Fingerprinting

So the load information came in this morning. I am to take a trailer that was brought in from the west out to Michigan with a total of five (!) stops. One in Omaha, one in Des Moines, three in Michigan itself. Each of the intermediate stops is only for a pallet or three to be taken off, with the bulk heading to a town near Detroit.

The Omaha drop goes okay, though the dock workers and I noticed the single pallet heading to Des Moines had tipped over. It was shrink-wrapped together with a bunch of different items and there was no way to restack it... or reason, for that matter. It could just as easily tip over again in the two hours I would need to get it do its destination.

My appointment time in Des Moines was noon and I arrived around that time, only to find that the workers have an hour-long lunch break between noon and 1 PM. Once they came back they opened up the dock doors and beheld the pallet they were destined to receive.

"No way we're touching that. Don't have the time, pal."

So I got to spend 45 minutes of my day cutting away the plastic wrapping and restacking the pallet. During the process I found two cases of drinks that had split open, which didn't help matters.

When a driver assists in loading or unloading a trailer the industry slang is "fingerprinting a load." After some back and forth with my dispatcher afterwards, it was agreed that I would submit a lumper receipt for $20 to pay for the new back pain medication I have just today found a need for.

The drive out to Michigan was a long one but I couldn't take a break before I arrived near Grand Rapids because my next appointment was 0200 the next morning. What dunderhead came up with that plan I don't know, or the next appointment at 0700. Once those are taken care of I can haul my tired body over to Detroit and get the bulk of this stuff off of my truck and take a load off, so to speak.


View Larger Map

PS Have you ever wondered why you pay so much at the grocery store? One reason is that I had to pay $40 to a lumper to take a single pallet with 22 boxes off of my truck this morning, or almost $2 a box. Its okay though, I get the money back. You, well you're out the money pal. So sorry.

Clouds and virga

Virga is a meteorological phenomenon which simply means water droplets leaving a cloud but evaporating before they hit the ground. As you can see here, the tendrils of mist that seem to hang below the clouds are an example of virga:



Here is a closeup of the same formation:



This morning we had a fantastic sunrise here in Omaha, Nebraska as you can see:





You can view this entire photo album here.

The Longest Day, part two

I roll back over to the shipper and wouldn't you know it, the paperwork was now ready. The trailer looks good and after signing various forms I'm allowed to leave. There is a fairly nice truck stop on the other side of this small town and I scaled the load easily. It was about 41,000 lbs of cargo, but the weight distribution was almost right on and this trailer is one that has a nice air-assisted sliding tandem system that makes that problem easily solved.

Due to the delay on the shipper's part there is no way I can legally run the entire 900 miles by 0500 tomorrow morning. For the third time in as many loads something is jacked up with the time and I have to message in for the appointment to be set later in the day or for the load to be repowered. After a while I'm told to bring it to Omaha and someone will run it the rest of the way tonight so the consignee won't be impacted by the problems with the shipper. Nice for them, not so nice for us.


View Larger Map

It will be interesting to see what kind of detention pay I get for this. The load was supposed to be ready by 3 PM the previous day and I only got it 5 AM the next, or 14 hours of waiting on my part. Yo, dispatcher man! I sent in my codes already! Hook me up!

The Longest Day

My alarm went off at 0300, as planned and I did my pre-trip checks. Everything looked okay and sounded right so I made my way out of the Bosselman Pilot truck stop and on to I-80 heading towards Denver.

In a few minutes I realized my mistake. I had intended to give myself 4 hours for the 180-mile drive to my consignee but I didn't realize that I had crossed over into Mountain time before I stopped last night so 0300 really was 0300, and I only had three hours to get to my Sam's Club distribution center or there would be Hell To Pay.

Grudgingly, I bumped up my cruise control from 60 to 70 and left it there, scanning my GPS screen every few minutes to get the latest ETA information. Slowly, ever so slowly, the estimated time of arrival crept back to right at 0600. I had the bad luck of catching a few red lights on the way and the small cushion of two minutes I built up went away and I was sweating right at the end when I pulled in to the DC at 0559.


View Larger Map

Then the fun started. Apparently, this load was supposed to be delivered the previous day and someone at our HQ had rescheduled it. But the guards didn't have any such information and the delivery number I was given was for the original time the day before. I protested that I arrived (just before) the time I was given on my satellite unit but The Rules are The Rules and I would have to wait in a holding area and they would see if they could work me in. First the problems with the Dodge City load and now this. Grrr!

After several hours I got a call on my phone: a door was available. I drove around back of the huge warehouse and parked my trailer in the door, detached as instructed then brought my paperwork in to the receiving office. Along the way I passed what looked like a 60 year-old hippie type with a huge beard outside smoking a cigarette. Figuring he was another driver I didn't give him a second glance and went inside. There wasn't anyone there so I waited a while and eventually the hippie guy comes in, scans his badge across the door next to me, goes inside and takes my paperwork. Power to the people, dude!

They weren't too slow unloading my truck and after another hour or so I was on my way to get the trailer washed out then to head to nearby Greeley, Colorado for my next load.

I arrived around noon and dropped my clean, empty trailer with them and learned my load wasn't ready yet. No big surprise, as it was listed as being ready around 3 PM. The gate guard took down my appointment number and my cell phone number and said I would get a call when it was ready, but I couldn't stay on their property. There was a small convenience store about a half mile away I passed on the way in with space enough for bobtail parking so I went back there and chilled.

No call came in so at about 5 PM I motored back over to the shipper and nope, load not ready yet. I did get the number to call for their operations people and the gentleman I spoke to said the problem wasn't the product it was their computer system which apparently took a dump. No computer = no paperwork = no load. He took down my cell phone number and said I would be called when everything was straightened out. Back to the convenience store.

By 9 PM there was still no call and I called it a night. I left my cell phone next to me so I would be sure to wake when they called, then started snoozing. Next thing I know, it is 5 AM and there has been no call. Sigh.

2008 Alaska Cruise Day 4 - Glacier Bay

I could riff on and on about the sights but pictures speak for themselves:



Lots of still, reflective water to be seen and enjoyed.



One of the glaciers is calving... I have great video and a whole series of pictures that you can click through to watch.



There were thousands of these birds up there and they enjoyed dive bombing the ship while searching for food.



If you look closely (click the image to enlarge) you'll see someone in a sea kayak managed to make his way to the very tip of glacier bay. Note especially the scale of his kayak and the background... insignificant!

View the entire album here.

Long, Long driving days

Yesterday was a full day of driving. Today was a full day of driving. Tomorrow will be a full day of driving. Get the picture?

I drove from Walcott, Iowa to Big Springs, Nebraska stopping only at our terminal in Omaha, Nebraska to refuel. The fuel is down to $3.88 with a 55 cent FSC it is really, really nice to run at the moment. At 7.0 MPG fuel would cost me 3 cents a gallon, and I think with the MPG I'm currently getting I'm actually making money on fuel at the moment. In a week or two the FSC will come down and a new equilibrium will be established but for now its damn nice.


View Larger Map

Speaking of damn nice, I got my latest settlement email showing a whopping 3,8l8 miles run last week with a paycheck of over $3,000. There was an odd truck repair bill in there as well for $409, which would make it a $3,500ish paycheck after all expenses. This is definitely out of the norm and by far the best week I've had here, but by the same token damn nice!

Getting the heck outta Dodge

I was out of time last night, and also completely exhausted, so I didn't scale this new load until this morning. The paperwork said the gross weight was 43,800 lbs of cargo which would leave me some breathing room even with full tanks. Imagine my (lack of) surprise when I scaled with my tanks 1/3 full at 79,800 lbs. I was going to be a few hours behind on the load already and I was, technically, under gross weight so I doubted the 3-5 hour wait for them to rework the load -- assuming they would -- would be a viable alternative.

It took three tries to get the weight distributed as close to legal as possible. Since the trailer tandems slide on a series of holes, at that weight each hole was about a 450 pound weight transfer so if you end up a hundred heavy your alternative is to go 350 light on the rear then 450 more pounds up front, which would have put me off there.

Fortunately, my nice truck MPG worked in my favor and I drove more than 500 miles before I added 50 gallons to get me to Walcott, Iowa to where another driver was waiting to swap loads. His load picked up in Illinois headed to Colorado and mine was going to Chicago, so he backtracked and I'm kind of backtracking now.


View Larger Map