A bunch of useless crap
Published on May 8, 2010 By MasonM In Blogging

It's been cold and raining in Wisconsin for a couple of days now. I've been working out in the crap and not enjoying it one damn bit.

Thursday morning I delivered some machinery to an automation plant in Milwaukee. I had picked it up from the Harley Davidson plant in York, PA. I had heard rumors that they might be shutting down that plant. I talked to a manager there and he said that they are shutting down part of it and consolidating operations in the newer part of the plant. They are also down-sizing their manpower.

From what he told me, they were going to close it down if the union hadn't agreed to a new contract, which they finally did. Lower pay is better than no pay I suppose, although a good many of them will be losing their jobs due to downsizing anyway.

While unloading the machinery in Milwaukee, basically a robotic welder, I managed to slice the index finger of my left hand pretty good. Lucky for me I was wearing work gloves or might have been a lot worse. As it is, it's painful and annoying but so bad as to require sutures or anything. Had I not been wearing my gloves, the left one now wrecked, I would likely have been making a trip to the emergency room. That sharp metal sliced through the leather glove like it was nothing.

I am in the hotel this morning trying to get motivated to get to work. I have a load heading for GA. There is a very large, very tall, 30,000 lbs crate of mining machinery that I am taking to the port in Savannah where it will make it's way to Brisbane, Australia. There is also a large generator that I will be delivering to a job site in Atlanta.

The weather makes motivation something of an issue, especially after being out working in the cold and rain for the past couple of days. I am drinking my coffee and smoking my pipe and trying to work up enough motivation to go secure my load and get rolling.

Ah well, at least it should be warmer in GA.


Comments
on May 08, 2010

Well this trip is getting off to a ripping start. Once I had the load secured I drove down to the truck stop the weigh the truck to make sure it was legal. I had 33,840 lbs on my drive axles. The legal maximum is 34,000 lbs. That would be ok except for the fact that I only had 1/8 tanks of fuel. Fueling up would put me over on those axles.

I decided to slide my fifth wheel forward to shift 1,000 lbs or so onto the steer axle. That would allow me enough of a margin to run at 1/2 my fuel capacity. That would mean stopping for fuel twice as often, but that's better than an over weight fine. Well, while that all sounds well and good the fifth wheel slide lock refused to disengage.

While I was trying to decide whether to drive back to the shop or just "moonlight" it around the weigh stations, I noticed that one of my drive tires had gone flat on me. Well, that made the decision for me. Back to the shop.

I am now sitting here waiting for them to repair both the tire and the fifth wheel slide lock so I can get things right, fuel up, and get down the road.

Oh yeah, the last time I stuck my head outside there was sleet coming down.

on May 08, 2010

Well, the news just gets better and better.        I don't know what to say that could possibly help but to let you know I believe it has to get better.  or not........ 

on May 10, 2010

Sleet?  Yea, I saw on a weather map they were having icky stuff up north!  It is cool down here, but not bad (highs in the 60s.) hopefully the rest of your trip will be pleasant.

And instead of looking at how bad the trip started, think about how lucky you are for those gloves!

on May 15, 2010

notronaj
Well, the news just gets better and better.        I don't know what to say that could possibly help but to let you know I believe it has to get better.  or not........ 

You know what they say...stuff happens.

on May 15, 2010

And instead of looking at how bad the trip started, think about how lucky you are for those gloves!

True enough. I'm really glad that I am in the habit of wearing fairly tough leather work gloves when working on my loads. They've prevented a serious injury more than once.