Denver is Beautiful This TIme of Year

We left here, Denver(which is beautiful this time of year), last Monday evening at about 1500, well that was the first time. You see, dispatch called, they said they had a load from the airport in Denver to the airport in Dallas. They said it was to load at 2000 supposedly local time. I called the shipper, because that sounded awful late for a load at the airport, and they said that they close at 2000 and we needed to be there prior to their closing.

I went and found an empty trailer, we went out to the airport, and they loaded us with 1 300# pallet, on a 53' trailer. Hmmmmm. I called dispatch before we left to make sure that I had all the freight that we were supposed to get. Both, dispatch and the shipper, said that that was all I was supposed to take to Dallas so we proceeded on to Dallas International airport.

About 45 minutes after we left the airport dispatch called and wanted to know when we were going to go pick up the load. I advised them to hold on for a minute so I could pull off the highway so that when I threw my phone it wouldn't cause glass to blow back into my face. I then exited at the nearest off ramp and continued the conversation with the dispatcher from Sacramento. After exchanging pick up addresses, names, pickup numbers etc. they made another call to the shipper and it was determined that we left without getting all the freight and that we needed to turn around and go back to the shipper for reloading.

We headed back to the shipper and they reloaded us for our trip to DFW. Finally, about 2040 Eastern time we were on our way again and after a brief fuel stop we were off and running. We got to the assigned address about 2 hours earlier than the appointment time. Upon arrival, we were told that we were at the wrong address. They did have the correct information though and we were only a few miles from where we were supposed to deliver.

We made our way to the correct delivery address, they removed the freight from our trailer and we headed to our Dallas terminal. We took a call on the way over there, which was actually only a few miles, and we were asked to pull a load to Orlando out of DFW at about 0100 on Wednesday. We agreed to take the assignment.

We piddled around most of the day in Dallas. Went to get a bite to eat and came back and went to bed pretty early as we were up all night driving to make delivery. Not griping, driving is our job, just stating the facts.

The Qualcomm system woke us up at about 0400 with a message letting us know that our Orlando load had canceled. We drifted back off to sleep and got up at about 0800 and went for breakfast.

We seen a couple of our friends there on our way out so I left one of them a message and woke the other from a sound sleep to go with us to the Cracker Barrel for breakfast. After much wrangling, Jose' and Ceci finally got up and met us for breakfast and to catch up on much needed fellowship.

After breakfast we went back to the terminal so that I could do some maintenance on the 9/12 Truck. I changed the FS2500 bypass filter and did a chassis lube. I also had some wires that needed re-tied and a loose fender bracket that I had to tighten.



Joe and J.B., both who are pictured here, Joe is the red and J.b is the blue truck, had gotten their dispatch for the day and I was beginning to wonder if we had been forgotten. I called dispatch in Columbus and sure enough, they had accidentally skipped over us t-on the available power list in Texas. Rich said he'd work something out and call us when he had something. Rich is a stand up guy that always does as he says and can admit a few and far between mistake.

Rich called back just as I was finishing up with the maintenance and asked us to find an empty and head for oak Grove MO. We would meet another driver there and take his load on to Denver. Again, Tina accepted the load assignment and told Rich it would be about an hour before we got moving because I was working on the truck and needed to finish up before leaving.

I finished up, cleaned up, and headed for the fuel island. There were no available empty trailers in the parking lot so I was going to have to go to the office and have them find me one. Just as I pulled onto the fuel island, another driver came in with an empty and I had him drop it so that I could take it to Oak Grove.

We got to Oak Grove at about 0130, went to bed and woke up to the ringing of the telephone at about 0530 with the other driver calling to let us know that he had arrived with our load. After Tina dropped our empty trailer and hooked to the loaded trailer, she performed a pre-trip inspection and headed for Denver. I remained asleep like all good men might do in such a situation.

Tina got to Denver at about 1615 yesterday thinking we might get a dispatch right back out. That didn't happen. We went to bed pretty darned early again and got up this morning and went for breakfast at the local Denny's. We are still awaiting a dispatch. Again, If we have to sit somewhere, there are far worse places this time of year. The weather here is absolutely fantastic right now.

In the mean time...Here is a novel item for the coming election year.
When The Politicians Are On TV, Blowing Hot Air And You Want To Scream, Just Grab Your Doll And Give It A Fling, Let Them Know...Hey, You Work For Me.

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND
A useful, bipartisan doll to give you something to throw while watching the news and listening to the politicians lie with every motion of their lips. Throw your doll and scream while never causing any damage to your television. These dolls now come with a retrieval string for retrieval without moving from your perch on the couch.

All Dolls are bipartisan, Republican on 1 side, Democrat on the other.



In closing, we hope that you can find it in your budget to help with a small purchase or a donation in support of our mission.
We have launched into a couple of apparel stores so that everyone can show their support of the 912 Truck. Click here to show your support, or go to www.printfection.com/912truck. For those of you that would rather have a hat or mug you we have another outlet at cafepress.com/912 Truck. You can also use any of the donate buttons on this page to make a contribution directly to our endeavor to Waking up America.
Thanks for your support.

In God I Trust
Have a Great Day and a Better Tomorrow
ADW

04/12/10 Arrived Phoenix Last Night

Our load was ready about 1730 Friday evening out of Columbus. We were to go to Kansas City and take a load that would be waiting there to Phoenix. Before we were able to make it to Kansas City, we received a message asking if we would be willing to go to Eagan MN, South Minneapolis area with an empty trailer and pull a load right back to Kansas City.

I suppose it was about an hour and a half later, we pulled into the Kansas City terminal and dropped and secured our trailer, deposited the paperwork in the night depository, and located an empty trailer to pull to Eagan MN. We hooked the empty, performed the pre-trip and headed for Eagan MN.

We made it to Eagan at about 1330, dropped the empty, hooked to the loaded trailer and headed back to Kansas City, MO. We arrived back in Kansas City at about 2115. I handed the paperwork off to the driver that would be pulling the load the rest of the way to Dallas, unhooked and re-hooked to our Phoenix load.

After performing our pre-trip inspection on the Phoenix trailer, We went to the fuel stop up the road, filled up with fuel, checked the truck and trailer over again, and headed for Phoenix.

We traveled U.S. 54 to Tucumcari, NM where we jumped onto I-40 west and ran that all the way to Flagstaff AZ and accessed I-17 south right into Phoenix. We made it to Phoenix at about 1930, dropped the trailer and went to bed, directly to bed, we did not pass go nor did we collect $200.00.

It was actually a bit warm in phoenix last night so we started the generator and turned the A/c on. Just about 2 hours or so into a great nap, the generator decided to quit running. I thought I could sleep without the a/c so I just went back to bed and tried to forget it. No such luck. The longer I lay there, the hotter it got.

I was able to get the generator running in about 30 minutes or so. It was overheating because of road grime built up on the radiator. I cleaned the radiator off a bit, and left the door open on the front for more air flow, and it seemed to be okay. Man was that good. I was tired and wanted to go back to bed. Which I did.

Tina got up this morning and turned on the water heater for a shower and then took off for a walk. I stay in bed a bit longer, until the generator quit running again, that is. It seems that the water heater being turned on had loaded the generator a bit more, causing the engine to run a bit warmer and the radiator fan couldn't move enough air to keep it cool. I knew what I had to do. I got my lazy rear end out of bed, got cleaned up, dressed and off to work. You see, driving isn't the only job you have when you are a truck owner/driver. You have to be a mechanic as well.

When I got outside I found the door for the front of the generator hanging, broken loose from its mounts. I removed the door and then the cover for the generator and set it aside. After removing all the pieces from around the radiator that would come off, I proceeded to spray the radiator down with a degreaser and let it soak for a bit. I decided as long as I was working on the generator, I might as well do a service as well. I removed the K&N Air Filter sprayed on the special cleaning agent and let it set for a bit too. I changed the oil and fuel filters and topped off the oil level. I also sprayed the rest of the generator down with degreaser and sprayed the area off with water. I repeated the degreasing of the radiator to be sure it was good and clean.

After a thorough cleaning and inspection of all wear parts and topping off the coolant reservoir I started work on reattaching the door to the cover. I had to drill out the broken rivets and install new rivets in their place. As Murphy's Law commands, "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong." Both batteries for my cordless drill were dead. I keep them plugged in for emergency use but it seems that they have overcharged and are bad now. I was able to get enough juice out of them to drill 9 rivets out but that is all. They are completely dead now. Good ole Black and Decker junk.

I re-riveted the door to the cover and re-installed it to the generator. All is well now it seems.

I also changed the FS 2500 bypass oil filter on the truck engine. I love this filter. It only takes about 30 minutes from start to finish to change and keeps the oil amazingly clean. I run oil samples with every filter change to make sure the oil is still good and clean.

After completing the work on the truck, we headed over to the truck wash in the area. They also make a killer burger. I had them wash the truck while we had dinner and now, here we sit, watching television.

We don't know at this point to where we will be headed but I'm sure that after we get to sleep real good the phone will ring with our orders. We shall see.

In God I Trust
Have a Great Day and a Better Tomorrow
ADW

Sittin' in Dallas, Going Back to Columbus OH

Before we got to Columbus on Wednesday evening the notified us and asked if we would take an empty trailer to Louisville KY and then a loaded trailer to Dallas. We got there, Columbus, at about 1800, refueled the truck, grabbed an empty and by about 1900 we were moving on south, to Louisville KY. We got to Louisville at about 2215 and dropped our empty trailer. I checked in at the office and found that our trailer was loaded and ready to go. I hooked to the trailer and we were off and running.

We left Louisville at about 2250 and drove straight through to Dallas. We changed drivers near Memphis and Tina drove the rest of the way to DFW. We arrived here at about 1300 yesterday and it appeared, and later proved true, that they wouldn't have anything out last night. We did get a good nights sleep though. It was a nice, cool night. No generators or other trucks running, windows open and plenty of fresh air. Sometimes, just the sound of "quiet" is grand.

We got up this morning , contacted some folks about our water damage repairs, insurance, contractors, adjusters, etc.. After some paperwork completion, we went and had breakfast over at the local Cracker Barrel. We came back here to the terminal and I performed a grease job on the truck and changed my engine oil bypass filter. I was going to wash the truck but just didn't feel like it today. I decided it wasn't really that dirty. I'll wash it when we get to Columbus.

Our load is supposed to be ready about 0500 on Saturday and we should be, if the load is ready on time, in Columbus by about midnight on Saturday. We'll get another good nights sleep tonight and be ready to go in the morning. we hope to see you along the way. More tomorrow.

Finally, we hope that you can find it in your budget to help with a small purchase or a donation in support of our mission.
We have launched into a couple of apparel stores so that everyone can show their support of the 912 Truck. Click here to show your support, or go to www.printfection.com/912truck. For those of you that would rather have a hat or mug you we have another outlet at cafepress.com/912 Truck. You can also use any of the donate buttons on this page to make a contribution directly to our endeavor to Waking up America.
Thanks for your support.


In God I Trust
Have a Great Day and a Better Tomorrow
ADW

Dallas Truck Show, "GATS" Pictures

As I promised in an earlier post, I went to the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas, TX on the 20th. Seems like a month of Sundays ago now. We have been there for the last 3 years running and it seemed that the traffic was down again this year. Not only was the spectator or attendee traffic down though, there was noticeably a fewer number of displays and or vendors in attendance. We did see a lot of people who are leased to the same company to which we are leased. One of the husband wife teams bought a new truck, with a custom sleeper and it was on display there. The builder of the custom bunk was AA(double A) and it was a spectacular build. Someday, I will have to tell the story, no the nightmare of our sleeper build, by a derelict in Brooten, MN. but I digress. I didn't get a picture of the custom sleeper, for some stupid reason, for which I have no explanation.

I did get some good pics of some very custom trucks though, they follow. Enjoy.
This is a picture of a late 70's or early 80's model W9A Kenworth. I would love to do a complete rebuild of one of these trucks and run it up and down the highways.
The picture on the right is of a B61 model Mack. My father had one of these trucks leased to Watkins Motor Lines when he first started in Trucking over 53 years ago. His had a sleeper cab on it and he and his brother ran a team operation from southern Illinois to Florida, again, for Watkins Motor Lines. I would also like to do one of these and take my father on a farewell to trucking trip across the U.S.. I think he'd love that.


This is one of two of my favorite "customs". The paint on this truck is like a mirror and the "Suicide Doors" are amazingly natural looking. I like the way the razors are used throughout the truck, in and out, as a theme. He even has a shifter made into a razor edge. The razors in the paint are in a kind of 3D, so that it seems as if you could actually cut yourself on them if touched.

This is another Peterbilt that just really, at first blush, appears to be in an unfinished state. Although, when inspected a bit closer, this is exactly the look for which the owner was looking. I actually am torn a bit between this look and the one above. I like them both, a lot, and would love to have one of each. Very, very, cool.


This one is a beautiful specimen, for those who are secure enough in their manhood, of a well done paint and body rework. You can actually own this one for $60,000.00, which is believed to be a very good price for a truck of this magnitude. What a great gift to a driving wife. I offered but was denied the opportunity to give it to her as an early Christmas present. Her view is that one is enough. I just wonder if this gets me off the hook for Christmas. I mean, I DID offer...I'm just sayin'.


This truck is slammed to the ground, as you can see. From what I could tell with a closer look, it appears as if, it may be driven but only a few miles per year. I think it actually lifts off the ground so that it can be operated,but only short distances and not as an operating class 8 unit "for hire" to pull a trailer. I couldn't locate the owner for a verification of my findings or beliefs. Another great look adopted and adapted from the auto industry.

I just really enjoyed staring at this truck for the flames. I'm not a big fan of flame paint jobs usually, but this one was immaculately laid out and applied in such a way that it actually appeared to be on fire. I could actually get the feeling of looking or staring into a campfire on a cold autumn night if I cared to look long enough without my wife yapping, oops, talking in my ear. Just kidding, if you read this blog often, you all know I love my wife more than anything on earth. Anyway, back to the truck. As I was saying, you could be, or at least I could be entranced by the paint on this truck, or at least b the flames panted onto the truck. These guys, whoever the painters are, are unbelievable. I have never seen this kind of talent displayed anywhere other than on metals, metals of all kinds. Automobiles, trucks, pickups, motorcycles, etc.. You are truly missing out on talent if you don't visit some of these show venues.

Speaking of masterful paint jobs. I don't think these pictures do any justice whatsoever to the detail work on some of these displays. I'm telling you the truth when I say that the talent at these shows is honestly unmatched or certainly unsurpassed at any other venue where art is displayed. I realize this is a motorcycle in a truck show but to say the paint is extraordinary is the understatement of the year.



I believe I would be remiss in my attempts to display the beauty at this show if I didn't show you this truck and trailer. This trailer has been air brushed to the finest of fine detail. Again, these pictures don't show the true talent and or beauty but trust me when I say that none other has been so perfectly done. The picture is of horses, or their heads, splashing through water and show the freedom of their jaunt. I, again, stared endlessly. I couldn't get a clear shot but enjoy what you can see.

This is a view of the Pride and Polish show trucks taken from the upper level of the show. While it doesn't reveal all the trucks that were there for judging, it does give you an idea of the enormity of the show.

A show, within the show, was the impersonators, like this Johnny Cash look alike. Though I didn't get any audio of this guy, he does sound amazingly similar to the Icon who is Johnny Cash. We enjoyed his music until the displays opened at 1200 noon and later that day they also had a Marilyn Monroe look and act alike as well. I wsan't even able to get close enough to get a decent picture of her. Why you ask, c'mon, it's a truck show, guys everywhere and Marilyn Monroe in the house...You figure it out.

Finally, I didn't get a picture of Randy Fields and his FS2500 bypass filter display but Randy is a very good friend of mine and a true patriot. Randy invented and distributes the FS2500 filter unit for many different uses. I have used Randy's filter unit for over 10 years and have never had an issue with any engine I have ever ran. We have ran every truck we've owned over 1 million miles with absolutely NO major engine problems whatsoever. I think that that is directly attributable to the quality and performance of Randy's filtering unit. Incidentally, I have been, nor will I ever be, paid or compensated in any way for this recommendation. I truly believe in this product and any product for which I might, in the future, make a recommendation.