6/21/16 Is the beginning of my Schneider career!!!

Back to my adventures. Last week I ran all up north. 4 of 6 days sleeping in WI. 4 horrible days for this Chicago Bears fan. I will say though I never got caught in traffic. That could be good luck or good lanes. I'm not sure which. The worst was going from WI to OH and I took the I80 toll route which had some slight congestion. All the way up to when it diverted me off and I took the worse stretch of back road yet. It was through Ft Wayne IN. I think 27? A lot of stop and go. Lights and a speed limit that Schneider trucks are capable of meeting. Thankfully my route back didn't take me that way. I was white knuckling the narrow lanes and other speeding vehicles. Thankfully I lived to truck again. It wasn't all that bad. Just some more experience to notch on the belt. I had an assignment that paid 429 miles but the shortest route was 520 miles. That really sucks. Nearly 20% of what I drove not paid. I complained. I'm pretty sure it fell in deaf ears. Then, one day I had waited till my break hit 31 and left for my 8hr to reset. I got a mile down the road and it had gone back to the original time. I had to do about break. This time I waited to 32 and no problems. But I looked into it and it said that I had been driving for 8 min. I had gone no more than 1.2 miles from the P&G to Schneider OC in Edwardsville. If you see a Schneider truck with a Qualcomm dragging behind it just give me a wave!! It's certain to be me. This last week I've paid more attention to mpg. I averaged 8.7mpg over 6 days. All but one day I was grossing 70k plus. But on pretty flat land. 9.1mpg was my best day. 8.3mpg was my worst. That day I left WI for KC. Not the worst hills to go through but my worst for the week. I also think I was heading into the wind most of the day. I felt like I was angled in the lane. Only had one other day that I felt that kind of a fight. I could be wrong but I'm attributing it to the wind.
Home life kind of sucks right now. Over the last couple months we've noticed my daughter (12yo) being a little depressed. We finally sat down with her and heard some things we didn't expect to hear. It was much worse than we thought. We took her to a hospital yesterday and spent the good portion of the day there. They wanted to keep her for some time estimating 7-10 days but will know better once she sees the Dr today. I've always been wary of my son. He's high functioning autistic. He has always been upbeat but like it's all he knows. For those that don't know autistic people have issues with feelings and emotions. They can't express them or have a hard time understanding them and putting them into words. He's always been involved in groups and classes that help with that. Although we suspected something with her we didn't think it was this bad. She was open and willing to go so that is good.
Why I'm putting this here? I really don't know. I've reached out to a couple friends. But this seems like somewhat of an anonymous community where I can put my thoughts out. Not that I feel like this needs to be said because yall seem like a great group of guys. But, I'm not looking for pity. Simply if you're a praying man, say a prayer. If not, do what yall do. Think good thoughts? Lol overall I'm doing alright. I didn't cry till I left. I didn't want her to feel worse or be worried about going in there. Then we left and I tried to be strong for my wife and completely failed at that. She picked up the pieces like the strong woman she is. I guess that's enough for now. Drive safe brothers.

 

I had my EEM training yesterday. It took all of 5 hours to complete. Ridiculous. Basically watch a video. Do 6 simulators. Couple. Uncouple. Pretrip. Back in. Went over my logs and bonus metrics. Learned some tricks to cheat the system with ETA and such. Also was told I wasn't compliant for not logging stuff correctly. I go off duty when I arrive to locations. He said I needed to show basically a 15 min pretrip for drop and hook and 5 min on duty for live load with a flag for "check in with shipper/receiver". I already burn through hours lol. Now I'm going to go through 70 hours in 2 days (yes I realize there are only 48 hours in a day sandals and shorts guy lol). Either way I passed. On to screw up some more crap!!!
Checked with mechanics to try to get the truck in for the electrical issue. They were booked. Missing a couple mechanics told me to call when I know I'll be back to set up appointment. But he said it sounds to him based on what I described that it has a crappy battery. He said the new ones have been coming with a battery they have been replacing like crazy. So may have that figured out. Just hope I don't run into a no start issue again. I'll be out in planning on 12 days.
Talked to my daughter last night. She sounded great. Considering. I was completely expecting her to be begging to come home. Won't talk to her again till tomorrow. Being on the road during this sucks. Not in a sense that I'm not home. I couldn't really do anything there anyway. Just because in this darn truck it's very easy for the mind to wander. Place blame on myself. When in actuality it's the wife's fault lol. She doesn't read this. I'm safe to joke about that. For real though even though I'm listening to a pod cast or an audible book I find myself tuning it out and the mind wandering. Was thinking about the little girl that had the infectious smile. And wondering where it went. It was much easier then. She laughed at a fart noise. Now she's closer to all grown up than she was a teenager back then. Time flies. If you got youngins, enjoy it. Embrace it. They freaking grow up.

To the shower I go!

 

Forgot something weird. Left the OC last night at about 1730. Got back in at 0700 this morning. My Qualcomm was still on. It didn't go into sleep mode like it normally does if truck is off. So I leave and Jill isn't giving me directions. She's saying home. Hours of service and so on. But no voice for turns. If she doesn't sleep tonight is there a way too reboot it? Or do I have to call support?