Thursday - night

I was driving up the main driveway this morning to get to the truck.  The overnighter was outside, so I stopped.  We had a nice discussion about his travels, he's trying to see as many state parks nationwide as he can.  At the end of the discussion, he said he'd tried to go over to the Park host site (there is a sign in front of it), he wasn't there but someone had told him he was in ft worth.  

I took his money, fired up the truck and got on the road.   I started thinking about it. Trey had told me the other day that he had gotten a part time  job to pay for his car.  Fancy that. I he can work somewhere else but can barely lift a finger for me to earn his lot rent.  The man has become a burden to the point I don't want to deal with him anymore. He simply has no work ethic, I now know he's a liar and he's been taking money for firewood that doesn't belong to him.  

I then find out he's taken a job IN Ft Worth and that he's going to be staying over there Monday through friday and come back on the weekends.

Mind you, this man told me literally nothing about this.  His girlfriend - who is his now-passed best-friend's wife - lives there and it was obvious why he's over there. Stay over there, I thought, this relationship is over. I texted him exactly that: this relationship of you being the Park host is ended. I am through with this, I am tired of contending with you.  You have 2 weeks to get your trailer and junk out of here or you can start paying lot rent, I don't care at this point.  

His numerous replies were that his "job is 3 days a week in Ft Worth and it shouldn't matter where I'm doing it".  I was beyond the arguing stage with him, I've already been through that, I am not going to entertain him trying to change my mind. If he likes that woman so much, stay with her permanently.  Just get out of my park.  I'm skipping over a lot of stuff for it's late and I really don't want to go into all of this again. The end of the story, he kept writing and I simply told him it's over and I'm moving on.  

One of his last things was "I called around that electric job I did would have cost like 5 grand and you don't think that's worth a month or 2 shit really more like 3 months of rent????"

I busted out laughing at that.  I had to call my friend over, then I ended up calling the contractor out who built the park to help figure out what to do. In the end, I decided to have Trey dig out the pedestal, Trey wanted to do a total hack job in running another line from the meter to the pedestal - 100 feet anyway - a foot underground. Insanity.  The contractor looked at him and just shook his head, I had already dismissed it.   The contractor told him vehicles driving over it only a foot deep would bust the line.  Trey was the manual labor, not the brains the figured out what to do.  In fact, I just figured this whole thing was related to those people running over the pedestal and hence made the decision to start there and that hunch was correct.

Even IF he could take credit, that job wouldn't have cost 5 grand.  I can see an electrician charging maybe 2 grand for that.  It's why I decided in that freezing cold weather to at least try to identify the problem. I called the contractor after the problem was unearthed and HE came back with the parts, gave them to me for free and helped put the mess back together.  The contractor is a stellar man of integrity, he flatly stated he just didn't want to see people suffering in this cold, it was 18 degrees, I think, that day.  It was definitely below 32. 

So, Trey is fired. He brought that upon himself and I"ve been dealing with his nonsense for many months.  Now, before anyone says you won't have a park host, think about this. Trey being gone 5 days a week? I wouldn't have had one anyway! The 18 year old that brought the tractor is now taking his place. Not as a park host but for cutting grass and maintenance.  He offered it a while back and when I texted him today, he immediately accepted. This kid has a real work ethic.  I don't think I'll have to endlessly ask him to do the same things, over and over. 

I feel like a giant stone has been lifted off of my back with Trey now terminated.  He was far more effort than it was worth, he didn't give a damn and he was only out for himself.  I only kept doing this with him in deference to his father who basically passed away at the park. It happened in a nearby hospital but he stayed at the park the night he came back defying everyone telling him he needs to go.  It was too late by the time they got him to go, sepsis killed him.  He probably could have been saved if he would have gone when they asked him to.

I have a business to run and Trey is going to go through his life living the way he does until something gets a hold of him. Clearly, living at the park wasn't doing that.

I also contacted the old man and told him to stop throwing cigarette butts everywhere and I contacted the porch people as well.  Their excuses have gone on long enough.  They were out there today sanding the porch down and will stain it tomorrow.  The old man was out there picking up his cigarette butts all over the place.  I'm going to regain a definitive handle on the park, Trey was an infection that was growing and I wouldn't be surprised if he was talking smack about me behind my back. 

Oh, btw, the 18 year old I was already giving a discount to for the tractor use.  Now, he'll get the free lot rent and hopefully Trey will leave and I will rent that lot out for higher than the other lots. It's an end lot and it's arguably the best lot in the park, that and lot 1.  So, I will only be losing rent on one lot now instead of 2.  I gave Trey 2 weeks. 

I have work tomorrow. Run to Lufkin and then Saturday to Arkansas and then Sunday off again.  I didn't ask for Sunday off but I'm glad! I'll be celebrating with the family here my birthday that was yesterday.  We were just too busy to go out yesterday and we often postpone birthday celebrations to the weekend after.  

There's other things, nothing major. It's getting late and I want to start getting ready for bed. I'm taking great pleasure in what's going on in this nation now that Trump is in command and especially with DOGE. Democrats are losing their minds over it but have you seen some of the stuff our money has been being diverted to? Outrageous nonsense. I have no time to go into that now, open up the news or search "DOGE" on Google and you'll see what I'm talking about.   

Finally, this is day 63 of the 100 day, 100 pushups per day challenge.  My chest is slowly beginning to take a different shape beyond man boobs.  They're still there but not near as pronounced as they were when I started this thing.  Still a long way to go before 100 days, hopefully a bit better results I'm not sure if I'll continue or not, just need to get to day 100 and then decided.