Saturday, May 15, 2021

Traffic

 Okay I give up on trying to upload vlogs to this site, at least through my phone. It uploads, then says ok, proceed or whatever and then? It disappears.  Lol, I've tried several times, I may be messing it up, or it just doesn't work, I don't know.

I'm back down in Brownsville and for the third time in a row, there are no empty trailers here.  Plus, another driver came down here ahead of me, tho it was pretty odd that he had just - literally 5 minutes before I got here - shown up.  He should have been about an hour and a half ahead of me.  He said a friend called him and asked him to come over for a short visit - in Conroe, Texas.  I mean, that's actually a godsend for him, he avoided all the hell I went through today.  

But still, I kind of have an issue with him doing that, he's actually trying to get in behind me so if there is detention to be had, he'll get it if only one trailer shows up, I'll have to take it since I showed up before him.  He's done this before and if it happens again, I'll be contacting the manager about it - this dude is getting my detention pay because he did "something else".  He's a nice guy otherwise, we get along and such, but this stuff has to stop.  Regardless, I showed up far later than I should have because...

I was driving down 59.  I got into the northern metro area of Houston - that's what I call it - any big city, there are smaller towns all around them going on for miles and miles. People live in the small towns, go to work in the big city.  Anyway, I came around a turn and saw it about half a mile ahead. Brake lights, lots and lots of brake lights.  OHHH NOOOOO.  I kicked myself for not checking the GPS. I know better.  When going anywhere, you look at the GPS. It doesn't matter if you know the route by  heart, you need to know if there are any traffic snarls.  

This was bad, too. They had shut down the highway going both directions.  Everyone was getting funneled off at 3 different exits going southbound, but  it was stop for a while, go 50 feet, stop again, etc etc etc. For an hour and a half.  I lost that much time. They were doing some repair work on an overpass and apparently needed to shut everything down to accomplish it. It is actually going on all weekend into Monday. 

But, when I arrived down here, I was actually glad I went through all of that.  It caused me to still show up after this other guy and I am getting at minimum overnight detention pay.  I'm trying to get as much money as I can in my bank accounts right now.  Well I always try to do that, if I'm going to work, make as much as you can.  But with this tax sale auction coming up, I'd like to get 5 or 6 grand extra in there so I can spend it on a property, if possible.  

I left the yard after having a conversation with him - good conversation, I didn't bring that up, no sense in it.  I came up to the Love's - there are actually spots here and that company that uses their parking lot as a second lot apparently has been driven out of here.  I mean, there isn't a single one of their trailers in here and that's the first time I can remember seeing that since not long after this place opened.  You take out 10, 15, 20, 25 trucks and suddenly you have parking available for paying customers.  

I wouldn't mind no trailers showing up tomorrow and go get a hotel tomorrow night.  Probably won't happen, but one can dream.  It will be a Sunday, tho, and there have been plenty of Sundays when they don't bring any empties back up from Alta Mira.  

A little over 2 acres just south of the Interstate.  Perfect location.  I want that property.  Others might want it too, but I'm definitely going to bid on that baby.  It's just south of where the "commercial property" - 4 acres is listed for $400,000.  Lol.  I'm looking at some of this stuff, but I'm going to wait until I get home to do much more research so I can  print out all of it.  Much easier for me to go by.

As for now? I'm at the truck stop.  I can hear that damned thing.  A reefer unit just backed in beside me.  I won't be listening to that crap all night long, I can back up in the space 20 feet and get that noise out of my ear drums. I can't stand the sound of reefer units on trailers while trying to sleep, it's ridiculous amounts of noise. 

With that, I'm offa here and going to bed - soon anyway.  




 Friday late-morning Typical morning when there is no work.  It was, I should say, until the new guy called.  "There's nothing wron...