As always, weekends fly by and then you are faced with going to work again Monday morning. In this case, Tuesday morning since a 3 day weekend for the Holiday. Today, we are eating for dinner something called a Cowboy Steak. A huge Ribeye steak, over 2-1/2 pounds, the likes I have never seen before.  Had a small bowl of cereal for breakfast and probably not going to eat anything for the rest of the day so I can try and eat as much of that honker as possible.

Likely going outside and mowing lawns to work up a better appetite as well.  In fact I have no choice since the front lawn has grown several inches since I last mowed it.  I'm waiting for fall to get here so I can plant winter grass - rye - again.  It grows easily and looks beautiful.  The fact that I did that last winter, though, helped the St. Augustine's cover some bald areas on the lawn.  We determined that the lawn has grubs and soon, they should be coming out I believe, so that I can kill them suckers and move on with getting the front lawn looking nice.  The back lawn, however, a completely different story.  Almost impossible to get it looking nice with dogs trampling it all day long.  No clue what to do about that.  There is some grass, but their running areas are nothing but dirt.

Doesn't look too good.  Guess I'll do some research and see what the experts have to say about it.  But if they say get rid of the dogs, well, that's not a happening event.  At least the front lawn looks decent tho.  It's a huge expanse to mow with a push mower.  I got the push mower on purpose to get the exercise, but I've thought about that decision, lol, and possibly not the greatest.  2 weeks ago, I was huffing and puffing badly by the time I got done with the front and back lawns.  I mean, like, sit down for a half an hour and rest type of heat exhaustion.

Okay, well anyway.  I was talking with my friends that own the house.  She wants to do home schooling to become a medical encoder so she can work from home and help with the income. They are barely making it on his income.  She said because of her low income it would only cost her $50 per month.  But, they can't even afford that.  So, I offered to pay for it if I get this new job, it would put her on the fast track to making some decent money and getting them out of Georgia.  You know I can't take that from you Ben.  Well, actually yes you can.  You can pay me back later.  Of course, I have to get one of these jobs first.  I'm very hopeful, but not counting my chickens before they hatch scenario.  I can say I have it when - I actually have it.

But, the trucking industry has seen revival and now the shortages of qualified drivers are starting to show.  There are a dozen truck driver training schools in the 100 mile radius of where I live, one of them a mile away, and they are full of students.  I guess that's a good sign, but honestly?  At some point, they are going to come up with these driverless trucks and then what?  That may be years down the road, but I do believe it is coming at some point.  Hence one of the reasons I have been considering attempting to learn a trade.  Just don't have the money for the schooling at the moment.  Not to mention I would like to get out of trucking.  I'm tired of it.  I suppose alot of that has to do with my current job, perhaps a new job without the bs overlord management I am currently experiencing might help me revive my love for driving.  Dunno.  The real reason I'm switching is money, tho.  If this jerkoff would give me a good wage, i would stay there and put up with his bs.

The shit should hit the fan this week as the requests for background history hits corporate - I have been giving prospective employers corporate number since they don't have managers giving out recommendations or lack there of any more - for obvious reason.  Which I don't care, but once that starts again, I really need a job to get out of there because I doubt things are going to go well for me when he finds out.

Meanwhile, I have also started considering another venture.  Previous ventures haven't gone too far, but that won't stop me from trying again.  This time, modeling after a person in Phoenix that has a side business where she goes to yard sales and buys mostly clothing and resells the stuff on Ebay.  I know how she is doing this since my tenants are the ones helping her.  She pays them a wage to deal with the clothing including washing and drying it, hanging it up to take pics and then packaging it for shipping. This is nothing I would want to do on my own, but the lady living here is definitely not getting much income from the government, she has a disability and yes it's a real disability, but she could certainly do this to not only earn some money but also to refocus her on something other than just living in this house.

I haven't brought up the proposition to her yet since I am not in the place to do anything like that.  Not until/if/when I start getting much bigger paychecks.  I have credit card debt I want to pay down as well.  That trip to California was not cheap.  Not by my perspective of it anyway. Airfare round trip, driving to the airport, paying for parking, Uber trips in California, the hotel?  Around $1,500 put on the credit card. I could have brought some of the expenses down but mom was there and I didn't want to have her go it alone. She had decided on this particular hotel that was more expensive than others I had found in the area, but instead of arguing about it, I just went ahead and booked a room there too.  It was a nice room and a nice stay, not going to complain about that, at all, but now I have to pay for it.  Not something I would ordinarily have done - put a trip like that on a credit card - but if I wanted to be a part of my son's wedding? I had no choice.

The funny thing that has happened is Capitalone decided to increase my line of credit another 3 grand.  That brought the percentage of use down and increased my credit score by 10 points the next month.  I still have a lot of credit available on that particular card, but I'm in favor of living within whatever income I take in.  Credit cards are for emergencies and even then I hate to use them, but in this case, I am glad I have them.  I was looking over my credit score today, the 35 past due house payments - yep that's how bad it got - are still affecting my score and probably will for a couple of years I suppose.  I think after a year my score will go up if I make the payments on time, but for the full effect of it to wear off will likely be much longer than that.

Anyway, the idea of an Ebay store is lurking in the back of my mind if I can get help to do it.  I'm not going to work a full time job and then come home and bear the brunt of the responsibility for it.

As for my son, he sounds like he's doing well.  He has going through some trials and tribulations already in his new marriage, tho not with his wife. Just the ardors of trying to acquire furniture and get an apartment set up into livable condition.   I probably wouldn't have moved into such a pricey place as what he has done, but, I'm not living his life and I said nothing to him about it excepting one small comment before he did anything that the place he was referring to was higher end apartments.  Who am I to question how he spends his money? I'm not.  Just dear ole' dad.  I am going to preach the message of starting to save for retirement though.  Even 2% to start out with is better than nothing.

Speaking of retirement, my 401k account is up 11.56 percent over the last 9 months. That is quite good.  I'm hovering around 50k right now, not so great.  Nothing I can do but keep pressing on and putting as much aside for retirement as I can.  It's taken forever to get it back up to any amount since I got divorced in 2005.  Yes that's a long time ago but I started 401k at zero at that point.  Considering my income I am not going to beat myself up too badly.  I am going to beat myself up, however, for waiting this long to get the heck out of that current place and go find greener pastures.  Excepting my mortgage, I would like to get completely out of debt.  I also desperately need a newer vehicle. Note i said newer, not new.  I'm very much against going into debt on a car, but at some point, I'm going to have to do something. I have the Jeep as a backup right now since it's actually working, but that is older as well.  My car is year model 2004.  I've been driving it for around 9 years now.  I'm quite tired of the thing considering the interior is falling apart.  I don't need a new car, but I do want a newer model vehicle, preferably a pickup.

There's a lot I could do with substantially increased income is all I can say.  It would be a while before I could take a vacation, I've come to terms with that.  That is the reason I kept hanging on at my current place.  If I had stayed until January of next year, my vacation hours would go up another 40 per year to 200. It's the reason I don't want to burn my bridges there. Perhaps after these other people leave, upper management will get a clue - yes he's running the business well but he's treating the people like piles of dog crap.  The business won't run without people to run it.......  They count drivers as expendables, even if we've been there forever.  They simply don't care.  Losing the people that write up the bids, tickets and do all the computer work? Completely different story.   Anyway, I'm going to try and leave on good terms without taking jabs at the end, just say thank you for having me there, if you ever decide you want to up my pay, please give me a call, I would definitely considering coming back.

I also never leave out the possibility of moving back to Phoenix.  Don't want to, at all, but if it happened, I'm at high confidence level that my old GM would hire me if there is a position available.

Well, it's late morning. I guess I best get mowing attire on and go out and get this lawn mowing junk over with.