My loan is approved.
It's the loan to pay off the Care Credit debt. Instead of losing a year's worth of interest free payments by virtue of them adding all the interest back on if you don't pay it off in that year's time, I was definitely opting to do something else.

And, instead of dumping it onto another high interest credit card, I got a much lower interest rate and my payments are only going up $20 per month over what I'm paying now with the Care Credit account. That with an extra grand involved.  I went over what I needed for the purpose of either getting a boat or for the upcoming trip to Galveston - or - other things.  That card will be paid off in a few days after I get the money deposited into my bank account.

I am wondering, tho, what it's going to do to my credit score.  My credit cards will be at zero balance, all of them. Ok, the credit score calculator figures Transunion to only go up 11 points.  If that happens with Experian, tho, my credit score goes up to very good range.

Well anyway, it's Saturday and I have a big whopping zero on my list of things I want to do today. It's just odd being in a hotel in the same town where you live lol.  Even more odd having all these days off and not being home for it.  This isn't something I would want to do frequently.  Might as well just be in the truck driving somewhere..... but that doesn't happen until tomorrow morning.

_______________

Sunday morning.  I opted to spend the night in the truck, in the yard, versus yet another hotel. They may be paying for the hotel stays, but they aren't rich.  Not just doing them a favor, tho, it's much easier to wake up here and just make a pot of coffee and have some alone time to boot. There is no one here, the yard is empty of other tractors save 2 and there is no one in them. 

I slept 10 hours, 6 straight hours without waking up.  That's the biggest advantage. Unlike other trucks here, mine is not equipped with an APU and I have to run the truck all night long for AC or heat. Which I love, because the engine just keeps me asleep. I know that sounds funny, but years and years of living like that in the 80's and 90's sort of spoiled me.

I'll still get sleepy today - it's Sunday and something about Sunday afternoons automatically kick in and say "it's time to nap, thanks" and nap I do. So I'll just work the 30 minute mandatory break to coincide with that.  But, since it is Sunday, the trip should be a breeze comparatively speaking. Much less traffic on the road. To top that off, there is another truck going down there ahead of me. Hopefully that will wipe out any available empty trailers in the yard down there and cause me to have "FORCED DETENTION" as my manager "yelled" it to me one day, notwithstanding the fact I knew nothing about having to put that on the paper because......she never told me. 

She apologized after that little outburst when I told her I hadn't heard that. 

Anyway, I can at least legitimately hope there are no trailers down there this time and even have a stay in an awesome hotel at company expense.  It's a hope, not a guarantee. Just that they don't run across the border on Sundays and there have been other trucks going down there, it's certainly quite possible I will have to wait at least until tomorrow afternoon for a trailer to come up. 

As for the unfair treatment - well - the sheets the safety guy puts up tells part of the story. Those sheets show infractions and percentages of how good you did in numerous categories, I guess they put them up as sort of a competition.  I'm always down the list on idle time - because of not having an APU.  That one shouldn't strike against me, but it does and I don't care.  If any of those safety people or my manager ever tries to give me a hard time about it, they have something coming back at them.

Anyway, the sheets also say how many days of that week every driver has worked. It doesn't say where the driver went, but it's a good piece of the puzzle.  The guy we suspect only does on run a week and it's always a gravy run? Yup, he only does one run a week, it's a 3 day run and he's got the easy life.  Not that I only want one run a week, but that guaranteed gravy run is bs.  Another other drivers  - on 6 or 7 days.  Consistently.  I had one week only on 3 days - there's currently 3 sheets of 3 previous weeks up there. And other drivers not getting as much work as others. And then, there's those that aren't only kept busy, but they get nothing but  gravy runs.

Now, they've been there a lot longer than me, I guess it's only fair they get a little better treatment, but not to the point that I'm getting s*** runs and they aren't getting any s*** runs. 

Whatever the case, it wasn't a mistake to spend the night here and I may do more of it in the future.  It's pretty easy and peaceful to just get up, go make a pot of coffee, do the paperwork and then sit around sipping coffee for a while. Instead of rush, rush, rush.  The only disadvantage is taking my dogs to the other house the night before. I like to spend as much time with them as I possibly can.

My boat search? I've had a few I considered.  I would have done it, too, if they weren't 2 hour drive away.  I mean, you want to look at what you're buying first, if you drive that far one way and it doesn't turn out to be what you want, well, you've just wasted 4 hours of your time and the fuel in doing so.  Occasionally there is a decent looking one 25 or less miles away, but that doesn't happen often. Maria says she knows how to off and on-load boats. I have never done it, she claims she learned young with her father. 

I guess. I also guess that means she wants to go boating lol.  I think my friends would go too, but I'm sure I'll have to do all the work. They're not highly motivated, I have noticed, to do much more than hang out at the house. The notable exception being her dad being here for the last 4 days. I think they're leaving today. I'm sure they'll be gone by the time I get back from this trip.  I only saw them on day, the rest of it they've either been gone when I'm over there or I've been gone.  Yesterday evening, the entire family across the street was sitting in the other house carport with Maria, cooking on the grill. 

So we kinda of tentatively agreed/talked about going over to their house for a cookout sometime in the near future. I can't guarantee any particiular day, obviously, because of my job.  But they guy is really cool and we hit it off the first time we met and every time after. 

Well, it's time to get out of here.  Fun time over.

Good Sunday to everyone.