Niles. MI

I pick ip here at 5 am and take a light load to Salt Lake City. Freight is slow, and this is the best and earliest load I could get. It's very very "tight", but once I escape Illinois I can hammer at 70-75 mph most of the way.

My WI-FI still doesn't work, but the memory stick steps I took on old reliable and the memory stick paid off, and I was able to download and install my missing programs. I think I deserve some extra credit for fixing something all by myself.

And I love my signal booster! I didn't know it worked this way, but here I have ONE BAR (and it says "weak signal", but I can surf and play poker almost like I have five bars or a broadband signal.

Yeah...I'm at a truckstop now around the corner from the shipped (DHL--expedited air freight). Later thisw afternoon I'll mosey on in. They'll have me drop my empty trailer and go to the waiting lot. I'll write my flight number on paper, hang it in my windshield, and take all my melatonin and herbal knockout pills at about 10:30.

I made the mistake of sleeping til 9 am.

They'll wake me up at 4-4:30 am and I'll go hook the trailer they send me to and try to sleep some more until it's loaded and they wake me up again. Then I pull it out of the door, they seal it for me, and I'm on my way.

I'll have all my logs and paperwork caught up and ready for a couple lines on the logsheet, and have Salt Lake City routed in. I'll adjust for the exact address later. Already nailed down my two fuelstops.

They say I'll have a load back lined up, and I might be able to deliver that before monday evening and get a big check (not that I care much, week-to-week). I still have to get my APU fixed, and the timing is good--the new engine should be there when I get back.

Iwent shopping and reloaded the fridge. I figured out that I can turn the fridge up to it's max setting, and shut down my inverter (it's power supply) before I go to sleep. It doesn't warm up enough to let stuff thaw much overnight. I'll feel better when I have the APU and don't have to worry about it.

My truck has a good protective feature. When the batteries take on too much load (as when the fridge fires up), it starts beeping a warning so I can turn on the engine. If I ignore it, the beeping gets faster and faster, then it shuts down everything--all my cigarrette plugs, the radio, etc.

But of course the inverter goes right to the terminals, so it just keeps on inverting. But I like knowing that Herbie (I've named him) will tell me when he needs energy. Herbie isn't very bright, of course (like the insideously diabolical HAL). The load doesn't have anything to do with how much juice he has in his batteries, so he starts beeping at me prematurely. I think he's a hypochondriac.

I like him. The transmission problem and coolant leaks were pains in the butt, but not unexpected for a truck with his mileage. He has been more reliable than most of my trucks. He seems to appreciate that I take good care of him with a turbo3000 and the ceramic treatment, plus an oil change after only 1600 miles.

Truckers...I tell a guy I got an automatic, and he nods sagely and says that's why I don't get the MPG's I want. FACT: Automatic transmissions get better fuel economy than manuals. Everybody wants to think they're smarter than any machine.

Well, I see part of it. My automatic will never skip gears. When you have a light load or are bobtailed or on a downgrade, you skip gears to save fuel and get going quicker. But despite this, the stats doen't lie about the efficiency of these systems.

This will be a good test for the ceramic treatment's effect on fuel economy. I made a mostly identical run 2 weeks ago, so I'll be able to compare numbers.

Well...okbye.