Well, it's been a little bit since I've posted. I've been running pretty hard and getting online to write about my day has seemed way more tedious than it was worth. I had a hell of a time trying to get home for Valentine's Day weekend, which has now turned into Valentine's Day week! That's the joy of being my own boss, if I don't want to go back to work, I don't have to.
But back to trying to get home. I picked up a load out of Edwardsville, IL that was loaded way wrong. For being people who load trailers for a living, it surprises me that they mess them up this often. This is a common trend from this particular customer. After taking the load back to get it reloaded I was out of hours so I went back across the street to our OC. They called me after awhile that my load was ready and I explained that because they had no sense of urgency my hours had ran out and I would have to come get the load in the morning.
So the next morning comes around and I hop over to the customer, inspect the trailer and notice that the tires are separating on the sidewall. This damage was not there the day before, so I'm assuming from the trailer being loaded incorrectly it's caused some problems. Well I figure they took some weight off the load so I should have been good. I shoot over to the OC to get repairs done and one tire turns into three tires after the Tech and I were inspecting the other tires a little closer. Finally after all the tires were done I try to leave and it turns out the service adviser missed the fact that my trailer was too close to it's due date for a new PM. So I have to backup, swing back to the shop and get that done.
While I was waiting however, I called into Charlotte to see if I could get some delay pay for this load. It was after all delayed because the shipper failed to load the trailer correctly and took their sweet time trying to reload it. I wasn't expecting that much of a delay pay, but some is better than none. However, after talking it over with my ICR and explaining why I was still in Edwardsville we came to the conclusion that the total delay up to the point that I was in the shop was due to the customer. So we billed them for the full amount. Made a nice little addition to the load. Well I go scale the load and guess what... they only took the weight off the nose of the trailer and left the load in the exact same order it was before. I could deduce this from the fact that my steer tires were still the same weight as were my tandems. The only difference was my drives. I couldn't fix it any more because my tandems were as far to the front as they could be.
Well finally after a day later I'm moving towards SC. My plan was to get down to the house, spend a day or so with the kids then run over and deliver my load. Then head to pickup my load that would get me home for the weekend. Well I ended up being late for the delivery in SC due to the multiple delays and I didn't even get to spend time with all of the kids. I got to have lunch with Ayden, Zoey and Paula but that was a very short break. Not the amount of time I had wanted.
I get over to the receiver, everything goes off without a problem, I was only about 2 hours late and they didn't seem bothered by this fact, so all was well. It did however run my hours out getting unloaded so I had to spend the night at the customer. Thankfully they allowed overnight parking.
I head over to get my next load, with no problems thankfully. The weight was all good and I was home that night. I made my way to the house, spent the night with the family then got up in the morning and headed an hour down the road to the delivery. I get there and the guards are not allowed to let me on the property. Reason being, the building caught fire earlier in the week. It had burnt before I picked up my load and apparently no one felt it necessary to let anyone who was scheduled to make a delivery at the end of the week that they might not be able to make the delivery. Thankfully, the guards were advised to just let me drop it in the lower drop lot even though it was supposed to be a live unload. This solved another problem I was going to have, which is where to drop my empty trailer. We're not allowed to bring them home unless we want to pay $50 a day past the first 24 hrs unless we have a load booked on us. I knew I wasn't planning on booking a load until sometime over the weekend and that'd have costed me at least $50.
Well I'm booked on a load now and instead of leaving out on Monday like I was going to initially I decided to go ahead and wait until Tuesday to figure out a load. Well I get on the load boards last night and nothing really jumps out at me as a good load. Granted a load is better than no load but it's been six weeks since I was home last and typically in this industry you get one day home for every seven you are out. So by that rule, I wasn't due to leave until today or tomorrow. Well there was still nothing that great leaving out so I decided to sort the loads by greatest revenue and found a great load paying a good amount that's light. Pays a lot, weighs not a lot always equals good profits. So I'm home till the end of the week and depending on how I decide to work it I might not need to leave until Saturday. I have to make a few calls about the load to see if it can deliver on Monday but I have a feeling it's an early morning only delivery. I'm not 100% I could make it there early Monday morning so if it can't deliver Monday afternoon I'll just have to wait.
In the meantime I'm spending some good quality time with the kids. My son Ayden amazes me every day with his logic skills and I could sit here all day watching him play and figure things out. My daughter is pretty simple to please. She's to the stage now were she makes baby noises. My oldest son, I enjoy his company but he's in that stubborn child stage, so it's a little challenging sometimes but I still love being home with all of the kids.
Paula and I went out for Valentine's day without the kids over the weekend, thinking I wouldn't be home yesterday. We enjoyed ourselves, it's been a long while since we've had that kind of fun. Many thanks go to the kids grandparents. I bought her some flowers, chocolates and a bear yesterday. I think she was a little surprised considering we had gone out over the weekend.
We have a lot of running around to do this week. I'm not sure I'm doing all of it with Paula, I think I might end up playing babysitter while she does it herself. She's here all by herself without very much help taking care of the three kids, doing all the running around and trying to keep the house clean. Which with three kids that's a large chore in and of itself. So I'm more than glad to give her time to herself while I take care of the kids. I don't get to see them while I'm gone so even if it is a bit stressful at times I enjoy it more than anything. Well it's time to get some of the house straightened up.
