Upset Week in College Football

I am a huge college football fan.  Going into week 6, the schedule for most teams started to get a little tougher.  The top ten teams in the nation were Florida State, Oregon, Alabama, Oklahoma, Auburn, Texas A&M, Baylor, UCLA, Notre Dame, and Michigan State.  People thought that this would be the way it would be by the end of the season but they were totally wrong.  11 teams out of the top 25 lost during week 6 and 5 of the top ten teams went down.  By far, this was totally the biggest upset week in college football history.  

The state of Mississippi had two teams that were playing good this season but had two huge games in week 6.  Mississippi State vs Texas A&M and Ole Miss vs Alabama.  What made these games so important is that the two Mississippi teams have not been very successful over the years and both teams have never been in the top ten in rankings, ever!  Going into the games on Saturday, obviously Texas A&M were the favorites to win and Alabama were the favorites.  Mississippi State crushed Texas A&M first.  But when the Ole Miss vs Alabama game started, things didn't look so good for Ole Miss going into halftime losing 14-3.  But in the 4th quarter, Ole Miss found life and scored 3 touchdowns to beat Alabama.  I was so excited and happy for Ole Miss because I always want Alabama to lose no matter who they are playing.

I am a huge Auburn Tigers fan.  After watching Alabama lose, it was time for Auburn to play.  Everyone probably expected LSU to upset Auburn like TCU did Oklahoma, Utah did UCLA, and Arizona did Oregon, but Auburn played very well and crushed LSU 41-7.  My favorite player Nick Marshall played like a heisman candidate and Auburn's defense was great!  Going into week 7, the top ten teams look totally different in the AP poll.  Now it's Florida State, Auburn, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Baylor, Notre Dame, Alabama, Michigan State, TCU, and Arizona.  I think Auburn will be number 1 after week 7 is over.  War Eagle!!

My first bad week with my new business

This week was a totally disaster! Monday started off fine even though my dispatcher sent me further than I wanted to drive.  I needed the money so I was not able to turn down the load.  I had to go down to Geneva, AL so when I got passed Montgomery, I decided to call the guy at the job site to let him know that I was in route to be there soon.  That's when I found out that I was traveling on the wrong road for the last 30 mins.  While making the u-turn, little did I know that the loose chain on my flatbed trailer had fallen on the trailer and was dangling along the side of the trailer near my tractor rear tires. I finally got on the right highway and continued my trip.

About 45 mins later, I felt something stopping my truck. I look in my mirror and saw smoke and noticed that I was stopping. It turns out the chain that was dangling on the side of the truck that I was unaware of had wrapped around my rear axel and popped two brand new tires on my truck. I had to stop immediately but the highway that I was on had no shoulder to pull over on so I had to stop in the middle of the highway and direct traffic around me. I had no clue of my whereabouts but found out very quickly. I needed to find someone to come out and fix my tires. The closest city to me at the time was Opp, AL. I never heard about this city but I needed help so I began to google tire services in Opp.  There were only three options to choose from.  The first option was the worst option that I could ever choose.  The lady answered the phone and heard my voice and said "we don't help your kind" and hung up.  I found someone to finally come out and help my but when he got there, he did not being the right air jack.  So we had to wait another hour before someone finally brought the right jack. It costed me 750 dollars to get the two new tires put on and get back running.  Usually, 750 dollars would not be so bad but I am just starting so unexpected expenses like that one was a killer.  After finally delivering the load, my dispatcher called and told me that he found another load in Montgomery that I can pick up and deliver to make some of my money right back.  So I agree and stop in Montgomery to pick the load up.  I had to deliver the load to Birmingham so I headed towards Birmingham. When I got to the job site, the unloaded took 2 hours to unload and while they were unloading, I left my truck running with the air blowing.  When they unloaded me I was finally ready to go home and park my truck.

As I. Egan to leave the job site to head home, I noticed that my truck just turned off.  I was out of fuel.  The nearest fuel station was a mile away and I had to try to call someone to come take me there to buy a 5 gallon fuel jug and some starting fluid. I finally found someone close to where I was and she came to take me to the fuel station. I got the fuel and started the truck and she pulled off.  Once I began to pull off, the truck turned off again.  I didn't have enough fuel to go anywhere so I ended up having to walk to the station after all. After putting 5 more gallons in, I was finally able to make it home only to find out that I had to go even further the next day to deliver a load.  I spent most of my fuel money on the tires so I had to use my emergency credit card the rest of the week for gas.

Starting my own business

I'm Jermichael.  This blog is about my business that I have just started.  I started my own trucking company about a week ago and I am very excited about it.  I was working for a company for the last few years and after I found out how much money they were making on every load that was taken by company drivers, I decided that it was time for me to come up with a plan to start my own company and increase my income.  So I started looking for companies that were looking for companies to haul freight for them.  I had to brainstorm for a minute to come up with companies to go to and make a great first impression.  I always present myself in a professional way so I thought that it would be easy for me to find companies to haul freight for.  But it was a lot tougher than expected.  I finally decided to talk to a few trucking company owners for advice.  I met one guy that has his own company but only had one truck that he was driving.  After talking to him, he suggested that I lease my company to his company and that way I can get some good experience before I try to go out on my own and get loads.  The first thing I needed to do was purchase a truck.  I searched for weeks for a great deal but had no luck.  Finally, I found a great deal on a truck.  When I went to the dealer to look at it, I fell in love with it right away.  After test driving the truck, I decided to go further with the purchase.  When I got approved, I knew that the next step would be t find a trailer.  I became frustrated with finding a trailer because all of the trailers that I found were actually cost more than the truck that I purchased.  I realized that starting my own company was going to cost me a lot more than I expected.  But I had saved for this so I figured that I could manage.  I knew that I had no other choice because my first truck payment would be due by the end of the next month so I had to get something started asap.  I found out that in order for me to get my truck on the road I would need to pay heavy duty road tax, pay for my company name to be saved, Valorem tax, purchase a tag for the truck, get insurance on the truck, and have flu money for the first two weeks.  After I paid for all of the things that I just mentioned, I realized that in order for me to get started, Leasing my company to the guy that I met company would be the best idea.  This way, I would not have to get a trailer right away because I could rent one from him.  I would also have guaranteed loads and someone to help me on the things that I did not know about trucking.  We both negotiated on a percentage for every load and rental fee for the trailer.  So I leased on to his company and started my first week with loads for the whole week.  The first week was a great week for both of us.  I did not have to use as much moony for fuel as I thought I would have to and I had no problems with my truck.  But the next week I ran into a couple of issues.  My truck started running hot and I could not find out why.  I was able to take the loads every day but I had to stop a lot to let the truck cool off during each load.  I realized that if I continued to do this, it would make things worse so I had to put it in the shop to solve the problem.  Mind you, this is during the 2nd week of working so I have not received a pay check yet.  Money was tight, I only had a little extra left over from the gas money that I saved from the previous week.  When the bill was presented to me after my truck was fixed, I nearly fainted.  But I knew that I had a check coming soon so I had to do what I had to do.  Problem solved and now it was time to try to work a little extra to make up for the loss.  So far so good.  Im beginning my 3rd week in the morning and I did pretty good on rates so far.  My next step is to save up to purchase a trailer and my own authority so that I can get my own loads and start saving to buy more trucks.  My plan is to get all of this done by the next two or three months and purchase another truck at the beginning of next year.  That way I can start hiring drivers and really feel like a company owner.