Wednesday, March 20, 2024

 Wednesday - night

Mostly won't write entries in the morning if I'm off to work on any given day, there's just too much to do and usually don't have enough time to write anything.  I'm not saying that is going to be a strict rule I'm putting myself to. 

It's 8:24 pm and we just got home maybe 15 minutes ago.  Baseball for the youngest alternating with soccer with the older child, that's 3 days a week right there plus a guitar practice plus games on the weekends.  This is what they are just now plunging themselves into.  An hour long practice went over 1-1/2 hours.  Too long for those kids, they lose interest quickly.  

I'd like to give the coach some advice, but that probably wouldn't go over too well so I'll keep it zipped.  He should be doing stations and keep all the kids active continuously instead of having a batter at the plate with a bunch of kids in the field standing around picking their noses doing nothing and getting bored.  I spent a lot of time perfecting that craft, keeping kids involved and focused.  You have 3 or 4 stations depending on how many coaches you have - or just parents willing to volunteer - and you move them around.  An intense hour of that non-stop and they are good to go.  

I spent 10 years doing that and much of it I still remember, what I've forgotten I would quickly get back.  

As for today, it started early as most of them do.  I have 1 run I'm currently on and 4 more in the tablet.  There is only one run that starts late, I don't remember which day, not really interested in late starts but since all the rest of them are early, I won't complain too much.  

I ordered off of Ebay a 10 box set of dog poop bags for the doggy park.  The ad says 10 boxes, the boxes are 200 count, it should have said 2,000 bags.  Instead, it says 6,000.  Honest error there, no biggies. However, they shipped me one single box of 200. I paid $47, I want all of it.  However,  Ebay didn't have a return tab available yet since they just arrived, I started a return. They can have their single box back, I want my money back.  

We'll see how that goes, meanwhile I can't keep waiting, the doggy park ran out of bags yesterday.  So, Chewy it was.  Better price than anything on Ebay anyway, excepting this set of bags.

I finally got to the front yard today. It was just too much.  You know, pushing a lawn mower is good exercise.  

I'm tired, therefore not terribly chatty right now.  A person called today saying that they were at the park, can we move in?  I was driving, I didn't have my laptop with me and I had no idea if I could accept a full timer in today or not.  Long conversation - they wanted to chat, I didn't feel like it but I obliged.  A few hours later, they are at the park again, they want in! Lol, I told her I was at Kroger's, I'd be at my computer in 20 minutes.

Well, they are still sitting at the park.  Haven't seen anyone so determined to move in like that before.  I got home, checked, saw that I could get them in, I have a 2 week stay leaving before I'll need a second lot available and I really hate turning long term away, I try to "figure it out" if it's at all possible.  I call her back, she says great, where do we pay? I'll get the money later, I'm busy atm, you can just go ahead and move in. 

It wasn't 15 minutes? later and there was a travel trailer being pulled in and they were backing it into lot 9.  

Yesterday.  Up to Gurdon, 2 hours to unload - it's this trailer, I can't do anything about it, it's going to take at least an hour and 45 minutes every time and there's nothing I can do about it.  Hope I get into a different trailer sooner or later. 

Down to El Dorado.  The lead mechanic is like, well we'll take a look and see how long it's going to take.  Oh? The manager said he just wanted me to switch trucks.  But, if you think you can get it done today....2 of them jumped right on it while basically telling me to go somewhere and come back in an hour.  They have a driver's lounge, I went in there, no one else around thankfully, and took a nap.  

They did a lot more than what I had asked for.  The oil leak was from a plug that had come out of the side of the fuel pump. The plug was wedged on top of something up against the engine block, the mechanic found it and just put it back in.  He said if he hadn't been able to find it, they wouldn't have been able to fix that yesterday.  Anyway, oil change, oil leak, AC, giant pin that hold the front end assembly together, light, hood cable, annual inspection, new windshield wiper blades and more and they were done.  

2 of them had jumped all over it and got it done pretty quickly considering the amount of work they had done.  I was happy to not have to switch trucks, especially after they told me "yes, that truck can go, but it's pretty bad inside, it hasn't been cleaned out".  The mechanics are cool people, we hit it right off.  Once I came back from my hour respite, we talked for quite a bit longer than that while they were working on the truck.  It was after 6:00 pm when I got back and even tho it was late and I started early, I was happy to get it over with and not have to go up there again, at least not for now.

They also recommended using an ozone generator to get rid of cigarette smoke smell inside of the camper.  We got onto that discussion somehow. They said they use them all the time and the work miracles, especially on cigarette smoke smell.  They were surprised I even knew what it was, I just said well I've been researching the best way to get the smell out and I read about it on an RV group Facebook forum.

Well, it's getting late and I want to head off to bed.  I made lunch for tomorrow, definitely don't want to deal with that at 6:00 am.  

Oh, and Medieval Times is set for next month.  It's a field trip for the school.  I already have the day scheduled off for it.  The 9 year old is going on a school bus, I have to drive over there, the only drawback to it.  But still, it's highly rated and people say it's a lot of fun.  Mom and dad couldn't go, they are both busy and asked if I wanted to? 154 miles, 2 hours and 15 minute drive.  

It's in Dallas.  I don't miss big cities anymore, but they do have offerings you don't find elsewhere.  Like, once in a while, a big city is fine.  Living in them? I doubt I'll ever go back to that unless I am somehow forced to do so.  Of course, if I had started an RV park 35 years ago when I first started thinking about it, in Phoenix metro area, I'd be a very rich man right now.  

I'm seeing more and more RV park construction all over the place.  Sorry, I don't really think there is that big of a demand for it. There IS demand, but not THAT much.  I still marvel at how I ended up with the property I have now that I initially rejected.  

Uhh, yeah, I was going to bed.

G'nite. 

 Monday - early afternoon I am just plain tired. I think it's all the rain.  The alarm went off this morning and I just wanted to shut i...