Trucking

Over a 1000 miles that’s a record for me, but it was work getting it. Between a light tailwind and no hills from Nashville to San Antonio and not idling or even running the generator at night, it was pretty good.

Lately, a lot of my loads have been kind of short and several days to get there, mainly because I would be loaded on Thur or Fri and couldn’t be unloaded or to my next drop till Monday. I usually drive the speed limit. If it’s 70, I’m driving 70 or a little over. If it’s 65, I’m driving 70 or a little over. If it’s 55, I’m NOT driving 70 or a little over. Usually under 65 keeps me out of trouble.

This time with a total load of 15 very light pallets I had three days to drive 900 miles. I drove to the next Flying J and parked Friday night, got up Saturday, after walking Willie, eating breakfast and getting fuel I started driving 60 mph in a 70 mph state. Agonizingly slow for me. Since I had the time, I wanted to see what the most mpg I could get. I loaded up the iPod with talk shows and headed out.

I don’t mind being passed, but at 60-63 you get passed by most everyone. I didn’t care. After getting used to it, it was actually more relaxing. I didn’t have to worry about getting in the left lane as much, most merging traffic could get ahead of me and if they couldn’t, too bad. I wasn’t going in the left lane and causing a wreck. I saw the same flatbed with a torn tarp pass me three times, hauling ass from one truck stop to another.

I usually get between 6 and 6.5 anyway. I’m usually really light compared to other trucks, but my trailer is heavier than the regular trailer too. 9.0 is pretty good, but I’m not this light all of the time, I wanted to take advantage of the weight since I couldn’t take advantage of the space. Back in the good ole days, if there was this much time I would have been able to fill the rest of the trailer and make some extra money and not worried about the price of fuel, those days are long gone. I guess I’m supposed to feel lucky I have one load and I’m not sitting somewhere waiting for something to happen, let alone try and get extra. So I feel lucky, keep driving and try not to worry about when or where the next load will be.

When I first got out of CDL school my second company was USA Truck. A huge company, their main business is east of the Mississippi, but they said it wouldn’t be a problem getting me home which at the time was Wichita, KS. They formed my belief that large trucking companies suck. From being on hold for 30 mins every time you called in, to being treated like a number. They always asked what your truck number was, they couldn’t care less what your name was. Plus waiting forever to get your truck screwed up worked on then have to get it fixed again and generally being treated like crap.

This was way before GPS. I think I had a city map of almost every city on the east coast. Directions were given over the Qualcomm and were from one direction and you had to figure out which one. They were updated by drivers and you were supposed to let them know when the directions were wrong. Myself and everyone else probably gave up on that waste of time.

I forget the details, but you were out three or four weeks and got to be home two or three days, it wasn’t much for all of the time you were out. One time I was 500 miles from home and told to go home empty (company truck, I didn’t care), except my home time started right then. 500 miles in a 62 mph governed truck, that was my time off.

What brought this up was I got a load from a broker that just called themselves USA. Could have been any one of a hundred places with USA in their name. When I saw the confirmation it was USA Logistics, a division of USA Truck. Of course the load was screwed up. I get to the pickup and the shipper already loaded it on a trailer. I wasn’t going to pull a different trailer unless I’m paid to go back empty or bobtail back to my trailer. They didn’t like that idea and the load was canceled. And of course they didn’t give me the normal “Truck not Used” fee. I almost told the guy to f-off and never call me again. I know I would have felt better getting all of that pent up frustration from 10 years ago out in only seven words. I missed a great opportunity trying to be a nice guy and I wanted their $100 which was better than nothing but I wanted to tell them where to stick that too.

The text in the post is completely serious in between photos and videos of men doing the most incredibly stupid stuff. It makes you wonder how we’ve survived as species.

Why Women Live Longer than Men

Check it out.

I’m working, but not working as much. I’ve had a few things cancel / reschedule / underbid on, all with the same result. I needed something else. The trip I’m on is short, but it pays well. A lot of times because of minimum charges, short hauls will pay better than longer trips. This is only 500 miles, but it’s paying over $2.00. I picked it up Friday afternoon and can’t deliver until Monday morning.

I actually have another trip scheduled to pick up on Monday that’s only 800 miles, but because of all the pickups and loading time, it takes four days to finish it. But it’s better than sitting for four days. I should be able to decent fuel mileage and shouldn’t have to get any more fuel until the middle of next week, instead of the normal every other day.

I haven’t been reading any of the trucking news lately, it’s too depressing and no one really knows what’s going to happen, but I have a few ideas that need some research before I put anything over at Life on the Road. Since I have all of this spare time between trips and even during some trips, I’ve been learning about building websites, the best ways to get listed in search engines and hopefully the best ways to make some money. There are a ton of websites that will sell you their techniques on making money. Kind of like all of the real estate buying / flipping and stock buying ads you hear on the radio. The only way someone makes their money is off the backs of others. After sifting the information from the scams, I’ve got a few ideas.

The bottom line here is that I’m going to be putting more ads up on Adventures in Trucking, but there are ways to show some people ads and not show other people ads. Since I’m experimenting (learning) with Adventures in Trucking, the goal is for regular readers to not see ads, or at least only a few select ads. You could subscribe to the feed or the newsletter, click on an orange icon under Subscribe and you won’t see any ads, at least not for awhile. I’m also going to be changing a few things so the site may look a little different but not by much, but it may make a big difference in how search engines see it.

And since Adventures in Trucking already ranks really well on a lot of trucking related search terms, I may even open up a few small square (125×125) ads on the top of the side bar. Even to Driver Job sites, which I’ve turned down before, but will reconsider.

Dr. Randy Pausch is Computer Science Professor at Carnegie Mellon. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2006. In his lecture he talks about achieving childhood dreams. He’s still alive thanks to chemo and other drugs but it has only delayed the inevitable. He keeps up his daily blog when he can.

This video has been seen over six million times. The video was taped when doctors gave him three to six months of good health. Many people are saying that watching this video has changed their lives.

It’s not a sad video. His goal is to have fun every day. His lecture is upbeat and inspiring. He doesn’t talk about cancer, death or religion. Okay, maybe toward the end it’s a little sad.

What does this have to do with trucking? Probably not much. It is more about life, about achieving your childhood dreams or enabling others to achieve theirs and the lessons you learn along the way. A few things that you might relate to in trucking -

“Brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to keep out other people.”

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”

Sit back for the 76 minutes, enjoy something besides our own problems and maybe how to simplify our complicated lives with what’s important. If it changes your life like it has for millions of others, great. At the very least, it’s an incredible story.

Here’s the link to his main site. Where you can download the audio or video to iTunes, download the transcript and order his book. Which he recorded his thoughts into his cellphone while on his morning bike rides and had the WSJ writer transcribe and put into a book.

His book website.

His daily update page.

The link to a piece on 20/20 last week.

The article in the Wall St. Journal that started the sensation.

And of course the video -