Too much time on my hands

Well, the wedding was fantastic, the Florida honeymoon was fantastic, and married life is treating me well. With that said, I left Schneider after all the wedding hoopla determined to find something closer to home to earn a living.

This has not worked out so well yet...

Work is slim pickins' right now. I had expected this, but not quite to the extent that it really is. I have spent the last month and a half looking for work and have come up dry so far. Even the part time work hasn't panned out yet.

The money is all gone, and thank God Linda is working, because that is the household income at the moment. GRRRR My timing has not been so great for leaving my job, but between the low miles, and the driving to PA to get to my truck, the cost was getting out of control.

I'm determined to be home at night, and not be in a sleeper cab anymore, that is a rough life that I never intended to do forever. Linda and I had agreed to 1yr of over the road driving, and I actually spent 18 months out there, so my objective of OTR experience was fulfilled. The obvious problem now is that the economy is soooo bad that everything is slowing down. No need to preach to the choir about this problem, y'all know the tune!

Anywhoo, I'm getting back to the job searching, and will try to keep the posting updated!

woo sa...

OK, Having cleansed my political "colon" of it's bile, and having another payday come, let's get back to the truckin' stuff!

After a slow start, I have been able to log some miles this week, including a bunch of HAZMAT miles, which will pay well. Who would of thunk that concentrated carwash chemicals would be considered hazardous? EEEEK! giant bubbles on the highway! No matter...it's good for the paycheck, heck anything will be better than the last few checks!

I also had the chance to drive a Kenworth T2000 that belongs to an owner/operator. He an I were both stuck in PA last weekend, and we ended up hanging out for a while, it's the truck in the center of the photo. Very cool ride!




Schneider also gives me a new pair of boots every year, very nice of them yes, but it is to help eliminate slip and fall accidents. We can pick from many different choices from the "boot truck" that shows up on site. This year I went with the Michelin's. Who knew they made boots, er, who knew some company in China makes boots and stamps Michelin on them. Anyhoo, they are very comfortable, steel toe'd, and should see me through the winter.


Being a company driver usually means I hook to a lot of trailers during my three week on the road. Drop and Hook is the term used for picking up a trailer at one point and droping it somewhere else. I will normally hook to three or more trailers in a given week. These last two and a half weeks I have hooked to only two trailers. Most of my freight has been live loaded, meaning I take an empty trailer somewhere, back it up to a dock and have it loaded, or unloaded, while I wait. This is more time consuming for me, and therefore not as profitable, but with freight being the way it is, I'll take what I can get. It's just very unusual to use the same trailer for 11 days.

Did I mention I got my truck back? During my "vacation" weekend I got back to normal.




Just another tight loading dock in MA.






I'm looking forward to getting home for the wedding. I'm excited to see family and friends that I haven't seen for a while. Currently I'm in Seville OH with a load that takes me to PA on Monday morning. From there, it looks like I will be shutting this circus down for a while and heading home.

Lets see....show up on time....don't say no.... I got this wedding thing covered!

Find me in the middle...a little to the right

Man, it seems like everyone in the blogosphere has a lot to say about politics these days. How does everyone become such a political expert every three and a half years, and then expect that everyone, no make that anyone, really gives a damn about what they have to say about it.

Funny political system we have here, but it is the best system out there. Freedom of speech, God bless it.

So in my best non-narcissistic way that I can muster for your consideration, here is my "OFFICIAL POLITICAL RANT" entry. Do it once and shut the hell up about it.

I believe in God and the separation of church and state.

Anything that can be done by the private sector can be totally screwed up by the Government.

Government oversight on portions of our society is critical, read: financial, transportation, education, energy, food and health care. I'm sure I've missed a few, but it's my rant and I'm allowed.

The private sector will progress faster than Government regulations, making them old and outdated before anyone notices. "There is never a problem until there is a problem".

Tom Allen has done more damage to the state of Maine over the last 10 yrs than global warming.

We were all ranting 8 yrs ago about how the "outsider" George Bush was going to be a fresh start after being exhausted with all the Clinton scandals, bringing decency back to the white house. Or how Clinton was going to bring change to the White House after "Bush 41", or how Regan was going to bring change after the Carter administration. etc...etc...Why do we all have 7.5year memories??!! SSDD.

I didn't like Baldiacci at first, but I have gotten used to him now. He got handed a bum deal from the start, and played a pretty good hand with it.

I would vote for the Palin/Biden ticket just like I would have voted for the Cheney/Liberman ticket. Why do the VP candidates interest me more than the top of the ticket?

I don't have a horse in this Prez. race, but I am voting for Collins and Snowe for as long as they want to run for office. Chellie Pingree? See Tom Allen rant above.

The more abusive we are on our politicians the worse the caliber of the candidate. Human nature I know, I know...

I struggle with the argument that the country can evolve, but the Constitution cannot, although I still believe the Constitution is not an evolving document.

Abortion is murder.

My last paycheck was $33.00, and I got a wedding coming up soon. Guess I'm getting a little edgy.

Have a nice day!

After a few hectic days at home working on wedding plans, and an unexpected brake job on the car, I'm back in the truck. The problem is, I have a big orange tractor with no big orange trailer, this is not a cash generating scheme. Freight is REALLY slow right now, I mean beyond slow.

It's the kind of slow that makes me think something is wrong with the economy or something...huh.

My tractor was lent out as a loaner while I was on my time at home, and it hasn't returned yet, so I am in a loaner while mine works it's way back from wherever it may be. I don't take all of my stuff out when I park for home time, but I do take out most of the important things. Fortunately I have myself setup in my temporary digs well enough to run for the week. I have asked my team to just run me for as long as they can before returning me to PA and swap into my "Proper" truck.

Besides, I've snagged another auto tranny to play with. Maybe the novelty will wear off soon, but I do enjoy driving these things. Much less cruise control work!

Slow Start

The problem with getting paid by the mile is that when the wheels aren’t moving, I don’t get paid, period. Sure there are detention payments, and token amounts of money that are nice little extras when my paycheck needs a little pick-me-up, but the real pay in this job is rolling miles down the highway.

The second issue is the “how I roll” so to speak, which is three weeks on the road, five days at home. This makes for three good paychecks, and one crummy one. Again five days with no miles makes for a crummy paycheck, and I accept this with the offset of three better checks.

Now, it doesn’t take much thinking to realize if I have my five days at home, and then the truck breaks down, I’m in a world of hurt on the paycheck side, and this is what has happened to me this week. I had put the truck in the shop before I went home for a bad starter, it wouldn’t stop cranking over even if I took the key out! Five days later I get back in the truck and go on my merry way. One day on the road, the starter won’t start the truck, DOA I had to have a very large wrecker come…twice… and give me a pull so I could pop the clutch and get going. Not my bill, but it took hours out of my day.

Leaving the truck in the OC in Carlisle, PA I was able to get a loaner truck for a couple of days. A vacationing driver had parked his rig at the OC. The cool part was it was an automatic transmission. Having driven Eaton 9 and 10 speed sticks for many years, I have nothing to prove to anybody about my shifting, and can honestly say I LOVE this thing! It is actually a hybrid of an automatic and a manual. There is a clutch and actual gears shifting around in there, so unlike a normal car, One doesn’t just hop in, put it in “D” and hit the highway, a few hours of training are required, more down time, but it adds another arrow to my experience quiver.

Where's the shifter??!!

I ran a couple of short hauls with “auto orange” but knowing I had to return to Carlisle to drop this truck off and get mine back meant no good miles coming my way until this musical chairs was done.

All in all, I ran about a thousand miles last week, which is WAY down from a normal week for me. All this happening right after time spent at home. All this happening a few weeks before the wedding, All this happening when Samantha made it home with Jarrid (the youngin’).

Glad I bought an extra box of pop-tarts for this run, because that’s about all I can afford to eat right now!