I actually was hoping to get an Oklahoma run for today to round out this week's pay period. But, arriving at the yard yesterday I knew that wasn't going to happen, a line of trucks sitting there waiting for runs as well. Plus they brought in another driver from some other division - a person we definitely don't need and everyone came back from vacation. I assume we'll be slowing down again even if all of the accounts are full steam ahead. They aren't doing something right in losing accounts. The only thing I think that saves us is the fact that these are specialized trailers and very costly - 350k each minimum. But I wouldn't put it past one of our competitors to ramp up their inventory of these trailers and start taking more business away. That would lead to layoffs/goodbye notes. I dunno what this year has in store as far as income goes from current employer. Just have to wait and see what happens.
One guy is retiring this month, that will help a little, but if they continue to bring people in that's not going to be helpful at all. I'm sure the manager isn't all that interested in more drivers for our division either.
Yesterday - got up early, 3:45 am after an empty showed up in Brownsville at 8:00 pm. I wasn't about to start driving that late. They got a new hire at the yard down there who had the gall to come knocking on my door telling me a trailer is there. I just said "okay, thank you" and went back to bed. It made more sense to me to get up early and get the day over with in one fell swoop than to drive 4 hours or so and then have to take a 10 hour break - I wasn't about to drive til 7:00 am to get the run over with.
Unfortunately, one of those small, roadside inspection stations was open. They took one look at the Mexican trailer and declared that they would be inspecting the truck and trailer on a level 1. I don't really mind inspections, but that was rather annoying. First because I got up early to get the day done early, not to sit around an inspection station. 2, because they didn't even get to inspecting my truck for almost 15 minutes. That's ridiculous. If they want to pull people in for inspections, they need to start immediately. I have thoughts about calling the station and making a complaint about that. It was an hour and ten minutes before they finished, including using a creeper to get underneath the truck and trailer and measure brake travel.
The waste of time is that fact that junk trucks were driving through there that they weren't bothering with. The Mexican trailers are dirty, but that's it, they are usually well maintained. And if there is a problem with them, we don't take them out of the yard down there, they have to fix it first. Of course both truck and trailer passed to the point that gave me stickers to put on both for a 3 month pass on any further inspections. I guess that's good but the waste of time. I was going to pull into a truck stop only a few miles up the road and take my break, get a nap and finish the day. Instead, my break was spent with these folks and I ended up not taking a nap and driving straight through after that.
Whatever.
Taylor wants to go to the larger town 35 miles away today and get some more sucker fish for the aquarium. I had originally bought 2 - small ones they didn't have any big ones. One of them died straight off the other one just doesn't do that much, lol, he's a tiny little fish. Need about 3 or 4 more of them to do the job in there. I dunno what else she has in mind, but I'm guessing a stop at the bookstore will also occur.
After refiring the Keto diet, I am back down 5 pounds in 2 weeks time. I'm going to get down to around 190 and then switch to a different thing that a friend has suggested. Keto is a bit difficult to stick with, admittedly. It's just the idea that you can't have potatoes, break, milk, pasta and a host of other foods that you - or I anyway - grew up eating and have a taste for. But, it IS effective if you do it right. I see people complaining all the time about how it's not working for them in the online Keto groups. A little sleuthing and you find out they are drinking alcohol types that are loaded with carbs or dumping sauces or gravies that are also loaded with carbs. Or cheating. You can't cheat on Keto if you want it to work. As soon as you're thrown out of ketosis that ends the whole point of it. If you are cheating regularly, you aren't going to see results. Or if you do, much less results than you would if you were counting carbs on every single thing you consume.
That diet definitely isn't for everyone. But I do find it humorous people moaning and complaining about it. Like okay, try something else if you can't do it, there's plenty of diet plans out there, probably most of them work, but like any diet, they have parameters and rules you must follow in order for them to work.
Enough of that. Besides the trip to the town I intend on driving over to the wooded property today and seeing about gaining access to it. Well I guess that depends on how long the fish trip takes. I keep saying I'm going to go and then I - don't get a chance to go lol. I got back to find one little pile of snow from the snow storm we got. It was all hard from melting and useless. I missed that entire deal, people were building snow men all over the place. Those are all melted down and just small patches of icy snow on the ground.
Just another day in paradise. I stopped the endless searching for a property. Just nothing there that fits the bill. I'm sure more properties will get listed over time - or another tax lien sale will occur before that and maybe something will be in there. I put in some online requests from local realtors that I haven't received any reply to. There were two properties that looked good - until I got to the part about them being landlocked. Another amusing thing. Who is going to drop 60k for a property they can't even access? The ads literally say there is no access to the property, they're surrounded by private property. One of them says they're trying to get an easement. Well, easements usually come at a price, the owners of the properties don't just give away portions of their land so others can travel on it.
Well, off to breakfast and get about the day.
