Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

It's been a cold past couple of days. And i'm not just talking "oh man its so nippy out here!" HELL NO! I'm talking 5 minutes outside and you're freezing your ass off. Like, sub zero temperature cold. And that's not even the worst part! Sub 0 isn't terrible, WITHOUT WIND!" WITH wind, it's freaking miserable! And lately theres high winds, so 0 degrees turns to -20 or worse. So cold that last night I didn't idle the engine, I ran my bunk heater. The bunk heater kept the inside of the truck warm enough that I didn't 'freeze', but I still woke up pretty cold. The engine actually sputtered pretty bad at first when it first started up. Apparently when it's down below 15 degrees we are supposed to leave the truck running. I guess diesel fuel can gel up if it gets cold enough.

So, yesterday was so fun. *NOT!* Delivered at 8:30, met up with Erin to get my keys for my car (long story.actually not really.. i'm just lazy).. Then drove 25 miles south to do a pick up, then went back towards carlisle and went south to york to deliver, then drove 25 more miles, picked up, then it was 100 miles to delaware to deliver. Of course, I was supposed to go from there to burlington to do a pick up to come to ohio for a bj's run, but I was looking at my hours and thinking "shit I'm running tight on hours." So I called my dbl and talked to him about it. He basically said "i know it's gonna be tight, but that load has to deliver by midnight tonight, and it looks like you have the hours to get it there." So, I got it there, and I had 20 minutes on my time when I arrived. I saw a rest area 15 miles north that I figured if I had to, I would run over on my hours and be in violation if I had to but I would come up there to that rest area.

When I got to the procter and gamble in delaware, I asked the guard if there was any place close that I could bobtail park. Basically he recommended the rest area that I had taken notice of anyway, so I thought "ok, well there's my answer." When I left there, I was already negative on time but it couldn't be helped. I drove the 15 miles north and parked.

This morning when I was 15 miles from burlington, I got a message from my DBL asking me to call. I pulled over and called, and he mentioned the log violation and was like "when you got to procter, there wasn't any parking?" I was like "nope, I asked, they recommended the rest area that I parked at. It was the closest place." He was like "oh, ok, good, well I just wanted to make sure. We never like violations but we understand that sometimes they happen and can't be avoided."

Of course I thought "i could have avoided it if I stopped and delivered in the morning" but of course I didn't say that. If I had to do it all over again I would just deliver late and not run into that issue with the hours. My dbl was worried that going from there, 90 miles to burlington, that I wouldn't have enough hours to get from burlington up here to ohio. Well, I had almost the whole 90 miles to drive to burlington this morning, and I still made it here to ohio with an hour and a half on my time. I even stopped for fuel and stopped to take my DOT break which is normally a half hour but tonight I did 45 minutes because I had to make a phone call.

So here I am in Ohio, been here since like, 830. Layed in the bunk doing the publishers clearing house entries online, and then on facebook for a little while, and then I thought "i better get online and see if I need to do anything for school tonight". Thankfully since today is the first day back from our two week winter break, there was nothing yet. So, last but not least, before logging off the computer and going back to the ipad, I wanted to come on here and blog.

Course, tonight I've left my truck running the whole time I've been here. So, I'm still just sitting here. I'm pretty sure that soon there will be someone coming out and taking the seal off the trailer and telling me to go ahead and back into door two, but for now I'm just waiting. There's a ton of snow out here. They apparently got hammered bad the other day.

So anyway, that'll be all tonight. I hope you are doing well. Have a good night and God Bless!

C

Vacation time!!!!

Yup, that's right. I said vacation time. I'm on my week of paid leave from Schneider. Today is only day 1 of 5 but it was great. Hung out with the family. Played a little and watched stuff on tv as well as movies. I have 2 more days where the girls are off from school and then Thursday it'll just be me here at home cuz Erin works and the girls go back to school. Zoe still has her after school care that day so I'll see Erin first, then at 330 we will pick up Zoe, then at 6 we will pick up ally. I'm glad to have this special time.. It makes me being a company driver and not leasing seem alright because I have this paid leave. After September 20, 2014, I'll then have 2 weeks paid. I like the idea of spacing out my weeks off. But I also like the idea of taking 2 weeks off all at one time. I've joked with cousin Mary how a year from this summer, which would be summer 2015, we should all plan a family Disney world trip. Who knows if we will do it but it would definitely be cool. Erin and I want to take the girls to Disney as soon as we can. So who knows.

So on that note, I'm gonna call it a night. Had a wonderful Christmas. And I was glad that I was able to tke my vacation time during New Years. Hope you all are well. Talk to you again soon.


C

Merry Christmas Eve!

So its officially christmas eve! I'm not going to write much tonight because honestly I'm pretty tired and want to hit the hay right now. Today wasn't much as far as miles go, but I went to like, 4 places. 5 if you count where I went to get my empty. I went to Marshalls in philly to pick up an empty, then about 4 miles from there to get loaded, then about 15 miles from there to pick up part two of that load, and then up 476 north to I-80, then 15 miles over and a few miles off the interstate to deliver at a Walmart DC. Then from there, about 60 miles north to Tunkhannoc, picked up there, and now headed south again to deliver at Kmart in Fairless. I'm stopped currently at a plaza along 476 south. Basically just parked, covered my windows up and got ready for bed. Got online thinking "i think I might have school stuff to do" but looks like it's all done already, so I thought "ok, let me do a quick blog and then go to bed" So, there it is! lol

So, I don't know over the next few days if I'll be back on here. Ideally I'd like to, but I don't know. If I'm not on till after the holiday, I wish you all a very merry Christmas!

OH! That's one thing to write about here. I'm kind of amused lately. Everyone I run into is like "Happy Holidays!" And I respond with "You too! Merry Christmas!" When I picked up today at the 2nd pick up which was a load of ladders, they were apparently having a christmas party and they had a ton of food and were like "hey bro you hungry! We got a ton of food!" I was like "suuuure!!!" We're talking lasagna, chicken marsala, potato salad, etc. It wasn't bad at all. I only got a small scoop of the potato salad because I couldn't tell by the smell if it was the potato salad that has mustard in the mix. When I ate it, it was really good and I thought "damn I wish I would have grabbed more." LOL.. But, I am very thankful for the free food! Thank God! :)

So on that note, Merry Christmas everyone! Talk to you again soon!

3 days till christmas

Hello all. It's december 22nd, 2013, and I'm up here on Interstate 80 east bound parked currently at a rest area. I had stopped and gotten a subway sub, and then I knew I needed to stop for an hour or two to get some school stuff turned in. So, that is what I've been up to the past two hours. I'm getting ready to get back on the road but I wanted to come on and do another blog entry. As you can tell, I'm trying to be fairly regular with my entries lately. We'll see if I can keep it up. I'm hoping that sometime soon i can buy one of those keyboards that you can pair with an ipad because then I think some of the things I do online might be easier. I would still be on the computer doing school work, but I would like to blog regularly, and I would also like to get back into working on my book that I have like 100+ pages or whatever. I havent written in it for like, a year or so. Part of it is writers block, but another part is my computer is a net book and so it isn't exactly the fastest pc in the world. It lags from time to time, as Ashley would be able to tell you from when we used to oovoo chat all the time. It's great for basic stuff such as me doing my school work, and stuff like that, but anything that requires good performance it starts to lag. Sometimes when I'm trying to write, it will miss a letter that I typed. I would type "want" and it would miss the N and say "wat". It'd do that for multiple words, always the same letter, and so I'd read over my blog entry afterwards and go "ugh, sonofabitch". Then I'd have to open up my entry and edit it, correct what was wrong, then republish.

So anyway, I went from jersey to ohio last night, delivered at a bj's, then from there 30 minutes to the schneider drop yard, dropped my empty, picked up my loaded trailer, and went to sleep because by that point it was 2 AM and I was dead tired. Got up probably by noon, went down to the pilot and got fuel, then hit the road. Stopped at a loves right on the boarder of pa and ohio because they have a subway there and I figured I had like $7 worth of points on my loves card, and so I thought "might as well get a sub and use up some points." She was ringing me up and I was sure it was going to be like $5.75 cuz of how I get a $5 footlong meatball, and she was like "that'll be $4." I stopped and just looked at her for a minute, and then was like "oh ok, I was expected it to be like $5.75, but 4 works." She was like "yeah, its for this month they are doing $2 6 inches and $4 foot longs. I was like "oh, sweet!"

So anyway, I'm thinking I'm going to cut this one short for today because I gotta get going again. It's definitely true some days are better than others. Yesterday and today I have felt ok. Still broke, but out here doing my job and not having a bad day. The only bad thing, which I still dont know what was going on, was right when I stopped at this rest area, I couldn't see out of my right eye. It felt like I had something in my eye, but I swear it was like "half an hour" where I was forcing myself not to try to rub my eye, and it probably looked like I was crying because my right eye was non stop running. Then after like 45 minutes while I was focusing on my school stuff instead, I stretched, and suddenly my eye was back to normal for the most part. THANK GOD! I am still having the eye twitches for some reason, so I'm not sure whats up with that.

So, I'm headed back to the bj's in burlington, nj tonight, and then i'll head over to the yard in fairless to shut down for the night. Then tomorrow morning I have a live load appointment at 11AM, then I'll go an hour and a half to a walmart thats still here in PA to deliver, then they have me routing back to the bj's in burlington. Sooo, I'm "fairly" sure that whats going to happen *since I've been overdue to have the truck in for a PM (preventative maintenance) for the past 3 weeks*, is that they will load me up with a bj's load tomorrow night, then route me to carlisle to the Operating Center, where I assume I'll be getting the truck in for a pm, and being sent to the hotel for the night while the truck is worked on. Yes, that's right, I assume, and yes I know it makes an ass out of you and me. Sue me! :P

Is this definitely going to happen? I don't know. I'm only assuming because this week, I get back home the day after christmas, and I'm using my vacation so I'll be off on the 26th till January 3rd. HELLLLLLL YEAH! or I should say.... THANK GOD! I'm looking forward to the break. Would be even more wonderful if we had money to do a few things while i'm home but its the time with the family that counts. Maybe we'll plan a few cook-outs or something, or hang out with the inlaws, or whatever. I dont know. It'll be a nice break from it all.

So as you can see, more pictures down below. One is a picture of a picture, I don't have my phone pics uploaded, so I literally took a picture of my phone with the image on the screen. It's my youngest girl Zoe with Santa. She'd been asking for the past few weeks about going to see santa so we finally went. The other picture because I'm sitting here on the shoulder by a rest area on I-80, so you get the joy of seeing a shot of the actual interstate. i know, so interesting.. lol. :P

On that note, I hope you all are well, God bless, and talk to you next time.

there are always good days, and bad days.

So yes, as the title of this post says, there are always good days and bad days. Some days might not be as good or bad as other days. Sometimes I go through my work day out here on the road and I'm happy as can be the whole time. Other days, something happens that drags my whole day down. Other days nothing really happens, but I just am down for some reason. Yesterday was one of those days where someone did something and the day was just off for the rest of the day.

Since having been friends with melissa, and ashley, a pet peve I've developed is people saying they will do one thing, but then they don't. For example, Melissa and I were the best of friends for many years. We met online back when Lori and I were married, and we texted and chatted online all the time. I never would have thought that our friendship would go poof and be gone, but sadly one day it did. To this day I still don't know exactly what happened. From one of our last chats *which we had gone about a year-ish, since we had talked last*, from what I gathered, we were both going through a rough time. I was going through a rough time in Iowa, dealing with a lot, and I learned (too late apparently), that at the same time, she had been going through a rough time and that someone very dear to her had passed away and she tried to tell me and I went off about how things were going for me. Not the most sensitive, but to this day I swear I don't even remember this discussion. Well, that was like the last straw I guess and I stopped hearing from her for a while. Then we started talking again for a while, but I guess she changed her mind because then I tried texting her a few times and she stopped responding. So, either she changed her number or just flat out figured "fuck you!" and ignored me.

So then there was Ashley, or "Ash" as myself and others called her. She lives up in Maine, and we would talk off and on for quite a few years. We'd go like a year and then we'd message a few times, and then we'd go a while without talking again. Well when I was driving for CR England, for some reason, we got really close, closer than we had ever been. She was going through a rough time and she needed support I guess, so of course, being the friend I try to be, I was there for her if needed. Anything from just chatting about whatever, to loading up my computer and putting oovoo or yahoo video chat on. Sometimes the video chat would be on, and I'd be doing other stuff not even chatting on the screen, and she would basically be doing the same. Occasionally we would load up yahoo video chat and we would actually be talking. It depended on the day, but that's what I figured I was there for, a friend if she needed one.

Well, then it came out of the blue, but one day we were chatting like we usually did, and then the next day suddenly she was not responding. When I'm close friends with someone or close with someone in general, I am pretty good about being able to tell when something is up. Take my cousin Mary for example. We text back and forth fairly regularly, so it's easy for me to tell when there is something bothering her. Usually she's very chatty, and when she's quiet I'm like "ok whats wrong cuzzo?" She then tells me what the issue is that is going on in her life that day, and every time i'm thinking "yup, I knew there was something wrong." Well the same deal was with ashley and melissa. I knew immediately that there was an issue. I kept texting ashley every so often to try to figure out if something was wrong, but then when she responded, she basically told me that "it was God's will that we should probably not talk like we do right now." I was like "huh?!" So, we went from talking every day, to not talking at all. So for like the first two months it was hell because I was so used to chatting all the time.

Let me back up a bit. When ashley and I started to really connect, I kept my walls up. I told her I didn't want to allow myself to open up because I didn't want to risk getting hurt when she left. She was like "no I'm glad you're opening up. I want you to be open with me. I'm not going anywhere. Sad to say you're stuck with me! :P" So, trusting her word, I let my guard down, and let myself open up.

So, when she kicked me to the curb and said it was because "God wanted her to", I had trouble dealing with that at first. You could say I was telling myself "great, damn it, what the hell was I thinking! I knew I should have kept my walls up!"

So, since then, for a while we were not on foursquare or facebook together at all, but since then, we are connected again on both, but we don't talk. I figure I'm here if it ever changes (which I doubt it will), but I've tried to comment on foursquare and she never responds. However many months back, she told me if I was ever in Maine to let her know and she wanted to meet me. Well, I then got to maine a few weeks later and I messaged. I was literally like 20 minutes from her, but she never said anything back. So I thought "fuck it, I tried."

I've sense confirmed *although I knew this anyway*, that her and melissa are still thick as thieves, so I guess they both either individually or jointly decided to kick me to the curb because they couldn't be friends with each other and with me at the same time. I'm not sure what the issue is, but I've bee working through it.

So, moving on, yesterday, a cousin of mine up in connecticut, Dannielle (i've never met her in person, just through facebook so far), she started writing recently. So far from what I've noticed, just a short story. She messaged me on facebook and asked me if I would read what she wrote and give her feedback. I was like "sure why not." I mentioned that I have started writing a book of my own but havent worked on it for a while, and that I had like 100+ pages. She was like "Send it to me! I'd love to check it out and let you know what I think!" So, for the first time in a while, I felt inspired and thought "well maybe I'll get back to it and resume writing in the book." The next morning we were texting and she asked me to sum up what it was about, and i did, and she goes "actually I'm not into that stuff." So, I was like "so you don't want me to send it to you after all?" She was like "no, but it sounds like you got it pretty well figured out."

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't bummed by this. It goes back to someone saying something, ad then changing. I mentioned it to cousin mary and she was like "why would she ask and then change her mind?" I was like "hell if i know." But I again thought "i shouldnt have even said anything about my book, what the hell was I thinking?" I guess I really looked forward to her reading my book so far and letting me know what she thought. I got my hopes up too much apparently.

So, moving on from that, I was delivering at the bj's in burlington, nj yesterday afternoon, and another schneider driver was there waiting also. I could tell by his truck he was a lease operator and so of course we got to chatting. He was telling me about how on his good weeks he has paychecks of $2,000...and how on his bad weeks (like when he goes home for 3 days), he has like, 700-800. He said a few weeks ago he had a week where he made $4000, and so he made two extra truck payments and he was getting ready to pick up a load headed back towards his home in Mass, and he was basically going to go home for like 3 weeks. I was like "well damn." So, I was then bummed about that because that is the direction I'd ideally like to go as far as my job goes.

So, I'm trying to hold myself up the best that I can. I'm thankful that I have erin and the girls, and that I have Mary, her brother, and her parents (my aunt and uncle) up in connecticut. Other than that, there isn't really a long list of people I'd call true friends. I thought melissa was and I was mistaken. Then I thought Ashley was and she showed that we really werent.

On that note, a guy I've known since high school, whom I've always considered a really good friend, called me up two nights ago. It was great to hear from him. We literally talked for like an hour about how if he wins the lottery jackpot, he would split it with me, and so I was like "hey I'll do the same, if I win I'll split it with you but you'll have to come out to pa :P" It was great. We even talked about the pet site that I have wanted to do for a while. He's a programmer and has a lot of experience now and he asked me about if I still want to do my petsite. I was like, "hell yeah, but I can't afford to hire a programmer right now, and I especially can't afford you james!" He was like "no dude, I'd be doing it as a hobby, but I've got enough experience and I'm confident enough, that I know we can do it now if you want." So, I'm thinking I might re-register the domain names when I get my bonus next month, and get a small hosting package, and see if we can get art work started for the pets and items and stuff and we'll see what we can do! Part of me is trying to keep the walls up going "i don't know if I should go for it and get my hopes up". I guess that's what life is all about eh? You take chances, you go for the things that you want. I'd do that with leasing, but Erin's not ok with it after how england went and so without her blessing, I am sort of stuck where I'm at I figure. But pet site wise, maybe now's the time! I just have to figure out if Erin would do art work for us to start, and/or if there is anyone out there artist wise that can do pets and items for us without any issues. I guess we will find out! Time will tell!


So, in conclusion, I'm up here in Massachusetts right now. Got up here last night because this customer allows us to park the night before. Got here at midnight, got up by 7:15, checked in by 7:45, got docked in my door by 8:30, and have been just hanging out. So, in the mean time I got online and did my school posts, called our storage place out in iowa and payed the storage bill, and now here I am doing my blog. Yes I know, been a fun morning so far. I'm kind of hoping to be done here soon. My next load that I'm picking up is like a half hour from here and it is going straight to the yard in fairless so basically I'm shooting straight there and dropping the trailer, parking the truck, and going home for my time off. :-D

So, I included more pictures for your amusement. One is me showing off my two lottery tickets. Sadly, I wasn't the winner of the 550Million mega millions drawing. Oh well, I continue to get a few tickets each week in hopes that some day (hopefully soon), I will be able to come home full time. The other pictures are just random pictures I took with the web cam. Figured I get use out of the webcam this way, since I don't video chat with anyone on the computer any more.. :) Hope you all are well. God Bless!

walking in a freaking cold wonderland. :)

Woh it's nice and bitter cold out! So I got home late last night. It was like midnight. I got back to the fairless yard at like, 10:30, and it took me about 20 minutes with the car running and me using a scraper to be able to get the ice off the windshield. The other windows had absolutely nothing on them. Erin was having trouble getting to sleep, so she came down and met me in the kitchen where I was grabbing a quick bite and a glass of lemonade tea. So, erin got up and headed to work by 5, and I woke ally up by 6:20, and then I went back to bed for an hour and a half and then zoe was already awake. Our cable is out right now at home because we can't pay the bill till next week due to rent going out this week. I tried to get online on my laptop using my phone hot spot, but our signal in the house isn't always the greatest and I was really needing to send the rent off from our online banking so I brought my laptop with me when taking zoe to kindergarten. There are parent teacher conferences at 9:15 so when dropping zoe off at 8:40, I then parked and kept my engine running for heat and got online and got the rent check sent out, so at least that's done!

So I'm thinking I'm going to call that it for now. I might write more later but I want to get inside the school a little bit early. Hope you all are doing well and staying warm!

Snow time in New York

A change to the song lyrics "it's christmas time!!!! in the city!!!" Instead, tonight it's "it's snowy time!!!! in NEW YORK!!!!" lol. Yes I'm weird I know.

So I'm here at the same pilot that I was at when I posted the last post. This time, headed the other direction, BACK to Massachusetts. (I'll admit I typed the name of that state about four times before I finally spelled it right. :P ) So I picked up today out near buffalo new york. Picked up at Morton Salt, basically I picked up a load of (I thought it was going to be bags of sidewalk salt), but what it turned out to be was water softener. Then instead of being on I90 east the whole way (which was what I was expecting), schneider routed me south, then east, then north east bipassing about 200 miles of I90. Usually I prefer to stay on the major interstates like I90 but with all the snow that has been coming down, apparently the stretch of I-90 that I skipped got closed both directions because of several large accidents (sounded like pile ups). So, I guess it's good I went by schneider's routing.

So it was interesting because I got on this interstate that the pilot i'm parked at is off of, and I passed a few rest areas. Then went past an exit where I saw a large travel plaza with a large parking area for trucks. When I passed it I thought "shit I should have stopped there." The main thing tonight was, I could have easily made it to mass, but the next load wouldn't be ready until midnight, and I'd be out of hours by then, and wouldn't know where to park, so i put my eta for this one out to tomorrow morning, and then to pick up the next one that is headed towards home (for pick up around noon or earlier). Playing it safe so to speak.

Then I already have a bj load assigned for saturday when I come off of home time, and it's already loaded so when I get back towards fairless tomorrow, I'm going to keep going across into burlington, nj, pick up the next load, then head to fairless and park it for my time off. The last time I had the option to do that, I thought "oh, it'll be fine, I'll just pick it up saturday." Well then I came out saturday and instead of 450 miles, I ran 200 up to new york because they had given the assignment to a guy on friday while I was off, because they wanted to keep him rolling. So after that weekend being really bad, I messaged my driver leader and told him if it's available when I get to fairless, would it be an issue with me picking it up and parking the load in fairless for when I come back out saturday and he said that's no problem. Soooo, from now on, if I have the hours for it, I'm going to do that because the planners can't reassign a load when I have already accepted it and picked it up.

So anyway, yes another picture. This time because I'm multitasking (was doing school, but that's done for tonight, now eating and making a call about our comcast bill, while of course, getting ready to write this entry.. lol. i know, i'm UBER talented. )

So anyway, in conclusion of tonights "MOST EXCELLENT" blog entry.. (just kidding). ;) When I got parked, it wasn't snowing here. But when I came back out to the truck, it was snowing really hard, so I'm hoping *crosses fingers* that i'm not snowed in when I am trying to leave here. I would really like to make it back without any issues tomorrow. It's not a long load so hours wise I should be fine unless something happens to delay me. So, here's hoping it's smooth sailing all the way down!

So, on that note, I hope you all are well, and I will talk more again sometime soon (hopefully soon.. lol)