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Thu.Apr.07.2005

6:37 pm EDT        49°F (9°C) in Livonia, MI

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I am getting a load of ice-cream products taken off my trailer at the moment. Hopefully they'll have it finished before long, and I can head out toward Ann Arbor, where I will have to scan the documents for my last five trips no later than 1:00 am EDT Saturday. (I'm not that lazy — I'll get it done some time tomorrow.)

All things considered, I have had a pretty crazy last week or so. The fun started last Saturday afternoon in northern Virginia, as a nasty storm system came barreling through the mid-Atlantic states, dumping rain on the Shenandoah Valley and Potomac River areas and snow in more northwesterly and/or higher-elevation locales. By the time it was all said and done, much of eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania had seen as much as 5" (13 cm) of snow. As a result of the weather, I had to run eight hours on Sunday to make my 7:00 am CDT Monday appointment just outside Chicago. Over the next two days, I would be assigned to two different loads that were sitting on a company yard about 80 miles (130 km) from Chicago, waiting to be taken to deliveries near the Windy City; both of these caused serious disruptions in my sleep pattern. The Monday night one was scheduled for an 11:00 pm CDT delivery, but that receiver failed to have me fully unloaded until after 4:00 am CDT Tuesday. Following an extremely long sleep, I headed back to the yard Tuesday night, and was expecting (based on dispatch information) to be able to just drop that trailer upon arriving at 11:45 pm CDT. Instead, I was told that I couldn't even get in the gate until 4:00 am Tuesday, then I would have to wait until 5:00 am for somebody to show up in the office, and finally, nobody would even start unloading until after 6:00 am. As you can probably guess, this led to a lot of rapid wake up/fall asleep/wake up/fall asleep cycles, which certainly didn't do me a lot of good. Finally, yesterday afternoon, I picked up on Chicago's South Side and took that load to a truck stop in Kentucky, where I swapped with another driver who had a Michigan-bound load to get me back home. (That is the one that's being unloaded right now.)

Oh well, I didn't get my way on the outcome of the NCAA men's basketball championship. Illinois really screwed themselves in the last couple minutes of the game by failing to make any of the shots they took. At least Moo U got their asses kicked by Baylor in the women's hoop final, so considering that, I can say that life is good. (Come on, Sparties, no riot when the women lose? What's wrong with you people? You must be a bunch of sexist male chauvinist pigs to not riot when your women's basketball team loses.)

Just as I've gotten to this point in making this update, I've been notified that the unloading of my trailer has been completed, and I'm being kicked out of here. I should be back with more over the next few days.