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

Correct on the Fly J in Primm. I use the Fly J and Pilot interchangeably at times (especially when I ask for a fuel reop). Regardless, I remember it looked crowded but I think next time I'm going to swing thru anyway and check it out. A lot of times when I update my posts it's a few days after the fact since I don't get WiFi all that much. Some memories get muddied.

They've been running me pretty hard since Post Falls. Right after I last posted I got a load from Spokane going down to Denver.

My buddy and I have a running gentleman's bet. We are the last 2 drivers remaining from our Swift academy class of 10, to the best of my knowledge. The bet is to see who can run the most miles in one 11 hour shift.

That first day after my pickup in Spokane I only had enough hours on my 14 to shut down in Smelterville, Idaho at the Walmart. The next day it was on.

The most difficult thing about being the champion mileage maker is the gamble. "The gamble" is choosing where to shut down safely and legally and within Swift policy. I have an unconfirmed, to him, a 655 mile day a while back. I think I had another day with higher miles back when I was in training but that was easy as the truck was faster and I had a trainer to switch off with to continue driving when my hours ran out. I didn't take a pic of my QC screen as evidence of the previous 655 mileage record so that was null and void to him.

The day I left Smelterville en route to Denver I made it with 11 minutes to spare to a rest area pull out in Kaycee, WY. The gamble was whether or not there would be parking there later at night for me to shut down. If there wasn't parking I would be in trouble however most likely I would have made it work somehow. I had used Google earth earlier to get an idea of the layout and it looked promising with options. I hit a ton of construction on I-90 that slowed me down and it often dropped the speed limit down to below 40 mph or less. I stayed legal within those speed limits of course. I could have easily hit 660 that day if there wasn't construction.

My net weight was only about 21,000 so that aspect was near perfect. My total miles for the day ended up being 649.8. Not bad but not as good as it could have been. So the bet is still running and I'm in the lead with a so-so 649.8

I got to Denver to drop right after the tornados and the hail. I thought it had snowed until another driver pointed out that the piles were actually hail. Some of the piles of hail were 6"+, especially near the Denver terminal by those railroad tracks. I didn't know about the weather Denver had before then. Crazy.

* BTW, if you used to enter the Denver terminal from that side street, crossing the railroad tracks, you can't do that anymore. At least for now. There is a ton of construction and that route is blocked. So, plan ahead. You have to enter the terminal from the street that runs in front of that nearby hotel.

Immediately after I dropped I got a double header. They offered me an extra $50 to take a t-call from Denver up to Loveland as it was already almost late. It was followed by a pickup down at Coors in Golden going out here to near Dallas. By the time I was checking out of Coors I had something like 23 or 26 minutes left on my clock to get the approximately 14 miles back to the terminal to shut down. It was late and the nearby T/A was full. I went off duty, stopping in front of the terminal with 1 minute left on my clock. Too close for comfort.

The next day, today, I had to scale the load as someone had broke the Coors scale the day before my pickup. I hit the T/A to scale, Pilot to fuel in Denver (the one I hate) and got rolling. I made it only to here at the truck-packed parking lot of the Walmart in Childress, TX. About 530 miles today hard fought.

Weather was decent down through Colorado on hwy 287 until I got past the Oklahoma panhandle into Texas.

Somewhere before Dumas, TX I saw a storm I was heading towards. The sky was an odd mix of colors. There was dark and white, light aqua and dark blues to black. There was a yellow tint in some of the clouds and what looked like a brown dirt haze. It just didn't look right. As I drove into it rain started then wind then all hell broke loose. It is hard to describe but in the same way a fog lies close to the earth, brown dirt took the place and it was almost lifting off the ground and getting sucked up. Hard to describe. It started to hail severely while wind pushed my hard against my truck, even with my 44,000 lb load. I saw what looked like a snaking tornado coming down from the clouds to my left and spinning wildly in a field off to the left. I'm still not sure that I saw what I think I saw because I've never seen a tornado that I remember. It wasn't huge like I would have previously imagined a tornado to be but it was pretty distinct twisting down in an almost S pattern. Maybe I'm just going crazy. There was lightening almost continuous until I drove out of the worst parts. I stopped for fuel again down in Amarillo and weather rolled in hard again. Torrential rain, lightening and immediate flooding. It got worse again as I headed east. As the sun sets in the west, behind me, it should have been lighter than the east in front of me. But it was the opposite. As in drove east it was lighter and behind me in my mirrors it was pitch black, as dark as ink with the exception of the occasional burst of bright from lightening flashes. Again I aw another weather phenomenon to my right, south of the highway. Again weird cloud formations and out in a field there was what looked like clouds forming at round level. The actual clouds were fairly low and it appeared that these clouds forming on the ground were reaching up to the actual clouds aabove. I don't know how to explain it otherwise. I took video with my GoPro and I'm curious if it came out. I'll have to research this phenomenon to find out what exactly was going on.

As I got here tonight to Childress I could still see constant lightening behind me as the weather became dry and humid here. Now I'm hearing thunder outside as i write this and the winds are blowing my truck. Crazy weather day.

Hoping I get a load after this delivery tomorrow to keep me rolling through the weekend.

 

Currently at the Loves in Anna, TX near Dallas. Got my load unloaded this afternoon. I was late and they just barely took me. I almost had to reschedule. Storms let up as I made it east closer to the drop. Waiting on a load to take me through the weekend.


A rough day, my bday, and that shouldn't have been rough...

My birthday is today and it kind of sucks celebrating it, for lack of a better word, on the road. Usually my birthday isn't an event anyway, I'm sure last year I was probably on the road as well. And the years prior to that I was miserable with my ex and most likely alone. I guess if I was somewhere cool, like a movie theater right now, it would be a little better.


Divorce finally...
1 year - 11 months - 16 days after the announcement that she wanted one...

My divorce went through, finally, a week ago to the day and today my ex was supposed to pay me back the $500 she owes me. That last issue, her paying me back, was supposed to be the last unresolved issue.

For months, she has been hemming and hawing procrastinating and manipulating, telling me she would get me the money this day or that day. When the day came she always had another excuse. The same thing she did when I was trying to get her to file for divorce, and that went on for 1 year, 11 months and 16 days. She swore up and down that today she would finally get it to me and everything between us would be resolved. I almost believed her as she had run out of excuses and she gets paid today.

The two checks totaling $500. were cashed against my checking account, and I prematurely gave her the $500 as I assumed the checks from a large insurance company would clear. They did not. There was no funds due to an error by the insurance company and she actually owed them money. The deal between her and I was this: I come out to Washington, cash the checks against my checking account and in return she would give me half the value - $250. The checks were from an accident she got in with her car. I had nothing to do with the car. She bought it when we were seperated and she drove it. When she wrecked it she had my name on the insurance policy as well as hers. This was ########. So, these checks were made out to both of us. She didn't have a checking account so we cashed it against mine. My take on me getting the $250 was that if my name was on a car that I had nothing to do with, she most likely got a reduced insurance rate due to my name being on said policy, then she can pay me half the checks value. Plus I was meeting with her to cash them, out of my way. As far as I was concerned, I would have rather not seen her and just let the checks go away. But she wanted to meet and cash them so I met her. Weeks later I found out that the checks were sent back to the sender, the insurance company, and I was out $500 - the $250 she owed me and the $250 I gave her at the bank. ####### #####.

So yesterday, again, she said she was 100% sure she would send me the $500. She called this morning, on my freakin birthday, and told me basically to go screw myself. She would rather use it to pay other debts she has.

So I guess that kind of messed my day up. It wasn't so much the $500 I was expecting but what it represented. It represented closure for me on a positive tip. The positive tip being that I got paid back. I stated that I would sue her or press criminal charges against her but I know the higher and more intelligent road is for me to just let it go. Regardless, the threats of suing her or pressing criminal charges did not move her to action. She opened up a Verizon cellphone account way back when we were (barely) married and she used my name and social security number, without my knowledge, to open the account. Now Verizon is coming after me. I told Verizon that I didn't open the account, the ex did over the phone with my social security number and without my permission or knowledge. They asked me if I have a police report. I don't as I didn't press charges. That is what I told her I would press charges against her for. And if I could show that she knew that the insurance checks would bounce, I could possibly charge her for that. Not likely though. The other option is to go after her in civil court but then a lot of it is hearsay and subpoenaing records would be dreadful.

In the end, I know it would cost me more stress and more money to chase after her for the $500. The part of me that has always done things on principal doesn't want to let this go. The rational side of me that I really can't stand at the moment, is telling me to just let it be and walk away. It really screws with my head.

I guess I can be really thankful that I don't have anymore shared property with her and, most importantly, I don't have kids with her. I can only imagine if that was the case. She threatened today, once again, to put my (now her's I guess - no choice of mine) German Shepherd, into the shelter if I let her family know about all the dirt she did to them. Well, too late as I already messaged her mom and told her about the money my ex used to steal from their house, the items the ex pawned that belonged to her stepdad's deceased dad and the rest of the dirt. Yeah, it was childish but I took the low road in letting them know how dirty she is and it felt fantastic. I'm tired of being threatened using my dog as a pawn. Go ahead and put her in the shelter. She is a beautiful German Shepherd and would definitely go to a better home than the one the ex provides.

Part of me can see why people go nuts with their ex's. Why it drives people to do crazy things, especially when there are children involved. We invest so much time in putting our all into one person, trusting them, and then it all goes to #### it stings like no other. What our ex's can do to us is 100 times worse than any stranger. I would rather be punched in the face by a complete stranger than have to feel that tightness in my chest when my ex stresses me out. It's the worst feeling, as some of you already know.

When I met my ex, I thought that #####y side of her was "cool". I liked how she was that way at the time. Maybe because my last two prior ex's were kind of "softies". So my exwife (no longer the STBEW) was the polar opposite and I thought that was cool. She was all Rock N Roll, cursing and tough and for some reason unknown to me now, I liked it. She is 10 years younger than me and when we met she was just barely mid 20's in age. But what I didn't realize was that she is just a bad person overall, not just an image. And that is not attractive. Who cares if she wasn't good to me, that's a minor issue and my issue alone. What is important though is that she's not good to her family. She's not good to her friends and she wouldn't help a stranger if they needed it. Just a ###### person overall


To better days ahead...

So, yeah, I feel pretty crappy today that this all ended on this note. I'm trying to stay positive. My trick is reminders: I gotta remind myself that it could always be worse. I could not have this job. I could have kids with the ex. I have my health. I could be in prison looking out a little plexiglass window as the rest of the world and time goes by. But, I'm not. I'm here typing on a computer that is mine. I have a job. I have friends and family who have called all day and posted up on my Facebook birthday messages. And I'm finally divorced and free.

 

Thanks I will use that quote. And Judge Judy would have a field day with this one. I went to law school for a while and one thing I did get out of the unfortunate experience was to "think like a lawyer". I can see both sides of an issue and I can see holes in my side as well. It would probably be pointless to sue her and pointless to bring criminal charges as I would have to get a load back to WA, on time nonetheless, and show up in court. It's just not worth it. Thinking about her, let alone talking to her or seeing her, literally makes my chest tight. A story I always remember is, years ago, my fairly young uncle was getting into it with his ex on the phone arguing. It got heated and he dropped dead there on the kitchen floor from a heart attack. He was too young. It's something I won't forget.

And, as hard as it sometimes is, I always try to imagine how much worse things could be. We never thing about how good we have it until we have it bad.

 

I kind of got a load. Sort of.

They sent me a preplan to show up at the local Walmart D.C. here in Texas and do an orientation for Walmart dedicated tomorrow. I gotta be honest, I called up and kind of whined like a little freakin baby for a minute when I learned I didn't have a load taking me through the weekend. It was just some residual crankiness from the thing with my ex earlier. I apologized to the guy I was talking to and he explained that it could be decent money doing the Walmart loads as we get paid for loaded both to and from the Walmart stores. Now I'm kind of excited for something new. Gonna show up early and put my best foot forward for this Walmart thing tomorrow morning. Good way to finish up my day.

 

I'm going to have to reference your post of I ever get into another 13 speed. Honestly it sounds confusing but I would get the hang of it after a few transmissions. Downshifting sounds especially tough.

I like the tips on getting the 5th wheel to release. I can use that as well. I know the mechanism is different than mine. Thanks for the info. Insider scoop always helps.