THE ADVENTURES CONTINUE - DFO gets a truck and hops on Schneider's IC Choice Program

The one that has been REALLY screwing me lately is the two periods from 2am to 5am or whatever restart rule.

I never thought much of it until I've started running nights over the past month. Been home several times for over 34 hours, but not gotten in until 3-4am and well I'm gone before I could actually get a restart in. What a STUPID STUPID rule. Finally got a restart in yesterday, though.

They ended up setting up the relay for the crappy trailer (thank God) after making me take it by a trailer repair shop which was, of course, closed.

Then I said **** it and bobtailed home for a restart.

Watched the load board and decided to try some new loads. Going to be interesting to see how this works out, hoping it does. Still looking for a semi-regular route with familiar loads and customers, I'm hoping this may turn into one. We'll see. Only on the first load now which I will deliver tomorrow.

Truck decided to be a ***** and throw codes and do weird stuff with the jake today. The usual ghost codes for random DPF or EGR issues that really aren't there but it likes to think they are, and the jake decided oh hey this must be a union job so lets just not work on half of the cylinders when we feel like it, and was bucking me all over every time I headed down a hill. It has done this a time or now then but it always cleared up shortly afterwards, this time it kept on doing it and has been showing up for a few days.

After it continued acting up going down a 5% grade I had had enough and decided to show it who was boss, so I gained some speed, dropped gears until I hit about 1850 RPM and then let er' rip on high. Good God I about went through the windshield when that exhaust brake hit on the turbo on top of the jake which was finally working on all 6 cylinders. Seems to be working fine now. lol.

Then the ghost code cleared itself when I stopped for fuel. Whatever.

I think the truck is mad at me because it hasn't had its 15k oil change yet and we're approaching 20k. Its used to being spoiled apparently.

I'll tell ya there is always something about this job that cracks me up. The customer I have been picking up from regularly lately always has a clerk come out and seal the trailer. Last time I was there me and the guy were talking and he was like "yeah they never used to make us do this until one guy finally look a **** inside the trailer and messed it up for everyone". I just took it as he meant someone screwed something up with a load or a trailer and that was why they had this new policy.

Well, today I picked up from one of their storage facilities nearby, and the same deal there. Different guy this time, but as we were walking to the back of the trailer he said the same thing about "we didn't have to come out and seal it for you until this one guy took a **** in the trailer". I said, "NOW HOLD UP, YOU MEAN SOMEONE ACTUALLY TOOK A **** IN THE TRAILER?". Then the guy starts cracking up going "Yeah we had this container that got picked up and the dude took a **** in the trailer and then sealed it and it made it all the way to China and when they opened it up in China his **** was lying there on the floor of the trailer, toilet paper and all".

At this point we are both just sitting there in the parking lot absolutely losing it. All I can envision is this little 4' 11" chinese woman going to open the door of the container and when she does she looks down only to see this monster deuce surrounded by a throne of toilet paper from the 350 pounder that ate one too many Big Macs and decided the best course of action was to squat down and drop one right there on the floor.

After we both regained our composure I finally got out of there and headed west. Made it to the Nashville OC tonight, still a ways to go tomorrow, then on to the next loads.