Comments By Dave T.

Spaceman, that wasn’t me. I was down around Blacksburg yesterday about that time. I saw in your pictures that you worked for them. I’ll have to keep an eye out.

Spaceman or Dave? You deliver to Lynchburg or Floyd/Carroll/Patrick Counties area?

I’ve made one delivery in Lynchburg to our commercial fueling station but I spend my weekends up there as the ole lady lives on the north side of town. Our company does a lot of work in the Lynchburg area though. We have stops in Martinsville and Danville but I’m not sure about about Patrick and Carrol counties.

I haven't been to KM. That's pretty wild you're having allocation issues there. Both one and two?

I was at one this afternoon trying to get the gas and eventually got it. I was able to get it at two on Friday and I had an option at two today but went to one first to save the trip across town. Their computer system at KM is a little bit easier than buckeye. I’ll be at the ethanol racks tomorrow so who knows, I might see ya out there.

Spaceman, are you here in the Roanoke area?

We have still be able to get it here locally but the guys are making more trips to Greensboro. Sometimes they make the two hour drive to still not have the allocation and have to come back empty. I even had some trouble getting a load of gas today at KM. We have customers looking to stock up; I had to go check a few tanks today that a customer got to stockpile the fuel for their cranes.

So I have a job where I drive straight trucks some days and big trucks other days. I make the same amount of money (hourly) either way. The straight truck is very labor intensive where as the most I do during the day on the big truck is getting in and out of the truck. Both are hauling fuel but the straight trucks are for small commercial stops and home deliveries where my semi is only used to haul product around town. It really depends on the type of work you’re looking for and what you want to do. I’ve had jobs both local and OTR delivering beer, milk, general freight, building materials and now fuel that have been very labor intensive but I’ve also had to hand unload a 53’ dry van by hand a few times. If you just want to drive and not do much else, drive a dump truck.

Way back when I was still on my learners permit, I was able to add the doubles/triples and my tanker endorsement. I didn’t have to pay any extra that way to add them to my license. I was going to get my passenger and hazmat too but I didn’t have access to a bus and the background check wouldn’t have been back before my test date. I waited for about 8 years to get my hazmat and then another 6 before I got a job to actually use it. Unless you absolutely need it or want a job that requires it, I wouldn’t add the hazmat because of the testing, fingerprints and background check every 5 years. No point in spending the money and effort if it’s not going to be used.

Trying to possibly get carded at Buckeye tomorrow. Hope all you tankers didn't drink the diesel dry during my one day off.

I spend the majority of my days offloading at the buckeye terminal. They’re a lot more laid back than the KM’s here in town. I’m not a fan of their computer system though. Hopefully it’ll change after the first of the year.

This summer when gas was getting scarce I was about to start loading at Kinder Morgan and the screen displayed, "Low Allocation Warning, 89 gallons remaining". So I quickly loaded 9000 gallons lol. I told my dispatcher and they just laughed, "Good! You got the last drop of allocation and then some!"

That’s hilarious! We’ve had a few instances of that at KM here in Roanoke. Im hoping they’ll let me go down to Greensboro sometime to load so I can get carded down there too.

I try to wave at the other tanker drivers but I get a lot of dirty looks when I drive past them when they’re lined up 10 trucks deep trying to get in to load. It’s kinda nice to drive on around everyone and right to the gate.

I think we’ve been getting it there and the KM terminal. Most of our guys aren’t carded anywhere but KM down there. As far as the heating oil goes, we load at our yard as the transport guys bring it in. The cost dipped a little bit this week but I’m sure it’s going to shoot back up again. It was already over $5 a gallon two weeks ago.

The Volvo truck plant in Dublin VA is one of our customers. They can't get authorized tabs through anyone for diesel to put in their brand new trucks. Trainer says we will be trying a whole list of supply numbers at our filling racks today.

Winter should be interesting this year.

We are based in Roanoke and our drivers are having to run to Greensboro, NC to get diesel now. Other companies here in town are heading to Charleston, WV and up to Richmond for it. I haul ethanol so I really don’t have to deal with that but next week I’ll be on home delivery with the heating oil side. We have a lot of customers moving away from the heating oil now because of the cost and I don’t blame them.

I’d have to take a sharpie and draw a big pair of eyes on that 😂 Amazon has a pretty simple return policy. Kinda like Walmart I reckon; I can’t remember which comedian it was that was talking about returning things to Walmart like diapers with 💩 already in them and they’d take them back and exchange them for new ones 😂

If you’re trying to sleep during the day with one of these you could always hit a craft store and put some dark fabric on the back side too. For $30 it’d be worth a shot in my book.