Trucking

Which is what trucking is most of the time. Lately though the feasts have been more like snacks and the famines seem like they go on and on. After sitting for two weeks, not finding anything and what was found was not worth taking, I not only get a good load, it’s one I think someone else fell off of. Since I was told, hurry up and get there and the deliveries are saying I’m late, someone committed to this load, then dropped out for whatever reason. Which is fine for me, it’s usually how I get a really good load. After sitting for two weeks, I have two loads back to back. I unload Monday morning in Aurora, CO (a Denver suburb) and reload in Colorado Springs, CO the same day, as soon as I can get there. Apparently the Gold’s Gym in Colorado Springs went under and all of their equipment is being moved to a warehouse in Salt Lake City.

It’s not great pay, but it’s not horrible. From Salt Lake City, I can drive home empty and take a few day off. But you’ve already had two weeks off! Not the same!! Sitting around a truck stop for two weeks, is not quite the same as sitting at home. Just a few days to do laundry, grocery shop, vacuum the truck and make sure my wife hasn’t forgotten what I look like. Besides, I may be waiting for a week for another load anyway. Much better waiting at home than at a truck stop.

Okay, it’s really another day, the same truck stop. This is probably a new record for waiting for a load. I was empty in northern New Jersey the 16th. over the weekend, then a week, then over the holiday weekend, I’m still here.  There were a few possiblities, but none worth taking. I turned one down that loaded in Manhatten and went to Saint Paul over the weekend, but it wasn’t paying enough to deal with tolls and going downtown. I’ve called on a few and am amazed at the offers people expect you to take a load for.

For the weekend, I dropped the trailer and went to a nearby grocery store for supplies, that was another shock. The week was spent driving to a free truck stop, grocery shopping, on the computer and taking Willie for walks around the parking lot. At least the weather has cooperated and I’ve only had to run the generator a few minutes at a time to keep the battery charged. It’s not that the computer is that much of a drain, but I’ll have the radio on and the refrigerator takes a toll on the batteries after awhile.

Even at this one truck stop I’ve moved three times. Sounds sily, but if I’m going to be someplace, I want the perfect parking place. The first time, a reefer trailer pulls right next to me when there are 50 parking places open, some even pull-throughs, this reefer was running and what was the purpose of that??? Just to piss someone off? I moved to the very end, next to a little open grass area to be away from other trucks. Everyone loved to walk their dogs there which made Willie go nuts every time a dog walked by. Then I moved away from other idling trucks and reefers. The weather is getting a little warm, but with all the windows open and a breeze going through, it’s okay without running the truck or the generator.

There are a couple of possibilities for a loads, one to Vermont and the other to Chicago. Not much else and definitely nothing worth taking a loss for.

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I’m trying to not look at the trucking news while I’m sitting here in New Jersey waiting for a load. I’m going to have to move soon because it’s pay to park, but I was trying to stay close to NYC Jersey metro area so I wouldn’t have to drive so far back to the area, but it’s been a few days and I need to start planning on a long, long weekend. The Flying J is about 50 miles away from where I’m at now, which is already 50 miles away from the metro area, but at least at the Flying J I have some restaurant coupons and shower coupons and it’s free to park.

The couple of loads that have come by, haven’t been very much money. The national average for diesel this week is $4.497, my office is saying in Nevada diesel was close to $4.70. At $4.50 a gallon in an average truck getting the average 5.5 mpg it costs $0.82 cents a mile just for fuel. Rates aren’t much higher. The rates I’ve been getting this month have been in the $1.35 ranch. My truck normally get 6.5 mpg that’s $0.69 cents for fuel. So, my rate hasn’t been horrible, but the lack of freight makes up for it. I’m about to start taking some horrible rate just to get back home.

I’m taking the truck to the Volvo dealer and getting it appraised and go from there. Used trucks haven’t been doing too bad because of the overseas market, if they give me an offer to take it and it’s more than what I owe… I’ll have to change the name of this blog.

The trailer payment is almost double and I may be able to lease it to someone or sell it outright, but it’s not as much as the truck payment and by itself, it wouldn’t be so bad and I could take some time to sell it without too much pressure.

What’s bad is that things seem like they are about to turn around. Shippers complain of not having trucks in a certain area or the shipper says they’re desperate, but it’s not bad enough yet for shippers to make them want to pay for the outrageous fuel prices. Maybe in a few more weeks or a few more months enough trucks will be off the road and things will pick up. I’m not sure yet if I want to be one of the ones that are left on the road or even care.

The problem is what to do next. A couple of fields I’ve looked into aren’t doing much better. So, me and Willie are sitting under a thunderstorm in New Jersey, I continue to look at my dispatcher’s email and the Internet Truckstop for loads and working on my websites that are bringing in a little but far from enough right now to make a big difference, but it gives me something to do.

If you’re looking for hosting or a domain name go to Wayne’s Domains to buy your domain names or hosting. The host on that page isn’t the greatest, but in order to be able to get the best deals on domains, I had to offer their hosting. Domains are cheaper than Godaddy with email and all the extras and professional support. I’ve got better hosting available but no page setup for it yet. If you’re interested, just let me know. It’s just like the hosting I have also offers domains, but they’re not as good as the people that I get my domains from. I’ll do another post shortly about the complete package and more.

As proof that most owner operators have no idea what’s really going on - I was listening to one of my evil conservative talk shows and the subject was fuel prices and a trucker calls in. Says, he was an owner operator and had to sell his truck because of fuel prices. But, he’s now a company driver. What he doesn’t realize, is that he’s still driving a truck. The same number of trucks are still buying fuel, he’s just not buying it. He couldn’t afford the fuel but whoever he’s driving for can. The host was a little confused expecting to find a truck driver that couldn’t afford the fuel.

I personally know of two owner operators that wanted to park their trucks and drive for someone else and another one that has. Their trucks are paid for and they can’t afford the fuel prices? But think they can do better driving for someone else. If your truck is paid for, that’s a big expense you don’t have to pay for. Your operating expenses are lower than owners that have truck AND trailer payments. Maintenance on older trucks is an issue, but the maintenance cost I heard from them were still lower than my payments and especially lower than my payments plus repairs.

We are struggling through this, but if my truck was paid for, it would be a lot less stress. From owner operators that have no idea what they’re doing, it’s no wonder companies can take advantage of people wanting to own a truck, from actually ripping them off through leasing programs to nickel and dimeing owners to death. Once you’re an owner operator everyone wants your money. From the panhandler that wants to shine your chrome to people in truck stops hollering like Carnival Barkers wanting to sell you the latest, greatest program to save you money, as long as you spend your money with them. It’s an insane business. Anyone want to buy a truck, cheap?

Things might be picking up a bit. I’ve actually had a couple of trips back to back. Reloading the same day or the next day instead of two or three or more days later. But now I’m in Florida and it’s usually tough to get out of here on a good day, but there are a couple of possibilities so we’ll see. And there was enough money on this trip to be able to deadhead or drive empty back to Georgia if I have to.

I needed a day to recover from this trip anyway. I loaded yesterday it took six hours to load a bunch of office furniture, drove most of the night and had to go around the I-95 closure in Florida because of a wildfire. Woke up early and helped unload and still have blankets to fold. I was going to fold them tonight, but not too motivated and no immediate prospects, so will wake up early while it’s still cool and spend about two hours folding most of my blankets.

I was listening to one of my evil conservative talk shows and the subject was fuel prices and a trucker calls in. Says, he was an owner operator and had to sell his truck because of fuel prices. But, he’s now a company driver. What he doesn’t realize, is that he’s still driving a truck. It’s still buying fuel, he’s just not buying it. He couldn’t afford the fuel but whoever he’s driving for can. The host was a little confused expecting to find a truck driver that couldn’t afford the fuel.

I personally know of two owner operators that wanted to park their trucks and drive for someone else and another one that has. Their trucks are paid for and they can’t afford the fuel prices? But think they can do better driving for someone else. If your truck is paid for, that’s a big expense you don’t have to pay for. Your operating expenses are lower than owners that have truck AND trailer payments. Maintenance on older trucks is an issue, but the maintenance cost I heard from them were still lower than my payments and especially lower than my payments plus repairs.

We are struggling through this, but if my truck was paid for, it would be a lot less stress. From owner operators that have no idea what they’re doing, it’s no wonder companies can take advantage of people wanting to own a truck, from actually ripping them off through leasing programs to nickel and dimeing owners to death. Once you’re an owner operator everyone wants your money. From the panhandler that wants to shine your chrome to people in truck stops hollering like Carnival Barkers wanting to sell you the latest, greatest program to save you money, as long as you spend your money with them. It’s an insane business. Anyone want to buy a truck, cheap?

The last few weeks have actually seemed like things are picking up. I actually had a few loads where I was empty one day and loaded the next. So at least I was kept fairly busy. The pay wasn’t as much as it should have been for $4 a gallon fuel, but it wasn’t horrible. For right now, I’ll settle for “not horrible”. Once things get to the horrible level, I’m parking for awhile.

During the days and days of sitting around waiting for loads and since I’m online most of the time wherever I happen to be parked, I came up with a few ideas of making some spare change and not by hanging out at street corners! I’m going into the Internet Marketing Business. That’s a vague term for making money online. There are so many scams out there, I’ve read them all. But with all of the research I’ve done to help Life on the Road perform better in the search engines and gain traffic I’ve decided to see if I can make more money doing it.

Adventures in Web Hosting

Right now I’ve got about 30 websites I’ve either built or planning to build with plans for many, many more. During all of that, I’ve had to expand my hosting requirements. I’m in the process of moving my websites to, not quite a dedicated server, but close. Because of the plan I have, I can sell the space and bandwidth I’m not using to someone else. I’m connected with the best web host with the best support. Right now, I can match and probably beat any web hosting plan out there. Some web hosts advertise unlimited space and bandwidth, in the real world, if you need an outrageous amount of space and bandwidth, you’re not going to be happy on a shared hosting plan. My plan will be cheap, but realistic. But if you need outrageous space and bandwidth we can work something out.

For anyone that wants to move up to a WordPress website, I will install Wordpress, one theme you choose and some of the essential plugins to expand the functionality of WordPress. Plus assist you in moving your content from your old blog. Billing will be by Paypal so I can save you money by not paying for a merchant account. Billing is secure and professional. Tech support is 24/7 (not by me, but you can contact me if you have questions and don’t need immediate help.)

Get Your Websites and Domains Right Here

Any other type of website or blog can be moved and installed if you really don’t want WordPress. You will have complete cPanel access some of the features will allow you to create databases, email accounts with access to your files and directories with a file manager or FTP.

In order to get cheap domains for myself, I’m going to be able to sell domains also at a discount. I’m not going to spend a lot of time promoting web hosting, I need to concentrate on other things, but the opportunity is there if anyone wants to take advantage of it.

I’m still setting things up to be able to actually have customers but should be done soon. If anyone is interested in cheaper web hosting, help getting started with WordPress, on a less populated, better quality server or have any other requirements for your web site, let me know at the normal contact email.

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.

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.

For those that are in the trucking industry, brokering, logistics, warehousing and anything Transportation & Logistics you’ll find a huge list of specialized magazines and white papers dedicated to Transportation & Logistics here and in the middle sidebar. It’s an incredible resource for the logistics professional. Did I mention most are free. Free subscriptions and white paper downloads for professionals in the Logistics sector.

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