EPES TRANSPORT-Greensboro, NC

yeah was good to meet you too....remember what i said about rebooting that q/c.....mine froze again the same day i saw you and had to reboot it again......right at the end of the day when it was time to go off duty......a torx bit will work fine don't even need a handle.....just unplug the connector and wait a few minutes and plug it back in and the unit will come back to life.....

not quite FX but did fly a 727 with a contract cargo carrier for about 5 years before i moved into the management side of the cargo gig......just fly for fun now.....

had a successful band that played the southeast as well from '96 to '06 as well so i can feel you on that.....it does help in getting a headstart on knowing your way around in some areas.......and certainly taught me alot about living on the road before i got out here.....

had a pretty good week this week.....2500 when i shut down this morning and preplanned on 450 out sunday night so probably get another in after that one by cutoff if i get an early delivery time on whatever i get for monday into tuesday....may get another 3000 week in on the check if i'm lucky.....2950 for sure.....

ended up going the opposite direction from home friday morning into Tn to pickup for a drop in chester so i ended up spending the night there last night and then running on home this morning.....flirted with the idea of staying out this weekend since the wife was going to visit family in WV but glad i came on in.....just me and the dogs on the couch watching the race....kinda nice lol......told her last thing i wanted to do was drive another 500 after driving all week i'd see her when she got back......besides already being thru WV this week

started out the week in NJ at ikea......while we may not have to do NYC we sure go enough places so close you could throw a rock and hit it don't we? haha........got woke up in the middle of the night with another Epes driver that had a load coming there as well.....heavy heavy and he couldn't get his tandems to release so he could slide them back for docking.....so he woke me up to help him.....tried to pull the handle but it wouldn't even budge even a fraction of an inch.

one thing i've found with alot of these trailers is that if they're heavy, they have to be level for the pins to retract.....didn't help any that someone had put a bolt and nut into the bypass and they had rusted so i couldn.t get them out.... so there was no way at that weight, on an incline and with the frame and pins bound up in the slide that the pins were going to retract.

guy didn't have a toolbox on his truck......that was one of the first things i did was put a toolbox together for my truck.....had really been a lifesaver on a few occasions.....as well as a 5lb hammer, big and small crowbar as well......nothing like being prepared for minor things that can be fixed on the road.....

anyway, I had him pull out of the dock and back up onto the road and once he got level i pulled the handle and it came right out and the pins magically slid right in lol.....funny how that works that way isn't it?......he thanked me for the help but i was surprised this was something he didn't already know as he said he'd been with the company for awhile.

what is it with all the red-tagged trailers? one thing i've found that does get on my nerves a little is that almost EVERY load i've picked up off the yard in th elast few months has been a red tag. and every time, the word from the shop is always the same. short on help. well, HIRE somebody then. this week was no different. had 2 of them. lost 5 hours tuesday on the one i picked up. PM, air leak and tires. had a local guy that even got to jump in front of me because all he had was a mudflap dragging. and then he had the nerve to come up and say "i really had to get this done because i get paid by the hour" really? that means you get paid for waiting dummy. i get paid by the mile. the time i'm sitting here waiting and now waiting for you to get to jump in front of me in line, i'm not getting paid anything. last mudflap i got that was hanging i took two 5/8 wrenchs out of the toolbox, loosened the hanger, stuffed it in there, tightened it down and went about my business. 10 minutes tops. guess it doesn't work that way when you get paid by the hour.

had a good week otherwise.....got a chance to meet another one of the guys off here, (funny how every time i tried to write your name it puts up this ridiculous little smily icon don't know what's up with that) spend some time with les in the lounge and do some catching up.....don't get to see him much so it's always good to see what he's been up to....rolled hard the rest of the week.....no loading or unloading delays everywhere i went was pretty quick so i was able to roll and not wait.....what a difference a week makes lol...last week i was short on miles because nobody anywhere got in any hurry....but that's the way it goes.....but getting off to good and early start this week

 

That means while he is waiting they are paying him.While your waiting they are not paying you anything.Who do you think they are going to fix first.No brainer there.Welcome to trucking,lol.

 

yeah i know lol

oh i completely understand why.....i was a manager for many years and the cost aspect of it didn't escape me......point being two wrenches and a tiny bit of intiative on his part could have saved both the shop and myself some time.....

we all could write a book on "welcome to trucking" moments couldn't we? haha

 

got in yesterday and just chillin' and drinking, now! haha picked up a load in Corinth, MS on Friday that is going to Harris Teeter Distribution center for Monday, anytime before 2000 so I'll take that in to there in the am and I'll get another run in, hopefully by Tuesday, and I'll be well over 2000 miles for the week. The only problem I had, so far is the place I picked up in MS. We had NO DIRECTIONS, my gps couldn't find it, so I called dispatch and told 'em what was up....and he sent me directions from mapquest to me over the q/c. Well, that was USELESS! haha you could only take 2 roads into the town, every road was no trucks allowed....boy was it a total ##### to find this place. Finally did a fake emergency stop, went into a metal fab shop and the lady said I was the first driver of the day. Apperently, drivers go in to this place everyday trying to find either where I was going or the furniture plant! haha so, she gave me directions and found the place no problem. When I went into dispatch yesterday, I turned in the directions so if anybody goes to the little town, they'll know where to go. Oh, and did I mention that your out in the middle of nowhere, not only for 1 hour did I NOT have any cellphone signal, I had no q/c signal too....that was kinda scary. Pulled in yesterday and they put my 144425 mile truck into the shop for service which is sweet cause I'll have new tires (which it doesn't need), oil change, the whole nine...so told them to check out the satellite dome on my q/c...well back to gaming and drinking.....have a safe week and I'll catch up with ya next week!

 

yeah you'll get a few like that from time to time.......the dreaded "no directions available for the customer of this stop" message lol.......i've had a few runs where i got that for both ends of the trip and had to figure them both out

luckily between my laptop, iphone or wife at home i can usually pull up google earth or the map function on my phone or get in touch with her and find the place before going in. i've got pretty good signal coverage almost everywhere except sw central georgia or some places down in ms or, strangely enough, between reidsville and the va line........once i had the wife call the cons to get the directions because i was in sw georgia, no directions, and no signal for internet but did have phone signal.....you just have to get creative sometimes.....

make sure you send in the directions via the q/c when you get them as opposed to just turning them in at dispatch......i did that once and got a run right back to the same place the next week and the directions didn't get put in.....send them in by q/c and at least there will be a record of it and the places i've done like that when i went back the directions i sent were in there. always be sure and ask as well if they do or do not have overnight parking available for us and include that info when you send in the directions.

you got a window to deliver at H/T? lucky you. every time i've been there it's always late night, firm appt. and deal with the lumpers.....although i do have to say as far as lumpers go they're usually pretty quick, easy to deal with and fairly cheap compared to alot of places.....not alot of room to setup and back into the doors there though.....and if there are trailers in the door beside the door you're in BE CAREFUL....there's only like an inch or two on either side the doors are really close together.....

 

you got a window to deliver at H/T? lucky you. every time i've been there it's always late night, firm appt. and deal with the lumpers


it's a drop and hook! hahahaha well suppose to be...guess I'll find out in the morning....hey man...message me your phone number...I'll give ya a call and we can jam on the phone or come over and hang...I live around Guilford College.....we can jam some Zappa...if ya can! haha Be safe bro....

 

so it's been a long week......will be out 7 days this time before i get home....DM is out for a couple of weeks so i'm on someone else's board until he returns and let's just say i haven't been impressed in the least......2nd weekend in a row that i got sent the exact opposite direction from home on friday.....last weekend was able to work it out so i got in by midday saturday but this week i ended up in beffalo on friday and didn't get empty until 1530.....by that point i don't think my sub dm was real interested in anything but going home for the weekend because i got no real response when i told them i was out of hours and when i'd get my hours back.....i wouldn't have been out of hours except that the load they gave me thursday was already late when they gave it to me, and i asked if they loaded 24hrs so that i could go over as soon as i got my hours back at 0200? the message came right back that yes, they do load 24hrs, go on over. start my clock at 0200 and run through dense fog to get there and nobody home. had to sit there and wait until 0700 until they opened to get loaded. i was livid. wasted 5 hrs for no reason at all and my 70 is already getting short. that would not have happened with my regular dm. i'll be so glad when he's back.

interesting place in baltimore this week.....directions said cross the tracks and go right last building on the right. go right and there's nothing but a deadend alley with an abandoned warehouse. goody. have to back all the way back up out of the alley blindside back into the road in and then go left. another alley but at least a few businesses. farther into the alley and now every building looks abandonded and run down. stop right there and don't go any farther in and starting walking down the street looking for the place. finally find it, last building on the LEFT, not the right. looks like a burned out crackhouse. last drive in the alley on the left. barley barley just enough room to turn around and then blindside into the hole. thank god for power mirrors lol......seems like i've said that before. 1ft less road at the end i wouldn't have been able to turn around and would have had to back down the whole alley......after backing out to turn around first lol.....a chick driving for hartt came in behind me and that's what she had to do.....she didn't have the turn radius i did in her international so she had to back the whole way down.....was really sweating the blindside in but after i pulled out i walked back down and spotted for her getting in....she did pretty good considering she had half the trun radius i do.....

going down to sc earlier in the week in Va i stopped at the rest area at the 108 for a nap cause i was nodding a little around daybreak.....woke up with guys raising hell on the radio.....a bear came in the rest area and was writing tickets to everyone parked on the ramp in and out of the rest area.....

saw a really ugly truck this week.....coming up 81 i'm pretty sure it was a t2000......FULL aero package.......didn't see a company name on it other than "eco-green" on the trailer......front of the tractor had a full nose cone....all the way to a point.....like the radome on a jet.....full skirts on all wheels all the way to the ground, steers, drives, and tandems....all you could see was about a 1" strip of rubber at the road......maybe 1" between the rear of the tractor frame and the trailer skirts and rear of the cab and front of the trailer......no WAY that thing is going over speed bumps anywhere without getting torn to pieces....looked like an airbus or boeing without wings or vertical fin or maybe a rocket laid down on it's side......ugliest thing i've ever seen......i'm really resistant to change and still think a 'real' truck is a hood lol.....it's taken 10 years just for the aero things we're driving now to grow on me a little but this thing was just ugly.....i hope my driving days are over before they try to put me in something like that lol

alot of load/unload delays this week......food lion in greencastle.....8hrs to load 11 pallets. really? geez i could have hand loaded it quicker. on the pallets. at least they had parking there. ran out of hours before they had the 3rd pallet on. another epes guy there told me they always take that long.

so sitting here just outside of buffalo now waiting for another 3 hours to pass so i can roll on over to baldwinsville and pick up a beer load home......looking at a trailer broken in two parked on the side of the J.......still hooked to the tractor.....dead center broken in two and laying on the ground at about a 45 to the tractor and the tandems.....bet there's a good story behind that one lol....

 

I saw that thing in the rest area at the 261 in va it was really interesting looking that's for sure. Get used to that at food lion you guys have a few trailers in there and they are slow slow slow. Sometimes it takes just as long to get your paperwork as it does to unload

 

Its loading at foodlions. Almost all their del are drop
And hook. Don't know why they don't preload our
Outbound loads. Got trailers there.

 

yeah that one was kind of a rude awakening compared to the other F/L that i've been to so far they've all been D/H except this place.....but this was the first pickup i've had at one come to think of it.....all the others have been deliveries.....will definately have that in mind for planning next time i get one.

had another one this week too at husqvarna in orangeburg that was supposed to be a preload and it didn't get loaded.....waited 5 hours to get a door on that one and then another 3 hours to load.....ran out of hours there too

some weeks are just like that.