Sunday, March 4, 2018

Short trip to El Dorado over and done with. The new truck had the orange engine light come on - but nothing happened. I just stayed on.  I have driven lots of trucks with orange engine lights on that the dealer can't ever figure out what's wrong with it and you eventually just ignore it.  Now, the red engine light, completely different story. That's, shut the truck down right now type of deal.  The interior of that truck is absolutely beautiful . How those people could live in it for almost a million miles and keep it in that great of a condition, well, I know how, it's just amazing to finally find someone that actually cares enough to take care of a rig that doesn't belong to them.

Hitting it again early tomorrow.  Get to the plant by 7 am, get loaded, head up to Barnsdall, Oklahoma, north of Tulsa.  That's also an overnight trip but probably twice as long as this El Dorado one.  I figure to see if the truck does alright, bring it back, tell them it needs to be taken to the shop and find out what the engine light is, but I want that truck. They can dump me back into that automatic pile of junk for a few days while they fix the thing.  Barnsdall is a better run because it's more miles plus it also has a lot of detention time, usually anyway.  But, I have always made it back that night on the second day from that trip.  I usually arrive so early that I'm tempted to get a hotel. 

As it stands, last night I drove to the nearest town, parked in a strip mall parking lot (tractor only, they make you unhook the trailer to unload it), went into Applebee's and had some dinner.  Spent my 10 hour break in the parking lot and then got up at 4 am, got a cup of coffee and headed back to the plant.  That got me home 30 minutes ago, about 9:30 am. 

Now, on the house searching front.  Rene went ballistic yesterday. Just flipped the switch. I wasn't even talking to her and started getting all these outrageous text messages.  She does this from time to time, out of the blue.  Everyone is claiming stress over the move.  Wonderful, go look in a mirror and spew out all that vileness, I don't need it.  Over 20 texts, I didn't reply to a single word of it.  If I had, I probably would have let loose and that would have just made the situation worse. 

Anyway, I put out ads on local Facebook groups - most of them are groups for selling stuff, but they let you put up ads asking for things as well. I got several responses - and a bunch of moochers piling on my ads trying to get the houses being offered to me, but one of them stood out. A 3 bedroom, 2 bath house with a huge, fenced in back yard.  $800 per month which is in their range.  Note, this isn't for me, it's for he 2 living here. They have the monthly rent money, there will be $250 after $800 that they already pay, which will mostly cover satellite and wifi.  Somewhere around another $200 to $250 for utilities.  I pledged a flat rate of $200 for watching my dogs - trust me, dog sitting for dogs for as much time as I'm gone would cost far more than that at a kennel or even just a person coming over to take care of them.  They get a huge back yard to play and run around in.

So, I sent the info to Donny - the other roommate here - and informed him if he wants to go for it, he prolly best go looking tonight (last night) cause there are people piling up on my house request ads.  so, he went over there. Somehow he got into the house, took some pics.  Looked like fresh paint, nice hardwood flooring, nice condition.  I dunno how big the bedrooms are, probably not terrible large judging from the size of the house, but this fits their price range and is a decent neighborhood. We are going this afternoon at 1 to meet with the owner and see about getting it..IF we get this house, then that'st most of the battle right there. The rest of it is just getting the utilities turned on, satellite installed and wifi installed.  And moving there, lol.  It's also less than 2 miles away from here, so commuting back on forth will be easy for her. 

So, fingers crossed and prayers up.  I hope to have this phase of this behind me today.  Just too much to deal with these people losing it.  I understand they are in bad health, really don't want to be moving around, etc.  I'm doing what I can to help them, and if they get into it, I'm sure they can just stay there if they decide they want to for as long as they want to.  Donny doesn't care where he lives for the most part as long as it isn't ghetto.  He spends most of his time in his bedroom.  I don't know who is getting what room or how that's working out, I have no input into that and I don't care. Let's just get a house and get this over with.

Now, this new truck I'm in.  I was opening the cabinet doors and was literally shocked upon opening one of them to find a built in refrigerator.  It just looks like a cabinet door like the rest of the interior of the truck from the outside.  I just bought a ac/dc cooler, so I guess I wasted my money on that if I end up keeping this truck - which I'm 99% sure I will. Even at a million miles, it's a far nicer rig than that pile of junk Volvo.  This one has a bunk bed, which is nice for storing clothes and duffel bags.  I has a clothes closet for hanging clothes and a couple other smaller closets for putting your person things. It's completely cleaned out, even the far interiors of the closets, which was impressive.  The only hesitancy is the million mile part. Truck parts don't last forever.  Alternators, fuel pumps, fuel injectors, power steering pumps, electronic sensors. 

Anyway, I have basically a full day home today.  My only goal is to go with Donny and see if we can secure this house.  We can have ourselves a party afterward if it clicks.  Since I have an early load time tomorrow, foregone conclusion I will be up near Barnsdall early afternoon.  I will probably get myself a hotel room.  I didn't last night because I figured I would want Monday night.  I figure to be there no later than 3 pm, which is a 17 hour layover.  The town with the hotels is called Bartlesville. Barnsdall doesn't have any hotels.  It doesn't have much of anything lol. A restaurant and a gas station.  And the plant.  Bartlesville is something like 21 miles away.  Been there done that.  In fact, I think I'll try the hotel sites after this and see what kind of deals there may be.

Well, I think I'll end this one, actually.  Breakfast is almost served. 









































 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 ...