On the road... FINALLY!!!

My load FINALLY arrived at the terminal at about 1000. No worries, still plenty of time to deliver on time. I grab the trailer, get my tanks topped off, and then run across the handy scale at Prime's terminal. 35000+ on the drives. Crap. Ok, so I decide to slide the tandems forward. Except that the trailer brakes don't hold and the just roll. Crap. And my air conditioner quits blowing cold air. And smoke is coming out from under my hood. I open the hood to find that the air conditioner compressor has seized up and is in the process of melting the belt. CRAP!

So I drag everything over to maintenance. Of course the shop doesn't have time to deal with my air conditioner, so I just have the trailer fixed and got it legal. I drive down the road to a TA and they get my truck right in. The replace the compressor and belt and it's still not blowing cold. Needs a new air dryer and expansion valve. They don't have the parts and have to go to Springfield and get them. CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP!!

My truck is FINALLY done at 2000. Man this was expensive in terms of time. Doesn't cost me a penny, though, because I've got a 60-day bumper to bumper warranty on this thing which Success Leasing extends to everyone who leases a used ride. Now I just have to get my VORAD fixed (headway is having problems, and the people at the TA looked at me like I had antlers when I mentioned "VORAD").

Redid my trip plan, and I'm gonna be LATE. Late enough to miss the pay period cutoff on Tuesday. Sheesh. Great way to get started, huh? Oh well. It just means that next week's settlement will be that much larger, and missing a week isn't going to starve me.

And now we wait...

Here I sit at the terminal, waiting for my first load.. and waiting... and waiting. Actually, I haven't been waiting that long. I only became available about an hour ago.

Orientation today was spent doing fun stuff like permits, security, lease orientation, and getting my truck ready for the road.

That last part was EXPENSIVE... wow. Here's what I spent on that:

1 tire gauge: $14.87
2 load locks (need to minimum to prevent load shift): $30.00 ea
1 3 pc security set (air cuff, big padlock for trailer doors, little padlock for inspection door): $115.13
2 sets of link chains (remember, I live in Colorado!): $50.94/set
1 set of cable chains (for retarded states who like chains on trailer; Oregon and Washington): $42.19
1 digital thermometer (I work reefers, remember?): $11.00
4 Nev-R-Tips (for blocking and bracing w/ load locks): $12.50 ea
1 flashlight (didn't bring one thinking I was b-seating): $7.98
1 accident camera: $7.34 (yes, I should have bought one at Wally World, but oh well)

Grand total of $410.39, spread out over the next few settlements so that I can build up positive cash flow. And all tax-deductible.

After that, I still had to spend more of my money because I was a moron and left BOTH of my truck atlases at home. Can't work without that, so I had to buy one. That was completely my fault, so I take a little business loss for being an idiot. I did have some extra money set aside for buying a few extras and not-so-extras, so I bought:

1 logbook cover that fits these Prime logs
1 400 watt inverter (my other inverter is sitting uselessly in my car in Denver. but it sucked anyway)
a couple of hand tools
inexpensive boot mats for my steps ($6 for 2 of them - haven't seen a better price yet)
Prime's alternative to the Pumpkin book, just packaged fancier
lanyard for my Prime id/fuel card because it has to be visible when I'm on Prime property and is also the access card to all the doors. The free one sucks.
Zip ties (mats didn't come with any. still cheaper)

Also, I noticed that these trucks don't come with the privacy curtain that goes around the windows. I didn't HAVE to have one, but I like them to help keep out the sun and the yo-yos who like to stare into my windows. So I got one. No big deal.

Now I get the fun of dealing with Opti-Idle. It's kind of a neat feature, and yet kind of annoying. See, you set a temperature range on it, and the truck will turn on and off to maintain that temperature as well as keep its batteries charged and whatnot. It's annoying because the thermostat makes a loud BEEP! when the truck turns on. That will probably get old fast. I'm not really worried because I'll quit using it once I get an APU installed on this puppy. In the meantime, though, it will be cheaper on fuel that running the truck all the time.

I need to devote some time to talking about the truck a bit. This is VERY much not the same Freightliner Century that Schneider uses. It has more gauges. It has better quality and more comfortable seats. It has a cruise control on the shifter. It has a very different Qualcomm. It has a thermos holder on the floor. It has Sirius satellite radio installed (damn it! I'm an XM person!). It has VORAD on the passenger side and front. It has another mirror above the passenger door. It has no passenger side sidebox (damn it!). It has a better mattress. It has no fan above the driver's side vent. The CB mounts above the driver's head instead of on top of the dash. It has a panic button. It has 515 horsepower. Man, it tries to get away from you if you're used to Schneider's eunuch trucks. I have to relearn at what speeds the gears like because the ones that I got used to at Schneider just grrrrrind like crazy on this thing.

Now for the Millenium Building, which is the crown jewel of Prime's operations. All I can say is "wow". Talk about a contrast to Schneider's dull grey operating centers. This place is colorful, full of fountains, and a little hard to navigate if you're not used to it. The fuel pumps are full service. As in, you're not allowed to pump your own fuel. There are a few posters around featuring Robert Low (at Prime, you don't get any higher than him) practically DARING you to play basketball with him and others at lunchtimes Monday-Friday. I haven't seen this spectacle yet, but the word is that he used to play college ball and he is GOOD.

Now for those of you who have been through Schneider's training and are looking at Prime... or those who have READ about Schneider's training and are looking at Prime, let me explain a few things that I've learned here. Prime is a LOT less hand-holdy than Schneider is. If you don't understand anything and don't ask, nobody is going to help you. There are several different groups all doing different things commingled together, so don't rely on other students or new guys. You have to ask the instructors or others who have been around. Those of us who came from Denver had COMPLETELY different itineraries from those who have been here, and I had a different schedule from the b and c seats who came from Denver with me. You've got to be paying attention. Also, I was CLOSE to taking off without any Transflo forms (no Trippak here!). That would have sucked painfully come time to scan my stuff to get paid. Nobody was going to remind me. Especially if you're not with the main group.

Now I just get to wait for my first load...

Still going...

After a boring day of sitting around in the hotel room yesterday, I rose at 0530 to eat breakfast and make it to the 0700 class. The problem is, our schedules were wrong and they didn't need us folks from Denver until 1015. Wow. I could have slept in. Ah well.

I killed a couple of hours by walking down to Wal-Mart and buying some bedding for the truck so I don't have to use my sleeping bag. I would have brought bedding to start with, but I didn't plan on being an A seat and going right out on my own.

At 1015 we did our benefits orientation and I made my first business decision. Other than the basic life insurance, I'm staying away from Prime's contractor benefits. I guess the truckers are a piss poor risk group because those premiums are awfully high for awfully mediocre benefits. I've already got a couple of quotes for less than half the price - without the three month waiting period.

So now that I decided not to shell out $70/wk for health insurance, we went to our logging class. Logging is still logging, but Prime allows its drivers to split a 10-hour break and use all those complicated rules. Schneider expressly forbid that as a matter of company policy. I can see where the split can be handy, but I'm not sure that I'd use it often. Also, Prime prefers that we log at least 15 minutes for a Post Trip Inspection, and just flag the Pre Trip. That's completely the reverse of Schneider. And actually, I think I prefer the Schneider way. Prime's log forms are CLUTTERED, too. It's going to take some getting used to.

Once that was out of the way, I was shuttled off to the terminal to pick out my truck. I had seven to choose from: five 2005 models, one 2006 model, and one 2007 model.

Three of the 2005 trucks didn't pass the appearance test. One was yellow, and I *HATE* yellow as a color for vehicles. Another was "twilight royal plum" and was a little too beat up for my tastes given that there were available trucks in better shape. The same went for the dark red one.

Of the two remaining 2005 trucks, one was "radiant fire". I fell in love with that color and took it for a test drive. I was almost heartbroken to find that it drove like crap. WAAAY too much freeplay in the clutch (almost to the floor to get in the working area!) and a heck of a sloppy transmission. I had a hell of a time finding gears in that thing. After that, I tried ANOTHER "twilight plum" (purple to the rest of us) truck. It drove beautifully. Just over 300,000 miles on it, and the lease would be up in February 2008. Definitely worth another look. The problem I had with it is color. I don't have anything against purple per se, but it is a very common color at Prime and I was hoping for something more distinctive and "me".

Next I drove the 2006 blue tractor. When I first looked at it, I disliked the color. It's a lighter blue of a shade that gets on my nerves. Even so, I tried the truck and it acquitted itself well. 240,000 miles. Lease would be over in September 2008. $20 more per week. I disliked the fact that it only had a hood mirror on the passenger side. I got used to having both hood mirrors at Schneider, and I'm not really ready to give that up.

I then went to get the keys and maintenance records for the 2007, but someone else was already trying it and then he decided to grab it. No worries though. I don't think I wanted to go up to that high of a payment and that long of a lease to start with.

In the end, I decided to get the "twilight plum" 2005 instead of the 2006. The 2005 truck was in just as good shape as the 2006, had only 60,000 more miles, and wouldn't cost me an extra $20/wk. I just couldn't find any value in the 2006 truck. Besides, I hated the color and the fact that it only had the one hood mirror.

After all the running around Prime's lot, I had to inspect this truck. Unlike Schneider, Prime wants detailed damage inspections. I had to go around detailing every nick and scratch on this thing. The only thing I found that needed immediate repair was the passenger side running light, which wouldn't turn on unless the turn signal or hazard lights were on. Tires look to be in good shape, and they credit my tire fund for the amount of tire already worn.

All I need to do now is make an appointment to get a generator/APU installed and all will be well. The truck comes with Opti-Idle, but I really don't want to use that any more than necessary.

Well, I'm absolutely beat. I'll just close with a couple of quick pics of my new ride.

Prime Orientation, Day 2...and then some..

Springfield, MO 8:09AM

Didn't get to post anything yesterday because we went from orientation straight to driving out here.

We got to sleep in yesterday as they didn't want to start us until 0900. The day was spent watching videos. I'm apparently getting another Highway Watch number. The video was interesting the first time with Schneider, but watching it again was not fun. After that, we watched a long, drawn out sexual harassment video and two even longer, even more drawn out maintenance/inspection videos. For those of you pumpkin drivers who read this, the maintenance videos made Schneider's "Three Points of Contact" video look Oscar-quality.

Speaking of Schneider, the pumpkins got razzed in these orientation videos. They were talking about accident avoidance and mentioned watching out for all those "orange trucks you see in the truck stops." And of course, Schneider was used in the example of what to do when a truck rips off your hood when you're parked. Bastards. The maintenance guy DID have a good idea, though. He strongly suggested that when we park, we write down the company names, tractor numbers, and trailer numbers of the trucks parked on either side of us in case bad stuff does happen and they don't have the integrity to own up to it.

FINALLY, the videos were over (about 1600) and we were stuffed into a rental minivan with a third guy who started orientation last week but had a family emergency that forced him to wait another week. After a long 12 hours, we're here at this hotel which seems to house Prime applicants and drivers and not much else. Seriously, the parking lot is secured and all the spaces are large enough to accomodate bobtails. There are a bunch of classrooms for the various training classes that they have here. The rooms are decent. Nothing fancy, and unfortunately no internet access. Thank goodness I have other ways of getting that access. We get three meals a day at the cafeteria here.

Well, I'm absolutely beat. We have the day off to rest, and I intend to do just that. We start tomorrow morning at 0700.

The orientation begins...

Just as I predicted, a simple conversation with the Denver recruiting and orientation contact (Tammy) fixed my hotel problem. So all is well there.

Breakfast was unexpectedly good here. Instead of the standard continental fare, we actually had a buffet consisting of biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, sausage links, french toast, and the like. Continental-style eats were also available, but I wasn't interested. No juice though, which was a bit of a bummer.

Since my reservation was messed up, I thought it might be a baaaaad idea to trust that a shuttle would show up and decided to drive myself. It also seemed a bit ridiculous that they'd commit a shuttle to pick up just one person. On my way out the door, I ran into a guy who was starting orientation with Navajo (their terminal is just across the street from the Prime terminal) and he claimed to be a former Schneider driver. A bit bitter, though. Before I was able to get away from him, he had told me how he'd lost his house because of Schneider and whatever other sob story he had.

I'm going to digress now. I've noticed a pattern developing among truckers, and the defining characteristic is attitude. If your attitude sucks, you don't make much money in this career. It's that simple. All the truckers I've talked to that are going broke do nothing but friggin' BITCH BITCH BITCH. And their monetary difficulties are never their fault. I'm sorry, but in a career that requires you to be almost completely independent, you are entirely responsible for how you do. If things start going south, it's up to you and you alone to fix it. Nobody else is ever going to babysit you here. Excuses don't pay bills. If your carrier REALLY and TRULY doesn't have the freight base to keep drivers moving, then move on. If you're not making money but everyone else around you is, then you're doing something VERY wrong. I could go on and on here, but I should probably get back to the subject at hand. Just be positive and have an open mind. Trucking is what you make of it. No more, and no less. It's all YOU.

I drove down to the Prime terminal and was confronted by the locked gate, a keypad for entering the code, a speaker for talking into, but no call button or phone to plead my case for entry. After sitting there and trying a few different code combinations in hopes of someone calling out to me, I drove to the parking lot next door and called Prime's general purpose line. Yes, I should have called the Denver terminal directly, but I left that number back at my room like a moron. Luckily, Tammy is the one who answers and she lets me in.

Now, when I say that this place is small, I mean it is SMALL. There is no fuel there. There is a small row of back-in parking that fits maybe 20 trucks. Not much activity. The building is one of those portable modular things with all the usual safety propaganda featuring pictures of crashed trucks hung up on the walls. There is one shower - in the men's room. Functional, and not much else. It seems to be all they need for the traffic they get there, though. Only a couple of trucks came and went during orientation today.

Just when I thought I'd be by myself this whole time, another fresh face shows up. He's experienced, but less so than me. In fact, I noticed that I was classified as a B-2 seat (3-4 months experience, requiring 60 days of training instead of the 30 days that I was promised!) and I asked the WTF question about it. Tammy promptly reran my motor vehicle, DAC, and employment history and came back with good news: instead of being B-1 (30 days training) like I was promised, I now qualified as an A seat and get my truck immediately following orientation. WOOHOO! I tell you, there's a lot to be said for paying attention to your paperwork and asking questions. Like I said in the last paragraph, you've got to stay on top of this stuff because nobody else will do it for you.

This morning was pretty much consumed by the medical clinic. We went down and got new DOT physicals and drug tests. Pretty standard stuff; was poked, prodded, and molested by the doctor. And thanks to the coffee and water that I started drinking early on, fessing up the urine sample was a breeze. In fact, I was getting rather eager to donate.

After that, we went back to the terminal, watched a couple of "welcome to Prime" videos, ate lunch (they sent out for sandwiches), did a ton of paperwork, and had our integrity interviews. Pretty simple, and really informal seeing as how it's just two of us. We concluded at about 1500 and were told to show back up at 0900. Woot! Sleep in!

That's pretty much it. Tammy gave me a voucher for $8.50 worth of food good at the hotel's restaurant, so dinner is taken care of.

On my way to Prime, and not without complications...

Here I sit in the adequately appointed Best Western of Central Denver. Actually, it's a pretty nice room (much nicer than the Best Western Ontario Airport that Schneider likes to use in California!). It's just in a questionable area of town, but that's just the trucking life. We don't get to see the nice parts of cities very often.

I encountered a problem at check-in; they didn't have a reservation for me. Or for Prime, Inc. Hmmm. I'm guessing that since I'm the only new employee this week in Denver that it slipped their minds. A quick conversation in the morning should rectify this and make sure that the authorization for $80.38 on my bank card doesn't actually get charged. This will be a good test of how Prime handles odd situations. I guess I could be pissed, but I just don't see the point until I give them a fair chance to set things right. Things never go exactly as they should anyway.

During my long and meandering search for food around here I accidentally found Prime's facility here in Denver. Wow. It's SMALL. Very, very small. Again, not really worried because it's my understanding that I won't see this place very often.

Now it's time for bed so that I can stay awake for this orientation.

Goodbye, Schneider!

I got home last night after my codriver dropped me off on the way to Denver. I cleaned my stuff out of the truck (holy crap I accumulated a lot of stuff!) and went for a little welcome home dinner with my wife.

It's a couple of days early, but that's the nature of the business and freight is shaky these days. And I'm glad for the extra time at home with Jill because I'll probably be gone for over a month on my first trip out with Prime, Inc.

Today was fairly productive. I touched base with Tammy, the person in charge of the orientation in Denver and had her e-mail me all the information I need for getting started. Where the hotel is, when to be there, what to bring, etc. Pretty standard stuff.

I also went down to the DMV and picked up a hazmat endorsement for my CDL. I just got my letter from the TSA last week declaring that I'm not a terrorist. (FINALLY!) It only took a month and a half. Gotta love the goverment.

And now for a few pictures from my last run with Schneider...


Me, the truck, and the Rocky Mountains (Vail Pass rest area)


Big mistake. Got stuck in a muddy truckstop parking lot in Oklahoma.


Another view


And another


An attempt to photograph the Rockies in Montana


10,000 Silver Dollars Casino/Restaurant/Gift Shop/Truckstop in Haugan, Montana

Killing a day in Wisconsin

So I wake up this morning at the weigh station on northbound I94 at the Wisconsin/Illinois border. Just another 90 minutes of driving to get to the consignee. In the meantime, our replacement load comes in; a nice load to beeeyoootiful Laredo, TX. Ew. But it's certainly nice to have a load that actually moves over 1000 miles for a change, so I won't complain too much.

Anyhow, I get the load delivered ok and have some time to kill because it's a live load at 1500 and it's about 1000. I start bobtailing south toward my empty trailer pickup and what do I see? Held's! Yes, it's a Cheese/Sausage/Jerky seller with a handy truck turnaround on US41, exit 64. I went in there, lost my mind, and spent a good amount of money on cheese and jerky. It's going to be hard to hold onto some of the cheese until I get home, but my wife will kill me if I eat it all. Very highly recommended.

Anyway, after I part with money and put my newly purchased dairy treats in my power cooler, I finish the bobtail run to the Kohl's distribution center in Menomonee Falls, WI. I grab the empty, sweep it out, and check the lights. Whoa, missing a license plate light bulb. Thankfully, I carry extras. Snap 'er in, and I'm good to go. Haul it down to South Milwaukee for a live load, arrive an hour early, and find that the good folks at the shipper have already loaded a trailer for me and just want me to drop and hook. Darn the luck!

So I pretrip it, close the doors, lock and seal it, and slide the tandems to what I think would be a good legal place for 34,000 lbs. 7th hole should do it. I swing by a Pilot 1 exit south, scale it, and of course I was right. I'm always right. But I also always scale, JUST IN CASE. I just have to be caught wrong once, you know.

So after I get my scale ticket, a horrible thought enters my mind. In the hubbub of getting the paperwork, sliding my tandems, and getting out of the next guy's way, I totally forgot to check the tires. So I did. And of course, one's flat. I called Schneider Emergency Maintenance and experienced a miracle: no hold time. At all. As in, someone answered the phone immediately. This must be my lucky day. Even luckier, we had a tire bank just across the interstate. So I limp it over there, perform a harrowing blindside back off a public road into Wingfoot's driveway (there was absolutely no other way to do it, and the Wingfoot guys helpfully blocked traffic and spotted me), and watch this tiny little guy change the tire. I was amazed that a shrimpy guy like him changed the tire so quickly. I mean, this guy couldn't have been more than 5'4" and couldn't have weighed more than 110 pounds soaking wet. But he got me on my way, and I was definitely grateful.

Finally, late in the day, I'm actually ready to put down some miles. Yeah, just in time for Chicago's rush hour. I made it through, but I'm done. Killed my driving output- only 395 miles for the day. Should have a better day tomorrow. We'll see.

I thought that this was supposed to be spring...?

We took last night off because our shipper wasn't open until 0800. So I wake up and cast my eyes over northern Pennsylvania and am stunned to see how brown, cold, and.. well.. wintry it looks. After picking up the load and getting it scaled, I proceed west on I80. And hit snow. On and off all the way to the Seville OC. WTF?? Why won't winter just die this year?!

In the meantime, we got our next load assignment. A high-value expedited load in which we do FedEx Ground's job for them and deliver a trailer full of packages from one terminal to another. Problem is, it's an 0700 pickup. Uh, we're not going to make it until about 0900. I send in the appropriate macro on the Qualcomm saying 1000, just to be safe. 45 minutes later, the Qualcomm beeps. Imagine that! We've been removed from the load. No worries, though. It was short, and we'd done that exact run before. We'd like to finally get a 1000+ mile load, but 900 is the most they've given us thus far, and it's really wearing us down because we can't get into a rhythm with all these stupid short lengths of haul.

Now it's time to go to sleep and let my codriver deal with Chicago. I got us out of Pennsylvania, and that was PLENTY.

On the road again...

I'm back on the road for the final time with Schneider. I sent in my notice via Qualcomm. So far, this trip is shaping up much like the last one - plenty of miles, but all in short trips. It's really getting tiring because when you're picking up and dropping off every day, you can't get settled into a good routine. I can't get a good, long sleep because when I'm done driving, we're only maybe 100 or 200 miles from the consignee and I just can't sleep through the starting, stopping, coupling, and uncoupling.

I'm also getting really tired of bouncing around the midwest and to the east coast. I don't know where all the westbound freight is, but we really need to pick up some of that.

Other than that, there's really not a whole lot to post about.

New developments... and there are many!

Well, we finally got back on the road soon after the last post. And we got to keep the original truck, meaning that we cleaned her out for nothing. Oh, and our dedicated STL never changed us to the system board. His boss ended up having to do that for us.

Anyway, we've been on the road and things improved greatly. It wasn't a great run because it was loaded with short runs between high value expedited runs. But decent money came in and the working conditions are much better.

Well, last week I had a message come up on the Qualcomm asking me to call our STL. I did, and he asked if we wanted a new truck. As in, brand new. 2007. Of course we did. We picked up her up last Wednesday in West Memphis.



The fun part of all this is that I'm giving three weeks' notice of my intent to resign to Schneider on Thursday, when we go back out. You see, I accepted a position with Prime, Inc and start orientation in Denver on Monday, April 30th. I'm going to try my hand at leasing a truck and working for myself.

I went into this after much thought, soul searching, and quizzing of Prime drivers and Schneider independent contractors about how they run their businesses and how to succeed. There is a LOT of bad sentiment on the internet where leasing is concerned, but the vast majority of it is rants by people who can't compose a sentence. Makes me question their business sense. The rest appears to be the opinions of those who have never even tried it. All the Prime drivers that I talked to said that there is a lot of money to be made, but you HAVE to control costs and treat it like a business.

I'll give it a shot. If you disagree with my decision and wish to tell me so, I'll thank you in advance for keeping your comments polite if you absolutely can't keep them to yourselves. I'm doing this and will update the blog accordingly - both good and bad.

AAARRRRGGHH!! Frustration, frustration...

Ok, I last posted that we were trying to get out of our Ford dedicated account. Last week was finally our last week at that, and we're set for 10AM availability tomorrow. Sounds good, right?

Riiiiiiight....

First, we have no truck. We cleaned it out on Saturday and it went to the shop today to have a cattleguard installed (EWW! Poor girl, now she's going to be hideous!) so she can run on a more elk-prone route. We're supposed to be assigned to some beater truck that needs to get taken back to an operating center for trade, and then we're supposed to pick a more appropriate truck for teams. Sounds good, right?

Riiiiiiiiight....

Our STL from the dedicated account told us to call our new STL today to find out what's going on with the truck situation... like which truck we're taking. So I called and found out two things:

1) We're still assigned to the dedicated board
2) We're assigned to a load (WTF?!)

So, last call to our new STL had him telling me that he'd call our old STL, get it straightened out, and give me a call back. Well, about 3:45 (Pacific Time) I called back and was informed that the new STL had gone for the day.

WTF? WTF? What the f---?! We just want to run and make money. It would be nice to have been able to do that without someone botching the transfer. This is the first time that I've been disappointed and pissed at Schneider. Hopefully, it'll be the last.

Whew! What a month!

Once again, I promised that I would keep up on this better, and once again I have failed in that simplest of tasks.

Anyway, it's been a rather eventful month. A few weeks ago, my codriver and I got a message on the Qualcomm practically begging us to come drive for Schneider's Ford dedicated account in Denver. It promised a salary (no more mileage pay) and more home time... well... it would have been more home time if I lived in Denver. Which I don't. Well, that's ok because I at least get to go home for the weekends. But...

I really don't mean to rant and rave and make Schneider look bad, because there was no lying involved. They didn't misrepresent the situation. It's more of a distorted look at the realities of living 60 miles from work that got me. Hell, I even thought that I could live with just the weekends. It certainly seems logical. The problem is that I just barely have enough time to start relaxing before I have to get up and drive back out to Denver to start the whole thing over again.

It's like living OTR with none of the benefits. At least over the road, my time at home would be at least 3 or 4 days. That means that I don't have to rush around as much during my time off. I also liked having more options as to how to run the loads. The set schedule going around the same route over and over and over again got old a lot quicker than I thought it would.

Anyway, my codriver is not enjoying it much either, so we're in the process of going back to 48 state system. More money + less hassle = happier drivers.

Oh, and our Coleman cooler died. The 12v plug melted. RIP, Coleman.

F--- you, winter!

So here we sit at a truckstop, no point in continuing on because the highway ahead is closed until tomorrow morning (we hope). Granted, the point of closure is still several hundred miles away, but fog is bad in this area and we're still dealing with a bit of a winter storm. We stopped while we could still find parking at this here truckstop.

So, our hopes for a stellar earnings week are pretty much shot. We're not going broke by any means, but we were planning on running our asses off and sending home even better coin than we'd been making.

Such is the life of the truck driver. We've got to take the good with the bad. The good is that we found a nice place to park and that we get to sit on our asses and watch movies in our "Ghetto-piece Theatre". We slapped a tape adapter onto my laptop and plugged it into the truck's sound system. Works pretty good as a quasi-surround sound system. It won't be putting Bose out of business, but it sure beats the crap out of my laptop's speakers.

The great part of this - it will be my second 34 hour restart in three days!!

On the road again...

I'm back on the road. We're taking this weekend kind of slow so that we can ease into things. See, we're still on guaranteed pay ($500/wk minimum) and the way our load turned out to be structured makes it next to impossible to grab enough miles this weekend to top it. So, we can either run our asses off and make minimum, or we can take it easy (lots of time on this load) and make... minimum.

Besides, I'm trying to fight off a nasty head cold.

For those who are curious, I will not divulge my location, route, destination, or load info while I am actually under the load. This is for the safety of my cargo, my teammate and (most importantly) me. I'll talk about this load later, though it's really nothing special.

I will talk about food, however. We have figured out a few good recipes for good eating. In fact, once we bought our two lunchbox ovens, a whole new world of possibilities opened up to us. And after spending the first run eating cold sandwiches, it was very welcome.

Excellent food choices that we found:

• canned soup. The chunky kind. Don't skimp here.
• Hot sub sandwiches. Wrap in foil, cook for 30 minutes. Yum.
• Baked potatoes. Hell yeah!
• Chicken breasts. Wrap in foil, season, add a little butter.
• Hot Pockets. Believe it or not, the lunchbox cooker actually does these well.

Here's a picture of last night's dinner (chicken breast and baked potato):

Where the heck have you been hiding?!

Ok, I've been catching hell because I haven't updated this blog for a while. I'm sorry, but internet access has been almost nonexistent on the road and I've been busy, busy, busy while at home. I promise to be more diligent with this in future.

I'm not going to go into the first run because I really don't remember much about it since I didn't record any details. Believe me, you'll be amazed at how much these runs start mashing together into a blur.

I purchased a laptop during my first time at home period, so I was able to keep records. In fact, I keep a spreadsheet tracking paid miles, out of route, and a guesstimation as to what pay for the week will be. It's actually been pretty accurate, with Schneider's mileage calculation always being slightly higher than mine (no complaints!!).

I'm not going into my actual pay for privacy reasons, but you can approximate it knowing that new teams get 31 cents per mile.

First week:

• Denver, CO to Macon, GA: 1497 paid
• McDonough, GA to Mount Vernon, TX: 777 paid
• Coppell, TX to Ogden, UT: 1353 paid

My half of the miles came to 1814. It was a short week due to TAH, after all.

Second week:

• Carson, CA to Macon, GA: 2229 paid
• Atlanta, GA to Paris, TX: 793 paid
• Paris, TX to Hazleton, PA: 1352 paid

My half came to 2187. I also missed the miles between Ogden, UT and Fontana, CA. Monday was wasted due to Safetrack. It was yet another Schneider test to determine whether or not I had picked up any bad habits. My teammate couldn't knock his Safetrack out because he was out of hours. We're going to have to sacrifice another day to that sometime in the near future.

Third week:

• Aborted run from Wilmerding, PA to Alpha, IL: 243 paid (more on this later)
• McCoole, MD to Sauk Village, IL: 658 paid
• Chicago, IL to Roanoke, TX: 971 paid
• Haslett, TX to Statesville, NC: 1115 paid
• Charlotte, NC to San Bernardino, CA: 2382 paid

Monday was a waste again. We had to drive almost all the way across Pennsylvania to pick up a load in Wilmerding - NOT easy to get to. We finally get there only to find out that it's a Haz Mat load. We don't have Haz Mat endorsements yet. The shipper neglected to tell SNI that it's a Haz Mat load, so I can't really fault Schneider for that. But it still sucks. We get the replacement load and have to go down to Maryland. That region SUCKS for truck traffic. After we get that delivered and pick up the new load in Chicago, it's a race to Texas to beat the ice storm. I made it to Joplin, MO just as the rain starts pouring down. My poor teammate is left to brave the deteriorating conditions in Oklahoma. By the way, it's HARD to sleep when you know that you're being driven through an ice storm.

The next load is expedited - less than 24 hours to make it 1115 miles from Texas to North Carolina. During an ice storm. We manage to make the pickup about 30 minutes late because we were assigned to pick up a trailer from a place that didn't open until 15 minutes before our pickup deadline. We make the drop in NC - only 15 minutes late. Talk about pulling some miles out of your rear. By the way, safety was NOT compromised and we never drove too fast for conditions.

My half of the miles was 2684.

Fourth week:

• South Gate, CA to Winchester, VA: 2640 paid
• Colonial Heights, VA to Charlotte, NC: 419 paid
• Huntsville, NC to Indianapolis, IN: 621 paid
• Indianapolis, IN to Henderson, CO (HOME TIME!!): 1065

My split was 2372. Again, another Monday lost because they couldn't relay our delivery in San Bernardino. And the consignee took a LONG time getting around to unloading, and over an hour to get the paperwork done once the truck was empty.

The miles have not been great yet, but that's because we still tend to stop too much. It's not Schneider's fault because the loads always come in either immediately after showing available or we get loads assigned ahead of time.



This is my truck after hooking up to my first trailer:



This is a very nice sunset that we saw at the Seville, OH operating center:

Have truck, will travel...

Ok, life's been moving pretty quickly lately. I got my CDL last Tuesday and took my last qualification test today. We were finally given the keys to our truck and were pleased to find that it only needs 3 or 4 new tires. Here are some pictures:This is me in the driver's seat

Heres a view of the dashboard

This is the truck in the express bay waiting on the tire changes.

Graduation and meeting the Training Engineer

Sorry for not updating everyone. I haven't had internet access since we checked out of the hotel on Friday. Here's what happened:

We took the written test. Everyone passed. One person had to stay for backing remedial. We had the graduation ceremony, took pictures, etc. I managed to get the honors student award. I guess a certain "incident" that I had to call in to safety on Wednesday didn't affect my driving score that much. No, I didn't hit anything, but it was mighty close. Basically, some guy ran a red light and forced me out of my lane while I was trying to make a right turn, and I came within about 1 or 2 inches of a light pole.

So, we all graduated and got our assignments. My teammate and I were assigned to the same TE who is on a Sears dedicated account in Delano, CA. We were supposed to ride a van to Delano on Friday, but the hotel was sold out, so we had to hang out in Ontario, CA for a couple of days and pick up a rental car on Sunday. The great news is that we get to keep the rental car for the week so that we won't be trapped at the hotel.

Anyway, my teammate and I are out with our TE. He is home every night, so we're staying in a hotel instead of sleeping in the truck every night. Pretty sweet, except that we're based in Delano, CA. If you've never been to Delano.. well.. don't hurry.

At about 2300 on Sunday night, the TE calls us and tells us to meet him in the hotel lobby at 0200 on Monday. That's right. We had 3 hours notice. I had the fun task of driving from Delano to Modesto on less than 3 hours of sleep. The TE drove from Modesto to Stockton, and I drove the rest of the way from Stockton to Sacramento. My teammate drove back to Delano while I slept.

Our TE told us that he is pleased with our driving. He's also great about giving us some pointers. So far, he's not seeing any reason not to release us from his custody on Friday, which means that we'll be back in Colorado on Sunday. Woohoo!!

Day 13... Test day

I know, I know.. but I just haven't had the time or energy to update the blog, especially when not much new has happened.

Today was the driving test. Pre-Trip, pump down (aka "air brake tests"), four-point inspection, trailer integrity verification ("terror check", newly implemented), drive around, and 45-degree alley dock.

It really went well. I took a right turn a little too wide and my mirror scans weren't quite quick enough, but everything else was fine. I'm pissed that I had to take a pull up on my backing test. I had the perfect angle to get the hole-in-one, but then I overcorrected and ran out of room to fix it. Damn. Oh well. One pull up isn't bad.

Everyone in the class passed except one who failed backing. He gets to try it again tomorrow.

We have one more obstacle: the written test. Piece of cake. After that, we discover our fates and where we will be going for further training. All that I know now is that we're checking out of the hotel tomorrow morning.

Time to pack.

Days 8, 9, and 10...

Wow, I've been slacking on this blog lately. It's been busy around here, and I've been fighting this evil head cold that our class seems to be passing back and forth to each other.

Anyway, Saturday was slow maneuvers and backing practice, which was great fun. The second half was Haz Mat class, which was not fun. Sunday was excruciatingly dull. Permits, Qualcomm, and Map Reading. Map Reading was by far the most interesting. As a kind of techno geek, I thought that the Qualcomms would be fun and entertaining, but no. They're terribly, terribly dull. By far the least fun day thus far.

Today we were back in the trucks. Since my instructor ditched me in order to accomodate the huge class that's in Week 1 now, I've been shunted to another instructor. And there are three of us on that truck. Which meant an 0600 to 1900 day. The first guy drove us out to Huntington Beach. I drove us to San Diego. The last guy drove us back home. We each got roughly 4 hours of wheel time. I even got to drive through my first weigh station. Joy.

And now, it's back to homework. Whee. And Jill, if you're reading this, I love you!