Good night from...

What a load.
Sent bt to pick it up, was turned away by the shipper until I brought an mt.
The night staff basically ignored me, so I lost several hours.

It's hazmat, and I had to swing by a terminal to get the new permit.

Blew out a brake canister and lost more time waiting for that to be fixed.

Got pulled over by Ohio DOT today for an inspection - seems they are inspecting HM loads.
When he saw all the HM in my load (the entire trailer!) he groaned and said he has wished he had picked someone else to inspect.
Then he called me to his car, confused as to how I could have over 61,000 pounds of paint. I cleared it up by pointing out that he was counting both the items on the master BOL as well as those from both stops. He was double counting.
Then as he started to inspect the truck he got stung by a bee - right through his glove!
He went on with the inspection, but then told me that he wasn't feeling well and have a nice day.
He never finished the inspection, and I never got any paperwork from it.
And that was another hour or so.

And, when I found the mt to pu the load I was re-dispatched with a delivery time for the first stop nearly a full day earlier than either the pplan or my first dispatch.
I might have made the first delivery time if everything else hadn't happened, but not anymore.
Not to mention trying to get there a day earlier.

And the planners knew I wouldn't have the hours for this load.
With every pplan and load assignment there has been a message to head to the destination and they will tell me what to do with the load soon.
But no new instructions ever came.
My DM is working on it now.

 

Love's in Seguin, TX. On my way to Kingman, AZ with my first broker load. I wish I could say it went smoothly CAUSE IT DIDN'T!

First I get delayed at this morning's delivery because the customer refused part of the product (damage due to poor loading) and it took claims over an hour to decide what to do with it. Finially after my third phone call they OKed me to drop it at the Houston terminal (WHAT A DUMP!). When I got back in the truck to back up the OSD dock there was a QC message telling me to take the damaged product to a LTL terminal for shipment back to the shipper. Since I had already handed it off to the OSD folks in Houston I ignored the message and headed for my pickup in La Porte.

That's when the fun started! The shipper had no record of my shipment. So back on the phone first with Swift CSR (nice being able to call them direct) then Command where we finially figured out that one of the pickup numbers got left off the dispatch. When I finially got out of La Porte I was down to less than 4 1/2 hours on my 14 so I played it safe rather than deal with Friday afternoon traffic in San Antonio.

 

......went thru that traffic yesterday and was dreadeing Austin,but it wasn't too bad thru Austin as it was near 7 pm when I slid thru there......going north all the way to hillsboro is narrow lanes concrete barriers as they are widening the I 35 thru that area...better eat your wheaties!....that whole stretch of i35 sucks as its about 200 miles of pain....oh...and finding parking after dark is fun around there too.....(hint)...find a dirt field and make your own parking....

 

Cherokee travel plaza roland ok.....border of Arkansas...on my way to Virginia....

 

Steve .. yeah .. there's a bad habit of the Swift CSR leaving the P/U and PO # off the comments in the preplan ... I got it on my last two loads, but not on the one I'm picking up on Sunday ... for that kind of stuff - well pretty much for anything - always call Command directly 24 hrs ... you get a quick and correct resolution.

The only time I've used the CSR is when the Swift planner sticks their nose into a Command load and tries to remove it and put it on another truck - and yes it's happened a few times ... the CSR can fix that ASAP.

 

truck is finally out of the shop, they said they had to replace my brake chambers which were causing the leak and the warn engine light was from the fan wire coming unconnected.

now I can sleep a few hours then go get my load if my #### dispatch messages show up, called to get connected to a trailer which the guy tried to fight me on trying to say it was loaded and questioning also why im taking this one etc since its a roll door bla bla, told him he can go question the DM im working with right now who told me to take this trailer, he finally connected me to it and removed the loaded status the shop put on the trailer so nobody would take it, only the tcall message showed up so called again and after being on hold for 12 minutes he said he would resend it, been about 10 and its not here still....guess I might be calling once again since I need that message for the b/l, pu# etc. I wish the truck would of finished before the DM went home im working with since he could of done it all for me correctly. I love this DM and wish I could have him permanently since he is on the ball and makes sure I have stuff setup before he ever goes home except for this case because of shop status plus he does my loaded calls and empty calls most of the time when he sees im attaching of disconnecting from a trailer.

Looks like my messages finally came in as I finished writing this.

 

bobtailed up to dinuba ca to get an empty then drove back south to a tire place in shafter ca. was going tob albuquerque nm but they tcalled it in mira loma ca since it doesn't deliver till monday. last week,my dl matt asked if i wanted to work on walmart acct for the 90 day or so blitz they are going to do. would be in southern calif. and pheonix az area. said sure, keeps me out of snow country for a bit lol. anyways, the blitz starts monday, so i'm doing trailer moves and any local runs this weekend. bobtailed down to otay mesa ca. at a pilot rite now doing a 10, then go over to terminal and get an empty. be safe

 

oh....got to mission and miliken when qc said my 8 hr drivetime is up. had to pull over and go onduty, then limp into mira loma terminal. had to be at terminal since the driver taking this load was waiting for it and didn't want him to wait another half hour.was going to stop in castaic and see my buddy but saw i had 1.75 hr left and thought i could get there on time. forgot the friday traffic lol

 

Chillicothe, MO.

Spoke with a couple more DM's today about getting this load repowered or t-called, but no luck so far.
One guy actually seemed to be trying, but he was being ignored by the planners.
I had sent a Mac22 giving ETA for first stop 2 days late, and a while later I get the PTA update message with my new time from the 22.
I'm still going to try to t-call in Reno. If I can't, since I can't deliver to final until Thursday, I'll have a zero paycheck that next week.

The last guy I spoke with (and he seemed really upset that they would put me on this load, as well as ignoring all attempts at communication by area planners) told me it was likely because it is a hazmat load. Too hard to find HM certified drivers, so no one wants to accept it as a t-call or arrange a repower.

I let him know that, while I really want to get home after 8 weeks out, if it is that difficult I can take it all the way.
If I have to.
And if the times I stated for delivery were OK.
I'll NOT!!! get a service failure over this!

 

did 2 trailer moves today. dropped both in the fontana terminal(actually parked them in the corner lot on banana andvalley) could have made it down to san diego to start again in the morning, but dispatch said it was all done till weds. thats ok since i need to do laundry. i"ll do some local runs hopefully tomorrow. alot of trucks here in fontana. lots full