Tornadoes at the town where I live.  Well, several tornado sirens, whether there were any tornados, I have no idea, but I was certainly getting people texting me about the sirens.  They went off 3 separate times plus phones being blown up with weather alerts.  No doubt about it, not the most pleasant place to live at certain times of the year, especially people that get very anxious about tornadoes, the sirens – they are a bit intimidating but they are designed for that and all the warnings that blow up your phone.

I’m not there.  In fact, all the recent tornado warning events? I’ve been out of town.  I did drive throw some seriously heavy rain earlier, but I drove on out of it.  It wasn’t a big deal tho, hardly any traffic on the road anywhere I was driving, even through the towns.  People apparently decided that on  a Saturday and with the weather? Stay home.  Fine by me!

I’m on the Barnsdall run for the 4^th consecutive trip.  I don’t actually hate the drive or whatever up here, I just hate the lack of money involved with this run because of lack of mileage. 

Anyway, driving up here? I saw 4 of our trucks heading back down – and I mean late in the day.  That wasn’t a good sign.  They can only use so much ethylene in their production.  I looked at the loading schedule – I take a photo of it every week now from the plant to see what is going where - one of those trucks would have had to been up here for 2 days.  Huh?  

Well I got up here and saw 2 of the 3 loading spots with trailers on them - meaning they are full and waiting to be unloaded.  The question is: do we get paid for waiting outside the plant when they don't have an empty trailer available?  I have no idea.  Everything has changed with this merger and I haven't had to do any wait time up here since before that merger, no clue.  My manager is off for the weekend and I'm not going to bother with this other individual running the show.  I doubt she would know, but it's not that important to me to find out tonight anyway. 

And, my bedroom is occupied again, lol.  The grandma is sleeping in there - I did offer since I am on the road tonight.  

No boats of interest yet in either FB marketplace or craigslist.  Well, there are certainly a lot of very nice units advertised, but will out of the price range I am looking for..

G'nite.

So the Barnsdall saga continues.  It will be my 4th trip up there in a row.  There were 2 brownsville runs available today and I think 3 of these worthless Barnsdall runs.  My manager stopped responding a few days and now has taken the entire weekend off, shifting this onto another dispatcher.  Wasn't worth trying to start talking this conflict with a person that has no involvement with it, so I just said thanks, have a great day after this person sent me the run. 

There is no way in hell that I just "happened:" to come in at the time that it would set me up for 4 Barnsdall runs 4 times in a row.  I don't know what the odds of that realistically happening per chance, but I'm sure it's quite high.  She does this with other drivers as well.  Now she can shirk responsibility - but note that she assigned these weekend routes, that wasn't done by the other dispatcher, the other dispatcher just sent them out via text. 

I'm beginning to get highly annoyed with this situation. 

Meanwhile, these people that installed the bathroom cabinet with sink in my bathroom did a lousy job of it. The simple plumbing set up is leaking, I don't know how long.  The set up they used for the pipes is ridiculous and dumb.  I'm going to have to change it when I get back from this run.  It didn't ruin the wood inside the cabinet - but I don't use that sink all that often so it's really no indicator of how long it's been leaking, but it shouldn't have been leaking at all.  I can only say that I only used them for that, after hearing that the main guy is an ex felon and has been stealing from my neighbors, I quit using him and ignored his text messages. 

The house has more guests. This time, a surprise visit for one of the grandmas.  The grandmas and uncle were heading to Missouri, but they had planned this over a month ago.  Bring grandma here to see the youngest son and visit for a couple of days.  She was totally surprised.  I offered my room - tho honestly I didn't feel like giving it up again after just being out of it for 5 days with her dad here.  But, they worked it out differently and I was fine with that. The uncle didn't want to stay here, he went to a local hotel to get some sleep and the grandma and Taylor stayed in the master bedroom and James stayed in the living room - James is at work now. 

She can have my bedroom tonight, tho, since I won't be here.  But, they were talking last night.  The uncle just moved from California to Missouri - and as usual for those scenarios, he's basically rich from selling an overpriced home over there and buying up property in Missouri.  He only bought 10 acres tho.  I mean, if I'm buying acreage, my desire would be at least 50 acres, but at least 25 as bare minimum.  Anyway, Taylor now wants to move to Missouri.

She looks at me,, do you want to move to Missouri?  Lol, I dunno.  I'd have to find a new job.  Not that that would be such a bad thing with what's going on here at this job anyway.  This manager is making a lot of people unhappy because she is totally incompetent.  If she really doesn't understand that what she's doing is totally unfair - handing out "first in first out" - then that just adds to the idea she has no clue what she's doing.  None, whatsoever, and word is back from other divisions that they don't do it like that.  Of course they don't, not if you want to have driver rentention.

Anyway, I travel through Missouri frequently enough. It's got some natural beauty to it.  I don't really have anything holding me here, or anywhere for that matter.  I dunno what Maria would do tho.  Taylor wants to take a vacation up there this year to see if it's anything she would want to get into.  Almost guaranteed she'd move, tho most of her friends live in these parts.  Last time they moved to Georgia and were terribly missing this place. 

I'll just let that one sit in the back of my head for a while. If I ever get out of this Barnsdall run and back up through Missouri I'll take a more realistic look at the area.  Lots of trees and some mountain areas i think.  The only thing I know is, I don't want to move to any big cities.  If they were to do that, I'd be parting ways.  The area where the uncle moved to is a very small town and the biggest town I think is St. Louis - 200 plus miles away.  So, a situation like that would have a drawback of having to drive a long way to get to an airport.  And who knows what job opportunities are up there. I don't really want to live with the uncle, either.  I don't know him at all and that's really nothing that interests me.  I like the living arrangement we have now - but we all no nothing lasts forever.  Been here, done that, things always change. 

So, moving on, I have a run today. Late start, 1:30 pm load appointment.  That puts me out very late to getting back down to Grant, OK.  I doubt I'll make it.  Depends on how I feel, really, but driving late into the night isn't my first choice, not when there is no need for the trailer back tomorrow anyway.  Maybe I'll last til 11 or midnight?  If i can make it back at least as far as the service plaza in McAlester, Ok, that would probably suffice.

Well, off to breakfast and other things before I leave.

G'day.