Saturday night.
Drove out the miles today, got back home, and can't say that I've done much of anything.

I get that way sometimes when I get home from a run. I figure I'll get busy the next day and just wind down the day of arrival to the house.  Especially if it's a late afternoon thing.  If I get home in the morning, I am likely motivated to get some stuff done.  I do have a list for tomorrow, but the thought of working on Christmas will overshadow much of that.

I just want to keep working on the leaves in the back yard - for the exercise part of it and yes for being good neighbors.

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Sunday morning.  This day is going to be a waste, so to speak. It will be gone before I knew it started and I will be facing 4 or 5 days on the road.  But I'm going to make the best of it.  Build a fire, rake some leaves. Cook a rib roast, spend my pre Christmas here and then face the music. 

I likely will never do a Thanksgiving deal again.  Christmas is far more important to me than Thanksgiving and the only reason I did it was because I hadn't seen family in so long.  I'm not really regretting it too much, I at least got something accomplished out of this deal, but sacrificing Christmas for 2 hours of Thanksgiving with family? Yeah, no.  Simply not worth it. 

And what's concerning me about this next trip is the weather.  I'm looking at snow showers on Christmas morning at the place I'm going to.  The delivery isn't until the next day but my concern is traveling.  I suppose on Christmas Day the roads should be veritably dead, yes?  I've got a friend in Indianapolis I haven't seen in years, I'm considering stopping there on the way back.  If I'm going to miss Christmas, I might as well try to do something with it.  That is, if my manager will allow me to stay another day out on the road. Just depends on whether she needs that trailer for another run.

Anyway, my breakdown pay check was as much as I thought it would be, didn't have to fight for it. I would have gotten irritated if I had had to.  I dunno, but considering the amount of down time I've had above and beyond breakdown pay, I guess I should count this upcoming trip as a blessing since it's over 2,000 miles total.  I'd rather just do Brownsville runs, but those I get sparingly.  They go to more senior drivers that likely have more say about the runs they get.  I figured if I could do 3 brownsville runs a week, not detention pay at all, just doing the runs, I would make close to 100k per year. 

Well, whatever.  I've got other business schemes running through my brain now. There is a truck washing chain called Blue Beacon. The large trucking companies have national accounts with them.  They are by far the most popular wash stations, but they haven't got near enough locations nationwide to cover the demand.  You go into one and there is almost always a huge line waiting to get their truck washed.  The start up costs of one of those businesses can't be that much. I mean, a chunk of change, yes, but nothing like starting up, say a fast food restaurant.  They are pretty plain, simple and small structures.  The highest portion of the cost of building one is probably all the plumbing needed to supply that much water to that many spray wands going at once.

It's just something I'm going to look into - profit margins, yearly annual income for the owner, etc.  The problem is that they are always located near a major truckstop.  The reason being, at least guessing, is that truckers want to be able to get their truck washed while off duty.  In other words, they're done for the day, they switch the elog off, but they still wait in line for the wash and stay off duty creeping back to the truck stop. That's not how it always happens but they seem to like it being near a major truck stop.  I don't personally care, I just go in them to get the truck washed and leave.

And, I haven't been able to get the truck in until 2 days ago - for almost 2 months.  There is a prime location here near my house where a major trucking lane going north/south and I-20 going east/west. 

Whatever. I tend to muse over things that might push me ahead in the financial department, considering how far I am behind.  Looking at my paycheck tho? The federal government took over $1,100 of it. Just poof, like that, they take my money so they can burn it in spending sprees that they go on endlessly.  They won't even balance the budget, there isn't even any talk about either party discussing balancing the national budget. They simply don't care. 

And let me say here, if progressives get control of the House, Senate and Presidency, our Constitutional Republic is doomed.  It will be a Socialist state with traces of Communism thrown in.  I've paid over $13,000 in federal taxes this year.  That's quite the chunk of change for the government to just take without my consent and then give it to other people that want my money. 

Whatever. Just quite irritating.  Let's just do a 32 trillion health care plan! And an extra 10 trillion for free college education!  It doesn't have to be paid back, it's all the government's word under the fiat system!  You know what's funny?  The interest payments on that debt we have. It's going up and up and up.  I wonder how much of the budget has to be spent on servicing the debt before enough people get pissed enough to force Congress to actually, at the very least, spend no more money than the amount that comes in? Everyone is blaming Trump for spending soooooooo much money, while they conveniently leave out that Democrats were all over that last budget deal and voted it in. 

Derp. 

Well, offa here.