Time for a quick break

Here I am at a truck stop in lovely Houston, Texas.  And, more than likely, here I will be for at least another day or so.  This little break is necessary to reset my hours of service, and quite welcome after the past couple of weeks.  I did some checking and it won't affect where I need to be to move ahead to the next phase of my job.

I got into town yesterday, with plenty of time to get a decent break in before I had to deliver my load.  My appointment time was at Stupid O'Clock, which meant I had to be up and rolling by at least half-past You Gotta Be Freakin' Kidding Me.  I was plenty early to get through the check-in, and six hours after I arrived, I was on my way back to the truck stop.

Now, every day I send in a check call which lists my hours worked and my hours available.  I also have to send on how many hours I have left for the day when I am empty at a receiver.  By the time I finished and got parked, I had a grand total of five hours left for the day, after which I had to shut down until tomorrow to gain some time back.

Two hours later, I got a load assignment.  I had to be about five hundred miles away in Arkansas to pick up and be at the shipper by tomorrow morning.  The load delivered on Saturday in Maine.  While this was nice from a mileage standpoint, with the hours I had available to me it would have been impossible to do.  I called in and talked to the safety department, as I have to do to discuss a trip plan.  When the safety guy looked at my hours, he agreed there was no way this was gonna happen, and told operations that I need a 34-hour shutdown.  The nice thing about the shutdown is that it resets my clock back to 70 full hours, and gives me a nice rest.  The bad thing is I'm stuck at a truck stop in Houston, low on money (won't get paid until at least Wednesday, I sincerely hope) and with nothing to really do.  I might drag out the DVDs just to kill some time, maybe get some decent sleep as best as I can.

There's wireless access at the truck stop, and I can pop in and do internetty things.  I'll see what I can finagle for food (still have ramen soups and stuffing mix I can whip up) and fight the boredom as best as I can.

Until next time.