A High-End Mover Dishes on Truckstop Hierarchy, Rich People, and Moby Dick
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There's more money in corporate relocations and military moves than I would have expected.
My big takeaway from it wasn't anything to do with trucking (the author is a professional house mover) - it was about the accumulation of stuff and how the mover took down all of this heavy furniture for customers from the northern states to Florida, only to find that they didn't really want their old stuff down there anyway.
I do like his descriptions of the art of packing a trailer. It really is a thing of beauty [0].
[0]https://www.movebuddha.com/blog/moving-cross-country-cost/
And we didn't have an idea of the complete contents in our heads ahead of time either; we just had to deal with whatever came down the chute one piece at a time. (Though you might be able to store 5-6 pieces off to the side, but that gets clumsy fast.)
One strategy to try to accommodate that randomness would be to have a lower row for one size-range, progressing horizontally, then another row on top of that in the same tier, for some other size-range. Going even further you could even start a second tier in front of that, with two more sizes. But that also could screw you if the one in front (or on top) starts to get too far ahead of the one behind (or on the bottom). Then you're back to setting packages aside and tripping on shit...
You'd have to get full dimensional info about each package... probably not that hard. But to change the order, you've now got a storage problem. Where previously your analysis was confined to just one package, now you're dealing with groups of N packages, and depending how far you want to take the optimization, N could be as big as "all packages destined for that truck." So maybe you have some kind of sort area between the inbound & outbound areas. Or maybe you use the conveyor itself as the storage - i.e. if something is out of order, it just makes a circuit around the building until its turn comes. That would probably require a bigger/longer conveyor, and to compensate for lower "density" of chute-appropriate packages, it would have to move faster.
Suddenly this seems akin to the problem of optimizing spinning disc drives, starting from slow ones in the old days and moving forward. What you're essentially calling for is something akin to random access, but instead of bytes we're accessing packages!
Edit: Or the hybrid version: you create multiple, smaller sorting areas somehow, one for each bay, located near the bay.
That proved really useful when, some months later, I received a frantic call in the early morning from a friend who had rented a U-Haul and had some friends from church coming by, but was otherwise completely unprepared.
And a few times, since. The last, this spring, when I was able to advise a friend to e.g. put that many hundred pound commercial air compressor in first, up front, so that it wouldn't crush everything else in the event of a panic stop.
I imagine the description goes far beyond what I know, but there are some basics that you can learn in an hour and that will make such packing and moving go much better and more smoothly.
When I moved to New York, I - like an idiot - brought a full set of very heavy bedroom furniture with me. It probably cost me more to rent the bigger UHaul than it would have to replace it with IKEA products - and would definitely have been cheaper to just not have a bunch of furniture cluttering the place up.
As I recall, it all ended up on the street - although it was gone within a day, so I hope someone's enjoying my "donation".
There's an interesting startup called Campaign Living: https://www.campaignliving.com that's trying to solve some of this problem by making furniture that looks good and can be disassembled quickly and easily. I wish I'd bought one of their couches instead of the one I got.
That furniture lasted one more move, from Staten Island to Bushwick, Brooklyn, two years later. Probably worth it, but I've moved across the country four more times since then, and I've never moved anything I couldn't fit in a box since that move to Brooklyn.
Many people don't know, but the (US) military pays for professional movers of this caliber. I used to know a guy who would ship 10 busted tv's (cathode ray tube) and put in claims for all of them every time he changed duty stations. It was an easy $2000 check each time. Apparently the movers can't turn on electronics before or after a move due to the potential for condensation to damage the electronics. This was a while ago, so I don't know if this is actually true or not.
'Course, her dad was enlisted, so that may have made a difference. About as high-ranked as he could be toward the end, though, and AFAIK their moves were still awful.
He was really impressed with their services and if I ever use professional movers, I'd want folks like that.
It is a difficult business...very physically demanding. What finally ended my father's driving career was 3 back surgeries in a 10 year span. They finally had to tell him that not only could he not load his own truck anymore (he still did after the first 2) but that he could no longer sit for long periods of time just to drive.
He amassed over 1M safe driving miles at the end. After that he went on to drive school buses so at least his skills were still put to use.
There is a lot of skill to packing a moving truck well and quickly. It may not seem like it at the time, but we occasionally got these cross-load jobs where you could really tell. That's when a U-Haul that a customer packed broke down, and U-Haul would get them a new truck and pay for movers to move their stuff to the new truck. Almost all of them are pretty loosely packed by our standards, and can be transferred in an hour or two. We did get one where the customers had spent ~3 days packing everything into their truck. It was pretty chaotic, but the had sure enough filled every nook and cranny. I was kinda proud that we got everything except 3 medium-sized pieces into the new truck in about 5 hours.
The full-pack jobs are usually only done by either the elderly, or people who have someone else paying for their move. It gets expensive, what with paying for people's time to pack things, and paying for new, high-quality packing materials. It's mostly easy work, though, and you at least don't have to deal with boxes that are falling apart, badly taped, badly packed, not enough stuff inside and so crush with anything on top of them, too much stuff and impossible to lift or hold together, 50 slightly different sizes that don't pack together well because they got them secondhand from all over the city, etc. And dishes and other fragile items actually get packed properly and don't get smashed up if you look at the box funny.
Professional packers are amazing. The first time was two guys to pack a 1,200 sq ft apartment, the second time three guys to pack a 1,500 sq ft home. Both times they were done in less than a half day.
The only “unfortunate” part is you end up moving crap you probably should’ve sold or tossed. Having to pack and/or move your own stuff is a great motivator to prune.
But then, yeah, you do end up with a lot of stuff you don't need if you aren't forced to prune like this ever so often.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/02/17/a-fleet-of-one
I happily lived with a couple of suitcases of stuff in college, but that didn't include any furniture or kitchen gear.
> I’ve cost them time and money going down the hill. It’s a macho thing. Drive the hills as fast as you can and be damn sure to humiliate any sonofabitch who’s got brains enough to respect the mountains.
It's unfortunate that trucking is one of the last middle class industries left in the US. We need jobs like this, but at the same time I can't wait for automation to take the human factor out of this equation.
I'm not usually one of the slow drivers and I do get annoyed at the slow drivers when I can't pass them but I will still keep my distance and avoid trolling them with horns, lights or otherwise. The road is for everyone and some will be slower than me and some will be faster.
It's certainly their right to drive slowly, but in Washington state it is not their right to delay others:
> Slow-moving vehicle to pull off roadway.
> On a two-lane highway where passing is unsafe because of traffic in the opposite direction or other conditions, a slow moving vehicle, behind which five or more vehicles are formed in a line, shall turn off the roadway wherever sufficient area for a safe turn-out exists, in order to permit the vehicles following to proceed. As used in this section a slow moving vehicle is one which is proceeding at a rate of speed less than the normal flow of traffic at the particular time and place.
Also Alaska (http://www.legis.state.ak.us/basis/statutes.asp#28.35.135)
Also Colorado (http://law.justia.com/codes/colorado/2016/title-42/regulatio...)
And Montana (http://leg.mt.gov/bills/mca/61/8/61-8-311.htm)
Seems like a common regulation in certain states, particularly those with a lot of mountain terrain. (It is often not feasible in any circumstance to pass on the left on a mountain road, so I can see why these regulations popped up.).
In the story these comments refer to the driver had no real place to stop his truck and I believe he was justified in going slow on a rainy/slushy road in a heavy track on a decline.
If you are driving slowly you should be letting others pass you whenever possible. I'm actually quite amazed that you actually need laws for that (not that our drivers are better in any way, it is just common sense).
For most vehicles, on most roads, opportunities to allow others to pass safely appear with reasonable regularity. Despite this law, in my experience most slow drivers choose to entirely ignore those opportunities.
I'd love to do that. Unfortunately, even at a slow speed, it can be _challenging_ (to say the least) to detect a safe turnout area (e.g. in winding roads on the way to Tahoe) soon enough that one can actually use it.
Some roads have very handy marked turnouts that make this very easy, but many times there are Very Small locations that one could have used had one known about it ahead of time, or been moving (even slower) slowly enough to turn off right away. Many of these are not clear that they are large enough for one car until you're next to it, and often times you can't easily tell whether they are paved or not.
I hate to say this, but... slow down more if you see a potential candidate approaching.
I'll hate you for it right up until I see you pull aside, once I realize what's up you'll probably even get a courtesy wave!
Many states have specific laws regarding this which may make that untrue depending on circumstances. Here's a good overview[1] so you can look at your state's specific laws and see which apply.
1: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/beat-tick...
This combined with the American machismo culture of driving like an entitled asshole make for situations where people think they are the skilled drivers, but in fact are out of control.
Additionally we have an armada of truck drivers whose incomes are increasingly pinched by competition and ever dwindling wages that are pushing the limits of safety in order to make a living.
This is how you end up with spun out SUV's and jackknifed semi's
Those are the drivers who thought they could handle their vehicles.
He was on Loveland Pass purely on a whim: "...having decided to skip the congestion at the Eisenhower Tunnel." The primary component of congestion in that location, except maybe eastbound on weekend evenings in winter, is long haul trucks. Unless they're delivering something to western Colorado (which in this case the author was actually doing), they don't belong on I-70 anyway, because I-80 is better in every way. The only long haul trucks that have any business on Loveland Pass are the hazardous materials trucks. There are two ski areas on that road, a bunch of snowboarders hitching rides back to the top, and nothing else. Considering how long it takes to get through Dillon, it isn't even faster than staying on I-70. Summit County sheriffs should find a pretext to ticket every truck that uses that road without reason.
Very good
(Interestingly, OS X's Dictionary app says that a Britishism is to use "dish" as a verb meaning "destroy or defeat". Don't recall ever hearing this, though...)
This sounds to me like he took a more dangerous route to avoid traffic. There should probably be a fine or some other deterrent for taking a dangerous route if you don't absolutely have to. He risked the lives of not only himself, but anyone else on that road.
If Loveland is closed, hazmats are held back at the tunnel [1][2] until they can fully stop normal traffic, at which point they escort hazmats through such that they don't intermix with regular traffic in the tunnel.
[1] https://www.codot.gov/travel/eisenhower-tunnel/eisenhower-me... [2] http://www.landlinemag.com/story.aspx?storyid=61225
Thanks for the downvotes.
Sure, but your original post assumed he took the more dangerous route. The interstate through the tunnel is no picnic either, and I'd argue it's a tossup whether going through there with all of the cars and other trucks is actually safer than Loveland.
You made an assumption based on experience you don't have that was critical of someone who does this for a living -- in fact, suggesting that the choice made by said person should carry a penalty! That is why you're seeing downvotes.
Y'all are making me feel really welcome here.
Coming out of Georgetown drivers begin a long, steep incline up to the tunnel. As you climb the last few miles to the tunnel, the speed limit drops from 65MPH to 55MPH and you have some folks who instantly do the -10MPH acceleration and you have others who don't think that they need to slow at all. Then comes the jockeying for position with insane zipper merges as everyone squeezes down to 2 lanes. Once you're in the tunnel, the speed limit drops again and the it's clear that the "no lane changing in the tunnel" is roundly ignored as cars zip in and out of lanes. This lane changing sometimes leads to poor choices as someone who believes they're making a good (though technically illegal) move must immediately brake because they didn't see the slower car in the other lane to which they've moved. This all happens in a tight, two-lane tube.
Once you exit the tunnel, we're once again treated to an expansion to four lanes and it's a mad dash to fill all lanes as fast as possible to see who can make it to Silverthorne first. All lanes filled. We're now on the windward side of the mountain and here, anything can happen. Snowstorms in July. Slushy roads and a swarm of Subarus and Jeep Grand Cherokees either blasting past you at 70MPH or clogging lanes at 45MPH as we all manage the steep descent into Silverthorne. One (maybe two) runaway truck ramp is all that's available to you as you have to navigate the chaos around you.
I drive both roads frequently because I love the mountains and I love heading west end exploring this area. This driver risked far fewer lives taking by Loveland Pass than he did by staying on I-70. Since you've later admitted to having never driven in the mountains, I think it would be best for you to scale back the rhetoric until you gather a bit more information.
But that part of it you get anyway, because you haven't come to the exit for Loveland Pass yet.
Also note that the driver took a route almost a thousand feet higher (and probably less well plowed), when deeply worried about snow and ice. That sounds... rather odd.
I mean, I'm sure he had what to him were sufficient reasons to do what he did, but the stated reason seems somewhat inadequate.