Saturday, May 29, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Things you don't plan for
Sorry for the long gap here. My last post was dated May 6, as you may know. (Any posts between then and now were me filling in from my notes.) And that one was itself a filler of sorts--the last post before that was April 14.
Most of that gap was entirely my own fault--I was spending a lot of my home time running in circles when I could have been at my computer. But I'm not going to take the blame for the latest delay.
It's a long story. The short form is: When I got back from my last run I learned that my wife had died while I was gone. Since then I've been dealing with funeral arrangements, preparations to move out of my present lodgings (our former lodgings), and all the other confusing and distracting things that accompany a complete change in how one's world works.
I'm going to try to fill in some of the gaps from the last week or three as I find time. In a week or so I hope to be on the road again (I need the money...) Meanwhile, I think I'll go back and try to figure out what I'm doing tomorrow.
Talk to you later.
p.s.
Before I found my bed I put in a couple of those updates:
04/21/2010
04/23/2010
Maybe more later. Tomorrow kind of later...
Most of that gap was entirely my own fault--I was spending a lot of my home time running in circles when I could have been at my computer. But I'm not going to take the blame for the latest delay.
It's a long story. The short form is: When I got back from my last run I learned that my wife had died while I was gone. Since then I've been dealing with funeral arrangements, preparations to move out of my present lodgings (our former lodgings), and all the other confusing and distracting things that accompany a complete change in how one's world works.
I'm going to try to fill in some of the gaps from the last week or three as I find time. In a week or so I hope to be on the road again (I need the money...) Meanwhile, I think I'll go back and try to figure out what I'm doing tomorrow.
Talk to you later.
p.s.
Before I found my bed I put in a couple of those updates:
04/21/2010
04/23/2010
Maybe more later. Tomorrow kind of later...
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Could have been noisy
The "driver's lounge" at the old factory today belonged in a movie. From the thirties. And I might should have been carrying a torch.
Gloom. Emptiness. I would say it felt like a scene from a ghost town, but I've been in abandoned houses. Neglect is more disturbing.
But it had a restroom. With a working, effective ventilator. I can forgive a lot, for that.
My load was wastepaper, packed all the way to the back of the trailer. Not very dense--I think it was rigid packing material. When I checked in, they gave me a three-foot chain. Heavy chain, with a big hook on each end. Numbered, so they'd know whom to accuse if I ran off with it.
I asked what it was for. They told me. I raised an eyebrow, but it did make sense. So I took the chain, got back in the truck, and threaded my way through the complex to find my dock. Once there, I lined up with the door, locked the brakes, and went around the back to open the trailer.
But before I actually undid the "bolts," I hooked that chain up. One end hooked to the padlock hasp on each door. So if the load had shifted and was leaning on the doors, they couldn't fly open and let the pallets fall out.
Fibber McGee's closet has been around for so long that people my age don't know who Fibber McGee is. They've even done a variation on it in Star Trek. It's funny. As long as the closet is full of aluminum cookware or tribbles. When it's 1,000 lb bales, the joke loses something.
My load was fine, so I took the chain off and backed on in. But things could have been different. And this company had thought about it.
I think I'll forgive them for the lousy driver's lounge.
Gloom. Emptiness. I would say it felt like a scene from a ghost town, but I've been in abandoned houses. Neglect is more disturbing.
But it had a restroom. With a working, effective ventilator. I can forgive a lot, for that.
My load was wastepaper, packed all the way to the back of the trailer. Not very dense--I think it was rigid packing material. When I checked in, they gave me a three-foot chain. Heavy chain, with a big hook on each end. Numbered, so they'd know whom to accuse if I ran off with it.
I asked what it was for. They told me. I raised an eyebrow, but it did make sense. So I took the chain, got back in the truck, and threaded my way through the complex to find my dock. Once there, I lined up with the door, locked the brakes, and went around the back to open the trailer.
But before I actually undid the "bolts," I hooked that chain up. One end hooked to the padlock hasp on each door. So if the load had shifted and was leaning on the doors, they couldn't fly open and let the pallets fall out.
Fibber McGee's closet has been around for so long that people my age don't know who Fibber McGee is. They've even done a variation on it in Star Trek. It's funny. As long as the closet is full of aluminum cookware or tribbles. When it's 1,000 lb bales, the joke loses something.
My load was fine, so I took the chain off and backed on in. But things could have been different. And this company had thought about it.
I think I'll forgive them for the lousy driver's lounge.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Downhill all the way
(Apologies for the gap--things at home have been interesting. I'll try to fill in next week...)
The weather has been beautiful today. Blue skies, dry roads. Passing through Nashville on the Interstates, you'd never suspect all the flooding.
The flooding's there, apparently. My mother-in-law lives 20 or 30 miles east of here. One of her neighbors had a wheelbarrow float into his barnyard. My father lives about another hour or two east of her. He spent the night with my brother because he couldn't get to his house without a boat.* But apparently the Interstates are on high ground. I haven't even been inconvenienced.
Under the circumstances I would feel silly complaining about much of anything. So I'll just toss off the most exciting thing that happened today.
Between Nashville and Chattanooga I had my first real taste of the good old days of trucking. Monteagle. Three or four miles of 6% grade. With no engine brake.
I've discussed jake brakes before. And I may have mentioned how much easier they make mountain driving.** But much of that was theoretical. My training included a few steep downhills, but no mountains. And in two years with this company, I've always had the engine brakes working when I was way up there. Being scared on a long downhill was something that happened to other truckers.
That is no longer the case.
Here's a point I may not have made clear before. You've probably taken a car down a steep grade before. A bit interesting, perhaps, but not that scary. Then again, stopping at a red light isn't all that scary for you either. Just take your foot off the gas and you start to slow down.
That's because of the way a gasoline engine works. Your accelerator doesn't just control how much fuel gets into the cylinders--it controls how much air gets in, too. Take your foot off the gas, and all of a sudden the engine is trying to breathe through a straw. Which means turning the engine becomes hard work.
Well, a diesel engine (for reasons that would take a while to explain) never restricts the air coming into the cylinders. When you let off the accelerator, all you cut off is the fuel. Slowing down in a diesel truck isn't quite like coasting, but it's close.
The various engine brake systems basically try to make a diesel pretend it's a gas engine. One way or another, they make the engine work at moving air in and out. Work, as in "use up energy." Energy that would otherwise speed the truck up.
If you don't have a working engine brake, a 77,000-pound tractor-trailer on a 5-6% downhill slope 4 miles long is scarier than I thought it was.
I took the slope at about half the speed I usually do. I was careful with the (regular) brakes, using the techniques they taught me back in CDL school to keep them from overheating. And still I could smell overheated linings. And I had to stop twice because I'd used up all the air in my air brake system.
This was not fun.
But I got down. And I made it the rest of the way to Atlanta. And now I'm at home, feeling dreadfully pleased to be alive.
My fellow truckers are unimpressed. A few more trips like and I might be too. Not yet, though...
-----
*The house was ok--there just wasn't a road from him to his house...
**Oh, yeah. I did.
The weather has been beautiful today. Blue skies, dry roads. Passing through Nashville on the Interstates, you'd never suspect all the flooding.
The flooding's there, apparently. My mother-in-law lives 20 or 30 miles east of here. One of her neighbors had a wheelbarrow float into his barnyard. My father lives about another hour or two east of her. He spent the night with my brother because he couldn't get to his house without a boat.* But apparently the Interstates are on high ground. I haven't even been inconvenienced.
Under the circumstances I would feel silly complaining about much of anything. So I'll just toss off the most exciting thing that happened today.
Between Nashville and Chattanooga I had my first real taste of the good old days of trucking. Monteagle. Three or four miles of 6% grade. With no engine brake.
I've discussed jake brakes before. And I may have mentioned how much easier they make mountain driving.** But much of that was theoretical. My training included a few steep downhills, but no mountains. And in two years with this company, I've always had the engine brakes working when I was way up there. Being scared on a long downhill was something that happened to other truckers.
That is no longer the case.
Here's a point I may not have made clear before. You've probably taken a car down a steep grade before. A bit interesting, perhaps, but not that scary. Then again, stopping at a red light isn't all that scary for you either. Just take your foot off the gas and you start to slow down.
That's because of the way a gasoline engine works. Your accelerator doesn't just control how much fuel gets into the cylinders--it controls how much air gets in, too. Take your foot off the gas, and all of a sudden the engine is trying to breathe through a straw. Which means turning the engine becomes hard work.
Well, a diesel engine (for reasons that would take a while to explain) never restricts the air coming into the cylinders. When you let off the accelerator, all you cut off is the fuel. Slowing down in a diesel truck isn't quite like coasting, but it's close.
The various engine brake systems basically try to make a diesel pretend it's a gas engine. One way or another, they make the engine work at moving air in and out. Work, as in "use up energy." Energy that would otherwise speed the truck up.
If you don't have a working engine brake, a 77,000-pound tractor-trailer on a 5-6% downhill slope 4 miles long is scarier than I thought it was.
I took the slope at about half the speed I usually do. I was careful with the (regular) brakes, using the techniques they taught me back in CDL school to keep them from overheating. And still I could smell overheated linings. And I had to stop twice because I'd used up all the air in my air brake system.
This was not fun.
But I got down. And I made it the rest of the way to Atlanta. And now I'm at home, feeling dreadfully pleased to be alive.
My fellow truckers are unimpressed. A few more trips like and I might be too. Not yet, though...
-----
*The house was ok--there just wasn't a road from him to his house...
**Oh, yeah. I did.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Avoiding boredom
Illinois is dry and pleasant. Nashville was not. Heavy rain. And apparently a history of it.
I came around a curve on the Interstate and saw a nice little pond covering ALL of the left lane. Several inches deep. At least.
Brake hard. Let go. Brake hard. LET GO!!!
Hit the puddle.
Laugh at yourself for calling it that. If you have time.
Feel the truck rise off the asphalt as the water roars beneath you. Feel it start to drift and yaw.
Steer gently. Hope you still have some rubber on the road.
Stay off the brake! The only thing worse than the excessive speed* would be a wheel locking up just at this moment.
I lost about 20 mph in less than a hundred feet. And about ten pounds. Then the wheels found solid something or other. Real steering. Slow acceleration. A gentle shift to a center lane--suddenly the crown of the road seemed like a good place to be.
***
Climbed out of Tennessee, crossed Kentucky. The rain faded, the roads dried.
And then the construction. Traffic slowed.
And abruptly stopped.
I was hanging back, but not (as it turns out) nearly enough. I hit the brakes, but not really hard enough. And came to a stop about 3 feet from the car in front.
I would have gotten stopped sooner, but there was another 18-wheeler right behind me. And I mean right behind me. I kept easing up on the brakes to give him the opportunity not to rear-end me.
When I came to a stop (three feet from the car in front of me, if you recall) I looked behind me. I couldn't see the tractor trailer behind me at all. But I could see its shadow. He was closer to my bumper than I was to the four-wheeler.
And I'm sure a good heart attack was had by all.
-----
*It wasn't excessive two seconds ago...
I came around a curve on the Interstate and saw a nice little pond covering ALL of the left lane. Several inches deep. At least.
Brake hard. Let go. Brake hard. LET GO!!!
Hit the puddle.
Laugh at yourself for calling it that. If you have time.
Feel the truck rise off the asphalt as the water roars beneath you. Feel it start to drift and yaw.
Steer gently. Hope you still have some rubber on the road.
Stay off the brake! The only thing worse than the excessive speed* would be a wheel locking up just at this moment.
I lost about 20 mph in less than a hundred feet. And about ten pounds. Then the wheels found solid something or other. Real steering. Slow acceleration. A gentle shift to a center lane--suddenly the crown of the road seemed like a good place to be.
***
Climbed out of Tennessee, crossed Kentucky. The rain faded, the roads dried.
And then the construction. Traffic slowed.
And abruptly stopped.
I was hanging back, but not (as it turns out) nearly enough. I hit the brakes, but not really hard enough. And came to a stop about 3 feet from the car in front.
I would have gotten stopped sooner, but there was another 18-wheeler right behind me. And I mean right behind me. I kept easing up on the brakes to give him the opportunity not to rear-end me.
When I came to a stop (three feet from the car in front of me, if you recall) I looked behind me. I couldn't see the tractor trailer behind me at all. But I could see its shadow. He was closer to my bumper than I was to the four-wheeler.
And I'm sure a good heart attack was had by all.
-----
*It wasn't excessive two seconds ago...
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