Ya, I hear you SS. I seem to only eat one real meal a day and the rest of the time I eat canned chicken, fruit in a can, nuts and granola bars. I suppose I could crank up the crock pot with a bag in it and make a pot roast or other things.

I forgot to mention. The guy I met at a truck stop and we cooked steaks I ran into again. I was heading back home early in the morning and was pulled into that inspection station I think in Texas that everyone has to go through, even cars. I asked if I could pull over and turn on my heat valve. As I was opening the hood the other driver came over. He got shut down for having beer in his truck. He was only able to tell me he got put out of service for 10 hours then I got told to leave and he was told to get back in his bunk. That's it? You get shut down for 10 hours. I would have thought they screwed you to the wall?


OK, I'm ready to head out again!

[person]

Congratulations Steve on passing the 1000 posts mark and on 61400 hits. About one post for every 60 hits, huh.

On the crock pot deal, I read to cook all the different things you want in there. Just take every item and wrap them separately really well with foil. You know, work the seams well and keep the seams on top. You can have a four course meal and not have to wash a thing. Let us know how it works.

Originally Posted by person

Congratulations Steve on passing the 1000 posts mark and on 61400 hits. About one post for every 60 hits, huh.

lol, you must be an engineer analyzing that!!! I think the newness of my posts has worn off and I've been using this thread to talk about anything now.

I'm not sure I'll try cooking in the cab just yet. It just seems like it's going to be a pain always looking for a Walmart Super Center to pull into and do some shopping. There are times that seem to happen quit often that I'm cut off from civilization for 2 or 3 days at a time.

My truck is suppose to go in this morning to have the front end looked at. It's raining cats and dogs and I'm not sure what's going to happen when I lower my landing gear on the trailer. The lot is dirt and gets pretty muddy. I'm going to bring the truck in anyways. They have backhoes and other equipment in my lot that could get the trailer out if I get stuck.

I'm just so overwhelmed with paper work. I thought I would just buy a truck and drive around. I seem to come home to a mound of stuff to do. It's getting close to registration time again for me and the running around I have to do is lots. I also have KY,NM,OR and other states that have there own fuel tax reporting. IFTA took me like 6 hours to do even though I have great records now.

Recording fuel, mileage, maintenance, parts, tolls.....ARRGGGGGG

I need a full time secretary in my truck who can also cook and install a convection oven. I think I know someone like that

On a side note about raining cats and dogs. Years ago when the roofs of houses were made out of grass and thatch dogs and cats would sleep on the roof to stay warm. The heat from inside the house would rise up through the roof. When a heavy rain came the dogs and cats would fall through the roof into the house.

[GMAN]

The paperwork can certainly take some of the fun out of running your own authority, Steve. There are those who will do your IFTA for you for about $45-50/month per truck. If it gets to be too much, you may want to consider someone who can do it for you. There are also software programs which can do your fuel taxes. All you need to do is plug in the numbers and it does the rest. My state now offers online IFTA filing. I am thinking about checking into this myself. It may shorten the time involved in filing. You may want to see if your state offers online filing. I know you have a computer background, but there are industry specific programs on the market which will help you manage your business. Most run from $75-495 for up to 5 trucks.

[serbie]

Originally Posted by GMAN

The paperwork can certainly take some of the fun out of running your own authority, Steve. There are those who will do your IFTA for you for about $45-50/month per truck. If it gets to be too much, you may want to consider someone who can do it for you. There are also software programs which can do your fuel taxes. All you need to do is plug in the numbers and it does the rest. My state now offers online IFTA filing. I am thinking about checking into this myself. It may shorten the time involved in filing. You may want to see if your state offers online filing. I know you have a computer background, but there are industry specific programs on the market which will help you manage your business. Most run from $75-495 for up to 5 trucks.

GMAN, could you post the programs or pm me the list if you don't want to put them out there. Thanks.

Originally Posted by SteveBooth

lol, you must be an engineer analyzing that!!! I think the newness of my posts has worn off and I've been using this thread to talk about anything now.

Are you saying your novelty has worn off?? :roll: :lol: :shock:

Just kidding. Steve, you live in Merrimack, I'm 20 minutes away and haven't bumped into you yet?

[Bigmon]

What about prepaying them. I know a guy that pays all his utilities a year in advance. This way each month they keep crediting his account until he owes them. Then he does it all over again.

Some of the utilities even pay him interest.

Originally Posted by serbie

Are you saying your novelty has worn off?? :roll: :lol: :shock:
Just kidding. Steve, you live in Merrimack, I'm 20 minutes away and haven't bumped into you yet?

No, the novelty hasn't worn off. Just that everything that was new has worn off. I was freaking out going down a 5% grade with my leg shaking before. Now I go down a 10% and say, wow, this is way cool. I can't wait to get back out there but may have to wait a while.

My truck was in the shop for a total of 1/2 an hour and they found a bunch of things worn out already. I've already had 3 wanna be fake mechanics at the truck stops look at my front end and found it to be in perfect shape. Well, it's not. They also put a vibration device on the truck and the drive shaft was out of whack also. They are sending that out to get ground and balanced.

One of the motor mounts is just about gone. I feel that is the major cause of my vibration and shaking.

I'm having my Jake reprogrammed also to act different when the cruise control is on. I want the Jake to come on full blast at 2mph over the speed limit and to stay on until I reach my original cruise setting. As it stands now it comes on low at 3mph over, then med another 2mph then high another 2mph. At that rate your 7mph over the speed limit.

I don't think there is a program that could help me with IFTA other than add some stuff up. What we really need is a device that records which state your in for how many miles then dumps out a comma seperated ascii file to plug into a spread sheet.

Time to go visit my truck and see all these parts I've never heard of.

[allan5oh]

I know my company spent about 10k on an IFTA program that uses the qualcomm satellites to track how many miles in each state/province.

[person]

http://www.driversdailylog.com/ddlwhatelsedoesddldo.htm

IFTA issues quarterly fuel rate tables and these can be downloaded from http://www.iftach.org (look for Tax Rate Matrices). These files are issued by yearly quarter. 1Q2002.csv, 2Q2002.csv, 3Q2002.csv, etc. The files are comma separated value (.csv) text files designed to imported into spread sheet programs like Microsoft Excel or similar. DDL has been modified to read these files and to extract the Diesel Fuel rates for each state or province in the file. The IFTA Report requires these files and will even create the required file name base on the date specified for the beginning of the report.

Expense records can be entered (if the option is enabled) which will appear in the Remarks section of the LogSheet and as 'tick's on the Grid. Several common reports can be prepared, and the Expense records can be saved to a CSV (comma separated value) file. CSV files can be 'imported' into popular spreadsheet and database programs. It is possible that this data be imported into bookkeeping and other trucker record keeping programs.

That page tells about a lot of other stuff too.

[GMAN]

Originally Posted by serbie

GMAN, could you post the programs or pm me the list if you don't want to put them out there. Thanks.

Some packages that I am familiar are: Trucknpro (www.foglinesoftware.com), Easy Trucking (www.easytrucking.com), Truckers Helper (www.truckershelper.com), loadledger (www.loadledger.com). Any of these packages can do your IFTA calculations except trucknpro and they are currently working on that. Truckers Helper is probably the most comprehensive and will also do your payroll. Some have commented that it is a little more complicated. Trucknpro, Easy Trucking and loadledger are all fairly easy to use. Most of these programs have a demo you can either view or try for a short period. I believe all of these programs have several different levels that you can purchase depending on your needs. There are other packages which are more costly, but these are ones with which I am familiar. Let me know what you think of these programs. If you need more names, I will see if I can dig my list out.