The vehicle is done.  The gas gauge works.  I put in almost 25 gallons maybe 50 miles before I took it to the shop so a bit surprising to see the gas gauge showing a quarter tank.

Either the new setup is a bit skewed or I lost some fuel in their shop, lol.  As I had thought, the sensor is a part of the fuel pump.  As I also figured, the price tag was a bit excessive.  Whatever the case, I'll fill it up tomorrow and see what happens with the gauge.  

Anyway, there is a slight chance of rain tonight and tomorrow. After that, there really shouldn't be any rain coming up until this contractor gets over there and gets this stuff done.  Daytime temps are in the 90's even if it does rain a bit, it will be dried out before they come out there.  IF they come out there.  This is basically my last straw with this dude, if he comes and gets it done, good, if he doesn't, it's time to cut ties and move on. 

That's where I'm leaving that unless it rains and then I'll be back at square one.  

As for the reunion, I don't really think I'm missing much.  I am planning a 5 to 7 day trip over there, probably in October.  Before the holidays and the madness of flying in crowded airports.  Probably 5 days, actually, that's about as much as I want to be away from home.  I have no idea where this RV park business will be by then - if anywhere - but that is a potential consideration to take into account as well.  

My manager calls me today.  Goes into this spiel about how they are shorthanded right now - drivers off for various reasons - he made it sound like he was asking me to come back to work.  I said nothing and listened to all of it. He then got to the part about another driver's truck broken down, no trucks to replace this driver's truck that also broke down, loads that need to go out, can he use your truck?

Obviously, I don't own the truck and furthermore, in other companies, even tho it may not be slip-seating, they will just take it without your input and you can deal with it. Well, those are the old days. Now, you screw over a driver bad enough and they will pack their bag and leave.  There are always greener pastures if your work conditions are so bad that it warrants moving on.  

I was impressed he actually asked me.  I said fine, but he's going to have to deal with my stuff.  Oh, he's just going to get in and drive, I will put him up at a hotel for sleeping arrangements.  I have a great manager, if nothing else at that company beyond the pay.  It's unfortunate he's planning on leaving, tho I totally understand his reasoning as to why he would want to leave.  

The company is foolish to let him go.  That's the way this company operates.  Cut off the nose to spite the face.

Anyway, I'm going to ask for time off in October - but I'm contacting mom first to make sure there are no scheduling conflicts.  It sounds as though she isn't going to be driving up to her beloved property anymore.  This is not something I wanted to hear, because that spot of hers up in the mountains is her special place.  She's been spending summers up there for going on 3 decades now.  I'm afraid of what it may do to her psychologically, or the freedom to be able to drive around anywhere, really.  She knows how to use Uber at least, but being confined to home?  I don't think that's going to go over too well. 

I really don't know where all of this is going just yet.  She has another eye appointment soon, but can they do anything?  I don't know.  

I'm going over to the property tomorrow, to finish this one off, and survey the property.  I want to see if everything has dried up.

 I took the vehicle in to get the gas gauge issue fixed.  I mentioned replacing the brakes as an afterthought.

So what do they do? Replace the brakes and not even begin to look at the fuel gauge.  This was yesterday afternoon when I called them to find out if they had been able to fix the fuel gauge.  

I need my vehicle back, I have several things I want/need to do while on these days off.  I'll be calling them again around noon and see where we're at. 

The tragedy that we call a back yard apparently is a project we are going to start on.  I stopped working on it a while back for reasons I'll just keep to myself.  It is awesomely horrific back there now and no one has touched it in quite a long time.  I don't mind going to the trouble of cleaning it up - if - everyone else is going to be involved with that project as well - and - commit to keeping it clean after the project is done and over with. 

I'm very glad to have some days off. I'll be even happier if the contractor would finally text me back and let me know his intentions. Because if he's going to blow it off again, I'm moving on and I'd like to get someone else lined up quickly to be able to get over there and get it done before any more rain hits.  

I need to at least go to the fire department now that I think about it to get a burn permit so we can start burning all this junk in the back yard.  If I don't get the permit, someone will call the fire department, they will come over here, threaten to issue a ticket and force me to put the fire out. 

No thanks.  It's a pretty good scheme to charge $25 for a permit to burn something that the government has absolutely no involvement in.  They won't be starting the fire and they won't be putting it out.  

My 401k is down about 10k. It should be approaching the mid 70's range, it was up as high as 69k I think, now its' sitting at 57k.  Pretty disheartening to throw a bunch of money at savings like that and watch it just disappear like magic.  

So, I just changed it from 12% to 5%.  I'll figure out the 7% every paycheck and stuff it into a savings account.  Yup, I will follow through with it, just like I've been taking out cash most every paycheck and putting it aside for vacation and now going to start saving for that zero turn.  The 401k money will go towards buying a rental property.  That's approximately $700 per month. In 12 months I will have near 10k and I should be able to buy a small house providing my credit score stays in the range it is in now - or goes up even higher.  Back to 750 would be nice, I'm 12 points away from it. 

To think I had it in the 770 range......for a long time....and now battling to get it back up there.  I wouldn't really care about credit but so many things it affects nowadays. Even your car insurance is affected by your credit score.  Houses, bank loans, SBA loans, car loans, all kinds of stuff.  I've heard some employers even check it.  

Anyway, the goal will be in the next year to save up 10k with what used to be that 401k money, get a rental house and - either rent the house to a family or do the room rental thing again.  I'm not sure which. Room rentals brings in more revenue - but it's a lot more hassle. You really have to either live there or have someone living there that you can trust to take care of everything. And if you have someone else living there doing it, then you have to give them discounts or free rent altogether in exchange. Which means you really need at least a 4 bedroom house to make it worth the hassle.

Renting out the whole house is much less hassle, but also less income.  I have plenty of time to think about that, in fact, if I save up this money and get the park going, it may just get dumped back into the park, which should make a lot more money than rental houses.  Who knows, I just know that I"m going to start this plan now and get it rolling.  If the stock market comes back out of it's woes, I probably won't change the rate I'm putting into the 401k account. I'll make more money off of rentals than off of a 401k, certainly at this late stage in life.  

I'm probably spending more time than I should be reading how the rich - got rich. I don't want to be rich, I just don't want to work for anyone else anymore.  I want to work for myself, have a decent income, be able to help others, give back to God and live my life peaceably, if that's at all possible in this life.  Leave something for my heirs to have that can sustain them in life without having to spend your entire life toiling for someone else and not have much of anything to show for it.