 Good morning everybody it's Tuesday March 1st. I almost said February 29th. Definitely not. March 1st 2022. It's about minus 20 Celsius outside today. It's a little bit chillier but that's okay because that'll make sure that the roads aren't too messy. All right once it starts getting warmer everything starts getting messy. So it's going to be a good day. I have a load waiting for me. It's going to take us to Lactobani today which is northeast of where we're at in Winnipeg. This should be a good day. Let's get going. We no longer have any problems getting our truck started. Airlines are all not frozen. I'm always reaching for the shifter in the clutch. I've driven automatics quite a bit in the last 15 years but once you drive a manual for a while it just feels weird not having a stick shift here. I still highly prefer having a manual truck to an automatic. Though these western star transmissions I've got to say are among my favorite automatic transmissions. You know the Volvo iShift is really good. I'm not too sure what kind of transmission actually this western star use. I'd have to do some research for you on that. But whatever it is it shifts well. It shifts quick. It doesn't bog down. I've noticed the transmissions in Peterbilt. They sort of bog down a little bit and sometimes you need to babysit it a little bit in the hills on the 10 speeds just to make sure it's at the right rpm going up the hills and it doesn't bog down and gets a little confused sometimes. Maybe that's just my own personal experience. But they are great trucks. Like I was saying yesterday and the last couple of days every truck manufacturer has a fantastic truck to offer the market. Western stars Peterbilt, Max, Volvo's, Kenworth's. Everybody's got amazing trucks and they all have their own strengths. So we're here in the nice little town of Laktabani, Manitoba. This is a pretty fun place to live because they call it a four season playground. That's their slogan. Laktabani four season playground. Since summertime there's tons of cottages out here. Tons of ATV trails, hiking trails, tons of lakes all around this area here. So it's cottage country. Wintertime. There's all kinds of snowmobile trails, snowshoeing trails, cross country trails, stuff to do with that. You've got bozos here just a little south of here, which is, I don't know if they still do it, but they used to hold the snowmobile races there every year. So it's a big outdoorsy community. There's really a lot of fun stuff to do here, especially in the summertime though when all the lakes are not frozen because when lakes go fishing. And this town is sort of right on the edge of all that. So we're here unloading. He's just unloading me here. I had 20 skids to get unloaded and they're going to put it in their shop over here behind this massive snow bank. So this is the load. He's got what, two, four, six, eight, 10, 12, 14 skids left. So it's already got a few off the back here. All right. That's all finished headed back now. I'm not sure what the rest of the day is going to hold, but we know it's going to be fun. This is Seddon's Corner. It gets very busy here in the summertime. There it says, Seddon's Corner. This is where you stop for ice cream on the way to the lake or on the way home. Probably more so on the way home from the lake because you're all sad because you're leaving the lake and have to go back to work on Monday. So you stop here and get ice cream just to make yourself feel a little bit better. Quick bathroom stop at the Lake Trail Lounge. I'm going to let the pickup go. He'll be faster than me. Or he's not even going the same way as me. Okay. Well, whatever. I tried to be nice. I'm going out here. Oh, now there's somebody coming in again. We want to go down that road over there that way. I thought they might have a fuel station here, like a Petro Pass fuel station. No, it's just a regular Petro Canada. It's not, they don't have commercial diesel pumps here. The commercial diesel pumps in Canada, at the Petro Canada, we call them Petro Pass. I don't know why. I think they decided to call themselves that. It's not the same as the Petro Stopping Centers in the U.S. That's different altogether. Different country, different business. Up here, it's Petro Pass, Petro Canada. It's just a fuel stop and truck stops. This one's just a fuel stop. So this is Highway 12. We actually take this straight down. It'll shoot you right into Steinback, home of Trucker Josh and the Mennonite Posse. But we're not going home. We're going back to work. I've still got this empty step deck behind me. I've been waiting for a message. I told them I'm on the way back to the yard and I got to go right past Whittepag. So if they want me to stop in Whittepag, they'll let me know. I'm just waiting for a message or something to pop up on here. But if nothing pops up, I'll just go back to the yard. I'm not sure if they have anything they want me to put on this flatbed behind me or it might be a little bit of a slower day. Tomorrow, I'm actually not at work. I've got a couple of doctors appointment tomorrow. I have blood work in the morning. That's for our fertility doctor. No, sorry. That's not for my fertility doctor. That's for my regular doctor. Remember, I was talking to you guys a while back about the lump in my back. I'm trying to figure out what it is, comes and goes. I don't know. Blood work for that. And then I got to go for an MRI at the Boundary Trails Medical Center near Winkler, Manitoba out in Yonzeet in the other Mennonite Posse. That's our trailer. We're going to leave that right there and a bobtail into Winnipeg and do some van work for the afternoon. A little bit of drop and hook. Got to grab one load on the west side of the city, bring it over to the east side. Let's get to it. It's good working with you. I'm here in the dock. I haven't hooked up yet because they're loading me right now. I'm a little nervous backing underneath trailers when there's forklifts in the trailer already because sometimes it scares them and freaks them out a little bit because, you know, they're loading a truck and suddenly it starts shaking on them. I'd rather just wait for them to be done and then I'll hook on. Unless they say I can hook on. The door's open back there. Just got to wait for them to load this up. Not too sure how long it's going to take. I had to go ask. Well, there's no one here, so I'm going to walk around to their shipping office and ask them there. Well, there's going to be no load today. Somebody got their wires crossed or something? I don't know. Or something happened in there. Maybe they had a something go on that they can't load both trailers because we picked up one trailer from here today already. Another driver did it. He was just leaving as I got here. It's like, I'm going to get it. I'm going to get out of this guy's way. Make it a little easier for him. One second. It's always the nicer thing to do, even if they know what they're doing. Give people their space because, you know, accidents happen, but not if you take the necessary precautions. So what was I saying? I was trying to explain what was going on here. So we're headed back Bob Taylor and I guess I got to call in and report what's going on. Now we were supposed to pick up two loads here today. Turns out we're picking up two here tomorrow. So something must have happened. One got delayed, so one driver picked one up. He left as I got here. I was ready to pick up the second one and this one, like you saw, was just getting loaded now. It's not going to be ready by the end of the day. So that's okay. That's cool. Maybe they got another trailer they want me to pick up on the way back. If not, we'll be back here tomorrow, I guess, or maybe someone else will be. Trucking, right? Expect the unexpected. That's a quote from my neighbor Tony. I think about it every day. Expect the unexpected. And then I added on to that a quote I got from a movie. Actually a show. Lost. So it's expect the unexpected. And then when the unexpected arrives, accept it, evaluate your options, and find a way to move forward. It's not always that easy. It's sometimes easier said than done. But that's sort of just in reference to the fact that things in life don't go as planned. And sometimes they really don't go as planned. And when these events happen, instead of paralyzing yourself, you know, what do I do now attitude? No, stay calm, evaluate the whole situation, accept it, accept what you can't change about it, and then find a reasonable path forward and just keep moving forward. So whatever you do in life, don't stand still. Keep moving forward. Always keep pushing towards what you need to do. Even if it's just in your workday, push towards getting something done. Oh, that guy's going to hit that truck. That guy's going to hit that truck. Oh, he smokes. Oh, boy. Talk about making you nervous. He was trying to back into that dock a little too fast, and he just clipped that white truck there. Oh, expect the unexpected. And then realize I have nothing to do with that over there. I'm parked over here. And move on. Just got my heart rate going. Oh, I'm just about to witness an accident. Kate, I got my new directions. We have a loaded trailer in the city here somewhere. I'm going to go pick that up and bring it back to the yard. So instead of picking up that loaded trailer, I'm going to go pick up a different loaded trailer. And maybe tomorrow I'll come back for this loaded trailer. Stop dinging at me. This thing dings at me just to let me know that the temperature outside is cold. Everyone, as soon as it hits zero degrees, it's like ding ding ding. Just so you know, it's cold outside. Might be slippery. It's like, really? You don't say I grew up here. You think it's cold outside? No way. No way. I thought all this, I thought I, I couldn't tell by all this snow here. Ding ding ding. It's cold outside. Watch out. Don't slip. Thank you, Western Star. I know what you're doing. I appreciate it. I'm just poking at you a little bit. This truck is growing on me pretty quick though. I kind of really like this truck. I just wish, like, it had a little bit more equipment on it. And if this was my regular truck that I was staying in, it would obviously have all my equipment on it. But no, I really like, I like the way it drives. I like the turning radius. It's a nice little truck. It's nice. Let's go get our other trailer. There's always something to do. Ah, here we go. Our trailer should be here somewhere. There's lots of trailers here though. We gotta make sure we find the right one. It's not just any one. There's a very special one here just for us. Probably still going to be in a dock around the back. There's one of our trailers, but that won't be the one. Here's another one of our trailers. That won't be the one either. One's got a lot of snow on top of it. Oh, it's been there a little while. Oh, boy. Mine should be in a dock over here somewhere. I am pretty sure. I'm gonna go and talk to the good people and find out. You see? We got a trailer hooked up to us after all. The other one didn't work out, but we found one. 5178. This trailer is going to Fontana, California. One of our lucky drivers is going to be going down to California. It could be you, I'm just saying. Just saying. Could be you on the way to California in this truck or one just like it. Send me an email. We need drivers. Oh, you're in gear still. That's what's going on. Looks like I need some fuel. Oh, no. That can't be right. I'm not at an eighth of a tank, am I? I thought I was at a half a tank this morning. Well, we better go fuel her up just in case anyway. I mean, we are right on the east side of the city. I'll just run over to Petropas over there and fuel her on up. It's dinging at me again. Low outside air temperature minus five Celsius. Watch out, Trucker Josh. It's cold. Thanks, Western Star. Always looking out for me. Now my fuel gauge is saying half a tank again. The trailer ABS light also just came on. Or was it on before already? One second, one second. I'm somewhat of a mechanic myself. We'll see if we can fix this trailer ABS light. Oh, stop dinging at me, Western Star. Always dinging at me. All right. So you see all the way down there that orange light is on. Usually if you just give her one of these, you know, blowing it like you would an old original Nintendo system to get the game working. There we go. Problem solved. I like that ad on the back of that bus. Share the road. Merge mindfully. We've talked about this many times. It's just different people's version of mindfully is different from other people. You know what I mean? Everyone's version of it is a bit different. Going that beginning of the day, right? Got some doctors appointments and stuff to get through them all. So I'm going to come here during the day, I think between appointments and give this thing a bath if the weather's nice. So I've got to do it outside. I'm not set up to do it in here yet. But if the weather's nice enough, I'm going to pull it just outside there, wash it off nice, bring it back in here, let it dry off and then give it a nice polish that we can show up to work the next day with a nice shiny western star. Because I mean all of this should be like a mirror, right? Anyway, got stuff to get done, so I gotta head home.