January 31

January 31 - Well, due to recent paychecks being horrible among a few other dislikes with Stevens I have been searching for another job. I accepted a position today with Schnieder as a local intermodal driver.

In other words I will pick up shipping containers at the rail yard in Ft Worth and deliever them. This is a local position so I will be home every night with my family. I will be working Monday though Friday with the option of working extra days.

I fly out to Chicago February 12 for training.

January 23

And... soon after I made that post my computer caught a virus and I wasnt able to make any updates.

January 23 - Delivered this morning at 0515 in Clarksville, Arkansas. Got a new load assignment right away that is in Ft. Smith, Arkansas going to Kent, Washington.

I get to the shipper around 0800 and they want to see a receipt for a trailer washout and they also inform me that my company didnt make a loading appointment so they charged me a $100 "fit in fee".

So now I go get the trailer washed out and back into a door at 1000. It is now almost 1400 and they have not touched my trailer.

Life of a truck driver...

January 02

January 02 - Well, it has been quite awhile since my last update. I have to access the internet via my cell phone and the program that I am using wont let me access a secured site unless I register the program. Well, sure enough this blog is a secure site. I finally got the program registered so hopefully I will be able to update more often.

Since I started driving solo in August I have run 45,174 miles for an average of 2259 per week. I guess that not too bad but I would love to see more. I just need to make more money per mile. I have bills to pay and cant do it on this salary.

Right now I am sitting in Liberal, Kansas waiting on a load to get ready. It has 4 drops. First at a Marine base in Twentynine Palms, CA then to Van Nuys, CA then my last two stops are in San Diego at Miramar Naval Air Station.

They sent this load to me yesterday afternoon. According to my load assignment it was supposed to be ready on New Years Eve but like I said, today is the 2^nd and I’m still waiting. The guard told me that the plant is shut down until tomorrow for the holiday so here I sit at a gas station that has truck parking. This isn’t even a truck stop so no shower!