The last thing my manager sent me in texting today: "I'm checking". Well I dunno what he was checking, but he never got back to me, didn't give me a run for tomorrow and that will make 5 straight days off.  2 of them would have been a run admittedly, but for the truck breaking down.  1 of them - yesterday - I had asked for off.  Today was not asked off and neither was tomorrow. I didn't even get word back if there is some issue going on with the truck.  I mean, who knows, maybe TA was wrong and the issue was much more severe than what they said it was. Who knows? They said they couldn't fix it.  It's really the only reason I can think of that my manager wouldn't be giving me a load after 4 days off. 

Whatever the case, I intend on putting some pressure on tomorrow and finding out what's going on, what his plan is and how he intends to get me making some money.  If that means going to Vermont, let's go! I need to get to work!

Meanwhile, I tried to start my Keto again. I stopped for a while during Thanksgiving - leading up to it as well.  I was ready to start today, but dinner time came around and the folks here wanted me to call in the promise of the manager at Chicken Express to pay up.  That was the deal when I bought everyone here dinner from them, got home and was missing a large thing of coleslaw.  I don't get chicken at any of these chicken joints without getting coleslaw.  It was on the receipt.  I had called them, a manager answered the phone right off the bat.  I told him what happened, he said "I don't know I just got here".  Nice, I thought AND said, pass the buck, get on the phone with a customer and just deny any responsibility because YOU weren't there at the time.

His tones changed and he simply replied: Keep your receipt, next time you come in we'll replace the entire meal for free.  Now THAT was interesting, amazing actually.  So, I left with 5 year old in tow - he insisted on going with me and mom said it's fine as long as I wanted him to go, which I don't mind at all.  I had some trepidation that after two weeks passing, they would just say we don't know what you're talking about.  But I had spent $62 on that order.  We ran into the store - it was raining.  Handed the young girl at the counter the receipts, told her what was going on, said you'll probably have to get a manager.  It helped I had a young kid with me, what are they going to do, get rowdy with me in front of him?  But that never happened, the manager never came out, they just made that entire order - far too much food - over and handed it to us with a smile. So I smiled back, gave a hearty thank you! and left. Oh, we ran much faster to the SUV, by the time we left there, it was pouring rain.  My leather coat was nicely wetted by the time I got the boy in the SUV, the food in the other side and myself into the driver's seat.  

I had ordered that much food the first time because all 3 of us were working and we all were taking lunch with us the next day.  Even after that there was still leftovers. Oh, and they also screwed this order up, but in our favor: a whole box of chicken wings that we most certainly did not order and wasn't on that ticket.  It was amusing that while we were waiting, other customers came in the door with their box of chicken saying their order was wrong lol.  It's this town. We have a local facebook group for all the restaurants to post on a daily basis and show us their specials and what they have to offer.

Lots of people get on there and I'm telling you every chicken joint in town gets railed on.  Especially Popeye's, far worse reputation than Chicken Express.  Better tasting chicken, but you are guaranteed your order is going to be wrong every....single.....time.  If I go there for a take-out order - which we always do - I'm taking every thing out of the bags and checking every single item.  And counting it.  They don't much care for it, but it's whatever to me.  

So it's been raining most of the day and will be raining on and off most of the night.  See, I wanted to use the blower in the back yard and clean up the first round of leaves.  Well actually we're at the second round now.  But wet leaves, of course, don't respond well to a leaf blower lol.  

I'm really just going to blow up the manager's phone tomorrow. I need to work.  I didn't ask for 5 days off.  If they send me to Vermont, my truck doesn't need to work, they will fly me up there to use the trucks up there.  Which actually isn't much fun, but having a working truck here isn't required.  Oh, their trucks up there are complete piles of junk.  Garbage that needs to be scrapped, they don't fix them, they have all kinds of problems and it is amazing they don't get pulled over more often than they do. I guess that's kind of difficult on those roads up there, there aren't many places where trucks will even fit off of the side of the highway.  Any  of those highways, sans the Interstates.  Which is probably why there are weigh stations seemingly every 10 miles - tho I never saw any of them open.  

Anyway, since my manager was talking about going on one of these equipment hauls, I'm preparing myself for leaving tomorrow at a moment's notice. Whenever they dispatch you on those, that's not for the next day, that's for the same day.  No huge rush to get to the yard, but they want you to leave that day.  Enough clothes are clean, plenty of winter gear - it's getting cold if you haven't noticed - I'm ready.  I could get too used to staying home and just doing my own thing, I really can't be sitting around here this long, it takes it's toll on my thinking. It's like coming back from a vacation, you have to get your brain into working mode again.

Am I following politics? Yes, to some degree.  The whole thing got old weeks ago.  Well months actually.  The worst of it is the politicization of the virus.  And these dictatorial governors making these outrageous lockdown decrees and then finding one after another after another violating their own edicts, going out to eat or whatever against their own mandates, and then attempting to explain it away or avoiding the press at all.  Beyond that this movement to attempt to tell Republican voters in Georgia not to show up to vote. And beyond that, Stacy Abrams - look her up if you don't know who she is - creating an organization that now has been accused of using people who are dead names on ballots for this runoff election coming up that will determine whether the democrats have full control of congress and the White House or if there is some sort of blockage to them having a runaway train with far left, progressive - communist - bs ideology taking over.  

Republicans really need to up their game in these elections. Tho, it is almost impossible with nearly all of the media outlets being on the left.  With a vast majority of Hollywood elites being on the left. With the media giving far more press time to Democrat politicians than conservatives/republican politicians.  It's an uphill battle, especially with voters who don't educate themselves.  Which are a lot of them, they simply don't follow politics, see the propaganda and vote accordingly.  And take a close look at who Biden is proposing to fun the various cabinet appointments.  Unbelievable.  

I just don't want to spend too much time on that, whatever happens, I have to trust that God is still in control and go with that mentality.  Because down here on earth? It certainly won't seem that way. Biden will get us into foreign conflicts, that is almost a foregone conclusion. That is the democrat way.  Fire up the military industrial complex and get that corporate bs flowing!  See? there is a lot more, too, it's too much, just gets overwhelming to think about all of it and it's not good for me/you/anyone.  Vote, speak up when it's appropriate to do so, but don't lose your minds over it.  Whatever happens, I'm trusting in the Lord.  That's all I can do.

And with that, I bid you a good night.  

 I decided to take the Vermont run.  My manager called me early this morning - my ringer was shut off so I didn't wake for it - he wanted me to go on an emergency run. Which I would have gladly taken, but i guess by the time I returned his phone call, he had already covered it with someone else.  So he said he was going to find out if the truck was fixed or not - I can't imagine that an EGR valve wouldn't be able to be easily fixed the same day the mechanics started on it so I assume he forgot that I was out of queue because of equipment breakdown.  

Whatever the case, Vermont would be okay at this point, I guess. Freeze my butt off but make guaranteed wage of $2,100 per week working or not working, full day or half day, whatever.  

Ahhh, he finally responded.  "I can put you on equipment moves, will take the better part of a month".  Ok. Where and when.  Let's get this rolling because I'm going to go broke if I don't start getting some work here.  He ignored the Vermont thing so that's fine, I don't mind doing equipment moves, those are also lucrative runs that simply have you dead-heading to point A and moving it to point B. That's usually only one trip tho, taking a month would mean it's much more than just one trailer.  Why do they do this? At this time of the year it would be trailers being moved over to the Eastern seaboard to cover LNG loads for the extra capacity needed to keep up with demand during cold winters.  They stated they were bringing in 100 drivers over there just to cover that. 

Thankfully, I'm not one of them, I really don't like driving over there what with snow, ice, narrow highways and roadways.  If you were reading this when I was in Vermont, it was and hour and a half trip to make 60 miles and that was in good weather.  But I don't mind sneaking in any out with empty trailers lol.

I checked the 4th property. That might have not been such a good move. It's a small property, it's cleaned up but there are giant trees on it and some of them need to come down.  I mean, there is one that is clearly dead. The good thing? It can be felled in the eastern direction and not have to worry about taking down houses, power lines or anything else, the property next door is a vacant lot. I'm going to wait and see if the city sends me any notices about it before proceeding to buy a chainsaw.  They want far too much money to cut them down and I have cut lots of large trees down.  Notch the the side of the direction you want it to fall about 20% into the tree.  Cut a straight line behind the notch.  Pound in wedges on both sides to keep it from falling the wrong direction, then cut the back of it.  Timber!  Okay, I've done it in forests where it didn't matter what direction the tree fell. So I'd start with a smaller tree to make sure I have the technique down.  

The other 2 properties have trees on them, but they aren't "nuisance trees" and do not appear to be in any danger of coming down. One lot needs cleaned up tho.  I'll probably have to do that as well, but that's something I can do without worry about destroying anything lol.  

Okay, we're in a back and forth, me and the manager.  Whatever he's going to come up with, take a deep breath and go deal with whatever the assignment is.  Likely be on the road for several weeks with either scenario.  But whatever, I've been home long enough - I love being home don't get me wrong - reality sinks in that small paychecks don't get me ahead. They may pay the bills but that's it.

In another note of encouragement, however, my 401k's are up to 105k now.  I'm trying to determine what action to take before Biden takes office.  For if he starts decreeing shutdowns and attempting to twist governor's arms or even mayor's arms (as his "plan" allegedly is from what I have read), I have no expectation but that the stock market is going to fall considerably or even crash.  The last crash cost 25k, but I left my stock alone as they advise you to do and it came all the way back up and then some - significantly more actually - in a rather short period of time.  If you're engaging in lockdowns, you are destroying the economy. There is no other way to assess that.  You may be taking the strain off of hospitals, but that is all you are doing, nothing else is accomplished by this besides the destruction of more people's lives through the elimination of life savings, jobs, small business and livelihoods. 

____________

Still waiting on final word of what I'm doing next, but it needs to occur tomorrow. You know, paychecks and things like that? I could stay home forever and love it - but I wouldn't last very long on the amount of money saved up. Guess I could survive 3 years living a very modest life and just paying bills and debt and nothing else. Lol.  I'm 5 plus years away from Social Security, and that's age 62 stuff, where you take a reduction in the amount you get.  I think I have to stay on it until 65 to get full benefits.  No, I don't want to work for someone else until I'm 65, I'm working on it.  

None of the properties I got will support an RV park, so I am relegated to saving as much money as I possibly can before the next auction and hope I can score something with at least 5 acres.  More would be nice, but I can do with 4 or 5.  And preferably not too terribly far from an exit off the Interstate or the major state highway that runs through here.  The land I have now is well off into the future before I can do anything with it, so that's a nonstarter as it stands.  Ie: sell it or put something on it and gain income from it.  RV parks aren't the only way to acquire income, but building houses isn't cheap and if I have to build a house, those properties will be sold, even if it has to be with owner financing.  I saw a mini house on a lot while I was engaged in all of this, apparently the city allows it.  Who would rent a mini house? At the right price, lots of people.  $500 a month, they cover utilities and yard maintenance, I could easily get someone or a small family to rent one out.  

Or just get the minimum dimensions for a site built home and find some way to build it cheaper than what you would normally get away with.  Think handy-man that has knowledge of how to do the entire project getting paid by the hour type of stuff. Still not cheap, but nothing near as expensive as a house built by a contractor.  So I have 3 properties that - can either sit as they are indefinitely besides keeping the lots cleared - or do something with them.  I have no desire to go to the city today and find out what my options are, especially considering it's at least 6 months before I can do anything with any of them.  

I like that lot by the RR tracks tho. That is really a prime location. Walking distance to Lowe's, Kroger's, Chili's and a myriad of small business that cover the spectrum.  It's just that it is literally right next to railroad tracks that makes it a sour grape for a potential renter.   I dunno how often trains come through there, we don't live near that area.  Other than that, it's a quiet street yet is' right near highway 59, but far enough off of it to keep traffic noise limited.  That lot would be my first pick for putting something up, especially since there is already a mobile home on that street.  Yet, zoning ordinances could have changed since that house was placed there.  

Well, I am just in limbo. My manager said he was "checking on it" - whatever's next - and that was an hour ago.

But enough of this particular entry.

G'day.