Wait, one more thing today! 

I gave that giant dog a bath!  

It is 80 degrees outside, that dog smells HORRIBLE.  It was FAR past due time, I just haven't done it because it's been too cold.  NOT TODAY!! 

It is actually the first bath I've ever given him.

I give him an A+ for his participation.

Instead of fighting me about it, he just stood there the entire time while I soaked him nicely with water all over and then scrubbed him down with shampoo.  Washed it all off and the let him run free as the driven wind to shake it all off. 

Of course, the animal immediately started rolling in the grass, which I made him stop doing.  

He will be getting bathed once a week now that better weather, or at warmer weather I should say, is finally here.  We have thunder storms coming tonight so I dunno if that's "better" by any standard. 

 I'm being entirely too wordy today, but I just had to mention this.  I was trying to put the surveillance system together, right? And I needed a monitor for the system. So I found one on Marketplace and the guy is bringing it over and selling me the cord as well (those are never included unless you're buying brand new then they have one in the box) for $5 which is cheap. 

Okay, so I have to go to the bank to get cash out. I pulled out the mail from the mailbox on the way to my vehicle and lo and behold:  A letter from the AG lender for my property.  It's a non-profit, once a year they send out checks to everyone for whatever is "left over"  after all expenses are paid. It was $614!  This couldn't have come at a better time!  

I took that check up there, deposited it, got out the cash and now I'm sitting pretty enough with enough cash in the personal account to last until my next paycheck. I won't need to take any money out of the business account this month for personal paycheck! yayyy!  That turns this property tax nonsense into a completely doable situation. I'm still going to wait until my next paycheck anyway, just to ensure I have money laying around in case "something" happens, but I'm not sweating this now.  The entire bill will be paid by the end of the month and that will be that. Over with until the beginning of next year....

IF I can save $300 per month out of business account for this junk, I won't be caught red handed the beginning of next year.  I KNEW this was going to happen this time around, there was not a lot I could do about it - well I could have started working a job sooner I guess.  What's done is done, let's move on.  In fact, I knew I was going to be screwed for money quite a while before I actually ran out.  I mentioned in this blog that I expected to run out of money in September of last year and that's why I went looking for a job.  It's exactly what happened. That first paycheck I got was quite healthy for it included a 2,500 mile drive and weeks worth of work. 

It came at the exact time I absolutely needed it.  Just like this check today, I knew it was coming sooner or later, they do this every year.  I just didn't know when. Today was THE day I needed that check, even tho I wasn't exactly expecting that blessing to be sitting in our mailbox, it was indeed there, and I think it's a good time to thank the Good Lord for taking care of my needs.  Thank you Jesus!  Amen and amen.  

I'm just sitting here waiting on this guy to show up, I need to run over to the park and collect some money from overnighters.  These seniors - like much older than me in their late 70's and 80's - like to pay for everything in cash.  The generation they grew up with, I have no problem with that except it makes me have to drive over there after I was already there today.  I guess I could finish setting up the surveillance system if/when this dude shows up. 

What else...well, we've been enjoying a quiet house since Sunday.  It will continue on until sometime Saturday, but probably mid to late afternoon.  Unless they change it yet again, I will be going down to Lufkin to load on Saturday. So, tomorrow is off.  The dude just texted me he's on his way over, I think I will just finish up that project tomorrow instead of today.  Don't really feel like it at this point.  I don't hate going to the park, per se, at the same time I'm not a fan of multiple trips per day.  Sometimes it's necessary, if I don't go get that money from these overnighters, their stay will be free.  I saw the rig they drove in with their new 4 door pickup and a very nice bumper pull trailer, they have money lol.  

Ok enough for now.  I'm just a little bit excited about this pay raise.  Things will start to get much better in the financial department.  

Well that was fun. Not.

I know there are 2 separate places to pay taxes, one at the ISD and the other at the County.....I thought they had the entire amount owed on one site.  I thought wrong. The $1,900? That's what I owe the ISD, that doesn't include the $722 I just paid to the county. Now, that includes a late fee and 3 other properties, but the other properties only amounted to $32 worth, they're undeveloped and not worth that much.  

So, that was a blow.  I paid the county, I did not pay the ISD yet. Entirely outrageous tax rate for a county whose seat is only 23,000 people and not that much of anything out here, really.  I have decided to wait until my next paycheck and then I will probably pay around $1,200 of it out of the business account and the rest? I"m going to have to put on a credit card. There is no way I am going to go into next month where they will add $175 to the bill for a penalty fee.  

After my pay raise, I will be able to just keep the money in the account for any profit and that will fund the property taxes and insurance at the end of the year.   

It's basically making me rethink my overnight prices.  I might raise them at least a couple of dollars per per night.  I already did that once and it didn't affect occupancy, people are using the lots I have available right now.  I have 4 available and 3 of them have temp people in them.  One is coming tonight for overnight.  

My monthly prices are also low, I just can't charge higher, I won't get anyone in.  I had a guy call me 2 days ago complaining about other parks in the area and how "high" their prices were.  He thought $450 was outrageous.  Might be a bit high if electricity weren't included, but, electricity IS included in their price, I know because we talk occasionally.  I didn't want to waste time with him, he's likely found out by now that everyone charges at least that much and some much higher.  I mean, you are giving them the spot to park on, electricity, water, sewer, trash and WiFi.  

The lady contacted me again today - this is the one with the German Shepherd puppy - and said she found 3 piles of dog poop in the park.  I looked last night before I left, there was nothing in there.  The tent lady is gone, so it's not her dog as they continued to allege.  This is why I couldn't do anything about it, I had no proof.  And now I'm glad I didn't. I didn't throw those people out, they left on their own volition and left me hanging.

So, I am pretty sure whose dogs are doing it and I am going to have a discussion with them about it.  

However.....I just went and started hooking up the new surveillance system. Just one camera for now with an extension cord instead of going through the trouble of installing outlets.  It is aimed directly at the park and it's kind of hidden on the shed.  I don't want to tell anyone it's up there, hopefully they won't see it.  

Unfortunately, it needs a monitor, I didn't know that I figured I could just use my phone, but it requires a monitor to set it up.  Already found a used one on Marketplace, I can just keep it over there.  

Anyway, that's today doings so far. I'm not done yet, I just came home to get some lunch.  

 So. 

The manager calls me. At 8:30 am.  Now, on the first part of this run, I would already be at the washout getting the tanker washed out by that time.  Oh, we had 2 load cancellations, he tells me.  Yea, I went and got everything ready to go this morning, then go into the tablet and found the load gone.

This happened last night, they didn't bother to give me a head's up.  By the way Mr. Trucker?  Yes, you don't need to get up at 5:30 am. I do have an inkling of an idea of why.  The other driver said yesterday that when he arrived up there to offload, they told him they were having a glue problem and wouldn't be able to get to him right away.  

Yeah, well one tank was completely full when I was up there and after I was done offloading, there was probably enough for one more load in the other tank.  

There was good news, tho, in that phone call, I won't lie.  He told me he was finally able to get to the pay raise and that he was going to give me X amount per load (just not gonna say what I'm getting paid on here for a variety of reasons) and that would be a substantial raise by going per load instead of per mile.

I did a little quick math in my head and figured it would be anywhere from $1,200 to $1,500 more per month. This is exactly what I have been needing from them.  Actual pay, not some pauper's pittance.  Ok, it wasn't quite that bad, but you get the picture.  It isn't a done deal yet, he - my manager - has to get permission from the CEO, but the parameters of pay for the drivers falls in my manager's lap for the drivers he is over.

In other words, he is given X amount of money to pay everyone, out of that pool he has to figure out who gets what and who might get a raise and who won't.  He strictly forbade me to discuss my pay with anyone else.  Rightfully so, I suspect I will be making a lot more than my trainer driver, tho I have encouraged him to ask for a raise as well.  He doesn't know I'm getting more money and I'm not telling him. I have no desire to mess up what very well may turn into a lucrative and very good setup for me, finally, after all the hell I've been through with this company. 

IF the amount of the raise equals to about another $1,000 give or take per month in net pay, I will no longer have to take pay from the business account.  And therefore, no longer pay taxes on those self-written checks.  Remember, I am an LLC and I don't pay Federal taxes if I'm not paying anyone including myself.  If it just sits in there and grows, that's not taxable.  It's business money and it will be used for business purposes.  This is what I have been wanting to happen for several months now.   This is entirely good news, regardless of the bad start today had.  

He said the new pay would start in April.  So, one more check of these low wages and then the new pay structure begins.   There will be no more detention pay - which doesn't bother me because with detention pay I wasn't making much.  It helps a little, but nothing like an actual pay raise that is substantial such as this is going to be.  

On to other things.  A man made a reservation through HipCamp for the tenting area and then 15 minutes later, cancelled it saying "inaccurate description".  Huh?  Inaccurate description of what, exactly? So I wrote him and asked what the alleged deception is?  He writes back and says that I have the town name correct, but in the wrong state. Arkansas instead of Texas.  Huh?  No way.  I didn't believe that for even a millisecond and went straight to the HipCamp software to check it out.  And I was correct: it doesn't say anything  about Arkansas.  To further cement my conclusion, I went into incognito browser on Google - meaning I would be visiting my HipCamp site like anyone else and not showing all the "host" stuff on there. Plain as day, it has the entire address including TEXAS. 

I wrote him back and informed him he was incorrect.  I don't care if he cancels a reservation, but making a claim like that? Please.  

6 rats so far.  I thought they were mice but upon closer observation, those aren't mice in those glue traps inside of that coach. Those are baby rats.  Rats have disgusting tails that are really cringeworthy, at least to me.  I put in 4 more glue traps and left those traps be, still room for more on those other ones, come join your brothers and sisters! By the way, mama, you are invited too!  I haven't caught the mama yet.  I'm going to blast that thing with fumigant again today.  It wasn't just rats, honey, there were cockroaches in there as well.  They came crawling out when I set off those bombs and many of them are on the glue traps as well. 

I am not going to bother doing anything to that coach until I am sure that all of the infestation of rats and roaches and whatever else is out of there.  Just a waste of time to do anything with it until that is completed.  The carpet - new carpet - will have to be thrown in the dumpster and I'll probably chuck the fridge as well. It's disgusting.  It works, but it's totally puke-worthy.  I mean, how could those people live in such squalor? The beds are getting thrown out as well.  Then it will be scrubbed with a soapy bleach mixture as well as vacuuming everything and throwing all their junk out.  Ridiculous.

I think the family of 5 should be pleased today.  They are in town for their daughter's acrobat tournament. They thought it was going to rain today - we ALL thought it was going to rain today. You know, those things called forecasts?  Yea, that completely changed. Now it's showing rain after midnight tonight. 

The family thought it was going to rain all day long today, they are outdoorsy type people, very active the entire lot of them.  The kids love going into the woods on the trails and have named some of the spots, lol.  They are leaving tomorrow, but at least they won't all be cramped up inside that little trailer all day long.  They had a bunch of people over yesterday evening.  I was leaving the park and there was a group of them out there and yes, they did ask for permission first. 

If I would have thought about it, I probably would have taken the truck up to El Dorado today to get it fixed.  Actually, I did think about it and thought, well, I can't go up there without them telling me if they can get to it today. The man told me he can't tomorrow/Friday, he has a day off. And they don't work weekends.  So It's going to have to be next week.  I dread having to sit up there for untold hours waiting on them to fix everything, but that's what they say they intend to do.

That will be a long day. 

The power bill cleared the bank and upon looking at my finances, yes, I am pretty sure I can pay the property tax this month.  Waiting for the trucking paycheck to come in on the 22cd before I make that move.  I have to take a paycheck out of the business account today - I have no choice in the matter. Take the money or bounce auto-pays.  Otherwise I would just go up and pay it today.  If I do that, that only leaves $600 in that account after taking a paycheck.  

Hmm. Going over my prior activity, I don't actually have any more payments this month for the business account.  I could go ahead and get this over with today. $600 is enough to cover any emergencies.  

Wait what?  It's showing I only owe $1,900 and that is with the penalty incurred for late pay.  Huh?  The last time I check, and yes I scrutinized it, it showed I owe $2,400. Now THAT is doable today. That leaves me over $1,200 in the business account even after paying myself, I'm good to go, that is today's "project", tho it usually doesn't take very long.  I just didn't want to leave myself too short on available finances in case something comes up.  There is nothing I can think of that would cost me more than $1,200 or even anything close to it.  Frees up money to get more grass seed, but again, I'm waiting on the results of what I just spread before I spend more money on that stuff. It's just too expensive to take that kind of gamble on it working or not.  I could buy stuff for the coach, but again, we aren't anywhere near that yet.  I don't know how long it's going to take to get all of those rats out of there, just going to buy more glue traps if these new ones get filled up and bomb the starlit Jupiter out of that thing. 

What is really amazing about this, is that my house in AZ is valued more than my property yet the taxes are something like $800 less per year.  My property is in the county, outside of city limits, the city itself is only like 23,000 population, but they feel the need to tax citizens this high?  What are they doing with all of this money? Because rest assured, it's not being used to fix any roads.  

 Lovely.

Just absolutely wonderful.

These people.  

They change runs frequently on me and usually say nothing about it.  Exactly what happened apparently last night.  I get to the park, turn on the truck, lights, etc, do a pre trip, get logged in, go the loads on the table and there it was.

No run today or tomorrow, working the weekend.  I was originally scheduled for 10 days in a row, trust me, I check this stuff all the time now that I know they are just going to change things up. 

I guess I should have checked this morning before leaving here and no, they didn't give me any notice that they had changed it yet again.

Irritating? Oh yes.  Ridiculous, actually.  

Because of daylight savings, it's still dark outside so I just decided to go home and now, this entry and then? I'm just going to plop my butt back in bed for a few hours.  Might as well.  I've got plenty to do over there but I wouldn't dare start making that kind of noise in the dark and this early. Talk about a good way to piss people off. 

Maybe I'll write some more later. 

Thursday - early

Well, I guess the rain today isn't going to happen, but it allegedly is going to start later tonight at around 2 am.  That will likely change as well, I need a nice, light but steady rain to come down and get the grass seed nicely saturated, for yes, I did put that 15 pound bag down yesterday.

It covered most of 14 lots.  I'd need another bag to cover everything.  I'm not doing that, yet, I'll see what happens with this $83 15 pound bag.  If it works, I will probably get another one but that's too much money to gamble  getting another bag before seeing what kinds of results I am going to get.  

IF everything stays the same, I should be able to make that property tax payment before the end of this month.  I think there is one more payment coming out of that business account this month, the rest I can spend on the property tax and, unfortunately, having to pay myself.  I'm wanting to my trucking pay to the point I don't need to pay myself out of the business account and just save that money for expansion or loan down payment, either-or. 

They don't seem too keen on collateral loans in this current lending atmosphere.  I'm not keen on high interest rates and wouldn't do it right now anyway.  I'm trying to pay down debt as it stands, not get into more of it.  

Anyway, I have no choice but to take a check out of the business account in order to stay afloat.  I'm gonig to dump Verizon here pretty quick as soon as I can afford to pay off the phone - it's down to $239 owed on it - and then I won't be spending any more on phone service for I already have it covered under the T Mobile plan for almost nothing more than what I am already paying for the other services.  

Well, I got started late today, it's time to go - Nacogdoches and Lufkin that is.

G'day.