Well, a day off.
I got back to the yard yesterday and the new mechanic was asking me about my truck. It apparently is up next for whatever.

I'll be happy to write you a list. 

The handwritten list took an entire page to write up.  I figured if I was going to get a crack at getting this thing fixed, might as well put all of it on the paper and get it over with.  Still, my manager was saying, "well get your PPE out of the truck and put it in your vehicle or wherever you have access to it because I might need to send you out somewhere". 

Well, I don't want to get into a truck that everyone uses and I doubt any of them do, either.  Anyway, she didn't call me out for a run today and I was rather happy about that - but - it's very likely I'll spend yet another weekend working.  I dunno how good this mechanic is but it should take at least a couple days to get all of this done because the truck also has to go to the Peterbilt shop to have the engine light that's been on for months diagnosed.  I'd rather it take me til Monday, not get into a "strange" truck and just have some time off.

Speaking of that, I have the travel bug in me.  How on earth could you want to travel when that's all you do? you ask.  Yeah, that's all work. Well mostly all work, sometimes I get an opportunity to do something here and there while out, mostly it's drive, sleep, drive.  I have a goal when I leave the yard in the truck: get home as fast as possible.  The fastest route, push it as long as I can and get home faster.  It makes a difference.  Even if, for example, I have a 3 day run that gets me home "some time" on the third day, the longer I push it the first two days, the earlier I get home that last day.  That gives me at least some home time if I get called out again the next morning. 

Anyway, I really need to get back to Phoenix.  My son should be moving tomorrow I think, get that over with and then I'll have 2 options for a place to stay. I'd really like to get to know his wife.  I mean, we have basically never spoken at any great length besides hello and how are you.  She's a bit shy, not exactly outgoing. 

But getting back to Phoenix isn't really what's in my mind: really traveling somewhere, preferably across the ocean, is what I'm looking for.  I have the money, right now, I could take a week to go somewhere - or preferably numerous stops along any given "route" and see the sites. 

Taylor wanted to go with me to London next year, but I don't think they're going to be able to pull that one off.  They have too many financial commitments that really don't leave them much at the end of the day, and that with me paying all of the house's utilities.

Which just came down $117 with DTV wanting us to stay with them and cutting the bill more than in half.  I was on this campaign with them, I didn't even make the call but I know how to work their system.  It was being done on speakerphone, so when we finally got to the right person - that was 3 transfers - and got to discussing it, the lady on the phone said, okay let me see what I can do.  She made some initial offer and then said, wait, let me see what else I can do.  That's the point when I started a discussion while waiting and this lady could hear us:  Well look if the offer isn't good enough let's just cut it off anyway and we can go ahead and get the new package with Fidelity. 

I said that on purpose so that she could hear me, yes.  But it wasn't a lie.  I don't want to see another $215 television bill. Screw that.  There's nothing on TV worth that much money, and if I get the notion to watch a particular movie, such as I did last night, I can just look it up on the internet and watch it through my computer.  Which reminds me, I want to get somewhere around a 30 inch computer monitor and have that separate for watching movies while being able to surf the net. 

Well, a bit of an interlude.  The doggies were stinking badly. The other house? They play out in the dirt, not much grass back there, and they get nasty smelling and looking.  I just bathed them with expensive shampoo, I wanted them to look and smell good.  It's a lot of work to bath a Great Dane and a German Shepherd, Aspyn was more work. Much deeper coat and when I put the water sprayer on a certain setting, fleas started appearing on the surface of her coat.

So, seeing that, I just kept going all over her body and seeing more and more fleas appearing.  Yeah, I went on with it for about 25 minutes until no more fleas appeared. She is going in on Monday for her normal shots, I'm throwing in the extra money to get a 3 month pill as well.  They are both laying at my feet and both are very unhappy doggies. They simply don't like baths, oh well, too bad, so sad.  The fleas are coming from the other house.  The whole neighborhood is infested with them - I know cause' I already tried treating the back yard and they keep coming back.  The only defense is the pills that will 100% keep them from staying on their bodies.  Expensive, but I have no other options.

Decided to go ahead and tidy up my room while I'm at it, washing everything and looking for signs of fleas in here.  Nothing, but still wanted it clean in here. 

Next up: get in the pool and clean out the leaves.  It's an endless problem with all of these trees around. They usually put the cover on the pool, but they didn't last time they were in and it's basically "full" of leaves.  They want to play some sort of pool game in there tonight, I figured I'd spend half and hour cleaning that up and also going to the store and getting the stuff for dinner. Just baked chicken breast with scalloped potatoes and some sort of veggie. Easy to make meal, delicious, cheap, good enough for me. 

Okkkkaaaaayyyyy. That was nice. I was looking at my auto insurance payment last month, $360!!  But I found out that was because it was adjusted for the month I bought the SUV and the next month.  So, the payment is actually $200.  That is much better and something I can at least deal with.  Getting rid of the car will help , tho only minimally, they are only charging me $26 per month on top of the other 2 vehicles to insure it.  I've been getting quotes and no one so far has beaten Mercury.  Once place equalled it, no reason to switch for no benefit. 

Anyway, that's another $160 that I thought I had to pay every month that is now much more manageable. 

Well, I have to go to the store for dinner stuff and lots of other chores I'm going to get done today, Happy Friday!