Okay, well run to Brownsville was down and up. Got to the yard down there and found 3 empty trailers. Seems like the days of detention pay are over. I hear some getting it occasionally, but nothing like the glory days of padding your checks with sitting around and getting paid for doing nothing on most runs going down there.  Just means more drive - a lot more of it - to get the paychecks.  

Whatever. Jaxon had the stomach flu before I left so I was not surprised at the feeling of need to throw up on the Beltway 8 loop in Houston coming back today.  But then, I thought, perhaps it's that place I stop at and sometimes get queasy stomach?  It's a quick in and out, get food and go.  I'm going to have to reconsider that place, I've gotten a very upset stomach from there several times now.  Just habit, pull in, go in, leave, eat while driving.  

The feeling went away after an hour or so.  The manager called during that period, I completely missed that, I was busy feeling sick to my stomach, literally.  I didn't have the ringer on lol.  He then sent me a trip sheet and requesting to know what trailer I'm bringing back.  He could just check my Quaalcomm, I always update it with current trailer.  

So tomorrow, I'm headed to PA.  Didn't want that run, didn't know it was coming up, can't turn it down.  I probably have more hours than anyone else and hence I get that little lovely.  It's less than 1,400 miles, so I will be up there early Sunday, getting a room and spending the entire day waiting for Monday morning to show up so I can deliver and get out of there and headed back.  I don't have to get a room, obviously, but I have no desire sitting in a truck some 24 hours waiting in a truck.

That's the other concern, that wild storm going through there, but hopefully it's gone by the time I get up there and the aftermath on the highways is dealt with.  Because right now? It looks pretty wicked and PA has a ton of highways shut down to trucks right now.  But again, I won't make it up there for a couple of days.  

Well it looks like the weather is fairly clear until Sunday, lol.  I'll be getting up there Sunday. I have to look it up, but I know the hotel I want to go to. Decent, cheap enough, nothing fancy, but good enough.  The truck can sit out there and idle if it's too cold to allow it to be shut off.  I don't need problems turning it on Monday morning.  

Coming home today? Weird.  The boys were put to bed at their normal time, but shortly after I arrived, Taylor headed to her bedroom, James followed her and I heard nothing from them since then.  I dunno, I get different signals from them sometimes and I sit and wonder if my time here is over, should I be finding a new place to live, or is it just them being them, or what.  Oh well, I'll be gone 6 days - at least, they can have the place without me.  Kind of cast a cloud over my holidays tho.  James came out to the kitchen apparently to shut off lights the same time I was heading out there to check my food cooling down. He walked off quickly, said nothing and disappeared into his room.  

As I said, that was kind of weird.  This isn't exactly a normal household, I could be reading more into it than is actually there.   But I'll not try to text them for several days and let them have their space? I guess lol.  I've made a few friends arounds town, but if I were to leave here, I'm not sure I would want to stick around here excepting that I have gotten myself involved in real estate and would have to figure out some way to get rid of it to get out of here.  

Whatever.  I'll just go with the flow and see what happens.  

Well, it's time to go to bed for early rise and a bunch of grueling days of driving - with a reprieve in the middle of it.

G'nite.  

Yea I know, haven't posted since I got back. 

I was exhausted and I spent two days vegetating and sleeping and doing much of nothing.  

Today, tho, was much different. It's get Christmas shopping done and sent out - or don't bother because it's going to be too late.

Oh, the trip back from Toledo? Just a normal trip, at high speeds, spent the night midway back in Sikeston, MO at a Holiday Inn Express, decent hotel, good night's sleep, but still - exhausted.  I just can't do that many days in a row, 12-14 hour days, anymore without it wearing me out.  Well geeze, even younge age that kind of schedule will take it's toll on you.

Today, yes.  I sent mom her present a week ago, but this year I decided to do something different.  Go to the Ollie's store, buy normal stuff most people wouldn't think of buying for anyone for Christmas.  Plug in smelly stuff.  Fancy paper plates. Fancy napkins.  Smelly candles.  Kroger's gift card.  And more.  Filled up a large box with it - everything individually wrapped in various different Christmas themed wrapping paper.  

This is what she has been doing for decades for others, I am not doing it out of spite, I'm seeing if she would like to get such a package given back to her.  

Uhh, running out of time, bedtime looms. My son responded to my text this morning about what you want for Christmas, uhh, nothing really.  So, after Ollie's, wrapping gifts I went to the post office, dropped off mom's present, a check for my son and a card for a friend. Oh, that was after I spent a few hours on the internet buying presents for various other people.  

Well. Brownsville in the morning. I had 3 days off, not gonna complain.  Feeling better anyway.

That's it, lol.

 I contacted my manager twice yesterday about today.  Today? I haven't contacted him at all. I literally don't feel like doing anything. 8 grueling days have taken their toll on me, I need to rest.  I know that's not going to happen but I'm dragging it out until check out time anyway.  Which isn't far off I guess, it's already past 10:00 am.  

So I guess in a half hour from now I'm going to text him: I only have to return the truck to the yard 7 miles away. After that I need to either get routed home or go somewhere else.  

Gag, changed that.  I thought it was noon checkout, it's actually 11, so I had to text him.  I didn't ask what's next tho, lol, I just said "I only have to drop truck off 7 miles away. Checkout time at this hotel is 11 am which is 45 minutes from now".  

There. Not asking for another assignment before going home, but not going to turn it down either. I just need some motivation I guess - and probably some sleep and rest.  I'd actually like to fly home. I doubt that's going to happen, but that's how I'm feeling right now. Like, I got this over with, 2 separate assignments, can we be done with this? Or give me a day's rest at least.  Just go to Walmart, buy another bag for my stuff that doesn't fit in the first bag, get to the airport and leave here : )

________________

So what happened? My manager finally calls me and tells me "I hope you like your last rental car because you are going to have to drive it all the way to Longview!".  Umm, dude, that car is 210 miles away, turned in, I don't have a rental car now.  So he got me another one, and yet another hour and a half ordeal to get to the airport - far away - get the thing, drive it back to the yard and get my stuff out of the truck.

While getting my stuff out of the 4th truck and loading it into the Jeep, the head mechanic comes over.  Do you have the keys to all of these trucks? No, I left them in the ignition.  The conversation was changed to the horrid interior condition of the trucks. Yes, I agreed with him, they are horrible. One of them has a smell that I couldn't even define, it was horrid and foul.  He gave his explanation what I won't repeat here, he instantly jumped on my statement about that truck, he knew which one it was, gross, doesn't even halfway define the smell in that thing, Even with the windows open...  I said all of those trucks need detailed by professionals, if they think drivers are going to come and just move into this disgusting garbage, they have another thing coming.  

I was glad at least that someone actually got into all of them and were looking at the condition of them.  I simply couldn't believe that anyone could actually have done OTR in them.  How did they stand their own vileness?  I'm not overexaggerating this, these trucks were awful.  They have their work cut out for them if they want drivers to actually drive those things.  I would quit.  I would literally quit before being forced into that trash.  

I spend too much time in my truck, it's got to be clean. It can get a little messy, but nothing even remotely close to the landfillishness of these aberrations.  I have an actual garbage can and carry the 4 gallon plastic trash bags. I have various cleaners and paper towels.  I take out the carpet and the bedding frequently enough and machine wash them.  I have air fresheners in both the cab and the sleeper vents. I carry 2 bottles of spray to eliminate any odors.  I do occasionally spill food in the cab onto the flooring - which is rubberish type material and I always clean it up right away.  

Anyway, I got on the road, got 564 miles and had already predetermined I would stop here.  That by texting my manager - I need a hotel.  Sikeston, Missouri.  It's more than half way and I wasn't about to drive 1,036 miles straight through. I could have if I wanted to - but I didn't want to.  I'm burnt out from working so many long days in a row.  And there isn't any real need or rush to get home. I want to be there, yes, but not at the expense of my sanity or sleep.  Another free night's hotel stay, finally had the hot meal I've been desiring, I'm filled and content.  Sleep 7 hours, get up and drive out the rest of this trip and be done with it.  

So there it is. I had half hoped for more work, tbh, just needing a bit of time off.  Instead, I'll be home tomorrow early afternoon and I'm sure my doggies will be happy to see me : ) 

G'nite. 

 This day and the 4 round trips are finally over.  I'm still looking for that hot meal.

But, it took corporate an hour and a half to set up a car rental.  Driving down there, the manager at the other end said go ahead and go over to the rental place, I'll meet you there  "in a few minutes".  So I took one of the rental cars back and waited there 40 minutes for him to show up.  Between getting the rental and waiting for the manager trying to turn it back in? That cost me any chance of going to Texas Road House or wherever and enjoying a good, hot meal.  

I'm not feeling sorry for myself, I just want to sit down and have a full course dinner instead of piece mealing meals together.  Well, I'm at the hotel, pulled that rotisserie chicken out of the refrigerator and reheated it.  

I informed my manager this morning via text that I was going to be done with this assignment tomorrow morning when I take the truck to the yard, what am I going to be doing next?

No reply. Didn't really expect one.  Later on, when I was in Newell, WV, I texted him that all rental cars had been returned, I'm on the road and will be in Toledo tonight and will wait at the hotel until I hear whatever's going to happen next.  Again, no reply.

Why? Because it's not his call. It's higher up managers that are making these decisions about wasting a lot of money to move trucks around.  I just wanted to get the info to him early - I'm going to be done.  That means, start talking to them about what's next. Home? Vermont? What? 

Just moving these trucks has costed them thousands of dollars.  The rental car today alone cost them $445.  Why so much for only 210 mile trip? Cause that was the last car they had at the airport rental place - I have wiped them out with taking cars and not bringing any back.  They can and do charge extra for one way. Sometimes a LOT more, especially if they have to send people all over the place to get some cars for their location to be able to rent out.  The Newell location? Doing a booming business.  They had rented out the 2 cars I brought back yesterday and several more.  It's just one person running the operation plus a person doing the cleaning.  

Oh, and tomorrow, I'll probably need yet another rental car.  Wherever that's going, it's also going to be one way. It's that or they're flying me wherever.  Again, I could stand a day off.  This schedule has been grueling. I have had to listen to loud music or listen to interesting documentaries - anything to keep me alert - once I"m driving back from West Virginia. It works, my mind becomes quite alert, but still, I need a break.  

Not going to ask for one tho.  They have some place for me to go tomorrow? I"m going.  If it's home, it's only 1,025 miles from here, driving that would take a day and a partial.  I like flying, but if it's over with too soon, I don't make as much money.  Now, if I got stuck in Dallas again, I wouldn't call my friends, I'd just take the hotel and get paid by the hour for waiting for the next plane to Longview.  That would pay as much as driving.  

Now what. Well I have presents to buy, a 5 year old wants an Optimus Prime toy and I have yet to get one.  Just been too busy and once I'm done with the day, I don't want to do anything but sit here and phase out.  I don't see typing on a keyboard as a bother for writing these posts, but clicking on endless links looking for a toy?  Not today.  Oh and my normal present to my oldest brother and his wife, I need to get on that. Again - not tonight lol.  Mom's present is there. My son I have no idea what he wants, guess I best call him.

My friend running the house in Phoenix called today.  He thinks he's going to get a bunch of money for this mesh they put in for his problem he had 5 years ago. They put it in there, it failed and they had to take it back out. He was in extreme pain and spent days and days in the hospital. He went with a law firm that is doing a collective claim for as many clients as they can get against the manufacturer.  But it's been dragging out for a couple of years now.  The lawyers say Covid has put a lot of these types of lawsuits on the back burner.  I dont doubt that, but this situation has been going on so long, what was the hold up before Covid?  Mark - he's a good guy but he isn't savvy to lawyers and their double speak.  

Oh, the reason he called? Some gas company person decided they were going to come into the back yard today with out ringing the doorbell or attempting to contact anyone first. He undid the gate lock - have to reach through the gate to do that and just let himself in. Mark - happened to walk out back and saw him out there. What the h*** are you doing here? Who are you?  The dude says he works for the gas company and is checking meters.  Well my house doesn't use gas, it's all electric so that was a lie.  Whatever he was checking, I would have checked him, right into the damn wall.  And then called the police.  Mark cussed him out the entire - escort - out. He walked this dude out of there and said get the f*** off the property and don't come back here again.

Okay, Mark got mad.  I would have too, but I would have found out who he really is - or what he was really trying to do. If he was from the gas company, he would have known we don't have an account with them, we don't use gas.  

The neighborhood is distressed because a family that has been living there forever is moving out. They were choked on medical bills and can't afford the house payment anymore. I can say that even tho I sometimes complain about work conditions, I am working and that is better than a lot of people I know, including even one person I live with.  

Well enough. Going to bed, not setting the alarm. Get up when I feel like it or if I get a text or phone call from the manager.  

G'nite. 

 I always get amused when I see the amount of taxes being taken out of my paychecks.  

Getting angry, frustrated and violent wouldn't really do much good, so yea.  I mean, I just see the amount of the deduction, I didn't go into it looking at everything. Probably near $350 of it is retirement deposit into 401k, and something like $79 is for health insurance but the rest of it?  That's all federal taxes baby.  And to think that Biden wants to raise everyone's taxes.

Oh yes, I know he says it's only going to affect those making over 400k, but numerous analysts have said it will hit the middle class as well. Of course it will, the middle class always takes a big hit in any tax s*** they do.  This is one reason I don't want Biden or any democrat in a position of power. Biden is also pro choice, the Catholic church has been railing on him about that.  He's surrounding himself with far left progressives. Get the picture? Bernie Sanders got socialism popular, now they're ready to start taking the next steps.  

Let me ask you something.  When they come for your AR-15's - that's Harris proposition and her disgust with semi auto weapons - and if you have one, are you going to give it up? They are pitching a "mandatory buyback".  Sorry, I don't buy my firearms from the government, there is nothing for them to buy back. I don't have an AR but a really want one.  Any time an anti-gun person gets into a position of power such as the presidency or in this case the VP, gun sales and ammo sales go off the hook.  And now people all over the place are seriously starting to talk about an insurrection.  

And I've got to tell you this situation with the Presidency right now is baffling.  Trump is stating the election was stolen, Biden is moving forward with his plans to enter office, states are now ramping up a lawsuit and/or attempting to overturn state election outcomes. Where is this all going to end? I know none of y'all have a crystal ball, the most likely scenario is Biden is the next president and we have at least 4 years of taxation and outrageous legislation. No one can predict the outcome of the Georgia senate runoff races, however and the future of America and our Republic is at stake as far as I'm concerned.  

Will the Supreme Court take up Texas' lawsuit? 

Oh, well it's almost 9:00 am Eastern time, at exactly 9:00 am I will be texting my manager that I need another rental car.  It will be 8:00 am there and I try not to bother him as much as possible after hours, tho I've had to do that several times lately to get a hotel room.  Yes, I ask for one before he gets off work, yes he says he gets it done, and no, you get to the hotel and they don't know what you're talking about.  So now? He booked this room for 2 nights, the amount of time I'm expected to stay here.  Last night and tonight coming up - and then hopefully I'm out of here.  I've had enough of this rental car business at either end, it consumes too much time and eats up the day.  

Yup, 6 minutes off from 9:00 am.  Yesterday we at least got 2 of those cars turned in, there will be 2 more today and I informed the manager down there that I won't be able to leave tomorrow (now today) once I get there until I get those other 2 cars returned for I don't expect to be coming back.  There are no more trucks to move after today and I have no desire to do any more of this. If they want to move me on to doing something else, sure thing.  But these 210 mile trips and dealing with everything on either end is getting very old.  

I hear very little from home so I dont' know what's going there, but I noted that Taylor was at a business well outside of town for several hours yesterday, I'm curious if she found a new job.  She's been looking.  The last job she just couldn't deal with - was only there a short time before quitting.  

Missed opportunities in the stock market.  Now I know at least to start looking at stock of things that are related to any news. Moderna went way up from what it was in January. I was looking at that in the news today but also a guy was talking about it a few months ago.  He had investing in several of the companies making the vaccine.  You literally could have gotten rich off of Moderna.  Well not rich if you don't have a lot to invest, but a 5 grand investment, for example would have you at around a 35k return on your money.  Rich would be investing a hundred grand and getting back over 700k.  I could retire off of that and not have to do this daily grind of trucking.  

But like everyone else, I'm in that rut. There is a way out of it, at least that's my aspiration, but so far it's remained elusive.  The other thing I could kick myself for is my GE stock. I had thought about buying more of it at a low price and now it's up over 5 bucks per share.  

Well, I'm just wading into the stock market on my own, it would be foolish for me to dump thousands of dollars into any risky proposition with no clear outcome.  I got into GE because hedge fund managers were buying it up cheap.  I'm sure they're glad they did as well. GE is a "favorite" with these hedge fund managers, that I read anyway.  I wish I knew what info these people get for day trading or even just for long term investing.  I have no idea how they figure out what to invest in.  

Alright well text in, rental car being reserved, best get out of here.

 Another very long day. You'd think a mere 420 miles of driving wouldn't be a big deal.  Nope, the driving part isn't.  In fact, a good portion of it is on I-80, a turnpike, everyone is speeding and you get on down the highway in quick fashion.

It's the waiting on a rental car info, then getting a ride to the airport - 30 minutes away - getting the car at the airport - getting back to the yard, loading my stuff into the car out of the truck - and THEN you get on the Interstate.

At the other end, today anyway, was pleading with them to get some of these rental cars back to Enterprise!  I had 3 of them there!  Finally, the manager was there and he helped me get two of them back, the third is the one I drove in there today. 

So tomorrow, I will get - another rental car - and go back there, drop off both cars, drive another tractor back and be done  with this ordeal.  

You see, I didn't expect any of this. I was told two trips from Amarillo to Pennsylvania, there wasn't any mention of shuttling 4 tractors from point A to point B.  Or all of the hassle it involves.  If they were long trips, it would be worth it, but it's only 210 miles each way.  If I didn't have to deal with rental cars, I'd be done with this by now.  Oh well, one more day of this stuff and it's over. Whether they have something else for me to do - I will find out Friday morning.  

That has been the other ordeal. Getting a room. At the same hotel. Every night.  These people running this place had never heard of a crew fax before and they were totally clueless.  They said it didn't even exist at first, but after the fax shows up, now they have to deal with it.  Mostly by making phone calls.  Again, I have been all over the eastern half of this country with this company, they do crew faxes all the time.  It's not new, it's not unknown, it's just this place that doesn't know about it. Like, have they never had a truck driver in here before?  It's not just limited to truck drivers, but trucking companies use it a lot.

But maybe not. You can't bring a tractor-trailer rig in here, that's impossible.  It simply isn't set up for trucks, it wouldn't be able to make any of the turns.  But a tractor only? I can take one of those just about anywhere a car can go.  

Well the hotel ordeal is over.  My manager said today he had gotten me a room for the next 4 nights - but forgot to tell me about it last night, hence I checked out this morning.  So, he's gotten me this room until Friday morning, when I intend on getting out of Dodge.  High tail it out of here. He can send me somewhere else, Friday will only mark a week out here on the road.  I promised two weeks and I"m down for two weeks. Just not this kind of two weeks!  

I'm only 676 miles from Burlington, they could send me over there for a week or two and finish this off there and then, yes, please fly me home.  Okay, I'd like to be home or near there for Christmas. Like if I'm not home on Christmas day, be home the next day or the day after.  Really, tho, they were asking for people in Vermont, I'd go there for a week and a half or so and help out there, I'm sure people are wanting vacation time and needing drivers to fill in.  

But, I'm only going to say I"m down for whatever when I call him Friday - assuming this IS done on Friday. I've gotten lucky that these 3 trucks that have been sitting forever didn't break down on the way up here.  I've got that last one, but someone just brought that in from somewhere else, so I have relative assurance it will make it another 210 miles and after that? I don't care lol.  

And what AM I missing?  A hot meal, thanks.  I get done with the day and everything is closed or closing by the time I get here. Great restaurants in walking distance, they all close early. Must be a covid thing.  

OHH and the shop foreman today!  It's the yard where I'm taking these trucks.  I come walking in through the back door the shop  - it's the only way to get to the office from the yard - and he comes jumping out of a truck he's working on - you can't walk through here without a mask on!!!!!!!!!!

Notwithstanding the fact that neither he or his 2 employees are wearing masks.  I had to hold back the laughter at his sheer hypocrisy or making - comments lmao - and I just put it on and kept walking through there.  He's an authoritarian, I saw that from the get go 2 days ago.  He thinks he owns the place.  I tend to ignore such people unless they get in my face. It instantly seemed to me to be a better choice to just put on the mask than point out the fact that none of them are wearing one. He would just complain to whoever about it and I would look like the villain. He didn't want to hear about the issues with the first truck I brought in there - it was just an FYI statement, not a demand to fix it, I'm not going to be driving it so it's not my problem.  He gave me a look, that will be on the BOTTOM of my priority list!  

I said nothing further to him after that and haven't had any issues with anyone else at either end of this ordeal, at least.  

But yes, I want my hot meal. A nice, thick, juicy steak would be great.  I did score a rotisserie chicken at the Kroger's down the street. It was good, but not the same as a full meal.  

Did I say I'm missing a hot meal?  Oh, I guess I did. lol

Well I'm tired. Time to go to sleep. 

 I'm not getting homesick, but I am starting to get tired. This is day 6 of relentless driving and dealing with "stuff" all day long.  This 4 truck assignment is no piece of cake.  There are issues at both ends that make it seem a lot more hassle than it's worth.  Yes, I'm making good money, but this isn't exactly heaven here.

For example.  I get over to the yard in Newell, WV to get the second truck.  But before that, I go into the office to ask about taking at least one of these rental vehicles back.  I've got two of them parked there and tomorrow there will be 3.  And the next day, there will be 4.  Well, the lady running the place said yesterday that it was too late, she said today that she was the only one there and couldn't leave.  I mean, it's whatever to me. I may have created this problem by bringing them in there, I did not create this assignment and all that it entails.

After that, the truck wouldn't start. There was no mechanic there, they had hooked up a battery charger but it wouldn't even attempt at trying to crank over the engine.  So i went and got Subway dinner, keto friendly version - yes I fired up the diet again and so far I"ve been able to adhere to it.  In fact, I went to Kroger's tonight and bought some low carb frozen dinners. Literally everything for restaurants have been shut down here by the time I get to the hotel.  The mechanic showed up later, but by then the batteries were charged enough to start the truck.

However.  

Trucks sitting for long periods can create problems, including sticking brakes. I couldn't tell which one when I went to pull it out of the hole it was in but definitely at least one of them wasn't letting go.  An engine light was on. I couldn't find an EZ pass device - get me through the toll booths without having to pay anything. 

But the worst part? Horrid, awful smell.  The outside of the truck, spotless, clean, nice paint. The inside?  A hog's dream land.  Dirt, rocks, trash, filth and smell.  That is why I refuse to sleep in those trucks. They are absolutely filthy and smell so bad, there is no way I could sleep with that kind of horrid stench assaulting my nostrils all night long.  

Anyway, I pulled the truck up to the mechanic shop and the dude took it in there and got the brakes released and then adjusted all of the brakes on the truck.  Really good guy, he had another truck idling before I left that I am going to pick up tomorrow.  Drove the truck over here - to Toledo - got the same hotel as last night - with the same eternal problem in getting the reservation taken care of.

I contacted my manager 3-1/2 hours before getting here, he contacted me back a while later that reservation was made.  When I got here? Same thing as last night. It wasn't in the system, sorry charley, have a nice night.  So I sat there 20 minutes or so and finally the crew fax showed up, the dude working the desk got everything taken care of and now I'm in my room, kicking back, getting road wash out of my head and thinking about going to sleep soon. 

If this stuff goes as it has been, I should be done with this 4 tractor move Thursday night.  After that, I have no clue. More moves or go home?  I'd be down for a bit more- but with a day off.  

Ok I'm toast, time to go to sleep.  

 Long, long day.  

If I had known what was going to happen at the drop off location, I would have stayed in the hotel for a couple of more hours versus trying to get over there at 8:00 am.  The first thing that threw me off was that the drop off point was not owned or operated by our company. A competing company's yard, I was thinking, they must have given me the wrong address. But I verified it and sure enough, our company has an operation running out of there.  But it took hours from the time I talked to the manager there until the time I was in a rental vehicle, had my stuff out of the truck and headed out of there.  

I was pleasantly surprised that they gave me a 2020 Chevrolet Camero for a rental.  I have never driven one - well I drove old school 70's version muscle car style wayyyyy back when. It wasn't my car but I did get to drive it.  This car had some get up and go, it was also a convertible.  Too cold to open it up, I have never driven in a convertible with the roof down.  Oh well. It was in the 30's I wasn't going to risk getting some kind of respiratory infection/ailment driving down the road with the roof down.  Especially since at one point, I drove through around 40 miles of snow falling.  

Anyway, I got to - what is the name of that town - I drove through all of these little town and winding 2 lane highways with mountains and quaint houses and businesses. It was rather surreal.  You don't see stuff like that in the South.  I also got to drive straight through the heart of Pittsburgh! I hadn't been there since I was 10 years old!  My child hood memory of the place? I'd say it was half of what I perceived today.  Houses strewn out all over mountain sides and just no rhyme or reason to it. Kind of junky looking to be honest.  The incline still there, that thing has been there forever.  

The name of the town is Newell, in West Virginia.  And the lady at the office had no clue about any of it, of course.  It took quite a while to sort that out, then find a mechanic at another facility down the road where the trucks were parked.  These trucks had also been "sitting awhile".  To the tune of having to run 2 battery chargers to get the thing to fire up.  After that? Paperwork. The only thing in there was the cab card - registration. All the other paperwork was missing. Back to the office - the lady was gone.  Back to the mechanics shop, maybe they had something in there. Sure enough, stapled copies of the entire set of paperwork needed, including insurance.  Then I had to go find a fire extinguisher - mandatory in commercial vehicles.  

This truck had no mattress, no way I was sleeping in there tonight.  Did I mention that they are directly across the street from a giant Shell motor oil refinery plant?  And that the lady told me well if you need work, I can keep you busy hauling motor oil? ALL over the United States, as far away as California!  Yea, no thanks. I want nothing to do with Cali, especially with the hypocrite Governor Newsom and his outrageous shutdown decrees.  Still was intriguing. The little towns are really nostaligic and interesting to me, but I"m not sure I want to live in PA. Well, I"m 99% sure I don't want to live there and if I did, it wouldn't be my home town of Pittsburgh.  

Anyway, after a lengthy ordeal - and bewilderment that no one knew I was coming and therefore they hadn't prepared any of these trucks to move, I got out of there.  Drove across a draw bridge that had a sign "weight limit 10 tons".  It said nothing about no trucks, so I just drove on across. At the other end, an old man was shaking his head at me.  10 tons!  Yup, this truck weighs around 18,000 pounds, it's under 10 tens.  10 tons! again.  Sir, this truck doesn't weigh 10 tons.  You shouldn't be here! Sir? There is no sign saying no trucks, it just says a 10 ton weight limit.  He wasn't going to win, there was no 'no trucks' sign.  I wasn't over 10 tons, if he wanted to call state troopers to bring portable scales, let him!  

This dude wouldn't budge so I just said, well I'm not from around here. Which I'm not.  He smiled and waved me on lmao.  I was hoping that I would end up on Interstate - no desire to drive 210 miles on back roads, that would take forever.  Sure enough, I was on a state highway shortly and then onto Interstate after that and it was Interstate the rest of the way.  I only drove 550 miles today, but I feel like I drove a thousand.

It didn't help that when I got to the hotel here, the dude started arguing about CLC authorization.  There is a card that is issued for - usually employees of companies - to use when a company sends an authorization to use it.  But, there is also a crew fax, where the company authorizes an employee to go through the CLC system, but the company sends a fax instead of the employee having a card.  This dude - attempted to tell me there is no such thing as a crew fax.  I about busted out laughing. The entire 3 years I've been with this company, I've been going through crew fax.  

It got annoying fast tho.  This guy was totally unprofessional. I was/am tired, didn't want to deal with it.  I just stood my ground. You really need to go make a call to someone to find out how this works.  And? He finally did.  He came back and said, okay, you are right but the fax never came through.  Ok, fine, I'll deal with that.  My manager called them and they sent the fax over - eventually.  Instead of offering to allow me in the room - as every other hotel I've been to has done when this has happened  and waiting on the fax - he offered nothing.  Here is yet another hotel that is going to get a review that the chain probably won't care for and I don't care. I was never rude to him, I didn't raise my voice, didn't call him names, just stood my ground.  

Anyway, it's been an incredibly long day and I"m really beat.  Too much, actually, to try and go to bed yet.  Gotta relax a bit and get more into sleep mode.  

Nothing new on the home front. Still waiting on the insurance adjuster to send someone out. Apparently he is going on another vacation.  He was just on a 2 week vacation and already going again?  Without anyone to cover for him while he's gone?  Whatever. I'm glad I"m not there atm.  I don't need to be breathing in air that is contaminated with mold/black mold crap.  

I"ve got truck number one up here - well I have to take it to the yard in the morning. Then, allegedly, 3 more to go.  And after that I suspect I'll be sent home.  But, that's 1,600 plus miles of driving back and forth with tractors.  I doubt it will be more than one per day for the problem of getting a rental car at one end and getting rid of it at the other.  The camaro is sitting in their yard, the lady told me we could deal with getting it back to the Enterprise when I get back.  Lol, well I'll be coming back with another rental car lmao.  

Well enough of this.

Going to sleep.  

 3 rather long, grueling days are completed, I am in Bethlehem, PA and as luck would have it, there is no way to get a rental car tonight so I am forced to hunker down in a Holiday Inn Express (I like the regular Holiday Inns much better, but these aren't too terribly bad). I restarted the diet today - I've been off of it quite a while and have gained a good deal of fat back - and as luck would also have it, Waffle House is next door to the hotel.

No waffles for me, just meat, eggs and tomato slices.  A salad earlier today with a couple of hamburger patties, nothing else.  I'm not really sure I can do this diet on the road without having anything with me as I usually do, but I'm going to try.  

Oh, that horrid hotel.  The one I stayed in last night.  Quality Inn in Greenfield, Indiana.  I couldn't believe how filthy and smelly that place was.  I'm going to write up some reviews on TripAdvisor and other outlets about that place.  The carpet in the main areas of the hotel, the steps going up to the second floor from the balcony (kind of like a grand stairway setup) and the carpet in the hallway on the second floor were completely filthy. The walls were dirty and scuffed up.  Going into my room? A horrid smell came into my nostrils.  Putting my toiletry bag down in the bathroom? A cockroach came crawling out of the cracks!  I've had other such experiences at Quality Inns before, if they try to give me one again, I'm going to politely ask for something else.  

Tomorrow, everything going the way I see it going - as in, get to the yard at around 8:00 am, get into a rental vehicle, get my stuff out of the truck and into the vehicle and take off, I am thinking of attempting to make St Louis tomorrow night. That will be 872 miles of driving, a little more than halfway back.  That will get me back to Amarillo in 2 day, driving like crazy. But.  I have to find out if we are getting paid by the mile or paid hourly wage for driving a car back. That question was brought up today and I had no answer for it. I know if I drive my own personal vehicle to a company function, I get paid by the mile.  

Dunno, want to get that answered.  Because I have less motivation to get back there in 2 days if we are paid by the hour.  I can drive 2 and a half days and that would be totally legitimate per the miles driven per day but get paid a bit more.  In other words, go a bit slower than the speed limit and not try to cover mega miles in a single day. I'm out here to make money, I already knew I'd be gone up to 2 weeks, I'm going to make the best of this.  

Oh, I take that back. 48 hours on the road, paid by the hour is more money than driving. So who cares, get back in 2 days, get into the other truck and go right back over here - and then head home.   I really don't think I'm going to be out here 14 days, more like 10 or 11.  Actually be time for a third trip if they'd let me.  Yes, I know, a glutton for punishment, the entire time out here is going to be driving a lot of miles every single day, there will be no breaks from it and it will get old.  But I get to make up for lost revenues sitting around doing nothing and making nothing.  

Alright. Well it looks likely I'll have to drive back with that other dude that didn't quite come off so well on the first meet.  But, he called me today - I dunno who gave him my phone number - and we chatted for quite a while.  He didn't sound quite so abrasive as the first meet where he was demanding I wait for him to leave at 3:00 am - when it was 3:00 pm, plenty of daylight hours left.  So, it won't be so bad going back and even if we do have to drive together, I'm either going to be at the steering wheel cranking down the road or laying in the back seat sleeping.  I'd rather be sleeping, but I'll drive the wheels off the vehicle to get this 11 or 12 days over with, behind me, a couple of good paychecks and move one.

And with that, I'm burnt out and ready to go to bed.

G'nite.  

  

 Woke up at desired hour this morning via help from alarm - and went back to sleep.  Long days taking their toll, no rush, I thought, nothing I can do when I get there today anyway.  I'll have to wait until 8:00 am tomorrow morning to get a rental car and get out of there.  

So I'm a bit behind my time.  And I don't care.  No relevance placed on this truck ATM, it's going to sit until it's needed. BUT, when they need it, they need it right now.  It needs more work as it stands. It sat so long the front tires aren't round and creating a nice vibration.  Check engine light on.  Filthy, it needs detailed.  The best be finding a short person, too, there is literally no room in that thing and it's not high enough inside of it either the sleeper or the cab to stand up, I have hunched over.  I would hate to have to drive that thing full time.  

But, if they get those things worked out it will be a good truck for emergency use, ie: nothing else available.  It's just old school, the way they used to make trucks.  

Anyway, about to head out there and fire it up and get this day going.

Dreary, overcast day tho.  Not sure how far down the line that goes or if there's rain ahead.  And at 30 degrees, it's cold outside as well. It went down into the 20's overnight.  Of course that poses ice risks on the highway, but, we're gonna go and get this thing over with.

With that?

Happy Sunday.  

 Day 2 is over.  Almost 700 miles. This truck is so small.  My legs are cramped all day long. I could never drive this truck permanently.  It's like being crammed into a commercial jetliner where your legs are smashed up against the seat in front of you.  My knees are hurting from driving like this.  One more day, 600 more miles and I am out of that thing.  You put the seat in the furthest back position and it's nowhere near enough space for my legs.  The mechanic warned me about it at the shop, but what choice did I have?  

And the sleeper! There is NO room in that thing.  The bed takes the whole sleeper up besides maybe 10 inches of floor space.  It is, as I stated yesterday, a half sleeper.  There is no where to put anything excepting a miniature closet that won't even hold a duffle bag. It's big enough to hold maybe 1/3rd of my duffle bag.  

Complaining? Yes a little, my legs were talking to me today.  Keep my eye on the prize - a couple of extremely healthy paychecks will be coming up.  And tomorrow evening I will be in a hotel, out of that thing and - well yes I'll have to drive it to the yard Monday morning but that should only be a few miles.  Get a rental car, move my stuff out of that truck and into the car and drive back - hopefully anyway - to Amarillo for the second truck.  They didn't have this truck ready to go, so I don't know about any other truck that may be there.  

But, my manager gave me the truck number, so I'm guessing the thing is sitting there somewhere.  It'll be about 10-1/2 hours by the time I'm done tomorrow and then I can relax a bit.  There won't be any car rental places open on a Sunday evening, I can't go there, dump the truck and turn around an leave - as much as I will want to.  So it will be 8:00 am Monday I'll be waiting at the gate to get in and get the process of going back to Amarillo going.  And hopefully drive 800 miles at least, get halfway back the first day.  

My real concern is getting there and getting out of there before that other dude makes it.  I don't want to drive with him back.  Just don't.  That's another reason I pushed it today.  He cannot make it there tomorrow night. If he did any amount of driving, he's likely 300 - 400 miles behind me.  Guess but probably fairly accurate. So, he'll stop tomorrow after however many miles and he'll still have at least 5 hours if not more to go on Monday. Guy just came off wrong, I don't want to spend 1,632 miles of "quality time" with him. If I am forced to, I will sit in the back seat when he's driving and just sleep. I'm sorry, but I was around him about 30 minutes and that was enough to tell me that he isn't my cup of tea.  And my manager informed me to "do your own thing, don't wait for that guy if you don't want to".

Speaking of my manager, I texted him earlier about a hotel for tonight.  He texted back: I'm in a deer stand, I can't talk, please - do this that and the other thing and get a room.  Turns out he was with friends, he had already bagged a deer earlier in the day, didn't want another one - said he didn't want to clean another deer today lol.  I probably should have stopped in Indianapolis instead of where I am now. They have higher rated hotel names here  in this town I came to, but for whatever reason, they aren't on the list my company will allow.  

Which is strange, because I have stayed at all of those brands with this company in the past.  Must be a price limit thing? or some parameter that stops them from paying for those better hotels. I'm at a Quality Inn, and I must say it's not much better than a Motel 6, Days Inn and other brands of that "quality".  Well, it's not the end of the world at least the carpet isn't torn up and stained and the beds look - ok. I got some Chinese food - still haven't restarted my diet and not sure if I am or not on this trip. I don't have any food with me, everything is eating out - which is going to get really old, really quick. 

I came here because it's east of Indianapolis, I wanted X amount of miles done so I can be sure that I can make it to PA tomorrow - sans any breakdowns or blown out tires.  

Well, I could start at around 5:00 am. But I think I'll sleep a bit longer.  There is no difference as far as the company is concerned whether I make it at 4: 00 pm or 6:00 pm tomorrow.  It's not a loaded trailer with a plant operating 24 hours a day waiting on it.  It's likely the truck won't even be used until it starts getting really cold and the demand for LNG goes way up.  

______________________

And just like that, this pile of junk computer decides to shut itself off and do an update.  I timed it this time. 25 minutes from start to finish.  That's a lot of time to update a computer, as waste of my personal time and now it's time to go to bed.  

G'nite

 That's a long day.

Left the house in the rental pickup at 6:00 am, arrived in Amarillo around 2:00 pm.  My truck wasn't ready, they told me, they just went to Peterbilt to get it.

I hadn't been informed that the truck I was taking wasn't ready to go or that it had issues.........lol

Well, I've been to the Amarillo terminal many times now, I headed straight for the driver's lounge, where there was no one else, shut the lights off and went to sleep.  I mean, I drove 526 miles with a "rest break", of which I am accustomed to stopping between 300 and 400 miles and taking a 30 to 40 minute snooze, get up and finish out the run. 

I had it in my head to go ahead and run another 100-200 miles in the truck and get a start on the trip.  So some other driver came looking for the keys to my rental truck. Huh?  Yup, I'm taking it to the hotel tonight.  Well you aren't taking it now, I have all my stuff in there and I have to unload it unto the truck whenever it gets here.  

Must have slept longer than I realized, the truck was there, it was in the shop and a mechanic then came looking for me.  Come with me, I have something to show you.  That isn't exactly a good sign coming from a mechanic.  But it's whatever to me, I'm on the road, if the truck is broken, I'm getting paid to wait.  

The truck had been fixed at the Peterbilt shop only to have it code (engine light) after they left with it.  Mechanic tells me "I tried to get it to shut off, but it wouldn't".. yes, please tell me what's the deal? I've driven lots of trucks with engine lights on, is this serious or what?  Well, it's (some sort of valve I've never heard of before) and it's sticking.  But it (should) work.  

Another dude, a manager, says: Well you can just drive it, if it fails you'll have to deal with it somewhere.  Meaning have it towed or limp it in to a Peterbilt shop.  It's whatever again to me.  They're sending me out in a truck that has a known issue and they don't exactly know if it will make it to PA. I'm fine with that, this came from them, they know about it, I'll run with it.  If it fails? I'll be stuck somewhere for however many days and I will get paid for every single hour the truck is broken down.  

This trip is really a make up trip for all the lost hours not only this week - 5 days off - but also before my last run where I was also off for several days - unwanted days off.  I'm going with the flow here.  Drag this thing out.  I have until Christmas, I don't care if I go home at the moment. That will change, of course, after being on the road a long time and doing mega miles every day.  But, I'm going to get back what I've lost in time off - I'll be running minimum 600 miles a day, every day, car and truck, that's going to be a couple of very nice paychecks.  

Anyway, this dude - other driver - for some reason wants me to run with him.  But, he's out of hours, he drove a truck into the yard, I drove a pickup truck.  I had full hours, I don't have to log hours in a passenger vehicle.  He's really pushing it, I have no idea why, but then he said, are you okay with getting up at 3am?  I thought, no, why the heck would I want to do that? It's 3:00 pm, I can get some good miles in before I finally cave into one of the longest driving days I have had since my dad died and going to see him, I can sleep all night, wake up the next morning, feel good and go about my day.  

I didn't say that, I just played this out.  I finally said, well let me text Brandon and see what he wants us to do.  I'm thinking, if he says go with this dude, then fine, I'll deal with it. There is a host of reasons I do not want to have to be hooked with another truck going to the same place, but it would take too much time and writing, so I will just say it really causes problems. Brandon calls me 10 minutes later, dude, you just do your thing, however you want to do it, don't worry about this other guy.  This other guy also is under Brandon - but a different division so I had no idea who he was.  

He said that and I said C'yall later, I'm outta here.  Truck nasty.  Smoker truck. Not sleeping in it, my manager says he'll get me a hotel.  I'm all down for that. He says back, yea but don't throw this on me last minute, let me know well ahead of where you intend on stopping.  Of course!  Which I had no idea where I was stopping at that point, I didn't know what driving mood I had left and figured I could deal with that on the road. 

Leaving there, as I was driving I started thinking, well, I need to get enough miles done so I can get there by Sunday night, drop the truck off Monday morning and get a ride to the car rental place.  It's just my truck driver thinking, get this stuff over with as fast as possible.  And have some off time while I'm at it, they won't show up til 8:00 am Monday, the sooner I get there, the sooner I can relax in a hotel and bask in the glory of doing nothing after a long day of driving.  

I ended up in Tulsa, some 370 miles later.  I'm 3 miles short of having had driven 900 miles today.  My eyes are bloodshot, I'm not tired, I could have driven another 300 miles, but hey.  The company isn't going to complain about that many miles legally driven in one day.  I fully intend on driving back from PA in 2 days.  It amounts to about 850 miles per day.  

My manager got me a very nice hotel. It's the Holiday Inn Suites.  A 6 story affair, this room has a separate living room, kitchen and bedroom.  I was amazed he got me something so nice.  I don't ask for anything specific, I just hope for the best.  

Tomorrow I'll try to hit Indianapolis or further.  If Indianapolis, I might look up an old friend.  He's apparently unhappy about the divorce with Valerie and hasn't spoken to me in a long time.  Relationships in this modern age seem to be meaningless values with no set parameters.  I've known him since the mid 80's.  Good guy. Don't know if I'll look him up or not.  I'll think about it tomorrow.  

Otherwise, I'll try to make it to Spiceland, Indiana.  Not because it's anything special, but because it's the miles I'd really like to get in tomorrow and leave less for Sunday.  I always plan, plan, plan my routes once I know my starting point.  

With that, I think I"ll take my bloodshot eyes to the bed and sleep for a while. 

G'nite. 

 Well here we go.

First off, my tractor is at the Peterbilt shop. That's why I haven't been working.  I had no idea they had taken it to a shop, it must still be under warranty.  Would have been nice to know that so I could at least think "gee, I'm not working but I understand now why".  

So my manager calls me a few minutes ago, actually,  letting me know about the tractor and said I'm not going to have you sitting around any longer.  Cool, what are we doing?  I have equipment moves I need you to make across country.  From Amarillo, TX to the northeast.  Back and forth, you're going to be out a few weeks.  Yesss.  I don't care about that, it's alot of driving but that's my job.  I'm getting a rental car today, driving up to Amarillo, leaving in the morning and then getting a rental car at the destination - I have no idea where these trucks are going - get a rental car there and drive back to Amarillo and doing that for at least 2 weeks.  I'll take 3 since the work is available.

They wanted me to do over a month's worth, but my manager said no, he's a "local driver' and I can't have him staying out that long, he's not used to that.  Well, okay, I don't like it, but it means making some serious money and that's what matters to me.  Plus half the driving is going to be in rental cars, I can boogey at the speed limit - well I usually push speed limits at least 5mph - and get the return trips done much faster.  ALL of our trucks are set at either 68mph for OTR or 65 for local.  

Anyway, that will be constant driving.  I won't run out of the 70 hours since the drive back will give me a reset every time - however many times "every" time is.  It's what I guessed tho,  They need trucks up in the eastern seaboard to run LNG for the winter months.  This is a huge waste of money to the company, but they make bank off of the product hauled.  Now, what condition these trucks are in is unknown.  I'll be taking paper towels, spray cleaner and aerosol spray with me to "counter" whatever nasty conditions may be inside of those trucks.  That's gotta be a 3 day drive to the northeast from Amarillo. 

Yes, I figured it out, it will be $4,520 for 10 to 11 days work, maybe 12 if there are delays between trucks. My manager just contacted me saying I would be moving two of them.  He figures that's 2 weeks work - well not quite and I will ask for a 3rd trip if I can get it.  Take the work while I can get it.  As it stands, I just asked for 40 hours of vacation time added to next week's work - I've been off 5 days now.  

Ah yes, tomorrow's paycheck will suck. Next week's will be fully vacation hours. After that will be the small mountain of cash accumulated by all of this projected driving.  I will actually have made more this year for annual earnings than last year. Maybe not by all that much, but it should be close to 90k.  

Well, I have stuff to do now, lol.  I don't have my toiletries bag since it's in the truck and the truck is in a shop over 60 miles from here, so just gonna have to take from the bathroom and go with that.  

Anyway, now it's getting late in the day and I need to get moving.

G'day. 

 The last thing my manager sent me in texting today: "I'm checking". Well I dunno what he was checking, but he never got back to me, didn't give me a run for tomorrow and that will make 5 straight days off.  2 of them would have been a run admittedly, but for the truck breaking down.  1 of them - yesterday - I had asked for off.  Today was not asked off and neither was tomorrow. I didn't even get word back if there is some issue going on with the truck.  I mean, who knows, maybe TA was wrong and the issue was much more severe than what they said it was. Who knows? They said they couldn't fix it.  It's really the only reason I can think of that my manager wouldn't be giving me a load after 4 days off. 

Whatever the case, I intend on putting some pressure on tomorrow and finding out what's going on, what his plan is and how he intends to get me making some money.  If that means going to Vermont, let's go! I need to get to work!

Meanwhile, I tried to start my Keto again. I stopped for a while during Thanksgiving - leading up to it as well.  I was ready to start today, but dinner time came around and the folks here wanted me to call in the promise of the manager at Chicken Express to pay up.  That was the deal when I bought everyone here dinner from them, got home and was missing a large thing of coleslaw.  I don't get chicken at any of these chicken joints without getting coleslaw.  It was on the receipt.  I had called them, a manager answered the phone right off the bat.  I told him what happened, he said "I don't know I just got here".  Nice, I thought AND said, pass the buck, get on the phone with a customer and just deny any responsibility because YOU weren't there at the time.

His tones changed and he simply replied: Keep your receipt, next time you come in we'll replace the entire meal for free.  Now THAT was interesting, amazing actually.  So, I left with 5 year old in tow - he insisted on going with me and mom said it's fine as long as I wanted him to go, which I don't mind at all.  I had some trepidation that after two weeks passing, they would just say we don't know what you're talking about.  But I had spent $62 on that order.  We ran into the store - it was raining.  Handed the young girl at the counter the receipts, told her what was going on, said you'll probably have to get a manager.  It helped I had a young kid with me, what are they going to do, get rowdy with me in front of him?  But that never happened, the manager never came out, they just made that entire order - far too much food - over and handed it to us with a smile. So I smiled back, gave a hearty thank you! and left. Oh, we ran much faster to the SUV, by the time we left there, it was pouring rain.  My leather coat was nicely wetted by the time I got the boy in the SUV, the food in the other side and myself into the driver's seat.  

I had ordered that much food the first time because all 3 of us were working and we all were taking lunch with us the next day.  Even after that there was still leftovers. Oh, and they also screwed this order up, but in our favor: a whole box of chicken wings that we most certainly did not order and wasn't on that ticket.  It was amusing that while we were waiting, other customers came in the door with their box of chicken saying their order was wrong lol.  It's this town. We have a local facebook group for all the restaurants to post on a daily basis and show us their specials and what they have to offer.

Lots of people get on there and I'm telling you every chicken joint in town gets railed on.  Especially Popeye's, far worse reputation than Chicken Express.  Better tasting chicken, but you are guaranteed your order is going to be wrong every....single.....time.  If I go there for a take-out order - which we always do - I'm taking every thing out of the bags and checking every single item.  And counting it.  They don't much care for it, but it's whatever to me.  

So it's been raining most of the day and will be raining on and off most of the night.  See, I wanted to use the blower in the back yard and clean up the first round of leaves.  Well actually we're at the second round now.  But wet leaves, of course, don't respond well to a leaf blower lol.  

I'm really just going to blow up the manager's phone tomorrow. I need to work.  I didn't ask for 5 days off.  If they send me to Vermont, my truck doesn't need to work, they will fly me up there to use the trucks up there.  Which actually isn't much fun, but having a working truck here isn't required.  Oh, their trucks up there are complete piles of junk.  Garbage that needs to be scrapped, they don't fix them, they have all kinds of problems and it is amazing they don't get pulled over more often than they do. I guess that's kind of difficult on those roads up there, there aren't many places where trucks will even fit off of the side of the highway.  Any  of those highways, sans the Interstates.  Which is probably why there are weigh stations seemingly every 10 miles - tho I never saw any of them open.  

Anyway, since my manager was talking about going on one of these equipment hauls, I'm preparing myself for leaving tomorrow at a moment's notice. Whenever they dispatch you on those, that's not for the next day, that's for the same day.  No huge rush to get to the yard, but they want you to leave that day.  Enough clothes are clean, plenty of winter gear - it's getting cold if you haven't noticed - I'm ready.  I could get too used to staying home and just doing my own thing, I really can't be sitting around here this long, it takes it's toll on my thinking. It's like coming back from a vacation, you have to get your brain into working mode again.

Am I following politics? Yes, to some degree.  The whole thing got old weeks ago.  Well months actually.  The worst of it is the politicization of the virus.  And these dictatorial governors making these outrageous lockdown decrees and then finding one after another after another violating their own edicts, going out to eat or whatever against their own mandates, and then attempting to explain it away or avoiding the press at all.  Beyond that this movement to attempt to tell Republican voters in Georgia not to show up to vote. And beyond that, Stacy Abrams - look her up if you don't know who she is - creating an organization that now has been accused of using people who are dead names on ballots for this runoff election coming up that will determine whether the democrats have full control of congress and the White House or if there is some sort of blockage to them having a runaway train with far left, progressive - communist - bs ideology taking over.  

Republicans really need to up their game in these elections. Tho, it is almost impossible with nearly all of the media outlets being on the left.  With a vast majority of Hollywood elites being on the left. With the media giving far more press time to Democrat politicians than conservatives/republican politicians.  It's an uphill battle, especially with voters who don't educate themselves.  Which are a lot of them, they simply don't follow politics, see the propaganda and vote accordingly.  And take a close look at who Biden is proposing to fun the various cabinet appointments.  Unbelievable.  

I just don't want to spend too much time on that, whatever happens, I have to trust that God is still in control and go with that mentality.  Because down here on earth? It certainly won't seem that way. Biden will get us into foreign conflicts, that is almost a foregone conclusion. That is the democrat way.  Fire up the military industrial complex and get that corporate bs flowing!  See? there is a lot more, too, it's too much, just gets overwhelming to think about all of it and it's not good for me/you/anyone.  Vote, speak up when it's appropriate to do so, but don't lose your minds over it.  Whatever happens, I'm trusting in the Lord.  That's all I can do.

And with that, I bid you a good night.  

 I decided to take the Vermont run.  My manager called me early this morning - my ringer was shut off so I didn't wake for it - he wanted me to go on an emergency run. Which I would have gladly taken, but i guess by the time I returned his phone call, he had already covered it with someone else.  So he said he was going to find out if the truck was fixed or not - I can't imagine that an EGR valve wouldn't be able to be easily fixed the same day the mechanics started on it so I assume he forgot that I was out of queue because of equipment breakdown.  

Whatever the case, Vermont would be okay at this point, I guess. Freeze my butt off but make guaranteed wage of $2,100 per week working or not working, full day or half day, whatever.  

Ahhh, he finally responded.  "I can put you on equipment moves, will take the better part of a month".  Ok. Where and when.  Let's get this rolling because I'm going to go broke if I don't start getting some work here.  He ignored the Vermont thing so that's fine, I don't mind doing equipment moves, those are also lucrative runs that simply have you dead-heading to point A and moving it to point B. That's usually only one trip tho, taking a month would mean it's much more than just one trailer.  Why do they do this? At this time of the year it would be trailers being moved over to the Eastern seaboard to cover LNG loads for the extra capacity needed to keep up with demand during cold winters.  They stated they were bringing in 100 drivers over there just to cover that. 

Thankfully, I'm not one of them, I really don't like driving over there what with snow, ice, narrow highways and roadways.  If you were reading this when I was in Vermont, it was and hour and a half trip to make 60 miles and that was in good weather.  But I don't mind sneaking in any out with empty trailers lol.

I checked the 4th property. That might have not been such a good move. It's a small property, it's cleaned up but there are giant trees on it and some of them need to come down.  I mean, there is one that is clearly dead. The good thing? It can be felled in the eastern direction and not have to worry about taking down houses, power lines or anything else, the property next door is a vacant lot. I'm going to wait and see if the city sends me any notices about it before proceeding to buy a chainsaw.  They want far too much money to cut them down and I have cut lots of large trees down.  Notch the the side of the direction you want it to fall about 20% into the tree.  Cut a straight line behind the notch.  Pound in wedges on both sides to keep it from falling the wrong direction, then cut the back of it.  Timber!  Okay, I've done it in forests where it didn't matter what direction the tree fell. So I'd start with a smaller tree to make sure I have the technique down.  

The other 2 properties have trees on them, but they aren't "nuisance trees" and do not appear to be in any danger of coming down. One lot needs cleaned up tho.  I'll probably have to do that as well, but that's something I can do without worry about destroying anything lol.  

Okay, we're in a back and forth, me and the manager.  Whatever he's going to come up with, take a deep breath and go deal with whatever the assignment is.  Likely be on the road for several weeks with either scenario.  But whatever, I've been home long enough - I love being home don't get me wrong - reality sinks in that small paychecks don't get me ahead. They may pay the bills but that's it.

In another note of encouragement, however, my 401k's are up to 105k now.  I'm trying to determine what action to take before Biden takes office.  For if he starts decreeing shutdowns and attempting to twist governor's arms or even mayor's arms (as his "plan" allegedly is from what I have read), I have no expectation but that the stock market is going to fall considerably or even crash.  The last crash cost 25k, but I left my stock alone as they advise you to do and it came all the way back up and then some - significantly more actually - in a rather short period of time.  If you're engaging in lockdowns, you are destroying the economy. There is no other way to assess that.  You may be taking the strain off of hospitals, but that is all you are doing, nothing else is accomplished by this besides the destruction of more people's lives through the elimination of life savings, jobs, small business and livelihoods. 

____________

Still waiting on final word of what I'm doing next, but it needs to occur tomorrow. You know, paychecks and things like that? I could stay home forever and love it - but I wouldn't last very long on the amount of money saved up. Guess I could survive 3 years living a very modest life and just paying bills and debt and nothing else. Lol.  I'm 5 plus years away from Social Security, and that's age 62 stuff, where you take a reduction in the amount you get.  I think I have to stay on it until 65 to get full benefits.  No, I don't want to work for someone else until I'm 65, I'm working on it.  

None of the properties I got will support an RV park, so I am relegated to saving as much money as I possibly can before the next auction and hope I can score something with at least 5 acres.  More would be nice, but I can do with 4 or 5.  And preferably not too terribly far from an exit off the Interstate or the major state highway that runs through here.  The land I have now is well off into the future before I can do anything with it, so that's a nonstarter as it stands.  Ie: sell it or put something on it and gain income from it.  RV parks aren't the only way to acquire income, but building houses isn't cheap and if I have to build a house, those properties will be sold, even if it has to be with owner financing.  I saw a mini house on a lot while I was engaged in all of this, apparently the city allows it.  Who would rent a mini house? At the right price, lots of people.  $500 a month, they cover utilities and yard maintenance, I could easily get someone or a small family to rent one out.  

Or just get the minimum dimensions for a site built home and find some way to build it cheaper than what you would normally get away with.  Think handy-man that has knowledge of how to do the entire project getting paid by the hour type of stuff. Still not cheap, but nothing near as expensive as a house built by a contractor.  So I have 3 properties that - can either sit as they are indefinitely besides keeping the lots cleared - or do something with them.  I have no desire to go to the city today and find out what my options are, especially considering it's at least 6 months before I can do anything with any of them.  

I like that lot by the RR tracks tho. That is really a prime location. Walking distance to Lowe's, Kroger's, Chili's and a myriad of small business that cover the spectrum.  It's just that it is literally right next to railroad tracks that makes it a sour grape for a potential renter.   I dunno how often trains come through there, we don't live near that area.  Other than that, it's a quiet street yet is' right near highway 59, but far enough off of it to keep traffic noise limited.  That lot would be my first pick for putting something up, especially since there is already a mobile home on that street.  Yet, zoning ordinances could have changed since that house was placed there.  

Well, I am just in limbo. My manager said he was "checking on it" - whatever's next - and that was an hour ago.

But enough of this particular entry.

G'day.  

 Today's net haul from the auction: 4 properties.  Just housing lots, no houses on them and mostly cleared land.  

It was amazing to see these people at the auction bidding up junk properties, like they hadn't done any research at all. A very small, dilapidated old house that was falling apart? 11k.  Another old house where the roof had caved in and the walls were buckling? 2k.  The house I wanted went up to 15k. I was only able to go up to 10k before I had to bow out of that one.

The 5 acre property that would have made a nice RV park? Bid up to 15.5k, out of my reach.  And a bunch of these lake properties that I wanted nothing to do with.  A lady bought up a bunch of them cheap - but I think she's going to regret that decision.  All of the properties are on a lake, yes, but they are also in an HOA and there are numerous restrictions on them.  It was too risky, IMO, not knowing if there are back payments on all of those properties with the HOA. I was tempted to buy one of them, but I decided it wasn't worth the risk.

Okay, I did impulse buy a 2 acre lot.  It went cheap, I hope I'm not in for a nightmare.  The property has no address attached to it and looking it up online there is no info except the property value at 24k.  Good risk or bad? I'll find out soon enough. I put a call into the tax appraisal district and am awaiting a return call.  

Deeds are sent out in the next several weeks, they informed us, but you can't do anything with those properties for at least 6 months.  

Oh and mobile homes! A giant one, starting bid was $30. Lol. No idea what  condition and not at all interested in buying one without first having a place to put it. The property description plainly stated that it is to be moved, yet these people who were doing "lower bids" were bidding on everything.  

Ahh and I found out what I have. 2 acres - in undivided interest, a 1/6 interest in 12 acres of land.  That means no one person owns the 12 acres and it is divided up between 6 different parties. Sounds like trouble.  More information needed, will be researching that particular subject, never actually heard of it.  

So, that consumed most of the day. It was 37 degrees out there. They don't hold those auctions indoors, they are held outside, in front of the county courthouse.  Rain, shine, snow, hot, cold they do it.  Anyway, I'm going to have to save up much more money to get the property I need if I'm going to do it at one of these lien auctions.  Ok I could have had 7 acres today for 5 grand, but I had already checked that place. Just barren property, no trees, out of the way and not a good location for an rv park. I guess I need about 15 grand to get the size property I need, judging from today's sales and the last time I went.  

Meanwhile I'll be researching what kind of housing I can put on the vacant lots. If I could put a mobile home on any or all of them, that would turn out to be a nice little cash cow eventually.  Rent them out, have a nice steady flow of income.  I don't have money to be building houses on any of these properties. There are those mini-houses, again, I'll have to check zoning in this town, 3 of the properties are within city limites, the undivided one is out in the county, it's all covered with woods, I have no idea if anyone has built anything on it but I bet it's a great hunting area.  Deer, hog and who knows what else.  I was given a phone number for a lady that owns a part of that interest, I will be calling her - after I get my copy of the title. Want that in hand.

One thing today has done. Even tho I didn't get anything I really wanted, I did end up with several properties and paid very little money for them.  I quit at 4, figured I better find out what might happen. The dude that is rich? And buys all of the good ones? He was talking with another man who also knows nothing about this stuff and says it's usually a money making proposition.  Did he get that kind of wealth just doing this? buying and selling these properties?  I figured he spent minimum 150k on dozens of them.  

So I'm a bit enthused about all of this.  Perhaps the beginning of a lucrative new journey? Time will tell. Oh I forgot to throw into this mix: You have to pay right after the auction, lol. And they don't take personal checks or credit or debit cards. You have to either get a money order or get a cashier's check. They give you an hour to do so!  That little tidbit of info isn't stated in the pamphlet they give out to everyone, would be helpful.  For I had thoughts of buying property beyond what I have in the bank and simply taking out a small personal loan to cover it.  Good thing I found out this information, that takes a couple of days to get the money in your bank.  For the right property, yes a small loan of 4 or 5 grand would be worth it.  Pay it off in 3 years - that's what the terms of those loans are I have 2 of them now paying off old credit card debt.  The payments aren't too high.  

Meanwhile, my manager texts me yesterday, strike that: he texts both of us yesterday, the 2 of us that went to Vermont 2 or 3 months ago: any chance you guys would go up there again?  I dunno, it's getting cold up there. And it snows, I do believe.  Beautiful summer retreat, I'm sure. But winters?  Icy and/or snow covered roads.  Not the greatest driving conditions.  

I'm thinking about it tho. Work has slowed considerably.  I asked my manager for a concession tho if I decide to do it:  I need a kitchennette, not a regular hotel room.  I do not want to eat out for weeks at a time. That wastes a lot of time and it gets old.  Sure, eat out here and there but every day?  Go to the local supermarket, buy what I need and cook for myself.  The Marriott Residence Inn in that area would work nicely, thank you.  They had me staying at a Marriott last time, just not a kitchenette type of thing and frankly, I far prefer the Residence Inn.

I guess I'm going to have to make up my mind on that - like tomorrow.  Ugh.  I'll sleep on it.  

 Haven't been posting much, there hasn't been too much new stuff to discuss and I have talked about my trucking life to the nth degree.

However.

Jame's mom/grandma came down for the weekend.  She was looking for something in a hall closet and was looking at the wall. There is the back side of an AC vent that goes down the wall, it's an outlet on the other side of the wall facing the boys room.  It was covered with mold/mildew/  

See, the situation here has been the flooring all over the house has been buckling up.  It continues to get worse.  I kept wondering how it could possibly be the AC drain for condensation after all of this time and mentioned it a few times? I mean, there is only so much water coming out of it, the problem should be isolated and near the area around the central AC unit. Edited. There WAS only so much water coming out of that AC condensation drain, that was dealt with months ago. No water since then, yet the entire house worth of floors excepting my room has continued to have buckled up flooring. 

But even an experienced insurance adjuster had come over and declared it was that as well.  

But we found out last night that that was the furthest thing from the truth and what we found was rather shocking.  See, a tree branch fell off the giant oak tree onto the house like 5 years ago.  It did 12 grand worth of damage. That branch was the side of a tree itself.  They came and put on a new roof, or so we thought.  

No, they didn't put on a new roof. They put on new shingles, yes.  But....

James got the ladder out, came into my room and climbed up into the attic to see what the deal is with the ac vent.  The only way to find out was to get up in there and take a look from the top. He came back down 20 minutes later, visibly agitated.  He got out his camera and said take a look at this.  He had taken a large number of pictures of the roof from the bottom side. There were gaping holes in the plywood.  The roofing company did not fix the damaged wood, they just put shingles over empty space!  That was shocking.  For a reputable roofing company that is widely respected in this area?  

Let me just say I've never heard of a roof being replaced without fixing any wood issues underneath it and especially with a tree that has fallen and damaged the wood.  

There is FAR more damage to this house than just some water under the flooring.  This from an unscrupulous roofer who charged for everything but didn't do everything.  There was black mold on the wood where water had seeped in through the holes every time it rains.  yes, BLACK MOLD.  This all of a sudden made MUCH more sense.  The entire house, literally, has flooring buckling up and we really couldn't understand why it was doing that.  I mean, we had accepted the ac unit theory in the absence of any better reason to explain why the hardwood floors are literally starting to lift up from the wood it rests on underneath. 

Lord only knows what kind of black mold might be under there or in the walls.  All of that water is coming from the roof, through the attic, down the walls and into the flooring.  I'm literally ready to move out of here.  Like, call the insurance adjuster tomorrow morning - which is Monday - and get some emergency action going here to rent a house and get the bleep out of here.  No wonder people are having respiratory problems and allergy conditions going in here.  I'm telling you, I do not want to live in a house with black mold.  They will have to tear down the roof, parts of the ceiling, as much wall/drywall and rip up literally all of the flooring to fix this mess. 

You can bet that isn't going to happen overnight. We are literally going to have to move out of this house to have this damage repaired.  And what is going to happen with that roofing company is unknown.  They want to call the insurance adjuster and get his thoughts on what to do next first.  Whatever, but we need an immediate plan of action.  I feel like I'm breathing in poison being in here now, especially knowing that there are several holes right above my bedroom.  Again, how do you put shingles over nothing and sleep well at night taking that kind of money?  Is this some standard in the industry to do this? I've really never heard of not replacing bad or missing plywood, you do all of that first and make sure you have a solid roof before you put down any shingles, yes? 

I guess I"ll have to look it up, but I feel like the insurance adjuster might know - tho this guy missed the mold in the closet so who knows.  

I can't even imagine the price tag to fix all of this after all is said and done. An entire house' worth of flooring? A whole new roof again plus removing all mold laden wood and replacing it?  Walls? Ceiling? Other damage we don't even know about?  That's 30 to 40 grand minimum.  Probably a lot more than that.  Paying for another house and utilities.  Really I can see double that money or even more.  Almost to the point of replacing the whole house.  Because that's really what you're doing with that much damage.  

So we were all reeling with thoughts in our brains of the aftermath of all of this.  What if insurance doesn't pay for it, citing the faulty roofer and going after them instead? but I think the insurance company paid the roofer directly, if  that's true then that's not going to happen. I doubt the insurance company complicit in this matter, not fixing a problem correctly the first time will lead to greater costs down the road.  if they are going to cover the damage, then they should insure that the damage is corrected the first time.  

The only good thing is if this house is basically rebuilt from the flooring on up, you basically are getting a new house for nothing.  So in that sense, that would be worth the trouble.  This house has hardwood everywhere, including crown molding on the ceilings and wood around everything really.  Expensive stuff.  Hardwood flooring is some of the most expensive flooring there is.  

This is s developing situation.  Hopefully know more tomorrow.  

Thanksgiving was fun.  Was glad I was home for it.  Food was great, company was great, a few games as well.  I went to Brownsville the next morning - no detention pay to be found there with fully 3 empty trailers available and I was the only driver coming down.  That's 4 trips in a row down there with no detention.  Guess I best alter my view of that run. The money is good enough tho with the miles and being only a 2 day run.

I got up 4:10 next morning, got on the road and  100 miles up the road?  A bunch of warning lights came on, including a stop sign and a constant, loud, incessant ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding noise going off.  I've had this happen before, it went off. Then came back, on, off and on and so forth for a while and then? I just stayed on. I stopped at a Love's and checked the fluid, everything good there.  I could smell exhaust in the truck.  After contacting my manager, I stopped at the TA in Ganado and they did a diagnostic on it - an EGR valve and something they couldn't fix.

Lovely.  I already knew what was going to be requested of me.  Drive it back.  I had already driven 150 miles with that dinging noise, 300 to go.   Sure enough, the manager contacted the lead mechanic, who said it wouldn't be a problem to drive it back in that condition. What that meant was it wouldn't cause any more damage to the truck. It did NOT mean that I wouldn't have to suffer some ridiculous amounts of noise and having to leave the windows open the entire trip back.

If it had been the previous manager? She would have found a shop to take it to and I would have sat there until they fixed it and not subject me to that kind of utter bs.  

Whatever.  I toughed it out, put in my earphones and tried to drown out the noise as much as possible for the entire trip.  By the time I got back to the yard I was highly annoyed and irritated.  Good thing there wasn't anyone there.  I was in no mood.  Foregone conclusion the run I was supposed to go on today was given to someone else, no way I was going to just say sure, I'll take that run! with that thing like that, they won't fix it until Monday.  And win or lose, I am still intent on going to that auction.   I'm just going to take some more vacation time to make up for what should have been another run to help buffer the next pay period.  

So, last night I got out a bag of navy beans, dumped them in a pot of water and then today made delicious navy bean soup with the ham bone left over from Thanksgiving. Absolutely delicious.  

Tomorrow I'm going to the city to find a listing of condemned properties and also any properties with liens on them and compare them to the properties I want to potentially buy.  I'm reading this paper with the properties on it as tho there are potentially other liens on these properties as well. That doesn't really make any sense to me, why wouldn't they include all of that on the sale? So you could get hit with a backdoor assessment of thousands of dollars for removing buildings or upkeep. 

More research I'd like to get in before going to the auction 2 days from now.  But there are certain properties that obviously have no violations, were not condemned and have not had any kind of city intervention. Such as the house I'd like to get.  Or the 5 acre property south of town. It's never been developed and I don't think it's even in the city limits.  Another property I'm not so sure about and a couple of others that may have had houses on them and potentially were cleaned up by the city.  

  I'm just trying to get some Christmas shopping done well in advance.  Not sure what my son wants. He always asks for movie theater gift cards but is Arizona even allowing people to go to the theaters? I'll have to look that up. Mom is taken care of, my oldest brother will get his normal thing.  Then there's the boys and James and Taylor here and that's probably going to be the extent of my Christmas stuff this year. I didn't even buy anything for myself on Black Friday.  I wanted a much larger screen monitor for my desktop but the one I wanted was sold out shortly after it was put up for sale.  

Spending money - besides investing in property - doesn't seem to be a good idea right now.  I've set a limit to what I will spend on property, I can't deplete my entire savings, gotta leave something in there for emergencies/fallback.  But I have some funds that I think I can get something if people don't bid stuff up higher than what it should be at an auction.  Enough for one post.  

G'day.  

 Hmmm, looks like I made several drafts and posted none of them, lol.

It's the day before Thanksgiving, supposedly several people are coming over tomorrow.  At this point, I  hope so because we are going to have a lot of food to eat.  The 22 pound turkey I got for free for spending $125 at Kroger's, that wasn't intentional, I just ended up buying a lot of stuff because I hadn't been grocery shopping in a while.  So that was nice. And of course got another rib roast - this is the time of year to get one at a cheaper price.

Today - went out with taylor around town getting stuff we needed.  She is back in the unemployed column after realizing the job she took just wasn't her cup of tea.  Putting up with rude customers on the phone isn't for everyone.  

Anyway, I had asked for Thanksgiving off but got a call on the way up from Brownsville yesterday that he didn't have enough drivers to cover everything and needed me to work.  I wasn't real happy about it, but I couldn't tell him no so I just ended up taking the run.  He was going to get me a 6:30 load time, which would have me back at the house by around 9 am, so it wasn't going to be that bad and Taylor has decided she is going to cook the turkey.  I was going to smoke a ham, but after that news decided I would just play it by ear. If I get back early enough, I figured, I could still do it. Hams are already cooked, just smoking and glazing it is probably only a couple of hours worth of cooking.

But, a few hours later, he called again.  Another driver who had originally wanted Thanksgiving off had changed his mind and wanted the run I was going to get if I wanted to let it go. Yup, I let it go.  I will pay for it, I'm sure, at Christmas time.  I try to alternate each year.  Last year I was home for Christmas and out for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is really the social party thing they have here, so I kind of enjoy that more.  Christmas is just a day at home, family thing, open presents, eat a big breakfast and that's it.  I'll miss being here, of course, but I made my choices and now will live with it lol.

Nothing really "new" going on.  The front yard was looking disastrous so I decided to mow it - aiming the outlet the same direction so that the leaves would blow out towards the street - the entire mowing session.  This was considerably easier than waiting until all the leaves fall off the tree and having to spend hours raking it.  Not to mention the bottom layer of leaves start to decompose - they get wet from rain and get covered up with other leaves - making it 10 times more difficult to get the stuff out of the grass.

I hadn't really tried that method before but it worked swimmingly.  There are still a lot of leaves left to fall, I'll just do that again in a few weeks and probably a final time after they are all down.  It would be really nice if Mother Nature would just have them all fall off at once.....just sayin'.  

Other drivers yesterday at the office were complaining - again - about Chenier and about the driver who refuses to learn how to unload.  I'm pretty much staying out of those conversations now, it's the same story, old, worn out and the driver gets away with it.  That's really on management.  And, apparently, we lost the Mapleton account.  The guy that distributes the loads to our and other companies apparently was pissed off that our company fired our previous manager and this was his way of showing us his dissatisfaction. 

That's his right, I suppose, but that is one of our better runs.  I was wondering what had happened to it, I hadn't seen or heard of anyone going there in quite a while.  The only thing stopping those other companies from grabbing even more of our work is the fact that they don't have the trailers to do anymoe with.  Those trailers are around 350k a piece, it's quite the investment.  I dunno, but if we start losing more contracts, they are going to have to get rid of drivers, there will be too many of us.  How they would determine who gets the axe is unknown to me, but I am guessing they would simply offer a spot in a different division, take it or leave it.  Personally, I would leave it.

Those other divisions aren't out of my area and I would be on the road for weeks at a time.  Up to a month.  No thanks.  I'd take it temporarily, of course, until I found something that is close to home and gets me home frequently.  My aspirations of doing fuel delivery have been kind of nixed after finding out what they are paid.  Tho Gemini - the company that hauls fuel for Love's travel stops - pays around 75k per year. I could deal with that but the terminal is 60 miles away. That's a long drive every day just to get to work.  

I'm keeping my eyes out for a decent, local job is all I can say about that.  In case it comes down to that.