So, some interesting news today.

Nothing to do with politics.

Taylor calls me.  She rarely calls, we mostly text.  We talk a lot in person, calling isn't really necessary. 

I'm thinking, hmm, what is she calling me about?  Took the call, of course.  She needed to tell me something about Phoenix: a classmate had exposed everyone in the class to COVID-19.  The school told her that he had to be quarantined for 14 days at home.  

Keep a 5 year old boy, active, likes to be outdoors, quarantined in the house for 14 days.....

And, the possibility that he may have contracted it - and - if that's true, we're all doomed.   Well I shouldn't say doomed, exactly, more like probably going to get the virus and hopefully walk out of it on the other side. 

Am I concerned? Yup, a little. The virus does take lives.  I'm no ready to be scratched off of the "still among the living" list just yet.  

Oh and yesterday I may have just ended my employment with my current company.

Not intentionally, of course, but never-the-less.  

I got to Cheniere. There are 3 checkpoints you have to go through. The third one is the only one of any importance. The first one is just the entrance to a driveway to get to entrances.  In other words, you aren't in the plant yet getting through the first gate.  They always just ask if you know what you are doing and you tell them yes, are you searching trucks today? If not I'm going to gate 3 to get my visitors badge.  Ok and they wave you on.

The second - as already stated. A search.  Their version of a search is quite flawed, if anyone wanted to bring in some sort of explosive devices or firearms or whatever evil these people are looking for in trucks, it would be quite easy to get away with it.  So that's a waste of time and they don't always do it.  Which makes it even more questionable. One day I may be a threat but another I' am not?

The third is where they take your credentials and issue you the pass. That's where you actually get escorted into the plant.  I absolutely despise that place simply because of all of this and several security officers with attitudes and authoritarian complexes up the ying yang. I probably didn't help that I had just gotten the news about Phoenix and exposure to COVID-19 and whether he will get it and in turn, the rest of us will definitely get it. He's always getting up close and personal with me, all the time when I'm home.  If I sit down at the couch, he's plopping himself right down next to me.  If I'm sitting at the bar in the kitchen, he's right there.  

Anyway, I gave the man my name and spelled it out for him, my last name sometimes gets spelled wrong.  He then said he needed my ID.  What for?  Just struck me wrong.  Having to give ID 3 times in 3 separate places is ridiculous and nonsensical.   He immediately got on the phone with whoever.  I didn't lose my cool, I didn't hurl insults at him, I didn't get rude with him at all.  He, however, got major attitude and the next thing I know, there is a supervisor there.  I had gotten out my phone, dangling my TWIC card, waiting for the dude to come back out of his little shell. He did come back out, refused to even look at it and that's when the supervisor showed up - I showed him the card but he also refused to look at it or even speak with me at all.  

I took a recording of that - I wasn't actually on their property, well sort of but not inside the property.  The supervisor yelled at me I couldn't record on their property.  So I shut the phone off.  I was then escorted into the facility - but not into the plant - to a turn around for trucks about a half mile down, turned around and they let me loose. I stopped right next to the highway - I had 2 minutes of paperwork to do before I could leave - that's federal regulation stuff - while I was doing that, this supervisor came up to the truck and stood there with his arms crossed, not saying anything, glaring at me.  

I opened my window....yes?  You need to leave, you need to leave right now!  GET OUT OF HERE!  I still kept my cool "I have a little bit of paperwork to do before I can leave". YOU CAN'T DO YOUR PAPERWORK HERE, YOU HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE, LEAVE! LEAVE NOW! GET OUT OF HERE! 

It was all I could do to stop from laughing at this idiot.  I take humor in people having meltdowns over nothing, I see it all the time on the internet, don't get to see it too often in real life.  I just kept a blank look on my face and said nothing more to him.  He abruptly stopped his tirade and walked off, I sat there another 75 seconds finishing up what I was doing.  My fate was already sealed at that point, I thought, might as well just do what I was doing and then leave. There was no traffic coming in or out of the facility, I wasn't blocking anything and I was at the very edge of their property.  

My manager called me back after about 10 miles of driving - can you please turn around and go back if I can get the plant manager to get security to allow you  in? Sure.  I don't care, I have no axe to grind with these security people.  Whatever happened, it was nixed.  Just come back to the yard, I got texted about 15 minutes later.  I am guessing some lying from security guards about what transpired, which is why I am glad I at least got a video of the guard shack dude refusing to look at my ID.  At the point I pulled that out, it should have been over.  They should have just done their jobs and none of this would have happened.

I don't claim to be a perfect person and there are things that bust my nuts and authoritarian security officers that go off without reason and get all heated up over literally nothing is one of them.  This isn't the customer, this is a hired firm also working for the customer.  We all have weaknesses, shortcomings, failures.  I could have just produced the ID right off and that would have been that.  It just took me by surprise and it didn't set right with me.  They did that the last time I was there as well, but never before that. Last time, I just complied without saying anything and the security guard at the entrance there was just as ridiculous as this dude - excepting he didn't have a melt down.  The supervisor was a complete whack job, has no business being in that position. Going off the rails like that without even talking to me, at all.  A person in that position should have a bit better temperament than that, but it just goes to prove my assertions that a lot of these people are on power trips.  Just like bad cops.  The bad ones are also like this. Power trips. I rarely run into them, thankfully.  They have no business being in that line of work.  I suspect many of them choose that line of work just because they can act out like that, asserting their will on people.  

So, I drove all the way back with a loaded trailer, got to the yard, dropped it, parked the tractor, went into the office, turned in my paperwork, came out, a truck was backing under the trailer, apparently the manager had gotten someone else to take it right back down there.  I've heard nothing from my manager/company since last night but I assume trouble for they will undoubtedly blame me for this incident regardless of what actually happened and that will be that.  I'm not going to sweat it, I've already been looking for jobs and found a rea doozy. It's a local job, home every night, around 70k a year. A bit of a pay cut but I could deal with that in exchange for being home more often.  

My company likes to remind everyone, frequently, that employment is "at will". What they mean is that they can release  you at any time without warning or even without a reason.  That is what had me nervous when I first started here and went through their training program - the dude didn't thank us for working for them, he instead told us the many different ways that we could be fired, terminated and done away with. 

It has sat in the back of my mind ever since then and the frequent "at will" garbage. Texas isn't a union state, they could do that anyway without the reminders.  People have been laid off, others have been terminated, more have been furloughed.  It's literally nothing to them to get rid of people. So, if that was my last ride with them, so beit.  I very much like the look of the job I saw where  you haul an oil tanker to "injection points" along pipelines and pump oil straight into the pipes.  There was no explanation why that needed to be done, but there was the thing about the money and about being home every night, rarely ever have to spend overnight on the road.  There are other tanker jobs in there, the pay is around 75k.  Again, a pay cut but not enough to change much of anything besides perhaps reduce the amount of money I am currently saving for retirement and property.  

I'm just saying all of that without even knowing what my fate it. I am not the first one that has been banned from Cheniere. Another, much longer tenured driver, lost it with them years ago and told them off to their faces. They banned him as well.  There isn't a single driver that actually likes going there and most openly give the manager a hard time about getting any runs down there. I don't - or didn't - do that unless I'm given more than one in a row.  

I did not send out any applications, I was just looking to see if anything decent available out there.  

The election is still undecided.  Pretty much, in my mind, if Nevada goes to Biden, the election is over. They are still counting ballots in Arizona and the Trump campaign has high hopes of that coming his way even tho news outlets have declared it a Biden win.  Georgia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina are also still counting ballots.  But I think it's Nevada that determines this election and as of right now, that's not looking good for Trump. On a brighter note, at least for me, the Senate appears as tho it will stay under Republican control, which, along with the 3 justices Trump had appointed in the supreme court, puts a blockade to any democrat extreme progressive garbage that they want to try enacting on the citizens.  McConnell, tho, needs to get a bigger backbone and not cave so easily to dem demands, is all I am concerned about.  There are enough dissenters in the republican side that if McConnell does try some garbage, it won't ever pass anyway.  So that's a bit of a sigh of relief.  

Biden, however, can attempt to get us into more wars.  He's pro abortion.  He can sign executive orders.  Talked about tearing down the wall that's been build on the southern border.  Open borders.  other outrageous schemes to give away America to illegals.  Every President relies on Executive orders to get things done they otherwise can't, nothing new there.  I'm not going to have a melt down, not going to start shooting people, not going to start burning down buildings and all the other nonsense that dems were promising us if another Trump win occurs.  I'll be sad about my 401k if the stock market crashes, that was getting up there quite nicely.

At home? both boys are home for 14 days.  That's right.  14 days of - well you know, kids that age get bored, they get cranky, they start fighting with each other, they start defying parents, things that kids that age do, especially when confined for lengthy periods of time.  So that has already been fun, lol.  I hauled some loads of dirt from the pile that was dumped the other day. The front hole is either filled enough or maybe another couple of loads. The pond hole in the back I got several loads dumped in there as well. Far from finished.  But wanted to put a dent in that and get some of it done.  

Well, Taylor is off to the chiropractor.  She has a knot in her back and she says whenever it comes, she can't breath right - she has asthma and breathing problems.  The boys are sleeping, thankfully.  So, just kicking back with some actual quiet time, the news turned off.  I'm 75% sure biden is going to win this, already prepared my mind for that eventuality.  It's still possible for a Trump win, but not very likely from what I can see.

g'day.