ROUTE: East Hartford, CT to Bowling Green, OH: 723 miles (663 loaded + 60 deadhead)
Originally I was assigned a load going from Windsor, CT to Newport, MI for 753 miles and my day would have started around 10:00. Unfortunately, the load was cancelled by the shipper at last minute, a nuisance of the trucking business. My day started around noon. I arrived at the shipper at 13:30 and had to wait for another truck to finish loading. The dock was extremely tight requiring a U-turn and a blind side backing which are extremely difficult. Fortunately, the driver inline to load after me helped me out with the maneuvers. Truckers tend to be very friendly and we help each other out.
The loading took three hours, taking into account the waiting time. I was departing around 17:00 and the delivery was schedule for the next day at 13:00. Figuring that the trip required around 12 hours and I would need to take a 10 hour DOT Regulated break, so the earliest I could make it would be 15:00 and I know that there’s construction on I-80 so that would add at least one-two hours to the trip. I also needed to fuel and that sometimes takes 30 minutes. I informed our office, but since it was a broker deal we were not aware of their working hours. I would drive as much as possible and figure out with my DM on Tuesday.
I drove for five hours to the Sheetz in Buckhorn, PA that normally has parking and has 24 hour dinning facilities. I was starving as I started my day at 10:00 with a bagel and a coffee. I arrived at 22:30 so the earliest I could start the next day was 08:30 and was six hours away.
The broker changed the delivery time to 10/07 at 07:00. I spent the night at the Petro, Perrysburg that has a ton of parking spots and their in-house diner which has decent food. I took a shower since I was at my limit of three days without one, then had steak and eggs for dinner. Truckers eat what they can when they can. It’s not uncommon to eat breakfast for dinner and vice-versa. Daily showers are a luxury that few can afford.
BOOK REVIEW: We Shall Not All Sleep by Estep Nagy (2017) – FICTION (**)
The writing is good but it takes forever to develop. It’s supposed to be about a feud between two families for generations on an island in Maine. The first chapters introduce so many characters that it was utterly confusing and 20% into the book I was still clueless.
The narrative sidetracks into the Cold War era on anti-communism and there’s more effort dealing with that than staying on the main concept of the feud between the two families.
I was going to give it three stars but toward the end there’s a hint of animal cruelty that added nothing to the story. That combined with having one of the principal characters die at the beginning of the book via suicide instead of cancer or something less dramatic that I dropped the rating to two stars.
The story ends like it started: confusing with no real purpose.
Rodrigo Perez-Segnini
I was not expecting a book review instead of a conclusion to the delivery story.
Now I wonder if you made the deadline, is there a hard deadline, and why would the author insert animal cruelty into act 3 of a story. Was it a metaphor or just trying to spice it up?
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I would think the author was trying to spice up the story but it produced the opposite effect. I was revolted.
We should adhere to our deadlines as best as possible but sometimes we miss them for reasons out of our control: delays at shipper or traffic.
Thanks for reading the blog and your feedback!