Tuesday semi-early

I guess I never posted the entry I made yesterday, lol.  

The wait was as long if not longer than I expected after arriving up here and yes, I am glad I brought a change of clothes and my laptop.  I waited 5 hours before a man came in and informed me the evaporator is bad (I suspected this all along) and because it had been running in this condition, it also ruined the compressor.  I immediately thought at least 3-4 grand worth of repairs.  Well whoopty doo.  If they had taken this thing into a shop much sooner, they wouldn't have had to replace the ac compressor.  

I start contacting people.  Well, they have to make a decision, I am told.  

It was 3 hours later and they had made their decision to go ahead and fix it. 3 hours.  I called my manager and asked him what was going on?  He said that they wanted me to start driving that pile of junk that I was in last time I had the truck in their shop.  I had told him after driving it I would never drive that truck again, and I meant that sincerely, fully, wholeheartedly.  

So, Oregon - it's where the head honchos are - were arguing back and forth with him.  He simply told him that I had adamantly stated I wouldn't drive that truck, end of story.  Well what was their beef with fixing it?  I wondered and said out loud but I knew the answer before he said it: they're too cheap to want to spend that kind of money simply on comforts for drivers.  He said: it's 5 grand and they didn't want to spend that kind of money.  Yeah, 5 grand on a truck repair is nothing in the trucking industry. It's like a speck of dust comparatively speaking.  It doesn't make sense, but much of what this company does doesn't make sense excepting that if they are going broke and just not telling anyone about it.

It lends to the idea that this company is broke and barely scraping by.  I wonder if it's on the verge of bankruptcy or selling out cheap to some other, larger company such as KAG?  My truck is working for them, bringing in revenues, lots of it, or is it?  Who knows what their profit margins are on any given load.  Not my problem, if the company fails, it fails and I will be looking for another job. It certainly won't be shocking to me if they come along some day sooner or later and say you're out of a job, the company is shutting down. In case you haven't noticed, trucking companies large and small have been shutting down all over the place.  It's a hostile market atm.  

The conversation must have come to the point that it's either keep him or lose him, up to you, but if you want to keep him, fix the truck.  Because my manager knows I will not stick around.  There's plenty of companies with much newer equipment that doesn't break down every time you sneeze at it.  Or look at it funny.  Or touch it incorrectly.

So, they decided to fix it, but the evaporator has to be ordered.  If you don't remember, I have been calling it on this problem being the evaporator for months now.  The mechanics said they would look at the evaporator, they didn't. They didn't want to be bothered with having to do that much work to be able to access it.  I wasted all of that time going in and out of that yard and switching trucks and such for no good reason and the compressor, which costs thousands of dollars to install wouldn't have gone out.  This is all on this company.

I ended up in a Comfort Suites. Not great, not bad. At least the carpet isn't nasty and the bathroom is ok.  They have a good breakfast here for a place like this.  Nice cubed potatoes, sausage, eggs, good hot coffee. For free I'm not complaining. I was going to go to the Cracker Barrel some 200 feet away, but when I saw what they were serving here, I decided to can the idea of spending money on food and eat the free stuff.  Some hotels serve a cheap, not very good breakfast, that's basically what I was expecting here.  

I did eat the Ta Molly's (mexican food restaurant) for lunch yesterday. Very bland food, not good at all. I just ate it because I was hungry and that kept me full for the rest of the day.  I dunno why people think that place is so great. I should have just waited and went to the Texas Roadhouse right down the street. I haven't been treating this as a mini vacation thus far, so I'll just stick with that idea.  Unless I'm here another night.

You see, we're waiting on a part and tho they said it would be here today, who knows what time it might arrive? Or if it will even arrive at all? They didn't get the order in until late afternoon yesterday, I wonder if it was made in time?  I don't really want to spend another night up here or if I do, upgraded hotel.  I just found out that another driver is preloading for me and dropping the trailer at the washout.  He wasn't terribly happy about it, I don't blame him since he had made plans for his day off today.  Then again, he just took 5 days off last week.....I'll be happy not to have to washout even if I have to drive to it.  Drop and hook is a quick operation. 

So this Cohen debacle is going to get interesting.  They are predicting today, perhaps, for the defense team to pick his story apart.  Mostly, they are going to bring out all the lying he's done and even being convicted of lying.  The man could actually be telling the truth now but it won't matter.  Once it's established he's a "serial liar", I like to call it, his testimony cannot be believed by anyone.  Certainly, if I knew nothing about Cohen or Trump and hadn't been watching all of the news coverage for  years now and presented with the evidence the defense team is going to present, I wouldn't believe a single word the man says.  You wouldn't know where the truth begins and the lying ends, if there is any truth to it at all.  

This Bragg trial is even superseding the Israel/Hamas conflict.  Tho, there is plenty of coverage at the universities, including the bright ones walking out on their own graduation ceremony in "protest" and even one tearing up their diploma while stomping off the stage.  

Whatever.  The nation is a mess.  Atheists take the public stage and given microphones, declaring their views devoid of morals or ethics, attack Conservatives because most are god-fearing people.  Everything that is going on here with all of this wickedness is from the enemy of our souls, satan.  There is no other explanation for it.  His days are numbered, I can say that. How much longer I don't know, but it won't go on forever. 

Some folks are coming over today to take a look a the park.  I am trying to fill the back in space and in a few days, another one coming open. That will be 3 spaces I need to fill with long term.  I probably won't be there, hopefully they'll either find someone, namely the workampers or they will just look and make their own decision.  I'm not desperate by any stretch of the imagination, but I am in business and the business is renting out rv lots, so lets get them filled. I will be running another ad after the family leaves.  I'm thinking of keeping the huge lot open for overnighters.  The only exception is if someone is willing to pay more for it, like $75 per month more over regular rates.  Otherwise, it is the "ultimate experience", the best thing I have to offer for people traveling through.  No one is going to say: "I hate this lot, it has too much space!".  

HipCamp is still shut down. I really don't think I want further involvement with it until I get something set up that definitively addresses their needs, which is not just a bathroom and shower and electrical outlets, it's also a full kitchen.  Many also want water and electric at their sites.  Note I did not say sewer. I've tent camped hundreds of times in my lifetime, no campground had sewer outlets for tent campers, a few of them did have water, most didn't have electric either.

But, times have changed and people want to be able to charge their electronic devices.  I need a whole area devoted to them and I have the space out front for it.  Would it be worth it? I have no idea.  The ideal spot is out back in the trees, but it's too far from water and electric sources.  This is nothing I have in the works now, it will cost money to do it and I am unsure if the return on investment will be worth it. Maybe if I had a nice setup and just advertised it all over the place.  However.  Summer is just around the corner and I don't suspect people will want to tent camp in 100 plus degree heat.  It's really a seasonal thing in my mind.  

And one wonders, if you're going to go to that much trouble, why not just build a glamping setup?  I have 7-1/2 acres for all of that, 2/3rds of it is going to be lots.  Out front, tho, it's too much of a grade to really think about putting lots in there without having to haul in a bunch of dirt and a lot of drainage pipe.  Too much money.  

No, the idea right now is to figure out how to start putting in more lots.  A bit of conundrum.  I have the money for the septic system, I don't have the money for anything else.  I don't know if it makes sense to install a septic system that may not get any usage for some time.  I'd need another 5k at least worth of gravel, 5 k for electric and a couple thousand worth of pipe to put in 5 lots.  This stuff ain't cheap, especially in this current market.  I mean, would it make more sense to see if inflation ever deflates and get prices back to "normal"? Or are these current prices on everything here forever?  Supply and demand, baby.  If there is too much supply, prices drop.  Well, extraneous things are probably out the window for people who can barely afford to pay their basic bills, buy groceries and put gasoline into their vehicles.  

It will probably be that: wait and see.  Prices can only do what? Go up even more, unfortunately.  

I've got an hour and a half left here.  If they tell me it's going to be done today, I'm going to ask them - the Peterbilt shop - to come get me. They brought me over here I would like to hope they'll take me back.  It's somewhere around $15 for Uber, might as well save every penny I can, where I can save it.  

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I really am feeling like it's time to start trying to get a little more involved in church than just going to a Sunday morning service and taking the kids to occasional events they have for them.  The bible study on Wednesday morning sounds interesting.  A bit early, one at 7 am and one at 8, but I am thinking about going to that one when I can.  The other is an adult group that meets at 9:30 am Sunday morning.  Go to that and then get out and go to the 11 am service.  

Christianity wasn't meant to be walked alone.  There is strength and support in getting yourself surrounded with other believers.  It's actually, usually, a mix of different types of support where people might pray for your situation if you're going through one, another might give some exhortation to a situation you might have created where you need to refocus and take a different direction and then there's always the Word (Bible).  It's a thought that's been growing strength for some time now.  I certainly wouldn't mind people praying for me about making decisions of what to do next with the business.  But that's just worldly stuff, there is so much more. 

This one has gone on long enough.  I just know that a trailer is being preloaded as I write this so I can load it tomorrow.  That, if the truck is actually done today...

G'day