CRETE - A Year in Review

after a month or two, you'll love it...just remember, she isn't yelling at you, she's just reminding you of your hours...like a digital wife(or ex-wife) unlike a real wife...your digital wife has a volume control and you can ignore her w/o losing 1/2 your stuff. I just wish I could afford some digital Midol...mine is really moody. Of course, living with me 24/7 for 6 weeks at a time, can you blame her?

 

oh and that's another thing. I can actually turn my volume back up since I am logged in and I won't hear the "donk" sound every minute

It looks like I have made my pay increase at least mileage wise. Hire date to this week (week48 )I have 120,322 If I have added things correctly. I had a 3231 week last week and am looking at 3131 (plus shag pay on a 14 mile run) this week if I can just make it to Palestine, TX by Friday. Not braggen' just sayen'
I never turn down a load. I may ask for something better after I do a shorty but I always take the offer first as long as I can legally make it.

 

I have to say...it seems as miles have picked up a bit...unless you go out west. The west coast is usually not our most productive area normally, but it seems based on what Ralph was posting, that it's not picking up out there like the rest of the country.

 

I think a lot of it is a result of the blacklist I'm on - so other drivers may be doing well out here. I was told two weeks ago that I only needed 4000 miles before the middle of July to meet the annual mileage threshold. Regardless, I find my total to be absolutely ridiculous considering how little home time I've taken and how much I've been sitting everywhere. Right now I will have been in San Antonio over 34 hours by the time they let me deliver tonight. Unfortunately I stopped at the consignee first (instead of going straight to the truck stop) since they told me there was a chance I could deliver yesterday. After waiting there 3 hours, I found out it was bs and consequently the 34+ hours of sitting was broken up as I had to move on to the truckstop.

 

May be different now but when stationed out of Las Vegas I ran pretty hard out west, mainly back and forth between Oregon/Washington and southern, CA.

 

This 3 weeks out I was mainly out west or going to or coming from there. Heading back to Texas so I'm sure they'll keep me close by since home time is coming up. I got the 15 days out notice today.

Man I have no idea why I was so worried about elogs I'm gonna like them...once I figure how to edit them correctly. Also today I was leaving Crete, NE and had to go through town. Left the shipper and went to about the second light in town. I had to stop for the red light so I guess my 2 mile SOT reset because I was well outside of town when my clock started counting down. sweeeet

 

The edit option is under the "approve" tab. You can edit everything but drive time...but, now after you edit, it ask's you "reason for editing". I've used 'just because' a time or two, just to see if anyone is watching. Never heard a word. The one good thing they changed lately is the easy way to add a remark to your existing duty status. It use to be you had to enter your load/unload, fuel etc. before you hit the "ok" otherwise you had to do an edit to add it, now, you can add it before you change your status again. Makes checking in at guard shacks a bit quicker. I use to hate these e-nags...now I don't know how I lived without them.

 

So true about the e-logs. When mine stopped working for three days, it was a major hassle. You don't have to worry about mile markers or obscure town names or using white out or any of that. When your day is done, it's just a quick check and then relax.

 

Also, if you have the MCP200, and the screen gets cracked(but you can still read it) you can use a USB mouse to move around and enter stuff. The port is under that little rubber cover on the side.

 

The one drawback about e-log though, you have to remember to go to the e-log sight and download your logs yourself for your tax return. I bought a flash drive I keep them on and at the end of the year I both print them out and copy them to a cd that both go in the file with my return.