Swift - Starting the New Year training with Swift 1/7/13 - A long read...

I use the macro 34 feature to set my PTA but recently I heard from a long time Swifty that if you continue to send Mac 34s it will keep bumping you down the line. Not sure about this.

How do you confirm your PTA thru the Mac 34? That would be a cool tool.

My QC is a PIA. Last night it froze up with a blue and white Windows screen and kept saying the same word over and over and over and over again. Not only could I not reboot it or shut it off but I couldn't even lower the volume. I called Swift Phoenix afterhours with the QC voice in the background loudly proclaiming "left...left...left...left.…left...". It almost drove me insane. Then on its own it all went dark, rebooted and now its not recording my daily mileage again on the 8 day summary. Had this problem months ago and it worked itself out on its own. Crazy contraption. I was told by the QC people at QC that issue lies in the fact that my truck is a 2010 and that the QC is set at 2009 specs, whatever that means.

Yeah CO has crazy, changing weather. Even after I lived out there for a couple of years I could never get the idea of elevation and changing weather out there thru my head. I would start out in Boulder with little gear riding on my motorcycle and then go up to Trail Ridge Road and freeze my ### off. I just couldn't get the hang of it.

 

Totally true about the northeast eating up your hours, especially between area north of DC up to Boston and west to Penn. I hate driving out there.

Make sure he is getting the higher CPM rate for driving out there. I don't know the exact radius of higher pay but its there. Also we are supposed to be getting paid a little more for runs originating and terminating east of the Mississippi. I've been going back and forth with my DM and I am told the computer adjusts the rate automatically. Another driver told me that the DM is supposed to adjust the rate so I really don't know now.

I didn't realize they were so strict on the service failure thing. I haven't gotten one yet but I almost did. I fought it, had all my ducks in a row, and had it removed with an apology from them. As always with anything, COVER YOUR ARSE. Fight it. I hope he wins.

 

As a side note, the Chisom Travel Center in Lubbock, TX is TERRIBLE.

Stayed there last night as my delivery was only a couple of miles away.

Staff was rude. I'm thinking this was a mother, daughter and kids run establishment. I'm all for the mom and pops places but this was ridiculous. The bathroom was disgusting. No soap at night and still none in the morning. Broken change machine. Broken dryers duct taped closed. Mom was OK but when I went up to daughter to get change, before I even opened my mouth, she walked away to do something else leaving me standing there invisible. It was kind of interesting that the daughter had her two kids cleaning the bathrooms. They were about 8 years old. I like the idea of instilling a work ethic in kids when they are young but it was just odd seeing the kids with their oversized gloves wiping down the bathrooms. Can't comment on the restaurants there but it seemed the place was cutting corners all over and they couldn't maintain it.

Won't be stopping there again.

 

On a positive note I bought the Roadpro 12v portable stove after 2 of my slow cookers burned out. This thing is great. It heats up quick, in about 1/2 hour. There are 3 tinfoil like inserts to cook with that are supposed to be cleanable but good luck trying to clean food off what is basically a hard piece of tinfoil. So what I do instead is use a piece of tinfoil in the insert to dispose of later. I've been buying the bag of precooked, boneless Tyson chicken strips at Walmart ($8.00) and just throw them in there for a little while. Chicken is cooked, moist and with some seasoning it tastes great.

This little oven is $30.00 and you get 1000 points at Pilot while the promotion lasts. If I'm not wrong doesn't 1000 points equal $10. spending in the store?