I'm baaaaaack!!!!!!!!

Philistine with a computer.

If you have access to Netflix you should look up Captain Harlock, Space Pirate. It's a feature length CGI animated movie and it was available for streaming a few months ago. The animation is of a quality not seen often in the US (it's a Japanese movie but dubbed in English) and the story is outstanding. Based on an old anime from the 80's (Star Blazers, Voltron, that sort of thing). Fun distraction for a couple of hours, not exactly Shakespeare in the Park but entertaining.

OTAKU!!!!!!!

 

Picked up in Lawrence City GA this afternoon, going to University Center IL by Wednesday morning (but will likely be there tomorrow afternoon--I mean, come on).

I've had to upmanage so much over the past couple weeks that I got my driver manager mad at me today when I called to follow up on a message I had sent him. You shouldn't be dispatching if you can't keep up with one of THESE trucks. Or even 40 of them. I should be off this guy's board in a week or so. I hope my permanent driver manager has a higher level of experience with Gordon. I don't think the guy I have now is incompetent; however, I think he's inured to Celadon's system (he just came over). Many of Celadon's dispatchers aren't very practiced at dealing with drivers and problem solving. I'm not knocking Celadon's system--it's a really good one. I'm just saying a good system can make one partially dependent on it and dull one's edge when it comes to problem solving and critical thinking.

Case in point: I had a Rand McNally TND520 GPS. It's always been quite dependable. So much so that I've been depending on it quite a bit. Then in recent weeks something changed. It stopped taking updates, and started trying to run me on non truck routes and changing up my directions mid trip. Today it got me real good and lost in the Forbidden Zone in Atlanta. I got out of there without a ticket or property damage, then it changed my route after I had verified the directions to the shipper and it tried to send me 11 miles up a narrow two track back to the shipper it had directed me right past, when the major highway I had taken to get there was 100 feet to my left. Then it took me past the entrance (major intersection) and 3.1 miles around to the back entrance of the industrial park. That's when I performed a kinetic recalibration on the unit (tore it off the mount and smashed it on the steering wheel, then daintily placed the remains in the trash).

Much of what happened is my own fault for trusting the unit too much, and I accept responsibility for that. My only defense is that the unit only started misbehaving recently. I say that fully aware that it is no excuse; one should use GPS skeptically precisely because of what happened to me today. I'm back to old school navigation: atlas, notepad, calculator, goat.

I'll probably replace the unit with a Garmin. Eventually. I've gotten a little lazy in the head, and I need to brain more before I catch the dumb. (A little late for that last part, I'm afraid)

My wife said she believes our laptop has some malware that might have affected the TND dock and through that our GPS. She also says I owe her $150 since we could have sold the unit rather than murder it. I told her to shut the hell up. On the inside. On the outside I simply apologized and gave her chocolate. But I'm still on the hook for the money.

I am Captain Zoom.
I need anger management therapy. And $150.00.

 

I flatbed not. I have this problem with heights. First time I have to climb a load to tarp it or position a strap or anything, I'd have a real problem. Maverick tried to get me on their special division yadda yadda (glass haulers), and their recruiter tried to shoot me a line of shuck and jive about how I'd never have to tarp a load on that fleet. He stripped his gears backing up when I asked for that in writing on company letterhead.

I'm not as dumb as I look (I couldn't be!).