February 2, 2010
It has been awhile since I have posted anything.
We have been extremely busy driving this semi up and down the road, and that usually means if you aren’t driving, you better be sleeping.
This means, to me, that the economy is picking up. Manufacturers are shipping more product. Which means, again to me, that people are buying again.
Lumber has really picked up. Must be lots of remodeling going on or, can we hope, new construction.
Because of our busy schedule this hasn’t left me much time for creating new and exciting pieces of jewelry out here. But, summer is coming, and that is really when I get to do my creating. I just love to get down into my studio, crank up the tunes, and let the metal show me where to go.
October 8, 2009
What is it in the world today? If you have been following my blog, you will know that I am an over-the-road truckdriver. Just getting back to work after taking some much needed time off, during the summer months. It seems that freight rates have reverted back to 20 years ago, when fuel was well under a dollar a gallon. Which is under a dollar a mile, all in. And, to top that off, people are hauling this low paying freight If, a driver figures out exactly what he needs to break even, he or she wouldn’t be hauling this cheap freight. We are not like most people, we don’t owe anyone a dime. We don’t have to borrow to pay our taxes, and believe me we pay dearly. How do the drivers, who have truck payments, trailer payments, car payments, house payments/or/rent, kids in school, insurance payments, I could go on and on, make any money hauling this extremely cheap freight. I realize that our economy is hurting, but are we helping it out by allowing shippers get their products hauled for nothing. Maybe, when these drivers go bankrupt, the drivers, like us, who are out here to make a decent living go about our business. And, if you figure out what we make hourly, it is less than minimum wage. Just a thought for all you drivers out there, it doesn’t help out the industry any by losing money just to go do
March 7, 2009
For those of you who know me, this is going to be hard to believe, but I really don’t have anything to write about. The past week has been pretty uneventful. We were home for a day. I was hoping to be able to stay home for the whole weekend, so I could play with my friends. I did get down into the studio and made my daughter two pairs of earrings for her birthday. We managed to bring a snowstorm home with us. Most of my neighbors and friends had a few words to say about that. We are on our way to Williamsburg, MI and it hasn’t warmed up all day. It was well below zero when I got up in Williston, ND to do my share of the driving. The truck looks like a huge brown icy thing. I wonder when it is going to warm up, so some of it will melt off. We definitely need to hit a Blue Beacon and get her looking all nice and shiny. A good positive note is that Plum Creek, one of the lumber mills we haul for, is going to start up their mill in Columbia Falls, MT the middle of March. And, a construction company has started to finish a housing project that was started last year. Could this mean a turn around in the economy? I sure do hope so!! Hmm, not bad for not having anything to say!!!
February 20, 2009
Okay, I have had lots of time to think about how our economy is doing, while driving down our roads. Passes the time by. I get to see the dipping economy first hand from the types of loads we are hauling, the frequency of the loads, the dropping of freight rates, etc. It is really a shippers market out there. There is such an abundance of trucks out here that are willing to haul freight cheap, just to keep moving, and deadheading lots of miles to pick up this freight. It costs more to maintain a truck these days. Fuel is coming down, so that is a plus. But, how in the world can these trucking companies haul freight all in for around or under a $1.00 per mile. I sure can’t afford to. I am fortunate that we own all our equipment outright. Our property is paid for. We don’t have any payments. We aren’t making as much because of having to sit more. So how soon are these people going to go out of business from hauling cheap freight? How many of these people are up to their eyebrows in debt? I was talking to a friend the other day, who has a vending machine business. They have seen drastic drops in their revenue. Layoffs sure has affected them. It was a real eye opener, because I really never thought about their business getting hit so hard. Which got me to thinking about other businesses and what they are going through from this recession. Which has led me to think hard about what shows I want to jury into for this summer’s selling season for my handcrafted jewelry. I need to think about the cost of traveling to these shows, the jury fee, the show fee, etc. How many people are going to be willing to spend extra money on jewelry? Hopefully, alot!!
