Mass. Mess

DATELINE: CHICOPEE, MA, 7:00 p.m. EST

Miles Today: 259

Something new today. As you recall, I was going to see if I could delivery my load today, one day early. So I made the drive over there (5 hours from Scranton, PA to the Springfield, MA area), got there when everybody was on lunch hour, waited 20 minutes for them to get back, then went to their Receiving Department. Unfortunately, this is a somewhat small company, so they couldn't squeeze me in today. (Grumble, grumble, grumble.) I'll have to come back tomorrow morning at my original appointment time. So that's the executive summary of my workday. Now let me fill in some details.

I slept in this morning 'til nearly 7:00 after staying up past midnight playing deep into a freeroll Hold 'Em tournament online. I was doing pretty well, staying out of the fray until I got good hands, played those aggressively, and was around the middle of the pack or above most of the time. Then it happened. We were nearing the money (in this tourney, only the top 27 places win small cash prizes, out of a starting field of 2700) and I found myself with pocket kings. Well, that's about as good as it gets, so I went all-in. Of course, the player to my immediate left calls my bet and turns over pocket aces, the only hand that's better than mine pre-flop. Naturally the hand plays out and I don't catch a long shot king to win, so he took the pot. Since I started the hand with more chips than he did, that didn't knock me out of the tournament. It did, however, pretty much cripple me, and I had to push not long after and got knocked out in 33rd place. Just the kind of night it had been for me at the tables. (In another tourney, I busted out when my pocket aces got beat by pocket tens that sucked out a third ten, and in another case I went all-in with ace-king only to run up against pocket aces. How come other peoples' pocket aces hold up but mine continually get busted? Either that or I don't get any action when I have 'em and can't get lots of chips from anyone else. But I digress.) Anyway, back to today.

It was raining when I got up, but the temperature hadn't dropped precipitously. After freshening up I hit the road. The route I had to take--I-84 and I-91--have lots of steep grades (mostly uphill, of course) and with my very heavy load (45,000+ pounds), I spent a good deal of time crawling along below 45 MPH. That's why it took 5 hours to go only 225-ish miles. That plus the stretches of highway in Connecticut's urban areas where the speed limit is 50 MPH.

I found the company easily enough (believe it or not, the directions provided to me were accurate!), although the roads to it got progressively narrower and windier. After checking in and getting rebuffed, I consulted my truck stop directory and found a listing for a large one not very far away. There are only 15 in this state listed in my directory, so I was happy to find that listing. I was expecting to have to hoof it back into CT. I made the 30-minute drive over here and easily found a good parking spot. This truck stop is an outlet of a national chain by the name of AMBEST (for "America's Best"). They have a 50's diner inside, so I had lunch there, indulging in a very 50's-era meal: a Fajita Chicken Salad. ;-) It was good, though. Since then I've been in my cab trying the tables some more. So far I've played in one multi-table tournament (and was totally card-dead in that one except for when I finally got a good hand and got knocked out by a great one) and 5 6-handed sit-n-gos. I won two of those and was, again, totally card-dead in the rest, getting knocked out early. So for the day I'm a little bit ahead. In just a few more minutes I'll try my hand again at the 7:40 p.m. freeroll tournament that I did so well in last night. Wish me luck.

Tomorrow I'll get up at 7:00, then head over to make my delivery as scheduled. After that, who know where they'll send me. Check back to find out. Thanks for looking in today. Drop me a line, and keep on truckin'.