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!