So I drive up to Gurdon, unload, leave, make the 1-1/2 hour drive to Eldo, pull in the yard.  I had already spoken with the manager a little while earlier and he had sent me the trailer and truck number I was to use while my truck is being fixed. 

Good deal.  I pull around, park the truck, get out, walk all over the place looking for this other truck, finally find the thing, fire it up, air it up, move it over next to my truck.  I open the doors and start moving stuff.  It isn't going to be a lot, I wasn't about to move everything, just everything I would need.  

Let's back up a minute. It was after 4 and everyone had gone home.  But, as usual, there was a truck in the parking lot sitting there idling with a driver sitting in the driver's seat. I thought nothing of it, it's quite normal to see drivers in there taking rest breaks or having to have come in for repair work, whatever.  

Well, I'm moving my stuff and this dude come right up to me, gets in my face and starts barking orders at me.  He wanted the trailer.  Why? I wondered, it was brought here to have an inspection.  He was taking it to the washout 45 minutes away.  Ok, well I'm moving my stuff, I'll be done in a minute and I'll drop the trailer. 

That wasn't good enough for him, he got right in my face and started telling me I need to do it right now!

I looked him square in the eye and said this isn't even going to take 5 minutes.  He started getting angry.  I just kept moving my stuff.  If he had wanted me to drop the trailer, he should have gotten my attention as soon as I stopped, not after I had parked, walked to get the other truck, pulled it up beside it and start moving things already.  If I had been that dude, I would have just said, ok, that's cool, I'll crank the landing gear down and unhook the air lines and pull the 5th wheel pin for ya.  

That is exactly what I would have done. Him? "I'm just trying to help you out".  I was highly annoyed by this "man" at this point, especially after he started calling me "boy" and talking to me like I was a child.  You can only push a person so far.  It was about the time he threatened to kick my @$$ that I dropped what I was doing and walked towards him.  What are you doing, he asks?  You're going to kick my @$$, do it right now.  He kept mouthing off like an idiot, but, he walked back to his truck and got into it.  

I went back to moving stuff and then, of course, he got back out. I was almost done at this point, it had taken maybe 5 minutes.  Where's the bills? What bills?  The BOL (bill of lading).  I have it here, what do you want it for?  You don't need a BOL for an empty trailer.  You're going to have to go over there and make a copy.  Again, this guy gets in my face, starts barking orders and telling me what to do.  I ignored him, was done moving and went around to crank the landing gear down.  He follows me over there.

I can say that at this point, I was starting to get angry.  This man starting all this s*** over nothing.  Just an a-hole, a total a-hole, looking for trouble and starting it with the wrong person, I was definitely not in the mood.  I wasn't in a bad mood before I came in there, I was just a man on a mission to get this day over with, get everything done and get home.  I had no idea that there was going to be a person waiting there for me.  Communication in this company isn't too good.  I still had a 2-1/2 hour drive home after everything I had already done.

After listening to him cussing me out even, more, enough was enough. Get the HELL out of my face, RIGHT NOW.  SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH WHILE YOU'RE AT IT.  He started walking away and I started following him. I was tempted to knock the teeth out of his mouth and didn't care the consequences, he was harassing me, not the other way around.  I stopped, however, decided that wasn't a good idea and went back to dropping the trailer and pulling the truck up to the shop.  No one was there, I just wanted it where they could easily find it in the morning, to hopefully get started on it right away.  Their trucks are all junk, I am used to this one, I don't want to start over in another pile of junk.  

He had backed his truck under the trailer, I again ignored him, got in the "new" truck, backed it under the trailer on the other side of the yard, started doing a pre-trip inspection.  Note that this truck and this trailer had been inspected by the mechanics and given a green light to go.  The trailer had a half flat tire and the truck had a broken hood latch. There are only 2 latches holding those huge hoods on there.  I ignored both, the shop was closed and I wasn't about to have to wait for someone to come over, if they would even do that, or worse, wait until the morning.  No thank you.  I just hoped the tire would hold since there was no weight on the trailer (no load/glue) and it did have some air pressure in it, but it was obviously quite low. No, there wasn't an air chuck available outside the shop, I checked for that.

NOW, this person comes back again.  I knew what he wanted and I didn't want to be around him, I was afraid I would react very badly to any further harassment and I would do whatever it took to make him get out of my face, stop the threats and stop cussing me out.  So I just said, yes, I'll go get a copy. Except, I realized that no one is in the office, it is locked and you can't access the copier, he expressed the same thing. No worries, I said, I'll deal with it and you can have this copy. 

No, we will have to call the manager. No, we won't. you can have this copy of the BOL, I don't need it.  Again, I don't need a BOL for an empty trailer, I don't know where he got his information and I don't care.  I got the tablet out, took pics and uploaded them to the system for processing, then took a pic of the BOL so I could reprint it at home. I do need a copy for records and I doubt he was going to bring it back to them.  While I was doing that, he walked back to his truck yet again, thankfully.  I got done uploading everything and walked half way over to his truck.  Waved the paper at him. I was pissed at this point and his stupid @$$ could get out of his truck and walk over and get it, or, he can leave without it, at that point I didn't care. 

What did he do? You guessed it, started mouthing off again.  I handed him the paper, he started chiding me and calling me boy and "next time I tell you to do something you better jump on it BOYYY, or I'll..." ENOUGH.  I walked at him again, this time I was angry.  I don't care what anyone else thinks, this is one of those 'you would have had to been there' type of deals where you hear the inflection and tone of his voice, the body language, his facial expressions, the vulgarity coming out of his mouth and the threats.  Especially the threats.  

What are you doing? I didn't say anything, I just started walking faster.  He ran to his truck, got in it and I turned around a walked off.  I don't know what is wrong with that person, I just know he apparently has either never had his @$$ kicked or it's been too long for him to be going around threatening people and mouthing off to them like that. I was literally minding my own damn business before he started in on me. 

He left quickly.  I still had pre trip to finish on the trailer.

The drive back was uneventful. The hood was shaking quite a bit for that broken mount, but the other one is good so I knew the hood wouldn't just fly off of there and I kept a watch on the side view mirror to ensure that tire was staying on there.  It made it back, I didn't feel like talking to anyone so I got out of that park quickly.  I noticed the man had done quite a bit more mowing, tho, it looks nice over there. 

What will I do about the hood? Probably nothing.  As long as the other one holds, it's good and I am hoping they can have my truck done in the next 3 days so I can do all of this over again and pick my truck up.  Tomorrow I have off, then late load Thursday and late offload Friday - and the hopefully get the truck.  They have me off this weekend, didn't ask for it off in fact I asked to work.  

However.... the plant was a disaster today.  I walked in to the main production floor and there was glue all over the everything.  Like some kind of disaster had occurred.  The conveyer chains that move the plywood did have sheets of plywood on them, but they had piles of sludge on each one of them. It was like a disaster zone, obviously the production line had been shut down but why? Well, that was answered: they were doing a clean up of everything.  I didn't ask for details, like why is there glue all over the floors? I mean a couple of inches thick worth.  I dunno, I guess maybe they have to disconnect glue lines to get at the machinery they were cleaning out?  

And, the new driver pulled up shortly after I had parked at the unloading bay.  I wondered what he was doing there so late? He apparently was the early load and that kind of got me going a little, they were supposed to be giving him the late loads.  I went up and introduced myself, he had gotten hung up at a Love's to get the truck inspected.  They made him wait so long that he ended up leaving, they kept putting him off and telling him it would be longer and then 4 hours.  Yup, sounds just like Love's.  

I looked at the tank levels before I left and wondered how they were going to fit another truckload in there? I guess he could offload half into one and half into the other. I dunno, not my problem and he was the late party, not me.  He wasn't complaining tho.  

And that's my day. Got home just in time for the boys to go to bed and made myself a philly cheese steak sandwich, what they had for dinner. I added peppers and onions to mine, put the thing in the oven, baked it for 10 minutes and then broiled it for several more. Delicious.  

The latest episode of Shogun is available to watch on Hulu. It's a pretty interesting show, lots of drama, Japanese themed and a lot of story line, don't feel like explaining any of that right now as I'm getting off of here, get a drink of something and then lay down and watch it.  

  

 Tuesday mid-morning

My expensive office chair that is only like 3 years old is done.  Hydraulic pressure leaks out and the seat sinks to the bottom most position.  For a person with long legs, that doesn't work.  I dunno if these chairs can be fixed, it was an almost $400 chair.  

Anyway, I decided leaving early was a waste of time and probably made the plant manager upset.  So, I intend on leaving at around 10:30 am and get to Gurdon around 12:50 pm.  It is what it is, shrugs shoulders, deal with it, move on.  It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to go to the yard after that and waste many more hours in today's ordeal. 

The Kubota dealer is bugging me about buying a tractor even tho I flatly told him his prices were worse than the John Deere store just down the road from me.  These stores are all firm on their prices and won't budge.  I'm needing a tractor, yes, Im not needing more debt slavery.  I just don't know if I want to get into those kinds of payments, therefore, I'm just sitting on it until I can make a decision.  

Swepco says may average bill is "$536", I was looking at their averaged monthly payment plan.  The problem? It goes back the previous 12 months, averages it out and then that's what your payment is.  Yeah, This time last year the park wasn't full.  However, the summer months were wild in terms of high prices so it's kind of strange it came up to that amount.  I would love to have that kind of payment every month!  In fact, the smallest bill I'll incur is during the spring months but if full, that bill is still going to be in the $800 range.  Guess I need to go through another year with the park full/nearly full to get a real averaging, until then, I'm just going to remain on whatever the current bill is.  

I'd just like to spread it out over the months and not have $2,500 in July while it's $800 in April.  

We must be slowing down for some reason for my loads are not that many.  I have today to finish this run, off tomorrow, another late run Thursday and Friday, off the weekend (which I didn't ask for, in fact, I said I would be happy to work this coming weekend) and then working Monday.  

The guys at the washout said the new guy is working his butt off, in there all the time.  I'm going to ask them again if he's still coming in there every other day, if he is, we're going to have issues.  Getting a pay raise but subsequently getting a work reduction isn't going to work for me.  Yes, I don't want to work, that's a given, I need  to work and was fully set on that idea.  Now they have this new guy and they'll just hand him the runs since he's working for lessor pay?  I could be wrong, of course, so I will wait and see what the washout people say on Thursday.  

That's only 2 runs in this week starting Monday, that doesn't pay the bills. It doesn't keep me where I can just live off the trucking money and keep the business account money IN the business account.  The best laid plans of men.....On the other hand, Thursday's run is the only run that day, according to dispatch.  So, maybe I'm actually getting more work than this new dude and these people at the washout are just saying that because he worked the weekend.  That or dispatch is lying to me.  I'll just stick with not lying, they don't seem to be that kind of people that work the office. Pretty much down to earth and honest, I do believe.

I guess the good news is that in the next 2 weeks, there will be a lot of money in that business account, if I need some of it, it's there.  

My mother is sending another 5k.  It's in the account, it's just pending. Remember, I am still sitting on the last money she sent.  With this extra money, I can easily install a septic system and get the electrical setup done.  There would still be dirt work, pad creation, trenching and installing pipe and electrical and gravel to go.  The plan would be to get 5 more spots in there.  

However.  If I just sit on this money as well and if  can save up enough money in the business account, I could just apply for a loan with the required 20% down and get all 15 lots done at once.  That doesn't pay for a pool, tho, so I guess I would have to save up 30k. I'm dead set on a pool because I am 100% sure it would not only draw people in, it would also enable me to increase my rent rates.  Or, charge a monthly fee for long term pool users and have a coded entry door to it - and a camera.  Well that's lame! I can hear the non--payers saying.  It would be open to any overnight guests and any long term guests that pay the extra fee.  It's just a gimmick to keep a park full and get more money out of the park.  

My current finances? I am getting close to half the money down I would need.  I do wonder if I put up collateral and that down money that I currently have if I could get the loan anyway?  I have the paperwork to fill out for the local bank.  Fill it out and find out.  This RV park business is going to get to where i want it, somehow, some way. This truck driving crap is for the birds, and I'm quite sure the birds don't like it either.  You get me double the income I have now and I can live off of that.  Doesn't mean I would quit my trucking job right away, just means that I would have a lot more income to then invest in amenities.  Besides a pool, a clubhouse  - not too large but big enough for small events to rent it out - would be nice as well as a pavillion.  And other things.

It's just a plain, basic park right now, hence I don't charge as much as other places to in order to get people to move in there.  

So, I have more pondering to do now.  Like, getting into a tractor loan would probably not be good for trying to get a business collateral loan with down payment.  If I really wanted to go crazy, add a house construction loan to it.  If I ever do that, it would likely be by splitting up the property into 2 - one being the 7ish acres of the RV park and the other the rest of the property in the rear.  It would take a real estate lawyer to draw that up for not only would the properties need to be legally separated into 2, the driveway easement would have to be written into it for permanent access to the rear of the property through that driveway. Otherwise, if I ever sold the RV park but wanted to keep the rear property, they could just nix my access and there would be no way in there excepting through gas line easements and that simply wouldn't work.  You aren't actually entitled to gas line easements on other people's property. 

As I always say, lots of things swirling around inside my head.

The main thing going on in there right now? 

It's time to get some coffee made, in the thermos and get out of here.  I am guessing I'll be lucky to be home by 7 or 8 tonight.

G'day