The Slip Seat Diary

Fall - the season and the state of the driveaway business - Oct 2009

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:28:03 GMT

I'm in a one month dry spell -mostly self-imposed but also testimony to the slow flow of trucks. I've had to limit my trips to short runs where I was out only one night at a time due to my mom's needs - she'll be 102 on October 26th and with those 102 years comes an accumulation of issues. She's in fairly good general health but the eyes are dim from macular degeneration, the knees are weak, the hands don't have much grip and hearing is poor so she does well with those conditions and I admire her a lot for 'keeping on keeping on". Every single thing we do easily and without thought is an effort for her and I'm glad to provide assistance which means checking in on her every day now. Not too conducive to this line of work.

This month, October 2009, my wife, Gay, is out of town visiting kids and friends from  OR to VA to NC to GA so with her out of town I can't even do the short local runs I was able to do- thus the last two trips I did were in September and shorties with excess deadheading. That's been the story of 2009 for me - deadhead 250 miles by bus or toad to to a rev run of 200 miles and still end up 300 mile from home. The only thing good about it is the toad miles - racking up a lot of those and they're golden since they bring in a 55 cent per mile deduction while only costing me about 8 cents per mile out of pocket for gas. This will be my first year to operate at a loss for tax purposes - so the normal drill of owing several thousand to IRS wll not take place for the 2009 tax year. I'm at about 11,000 miles. Won't add much if any in October and probably not much in Nov and Dec so this will be by far my lowest mileage total since starting in May 2001.

As a result of the two factors - need to stay close to home and very few trips to select from I've made apps in a couple of others lines of work - one would be permanent and the other seasonal. First was an app from Craig's List to a medical courier outfit. Applying via Craigs List is pretty much the same as filling out a paper app then using it to make a paper airplane and throwing it as hard as you can out a window.  Nothing ever happens - no "thank you very much for applying", "go to hell" or "don't call us - we'll call you". The apps just go out to die so no expectations from that one.

The one showing a spark of life was done online for a seasonal job with IRS as Tax Examiner. I, the guy who only got my 2008 return filed about a week ago and had someone else do it, am applying to work for IRS. A little ironic or shaky I know. That would being in Feb and go for a few months. I got my rating back so in this case I know they got the app - haven't been selected so that one is pending.

There was another Craig's List add for driveaway out of Kansas City to destinations within 500 miles with paid return transportation. That I could do - a day trip out and return overnight by bus so that would fit my mom-care requirements but since it was Craig's List that app went out but no follow up or any slight show of interest even with my 8 years of doing this work as my credentials.

Three irons in the fire - I anticipate I may get a call from IRS so have some hope there. Also Census will do more work in the Spring and I'd assume they go back to the list of people who did the address canvassing and make some offers but that's around April when their next field campaign will begin. Fortunately I have income from my retirement but would like to have some regular work to supplement that and provide some structure to the day. Driveaway work is ideal when it's working since it's so flexible but for now it's at low ebb. I know : whine, whine, whine. Never becoming for an adult.

So that's the October report . I have one week of deferred housekeeping to do in the next 4 hours. Gay has been out of town so I've done nothing but let mail and newspapers accumulate.. Time to tend to those, water the plants and hope they're still alive, vacuum the rugs and wash the dishes.

Image above: the latest in green GPS technology - no power cord, no satellites, no nothin'! Just align the sphere with what you see outside your truck window and use thumb to rotate as you travel.

Happy Trails

Dick Williams

Summer 2009

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:36:40 GMT

A recap of the past couple of months in a word: slow.

Still at low ebb. The job list comes out once a week if that often and has 3 to 6 jobs on it. The typical job anymore is travel 200 miles to the pickup spot, drive 200 miles and end up 200 miles from home meaning deadheading on both ends ot the trip - about a $40 bus ticket twice - move the unit and wait for the bus home. Very inefficient way to do this work but for now it's that or nothing.

Got a 2nd toad - bought a 1996 Saturn set up for towing from another driver who's leaving DUSA and this work. His car was nicely set up for use with a stowaway tow bar and the car gets good mileage and has an air conditioner that works so it's an upgrade in comfort and convenience even is only a new newer than my 1995 Chevy S-10 pickup. 195,000 miles on the Saturn vs about 165K on the S-10 but the air is the big thing for summer and the better mpg. Just need some trips that will make use of a toad.. I'll sell the S-10 - wanna buy a toad?

Most recent trip was yesterday - July 30, 2009 and not a good one. Moved a Sterling tri-axle crane from Lindsborg, KS to Kansas City MO. And that required a $37 bus ride to Salina and a $45 cab ride to Linsdborg from Salina. Then the unit was on empty so no help ffrom found fuel and it got 4.3 mpg so took 50 gallons or $125 in fuel to make the 200 mile trip. Add bus and cab of about 80 and turnpike toll of $3.45 and the take was just about equal to the expenses.

One of the few times I've done that - made a big mistake in taking a trip. I will get some help for the cab ride and the poor fuel economy. We're guraranted to get 6 mpg and company makes up the diff from my actual of 4.3 mpg to 6 mpg so that'll be about $40 added to the $45 so I'll come in around $85 and maybe more if Dispatch takes pity on me. I advise others to run every trip on paper and leave these losers behind - in this case i knew it would not be a good trip but decided to take a chance. Should have let it pass. Found fuel could have made it ok but that didn't happen.

Later - Dispatch did spiff me enough to make the trip come out ok. On some jobs it's "shared pain" - company doesn't make much, driver doesn't make much but we keep a customer. You hope not to have too many shared pain trips in a month.

New computer system an HP E9107- a sig upgrade from my nine year old system. And LCD monitor for the first time - that's nice tool

Dick Williams
Kansas City MO

Independence KS

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:37:30 GMT

Delivered an ISUZU cab and chassis here in Independence KS and waiting now on the northbound Jefferson Lines bus back to KC. Trip was 97 pct uneventful. The 3% that was eventful was here in Independence. I got to the north side of town - coming in on US 75- and fuel was down to "E" - same way I found the truck in KC. I had about 5 miles to go and didn't want to risk running out prior to the drop so stopped and added one gallon.

Tried to start and got only a click. Again and same. I'd had no problems up to that point including a brief bathroom stop in Garnett - truck started fine there but it was dead in Indy. It didn't seem like battery voltage as headlights were bright - panel lights bright. This unit doesn't have an ammeter or voltmeter so couldn't judge the stage of charge. I asked in the gas station if anybody had jumpers even though I didn't think they'd to any good.

A guy named Rick said he thought he had a pair with him and he did so he maneuvered his pick up next to my cab and chassis and we set up for a jump. First try and "CLICK" again - second and another "CLICK" but on third or fourth turn of the key the engine turned over and started - to my great relief.

I didn't have a strong Plan B and was worried since there's one northbound bus a day through Independence. Also didn't have any night/weekend contact info for the receiving outfit Hackney. They're hard to contact M-F 8-5.

I drove the final 4 or 5 miles to the Hackney lot and parked the unit. As an experiment I tried to restart it and "Click" so they have a dead one on their hands.

Got the bus ok around 1500 - back to KC at 1800 and Casino Cruiser bus to Westfall where I had started the trip at 0930. However the Westfall lot was locked up and all service departments were closed. They used to be 24/7 but no more. I could walk onto the lot since it's not tightly fenced if you're on foot - just for vehicles. It's gated so you can't drive any vehicle on or off the lot. So I walked in and loaded my gear into my pickup and I drove around the property. Big operation with about 5 gates and all were closed. All the service and rental and parts operations that used to be open 24/7 are now closed from 1 pm Saturday till Monday morning.

In the end a security guard came on duty at 2000 hours and after taking down my info - drivers license, my truck, Bill of Lading info - he let me off the lot. Lesson learned - assume nothing in this down-turning economy. Outfits are cutting back to core hours even if their signage still says 24/7 as it does at Westfall.

No other trips on my schedule for the week ahead so this one with 174 miles is it for a while. No sign I see that anything's picking up yet. We hear rumors and teasers of better things ahead but the job list doesn't reflect it.

Dick Williams

started via cell fone from Independence and concluded from home PC in KC

Census Run is over - a good six weeks

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:01:57 GMT

My time as an Address Canvasser with the Census Bureau has ended - as of yesterday 5-20-09. That was six weeks into a Not to Exceed eight week appointment. Two weeks ago it appeared that the run would end at the four week mark - then our Kansas City crew was detailed to a northern Missouri Crew Leader, Lane Seymour, and we worked for two weeks, 80 hours, in rural counties across north Missouri.

I did AAs or Assignment Areas in Harrison county - west of Bethany, MO and in Gentry county, just east of Albany, MO. I had a few hours left yesterday after completing my final Harrison county AA so was sent to Worth County where I did a few Blocks in Sheridan, MO - near the Iowa border.

All good experiences - a lot of running back and forth across Harrison County in particular since the canvassing in rural areas means a lot of dead end roads and lines on maps that look like roads but turn out to be dirt lanes along Section lines; in wet weather they turn to mud and after the mud they're dry but deeply rutted from tractor and farm equipment.   Two of our enumerators ended up needing tows - I played it pretty conservatively and didn't venture where it didn't seem wise - stayed mostly on gravel and out of trouble.

I learned that nobody lives on true dirt roads - there are some abandoned homes we're obliged to approach and ascertain their condition and exact location but in no case did I find any occupied homes that were not on serviceable gravel or asphalt.
Type your cut contents here.
It was a lot different working in the rural areas versus the city canvass I did for the first four weeks of my assignment. In the city I could complete 25 address in an hour - well over 120 in a day. In rural territory i could and did spend an hour on one address but the norm was about 6 an hour - and 35 to 50 per day.

The days were long - we commuted each day. It would have been more economical for the Census Bureau to house us in Bethany and work from there but a policy decision was made to have us commute - a 100 to 115 mile drive on the clock and with paid mileage at 55 cents a mile. Thus it shortened our time on station and increased the expense to the government but we did as told. In addition to the 200 miles of back and forth driving I typically logged 60 to 80 miles per day crisscrossing my county.

Most people are not home - just as in the city. A lot of rural Harrison county is very thinly populated. In many whole Sections - 640 acres, one mile on a side, there are no homes and in most Sections only 2 or 3 homes. Lots of vacant homes, some in good shape, some vacant long enough to show some deterioration and some are hulks - still standing but with considerable damage from the elements and time itself.

We were to inventory everything that was standing and recognizeable as a home - former home. It was sort of nuts to be putting abandoned homes that hadn't been occupied in 50 years into the system but that was our job. They go in as UNINHABITABLE if they're "open to the elements". That means doors or windows missing or open or if the roof is perforated so water enters the home. Lots of those across the county but also lots of vacant homes that could be moved into tomorrow. Part of the out-migration from rural areas. I did come across several families that had moved to Harrison county from the Kansas City area - "to get out of the city" in those cases. There are some Amish families in Harrison County and one of our clues as to where a home might be - power lines - doesn't work with the Amish.

People were cordial with almost no exceptions. I anticipated more resistance to just having someone from Census show up but the vast majority understood the need for Census data. I had it easy in that I wasn't asking any Census questions - in this stage we're simply verifying addresses, doing the inventory of living quarters - making changes to the map database by adding or deleting or renaming roads and obtaining the lat/lon of homes we inventory - even the uninhabitables. We worked from a pre-loaded set of addresses or descriptions and prior locations - I guess obtained by GPS ten years ago - possibly by another means like aerial survey.

The pre-loaded stuff was "fair". it was a starting point but in some ways it would be easier to start from scratch. When the pre-load info was in error - not uncommon - it took more time to resolve the error than if we'd started from scratch. A lot of addresses were ok but in the wrong "block" and that was a nuisance. Most rural homes did not display a house number or 911 address either on the home or on the mailbox and that slows down things considerably. If we don't contact someone we simply obtain the lat/lon and use a shorthand word description of the house - 2-STORY TAN HSE W/ BL TRIM. METAL SHED S. I used AEROMOTOR WINDMILL once in a description - they seem as timeless as the houses even if only the windmill tower remains. The descriptions were sort of fun and in the country it's needed info. Less so in the city where descriptions were rare and house numbers much more common. .

Met lots of dogs. Everybody has dogs, usually more than one. There may be some "puppy mill" operations in Harrison County. No dangerous encounters and I found the dogs provided a good "foot in the door." My plan of attack after a couple of days was - 1) make over their dogs and talk about our own Elmer dog then 2) ask for help. I'd take my map along and ask about roads that aren't really roads - also where the next house will be.

I spent a lot of time at night with RandMcNally.com pulling off maps of each of my AAs, piecing large scale depictions together and spotting the pre-loaded housing locations on the map before I started an area. It was worth it to me. It made me look organized when in truth it's what unorganized folks have to do as a workaround. Surround myself with crutches like a detailed, annotated map.

Once in my AA I marked each road segment as I drove along it so I didn't repeat myself on a particular stretch of road any more than necessary. There was still a lot of backtracking due to roads closed, roads that weren't there, bridges or culverts out or to double check and resolve conflicts . Often finding one place would lead to making a correction to a prior listing. I did climb some fences and gates to enter property with a long lane and a remote, over the hill, house or trailer. I was apprehensive about doing that but no incidents - again most proved to be vacant or the owner away for the day. Still I didn't want to surprise somebody far off the road behind a closed gate - me showing up on foot with something that looked like a Geiger Counter in my hand could be dangerous so I was happy nobody was home on those long, remote lane behind a closed gate investigations. We were ok to do it legally - not so sure about the common sense of it and I deferred on some of them - a few were clearly wanting seclusion so used the "CANNOT COLLECT" option a few times.

I made a one mile walk along a rutted dirt road to verify the existence or extinction of a place. I was sure it would turn out to be DNE- "DOES NOT EXIST" but it was over the brow of a hill and as I got closer I saw the telltale red chimney and it turned out to be a very large, 2 story home, totally weathered and abandoned for probably 30 or 40 years but still erect and in fair shape. But on a dirt road with no access. I was impressed by the fact these remote, abandoned homes were not vandalized. Window glass still intact, no markings, no signs anybody was using them for parties or other mischief. Maybe the overall thin population means everybody knows everybody and you just don't mess with stuff on a farm. Even abandoned stuff. Don't know but no signs of malicious destruction.

I'm back to driveaway work - actually enjoyed the interlude away from it. The money was pretty good with three of the weekly checks yet to arrive - that'll be nice and in contrast to driveaway work not a lot of later bills to pay like airline, bus, motel bills. I did buy about $27 worth of gas per day but put that on debit card so no big surprise later.

I understand we're all to be terminated "for lack of work". That wording will help those who were on unemployment or will go on unemployment. Quite a few on our team of 16 were unemployed so the work was a good six week period of regular pay - for most I'm sure it was higher pay than their state unemployment benefits. We got 14.50 per hour and 55 cents per mile with a max of 40 hours per week. I worked 35 to 39 hours most weeks so close to the max. There was no cap per day - only the cap of 40 hours in a week. Tuesday I stayed with it late and logged 14.5 hours - that's how I got my to 38 hours in 3 days. And that's also why I"m off today - I'm tapped out on my 40.

Others are still working but the entire Northwest MO project is to finish up by Friday. Interestingly my Harrison County crew leader was retired Navy - a former propulsion officer in nuclear submarines and a very effective Crew Leader and nice guy to work with. Same for my KC Crew Leaders, Stephanie and Steve. Good people all around at the local level. Some of the stuff coming from the higher ups was questionable but I had a good insulating layer between me and them - my Crew Leaders.

Appended below - some of the ways to know you're a rural northwest Missouri Address Canvasser for the Census Bureau. I'm working this up with one of my co-workers, Mary Beth.

Mary Beth just emailed me some thoughts on the past two weeks. We talked back and forth quite a bit after our day in the field and Mary Beth also "got it" - got the essence of the rural area and people. I'm going to quote first and ask her ok later but I think she'll be ok with my lifting her remarks.

Dick

I had the same experiences and feelings as you did about the old abandoned homesteads. They had such a beauty and integrity about them. I wanted to just kneel down and say a little prayer out of respect for the good people who lived there and cared for the land. Such quiet beauty.

I love that nobody has botoxed foreheads or perfect teeth. I love that the kids—all ages and sexes—play together outside and ride around on their little bikes. I love the Dads on their tractors with a bunch of fresh-faced kids holding on and all happy and laughing. I love the families “working” together on Sunday afternoons: It’s really not work—it’s just enjoying each other while they’re doin’ what needs doin’.

Every time I parked the car and walked down a path or overgrown drive, I found some special kind of sanctuary. I never regretted taking the time to do that.

Nicely stated. I think we city folks got more out of it than we bargained for - more than just a paycheck - some insight into a different way of life. Not sure the "advantages" of city life are all on the plus side. Am I ready to move to Harrison county? No - but it would be great to see the Milky Way again and be surrounded by pastures, hay fields, cattle, woods and from every hilltop a green horizon with nothing larger than a barn in sight.

Happy Trails

Dick Williams

You Know You're a Rural Northwest Missouri Census Canvasser ...

When you can park right in the middle of the road for five minutes and nobody cares

For every house you see you compose a six word, abbreviated description. Most read: 2-STORY WHT HSE W/ BLK TRIM

You can spot an abandoned house hidden in the weeds and brush half a mile away.

When you get on a paved road you think you're in heaven!

You know every dog in Harrison County. And most of their names.

When the door's wide open but nobody's home!

You wave or waggle a finger at everybody - sometimes the same person six times in one day.

When the gravel road narrows then has grass growing between the tracks that means it's about to turn to dirt, then rutted dirt and impassability even in dry weather. Might as well give it up when you see the grass.

When the only cafe in town opens at noon and closes at 1.

When the town you're canvassing has more goats than people.

When it's 15 miles back to Bethany for a filling station and a bathroom.

New Rig - New Gig

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:45:44 GMT

Well the new rig is a 1995 Chevy S-10 - my Blue Toad - used in driveaway but now to be used in my new gig as Census Enumerator. I'm one week into an eight week term assignment as a address verifier with the US Census Bureau - meaning I'm back in the Department of Commerce - I even have a Personnel Action and a new Service Comp date of 4-13-09 - a few years down the road from my original Service Comp Date of 11-29-63 - as in November 1963 with the National Weather Service.

I took the test given for Census work last March - got the call and just completed a week of training - 4 days in class and one int he field. I'm part of a small army that is walking every city block an driving to every rural house this spring and summer to verify addresses. We carry a handheld computer with built-in GPS and simply verify the street address and "map spot" or mark the location of the home - all via the handheld - for every home, trailer, apartment, condo, vacation home, nursing home, prison, dorm, occupied boat, inhabited cave - and yes even an occupied cardboard box. The manual specifically says we're to "map spot" cardboard boxes if there are signs of habitation.

All this is preparatory to the real people counting that will take place in April 2010 but there's a lot of work to do now to clean up the address lists from the 2000 census and add millions of new homes and apartments, add any new streets and update realigned roadways. If you consider the changes in the fast growing parts of the country the scope of the work becomes apparent and even in stable areas it's still a lot of walking to visit every home on foot and stand at or near the front door in order to locate the structure.

We ask no census questions - we're just there to nail down the location and update the database. One day into the actual field work it looks like it'll be a good seven weeks- a lot of walking - a lot of time outdoors. Too cold and it'd be unpleasant, too hot and it'd be unpleasant but this is a good time of year for the project which will continue into summer. They hope to have Kansas City canvassed by July - some areas go relatively fast - others will bog down and some will be very slow where there are streets and homes and apartments to add. Data entry is by stylus on a virtual keyboard - in fact the keyboard display is quite small and a steady hand is needed.

I have not ditched driveaway work but the work has dwindled considerably this spring - a trend that began summer 2008. So I signed up for this and there is enough flexibility to the census work that I might be able to do an occasional short driveaway trip. I'd like to keep enough of a hand in with DUSA to stay on the active roster.

We can work from 20 to 40 hours per week in this work and can pick our times for working - even Sat and Sun; nights are out because it'd be very difficult to see house numbers but it's light till nearly 8 pm now and the days will lengthen till mid June so there's plenty of time to get 40 hours in a week and still leave 2 or 3 days free - IF - legs and feet and stamina hold up.

I worked myself out of new work today - so haven't yet put in a 7 or 8 hour day - only 4 hours today with about 70 addresses verified. Pay is by the hour not based on production although they do track production to make sure we're not going too fast or too slow. Lots of checks and monitoring by our 2 Crew Leaders so we'll be kept on rather short leashes which is appropriate for this army of new hires with no experience at the job we're to do. Nobody's done this before. Ten years ago it was pen and paper this year everything is entered via the HHC - handheld computer.

There'll be a 2nd round so this original eight week tour could evolve to a 2nd tour and I assume once in the system we'll have a shot at the actual census work to be done in Spring 2010 - that's when the other army hits the field. The send people around on census day itself to look for the hard to find and hard to count people - transients, people in transit - those who haven't returned the mailed forms - homeless and so forth.

Census work is a good tide-me-over sort of thing for those who are recently or long term unemployed -the pay's pretty good - varies with the area but it's in the 13 to 15 dollar an hour range - no benefits - but you are a Federal employee if that looks good on a resume. For me it'll help at at time when the trucking income had become unpredictable - some weeks ok but most weeks I'm seeing one 250 mile trip so the work has dwindled to the point of being relatively small change.

I will not be saying anything about the specifics of the work - we take oaths and sign papers guaranteeing the privacy of census data - so not a peep from me about anything learned on the job. In this phase we really don't learn anything but the sanctity of census data is pretty much absolute for 72 years then it's released as public record. Just think in only 7 years you can find out where and where I was born. Well I guess it's longer than that - my first decennial was 1950 and that data will see daylight in 2022 so you do have to wait a while - 13 years. Or figure it out when I go on Medicare in 3 months. Can't wait for that - no more co-pays and early every local transit system in the country will let me ride for half fare with my Medicare card. Bring it on!

I will say working a five day 40 hour week has been tiring - I mean fatiguing. Driveway work can be tiring but most of the time it's ok - this has been rather hectic. Of course 40 hours of 8 to 5 is what 80% of the country works and most drive more than the five mile commute I had so it doesn't sound too bad - it's just for me - i haven't worked a 40 hour regular hours type work week since 1999 and it's been sort of a shock. i'm glad it's over. The field work will be tiring in a physical way - that much time on foot and the miles of walking but I think it'll be good. There could be some health benefits for all of us. I might find a pedometer - will be interesting to see how many miles I walk in a day. It's not a huge number since waiting for the GPS signal to settle on a location slows down the production - but it's more than most of us are accustomed to I'm sure. Probably 4 or 5 miles in doing 120 to 150 homes in a typical day. I need to set up some ledgers and track my houses/day. No real need to but it'd be fun to track it and it's the sort of thing I do - count stuff - including my own stuff.

Most recent trucking work was two weeks ago - I moved three Altec units to St. Joe in two weeks - one from Chillicothe, MO to STJ, one from Beatrice NE and the third from Holdredge NE - that was the longest one at about 300 miles and a long day with the deadheading of 400 miles. The sort of trip that is more work than it's worth to be honest. Of course Chillicothe to STJ was 78 miles and I did that and the Beatrice job in the same day so that was a good day.

Happy Streets ... and Trails.

Dick Williams
Kansas City

Lessons Learned Department

This "scratch" on a recently delivered unit was the subject of a lot of phone calls and a $700 damage claim later reduced to $300. I missed it on the pre-trip so my company had to pay - but split the charge with the shipper who'd had the truck for 2 years while I had the truck for 19 hours. I'm sure it was pre-existing but I didn't document it on the pre-trip - it's barely visible unless you're on all fours looking at the lower portion of the driver's door from ground level.

The receiver was sure he'd find something wrong with the truck and he and two employees crawled every inch of the body and the glass looking for something - the most thorough turn-over inspection I've seen. It worked - he got $300 and will most likely repair the massive damage in house with some touch up paint - he has a paint operation so even if he does a full repair it's all in-house.

Pittsburgh PA

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:00:48 GMT

On greyhound just west of STL en route to home base after delivering a lab truck to Carnegie Mellon University in PIT. Good trip of abt 900 miles starting from Lawrence KS Wednesday. rjw

Waitin on a tow

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:07:57 GMT

On the side of I29 4 miles south of St. Joe in an IHC 7300 that I was to take to auction west of STL. But the truck got 5 miles down the road and died. Restarted and died. Repeated and I'm throwing in the towel. Waiting now to hear from the tow outfit that Altec called or get released to hop in my toad and go home. Ond hour into my wait tine. Worst thhmg is the $70 worth of my diesel now on board.

Amtrak number 3

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:42:03 GMT

Tonite I am onboard the Southwest Chief just west of Galesburg IL en route KC. Made a delivery north of Detroit last nite...a GMC 3500.

Marion ia to stj

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 18:56:18 GMT

Ford F150 Marion IA to St Joe. Towing my S10. Cold but sunny.

Underway to Wright City MO

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:24:13 GMT

A day trip tow job today moving an Altec F350 from STJ tn an auction wert of STL. 260 mile rev run then 200 mi return to home.

New style

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:15:00 GMT

I've just set up to do diary entries by email which will allow me to update by cell phone. This is the trial run. next trucking venture is thir afternoon. Conpleting the move of an alteb unit to st joe. rjw

Sterlings by the Pair - IND-MKC and Tarkio MO to MKC

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:05:17 GMT

Two trips this week - and it's only Wednesday - first was Indianapolis to Kansas City Monday 1-12-09 and then Tarkio Missouri to Kansas City Tuesday, 1-13-09. Both were the soon to be abandoned line: Sterling . And both came through with that saving grace in the driveaway world - fuel on board.

Sterling Number One - Monday's child. Megabus at 2045 CST out of Kansas City to St. Louis for $27.50 then a ten minute walk to the Greyhound station and transfer to Greyhound's 0345 coach to Indianapolis. Could have done Greyhound, GLI, all the way but timing would have been similar, cost would have been more and on Megabus I'd be pretty much assured of room to spread out. My boarding number was 15 on the Megabus so that let me know when I booked the coach would be "typical" or very lightly loaded. Richard the driver. Richard's seen me enough and I always call him by name to cement our relationship. I volunteered my booking number but he just waved me on board - I think he took it on faith I had actually booked a seat. Not much formality to Megabus - no movie this night and I rode high and handsome in my usual right/front seat. Got some sleep - never much - but there were ten mile segments from time to time that I don't recall. This night the meal and fuel stop was at Loves and I did get a small burger at Hardees - called that a late supper.

I had about a 2 1/2 hour layover at the Greyhound terminal in STL. Waiting is much improved now versus the former Cass Avenue station. New place is spartan -but there is room so you can find a seat and there's room for a decent lineup versus the former situation with one gate's lines crossing another gate's line - just a mass of people. So it's a big improvement as to function.

The GLI part of the trip was $32 on Veterans Advantage which - saves me 15% on every ticket. The GLI Road Rewards program does not apply when using the Veteran's discount so no free ticket in my future but saving 15% on every ticket is a quicker way to saving money and I'd guess adds up to more than a freebie after ten rides. Like all frequent rider/flier programs it's pretty lame. It's taken me a while to understand that it doesn't work when I use the Veteran's Advantage discount. Now I know and will quite trying.

Into IND at 0900 ET - cab to the sending outfit, ABF trucking down on I-465 at Exit 4. Same place I usually fuel since Mr. Fuel is there and usually has the cheapest diesel. The truck, a single axle Sterling day cab, had been on hold for brake work - but it checked out ok. A 1999 with 660,000 miles and no worse than expected for the age and miles. Best of all 220 gallons of tank capacity and showing me 5/8 full which would be about 135 gallons. At any conceivable MPG more than enough to do the 500 miles to KC. Lucky day and finally a gamble that paid off. The two earlier Indiana trips, FWA-MKC and IND-MKC, had not paid off with fuel on board but they worked out OK. This would be much better - approx 500 miles at base of 60 cents and fuel surcharge of 31 or 32 cents per mile for a strong take with only my transportation expense of $59 for buses and $19 for cabs as outlay.

It's always a question after a night on the buses as to whether I'll have 500 miles in me and a question that I can't answer till underway and in fact till I make the drop. I felt good at the outset and weather was good - cold but the cab heat was working good. My only problem was a persistent odor in the cab - smelled like varnish or shellac - not sure it if was paint burning off some new part - I didn't see anything newly painted when doing the pre-trip or if it was diesel exhaust. When I thought it had gone away it would always come back so I made the trip with my window down a couple of inches and the heat cranked up an extra notch or two to counteract the fresh air and the fumes. The odor never did make me nauseous or give me a headache - just a background annoyance.

The usual progression - airport, Cloverdale, Brazil, Terre Haute, state line, Casey, Effinigham, Vandalia, the I-270 junction then across the river to home state and the Missouri countdown: St. Charles, Kingdom City, Columbia, Boonville, Higginsville, Oak Grove and touchdown at Midway Truck Sales just south of Worlds of Fun.

I made a meal stop at Kingdom City. As much to get out of the truck as to eat. With no futzing over fuel and making fuel stops I can run longer than normal between stops - especially since I'm not doing coffee and soda anymore.

I pulled onto Midway's used truck lot around 2000 - Gay met me there with the Explorer for a shuttle ride to my own truck. I made note of the fumes in the cab - we were off that lot to set up for the next trip. I'd left my S-10 at 3rd and Grand when I caught Megabus so we went there and the Monday night MB was on station boarding. I could to a 24 hour turnaround - leave every night at 2045 and be back at 2000 to reload and repeat. But one of those was enough - I could do it but I'm not going to do it. And the next truck was in Tarkio Missouri not IND.

I moved my S-10 to the Custom Truck outside the gate lot at 24 Highway just west of I-435. The next job would have me ending up there Tuesday night so by spotting my truck there ahead of time it'd solve my getting home problem.

Tuesday - new gig and a new rig. The job: move a Sterling crane from a job site five miles north of Tarkio Missouri back to Custom Truck in Kansas City. Tarkio is a small town just south of the Iowa border in Atchison County and about 12 miles east of I-29 at the Rockport exit. I had called my contact at the electrical substation under construction and he said the truck had been sitting there since before Thanksgiving. I mentioned it might be good to make sure it would start and he agreed.

I enlisted family help in getting to Tarkio. Katie, our Kansas City daughter, agreed to run chase car but she was busy till 1400 Tuesday so we didn't get started till around 1430 hours - about a 120 mile run up I-29. Kate put the pedal to the metal - I rode shotgun and we did ASBOG flash cards most of the trip to Tarkio. ASBOG is the state certification test for professional geologists and like all certification exams it's long and hard so we crammed on anticlines, sulfates, groundwater recharge, piezoelectric testing and saturated aquifers.

She held it at about 77 mph so it was a speedy trip and one fuel stop. I was under some time pressure to get to the substation by 1630 and we managed that with about ten minutes to spare. Amazing things happen at 75 to 80 mph compared to heavy trucks - often governed at 62 or 64 mph. Monday's ABF unit had a top speed of 57 mph. Everybody passes you at 57 mph. Even in IL where the truck speed limit is 55 mph.

We found the sub-station and the truck. Had a harder time finding anybody to talk to but eventually spotted some workers inside the fenced transformer enclosure and made contact with Bill - the foreman for PAR Electric. They were wrapping up their work on this project - a substation that'll tie some newly erected wind turbines in with the electrical grid. This installation was new to me - hadn't known of it and it's made up of small pods of towers over several square miles - not one big contiguous set of towers as with the King City wind farm to the south and east.

The truck was a big boy - the dimly lit photo was on the Custom Truck lot i KC. A Sterling chassis with a National telescoping crane and tri-axle running gear. That alone promised lousy fuel mileage but behold - a single 80 gallon tank chock full of blended diesel. Blended as in winter blend befitting this location - almost Iowa - and time of year - mid winter.

Bill had started the truck when I phoned him from I-29 so it was warming and in fact the cab was nice and warm and all seemed OK. Only 411 miles on it so it was a brand new truck. I pulled off the lot and onto US 59 a two-lay highway that leads south to Tarkio then I would retrace our steps west on US 136 to I-29 at the Rockport exit.

I eased onto the highway - all ok but barley half a mile down the road I seemed to start losing power - losing rpms and ground speed. Odd. The truck is a heavy one so I didn't expect much in performance and any upgrade would mean a major loss of speed but this seemed like something else. I revved the engine, downshifted but still couldn't develop normal rpms. Then the CHECK ENGINE light lit up- so I was probably in degraded mode - meaning the engine protection system had kicked in or something was restricting fuel flow.

There is no shoulder on US 59 - maybe a foot of gravel but no way enough to pull any vehicle off the road so I was crawling along at low rpm - still trying to find a gear that would let me develop power and get going. Not much luck but I was still moving - with flashers now - just crawling.

I kept hoping it would eventually even out but once or twice it lost all power and shut down. When it did I eased over as far as I could and luckily there's not much traffic on US 59 so that wasn't too much a concern. Called back to Bill - partly to ask if they'd had problems with the unit and partly to let him know I'd be back if I could find room to turn around and if I could get there. All this within about 2 miles of the substation.

When the engine shut completely down I could do an engine restart so I attempted it again - and another round of low rpms, no power but I was still inching along - sometimes up to 35 mph so I hadn't given up hope the unit might eventually choke it's way through a bad breakfast or something. It was mostly likely some gelled fuel since this day wasn't unduly cold - about 25 degrees - but it had been much colder in previous days so some globs of gel could be clogging the fuel filters or lines or injectors.

Kate had gone ahead once I was off the lot so I cell phoned her and asked her to standby - just pull over and see what happened. Didn't want to let my ride home get away if it wasn't going to be this Sterling crane.
I was coming up on Tarkio and still moving and playing with gears so still had some hope this would resolve. With time I got more rpms and could shift into higher gears with less of the feeling I was starved for fuel. I had eyeballed the tank back at the sub-station so I knew the gauge indication of "Full" was correct.

By the time I got to Tarkio - about 5 miles from where I started I had power, rpms, speed and was in 8th gear, my top gear. I was still wary but I was "go" for Rockport. There's a truck stop there so I was hoping to get the unit there where a service call or tow would be easier if needed. But once I turned west on US 136 for Rockport and I-29 I was feeling more confident and had no further trouble.

Kate has waited at Tarkio -she fell in behind me so my speed up the hills was her speed - an agonizing 35 to 40 mph on the steep ones. We joined I-29 and kept rolling. I called her and asked her to stay with me for ten miles and she did - no problems and I was happy to find a top speed of 65 mph once on the Interstate.

I released the chase car and the rest was duck soup. I called Bill to let him know I had a healthy truck. He said they'd not only filled with winter blend but had added some Howes anti-gel so they'd done their part but still I had that initial problem. Won't know the reason - probably gelled fuel even with their precautions but I don't know that for sure. Anyway a good run south on I-29 and watching the gauge drop from full to 3/4 to 5/8 in about 100 miles I was glad I was using somebody else's fuel. My rough calc is about 3.9 mpg. Big truck, not some wimpy, lightweight tag axle but three full time axles in back so lots of machinery turning.

I got to Custom Truck at 1930. Their gate was locked but I had an OK to leave it outside the gate. Backed it up to the fence and noted a security guard making the rounds on the inside. I asked if she wanted me to spot the truck inside the gate but she said no. That was fine with me as I didn't really want to move it again. I gave her the keys and paper work and was off their lot in my own truck by 2000.

A pretty good run after all. All the excitement was in the first five miles and that had a happy ending. We get a min pay of $155 for any job and still get the fuel surcharge so the job will pay around $185. I'll split the take with the chase car driver, it's all in the family, and we both consider it a pretty good five hours.

More cold weather ahead - the the snow with this series of Alberta Clippers is mainly tracking across MN/IA to northern IL and IN then east to New England. Were getting a full share of the cold air - low of around 3 below forecast here for tonight, Wednesday night. I'm no fan of venturing into extreme cold so won't campaign very hard for a next trip anywhere here in this region for the next 48 hours. There weren't many jobs of the nature I'm doing now anyway. Good time to start on 2008 tax work. I'll be saying that till the day I actually start - probably still a few months away.

Be safe if you are out - add the Howes - take extra clothes and a zero or ten degree sleeping bag for insurance. Plan for the worst and right now the worst can be pretty bad.

Dick Williams
Kansas City MO

Tow job from Decatur to St. Joe

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:54:35 GMT

The mission - move a 2008 Altec Ford F550 bucket truck from Decatur IL, DEC, to the Altec plant in St. Joseph, MO, STJ. The weather - excellent, cold but dry. The game plan - drive my S-10 to Decatur overnight Wednesday night, 1-7-09 and do the pickup around 0700 Thursday - hook 'em up and drive to STJ towing my pickup behind the revenue truck.

Pretty simple. I checked out Greyhound and there is one bus a day that works from KC to Decatur - leaves KC at 1250 arriving DEC 2100 hours - but the cost is $79 and on a job of 333 miles there's not a lot of money to work with. My S-10 gets about 22 mpg so the trip would use around 16 gallons - or about $20 in fuel - that $60 difference between driving and bus carried the day and it would be a tow job even though it doubles the driven miles. Same reasoning applied to a Guthrie OK to STJ job early in the week - if fuel goes back over $3.00 the economics will narrow and may tilt again toward the bus but on this one towing won out.

I left KC around 2030 - it would be a six hour drive to DEC using US 36 and I-72 so north to Cameron then east across MO and most of IL. I felt pretty good - got to Decatur about 0130 and located the shipper, L. E. Myers, Co, an electrical contractor that leases a lot of Altec aerial equipment.

I had about 5 hours for cab napping but before I got to that I found a nearby IHOP and had breakfast. Me and about 3 other night-owl, refugees from the cold. It was around 18 degrees in DEC so after IHOP I drove back to L.E. Myers, stayed in the cab of my truck and ran the heater from time to time - woke up around 0600 to see a guy moving material off a flatbed with a forklift but I didn't go in the shop till about 0630.

My truck was there - inside and warm and I found Pat who said he could OK the check out. All night I'd been dreading the cold hookup but the service bay was clear with roll up doors on both sides of the building so I asked if I could bring my truck inside and do the hookup there - in plenty of light and best of all in their warm garage. That was ok with Pat so I had an easy hookup - all the lights worked on the toad and I was out the door just before 0700 - retracing my route across IL and MO. I did ask Pat to add a quart of oil which he did. The truck only had 6000 miles on it but the dipstick showed it down a quart or two. Sort of odd.

Cold and the slightest amount of snow in the air but it wasn't real snow - just some condensed moisture that was "snow-like" and didn't extend beyond Decatur. Easy move across IL. Oddly diesel was cheaper there in DEC than anywhere else - $2.09 at a Thorntons so I filled with about 20 gallons - the unit had half a tank at pickup. Good, not great, but a lot better then "E" or 1/4 tank. We're required to drop Altec unist with 1/4 tank so half a tank of the 40 gallon tank would mean 10 gallons of their fuel that I could claim as my own.

I-72 is a great route - no traffic, no scales, after Springfield no towns. I did see some law enforcement action but they were dealing with other people and I kept to about 62 mph. The dash readout showed I was getting 7.4 mpg and the gauge confirmed after I had enough miles to make my quarter tank judgment - about 68 or 70 miles per quarter tank. Lousy mileage for a glorified pickup but I've been in the F550s before so had a clue what I'd be getting. Towing produces a few noticeable jerks on stopping and starting - more of a factor when the lead vehicle is an F550 than in the IHC 7300 I drove and towed with on Monday. With that truck I never felt anything from my toad.

Palmyra MO west of Hannibal and a second drink of diesel but at $2.199 this time - I added 15 gallons so that was not a fill and was calculated to land me in STJ with 1/4 tank.

There's still some two lane on US 36 between Hannibal and Macon - west of Macon it's all 4 lane and mostly resurfaced 4 lane so that drive is much better than it used to be. Grading work has been done on most of the 60 mile Macon gap so perhaps the fall of 2009 will see nearly all of US 36 as four lane across Missouri. I don't care if it ever comes up to full Interstate standards - four lane with a decent road surface will be good enough for me. Thank you MODOT - it's been a very slow process but the end is almost in sight. There is maybe 10 or 15 miles where I don't see the prep work underway so that'll take another couple of years and some infrastructure money to give us the new NAFTA highway.

I think 36 will pull a lot of truck traffic off of I-80 and I-70 once it is four laned across Missouri - it's a natural routing from CHI-MKC and trucks will find it in numbers. There'll be a need for more heavy duty truck services when that happens - right now the truck stops at Palmyra, Chillicothe and Cameron are it for semis who need plenty of room. I can get by with smaller diesel stops in the trucks I move.

STJ at 1330 - and my gauge was a bit below 1/4 tank so I added $4.00 at Speedy's just north of Altec. I had a pretty good time en route since i did minimal stopping - 6 1/2 hours. Unhooked, checked with Dispatch (negative) and south for home. I did hit the Rolling Hills library in STJ to do papers and get those in the mail hoping to make our Friday cutoff for pay.

The fatigue factor set in on that final 40 miles to home base. I got really tired and sleepy from about Faucett to my Hiway 152 West exit off of I-29. I thought, "This is crazy - I can't make it home?" So windows down for a dose of cold air, some stomping of feet and safely (that's a stretch) to the house around 1500. I was zonked to be honest so grabbed the first three things I spied on the counter to eat and hit the bed. Glad I didn't see the cat food before I saw the open bag of Cheetos.

Trip stats: 339 miles vs contract of 333 miles. Trip pays 40 cents per mile base plus 32 cents fuel surcharge for 72 cents. My fuel burn was 36.690 gallons and $77.42 in cost for 10.0 mpg and 23 cents per mile. Thus gross of $232 minus fuel cost of $77 for $162 then minus my S-10 fuel of $30 for net of $132 for the very long day. Not enough but it keeps a settlement check in the pipeline and actually it's better than I anticipated. Of course there are other expenses for my truck beyond just the fuel. Since it was a tow job I can deduct 55 cents a mile for the miles I drove and that will wipe out all the profit meaning it's neutral as to tax situation when i do the 2009 taxes.

I was to do an Indianapolis to KC job next - today in fact. But that truck, a Sterling bobtail tractor, has brake problems and it sounds like they're serious enough the buyer here in KC will flatbed the truck rather than pay to have it fixed on the IND end. So that job was mine but has disappeared. Thus no next trip and a very meager job list - I think about 5 jobs on it with one or two on hold. I would have crawled on board the Megabus to do the Indy job but all in all I'm glad it crumped. Needed the night at home versus a night on the bus then staring at 500 miles trip.

Happy Trails

Dick Williams
KC Missouri

Winter Ops - no joy, no fun, potentially dangerous.

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 18:06:44 GMT

All the above - no joy, no fun, potentially dangerous. Kind like all trucking. What's the next line? "But somebody has to do it."

I guess but in this work no truck and no trip is so important that is absolutely has to be done on the original sked. So as with all transportation work flexibility and "tactical" decision making are king.

The job: move a used Kenworth T300 box truck from Ft. Wayne IN to Kansas City, KS - a 623 mile move.
The timing: always ASAP but nothing actually specified
The game p lan: Megabus to Chicago - Lakefront Trailways from Chicago to Ft. Wayne arriving Friday morning 12-19-08
The problem: Weather, lousy. Forecast snow/freezing rain Chicago and freezing rain Ft. Wayne for Thursday night/Friday morning
The kicker: Truck was in an unknown location - somewhere in Indianapolis
The mistakes I made: Several - didn't check all carriers including Southwest which had an $80 flight to IND. I booked transportation before talking to the shipper. Over bought and over paid for fuel. Rookie mistakes all of them.
The end result: Nothing went as planned and that was good - in the end a good and mostly uneventful trip.

I got the job order very late on Tuesday, closing time. and got the actual job sheet Wednesday 12-17-08. I made plans based on the job sheet to go to Ft. Wayne, FWA. by bus - using Megabus to CHI then Lakefront Trailways. In fact I went ahead and booked Megabus to leave Kansas City on Thursday at 1130 hours CT arriving CHI 2140 and then a second leg on Lakefront from CHI at 0001 arriving FWA around 0600 Friday morning. The fare was the highest I've encountered for an MKC-CHI trip on Megabus, $68 due to a big group of MU students boarding in Columbia MO that day - colleges had just let out for Christmas/New Year's break.

After receiving the job order from Dispatch I called the shipper - a used truck outfit in Ft. Wayne, IN and learned the truck wasn't in Ft. Wayne but was in Indianapolis and the location was "unknown". They were having work done which they assured me would be completed Thursday night so I would be ok with a Friday pickup. There was a 2nd unit from the same shipper located in Ft. Wayne also coming to KC so I had choices - pick up in IND or FWA. That actually saved the day.

I'd been checking websites all along for weather to CHI then FWA. At first the progs indicated marginal - freezing precip with more snow than ice for CHI and freezing rain but warming temps for FWA. So initially the FWA pickup looked doable but shaky. As the day progressed Wednesday the forecasts shifted toward worsening conditions across northern Illinois and northern Indiana - big snow for CHI - with up to 12 inches forecast for Thursday night and more toward a sig freezing precip even over northern IN. Warm air aloft would be moving over still cold surface air - the setup for an ice storm and the focus shaped up over northern IN while for the Indianapolis area it looked like freezing rain in the night would give way to all liquid rain by Friday morning as surface temps were slated to warm to the low 30s over IND.

Well I had a choice to make and could make it Thursday afternoon - even after I boarded Megabus. By the time I boarded however I knew I was not going to FWA but would opt for the Indy truck even though they still didn't know where it was. Choices were the body shop or the Palmer Leasing home shop.

I boarded Megabus at 1130 in downtown KC - left my Chevy parked across from the City Diner. About eight of us on board but the driver warned the coach would fill at the Columbia stop and we should take only the min stuff topside - leave the rest in the luggage compartment at the back of the bus. I 'fessed up to the driver that I was going to get off in STL even though my booking said I was going to CHI. I told him of the snow forecast for CHI and he thought I was nuts for changing plans based on a forecast. He said the bus would go to Chicago no matter what and I didn't go any farther and to my credit never verbally pulled out my "former met" credentials to lend anything to anything. They're pretty shaky credentials anyway and often backfire.

We did indeed board about 50 more pax in Columbia but I held my left front, upper deck position and two seats to myself. Boarding took a lot longer than the normal 10 minutes and we still stopped at the TA in O'Fallon for fuel and a meal break - thus arrived at Union Station STL about an hour down. That was fine with me as via the reroute I had lots of time to kill somewhere -either STL or in IND since the place I'd pick up wasn't open all night. I could take an 1840 coach from STL arriving IND at midnigh and kill about 7 hours there in IND or kill time in STL and take a 2240 coach and kill time both places.

I ate in Union Station which is where Megabus stops for STL pax. Union Stations itself was deserted since there was freezing rain in STL by now and streets were ok but sidewalks were slick and the mention of freezing precip immediately inhibits visitors. The "Stop in the Name of Fudge" crew couldn't even give away samples - normally a crowd pleaser. No crowd Thursday night.

I got to the new Gateway Terminal - combined Amtrak/Greyhound bus station - around 1800 - decided to take a bird in hand and get on the 1840 coach. I thought it would be packed as I was boarding late and to my surprise it was nearly empty but was waiting on a couple of late arriving connections. So we sat there in the terminal for an hour - left in freezing precip. While getting my ticket I heard an announcement that the STL-CHI Greyhoud bus was canceled based on the CHI area forecast. I don't know the fate of the northbound Megabus - probably made it but I'd guess had a slow go once past Bloomington. Glad I wan't on it.

The Indy coach never filled completely even when the late bus showed up so I held two seats all the way to IND. One stop in Effingham at the Pilot for our meal break and a second non-break stop in Terre Haute, IN. We were in freezing precip all the way. It was hard for me to tell while onboard but when we got to IND I saw the leading edge surfaces of the bus were covered in ice. I think the road itself was ok as temps were at or just below freezing. We arrived IND at 0100 so I had about six hours time to kill. And sleep if possible.

The IND terminal was awash with GIs in uniform, Army camo. It's common to see a few GIs on the buses but never a large group. This was a very large group - almost like a whole unit making a move together. Turned out they were from Ft. Leonard Wood - a training base in southern MO - and the US Army had shut down training for a two week holiday - just like colleges. Good deal for the GIs and it was good to see them with their Jarhead haircuts and their crisp "Yes, sir, No sir" responses. Amazing that conversion from "kid" to "adult" a few weeks in the US Army brings about. Nice group - relaxed and charging their cell phones, talking and a few were on their laptops. I eventually got horizontal along the north wall of the terminal - breaking the City's rules about sleeping while horizontal. Sleeping upright is ok in IND in a public place but not while horizontal. But my inner rebel came to the fore and I dozed horizontally but didn't get much sleep - maybe an hour.

Up and out at 0645 and by then it was plain rain - about 33 degrees although I was fooled by a slick sidewalk. Too wet for me to want to do my urban nav on the IndyGo buses - that would be wicked, wet and cold and I hadn't even doped out the routing so I got a cab to the shipper, Palmer Leasing on the east side of the city off of Post Road and just beyond the I-465 loop. $35 fare plus tip for the 13 miles - worth it since I was keenly interested in getting underway and headed back to KC. I'll get some help from Dispatch on that part of the transportation I think - at least I mentioned the fare and typically we go halvsies.

Shop guy at Palmer found the truck and brought it inside so I could pretrip it in the dry - a nice courtesy and appreciated. No problems. The rig was a 2003 Kenworth T300 box truck with a hazmat placard holder, box vents and a holding tank drain cock at left rear of the box - plus a large, full- height lift gate on the bak. I learned later it was used to handle parts cleaning chemicals - similar to Safety-Kleen units but a local company. Only 150K miles on it pretty low for a six year old unit.

If I ever once encounter a used truck where the floor isn't covered with sunflower seed hulls I'll make note here via the SSD. Otherwise just mentally pencil in "...floor of cab littered with sunflower seed hulls" if I'm in a used truck. Sort of a disgusting way to dispose of them but sunflower seeds are a staple wth many truckers. I'm not one of 'em. Six speed tranny, cruise was inop as was the windshield washer - both a big annoyance especially given the sloppy, wet roads.

This was a unit just off lease that had been sold to Truck Transport Sales in Kansas City, KS off on Kaw Drive - about eight miles west of downtown Kansas City. I was off the sending lot in IND at 0730 and very happy to be off at that time - 0630 Kansas City time. GPS showed 511 miles to KCK - just over 8 hours travel time and I was go for liftoff.

I had to add fuel immediately outside the gate of the Palmer lot as the unit was on "E" - inconvenient and since I never have the nerve to deliver on "E" it meant I'd be donating fuel back to the receiver but fairly close to "E". Across town on "Super 70" in the continuing rain - nothing sticking to road or truck and traffic seemed light for the time of day -a pleasant surprise.

One good thing - the only good thing - about picking up on "E". If the truck's running you know you can get back to that same point on the gauge and be running - well a long downgrade can mess up that theory - but it is some rassurance as you get down to 1/8 tank or less that your were ok "once" in that low range of the gauge. Two 50s so lots of capacity and more than I'd need. I estimated 8 mpg and put on 16 gal on Shadeland near the Palmer gate - another 14 gallons Mooresville and a final 18 in Brazil, IN. I bought too much fuel in Indiana and ended up buying none in Missouri.

It's hard in the first 90 miles to get a good handle on fuel flow since I didn't fill the twin tanks. I was trying to infer my mpg from relatively small changes in the gauge indication and I didn't do that very well. I fueled for the 2nd time in Mooresville, IN then again in Brazil at a Road Ranger truck stop.

For some reason on this trip Indiana fuel was around $2.45 while MO was a bargain at $2.09 - much larger difference than normal I ended up at around 10 mpg which I was happy with even though I overpaid somewhat - maybe $10 worth. Multiply that by 70 trips and it's a sig amount but normally I do pretty well on managing my fuel purchases. SSD Maxim: It's better to overpay than overbuy. This time I did both - over bought and over paid. And I did the over buying in the wrong state. Double whammy.

I got out of the truck at the Brazil stop expecting temps still in the 30s but it was a heat wave in Brazil - temps were in the 50s from there most of the way across IL but by the time I got to STL I had passed through the low center and into the colder air mass that already blanked Missouri. Interesting in that in moving west while the warm front was moving north I crossed from 30s to 50s and then very quickly back into the 30s and 20s. Very strong west or northwest winds crossing I Lwith gusts up to 49 mph per a check from the wunderground.com website via my Sprint PCS web-enabled phone.

Uneventful run - I kept expecting to have a fatigue letdown somewhere in the 500 miles from IND-MKC since I'd been up for essentially 36 hours - some dozing on the bus and some more in the IND terminal but never anything close to sleeep. I'm off coffee and carbonation now so no artificial stimulants but for some reason I felt decent all the way. I stopped for soup at Mr. Fuel, O'Fallon MO which has a decent deli and I like to stop there. Didn't need fuel since by then I had doped things out pretty well and knew I was getting well over 200 miles per quarter tank implying something over 8 mpg. I was go for Kansas City with my gauge showing 3/8 tank at O'Fallon. That scale was CLOSED.

Original plan was park the truck near our house late Friday and deliver Saturday morning if the outfit was open. My wife, Gay, could chase me to the lot which can be tricky to find from verbal instructions. Another plan was to park near their lot and have her come fetch me. But in talking to the receiver and seeing I could be there by 1700 by keeping my left door closed while crossing Missouri we decided I'd push it and Bob, my receiver, would hang around till 1730 at least if I was slowed crossing the KC metro.

I pulled onto his lot at exactly 1700 hours CST. There was more ice on that lot than I'd seen anywhere on the trip - very slippery. Bob saw my next plight and by happenstance lives north of the river also so he volunteered to give me a ride home - letting Gay off the hook for a nighttime trip across the river to Kaw Avenue. I turned the truck over and got that ride with Bob right to my door. Limo service by the receiving dealer - I think a first although I've benefited from many rides in the past - never to my door.

Good trip in the end . What would it have been like going to Fort Wayne as originally planned? Probably impossible. Since Greyhound canceled that inbound run to CHI I'd guess Lakefront canx their CHI skeds that night so I'd have been in CHI at midnight in heavy snow with no place to go. I would have hit the hostel - a long slog across town - then found out the next morning, Friday morning, that Ft. Wayne had been hit hard by ice. Per this image.

Ft. Wayne ice storm - 12-19-08. Photo courtsey John Swerens posted on shared with attribution basis to Flickr.

The city of FWA essentially shut down Friday and that probably continues into today, Saturday. I have the other truck as a pending item and had planned to leave Sunday 12-21-08, go up on Megabus or Amtrak to CHI and then do the Lakefront bus to FWA arriving Monday. But I can't reach the shipper - I tried by phone all day Friday and again today only to get "Call cannot be completed" so I assume the dealership is without power and closed. Too big a risk to go up there hoping it'll be open Monday and the temp Monday morning is forecast to be around five below zero. So I'm scrubbing the trip. I'd never gotten to the stage of making a reservation on Amtrak or Megabus so nothing at stake and that truck will most likely sit till after Christmas. Tuesday snow comes back to FWA and CHI and Wednesday I'm not interested since the world will be shutting down and for gosh sake's it's Christmas Eve. It was Monday or never and for now it's "never.

Thanks to Larry Wilson, from my NWS days and still a practicing met with 50 years in the biz, for helping with the decision making and data feed by email. Thanks also to the good luck of having choices as to pick up locations and to Valerie at Jaspers Used Truck Sales - my contact in Ft. Wayne till the phones went dead. This was indeed a rare situation to have two trucks in separate locations. An assigned truck and a "insurance" truck.

Hey this trip worked - no point in pressing my luck in an Arctic airmass with another one Monday.

STATS: Indicated miles 481 - odometer read low and actual miles per GPS 511.
Fuel purchased 48.666 gallons at $117.38 for 9.9 mpg and 24.4 cents per mile fuel cost.

What a difference a season makes on those fuel stats. I overpaid by about 40 cents on half that fuel - could have saved 24 gallons times 40 cents or about $10.00 by closer attention to my fuel purchases since MO fuel was 40 cents under IN fuel. It isn't easy to get a quick fix on mpg when you have 100 gallons of tank capacity. The gauge doesn't move much in 90 miles travel - the only way to make an estimate.

You take care - stay warm - have a good Christmas and a good New Year. For any drivers on the road Christmas Eve most Flying Js are offering a free turkey dinner with your CDL ticket from 5 to 7 pm. My days in this line of work are dwindling - just as I've said for about three years now so no firm predictions for 2009.

Happy Trails - be safe. I firmly believe in carrying a four season sleeping bag when working in these winter conditions - mine will be with me from now till March.

Dick Williams
Kansas City MO

Follow up - Monday 12-22-08 - I explained my plan to do the 2nd FWA unit just after Christmas to Dispatch and offered to turn that job back to her for reassignment. She took me up on that so as is stands Monday afternoon I'm off that job. This is rare - turning a job back once I've had it and I was planning on doing it but she wanted it done I guess on the 23rd or 24th so it's back in the hopper and up for grabs. Not impossible that I'll get it on the rebound a week from now. OK either way. rjw

Follow up number 2: Wed 12-24-08 I do have the FWA trip back and will leave KC at 2045 Sunday for CHI then arriving FWA 1700 Monday evening to do the pickup. The outfit is ok with setting units out for after-hours. This time weather looks to be no problem - gradual warm up under way here and there.

Want to see real cold?

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/12/19/a-visit-to-the-colde.html

What's happening

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:27:01 GMT

Yes, it's been quite a while and the pace of updates has gone the way of many web projects - stalled.

I'm still driving - although the Bush economy has taken its toll and our jobs lists no longer have a steady flow of jobs for Kansas City based drivers. Driveaway USA has acquired two new major clients but both entail satellite operations. One is the McNeilhus company out of Dodge Center MN - they make ready mix trucks and the other is Pierce out of Appleton WI - a major manufacturer of fire trucks. Both are great clients for DUSA and a crew of drivers is located near both plants. It's a long haul for KC based drivers to either Dodge Center or Appleton - long enough that I haven't been to either location.

I'm at trip 50 on the year - the year being 2008. That's something like 60% of my previous pace. Last trip was to Hanover MD with an Isuzu NRR - that client Corporate Express has been a mainstay but they're being acquired by Staples office supply and that fact has markedly slowed the rate at which they're receiving trucks. That impacts our delivery of new trucks and was one of the reliable sources of outbound trips. So not much work coming out of KC or returning to KC making for more deadheading and the economics suffer when any trips requires a deadhead leg to get to the truck and another one to return to base.

This is year seven going on eight - the seven year milestone passed on May 2nd, 2008. And I'm being a bit picky about what I move. Used dump and cement trucks I'm staying away from - too many maint and inspection issues with both. The Oshkosh mixers, new or used, I'm shunning - the oddball center cab driving position and very limited room in the cab are both a pain. One trip in an Oshkosh was enough for me and several other drivers. As with the changing client mix the changes in the types of trucks we're moving is cutting down on the number of trips - along with a need to stay closer to home to assist my mom who'll be 101 on October 26th, 2008.

Hey, I'm still here, still driving - no problems with the work when there is work that has decent profit potential and keeps me out of nasty weather. That's another factor - the winter of 07-08 was a difficult one for all who work in transportation - I'm not soon wishing to repeat playing dodge 'em with the fast moving systems we has last winter. Too much of a bad thing for my taste. Heck, I'm a retiree and while I'm in it for the dough there's gotta be some peace of mind about each trip or it ain't no fun at all.

Happy Trails - stay safe.

Dick Williams
Kansas City MO

Trp 84 for 2007 - Cincinnati to Elizabeth CO - Venturo Crane with a Mace missle alongside

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 18:25:17 GMT

Cool truck - ok trip. Ford F550 chassis with a Venturo truck mounted crane arm moving from the Venturo factory on the north side of Cincinnati to their sales rep in Elizabeth Colorado - about 30 southeast of Denver - east of Castle Rock on Hiway 86.

Winter trips are speculative trips. You see them on the job list then check your calendar for conflicts - as with medical or dental appointments or perhaps a wedding anniversary. If none of that going on and it's ok to be out of town you check weather - short range, long range - all ranges taking into consideration the time to get to the pickup - the time en route and the way home. Winter adds so much uncertainity to this work if you're a weather chicken as I am where the goal is essentially to avoid almost all 'weather'. Nice dry pavement - I love it. Light winds, no fog, no sleet, snow, no freezing precip - no black ice on road after dark - the whole range of winter conditions I'd like to avoid.

There's one winter condition that can't be avoided - the dark of night. With the sun setting at 5 pm and rising at 7 am it's guaranteed much of this work will be done in darkness - for me increasingly another factor I want to avoid. Over and over however I find the logistics require at least some of each trip to be done in the dark. I'm not afraid of the dark - just not crazy about a long night drive and in winter the nights are indeed long - 14 hours out of each 24 hour day.

This trip would entail a deadheading leg on both ends as there wasn't any obvious tie in. Also I got the job on about Dec 6th, 2007 and the job order indicated teh truck would not be ready to move till Tuesday the 11th and needed to be delivered no later than Tue the 18th. That's a large window and the more time we have to work with in winter the better.

I booked Megabus from KC to Chicgao then a second leg from CHI to Cincinnati for the night of the 10th - arriving CVG the afternoon of the 11th. Had planned to spend Thursday the 13th in KC - leave early on Friday and deliver Friday afternoon so I booked a 7 day advance Greyhound DEN-MKC seat for $59.

Any plan in winter is a hope and this one got caught up in an ice storm - freezing rain - that fell Sunday night into Monday. The ice was worse to our north and south - St. Joe and all of north Missouri took it hard with most home in St. Joe going dark for two or more nights. Here in KC some lost power - we didn't - and there was about 1/4 to 1/2 inch accumulaltion of ice on lines and surfaces. Bad but not real bad.

The low and storm moved east and I was concerned about the 90 minute connecting time I'd have in CHI Tuesday morning so opted to slip my travel by 24 hours - leaving KC Tuesdday night vs Monday night. This got me tanged up with Megabus' policy on changes to existing reservations. They have a stated and apparently strict "no change" policy within 24 hours. If you decide at 8 05 pm on Sunday that you want to change a reservation you have for 8 pm on Monay you're "SOL" - out of luck. No changes - no refunds - no way. I managed to get on their website and screwed things up pretty good - it's cumbersome to use if trying to make a change and somehow their site allowed me to change one leg of my two-legger but not both. Hmmm - a call to a human could surely straighten this out.

Called the 1 800 BLUE BUS number and heard the no changes policy verbally but also got a 2nd number for Customer Service. That rep repeated the policy - no matter we'd had a semi-major ice storm - all trnsportation was disrupted. She simply parroted the policy that if their buses were running then all reservations remained in effect and if you couldnt' get to the bus that was your problem and no refunds and no changes since by now I was within the 24 hour no-change zone. Hmm - we both restated our positions - major ice from me - no changes withing 24 hours from her. That call ended badly - the rep hung up on me and I was facing a botched up reservation that now wouldn't work at all since I'd disconnected one leg from the other by a day. I could opt to buy a totally new reservation but that would be good money after bad with no way ever to recoup the $44 fare from KC to CHI.

Waited a while and tried the CS number again. Got a different agent - started at the beginning and got a much better receipton. This rep could not refund anything but I was able to add about $28 to the $68 I was already out and get a pair of seats that would work. Not great - I was now paying about $90 for the MKC-CHI-CVG travel - more than I would have paid on Greyhound for a more direct routing via STL and IND but I had seats and if past experience held true a less crowded coach than with anything Greyhound runs across I-70. So I was ok - not great but ok then the rep sweetened the deal by comping me two future travel legs - those could be used last minute so they're protentially worth quite a bit more than the additional fare I was paying. One way to make me forget past hurts - comp me or send me out with a tank full of diesel or spiff me. The work is about money and a freebie is always welcome.

Nice lightly loaded coach to Chicago - about 10 boarded at 10th and Main in downtown KC - another 15 joined us for the 1 am stop in STL and we arrived CHI about on time, 6 30 am. That was great - time for a breakfast panini at the Corner Bakery Cafe - time to admire the Great Hall's trees and decor and time to board my 8 am southbound coach for CVG. The trip was looking up as this was the one main question mark - making the connnection in CHI.

Arrived downtown CVG at 3 pm - city bus to Tri County Mall and a courtesy pickup by one of the owners of the Ventury plant - got my truck and was out of town by 5 pm - in rush hour traffic but the truck's small and agile so I had no problems reaching the open highway - headed for Louisville and west toward home.

Even though I complain about night driving I still do plenty of it -" the exigencies of the service" an old Air Force phrase. This one quickly became a night drive with the early onset of dusk then dark. I had opted the southern routing from CVG to KC - the choices being north to I-70 or south to I-64. Either way I'd end up on I-70 at STL but the I-64 routing see less traffic and fewer scales than I-70. It's a lonlier road with fairly long stretches between services - there's good and bad in that aspect of the route but overall I prefer it to I-70.

The Great Hall in Chicago Union Station - Chirstmas 2007

I got the truck with 3/4 tank of fuel - nice way to start a trip and thought I'd make it easily to the major truck stops east of Evansville IN - at Exit 25. However not far into the trip I could see I was not getting primo mileage - these F550s with any sort of load get fairly low mileage for small trucks. I do better in a full size road tractor - the Mack daycab single axle units typically getting 9 to 10 mpg. This F550 was showing me about 8 or 8.5 mpg - that was an estimate before a fill to fill calculation was possible . 75 miles per quarter tank which meant I'd need fuel before Evansville - and it would have to be ULSD. Found a regular station at Ferdinand IN - not cheap but then I saw I had to have fuel to reach Evansville so added 4 gallons of $3.529 fuel - about 35 miles worth and even with that I was sweating Exit 25 - not truly a diesel scare more of a diesel heads up. Filled at Pilot after circling two stations and probably 20 diesel bays to find the ULSD island.

Evansville and fuel at Pilot for the "bargain" price of $3.059 per gallon - nice to be close to three buck fuel again after the excursion to higher prices over the past couple of months. Still wouldn't have a good mpg check till the next fill but the vibes were 8 or so mpg and the dashboard readout agreed. Game plan was as usual - "drive till you drop" and I dropped not too long after Evansville. Got to the Nashville IL exit between Mt. Vernon and STL and gave it up - cab nap in the 25 degree sleeping bag as a vacant parking lot. Couple of hours there and I was a go for STL - wanted to get through there before the morning rush and I made that goal - fueled again on the west side at QT MP 222 - less the bargain - $3.199 but still ok. Saw later I cudda shudda gone another 16 miles west to Mr. Fuel where diesel was I think $3.09 but no crying over a few cents now and then.

Daylight run on to Kansas City with home in sight around 10 am. The rear ouriggers of the truck kept me from getting into our driveway which is steep and a lot of vehicles drag trying to get up it - so moved the unit to the "concrete washout" are near our place where I can walk to and from the truck in about seven minutes. Home and done with the first leg - home also to wait out a snow forecast of 3 to 5 inches overngiht and into Saturday.

My timing on delivery was originally set for Friday and I'd planned to use the Mon to Friday commuter but - Front Range Express Bus AKA FREX - from Castle Rock to Denver and then Greyhound's 10 pm coach to KC. That was then and this is now - my delay by a day on the pickup meant my delivery would shift from Friday to Monday still tied to the FREX sked. Receiver was ok with that and volunteered a key ride from his home/office north of Elizabeth CO into Castle Rock's Park and Ride lot. Also it meant my Firday bus ticket was no longer "great" it was only "good". Normally Greyhound drivers don't much care about the dates on a ticket but in case the coach is full they do sometimes get sticky about such things and that would be a problem I'd deal with in Denver on Monday - my new delivery date.

We did get about 3 inches of snow - I'd moved the truck to Lowes from my closer in spot - thinking it'd be safer at Lowes in case of a big snow - the 7 incher we didn't get. As it was up on the Lowes lot it looked like a scant two inches and there was no problem. I opted to leave KC around 4 pm Sunday - drive for several hours and either cab nap or get a bone fide, honest to God motel room then do the rest of the trip Mondary morning. Part of the "new" deal was delivering between noon and 2 pm - receiver's preference and since he was offering a ride that would otherwise cost me $40 or $50 I was intent on keeping to his sked.

The only real weather concern was the night crossing of Kansas. They'd had a foot of snow around Hayes in central KS on Friday night. The Kansas DOT showed I-70 to be snow packed Saturday and I was concerned about the slush and wet roads refreezing Sunday night - but as I got to Russell then Hayes I found roads to be dry or merely damp -no ice and no problems. I got to Wakeeny - a little more than 300 miles into the 600 mile trip and decided I'd had enough. I could actually go on - sleep weary and make Elizabeth by daybreak but no real reson to and I'd feel much better getting a motel - doing a mostly legal ten hours off the road and completing the trip in an orderly manner Monday morning. Good plan - first motel in the small town of Wakeeny on a Sunday nigh was "NO VACANCY" - big surprise since there was no highway problem to force travelers off the road. Here rose an "X" factor - the sort of thing you can't know from a distance.

Big pipelline project undeway in central KS and the cheap motels of Wakeeny were filled with pipeline workers. Hmm - might be the case everywhere but no way to know without trying so on to Motel number two. They did have a $30 room and that was good for me - supposedly "non-smoking" bu I knew that didn't mean much in small, indie motels. Anway it was a room - the heat was already on - a nice surprise on a cold night - and the TV worked and it had hot water. Nothing more was needed.

Up and out at 6 am CST - 5am MST for the final six hours driving and a couple of hours food/bathroom/fuel stopping. Breakfast stop at Flaglher I'd planned on eathing at the new Hiway 70 Diner right at the exit but it didn't open till 10 30 am -t his was around 8 am - so went into town and at at Ron's - a BBQ place with a blues motif if the wall decor was any guide. Good but standard breakfast. Would love for someone to surprise me someday with something for breakfast that broke all the rules - but two eggs, hash browns, bacon, toast and coffee is the norm and it always hits the spot so why the question? I dont' know - just want to see what other people eat - surely the whole world doesn't do two eggs, bacon, toast every day.

Flagler -in addition to the great Mace missile display in the park - shown above - is also famous as hometown of Hal Borland. I may be the only person who reads the highway sign about Hal Borland and knows who he is. And I've even read his books! My own personal sign on I-70. Hal Borland was a writer who wrote of nature and the out of doors. A nature writer and a native of the west. He pursued his craft in the East so he must have loved writing about the west more than he loved living in the west - probably just following the money and publishing contacts.

I noticed a sign on a building two doors from Ron's that mentioned the "Hal Borland Room" in the City Hall/Library. Well that was too good to pass up since I was there and I figured the Borland Room didn't see many visitors so I went in and found the Library not yet open for the day. But a helpful person in the other side - the City Hall side- invited me around to the Borland Room, turned the lights on and let me scan the exhibits - mostly copies of his books.

He did most of his writing in the 50s and 60s - hence this little downturn in interest since his fans are dead or dying mostly. I'm sort of en route to the latter. For some reason I'd read "Sundial of the Seasons" - a collection of essays about the changing seasons and "Beyond My Backyard" - more nature stuff. He'd be something like Charles Gusewelle, newspaper columnist here in Kansas City. Or rather Guswelle would be something like Borland to keep things in father/son order. Both love the outdoors and wrote/write passionataly of it.

Not much to the Borland room - I signed the visitor log - the entry before mine was back in September 2007 as testimony to Borland's fan base. Someday they'll need the room for storage and I fear the Hal Borland Room wll become "dead storage" and Hal's awards and books and photos will be boxed up, placed in the corner and and made part of the storage room. Anyway I did my part and you've just read of Hal Borland so you're in on his fading legacy.

Here are three Hal Borland quotes:

A snowdrift is a beautiful thing - if it doesn't lie across the path you have to shovel or block the road that leads to your destination

A woodland in full color is awesome as a forest fire, in magnitude at least, but a single tree is like a dancing tongue of flame to warm the heart.

April is a promise that May is bound to keep

Lots more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/halborland121885.html

The Mace missile is the showiest thing in Flagler -well some would argue for the grain elevator but every eastern Colorado down has an elevator not many have an actual 1957 TM-76A guided missle to call their own. I do also like the Loaf and Jug gas station right much as a restroom, Diet Coke and sometimes a soup stop. They didn't have their soup out yet Monday hence the trip to the Mace missile site, then Ron's and that led me to Hal's so it was an hour well spent in Flagler. In fact I seldom pass Flagler without making a stop. Funny the routiines we get into and Flagler CO is one of mine.

On to Elizabeth but first the Limon scale - and a quandary. Small truck - glorified pickup I call the F550. Looks like a pickup, drives like one, it is a pickup but the gross is 18,000 pounds and this is a commercial move so by rights I should hit the scales which are normally open. I was legal enough this day that I had no reason to want to avoid so I did the right thing - I didn't take the road into Limon which is an easy way to bypass the scales - even though signs specifically indicate they're onto such a dodge. This Monday I crossed the scale and it seemed to be round up day - looked like everybody was getting the "Park Left and Bring in Papers" sign. So that meant me along with the OTR guys.

I showed the inspector the faxed registation Dispatch had sent me - the one nobody could read since it was a lousy fax copy. They tried - you could sort of see that it might be a registration and in the end he said "Oh, you're a transporter - go on." I gathered my stuff and left - to hit the TA for one more final fuel - this was my second final fuel. I'd added 3 gallons at Flagler but when I got to Limon decided to add more as a cosmetic thing and partly because i knew the receiver was going to give me a ride. Didn't want to drop a truck on him with 1/8 tank - since he was doing me a major favor. So I added five more gallons - so I'd drop with 1/4 tank. I was still gaining half a tank so I could afford to be generous.

Looked for my cell phone - couldn't find it - looked again - still didnt' find it and figured I'd left it at the scale. Called back to the scale from the C-Store and they looked over the counter - even sent a guy outside to check the lot and walkway - no phone so I thanked them and thought it above and beyond to go outside and check for some forgetful trucker's cell phone. In the end it showed up - down in the dark spaces of my backpack - I mulled it and since I still had the number at the scale called back to let them know I had it and re-thank them for their trouble. Pretty nice - taking time to do me the favor. I'll think a bit better of the Limon westbound scale in the future.

A new Flying J truck stop is a bulding at the last Limon exit - an upgrade in size from the one currently back at the first Limon exit.

Hiway 86 is a two laner - takes off from I-70 at MP 352 and heads across the plains into the rolling countryside - it'd be called the piedmont in other parts of the country but I never see that term applied to the slopes leading up to the Front Range. You see the Rockies - you're in undulating territory but you're not yet in the mountains along most of CO 86. Patches of pines open back to grassland - very pretty drive across CO 86.

It's 50 miles to Elizabeth and my drop was 2 miles north of town in a new housing area on a loop road. It took me two turns around the loop to spot the address - this road was snowpacked from fresh snowfall - maybe overnight - maybe a day earlier and not a lot of it but made for a pretty delivery site. Dave - the Venturo rep, came through with the ride to Castle Rock and the timing was great - I waited about 20 mintues at the Outlets of Castle Rock mall then boarded the FREX for the 30 minute ride into DEN. Four bucks and a bargain for the distance and difficulty otherwise of making the trip to Denver.

Lots of time - I was shooting for the 6 10 pm coach to KC - my ticket was for 10 pm the prior Firday and I decided to do the right thing (again) and show the agent my ticket - mention ice and snow and see what would happen. Wasn't sure how they'd handle the change since my ticket was a seven day advance purchase ticket for $59. It worked out good - I paid another ten bucks and got a nice and legal ticket for the 6 10 coach - thus in case of a filled coach I would not be sent to the back of the line for having a wrong date ticket. Ten bucks to be legal and I was early enough to be not quite first in line but fourth in line. Good enough. Basically you set something in the line to keep your place - any one piece of gear or all your gear then depending on your comfort level with a bus station full of strangers you can stand or sit near your stuff and watch it like a hawk or you can leave it and come back about 45 minutes before the bus time and hope it's still there. Either way the "honor among thieves" works pretty well and i typically am all over the place - in and out of the station, all over the station. I don't leave the are but also don't sit alongside my stuff. Years of such trust have so far been rewarded with never a lost bit of gear other than the bag that burned on the JL coach earlier this year.

Driver Ron was our coachmaster - I've ridden with Ron several times - a steady driver who does what you most value on an overnight ride: he stays awake, stays off the PA, holds lane position and you don't hear the rumble strips every 30 seconds. Zippy sked - DEN- Colby KS meal stop, Salina meal stop and driver change, Topeka smoke stop and Kansas City. Depart DEN 6 10 pm MST arrive downtown KC 6 30 am CST - 11 hours 20 minutes. Excellent way to cross Kansas. I don't sleep well but managed a few hours and the coach was blissfully quiet - no crying kids, nobody on an all night cell phone call, no Nextel walkie talkies, nobody with pounding hip hop music coming through their ear buds. Nice ride - on time arrival and when I walked across Troost to catch a Route 12 city bus one showed up almost immediately.

Trip stats: Contract Cincinnati-Elizabeth 1229 miles - my trip 1230 miles -over by one mile. My fuel burn 138.762 gallons at cost of $456.26. Fuel economy 8.8 mpg and fuel cost 37 cents per mile. Trip will pay I believe $1.07 per mile making net after fuel 70 cents or $860.00. Costs beyond fuel - motel $35 and transportation $79 Megabus and $73 Greyhound and $6.00 other buses for total transportaton $158. Net after fuel, motel, transportation and KS turnpike around $700. Not bad for what "could be" a 2 day trip. In my case it spilled over part of four days but that was due weather and my own choice to spend time at home en route. The per day calc is thus sort of muddied but call it four days and the per day comes to $175 per day - decent enough.

We're running under new pay scales and in fact a new pay scheme at Driveaway USA. We now have just two tiers - Class C units (26K and under) and everthing else - Classes B, BB and A. Class C pays 40 cents a mile and Class B and up pays 60 cents per mile. The big change is in the fuel surchage which is set for a rig getting 7 mpg. At national average fuel of $3.50 the surcharge would be $3.50 divided by 7 mpg or 50 cents per mile and the motivation is that for a 7 mpg rig the surcharge pays for the fuel - leaving the drivers with the entire base pay of 40 or 60 cents per mile. Thus we're more or less doing fuel paid type moves. The fuel surcharges for diesel at current price is 47 or 48 cents. I haven't checked the DOE hot line this week to see where we stand.

You win under the new pay plan if 1) you get better then 7 mpg in a Class B or better truck or 2) you find fuel onboard since we get paid the surcharge on every mile - not just those we're actually buying fuel for. You lose if you get worse than 7 mpg but there is also a 6 mpg guarantee so the driver is protected against the 5 mpg rigs like the Sterlings we're moving to Dixon California.

One more closing shot from the Colordao trip shown below - the Megabus double decker loading at Union Staion Chicago for Minneapolis in the morning chill - Thurday - 12-13-07. Capacity of about 100 souls and a pretty darned efficient way to move a lot of people with one employee - one driver. No plane or train can touch that for ratio of pax to employee and the capital cost of a bus - even a Megabus double decker - is a fraction of any plane or train. Of course that 35 million dollar Regional Jet can make two round trips to/from MSP wile the Megabus is moving 100 people one time so there is an offset but still the numbers scream - Megabus for efficiency. I think a double decker costs about $600,000.

So why not more such buses? I guess infrastructure - most Greyhound terminals don't have canopies and alleyways that can handle the height. I'm sure they have to pick their routes to avoid standard height bridges - the bus is surely over the 13' 6" height of most semis and large trucks. Actually I don't know that but I'm assuming. Need a fact checker to get to work on that. Neat sight - lots of people moved pretty efficiently.

Megabus - I hope they retain the KC to CHI service but so far I've not been on a coach out of KC with more than about 10 pax onboard and that doesn't pay for the diesel. Must take at least half a coach anymore to pay the overhead - fuel, capital cost, driver, maintenance even for a curbside outfit like MegaB. I booked a $1.00 seat to Chicago for Feb 4th at 8 pm. No idea if I'll need it or use it but saw it and wanted to say I'd gotten a one buck seat to Chicago. That buys about 1/4 gallon of diesel - enough to get from Tenth and Main to about Tenth and the Paseo - two miles.

Thirty Miserable Souls lost in Greyhound Disaster - satire from the Onion. Mean spiritied, biting satire - I can picture myself on that bus.

Have a good Christmas - be safe if you're on the roads and when people tell me that I actually do appreciate it and take it to heart. It sounds trite and routine but trucker to trucker it's a very sincere sentiment. You can tell me that every day I'm out and it won't be taken for granted.

Happy Trails

Dick Williams
Home on hiatus til ??/??/2008.

We are the final inspectors

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:17:48 GMT

Sort of an adage I use about this work - "We are the final inspectors". Typically between the selling dealer or specialty body company and the end customer we get the first 500 to 1800 miles with a truck so we do the shake down cruise - the final inspection. It's pretty disheartening to see the number of problems heavy trucks exhibit on our final inspection runs. The only make that doesn't seem prone to "new truck" problems is Isuzu - somehow of the 50 or so I've delivered I've had virtually no problems that point back to Isuzu - a couple of minor "part" issues like a faulty fuel filter but by and large the Isuzu NPR and FTR series trucks are trouble free.

Then comes everything else. The current whipping boy being Sterling. The Sterling is a brand in the Freightliner line - and it's an ugly truck with a lousy track record in my view. Now I am leaning on some reports from other drivers but mention Sterling to me and I thinK "Oh, no". Of course in other periods I'd think the same about IHC, Kenworth, Peterbilt, Freighliner or Ford. But for now it's Sterling.

Current case in point isn't my story but from another driver I ferried from Kansas City International Airport up to St. Joe to move one of this current batch of Sterlings going to Dixon, CA. I called him today for a sitrep and he should have been half way across Wyoming but instead was just west of Lincoln Nebraska.

His first truck broke down 20 miles north of STJ - literally ground to a stop due no fluid in the transfer case with attendant overheat, odor and eventual lockup; heavy tow for that one back to Sterling KC on I-435 and for the driver a lift back to St. Joe and pick up of his second truck -one he'd planned to do this coming week.

Second strike - mileage - a big 5.5 mpg in an empty truck. Well it's equipped with aerial equipment but still it's not a heavily loaded truck. Mainly the low mpg is a consequence of the work of the truck so it's more an issue for those of us delivering the truck. In their work life they'll sit on a jobsite, engine running to provide PTO and hydraulic power for a workman's bucket - as in power line work. So the mpg isn't a huge deal except for this first 1700 miles.

All this is a bit more than academic to me since I'll start out Tuesday with my own Sterling - on the I-80 sojurn to Dixon and the economics of it are such that I need 7 mpg. Modest enough goal for a medium duty truck but apparently it's not to be in these babies.

This is sort of a trial run for me - we have a slew of units to move but if the "take per day" isn't there it'll be hard to get drives to do repeat trips. DUSA may want to keep the recruiting ad running in the Star and keep the orientation sessions going all winter. They might sucker new driers into two trips before they find out the combination of low mpg and high diesel west of Cheyenne is a killer.

We control what we can - live as economically as possible on the road but on some routes, in some trucks nothing works. Might be the case on the Dixon run with the Sterling Acterra. .

Happy Trails

Dick Williams
Kansas City MO

Still moving trucks

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 18:16:29 GMT

Next trip out - St. Joseph MO to Dixon, CA with a Sterling Acterra and some type Altec crane, digger or bucket - won't know the configuration till Tuesday 11-27-07 when I start the trip. This is the beginning of a large contact my outfit has to move new units from Atlec's STJ plant to Dixon, CA near Sacramento. If I like the trip and make some money on it I'm sure I'll have a change to repeat it over the next few months as the contract will continue for a while - into spring I think.

Level of business has been somewhat slow this fall - but for my part-time work there've been enough trucks to keep me moving - although some have been one leg moves without a tie in or return trip. Very unlikely any will get return loads from California as this outfit seldom books eastbound from CA . As long as I can book cheap air coming back that's ok - I got a $133 fare on Southwest for the Saturday after Friday's drop - that's Friday 11-30-07. There'll be a hostel stay in SAC - repeat visit to the Williams Mansion - a Victorian house turned hostel and a beautiful place well maintained.

Have indicated to everybody but Dispatch that I will go on "hiatus" in mid December. The combination of winter weather and short daylight gets old to me and I may sit it out for about two months this winter - doubt it happens but that's the plan for now. We'll see -may even explore some local and "stationary" work but don't have anything lined up or even in mind at this point.

Two tech recommends - Blue Parrott Bluetooth headset - excellent noise cancellation. Also for my Sprint PCS phone I've found gmail.com to be an easy to use way to do email from the phone - absent my laptop - and also www.rocketshotz.com has a wide range of wap news, weather, financial feeds - sites specifically designed to work well on the small screen of a cell phone I really like it. All three in fact.

Happy Thanksgiving - today's the day.

Dick Williams
Kansas City MO

Dick Williams
Kansas City MO

First Sighting - ULSD decals

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Wed, 09 May 2007 15:46:37 GMT

Within the Driveaway group there's been quite a bit of talk about the new Ultra Low Sulphur fuel - mandated by EPA to decrease emissions from diesel equipment. The new fuel has a sulphur content of 15 PPM or parts per million compared to the former LSD standard of 500 PPM so it is a big decrease in sulphur content and later emissions.

The new fuel is required in all 2007 engines - however no customer wants to be society's guinea pig and a major changeover in the supply stream takes time - thus all the 2007 chassis I've moved - dozens of them- have had old style 2006 engines - no new fuel spec.

Any rig equipped with the new ULSD engine is required to have both a tank and dashboard decal indicating ULSD is required. It's taken a while but I finally spotted the new decals - not on a truck I was driving but a new Mack tractor on the Westfall sales lot in Kansas City. I was moving a 2007 Isuzu but so far all the Isuzus have no decal - hence the old engines and no ULSD required Both saddle tanks on the Mack had decals as shown above. In addition - and also required - a dashboard decal was in place. The camera phone photo isn't the best but you can see the size, wording and placement of the dash decal - nothing too showy but it gives us what we need - definite indication the truck requires the new fuel.

Just back from my fourth Woodridge, IL trip - an Isuzu FVR. Gets pretty familiar by trip number four although they all differ in some way. In that case flooding along the main stem of the Missouri River east of Kansas City had MO Hiway 10 - my new cross state routing - closed between Norborne and Carrollton.

I'd checked the Patrol's website just before I left home, read the NWS flood advisoryand when I saw a police officer as I was fueling at MO 210 and Highway 291 asked him about any flooding problems ahead - no indication then that the road was closed or expected to be - although I did have come concern. I'm likely trying too hard to stay off I-80 and US 36 - US 24 is not the greatest truck route.

Got to Norborne - about 50 miles east of Kansas City - and encountered a Road Closed Ahead sign - will admit it wasn't a huge surprise as I'd seen a lot of the river bottom ground under water before I got there - and trucks moving furniture out of houses in the bottoms. " Live by the River - get wet by the river." This episode isn't as bad as the 1993 flooding but it is already ranked in the top three by the NWS.

I pulled into a Caseys C-store at Norborne to ask if there was a higher ground routing around the closure - I didn't want to go all the way back to KC. Before I got out of my truck the town policeman pulled up beside me and gave me the reroute - County road D to County W to US 65 south to Carrollton and rejoin US 24. He even said "Follow me" and I had a police escort of the welcome and helpful kind through Norborne. No lights or sirens and it ended with a friendly wave. Small town America.

The other difference on this trip and maybe my new routing to the Woodridge customer - I exited I-55 at Exit 263 - Weber Road instead of at Exit 271- Lemont Road. There's construction and morning congestion between MP 261 and MP 271 on I-55 - stop and go with not only the time penalty but the increased risk of someone rear-ending someone. Maybe me on either end of the rear-ending. So jumping off at MP 263 saved me 8 miles of that headache and I think may shave a mile or two off the total trip. Learn something every trip - it's true.

The Norborne detour cost me about 20 miles and even more in time since the two lane county roads were 40 to 50 mph all the way - but I stayed dry and really no problem. US 24 is likely still closed - the river's crested but it takes a long time to drain the flood plain once it's flooded. Plus the danger of damage from the water which will only show up once crews can see the roadway, bridges and culverts again. The morning news showed a new levee break also near Missouri City so there may be new problems with my MO 210 to MO 10 to US 24 routing. For the moment I'm "tripless in KC" anyway - awaiting a new dispatch list.

On Amtrak's Southwest Chief on the way home last night (Tue 5-8-07) my neighbor one seat ahead was a Bennett driver from Holton KS - north of Topkea. I gave him a shuttle ride from the Amtrak station to the Greyhound station at midnight - he was headed to Salina where his personal car was parked. From his location - a small town in rural northeast Kansas - every trip starts or ends with a deadheading leg of about 100 miles - either to Salina for an outbound bus he's driving or to KC in many cases. Being near a metro area and transportation hub like KC is definitely a handy thing - closer to rail, bus, air and a decent sized customer base.

Dick Williams
Kansas City Missouri

Chicago In Bloom

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Sun, 06 May 2007 23:30:06 GMT

A few more words about Chicago as a layover city - for me usually 2 or 3 or 4 hours. I see the city only in snapshot form - I don't have to pay the "urban lug" for living in high priced Chicago housing, don't have to go downtown everyday to work. Lots of things differ for me on a three hour visit versus a year 'round resident. Given all that it's still a great layover city for me at least.

Chicago in bloom - May 4th, 2007 - Daley Plaza with the "Chicago Picasso" in the far background

I visit quite a few cities in my work - often have 2 or 3 hours between making a delivery and getting on a bus or train. Most are o k- but only a couple are what I'd call enjoyable and agreeable places for a day visit: Denver and Chicago being at the top of my layover list. Both are have great public transit so they're easy to get around, both strike me as clean and both have a good variety of places to eat.

This work happens to take me to Chicago fairly often - a lot of trips end in the western suburbs. Other times I'm making a transportation connection in Chicago and Chicago is the major hub for Amtrak - a major terminal for Greyhound and of course host to two major airports, O'Hare and Midway. So lots going on. That could tilt either way - if making those connections were difficult the size of the area could be a major pain - as it assuredly is in Los Angeles - just accept three hours as the price to get across town if you're trying to use public transportation.

Chicago, with metro area populaton of 9.4 million, has the infrastructure in place to make for relatively easy urban navigation - the cornerstone is the network of commuter rail that radiates north, west and south from downtown Chicago on trackage owned mostly now by the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroads. That's the Metra System and it's one key to what makes Chicago work; four hundred ninety five miles and 230 stations the blanket the metro area.

Easy, comfortable and cheap transportation into the city and back to the 'burbs. The CTA or Chicago Transit Authority operates its own commuter rail or light rail system - those trains are named by colors - the Blue Line Train, the Orange Line, Red Line, Brown Line etc. In addition there are two major bus systems - the CTA for the city itself and the PACE system serving the western suburbs and providing transportation to the CTA train and Metra train stations.

Pretty well honed system and once you understand the basics you can work your way around the area pretty well. For most drops in the western 'burbs you find the nearest PACE route to a Metra station - take that to downtown - right to Union Station then Amtrak or Greyhound to your next event - or the Orange Line train to Midway or the Blue Line to O'Hare. Sure it still takes a while but the basic players are those systems - not nearly as confusing as Los Angeles with many more entities involved. I find considerable difficulty in doping out a trip that crosses jurisdictions in the LA Basin.

A few more pictures from my Chicago afternoon - this was the time between a drop in Woodridge, IL - Exit 271 off I-55 - about 22 miles southwest of the Loop - and my Amtrak train, the Texas Eagle, to Bloomington for another pickup.

One of many Chicago icons- the steel bridges across the Chicago River. Most are of a "bascule trunion" design where the two leafs or sections of the bridge rotate upward - counterbalanced on the backside to allow ships to pass through the city. There are 45 movable bridges crossing the Chicago River - many within the downtown loop.

Bridge lifts used to happen 40,000 times a year - in the 40s and 50s - but there's little river traffic now and the towers are unmanned. The bridges are still lifted or raised twice a year now to insure the mechanism remains in working condition and to provide for sailboat passage to and from Lake Michigan on the spring and autumn migration.

The Chicago River used to flow into Lake Michigan - that flow was "reversed" by locks, canals in the 1800s so the flow is outward from the city west toward the Mississippi. However - and you're among the few who'll know this - the flow in the river today is actually in both directions. The surface or upper flow is indeed westward but at the bottom of the channel - due to density differences - the flow is still east toward the Lake in places at least. Hmmm - sounds impossible but that's what I've read.

Next a view of the Downer's Grove Metra station - the station I use in gettting from Woodridge, Bolingbrook and adjacent suburbs to downtown. Fare of $3.90 for the 45 minute ride - two level coaches - called gallery cars - and a great way to cover 20 miles effortlessly. These stops and lines go back I suppose to the early 1900s. The stations serve as nucleus for a "small town" community. Downer's Grove is a small town within Metro Chicago. Banks, bakeries, delis, bookstores, nowadays Starbucks and Caribou Coffee, movies. bowling alleys and bars and you name it. If you have to be in a large city this one looks like it makes that life easier than most - not for me - but I could picture it better in Chicago than any of the other large cities I visit.

The grade level crossings of the Metra trains through the suburbs is also the source of the occasional train vs car or pedestrian accidents - the autos and pedestrians always losing. A plaque inside the DG station memorializes a incident in 1947 when the passenger train, the Nebraska Zephyr derailed in Downers Grove, crashed into this station, killing 3 and injuring 30.

Most downtown areas are frankly rather dirty - but not Chicago. An army of workers are out there sweeping - sometimes they're pretty desultory - but they keep even cigarette butts swept of the sidewalk. For morning and evening rush the police in yellow day-glo vests are at the intersections moving traffic and pedestrians - keeping grid-lock at bay. There may be something to be said for padding the rolls of sanitation and police departments - at least they have something to show for it in Chicago. It's in welcome contrast to New York City on so many levels. A couple of other cities where I can easily enjoy a 3 hour layover - Boston oh, I don't know - one more - heck maybe Memphis but quie a way down the list.

One more Chicago image - tulips on State Street - alongside the largest public library in the United States - the Harold Washington Public Library. They did spend the bucks on this building and to me as a library it's lousy - there are no books - never have found the books. They're all hidden away and you request them. no fun. There are no magazines - they're all shelved and brought out on request only - what fun is that if you can't browse the covers and see what sounds interesting and the lighting - fluorsecent and colder than a winter night in the crow's nest on the Murmansk Run. The lighting, interor colors, lack of visible books and magazines gives the place a sterile feel that is not what I like in a library.

These tulips were at their prime - May 4th. Here in Kansas City our tulips bloom between April 5th and 15th - usually they have a shortened season - beaten down by heavy rain or this year zapped and brought to their litle tulip knees by a late freeze.

Sinatra and Garland sang about it - I'll write about it again - the locals know it - an uncommon city: Chicago.

Dick Williams
Homebase but prepping for another trip to Chicago

Looks 10 - Dance 3

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Sun, 06 May 2007 18:01:49 GMT

<-- Looks 10

Dance 3 -->

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We move some beverage refurb units - new fiberglass hood and cowling, paint job, new decals - all cosmetic. This beauty - someone even asked me if I had a new truck - is actually a tired 1989 IHC unit with an exterior makeover.

Inside - almost nothing. The picture on the right doesn't do the cab full justice - there was a new seatcover on the driver's side and the inside metal of the door had new paint. But wiring was hanging out of openings in the dash - dusty, dirty cab that looked its age - 18 years which is a lot for a route truck. The gauges all worked - that was a surprise. As with most bev trucks no air conditioning - that's a driver comfort distributors don't invest in - one reason you see all the route guys with towels around their necks in the summer - it's darned hot work with no relilef in their trucks.

The tranny in this baby was shot - seven speed manual tranny - not much clutch left and I could feel it slipping. The synchro was a thing of the past if it had one. Very hard to hit the shifts right. 360 miles wasn't enough to acclimate. I was glad to get it from Bloomington IL to Kansas City and glad there was no serious terrain. I used US 24 from Monroe City MO to KC so did encounter quite a few small towns with 35 mph speed limits and stop signs. But in spite of all that there was one major redeeming feature.

The only thing that can bring a smile to the face of the driveaway guy when he finds himself in an aging unit of uncertain road worthiness. A big tank full of diesel. Yes, indeed this was a great rig or at least the fuel tank was great - couldn't read the placard on the tank but it was probably a 60 gallon tank full at pickup. Enough to get me to Lenexa KS with no fuel purchase and about 1/4 tank to spare so that was a "find" worth about $120 and paid for the motel en route, the meals and quite a bit more. Overall the trip was a class B trip paying 70 cents base plus 11 or 12 cents fuel surcharge and no fuel purchase. That sort of sweet deal is becoming rarer and rarer.

I was surprised to find diesel at some stations in Illiniois cheaper than my normal diesel stop in Palmyra Missouri, just west of Hannibal on US 36. The Loves at MP 109 and just north of Springfield IL on I-55 had diesel for $2.769 Friday 5-4-07, and in Palmyra it was 2.799. Diesel cheaper than unleaded many places but that one Loves was a nice find - I think the location is new so maybe they're doing a low ball special for the first month. The whole gaggle of truck stops at MP 160- Bloomington IL was $2.899.

Had a quasi-round trip. Took a new Isuzu FVR box truck from KC to Woodridge IL Thurday night into Friday morning - relocated on the Texas Eagle from CUS - Chicago Union Station - to Bloomington IL and moved the refurb unit to Lenexa. I'd done a 3 hour cab nab at Barry IL on the northbound trip and didn't feel up to doing another night run back to KC so opted for a motel at Jacksonville IL on I-72 at MP 64. Found an Econo Lodge there that is part of the CLC program so gat a room for $33 that nets to about $40 with taxes and the $4.95 add on by CLC. Good program - always my first choice anymore and gets me into better places with less hassle than my normal scrounging around and negotiations in trying to stay under $40.

Back to Woodridge, Monday night (5-7-07) into Tuesday with one more Isuzu - my fourth Woodridge trip in the past 2 weeks - but no return trip that I know of now. There is a tantalizing unit sitting in Peoria going to Des Moines and that sounds ideal but I can't find a way to make it work.

It would take $40 in bus/train fare to get from CHI to Peoria and $46 to get from DSM back to KC - so there's almost $90 plus I don't know the fuel status of the unit and for the 262 miles of the PIA-DSM run that could cost nothing or could cost $120. The job pays $191 - a driver could actually end up with no pay at all under the worst of circumstances or maybe $100 under the best - if no fuel purchase. Not worth taking that gamble so i'm not doing it - easier to simply come home on Amtrak for $34 after Woodridge.

Job list with DUSA still pretty light although the rumor continues of something breaking loose "soon". Same story since December. I'm a part timer and have had several other things going on recently so the slowdown hasn't bothered me much.

Happy Trails

Dick Willilams

I Stabbed A Man in Reno Once - Just to Watch Him Die - Johnny Cash Williams

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Wed, 02 May 2007 20:30:32 GMT

So what's Scarface doing in Reno in this picture? Delivering a Coors Truck. Wanted to claim I'd been in a knife fight but truth is this was about 3 days after surgery in mid March 2007 to remove a malignant melanoma from my cheek and herein the tale for all who drive. Listen up.

Anybody is candidate for melanoma - it's one of the more aggressive forms of skin cancer - occurring most often in those with some age on them and it was interesting for me to learn that our profession - truck driving - is a risk factor for skin cancer since it's often the result of damage from sunlight - specifically the ultraviolet light from the sun. Lots of people have sun exposure - some by choice as in the dark tanners and sun worshipers - others via their occupation - farmers, construction workers roofers, anyone outdoors much of the time.

I'd heard and believed that modern windshields offered UV protection sufficient to ward off the harmful effects from the sun and that's true in a general way - and by a percentage. However - and for us a big however - the front windshield offers UVA and UVB protection while side and rear windows in most cases offer only UVB protection. And in the right weather we often drive with the left window down - providing no protection.

I think most know that a trucker's left arm is usually darker than the right arm - one sure indication something's getting through to cause the darker tan on the left side. The stats for skin cancer mirror that and a majority of the skin cancer in men is on their left arm or the left side of their head or neck or face. Not so sure a thing with women - men take the brunt of the stats here.

In my case I had a small "age spot" on my left cheek and thought nothing of it - it'd been there for several years - brown and about the size of a pencil eraser. Wasn't at all concerned. I got a referral to the dermatology clinic at the University of Kansas Medical Center for a completely unrelated reason - an annoying wart on one finger that became raw to the point of bleeding occasionally and was aggravated by the frequent hand washing we do after fueling. The doctor, Doctor Jennifer Krajic from the Czech Republic, said the wart-like thinkg was "nothing" but could be removed but she was much more interested in and latched onto the "freckle" or age spot on my cheek and said she wanted a biopsy of that.

The antecedent: barely noticeable "lesion" or age spot on left cheek below glasses frame - 2003.

She did the biopsy - a week later the results came back as a lentigo maligna melanoma - one form of malignant melanoma. Early stage, thin at only 0.27mm in thickness; but it had intruded into two layers of the skin and they treat any melanoma with great respect - perform what they call a "wide excision" meaning they remove not only the visible pigmented area but a fairly wide margin around the pigmented area - about 1 cm of surrounding tissue. Hence that healthy gash in my cheek.

To get the clear margins they go 1 cm beyond the visible dark area then exam that tissue under the scope and in most cases pronounce the job done. Since the malignant cells were in a thin layer no further work is normally done - no examination of lymph nodes or follow up therapy. In my case the lab work after the surgery showed there were still malignant cells very close to the margin - too close for the doctor's comfort so a second procedure was done to give them more of a buffer or cancer-free zone. That was a week ago and once the sutures are out - tomorrow, 5-3-07, that should definitely be the end of that episode.

Having one occurrence does increase the odds of later occurrences so the protocol calls for exams every three months for two years. It also changes your insurance status from Preferred to "uninsurable" in one visit to the doctor's office - and that affects health, life and long term care insurance. Waiting till "later" to get any of those coverages is risky and in my case I'm locked out of any new insurance for five years and will never again see preferred rates. Fortunately at age 63 I've got about what I need but will look into using my conversion privilege from term to whole life on one policy.

So a recommendation for all who drive - use sunblock - year round. It's the cumulative exposure over time that increases the risk of cell damage and that leads to skin cancer - the danger is greatest on your left side so if you can only afford sunblock for half your face and for one arm - make it the left side and the left arm. It's a nuisance - but 30 seconds of time every working day in your 40s and 50s might save you from skin cancer surgery in your 60s or 70s. Nothing's guaranteed but the mere fact of driving trucks puts us all at increased risk for skin cancer so beware and be aware.

I'm too late smart but I can dab on some sun block from here on out and will summer and winter. Especially on my left side. You do it too.

"Scarface" - aka Dick Williams
Homebase - Kansas City

US 24 as alternate route from KC to Chicago - test run

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 12:32:10 GMT

I use several "short cuts" and it turns out some of them don't do much for saving miles but provide a different routing for some variety in this work which can tend to be repetitious especially within 250 mile of homebase. Wednesday night, 4-25-07, I made my second of two Kansas City to Chicago trips this week. Normally I take I-35 to Cameron Missouri then US 36 east to Hannibal and from there I-72 and I-55 into Chicagoland.

I used that routing Monday and the trip showed US 36 to be worse than ever between Chillicothe and Macon due toa very rough ride and construction which I'd call constriction. I decided to try US 24 for the new Chicago shortcut. I know the road - it's hillier and more winding than 36 so I've never opted to use it to cross the state in this work. I used to drive the western part of the route in doing a bank courier route before I started doing driveaway work so about half the route is familiar territory.

Great night to test a new routing since thunderstorms and heavy rain were everywhere but I especially didn't want to move through the construction zones on Highway 36 in the rain and at night.

US 24 is ok - actually from the KC you use MO 210 then MO 10 to Carrollton so you're about 1/3 of the way across the state on a relatively straight roadway without significant hills - the route mostly lies in the Missouri river bottoms. Even US 24 was ok, I stayed with it to Moberly - there I'd planned to take US 63 north to 36 at Macon but in the end continued on 24 all the way to Monroe City where it joins US 36 just west of Hannibal.

No construction - more curves and hills so 24 is best in a small truck like the Isuzu I was driving. If you look at the map it angles northeastward moe than the I-35/US 36 combination so shaves another 18 to 20 miles off a trip from KC to Hannibal thus off a Chicago trip - and in total my trip was well below contract - about 45 miles under the 510 mile contract. However it's not faster - given the small town slow downs. Wednesday night I was stopped or crawling at 40 mph part of the time due to the downpours around Carrollton so couldn't give actual driving time a good test.

I'll use it again, MO 210 / 10 to Carollton then US 24 to Monroe City. Just watch the curves and speed limts that change frequently for the towns. It's not a good routing in true heavy duty equipment with a manual tranny, For our large cranes I'd recommend I-80 - stay off US 36 this summer. A couple of the bridges undergoing rebuild on 36 are down to uncomfortably narrow passages especially at night or in precip.

Another recent discovery - the Rand McNally website, www.randmcnally.com allows for waypoint - intermediate points along a route. With Mapquest and most other freebie online serives you only get to put in the start and end points with no control over routing - the software selects either the shortest or fastest route but often i want to manipulate the routing to test different routes, maybe to prep a 2nd unit en route to the first drop, see a friend, hit a cheaper motel - lots of reason. Up till now none of the freebies that I had found allowed waypoints. The price of trying to save $29 is sometimes a steep one. But with this I can test different route. You do have to play with it a while using the ADD A POINT provision then move the new point up and down the list of existing points or it'll put the waypoint in the wrong place. Also you may need to try out Shortest Time vs Shortest Distance to get it to do what you want - it'll still try to keep you on better roads even with a waypoint if you don't force it to shortest distance. But that's all pretty intuitive and I like it.

Off the road for a few days - medical of a sort and mabye time to complete the 2006 taxes - extension filed on time - now to knuckle down and get the numbers done.

later - Wednesday - 5-2-07. Just got a set of 3 trips - two that make a near round trip. Kansas City to Woodridge, IL - same as the one mentioned above excpet in the larger Isuzu this time, the FTR. Bigger tanks and if it has some fuel may have more fuel - one can hope. That's a new unit going to Corporate Express. I'll leave with that one Thursday evening - 5-3-07, take US 24, nap enroute and deliver around 9 am Friday. Metra commuter tain from Downern's Grove to downtown CHI Union Station and a 1400 Amtrak train, the Texas Eagle, to Bloomington IL. Get myself to the south side of town and pick up a refurbished Coke truck from Mickey Body and move it to Lenexa KS - close to home so a nice pairing. Coke I hoipe is open for a weekend drop. Otherwise they might not get their truck till Tuesday since i'm taking a 2nd FTR to Woodridge Sunday evening into Monday and home Monday night.

Both Woodridge trips are 510 miles in Class C units - the Bloomington to Lenxea trip is shorter by 100 miles so total of 1500 miles Thursday to Monday with Amtrak fares of $27 CHI to Bloomingtonon Friday and $34 CHI to KC on Monday

The cab ride last time from Woodridge to Downers Grove was $25 for 7 miles - my bigtime mistake in not inquiring about rate when I saw no meter - flat rate and on a 7 mile run for $25 is not a bargain. Next time I'll find a metered cab service or do what I do most of the time - walk 3.5 miles to 83rd and Janes and catch the Route 834 Pace bus to Downers Grove for $1.50 then the Metra commuter rail to downtown CHI for $3.90.

Dick Williams

Flagstaff AZ - Jan 29, 30, 2007

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 03:55:14 GMT

I’ve worked the Roanoke to Kansas City track in January – three trips from Altec’s Daleville VA depot to PAR Electric’s Ponderosa yard north of Kansas City. PAR Electric was on a buying or leasing binge at the end of 2006 and into early 2007 – we’ve moved probably four dozen Altec units from Duluth MN and Daleville VA to the Ponderosa and more are in the pipeline from both locations per the driver to driver rumor mill. All on Peterbilt 335 chassis; digger/derricks out of Duluth and long arm bucket trucks out of Daleville.

Nice units to drive – comfy with arm rests, cruise, radio, air seat and a decent ride. The downside with the Petes has been fuel economy – as low as 6 mpg into a headwind and not much better than 7 or 7.5 under the best conditions. I combined two of the Daleville trips with runs to Birmingham AL so got a couple of doubled up runs which is good. I’m on a 60 day bus pass so that tends to keep me on the road – hate to feel that $645 investment counting down without getting some benefit from it so anytime I’m a passholder I’ll be out regularly.

The DUSA job list stayed healthy all through December – often things drop off by mid December but this year with DUSA the Peterbilts made work for anyone wanting to run through the holidays.

One challenge of winter work is obvious – the weather and this winter has been more active here in the Midwest than in recent past winters. Colorado got hit with a three bags full - of heavy snow. Add ice across TX, OK, KS, MO and into IL/IN and Interstates 44 and 70 have had consecutive spells of cars and trucks in the median. It all meant that trip picking was muy importante – staying out of weather trouble and threading the needle between systems. Big plus for driveaway work versus straight trucking where the Dispatcher says “go” and you go. In this work we pick our poison so there’s not a lot of excuse for getting into weather trouble – it can happen but with some attention to the 72, 96 and 120 hour progs most of the time a driver has a good chance of staying out of heavy snow or ice.

This trip was a good one – IHC 4300 with ten bay beverage body coming out of Hackney Industries, Independence KS and going to Ryder Truck in Flagstaff AZ. The contract was 1053 miles and the receiver wanted me there between 8 am and 5 pm M-F. Seems like Ryder should be open longer hours but that’s what they said so I built the trip around that end point.

Two Jefferson Lines buses a day go to Indpendence KS from KC. The midnight bus is my normal choice – gets to Hackney at 0315 or 0330 or 0345 – depending on how long the drivers mess around and how late the inbound connecting buses are. Most of the time it’s the driver messing around – some value the sked – others take it pretty lightly. The daylight run leaves KC at 0630 – arrives Hackney around 1030. I like that better since you do a daylight pickup – easier to checkout the truck and if there’s trouble someone from Hackney can help. I feel a little more comfortable with the daytime pickup but often timing dictates the 0315 arrival in order to maximize the day’s driving –that was the case with the Flagstaff trip since I had to get 1053 miles in by 1700 on the second day. Plenty of pad by leaving at 0430 – closer timing if I’d wait till 1100.

I actually got stuck on the Hackney lot with a prior pickup – their lot was covered with snow and ice and I couldn’t move that truck without a tow. This time, Monday morning, 1-29-07, most of that had melted –the unit checked out ok and I fueled at Bailey’s Corner with 15 gallons, enough to get to Bartlesville and cheaper diesel.

US 75 through Tulsa to I-44 then Oklahama City and I-40 all the way to Flag. One toll plaza on I-44 for $3.50 but generally a good route via OKC, Amarillo, Albuquerque and Indian Country across NW NM and NE AZ. I always hit one of the Indian Country FM stations – there’s a network with outlets in NM, AZ, WA, WI and invariably I hear about Leonard Peltier’s tragic and unjustified imprisonment. Something like 35 years he’s been in prison for the Ruby Ridge shootings but Leonard’s doing well – keeping his spirits up and still looking for a way out. I’d think even the Native Americans would get tired of it if I’m only though there two or three times a year and hear about Leonard every time. Yesterday they were berating Bill Clinton for not granting a pardon as Clinton left office. Talk about old news – Leonard and Bill. Maybe Hill can “git ‘er done”

One night enroute – Santa Rosa, NM for the overnight – about 615 miles from Independence and easy enough to get there legally – Travelodge on the CLC card for $35. An annoyance that I find with a lot of motels: the places advertise and do serve continental breakfast but they don’t put it out till 0630 making it too late for those like me who need to be up and away by 0600 or whenever the ten hour break is over with. 0600 is good, 0530 is even better for the driving and working world where time=miles=dollars.

The Port of Entry into AZ is a mandatory stop for me – we have to get a trip permit if we’re not showing an AZ transporter plate. The company has a few AZ plates but I didn’t have one with me so made the permit stop – got behind a group of drivers with oversize loads and the inspectors had to go out and measure the loads so that really bogged things down. Should be a ten minute stop but this time it killed at least 45 minutes and I was assessed $63 for a 25,999 GVWR truck. Something’s changed –never was that high and I got two permits –one for the trip and one as a transporter or as they term it “caravan”.

I was ok time wise but still hate to kill 45 minutes at the Port – along with using much cash. I don’t carry a lot of cash – never have a wad of hundreds and twenties with me, so shelling out sixty depletes me pretty good. They take credit cards but go through a service so there’s a big lug for using a credit card – around $15 for the $63 permit – another gouge. It’s a pass through so I get the permit money back at settlement – minor issue and means I have to plan ahead to have some extra cash with me. The drivers who run around with $500 in their billfolds wouldn’t blink at a mere $63 fee. Wonder what the average is in an OTR driver’s billfold? I’d guess in the low hundreds.

I was lucky and got my “dream” – tailwinds all the way. A large high was to the north – centered over the central plains so all the way from KS to AZ I had east to northeast winds – a quartering tail wind and that was a big help both from fuel economy and cab noise –less noise and just easier running with a following wind. I was getting individual legs over 10 mpg and my overall fuel burn came in at 9.6 mpg. Compared to the Petes that seemed great – the same 30 gallons between fills would get me 300 miles versus 200 miles down the road. Easier to play the fuel game – soak it up where it’s cheap and bridge across the higher priced areas. This trip across OK and TX was good anyway so no complaints on fuel –I’ll post the stats at the bottom.

I’m doing this LJ entry onboard the Southwest Chief but nature calls – the nature of batteries that is. Have to go find a 120 volt outlet and get charged up again. I did about 30 trips worth of work on the 2006 spreadsheet this morning so this train time is actually pretty good office time since that annual driveaway spreadsheet is the key to doing the 2006 tax returns and it’s also my usual excuse for not getting taxes done till the October 15th “drop dead” deadline. This year will be different – goal of filing on time and
I’ve got most of the spreadsheet work done so have a decent chance. Something’s not meshing with the 1099 Info form I get from DUSA with my annual gross as contractor – I can see a session with the office to reconcile the conflicting versions of how much I made –although I’m not finished yet so have about 20 more trips to enter. It is easer at home where things are stationery – the train’s a challenge with a laptop – double whammy since the laptop keyboard s a pain and the movement of the car compounds things – back to two finger typing for the workaround.

I had choice of Greyhound out of Flag on my pass – no cost - or taking Amtrak at cost of $107 and a forced overnight stay since the one eastbound train a day comes through at 0600. I opted for the train – minor factor being the ability to work with the tax info – mostly just comfort. It’s about 24 hours either way but there’s a big difference in 24 hours on the bus versus the train so this is a splurge. If I do another Flagstaff trip not sure how I’ll come back to KC – may steel myself and take the bus – ughhh already.

I think Dispatch has something cooking – she didn’t say what but there’ll be an email waiting at home with some proposal – probably a convoy operation to move a bunch of IHC tractors from Clio MI to Springfield OH – short move but we have a dozen or more on the list and Dispatch will likely cook up some group travel to clean ‘em out with one driver running shuttle back and forth in a van. Not very interested. I don’t see how she can sweeten things up enough to get a posse together – too few miles, too much deadheading – too many guys in a van.

The Southwest Chief – Flagstaff to Kansas City

Could have walked from the Travel Inn motel to Amtrak and had planned to but it snowed overnight in Flagstaff – the distance is about a mile and with my gear I frankly didn’t want to walk it so used the Friendly Cab Company for the short ride. Worth the $5 charge.

Train was on time – 0605 arrival with a short station stop. The forecast of a light pax count I’d gotten from the agent in KC was true – still the car attendent assigned seats – as if finding a seat among 30 pax in a car that holds 68 would be hard to do. They always talk about the people who’ll be boarding later but that hasn’t happened – plenty of room.

Two coaches in the winter consist. We’re behind Amtrak locos # 2 and 197. Express car, three sleepers, lounge/sighseer/,diner and two coaches. Crew of at least 7 so Amtrak is losing money big time on this run. Number 2 is looking pretty shabby – needs a trip back through the shop and a paint job. This is the dead season for Amtrak’s long haul trains. Bad for Amtrak – great for me – means cheaper fares and lots of room.

Amtrak’s route parallels I-40 much of way across both AZ and NM – thus I’m retracing my own drive of 24 hours earlier. There was a difference in the look of the land however. It snowed overnight as an upper low spun across the Southwest so much of the countryside carries new snow cover – along with a frozen moisture coating called hoarfrost on the scrub so it was a much prettier ride eastbound than my earlier westbound trip.

We’ve been on time most of the day – the only major stop is in Albuquerque around noon. We were about half an hour early into the station so had over an hour total time in ABQ. I went in search of a Quiznos I remembered but found a Japanese Sushi and Noodle place before I found Quiznos so got some beef noodles and took back onboard for lunch.

Really nice new combined Amtrak/Greyhound/local transit setup in
ABQ now – first time I’ve seen it – called the Alvarado Center. Very handy for people like me who often transition to local transit or bus to train. One Native American trailer was set up selling Navajo jewelry, blankets, burritos to the Amtrak pax – I’d guess this tradition goes back 130 years or to whenever the Santa Fe railroad first started carrying pax through ABQ. Slim pickins with our short pax count today. I stayed away since I’m sort of a sucker for their silver and turquoise.

Beautiful trip across northern NM- new snow on the mountains gives the old dry slopes a new lease on life. Very tasty ride – yeah, it’s worth the extra cost at least for this one winter trip. Sked into Kansas City Union Station 0745 Thursday. Don’t have a next trip out – have to check on some health issues with mother and daughter – she was in a minor accident I learned about yesterday so want to see how she’s doing before committing to any more time out.

Stats: Independence KS to Flagstaff AZ. IHC 4300, 25,999 GVWR. Auto tranny, air brakes, cruise, no arm rests (there otta be a law), single 50 gallon tank, plain jane white ten bay bev truck by Hackney. Contract 1053 miles. The air brakes move the unit from our Class C to Class B pay rate – 62 up to 70 cents plus current fuel surcharge and a 3 cent bus incentive. Total will be around 80 cents per mile but I don’t know the surcharge.

Fuel buy 109.877 gallons at cost of $254.53 and average price of $2.316 per gallon. Fuel economy 9.6 mpg, Fuel cost 24 cpm leaving me with net after fuel of 80 minus 24 = 56 cents per miles. My other expenses – Amtrak ticket $107 and two motels approx $80.
The net after fuel will be about $540 then subtract additional 190 and trip drops to $350. Good for two days but it’s a three day outing so we’re getting close to $100 a day. Not my favored range – I like to be in the $150 to $200 range but that’s been hard to hit lately so I’m doing lesser trips that I know in advance won’t be up to par. The Petes were worse except I was able to combine two of those with other trips to spread the costs around and do better for the per day calc.

Happy Trails
Onboard the Southwest Chief following the Santa Fe Trail

Dick Williams

Ides of December - 2006

kaseymoe@livejournal.com — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 23:07:47 GMT

If you're a Christmas person this is a great time of year and if you're not ...well just wait two weeks and it'll be over with for 2006. Where do you think i fall on the Christmas person scale - Santa himself being a 10 and others down the scale from that.

Aboout one-third of the way through a 900 mile tripo. Picked up an Altec digger/derrick Wednesday 12-13-06 from a jobsite in Van Horne Iowa, just west of Cedar Rapids. Brought it here to Kansas City and will leave around 7 pm this evening, 12-14-06 for Franktown, CO - near Castle Rock which is 20 miles or so south of Denver. Then a 2nd trip - relocate by Northwest Airlines to Minneapolis Saturday morning and move a Freightliner FL 70 back here to Kansas City.

Later edit...

I've now finished the Colorado trip - no problems and had a good run across I-70. I'd deem the KC to DEN run as the easiest 600 mile day I have in this work - it's a fast track of a road, no city congestion, especially when I deliver in Aurora on the east side of the DEN metro. And the DEN RTA system is one of the best transit systems in the US - frequent service including nights and weekends - extensive coverage of the area and in general it makes my life easy when delivering to Denver.

In this case I didn't take full advantage of the system. Franktown is about 10 miles east of Castle Rock, CO and that's about 20 miles south of Denver. Greyhound or maybe TNM&O formerly had service to Castle Rock - that's apparently ended so I fouind the Front Range Express or FREX buses on the internet - service Castle Rock to DEN. Didn't consider that there would be service in Franktown itself - so got a ride to Castle Rock's Park N Ride lot on the east side of the Outlet Mall - a new and fairly upscale series of strip malls - Mikasa, Nike, etc. Took that bus to the Arapahoe Park N Ride, then the "G" Line RTA train to 9 Mile Station and finally a Route 121 bus to my motel - the Star Inn at 39th and Peoria in Aurora.

I found out later there's service in Franktown so could have started the trek from there but the trip to Castle Rock gave me time and a place to eat. The Star Inn is a former Super 8. That's scary isn't it. Usually I'm in a Super 8 that's a former something in this case I was down one more notch but it was ok, convenient to the #121 bus line, Taco E.Coli Bell next door and Waffle House across the street.

The Star Inn was via the CLC Check Inn program by Corporate Lodging. A discount program for tansportation workers and well worth joining since the cost to join is zero. Decent discounts on motels and hotels with the card - and some other perks like 24 hour occupancy no matter when you check in, guarantee of a room if they have a room - no negotiating it as they near full capacity.

CLC Check Inn Direct is the name. It works - with some provisos - always call ahead. Fair number of properties leave the program or change names so seeing a listing in their book doesn't mean the place is still in the program and some clerks won't know of the program - they sometimes have to call the owner or summon another employee. In my case I end up staying in better places for the same moeny I'd normally pay in a worn out place so it's as much an upgrade in accomodations as it is a savings. Instead of a $35 no name I can stay in a $35 name hotel - typically a Super 8 or similar.

Sometimes the truck in this work is a moving target - as with the Minneapolis truck - actually Eagan MN, a southern suburb of MSP. Called to confirm the address, timing - I'd been told on an earlier call they would be open till 2 pm Saturday - my flight arrives at 12 07 - I have checked baggage so allow 40 minutes to get to the curb and a taxi. Close but doable as Eagan is nearby.

Called back today to talk to the "day people" - they were the only ones who could actually confirm the truck was ready. Found out the truck's not at Eagan but in Roseville - about 20 miles to the northeast -- and that shop closes at 2 pm also. Very close and in fact so close as to be marginal. But I called Roseville ... this is Penske the big truck rental outfit ... guy was pretty decent. First said they don't release trucks on Saturday but then I said I have a non-refundable ticket and don't want to spend Sat and Sun in MSP - so he agreed if I was there before they locked the gates at 3 pm I could have the truck. Many places would set it out but this shippper doesn't do that and always wants a copy of my driver's license and a signed receipt for the vehicle. So cutting it closer than I like - partly due to air fares and times and so forth but large due to the change in the pickup location. Glad I called again as goig to Eagan would waste whatever small margin of time I had - almost none. Dispatch was surprised as she had a conversation with them as to the truck's location and booked the job for Eagan - there is a 2nd unit at Roseville - I'm not associated with that truck and i guess Penske wanted to consolidate things. Probably thought it would make things easier for us - it didn't. In fact this happens a lot - shipper makes a change like that and doesn't realize the driver's plans are set well before the pickup date - if we're doing a multi-legged trip as I am. Call ahead. Trust no one - even the most well meaning Dispatcher. Glad I caught it but I should have called yesterday - well i only got the job yesterday and was on the road so it was doable but not convenient since I was in and out of PCS coverage - couldn't hold a cell signal long enough to say hello most of the time.

What else is new? Been driving fairly steadily - these two trips will be 97 and 98 on the year. Haven't had a great fall and early winter - some times you hit a slew of trucks with fuel on board that also get good mileage sometimes you don't. Lately I haven't. This digger derrick going to Colorado is getting about 5 mpg - sucks down one-quarter of a 50 gallon tank every 60 miles so I'll make a lot of fuel stops and the 900 miles total for the trip will use about 180 gallons of diesel. Ouch. I may get to invoke the 6 mpg guarantee we have - if we use more than that amount on a trip then the difference is made up at settlement. I try to stay away from 5 mpg trucks but sort of got into this via the backdoor - and the truck's a 6x6 running in 4x6 mode all the time - switchable into 6x6. So lot of axles, differentials and tranny parts in motion - high overhead. It's also doggish - 10 speed Eaton Fuller. But seems a different type tranny and normally I can start out in high range but on this truck that won't get it moving without stalling so I'm down in 4th to take off and work my way through seven gears to get to top speed however no power in top speed so downshifting on any grade. A slow go. Brand new unit - just the compromise that's needed for a truck that's built to dig big holels in the soil and rock and not designed for economy on the road.

I'll get it there but leaving tonight around 7 pm to deliver I hope around 3 pm Friday. That allows a cab nap and I hope plenty of time to toddle along around 57 or 58 mph. I hope I can get mileage "UP" to 6 mpg on the interstate. Coming down from Van Horne yesteday I was mostly on US 65 with lots of small towns stop signs, steeper grades and shaper curves than on the Interstage so might do better fuel economy wise on the Big Rod - I-70.

New web project is underway at http://www.selskc.net - a sort of SELS alumni site. Mainly for those who worked in the Kansas City NWS forecast offices between 1954 and 1997 - the era when the Severe Local Storms unit resided in Kansas City. This is a blatant post to help Google index the site and if you're interested you can visit it too but it's mainly for the Googlebots. Not much there yet - still in development using Joomla! software.

Hey, have a good Christmas - drive safe if youre on the road and if your truck's a new one hope you can find ULSD in the new year - Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel.

Dick Williams (about a 2)
for the Slip Seat Diary