01/23/2010

01/23/2010

I got lazy. In fact extremely lazy for me. The alarm scream it's murderous cry at 3am just as I had instructed it to do. Sat up in my very cold truck, shut the alarm off and asked myself why. Why get up so damned early? It was Saturday after all and the traffic in Baltimore and Washington while heavy won't be as bad as it is in the touristy months. Having failed to get a satisfactory answer. I fired up the truck to generate some warmth left the alarm off and went back to sleep. That is the nice thing about weekend runs there is generally extra time to sleep in later. I slept in till 7:30am when my bio-clock (not sure that is a word) woke me up and said that was enough laziness.

I fired up the coffee maker. I really don't know how truckers that are addicted, as I am, to coffee survive without a coffee maker in their truck. Yea there are truck stops in lots of places, but you never know what kinda of cup of coffee you'll end up with. Some make it so strong it is a wonder that the Styrofoam cup doesn't break down much less your stomach lining. Others buy the cheapest crap they can get there hands on and call it coffee. Beside the quality you have to consider the time involved in stopping to get a cup that is at least 15 min for each cup. Yea you can buy them 2 at a time, but by the time you get to the second cup it is to cold to be truly good and that is assuming the first cup was of halfway descent quality. I don't know about you but 1 Cup of coffee does not start the day properly. One pot yes, but one cup no way. Alright I will get off my coffee soapbox.

After a pretrip on the truck and combing my hair it was time to roll. Last time I left here I zigged instead of zagging and ended up playing fifty rounds of "How the hell do I get out of here". Today not so much. Some intensive studying of Streets and Trips prior to departure and zip I was out of there. It was early enough on a Saturday morning in the Philly area that even the shoppers were not even out yet. A quick stop in Perryville. MD to top off the fuel tanks. I grabbed some morning fuel for the belly as well a quart of chocolate milk and two Bon Apetit danishes and I was on my way.

Two or three hours into the run today I get a message from extended services (our weekend/ night connection to the back office) " Harvey if you got the hours. The consignee will be receiving from 11pm tonight till 3pm Sunday afternoon.". Kool . I was originally going to pull up and hour or so short and run the rest Monday morning. Now this is a very nice place to deliver. The people are very nice and the facility is good as well. A truly rare combination. But if you pile 12-16 trucks into there all at once it would be a nightmare. So in order to avoid that I decided to run all the way in and get unloaded tonight. I figured there would still be 4-6 trucks an amount that this place can handle. I rolled in there at 6pm the lone truck. Pulled the tarp and chains and still had a couple of hours to wait. A few minutes before 11 another truck pulled in. Forty-five minutes later I was sending in my empty call and still no additional trucks.

I hadn't been keeping track of my miles. If I had I probably would have waited until Sunday to deliver. It seems that if you get above a 3000 miles Uncle Sam takes an undue interest in how much I make and decides to tax the additional miles to the point of why bother doing them. At any rate I finished the week with 3450 miles and about $100 in ancillary pay. Not to shabby a week considering last year at this time I was struggling to get 1500 miles.

A preplan would have been optimum at least I could have headed the way I need to go for Monday. I will get a 34 hour reset in so no worries about hours next week. I found a place to park and there is what looks like a mom and pop pizza joint here so that will be Sunday's dinner. Now All I have to do is get motivated and clean the interior of the truck. I'll work on that (getting motivated that is)

You have a good day

Bookerz out