Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Wednesday/home.
I don't want to be home too long tho. I need more runs to make some decent paychecks to make up for the last two weeks lack of much of anything.  And the coveted detention pay isn't happening.  No guarantees on that anyway, just nice when it does happen. A brownsville run on the weekend sometimes guarantees that.  If I get sent down there on a Friday or a Saturday and there are no trailers, none will show up til monday as the port is closed on the weekend where the trucks come through.  Anyway, I'll be texting my manager around 1 or 2 pm to nudge her that yes, I'm here, no I don't want to stay home, yes please send me out somewhere. 

Very disconcerting tho that the 2 "loaner" drivers won't be leaving.  Get rid of those 2 plus the 2 that just left and that would open up a lot of runs and keep the rest of us much busier.  I can only hope that more people will quit or switch to another division.  Cause they aren't getting those runs back anytime soon and another company has moved in to try and take as much of it as possible. In fact, I've heard nothing but good about that other company.  I'm thinking of applying there if/when I finally come to the conclusion that this place isn't going to work. And if I keep getting paychecks like I did last week and nothing this week, well, that won't take long. 

Anyway, I do want to be home, lol, just money takes precedence at the moment. I think I'll keep home activities light today as well.  I'm thinking I really need to get that Jeep into the shop tho and get that issue fixed on it so I can use it while I have the SUV in the shop and get the struts/shocks replaced.  Yes, I think I'll see if the shop a mile away will do it today. 

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Lovely.  The Jeep was cheap, just $47 to get that situation taken care of. Then down the road to get it inspected for state inspection.  Had to have a few things done to it, but got out of there cheap enough and passed inspection.  Now - the expensive thing. My struts are toast on the SUV.  It's a seesaw when it hits even a minor bump.  The shop I was at quoted me $1,500 and change.  Lol.  "We offer financing".  Okay buds.  I'll check around first, I thought, and get quotes from a few other shops and also look up the parts online.  Well, the each strut is almost $200 a piece.  Some electronic air bag type of thing.  So there's $800 worth of parts when including tax just for the parts.  I dunno about $700 worth of labor.  I was watching a video to see how hard they are to replace, I've done this before. 

It's neither easy nor hard.  Well it can be really hard depending on the vehicle.  I only watched a few minutes of the video tho.  You have to take a bunch of stuff off to get at the strut and the new ones come with the complete strut assembly.  I dunno what I'm going to do yet - but it needs to be done.  I have a call into another shop and awaiting a quote. 

So that all cost me hours worth of my day. And the other place called me back, and even steeper price at $1,700.  But now I find out it's just regular struts, it's not these expensive electronic ones of the air bags.  So I'd have something like $500 in parts to do it myself.  I may very well decide to put the thing in the back yard, back the whole thing up, take all wheels off and have at it.  I dunno, just gonna sit on this for a little bit and think about it.  Lots of time would be involved but to save a grand? 

Well, in another headache, I've had to tell the male tenant in the house to get out.  He's cranking on meth and we don't tolerate that crap.  It may end up costing me tho, I currently have all 3 rooms rented out. He's gone on the 31st, I'm hopeful to find someone by then, but who knows.  That guy has been the source of a lot of conflict, tho, I'm kinda glad to see him go even if the money goes with him.  He's got Hepatits C and Rene complains she's caught him drinking out of the milk carton and sticking his fingers into community food.  He consumed the rest of her birthday cake - she had a slice and the other lady had a slice - and left only one slice left. 

So, life never gets boring, but sometimes it poses headaches.  Meanwhile, my lady friend here is going through here

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And more.  I'm pretty well involved in this family when I'm here.  I cook a lot too.  Even my Keto diet stuff they'll eat.  I tried out a meatloaf tonight.  The ingredients for the meat part were kind of funky, but I did it anyway.  However, the ingredients for the red sauce on the top? Tasted nasty.  After adding a lot of sugar free ketchup to it, well now then. Coated the top of it with half the mixture, cooked it, coated it with the rest of the mixture after that? Delicious!  It really turned out much better than I thought it would.  James at half the pan lol.  Taylor was having a bad day and didn't eat anything. 

Well I didn't get sent a run, so I'll eat tomorrow but I'm going to insist on getting sent out on Friday. 





















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