Gi-Gi Roxx - The Ravings of a Lunatic

I can't believe after having been absent for 10 days from my blog that there was only one comment to moderate! And it was simply a note wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving. (Thanks June) I suppose that my previous bitch-fests in regards to being an absentee blogger stuck with some folks. Mission accomplished. I've been doing much of nothing really. I had three days off and then a crummy first week back to work where I drove a whole 805 miles for the week. This week is off to a fairly decent start, but I don't want to get my hopes up. I am going home next week for a two day stay, during which I plan to use my free time finishing up with Christmas shopping. Although, I did manage to get a good chunk of it knocked out while I was home before. Of course, I ended up spending more on myself than I should have but hey... I work hard for the money... right?! Plus I needed the new clothes for winter weather, since I am too fluffy to fit into the long sleeved shirts I shouldn't...

I'm in a goofy mood today. Maybe I'm just giddy knowing I'm merely a day or two away from going home for some R & R. Not that I really need to rest or relax since I've spent so much time in hotels lately. But it will be nice to sleep in my own bed, be at my own house, hang out in my own town, and spend time with people I love. Yes, that's exactly what has gotten me so very immensely happy. The truck seems to be running great. Today I paid special attention to a few of the small nuances during the process of shifting to see if they were still occurring. And was surprised to find that none of them appear to have been left behind. Even the clunk from 5th to 6th gear was gone, so far so good. I'm still on a waiting list, however, for a manual truck. The company has decided to get rid of the remaining autoshifts in the fleet so sometime in the not too distant future I'll be moving out of Kenny and into something else. Here's to hoping that whatever ...

Well the truck is in the shop again. I'm on a waiting list for a new one, a manual one, one that runs for more than a week at a time. I'm getting tired of hotels. I'm getting tired of getting robbed of miles because my equipment keeps failing. I'm tired of crummy paychecks. I am thankful that I am at least making a little bit of money, though. So don't think I'm ungrateful for what I do have. It's just frustrating and breakdown pay doesn't pay the bills. Good thing is that when they get the truck running again I'll be heading home. And then once I'm home I get to see the loved ones I leave behind every time I come out on the road. And I get to eat some yummy food because my boyfriends family is having an early Thanksgiving dinner for us! Yay. YUM! Perhaps after my time off, I'll get routed to my home terminal to get a new truck. Hopeful? Yes, but after all I've been through hope is what gets me through each new trial with this tr...

So yesterday I arrived in Rochelle, IL where I shall sit until the wee hours of tomorrow morning when I can leave to deliver the load I'm under. A whole 20 miles from here. Yay. When I arrived yesterday evening, I headed into the truck stop to grab dinner and then wander the store in hopes of scoring something to keep me occupied for what I knew would be a long Sunday. I found a previously viewed copy of the movie "Twilight" which I had not seen yet. I never understood the hype about it. Probably because it reminded me of the hysteria that surrounded much of the first Harry Potter movie. That, and I guess subconsciously I resisted the temptation to fall prey to the madness. But I figured that at such a cut rate price and knowing I'd be bored as hell all day today, I figured I'd finally give in and see what it's all about. I knew it was a young adult vampire love story of sorts, so I wasn't expecting much more than just that. And honestly, after watching it...

Well I'm finally back on the road again. Kenny was repaired last night and was waiting for me when I arrived at the dealership first thing this morning. After giving him a good going over we got moving on our work assignment. I had to drive down to Salem, VA to pick up an empty trailer which will be filled with freight by 10am tomorrow morning, when I make the last of three stops bound for the Midwest. I am so happy to be rolling again. Making money the hard-working honest way feels so much better than making money just sitting around doing nothing. I know, I know... I sound like a crazy fool. But that's just the way I am. I never have been comfortable with the idea of being paid for doing nothing. I just can't deal with it. Which is why office work about killed me because out of 8 hours that I was being paid for, I usually only had 4-6 hours worth of actual work to do. Some days, and some jobs, even less. It was frustrating for me to be sitting there at work with...

is not for me. I've watched too much television. Sat for too many hours in front of my laptop doing pointless crap on the Internet, including getting sucked into buying stuff on eBay! Heck, I even created my first spreadsheet in over two and a half years... to keep track of my monthly bills. I'm going insane! I sure hope Kenny gets looked at early tomorrow... and fixed quickly. I don't know if I can tolerate another night in this hotel!!! Send Kenny happy thoughts, okay? I should have used this time off to do more productive things like start on my great American novel or pumped out a few creative short stories. But nope... I vegged the entire time. I'm almost, but not quite, ashamed of wasting so much precious time. But alas... that's the way it goes. If I'd had wheels I'd have been out exploring. I was half tempted to rent a car for the weekend but that's just another expense, one I wouldn't get reimbursed for. At least the company is pick...

Things had been going pretty good since I got Kenny out of the shop in Cincy. Nothing out of the ordinary had occurred at all to tip me off that Kenny might still be sick. Until yesterday. I had picked up a load of paper waste to take to a Kimberly Clark plant where it would be turned into toilet paper or paper towels or something like that. The load was heavy but not anywhere near max gross weight. After being loaded I hit the road and planned to stop at the nearest scale just to make sure I'd put the tandems in the right place. Things were going great! I was a little behind schedule, but that was because the loading took a little longer than anticipated. I arrived at a TA truck stop where I scaled out on the CAT scales and then I parked and went inside to get my ticket. Things were still going well. It was after I got back on the road after that stop that it all went to hell. I made it less than two miles away from the truck stop when the problem that killed Kenny this time o...