Sunday morning. 

Got to the Brownsville yard last night to find no empty or filled trailers and no trucks sitting there waiting.  Gag, I thought, no detention pay on this run.  After dropping the trailer, however, I went to the new, nearby Love's and found fully 3 other of our trucks sitting there, waiting on trailers.  2 of them should be coming in today, but no way are they bringing up 4 trailers. They have never done that and I will be spending the entire day and night down here.  I fully intend on requesting a hotel room, as stipulated in our new "rules". 

Used to be you could get a hotel the first night down here. Now, the manager doesn't even reply to a valid request for the second night.  Meaning, pay out of pocket and hope the company pays me back.  BUT, if I text her a couple of times and receive no reply, no matter to me.  I'm getting the hotel and I fully expect it to be reimbursed.  It was the last time I did this not that long ago. Then only reason to "fear" not getting repaid is other drivers saying they were given a hard time about doing it on their own.

In reality? I would far rather the company get me one. If they get the usual - Marriott Residence Inn - I will get free dinner and a very nice room.  If I don't do it through the company, no way am I paying regular rates for a room like that. I'll just go to the cheaper chains and deal with it.  But, probably won't be able to get into a hotel until this afternoon, so I have a lot of hours in between to fill.  The unfortunate thing is that the new rules for these electronic logging devices say you can only use the personal conveyance - meaning you are using the truck for your own use, not on duty time - option for an hour.  Why the bleep do they care how much time I use the truck on my own, personal business?  I'm off all day long, it takes a while to get anywhere in this town. It may not be that big of a town, but there are red lights everywhere and people drive soooooo slowwwwwwwww.  If the speed limit is 45mph, they're likely going 25 to 30 or even slower.  Drives me insane!  lol

Well, I've gone through reviews on every single movie in the theaters and I'm not impressed with anything that's playing.  I usually wait until I can watch it free when I have doubts.  I don't go to the movies that often - mostly because of the fact that much of what is produced nowadays is either rehashed versions of old movies or completely lame, new themes that have no intellectual discourse or story lines that don't go beyond brain dead, boring trash.  If I want to be bored, I can just sit in this truck.  I don't neeeeeeed to go pay to be bored.  

So I dunno what I'm going to do, which usually means I will do nothing until I can get into a hotel later on.  Around 3pm I'll be contacting the manager, telling her I was the 4th driver waiting down here today, no way are they getting 4 trailers up in a single day, hotel please.

Meanwhile, I"m going to go take a shower. I get them free at Love's : )