Hurry Up & Wait

One of the most frustrating things for me about my job is something that is largely out of my control. Waiting. I don't like sitting and doing nothing, but it happens far too often. Waiting to arrive at a shipper because I can't be too early. Waiting to be loaded or unloaded. Waiting for snowy mountain passes to open. Waiting for my piece of s#!t truck to be fixed.

As I sit here typing, my truck is waiting to go to the shop, to repair some critical emissions issues. It's an old truck, and I suppose that some breakdowns are inevitable, but it seems that lately, it's spent more time in the shop than on the road.

Last week, I broke down just north of Parowan, such an exciting town along I-15 in Southern Utah. Stopped me for about six hours. That really sucked, because the weather got worse while I was shut down, making driving that much more difficult once I actually got back on the road. Hopefully, the problems will get resolved and I can get rolling again soon.

A friend of mine asked me, not too long ago, how I stave off boredom on the road. As anyone who's driven across the West knows, towns are few & far between, and there's not much going on. And it seems that I can't get out of the West for quite some time now. So, I've found some things that have saved my sanity.

My iPod: Probably my most valuable possession at this point. Some may say that an mp3 player is an mp3 player, and for them that may be true. But in my case, that couldn't be further from the truth. I have an iPod Touch, and it can do much that other players can't. It handles audiobooks very well. I've downloaded several, and have "read" many books that I otherwise wouldn't have the time to read.

Obviously, it handles music extremely well. I do like having all my collection in one place, easy to access. Much easier, and safer, than fumbling for a CD every 45 minutes.

The feature that makes everything more bearable is the apps available. I find that while I'm sitting and waiting, I can surf the net, watch YouTube videos, or play games. I end up playing Monopoly more than I thought I would, and killing Nazi zombies is always fun.

Satellite Radio: Picked this up when I was still in training. I'd thought I could make it without, but while I was driving from Phoenix to Dallas, I realized that I needed it. There is no radio on that stretch of interstate, and I quickly went out of my mind. Aside from that, I have radio feeds of college and pro football, so while I usually can't watch my teams play, I can at least listen to the game. Worth every penny.

iTunes: I'm surprised at how much I use this program. There are some TV shows that I really don't want to miss, and short of satellite TV on the truck, I needed another option to view them. I'm a big The Walking Dead fan, and consider it valuable research for when the inevitable zombie apocalypse comes. I will be a survivor. So, I end up downloading the show on iTunes, and it's available on my iPod, anytime I want. Sitting in a terminal or truck stop, doing laundry, waiting for my truck to get fixed, doesn't matter. That makes life so much more bearable.

The problem with this is getting the data. I can download the show on my mobile hotspot, but I can run through my monthly allotment quite rapidly that way. Fortunately, most big truck stops have WiFi available for a nominal fee, so I can link up with that without too much problem, most of the time.

Also, I do have a portable TV on board, so if I'm within a TV area, I can watch football or whatever else might be on. And I have some of my favorite movies on DVD, and I can always watch one of those if the mood hits.

Fortunately, this makes life on the road much more bearable. Sometimes I feel completely isolated and outside of the normal living world, disconnected and detached from so much, but I can find a little bit of normalcy once in a while.