Monday, December 29, 2008

New Stanton,PA

First off, let me apologize for not posting the Christmas pictures like I promised. I have tried three times and can't get them loaded. Not sure what the problem is.

Last I posted we were in Lubbock and now we are in New Stanton,PA. How did we get here you ask? Well, sit back and I will tell you!

Saturday morning we got up from my Mom's house and were in the truck at 0550 ready to start the day. We had received our work assignment the night before and I knew then that we would have problems. It said we were to pick up an empty trailer at the Sam's Club there in Lubbock. I knew right then that there wouldn't be a trailer there because they only have, I believe, three docks. It is a store, not a warehouse. Sure enough, we get there and there are no empty trailers to be found. So we send in a message asking to head to the Walmart DC in Plainview,TX to get an empty there because that is on the way. While we were waiting for an answer we went to get fuel at the Rip Griffins. Still no answer after we fuel so I head north to Plainview. I had only made it about 3 miles and we get a message asking where we are at. They tell me to go back to the Rip Griffins because he has a truck that can bring me an empty. Thinking that the truck is in Lubbock, I turn around to go wait. Two hours later and four unanswered messages later, I call in to find out what the hell is going on. Of course by now the night shift that I was dealing with has gone home and weekend day shift has come in. I get ahold of James and he looks and tells me that the truck that is bringing me an empty is in Amarillo, but he is on his 10 hour break so it will be a while. WTF? If I would have had a trailer right off the bat when we left that morning I would have made it to our pick up with about 30 minutes to spare. After this fiasco, I tell him to notify the shipper that we will be at least two hours late and then tell him I am going to Plainview to get an empty like I should have done to start with. He tells me that he shows several empties there so it isn't a problem. Now why couldn't night shift have just done that to start with?? UGH!! OK, northbound I go....

I find an empty trailer there with no problem and then head the next 229 miles to Elk City,OK where I am supposed to pick up at noon. I make it in there at 1445. Luckily it wasn't a problem and I was at a dock getting loaded within 30 minutes. Another hour or so there, head out, scale and then finally we are on the road around 1730. Now we have to be in Upper Marlboro,MD by 0100 on Monday morning and this is Saturday evening. We pushed it, stopping only to fuel and walk Smokey and made it in there about an hour early this morning. Whew! They got us unloaded right at 0300 and J woke me up to start my shift.

Our next drop (this load has 3 drops) is a short 138 miles away in Philadelphia. Not far, but I was worried about traffic so I wanted to head straight in and beat the traffic if I could even though our appointment wasn't until noon. Traffic was amazingly light, so I made one stop for a while to walk Smokey and figure out exactly where I was going once I got into the city. We delivered down on Front Street which is directly south of Downtown on the map so I wasn't sure what it would be like getting in and out of there. I pulled up at 0845 local time and checked in on the off chance that they would go ahead and take me, and sure enough, I was at a dock inside of 15 minutes and within an hour of the time I arrived, I was pulling out of the dock. I love it when things go smoothly, especially after the way this load started.

Ok, now off I trek to our final destination in New Stanton,PA. This appointment is at 0700 local tomorrow morning. That means that we had extra time this afternoon. I got us to a truck stop about 10 miles from the shipper at around 1500 local so we have all afternoon and evening to just be lazy. First order of business was a shower, then something to eat, and now here I am chillin in the truck updating you guys on what we have been up to. I'm really mad that the pictures won't post, but maybe in the next few months I will figure out the problem and get the Christmas pictures on here!

Also, if anyone can help me.... I got a Phillips MP3 player for Christmas and I can't figure out how the hell to download songs on it. I figured out how to do it from a CD by loading that in the computer, but I can't download them from on the web. I got on Napster and that is a cluster. My brother said you can do it from there but it is really difficult because of where it download the songs to on your computer. Like you have to go search for media/audio files. It doesn't download straight to my music folder, or whatever the hell it is supposed to do. So someone please help if you know how!!!!! Thanks! Oh, and it isn't an i-Pod so I can't use i-Tunes.

2 comments:

Snuffy said...

I seldom post pictures on my blog cause it seems to be such a pain. I just now tried mine to see if I could figure out what problems you may be having. If you aren't already doing it you may want to try shrinking the pics before you post them. I use a program you can download for free from download.com. The name of the progam is "Irfanview". Once you have it installed and up and running open yourt picture you wish to post with it. Then click on the "image" button and select "resize" in the drop down menu. From there I normally punch the "Half" button three times then save the pic to desktop and post. This makes the file much much smaller and takes a lot less time posting them. That's my only suggestion. It is a little quirky posting pics for some reason. Let me know if this helps!

Unknown said...

I use Picasa to post all my pictures and never have a problem with it. I don't even have to downsize my pics either. You might try downloading that program to see if that helps you out.