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Phil Madsen's BlogLearning Something New Every Day |
Truck drivers Phil and Diane Madsen live, work and play on the road; transporting expedited and critical-shipment freight in their custom-built truck. Phil's blog is a blend of travelogue, brain dump and commentary on road-inspired topics.
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Blog entries are made so as not to reveal customer specifics or the current location of our truck. Entries are updated to include location information after we leave the area.. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Saturday, November 1, 2008. I learned today more about stock index options trading. Learned by studying it for several hours.
We woke up this morning in a rest area in Salem, New Hampshire. We are passing the weekend here and will pick up freight nearby on Monday.
After eating breakfast in the truck we drove to a grocery store to resupply and then to Barnes and Nobel bookstore. I studied in the truck. Diane read in the store. Then back to the rest area we went to spend the night. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Sunday, November 2, 2008. I learned today about free, open-source image editing software that has received good reviews. Learned from Diane who read about in the paper and from the GIMP web site (GNU Image Manipulation Program).
From what I understand, this software does a lot of what expensive, professional-grade image manipulation software does. I have not explored it in depth but expect that it is all I will ever need if I get seriously into image manipulation. The price is right too!
We are dispatched to pick up a load Monday morning near Boston, Massachusetts. That gives all day today to sit. We are spending it at a rest area in Salem, New Hampshire. This is a nice rest area that we have used before. This trip, we were surprised to see that all outside trash cans had been removed.
The lady sitting behind the state welcome center counter said it was due to budget cuts, as were the cuts in rest area staffing that had also come. Signs of the times, I guess, but it did not stop some people from leaving their trash at the rest area anyway. She said some rest areas in the state have been closed. We will see more such quality-of-life reductions as the financial crisis and recession cuts into state and highway department budgets. It makes having the comforts of home built into the truck all the more important.
We could use this time to take in a tourist attraction but spent the day in the truck instead. Doing paperwork, we hope to get a jump on the year-end tax preparation ritual. Otherwise we just read, slept and puttered about. Diane took a walk in the morning and shot some autumn photos. In general, it was a pretty dull day, but a good day too. We are employed and healthy and grateful to be both.
We did not try to find a church to attend this morning. This area is congested. When some of the churches in this area were built, parking was not even contemplated. When people were not busy doing what colonists do, they walked to church from their homes. The local roads are narrow in these parts and truck parking is tough, except where bulldozers have leveled things to make room for modern retail areas that we have come to call Anytown, USA.
Readers have no doubt noticed a trend in this blog. Regardless of where we are, we often end up in Anytown, USA and go to a Barnes and Nobel to read and a Wal-Mart to resupply the truck and sleep. Anytown hosts large cinema complexes and ice cream stores that we sometimes visit. These areas are sterile, uniform places with no meaningful post-bulldozer history and attractions that last no longer than the latest fad.
If we did not make an effort to get out of the truck and take in the local sights, we could drive a million miles and see little more than the same highways, truck stops, industrial areas and some movies. One of the main reasons we drive a straight truck and not a semi (tractor/trailer, 18-wheeler, big-rig), is for the mobility it provides. We did no local exploring this weekend but have done so many other times. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Monday, November 3, 2008. I learned today about price patterns that form in certain securities markets. Learned by reading about them. I also learned of 17 books about trading that are recommended by the author of the book I am reading now.
Seventeen books! That is a lot of reading. I won't read them all but know I have several more books to read before I become conversant in this endeavor. This is not like anything I have seen or done before. It is not like this, similar to that or analogous to something else. It is a unique endeavor with its own skill set and body of knowledge. At this point in the learning curve, I only know that I know very little. It will be a long time before I gain the competency in this that I seek.
We woke up this morning at a rest area in Salem, New Hampshire and passed time there until leaving to pick freight just across the New Hampshire/Massachusetts state line. The pickup was routine. We are now on an overnight run and will deliver in North Carolina tomorrow morning. Diane will then catch a plane to go home for a dentist appointment. I will stay with the truck. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Tuesday, November 4, 2008. I learned today, along with the rest of the world, that the American people elected Barack Obama to serve as their next president. Learned by watching Election Day news broadcasts.
Diane is home for a dental appointment. I dropped her off at the Raleigh/Durham North Carolina airport after our morning delivery and am now waiting in the truck for her Wednesday night return. It is interesting and fun watching the election results roll in. It would be better if Diane was here so we could talk about the news as it develops, but it is fun just the same. We have talked twice by phone. We enjoy our time apart, but not for long.
For someone who has no TV in the truck, I sure seem to be watching a lot of it. CBS News is broadcasting live coverage online and I am watching it on my laptop. I am parked in a Wal-Mart parking lot and went inside to buy some popcorn. That's my night, sitting in front of the "TV" eating popcorn and watching the election returns late into the night.
While it was ten years ago, I can remember like it was yesterday what it was like on election night when Jesse Ventura won the election for Minnesota governor. Diane and I were both deeply involved. What a night that was! Tonight's news takes us back to those experiences and the experiences help us know what it is like behind the scenes on a night like tonight.
The intensity of a political campaign is hard to describe to people who have not been deep into one. Our heart goes out to the losers. Fewer losses are harder to bear than a political campaign defeat. It is fun to see the joy of the winners. It is an experience we once had, and know how very good it feels. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Wednesday, November 5, 2008. I learned today what the world has to say about yesterday's historic election. Learned by reading news reports.
I woke up alone in the truck this morning. Diane is at home for a dental appointment and will return late tonight. I spent several hours online today reading a wide variety of news sources and watching video clips that offered reaction to yesterday's election.
While I voted, I was not strongly for either major-party presidential candidate. But I made my choice and will hope for the best. What impresses me today is not what is going on in Washington but what is going on in the streets.
Last night and today, millions of black Americans, and many who embraced the system and voted for the first time in their lives, are waving not black-power fists in the air but American flags. They are talking not about oppression and discrimination but about about democracy and opportunity. They are not saying it just to the TV cameras. They are sitting down with their children and grandchildren and saying it to them.
Millions of black people praising democracy and waving American flags is an important development in American history. This is a welcome sight. Those who were fond of blaming racism, the system, and "The Man" for their ills may well have been right in the past, but they will have a harder time doing so now that the American people have put a black man in the White House.
I do not pretend to know the experiences of life-long civil rights activists that made great sacrifices and great strides to help bring this moment in history about. I do share their joy and am very, very happy to see millions of Americans, myself included, looking anew at our country and rethinking the meaning of democracy and opportunity.
We did the impossible when we helped elect Jesse Ventura to office. Americans did the impossible when they helped elect Barack Obama to office. Having suffered through eight years of a perfectly awful president, it feels good to know that people are not without power and our nation is not without hope.
"Perfectly awful" is not a partisan comment. George W. Bush did such a bad job that every candidate in his own party was unwilling to have the president appear with them on the campaign trail.
Think about that. You are running for public office. Most of the time an appearance by the President of the United States on your behalf is the best possible thing that can happen. But in this election, not a single candidate wanted George W. Bush anywhere near them. Not one!
That suggests that Bush did, not just an awful job in leading this nation, but a perfectly awful job. It feels good to see that man go. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Thursday, November 6, 2008. I learned today to avoid buying fuel in Mount Vernon, Illinois. Learned by reading an article about taxes in that city.
Diane returned by plane to the truck late last night. She flew home on Tuesday for a dental appointment. I stayed with the truck. This time it was less expensive and less time consuming to fly her home instead of driving both of us home in the truck. Her next dental appointment (braces) is near Christmas so a special trip will not need to be made.
We are already thinking ahead to that trip and working in as many appointments as we can. The more we get done that trip, the more free we will be to stay out and haul freight in 2009.
Something small but wonderful happened last night. We reported to each other that when Diane saw the truck at the airport and I saw her walking toward it in the dark, warm glows occurred within and smiles came across our faces. We have been on the road for five years and joined at the hip most every day. Last night's feelings confirmed once again that there is no place we would rather be than together in this truck and out on the road. We are so very blessed to be doing what we are doing.
While we are in service and ready to roll, no load offers worth taking came our way today. That gave me the whole day to study. It's a good thing Diane loves to read and I have been enjoying my studies. There has been a lot of time to fill in recent days. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Friday, November 7, 2008. I learned today about Citizens and Truckers United, an emerging trucker activist group. Learned by reviewing their web site after hearing of them on the radio.
Organizations like these come and go. A longstanding and effective trucker organization is OOIDA, which Diane and I support with our membership dollars and additional contributions.
We woke up this morning in Raleigh, North Carolina, the same city the truck has been in since Tuesday. A load offer came in that we accepted. It was a short run that got us out but kept us in the same state. Nothing came our way that keeps us busy over the weekend or dispatches us on a good Monday run. We go to sleep tonight knowing we could be woken at any moment to roll on a load. That is not likely but it could happen.
November is off to a slow start, mostly because of Diane's trip home to visit the dentist. We have had slow-start months before and have finished in fine shape. Let's hope November will be one of those. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Saturday, November 8, 2008. I learned today that I don't own a smartphone but a dumbphone. Learned by reading the business news and figuring it out.
The news is that one competitor rose above another in smartphone sales and market share. As the smartphone market was discussed, it dawned on me that my phone is not smart.
I can call anyone in the country without worrying about long distance rates, enter hundreds of speed dial numbers, send and receive text messages (not something I do but can), take photos and send them to people's e-mail boxes, and use the phone as an alarm clock, wrist watch and calendar.
There is probably much more I could do with my phone if I read the user's manual. But even with all that, my phone is not smart.
Does that make me not smart too, because I don't own a smartphone? I don't think so. My laptop is smarter than any phone. I don't know what a smartphone would provide that we don't already have in other devices. There is the convenience of having GPS, internet, e-mail and voice capability in a pocket-size package.
We are reluctant to embrace the package because packaged capability never works as well as stand-alone capability. No phone does GPS better than the GPS unit mounted on our dash. No phone makes internet browsing better than a laptop screen. And if you lose the phone, you lose all the capability at once.
On the other hand, I have had blog readers show me these blog pages on the smartphone they pull out of their pocket. That creeps me out every time it happens. Smartphones are good in that they make it easier for some people to read my blog. What creeps me out is the reminder that people are actually reading and thinking about what I write.
I read once that writers write to find out what they think. I find that to be very true. Writing is a good way to clear your head and get things out of your system. For me, writing is a release as much as it is anything else.
So I sit at my keyboard and babble away. Then along comes a stranger with my words in their pocket and knowledge of what Diane and I have been thinking, feeling and doing in recent days. It is a humbling experience every time.
I'm just a guy babbling away. That people find my words interesting, entertaining and/or informative to read is quite the compliment. It also prompts fear. As people are considering career changes into this business, I don't want to steer anyone wrong.
The ways people do this business and do in it varies dramatically from expediter to expediter. Always remember that Diane and I are just one team doing it one way. Your way will be different because you are different.
Last night went as expected. We went to bed and slept the night through without getting woke by a load offer. The weather is pleasant in North Carolina. If we must wait for freight, it is nice to wait where we do not have to run the generator or dress for winter.
We are hearing satellite radio reports of snow here and there. In this job, you pay attention to the weather in all states. The weather in any state may be the weather you are in very soon. It is nice to avoid the cold and snow, at least for now.
We switched from daylight time to standard time last week. That means evening rush hours are now done after sunset. I love night driving because the late hours mean light traffic. But this time of year, some of the after-dark driving we do is in heavy traffic.
After sunset, we are surrounded by people who are on their cell phones, tired at the end of their work day, in a hurry to get home or to pick up their kids or to their next meeting, and not yet adjusted to doing it in the dark. It's all part of the fun.
People sometimes ask us what time of year is best to get into this business. The answer is August. The days are long. The weather is mild. The freight cycle is moving into its seasonal high which will continue to Christmas. This gives you time to get familiar with the truck, trucking, and the highways. It gives you morale-boosting financially-positive months early in your career (at least in normal economic times).
Winter weather adds challenges to the work we do. It is nothing you can't handle. Many people enter the business in the winter and do just fine. It's just that starting in the summer or early fall means you don't have to deal with all the challenges at once. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Sunday, November 9, 2008. I learned today that the carrier we lease our truck to, FedEx Custom Critical, is the bestest, most greatest company in the whole wide world! And that each person who works at company headquarters is intelligent, and good looking, and a blessing to others! Learned by reviewing traffic patterns of this web site and discovering that more people from Ohio visit this site than from any other state. (FedEx Custom Critical headquarters is in Ohio).
We continue to wait for freight in North Carolina. state. We are going to an RV park near Fayetteville today. This is not something we usually do when we are available to roll on a load offer. An offer may come in and the money we spent on a campsite would be lost if we had to leave immediately. But it seems slow enough this weekend to take the chance.
Not covering much ground lately, we need to get to showers, laundry and dump station facilities. The money we would spend in fuel to get to a truck stop offsets the $27 it will cost us to rent space at an RV park. The shower in the truck works in a pinch but you have to clean and dry it after every use, and you must be careful with water use. There is only so much of it in the fresh water tank.
We need to get to a place where proper running water is available. Plus, the weather is fantastic here. The lawn chairs are crying out to be used. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Monday, November 10, 2008. I learned today that an unwelcome visitor has returned to the truck. Learned by seeing him.
Oh! Hey! Look who's here! It's Mister Gut! That's right, the blubber is back.
Our weight has fluctuated since we took up life on the road. When we eat right, the weight comes down and under control. Last December we got our annual physicals. Mine included a special treat, a colonoscopy. The great news was the doctor said I was in good health. Everything looked good; blood pressure, cholesterol, and the insides too. I was especially happy to report a weight loss then. But now Mister Gut is back and it's time to get serious about dieting again.
The diet solution is straightforward. Keep snack foods out of the truck and drink green tea when you feel like eating a snack. Green tea is an appetite suppressant. So is a double cheeseburger with large fries. But for now at least, tea is the order of the day.
We woke up this morning in an RV park near Fayetteville, North Carolina. Having showers, laundry and the dump station done, and water tanks freshly filled, we were ready to roll.
A load offer came in before noon. It is a short run that picks up tomorrow. We drove a couple of hours toward the pickup and parked at a rest area to spend the night. Soon after arriving there, we received another load offer that will keep us busy through Thursday.
Before hitting the books and then the bed tonight, I aired up the truck tires. When we built the truck we equipped it with an air hose that runs off the air compressor that powers the air brakes. It makes it easy to keep the tires properly inflated, which is good for the tires and fuel economy.
While it is always better to be running than sitting, I have been making good use of our spare time and loving every minute spent on my new hobby. Regular readers know I have been studying and dabbling in stock index options trading.
So far I have discovered that entering the options market is like taking a walk through a wood chipper. But I am fascinated by it just the same and have been pouring most of my spare time into options trading studies. It has potential but I have a lot of learning and practice (simulated trading) to do before entering the wood chipper again.
This is a good thing. Sitting through slow freight with little to keep you interested would be hard to do. This new interest not only helps fill the time but makes me grateful for the waiting this business involves. In our previous careers, I never would have found the time to study a new interest like this. This job is giving us the peace, quiet and personal growth opportunities we craved in our previous jobs. (See: Blessed Silence)
I don't know what 2009 is going to look like. The economic news is not getting any better. 2008 is not turning out as good as 2007 but is still a good year by most standards. If 2009 is slow, I really won't mind all that much. It leaves more time for my new hobby.
Our truck is paid off. We have no debt. A slow year is something we could endure without a lot of pain, and we would still enjoy the freedom of working on the road. Naturally we would prefer to stay busy, but I don't know what to expect in the months ahead. The economic outlook is pretty gloomy these days. Whatever happens, when freight bubbles up to haul, we will be there to haul it. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Tuesday, November 12, 2008. I learned today what the very beginning of I-40 on the east end looks like. Learned by seeing it.
I-40 runs almost coast to coast, from Wilmington, North Carolina, to Barstow, California. Coming out of Wilmington today, I saw the sign that said "Begin I-40." We have driven every mile of this road. It was fun to think through the road in my head, remembering the scenery we have seen and and stops we have made on I-40.
After today's delivery in Wilmington we headed north to Virginia where we will pick up freight tomorrow. The deeper we get into November, the happier I am to be in this part of the country where the weather is pleasant. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Wednesday, November 12, 2008. I learned today what Jefferson3000 looks like. Learned by meeting him at a truck stop.
Jefferson3000 is the screen name of a participant on the ExpeditersOnline.com Open Forum, where I participate too. Our meeting was so brief that I did not even get his real name. He spotted our truck at a truck stop, apparently recognized it from pictures he had seen, and knocked on our door to introduce himself. It was a nice gesture and I would have liked to chat, but we were on a run and had to go.
Some truckers complain about being lonely on the road. I can see it if you are out here alone and would rather be home. But Diane and I have each other for company. There are people we regularly interact with online. There are truck-driver friends we speak to by phone. And, like today, there are people to talk to in person. They include strangers, vendors, known truck drivers and people we have come to know well out here and count as friends. A social life on the road is what you make it.
Today's run will keep us rolling most of tonight. We picked it up in Norfolk, Virginia this morning and will deliver tomorrow morning in southern Georgia. Diane is driving. Part of the route takes on 40 miles of narrow, winding road. Two deer in the middle of the road slowed us for a moment. They remain alive and our truck is undamaged because Diane saw them in time.
Not long after getting back onto a freeway, I am in the sleeper writing this and hear an awful metallic clatter and smell burning rubber. A big-rig passing us had something go wrong just then. I went to the front and we both saw sparks coming off his back wheel. It was dark so I could not tell exactly what was wrong. It was more than a blown tire. A wheel may have started to come off. He maintained control and pulled onto the shoulder before a wheel flew off or tire fire started.
I don't talk much in this blog about the wrecks and close calls we see. They are common sights that become part of the daily routine after a while. A bunch of drivers are still talking on the CB about a terrible wreck they saw last Tuesday. It shook them up pretty good. They call it the election. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Thursday, November 13, 2008. I learned today a troubleshooting technique for my laptop. Learned by trying to solve a computer problem.
Computer problems. Have you ever had any? I won't even go into the details. I just spent (wasted) an hour figuring out how to stop my computer from doing something it should not do. I sometimes wonder if the people that tout the productivity computers have added to the work force include the time spent trying to figure the stupid things out and make them run right? How many million hours have people spent frustrated in front of their computers? Where is the statistic for that? Enquiring minds want to know!
We delivered a load this morning in southern Georgia. Arriving several hours early, we found a parking lot where it would be OK to stay and wait for people to come to work. At the entrance of the lot was a sign that read:
24 Hour Parking
Violators Will Be Towed
I broke into a belly laugh when I saw it. The sign made sense to the person that had it made and posted, but I cannot imagine how.
After the delivery, we returned to the lot and went to sleep. A few hours later, with no load offers received, and having been assigned to the Dothan, Alabama, express center, we decided to move to Atlanta. In mid-August I wrote about our last stay in Dothan. We got skunked waiting for freight there. With that in mind we moved to Atlanta. After we arrived, the day passed with no offers. At 8:30 p.m. we are parked for the night.
After fixing the computer, I was just starting to blog and wonder aloud about slow freight. Then the Qualcomm unit beeped with a great run offer that interrupted my worry. Finally! We landed a cross-country run.
It feels good. We were starting to wonder if there was something wrong with us. Friends of ours report their share of long runs. We have not had one in a while and did not know what to think.
Actually, we knew exactly what to think. We knew we were doing everything right and this was just a streak of short runs. But when you are in the middle of such a streak, emotions will fill the gap if you let them. Self doubt (we are going to fail), conspiracy theories (dispatch has it in for us), and shame (everyone is running better than us) all creep in.
Sometimes it takes deliberate action in the face of conflicting evidence to maintain a positive mental attitude. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Friday, November 14, 2006. I learned today more about stock index options trading. Learned by studying.
As regular readers know, options trading is a new interest. I poured several hours into my studies today as Diane drove. I am sorry to be so redundant on this but it is how I am now investing major blocks of time. I did not learn much else new today because my mind and nose were in the books, and I loved every minute of it.
It is just plain fun to take on a captivating new interest that is intellectually stimulating, emotionally exciting and perhaps financially productive. There are hundreds of strategies, thousands of pages of reading, the ongoing drama of traders who win and lose, and an emotional aspect that takes you to the core of your being. Accountability in this arena is instant and pure. There is no one but yourself to credit or blame for the decisions you make and the positive or negative results you produce.
Remember that long run I was so happy about yesterday? We drove 220 miles from Atlanta, Georgia, to Knoxville, Tennessee to pick it up, only to be told the run had canceled. An error was made by the shipper or dispatch, we don't know which. The load was for a semi truck, not a smaller straight truck like ours. We are not happy. What would have been a $5,000+ run became a dry run that paid less than $100. That bites.
Later in the day we accepted a run that pays just under our minimum rate. That one picks up on Monday and delivers on Tuesday. That gives us the weekend off and more time to pass that we would rather spend hauling freight.
Are you one of my blog readers thinking about getting into this business? Take this day to heart. While the job is great, revenue is unpredictable and when disappointments come, they are real.
Early in the day, Diane was enjoying pleasant drive on the open road and I was in back enjoying my studies. We were on our way to a high-paying run that delivered to a good freight center in a part of the country we have not been to in a while.
In an instant, the load disappeared and we were left with nothing but time to dwell on it and look for the silver lining. Sure, we can manage our reactions to maintain a positive mental attitude. But the truth is, we don't want silver linings. We want freight.
This business has its emotional ups and downs. With a recession going on that we can see out the windshield (reduced home prices on billboards, closed retail areas, IHOP no longer open 24 hours, rest areas closing, etc.), the downs are different than they used to be. If a load canceled a year ago, it was easy to shrug off because prior loads were strong and another load would soon come. Not so this November.
We will see what December and 2009 bring; more recession the experts say. I cannot say for sure that the recession has caught up with us. Freight levels rise and fall for a number of reasons. More time and information is needed to say for certain that our slow freight is due to a contraction in expedited freight, which is due to a larger economic contraction. But it is beginning to seem that way.
When we got into this business, we always knew a recession was possible and we prepared. Now that one is here, the hours, days, weeks and months don't fly by like they did before. Passing time reading in the truck because we get to is one thing. Doing so because we have to is quite another.
We are confident in our ability to see the recession through. Freight could slow to a trickle and we will be among those still standing when the economic recovery begins. But I did not imagine that time would slow along with the economy. 2009 may be a longer year than most.
There is a reason to be hopeful but also sad. If freight slows for a period of time, a bunch of expediters will fail. Their declining revenue and lack of financial reserves will leave them unable to pay their bills, including their truck payments. Or an expensive repair that would normally be put on a credit card and then paid from current income will take them out.
That is the sad part. The hopeful part is that fewer trucks in the business chasing the same amount of freight may mean more freight for the ones that stay. We have not seen that yet but it takes time for people to fail.
It is not a fun hope to maintain. We take no joy in another expediter's failure. But like the farmer who profits when another farmer's crops are destroyed, or the employee who gets to keep his or her job because others lost theirs, or the store owner who is able to stay in business because other stores failed, we will accept the benefit. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Saturday, November 15, 2008. I learned today that Diane and I do not have personal calendars. Learned by having that fact suddenly dawn on me.
Diane asked me if I would be going to a movie today. I joked that I'd have to check my calendar to see if I could fit it into my busy schedule. Then it struck me. We don't have calendars any more. We used to have them. You know the ones; the fancy Day Timers and Franklin Planners and then Palm Pilots when PDA's came into the scene.
We got into this business to simplify our lives. It seems to be working. Sometime after taking up life on the road, personal calendars faded out of our lives. They are not needed because the few dates and events that must be tracked can be done in our heads.
If someone told me years ago that I could live without a personal calendar, I would have thought that crazy. Now I find it very cool. Printed Day Timers and Franklin Planners have been replaced by sophisticated digital time management devices; and we don't need any of them. The devices are cool. Not needing them is cooler still.
Deer hunting season is approaching. Maybe someone would like to use our old Palm Pilots for target practice. There would be some satisfaction in seeing them blown away. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Sunday, November 16, 2008. I learned today that one of Diane's law school professors was the father of the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values. Learned when she told me.
It came up when I asked her, "What does zen mean, as in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?" She did not answer the question but immediately stated her professor's name, Maynard Pirsig. The book is written by Maynard's son, Robert M. Pirsig. After being rejected by 122 publishers, this "modern epic of a man's search for meaning" went on to become an acclaimed best seller and American classic.
When Diane was in law school Professor Pirsig quickly and proudly let his new classes know that his son was this author. He said they were both surprised by the book's success. Diane studied law under good people. Pirsig (1902-1997) is one of 100 most influential attorneys according to Minnesota Law and Politics.
My zen question rose while I was writing my trading plan for stock index options. Somehow the word seemed appropriate. I needed to know more about zen. Everyone who trades does so in the same markets using the same information. 90% lose. 10% win. Everything I have read on the topic says winning traders know how to manage their emotions. That's what brought zen to mind. You don't need to become a meditating monk to successfully trade stock index options. You do need to be clear about what you are doing, why, and how you feel while doing it; thus my interest in zen and a written plan.
Before we got into expediting, we researched the industry and formulated a plan. Before buying a truck of our own, we expanded the plan and presented a well thought out and deeply researched document document to our banker. The plan is a live document that guides our business decisions. It is very much a factor in our success. Success is not so sweet in these recessionary times but because we planned for a recession we remain in the business and are ready to soar when the recession gives way to better days.
I am putting the same research and effort into a trading plan that I put into our expediting business plan. As I do, and practice simulated trading with live data, my confidence is growing that stock index options trading can become an important new revenue source for us. It is something that can be done in the truck and can be easily turned on and off to accommodate the freight.
Today is Sunday. We pick up a load Monday near Louisville, Kentucky that delivers Tuesday in Upstate New York ... burrrrr. Happy days in the South are over for now. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Monday, November 17, 2008. I learned today more about writing a stock index options trading plan. Learned by reading about it online and working on mine.
The freight we are scheduled to pick up today near Louisville, Kentucky, will be ready at 6:00 p.m. We are sitting in the shipper's parking lot now. This load gave me most of the day to work on my plan. Except for a few minutes of recreational web surfing and re-attaching our EZ Pass transponder to the windshield, that is how I spent the day. Diane read, walked, cooked, shopped, slept and did some business paperwork.
We spent last night and most of today in a nearby suburban retail area. We will run overnight to Upstate New York. Diane drove to the pickup and will drive from there. I will go to sleep and take the wheel later tonight.
The weather forecast is not fun. It looks like we will drive into our first snow of the season. Thus winter begins for us. I enjoyed the warm southern weather while it lasted. There is no avoiding it any more. Unless we get dispatched south again, we will be working in short days, long nights, cold and snow for a while.
Oh well! December 21 is not so far away. The days get longer after that and my countdown to spring can begin in ernest. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Tuesday, November 18, 2008. I learned today that Spray 'n Wash is an excellent grease remover, not just for clothes but for truck surfaces as well. Learned from people we met for lunch.
After completing this morning's delivery, we parked the truck at a grocery store and went to sleep. An hour later two load offers woke us up. Both paid well. We accepted the best one and got it. It picks up tomorrow morning and will keep us busy through Thursday afternoon.
Under our carrier's dispatch system loads are offered to several trucks at once. If more than one truck accepts a load, it is dispatched by rank order. Rank is determined by a calculation that factors in proximity to the pickup, length of time you have been waiting for the load, truck capabilities, driver credentials and more. We were first in the order for the load we accepted, so it was dispatched to us.
The couple we met for lunch today are people we have come to know first through the ExpeditersOnline Open Forum, then telephone conversations, then a soon to be published article Mindy wrote for Expedite NOW. They live about an hour away from where we delivered this morning, and also on the way to our next pickup. So I gave them a call.
They own 10 expediter trucks that they lease to two expedite companies. It was interesting visiting with them about driver recruiting and retention, freight levels, the companies they are and have been associated with, and more. Editing a magazine about expediting, I try to keep my ear to the ground. Running an expediter truck ourselves, Diane and I are always interested to hear from others what is going on.
The Spray 'n Wash tip came from the Shipmans as we drifted from a somewhat formal business discussion to trading war stories. Expediters can entertain themselves for hours trading stories. They are often seen in truck stops and restaurants doing exactly that.
Sadly, our time was limited and we had to leave. We need to get up at 4:45 a.m. tomorrow to make our New York City pickup. That means going to bed early tonight. Today's highlight was our great visit with new friends. We will be calling on them again when the freight brings us their way. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Wednesday, November 19, 2008. I learned today where the Scores strip club (Howard Stern's strip club of choice) is in New York City. Learned by walking past it.
We picked up freight in Manhattan this morning. To non-truckers that is a simple statement. Truckers who do not regularly drive in New York City know different. They know a story is likely to follow. Driving a truck in New York City is a challenge, to say the least. It gets better the more you do it, but it never gets good.
We spent last night at a rest area on I-80 on the west side of New Jersey. That put us about an hour from the George Washington Bridge. The GW gets you in to Manhattan and the fun begins on the New Jersey side of the bridge.
The pickup was set for 9:00 a.m. so other than spending the night in Manhattan, there was no way to avoid the rush hour. Spending the night in Manhattan in a truck can be done but it is not preferred behavior. The rest area appealed more.
We timed our departure to arrive at the bridge after first light but before sunrise. That would keep the sun out of our eyes and the traffic light. Or so we thought. You can predict the sun. Predicting traffic is a different matter. It looked good until we reached the bridge. Radio traffic reports were good too.
Making a long story short, it took us an hour to drive 60 miles from the rest area to the bridge, and two more hours on the bridge and city streets to get to the pickup. I like New York, but if I lived there, I would not even think about owning a car.
The loading dock at the pickup faced a narrow street. We could back the truck up to it but only if we blocked the entire street. Last time we were at this location there was more room to work with. But the building across the street now has construction scaffolding along its sidewalk. That prevented us from driving on the sidewalk, which is a common practice in New York City.
There was a lot of construction activity in the area. Before we went in with the truck, we parked in a loading zone a couple blocks away. I walked around to determine the best way in. That stroll took me past Scores. On another day I might have been intrigued. Not intrigued enough to pay a cover charge and actually enter the place, but intrigued enough to at least study the outside of the place I have heard about on TV.
We don't watch Howard Stern on TV but back when we had a house, we caught snippets of his show when we surfed the channels. If we ever hear him mention Scores on TV or the radio again, it will be a different experience. We have seen the place now and know the neighborhood.
This day, famous strip joints prompted no interest. I was focused on bridge heights, blocked roads, construction debris and boom truck operators trying to maintain control of steel girders dangling on the ends of their cables and sometimes swinging into adjacent lanes.
The shipper had us back in at an angle and use our lift gate to bridge the space between the truck and the dock. Once the gate was in place, he brought a deck plate out to provide more usable surface area. Workers were then able to roll the freight into the truck and we were soon on our way.
Ninety minutes and a hundred-plus city blocks later, we were back across the GW and could finally move for more than a minute without stepping on the brakes.
We are on an overnight run that delivers tomorrow afternoon. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Friday, November 21, 2008. I learned today of a great place to park the truck and enjoy the weather, park grounds and the beach. Learned by happening upon it.
After delivering Thursday's load we waited for freight but received no offers. Not being in the best area for freight we headed toward a better express center. We spent the night at a rest area along the way. In the morning we went to a truck stop to take care of business. Being close enough to our desired express center, we decided to find a place to park and enjoy the good weather.
Just then a load offer came in that we accepted. The load picks up a hundred miles away on Monday. That gives us today and the weekend off. It would have been fantastic if the load picked up today but in these slow times you take what you can get.
Diane spent most of the day on the beach. I considered doing the same but chose instead to stay in the truck (with the windows open and a nice breeze flowing through) to continue work on my stock index options trading plan. The more time I pour into this the better I feel. Good progress is being made but there is a heck-of-a-lot more to do.
We are settled into a Wal-Mart parking lot for the night. Maybe I'll get out in the sunshine tomorrow. We'll see. The plan comes first. Mind, body and soul, I am zeroed in on it. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Saturday, November 22, 2008. I learned today that coin laundry machines are on their way out and card-activated machines are on their way in. Learned from a laundromat attendant who explained the new system to Diane, who explained it to me.
The attendant claimed this was happening nationwide. Having a bit of insight into what is happening in laundromats nationwide, we are not so sure. There is no national laundromat chain that we know of and we have never seen cards for washing machines before. Drifting in thought just a bit, why is it that there are no national laundromat chains? There are chains for just about everything else. Why not laundromats?
The card concept was not attractive. You had to buy the card in certain monetary increments. If you did not use all the credits, there was no way to get refunds. The only way to get your unused money out of the card was to use it in that laundromat's machines; presumably on your next visit.
I can see where cards might be preferable to coins in a laundromat. If they want it to catch on, they have to be a lot more user friendly. Laundry cards, gift cards, grocery store loyalty cards ... they have brought to life some bizarre customer "service" approaches as they came out.
We had a quiet day. I worked more on my trading plan. Diane did laundry and read. I ended up spending several unplanned hours on the phone. People were in a talkative mood. I guess I was too.
We found a church to attend tomorrow. A satellite view of its parking lot using Google Maps suggests that truck parking will be OK. Sometime tomorrow we will drive closer to our Monday pickup, which is 100 miles away. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Sunday, November 23, 2008. I learned today about a particular family in need. Learned by hearing about it in a church we visited today.
As we sometimes do on the road, on Sunday mornings, we went to church. Our travels have been such that we have never visited the same church twice. Knowing we will probably not be back, we shy away from the meeting and greeting and try to blend in as much as we can.
In some churches, if you are identified as a visitor you get mobbed by friendly people doing their best to make you feel welcome and join the church. Consequently, we have become stealth worshipers doing our best to sneak in and out without being noticed.
This Sunday was no different. We parked the truck a block away in a strip mall lot and walked to church. The congregation was small in number and we were the only strange faces in the room. Once seated we could feel a number of eyes on us. I could see it coming. Predator friendlies were about to pounce.
But no one approached and once the service started everything was fine. The pastor might have noticed us from the front but did not because he was fresh back from eye surgery and it was all he could do to see at all. He was also in a wheelchair, put there by a painful leg problem of some sort. He said little about it and led the service well.
During the service a woman stood up and spoke of a family she and other church members had visited. This mother and five kids did not spoke broken English. They were new to the USA. The kids needed pants and were wishing for an iPod for Christmas.
Call me a sucker. After the service we found the woman and wrote a check. The kids will get their pants and iPod. We declined her invitation to stay for coffee and made a quick exit before the friendlies moved in for the kill.
This business of helping people in need has always been difficult for me. If you tried to help everyone you would end up needing help yourself. If you help no one you have no heart. When you do help someone is it to earn your way into Heaven or are you genuinely moved to help? And if it is a genuine urge to help, why do you help some people and not others?
What about the hundreds of people Diane and I see every month? You know the ones. You see them too. They stand on the street corners holding hand-made signs. We will help kids who need pants and want an iPod but ignore the pleading stares of men with signs saying they are hungry. What's up with that?
I have wrestled unsuccessfully with these questions before. There is no point is doing so again; at least not today.
Speaking of today, today was fantastic! After cloistering myself in the truck for days to work on my trading plan, I got outside today and enjoyed the weather. It was just great.
After church we went to a Cracker Barrel restaurant for an enjoyable breakfast. Returning to truck, we changed into our usual attire; blue jeans and polo shirts. We then plotted a route to tomorrow's pickup and looked for a park along the way.
There are several nice parks in this area. The outside temperature was 73F under partly cloudy skies. The winds were too strong to make the ocean beach a comfortable place to be. We set up our lawn chairs in a lush green park across the highway and spent the afternoon there. The burm between the beach and the highway blocked most of the wind.
I walked around the park for a while, realizing I had spent way too much time in the truck. The sun, the green, the warmth, the walk; it did me a world of good.
The park closed at sunset, which this time of year is about 6:00 p.m. We returned to the truck around 5:30. While we were preparing to leave someone knocked on the door. It was a deputy sheriff (or County Mountie as the truckers call them). He wanted to make sure we were OK, or so he said.
I think he was actually making sure we were not truckers planning to spend the night in the park. That is not unreasonable on its face. But he made no effort to run cars out of the lot. The sun set on them too.
Such is the life of a trucker. You sometimes get run out of places other people do not. On the other hand, you sometimes get to spend a day in the sun when people back home are trying to remember where their jumper cables are. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Monday, November 24, 2008. No entry today.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008. No entry today.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008. I learned today more about the amazing range of emotions one can experience when you have money on the line. Learned by experiencing them while practice trading stock index options.
Regular readers know I have been studying and practicing stock index options trading for some time. The load we delivered in Shreveport, Louisiana, this morning left me plenty of time for sleep overnight. Not being dispatched on another load, we went to a Barnes and Nobel store to wait for freight. Diane went inside to read. I stayed in the truck to develop my trading plan.
The plan is developed to the point where I can print it out and follow the steps. While we would of course prefer to be hauling freight, using our waiting time to run the plan through the paces with some practice trades was the next best thing.
During the day we received and accepted a load offer that does not pick up until Monday but gives us the time to celebrate Thanksgiving with relatives who live in Texas. Normally we would not be pleased to wait five days for freight but it is OK this time. We have not seen these folks for a year and a Thanksgiving Day feast is not something easily declined.
We stayed parked long enough for me to complete a full day of practice trading and then headed to Texas. Successful options traders all talk about managing your emotions while trading. It is something easily pooh-poohed when you read about it in books.
Manage my emotions? Yea, OK. I'm a stable guy. On to the next chapter. But when you sit in front of a screen and put a trade on you quickly realize emotional management is a large part, if not the largest part, of options trading. You develop a trading system or use someone else's. The system includes a set of rules to follow and actions to take while you trade. That is straightforward too. But when you have a trade on (or practice trade in my case), the emotions kick in and it takes more than a little will power to not let your emotions talk yourself into modifying your system or breaking your rules.
The same applies in most other life endeavors, I think. You know what you should do but you do not always do it. Sometimes, even while you are knowingly doing the wrong thing, you keep on doing it because it does not feel wrong.
I found myself sitting in front of the screen today feeling captive to trading rules I myself wrote for me alone to follow. OK now, this trade is a loser. The price point just dropped below my stop-loss limit. My automatic response is supposed to click the mouse to sell and get out of this losing trade before it becomes a bigger loser.
But then the emotions kick in driven by an unbelievably powerful and totally illogical urge to be right. I don't want to sell because doing so means I was wrong, and stupid, and a host of other negative characterizations. Maybe, just this one time, I can hang on. Maybe the market will turn around and I'll have a winning trade instead of a loser. Maybe I can break the rules and not get caught.
Or the emotional reasoning may be more subtle and driven by desire. The market can't be going down. I need it to go up. It is supposed to go up because my analysis says so. I did everything right. Why is it moving against me? The market is wrong. People who told me about the market are wrong!
The practice trading I am doing is flushing out my emotional reasoning and helping me to neutralize it. Years ago, I learned that journaling is an outstanding way to sort out your feelings, fears and desires. I am using that now and building it into my plan.
The first step is to identify exactly what you are feeling. Get to the point where you can describe it with words. Complete the sentence, "What I am experiencing right now is ...." Once you have named the feeling, you can decide how it is helping or hurting you and what you will do about it.
In my trading plan it looks like this:
If I feel the opportunity is running away from me, I ...
If I feel greed rising within me, I ...
If I fear being made wrong by a sudden price swing, I ...
If I feel my heart picking up speed, I ...
If I feel tension in my gut, I ...
If I feel uncertain about making a move, I ...
The list goes on. In practice trading I am discovering and documenting the emotions I experience, and planning ahead for how I will manage them when I have real money on the line.
I share this not to help readers become options traders. Again, I am the absolutely last person anyone should listen to in that regard. All I have done so far with real-money trading is lose. At present, I among the 90% of people who have entered the game and become net-loss traders.
I just want to share the concept of emotional journaling. It has happened many times in my life where something did not seem or feel quite right. Signals included an elevated heart rate, a knot in the gut, a sleepless night, irritability, procrastination, etc.
Sitting quietly with a pencil and paper and letting the words come can be a good way to bring the gut knot to the surface. Simply naming the feelings is often enough to make the feelings go away. The stress evaporates into the air and your power to act is enhanced.
In the past, I did emotional journaling to help me feel better if things were off. In options trading, it may be a skill that will help me successfully trade. We will see. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Thursday, November, 27, 2008 (Thanksgiving Day). I learned today what a Faraday cage is. Learned by hearing about it from someone who knew.
It was a scene played out millions of times today. We happened to be in a house in Texas but it could have been anywhere Thanksgiving Day is celebrated. Families and friends gathered and visited, then sat down to enjoy a feast, and then grouped up in different parts of the house by age to visit, watch football, play games, or work in the kitchen.
In this particular house, the TV was turned off and no football was watched. After diner, most walked to a nearby park to play disc golf. Having a head cold, I passed on that and went to the truck to take a nap.
The menu is determined by tradition. Girls that used to come to play have grown up a bit and are showing more interest in adult activities. When they were not playing, growing boys showed interest in adult things and pick up cues about being men from the men in the room.
Of course we men had all the right answers and political opinions. The Faraday cage item surfaced as our conversation drifted aimlessly from one topic to the next and happened to focus on the effect electromagnetic pulse weapons might have on America's infrastructure.
A biomedical engineer who was among the guests explained what a Faraday cage is. I questioned him about it to gain my new thing learned this day. It is a metallic enclosure that prevents the entry or exit of electromagnetic fields. I needed to ask the question because listening to family political conversations did not provide anything I had not heard before.
Diane and I left our previous lives and got into a truck partly to get away from politics. There are those who delight in forming and defending their political opinions. The kind of political banter that generates is fine in small doses but by the end of a long day we had enough.
But don't get me wrong. Political banter aside, it was a pleasant and memorable Thanksgiving Day. Our Texas relatives gather with friends on Thanksgiving. Being in the area, we were invited to the feast. The friends' house was a well-kept brick bungalow on a suburban cul-de-sac. Children ranged from infants to college age. The meal was fantastic, topped off with six kinds of homemade pies to choose from for desert.
Working on my second piece of pumpkin pie al-a-mode, I spent some time sitting quietly in an overstuffed chair in a corner. I did that to just take in the scene. On the road, we don't get into houses very often. The smells of the food, the clatter from the kitchen and the voices of the kids were a special treat.
I didn't get any work done. I learned very little new. I had a head cold. But it was all good. It felt great to be in a comfortable home and among people of all ages on this feast day. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
November 27-30, 2008. We are scheduled to pick up a load in Cleburne, Texas on Monday, December 1. We are spending the long Thanksgiving weekend with relatives three hours away. I'm nursing a head cold and am sleeping quite a bit.
I don't know that there is ever a good time to feel under the weather but if there was, this is it. When I get to feeling miserable, I can just curl up in the truck and not have to worry about doing anything else or being anywhere else. Diane can stay in the house and enjoy her time with people there. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page
Blog entries are made so as not to reveal customer specifics or the current location of our truck. Entries are updated to include location information after we leave the area. Blog author Top of page Bottom of page