(5/20/2012)
I saw the Batmobile today.
The original, I mean. Twin bubble tops, tailfins, and all. Sitting on a flatbed wrecker, passing through the intersection in front of me as I waited for a green light.
In the parking lot on the opposite corner was a sign:
CAR SHOW TODAY!
SEE THE ORIGINAL BATMOBILE!
1/4 MI -- >
That's how I knew I wasn't hallucinating. Making sure of things like that can be reassuring, sometimes.
Last night I picked up a load at one of our terminals. When I got the paperwork, I found two extra items. One was a note from the previous driver, saying the load was heavy but legal. The other was a scale ticket that called him a liar.
According to the scale ticket, the total weight wouldn't get me in trouble.* but the weight on the trailer wheels was more than 250 lbs over the legal limit. Those wheels would have to move back at least one notch. Maybe two.
Trouble is, those wheels were already a good foot further back than the law allowed.
How the previous driver got that trailer past the weigh stations in three states I'm not sure. They're not all open all the time, and the lack of humor varies from station to station anyway. So I suppose he didn't have to be TOO lucky. Just luckier than I ever assume I'll be.
Problem is, I'd picked this load up because that other driver had run out of hours out of hours moving it this far north. And it had to be at the customer's dock by midnight. So if I was going to have the load pulled out of that trailer, rearranged, and put back in at this hour, I was gonna need a real good reason.
And the nearest scale I could find was on the border, about a mile from the first Wisconsin weigh station. And about fifty miles from the terminal.
Sigh.
So I headed north to the truck stop in question, there to learn which note was a lie.
Turns out they both were.
According to the certified scale at that truck stop, my rig was a good ton lighter than the other ticket had said. And the trailer's tandem wheels weren't 250 lbs overweight.
But the truck's drive wheels were too heavy by more than 1500.
This led to all sorts of questions in the back of my mind. Like, how did that guy get THIS though weigh stations in three states? And where the heck did he find a scale that far off? Or was it some kind of a joke?
No matter. i had a correct weight now. And the cure for a nose-heavy trailer is to move the woeels forward. The wheels that were presently too far back to be legal anyway.
Don't you love it when a plan comes together?
A few adjustments and another weighing to make sure it all worked, and I was cruising past the only weigh station between me and the customer.
It was closed, of course.
- - -
*(Assuming, of course, that my truck, with its present load of fuel, weighed no more than his truck with the fuel it was carrying when he scaled. Not always a good bet...)
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
The hammer was big enough
I was worried when I parked tonight.
The only parking space left when I got to this truck stop was at the end of a row, next to the lane everyone has to use to leave the fuel islands. I've had to take too many sharp corners to really trust anyone else doing it.*
I feel better now, though. Somebody else just parked next to me. That isn't really a space over there. Which means he's taking a much bigger chance than I was. It also means I'm no longer the one playing corner post.
Fine by me.
I was supposed to be relaxing about 80 miles north of here. I shut down early this afternoon about 20 miles from my destination--which I was forbidden to approach before tomorrow morning. That much time to myself is a rare and glorious thing, and I was prepared to enjoy it.
Two and a half hour later, the phone rang. How many hours did I have left? Oh, good. They needed me to take over somebody else's load. Just run down to this other truck stop, switch trailers with him, and go pick up some extra freight over here.
i really should forget how to relax.
I said yes like a good fellow, threaded 30-40 miles of two-lane highway, and found the other guy. Got his trailer, did my paperwork, got something cold to drink, and got ready to roll.
It was about that time I noticed that my emergency fiashers had stopped flashing.
A moment's checking showed the turn signals had gone the same way. They came on just fine. They just wouldn't flash.
With less than two hours on the clock and another 30 miles of two-lane to traverse, I really didn't need this. No way I could call Breakdown, get a serviceman out here, and still make the pickup. And an 18-wheeler that doesn't use turn signals gets NOTICED.
Time to pretend I was the mechanic my father spent many frustrating years trying to turn me into.
Fortunately, logic gave me a good head start on this one. All the lights worked. They just didn't flash. And it had happened all at once. So the likeliest culprit was...
It took me another five minutes to search the truck and find the fusebox, another minute or two to figure out how to open it. As I'd hoped, there was a diagram on the inside cover. And--yes, there it was.
Not the fuse, silly. A bad fuse would have kept the lights from coming on at all. No, I was looking for the relay.
Yes, this truck is that old-fashioned. An electro-mechanical widget that turns the lights on and off while making cute little clicky sounds. If that wasn't the problem, I was going to have to yell for help.
And I might have to anyway. It's not as if I was carrying any spares.
Time for the high-tech solution.
i jiggled it.
I whacked it.
I called it a few names.
And then I tried the flashers again.
No worries. It was as if nothing had ever been wrong.
So I started the truck and headed off to the shipper. Sophisticated troubleshooting techniques had won out again.
Hey, if it was good enough sor the Apollo astronauts...
-----
*I once saw a gentleman looking for a parking space take a corner a little too tight and a little too fast. He caved in the end truck's fender and crushed its radiator. The discussions went on far into the night...
The only parking space left when I got to this truck stop was at the end of a row, next to the lane everyone has to use to leave the fuel islands. I've had to take too many sharp corners to really trust anyone else doing it.*
I feel better now, though. Somebody else just parked next to me. That isn't really a space over there. Which means he's taking a much bigger chance than I was. It also means I'm no longer the one playing corner post.
Fine by me.
I was supposed to be relaxing about 80 miles north of here. I shut down early this afternoon about 20 miles from my destination--which I was forbidden to approach before tomorrow morning. That much time to myself is a rare and glorious thing, and I was prepared to enjoy it.
Two and a half hour later, the phone rang. How many hours did I have left? Oh, good. They needed me to take over somebody else's load. Just run down to this other truck stop, switch trailers with him, and go pick up some extra freight over here.
i really should forget how to relax.
I said yes like a good fellow, threaded 30-40 miles of two-lane highway, and found the other guy. Got his trailer, did my paperwork, got something cold to drink, and got ready to roll.
It was about that time I noticed that my emergency fiashers had stopped flashing.
A moment's checking showed the turn signals had gone the same way. They came on just fine. They just wouldn't flash.
With less than two hours on the clock and another 30 miles of two-lane to traverse, I really didn't need this. No way I could call Breakdown, get a serviceman out here, and still make the pickup. And an 18-wheeler that doesn't use turn signals gets NOTICED.
Time to pretend I was the mechanic my father spent many frustrating years trying to turn me into.
Fortunately, logic gave me a good head start on this one. All the lights worked. They just didn't flash. And it had happened all at once. So the likeliest culprit was...
It took me another five minutes to search the truck and find the fusebox, another minute or two to figure out how to open it. As I'd hoped, there was a diagram on the inside cover. And--yes, there it was.
Not the fuse, silly. A bad fuse would have kept the lights from coming on at all. No, I was looking for the relay.
Yes, this truck is that old-fashioned. An electro-mechanical widget that turns the lights on and off while making cute little clicky sounds. If that wasn't the problem, I was going to have to yell for help.
And I might have to anyway. It's not as if I was carrying any spares.
Time for the high-tech solution.
i jiggled it.
I whacked it.
I called it a few names.
And then I tried the flashers again.
No worries. It was as if nothing had ever been wrong.
So I started the truck and headed off to the shipper. Sophisticated troubleshooting techniques had won out again.
Hey, if it was good enough sor the Apollo astronauts...
-----
*I once saw a gentleman looking for a parking space take a corner a little too tight and a little too fast. He caved in the end truck's fender and crushed its radiator. The discussions went on far into the night...
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Home Office knows best.
Looks like it's gonna rain again.
I'm in Georgia at the moment.* Seems like it's raining all over the world. Classical reference aside, it's comfortable enough. Right now, anyway,
I'm supposed to be spending some time at home, starting early Sunday morning. It's Thursday night, and I'm about a hundred miles from home. So of course they're sending me to Kentucky. Might as well get some more use out of me before they let me go, right? And it's only 3-400 miles. They'll just set me up with a load coming back this way, and I'll be home in plenty of time. No problem.
Cynical acquaintances might point to their track record over the past few months when I talk about getting home on time. Me, I'd scoff at such defeatism--I really don't think they're trying to keep me out here.
My doubts come from another direction. Perhaps the simplest way to explain would be to describe what happened after the diesel fuel thing I described in my last post.**
After I'd recovered from the embarrassment, I spent another hour or so getting to the town I was supposed to deliver in. Previously I had looked the map over; and I was pretty sure I knew where I was going.
This is not always the case. The big Road Atlases we carry don't have infinite detail--you can only show so much about 49 states (and some Canadian provinces) in a carry-able book. And the Company has its own notions about fuel-efficient routing. In this case they had me entering town from a different direction than the customer's directions called for,
Nothing new there. And the road the customer was on actually appeared on the map! State highways are so much easier to deliver to...
So I followed my directions like a good boy. Entered town from the east and turned north, instead of coming in from the north like those fuel-wasting locals wanted me to. Threaded my way through town and continued northward, past the school and the fire station and toward the railroad overpass.
The one marked "CLEARANCE 13' 3"."
Have I mentioned that a modern tractor-trailer is 13' 6" tall?
I glanced around quickly, saw a driveway that offered my only hope of escape, and expertly swung my vehicle up into the parking lot of a deserted market. No longer required to choose between blocking traffic or backing over it, I now had the time to meditate on the reason those fuel-wasting locals had wanted me to come in from the north.
The Company's fuel-efficient routes are laid out by computer. And the computer routes you from city to city. If I'd been delivering downtown, this would've been a great route. But I was delivering NORTH of the city. And I don't know if their program even knows about that bridge.
The locals obviously did, though. So...
The nice lady who answered the phone passed me on to a man who knew more about the roads. He called in a consultant.*** Between the three of us, we worked out a way around the low bridge that wouldn't require me to backtrack thirty miles or bulldoze through any residential neighborhoods.
Thus reassured, I found a way out of the parking lot and started once more toward the customer. I did run into one snag--the left turn they told me to make was darn near a U-turn. I had to skip it, then spend half an hour finding a place to turn around and come back to take it safely. But I did get there.
Eventually.
I wonder how much extra fuel I burned.
And these are the people who will find me a timely way home after sending me 3-400 miles in the other direction.
I don't have to be cynical.
*****
*(The other entry with today's date would have been dated yesterday if I'd had a cell tower handy. The traffic stop it described happened the day before.
(Confused yet? Don't worry--you will be...)
**(Yep. This post actually was written today. But it should have been posted yesterday, since I'm talking about something that happened the day before. NOW are you confused?)
***("You're where?" one of them said. "You saved yourself a lot of trouble, ducking off the road like that. Nice move!"
(It's always pleasant to be appreciated...)
I'm in Georgia at the moment.* Seems like it's raining all over the world. Classical reference aside, it's comfortable enough. Right now, anyway,
I'm supposed to be spending some time at home, starting early Sunday morning. It's Thursday night, and I'm about a hundred miles from home. So of course they're sending me to Kentucky. Might as well get some more use out of me before they let me go, right? And it's only 3-400 miles. They'll just set me up with a load coming back this way, and I'll be home in plenty of time. No problem.
Cynical acquaintances might point to their track record over the past few months when I talk about getting home on time. Me, I'd scoff at such defeatism--I really don't think they're trying to keep me out here.
My doubts come from another direction. Perhaps the simplest way to explain would be to describe what happened after the diesel fuel thing I described in my last post.**
After I'd recovered from the embarrassment, I spent another hour or so getting to the town I was supposed to deliver in. Previously I had looked the map over; and I was pretty sure I knew where I was going.
This is not always the case. The big Road Atlases we carry don't have infinite detail--you can only show so much about 49 states (and some Canadian provinces) in a carry-able book. And the Company has its own notions about fuel-efficient routing. In this case they had me entering town from a different direction than the customer's directions called for,
Nothing new there. And the road the customer was on actually appeared on the map! State highways are so much easier to deliver to...
So I followed my directions like a good boy. Entered town from the east and turned north, instead of coming in from the north like those fuel-wasting locals wanted me to. Threaded my way through town and continued northward, past the school and the fire station and toward the railroad overpass.
The one marked "CLEARANCE 13' 3"."
Have I mentioned that a modern tractor-trailer is 13' 6" tall?
I glanced around quickly, saw a driveway that offered my only hope of escape, and expertly swung my vehicle up into the parking lot of a deserted market. No longer required to choose between blocking traffic or backing over it, I now had the time to meditate on the reason those fuel-wasting locals had wanted me to come in from the north.
The Company's fuel-efficient routes are laid out by computer. And the computer routes you from city to city. If I'd been delivering downtown, this would've been a great route. But I was delivering NORTH of the city. And I don't know if their program even knows about that bridge.
The locals obviously did, though. So...
The nice lady who answered the phone passed me on to a man who knew more about the roads. He called in a consultant.*** Between the three of us, we worked out a way around the low bridge that wouldn't require me to backtrack thirty miles or bulldoze through any residential neighborhoods.
Thus reassured, I found a way out of the parking lot and started once more toward the customer. I did run into one snag--the left turn they told me to make was darn near a U-turn. I had to skip it, then spend half an hour finding a place to turn around and come back to take it safely. But I did get there.
Eventually.
I wonder how much extra fuel I burned.
And these are the people who will find me a timely way home after sending me 3-400 miles in the other direction.
I don't have to be cynical.
*****
*(The other entry with today's date would have been dated yesterday if I'd had a cell tower handy. The traffic stop it described happened the day before.
(Confused yet? Don't worry--you will be...)
**(Yep. This post actually was written today. But it should have been posted yesterday, since I'm talking about something that happened the day before. NOW are you confused?)
***("You're where?" one of them said. "You saved yourself a lot of trouble, ducking off the road like that. Nice move!"
(It's always pleasant to be appreciated...)
Small humilities
(Warning: Long, even for me...)
Rain is less fun when you don't have bugs on your windshield.
I'm sitting in front of a "portable" loading ramp (this company doesn't put loading docks in their stores for some reason), enjoying the breakfast I got damp for (it wasn't wet when I started, honest!) and feeling the trailer dance when the forklift comes. The lady driving that is worse off than I--climbing a metal ramp in the rain is an exercise in wheel-spinning frustration, and the lightning had her nervous till it went away.
At least I'm out of it. Now.
If I'd carried my umbrella when I went to get breakfast I'd probably be more charitable. When it's not a downpour (it's not) and I'm protected a bit, I like walking in the rain. I even wrote a poem about it once.* But walking through a drizzle with a coffee cup and a breakfast burrito that you want to keep warm is slightly different.
Ah, well, at least it didn't happen yesterday.
Yesterday I began my journey here with plenty of time to spare--enough that I wasted an hour on a shower.** Three or four hours later I stopped for fuel. Then into the wilds of New Jersey.
I am ashamed to say I was surprised the first time I realized not all of New Jersey is like Newark. Like New York away from Manhattan it's a nice drive through the country, except the towns are cleser together than I'm used to. Plenty of stoplights, stop signs, etc. And for some reason, the drive wheels were slipping every time I started moving. Not much, just enough to be annoying. And puzzling, on a dry road.
Then the siren blipped behind me, and I had other things on my mind.
When a police car wants you to pull over in the middle of a small town, it can be a challenge. For some reason, the locals don't tend to leave 80 feet of clear curb downtown very often. Oddly enough, though, there was such a spot just a little ways ahead. Looking back on it, I wonder if that's why the officer picked that place to get my attention.
At the time, I had other things on my mind. There is no such thing as a minor traffic stop when you're a commercial driver. Points count BIG. And even if you don't get a ticket, there are other things. Things the officer is free to look for, that can mess up your career as much as the ticket could. The Feds seem to add more of them every day.
Not to mention the question: why WAS he stopping me? As far as I knew, I was doing everything right. I hadn't seen any "NO TRUCKS" signs. What had I missed?
Well, I'd know soon enough. Here he was at the door.
Young. Thin. Tall. Earnest. And both polite and friendly. Odd attitude in the middle of a traffic stop,
Some people had called the police about me, he said.
Uh-oh, I thought.
It seemed that every time I stopped at an intersection the truck started leaking something. Brake fluid, maybe, they thought. Perhaps I ought to be warned, they'd said.
Perhaps they were right, I thought.
But brake fluid? Given that all the brakes on an 18-wheeler work on compressed air, that didn't seem likely. On the other hand, leaking ANYTHING is bad on a vehicle like this. So I thanked the officer for the warning and swung down to look for the problem.
"Now that I'm standing next to you," the officer said helpfully, "I can smell something."
So could I. Oh, this was embarrassing. Nothing for it, though.
I sighed.
Said, "Me,too. And judging by the smell, this will be easy to fix,"
And went to both sides of the truck and put the caps back on the fuel tanks.
That explained the slippery starts, too, I thought. Diesel fuel is a fairly good lubricant. And the fuel tanks are right in front of the drive wheels.
The officer was politely amused, and glad to know I wasn't about to break down or worse. He waited until I was rolling again and went on about his business. No harm, no foul, I guess.
And no water in the fuel. It wasn't raining.
*(In college. Two or three pages long. I doubt you'd be interested.)
**(In a manner of speaking. I didn't think it was wasted. If you' been close enough to get a whiff of me, you might not have either.)
Rain is less fun when you don't have bugs on your windshield.
I'm sitting in front of a "portable" loading ramp (this company doesn't put loading docks in their stores for some reason), enjoying the breakfast I got damp for (it wasn't wet when I started, honest!) and feeling the trailer dance when the forklift comes. The lady driving that is worse off than I--climbing a metal ramp in the rain is an exercise in wheel-spinning frustration, and the lightning had her nervous till it went away.
At least I'm out of it. Now.
If I'd carried my umbrella when I went to get breakfast I'd probably be more charitable. When it's not a downpour (it's not) and I'm protected a bit, I like walking in the rain. I even wrote a poem about it once.* But walking through a drizzle with a coffee cup and a breakfast burrito that you want to keep warm is slightly different.
Ah, well, at least it didn't happen yesterday.
Yesterday I began my journey here with plenty of time to spare--enough that I wasted an hour on a shower.** Three or four hours later I stopped for fuel. Then into the wilds of New Jersey.
I am ashamed to say I was surprised the first time I realized not all of New Jersey is like Newark. Like New York away from Manhattan it's a nice drive through the country, except the towns are cleser together than I'm used to. Plenty of stoplights, stop signs, etc. And for some reason, the drive wheels were slipping every time I started moving. Not much, just enough to be annoying. And puzzling, on a dry road.
Then the siren blipped behind me, and I had other things on my mind.
When a police car wants you to pull over in the middle of a small town, it can be a challenge. For some reason, the locals don't tend to leave 80 feet of clear curb downtown very often. Oddly enough, though, there was such a spot just a little ways ahead. Looking back on it, I wonder if that's why the officer picked that place to get my attention.
At the time, I had other things on my mind. There is no such thing as a minor traffic stop when you're a commercial driver. Points count BIG. And even if you don't get a ticket, there are other things. Things the officer is free to look for, that can mess up your career as much as the ticket could. The Feds seem to add more of them every day.
Not to mention the question: why WAS he stopping me? As far as I knew, I was doing everything right. I hadn't seen any "NO TRUCKS" signs. What had I missed?
Well, I'd know soon enough. Here he was at the door.
Young. Thin. Tall. Earnest. And both polite and friendly. Odd attitude in the middle of a traffic stop,
Some people had called the police about me, he said.
Uh-oh, I thought.
It seemed that every time I stopped at an intersection the truck started leaking something. Brake fluid, maybe, they thought. Perhaps I ought to be warned, they'd said.
Perhaps they were right, I thought.
But brake fluid? Given that all the brakes on an 18-wheeler work on compressed air, that didn't seem likely. On the other hand, leaking ANYTHING is bad on a vehicle like this. So I thanked the officer for the warning and swung down to look for the problem.
"Now that I'm standing next to you," the officer said helpfully, "I can smell something."
So could I. Oh, this was embarrassing. Nothing for it, though.
I sighed.
Said, "Me,too. And judging by the smell, this will be easy to fix,"
And went to both sides of the truck and put the caps back on the fuel tanks.
That explained the slippery starts, too, I thought. Diesel fuel is a fairly good lubricant. And the fuel tanks are right in front of the drive wheels.
The officer was politely amused, and glad to know I wasn't about to break down or worse. He waited until I was rolling again and went on about his business. No harm, no foul, I guess.
And no water in the fuel. It wasn't raining.
*(In college. Two or three pages long. I doubt you'd be interested.)
**(In a manner of speaking. I didn't think it was wasted. If you' been close enough to get a whiff of me, you might not have either.)
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