Wednesday
If one is eye infected, why not go for 2 for the same money? My eyes are itching. REALLY itching, it's hard to keep my fingers off of them. I would have expected the antibiotics to have at least started to do the job of healing it by now, but my right eye is still blood red and the left eye isn't far behind it.
People are going to think I have been smoking pot!
I was standing at the M-Power machine yesterday, waiting for a character to finish. I was watching him shoving singles/dollar bills into the machine. He was covered with sweat. I think he put 4 bills in there, enough electricity to do what? Have a hot shower? Before he was finished, he looked up at me, eyes as bloodshot as mine, though I suspect for completely different reason. I felt it coming: can you spare some money?
He had that look and there was no other reason for the guy to be looking at me. He scratched his head and apparently decided it wasn't worth it, finished the $4 transaction and left.
I see that scenario over and over again at those machines, people putting barely enough on the card to last them the rest of the day. Nothing grandiose about any of it, I just watch with interest and wonder what kind of financial chaos those people are facing if they can't even afford to put on more than a day's worth of money for their power. I have had thoughts on numerous occasions to go back to getting a regular, monthly bill, but I think I am more happy to pay it in advance and not have to worry about a huge bill coming.
Caleb apparently is happy enough driving around that old car. Better than nothing and the AC works, plus it gets about 22 mpg in the city. Not bad for an old, full sized car.
Non-paying tenants. The Army reservist is going to have to go, I guess, unless she can come up with a full month's rent, because it's starting to get well beyond anything I want to tolerate. She only works at the reserve and that doesn't pay that much from what I know. She has no vehicle and I don't have any idea whether she's looking for a job or not.
Well I am getting off early, I have an email in my company account asking me to get to work as soon as I come in. I'm not really feeling all that great this morning, I decided to drink my coffee for a few minutes first before logging on to the clock and getting start, which is exactly what I did. Church tonight, hopefully I will have enough energy to go and get in on that prophetic training/activation.
G'day.
ben
4 comments:
Thursday
Today, something that I figured would happen, did.
I didn't know exactly WHAT they were going to implement, but I figured that they would make some kind of rule or policy concerning commercial drivers within our company relating to the CSA regulations that have come about that make a warning as bad as getting an actual ticket.
The company is having every driver read and sign a document. The document lists infractions and what is going to happen to you. Basically, if you get pulled over and are giving a ticket or a warning, you will be issued a written warning by the company and you take a day off without pay. If it happens a second time, you get another written warning and you are docked another day's pay. If it happens a third time within 12 consecutive months, bye bye, baby, you are history.
This is a side-effect of the new regulations that I knew was going to happen when I started examining these new regulations last year: companies will have no choice but to get rid of drivers that get too many warnings because, enough drivers getting too many warnings and the government can now come in and actually shut that company's commercial vehicle operations down.
I stated in this blog last year that a lot of drivers are going to lose their careers over this new regulatory BS and I am standing behind that statement. This isn't reckless drivers that have a lot of accidents or even tickets, either. I haven't been in an at-fault trucking accident since 1985. I haven't had any kind of ticket in about 12 years now. Many other commercial vehicle drivers are the same. But, the FMCSA has "determined" that these new rules will help identify "unsafe" drivers and target the companies that employ them.
It's a total load of BS. When America starts running out of truck drivers who have been forced out of the occupation because of this junk - give it a few years before a crisis starts rising up for truck driver shortages, you'll see it in the news - then and only then will this become a public issue with scrutiny to identify that the side-effects of these regulations are going to get "rid" of otherwise excellent drivers who post no threat to the motoring public on the highways and byways of America. (finishing this in the morning).
Do the speed limit and obey the rules and everything will be fine.
Cut corners and get caught will net you some very foul consequences...
Hope your eyes are better. What is wrong with them?
Bobby
Here's the biggest problem: DOT (Department of Transportation) officers out on the roads. There are a large number of them in any given state that have as their main duty the directive to pull over commercial vehicles, all day long, do inspections and write fix-it tickets or hand out warnings.
The problem is the "god-like" attitude that many of these individuals exhibit and the fact that they will find something wrong with your truck, regardless of how good a condition it is in. Case in point was a driving who was driving a brand new truck that just came off the dealer's parking lot. Mr. Dot decided to PUT THE TRUCK OUT OF SERVICE, not just hand out warnings, after he pulled the truck over. The driver balked at this "official" and asked for that as supervisor be sent out, who, when presented with the facts, did an over-ride on the officer's "judgement" and let the truck and driver go without any warnings.
That was an extreme example, but it isn't that far off, at least where I live in Arizona, where these DOT officers are hanging out in their pickup trucks and randomly pulling over big rigs and - handing out warnings or tickets.
My take? If I get pulled over again and am handed a bogus warning, I am demanding a supervisor. I don't care if I have to wait 3 hours. The truck I drive is in excellent condition. We keep it that way on purpose: to ward off these officers that seem to take joy in giving grief to truck drivers.
The fact of the matter is, however and as already stated, there is going to be fallout with these new regulations that may or may not have been intended. I have no idea what the intentions of those people that crafted these regulations were: to get rid of drivers/shut down trucking companies or REALLY make the roadways safer to travel with trucks on them?
Let me tell you something, to make the roadways safer, it is far often more true than not that it's people driving cars and pickup trucks that are messing with trucks on the roadways. Cutting trucks off and slamming on their brakes in front of them; doing all kinds of idiotic, stupid moves that, in my case, sometimes makes me mad because the move that that person just did almost got THEM killed.
I could write incident after incident where someone - usually texting or talking on a cellphone and paying NO attention to the driving that should be their number one priority - just makes moves in traffic without even looking, apparently. I have almost run into several of them because they inserted their vehicle directly in front of mine without any forewarning or signals being used, totally out of the blue, you have a car that's going 15 mph slower than you are and you are both trying to not run into the car AND not jack knife the truck at the same time.
Whether my statements here actually come true remains to be seen in reality. But mark my words: it might take a couple of years, maybe less, but this situation is going to implode upon itself when drivers who have had successful, 10, 20, 30 plus years are suddenly finding themselves unemployed and unemployable in the field of commercial driving because of these new regulations.
ben
Church last night. Prophetic training. Totally out of that realm, I plan on getting my mind, soul and heart back into it. I haven't engaged in such in well over 7 years and it was like starting over. But it was cool.
Rained cats and dogs last night, but mostly dogs, thankfully, as I don't really like cats. More to the point, I won't have to water my plants for a while as the ground is saturated, a good thing.
I have had a couple of replies to my most recent ad for a travel trailer or RV in "decent" condition. Meaning everything works. If the carpet is trashed, no problem, but the propane lines and water lines should be in tact and the holding tanks should be without leaks, amongst other things. Oh, and definitely the electricity should work throughout the trailer. One lady had hers listed at $1,300 in fair condition (which, if it really IS in fair condition, it would work). She then contacted me and offered it for $1,000.00. I rejected that offer and offered $700 plus free delivery, of which she accepted.
But I haven't even seen the thing yet, so I am not committing to buying it until I do. If it IS in okay condition, I could sell the other one for $500 and only be out $200 on the deal.
The other offer was for an "older RV", of which I have not contacted the individual yet because.......I got that email this morning and it isn't even 6:00 am yet! Lol, I don't go calling people this early in the morning excepting contractors to whom I am making deliveries because, at this time of year, they are already on the job site, working away and trying to get as much done before the afternoon heat hits.
Oh, Caleb: he produced a rap and it's posted on his Facebook page. Crazy kid. This rap, however, isn't about killing people, taking and selling drugs and having sex with everyone you see, it's actually about God. I dunno, it was pretty cool, actually. He had a friend in the video with him who was - smiling too much. Sorry, you don't really smile much doing rap, even if it IS about God.
I figured out the S&W40VE - my new 40 caliber handgun. As I said before, I am new to the world of guns. I have fired some off before, but I didn't load or unload them, just fired them and gave them back to their owners. I sat there and played with the thing - unloaded of course - until I got the hang of it. Not that much to it, but now I have to figure out how to take it apart, clean it, lubricate it and put it back together again.
I was thinking just follow the manual's instructions, which I might try, but I might also just take a course in it. Who knows. I bought some kind of ammo that is for use for target practice - I have no idea what the difference between that ammo and the "personal protection" version is, but I want to take thing to a shooting range and fire off a couple dozen rounds to get used to it, that and my 12 gauge shotgun while I'm at it.
I'm done. Time to get on the clock and get to work.
G'day.
ben
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