Dealing With Issues In A Way That Keeps You Moving

Please, forgive my brief absence in here.  I've actually wanted to jump in here and say a few things for some time now, but it just seems that when I get a chance to take a little break I am just too tired to work on this, or I've got other things I need to be doing.  My wife and I have got so much going on just now that we have been excessively busy.  On February 24th we buried my Mother next to my Father's grave, in the little community that they chose in their retirement years as their hometown, Glenwood, Arkansas.  It was just three days before what would have been her 84th birthday.  She had been living with my wife and I for the last three or four years due to her own frailty and her difficulties with some mild dementia.  My brother and I would share time having her in our homes, since it was one of her final requests that she get to stay with her children during her final days, rather than in some form of institutional care.  I have three sisters, but it just seemed to work out best for her to be with my brother and I who both live in Texas.

At this point in life it's easy to realize how much of an influence my parents and my upbringing had on me.  There are characteristics in my nature that I recognize were influenced heavily by my parents, and those can be both for good and bad, and I believe them to be both a mixture of genetics and environment.  It makes me glad for the way in which my wife and I raised our own children in a somewhat non-traditional way by most standards.  While my siblings and I were all together during the time of the funeral, (something we don;t get to do often due to the fact that we are dispersed broadly) my oldest sister complimented my wife and I on how "sweet" our three girls turned out due to the way they were raised.  It was a high compliment, and one that I truly give most of the credit to my wife's intense labors in that formidable task of child rearing.

On the 26th of February I was back on the road heading from Glenwood down to Delhi, Louisiana to pick up my next load which was some stadium seating bound for San Diego, California, and one small bundle of extrusions going to a manufacturer of solar power panels in Temecula, California.  I should note here that when I started out from North Collins, New York making an attempt to get to Glenwood, Arkansas in time for the funeral, I had on my mind a little truck stop right there in Glenwood that was adjacent to the Cattle Auction yard in town.  I didn't know of any other places around there to park a truck.  I arrived there at something like nine o'clock at night only to discover the Truck Stop was out of business, and the parking lot was roped off with no parking signs everywhere.  I noticed someone running a skid steer loader over at the Auction Yard moving bales of hay, and I went over to ask them if there were any other places in town that I might park a truck.  The young cowboy directed me to go over to the office and said the owner, who happened to be there at the time, would probably let me park it on his property if I paid him.  When I told the owner that I was in town for my Mother's funeral, he inquired, "what was your Mother's name?"  When I told him, he responded, "I knew both your Mom and Dad, they were great people.  You just back in over there on the East side of the property and stay there as long as you need."  Small town America, it's a great place to be.  That is just the kind of thing about this town that caused my parents to choose it as their place to spend their final days enjoying their life together.  I still remember my Dad telling me about this town when they decided to retire here,  "Dale," he said, "the folks in this town don't even lock the doors on their cars when they park in town.  You can walk down the streets and look at the cars, and all of them are unlocked!"  He thought that was just the coolest thing.

I've been so busy since the funeral.  Keep in mind that I came down from upstate New York to Arkansas, then I went to California.  After that I carried a load of rocks to Round Rock, Texas, and then got dispatched to Miami, Florida.  That means I criss-crossed the country twice - New York to California, and then California to Miami, Florida.  I love the adventure of this job, but it makes it difficult to leave everything at home up to my wife, and I don't think I've even mentioned yet that my oldest daughter is getting married on March the 18th.  Today I am at our terminal in Gulfport, Mississippi getting my truck serviced.  I'll do a few short runs this week just to keep myself close to home so that I can get home for both the wedding and some of the preparations.

Here's a look at some of what I've been up to lately.  I carried those extruded stadium seating sections to this football stadium in San Diego...

It was sort of a crazy job site to try and get a big truck into, but I managed getting into the tight spot where they unloaded me, and then I had to back out making two ninety degree turns just to get back on the very busy street where the school was located.  Here they are unloading me with a construction lift...

When I picked up this load of rocks in the border town of Tecate, California for my back haul load to Texas, the shipper did not have a scale on the premises, and it was a couple of hundred miles before I could get to a truck stop with a scale.  The load seemed to be over weight to me, and I let my dispatcher know that I was going to park at a nearby casino and sleep so that I could leave out around two in the morning and cross the line from California to Arizona, hoping that the scale houses would be closed.  I was fortunate that they were closed because once I got over into Arizona I scaled my truck at a truck stop and found I was grossing 82,380 pounds!

So, here's how I handled the situation.  Of course I started by sneaking by the scales while they were closed, and then I got my certified weight so that I knew what I was dealing with.  Then I made a plan as to how to deal with it.  The last thing you want to be doing is sneaking around all the time hoping that you don't get caught, but you also don't want to waste your time sitting and waiting for someone else to come up with a solution.  I made my own plan to stop at our terminal in Phoenix and have them unload a pallet of rocks and that got me to a legal weight.  I spoke to the customer and let them know that they would just have to find a "hot shot" freight company go to our terminal and get that other pallet to it's destination.  A rookie would have more trouble with a situation like this, but as an experienced driver, I just decided to take my own approach to a solution.  My dispatcher sent me an email later that said "I love how you dealt with that situation - that was awesome!"

Anytime a driver can be creative at problem solving and keep himself moving while relieving his dispatcher of having to handle all the little details, will endear him to his dispatcher and keeps him on the top of that dispatchers mind as a "go to guy" for the better loads that come available.  If you have to get your dispatcher involved in the solution it will mean that you will probably be sitting for a day. Your dispatcher is involved heavily in daily crisis management, and anytime you can stay off that list of drivers who he is solving problems for, you are adding extra dollars to your paycheck.  Every driver knows the frustration of sitting and waiting, it means you are not getting paid, and while I do not recommend that a rookie take charge of a situation like this, I did want to point out how a more experienced driver deals with issues like this when they arise.  Everything we do out here and every choice we make has an effect for ill or good on our bottom line - our paycheck, and that is one of the most common things we see drivers complaining about.  Recently I had an exchange with a new member on Truckingtruth.com who wanted to try and convince me that complainers are the folks who get things changed in this industry.  It is not complainers who bring about change in this industry, but folks who have solutions get the change they need, and they get it instantly, they don't have to wait around for years.

Here's a look at what the countryside looks like near Tecate, California.  It is a mountainous area that is very rocky.

Sorry this post is getting lengthy, but here's one more interesting sight.  Next to the casino truck parking area was a large wind power generating plant.  Check this out, a wind mill right next to the parking lot - those things are huge!