JET-Lag's adventures with Maverick

JET-Lag has been in a motel since last night because his truck broke down (transmission problems) at 5:13 PM last night according to his Qualcomm. At least his check for last week's miles reflects 2,796 miles run that week which his highest mileage so far.

 

JET-Lag left the motel by 11 AM - that was the checkout time - and then got driven to Freightliner for him to get the truck back. He got started driving at 2:13 PM and is on his way to Peoria, IL to make his pickup then the delivery is on Monday in Fort Smith, Arkansas so he will be home for our anniversary and my birthday celebration and we will shop for his anniversary/Christmas gift from me while he is home and he has offered to go with me while I drive our mutual friend around Saturday. That friend is still talking positively about his cancer which is good but he has been told he is no longer allowed to drive due to the treatment causing a 5% chance of seizures and the surgery he will be having on this coming Tuesday has a chance of causing him to go blind. I am definitely praying for him not to go blind because it would be difficult for me to get him into his apartment if it did happen because he lives up a flight of somewhat steep stairs - well, actually getting him down them would be tougher because I have trouble negotiating them going down when I am going down them by myself.

 

Before anyone makes a stink about this post, JET-Lag and I tend to joke with each other in ways that might sound "mean" to others.

He called me tonight to let me know that he will be picking up in Shreveport tomorrow morning and getting into the NLR terminal tomorrow - this is part of the rest of the conversation:

Him: "So, will you be able to pick me up?"

Me: "No, I thought you would walk home."

Him: "Dumb question" we both finish with "Dumb answer."

Let's put it this way, he knows that the following things would lead to a delay in pickup: my being in a store when he calls for a pickup or my being in a theater when he calls for pickup (would have an extremely low possibility of that happening because I schedule theater movie watching for a Monday after dropping him off or a Tuesday or a Wednesday) or my being at a doctor's office or my being asleep and not hearing my cell phone ringing. A reason for a possibly MUCH longer delay: I am a patient in a hospital. Reasons for my never getting there to pick him up: I am a resident of the morgue or a cemetery. In other words, we were just joking starting from his asking if I would pick him up.

 

As I was at the Pilot in NLR with JET-Lag waiting for the truck in front of him to finish fueling and pull up, I was in the passenger seat while he was in the driver's seat (as it should be) when someone came over the CB asking "Anyone know of a casino in Little Rock?" I turned to JET-Lag and told him "I can answer that one by saying 'I have lived in Little Rock for 12 years and have yet to find a casino in that city!'" He said, "Well, the closest one is at Oak Lawn which is in Hot Springs." We never did answer the guy LOL and he did not get an answer before JET-Lag turned off his CB. Guess he did not want me to get an "education" ROFLMAO Bit late to worry about that!

JET-Lag also informed me that he should be getting his first CPM raise on either the check he will be receiving on 1/13/12 or the check he will be receiving on 1/20/12. His gross pay from Maverick was $10,833.40 - remember that including orientation pay, training pay and solo pay with the solo pay being only from 10/13/11.

 

I tend to post mostly when I think something has happened that is "newsworthy" or on the funny side. This explains why I can go for a while between postings to this thread.

 

My fault on not posting, been taking the generic version of Nyquil or taking Benadryl to get over the sinus infection that started from an allergic reaction the weekend before last. Almost over it now. It also did not help that one of the cats had to go to the vet 2 times in 2 weeks to get an access on his left front leg treated and another of the 6 had to go for her twice yearly comprehensive visit. On next Tuesday, our other 2 "established" cats (those currently on a Wellness Plan are considered to be "established") go for their comprehensive exams. Should be getting the other 2 established sometime in February from the way it currently looks.

Now, on to JET-Lag's update. It looks like his pay has gone from 33.00 cpm to 34.15 cpm with this paycheck. He has been staying busy with a low mileage 675 miles the week that the truck broke down and the next lowest being 1,075 miles and his highest mileage so far being 2,794 miles. He has been home every weekend for around 34 hours. He is expecting the check he will get on January 27, 2012 to be for around 2,700 miles but I figure it to be around 2,138 miles (he has the more correct figures because he has the exact mileages from each shipper to each consignee and the way the mileage is calculated is by each completed route from shipper to consignee - that is if he picks up from a shipper on a Friday of one week but does not deliver to the consignee until Monday, that trip counts for the week during which that trip is completed rather than the week during which it started aka the mileage for that trip is not divided between the 2 weeks).

 

Went and met up with JET-Lag at the Valero next to where he had delivered to in Little Rock off of Lindsey Road. It was somewhat hazy while I was traveling to there so I was running with my car's lights on. Well, forgot I had them on when I got out of the car and we were in there for about 20 minutes. Hubby followed me to the car and I went to start it to drive him over to where he had parked the car and NOTHING! Luckily, I was parked next to a guy with a big pickup truck and he was nice enough to jump the car. I drove JET-Lag to his truck and kept it running and he followed me to the NLR terminal and he turned it off after a few minutes and tried to restart it and it restarted so he said to leave it off until we were ready to load it and leave. Since he thought it was a possibility that the battery was bad (looked old, even to me!), we went directly to AutoZone and had the battery and the alternator checked. Yep, bad battery! Alternator is good. So, we bought a new battery and he and his brother will take out the old battery and put in the new one tomorrow which is very important since that is the only one of our 2 cars that is working.

Good thing that I had overbought my food last week and did not need to buy food this week and, if worse comes to worse, I can borrow some food off of his parents.