The day got off to a bit of a shaky start but otherwise didn't go too badly. A portion of this load of conduit, a stack of elbows, shifted on my way to the first stop but stayed in place well enough for me to get there.
After they unloaded their stack I carefully loosened the straps on the shifted stack so as to not release pressure too quickly and cause the whole thing to fall over and off the trailer. I then climbed up (the stack was on the top deck of course) and began pulling and shoving the stuff back into some sort of a proper stack.
While I was doing this the site safety jerk, I mean manager, walked over and asked if anyone had met me about unloading. I let him know that was all done and I was just tidying up before leaving. I was already wearing my hardhat so I knew he wasn't going to say anything along those lines, but he did say that I couldn't climb more than six feet up without being tied off due to the jobsite rules. Like I gave a shit about his stupid rules, but I assured him that there was no way in hell that I was gonna climb up onto an unstable stack of conduit elbows. The guy was obviously an idiot.
He seemed satisfied with my rather terse reply and then asked if I had a safety vest. I told him I didn't need one to work around my rig and I had no intentions of wandering around the jobsite and would really appreciate it if he would either help me or fuck off so I could finish my work. He suddenly remembered something unimportant that he needed to do and wandered away.
I've dealt with self-important and utterly useless jobsite safety guys before and have long ago learned that they never, ever want to actually do anything and the best way to get rid of them is to ask them to work and/or present them with a possible confrontation. Either way they tend to disappear quite quickly as both choices require more effort on their part than they are willing to exert.
Once I finished I headed back the way I had come and stopped back at the truckstop for some breakfast. While there I called the Chicago delivery to find out where it was being delivered as the paperwork indicated that it was going to a different location than the one listed. He seemed like a nice guy and told me exactly where in Chicago I was to deliver it and asked that I give him a call when I get close so he could have someone meet me there as it's just a storage yard and not normally manned.
I'll make that stop between 9:30 and 10:00 tomorrow morning so as to slide in right after the worst of the morning rush dies down. Then I'll start for Des Moines to make those two deliveries Thursday morning. It's a living.
Once I got parked here, which was not an easy task as this area is seriously short on parking spaces, I really didn't feel like a heavy dinner. I settled on a tropical fruit bowl. When I opened the thing I discovered that they had thoughtfully provided a small fork under the lid. It made for a tasty and light evening meal.
After dinner I broke out my knitting, from which I am now taking a brief break. I am listening to my shiny new Sirius satellite radio, a classic rock channel, and knitting. The combination of the music, the clicking of the nickel plated needles, and the repetitive rhythm is quite relaxing and is a good way to unwind after a long day.
I'm only about 35 minutes out of Chicago, discounting traffic delays, so I won't even need to get up especially early in the morning. I can just wake on my own, enjoy some coffee, and then wander on into Chicago at my leisure. I'll leave here around 9:00 in the morning.
In the meantime I can sit here and knit while watching all of the trucks circling the parking lot looking for a nonexistent parking spot. I got lucky and a truck was pulling out as I pulled in so I backed into his vacated spot before it had time to cool.