An old man's career goes flat, Snackbar moves to open deck

Maybe when we get our new Wylie approved Peoplenet tablets we can just snap pic's with them and have the option to bypass Transflow altogether. Heck, Big G had thermal scanners tied into their Omnitracs(Qualcomm) units many years ago so we never had to Transflow if we so chose.

 

Well things have gotten interesting, or more interesting, with this load. My load instructions have my 5 stops in one order, the shipper loaded in another order, but after contacting the 5 stops (as requested by the shipper) the biggest stop can't accept their part of the load until after 8 on Wednesday...and they were number 3 on both versions. Good thing they have adequate room between each unit so that I can do it in a way that make sense(actually SPD's version was in a decent order, but will still need to bump the number 3 to number 5)...and my 2nd stop doesn't even have an address, it's a jobsite that hasn't been assigned an address yet, it's delivery address is the corner of road A and street B. When I called him to confirm, he verified I am headed to the right location.

 

I actually had decided after picking up this load to do a 34, which ended up being the right decision. After my last stop on Wednesday, I am headed to the Rancho yard and pick up a preloaded conestoga going to Melbourne FL for next Monday...then home. Our Anniversary is coming up along with Valentine's Day and all our W2's are in to do my taxes, so I can do all 3 at once.

I thought I had fixed my APU issue. The alternator belt started squealing while I was on my way to deliver in TX the other day, so I tightened it. It starts and runs fine without bogging or sputtering, however....after picking up this load and driving half way across TX, I stopped for the night. When I started using the microwave to nuke some leftovers, it started it's b.s. again. Stop the microwave, and it runs fine...plus once it threw an 'under voltage' warning on the LCD screen. Then today, with it running, when I nuked some mac-n-cheese, my trucks low voltage alarm went off...so, it looks as though I either have a weak battery (or batteries), a failing APU alternator, or both. I cleaned the dirt off the clear top fuel filter on the APU and it looks good and clean inside, so unless that's the secondary filter and the primary is in need of a change, I think this unit has been serviced at least once.

 

Managed to unload all 5 stops and make it to Coachella for the night, which was an accomplishment because when I went to leave the truckstop this morning, I-10 was closed a few exits west of me for a fatality crash. Took me 45 minutes to drive 6 miles on surface streets.



This is my odometer miles since leaving home on 1/2






Not bad considering I did a 34 in Rancho, another 34 the following weekend in Gulfport before delivering, then another 34 after delivering to try to get over this respiratory infection...and another 34 just before delivering this 5 stop a/c load.

 

And the frog soup get's a little hotter. Our Director of Operations and his wife (the recruiting manager) are no longer with the company...the office is starting to thin out slowly...it's starting to look like my paranoia about Wylie changing things like at Moore weren't too far off base.

 

Looks like we might need to start doing some research on our next company...if management at that level are leaving, that cannot be a good sign of things to come.

 

Has anyone ever noticed that if you're sitting in the driver's seat watching the parking lot, a lot of drivers just get in, fire the engines and launch without even thumping a tire or checking lights...but once one person actually gets out and gives their truck a good walk around, all of a sudden, you start seeing others doing the same...