STRAYCAT’S DOGGONE BLOG

Life Day 22341: Stoic in Sumner, WA

September 11, 2008 on 10:19 pm | In On The Road |

My home time was mostly “doggie” oriented. The first order of business was Wolfie’s limp. I took him to the Vet early (by my standards) on Saturday the 6th. The doctor couldn’t find (as me) any obvious wound or injury. He ordered some X-rays. Wolfie, being Wolfie, wouldn’t cooperate so they finally had to sedate him. This left Walter and I with the afternoon free. We had some ‘quality time’ together, but just relaxed in the parking lot. I did some shopping at the Wally World next door. Wolfie was ready about 1700. The Vet gave me two prescriptions and explained what he had found. Silly Wolfie somehow managed to basically ‘wrench’ his knee. He had some ’soft tissue’ damage. One of the prescriptions was for a pain killer, the other an anti-inflamatory drug. Sunday, I took them both in for grooming.

On Monday the 8th, I was ready to go by noon. The Planner gave me back the load that I had dropped on Friday. Weekend night shift in Phoenix strikes again. They didn’t do my T-call. Anyway, that load was scheduled to deliver the next day at 0800 in Vernon, CA (at least that is what the Dispatch said). I drove to Vernon, and spent the night on the street in front of the Customer.

At 0800 on Tuesday, I checked in with Receiving. The clerk said that my appointment was for yesterday (Monday) at 0800 and would have to be re-scheduled. I was then told to take the load to our terminal in Wilmington and T-call it there. This, naturally, left me without an empty trailer. This is basically our “shipping container” yard, but I did a quick check of all the “dry van” trailers just to confirm that there were no empties, and was proven correct. The Planner gave me a nice load to Tukwila, WA, but it required an empty trailer to ’swap’ for the loaded one. Four hours later, they finally found me an empty at a customer “in the bowels” of downtown LA, and right at the beginning of “rush hour” traffic. HOW NICE!!! It took more than an hour to travel the 28 miles from Wilmington to the customer. After I had hooked to the empty, got dispatched on the load, got directions to the Shipper, and did all my paperwork (about another hour in total), it took another 45 minutes to drive the 18 miles to the Shipper in Compton. By the time I did the drop/hook, the ’safety check’, the “L-call, the paperwork, and walked the K9 kids, it was 1830. ‘Rush hour’ had somewhat subsided by this time, but traffic was still heavy all the way to Magic Mountain in Castaic. I started salivating once I figured out that I had just enough hours remaining on my 14-hour clock to make it to Harris Ranch. Mmmmmm. Chicken Fried Steak!!! Of course, I arrived 15 minutes AFTER the restaurant closed.

I did finally get my C.F.S. on Wednesday, the 10th, before I left. After doing my calculations, I figured out that with all of yesterday’s delays, I wouldn’t be able to deliver the load until about 1500 today (the 11th). The scheduled appointment was for 1200. The CSR said that it was no big deal as long as I got it there sometime in the afternoon of the 11th. Anyway, I drove to Canyonville (Seven Feathers), OR where my 11 hours for the day ended.

Today, the 11th, I drove to the consignee in Tukwila, arriving almost exactly at 1500 (my predicted/revised arrival time). I did the drop/hook delivery and since I had no PrePlan as yet decided to have myself routed to our terminal in Sumner, WA for fuel. En route I did receive a Plan going from Puyallup, WA to Phoenix, AZ which I gleefully accepted. It picks up tomorrow as a ‘live load’ at 0900, so tonight I’m just hanging out with the MMM and ‘geeking’.

Wolfie is getting better every day.

I have no comments on the 7th anniversary of 9/11 except to note that the NBC (No Barak Criticism) Network made no mention of it in it’s programming this morning. All of the other Networks DID!!!