Monday - night

Uhh, well. This year for New Year's was different. The father wasn't here and his friend either.  But it doesn't matter, the police were all over our neighborhood and we were just setting off those hand held things that just make a little sprinkle.  The cop came through the neighborhood while we were doing that. Turns out, that is the husband of the lady we know well just down the street (literally 5 houses away).  She called and told the lady of our house that if we have any grand things to shoot off, do it right now.  

So we did. I didn't buy anything year to clarify. It's expensive and I blew some money on Christmas.  But another guy bought a pack of these things that shoots 100 of them up in the sky - WAY up in the sky - 1 at a time.  We had no more gotten done with that and everything else that we had that were - trouble - and other cops showed up.  

But we had already cleaned up the mess and there wasn't anything being lit up lol.  

Today was the last day of holiday break for the kids, They've been out of school for over 2 weeks, time to go back.  The youngest one has been getting into endless trouble disobeying and defiance, that is normal for him unfortunately. Otherwise it's been pretty good.  

I was trying to get a younger guy over to help me dig out the electrical trench going from the power pole to the meter stand - he said he wanted to do it but was sick. Everyone is getting sick around here and whatever it is? It's not nice. I'm really hoping to stay away from that stuff.  I just need help and that's that. I don't want to do all of this work by myself, at the same time, I don't want to hire some lazy @$$ who wants paid but would rather play on their phone.  It's hard to find people that will actually work, even if you're offering them $20 per hour. I think that's pretty good money, it certainly is for this area.  Most of the jobs around here that are unskilled labor is just restaurant stuff with yes, restaurant pay.  

I'm still holding out for this dude, from his pic he looks to be late teens early 20's. He had an ad on the local gossip group about doing all kinds of odd jobs for pay.  Otherwise, I will keep looking.  People that post ads don't necessarily have more motivation, I have found out the hard way.

The news I saw of Maduro being arrested IN Venezuela on a extremely daring and one would consider it to be a risky operation for our nation's military to carry out such a complicated quest was shocking to me.  I am not saying almost shocking.  When I woke up that morning and saw that news, I was shocked.  I knew they were killing cartel personnel on the boats in open water, but they had only talked about boots on the ground.  

What I later learned was that Maduro's "palace" or whatever he is living in is ON a military base!  Our warriors went into a foreign military base and in 3 minutes, captured him and his wife, read them their rights and put them on helicopters and got the h*** out of there with ZERO casualties on our side.  

It took me a while to process all of that.  And to attempt to understand how we could do this legally.  Turns out, other presidents have been using AUMF's to carry out such operations and no one batted an eye, or certainly nothing like that firestorm that has come from Democrats against Trump on this one. These people seem to actually support Maduro!  This many is an absolute tyrant and Biden himself upped the ante on his capture to 25 million.  There is a lot more to that story - democrats being absolute hypocrites with forked tongues, but I don't want to go into any more of that in depth.  

It irritates me that they say one thing when someone on their side does something but then the exact opposite when someone on the other side does the exact same thing.  Fetterman, one of the few voices that derides and admonishes democrats when he thinks they are wrong while himself being a democrat - applauded the move to get Maduro and rebuked his democrat counterparts.  Schumer is busy talking about the unconstitutionality of the action, talking heads are railing against Trump saying he must be removed from office, etc so on and so forth.  

I've been reading and watching a lot of footage on this thing for I found it fascinating that they would actually attempt such a brazen measure to invade one of their military bases to extract the president of their nation out of his home ON the base!  Of course, most people think the election was stolen by Maduro and from the reports I am seeing, Venezuelan citizens are dancing in the streets and celebrating the demise of Maduro.  

I could go on for many more paragraphs about my interest in this subject, but I'm not going to.  I haven't written in many days, I wanted to get something posted.  I was second load today to load the truck but I still got home at a decent time.  The dude that was permanently kicked out of the plant in Gurdon still goes into the loading plant to load a trailer and then they switch trailers. He picks up another empty and another driver picks up the loaded one and delivers it.  It's a pretty raw deal going there, loading every single time and not having to both drive clear up to Gurdon and not having to offload the product is not fair to anyone else by any stretch of the imagination.

It's because he is getting paid fully half of a trip's worth to load and then drop.  It's a bit ridiculous that he's getting away with that.  Anyway, the dude that is taking the loaded trailer up tomorrow and also the first load slot? Yeah, it's that guy that doesn't show up up there until 11:15 am.  That's an hour and 15 minutes past his scheduled appointment time. I know this because I texted the company asking them who is delivering.  When they told me that, I flatly informed them -  I didn't ask for I don't need to, I have discussed this with them at length in the past - I am going up early and I will be out of there before he ever shows up. 

They didn't have a problem with this and they shouldn't have a problem with it.  I also need new steer tires, I have tried twice now to get them. We are restricted to one tire outlet for tires now, namely: Southern Tire Mart. They do get a good deal there, but there are times when it's a bit ridiculous.  I needed tires last week.  The front end is shaking so bad now, I don't even want to drive it like that.  

Regardless, I am unloading tomorrow and then going to one of their locations in Texarcana. They don't have one in my town and there are none down south or I would have had it done today.  

Not much else? I dunno.  I'm just trying to get something going with the expansion.  There's a lot more work but I want to get it done. At least the first 3 or 4 lots. Please.  I've got the septic in the ground, I've got the meter stand up, I've got a trench going, I just need to get into the trench, finish the sewer setup so I can get the electrical lines and water line put down as well as the pedestals.  Get that trench filled in and form the lots, get loads of gravel in and walaah. 3 or 4 new money makers.  Put ALL of the proceeds from those lots whenever they get filled up into a separate account and use that money to further my project along until there is at least 16 more lots in there.  Considering they put in a larger septic system? I think I can get 20 lots on it tho I don't know if I have the room for it.  

BUT, to do all of that means creating an entirely new driveway and I can tell ya, there's at least 15k worth of gravel just doing that.  I am installing the first 7 on the main driveway side so I don't have to create the entire new driveway all at once.  This is the plan, it's the part about getting it done that is the problem.  

And I really need a large building.  One that can have a small office, a workshop where I can have all of my tools, more bathrooms and a rec room.  It's a lot of money.  I have a place for it, I just am not in the position right now to do anything like that.  I have too much debt going and I need to pay that down for a while.  I have hardly been using any cc debt at all now and for quite a while, but I let it crank up there doing all of the work I have already done in building that shed and getting it finished.  

I have thought about that and I probably won't do that again.  I would rather buy something that is built to order right off the bat and just do payments on it. I could get another shed like the one I already have to service the next lots and then sometime in the future, get that big building put in.  

And then there was the New Year's tragedy here.  A small town one town over from us.  House fire and yes it was New Year's.  The news flooded the local gossip group for that town is basically a part of this town. A family had had their house burn down. The information at first was that 2 people had perished.  But then the reality of the gruesomeness of this fire came to light after the news came out that it was 8 and 11 year old brothers that had perished in the fire. And only a few minutes after I found that out, someone posted a pic of the family including the boys posing for what appeared to be Christmas pics.

It was horrifying.  Because you looked at those boys and you knew they were now dead.  It only gets worse.  The father rushed in trying to save them, he has 3rd degree burns over most of his body. But the rest of the story came to me a few hours ago.  You see, the father was trying to save his son's lives and he could hear them screaming while they were being consumed by the fire.  

This is a tragedy beyond tragedy.  The man is in intensive care but he refuses to receive pain medication.  One can only guess the agony he is in right now, not because of the pain of the burns but because of the agony of hearing his son's screaming for help and tho he tried, he couldn't save them.  I remember when my house burned down, I was waking up in terror in the middle of the night seeing the hotel room in flames.  

The hotel room was not in flames. They said it's a normal after effect of going through something like that. But this man? What kind of terror does his sleep bring him if he can even go to sleep?  What kind of emotional turmoil is he going through constantly?   The community has drawn together, they lost everything . Gofundmes, people donating clothes, furniture, food, toiletries, gift cards, etc.  

I'm afraid if I lost 2 kids like that, I wouldn't want to live.  The trauma would be unbearable.  Maybe you could get over it enough over time to have some kind of life, but what would it be? How do you get past something like that?  If it is possible, it's only possible through the Lord, at least in my mind.  But you don't get past something like that.  I have a friend whose 15 year old son died while taking fentanyl. He was peer pressured into it and died that day.  She is not over it and it's been 3 years now.  She will probably never get over it. I am not judging her, I am telling the story of a parent's pain and the fact that they cannot live life normally while knowing their precious child has perished.  

I'm going to make a donation to the gofundme as well, now that I think about it.  

In other news, my mom was saddened when she really "I really screwed this one up".  This is in relation to the fact that I didn't come for Christmas, but that's because the last I had talked to her, she wasn't in the mood for company.  She readily agreed when I brought that up shortly before Christmas. I told her she didn't screw anything up, it's not the end of the world. My oldest brother invited me to his house - but a week or less before Christmas? I have a job, I have to ask for time off to do such things in advance. I have to let people at the park know I'm going to be gone and now, I have to try and find someone to deal with any problems that arise.

My friend is now a truck driver, an OTR truck driver, he is not available to fix anything.  You can't just expect me to drop everything and try to make something happen. We all know Christmas is coming and if you want me there, tell me a few MONTHS in advance.  So, I am tentatively going to go for Easter.  No guarantees, but I'd like to see mom again. She's 90 and tho she is still in ok health, you know that getting that old, everything has slowed wayyyy down and things are getting harder to do.  It is amazing she is still living alone, albeit with her little doggy.  

She doesn't want any help.  She could have a house sitter come in and just help her but she refuses.  She feels like she would be in an assisted living type of center albeit in her own home.  I just replied that they aren't a nurse, they are just people that show up and help you get things done that you can't do. They stay around for a shift and then they leave.  It's not what you want, obviously, but you may eventually have to have it.  I dunno, I think I got through to her a little but I'm not sure.  The time will come where she will either have to do that or she will have to live somewhere such as...an assisted living center. Why not just stay home and get the help? She has the wherewithal to afford it. 

I just have to let go and let God in that situation.  She is stubborn about it and that's fine, it's her life she can live it the way she wants.  I respect her wishes I just hope she will change her mind when the time comes.  I think staying at home with a sitter is a FAR better option than going and living in some assisted living center, don't you? I dunno, everyone sees things differently in this life. 

Well I think that's enough.  I have abated the intense desire to find a new job.  I try to get my senses about me after I go through something at this job - the last thing being that driver that kept me waiting over 3 hours. I just wanted to quit.  I told the manager flatly that "there are no consequences" and other things I said in a bit of anger, to be honest. No, not a bit of anger, i was angry.  Angry that this driver did all of that and even worse that management knew about it and did nothing about it.   I got over it now and just dealing with this job the best I can.   As I have said many times before, it's the schedule that works for me, there aren't many trucking jobs with the kind of schedule I am afforded with this one.  I don't work a lot of hours, at least not by trucking industry standards.  By other industry standards I am working overtime.

People get wide eyed when I tell them about trucker's hours and how long the days are for an OTR driver.  People think the job is easy.  They have NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT.  I could find another job, yes, but I doubt I'd find these hours. I don't need to do this for 20 more years.  I'm thinking now, as long as my health lasts of course, that I should probably consider doing it until I'm 65.  I would like to hope I had at least these extra 16 lots in by then and possibly the other 25. I have goals, but the older I get, the more I look at them and wonder if that's really attainable considering my age? 

I think I can, actually, at least the lots. I dunno about swimming pools and buildings.  

Well, it's bedtime and I've written enough for one entry.