Thursday - night

A person called today, said he's on his way over to the park to take a look. Lol.  Uhh, I just left there 10 minutes ago and my park host is out of town for a couple of days, but you are welcome to take a look, it's lot 8 that is available at one of the ends. 

We talk awhile, he goes over, calls me back, says he wants it.  He had gone to my main competitor and they were asking him a million questions.  Now, I do ask some basic questions about felonies and type of dog/s, but I don't get carried away with it.  He was turned off by that but even more so by their high prices.    They apparently have greatly raised their lot rates, I haven't checked in a while.  I am not raising or lowering mine, not at the moment anyway.  

In fact, I've got 3 people in there on the $200 off deal.  Hey, it worked to get people in there and all of them are allegedly "very" long term.  That special is over, I'm not giving out any more of that. My goal at this point is to find "permanent" people.  That's never going to really be true, of course, but people who are retired or just live in the area and want a place to call home indefinitely.  This will reduce the amount of constant turnover and it's no less money.   

Anyway, he said he's moving in Saturday or Sunday. Of course, I have to see it to believe it, but I will hold it for him since that's only a few days away and I have no other prospects for it.  I didn't tell him that.  He didn't even consider that new player in town.  I'd like to take a drive over there and see how many people he's been able to move in to the new section he built adding on to the existing park he bought out.  

The ever changing forecast. Tuesday, it was supposed to snow. Now it's Thursday. We're all thinking, yeah, right, it's not going to snow at all.  The thing I'm not going to much care for is the 18 degree low temp on Tuesday and a high of 35.  Sunday and Monday will be super cold as well.  I have to deliver tomorrow, load Saturday, deliver Sunday and then Monday off.  Tuesday allegedly going to load, but we'll see about that.  The washout is already saying that if the power goes out - which apparently happens in that kind of weather for them - they will not be open. 

And then what? If the customer still wants their product, am I supposed to drive clear up to Crossett to get a washout?  I suspect the Gurdon plant will cancel loads tho.  No guarantees on that, but that's what they did this last time it got super cold.   

Regardless, the forecasters can't ever get the conditions right regarding rain, ice, snow, etc but they are usually pretty close if not spot on on the temperatures.    

Monday is Martin Luther King Jr day, everyone will be home. Schools shut down, the folks are also not working.  I'll be happy to not have to get out of bed early....

All of my expansion plans are on hold right now.   Trump will be sworn in soon but also, I think the Fed is meeting again very soon? I expect them to reduce the interest rate and subsequently, everything else should come down with it in terms of not only loans but also credit card interest rates.  

Amazingly, I'm on day 39 of the pushup challenge and I have only missed one day and that was not that long after I started doing it - and I made up for it the next day.  But now? I don't care how late it is, if I forget, so sad too bad, I'm getting down and doing the 100 pushups.  Not all in one set, I'm nowhere even remotely close to that.  But now, I'm trying to get at least half of it done when I get home instead of waiting until evening or night time.  Just easier that way.  I have seen no noticeable changes. But, that's not going to stop me from continuing on.  

I have nothing else for I am very tired. It's 9:30 and it's time to go to bed. 

 Thursday - early

6 hours of sleep, woke up and couldn't go back to sleep, got up early. 

I'm not sure about the owners of the dog doing the dumping in my dumpster.  I drove over there yesterday and there is a residential can next to their house.  Now, we use 3 cans here at our place for 5 people. 2 regular trash cans and one recycle. So I dunno if that's sufficient for a family and I'm not sure how many people are living there.  The saga may never end if I don't move the dumpster, I guess that's the end of that story. Just they want $200 to move it.  

The manager called me and said I need to "beg" you to do something. He isn't really begging, of course,.  He's in a hard spot created by a company that doesn't exactly treat it's drivers that well.  He has no control over that. He wanted me to work this coming weekend and I just said yes. I assumed he would be doing that anyway.  I told him I do not want to do another 3 week in a row stint of weekend work.  That's my issue with it.  He knows.

He has a driver out that does the Ennis run, so one of our drivers is over there doing that one and then there is another driver out.  He has to refill that Ennis position before he can bring that driver back.  They have good contracts, they just don't want to invest in decent equipment.  That's the biggest issue. That guy switching over temporarily to the Ennis run probably won't want to come back. Less money.

I'm back to having one lot empty and I have no prospects currently. I get calls but I don't count anything a done deal until people show up and really, none of the people I've talked to sounded like they were actually serious about showing up.  There's a lot of competition, I'm just not lowering my prices any more than where they're at now.  It's not worth it and I will have an empty park before I just start giving it all away. 

Life goes on, the holidays are over, kids are back in school...and Trump is fixing to be sworn in as the next President.  Meanwhile, Biden is tripping on giveaways and all kinds of actions being taken that he thinks will be "impossible" for Trump to undo.  Obama said the same thing on his way out.  Hundreds of millions of acres of federal lands - taxpayer lands in reality - tied up for no drilling for oil.  And more student loan forgiveness.  Etc etc etc, ad infinitum.

Trump has 100 executive orders he wants to put out in the first days of his Presidency.  And don't be deceived by the media or the current White House, Biden had very little to do with this deal being made between Israel and Hamas.  Biden desperately wants a legacy beyond HIGH inflation and a botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.  And other notable things that will go down in history as him likely being one of the worst presidents that ever occupied the Oval Office.  

And they all hate Hegseth because 1. He's a Republican but 2. because he was a Fox News host.  The left hates Fox News.  Whatever, it wasn't Fox News that was perpetuating the Russian Hoax bs or covering up the Hunter laptop fiasco....I'm not the biggest fan of Fox News anymore, they are managed by leftists and they have been creeping in leftists commentators and "news" reporters for a while now.

Anyway, I have first load today and I am - at least for now - working the next 6 days including today.  I need the money so I hope it sticks. He also gave me first load on all of them.  Something I don't tell other drivers.  In fact, I only really talk to one other driver and the rest? are "as*ho**s" according to the lead mechanic.  He will get my stuff done because we see things alike.  Including old school trucking.  There usually isn't any good side to getting nasty with the people that are trying to help you, but stupid truckers do it all the time. You mess with the mechanics, good luck.  There's only 2 of them up there and they don't take kindly to being treated like dog s***.

I don't know what day I'm on in the pushup challenge. 30's at least, maybe 40's now.  I've been doing 100 pushups per day, every day. Some days, that's a real challenge, other days not so much. I forget to do them sometimes until it's approaching bedtime and then it's, dang, I've got to get them done!  Besides larger triceps, I haven't seen any noticeable change beyond a bit of flatting in my chest area, others are saying differently. 

It isn't likely that I'll stop doing pushups after the 100 days is up unless there is some physical reason why I can't.  

Well, my time is up here. I have to think about getting my stuff ready so I can leave here.  Starting Sunday, we've got 3 days in a row of extremely cold weather, down into the low 20's.  Tuesday, snow is predicted. We saw what happened to their last prediction. 

G'day.