Unload. Load. Swap trailers.

Yesterday I dropped off the last portion of the Wal-Mart load in Sterling, Illinois. While I was waiting a preplan showed up on my satellite unit to pick up 80 miles east near Chicago at about the same time as I was reading the preplan. I messaged back asking for clarification and mentioned that I hadn't even been unloaded yet and was told I needed to pick up this new load no later than 1830 that evening.

I managed to arrive 45 minutes early and found several other Hill Bros owner ops getting loaded. One had the bad luck to have some damaged cargo put aboard had to wait hours and hours for it to be taken off and replaced. He arrived four hours before I did and I left before him. At least he got there by his scheduled time.

The day ended for me in Rochelle, Illinois at the Flying J. I saw the truck wash there was empty so I pulled in for a long-overdue scrubbing. I tried offering a few bucks in tip money to the workers but they wouldn't accept -- the manager is anal retentive about that sort of thing. I mentioned that I normally do this when I get a wash and, according to them, there is a corporate policy against accepting tips at all Blue Beacons.

This morning it was off in drizzly rain to Kansas City, Kansas. I fueled in nearby Kearney, Missouri for $1.55 -- the lowest price I can remember paying for diesel.

The morons at Kraft in Aurora, Illinois where I loaded managed to only supply one copy of the Bill of Lading in a dozen or so pages of summary stuff and for some reason the AWG food warehouse people will not make copies! I had to pull back out on the street and run over to a nearby hole-in-the-wall truck stop to make a 15 cent copy then run back over to drop the load off. Stupid corporate types.

They wouldn't even let me bobtail out of there so I had to bring an empty with me. Stupid corporate types.

I did get a preplan for a change. This time I'm taking a load from nearby Independence, Missouri down to Russellville, Arkansas. The delivery time is Monday at 0700 but I'm going to have it there tomorrow afternoon.


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My Pet Can Beat Up Your Pet, Part 2

I posted before on pets who can beat up your pet (here), and now the case of the ninja bear. Be afraid, very afraid.

Nope, shouldn't have accepted it

Despite my misgivings, I accepted a trip that forced me to run through Atlanta rush-hour traffic in the morning, in the noon hour twice, then in the evening. The only part of the entire charade that went well was the dropping of my empty van trailer in Calhoun, Georgia at a carpet distributor.

When I went back down to Atlanta the traffic was snarled, though it was moving. The AmeriCold facility with the empty reefer trailer I was looking for was backed up at the gate (no surprise) and I had to wait in line inside to have them clear the trailer to be taken from their lot. Then another casual inspection on the way out and I was free and clear, 45 minutes after I had arrived.

Between the traffic and the delays acquiring the reefer I was 28 minutes late at my pickup. No biggie, I was assured, take door 4 and we'll get you loaded.

Two hours later I went in to chat them up and all was still well in loader-land. "We'll have you out of there in fifteen minutes, maybe twenty," I was told.

Two hours after that I felt the need to be lied to again and went in to confront them again, a task made difficult by the glass and steel divider between the workers and the drivers. "Oh, we're waiting on one more thing. Just a little while longer."

An hour after that I was getting ready to head inside and lay down a major case of whupass when one of the daring souls came out and motioned me to pull forward so the trailer could be sealed.

The best part? Because I went through the jiggly-wiggly trailer swaps and endured the traffic that made me 28 minutes late, I get exactly dick for being held up for five hours. Next time I get sent to hell down south I'm going to insist on my return load being preplanned and agreed upon in advance.

The load itself has stops at two different Wal-Mart DC's in Illinois. This evening I just wrapped up the first one and tomorrow morning I'll be heading north a bit more for the second.

Oh, and the neat-o trailer I spent all yesterday wrangling had one of its side blinker lights cleanly sheared off by a yard dog at AmeriCold, I think. Spent a few hours getting it and another minor matter taken care of this morning down in Georgia.

My Pet is Cuter than Yours!

Evidence:

Finishing the Georgia trip

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I finished the rest of the trip down to Georgia this evening after the Atlanta rush hour died down. The Tractor Supply Co. distribution center was easy enough to find but they are completely packed with trailers so I was pointed next door to a nearly-complete warehouse that has not yet been occupied. Oodles of open parking and no trucks nearby to worry about! A few more have trickled in since I arrived but there is space for a hundred or so.

Tomorrow they want me to run through Atlanta up to Calhoun, Georgia to drop off my van at a carpet warehouse, then run back through Atlanta to the southwest side to grab a reefer for my next load. Not sure I'm going to accept that one, we'll see.

Snowie and her first snow

My new cat Snow White, or Snowie as I call her, seems to be fascinated with snow and rain on the windshield of my truck...

Stock Portfolio

Historically, the stock market has performed much better while a Democrat is President, compared to Republicans. This is true pretty much however far back you care to research, on a cumulative basis.

I decided to establish two new retirement accounts on January 20, 2009 to test whether or not this tradition will remain true over the next four or eight years. After taking positions in four stocks to start (two in my SEP-IRA and two in my Roth) I have subsequently added one stock to each portfolio and plan on slowly adding others as the prices of stocks that I like reach levels I feel will bring medium- and long-term gains to my retirement.

I am a value investor. My strategy is to buy stocks of companies I'm familiar with that are trading at or near their 52-week low price with the intent on holding them for the long run in most every case. Ordinarily, I wouldn't even bother keeping up with the prices of my stocks more than quarterly, but for these I will keep up a monthly accounting.

On January 20, 2009 I purchased the first four stocks listed here (APPL, GOOG, BRK-B, JNJ). I'm familiar with each of these companies, and I am a fan of Warren Buffet and his Berkshire Hathaway in particular. Full BRK-A shares are currently trading around 78,000 so I am content to own a pair of BRK-B shares, which are pegged at roughly 1/30th the value of the former.

When Ford dipped below two dollars I got all up in that and took a position at $1.60. Finally, yesterday I picked up a few hundred shares of Citigroup, more to get the dregs of my Roth all in the game than anything else. Plus, if its good enough for the government to put in 25 billion or so, I figure my $540 will do okay in the long run.

Name & Symbol	Bought at	Current	Change
Apple (APPL)	81.97	89.31	+317
Google (GOOG)	298.76	337.99	+771
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)	56.79	53.53	-420
Berkshire Hathaway B (BRK-B)	3005.00	2564.00	-894
Ford (F)	1.60	2.00	+1268
Citigroup (C)	1.47	1.50	-5

Note that the Citigroup stock has risen from my purchase price, but that didn't reflect the commission. Thus it shows I'm down a few bucks on that trade.

As you can see, the current drags are BRK-B and JNJ. My boy Warren will have his end turned around later this year or sometime next year, and Johnson & Johnson (a conglomerate, mostly into health care and drugs) will be turning up very nicely in the medium term, I believe.

Google was looking to be the big winner this month with its stock up in the 350 range, but it has come back a bit. Ditto Apple (with the same amount of money invested in each) has been a nice gainer, though it too has pulled in its horns of late. The nod this month has to go with the high-revving engine of Ford, which by itself has pretty much covered the losses from BRK-B and JNJ.

In today's stock market climate, staying above water in any particular month is a good deal. The thousand dollars or so of gains for this month should at least be a buffer against losses in some sectors in upcoming months.