Date: 2016-04-15
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

The room I am currently inhabiting is not going to be clean until I leave. It is in a perma-state of bag puking; when you basically explode the inside of your rucksack and dump it out everywhere. Once you get it all out in a disorganized jumble it looks like a surprising amount of miscellaneous items.Mind you, all this bag puking is not just for hiking. It's from after living on the road for a year, from coming back from Thailand, from those boxes I've never opened since moving like 3 years ago, and a few day trips to various kinds of activities or places.The room itself will be pretty empty once I step off for the PCT. There won't be wet clothes hanging in the bathroom, rock climbing gear will be safely stowed away, and anything hiking related will be with me or organized into a potential mail drop pile encrypted with code like a Dewey Decimal system. Mostly so I could explain "put this thing, not that thing, in that box with these other things for this address". I can't be the only one who does this right? I mean not everyone will know the difference between Darn Tough socks and smartwool liners. Good luck finding my micro spikes or black mountain gaiters if you've never even seen them or know what they're for. I can see it now; it would be so easy to get 1 gallon ziplock baggies in a mail drop instead of the 15 liter dry bag.The only real cleaning that I am currently doing is on my iPhone. It's the same concept for homeowners where you just have to clean up some space to make room for this year or optimize a bit. That means backing up photos, organizing folders, deleting apps, downloading documents, reading through old notes, and the like. Kind of funny now that I think about it. The modern 21st century American life is cluttered with so many things. I'm pretty far away from being a homeowner (I kind of hope that will be never) and it's daunting to think about how much cleaning and organizing there is to do today. I mean now you have cleaning to do on the INTERNET! If you don't know what I mean, I'm guessing you have like 56 tabs open on your browser and your email inbox is going to match your car's odometer soon. I've got nothing against that though. I do some things with a degree of tidiness and other things with what looks like chaos.Anyways, turns out that I tried to keep a journal for when I was trucking. Then I forgot about it as I started working harder. It reads like an 18th century deckhand who has been hired by an alcoholic pioneer who might crash the ship into an iceberg. Instead of just sending it to my google drive where it will sit and collect the 21st century version of technological cobwebs, I'll post some excerpts here for your entertainment.This segment I will call Adventures with Bob****This was when I was team driving - one trucker sleeps in the back while the other is driving so the wheels can keep rolling throughout the night and day if needed. These accounts should be interpreted as fiction...7/1Woke up to the air horn and saw Bob was sweating profusely. He was too tired to climb all the way into the cab. "We need your help, f__ker! Door 73!" Little did I know door 73 was the gateway to Narnia and Santa's illegal little helpers. 7/2FedEx load from Oakland to Portland. Sucked.7/3Bob clearly has PTSD7/4having second thoughts about the Continental Divide. its... really out there7/5Got stuck in Chicago traffic. Peed in Bob's gatorade bottle in between double clutching. Bob threw it at someone later.7/6Bob hasn't taken a crap for 4 days. Bob didn't poop for 9 days once when he was a Ranger.7/7HiVal load (high value shipment) - smokeless tobacco. Bob asked me to get some samples or the discards that they throw out. Forgot about it but Bob woke up as we were leaving. I never seen him run before. Came back empty handed and escorted by security.7/8Drove through 3 intense storms today. Each one worse than the last. First one was in the north eastern mountains of NV. Thundered like drum rolling cannon fire and got splashed by avalanches of hail. Thought it was going to smash through the windshield. Later on I think I trucked through a flash flood. Bob gave me a thumbs up.7/9Bob gives a lot of thumbs up. Turns out Jessica, our fleet manager, got too many calls one day about Bob flipping people off. So now Bob lifts a thumb instead of a finger. Because thumbs are not fingers.7/10i807/11i807/12i807/13Shut down in Chicopee waiting for my reset. Bowling alley across the street from Pride truck stop. We had a few pitchers. Later I had to talk the sheriffs department out of detaining Bob. Once I got Bob away he marched right back and got himself arrested7/14Woke up hungover. Bob was still in jail but we were still on a shipment together. So I finished it without him and trucked back to Chicopee to pick him up. Jessica knew something was up but didn't complain since I got the job done. Next dispatch was Anhasseur Busch Brewery. 44,000lbs of beer.7/15Bob dips a lot. I noticed that Bob doesn't ever spit. That can't be good.7/16HiVal load. Pharmaceuticals. but only 2 pallets and 280lbs? Why the hell am I taking this with a 53ft trailer?7/17Bob and I are getting tired of HiVal loads and HiVal procedures. Instead of dealing with them we did a hot swap. (Switching drivers over while the truck is still rolling)7/19Bob's birthday. We drove all day and night as usual.7/23Got urgent messages over qualcomm that Bob is being pulled off the truck. Even though it is Bob's truck. Which means I'm running this truck solo for the "first time"7/25Was supposed to pick up an empty trailer from Fort Smith. Bob was technically just a passenger but he was very impatient to get a move on. I couldn't find any office or guard to sign over for so we may have just... stole our trailer back.7/28Back in Springfield. Bob got his license cleared up and became an employee again. It's time for me to upgrade my seat class (so I can get my own solo truck.) Had to do about 8 hours worth of CBTs after upgrading. Bob kept sending me pictures of drinks.7/29Bob left me and many other people messages about "being hunted" last night. So for Bob's wife's sake I put on my detective cap and investigated. The Ramada Inn told me I had to talk to Security. Security told me to check with the police. The police told me to check with Prime security. Prime security told me to talk to our fleet manager. And when I found Jessica, she was pissed. Turns out Bob was indeed super drunk and it was just the police looking for him. Fortunately, he didn't do anything illegal. They just needed him to stay in his hotel. Bob's escape and evade skills are still good.