Yesterday - being stuck at that shop from noon til around 5:00 pm, started getting old.  They won't give me a time frame so I can't ask for more than a day at a time for the hotel, meaning hanging out in the driver's lounge.  At least they have cable TV with half decent channels on it and numerous electrical outlets.  And several restaurants right there.  But it still gets boring.  

Well, it was boring until this other Hispanic/Latino driver showed up. I'm one of those "how's it going" people without being asked if they want to be spoken to.  We get into this conversation and lo and behold, this guy is from Brownsville - the place I like to go as frequently as possible and haven't been there in a while.  So we had some common ground and he named a few places that I have been to down there.  

So, this dude pulls out his phone, pulls up a video and hands the phone to me. Shocking video.  I sincerely mean that.  I watched from the camera view of a man sitting in the back of a pickup driving up to a house.  The man stands up, pulls up a fully automatic,  military grade assault rife (a real assault rifle) along with the others in the back of the truck and immediately starts blowing away people standing in front of the house.  I mean, I sat there and watched them dump at least 50 rounds into one of the men's bodies.  They jump out of the truck and slowly start walking towards this house, into the garage, having killed unknown numbers of people, their bodies laying there, freshly dead.  

They were in no hurry, no panic that police might arrive.  The dude explains to me while watching that the people in the pickup are a local drug cartel and that the people they went to find and blow away are a cartel from Tijuana - a long way away from Matamoros - and were encroaching on their territory.  A big no-no, apparently, in the world of cartels.  I then asked why they seemed so calm?  Why aren't they in a hurry to get out of there? Aren't they afraid of the police showing up? "No, no, he laughs, they own the police, they tell the police what to do".  They would have blown the police away if they had shown up.  And with that kind of weaponry, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near those people.  Like the cartoons, it seemed like they had endless rounds going through their rifles. 

Then I had to ask the question: How do you know these people?  Oh that guy with the camera attached to his body is a friend from High School days. They tried to recruit me into that - I used to be a bad ass in high school - but I told them that I was married with 4 kids and I had settled down. 

I mean, it was surreal.  Just some random stranger handing me their phone showing me that stuff. It was all done in Mexico, no laws broken here.  The only recompense these killers will ever get will be in the afterlife.  Not wishing that upon them, but obviously they are immune to anything law enforcement there will do.  I've encountered Mexican police many many times, every single one of them is corrupt.  They want your money, you don't have to have done anything wrong, they see you're white, pull you over and give you 2 options: Pay them off or go to jail.  Jail? Is a shack with a dirt floor and a hole in the middle go to the bathroom in, filled with other men.  I've seen it first hand once when trying to bail out a friend over there that had done something stupid.  

Anyway, I was warned a while back while in Brownsville not to go into Matamoros, but if I did, stay in the central part of town and don't be there after dark.  Well after seeing that video - the dude claimed it happened 2 days ago - I'm not sure I'll ever go back to any border town in Mexico.  Maybe, I really like going shopping over there, haven't done it in ages, if I'm stuck down there at some point, who knows.

Speaking of stuck, they told me last night that the truck wasn't going to be finished.  I said great! lol another 14 hours at least of breakdown pay!  I'm pretty sure that breakdown pay is continuous, 24 hours, not like detention where they take out 10 hours every day.  I went to get some clothes out of the truck - upon getting to it, well they had the front end torn off of the thing.  Wires laying out, some dude working on a seal on one of the rear axles, all kinds of electronic equipment hooked up to it. 

Yeah, no, lol they weren't finished yesterday.  I asked them about the lights - they had found the problem, one of the main connectors for electrical wiring had burned out for known reasons.  But I forgot to ask about the rear tail lights.  I'll be doing that today.  I'm not leaving there until all the lights are working.  They didn't even know about the clunking noise, either.  I told the lady whole was writing stuff down.  I dunno if she just didn't get it written clearly, but they gave me a look like they didn't know what I was talking about.  Well, when I'm loaded heavy around 80k pounds and turning there is this evil clanking going on. And bob-tailing up here, I was hearing the same clanking when hitting bumps. Like metal on metal.  

Well, okay, when we get the truck back together we'll take it for a drive and check it out. 
Good cause' whatever that noise is, something's going to give sooner or later.  I'll take another night here if possible.  As it stands, I've got 48 hours here coming up in just 45 minutes.  That's a nice chunk of change.  It's not enough for an entire paycheck, but it actually comes close.  And since I doubt I will get it in time today for next week paycheck, whatever driving I do this coming week will be clumped together with it and that should equal a nice, healthy paycheck for once.  

Well, we have ourselves February, so today the last day of the month.  Usually catches people by surprise - for paying rent.  Thinking they have 3 or 4 more days before the 1st.  But I have a new tenant in the house over there, hopefully he'll ante up, all 3 rooms are filled until the beginning of next month.  That pays for all the bills there excepting maybe $15 to $25 and that I gladly pay in exchange for my dogs having proper care all day long versus being left alone in the back yard, getting into trouble - allllll day long.  As it stands, my friends got a puppy and it's left outside from early morning til around 7 or 8 at night.  

So what does the dog do?  IT gets into everything, including my pond plants, which it knocks over, pulls the air hose out of the pond - it aerates the water for the fish, jumps into the pond takes a bath.  I'm thinking I'm done with ponds.  At least in this setup.  Just not worth trying to keep something nice and having a stupid dog tearing everything up. Their last dog did that too, tearing up the pond and jumping into it all the time.  You can't keep a pond in nice condition with a dog toying with it all the time and the only way to keep them out is to put up a fence around it, which sucks and defeats the purpose of having it.  So I'm likely to get rid of it, have a truck full of dirt brought over and fill up the hole this summer.  

I mean, if you have a dog and you don't give it attention, they are going to find things to do and the aftermath is usually not so great.  As it stands there is stuff laying all over the place from the dog getting into everything.  Between that dog and the neighbor's trees constantly, year round, dumping stuff onto the yard?  I don't have the time or the motivation to deal with it.  And it's not my house, so I don't feel compelled to be the only person having to deal with yard issues.  I get why some people get dogs and don't give them attention: protection in the back yard during the day when they're at work.  Next door neighbor has one that is alone all day long.  But when you come home, I'd think you'd bring the thing inside and give it attention.  They didn't say protection was the reason for getting the thing, tho, they just wanted their own doggy. 

Anyway, Just something I have to bite my tongue on.  Not worth getting into.  The back of the house is in a shambles and when I clean it  up? It's a shambles again in a couple of days.  Like I hadn't done anything.  I've never seen trees that dump stuff all year long. Leaves, dead branches, these gumball things they call them with spikes all over them - they're the seeds.  And acorns.  Acorns everywhere and a pain to rake up. The absolute worst part, tho, is the neighbor's yard. It is covered with a thick layer of that stuff, they never - and I mean never - clean it up and every time it rains?  That junk comes flowing throw the chain link fence and right into our property.  If it were my place, I'd put a block layer about a foot high there and force that water to go down towards the stream, where it can flow into all day long and not affect anything.  

  I would never, personally plant those kinds of trees. I would plant pine trees if it were my property.  I don't care about pine needles, they're easy to clean up.  As long as you keep on top of it...but again it's not my property, I'm not spending any money on it excepting making my room nicer and I guy grass seed and small ticket items here and there.  Well, I also by stuff you have to have - like paper towels and such. And of course I pay the utility bills there and internet and satellite.  It adds up to maybe a little more than a room is worth, but it's fine. It's a huge room, walk in closet and it's own bathroom. 

Okay, well enough of that. Trump's summit failed - Kim refused to agree to getting rid of all of his nukes and the US said no thanks, we aren't lifting sanctions til you do.  Cohen fed his lines of bs yesterday and of course the left fell for it hook, line and sinker, CNN falling all over itsself coming up with dozens of stories before the hearing was even concluded.  I have no idea what's going on in politics today because I burned myself out on it yesterday.  Nothing new, I'm sure.  Well, I take it back, I did see that Joe Biden is calling Trump supporters names.  

"Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden assailed President Trump’s supporters during a speech Saturday at the annual Human Rights Campaign dinner in Washington, lamenting that “virulent people” and the “dregs of society” still had a friend in the White House.

Mr. Biden told an enthusiastic crowd of LGBTQ rights advocates that social conservatives at home and abroad who used religion or culture as a “license to discriminate” were committing a “crime” of prejudice.

“Despite losing in the courts and in the court of public opinion, these forces of intolerance remain determined to undermine and roll back the progress you all have made,” he argued. “This time they — not you — have an ally in the White House.

“They’re a small percentage of the American people, virulent people,” he continued. “Some of them the dregs of society. And instead of using the full might of the executive branch to secure justice, dignity [and] safety for all, the president uses the White House as a literal, literal bully pulpit, callously exerting his power over those who have little or none.”

That'll win you votes!  Call a bunch of supporters stupid names. Worked well for Hillary, calling us Deplorables! Ended up they made and sold T shirts, coffee mugs and hats out of that "slogan" lmao.  See, what I've been noticing for the last year or so is a bunch of undecided people that are throwing in their vote for Trump come next election because they're sick of the way the left is acting out.  Many of them don't even like Trump, but refuse to support a party acting like babies.  

Whoops, forgot the truck purchase.  Valley of Decision time. They changed their stance, I can purchase a truck through their program and stay at the current terminal, but....if it gets slow I have to go temporarily somewhere else until the work picks back up again.  That means I would be shipped out before any new people or even the loaner drivers.  Not exactly fair and I could be out for weeks - anywhere in the US.  I asked the lady to send the particulars - of which she sort of did. It didn't say anything about whether they have new and used vehicles available and how much the payments are, operating authority, etc etc etc, lots of regulatory stuff.  

I want to know the payments, the frequency of the payments and how long I would be stuck making those payments before the truck is paid off.  It isn't rocket science, but prying info out of them seems to be much more problematic than necessary.  I never heard about if I buy my own truck, either.  Plenty of used truck dealers around, I dunno what they want for down payment or for payments, but the cost of a new truck is quite outrageous.  Well over $100 grand and that's for a base model. Whereas, you can get a used one in good condition for around 30k and at $1,200 per month payments, which seems to be the norm, it's not going to go on forever.  3 years max and it's paid off and done with.  I could deal with that.  I really don't know what I would be getting myself into going OO, I've asked other OO's there and they are good with it, but still.  

So I sent her another message asking if she knew about those particulars.  Awaiting a response. There's actually quite a lot more I could put into this post, but it's getting pretty long. Still a couple of hours before I'm forced out of here and back to the repair shop, I'm going to relax and take advantage of it.  This Marriott I'm in now is far better than the Best Western i was in yesterday.....g'day.