Monday - evening

Today took as long as I figured it would.  I had to drop my normal trailer at a washout in Haughton, LA and pick up a different type of trailer for this other material, which is hazmat btw, something I haven't hauled in quite a while.. Yes, I am licensed for hazmat, took the test not terribly long ago and is the reason I am hauling this stuff. The 2 drivers that normally haul it did not pass the hazmat test.  I get it, a lot of tough questions unrelated to what we do, a lot of trick questions...but....if you study, you will get enough of them correct to pass. I studied for 2 or 3 days, I can't remember now, I just remember taking endless sample tests until I felt confident enough to take the test.

Even the morning of taking the test I was sitting here taking even more of those sample tests.  Whatever the case, I had to pop out a plug and take a cap off of a delivery hose and they were stuck on there. That ate up 10 minutes alone just trying to get them off.  I had to drop the trailer and hook up to the other one and do a pretrip. I had to take the paperwork into the office to get my normal trailer washed out while it's sitting there.  It took up much more time than I allotted for that stop so I ended up being about 14 minutes late to the appointment time.

The plant said nothing about it, they just said they're ready for me to come in and get loaded. So, I went in after weighing the truck on the scale.  Lo and behold....one of the hazmat placard holding brackets? was completely gone.  Like, the rivets were broken off.  I don't normally look at those things during a pre trip. It's nothing that you really think about, they're there, right? Even the loader at the plant said he didn't know what to do, he'd never encountered that. This coming from a person that does nothing but load hazmat product all day long. 

I had an instant answer: just tape it on there.  DOT isn't going to care, they just want it on there.  He said well can you get back in your truck and I'll go discuss it with  others.  He was gone a long time, I was dreading him coming back and telling me I would have to have a new bracket installed. That would meaning driving 45 minutes one way, 15 minutes to get the thing installed and 45 minutes back.  Next thing I know? He's coming back on a golf cart with a very large man who had a roll of the wide, clear tape in his hand. Like 2 inches wide.  They taped the bazookas out of that thing and it wasn't going anywhere. 

Loaded quickly after that, thankful I arrived when I did, for when I was pulling out of the loading bay, there were 2 trucks sitting behind me.  

The yard is on the way home, sort of, it's a few miles out of the way but nothing too serious, so I stopped there and had the mechanic install a new bracket. It wasn't even 10 minutes.  3 hours later - maybe a little less I dunno didn't time it - and I was back at my park and the day was over.

Tomorrow will take less time, Ennis is only 130 miles and a lot of the driving is Interstate, not these back highways that are set at 55 mph in Arkansas. 

There is a problem here, tho.  I filled the fuel tanks on my truck up in Lufkin 2 days ago and then drove straight back to my place. It's about 99 miles.  I was looking at the fuel gauge this morning, it was between the half tank mark and 3/4's tank mark.  There is no way I used that much fuel in just 100 miles of driving. That's between 40 to 50 gallons of fuel, gone. 

There are no leaks coming out anywhere, I looked. The machine is running fine, if it were gulping fuel, it would be belching black smoke. It's not doing that at all. The only leaves theft.  And there is only 1 place that stealing that much fuel can occur: at my RV park.  The truck is not left unattended hardly at all when I am on the road and definitely not long enough to steal fuel. Besides the fact that who is going to steal fuel at the fueling aisles at a truck stop? Or in a plant yard? 

There is another truck driver in the park and that person is an OO (owner operator).  But are they thieves? I really don't think she is. She works, works hard and I just have a hard time considering she would steal fuel from me - but - I am not a very trusting person anymore after as many screwings as I have taken from people I have given some amount of trust to, so yes, she's on the "person of interest" list.  But it is just as plausible of an idea that a thief could be driving clear down that driveway to the truck in the middle of the night or something and stealing it while no one is looking.  What with people using that dumpster for so long that don't live there? It's absolutely a potential culprit. 

I dunno, but the fuel gauge is way down from where it would normally be, even after today's run. This was to Crossett, AR and yes, I've made that round trip several times.  I would still be above half tanks, of which I am not.  I'll have to fuel tomorrow. I thought about doing it today, but today was long and I know tomorrow should be easier and  at least a couple hours shorter.  Just seems better to do it tomorrow than today.  

Anyway, no I didn't mow the grass today.  I was too tired.  I didn't sleep too great last night and I spent 10 hours doing this run today. I am  hopeful I can get back earlier tomorrow and spend at least a few hours doing it. However.... one individual in the park took it upon himself to mow several of the lawns.  It  looks great! Might even give him money off his rent  for doing it. I dunno if he's looking for that, they don't come off as poor people, but I might make the gesture anyway.

Trump is playing a lot of people. I mean, he's toying with them psychologically.   Germany's chancellor Merz for one.  Trump says he's pulling out 5,000 troops from the 32,000 member  base we have over there but that's not all, he's planning on pulling "a lot more" as he stated it on a news clip a few days ago.  Germany claims they are not shocked and were "prepared" for it.  Yeah, well I haven't seen Germany inviting the US out of there.  If you get my take on it, Trump is playing a well stacked hand here.  He can pull troops but he can always bring them back.  If the Chancellor doesn't tone down his rhetoric, tho, they should be prepared for skeleton crew of military personnel at that base in the coming future.  

Trump mostly does what he says he will do and so far has done most of what he said he would do concerning foreign nations.  Now, the left are arguing that Trump said he wouldn't get us into any new wars.  Yeah, he said that on the campaign trail. Know what else he said on that same-said campaign trail? He'd "blow the hell out of them" instead of kicking the can down the road.  Trump has made it crystal clear from loooooong ago that Iran cannot have nukes, period and definitely not under his watch. 

I am not a warmonger and I don't particular care for it, but there are times it's necessary.  You can not argue that WWII wasn't a necessary war.  Well, now some dems ARE arguing against it, I guess we should just let foreign countries invade or country and we should just what, get on our knees and throw our hands up with white flags waving around? The HELL you say.  These people are stupid and I am going far off topic...and I don't have a lot of time here. 

There is NOTHING new about Iran declaring that both Israel and the US should be destroyed, annihilated, decimated, turned into sawdust - you get the picture and the regime in power over there have been saying it ever since they came into power.  It isn't a full blown war, at least not yet and not sure it's going to go there. I mean, we haven't sent in troops on the ground.  We aren't trying to take over the country.  We are, from what I read into the lines and have heard Trump and others say, giving the Iranian people some sort of chance of retaking their country from these evil tyrants.  

I don't know if that will happen, the IRGC is pretty bad-@$$, at least to civilians they would definitely come off like that and do civilians have any armament and ammo to feed those arms to even fight such a civil war? I have no idea.  I can't even guess.  Just no clue. I do think civilians are beyond tired of living lives under tyranny.  

I'll tell ya what tho. I don't believe the IRGC holds a candle to U.S. training, superiority, leadership, team work and armament.  I just don't. I don't really think any nation comes close to the expertise our military has.  That doesn't mean I think they're invincible, history shows us that even the mightiest armies can be brought down by small numbers that are outgunned/weaponized.  

And now we have the inevitable showdown in the Strait.  Yeah, I don't see Iran winning with those puny little boats against a Navy destroyer escorting ships through the region.  I could be wrong, I guess, but the Navy has already eliminated 6 of their little boats and I'm sure more to come.  

Anyway, it's almost time for bed. I can say something on a different note here.  We went to the taco event Saturday and then I went to church the next morning.  Worship was great. I was sitting next to some people I have become quasi-friends with. Mostly church, but we have talked on the phone a few times now.  He was giving me fist bumps - the worship was really awesome I must say, God's presence was there I do believe.  

But then, the service over, a man behind me said something about how many tacos I had eaten the day before. Like had been hanging out with us. I looked closely at this individual and I can honestly say I don't remember seeing him there - or anywhere ever before.  He wasn't being ugly, it was a friendly gesture so I decided not to spoil the moment and we got into a conversation about it like we were old friends. It was - different. I'm not going to say awkward, just different, I can be very social when I want to be.  I bid him a good day - he was there with his family so it wasn't just some dude by himself (like me lmao) - turned around and took 2 steps and another man stopped me.  

And he wanted to talk.  It was the guy that had gone AWOL on parking lot security.  They stand out there on the kids night services to make sure drivers are going slow and letting pedestrians cross the driveway without getting run over.  I listened to his whole story - I am also a good listener - when I want to be - he has artery problems in his legs and he can't stand up for long periods of time. I empathized with him on that one, obviously he can't do that kind of duty with that kind of condition.  He wanted an ear to hear him out so I gave it to him.  I'm not saying I'm some sort of saint, it was just quite different than the end of most services where I get up and leave without talking to anyone but perhaps the people I am sitting next to. 

I am not attention starved, I am not lonely but I wouldn't mind making some new friends. Why not?  It was just so strange that I had all of these encounters like that and these people were seeking me out like they had been waiting to talk to me for some reason.  Like, what was that all about? Other people were saying hi and generally, I felt like I had a billboard on top of my head saying "PLEASE TALK TO ME".  

Rest assured I didn't lol.

Time for bed.  

 Saturday - afternoon

Yesterday at the plant in Lufkin.  I'm told I'll have to wait when I get in there, I just shrug it off for the most part unless it's HOURS and HOURS of waiting, then I'll start saying something.  

Well, I waited 45 minutes so not the end of my world.  I'm looking at the clock and thinking, well I'm going to get back early enough anyway, no big deal.  

OHHHHH ohhhh oh OHHHHH was I wrong about that.  About half way through the load, some managers come out. I'm thinking, I didn't start anything with anyone, I didn't say anything about the wait, I just sat here in my truck and patiently waiting, playing video games the entire time.  Turns out it wasn't about me.  

The loader had put the wrong product in my trailer.  A manager comes up after they are buzzing around and looking at things and whatever and tells me the wrong product was put in the truck, please go scale out and then come back here.  A bit of a pain, but nothing I would complain about.  So I did.  My understanding was they were going to try and mix it with the right product.  

Nix.  I got back there and they said nope, we're going to have to empty your trailer and then load it again.  Mind you, there is over 20,000 pounds of the wrong product in there.  Yup, I was there a long time.  When all of that was finally over, parked the truck in the yard and walked to the control room, I found one person in there and he was at the computers doing kettle mixes. Giant kettles making truckloads of product. He can't do anything and he didn't know how to do my bills anyway. 

I sat down and said nothing.  Just waited. And waited. And waited. Finally a senior manager comes in  - what are you waiting for? A look on his face. Not a bad look, more like concerned, as if enough hadn't happened today, what is this truck driver doing standing there? I simply replied I am waiting on paperwork.  There is literally no one there that knows how to do it.

Why, you ask? Because they fired that loader on the spot.  He not only loaded my truck with the wrong product, he loaded another truck in another bay with the wrong product as well.  I take no pleasure in another man's calamities and certainly had nothing against this dude, but he IS awfully slow at what he does.  I was a bit shocked tho.  Like, they just canned this dude for real?  Oh, the senior manager had no problem telling me the entire story, I thought crazy since I didn't work there but I listened to all of it. 

After making phone calls to no avail, he finally said he would figure it out with the help of this other person over here who had come in.  Ok.  I was in there 45 minutes waiting on paperwork.  

Today?  Well, I should have known. They had managers loading my truck and they are way out of touch with loading operations, they haven't done that in years.  So, the man got the truck loaded okay, but he didn't pound the lugs on the hatch tight enough.  Really, I should have thought about it but I simply forgot.  So, when I started airing up the trailer after arriving in Gurdon today, I heard a lot of air escaping out of the hatch.  

It didn't help that I forgot my hammer.  I ended up finding a giant fitting that weighs pretty good and smashing the lugs with that thing. I didn't get the air stopped but I got it slowed down enough to build up sufficient pressure.

The rest of today....well I just got home. Apparently the children "destroyed" the house this morning while mom was in bed so she made them clean it all up.  The older one decided he was going to whine and complain about it.  Remember, both these kids are already grounded and I think we're on day 8 of it now.  No tv, no bicycles, no games, you get the picture, they have been shut down excepting for to play outside or do arts and crafts. 

Apparently the older child complained so badly that mom decided she wasn't going to give him any of his privileges back. They both have to earn them - mostly by good behavior.  He made it the entire week without any problems and then at the very last minute? Acts like a clown, blows cleaning his own messes up out of proportion and now has to wait until next weekend before he can even get one of the privileges back at all. So, he went into his bedroom having full blown meltdown, screaming, kicking the walls, acting like a baby.  I went in there when I got home and forced him out of his bed and he just went off.  I SCREWED IT UP! I only whine once! And I lost evvvvverything!  He was looking forward to either getting his bike or tv privileges back today.  

Nope.  The kicker? I warned him last night not to whine about chores and such.  I brought that up to him today, don't you remember what I told you last night? YES! BUT I ALMOST MADE IT! I AM SO BOOORRRREEEEDDDDD.  I guess you can chalk this up to a huge learning experience. Once he gets over this nonsensical meltdown s*** I'm thinking he'll be on good behavior all week long. 

Hey, at least we're going out in a while. Today is the local business taco'bout town event where a bunch of Mexcian food trucks and restaurants are showing up to have a taco competition for the best tacos in town!  I haven't eaten anything today I am so looking forward  to this. I've eaten at almost all of the businesses that are going to be there and honestly, they all have great mexican food!

______________

And out we went, for 3 hours worth of hanging out with friends and eating a lot of tacos from various restaurants/trucks in town that were there. No way I could eat at all of them, way too much food I would be throwing up right now. It was fun, the kids had fun, we started getting warm - afternoon sun and all - and went home where I am now parked in front of my computer, contemplating what I will do with a free night off.

Probably nothing.  I don't feel like doing anything. I got up at 5:30 am, worked 7 hours and then came home, hung out for a short period of time and went out for 3 hours downtown. Isn't that enough? I'll play a few video games and then watch some tv or a movie. 

 

Thursday - evening

 The daily rain events just keep coming. We had hours worth of down pour yesterday and last night.  Tomorrow it's supposed to rain in the afternoon, Friday an 89% chance of rain and then perhaps this weekend it will dry out .  Low chance of rain, but I've been seeing that be wrong a lot lately.  You'll see an 8% chance of rain and then - I guess we were in the 8% zone cause it rained.  I can't mow the grass is the problem and it's getting really tall now. Like, I need to spend an entire day out there cutting down grass the entire 7 acres.  

The riding mower will hack down the vast majority of it quickly but then you have the weedeater you have to use which eats up a lot of time and some push mower activity.  Anyway, I'll get to it as soon as the grass is dry enough to cut.  

The kids have been grounded -from pretty much everything -for almost a week now.  Not my doings but I would certainly deserved, definitely on the part of the younger one.  He is a complete train wreck.  The bs from him is never ending. Today? Some kid at school was mocking him and making faces and hand gestures and the like so what did this kid do? He kicked him and kicked him hard. Hard enough that the boy had to go to the nurse and the principal is demanding mom to go to school tomorrow for a meeting.

What else are they supposed to do? This kid has been through a real psychiatrist, endless counseling, church, parents trying all kinds of punishments AND appeasements - treats, privileges etc - and NOTHING is working.  Oh, don't forget the pills, of which they recently changed upped the dosage and has had absolutely no effect.  I fear for his future if he doesn't overcome all of this defiance and anger.  Especially the anger - this kid gets angry and at his age, easy enough to deal with but what happens when he's a teenager and much bigger?  Throw him against the wall? 

They kick kids out of school who behave like that and this boy is definitely heading that way.  It won't take a lot of that kind of behavior before they decide he can move on to somewhere else, anywhere else.  

Jesus is the answer? Yes, but how to implement that?  He's had a lot of church exposure and they are definitely teaching those kids about the Gospel. NOTHING seems to penetrate his internal shields.  I would almost call this situation demonic but I won't  go quite that far with it - yet.  I don't envy mom having to sit in front of a principal tomorrow morning. She won't try to defend his behavior, not at all. She will explain everything they have been doing to try and get him past this.  It's not  like they are bad parents or lazy or slacking off. 

I dunno, but the older kid doesn't really get into that much trouble, but he's grounded for extended period as well.  In fact, they can only earn one thing back per week. So far, the younger one appears like he'll never get anything. We're talking tv, bicycle, games, all of it.  He can play with his toys and that's it.  

The kid left - he graduated and he took the tractor, of course. It's his, or his family's anyway, I didn't expect him to leave it but I really need a tractor ON the property, not something I have to rent and set a whole day aside every time I need to do it. I am very tempted to get into payments on one. This isn't a desire, a luxury or I can get along with out it type of deal. I have the driveway which needs dragged, I have fields that need bush hogged and I have dirt that needs moved. This is all tractor work.  

I do not want more payments but how do I get by without the use of one?  I'm not rushing into one right yet, I will give it time and think about the ramifications of yet another $400 per month payment going on for at least 5 years. I'm getting up there in years, how much more time do I have left to work? Will my health hold out? If it fails, do I lose everything?  How do I mitigate that potential?  Some kind of insurance maybe?  I don't know.  

I will say that I have qualified for a loan for a Mahindra, but after looking at their reviews, I decided against that.  United (John Deere) has also approved me for a loan, but they are higher priced.  I am looking at monthly payments that I can afford, I dunno about them. The thing is, they are the only tractor dealer in town.  You have to go to surrounding towns for different brands of tractors.  

Editing: I completely screwed this post up with the previous post that I just posted, thinking it was this post and not combining the stuff together, lol.  

 Thursday - night

It seems impossible that it's almost Friday already. Where has this week gone? Quickly, I must say.  

I STILL have not been able to mow the grass out there at the park.  It rained yesterday - a downpour at that - it rained today - medium pour and tomorrow a 91% chance of rain.  Saturday is supposed to be clear but will the grass be dry enough to cut down? I dunno, but if it's even close I'm doing it regardless.  I have the machinery, that's for sure.

Work this week has been pretty much smooth sailing besides a tire blowout and of course the non-stop idiot nonsense on the nation's highways.  The risks people take.....I wonder if they understand the consequences if their risky driving behavior backfires and they end up in a horrible collision at high speeds?  

Ugh, it's literally supposed to rain all day tomorrow...

I am getting off of here. It's starting to get late and I definitely need my sleep. 

   Tuesday - late morning

Finally after 8 straight days of working I get a day off.  The morning is almost already gone, 1 day off isn't nearly enough.  I was going to go over and mow the grass at the park - it's getting pretty tall - even got into my pickup and was about to take off when I saw the weather forecast. 89% chance of rain in the next hour.  Oh, hey! Look at this! 10 minutes later it went down to 32%. 😐😐😐😐😐

It really needs to get done, I'm going to wait a little while and see what happens.  You can't mow wet grass, learned that a long time  ago.  

There hasn't been much different going on in my little world.  I had a blowout yesterday on I-30 that sounded like a bomb going off, enough that the pickup about to pass me slammed on his brakes as if a missile was coming at him, lol.  That took a couple of hours - actually not bad considering I was on the side of the Interstate and the closest tire facility that could get there in a reasonable amount of time was 50 miles away.  The other 2 facilities much closer were quoting 3 to 4 HOURS before they could even START the process of coming to replace the tire. 

And the truck was loaded, heavy, so driving it to the nearest facility about 10 miles away wasn't an option.  A truck loaded that heavy with a blown tire will quite possibly blow the tire next to it if you drive it, just not worth the risk. You can get away with it if it's empty tho.  That threw all of yesterday off and I didn't get home until late afternoon.  

Umm, Sunday loading was easy - I was home at noon.  Pretty much everything work wise hasn't been terrible. It's never great, not at this company, but mediocre is good enough.  

Now, as for the now-third assassination attempt on President Donald Trump.  You know this stuff is being fueled by Trump hating politicians such as Jeffries who literally don't care what they say about him and have publicly asserted as much?  This would-be assassin was a very intelligent person as far as his degrees and his profession was concerned, but very stupid in the world of killing people.  

I watched the video of him shooting a SS officer and attempting to just bolt by everyone as if he really thought he'd make it to the President, who was relatively a long way off?  He's lucky they didn't take him out, especially after shooting an officer. I am grateful the officer is doing fine what with the bullet proof vest, assuming it  was Kevlar but I don't really know what they are using to line those vests now. Perhaps some even better material has been invented? I didn't see anything in the news about what kind of vest it was. 

But what is telling of Democrat mindset is the amount of them that are saying they wish the man would have been successful at his intended quest to kill a sitting President.  These people.... are evil.  I would say have lost their minds, but that isn't an adequate description of a person who believes an political adversary should be killed.  

It's time to get ready for the return of Christ for those of us who may not be.  I don't have any illusions that any of this going on in our country will get any better.  Or in the world for that matter.  

_________

And like interferes with writing my blog, it's getting late now, time to go to bed. Up early in the morning for going down to load.  The rain they predicted? For this morning, this afternoon and this evening?  Never materialized.  Lol, typical for the forecasters around here. 

 Thursday -evening

Been a minute since I last posted.  Just get busy and distracted with stuff.  The last several days of work haven't been bad at all.  Pretty straight-forward, a little weather but not terrible.  The only problem I am having with work right now is that they had me working 6 days in a row - until today when they apparently couldn't find someone to cover the Sunday loads so i was "asked" to do it.  I replied I don't really want to do it since you're asking...

Yeah, I'll be working 8 days in a row.  

In other news, the 2 kids at the park that are going to a local technical college are leaving after this semester is over. Like, very soon.  That is a blow. One of them is the one that had the tractor over there, I will no longer have access to a tractor and I really don't want to get into even more debt on one right now. It's a real pain to rent one, but it's probably what I'll be stuck at until I get into a better financial situation, which isn't going to happen over night.  I traded his lot rent for the continuous access to the tractor, which he removed the other day without warning and now, today, I found out why. I thought he had another year there, but I guess his training is over and he's going to go make the big bucks. 

Which will leave more empty spot. I am down to 2 open spots right now, a couple has been practically begging me to move in for quite a while now, they are allegedly coming near the end of the month.  That will still leave 3 lots open since those 2 are leaving next month.  

There are times when the lots are full and I don't have to worry about it. There are times like now where it's a constant struggle to field phone calls and try to get them to come in.  

 Saturday - late night

Rain today, but not near as much as was forecast. We had a light drizzle this morning and then around noon we had a heavy downpour - but it didn't last very long.  A large portion of the city is without power, but that doesn't include us thankfully.  

Unless I'm driving a truck, I typically don't do much of anything on rain days and today was no different.  Besides cleaning the kitchen - and I cleaned it very well thank you - I've been playing games, watching tv and doing a lot of - nothing.  

I was reading a prophesy someone had handed me - or had started reading it anyway - when one of the kids came in and woke me up : (   If I recall correctly, the first part was way off but I wanted to read all of it.  If the kid had just come in a few minutes later than he did.....That was this morning. I shrugged it off and also the thought of going back to sleep, that wasn't going to happen.

I haven't been able to get on the mower, I doubt tomorrow will be any different if the grass is still wet.  I'll have to do it after work on Monday. The good news is that I have been off since yesterday afternoon when I got done with work and I get to have tomorrow off as well.  

I don't have anything of importance to say here, lol, I'm tired and getting ready to hit the sack.  Just reading all the anti-trump stuff, saying he's unhinged, off his rails, insane and continuing to call for Article 25 to be invoked, lmao.  We sat through 4 years of the Biden insanity with a President who didn't know where he was half the time or even understanding what, exactly, he was in the middle of doing. I'll take Trump over that catastrophe any day.  

I did not agree with Trump posting a pic that allegedly showed him as Jesus healing a person laying down.  Trump said he was just portraying himself as a doctor, I don't really believe that at all.  Trolling the Pope was the explanation most people were coming up with, most of my Christian friends were calling it blasphemy.  I'm not sure I can disagree with that assessment.  My assessments of Republicans can be quite as frank and curt as they are of democrats.  If they're acting out like children, let them all be called out on it. 

Such as Eric Swallwell.  Here we have a "man" that has been deriding Trump for years now who has been caught in his own web of lies, decent and extremely immoral actions.  I'm not judging the man particularly, just pointing out the obvious.  He was calling out Trump endlessly and then we get to see the skeletons in his closets.  The lift politicians choose is one of intense scrutiny, I don't even really want to run for local office because of it.

I'm already being put under spotlights for my role in the local gossip group. I don't tolerate the crap and ban people acting out in temper tantrums or calling other people foul and vulgar names and the like, so they go to other groups after being banned and start their conversations with each other about me "behind my back". But in one instance, they went to one of MY pages that I founded and started all of that nonsense.  Only one of them realized that I'm an admin in that group, she didn't know that I was the only admin and no mods in there.  No, I take that back, in that group I have a friend that I made a moderator so that if I ever get locked out, I have someone to bring me back in. 

I also found a mod for another selling group I have. Someone tagged me into it asking a question about something, I realized that group has grown to almost 6,000 people and I am spending no time dealing with things in it. So, I put up a post, asked if anyone wanted to help moderate it and a person came forward almost instantly and I made her a mod just as quickly.  Then others came forward on that post  but I figured one was enough, there isn't much foulness going on in there. Probably errant posts here and there.

You'd be surprised how many people are itching to get that "authority" role as a moderator.  I don't much care for it because people get into their feelings and all sense of reason and rational thinking go out the window.  I do it anyway, the group I admin in  most of the time is not my group but it has the largest audience in this area and has easily the most impact on the community. Community leaders - the mayor, the chief of police, the chief fire person, all city council members, most if not all prominent businessmen and women and a list of more "VIPs" are in that group.  

Not that I care what they think of me, I deal with people in there all the same regardless. But none of those people start any trouble which is good.  I have been doing mod/admin stuff for many years now and I just know when a person isn't worth the time of day discussing or arguing with, boot them, ban them and wash your hands of it. Huge waste of time trying to show a person the error of their thinking when you understand they aren't going to think any differently no matter how much you say to them or how you present it.

I have no idea how I got off on that tangent, what I do know? It's time to go to bed.  

 Thursday - early

Not pretending I got up early because I wanted to hit the day running. I just woke up and wasn't able to get back to sleep so I decided I might as well get my butt out of bed and get the day rolling.  

Yesterday was long - longer than normal anyway.  I knew it would be before it started for I needed some new tires on the trailer.  I actually tried to get tires on it on Tuesday but Love's said it would be hours before they had anyone available to even get started on it. 

I just told them thank you and turned around and left.  I'm not going to voluntarily sit in a shop for hours waiting on tires.  That only happens if it's a blowout and that usually happens on the side of the road.  Love's is usually ridiculous on the wait times and I avoid them if possible, but if it's tires, I will go in and ask if there is a long wait.  You see no trucks in the bay? Yeah that means nothing. Their techs could be and probably are on the side of the highway somewhere fixing a truck or replacing a blow out. 

This time, I drove 35 miles to Hope, Arkansas and tried out the Southwest Tire Mart there.  We have a national account with them, but they aren't exactly known for their speedy service either.  I got there and it was a very old, dilapidated set of buildings but it was bustling with activity and a large number of tire techs working. Popular place apparently.  No other semis there tho.  It took a couple of hours to get 3 tires replaced.  

I had noticed a small but deep chunk of tire tread missing out of one of the drive axle tires, I had to have that replaced. Actually, I wanted their opinion on it but since it was at the edge of the tire, I knew they would say replace it.  I sat in the waiting room and played games the entire time, I'm not going to sit in boredom at least.

The part that got me about yesterday? I pulled into the Texas inspection station - I was forced in their by their flashing lights and the fact that I wasn't bypassed on the E-log device.  You run that device and hope that it says bypass on it, but usually I am pulled in there. You just roll through the scale and if they don't red light you or come out on the porch and wave you down, you just keep going.

Yeah, no. There was no rolling through. There was a trooped on the porch and waved me to stop.  He went to the trailer and started kicking the tires on the front axle of the trailer.  I saw what he was looking at, the outside tire was bulging - heavy load. Truck sitting at almost 78,000 pounds, the tires are going to bulge a little and if you happen to stop on a small bump, the tires on that bump will bulge out like that. 

He did that for a minute, completely missing the rather worn out tire on the axle behind it, was satisfied the tires weren't flat and waved me on.  I thought I was toast on that one.  Even one bad tire can get you put out of service and you have to have a tire truck come to the station to replace it.  Now let's get this straight, if you have a blow out on one tire, the world isn't ending.  You pull over, inspect the damage and you call for help. That's it.  The truck isn't going to blow up, roll over or otherwise magically disintegrate before your eyes. 

Anyway, all the tires on the truck and trailer are good and should be good for quite a while now.  I have negative feelings about constantly having to go into shops and spending endless hours in them.  I don't care if the company pays me for it - the pay isn't that much and it eats up a good portion of the day or even causes me to have to stay overnight.  

2 more days of work including today and then I get the weekend off.  No surprise there, I worked all last weekend and didn't say a word to them about it.  I just let it go, did the work and got it over with.  If they do that, I sure want my next weekend off or at the very least, Sunday off.  As for now? 

Well, the kids are getting up and it's soon time to get the daily grind going.

G'day

 Tuesday - evening

Another night of poor quality sleep.. If this continues it's going to be problematic.  I'm having too many nights like this and I need it to end.  I don't know what's causing it, I go to sleep most nights quite easily but staying asleep is another story entirely.

Anyway, I was looking forward to getting the work day done and go home and take a nap.  2 things stopped that.  1, I have 2 tires on the trailer that are in grave need of replacement. 2, I got a call: you have been chosen in the random system for a drug screening today.  Oh how wonderful!  It gets better, you'll have to go to Longview to do it.  Why not my home town? 

She couldn't answer that question for it was corporate that informed her about it and when these things pop up, you are supposed to immediately drop what you're doing and go straight to the testing location. Yeah, right. I was in Lufkin.  You basically get to the place as soon as you can and it has to be the same day it is handed out, that's federal regulations, not our company's policies.  Like, if you are taking cocaine or meth, 2 hours or 5 hours or even a whole day isn't going make a lick of difference, it will still show up in your urine panel.

Fortunately, I don't take illegal/illicit drugs/controlled substances and neither do I want to.  I like beers here and there, but the last alcohol I had was so long ago there is no way it's showing up on a urine test.  Not to mention I wouldn't dream of driving under the influence, not even if it was  only one beer.  It's just too dangerous and unacceptable.  It's really a moral issue in my mind, for not only are you endangering your own life, you are also endangering the lives of anyone on the road that has the unfortunate circumstance of you driving near them.

It took 2 hours to drive over there, sit in the waiting room forever, stop at a Braum's for a chicken sandwich and go home. And yes, they are paying me. I'm not driving 50 plus miles for free, that was their decision to bypass my town and make me drive all the way over there.  

Got home and yes, took my precious nap.  It's not really optional after a poor night's sleep, I need that 20 minute nap to make it the rest of the day.  After that, the kid wanted me to go on a bike ride with him, so I forced myself, I surely didn't feel like it at all.  Put away dishes and helped cook dinner and now here I am, finally, at a little after 5,