Gi-Gi Roxx - The Ravings of a Lunatic

September 27, 2007 - Thursday Well I'm stopped at the Indy OC for a lunch and rest break. Then it's on to Zanesville Ohio to drop the load I picked up yesterday evening in Green Bay. It's not been too bad, a nice light load actually so I can cruise up and down the hills with no problem. That makes me happy. It's been a pretty good trip so far. After getting the load I decided to drive and get past Chicago last night. I also decided to take my own directions and go down I-294 instead of I-94 which is under major construction in Chi-town. It was much nicer... less stress and a smoother ride. Amen! I stopped at the Gary, IN OC last night for my break... I had to circle the lot three times before I finally gave in and parked my truck way out in never never land where all the empty trailers are parked. I wasn't the only one... but it was a loooong walk to the bathroom this morning! haha So then I got on the road this morning after a nice hot shower and so far he...

September 22, 2007 - Saturday So I got back to Indy this morning and don't go back on duty until tomorrow. So I am holed up in the local Holiday Inn. It's nice. T V, Internet, comfy king size bed...and a Damon's with a full service bar downstairs. I've also had time to play around with my MySpace... updated some of the blurbs and added some new foto's. Check it out! I have been sitting here browing through some of your pages. And it's so interesting to see how life is progressing for some of you. New marriages, pregnancies and anniversaries. New jobs and new dreams. I'm so happy for all of my friends for all of the wonderful things that are happening in their lives. I feel like my life is going very well, too. I feel like I made the right choice for this part of my life with my new career. I'm loving every minute of it... even the frustrating minutes. It has been both humbling and empowering, learning that my capabilities are much greater tha...

September 26, 2007 - Wednesday So I finally got out of Indy on the 24th. I got my load around 4pm and was rolling northbound by 5. I made it to the Gary, IN OC for the night. It was nice, very nice. And while I was hanging out there I met up with one of my newfound driver friends. We had been stuck in Indy together a few weeks ago and pretty much pal'ed around the whole time. It was nice to catch up. Yesterday morning I got up and headed northward once more and made my delivery in Menomonee Falls, WI. Which is a suburb of Milwauke. It was a nice little area and I was very foturnate to get there and get unloaded in record time. My appointment said "3 hour average duration" and I was in and out in 40 minutes total. Woo hoo! But I was still waiting on a new assignment and since they wouldn't let me sit on their lot to wait, I rolled down the road to a small truck stop. It was then that I got the info to roll up to Green Bay for Winter Training. I got to the ...

September 24, 2007 - Monday So I left the hotel this morning and got back to the OC in a fairly well rested good mood. I came in immediately and talked with my manager (we call them DBL's) about some pay stuff and time off stuff and then went out to the truck to settle back in. I started her up and cooled her off while I put away my things and then figured I'd go locate my loaded trailer and at least get hooked up before I grabbed a quick lunch. I drove around the whole lot looking at every trailer here. My load was no where to be found. So I come back in the OC and asked for a location of the trailer. The guy still hadn't made it out of Ohio apparently as of 11 am this morning. That was the last update shown in the system. Sooo... I went back to my DBL in a slight rage... not too bad of one just really frustrated. I'm still sitting here two and a half hours later waiting for info. They're going to either try to get ahold of the guy with the load and find o...

So I spent the first half of the first day of Autumn sitting in my truck watching a movie while waiting for a new load assignment to come across the Qualcomm (the onboard computer system we use). I sent in three messages letting the powers that be know that I was sitting there available and anxious to get rolling again. Finally a message came through around 11:30 am saying... "what is your driver , we do not show anyone assigned to this truck". OK WTF? So I replied with my info and then immediately went into the OC (Operations Center) and got on the phone. After holding for nearly 8 minutes I finally got a live person to talk to. Apparently what had happened was one of the college kids that works the weekend shifts at Operations Support had fat fingered my account and taken me out of my power unit (truck) in the system. UGH! So they fixed the problem and I got off the phone and went back out to my truck. I called N8 since it was already nearly noon and I figured that he'd...

September 20, 2007 - Thursday I hate Missouri. Never really been a fan but today reinforced my hatred for this godforsaken state. I spent the better part of the day lost... following directions given to me by both my company and locals.... all of them...WRONG! The day didn't really start out well. Last night I had gotten to one of our Operations Centers in Indianapolis just in time to get a big scare. I applied the brakes at nearly 7 stop lights, praying the whole time that I didn't lose too much air pressure. I had a leak and it was scary. For those of you who aren't big truck savvy, trucks have air brakes, nothing like the brakes on a car. If you have an air leak, once the pressure dropps to a certain point the brakes will set on the tractor or trailer or both. I was nearing that point with every push of the brake pedal. So I took the truck into the maintenance bay and they scheduled my tractor for work but they couldn't get it in till today. So they gave me a loaner ...