Saturday morning, 8:06 am. Sitting at the Residence Inn - my favorite hotel.  They're just so nice, luxuriously appointed rooms, quiet (if you get a room in the back of the property away from traffic), no one banging doors and parading up and down noisy hallways, just doesn't happen here.  Got a very good night's sleep as well, which is what I was looking for after the previous night's fitful sleep that left me tired, driving all day long yesterday.  This one isn't free tho, they did away with the free hotel stays on the first night when we merged with that other company.

3 hours of detention pay will pay for this room, I'm good with it. Actually, I can get them to get me room, but then they will not pay detention if they are paying for the room.  The merger caused a few things to go away that were nice perks, this was one of them. We also used to get every single hour we're here paid for detention, now we get 14 hours, the remaining 10 is free.  I'm not going to complain, I'm still making great money and I'll take 14 hours of detention over nothing, which is what a lot of trucking companies pay for waiting.

Ongoing situations.  This teenaged adult living at the other house is really getting on my nerves.  He said he had gotten his state issued ID, that turned out to be a lie.  He went there, got the form and was told he needed mail in his name to verify he has a Texas address.  What he told us was that he gotten the ID - and then yesterday tried to claim "not really".  The issue - he has no job. He literally stays up alllllllll night long, every single night, playing video games.  We're back to square one with his lack of motivation.  I literally blasted him for lying and told him if he doesn't get a job within the next week, he can play alllll the video games he wants this month, cause' at the end of the month? You're gone. 

So basically, he has sat on his @$$ this entire week, doing absolutely nothing but playing those stupid freaking games.  His game habit is apparently more important to him than his living situation. He apparently needs to find out the hard way what it's like to live on the streets.  My mother kicked me out on to the street when I was 19 - I hated it then but it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.  I have no qualms doing this to him, I'll be his surrogate father and simply do what his parents refuse to do. Kick him out. 

Maria: Her birthday was on Halloween! and I just happened to stay that night since the trailer wasn't loaded, so I went back to her house to get the dogs but sat around chatting for a while.  She had her rotisserie going with a whole chicken on it.  Nice.  But it was far from done and it was like night time.  So I thought, why not just take her out on her birthday? No, I'm not looking for a relationship, just friends.  She jumped all over that.  I said whatever place you want to go to, the other thing is to keep in town here.  I gave her a partial list of the better places in town, she opted for Chili's.  Good choice.  So we went, I had a beer, she had whatever it was she ordered, then food, then her son texted her.

Wishing her happy birthday and such, she told him I had taken her to Chili's for her birthday. That went on for a while and then she finished that conversation. About 15 minutes later, this man shows up at the bar and Maria's jaw dropped.  Who is this? I asked with interest.  That's my son!  He surprised me by coming on my birthday!  She literally did not know he was coming, total surprise.  We hung out there for quite a while chatting, cool dude, interesting person to talk with.  They went home in his truck, I went back for the dogs and went home and went to bed. It was a good day after all was said and done.

I half wish I were home right now.  I would be making plans to take the boat out onto the lake and test it out.  Well, take that back, still need to put that new bimimi top on it and also just want to run it for a while in the yard and see if it's going to idle - like it wasn't on the lake.  If it will idle for 10 or so minutes, then I'll take it out there and give her a whirl.  No fishing, just a test run.  Well, if I get out of here today and back tonight, I can at least try and get the top on it tomorrow. I have a run on Monday going to Cheniere, but Sunday is open and free. 

Well I have 3-1/2 hours left remaining in  here. There is another driver at the  yard, he said he would let me know if an empty shows up. 

OHHH, this other driver. Not the one at the yard, but a different one.  2 days ago, I was driving back up from Houston. It's the "split run" they now call it where you load one day and go down the next.  Or, you can go down the same day, which is what I did, and come back up the next.  Anyway, I was at a Dickie's BBQ joint - awesome smoked meats, they put them in the smoker and leave them in there at 175 temperature for 16 hours - pulling back out after getting lunch.  Very busy highway, I had to wait for a while for an opening to get out there. But while waiting, another of our drivers passed by, honking his horn, I waved at him.  He was fully a half mile ahead of me by the time I got out of that driveway.

I caught up to him, passed him and kept on going.  Thought nothing of it.  Got well ahead of him, to the point of being out of sight, before I got off the highway and stopped at the Love's in Lufkin to top off my tanks.

He didn't stop for fuel and beat me back to the yard.  When I walked into the office, he came in behind me and started ragging on me, I mean, blasting me for having had passed him.  I looked at him and asked him what his major issue was? I am in NO mood for this bs, you need to get out of my face.  I didn't say it nicely, either, since he was all upset over - nothing - and going off on me.  He shut his mouth after I said that. 

So yesterday, his friend called me - this is another of our drivers. THIS guy is cool, we talk occasionally on the phone about work and non-work related things.  He was laughing and said Rick - the "offended driver", wanted me to call you and tell you about yourself about having had passed him.  He was joking tho, he said him and another friend - there is a group of 3 of them that came over to this company from another they were all working at - listened to Rick's story and then asked him why he was so upset and angry over Ben passing you? 

Apparently this dude had a problem articulating any reasonable argument why someone shouldn't pass him, even if from the same company. There is no unwritten code saying we shouldn't do that. There is certainly no company rule about it, why should there be? WHO CARES.  If another driver passed me, I would think, more power to you!  Some of these trucks are faster than others, I just happen to be in one of the faster trucks. 

So then, several hours later, the cool guy - Preacher is his nickname - got on the group chat for the company and asked if anyone wanted a trailer preloaded? His load had cancelled and he would be off for 3 days.  Ouch.  The load that cancelled was a Brownsville run to boot.  That's bad news, Brownsville has been keeping us working for the last few months, without it, we totally sink.  Then he said the other driver - Rick - also was looking to preload if anyone wanted.  It's worth a little less than $200. The company pays you 200 miles driving for doing it, plus the stop pay, plus any detention time. Maybe 3 or 4 hours of work and you make at least a little money. 

So, I thought, why not?  I will be low on hours when I try to come in there Monday - unless I sit here in Brownsville another night, highly doubtful but you never know - I'll let him preload my trailer, I won't have to get up early, he can make a little money and I will still get most of the money I would have gotten without the loading stuff.  So, Preacher calls me - what time? - after I said on group chat, sure you can mine if Ann (our manager) is okay with it. She got on there and said she had no problem at all and said anyone else wanting to was ok to do it as well. 

Then he found out conflict with another load he had already agreed to preload.  So, I said oh well, guess that's nixed. He called back 20 minutes later - Rick - the dude with anger issues - said he would preload my trailer. Do you want to call him? Umm, no, but he can do it I guess. The dude owes me an apology tho.   Okay, do you want to send the info to him? Nope, I'll send it to you, you can deliver it to him.  So, Monday morning's load is covered for loading it anyway. I won't have to be to the yard until 11:00 am, I think.

But disconcerting about Brownsville. That plant down there in Altamira has issues from time to time and shuts down. A day, a week, several days, who knows.  It shuts down, we don't get that work.  Baker is firing back up this week, a good thing I guess, better than nothing at all.  If Baker AND Brownsville running at full steam? The only time off I'll have will be 34 hour resets.  I'm good with that for a while anyway.  Get my checking account caught back up.  They let several people go back into the system - these were "call out" drivers that came to help us. All of them didn't want to leave, all of them want transferred over.  I'm guessing she'll call them back if we pick up again. We cannot afford to not cover every single load, no matter how "bad" it is. If we do, customers dump us and contract out to our new competition that fired up a year or so ago. 

Well, I'm getting offa here.  I have 3 hours left to enjoy peace and quiet.  I don't even want the TV on, just want to soak in the essence  of being alone in a very nice hotel property. 

G'day.