I drove like a madman today.  Not like, speeding or anything, hard to speed in a truck set at 65mph on highways that are mostly 70 or 75 mph speed limits.  I just mean I only stopped once on the way down and that was to take the mandatory 30 minute break. Because I was driving the tractor only and not being slowed down by the weight of a trailer, I made excellent time.  Hardly had to slow down anywhere excepting some small towns where the speed limit goes down to 35, 40, what have you.

I drove 677 miles.  At 65 mph in 11 hours, I can go maximum 715 miles. That would be driving 65 mph continuously without slowing down or stopping for anything, so yes, that is a very good day.  I got down to Brownsville, got off the driving clock, got hooked up and drove right on out of there. 108 miles back up the road and had fully 3 minutes left before I had to get off the driving clock for the day.  Lol. This is literally the middle of nowhere as far as I'm concerned. A small town, a truckstop and a hotel next to it. There is a Dairy Queen here - which actually has truck parking - but I opted against that, figuring I would end up going in and getting a giant Blizzard full of calories.  Lol, it's actually within walking distance, but no, I'm not going.

There is a hotel right next to the truckstop - I thought about that for a while. I'm going to be sitting here 11 hours.  But the thought of getting up at 3 am, having to grab all the stuff and haul it to the truck at that hour of the morning? No thanks.  Yea I know, sitting in a truck that long.  Worse, it's hot outside so I'm not really desirous of getting out and doing anything.  Some exercise would be nice tho.  The good thing is, I chiseled off 108 miles of the trip going back tomorrow.  The other good thing is I finally stopped at a place that actually has very good cell service. ATT isn't all that great, the rest area I was going to stop at? No cell service at all.  There is no way I'm sitting this long without at least having internet access.  I'm very likely going to watch a movie in a bit, I just have to think of what I want to watch. 

Anyway, I'm going to get up at 3 am, get a coffee and get out of here.  Tomorrow is Sunday so driving through Houston should be a piece of cake.  I'm about 4 hours from there so it will still be early enough to avoid whatever Sunday traffic may accumulate. 

++++++

I watched The Last Samurai. Not a big Cruise fan but this was a really good movie IMO. 

Oh, I forgot to get into the drama of yesterday going into today at the other house.  I don't have time for that.  I'll just pepper it with crack, money stolen and a person that needs help.  Maybe get into that tomorrow after I get home. 

Well.  I'm sitting here today thinking, I'm prolly gonna get sent out somewhere tomorrow.  Dunno where, but it will happen.

Manager calls 10 minutes later.  "How early do you think you can leave out of here?".  Huh.  "What do you mean?"  She explains the situation.  Plant in mexico needs Ethylene - now.  Well, you know, as soon as we can get it there.  She tells them we don't have a trailer that can go down there.  We'd have to go down there, pick one up and bring it back up here to load it.

Well we need that.  Lol.  I'm informed that I would have to have an empty back to the yard by noon Sunday.  Now, I would have "thought" about leaving "now" but I was in the middle of things.  I don't just get up and leave in the afternoon unless I am really not doing anything.  Their emergency - that plant's - isn't necessarily mine. I'll do what I can to make it happen, but I have a life, too.

I just agreed to it.  She asks me if I can do it, I'm asking her when I would have to leave.  "Well you're the truck driver, lol, I don't figure that stuff out".  She didn't say that in a mean way or anything, I can figure it out, I was just not in that mindset at the time.  Well, I got into that mindset quickly and figured I would have to leave the yard between 3 and 4 am to get down there in time, take the 10 hour reset and get back up - driving a lot of night hours in the process.

Now I did say the other day that I kinda of like the night hours. I do.  But it really has to work out for me.  Well rested, not in dire need of sleep, not fighting to stay awake. That's not a given on any particular day. 

I'll be going to bed soon - it's only 8:15 pm but to get any kind of sleep, yes, I'll have to go to sleep early. Like in half an hour.  I need to wind down after the fiasco that just took place and God only knows what's going to happen over there tonight.

See, i was in the pool messing around. I put the phone on a stand next to the pool just in case, but it's certainly not any priority in my life to have a phone with me at all times.  I don't normally even have the ringer on, I miss a lot of phone calls.  Kind of like tv, I like it but I don't have to have it 24 hours a day.  Or even half of that. Or even half of half of that. It does entertain me on the road tho. 

Anyway, I saw Donny's truck passing by a narrow window on the side of the house.  Hmm, was Rene coming over? I asked Taylor and James, also in the pool.  Not that we know of.  That's when the thought hit me to look at my phone, so I did. 4 texts from Rene, claiming Donny had "attacked" her and she is bloody and all kinds of crap. I lived with these 2 for 2 years, I know what really goes on.

It was Donny.  Opposite story.  Rene claimed he was drunk. I could tel he wasn't. I know when Donny has been drinking excessively, this wasn't it.  Neither of them have "lives" to speak of, not dissing them or saying they are wastes of space, just how it is.  They are existing.  I live with the people I am living with because I don't want to just exist.  I also have plans.  They may or may not happen, but they are things I am trying to attain regardless. 

This was a he said, she said thing but it was vicious coming from both sides. Likely they got into a heated argument and all hell broke loose, they are both guilty.  They are compatible until - whatever sets one of them off, usually her. She is very unstable, has a lot of junk she is going through physically and facing surgery this coming week.  Their lives are nothing of what I envision at that age and I hope it never comes to it.

But in my mind?  It has come to the point that I believe one of them needs to leave.  Rene loves my dogs, she takes care of them while over there.  But that isn't a reason to keep her there.  Donny will take care of the dogs, just not his first choice.  But he would take care of them, he has several times in the past.  Yes, for me that is a factor considering that place is in my name and I pay $200 per month towards bills over there for the help and I help them out a lot regardless. 

So what needs to happen? I just think it's time one of them left.  Knowing Rene, getting another roommate in there would likely be hell for that roommate.  I don't think she truly understands how well she has it.  She hates men - she's stated that at least 10 times since I met her.  Bad child hood. She needs therapy.  I can't talk her into it, I've tried. Donny is no saint, but he knows when to shut up, not to push the buttons. 

Well whatever. I'm not even going to reply to her tonight. I have at least 17 text messages from her that I have yet to respond to.  Tomorrow, while I'm on the road, I will. Tonight, no thanks. I have to get up very early and I don't need this kind of irritation going on right before I go to bed.  I won't sleep worth a shit. I may not anyway but I'm not going to knowingly engage in something that will definitely mess with my sleep.

That's it. I'm getting up at 3 am, get the show on the road, My dogs will still go over there, hopefully not going to need to talk to anyone but if I do, I'm just going to say I need to get going, we need to discuss this all 3 of us when I get back. And getting back will be Sunday and I won't be in the mood for it. Monday I'm out again, back down to Brownsville.  So, this discussion wll have to take place text messaging if it must.  I don't know where she thinks she's going to go, tho, after having surgery? 

Enough. I'm winding down, time to get thinking about sleepy time, going to literally put this out of my mind. Yes, I can do that. Not worth going into the reasons why I can do that, I just can.

Well, a day off.
I got back to the yard yesterday and the new mechanic was asking me about my truck. It apparently is up next for whatever.

I'll be happy to write you a list. 

The handwritten list took an entire page to write up.  I figured if I was going to get a crack at getting this thing fixed, might as well put all of it on the paper and get it over with.  Still, my manager was saying, "well get your PPE out of the truck and put it in your vehicle or wherever you have access to it because I might need to send you out somewhere". 

Well, I don't want to get into a truck that everyone uses and I doubt any of them do, either.  Anyway, she didn't call me out for a run today and I was rather happy about that - but - it's very likely I'll spend yet another weekend working.  I dunno how good this mechanic is but it should take at least a couple days to get all of this done because the truck also has to go to the Peterbilt shop to have the engine light that's been on for months diagnosed.  I'd rather it take me til Monday, not get into a "strange" truck and just have some time off.

Speaking of that, I have the travel bug in me.  How on earth could you want to travel when that's all you do? you ask.  Yeah, that's all work. Well mostly all work, sometimes I get an opportunity to do something here and there while out, mostly it's drive, sleep, drive.  I have a goal when I leave the yard in the truck: get home as fast as possible.  The fastest route, push it as long as I can and get home faster.  It makes a difference.  Even if, for example, I have a 3 day run that gets me home "some time" on the third day, the longer I push it the first two days, the earlier I get home that last day.  That gives me at least some home time if I get called out again the next morning. 

Anyway, I really need to get back to Phoenix.  My son should be moving tomorrow I think, get that over with and then I'll have 2 options for a place to stay. I'd really like to get to know his wife.  I mean, we have basically never spoken at any great length besides hello and how are you.  She's a bit shy, not exactly outgoing. 

But getting back to Phoenix isn't really what's in my mind: really traveling somewhere, preferably across the ocean, is what I'm looking for.  I have the money, right now, I could take a week to go somewhere - or preferably numerous stops along any given "route" and see the sites. 

Taylor wanted to go with me to London next year, but I don't think they're going to be able to pull that one off.  They have too many financial commitments that really don't leave them much at the end of the day, and that with me paying all of the house's utilities.

Which just came down $117 with DTV wanting us to stay with them and cutting the bill more than in half.  I was on this campaign with them, I didn't even make the call but I know how to work their system.  It was being done on speakerphone, so when we finally got to the right person - that was 3 transfers - and got to discussing it, the lady on the phone said, okay let me see what I can do.  She made some initial offer and then said, wait, let me see what else I can do.  That's the point when I started a discussion while waiting and this lady could hear us:  Well look if the offer isn't good enough let's just cut it off anyway and we can go ahead and get the new package with Fidelity. 

I said that on purpose so that she could hear me, yes.  But it wasn't a lie.  I don't want to see another $215 television bill. Screw that.  There's nothing on TV worth that much money, and if I get the notion to watch a particular movie, such as I did last night, I can just look it up on the internet and watch it through my computer.  Which reminds me, I want to get somewhere around a 30 inch computer monitor and have that separate for watching movies while being able to surf the net. 

Well, a bit of an interlude.  The doggies were stinking badly. The other house? They play out in the dirt, not much grass back there, and they get nasty smelling and looking.  I just bathed them with expensive shampoo, I wanted them to look and smell good.  It's a lot of work to bath a Great Dane and a German Shepherd, Aspyn was more work. Much deeper coat and when I put the water sprayer on a certain setting, fleas started appearing on the surface of her coat.

So, seeing that, I just kept going all over her body and seeing more and more fleas appearing.  Yeah, I went on with it for about 25 minutes until no more fleas appeared. She is going in on Monday for her normal shots, I'm throwing in the extra money to get a 3 month pill as well.  They are both laying at my feet and both are very unhappy doggies. They simply don't like baths, oh well, too bad, so sad.  The fleas are coming from the other house.  The whole neighborhood is infested with them - I know cause' I already tried treating the back yard and they keep coming back.  The only defense is the pills that will 100% keep them from staying on their bodies.  Expensive, but I have no other options.

Decided to go ahead and tidy up my room while I'm at it, washing everything and looking for signs of fleas in here.  Nothing, but still wanted it clean in here. 

Next up: get in the pool and clean out the leaves.  It's an endless problem with all of these trees around. They usually put the cover on the pool, but they didn't last time they were in and it's basically "full" of leaves.  They want to play some sort of pool game in there tonight, I figured I'd spend half and hour cleaning that up and also going to the store and getting the stuff for dinner. Just baked chicken breast with scalloped potatoes and some sort of veggie. Easy to make meal, delicious, cheap, good enough for me. 

Okkkkaaaaayyyyy. That was nice. I was looking at my auto insurance payment last month, $360!!  But I found out that was because it was adjusted for the month I bought the SUV and the next month.  So, the payment is actually $200.  That is much better and something I can at least deal with.  Getting rid of the car will help , tho only minimally, they are only charging me $26 per month on top of the other 2 vehicles to insure it.  I've been getting quotes and no one so far has beaten Mercury.  Once place equalled it, no reason to switch for no benefit. 

Anyway, that's another $160 that I thought I had to pay every month that is now much more manageable. 

Well, I have to go to the store for dinner stuff and lots of other chores I'm going to get done today, Happy Friday!

OOOOOOKKKKKAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY

Now lookit here, I went up to Mapleton on Wednesday, got there Thursday, layover until Friday.  The story is their pump was broken and it needed fixed but it would be done on Saturday.  I was supposed to wait up there 2 days until they could get the pump going and unload the trailer. Friday, no, they tell me, it won't be done until Tuesday.  So I drag the full trailer back to the yard, go home for 2 days and back up there again, arriving this morning. Same trailer, same product in the trailer, the pressure wasn't going up so they just let it sit there. 

I get up there the second time and the dude tells the security guard at the entrance on the phone to tell me to drop the trailer, they can't take it today.  Lololololol. I dropped the trailer, went in to find out why they can't take it - my manager would be asking.  They had taken the pump apart and found a filter that needed to go to the machine shop, it should be done tomorrow.  Alright.  I went and got something to eat and then headed to the hotel.  The hotel hadn't received my info yet - which was a good thing. I would have gotten checked in for nothing.

Why?  Because they called me from the plant and told me that the pump wouldn't be operational until Saturday - which is 3 days from now - and that the plant where we get the product told them to tell me to bring the trailer back  - yes folks - loaded.  I would have preferred an overnight in the hotel and get the detention pay, but oh well. Just amazing these people are throwing this much money away having me drive back and forth like this.  The total mileage for both trips will be somewhere aorund 3,200 miles.  I couldn't get close to the yard today, I started in East Saint Louis this morning to head up to the plant and then after all the rigarmaroo, I ended up at a small truck stop in a town called Pocahontas in Arkansas. 

Nice little Mexican food restaurant, had some dinner and now? It's not even 8:00 pm, it's too early to go to sleep.  I'm no complaining about this run, btw, it's almost as good as the Brownsville run.  Which I haven't been on in 3 weeks or so now.  No statement as to why and no response when I asked.  I just let it go.  Whatever.  Haven't had to go to Cheniere in over a week, so that's been nice.  I guess my little message was taken to heart - the one about how I wasn't going to have much of a paycheck if she kept sending me to that place continuously without getting anything else thrown in.  I'm sure my time is coming - maybe even next run - to go back down to that place and deal with it. 

Oh well. I'm trying to "make" myself tired so I can go to sleep, for there is nothing to do where I am currently parked besides getting some exercise. 

With that, I think I will put this up, get my stuff ready for the morning and get ready to go to sleep.

Nothing against Rene, at all actually. She came back from her 2 week trip to see friends and family yesterday and wanted to come see the dogs - yesterday actually. Uhh, please, tomorrow, I've been out on the road for quite a while, tomorrow works better.  Well, she did show up today. I was in the kitchen tending to food I was cooking - I love to cook, well actually I love smoking food on the smoker.

I said nothing to the dogs, they heard her voice coming through the door and they went running. I continued to keep silent.  60 seconds later they were both in the kitchen, with me, at my side.  I'm only human.  I love my dogs, I like to think they "love" me back in their version of affection in a pack.  I'd like to think they want to be around me as much as I like being around them. They didn't fail me today. Without any coercion or even a word spoken to them they came back to papa : ) 

Yes, it made me feel good. My dogs spend probably as much time over there as they do here.  It's good that they love her, really it is.  But, after so much time on the road lately, I just had that thing in me that wondered if they were better off over there instead of with me?  Maybe I don't deserve to have dogs since I can't be with them everyday.

I don't know, just a lot of thoughts run through my head.  There are many times when I wished my Dane was traveling with me.  I could easily make it happen on a trip here and there, a bit of extra work but it would be worth it.  Of course, they don't allow dogs in trucks in my company and so that's not even a consideration. 

I'll be honest, I'd even get a small doggy if it meant it could travel with me.  But whatever. These plants don't care about your personal lives or how you feel,, they are doing you a favor letting you in there, so they think. I don't give a shit about their "thinking" or their attitudes, especially prevalent at Cheniere.  There are aspects of this job I could definitely do without, the security arrogance - that is: the way security handles themselves - I could do without. 

I could sneak a dog with me if I really wanted to. It's only an issue at the plant loading and at the plant unloading.  Everything in between is irrelevant.  And some places? You are dropping a trailer and hooking up to another. You aren't even there that long. The Charleston run in West Virginia run is an example  I spend about 20 minutes in the plant  Why would I risk doing such a thing? Because I don't give a damn about their disdain for people's lives and my dog isn't going to get out of the truck in their plant and therefore, it poses zero liability to them. 

Do you ever wonder about "safety"?  What I have come to understand that some person in power's version of safety is a reaction to some person that did something who is a complete idiot, so affect everyone because of it.  It's in the name of safety  Right?  Whose safety?  What is my dog going to do in the sleeper of my truck? Piss or poop on accident? 

The shit that goes on in this life....

I'm tired of it. 

Cold food.
Gets old.
Hence the reason I end up eating truckstop food. I can only eat refrigerated food/leftovers so long before I get tired of it and need a hot meal. 
It was - amazing - to see the line of cookware you can get for a truck. 
The thing is, this truck I'm in - and most trucks nowadays - has a power converter in it. This one is only 1500 watts - but I really only use it to charge my notebook, not much of anything else. 

So even tho they make these 12 volt things, I could actually run a regular crockpot or microwave in there.  Or oven toaster.  You know what would be great tho is a crock pot. Just prepare dinners in advance, throw it in large seal bags, get up in the morning, pour the bag into the crockpot and when I'm done driving? Dinner is ready!  That thing could just sit on the floor of the sleeper. 

I could also get a small microwave for reheating foods.  This truck has a bunk bed, which I don't use obviously. The top bunk is a giant shelf. I have plenty of room to store stuff up there.  This is more about eating healthier food than it is about saving money on truckstop food on the road.  Cold sandwiches are good, but at the end of a 14 hour day I"m looking for a hot meal. I think a small crockpot would answer that desire.

Chicken, beef and pork.  It all works.  I've just spent the last 7 of 8 days on the road.  Now, in a hotel I won't do anything like that. I can drive to get whatever is healthier eating in the area, I don't have to succumb to truck stop food. 

These are small investments for happier driving experience. 

______________________________

I have no idea when they came back last night. I left my bedroom door open but didn't hear them come in.  Heck, they pull up their vehicle right in front of my bedroom window and I still didn't hear them. I did wake up around 2:45 am and they hadn't made it back yet.  I'm assuming/hoping that means they had a great time without having to tow around kids and not having to pay for a babysitter.  I don't mind babysitting here and there, last night was easy. They put the kids to bed and there was nothing left to do.  Those kids are still sleeping and I just got done with 8 hours of sleep! 

Oops, I'm hearing sounds of kids wanting to get up...One of them is going to have to get up and deal with it.  I would but I have no idea what the morning routine is. 

I haven't decided on goals for the day besides getting dinner in the crockpot.  Which it already is.  And smoking a pork loin, which I haven't started on yet but the day is quite young.  Well, maybe not that young, but enough to be able to smoke the thing for a couple of hours and then put it in the over on about 225 to finish it off.  I figure if I start that around noon it should be good by dinner time.

I really need to drain out the pond, get the fish out of it if there's any in there and clean the thing out  Tree leaves and such have it black.  Just the consequences of having a back yard surrounded by giant, 100 plus foot tall trees: leaves, bark, branches, spike balls and other nonsense falls from them year round.  It doesn't have to be fall to be....fall. 

I may just do that today, tho I'm fearful of the heat index.  It's going to get up to 94 degrees today with medium humidity - enough to make it feel much hotter than 94 degrees.  But, it needs to be don and can probably finish the project in an hour or so.  I think, lol. 

Well that deteriorated quickly.
I was 2 blocks from the theater - I was really looking forward to watching a movie in a theater, just haven't done it in a while and then I was going to go to a local museum and who knows what else I might come across in the area - when the phone rings.  It's my manager.  I really had no guess as to why she would be calling.

"Has the plant called you yet?".  Umm, no.  She probably was seeing me driving the truck with the Quaalcomm set at Off Duty Drive option. It means I can drive the truck while off duty and not start the 14 hour clock. You can only do that driving the tractor only, not with a trailer.  They did change the rule recently tho, that if you were held up at a delivery point or being pulled over by cops or stopped at a weigh stand and ran out of hours, you can drive truck and trailer to nearest "safe haven".  I haven't tried that yet tho I have come close to needing it twice now.

"No, what's up?".  "Go get the trailer and bring it back to the yard".  Oh, I thought, here goes my trip to the movie theater and other destinations and here goes my off time being paid.  That was supposed to go on into the next day, which is today.  You know, get "time off" in you head, it's hard to shake it.  Oh and I had bought a $3 pair of swim trunks to go swimming or sit in the indoor jacuzzi.  I'm not feeling sorry for myself, not at all, it's just musing about the things that go on in life.

It turns out they weren't going to have the plant up and running until Tuesday.  I can tell ya, I would have loved to sit there until Tuesday, getting paid for 120 of doing nothing but sitting around. Our company won't do that, tho, limited numbers of trailers and drivers, they can't have one sitting around for 5 days doing nothing. Our company doesn't foot the bill for detention pay, so that wouldn't have mattered, just having a trailer sitting idle and out a driver does matter.  I still got 29 hours of detention pay, the trip is still a very high paying one.

And yes, I went back to the hotel instead of the theater, got my stuff, got out of there, over to the plant, under the trailer and hit the road.  Drove 600 plus miles, stopped outside of Texarcana and then drove back today.  I've been home all of an hour lol.  Here's the thing tho, their plans for going out for their anniversary are now back on the table.  I'm tired but I won't have too much watching of kids before they have to go to bed.  They sleep through the night so this should really not be any big deal.

Glad to be home!  Nothing today.  Just nothing.  I'm going to laze around and watch TV.  Tomorrow is a day off, in fact I believe Monday is off as well.  She hands out work assignments to cover Saturday, Sunday and Monday on Friday.  That doesn't, of course, mean she won't call me, but my fingers are crossed for 2-1/2 days off.  Rest, get some stuff done and enjoy something other than the sight of asphalt and concrete highways.

Okay. Well, a night alone. Well with the doggies of course : ) They're crashed out lol.  Kids are in bed, shouldn't have to do anything about that and they are out at a country western type of dancing venue - dancing.  Didn't know the misses of the house was into dancing.  It's all good for me, I'm content to be in my bedroom, AC running, a movie about Churchill on, a little writing, no work, no business, just relax : )

It's about 7 am Friday morning.  Allegedly I have the entire day and then half of tomorrow to wait until they can empty the trailer.  Besides the detention pay, the other bonus is they have their own yard mule and will move the trailer to the unloading spot themselves. I won't have to go on duty until they call me and tell me it's at about 10 - the inch meter.  It shows how much product is left in the trailer.  What this means is I don't have to go on duty until it's almost done, meaning I can just go over there, hook up and take off. No wasting any of my `14 hour on duty time, which is a big plus when you're trying to get some miles behind you.  Since it will be on Saturday, I might even make it as far as Texarcana before having to stop.  We'll see, but definitely somewhere southwest of Little Rock.

So I started this workout this morning. Much harder than I expected it to be. I mean, I can tell later on today or tomorrow my arms are going to be sore.  I assume tomorrow will focus on some other muscle groupings, these won't be wanting to do anything lol. I'm also going to look at weight loss apps.  I really need to lose about 25 pounds.  Probably there is an app that keeps track of everything you've eaten and drank and keeps a calorie total for you and probably gives you a "nooooooooo don't eat or drink that!" type warning when you're approaching whatever threshold of calories they determine.  Well, all fine and well, but please don't get too carried away with it to start with.

Baby steps.  Although, I am not really eating that much while driving.  A few very low calorie snacks, but nothing heavy.  Now, on this run, I've found a place where I can get home made sandwiches without the stuff on it that adds up on the calorie list.  No mayo being a big one.  Anyone, getting on the scale the other day - I hadn't been on one in probably at least a year - and seeing my weight had gone up 5 pounds to 222? That was enough for  me.  My goal will be to get down to 200.  If I happen to make that anytime in the next 6 months, then I might goal down to the high 180's, where I would be very happy with my weight. 

I was looking through all the fitness apps that popped up after a search and like, crazy! Endless.  So I went online and one of them I saw on my phone that looked interesting was also listed as the best on one site that was doing reviews.  Of course, the site could own the app, who knows, but I'm going to try it.  Myfitnesspal is the name of it and it does, indeed, keep track of calories consumed. 

The thing is recommending 1,810 calories a day. That's not bad. 

Well anyway, that's that.  Just going to slowly emerge myself into that stuff, take small steps and don't try to jump in all at once. That is the kind of methodology that usually fails.  Jumping all in, that is.  In some things that works, not with weight loss and working out.  Okay, well I worked out since I was 10 years old and quit maybe 3 years ago, it might not take forever to get back into it, but for now, I'm going to just do one of those workouts a day for a while and then maybe up the game a bit once I get into the routine. 

I finally saw my paycheck today.  I was concerned because of all of that Cheniere junk, but she did throw in a West Virginia run in the midst of that which is what saved the check from being so small, I would not have been very happy with it.  Now, I've been on a West Virginia run, a day off and then up here to Illinois.  I'll be back Monday and then she can throw in a Cheniere or other one or two day run to get on the books by Thursday and I should have a huge paycheck next round.

I'm really trying to find the right balance for spending, saving and attempting to pay down debt. On the spending front, I'm working on getting some "recreational" services trimmed back a bit.  Direct TV being the biggest.  The packages I have in the house in Phoenix will have to stay where they're at.  I can't keep people in there without unlimited internet and a good satellite package.  Not to mention I'm not really interested in going through all the headaches of switching over to a different company.  I should be getting to the end of the 2 year contract with Dish Network tho.  I'll ask them if they want to switch back to Direct TV.  But I don't want to switch if it's not a financially sound move.  It's likely upon hearing the news of wanting to switch that Dish will offer some sort of incentive to stay.  But at the house I'm living in I can definitely cut that bill in half.  I'm going to be going through my bank account and seeing where I can trim back on expenditures. 

I've been cutting back on eating out while on the road, which definitely saves money but the main reason for it is to cut back on the high calorie, fat filled grease food. Tastes so good, is so terribly bad for you if you want to lost wait and get healthier.  This sitting around in trucks all day long stuff just isn't good for you physically and you really have to discipline yourself to get out of it and walk around and eat smart. 

Another thing I need to do but haven't had the time is clean out the old Buick, find the title and get rid of it.  That will cut back on car insurance expenditures. Hopefully I will sell it for enough to fix the AC in the Jeep.  I'm considering giving the Jeep away.  To who I don't know, but it's been a cash cow.  The only thing left is the front brakes and the ac, everything else in it is fine.  It's got a small amount of accident damage on the rear, but it doesn't look bad.  I really don't need 3 or even 2 vehicles laying around. 1 is enough, the insurance on one is enough.  For the kind of money being spent on insurance, I could easily just rent a car once in a while if it became necessary to put the SUV in the shop.  I'm not sure about getting rid of the Jeep, but I do want to bless someone with it instead of trying to sell it.  Regardless, the car has to go.  It's sitting out front, it's doing no good, it runs great, just a lot of cosmetic and internal issues with it.  Still great for someone that needs transportation that doesn't have a lot of money to spend on a vehicle.  That's probably my next big focus, really, getting rid of that car and getting rid of the extra insurance payment on it.

Today? I dunno. I had thoughts of going and seeing/experiencing something locally.  It's still early yet, I might.  Like 8 am. That caterpillar place really sounds intriguing and it's only 8 miles away. 

Alright, change of plans.  I'm going to go to the theaters.  I looked up reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (they are usually pretty good on overall average ratings of any given film) for every movie showing in the theater. The 2 that stood out were the new Mission Impossible flick and a movie called Alpha about a young man I guess that goes out on his first hunting trip, gets injured, pairs up with a wolf and goes through a bunch of perils to make it back to safety.  Rotten tomatoes and the reviews were all good on that one.  I don't think I want to go to the theaters to see that goofball Tom Cruise. His politics of which he decided to make know quite some time back are horrible and turned me off. 

Actors should really just keep to acting.  Simply because their name is known to everyone does not therefore equate to any kind of standing in the political realm. Does anyone give any of these people any credence in their thinking and views of politics? Another one is Whoopi Goldberg.  Was a great actor, but she is a train wreck on the View.  I occasionally watch the view to laugh at all of them, but I really hate to "support" the show by upping it's ratings.  Anyway, I've decided to go see Alpha.  Seems like a decent flick, I'll find out.  I'll watch Mission Impossible when it's available online. 

Okay, leaving for that in half an hour. Sort of sticking around in case they somehow decided that they could unload it today - but they were pretty adamant that they could offload that trailer until tomorrow afternoon.  Pretty much when they say they can do it, that's when it's going to be done.  But, if they don't get their pump - another pump went down this time - fixed, who knows.  This place has frequent issues, hence I like coming up here. 

And here's the reason why they order product they can't use right away:  the plant where we get the product has X amount of slots on any given day.  It also has X amount of ethylene it can produce.  The slots fill up in advance.  Companies aren't ordering it same day, a lot of it is ordered weeks in advance.  Well, if you miss your slot, you aren't going to be able to just call up and say I need some "now".  See the problem?  Their plant shuts down but they anticipate it coming back up in a few days.   If they send the product back, they don't get another load of it coming this weekend.  Now, they have a functional plant but no product to make the - crazy - product they make.  THEIR chemical that they make with a bunch of different chemicals explodes on contact with water.  I should have written the name of it down, it's used in all kinds of products, even makeup I was told.

Anyway, it's better for them to pay the driver to sit around and wait then to have the product leave and then have to shut down the plant and send people home.  That's the bottom line.  I definitely didn't know for sure yesterday what the end decision would be, but I kinda guessed it would be the wait option. 

I'd love to go back after this and hang around a day or two, but she already said "you'll have a fresh 70 hour reset after this" meaning it will likely be right back out on the road the next morning after getting home. That will motivate me to drive like crazy tomorrow and try to get as close as possible, get a good night's sleep, drive it out and at least see my doggies for half a day. 

With that, I best get ready to leave!  I'm excited to go to the theaters, haven't been in a long time!

Okaaaaaay.  Not what I was expecting.  I'm only going to complain because I won't be home to watch the boys for my friends while they go out.  That is a little sucky, yes, but they knew there was the possibility that I would end up getting stuck up here.  I had this feeling pulling in there today, the plant that is......

So yeah, I made up it up to Mapleton in time for the appointment.  Not like time was an issue, I got to my stop place for the night yesterday rather early.  I got up at 4:30 am, got my cup of coffee and got out of there.  I really wanted this to work out, that I would get home tomorrow and they could go do their thing.  I pulled into the their plant, got into the security office, they recognized me so no checking of ID or anything at that place, called the person up on the phone.  Okay, you can go in!  Okkkkk.

I was pulling up to their portion of the plant.  If I am stopped before the unload site, that means I'm pulling the truck into the parking site and sure enough, this guy was waiting out there, signalling me to hold up.  My heart sank.  I mean, I really wanted to help my friends out for their anniversary.  "Let me guess", when he got to the truck.  "Yup".  This was really a "bad" wait, too. Because the options were to redirect to somewhere else with the load, pump out a partial load and go back or go back without unloading.  They aren't  going to send me all the way back to the plant without unloading unless the wait was going to be wayyyy toooooooo long.  And even then, if the plant I'm delivering to agrees to pay for all of it - which they do in their contract but this would be much longer wait so it would have to be agreed to - they will have the driver wait, put that driver up in a hotel, pay the driver an hourly wage the entire time they are waiting. 

Well this went on for 5 hours.  I spent the entire time still holding onto hope that it would still work out  - but it didn't.  Ridiculous. Not that I don't get to go home but that I had to wait at that freaking plant for FIVE hours to get a decision?  Lots of variables involved but still.  Anyway, I"m stuck here until Saturday afternoon.  I'm over helping my friends - it is what it is, I let them know, sorry.  Now, it's a paid vacation in a decent - well pretty nice hotel actually, I'll be here 2 nights.  It's 3:15 in the after noon, it's going to be quite a while before I get out of here. The only thing I miss is my dogs.  Would be great if they were here with me : ) 

I am considering going out tomorrow and finding something to do. I literally could sit in this hotel room all day today and tomorrow and be content and not get bored.  Between movie channels and free wifi (very welcomed considering I was almost out of data for my phone), I can keep my mind stimulated.  And frankly, just laying in bed and sleeping isn't a bad idea either. 

But, there are some interesting things to do around here. A Caterpillar museum.  I'm quite sure I would find that fascinating.  A bowling alley - I suck at bowling but I love it!.  A museum a zoo and some bars.  There was an asylum here, it's still listed, but it's been torn down according to remarks.  I think it would be very interesting.  Ghosts allegedly filled the place - it was abandoned of course.  I suppose there isn't much you are going to do with an asylum after the fact besides get rid of it. 

I'll cross that bridge tomorrow, if I even do it.  Perhaps my outing will be to the breakfast place down the road and a stop at Starbucks?  I dunno lol.  It would be more motivating to do those touring things if I were with someone. 

Anyway, James turned me on to an app that does a total type of workout without a gym.  I need that.  At least get started.  Tomorrow morning I"m going to start.  The first day is a bunch of pushups - but various kinds of pushups. So it works your pectorals and then I assume the next day will be focused on some other groupings of muscles. 

Lol, well I'm just kinda happy right now.  Getting paid to sit around and do whatever I want?  You really can't beat that.  I don't think I'd get that if I bought my own truck tho with this company.  But they make obscene amounts of money so I guess it doesn't matter.  I'd love to take home 100k a year after taxes and not do any more driving than I am now. Tho, right now, I'm doing a lot of driving. And since I'll have a 34 hour reset here in this hotel, it is highly likely I'll be sent right back out the next day after getting home.  So, that will motivate me to drive out the day and into the night on Saturday to get maximum miles and leave as little as possible for the next day to get home, do some laundry, visit with my doggies, etc.  I think I'm going to lose my dogs to my friends at the other house for lack of my being around enough.  Addler about pounces me on the floor tho whenever I do get home.  Not like they don't remember who I am lol.

But it's weighing on me and my goal is to eventually switch over to another division in this company with gasoline or find another job altogether that gets me home nightly doing the gas stuff. Not much of anything else gets you home like that unless you live in different regions, such as the Houston area.  I'm not moving to Houston, thanks, if I wanted to do that I would just move back to Phoenix.  In fact, the day may come that I will do that.  Move back to Phoenix that is, but, buy property up in the mountains.  I'm getting to the point where I really need to decide what I'm going to do, age isn't helping me out in that matter, I don't have forever. 

Well, I will probably write another Trump post later or tomorrow, but for now? This post is done. 

So, we're all sitting around last night shooting the breeze, it was starting to get late.  I was left in the dark as to whether there was going to be a run today or not.  But it was 9:00 pm, so there wasn't any idea that my manager was going to send me anything that late, I started to make plans for today.  In fact, Taylor made plans for me, lol, asking if I could pick up the boys while she went out and did some shopping for their upcoming Anniversary day together, which they want to do on Saturday. 

I said sure.  Not 5 minutes later, at 9:15 pm, my manager sends me a text with a run to Mapleton, Illinois.  I'm like what?  I look at the load time: 5 am!!  Meaning getting up at 3:00 am to get there on time with everything I have to do.  UGGGGGGHHHHHHH, was the type of thoughts going through my mind.  I asked her why so late with the text?  She was in a manager's meeting all day long, they don't allow them to use their phones or computers while in those meetings.  That's pretty freaking lame and stupid.  How do you tie up a driver manager/dispatcher all day long and don't give them opportunity to do their jobs?  I couldn't blame her so I didn't.  I figured that since it's a 3 day trip (at least), I'll be back on Saturday so I can watch the boys and they can spend the day together, alone. 

That plan may change of course.  If I get to the plant tomorrow and they tell me the same thing they have told me a couple of times before: we can't take this today, sorry, well I'll be stuck up there at least 24 hours.  In fact, to be honest, I'd like to get stuck up there with extended detention pay, sitting in a company paid hotel watching movies, playing on the net and just kicking back.  There just isn't anything unappealing about that to me, especially the "getting paid while having fun" part of the fact of being at a decent hotel.  But for their sake, I do hope they get me in and out of there in a couple  hours time. 

Speaking of anniversaries, yesterday was my son's one year!  He says things are going great, yes they have had a few issues here and there, but he was informed by numerous married people that that is normal, especially at first.  Yes, I can attest, that is definitely normal and if you can work things out, that's a big plus.  I sent him a generous contribution for the day. 

Well anyway, I got up at 3am, did all the junk, felt like hell, to be honest because I only got about 4 hours of sleep.  It's just what it is: I can't get this "thing" out of my head on those nights when I know i have to get up early and because of knowing that, I don't sleep well.  I slept for a little bit in the driver's room at the plant, but that was short lived.  When I got out on the road, gag.  I was fighting to stay awake.  I thought, I"m going to have to stop up the road and take a 30 minute nap. I can't be driving like this all day long.  So, 90 miles down the road I stopped at a Love's, parked and fell fast asleep. If I hadn't set the alarm, I have no idea how long I would have slept.

I felt better - not great but better - after that and at least was functional.  Another 5 hours down the road and I had to take the 30 minute rest break to get all of my hours.  I needed it anyway.  Yup, same thing fell asleep with alarm set, felt much better after that.  Drove out the day, thought about driving through Saint Louis but I was going to hit it full head on at rush hour so I am stopped in a small town just south of there.  I'll get going around 4:30 am and sail right through that town at that early of an hour, there will be very little traffic. 

Not much fun having to sit here for 11 hours but this is the area where I usually stop on this run because going any further means hitting Saint Louis and almost always at rush hour.  No sense in the aggravation for only a 45 mile addition to today's driving.  I'll be at the plant at 8:00 am, hopefully get the thing offloaded and then have around 6-1/2 hours of driving time to head back this way.  Hopefully make it to Searcy Arkansas and then maybe 4-1/2 hour drive the next day home.  In a perfect world, lol. 

And speaking of truckstops, I got to this one at around 5:15 pm.  It's not huge, about 20 spots.  There is another one across the street that is larger than this one.  There was a truck that pulled in ahead of me who got a space, I got another space and in a matter of 10 minutes, all the rest of the spaces were filled up  The truckstop across the street was full when I looked at it coming off the Interstate.  This is what we deal with on a daily basis.  I had a nice place to park in a dirt lot next to a restaurant up the road about 4 miles, but someone must have ruined it for everyone, because they installed no overnight parking signs all over that dirt lot - totally unused, not an entrance or use for anything. 

Last time I came through here is when I found that out.  Very disappointed.  I found a gravel lot to park in last time as I was almost out of hours and the place I am at now? was full.  I was going to go there again if necessary.  It has zero amenities therefore not attractive to most truckers. I just wanted to get a sandwich and access to a bathroom if possible, hence why I"m here.  This parking dilemma - you can Google it, it's a nationwide issue - is not going to get better anytime soon.  I just try to find places that aren't at truckstops where no one else is or very few trucks.  Out of the way spots that most truckers would shun.  My company actually prefers that we don't park at truckstops, but no way they can make that a rule.  You're out on the road and want a shower? You best hit up a truckstop or get a hotel room.  You want access to a toilet? Same thing.  Food? well, that one is debateable.  Most truck stops are grease filled, calorie laden junk food that isn't good for you anyway. This one I"m at makes fresh sandwiches from scratch, made to order, much lower calorie stuff, delicious. 

I'm going to deal with that dilemma tho.  I'm going to buy a roast and a pack of boneless skinless chicken breasts, cook them up, package them in small sandwich bags and freeze them.  Grab a bag or however many I need for however long the trip is and just eat lean meat sandwiches on the road.  I've been buying deli meat at Krogers but I never know how much to buy.  I eat the stuff but end up giving it to the dogs after I've had it too long.  I thought about just buying that and freezing it, but James and Taylor have a commercial grade meat slicer, much cheaper to just buy large quantities of meat, cook it up, slice it up, bag it up and walaah.  It'll stay good in the freezer for months (at least) and I won't have to worry about last minute deals like today, getting dumped with a run late at night. 

Ugh, the truck next to me has a reefer unit on it. That's a refrigeration unit attached to the front of the trailer to refrigerate the trailer. NOISY. No, I'm not leaving here, lol, I'm just going to pull up about 5 feet and reduce the noise.  No way would I want to haul reefer units just because of that endless noise. They go on and off and on and off - well you get the idea.  It's much worse if you're in a sleeper and that thing is hanging up over top of you , just behind you, making all that excessive noise allllllllllllllllllllllll night long. Ridiculous. There we go. Pulled up 10 feet, no more noise, just the purrr of my truck's engine, which I am quite used to now. 

Well plenty more but I've been discussing stuff on the net.  Almost out of data for this month so no movies for me tonight.

Record time.  Literally.  3 days for a 4 day run.  I had 657 miles to do today and I didn't think I would be able to get it done. Get caught up in traffic for a bad accident (happens frequently), get caught up in traffic in any of the 3 cities - Nashville, Memphis or Little Rock and it's all over.  But, because of where I stopped last night, the timing for all 3 of these cities was perfect.  Little Rock was close - very close to rush hour and getting caught up in that would have ensured me another night on the road.

Instead, I'm sitting at my desktop in my bedroom and watching a movie.  What did this pushing it hard do for me? It gives me at least 2 nights home in my own bed instead of one.  And, I've asked for Saturday off.  I have no idea if I'll get it, but Taylor and James are going to celebrate their 5th wedding anniversary and they asked if I could watch the kids.  Yes, if I'm home.  There isn't really any good reason she can't give me Saturday off, not like I'm asking for Sunday as well.  But it's whatever to me.  I hope I get it, if I don't they understand and oh well.

The lack of weekends off is starting to burn me out.  My friends are off weekends, I don't see why I can't get at least on weekend off per month.

A rather odd side effect to this job, at least for me, is the fact that I am starting to become a night owl. And even more strange, I sleep much better and feel much more rested when I wake in the morning.  I actually feel better if I stay up til midnight and get up at 6 am than if I go to bed at 9pm and get up at the same time.  That doesn't really work for the early load tho.  But other than that, I'm a bit amazed.  I'm also starting to like night driving again, a thing I had given up on long ago.  But, the roads are almost void of traffic and there is a strange thing that occurs in my mind in such driving. Can't really explain it.  I'm just saying that such as last night?  I got to the exit for the Petro where i was going to spend the night, felt fine and blew past it.

Another 50 plus miles past it to the point I had 8 minutes left on the drive clock.  Been doing a lot of that lately, dragging the clock down and taking a chance at whether there will be parking.  Okay, I take that back, just remembered I was going to stop at a Love's down the road and take a shower. The lot was completely full.  I didn't bother to get off at the exit, the place was in full view from the freeway.  Here's the kicker, the place I finally ended up deciding to go to and calculating that I would make it - but just barely - for time charges a fee.  At least according to the app I use to find parking.

Well, I had no alternatives, pay the $12 and move on.  Except when I got there, there were no signs about pay parking and there wasn't the security officer in a vehicle chasing me down as the app reviews said there were.  I felt no obligation to go in and ask since there were no signs out there. I just parked the truck in the back, slept like a log, got up and was half-excited about the potential prospect of getting home today.  But I can't predict what will happen on this nation's highways on any given day.  As evidenced by a 30 or so foot enclosed trailer on a pickup truck that had crashed on the other side of the freeway.  I saw that 30 minutes into driving today.  The entire back half of the trailer was trashed - totally unwrapped and whatever was in there - pastries I guess considering the words on the side of the front of it.  The truck was overturned. It had just happened, there were a bunch of kids wandering around, I guess dad working with his children?  I dunno but I didn't stop. It was on the other side of the freeway and there were already numerous vehicles parked and people standing around.  There were no first responders there yet, I saw them coming up as I was driving south towards Nashville.

I hit Nashville around 10:30 am, amazingly small amount of traffic, just motored right through there.  Looked at mileage to Memphis and figured I would get through there at a good time as well and sure enough, hardly had to slow down. Only Little Rock was calculated at arriving not long before rush hour at 5:00, but I hit it early enough to avoid a major traffic jam.  After that it was hammer down - don't get too cranky, the truck only goes 65 mph - but I had that thing going that speed as much as I could keep it up there.  I got back to the yard with 33 minutes left on the drive clock, I could have gone another 34 miles!  Lol. 

__________________________________

Now see, it's the next morning, Tuesday to be exact.  I stayed up until 1 am, a thing I never used to do, slept like a baby and now I feel great.  It's very odd to me because a few years ago I was having serious sleep issues and was going to bed earlier and earlier attempting to get even 3 or 4 hours of sleep. I mean, spending 10 hours in bed to get 4 hours of sleep. And now, stay up late, yes I slept til 9 and awoke out of a deep sleep actually, which was rather strange in itself.  Takes awhile to really wake up coming out of that. But, I have nothing that is imperative to do today, I'm taking it easy at least for a bit, I figure I'll have a run tomorrow and I figure it will be back to Cheniere. I hope I'm wrong, but that's what I'm bracing myself for.  I have come to hate that place and that run, I guess I'll have to figure out a way to make it enjoyable, even if only in the hollows of my mind.

Anyway, I am working through the freezer full of meat. They don't have time to cook the stuff, but I"m home often enough to get the older stuff out, get it thawed and get it cooking.  No smoker today for me, I don't really feel like tending it all day long.  Its fun, actually, when I want to do it, but that's not today. This brisket I got out is full of fat anyway, so I just seasoned it and dumped it in the slow cooker.  Hopefully by the time they get home from work it will be done.  Make some scalloped potatoes and some sort of veggie and call it dinner. 

Meanwhile, my new AC unit in my room! Yes!  I'm no longer sleeping in the heat and I don't have to sit here all warm with the bedroom door wide open trying to get some of that warmth in here.  It will be short lived since it's already August, but there is still plenty of hot and warm days to be had, helps me sleep through the night.  I just don't sleep well if I'm too warm.  I can sleep through cold, but not heat. 

Politics?  I'm sick of Trump did this and Trump did that junk.  Keep it.  The endless accusations are getting boring and irritating.  None of it ever comes through with anything, or, if it does, it was a sexual encounter before he became President.  Now, if they find out a Bill Clintinish thing he has done in the Oval Office with anyone other than his wife, talk to me about that and I will denounce that as much as anyone else will. This latest accusation are tapes that have him allegedly saying the N word.  If it's true, that's sick.  He'll be roasted alive for it. 

I have nothing much else. I decided to get a Keurig coffee machine.  I love that stuff, absolutely love it.  The only thing good about Cheniere, I have to go in the guard house every time and they have one of those machines in there with literally hundreds and hundreds of the pods that go in it.  I make a nice steaming cup and enjoy that until I get to the waiting area.  Actually, that place makes me stop and have the truck searched, then go to the guard house and hand them 3 forms of ID including a TWIC card, then into another gate to hand the ID"s over again, then into a waiting lot, where I am eventually escorted through yet another gate where I have to show those ID's yet again. Get the idea why I hate going there? It takes way too much time and it doesn't pay enough for the time spent.  That's all there is to it. Up the pay - by at least $150 per run, and I'd be a lot happier about it. 

I'd rather get sent out on a 3 day run tomorrow and get back into time watch the kids on Saturday so those 2 can have some much needed alone time with each other. 

Well, enough of this, I have stuff to get done today. 

Long day.  I pushed it hard.  It's Sunday and the roads are always much freer of traffic than on any other day.  Get the miles in and get them over with.

Well this started yesterday tho.  I was determined to make it to the Hardy's last night in White House, Tennessee. Yes, that's the name of the town, you can look it up yourself. There is a Hardy's there and a small truck parking  lot behind it.  I stopped there the last time I took this trip to West Virginia, there aren't that many spots but it wasn't full, I was hoping for the same this time.  At the loading plant at 11:00 am, out of there and drove out the day. 

On the way up, I saw a truck blow a scale - there is no PrePass at this particular scale, if the scale lights are flashing, you best pull in there.  I was right behind this truck and saw that ...and.....saw the
State Trooper sitting there at the scale house with his brake lights on.  He wasn't even checking weights unless they can do that remotely?  I dunno, but I saw the Trooper start moving as soon as the truck blew by it and I knew what was happening.  It's a pretty good fine from what I hear for getting caught doing that. 

I pulled into the station and pulled up on the scale - nothing. No other vehicles there.  It's usually that way at this place, one Trooper and no-one else. Well, he was gone.  So I pulled through, drove on up the road a few miles and there it was.  The Trooper with that truck pulled over. 

A few hours later, driving through Little Rock, Arkansas, my GPS was telling me to get off the highway and take a detour? Whyyyyyyyy?????  Both GPS's showing red on the road.  Figured an accident.  I got off at the exit and then proceeded to drive on a frontage road for a couple of miles past a LOT of stopped/slowed traffic. When I got up to the scene, it was a very gruesome accident. I mean, it was bone chilling.  It was a late model Jeep and parts of that vehicle were scattered all over the place.  The Jeep itself was mangled, it had slammed up against a bridge overpass concrete post -  huge thing.

I just sat there for a while lookiing at firemen working the scene. No ambulances there.  A sheet over the driver's seat area  The person was obviously dead, the firemen weren't doing a rescue operation. This was a "retrieve the body" operation.  We all sat there for probably 10 minutes waiting for them to let us pass, this accident was affecting both the Interstate and the frontage road, just that I passed hundreds of vehicles so I knew GPS didn't steer me wrong - IF - I was getting through there anytime soon.

But getting through there wasn't really on my mind.  I see things like this and it gets me to thinking about life. I'm not going to go into all of that, it's getting very late and I"m starting to finally get tired.  I have 10 hours to sit here tho, no choice in that matter.  But I did sit there watching State Troopers doing their measuring stuff and firemen going back and forth and moving around, but not at the Jeep itself,  I didn't think at first there was anyone in the Jeep because of their actions, I didn't understand why they were even there or what they were doing.  Well, when we were finally let by, I got to a point where I could look and see what's under the sheet. 

I probably shouldn't have looked, but the firefighters got the best of me: is there any one really under there?  Cause when they put the sheets out, there is a or more than one dead person underneath there.  Right? That's what I always thought and not the first time I"ve seen the sheets and the dead people.

This was gruesome. Gut wrenching.  Just mind shattering stuff here. This isn't the movies, this was real. This person's head was smashed into the steering wheel. The skull was caved in, eyes bulging out, face contorted. I mean, contorted.  It was sickening to see a person's life ended like that.  The body was shifted at different angles. I didn't take a pic of that, I took a pic of the vehicle.  I'm just not going to do that to a dead person. I can only imagine those pics getting back to loved ones, no and no. 

I have myself to blame for looking under there, but, it isn't the end of my world, I hate seeing that stuff and it affects me, but I've seen it many times before.  I've seen hundreds and hundreds of accidents out on the roads. It's just you don't normally see the dead.

Well, I moved on from that.  When I got to the Hardy's many hours later, it was jammed packed.  That was disappointing. I know it sounds dumb, but the coffee at that Hardy's is out of this world.  Just amazing stuff. I couldn't find anywhere to park and the Loves' down the street was jam packed again.  I took off.  I'm driving and frantically looking at the app for parking spaces at truck stops.  The next place up the road showed "lot is full".  I bypassed it,  I was running out of time.  I pushed it that day to get past Nashville and not have to deal with traffic.  Lol, tho I probably should have thought about the fact that "traffic" anywhere on a Sunday isn't going to be anything near the same as traffic during the weekday. 

I saw a Matco truck stop on the app, it hadn't been updated.  It's up to truck drivers using the app to update wherever they're at.  I drove up to to it and lo and behold, ONE open parking spot.  Next morning, after getting a decent cup of coffee - not the best but not bad - I drove it on out to West Virginia, only stopping for fuel and making haste of that. I wanted hours left over for driving out of West Virginia. The reason is because I have not been able to drive past Lexington for want of hours ot drive and anywhere to stop. 

There's a lot of factors to today and getting as far as I did. But I got to the plant in Charleston, dropped the trailer at a holding location, hooked up to the trailer at the delivery station, dropped it  elsewhere, back to the loaded trailer, backed it up to the loading station, then back to the empty trailer, got paperwork done and got the hell  out of there.  When I was approaching Lexington, it was obvious that I could get across the Bluegrass Parkway and to a truckstop well before I would run out of driving hours.

The Petro down the road from Elizabethtown was my goal.  Now, through all of this, I was talking to my son, it's his anniversay and I was congratulating him.  It'a already been a year since he got married!! Anyway that was keeping me awake and I was very glad to hear from my son.

When I got to the Petro exit, I already knew that I could drive another hour - so I did! I figured to try and make it close enough to make it back to the yard tomorrow. It may or may not happen and if it doesn't, oh well no biggies. It's about 650 miles to the yard from where I'm at. I'll hit Nashville at a non-rush hour traffic time, I should get through there fast enough. 

Dang there was so much more I wanted to write.  But 'm fading now.  Time to go to sleep. 

I actually got 2 days off for the 34 hour reset.  It usually doesn't work out that way, but I hinted at needing a couple of days off.

I did not hint about Cheniere, however.  I made it perfectly clear that 1. my next paycheck is going to be substantially lower than any other check because you are sending me there continuously and 2. there are plenty of other drivers that can go down there.  Some of them can't because they don't have the credentials. Well gee golly willickers, go get them!  They don't want to for obvious reasons.

She doesn't force them to do it, some people refuse to go down there, but I have to? She actually asked me when my Safety Council card expires.  I don't know the card is in the truck. Shortly after I got hired a group of 3 of us went to take the training - 8 hours of hellish miserable monotone people talking about things that have absolutely nothing to do with what we are doing down there.  I don't care if it was paid.  Regardless, it's good for at least another 3 months. 

The other thing about Cheniere is it's driver unload.  Most other runs are not.  So we're also wasting the amount of time it takes to unload the truck which is usually at least a 3 hour process from the time you enter the plant until the time you leave it.  And often times much more than that. 

I have spent literally hours on the phone today with ATT, Direct TV and a few other service providing companies.  I couldn't access my account on Directv, as it turns out the reason was because my account had been suspended.  Why? The lady didn't know, I assume it's related to the fraud that whoever pulled on me using one of my phone numbers with ATT, one and the same company now.

We went through an hour on the phone before she fixed it AND offered a bunch of credit to my account (hundreds of dollars worth) for the inconvenience. I didn't even ask her for that, I was simply attempting to access my account online to pay the bill.  That's how I pay all the bills that aren't set up as auto pay.   But, while I got that figured out, ATT was more dicey. 

You see, I got the "free" 2 for 1 phone deal at the beginning of this year.  I have asked repeatedly about why the bill went up almost $40 considering the second phone is "free" and there should only be an additional $15 plus tax charge for unlimited phone and texting.  I ended up calling headquarters - if you ever need to call a company's headquarters and can't find the number, use Hoovers.  Just put the name of the company in the search field and put Hoovers next to it.  You will see something in the resulting list that says "company profile" by Hoovers and if there is a corporate number, you can be rest assured it will be listed there. Many companies will tell you they don't "have" a corporate number or they "don't know" it.  That's an obvious lie and I learned how to circumvent that years ago when I stumbled across the hoovers website. 

Anyway, we got into an elongated discussion an it turns out they charge a $40 data access fee for each line.  I was flabbergasted, because that phone doesn't have any data.  I only have data on my phone the other two they have to use wifi to connect to the internet and such.  It got pretty heated after a long while of him basically identifying ATT as a scam company that doesn't disclose all the info upon "upgrading" your account.  They even charged me a $25 "upgrade" fee. What a bunch of crap.  I'm paying them for the service and they want to charge me a fee to - use their service above the fees I'm already paying to use their service? So it's a fee for a fee? 

I was pretty outraged after that phone call and hearing all this junk.  I refused to hang up, I told him he'd have to hang up on me and that would be that.  I've got a year and a half on this phone payment contract, after that I'm departing ATT forever.  I may stick with Direct TV, but ATT cellular service I will never do business with again.  For now, I am going to eat it.  The only other option is to pay both phones off, but since I have only had these phones for 8 months, I still have a lot of paying off left to go, over $500 on each.  It may come to the point that when I get them paid down to around $200 each, I'll pay off the phones, get out of the contract and go to Verizon.  Or go somewhere else.  I don't liike Verizone customer service, but their coverage is far superior to everyone else. 

Anyway, that has consumed 2/3rd's of my day.  Just what I wanted to do on my days off. I just didn't want to deal with this stuff because I know the aggravation that ensues when you call these people,.  Most of the issues I am having with various services are now taken care, but a few left to go.  I need to fix my computer so I can plug in a "thing" in a port for it to run some sort of service to get movies that I want to watch off of it for free or next to nothing and reduce my current Direct TV bill by around $100.  I'm paying for that here, I'm also paying for it over there.  That just went up by $50 but they are covering it so no concern to me about that one.  This one tho I want to bring down.  And I still need to get my car totally cleaned out, find the title and get rid of it.  That will bring down my monthly insurance payment which is pretty high right now.  That's another project - see if i can find cheaper insurance. I've tried a few companies but so far, no better offers have come my way.

Get an insurance quote is also time consuming and can also be very aggravating.  I'm not doing that today.  I think I: am going to ask for 3 or 4 days off, whenever it's convenient, to take care of personal stuff.  The car, the insurance, stuff that needs to be done around here.

As it stands, I also had a window unit installed in my room today. AC unit that is.  This room gets warm. I know there' not that much time left before winter hits, but I have trouble sleeping at night.  This room I'm in is huge, but it's an add on. It was a garage or carport and they obviously didn't put in enough insulation.  The central AC outlet doesn't have that much coming out of it either.  I just decided I wasn't going to lay there in the middle of the night, uncomfortable, ;trying to sleep because it's too hot in here.

I still have laundry to do and cook dinner. I have a chicken fryer brining in the fridge, it's ready to be cooked.  Yikes, it's almost 3:00 pm.  I probably should think about getting that sucker in the oven.  I am also awaiting whatever I'm going to get dumped with over the weekend.  I don't get weekends off, hardly ever. I have to specifically ask for it and then it's "I'll see what I can do".  Ok, what does that mean?  I'm telling ya, the only thing that keeps me at this company right now is the money. If that weren't there I would have already high tailed it out of there.  I have no loyalty to any company anymore, they don't have any loyalty to you.  They really don't.  They can cut you at any time and they'll think nothing of it.  I have no tenure at this company and I don't see any reason to cut them any slack when it comes to who is getting what runs. 

It affects my paycheck, that is reason enough in itself.

And, now that I have this AC unit cranking, my room is nicely chilled!  Very nice. 

I may write something up later, but I have stuff to do now.  There is no reason to assume I have tomorrow off, I may or I may not, but if I don't, I need to be ready to go.

I'm not happy with work right now.

In the last 5 runs, 4 of them have been Cheniere, including being sent out on this waste of time run today at 1:30.  I texted her asking about it, she didn't reply with anything but the load information.  So, I told her it's almost always more than a day trip and I only have 13 hours left on my clock.  Oh that's okay, you're getting 7 over night.  Great.  So, I have 20 hours to waste on a trip that doesn't pay anything.

I verified that by looking at my most recent pay stub.  Wasting 2 days going down there and back, I got less than $400.  Using 2 days going down to Browsnville I got almost a grand on one particular run, tho admittedly that had some detention pay in it.  Since I know I'm not going to make it home tonight - even if there were the chance of having enough time, I wouldn't get home until 4 or 5 am and I'm not going to waste an entire day feeling like s*** because I stayed up all night long trying to get home - I'm not going to say anything to anyone when I get down there. I'm just going to pull into the lot and sit there and probably go to sleep,  If they want to make me wait for 10 hours, great!  I'll get detention pay at least and make the waste of 2 days worth something.

Last trip - which I got home yesterday from - I had 5 hours of it.  Just not enough to make that particular run worth it.  In fact, in this case? I'd just as soon something happens at the loading plant.  And make me wait 5 hours there.

Whatever the case, I got another company newsletter from this company of which I absolutely laughed at.  The CEO is complaining of driver retention and that they are going to start a "new" program to find ways to keep good drivers.  I have several suggestions but giving them will probably get me on a "list" so I'll refrain.  Or maybe I'll send it through an email that isn't associated with my name.  Of course, there is the ID that goes along with those email addresses that can be traced back to other email addresses.  I wonder if they'd go that far with it? Probably just best to keep my mouth shut.

The thing says  "In 2017, even though we hired almost 2,000 Drivers (sic), we also lost Drivers due to various reasons.  Most of these Drivers left within the first 6 months of being hired".  I could give them several tips.  Don't hire people on and then not have trucks available to drive when they are done with orientation.  Don't use orientation as a tool to instill "fear", make people feel welcome to be there instead of telling them how many ways they can get fired for doing this and that and leaving out the welcoming party stuff while doing so.  Don't promise new drivers new trucks and then not only not give you one, but also diss you to your face while doing so, that's a BIG no-no in the trucking world.  Don't dump drivers from one truck to another to another, drivers want to have their own truck, not be moved around like US Mail going from one truck to another.

Don't play favorites.  It will get back to those new drivers eventually. Don't make new drivers go unload cryogenics, giving them absolutely NO training whatsoever on how to do it. "You'll figure it out".  Can you imagine the fear of unloading a substance that is highly flammable, explosive, volatile, kept at around 150 below zero and can give you freeze burn upon contact and can also suffocate you if a big spill occurred?  Yeah, that.  And more, much more actually.

I'm here, stuck here for at least a year, in my mind anyway, to get at least the minimum experience to be able to move on to another company, make the same wages and get better treatment.  I sit at a table at the loading plant and we all talk among ourselves - drivers from all kinds of different companies. And here it is, yet another snail mail from the company wanting drivers to recruit new drivers.  In a pig's eye I will, not with the crap that's going on here now.  Sure, you get a couple thousand dollars but you are recruiting someone to a place that doesn't have their s*** together.  And then that driver blaming me ? No thanks. 

Well, that's that for my crying episode today.  Meanwhile, grin and bear it.  Go into work in a couple of hours, get the truck loaded and get on the road to that miserable place.  At least my bank account is happy, tho with these runs my paychecks will be significantly smaller, which is my gripe about this run.

Of all the things my mind has wandered about to spend money on, I have actually done none of it, at least, nothing more than what I've already reported on this blog.  New TV, boat, 4 wheelers, etc, none of that stuff.  If I could get my savings up to 10 grand, that would just propel me on to wanting to save another 10 grand and then, I could get the property I want or perhaps a start on rental properties.  I needed a "new" vehicle, I'm comfortable with that.  I am looking at ways to reduce my monthly expenditures, got a start on that yesterday with complaining to ATT about over priced services. They were all over it, amazingly enough.  Oh we'll help you out with that! They actually did, too, I was amazed and shocked at the same time. 

Direct TV is next.  All the movie channels we still have here, Donny was paying the additional amount for those, but he's over at the other house now and I don't need all of that extra fluff. I'm not even here long enough to enjoy all of that.  I figure to cut out the movie channels altogether, that should save around $75 per month, maybe more.  They wanted to dump Direct TV altogether, but I'm not at that point.  I want certain channels - they aren't premium channels but they are cable channels. 
It's optional services I can save on, things like water and electricity not so much. 

Well I'm gettting off here.  Finish laundry, take a shower and go deal with this junk. 

So I got out of the hotel, got into the truck, got the trailer - they had moved it to the rack at the plant themselves and saved me the time of using up HOS hours to do all of that and unload it.  Hooked up to the thing and walaah - half the lights not working on the trailer.  Figured that one out quickly - wires pulled out of the pigtail connector, took all of that apart, but the wires back and reconnected it and left.  I figured to try and make it to Prescott, Arkansas and leave myself just a short 140 jaunt to get back to the yard after that.

Well I realized around 7: 00 pm my manager hadn't contacted me so I figured I had the weekend and Monday off! woohoo!!  Yeah, no.  It was 8:36 pm and I got a text - load Sunday for Cheniere.  GAG. That is by far the latest she has contacted me with a load.  I always figure by 7:00 pm if she doesn't contact me I'm not getting one the next day, or if it's Friday I don't have to work that weekend. Instead, I drove 3 hours today and will spend the entire day tomorrow fooling with Cheniere and probably have to spend the night somewhere cause' if everything doesn't go perfectly, you aren't going to do a day trip.

So that carries me into Monday and then? I'll be out of hours.  Maybe 13 left on the clock.  That's enough for a day and then nothing.  Of course, if she's got more going than drivers to cover it, rest assured she'll dump me with whatever - would have to be something I can get to same day - and then I would have to  spend my 34 hour reset on the road.   The only good thing about that is that that is a guaranteed hotel stay. You don't get paid for detention or anything, but the hotel is covered by the company.

Anyway, I'm worn out.  I know I spent a night at a hotel but that trip just took it out of me.  I'm not sure about tomorrow, sometimes this feeling carries over into the next day and then I'm useless. Couple that with tomorrow being Sunday and it's a recipe for disaster.  There is something that clicks in my head on Sundays that this is a day off, time to relax...yet, I am forced to work most Sundays, last weekend being a notable exception.

So here we go. 
Same old thing loading at the plant yesterday - except that it was early load.  IE: be there at 5:00 am.  Definitely wasn't liking it since I haven't done an early load for a while now.

Spent the day yawning, trying to stay awake, etc.  I mean, it was after 4:00 pm when I finally felt awake and not groggy.  Long day.  But what made it longer? Around noon, my Iphone crapped on me. Yup, the screen did a funny dance and then, boom, black.  The phone was still working but I couldn't do anything with it.  Now, that's a problem because I use GPS off of it.  My truck has a Quaalcomm with GPS but they don't have it enabled for whatever reason.  It's also a problem if I have an issue or if something happens out on the road.

We are reminded of terrorists and potential hijackings allllllll the time.  Company newsletters, sheets handed out to us, even training we have to do all mentions it.  I can see it being used as a giant bomb, that stuff if you could get it to explode would take out a city block from what I'm being told.  Don't know if that's an exaggeration but I do believe it has lethal potential.  The experts at the plant loading it know more about it than anyone and they reluctantly stated that yes, it can explode.  Not sure why they were reluctant to confirm that, everyone else was saying it all along.  Just kind of the "fear of God" thing they want you to apparently have while transporting it. 

I got over that quite a while ago.  I have utmost respect for it, yes, but fearing it doesn't work. That would just create a lot of tension every time I drive and I can't have that. 

Anyway, I already knew where I was going yesterday. 67 to I-55 and then a short jaunt on I-55 and then stop in a small town at a restaurant that has truck parking. After that? I would have to look on the map.  Good thing I carry one with me just in case.  I got to my favorite restaurant annnnnd.....they had put up "No Overnight Parking" signs all over the place.  Note, trucks only parked in a dirt lot where no one else parks, not in the way of anything, not a parking spot for cars.  This is what truck drivers experience everywhere.  The last time I was up there, I parked there overnight and so did a few other trucks with no problems. I spent money in the restaurant, I tipped well.

I'm really getting tired of this anti-truck sentiment around the country.  I would love for all of us to just stop driving for a week and then we wouldn't have annnnnyyyyy more problems.  Like magic, truckers would be respected again, the hate for trucks would be magically turned into where the hell are they and why aren't they bringing us.... everything.

Nix that one.  Drove back down to the 2 truckstops I had passed the small town before and they were already completely filled up, no parking spaces anywhere.  Ugh.  Well, out of the other small town I had noticed an empty lot.  Note: I was almost out of time.  It's park the truck now scenario or go over hours and then issues with the company.   I went back up, looked over this lot, there was a semi trailer already parked there, just went for it. No signs saying not to.  This is America today.  Truckstops are full and mostly any other places don't want you there.  I mean, it was 5:30 pm and those two places were already full!

No one bothered me tho.  Truck driver came in at around 4:00 am and hooked up to his trailer. I was getting up at 4:30 am anyway so not a big deal. Meanwhile, I had unplugged the phone after trying everything else, I couldn't get it to reset because when you push the reset button, it brings up a prompt on the screen asking if you want to shut it down. Well since the screen wasn't showing anything and touching it all over didn't do squat, it wouldn't reset.  Well, I got going around 4:45 am.  The low battery signal did finally show up on the screen.  I just kept pressing the button hoping to drag the battery down so far even that wouldn't come up.  After a couple of hours - I was 3-1/2 hours away from my destination - I finally just decided to plug it back into power outlet and hope it would work.

Walaaaaah!  The thing loaded up, the screen came on asking for password, input that and here we were, back in business.  It took 17 hours to do that.  I can tell ya, I learned alot about myself in those 17 hours that I didn't know.  Or didn't realize I should say.  First off, I have become totally reliant on the phone and that lady that is crammed inside that phone telling me where to go.  It was odd to have to pay attention to every sign to make sure I didn't miss my exit. I thought, if I did miss my exit and didn't see it when I passed it, I wouldn't even realize it!  Maps interrupts you if you miss a turn and tells you to turn around or take another route.  I don't remember using a road atlas in any recent times.  Maybe 15 years?

But it wasn't bad, actually. It as making me think.  When I was at the parking lot, I had nothing to do so I got out of the truck, got out the road atlas and planned the rest of the trip for today.  It was just an interesting experience to go without a smart phone for that length of time.  Can't watch videos, get on Facebook, look at the news, nothing.  I can't say it was bad, it wasn't great but it gave me a new perspective. 

Now, getting up here. Here being somewhere south of Peoria near Chicago.  We have a regular customer up here. In fact, this is the place where I was driving that Volvo and it broke down and spent time at a hotel waiting for it to be repaired.  Same place.  I got to the plant hoping it wouldn't take too long to unload so I could get some hours driving in and get back down the road. 

Not so fast.  

I got in the plant, the dude gets on the phone with me at the guardhouse: You're going to have to wait until tomorrow.  Lol.  My "let's get out of here as fast as possible" sails completely deflated and my "let's get paid to sit for 30 hours at a hotel prepaid by my company " sails arose.  Really?  I became jubilant at that point.  How can you complain about sitting in a hotel room all day long, watching movies, on the net, or just sleeping and getting paid for it the entire time?   These are the trips that I truly love.  I don't care if I don't get back tomorrow.  It's really not that important. My dogs are in loving hands.  The baby at the house is extremely sick with a nasty cough and I don't need to be around that anyway.  I was running from him anytime he started coming at me - he likes me for whatever reason and always wants me to hold him.

But when he's that sick? No thanks bro! I was glad I was going on a 3 day trip and now it's going to be 4.  I was just sick with that same crap not that long ago, the whole house was.  Getting out of there is the best thing.  So here I am, in a company paid hotel, using hotel free wifi, in Pekin, Illinois at a Holiday Inn Express on the top/3rd floor.  I'm loving life right now.  It's not even noon yet and I have the whole rest of the day ahead of me to do nothing or find something to do if I want to or whatever. 

BTW, this happens frequently on this run.  I haven't had it in quite a while, I've been boogying to Brownsville and back, but that's shut down until next week.  It's only shut down cause the customer down there forgot to order more product and the slots for it filled up for other companies.  Once the slots are full, that's it. There's no slipping anyone in there.  You have to wait your turn and that probably means someone is in trouble at that plant in mexico, cause they are normally getting at least one load a day delivered down there.  The product I haul will shut a plant down if they don't have enough of it in their storage tanks.  Up here, the customer has full tanks sometimes and they just wanted the product because of that "slot" thing I just mentioned.  They order it whether they need it or not, if they don't need it, they pay for the driver to spend however much time at a hotel.  It's that or yes, they shut down as well and they are screwed. 

What I really like, besides getting paid to do nothing, is the Holiday Inn Express is a nice hotel.  And there is a Walmart across the street I can go shop for supplies and there's an Applebee's across the other street to have lunch or dinner at.  But I am not hungry, I stopped for breakfast up the road since I knew it would take a while before they would actually get my hotel room. 2 hours, actually. I have lunchmeat and fixings in the truck and am trying to discipline myself to not eat out on the longer trips.  The Brownsville trip I made an exception. There are plenty of places where I can stop and get a quick bite to eat and on the cheap.  I'm not broke but I see no good reason to just waste money just .... because?  I haven't lived my life like that up until this job, no sense in changing now.  I'd rather "waste" the money on things that I have wanted for years or even decades.

I paid most of the outstanding amount on the dentist - yes I have payments on it but the cash I had to pay is almost done.  I wanted that out of the way before buying anything else.  The SUV I bought on payments only, they didn't ask for a down payment so I didn't give them one.  The payments are quite reasonable considering the kind of ride it is. That thing was over 50 grand when it was new.  It's in excellent condition.  Not good, not fair, excellent condition inside and out.  I'm not complaining about that, I am going to complain about the high insurance rate I was given by my existing insurance company, so I'm currently looking at quotes. 

The next thing I want is a 55 inch TV for my room.  Or, rebuilt my desktop computer - it's going on 6 years now, it needs gutted and redone.  Or I may just replace the hard drive in it and sell it. Hard drives are cheap and you don't have to worry about someone getting your stored info, even if you have "erased it", which we all know it can be recovered.  And I need a new laptop.  Considering waiting til' black Friday or Cyber Monday for either or both of them tho. It's not really that far off.  Well, okay its almost 4 months until Black Friday, but the deals are incredible.  That's one where I would show up to Walmart and buy a very large screen TV at an incredible price. 

None of those are imperative to have, excepting the desktop really is starting to slow down. I was just going to replace the hard drive but I thought about it, this thing being as old as it is, I should just start from scratch and have a whole new system.  It's hard to decide what to get tho. There are so many different motherboards and processors available out there.  Hard drive, power supply will be easy, but also a good video card without spending a fortune. 

Well anyway, I think I will double my hourly pay and get some of the online training I need to get done - done.  I can drag it out for hours and hours and get paid the same for doing that as I am for sitting here waiting.  A memo was sent out to all of our terminal's drivers to get all of it done.  I had no idea how much training they had dumped in there.  "If you don't get some of those done, they will stop giving you loads to certain places".  Oh, does that include Cheneire? Lol, they can not give me those runs and I"d be as happy as a bug in a rug!  They weren't enthused, I didn't care, it eats up a lot of time watching these long, boring videos with some dude with a monotone voice making it even worse.

Nothing else new in my world.  I don't think.  I do think I'll do another Trump post cause' I'm tired of people beating down Trump supporters as if we have some sort of deadly disease. I am not one to back down to such things, especially the amount of lies and exaggerations the left is making about Trump and his supporters.  Read: supporters.  We don't worship Trump, we aren't in a cult, we support him as much as the left was supporting Obama.  There is no difference.  The narratives have gone to the point of being outrageous, frankly.