MacGuyver ain't got shit on me! or "The iScream Truck"

The Exeter girl called in sick, so I got to cover her shift in a truck I'd never driven before... 163. Sandra had lined up a vast assortment of gigs in the greater Exeter area, and I'd be responsible for tackling that initiative. The truck was stocked and ready to roll when I arrived, so once I cashed out from the day before and collected the requisite paperwork for the day's activities, I pulled the truck over to my Saab so I could transfer over the boombox, iPod and stuff. No sooner than the moment I slammed the shifter into park, the phone rang. Sandra wanted to make sure the music box worked because they had been having technical issues with that specific one. Flipped it on, "Pop Goes The Weasel" blasted out of the horn and that was that.

On my way to my first gig in Exeter, I made it a point to stop by and visit my pal Ken's younger brother who is on school vacation to see if he wanted any ice cream. As I pulled in their driveway, I reached over to the music box to alert him of my presence and there was silence. I futzed with it to lesser and lesser effect, and finally declared it dead after a couple of minutes. Once I had transacted the business at hand, I took the truck around the corner to the gig that was scheduled. Literally 3 people came and bought something, and in the meantime I thought of what I could do to have music without the music box. So once that gig was over, I made a quick trip over to Radio Shack and bought a female RCA jack. I had a ton of time before the next gig, and I was a mile from my house, so I went home to rig up the solution.

I found a test lead in my boxes in the basement that I deemed fit for the task at hand. I grabbed the utility knife that was on the table and cut the cable in half, stripped back the ends and then clipped each of the test leads to the respective + and - terminals on the RCA jack. With that all set up, I ran to my Mac to quickly throw together a version of "The Entertainer" that would sound fine playing through an iPod through this interesting setup. I downloaded the .mid file of the song, and dropped it into GarageBand. I selected the recognizable part of the song and repeated it a number of times so the iPod's hard drive wouldn't be taxed by reloading the same song every 20 seconds. GarageBand allowed me to export the "new song" as an AAC file and onto the iPod it went!

Everything tested fine in the truck... I tested the radio, then a few favorite clips from songs to test the volume and off I went again. The next gig was in Newfields, so I did some neighborhoods out there and tested the new music system. Kids said it was a little quieter than before, but able to be heard none the less. I went to the gig across town, then headed towards Exeter to knock out a few neighborhoods before the next gig. The rest of the afternoon was all gigs, with the exception of a new neighborhoods in between. One woman flagged me down and told me it was her son's birthday -- thinking the kid was like, I don't know 8 or something, I said sure, I'll sing Happy Birthday with you... so she went and got the kid while I went around the cul-de-sac and the embarassed soul was a 15 year old guy. Eh, $5 either way :)

Once the gigs ended, I did a quick spin through Newmarket and headed back to Eliot via my shop where Ken and his brother were fixing his brother's Jeep. I switched from the Entertainer to "Canned Heat" by Jamiroquai and great laughter ensued. And that was my day... put the truck away around 9pm and went back to the shop for some mechanical mayhem and cheap beer.

SNAFU = Southern Newburyport All Fogged Up

The weather was all but promising for Tuesday's overcast adventures aboard '151. I had a corporate gig to attend in Salisbury, which of course netted half the number of employees promised. With that out of the way, I set forth on my typical Newburyport route. The island was somewhat dead, no sign of those two girls that posed on my truck the week before... Of course it all made sense when I looked down at the ambient temperature reading -- 65°F.

The neighborhoods were just as bad, even when the sun managed to poke through the clouds. I had one grumpy old bastard yell at me and make obscene gestures to turn off the music. After I finished that side of 95, I took a spin through the neighborhoods near downtown. I saw my friend Lisa whose son had come out to the truck to buy stuff and had a nice chat about the upcoming Simpsons Movie and how the ice cream truck should be converted into some semblance of a Saab.

After the downtown region, I decided for one last go on Plum Island. By the time I finished, I couldn't see across the basin to the other side of the island from all the fog -- I called it a night at 7:40. I thought that I'd be the first one back, the subject of criticism the next day for not sticking it out till dusk... boy, was I in for a shock when I got back to Eliot and and saw all but one other truck parked for the day. I guess I wasn't the only one to have a crappy day. That was my thought until I actually totaled up the day and ended up doing pretty well after all.

Christ, I've been lazy this week...

So Monday I found myself driving the Hampton truck, combined with a charity trip to the teen center in Exeter. The day got off to a rather stupid start when I drove out of the parking spot with the compressor power dongle still attached to the truck. I quickly investigated the scene and realized that the truck's connector had been severed, not the dock end which meant I could easily fix this issue on the road and not have to face any consequence for it. Overall, the day on the truck was pretty boring until I actually brought the truck to my shop to fix the power cable. My buddy Johnny P had called and said he was already there with Ken, waiting for me to go grab a beer with him out in Portsmouth. So I rolled up with the music blaring and lights flashing as Ken nor Johnny had seen me at the helm of one of these beasts before. I confirmed the proper pinout for the 3-phase power plug and reassembled the connector. Then Johnny hopped aboard the truck for the last few miles back to Eliot so we could take one vehicle into Portsmouth for the drinking activities.

We headed towards Downtown Portsmouth (Side note: I am sitting downtown as I write this right now, and I now know why seats were so plentiful in front of BNG... there is this annoying dude making a lot of noise -- like 75% higher than the general din of this fine city on a Saturday afternoon... God, make him shut up! YES! He just left.) and Johnny said "dude, let's try and make a sale before we put the truck away for the night." Well sure enough we turned the corner onto State St. and despite the fact that the music wasn't on, a crowd in front of whatever church that is down there got all excited and one guy actually disrupted the concert that was going on to buy ice cream. We were applauded as we pulled away and headed to Eliot.

I had Tuesday off, and naturally that was one of the busiest ice cream truck days of the year -- July 3rd . I ventured to Eliot to cash out from my dismal sales day in Hampton and requested that the Greenland truck make a cameo at my office (as I usually ask on my days off). A day of Granite Embedded Madness ensued and by the evening, it was time to launch the superfluous collection of fireworks that my buddy Chris wouldn't let the rest of us fire off in his yard that past Saturday. Once the skies above Nottingham were lit up by the collection of China's finest explosives, Drunkasaurus and I made our way to Karaoke in Portsmouth. We were all ready to sing "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey when the pair of cute girls that had pulled up next to us at the bar did the exact same thing... I guess I should have told 'em what we were planning to sing when they asked. So we changed our plan to Kanye West's "Golddigger" to end up not getting called up for the lack of time. Waste of a night.

So then the big day came - The Forth of July. This was supposed to be the crowning moment of the ice cream truck driver's summer, but it ended up being a rainy, unprofitable day of constantly changing plans. I decided the most sound move was to approach the day with my typical Newburyport route and see where that led. Off to Plum Island I went and scrounged up a fair bit of business as the clouds gathered above. By the time I'd made my way around the island, the sky had turned black and the inevitable summer storm was closing in with great speed. I moved inland and called up the Doppler on my cell phone to realize the system wasn't going anywhere fast. I was advised to hit some routes in NH before attempting to "snipe" the Dover fireworks around dusk, but the rain continued unabated as I headed north. So I just finished up my day in Eliot and that was that.

This banner week of ice cream truck driving wrapped up on Thursday. I was instructed to cover Rye and Greenland until I had to do a corporate gig at Nike in Greenland. When Rye proved to be a bust, I called my buddy Chris to see if he was working in the area. Sure enough, he and his brother-in-law were working right around the corner from the corporate gig so I went and sold them some frozen treats. Once that was over, I went to the gig at Nike, sold 5 things and went to Newburyport to do an abbreviated version of my usual route. First stop was Plum Island, where the only good thing to happen was having two very attractive ladies approach the truck in string bikinis and make it a point to take sexy pictures of each other posed on my truck. This fun was quickly extinguished by a guy and his kids coming up to the truck with the kids cutting the girls in line. Weak. Then the rain came back after a slew of neighborhoods, so I was again instructed to work my mojo in Stratham. I stopped to see Ken and his family, sold a bunch of ice cream there and then made my way through a few neighborhoods. Called it a night around 9, and hit the town for some dinner and whatnot.

Much like the previous Friday morning, I had a bit of a, um, uncharming feeling that had to be mitigated. I worked off said hangover all day, was visited by Johnny P (who applied to drive a truck after our shenanigans on Monday) and one of my fellow drivers while I wrenched on my Aunt's Dodge Neon and that's all the news that's fit to print.

My schedule for next week is Tuesday and Thursday in NBPT and Wednesday in North Portsmouth.

Highlights from a few days on, and a few days off.

Let's see, we left off on Monday with my two trips to Plum Island... Tuesday was exactly the same, only hotter. The truck at one point hit 140*F inside! Not too many tales of conquest, my brain was a bit too frazzled from the heat to remember anything funny. I had Wednesday off and took my mom's new 2007 Saab 9-3 Sport Sedan Anniversary 2.oT up to Eliot to cash out. People were starting to wonder what an ice cream man was doing with a brand new $34,000 car, thought I had a good day and all that. I spent the day in the office, got some tacos with Jamie and picked my parents up at Logan when they got back from their trade show in Las Vegas.

Thursday I was presented with an adventure -- a corporate outing in Exeter. So I drove down and parked the truck for a couple of hours. Great success! So after I made more than I make in a typical day in 2 hours, I did an abbreviated version of my daily Newburyport run. I got back to Eliot around 9:30 and as I was getting out of the truck to gas it up, my phone rang. It was my neighbor Emilie who I thought had gone up north for the summer but was actually home for the night and wanted to get her drink on. So I put the truck back in its spot, inventoried and jumped in the Saab. I called Emilie back and said I'd be there in exactly 20 minutes (including time for me to freshen up and check email). True to my word, I did just that and 20 minutes later I was in her driveway. We drove to Portsmouth, and upon realizing that it sucked I said "Why not Newburyport?" Granted, at this point it was already quarter of 11... "Isn't it kind of late to go there? Its so far away!" she said. I shrugged it off and made yet another prediction of time. "We'll be there in 20 minutes flat" I said as we shook on it. I pressed the night panel button and pressed back into the seat as we accelerated onto I-95. Once again true to my word, the Saab landed on time and we proceeded to get our drink on at Michael's Harborside.

Having teetered on that line between charming and tipsy, I called it quits after a deuce of 22oz and another pair of 11oz Sam Summer and we made our way north around 1am. In an effort to curb any adverse effects in the morning, I stopped at the On The Run in Salisbury before getting on 95. The only food greasy enough to achieve such results were the hot dogs stewing in their own grease. I slapped a couple on some buns and proceeded to put some mustard on them when I heard a most disgusting "THWAP!" on the ground -- Emilie dropped her hot dog. We scrambled to throw it out before anyone noticed and she proceeded to prepare another one. As that happened, a couple of younger guys came over and Emilie, who was a touch beyond charming at this point yelled "STAY AWAY FROM THE BEEEAAHHHH! YOU'AH TOO YOUNG TO BUY BEEEEAAHHH!" I just walked away at this point as she continued to harass the 16 year old dudes and as I was checking out I heard her continue to pontificate "YOU'AH 16!! YOU'AH TROUBLE!! DO YOU KNOW WHAT 16 GETS YOU?!?!" and all the truckers and people standing around were totally laughing at her, I decided to utter "TWENTY!" as a crude reference to the age of consent laws in the Granite State. So having quieted that situation down, we got back in the Saab and went back to Stratham.


The next morning, I felt like absolute shit. Those hotdogs were about as effective as the goggles they made Ranier Wolfcastle wear on that episode of the Simpsons where they were making a Radioactive Man movie. So I made a b-line for McDonalds, as they had the classic hangover helper -- the Egg McMuffin! With said hangover helper procured, I hopped on the highway and went to Eliot to cash out from my prosperous day before. With my wallet stuffed, I went to my office and worked for the remainder of the day. Saturday, I did the same. This morning, I installed an AudioTroll in a customer's Saab and at this very moment, I am sitting in Market Square drinking coffee and enjoying the scenery. Giggity-giggity-goo!

Plum Island double-dipper and a Swedish Challenge!

I think I've figured out my lifestyle for when I get rich... buy a condo at some ski resort up north to live in during the winter, and live on Plum Island the rest of the year. It's almost hard to remember that I'm in Massachusetts when I'm out there. 99% of the folks are real friendly, the beach looks really nice and houses aren't all that expensive anyway... well, relative to some of the mansions up on Little Boars' Head or Rye. But I digress.

My day started in the humble town of Eliot, ME as always. I arrived about 10:30 so I could get my truck really spiffed up for the day's activities. Once I cleaned out the previous driver's trash and empty boxes, I took the truck over to where the hose was hanging and gave the truck a thorough cleaning inside and out. A quick stop at Irving to confirm the tank's fullness and it was off to I-95. I brought my EZ-Pass so I wouldn't have to stop to pay the toll -- any superfluous acceleration up to 50mph would cost a lot more than the $1 toll. A few minutes later, I was at Exit 57 in Massachusetts and ready to make some money.

My first stop, of course, was Plum Island. Apparently, there is a competing ice cream truck that has Newburyport as a territory. I've never seen said truck, but apparently the driver that had my truck the day before passed said truck heading to the island and didn't make a dime out there. By getting to the island nice and early, I could make a ton of sales and scope out which rental houses were occupied so when I made my 2nd pass at 8:30pm, I'd know what areas to concentrate on. Hot British Nanny is actually Hot British MILF, much younger than her husband I'd guess but whatev. After dubbing around on the island for an hour or so, I headed inland to start the sweep of neighborhoods.

Nothing too exciting really happened in the neighborhood routes, just sold a ton of ice cream. Didn't get kicked out of the skate park, so that made my afternoon as every kid bought something. The truck didn't stop rolling until I settled down at the wharf for a few minutes around 6. Alas, nobody on the wharf wanted ice cream so I just kicked around more neighborhoods in the eastern part of downtown. Making my way back out to Plum Island, there was a good line of cars behind me, but the speedometer in the truck said I was doing the limit so I just kept on going. When I arrived at the island and pulled over to make a sale, some ass in a Passat yelled out his window "You should have done that 3 miles ago!". Well, there's one house that I'm sure was not getting ice cream. I was flagged down by a family in one of the rental houses. The Quebecois used a translator to order all the ice cream and it was funny to see them all try to make sense of what I had to offer. After that, I headed out towards the lighthouse. I saw a party with folks my age hanging out on the front porch and made it a point to stop there on the way back. When I did, I sold a great deal of ice cream and partook of their peace offering. Safety Steve would be a sad panda.

Never the less, it was getting to be about 9:15 and I wanted to get home at some point, so I shut down for the night and made my way north to Maine to return the truck. I had used an unprecedented amount of gas in my adventures, over 13 gallons! I fueled the truck and brought it back across the street to the yard. I had the last parking spot available, but when I landed, I realized that all the power cords to run the compressors on the trucks were transposed down by one spot, so I had to go unplug every truck and re-plug them with the appropriate cord. Once my inventory was set and truck was secured, I returned to the Saab and started to make my way home.

But it doesn't end here, no no! I was just getting onto I-95 South at the Maine/NH Border in Eliot, already doing 85 because I had been driving the ice cream truck all day and needed to feel some thrust from a turbocharged mill. As I sped over the Piscataqua River bridge into NH, a black Volvo station wagon inched closer to me in the right lane. Naturally, as I rounded the curve after the bridge, I matted the go pedal and left him very much in my dust. Then, I don't know if it was driving in a 126*F truck all day, but it looked like the Volvo was gaining on me! We were on the bridge over the Spaulding Turnpike at this point and I could visually confirm the lack of authorities ahead, so I said to myself "That fucker better not have a Turbo" and I pulled right up to 110mph. Once he was a good 1/4 mile behind, I ducked off at Exit 3B and stayed in the left-most left hand turning lane to head towards Stratham on NH-33. I sat at the light for a good 30 seconds and there were those distinctive 240 headlights in my mirror. The light turned green as he slowed down, I matted it, naturally sloshing through the gears as he ran side by side with me. "Fuck it!" I exclaimed as I punched the throttle once more, pulling from 40 to 60 in the blink of an eye. He knew it was over, backed off and I drove home a tired and smug man.

Yes, a 9-5 vs. a 240 is like putting Peyton Manning in a Special Olympics touch football game, but it's not so often I get to have this sort of fun!

A few days off...

Yep, I'm off the schedule till Monday so some other greenhorns can get out there and drive the rusting fleet. I'm going though some pretty bad ice cream truck withdrawal today... I kept trying to press a button to set off the bells whenever I saw a hot chick walking down the street. Driving the Saab is completely different now, so smooth and fast!

There will be a new post next Tuesday, unless I get called in to drive. In which case, there will be tales of conquest even sooner! Peace.

Berwick, Somersworth and my redneck past...

After a brief stop off at my office in Greenland, I went up to Eliot to grab a truck and do whatever route the Sandra said I'd be doing. Alas, it was not Newburyport... that brought me great sadness as I really wanted to go back out onto Plum Island and try to get that hot British nanny's number. Instead, I was given the South Berwick, Berwick, Somersworth and possibly Rollinsford route with a 3:30 gig at a day care center just near my buddy Steve's Saab repair garage.

Wasting no time, I ensured the truck was stocked and gassed. I made my way westward from the yard and arrived in South Berwick some 7 minutes later. I tooled around to get a feel for the area, then ventured into a neighborhood. As I wound through the streets and down a hill into a cul-de-sac, three buxom coeds in bikinis emerged from their house! Great success! I knew that despite the overcast skies and occasional drizzle from above that it was gonna be a lovely day. I managed to sell a bit of ice cream in South Berwick proper, and then made my way towards Berwick and Somersworth not long thereafter.

Before crossing into New Hampshire, I managed to make a few sales in and around the intersection of Routes 236 and 9. I then took a nice drive up Route 108 in Somersworth, with minimal success pulling into various car dealerships and businesses. Then came the motherload -- a pool party! That made up for every mechanic that didn't throw down the Snap Ons and come get ice cream. I continued back into downtown Somersworth and subsequently back towards Maine. It was getting to be 3-o-clock and I had to be over at that day care in Berwick for 3:30. I decided to go visit my buddy Steve as my buddy Ken needed a seat repair kit for his 1984 Saab 900 Turbo.

I pulled up and parked the truck so it would be partially obscured from Steve's viewpoint. His younger son was in a 1989 900, futzing around like little kids do but Steve was nowhere to be found. I walked into the garage and encountered Steve and his older son getting repair instructions off the computer. So I get to talking with Steve and I somehow brought up "...well that's better than what I'm driving". Steve asks "What are you driving?" to which I responded "The uh, Nine-Ice Cream Truck". Suffice to say, the youngest of the Snow clan got himself a Ninja Turtle pop and I was on my way to give ice cream to the kids up the street.

Upon landing the rusting hulk at the day care center, I was quickly trust back 20 years to a time when I once lived under that regime... forced naptime, smelly kids, Teddy Bear peanut butter and the constant smell of tempera paint no matter where you were. The warden, er, day care lady let the kids out two at a time from the fenced in pen to get their ice cream. But in the end, it wasn't so bad -- sold like $60 worth of ice cream and caught a smile from the cutest girl on the staff! As I left, I pondered my next move for the day and decided it was time to unleash the daily piece-de-resistance -- traveling to outlying neighborhoods where the truck never goes!

So I hopped on one of the roads that headed north from Berwick proper and spent a good hour and a half selling lots of ice cream in the sticks. When I returned to Berwick, I parked the truck by the baseball field and ate dinner. I managed to snag a few sales in the half an hour or so I was parked there, but knew that the real money would come in the approaching dusk across the river in Somersworth. So when the coast looked clear, and the game was in the 3rd inning or so, I knew I had about an hour to go do what I had to do. And I did. Somersworth was a lucrative market and when I returned to the field in Berwick, the game was just letting out so I managed to rake in a few more bucks.

I had tapped the Berwick market, so it was time to head to South Berwick for a nighttime sweep of the faithful neighborhoods. Before I did that, though, I went into Rollinsford, NH for a few minutes and managed to clean up at the end of an adult softball league game. My last stop of the night came soon thereafter in South Berwick where some lady bought an obscene amount of product, and even some for her neighbors. Crazy! So the short ride back to Eliot came and went, and I found myself gassing up the truck for the night alongside the guy who does the Rochester route. Now this guy looked very familiar when I started, but I couldn't place him. Well we got to talking and as it turns out, he just moved down from Claremont 4 months ago and lived there at the same period of time when I did. Small world.

I forgot to grab an order form in the morning, so I'd have to come back and do that in the morning. All in all, a good day and that's 4 more towns I've got figured out.

No Child Left Behind

Today I got to go out on my actual route - Newburyport, MA. I arrived at the office around 11 with my iPod dock/speaker setup, lunch and cash box all ready to roll. I cashed out for the previous day and prepped the truck for the 30 mile southbound journey into my territory. This was the first time I'd had one of the trucks out on the highway myself, or for that matter, a truck with a working speedometer. Topping up the gas tank, I gave the truck a last once-over and headed to I-95.

The truck did not-to-sixty in about 3 minutes, and I stuck to the right lane. Everything was great until I encountered what I thought would be an even slower vehicle than mine just after exit 3B on 95... the state street sweeper. I was doing about 55 (sssh, Safety Steve says the truck can only go 45!) and I managed to pass this thing while it was in the shoulder lane. Then about a minute later I looked in the rearview mirror and he was gaining on me! The picture at right is the aftermath of that most severe pwnage.

Fifteen minutes later, I pointed the truck to exit 57 in Massachusetts to start my Newburyport route. Having a sneaking suspicion that the kids were still stuck in school, I decided to take a ride out to Plum Island to see if I could stir up any touristy business in that neck of the woods. Sure enough, I managed to snap up a few sales and establish my presence along what should be a very well traveled route as the summer heats up. I encountered a cute blond British nanny with a handful of kids near the lighthouse, I'm hoping they will be repeat customers! After a good hour and a half making my way around the island, I headed inland. By this point, school was letting out and that meant new opportunities to sell stuff. I ended up landing the truck on a side street near the high school and acquired a few good sales. When I felt my welcome had been worn out, I took a spin by a friend's house on an adjacent street. A couple of kids stopped me, bought some ice cream and told me that the skate park was the place to get business. Well, what else could I do, right?

The skate park was visible from where I was sitting, but only accessible through the Middle School's parking lot. So I made my way over to the Middle School parking lot, and just as the kids told me, swarms of skaters made their way over to the truck. I must have sold a good $30 worth of ice cream before the principal of the Middle School came over to have a chat. He basically gave me the whole "it's school property, so you can't be here" talk -- so I shook his hand and acknowledged that it wouldn't happen again. I shut the cooler and hopped back in the drivers seat. As soon as my ass touched the vinyl, one more kid walked up to the side of the truck. "Sorry buddy, they told me I can't sell here anymore..." I explained. "Aww, come on man... just one more?" he pleaded. "Sure, what the hell, kid" I exclaimed as I fetched him his frosty treat. Just then, the principal noticed the transaction in progress and gave me a rather stern look. I wrapped up the transaction and put the wheels in motion, making sure to kick up the ol' music box an extra notch and yelled out the window, "HEY! NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND!" He just shook his head and walked off.

I then ventured to the land that Newburyport forgot... the other side of I-95. When they built I-95 in the 1950's as a "Route 1 Replacement", they routed it away from the middle of downtown Newburyport in the middle of existing farm land and whatnot. Widening of this road in the 1970's cut off a number of smaller roads that used to traverse the city and left only a few roads connecting one half of the city with the other. Anyway, all roadgeekery aside, I combed the neighborhoods on the other side of town with great precision and scored a great deal of business that I'm hoping will be repeat business as the summer goes on. It is also fair to mention the great deal of attractive babysitters that work in this city, brings me great joy as I tool around in the giant white box on wheels.

The neighborhood trolling went on till 8 or so... at which point I decided to take a swing through the waterfront area downtown and try to close out the day on a high note. I did manage to get a few more sales, and that was good enough for me. I headed back to the highway and north to Maine to drop off the truck for the night. All in all, a great day that will set the stage for many more.

Hampton in the '555

I called the office this morning to tell them I wanted in, to which the immediate response was "come in tomorrow to watch the safety video and we'll put you on a route". So a day at my real job was shaping up... until I was 100' out of my driveway. Cell phone reads off the number of the office over the car's audio system and I picked it up. "Carl, we've just had an opening today... how soon can you be here?" I told her 25 minutes, put a little gas in the Saab and headed to pick up my truck.

I savored every minute of spirited Swedish motoring as I knew things were going to get a lot crappier behind the wheel of a Grumman. I cranked the stereo and my minuscule amount of turbo boost, two luxuries I'd lack for the next 9 hours. I arrived right when I said I would, lunch in hand. I got to watch 12 glorious minutes of "Safety Steve", with his 1986 polysynth soundtrack, reminding me that a Grumman box van with a 900lb freezer unit mounted longitudinally along one side of said vehicle will be top heavy and unable to maneuver fast corners.

Once the video was over, I was assigned my route. Today I'd be covering Hampton, NH in the '555 truck. I was given a cash box and all was right with the world as my truck sat idling outside, already stocked to the brim with frosty treats. I hopped aboard and stuck my lunch in the freezer. All the electronics checked out so I slapped it in drive and hit the road for Hampton. Now I am scared to death to put one of these things on I-95, so I took Route 1 south into Downtown Portsmouth. At noon, nobody was really clamoring to buy ice cream so I managed to sneak through the general mid-day din of my favorite city in the state. I arrived in North Hampton at the first destination some 15 minutes later. When I pulled into the parking lot of this limo company that I was told to visit, the music box didn't work! I frantically checked all the connections in the truck, the fuses, all that... I called the guy that works on the trucks and he told me to check the splice outside at the loudspeaker. Sure enough, the positive supply to the speaker had failed at the butt connector. I stuck it back together as best as I could and commenced to bring attention to myself.

I made my first sale at a little used car dealer on Route 1 -- practically everyone came out when I rolled through! It was then when I realized that an ice cream truck can't go anywhere without grabbing attention. I rolled through some neighborhoods and then stopped along the sea wall (see right) to have some lunch and you know, not attract business or anything. In driving through some of the neighborhoods and past the schools around the time the kids would be getting out, I realized that the kids were out for the summer and I could really crank up the marketing initiative.

So up and down the streets of Hampton I drove, selling a ton of ice cream and planning the next move. I ventured over 101 and 95 to a couple of recommended neighborhoods and ended up in a trailer park where my presence was not appreciated by one woman. She ran out of her garage and started yelling at me about how it was a retirement park and nobody wanted ice cream, how the manager would chase me out of there and they'd call my boss. I just laughed as I drove off. Hey, my boss wouldn't care if she got that call -- it just means I was trying new places!

After that bombshell, it was getting to be about 6:30 and there was about two hours of decent sales opportunities left. I made one last appearance at the sea wall for 5 minutes then cruised the neighborhoods for the remainder. One quick bite from the dollar menu and I was on my way back up Route 1 to return the truck. As I made my way on to State Street off Middle Street in Portsmouth, three girls loudly acknowledged my presence as I started to speed up. So my last stop of the day was right on State Street. I brought the truck to the Irving station, gassed 'er up with $28.09 of the North Atlantic's finest regular fuel and drove across the street to park the truck for the night.

One day down -- many more to go.

Training

I arrived at the office in Maine this morning around 10 or so -- an hour early to get an idea of how things work behind the scenes. The manager was there and very pleased to see me at such an early point in time. While I waited around and got to know more about the business, more trainees arrived and were assigned to their respective shadow positions. I learned that I would be learning all about the truck-based business on the Dover route. When my buddy for the day showed up, we made our way out to the imposing fleet of mid-1970's vintage Grumman box vans. We prepped the truck, restocked the coolers where necessary and set out on our journey. Within 500' of leaving the parking lot, the deficiencies of the truck's roadhandling capabilities were realized. Nothing ever seems to get completely repaired on these trucks, but rather Mickey Moused to the point where it works again. I saw the owner of the company painting a truck with a roller and ordinary house paint today... seems about as futile as my mom trying to fix the rust spot on the refrigerator by painting over it! But I really shouldn't knock the frugality of the company -- they run a tight ship and I am quite impressed so far. So as we made our way to the highway on this partly-sunny Fathers Day 2007, I was told that the trucks are incapable of going over 45mph and handle poorly at any speed over 5mph. I had yet to drive the truck at this point, so this remained to be seen. A quick blast over the Piscataqua and onto the Spaulding Turnpike landed the truck at Hilton Park. A few customers came over and bought stuff and then we moved onto some neighborhoods in Dover Point. After a couple of hours, my buddy had to grab some food. Seeing as how by this point we had moved far enough down Dover Point Road so that dropping into Burger King wouldn't be an issue. I was given the privilege to pilot the rickety machine around some neighborhoods while he ate his lunch and whatnot. The Grumman Box Van paled in comparison to some of the worst vehicles I ever recall having driven... aside from my old 1993 Honda Civic LX, that list would include a 1960-something Triumph TR-4 and a 1991 Alfa Romeo 164 among others. You sit upright with the steering wheel, the diameter of a decent sized large pizza, in your lap. The brake pedal is about 6" closer to you than the gas. I had to keep my right leg kinked outward to be able to move between the pedals effectively. The seat has absolutely no cushioning, a rather futile attempt at a seatbelt and one adjustment -- up or down. Anyway, push came to shove and we drove around for a few more hours... returned the truck around 8pm and that was that. I won't make a thin dime until I have a chat with the boss lady and get my schedule set up. I am exhausted, and not just because all I could smell all day were uncatalyzed emissions from the mighty Chevy 250 I-6 under the "doghouse" but because I'm getting up earlier and earlier to allow this and my other venture to co-exist. Goodnight.

Preface to a summer unlike any other...

I am sitting in my office right now as I write this. Yes, it's a beautiful Saturday afternoon here on the seacoast of New Hampshire, almost too beautiful to be cooped up indoors, but this is the beginning of a major change in the way I do business in my 9 to 5 world. Starting tomorrow, my primary business of designing, building and shipping iPod adapters for Saabs will lay claim to new hours within the day as I shift things around to take a second job to stay afloat.

The road that led me to this point is an expensive one, full of mistakes and empty promises. The iPod adapter I had been working on was supposed to be out almost a year ago, but when the software contractor I hired off Craigslist delivered a sub-par product $6,500 over budget, I was stuck fixing a lot of mistakes. Meanwhile, I was still taking orders for the iPod adapter that was gaining an ever growing backlog. Finally I threw it all down and said enough is enough; I stopped taking orders so I could focus on filling old orders first, then gradually ramping things back up. This of course meant that the anticipated profit from new orders dried up and I needed to find a part-time job to fill the void to not only keep my financial situation in check, but also to keep the overhead at the shop in check as well.

Could I be a bouncer at a bar downtown? How about a Barista at Starbucks? I started combing the Portsmouth Herald, hoping to find some graveyard shift thing that would let me be at my facility during the day. Then one ad jumped out at me -- I called and was welcomed up to their office for an interview. Suffice to say, I got the job and hence this blog was created to follow my daily travels as... an ice cream truck driver.

Hop aboard and try your best to ignore the music box... life is too short not to take up an opportunity like this, so check back every day for the latest and greatest from behind the wheel of the big ol' freezer on wheels.

CL