Gi-Gi Roxx - The Ravings of a Lunatic

I picked up a loaded trailer this morning at a facility in Dublin, Ga. I was astounded to find the following "quick fix" to a tandem locking pin problem. A small pack of zip ties and a part of a coat hanger (I presume) later and the problem was fixed. Please... don't try this at home (or on the road) and if you do... please have the courteousy to at least attempt to get it legitimately fixed. Doing my pretrip on the trailer I picked up I first noticed this issue by seeing this rats nest as I crab-crawled under the trailer checking out brakes and other stuff. The right front locking pin bar is severely bent and does not allow the pin to pull OUT when pulling the tandem slide bar. A little jimmy rigging does the trick. Zip ties and metal wire and voila... it stays OUT. See!? Out! In other news, (as you may recall) I recently had the elbow joint on my exhaust replaced due to a hole and severe rust issues. While I was pre-tripping and still tripping over the trailer is...

(i have no idea how this happened... but this was sitting as an unfinished blog for months and I just found it today 4/13/09 and figured I'd better publish it. It was originally written on 07/30/08... enjoy.) Damn I hate having to admit it, but I freakin' love pickles now. I used to be the most anti-pickle person you'd ever meet. Even the smell of pickles used to make me queasy. But now... can't get enough of them! I bought a jar of Baby Dill's before I left the house the other day and just dove into them a minute ago. Delicious! Anywho. So I ended up getting deadheaded home from just outside of Dayton, OH after I delivered my load on Friday. I didn't actually make it home until Saturday due to some unfortunate circumstances at the consignee. But once I arrived I was thrilled to be out of the truck and not responsible for work for a few days. Little did I know that work would come in the form of the search for a new personal vehicle. The ol' man and I had b...

Thought I'd post some pics for your enjoyment! So.. well.. Enjoy! A storm looms over head. Ok, well it's more to the south than overhead. I was rolling west bound on I-74 during this storm. Most of it skidded along the south side of the highway and thus the worst of it was missed by moi. The lovely rainbow above was spotted along I-64 in Virginia just the other day. It was a small but wide band of beautiful and vibrant colors. Too bad my camera just can't do it justice! And this is the storm that the rainbow was spawned from. I could see it for about 8 miles before I got to it. And when I did get to it... it was horrific! The wind was gusting at probably 50+ mph and the rain was coming down by the gallon. Forget buckets... it was like someone turned the sea upside down on that 3 mile stretch of interstate! Traffic of course slowed to about 15 MPH with flashers and freakout skids off the road. morons . The challenge of the day: an obstacle course through which to...

Well it's time to report that nothing too exciting has occured since my last blog. Unless you count sneaking in a little at home time TWICE in so much as a week genuine excitement. I mean, I do... but I doubt you do. I relayed that horrendous Jersey load to our Operations Center in Charlotte, NC I believe it was Saturday. When I got to the company terminal I realized that one of the tires on the trailer needed replaced. So I took it into the shop to have that done before I dropped the load (which EVERY driver should do if it needs done instead of leaving it for someone else to deal with). As I was talking to the shop guy I kept hearing this horrible hissing sound coming from my truck. When I arrived at the terminal I heard it as I was driving across the lot to the shop, but honestly thought it was just my airbags equalizing more than normal. Turns out it was actually an air line leak on my tractor!!! I am so thankful we found it and had it fixed then and there. Had I let it go, I...

So this morning I woke up all bright eyed and bushy tailed... then I remembered I was still in Jersey. ha! But I sucked it up and made a promise not to let anything get in the way of a good mood. I all but skipped into the Petro to freshen up and do my morning duties before hitting the road back to the shipper to have my load re-distributed in my trailer so I could get it legal to take to Georgia. I arrived at the shipper at 7:15 am. I went to the maintenance folks that I dealt with to get my load paperwork the day before to ask what we needed to do about getting the load rearranged in my trailer. They told me to drop the trailer on the yard and the jockey would bring it around back to have it taken care of. So, I dropped my trailer in the yard and went to a section I could park out of the way of other traffic. At about 8:00 am the jockey took off with my trailer and I sat waiting, patiently. I filed my nails and listened to the radio. So far... so good. Nearly 20 minutes later the joc...

The last few passings I've made through Jersey weren't bad. I was actually starting to retract many of my previous thoughts of anger/hatred/loathing for the Garden State. Until. Today. I swear... it's been one of the longest, hottest, rudest, most stressful days I've had in a long time. Maybe it's the coming of the full moon? Maybe it's just that today was a bad day for more folks than just myself? Who knows. It started off with me sitting for hours in Sterling, PA at a truck stop waiting for a load assignment. I had made myself available for 7am, but I didn't actually get a load assignment 'til after 11am. I was frustrated, but that's managable. The load I was finally assigned was to be picked up in a pre-loaded trailer in Florence, NJ. I was just over two hours away. It took me three and a half hours to get there thanks to 3 huge tie ups in traffic on the way. Once I got there I found the place pretty easily and checked in at the guard sha...

It's nice having time off the road to relax and enjoy "real" life. Things are pretty much the same as they were before I became an over-the-road truck driver, as far as life at home goes. I find have the same tendencies and habits, which I fall back into as soon as I cross the threshold. But that is actually refreshing, as I honestly thought that being gone all the time would somehow erase those habits. There is really only one thing that has genuinely changed about my ordinary life at home and that is my appreciation. My appreciation of all the things I have, the people I share my life with and the time I have available to do the things I love to do. I come home and have to do all of the ordinary, mundane things I always did before: laundry, grocery shopping, hitting the mall for leisure, driving and parking and filling up the gas tank, spending time with family and friends, cooking, cleaning.... But now I can do all of those things with a deeper appreciation for the...

I hope that everyone out there has a super awesome, safe, and exciting Independence Day. For those of you who are out and about on your 18 (or 4) wheels , remember to watch out for drunk drivers and retards who are in a hurry to get to their festivities. There's gonna be a great need for travel caution over the next three to four days thanks to this holiday weekend. So take it easy out there! I am looking forward to spending the night at home with my sweetie before heading the rest of the way to my next delivery point. Luckily it's in West Virginia and only three hours from the house. So I can sleep in and still make on-time delivery tomorrow afternoon. I will either make it back to the house tomorrow night or early Sunday morning. It just depends on how long it actually takes to do the live unload at the consignee. Average duration is stated to be 6 hours. I can't imagine it would really take that long... but I've been fooled before. I had one live unload that...

Today I finally sucked it up and approached the IdleAire nazi's at a truck stop I am resting my bones at for the night. The last few times (back before the new year actually) that I inquired about IdleAire it was gonna cost me an arm and a leg and a kidney just for start up costs for the "Gold Membership". If I recall correctly a Christmas/Holiday special at one stop was gonna cost me $35 just for the membership fees for a year, which they called a "deal". I kept putting it off and telling myself it wasn't worth it. Today, I was done and unable to move on to my next assignment until morning and stuck at a truck stop with IdleAire so I figured I'd be a good girl and not idle all day in the truck. Well.. after about an hour of sweating profusely I hopped out of my big orange oven and headed to the IdleAire shack. Turns out, the rates these days aren't so bad. Recent rumor had it that the company went bankrupt, so I kinda had hoped on the walk ove...