I actually was hoping to get an Oklahoma run for today to round out this week's pay period. But, arriving at the yard yesterday I knew that wasn't going to happen, a line of trucks sitting there waiting for runs as well.  Plus they brought in another driver from some other division - a person we definitely don't need and everyone came back from vacation.  I assume we'll be slowing down again even if all of the accounts are full steam ahead.  They aren't doing something right in losing accounts. The only thing I think that saves us is the fact that these are specialized trailers and very costly - 350k each minimum.  But I wouldn't put it past one of our competitors to ramp up their inventory of these trailers and start taking more business away.  That would lead to layoffs/goodbye notes.  I dunno what this year has in store as far as income goes from current employer. Just have to wait and see what happens.  

One guy is retiring this month, that will help a little, but if they continue to bring people in that's not going to be helpful at all. I'm sure the manager isn't all that interested in more drivers for our division either.

Yesterday - got up early, 3:45 am after an empty showed up in Brownsville at 8:00 pm.  I wasn't about to start driving that late. They got a new hire at the yard down there who had the gall to come knocking on my door telling me a trailer is there. I just said "okay, thank you" and went back to bed.  It made more sense to me to get up early and get the day over with in one fell swoop than to drive 4 hours or so and then have to take a 10 hour break - I wasn't about to drive til 7:00 am to get the run over with.

Unfortunately, one of those small, roadside inspection stations was open. They took one look at the Mexican trailer and declared that they would be inspecting the truck and trailer on a level 1.  I don't really mind inspections, but that was rather annoying.  First because I got up early to get the day done early, not to sit around an inspection station. 2, because they didn't even get to inspecting my truck for almost 15 minutes.  That's ridiculous.  If they want to pull people in for inspections, they need to start immediately.  I have thoughts about calling the station and making a complaint about that.  It was an hour and ten minutes before they finished, including using a creeper to get underneath the truck and trailer and measure brake travel.  

The waste of time is that fact that junk trucks were driving through there that they weren't bothering with.  The Mexican trailers are dirty, but that's it, they are usually well maintained.  And if there is a problem with them, we don't take them out of the yard down there, they have to fix it first.  Of course both truck and trailer passed to the point that gave me stickers to put on both for a 3 month pass on any further inspections.  I guess that's good but the waste of time.  I was going to pull into a truck stop only a few miles up the road and take my break, get a nap and finish the day. Instead, my break was spent with these folks and I ended up not taking a nap and driving straight through after that.  

Whatever.

Taylor wants to go to the larger town 35 miles away today and get some more sucker fish for the aquarium. I had originally bought 2 - small ones they didn't have any big ones.  One of them died straight off the other one just doesn't do that much, lol, he's a tiny little fish.  Need about 3 or 4 more of them to do the job in there.  I dunno what else she has in mind, but I'm guessing a stop at the bookstore will also occur.  

After refiring the Keto diet, I am back down 5 pounds in 2 weeks time. I'm going to get down to around 190 and then switch to a different thing that a friend has suggested.  Keto is a bit difficult to stick with, admittedly.  It's just the idea that you can't have potatoes, break, milk, pasta and a host of other foods that you - or I anyway - grew up eating and have a taste for.  But, it IS effective if you do it right.  I see people complaining all the time about how it's not working for them in the online Keto groups. A little sleuthing and you find out they are drinking alcohol types that are loaded with carbs or dumping sauces or gravies that are also loaded with carbs.  Or cheating.  You can't cheat on Keto if you want it to work. As soon as you're thrown out of ketosis that ends the whole point of it. If you are cheating regularly, you aren't going to see results.  Or if  you do, much less results than you would if you were counting carbs on every single thing you consume.  

That diet definitely isn't for everyone.  But I do find it humorous people moaning and complaining about it. Like okay, try something else if you can't do it, there's plenty of diet plans out there, probably most of them work, but like any diet, they have parameters and rules you must follow in order for them to work. 

Enough of that. Besides the trip to the town I intend on driving over to the wooded property today and seeing about gaining access to it.  Well I guess that depends on how long the fish trip takes.  I keep saying I'm going to go and then I  - don't get a chance to go lol.  I got back to find one little pile of snow from the snow storm we got. It was all hard from melting and useless.  I missed that entire deal, people were building snow men all over the place.  Those are all melted down and just small patches of icy snow on the ground.  

Just another day in paradise.  I stopped the endless searching for a property.  Just nothing there that fits the bill. I'm sure more properties will get listed over time - or another tax lien sale will occur before that and maybe something will be in there.  I put in some online requests from local realtors that I haven't received any reply to.  There were two properties that looked good - until I got to the part about them being landlocked. Another amusing thing.  Who is going to drop 60k for a property they can't even access?  The ads literally say there is no access to the property, they're surrounded by private property. One of them says they're trying to get an easement.  Well, easements usually come at a price, the owners of the properties don't just give away portions of their land so others can travel on it.  

Well, off to breakfast and get about the day.  

 Monday - late morning.

Got here - Brownsville - after driving through rain and snowstorms for more than half the trip down here. It was a let down to find out it snowed heavily enough at home to accumulate on the ground and build snowmen.  Like, dang, it only happens once every several years - snow that is - why couldn't I be home?  C'est La Vie

No snow down here, but it's definitely been raining with craters of pools of water in the yard, mud, not so nice conditions. To the point I spent the night at the truckstop.  Just dropping the loaded trailer meant wading through near ankle-deep water. Yup, put my boots on for that one.  

Really incredible.  People who bought property dirt cheap at the lien sale auction have those properties listed for sale for far more than they paid for them. 2 grand they pay, asking anywhere from 16 to 75k.  I'm not saying I'm going to get rich doing this, those properties may sit there a long, long time before anyone is even remotely interested in paying that much money for such small amount of land.  My interest was more in putting rental units on them and earning long-term revenues.  

Really, it appears at least in my area, that the only way to get a piece of land that is actually not over-priced and is in a desireable location is to buy it through the county auction sale.  I've been over 50 different websites and they all are incredibly over priced and alot of them are showing the same properties as the rest of the sites.  

This is kind of setting my vision along what avenue to take in getting to the goal.  Do enough research and homework you at some point get a view of what you really need to do.  I'm not going to pay 10k per acre for property that isn't worthy anything near that.  There is one property that looks interesting and has a good price but - there are no roads leading to it!  Lol.  It's surrounded by other property and satellite and street views show nothing in the way of access.  You aren't going to pull an RV trailer through an easement, lol.  But I don't even see any easements going through it.  

So I'm going to continue to sit on this for awhile. Still looking, still thinking about it, still doing research, but taking no action - yet.  If I acquire land but use all my money up and don't have anything left over to build the park, then it's basically useless property. Go hunting, ATV riding, great, but no revenue stream from that.  I could go outside of my city area - but I"d have to go east to get anything decent and too far away to make it convenient for anyone to help out with it. Going west - the properties are also high priced.  

Getting into high payments? No thanks.  Getting into low payments? Maybe.  Basically, I'm going to wait until the next auction, see what's available on it, if anything looks good and considering how much it might end up being to get the winning bid on, I will think about options to have the money available immediately in bank account after the auction closes.  They want you to pay within an hour of the end of the auction.  Why? I dunno.  If you don't, you get fined and end up paying 25% of the winning bid amount. So, yea, you want to have the money available lol. 

Why do I keep writing about this? Because it's a portion of what's on my mind.  It's something I've been wanting to do for many years - even decades.  It's something I wish I could have gotten started 20 - 30 years ago.  I wouldn't even have to be working by now. A steady stream of income on a monthly basis, I would have developed, over the years, an oasis style park that has all kinds of amenities and would be a go to spot for travelers.  It would have a reputation and I would keep improving it.  Instead, I'm 56 years old and still have nothing going.  It's rather frustrating, to be honest - I have good credit now, I have a 401k I could cash out, I can get loans - but I can't find anything that fits the bill.  

I have someone that can actually live in it and run the place. I have people to help with the accounting and fixing things as necessary. Ugh, lol. 

Well whatever, need to clear my mind of that for a while, easy to get engrossed in endless searches and finding the same things over and over.  Give it a rest  Just for a while lol.  The only property I found that would work won't allow that kind of development so shrug my shoulders and move on.  

As for today, it's noon and they haven't even taken any of the full trailers out of here yet.  99% of the time they take out two loaded trailers and come back a few hours later with empties.  I would have liked to have been out of here by now so I could make it back tonight.  About 2:00 pm, maybe 3:00? That's as late as I can assess getting out of here and making it back to the yard.  After that, I spend the night on the road somewhere for I don't see any point in driving all night long so I can feel like crap all day long the next day, unless the manager specifically asks/needs a trailer for the next morning.  

It's likely he's going to text me soon and ask me what trailer I'm bringing back and that's when I'll tell him I have no trailer lol.  

I'm getting appalled by the news/politics and everything that's going on there - which is out of my control - but there is no end in sight.  So, I'm not taking a total break from it, but I've kind of tuned that out as well. God is greater than all of that garbage and is over all of it, I'm going to put my trust in Him.  Whatever happens, we all end up before the same Creator in the end.  

Anyway, I still haven't had the opportunity to get to that wooded property - or try to get to it. It's only 7 miles away from my house but definitely outside of town and in the country.  It'd be nice if I could leave here today, stop for the night somewhere and then have a part of the day tomorrow to see if I can access it without going through someone's private property.  Not sure about the road, seems to cut through private land and isn't on the street map version of GPS.  I'm not bashful, I'd go ask for permission if it comes down to that.  Otherwise, park on the highway and walk down the railroad tracks lol.  
Really want to see what the rest of the owners are doing with that property, if they have put up any structures and if they are open to others coming in. Not that they have a choice, but I'd rather at least try the peaceful/nice way and see what happens.  It's a weird proposition to co-own land with complete strangers, glad I didn't pay much for it.  We'll see what happens.  And showing up - a stranger - without any intro to the rest?  I'll be approaching it cautiously, people in Texas don't like strangers showing up on private land without permission.  

And for that, I think I'll get out of this truck and go for a walk. Need some exercise.  

 Saturday night.

The last run was an Oklahoma run that takes a full day and a portion of the morning after that.  So, finished that this morning.  Ran around getting stuff done and came home, only going out to get some wings at Wingstop.  Busy place - fortunately.  I like having that new store in town but it obviously has to have a steady stream of customers to stay viable. So it is good every time I drive by there to see it full of customers waiting on their orders.  

___________

Sunday morning - got distracted last night.  I'll be driving all day long today getting down to Brownsville.  Sunday is both a great and terrible day for driving. Great because the roads are far less busy and there is no rush hour traffic (think Houston, TX).  Terrible because - it's Sunday and traditionally for me, before this particular job, Sundays were a day off to rest, relax, hang out, do anything but working.  Or if work, things getting done around the house. Nothing I can do to change that at the moment - besides taking a far lessor paying job, which I just won't do ATM. Besides paying down old debt, I think I have another year to go on that, saving up even more money to buy more property. 

But, the next auction I go to, if I don't get something before then, is going to be solely focused on getting some acreage.  I have 3 small lots in town now, that's enough.  Once the 6 month period is over I'll be finding out what I can do with those properties.  But what I need/want now is acreage out in the country, outside of city limits.  That's for the RV park. That's for a business, money making opportunity. Not a get rich scheme, just an income that will last into my retirement years.  Something that can start small but has enough land to build it up over time.  Preferably a property with at least a small pond.  Fishing is very popular out here, that is something that could generate even more revenues with people coming to fish a stocked large pond - pay a fee of course. 

Other places around here do that.  But getting the property has been out of reach so far.  There are properties that are too large and just too much money, I'll be in debt - for a long time on any of them.  Short term debt fine, but 10, 15 plus years is too much.  Trust me, I've been looking. There is only one that really fits the bill for location but the price tag is 88 grand.  I'd have to come up with 20% down for a land loan, I don't have that much money atm without taking out a separate loan, a home equity loan or cashing out the 401k. I have close to that, I'm not broke lol, but spending all of that would leave me nothing in my savings account and deplete my checking account as well. 

There are also smaller properties with outrageous prices per acre.  10 grand per acre for property out in the middle of nowhere.  Oh, and the property on the flood plain? Scammers!  Thick, far east accents greeted me on the phone and I was immediately suspicious.  I then found out "we are not local but we'll contact a local agent for you". Uhh, no thanks, scammer, I can do that myself.  They quit contacting me after that. I am purely and completely suspicious of anything found on the internet until it is proven to be ok.  The listing showed it a local realtor but my suspicions started up when I saw an out of state area code texting me. 

The search goes on, that's all I can say. Not a rush for the wrong thing.  Yup, another search, same results. 2 acres, 50 grand?!! Stuff like that. Small lots going for 20 k per acre, the 88k lot is still available. That's 34 acres right outside of town.  It's less than 3 grand per acre so that makes it a good deal, but it's really too much money and tho I'd love to own 34 acres of land - RV lot would take up a small portion of it - I can't see myself dug into 4 or 500 per months payments on it.  That eats into any profit, plus property taxes every year.  I doubt they're going to bring the price down, at the same time the property has been listed for something like 200 days.  

So, I may just have to wait until March for the next lien auction and see if they have anything worth buying that will fit the bill.  

As for everything else?  Uhh, house in phoenix doing well for now.  They let the power go down to unacceptable amount of money on the card reader for electricity, so I dumped $100 on it.  Just comes out of the money I get every month for rent payments.  Mark is having a hard time finding the odd jobs that locals were giving him before the pandemic started. Now, people are unemployed, broke, holding onto whatever money they have type of thing.  I'm going to help that situation out when necessary.  They have enough now to last around 25 days - it's winter time the electric use is way down.  

The household here? Same old thing. The 5 year old turned 6 2 days ago.  The 3 year old is - a handful times 100. Hissy fits, conniptions, meltdowns, etc when he doesn't get his way.  Just shake my had at that boy and all the trouble he gets into because he refuses to listen.  

Cleaning project out back got a start but then I ran out of time and I wasn't going to do anything yesterday with my limited free time.  Next full day off I get I'll pick it back up.  

And then - there's politics.  Banning Trump, censoring him permanently from Twitter.  Censoring Parler by removing it from the app stores.  The media and politicians complicit in a campaign to silence Trump and apparently attempt to get us all to somehow forget his tenure in office. Telling us he incited a riot and guilty of sedition, telling us if Pence won't enact the 25th amendment against him, they are going to impeach him again. Telling us that Trump shouldn't have the nuclear codes for he has become a world threat.

These people have lost their ever-loving minds.  I summarily reject all of these narratives, their agenda is to silence Trump and his supporters. Ain't gonna happen. Lots of people deleting their Twitter accounts and getting off of Facebook. I'm going to delete my Twitter account to join the crowd - I rarely ever use it.  Facebook not so fast.  There's got to be a viable alternative.  But this open and out and out censorship? Unbelievable.  And the left is going to try to tell me that Communism isn't their end game?

Good thing God is over all of this and is still in control. Peace is found through him and the knowledge of that fact.

G'day.  

Tuesday.

Another day off - thankfully tbh.

Threw away the swimming pool - they let it deteriorate and eventually took it down, cut it into pieces but never put it in the trash.  I spent a good deal of time yesterday cleaning up out there, that had to go.  So I stuffed it all into a trash can and today, by coincidence, is trash day so it's already gone.  

Went up to the courthouse, time to ask about these Sheriff's deeds.  They said nothing showed up, meaning they hadn't processed them yet.  After all this time.....

Also renewed registration on a trailer.

Went up to the driver's license office - one of those wild hair things, better get this done, COVID excusees abound, they may have restrictions there as well. Yup.  You can't even go in there without an appointment, even to ask questions.  That was disconcerting and numerous attempts online on my phone to find how to set up an appointment ended in failure.

Stopped at Chili's on the way home.  Keto burger with asparagus.  Not bad, actually.  Over to Walmart to get several items and then home.  

First thing I did after putting my stuff away? Yup.  Get on the computer and start looking up the appointment process. After finally finding it, I was aghast at the next available appointment dates.  MAY of this year in 4 different locations of various distance. The one in town was on the 13th of May and the rest were the same.  I ended up finding an appointment in Linden, TX for March.  

Yes, my CDL expires in February. But, thankfully, the state has an expired license extension, so it's still valid until April  I had NO idea they were dragging out license renewals like this. No one at the shop said anything about it, the company has never mentioned it in any emails or communications. I made assumptions I should not have made.  I thought about my license months ago, but really didn't think anything about availability, I have never experienced anything like this before.  

I would have had to search locations all over Texas for a date that works if nothing local was available.  The Linden location is something like 40 miles away.  

I then decided to see about my TWIC card.  They aren't having any such issues with appointments, you can make one but according to the website you can still walk in and do it without an appointment.  

At least my passport - which I've never used - doesn't expire til' 2026.  

It was just a bit disconcerting to see Texas having this system backed up so far.  They really need to do something about that.  If nothing else, a campaign to tell citizens that if your license is set to expire anytime in the next 6 months, you probably need to set an appointment now to be sure you can get it done in time.  Literally, Texas sent me a notice last week  about my DL, not 3 months ago.  

So this has consumed my day.  Whether I go back out back and resume on the yard, I dunno, but probably not.  I think I've had enough for one day and I have to go out to Brownsville tomorrow. Tho, it's an easier run - no loading. We are short on empy trailers, of course because 4 of us came back without them, per the company telling us to do so.  So I can just go to work, log in and start driving.  it also means I should be able to get down there and start heading back up a little.  At least make it 50 miles?  I know a place I can stop for the night right at the edge of no man's land once you start heading north of Raymondville.  

I dunno, I'll figure that out tomorrow.  No detention pay this trip, obviously, but it's still better than getting another Oklahoma trip.  

Oh, and a twist? The deeds were in the mailbox when I came home.  How those county officials couldn't find it in their system is unknown.  I have half a mind to drive out to that wooded property and see what's up.  But only half.

I did some reading on these sheriff's deeds.  I'm not sure that starting a business on a property with one of those deeds is such a great idea.  Certainly you don't do anything with the property for 6 months, but there are homestead exemptions where the original owner can come back up to 2 years and redeem the property. Anything you've done on the property to upgrade it? Tough luck.  

So now, I'm fairly well confined to having to find property that fits the bill that I'll either have to take out a loan for the property - or - get a business loan which includes the cost of the property in the loan plus expenses to develop the property. But what is sounding more likely? A loan for the property, cash out the 401k and use that money to build the RV park.  It should be enough.  

On another, rather humorous note (at least to me), the 3 year was seen eating a piece of chocolate this morning by mommy. She asks him where he got that from? On the counter, he replies.  She realized that he had somehow gotten into a box of chocolates out of his reach and out of his view. Note that last night - and just about every  night - he refused to eat his dinner.  He was made to sit there until bedtime.  He didn't care, he wasn't going to eat it.  Okay, for context, he wouldn't eat hardly any of it.  Like, just a few bites. And we're talking a good meal of ham, potatoes and veggies.  The odd part is that he used to eat just about anything, now he's become quite picky.  

But even feeding him stuff he likes? He'll still sit there and eat a few bites and then shove the plate away.  I just sit amused watching this go on quite regularly.  They were locking the doors to the kitchen at night - I suggested they probably need to start that up again. He could easily be sneaking out, getting sweets and going back to bed without them knowing anything about it.  

Well, I've enjoyed my 2-1/2 days off. A trip to Brownsville won't end my world.  I'll probably call the realtors tomorrow, just don't want to today.  Still thinking about my options.  It just dawned on me that I will have to put 10 to 20 percent down on a land only loan.  I think I have enough to deal with that in my savings account tho it would drain it down to zero.  I really am not sure what to do at this point, so I'm just going to sit on it - not forever - a few days, a few weeks? Just trying to understand what is the best route to take.  

And finally - watching the results coming in on the senate run off race in Georgia. It's literally a dead heat for both contests.  Within a percentage point and it fluctuates.  I'm not staying up late for that.  It's highly likely that whoever loses, they are going to contest the outcome and demand a recount.  This could go on for quite a while.  I can say this: if dems win tonight? I'm probably not going to be paying a whole lot of attention to politics until the midterms.  I might read some of it online, but I certainly won't be watching it on the tv.  I am not going to watch the inauguration.  I won't be listening to Biden or Harris.  

Anyway, it's time to get offa here.  

 Yes it's been a while since I posted. I've been running hard and I'm really tired and ready for a break.  I just got back this morning from another Oklahoma run - I've had 2 of those and a brownsville run - where there were no empty trailers and i was going to have to wait 3 days for one to come up..  which I wasn't opposed to by my manager called and said no, come back empty handed.  

I did get to spend New Year's Eve at home but went to work the next morning. It wasn't an entire day off, it wss just - get back from one run and then head out again the next day.  We didn't do our normal fireworks show for it rained literally the entire day - I had left Brownsville that morning and it rained starting south of Corpus Christi and continued to rain all the way back up. It didn't stop until the next day. It was also our version of cold, down in the 30's.  

 This is why I want out of trucking. It's non-stop. If we're busy, we don't get time off unless we need a 34 hour reset.  They don't care about your personal life or quality of life. It's much more hours than most normal jobs.  It isn't 40 hours a week, it's 12 to 14 hours a day.  Right now, there are several drivers on Christmas vacation. They are owner-operators and they don't have to work, per their contracts.   

I got a reprieve today.  When I pulled into the yard, another driver I haven't seen in a while - quite a while actually - pulled in with a trailer I brought back in 2 days earlier. I was perplexed. That trailer was there yesterday morning, how did this driver go up to Barnsdall before me but loading after me? Or what happened? 

He answered the question.  He had gone to the plant to load today, the plant shut down the ethylene rack. There is a leak in the underground line somewhere - yes ethylene leak - they wouldn't load him.  The first 2 trucks they loaded off a rail car that was sitting there that they had already filled before the leak occurred.  Why is this a good thing? Because it will allegedly be at least 2 days before they fix it.  Maybe longer.  Probably not, tho, high priority will be given to getting it up and getting the rack going again. 

Still, I might at least get 2 days off. And there were a number of tractors sitting in the yard, presumably the ones that don't have drivers on vacation will go out first.  I'm really ready for a break here.  It just fuels the fires within me to get this business up and going.  I need to get that land. I don't really want to go into debt for it, but there isn't going to be another auction for probably another 2 months and even then, I have to wait at least 6 months before I can do anything with it. I'm telling you, I'm tired of trucking. I'm tired of endless driving. Yes it pays quite well but enough is enough.  I want a normal life and trucking is definitely not a normal life by any stretch of the imagination.

If you talk to people that have been in trucking for decades, they are highly likely going to tell you the same thing. They're tired of driving but they don't know how to do anything else that makes them that much money. Sure, there are some that still love it throughout their careers, but a lot of them get burned out on it.  Away from home all the time.  Living in a small box.  Having to take showers in a truck stop where all kinds of other people have been in there and if you see some of the people coming out of them, you can understand why people don't like using them.  Eating food that isn't healthy, having few options to find food that is healthy.  It's like truck stops want drivers to become obese, overweight, unhealthy, high blood pressure and diabetes stricken people. Only recently have I seen some Love's start bringing in fresh salads. 

Some of the local drivers like their jobs - because usually that means home at decent hours and a couple days off every week, much like everyone else.  I quit my local job because of the cut in hours and the subsequent cut in pay.  Couldn't live off of that and wasn't going to give them the privilege of having a highly experienced driver around at less than beginner's wages.  That really irked me.  Truckers are expendable, we are numbers on someone's computer screen. All of this is why a high percentage of new drivers going into the field of trucking quit before their first year is up.  Sure, I made 90k last year. 

How did I make it? Being out on the road all the time.  

I'm just motivated and now I have lots of promises of help.  I'll need it.  I won't be able to just quit my job.  I'll have to see the property filled up with trailers and brining in stable, monthly income before I'll quit.  Maria will help run the place. Taylor will do the accounting - she's been wanting to do that ever since i started talking about it years ago. James will help with any repairs.  Their two friends were actually talking about living on the property and helping me run it.  That's for pay, of course, so I'm not sure how that would work out.  One of their friends say they have a friend that already helps run an RV park and would be willing to help me out. For pay, of course, but this is all what I needed to hear before I could venture out into this journey of attempting to build an income on my own without slaving my life away for large corporations.  

The question really boils down to how to go about it.  Cash out the 401k, use it as upfront money for a much larger loan and go that route?  Use the 401k and buy property out right for cash and then take out a smaller loan to do the rest of what's needed?  Wait until the next auction and hopefully get some acreage that way, only taking out a small loan to pay for it and keep the 401k intact?  There's a lot of options here.  The question of cashing out a 401k is whether I will be able to replace it and then some - rather quickly.  

What I'm really looking at is simply having business to supplement my retirement.  I know I won't have enough to retire by the time I'm anywhere in my 60's.  I might get 401k's up to 200k into my 60's, but no one would tell you that's enough to retire on even with SS checks every month.  I understand people can live a "simple" lifestyle - where you are basically living bare minimum, but is that what anyone wants when they are in their golden years?  To have to live in what amounts to nothing more than abject poverty?  

These are the thoughts that have been swirling around in my head concerning retirement for some time now. Getting something set up now will eventually pay off, have a constant income, will leave me set for life. It doesn't have to be confined to an RV park, but that is the cheapest thing that I can come up with for a rental property right now.  

On another note, several properties that went for sale at the tax lien sale auction are already for sale on the internet. Talking about some seriously jacked up prices.  I mean, I understand they want to make a profit off of it, but wow! And how do they sell the property without having had waited the 6 month time period? I don't understand how that works and I'm going to be asking at the tax office tomorrow. I have to go down there and pay up registrations for trailers, perhaps they have insight on sales of these properties before they even officially own them. There must be a lot more to this story that I don't know about.  

So, it's Sunday afternoon. No work tomorrow - tho there's plenty to do and I'll be going at it all day long.  Been wanting to clean up the back yard for some time.  Would like the address to the 33 acres and see what it looks like, it really is right off the interstate, maybe a mile or so.  Perfect location, I think. Close to town but not in town.  But that represents debt.  I don't have 88k even if I cashed out that old 401k, it's not that much money.  The thing 33 acres would do is to open up other opportunities to do other things. Small herd of cattle. Mobile home park.  Truck parking? They charge a fortune for truck parking, if I had some acreage to set aside for that I could just charge $5 per night and still make a good chunk of change every month.  

I know about truck parking - I deal with it all the time. But especially major Interstate corridors, where drivers have to shut down somewhere for 10 hours and sometimes - a lot of times - finding a spot can be incredibly difficult.  But, drivers balk at the idea of spending $18 for one night to park a truck. Most of them don't do anything but park, watch tv in their truck and leave the next morning.  The price is outrageous and I can see renting a bulldozer, clearing out 5 acres of land, having rock put down and get with the program.  See? There's lots you can do with land besides traditional farming. I'm not a farmer, I don't think I could do that. Those people know a lot more than most people think, a lot of expertise needed to run even a small farm.  That's mostly generational stuff.  

Without putting in a truckstop or anything but garbage cans and maybe some portajohns, that is low maintenance and low labor cost.  Minimum wage job - work from 4 to midnight.  That's when they all come in - starting around 4 and actually long before midnight, but you want to optimize your income. For i can tell ya, even at pay parking spaces? Truckers will park there and not pay if they can get away with it.  

Anyway, I have the ideas I just have to figure out how to get this going. Even mom offered to loan me money.  I really don't want to get into loans with family members but it was a nice gesture.  

Well that's enough for this one.  

 Merry Christmas!

It's -ummm - 5:15 AM Christmas Day, had my Christmas yesterday cause' today? I'll be driving all day long getting down to Brownsville.

My manager actually wanted to send me out yesterday, the next day after getting back from PA lmao.  I had to laugh. Dude, I have like 45 MINUTES left on my 70 hour clock. I was sweating getting back without a 34 hour reset.  

Allegedly everyone that didn't ask for time off is working today. Figures, these plants don't care if you have to work on major, national holidays.  

__________________________

Started that post - several days ago and got distracted.

Driving down to Brownsville wasn't without problems, the rubber came off of a retread on the trailer and of course destroyed the fender.  They didn't used to use retreads and they have been paying the price ever since in huge bills having both tire repair trucks coming out and mechanics to fix the damage.  Or piece together the damage, I should say, they certainly don't just carry fenders like that around with them.;  

That took 3-1/2 hours and I ended up using a 16 hour extension, which adds 2 hours to your 14 hour clock, to get to the yard down there and have exactly zero minutes left when I got to the gate.  I had to do my post trip on the street and then go in the yard on personal conveyance.  

No empty trailers for once.  The next day, they brought one in around noon.  The driver was going to drop it in the middle of the yard, as is their want, to let me hook up to it and leave. Versus backing it into a spot. Well, I watched him back the trailer up, crank down the landing gear which is when I got out - and saw the back of our trailer smashed into the front of another trailer.  

After a long ordeal of them taking it off and trying to fix the damage, I hooked up to the trailer and then - heard air hissing.  A large hole in a brake airline, they had brought it in that way.  Those drivers don't care about stuff like that, they are driving the trucks into Mexico and back, Mexico doesn't care about stuff like that, either. The only stop gap is if the truck is inspected at the border.  They would have put that trailer out of service for a problem like that.  

Another several hour wait and the ordeal was finally over.  Odd trip, all of those problems.  

Got back yesterday, leaving the yard, my manager of course asks me if I'll take someone else's load because they are stuck in Brownsville.  That driver is getting 2 days down there.  Doesn't matter, I guess, with all the breakdown pay and overnight detention pay I'll still be making more than he will for 2 days of sitting - but I"d far rather sit around down there getting paid for doing nothing than driving all over the place.

But, this trip isn't so bad, it's just up to Oklahoma and back, and overnight trip that should have me back tomorrow morning sometime.  

My package finally showed up after 11 days to my mom.  I'll never use USPS again if it's for an important delivery that you want to a destination by a specific time. It's not like that package was free to send, it cost $44 and I'm not real happy about the fact that USPS took so long to deliver it.  My letter to my son - I sent on the 15th - is still lost somewhere.  A toy I bought for one of the kids, same thing and a book I bought for Taylor - tracking says it's sitting in Brooklyn - yes, since the 15th.  It's now the 28th.  

Rumor has it that a lot of postal workers are out sick with Covid, I don't know, I haven't seen any news about it and I certainly haven't received any apologies from them concerning items shipped with guarantees to be at destinations by X date.  

Well enough of that.  My deeds still haven't shown up, lol.  I've found several properties that fit the bill for an RV park.  I have to make a decision on the Prudential retirement 401k. It's sitting at 66k, I'd lose 20% hit for cashing it out, I think, so that would erase over 13 grand right off the bat but there would still be plenty left to use as up front money for a loan to get the property, get a septic system install, run the water and power lines from the road, put up one of those portable buildings for an office, have a driveway and pads done.  One property is huge, it could house the RV park and have a lot of land left over for personal use.  Just out in the county, the ad says it's only a few minutes away from the Interstate. That would make it a near perfect location, people can both live in their RV's and travelers can pull in overnight.  Just have to check the road/s going in and out to see if they are good enough.

Well, my time is up, gotta get moving. 

G'day.  

Ok, well I guess I have posts that I started the last few days and didn't finish. 

I got back from PA, was talking with my manager, he had called me 25 minutes before I got back asking me - when was I getting back? Odd, really, he can look at the system and see where I'm at - I told him 25 minutes and he said fine, we'll talk when you get here. 

Ohh? I thought, what are we talking about?  I haven't gotten into any "trouble" so that statement was a bit disconcerting.  What he wanted to inform me of was that I was being sent out "tomorrow" and then another run directly after that.  I thought it humorous that he doesn't check anything that he can easily access.  I had to inform him that I was done to 45 minutes on my 70 hour clock, I can't go anywhere.  

OHHHHH, that's right! You just got back from Enery.  And a Brownsville run before that, all of that driving consumed my entire clock.  

It was somewhere around noon. Taylor and I met at Chili's after I left the yard, I was ready for some conversation in-person with people I actually know and like.  I really didn't do much of anything the rest of that day.  But the next day?  Sitting in a truck for 8 days?  Yeah, it's time to get some physical activity in.

The entire front lawn was covered with leaves from the oak tree - again.  I figured it would take 3 times with the lawn mower to deal with that tree dropping leaves, it's huge tree.    I got the lawn mower out, after getting laundry in the washer and went to work. I wanted it looking good, but really, I just needed the exercise pushing the mower back and forth and back and forth and walking.  

I was getting close to done and - zoning out, just doing the job and not really paying attention to my surroundings - James walks up to me. But totally freaked me out, lol, I just happened to look up and there he was.  Taylor wanted him to come join her at Chili's - she's working there now, to give some context, she gets a free meal every day - and he was getting the boys fed and dressed so they could come outside.  

Sure thing. Day before Christmas, pent up anxieties, the little ones needed to blow off some energy/steam and get it out of their system.   It took me longer to finish than I expected, but that was because I was also dealing with the neighbor's portion of lawn covered with their tree's junk dumping leaves and then, the rain or wind comes and blows it onto our driveway and then, of course, into our yard.  

But finally done? I did not go inside, the boys wanted to play and I was content to let them. It was a gorgeous, beautiful day, clear blue skies, the front yard completely cleaned up - at least temporarily lol - and I was happy to have gotten 3 hours of some physical activity in.  I actually would have started on the back yard - a total disaster and nightmare, but I was out of steam.  People think truck driving is easy.  You think so, huh?  You come spend the day with me that I just had and the 8 days worth of running I had before that and get back to me.  

And anyway, I had lots of laundry to do, it was time to go inside. The boys were happy to, actually, after all that time outside.  I spent ample amounts of time petting Addler out front as well after getting done with the yard work.  He wasn't just craving attention, he was demanding it lol.  Pet him for a few minutes, stop, and he would turn around, jam his giant head into my body and one of my hands - you will pet me and you will pet me now! lol

Umm, anyway, I put the boys down for a nap - they get really cranky if they don't get an afternoon nap - and got working on the laundry. They came back after that, I got out the rib roast, dressed it up and put it in the oven. As much as I wanted to smoke it, I just didn't have the time or the energy.  I finally got a chance to sit down and chat.  

See, the idea of cashing out that 401k and getting that business going just amped way up after I found several properties that would do the trick. One of them just outside of town, 1 minute off the interstate - that's a perfect scenario, but still have water and electric.  Sewage would have to be a septic system.  Kind of expecting that once you get outside of city limits.  The next door neighbor is the head of 2 banks, I'm going to ask him about what I need to do to approach a lender about getting a business loan. How much up front money do I need to get X amount of money loaned?

Why did I just throw that in there? Because I"m tired of working for corporate America.  Especially this company, who doesn't care if you have to work on holidays and all weekends and really whether you have a life outside of their company or not.  

Alright, well, today.  Loading was a breeze, getting out of the plant easy.  I got 460 miles down the road, 138 miles away from Brownsville - and a trailer tire blew out.  It trashed the fender in the process. My first thought? How many hours do I have left to get down there? Not, call the repair numbers first lol.  Cause' this is Christmas Day and it was highly likely that there wouldn't be any empty trailers down here.  

3-1/2 hours later, both service calls done. One to fix the tire, the other to jerry rig the fender, I had nothing in the truck to be able to do that or I would have done that part myself.  The clock? I was sweating that one.  Looked like a toss.  Get here in time to stop the clock and get in off-duty mode. I wasn't wrong, either.  I didn't even get into the yard before I had to deal with that  - but - I did legally make it down here with - no time left at the gate lol.

I was pleading for no empty trailers in here.  Sure enough, there wasn't a single empty in here.  So glad. Finally get some sit and wait pay and if it's too late tomorrow before they bring empties, I'll get out of the Oklahoma run that is scheduled for Sunday morning load.  

Well as much as I"d like to write more, fatigue has overtaken me. It was literally a 16 hour day.  And I'm ready to go to bed. 

Merry Christmas!

 Drove to just outside of Jackson, Mississippi, looking at traffic conditions in Jackson.  I've gotten stuck many, many times in ridiculous traffic jams in that town, losing over an hour of drive time on several occasions.

Same thing - long red line followed by orange line. Probably another accident, that's what it usually is.  I pulled into a truck stop and waited for half an hour, nothing changed, I gave up and quit for the day.  

Up early, traffic good, drove straight through there, all the way back to the yard, only stopping for fuel. My manager called on the way back, my bluetooth not working well, I was going to put it on speakerphone but he said don't worry about it, we'll talk when you get back.  

Get back? I've got your going out tomorrow, sorry bud, but everyone is working on Christmas.  I thought, tomorrow isn't Christmas and I don't have any hours left. I was literally down to 45 minutes on the 70 hour clock.  So I had to smile. Dude, I am literally out of hours. I just spent the last 8 days on the road.  He looked at me funny and shook his and said, wow, what was I thinking? I thought you were on another run, you were doing Enery (I found out that's another name for the company I went to, never heard that one before).  

He is way too overworked and it shows.  I don't say who I work for on here or anywhere on the internet, I don't want the cancel culture coming after me, my boss, other drivers, anyone.  My old work is on my Facebook, I don't care about that and I don't change it on purpose. People can call that company all they want, I will never be going back there, even if I become unemployed I wouldn't even think of going back to that lame @$$ company.  

Anyway, he told me a story about a truck that was in a peterbilt shop somewhere and how he sent a driver in a rental car to go get it after the shop called and said it was done.  The driver got there - well over 1,000 miles away - to find out it isn't done.  He drover back. Days later, done again. Driver goes - not done again.  3rd time?  My manager gave them an earful. Let me tell you something, this isn't a small company, we don't have 1 truck, we have 20,000 tractors and we aren't going to tolerate you toying with us like this - going on and on like that.

Peterbilt? Called my company and complained about him! Like what?  I won't repeat the rest of it here, but there were numerous expletives and a lot of things I just won't repeat.  Just no need to.

So, we both left - he went to get lunch, I went home, I knew from that that I would be working soon and I want as much home time as possible.  Sure enough, I didn't even make it home and I got sent not one, but 2 runs.  First one is Friday - yes folks, Christmas morning, I'll be up, out of here and over to the plant to load the truck.  To Brownsville.  After returning from that?  Straight back out to Oklahoma.  Can't really catch a break here.  Getting tired of this lifestyle, I've said the recently, going to keep saying it;.

To the point that other ideas are floating through my mind.  Get the land and get the RV park built and get it going.  How? Cash out my Ferguson 401k.  Use it as collateral for a loan to buy the property, get the permits, get the legal work done, install the utilities, a small portable building to start with, get the driveways and pads built and get this thing going.  I have 2 people already willing to help run this affair while I continue to - drive trucks.  

Risky? Of course.  Everything is risky in life. I could lose that retirement money and regret it. Or, I could start getting a decent income and replace it eventually with net profits.  I'd still have my other 401k, not as big as the ferguson one but it will get there within the next year or so.  I've been having a lot taken out every paycheck and at least for now, the stock market has been mostly favorable.  

I haven't, of course, even come close to making any decision about it, but it's a course of action that would get this thing rolling and not take - years - to actually launch the business. 

_____________

Dinner at a nice taco place with the family.  I can actually stand being alone for long periods of time, but there is a limit and then, I need to connect with people I know. It's ok talking with strangers all the time - to a point.  I'm going to let the kettle brew on thinking about my next steps on a business venture - but it won't be without action.  I can at least find out county requirements and if there are any restricted areas where they wouldn't allow such a thing.  I can start studying Texas law about people that pay, park and then don't leave - and don't pay.  Not sure how that works in such a venue.  Lots of things I need to do that don't cost money, just time.  

But after 8 days on the road? It's probably time to watch re-runs of star trek next generations or something : )

 I've been staying at hotels all of my life, even when I was a little boy my parents would parade around the country on random, last minute trips and stay at places such as the what-was-once the glorious Holiday Inns - they were really a fine affair and much fun to stay at. Obviously, a lot of people have been staying at hotels all of their lives - but in the last few years with this job I have I have been afforded on occasion to stay at what I would consider "finer" places - Marriotts to be specific about it - and medium caliber properties as well. 

They don't really put you up in low budget places, plus my company has corporate contracts with a lot of the chains and get reduced rates.  I know because I have seen how much it costs them and it's a pretty penny less than what you and I ordinary Janes and Joes would pay.  Having said all of that and having spent a good deal of time staying at Motel 6's in the past - when they were cheap - I can say that often times, even when it's on my dime, the idea of paying a bit extra for a better place to spend the night is usually well worth it. Now, I only spent $70 on this place, I am still in great wonder how well they take care of this place and the attention to detail they give and still giving lower rates than anything else around, yet being comparable to higher end hotel properties.  

Oh, I woke up early, btw, hence a bit of extra time, I went to bed early as well.  Anyway, I saw a Motel 6 yesterday advertising rooms for $59.95 and had to laugh, really laugh.  Those are bottom of the barrel brands.  They used to take care of them better than they do now and back in the day, I was only staying at them on vacation. In other words, they weren't a destination per se, they were just a place to hang your hat for the night and then get up the next day and move on with the agenda.  They weren't great, but they weren't terrible either.  Now, IMO, they're just terrible.  They used to be the cheapest thing around.  Like a 1/3rd to half less price than most anything else around, which again, back then, was quite appealing working with limited vacation budgets that I had to work on for months trying to get the cheapest everything for - everything.  Disneyland visits were Motel 6 - but then a place called Alpine Inn - and buying a portion of bulk tickets on Craigislist, using however many days of them up and then giving them back to the owner so they could sell the rest of the time off to someone else. 

It really saved a lot of money, including eating at least some meals out of the back of the car or going off Disneyland property to eat lunch somewhere cheaper.  I wouldn't do that now - at least currently - simply because of the money I am making, worrying about finances hasn't been a thing for quite a long time actually. That's a nice feeling.  It's given me the option to save more money and start investing.  A little late in life I guess to start investing, but now better than never.  

It just amazes me that the price of everything has gone up, yet in many cases, the quality or quantity of everything has gone way down.  I call that corporate greed in many instances and it's appalling to me to see what they can get away with.  Hotels are definitely no different.  As with Motel 6, the prices have gone way up but the quality has definitely gone down.  I wouldn't stay at one now unless it was somehow a last resort. I'd honestly rather stay in my truck overnight than in one of those s***holes.  

Alright, enough of that. In about 25 minutes I'm leaving here, heading to the plant where I will be for several hours.  The goal today is at least 400 miles of driving. The minimum to make it back on Wednesday is 200 miles.  That's if I have enough hours left on my 70 clock to make it back. It's going to be very tight, that I can assure you of.  I'm still not convinced I will make it back before Christmas, just really won't know for sure until the last day of driving and seeing what I've got left in hours versus miles to drive.  And that, only if I don't have a mechanical break down, tho I can go into off duty mode and save my 70, if it's bad, well, it will be days in the shop. Take a truck to Peterbilt and you aren't getting out of there the same or even the next day.  Just doesn't work that way.  

As it stands, the truck has been idling for 20 hours so I need to get down there and do a regen on the DEF system - they get clogged up or something after idling too long and it has to idle up the engine, create a lot of heat and burn it out of there.  Othewise? You won't be going anywhere very fast.  

Anyway, I best get this show on the road. A regen usually takes at least 10 minutes and I want to get this day started.  

G'day. 

 Arrived Allentown, PA, a few hours ago. They wouldn't let me into the hotel I picked until 1:00 pm - courtesy for they normally don't allow in until 3:00 pm.  They wanted a $50 fee to get in early and I balked at that.  Maybe $20, but $50? No. Can I wait out in  your parking lot? Sure, I have no problem with that.  

Just so happens there is a sports grill 300 feet away, I ordered wings in advance and walked over there to pick them up.  We got into a long conversation about this particular state and how the governor's covid decrees are destroying people's lives.  This sports bar/grill has been forced into the depths of carryout only.  Apparently no restaurants are allowed to have dine-in anything.  The employees are getting 2 days a week - where they were getting a full 40 hours.  A recall petition has been started on the governor hear- hadn't heard about this one gonna have to look it up- but if the government is going to simply destroy people's lives even after the businesses jump through the hoops of gearing up their properties to comply with covid restrictions, they can all go piss off.  

It's the service industries that have been getting hit harder than anyone.  I left a nice tip for the gal who said "you must be Ben" when I walked through the door before I had said anything. Well yes, yes I am, how did you know that?  I could just tell.  Lol, okayyyy.  I don't have my name plastered on my forehead, it was a bit odd but I went with it.  

My sitting time in the parking lot over, 1:00 pm finally showed up, but I spent a lot of the wait time talking to mom on the phone.  I text her all the time, hadn't talked to her on the phone recently, figured it was time.  She's debating whether she should go to the Christmas party that is allegedly only 5 people. My brother, his wife and the wife's daughter and mate.  She is really trying to keep herself distant from people in person.  I can't blame her, in her 80's, she has to take whatever precautions she can.

But she lamented how my brother's wife is in a retail service industry and the daughter is also and they are exposed to lots of people.  I couldn't give her any advice. Go - and risk it. Don't go - and be lonely.  I think take the risk.  Get a plastic face shield.  Do whatever you have to but maybe being with family and anyone, really, is important to your mental health.  But I didn't tell her to take the risk, that really needs to be up to her. I'm not going to be responsible for suggesting she goes and then find out she contracted Covid and then - who knows what.  My goals in life do not include inadvertently killing my mother, thank you.  And having to live with that, thank you again.  

Anyway, I've got 8 luxurious hours to do nothing.  In this rather nice hotel. Was surprised how nice it is for the price.  I wasn't going to go to the Holiday Inn again - they have nothing to offer. No food and terrible service - and nothing within walking distance to get something to eat - and for all of that nothingness, over priced at over $100 per night. 

 I found this place up the road a piece, called them and asked if they have any truck parking and they said yes. That was all it took. I saw the place I got my food from on the map, that was the other plus. Yes I brought food with me, no I don't want to be confined to it, I've been eating that food for 2 plus days now.  Not even breakfast have I had eating out.  That's why I come prepared.  You don't know if you're going to find anywhere to eat that has anything you want to eat. I'm on keto and I'm not flinching from it. I gained fat back on my extended time off from it and now I'm determined to get it back off.

So here it is, in the room with very nice carpeting, not smelly, nice quiet heating/ac unit, 44 inch flat screen tv with a very impressive list of tv channels, a mini fridge.  No microwave but they have one out where the ice machine is. I'll be heating up some food later, I ate wings from the restaurant but that was enough eating out, still plenty of food in the truck. I left it running. It's cold and I don't want to have problems starting it. This hotel was paid for by me - Christmas treat - and they would have had to pay for the fuel for it to run with me in it anyway.  

The 70 hour clock is down to 27 hours and 10 minutes.  Lol.  I still have 30 minutes to get to the plant in the morning before I'm started the trip home.  Right now, every last one of those minutes counts.  It's almost 1,400 miles back.  I'm lol because I don't know if that's possible in a truck that only goes 67 miles per hour, where I have to be on-duty for pre and post trips and for fueling.  Once I get to the plant tomorrow, it's going in off duty mode the entire time. I don't unload the truck, I don't have to be on duty.  I will, however, be freezing my butt off because they don't let you run the truck and I can't go wait in their office.  And it usually takes a minimum 3 hours to off load.  After 30 minutes, that truck will be cold lol.  

Other things. Mother couldn't understand the value of owning a divided interest in a property. Well how do you build on it? I don't intend on building on it. It's hunting property, 12 acres of it, out in the country, there will be deer and hogs on it, tho I'm only interested in deer.  I mean, if  someone built something on it (can't tell cause' it's literally covered with pine trees, from satellite view), but if they did it would have taken the permission of everyone else.  Let's put this in perspective. A deer lease costs at least $500 per year, most of them twice that price and even much more than that.  That's where you pay a set price to use someone else's land to hunt on it.  

At $1,100, I got a piece of a property that I will only have to pay property taxes on every year, less than $200.  I only need to converse with everyone else about the use of the property, but they certainly aren't going to stop me from using it.  Put up a deer stand and get out there and learn the art of hunting. I got a taste of it from a friend in Phoenix and going out with him on hunting ventures, but I only observed. A good thing for the beginning, but I'm ready to get with the program.  I'll have to go back down to the truck and get my papers, I can't remember how much the property taxes were, I'm just sure it was not that much money.  

The rest of the properties - will be in limbo for a while.  I have been looking to just get a loan on some property and buy it without all this tax lien auction stuff. But the prices are so incredibly high! 5 to 10 k per acre? Just incredible.  Minimum acreage for an RV park is 4 acres.  

 Yesterday - the beginning of this trip

The loading plant.

I get there, a lady comes running out waving her hands.  Okaaaaayyyy..... plant is shut down, you can't come in, park over there.  Must have happened after I passed the entrance to the operation - there is a red flashing light out there that comes on indicating a plant shut down.  So, I'm at the front of the line - and yes there was a line after it was all said and done.  Truck after truck after truck. This lady would wait until they drove all the way up to her and then she would tell them to go back.  By the time it was over, there were trucks backing up hundreds of feet to get to the next available parking space.  You know, versus her stopping them at the area where they would need to park?  

Getting into the plant, the scale is closed, they are doing construction and they are repaving the entire entrance and exit to the scale (about time, giant potholes everywhere).  So, going to the other scale, of course there was a line.  I got to the loading rack to find that the first load - ahead of me - had just started loading.  I went into my sleeper and fell asleep.  

After getting loaded?  Back to the scale house where it's all shut down and trying to find a parking space. Their temporary parking was full.  Going into the scalehouse, there were a dozen other drivers in there.  Another hour and a half wait. I lost 4 hours and 15 minutes in there yesterday.  When I finally got on the road, I drove almost 8 hours straight without stopping.  Yup, not even to go pee, I just huffed and puffed down the Interstates and tried to get some miles in.  Finally stopped to get fuel.  

It wasn't over after that.  Fueling was easy, took my 30 minute break there and got out of there, but I used my 16 hour exception - that adds 2 hours to the 14 hour on-duty clock. You can do it once per 70 hours.  I drove on down Interstate 40 and got a notice from GPS.  An accident on the shoulder, you are still on the fastest route.  Oh, well that shouldn't be a big deal, I erroneously thought.  

I got up to the traffic jam.  It was 3 -1/2 MILES to the accident site according to GPS.  That far at 0 to 5 miles per hour.  I lost over an hour and a half.  There were no exits in that area, I couldn't get off and just save my clock. See, I was looking at my 70 hour clock. It dawned on me that the Brownsville trip ate up some hours, I started this trip down 23 hours on the 70 clock.  At 70 hours? I either have to take  a 34 hour reset or if I"m lucky there will be hours available from 7 days prior.  I could be 20 miles from the yard and have to do that reset.  It's really going to be close.  I can't really say whether I'll be home for Christmas or not.  It's too close to call. Anything can happen to eat up time.  The only thing I can do is go off duty for everything but driving, excepting a few things I have to show time for.  Fueling and pre-and post trips.  

If it isn't any of those? I put that thing into off duty immediately, for off duty obviously doesn't count against your 70 hour clock.  I got up to the accident. Another destroyed semi truck. This was horrific looking. The entire cab of the truck was twisted.  It was leaning about 60 degrees off the driver's side of the frame.  The drivers seat area - the door was stuck open, the seat was partially hanging out the door, the entire area where the driver sits was twisted and caved in, the seat at an angle.  I don't know what happened, but the load on the truck had come off, it was 1-1/2 inch diameter steel pipe. I know this from 12 years of working at a pipe yard, lol, I can tell you the diameter of most pipe simply by looking at it.  They were loading that all onto trucks that had been brought in to haul it off.

After 16 hours I only got 547 miles in yesterday.  Today, no problems.  Lots of traffic but no real slow downs. 655 miles and I'm in some small town in Virginia not terribly far from the Maryland state line on Interstate 81.  I'm 185 miles from the area I will stop at tomorrow - I will definitely get a hotel.  I mean, I will be there at 10 am or earlier, probably going to have to hang out somewhere to get into a hotel, they don't usually let you in before noon or so.  I haven't decided which one, I just know that I don't want to stay in that Holiday Inn I stayed in last time up here on this run.  

Still, you have to find truck friendly places, ie: parking. I find that out by looking at satellite view of any property I am interested in staying it - you can clearly see if there's actual truck designated parking or if the property is big enough for a truck to pull into and park at.  \

I thought about spending Christmas on the road - if it comes down to that, I remember that I agreed to it to have Thanksgiving off.  I'm going to take the Mississippi/Louisiana route back along I-20 - if I'm only short 30 to 40 minutes - that's what I'm guessing this may turn into - I can stop at the truck stop in my town, park there, get a room and get a ride home.  Why get a room? Because my company will pay for it and it has a swimming pool lmao.  It's right next to the truck stop.  Anything can happen, I'm hoping for the best outcome. But I will suck it up and deal with it if I am stuck out here somewhere.  

My new fish tank has became the focal point of the house lol.  Everyone is interested in the thing, everyone wants to feed the fish, we're now talking about putting in fish tank specific fish in there along with the Koi goldfish.  It's okay as long as any exotics get along with my koi, especially. Goldfish are cheap, Koi are definitely not.  I may just wait until spring to put up my new pond setup.  It's gotten cold.  Speaking of cold it's getting into the 20's where I'm parking tonight.

But, I have plenty of cold winter gear. 

Well enough of this, time to go to bed.

 Friday morning.

Quick note.

Leave today - if the plant gets me out of there, one of our drivers was there until 9:15 pm last night and that's been happening a lot lately - get 650 or more miles down the road, do the same tomorrow, then arrive near my destination Sunday morning.  Get a hotel, spend the day lounging around, get up early Monday morning, get it unloaded - it takes hours at that plant - and then head back.

That's the plan.  We'll see. The truck is freshly out of the shop, there are no warning or engine lights, so hopefully I'm good to go.  

Again,we'll see, lol.

At least I got my Christmas shopping done and sent off!

Merry Christmas!

 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.