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Phil Madsen's BlogLearning Something New Every Day |
Truck drivers Phil and Diane Madsen live, work and play on the road; transporting expedited and critical-shipment freight in their custom-built truck. Phil's blog is a blend of travelogue, brain dump and commentary on road-inspired topics.
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Blog entries are made so as not to reveal customer specifics or the current location of the truck when we are under load. Entries are updated to include location information after we leave the area. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Monday, March 1, 2010 I learned today that I'm not much of a plumber. Learned by being embarrassed by the simple solution I had to call someone else to get.
Diane and I woke up this morning in our truck, parked on a freeway rest area in Southern Minnesota. We have been home for two weeks and it is great to be back on the road again.
Before we left last night, a pre-trip inspection revealed a light circuit in need of repair. Today it was the kitchen sink in our sleeper.
We bought this truck new in 2006. It is now 2010 and the odometer is approaching a half-million miles. Repairs increase as the truck ages and I expect to put more and more time and money into keeping the truck in tip-top shape. We have no intention of letting the truck go. If something needs repair, it gets repaired.
Water used to come out of the kitchen faucet at a good rate. Today it came out at a trickle. Worried that the water pump had failed, I looked around a bit and remained clueless. A call to the service department at our bunk builder (sleeper manufacturer) yielded the suggestion to unscrew the screen on the faucet. I did and water flow returned. I had not even thought to try to shower to test the water pump or to look for a clogged screen. Duh!
• We picked up freight in Iowa this morning as scheduled. We will haul it overnight and deliver it in the morning. We are already dispatched on the next load. It picks up tomorrow afternoon. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Tuesday, March 2, 2010 I learned today what it sounds like when the supply line to your driver's air seat ruptures (loud, continuing hiss). Learned when it happened.
Diane was asleep. I was driving at 4:00 a.m., eastbound on I-68 in Maryland. The air line let go with no warning. My first thought was brake hose. A quick glance at the gauges on the dashboard showed normal readings.
It was hard to tell where the sound was coming from. That made sense after I located it. It came from under my seat. That made it hard to zero in on while driving the truck. A freeway exit was in sight and I stopped at the top of the ramp to figure out what was up. I was able to stop the leak with electrical tape and we were underway in 30 minutes.
Mechanical ability; it is not a requirement to be a truck driver but the more of it you have, the better off you are. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Wednesday, March 3, 2010 I learned today about a well-run NAPA store and nearby chrome shop that are operated by the same owner. Learned by visiting both.
I discovered a burned out light on the truck at this morning's delivery. It was the right rear identification light (that group of three lights you see on the top center of truck trailers and boxes are the identification lights).
We spent last night in the consignee's parking lot. It was raining in the morning. My joy knew no bounds when I spotted the failed lamp and knew a cold, rainy-day light repair would follow the delivery.
While driving to a nearby truck stop to make the repair, I spotted a NAPA store in Winchester, Virginia and stopped to restock my electrical supplies. Then learning of the nearby chrome shop I visited it too. Both stores were nicely set up and well run. I ended up parking on the street near the chrome shop to repair the light and permanently repair the air line (see yesterday's blog entry).
• While I worked on the light, we got dispatched on our next run. It picks up tomorrow and delivers the same day. We drove to Maryland to get closer to the pickup. Soon after we parked, we got pre-dispatched on another load. It picks up in the town where tomorrow's first load delivers. Zero deadhead. Nice. The second load delivers Friday morning in a southern state.
• If that's all I told you about dispatched loads things would sound good. The sad part is we turned down five bad loads before getting two good ones. By good, I do not mean cherry-picked, high-pay, high-mileage runs that some people sit and wait for. I mean plain old ordinary runs that pay enough to profitably drive those miles to move the freight.
This has been going on for a while. The trucking industry talking heads are projecting that a driver shortage and freight rate increases will come with the economic recovery. That can't happen soon enough.
We have grown tired of seeing one load offer after another that leave us wondering why they were offered in the first place. No one, no matter how low their operating expenses are, can profitably run freight at these money-losing rates. The people who accept these loser loads doom themselves to a slow and painful financial death as they donate their time and truck to shippers who are happy to accept the gift.
The good news for Diane and me is there are enough decent paying loads to keep us running. We just have to turn down a high number of loser loads to get them. We did not used to see anywhere near the number of loser loads we see today. Seeing them day after day, after day, after day wears on us and makes it less fun to be expediters.
Diane and I spent some time talking today about the bad feelings these loser loads give us. There is no way we will haul them because we are not in this business to donate our time and truck to our customers. As we have said many times, if the freight don't pay, we won't play.
On the other hand, our carrier tracks the percentage of loads we accept. Load acceptance is an important number by which our carrier evaluates its contractors. Every time we decline a loser load, we become losers ourselves by reducing our acceptance percentage. That's not fun.
As I said, the sooner the projected truck driver shortage and higher freight rates develop, the better. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Today's Topics: Preparing for the Next Crisis • A Change of Plans • Sleep Management
• I learned today that the likely outcome of the financial reform proposals that are making their way through Congress is the preservation of the status quo. Learned by listening to podcasts on the topic.
There is not going to be any meaningful financial reform, despite the financial panic of 2008 and the Great Recession. The financial lobby has succeeded in re-writing the bill that came out of the House. The watered down version now in the Senate preserves the status quo, does nothing about derivatives and even sends another pile of money the banker's way.
Citizens are not likely to rise to bring the needed political pressure because the issues are too complicated for the average Joe to understand. Complex issues do not light public fires. Simple issues do. With no leaders rising to advance simple rules that could bring meaningful reform about, the status quo will continue. The same things that led to the current crisis remain in place and will almost certainly lead to another one. Congress fixed nothing and only kicked the can further down the road. Our elected officials are sewing the seeds of the next great panic; one that may make the last one look like a walk in the park.
For Diane and I survived the last crisis one by living within our means, and being self-employed and debt free. The next crisis may see not a debt bubble burst but a dollar bubble. That would mean the value of the dollar would plummet (inflation). A dollar denominated cache of retirement savings (like cash in a savings account, bank CDs or U.S. Treasury bonds) would buy less then than it buys today.
Normal inflation turns a fifteen-cent McDonald's hamburger into a dollar hamburger over the years. A dollar bubble burst would erode the purchasing power of the dollar more quickly.
To prepare for that possibility Diane and I will continue to build wealth as best we can and invest in a wider mix of non-dollar-denominated assets. (Cash is not king.)
• I got the chance to listen to these podcasts because our run plans unexpectedly changed. When we got ready for bed last night, we were dispatched on two runs that were to pick up today. The first would take us from Maryland to Long Island, New York. The second would pick up in the same town we delivered to and take us to North Carolina. We were feeling good about this freight and especially glad to be getting in and out of the New York City area so quickly.
Then the phone rang. A dispatcher wanted to know if she could pull us off these two runs and put us on one that picked up ASAP in Pennsylvania and delivered on Friday in Texas. The money was better and we agreed.
• This is where good sleep and log book management pays off. Notice this Texas run came unexpectedly, just as we were getting ready to go to bed last night. Our new mission was to immediately pick up freight and drive straight-through to Texas. We got a good sleep the night before but yesterday began with an early morning delivery. We then parked elsewhere while I made minor truck repairs. We next drove to Maryland to spend the night and position ourselves for a morning pickup.
Diane and I have a rule. If we feel even a little bit tired, we listen to what our bodies are saying and lay down to get whatever sleep our bodies need. Sometimes that turns into a ten minute snooze. Other times it becomes a four-hour nap.
Sleep is our first priority — always. It comes before the freight. If we are too tired to drive, we go out of service and get the sleep we need. Sleep comes before truck maintenance. If I am tired, I sleep first and fix the truck later. Sleep comes before trading. If I am tired, I sleep. I don't trade because trading while you are tired is a near-certain way to lose money. Sleep comes before business book work. If we try to do administrative tasks while tired, we get short with each other and make bookkeeping mistakes. Sleep comes before family. If we could drive a couple hours to visit relatives but need sleep first, the family visit is put off and we get the sleep we need. Sleep comes before each other. If one of us wants to sleep and the other does not, the tired one always wins. The other leaves the truck, moves to the cab or gets otherwise situated to allow the tired one to sleep.
Having settled in Maryland in the afternoon, we did what we always do, sleep as needed. I was first on the log book this morning. We did not drive much so I did it all. When we got dispatched on the Texas run, Diane was next to drive and I had been in the sleeper for several hours.
When we headed to the Pennsylvania pickup and then on to Texas, Diane did not drive a full ten-hour shift. She drove until she felt tired. I went immediately to bed when we left Maryland and had several hours of good sleep in me when she was ready to switch.
Behind the wheel went I,
into the bunk went she.
The iPod came on,
toward Texas went we.
Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Friday, March 5, 2010 I learned today where not to park in the Fort Worth, Texas area, even though the parking space looks perfect. Learned when a police officer woke us up and ran us off.
We woke up this morning in the truck, which was parked on the street in a Fort Worth suburb. We arrived two hours ahead of our delivery appointment. Having driven overnight, we found a parking place near the delivery and went to sleep. About an hour into the nap we woke to a loud knock on the door.
My first thought was the consignee had seen us and wanted to say it was OK to go in. That sometimes happens when we arrive early and park nearby. Not this time. I stuck my head out the sleeper window into a bright, sunny morning and saw a smartly uniformed cop standing at our door. When he saw me he said "you can't park here" and then did something nice. He gave me directions to a place where we could park. We went to the delivery instead of going there.
There are times when expediters and street people have things in common. All Diane and I wanted was a quiet place to get some sleep. We picked a spot where we thought we would be legal and no bother to anyone. Then someone in authority objected to our presence, woke us up and ran us off; lest the better citizens of the community become uncomfortable that someone with lower social standing or objectionable traits was getting too comfortable in their space.
I would not have parked where I did if there was any reason to believe parking was not permitted, but there wasn't. It was a wide street with curbs on both sides. There were no signs at all, let alone signs that prohibited parking or truck parking. It looked like the ideal spot to take a two hour nap. But it wasn't and we were soon on our way to the delivery.
We went next to a nearby Walmart to sleep, re-supply the truck and wait for freight. The remainder of the day passed in the now-usual fashion. We accepted a load offer but did not get it. We then received and declined a number of offers we did not want.
Just as we were giving up on freight for the day and thinking we would be spending the weekend in Fort Worth, another offer came in. The money was not good enough to take the load but it went to Tennessee, not far from where our reefer dealer of choice is located. Being due for reefer maintenance, we took the load.
While the run was not profitable or only slightly profitable, it moved us toward a reliable reefer dealer under load instead of on our own dime. The kind of reefer work that needs to be done is specialized. Only a few dealers in the country can do it. We were glad to get some freight that brought us close to our favorite reefer dealer.
The load was as ordinary as they come. It was two 1,000 lbs. boxes of plastic pellets going to a plastics factory in Tennessee. They are used in injection mold machines. You pour the pellets in one end and a toy baseball bat, plastic dog dish or other such thing comes out the other. We figured the factory must have run out of the pellets because mundane freight like this usually ships slower and cheaper than what we provide.
A two-man crew was waiting for us when Diane bumped the dock at the warehouse. They quickly loaded the truck, shut down the warehouse, locked it up for the night and sped out of the parking lot before we left. If it was Miller time somewhere, these guys were in a hurry to get there.
The run will keep us moving overnight. Our reefer maintenance appointment is set for Monday morning. We will go out of service after tomorrow's delivery and spend the weekend in the Memphis area. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Saturday, March 6, 2010 I learned today about the Pinks All Out drag race events. Learned from a friend who is competing in one in West Palm Beach.
A drag racing fan I am not but a good truck-driver friend of mine, Glen Rice, is passionate about it. He sent me these photos of his car from the track.
Driven by Dennis King (pictured with the car and a model), it hit 158 mph with a 1,000+ horsepower LS General Motors engine that Glen is proud to have built (1,300 hp at the flywheel).
King owns the Redline Performance shop near Daytona Florida and worked with Glen to build the car. If you watch the SPEED channel on cable TV, you may see this car when the taped event airs in the future.
Diane's and my day was less exciting. We delivered our freight early this morning near Memphis Tennessee, slept, fueled, showered, restocked the truck, nursed a skin rash and called it a day. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Sunday, March 7, 2010 I learned today (actually yesterday) that the internet is useful in diagnosing skin rashes. Learned by using it to do so.
Sleeping in late, we woke up this morning in a retail area near Memphis Tennessee, having delivered a load nearby yesterday. We have a Monday appointment for reefer maintenance in the area and will spend today doing laundry, business book work and truck maintenance.
When I woke this morning, I was delighted to see the over-the-counter medicine we bought yesterday to treat a painful skin rash was working. This rash developed a few days ago and did not go away on its own. We have good health insurance and the money to pay for a doctor visit and medicine, but I tend to get stubborn about such things. What is obvious to many is not always obvious to one, and in this case, I was the one.
As the rash grew in size, depth and pain, and began to limit my mobility, it led me to think that treatment options should be investigated. (Duh!). The online medical sites were of little help. I had no idea there were so many types of rashes one could get. The written descriptions did not seem to match what I had so I went to Google Images and did a search for skin rashes there. (Don't do this if you are easily grossed out. Some of the photos are repulsive.)
In a few minutes I was able to match my rash to photos of similar rashes. Now having a good idea of what the rash was, and learning that it is normally treated by over-the-counter medication, we bought the medicine and applied it as directed. It is working and I expect to be as good as new in a day or two.
We take the internet for granted now but most people alive today can remember life without it. I am glad to have it. In identifying skin rashes and with life on the road, the internet makes things easier than they would otherwise be.
On the other hand, having no kids, I have never had the pleasure of having a critical teenager using the internet to compare religions online and, armed with good information, questioning me about mine. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Monday, March 8, 2010 I learned today about marker lights that are available from various manufacturers. Learned by researching them.
To my non-trucker readers, think about the scene in the movie Godfather where two mafia bosses and a corrupt police chief are sitting in a restaurant, and one of the bosses asks the chief to excuse them while the bosses speak with each other in Italian. Now, dear readers, please excuse me while I talk chicken lights with my trucker colleagues.
When our truck was built, 94 chicken lights went on. That's several dozen more than the legally required number of marker lights but we would not want to be without them. They make the truck highly visible from the side at night. This provides some comfort when inattentive drivers are merging into our lane from an on-ramp. The lights get their attention.
The lights also provide nice lighting around the truck when we are parked in dark parking places in truck stops. To the extent that lighting deters people who like to operate in the dark (robbers, vandals, sex workers, etc.) we benefit from the lights. Of course vanity is also served. The lights add a look to the truck that we like.
The company that made these lights, Panelite, recently suspended operations. There are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of these lights in use on the road. When truckers heard Panelite shut down, they rushed to the chrome shops and cleaned out every Panelite Millennium M1 4 LED light in stock.
With the company closed, replacement lights cannot be re-ordered from Panelite. So far, no chrome shop or light dealer I contacted has been able to find an acceptable replacement. That surprised me since I was able to do a search and find an acceptable replacement from a well-established manufacturer.
Our original marker light is the Panelite Millennium M1 LED. It features four LEDs in each light. It comes with a chrome bezel that snaps on over the light assembly. The plastic lens has vertical lines molded into it. The lines and four LEDs differentiate the light from others of the same size and shape that are similar but not identical. This is a deal killer for the discriminating chicken light customer. The replacement lights must be identical.
Enter the Grote M1 Series Clearance / Marker LED Lamp which is an acceptable replacement. No chrome shop I have contacted has these lights in stock. Only one seemed interested enough to care. It is the Chrome Barn in Winchester Virginia, (800-635-0567, I-81, Exit 310) which Diane and I happened to stumble upon on March 3 (story here). Owner Clif Borden is a Grote dealer and is working now to get and ship me some lights. I hope Grote can hold up their end and supply what they show in their catalog.
There are several stories floating around about Panelite, its future and its successors. One is being circulated by Phoenix Design and Manufacturing. The company's press release says it is stepping up to fill the void left by Panelite and talks about key Panelite people who are now with Phoenix.
My caution is raised by something else the press release says. "There are many other organizations claiming to be the replacement company, however only Phoenix Design and Manufacturing has hired the engineers behind the years of design work that Panelite had in service."
Hiring engineers is not the same as being the company's successor, and the M1 light advertised in the Phoenix catalog is not an acceptable replacement to the Panelite Millennium M1 LED. Clearly, Phoenix Design and Manufacturing is moving to fill the void left by Panelite. My problem is Phoenix cannot provide the light I need, at least not yet.
I heard another story about Panelite from the staff at the Empire Chrome Shop in West Memphis Arkansas. I was there yesterday looking for lights but did not succeed. A woman working the counter there said the entire Panelite company, including its plant and patents, will soon be auctioned to the highest bidder. She had heard this from others in the store and could offer no more information.
Asking around and searching online for more information about such an auction produced nothing. I have no reason to doubt that Panelite is on the auction block but have not been able to verify it either. With stories like this going around there are probably hundreds more on the CB radio and truck stop lunch counter circuit.
Drivers, I would love to hear any information you have about Panelite, its products, patents or successor company. I will share in my blog anything more I learn. You can e-mail me here.
If you happened upon this page while doing an online search for Panelite information, also try the search engine on this site. Any additional Panelite mentions I make will show up there.
• Changing topics, Diane and I woke up at the Pilot truck stop on U.S. 78 in Memphis Tennessee this morning and went straight to Crow's Truck Service where we are having preventative maintenance and TVAL certification work done on our reefer. We plan to go back in service later today. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Tuesday, March 9, 2010 I learned today that Erskine Bowles, co-chairman of the commission on U.S. deficit reduction, is confirming something I already knew and have come to accept. Learned by reading of a speech he recently gave.
He said U.S. entitlement programs such as social security will turn the nation into a “second- rate power” if their costs aren’t reduced. He also said, "All of our revenue is completely consumed by entitlements. This is today, not some forecast into the future. Every dollar we spend on the military, homeland security, transportation, education and research is borrowed, and half of that comes from foreign sources. That is a recipe for disaster.”
When the financial panic of 2008 went on and our leaders jumped on the bailout bandwagon, I spoke against it. I said transferring private debt to public debt only kicks the can into the future and weakens the country in the long run.
I wrote and called my elected officials urging them to let debt-laden institutions and people fail. Let them take the pain today instead of forcing greater and more widespread pain on us in the future. My pleas fell on deaf ears. The debtors were bailed out big time and we now live in a bankrupt nation.
How might we know that the people and government of the U.S. have borrowed themselves into second-rate status? Consider this.
China is a huge buyer of U.S. government bonds. With the supply they currently own, they could easily flood the market by selling a bunch on the open market in a way calculated to throw the U.S. economy into turmoil. They can do this at will, anytime they wish.
They don't do it now because it serves China to keep making shoes that are sold at Walmart and solar panels sold to California homeowners. It also suits China to play nice in the global economy, at least for now.
But suppose the political winds shift in China and the new leaders start thinking less about economic gains and more about regional or global domination. China believes Taiwan is rightfully theirs. How might they recapture the island? It would not be difficult.
They could move ships and troops nearby to pose a threat. Behind the scenes they could tell the White House to keep out lest China shatter the U.S. economy by flooding the market with our country's own debt instruments. That financial threat, proceeded by a limited demonstration in the marketplace, might be enough to keep the U.S. at bay.
China has far more troops in uniform than the U.S. and almost all of them are on home soil. The U.S. is mired down in two theaters, fighting with volunteer forces already spread so thin that soldiers must serve multiple tours. With the U.S. out-gunned and out-financed, I believe China already has the freedom to pressure Taiwan to surrender. China could re-take the island without firing a shot.
You might say that would never happen because of promises made to Taiwan by the U.S. government in years past, and because we have superior technology. Think again.
About the technology, there is a good chance the computer you are using right now was made in China. About the promise, the U.S. government once promised to pay me social security benefits when I turned 65 and then broke the promise and changed the deal. While they continue to collect my money against my will, and more of it, my social security benefits have been cut such that they won't start until age 67. If the U.S. government can't be trusted to keep its promises to its own citizens, how secure is Taiwan really?
Get used to it, ladies and gentlemen. In our lifetime, we will see the United States of America decline to a second-rate world power. It happened to Rome, the British Empire and the Soviet Union. Now it is our turn, and we have only our spendthrift ways to blame.
This is not the end of the world. Lots of people in Italy, Great Britain and the former Soviet countries live happy and meaningful lives. It's just time to let go of the idea that the U.S. is number one.
• So much for the geopolitical future. In our local present, Diane and I are occupying a parking place in a truck stop in Memphis Tennessee while we wait for freight. We have received a few load offers this morning but they paid low. It would cost us more money to haul the freight than the freight pays. There is little sense in accepting loads like that. A good load will come along sooner or later.
Naturally we hope it is sooner. We are in a race against time to build wealth and achieve financial independence. It is as fruitless to count on a government safety net as it is to haul freight at money-losing rates. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 I learned today (actually yesterday) of a chart that shows people's happiness levels do not grow with their income. Learned by listening to this TED talk.
Of course, you may say. Everyone knows that money does not make you happy. Be careful about going there. It is more subtle than that.
The speaker presented a chart of survey data. It showed that affluent people rated themselves as no happier than people of lesser means. Does that mean that money does not make you happy? Yes it does. If you are see money as a source of happiness, you are likely to be disappointed. It also means that money will not make you unhappy. The level of happiness did not decline as income rose.
It is also true, and this is important, that the lack of money tends to make people unhappy. Unhappiness grows with the inability to use money to meet basic needs. In other words, money will not make you happy, but the lack of it will make you unhappy.
Diane and I are self-employed business owners. We put a great deal of time and effort into making money. I put additional time into that quest by trading. We are money-motivated, goal-oriented people who seek to have more money in the future than we have now. The good news is we do not expect to be happier because of it. We are happy now. There are many good reasons to make money but happiness is not one of them.
• We spent all day yesterday in the truck stop parking spot where we woke. A good chunk of time was put into completing income tax work for our 2009 return. I listened to TED Talks to take breaks from this tedious work.
The tax work is taking longer because I am at the same time developing better bookkeeping procedures. Operation Streamline continues to pay off. I believe that next year it will take less than two hours to do our income tax return work and we won't have to go home to do it.
• We woke up this morning in that same parking spot and without receiving any load offers overnight. The first offer that came in this morning was a good one and we accepted. It was awarded to our truck over others in line and we will be picking up the load this afternoon. It delivers tomorrow morning. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Thursday, March 11, 2010 I learned (relearned) today how reviewing our financial transactions can trigger pleasant memories from the road. Learned by experiencing it.
Doing some business bookkeeping yesterday took me into our financial transactions. It is fun to look at something we did and let the memory flow. For example, a spreadsheet entry shows we ate at a New Jersey diner on December 31, 2009.
The fun starts when I close my eyes and remember the details like what the diner looked like, where we parked, what the tables were like, the food's smell and taste, etc. I also remembered the people at the next table. There were a father and little-boy son seated on one side of the table and the boy's uncle on the other side. The uncle was teasing the boy with fun riddles.
As Diane and I rose to leave and the uncle posed another riddle to the boy I ended up standing behind the uncle and facing the father and boy. Unbeknownst to the uncle and in the boy's and father's view, I mouthed and hand-signaled the answer to the boy who shocked his uncle by giving it so quickly and in such a matter-of-fact fashion. The boy was a natural and never let on how he knew. The father was smiling at the boy's apparent brilliance but was also working hard to not bust a gut laughing.
The whole episode took 10 seconds but gives Diane and I a chuckle every time we think about it. The previous spreadsheet item is a return of some O-rings I bought at a BMW dealership. The receptionist and parts guy there were wonderful to deal with, even as I troubled them with a $6.00 item.
We have accumulated thousands of such memories in our years on the road. Reviewing the financial transactions helps us remember. We enjoy living and working on the road and it is nice to see that even the tedious book work provides a pleasant benefit. Diane and I know we won't be on the road forever. I can see the day when we wake up in the same house each morning and look back at the same day ten years ago and use this blog, our spreadsheet and other documents to remember and re-live the day.
• We picked up yesterday's load in Memphis Tennessee in the afternoon and delivered it early this morning in Saint Louis, where we are now waiting for load offers.
The load was two plastic buckets weighing eight pounds each. The freight expediters haul is not always about size and weight. It is often about speed or special handling. This load was a kind of HAZMAT (hazardous material) for which Diane and I have the training to handle.
The run was short by our standards, only 300 miles. One of us easily could have done the whole thing but both of us wanted to drive. I drove until we stopped for showers. Diane drove the remaining 150 miles. When we bumped the consignee's dock about 10:00 p.m. and prepared for bed, I asked Diane if she enjoyed the drive. She said yes but it was too short.
I know the feeling. It sometimes happens that we change shifts and the last leg leaves only a couple hours of driving to do when I would prefer to cruise for hours and hours.
The job is getting better now that most of winter is in our rear view mirror. The days are getting longer. We don't have to do rush hours in the dark. The weather is not the threat it is in the winter months. We can go outside without wearing heavy parkas. The truck is not coated with salt that corrodes everything. If we head north we may see the snow again but we are rapidly approaching the day when our tree brothers will wake, color will return to the earth and the sun will warm us again. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Friday, March 12, 2010 I learned today that when I start something new in this blog, like monthly trip maps, it is best to continue it. Learned when I received a reminder from a blog reader that my February trip map was missing.
More about trip maps in a minute. First, this public health message.
I added the February trip map and further developed the Madsen Trip Maps page. I also changed my blog page template, adding a trip map link at the top. You may need to refresh your pages to see the links.
We woke up this morning near Saint Louis Missouri, still waiting for freight. At this point in the day (noon), getting dispatched on a load that picks up on Monday is the most likely scenario. But this is expediting and you never know for sure what will happen until it happens. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Saturday, March 13, 2010 I learned today (last night, actually) how to rent a Redbox movie. Learned by doing it for the first time.
We continue to wait for freight in the Saint Louis area. We did some good business admin work yesterday. For a break I checked out Redbox and was delighted by what I found.
We have seen Redboxes grow in number and use as we travel around the country. I went to one at a Walmart. There were three people in line ahead of me when I got there and three in line behind when I completed my transaction.
For just $1.00 you can rent a DVD movie. It was easy as can be. Pick a movie, swipe your card, take the disk the machine dispenses, and return the movie by placing it in the same slot from which it came. If you don't return it by 9:00 p.m. the next night, another dollar is charged, up to $25 for 25 days, after which you own the disk and the charges stop.
It is hard to see a bright future for video rental stores with Redbox offering convenience and price like this. Video stores are burdened with two things Redbox is not; buildings and employees that work in them. I know nothing of the Redbox company or business plan but am now intrigued. A quick Google search yielded this article about the Redbox business.
A business truth stated by someone whose name I do not recall is that we live in a world in which things are getting faster, smaller and cheaper. It is certainly true with movies. It is also true in trucking, warehousing and packaging. Whatever industry you happen to be in, any business plan you write should not be written without giving serious thought to how "faster, smaller and cheaper" are working their ways into your world.
Look what e-mail and online bank statements did to the U.S. Postal Service. Look at what flat screen TVs are doing to the number of semi trailers needed to haul them instead of the old cathode ray tube TVs. Look at what Walmart's distribution and pricing system did to Main Street merchants. Look at what e-readers are doing to printed books, and the trucks that move books, the factories that make the cardboard to boxes to ship books and the stores that sell books. Look at the tiny generator engines that are increasingly used to heat and cool truck cabs instead of idling 400 hp diesel engines to do the same thing. Look at how thousands of head of beef cattle are now raised on feed lots that require a tiny fraction of the land used in days gone by. Look at how tiny cell phones have made closet size telephone booths obsolete. Look at how GPS on those phones is replacing paper maps.
Think faster, cheaper and smaller; and look, look, look. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Today's Topics: Tweet With Location • Honored to Write • In the Flow • Activities
• I learned today about Twitter's Tweet With Location feature. Learned by reading about it.
You can follow my Twitter posts (tweets) by clicking the Twitter icon at the top of this page. I did not turn on Twitter's new Tweet With Location feature. If on, it publishes your location with your tweets. There are times I don't want to be locatable, like when we are at a shipper or loaded with high-value freight.
• I was surprised and honored by an e-mail invitation received yesterday. It was from the managing editor at Land Line magazine, asking me to write a 600 word piece. My regular blog readers know I recently gave up my position of editor of Expedite NOW magazine. My intent is to write less and devote more time to trading. Then along comes this invite and the chance to publish something again. I happily agreed.
Land Line is the official publication of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), a driver advocacy organization in which I am a lifetime member and strong supporter. OOIDA has done a lot of good work for a lot of drivers out there, whether they are members or not. If something I write will help them along, I am happy to do so.
• I listened to a TED talk the other day, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on flow. The TED site introduces the talk: "Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi [SIC] asks, 'What makes a life worth living?' Noting that money cannot make us happy, he looks to those who find pleasure and lasting satisfaction in activities that bring about a state of 'flow.'"
I found myself in the state of flow last night — a disembodied experience of creativity and total satisfaction — as I worked on the Land Line piece. Diane went into a bookstore leaving me alone in the truck to work on the piece. She startled me when she returned a few hours later. I was shocked to see it was 11:00 p.m. and realize I had lost all sense of place and time as I fell into the work.
This is not a new experience. I remember times before we got on the road when I was in my home office, fell into the work, and hours later looked out the window to be surprised to see what season it was. I have sometimes been in this state for days at a time, like when I worked on the constitution for the political party I founded in 1992 (Independence Party of Minnesota, went on to elect Governor Jesse Ventura in 1998).
That is not to say it takes hours and hours to write a 600 word piece or that the piece will be an exceptional document. It's just an article for a trucking magazine. But a lot more than the writing goes on when I am in the flow. I see things I don't otherwise see and think things I don't otherwise think.
The piece is about how Diane and I live, work and play on the road. Falling into the flow was a chance to look at that and my Operation Streamline and trading and our relationship and my writing and everything else as a unified whole. For several hours I was in the flow and absolutely content.
I'll provide a link to the piece when it is published. Again, the piece itself is nothing special. It's just an article for a trucking magazine. Last night's flow was a private experience and an unexpected bonus that came when I fell into it.
• Yesterday was pleasant in another way. A regular blog reader named Frank lives in the Saint Louis area where we happen to be waiting for freight. We met for a Cracker Barrel breakfast and had a nice visit.
Frank has a new job as a logistics guy with a company that distributes film and digital movies to the movie theaters that show them. The next time you go to a movie, think for a moment about how the movie physically got to the theater. There is a good chance that Frank's company had a hand in getting it there. I was fascinated to hear all about it and learn many things new at breakfast.
As I said, we are waiting for freight in the Saint Louis area. The weather has been cool and drizzly. We are spending time mostly in the truck, doing business paperwork, reading, writing, watching movies, and studying trading. As desirable as these all are (the paperwork sucks but is desirable to complete), we would prefer to be dispatched and rolling under load. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Monday, March 15, 2010 I learned today about this expediter truck. Learned by receiving photos of it and info from friends.
The truck is for sale at Stoops Freightliner in New Haven Indiana (Fort Wayne). I'm putting a photo of it here simply because it is an interesting truck to view. I don't have the price or specs.
I have seen this truck before. It first had a fifth wheel where you now see the truck body (freight box). It was a tractor then. Now it's an expediter straight truck, complete with a truck body, landing gear and a lift gate. For my non-trucker readers, a fifth wheel sits on the back of a semi tractor. It is the hitch that the semi trailer hooks into.
• Diane and I woke up this morning near Saint Louis Missouri where we have been since Wednesday. We finally got dispatched and are now on our way to the pickup. The freight picks up tomorrow morning and delivers later the same day. It's not a long run but the money is good. The best part is it gets us rolling again.
We expected to be busier than we were last week. I should research this before throwing it out there but I'll go ahead and say it anyway. It's a notion familiar to many expediters. To verify its truth, I'd need to check it against the loads we have actually hauled.
The notion is that freight is busier at the end of the year than s at the beginning, and at the end of the quarter than at the beginning, and at the end of the month than at the beginning, and at the end of the week than at the beginning.
The theory is shippers call expediters last to haul their freight. They start with less-expensive and slower carriers, and turn to us only when they have no other choice. As the year-end, quarter-end, month-end and week-end deadlines approach, expediters get called. Again, I don't know that this is true. I do know it is a widely-held assumption.
Half-believing it myself, I figured we would be running strong in March as the end of the first quarter approaches and indicators of a modest economic recovery twinkle. The theory may have held true in other cities but there twern't much twinkle in Saint Louis last week.
That's OK. We put our layover time to productive use and are rolling on a good load now. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 I learned today that IdleAire may come back to life. Learned by seeing a strange news bulletin about it.
I don't remember where I saw it but mention was made in a news source that IdleAire, now bankrupt and shut down, may come back to life. That from information published by IdleAire on its web site with no other details made available.
I never thought much of the the IdleAire business model and I deeply resent the golden parachutes the executives seemed to enjoy after accepting large government grants to start the company but never building it into a profitable entity. My belief that they built golden parachutes into the company business plan when it was formed, and long before their performance record was established, is based on what I read in public documents filed by IdleAire with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
When I was writing as the editor of Expedite NOW I tried to learn more. The only person I was able to talk to at IdleAire company criticized me for not being interested in the company before and said he was prohibited from commenting further. It was clear from his tone that he did not like me asking about the four people who the document said were entitled to $1,000,000 each if the company changed hands. The never-profitable company has changed hands at least once. I don't know if the golden-parachute money was ever paid.
This is the kind of interesting stuff you can chase down as the editor of a trucking magazine. I miss that part of the work but it is far more time consuming than it pays. While I may still write the occasional piece for publication (like this one), I prefer to put my non-trucking time into trading.
• We picked up freight this morning in Indiana and delivered it near Columbus Ohio late this afternoon. On the way we got predispatched to pick up another load on Wednesday that will run us overnight and deliver Thursday morning. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 I learned today more about CSA 2010. Learned by listening to a webinar.
I listened to an Overdrive magazine Trucker Webinar on CSA 2010 today as Diane drove. The featured speaker was Schneider National's Don Osterberg, Senior Vice President of Safety. Schneider is one of the largest trucking companies in the U.S. Their drivers are known as pumpkin drivers because the trucks are colored orange (photos here).
The webinar left me with one word on my mind: mushy.
There is no date-certain for the full implementation of CSA 2010.
No one knows for sure how many now-qualified truck drivers will be deemed unfit under CSA 2010. Speculation ranges from 3 to 20 percent of the total number of drivers on the road today. At least one credible source is suggesting a number over 20 percent.
The Senate Commerce Committee will hold hearings on CSA 2010 in April. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is likely to do the same sometime later. With jobs and unemployment on the congressional front burner these days, there is no telling what CSA 2010 changes, if any, will be prompted by these hearings. Backing off CSA 2010 in the interests of keeping disqualified truck drivers off the unemployment benefits dole will certainly be suggested at these hearings.
There are several serious flaws in CSA 2010 as it is not proposed, one of which is a truck driver who is not in any way at fault for a crash he or she may be in (like being stopped at a red light and is rear-ended by a four-wheeler on a cell phone), will still be tagged with a negative crash indicator that can seriously diminish the driver's future employment prospects. There is nothing right, fair about that and no driver safety purpose is served. Yet the bad rule remains and there is no way to know if it will ever be taken out.
Regarding CSA 2010's potential contribution to a driver shortage, the enthusiasm of enforcement officials will be key. A hint of what may be coming is illustrated in a 3-18-10 TruckingInfo.com piece, Oregon, Washington Crack Down on Truck Drivers.
"During a multi-day inspection operation held last week along the Interstate 5 corridor in Oregon and Washington, the Oregon Department of Transportation and Washington State Patrol recorded more than 782 violations, which were mostly on truck drivers' logbooks and qualifications.
"The states conducted more than 698 truck safety inspections as part of the operation. During the event, 145 drivers, or 19 percent, were placed out of service for safety violations. The national driver out of service rate is about seven percent.
"'One of the reasons that our out of service rate is so high is because these inspections are not random,' said Corey Turner, Washington State Patrol officer. 'We used a variety sorting tools including weigh station records to select vehicles and drivers for inspections.'"
Spooky stuff!
• We picked up a load this afternoon near Columbus Ohio. We are driving overnight to deliver tomorrow morning. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Thursday, March 18, 2010 I learned today that the famous Chrome Shop Mafia actually has a headquarters chrome shop. Learned by visiting it.
We delivered a load this morning in Joplin Missouri after driving overnight to get there. We went next to the nearby Petro truck stop to take a nap and later look for Panelite lights or an acceptable alternative for our truck (explained here). Like all other chrome shops I have visited or called, this one also was picked clean of Panelite lights.
As the day progressed and no load offers were received, we started thinking about moving to a better express center. With the weekend approaching, we did not want to be stuck in Joplin. Joplin is an interesting town but not the best for freight.
Our carrier will pay us a token sum to move to Saint Louis. We considered Kansas City which is closer but decided on Saint Louis after checking truck counts.
For readers who don't know, the Chrome Shop Mafia did five seasons on the Country Music Channel TV series Trick My Truck. Not having a TV in our truck and watching very little of it elsewhere, I knew of the Chrome Shop Mafia mostly by hearing about them from other truckers and seeing them at various truck shows.
As we were leaving Joplin I spotted a truck salvage yard and asked Diane to pull in. I once broke a trim piece on our dashboard when taking it apart to reposition some switches. Every now and then I stop at a truck junk yard in hopes of finding a replacement. A new one costs over $60. That seems a bit high for a small piece of plastic.
I found no trim piece but was surprised and delighted to find myself standing in the middle of the Chrome Shop Mafia's headquarters. The salvage yard store is attached to the chrome shop. Having time, I put it to good use wandering around. This chrome shop had also been picked clean of Panelite lights but it was still a fun visit.
One of the counter men told me a bit about the show. They no longer do it but when it ran, it was the most popular show the Country Music Channel ever had. According the the counter man, the show ended when the producers wanted to move from customizing big rigs to also doing pickup trucks. "The Boyz" refused, citing their commitment to truckers and big rigs. That ended the show.
Subsequent attempts to duplicate the show's success have failed. The Chrome Shop Mafia brand remains alive and well, partly because of the re-runs and partly because the Chrome Shop Mafia proceeds well enough on its own.
The counter man did not say it in so many words but conveyed the sense that the producers thought too highly of themselves and their abilities. They could not leave well enough alone and thought they knew better than The Boyz what viewers would like. Based on subsequent show results (ratings), it seems that the counter man's assessment of the producers is accurate.
This is not the first time truckers knew the score but people in ties thought they knew better; and it won't be the last.
• Diane is driving as I sit in the sleeper and write this. If we are not dispatched before, we will arrive in the Saint Louis area around midnight. Freight slowed down for us in the last couple weeks. We hope we don't have to spend another weekend in Saint Louis after doing so just last week. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Friday and Saturday: See Sunday. Saint Louis it is. The layover days were spent mostly in the truck with the usual mix of a bookstore visit, a couple of Redbox movies and bookkeeping. Time could have been used to visit some area tourist attractions but we focused instead on business bookkeeping and database work. I am on a roll with the database and don't want to let up when it is fresh in my mind.
Sunday, March 21, 2010 I learned today that Diane and I spent 41 percent less on postage and shipping in 2009 than we did in 2008. Learned by reviewing our numbers.
Regular readers know we have been simultaneously working on our income taxes and on improving our business administration methods. My efforts may seem amateurish and maybe even comical to a business person who has customers, employees, a location and thousands of transactions a week. Kindly note that as the owner of a simple one-truck business I don't have something "real" business owners do; a bookkeeper.
If I want to know how our specific expenses change from year to year, I can hire someone to tell me or figure it out it myself. Our tax preparer offers a bookkeeping service, complete with profit and loss statements. While it is a good service, it is not as detailed as I prefer. Nor does it provide the ability to provide year-over-year comparisons (delivered with a mouse click) like the postage and shipping comparison made above.
If you are going to run a trucking business, even if it is just one truck, it is wise to know how you are doing. Without good numbers, that is hard to know. The industry is overflowing with drivers who think they are dong OK because they are busy hauling freight at rates other drivers get. What many of them don't realize is they are taking a long journey toward a poverty-stricken retirement. They don't realize it because they don't know their numbers, or if they know them, they fail to understand them.
These owner-operators are perpetually financing their trucks, thereby providing for their banker's and truck dealer's retirement instead of their own. They run freight at rates that help them make their truck payments but are unable put money in their own account. Shippers appreciate that but that gratitude won't buy your groceries when you are 75.
Our postage and shipping costs declined in 2009, not because the price declined, but because Diane and I were home more often. We don't need to have our mail shipped to us when we are home.
The question, "How are we doing?" is not easily answered. It would have been better to stay on the road, make money, and spend a little more to have our mail shipped to us. But that would mean forgoing the dental care Diane got and helping in a family mission as we did.
How are we doing? It all depends on what you are talking about. What did we do, when and why? Because we know our numbers and log our activities, we can tell you exactly.
One of the reasons our bookkeeping is so such an arduous task is we track and categorize every single penny that comes in and goes out. If I find a dime on the street I enter it as found money. If I buy black shoe polish for our steel toed shoes, it is entered as a tax-deductible expense. A tin of brown shoe polish is entered as a non-deductible personal expense.
Invisible money is also accounted for. That is the same invisible money that puts many drivers in the poorhouse because they don't see it. Truck depreciation is an example. We have a nice truck but it must be replaced someday. It declines in value every day. Our spreadsheet has a deprecation line and the numbers there figure into the price at which we are willing to haul freight.
Truck owners who don't understand and figure depreciation into their costs risk running at a loss without even knowing it. They feel good as they haul freight in new equipment but are hard pressed to explain why they never seem able to build a bank balance.
Another reason our bookkeeping is difficult is the processes we have used in the past are not efficient. That is about to change. Progress has been made in my Operation Streamline such that next year we will be able to complete our income tax work with less than two hours of work. At any time along the way we will be able to instantly look at shipping charges compared to prior years, profit margins under varying fuel prices, and maintenance costs under varying oil and filter change intervals and any other report we wish to view. I'm not there yet but will be in the foreseeable future.
• Enough of that. How are Diane and I doing today? So-so. The weekend layover in Saint Louis that we hoped to avoid came to pass. We are dispatched to pick up a load on Monday but will have four zero-revenue days between that pickup and our previous delivery.
That leaves us with little choice but to make the best use we can of the time. That includes a healthy dose of number crunching and database work. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Monday, March 22, 2010 I learned today in a new way that attitude is everything. Learned by switching my mental focus from a negative item to a positive item and observing the result.
Diane and I woke up early this morning at a freeway rest area in Indiana. She stayed in bed. I got up to drive 90 minutes toward this morning's pickup.
It was a routine beginning. I got out of bed an hour before sunrise, used the bathroom in the truck, washed up, shaved, got into uniform, took a bag of trash out to a trash can, did a pre-trip inspection, started the truck, observed the gauge for oil pressure, brought my log book up to the minute, punched the pickup location into Gertrude (our name for our dash-mounted GPS device), turned on the windshield wipers, turned on the headlamps, put the truck in gear, drove onto a wet freeway, set the cruise control at 55 (saves fuel, no hurry to get where we were going) and settled in for a short drive.
This weekend's database and tax work put the focus on our truck business numbers. They are not fun to view. Last year was the worst year we have had in this truck. Financially negative factors include recession-reduced freight rates and volume, Diane's trips home for dental work (braces), a family mission, other family events, time off for a trade show a trip to our carrier's headquarters for TVAL testing and training, and a week in a hotel for Operation Streamline.
Note that some of these are short-term negative but long-term positive. The TVAL testing, for example, costs money to do but maintains our credential to haul good-paying TVAL loads for the next 18 months. Operation Streamline improves our truck business analysis and frees up time for trading.
Nearly three months into 2010, we find little encouragement in our year-to-date numbers. A long deadhead to a family event in January and to two weeks at home for Diane's continuing legal education classes give us a worse start in 2010 than we had in 2009. Our run count is not much different but the recession-level rates, shorter runs, time off and deadhead miles have had a negative effect.
Is this cause to worry? You bet it is. We remain profitable and continue to grow our bank balance. The truck continues to be fully maintained. Money toward the purchase of our next truck continues to be saved. Deposits to our retirement accounts continue to be made. Money for a good health insurance plan continues to be paid. Additional funds have also been spent on health care that many people would find unaffordable (Diane's braces and the trips home for those dentist visits).
There are a number of truck drivers who would like to have our 2009 results, but we worry in a way we did not before. The long-term revenue trend is clearly down. 2007 was a fantastic year. 2008 was less so. 2009 was worse and the beginning of 2010 is worse still.
So, I'm alone in the driver's seat this dark, rainy morning; cruising peacefully along, hearing on the news that the big health care bill was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, thinking about the huge losses trucking companies took last year, thinking about the thousands of carriers and owner-operators that were forced out of business, thinking about the huge surplus of trucks that remain on the road and how that leaves freight pricing power with shippers; and I worry.
Experiencing the loss of optimism, vision and creative thinking that worry produces, I took action to stop it and focused instead on a great victory. To find one, I did not have to look any further than my rear-view mirror and the stretch of road I had just traveled.
It was a great victory. At the beginning of that stretch I looked as far ahead as I could see, noted the hazards and successfully avoided them.
A driver once said that the most dangerous mile you will ever drive is the next mile. I just completed the most dangerous mile without incident or accident. That is a great victory and thinking about it changed my emotional state and improved my view of the future.
Our numbers did not change as I drove that most dangerous mile, my feelings did. Better feelings produce better thinking and better thinking produces better results.
Focusing on one victory helps you see others. Having the ability to know what our numbers are is also a great victory. It gives us the information we need to make good business decisions. The numbers may not be as good as they once were but our decisions can be.
• Today will continue with us under load with our heads not only in the trucking game but in the game in a way that helps us play to win.
• After our delivery in Memphis Tennessee late this afternoon I read a news item that may be far more significant than the minor headline it got because it was buried under the health care headlines. It's a Bloomberg story, "Obama Pays More Than Buffett as U.S. Risks AAA Rating."
Click the link for the full story. The short story is that a very rare situation recently developed in the bond market. Certain corporate bonds fetched interest rates lower than bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury Department.
Corporations and governments issue bonds to borrow money. You give them money, say $10,000. They give you their promise — their bond — to pay your $10,000 back on a given date and to pay you interest too.
The higher the risk is that the borrower — the bond issuer — will not keep its promise, the higher the interest rates must be to entice people to buy the issuer's bonds. Junk bonds, for example pay a very high rate because the companies that stand behind them are shaky; thus the term junk. U.S. Treasury bonds are usually considered safe because the government can raise taxes and print money to pay off the bonds when due. That is way bond rating agencies give their highest ratings to U.S. Treasury bonds.
If you want to cash in your bond before its maturity date you generally cannot do so but you can sell the bond to someone else in the bond market. Say you bought a bond (lent money to) (lent money to) a company that was strong when you did so but it declined over time. Maybe stupid management decisions were made. Maybe a competitor came out with a better product. Whatever the reason may be, as the company's financial strength declines, so will the price people are willing to pay for your bond.
You may have bought a $10,000 bond that pays 5 percent a year for five years and returns the $10,000 at maturity (the end of the five years). If the company's financial strength declines, you may only get $8,000 for that bond if you sell it. The person who buys your bond will have paid $8,000 for a piece of paper that pays $500 a year in interest (5 percent of the $10,000 face value of the bond). Receiving $500 a year on an $8,000 bond purchase gives that person an annual interest rate of 6.5 percent.
OK. So much for my lesson, "How Bonds Work."
In February, the markets — meaning the collective minds of all bond buyers and sellers worldwide — thought differently than the rating agencies that gave their highest ratings to U.S. Treasury bonds. People, companies, institutions, state employee pension plans, foreign governments and everyone else in the bond market refused to buy U.S. government bonds unless a risk premium was added, such that interest rates on certain government bonds rose above those of certain corporate bonds.
For people in the business this is an astounding, jaw-dropping development. By itself, as a one-time event, it may mean little. If the anomaly holds or soon re-occurs, it may signal that a seismic shift is underway, one that threatens to unhinge a lifetime of assumptions about bonds, currencies, government finance and much more.
Far-fetched? I don't think so. See this, note that it really did happen that certain corporate bonds recently paid a lower interest rate than certain U.S. Government bonds, and note the the U.S. Government really is bankrupt.
The emperor has no clothes and the bond market may beginning to say so.
What does this mean for a couple of truck drivers like Diane and me? It means that in addition to thinking about freight rates and our business future, we must also think about the purchasing power of the U.S. Dollar. We don't want to be stuck with a bunch of cash in a period when cash is not king. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Tuesday, March 23, 2010 I learned today that if Diane and I shave our heads and stop wearing underwear, we can save a meaningful amount of money on hair care and clothing. Learned by scrutinizing our spreadsheet.
I also learned that convincing Diane to live a shaved-head, underwear-free life is a tough sell. It seems that our hair care and underwear expenses will continue for the foreseeable future.
• We woke up this morning at a truck stop in Memphis Tennessee, where we delivered a load yesterday. We got dispatched on a good load this morning but it does not pick up until tomorrow afternoon.
That's the way it has been lately. There are good loads to be had but we have to wait a day or two or more to get them. We are back to hauling a couple loads a week like we did when the recession was in full swing. This contrasts sharply with the great month we had in January. There may be a bit of good news here and there, but for us on the ground it is clear that the recession is not yet over.
Tomorrow's pickup is about 200 miles from Memphis. We left this afternoon and are now parked close to the pickup. The run will keep us rolling overnight and delivers on Thursday, a day's drive from Louisville Kentucky.
The distance to Louisville is significant because the Mid-America Trucking Show runs this Thursday through Saturday. Wanting to stay in the revenue stream, such as it is, we won't be going to show. We are also feeling no need to go, even if we were close.
We have attended this show several times before. It is where we first learned about expediting when we took vacation time from our then white-collar jobs to attend. It's different now. We are not in the market for a new truck. We can learn about all the new gadgets by reading the trucking magazines and surfing the web. I'm not the editor of a trucking magazine and no longer feel the urgent need to network with everybody and keep up with the latest and greatest.
Now, if you have never been to this show, don't let me discourage you. It is a fantastic experience and well worth the trip, especially the first time. If you are thinking about getting into the business you can learn a great deal about it by visiting the booths, attending the seminars and talking to truckers at the show. If you are a trucker but have never been to a show like this, do yourself a favor and go. It is educational and a lot of fun. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Wednesday, March 24, 2010 I learned today a little tiny bit about the health care reform bill that the president yesterday signed into law. Learned by reading about it.
Before we got into trucking, Diane and I were deeply involved in politics. I founded a political party in 1992, the Independence Party of Minnesota, and with others helped grow it into a major party that elected a Minnesota governor (Jesse Ventura). Diane served as the general counsel to the governor through most of his term. Her office was in the state capitol building, three doors down from the governor's office.
Knowing a fair amount about how the political process works in public and behind the scenes, I remained intentionally ignorant about health care reform. I sat out this year-long debate because it would have been terribly frustrating and unproductive to enter the brawl.
Now that a health care reform law actually exists, there is something concrete to view and see how it will affect Diane and me, and the general economic conditions in which we do business. The summary information is beginning to surface and I am beginning to read it.
I understand that court challenges about the constitutionality of the law have already been initiated. That's a good thing. This new law raises genuine constitutional questions that will be rationally presented and heard.
Being sick and tired of the politicians and nut cases on both sides that have pranced about and spewed wild misinformation for a year, I am looking forward to the court arguments. Well-funded lawyers who are capable and intelligent experts in this area will present carefully prepared arguments in a setting that is civil and respectful of both sides. The arguments will be publicly available, fairly heard, fully considered and eventually ruled on by the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, themselves constitutional experts.
It will take a while for the cases to work their way up to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, the law is in effect. Diane and I already purchase health insurance on our own. At first glance, I see no changes in the new law that will immediately affect us.
Notwithstanding the predictions made about the good and evil the health care law will bring, the country Diane and I see through our windshield looks the same today as it did yesterday. Whatever the good and evil manifestations of the law will be, it will take time for them to develop. We will use that time as we generally do. That is, hauling freight, trading and enjoying life on the road as we prepare for a financially secure retirement.
• We woke up this morning in a retail area near the pickup we will do this afternoon. The load runs overnight and delivers tomorrow. The weather is mild. March is coming to an end. We are just about ready to pack our parkas away and unpack the lighter jackets used when the snow is gone. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Thursday, March 25, 2010 I learned today that "A California air quality management district is asking the California Air Resources Board to suspend trucking and other regulations tied to the state’s 2006 climate change law." Learned by reading this Land Line magazine piece.
I have written about CARB before, characterizing it as an agency that is out of control and abusing its power. When a district board within that agency appeals for regulatory relief, it shows that my characterization is spot on.
The same district recently wrote to the California governor also asking him for regulatory relief. In an interview, one of the board members said, "“We have the toughest state emissions standards in the whole United States.” Why? No better reason than people thinking they’re saving the planet. In the process, they’re shutting down California.”
It's not just California they are shutting down. Because the CARB rules apply to trucks running in and out of California, the agency's reach extends nationwide. Activists in CARB revel in this power and have been regulating the entire industry with little regard for the people they are putting out of business.
Diane and I have been directly harmed by CARB. We bought our truck in 2006, expecting to run it for ten years at least. We bought it in good faith under the EPA and CARB regulations then in effect. CARB later changed the rules and applied them retroactively to our truck and millions of other trucks. They took two years off the useful life of our truck, which is no small expense. If we do not replace the truck after eight years, we must pay thousands of dollars to upgrade the engine exhaust system in order to legally run the truck.
Putting that kind of money into a truck that has little life left in it is a financially unwise thing to do. Taking a perfectly good truck off the road to replace it with one that is not yet needed is hardly a green thing to do. None of that seems to matter to CARB and trucking companies are being forced out of business as a result.
I don't know what effect, if any, one CARB governing board's appeal for regulatory relief will have. I do take some satisfaction in the appeal itself. An appeal from this source shows that my view of CARB is not off base.
• We drove overnight last night from a pickup in Arkansas to a delivery in South Carolina. The pickup was at a secure facility and it took three full hours to work our way through the physical searches, truck searches, background checks run on the spot, security checkpoints and paperwork requirements. Some drivers fiercely object to such delays and protocols. They refuse to serve such customers. To us it is just part of the game.
The officers told us about a team from a competing carrier that was there the day before. By not cooperating and shooting off their mouths, they got into serious trouble at the facility and with their carrier. They may have lost their jobs. Sometimes truckers are their own worst enemies.
Once clear of the place we were on an ordinary run with a piece of ordinary freight. In the interests of cooperation and customer service, we kept the suggestion to ourselves but thought they could have saved themselves and us a lot of trouble if they would have brought the freight out to us instead of bringing us in to get it. They didn't and the pickup went as it did.
While Diane slept, I was glad to make it through Atlanta at the speed limit, before sunrise and before the morning rush hour began. It would have been less fun to drive through Atlanta in the rush hour with the sun in my eyes.
We completed the delivery before noon and went into our usual priority of work: (1) sleep, (2) fuel, (3) showers and (4) position ourselves to wait for freight. After checking truck counts and dispatch activity in various express centers we thought it best to accept our carriers recommendation and $11 deadhead pay to drive to Charlotte North Carolina to wait for freight there.
After declining three money-losing offers and finding ourselves with no freight to haul, we turned in for the night. Tomorrow is Friday. If we are not dispatched on a load that picks up on Friday, we may be in for another three-days off and nearly four days without freight on the truck. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Friday, March 26, 2010 I learned today that truck bug deflectors have an aerodynamic penalty of up to 5 percent and that translates into a two to three percent drop in fuel efficiency. I also learned about the Hernandez Fine Art web site. Learned about both by coming across old notes stashed in a deep corner of our truck.
Regular readers who know about my Operation Streamline know I have been clearing the clutter out of my life. Looking for a book I had previously stashed deep, I discovered old notes that I processed and got rid of today. We have visited the Hernandez gallery in New Mexico when we were in the area. I liked his work and kept the business card. That was the old way. The new way is to enter the card info on my computer and get rid of the paper.
So too with the notes. These dated back to 2007 and a time when I feverishly captured every trucking fact that came my way. Here is another: At 70 mph, an aerodynamic truck has a 56 hp advantage over a conventional (square nose) truck. This is stuff I picked up by talking to people at a truck show. It is the kind of stuff truck writers hang on to but I don't hang on to paper any more. Into the trash the notes went.
• We got dispatched this morning on a load that picks up on Monday. For a change, we saw some good paying loads in the string of load offers we received. Those went to other trucks and we got the load we got. That gives us a three day weekend once again. Part of it will be spent with blog readers. They are driving about an hour from their home to meet us tomorrow for a truck tour and dinner.
I will also be spending some time under the truck, weather permitting. It is due for a lube job. It will be nice to spend some quality time on my back looking up at the underside of the truck to see how it is after going through another winter. The truck gets a DOT inspection twice a year. My inspection will be more thorough. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Saturday, March 27, 2010 I learned today that a disadvantage of a roll-up door on a truck is that cargo can shift and lean up against it on the inside, thereby preventing the door from opening. Learned from a driver who has experienced it.
It's not a problem I knew about before or that Diane and I have ever had with our roll-up door. We haul just a few items at a time that are always secured. Cargo shifting does not happen in our truck. It can be a problem in a semi trailer that is loaded with unsecured freight, like the kind this driver told me about.
The driver was the husband half of a husband-wife wannabee expediter team who came to visit with Diane and me about getting into the business. They met us at our truck where we gave them a tour. We then got in their car and they treated us to a nice dinner and delightful visit.
These two are doing what Diane and I did before we got into the business. They are reading all about it and talking to expediters to learn more. That's great but it's different now than it was then. If the Great Recession is over, it is just over and its effects continue to be felt. New people getting into the business don't have the margin for error Diane and I had when we entered in 2003. .....
BREAK...It's Sunday and I'm writing about Saturday.
Tornado warning. We are leaving the truck to seek shelter inside a store.
OK. Never mind. The weather cleared as quickly as it appeared. The storm moved through at 55 mph. The tornado did not touch down. Back to my Saturday narrative.
New people getting into the business don't have the margin for error Diane and I had when we entered in 2003. The freight is not as abundant and the money is not as good. It is never a good time to get into expediting if you are not prepared. Unprepared people go broke even in the best of times. These are not the best of times, making preparation more important than ever if you are thinking about jumping in.
How do you prepare? You don't just study how to own and operate a truck. You master it. A good starting place to do this is the Partners in Business manual. You can preview it by clicking the link.
A lot of people write a lot of stuff about running a a truck owner-operator business. Some of it is good. Some of it is not so good. This book is very good. Buy it and master everything in it. Doing so will prepare you well for the expediting business.
• Diane and I woke up in a retail area in Gastonia North Carolina. The highlight of the day was meeting the couple mentioned above. Otherwise, we passed time in the usual fashion and went to bed in the same place we woke up. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Sunday, March 28, 2010 I learned today how it sounds in the truck when large hail rains down on it. Learned by being in the truck when it happened.
Loud! It's loud when large hail hits the truck!
We woke up this morning in a retail area in Gastonia North Carolina and soon headed out to get closer to our Monday morning pickup. I worked on my database project instead of the truck because it was raining on and off. After showers at a truck stop we moved to a retail area to spend the night about a mile from the pickup.
Then the storm came ... fast; high winds, lightening, large hail. We had to shout to be heard inside the truck. The wind rocked the truck. As I looked around I saw we were parked near a utility pole. I moved the truck clear of where it might fall if it fell.
Then the sirens wailed. We have a weather alert built into our CB radio. When a weather warning is issued the radio puts out a loud alarm, even if it is turned off. It went off with the sirens. We tuned into the NOAA channel on to hear a male computerized voice say a tornado warning (not watch) had been issued for the area.
A severe weather alarm, sirens, loud hail pounding the truck, wind rocking the truck and us in it, a tornado warning on the radio; it got us thinking about moving into a nearby store to seek shelter there. Then, as fast as the storm developed, it stopped. It turned out the tornado did not touch down and the storm moved through at 55 mph. I wrote in yesterday's blog entry (Saturday's text written today) that we were going in. I left the words as is to give you a sense of how fast this developed and passed.
So here we are, sitting peacefully and safe in the truck on Sunday evening, expecting to stay that way until tomorrow morning when we will pick up some freight and drive it all day and overnight to its destination. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Monday, March 29, 2010 I learned today that the new toll rate for a three-axle truck going through the Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore is six dollars, and re-learned that the toll-free I-695 bypass around Baltimore adds 13 miles to a trip that would otherwise go through the tunnel. Learned by looking up the information.
So, what does an expediter do, pay the six bucks or drive 13 additional miles? To answer that question you need to know how much per mile it costs to operate your truck. To better zero in on that number I continue working on my database project as Diane drives today.
There are other questions prompted by the tunnel. Do you have time to take the longer route? Must you take the longer route because your load is HAZMAT? If you have a HAZMAT load, what kinds of HAZMAT are prohibited in this tunnel that may be allowed in others? For both the tunnel and the bypass, what are the current traffic conditions? If you take one route or the other, what other routes, if any, does the first route choice commit you to? And so it goes on this, another day on the road.
This kind of stuff gets easier as you do it. When you are new in the business and dealing with such things for the first time, you find that a well-trained dispatcher is worth his or her weight in gold. That's one thing that sets our carrier apart from most (dare I say all?) others. Our dispatchers are very good.
Drivers and dispatchers sometimes find themselves at odds with each other as they each try, in their own way, to get the load delivered safely and on time. Diane and I have had dust-ups with dispatchers from time to time but they are rare events. Almost always it is a pleasure to work with the dispatchers we have.
I started driving this morning in South Carolina. We deliver tomorrow morning but will arrive in the area around 10:00 p.m. this evening. That gives us a good night's sleep, which is a good thing because we are pre-dispatched to pick up another load tomorrow afternoon. That load will run us overnight and deliver on Wednesday.
It's nice to be running one load after another but we are in for some heavy-traffic, inner-city East Coast driving. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 I learned today that the article I wrote for Land Line magazine will be published in the June issue. Learned by reading an e-mail from the managing editor.
Diane and I woke up this morning about two miles from our consignee's gate in New Jersey after hauling. We hauled the load from South Carolina and arrived early enough to get a good night's sleep.
Most deliveries are easy and routine. This one was not. We entered the facility at 7:30 a.m. and finally left at 2:00 p.m. Expediters are accustomed to getting in and out of most stops in short order. It did not happen today.
The long delay prevented us from picking up our next load on time. Dispatch was unable to cover that load with another truck and bumped the pick up to tomorrow. Where we could have made that money today we must now wait until tomorrow. Spreading the days over which the same amount of money can be made reduces the amount of money per day that is made. We could have asked to be pulled off the bumped load but at 2:00 in the afternoon our chances of getting dispatched on a better load were slim, so we stayed on the load.
They say if you are going to be an expediter you have to roll with the punches. We got punched and rolled today.
On the way toward tomorrow's pickup we stopped at a FedEx facility in Deleware to pick up our mail. It had been sent from home and held in Deleware for pickup. That's how we get our mail. When we know a day or more in advance where we will next be, we have the mail FedEx'ed from home.
The woman at the FedEx counter asked, "What do you do with a pretty truck like that?" She had never heard of FedEx Custom Critical. That is not unusual. FedEx Custom Critical is such a tiny division of the huge FedEx Corporation that many FedEx employees do not know of its existence.
We are now parked at a rest area on I-95 where we will spend the night. Tomorrow's pickup is just 30 miles away but it is in the middle of a big city. The morning rush hour will be ours to deal with. Going in a couple hours early is not an option as there is no good place to park. We need people to be at the building when we arrive so they can get us off the street and to the docks.
Those poor souls fight rush hour every day, twice a day. We like the commute we have (sleeper to cab) and enjoy not fighting the rush hour every day. The rush hours we do fight at least have some variety to them. One morning it might be in Los Angeles, two nights later it might be in Chicago and a week later it might be in Atlanta.
Truckers sometimes say shippers should know better than to book a pick up or delivery in the middle of a rush hour. It depends on your point of view. The shipper is the customer. Shippers book loads not for trucker convenience but for shipper convenience. If Diane and I were unwilling to pick up freight in rush hour, the shipper would simply book a truck that is.
That said, cities are becoming increasingly and intolerably congested. Shippers could help reduce congestion by scheduling pick ups and deliveries at off-peak times. Some civic minded activists have gone so far as to suggest that trucks be prohibited in cities during the day. They are quickly shot down by others when it dawns on people that if trucks were restricted to nighttime pick ups and deliveries, employees would have to be added and businesses would have to stay open to ship and receive goods. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 I learned today more about the streets of Washington D.C. Learned by driving around, and around and around on them.
Diane and I woke up this morning at a rest area on I-95, about 30 miles north of Washington D.C.'s National Mall. This morning's pickup was at a location on the mall. Getting to it is easier said than done but we got it done. The delay was caused by bad directions and a shipper that did not answer his phone when dispatch called to conference call us in. With no place to park, there was nothing to do but orbit the area until we finally figured out where to go.
I managed to get this photo of the truck while we waited for some last minute details to be worked out. Had I been thinking more about the photo than the freight, the shot would have better composed. The lighting was ideal as the morning sun reflected off the Washington Monument. We were there for the freight, not for photos, so what you see is what you get. Title: Photo of Washington Monument Emphasizing the Ass End of a FedEx Truck.
It's fun to get photos of the truck parked at noteworthy places. This photo of the truck at the Biltmore House is one of my favorites. Diane took that one.
My readers know I am sometimes critical of the leadership now seated in our nation's capitol. Yet when we drive along the mall and see the monuments to an endless stream of the people, ideas and events that make America great, you can't help but feel a rush of national pride. It leaves me conflicted, disliking what goes on in Washington and feeling national pride at the same time.
• We loaded the freight and wove our way back out of town. We're going to be busy in the next few days. We will deliver tonight the load that is now on our truck. Driving has not been fun today. East Coast traffic has been slow-and-go for hours at a time.
Immediately after tonight's delivery, we will drive back over the same roads to position ourselves for a 7:00 a.m. pick up. That load will take us back over those roads again until we are able to break out into the open. After delivering that load tomorrow night, we will head to the next pickup. That one is a cross-country run that will keep us rolling over the Easter weekend.
This month's trip map is shown below. Previous trip maps can be seen here.
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Blog entries are made so as not to reveal customer specifics or the current location of the truck when we are under load. Entries are updated to include location information after we leave the area. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page