Gi-Gi Roxx - The Ravings of a Lunatic

It's been a while, huh? I've been busy, busy and sick. Not a fun combination really, but I survived. The new truck and I are still getting along, however I discovered today that there may be an issue with the power steering. Luckily it's due for PM so as soon as I get to one of our terminals I will have it checked and/or fixed. I'm wondering if I am gonna end up repeating the same maintenance process from step one again just like I did with Trucky. One of the first big problems that I had with Trucky was the power steering... I truly hope this isn't going to be indicative of the maintenance future my new truck and I will have to look forward to. Oh, and I suppose I should go ahead and formally introduce my new ride to my readers. Everyone, meet Squeak aka : Kenny . You're probably wondering, as everyone has so far, why on earth I've chosen the name Squeak? Well honestly, it was a day-one name that came to mind because of the various squeaking noises that oc...

Well I've been in the automatic now for just under a week and so far so good. I arrived at the company terminal in Carlisle, PA last Wednesday to meet and greet with my new truck. As I was driving the lot in search of it, I got such a thrill when I found it and saw that it was the shiniest truck on the lot, clean as a whistle and all mine! After having to confirm that the squeaky clean truck was indeed the one I had been assigned to move into, I got the keys and went to formally meet my new road companion. Boy, oh boy! Clean inside and out! The previous driver, who had been the only driver to have the truck since it came in the fleet in late 2006, kept the truck in great shape. It was lovely. It smelled clean, it looked clean and it felt clean. Which for me is huge because I was so afraid that I was going to get a truck that I'd have to spend three days cleaning top to bottom, inside and out before I would feel comfortable putting my things inside it. After getting acqua...

I have probably mentioned a time or two (or perhaps not at all) that I love talk radio and listen to it frequently to help me pass the time as I drive around America. I do not remember which talk show it was on, but a while back I heard someone talking about a project they under took as a sort of sociological study,pretty much just for sh*ts and giggles. The person was going to smile at everyone with whom they made eye contact with and see what reaction they got. The radio host said that all of the reactions received fell into pretty much one of two categories. Those that smiled back and those that averted their eyes and/or looked away immediately. I've been curious about the reactions myself and have been experimenting with the smile project whenever I think about it. And the radio hosts' personal experiences have pretty much mirrored my own. I have had about half and half, smile back or avert their attention. It's been pretty interesting. Once, so far, I had someone...

I received a comment on a blog post that I figured would be way more fun to publish it as a post, rather than a comment on another post. So here goes.... BTW, Thanks Steve (who ever you are, where ever you are) for a great list of questions! ================================================================== Hi Gi-Gi!! I have followed your blog for quite a while now. I find it VERY interesting! A few weeks (months?) ago you asked for questions from your faithful followers. I'm a little slow but I have some now ... Ready? 1) Is trucking everything you thought it would be? Everything and more actually... I honestly didn't have any idea what to expect from life on the road, but I suppose that as far as my imagination went, I got way more than I'd imagined. I mean, weenie sightings just weren't anywhere in my imaginings. ;o) 2) What do you find positive about trucking? For me the biggest positive is the whole traveling thing. I love to be on the move and this is certainly on...

Apparently I live in a fantasy land and have a strange affection for inanimate objects, which I give names to. Honestly. I'm okay with that. If you're not... perhaps you should find another blog to read. .....anywhoodles! I was supposed to be in Carlisle to get acquainted with my new truck on Wednesday. I have to take a quickie training session and then take the truck out for a test drive. I'm nervous about it because as hard as I try, I still feel deep down that I don't really want an automatic big truck. I want to at least give it the good ol' college try, though. So I shall and we shall see how it goes. In the meantime, I've had a crappy couple of days. I've been barely eeking by with just enough hours to get a little bit of work done each day. Yesterday I delivered a load in St. Louis... AFTER waiting for 2.5 hours for the SLPD to arrive to get me out of a jam. Retardo directions in which St. Louis'ers don't understand left from right, get m...

My dearest darling Trucky will be leaving me soon. I was informed the other day that he is to be turned in by the end of the month. Trucky is a 2005 year model Freightliner Century Class that is apparently costing the company way too much mula to maintain. The company has been retiring all of the fleets' 2004-2005 trucks as quickly as they can. I had hoped that Trucky would be overlooked by some super miracle. But alas, our time together is shortly coming to an end. I will hate to see him go, as we've been together since the very start. But honestly, it's time for me to meet someone new and exciting. Change is good, right? Recently Trucky has been feeling ill and sluggish, anyway. I thought that the new alternator would have helped, but his condition is just not improving as I'd hoped. He has a terrible clanking noise under the hood which I am pretty sure is a bearing somewhere in there about to give up the ghost. So I suppose that our parting, while with swe...

Saw Weenie Wagger #4...or is it #5... heck I've lost count. I wish I wasn't the one getting to see them all the dang time. Why aren't any of you seeing them? Or are you and you are just not reporting it? I think you should share some of your tales from the road! While you're thinking of a good tale to tell... here's a tale of my own. I was driving along minding my own business yesterday when I noticed another company driver in my side mirror coming up behind me. I assumed that at the rate of speed the truck was approaching me that the company truck must have belonged to a team. The company team trucks are set at a higher limit than solo drivers' trucks are... by nearly 7 mph. As the truck approached I realized there was not the tell-tale team sticker on the side so I figured it was just a solo driver hammer down. You see, our solo trucks will allow you to go 63 mph using the throttle pedal.. but when set on cruise control, the max speed is set for somewher...

I had a series of events regarding my blog/website over the past 24 hours which rendered my blog un-viewable by pretty much anyone but me. Sorry for that. I had been trying to detach my blog from my domain name so I could actually start building a website and it proved to be a huge pain in the rear. But after a few irritated clicks and a chat session with a friend for possible solutions, some how or another, it was all fixed! I'll still be blogging here on blogger but you will have to either click on a button on my website (if you have www.gigiroxx.net bookmarked) or type in www.gigiroxx.blogspot.com to get to me from here on out. Nothing major, just back to the way it was before I bought my domain and attached it to my blog. I have no freakin' clue what I am gonna do with my website yet. I'd like to do something trucking related, maybe post a little creative writing about some of my experiences or something like that. If anyone has any ideas for a website that would...

My goodness, I've just been living up a storm without taking any time to actually blog about it! Shame on me. ha! I enjoyed a few days off during which I took a mini-day-vacay with my beau and our roommate. We loaded up the truck and headed into the mountains for a day of sightseeing and nonsense. We had a blast and even got to see some interesting wildlife. We saw a black bear and what we have determined to be a very large bobcat. It was exciting. We also hiked a couple of short trails and took tons of pictures of leaves and twigs and flowers and such. I might post some if I can ever remember the password to my photobucket account. Sadly it is attached to an email account I no longer have access to so when I try to "reset" my password or have it sent to me, it goes into the far reaches of the universe, not to my inbox. It was a pleasant day which I enjoyed thoroughly and wish I could have more of. Maybe I will make more time for mini-adventures during my time off....