Monday - morning

I did, of course, procrastinate too long and now I only have 3 days to do my taxes.  Well, I have everything in mind I need to do, the biggest chunk is inputting receipts into the   quickbooks account which will take a while. 

I don't actually buy a lot of stuff now that the park is set up and running, excepting that I do have stuff I bought for the expansion and stuff I bought to repair the disaster I created in attempting to execute the work of the expansion.  That was a chunk of change. I can't imagine what it would have cost if I were to have actually found a contractor to do the work. 

I was completely exasperated at some point and felt overwhelmed.  It was mainly because there was a whole park full of people who had no water and thankfully didn't flush out their black water holding tanks while the system was down.  That and the endless problems, fix one and find another.  It was crazy and I never have gotten back to the expansion work. I keep trying to motivate myself but the thought of creating that kind of catastrophe again - well I need to deal with it in my mind and get past it so I can get busy.  I've already spent quite  a bit of money on it - the septic system, the electrical panel, renting the trackhoe and buying pipe.  There's some money right there but it will cost double that to actually get some lots up and running. 

Anyway, I was hoping to mow the grass out there today but it rained very nicely yesterday and it's probably still wet.  I'm going over there in a while to check it - maybe - I may get so caught up in taxes I won't have time for that and really, there is no expectation that grass can be mowed the day after a heavy rain. 

What I do need to do is go to the bank for quite a bit of deposits and also go get a haircut.  I may do that here quick, get a coffee from one of the endless coffee joints around here and then get back at tax junk.  This little town is know for donuts, liquor stores, car washes and coffee houses.  

Locals complain about it all the time, why can't we have other stuff here, like recreational things to do? Well, there was a bowling alley, a skating rink and a public pool. The public pool is next to the high school, shut down and full of black and green gunk. The skating rink I have no idea where that was, I do know it doesn't exist anymore and the bowling alley is a long abandoned building that wasn't making money for the owners.

In other words, these people want everything but they don't want to pay for it, hence, no sane business person is going to dump hundreds of thousands or more into a project that is quite risky and the banks will probably guffaw at any such ventures. I DO believe a mini golf course would work here, but that is a few hundred thousand dollar money dump and who knows if it would actually have a decent ROI? Or even pay for itself? 

Now if you could do the work yourself and cut out contractors, you could get it done for far less. I am no young man anymore with that kind of energy, that is best left either to younger generations or, if so inclined. to finance it and see what happens.  But, a bank would probably want surveys done in the area to find out what the potential market is - feasibility study - and that costs a chunk of change in and of itself.  I don't have the space for that at my park anyway unless I wanted to forgo the expansion in the back part and build one there.  There is room for one but no, no thanks. I would rather build in the city somewhere close to down town and there isn't that kind of land available there.  

Even if there was, they would want high dollar for it even tho this town is small, 25% poverty and a lot of abandoned structures all over the place from rotting houses to huge, brick building that have stood empty since long before I moved here.  

I'm looking at the clock and think how did the morning go by so quickly? I didn't play any games until a minute ago and that was just 2, short, 5 minute games, I closed out the app because it's distracting and I have stuff to do.  Oh, yes, I slept in until 10 am lol!  What can I say, just coming off of working the entire weekend, I felt the need to sleep in and catch some good shuteye, which I did.

I did wake up in the middle of the night and then I woke up for the kids so I could give them their Monday morning send off - which is simply looking at Facebook reels of all kinds of different content, the oldest likes to watch clips of Fortnite and also Fortnite content creators, which the internet is definitely full of.  He envisioned himself becoming a fortnite pro player for his future and becoming a millionaire from the profits of winning championship games. 

Yeah, buddy, so are millions of other people.  We kind of tried to derail him from that kind of thinking. He then said he wanted to learn how to become an engineer and work for one of these gaming platforms, probably a lot of people want that too, but that's more realistic.  I don't want to dissuade him from following his dreams, to the contrary, I talk to him about starting his own business and becoming his own boss.

I then talk to him about working at a fast food or similar place for a while to understand how the employer-employee relationship works and what is expected of you in a work environment.  Not a life long thing, of course, but the experience and learning is good.  

I actually feel quite chatty at the moment, however, I need to get busy.  

 Sunday late-afternoon

When a day clicks at work, it's nice. Now I've had 2 of them in a row, which is beyond nice, almost miraculous.  I got up begrudgingly for work - Sundays are not work days in my book - and got with it.  Got out  of the house, over to the truck, got out of the yard and not surprisingly considering what day it is, very little traffic. Took 25 less minutes to get up there because of it.  

At the scale, they were there before I even got back from the Port-A-Jon - had to go! Coffee! Over to the delivery shack, found a manager immediately, he didn't ask any questions, I just informed him the tank levels and he signed off on it. 48 minutes later - which in itself is very good beyond all the other time saving things that happened - I was out of there in no time.  

A bit of annoyance coming back with some dude playing around with trucks, won't go into that now for I don't feel like it, got home at 12:30 pm! That's GREAT for the Gurdon trip! We all went to Applebee's, including the mom. It is unfortunate that when she goes? The youngest child acts up and it got pretty bad.  He had a full blown meltdown over an issue that he knows he can't do when we're eating.  On the kids Applebee's Sunday event, I let them play their games.  

The caveat is they put the game down when ordering and be respectful to the waitress and also have to stop playing while they're eating. Never an issue - until today and mom sitting next to him. Mom says it's only because she's there and it does happen every time that when she goes with us to a restaurant? That kid loses it. So, when the food came and he continued playing, I told him to put the game down.  He didn't, I was about to say something else to him, but mom chimed in and then? He went ballistic..  

Anyway,, that's behind us, we're home and I'm about to get on my game.  Because it's Sunday and yes, someone decided to move in - today - at the park. I don't care, but I"m not going over there.  I was already there twice. I told him to pick a lot and we can square up tomorrow.  I almost never go there on Sundays unless there's an emergency or if I have to work. The truck is parked over there, which is quite convenient for  me.  

 Saturday - night

Get tomorrow delivery done and then off until Tuesday morning.  I mean, I didn't want to work the entire weekend, but since I'm doing it, might as well look at the bright side of things about it.  It's supposed to rain tomorrow - but not until after I'm long done with the run so that's a good thing as well.  I'm first load, another good thing and whoever is second load did not show up before me or even the entire time I was at the plant loading today. I got back at 12:30, which is quite good. 

I did not get any mowing done yesterday at all, contrary to the statement I made the day before.  That's because by the time I got over there, I had a massive headache from who knows what and it was rather debilitating.  I went home and laid down is what I did. I didn't take any drugs for it, I just let it pass on it's own and it hasn't come back since. However, it took quite a while for it to pass. 

Anyway, if it rains tomorrow, that will preclude me from doing any mowing on Monday.  The grass will be wet, just doesn't cut well when it's wet.   

I didn't do much after I got home today, another night where I didn't sleep well and we had a recital to attend for the oldest kid who is learning how to play guitar. The arts business that teaches kids to play various instruments has occasional recitals at the church for them to show off what they have learned. It was interesting.  The kids all put their hearts into the various instruments they were playing and a couple of singers. Each person had a short thing to play or sing excepting a couple of singers who did full songs.  

It took me back to the years when I was playing clarinet and learning other instruments before I gave the woodwinds up and learned how to play guitar.  A thing I have mostly forgotten, tho I did pick up a guitar a while back and I was surprised at how well I was playing considering the decades since I had last played anything.  I'm not saying I was playing great, but I thought I'd be starting at beginner level and that definitely isn't the case. I'm mildly interested in picking up the guitar again and seeing if I can get proficient at it. 

Seems to me life is full enough of enough stuff right now.  

I'm back to 2 spots open.  I have had people leaving a lot but new people coming in to take their places. A couple in west Texas wants to move over here for who knows what, work probably, I just don't know. 2 motorcycles, 2 vehicles and a dog run. I don't think I mind the dog run, someone else put one up, it looks ok but those people take care of their lot and their dogs.  

I just think that many vehicles is going to be too cluttered and I'm considering telling them of another park in the nearby area that has some HUGE lots.  And the owner doesn't mind having that many vehicles. I dunno what they charge, but I think that would be a better fit for them.

Speaking of parks, this acquisition company has been getting me to try and buy another park in Center, TX.  Center is about a 50 minute drive from where I live. It's a 22 spot park with a manager already living on the premises.  I don't know what amenities it has, I'm going to look up their park on the internet and see.  They want a little over 600k for it, which I won't pay.  22 spots in a small town in the middle of nowhere, I have no idea what the economic drivers are there.  I have driven through there probably 100 times but never really paid attention to anything. It's an unremarkable town and doesn't really stand out for much of anything that I can remember seeing. 

The problem with this place is that it's only 68% full. I'd have to do some research and see what other parks might be in the area, what the economy is, whether there is hope for getting the place more like 90%  full - at least and if it really would be a good investment.  I'm not sure about financing either.  I could run the park, yes especially if there's a manager already living there.  I can actually take a different route for the washout where I take the trailer before loading and go right through Center, giving me opportunity to stop on occasion and check things out.  

 Thursday - afternoon

Just got back from Arkansas.  Pretty standard trip replete with idiots cutting trucks off to the point that you wonder how they got their license, how they aren't already dead from making such risky and stupid moves in traffic and what goes through their minds when they are engaging in such unbelievable driving stupor. 

But, that is a daily occurrence, albeit the fact that there are some instances that stick out where you think, I could have just killed that person for what they just did and they don't even realize it .  Not that I want to kill anyone, quite the opposite, it's why I stay hyper-focused on the road while driving the truck.  The instance 2 days ago was one of those times.

Coming into Atlanta, Texas from the south on highway 59, you approach a stop light and are forced to make a left turn, at least for trucks, for the through highway.  Probably half a mile before that light, there is a highway that dead ends at 59. In the mornings, it is super busy in that area and the speed limit is 50.  Those people coming up on that dead end are always wanting to make a left hand turn into the lane/s you are already in.

There is so much traffic wanting to make that turn, they installed a sort of on ramp lane that they can turn into to give them a chance to speed up and merge with prevailing traffic.  They aren't supposed to just jump right out in front of oncoming traffic and ignore that on ramp.  But, 2 days ago? That's exactly what a mini SUV driver did.  RIGHT in front of me.  I had a split second to look to my right and hope that there aren't any cars in the lane next to me..  Note that I have to be in the left lane there to continue on 59.  Trucks are not allowed to stay on the right through restricted areas of town. 

There was a pickup just behind where I would come over and I went for it.  The pickup driver was paying enough attention to slam on their brakes, throw up their hands at me - clearly didn't and couldn't see what has just happened and continued to give me glares and stares after the incident occurred. 

You see, I was going 50 mph and that car that inserted itself in front of me wasn't even done making the turn, they might have been half way through it I would have t boned them and it is likely going that speed that someone would have died.  That is why I took the chance of side swiping the pickup, otherwise I would have spared the innocent driver who had nothing to do with it and just smashed into the car, come what may. 

The amount of stupidity and distracted driving going on out there just makes me want to quit driving today. I wish I could afford to.  

Onto other things. The man that moved in, paid for a month and then moved back out 2 weeks later - which was a few days ago - and THEN contacted me about issues he was allegedly having in the park.  The people next door have a trashy setup, their dogs are out barking until 3 am and they -are crack heads.  I don't want to waste a lot of time with this, so short story: THEY decided to take that lot, not me, I told them they could have nay of the 3 available lots.  THEY stayed their 2 WEEKS before they left and they KNEW what the next door neighbors place looked liked WHEN they moved in there. 

They demanded their money back. Again, they move out, claim issues with the park after they moved out and then the same day want their money back, the unused portion of their month long stay.  They were allegedly going to be long term.  Oh, and I didn't even collect from them until two days after they moved in, if they didn't like it they could have easily left. I would have wanted 2 nights stay worth of money but not a whole month. 

So, he's texting me his demand and I texted back that I am investigating this situation with the people you are complaining about.  I was not going to take this dude's word for it simply because he said so. I don't know if the dogs are out there barking all night long.  He then texts back that he wants his money right now and that I have until 5 pm tonight (that night) to send it to him or he is going to post a bad review.  I replied that I don't tolerate people threatening me and he won't get anything if he continues.  HE says it's not a threat, it's a promise.  I said bye.  Yes, he left a stupid review on facebook of which I have already replied the details of the truth that he left out.  

There are NO crack heads in my park. I do not tolerate drug use, at all.

I've now got all 3 mowers I took into that guy's place fixed and running smoothly.  These are nice mowers, the carbs were gunked up I guess and he cleaned out 2 of them and replaced one.  Sharpened blades, oil changes, etc maintenance and repair and all of them are purring like kittens now. Money well spent versus buying brand new ones that are quite expensive in this hyper inflated market. 

He told me to bring in the one that has been sitting there so long, it has weeds growing through it.  I said I'm not sure it's worth it? He said well even if I can't get it running the parts off of it are worth something. Yes, I would just give it to him if he can't get it going so I will be taking that one in as well.  We've gone through a lot of mower at the house and the property.  They stop running, we buiy new ones and I thought, this is insanity, let's try to get these things working!

Unfortunately, I have procrastinated this long and still haven't started on taxes. I have tomorrow and Monday off, I'm going to devote many hours on those days to getting it dealt with.  It's going to be exasperating and I'm not looking forward to it.  No idea whether I will get money back, break even or owe the government.  I'm good with it if I don't owe them anything. 

They are going to build a massive AI date center in a town 83 miles from here. It is causing quite a lot of stir in the local communities for people are fearing a lot of noise, power drain and most importantly: contaminated water.  I dunno, just sort of sitting back and watching this all unfold.  It will bring a lot of temporary construction jobs but not a lot of permanent positions so I am not all that excited either way about it.  

__________________

Night time.  We made dinner, watched one of the kids pouting, crying, fussing, throwing tantrums because he didn't want to eat the vegetables and then after all was said and done, he finally ate it all long after we left the table.  It's amazing how utterly difficult a child will make their life for want of having their own way, not listening and defying parents and generally attempting to make everyone else's lives miserable since they are going to sit and sulk in their own pudding bowl of misery. 

I've grown used to it.. They have tried everything and I do mean everything including psychological counseling. 

But, whatever.  It's getting late, I have been playing some games and it's time to go to bed. I hope to get a large chunk of mowing done over there tomorrow.  I have to work the entire weekend, I won't want to do any of that after having to get up early on both a Saturday and a Sunday plus missing church, gag.

If I get that mowing done in a reasonable amount of time, I might even jump down into the ditch and start putting pipe together again.  Except I think I need more primer and glue.  I won't make any promises in that department, there is a lot of grass out there and even with that huge mower, it's going to take a while to cut it down.  

Making no huge plans about that, I'll get done what I get done and that will be that. I need to spend time on taxes anyway, but, I can find time for the park and taxes, I think anyway.  

 Monday - night

Slept quite miserably last night. Slept like a baby the night before. 

It's 9:25 pm and after this, I'm going to bed. Whether I sleep or not remains to be seen, I don't much care for laying in bed and not sleeping. It's not going to sleep that gets me, it's waking up in the middle of the night and then not being able to get back to sleep. Well, except for last night, I couldn't even go to sleep to start with. That almost never happens.

Anyway, work today uneventful.  The washout took longer than usual and the loading took longer than it should but I still got home at a decent hour.  Kids were off school - have been off school since Thursday. I've never heard of the amount of days off kids get during the school year.  We never got half the stuff they get off now. 

Trump is threatening to destroy the entire power network and all the bridges in Iran if they don't make a deal.  I have no doubt that Trump will follow through with that threat.  The talking heads are saying it would be a war crime, that's total bunk. These people make up the script as they go along, as long as it condemns Trumps, it's all good whether true or false, usually completely made up gibberish.  Not always, but 95% of  the time it is.  

Now, is it a good ending? NO. The people of Iran - citizens that is - will be living in what Trump described as the stone ages. Pretty good description.  Better get some books written by the Amish, they could teach all of us a thing or two about living without electricity - tho they don't have to live without bridges. 

My other two mowers are repaired, just have to go get them.  The man is an expert, he's just working out of his house for now after taking a bad fall and even losing his memory for an extended period of time.  The things life delivers to you sometimes out of the blue....

I don't really have a lot today.  Kids acting up, delicious dinner tonight, the lady of the house made it and it was wonderful.  I figure it's the food around here making me fat and I'm going to have to lay down the gauntlet at some point, toughen up and start a ridiculous keto diet all over again.  The gauntlet challenge is to simply laugh in the face of food and eat what I need to eat to get rid of the weight.  Low carb and low total daily calories. 

It's much harder than people think if they've never done keto. I did it for years and it gave me high cholesterol.  But, I realized after the fact that I didn't have to eat all of that fat that gave me that condition. I was using ample amounts of heavy whipping cream in my coffee - i don't use it at all now.  I use fat free creamer. 

Oh, Saturday! It rained the entire day. It was POURING rain up there in Gurdon and my pants were soaked, my upper body was wet but not soaked, I had a wind breaker on that was also keeping the rain off of me.  Miserable, driving home in that no fun either.  After that, we went to an Easter Egg hunt at the church.  Even the pastor was remarking about how heavy the down pour was. When the kids and I got out of the SUV to go inside the church, we ran as fast as we could, it was raining that hard.  They did the "hunt" indoors.

After that, we went to a family friend's son's birthday party at Chili's. That was his choice. That particular Chili's usually gives me excellent service, but not that day.  I ended up writing a bad review for the waiter who has also given me the stiff arm in the past regarding any kind of service at all.  We went home after that for a few minutes and then went and saw some kids cartoon movie at the local theater.  That took us to 8:00 pm, Saturday was a very long day for me.  

Sunday was church, Applebee's home and hanging out the rest of the day.  

There it is in a nutshell.  

I'm quite fatigued from lack of sleep and I'm going to bed.  

 Ssaturday - early

I've got to take this load to Arkansas, offload it and then I'm off until at least monday.  A lot of jacking around with the schedule has occurred and a lot  of nothingness in the communication department has also occurred to the point I had to force the issue. 

Basically, I could have taken the early load today because I forced the issue. What I didn't know about the early load is that the manager changed it  from having to arrive at 8 am to having to arrive at 7 am.  He caters to this new driver, gives him priority and preferential treatment.  I most certainly got into it with the manager about this s*** yesterday and I didn't care the outcome at that point.  The manager didn't communicate with his dispatcher of whom he had directed days earlier to give me the option to either load on Thursday or load on Friday.

Because of the way I felt - physically not emotional - I do not regret loading yesterday but the whole thing blew up in my face because of the ridiculous way they run this company.  

I get these glimpses of what another job would be like, I just feel like it's so much energy and time and starting at the bottom all over again that I don't want to do it.  And yet, at some point, they will probably push me too far and I'll just show up with the truck in their yard, park it and leave. Permanently.  

To help the poor or not, that isn't really a question. Jesus wants us to help the poor but the question is, how far do you go with it? When the poor are living at your RV park and they are lying to you about paying rent and dragging and stretching it out month  after month, where do you draw the line?  When do you say ENOUGH WITH THE LIES< GET YOU AND THAT THING OUT OF MY PARK!  

I knew getting into this that the mentality of people who do not prioritize rent will be the same whether it's renting rooms in a house or renting a spot in an rv park.  If you give them an inch, they'll take far more than a mile.  To the point that I'm really struggling with this issue of how to treat the poor respectfully and still run a business.  After all the bs and the person telling me she would pay yesterday? I was driving into my park in the truck yesterday and they were dragging that thing out of there.  

And they left an absolute mess. They had installed a sand box for the grandchild that was visiting fairly frequently - they took the sand box but they spread the sand over a 20 foot section.  Instead of removing it like they said they would, the spread it out. I have about a 6 inch thick covering of sand now.  I was looking at the blocks, the wood and all of the sand and got fairly angry.  Help people out and they screw you up the @$$.  

I'm still a but peeved but I've had to let the anger go.  It's not helping me and they don't care. I tried to contact them and text them and received nothing back, of course.  If I were to see that lady right now, it would not go over well, I would say things I would later regret saying. She goes to the same church I go to.  They claimed all this bs about getting caught up on the rent, I had my reservations but I gave them 3 more days.  Was it a mistake? In the sense of money, no, I had already shut off the electricity to the thing since they weren't staying there and were allegedly moving back in;. I didn't want to pay to cool a trailer that isn't being used. 

I've BEEN paying for that trailer to be cooled and heated for quite a while.  That's what led this situation to a head: pay me money.  

What I find amazing is the priorities people set. They would rather prioritize anything else over having a place to have a roof over their heads?  This is very strange thinking to me. IT used to be people would put their living arrangement first and then pay everything else as they could. Now? 

It's not been bad with some other people who needed time to get caught up. One retired couple needed help and I helped them and now they are paying back an extra $100 per month.  My rates are far from exorbitant by the way.

Well, enough of this for now.  It's time to go to work but I had to write something to get it off of my chest.  It's going to rain today and I want to get this stuff over with.

G'day

 Thursday mid-morning

Absolutely correct decision to not load today and do it tomorrow instead.  The lack of sleep the night before and then working all day long - literally all day long from before sunup to after sundown - just put me in an almost catatonic state of existence last night where I couldn't focus on anything and was good to just get myself into bed, lay down and yes, I slept very well last night. Not saying I didn't wake up, but I went right back to sleep after.  

It would have been very difficult to work today.  Another factor that for me was and still is amazing: It's raining! POURING rain at that, the street looks like a river. Just makes me want to sit in my bedroom and do nothing but think about things, maybe watch a little tv and generally enjoy a day off.  

I do have plenty of stuff I could do, but who cares. Lol.  It's going to be wet at  the park so mowing grass is off the table.  Actually, the kid did quite a bit a few nights ago so it's not looking too bad. Just the front portion of the property needs mowed down, just not gonna happen today.  

418 miles driven yesterday. That's quite a lot for this job.  OTR drivers would laugh at that, but I'd laugh back at them considering the amount of things I had to do beyond driving a truck, which is far more than they would ever have to consider in any single, given day. The logs tell the story with stop after stop...after stop....I don't normally do that much, probably another reason I'm just not feeling it today.

As it stands, they completely changed my tablet loads, took out the one loading Saturday - I'll be delivering Saturday now so obviously I can't do both - meaning I currently don't have to work Easter Sunday. I was going to ask for it off, I'm glad I didn't.  It just ended up that way with the plant telling us they don't need that much product.  Makes sense, they were shut down, we had the tank filled up and as far as I know it, they still have the other tank shut down.  

The reason I'm glad I didn't have to ask for it off is that they make you pay for such requests. Ohh, but they do. They'll load you up with 3 loads, 2 of them will be the second/late/afternoon load which I despise. If I don't do that, I get  mostly morning loads with an occasional late load thrown in there.  I don't understand their mindset but I'm not getting into it with them about it. I'm trying to lay low as far as complaints go - tho my complaints are not just whimsical nothingness. They aren't petty and I don't say anything until the issue is forced on me.

But, if I don't say anything at all, I get better treatment. Yeah, if only I could just eat everything that comes my way with this job.  There are times when I have to say something, especially about other drivers cutting in line. I can't deal with that, I don't do that to them.  

And the mechanics were wrong. I knew they were but they insisted so I just shut my mouth. There is a quite audible air leak coming out underneath the cab of the truck. I pointed to the general area. They said no, it's the air bag for the sleeper. Yes, sleepers have air bags on them, actually it's the entire cab.  Makes for a much smoother ride and they also have shock absorbers on them.  They replaced the air bag yesterday and lo and behold when I got back to the yard and started checking everything? Same leak hissing from same general area - nowhere near that air bag.  

I guess I'm rambling, it's because I keep getting distracted with texts and other things going on.  The rain stopped but the forecast says potential for more rain until 1 pm. The mechanic is still arguing with me about that air leak saying it's "he might not have tightened down the fitting enough on the air bag". IT'S NOT THE AIR BAG!@!!

I'm getting offa here. I am doing laundry so I can say I did something today and it needed to be done. 

 Wednesday - late

7:30 pm last night.  The phone starts ringing. It's work, why are they calling me this late? But I quickly concluded they had some mission they wanted me to do and the manager would be all apologetic and blah blah blah. In other words, Wednesday - which is today - would no longer be a day off. I hit the nail directly on the head with that guess.

Some OTR driver is sitting in the yard in El Dorado, he has a load going to North Carolina but he's out of hours. I've tried everyone, I'm told.  I didn't want to be an @$$ at the same time I was looking forward to today off. I begrudgingly said yes.  It's just that it takes ALL DAY LONG to do those runs. There is no fast way into Eldo.  There are no Interstates, just 55 mph highways and going to Crossett to load, another highway that is 55 mph with towns at 35 mph thrown in for good measure.  

Did it take all day long? Why yes, yes it did! I put in a 14 hour day today. I was so close to being out of hours, my tablet was throwing warnings and about "warning, you are going to be in violation in x amount of time" etc so on and so forth.

But, the truck has issues and I figured it was time to get them squared away. Air leaks, brake issue and some tires needed to be replaced.  Plus they said it needed B service - which apparently is greasing everything. I got  up there, parked in the shop over the pit, went into the office and was informed I would need to take a gas mask test. It's where they light up this tubular thing that puts off this smoke that can raise the dead and then kill them again after they are raised. It is THAT bad. They light it up, it puts off the smoke and then they flash it all around the gas mask over your face.  

Can you smell anything? A little. Pass.  I never have to use it.  I don't haul stuff that needs such devices and I don't want to haul stuff that needs such things.  

After that, I went into the driver's lounge and literally passed out on the couch. You see, I couldn't sleep last night,. I have no idea why, but I tossed and turned all night long. I figured I might have gotten 2 hours of sleep out of the 8 I spent in bed.  

I've been sleepy all day long.  Anyway, I got the truck back, hooked up to a trailer, drove over to Crossett, loaded, drove back to Eldo, dropped the trailer and left.  I couldn't make it back. Maybe half way back, fatigue hit me so hard that I ended up getting off an exit in the middle of nowhere in a forest, pulling over to the side of the exit ramp and sleeping for 21 minutes.  I felt better, much better, good enough to finish out the drive. In time to collect money from an overnighter and see that a long term had also pulled in as they said they were.  Collected  money and then went to church to pick up one of the kids.

The younger one got in trouble at school today so he wasn't allowed to go to church.  Got him, then realized I had left my walled in the truck, so back to the park to get that and then home, finally at 8:00 pm.  I left at 6. Okay, officially on the clock it was a 13 hour day. Not much difference between that and 14, it's a long @$$ day, that's what I can say about it.  

So much so, I don't even feel like playing my video game. Just get on here, write this post and then I'm going to lay down, watch some TV and go to sleep early..