Just trucking along

One of the major problems with this job is health. I for one am having alot of different issues. Overweight,high blood pressure,borderline diabetic,poor circulation in my legs,and the latest problem has been major depression. I finally went to see the doctor about the depression after I became extremely suicidal. Now I'm taking meds for it and going to talk therapy. Major depression and trucking almost did me in. If anybody thinks they may be suffering from depression, find out by checking out web sites about depression and take the little test that many of them have and then go see a doctor if needed. If left unchecked too long it could prove to be deadly. I almost waited too long. My wife and family new something was wrong, but didn't have a clue as to how bad I was. My wife found out when I was talking to the doctor about my condition and she stared at me in disbelief at what she was hearing. After the doctors appointment she called into work and our dispatcher asked her what was wrong. She proceeded to tell him what she had found out and the boss decided I needed some time off. I had a whole week off and I never took advantage of the time. I enjoy fishing and I used to be taking the boat out someplace every chance I had. That whole week I never left the house. I just sat around watching tv and sleeping the whole week. I'm still not out of the woods yet, but I'm alot better than I was less than a year ago. The doctor and I are still trying different doses of medications and different types of meds. to find the right combination.

Category: General

Dispatch is being nice to me today. I ran a hot load for him last night and got it delivered on time in Solon,Oh. Left Green Bay late yesterday afternoon (aroung 1600) and was in Solon by 0500.That's about 565 miles. The appointment was set for 0530. My reload was only 15 miles away and doesn't deliver in Indianapolis until tomorrow morning. Once I was loaded I found the nearest rest area and crashed. Didn't even bother setting the alarm clock. What ever time I woke up didn't matter. I don't have an appointment time in Indy and it is only about 315 miles. I'm already sitting at the Petro on I70 at the Oh/In line so I figure I'm only 70 miles away. Leave out around 0400 and a little over an hour later I'll be at the consignee. Won't have to mess with rush hour. Tomorrow will prove to be interesting. My dispatcher is going on vacation again and word has it the one taking his drivers isn't too good at dispatching. Hopefully she will do a decent job. I have a tendency of coming unglued when dispatch messes up and costs me money. When I lose out on miles because of somebodies error, I let them know about it in a big hurry. I have cut loose on my dispatcher a number of times when I first started at this company. I don't do local work just so someone else can keep running and I don't expect someone to do it for me. If somebody has a family emergency or something like that it is a different story. I'll do what ever I can to help them out. I've even took drivers home with my personal vehicle so they didn't have to wait for a ride. But if they didn't want to sit on a load and was able to grab another load to keep running, then they can kiss my big fat behind. I'm not sitting just because someone else didn't want to. The first time my dispatcher tried that I tore into him something fierce. It was almost 2 yrs until he tried it again. Was taken off a 500+ mile trip to take a load off a driver that didn't want to go to Cleveland. Needless to say I went wild. I think my dispatcher is still having trouble hearing after I got done screaming at him. Then I turned my attention to the driver that had the load. When all was said and done the driver took the load into Cleveland and I was on my way with my 500+ mile trip. I'm waiting to here from the boss on that one. I know I'm not out of a job but I think I will be getting a lecture about it. Or maybe nothing will be said since I got the driver to take the load the last 120 miles to deliver.I don't know what's so bad about Cleveland. I'll go there before going into some parts of Chicago. I'd say New York ,but my maps don't go that far east! I did enough east coast when I first started driving to last me a life time. I consider the east coast as newbie hell. Many drivers seem to have been broke in by running out east. If they can survive that they should do well anywhere.

Category: General

Even with close to 20 yrs in the trucking business,it can still get frustrating out here.It seems that every load I had this week I had the misfortune of sitting for a long time. I figure it was bound to happen. I did go a long time without having to do any long waiting. I'm making up for it this week!! With a little creativity I am going to end up with decent miles this week though.I'm like alot of others out here, when I'm in the truck I want to keep rolling not spending hours on end at a customer. I'm on my way to Ohio for Friday morning and then a load back here to Wisconsin. With the way my luck has been going this week,I probably won't get home until Saturday. I've been taking my frustration out on my dispatcher all week. He knows me well enough to know I'm not serious and just needing someplace to vent. He always comes back with some sort of smart remark. He has spent enough time out here to know what it's like. We're always taking jabs at each other. I keep telling him his job would be boring without me on his board. For some reason he doesn't see it that way! Oh well! Tomorrows another day. Time for me to get some of that beauty sleep everybody thinks I'm in desperate need of.

Category: General

Back in the truck and rolling down the road again. Thankfully dispatch is taking it easy on me. Just doing some real short runs to get back into the swing of things. A week of vacation was exhausting!! I need some time in the truck to get rested up! The best part of vacation was going camping for a few days and taking the bike out for a long ride. I put over 200 miles on the bike Sunday. I didn't want that part of my vacation to end. My wife is already making plans for next year. I'm not sure that is a good thing. Those honey do lists can get awfully long.

Category: General

A couple of more days of vacation and it is back to work again. We managed to get a few days of camping in and it rained for 2 of the 3 days! The last day was picture perfect. Lots of sunshine, low humidity and temps in the low to mid 80's. Gave us a chance to dry out. We never did put the boat in the water. We did 2 days of sightseeing and the 3rd day we set stuff out in the sun to dry then sat back and enjoyed the scenery. It felt good to get away from the same old routine for a few days. The biggest challenge we had was trying to cook meals. No modern equipment when we are out camping. Not even a coleman stove. Everything cooked in cast iron dutch ovens and frying pans using either wood or charcoal. Brought along our own water so there was no using the water that was there and no lighter fluid for staring the coals. I'm in seventh heaven doing things that way. No timers or anything to check the temps inside the pots. Just use of the senses to know when things are ready. With the weather we had the first 2 days it was a real challenge to get fires started and keeping them going. We had to make our own fire pit because the one in our camp site was filled with water. From what one of the other campers told us, we ended up with just shy of 6 inches of rain in 2 days. I really shouldn't even call them campers. They were there with a huge motorhome with all the amenities of home. To me that's not camping, thats just living someplace else for awhile.

Category: General