Still in Missouri

This is the day I was supposed to get home, but due to a snafu in the computer world I'm still working 800 miles from home. The way the system works you call your home terminal and give them the day you want to get home. They send you a confirmation on the qualcom satellite system and also place the information of approved home time on your screen so that the dispatchers can see it. Then as it gets closer to time to head home you send a message to the dispatcher in the region you are going into with a message that you need your next load to go home.

Well, it works when the message actually gets on your screen for the dispatchers to see. If that approval message hasn't been put on your screen by your home terminal then you can beg dispatch until you are blue in the face to get home, and you aren't getting there. I should have known that I had a problem when I called the terminal for approval, and the lady I usually talk to handed me off to a new girl that needed the "experience". Well bunk. She took the information and sent me a confirmation, but....she didn't put it on my screen. Then a long holiday weekend. I'm sending messages, I need next load to go home, and I'm getting nothing back from dispatch. They sent me over to Fulton, MO with a load after Harrisonville, MO, and I'm getting concerned because here it is Monday. Supposed to be home Tuesday. Have doctor appointment on Thursday and dentist on Friday. About mid day while waiting for a load I send a message to dispatch "It is on my screen about my home time isn't it?" NO!!!!!! it isn't.

So now I'm on phone to assistant fleet manager at home terminal. He is looking desperately through computer trying to find me something headed home, even loads to swap with other drivers. Nothing. Finally late in the day Monday they give me a load that loads late today going to Houston, but it doesn't deliver until Thursday morning. Can't deliver and go home, and get back to Houston for the doctor appointment. So Pat is on the phone for me trying to reschedule my appointments to fit my time home. Got lucky. Not normally the case, but thank goodness.

It is not normally this much trouble to get home on the day you need to be home. Was a "falling through the cracks" deal that I caught late because of a long holiday weekend. That is usually the time I get messed up on this job, is when I can't get in touch with home terminal for some help.

Still have loads of pictures to upload that Corey has been taking on the trip. My PC card is going bad I believe, I haven't been able to make a good connection for my computer in quite a while, and it is worse than dial up lately. So not much reason to try and upload them until we get home.