Inauguration

Well kids, get ready for the adventure! This blog blasts off soon! This week we're busy packing and moving out of our apartment, but on Tuesday we attend orientation at Mr. Trucker's new company and then we're off in our new home to deliver refrigerated goods so you can all eat! Save this url as a favorite, and tune in regularly. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss 10 bucks goodbye! OK, I'm kidding about the ten bucks part.

Today, Mr. Trucker is getting a haircut, and doing battle with our cell phone carrier, who LIED to us when we got our new phones and data plan!!! Don't you hate big business? It's so maddening, cuz now we're roped into a new 2 year contract and we're past the 30 day window to cancel. Mr. Trucker went down to the apartment manager's office to use their fax machine about an hour ago and I'm beginning to wonder what's taking him so long. Aside from the usual, which is that he could talk the hind leg off a mule... One of my jobs for today is to try to figure out how to create a Distribution List from the contacts in my email address directory, so that I can send out a group email giving everybody the pertinent info on how to tune into my blog and stay updated.

Can you think of anything more exciting than this adventure, or do you think we're out of our friggin' minds? We'll be living together in a space the size of our bedroom closet, with no running water or toilet, seeing the country from the interstate and (hopefully) living to tell the tale. I went out for the entire month of July with Mr. Trucker, as well as for two weeks in May, and I must say we did pretty well. Aside from the fact that this is the hottest summer in history and living in that semi truck is like living in a sardine can over a bed of hot coals! I'm not even kidding! That is the biggest reason we're switching companies. Mr. Trucker's recent employer doesn't believe driver comfort is a priority and the only way to run the air conditioning in his current truck is to be in motion, or to idle. Of course they don't want you to idle, cuz it costs them more money, they'd apparently rather you just cook to a nice, slow death. Mr. Trucker started asking for a new truck with an APU (ooh, my first piece of "trucking" jargon, it stands for Auxiliary Power Unit--which would allow us to run air conditioning and a little refrigerator and microwave)about 4 or 5 months ago. They just ignored him for the first couple of months, then when he started to insist that he needed this, his dispatcher told him "this is the first I've heard of it". He uses that line a lot when he doesn't want to deal with something.

When we were out in July, they found out that Mr. Trucker had applied elsewhere and finally started to offer him a series of, let's just say less than satisfactory alternative trucks. The first of these was trashed inside and the mattress looked like it had been used in a brothel, so we politely declined. The second truck LOOKED quite a bit better and we had gone so far as to move our stuff over into it, all the while hoping the odd smell would go away, when we discovered that it was infested with cockroaches. I am NOT making this up! The odd smell was the bug spray that the previous driver had sprayed all over the surfaces everytime he saw a pest, possibly not knowing that they were cockroaches and couldn't be killed by bug spray alone. We got the heck out of Dodge quick before the little critters could move into our cardboard boxes and informed the company that we couldn't live with that. Do you know that they left that truck in the terminal lot in Gary, IN and recently gave it to a driver for two weeks as a temporary loaner while HIS truck was fixed. Mr. Trucker happened into this driver down in Gary last week and got the whole story.

Finally, a week into Mr. Trucker's two week notice of termination, the company came up with an "acceptable" truck (I use that term in the loosest sense), but Mr. Trucker felt it was too little too late. Our new truck with the new company will have an APU and, we believe, a second, upper bunk (good for storage if nothing else) and an air ride passenger seat. So Mr. Trucker is on his week of vacation, which is his last week with above-mentioned "company" and we'll be ready to start this adventure with a new truck and hopefully a better company.