The best laid plans

While the trucking business is all well and good, one of the unspecified points of this blog is to keep my ass on track with my original career goals. Thus, you get to read about my journey back towards video games from time to time. Don't act surprised- people who know me already knew this wasn't going to be permanent. Though its not exactly going to be done with next week, either. It's going to be ranted here because working in solitude for 2 weeks at a time does things to you if everything ferments inside that 7 square foot box. Both in your mind and the laundry basket.

And nothing motivates you to getting back in the business quite like these 2 things:
-Attending GDC (which I sat out on this year)
-The conclusion of this weekend's project:

I'm not sure I've ever heard of a video game trilogy whose conclusion was so disappointing that an overwhelming majority of fans rise up and dead seriously demand that it be re-made while the studio defends their decisions without a hint of regret.

While that would be nice and all, I'm content with refusing to accept what I saw as the ending, imagining my own variant, and convincing myself that is what I really witnessed yesterday. Funny enough, it was very easy to do so. You know how when you have a dream that seems like real life but some element is just so out of place that you can easily believe it wasn't real? Yea, that's kind of how this was.

Back to Rocksmith we go!

Back out at 0700 tomorrow, and time to start harassing dispatch about routing me up north for Easter weekend. And if it starts with a burnt out headlight, I know to start running this time.

Fast, thorough, and sharp as a tack.

So whats to say about a handful of runs between Wisconsin and the north eastern seaboard?  Well, not a ton since the weekend mudding.  I got  home, got my Mass Effect 3 fix, (and by got I actually mean started a long binge)  and shortly got ready to head out again.  Not before doing a quick Shoop of last weeks photo.  Say hi to my facebook header image.

Now I've been taking frozen cranberries from Philly several times now, but I have yet to actually visit an Ocean Spray facility.  Every time I get to or just past Gary I get a call for a relay and then get assigned elsewhere.  Maybe next time will be different.  At least I got a bit of nostalgia in the process, I got to do a switch at HQ, which I havent seen since the first week in December.  I couldn't stop to search for people because I was already behind thanks to some Chicago rush hour mess the night before.

Yesterday I had the best experience in Canada to date, second only to the niagra jet boat ride.  Form 7512b is my new weapon against shenanigans.  "United States - Canada Transit Manifest" says Matti came in with x stuff with seal x at x crossing and returns at y crossing with said seal intact.  Thank you very much have a nice day.  Enjoy your easy shortcut around Lake Erie and your $50 bonus.
The best part is, I fill out the form myself, don't have to contact anybody, and cross when I want to.

As long as I don't have to do any inbound/oubounds anymore I won't complain.  Seriously though people in the passener car lanes were taking longer than I was.  Good thing too, because there was no line no wait in the CMV lane.  I arrived within 40 minutes of my destination here in Rochester at 1430 yesterday.  Now what to do with this 22 hours of free time?

Tether wifi through my laptop, play a game genre that has historically been very well "offline", but thats ancient history now.  The world needs a full time internet connection so you can use the products that YOU paid for to prove that you didn't steal them.  But content protection is another day, another blog.  Suffice it to say, getting technologically ready to play ME3 for 9 hours yesterday was more difficult then switching on your Game Boy used to be. 

So yea, that was my St. Patricks Day this year.  No green beer this time.  I was disappoint.

Somebody help me root my phone so I can steal internet from Sprint.

Cold As Ice

Oh yea, that whole truck driving blog thing.  How could I forget?  Easy.  I didn't.  There is a fine line between forgetting and lack of motivaion.  At the end of each day I justified it as "oh, nothing new happened today".  Fact of the matter is, thats how the first week on reefer went.

I lost count of how many trips between eastern PA and central to northern WI I made since this tour started.  The 800 +/- mile stretch of I-80/90 that I used to dread in my road trips is now the highlight of a run.  Its the only time I can set the cruise at 60 and just sit back in the zone for 3 hours at a time and never have to worry about shifting for hills no matter how much I've got behind me.  Maximum wage ftw.

It's gotten to the point where I go by what anybody else would see as one of dozens indistinct crumbling barns or silos and think "Oh hey, I'm this far already!"  Also, every travel plaza has free shower suites for truck drivers, facilities which put Gary to shame, despite the lack of free towels.  Free shower every 40 miles?  I'm okay with this :)

So the week was a long slew of tight schedules taking a certain product of WI to the east coast and bringing back a whole lot of stuff I mix with vodka.  Its not a dedicated fleet per say but I certainly don't feel like such a mercenary anymore.  I don't mind consistency in this job, I really don't.  If things had been just running like they had on dry van for the rest of my time here I would still be feeling like every day was a transitional period from not knowing what I was doing to getting stuff down right the first time.  Its like every day feeling like the first again.  That SUCKS.

Just because the routine was coming together doesn't mean it was all good.  You know how when stuff is going so smooth, your kicking ass with 550+ mile days and you're like "damn, somethings GOT to mess this up"?

Yea Tuesday was one of those.  I was assigned to run couple of multi stops to distro centers in OH and IN, each with appointment times of either 3am, 4pm or 9pm respectfully.  How do you juggle the clusterF of  live unloads with inconsistent timing and procedures while maintaining your 14hr day rule?

Not easily.  Think too hard and you get more tired, think too little and you get your head stuck in some mud.  And by head I mean wheels.  Yea that was todays episode.  At least there was no damage to anything, but I still wonder why I'm kept on board here when my slip ups so far have costed the company about the same amount I already owe them for my training.  Not sure what I want for Christmas this year now, a tank or a CMV tow truck.