A Helluva Week

[other dog]

It started off kinda bad, and it didn't get much better. I unloaded some landscaping timbers in Moneta Monday, and reloaded a load of treated lumber going to Akron. Ed wanted me to weigh the load somewhere because he's still trying to figure the weights since they started using some new chemicals in the treating process, which is supposed to be more "environmentally friendly".

So I stopped at the Love's in Fairplain,W.V. and weighed it- 83,740 gross. This after i'd burned probably 40-45 gallons of fuel off.

Then I get about a quarter of a mile from Carter-Jones Lumber in Akron and Case Ave. is closed, so I had to follow a detour, knocking down poles, driving through people's yards, underneath clotheslines, around trees, but I managed to get there. Then of course the reciever guy says "oh, you should have just went to here, turned there, then there again, it's a straight shot from the expressway". Fine then.

Anyway, I went from there up to Elyria and loaded some plastic pipe on big metal reels and delivered them to Roanoke. Unloaded in Roanoke Wednesday, and coulda went home Wednesday night, but couldn't get anyone on the phone. I got to the shop around 2 o'clock, and phoned home all evening, no answer. So I spent the night in the truck, eating beans out of the can, when I should have been home. I finally got a response to my messages at a quarter to 10 that night, when I was asleep. I did not answer the phone because I was very irate at that time.

"My phone never rang"..."it got accidently turned off when it was in my pocket"..."it'll never happen again"...

So, Thursday I went to Moneta and got a load going to Cortland, Ohio. The store is right at Warren though. Weighed that load at Fairplain too, just for curiosity- it was only 81,840. Rained almost the entire way, and I went one exit past Carter Lumber and parked at Flex-Strut in Warren. We deliver and load there, and they told me I could park there. It was 41 degrees and still raining when I got there. When I got up Friday morning it was 17 degrees and snowing pretty good. I released the brakes to go down to Carter to unload...and nothing happened.

I knew right away what the problem was, so I put on all the clothes I could find, and crawled up under with my flashlight, hammer, big screwdriver, strap bar, and commenced to beating on the brake shoes. Every single brake shoe except the steering axle was frozen solid to the drums. Finally got them all free and when I was putting the bar back in the tool box on the headache rack I noticed that the tray on the bottom of the headache rack that my chains go in was full to the top and frozen solid too.

So I took the bar and started beating on that too, and tried to pull the chains out. I finally got 3 or 4 loose but the rest wouldn't budge. I finally had to hook the binders that were hanging from the rack to the chains and use my pipe to tighten them, and finally pulled them out in a big block of ice. I threw that down and beat the hell out of it to free the chains, as I was seriously pissed off by then.

Then I went and unloaded, and all my straps were frozen solid. I had to hold my bar in one hand to release the pressure, then take the hammer in my other hand to release the pawl. When I got the straps loose on the winch, I still couldn't unhook them on the other side- they were frozen solid to the lumber, so I had to climb up on top and free the straps from the lumber. They were so stiff I couldn't even wind them back up, and had to use the bar to rewind them, so what should have been a 5 minute job took half an hour.

Then I went over to Sharon and loaded 2 coils going to Lynchburg. Other than running in snow all the way back to Lewisburg, W.V. I had no further difficulties.

And I saw some things and took pictures of the things I saw.

This is the load that grossed 83,740 lbs.

This is a big Mack truck I saw at Newcomerstown.

This is a big Mack truck I saw on rt. 220.

This is a big Mack truck I saw in Fairplain.

This is a great looking Superliner dump truck on rt. 7 in Ohio.

Saw this KW in Concord, Va. this morning.

Saw this on the back cover of a Canadian trucking magazine Old Bill sent me.

He also sent me this-

[umodelnut]

i like that superliner.

[HeavyGunner]

Hate it when work weeks drag on like that. Oh and are you spotting stuff to take pics of or driving? I heard it took Randyp many, many moons before he became good enough to use Kodacketronomy while driving.

[vision386]

Been there done that my friend! gotta kinda laugh when somebody has a week like that (when its not you) sure as hell aint funny when it is you though!..............drink yourself a beer a two,it'll be better next week!...................................Mark

[hatcity]

You gota talk to the boss about some loads going south.

We don't get that snow stuff. We get this kind of stuff

U-model, you can't look

[other dog]

You gota talk to the boss about some loads going south.

We don't get that snow stuff. We get this kind of stuff

U-model, you can't look

Thanks Ed, I needed that. As you might have guessed, that's one of my favorite pictures!

[other dog]

Been there done that my friend! gotta kinda laugh when somebody has a week like that (when its not you) sure as hell aint funny when it is you though!..............drink yourself a beer a two,it'll be better next week!...................................Mark

Gotta love that flatbeddin', eh?

[other dog]

Hate it when work weeks drag on like that. Oh and are you spotting stuff to take pics of or driving? I heard it took Randyp many, many moons before he became good enough to use Kodacketronomy while driving.

I was stopped when I took those, except for the dump trucks. Randy hasn't given me permission to say Kodacketronomy, so I still have to say taking pictures.

[Joe Ditchkus]

Nice Dumper. Joe D.

[HeavyGunner]

Nice Dumper. Joe D.

The truck or on the girls?

[other dog]

i like that superliner.

So do I Vinny, i've tried and tried to get a good picture of it, but it always seems to be late in the evening or after dark when I get by there so the picture always seems to be a little blurry. But it is a good looking truck, still working but always clean, not too "gussied up", just looks like a Superliner ought to look.

[vision386]

Gotta love that flatbeddin', eh?

You know my philosephy about flatbeddin'................only for those not completely right in the head!.................Mark

[other dog]

You know my philosephy about flatbeddin'................only for those not completely right in the head!.................Mark

I'd rather be wallowing around in the snow and folding frozen tarps and winding up frozen 'scraps' than putting off 27 stops in New Jersey or somewhere similar!

[slpwlker]

I know the feeling on rough weeks. Go and load monday in Galveston. go to the window and told them picking up. was told nothing is realeased. Get on the phone and finally 2 hours later calls me to the window and looks at my paper work and starts cussing. I was 1 trailer off. Had the prick looked at my paperwork in the first place he would of discovered that and I could of loaded. then it starts raining. friggen poured. then lightening. Finally get the machine running and figure out how to move it won't fit on the trailer. Try as I might can't get anything to work right.Get the conveyor to move and was able to hook back up to the trailer. Get rolling now looking like a wet rat, and pissed as a wet cat.

Go get the woman from the truckstop as she can't go into the port. she goes to print the permit and screws up a prong on the printer. we hit the first motel and drop the trailer to go buy a new printer. only highlight of that day was watching Alabama whip the shit out of LS who.

get to ok tueday and am supposed to load in Dallas wednesday morning. well unload wednesday and haul ass to dallas. get there get loaded and look the machine grew. supposed to be 12 wide and now 15 wide. Permits no good. run the route on the comp and looking Tx decided to take me thru residential. Escort next day we run part of the route and I told him i got other plans. No comment on that. leave out on thursday and get to the job via a few extra detours and it goes downhill from there. throw the rears in low and get on the job. Trailer is leaning and I feel like I am going to go over. can't fit between the tracks. they finally move them enough and get in between and get unchained. crane operator raises the crane and the mechanic is guiding me out. get part of the trailer out and looking all is good. I look in the right mirror and the operator is on the ground and I have no clue where he came from. I am still easing up and look back and stopped. some how idk what happened but he lost track of my stinger axle and I got his foot,ankle and I think but no positive part of his leg. I do not know if it was broke or not but I was totally rattled as this has never happened to me before. ended up shutting the job down for a few hours. Recue was out there and carted him off. Was not a good day.