I've been a trucker for the last ten years but now I am back home at "Camp Chaos" and I will be working at the Fontana terminal as a safety specialist. I hope now that I'm home I'll have a lot more time for blogging!


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Poor Dad. He's not home. He's somewhere in Oklahoma City in the middle of the United States. He and his student have to be Pennsylvania by tomorrow and back in Las Vegas by Monday.

Dad also has started obsessing about knitting and expensive yarn. Everytime he calls home he must discuss what new yarn he can buy. We have boxes and boxes of cheap yarn at home but he only likes the expensive stuff.
posted by SAJ at 11:34 AM

 


It was a cloudy, rainy Monday at the elementary school. The kids were going to get to see an 18 wheeler close up. Climb up in the cab, use the step ladder to get in the trailer. They all seemed to enjoy themselves. Billy Jack the bear will be traveling around the country sending back post cards about his travels. How many 50 pound kids could an 18 wheeler carry? The kids guessed 100, then 200. They couldn't believe I could carry somewhere around 950 kids before I would be overloaded. I held up a can of Del Monte Corn. Many of our canned vegetables come from Minneapolis MN. How do they get to your supermarket? Trucks carry pallets of canned vegetables to supermarket distribution centers. From there they are trucked to the local supermarket. In fact, everything you have, except maybe your little sister, came to you by truck!
posted by Tom at 1:25 PM

 


The Sand Castle Contest was soooooooo much fun! We are definitely doing it again.

Click here to see the pictures.


posted by SAJ at 8:23 AM

 
Today is my dad's birthday! He turns fifty-something. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!
posted by SAJ at 4:30 PM

 


Big News! Huge News! Me and my Dad (and whoever else we can wrestle up) are going to enter the 43rd Annual Sand Castle Contest in Big Corona! This Saturday. We're currently taking suggestions and helpful hints! Drop them in the comment box
posted by SAJ at 4:04 PM

 
Big News!! Dad got nominated for trucker of the month! He hasn't won anything yet. But he got nominated.

He's almost to St. Louis, Missouri and should be in Yuma, Arizona by Monday morning.

He's been following car clubs. Miles and miles of corvettes whizzing past him.
posted by SAJ at 8:26 AM

 
Dad is in Racine Wisconsin unloading Christmas wrap. It's that time of year again. Apparently the wrapping paper came from somewhere really far away like Korea or China and the boxes are all tattered and falling to pieces. If the rolls of paper don't fall out the bottom of the boxes they fall out the top. So Dad and the warehouse men are taping the boxes back together one by one. Another day in the life of a Trucker.

Dad has a new student named Mark and he seems to be working out well.
posted by SAJ at 7:47 AM

 
Just wanted to stop by and let ya'll know I added a bunch of new products to the Tom the Trucker Cafe. Cause everybody needs a Tom the Trucker lunch box to get in the back-to-school mood!
posted by SAJ at 9:57 PM

 
I'll just keep it short and simple:

Dad is home attending Heidi's wedding!
George is leaving California for a long road trip to Nebraska so he can attend trucking school.
Shawn is thinking about trucking again.
posted by SAJ at 12:01 PM

 
Dad is in Chicago. His student is ready to graduate and get his own truck soon. He's been an excellent student. They did 6,700 miles in one week. A record for my dad.

He's coming up on a million miles! Wow.
posted by SAJ at 9:31 AM

 
Yesterday Dad had a load delivering to Office Max in Lincoln Nebraska. It was a really old old building and the dock was so difficult to get into he had to flag down a passing police man to help him block a main intersection of traffic. He thought he might have to call for police assistance but thankfully a cop happened to be passing by.

Right now, Dad has a really cool student named Ron Wilson. He says hello to his fiance, Auvrey!

Dad is in Little rock Arkansas. He is on the way to Brigton Misouri, just outside of St. Louis.

posted by SAJ at 9:47 AM

 
Conversations from the Truck

Amber: Auntie I got an owie!
Brenda: A bad one?
A: Yes, it hurts really bad.
B: How did you get it?
A: I think the fan got me.

Dad in the background: Amber that's not an owie, that's red marker.

B: What? You drew an owie on yourself?
A: No, it's a real owie.
B: Then why did you draw on yourself?
A: So I would know where to put the band aid.
posted by SAJ at 11:41 AM

 
Dad is in Dallas right now, at a Sears loading dock, waiting for a load to Chicago to pick up Amber. Amber will be riding with him out to California to spend some time being a "California Girl" this summer. Yay!

Dad really wants to write daily but he doesn't have access to the internet yet. There is much talk about a wireless modem with an antannae that costs $69. Maybe a Father's Day present?
posted by SAJ at 8:33 AM

 


Yay! The first "I spotted Tom the Trucker" shirt winner!
posted by SAJ at 10:49 AM

 
Home again after 4 weeks on the road.

Trying to teach someone to drive an 18 wheeler is an interesting job. I had been a trainer 5 years ago before I bought my truck but up till now it was not possible to train students to be a company driver if you owned your tractor. As it turns out my company desperatly needs trainers and we owner operators have been slowly going broke. So being a trainer has great financial benefits. I get paid for all the miles the truck goes whether I am driving or my student. This allows me to just about double my miles.

I thoroughly enjoy training. It is rewarding to see a new driver master the many aspects of this job. First, our trucks have 10 speeds instead of four or five; in fact some trucks have 13 speeds, my truck only has 10. Truck and trailer I am about 75 feet long. When we back up we turn our steering wheel to the right to make the trailer go to the left. It is not somthing you learn in a fifteen minute session. Typically our students are on a truck for 5 to 8 weeks before they get a truck of their own.

My current student is a 50 year old man. He has done many things in his life. He is an expert carpenter. He has been one of those men on a scaffolding 50 stories up on the side of a new building. He is a jack of all trades and he has mastered most of them. So he decides to learn to drive a truck. The first step is truck driving school. Generally truck driving school is desiged to familarize a person with the basics of keeping a truck between the lines and learning how to shift from one gear to the next. The real learning begins after truck driving school. In school you learn how to back a truck up to an imaginary dock, just four red cones set out in a square about 15 feet apart. Crank the steering wheel all the way to the right and back the trailer around till it lines up between the cones...presto you have your "CDL" Commercial Drivers License.

In the real world it doesn't quite work like that.

We pulled up to a company to pick up a load. The sreet dead ended in a cul-de-sac. The building was the last one on the right with a driveway off the cul-de-sac leading to a single dock. The floor height of the warehouse was about four feet above the ground so in order to access our trailer with a forklift required digging out a four feet deep hole next to the building. Then build concrete retaining walls on both sides. Allow about 4 inches clearance on each side and then assume we are talented enough to back our trailer squarely into that hole without hitting either side and end up with our trailer snugly against rubber stops. There is a metal dock plate that extends out into our trailer allowing the forklift to drive right off the warehouse floor right into our trailer and deposit the pallet of goods.

In this case, since the warehouse was the last building at the end of the street on the right hand side, how does one put a trailer into that dock. There was barely enough room to do a hard left U-turn using all of the cul-de-sac just to get turned around. My student took one look and said there was no way he could get that trailer into that dock! So I had to figure a way to do it. Obviously if there was a dock then other trucks were getting into it so I must be able to do it. Thankfully there was another driveway going straight ahead at the end of the cul-de-sac so I pulled up into the driveway and then had to back blind aound to the right and hope my trailer was heading correctly into the narrow dock. I had to get out of the truck several times to see where I was backing because I couldn't see where it was going. If we back our trailer to the left we can look out our window and watch the trailer come around. But to back to the right is what we call a 'blind side back'. Not any fun, even for an experienced driver. Somhow I turned the steering wheel just the right amount and the trailer went right into the dock pretty much the first try. I just got lucky I think. My student got into the truck after I set the brakes and said "boy, if that is the kind of docks I'm supposed to back this trailer into, I'm not so sure I made a good decision to drive truck!" I assured him is wasn't as hard as it looked but it is harder for some drivers than others. He has been on my truck now for almost 4 weeks and he is still havng trouble backing that trailer. He needs to turn the steering to the right so the trailer comes around to the left and he does just the opposite and the trailer heads towards the fence instead of the dock. He gets so furious with himself. Sometimes I just have to keep quiet and let him work out for himself why the trailer is going the wrong way. Meanwhile the forklift driver is waiting on the dock tapping his foot on the floor wondering how long it is going to take the driver to get this trailer into the dock so he can get on with his job. I feel bad for my student but he has to learn how to do this. He can't get off my truck and get his own truck till he can demonstrate his ability to back a trailer between two other tailers, starting from a 45 degree angle to the two trailers. This is the hardest part for students learning to drive a truck.

We have seen some beautiful country these last four weeks. We started from Phoenix Arizona, bounced around the west coast for two weeks then got to Portland Oregon, then to Bend Oregon where Kasey saw us, to Columbus Ohio, to St. Louis Missouri, to Salt Lake City, Utah then back to Denver Colorado, then finally home to southern California where I am taking four days off. My student is visiting his son in Chino Hills.

My strudent has decided to go on a diet while on the truck. I think he saw too many drivers in truck stops with 44 inch bellies and decided he wasnt going to look like that!
So... it's Slimfast for breakfast, and lunch and maybe one good meal a day. I get a real kick out of his ability to stay on this diet. He will open a can of chocolate Slimfast, start drinking it and then he looks at me and says..."Wow, Polynesian Chicken, with sauteed mushrooms and for desert he is enjoying Blackberry 'Puddin"... Boy I just dont see how they can get such a great meal inside that can!!". Yesterday morning as we're driiving down though Utah toward southern California, he opens a can of French Vanilla Slimfast and this time he says "I'm really disappointed, ... Continental breakfast, ... cereal and a donut." He keeps me quite amused.

Bye for now. Tomorrow I have to finish installing a drip system for my wife's tomatoe plants so they wont die when she flies back to Chicago for our granddaughters birthday the end of May.
posted by Tom at 11:54 PM

 
Mom has joined the blog. This is a test
posted by Sue at 7:48 AM

 
Have you seen Tom the Trucker in your town? Kasey did at Jake's Truck Stop in Bend, Oregon, home of the pancakes that flop over the side of your plate. If you've spotted Tom the Trucker maybe you would like a t-shirt to prove it! Check out the Tom the Trucker Cafe Press Store! Hurry and get your Trucker Mug while supplies last!

Dad is heading out of Portland on his way to somwhere in Washington where he will pick up a load going to Fairfield Pennsylvania... near Gettysburg.

Keep your eyes peeled!
posted by SAJ at 7:47 AM

 
Why oh why does my Dad not blog?

Because he's trucker that's why and he doesn't have wireless internet. 'Tis a shame. I should start a fund for my Dad to get him connected. Can you imagine the stories. If only I could be a fly in his cab and record some of his long rambling conversations. My Dad is a great story teller.

So the news on Dad at this moment is that he is in Phoenix getting his windshield fixed. He had a bird hit one window and a rock hit the other. Does anyone else see a theme here? Serioulsly, every time I talk to my parents they have yet another report on some truck work being done. Reminds me of Job. A little.

Dad has a student with him, his name is Mike.
posted by SAJ at 12:40 PM

 
Great News! Dad is going to start teaching again!!!
posted by SAJ at 1:13 PM

 


I know this is my Dad's blog but he can't update very often and I just can't resist. Afterall he did give me his password so I can add stuff and fix stuff...

I just wanted you all to know that my Dad knits while he drives. Not while he drives, as in holding the steering wheel with his knees, and knitting with his hands...oh no. I mean, while he's out on the road. I also wanted you to know he's knitting something purple. Not blue or brown or green. No, purple. As in lavendar. As in cuter than cute. I love my Dad, the knitting truck driver. (He finished the yellow thing.)

He also wanted me to let you know that he's carrying 34,000 pounds of "A Fish Called Wanda" dvd's right now. Actually he doesn't know if the whole load is "A Fish Called Wanda" but at least one crate was. Just another little interesting trucker note.
posted by SAJ at 3:07 PM

 
Dad had $200 worth of gaseline stolen right out of his tank! I think he's looking for a gas cap lock now.
posted by SAJ at 12:07 PM

 
Truckers make up names for just about everything they see. To see a few of these goofy terms click here


posted by Tom at 8:04 AM

 

Well I hope nobody is still holding their breath since my last blog… I didn’t know it would be so long.


I promised I would tell about how I got a speeding ticket and was apprehended by a officer on foot. So here goes. I had a goal of never getting a ticket, well actually I had three goals when I started driving a big truck eight years ago. Goal number one was never have an accident, number two was never deliver a load late and number three was never get a ticket.

My first truck was an old cabover flatnose with 400,000 miles on it and it was thrashed! They apologized for giving me such an old truck but that was all that was available. I drove that old truck for six months.. actually, I drove that old truck for about a week and broke my wrist trying to pull a pin on my trailer(that’s another story) so about eighteen weeks later they put me in another old cabover that was not quite as thrashed as the first one but it’s not much fun riding right on top of the steer tires. I couldn’t wait to get into a better truck.

I got myself stuck in a snow drift and had to dig my tires out and ended up at a truck stop hoping the storm would hurry up and pass but I got a message to go pick up a load 70 miles south and I refused to go because the weather was so bad. I got a message I had better get the load now or how was I going to deliver the load on time1 I went inside the truck stop and called our safety dept and they told me to stay put and if dispatch gave me any more trouble have them call Safety. So the next day I pick up my load in much better weather and I get a message to drop this load at our terminal in Omaha Nebraska and come see my dispatcher… Oh, Oh, I’m sure I’m in trouble now!

I get to Omaha and I locate my dispatcher. He just hands me a piece of paper. I look at the paper and it just says 20120. What does that mean I ask? That’s your new truck! So I go looking among the new trucks lined up against the fence and start looking for truck number 20120. I find it. A brand new Peterbilt No more riding on top of the steer tire! My new truck has 12 miles on it. My wife Sue was with me so we transferred all our stuff from the old cabover to the new truck. The temperature was around ‘0’ outside and there isn’t any way to transfer stuff from one truck to another without having the doors open. So with both motors running and heaters full blast we succeeded in getting into the new truck.

I wasn’t used to a truck with a big nose sticking out the front. We call them ‘hoods’. As I approached the guard shack to check out of the terminal to go get my first load I caught the front bumper on the concrete post positioned in front of the guard shack designed to keep trucks from hitting the guard shack. I bent the bumper about 5 inches out. We had to take a piece of wood and place it between another concrete post and my bumper and we gently nudged the bumper back straight. I was surprised, you could not even tell the bumper had been bent. The date was December 18, 1996.

A year or so later I was once again in the Omaha terminal and I overheard another driver asking about his one year award. I realized I had been driving over a year now so I should be eligible for my first award. So I went up to the Driver Relations window and asked for my annual driver award. I was informed I wasn’t eligible! Why? I asked? “It seems you have a preventable accident on your record.” How? I can’t recall ever hitting anybody. “You must be mistaken, I retort”. “well let’s see… we show you had an accident on December 18, 1996. Oh bummer… my bumper… so there went goal number one!

A few weeks later, I was in Baltimore Maryland, waiting for a load. At about 8:00 PM I get a message to take a load from Baltimore to Auburn , MA. Now you have to understand I was raised in northern California I had only been up to the northeast once before about 8 years earlier driving a motor home. The only Auburn, MA I knew was Auburn Maine so I obtained the necessary permit to take a 53 foot trailer to Maine and picked up my load. The trip information said I would be driving about 250 miles. It was about 9:00 PM so I thought I should be to Auburn by around 2:00 AM. Still should be able to get some sleep before delivering my load at 6:00. At 2:00 I was upset to see I was only part way across Connecticut .. Still had a long way to go… somebody sure messed up on these miles. I kept going, and going. At 5:30 I pulled into Auburn. Tired but glad at least I made it before my delivery appt.
This particular load had three stops. Three Home Depot‘s. No directions.

Home Depot pays extra for a special kind of delivery. We call those loads ’JT’ loads. ’JT’ stands for ‘Just in time’.

I said, how difficult can it be to find Home Depot As I approached Auburn I called on my CB radio for directions to the Home Depot. Sure enough a driver came back and said to take the first Auburn exit and it was up there on the right hand side. I felt pretty good as I went inside to present my bills. The receiving clerk looked at me with a puzzled look. “I not supposed to have any loads coming in today, let me call the office and check on this” then he looks at the bills again and says to me…”You are supposed to be in Auburn Massachusetts!” Great!.. I’m hundreds of miles from where I was supposed to be. How could be I be so stupid! I call my dispatcher and give him the bad news. He rescheduled the delivery for the next day. I got to Auburn, MA that night and was there for the delivery the next morning.

I have two more Home Depot’s to find, no directions…. Stop number 2 is in a little town south of Boston . Determined not to be late for this one I call for directions. I get an answering machine thanking me for calling Home Depot. “Press ’1’ for directions. Good, I’m ready with my pen and paper… a man’s voice took over. In a very thick Boston accent, he said something about getting off the freeway at the Ariel exit and you’re here!” and then ’click’ the answer machine was gone. I didn’t know there were two freeways on either side of this town and I took the wrong one. I was forty-five minutes late for this delivery. I was determined to make the last delivery on time. Before I left this Home Depot I asked if there was someone there who could give me directions to the Home Depot in Medford. I said I ‘had’ to be on time for this last delivery or I might not have my job anymore.

There was a man there on a ladder painting the wall. “Yea I can give you directions. Its real easy, you can’t miss the Home Depot in Medford”, “Just get off at the Medford exit, look for Chappies bar, make a left and the Home Depot is on the left hand side.” Sounds easy enough. So with about 40 minutes before delivery time I head to Medford. Only about 15 miles.

Let me tell you something about Medford… it is a suburb of Boston. They built the roads in Boston around the turn of the century.. The previous century.. The roads had to be wide enough for horse and buggies to pass. Nowadays when people park their cars on the streets they park them completely on the sidewalk or if two cars parked on the street across from each other there might be enough room to walk between the cars. Now imagine taking a 75 foot long big truck into a town like that!

I thought I had good directions this time. I go up I-95 towards Boston and I’m looking the Medford exit. You can imagine my chagrin when I see a sign… ‘Medford, next three exits..’ I take the first exit but before I can reach the bottom of the ramp I see a big sign ‘NO TRUCKS ALLOWED!’… so I get back on the freeway and take the next exit.. This is not looking good… At least there aren’t any ‘NO TRUCK’ signs. I’m looking for Chappies Bar. Nothing even close, not any bars at all… I finally find a bus stop. The only place large enough for me to get out of traffic. I can see a payphone across the street so I call the Home Depot. “You are on the wrong side of town he tells me.” Needless to say I was half hour late for this delivery. Three deliveries, all three late. Goal number three gone.

The next year I submitted a request to be a trainer. The lady in the training department made a trip downstairs to my dispatchers cubicle and said “this driver can’t be a trainer, he had three late deliveries.. All on the same ‘JT’ load!” My dispatcher just looked at her and said “That was just a fluke!” I got to be a trainer.

So now the only goal left was ‘never get a ticket’…

I was in West Virginia, had a heavy load, going north into Ohio. The speed limit in West Virginia is 70 mph
It is 55 in Ohio.
There is a long high bridge over the Ohio River. State line is in the middle of the river. I’m coming down the far side of the bridge just trying to hold the truck back and get it down to under 60 before I get off the bridge. The CB squawks, ‘We have Smoky Bears on foot at the end of the bridge…” I think there must be some kind of roadblock. I see officers on foot, motioning to the truck in front of me to pull to side and then they motion to me to pull over.. I roll down my window and ask “What is wrong sir“… “Our aircraft caught you at 63 miles per hour…” he pulled out his ticket book and… yup you guessed it… goal number two down the drain.

posted by Tom at 8:44 AM