So a lady from the yard office calls me earlier.  Real nice person but to the point: we have an issue with your speeding. 

Huh? I keep my speed at or very near speed limits, I don't need tickets and I go through lots of small towns with police always on the lookout.

You went into Bernice at 65mph.  The speed limit was 45.  Yup, I replied, I didn't see the sign until I got to it but immediately slowed down.  She went on a monologue about the police there and how they always have speed traps etc.  Yes, I have been going through there for years, as I explained, I didn't see the sign until I got at it.

It's whatever to me. I have driven as a passenger with 6 different drivers in this company now, they all speed. I'm not too impressed with this company as it stands, if they are going to give me a call/hard time every time something like that happens, I will find a new job. 

Even the previous job hauling cryo never once contacted either me or my manager about speed and they have far more electronic junk in their trucks to monitor their drivers. 

She said, well, you don't normally appear on my list...yes so why bother me? I thought but didn't say, I'll keep my tones civil until it's time to amp it up a little. Not too much, but enough to let them know that I won't be tolerating excessive amounts of phone calls, if it comes to that.  Hopefully not.  The job is as bad as any trucking company job, but at least I'm getting done early for the most part.

Today I was back at my yard at noon thirty. Probably 2:30 ish tomorrow coming back from Gurdon. However, it's going into Arkansas is where they normally throw the monkey wrenches at me and cost me hours more of time than originally anticipated. I feel like if I can put up with that, they can put up with an occasional episode of hitting a speed limit change at a higher rate of speed, they can look and see that I slowed right down.  It doesn't happen often, I can tell ya that.  

I think there are some payments to be collected today,  I will be back over there in a little while to knock on doors if needed.  I dunno, my book is in the vehicle and I am currently in my bedroom.  Just gonna check when I leave for the park. 

I caved last night on the fasting.  Lasted 48 hours.  I was going for 3 days but I ended up getting a headache and feeling weak, I just decided to eat and then I'll try another fast in a week or so. I'm not going to beat myself up over it, 2 days was long enough considering I haven't really done much fasting recently.  It's kind of something you work yourself into.  

Keto - did the last strip test a few minutes ago. I'll have to venture into Walmart to get more of them - I hate going to Walmart. I think my visits there are on average about once to twice a month. Anyway, it showed Trace. As in, very small amount of ketones, but that means I should be full in ketosis within what, say the next several days?  A week at most. I wonder if I was feeling keto flu last night with the headaches and such? 

I'm doing intermittent fasting now along with Keto. I won't eat until noon at the earliest. And then a light meal followed by a heavier dinner and that's about it. I will most likely try another day/2/3 day fast next week, the week following at the latest. The only problem I will face is Christmas is coming up and it's rest assured I will not do the diet on Christmas Day.  I was about to say "if I'm home", but even if I"m working, it isn't all day long unless they throw some kind of garbage at me. 

That's enough. It's getting late - late for me anyway, I am getting up early, I want to be in Gurdon at 9:30 am or earlier. 9:30 is good tho.  I am the only load going up there tomorrow, hopefully that means their tank won't be full. They are still down to one tank, the other one shut down, I"m going to ask them why the one tank is down. I don't know of any reason why they wouldn't want to tell me. The workers at the Lufkin plant guessed the tank needs to be replaced. 

I dunno. I just know it has been shut down since they reopened the plant up there.

And finally, lot 10 is leaving tomorrow for work reassignment. He stayed much longer than he anticipated, I think he was there at least 6 months. He was only going to be there for 2. Wishing he didn't have to go, his lot rent is due on the 1st.  I haven't received any end of month calls in the last few days inquiring about lots.  I did update my Facebook and I might run a short Facebook ad to see if I can get someone back in there. 

If others leave, I will definitely be doing the Facebook ad - or boost they like to call it - for several days.  I most often get at least 1 person moving in out of those ads. If they stay a while, it's worth it.  

Wednesday - early

The 6 year old was making a lot of noise and woke me up out of a deep sleep.

I am quite sick of this boy doing this and I am going to remedy it.  The parents probably aren't going to like it either, but I am going to go in his room at 3 am and wake him up.  I mean, wake him fully up out of a deep sleep.  I will do it every night after he wakes me up that morning. I don't care what anyone thinks of it, he certainly doesn't give a shit about my sleep.   

I mean, it's quite irritating.  You are sound asleep, in a beautiful dream and then voices enter your head and if the voice keeps going, you are jolted awake. And then, you realize it's a child that doesn't care if you're sleeping even tho he's been told and even disciplined about it 100 times in the past.  

I was only sleeping in a little because I don't have to do a washout this morning.  No sense in getting up at 5:45 am to do something I don't need to do.  That was entirely erased.  It was 5:55 when he woke me up. 

Ok enough of that. Not worth raising my blood pressure over, but I am going to remedy this situation.  

And yes, I am going to Lufkin, straight to Lufkin, no washout stop in Nacogdoches. This is the short part of the run at maybe - 190 miles total driving?  If these runs would start working out as they are supposed to, I wouldn't be out so long on many days where some fluke or extenuating circumstance gets poked into it and adds hours, sometimes many hours, to the deal.  I'm not getting paid much more for having to be out there longer, this is a mileage thing with stop pay. Stop pay covers the washout, loading and offloading. Detention pay doesn't kick in until you've been at the plants for 2 hours, which is pretty unfair to the driver, that's too long.  If the washout goes over an hour, that also kicks in detention - which shows you that washouts typically don't take that long.  Maybe 20-30 minutes max if everything goes well.

I am working until 2 weekends from now. The dispatcher simply said "I'm working you until you say something different".  Fine, she already had me scheduled this weekend, I want the next weekend off. I'm not going to start losing all of my weekends and especially Sundays to this job.  In reality, because the work days are short enough, I could work 7 days a week in perpetuity for I would never cross the 70 hour threshold in any given 7 hour stretch of days. 

I don't wonder if they made HOS (Hours of Service) regulations to include mandatory ELD's because the new generation of drivers won't be able to figure out some of this stuff. 70 hours/7 days or 80 hours/8 days, most companies do the 70.  There is 8 hours of driving then 30 minutes off, 11 hours of driving then 10 hours off, 14 hours on duty, 16 hour exception, only valid in adverse weather conditions (and some other situations), there are all kinds of clocks.  When you are doing paper logs, you have to figure out all of that yourself, the ELD's do that for you.

The thing I hate about ELD's is there is no cheating. And yes, I don't a monkey's @$$ about "cheating" government regulations one-size-fits-all applying to millions of drivers. If I'm 30 miles from the yard and I am out of hours, guess what I'm doing? Yup, I'm driving back to the yard, I'm not uselessly pulling over somewhere because the government thinks I'm too tired to drive. These unelected bureaucrats making these decisions need to go jump into an icy cold lake. They need to get people in there that actually understand the trucking industry.  Think of people like Pete Buttigege, who literally has no clue about any of it, not just trucking.  Aviation, trucking, Rail, cargo shipping, not a tidbit of experience, no idea what he's doing and it glaringly shows.

Well whatever. Since it's early I might as well just go. Get there early, maybe they will load me early. If not, I'll sit there and wait, don't really care, I'm awake and want to get this day over with if possible.  

G'day

Home much earlier than expected.

I got out there this morning around 6:30 am, got the truck fired up, did my pre trip stuff and HOS stuff, got on the road.  10 miles up 59, there's a seriously bad accident.  A truck heading southbound had an entire stack of 2X4's come off the trailer and land in oncoming traffic lanes. A car hit it head on - you could tell the car was moving along because the front end of the car was basically gone, there was nothing but a frame there, even the engine had disappeared somewhere.  This was after the fact, Troopers, Sheriff deputies, fire were there, the body or the person was already gone.  I say that because I have no idea if they lived through or not.

Beyond that, I am contacted from dispatch that the load has been moved to a 5:00 pm offload.  Well, I'm already on the clock and already driving.  If I go on duty, I can go back off and erase it.  But once you start driving, you are on the 14 hour clock whether you want to be or not. One caveat is that a manager can erase it, but it's entirely illegal.  If they get caught, I have no idea what the repercussions could be, but I would guess a stiff fine at the very least. 

So, she contacts me back after I stop at a truck stop and tells me to bring it to the yard, they will have a local driver deliver it tonight.  Shortly after leaving the truck stop, I was on a 2 lane highway.  It's 65mph, not a heavy traffic road. I'm going up a small hill when I see a pickup  cresting the hill coming the other direction.  I don't trust drivers anymore, not like I used to. Especially on a 2 lane highway.  He comes around the corner.

And keeps coming around until he's coming straight at me.  I'm watching this and heading off onto the shoulder of the highway, slamming on my brakes and making decisions of what I will do if this ends up having to either get into a crash or go off the side of a steep embankment.  I'm not losing my life for some idiot who is looking at their damn phone instead of the highway ahead of him.  He crosses the yellow lines, still headed directly for me and gets over half way into my lane before he looks up, swerves and just barely misses me.  The car on my tail also swerved out of the way - if they hadn't that truck would have hit them.  

I started thinking about all the signs I seem to be getting that this job and trucking in general are not what God wants from me right now.  I need supplemental income, but is this the way I should be going about it?  What else can I do? Go work at a restaurant? No.  I'm good at forklifts, I wondered about finding a forklift operator job somewhere? Maybe just pray and ask God to lead me to wherever or whatever else I can do for sufficient income to pay bills, expand the park and live my life?  

Up to the yard.  The dispatcher asks me about having trouble with exiting the plant on the tablet? Huh?  Go get your tablet and let's take a look.  I have that tablet down, whether it's actually working or not is a different story. But I do the exit thing and only once have I forgotten, remembered up the road and did it after the fact. She was saying I don't do it at all.

It's the tablet. And her system. It was showing me in Lufkin lmao.  I dunno, I do my job, I do what they expect of me and then some. People don't bother to report broken stuff, I do it all the time.  The trailer I took up there I showed the mechanics things wrong with it that need fixing.  The one with the bad dome seal and a broken cap.  

Left there with the first decent looking trailer I've pulled since getting back from Oregon. Everything works and there is no damage to the sides or rear of the thing.  Originally, I was to go to Gurdon, offload and then go get an empty. I wouldn't have been home for many more hours from now and I was thankful, actually, to be dragged to the yard instead. 

I am working the rest of this week, the weekend and all of next week up until Friday.  She said "I have you working until you say something". Well, I said something. I'll work this weekend, she already had me dispatched for it anyway, but next weekend? I want off. I always remind them I like to go to church on Sundays. 

Left there, back to the Park and now home.  

Day 2 of fasting.  I was doing good until I got home. Taylor had cooked something and I could smell it. I think my sense of smell for food is a bit heightened right now because I haven't eaten since Sunday evening.  I'm trying to get into ketosis quicker, I haven't tested yet but considering how long I have been off Keto? It could be a week or longer.  I won't fast that long, but I do know fasting helps it right along. Plus helps cleanse your body of toxins.  This is a no food fast.  I did have coffee this morning but no creamer and I never put sugar in my coffee.  

I'm quite serious about doing Keto now that I've been fasting a few days and looking at my belly, it's just big.  I've never been this fat in my entire life.  I will do strict keto for quite a while and get this belly back down to a place where I can look and say, ok, that's not that bad. That's going to take a while.  

Tested a few minutes ago with the ketone strips, nothing.  I didn't really expect it to, the first time I started this diet it took 10 days to get into ketosis.  I surely hope it won't take that long this time, really doesn't matter, even not being in ketosis, not eating and then eating light after I do start eating again I will still lose weight anyway. It's just that keto burns fat for energy unlike other diets.  I know how the diet works, I don't have to look up a bunch of stuff, just some new recipes would be nice.  Someone gave me a Keto recipe book a few years ago, I'm going to delve into that thing and try some of that stuff.

But, I have a fresh influx of Keto bread and stuff to make low carb sandwiches.  That and taco meat for low carb tortillas are my go-to for quick meals if I'm in a hurry.  A local chicken place sells baked chicken and of course there are baked chickens available at most grocery stores, already cooked, warmed and waiting just for - me, lol.  

I will probably start eating again tomorrow evening at dinner. Beer brats are on the menu, I can eat those with low carb bread or buns.  I think I have some keto buns in the freezer as it stands.  

Yup, that's my plan unless I find the stamina somewhere to continue on with fasting.  It would be good for all kinds of things inside my body to take a rest and clean out.  

My accounts not looking so rosy atm. Interest rates are going up on credit cards so I am getting hit accordingly. I made my bed, now sleep in it type of deal.  I can't even think about starting to pay that stuff down until I get ahead - which actually should start happening in December, especially if I"m actually going to be working for the next 10 days in a row, a weekend off and hopefully right back at it.  

I have to wonder if they are going to try to make me work on Christmas day.  I worked Thanksgiving, I am going to push for that day off, in fact, a 3 day weekend would be nice. Yeah, dream on I'm sure.  I am assuming I will be working there until I either find something else or - just keep working there.  I am going to start looking online at general jobs hiring - all of it, not just trucking. In fact, screw looking at trucking jobs.  I likely wouldn't switch trucking jobs until I get some experience with these particular types of tankers under my belt.  At least there are many days where I'm home early.

Tomorrow "should" be no different. With a clean trailer that doesn't need washed out, I can drive straight to Lufkin, load and go home.  

It's been cold here, at least my version of it.