10 years--Gettin' back on the horse!

Thursday April 24, 2008

Roadside Instant Oil Change - $5000

I almost forgot about this little tidbit... I had to stop at the Petro just south of Birmingham to get a tire repaired. When I got there, there were fire trucks, cops and all kinds of flashing blue lights, attending to a truck that looked like it had run up over the curb. Turns out, a driver who "no-speaky-de-english" decided to do a roadside oil change into the storm drain. What a genius! I guess maybe he should have paid the high dollar at the Petro after all. I'm sure the fine for that is gonna hurt.

 

Monday May 5, 2008

I'm sitting at Exide in Baton Rouge, LA right now. I just fired up my laptop to enter all my load info and noticed they have a wireless LAN called 'Exide - Public' —I connected for the hell of it and presto... free internet! Pretty cool. At least I'll have something to do while I get unloaded.

 

Tuesday May 6, 2008

Dear road-raging ####### in the white dually pickup on I-10 in Mississippi who stomped his brake pedal in front of me today...

I just scaled my truck and the Cat says it weighs 78,940 lbs—approximately 72,000 lbs more than your little tin piss-can weighs. Next time you'd like to commit suicide, please use a gun. Pickup trucks are hard to clean off my bumper.

Thanks ever so much.

 

Wednesday May 7, 2008

Got one of those oddball once-in-a-blue moon loads yesterday that took me north of the Mason-Dixon line—a load of wood pulp going to Taylorsville, IL—about 3 miles east of the North Pole.

I couldn't get ahold of the consignee before I actually arrived in Taylorsville, so I thought I'd just wing it and let "Tommy" do the directing. Bad idea! I knew I was in for it as soon as I rolled into town—signs plastered on every street corner, including the one Tommy told me to turn on, that proclaimed, "No Semis"... well ok then.

I found the one and only parking lot in town that didn't have dire warnings about truckers being shot on site for trespassing—the Kroger's lot. I pulled in and parked, donning my winter boots and arctic parka for the seven mile journey across the frozen tundra to the Autozone next door.

A blinding snow storm was raging and the polar bears were on the prowl. I had to kill two of them with my bare hands before I was even a mile away from the truck...

Ok... so it wasn't snowing... it was raining... and the polar bears were really stray cats... and ok... so I didn't kill them with my bare hands...

At any rate, the guy at the Autozone told me how to get to the secret lair of Ahlstrom Filtration where I dumped the load of pulp and made a hasty retreat back south... well at least more south than I was—I'm currently sitting at the Flying J in Evansville, Indiana typing out this pathological lie... er, I mean... story.

I guess I'll sleep a few hours then go grab the load in Henderson. I'll be home tomorrow night.

 

Stardate Wednesday May 14, 2008

After fighting the torrential downpour, tornadoes and 80 mph Super-Truckers all the way from Lafayette, LA to Gulfport, MS... I've had enough. Four hours it took from there to here!

Maybe this crap will be over in a few hours. Time for bed.

 

Monday May 19, 2008

Whew, last week was a hell of a week. Seems like every shipper was loading product right off the line... 5... 6... 8 hours to get loaded. I was hoping this week would turn out better but I got a message over the satellite earlier this morning saying that all the phones and internet were dead at the office. Greeaat! One dispatcher is trying to run the whole business from the shop using a laptop. This might be a long day...

All well, at least I went shopping at Alltel this weekend and blew beaucoup bucks on phones and cool internet stuff. Now I can 'net from anywhere! Alltel rocks!

After my wife and I left Alltel, I called Sprint-Who's-Now-Together-With-Nextel-and-Screwed-Nextel-Customers-Bigtime, and told them exactly which brown orifice they could stuff their phones in. It's gonna cost me $625 to stop doing business with Satan, but worth it in the end.

Oh, BTW, did I already say I hate Baton Rouge?

My god, the traffic during rush hour here is worse than Chicago or NYC. An hour to go ten miles! I heard someone say it was all the displaced Katrina victims... geez, did they all have to pick the same place to move to?

Since I come here so frequently, I'm gonna start mapping out some safe places to sit at night, and then just try to get here when all the Type A's are sleeping soundly in their little McMansions.

 

Here are some tips you can use everyday:

Tip #1:
Use diesel fuel to remove stubborn baked on bugs from your windows and paint.

Tip # 2:
Diesel fuel makes an excellent dandruff shampoo. Save time by applying it while you refuel your truck.

Tip #3:
Eveyone knows the price of fuel is going up every day. Maximize your fuel storage by utilizing the interior of your truck as an extra storage container.

Tip #4:
Tarp straps are not a good idea to hold down the fuel nozzle while fueling at 60 gallons per minute... this allows Tips # 1, 2 and 3 to happen simultaneously!

Yes folks, this happened to me... today. It was bad Karma, not only coming back to kick me in the nuts, but twisting them until I was on the ground screaming for mercy.

You see, the previous day I was spouting off about inconsiderate drivers who spill fuel on the fuel islands—you know, the one's who are too lazy to strap the nozzles to the tanks. Well I'm here to tell ya, strapping them don't always work.

I've been fueling trucks this way for years and never spilled a drop. Well today was my day... $50 worth all over the side of my truck and everywhere in the blink of an eye.

I had strapped down the driver's side and gone to the passenger side to start it when I heard, "Clink... gurgle... splash", and the sound of a fountain. The strap allowed the nozzle to pivot back ever so gracefully—spraying a firehose-sized stream of #2 right at my window... which, thankfully, was not open or else tip # 3 would have definitely come into play. I got a shower though as I ran to shut the pump off.

So... what have we learned kids? Keep your hands on the nozzle at all times!