Friday, August 17, 2018

It's about 7 am Friday morning.  Allegedly I have the entire day and then half of tomorrow to wait until they can empty the trailer.  Besides the detention pay, the other bonus is they have their own yard mule and will move the trailer to the unloading spot themselves. I won't have to go on duty until they call me and tell me it's at about 10 - the inch meter.  It shows how much product is left in the trailer.  What this means is I don't have to go on duty until it's almost done, meaning I can just go over there, hook up and take off. No wasting any of my `14 hour on duty time, which is a big plus when you're trying to get some miles behind you.  Since it will be on Saturday, I might even make it as far as Texarcana before having to stop.  We'll see, but definitely somewhere southwest of Little Rock.

So I started this workout this morning. Much harder than I expected it to be. I mean, I can tell later on today or tomorrow my arms are going to be sore.  I assume tomorrow will focus on some other muscle groupings, these won't be wanting to do anything lol. I'm also going to look at weight loss apps.  I really need to lose about 25 pounds.  Probably there is an app that keeps track of everything you've eaten and drank and keeps a calorie total for you and probably gives you a "nooooooooo don't eat or drink that!" type warning when you're approaching whatever threshold of calories they determine.  Well, all fine and well, but please don't get too carried away with it to start with.

Baby steps.  Although, I am not really eating that much while driving.  A few very low calorie snacks, but nothing heavy.  Now, on this run, I've found a place where I can get home made sandwiches without the stuff on it that adds up on the calorie list.  No mayo being a big one.  Anyone, getting on the scale the other day - I hadn't been on one in probably at least a year - and seeing my weight had gone up 5 pounds to 222? That was enough for  me.  My goal will be to get down to 200.  If I happen to make that anytime in the next 6 months, then I might goal down to the high 180's, where I would be very happy with my weight. 

I was looking through all the fitness apps that popped up after a search and like, crazy! Endless.  So I went online and one of them I saw on my phone that looked interesting was also listed as the best on one site that was doing reviews.  Of course, the site could own the app, who knows, but I'm going to try it.  Myfitnesspal is the name of it and it does, indeed, keep track of calories consumed. 

The thing is recommending 1,810 calories a day. That's not bad. 

Well anyway, that's that.  Just going to slowly emerge myself into that stuff, take small steps and don't try to jump in all at once. That is the kind of methodology that usually fails.  Jumping all in, that is.  In some things that works, not with weight loss and working out.  Okay, well I worked out since I was 10 years old and quit maybe 3 years ago, it might not take forever to get back into it, but for now, I'm going to just do one of those workouts a day for a while and then maybe up the game a bit once I get into the routine. 

I finally saw my paycheck today.  I was concerned because of all of that Cheniere junk, but she did throw in a West Virginia run in the midst of that which is what saved the check from being so small, I would not have been very happy with it.  Now, I've been on a West Virginia run, a day off and then up here to Illinois.  I'll be back Monday and then she can throw in a Cheniere or other one or two day run to get on the books by Thursday and I should have a huge paycheck next round.

I'm really trying to find the right balance for spending, saving and attempting to pay down debt. On the spending front, I'm working on getting some "recreational" services trimmed back a bit.  Direct TV being the biggest.  The packages I have in the house in Phoenix will have to stay where they're at.  I can't keep people in there without unlimited internet and a good satellite package.  Not to mention I'm not really interested in going through all the headaches of switching over to a different company.  I should be getting to the end of the 2 year contract with Dish Network tho.  I'll ask them if they want to switch back to Direct TV.  But I don't want to switch if it's not a financially sound move.  It's likely upon hearing the news of wanting to switch that Dish will offer some sort of incentive to stay.  But at the house I'm living in I can definitely cut that bill in half.  I'm going to be going through my bank account and seeing where I can trim back on expenditures. 

I've been cutting back on eating out while on the road, which definitely saves money but the main reason for it is to cut back on the high calorie, fat filled grease food. Tastes so good, is so terribly bad for you if you want to lost wait and get healthier.  This sitting around in trucks all day long stuff just isn't good for you physically and you really have to discipline yourself to get out of it and walk around and eat smart. 

Another thing I need to do but haven't had the time is clean out the old Buick, find the title and get rid of it.  That will cut back on car insurance expenditures. Hopefully I will sell it for enough to fix the AC in the Jeep.  I'm considering giving the Jeep away.  To who I don't know, but it's been a cash cow.  The only thing left is the front brakes and the ac, everything else in it is fine.  It's got a small amount of accident damage on the rear, but it doesn't look bad.  I really don't need 3 or even 2 vehicles laying around. 1 is enough, the insurance on one is enough.  For the kind of money being spent on insurance, I could easily just rent a car once in a while if it became necessary to put the SUV in the shop.  I'm not sure about getting rid of the Jeep, but I do want to bless someone with it instead of trying to sell it.  Regardless, the car has to go.  It's sitting out front, it's doing no good, it runs great, just a lot of cosmetic and internal issues with it.  Still great for someone that needs transportation that doesn't have a lot of money to spend on a vehicle.  That's probably my next big focus, really, getting rid of that car and getting rid of the extra insurance payment on it.

Today? I dunno. I had thoughts of going and seeing/experiencing something locally.  It's still early yet, I might.  Like 8 am. That caterpillar place really sounds intriguing and it's only 8 miles away. 

Alright, change of plans.  I'm going to go to the theaters.  I looked up reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (they are usually pretty good on overall average ratings of any given film) for every movie showing in the theater. The 2 that stood out were the new Mission Impossible flick and a movie called Alpha about a young man I guess that goes out on his first hunting trip, gets injured, pairs up with a wolf and goes through a bunch of perils to make it back to safety.  Rotten tomatoes and the reviews were all good on that one.  I don't think I want to go to the theaters to see that goofball Tom Cruise. His politics of which he decided to make know quite some time back are horrible and turned me off. 

Actors should really just keep to acting.  Simply because their name is known to everyone does not therefore equate to any kind of standing in the political realm. Does anyone give any of these people any credence in their thinking and views of politics? Another one is Whoopi Goldberg.  Was a great actor, but she is a train wreck on the View.  I occasionally watch the view to laugh at all of them, but I really hate to "support" the show by upping it's ratings.  Anyway, I've decided to go see Alpha.  Seems like a decent flick, I'll find out.  I'll watch Mission Impossible when it's available online. 

Okay, leaving for that in half an hour. Sort of sticking around in case they somehow decided that they could unload it today - but they were pretty adamant that they could offload that trailer until tomorrow afternoon.  Pretty much when they say they can do it, that's when it's going to be done.  But, if they don't get their pump - another pump went down this time - fixed, who knows.  This place has frequent issues, hence I like coming up here. 

And here's the reason why they order product they can't use right away:  the plant where we get the product has X amount of slots on any given day.  It also has X amount of ethylene it can produce.  The slots fill up in advance.  Companies aren't ordering it same day, a lot of it is ordered weeks in advance.  Well, if you miss your slot, you aren't going to be able to just call up and say I need some "now".  See the problem?  Their plant shuts down but they anticipate it coming back up in a few days.   If they send the product back, they don't get another load of it coming this weekend.  Now, they have a functional plant but no product to make the - crazy - product they make.  THEIR chemical that they make with a bunch of different chemicals explodes on contact with water.  I should have written the name of it down, it's used in all kinds of products, even makeup I was told.

Anyway, it's better for them to pay the driver to sit around and wait then to have the product leave and then have to shut down the plant and send people home.  That's the bottom line.  I definitely didn't know for sure yesterday what the end decision would be, but I kinda guessed it would be the wait option. 

I'd love to go back after this and hang around a day or two, but she already said "you'll have a fresh 70 hour reset after this" meaning it will likely be right back out on the road the next morning after getting home. That will motivate me to drive like crazy tomorrow and try to get as close as possible, get a good night's sleep, drive it out and at least see my doggies for half a day. 

With that, I best get ready to leave!  I'm excited to go to the theaters, haven't been in a long time!



















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