Tuesday - evening

The day started out ok. Slept rather well last night which is always amazing the next day.  But, alas, it wouldn't stay so good.  I got up to the plant, pulled up onto the scale and the air pressure buzzer went off. It goes off after it goes under 67 psi, at least on my truck.  It's always somewhere in the mid 60's on any truck.  

Why on earth is it doing that?!! I looked at the air pressure falling, this started as soon as I had come into the plant, apparently and I could see why.  I pulled the yellow valve and the air pressure started building back up.  Ok, so there is a leak in the system that is related to the service valve.  When I got to the offload site in the plant, I quickly found the problem. I don't know the precise name of it, but it's a valve used to divert air pressure to the brakes.  It's not a big thing and there are hoses running in and out of it. 

It was dumping a massive amount of air.  Long story short: I drove to Prescott, Love's said I would have to wait until tonight before they could get to it.  TA told the same story and a place across the street from Love's as well. BUT...that place said they have a shop in Hope and they should be able to get to me. That whole area is a  bad place to have mechanical issues, seems like a lot of people have truck breakdowns there.  And tire issues too. You can wait a long, long time to get a tire issue resolved there.

Welp, I drove the 14 miles to the Hope shop and fortunately for me, they were able to get right to it and they actually had the part in stock! I was there an hour and a half, yes but that's far better than waiting 5 to 10 hours for them to even start looking at it. I had 2 air leaks fixed and that  was good.

However.  The other thing going on with that truck? You know the AC problem I have been talking about for a couple of years now - well going on 3 - with it? Yeah, well now it's gone. there is no AC working. The compressor isn't even coming on now.  Lucky me! Well, blessed me today, rains caused temps to come down temporarily and driving it wasn't bad. Tomorrow, however, a different problem.  It will be back up in the 90's and tho the morning drive is ok, once we start getting to the afternoon, no thanks.

Talk of switching trucks now instead of when I go on vacation.

The  health insurance issue has not been resolved but the problem has been identified.  Our company uses a health insurance middle man or whatever it is to pay everyone's monthly premiums. They take a lump some out all at once to pay for all of it.  

The fact that the HR gal didn't even believe me to begin with.  I have a written statement from them, lady, what more do you want? I called them twice to boot, they told me twice I have no health care insurance.  She left me a message telling me I had to call Bavvy and find out if they are the problem. 

ME?  I am a driver, not HR, not payroll, not a representative official in the company, YOUR @$$ needs to do this, I thought while reading this nonsense and that's when my manager called. I flatly told him it's the company's responsibility to deal with this, NOT ME. "Well she's out sick". How convenient. Why can't someone else in the department do it? There is no one else, one person runs the entire company's hr platform! 

But, he insisted on calling them himself (btw, I had tried twice to call them anyway out of irritation, they did not answer either time) and he got them to look into it and now? They had the money for my premium but for whatever reason, they "pulled it" according to my manager and it went unpaid.  The person my manager was talking to said the whole thing was odd ever since I changed insurance companies when the selection process was open.                

Allegedly I will have health insurance again tomorrow if not already. I don't know, but if they don't get these people to get this done tomorrow, I WILL CALL THEM AND LIGHT A FIRE UNDER THEIR DAMN ASSES. Thanks. 

As for my friend asking me when we're leaving New Orleans, I have no problem saying it here: We should be traveling to the Shores on the 17th.  NO is only an overnight stop to see some of the sights the ladies are interested in seeing.  We will probably get up early, but I don't know that for a fact, I only know they want to leave here to start the trip on the 16th at 6:00 am lol.  Ambitious, I'll give them that.  I don't care any way about it, I will not be driving the entire trip and I am QUITE happy about that. 

She doesn't like the way I drive - I don't know why and it's whatever to me, I drive pretty good I think but I don't waste any time getting to where I'm going - but then again neither does she, but more importantly, she wants to drive the entire trip.  This is a brand new Ram truck and it's a very nice truck indeed.  Personally not interested in buying new vehicles tho I'd love to upgrade that SUV to a newer model. It's a 2011 and I'd like something a little newer, maybe 2020.  New is nice but new is not a good economic move, at least not for me.  Anyone that likes to buy brand new vehicles, more power to ya! No judgment here but it's not a fairy tale when people say that a new vehicle loses thousands of dollars worth of value the instant you drive it off the lot...

Just looked at one right now from a dealer. 2020 Expedition MAX for 18k.  143,000 miles, not too much mileage.  Nice looking thing.  But, of course, we're talking payments and I have enough of that going on right now.  Maybe after I get that personal loan paid off in a few years - then again, maybe not.  The old ford is still running great.  I've had it 9 or 10 years and only put 50,000 miles on it.  

Well, not exactly cutting this one short, kind of covered some ground here, but it's many hours later and time to go to bed. I have my schedule up until vacation.  Working through Saturday, Sunday off, work Monday and Tuesday and likely taking the truck - somewhere - to get it fixed on Wednesday.  Would rather get it done Tuesday now that I think of it, doesn't matter how long that day is, I can get unloaded in Gurdon and then either take it to the yard or over to Rush (Peterbilt) and they need to figure out how I'm getting home.  He hasn't decided that yet, not my department and he still has time to figure that out (he being the manager).

Regardless, time for nighty night time.

 Sunday - night

A day off is almost like nothing off.  You just get a little break from work and then right back at it.  

Anyway, yesterday....It was plain out HOT outside.  Crazy heat.  Like, stay indoors type of heat - of which we and several others did not do.  That's because they had a 4th of July parade through downtown yesterday starting at 3:30.  We had a group of 4 ladies in a dressed up golf cart and at least one child walking - walking fast - running to keep up - beside it.  

I was sitting at the end of the parade waiting for them, but when i saw that child, the oldest kid here, I freaked out.  His face was bright red, he was barely moving and he was obviously suffering from whatever form of heat illness.  I mean, it was bad enough that I took him over to the EMS tent where the chief of the local EMS division for our town was there along with several others.  Perfect place for that child to be!

But I just sat him down at first, poured some ice cold water over his head and hoped that would help. It did help but not near enough.  I asked if there was a medic here?  Older gentlemen in excellent physical condition came over and we brought the boy in front of a huge fan they had set up.  They were prepared for this, I  give them credit.   

The fan and some cold packs and rags that had been drenched in cold water started to help, but he was out of it.  They didn't determine he needed hospitalization so I took him home. Our house is kept quite chilled.  But, even laying in bed with a huge ceiling fan over him and in a nicely cooled house, he was still complaining about how "hot" it is in this house. I told him if these symptoms didn't start to recede soon, he is going to be taking a cold shower. THAT .... WILL ....cool him down.  

From the time this started with him to the time he finally started looking normal again, it was a couple of hours.  We weren't going to hang out downtown that long anyway. It was the parade - there wasn't a lot of people comparatively speaking to other parades, but my guess is that it was just plain too hot for folks to want to sit out there.  

The drone show - replacing what this town deems as an eternal fire hazard having fireworks and having them banned within city limits, you can't even possess them - was at 9:30. We went back downtown at around 8:00 to hang out at the local brewery - it is a gathering center, 3 stories tall and people go there to eat only, not just drinking craft beer.  Well, it started raining. And raining, and raining.  Around 9:10 pm, it finally quit raining but apparently too late: they canceled the show. 

We left there after we heard that, no sense in staying there for nothing. We went and bought our own fireworks, went over to my property - which is outside of city limits and you can burn whatever, light off fireworks, whatever, whenever the only time it's restricted is during a burn ban.  They determine either the conditions are too dry or the winds are too heavy to allow outdoor burning. 

It was fun and a good replacement for a canceled drone show that had been getting hyped up for so long. Ridiculous.  

Today - church, applebee's, home.  We are not eating out often at all now. 2 adults in the house are on serious diets and eating out is difficult - not impossible - but hard to adhere to the keto diet.  Applebee's does have some offerings tho that fit the bill. Steak, salmon, chicken breast, bone-in hot wings. 

I had hot wings, delicious, very low carb and filling.  

It's almost time to go to bed already and I don't really feel like I had a day off at all, lol.  Back to that plant in Lufkin which can't get their act together. You sit and wait - and wait- and wait for them to load the truck.

With that? I bid you a good night. 

 Thursday - evening

Another good night's sleep, 2 in a row!  Amazing.  I feel energetic today such as I haven't felt in a while. I doubt that's solely sleep related but I"m sure it has a little bitty bit to do with it. I've been exercising regularly for a while now and I figure that is playing a large role in this.

Today? I open up one of my email accounts to find a cancellation notice for my health insurance.  I about flipped my lid on that one, in fact, I became incensed pretty quick.  This late pay on my health insurance has been going on for a while now and I've said something but now? I HAVE NO HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE.  Not  because I didn't pay it, oh no. That money comes out of my paycheck - every paycheck without fail.  

No, it's because this company has an incompetent human resources department.  This is easily and without question the final straw.  I will not work for any company not having health insurance as a benefit. But in this case, it's far worse than that. They don't PAY the damn thing on time.  Like what the hell do they think? They can just pay it when they feel like it?  

So what if something happens until I get coverage again? Here's exactly what will happen: I will sue the shit out of this company and try to force them to pay whatever. My insurance is fire insurance. Major health incident happens, I'm covered after the first 8k.  I have to settle myself down, I already blew up to my manager about this.  

It's just completely and totally unbelievable.  I have NEVER had a company - even lousy ones - not pay the health care coverage bill.  What are they thinking?  I have more than half a mind to start putting in applications.  I could do fuel hauling, that is all local work tho usually they start newbs out on the night shift, I thing I completely despise.  

______________

Had to let some time pass on that.  I don't want to make brash decisions, such as tell them where to stick it.  I've been telling them about this for a while now and now I have nothing. I feel vulnerable.  I'm not  young and at the age where you need that coverage for the sake of being able to deal with anything serious, God forbid, that might come along. I remember decades ago not having health insurance because I couldn't afford it and didn't feel I needed it. Not a very smart thing to do, but finances were the main problem, I was pretty poor at the time.  

But, if I don't find out that I have health coverage immediately restored tomorrow, I am going to tell them to shove it.  I would rather not be working at all and just find another job than to keep dealing with this company and all the bs it shoves at people.  Health insurance is about 50% of the reason I am working for this company the schedule is the rest.  

I'm not really sure I can talk about anything else here.  The whole situation is just surreal, absurd, ridiculous, outrageous and several other adjectives I could think of.  

Enough. I"m going to bed and sleep on it.  I started looking for a job, it's just something I don't really want to have to do right now, start all over yet again somewhere else, gag. 

 Tuesday - evening

Much better sleep last  night, thankfully.  Up to Gurdon, offload quickly, over to the tire shop yet again in Hope to get that bad tire replaced on the trailer I just picked up yesterday.  I'll say one thing about this trailer: the offload valve where you hook up the line to deliver the product is on the side of the trailer instead of underneath it.  I have been crawling under trailers for quite a while now, this one you don't have to do that at all.  

Loading yet again tomorrow.  I am very much disliking going to Lufkin, 8 or 9 loads in a row I have been there at least 3 hours, some days much more than that.  They are shorthanded - they are always shorthanded but some days are worse than others. When you see a plant manager coming out to load you, they are shorthanded that day.  

Other than that? Well, I did nothing at the park today - it was a real feel of well over 100 degrees and after driving in a not-so-cool truck all day long, laboring out in the worst heat of the day didn't sound palatable. I really want to get this guy working but I just don't have it in me to sit out there in this heat.  Nevertheless, I am going to try to get him out there this week on whatever day and try to get at least that sewer finished.  It probably won't take more than 4 or 5 hours? 

Or much longer than that, who knows.  Sewer line is the hardest part as far as I'm concerned and that only because you have try to get the slope "perfect". Not too shallow and not too steep.  Not to shallow for obvious reasons.  But, did you know if you have the slope too much, the fluids bypass the solids and the solids - well they just sort of sit there. And once they dry up, you have a problem.  

I have the slope way too high on the shed, but that's not an issue because of all of the washing machine water flushing it out on a daily basis. 

Whatever.  Not today, that's for sure, it's almost 9:00 pm, but crazy enough, there's still plenty of daylight out there! Amazing. Arizona is even worse, there are times of the year where you can still see a hint of the sun near 10:00 pm. 

Oops, forgot to check if I have the early load tomorrow. I just know I'm working through Saturday, Sunday off and then start it all over again.  16 days until vacation.....2 more full weeks of work and then a few days of work the following week and then 8 glorious days off. 

To that end I have been dieting and tho I am at a plateau right now, it'll eventually fall off and I'll start losing  fat and weight again.  Doing the bicycling too. I just made the kids go with me, lol.  80 more pushups today, best get busy after this entry, trying to do 100 per day again previously and made it - I think around 140 days?  Or was it 120? Meh, who knows, my arms were super pumped up as well as my shoulders. My chest wasn't showing anything, too much blubber there lol.

That's about it. Now that I reminded myself I need to finish off the pushups for today. 

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This was yesterday's entry, I was just going to leave it in the unfinished entries list but, since it explainsa miserable night's sleep? Might as well publish it.  

Monday - evening

What a miserable night's sleep. Started out with going to bed early, kids making too much noise.  About the time I finally decided to give them what-for, one of them came barging into my room to say goodnight.  

Later, one of the lady of the house's dog started barking right outside of my window.  I was screwed after that.  You do that to me while sleeping you might as well just wake me up for the night, I'll be lucky to ever get back to sleep.  I think I might have gotten 3 hours of sleep.  

The reason I got up early was go to go Haughton for a different trailer. Although uneventful, it adds about 100 miles to the trip - a couple of hours and then some.  

 Saturday - evening

Finally made it to the finish line to get the rest of today off - well I worked today so I don't call it an off day, but  you get what I'm saying, and then tomorrow off. And then?  Right back at it on Monday. 

We are counting the days until vacation and I'm taking fully 8 days off of work. I reminded my manager about it yesterday when he was discussing all of this working going on - he said yes!  Ok, just wanted to be sure. I didn't tell him that I will be going on that vacation regardless. It was asked for, it was approved, get an OTR driver in to take my place while I'm gone, that is my suggestion and he understands he probably isn't going to get by with me gone and not having someone come in and take my place temporarily. 

Now. I have a huge vibration on that truck/trailer. A few days ago, I was looking at the tires, 2 of them side by side on the trailer tandems were dry rotted, to the point one of the caps appeared to be ready to come off. Trust me, I have examined this truck endlessly looking for the source of this problem.  

So, after unloading, I stopped at Southern Tire Mart in Hope, AR and they not only agreed with me but pointed out a large ballooned out portion on one of the tires I had identified as deficient. Dang, I didn't even see that!  So, both of those tires were replaced. I got out on the open highway and the vibration was gone!  

Until the next day, after loading and the vibration was right back. So, the tires helped but didn't fix the problem.  Sick of this nonsense and feeling like the truck is going to shake apart at any moment, I decided to get a cleanup mat used for spills at the plant and get on my knees and get under that truck and trailer and examine everything I could see. I am an ex-truck mechanic, I can figure out problems, I just don't feel like laying on my back in the dirt at my RV park.  At all.  In fact, I don't want to do any work on trucks anymore.  

But this situation? I spent half an hour looking all over everything while I had the resin (glue) flowing out of the trailer into their tank system and when I was ready to quit and give up?  The last thing I looked at?  A stabilizer arm on the trailer.  The rubber bushing had basically disintegrated. This must be it! I contacted my manager, sent him a pic. I sort of just said, well I don't know if this will cause the vibration (but pretty sure it was the culprit). He said "well you found the problem, that will absolutely cause the entire rig to shake like that".  

So, I was offered two unpalatable options, one far worse than the other.  I can go to the yard in El Dorado, pick up an empty there but there is a caveat.  The trailer needs and entry cleanout.  This is where a person gets in the tank and chips away at built up glue deposits. It's an at-least hours long ordeal.  You are talking the extra HOURS it takes just to get to El Dorado and then more HOURS spent at the washout.  

Option 2: Go to Haughton, drop the defunct trailer and pick up another one.  Although it does add hours to the trip, it is nothing like the first option, I immediately went with 2.  

But, situation went from bad to drastically worse. I went back to the delivery tube to check the air pressure.  Something caught the corner of my eye. Drops off fresh glue on the ground nowhere near the valve and outlet.  What? I got to examining it, it was dripping from the bottom of the trailer!  The damn trailer has a leak!  I contacted the manager with pics and he said ok, we're taking it to Brandon's to get it fixed. I have no idea who or where Brandon's is and I don't care, that headache will be off of me. 

The guys were out there removing the weeds next to the trench.  Then they laid out the pipe and then asked when I would have another day off. I thought about that for a while, this isn't working.  I replied that if they wanted to help do this project, it would just have to be after I get off of work and just go back to work - on the project.  They didn't care, sure!  Great. Next week I will see if I can get them out there in the 97 degree heat which almost always has a real feel of well into the 100's and get the sewer pipe laid, done and over with. Then find the water line, trench to the trench where the existing trench is and lay that in there. 

I figured this out. You CAN lay the sewer and water pipe in the same trench - but. You get the sewer line in there, test it and make sure it's leak free and it's flowing good. Once you ascertain that, you dump about 2 feet worth of dirt on top of it and then you lay your water pipe down.  Water pipe is under pressure, obviously, so you don't have to worry about fall.  After you get that whole system installed, then you dump more dirt on it and then lay your electrical. 

This enables you to use the same trench while separate sewer from water and electrical from both.  ]

But yes, I am hoping to start back on this next week and get at least 3 if not 4 lots going. I'm tired of turning people away - a thing that started up again recently.  

All 3 kids are here - or have been here anyway since last weekend. I'm referring to the oldest who was brought down to visit with us last weekend. The grandparents brought him and now they arrived a little while ago to take him back tomorrow.  It's not been too bad this time around, they are mostly behaving which is nice.  

With the park? I do have a plan here. Get at least 10 lots in - might take a while but I'll get it done - and then show proof the I am taking in X amount of money and try for that government back loan.  I need decent income to prove that I can pay whatever a 400k loan will cost me in monthly payments. I want the other 25 lots installed by the contractor and the rest for a pool and the rest after the pool for a building of some sort. I'd love to put in a fancy log cabin - but that isn't in the cards. Not now, maybe never.  Or just a nice building.  I'll probably have to opt for a metal building, much cheaper. I need 2 full sized bathrooms with showers for men and women. 

I need an office.  I need a gathering place and I want at least a C store to sell RV staples and whatever snacks and food I want to carry.  A deli would be nice but highly optional.  These are goals. I must get to work on the next goal - the 16 lot expansion - before I can think about the rest of that stuff.  I'm going to need a temporary bathroom and I'm thinking I can get those two to do that work in the old coach I have to transform it into a bathroom and another small laundry.  

That's a plan. It's not the final plan, it's just a plan that I have stuck in my head so I have a clear way forward and hopefully, out of trucking.  I do not want to rely on social security for retirement, the amount I would be getting is absurdly small compared to my monthly income right now.  I couldn't live off of that, or if I wanted to force it, I would be very poor.  Obviously I could sell off my assetts and not be poor, but in my mind, a thriving RV park netting 8k per month would be wonderful. 

____________

11:00 pm and time to go to bed.  Went out to eat with the grandparents and 2 out of 3 grandchildren.  The 3rd was engrossed in games - they haven't had access to them much in the last couple of days. Grandparents and I are somehow not only getting along now, but actually dining and chatting.  Amazing.  

 Tuesday - early

Woke up half an hour early - fasting will do that.  I got on the scale and the miracle of getting down into the teens occurred.  219 with it flickering to 218.  That's the only motivation I need to make it through today fasting and into tomorrow. Or not, lol.  I'm not hungry now but it'll hit sooner or later and then it's a battle to fight through it. Some chemical or whatever it is is released into your system to tell you you are hungry, I think the name of it is Ghehlin?  Yup, that's the name, had to look it up.  

Your system produces a lot more of it telling you you are hungry and it's impossible to ignore. The upside is that it doesn't go on forever, sooner or later it stops and then the hunger goes away - temporarily anyway. 

I'm not going to get long winded here, not a lot of time.  I just wanted to pause for a minute, do a little reflection and then get moving - I am half an hour early so no big deal.  But, now that I think of it, the earlier I'm out there, the better the traffic situation is.  

Anyway, the fat is disappearing. I didn't say I'm not fat, no, just that it's become quite noticeable.  Losing 22 pounds should be noticeable? If I make it to 30 pounds at whatever point, I am going to take a pic and compare the two. I have a pic at the peak of 241.  I was really shocked when I got on that scale and saw that, I hadn't weighed myself in a long, long time.  It's a large part of what got me moving back onto whatever diet works.

The only one that has worked for me is keto.  I don't take diet pills and I won't.  I don't think they are healthy for you and I'm sure at some point they'll find that it has some sort of serious potential side effects - you know, heart attacks, strokes, death? Those types of thing that keep me away from such things.  You can lose weight without taking pills. I get that some people SHOULD take those pill. If you're 400 pounds you are already a ticking time bomb for some or many serious medical issues and/or episodes, I'd be taking whatever available to dump the weight. 

I have an old friend that's doing that. I think he's dumped 150 plus pounds? He looks completely different than he used to.  He's also gotten active, something I am doing myself.  Pushups, bike riding when I remember to and if the weather permits.  The ladies trying to get me to go to the gym but I"m not there yet.  I was going to, I just have a stigma about gyms and I"m not even sure why. I went to them for decades before - divorce is what really changed things.

Anyway, I need to get offa here and get moving.

G'day

 Monday - night

Day 1 of the 3 day fast is over.  It's been over 24 hours since I last ate. Ketosis coming back in much stronger now, one of the reasons to fast again.  But also to maybe dump some more weight and get it down into the 215-219 area.  I'm just following the doc's plan online.  Low carb, stay in ketosis, do a 3 day fast after the 5 day version every 9 days.  If I don't make it the full 3 days, I'm not concerned.  Keto strips are showing ketones so that's good enough. 

I will try to make it through tomorrow tho.  I'm not a real big fan of fasting, probably not too many people are, but I am a fan of the benefits and the results of it.  But when they are cooking dinner and you haven't eaten all day, the smell is almost tormenting lol. 

Today was another bs day in the trucking world.  Upon arrival at the washout, there was another of our trucks there getting cleaned out. I was listed as first load. I waste no time anymore, I text the main dispatch number and the manager calls me right back. 

Goes through and entire spiel about how he's just coming back to work today and found out at 6:30 am all the nonsense going on. Apologizes profusely - we are apparently behind 3 truckloads right now and the plant is getting upset.  So, this other driver ahead of me actually showed up there yesterday afternoon to get the entry style cleanout. It's where they physically go into the tank and chip the stuff off the walls of the trailer.  

The problem is we constantly have new drivers, they are not trained on our specific run and they do things wrong. Such as not putting some water back into the tank after they are finished emptying it.  If you don't, the glue can get set up in the valve at the bottom and you are screwed. Good luck with that.  So, I had to move out of this driver's way when they were done and wanted to do a final washout at the normal station and then I had to wait for him to load at the plant. About 1 hour and 45 minutes.  

And, the plant is short handed - as always so one of the control room operators was out there loading me.  They had no choice, 3 of our trucks coming in plus a slew of other trucks hauling other materials, all hands were on deck. 

Now? I have a tire problem on one of the tires on the trailer and I'm going to have to try go get it replaced tomorrow above and beyond delivering the product.  That will likely cost me hours of time sitting at a tire shop. Mind you, this is my "new" trailer, they took the other one away for testing but once it was put back into service? No longer mine.  It was the only trailer in this portion of the fleet that has air ride suspension on it.  Air bags in other words.

Oh well. I'm tired and going to bed.