Oklahoma run just about cost me my 2-1/2 days off - to be sitting on the side of the road somewhere. The truck would start cutting out - like total loss of power, especially going up hills and starting from stop/accelerating.
Well there's a lot of hills between the loading plant and the receiving plant. It was further complication by my dispatcher asking if I would preload a trailer when I get back? I had to choke down a "absolutely not" reply to "sure I can". You're basically dumped with a "refusing a load" status and that can get you fired or certainly not looked upon favorably.
I did make it back yesterday, got to the rack, no other trucks there. I stopped the operator and told him I have no real appointment time and I didn't really want to be bumping someone else from their assigned time spot. "Oh you're fine, I wasn't expecting you til' noon, but the next trucks aren't going to be here for a while"...something to that effect. Sure enough, I was almost done getting loaded when the next truck showed up. I actually did that operator a favor, if he had wanted to get home a bit earlier.
Whatever the case, I met Taylor over in Longview, we had a bite to eat, got some books and over to the Petsmart for a few more fish. Specifically wanted some more small Koi, a couple of fish for the boys and another angelfish.
The angelfish is already dead but the rest of them seem to be doing okay. The existing angelfish in the tank had a serious problem with another angelfish showing up and started poking at it. I dunno if that was enough to kill the fish, but it was laying on the bottom of the tank, quite dead.
Today is a nothing day, I have nothing planned (Sunday) tho that doesn't mean I won't do anything, I just haven't planned anything. There will likely be a hike over at the property at some point and the rest? I am guessing much of it will spent home, right here where I'm at, at Command Central, lol. Maybe I'll clean out the SUV or mow the front yard.
Oh, actually I do want to start on that SBA loan now that my credit score is in the territory it needs to be to actually have them even consider it. No idea what the loan atmosphere is right now with a devalued dollar and high inflation. The worst they can say is no - tho that is a lot of work to go through to get a no answer. This is much more complicated and information specific than either of the last two loans I went through. The last loan, especially, left a very bad taste in my mouth for lenders not being up front and asking for FAR more information than they initially let on.
I will attempt to fill out the information and then I will have to decide whether I want to go through all of that again or not.
I finally looked at my 401k account after not for quite a while for obvious reasons. I was a bit shocked to see it down $8,000 and personalized rate of return at -13.68%. It is well down from what it was even 6 months ago. Like I'm throwing money away into a bon fire, it just disappears. I'm seriously contemplating lowering the contribution rate to the 5% to get the employer matching contribution and then starting up another savings account and start dumping the rest into it for saving towards a rental property. I could have 20% down for a property in about a year and a half.
Real estate experts are indicating signs of another potential 2008 looming in the near or mid future. Inflation is a big problem right now and the cost of - literally everything - is well up. People in my parts complaining about spending hundreds of dollars for groceries and having half a cart worth when they leave the store.
Meanwhile, Biden was joking about Trump being the "plague" - yet this dude is doing literally nothing about the runaway inflation and only recently, finally made a feeble attempt at bringing gas prices down. Remember, we were energy-independent. Now we have a President running all over the world begging other nations to ramp up their oil production. I am all for green energy, but we aren't there yet! It can't currently replace fossil fuels and probably won't be at the stage for a long time to come. And now they're talking about student loan debt forgiveness - with even more experts predicting if they do it, inflation is going to go up even higher!
Trump might have had a salty style of speech and contempt for certain people, I'll grant that his demeanor had rather large areas that needed improvement, but we saw results. I can list a huge chunk of them off the top of my head. What has Biden done? They asked his supporters and many of them couldn't come up with anything. They apparently don't care about the price of gas and the cost of groceries, let's get those police defunded! And look at the results of that. Murder rates up in big cities - where all of these defund the police people live - including cops being killed at record highs.
And cops are leaving those big PD's and moving elsewhere. In the name of social justice and wokeness, this nation is going to hell.
It was going to hell anywhere, for some very specific reasons - the main one IMO being abortion - anyways, these people are just pressing the gas pedal a bit further down to make sure we get there quickly.
Here's one thing I am gathering from RVer groups - not the rv owners but the people actually traveling around the country. They are still out there. They have the same concerns as anyone else about the economy but they mostly aren't making plans to stop traveling, there are a LOT of full-timers out there, people who got rid of their homes and now live in their RV's. A lot of them are saying they have changed their plans about how much traveling they will do, but the idea that they are just going away and not doing it anymore? No.
Their biggest complaints are about campgrounds, as always. Dogs incessant barking, dog poop the owners don't clean up and dogs not on leashes. Those are the biggies that I have been taking away with campgrounds that don't enforce their rules and dog owners not giving a damn about those rules or just common civility with other campers. Beyond that is the same things I have been discussing for a while - small lots with hardly enough room for the slideouts to not be touching the slideouts of the camper next door. Parks without amenities get some hits, but not near as much as these and other issues.
It emboldens me to really consider the "soft opening" where you just advertise that this is full hookups, yes, but there is nothing beyond that, well I'd get wifi in there just because it's available, they can get that done fairly quickly and it's sort of the definition of "full hookups".
Anyway, I'm looking for someone to get out on the back 15 and finish up the trails. I want it done - not just for future reference but for now so I don't have to go wading through thick thorn vines and such to make my way around back there. I'd also like to get some of the dense stuff where I can't even walk through cleared out as well. I think I found someone, they have to come out and take a look to give me a quote. Makes sense.
Anyway, enough of this.
G'day.
