EPES TRANSPORT-Greensboro, NC

That's true. Yeah AAA is great to have.

 

Headed in , going under the knife Monday . Time to change one of my batteries! Told them to install a charging port. Surgeon failed to see any humor in that. Last time I came out of surgery , I had a voice to text message " I hope you die" , from the sister n law! Her phone had a hard time understanding her Filipino accent ? Well that's the story she gives. Makes you feel warm and fuzzy when that's the first thing you see after coming to! Be back Tuesday , or not if see gets her wish, right? Be safe guys!

 

@sdaniel Hope everything goes well!

 

I pray that all goes well for you and that you have a speedy recovery.

 

Yeah you gotta love sister on laws huh? Glad I don't have one this time around lol hope you're up and at it quick.

what an annoying week. Will have plenty of time to post about it by Monday since I'll be sitting in Westfield mass for a reset after ice, a week of 6-10hr wait times, no miles and then not getting home on top of it.

 

65 today here in Lodi , OH and they're calling for 5-8 inches of snow ere tomorrow morning and the forecast for Marcy, NY tomorrow isn't any better! I guess I'll use my best judgement in the morning as to whether I attempt it or stay put! So ready for winter to be over!

 

Hopefully this week is better. Be safe.

 

boy mine sure hasn't gotten any better.......guess I'm in that couple week cycle where things go to hell lol

started out last week going up to Minooka......realize I don't have a trailer and release number for the empty so I send in the message. my answer is grab an empty and we'll send a release number. just shake my head cause I know that isn't how it works. do it anyway just to make the point. send in the empty number get a number back that I know isn't right. pull up to the gate yep that's not the right number. back up and pull to the side and hurry up and wait for the right number. finally get it and down to elwood for Hopkinsville.

pick up and head to Hopkinsville. soon as I cross the line into Kentucky it's solid ice. occasionally one lane clear but for the most part nothing but ice. slow going for 100 miles but heavy enough that it's manageable. get off the last 7 miles to the dc and it's terrible. 45 minutes to do the last 7 miles. dumb ### 4 wheelers that think you have to slow down going up the hills. barely made it up a couple of them.

get to the dc and it's an ice rink as well. next load requires epes trailer. no tse. they plowed the parking lot best they could I guess to get the snow off of the ice lol......there's a big packed snow ice mound about 3 ft high and 100 yards long in front of all of the epes trailers. nothing I can get to but one junk tse. send in the message. we're showing 5 epes there can you get one of them? no didn't I just say I couldn't get to them? hurry up and wait. get back a message to bobtail 50 miles to Kroger in springfield for an empty. nice. 50 miles bobtail in the worst ice conditions of the season so far. if this was the boy scouts I sure earned my eagle scout status in poor winter conditions this year. 3hrs to go 50 miles on ice. I didn't see the pavement until 2 miles before where my empty was.

get there and it's nothing but an ice rink as well. break out the kitty litter lol laid down a long trail of it in the tire path to the trailer. so slick I could hardly stand on it, much less move around. watched the yard dog with chains on having a hard time so you know it's bad. get to the trailer and soon as it contacts the 5th wheel just pushes the trailer backward son the ice. ####. pull back out about 3 tractor lengths, lay down more kitty litter and have presence of mind to pull the handle on the tandems as well since it was an older 6 with the handle in the middle and not the air valve. get a running start backward and get under the trailer and bang the kingpin and unstick the iced over tandems and slide them up all at the same time hehehe ahhhh the things they don't teach you in school

finally get loaded 2 miles away and head towards Danville. made it far as the pilot east of Nashville and shut down. watch a covenant student/trainer. she's having a hell of a time getting it in the hole and he picked a tight spot between 2 trucks for her to back into. never mind there were 6 empty spots side by side a couple trucks down. this guy was a real jerk. she had to put it THERE. she's clearly frustrated and holding up traffic setting up and missing and setting up and missing and setting up and missing and he's just standing there outside the truck smoking and offering no help, advice or 'training' of any kind. just yelling at her to get it done. now I don't know if this was his wife he was training or just a female student but she deserved better. she clearly was making her best effort but just missing every time and he's giving her no help whatsoever. she finally just pulled up and setup on one of the 6 empty spaces and goes to put it in there instead and he's running over to the truck cussing and yelling and telling her to drive around and try the tight hole again. real professional this guy. even if he was trying to get her to put it in the tight hole for some reason I didn't know abobut, that sure wasn't the way to handle it. she ignored him and continued setting up on the wide open empty spots and he walks over, makes her get out of the truck, and he outs it in an entirely different spot a couple trucks down from me. I felt bad for her. this guy has no business training if that's how he treats all his students.

get to Danville the next day. in the gate and in a door at 1230. didn't get unloaded till 2230. get one off the yard going to cottonwood al for the next night. make my way down there and get another 6hr unload and a $310 lumper fee. what a racket. we definitely are on the wrong end of this business lol

over to Montgomery from there. figured there was going to be an issue with this one. first had it cancelled due to load not ready. then got it put back on me with a new drop time. 1400-2359 window to pickup. get there 1400 load isn't ready. 3 others there as well load not ready. one guy had been there 8hrs already. finally they call me at 2330 load is ready. same trailer I brought in. now I'm close on time to get to westfield. made it up there 30 minutes to spare. only 0:45 left on my 70 and not really gaining any time Monday but good time on Tuesday. already had resigned to doing a reset and roll since I got there late enough it was almost going to be just a straight 34 reset the way it was going to work out. nope. gotta roll soon as I get 10 on short time and grab the next one that's already late.

north Kingston to Atlanta. pickup that one and fighting the recap hours now. going to be a week of running what I have overnight and waiting till midnight to pick up the next hours. get the tcall on the way to drop in charlotte 1130 with 2hrs left, the clock running and wait till midnight to roll again. get there and drop and nothing out of charlotte for me to take. we'll plan you on something for early am. really? all those trailers in charlotte and nothing I can roll with just sit and wait till tomorrow morning? 2 days ago I had to stay out and not get home and go on recap because we had more loads than we had drivers and now I sit for 12hrs+ minimum cause there's nothing for me. whatever. at least I have good tv signal in charlotte. finally send in a message at 1630 before he goes home asking what's up and get a pitiful 200 from Mooresville to Kinston ready 5am has to be there at 1000. say a few unpleasant words to the QC and lay back down.

it's warm so I've got the air on and go to sleep. get woke up around 1900 with the truck racing and shaking and take a look and lights on all over the dash. it went into an uncontrolled regen and then started throwing DEF malfunction codes. shut it down and send a message to the shop. just sit there and wait till morning and have it serviced and repaired is the message I get back. never mind it's 5k overdue for service and I've been telling them this for over a week. so I sit for even longer now. if they'd gotten me in and gotten the service done when I told them it needed to be done I might just not be sitting here now going on 24hrs. I don't like to put off maintenance and the intervals are clearly specified. it already was rubbing me the wrong way it was being put off. guess they have no choice now.

picking up a student Monday but only going to have him 2 weeks. he's going to brown summit to do shuttle/yard stuff. not sure why they need to put him OTR for that but i'll take it. he called me late sunday afternoon thinking he was going out with me Monday. I just laughed and asked how quick could he be to Harrisburg? lol that's where I was parked sunday before I finished out westfield sunday night. waiting till the last minute to get up with your trainer probably isn't a good way to start though. just a thought.

so, in the shop in charlotte now. hurry up and wait. been that way for going on 2 weeks now. only thing that'll fix it now is get in and reset and start over next week. I'm too close to home on Wednesday and not positioned to salvage a good week out of this week.

 

Got battery changed Monday . Got back out Tuesday am , had to stop good pain meds Monday evening ! In other words , sure know I been cut on ! Just glad to get the implant working again . It not working was really messing with day to day life ! Still joke that that they should left an charging port , when I plug in my cell phone at night I could plug in to ! Heck why not , got hose running to my head at night, why not add a power cable ?
Bumped into lady friend in the hospital . Had not seen her in about 3 years . Her room was across from mine . Small world ! Her visit was far more important then mine ! Second round removing breast cancer . Me and the wife cooked enough food for a couple of days and dropped it off so she can recover and not worry about feeding her family . Sweet girl ! Know it's scary for her!
Thanks to everyone wishing me well ! Epes has always felt like a family! Dysfunctional at times , but family !