Swift - Starting the New Year training with Swift 1/7/13 - A long read...

lol, I know what you mean. Good for you for quitting. I think it takes almost as long to unlearn the habit as the habit lasted.

That is so true. I'm glad that you kicked the other habit. I think that's one of the reasons I could never mess with something like heroin, meth or crack honestly. I know myself too well and that first puff or needle would be the end for me. No joking. I would be stuck on it forever.

That is true about the ladies. Most of the ones I have met have told me the same thing.

I made it through the whole day and the night. It wasn't easy by any means. I almost put my clothes and boots back on about 10 PM last night and walked into the Walmart to get some. But I stopped myself. It was tough falling asleep and I was not comfortable.

Today started out fine and I was in good, smoke free spirits for a while. Then I got turned away from the delivery for being one hour too early. I started feeling the pain a little. I parked at a nearby truckstop to wait until it was ready to be delivered and started getting preplans sending me back up to Elizabeth, NJ on a load that doesn't pick up until late tomorrow. There was some back and forth after they scheduled it for a t-call in Richmond (that was good) and then they pulled it as a t-call and said I have to take it all the way up to metro North Jersey for a late afternoon live unload on the day I'm supposed to be starting my hometime.

I caved and bought a pack because I felt my temper starting to creep in pretty quick. Its just another excuse to fail but that's what happened. I guess I can start again tomorrow if I'm not too aggravated.

Fail. Fail. Fail on my part.

 

I'm at the Pilot here up in Mebane, North Carolina off I-40 between Greensboro and Durham.

I went back for my delivery about 15 minutes prior to it being due and I was happy to find out from the shipping department that they were so busy and couldn't live unload me. She asked that I dropped the trailer instead. Yes ma'am!

I parked and continued to get some bad preplans. It seems that all the loads around here originate from the Campbells plant in Maxton, NC. And apparently the people up in the north Jersey area are eating their fair share of soup because all the loads seem to be going up there. I was just accepting the preplan for the load from Maxton to Elizabeth, NJ, t-calling in Richmond late tomorrow night, when a planner sent me a message saying that it was not going to be a t-call and that I would, instead, have to drive it all the way up to Elizabeth.

Now, Elizabeth is a pretty name. Sounds like a cute kid playing hopscotch out on the sidewalk, bouncing between chalked out boxes on the sidewalk. But it's deceiving as Elizabeth, NJ sucks. As does her friends - Paterson, Newark, Jersey City (what we used to call "Dirty Sh1tty") the Orange sisters and every other one around there. I say this having lived up there for way too long. Elizabeth is actually a little nasty, toothless child that stole the chalk and is proceeding to lift your wallet out of your pocket while the other little street urchins are distracting you. Just last week I had to mess with Elizabeth's more suburban but equally aggravating cousin Bayonne and that was anything but fun. I want no part of Elizabeth and I'm guessing they pulled the original t-call because they will have a hard time finding someone crazy enough (understandably) to take my t-call from Richmond up through the D.C. area into metro north Jersey.

The other load they gave me was going up to Illinois dropping in a couple of days. When I looked up the distance from Illinois back to Richmond it was 850 miles, give or take. That load would put me getting back to Richmond a lot later than my scheduled hometime without a load to back up the Illinois load. Without something to back the Illinois load I hesitated. While working the particulars of that load it was removed.

As it is, according to the Rand McNally, I'm only 175 miles from Richmond so they should be able to get me there ontime. I still have 3 days before I'm scheduled to be there. I'll hold off though in the meantime on those loads up to Elizabeth.

 

As an update I just accepted a load picking up tomorrow in Mooresville, NC going up to South Boston. Not the "how do you like dem apples?" or "go paak the caaa on that cornaa" South Boston but the one in Virginia.

Only a 103 mile empty and 150 mile loaded run but I'm getting closer.

 

At the Walmart, Pyramid Village, in Greensboro N.C. waiting on On road.

Got my live load done up in S. Boston, VA, dropped it and they wanted me to take an empty down to this Proctor & Gamble nearby. There were only 4 empties to choose from so I began my cursory Swift trailer inspection.

My general plan when I have a choice of empties is to look for the newest trailer. The 4 I had to choose from were all in pretty rough shape. The first one looked like it had some fresh damage on one of the doors as a chunk was missing. The 2nd one had doors that were rotting out and looked warped. The 3rd was in about the same shape. The last one to pick was pretty rusted out but everything worked it seemed. Plus I was only going about 60 miles to drop it and it looked acceptable.

Pulling up to Proctor & Gamble there was a sign before the gate stating that tandems had to be slid back to enter the yard. Knowing this trailer was pretty beat I grabbed my tandem moving kit - my hammer, locking pliers, flashlight and gloves. The tandem bar would barely pull out and it definitely wouldn't stay locked I place. I yanked and yanked with all 240 lbs of me and it wouldn't budge. I rocked the tandems back and forth. Nothing. I pulled the bar out as far as I could and locked it in place. I mashed all 4 pins in and there were depressed. Still it didn't slide. I broke out the WD40 and sprayed all the moving parts. This has worked in the past but didn't seem to do anything. They still wouldn't move. I'm not sure of any other tricks to get stubborn tandems to move. I have some Dawn dish detergent that I heard might work once but I didn't try it. Not sure if I'm supposed to squeeze it all over everything or what. It was frustrating.

I let security know about the tandems and they reaffirmed that the trailer was not going to be entering the property in its current state. And I couldn't park there overnight.

I found a local Walmart, called and got permission to stay there (here) and plugged it into my GPS. Not sure if my GPS was spiting me but it led me down a street almost right off the bat that didn't look truck friendly. Actually I could probably guarantee it wasn't. Before I went any further I threw my 4 ways on and reaccessed the situation. I tried to back when there was no traffic but it was pitch dark behind me and I couldn't see shat. I got out and walked a little with using my flashlight to see where I was to go. I would have had to back pretty far blindly around a corner. I started to think that maybe I'm going to have to make that call to the local police to help but i was not looking forward to it. I got back in, moved forward a little ways and saw that I could swing it and turn around but just barely. I could see thte tire marks of other trucks that had made the same mistake. But I got it turned around and didn't have to back blindly.

It worked out and I got here to the Walmart. But the blind backing in pitch dark got me thinking. I've rarely ever had to do this, maybe once in the past, but I think as an emergency back up maybe I'll get a magnetized flashlight to hook up to the dOT bar at the back of the trailer for an emergency like this. I bought one for my bro in law for Christmas and it as all LED and it was a flood pattern. That would have worked wonders tonight although what I did training around going forward was a better decision. Still ya never know.

I remember getting in a situation like this when I was in training with my last mentor. He was driving and I was passenger. The interstate was closed and we were rerouted on some windy country roads. He came to an intersection where hhis GPS was telling him to make a left up this tiny, windy road that went uphill. He paused and I told him that maybe we shouldn't go that way. It didn't look truck friendly and at least the current road we were on was manageable. He didn't listen, probably rightfully as I was only a trainee. But my gut told me that gos routeing didn't look right. Sho' 'nuff as soon as he made that left and then starting winding to the right up the hill the road got even tighter. It looked impossibly tight for our truck. He stopped the truck just as a sheriffs patrol was coming around the corner down that hill. He explained the situation and the sheriff called another car to block off the road from traffic down below, where we just came from, and this deputy was going to block ant traffic coming down the hill. The mentor wouldn't let me get out and help guide him. He was frustrated and going nuts. It took forever for us to back down that hill around a corner in the dark. I suggested using the 4 ways to help light up what was on the sides and behind, at least just a little, and he barked at me. He's a good guy and very knowledgeable but I think he was a little tired and the frustration wasn't helping any. A flashlight flood stuck to the back would have helped I think.

Well back to waiting for On road. I think the Qualcomm message said the wait was 87 minutes so they should be calling soon.

I'll he seeing my new bike soon and im anxious to get this trailer POS off of me, get a load going up to Richmond.

 

Disregard all the typos in the previous post but I'm typing on my phone and too lazy to correct them now.

 

It would be interesting to hear any suggestions on how anyone gets stubborn tandems to release. I was never shown any ideas in training and have been working mostly on trial and error. My locking pliers, WD40, rocking the trailer and hammer work 95% of the time but its that other 5%...

 

Wow that's actually a great idea. I hadn't thought of using the curb. When the tandems are this stuck I actually can drag my tandems. That's pretty stuck.

I'm going to consider the curb move next time if I can find one and a way to do it without looking like a newb that ran up over the curb unintentionally lol.

 

I got the tandems unstuck finally.

I tried this morning before I left for the T/A and had no luck. I drive to the T/A and they said it would be hours before they could get me in to a bay. I was starting to get anxious as Swift was telling me they had no loads up to Richmond and that I was stuck with the hell trailer for now. As the temp rose to 90 degrees I was left with the thought of being stuck with this trailer and no load up to Richmond yet. I started to feel the pangs of cranky creep in.

I parked in a spot at the T/A and set out to get these to move by any means necessary. I rocked it hard pulling forward and jamming the handle brake on then doing the same in reverse. I was getting a few looks from other drivers with the what the cuss is this guy doing. I probably looked like I had lost it a little.

I got a lot of leverage and pulled the tandem release bar as hard as I could and it actually pulled out more than it had before. Success! I locked it in place with my locking pliers and hammered the pins in again. One more good tug forward and the tandems slid. I put them forward again for the drive back to Proctor and gamble and all was good moving them back again when I got there. Fixed.

I think that the working pieces were so rusted that the WD40 plus the hard rocking set it back into workable action. As long as the trailer doesn't sit that long the trailer should be fine for the next driver. I used up the rest of my WD40 last night after I posted and I soaked everything. I just bought another can with that cool little attached hose extention here at the Reidsvillle Walmart.

When i left P&G they didn't have a load for me. By the time I hit this Walmart they gave me a load picking up back at P&G tonight at 0200 and tcalling in Richmond tomorrow morning as fast as I can get there.

I'm excited as I can start working on getting my bike title transferred into my name and get my plates and registration on it. I'm going to try and find an accountant that specializes in truckers taxes tomorrow too, if there is such a person.

This will be my first year doing my taxes for this job and I want to make sure I get back the most money. I have spent so much for this job in the part year. Way too much. I heard there is a "per diem" option for when us truckers file our taxes.

Anyone know if this is true?

I'm hoping so as I haven't kept most of my receipts. I may be screwed if there is no set per diem option.

I'm going to try and rest a little before I leave for the pickup tonight although, as is usually the case the night before home time, I probably won't be able to sleep.