3 more days of Facebook jail.

If they do it again, I'm going to download all of my photos and delete my account. Or deactivate it, one or the other but I don't care that much about Facebook anymore.  Once I stopped engaging in political debate groups, I realized how much time I was wasting with it.  

Facebook is operated by far leftist extremists, in my opinion.  I like being able to connect with friends - I don't like supporting a platform that engages in raw censorship of political opinion they don't like. It's their platform, but I am reverting my mindset back to the days before facebook.

I didn't cross the Facebook bridge until well after my friends, family and associates did. And even then, I didn't seen the value of it until I started seeing people I haven't talked to in years popping up. Then it got fun.  But now? My calling a person, putting up a post in an RV park TIPS group, who posted a post about how shitty Americans are - he is Canadian - and going off on the US - an arrogant, French Canadian was referred to as hate speech.

Whatever. I don't regret saying it and it is definitely not "hate speech".  Facebook has become too big for it's britches. It wouldn't bother me if they suspended my account indefinitely, tho if they did that I would delete it.  I only want my years worth of photos off of it.  There's some memories on there that I can't duplicate elsewhere.  Other than that, Facebook can piss off.  These people running these social media platforms have more power than any politician.

People are too dumb to research issues on their own.  Facebook is clearly in the progressive lane of thought.  And they have a huge amount of influence. 

Anyways, a rather large agenda tomorrow. After getting this trip from hell over with, I have a bit of running around to do tomorrow. That will hopefully include a trip to shooting range where I can get a mount and scope and some ammo for the newly-purchased AR15 and hopefully go to my hunting property and shoot off some rounds at a target that I already have in mind that is well out of the way of anyone in particular, that property is well enough away from any houses that I don't have to worry about it.  

I've found many more houses tonight on the tax sale list, amazing.  I mean, they not only show on the tax assessment statement, they are showing on satellite as well.  I will do my due diligence to look at every one of them in my price range.  I mean, it's not impossible that the people showing up to previous auctions get discouraged and don't show up.

Even then, most of them don't bid on anything.  

One of the 1 acre properties is now canceled off the list.  It's possible that too many of them will pay off unpaid taxes and make it a waste of time going. We'll see. I don't mind that people pay them up and keep their property tho, I am not a proponent of property taxes.  At all.  

It's amazing how you can pay off a property, come on hard times and then the government comes and takes it away from you. How we as citizens tolerate this nonsense, I have no idea.  Taxes for schools can be generated from a myriad of other sources.  An initial property tax - when you buy it - I can deal with that. Paying a sales tax on a piece of land you own, every year, forever, is outrageous.  What other things do you pay taxes on after you buy it?  

Whatever the case, time for bed.

 The 16 hour day srtarted with the pre-trip inspection yesterday.  

I always do my pretrip before I get on the clock - if there's something wrong, I can get it fixed or get switched to another trailer without wasting my 14 hour clock. 

Tires.  It was immediately evident someone had locked up the brakes.  Tires had flat spots on them - deep flat spots where the tread was completely gone.  I went into the office, informed the mechanics of the situation. They ran out there (they literally ran), looked and said back the trailer into that bay, we're replacing 4 tires.  

That, in turn, caused me to be late for my appointment to get the trailer loaded.  No worries, when I showed up at the plant, it was shut down. 40 minutes later and they were letting us in.  After that.....I get to the loading rack. Sorry to inform you, Mr BenB but they are working on that rail car and they have a procedure they have to do to it which will force me to stop loading until they finish.  

Yup, it ratcheted up the time it takes to load by another half an hour.  As you can tell, the day wasn't exactly going swimmingly. I dunno how I got in and of the scale house so quick, that was the only thing that went well there.  

Driving down the road, going up through Oklahoma.  Got to the end of the Indian Nation Turnpike, 75 northbound coming up to Henryetta.  It's a down hill to the stop light.  The truck wasn't slowing down.  I mean, a little, but something was definitely wrong.  I got the thing stopped into before smashing into an unmarked police cruiser in front of me, went through the construction site with barricades - there was no place to pull over.  I got through that and several people in a small dump truck were waving at me and pointing at the back of the trailer.

Never a good sign when people are trying to get you to stop - I was going to do that anyway but now I really wanted to see what they were pointing at. I got out and went back and it was immediately obvious: a brake chamber was on the ground, hanging on by the air lines. 

Brake chambers actuate the brakes.  No brake chamber, no brake on that particular set of duallies.  But worse, air was just dumping out of it.  Twofold problem  I just left it parked there, got out the orange triangles, put them up, called our company's breakdown hotline.  

I was so tired anyway, that after I made that call I crawled into bed in the sleeper and went to sleep. I had awakened early that night and wasn't able to get back to sleep. Well, this mechanic showed up in less than half an hour, amazingly enough, but what transpired after that was - interesting.  Replacing a brake chamber is a relatively simple operation that should only take like 10 to 15 minutes.  It's easily accessible, right there under the trailer.

At least, it should be a simple operation.  It took this dude almost 4 hours to replace it.  And after a couple of hours he had a total meltdown.  I was sitting in the truck and I could hear him screaming, I thought he had gotten hurt or something and rushed out there to see what happened.

Nothing happened. He was screaming obscenities, throwing wrenches, bashing his head, temper tantrum of the ages.  I SHOULD BE F***** HOME RIGHT NOW! GD F****** GD THING!!

You get the picture, that went on pretty much the rest of the time he was under there.  He called his boss several times, his boss just told him he probably didn't have the diaphragm in there right.  This guy was screwed, he had to fix it.  Those trucking company corporate accounts are coveted and worth a gold  mine.  You get one of those and you are going to have business and it's high paying business.

If you don't fix something because you - can't do it - you lose that account and they find someone else to deal with their breakdowns.  On his final attempt of taking that chamber apart and putting the diaphragm back in, he finally got it right.  His anger subsided, the rage left him and he was happy - happy that is until he found out the ordeal it is to get my company to pay the bill.  

I got out of there, went up to the Love's fueled up, got a lettuce wrapped Carl's Jr burger and forced myself to continue driving up to the plant.  I can tell you, I was done with that day and wanted it over with.  But, they want this stuff up there and I got that done, drove 25 miles back down the narrow, winding 2 lane highway out of that area, down OK20 and parked at a place that has been a reliable parking spot - meaning there is always a place to park  - since I found it a few years back.  I went straight to bed.  

I can only hope and pray I don't experience anything even remotely as ridiculous as yesterday went.  It's raining, I'm waiting for my 10 hour clock to be done and get on down the highway. I'm still a bit tired but I couldn't sleep any longer.  I really do not want to go to work tomorrow.  A day off and sleep in would be nice.  I'm not going to ask for it, but it sure would be nice to get this out of my system and get back on track.  

And my Keurig coffee maker has failed.  The one for the truck. The one that gets me a cuppa when I wake up in the morning and I'm not near a truck stop or a convenience store.  It's going in the trash, I just ordered another one, but a different model this time. It's the Keurig mini - it just makes one cup at a time. That's all I need.  So, crisis abated, I can happily move on without coffee being an issue, lmao. 

Uhh, close to time to get moving.  6 hours back, I neither had the hours or the desire last night to do any more driving than getting to the nearest parking area.  I don't regret that at all, I was dead tired and there wasn't going to be any parking spaces anywhere else within 100 miles besides places you aren't allowed to park, but there's room for a truck.  The problem, of course, is when security comes along and tell you to move along, you can't park here, didn't you see the signs? 

So, hoping for a bit better day : )

G'day.