ROUTE: Elk Grove Village, IL to Novi, MI: 329 miles (294 loaded + 35 deadhead)
As a trucker it sucks to have a major holiday fall on a Thursday as many times it means that Friday is shot too so half the week is lost. If the wheels are not turning there’s no money to be made. As a banker it was great because that meant a four-day weekend that could mean a trip somewhere for a mini-holiday. Christmas was worse this year because I had to be home for Christmas Eve on a Wednesday so my week ended on Tuesday, so I lost a full week of work. When my Dispatch Manager asked if I wanted to be home for New Year’s Eve I said I wanted to work. I had already lost the previous week and could not afford two weeks idle.
The pick-up was scheduled for noon on 12/31 and delivery for Friday 01/02 at 08:00. The trip was just shy of 300 miles, which entails five drive hours without traffic so there no way I would be able to deliver early, as on New Year’s Eve no company would be open late. Since the consignee was relatively close to our terminal I planned to spend New Year’s Eve there and watch the festivities on the TV of the driver’s lounge, possibly in company of other drivers.
The shortest route for this assignment had two possible slow-downs. One I was aware, the other I only realized as I was driving. The first is driving by Chicago and there’s always traffic regardless the route chosen. The second is that the highway, I-94, borders Lake Michigan and in the winter the conditions around Benton Harbor can be bad due to the moisture from the lake and cold winds. It can be avoided by continuing on I-90 to RT-475, which is a 45 minutes detour. Since I’m still getting familiar with Michigan roadways it didn’t dawn to me until it was too late. I hit a snow storm and the conditions were manageable but not ideal. After a while, and less than an hour from the terminal, the situation worsen and it was a risk to be on the road. The next day I was going to be idle at the terminal and there was no reason to continue putting myself in harm’s way. Less than an hour away from our terminal there is a rest area and I decided to shut it down for the night. I watched the NYC Time’s Square ball drop festivities on my phone.
I arrived at our terminal on Friday morning and went to a Mexican restaurant for breakfast to start off the year with a good meal. Then did some errands, hung out taking care of personal errands and made the delivery on Friday morning as scheduled.
BOOK REVIEW: The Director by Daniel Kehlmann (2025), FICTION – RATING (**)
BORING & CONVOLUTED!
I didn’t understand what the point of the book was and I’m sure I’m the outlier as the book has thousands of great reviews and a long queue at the library to get a copy. The beginning and end were absurd bookends that exceeded rational behavior even for a fictional novel. The middle part was excessive dialogues that led no where. Maybe if it was written as a novella instead of a novel it would have been easier to bear.
A famous German director flops in Hollywood and goes to Austria with his wife and young son to tend to his ailing mom. Austria is occupied by the Nazis and their regime is extremely unjust for outsiders, even Germans. Was that the point? If so, that is as shocking as the statement: “water is wet.”
I got to the midpoint of the book and was compelled to DNF but instead I listened to a different book that was much more entertaining. I went back to this one, hoping that a fresh mind would allow me to understand it and enjoy it but I continued to struggle with it. The end of the story justifies the ridiculous beginning but the middle was just unbearable.
PASS.
