Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Rene.
I don't know what this person was doing over at that house - well I have a good idea, but I guess my take on it needed to be multiplied by 1,000 - but she certainly didn't make any friends . 

Maria says 3 neighbors  - all ladies - have come up to her since Rene left and thanked God that she was gone.  What on earth was she saying to these people? How was she behaving?  Maria is all content now, the dogs aren't fighting anymore - her 2 dogs and mine - and everything is running smoothly.  Of course, there isn't anyone else there.

Why? Because the guy that moved in several weeks ago had one night in there and left. 

I'm finding out that Rene was making noises all night long, yelling at the dogs constantly, barking orders to Maria and tried that s*** with the new guy who just didn't show up after that.  I thought he was going to move out and that was going to put me in some dire straits with that house. 

And now, she has taken all of that baggage and issues and internal stuff to Michigan, and it will only be a matter of time before it all comes out up there.  She can only hide that stuff so long before she starts dumping on literally everyone. She will wear out her welcome and then?  I don't want to hear from her.  Not for a place to live.  She no only left a good thing, but she almost destroyed it in the process. 

Ken - the new guy - told Maria Rene is controlling and an authoritarian.  He wanted no part of it. I really don't blame him, but I had no idea the extent of Rene's doings over there. To put it into perspective, she told Maria I owe her $250 for every week that she watched my dogs.  That was the original idea of this - Rene agreed to watch my dogs and I would get a place for her to live and take responsibility for the bills.  This is what she agreed to.  Anyway, I thought I had washed my hands of her until I heard all of this nonsense.  A person that literally cannot get along with anyone.  That takes a special kind of magic.  

Maria is a very happy camper right now, at least so she says. She loves my dogs and they all hang out together in her bedroom. She's asking for satellite in the living room and I may just do that since the package allotted for 4 receivers - we never had the 4th one installed because there wasn't a 4th tv there when the tech arrived to install it.  So it wouldn't cost anything more than what I am already paying for the service. 

Anyway, yesterday.  Driving down those hilly, narrow, steep, winding roads through all over these little bitty towns was quite fascinating.  It isn't the Pennsylvania I remember, but then again, I grew up in Pittsburgh and that's a ways off from there.  Just fascinating all the old structures and houses built out of stone - not bricks or blocks - stone.  Of course, there was a bunch of new homes with vinyl siding, not really interested in that stuff.  I followed both GPS and the written instructions.  I got to the road they were both telling me to turn on and - whoa Nelly.  I turned down on it and stopped. No traffic coming down there at all.

The first thing that got my attention was the "Bridge ahead 7/8th's mile.  8' 9"

Yea, this truck is not going under a less than 9 foot tall bridge.  And the first turn - I wasn't even sure I could make it around it.  But reading the written instructions, it said there was a road to turn on right at - and before - the bridge.  I went down this road with 10 and 15 mile an hour sharp curves, steep angles but pretty scenery.  All farmland.  People giving me strange looks - what's that doing here? The truck that is.  I was wondering the same thing, but I was sure  I was following the instructions correctly not to mention GPS, so I continued on. 

But that nagging feeling - good grief, if I have to turn around? I'll be backing all the way back out of here.  There is no place to turn around! The road was extremely narrow, the truck didn't fit into one lane.  It was basically a one way road but with double yellow lines painted on it anyway.  Well, here comes the bridge.  Lol.  I took a pic, I'll have to post it on Facebook.  And sure enough, another even narrower road with the truck just barely clearing the telephone pole right at the corner. 

Passing by more old structures, barns, houses and such, I finally came to the plant. 

I don't really want to spend too much time discussing the plant. They're all the same, go in, watch a safety video,, sign in, get a badge, go out to truck, wait.  And wait. And waaaaiiiiiiiit.  35 minutes later - umm - you have to go down that street go get back to where you need to go.  Fine, open the entrance gate, I'll back out and pull in there.  This plant has no room.  I mean, it's a cramped facility.  Regardless, I got the truck into position and then the dude told me it would be a while.  How long is a while? A couple of hours.

I dunno why, but I didn't sleep very well that night before, so I crawled up into my sleeper bed and went to sleep for a while.  2 hours later the guy comes up and says a lunch truck comes in every day if I want to get something to eat. I thanked him, but no thanks, I have my own food.  It was almost 6 hours in that plant unloading that truck.  Petrified Forestedly slow unloading time. 

To add to the situation, the pressure on my tank was at 72 pounds when he was done. He informed me most drivers just leave like that but he could bring the pressure down - if I wanted to wait half a day.  Their system needs upgrading is all I can say about it.  I got out of there, drove down the road a while, found a place and brought the pressure back down.  Then drove out my hours.  Made it to a town called Max Meadows.  I was wanting to stay at the Love's but it was full. Love's are always full now, early.  This was a Sunoco truck stop.  A small store, a small hotel and a restaurant.  I took my food in there and heated it up in their microwave. Yes I asked and yes I bought something just to make it feel right to be using their stuff.

This morning, I decided I was going to fill my gut before I left as the restaurant had opened. Some nice country ham, eggs and tomato slices.  No toast, no grits, no potatoes, thanks.  Delicious. 

Fairly uneventful drive to where I'm at now except for all the selfish drivers on the road.  And all the rest of them that are more interested in what their cellphones are showing them than what the road is presenting before them. 

I drove out 600 miles - still had enough time to go ahead and drive another 100 - but I decided to stop at TA truckstop on the outskirts of Meridian, MIssissippi.  It was almost full when I got in here at 6:00 pm, it was  filled up after I went looking for a space. I passed 2 of them by thinking there was one down at the end, only to find a tractor with no trailer hooked to it occupying that space. Cardinal sin in trucking, if you don't have a trailer, you need to go park in the regular parking lot and save the spaces for anyone else coming in there. 

Anyway, there was one spot left at the entrance - as soon as I went to pull back around to grab one of those other spots, 3 trucks came in and took them up.  Because I"m near the entrance, I've watched at least 100 trucks come flying in here and go flying right back out after driving around the parking lot and finding nothing.  If they bothered to use the Trucker's Path app, they would know it's full and not waste time coming in here. I've updated it a couple of times now. 

Anyway, all this stuff about Rene today was quite unnerving.  I just don't understand how a person can act like that and think that anyone wants to be around them? 

I'm 381 miles from the yard.  About  7 hours when including the bs that you have to do in trucking lol.  I could leave at 4:00 am, but why bother.  I'll get up at 6:00 am and get home mid afternoon - it's not just the time getting to the yard, it's the time spent getting out  of the yard as well and then 37 miles home, a stop along the way for my dogs. 

I'm hoping for 2 days off when I get home - but I won't ask for it. If I get sent out on Thursday - it's Tuesday night - I won't complain and take whatever it is and go with it.  I could stand to use about 4 of these types of trips in a row, to be honest.  I won't get that, but that's what would get me well ahead  I've still got expenses coming up that will just continue to drain the bank, not to mention the bill I put on the credit card to pay for the struts for my vehicle.  I'm paying that balance off before the end of the month.  My credit card usage needs to stay low to keep my credit healthy. 

Well enough of this. Not that late, but I"m going to watch some tv and then go to sleep.









 Monday - afternoon The oldest was in a very bad mood this morning.  Out of character and amazingly, the roles were reversed. The youngest w...