Post Gordon ~ Thoughts, Commentary & Reflections

On Duty Not Driving...

H-mmmm, expected to be home long before now. Sitting on I-74 about 20 miles west of Crawfordsville for the last couple hours. News report has a semi striking a bridge about a mile ahead and cat food all over the Interstate. Both sides stopped.

How many drivers around me have their 14-hour clock just slipping away, just like mine?

Nice to have an APU.


Written May 16, 2014 on I-74 eastbound in traffic stopped on both sides of the Interstate due to a wreck about a mile ahead. All rights reserved.

 

To the Big Trucking Company in the Sky

RIP Driver

Would not expect that driver's going home except to the Big Trucking Company in the Sky. News reports had it west bound into the overpass/bridge. Not sure what emergency crews have done in the last 3 hours, but as I passed, both trailer and tractor were upright facing east bound, drivers intact and frame mostly stripped bare of much of anything left identifiable as the cab.

If you think about it, the business end of a truck is the frame and drive train. The rest is an add-on to make it go, and mostly sheet metal, glass and plastic. East bound traffic was held up 3 hours, from 6 pm to 9 pm and the west bound side didn't look like it was going anywhere for a while.

Departed at 55 mph and stayed there. A few trucks passed me. The rest did not, probably felt as I felt.

A time to reflect. Not hurry.



Written May 16, 2014. All rights reserved.

 

Missing Egg Mystery

When I left Wednesday it was in that drenching rain. The chickens were out in their enclosed yard and refused when I tried to get them into the coop and cover. Instead, they stood up against the fence, wistfully facing the highway, under a netting that doesn't prevent them from becoming wetter, which they were, getting wetter and wetter.

I saw nothing towards the highway that would interest me or them--as far as I could tell. So I left. Had set up a big, 5-gallon waterer for the hens, a hose-fed waterer for the dogs, a new feeder box for the dogs and three bowls of pellets for the hens, one outside and two in their coop.

Where are the eggs? They lay 2 a day consistently. Been gone 2 days and there were no eggs. None. Where, oh, where? The chickens are okay so there's no raccoon and the one-way-in raccoon cage just outside the run stands empty and ready for any visitor, raccoon or opossum.

Do I have a black snake around here? Well, they're beneficial, if so. Don't eat chickens as far as I know but do like eggs. One girl is very serious about laying right now. Dunno.

So I'm filling the tub and have 3 pounds of Epsom salts dissolving. Click-and-Clack played this between their automotive yackety-yack:

Baby, just need to grab my coat...



Written May 17, 2014 at home, six miles north of Spencer, Indiana. All rights reserved.

 

http://www.wthr.com/story/25541938/2014/05/16/fatal-crash-closes-i-74-in-fountain-county


That wreck Friday evening on east bound I-74 about 20 miles west of Crawfordsville head-on into bridge support.

 

$$ Recap for Last Week

Not sure I want to try break last week out hourly, the nail in my Right-Rear-Outer Tandem had me stopping to air it up every 50-100 miles, two visits to the Illinois shop before they put on a 'new' used tire, the balky tandem rails that wouldn't slide and finally the three-hour delay due to a Seward truck crushing his tractor back to the trailer head-on into a bridge support.

RIP driver...

Well, it was a Seward trailer. No way to tell about the tractor.

It's all good except that last, the Seward wreck. I drove up to the yard Monday morning and drove empty to Prairie du Chien (from central Indiana). Got my nail on the way up, my load that afternoon, stopped by the Illinois shop on the way back. After the layover in Prairie du Chien, drove home after completing the run Tuesday afternoon.

Had most of Wednesday off. The new wrinkle was the outbound load from Illinois to Iowa. Pays $700 to the company, 44,000 pounds, 395 miles. That's like $1.77/mile--not a lot. Normally with a company that pays mileage all I would get out of that would be the extra weight and lost time loading and unloading. I drove over once before in my car to see the shipper and glad I did, had been close by.

Made the delivery in Iowa but not by much. I'm going to talk to the broker Monday (tomorrow) and see about running the outbound load the day BEFORE we need to pick up in Prairie du Chien. That way we've got lots of wiggle room for whatever might come up on both sides, up and back.

Anyway, the $$. Yard Boss surprised me that they had decided to pay $150 to the driver (Hey! That's me!) for the outbound Illinois-Iowa, the regular $329 each for the 2 Prairie du Chiens and $63 for the two trips to the Illinois shop. That's $871 for starting Monday morning, back home Tuesday, most of Wednesday off, back home Friday. Saturday, Sunday and Monday off.

Here's how it works for the company: The truck used 25 more gallons of fuel (figure $100) on the Thursday-Friday run than the Monday-Tuesday run, generously pays me $150 despite that they otherwise pay these runs mileage, so they're $450 better than running up empty. The ISX in the 9400 Eagle is unconcerned about 44,000 pounds. Very cool!

It's all good... except for that Seward wreck.


Written Sunday, May 18, 2014 from El Cantarito in Cloverdale, Indiana. They make a really good vegetable soup from scratch. All rights reserved.

 

Hi Blu, Today I saw medians with a large, grassy, furrowed ditch in the middle in a different light. Some led directly and inevitably to a bridge support. A truck could hardly get out of these grassy traps. Driver could keep it right side up, maybe, but with no concrete highway safety barrier to divert the truck from a head-on (see: http://www.belson.com/Concrete-Security-Barriers-Highway), these depressed medians leading directly to a bridge support are death traps for truckers.

I think that driver's family maybe has a wrongful death case.

Bad, fatal median design.

Vic

 

If I Have Monday Off, Why Am I in Prairie du Chien??

"You're too early," said the guy in charge of the warehouse. I started to explain the confirmation with today as pickup date and no PU number...

"No," he said, "It's 5:30." And so it was. I was still on Indiana time, my phone showed 6:30 a.m. until I turned it off and on. I could go back to the truck and sleep another hour.

"Well, what are YOU doing here?" I demanded, "You don't start until 6!" His scrunched up face said it was too early for my deadpan Minnesota humor, without saying a word more.

Yeah, I had Monday off, all right, right up until I pulled my blankets up and the thought crossed my mind that I hadn't actually looked at the next confirmation; we had just merely discussed it being Wednesday along with the Prairie du Chien pick up. I had been planning to call and get the outbound load moved from Wednesday to tomorrow, Tuesday.

Once I got back from the car, two things caused me chagrin.

In black-and-white the confirmation clearly stated to pick up on Monday. And there was no pick up number, which is the BOL (bill of lading number). If having to go directly to the yard instead of bed and drive to Illinois wasn't enough, the lack of a PU number, one of those magic numbers in trucking, the load would invariably have to wait until the South Dakota broker came in Monday morning.

Although the Yard Boss could do nothing about any of this, I needed to roust him and let him know what was going on. I was rolling out to Illinois to pick up and deliver in Iowa. On Tuesday, I would try get our Wednesday load out of Prairie du Chien. Oh, joy.

"Okay, you're doing fine. Going back to bed now. Talk to you in the morning. G'night." And with that the Yard Boss rang off.

So the ticket in the morning is get the Prairie du Chien load without a layover.

We'll see...



Written Monday, May 19, 2014 from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. All rights reserved.

 

No Paperwork

6:30 a.m. I pull up to the guard shack in Prairie du Chien, on pins and needles, hand the guard my CDL and a list of the magic numbers for tomorrow's load back to Indiana. I'm telling him nothing since I figure I'm not the first driver to show up early. Usually that's because your dispatch figures your time is free and WTF--maybe they'll load you.

This time, I'm in on the game myself, trying to pull my load early. On the radio I hear squawking about my load, shipping querying the warehouse whether my load's on the floor. It's not. No paperwork, either.

"Welcome to Tuesday," says the guard. "They don't have your paperwork. They want you to go out to the... "

"North lot," I interject.

I figure this is going to take a while so I back in at an angle between a FedEx half set and a row of 53's up against one fence. Shortly, I see the yard goat take 90270 from the row of 53's and spot in Door C; when he swings the doors open it has my kind of skids on back.

In a few minutes one of the warehouse guys comes out and instructs me to pull into Door C when the yard goat pulls 90270 out. Doesn't take more than 2 + 2 to deduce that this row of spotted 53's is overflow storage and they just off-loaded what I'm getting.

They just need to sticker it appropriately and generate the appropriate paperwork and system entries.

Oh, my, my. Home today, home today. Off tomorrow.

That'll work.


Written Tuesday, May 20, 2014 at Prairie du Chien, WI. All rights reserved.