Mar 4, 2010
well who da thunk it ?
i know im not in kansas, cause things happen so quickly around here.
just when i am ready to turn in my exit letter, (perhaps the best exit letter in history, if i do say so myself) we have a new truck. its a 2010 international prostar eagle. (big whoop, i know, but will is excited)
will got the distinct impression that swift and our dm and load planners are committed to making our loads work. its very frustrating when we talk to our dm, and we think things are changing, but they dont. i know everybody is over worked and under paid. so that is not reserved for swift employees.
back to our sudden change of events.
we had a weekend load that took us to phoenix. when we got there we had about 24 hours before we could deliver. there was a log class i had to take for continuing education, and will said the truck was due for a 'b' service and want them to look at a spot that was leaking water, and we needed tires on the front. later that day we checked in with the shop and they said it wouldnt be ready until late the next day. arrangements had to be made for someone else to deliver our load. and we headed to a motel. you know a real size bed, and a hot shower any time you want for as long as you want, a real tv. (it would have been a perfect night if it was tuesday ~lostday, but cant have everything)
the next day back at the swift terminal the shop informed us they were hopeful that the truck would get looked at during second shift. will wanted to talk to someone in the leasing office ( 'talk' being only a word that would get me in to listen.) will had some figures he wanted to run past them and see if there was a program that would work for us. and the figures will had matched very closely with what they should us. they compared just our current miles, they didnt show 'look what you could be making if...' so i think that was fair. and with the miles we currently get ~which by the way they admitted were low for a team~~ we are leaving money on the road. this program is for three years , we make almost 3 times more per mile. ........so one thing leads to another........ and we have a new truck.
its emerald green. i asked if they had a black and orange one. but they didnt. the guy asked why i didnt want red, i said because thats the color of the usc trojans , the sun devils., and the washington cougars. what about blue, boise state. what about purple, really do i need a reason not to want purple, washington huskie colors. so as much as i didnot want the color of our arch enemy's this green is not exactly duck green
oh one funny thing is they were looking all over for our permit book and could not find it. then i thought i saw it. our truck number is 970667 , but will said no im dyslectic that permit book is for truck number 970766 . TADA !! a light came on and the employee helping us wondered if the driver of truck number 970766 was given our book. they called and he had the book. he was still in arizona and would be in phoenix the next day. i knew being dyslectic would pay off one day. we really felt the sorry for the poor guy, he had to take off our license plate, then put on his. he had to give us our prepass and sign up for his, it takes 3 days to get that prepass activated. the prepass is a transponder that gives the weight stations all our information so that you dont have to go and wait in line to be weighed. most of the time it works. it doesnt work in oregon or washington, they use a different transponder called norpass. (just to be difficult) and the transponder has all the information and is tuck specific the guy was thankful he never was called in for papers on his truck, because the vin number did not match the license plate, etc. what a mess that would have been. just to top things off the other driver with our stuff, his truck color was a rootbeer color, but would easily pass for orange in corvallis. i asked if it would be easier to just give us his truck but nobody thought i had a good enough reason.
taking all our stuff from one truck to the other was so time consuming. the new truck steps are higher, there is more head room on the bottom bunk. i am not able sit up in the top bunk and read or knit, or play bejeweled or tetris. i cant see the tv from 'my up stairs suite' there are 6 cigarette plug ins, which is great. we wont have some many adapters and extension cords to trip over.
it shifts so much nicer. its a little weird because the stick shift is bent, not straight. i need to get use to when to shift. so far ive been winding up the rpm's because its so quite i cant hear it winding up, will keeps yelling at me, watch your rpm's
i need to get a picure and upload it.
we hope to home this weekend.
love and miss you all,
