Cooped Up In Carlisle

DATELINE: CARLISLE, PA, 7:15 p.m. EDT

Miles Today: 0, zero, zippo, nada, zilch
Miles Yesterday: 302

No miles today 'cuz I'm on a 34-hour restart. I made my delivery yesterday with only 4 hours left out of my 70 for 8 days. (Today is the 8th day.) Dispatch did assign me a load after that, but I would only have had enough time to make the pickup, but not drive all the way to the delivery set for today. So I let them know that, they took me off the load, and I started my break.

My delivery yesterday was in Carlisle, PA, so I wasn't far from a bunch of truck stops afterwards. When I've stayed in this town in the past, I've always parked at the Flying J. But since it's no longer on our fuel network, I've opted for the Pilot just down the road. (It is on the network.) So I can use my Pilot Driver Payback Points to eat free at their Wendy's and use my credits to shower in the morning. All in all not a bad deal.

Now, I do have a dilemma. My break started at noon yesterday. That means it reaches the 34-hour mark at 10:00 tonight. Oy! I don't want to start working then, 'cuz I've been up all day. One just can't shift from daytime to overnight work in one day. I want to wait 'til 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning to get started. But I imagine Dispatch will be on my case if I don't report for duty at 10:00. So I have that stress weighing down on me right now.

In the meantime, I've been playing a lot of poker, of course, in my down time. I've managed to come out ahead each day (by $1.43 yesterday, 65 cents today), but it's a real struggle, and not a good per-hour rate. I have been playing tournaments exclusively (no "ring" games), and it just seems that the poker gods want to make it as hard on me as possible. Whenever I try to play aggressively, as everyone says you're supposed to in order to be a successful player, things go badly for me. My timing is always off as I run into opponents with "monster" hands". Or they suck out on me when I go all in with the better hand. But I have my best results (not crashing and burning before reaching the money) when I play "weak". So I'm trying to be patient, swallow my ego, and play timidly. After all, it's all about building that bankroll for me. (It's all the way up to $23.19 now. Woo-Hoo!)

Well, like I mentioned, I may have to get rolling in just a couple more hours, so I guess I'd better try to catch a couple hours of Zs. Thanks for looking in, and keep on truckin'.