Good Night From II

Moose..they didn't send me a survey..just as well as I doubt I would have been as diplomatic in my opinion of the BS bonus for solos as you were.

If it wouldve been something like $1000 garanteed contingent on accepting any legal loads offered for the described period..I would've jumped. The burden of utilization of the truck would fall upon the planners to keep the load counts up. As long as I would accept every valid load offered, I'd get the bonus.

Their "#####" for solos wasn't worth the bandwidth used to propagate the messages.

 

being dedicated I dont get to see any of the bonus's so screw them on working the holidays, I had 3 days off for Christmas, I think I still made the miles anyway but wont see it...

Today went to good old Paso Robles then took a load up to Santa Maria, it was strange seeing all the snow on the 166 for the first time. We didnt get snow in Tehachapi just some of the towns in the upper elevation.
Tomorrow heading to Vegas then up to Sterilite in Lake Havasu so its a start of a decent week.

 

If I were running solo I'd go for it in a heartbeat. I had a couple of conversations with my DM, who was all for having me go for it... but then also had a long conversation with OnRoad. OR had some good points to consider. For one thing if I ended up exacerbating the issue and the truck flat out shut down out in the middle of nowhere in this cold I'd be up fecal creek with a trainee in the truck.

Towing to Denver was another option to consider, as we could get into a new truck at the terminal. However, the expense of the tow to Denver versus Casper was another consideration.

Looking at the bright side of things we will be getting the service done at a KW dealership under warranty, which gives me more confidence in the outcome over getting it done at a terminal. I'll get to keep "Jenny" and won't have to go through the hassle of switching into an unknown truck. We'll get to see some playoff games at a hotel.

Paycheck is going to suck, but my wife and I have our financial management well in hand so we will be able to roll with a short check or two.

I did get a wee hour wake up call from the original OnRoad guy I talked to just after midnight yesterday, wanting to make sure I got towed and am safe...

... uh, did he ever bother to read through the messages before waking me up?

 

Another fantastical CSR screw up. The t-call I picked up at Memphis flagged for a drop is a live unload that was scheduled for 0700, my expected ETA is 1130. I had sent multiple requests by QC for an ETA to Memphis so I could grab it early with no response and never got one back after sending a mac22.

 

Hey me too, on top of a 60 mile load, I get there today to drop hook, and it's not ready. No biggie, I dock up for the live load. That takes 3 hours, so I mac 22 and *CSR. No response from CSR about delivery time. So then I try to slide tandems to make weight. No dice. The arm that pulls the pin is broke. So I mac22 again and head to a terminal that's 8 miles away. I DM my DM and let him know the situation, he responds saying the CSRs are pudding him off today, not responding to anyone. He then hooked me up with everything I needed, breakdown pay etc. and did the csr's job for them. I'll deliver when they're done welding on my trlr, and then come back to this terminal and (hopefully) get a load out of here.

 

Great, according to my DM there's no freight coming out of anywhere due to the way the holidays fell this year. That's never good in Houston

 

saw the load bubble board today and the whole u.s. is red. think i saw a green bubble somewhere around the east side

 

And yet I got a load out of Denver this evening.
Picked up at the Sam's DC in Loveland and deliver tomorrow in Logan, UT.
I shut down at Johnson's Corner since everything was getting very full at around 1800.

I won't have much time left when I deliver tomorrow evening, but I was sent a pplan.
Picking up 30 miles away and headed to WA.
I plugged the cities in to Yahoo maps and was 'happy' to see that the first stop was actually farther than the total loaded miles, and no way to get there by 0500 on the 5th.
Since it has an extra stop I can't use Mac 9 to adjust the times to turn it down, so I'm just ignoring it.
They can get a team for that one as far as I'm concerned. It is preloaded so a team can pick it up later and make the schedule easily.

I fell out of Platinum status this week because of all the crappy miles the past few weeks - and especially this past week - and I got my first example of the new 'trip planner' software.
What a joke!
I can't make heads or tails of most of what is written, but it seems to mean that I have no breaks except for a strict 10 hour and 30 minute.
And it seems to think I can run an average of 60+ from start to finish.

I wonder how much money Swift wasted on it.

On the plus side, I really wanted a load to UT going over I80. I'll be able to restock my tobacco on the way.
Hopefully the forecast snow won't be too bad.

 

Sitting in a hotel in Casper, WY. Truck was towed from Cheyenne to the KW shop this afternoon. KW can't even get the truck into the shop until the 12th.

Now I'm told there's no plan to get us into a new truck. I need a ride from Casper to either SLC or Denver, somewhere I can go to pick up a new truck and drive back up to Casper to pick up my trainee and the things out of my truck.

Anyone going to pass through Casper en route to a terminal that might have trucks? PM me.

 

that sucks Lepton, good luck there

Moose im assuming the new "suggested trip plan"? started getting them a week ago and was like WTF, been ignoring them since

Shut down at my favorite rest area off the 40 heading towards Barstow, got another Vegas lined up tomorrow to keep this week solid, not sure if I will shut down at the store or attempt to make my way back and try parking in Baker or not, if I pick up another Sterilite which I hope then I will just get to Lake Havasu and shut down with a little time on the clock.

Traffic sucked today and I passed a rig engulfed in flames on the 15, a Swift truck parked behind it blocking the 2 right lanes and tried to get traffic directed to the far left before the one burning, it just happened minutes before I approached and emergency vehicles were not there yet, I just hope that driver was the other guy I saw out on the road.