A FIRST !!!

Greetings from the Funny Lady,

I'm writing to you today because right now the Funny Man is driving and when he stops driving all he wants to do is read. Reading is pretty much what I do when I'm not looking at the scenery and/or napping. Funny because reading in kinda like yawning, so there you have it.
We decided instead of letting all our fans down, I would write during the afternoon, then Bob could finish up and post swiftly in the evening.

We left off riding bikes on Jacksonville Beach, then we chatted w/ the hunky lifeguards at the oldest Red CrossLifeguard building on the east coast (really interesting).
Finally got a load on Friday at noon going to Grovepoint, OH.Drove to pickup in Savana at the Georgia Port Authority. Sorry no pics, but was really cool being deep inside w/ all the freighters, cranes, railroads, trucks, etc. Heavy duty security as they searched the contents of the cab, all storage areas, and mirror searched all around and bottom of truck and trailer. We passed and picked up Kmart lawn/garden products probably shipped from China.

The night before we picked up the trailer we bobtailed to historic downtown Savana. Walking to Paula Dean's "Lady and Sons" restaurant, saw smoke and flames coming from a manhole cover. Saw lots of hunky fireman and policeas they cordoned of the last two streets for a 9 block stretch. Everything was fine until the power went out, but our food was already done so we ate and still had a wonderful Friday evening down on the wharf watching people (mostly foreigners).
Honked to Ron and family on our way thru Charlotte.

Delivered in OH late Sunday afternoon and picked up another load right away from WalMart distribution center (ginormous!) goingto Tampa, FL by Wed 8am. We'll if you were watching the weather channel, you know hurricane Faye was heading that way and going to hit land on Tuesday. So Monday afternoon, we got redirected to drop the load at Atlanta OC, which we did this morning (Tues). Made our run to WalMart for groceries and now are taking a 44,000 lb load with sacks of calcium carbonate (any guesses what it's for?) to Mobile, AL.
And there you have the first report from the Funny Lady !

Two In A Row - Take That...

Well, as you know rumors can be true. Delivered and 7:30 this morning and entered my status on the Qualcomm. I waited about an hour (reading) and then called in to see what was up.

NOTHING. Or darn. So we drove out to A1A in Jacksonville and checked into a Best Western on the beach, that's it in the middle. Got a balcony looking out on the beach. We're roughing it now.

We rented bikes and rode along the beach

and then through the neighborhood
on 1st Avenue.

Here's the Funny Lady, we're out on the pier.

We're headed out for another stroll on the beach as the sun goes down. We've been watching the Olympics and want to be back in the room for them.

We'll see what tomorrow brings, but for now we're having a really great time !!!

Weekly Blog Update... I''ll do better

We had a great weekend with our international traveler, we were very happy to see her.

Here's the Funny Lady with Tracie.

Tracie and Christina gave a presentation on their efforts to implement LEAN productivity improvements in the facility they were interning in. Seemed like they learned a lot and had a great time. This is a group picture of all of here co-interns that went to Ireland. Cute group of gals - and bright, too.

We spent (and were spent) the day at Great America in Gurnee.
There's the Funny Lady with her typical YMCA stance. They enjoyed all the rides and I started and finished a James Patterson book - "I Warned You."

Great fun.

While getting ready on Friday morning I had a bit of a funny tragedy.

Usually, when I cut my hair I use a #3 whatever they call it to keep my hair about 3/8 inches long. Of course Teresa was hurrying me... Have to blame someone. Anyway I grabbed the razor and made one quick pass and realized, uh-oh. This can't be good!!!

I tried to use the #1 and feather it... to no avail. So, I had to shave it all. Sorry, you don't get to see that one !!!

Well, we're back on the road again. Did a quick pick and drop in Chicago then picked up a load of plastic stuff for Sysco - restaurant supplies and dropped in Atlanta this morning and are in Jacksonville, FL tonight. Rumor has it freight is slow so maybe we won't get another load too fast and can go to the beach tomorrow.

The Funny Lady caught this picture of me at a rest area in Georgia today... see the haircut.

TAH 0 8/7 - 8/10

Heard from Tracie this evening. She arrived back from Ireland today. They are having a "return" conference at the Big Ten Conference Center in Chicago tomorrow. We scheduled this TAH to coincide with her return. Then Saturday the Funny Lady and the girls are headed to Great America and their water park. So far I'm not going, just the girls.

After dropping the cardboard in Springfield, MO. we headed over to Coffeeville, KS and picked up 41,000 of copper wire to take to a shop in Cedar Rapids, IA. We spent some time checking out the damage from the floods. The city and FEMA have taken over several stores in Westdale Mall. There were over 6,000 residences damaged for 200 million dollars and 1500 commercial sites with 170 million dollars of damage. Of course it was raining while we were there. Kind of put the residents on edge. You could still see the river was way high.

After dropping our wire we got a work assignment to pick up in Cedar Rapids and take it on down to Texas. Whoops, that won't work. Can't get to TX and back to Gary for our TAH. So I declined. They took it well and gave me another load to pick up and it was supposed to go to NC, but we were able to drop it in Gary for someone else to take on to NC. That was Monday.

Tuesday the next work assignment came to pick a load of pallets in Joliet and take them out to Purina in Davenport, IA. I was in getting coffee about 6 am and an announcement came in looking for a volunteer to run a load out to the Chrysler plant in Belvidere, IL. I figured why not. So I grabbed some tea for the Funny Lady and went to wake her up and hit the road. Then we came back to Joliet and dropped in Davenport. So, if you know your Illinois geography we came across Illinois on I80 east on Monday then West/East/West Tuesday then East on Wednesday.

Finally our last load was to pick up a full load of pillows from Pacific Coast Feather in Maquokete, IA and take them out to Kmart in OHIO. Needless to say we dropped that load in Gary also.

So we're off now through Sunday and I'll get to rest while the girls play.

GET OFF MY BACK, RON... not really. Thanks for the email.

Thursday -

Got a bit of catching up to do, guess Jason's motivator speech didn't hold. We've been pretty busy since Sat. We slipped on into WI and dropped our load at WalMart early Sunday and got our next work assignment for Monday morning. We were to pick up a load (41,000 lbs) of Aluminum coloring for ceramic mixing close to the Detroit OC so we headed over there and had a nice afternoon. Had a picnic and got our walk in - nice afternoon. We picked up the powder and headed for Kansas City, MO. On the way we dropped in on Andrea and had a great dinner at the Flat Top grill in Champaign and spent the night. In the morning (Tue) we continued on. We dropped into the Edwardsville, IL OC about 10 am and got fuel and took showers. I had planned to stop just east of KC and spend the night, but no the consignee needed the product for production the next day. So we hustled our butts on in. Well we figured we would spend the night in KC and hopefully get a load early Wed. Nope. Got our next W/A to go over to Procter & Gamble and pick up another 40,000 pounds of --- coffee.

I had a bit of consternation on this.... we woke up early and decide to hit the road about 5 am I had figured to be in Oconomowoc, WI (534 miles) by 5 pm and unload and then we could rest. Nope again. They only take deliveries after midnight. That's going to be tough since I can really only work 14 hours and then take a 10 hour break. You can't get that all in by midnight. What to do, what to do ? We checked into a Hilton Garden Hotel at 5 and ate, swam and other stuff and at midnight I ran over ( about 1 mile ). They finished unloading at 2:00 am so I ran back to the hotel and we slept in to about 7:30. I checked in with the office then and as I suspected the satellite didn't even know I had moved, since I had only traveled less than a mile, so they thought I was actually done at 5 pm. Works for me.

Then we headed into Milwaukee and picked up our next load and are now in St. Louis, MO with a load of cardboard headed for Springfield, MO.

We are both pooped out. The good thing is IF everything goes right we'll be done next Wednesday for a few days of well earned TAH.

I have a bit of trouble brewing... I have supplied the "mgmt" folks with my TAH schedule for the rest of the year. December includes two weeks so we can use our timeshares in Vail over Christmas and New Years. They didn't take it well. We can't figure what their real issue is. They have 15k drivers and it's unpaid time. So far they think they haven't approved it. What they don't realize is that I wasn't asking, I was informing. I'll give them a little time for it to soak in and figure out how to deal with it, but in the end, we're going. All the kids are coming, and we think we deserve it.

You figure on a normal year, getting weekends off you get 104 days off. They way we're working we get 5 days every 4 weeks. That's 65 days off. I think we're entitled to it.

Happy Friday 8/1, one week till the Olympics. Oh yeah, Dancing With the Stars starts in September and I'm told that I need to get Sat TV before then. Anyone got any poop on that ?

Bob

WalMart Ships ...

We at an IdleAire in Columbia, NJ. It's right on the border of PA and NJ. Beautiful with lots of trees. It's still early and the Funny Lady is catching a few extra winks, we're both much happier if she gets them.

Yesterday we dropped our TVs at PC Richards and Sons. They've been in business since 1909. Quite a huge operation. We got some personal finance stuff done, shopped in Costco for 20 minutes and headed out to Deer Valley, NY, Also on Long Island, to pick up a load of "supplements" at a little Chinese operation. We picked up 400 about 2 gallon drums of "powder" we joked it could be anything in them and we would never know. We dropped them at a Schneider lot in South Kearny, NJ and picked up a WalMart load headed for Coldwater, MI.

I wanted to do a little shout out to Grandma who catches all of our mail, checks for things important and gives us a jingle if she sees anything. We appreciate your efforts Grandma, and just thought I would let you know. Thanks !!! Thankfully we don't get any porno so Grandma is safe.

We're planning on a relatively light day today - 380 (about 7 hours) miles to another I/A and then about 4 more hours on Sunday.

WalMaRT SHIPS...