Saturday - mid morning

Yesterday was probably the most miserable day I've had in a long time.  This was the day to go to the yard in El Dorado, pick up an empty to take to the washout in Crossett, pick up a washed out empty  and take it to a chemical plant in Bastrop, LA, load, take it back to the yard and then go home.

The reason it was so bad is because I got sick again.  That night I slept very poorly because of it and maybe was operating on 4 hours of sleep.  I was just fighting fatigue and feeling yucky all day long and it was a long day at 13 hours.  It didn't help that it took longer than necessary at the yard for the manager to get the necessary paperwork - that should have been ready when I arrived and then it took forever at the plant to load.  Top that with ridiculously slow speed limits in both Arkansas and LA and you have a long, long day.  

In fact, after leaving the yard in Eldo on the way back, I had to stop and take a 20 minute nap. 

I have the entire weekend off and I needed it.  I got 2 days worth of pay for yesterday so it's basically the same as having worked 6 days this week.  That's good enough and the only thing I am doing this weekend is going to an IHOP breakfast this morning for one of the kids in our group - we celebrate all of their birthdays - have breakfast, come home and rest.  Tomorrow the same, church, home, rest.  

Credit score raised 21 points for unknown reasons, looked at it and just thought, well that's nice.  I have numerous loans offers to pay off credit card debt that are becoming much more attractive now with much lower interest rates than it was only a few months ago.  I may take one of them.  I've become quite good now at not using credit cards for much of anything. I've cut back eating out to the point I am no longer bleeding money out of my checking account, if I took one of those offers and if they actually give it to me, I could cut expenditures probably around $800 or more per month.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Plus, the loan has an end date. 

Credit card debt can go on for a very long time depending on the amount of money you owe on each individual account.  The goal I had was to keep my expenditures in line with amount of money coming in and I  have finally accomplished that.  I also have a loan to keep me afloat while I was taking time off of a regular job to get the park built.  I could pay that off and pay off most of my card debit and lose a lot of outgoing payments in exchange for a bigger monthly payment - but still far less than what I am paying now.

It is going to rain all day long.  Thunder/lightning right now, we were under tornado watch for 3 days in a row and today they are saying still a strong possibility of tornadoes.  Not a fan, thanks.  I am a fan of the rain noise when I can stay home and do nothing.  Note that I am making a caveat to previous statement: I will probably sit here today and start going through paperwork.  For taxes, that is.  

So what about a park expansion loan? Definitely a real possibility I will go for it after I get taxes done.  They will want the tax return for documentation.  No rush here, interest rates have come down which is what I was waiting on, the dream is to build the park big enough to live off of the income with no outside jobs.  The reality is: No clue if I can get a loan that big or not.

I need amenities to go with a bigger park. A large building with an office, a C-store, a small gaming room, a couple of bathrooms with showers, more laundry capacity.  My laundry is getting used every day.  I don't much care for it for it fills up my septic system quickly.  The aerator sprinklers spray it out but still.  I have no choice, it's septic or nothing and you certainly can't have people living their with nothing. The only alternative is a large tank, say 10,000 gallons, buried and the waste goes into it and then you have trucks coming regularly to pump it out.  

Every 6 days, I would have to have it pumped by my calculations and with that much liquid, it would cost a lot of money per month.  I actually want a larger septic put in this time if I do get a loan than what they are recommending.  

I am facing untold hours worth of work to get my taxes done, that's a fact. 

And then, there's politics.  Maybe later.  I need to shower before we go to the IHOP event. 

G'day.  

 Thursday - early

Couldn't sleep so just got up, got out of bed, took my shower, etc.

Yesterday, I get a call from the manager.  Do you know what happened up at Gurdon?  After a bit of conversation, yes I had seen someone had made a spill, no I didn't know who did it and I didn't alert anyone because it looked like it had been there a while and the plant already knew about it.

Well, the plant didn't know about it until they found it, meaning the driver that caused the spill didn't report it.  He sent me pics to verify that it looked like the pics he sent? Yes.\

I then sent 4 suggestions to eliminate this issue of a driver spilling glue all over the place and not reporting it to the plant.  One of which was implemented immediately by the plant manager.  Drivers will now have to report to the manager on duty to have them verify that that delivery area is ok. 

This will cause the driver/s who are doing this stuff to pay more attention to what they are doing so they don't cause the spills in the first place or, one would hope, ask for help in determining what they are doing wrong that is causing it in the first place.                                                                                                  

I was in the mindset that although I am creating more work for myself - finding someone to come out and look could be a problem at times - I am also creating a stop for the plant to say yes, we have implemented a plan and we are dealing with it.  Otherwise? Our company could easily lose the contract next time it comes up for potential chopping block. 

Meanwhile, I'm watching Trump imposing a 25% tariff on all imported automobiles.  And other tariffs I do believe on goods being shipped to our country from nations all over the place.  The left is, of course, having a meltdown over this, the same as they claimed Trump is eliminating SS.  BTW, the price of eggs is coming back down.....

What Trump pointed out is past Presidents allowing the world to walk all over us, basically, charging tariffs on goods coming from our country to their but not getting the same treatment in return. He is forcing their hands and I applaud it.  Canada says they are going to fight it - yet Canada charges us some of the biggest tariffs that exist on the planet for different goods. Plus, we cannot compete in many markets around the globe.  I've known this about China for decades, I didn't know the problem was persistent in so many other countries.  They either make it impossible or near impossible for US business to do business in their countries while they are free to do whatever here?

The imbalance is obvious, the correction will hopefully work.  

We have rain forecast for most of the day, hasn't started yet.  It did rain for a few seconds yesterday, but the real threat were the tornado watches.  Not warnings per se, but still the conditions existed to for tornadoes to form. There is still a tornado advisory - be prepared! the caption states. Be prepared to do what, exactly?  Meet your Maker, perhaps.  

About out of time here.  The water billing at the AZ property is still and issue and I just paid an almost $800 bill for the last 2 months.  You read that correctly.  It appears they are reading the meter wrong, they have drastically cut the water usage in order to try and mitigate this situation. If the electronic gadget that sends out the info to the truck in the neighborhood is wrong, it doesn't matter how much water you stop using, you are still going to have a huge water bill if that's what that gadget is sending out.  So, I'm calling the city yet again today to get this problem resolved. I still have it in the back of my head that there is a water leak somewhere that they aren't finding, but first I want to ensure they are sending someone out to read the meter in person, not rely on a digital readout on a computer display.   I can't and won't afford those kinds of water bills, that  is completely outrageous. 

Well, out of here.

G'day

 Tuesday  - night

The manager calls me on my back from Gurdon this afternoon.  I've got a really big favor to ask you.

When a company says that to you, you just steel yourself and hope it isn't terrible.  I was thinking maybe he wants me to go down today and load for whatever reason. But, I thought, the tanks up there are almost full, there is no need for that.  I had no clue.

We have a tanker that needs preloaded for an OTR driver and it has to go out. Now, don't take it the wrong way, he doesn't come off forceful, demanding or anything like that. It's more like a desperate plea.  Ok, I replied....  Well, it needs to be loaded on Friday.  You'll come up here, hook to a trailer, go to a plant that's about an hour and 15 minutes away, load, bring it back to the yard and then drop it and go home.  

I was thinking, that's going to be a long day.  It's 2 hours and 45 minutes to the yard, so there's 5-1/2 hours of driving to and from the yard alone.  2-1/2 hours of driving back and forth to the plant, hook and drop plus pre-trips, and then at least an hour to load if not more.  There's at least 10 hours right there.  

But then he threw in the gravy: 2 days worth of pay for 1 day's work if you'll do it. In other words, the pay I get for doing a full run which takes 2 days.  Didn't hesitate, sign me up!  Give me that 3 days a week and I'm good, lol.  That will never happen, of course, but it would be wonderful.  I worked 6 days last week, Sunday off and now looking at minimum 5 days this week.  It won't be surprising if I am loading this weekend as  well, one of the drivers on our dedicated run is starting chemo therapy for prostate cancer. 

So, late run tomorrow to Lufkin, usually a late run the next day after to Gurdon but the driver that is doing the first run will be leaving by the time I normally show up for the first load, so I'll just leave at normal time for that.  Thursday night go to bed a bit early and hope I can get some good sleep for the busy Friday. 

There really isn't much else going on worth talking about.  The house in AZ has $400 water bills all of a sudden and I am now going to find a plumber to go over there and find out what's going on..  Mark thinks they are reading the meters wrong, I doubt that, especially since I called the city and they came out and checked it.  He's getting up there in age, I think there's a leak somewhere he just isn't finding. I just asked Mark to shut off all the faucets and any water outlets and then look at the meter.  If that thing is still showing numbers moving, there is a leak.  I can't afford those water bills, that's what I know.  It needs to be dealt with and soon.  

I have had no complaints at the park besides the overnighters that bombed my Google business with a pretty horrible review. I'm still fighting with Google about having it removed since most of it is completely false.  I haven't even started on taxes yet, I figure if I get a day off this weekend or the entire weekend off, I'll use that time to sift through endless paperwork, organize it and get the taxes at least started.  I procrastinate on it because I hate doing it.  

Anyway, just an update on things going on around here. 

 Tuesday - early

In the latest of the piles of trash Musk and his crew has been digging up, we find out that millions of social security numbers had been given to illegal aliens during the Biden administration.  A museum that in terms of numbers and context given to the amount of money spent on it (some woke green thing that no one wanted to see, basically), wasted millions of dollars in its construction and a lot more in yearly expenses.  They shut that sucker down.  

And a lot more has been unearthed.  We watch an unending field of judges blocking a lot of the actions the Trump team wants to take to get rid of this woke ideology and the waste, fraud and abuse of our system called the federal government.  Musk's own livelihood is at stake with the shunning of his electric vehicles, yet he plods on.  I have been watching all of this with great fascination, for I never thought such an endeavor would be taken in my lifetime. One thinks that democrats are so hell bent on destroying our society as we once knew it that there is no way the federal government could basically be audited. 

And then we hear that people's ss benefits are being stripped away.  That is completely and utterly false, but the media fills people's brains with it, the propaganda machines never stop churning out their machinations to deceive as many American citizens as they possibly can. I watch some of these democrat senators and house members saying things that are completely false and I wonder: do they even believe what they are saying? In the end? I don't think they do. 

The irony is that all of their endless accusations and yelling and screaming ended up with a major lost election and possibly more in upcoming elections.  Their message doesn't work and it doesn't work because people are sick of the character assassinations, they want a message that helps them personally, not a message that assails some person sitting in a fancy building in Washington DC.  Even the staunchest progressives are coming out against this idea that democrats should just keep moving forward with this nonsense.  

Regardless, I spent the weekend working on Saturday and relaxing on Sunday.  Church, Applebees and home, to be more precise. And thinking about my life and where it's going. Seemingly nowhere.  Sure, I have a small business. It's great, I guess.  It's not really meaningful in the Kingdom of Heaven excepting I'm helping people with "low cost housing" as it's identified on the County roles.  And then there's this character that basically did a hit job on my business through the Google community by posting a review that is mostly false.  And posting pictures. One of which is a dilapidated old house next door that has nothing to do with the RV park.  I have disputed that and one other pic he posted.  

The first pic you see when you google my business is of this old house.  I guess I just need to take some pics and upload them so that that disappears? I think that's how it works, I'll be doing that soon.  

But in the grand scheme of things, that enterprise is rather meaningless. It's just a means to an end: some sort of financial security in my old age.  That's all it was ever intended to be.  I wonder if I could change the scope of the business and add something that actually has it pointing to our Lord Jesus Christ? 

The kids must be having issues this morning, it's 6:00 am and I haven't seen them yet.  Meaning, they are dragging.  I assume when I see them some pouty and unhappy faces. 

Not a bad day, really.  I went to bed at 9:30 and woke up around 4:15 am.  Couldn't get back to sleep so just got up early.   

I'm just thinking of what I can do to change the direction of my life.

And with that, the day has started, the kids are present and I am about to leave for work.

G'day. 

s

 Thursday - night

Some person left a pretty foul review on my Google.  Much of it was completely false, a few things were correct and the rest exaggerated. Like someone out to get me for reason I have no idea.  It was an overnighter, they were treated very well.  The guy took pictures of the house next door and posted them as if they are on my property.  They also took a pic of the damage on the side of the semi trailer parked in the back - out of the RV park (the truck I drive).  

They went on about a homeless encampment in the back (there is no homeless encampment back there and never has been), said there were no cameras anywhere (3 cameras on the property atm), said the shed looked like it was bought from Home Depot, continue with the fact that the shed couldn't have been up to code, seemingly disparaged the people staying in the park, totally trashed the street the park is located on and the nearby city.  I think the only thing that was true was the cigarette butts, a thing I have been trying to get under control with certain people.  

Oh, and "wild dogs roaming everywhere". There are zero "wild dogs", there are some dogs that wander on the property from nearby residences.  I'm not talking about the Rotties that were causing problems, one of them is dead the other hasn't been seen in a while.  This person referred to an American Bulldog as  pitbull and exclaimed that the park isn't safe and don't walk your dogs at all!  

I left a lengthy reply.  I had a friend review it for I cannot possibly be unbiased in such a situation, I am going to defend my park regardless. Oh yes, a little doggy park with a small patch of grass. Now that was a total lie. The doggie park is 85X90 feet in dimension and is much larger than most dog parks I see at RV parks anywhere online or in real life.  It is completely covered in grass.  I have already protested this review but that probably won't work, there is a 2cd route you can try that gives you the opportunity to contest it. At the very least, take those ridiculous pics down, especially of the house next door. That is totally unrelated to the park and it is hardly visible to people in the park.  

I mean, I knew sooner or later someone would leave a negative review, I had no idea I was going to be assailed with such a bad review that it left me seething with anger.  Yes, I got angry because much of it was false.  I'm over that now, had to regain my composure and just get over the emotional reaction and deal with it.  That was yesterday.

Today, I get a text from one of the kids in the park (18 year old) saying "there is no water!!". OH NOOOO! I didn't think, I just asked questions, I was on the road at the time.  After that conversation, I asked someone in texting whether their water is working? Yes, it's fine.  No idea, I had visions of water spouting all over the place or possibly and underground leak.  When I got back from Gurdon today, it took me all of 30 seconds to figure it out.  He had taken the hose off of the spigot, but there was a brass fitting someone had attached to the spigot.  It is apparently some sort of pressure reducer or one way valve. 

Whatever it is, it was preventing water from coming out.  I removed that and walaah! emergency over, contacted him, told him the problem and moved on.  

I have late load tomorrow, which sucks but whatever.  It usually doesn't mean a lot on the loading day, it normally means getting back pretty late on the delivery day.  So tomorrow, I will probably be back by around 3:30 pm, Saturday around 5 at the latest. Going to miss some sort of expo they are going to (the folks here) but I have been pretty lucky with weekends the last 2 of them so I won't be too disappointed, plus I have Sunday off, back to work Monday on first load and then another load on Wednesday that is also second load.  

I think the manager is holding a grudge for me telling him I wasn't going to work a few Sundays ago because we were going to the zoo.  Boo hoo. 

Back to the park, I: know it is lacking of any major amenities, it's one of the reasons I have to lower my pricing than most other places nearby.  Location is always everything.  Oh, this dude also said the neighborhood is SCARY!!! LMAO.  I'm going to need to aggressively ask for reviews now to bury that one.  I don't get them often, it will be the first one people see if I don't get it down the list.  In reality, the worst thing that has happened is people living in the park and those people are gone. That and people dumping trash in my dumpster that don't live there.

From my understanding - now anyway - if they dig under your property, they have to have the mineral rights to be allowed to do so.  This is referring to an energy company wanting to do horizontal drilling underneath 2 of my properties acquired through tax lien sales.  I don't know what you think, but a company that is going to make untold millions of dollars off of the energy released under the ground should be able to pay more than a few hundred dollars to have their drilling operation going underneath my properties.  I asked one guy I thought would have an idea, he didn't know at all.  He just knew that it pays nothing like it used to.  Note that the drilling isn't taking place on either property, just going underneath it.  

Providing she makes it that long (I certainly hope she does) - she doesn't have any huge medical problems atm, but life is weird sometimes - I want to be at mom's house for her 90th birthday. That's in September.  It's not a great time of year to go to AZ for it's still warm, but time doesn't stop for any of us and all of our days are numbered. When you start talking about being in your 90's, well anyway.  It will be a double whammy going there and no vehicles to drive, Uber and Lyft are plenteous out there and plan the budget accordingly.  Probably won't do a lot of visiting anyway (other people that is).  

I'm just throwing out random thoughts here. I think an ice machine is a great idea for the park, it's the part about how to force people to pay for it that is stopping me. I don't see it as a money maker, I see it as a machine paying for itself.  Electricity and water.  

I'm still playing the Fortnite game, but I try to be on at times when all the kids are at school so I don't have to hear all of that nonsense.  Ridiculous.  They argue and fight with each other when you're playing on teams on who gets what out of a vault or kills or looting chests and such. They'll grab someone else's stuff and then they start getting angry with each other. The only other game I can think of that induces such anger in these kids is Monopoly.  The 8 year old here was temporarily banned from the game for his anger issues.  

 They start bragging how good they are and then others will start arguing who is the best.  I am not interested in hearing all of that s*** and I don't care if they play with me or not.  Mostly not, thank you. I do not seek anyone out at all.  They come to me, all the time.  My "party" frequently fills up with 8, 9, 10 plus people.  If I got on there right now, the party would fill up with people and the lobby would be full. And then I would hear things like "why does this always happen with you?!".  

I HAVE NO IDEA.  Ok, probably 75% of them don't even have microphones, but the ones that do? Annoying.  The game is fun;, yes, but it's fun playing by myself.  Once the lobby is full of people, I tend to just press the power button now and get off of the game.  

Umm, what else.... there is something I am not remembering.  Well while I'm searching my brain for the forgotten shelf, I am slowly bringing myself up to trying to get this SBA loan for expansion.  I  think I'm ready for the risk, I'm not mentally prepared yet for the rigor of having constant questions.  Weeks of unending emails, texts and phone calls asking about this, wanting that, etc ad-infinitum.  I don't k now how else I'll go forward without a loan, I certainly don't have that kind of money sitting in my bank accounts.  The other thing I think is holding me back from trying is my credit score.  I wonder if, at the end of the day, they will reject it for a low credit score.

BTW, I now firmly believe credit scores are a scam.  Some of it is warranted for assessing risk for people that clearly have financial issues, the rest of it is bs.  If you pay your bills on time, all the time and have no late pays for many years, you should have a decent score regardless of how much debt you're in. You have established that you believe in making your payments all the time and on-time.  There is no way that your score should take a 20 plus hit just because you paid off a loan in full. I don't care what their reasoning is, in my view, as of now, it's just a way for banks to charge higher interest.  It's all about greed and we all know banks are full of that. 

I continue to watch these judges trying to stop Trump from deporting illegal aliens. Or stopping dismantling USAIDS.  Or shutting down the Education department.  Etc. I just think that Trump is going to get the job done one way or the other.  They're not going to be able to impeach these judges, too many votes are needed and they don't have it. I don't really think that's the way to go about it anyway.  

I think I'm done here. It's getting late and tho I don't have to get up super early, I still don't want to be getting to be too late.  

 Wednesday -night

 Yes, I have been slacking on blog entries.  I have been getting busy with other stuff and the folks from Arkansas are here but are leaving tomorrow. They have been here since last week.  

There isn't a whole lot to discuss here.  I paid a kid to do the grass over at the park today $60, admittedly cheap but that's what he quoted.  After he got done he then asked if he wanted me to have him come back and quoted $200 for any future work.  No thanks.  3 hours using a lawn mower for a 17 year old isn't worth $200 for me.  It's good for now.  It will stay good a couple of weeks anyway.  

I can't give anyone a spot for working now anyway, the park is full excepting lot 1 which is kept open for overnighters.  A dude came in  today wanting a spot for a month and said he had put in a reservation for it.  I missed blocking out some stuff and that allowed him in there.  No, I can't do it.  He got mad, but he should have called anyway.  I refunded his money, sent him his receipt and recommended another park in the area. 

I'm watching the news on and off.  It's basically the Judicial branch V the Executive branch, at least from what I'm seeing.  The Trump administration is calling them activist judges.  I have never thought highly of the government, so yes, they very well could be activists using their positions of power to thwart Trump's plans to get rid of these barbaric Tren gangsters.  He'll just have to figure something else out. But note that the judge specified that it isn't that these people can't be arrested and jailed, it's the position he's taking that Trump can't use that old law to do it with.  

I don't know, but if they're off the streets, that's good enough until they come up with plan B.  Democrats have been making themselves look very childish and ridiculous.  It is unbelievable to me that they are taking the side of the Tren gangsters simply because they hate Trump. I wonder if any of the people that voted for some of these politicians are having second thoughts?  

And the outrage democrats are having over Elon Musk's  DOGE efforts, LMAO.  Don't buy Tesla's! Do you hear these big name politicians denouncing these people who are burning down Tesla charging stations and dealerships? No, of course not.  They continue to out themselves as the deranged, evil people that they are.  If this continues, I would foresee a very easily won set of elections in the next coming years.  

If nothing else, Trump has at least all but stopped the huge flow of illegals flowing over the southern border and ICE is busy rounding up the ones that made it in here. They are in for a busy 4 years. After that, your guess is as good as mine. Will we get another 4 years of a Biden-style president or of some conservative/Republican?  

Yes, I am still doing 100 pushups per day, have completed 75 today just 25 more to go. I have started to diet, but nothing too serious. Just wading back into it.  Had a salad for lunch - fat free dressing low calorie and chicken in the salad, had one of the pork chop leftovers from 2 days ago when I got home but sort of went overboard at dinner with 3 slices of pizza. Not gonna beat myself up over it. again I'm just trying to wade back into dieting - eating healthy is what I should say. Dieting has such a negative aura about it.  It's something that you start that you know you will eventually break.

Tax time is looming and I haven't even started on it yet.  I dread going through all of that stuff, looking at receipts and inputting them into the system and trying to make sure I get the numbers right on everything.  I mean, if the IRS ever audits me, I'll have to pay through the nose for an accountant or some sort of person that can "defend" me against those people. Nothing you really want to go into alone.  Well, I would if the accountant cost too much money.....

The AC on the truck is back to working sporadically.  That versus what it was before with the heat stuck on. We discussed having it fixed here in my town, I will look into it after the weather gets much warmer.  Right now, I can turn it on, it works for a while, then turn it off, deice the evaporator and then turn it back on. 

I also have been making waves at the loading plant.  They are consistently making us wait for hours after our appointment time is and I just had enough.  Went in there 2 days ago and asked very loudly when they expected to load my truck?  Not in anger, but to get everyone's attention. I don't care if management doesn't like it, this job is not that great, losing it wouldn't be a catastrophe.  Anyway, this dude comes out to my truck after I made my statements in the control room and started lecturing me about how they are short-handed and yada yada yada.  I didn't ask for anyone to come out and I just looked at him.  I'm not intentionally trying to get myself banned from the plant, but I am not going to put up with a bunch of guff either.

That plant doesn't treat their employees very well, especially when it comes to pay and that's the bottom line.  

Today, I received a notice in the mail that they want to bore underground to get at some gas well or whatever it was and they want to buy the mineral rights to one of my properties I bought at the auction.  Their lease pay? $237 per year, lmao.  They aren't drilling on the property, they want to go underneath it. They have to have the mineral rights to do that and I'm not selling out for measly 200 plus bucks.  Unless some expert tells me it's not worth more than that.  I'm going to dive into that and the legalities of it. I just asked a native Texan about it, maybe he'll have some info.

And I just read there is a company that is going to start installing fiber optics in our town!  Oh myyyy, just what we need, the cable internet company here is  atrocious.  

That's about it. Heading up to Gurdon to offload tomorrow, then start another run on Friday - late load unfortunately but hopefully I'll get Sunday off since I'll have worked 6 days in a row.

Thursday morning

Late load, no sense in leaving too early when they have been making us wait on the first load so long. I don't want to sit in their parking lot forever.  

I have been turning away even more business and it leaves me uneasy to have to do so. Like, what am I waiting for? Even if the return is less than if the interest rate was lower, there's still money to be made.  I wasn't really interested before but now there are all kinds of people wanting places to stay here.

There is a giant power plant being torn down that is going to take a couple of years supposedly, then they are going to build a gas plant in it's place. And then there's the Interstate project that starts whenever, not really sure, they said this year.  On top of that, you have the energy sector here which is a booming business churning out natural gas all over the place. 

The thing that got me to wondering was having 6 spots open for a fairly long amount of time.  If I can't fil these, I was thinking, what makes me think I'll fill 25 more?  And then there's having to hire someone, a thing I have never done and really would have to use the help of an accountant to get that set up and going as cheaply as possibly on the financial side.  

I was thinking today, paying a person $15 is a good wage around here. But if you work 40 hours a week, that isn't that much money.  That's only $2,400 per month before taxes.  I can't imagine having to try and live off of that kind of wages.  

Anyway, we started dieting on Monday.  That's just cutting out alot of caloric intake for me, she is doing a low carb thing.  I just said no, I'm just going to eat a lot of salads and dinner will just be small portions for me.  I don't drink soda and I don't eat a lot of sweets as it stands, that isn't the hard part. 

The hard part is I like my pastas and potatoes and basically heavy meals.  I remember back to the days when I needed to lose weight, I would just eat mostly salads and eat nothing after 6:00 pm.  No set time when I could eat again the next day, just don't eat too late.  So that's what I've been trying to do, but admittedly sometimes dinner doesn't happen around here until 7 or so. 

I'm still doing the 100 pushups per day even tho I finally hit the 100 day mark.  No sense in stopping a good thing and soon I'll be adding on to that. Right now, it's enough to try and diet, I really need to lose some pounds here.  I've hit 30 pushups per set and last night I got as far as 40 on the first set.  I'm still trying to hit the goal of being able to do 50 pushups per set, a long way away from that, I think.  But it's a goal that I want to hit and after that I don't really think I need to feel like I need to do more than that in one set.  50 is good. 

There isn't much else going on. The 3rd kid is coming from Arkansas on Friday. They have different spring break time than here, the kids here already had there spring break, so it really makes no sense to me that the other one is coming while these kids are in school every day.  But who am I and really isn't my problem excepting that it disrupts the entire scenario here, especially with the grandma coming to stay the entire time as well. She tries to take over the entire house, change the rules, let kids get away with whatever and I have to come along and say no thank you, they aren't allowed to do that.  

The other thing coming up in a few months is they are taking off for an entire month.  When I say they, I mean the entire family. The man is going for 2 weeks I think, maybe a week, not sure, but he can't stay a month because of work.  Still, I'll be here alone 2 weeks and that's going to be interesting.  Her family is in Colorado and she wants to spend time visiting with a rather large family she grew up with. 

Right now, I'm seriously putting my mind to thinking about getting that loan, or trying to anyway.  My credit score isn't the greatest with the debt ratio, but with the collateral involved, it's worth a try at least. Plus and now-established business.  

Well that's it. I need to get ready to leave here, it's after 8:00 am and tho I don't want to get there too early, I don't want to be showing up too late, either.

G'day

 

 Sunday - morning

Heading to the zoo in a few minutes.  I'm sort of glad to have the days off, sort of not. No idea what they're paying me for break down pay and staying in a hotel overnight.  If it's like everything else, probably not that much.  I'm itching to get that loan and get out of this endless cycle of trucking nonsense.  You just really have no concrete schedule to work with, you are stuck wondering week to week or even day to day what your schedule will be.  

I often just get a couple of loads in the tablet and then they wait to see what's next.  If they are waiting, I am waiting.  Meaning, who knows what hours I will work.  

I figure i made the manager mad by not taking the other truck and also not working today.  As I said previously, I don't care.   I'm going to get some time off here and there and  if they don't like, whoopdee doo.  September of this year will mark 2 years at this miserable place and all that I committed to.  

A 20 plus year driver quit a few weeks ago.  Junk trucks being the reason for him, break downs galore.  His wasn't that bad, at least not comparatively speaking, but as soon as another certain driver got into the thing, he trashed the transmission.  This particular person has now trashed 2 transmission and 1 differential.  I know they have trouble getting help, but keeping people like this around is not helping them either.  The only reason they like him is he'll stay out and just do one load after another after another instead of going home like I do. 

This trucking work life sucks, to be more pointed about it and is driving me to reconsider yet again attempting to get a business loan and just go for it.  If I can get one, it will be a huge risk, at least as far as I'm concerned, for the only way it pays for itself and pays me is to stay mostly full.  The park that is.  People keep telling me to go for it and maybe I will, but I have huge reservations.  Yes, I have turned a couple of dozen people away, but what if that doesn't happen if/when I get a loan with 3 to 4k per month payments?  Lost my life savings and have nothing to show for it, at all, that's what. 

That's what really keeps me reserved about getting into a huge loan.  I was thinking maybe just get a smaller loan and do the work myself, only paying contractors to install a new septic system, the rest I would have to do myself.  But it's still 68k worth of gravel, 21k for the septic system, another 20k worth of electrical and 15k worth of pipe.  There's 124k right there and add 5k for good measure.  Then there's equipment rentals and whether I can even get a dozer on site without having any dozer experience. However, to pay the contractor, we're closer to 300k.  I figure add 15k for equipment rentals.  Saving over 100k doing it myself, but where do I find the time if I still have to do a trucking job?

I can tell ya, my energy ain't what it used to be.  Growing old has several disadvantages and the energy levels going down is one of them.

Meh, we are leaving.

G'day. 

 Saturday - afternoon, early

We are going to a friend's daughter's 1 year birthday party in a bit.  I've done nothing today beyond cleaing the kitchen and making lunch for kids.  Unless the schedule changes - which it easily could - I don't intend on fixing the driveway and other stuff on Monday.  Someone ran over the orange cone I have over a pothole. It is highly visible with reflective tape.  Sorry, but I call such people idiots.  Those cones aren't cheap anymore.  

After the party I am going to walmart to return electronics that don't work that I bought on Walmart site and delivered, get some other stuff I need, take the boys to get $8 haircuts at Great Clips and then who knows what.  It will probably be late afternoon by the time we are done with that.  

Currently, the tablet has Tuesday as my next scheduled day of work.  He was going to have me work "Sunday/Monday".  Sorry.  I don't do this all the time anymore and I don't care how mad he gets.  I'll quit or he can fire me, don't really care.  If he starts paying me back with late loads, same difference, I'll go find another job.  I am seriously tempted as it stands to go ahead and apply for the expansion loan, interest rates be damned.  It's just that I don't really think I will qualify for having a low credit score due to too much credit card debt.

It fell another 20 points when Flagstar sold my loan to some other company.  You'd think your score goes up when you pay off a loan right? I found out long ago that isn't the case at all. The games they play with credit scores. I used to think well, I make all of my payments on time, so I should have a good score, right? NOPE.  These so-called experts lump everyone into the same category and treat everyone the same.  If I have a lot of debt, that therefore means I must be close to defaulting or even bankruptcy.  It's higher risk in their view, which it may very well be, but if I couple it with collateral, a large amount of collateral, I should still be able to get it, right?

Who knows, but seeing how the system works, I'd venture for the "no" department. Hate to be negative about it, but the games these companies play with credit scores I find to be ridiculous.  My property is worth minimum 400k.  Probably 500k.  But we'll go with 400k.  I'm looking for probably around 300k.  I've done the business loan calculators, as long as I could eventually get the place filled up, it wouldn't be impossible to make the payments and do everything else i need to do.  In the end, I'd actually need about 75 lots to be able to afford to live off of that income, make the payments and have at least 1 employee.  I would be able to take home minimum 8k per month after taxes. 

The expansion would take me to 40 lots.  I might need an employee with that, not really affordable but I can't deal with 40 lots by myself and still work a job.  Expansions have to be done in phases.  I'd ask for enough for 60 more lots but that would cost so much more money and I don't want to take that kind of risk with my life savings that I used to build this venture.  Ok, it was about 17 years worth of savings, still quite a lot of time and effort put into saving that money over time. 

To get to 70 lots, I'd have to expand up front, which would mean bringing in many truck loads of dirt to help level it out.  

Anyway, I'm at 25 more lots right now in the works tho I haven't really worked anything.  They wanted info that I would have to go to a bit of trouble to get and after I had thought about it, I just stopped.  

We're fixing to leave and I'm sitting here racking my brains trying to think of everything I need from Walmart. My trips there are infrequent and unwanted. I go because I have to, not because I want to.  The electronics I bought is $25 and change, that alone is enough to get me to go back and have that money refunded to my debit card.  

If I really needed anything, I'd say I need a much larger bedroom or a separate office.  I'd go for a house expansion, but this isn't my house and I'm not dumping that kind of money into something that isn't mine.  We really need more space. The kids are in the same bedroom and the oldest boy is getting the independent thinking that starts to creep in the older they get.  Plus, the younger gets him into trouble all the time, if they had separate bedrooms that would eliminate a lot of it.  

My house in AZ has lost a lot of value over the last year.  It was at around 350k, now it's at 280k. At least I'm not underwater with it - yet.  I find it amazing that the value went down in that allegedly red-hot real estate market.