Sunday, March 17, 2024

 Sunday - early

20 minutes until departure time.  I don't much care for delivery on Sundays for it takes a while to get security to the scale to open up the scale, print my weight and then I can go offload - and then come back and wait again.  

It has rained so much that when I got back to the park yesterday, I drove through the park instead of down the main driveway, turned around and backed into my spot versus driving to the end of the driveway and potentially getting stuck.  

I've got 2 more runs scheduled after this and then on Friday, if they are available, I need them to fix this truck.  

The latest report on the many ways the government went wrong with their approach to Covid 19 is out and the governments from Feds to local governments basically blasted for their approach.  We all knew this.  No, we didn't all know this.  The government is always right!.. people blasted anyone that spoke a differing opinion, qualified doctors with a different view of it were silenced and we were all silenced on social medial, most notably Facebook, for saying anything different than what Lord Fauci had to say about it. 

It was an unprecedented and outrageous period of time where the spectacle of governments with unfettered "emergency powers" told everyone to stay home, shut down business, wear masks, shut down schools, etc. We were called conspiracy theorists and lunatics at the time for saying something different.  Well here we are, and now they predict that the effect on school children will have impact on society for decades to come. 

Meanwhile, we have an illegal "immigrant",  more properly titled illegal alien, who was the cause of a Sheriff deputy death was let go because "no speaka" and didn't understand what they were trying to tell him to do.  If you went to Guatemala, where this man is from and the police were trying to arrest you and you resisted, do you think you'd be walking a free man out of the jail house after causing an officer's death?

Yeah, I think not. And here comes the conspiracy theories again, at least what leftists say: WHO, exactly is coming across the border that has escaped capture and roaming free on the streets of America?  We already know some crazy Venezuelan gang is running loose in our nation.  But talk of terrorists cell groups isn't exactly conspiracy theories when you start looking at the startling amount of "gotaways", they call them.

Back to reality. The kids came home, the grandparents with them, of course.  The kids wouldn't leave me alone but I knew that would happen. 

Well, time to go. I can hear the rain dripping off the roof onto the window ac unit in my room.  

G'day.  

Saturday, March 16, 2024

 Saturday - early

Got up, took a shower and then realized - check the damn tablet.  Did they pull another cancellation on me? The answer is, no, I just looked for I just got out of the bathroom. 

Apparently it's St. Patrick's day, the news just informed me. I rarely turn on the tv in these early morning hours before work, but wanted to see the headlines.  It's just another excuse for people to get rip-roaring drunk on green beer.  No thank you.  

So, I should be going for the next - 6 days? I think is what's in there.  After that, I want to take the truck up there and have them fix everything.  It will be a get-up-early day, get up there early and hope they can get it done quickly.  But I figure several hours at least, so I will take my laptop for entertainment and online work purposes.  

It's supposed to rain again today around 1ish-2ish.  Good for the grass seed? Sure if it isn't already washed out lol. 

I dunno, my head is a bit foggy this morning, I'll move on with this one and do some more later.  

Time to go anyway.

G'day 

Friday, March 15, 2024

 Friday - late morning

It rained half the night last night and we're talking a major downpour.  My pond was at least 5 inches below the top and now it's completely full and obviously was running over the sides of it.  Nice, fresh rainwater for the fish and the dogs! Yes, the dogs drink out of it.  In fact, they like it so much I don't even put a bucket of fresh water out there anymore, they just drink straight from the pond.  

Anyway, I slept in.  Til about 9:00 am. 2 days off that I didn't expect, rainy days are good days to sleep in and just enjoy the luxury of not being forced to do something that you probably didn't want to do anyway. I will be back to trucking tomorrow morning- unless they pull another trick on me.  I just checked the tablet, it's all still the same after they changed it to drop the last load.

With the check from the AG loan company, I can go pay the rest of the property taxes.  I might do that today just to get it over with.  I was expecting to have to pay myself a grand or so out of it, it appears I won't have to do that and I will get another paycheck before I run out of money in the personal account.  Now, that paycheck probably won't be so much, but hopefully it will be enough to hold me over until the new pay scale is put into place and I can start making some decent money and not living paycheck-to-paycheck.  

I guess that's not an absolute, I always have money in the business checking account to pay myself with when it becomes absolutely necessary.

Today? Well, I got the monitor and I hooked it up here, at my desk at the house to make sure it works. It's bigger than the old one so I'm just going to keep the new one here and take the old one over to use for the surveillance system.  I still don't get why I must have a monitor. The system has an app for my phone, which I installed but it wouldn't let me get past a certain point in the setup stage without being able to take a pic of a QR code.  I guess it's a safeguard to keep anyone else from accessing it, just think it's more than needed. I already had to verify the account by confirming the email account was mine.  

Then there's that pole that I just left there to - rot, lol.  I stopped because the people that came in for a couple of weeks need relative quiet to do their work-from-home job and I was going to be making a lot of noise cutting the board and putting in the screws. The workaround is to move the posts to the shed, get the setup completed there and then install the post into the ground.  

Yeah, that means hooking up the trailer to move it over there or carrying those posts all the way to the shed.  

 I'm afraid it rained too hard and too long last night for the grass seed. Meaning flowing water probably carried a lot of it away.  I "wanted" a light rain to get everything wet but no flooding.  Rest assured there was a lot of water flowing through both sides and that isn't good. However, I do expect the seed that ended up in the existing grass to be able to do something other than flow away and seed the area behind the west side trailers.  I guess I'll have bermuda grass out there!  Lol.  

Nope, I'm not going to sit around watering the stuff. It's too much time and work involved. If it grows, it grows, if it doesn't, it doesn't and another summer of mostly barren lots with no grass and a lot of dirt.  Not idea, not even close, I'm just not that motivated to be walking around all day long watering everything.  It's going to rain again later on today and tomorrow forecast even more.  Give it 7 days or so and see if anything comes of it and make a decision then.

I've got a 2 night stay coming in today sometime, I will have 2 lots open tho even with that 2 night stay.  I've run the Facebook boost ad and it only netted a couple of calls from people saying they were interested and even 2 of them showing up at the park, but didn't convert into anyone moving in. Disappointing at best.  I'm undecided as to whether I should run another ad.  Google is actually the best resource for new customers, but running ads through them is expensive.  I can say throwing away $20 for a Facebook ad, I can't see throwing away $100 or more on Google and potentially getting nothing out of it.

It may just be a dry season for people moving into the area.  It may be that I'm being undercut by someone, somewhere, potentially that new park.  I haven't check other's rates in about a month so i guess it's about time to go through all of that and see who is doing what.  I will not lower my rates any lower than they already are, I don't care if I don't get anyone new at all.  It's not worth being in business to just barely be scrape by.  People will have those AC's cranking  - they already are actually but the temps aren't that high - and summer is coming.  I'll face up to $2,500 per month electric bills. I'd rather have less people in the park than more who aren't paying enough to make a decent profit.  It's just my thinking for right now.  I know I'm one of the cheapest in the area.  

I'll probably keep it there for a while, brand recognition is what I am shooting for. In other words, I need to be around for a couple of years or even longer to get that recognition.  Word of mouth helps and I am getting a much larger share of the overnighters than I was getting last year.  It just takes time and now - hopefully - that I am set to get more money for the trucking job - I can deal with that.  

My goal at this point is to save up 20 grand in the business account for a down payment on a loan. Or more, maybe, depending on how much of a loan I want to get.  The other option I have discussed endlessly: just start building out as the money is saved up for each phase of the expansion.  I have no idea about that right now, I'm just trying to get this ship on the right financial track.  

And it's raining again.  The forecast? Showed no rain until much later on today, lol.  Now it's showing a medium to heavy rainfall going on until around 1.

So, that gives me the excuse to not deal with that pole today. I really don't want to do that right now and I certainly won't do it out in the rain.

As for right now? I guess I'll start working on bookkeeping. 



Thursday, March 14, 2024

 Wait, one more thing today! 

I gave that giant dog a bath!  

It is 80 degrees outside, that dog smells HORRIBLE.  It was FAR past due time, I just haven't done it because it's been too cold.  NOT TODAY!! 

It is actually the first bath I've ever given him.

I give him an A+ for his participation.

Instead of fighting me about it, he just stood there the entire time while I soaked him nicely with water all over and then scrubbed him down with shampoo.  Washed it all off and the let him run free as the driven wind to shake it all off. 

Of course, the animal immediately started rolling in the grass, which I made him stop doing.  

He will be getting bathed once a week now that better weather, or at warmer weather I should say, is finally here.  We have thunder storms coming tonight so I dunno if that's "better" by any standard. 


 I'm being entirely too wordy today, but I just had to mention this.  I was trying to put the surveillance system together, right? And I needed a monitor for the system. So I found one on Marketplace and the guy is bringing it over and selling me the cord as well (those are never included unless you're buying brand new then they have one in the box) for $5 which is cheap. 

Okay, so I have to go to the bank to get cash out. I pulled out the mail from the mailbox on the way to my vehicle and lo and behold:  A letter from the AG lender for my property.  It's a non-profit, once a year they send out checks to everyone for whatever is "left over"  after all expenses are paid. It was $614!  This couldn't have come at a better time!  

I took that check up there, deposited it, got out the cash and now I'm sitting pretty enough with enough cash in the personal account to last until my next paycheck. I won't need to take any money out of the business account this month for personal paycheck! yayyy!  That turns this property tax nonsense into a completely doable situation. I'm still going to wait until my next paycheck anyway, just to ensure I have money laying around in case "something" happens, but I'm not sweating this now.  The entire bill will be paid by the end of the month and that will be that. Over with until the beginning of next year....

IF I can save $300 per month out of business account for this junk, I won't be caught red handed the beginning of next year.  I KNEW this was going to happen this time around, there was not a lot I could do about it - well I could have started working a job sooner I guess.  What's done is done, let's move on.  In fact, I knew I was going to be screwed for money quite a while before I actually ran out.  I mentioned in this blog that I expected to run out of money in September of last year and that's why I went looking for a job.  It's exactly what happened. That first paycheck I got was quite healthy for it included a 2,500 mile drive and weeks worth of work. 

It came at the exact time I absolutely needed it.  Just like this check today, I knew it was coming sooner or later, they do this every year.  I just didn't know when. Today was THE day I needed that check, even tho I wasn't exactly expecting that blessing to be sitting in our mailbox, it was indeed there, and I think it's a good time to thank the Good Lord for taking care of my needs.  Thank you Jesus!  Amen and amen.  

I'm just sitting here waiting on this guy to show up, I need to run over to the park and collect some money from overnighters.  These seniors - like much older than me in their late 70's and 80's - like to pay for everything in cash.  The generation they grew up with, I have no problem with that except it makes me have to drive over there after I was already there today.  I guess I could finish setting up the surveillance system if/when this dude shows up. 

What else...well, we've been enjoying a quiet house since Sunday.  It will continue on until sometime Saturday, but probably mid to late afternoon.  Unless they change it yet again, I will be going down to Lufkin to load on Saturday. So, tomorrow is off.  The dude just texted me he's on his way over, I think I will just finish up that project tomorrow instead of today.  Don't really feel like it at this point.  I don't hate going to the park, per se, at the same time I'm not a fan of multiple trips per day.  Sometimes it's necessary, if I don't go get that money from these overnighters, their stay will be free.  I saw the rig they drove in with their new 4 door pickup and a very nice bumper pull trailer, they have money lol.  

Ok enough for now.  I'm just a little bit excited about this pay raise.  Things will start to get much better in the financial department.  

Well that was fun. Not.

I know there are 2 separate places to pay taxes, one at the ISD and the other at the County.....I thought they had the entire amount owed on one site.  I thought wrong. The $1,900? That's what I owe the ISD, that doesn't include the $722 I just paid to the county. Now, that includes a late fee and 3 other properties, but the other properties only amounted to $32 worth, they're undeveloped and not worth that much.  

So, that was a blow.  I paid the county, I did not pay the ISD yet. Entirely outrageous tax rate for a county whose seat is only 23,000 people and not that much of anything out here, really.  I have decided to wait until my next paycheck and then I will probably pay around $1,200 of it out of the business account and the rest? I"m going to have to put on a credit card. There is no way I am going to go into next month where they will add $175 to the bill for a penalty fee.  

After my pay raise, I will be able to just keep the money in the account for any profit and that will fund the property taxes and insurance at the end of the year.   

It's basically making me rethink my overnight prices.  I might raise them at least a couple of dollars per per night.  I already did that once and it didn't affect occupancy, people are using the lots I have available right now.  I have 4 available and 3 of them have temp people in them.  One is coming tonight for overnight.  

My monthly prices are also low, I just can't charge higher, I won't get anyone in.  I had a guy call me 2 days ago complaining about other parks in the area and how "high" their prices were.  He thought $450 was outrageous.  Might be a bit high if electricity weren't included, but, electricity IS included in their price, I know because we talk occasionally.  I didn't want to waste time with him, he's likely found out by now that everyone charges at least that much and some much higher.  I mean, you are giving them the spot to park on, electricity, water, sewer, trash and WiFi.  

The lady contacted me again today - this is the one with the German Shepherd puppy - and said she found 3 piles of dog poop in the park.  I looked last night before I left, there was nothing in there.  The tent lady is gone, so it's not her dog as they continued to allege.  This is why I couldn't do anything about it, I had no proof.  And now I'm glad I didn't. I didn't throw those people out, they left on their own volition and left me hanging.

So, I am pretty sure whose dogs are doing it and I am going to have a discussion with them about it.  

However.....I just went and started hooking up the new surveillance system. Just one camera for now with an extension cord instead of going through the trouble of installing outlets.  It is aimed directly at the park and it's kind of hidden on the shed.  I don't want to tell anyone it's up there, hopefully they won't see it.  

Unfortunately, it needs a monitor, I didn't know that I figured I could just use my phone, but it requires a monitor to set it up.  Already found a used one on Marketplace, I can just keep it over there.  

Anyway, that's today doings so far. I'm not done yet, I just came home to get some lunch.  

 So. 

The manager calls me. At 8:30 am.  Now, on the first part of this run, I would already be at the washout getting the tanker washed out by that time.  Oh, we had 2 load cancellations, he tells me.  Yea, I went and got everything ready to go this morning, then go into the tablet and found the load gone.

This happened last night, they didn't bother to give me a head's up.  By the way Mr. Trucker?  Yes, you don't need to get up at 5:30 am. I do have an inkling of an idea of why.  The other driver said yesterday that when he arrived up there to offload, they told him they were having a glue problem and wouldn't be able to get to him right away.  

Yeah, well one tank was completely full when I was up there and after I was done offloading, there was probably enough for one more load in the other tank.  

There was good news, tho, in that phone call, I won't lie.  He told me he was finally able to get to the pay raise and that he was going to give me X amount per load (just not gonna say what I'm getting paid on here for a variety of reasons) and that would be a substantial raise by going per load instead of per mile.

I did a little quick math in my head and figured it would be anywhere from $1,200 to $1,500 more per month. This is exactly what I have been needing from them.  Actual pay, not some pauper's pittance.  Ok, it wasn't quite that bad, but you get the picture.  It isn't a done deal yet, he - my manager - has to get permission from the CEO, but the parameters of pay for the drivers falls in my manager's lap for the drivers he is over.

In other words, he is given X amount of money to pay everyone, out of that pool he has to figure out who gets what and who might get a raise and who won't.  He strictly forbade me to discuss my pay with anyone else.  Rightfully so, I suspect I will be making a lot more than my trainer driver, tho I have encouraged him to ask for a raise as well.  He doesn't know I'm getting more money and I'm not telling him. I have no desire to mess up what very well may turn into a lucrative and very good setup for me, finally, after all the hell I've been through with this company. 

IF the amount of the raise equals to about another $1,000 give or take per month in net pay, I will no longer have to take pay from the business account.  And therefore, no longer pay taxes on those self-written checks.  Remember, I am an LLC and I don't pay Federal taxes if I'm not paying anyone including myself.  If it just sits in there and grows, that's not taxable.  It's business money and it will be used for business purposes.  This is what I have been wanting to happen for several months now.   This is entirely good news, regardless of the bad start today had.  

He said the new pay would start in April.  So, one more check of these low wages and then the new pay structure begins.   There will be no more detention pay - which doesn't bother me because with detention pay I wasn't making much.  It helps a little, but nothing like an actual pay raise that is substantial such as this is going to be.  

On to other things.  A man made a reservation through HipCamp for the tenting area and then 15 minutes later, cancelled it saying "inaccurate description".  Huh?  Inaccurate description of what, exactly? So I wrote him and asked what the alleged deception is?  He writes back and says that I have the town name correct, but in the wrong state. Arkansas instead of Texas.  Huh?  No way.  I didn't believe that for even a millisecond and went straight to the HipCamp software to check it out.  And I was correct: it doesn't say anything  about Arkansas.  To further cement my conclusion, I went into incognito browser on Google - meaning I would be visiting my HipCamp site like anyone else and not showing all the "host" stuff on there. Plain as day, it has the entire address including TEXAS. 

I wrote him back and informed him he was incorrect.  I don't care if he cancels a reservation, but making a claim like that? Please.  

6 rats so far.  I thought they were mice but upon closer observation, those aren't mice in those glue traps inside of that coach. Those are baby rats.  Rats have disgusting tails that are really cringeworthy, at least to me.  I put in 4 more glue traps and left those traps be, still room for more on those other ones, come join your brothers and sisters! By the way, mama, you are invited too!  I haven't caught the mama yet.  I'm going to blast that thing with fumigant again today.  It wasn't just rats, honey, there were cockroaches in there as well.  They came crawling out when I set off those bombs and many of them are on the glue traps as well. 

I am not going to bother doing anything to that coach until I am sure that all of the infestation of rats and roaches and whatever else is out of there.  Just a waste of time to do anything with it until that is completed.  The carpet - new carpet - will have to be thrown in the dumpster and I'll probably chuck the fridge as well. It's disgusting.  It works, but it's totally puke-worthy.  I mean, how could those people live in such squalor? The beds are getting thrown out as well.  Then it will be scrubbed with a soapy bleach mixture as well as vacuuming everything and throwing all their junk out.  Ridiculous.

I think the family of 5 should be pleased today.  They are in town for their daughter's acrobat tournament. They thought it was going to rain today - we ALL thought it was going to rain today. You know, those things called forecasts?  Yea, that completely changed. Now it's showing rain after midnight tonight. 

The family thought it was going to rain all day long today, they are outdoorsy type people, very active the entire lot of them.  The kids love going into the woods on the trails and have named some of the spots, lol.  They are leaving tomorrow, but at least they won't all be cramped up inside that little trailer all day long.  They had a bunch of people over yesterday evening.  I was leaving the park and there was a group of them out there and yes, they did ask for permission first. 

If I would have thought about it, I probably would have taken the truck up to El Dorado today to get it fixed.  Actually, I did think about it and thought, well, I can't go up there without them telling me if they can get to it today. The man told me he can't tomorrow/Friday, he has a day off. And they don't work weekends.  So It's going to have to be next week.  I dread having to sit up there for untold hours waiting on them to fix everything, but that's what they say they intend to do.

That will be a long day. 

The power bill cleared the bank and upon looking at my finances, yes, I am pretty sure I can pay the property tax this month.  Waiting for the trucking paycheck to come in on the 22cd before I make that move.  I have to take a paycheck out of the business account today - I have no choice in the matter. Take the money or bounce auto-pays.  Otherwise I would just go up and pay it today.  If I do that, that only leaves $600 in that account after taking a paycheck.  

Hmm. Going over my prior activity, I don't actually have any more payments this month for the business account.  I could go ahead and get this over with today. $600 is enough to cover any emergencies.  

Wait what?  It's showing I only owe $1,900 and that is with the penalty incurred for late pay.  Huh?  The last time I check, and yes I scrutinized it, it showed I owe $2,400. Now THAT is doable today. That leaves me over $1,200 in the business account even after paying myself, I'm good to go, that is today's "project", tho it usually doesn't take very long.  I just didn't want to leave myself too short on available finances in case something comes up.  There is nothing I can think of that would cost me more than $1,200 or even anything close to it.  Frees up money to get more grass seed, but again, I'm waiting on the results of what I just spread before I spend more money on that stuff. It's just too expensive to take that kind of gamble on it working or not.  I could buy stuff for the coach, but again, we aren't anywhere near that yet.  I don't know how long it's going to take to get all of those rats out of there, just going to buy more glue traps if these new ones get filled up and bomb the starlit Jupiter out of that thing. 

What is really amazing about this, is that my house in AZ is valued more than my property yet the taxes are something like $800 less per year.  My property is in the county, outside of city limits, the city itself is only like 23,000 population, but they feel the need to tax citizens this high?  What are they doing with all of this money? Because rest assured, it's not being used to fix any roads.  








 Lovely.

Just absolutely wonderful.

These people.  

They change runs frequently on me and usually say nothing about it.  Exactly what happened apparently last night.  I get to the park, turn on the truck, lights, etc, do a pre trip, get logged in, go the loads on the table and there it was.

No run today or tomorrow, working the weekend.  I was originally scheduled for 10 days in a row, trust me, I check this stuff all the time now that I know they are just going to change things up. 

I guess I should have checked this morning before leaving here and no, they didn't give me any notice that they had changed it yet again.

Irritating? Oh yes.  Ridiculous, actually.  

Because of daylight savings, it's still dark outside so I just decided to go home and now, this entry and then? I'm just going to plop my butt back in bed for a few hours.  Might as well.  I've got plenty to do over there but I wouldn't dare start making that kind of noise in the dark and this early. Talk about a good way to piss people off. 

Maybe I'll write some more later. 

Thursday - early

Well, I guess the rain today isn't going to happen, but it allegedly is going to start later tonight at around 2 am.  That will likely change as well, I need a nice, light but steady rain to come down and get the grass seed nicely saturated, for yes, I did put that 15 pound bag down yesterday.

It covered most of 14 lots.  I'd need another bag to cover everything.  I'm not doing that, yet, I'll see what happens with this $83 15 pound bag.  If it works, I will probably get another one but that's too much money to gamble  getting another bag before seeing what kinds of results I am going to get.  

IF everything stays the same, I should be able to make that property tax payment before the end of this month.  I think there is one more payment coming out of that business account this month, the rest I can spend on the property tax and, unfortunately, having to pay myself.  I'm wanting to my trucking pay to the point I don't need to pay myself out of the business account and just save that money for expansion or loan down payment, either-or. 

They don't seem too keen on collateral loans in this current lending atmosphere.  I'm not keen on high interest rates and wouldn't do it right now anyway.  I'm trying to pay down debt as it stands, not get into more of it.  

Anyway, I have no choice but to take a check out of the business account in order to stay afloat.  I'm gonig to dump Verizon here pretty quick as soon as I can afford to pay off the phone - it's down to $239 owed on it - and then I won't be spending any more on phone service for I already have it covered under the T Mobile plan for almost nothing more than what I am already paying for the other services.  

Well, I got started late today, it's time to go - Nacogdoches and Lufkin that is.

G'day. 

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

 Wednesday - early\

The motorcycle was fired up and woke up up out of a dead sleep.  Sleeping tracker showed it was a light sleep, I begged to differ with it.  I looked at the clock: 5:27 am.  I was so out of it, I set the alarm to go off at 5:45 instead of the 5:30 I had it at.  It was a waste of time, I knew I couldn't get back to sleep just got my @$$ out of bed, took a shower, got my coffee and that was and is that.

On the docket today, up to Gurdon, deliver the glue and back.  I'm not sure what I will do at the park, it really depends on how I feel once I pull back into the driveway.  I've had an amazing amount of energy the last several days and the only thing I can think of is the multi-vitamins I started taking.  I haven't taken those in quite a while..I think Keto might have left me deficient on some vitamins/minerals is the reason I started taking them again.  

Who knows, but on the way out of the park yesterday, the lady of the family that has been staying there quite a while approached me.  It looked like she was doing spring cleaning, but that wasn't the case at all.  Her toilet had overflowed unbeknownst to them and flooded the entire trailer. This is a newer trailer, btw, not old junk. Newer trailers tend to have poor craftsmanship and cheap parts installed nowadays. I have read enough material about it to understand that if you want to buy a good trailer, you are better off buying a used one that the person has taken care of, they went through the problems that the trailer had and got them fixed.

Oh, well yesterday I also mowed the doggy park. It had clumps of grass that had grown very tall and there was dog poop hidden in some of that.  The old man approached me about the dog poop over by his trailer and didn't try to argue about it.  He simply stated he's old and it's hard for him to pick it up, they are getting a pooper scooper.  I sympathize getting old, I do not sympathize leaving piles and piles of dog poop laying all over the place.  If you can't pick it up, DON'T HAVE A DOG!    Sorry if that sounds uncaring, but they have 2 dogs and one of them is a husky puppy. It's going to grow much bigger and so is it's waste.  

I really don't know what this guy was thinking, like I would never see it?  Or that I would somehow give it a pass? Or worse, that I would clean it up for them? 

Looks like my morning coffee time is already almost over.  Not really feeling it today, just don't feel like going anywhere much less driving a truck to Arkansas and back.

Oh well.

G'day. 


Tuesday, March 12, 2024

 Tuesday - early

You know, some nights sleep is so poor and you wake up yet once again, you might as well just get out of bed.  So, instead of getting out of bed at 5:30, I got up at 5. 

I think it was all the physical exertion yesterday.  It took a long time to get to sleep and I kept waking up.  Digging out that post hole was no small effort, topped with mowing almost everything along with a trip to Lowe's and later on, a trip to Walmart, dealing with people, lots of people, it just went on and on yesterday.  

Also included texting a person about their dogs pooping and them not cleaning it up.  I was push mowing that giant yard next to lot 1 and saw pile after pile of dog poop. Small dogs, not obvious from a distance, but amazingly ridiculous to think that man can bring those dogs out, let them shit everywhere and not clean it up. 

My text was pretty direct,, for this is a pet peeve of mine.  "I do not clean up other people's dog poop.  When you take your dog out to let it do it's duty, it is fully expected that you will immediately clean it up." etc.  

The couple staying for 2 weeks said something in gentle terms about the guy next door, who plays his music and/or video games obnoxiously loud. So, I texted him as well.  Please turn it down a couple notches.  He was cool with it, I haven't heard anything - yet - from these people so we'll see.

Then there was the ant hills.  I was mowing and noticed them on one of the pads itself.  So I was going to get to it before the next people came in, but, they showed up before I got the grass mowed.  It's a family of 5 in a rather small trailer, lol. With a dog.  They also asked for a picnic table. They were here last year for the same thing: their daughter is an acrobat and is competing in a tournament at one of the local universities.  I dealt with that -that was the trip to Walmart in fact.  I am not going to concern myself with every ant hill out there, that's too much, but I will deal with it ON the pads themselves or possible in the lots next to the pads.  

I did, indeed, buy a bag of Bermuda grass seed yesterday. This was a bag big enough to cover 15,000 square feet, or so it says.  It is not a 50 pound bag, it's much smaller.  I guess that seed has a lot more coverage than the same amount of rye grass seed.

I'll put that out tomorrow.  I am still working on that pole for the router.  The 4x4's are out there, I just need to connect them together and put it in the hole. Yeah, that couple that came in? They work out of their rather large 5th wheel and I will accommodate the man in not making too much noise next to his rig, that's where this setup is.  I actually wanted them in the available pull through lot tho. Too late!

So today? Just truck down to Nacogdoches, wash out the trailer, over to Lufkin, fill the trailer and come back. IF the schedule holds out, it will go on like that the next 10 days.  Every time they try to load me up with this much work? It always fails. Something happens along the line and that is the end of that.  I don't wish it, working this job is necessary for now.  

I can tell ya that when I get back today? It will be up in the air if I actually do anything else. Not with the sleep I had tonight.  The lack of it, I should say.  I get naptime in Lufkin tho. The driver's seat is pretty comfortable and it reclines as far back as I want it to go. I usually sit there a while before they even start loading it and then 50 minutes to an hour or longer to load.  It makes no sense, the same product taking 50 minutes 1 day and then an hour and 15 minutes the next time.  Cold has something to do with it, the product thickens up considerably in colder weather and obviously makes it slower to move.

Anyway, it's time to get the thermos filled with hot coffee, get a lunch together and get out of here.

G'day

Monday, March 11, 2024

 Monday not-so-early

Woke up in the middle of the night and it was hours before I could get back to sleep.

I was lucky I didn't have to work today, that would have been miserable.  Instead, I did eventually get back to sleep and I didn't bother getting out of bed until almost 9:00 am.

A text awaiting me: Are you working this weekend?  They at least ask me now.  I'll do what originally was agreed upon: work one weekend, off the next.  So I said yes and they have already loaded my tablet up into next week.  Working every day.  I'm going to find out about this idea of getting paid more this next check, allegedly.  

We'll see.  I thought it was going to be the last check I got on the 7th.  

It was "supposed" to rain this morning, at least what it showed while I was unwittingly awake last night, now it's completely changed to maybe a little rain at noon.  I only say that because I still plan to go get that post and cement, take it over to the park and attempt to dig the hole.  I do have a post hole digger.  

The hard part, of course, is digging out that hole, otherwise it's a fairly simple process.  I've dug enough post holes in that ground to understand it's both digging into roots and digging into the clay that makes it difficult.  

Anyway, I'll look at grass seed prices while I'm there. Maybe I can get a smaller bag and cover some of the park instead of leaving the entire place barren.  

There is nothing else, really. The kids are gone, there is peace and quiet in the house, in fact it was so quiet last night, everyone was commenting on it.  Not that anyone misses it and that was also verbalized.  Like, the youngest especially getting mad at everything. An aunt bought him a headset with microphone for playing his online games, it's very likely going to get much worse with him getting mad at other players.

Personally, I won't stand it, if he's yelling loudly and disrupting the entire house I'll go out there and tell him to zip it if the parents haven't already done that.  Which they normally do, but sometimes it goes on for a while and then I just go out and make him stop.  It's a game, it's not life and death.  They're not allowed to play games that much, thankfully.  Never during the week and limited on the weekends.  

If my business account doesn't go down too much besides paying the electric bill, I should be able to afford the property taxes later on this month after i get a paycheck.  We'll see, but this month it's getting paid regardless, I will find a way to pay them and that will be that.  More debt isn't desirable, losing the property is far less desirable.  I'm trying to not have to do that, that's all I can say about it.  

On top of that is tax day coming up soon enough.  I haven't even started on that but I do expect to get a start this week with the kids gone.  Just a lot better environment to do such work in a quiet house where  you can concentrate without disruptions.  

I hooked the trailer up yesterday when I went to the park after going to church.  I'm ready to just drive straight up to Lowe's and hopefully, they do, indeed, have a 20 foot post.  That would really be optimal in getting well above the nearest trailers and broadcasting the signal to everything in the park.  If it works well, I may do it with the other router in the shed as well.  I wouldn't mind having better coverage behind the shed.  I do get hipcamp stuff in there here and there. 

A lot of Hipcamp lately, however, has been reserving regular lots.  This is why I jacked up my prices on Hipcamp, it's way too much of a loss to have cut throat prices on there even lower than what I'm normally charging through my campground reservation software.  I may up it a little more to get the profit where it needs to be considering people are using my electricity/hookups. 

I think that's about it and daylight hours are burning up. It's only 10:00 am, lol, but I'd like to get this project started and hopefully over with. I would like not to have to rent an auger machine to drill a hole, that's almost $200.  I will definitely try my bests to get that hole dug out without machinery, but it does, indeed, need to go down around 4 feet and that may be difficult.  

Oh, yesterday I was contemplating going to church early and attending one of the adult groups.  But I started thinking about it and continued on thinking about it after I went to church at the normal time, skipping that meeting.  

I know a lot of people who don't go to church because the church burned them.  We're talking about the treatment they received from people in the church, not because they thought the sermons were awful. This is a common theme and it's a wonder that people call themselves Christians and then turn around and treat their so-called brothers and sisters in Christ like that or even worse, the lost in such a mannger. Judgment and gossip.  Knives stuck in your back. I've had all of that and it's the main reason (there are other reasons as well) that I don't get involved with church at all.  Which in turn means why I haven't made a single friend there, I haven't tried and I haven't wanted to.

I have found that worldly people are much more genuine and down to earth AND treat you better than people in church, who are mostly putting on a show and attempting to make themselves look "better" than they really are. I make no such attempts, I am who I am and I don't try to hide my problems.  I don't necessarily discuss them all the time, that's my personal stuff, I just don't go around making myself to look like Saint Paul or Peter or one of the other disciples or claiming I'm the male version of Mother Theresa.  

I am not attempting to say every person in any given church is a pile of mayhem and chaos in fancy clothing, but there are enough people like that to sour the bunch for pretty much everyone that has left the church and declared they would never go back.  I wouldn't recommend my church to anyone, only for the fact that I have no idea how they treat people for I have not gotten involved - at all - with that church because yes, I have been burned by more than one church and I just am having trouble attempting to cross that bridge to go back into some sort of involvement.  

I may go to one of those meetings sooner or later, it will probably be a bit uncomfortable and if they ask me questions I am not going to sugar coat anything.  

Well, I got sidetracked and I need to get about the business of this day.  Tomorrow and the next many days after it is trucking, I'd like to get some stuff done today at the park beyond just that post. 

G'day.


 






 Sunday - early 20 minutes until departure time.  I don't much care for delivery on Sundays for it takes a while to get security to the ...