Well....

Thursday - mid morning

Yesterday was interesting.  This new guy - been there a month now - kept calling me asking me to come get money.  Ok..he's 5 days early but if he insists on paying, I'll take his money.  I was busy with cutting weeds, but whatever.

So I go over there, knock on the door. This dude opens the door and almost falls out of the trailer.  He was stone cold drunk.  I don't mean slightly buzzing, he was drunk as a buzzard, standing there, barely able to stand up.  His speech was slurred and his breath smelled of beer.  I'm not even a cop but anyone could easily make these determinations just from standing close enough to him having a casual conversation.

He hands me the money, chit chatting the entire time and then, maybe 2 minutes later, asks me if he had paid me the rent?  Yes, you just handed it to me.  After telling me how great the park is and going on about wanting to do some deer hunting in the rear of the property - and if he could, he would have the deer processed and give me some of the meat - he then stated he was leaving for west Texas for 5 days.  

Uhhh, have you been drinking? Yes I've probably drank a 12 pack.  Now, mind you, it's 11:00 am.  We're not even out of the morning hours and this guy has downed a 12 pack already?  He wasn't being belligerent, nasty, foul or obnoxious, he's a nice drunk. But the idea that he was about to go driving 700 miles or however far his friend was away?  Well I hope you aren't leaving any time soon.

After the conversation, he went back into his trailer and I went back to work. I was tidying up the 3 people's lots and was picking up trash and noticing piles of dog poop that need cleaned up.  I didn't get to that yesterday, I shouldn't have to get to that at all.  I wasn't paying attention to his trailer, but 20 minutes later I looked up and he was gone.  I don't kind kindly to drunk drivers. They are a clear threat to everyone on the road.  Not just themselves.  They kill people, maim people, send people to the hospital, destroy lives and destroy property.  

I haven't heard from the trucking company this week - yet - there is no reason to believe they won't continue on with wanting to hire me considering all the phone calls and time spent yapping away on the phone with them as well as an extensive background check that isn't free to them.  I think this is why, now that I think about it, a lot of companies want the full application filled out at the very least before they do anything. And then, they talk to you on the phone first.  They want a commitment that you are going to work for them, that is what this company did for me before they ever did the tasks of checking my information.

It costs them good money and why throw it away on people that aren't serious?  But, the trucking industry is brutal.  Companies treat you like a number on the screen and after you've been driving for any length of time, you tend to start treating them right back the same way, even if unconsciously doing so.  

I'm not even looking for jobs today, I have too much to do over there.  The RV has a propane leak and I am going to try my best to find the source of it and fix it.  I only need gas to the stove, everything else should have been bypassed.  I know the water heater line has a plug on the end of it.  I will try my best to find the leak, otherwise, I'm going to have to pay the dude to come see if he can find it. It's that or perhaps somehow run a new line to the stove.  

Whatever this itching has been, it's finally subsided to the point it's almost gone.  It's been a great relief not to have itching going on all over the place.  I have no definitive cause for it, but as I have stated, it's likely something over at the park that is causing an allergic reaction of some sort.  

And I was forced to take an owner's draw.  No choice in the matter, my hope is based on people staying and paying.  I'll be on the NJ lady's doorstep on the 27th.  Well, no, I'll just text her. She says her money comes in between the 27th and the 29th.  She claims to pay up to current. I've only got enough in the business account to cover that giant electric bill - but I've got plenty of time to collect numerous rents and perhaps, get some new people in. Lots of inquiries, no one has moved in yet. 

I'm not going to worry about it.  I've got probably $200 worth of quarters to wrap up and deposit plus $400 cash given to me yesterday, the NJ lady, another payment from the RV lady - well 2 payments by then, the 3 people if they stay and a couple of others.  It's close to 4 grand worth of payments before the due date for electricity.  IF that money all comes in, I'll make this work. Having more people move in would be an extra added bonus.  Overnighters are helping here and there.  Another $100 to be collected from 2, 3-day stays coming up.  But, the credit card company is going to take it's share which will probably be around $200.  I'm getting more cash payments and I was informed that people paying with debit cards, the credit card processing companies aren't allowed to charge near as much as with a regular credit card.

This coming from the campground software owner who contacted me after I sent an inquire to the card company about processing fees. Cash app is also a popular payment method which costs me nothing as long as I opt to take payment on the "free" column where you wait several days for them to give it to you. Presumably, they are a bank that uses the money sitting in their account as loan money to whoever/however the same as regular banks do.  I've told people that I have to start collecting another 3.1% on top of the rent payment to cover those fees - I'm not eating them. Every business has to pay those fees, some more some less. A lot of them bake the cost of it into the cost of their products.  

Well, I can't do that unless I raise rates and I would rather keep the rate lower and just tell them flat out they are going to have to pay the extra fee or pay me some other method.  One of them opted to start writing checks, which is fine by me.  

Alright, another miserably hot day slated for 104 degrees and who knows what the real-feel will be like, I best be thinking about getting over there and starting to look for this leak.  It's just a matter of using a spray bottle with a mixture of water and dish soap mixed in. It bubbles up if you spray it on a leak.  I wouldn't think copper lines would sprout leaks anywhere but where there are fittings.  So, that's going to be my focus, find the junctions where it splits off and spray them.  Start at the cylinder and move on back.   

I was just enjoying my second cuppa.  I gave up the fast last night, I was getting so miserable I couldn't deal with it anymore. I will try again next week, back on Keto for now.  I made it almost 2 full days, that's all I can say about that.  I can say that I felt much better after I ate something.  Namely, taco stuff.  I took all the leftover meat and froze it, but they decided they wanted tacos yet again last night.  Fine by me.   

I have the 2 briskets to cook.  Not today.  And I need to go to walmart with the flat tire.  I have no choice but to replace the thing.  So another $40-something down the drain.  I've cut back as far as I can buying stuff for the property, but some things you just have to do. 

And finally, the GOP debate last night hosted by Fox News.  The only ones that looked like they might have made gains last night was Vivek and DeSantis. Haley made a few good points, Christie made himself look like a total @$$, Scott was boring, Pence had a better showing then anything I have seen from him yet, but in the end, I think it's just going to be Trump, Vivek and DeSantis on the ballot for the nomination. At least some of those contenders are going to drop out.  Some governor I never heard of and another person I don't know.  I assume some of these people are hanging on to try and "guarantee" themselves a position on the cabinet or appointment to some high level of power in some agency.  I could see Vivek in some capacity on a Trump team, DeSantis has said he is only running for president, he wouldn't accept a VP invitation.  The rest of them aren't going anywhere.  They might gain a few points after that debate, but seriously doubtful any of them will rise anywhere close to Trump's polling numbers.

That's it. Time to run up to Walmart and then over to the park.  

G'day. 

 There is a Christian mission in Pakistan that helps kids that have nothing.  This man somehow found me and at first I thought he was a scammer.  In fact, I held that belief for some time.  He continued to ask for financial help and I continued to tell him I have no idea whether you are legit or not.

Well, after a few months of this, he started sending truckloads of pictures of his mission, the adults helping running it and all the children.  He took his own pics of destruction caused by Muslims that was in the news yesterday when 2 Christians allegedly destroyed a Quran and they came and basically destroyed this Christian compound/city - whatever you want to call it.  

So, I started sending a few dollars here and there. Doesn't take many US dollars to equal a lot of Pakistan - whatever they call their money.  Today, they pretty much proved beyond any shadow of a doubt who they are and what they are doing.  They had all the kids line up for videos of them holding signs that said "thank you Brother Ben" and another one where they were praying for me and yet another where they had printed out my picture and were having the kids praying for me and my business.

It is not a country that I would pick to go visit on a vacation.  The government claims to support all religious affiliations and has laws against persecuting anyone, but they don't really enforce it. Another friend told me that Pakistan is number 7 on the list of Christianity most persecuted countries in the world.  I don't send often, not in a position to. But, I spent 5 years on the mission field and that never left me.  The things I saw and experienced are not things you forget.  

Anyway,  I guess because I fasted yesterday or because I am still getting fatigued from being sick or just getting old or a combination of all of it, I didn't wake up until 9:00 am.  Now, I did wake up in the middle of the night but I got back to sleep within an hour.  I don't think it's getting old, I was starting to feel good about getting up earlier in the day before I got sick and that just wiped me out.  I intend on continuing with this fast today and possibly tomorrow.  

I was supposed to go over and try to find a propane leak on the RV today, the lady said no, let's do it Thursday when I'm home instead.  If I can't find it, I'll have to pay that guy to come out and see if he can figure it out.  Following the line might be a bit difficult. I did check the connections I could find at first, didn't really think I would find any leaks and I'm wondering if they happen to have the oven dial in the on position and don't know it.  I'm just glad it wasn't slated for today.

It's been so long since we've had any measurable amount of rain here, we are now under a red flag warning for today.  It simply means the conditions are ripe for fires.  Lower humidity, high heat, 15 mph winds, they expect that if a fire does break out, it will spread quickly.  It just means to now throw cigarette butts out the window and being careless and reckless with any type of outdoor fire stuff such as grills.  No campfires, no wood burning, nothing. We have been under that for a week now anyway.  

Well will you look at that. Some people called me late a few days ago, said they had made a reservation but were coming in very late.  My site says to call if you are reserving for same day and after hours.  It's simply to ensure that there actually is a space available and give instructions.  They gave me 5 stars.  It's still only 6 Google reviews but it's better than nothing. Every review counts when you don't have many to start with.  I keep getting companies asking me to pay them for them to load my google up with reviews.  This stuff comes out of the blue into my business email account.  

It is unethical and against Google policy to pay for reviews and upon research, it's actually illegal.  FTC can and sometimes will hit businesses with fines, sometimes huge fines, for doing so.  It's why I don't have that many reviews. I can legally ask customers that have used my services for reviews, but many of them won't do it.  I stopped asking because it was a waste of time.  If someone feels inclined to leave a review, then great.  If they don't, nothing I can do about it.  It just takes time to get enough reviews to have a good collection of them.  Most people simply don't and won't leave reviews, end of story.  

I'm so out of it.  I don't recall fasting hitting me this bad in the past.  

I'm seriously dreading this next electric bill.  I don't have it yet, but it's going to be in the 2 grand range.  Those AC systems are running all day long without shutting off. Compressors only start cycling on and off at night.  I stand there and listen to some of them during the heat of the day and even with 2 ac units on many of the trailers, those compressors are not shutting off.  

This is one of those learning moments. Where you say to yourself, self?  You will start putting money aside during the cooler months when the electric bills are much lower to help offset the high bills for 3 or 4 months during the summer.  I knew I would have high bills, I sort of even expected last month's bill but these 2 bills that will show up sooner or later? Just no.  

....well wait no more.  The bills came in today.  Combined they are $2,400 and change.  If you spread that out to all of the units, that's about $150 per month.  My initial research long ago had it pegged around $130 per month.  So I wasn't that far off and it's been quite - excessively - hot.  It appears that it will be well into next month before any real, significant reduction in the heat so I expect at least one more month of high electric bills before they start to come back down.  Some weather would help us about now. Or even just cloud cover.  We've mostly had brilliant blue skies for quite a while now.  Any cloud cover is a welcome site for removing the direct sunlight beating down on those RV's reduces the load on the AC units significantly.  

It has gotten so bad here that people are starting prayer chains for rain.  Amazingly, my little creek still has a trickle of water going through it. I mean, a very small trickle of water.  I would have thought it would have dried up by now.  

Anyway and fortunately, I have 19 days to plan how to pay for this and everything else.  I will wait until I see whether the 3 guys are staying or leaving.  The company usually sends a check within 1 or 2 days before the end of the month. 

Well. No use fretting over electric bills. It is what it is and what happens will happen.

As for now, I'm going to go over there and get some stuff done before the worst of the heat hits us. 

G'day

Collected rents, was dragged into a very elongated discussion with 4 people and then left there.  Only to get a phone call shortly after I left that an altercation had occurred with another guest who had come in too fast - according to the dude I had just talked with - and that he had gone over and asked him why he was driving so fast.  That phone conversation went on for a while and then the other guy texted me.

Completely different story.  The man had come over, yelled at him in front of his 4 year old son and was rude and belligerent. 

So who do I believe? Well, the family with the kid are really nice folks.  The man that was allegedly yelling had been drinking and was drinking when I was talking with him.  He offered me a beer, which I turned down.  He wasn't overly drunk but you could tell he was definitely feeling it.  Still, drink enough alcohol and your tones can changes to much louder levels and much more aggressive than you may realize at the time.  

I don't care if they drink.  I do care if they start trouble with people.  I'm thinking to just change the speed limit to 10mph and that will end this problem.  I put 15 on the main driveway because the gas workers have to drive clear to the back of  the driveway which is around 1,500 feet and going that slow was asking too much, I thought anyway.  It would be nice if people would just do the 15 before and after the park area.  

Anyway, that situation has calmed down at least.  I did drive by the dumpster and saw the lights come on the camera.  Not very bright, you'd have to be looking at it to catch it.  Especially since it's away from the dumpster. Did that on purpose so it wouldn't be seen and someone being tipped off to the fact that they are being filmed or worse, steal the camera.  

I also went and got 2 of the large briskets on sale.  $2.00 per pound if you buy $25 worth of other stuff in the store.  $2.00 per pound in this economy for brisket is unheard of. I haven't bought any in a long time because of the price tag that comes along with it.  It's easy to spend $25 in a grocery store nowadays, it wasn't even that much stuff. A 5 pound chub of 73% lean ground beef,  a thing of fabric softener, some frozen creamed spinach and a thing of heavy whipping cream.  No, I'm not eating today, but I will be soon enough.  That creamed spinach looked good and low carb.  

I haven't done any meat smoking in quite a long time, I want to get the smoker fired up and spend half a day smoking a nice half brisket.  I say half cause there is no way we are going to eat a whole one of those.  These things are huge.  And since I'm going to be smoking, I want to get some other cut of meat in there, maybe pork, and smoke that at the same time.  That shoulder roast pork is on extreme sale, I like to call it, when the price of a slab of meat is absurdly low.  You don't see it often but the shoulder roast is also less than 2 bucks a pound.  Seeing that brisket on sale that low was almost shocking. 

It's after 9:00 pm, but James just left for the hospital 30 miles away to get Taylor. They are letting her loose, saying she will have to have some sort of tests done every other day, but doesn't need to be in the hospital for that.  They still haven't determined why her enzymes are high and Taylor said today that the "doctors are confused as to what's going on".  I don't reckon that hearing such a statement coming from doctors is reassuring.  But I'm sure she'll be glad to come home and get into her bed.  

Well that's it.  I'm kind of a bit - antzy? - about these 3 people that might be leaving. If they are, I could fill those lots up with railroad workers.  I hate to go ask them, hey!  Are you leaving?  I heard y'all had an issue with the park, could you tell me what it is so I can try to make things good for y'all?  But I'm not going to do it.  I'll just hope they stay and not have to deal with 3 empty lots.  

Anyway, fun day! Lol. G'nite.  

 So, my aspirations to do more signs were stopped in their tracks with several situations.  First was one of the newer guys that wanted to get into an elongated discussion about how wonderful my park is and how I am "cool as f***".  This guy is older than me, lol.  "I've been in 30 plus RV parks and I can tell you this one is the best one I've ever been in. 

Alright.  He wanted a mirror, I put up a mirror after going to Big Lots and finding one that would suffice.  I don't know how to install mirrors, btw.

After that, the NJ lady informed me she had thrown the dude out and she was on her own now.  Which means, she will need rides to the store/s.  She was desperate for cigarettes so I took her to the nearest convenience store about 2 miles away.  She was also asking me for bottled water last night - there's plenty in the shed, help yourself. 

Now, when I was installing the mirror, I looked into the toilet. That is my habit now, see if anyone blew up in it and if it needs cleaned. It hadn't been blown up in, but the bowl was almost empty of water. Strange, I thought. I flushed the toilet and the water just pooled up. 

Great.  Backed up system. I go outside and the opening for the vent had let out all kinds of poop and pee all over the place. The vent isn't even on the toilet line and it is further up the line from the toilet.  I knew this day was coming. Someone will eventually flush something down the toilet such as feminine napkins or just too much toilet paper at once and clog the system up.  It's why I capped the end of the line but didn't put glue on it. It seals nicely without glue and you actually have to hammer it off with a screwdriver.  

I got it off and of course gallons of disgusting sewer water came out.  No choice in the matter, it had set there a long time without any water being added to it and it still wasn't draining.  Oh well. I went home, got the power snake we now have for the house, went back, stuck the snake in there a good 30 feet and then put the hose in there and turned it on.  After a few minutes, the water started gushing back out of the line.  

Pulled it out and decided to stick the snake in further down the line where one of the sewer outlets is for connecting rv's.  I put it in maybe 3 feet and walaah. It cleared right out.  I turned the hose on and let it run awhile.  I wanted to make sure it would get to where the laundry water enters the line, after that, it gets flooded with water and not very likely to back up.  

It was hot, I was sweating and I had that junk on my fingers.  Cleaned myself off, cleaned off the snake and put it back into it's holder, took it home and that was that.  

That was it. All of that and phone calls ate up the day.  Not that I started early, not after last night and being awake all night.  I feel oddly fine right now. I say it that way because I am operating on maybe 3 or 4 hours of sleep at most? Not even that much.  I'm sure - or hoping anyway - that it will hit me sooner or later and then I'll go to bed.  

I have to say that I almost didn't clean out that line. I was so tired and I knew it was going to wear me out from being fatigued already and the heat. But, it's not a good thing to have tenants wanting to come in taking showers and using the toilet and finding out everything is backing up.  It's a good way to lose people.  

I also lost a goodly amount of railroad workers.  I don't have 5 or 6 lots available, sorry.  They wanted to move in for "some time" - must be doing upgrades somewhere - but I couldn't accommodate them as much as I wanted to. They all want to stay at the same park. Not going to be me, I won't have 5 spaces available until next month.  I do have a lady that's called me several times now wanting to move in at the first of the month. Well, she sounds like she does.  This isn't a worker, this is a person that wants to live there.  If they're decent people with decent looking trailers, I'd far rather have some of them in there.  They aren't leaving in a month, 2 months, whatever.  

It still sucked losing all of that potential income knowing that I have at least 2 people leaving next month sometime. Oh well.  

I got no applications in today considering the day filled up quickly, most of what I encountered was not planned.  One of the new guys quit his job, he's 60.  He stopped me today while I was sitting at the trash can looking at the situation.  He said no way that thing is filling up with just the people in the park. He said he would keep an eye out. Yup, my camera will keep a 24 hour eye out as well.  At least I'm not thinking wrong that that thing is full that quickly. 2 days after it was emptied it was already full again? 

No.  Just no.  I'm not the local landfill, pay for your own trash to be taken.  It just looks so unsightly driving into the park and there is this dumpster with bags of trash snow-coned out the top of it.  

Anyway, it just dawned on me that if those 3 leave the end of the month, I could fill them back up immediately with these railroad workers.  But, I hope they don't leave.  They've been there quite a while and are decent people that don't really bother anyone else.  

Tuesday - late morning

Well, that was short-lived at least. The power went out 45 minutes ago and came back on maybe 10 ago.  I was dreading the thought of having to go get the generator and go through all of that stuff to get things powered up.  The power has been going out at various places around town in recent days without explanation.  There have been no storms or high winds.  

I was up most of the night with the runs.  Came out of the blue and even after taking medicine didn't stop until around 5 am.  Yes, I feel like hell.  Well actually, now that I was forced out of bed with the power outage and had a cup of black coffee, I'm feeling better.  

Because of the events yesterday with Taylor going to the hospital, I did not continue with the fast yesterday.  I made it all the way until around 7:00 pm and then we - the boys, James and I - went out to eat over there.  It was James birthday and obviously not having a fun day with his wife going through what he's going through, I decided I will forgo fasting and just start again - today.  Which I am.  I'm highly motivated to do at least 3 days.  If I can last longer, all the better.  

I just watched some footage of "No Comment Biden" over in Hawaii where the devastation occurred.  There were people that showed up to protest.  People over there are disgusted by his lack of response and apparently being inconvenienced to stop his vacation to go over and attempt to console the citizens. He left where he was vacationing, flew over there, did his stupidity and then immediately went back to vacationing!  

His empathy was when his house was partially burned and he "lost a corvette and a cat".  People have died over there, swaths of homes are completely destroyed - businesses too - people's lives are destroyed and he's talking about losing a kitchen or making a stupid joke about the heat on the ground.  I would like to venture to guess that this man will go down in history as the worst president in history, all of US history since the beginning.  

I can't go on about him and the WH too long, it's too aggravating.  They don't care about citizens, they care about their agendas. That's probably true of most politicians but this dude here goes far beyond just an agenda.  

Anyway, I've got more signs to switch from the metal stakes to the wood stakes and I might as well get some of that done today. The ground is so hard from lack of rain, it's pretty crazy trying to dig holes into it.  But it needs to be done.  I've also got a "Video Surveillance" sign I want to put up near the front of the driveway.  I installed my Texas warning sign yesterday as well. It is required to have posted in a highly visible area if you want the protection it offers, which is basically that if someone has an accident by their own doings in the park, they can't hold the park liable.

People fall, break a leg, blame the park and then try to sue for vast amounts of money.  This new law just came out in June, I found out about it several weeks ago, just now getting the sign into the ground. It doesn't protect from Park negligence, of course, but if you step out of your trailer, down the steps and fall and hurt yourself, that's on you.  I notified others in the area about the new law as well, if they want the protection, they must post the sign.  People generally don't care about such signs, they see it, mostly ignore it and move on. Or read it and brush it off and forget about it. 

People also generally don't sue other people or entities for things they did that caused harm to themselves, but there is definitely a contingency of the public that feels that anything that happens to them? Sue!  That is the type of person that I am protecting myself against, who knows if anyone in the park currently is like that. 

Ok, I just remembered I need to go to Big Lots and get that mirror. I can't please everyone, but a bathroom should have a mirror in it, so a mirror they will get.  I'm pretty much done with spending money on that place, just have spent spent spent. I'm really watching the finances closely, have been for a while.  

I've got more applications to fill out, but I guess I am going to get lucky to have anything coming my way that is decent what with a "preventable" accident on there that is still pretty fresh.  It's not the end of the world for many companies, but there are the more "premiere" companies that want a spotless record for the past 3 years.  It's not going to stop me from filling out applications, I just won't bother with the ones that spell out up front that you must have a spotless record.  

Interestingly, a lot of these big companies that are mostly OTR also have "the final mile" trucks running as well. This is getting the product to it's final destination and they run day cabs in local routes to accomplish that feat.  I've seen them around here, most of them are operating out of the DFW area, I assume those drivers live over there and are dispatched to deliver over here.  I'm not moving DFW area, but I do put in apps for those jobs as well.

I don't have to have another hazmat tanker job if I can't get one, tho the job I have lined up is tanker, I never did ask if it's hazmat.  From the sound of it, it is.  One thing is certain: I do not miss the previous job.  At all.  Maybe the paychecks, but everything else sucked about that place. I am still in a driver's group that work for that company, they are always detailing new things the company is implementing to make life even more difficult.  Besides constantly fighting with the payroll department over "lost" runs, detention pay and attempting to get it, dispatchers that have no clue about the trucking industry and a company itself that is owned by investors that have no interest in trucking, just in making a profit and cutting any benefits they can with drivers, I also despised some of the runs.  

And most of these big hazmat tanker companies now have inward facing cameras with microphones.  I know because I ask before I bother applying.  There is a company that is based out of a town about 45 miles from here that I was considering, until I found that out.  They aren't local anyway, it's all OTR stuff but I was considering it just for the fact of the money.  Sorry, but if you've never had that kind of scrutiny, you won't know what I'm talking about.  It's easy to say just eat it and make the money until you have some know-nothing sending you emails or contacting your manager about whatever behavior you are engaging in that they find unacceptable that they see or hear you doing on a damn microphone or camera. 

I never had that happen, I blocked the microphone and covered the camera up when they installed it and flat out told my manager I had done it.  But I wouldn't have taken kindly to the kind of treatment I hear other drivers getting from their companies.  They are afraid of getting fired so they just take it. I would have pushed back and likely gotten fired anyway.  Wear it as a badge of honor and move on with my life. 

I really can't do OTR and try to run a park, that's the bottom line there. I need to be home daily or at least frequently to be able to deal with park stuff.  It's why I'm willing to take a pay cut to get the privilege of being home more often.   I can take phone calls in a truck which is a lot of what I have to do, it's all bluetooth.  You don't touch the phone, you just tell Siri to do whatever you  want it to do.  Message this person, answer that call, call this person, dial that number.  You can have it hooked up to the truck speakers and most trucks have a bluetooth microphone in them you can talk without having to try to hear the phone speaker.  

When we were shooting off guns the other day, Taylor's dad commented about how nice it would be to build a house "down in here". Yes, it would, I said, it would be pricey to get electricity back here tho.  I have to say, tho, if I ever get phase 2 of the park done, that power line will be near the back of the front of the property.   They can stretch a line clear over that easement and not have power poles touching any part of it.  

I would absolutely love to have a cabin back there.  Another septic system and running water line wouldn't be that bad, just getting the power company to do it's thing.  And of course, the cost of building it.  It's sort of a goal.  Maybe.  That's something beyond adding spaces to the park.  My park has to be much larger to support me, that takes precedence over pretty much anything right now as far as spending money goes.  I need double if not triple the revenue coming in the park to live comfortably, save some money and have money for the things I want, not just need. Get me 40-50 lots in there, keep it mostly full and that is possible. 

Well, not going to get too carried away right now with that. Gotta focus on what needs to be done right now, which is go to the park, get more signs fixed up, put in more applications, start the fast again - which is started -  check the camera, make sure no-one did anything with it.  I remembered last night that some red lights come on when it's taking pics or videos.  At night, I don't know how much that's going to stand out. The tree it's on is to the right and back away from the dumpster. Someone looking at the dumpster wouldn't see those lights coming on behind them.  I'll need to go over tonight and see how much it sticks out. That camera wasn't cheap and I don't want it stolen.  

If it is stolen, I'm going to be a very unhappy camper and it will thrust me into the "now I'm going to do whatever it takes to find out who's doing this stuff" mode.  I can only imagine people are just dumping bags of trash on the ground now that the thing is overflowing, they aren't emptying it until tomorrow morning.  I may be forced to get a larger dumpster if I can get this under control.  Much more expensive.  Stuff I can't afford right now.  

It's that or move the thing to the park.  Some people think they want that.  Yea, until you get all the flies and stench that comes with rotting trash, especially in this heat.  It would solve this problem, it would create more.  It also looks bad. Dumpsters aren't exactly eye-appealing in nature.  Where would I put it? Probably by the shed.  Would the refuse company drive back there? Probably, everything is big enough to accommodate it. 

Well, time to get with it. 

 The dumpster is overflowing.  Again.  I think I may have to have it moved to near the amenities shed.  I just can't with people apparently driving in there and dumping their trash that don't live/stay at my park.  I mean, it's overflowing to where there was a bag of trash laying on the ground. Pickup isn't until Wednesday morning. 

I very much suspect the house across the street are at least some of the culprits.  They don't ever have their trash can at the curb anymore - I would know, I'm there daily.  That is the place that had trash laying all over the place for 2 months or longer and finally, one day, they had it all cleaned up.  If it weren't so disgusting, I would go through some of those bags of trash and see if there is any identifying papers in there such as power bills or whatever to see if I can figure out what's going on.  

It is possible, I suppose, that my guests/tenants are throwing away that much trash, but not likely.  There are plenty of weeks where the thing is half full and the same number of guests at the park.  The time I found the thing half full of attic style insulation clued me in on the idea that someone - or lots of someone's - is driving up my driveway, dumping their trash and leaving.  Who knows.

I cut a fallen tree up into pieces in the vehicle storage area behind the shed, mowed the area where that boat was and then contacted them. Please move that boat back behind the shed, I don't want it where you parked it.  Also, please back your vehicles up a bit closer to your trailer so the front ends aren't jutting out so far into the driveway and please bring back the ladder you borrowed if you are done with it.  They had, amazingly, cleaned up all of that mess that was along the front of the driveway without my asking them. 

She (I thought it was the guy's number I was texting) contacted me back and said yes sir, I will have my husband move the boat when he gets home, we will park closer to the trailer and he will bring back your ladder.  

Thank you!

Scrubbed the toilet and the shower stall - they weren't too bad but I think it necessary to spray bleach on them often to keep bacteria/fungus away.  I have a gallon of bleach that I am going to start pouring into a spray bottle now that my bottle of store brand cleaner is empty.  

There was a lot of quarters in those machine quarter holding boxes.  I was surprised. I decided out of the blue to check it.  I will be putting those into wraps and turning them into the business account before the end of the month. Every little bit helps.  

A newer tenant asked me "a small request"- which was to put up a mirror in the bathroom. Yup, he's right, I should have done that a while back. I am currently looking for a used one, tho, new ones are pricey.  Even basic stuff is $60. That may not be pricey but I'm counting my dollars now and trying to keep expenses down to the bare minimum.  Lowe's was pricey, Walmart didn't have the style I am looking for. Good will have this itty, bitty little thing.  I got home and got on my computer and saw that Big Lots has a large, square mirror for a good price. 

So, I will head back up there later on and see it in person.  Oh, well I did go to buy a mirror at someone's house before all of that. There was a reason they didn't show the bottom of the mirror in the pic.  It has these ugly leg looking things on it and the wood was cracked in 2 places.  I am not interested in ugly.  You sure you don't want it? Yes, I'm sure...getting into my vehicle to leave.  They must have been desperate. Good, take a full pic of the thing and show what the whole thing looks like.  

There is another mirror that has the entire thing in the pic and doing close up of it, there is nothing wrong with it. However, it's clear over in Bossier City, quite the drive for just a mirror.  I've pretty much decided the Big Lots mirror will the "The One".  I don't particularly feel the need to drive over 40 miles each way for a mirror. The cost of the fuel will make the price not worth it alone.  I don't have a fuel economical vehicle.  

Jobs.  Well, that accident I had not long ago is causing me to have to bypass lots of stuff I was interested in.  "No at-fault/preventable accidents within the last 2 years".  That ain't me, unfortunately.  There's still some local stuff I don't see any verbiage like that written in there, so I'm going to do the full blown applications.  Right now, I know I have a job lined up with Oregon orientation if nothing else works out, that has me home daily or at least very often.  I figured it would be a chore finding something with an accident and the accompanying ticket plus the fact I haven't driven a truck in a year.  Most companies really aren't saying much about that - 1 year's driving experience within the last 3 years is what I see a lot of.  

 My fasting has started, easy enough right now.  This evening it will get more difficult and then tomorrow will probably be rough. By Wednesday I'll either be starving to death or the hunger will fade away.  It happens that way - at the 3 day mark you find you're not as hungry as the 2 previous days.  It would actually be good to go 8 or more days, I doubt I'll last that long, just shooting for 3 right now.  

I don't remember when the last, measurable rain was, I think it was that big storm that knocked out power for almost 7 days, that's been a while back.  Everything is dried out and the county is under a burn ban along with the city.  If we don't water the grass soon, that will also die out.  Need to do that tonight.  

___________________

Everything cut short.  I was in my bedroom watching TV with the boys when the phone rang. It was Taylor, can you get James? He isn't answering his phone.

A short time later, she is home, I am hearing the doctor told her she needs to go to the hospital immediately, enzymes are too high, some sort of condition that could be caused that shuts down the liver and kidneys and that she should go into a seizure.  Well, we all loaded up into the vehicle and drove 2 towns over, the local hospital here is ER stuff only.  

Up into her room, said our goodbyes but still went out to eat for James birthday today.  Just that Taylor was not with us.  

On the way home - she is being held for 24 hours for observation - she texted a pic of the tubes in her and then they told her her blood pressure had come down on it's own.  So who knows.  

And then a text from the NJ people - we are going to pay up to whatever is owed on Friday I think they said.  

And a phone call from someone wanting to come in late tonight.  Settled that and yet another person that wants to have 3 of them move into the park, which sets up a conundrum of what to do.  Cancel everything and hope they show up?  Or say no, I just have - I think 2 available.  I dunno, I told him I would call back tomorrow.  I need to look at everything and see who said they are only staying a short time.  There's 2 lots that are in that condition with one month stays but they are nowhere near having had been there a month yet.  I've got 3 empty lots, I think he said next week.  But they won't be empty next month for 3 days, running the same days, for 2 lots.  

Anyway, I'm tired and will just go into that tomorrow. 

 Monday - morning

Woke up to the door bell being rung incessantly. Ding dong- ding dong- ding dong.....etc.  I looked on the camera to see who it was, all I could see was a blue shirt standing in front of the camera.  I looked on the main camera and saw nothing out there.  I was half tempted to grab my pistol, who is this?  

I got up, went to the door and....it was Taylor's dad.  I had thought they had already left town, they had instead decided to see Taylor one last time before leaving for another family member that lives maybe 60 miles away.  

The weekend is over, busy as it was. The wedding was awesome, it was truly something to behold.  Emotion was running high in that room where it was being held, at the Elks Lodge to be precise.   They married at a discrete and hardly known get together with a JOP 10 years ago and now they were making up for the lack of a more proper event with all of their friends and family around.   Replete with a DJ playing their favorite types of music and people dancing, the night was grand and the atmosphere was energetic. 

Yesterday a bit more low key. The boys wanted to go to church, I didn't much feel like it but decided to take them anyway.  It was an interesting message. Straight back to the house after church - lots of taco fixing left over from the night before.  Over to the property, Taylor's dad was going to take an overhead video of the park with his drone.  Unfortunately, the drone wouldn't work.  Try as he might, the thing wouldn't come on. He finally got an error message about it being too hot.  

I left them to fiddle with that thing while I went back to the entrance back into the woods with a chain saw to cut down the felled trees from that big storm. It was so hot, it took it out of me. By the time I was almost done, they showed up in 2 vehicles.  I warned them of weeds, they didn't care and drove back there anyway.  They never got the drone running, which was disappointing. The trade off was to fire off the AR-15's and other firearms at our little shooting range replete with a 10 foot (at least) high berm to stop any rounds from going any further than the targets.  

After firing off the AR, shotgun, pistols, watching the boys being helped to fire off  a few different types of guns, one of Jame's friends showed up.  He pulled out a large cache of firearms and ammo, of which he offered me to shoot several of them.  I have to tell you, it is easy to see how an AR-15 can do so much damage at these mass shootings in such a short period of time. With 30 round magazines, you can inflict a lot of damage quickly. It's very easy to rapid-fire the things just pulling the trigger repeatedly and quickly. 

I'm not in agreement with banning them, I'm just saying it's massive fire power that can inflict serious damage in the wrong hands. However, the holes left behind with a 12 gauge shotgun using slugs is far superior to anything else we had out there. I don't much care to shoot them because of the recoil, but I did shoot mine and the other guy's 12 gauge off a few times.  

After that, we went home and then off to a local Mexican food restaurant to cap off the day and the vibrant weekend full of activities. It was like being on vacation without going out of town.  

I was feeling very sluggish this morning, if that door bell hadn't gone off I would have slept much longer, I do believe.  I'm going on a 3 day fast starting today.  I want to clean my system of toxins as much as possible and see if I can start feeling better than what I have been since getting sick.  I kind of cheated on it tho, I had some black coffee, no sugar and no cream.  That's it tho for the day.  I will be drinking water the rest of the day and then tomorrow, try to go without coffee at all. The problem is I will probably get bad headaches tomorrow afternoon for lack of caffeine.  

It is time to start filling out complete applications.  I have mostly just been filling out short versions of them that are found online.  But when you do that, they just send you emails saying you need to fill out a complete application.  Ok, what is the point of filling out the short version of it then?  Whatever.  I'm going to run over to the park, check everything out, clean the toilet and the shower stall and write down the infractions one certain lot of new people are committing and contact them.  They have too much stuff outside and it's now lining their driveway plus spilling over to the next lot. The next lot is currently empty.  They also parked their boat next to the shed in between the doggy park and shed without my permission. 

I don't want it there, thanks.  I have a huge parking area behind the shed where they had it, why they moved it over there is unknown. They are taking far too many liberties and it's time to reel them in.  They are closing in on a month's worth of occupancy.  It's just too cluttered and looks trashy.  It's kind of annoying, they have been living in an RV for along period of time, they know how RV parks operate, taking these kinds of liberties is a bit ridiculous.  

Anyway, now that I am awake, coffeed and feeling ok, it's time to get over there, get that stuff done and then come home and start the application process. And a process it is!  Just one application can take up to an hour depending on how much information they are wanting. 

 Saturday - morning

The big day has finally arrived.  My involvement is buying taco fixings for the reception. It's not going to be anything fancy, just crunchy tacos with normal fixings for it.  Although, it doesn't come with sour cream so I feel a visit to the grocery store for a couple of tubs of it is warranted lol.  A chain restaurant nearby is donating their wonderful chips and salsa for the event.  Trust me, their chips are awesome.  I don't want to say the name of the chain as to eliminate any trolling/doxing that may occur because of it.  

___________

Done.  Sour cream bought, 4 large red onions chopped up, I saw no reason to pay the high price for those 2 items that the restaurant is charging as an "extra" and it only took a run up to the store and maybe 10 minutes to chop the onions up.  The rest of it is coming from Jucy's tacos and the other restaurant, I will be doing a bit of running around right before the wedding, but neither of those places are more than a couple miles away from where the wedding is taking place.

In the perfect world, I'll go to one place, pick it up and leave and to the other, pick all the taco stuff up, leave, get to the wedding hall, unload all of it and put it on whatever tables are provided and be done with it.  Taco meat, cheese, lettuce, salsa, jalapenos, onions and sour cream plus a large tin pan full of their delicious refried beans.  If it isn't enough, oh well, go home and eat.  There should be plenty of tacos to go around tho.  Cheap plates, napkins and bringing serving utensils as well. I don't know if the wedding hall supplies any of that and not taking any chances.  Not a fan of last minute stuff where you're running to a store when you should be enjoying the festive atmosphere.  

Supposedly 46 people showing up, not all of them will eat. I think we have this covered.  I called the Jucy's as soon as they opened and they assured me that it's no problem.  Good, cause' I gave you 6-1/2 hours advance notice.  

A family that "should" be staying another 2 months or so paid up without having to ask.  The New Jersy people promised a good amount of money 6 days from now, which makes sense, it coincides with the monthly disability check.  I will be on their doorstep on that day firmly asking for money.  If they put this off yet again, it's going to be bye-bye.  They absolutely must get paid up to the end of the previous month and at least some into the current month, which I flatly told them yesterday.  No problem, they said anyway.  

I think there's a couple more payments due before the end of the month and then, the beginning of the month where I can only hope beyond hope the 3 people stay and don't decide to find greener pastures elsewhere.

That will screw things up royally for me.  Meanwhile, I have renewed one of the Facebook ads and going to remove an older one and write up a new one. We are doing drone footage of the park tomorrow. Taylor's dad brought his drone. In exchange for that, he gets to fire off the AR-15's.  I just happen to have a handy-dandy place back in the woods where we can do that for free.  It will cost ammo and ammo isn't exactly cheap, but hey, it's a high dollar drone he has with excellent quality cameras  His drone allegedly can go a mile away from the controller. 

All I need is overhead of the park and hopefully he can take footage of the walking trails.  

Other than that, the itching went on last night. Woke me up out of a dead sleep.  Put some of the lotion on which helped immensely and went back to sleep - after an hour and a half. Not feeling quite so itchy today, don't know if it's going away or if I just get a reprieve for some reason. I think I'll take a nap to make up for lost sleep. The kids are immersed in their video games so they aren't making a lot of noise, thankfully.

G'day

 Friday Mid-Morning

Her folks came in to town yesterday.  We all went to a local catfish dining restaurant and hung out chatting for the entire evening, actually, after leaving the restaurant and coming home.

They have gone to the Boardwalk over in Shreveport this morning.  It's a sort of tourist trap along the Red River where there's all kinds of different shops and casinos as well.  

I am heading over to the property to work on signs.  The metal stands that the shop gives me with those signs are - useless.  They bend easily, they blow over with the wind, I am constantly fooling with the things.  I bought some plain ole' 36 inch long wooden stakes yesterday, the hardware to mount the signs to the stakes and will be doing some of those this morning.  

Although, it's supposed to get to 106 today, I will be leaving soon to get some of this done.  the forecast is for over 100 degree days for the next 10 days in a row.  I can't imagine what my next electric bill will be over there.

I started getting this itchiness all over my body again, I think I'm going to stay away from the weeds for a while.  Pretty sure that's what's causing this.  It isn't poison ivy, I've been paying attention. There are a wide variety of different weeds out there, I don't know what any of them are called, I just think that one of them is giving me an allergic reaction.  

Anyway, the trucking company moved orientation to the original September 18th date.  I don't think I can make it that long.  Finances are getting low - tho there are numerous payments coming up. The thing is, you can't count on people staying.  RV parks are a "fluid" environment with people coming and going. You don't know when anyone is going to leave unless they have specifically told you.  

Well, anyway, the wedding is tomorrow, the grandparents aren't coming. Apparently she got sick and can't come. They were both going to come with the third kid tomorrow, stay overnight and go back on Sunday. I certainly don't with illness on anyone, but considering the situation I am glad they aren't coming.  No need to go into all of that, don't feel like and don't want to.

All I know is, it's almost time to start getting out the applications. Monday morning I will be sending out applications to all kinds of local trucking companies and trucking applications such as fuel and chemical hauling and see if I can snag something.  

I don't really have much to say atm. Just focused on doing what I need to do. Going back to trucking isn't going to be any fun, but it's a necessary thing that must be done in order to survive financially.  

As for now, I'm headed to the property to get some of these signs done.  

 I'm a naturally curious person, so I ask people questions about whatever they are doing. Most people will talk about themselves readily and without hesitation.  It's not just a way to show interest in a person, it's also a way to find out information out of that person that might have relevance to whatever you are doing, or perhaps someone you know doing the same thing and they might be interested to hear such information.

This is how I knew about the new RV park.  Straight from the horse's mouth that built the thing and also knew that they had sold it even tho the realty sites say it's under contract, which could mean anything. 

But the same for the Interstate project coming through here in a couple of years and the same with the alleged status of our town being a hotspot for pipeline workers next year - tho the people I talked to didn't know why it was going to be a hotspot, their companies had informed them as of such. I find it strange that people in the RV park industry around here don't ask such questions of people coming and going out of their parks. It can materially affect their operation  in a good way.  And perhaps get prepared for it. If it really picks up around here, I will be put in a position where I can raise my rates.  Why have a park filled with people paying $425 when I can have it filled with people paying $500?

I went over and collected from the people I should have collected from last night and then collected from the guy that showed up today. He is the boss of a crew of people that go around from town to town where Quik Trips are being built and installs all the networking and security cameras. Important work, I'd say,the heartbeat of a store like that is all of the wiring and electronics that make everything work. Not electrical wiring, but the wiring for cash registers, security cameras, everything that needs it.  

I have some things to do at the park tomorrow - more weeds of course but some stuff I want to get done in the shed.  I hooked a propane bottle up to the RV and the stove started working. Sprayed water/soap mixture on various connections to make sure nothing was leaking.  So, now they can cook.  They've been wanting that quite a lot, can't blame them.  They've been using a microwave and a convection cooker. Better than nothing, but there isn't really anything to replace being able to cook your own meals.  

Winding down with them. I still haven't finished the hot water line - it's probably an hour's worth of work that I will try to complete tomorrow as well. She said it's not a priority because they don't need to take hot showers right now.  Perhaps, I thought, but it will also pump hot water out the sink faucet.  You know, for cleaning your dishes?  

But, the pressure is starting to be relieved on getting things done.  14 lots filled, I need one more long term.  I have to keep at least one open for short term since I have some in there for next month.  Well, there is lot 7 pull through. They should be leaving soon.  Like, tomorrow morning actually. They came in for 8 days, 5 days, another 5 days and that is almost done.  Of course, they can stay as long as they like, lol, but it was a temporary deal where the guy was here for work and not that long.  

I'm always looking for more people.  I don't turn anyone down now unless I absolutely have nothing available.  There are 2 empty lots and lot 7 coming available, no need to turn anyone away. I can deal with the 4 days of reservations on one lot, no need to stop long term coming in because of that.  And that isn't until next month.  

The New Jersey people are behind ... too far behind.  They aren't contacting me, so I will contact them and inform them a minimum amount of money needs to come my way.  If you don't keep on people like that, you won't get anything. Or they'll give you very small amounts that don't add up to anything.  They have to understand that I am not a pushover or playing games.  I don't know if the guy is still working or what, I don't see him at all. They got another car from someone but that car isn't gone much. None of my concern excepting the part about money.  

I left my payment book in the car.  Need to add up what's coming in the rest of this month and see what i can take for myself.  It's a matter of survival at the moment, not just, gee I could use an extra few bucks.  

The trucking company didn't call me back today about moving the orientation date. Not concerned about that, they seriously want me working for them.  Maybe they'll give me the update tomorrow.  There's a couple local places I'm going to fill out full applications for Monday morning. If they perhaps want me to work for them, I'll need to be ready to go to work for them right away. I can't do that this week. They may not - I don't have the particular experience they are looking for.  That won't stop me from trying. These are local jobs that are only in this area, not huge trucking companies with orientations 2,100 miles away.  Truly local job - but it's still long hours. 

I don't really care about orientations being so far away, I guess, just being away from home that long isn't really appealing.

Next door neighbor flags me down after I got home from collecting payments.  What's up? I wanted to tell you this because of what you just went through with Addler. Her large dog - cane corso? - has elbow cancer and is going to die "within 2 months" she was told. Another dog has terminal cancer.  She is losing 2 of 3 dogs in the next few months. You get a dog, you get attached to it, you spend a portion of your life with it and then it dies.  

The boss of the other guy that showed up last week came in today.  I didn't even see him drive in. He picked the last remaining pull through lot, I figured he would, I gave him latitude to take whichever spot he wanted.  He stated he wanted to be next to or as close as possible to his worker. Well, he pulled in next to him.  I was going to collect rent, but the Lenova pile of junk was doing yet another update which usually takes as much as an hour to complete.  The other day, it turned on, off, on, off, on, off and on again before taking forever to load up and actually start working. 

I was appalled that after going through that a few days ago, here we go again!  That guy got set up and left before I came anywhere even remotely close to being able to take a credit card payment.  

I'll catch up with him later.

Meanwhile, I"m pulling weeds - story of my life over there - this time around the doggy park and also cleaning up dog s*** from whoever's dog running around leaving piles everywhere and it's owner not picking them up, when the phone rings.  I immediately recognized it as the trucking company in Oregon.  Same number calls every time, same recruiter.  She is always upbeat, lol. Helllllaaaaaooooooaaaaaaoooooo!  Hi there.  I have a quick question for you.  Okay?  If we could get you in orientation sooner, would you be interested in doing that?  It depends on when you want to do it?  The beginning of September (versus the 17th I think she said last time I talked to her).  Ok.  
Well, I am going into a meeting with the team and I will put it out before them and get back to you, ok? Sure.

Really need to start working sooner than halfway through next month.  I do have 12 of 14 lots filled right now plus the 2 behind the shed - but - I need a job.  I'm not going to pay down debt with that income and I have property tax and insurance payment coming up. I was going to start putting money aside for that, never materialized.  I was doing good just get the bills paid and for several of the last - well most of them actually - 8 months I never received a single paycheck.  I did give myself money last month and a little the month before.  I'll have to give myself money this month or I will go into default on several payments.  

I do have money in the business account and fixing to have more.  So I'll probably write an owner's draw check sometime soon and put that in the personal checking account.  

If they call back with the beginning of September, that's what it's going to be unless I find something better.  Don't make that kind of offer to me and renege on it, please.  

That's it. A few prospects in the offing but nothing concrete yet.

Oh! I did drive over to the new RV park. Signs saying "Grand Opening" and "Now Renting RV's and Cabins". The gate was locked and closed. That was the main entrance.  I went up to the back entrance.  It had changed. Someone is living in a building that is not on the RV property and it just didn't feel right.  There were no signs saying no trespassing and there was no gate, but I still felt uneasy. Took a glance over at the RV park, completely empty. In fact, just dirt and gravel pads.  That's all I needed to see. I can't imagine paying a million dollars for that.  Makes no sense to me at all.  Could buy the land and have that built for you for half that price.  

The business model is solid, however.  There isn't really any great demand for RV parks but there is if you are renting the units you live in.  If I had more money, I'd buy another RV and sell it as well.  Not renting tho. Now that I think of it, not the greatest plan on that new park's part. That leaves them responsible for everything in the RV if it breaks. Ok, Cabins I can see renting, obviously, but not RV's.  

It may well be that I have James build a tiny house from the frame up. He is looking for side work, that is something he could do.  I want things on wheels so it stays non-taxable. Once you put it on the ground and rent it, it's taxable. The only taxes I want to have to pay is income tax. 

Whatever. Nothing like that is going to happen without more money coming in and right now, that's just got to be a job.  And there it is, another inquiry about a lot. I tell him the requested info, he says "I'll be getting back with you".  Maybe he will, maybe he won't lol.  All I know is, if you don't answer that phone when they call, you will never hear from them again.  I answer every phone call nowadays unless it's specifically labeled spam. 

That's it.  Be going back over to the property later on to collect 2 payments.  I have no idea when this new guy will be home, he hasn't called me and he wasn't too interested in close contact when I told him I've been sick.  The other people should be home after 5:00.  

 The magic of having a house to yourself, even if only temporarily,.

Kid are at school - thank God almighty - parents are at work.  

Early - Tuesday.  I can't imagine the sacks of joy those 2 kids must have been this morning being awakened at 5:40 am after getting up whenever they  please, basically, for the entire summer.  They will both be cranky when they get home today, the youngest especially so.

Anyway, I've ramped up my ... I don't know what they call them. Mini-applications? I am getting all kinds of trucking companies looking for drivers showing up on my facebook feed. You fill out this short thing that prefills anyway and hit send.  Several tanker jobs I hadn't seen before showed up via Facebook spying on my personal activities and attempting to "fill the need" as the bots see fit.

This is the week of the wedding, which occurs on Saturday.  After that, I'm full tilt into finding a new job. Doesn't mean I won't take the one that is slated in Oregon in September, it means that I am looking at every option that comes my way.  Actually, I'm kind of full tilt into it already.  You can get hired today in trucking but you still have to go through an orientation which is usually somewhere far from where you live.

They schedule the next available orientation and off you go!  

I'm feeling much better, btw.  Not 100% but a heckuva lot better than the last what, 7 days? Longer?  Haven't really kept track.  A bit of a cough, still have this itchy feeling but the fever is gone and the icky feeling is almost gone.  Yesterday I was feelin better as well, but I was still getting waves of fatigue hitting me.  

Looks like about 80% of Texas is in some phase of drought.  Amazingly, it lists my county as "none".  It hasn't rained here in a while. Grass everywhere is turning brown.  Walking over our front yard, it's crunchy, like walking on Captain Crunch cereal or something.  It's dying and unless we start watering it, it's not going to make it.  There is no real chance of rain in the next 15 days. I mean, there are very low percentages listed, nothing that would make one think, gee, it's going to rain! 

It just solidifies me not doing anything about grass right now.  I take that back, if I had the money, I would get a well drilled and supply my own water for grass.  The city water is great! Until you look at the bill.  It would cost a small fortune in water bills to start trying to water grass seed 4 times a day or keeping sod wet. I've thought about it tho, doing just a lot or two and seeing what happens.  They want over $200 for a pallet of sod which is enough for maybe one lot.  

I can tell ya that at some point in the future, there is going to be a well drilled. There is plenty of water underground in these parts, there are no restrictions on it if you aren't trying to use it for tap water so basically, after you pay to drill it and have the pipe and pump installed and run your own water lines from it? It's free water, minus the cost of electricity for the pump.  

I guess I need to go get Addler today.  "Addler is back".  That sounded weird when they called and said that. His ashes are back, Addler is gone.  Not really motivated to go get them, just another reminder he is no longer around.  It's still fresh in my mind that this giant dog that used to love to be at my side is gone forever.  

The high today at 92, I'm leaving in a bit to go do work on the lots.  Just cutting down weeds and making it look as presentable as it can look without any grass.  Ok, there are bits of wild grass growing here and there, doesn't really look like anything since it's not a solid sheet of it.  In fact, it just grows in giant clumps and is just another thing to do on the "cut it down" list.  Amazing that stuff isn't dying without being watered.  I don't know what type of grass it is, but it's quite hardy.  

And that's it. Besides the very strange world of politics and endless Trump indictments.  Or the lack of Hunter investigation from the Democrat side or even interest in carrying one out, regardless of the mounting evidence that is showing that Joe Biden sold out his country for millions of dollars.  

Well that and this oddity of this new RV park, the revelation of the two biggest contenders I currently have in town are struggling and the idea that I still have a fighting chance to keep a decent market share of the business.  I'm going to look at this with as much positivity as possible, doesn't help anything to get ultra-negative and get into a 'woe is me' mindset.  

But yes, I do need to drive over there and maybe this morning before I do anything else and see if I can drive in there and take a look. Or whatever I can see from the roadway.  I dunno if they have the place gated and locked.  

Yes, that's a great idea!\

Off to the races.  BTW? I've done 3 of those mini-apps since I started writing this blog entry, lol. 

I thought I was going to bed early.

I was commenting on the manager/s/owners forum on facebook for rv parks about the new park that recently sold (in context with a thread about such things) and the owner of the 2 major competitors replied to me. "Oh, did they sell that already?". This conversation on the page went into some depth before she contacted me via Facebook DM and then it went on even much longer. 

They are doing very poorly, I'm finding out. Not wishing that upon them, but the idea of having a sardine lot style RV park is catching up to them.  And tho they have a lot of great reviews on Google, they have plenty of not-so-flattering reviews that tell the story about driveways in dire need of repair, long term that stay up making noise and the sardine can style of park that many RV'ers are steering clear of.  I really don't wish ill-will upon my competitors, especially when they are reaching out asking things that clearly point to the fact that they are hurting.

She is ready to walk away from the RV industry and upon finding out that the new park sold for so much, she wondered out loud if it were the right time? I can't tell her that, but I can say that parks are going for high dollar amounts right now. Whether it stays that way, who knows?  I am not in this to build and then flip, I'm in it for long term income.  We're 9 years away from receiving 75% of Social Security. This isn't guess work anymore, it's nine years. Well, I won't even qualify for SS until 2026.  So what does that leave me? 

It leaves me a government that doesn't give a rat's @$$ about the citizens it is supposedly serving and the fact that all of those politicians that continue to ignore this problem are also getting rich off of the system they are allegedly in it "solely" for the purpose of making citizen' lives better.  Can you imagine if any of this TRILLIONS of dollars that have been spent in the last several years would have been spent to address SS insolvency?  And if SS is facing a chopping block, you can bet that Medicare will be on that list as well. 

Anyway, they are apparently in such dire straits that they are trying a new approach to attracting people by combining 2 of their lots to make one. She said that so far, there are no takers.  She was jealous of my park's layout with 40 feet wide lots.  I was listening to her story, so I didn't bother to tell her mine.  The reality is, it's a tight market and it's fixing to get a lot tighter.  I'm going to "save" myself by getting a job on the "side", I doubt any of these parks will do that.  My motivation is to increase the number of spaces and amenities to make it much more attractive place to live. Plus, get rid of ALL of the acres of weeds and have grass there instead.  

I informed her another competitor that also has a sardine can setup is completely full.  I made the supposition (the act of supposing, you can access that in Meriam's, thank you) (or if you will, I assumed) (perhaps the correct word is figured) ("I felt") (and endless other words/combinations I could insert here)..that they are charging less and probably far less to get those people in there. There is no other explanation for people willing to cram themselves in so close together that they can literally (yes, I do mean literally) touch their neighbor's slide outs while standing directly next to their own trailer.  

I really had no idea they were doing so badly.  

I can say curb appeal at the main park is atrocious.  I could give them some help in that department and it wouldn't cost a lot of money, but I decided to zip it.  

Well whatever. One can wonder about things to come forever and just waste a lot of time in doing so.  It's now very late and yes, finally getting sleepy.  

 Monday

Not so early

Oh well.  Woke up in the middle of the night and took hours to get back to sleep. I've been trying to force myself to get out of bed earlier but I just said screw it today and slept as long as I could. 

Last day of summer for the kids. School starts tomorrow (why they start on a Tuesday is unknown to me, but most of what goes on in schools nowadays is a curiosity to me as it stands) - apparently they are being made to work around the house today.  

I"m trying to figure out whether I can last all the way until basically the end of next month before I get a first paycheck.  I'll have to get back to ya on that one.  It's not the greatest job, a bit lower on the pay scale and definitely smaller weekly paychecks than previous job, the upside is that it's home daily and can't really be that much of a day (at least by trucking standards) if it's only 350 miles of driving.  But, you add a couple hours to that for loading or unloading.  

I'm not sold on that job yet.  It's just the one that stood out for home daily (or most days anyway).  There are other home daily jobs, but most of those are 12-14 hour days.  So, the concept of "home" is go there, go home, eat,  go to sleep and get up for work the next morning.  Doing that, might as well just do the same type of job I was doing before.  

There are other types of jobs, such as propane delivery.  I don't know how to do that, of course, but it's just another learning situation.  Methodology.  There is some sort of winch truck position available, they are always posting for it but they demand experience.  Well, apparently there aren't that many experienced drivers for that particular role since they are always - and I mean this has been going on for years - posting that particular job.  Fuel delivery, hauling salt water or oil that comes from gas wells, all kinds of stuff. 

I will be spending ample time this week and coming weeks putting in applications and exploring what I can get myself into that makes decent money and still gets me home.  

Today, however, I am still intent on going over there, weedeating more lots and getting the place looking a little more presentable.  I'm still not happy about the lack of grass. Oh, and I want to drive over to the new RV, Cabins and Tiny Homes park and see if I can get in there and take a look at what they have done with the place. The only pics atm are old and only show where they've done the dirt work. No gravel or asphalt down, you can make out the lots.  

_________

Yay.  The boss of the guy that just moved is coming tomorrow "for at least a month".  I'll take a month over nothing. It's the way it's been working at my park and right now, I need whatever I can get to pay park bills and pay my personal bills.  I've got to go get my payment book and see who owes what - when.  Pretty sure there are 2 payments due, just need to look them up.  No, just one due as of yesterday, already contacted them and awaiting their reply. But, they are long - long termers, at least by their statements. They've just completed their first month. So far, they seem happy?  I dunno. I just talked with the man the other day for about 30 minutes.  The lady is pregnant and they eventually want to buy their own house, but he deferred and said "that won't be until sometime next year at the earliest".

My job is to try and keep everyone happy.  Try being the operative word.  Do what you can.  

It is hard, however, to try to deal with a person's unhappiness about any given thing if they don't say anything to me about it. The 3 I wouldn't have known about without the bartender relaying the info to me - tho I would have cleaned up their lots anyway.  It just gave a sense of urgency - they like to call it that in the corporate world - to get it done sooner than I was going to.  

___________

I decided to do nothing today.  Hang out with the kids (this is their last day of summer, rise and shine bright and early at 5:40 am for school, I can only imagine what tomorrow afternoon when they get home is going to be like),  give myself more rest time, watch a couple of movies and take it easy.  There isn't any real point in pushing myself to do "stuff" that can wait another day.  Just more tending to lots and a little more cleanup in the shed.  

I have spent hours, however, looking at local jobs.  The jobs that pay the most are the jobs hauling cryo and all of them have cameras and microphones.  One of the companies is so desperate for drivers, they are willing to hire new drivers 6 months out of driving school.  Next time you see one of those cryo tankers driving down the road hauling hazardous materials - and many of them are highly flammable - understand that the person behind the wheel could be a greenhorn to driving.  It is quite amazing that they are even allowed to hire drivers with little experience behind the wheel.  

But, many drivers are terrified of hauling hazmat (I know I was at first) and won't do it. Most of us have been duped into believing that getting your hazmat endorsement is next-to-impossible. In my case, it was backed up with several drivers I knew that had tried to pass the test but failed.  

My method is pretty much fail proof. The job I have lined up is some version of hazmat tanker, just not cryo. Cryo doesn't require wasting time with washouts.  Where you have to take the trailer to a professional washout facility to have the trailer cleaned out.  Cryo is just easier.  But, I have no desire to sit in a truck being watched and listened to.  I think people sitting in an office somewhere listening to you talking on the phone or whatever is the worse of the two.  Just creepy. 

I dunno. I still have time to change my mind about that, but it's a lot of time sitting in a driver's seat with those kind of ridiculous conditions constantly present.  

The high tomorrow and Wednesday 92 and 93 and then right back into 100 plus highs the rest of the week.  I will take advantage of that tomorrow for sure.  Even get the chain saw going and cut some felled trees.  Not on the trails, stuff around the perimeter of the park.  One tree especially annoying for where it fell. Well, take that back. Where it fell would have dumped on a trailer if there had been one parked there.  Very grateful that didn't happen.  

But it got moved out of the way at an end lot and it needs to be gone.  

It's just that I have lost yet another chainsaw tool. The kind that has a sort of socket wrench on one end to loosen the nuts on the chain bar and the other is a screwdriver on the other end to tighten the chain up once you loosen the nuts. It was on the 4 wheeler - but it's not there anymore and I've dug through everything I have looking for it.  You have to adjust chains frequently enough while doing a cutting job that the tool is really required. Otherwise, you are lugging around a socket wrench with a socket and a screwdriver. Doesn't sound like much, but the actual tool just slips into your back pocket.

Anyway, enough of this.  Going to bed early tonight.  

 Sunday

Feeling better.  Card night last night, some families showed up for pool time and then card game.  I knew they were coming to swim, I didn't know we were having card night.  Went on until past 11, it had been so long since they've done it that I joined in.  

Kind of woke up late this morning for church, but we went anyway.  I don't know if church is going to be a thing when I get this or some other job.  I have still completely forgotten to ask them about that, they didn't call last week but they did call this week and I was distracted with everything going on.

The new owners of the new RV park have a sign out on the main highway over there, as reported by Maria and she sent me a pic of it.  It's going to be a RV, Cabin and Tiny Home resort.  Resort intones pool, water park, clubhouse, all kind of amenities.  I don't know if I should be relieved or nervous about that prospect.

A resort also intones much higher pricing and affordability out the window for lots of people who are living in these things to save money.  It is more of a niche that is offered to retired folks who have 200k 5th wheels or 500k coaches and have plenty of money.  Also weekend warriors - families going for a weekend just for the amenities. Party stuff if the park allows such types of rentals.  

I cannot compete with that and won't even try.  I barely got to where I'm at now and it's still greatly lacking in the curb appeal department considering the lack of grass.  

However.  Cabins are something that I have on my horizon.  Because people will rent them.  Either for weekends or just long term, it's pretty much guaranteed if you build them, they will rent out.  But, that's money I don't have right now.  I'm not getting into more CC debt for anything beyond absolute necessity and that has dwindled well down to almost nothing.  I would have to buy grass on credit as well.  It's mandatory at some point.  Whenever we get some serious rain in the forecast, there is nothing but very small percentages of chances of rain going on as far as the forecast goes.  

I'm going to focus on the curb appeal and getting the place looking better. That's really all I can do atm.  Competing with a company that just spent a million dollars on a 38 space facility isn't anything I'm going to try to do.  At least, not head to head. I've got location that is far superior to them and all the rest of them actually.  I've got pricing in the very affordable range.  I've got the basic amenities now, nothing fancy but the people that are there are happy with it.  

If I had my way, I'd have the driveway paved with asphalt, install 40 more spaces, put in a pool, a small clubhouse with pool table and kitchen, a gathering area with BBQ pit and a separate bath house from a laundry facility, separated by gender (we're talking male and female here, thanks).  About half a million would cover that..no, probably more than that. 

So, face reality, do what I can and hope that I can at least add 15 spaces sometime in the next year.  Then add a pool.  There's 140k right there.  Maybe more - maybe less, haven't really priced pools, figuring around 50k.  The only way I do that is to get my debt ratio down and credit score back up in the 700 range.  That's basically my goal with getting a job besides covering everything, pay down CC debt.  One card at a time and lose high payments.  4 cards that are pretty well racked with high balances.  I figured out that I have around $1,200 per month CC payments and then on top of the $232 for the shed, $219 for the laundry machines and other payments such as the land payment and a loan payment.  I'm at least done with the car payment, that's a relief.  

That's where I'm at right now. My plans will never become reality without a sizeable loan and that ain't happening until I get rid of a lot of debt load.  Just resolved to get it done.  

Other than that, I've taken it easy today and plan to do some work tomorrow, as much as I can handle.  I'm better - but not that much better.  Just get out there and get more weed eating done. James ended up with an extra battery pack that he gave me today so I can work longer at trimming everything up.  

As quickly as everything filled up is as quickly as some of it is leaving again. I've received calls about long term but nothing converted into a person showing up with a trailer - yet.  It was just amazing how fast things turned around.  I long term out of that influx of people but one of them left today - they paid for a week and still had 4 days left - another is leaving soon - they were the 8 then 13 then 18 day stay.  I think another one going out as well.  

I've listed the option of moving in tiny homes.  Might as well, as long as they are in good condition, I really don't care about it excepting it has to be on wheels.  If it's not on wheels then we are bound under mobile home park rules and I don't want or need that, plus it's taxable.  Just a whole different set of rules that I am not that familiar with for I am not running a mobile home park, but evicting a tenant requires the whole court process, can be expensive and in the end - many old mobile home parks are bought out by RV park investors and transformed into RV parks.  The infrastructure and pads are already there, just need get rid of the mobiles and upgrade landscaping. 

Well enough of this. I don't need to get too far down rabbit holes and into too many tangents.  I do that to get the goals listed in priority in my head and long term goal front and center in my mind. I can go on and on and on. For now, it's enough to get a job, do what I have discussed doing and get the next phase of this rolling along.  Well, more like rolling down the highway.

 Friday - early

Still feeling quite miserable. Plus, my face broke out in this swelling/rash/bumps, very ugly and very uncomfortable. No idea what is causing that, but the last time I got sick, the same thing happened.  

Never-the-less, I'm going to go over there and continue to work on lot weed and grass clean up.  I"m going to Lowe's for a new weedeater/trimmer and get as much done earlier before the wicked heat hits as I can before my energy is gone and I can do no more.  

Guaranteed my energy will be gone long before the worst of the heat hits this afternoon. 

++++++++++++++

Lowe's, weedeater, lasted all of 2 hours out there but it was enough to not only finish the 3 lots but get started on others as well.  What actually happened is the battery ran out - I bought battery powered weedeater - charged it for 20 minutes - ran out again and just decided that I had had enough and left.  The battery will be fully charged by the time I get back either later today or tomorrow. 

My face is so itchy. This giant rash or whatever it is is getting to me I took a Benadryl last night before bed to help alleviate the itching - which it did - but now it's back with a ferocity that was no there yesterday. Lady at the park asked if I had the Rona?  I dunno, didn't go to the doc.  You probably did, I just got over it. I informed her that I am far from well, just came over to take care of some weeds/grass that people were complaining about. 

I have no idea if my efforts will get them to change their mind about leaving - they never said this to me, it was the bartender at the restaurant that overheard them talking - but at least i can say I tried.  I've spent several hours working on their lots, pulling weeds, grass and cleaning up.  It doesn't look very good without real grass in there, but that, allegedly, wasn't their issue.  It was just the overgrowth.  I'll find out at the end of the month.  Tho, I will go back in a week or  so and freshen it up for them a bit.  

I dunno, but when I got home 20 minutes ago, I headed straight for the shower.  Wash my face off and clean up.  

Just remembered I have a tube of anti-itch cream.  Stuff actually works.  Pretty miserable with a face itching all over.  I'll be keeping that stuff around today... 

__________

So already, all 3 of those renters were back at that restaurant and again, my bartender overheard them saying I had gotten all of their lots.  I'm not sure if that means they're staying or not - my bartender seems to think they are.  I didn't know those guys were going to that restaurant so frequently.  I hope so. I"ll be visiting those lots on a weekly basis to ensure they remain happy.  In fact, I'm just going to make time every week to visit all lots and work on them.  

On another note, I actually don't think this face rash has anything to do with the sickness.  It is highly likely that I am having an allergic reaction to one of the various types of weeds out there.  I was thinking about it. Pull weeds, got hot and sweat, wipe the sweat off my face - and whatever is on my hands onto my face  and walaah.  It's just that it's coinciding with being sick.  

I have a problem getting my hands into gloves being sold from lowe's or Harbor Freight. They don't fit.  My hands are apparently larger than average sized hands because I have to tug and pull and try to force them on.  So I haven't been using gloves.  Time to change that and try to just force the work gloves on.  Maybe they'll stretch once I get my fingers into them.  

That's all. I have done nothing else today besides sleeping and resting.  I'm starting to feel a little better at least.  

 Due ot mowers being broken I hadn't mowed in a while. The other day, I got the riding mower back and got the tall weeds behind the west wide trailers mowed down.  Needs a second pass on a lower deck level setting, but it's good.

My next thing was to go ahead and hand mow all the lots after getting the push mower working.  But, I was going to wait until I feel even a little better to do so.  Well, the friend that is a bartender at a local restaurant overhead the 3 that came in as a group some 5 or 6 months ago talking about moving out of my park because of the grass and weeds not being cut.  

They have a point but they have no information why it got like that. Doesn't matter, really, people don't care about the reasons, they will just move on and not even say why they are moving on when they get disgruntled.  So I forced my sick @$$ out of bed and went over there and mowed 5 lots and pulled weeds on 2 of them.  It may or may not make them happy, who knows, but I have got to at least try to appease them. Losing them would be losing 3 lots worth of rent and I just can't afford that right now.  

I'm going to go buy a battery operated weed eater that I can't afford to do the edging, probably tomorrow. Right now, I'm absolute toast.  It's hot out there, I was feeling hellish when I left to go over there, probably being out in the heat and sun actually helps, but right now? No thank you. 

I will get the grass around the pedestals out and pull more weeds tomorrow and then just make it a point to make sure I get to them once a week or so.  Not that it needs once a week, there has been no rain and nothing is growing really - except the weeds. It's like they don't care about water.  They aren't growing fast but it does look pretty unpresentable when they get 6 to 8 inches high.  Well, they were 4 to 6 inches high, just saying they start popping up they start looking ugly.

I dunno, but I'll get every last week off of their gravel areas - I got most of it today anyway - and around the pedestal - mower won't do it around those - and call it good.  It's 20 days before they would move out, they are paid up through the beginning of September.  Maybe I should get a pallet of sod to make them happier.  Another chunk of change I can't afford.  

Dunno.  Anyway, that's it.  I'm going back to bed.  

 I kept that kid away from me. He was/is sick and I didn't want it. But he was still going around coughing without his mouth covered all over the place and I finally ended getting.  Whatever "it" is, it's hellish.  My lungs feel like a layer of asphalt have been added to them. My head is aching, sneezing, body aches galore. 

So, yesterday I just stayed in bed and today will be the same. I only forced myself out to drink a cuppa, I've been in bed 12 plus hours.  Well, okay, I went to the park quick yesterday to collect money from weekly stay.  They were 2 days behind in paying up - that was my bad, getting distracted with the dog - and I wanted to collect my money before they leave. They ended up paying for another week. 

I have 2 payments to collect today, but both of them should be able to be done without having to go over there. 

Other than that, I don't really have much to say today. Pretty much feeling miserable and going back to bed.