Post Gordon ~ Thoughts, Commentary & Reflections

Some helpful links:

Bendix Air Brake Handbook: http://www.anythingtruck.com/instructions/060-AirBrakeHandbook.pdf

Understanding Trailer Air Suspensions: http://www.benlee.com/pdf/_componen...son/understanding-suspensions-hendrickson.pdf

Sealco air brake tutorials: http://sealcocvp.com/tech/abo/index.htm

Light snow this morning. Forecast cold tonight. Duck is all Ms. personality. Chicks have grown into pullets and need more room. Found two eggs frozen and cracked open in the nesting box yesterday. Accuweather says 6 below by 4 am. Have running water again. For now. Such is Vic's life...

Pipes might, might not freeze at 6 below. Dunno.

Used to work with an attorney who had a 'special' spot on left side under his desk for the 'good stuff' which then disappeared and lost for all purposes. I tend to do something similar trashing up car. Note to self: don't drop car key, which I did yesterday at Wal-Mart unless prepared to clean out the front seats and behind the front seats until the key finally turns up... Oy!

Took a while, too.

 

Tomorrow, Dayton

Kinda hoped would have no run tomorrow as haven't gotten a whole lot done since Tuesday's run to Louisville (KY short). Today's soups at Main Street Coffee in Spencer were a sausage and potato, which I had there (really good) and vegetarian lasagna. Brianne put the vegetarian lasagna in the 'fridge and I picked it up just before they closed at 5 pm.

I'd left the vegetarian lentil soup in her 'fridge last Friday-Wednesday and it was great on Wednesday! Brianne insisted her lasagna wouldn't hold up as well as the lentils. So when I left the library (where I updated this iPad) went over and fetched it. Was really good, too. Didn't make it home.

So my weight's riding up some between runs Sun, Mon and Tuesday and what I've indulged while off in this cold weather. Haven't exercised. Nada. When the gal from the Tivoli Theatre came in for tamales, a couple of us groused to her about carrying SpongeBob over from last week. Hell, didn't want SpongeBob last weekend, either.

My only contact with SpongeBob came from a flat screen at a pizza place.

Didn't care for it then. Not going to pay $5 for it now...

 

Wrote my blurb in the parking lot at the Spencer Y before going in, then went to start the car. Nothing. Fortunately have a brand new, Rural King battery in the garage, which is where I am now, in front of my garage, after a couple guys from the Y gave me a jump.

This better work...


//Had intended this battery for the dump truck, which I haven't played with for quite a while and needs a battery. My fingers are cold!! But we're back in business... Funny how, despite that you know it should work, in the back of my mind I'm thinking, "Yeah, should, got a jump after all, but maybe it won't! Is the new battery any good?"

"Where are my tools? Well, got other batteries around here... Hate to have to pull a battery out of something else!!" Plus with this car (97 Merc Sable), a failing battery is often not--but a failing starter instead. On the other hand, I have a good, rebuilt starter somewhere in the garage from last time when I really did need a battery. This battery was fairly old, probably the problem.

Ah-hemm-mm.

(Ah hope... )

 

Mundane Hazards

On any given day a heavy duty driver encounters numerous mundane hazards that but for dealing with them to quickly diffuse their danger might well have a different and calamitous result. Today's Dayton run was pretty typical in that respect, with the usual flavors of mundane hazards.

That is, 379 mundane miles as long as nothing spirals into catastrophe.

The morning run began just after I completed my pretrip at 7 am. (I noticed, by the way, that the brand new Volvo on the yard this morning was gone this afternoon. Perhaps Trainer Frank took that new truck, dunno. But... ) Trainer Frank arrived on the yard as I walked from my car after loading my light gear into today's truck. Had my mind set on Breakfast Blend out of the Keurig in the office, but it wasn't to be. My card fob would not open the door and I recall that we can't get into the office on Saturdays.

At least, I think I recall that. Frank rolled his window down beside me, and directed me to the truck I'd had last. "Your CDs are still in there," he said. "See how you are?" I teased him for not safeguarding Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, Meatloaf, Bob Marley and the Traveling Wilburys for me.

After fueling for the first time today up at the J (Flying J) at SR 37/I-465 up in Indy, my first 'real' hazard came just inside Greater Dayton just a few miles from my exit, where there's some construction, the usual 55 mph speed limit and trucks directed to the left lane because the right lane is temporary and doesn't have sufficient base to support truck traffic.

Not that it matters today, but the construction's just inside Huber Heights corporate limits. (Will have more to say about Huber Heights another day.) I cut my speed from 62 mph and moved over when the 'Trucks Use Left Lane' sign came up. Now, we've all had the experience with some bonehead, usually a new driver, who runs on in the hope to get by and hurry through the construction. Full speed ahead. Sometimes it turns from just greedy and risky to downright reckless and dangerous.

So it was today.

The yellow semi behind me did not cut its speed, instead hurried on up and flew by me on the right with literally zip chance to get to the open lane in front of me without my quick help and two cars, a yellow car in front and a black car in back of it, blocking the door in the yellow semi's lane. What dumb as an ashtray thing was this driver thinking? Oh, who knows. And it doesn't matter.

Fact is, I don't make 10-cents more for staying in front of the yellow semi. While the yellow semi ran up to within a couple feet of the black car's rear bumper, I quickly slowed and tried to signal that he could have the lane in front of me. Maybe the yellow semi thought he could run the black car around the yellow car and make the lane in front of me without my help. Dunno.

Wasn't going to happen, didn't happen and the yellow semi had too much speed to even slow down by the time it reached the black car's bumper. It's doubtful the yellow car had any idea what went on behind and maybe the black car didn't either. Dunno.

The yellow semi just bore down on the black car, oblivious to my flashing headlights and slowing speed but finally made the move into my lane while almost on top of the black car's bumper, with mere inches to spare, flashed its lights thx and raced on ahead, disappearing rapidly ahead of me.

The yellow semi got through a long construction zone uninterrupted by carnage--this time. I wouldn't expect that driver's long for this industry.

 

More Mundane Hazard

It may surprise you that what came to mind as I watched this yellow semi drama unfold, was a talk that I used to give to Kiwanis, Rotary, Legion Clubs and, yeah, Moose. (Tonight I stopped by the Spencer Moose on the way home but its large parking lot was all blocked in various directions. Apparently Moose do not know how to park and far too many people for my comfort. I had to go in just to get some vehicles moved so I could get out and proceed home!!

And, no, I did not have my Guinness. Could not have enjoyed it. You know, I'm a guy who's quite comfortable all alone in a small space all day, looking through a windshield, all by my lonesome.

Except, I'm not lonesome. Go figure, eh?

Anyway, I would do these talks and just kind of stall for the first few minutes. Talk about most anything as long as it sounded like trucking. The title of my talk was, 'How to Drive Safely on the Highway around Large Trucks' and I had some hand-made posters comparing weight of a car versus a loaded tractor and trailer, our blind spots, yada, yada.

The very subject of large trucks raises a lot of folks' blood pressure, and I know that. Edgy. I would do my little intro song and dance, just eating up time until someone would interrupt--and usually it WAS an interruption. "Forget all that, fella. What I want to know is what do I do when some truck is on top of my back bumper. Do I speed up or slow down?"

At that point, and only then, did my talk begin. It cut through the tension and put the whole room on the same page as I would explain what I do. What do I do? I get the Hell out of that driver's way. That truck outweighs my car by 20x and the driver may be tired, late, crazy, angry, who knows and who cares!!

It's a lethal weapon and you don't want to screw with it. Let that driver get on by or speed up and leave that truck behind you. Do NOT engage. DON'T argue with 40 reckless tons on wheels!!

And, you know, I feel the same way in a truck, maybe more so. Happy to see that yellow semi safely on by. Not even the least upset about it. Just happy the incident turned out as it did.

Just another mundane hazard dealt with appropriately...

 

Mundane Hazard #2

We've all done bonehead things, usually unintentionally and usually without serious consequences. Let me count the ways... No, on second thought, it's impossible. If you counted them all up right now and went to put them all--all the possible bonehead things that could ruin your day and your CDL--why, the box would have to ever expand as new ways would continue to pop up as you went to secure the top.

Yes, some of our hazards are self-inflicted, too, I admit!

When I backed under my outbound, loaded trailer for the Dayton run, I noticed that it had been backed right into the snow bank behind it. Huh! Well, those tandem brakes better not be froze, I thought, 'cause there's not gonna be any backing this one up a few feet before pulling forward. Too close, and indeed it was. I began my pretrip and happily, when I pulled forward--the trailer pulled forward like a good trailer so that I could check the lights, open the doors and crawl up inside and verify that yes, I had the right trailer with the right load before closing the doors, snapping the seal and securing it to go.

It's all good, right? Well, almost.

What I overlooked, what I did not notice (perhaps while overly concerned with the snow bank behind the trailer) was that the tandems were almost all the way back. I missed that.

Yuppo, I missed that and it almost bit me. We usually run the tandems fairly forward and that shortens your turn radius as though you pulled a 45-foot trailer instead of a 53-footer. Of course, that leaves you 8 or more feet of swinging tail that you need be mindful of, too. It's part of the game.

No problem.

Backing into this Dayton receiver is tricky, too. There's a fence that's too close, a curb, a utility pole; it's an odd angle and down into a hole; my load goes into one of three doors and the farthest has a cardboard trailer, a storage trailer permanently parked there for the endless large bales of cardboard this place piles up. It's a little tricky even if someone's NOT in the doors next to the cardboard trailer.

Today, GreatWide was unloading in the closest door, the middle door was open with the cardboard trailer on the other side of it. I did notice as I came in the narrow service lane, same one I came in last time and again forgot my note to self to wait and turn on the NEXT street, not this one because there's a hydrant and a grey pipe sticking up in front of it at the curb. Very tight. In fact, with my longer radius I had to stop, back up and pull further out into the piled up snow--still inside the roadway but out into the piled up snow where my super singles don't like to be.

To get past the vertical pipe, I backed, adjusted, took a run into the snow to get enough momentum to get through it and... no problem. Yeah, close. But no problem. No tires curbed, front or back. Still did not cause me to think about the position of the tandems, no, not just yet...

When the middle door's open and the doors on either side are occupied, you have to blindside into the Dayton receiver. Saw Miguelito do it, and very nicely at that! I pulled up, pulled as far past the parked semi as I could up against the fence and started my hard turn to the right, taking note where another truck had visibly run up over the curb--don't want to curb my Michelin steers.

At this point my view of the GreatWide is completely blocked by my swinging trailer until it swings far enough around so I can look over my right shoulder as GreatWide comes into view and... oh, Hell, that's way, way too close; I'm still in the middle of the momentum of my swinging trailer and it looks like the back of the trailer's gonna take off the front end of the GreatWide tractor!!

Thankfully, the blindsiding gods are nice to me today. But as I pictured Miguelito's nice maneuver, I realized that he must have stayed hard to the RIGHT along the curb, swung counter-clockwise so that he had full view of the parked rig AND the utility pole, got into position between the rig on his right and the telephone pole NOW on his left, yada, yada.

AND his tandems weren't all the way back like mine today. You can bet that I re-positioned the tandems before I left, YES.

Okay, lucked out on that one... I'll take it. It's all good!

Won't happen that way, won't make those same mistakes next time.

 

Looks like Santa brought 4-5 inches of new snow (we already had about that pushed up into large piles making South-Central Indiana already look like Minnesota in winter) with more coming this afternoon.

Dayton's closed today; Kentucky and St. Louis are open.

Not especially cold...


//Tomorrow's Kentucky (long), 10:00 dispatch. (Monday, 3/2/2015)