The Adventures Of Daniel B.

The pass was awful. I actually have never driven in anything like that in my life. In some spots, there was 6" of snow on the ground. . . .

Boy, being a Sacramento guy, you MUST have been over Donner Pass in worse than this, eh? Just not in a truck, maybe. Six inches? (With a bad accent) "I scoff at six inches!"

Why did I go through Snoqualmie Pass in such terrible conditions and with an empty trailer. Well, I don't know. I honestly could have ended up in the ditch easily. But I strongly think that God was there with me during all of it.

Why indeed? Well you had the good sense to listen when God was telling you to get over that hill before it was closed (would have messed up your whole schedule if you hadn't, right?)

I would definitely put that down as one of those "God" moments . . .

Stephen E. Birch

Donners Pass is a joke compared to what I experienced in that mountain.

Sorry I haven't updated in a little while. That's just how busy it is out here!

I left off with picking up my load a day late and being forced to night driving. Nothing remarkable happened with this load. But like I said, I want to share a trick of mine I like to use to help me out of night driving.

The trick is to shorten your driving shifts, but drive enough miles in that shift to not screw you over on your tight schedule.

I call it the 8/10 shift. Meaning work 8 hours, then 10 hour break.

I started my 8 hour shift at 2000 (8pm). I drove nonstop for 7 hours and 45 minutes racking up about 430 miles and parking as close to my clock expiring as possible. Did I still do enough miles? Yes. I shortened my shift to try to get back into driving daytimes. So lets see if my math was successful. Remember that this load is a 3 day shift.

2000(8pm) to 0400(4am). Now, I did say I'll have to do some night driving. But there's a huge difference between driving 9pm to 6am and 8pm to 4am. 4AM-6AM is my most difficult time to night driving. That's when my body just gives out and wants to pass out and sleep. So I like to avoid that time frame.

I ended my shift at 0400(4AM) and I'll get my hours back at 1400(2pm). Lets do another 8/10.

1400(2pm) to 2200(10pm). That's not really night driving. That's only an hour or two. And my last day will look like:

Get hours back at 0800(8am).

0800(8am) to 1600(4pm). No night driving at all. Do you see how I completely avoided my bad hour 4-6am? Using this technique, I drove 1,250 miles in three days. That got the load on time.

Here's what I could have done. This would have been a "normal" shift.

2000(8pm) to 0400(4am). Take a 30 minute break then continue driving for 2 more hours after you're exhausted from sitting down for 30 minutes. End my shift at 0700. I just ended up doing a 8PM to 7AM shift! Full day of night driving!

Get my hours back at 1700(5pm) and drive the same way as yesterday. I'll end my shift at 4AM. Decent. But remember, at 12am I will have already driven for 7 hours. So 0000-0400 I'll already be tired from driving earlier in the day. Imagine how tired you'll be at 0300?

Then finish off the load in the afternoon, do however many miles you have left over.

So I hope that makes sense. By doing my 8/10 shift I was able to bypass driving nights. However, if I drove a "normal" shift I would have killed myself driving at night with two awful shifts. Both would get me on time for the delivery. Except I turned a night driving load into a day time load.

I wanted to post this because there are sooo many ways of being creative with how you use your clocks. You absolutely must think outside the box. If you'd ask me, I think being intelligent and making good choices is one of the greatest characteristics you can have in this career. Being smart will take you far! Use your head.

I arrived at home on time as usual. Prime is excellent about this!

I only have 3 days off at home because I was on the road for only three weeks. I must be home on April 10st for me and my wifes anniversary. And between my previous hometime and the 10st is 6 1/2 weeks. Well, I dont like to be on the road for that long. It gets to me. So I split the 6 1/2 weeks into two 3 week periods. So after this current hometime I'll stay on the road for 3 1/2 weeks then come home for 3 days for the anniversary. I do love staying out for three weeks. It seems like a perfect ratio but it does hurt the wallet.

Anyways, I contacted my DM via Prime Mobile App and told him that I'm ready for a load. He told me that they are 45 loads short in the CA area so it'll be a while. Later that day, in the afternoon, I received my new load assignment. Picking up frozen strawberries along the coast in Southern CA and taking it to North Platte, NE. Its a 320 mile deadhead and the appointment is the next day at 0900. I'll have to night drive to make that pickup appointment on time. I wasn't too happy about that but this load is 1750 miles so that brought a smile to my face.

Here's how I trip planned the pickup.

320 miles divided by 50mph = approximately 6 hours. I'll be deadheading so I'll have an empty trailer so the mountains won't slow me down. So lets go ahead and just say that 320 miles will take me exactly 6 hours.

0900 Appointment subtract 6 hours drive time = If I leave at exactly 0300 I'll make it perfectly on time. But remember the golden rule! Always make time for the unexpected!

So I'll leave at 0200 and that'll buy me an extra hour.

My wife drives me to the truck parked at a Walmart that has many trucks parked in it all the time. My car is loaded with all my stuff. Here it sits... Looking amazing!

As we get closer, my wife notices something wrong on the trailer. We drive to the back of it and discover that the trailer has graffiti on it. Someone put graffiti on the back of the trailer along the side of it on the passenger side and on both of the trailer doors. Lots of B words, F words, and gang names written on it.

This is the last thing I needed!!

I message my company. I message instead of call because if they ever ask me if I told them I can tell them yes and prove it to them. They can't tract a phone call, but they can trace Quallcomm messages. So I message dispatch and am told to talk to Road Assist. I talk to road assist and they tell me to go to a trailer repair shop in the morning. That would be lovely except my pickup is 320 miles away from here and it picks up at 0900.

They give me the go ahead and tell me to buy a paint remover from the Walmart and "see what you can do". At this point, I'm extremely frustrated and concerned about my pickup appointment. Anyways, we buy some supplies and the entire time my wife is bugging me. She tells me I don't need all of that fancy paint remover. She insists that Nail Polish Remover will work better. What the heck? What do you know about this stuff? -Was my facial expression..

Anyways, the little blonde girl who apparently thinks nail polish remover will work amazingly buys her 2$ bottle of her nail polish remover. Meanwhile I have all the doubt in the world that this will absolutely not work and is a waste of time. "There's a big difference between a metal trailer and your nails", is what I told her.

We get to the truck and we open up the bottle. Sure enough, it works perfectly. It doesn't even damage the trailer paint at all! So we go scrubbing away at every spot. We have trouble removing it completely but we're smearing it to make it unreadable. Good enough for me. I tell Road Assist everything and I'm free to go.

The little blonde girl goes home happy. Knowing she has outsmarted her husband, but just this once! I still can't believe that Nail Polish Remover worked as well as it did. And I feel like an idiot for having no confidence in my wife's theory of nail polish. Haha!

I arrive at my pickup 20 minutes LATE! I know it technically wasn't my fault. But this is the first appointment I was late for at Prime. This is also my last month solo before becoming a trainer. I need to shine!!! Being late doesn't help achieve my goals. I was frustrated. But thankfully the shipper didn't mind . I'm still not happy about it. I wish harm to the loser(s) who put graffiti on my trailer. Get a life!

That morning, I also got an urgent message to call the Safety/Incident department at Prime.

Great, now I have to get involved in the Safety department. They are the good folks I like to avoid.

Spoke with the lady at Safety about everything that happened. She asked a ton of questions and told me to file a police report. So now I have to get involved in the police department. I hope karma bites those losers in the ass who did this to my trailer.

Finally filed a police report and spoke with safety one last time. Gave them the police report reference number and she asked a few more questions.

I called Blue Beacon but they insist that they won't be able to get the spray paint off my trailer. So I guess I have to just hope to be routed to a terminal for the cleaning. But at least I can drive. I can't just with profanity on my trailer. I looked over my phone book to see who I can call to vent. Ernie didn't answer he was sleeping. Old School answered so had the privilege of venting to him about it!

Every day is different. Everyday I learn something today - today I learned that nail polish remover works great to take off spray paint off of a trailer. I also learned that my wife is pretty damn smart, and very pretty.. oh wait, I've always known that! A lot of days in trucking get taken over by other people and things you can't control. You think you have a solid gameplan for the entire day, next thing you know the road is closed or your shipper took 6 hours unexpectedly. Its so hard to predict a day because of the million things that can slow you down.

1) I am 5'3 not short 2) I used 100% acetone nail polish remover

I love it when Olga jumps in here on Daniel's threads - she always confirms my suspicions over who wears the pants in that household!

I love it when Olga jumps in here on Daniel's threads - she always confirms my suspicions over who wears the pants in that household!

I know...I love it too! You always get the real scoop when the wives chime in!

I love it when Olga jumps in here on Daniel's threads - she always confirms my suspicions over who wears the pants in that household!

I know...I love it too! You always get the real scoop when the wives chime in!

Well come on hes calling me short a little blonde gurl and says women dont know what they are doing. He called me a lost puppy when it comes to fixing stuff well I proved him wrong.

Old School,

I'll be sure to order the most expensive menu item when we meet up for dinner

Brett, yeah it definitely boosts my ratings!

Olga, stop letting the tires on my car be completely flat everytime I come home. Then maybe you won't be a lost puppy.