Saturday morning. Thunderstorms and lots of rain, a nice day to stay home.  Well which I am, lol, I'm not on the road today. I got back from Oklahoma yesterday, was headed home when Taylor redirected me to Chili's. After that I took the dogs to the property for a nice long walk.  Last night, we wen to Wonderland of Lights - the town dresses up this city's version of down town, especially the old courthouse - with a lot of Christmas lights.  There were train rides, carousel, ice skating, face painting, etc.  We spent a few hours there (at least), went out to dinner and that was that.

However.  Yesterday.  Long time readers will remember that there is a certain plant - actually a certain company that runs thousands of plants nationwide- that I have been banned from. I won't be saying it here, don't want to draw attention to myself.  I got a text from the dispatch manager yesterday with the work sheet to go to the plant in Stryker, Ohio.  I haven't been up there in - 2 years? - or so - because of this permanent ban.  I haven't unloaded a trailer anywhere since I was banned as well.  I don't want to go into the reason I was banned, it would just take too long to tell that story and I don't feel like it.  I have never regretted getting banned from that place where I was at that day, I just didn't know at the time that this huge corporation was running the chemical portion of the plant. 

Their name was nowhere to be found in that plant so it just never crossed my mind.  But again, no regrets. I have been doing easy runs ever since.  Now, that doesn't mean they are all gravy runs, I just said easy. When you don't have to unload? Yup, that's an easy run.  

I immediately texted back that I can't go to that plant because of that ban.  She said, yup, I know, I texted the manager right back. Apparently, I am the only one "qualified" to go tomorrow.  Meaning, capable of unloading trailers. We have a slew of new people that apparently aren't trained in offloading.  The manager said yup, send him, he's the only one available.  

Let me just say here that I don't like this run.  It's usually 4 days because when you get up there? They won't unload you thee second day, they make you wait until the third morning. And then, they come banging on your door at 5:45 am to get it done lol. Well at least you get an early start.  It's just that it should be a 3 day trip that is dragged out to 4. The last I heard, we were getting detention pay for having to wait. But that was a long time ago.  If I get up there Monday and they can't unload me (it's can't, not won't, they order ahead, before their tank is empty, their tank has to be completely empty before we can offload and that usually isn't the case on the second day), I will text my manager and find out what's up with the wait time.  I've been known to drive to a nearby town and spend the day and night in a hotel, get up early and get it done.

The only drawback to that is losing drive time going to the plant and on duty time that next morning. It's better to just sit outside the plant and wait that entire afternoon and overnight for that purpose alone. Then, after you offload, you have full drive hours to get back - probably somewhere near Little Rock if I hustle - and leave maybe 3-1/2 to 4 hours left for the 4th day.  I have this all down.  The first day, I try to make it to Farina, Illinois. It's close to 700 miles.  The second day, I drive up to the plant and if I do happen to get offloaded, I drive ack to Farina. It takes all day to do that and then, if I really hustle, I'll get back to the yard the third day. 

Anyway, I'll be interested to find out if the senior manager that banned me knows about me going up there. This plant rejected me from taking a load sometime last year up there because my name is on a "list" lol.  If they know about it there is nothing to worry about. If they don't know about it....well, they don't ask names when we go up there, so unless they remember me I will probably get away with it. I can't imagine my manager sending me all the way up there without them knowing tho. If they say no, you can't come into the plant, then what?  Drive the load all the way back to Texas? Redirect to another plant?  Who knows. 

Today? Well it's supposed to rain into the afternoon. I'm just going to continue on the closet cleaning project - I left it a week ago and got busy with work. Maybe I can get the rest of the stuff out of there, scrub it with bleach and then, there will still be the base board I need to replace before putting my stuff back in there.  It's been nice tho. I've thrown a lot of stuff I don't need in the trash.  Too much "stuff".  

As for the appraisal.  Well, I got a call from a 480 area code- that's Phoenix metro area - and I almost never answer them. They always way they want to buy my house. I now tell them I want a million dollars for it - the number of those calls coming in has shrunk dramatically lol.  Anyway, it was an appraiser! The lender didn't inform me they had found one, so it was a bit of a surprise. Are you available on Monday for us to come out and do the appraisal?  Yes, I probably won't be home but someone will be there to let you in, there are no dogs so your personnel will be safe, thank you.  

What time is good for you? 7am or noon? Noon, I thought, I don't want to subject Mark to a time frame that he may not be home for, he's an early riser and does stuff in the mornings.  I let him know a few weeks ago that one would be coming out - but - assuring him I'm not selling the house, it's a refinance.  It will doom that house as far as my owning it goes, I'll have sucked all the money out of it and the mortgage will start all over again. I mean, I'm not throwing them out, I'll continue on with them living there in the setup that has gone on for 7 years now.  I mean, 5 years down the road there will be some equity back in it?  Mark replied to my text informing him they are coming Monday at noon in the affirmative. 

I also informed the appraiser that there aren't any comps in the entire neighborhood. Mine is a manufactured home, yes, but the rest of the mobiles in that entire neighborhood are far older than mine and the other housing in there is site built homes.  Oh, I'll let them know that. Thank you and the call was ended.

I dunno what's going to happen with that. Kind of biting my fingernails type of thing.  Zillow has it showing at 279k.  Even with 10% margin of error, it would still be worth 250k, which is what the lender went off of in telling me I would be approved for 90k cash out.  But is that house really worth that much money? In this market? Yes. Whether the appraisal comes out at that or not, I would list it at 300k and come down to 250k - after that any potential buyers can go find some other house to lowball owners on.  The house does need some minor appearance work - probably a couple thousand worth, which I have been considering having done.  And it's probably due for a paint job. I dunno, but I have money available in case stuff goes bad. The AC system is getting old, tho the AC repair guy that lives behind us has done a nice job fixing things that break on it. 

The house still has lots of plants - tho Mark is not a green thumb and he let my evergreen die.  I had told him that it needs to be watered every day in the summer. He said "everything is dying" and I don't know why. Well I figured it out pretty fast once I found out he's not watering daily.  It's Arizona, it gets very hot and it rarely rains there.  If you want green plants, you have to water them.  I got on his case about that.  He was saying "everything in the neighborhood is dying". Yes, because the price of water has gone up so high, people probably aren't watering their plants.  Arizona has been in a severe drought for years, just like California.  The only difference is Arizona has water conservation districts they set up decades ago to manage the water supply.  

Arizona - at least the Phoenix area - is fairly well doomed tho if the rain and winter snow doesn't start picking up.  They can't just keep building out in all directions, there simply isn't enough water to go around.  I'm surprised they haven't done as Cali has and limited watering and grass and even dictating days you can water or even wash your car.  AZ also has the advantage that they started building reclaimed water - sewage water that is treated, not potable but usable for landscaping, gold courses and also cools the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant - they run a huge diameter line from Phoenix area out to that plant so they wouldn't have to use drinking water to cool it.  

California is way behind in both of those aspects. Cali would rather just dictate to citizens what they can and cannot do instead of actually trying to figure out answers to these problems. They have a vast supply of water on their coast line, it's amazing to me that someone hasn't invented a system to remove salt from water without having to use heat to do it. That's the drawback, it takes too much resources in the current method they have to remove it.  I believe someday sooner or later someone is going to come out with that invention and that will change everything. No more water wars on the Colorado river, Arizona can draw much more water from it, Cali won't need it.  

Well that's it.  My power pole - still ain't up.  I really don't need it up just yet, it's going to start costing me $150 per month once they do put it up, but I'm glad I ordered it when I did, I have no idea how much longer its' going to be.  I've got the engineer's number, no need calling him until I get close to needing it.  The land clearing is slated for some time next month. I went ahead and pulled the trigger on that, I figure to have that done before the end of this month.  I was going to go out there today - but the rain said something different lol.  I had to look up whether I can get 220 volt out of only one power line. There are only 2 lines coming through there, one has the power running through it at 7,200 volts and the other is a neutral line - or ground - depending on who you ask.  

Apparently you can get 220 out of it.  I don't need 220 for the RV sites, they are all 110 stuff. But I want 220 for dryers, AC, pool heater, etc.  Of course, one could work around it by using natural gas water heater and dryer. I assume you could find a natural gas heater for the pool as well, probably more efficient. 

I'll let the electricians play that game, I really wanted to run my own lines but I have decided against it.  I have no clue how it works off of only one power line.  They seem to think it will be perfectly okay, all I can say is I will be watching, taking notes and taking pictures of the installation process.  Come time to upgrade the park with more sites? Now there, I might just go ahead and do the wiring myself if I have enough confidence after watching them doing it to do it myself.  Maybe.  I was talking with people online that are in the business of building RV parks - they said the septic quote was way low?  Ohhh?  I only have 14 lots to start with.

Yes but it's still low and so is the electricity. One person said it was costing them 400k to install just the electric for 50 lots What? I think that person is getting ripped off, but what do I know.  Others said all of the quotes are well within reason and are actually low. That made me feel better because I am not hearing back from the other electrician and tho he said he wants the job - he certainly isn't acting like it.  I gasped at the 26k quote for electricity is all I can tell ya.  It really took me by surprise. 

Well, I think that's enough. I'm feeling pretty lazy. Rainy days do that to me.  Keeping the hope alive.  Now that I have the land clearing set for next month - no day given yet for their arrival - it will force me to finish measuring out the lots and ribboning the remaining trees.  I've still got a couple of days of work left out there, I'm assessing. And a bit of undecidedness on some areas where I can't decide what to leave up and what to take down.  I think I can just leave stuff up and if I need it down, well, it can be a future project.  

With that, I bid you a good day.