Snow Day

We had such a wonderful time at the party. It was far more political than expected, with tension you could cut with a knife, however we rose above the clatter and politics to shine as a couple. My Tracey is the best!!

We awoke, just like last year, to a snowstorm of epic proportions, just like we did today. Tracey tried to make it to work, got about half way there, and called it quits. It took her 3 1/2 hours to drive what should have taken about an hour total. It is dangerous out there.

All the local schools closed except for one. Apparently that superintendent thought the drivers we all miricale workers. As you can see the result from the local news here said:

"DeWitt, New York (WSYR-TV) - Two kids were injured after a school bus slid off the road at the corner of Kirkville Road and Roberts Street in the Town of Dewitt.

The injuries are not considered serious.

The bus was carrying about 40 students and was headed to Pine Grove Middle School.

The school bus tried to go around a truck and the driver couldn't see the ditch because of the snow"

So we are all housebound, snuggled in as the temperature reaches a blazing high of 14 F /-10 C. Hot coffee, Russian Tea Cakes, warm blankets, and pajamas are the order of the day... I love days like this.

This should be interesting...

Tonight will be the company Christmas party for my area and my wife and I are both attending. We have been looking forward to this for a long time and now the day is here. The catch is that there has been a shit storm brewing and I am worried about how things are going to go.

There is a nasty rumor mill in our small trucking company. Drivers, managers, dock workers, and dispatchers alike, they all talk about each other like it is high school. Let us add that the party last year was fantastic and everyone had a great time, so we booked the identical party for this year, but there will be half the turnout. The owners are coming in from out of state, got all excited last year, since we had such a great time, so they are bringing the whole family and a ton more people from the corporate office. I got a feeling they will be disappointed.

Add that to the terrible weather we are having, the economical meltdown that we had, the no cost of living raise, the bonus no bigger than last year, and an open bar with lots of drinkers.... should be a hoot.

Tracey and I are really looking forward to the hotel and the 5 start treatment for one night. The rooms (yes that a picture of the real room) are really really nice. We did not get to go away this year just the two of us so this is kinda our big "hurrah" for the year until later. We are planning a nice, quiet, and romantic evening just for us. The party is part of it, but since the party is in the hotel, and we got a room for the night, we can bail out pretty much at any time and go have a party of our own. I am going to stop and buy some wine for the room and maybe a bit extra in case we decide to invie a coworker and his girl friend up as well. We will play that by ear.

We are going to go play high rollers for the evening. We are doing a casino night. The party will start with drinks and an open bar, then dinner and awards (I am getting some kind of award and gift but I have no idea what for). After that we have a company that has set up a casino in our private area of the hotel and I will be at the blackjack table the whole night, drinking with the owners and my manager, while taking all their money, just like I did last year. I am looking forward to beating the snot out of them while looking like I could care less and talking about economics and business. It totally messes with them that one of their truckers is a former business owner with a degree in engineering.

Good times! I will will doge the political bullets, take all their money, and go romance my beautiful wife like the awesome husband I am. Sometimes.... life is geat.

A zombie a day...

Decided I needed to get out of the house for a little while today so I went to John's house to play Zombies!!! This is, quite possibly the best board game I have ever owned. We have way too much fun playing this and discussing the finer points of the zombie invasion.

Today was no exception. John soundly destroyed me while we watched CNN news and discussed how many times we could attribute the news to the impending zombie horde that we all know is coming eventually. We laughed and joked for hours. It is nice to have friends that are as crazy as you are!!

All packed and ready to.... sit?

My bags were packed, next to my chair. I was dressed and ready for the road. It was going to be a good day. I sent in my normal e-mail to the dispatch office "I am ready to go now." Nothing...

Long very pissed off story later, they really screwed up. They sent 3 guys from out of state in here for a Monday before the holiday and there isn't enough loads going south for those 3 guys, let alone the 2 that live up here. So, Merry Christmas, the week before the holiday, we get to sit home unpaid.

Luckily, I saved time off, and I can use my Christmas bonus to get us through without it being a crisis. I am glad I have an emergency fund for just this kind of thing. I get very frustrated when I get held up through no fault of my own.

So yesterday was a total blivet. I got very angry and couldn't even blog about it. I do have more to tell today, but I will wait for a while. Right now I am headed down to the city to do some errands and to see a friend for a while. That will cheer me up!

The day started out relaxing...

I got up this morning and checked in at work to see if I had a load out of the city today heading south. Apparently someone down there thought it would be a great idea to send 3 southern drivers up here for Monday morning. So there was no way they were going to find 5 trailers and 5 loads out of here this morning. So the other driver and myself that live up here got to stay home today. Hopefully tomorrow they will have freight for us.

So I called my buddy John. Usually when I am stuck at home on a Monday, we get together and hang out, play some video games like little kids, do errands, whatever comes to mind. He was up for it, of course, and told me he would be up here in about an hour.

Phone rings.

"Hello?"

*Huffing and puffing, cars going by, wind noise*... "I need you to come rescue me!"

"Where are you?!?"

*More noise, a slamming sound, rain, a tractor-trailer truck goes by* "I just got my tire back, it fell of my Jeep, while I was going down the highway. I'm on the side of the road..."

Well as you can imagine I was out the door and in the car before he finished the sentence. Poor John has 2 Jeeps. One is new, one is very old and beat up. He had the old one, and was going up the road on a 6 lane highway when the thing stated to make noise, then shake badly. He pulled over and as he did so, the front left steer tire and rim took off down the road without him, leaving him scraping along the side of the road with only 3 wheels. In the freezing rain, he got the Jeep stopped, ran down the middle of the busy highway to get his tire and rim back, while calling me to come rescue him.

Turns out someone someone stopped and helped him get the old tire back on the Jeep before I got there. He was a mechanic and said it wasn't that bad, but he needed a new tire and rim. I got there, we ran to his place, he had a spare, came back, swapped the tire on the side of the road in the rain (**!! what fun !!**) and I followed him back to his mechanics shop.

When he went to back into a parking space, the wheel wouldn't roll backwards. The mechanic thinks it's a busted CV joint. Frustration and worry ensues. See, John does not have a lot of money, and since its the holidays and the economy is in the toilet, its even worse for him. He's upset, but we talk to the guy at the shop and he is a friend of John's and promises to take care of him.

I bring him up to my house to hang out and try and calm down about the Jeep. He is upset and rightly so, but I manage to get him somewhat cheerful. Then the phone rings a few hours later and we get the news.

$6.48 ~!

That is all it cost to fix the Jeep. Apparently when he broke the wheel off the thing, one lug stud snapped, and when John tried to back up, it came loose and fell in the wheel, hanging it up. The other lug nuts we scavenged from the road, they were fine and John had some spares handy in the glove box. The labor was free since the guy was a friend of John's. So he only charged for the replacement lug stud. Just under 7 bucks.

John was so relieved, as was I. Sometimes life works out okay. Not always, but sometimes.