Monday - mid morning

It's a staycation, at least that's what I'm calling it.  The only thing we've done since Friday afternoon is walk to the local Super 1.Authorities are saying the roads are worse today than they have been the entire icing event. 

I predicted this yesterday.  People driving on the roadways, the ice starts to melt and turn slushy, then the temps drop into the low teens over night and walaah!  Fresh ice for you to slip on!  Be that as it may, if Applebee's does open up today, I am going and if Starbuck's is open, there as well for the lady of the house.  I can handle only so much of being pent up in a house.  

Now would I want to be driving a truck in this s*** today? Absolutely not. We're talking 200 miles of driving not the less than 2 it is to Applebee's.  

What else is there to say about this? Nothing. It's very cold right now, at least by our standards in the mid teens, will not get up above freezing today and then it will plummet right back down into the low teens tonight. Only noon tomorrow does the temp rise about freezing and then the roads can start clearing out. It won't be surprising to me if they want us to drive tomorrow.  I dunno, maybe.  

That's not a "I don't want to work" thing, that's a "I'd like to survive this day without a jackknifed truck" day.  Or worse.  Actually, I don't think me losing control of the truck is the biggest issue although it's certainly a potential. It's what other drivers are doing who have no clue how to drive in this stuff are doing.  They drive erratically and are obviously white-knuckling the steering wheel - or - aren't paying attention to the road in front of them and slamming on brakes or making wild corrections to avoid an accident.

Or just plain driving off the road while scrolling on their phones.

As for the news, if you have even just looked at the headlines, you know that ICE is the biggest thing going and from the looks of it, it is totally a manufactured "crisis" by people who have less than good intentions to steer the people towards an anti-Trump stance BUT wanting them to believe in bigger government at the same time. They reason that the White House will be replaced in the next presidential election by a democrat - or - that the House and Senate will be controlled by dems in that next election.

They may or may not be right, who knows? But at the pace this is going? I believe the Insurrection Act will have to be invoked and yes, send actual troops onto America's streets to stop the rioting, destruction, maiming and death that is already beginning to be seen.  I'm NOT a fan of American troops patrolling city streets, but then again, I don't live in a state or a city where the officials are egging all of this crap on.  IF these politicians would actually take a stance FOR the rule of law, the tide of this wave of anti police nonsense might change.

But, you have mouth breathers like governor Walz blaming ICE and telling them to leave.  He's a bonafide puppet/parrot for the propagandist's agenda.  He may be one of them, although he seems to be a rather stupid man with a low IQ.  His motives are to stay in power at any cost.  

Let's note here that ICE is targeting CRIMINAL illegal aliens, not just people who have unlawfully crossed our borders without going through the process everyone else has to to become a citizen or work here legally.  There are CRIMINALS. People have committed murders, assaults, violent crime and thieves as well. Look at this Somali nonsense going on there. They come here to our land and defraud us of 20 BILLION dollars?  Who is in charge of handing out these funds?  Who is being held accountable in the government for even giving this money away? 

Ilhan - becomes a multi-millionaire literally overnight?  Yes she should be investigated.  If her finances are legally acquired, all well and fine, maybe people like her communistic stances and are giving her this money. Plenty of communist oriented billionaires in this country.  But you and I both understand that there is great potential for scam, fraud, cheating going on here.  She's a representative, it is appropriate in my view to find out how she got so rich for from what I have seen, they are refusing to discuss it.  Red flag.  

Now I am reading that Trump is sending Homan to Minnesota to take over the ICE operations there.  He's not going to just have his agents stand idly by while people assault them.  If more people are killed, that is a tragedy but if you come up against law enforcement armed with firearms or try to run them over? What do you expect will happen to you?  

The rest of the news is basically dwarfed by all of this stuff going on in Minnesota.  Have to wonder what the citizens who live there think of their governor, the somali ripoff or Ilhan?  Some would say they are fully behind all of them, sure, but I suspect a general census with man-on-the-street type of soliciting opinion would come up with people who are outraged at all of it.  I know I would be but that wouldn't surprise anyone who knows me.  

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Many hours later. The roads were fine until we got to one of the Applebee's entrances.  Something told me "don't go in this way".  I did and it is a steep hill that was covered with ice.  Call myself stupid.  Lost traction. Tried backing up but the vehicle went side ways, over a curb and almost into a very deep ditch.  

As luck - or probably more like it, God's blessing - would have it, a park tenant was literally passing by with someone else, they were driving 2 separate trucks, both 4wd.  He comes up, do you need help? Yup.  He gets his truck into position and then the other guy positions his truck in front of the truck in front of my SUV. They chain it all up, hit the gas and here we go!  THEIR trucks were sliding sideways as well, but eventually all 3 of our vehicles made it to the top, unhooked and I creeped over the ice to Applebee's.  Parking lot full of pickups and not much else.  

We had a fine meal and were glad to be out of the house for a few hours.  Got the lady of the house a meal to go and went home.  There is no work tomorrow - this may or may not be necessary I dunno, but apparently in Arkansas they are still having serious road issues. Ours is almost gone - excepting the black ice that will undoubtedly form tonight.  

So, the Staycation continues.  But Wednesday? I wouldn't be surprised if they ask me to do a full turn in one day.  Unless they have enough OTR drivers coming in to help cover everything, we will find that out tomorrow. I'll do a full turn if needed, it would be nicer if they just gave me normal runs tho.  I expect to be working through this coming weekend. Again, it's really up to whether they have enough outside drivers coming in to help cover it, I will not be asking for the weekend off, I mostly never do unless it's well in advance for something planned. 

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These people are not prepared for a person like me.  I am - well I was a mod but I asked to be promoted to admin yesterday because I do most of the moderating stuff in the group - an admin in the local gossip group.  Ok, it's a selling group for business, a place for people to ask questions about things local, but there is also stuff dumped in there that is seedy or gossipy.  I just publicly push back on people trashing the group.  You will find people despising any group regardless of how good it is.  I don't really care what any of those people think of me and the mouthy ones are the keyboard warriors who go around trashing everything.  

I occasionally get some that will start mouthing off on a situation where they are clearly in the wrong. About the time they start insulting me out of the blue for no reason? BYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

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Late night.  It dawned on me that the plant might call for "sudden" deliveries.  We could legitimately go down to Lufkin tomorrow after any ice melts off the roadways and get loaded. It would make for a very late day and I would rather just have it off and start on Wednesday.  4 days off, not requested yet very much appreciated. 

They canceled school again tomorrow as well.  This I get: the roads will have ice on them when everyone is supposed to be driving their kids to school or buses driving around to pick them up.  I dunno, I just know that today was the last guaranteed day off, tomorrow I wonder.  It's going to be cold again tomorrow, both here and in Lufkin and the next day.  

Anyways, enough for one post.