I'm getting produce. Not sure what exactly cause they keep changing it up. There was supposed to be corn but now no, but peppers I do know. I have another pickup in Ga tomorrow and it's all for Krogers. It's going to Atlas cold storage. I think Krogers is a grocery store so I guess they don't all have their own DC's like a Publix.

I know there is one company that is like an outsource company to handle distribution centers. I forget the name but I went to one when I was a company driver in South Carolina for a Bi Lo. It was actually on Bi Lo's property and I asked why it had a different name. It was a company from New Hampshire I believe and if I'm not mistaken they said they were the 2nd largest food dc behind Walmart. I think it began with a C.

That State Farmers market sure looks busy. I went today to where I need to pick up in my car to see where I would have to go to make it easier when I get there in the truck. I was talking to the guy he said they opened back up 2 weeks ago and will be there til April.

Seems like there is work down here but you just have to know whom to call. Actually where my truck is parked, I could walk to my pick up within 5 minutes, so I'd like to make more contacts there.

By the way I hope your truck is under warranty. Man between the automatic shift and the hotels they are going to start hitting you with the gentlemen trucker label :)

Are those autoshift much better on fuel efficiency?

Hey Kurbski, good point. I think food is more time sensitive but I know no_worries said the apples are going on them and I'm sure apples need to be refridgerated. I notice on these refridgerated containers they have this weird refridgerated thing. The tank on the bottom looks like plastic. Other than that don't know much about them.

biggest reefer box car load is potatoes frozen and fresh
Hapco for fresh
Lamb Wesson for frozen

Here is the competition

http://www.railexusa.com/

The refrigidation part is built into the container itself in the front,the part that hooks on the front of the container is a removable diesel generator,also can be located under the chassis,when they are set up like this you will see the power cord hung alongside the container and plugged into the front.

After getting to the port the generator is taken off the container and the container is plugged in to keep the reefer running until it's time to load on the ship once on the ship they are plugged in for their journey,I hauled lots of loads of pies this time of year for our troops in Iraq and Afganastan,also may loads of frozen turkey dinners.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...containers.JPG

I wouldn't be too concerned with Railex... the apple growers were less than pleased with their service. Delays, Delays, Delays.

Imagine that :shock: Gee, I guess you get what you pay for. :roll: However, we'll have to see if they were displeased enough to pay a decent rate next time or if they'll just live with poor service. With the slowdown ahead, I'm not betting on many shippers opening the wallets.

Gentleman trucker :lol: I guess it could be worse. The autoshift is probably more efficient for someone who's not an efficient shifter. I could get better mileage with a manual. It is under warranty, 5/750000, but of course they don't have one of the parts so I have to pay for the airfreight so it'll be here tomorrow. If rates cooperate, I should be out on Thursday...maybe. There is a storm coming at the end of the week so it might be a good time to get out of Dodge 8)

I would not be too concerned about rail at this point. There are still great inefficiencies in their system. They are still unable to get into the growers fields to pick up the produce. They still cannot match delivery times of trucks. They still need trucks to pickup and deliver on both ends. There could be a greater opportunity for increased capacity on both ends for trucks. It could potentially reduce long haul opportunities, but increase local or regional opportunities. Produce still has a relatively short shelf life. If an engine breaks down there could be many times the claims to the rail over a single truck breaking down. Trucks are still the most efficient means to move product across the country. Putting larger, heavier rail cars on aging tracks means that there is increased potential for derailments or improvements to existing tracks. Perhaps trucks should just abandon those markets and let the growers find out for themselves about the inefficiencies of rail. I think rail works very well for bulk items, such as coal. I am not sure sufficient efficiencies exist for food products. Rail is limited to how much capacity they can handle. The more rails are used and the higher weights they are asked to sustain, the greater the chances of accidents. It is also much easier to sabotage a train than a truck. From a national security standpoint, trucks are less of a security threat. For rail to make a significant impact on trucking, major upgrades will need to take place. I find it interesting that so many of the major trucking companies, such as U.S. Xpress, Swift, etc., use so many rail cars to transport their trailers from the West. They are actually supporting their competition. :?

Yikes!

I was just reading up on billionairs (millionairs and multi-millionairs are a dime a dozen NOW-A-DAYS, wish I had A MILLION tho..).

'This billionaire' INCREASED his stash' by TWENTY billion over last year!

Keep-On-Trucking (if U wanna go broke!)

http://www.frozenfoodage.com/print/Frozen-Food-Age/Riding-The-Fresh-Express/1$629



more on railex
if you haul potatoes
Railex is really Hapco



btw Mandolin
the guy who lives behind me just retired his seat on the stock exchange at age 42 and bought 4 Hamburger franchises "to keep busy"

I'm interested in knowing about this "80% of our food is imported" comment. To start an investigation, what percentage of YOUR food is imported? I checked. I assume my coffee and tea is imported. Only other thing I found was some brazil nuts. Occasionally get imported cheese but mostly from U.S., even the bleu. Some immigrants eat imported food, like the Asians. But this 80% thing? Who has 80% imported food in their house? Of course there's winter fruit etc, but all these things can't add up to 80%.

Almost all the frozen fish I del to Sysco,US foods,all the chain restaurant
distributers is from China






http://www.fpil.com/zerve.asp?id=2

China China China

Made to final and waiting to get unloaded. They pushed the delivery date up and this load turned into an expedited one. And to make matters worse they (TQL) started with the "where are you" phone calls. Mr. very polite and humble Merrick flipped on the kid and that ended the phone calls. I rush myself I don't need to be rushed by anyone else.

Also what started as $1.30 out of Florida turned into $1.15 actual hub miles as I avoided the Florida Turnpike. Kind of upset when I saw that but I calculated the rate going into to Florida and this one coming out and it averaged out to $1.54 a mile. And that is every single mile on the truck including taking it to Miami for service and back to home in Broward. Plus I am in a good area (Indiana).

Anyway I have a problem that I need help with. I just got a call from a shipper in Miami that I have been calling. They returned my call and want to deal with me. We didn't discuss rates didn't but they have been using CH Robinson and also sending out daycabs to over the road runs and paying for meals and hotels for the drivers.

So my problem is I don't know what rate to set. They said they would continue to call CH and then call me to see if I can do better. Also I had a very nice talk with the guy and he stated he wants me to keep calling him to check on loads. It is dry freight. Their business is growing fast too. It is exactly what I was looking for, a company tied to South America. They import what they sell and finish it here and then send it out.

What I would like to do is set a rate and then add a fuel surcharge that would just adjust with the fuel. Also I would like to make it a rate that would stay continuous throughout the year so it might be a bit higher during the down time but would stay they same when produce kicks in and they need to start paying more. I would like continuous freight down there.

But really I don't know which route to go as I'm so new at this. I don't want to make a stupid mistake and screw it up. Any ideas how I should go with this?

I know this is awkard asking this type of question, but what the hell I got off my rear and found a shipper but am not sure how to proceed. I have this friend I was working with but he isn't answering a lot of my questions. There are many questions I ask that he doesn't answer for some reason. People are funny sometimes and I think he will be a big help to me if and when I make it on my own. Right now he has made it so there is no incentive to help another make it. Human nature.

One other thing, I have called on dry loads and sometimes they say no reefer so I'm hoping that won't be a problem either.

That picture Mike3 put of the containers was something else. This whole movement of freight is quie somthing. I mean looking at all of this besides looking just at the load we carry the big picture of things is amazing. And it will probably are only at the beginning still of globalization. I always use to say that one day the Africans will be wearing Nike too. Half the world is still living in unbelievable poverty, what happens when they all have discretionary income?

That might not happen actually now that I think of it. After all the world needs poor people, without poor people there would be no rich people. Just like there would not be no police if there weren't robbers.

Of course there are levels of poverty. I heard the other day some guy saying there is no poverty in America and if there is then if you are going to be poor then you best be in America where the poor have cellphones and everything else.

Actually I had to evict tenants out of my rental last year and these people couldn't (or wouldn't) pay their rent but they had enough for DirectTv.

Ok that's enough, I'll shut up now.

By the way, when I was picking up in Florida this Jamaican guy comes up and asks me to back a truck up to the dock. From what I understood (he had a very heavy Jamaican accent) he was the owner of the truck but couldn't back it in. It was one of those long nose Petes and his driver couldn't back it in either as he drives a Volvo.

Well I never was in one of those. The dash looked like it could of been the dash of a 747. I have no idea what all those things are for and as I backed in to the hole I see now why people need to open the door to back in. You can't see a thing.

I guess you get used to things but those things are something.

When a shipper asks about my rates, I always turn the conversation around and ask them what they have budgeted for shipping their product. Nine times out of ten I will get an answer out of them. But prior to my trucking career I had a sales career for 18 years and know how to negotiate.

There are valuable sayings we had in the sales negotiation biz that I still adhere to, one is that you can never go up in price, you can always come down. The other is : He who speaks first, loses.

I used to own a Pete and loved it at the time, but have gotten used to not having to see around the stack. About a year or so ago, my niece and her husband had a load that needed to be delivered and didn't have a driver. She asked me to take it for them and I had forgotten how it is to try and see around those stacks. She had a KW but had the stacks on the side of the truck. It was quite an experience after being away from that type of thing for a while. With those long noses, you need to be especially careful while backing. Things seem to disappear under the hood. You need to remember what you passed to avoid an accident.

Thanks BigD. I bet that salesman experience helped and I do tend to talk too much but I will work on that. I have been calling people back that aren't returning my calls right away which I NEVER in a million years would have done. So I will get the salesman thing, though it is true as someone said, this isn't really sales in the way that I am trying to sell someone something what they don't need. They need a truck and I need freight.

There was a quote I read one time from I think it was from a someone running for President that man doesn't read the writing on the wall until his back is up against it. I forget who it was right now. So I have no choice but to learn the sales thing if I want to progress.

Gman, I wonder is there at least some benefit to side stacks besides aesthics? You figure that if it blocks sight there must have been some value to it or they wouldn't have keep making it.

I work for CH Robinson and that is exacly what we do. We cold call and try to go visit them. We have 6800 employees calling customers tring to get freight everyday. The thing that makes is easy for us to get in with a customer is we are muli-modal. We can handle all of their truckload, LTL, IMDL, Small parcel, international, air, and the list goes on. But yeah if I were you I would try to find some customers to haul directly for and use brokers just to get your truck to your next customer load. That's what most companies use us for.

There was something I mean to write that I forgot til now. When I picked up this load, me being me, I got to talking with the guy at the window and literally within 5 minutes of being there I had the name and the phone number of the guy in charge of getting the trucks.

I was proud of myself but then enroute I realized the shipper wasn't the one getting the trucks (for this load anyway). Kroger was the customer. I don't think I can call Kroger and offer my services. And actually I was thinking of calling Publix as it sounds better, to me anyway, when I say, "do you work with local carriers?".

I know Gman and Loadit and others say don't compete with the big fish, but as this CH Robinson guy points out, they offer capicity and price.

I hear what everyone is saying about good service but we are in the Walmart age when it seems all that matters is price. (Funny how people use to make fun of Kmart and the blue light special when I was a kid, seems those days are gone.)

I've been thinking too, funny these big companies like Swift and Werner etc. don't offer other services like warehousing. It's always better to have multiple streams of income. I know LoadIt use to talk about having the warehouse and wish he would talk about that more as I always found that interesting and use to actually search out his posts just for that reason.

Today, I got to talking (I know what a surprise, I swear I should have been a journalist. If I could just get paid for asking questions) anyway this lumper service at Atlas Cold Storage was just bought out by RoadLink which I guess is a trucking company. I never heard of them and I tried to look them up but this internet is slow as hell here. Multiple streams of income.

And apparently this Atlas Cold storage is soley dedicated to Kroger. That quite frankly amazes me. A business whose sole business is to service one other business. Honestly that would make me nervous as all your eggs are in one basket. And then this lumper service is contracted by Atlas I guess. Lots of hands in the pie.

Merrick,
Unless he really wants a firm rate from you i would just keep calling him when you're in the area. That way you have some flexibility.

If he is right in your back yard, then that's different and your rate might be competitive.

Yeah he's pretty much right in my backyard. One thing I am worried about, what is the weight difference between a reefer and dryvan? This stuff he's handling is heavy.

I really would like to get setup in my area. You know towards the end of the conversation he asked if I was Latin. This speaking Spanish has been great. Who knew?

Ok I got my next load. You know it's funny that CH broker guy pointed out the obvoius that rates coming from the Midwest and those going to Florida are the best and really me knowing nothing even figured that out already so I guess it's really not rocket science.

But I got to the Mid West and never know where to go from here. They had loads posted all over the country and to be honest even though I wish I could do it like Steve and roam around the country which is what I tried to do as a company driver, that's not smart for what I'm looking to do. I think I will try and stick with one area of the country. As they say it's better to be a big fish in a small pond then a small fish in a big pond.

So I was getting plenty of calls. But I ended up taking one from Indiana to Jacksonville. The only problem is it doesn't deliver to Tuesday and I told them no at first. I had one to Denver and one set up to get right out but it was a lot of time too, they said because of the weather. Also that one was a reefer load and this one is dry.

With deadhead this is just about $2 a mile. There isn't going to be a snowstorm in Jacksoville so no delays there and then I figure that I can spend Monday securing a load for Tuesday when I empty.

Not sure if this was the right thing though as I will be sitting for two days,but then again no chance of sitting due to weather.

Anyone know why sometimes dry loads say no reefers? Is it the weight? One broker told me one time it had to do with the pallets fitting in and that didn't make sense.

You lose 1-2 feet of length with a reefer depending on your unit encroachment and door thickness. You also lose width, due to the insulation. Space can be an issue, especially if they don't want to pinwheel the pallets. You also can't load all the way to your ceiling because of the chute. Sometimes there are issues with the floor...you can nail into a van's floor. Also, some shippers don't want to have to worry about the added care needed loading a reefer. You can't just shove stuff into a tight space because you'll damage the insulation. You've seen the beating a dry van takes on the dock.

And lastly :lol: some brokers try and protect their dry freight rates from reefers. Most dry freight is year-round, while reefers are generally seasonal. Reefers are notorious for taking anything just to get back to where ever the hot spot of the moment is. This often leads to undercutting what would normally be a nice year-round rate. So some brokers think they can protect their rate by not exposing their customers to reefers.

As far as the weight difference, it's definitely important to check on. A reefer unit weighs 1500-2000 pounds, the trailer structure is beefier than a van, and you have the insulation. Many company vans can scale 46,000+. I know if I get over 43,000 it starts to get dicey.

That was a very good, thorough answer no-worries. It's amazing the help some of you guys provide. Very much appreciated by more than just merrick4. Thanks

Yeah definitely what Outta here says No_worries. Very thorough indeed. I appreciate it. You always mention that you have your facts straight should a problem arise with these brokers; I bet half the time they are dumbfounded when you get on a roll :).

Actually my truck is very light. About 32,500 with a half a tank and empty trailer. Actully I loaded just under 30,000 pounds today but went and scaled out cause I had to slide the tandems back at the last place and can never feel comfortable on where the tandems should be. I hate to spend the money, but I don't want to be called into any office and be asked any questions. I'm hoping with time I will get a bit more comfortable with it.


Now that I look at this scale ticket this seems low but I scaled 62360lbs with a load of 29294lbs as per the BOL. I guess that's right as I had about a half of tank.

How's your truck doing? Did they get the part they needed? There was a load out to Nevada today and Ch called me on it. They wanted to give me $1.20 a mile to go to Sparks. Not this truck. What comes out of Nevada anyway? From what I hear nothing.

Anyone know if Kentucky is one of those states not to buy fuel in like Indiana? It sure was cheap (or cheaper) there today. I usually look up the fuel tax on etrucker but even with Indiana they dont mention that it doesn't come out at the pump.

Thanks again no_worries you're a big help!

That's what we're here for guys.

So you're one of those guys that makes shippers think they can list reefer loads weighing 46,000 lbs :x :lol:

Definitely keep scaling anything you're not sure about. It's much cheaper than the free scale the DOT uses :shock: After awhile you'll get used to how your unit sits. Plus, with a little basic physics you can get awfully accurate estimates...assuming the shipper's weights are right :roll:

While I never go to the Reno area, I know you can get potatoes and onions out of there. Rarely have I seen the round worth it, but it's happened on occasion. You can also DH over to the Central Valley, but it wouldn't be worth it this time of year, especially at $1.20 going in :lol:

IN and KY both can have good fuel prices. They both take tax at the pump, but then they have an additional tax as well. For the purposes of computing the best fuel price, tax in IN is $.16 and KY is $.166. Many people think that you should never buy in OR because they don't take ANY tax at the pump. That's just not true. There were several times this summer when OR was the cheapest fuel on my run. With the volatility in fuel prices the past couple of years, you have to check everyday if you want to get the best price. I had a trip a month or two ago, where the fuel was cheapest on the West Coast and gradually went up as I went East. When I reloaded to come back, it was the other way around :shock: Keeps ya on your toes :lol:

Yeah, got everything fixed but freight was dead. I have my end-of-the-year bread and butter load in OR next Friday so I decided just to spend this week at home. I was able to put together a nice LTL headed up there on Monday, so I'll spend a few days with the folks then grab that load to Toledo, reload in Detroit and be back home and done for the year on the 20th or so. I love it when a plan comes together 8) :lol:

How come Steve was complaining about a food warehouse about 2 weeks ago in Philly and you guys go to them all the time and don't complain?

As long as you know how to play their game better than they do, it's no big deal.

What he said.

I have never found these food warehouses that bad. I don't find the people to be rude either at all. A lot of times I will start out talking with them and they kind of give me a rude "what?" because they seem to think that I am going to be nasty.

All I know of truckdrivers is from what I read here. Most everyone here is polite and articulate; I don't listen to the cb and I don't hang out in truckstops ever. But it does seem from the initial reaction that I get from these places that they deal with a lot of nasty people.

Once they see that I'm being freindly most people are very freindly in return. I usually am interested about something and ask a lot of questions and they are pretty helpful.

Now there have been a few times where they were nasty and while by nature I am very polite and freindly I can do the nasty North East attitude just as good as any and they usually pipe down after that.

The waits aren't as bad as I thought they would be either. Granted all I have ever done is reefer so I never really did the drop n hook and plan on being there for a couple of hours. I do not show up at Walmart 5 hours early as I don't find you get out early by doing that. I show up on the dot, and can keep myself busy for the couple of hours I wait and get out on time.

This load I just finished I was there for 5 hours. For the first couple of hours I didn't mind as I just came from home and was putting everything away but then I saw the time and more then sitting there as I was tired anyway, I started getting mad that they rushed me up there only to sit. So I made dispatch call the broker at her home to authorize detention.

Good job. And when they knew they were paying you to sit, things started to happen right?

Definitely I try not to max out on the weight. I want the least amount of stress on this truck of mine for the most amount of money. Some of these loads I am finding out are priced by weight. I called on a load of potatoes and he told me $4 per hundred weight. I had no idea what he was talking about and asked him what that translated to per mile. When I realized it was bad I figured what the hell I don't want the load so I don't care if he thinks I'm ignorant so I asked him to explain the per hundred weight. As they say "he who asks a question is a fool once, he who doesn't is a fool forever".

But I see that hauling produce I need to learn the prices per bag and all of that. I know this sounds stupid, but if nothing else I am honest :) , I am amazed at how much it takes to be a successful O/O (or wanna be successful O/O like me :) ) I've said it a bunch already but getting the truck and authority is the easiest part to the O/O thing.

Actually probably not just produce either. I picked up a load of stuff in California once for the company I was with and they squeezed every square inch of space on that truck. No pallets allowed and the dispatcher was saying something about square feet or square something or cubed something. I think that's how it was billed to the customer which was Burdines.

Now this surprises me. I could have sworn I read that Indiana doesn't take the tax out at the pump. For this reason I haven't fueled up there. I run my route on one of these fuel routing things and they always have Indiana as the cheapest (after Ifta) but I don't get it cause I thought they didn't take it at the pump. I just fueled up in Kentucky for $3.08 but I spaced out and handed them the Amex Simple card instead of the Amex Blue card. At least I'll see how they classify fuel over 75 gallons.

Glad your truck got fixed ok. I didn't know you did LTL stuff too. I want to look into that too. Sometimes I try and learn everything at once which isn't easy believe me :)

Speaking of LTL, I was talking with someone from ABF corporate once and there was a lot he was telling me that I didn't understand but speaking on the cheap freight etc I remember him saying that he won't haul customers stuff for free. He said let them go for cheaper but they'll be back after they get what they pay for.

I wish I could talk to that guy again cause there is a bunch of stuff I'd like to ask him now.

Well yes but I'm not sure it was that cause right before that I went inside and found the supervisor. I got to talking with him and he was very apologetic and as everybody was on break, he said as soon as everyone came back he would put an extra person on it.

After that I made the phone call and at that point I didn't want them to rush but unfortunately they did. :shock:

They never rush unless they're losing money. Gotta make that call quick.

Sometimes if I've got the time I'll try and put together a few LTL's from the boards. It doesn't work out very often, but when it does it pays well. I guess I should come clean and mention the fact that these particular picks are all for the same company which happens to be my customer in OR. I got with their buyer and found out what they had scheduled for inventory and mentioned that I could do them all faster and for less than he normally pays, so it was a done deal.

I appreciate that more than you can imagine no_worries, that's giving a complete picture. Not that it's anyone's business how you operate, but it drives me crazy when people tell me they do things in general but they always leave out some part.

That's just this one particular load, kind of fell into that one 8) Like I said, I do try to put together LTL's sometimes, especially when I'm headed to a bad area. But it's difficult enough with a van, let alone a reefer. You've got to make the loads work with your routing and time-frame and then you've got temp considerations. You might be able to set up the perfect load except that one stop needs to be frozen :roll: So it doesn't work out very often for me, but once in awhile it will.

Ok this getting out of Jacksonville doesn't look to promising. I have been calling on loads just out of curiousity to see what they say, like to California and they wanted to pay $1.11 a mile. He said going to Los Angeles is worse and that the phone rings off the hook all day for them.

To Oklahoma was even less per mile and when I laugh they are cool like they don't care, more or less, "you don't want it, no problem someone will"

Obviously the best thing to get out of these bad areas is to take a short run to a better place. I might just deadhead out of I can't find anything but I'm not sure to head up 95 or towards 75, any suggestions?

I might even take a load back to South Florida as I have a better chance down there with the produce.

I just called on one to Portsmouth I think it was in New Hampshire and told her I'd do it for $2 a mile and she was telling me that all she has is $1.35.

And I'm not looking for Mega load everyday like Sonny and LoadIt pointed out, but it does gall me to be putting on a cheap load on my truck. I can see $1.30 out of a bad area, but I don't like anything lower than that.

trying to fix a damn spelling thing again and reposted sorry.

Well I made a mistake. I couldn't get anything paying out of Jacksonville. Acutally I could have gotten back down to South Florida for about $1.60 a mile with deadhead but I wanted $2 which didn't turn out that way. My best chance for freight is out of South Florida.

So in the end I drove up into to Georgia. Nothing. I drove into South Carolina and stopped at the junction of I26 and I95 and decided to go over to Columbia.

Next morning the calls didn't seem that promising but it only takes that one. One called on a good rate to Tenn. and I agreed but they called and cancelled. They called back shortly thereafter and said it was back on. I spent my paperwork and then sent me the rate confirmation, no paperwork. First sign something wasn't right. They were rushing me to get to pickup but I wanted their package first.

In the meantime something didn't seem right with my truck. As has been stated before, I know nothing about mechanics but when I stepped on the brake it seemed like the air pressure sound continued. I was thinking I never noticed that before so as I wasn't comfortable with the load I told them I couldn't do it and took the truck to the dealer.

When I finally did get their package and ran their credit, I was glad I said no. They had claims and paid late. A good paying load means nothing if I am not going to get paid.

The dealer couldn't take the truck right away so I called Enterprise and called to get a car to see my brother in Charlotte. Bastards left me there for 2 hours waiting. I may be a retired letter writer but I'll call quick and file a complaint (instant gratification). The area manager called today, he's sorry what can they do bla bla bla. They always think we want something and I always say the same thing, "I don't want anything, I just don't think people should be treated like that" Once they see you aren't trying to get something for free they take you more seriously.

So I called today to check on the truck as they didn't call and it's fixed under warranty. There was an air leak in the dash. I was surprised at that. Warranty ends in like 5 days. The dealer tried to give me a problem with the warranty so I called Freightliner direct. Very very nice those people. They had me on hold and called the dealer direct and then told me should I have any more problem to contact them.

Man I got to be honest though, it is brutal out here. I don't know enough to read market flucuations, but for some reason it does seem like the market changes by the week. Seemed ok a few weeks ago and now seems bad. I did make that mistake of not going into South Florida; Leanred from that.

Rates seem bad though. You look at load densitites and you see 200 loads going into an area and 5 loads going out and of course someone is taking that for less than $1.00. I was offered a dollar to go to Wisconsin, thinking I should have taken it.

Took my brother out to eat tonight, actually it was a bar which I hate as I don't like smoke, I don't like sports and it's generally not my type of place (he's happy though so what the hell) anyway I was looking at the menu and she came over and told us that they were out of most everything as the trucks couldn't get in due to the weather.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned here by the way that the Italian truckers have brought the country to it's knees by striking higher fuel costs.

My insurance is prepaid til June and I have low overhead so I am not taking these $.80 load. I will shut down for a couple of months if I have to and work on getting connections.

I talked with my freind, he is buying more trucks. I asked him what the secret is and he said volume. If he makes $300 a week which is nothing really on 10 or 12 trucks then he is up. I like him, very respectable guy. I think he was a little upset I left but he keeps telling me to learn out here as much as possible. Who knows I might end up back with him, but it would be different now. I know which loads to say yes to and which to say no to now a bit better and I can continue to work on other areas I want to work on.

I'm not a financial person, but I was reading that SRT, the Covenant company had an operating ratio of more than 100%. Tough business this one. The battle goes on.

What kind of rate did you get going into FL? It is very unrealistic to expect 2.00 a mile when there are more trucks available than loads. Especially in Fl. NC and Sc have some freight but not at a rate worth deadheading for. Neither does Ga. You will still come out to 1.35 a mile or less getting out of Fl UNLESS a broker or shipper calls and needs a load moved at the last minute. 1.11 from FL to Ca. is rediculous,but for some strange reason all loads going into Ca. from anywhere seem to be real cheap. :? There may be some loads from Ga. to Ok for 1.60 or so and than you will end up closer to a better area,like KS. That is why I don't take anything into FL. for under 2.00 a mile depending on the length of haul. The shorter the run the more I charge,otherwise I won't run FL.

About anytime you have an "air pressure sound continue", you have a leak somewhere. Just trace/follow the sound and you will find it. Sometimes it's just a gladhand not seated properly. If you hear it inside the cab, like you did, it's probably behind the dash like it was.