Tuesday - mid morning

At the yard in El Dorado.  I'll be here a while.  First off, I got a late start.  The alarm was set and it was going off - but it wasn't making any noise.  At 6:00 am I woke up without the aid of the "blaring" alarm and realized instantly that it was much later than it should be.  The light of day clued me in on that.  When I looked at the clock, I jumped out of bed and started my morning routine in a very rushed manner.  

I tried a different route up here, more direct approach but slow speed limits and lots of small towns to go through, definitely the scenic route.  I ended up taking 2 hours and 45 minutes to get here anyway, partially due to a road I was on having a washed out bridge.  Louisiana is notorious for that back in the boonies where old bridges prevail and they are grossly underweighted.  Built back in the days where no heavy trucks were going through there or expected to, you can see bridges with max weights as low as 5 tons.  

They've slowly been replacing them, painstakingly slow.  Oh, yea, the sign for the washed out bridge? Right before the damn bridge lmao.  Had to figure out how to turn around on a narrow 2 lane highway.  Got up here and here were 4 mechanics working on a single 5th wheel plate, trying to dislodge it.  In fact, 5 minutes after I arrived and standing there watching them, they got it off but said they had spent that last 2 and a half hours first trying to get it off of the trailer and then trying to get it off of the truck.

Apparently the driver didn't get under the trailer correctly and the kingpin was barely being held in there.  Catastrophe waiting to happen, if that driver hadn't been up here switching trailers, he might have had a loaded trailer disconnect from the truck while driving down the highway.  

Anyway, they wouldn't have started on my truck before that so getting here a little late wasn't an issue at all.  

Yesterday - crazy.  

First off the dentist office. They took a bunch of x-rays and then said I had no major issues - thankfully - beyond the need for crowns.  Then it was a cleaning - rather painful when the lady was digging that thing down into my gums, but necessary.  She said "If at any time it gets to be too much, i'll back off immediately".  I replied, no, I'll just eat the pain, would rather have it done right.  After that, the dentist came in.  Looked at everything on the x rays and paperwork and then started examining my teeth.  

I knew the idea of putting on 4 crowns would be costly, but what he came back with with crazy.  You're going to need to raise the gap line so the crowns will actually fit on there, which means we would have to replace all the crowns - 13 of them - on the upper row, plus a bridge on the missing tooth, plus gum work, plus we would have to grind down the bottom row.  That was an immediate no for me, they've been grinding my teeth forever, they aren't doing that anymore.

Which was confirmed by him anyway, he said if they get too short, I'm concerned about tooth sensitivity.  You know, when you drink something cold or hot or whatever and you get an unwanted sensation in your tooth or teeth? Yeah, that. No thanks double down now.  The cost wasn't the biggest issue to me, even tho he stated between 10 and 15k.  It's this idea of gum work and grinding already ground down teeth.  

The other option, he stated, was a bridge. I knew he wasn't fixing to tell me dentures, because I'll have none of that either.  I'll pay for implants before I go the dentures route.  I don't want removeable teeth.  A bridge is basically permanent.  He showed me a pic of a man's mouth, but before he showed it, he said he wasn't happy with it but the client was.  I looked and saw no way, no thank you, that looks as fake as the scam phone calls telling you you owe the IRS blah amount of money and if you don't pay now, they're going to come arrest you.  

However, the client had chosen them to look that way. The dentist said he would have opted for far different.  I want my teeth looking natural, not obviously fake.  He said he could do that.  That took 2 hours and I have another appointment to start that process.  They wanted to wait for my insurance to determine how much they would pitch in for that.  As it stands, yesterday's visit was free, thankfully, all of that was covered under insurance.

I went straight home after that, got the dog and went to the vet.  Was there 8 minutes early and still ended up waiting an hour before they got to me.  

There was a dog that had been brought in for an emergency so they pretty much dropped everything to deal with it.  I can empathize with that, if they are overbooking I not only don't empathize, I get pretty vocal about it.  Anyway, they gave him all shots.  Including a dose of heart worm preventative medicine = Heartguard - that is 12 months.  You can get it for shorter duration, and it's extremely expensive regardless, I just forked over the money for 12 months worth, won't have to worry about him getting heartworms. 

They tested him and he came back negative - because I had had them give him the 12 month dosage last time.  The only thing that was out of normal was his ears.  I knew they were doing  something funny so I had them inspect them, the vet said he has yeast infections and they gave drops to put in there once a day for 10 days.  The bill for that visit is what floored me. I was thinking $300-400, the bill was $698.  For shots!  It was the Heartguard. That was $316 alone.  I also got him Bravecto - lots of mosquitos in these parts, I wanted him to be a bit more comfortable outside.  Double dose, double the price.  $160 worth of that stuff and it is only for 3 months.  Still, in 3 months it will be winter time so no need for it.  

Yesterday was busy and the dentist and vet visit were last minute stuff that they got me sneaked in same-day, glad to get it done really. Especially the dog, He was a bit past due for the shots.  

 The park is completely full once again.  A student at a local tech college moved in, he's only there a few months they said, but whatever. I'll take it filled over nothing.  Someone else will leave sooner or later and it's just a constant thing.  The nature of RV parks, people come and go.  That doesn't concern me, it's when I have a lot of empty lots and I'm thinking, why am I expanding?  Oh, yes, because they'll fill back up sooner or later and then I'll be turning people away again, that's why.  

Too late now, I already spent the money on the new septic system, It's a go regardless.  It may be a slow-go, but it's a definitive go.  These things take time and money.  Just the way it is.  I want to get a couple more lots in as fast as I can tho, I need to get that dozer work done and now I have the end of that particular tunnel in sight, at least.  

That new driveway is going to be costly.  Now that I have determined the only real way to go is to create a new driveway all the way to the street, I'm going to have to not only have the gravel all the way to the street, I'm also going to have to lay drainage pipe and create a new entrance.  That will be thousands of dollars in and of itself.  

I don't know where the money for that will come from, not an issue right now.  I can install a couple new lots as back in lots and use existing driveway.  I have no choice, I don't have 20k for gravel right now, or I kind of do but I can't be spending it all on that.  

Diet.  Going well actually.  I'm doing a strict version of keto temporarily.  No heavy amount of fats this time around and I won't be doing it too long.  Just enough to take advantage of being in ketosis and maybe trying to get down to 200 and then switch back to alkaline diet.  Or my version of it anyway.  It was working, just pretty slow.  

I don't know what else?  Oh, I've got 3 days off coming up now.  My manager called to figure out this week, he switched me from having to load today to getting the truck fixed and loading tomorrow, delivering on Thursday and since I basically demanded the entire weekend off? I have 3 days off coming up.  I was perfectly fine with that, even tho the manager was like, well I'm not trying to give you too much time off for your paychecks....no worries at all.  

Since Saturday is going to be taken up and Sunday I pretty much don't do anything unless my job is making me do so, Friday off will be good. I can get the mowing down at the park and try to get the weeds hacked down for the dozer work.  Then I can have the dozer delivered and get the dude out there to smooth it out.  He knows what he's doing, I need to get him over there and tell me what to do to get it dozer ready. I know about the weeds, I have a question about some of the trees I want to take down. 

Would it be better to cut them down with a chainsaw or can you push them over and get the whole thing out and no stumps?  If he can do that, I'll just wrap ribbons around the trees I want to keep and he can spend the day out there getting that job done.  I'm also going to want him to fix a part of the main driveway that is uneven and has humps and dips in it.  

Well that's enough. I'm going to play my game.