Finally got my own truck

Haven't been updating as much as I used to. I figured this would happen.

Things just don't seem to be as exciting as they once were. I've pretty much gotten into a routine.

Seems like a lot of my loads are coming from a particular brokerage, I work with an agent that calls me almost every day. She's really, really good. I tell her where I'm at, where I'm gonna be, and she gives me options, also has alerted me to some great paying loads.

I've done back to back $8000+ weeks. $8,000 last week and $8,550 this week.

Was in Springfield, IL on Friday, got empty about 1pm. I'd posted my truck about noon. Some calls came in, nothing nuts. Call came in going to NV, gave the guy a really high rate (for him it was high, for me it was so-so, was like $3.50/mi. He said he'd take it to his customer, but didn't expect to get it. Didn't really want to go there anyways. Customer wanted to be less than half of that. Whatever, I don't need a backhaul out there.

Some brokerage called me 3 times with a load going 450 miles to Ohio. First two times I told them I was looking for a longer run. I was at $5300 and trying to get to 9 or 10k. I would have gone to the north part of FL for $4,700 but didn't get any calls or see anything to there.
The 3rd time they called, I repeated that I was looking for a longer run. "Are you sure? We have a really good rate on it! $1,500!" lol ok. I'd have done $1,600 on M-W. Not on a Friday. SO I said I was looking for a minimum for $3,700 for the week.

She came back in this whiny, high pitched incredulous voice that reminded me of someone's nagging mother screaming for the manager immediately.
"$3,700 DOLLARS? THAT'S 10 DOLLARS A MIIILE! THAT'S FFFFF***ING NUTS! THAT'S INSANE! YOU'RE OUT OF YOUR MIND!"

I don't think she got it. Probably frustrated that they couldn't cover that one load.

I ended up booking $3,200 to Atlanta area on 610 miles. 3pm delivery though. That sucks. I'll probably off load and if there's nothing posted that works with my time, I'll deadhead up to Greenville, SC and try for Iowa or something.
I want to go home next week, but I still want to gross at least $7,000. Really wanted to get home Friday but I'll take a load there over the weekend, deliver Monday and then go home again from there.

I guess I read a bunch of guys are taking that week off in protest, and some are even going to D.C. I'll just take the week off. If I happen to get a call to go to D.C., I'll quote $20 trillion.

I'm at 178,100 for the year. For 10 weeks I need to get to $71,900 to hit $250,000 gross.
Taking off next week, then week of Thanksgiving, then last two weeks of the year. When ELD Mandate hits, I'm just staying home the rest of the year. See what happens.

When I go home, I expect my ELog to be waiting there, and I'll probably install it before I go back out. I've tried so hard to run 100% legal the past two weeks but I've violated my logs 3 or 4 times. Couple times by 10-15 minutes, once by 5 minutes, and maybe another I violated by an hour. It's not easy. You really have to select a load that fits with your schedule. Can't book anything that you can't do, and can't ever take a load into a large metro area where there isn't any parking. I grabbed a load from Minneapolis going to somewhere by 294 in Chicago. The shipper took 5 hours to load my truck. It was a Central Transport crossdock to crossdock. I got to the other place at midnight, dropped the trailer in the door and went to bed, it was ready by 7am. I just stayed there until my clock was fresh again. I had to do that, the broker was adamant that the load arrive by at least 9am or earlier. I wouldn't have been able to get there on time. And it would have taken them forever to unload. I would have lost a day. So if I hadn't violated the log and done it legal, it would have cost me the $2000 load I did the next day. It's just really fricking nuts. No flexibility, shippers taking forever, these people are going to learn the HARD way when everybody is on elogs, it ain't happening no more. You're paying me by the hour to sit there. $100 an hour from the time I arrive until the time I leave, at both ends, and they must put the in and out times accurately on the bills. If they refuse, then it's a $500 fine and I if it's the shipper, then I do another load. I'll bill them myself if I have to.