Well today marks the first time that I can prove that the manager is playing favorites or using whatever system she is using to give out routes - whatever it is, it isn't what she claims it is.  Because yesterday, a driver who had left ahead of me got in after I had already been a the yard quite a while and almost ready to leave.

Yet, this morning, he's already back out on a run and I didn't get anything.  Not that I wanted a run today, but this claim of her's that its' "first in, first out" that she tells everyone - and many have questioned - can now be proven to be false. I don't know why she is doing thing the way she does, just no clue.  One driver gets all the longer runs.  Which I don't care anything about, but there are plenty of drivers that want those runs as well, never getting them or getting them in 6 month intervals.

I didn't actually want to go out today anyway, that's not the complaint. The complaint is simply she isn't doing what she says she is doing.  He didn't get in until late, she would have had to have given him today's run before he ever even got back to the yard.  Now, there could a factor here where her system is so flawed, she doesn't actually even know what's going on and is just guessing.  I dunno.  I'm not going to say anything about it for now, just information that may be useful if the discussion ever comes up.

Meanwhile, this boat mechanic finally stopped talking through his wife and contacted me directly after I demanded my money back.  "The service call was 150 you paid 2p for a bow saver and gave 20 for parts you didn't receive. I got your motor running for you. Gave you about 4 hours work and spent 30 in gas going there and back. But please tell me what you think I I owe you sir."

I wasn't asking for all of my money back, I purchased the support from him for 20 bucks.  But his claim that "I got your motor running for you" is false. It wasn't running any better after he left than when before he came.  His 4 hours of work didn't result in any difference in the engine's sputtering and coughing and not running smoothly and dying out.  He knows this, so why he's trying to purport that "I got your motor running" I don't know, but I replied to him and flatly told him the motor wasn't running any better after then before you arrived, why did you leave me hanging for two weeks and why haven't you followed through?

I, of course, have received no reply.  I would rather resolve this amiably with him, but it's become obvious that he never had any intention of coming back out here, contrary to his word and obviously because I gave him money to buy the fuel pump parts.

Anyway, I've given up on him.  He will send me partial money back or I will cause him trouble.  He doesn't know that yet, not wise to say what I'm going to do if he doesn't do what he said he's going to do, I'll see what happens.  But, they do all of their advertising on social media and I can respond to their ads telling everyone what kind of people they are and tagging facebook group admins in to alert them that these people are basically thieves, certainly not people of their word. They also have ads up in Craigslist, I can run an ad using the pics he posts to advertise and warn people in that manner as well, as well as contact Craigslist, tho I don't know that anything would be come of a complaint to them.

Regardless, I've contacted this other guy I found and now I've been told of yet another person that is a licensed boat mechanic that is also local.  Otherwise, I have to drag the boat over 40 miles to the nearest shop that will work on it.

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Smoker going, a pork loin and a beef roast in it.
Meanwhile, the boat mechanic - the one that is local here, not the dude that is giving me the shaft - contacted me back and said I can bring it over this afternoon.  So, that's exactly what I'm going to do.  Once I get the smoker to the desired temperature, I am now able to get it to stay at the temp for several hours without having to bother to look at it. Took quite a while, honestly, to figure out how to do that.

It's mostly started with ample coal in the basket where the fire pit is on the smoker.  Enough charcoal will ensure there is enough fuel to supply the smoker with heat for hours.  Too little and the fuel is exhausted - the coal itself - quickly and you have to keep adding more.  The problem was figuring out how to get it to correct temperature - the answer was to dump a bunch of fluid on it, let it soak in, fire it up, let it flame for quite a while until nice hot coals, dump some wood chunks for smoke on top of it, close everything up, make the adjustments on the air inlet and the exhaust outlet til it's where you want it and that's that.

And I"m still highly annoyed by the revelations that the screen view of purchases on the power company's website has provided.  There is some serious explaining to do.  I don't have to ask anymore how much is on the M-power machine, it's shown on the website. So now, I know that there is $300 and change on the card - A typical September power usage is well under $300, the temps have decreased substantially in Phoenix and they are enjoying super nice weather. But, she said she would "add hers" to the card.  Well, okay, add it then.  $250 please.  I've basically been funding the house out of the 4 rooms with either no payments from them or very little.  I wonder if they thought they were going to get away with this forever?  Their getting themselves into credit card trouble is not my problem, I don't own it or take responsibility for it.  If it's too big an issue, they can declare bankruptcy and that will be the end of that.  But, she said the engine in her car died, so now she has to rely on either friends or the transit system to get around.

The Phoenix bus system is unbelievably SLOW.  It takes forever to get anywhere.  But, I've been there and done that.  Not fun, but you do what you have to do.  And now, her job is moving their location from near the house to downtown Phoenix.  I dunno what she's going to do and I may just have to let it ride for a while, them not paying anything - but - they should be  upfront about that and tell me right off. Not tell me they will add theirs later in the month and then come to find out that either hasn't happened or is less than half of what they are committed to paying to stay there.

Remember, their $250 per month gives them a large room, unlimited wifi, excellent Dish Network package, includes all utilities. The Phoenix rental market is starting to skyrocket. Even room rentals are going way up.  But, I don't want to try to get too much and then have trouble renting rooms.  Not getting that $250, tho, has been noticeable and hence finally drove me to call SRP, get them to set me up with a screen name and login password and see for myself.  It shows payments up to 36  months, tho I only needed to look at summer to see that I have basically funded the electricity without any or very little additional input from their finances. 

I'm still going to have to tread these waters pretty lightly.  They're running the house.  If they get mad and leave - tho I don't know where they would go or how they would survive - I would instantly have to start the process of getting rid of everyone in the house and putting the house up for sale.  Zillow has it valued at 192k.  Zillow's accuracy in the Phoenix market is 98.5 % within 10% of home sale price. Of course, 10% of 192k is a lot of money, but still would be more than I owe on it. 

It's nothing that I want to have to deal with right now, so I guess I"m going to not say much of anything besides the indicator I gave her yesterday about going through all of it.... and saying nothing more. She is aware now that I am  seeing everything and that should either force them to make this month's payment or start making requests.  Forgive the past, but start asking about where this month's payment is if it doesn't happen. 

Well, I"m fixing to get out of here, call the dude and tell him I will be on my way over there with the boat.

Ahhh, the luxuries of staying in a nice hotel, company paid, on the top floor : )
I haven't had this in a while.
I stayed at the cheap hotel 2 weeks ago - but I did that cause' I wasn't sure if I was going to get reimbursed.  They did reimburse me.

I actually did the same here cause' my manager was on the road and wouldn't do anything and I didn't want the whole day to waste away, so I got the room but 10 minutes later she had the confirmation down at the desk.  And then warned me - a thing I didn't know - to not turn in the receipt because the company is now not paying for detention time while you're in the hotel.  What a hoot - this new company totally sucks.  That's just the grasp of it.  Waiting down here for days, at least the second night you really should be afforded something other than Truck Sleeper Inn.  From now on, if I realllllly want a hotel, I'll eat the cost and not turn in it at all.  I will make the money back in a few hours of detention pay and then still get the rest.

It's Sunday, that;s all. I've been here since last night.  Anyway, I always find out about these lovely new rules after the fact.  Still, my manager said to not turn in the paper, that way I will get away with it.  She said she would keep doing it that way until they get on her case about it. So maybe I will try it again, but next time make sure I go through her. But, I tried for almost 4 hours to get her to do it and she wouldn't until she got to her destination.

I just love this hotel. So quiet and peaceful.  The expressway is right there, but I'm near the back, I don't hear any of that freeway noise. And it's carpeted, a thing I really like over those tile/wood plank floors.  Well, as long as the carpet is clean and not nasty smelling and sticky, lol.

Anyway, if I get back tomorrow night, that allows me the opportunity to get to the auction on Tuesday morning.  Trailers will have to show up early enough tho for me to be able to do that.  Otherwise it will just have to wait until they have another one.  Tuesday, tho, providing I'm back, I intend on taking the boat to a local mechanic and now have found another one that is allegedly a certified boat mechanic.  Things "might" be looking up.  Someone can fix the thing, I'm certain of that.

Other than that, just another day in Paradise?  In politics, absolutely not.  This circus about the Trump phone call to the Ukraine has gone full scale off the wall.  I have read the transcipt and the whistleblower document and see absolutely nothing in there about Trump  engaging in quid pro quo and trying to manipulate the 2020 election through a Biden investigation.  And even more facts are now coming out.  You just have to wait a while - a thing Democrats refuse to do in the case of this president - for all the facts to get dug up and come out.  There will be more, I suspect.  But, the dems went straight to impeachment, before they even got a chance to see the transcript - that they demanded and now are saying isn't good enough, just as they did with the Russian collusion s***.

Modern day politics has gone completely off the rails.  Since when do we trust hearsay as evidence, especially considering impeaching the President of the United States? Or start demanding impeachment proceedings before you've seen any evidence at all?  BECAUSE this whistle blower is giving second hand information, that person should be identified. And I bet there are a lot of people that are trying to uncover that as we speak. Should we even accept second hand info from "whistle blowers"? Or is this just another attempt to force through a Trump impeachment by Trump haters that don't care about the truth and potentially could just be making all of this stuff up?  Well? Certainly isn't beyond the realm of possibility that none of this person's claims are true.

Whatever the case, I take breaks from reading the news because right now, the top news stories are ALL about this situation. Like the first 5 stories plus a bunch of sub stories below each one of those 5.

Well anyway, off of that. I can't imagine most Americans are happy with the way any of this political scene is going.  But, we don't have to get totally caught up in it. Let them fight it out. The only thing you can do is call your representative and let your opinion be known. And vote next November.

 Oh the weather has gotten nice and dreary.  Okay, not dreary, but lots of people call it that when it gets dark, the wind starts howling and the rain starts pummeling the earth.  We've been in a dry spell, so I'm happy to see it, even if not at the house.  Giant American Flag flowing nicely above the Volkswagen dealership 100 feet away. Well, in the spirit of trying to save money, I'm going to bring my food from the truck up here, heat it up - well not the salad lol - it's left over prime rib and I have a lot of it.  Yeah, good stuff.  Salad and some soup I have should make a delicious dinner.  Of course, Texas Road house is directly across the expressway.....sooooo tempting.

But no. My Prime Rib roast turned out excellent. Even the 2 and 4 year olds were wolfing it down with seconds and thirds - and it was quite rare meat, tho, I was surprised those kids were liking that stuff.  For them it would be akin to eating raw  meat, I think.

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Time almost done at this hotel.  No call yet about trailers coming in. Another driver over there at the truck yard decided to stay the night in his truck and would call me if trailers come in. I don't expect anything til' later this afternoon, but you just never know with this stuff.

I"m realllly wanting to go to that auction tomorrow, but the later it gets, the less likely that becomes.  It's almost 11 am - checkout time. I usually figure that anything past 2 pm I will not make it back that night, even tho on occasion I have just decided to go straight through.  Like last trip, when I spent 2 hours stopping and looking for a place to park and finally got disgusted with it and just drove the route out until almost 4 am.

I was also supposed to drag the boat in today to the repair place, but that is obviously not going to happen.

And I think I figured out why Addler is starting to get fat.  Maria just lets him eat as much as he wants to over there and apparently feeding him that cheap Purina junk.  I buy him Iams, which has kept him trim and fit.  I don't want him eating that garbage food with all kinds of junk in it that isn't really good for him - at all. And I certainly do not want him getting fat. I'll have to have a "gentle" discussion with her about it, I made my desires about it known at the beginning, but apparently that is being replaced with whatever she wants to do.  Her dogs are fat.  I was wary of this at the get go.  But Addler has been healthy all this time, I figured he would still remain lean.  Instead, he's put on a lot of fat and harmful weight. Not good for large dogs to be overweight. Not good for any dog, but the giant breeds are prone to heart problems and weight issues don't help with that.

It's really quite annoying because I said well over a month ago I'm putting him on  a diet. She obviously didn't receive that too well and she believes her dogs look "normal". Trust me when I say those dogs are quite over weight.

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Home.  Yesterday, 2 trailers showed up at once, despite the yard guy's adamant statement that only one was coming up.   But, my Quaalcomm had going into drive mode when I had it on Personal Conveyance mode - causing the on duty clock to start. The company knows about the problem, I subsequently found out, but has done nothing to fix it.

So, I finally had to get an account set up with SRP online to see how much is being spent on electricity.  Because I am being told one thing and the amount I am getting is telling me another story.  I was shocked.  I was literally shocked. They have been lying to me and I just have no words.

I knew something wasn't right but right now? I'm attempting to get my expenses under control. The house in Phoenix always paid for itself until we got to summer.