Don't Fear The Reefer

Back up in WI now, it was a long ass ride through some nasty snow in the beginning tied in with some EARLY starts, but its done and soon to be a nice pay day.

With the Orange to Green Bay run under the wheels and fairly uneventful, its time to get down to business.  That is, the business I signed up for back in August.  The Refrigerated National Fleet. 

I'm on standby in Appleton, right around the corner which is a terminal fortunate enough to have a WORKING wash bay.  Sheila is all clean now after the snowy mess in NY on Saturday.  I'm here to pick up my first reefer unit this morning, I'm a little anxious because its just one more thing to worry about all the time.  Or worse, something you set and forget so you only worry about it SOME of the time and then screw up something.

Well, somebody is set up to give me the rundown on operational procedures for one.  Off we go.

The tour is over, I've survived

And back on the road again.  Like hell I'm going to be so bored as to make a report on my 4 days off.  Not this time.  After a nice 4 weekdays home, its Friday and Sheila and I are off again, headed all the way to Green Bay.  A long ass run straight off a break but at least this weeks pay won't dissapoint.  Definitely making up for lost dollars over the weekend.  Got a way early start this morning and ended up getting here 2 and a half hours early.  The snow and sleet in western MA was a total bust.  At least this was a place that was happy to see me early and expedite their day.

Thats one in a dozen.

Thanks to dad and uncle Dennis for the help getting Sheila back to a pro level interior.  We got a proper ground on the CB's power supply so there is no more engine interference.  Also got a sweet antenna for it, all I need is a bit of coax cable to get it running.  And though we don't yet have my awesome stereo in, I at least left with a new XM subscription for my 7 year old reciever.  The only problem is the antenna is for a flat roof, which I now lack.  Going to have to get a directional one to mount on the mirror

I also discovered that 3M Command Hooks are the best thing ever.  No more crap sliding around on the dashboard.  Winning.

A funny occurrence happened yesterday while rectifying my reimbursement reports for the weekend snafu an old favorite song came on.  Funny I always thought the lyrics to Blink 182's Anthem Part 2 went "... if *work* f*cked up you're to blame", though the proper lyric is "we're". Had I not misheard the lyrics this would have been pretty awesome.

Going Nord to get Sud.

Another delayed post, right now its 2/16 and I'm at a familiar consignee in Montreal.  My 3rd of what is sure to be umpteen-bazillion runs over the border in my time here. 

Good thing is I'm starting to get the customs procedures down.  The bad thing is that its sometimes a real hassle and the $50 bonus compensation just doesn't equal the same time in miles. I'll keep doing it though for now, I don't have too many reasons to bitch- besides that and the tolls I have to front to get in because none of the bridge authorities up here have heard of this thing called EZ PASS.

I did get to take the top end of I-81 over the Thousand Islands area and I'd love to know what real estate goes for on those colonized sand bars.  It sure is a nice view from those 2 suspension bridges.  Still haven't figured out why they both go from ground level to 300' up in a span of about a mile each.  Its not like a boat taller than a 30' could roll through those waters anyway. 
Not too fun when you're tipping 78k but can't argue with the scenery, especially when it was overcast instead of the miserable sleet and road slime on my last tour of QC.

ANYWAY, 24 hours until I better be packed and ready for this annual camping trip and im about 300 miles north of where I wanted to be by this time.  The worst part is that the job isn't even done yet. Got a big pickup heading to Albany in the late morning and then I'm free to use what hours I have left to take the pike to get back home.  This is going to be a mad dash to the finish line to beat the HOS clock and if I miss this trip I'm going to seriously lose it.

I've been out on the road for 18 days running ragged with moderately tight schedules, but something always screws up and they become red line marathons or worse, carry over to the next day and the ripple effect just won't alllow me any slack.

I need this weekend.  Loading on jettys without guard rails and maneuvering into docks over busy grade crossings really takes its toll on your sanity. 

Edit: Friday @ 1345
With another paperwork near disaster that could have seriously delayed me up here averted, I arrived here across Montreal this morning slightly early as planned feeling pretty good that I was going to make it with plenty of time left.

Well, that was 10, its now 1400.  The shipping office was nice enough to inform me that my scheduled pickup was Monday morning  Why? I don't know, nor am I surprised at this point, why would ANY speed bump phase me.  The effect of that is at the time they didn't know when I could even BEGIN to get loaded.

A little while ago I saw how they load trucks here with their products and it kind of terrifies me.  Imagine loading a 53' trailer of... Saltine boxes.  No pallets, just all neatly stacked as far back as the order calls for.  I can feel they've been loading this since I got here, but we make our plans out to allow 2 hours for a live load. Usually they take slightly less than an hour.  When I get the green light I still have to play the "wait for a fax before you go-go" game.

You guys remember how we always lol at how Lego didn't take the bid for the Halo building toys and a certain other multinational company did?  Well, you won't believe who's DC I'm at right now. XD

No I'm not really laughing given the circumstances, and if you're reading this its probably being posted while I'm waiting on customs or getting fuel in NY. 

Its 7:45 DRIVING time from here, to the RV point, to Saugus.  I've got 8:22 left on my 14.  Guess whos gonna win this time?

Yes, it could have been done with a few hours to spare.  That is assuming that EVERY last duck falls in line, at the exact time it should.  And what I have to ask is, when do all the ducks fall in line when we deal with border crossing loads?

Its looking something like 1 for 6 on my watch.

I should have just said no.  I don't know what the hell I was thinking going along with it.  As a good man says a lot, "F*** everything about this."

P.S.  I also want to know where all these days were during training.  If the runs were like this when I was out with John I would probably be working the repack for aisle 13 at the moment.  And I'd be smiling too, knowing I was about to take a hike in the woods and party with family and friends for 3 days.

Edit Edit:  Saturday, 2/18 00:47
I should have known that when I finally got the green light at the dock the nightmare wasn't over.  It was merely signaling the next chapter.  This was confirmed when I got to the shipping office and instead of an average 3 page manifest, I was presented with a matching stacks of 65 pages each, and they weren't pre-sorted the way I needed them to make my life easier.  I was also the last horse out of the yard, even the shipping staff left the office behind me.  Long story short, I'm now at a travel plaza a few clicks north of Champlain, and have been through an ungodly amount of faxing (5 pages at a time) and making phone calls from the payphones all over the place.

The last run I did up here from a small place, the shipper filled everything out for me and faxed everything to the broker right there on the spot.  You would think a multinational billion dollar toy company would have at least ONE fax machine in their place.  Well, $2 a page on my stack of reimbursements is only one more reason I didn't need to say screw this gig next time.

So now not only have I been robbed of the weekend I was promised, I feel very much like I've been thrown under a truck, in both senses. 

Given how tired I am from only dozing off during the last 24 hours I'm going to take a big long power nap before I head down to the pleasant faces at Champlain and see how they like my 200 pages instead of the NONE I showed up with last time and got my ass kicked for it.  Irony much?

Last edit:  09:42
At customs.  Communication breakdown on all ends.  Grounded until its sorted out.  FML
Matti out.

Back Through Time

Back Through Time As a good man once said, “hens forth” the first post that was not made in real time.  The current place I landed is without free wifi and though I’m just outside Toronto, something technical about Canada’s 3 and 4g being superior to the US 3 and 4g renders my Galaxy SII a very expensive media player and not much more as long as I’m 30 miles past the fence.  At the moment, it’s Tuesday the 7th.

I haven’t reported in in a week+ because it started with a run up to Montreal, then back empty to Albany for another pickup.  WELL… I had a nice episode with Homeland Security on the way back, and it pretty much snowballed for the next 700 miles.  I ran out of hours, ended up going to the shipper late, waited HALF a day to get loaded, delivered in Ohio late…  It’s been a hell of a week.

I finally caught a break when I was given from Friday afternoon to Monday morning to go from Akron to Newark.  I slept in EVERY day, took 2 hour lunches, and FINALLY broke out the Xbox.  Topped it all off with a little help from my friends watching the super bowl on my phone.  My SPRINT phone.  

We all know how the weekend concluded so really it was another week I could do without. Back to the first run from Philly to Montreal- it’s too bad this was my first visit, because although I did my homework and it was cake finding the place with no wrong turns, the weather sucked.  Foggy, with that freezing mist so the roads are always wet, if you turn on your wipers it spreads the road slime all over, and literally every, every, EVERY vehicle that passes you, you need a shot of the washer fluid.  I chewed through 2 gallons on my 8 hours visit.  Once back in NY I was filled with joy as the big, fluffy flakes came down over the headlights.

Conversely in Toronto today, it was partly cloudy, a little lake breeze, and a beautiful sunset over the skyline as I headed west down the 401.  I probably could have taken a picture because it was stop and go for about 15 clicks.  Yea, that’s 9 miles for us countries still stuck in the stone age.  I left that mess and now I’m on my way around the lake to go back through Michigan.

Funny enough, that’s one state I’ve never been to.  Been close many a times, but not over the line.  I found out Toronto is crazy about Home Depot’s and Cold Stone.  Also it’s perfectly legal to hang your rear license plate from your hatchback windshield wiper with a bungee cord.  

Okay back to the beautiful first visit to Montreal: Just a heads up, if you ever happen to drive a CMV south through the Champlain, NY port of entry- no other apparently, JUST Champlain- you better damn well have a piece of paper written BY YOU saying your trailer is empty.  If you don’t, there is one of two possibilities waiting for you at the booth.

1:  You get helped by one of the cool agents, who greets you with a nice “Welcome back”,  walks you through what you need to fill out, how to get on your way quickly, and get a “drive safely hope to see you again soon.”

2: You get the other guy.  Thinks he’s a hero for putting on the uniform, going to shake down everybody to catch the one in a million terrorists and if anybody trying to do legitimate business gets questioned, they should thank him for asking, because as a member of the Department of Homeland Security and that means he is the highest authority of enforcement on the planet.  And by “asking” I mean of course repeatedly talking down to said business person in complete disbelief that he did NOT know the procedure step by step from the get go, did NOT know exactly where to go, who to talk to, what to say, and overall, know what he needed to move on in the first place.

Guess who I saw first?

Oh yea, almost forgot the punch line.  I got back in to the office after filling out the paperwork (alone, at my truck) Agent 2 was busy chewing on somebody else in a similar fashion so at the next window Agent 1 demonstrated his people skills from the training class Agent 2 obviously was out sick for, explained it to me, stamped my sheet, I paid my $10.75 (yes, you have to pay to get back in) and said I was all set.  I showed the agent at the gate, she took the sheet, said have a nice day- south I drove. Anybody want to point out the security flaw in this procedure?  Seriously you could drive a truck through it- literally.

So today I toured Ontario, with its plain English signs, Wal-Marts, IKEA’s, KFC’s and people driving regular minivans and SUV’s.  I really could believe I was still home except if you look closely you are at a “Wal-Mart Supercentre”.  And you set the cruise control at “100” on Queen Elizabeth Way.  Other than that, it’s America 2.0, and I’d be happy to come back.  I say that now, but ask me again after I meet customs at Port Huron with what will probably be more paperwork than I need.

And if they’re going to keep sending me up here, I’m coming back with a phone that can read signals from these towers.  BTW, if you ever wonder what all the 3G/4G LTE/not LTE is all about?  Once and for all?  I did too, so do what I did:  Go to the Wikipedia pages for both, respectively.  If you can read the first 2 out of the 40+ paragraphs and not feel like a clueless caveman who was mercilessly beaten over the head with a technical jargon stick, then you’re probably qualified to work for NASA and take somebody to Mars.  So really, all you need to know is that A) They’re both blanket terms made for marketing and B) Much like cell phones 20 years ago, it STILL DEPENDS ON WHERE YOU’RE STANDING.

Still Alive

Ok, not the big post you expected, but technology has been failing a bit.  Hard to find free wifi to post with my laptop, and apparently many US version of smartphones are physically incapable of receiving signals in Canada.  I found one unsecured spot up there but I was tired as hell.  But when I was feeling up to it I wrote a massive post from my laptop and saved it locally to post when I got back to the states. 

Unfortunately the wifi in Gary where I swung in last night was down, and I'm currently disinclined to save that word doc to the phones SD card and copy paste the whole thing.  Though I have done that once already.

Just know that I'm still alive, back in WI,  and freezing my ass off when step outside.  Heading down to VA tomorrow, is it still winter there? 

I shouldn't bitch about the insulation in the truck because only ONE WEEK TILL CAMPING TRIP BOOYA!