Tuesday - afternoon

Well, I delivered the glue ingredient (it's not exactly glue, it's an ingredient they use to make it and then pipeline it off 30 miles away to make the product out of it) yesterday, no big deal there. 

But. 

The truck.  You hit the accelerator and the entire truck twists sideways to the right.  Let off the accelerator and it twists to the left.  Hit the brakes and it also twists to the left.  Number 1 it was very surprising at first.  I wasn't expecting that at all and I ended up in the shoulder or the right lane or contrary, the left lane several times. Not all the way over, but enough to be a bit scary actually.  I got it handled enough to make it to Crossett but as soon as I got there?

I am not loading this truck again.  I went into what I am guessing is wrong.  It went into the shop, they replaced the clutch and all of a sudden I now have this issue?  I'm guessing bad motor mounts, bad transmission mounts or maybe a u joint or carrier bearing.  

I went into it I should say with my company.  They finally found an actual diesel mechanic up there, allegedly pretty decent. It's not my decision where they want to take it but they asked if I wanted to bring it up there? NO.  Why not take it back to Peterbilt and let them go over their work? I think they didn't get something put together correctly.  They tore something up, they crossed threaded something, they didn't get alignment right, who knows but I'm at least for now putting this on them. 

Well, I contacted my manager about it - the initial contact was with the new mechanic and then the lady that deals with this kind of thing - but he wanted me to bring it to the shop.  Ok, but I'm bringing it up tomorrow, by the time I get there today the mechanic will be going home. 

It didn't stay that way tho.  The mechanic called back after the lady and corporate made a decision and said I need to take it back to Peterbilt. This went back and forth for a while but I finally just said - you discuss this with the manager and then get back to me the official decree as to where this truck is going to be taken to.

Note that I didn't want to take it to El Dorado.  Why? I'll end up staying at a hotel and although I do like that, I am helping out with kids here since the dad is gone - like permanently gone.  They did get back to me - take it to Peterbilt. Peterbilt argued with them on the phone telling them that it is an alignment problem. I laughed out loud when I heard that. This...is NOT... an alignment problem. If that were true, it would pull to the left or the right, it wouldn't pull both ways and the truck wouldn't be twisting.

It's called torsion pull - there are other descriptions as well but this one is adequate.  I drove clear over there and then the service manager started arguing with me.  I simply said this isn't an alignment issue. "Well we didn't do anything to the front end, we just replaced the clutch".  This guy must have thought I was ignorant about such things.  Umm, no sir, bad transmission mounts can definitely cause that to happen. "Are you accusing us of ...?"  I didn't wait, I'm not accusing you of anything.

But it's possible your mechanics made a mistake in reinstalling the transmission/drive train.  He was purposefully trying to make it appear that the shop would have no culpability in this at all.  Yeah, no.  If it isn't a problem they created, so beit, but I'm at least 60% leaning to the idea that they are.  He finally relented, oh yes and motor mounts can do that too!  All of a sudden, he knew what he was talking about.  No, he knew all the time, he was just playing the "it's not our fault" game. 

That's that. I left there in a Lyft - $99! but it's almost 50 miles so not really bad.  I'm not going to eat it anyway, the company will pay for it.  

Power issues at the park.  As of now, 4 50 amp breakers have gone out.  Like what?  These things are 3 years old and they all decided to take a dump? I'll guess the heat did them in since it's happened on both circuits, not just one.  I've got a man staying there who is a retired electrician, so he's been dealing with it, i'm going to give him money off his rent.  Only fair, he didn't have to do any of that. 

Weight loss.  I hit a snag.

Still doing keto - yes. I will be for quite a while.  But my weight started going back up! Hey now, wait a minute! I'm in ketosis!  I had to think a minute, gotta be too many calories.  Not enough to just be in ketosis, you still have to watch your caloric intake.  Wings. I've been eating a lot of them lately.  Totally keto friendly, not so much calorie friendly unless you're eating like 4 of them.  I looked it up - Chili's 8 count in buffalo sauce with ranch adds up to 1,300 calories! Yikes.  

So, getting off the wings and saving that for an occasional thing only.  Too much fat anyway, not good for cholesterol levels.  I had a santa fe chicken salad instead, no croutons or tortilla strips and didn't eat much of the excessive tomatoes they put in it.  

Walaah, weight started coming back down this morning.  At 217 pounds, I should be 4 or 5 pounds lower than this like now. Just going to have to pay more attention to calorie counts along with carb counts. 

It's 1:30 and I've heard nothing about the truck.  They didn't even know if they would be able to get to it today, but whenver they do get to it, I doubt it's going to take long to fix it if it's a mount or something they screwed up.  

As for the other driver getting ahead of me getting loaded 2 days ago, my manager called me to discuss it. Yup ,I was sitting there waiting over an hour, as soon as this other driver showed up? They called him right in.  I ended up sitting at that plant 6 hours. He didn't agree with it saying it was a decision the plant must have made, he didn't ask them to do it.  I believe him, but now that I think about it, I do wonder if the driver didn't call them and ask them to do that?  He's doing a constant back and forth run, no stopping except for 10 hour required breaks.  

I forgot to ask the plant employee what happened. But that's my guess.  

Finally? I am going to make an appointment to see the ophthalmologist. I'm having weird things going on in my left eye.  I'm guessing the cataracts are getting worse and likely at some point I'm going to have to have surgery. If I thought I could handle it, I'd just do a 21 day fast and see if that works. I know, you think I'm crazy about all this fasting.  But, I have read several accounts over the decades of people who went on an extended fast - and none of them that I recall were doing it for their vision - who noted that after day 21, their vision cleared up to the point of 20/20.  

Is this imagined or real? Well, I believe in God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit so I say it's definitely possible.  Jesus healed a lot of people of things that were impossible at the time to heal and even now certain things couldn't be healed by medicine.  Certainly never heard of a doctor raising a man from the dead who has been dead for some time.  

I just missed a call from the manager. As much as I could just sit around not driving trucks for another 16 days, the bills don't like it much, so I'll call him back and find out what he wants.  If he thinks I''m going up there to get a loaner truck? Yeah.  No.  Well, maybe.  I really can't see this truck taking that long to get fixed.