dr_lizardo

What an evil question. Heh... the two main halves of my heritage competing for meatball supremacy!

I suppose the answer is mostly a matter of preferance though. I mean.. the actual meatball itself is more or less the same ingredients. It's more a matter of how it is served... what kind of sauce, most specifically... that differentiates the two. So I guess it really just depends on one's taste and mood.

I'm picky about tomato sauce. So many places have mediocre, uninteresting sauce that when you find someplace or someone that does it in superior fashion it tastes like the best thing ever. For example, there is a place in North Providence called "Pauly Pentas" which I go to once in a very rare while. Pretty much the best Italian food anywhere there.

I guess I'll have to vote Italian when it comes right down to it.

Glad to hear the classroom portion is over. Getting behind the wheel will be a welcome change I'm sure. And after all... the practical application of all that knowledge is what really matters.

While it isn't a perfect solution in itself, I almost always spend the night at truck stops. My personal preference is for Flying J. The fuel is priced well, and MOST of the locations are clean and very well lit. If I'm not in a truck-stop parking lot, then I'm usually at a trusted customer location.

I -never- go to NYC. I pass through it on occasion but I never pick up or deliver there. My company doesn't take any freight there so it is mostly a non-issue. Occasionally Jersey City (which is practically NYC but across the water). I'd never spend the night though. I'll park somewhere else and then do the last hour or whatever it might be in the morning before my delivery. NYC isn't the only danger-zone though. I would also not spend the night in Miami (for instance). Miami is a unique pain in the ass because the closest real truck stops are over a hundred miles away. Conventional wisdom blames this on the cost of real estate. So the only real strategy is to get a parking spot ASAP at one of those truck stops and then do the last couple hours right before your delivery appointment.

My company is FAIRLY consistent with giving morning delivery appointments. That allows me to more-or-less stay on a routine where I'm working during the day and sleeping at night. I complain in my blog whenever I have to break from that routine. I have worked for other companies where there was no rhyme or reason to schedules. Each assignment I got had seemingly random pickup and delivery times and that truly sucked. Very difficult to manage hours even when that was back during the days when we were allowed to split our working and sleeping times a lot more flexibly than we can now.

Anyhow, this company I am with (Pohl) is a small carrier. Just over a hundred drivers. The entire home office and garage staff knows me by name. I like that. There are places that could pay me a few cents more per mile perhaps... or give me a fancy Pete. But as for being strictly a company driver, I'm pretty happy here. While I'd never say never... I think the only change I would make... assuming I were to remain a company driver... would be to go to work for Wal-Mart. That is pretty much top of the game for not owning your own truck. 5 days out, 2 days off. Mostly running from distribution centers to stores. All drop and hook. Very high pay.

Aside from choosing carefully where I park... I have a couple of knives (one with a 3.5 inch locking blade, the other is really just a Leatherman). And... straight from Half Life... my handy crow-bar. I've never had a hijack attempt to date. I'd love to carry a firearm but I'm equally afriad of being busted for having it... so I don't. Pepper spray is actually a decent idea that hadn't occured to me. I may look into acquiring some.

Regarding sliding tandems and bridge formulas and all of that (my current tractor doesn't have a sliding 5th wheel. Some do, some don't. I've never found it to be THAT useful, frankly). Just remember that the lesser of two evils is likely the bridge law. If it was a matter of one or the other... either having my tandems stretched out a bit too far OR being overweight on an axle... I'd accept the former. It's a lot more likely a DOT officer or scale-house will pull you around back for a ticket and / or full inspection if you're overweight than if your wheels aren't quite where they ought to be.

i didn't write about watching the world die, i wrote about watching our faith in humanity die. that is, on that night, the hypothesis: "When it really matters, most people are not stupid" was definitively proved false for the first time since 1972.

wars come and go but stupidity can ruin people in a miilion ways.

As I am sure you can imagine, most of my miles keep me on the interstate. In the last couple of years, the DOT hours of service limitations have become extremely inflexible. Often there just isn't the time to get where you're going by something other than the fastest, easiest way possible. But once in a while I have time to spare (often on weekends) where I might experiment a bit with alternative routes. And now and then I'll get a customer who is off the beaten path a bit. For example, last week I left Pittsburgh to the west along route 22 into Ohio where I picked up OH-250. Some nice things to see along that road, as well as a great little mom-and-pop style diner with plenty of truck parking.

Such trips also occasionally teach you a lesson the hard way about which roads NOT to take. For example I would never take 250 as a shortcut between I-70 and I-77 because the southern part of that trip (near I-70) is very difficult to navigate with a tractor-trailer.

But these are the adventures that keep the job always interesting, if nothing else.

I probably shouldn't have complained about Michigan. To be honest, I could find things to complain about almost anyplace if I looked around enough. In truth, it doesn't have anything unique that bothers me... just shares a few annoying traits with other states in regards to annoying me while doing my job. But there are LOTS of places that are a lot worse.

I get paid detention time by my company. That's a small consolation prize for wasting so much time, however. And if you figure out an average hourly salary at 60mph it's significantly less. Like $12 / hour or something... I forget. But I was mainly annoyed by the fact that it wasn't supposed to be a live-load situation. The trailer was supposed to be pre-loaded and waiting for me. And that was the third time in a row at this particular customer. Then add the fact that by the time they were done, I was beyond my 14 hour window and had to drive illegally just to get to somewhere to take my 10 hour break.

Plenty of truckers have satellite television. They'll attach the dish via suction cups or a PVC pipe attached to their truck while they're parked. Occasionally you'll see an extended condo (such as what many of the movers use) with the huge semi-spherical mobile satellite setup. That tracks to allow them to watch television while moving (one would assume there's a team member in the condo while someone else is driving). But those are large and not very practical for ordinary trucks. As to satellite INTERNET access, those dishes are usually a bit different. I'd recognize one if I saw it. I don't know about 4-feet, but they're definitely different. I believe it's a combination dish for net and TV. But since I don't watch television much, and already subscribe to WiFi plans AND Verizon cellular internet, I really can't justify spending even more money just to fill in the few gaps in service I might have.

I am so glad you enjoyed the new Alexsandria Shoot. Check out my journal for behind the scenes.