A rare Illinois trip, over and done with, just short of 1,700 miles round trip.  I also dodged a bullet, severe winter weather is heading into Missouri and Illinois.   Another driver allegedly up there today, I don't envy him.  I was very glad when I got up to the plant that they got the thing unloaded and had me out of there in around 4 hours.  I've spent as much as 18 hours waiting at that particular plant.

No rhyme or reason why we got these runs, they only order them through trucks when the rail cars are showing up late and the chemical company that loads our trucks gave those contracts - the 2 Illinois plants - to the competitors out of spite for our company and the actions they took against the previous manager.  

I suppose it's a good thing for them that we don't just say no thanks, you didn't want us to do those loads at all, find someone else. Of course, there is noone else, save a company that has 2 trucks dedicated to that particular product but only haul back and forth to Houston area and another company that hauls it's own product for their company.  

Thinks are slowing down with drivers coming back into the rotation after being out for various reasons.  A good and bad thing for me I guess.  Means I'll likely be going back to having a day off in between runs.  I mean, I made excellent money last year in spite of that so I'm not going to complain.  I did ask for my birthday off which is on Saturday and the only thing I got back was "I'll try my best".  

That isn't good enough. If any of us asks for time off, it's either yes or no, not - gee, it might happen or it might not.  I won't have a cow if I don't get it off but anything important that I must have off? I'll just have to pass that through my manager who will get it done. 

So yes, I have tomorrow off and then they will only be able to give me a 2 day run before Saturday - if she gives me anything at all.  I'd prefer an Oklahoma run since 2 day trips to Brownsville are never guaranteed.  

Considering running for City Council election coming up in May. I have until the 17th of February to file the affidavit.  Why? because the town is run by a bunch of liberals, people who do not understand contracts and construction companies and have no sense of real priorities, such as the city's crumbling infrastructure.  Underground water mains and sewer lines are 50 plus years old. They continue to patch  the problems, the council doesn't even discuss a plan to replace the system.  They're building sidewalks while the roads are falling apart. Literally everyone complains about the streets but the city doesn't even discuss it.  

People bring rogue ideas for consideration - such as putting people into jail for having old, rotting houses on their properties.  They agreed with the state to reduce the speed limit on the Interstate going through town without even asking citizen' input.  The things that matter to citizens doesn't matter to them - at all.  They only meet twice a month and it doesn't cost me anything to file.  I won't be putting up posters or doing much of anything.  The other person in my district running is also a no-name person that no-one knows either.  

What is the city doing to encourage development of housing projects? Apparently nothing since you see none going up. You might see a single house going up here and there, the city's planning and development manager is a person that apparently isn't interested in seeing the city grow.  I've listened to the meetings on zoom while on the road, appalling.  If it's nothing more than filling in some forms and walaah, I"m going to do it.  I can participate Zoom - as they have been doing anyway since covid started. Some have finally come back to City Hall for the meetings, some are still doing Zoom calls.  It's basically a volunteer position, I don't think there's any money involved with it or if there is, it's certainly not enough to live off of.  

They have no vision and the city is paying for it.  There is a huge lack of rental housing and I don't know why developers don't want to come to the city to build housing.  There have been various business projects going up over the few years, the most notable is a new Chick-fil-a that's going up on the main highway - they are dumping some serious money into that thing.  But they keep building and there simply isn't enough population here to sustain it. They rely on highway 59 traffic passing through, but when Interstate 69 is all done, it will go around the city, not through it as it currently does and they will lose a lot of that business.  It needs a modern sports complex for famliies/kids.  I could go on and on......

I asked a while back if they even considered writing grant requests for the infrastructure and received no reply.  The state and the feds will give huge grants to replace water and sewer systems, not sure about roads and streets. Anyway, I intend on going to city hall and getting the application packet.  The worst that can happen is I don't get voted in.  Oh well, not the end of my life, but I have complained about a lot of this stuff, the only answer for me now is to simply do something about it.  I've done plenty of volunteer work in my life time - 5 years on the mission field and 10 years on a Little League board doing just about everything.  Not to mention church service, it's not like I am new to the world of volunteering or understanding how an organization works and what it takes to keep things running.  

But just keeping things running isn't good enough, you have to have a vision and have to want to see it through.  Anyway, the person that is leaving the council is being forced to because they have term limits here.  At this point, I am going to say that term limits would be a very good thing for Congress.....

Well that's enough of this.  I'm going to bed early.