NickDymond.com

This is a long one…

I never wanted to drive a truck. I mean, trucks are cool, and I have always loved Optimus Prime, but as a lifetime career, no way. For the past few years, my plans have been just to drive a truck until it makes sense to try something else. Trista and I had come up with a plan that would have me driving at LEAST until her student loans were paid off, and perhaps once we had purchased her a new car (not NEW new, but new to us) and myself a better motorcycle. In fact, I had gotten so used to the money that I can’t really see myself actually making the decision to stop. It’s like being a stripper, you KNOW you shouldn’t but who can turn down good money for not the much work. I say not much work because I know that I am capable of more in life than driving. I know that I have skills and talents far beyond the necessary ones used to drive a semi truck.

[Fearless Leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime]

[While I'm at it, I might as well show the sweet new "movie version"]

Well, I had that decision to quit driving made FOR me and not BY me. As you read in my last post, I lost my job. Many people I know said that more than likely it was a blessing in disguise, rather than the horrible nightmare that it appeared to be.

After I found out that I lost my job, I was freaked out a little bit, I was also a wee bit excited at the same time. Ok, I was more than freaked out a little bit, actually, I had trouble sleeping at night. I kept seeing myself in the truck during the accident. I could feel what it felt like when it was tipping over. That, mixed with the uncertainty in what would become of my life, had me stressed out. I don’t get stressed out easily if that tells you anything.

I had been working on various web design projects for months and yielded little results due to the lack of time I had to put into them. Now, I thought, I will have time enough to finish them, put my portfolio together and then do one of two things, work as a freelance graphic/web designer, or get hired on with a good company doing the same. During this adjustment time, I figured I would also be able to collect unemployment benefits (UI), because, after all, I didn’t quit, I got fired.

In order to receive these benefits, I had to fill out an online resume at the Michigan Talent Bank (which is basically Moster.com but run by the Gov’t). I didn’t think much of this so I didn’t make my resume seem overly awesome. I just knew that I didn’t really want to put any thing about driving a truck on there other than job history (basically, I didn’t want a bunch of trucking companies calling me). I didn’t really think that anyone would really look at it anyway. I had been on UI before and did this same online resume thing, and never once got a call. (not like I had any skills anyone wanted back then).

So, in order to implement this plan, I put together a little daily schedule for myself that included chores as well as a prioritized list of my projects in order of deadline and importance. I had been following this schedule for about 2 weeks and then one day, out of nowhere, I received a call from an HR lady named The HR Lady that worked for a company called The Company. (I was downstairs making some nachos and about to listen to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in audio book form, and just got a voicemail from her.) I listened to her voicemail and got really exited, (not excited enough to call her before eating and listening to one chapter though.)

[I'm on chapter 12 as of this writing, ...Kreacher and Mondungus... exciting]

I returned her call and we chatted for a bit. She had found my resume on the MI Talent Bank and liked what she saw (I guess). One of the first things she mentioned was that they were located up in Traverse City (TC), to which I replied "would I be able to work from home?" She said, "No." and I started to write them off as an interesting idea, but never would consider moving so far away. I told her this and we chatted a little more. I said that while I was intrigued by the idea of working for a real company, doing what I have always wanted to do, TC was a bit ridiculous. She said "well let me tell you a few things to help you decide".

The Company is a company who’s primary service is "Search Engine Optimization", which means that they help huge companies get their web sites to the top of the list when you do a search for something that is relevant to what they offer. They have been in business for over 10 years and have just under 40 employees. The work environment is quite relaxed and non-officy. You are allowed to wear whatever you want (within reason I suppose) and they try to promote a "family-like" atmosphere. They have a fooseball table (I LOVE this), table shuffleboard and an arcade machine.

They don’t have cubicles and crappy fluorescent lighting, instead they have super-sweet Danish, artsy furniture and table lamps. There are even dogs running around to be petted and played with.

They were looking at me to come on as a graphic designer and Flash developer. I would be involved with what they call "internal marketing" which is everything from the company’s web site, to fliers, to banner ads, to business cards. Basically anything that they put out to market themselves as a business.

The HR Lady persuaded me to at LEAST check out their company online, send her an email with samples of my work and discuss it with Trista. She said that she would call me the next day and see if I had changed my mind at all.

[262 mi – about 4 hours 21 mins]

I did as she asked, I totally read up on the company, sent her off an email with everything I could pass as viewable, and waited for T to come home so we could chat. I was just interested to see what someone in the "real world" thought of my work.

I honestly didn’t think much of the possibility, I figured that T wouldn’t like the idea of me moving. She had gotten used to me being home and, I’m sure, rather enjoyed having dinner waiting for her on occasion in the crock pot.

I told her all about The Company and where they are located and fully expected her to say something like "Well, at least people are looking at your resume, too bad it’s so far away." She said nothing of the sort. I believe she said something more like "Wow, you could TOTALLY do it."

Well, I wasn’t prepared for that.

Trista got super excited about me finally getting to make money doing one of my hobbies. She launched into an explanation about how me moving wouldn’t be much different than if I had gone back to driving a truck long haul (which we had discussed as an option if things didn’t work out otherwise). She also loved the idea of them not being a stuffy office, but a "cool" place to work.

Well, that certainly made me start thinking differently about this whole situation. We spent quite a while weighing out different possibilities, options and objections. The bottom line was that T was really pushing for me to consider this, and I couldn’t find a reason to disagree with her. I mean, aside form all the obvious reasons NOT to take this job, it just boiled down to one exciting opportunity.

When The HR Lady called me the next day at 2:00pm, the first thing she asked me was "Well, should we continue…?" I told her that T was on board so far and that we should see where this could take us.

She had looked over my work and showed it to the owner/ founder/president/CEO (I don’t know what she goes by but I know her name is The Owner) and they were quite interested in me. The HR Lady and I talked for about an hour about everything from what they offered, to my ability to leave my new wife and move across the state. Their primary concern is that I would take the job, decide I couldn’t handle being so far from everyone I cared about and pack up and head back home. This is when I told her about the fact that during T and my entire relationship, I had been a truck driver and that we were used to being apart. I told her about our plan for me to go back to driving a truck "over the road" (long haul like the olden days) and that we were prepared for that type of lifestyle if it came down to it.

The HR Lady is a fun lady. I really like her. I quickly found that she appreciated my sense of humor, which allowed me to really be myself. She seemed to really enjoy talking to me and out of nowhere she said "Why don’t you come up here for an interview?"

Bam! Now all of the sudden it became much more real. At first, it was fun to sit there and think about "what if" and yet still remain in my comfortable little bubble where I felt safe. "Why not come up tomorrow?" She said. I didn’t know what to say to her, I hemmed and hawed and tried to make up excuses why it was "too soon" or "late notice" or anything else I could come up with to stall. She really started to "up-sell" me at that point. "What else do you have going on tomorrow?" I didn’t have anything else to say but "I have to water the plants at 3:00pm. (which was true, according to my self-made schedule).

Now this was the Wednesday before Labor Day weekend and T and I had plans to drive up to Grandpa and Grandma Spaulding’s house for their 50th wedding anniversary party on Saturday. I mentioned this to The HR Lady and she replied with "Why not make a big weekend out of it, come up here tomorrow at 2:00pm, stay in town, look around, see if you like the area and then go to your grandparents for the weekend."

I told her that I would have to think about it and call Trista and see if this was even a possibility. She said to let her know first thing in the morning whether or not I was on my way or what stupid excuse I had come up with (I’m paraphrasing).

So, T got the day off and we headed "up north" for a weekend adventure.

Later that day T and I went over to Ryan and Katie’s house for some hang out, and Katie asked me what I was going to wear. I told her that due to the nature of the "laid back" atmosphere, I was going to wear my nicest shirt (collared polo thingie) and my khakis (not dress pants, but tan colored jeans). She did NOT approve at all and made me drive her and T straight to Target (it was 9:00pm the day before we were to leave) and buy some nice dress clothes.

[This was the night before, thus the crazy hair and unkempt sideburns.]

[Katie also insisted that I remove my stupid earrings. I complied.]

T and I left the house a little after 9:00am and just barely made it to TC (actually it’s another 1/2 hour PAST TC) by 2:00. I dropped her off in a little town called Sutton’s Bay where she could walk around, look at antiques, eat and read Harry Potter 7.

The interview was me sitting across from The HR Lady (Human Resources), The Marketing Guy (Marketing Boss), and The Owner (Owner/Founder/President/CEO). I was SOOOOOOO nervous when I sat down. They were all wearing normal clothes (like it was a Saturday and they weren’t working at all) but this didn’t help me relax. The Owner started with easy questions about my trip up and G & G’s anniversary party. I began to settle down a little bit and then came the more "interviewy" questions. In the middle of my answer I just stopped and said "I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know how to answer these questions like a real grown-up, I don’t know how to conduct a real professional interview, I have been a truck driver for the past 6 years and before that, I was a grill cook." They laughed and said that I was doing great and that they didn’t want to hear the normal "canned" answers anyway. I felt much better and then informed them that that was good, because I was fighting back an involuntary nervous gulp.

After that, I felt right at ease. I was able to answer all of the questions with amusing stories and witty remarks that had them laughing their heads off. The Owner asked The Marketing Guy if he had any questions for me. He sort of looked like he had been put on the spot and said, "I know I’m supposed to have a bunch of things to ask him right now, but I forgot them all because I am so impressed with his enthusiasm and excitement. It’s quite refreshing." I couldn’t believe how well the interview was going. He then came up with a few questions for me that I seemed to answer to their satisfaction.

During one of my stories, The Owner glanced at her watch and said "Wow, I am supposed to be at a meeting in TC in 10 minutes (we were 30 mins away) but I just found this interview so entertaining that I lost track of time." She and Scott immediately got up, shook my hand, and ran out the door straight to the parking lot and left.

After that, it was just The HR Lady and myself left in the conference room and the interview was mostly over at that point. She leaned across the table and sort of whispered "You did SO good!". It was almost as if she was proud of me.

We went back to her office and she got me some literature on The Company and a magazine called Traverse that dealt with the TC area for me to give to T. She then recommended that T and I get to know the town a little bit and to take a walk downtown so we can see if we even like it up there.

Trista and I did as The HR Lady suggested and gave ourselves a tour of downtown. Boy is it awesome. It sort of reminded me of Ann Arbor the way that all the buildings were laid out and how they were all bustling with coolness that I wanted to be a part of. This short time spent walking around was all T needed to help make up her mind. She loves Traverse City. "This is our type of town." She said.

After this little excursion up to TC and visiting the town and meeting the people and everything, we were feeling pretty good about the whole thing. I felt that the interview went so well, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I received a call 10 minutes after leaving the office. I sat there at a good 90% sure they wanted me. The HR Lady said I would hear from her no later than Tuesday (this was Thursday and they didn’t work Fri or Mon).

One thing I forgot to mention was that on the day before our trip up, I received a letter from the unemployment office stating that I was not eligible to receive any money due to some sort of misconduct. it’s just silly. So this means that we had to consider this option much more heavily.

As we were driving to G & G Spaulding’s house, I received a call from another company that found my resume online and wanted me to come in for an interview. We will call this company “Company-B” and they are a firm that specializes in online training videos for large corporations. I said I’d give them a call on Tuesday to see about coming in and seeing what they were all about.

Isn’t that insane? This threw a whole new dimension into the mix. Now, not only did I have to consider the possibility of moving up for an awesome company, I was being called by local web design firms as well.

Tuesday morning came and I went in for the interview. The whole thing was a completely different experience. First of all, their HR lady that was supposed to interview me was like 20 minutes late from lunch, so I had to sit in the waiting room getting more and more nervous while wondering what the deal was. Finally, I got escorted into the conference room by the head "tech guy", where they had some of my web sites up on a huge projector for critiquing. He, along with the owner of the company, started questioning me about my technique and my coding skills and abilities. They didn’t want to know anything about me, at all. They only seemed concerned with whether or not I could actually do the work. Which seems reasonable, but nothing like my interview with The Company.

By the time their HR lady (I don’t know why I’m referring to her as "lady" in my mind, I refer to young women as "girl" or even "chick", and older women as "lady") arrived, we didn’t have much time to talk before we had to vacate the conference room for another meeting and everyone decided that they didn’t have any more questions for me. The whole interview took less than 12 minutes. I was then informed that they weren’t actually hiring exactly, but that if I was chosen, I would be "hired" on as a contractor for 4 months with intent to hire. Basically, they had a HUGE order to fill with the new 2008 car lines hitting the market and needed 5 new people to start immediately to help out with the workload.

This added even more to the pot to sift through to make a decision. I could move up north, away from everyone and everything to go work for a company that I really believe in, and who seems to better fit what I am looking for as well as my personality. Or, I can stay in town, take a chance on working for a company that may or may not continue my employment past the 4 month period, working as basically a workhorse to churn out content and have very limited creative control. The kicker was that they were both talking of offering the same pay (give or take).

To some of you, the choice may seem simple. I don’t know, it sure wasn’t for me. Either one would seem as acceptable as the other depending on which side you view it from.

I still hadn’t heard from The HR Lady and it was like 2:00pm. This made me wonder if I had read them wrong. That couldn’t be, they loved me. I didn’t know what the heck was up so I called her myself.

The first thing I said to her was "I don’t know what the official business protocol is about calling you when you said you’d call me, but I just wanted to know what the heck was going on." She thanked me for calling and said she thought that it showed initiative. I was thinking it was anything but initiative, it was more like "Why don’t you love me like I think you love me, why haven’t you called me, where were you last night, I was worried sick." (more like that).

The HR Lady told me that they, in fact, did love me and really thought I would be a perfect match for the company. The only thing that is holding them up was a question about my commitment to actually moving and staying up there. She told me that she really needed a true commitment from me saying that I fully intend to see this through and not cut and run when it seems difficult.

"Wow." I said, "That’s all? I’m not worried about my commitment once I move up there, it’s getting me TO move that you have to talk me into." I then told her that I wanted to be completely honest and told her about “Company-B” and about my interview and about my tough decision to choose between a company that I really liked that’s far away, and a company I didn’t really care for, but was able to leave my current life intact.

She thanked me for my honesty and said she’d take these concerns to The Owner and get back with me. Less than ten minutes later she called me back and officially offered me a job.

After talking to T extensively about it, she was really leaning towards, (actually more like pushing for) the Traverse City position. I could tell that she wouldn’t be truly happy unless I checked it out and see how it went. Trista loved everything about the company, she feels as if they honestly care about me, and the work atmosphere is something that I would thrive in. She also has no problem with the fact that we will be apart. "We’ve been dealing with this since we’ve known each other, so it’s not as if our relationship can’t handle it." She said. What a good wife, don’t you think? I do.

I called The HR Lady back on Wednesday morning and accepted the job. I’m to start on October 1st (or before if I can).

Now this brought up a few other snags that we’re left dealing with. First of all, I had JUST signed the new lease on our apartment not even 2 weeks ago. What I didn’t know is that the NEW lease was under a NEW property management company that does not allow for early termination. Which basically means that I’m stick here until the lease is up, or if I do move out, I’ll have to continue to pay until they re-rent this apartment.

2nd snag: what about T?

Part of the reason that she was able to push so hard for this job of mine was that she was willing to stay wherever and with whomever. She is used to living like a "college student" and is willing to do so for a while longer. Right now we are working out the details for her to stay with a friend here, while at the same time, I look for apartments up in TC that are similar to the one we currently live in. We want to call Traverse City our home, and so there is where we will make it.

I guess that about wraps up this ridiculously long story and I am still leaving out details here and there, but the main points were covered.

My life is about to change forever, I am about to ride off into the sunset to pursue my dream and leave everything I know and care about behind (5 hours behind anyway).

Thank you to all of you who have offered help and/or advice to Trista and myself during this difficult decision. We also ask that you would keep us in your thoughts during the next few months while we try to make this transition.

As you may or may not know I had an accident. A semi truck accident. On Friday July 20th at 4:15pm.

[camera phone = stupid quality pics]

[you don't see THIS everyday]

My bachelor party was going to be that very next evening and I had just picked up my last load before 2 whole weeks of vacation. It was an entire truckload of paper. I was making a left turn from one backwoods country road onto another backwoods country road when out of the corner of my eye I saw in my mirror my trailer tire leave the ground. I didn’t think this was possible since I wasn’t speeding or doing anything crazy. The next thing I thought was that possibly JUST the trailer could flip on it’s side leaving the truck upright, but that thought quickly left my head when I was whipped with such speed and force onto my side. I was left dangling in my seat still strapped in by my seatbelt not knowing what the heck to think or do.

 

[notice all of the junk piled up to the right]

[all of my possessions I could manage to extract while the truck was turned over]

I sat there, (well actually hung there) for a few seconds wondering how in the world I was going to get out. My truck was on it’s right side and there was no way out. I couldn’t open the driver’s side door because it was too heavy. It was as if I was inside a submarine. Everything I owned was now thrown violently to the right side of the truck, which was now the floor. I quickly unbuckled my seatbelt, not thinking of exactly what might happen, and WHOOPS, there I went, falling to the floor. See a semi truck is like 8 feet wide or so and that means that I had to be hanging at least 7 feet in the air. I managed to climb out through the sun roof, who’s windows had so thoughtfully popped out allowing me to escape. (if you look carefully at the pic above you’ll see my po sessions thrown from the sunroof where I got out).

After removing myself from the truck, I went to call my company, but I realized that my phone and headset were still back where I had left them, on the dash. So I climbed back into the wreck and retrieved them and turned off the engine as well. I was so shaken up I don’t really know who I talked to or what was said, I do know that everyone at my company was overly calm and helpful. I think they’re taught to be like that during times like this.

In no time it seemed that there were police, trucks, wreckers and every other type of emergency vehicle. Well I guess not, because there wasn’t an ambulance. No one was hurt. No one needed medical attention. I did hurt my foot while falling when I was released from my seatbelt, but I didn’t mention it.

There were about 4 tow trucks that came out and one of them was the biggest one I have ever seen. It had a HUMONGOUS boom crane on it. It was needed to lift the trailer up since it was So full of paper. My load was about as heavy as you could legally carry. 43,000 lbs.

[they had to back through the corn field which I though was funny]

[the crane lifted up from one side...]

[...while another tow truck pulled from the bottom]

[it was quite the spectacle]

The firefighters were mostly concerned with what chemicals might be pouring into the ground. My company had to send out an independent environmental clean up crew to make sure that the EPA wasn’t called in making this an even bigger deal. The only thing that came out was a little engine fluids such as engine coolant and a little bit of oil. There was a small amount of diesel fuel that had leaked out of the tank when it had turned over, but the tank itself wasn’t damaged.

[here you can see the firefighters checking out the fuel leak]

Now this whole time I was worried about whether or not I would be able to keep my job. I talked to the police officer and he said that it was mandatory that he give me a ticked. He wrote me up for what was called "Violation of Basic Speed Law", which is the same thing they give to people that lose control on the ice or snow. It doesn’t mean I was speeding, but only that I was going too fast for conditions. AFter he gave me this ticket, he then went on about how he didn’t actually think it was my fault at all. He pointed out that my skid marks left by the truck turning over were way too short, indicating that I wasn’t, in fact, going too fast at all.

[notice how that skid mark is less than 2 feet long]

[and again where the tank slid was too short to say I was speeding]

Another thing that the officer pointed out was the fact that my trailer had on it what are called "super singles". These are fat wide tired that take the place of dual side-by-side tires found on most trailers. While these type of tires to increase fuel economy, they are narrower than a pair of regular ones, and they are also inset from the side of the trailer making it just that much more unstable.

[notice how you can see a gap between the ground and the tire]

One more thing that the officer told me he believed lead to this accident was the shape of the road itself. The roads out in the country are crowned or dome-shaped to keep off the water and ice. When turning from one dome-shaped road onto another dome-shaped road, there will be a small valley created which will make something like a semi truck trailer dip and become unbalanced. That mixed with the load, which was loaded down the center of the truck and not the sides, shifting to that outside of the trailer would cause the truck to flip over. This was all out of the mouth of the officer. He said he was a member of the State of Michigan advanced accident detective something or other and it was his expert opinion based on these things I have mentioned, that it wasn’t my fault, and that if it hadn’t happened at this corner, it very well could have happened at the next turn I made down the road.

My phone was going in and out of battery life during all of this and I lost the ability to take photos during the time when it would have been the most interesting. The actual re-flipping of the truck into it’s upright and correct position. I did manage to charge my phone on my laptop sitting in the corn field while this part took place. The real fear during all of this was would they actually be able to bring the truck upright without having to unload all of the product that was on the trailer. If that had been the case, it probably would have taken hours and hours and hours before all of that paper was removed.

The trailer was completely fine until they had to start lifting it to flip it back upright. This caused it to tear like a pop can and ended up completely totaling it. As for the truck itself, I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think there was too much damage beyond the hood and mirrors. It looks way worse than it actually was. I’m not sure how much of the product inside the trailer was salvaged or usable but it looked pretty bad.

[see the paper coming out of the massive hole in the side of the trailer]

After it was back on it’s wheels, they started to tow it back into town. This effort was very delicate because the actual frame of the trailer had been broken by the attempt to bring it back over. This meant the the "landing gear" (legs of the trailer used when the trailer is parked) was only inches from the ground and any more bending of the frame would mean that we couldn’t move it anymore. They had to use a super heavy-duty chain to keep it off the ground as it was.

At er going for about a mile (at 10 MPH) they stopped and we turned back to see what had happened. (I was riding in another tow truck). It had happened, the frame had bent just enough where the landing gear was pressing against the ground stopping the truck and trailer from continuing down the road.

[notice the huge rip in the frame]

We then had to climb into the trailer in the middle of the road and spend 20 minutes moving very heavy stacks of paper from one side of the trailer to the other and to the rear to relocate some of the weight and hopefully it would allow the truck to start rolling again.

[moving heavy paper around the trailer in the road]

I wasn’t able to go home even after all of this. I then had to meet a lady that worked for the DOT and take a drug and alcohol test in the back office of some little pub in the town near where we were. Of course I passed, but it was all very annoying trying to track her down and find out where we could meet.

I finally got that done and taken care of at about 9:30pm and this whole time I had Andy, his bro Steve and my bro Ben on a wild goose-chase to come and get me. I was first told that I could get a ride form the tow company up to Grand Rapids where I could retrieve my belongings from the wreck and be picked up there. But once they got the truck hooked up and ready to go, they told me that there weren’t going up to GR but to Kalamazoo instead, but by this time Andy and gang were already in GR waiting for me. I called them (with what little phone battery I had left) and managed to steer them towards the place in Kzoo where I was to be brought. Since the truck was in danger of breaking more, they had to continue at 10 MPH the entire way which took them about an hour and 1/2 to get there. Then once there, they have me a hard time telling me I couldn’t get any of my stuff out of the truck without written permission from the owner of the truck. It was a total nightmare. By the time I got that all sorted out and, with help from the guys, collected what stuff I could fit in Andy’s full car, we managed to leave out of there at almost midnight.

After this great day, I was on vacation for 2 whole weeks. I had many people coming from out of town for the wedding and different people coming and going and staying and this and that. It was nonstop that whole next week. We went on a family/friends trip to Cedar Point where I discovered my new favorite roller coaster, The Maverick.

Then the wedding and everything that goes along with that came and went. I will be making a web site called DymondWedding.com with all of the photos and stories and whatnot very shortly.

Then came a week of helping run the SPCYA (Simpson Park Camp Young Adults) program at camp. This took as much planning as did the wedding. You can get pics and details at the other site I’ve set up at SPCYA.org.

Monday came and I found out that due to this accident and what they’re calling my "previous safety record" that I no longer have a job. I find this slightly unfair and annoying and stupid all at the same time as I find it relieving and exciting. For years now I have been slowly hating that job more and more and I have always thought that my intelligence and talents were being wasted on driving a truck. While it does take a certain amount of skill, I personally believe that most anyone could do it with the right training. I am going to put a huge effort into building up my web and graphic design portfolio and try to pursue a career in that field. I have quite a few leads for freelance work but my ultimate goal at this juncture is to land a job that can get us benefits. If this plan doesn’t seem to work out then I’m quite positive that I will have no trouble returning to truck driving. As a last resort I will even consider going back "over the road" (long haul) if it is necessary to make ends meet.

I thank you all for your support and help through this new/exciting/scary time for us and just know that we are keeping a super-positive outlook on it and aren’t letting it get us down. This may be just what I needed in my life to steer it where I needed to go (pun intended).

I just discovered the most amazing gadget ever. It’s called the Jawbone Bluetooth headset. Basically it’s the best bluetooth headset on the market. Not only does it look super sweet but it uses military-grade noise-reduction technology. Basically it removes all background noise leaving a clean sounding call no matter what is going on around you.

It uses 3 sensors. A primary microphone to pick up your voice, a second mic facing outward to pick up all the ambient noise in the room, and a little sensor that measures the vibration of your speach through your face. The Jawbone does some crazy algorithm and what you get is amazing results. In addidtion ot screening out all of the background noise, it will raise and lower the volume of the caller based on surrounding noise.

I loved my old Motorola Bluetooth headset, but it sort of crapped out on me. The only problem with it was that I couldn’t use it in the truck or while driving my car. It just wasn’t loud enough. I was forced to use my wired headset in the semi and now, with this new one, I’ll be able to use this headset wherever I am.

www.Jawbone.com

 

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As you should know by now, I drive a semi-truck to New York every week. I really don’t love this but I don’t hate it either. I just mostly hope for a non-eventful trip. Get there, get an easy load out and get home with little hastle or effort. Well last week was NOT one of those weeks. There was a major storm that streatched from Michigan all the way to the ocean and I got stuck in it.

(click for more pics)

It was bad enough getting there with the blizzard conditions that made it hard to see further than 10 feet in front of my truck let alone the wind pushing my trailer like a sail all over the road. The storm started, for me, in mid-Ohio and didn’t end until I parked the stupid truck in New York. It was a miracle that I didn’t decide to just pull over and give up for the night, but I am a trooper and pushed it all the way. The journey only took me 14 hours to complete. That didn’t include the wasted time I spent at 2 different truck stops dealing with my company on the phone because they messed up my fuel card.

The next day I didn’t have a load back because all of the normal warehouses I pick up from were canceling due to the bad weather. So I sat there waiting for a load until 1:00 pm when I finally decided to drive to a truck stop near by and wait there. During this time it had been constantly snowing and sleeting and icing and whatever all over. There had been a 6" accumulation and a 1" thick layer of ice on top of that. As you can imagine, my truck didn’t move through this very well. I had to call a heavy-duty tow truck to come and pull me out. This cost my company $400.

After getting out of that mess I proceeded to the expressway which is 5 miles up this horribly hilly road where I had to run 3 red stop lights to keep my momentum going so I wouldn’t get stuck again. I though that once I got to the expressway everything would be fine, because that’s usually the first thing that gets plowed and I can handle a little snow on the road. By this time my boss just told me to head home because there were no loads in the area for me to pick up. This news made me happy because I thought I could make it home bye a decent hour and put that terrible trip behind me.

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Finally on I-87 and it’s moving at a clean 10 MPH. Yay. This pace went up and down for about a hour where I came to a stop. A dead stop. A pull-the-breaks-eat-some-food-watch-a-movie dead stop. For 6 hours.

I sat in the same spot from 4:00 pm until 10:00 pm. I passed the time by watching Gone in 60 Seconds and eating cereal and playing video games on the laptop. I started to feel bad for the cars in front of me because I was all warm up in my truck with toys and food and because of my CB radio, I knew it would be a long time until we stared moving again. I took a bag of unopened pretzels (honey wheat braids, insanely good) and divided it up into 2 bags and gave it to the cars in front of me. I kept thinking how terrible it would be to just be on your way home from work and get stuck on the road with no end in sight. Apparently we sat there waiting for 5 accidents to be cleaned up ahead of us.

Finally when we started rolling, we got back up to our full speed of 20 MPH. Did this for about 30 minutes where we came to another stop. FOR ANOTHER 6 HOURS.

 

We (I keep saying ‘we’ because I felt like I went through this with a bunch of people since I was on the CB talking to them a lot of the time.) Ended up having to sleep right there on the express way parked bumper to bumper. I was awakened by a cop banging on my cab telling me to get rolling. This was 4:30 am. I was able to drive for another 90 minutes (about 20 miles) when we came to, you know it, another dead stop. FOR ANOTHER 3 1/2 HOURS. So, I went back to sleep.

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Again I was awoken by someone banging on my cab to let me know that sleepy-time was over. We then got to drive for another 1/2 hour where we came to ANOTHER STOP. But this time it only lasted for 45 minutes and then I was off and rolling on my way home. After about 1 hour of driving 30 MPH, the road dried up and I was up to full speed and as the miles passed I began to forget what I had just gone thorough. I made it home at about 7:00 pm and got the next 2 days off.

So, now you know that your job doesn’t suck as bad as mine does. Does it.

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