uber, the price can change every time you click on it.

Well here's the current deal.  I added up my hours for the last 7 days including today, trying to calculate what I would have left for tomorrow and came up with 6 hours available. Not unusual considering it will have been 7 days working.  Tho tomorrow will only be about 3 or 4 hours worth to deliver at the plant 15 minutes from where I'm parked.  Dive truck stop, great diner.  Don't quite get that, but it is what it is.  Only place anywhere near where I"m delivering to park. Well actually, I can park outside the gate where I'm delivering, but no food there!

Anyway, after figuring out available hours, I told the manager up here - I currently have 2 managers now. 1 is Ann my regular manager and then this guy up here giving me info what to do next.  Ann still has to do my paperwork tho, even tho it's a different division of the company she is doing it for.  Which is cool, she is very thorough and will make sure I get all the money I can make.  Oh, well I told the manager that and I now have a 34 hours reset coming after delivery tomorrow.

That means that I have a day and a half off, basically, to lounge around and do nothing.  I don't get paid for it, but I've had enough of this for one week and that's the norm for the industry: work your ass off all week and then take a break. 34 hour resets are something the feds came up with. You can do them, but they are voluntary.  Usually, it's better to take the reset than the try to keep driving, you run out of hours and have to shut down long before you get ot where you're supposed to be.  Most companies just make drivers take the reset, doesn't other me a bit.  I don't want to work 7 days a week and more so, it's freezing freaking cold up here.  It's zero degrees right now and the wind chill going down as much as 35 below. My truck wouldn't even start this morning.

I got up this morning - and my goodness staying at that hotel was so nice - got out there and the thing wouldn't start.  I tried plugging in the engine heater for 45 minutes and still wouldn't start.  Finally gave up on it, went to the Freightliner shop next door, asked them to come over and jump start it.  Company couldn't pay for it, so I shelled out the bucks - though I will definitely get reimbursed.

Anyway, while I tried heating up the engine, I walked up the hill to the restaurant to get a bite to eat.  I mean, it was 7 degrees out but the wind was fierce and blowing right into my face. It felt like my face was burning.  I found out later the wind chill was 20 below.  I'm not used to this kind of weather, but excepting for my face, I've been keeping warm.  I brought extra heavy duty winter clothing with me, I have stuff in my closed for just such occasions.  I was so glad I went to the trouble of bringing that heavy coat.
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Okay that was last night, Friday night to be exactly. It was frigid, bitter cold this morning when I got up.  The APU heater was struggling to keep up with it, even with the curtain closed separating the sleeper from the cab. I was at the dive truckstop but with the nice diner.  I decided to get up early and get some breakfast and drink several cups of nice, hot coffee.  That really helped.  Because when I was offloading the methane, their bottom fill valve froze and we sat there - a long, long time.  Out in the cold, out in the blowing wind, it was miserable.  I endured it, but I was longing to get it over with and get into this hotel. 

Well, the hotel was another story.  I mean, they didn't offer me anything.  I just decided that whether they offer or not - my company that is - I"m getting a room. If I don't get reimbursed, oh well. I mean, this company is great in some ways - really not that great on information sharing in others.  I don't know what they will do or not do.  Anyway, I went through all the usual hotel sites for a cheaper rate, but I eventually came in to the hotel itself after pulling the truck into this rather small parking lot and asked them.  A king sized bed for $93.  The internet price on all of those sites was at least $110!

So that's where I am.  I got a very nice room, with a king sized bed, 44 inch flat screen tv - though I have yet to turn that on, tv doesn't do that much for me anymore - a nice computer table, microwave, fridge, coffee pot.  I'm set.  Laundry room is just down the hall, intend on doing 2 loads of it before I leave here. I was going to do it today, but I"m so worn out from all of this ordeal here. I just ordered delivery.  It's far too cold to walk the mile it is to Texas Roadhouse.  I could call an Uber, but I simply don't feel like it. I just want to relax and kick back.  Maybe tomorrow I'll Uber it, it's 6 bucks each way.  After a 4 thousand dollar paycheck, I don't see a problem with spending a bit for comfort purposes. 

I was told that the weather was going to get better and then get bad again. Well I'm looking at a 10 day forecast for Amherst.  Cold today and tomorrow, Monday it warms up.  60% chance of snow on Monday, but that doesn't bother me. It's the temps and the wind chill that has been sending me to an early grave.  I'm looking at the rest of the week and I see nothing that warrants this idea that it's going to get cold again after Sunday.. If it's in the 30's, that is much more bearable than the unbelievable ice cold temps that have been going on ever since I got here in all 3 states that I have been travelling in.

So, to me, it's all good.  I won't be back on the road again until early Monday morning - that will suck but I'll deal with it.  I have the APU unit running on the truck - it uses minimal amount of fuel and I filled up 67 miles away from getting here. Figured better safe than sorry.  The APU runs the heat (or cooling) and it also recharges the battery  I left it at 65 degrees. Not toasty but not freezing either.  It doesn't need monitoring. However, the trailer? I"m going to have to get on my winter gear here in a little while, trudge out there and see what the pressure is at.  I have a feeling I'm going to have to blow off some Methane before this is over.  I parked that truck well away from any and everything just in case that happens.

If the pressure gets too high - 70 pounds - there are safety valves that open up and blow it off automatically Uhh, they don't want that to happen.  It forces the trailer off the road and into a shop to service the safety valves and more importantly, those valves apparently - more often than not - won't shut down after they open up.  It's really an emergency thing, you should be dealing with it long before that happens.

I'm learning is all I can say.  At least they do have safety valves. The alternative is the tank blows up and people probably die, including me.  I never assumed hauling hazmat was without risks.  I just knew it pays a lot more money and that assumption - but backed with a lot of research - turned out to be true.  Honestly, I'm more fearful of rolling the thing over than some sort of fire or explosion. 

Okay, after I got this room, I did text my manager.  I thought it lame this "temporary" manager up here didn't offer anything. But perhaps I'm supposed to go through my own manager, I really don't know.  I just said hey! I got a room, I dunno if the company pays for it but if they do, great! If not, I'll just tack it up as to the cost of coming up here. 

About an hour later, she replied a lengthy text: we do NOT expect you to do a 34 hour reset in a truck.  We always get rooms.  Especially in those circumstances. If you want to, next time, call me and I will prearrange a room, prepaid for you.  Now that sounds like a plan to me.  Well, heck, I only paid for one night, I"m going to ask her to have the second night paid for in advance and then I am only out a hundred bucks or so.  Now that I have that settled.....I haven't had to do a reset away from home working for my manager.  She makes it happen I"m home long enough to get it. 

Now then, Rene - lady roommate - is sending me videos of Addler.  I haven't been gone this long from him - ever.  Not 8 days.  And yet 7 at least to go.  This particular experience will ride with me a long time.  First being away form home - already knew I hated that - but also memories of frigid cold temps.  I can only say I'm very glad I brought all my heavy winter gear, I would be over at Walmart right now or somewhere, buying stuff if I didn't have it.  Okay.  Well, that's it.  For now.  I've got more, but I"m putting all this junk on and going out and checking the pressure on the trailer.

I'm at a hotel in a town, if you can call it that, named "Tunkhannock", in Pennsylvania.

The situation started today with a known fact: a blizzard or blizzard like conditions are coming, will be here by morning.  I got up this morning at the Love's Travel Center in Canaan, New York and there was nothing besides the snow already on the ground from a previous storm, that I did not and did not want to partake of.

I got the truck fueled up, got on the road. 10 miles up, light snow. A few more miles - heavier and then - driving snow.  But it had just started so the roads were still decent.  But, by the time I got up to Amherst, it was a full fledged snow storm, roads were covered with snow, people were driving 10 miles an cause' they have no clue and I was pushing an appointment time.

Got there on time tho.  Stood outside for an hour and a half making the delivery, got out of there and knew the roads were going to be bad.  It had been snowing sideways for hours now, the snow was filling in our footsteps shortly after we imprinted them into it. 

Miserable driving conditions. That's what I will call that.  I mean, you couldn't see asphalt.  Snow plows weren't keeping up with it and people were literally stopping their vehicles in the middle of the Interstate.  Now why the hell would you go do something as stupid as that?  Cause they were terrified, that's why. It was an intense storm and driving in it was no fun. It took 2-1/2 hours to go 70 miles. 

I got back to the loves, fueled up again and got down the road.  When I got to 87, the roads were "clear", a heckuva lot better than what was on the Massachusetts Turnpike. I amped up the speed, let's get this over with.  Cruised on over here - here being a small town in PA - and started looking for a place to park.  Found a couple, but I thought, I'm going to have a 17 hour layover, I'm getting myself a hotel.  After 5 days of this nonsense, I was ready to get out of the cold, get into a nice room and just relax in a comfortable bed.  I got a deal at $60.  This whole wing of this old hotel is brand new.  New furniture, new carpet, new everything.  Stupid people that trash out hotel rooms haven't been in this one - yet.

Well, it's still an hour and 40 minutes until i have to be at the plant to load up with methane.  There's a restaurant 500 feet away, I'm contemplating whether to brave the 4 degree temps and the bone chilling wind to go get a cup and maybe a couple of eggs or something.

Well, that's it for this one. I'ma enjoy the rest of my time here. 

Well, here I am again at the same diner/truckstop I was at a few nights ago. Like for New Year's Eve.  they have some great food here.  But, when I came here New Year's Eve, there were hardly any trucks in here at all. Tonight? I drove around in here twice looking for a spot and finally just parked, partially blocking a lane. Went inside, had some great food and conversation.  Cool place.  I sat in there for an hour and came back out and just sat in the driver's seat, hoping someone would leave.

Would rather not stay in the "lane", tho this truckstop is a dive. Not a branded name truckstop, at all lol.  The "Travel Center" is half the size of any convenience store you might find and nothing is marked for parking lanes.  Just find a spot . Anyway, a truck came whizzing out of the hole it was in and I went whizzing right back into it haha.

So what's new?  I'm just biding my time, getting through this one day at a time.  A couple days before 2 weeks is up, I'm definitely telling them it will be time to go home.

_________________________________

That was last night. Got too tired to do anything but go to sleep.
Now, I'm back in Canaan, NY at a Love's Travel Stop.
I pulled in here thinking I was going to find a place to park - not.  I found a "space" that had had snow piled up but maybe, perhaps I could get the trailer backed in there. Well after a couple of pull ups, I had the thing lined out to get back into that space - but - I hit the unpacked snow and started losing traction.  Yeah, I said the hell with that. 

I pulled around front to leave and low and behold, a place where trucks prolly aren't supposed to park but other trucks there, I pulled in the last remaining spot.  I've been here for several hours and no one has said a word to me, so I'm here for the night.

I got the thing shut down, got the APU fired up and got the heater going in the sleeper and then went into the store - I need a shower.  I have several free showers on my Love's card.  I don't have to pay for them but I literally haven't had a chance to take a shower in 3 full days - yup, disgusting.  I got into the shower room - it's quite large just for a shower.  I mean, considering being stuck in a truck, it's rather "luxurious". I got into that hot shower and just stood there for 30 minutes.  It felt so good to just get away from all this fiasco that has been going on with this ordeal coming up here. 

I mean, on top of everything else, I found out a blizzard is coming through here tonight or tomorrow morning.

How did I find out?  I'm sitting in the driver's seat, waiting for the truck front heater to heat everything down so I can turn on the APU - it takes a while between the two - and here comes this SUV buzzing up, parks right next to me, gets out and goes up to the dude that is offloading his tanker full of diesel into the underground fuel tanks. The SUV didn't have anything written on the side so I just thought they were friends.  But, they didn't talk long and then the came directly over to me, this one dude with a huge video camera in his hands.  They knock on the door, so out of sheer curiosity I opened the window. What's up?

Hey, we're with whatever news agency, I wish I remembered what they said, can we do an interview of you?  Well I guess, what's up?  How do you feel about the blizzard coming in?  What blizzard?  I heard there was going to be some snow but just light.  Nah bro, up to 16 inches of snow.  I looked on my Iphone on the weather app and it shows anywhere from 4 to 18 inches depending on what part of this area you are in, PLUS, 35 degrees below zero wind chill factor coming into tonight or tomorrow morning.  WTH. 

I didn't sign up for this.  I haven't been in this kind of cold in years.  I really can't even remember the last time I was in zero degree weather, nothing recent that's for sure.  I started cutting it up with them. Yup, I had both of them in stitches.  What's to fear? They got me, the got the front of the truck, the side of it and the rear of it on film. Albany news station. Whether any of it makes it on there, unknown. Maybe a 2 second blurb, who knows.  Maybe not at all. They take 30 minutes of video and put 5 seconds on lol.  Whatever the case, umm, were they exaggerating? According to the newscast I just watched, not really.  Not to where I'm going anyway. \

I just got off the phone with a lady truck driver who also was sent up here from the location I'm out of.  She was disgusted.  They originally told us freezing babies and senior citizens, we get up here and find out it's - a university.  Well send the kids home and shut the place down, it's a holiday week anyway, there aren't any classes being held.  Not that simple, obviously, even if you send people home, you can't shut the heat off to everything and you can't shut all that stuff down without a major, time consuming ordeal to fire it back up. 

I'm just curious as to what I"m going to wake up to in the morning.  Nothing? 8 inches of snow? The alleged 35 below with wind chill factor? Who knows. I intend on getting up earlier than I need to to get to the place on time if possible.  Like I need to be there by 9 am.  It's almost 11 pm now.  I figured get up at 6:30 am, see what's going on, get the fuel filled up and get up there. It's 67 miles from here, just over an hour's drive - under normal conditions.

Well, I would go on but I really need to get to sleep. I've been on the phone and texting people literally for hours now.

Happy New Year's!

Well, sitting for the night at a Pilot truck stop somewhere along I-90 in New York.  Not New York city, btw, have absolutely zero desire to drive anywhere in that place. Not too far from Boston at the moment.  Oh heck, I just looked, I haven't written a post in a while now.

I haven't had time. You see, on Saturday, coming back from Oklahoma, our manager started sending out text messages to everyone.  We have a situation in Pennsylvania and we need a driver to go up there and help out. I knew I would be "targeted" for any such things cause I'm the newbie, but she actually asked everyone.  Just that a lot of the old time drivers are reluctant to do much of anything beyond what they normally do.  They want to be home all the time - which I fully understand, but there aren't any runs that have you home the same night.

She asked for replies by noon, so I replied.  We talked back and forth and I finally, reluctantly, agreed.  I mean, I knew Pennsylvania was cold, I grew up there, but I didn't remember how cold this entire region can get.  I woke up to -4 this morning.  Anyway, she said she would find out if they could use a person that doesn't have any experience with LNG - Liquid Natural Gas.  I didn't hear back from her.  Until maybe 3 hours later. And there she was, sending out mass texts again.  I didn't reply with anything - but how bad that sounds, the situation.  I was told that people would be without heat in some community somewhere if she couldn't find drivers to go up there.

I simply agreed to do it.  Okay, brace yourself, Ben, this is two weeks of being away from home in frigid winter conditions.  That was Saturday evening that decision was made, Sunday afternoon I was on an airplane to Philadelphia.  Philly has no great draw on me, I had an aunt that lived here long ago, she died, long ago.  I think I had some other relatives that lived there but they left the area.  It's all the same to me anymore. No matter where you go, there is going to be something "wrong" with the place.  Too hot, too humid, too cold, wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes - you get the point.  

I asked a lot of questions, I was given very little info.  The info I was given, I found out, was completely wrong.  

I mean, the problems started at the airport. The plane landed we taxiied off the run way and then we - stopped. And we sat and sat until the pilot come on and said: "sorry folks, there is a plane stopped in front of us.  It isn't communicating with anyone and we don't know why it's stopped. It's in the way of getting to the gate we need to go to so we are going to have to wait until it moves".  45 minutes - 45 MINUTES  later, that plane finally moved.  

Anyway, the manager had come down to pick me up, he wasn't ecstatic about the wait but he could have just stayed home until I told him the luggage was beginning to get tossed out onto the conveyor.  

Long story short - for the first day anyway - I didn't get to bed until 1 am.  We - another driver from somewhere else - were given a crash course on nothing, because as it turns out, this dude really didn't give us much of any useful information at all except this is your truck, tomorrow morning you are going to hook up to a trailer and go up to a plant to load and then over to UMASS. Both of us drivers just looked at him and then each other.  We have no clue how to do this stuff.  Considering that type of product it is, would be nice for some kind of training.  

I was getting pretty uneasy about this.  So the next morning, the manager sent down a driver that knows his stuff.  He gave us a crash course.  Connect the two hoses here, open this and that valve, open that valve over there to build up pressure.  I asked a lot of questions since he was willing to answer.  At least I had some kind of knowledge about what I would be doing.

Fast forward, we get to the loading plant and another driver showed up with us.  He was knowledgeable enough.  He showed us how to do the paperwork - something the manager didn't do - and then said the manager was going to have him meet us at the LNG plant.  Ok. I drover over to UMASS - I had no idea I was going to a University, I was informed it was a community and that old people and babies alike would be freezing to death if we didn't get this product there.  

Well I got there late last night and the experienced driver told me about a truck stop near the delivery site.  So I went there and there is this old fashioned diner at the truck stop. Like walking into the 60's.  It was very cool, actually, excepting for the screaming teenagers at a table.  Unsupervised, definitely not even 18 and making a lot of noise.  

This morning, I find out the experienced driver's truck broke down and he won't be making it to help us unload. Great. I have a bit of head knowledge about what I'm supposed to do, I have no hands on training whatsoever.  So I get there, do everything I was supposed to and then the plant tech opened up the valves and let'er rip.  Only to have this almost 300 below zero cryogenic start to pop out of the vent stack.  Shut it down, shut it down, he was saying, so I closed the valves, this stuff pouring onto my jump suit.  I was like, what the heck?  So I get the valves shut closed and then this guy didn't know what to do.  

So, I got on the phone and called the experienced driver, who didn't know what was going on and directed me to another driver that does know what's going on.  He asked a few questions.  Well are all the valves shut?  Yes.  What about the bleeders?  I dunno, I'll go out and check. And sure enough, one of the bleeder valves was just barely opened - trust me I didn't open it, I wasn't doing anything with that stuff that I wasn't told to - and it was venting through the vent system.  

This has really been the day I have been dreading with the Ethylene that I haul, having to unload.  Welp, I got my feet wet now.  I don't care anymore, I'll unload whenever, if I mess it up, tough.  Today's mess up only cost a bit of time, nothing else.  

Alright.  Well I'm stuck here two weeks and that is the extent of it, for I will forcefully ask for a flight back home after that time period is up if it isn't offered.  

Oh, and yes, this place is the University of Massachusetts.  It's huge.  It's like a city within itself, replete with high rises  including 4 dorms that look like high rise apartment buildings.  I guess cause that's what they really are.  They have their own water treatment plant, electric substation and this huge plant that uses the LNG to heat everything.  And there was the problem. It is an unusually cold winter, the LNG is getting used up in massive quantities, the plant that normally feeds it through a pipeline is shut down and it's only us trucks that are the gap between either keeping the place heated - or not.  I doubt there are dying old people or freeing babies there, but it was a nice story to get people up there. 

The problem - the drivers that do this run have been going at it so long, they haven't had time off in over a month.  Some of them had to be on their 34 hour reset.  UMASS was basically saying get wit the program, we NEED this LNG.  So, the company has put out requests to all 10 other of the divisions to send any available drivers.  

I'm getting sleepy. I know it's early but I haven't gotten much sleep in the last two nights and I didnt actually mind the manager calling me saying that they won't be there to load me tonight, find a place to park, get on your 10 hour break, get up at 3 am and get over there as fast as you can.  At the plant today, I overheard the conversation: we have at least enough to last us through tomorrow morning.  WTH.  4 truckloads of this stuff delivered there today and it's only enough to make it until tomorrow afternoon?  How much money do they spend on this stuff every year?  I just don't believe them. 4 trucks delivered today is 40,000 gallons, give or take a couple thousand.  But, who am I.  I'ts definitely cold out here - around zero degrees.  

Oh well.  Anyway, I went into the Pilot a while ago and finally found what I had been looking for: a freaking pillow.  $6.99 for a small "travel pillow" but I'll take it over the nothing I had last night. I brought my sheets with me cause I figured there wouldn't be any, but there was no room to take a large pillow. Or even a small one.  My bags were cram packed with bare minimum I figured I would need to survive in the cold, have enough clean clothes to last at least a week and all the other stuff I would need.  1 large suitcase and a duffel bag cram packed.