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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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200720 MN MN Covid - deaths are staying down but cases and hospitalizations are going up / back up. The fear is that the deaths are going to start climbing. Nation wide it is still big news every day. More and more stores, areas, states are requiring masks and people are hot on both sides of the issues. BB had an eye appointment today and found out she has cataracts ... the Dr is trying to console and she is saying 'Thank you, thank you.' Now she knows why her sight was going bad and knows there is a way to improve it. So she has another appointment on Wednesday this week so we will be in town at least that long. My blood pressure had been back up all but the first month since they added a new medication so I finally had a phone visit today. Dr won't adjust my meds unless I fail my DOT BP check. So I decide to go in today to get a bench mark reading for them. They will not take my readings. Top number is 114. It has only been lower than that once in two months and that was at home. Usually I'm 20 points higher at the Dr, but sometimes it doesn't go up if I am not seeing the Dr. White coat syndrome? I decided to wait to schedule an appointment for my DOT until Wednesday when we know what is happening with BB's eyes. Load board US - 108 IA - 3 MN - 1 WI - 6 (mostly center drive mixers) Only six are over 1,000 miles. At this point I am not calling the local company, if they call me we will have to decide if we want to work. BB's appointment is at seven something Wednesday morning so I know she wants to get to bed early (er) than she usually does Tuesday. 200722 MN MN Covid - More rules, wear masks state wide in public. 4 new deaths, that number is staying under 10 even as the new cases keep going up. Seems in MN that they are taking the time to make sure their are no duplicates before releasing the numbers each day. Medical. BB had another Dr visit today about her eyes, but was supposed to get a follow up call that never came. She may have to call them ... And I had thought of calling for my DOT today but my BP was back up ??? Iowa load board was at -0- for a good part of the day and then ended the day at 16. I did happen to be watching it and saw one to California show up, for a few seconds. The 16 were put out later in the day and didn't see any other than the CA get taken. Load board US - 152 IA - 16 WI - 8 MN 3 One of the MN 3 is a straight truck going to NC from Owatonna. But the longest runs out of NC coming this way are 500 miles so only about half way back. We aren't in a big rush to go anywhere but we will see what happens if something good shows up. We'd have to be calling as soon as we see it with a phone that works. I've done everything I can think of to speed mine up but it is still freezing even if I have just restarted it. 200723 MN Covid - 9 deaths in MN, the highest it's been in weeks. We did go to a drive thru today for food, it looked like everyone inside was wearing masks. May head to a nursery for supplies, the pop up ones are having their sales before they shut down and tear down but that is outdoors mostly. Med - BB finally got a call back today for future appointments. September. Right before her DOT exam is due. We didn't make any plans for trips, we did watch the load board off and on all day. There was one to the Los Angels area that has been on and off the board a couple of times. And briefly there was a 2nd CA one. There also was one to Portland and Jct City OR for a while. Jct City one is still there but the other one is gone. 17 RV's, 18 total, left on the board out of IA tonight. 10 are over 12 are over 1,000 miles. MN has three on the board, none out of them are out of Dodge Center. Give it a couple of days and they will be calling me. Two of the three are to NC. Load board US - 143 IA - 18 WI - 8 MN - 3 We didn't tell local work if I was available, but if they need someone they will call. Did get a call from the boss the other day, something about the electronic logs ... 200727 MN We are looking for work, starting looking sometime on Friday but nothing Friday. Today we both watched the board at times. We were not watching it every minute like we would if we were sitting in the parking lot in IA, but we were checking it quite frequently. And if we saw something new on the board we would keep checking for the next few minutes. It seems they put things on in batches, we see that is how they are brought over. I don't think the board ever got over 20 but they may have added 30 or so during the day. The first ones went pretty fast. And some, like Reno and Davis, would be on the board and gone and back on. BB's computer changes the color of the text if she looks at an order like a link to a website does. Overnight there are still two RV's to 1,000 Oaks but that is by LA. The Reno one is finally gone but one Davis is still there. There had been a different Davis early in the day but we are not to the point of grabbing just one yet. There is also an El Cajon down closer to San Diego to a place we have gone before. There also were trips going up to OR and WA and a few MT on the way. Leaving yesterday with a CA would have been a push, taking one today would give us time for a re-start and leaving Wednesday is ideal so more people will be ready to grab. There were also a few to FL but we are trying to stay away from the hot Covid spots. Covid - Deaths are staying under 10 daily in MN. Did hit 9 one day. I was at the gas station and watched as two separate cars drove in and the people parked and were walking to go in without their masks. Both did turn around and go get their masks once they saw the sign. I don't go in locally. And I am still using either paper towel or gloves when fueling. Long days just sitting home. Mostly too hot to spend a lot of time outside and very few places to go. Normally I would have made a few trips to the Farm and Fleet store but I'm still not going anywhere we don't have to. One trip a week to either Cub or Walmart depending on what we need and then in and out as quickly as possible. Not on a dead run, but having a list and not walking extra isles and sometimes even having one person grab something from one isle while the other goes to get the next item on the list. US - 100 IA - 17 MN - 3 WI - 6 Looks like the local company is finally looking at electronic logs. Sounds like they will need them for Canada by next year. I had looked at a lot of the logs a couple of years ago. Even started a website to do reviews on the ones I looked at. The website was on a 'free' hosting site and was quickly taken down when it didn't get any traffic. I never made copies of anything so that is all lost. And I did all the testing live on my note pad and that was stolen last winter so now I don't even know which ones I looked at. Anything I sign up for on my computer I keep log in info of but because it was on my laptop I never transferred that info and saved it. I must have just logged in once and the info was saved. Oh well, I'll start using electronic when I have to and we don't go to Canada so I don't think it will be soon. The over the road company is looking at going paperless, we had a few post on FB about that. Some of the drivers at that company use paperless but the company isn't pushing it. Coming up ... another day of watching the load board. 200728 MN We are being picky today. Twice they dumped out 10+ trips within a few minutes and we passed. Tomorrow we may not be quite as picky ... or we will get lucky and have an almost ideal run. We did spend most of the day watching the load board go down and then up and then up again. There are still a Jct City/Portland trips that could work. For a few minutes there were two trips to Vegas that would have worked. Both trips are just over 500 miles from where I can pick up return trips. It doesn't seem like it should be, but San Diego is less miles than that. There also have been a couple of runs near LA, but too near so we passed. We do keep watching the loadboard for MN and WI also but nothing of interest. Local work did get a hold of me about testing the electronic logs. No notebook right now and a phone that doesn't hardly work so I passed. I may end up getting a notebook again. Long haul want's to start doing electronic bills of lading and local plans on going to electronic logs so it's coming. It's just a matter of how soon. Grand daughter got sick (briefly) and we ended up making an extra trip to the store, more than once a week for us. We live right by a weight scale so I am always watching what they are doing every day. Not sure what the deal was today, when we left for the store there were three trucks pulled over within the first five miles past the scale. I'am assuming they didn't cross. The third one looked like he was being escorted back to the scale, had been on the side of the road and them both they and the cop made a U-turn at the next exit. On the way home a cop followed a truck out of the scale and as soon as he was past the truck, on went the lights and he was down the road. I see one of the stores has posted that it is not their job to enforce the law. They will not be throwing people out for not wearing masks. Any places we've stopped masks have been worn. But still a hot button issue. We've been off the road for 12 days ... I am ready to go. Not being able to do local without BB driving puts a damper on things. Problem with the local company is that they way they dispatch is if they know you can work they try to send you anywhere. We can't just sit until we see something we like. 4 MN deaths today, 2 yesterday. Someone posted a list on Facebook doing the math, I didn't check it. But the last number was .00something people have died in MN that were not in nursing homes. Less than 100th of 1% in the last four months. US - 125 IA - 21 MN - 6 WI - 7  |
