Missing In Action

I'm sorry I've been missing in action, but I'm trying to return to this little exercise. It really is a serious discipline to do this. I am usually so tired at the end of each day that I just don't feel like trying to write. I like to be creative, but when you are dead tired it doesn't come very easily.

So much has happened since I posted last that there is no way for me to tell about everything. Doing this job is akin to living three or four lifetimes in one. You see so many different things, come across such diverse peoples, and basically end up moving along like a gypsy through three or four states each day that it all becomes a whirlwind experience that almost seems like an addiction. The fact that you are always on the move begins to feel as though you have a need to be on the move. It is a difficult thing to just do this for your job, because it very easily becomes your lifestyle – that of always being on the move, never settling anywhere, never calling anything home. There is a certain aspect of it that is a reminder of the fact that we are strangers in a foreign land, longing for our home – pilgrims, whose journey is not complete until we cross that final river, and rejoice in the victory our King secured for us over that final enemy.

I'll just give you a brief look at a few highlights of the last few weeks since I last posted about going to Limerick, PA. My trip into Limerick was crazy. Pennsylvania, while beautiful, is a treacherous place for big trucks if you end up getting off the interstates. Their roads, at times have very sharp curves and steep grades, in fact there are many of them where trucks are not even allowed because of the dangers inherent for a big rig. I came into Limerick in the dark and I ended up on some of those crazy mountain roads of theirs, but I made it safely with only one problem where I had to make a sharp right curve and the impatient car at the intersection decided to cut the corner and get between me and the power poles on the right side of my truck. They could have gotten easily crushed in there by making such a hasty foolish move, but I kept my cool while they acted like a fool. They finally realized how dumb that move was and hit the gas and went careening into the ditch and back up and out and swerved around the back of my truck to get out of the path of danger that they had chosen.

When I finished that load up in Farmington, Connecticut I picked up a back haul load at Cressona, PA and delivered it to a Great Dane trailer manufacturing facility in Georgia. The aluminum material on my truck was 53 feet long! Here I am backed into the building at the Great Dane plant.

And here is what is going on inside that door where they are unloading me with an overhead crane.

The snow in Farmington was still about six feet deep, and they told me that when it begins to melt that they had a truck load of returns for me to take back to Delhi one of these days, but they were buried in the snow right now so that the fork-lift could not even get to them to load the truck.

Here's an interesting sight that I saw in Virginia recently. I came through after a very heavy snow storm. I waited for the storm to pass before I came through, and I'm glad that I did, for this is what I saw – four different trucks just like this on the side of the road looking like they had simply gotten tired and laid down on their sides for a nap.

Here's what happened to them. They tried to drive through blizzard conditions where at times you simply can't see anything – this is called white-out conditions. I've told you before how dangerous it is to pull over in a snow storm because the next vehicle coming up on you sees your tail lights and fearing that they have wandered off the pavement moves over behind you and then runs right into the back of your parked truck. Well, these guys tried to get far enough over off the edge of the road to avoid that and got themselves into a different problem. They got all the tires on one side of their truck and trailer over off the shoulder and into the grass. Well, there has been so much snow melt up here lately that the ground is very wet and soft. So, as they sat there waiting for the white-out conditions to stop, one side of their truck was slowly sinking into the very soft ground... and next thing they know they have reached the tipping point. Not a good day for a truck driver! These trucks need to stay on the pavement – they are just too heavy to take a risk like that.

Tonight I am in Springfield, Missouri. I'm sleeping in the parking lot at Efco, a manufacturer of glass door and window frames who uses a lot of the aluminum extrusions that SAPA produces in their product. I will be delivering my truck load of aluminum to them at six o'clock in the morning, and then I will be dead-heading back to Delhi, LA to see what's next on the agenda.

Here's one more shot of a recent back-haul load I had.  This was picked up in Pennsylvania and delivered down to Beaumont, Texas,  This is two pieces of steel sometimes called billets, or ingots.  These two pieces weigh twenty thousand pounds each.  I picked them up at a foundry and delivered them to a machine shop.

Destination Limerick

I keep this blog up so you're knowing,

Of all the fine places I'm going,

But now I think that you'll find it a kick,

That my Big Rig is rolling to Limerick!

Yes, believe it or not, my next load which is bound for Farmington, Connecticut (where else?) has as it's first stop a location for Yarde Metals in, none other than... Limerick, Pennsylvania!

I've never been to Limerick, but with a name like that it's bound to be fun.

I woke this morning in Delhi, Louisiana. I'm back here now waiting for them to finish my next load to Connecticut. They will finish it this afternoon, and I will be off again for those snow covered regions in the North East.

Everything went really well on this “super hot” back haul load. I actually made it in time to get unloaded at my first stop when I arrived instead of having to sleep there and wait for the morning. That also gave me enough time to get on over to the final stop at Mount Juliet, TN and sleep on their property so that they unloaded me first thing in the morning. Remember me telling you about the e-mail exchange between my dispatcher and I where he made me confirm three different times that I could make it by three o'clock on Friday? Well, when I sent in my empty call that morning at around 8:30, it elicited this response from my dispatcher. “You are good! In fact you don't even seem to be human, you seem more like a robot. I will let those people know that you are done. I can't thank you enough – now I won't have to be taking calls all day from those people hounding me to death over when this load is going to be delivered – excellent work sir!”

In spite of the snow storms that were working their way through the state of Virginia, and the highly unusual ice and snow covering up the middle Tennessee area, I made excellent time on this load and am now blessed to be down here in the south enjoying some of these days with the temps hovering in the mid fifties.

I'm going to rest up today so that I can be ready to drive this load at night, and I will probably try to do my laundry today also. I am planning on coming home somewhere close to this next weekend, and I am really looking forward to that. I've been staying out for an extended period of time by my own choosing so that I can capitalize on my income opportunities at the present time. I really am enjoying my work, but I miss my family painfully. It will be so good to be home at my own dinner table, to hold in my arms the woman who means more than life to me, and to lift my voice in praise to The Most High with my Christian brothers and sisters in public worship. Can't wait!

"Super Hot Load"

After waiting about twenty hours in Cressona I finally got the message I had been waiting for from the security guard, who told me my load was ready, and I could come on inside the gate to get my trailer. I mentioned the waiting scenarios we go through in the previous post, but let me elaborate just a little on it in this one. From past experiences, I know at Cressona they will, a lot of times, have issues with deadlines and appointment times. I had an appointment time, and according to my careful calculations I could make my end of the bargain and just be close to having maximized my legal working hours for the day when I arrived there. With that information in mind, I approached this appointment knowing that if they mess up on their end, which is highly likely, then my company will charge them what is known in the trucking industry as “detention pay,” and I will therefore get paid detention pay for my wasted time. Well, as soon as I arrived and dropped my trailer where instructed, I logged onto the sleeper berth with just a few moments left on my legal working hours, and I went to sleep. That way I can start getting my rest for the next time I start rolling, but also now I'm getting paid for sleeping if they can't get my load together!

The procedure at this plant is that the guard takes your phone number and calls you when your load is ready. Well, when I woke up on my own volition and realized I hadn't been contacted yet, I quickly ate some breakfast and then made a brisk walk (it's about five below zero) to the guard shack to check on things, and make sure there hadn't been some kind of mis-communication. Sure enough, as expected, my load was not ready yet, and the guard had not heard a word about it yet.

The funny thing about this load is that my dispatcher had originally told me to just go ahead and start dead heading back to Delhi. He was a little irritated because the person who is supposed to be planning back-haul loads for us just wasn't coming up with much for us, and that person wanted me to sit and wait there in New Hampshire until they could come up with something. My dispatcher expressed his attitude concerning this situation to me like this: “I told them no, Dale told us three days ago exactly what time and day he would be empty, and he did just what he said he would do. I need him back down here in Louisiana, and it is your job to get him here. We are not gonna keep waiting on you to get done the work you should have done three days ago.” I guess somehow that got the guy motivated because he quickly found this “super hot load” for us to pick up in Cressona. When they tell us it is a “hot” load that usually means it is something that the customer really needs quickly, and they are probably paying extra to get it done on time. So much for “super hot” stuff!

I wish you could have seen the e-mail exchange between my dispatcher and myself over whether or not I was going to make it on time with this load. I think he just wanted to make the load planner look bad or something because he seemed to be wanting me to say I couldn't make it by the dead line. He had me confirm three different times in a row that I could make it and get both deliveries done by 1500 on Friday (that's 3 pm) I can do this, even though he is not so sure. I'm already in Tennessee this Thursday morning. I made it to Dandridge, Tennessee last night after driving through the snow storms that were dancing their way through the state of Virginia. I saw a lot of trucks that gave up and pulled over on the side of the interstate to wait it out. That is actually more dangerous in most cases than just pushing through. So many times the cars on the highway upon seeing the tail lights of a parked truck will become disoriented and think they have gotten out of their lane. They then move over to line up with the truck and wham, they have run into the back of a parked truck – I've seen this so many times up in the North East where the truck drivers are struggling to find some where to park anyway. The truck driver leaves his lights on so passing motorists will be aware he's there, and yet it causes confusion for the motorists who are already stressed and straining to get through the storm.

I arrived here at about three thirty this morning, and after getting my ten hour break in I will proceed on over to Hendersonville, Tennessee where I will sleep on the customers property tonight after arriving there approximately at 7:30 or 8:00 tonight. Then after they unload their portion of this load on Friday morning I will make a short jaunt over to Mount Juliet to get the remainder of this load emptied out. I will have delivered early and be well on my way back to Delhi before the clock strikes on my 3:00 pm delivery time. Keeping yourself available for the next load is what keeps you at the top of the food chain in this competitive work environment. So many truck drivers don't even have a concept that they are competing for loads with the other drivers at their company, and because of that they are left trying to survive on the crumbs that fall from the table. Are you aware that the trucking industry has a 100% employee turn over rate? The lack of understanding about how to make a successful start, and how to maintain some level of success in this business are the main two reasons for that incredible statistic.

I was very fortunate to get a parking spot in Dandridge. It was the ideal destination for me for last night as far as the mileage was concerned, but I was taking a risk in that the parking is fairly limited at that truck stop. Here's how I calculated the risk: I fully knew it was risky, but being the ideal location for me to stop and still be able to get everything accomplished according to my plan I decided to go for it. I know that many truck drivers start their day out very early, something like three or four in the morning. And because of that there would likely be a few drivers who had parked there much earlier in the day with the design of leaving early for their trip plan just as I had to plan my trip to arrive there early in the morning. I must admit that I was a little nervous as I took exit 417 off of I-40 because immediately I began to see a multitude of trucks parked along the exit ramp (another dangerous practice that you won't find me doing). Now whenever taking a calculated risk on parking like this I will always have a back-up plan in place. My back-up plan was that there is a pretty large Love's truck stop another 12 -15 miles down the road. I had enough time to make it there if needed, and felt for sure there would be enough drivers there who needed to leave early to assure me a spot there if I had to go for it.

I was blessed indeed when I started perusing the parking situation here in Dandridge because there were actually two spots that had just been recently vacated. I could tell they had both just left because of their fresh tire tracks in the snow. It's all good! I've had a nice rest, and I'm up at my computer posting this message just before I get out there in the 4 degrees weather here to try and scrounge up some breakfast. I'm gonna eat out this morning – I've been so cooped up in this truck for the last five or six days of frigid weather that I'm gonna get out, move around and find me a decent little something to eat! As soon as my ten hours clicks off, I'm back on the highway, chasing that long black ribbon to my next destination.

Dreaming About Dwarves, Dryads, And Mr. Tumnus

I'm waking up on this chilly Wednesday morning in Cressona, Pennsylvania at the SAPA plant. The previous night I slept in the parking lot of Whelen engineering in Charlestown, New Hampshire. That night I was waiting to get unloaded, and this one I'm waiting to be loaded. There is a lot of waiting to this job.  I don't mean that as a complaint, and I really should clarify at this point that this job in particular cuts out a lot of the wait time involved in most trucking jobs.  Being a dedicated driver for this particular account means that my loads are almost always pre-loaded and waiting on me to get there.  Unfortunately, that is only true of the loads that come out of the plant in Delhi.  When I referred to waiting in Charlestown, New Hampshire it is because I purposely got myself there after their receiving hours so that I could take my required ten hour break on their property before my next driving shift.  By doing that I do not have to start my clock running and wasting my time that I'm allowed for my next time period at the wheel.  That is a strategy that I often employ in my management of my legal working hours.  And since I had to wait a while on my dispatcher to tell me what I should be doing next, I was not burning up my potential working hours for my next on duty time period.  So, what I'm trying to say is that some of this waiting has a purpose to it.

While there is nothing particularly interesting about the lot I slept in last night, the previous night that I spent in New Hampshire had this curious Narnian like lamp post next to my truck.

I was just sure that at any moment I was going to encounter Mr. Tumnus as he made his way to his comfortable little lair in the snow covered Hew Hampshire forests.

After waking from a night filled with dreams about Narnian creatures, I got unloaded first thing in the morning. I then had to wait for a little while on my next marching orders which sent me here to Cressona to grab a load of extrusions going to a couple of different locations near Nashville, Tennessee.

I saw something I have never seen before while in Charlestown. I was sitting in my truck waiting for a message from my dispatcher when I tilted my head back to take a drink of water and through the sun roof of my truck I spotted the strangest rainbow I've ever seen. Most rainbows are in an arch shape from the earth arching upward to the sky and then back toward the earth. This one appeared to be upside down, or upon climbing out of the truck, so as to view it better, it was more like it was laying on it's side! It looked, for all the world, like a rainbow smile.

The temperature in New Hampshire had warmed up to five below zero by the time I began to turn my truck in a southerly direction. It's a beautiful area, but they can have it as far as I'm concerned. It's just way too cold up there.

Conspicuously From The South

They dropped my Buffalo delivery off of this load, so I ended up with a straight shot to Riverdale, New Jersey before making my final push into Charlestown, New Hampshire, where I am parked tonight in my customers parking lot awaiting the morning's rush of employees, coming in to work, so that I can get this final piece of freight off of my truck. Everything I had on this load, but for this one last bundle, was delivered earlier today at the Camfil facility in Riverdale, New Jersey.

I took advantage of a provision in the FMCSA regulations called the split sleeper berth rule to work a little magic with my clock today so that I could get the most accomplished. I'm not going to bore you with how this rule works because it is so confusing that I'm not sure I could explain it with enough clarity for a non-truck driver to comprehend. The truth is that most truck drivers don't ever attempt to take advantage of it because they don't understand it, and it's also true that a lot of truck drivers don't even know the rule exists. The last time I advantageously utilized this provision I got a call from my dispatcher the very next morning telling me it was brilliant. It really wasn't all that smart, but when you are dispatching a bunch of other drivers who are constantly complaining about the restrictions of the clock not allowing them to get enough done so they can make a dollar, it probably seems brilliant at the time.

Basically it allowed me to not have to take a full ten hour break after driving through the night last night which let me get to Riverdale in time to get unloaded today, and then after taking a two hour break at Riverdale it gave me enough time to run through New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont while arriving at Charlestown New Hampshire in time to shut down before my legal working hours were over for the day. Had I taken a full ten hour break last night I would have been late getting to Riverdale before they stopped receiving for the day, and that would have put both their delivery, and this one in New Hampshire, off for another day. This allows me to turn in my paperwork for this job in time for it to go on this weeks pay period which adds a little more than 1,500 miles on to this week's pay, and it also allows me to get a jump ahead onto the next pay period's work load.

Here's a look at Julio Quinonis, the friendly fork lift operator, as he unloads my truck while at Riverdale.

The folks up here pronounce the name of their state as “New Hamshah”. Every time I come here, after just a brief amount of conversation with them, they will always ask me where I'm from. Then after I proudly tell them I'm from the great state of Texas they will usually say something like, “Oh that explains it.” I've always thought it was a reference to my hat that I'm usually wearing, but today I wore a toboggan much like many of them wear, but they still went through the same verbal exchange with me. One of these days I'm going to figuah out what it is that makes it so obvious that I'm not from around these pahts!

Providence, And the Blessing of Having A Job That You Really Enjoy

I drove all through the night beginning at 7:15 pm, and arrived in Delhi this morning, with five minutes to spare on my legal driving hours! Some days it just seems like everything falls in place for me. I am always grateful to God for all the help I seem to experience in this new career.

It really turned out well to go ahead and get myself on down here because with the load assignment I received today it will give me enough time off to take a 34 hour break which re-sets my seventy hour clock so that I won't have to be dealing with those re-cap hours I mentioned in that last post. That frees me up to make some really good progress on this next load which has three stops in the North East parts of the country. My first stop will be to a new customer in Buffalo, New York, followed by a frequent customer we have in Riverdale, New Jersey, and then on from there to a customer, new to me, that is in Charlestown, New Hampshire.

My load won't be ready until tomorrow, and at five o'clock tomorrow evening I will have completed my 34 hour break. I will still have to drive the night shift for two or three nights to make sure I deliver this load on time, but after a nice rest I will be completely prepared and ready for the challenge.

It is about 3:30 in the afternoon as I'm writing this, and I have just finished doing some grocery shopping to restock my supplies. I went ahead and purchased the ingredients to make another pot of black bean soup. It came out really good last time, and it just sounds nice to me for that trek back up there into the snow bound North East corner of the country. I was also out of fresh fruit, so I picked up some apples and tangerines – they make a nice refreshing snack on the road, and compared to most truck drivers who snack on chips and soda, at least I will feel like I'm making some effort at eating a healthy diet while on the road. It is so easy to fall into some unhealthy eating habits while living on the road, but with a little effort you don't have to be the typical overweight truck driver with hyper tension, and poor circulation.

My friend Paul Anderson is also in Delhi today, so we are going to enjoy a meal together tonight. He is the person who initially asked me if I would come over here and give this new job a try. I became acquainted with him through my work at TruckingTruth.com, and I seriously think it was Providential that we met, and he put in a good word for me over here. So far, I am the only person they have hired that didn't really live in their hiring area. They were saying that they were going to expand it into some of the freight lanes where they deliver to, but they have yet to do that. The reason they decided to accept me was because Bright Coop's trailer manufacturing company “Viking” (in Nacogdoches) is a customer of SAPA's, but I have yet to ever even deliver anything to them, and have very seldom even been put on any of the loads going to Texas.

My dispatcher told me this morning that he's been using me as an example when showing other drivers who are complaining about not making enough money, how you succeed at this stuff. He told me he sits them down at his computer and brings up a page that shows my trips and the timely manner in which I get them done. He then said that he really enjoys working with me, and stuck out his hand to shake mine with a big grin on his face and said, “I thank God every day, that Paul Anderson told me I should hire you – it is a pleasure working with you.” I really enjoy working with this guy, and he does incredible favors for me because he appreciates the way I soldier on through what ever problems arise on each load.

He often does what he did this morning when he called me about my load, which is, instead of just telling me what he wants me to do, he will read off to me from the nine or ten loads he has available for the next few days and will simply ask me, "Which one would you like to do?"   Anyone not familiar with this industry does not realize how highly unusual that is.  Most companies operate on what is called “forced dispatch”- which simply means they will tell you what they need you to do, and you just have to accept it. Usually they are trying to accommodate drivers current locations and get them something close to where they are at. Here, since we are dedicated to running loads out of this plant in Delhi, we are almost always originating our loads from this location. Because of that, the drivers who are continually producing good results are often given their choice of the loads available because the dispatcher is confident in their ability to “get er done.” Therefore if you happen to be available for your next load first thing in the morning as I was today, you will be given the best choice of loads.

Well, I need to start getting myself ready to go meet my friend Paul for supper. I will do my best to keep you informed as to how this load is going for me at some point in the next few days.

Perfect Timing

I'm in Dandridge, Tennessee today. I slept here last night, and have decided to take a short break here today. Everything went very well for me in Connecticut, I made both my deliveries there, in the third winter storm in just as many weeks as I have been there in a row. When I was done and had sent in my message that I was empty my dispatcher called and said for me to start heading back to Delhi. I expected to be getting a back haul load out of Cressona, but he said they couldn't get one until Wednesday night at 10:30, and he thought that was unacceptable. Well, who am I to argue with him? I wouldn't have minded the wait, but he said they had three days notice to find him something for Tuesday night, and he felt they had dropped the ball. I like the way he works, he tries really hard to keep me busy, and he needs me in Louisiana to keep up the flow of the freight out of the plant that we are dedicated to serving, so I am rolling all the way back down there empty, or “dead-heading” in trucker talk. He was a little disappointed that I needed to stop at the terminal in Carlisle, Pennsylvania to get my truck serviced, but when I tried to apologize that the timing of it had snuck up on me unawares because I've been so busy, he only said he liked it because it shows that I have been getting a lot accomplished.

When I got to my second stop in Connecticut at the major customer (Stanley Access Technologies) that I go to all the time there, “Jorgo,” The Italian fork-lift operator with a strong New York “Bronx” accent, says to me, with his cigarette bobbing up and down in his lips, looking as if it would fall out any moment, “Hey buddy, we gonna have to call your boss and tell him to stop sending you up here.” I was a little surprised by this greeting since he is usually a little more cordial (if cordial can even be used for describing the interactions with these folks in the far North East). I asked, “What's the deal, is there a problem with what I'm doing?” “Oh yeah,” he says, “Every time you show up we have a major snow storm hit on the exact same day – it's like perfect timing. We're afraid if you keep showing up the whole state is going to be buried in snow – this never happens with any of the other guys – only you.”

While on the subject of timing, let me explain to you why I am taking this break here in Dandridge. Hopefully without boring you with all the confusing details of the Hours of Service rules that truck drivers have to abide by I'll just say I have already driven close to seventy hours this week, and we are not allowed to drive more than seventy hours in an eight day period. I have four hours and 51 minutes that I can drive today. At that point I have used up my seventy hours during my seventh day of working, yet I am supposed to be in Delhi, Louisiana tomorrow morning. So, how does one do that? Well, you have to be smarter than the average bear to be able to have the kind of perfect timing that Jorgo seems to think I have. At this point of the game I am running on what the regulators call re-cap hours. Which means that instead of me being allowed to drive 11 hours in a 14 hour period as I normally could, now I can only drive as many hours each day as I drove on the day that I was working eight days ago. Tomorrow my eighth day will come back to me at midnight tonight, and since I drove approximately ten hours on that day, then I will receive those hours back. So, at midnight tonight I will be given another ten hours that I can work with. Therefore, if I start my day of driving late into the day, say around 7:15 tonight, then just as I'm about to finish up my seventy hours of driving at midnight, I will magically receive back another ten hours of legal driving hours. So, I can drive all through the night and get to Delhi on time while still obeying these crazy rules. Now, if you think that would make a truck driver more tired and unsafe than just getting up this morning and driving during my regular waking hours, well you are much brighter than the intelligent elitists inside the Beltway over in D.C. - but, of course, we already knew that.

I have a friend who says you could have gotten a room full of drunk monkeys to come up with a set of guidelines that made more sense than the ones we are working under. But, I will be driving all night tonight so I can keep it legal. I don't mind the night driving so much, but being forced to do it for safety's sake when I would have much rather gotten up this morning and made my way to Delhi during the daylight makes a lot more sense. This will more than likely put me to driving on the night shift for much of this next week, but usually at some point I can flip the schedule around depending on the demands of the delivery times I'm having to deal with. I have done very well at dealing with the restrictions of the clock, and my dispatcher loves my approach to managing my time. He deals with so many drivers who refuse to do certain things like driving at night, or whatever the case may be. But he knows he can count on me to try and be keeping myself available to get the things accomplished that we need to do.

That is the reason that I get these really great jobs. I would much rather go to Connecticut and back – it's five days worth of driving with usually one or two stops at the most. We get paid for how many miles we drive, if you can maximize your driving time you will be making the most of your available earnings. While others are ending up with loads going to Texas from Louisiana with four or five stops on the load (lots of work with not very good pay) I am continually ending up with long runs. Good timing, and good management of your available working hours, makes a big difference in how this job works out for you. Also good communication is important with your dispatcher. If he knows ahead of time when you will be ready for another load then he can be working on finding you the best possible load at that time.

I really enjoy this work, and I'm glad to know that folks like “Jorgo” appreciate my “perfect timing.”