Sooo.....

After fixing the brakes on the trailer myself, I headed down to Nacogdoches. After getting the trailer washed out, I was talking with the guy that does the work. He said the earlier truck had come in late, after 10:30 am. He's supposed to be at the plant in Lufkin getting loaded at 10, not showing up at the washout at 10:30. 

Upon arrival at the plant, he was still there, claiming they had made him wait and they hadn't even started loading his trailer. I was suspicious of that statement and found out the truth after he left, they loaded my trailer and I was in the control room getting paperwork. He was so late to load, the loader had started loading some of their trucks instead.  Makes perfect sense, they only have so many hours in a day.  Basically, the other driver lied about it and he apparently doesn't think I find out things. 

I am a very inquisitive person. Not to find out junk on people, I just like to ask questions.  Always have since I was a kid.  If people don't want to answer, I just back off.  

Anyway, pulling out of the loading by I saw it.  A tire bulged out well beyond the other tires.  I have a flat, I thought, without even getting out to look at it.  I don't have to, a loaded truck will give a flat tire away even in the mirror clear at the front.  I did get out to get the paperwork and took a look.  Completely separated from the rim, I had no choice but to go to Love's and get it fixed.

I was dreading that, Love's typically has a very long wait list, you can sit there for many many hours waiting for them to even get to your truck.  I lucked out today, tho, the didn't have any waiting at all and a bunch of people standing around, very bored.  The tired was repaired, good luck for the company not having to pay to replace the entire thing. 

However....the man called me over.  He pointed at a U-bolt.  The giant nuts holding it secure? Were completely loose and the mount was cracked. I wondered how long this had been like this and how many times mechanics at our shops had not seen this?  I can attest, tho, when I was underneath the thing, I looked right at it and it didn't register.  

That's because it's been like that so long, it appears normal, like it's supposed to be that way.  I didn't see the cracked mount tho, shame on me. However, I wasn't doing an inspection underneath there, I was on a mission to get the brakes adjusted and get out from underneath the thing.  I asked them if they could fix it - noooo.  I asked him for his opinion on driveability, tho I had already come to my own conclusion. He agreed with me without knowing it: It's obviously been like that a looooong time, it'll make it.  While I was underneath the trailer, I was tunnel-visioned: get these brakes done and over with.  

So, I thought nothing of it.  I want to be rid of that trailer, I hate that thing. It unloads ever so slowly and it has spring ride, not air ride. An ancient thing, it is quite bumpy because of the lack of air ride. It's old and dated.  I drove it back to my place without a second thought. It's not like it's going to break off and cause a major collision, if I thought it was going to cause danger to the public, I would have had to find - or the company would - some place there to fix it.  As I said, it's obviously been like that for a very long time. I"m dumping that trailer on Thursday. 

You say, but today is only Tuesday.  Yup, they cancelled all loads for a few days,  I don't know why. They have no choice but to deliver mine for it is loaded, but, it's not going tomorrow.  Because of that, my schedule obviously changed and they asked me if I wanted to do a Friday load/Saturday offload run? Not particularly, I thought, but I'll take it since I need the money.  

I'm done with credit cards, I don't use them now.  Okay, once in the last several months I've used one, otherwise they are off limits.   When I say "I need the money", this is one of the reasons why. I'm not getting into any more debt and have been trying to find a decent loan to pay this CC debt off for some time. With interest rates so high, that's been difficult.  

Well I take that back. I will get into more debt if I get a tractor, my statement is towards credit cards.  No tractor yet, lol. 

The tent people contacted me today, they have more money for me and also asking about the motor coach.  The motor coach is unavailable for I want to gut the thing.  I thought anyway.  I replied back that there is no way to plug it in anywhere, tho I am running a line soon that I probably could put a 3rd trailer on it back there.  You cannot stay in a coach or a trailer like that without AC running out here in the summer. It got very warm here today.  I don't know what she's doing for money, she's working somewhere or maybe giving plasma or who knows what, but she leaves most every day.  

It isn't the worst idea to let more people in it in the condition it's in - them knowing full well about it for I have told them several times and I let them go in and look.  If they can pay the lot rent every month, why not.  It would take that burden off of me.  No running water or sewer, they would have to continue to use the amenities shed.  I am considering it.  

Tomorrow would be a great day to rent that mini ex and git-er done! Excepting I have the parts to fix the riding mower and I want that thing back on line. I also want to take the 4 wheeler to a third shop that is highly acclaimed and see if they can get it running properly. It won't even start now.  It hasn't started in a while.  I need the use of that thing, I am missing it greatly. It helps me around the property with all kinds of chores.  Even these old ones are now going for thousands of dollars and I have dumped some money into it.  

The newest dude paid today.  The family of 3 hasn't paid and are now saying the house they are getting has some sort of paperwork issue. Yea, they need to pay, thanks.  They have had nothing but problems getting their own place since they moved into the park the middle of last year.  The one monther who stayed an extra week is leaving tomorrow and one of the welders left today.  I have 2 lots available right now, one for overnighters which I always keep open and one for long term.  I'll have another long term available tomorrow.  Not what I want, but it seems that people come in when you need them to.  

So, I need 2 more trailers to come in.  I think it will happen and not take too terribly long.  I get random calls out of the blue.  And usually it's people either almost there or already there.  So you just showed up? I always wonder but don't say out loud, lol. My ads do say to come by and take a look! And, I am hearing the other parks are booked as well.  I mean, totally filled up. Well, my main competitors anyway. I have thought about driving over there to take a look, but it's nothing important and is only a curiosity thing.  My competitors have such small spaces to the point they decided to combine 2 into one to give bigger lots, they were getting a lot of complaints about it including very negative Google reviews.

Did I say that the farmers with the conspiracy theories started their nonsense again today? Banged on one person's door and accused them of shooting lasers at them all night long and banged on another door and accused them of draining the oil out of his pickup to try and burn up the engine.  Yeah. They had tempered down for quite a while but I can't have these people chasing everyone out of my park. Better an empty spot than one full and the rest empty.  

Yup, the driveway is in terrible shape. It makes me want to pull the trigger on a tractor.  I might take a drive to Carthage tomorrow to look at the TYM tractors.  Of course, if I drive clear down there, it would be highly probably that I would come back after having had signed a contract.....if I look at my intended agenda tomorrow, I would be busy the entire day. I was more looking for a partial day of work and the rest taking it off and taking it easy.  

It's getting late. 

 Still Tuesday morning

I went over, fired up the truck, got the air system pressured up and then pulled off the service glad hand.  Pushing in the valve, plenty of air coming out of that.  Hooked it back up, went back to the rear of the trailer, observed where the slack adjusters were sitting, pushed both valves in, back to the rear of the trailer and saw that they had moved considerably.  

So, that means the brake system is working. What does that leave? Well, that leaves brakes that are so far out of adjustment that they aren't doing anything to stop the trailer.  Found some tools, got a piece of sheet metal to lay on, turned the bolt head to bottom out the brakes on one set.  Shocking, actually. Three full turns to bottom it out! You say, what does that mean?

It shouldn't have taken a turn, turn and a half at most - and that's for brakes out of adjustment - to get the shoes to bottom out on the brake drum.  All of them were that way.  It means that the brakes haven't been adjusted on that trailer in a very long time.  It's also out-of-service material, you get caught with them like that, they will put that trailer out of service and you will have to call a service person out there to adjust them. They won't let you do it yourself, you have to have it signed off by a certified mechanic.  

It also means these "mechanics" at the yard aren't checking anything. That trailer was sitting in that yard and was given the all green to take, that they had checked it out and everything was good to go when I picked it up.  THIS is why I checked them to begin with, I wondered if the shoddy atmosphere in this company also translates over to the equipment? Brakes are the number one thing they should be checking.  I mean, that part isn't shocking and it lends to why this company racks up so many CSA points when drivers are pulled over for random inspections.  

So whatever. I adjusted all 4 sets to half a turn and saved myself hours and hours waiting at a Love's to have them do something I can easily do myself and save myself the torture of sitting there, waiting forever.  Yes, I checked them after I was done.  I got the truck moving and pulled the trailer brake lever, the trailer brakes instantly locked up, just as they should.

I won't get paid for doing that, but I should. It's not my job as a driver to be fixing trucks, for goodness' sake.  Well it sort of is.  They certify you as a brake adjustment "pro" at the orientation.  You have to get under a truck in the pit in their shop and adjust them, then they sign off on you and you are now good to adjust them yourself. I wonder if that would translate over to Troopers giving the clear if I got caught with them that way?  I just don't believe drivers should have to be doing anything besides minor stuff to trucks, such as replacing windshield wipers or fixing broken running lights or brake lights and such.  

I never agreed to adjust the brakes.  Not in writing or verbally, I just did the training - a thing I already knew how to do anyway from my years as a truck mechanic - to make them happy. They obviously think that drivers should be getting on their backs in mud, dirt, asphalt, whatever and adjusting brakes. Not like I have a "portable pit" to take with me.  I don't own a creeper, either. I don't do work like that anymore, I have rid myself of that mentality altogether.  And yes, I am dirty, hence I came home to change plus let an hour and a half pass.  There is no reason to end up arriving at the loading plant too early, they will just make you sit there and wait, even if there are no other "outside" trucks. They'll load one of their trucks for a pre-load and screw you, basically.  So, I intend on leaving here at 10, get to the washout at 11:30 and then get to the plant around 12:30 or later.  I mean, I'd love to get there early and get loaded right away, experience shows that doesn't happen and unless a person likes to sit in a truck getting bored, might as well wait at home.

Meanwhile, one of the welders was hooked up and leaving when I arrived. He said he'd let me know, he did not. So I don't know if that means the other guy is leaving or if he's the one that was picked to stay or not.  What I do know is that both of those lots are paid up until the first and it's only the 7th.  I have plenty of time to get them rented out.  It also enables me to let a repeat customer come back for 4 days, he wanted to come in but said the system wouldn't allow him to.  Yes, after checking, because someone else had the overnight lot rented.  

However, with this dude leaving and another short term leaving tomorrow, I'll have 2 more lots to fill up and if that other welder leaves, that makes it 3.  This is why I try not to turn anyone down if I can help it.  I'll let someone come stay at the overnight lot if it facilitates getting a long term guest in there and if the lot is available long enough to have another one available when the next overnight guest is slated to show up.  Besides the overnight lot - which has people coming and going on random days - I had the entire place filled up yet again until this morning. 

The nature of the RV Park business.  

Oh, and yet another RV park has opened.  It's not terribly close to me, but it lends to the idea that the market is becoming greatly over-saturated with RV parks. They must have spent many millions on that place, looking at the pics. It's a "resort" RV park with several pools, one of which has a bar that people in the pool can come up to and order drinks.  It has a huge lake with rubber, apparently floating, play gyms on for the kids.  It has all kinds of stuff. Those parks are multi-million dollar operations and very risky in this current economic environment.  They'll have to be bringing in a truckload of money every month just to make the mortgage payment.  And I know from experience, you don't fill a place like that up overnight.

And yet another park is being built about 30 miles up highway 59 from here.  It's a pretty bad design tho.  They are cramming in the spaces and they aren't even angling them.  Unless they are going to be charging on the cheap-cheap, I don't see them as a major threat.  It's next to a safari of sorts, where you walk and drive through and see all kinds of "exotic" animals, perhaps that's what they are doing that for, try to get more business in.  

What all of this leads me up to? I need a pool.  It doesn't have to be a resort style pool, I just need something that people will say, wow! they have a pool! let's go there! even if I raise my prices to cover the costs.  So what I really need is a pool and more spaces.  We're talking a medium sized pool and it will have be approved by the county.  I have no idea what it will cost, but 70k is probably a good number to start with.  So I need around a 170k loan to add more spots and build a pool.  

That isn't a lot of money for a business loan for an already existent business that is making at least decent income in correlation to the number of spots I have.  I'm just waiting for interest rates to come down and so far, the Fed has said no, they aren't lowering the rate.  If I could get enough, also build a jacuzzi. The other option was what I mentioned a while back: an above ground pool but built partially into the ground.  I dunno how that would work for the "tackiness" gauge tho. YES, they have a pool! And get there and frown, but it's an above ground pool! Gag!  I really don't know how people feel about them, but I do know they make huge versions of them.  IT would still need a deck built around it and I'd have to have a shower (required by state) and a fence surrounding the entire setup with a keypad entry door.  So that will still cost a chunk of change.  

All I know is, if I want to stay competitive, I'm going to have to up my game.  

I'm slowly firing myself back up internally to get the motivational gears churning to try and get this thing moving along.  I need money, that's the bottom line.  I'm thinking to switch my business checking account over to a local bank and get some history going with them.  Austin bank, to be precise. There is a man there that bends over backwards to try and help people get business loans.  If I get an account there and start showing some income, that is certainly going to help.  I don't have too many auto-payments going out of it so it wouldn't be the pain it would be trying to move my personal account to another bank. 

Yes, that's a great idea and I think I will plan on doing that soon.  Very soon.

In case you haven't noticed, I haven't had a lot of motivation lately. It's 'get the minimum stuff done' and that's that.  There's a lot of "minimum stuff" to do. I just got tired of constantly going, going, going.  I am still going, just not as much as it was while building out the park and afterwards, getting stuff done. Always stuff to get done.

I need that last hurrah! to get beyond the stalling point of 16 lots and nothing more, get myself at least 30 in there, a pool and move on.  30 lots would provide around 7 to 8k per month income after taxes and expenses.  That's enough to live off of, even with paying $800 per month for health insurance coverage.  It's why I am wanting more spots, quite a bit wanting more lots.  

And with that, it's time to be out of here.  I am very happy I could fix the problem myself, regardless of grease and dirt, the time saved was the time earned.  

G'day

 Tuesday - semi early

I am getting up earlier than I need to for one purpose: get down to Lufkin and get the trailer checked out early rather than late.  I would have gotten up at my normal early load time, but then I would be arriving at the washout at the same time whoever else should be there and then....

Well, I'm not trying to cut anyone for washing out or loading.  I don't play those games.  So, I'm putting an hour and a half lag time in between to make sure that whoever is first gets their stuff done first. 

The farmer dude called 3 times this morning, missed all of those calls and finally called him back. Are you coming here in the next hour or so?  Yes, I plan on leaving at 8 so I need to leave out of here fairly soon.  Ok, well I have some news for you.  ??  Okay? was my reply.  Well I promise it won't take more than a couple of minutes.

This could be entertaining considering their past at the park lol.  We were shot with lasers full of kryptonite!  Or something surreal and completely fabricated along those lines.  Not that I don't think that they believe all of this.  I'm sure they do.  

So you tell me: Is the gag order on Trump a violation of his First amendment rights or does the court have a legitimate axe to grind with him going off as he always does?  From my perch? His 1A rights are being violated and I say this in light of the fact that they, the opposition that hates him and are involved in this nonsense, can say whatever the hell they please without any consequence.  Do I believe this judge is corrupted? I have no idea.  He is threatening jail time after once again finding him in violation of the gag order and ordering him to pay another 1k fine.  A thousand dollars is a lot of money to me, I guess to a person like Trump it is pocket change.  

I would love to see this judge throw in jail. Not because I believe Trump should be imprisoned, but to see the aftermath.  It isn't just Republicans that are seeing this trial is a politically motivated, banana republic style circus act, there have been several polls now that show even some Democrats think this trial is a bad idea.  Regardless, I think it would propel him into the White House this coming election and also would motivate the base in ways that we may not have seen any time in recent history. 

I suspect today to be a very long day.  The paycheck deposited into my checking account overnight wasn't near as bad as I thought it was going to be. In fact, it wasn't bad at all.  I looked at it a few minutes ago and wondered what a paycheck would look like with working most of the 15 days such as I am slated to do now?  It was actually refreshing to see that in there. Gave me hope that perhaps all the nonsense I have to tolerate with this job may actually be worth it.  The hours are the best thing, I am not normally working all day long, today will be one of those exceptions.

You know, a company with very old trucks and trailers that are constantly breaking down and needing attention, grumpy drivers - some of them anyway not all of them - that like to start trouble, management that doesn't communicate very well, hardly at all actually.  I often wonder why they don't just buy newer model trucks instead of having to deal with constant breakdowns. Is the money saved with this old junk really more than just having newer equipment that needs far less repairs and down time?  It's why the major trucking companies have set limits on mileage on trucks before they get rid of them and get new ones.  

This, obviously, isn't a major trucking company. I think they have something like 100 active trucks/drivers.  Definitely not huge, but not a new operation with no stake in the game, it's been around for a long time.  In their heyday they had over 300 drivers and lots of trucks.  That still isn't a huge company, not when compared to the likes of Swift, Werner, Prime, TMC, etc.  It does make me wonder if they aren't winding down the operation.  Apparently they have rejected a few attempts at a takeover, ie: large companies making offers to buy out the operation.  I can imagine KAG has tried, that's all they do, go around looking to buy small operations.  KAG is my former company and a company I wouldn't work for again for a plethora of various reasons.

KAG isn't doing so well, I have discovered from reading a Facebook page with KAG drivers end office personnel.  They are cash-starved and apparently trying to find a buyer for the entire operation.  If you wanted me to give you the biggest reason I wouldn't go back to work for them? Inward facing cameras with microphones.  After that is the constant threats from the safety department that go out to everyone.  The constant fighting over trying to get detention pay, that was an almost weekly event.  Call the manager who calls payroll to get into a battle over it.  They would almost always deny it, they would have to be sent proof - the proof is right in front of them, the apparently can't do simple math or read notations on the trip sheets.

This job I have now is my version of winding down a rather long trucking career that has seen a lot of "stuff".  There is too much to list right now, the things I don't like about the trucking industry.  Safe to say that a lot of other drivers in my age range are also quitting because of the distaste the industry is giving us.  I think a lot of it is on purpose, these giant companies are chomping at the bit to get those driverless trucks out there.  

Ummm, well, I have money to deposit into the business checking account, give me a day when I am not so terribly busy and I will get up there lol.  Tomorrow, I will have yet another space vacated and trying to fill.  And who knows when the welders are leaving, they are paid through the 1st.  3 more leaving that I know of, is what I am saying, the challenge is to fill those spots.  So, in reality, if that man that called yesterday was to show up on the 1st, I definitely should have a spot for him if/when those welders leave and those spots are paid for.  No loss there.  

I guess I best be about getting out of here.  i figure to show up at the Love's around ....10:45 am.  Long before second load but in time to hopefully wait their waiting period - usually a few hours before they can even get to you - and maybe figure out what's going on. I hope it isn't something that I have overlooked. I would feel stupid if it was something as simple as reversed air lines,, which I know it isn't, but still.  I forgot to simply pull off the lines and push in the valves to check that air is even getting to the trailer. I will do that when I get over there this morning. 

G'day