Back at this horrid bunk house after an exhausing ordeal.

It was not a good day for the trainer.

It started out with him driving off the company fuel aisle with the fuel hose still in the tank.  It popped off - all fuel hoses have breakaway couplers on them designed to simply pop off if someone does that.  It happens a lot but a company driver doing that at the yard is not a good look.

It was raining.  Windy. Cold (my version of it anyway) and I was exhausted.  I've been tired all day long.  That 3 hour loss of sleep with that s*** going on in the laundry room was too much.  I was in a deep sleep when that alarm went off this morning and I never felt right. I just grinned and beared it.  

The day got worse, much worse.  After the fuel hose ordeal, we hooked up a pre-loaded trailer and headed to a paper mill plant. It's a sprawling paper mill 2 hour's drive from here.  I'm not naming the plant or the driver or the company, no need to give out the details.  

We got there, went into the guard shack, did the stuff we needed to do to get in, drove in, found the spot which was a miracle in and of itself - this place is huge.  Then we went through the process of verifying the product in the trailer, the tank it was to be pumped into, if there is enough space in the tank for the entire load (they do not like to have partial loads floating around in tanker trailers, especially if it's hazmat).  There is a worksheet that you fill out and then you have to call a company to verify that you are at the right place with the right product and it's going into the right tank with the right quantity.  

It's important safeguards to ensure you aren't pumping a chemical into the wrong tank. There could easily be an adverse reaction and you could have explosions, fires, toxic fumes, all kinds of wonderful stuff. I absolutely understand why they would want to do this and I fully agree with it, regardless of how much time it takes.  There are several layers of safety involved to ensure a good outcome.

Well, this wasn't a good outcome.  We had everything right, but there was an important piece of information we didn't know. The trainer had never delivered this stuff before, but it's all pretty much the same setup every time depending on if it's pressure offload, pump offload or gravity offload.  I don't think we do any gravity offloading tho, at least I haven't seen any of that yet.  This setup was pressure offload.  

We had to have the operator for that area come out and crank the valve on their building open after we got the hoses set up, it wouldn't budge, They had to use a huge tool to break it free. After that we went inside - the tank is on the inside of the building, there is just a line coming through the building to hook to.  We went and looked at the tank and matched the product name and numbers on the tank to the info on the BOL.  We visually verified how much product was in the tank and we did the calculation again to ensure that we weren't attempting to pump too much product into it.  

Well, we got all of that done and then you have to call a company for further verification.  After that, you are free to start offloading.  So we did. I don't know how much longer later, a man comes out, putting the cut the throat sign up, there is product coming out of the top of a tank!  So we immediately shut everything down, closed the valve on the tanker and stopped the pumping operation. We went in, this stuff was all over the place.  I mean, everywhere.  It was unbelievable.

It wasn't long and big wigs were out there attempting to determine what had happened and that went on for an hour and a half? What was determined, at least preliminarily, is that after investigating by calling a driver from another company that normally does it, the pressure we were using was too much for this particular offload.  We normally pump out 25 psi to pressure offload, the driver said more like 15-20.  And, apparently, have to stand back there holding the line to determine if the trailer is empty and then you can shut off the valves.  

There's lots more to this but I'm not getting into specific details for obvious purposes. The product ended up in retention basins especially designed for such things, so there was no environmental emergency but obviously you don't want stuff like that spraying around all over the place.  

Anyway.  He has to do a UI (drug test) - actually he should be done with that by now and then report to the higher ups tomorrow, I am being dumped onto yet a 3rd trainer.  I'm hoping we are doing a pressure off tomorrow, I want to write everything down instead of just trying to memorize it.  It's pretty simple stuff but I don't want to miss any steps.  Oh, this 3rd trainer just texted me: be at the fuel island at 4:15 am.  

Yup.  My luck has run out for not getting stuck with someone doing very early start time.  I will be absolute toast if I don't get some good sleep tonight. I will go to bed around 8:00 pm and get up as close to departure time as I can without sacrificing being able to shave, shower, have a quick bite and a cup of coffee.  I'm just going to brew a couple of cups tonight and then just micronuke it for a quick cuppa in the morning.  I have a styrofoam cup now, I can take one with me as well.  Yup, and I might as well get my lunch ready tonight, I won't want to do that early in the morning and it takes up too much time. 

But it's still quite early so I have plenty of time to figure out what I want to take with me.  I'm starting to get low on food but at the same time, I'm hoping to get out of here soon enough. 

In fact, I'm going to get that done as soon as I get this blog entry done. I want to see at least some of the presidential debate tonight, even tho Trump isn't in it.  Somewhere along that process some of the candidates will start dropping out. I doubt before next year gets here and I think a lot of those people understand they aren't going to get the nomination, but they'd probably like to get a foot in the door for a cabinet seat of some sort of appointment.  

I was just informed "it's going to be a long day" tomorrow. I can't do a long day if I don't get good sleep tonight.  It's really going to be an amazingly horrible day tomorrow if I don't get enough sleep, so I"ll just hope and pray that the night time noises are not going to pop up. It may be that I am so tired I will sleep through such things anyway.

But when a driver says a long day? You can expect 14 hours.  It's too bad because I was doing well with this guy I have been with the last 3 days.  He doesn't work near as many hours with as much seniority as he has.  We were only out 8 hours today, it was as much as I could handle with several nights in a row of poor sleep.  

Ok, I'm going to stop fretting about sleep tonight and just hope for the best.  

I still think about just leaving here and going home, frequently.  Too much has occurred but this idea they have for people to stay here at this place with nothing, literally, is ridiculous.  

I'm getting offa here.  Watch an hour of the debate and maybe just go to bed at 7:00 pm instead of the 8 I thought about doing.  

 

 Just when I had the thought that perhaps things are getting just a little bit better, here comes last night.  At 12:40 am, a banging noise. Constant, repetitive noise like the sound of a pair of shoes in a dryer.  So, that's what I thought it was.  I thought about going down there and doing something about it, but I thought twice about that.  Confrontation in the middle of the night at the trucking company's RV park. Probably not the greatest idea. 

So,m this went on for hours.  It was pouring rain out there and I couldn't imagine anyone doing laundry in this type of weather.  But after 2-1/2 hours, I thought, who would have anything drying that long?  You have to remember, I was dead asleep when this nonsense started happening and I wasn't really thinking that well.

Not to get sidetracked but btw, it's still pouring rain out there. 

I finally forced my @$$ out of bed, got dressed, went out into the rain and went into the laundry room. No one in there. Doors wide open on the dryers, but not a peep and nothing running.  I started looking around.  There it was.  The wind - still howling - was banging the damn door against a rock that was put there to hold the door open.  

I can tell ya that in that 2-1/2 hour plus time range I was laying in bed thinking about all of this, the thought resurfaced rather strongly to just not go in today and find the next flight home.  I knew I would feel like hell this morning and yes, it's rather hellish. The alarm went off, I was in a deep sleep and could have slept another several hours and probably would have.

I changed the alarm time for this morning after I got back in bed last night to the shortest amount of time I could do all of my stuff in, including drinking coffee.  So I've only got a few more minutes before I have to leave, get drenched in the rain and spend a day feeling so tired that I don't want to do anything but go to bed.  

That's it.  This is what I am facing today.  It's Wednesday, if you count today, 3 more days of this ..... stuff....in this.....place.....I really don't know how I'm going to make it through a full day feeling like this. There are no opportunities for a nap, it's just go, go, goooooo.

G'day.  

 End of day, Tuesday.

Can I just throw in here before I forget that there are ZERO tables in this place? There is no where to sit down and eat, , nothing to put your stuff on, nowhere to set up your laptop and be comfortable.  It's just another irritant. There IS room for a table and chairs.  Good grief.  I sit here on my bed with the laptop on a small nightstand.  

I don't understand how these people think this is anything acceptable.  Then again, this company had 400 drivers as of a few years ago, down to somewhere near 100 now. Why? I don't know, yet.  The trainer I am with now swears by this place, he's been here 17 years. That explains a lot.  Loyalty, but there is good pay involved for him as well.  

Today was a much better day for me. I wasn't near as tired as I have been and the trainer was getting with it.  Act like I'm not here and do whatever you're going to do. I nailed most of it, the stuff I got t wrong wasn't anything that would cost me a job, get the plant or the receiver angry, etc.  

I sat on top of a rack today memorizing the procedure for loading a particular type of chemical product into the truck  via top load.  Around 20 times I just stood there and repeated it into my mind.  The trainer had gone into his truck to talk to people on his cellphone and deal with his dogs.  Yes, he has 2 small dogs in there, very well behaved, is truck is very clean, not an issue at all.  

I was at a receiving plant attempting to remember how to offload.  I had missed some key parts to the sequence of being done with the offload because previous times I had been asked to do something else that left the view of what was going on out of sight and therefore? Yea, I can't remember something I didn't see or was involved with. 

Basically, it's when the tanker is empty on a pump out.  The truck has a pump on it and you have a line going from the trailer to the truck pump and then from the truck pump to the plant tank.  

I have sequence now memorized, for I did the same with that as I did with the plant we were loading at.

Climb up the ladder, visually inspect to see if the tanker is empty.  Get off the tanker, to go the back of the tanker, shut off the internal valve and the external valve.  Attach a hose to a receptacle on the tanker and the other end to the truck air system. Turn on the air valve on the truck,  then open the valve on the tanker.  The pressurized air forces product in the lines into the plant tank. 

Remove the line and put a water line onto the same valve. Turn the water on and let it run through for a while. Turn that off and put the air line back on and push air back through it.  Then you close the valve on the plant receptacle.  Now you can start removing the lines from the plant, the truck and the trailer.  There are other things, such as putting tarps under hose connection points and 5 gallon buckets under the fittings.  

Oh wait, I got something wrong. For some reason, he closes the valve on the plant until just a crack open, then shuts off the truck pump than runs back and finishes closing the plant valve. I need to ask him why he does this, for it makes no sense to me.  This has the appearance the you shut off the pump and pressure so that product from the plant tank can just start flowing back into the line? Why?

There is one problem with this dude: he has a hearing problem and you really have to have his attention and speak loudly.  Even then, he misses half of what I am saying and trust me, people that know me? Tell me I have a loud voice.  

Whatever. The day is done, it wasn't even 8 hours, I was happy.  

We are starting at 7:00 am tomorrow, but another light day. At least in the trucking world.  I'm starting to get my mind back into this ridiculous mode of endless working.  I've been here since 2 Sundays ago and I'm missing home, my dogs, the kids, Taylor, James, everything I was working my life around.  And I have at least until probably Saturday before I can leave here.  And if they insist, I will be driving back so add another 3-1/2 days to the "let's go home" part.  If they try to get me to go to Arkansas before I go home first, they are going to hear a "no thank you, I'll have been gone for over 2 weeks, I am going home first".  

I don't really care what they think of after what I have gone through here with these "accommodations" of theirs in the living space.  Un...beeee....leeeee...va....ble. 

Ok. Fatigue just swept across me like hurricane force winds. I am getting off of here and get my self ready to go to bed.

 Tuesday - mid morning

Not feeling so bad today, didn't have to get out of bed early.  IN fact, I still have an hour and a half before I have to go over to the yard.  That is because we got back so late last night, can't start up again before a 10 break.  Ask me how I'm feeling 10-12 hours from now and I may very well give you a  different story.

Regardless, I intend on sucking in as much information as I can and also getting more hands on experience.  In other words, let me do all of this and you can tell me what I'm doing right and wrong as we go along.  Because I don't have forever to stay up here and I do not want to be here beyond this coming weekend, at the latest.  

It was interesting to hear from 2 different drivers that I probably won't even have to load a truck myself on the "east side".  They delineate the company between the west side of the Rockies and the east.  My experience is that most places will not let you load a trailer by yourself even if you are more experienced than their personnel at doing so.  

Whatever.  Their requirement is to load a truck by yourself before you can leave with some person that does the .. test I guess I'll call it.  

I've heard nothing from anyone at the park save a couple who came in last night and couldn't figure out where to go.  Yes, well that's the problem when you are coming in at 10:00 pm. They had driven the entire state of Texas from New Mexico all the way to my place, which is quite the feat if I do say so myself.  That's a lot of driving for an older couple.  

I pulled up the camera and saw them sitting in the main driveway. Well where are we supposed to go? There is only one lot available, just turn into that U-turn you are sitting at and you will see the numbers on the pedestals.  So they did that, I watched them go into their space and haven't heard back from them, thankfully. 

I've got another 2 day stay on that lot coming up on Friday and had to turn down a stay for the same days to another person yesterday. Sorry, I can't help ya. Are you mostly long term? Yes, that's the market around here but I do try to keep a space or 2 available for overnighers.  So he asked me to suggest another place, I really didn't want to for I haven't heard much of anything good about nay of them, but I went ahead and suggested my main competitors since we are on amiable talking terms and they have, on occasion, referred people over to me.

It was them or other parks which are far worse.  I don't like telling people to go somewhere else for that fact that they may, indeed, find it nicer than my place? Who knows? And if they are coming here for some particular reason on a repetitive basis, then I've lost more than just a few nights worth of business. 

I try to keep my mind focused on the task at hand: learn these tankers and get out of here, but the business has dominated the money-making portion of my life for 9 months now and I begin to worry about how the park is actually doing versus what people are telling me.  

Whatever the case, they do payroll on the 27th, meaning whatever you have done up until that point, that is what you get paid for for the last 15 days.  Yes, they pay bi-,monthly. Not bi-weekly, bi-monthly.   The driver telling me that yesterday was like, I really don't like it.  Well, personally, I really don't care.  As long as you get paid for what you have done, I don't care if they pay once a month unless I"m desperate for money.  

I can honestly say my coffers are "down there" right now, but coming up soon will be a lot of payments due. And sometime after the 1st a paycheck being automatically routed to my bank account.  

I'm really trying to just hang in there and get this done, over with and move on with my life.  They don't make it easy with all the reasons I have already given in other posts.  I've worked 4 full days, 4 more including today to get to the end of Friday.  Today is allegedly going to be light, but that could easily change and probably will. The driver I am with now gets paid by the day regardless of what he does or how long he works.  They are paying him a lot when he starts talking 6 figures.

I'm interested in 6 figures, just not from the trucking industry., Get me 30 spots and charge them at least $450 per month.  I'll be grossing $162k if it was constantly full, so take off 10k for adjustment.  $152k.  Average it out to about $30k per year for electricity.  $5,000 for water.  Maybe factor in a couple grand per year for septic maintenance.  Add a part time worker at 2 grand per month.  Figure 2 grand a month for general expenses.  Another grand for repairs.  We're at $44k.  Add $5k to that for leeway and unexpected whatever.  $49k.  Add another $10k to $15k for improvements.  We're at $59k.  

I'm at $101k before taxes for profit for me.   This is why I'm going back to trucking. It's the goal to get to where I need to be to kiss trucking goodbye forever.  Oh, need to add $800 per month to business expenses for health care coverage.  Still over 90k.  Take home around 55 to 60k.  That isn't rich but it's very, very far from poor.  You start talking about expanding to 45 units after getting to 30 and then we're talking some serious money, at least in my world and no need for the government to give me what I've been paying into the SS system for 4 plus decades.  I don't trust that they're going to fix it.

There are so many different ways they could take on the SS stuff - which they are going to be forced to do eventually - that it's too much. If you are talking a conservative viewpoint, get rid of it altogether.  If you're talking a far left viewpoint, fund the account and give people more. If you're somewhere in the middle, such as I am?  My view is to give people over a certain age the full benefits they were promised and then get phase it out for everyone else.

Age 40?  You get X percentage of SS coming to you and then if you really want to force people to save, put the same money they have taken out now into a private fund that can't be touched until 62 or whatever and then, you have far more money saved up accruing interest and dividends than you will ever get through the government.  Age 30, even less SS, Age 20, just stop it altogether.  

The 20 year olds who work grow old, are rich by the time they retire, done deal.  It's really not all that difficult to come up with a plan that will work for everyone.  

Well anyway.  Hopefully today is productive and I can get some of this stuff out that's in my head and attempt to start offloading if he'll let me.  Supervised, tell me what I did wrong as I go along.  I can only get so far in training watching what other people are doing, it's time for hands on. I"ve done some of it but certainly not the entire process from beginning til end. 

Paperwork I don't care about, that's the easy stuff. It's the processes of even where you have to stop the truck.  You have to park the truck in the exact spot if you're overhead loading to have a cage come down over the cap on the top of the trailer so you have something to keep you from falling off the thing.  If top filling, obviously the cap is opened and the nozzle is stuck in there.

If bottom filling, you either open up the cap or a valve they have up there to let air escape as the tank fills.  If bottom unloading with air pressure, then you leave the cap closed and sealed but you open a little valve for the air pressure to go in. If you don't open it, nothing happens lol

The hose hookups are easy as well.  Just metal fitting with clamps on them.  You put a velcro strap around it to keep the arms that keep the thing on there from accidentally falling off. 

AT the end, you close the main valve on the trailer and then open a little valve next to the main valve to allow pressurized air to enter the line and force the product still in the line back into the tank it came out of. Clear the lline of as much as possible and then close the valve at the tank so the product doesn't flow back into the line once you shut off the air pressure.  Then it's just a matter of unhooking the lines, putting the plugs back in them or caps back on them, some other small minutia you have to do and you're done. You double/triple check everything and leave.  

See? I've got most of this down in theory.  There is a pump on some of the trucks they have been teaching me but expressly told me I don't have to learn.  Too late.  I've been watching all of that as well.  

One of the biggest things you have to remember is that when you are unloading, you must have a vent open at the top.  There HAS to be air coming back in, otherwise? The walls of the trailer get sucked in, the trailer is destroyed and you lose your job. Something like that.  They haven't really been pounding that into my head near as much as they should, so I have been doing it to myself.  They take things for granted, as is the case when you've been doing something for 15-20 years, they don't realize that starting from scratch you need to not only know everything, but have the really important things repeated over and over. 

The guy said that anyone wanting to come into the west division would have to go through as much as 8 weeks of training.  

Well, the driver just texted me. He's arriving early, I must get off of here, get my stuff and get out. 

But, I have my lunch ready and there isn't much to do, thankfully, I'm ready to go.

G'day

Not going to say much here. Just that it was a 12 hour day after we finally got started and not it's after 11;00 pm, which means it's after 1 am my time.  This used to be my lifestyle, working 12, 14, 16 hour days and thinking nothing of it for the most part.

Well, considering the lack of sleep and the fact that I haven't worked these kinds of hours in a long time?  I definitely am not going to sit here and claim it's a piece of cake.  The last load we weren't supposed to loat at all. Just drop the trailer and someone else was going to come for it in the morning . But the plant operator was insisting we stay for loading and take the trailer out of there.

So, we did.  But there were multiple problems on the plant side with the loading operation and it took hours to get done, hence why we didn't get done until late.  

The flip side of this is that we aren't starting until 11:00 am tomorrow morning.  And allegedly a light work load.  

Anyway, the day is finally done and I'm elated. 

G'nite

 So..they didn't have a trailer available for us this morning when it was time to leave, I was sent back to the bunkhouse.  Apparently there will be one arriving in a while.  2 hours at the time I got back here, they said anyway and so far, there are no texts being sent out of an ETA for the trailer.

I tried to go back to bed, actually, and sleep, but sleep  has departed from me, at least this morning.  It's very cold in this house, there is definitely no  heat turned on and the only thing I have going for me is the heater in this room. There are no heaters in any of the other rooms and no thermostat on the wall anywhere to turn on a furnace. 

We were slated to do 2 runs today but apparently because of the trailer issue, it's only going to be one.  So, the time is cut in half. 

IF that's true, that will at least help me make it through this day. The wind is howling now and the rain is relentless.  I thought for sure I had brought a thermal top with me, I must have ditched the idea at the last minute thinking it wasn't going to get too cold. Remember, I didn't bring a coat.  No place to put it for one and two, because it didn't appear it was going to be this cold. I did check the weather forecast for this region before I left.

Well, it's a quarter of 10 and still no word on a trailer. I'm pretty sure we'll go out today, I only want to because I don't get paid for staying at this ridiculous bunk house. If I do even one run, that's enough to get their full day training pay. And yes, I have looked up airfare back, one of my credit cards has enough points to pay for full airfare back and then some.  Another doesn't, the third I couldn't remember my login credentials, but no matter. And yes, I could take off tomorrow afternoon if I wanted to.

I'm trying to fight this feeling that this is all jacked up and just get out of here, but this IS jacked up. Too many things. Still, just going to fight the urge to depart hence for thither yonder lands, hope I get some sleep tonight and am going to go down to the office and see if it was them, tho I have no idea why they would be banging on the door like that?\

Meanwhile, a newer tenant is blowing up my phone complaining about lot 10 throwing rice near their car. No clue. But, they keep texting so I told them I would ask the man if he did it and if so, to please stop. That wasn't enough, he has to go on and on - and on. Yes, sir, I get it, you are unhappy. Thank you for contacting me I will deal with it. 

The only other thing was a Hipcamp booking for lot 3 for tonight.  It isn't a lot of money but the temps are back down again so electric use will be small. I'd rather make a few less dollars than getting nothing in on any given lot.  I will likely be having several lots empty out in the next month, but I'm leaving lot 3 open for now. Anyway, I'm getting off of here. Want to be ready to go for whenever the text comes that it's time to leave. 

 Monday - early

I don't know if I want to continue on with this.  This sleeping arrangement is miserable and I can't deal with it.

Last night, I went to sleep at 8:30, I was going to try to make it until 9 but tht just didn't happen....

In a very deep sleep, like the kind you probably wouldn't wake up from for many more hours at least, my senses jar me awake.  I hear this banging noise. Almost scary, I don't know if there are people trying to break in or what? It was very loud and incessant. 

Half awake, I finally got up and went to find out what is going on?  I thought maybe another driver showed up for training and they couldn't figure out the keypad to get in.

Walking out of my room, dazed and still not fully awake, I go to the door. No one there, banging continuing.  I then realize it's inside door that comes from a set of inside stairs - going where I don't know. The outside on the bottom floor?  The office? The laundry room?  At this point I understood that it wasn't a driver, it was a person either from the RV park or an RV coming late. 

The pounding went on for a while, I wasn't answering it, nothing I could do to help them and getting annoyed that they woke me out of a deep sleep. That noise eventually ended but the late night laundry?  People were literally in there until after midnight doing laundry. Bang bang bang, clink, clink, bang, etc.  Yes, I was awake for a long time after that. I have no idea how much sleep I got, but it wasn't much or enough. 

So you start adding this stuff up. $15 per day for food allotment, which apparently ended on Friday, tey took the card and said someone else will be needing it. The nearest grocery store is 16 miles away and they make it difficult to leave here. There is only one, very old, driver's vehicle and it's only available M-F 8:00 to 5:00.  Constant noise. Not just at night when you are trying to sleep, but kids screaming and playing right out the window. 

Old trucks. The newest one in their fleet is 2017 is what I was told.  Bring a sleeping bag, there are no sheets on the beds.  And whatever else I am forgetting atm, I am very tired.   Oh, no heat in this place.  My room is heated, the rest of this house has no heat, or if it does, they aren't turning it on, there is no thermostat anywhere up on this floor.  

I'm going to grind through this day, I"m up, had a cuppa, shaved, showered, dressed.  But I am going to contemplate whether I want to continue on with this.  There will be no goodbyes if I decide this place isn't right or even good for me. I'll just book a flight and get out of here.  If you think I'm joking, you may want to rethink that. It's pretty hard to go through 9-10 plus day constantly on the move without enough sleep and these people have created this sleepless nightmare with this setup they have here.

And it's not just being on the move, it's attempting to pay close attention to what is being taught and capture all of it in the memory banks.  

Heavy sleepers wouldn't have a problem with this, I am not anything even remotely close to being a heavy sleeper.  I was so tired last night, tho, it took a minute of that banging before I finally was forced to wake up. I had ear plugs in and the fan on to cancel/create noise to drown out the Interstate. Oh, yes, the interstate. Forgot about that one. 

It's only Monday and 5 full days of this, at least, before I can leave here?  With little sleep?  I dunno, 

It's supposed to rain all day long here today. It's raining right now and probably has been all night long.  

This has just turned into a miserable ordeal.  I'm too old to be treated like this, I can find another job, somewhere else.  It's weighing heavy on my mind.

With that, I am going to gather my things and get out of here, walk up to the yard and get in with my next ride.  

G'day

Edited: it’s pouring rain outside. No rain coat. 

 Long day.

9 hours is enough for me, but I know longer days are probably coming.  I've just been out of trucking for too long, gonna take time to readapt to this nonsense. 

The guy that was training me this weekend was fun to be with at least.  We got a lot done today, everything they told him to do and I have been through 4 loadings and 5 unloads plus other stuff so far.  This stuff isn't rocket science but I definitely want more training until I'm comfortable with it, regardless of how much I would love to leave here and just go home. And just stay home, lol.  \

It was raining all day, got wet, got cold, didn't bring a jacket. I was informed daytime was ok - and the forecast showed that as well. Nights, getting cold but I'm inside.  I have sweatshirts, I'll just have to take an extra with me tomorrow.  

This house has a furnace somewhere. It must be the whole house and the thermostat must be in the office for there is no thermostat up here. There is a window ac unit - no heat, a 2 piece ac,no heat and a portable ac in my room.  The good part for me is my room has an electric heater mounted on the wall.  It keeps it as warm as I want it in here. The rest of this place is cold, but at least I can be comfortable in here.

Which begs the question - why don't they have the heat turned on in this house? There are floor outlets for it.  There's just nothing coming out them.  It's a quarter after 6 and it's 59 degees outside and 59 degrees inside. Besides my room, that is.  I won't sit in the living room for it's uncomfortable.  

It is still raining.  I wanted to go out for a walk. I've been on my feet all day but that's just either standing there watching/helping or some walking, but not that much.  My lega are aching, actually, so perhaps a walk isn't that great of an idea anyway.  As it stands, I am exhausted and not feeling all the wonderful.  

I woke up in the middle of the night last night and it took quite a while to get back to sleep.  

I don't want to make it sound like I'm whining, but today was a fairly miserable day.  I can only hope and pray for a decent night's sleep tonight.  I am really hoping that by Friday, I can pass their test and go home.  The test is driving into a plant, doing all the things you have to do to get a tanker loaded and I assume drive to the delivery point and offload it. At least, that's what the trainer told me today. The other trainee that was here this last week didn't say anything about a test.  

I do know if they don't feel you're ready, they will keep you "as long as it takes".  I've been paying very close attention to everything this trainer was doing that last 2 days, attempting to get it into my brain.  I fought the fatigue today and learned quite a bit, actually. 

There are 3 ways (that I know of now anyway) to offload: pressure off, gravity off and pump off.  Mostly it's pressure off, where you hook up an airline to the trailer and pressure it up to push out the product.  The pump off is fairly complicated, it would take me several times watching them do that before I would feel like I am ready to try it - with supervision.

Loading for the most part is easy.  Unless it's a pump from the bottom loading, you simply open a cap on the top, move the apparatus over the hole and start pumping the product in.  The trainer showed me how to use charts today to figure out how much product to put in. Simple mathematical equation, that took no time to figure out. 

Well enough of that. I took a short nap earlier because I couldn't keep my eyes open, far too early to go to bed.  It's only 6:40 now.  I want to wait until 9:00 pm to crash out, so I'm going to have to force myself to stay awake until then. I guess I could go sit out in that cold living room and watch tv.  

I bought enough food today to last me until next weekend.  Grocery trips are sporadic and unpredictable. And the only real place to find a regular grocery store is in Eugene. I wouldn't have wanted to drive there today, the trainer offered to let me go into |Safeway to get some goods.  I was going to get something off of the food truck across the main highway - it's about a 500 foot walk from here - but they were closed. Which was strange because their hours are listed Monday - Sunday with the same open hours. Maybe they decided to stay closed today because of the weather.

There are 2 loads to do with this new trainer tomorrow.  I have an idea how long it takes to load and unload now, but I have no idea where the loading or unloading plants are, that was not information that was given, so I have no idea how long a day tomorrow will be. I'll assume a minimum of 8 hours and probably more. Which is why I really, really need my sleep tonight.  I just can't keep working like this on limited sleep. 5 or 6 hours simply isn't enough.  It's not like I don't go to bed in time to get 9 hours, actually.  

I think a of it is both the RV park and this strange living situation. I'm very glad I worked this weekend, being tired put aside. I would have been sitting here bored and along for 2 full days.  Learning nothing and earning no money.  They only pay you for the days you work, which makes sense.  The part about $15 per day doesn't make sense, no sheets, no town nearby, no heat, etc makes no sense whatsoever. The lady that recruited me told my trainer when HE was going through training that you are not allowed to have hookers in the bunk house.

Say what?  Not that I want a hooker, but where on earth does a person feel the right to address a grown man like that? Or putting signs in this place that say no alcohol and if you're caught with it in here, you're fired.  They really treat people like little children.  

There's more but I don't feel like writing any further.  Just too tired and need to do something to divert my focus on my fatigue.  

 Sunday - early

Well, I don't know when this guy is going to text me, he said "6 to 6:30" am, so I just got up in time to shave, shower, have a couple cups and sort of be ready.

I say sort of because I feel like I just went to bed. I am not well rested, but then again I woke up in the middle of the night and it took some time to get back to sleep. 

Oh well, story of my life, move on.  I don't know how many hours will be worked today, I'll guess a minimum of 10 and that's going to be rough.  Especially on a Sunday, when something inside of me around mid afternoon will say "time to go to sleep".

Well, I knew this was coming and I knew it was going to be rough. Tomorrow could be worse if I get paired up with the dude that starts at 3:30 am.  It's just going to be get home from work today, get a quick bite and go straight to sleep. Unless, for some odd reason, we actually get done early.  We've got 2 loads to load and offload is all that I know of at  the moment.

Anyway, off to the races. 

 Saturday - night

Long day, as expected after being given last minute notification that I was going with a driver after all. This is typical in the trucking industry, but I have never liked it.  It's as if, to trucking companies, your life doesn't matter. The only thing they care about is getting a load from point A to point B.  I was fully immersed in the idea that I might take a trip to the city.  I had the ride planned out with Uber, $19.99 fare one way on some sort of shuttle they operate. A regular ride would have cost $50.

They're going to have me with this guy tomorrow but Monday I must be getting switched to someone else for this guy has to start training some new guy on ammonia deliveries.  

Anyway, the day will start much earlier today, I'll be getting up at 5:00 am for an expected departure time of around 6:00 am.  I'm going to have my coffee and I will get up earlier to have it.  The day is already planned out. |Actually, I don't know if it's necessarily going to be a long day, it's just one load that they want done early. AFter that it sounded like a few thing that might take us into the afternoon, but I don't know about going full into night time. I hope not, I have some adapting to do here, I'm not used to 12-14 hour days anymore and the 8 we did today was about as far as I could go.

But that is only, really, because I was so tired.  Haven't slept worth a s*** and I do hope that tonight I can get some decent sleep. It's only 8:00 pm here but I'm fixing to go to bed in a few minutes.

I was texting Taylor, she informed my "your kids and dog miss you". LOL!  She said she misses me as well and that it's "too quiet around here".  Hmm, I didn't know I make that much noise all the time. Maybe, Probably.  It's just me. Not getting mad or anything, I just talk loud, not on purpose it just comes out that way.  

I do hope I can leave out of here a week from today. That's my hope.  I can't leave before I know how to do everything, but I am already catching on with it.  Pretty basic, some stuff you just don't want to forget.  Such as making sure you open the cap or the lid on the top of the trailer before attempting to empty it.  I already knew this, but it is good to have a refresher: the tank will basically implode, be destroyed and you are probably out of a job.  It's the first thing you do, get up there and open up that cap on the top or the big lid.  

I'll get a good kick start this weekend on training, that will be 2 more days of training that many of these new drivers get, I want to get this stuff down before I leave out of here. There will be some basic training at the yard in Arkansas, specific to the type of material being hauled on how to load and unload it, but the basics of loading and unloading these trailers I must learn here and now.

So that's that.  I have nothing else beyond a tenant asking  me how he's going to pay me?  He pays in cash, it will just have to wait til' I get back.  There haven't been any other instances of - ridiculousness - beyond the person throwing the dog poop on the other person's outdoor rug, lol.

With that, I am going to sleep. I have no idea if I will have time to post in the morning, figured I best get it done tonight. 

Saturday - mid morning

They were supposed to set me up to go with a trainer today, but that never materialized. I dunno why.

The other guy that was staying here left early this morning, flying back to Arkansas to get a truck and head out, supposedly back this way.  He wants to do long haul, lol, whatever dude and whatever makes you happy.  

So apparently my training doesn't start until Monday.  I don't even have confirmation of that yet, either.  Sunday comes around and I've heard nothing from them? I'm blowing up their phones.  I didn't come here to sit on my @$$ doing nothing, I want to do this training, get it over with and get the Hercules out of here.

Trucks are allegedly set at 75 mph, which means it won't take near as long as I originally projected to get back and won't be quite as boring as being stuck as one of the slowest trucking companies on the Interstate. But, I need to learn all this loading/offloading stuff first, I am starting to get irritated.

And then there is this computer. The 7th? update this week? Just cost another hour waiting for it to finish.  I found information on the internet on how to shut them off, why on earth does a laptop need daily updates that take forever to complete?  

The other guy said I would be able to learn easily all of this stuff.  I"m not worried about it, I just don't want to spend more than 5 days going out with whoever in the process. It's the same thing, over and over, 3 to 4 times per day, I'm sure 5 days of that is enough to get the hang of it.  Load, offload, washout, load, offload, washout, etc. These are local guys here, they must be getting paid by the hour for the other driver said it's only like 20 miles from plant to plant.  

I would think with that much hauling, they could just run a pipeline between plants.  They do it at the cryo plant I was working out of last job.  Some of those pipelines are quite long. 

Anyway, it's going to be a long day and I"m considering going into town to find something to do.  I don't really feel like sitting around here all day long and there is nothing to do in this area besides go across the street and order food. Or drink wine, lol.  

___________

So I'm writing this blog entry and some dude calls randomly. It's local area code so I answered it. I mostly answer anyway unless it specifically says "junk", "spam" and other useful information.  It's a local driver.  He says he'll be there at 10:30, be ready.  Huh?  They were supposed to call yesterday afternoon with this information, I was informed I would be going at 8:00 am but no one ever contacted me.

He started laughing...yup sounds like our company! cool dude anyway, sounds like it, so I'm getting dressed for working and will be meeting him out there at 11:00 am, he says it's going to be something like 8 or 9 hours.  Well whatever it is, I'll get paid today instead of sitting in this bunk house. Don't much care for the lack of communication from this company, nothing new in the trucking industry tho. 

I still have over an hour, lol.  He said it's only going to be one load and the rest moving trailers around.  What fun. I  don't need training in drop and hook, lol.

Offa here. Let the party begin. 

Friday  - early

5 days in a row getting up early. Taking it's toll, not used to it.  Not this early anyway.  Sleep is sporadic, some nights sleep well, some not so great. Today is a not-so-great day for sleep and I'm feeling it.  I don't think there is much to do today, pretty much like yesterday where I spent a few hours on the tablet and then basically nothing.  Today is interview with the big boss and then if I'm hired, I would like to hope after all of this stuff I would be getting hired - then we switch out of orientation phase and into actual training.

I mean, I've been here 5 days now and haven't really trained on anything. There were some modules on entering, loading/unloading and leaving a certain plant, but that was about it. 

The nuts and bolts of hooking up hoses and actually filling or draining a tank hasn't begun and that is what I came here for.  But, it's expected in the trucking industry that you go into repetitive type of company training that orients you to how they want things done.  In regular driving stuff, such as van trailers or flatbeds, there isn't much beyond that, you should already know all that stuff and they assign you a truck and you are on your way. 

You obviously don't do that with hazmat tanker trucks hauling acids and formaldehyde and chlorine style chemicals.  I'm just going through all of this to get to the other side of it and get home.  I should have decent health care coverage once again as well.  That was another main reason I wanted to get back into trucking, health care is very expensive if you want a good plan. Like $800 or more per month just for one person.

What I've heard, this company is relatively inexpensive for just the driver, it's when you add on a spouse or kids that the price gets jacked way up. A lot of companies are like that and I'm just glad I am the only one that will be going on the plan.  Until I get the park expanded and bringing in a lot more money, I can't really afford health care coverage that is any good.  And I'm not turning 65 for quite a while, that's over 5 years off.  So, this is the only real way to have any kind of decent health care coverage until I get more money rolling in from my business.  

It's a little after 7:00 am now, took my shower, shaved, coffee, etc, have to be over there at 8:00 am sharp, I was informed, in order to get with this interview.  Yes, well I've been over there before 8:00 am every day.  It was actually what I figured it would be: orientation hours would start at 8:00 am and continue until they just said, ok, enough for the day and let you go.

The real stuff and probably much earlier starts - when? Tomorrow? Monday? No idea.  This other guy has been getting up at 3:30 am every day this week for his truck training. He was expecting to get out of here today, but I don't see how that's possible considering he's out in a truck again.  It's more like this weekend and that only if they sign off on him.  

I am stuck here til next weekend so it doesn't really matter if I start tomorrow or Monday.  Tomorrow would thrust me back into the trucking lifestyle, Monday the same.  Just that if I start Monday, I won't have to spend as many days in a truck.  I don't know what my schedule will be, but I doubt I will be starting at 3:30 am once I get back home. But....you never know.  I''ll adapt to whatever and get with the program.  I may not like it, life usually has little things that you don't like but you deal with it.  

I'm just going to freely admit here that getting up at 3:30 am, if that's what it's going to be, is going to suck . I will have to force myself out of bed and try to get into work mode in my mind.  I won't be driving tho. The trainers know you already know how to drive and frankly, I don't feel the need to learn this area at all. I won't be driving over here and I don't care if I never come back here.  No offense to the trucking company, I don't like Portland and I've heard bad things about Eugene as well.

And the same thing you hear everywhere: People don't want to work anymore since Covid.  I get that the government and "experts" engaged in extreme fear mongering during that time and they handed out a lot of "free" money. That's done and over with. How are these people surviving without paychecks?  They're  not business people, they don't own businesses?  Rich relatives/family members?  Just barely surviving on what little government handouts they can get? I don't get it.  But I hear this same sentiment and have been hearing it for quite a while every where I go.  

Seriously, if I hadn't had the money I did when I lost my last job, I would have gone straight back into trucking.  At this point, I don't wonder if I should have anyway.  It wouldn't have worked out tho. I needed to be there for a lot of what I have been trying to get done over there.  Just now? Looking at my checking accounts, yea, time to get back to work.  That last electric bill wasn't helpful and I doubt the next one is going to be, either.

Well, the next bill has already showed up.  $1,800.  Expensive but less than the $2,500 the last bill was at. Well, that should be the end of  ultra-high bills. I would expect next electric bills to total less than a grand. I've got to get money saved up for the insurance bill coming up in December and also the ridiculously high property tax bill. Supposedly, the state legislature passed a bill to lower taxes for everyone, I haven't seen anything about a lower tax bill yet.  Maybe next year?  Over 3 grand for a property valuation of less than 200K? Does that seem reasonable? I don't get a tax bill that high on my AZ property and that house is valued well up there.  

I guess I best get offa here. Need to finish getting ready, I like to be there on time to show that I am punctual.  Not that I have that much to do, I just want to get this over with, behind me and find out what's next and when.  I probably need to do laundry sometime this weekend. I have enough to last me several more days but not until next weekend.  And the ugh part is coming, there is rain predicted here all next week. Could we do this in reverse please? It could have rained all this week and hardly affected me.  Oh well, they gave me a chemical suit which is nothing more than a glorified rain coat and pants.  

So, not only am I expecting to face long days I haven't really done in quite a while - not that long - I am also facing the misery of having to load and offload in rainy conditions.  Just checked again, it's changed slightly, but several days one would expect some amount of rain fall.  Maybe I'll get lucky, lmao.

G'day

Thursday - evening

Well first off, this computer.  It decided to do yet another update. Third one this week. Takes up to an hour, sometimes longer.  Didn't let me down this time, the thing took forever, a day and a half to even pop up the home screen and it's still working now trying to get back to normal.  I don't know why they want to do updates that frequently and I am sick of it.

Anyway. Got to the office this morning, was shown a tablet that is used for hours of service and for loads, then handed to me.  I want to fiddle with this for a while, I said, I need to just use it and get the feel for it. Well fiddle away, he replied, we have plenty of time.  I spent a couple of hours, actually, flipping back and forth through screens until I felt I had a good knowledge of how to use it. 

After that, I was handed a full-face respirator, told to put it on and get it adjusted. Ok? He came back a few minutes later and said we're going to do a smoke test.  The tube he picked up busted in his hand, smoke started pouring out and he immediately started  choking.  That was fun. He opended up another one and then started letting the smoke roll up around my mask. Nothing.  

Done with that, he issued me all kinds of safety equipment and then sent me to the bunk house.  It wasn't even noon yet. I have been here all day, save a nice, long walk to get the blood flowing and just got done with a few sets of pushups.  So, here for all night until 8:00 am, where I am to go through an interview with some high level manager. I thought the interviews were over?  

Well, whatever, it's another paid day as today was, just a flat rate they give you for showing up.  The pay goes up substantially once you are in a truck and training with another driver.  

Meanwhile, the internet here? Sucks.  It's slow, it's not enough, obviously, to deal with all of the trailers plus what's  going on in this office/house setup.  I can use my Verizon, but it throttles at X amount of data and then doesn't work very well anymore.  Might as well notifications on the computer screen that "update failed" which simply means the WiFi isn't working.  It wasn't working before everyone came home, either. Just sporadic. 

The other guy just showed up a few minutes ago. Meaning he was gone for around 15 hours.  That's what I have to look forward to next week, tho the days before today he was only out maybe 8-10 hours.  I don't know how well I'll handle 15 hour days after not doing them for a year.  I guess I'll find out!

I'm trying to access my recorded shows on mydishnetwork account onlline, they don't make it easy to find anything on there.  You would expect to find a "dish anywhere" tab on the home page. Instead, you have to look it up.   Anyway, I found it.  I'm getting off of here and off of anything I can't do on my phone for the night.   

 Thursday - early

Well, the week is slowly ticking by. At least I'm at Thursday and no longer at Monday.  

Fitful sleep last night, just kept waking up. Anxiety, the desire to not be here and stuff going through my  mind about the park.  Gotta shut all of that off, I know that, sometimes it's difficult. Oh, and weird dreams.  

Mostly, I just want out of this corporate world.  You are subject to their rules, desires, whims, methodologies, etc.  This particular company hasn't taken any hardline stances about much of anything, yet.  They have their rules but most of that is required by the Feds. The feds basically run the trucking industry nowadays. Companies that don't adhere to their beckon desires, your company can literally be axed.  

I voluntarily subjected myself to this, I have to keep telling myself.  I'm spending an entire week going through training that I have gone through endlessly before just to be able to get on the road and actually what I'm being hired to do.  I'm not even hired yet, that is supposed to happen today when the drug test results come back.  I don't do drugs beyond occasional Tylenol and sometimes some cough medicines, shouldn't be any issues there. That is all required by the feds. 

I got lucky this month that those 2 trailers stayed another month. Speaking of that, I need to write down their phone numbers, gag, I'm forgetting to do that again.  I am assuming their work with QuikTrip will be done before a month's time, but in case it isn't, I need to be able to contact them.  Oh, take that back, I saved it into my phone.  I was busy at the time and thought, if I don't save this, it will fall off of recents and I won't be able to contact them yet again.  

Anyway, just sitting here biding my time.  Today may be a full day, who knows, but tomorrow is going to  be something like an hour and then it's over. Now, whether it's over until Monday or over until getting into a truck on Saturday with a trainer? Who knows.  I "feel" like taking the weekend off, but my brain is telling me work.  It's not my choice, if no one is available, which apparently they are not very often on weekends, I will sit the rest of Friday after work until early Monday morning.  

I'm resigned to be here until at least Friday, it's just what it is. The only way to leave earlier is to say screw this and go home. After all I've done with paperwork and well over 100 tests? No. Might as well follow through, get home and find out what it is really like to work for this company versus what people are telling me it is like.  

As previously stated, today is tablet day and hire-on day.  The hiring doesn't take place until after they get the drug results back.  Then I am to sit down with some high level manager and get interviewed.  Which is odd, I have been interviewed up the ying-yang already.  I'm guessing this is the part where they tell you how it's going to be, fall in line or leave.  Someone is going to come along with a hardline stance sooner or later, it's pretty much inevitable in the trucking industry. I just sit there and say yes sir and no sir, eat it and move on. Everyone eats it at some point in their lives.

If this works out like they say it will, I will park the truck when going through at the property. Behind the shed.  On the side of the driveway.  There's just one problem I can see with that setup.  Rain. If I'm going to need to use the rear of the driveway where the tanks are set up, when it rains hard? It turns into a mud pit back there.  The only way to fix it is to have several truckloads of gravel brought in.  I can see the need for at least 3 or 4.  

Oh, btw? My room is directly above the RV park laundromat. They have a lot of machines in there and people are in there early and late.  Another thing that kept me awake last  night.  There is nothing I can do about it. The people aren't making unecessary noises, they are just opening and closing the doors to the machines  This building I am is the RV park office. The second floor above it is where I'm at. 

I dunno if the original builders of this park had some sort of idea that they would have live-in management up here or what.  The manager allegedly lives in a trailer in the park itself.  That isn't unheard of at all.  

I'm not making that much money this week, it was expected.  Not desired, but expected.  This company is cheap, that is the bottom line.  They gave me a set of papers to fill out to review them.  Uh, they might not much care for what I have to say about the way they are treating incoming drivers.  I have my views of it and it is in line with what most of the trucking industry does as standard practice, this place excluded from that description. 

In the world of the RV park, I may be raising my short term rates once I get money flowing from this job in.  I don't get that much overnight stuff, they might as well pay the same as everyone else is charging to come here.  I wouldn't mind raising my monthly rate back up to what it was before I hit a dead period where I had too many lots open and no one really inquiring.  My rates are too low, I just did it to get people in there. I wouldn't necessarily raise the rates on the people already in the park, just incoming newbies.

Well, getting close to departure time for the main building. It's only a few minutes walk away.  See what kind of day I'm going to have and hope I wake up a little better than what I am right  now, I feel like I could go back to bed for several hours.  I've got a mind full of thoughts about things to keep  me from getting bored if it turns out to be a long, boring, monotonous day. Most orientation stuff and doing all of those modules is a big, long fight to keep oneself awake and focused.  There is some material in there that I hadn't encountered before, this isn't the same products. A lot of  it is glue. And a new one: having to wash out the trailer every  time.  You don't do it yourself, you take it to a facility where they do it for you. 

G'day

 

 Well, that didn't take all day, anyway.

Learning how to adjust brakes was easy. I hadn't done it in 30 years and it turns out, it hasn't changed in that amount of time either. Exact same setup. So that took 10 minutes and I was done with that. 

Back to the orientation  room and doing Hazmat stuff for about 4-1/2 hours I cranked all of that stuff out.  Read, take a test. Read more, take more tests. A few tests were difficult, most of them were either common sense or just pick an answer type of stuff based off of what you had just read. The most difficult testing was on formaldehyde.  I don't even know how many I got correct because it grades you automatically but doesn't show what you got right or wrong.  I don't know if I got them all right, or a few wrong? No clue.

And, after doing a Hazmat module for an hour and a half, the rest of the modules after that were all repeating the stuff that was in the long Hazmat module.  Just a lot shorter versions of it.  The safety guy came in while I was doing it, said he was leaving, finish up what you're doing and then you can leave.

Well, I left around 1:45 pm.  Tomorrow is learning the tablet. I have no idea how long that will take, I can't imagine it will take all day, but maybe? he wants to drag it out so that I have something to do on Friday so I'll get paid for it.  Well, I don't want to spend 8 hours doing something that takes 4 hours to do, or however long it takes in reality.  But whatever, I'll do whatever he wants, I'm not the guy making the decisions here.  

Got done with that and the other guy in this house and I went to town to go to Walmart to get some food.  I was getting low and I don't want to be here without food.  

Got back from that, made some dinner - first time I had eaten all day besides a very small bag of crackers - and then Taylor contacted me. Said the oldest boy wanted to talk to me on the house phone. 

Well, why not.  He was quite chatty and it went on for 35 - 40 minutes telling me about how life is going for him, lol and the tree cutting operation James is doing around the house. He cut down a tree out front and I was watching it on one of the cameras since the kid was too.  

That over, I'm just sitting here listening to highway noise, writing in my journal and thinking about things.  I got 4 calls today about spaces. 3 of them were overnighter calls coming up in the next month and the 4th was wanting long term. Too late, those 3 had already booked, that lot is taken - tho I need more overnight type reservations to make it equal a month's worth of a long termer. The people that disappeared for 2-1/2 weeks paid up for another month so I have no idea who is leaving next.

Let me think about that for a second....oh yes, lot 1 is leaving - no, they have another 3 weeks.  Lot 7 is the railroad boss, he didn't know how long he was saying, but probably 2 months.  Lot 10 said he might leave in September a few months ago...lot 14 is still dealing with closing on the 3 turned into 4 properties....I can't tell people I have  a lot available until it's actually available.

I say that because people have told me they were leaving before only to have their circumstances change and end up staying, sometimes for months longer.  I don't really mind that much having one lot open for overnighters, but if there was going to be anyone wanting to move in before anyone else got an spot for a night or two here and there, they were going to get it.  I could probably go ahead and rent it out after these first 2 get done with their stays, the 3rd isn't until the end of next month and I will have people leaving before then.  I'm pretty sure that family that is closing wants to be on their own land as soon as they can. However, they just paid for another month 2 days ago.  

Apparently the dog - Obi/Obito (I call his full name when I need his attention) - is doing ok.  He hasn't torn my room to shreds, that's a plus.  We didn't really get to spend enough time together to really have him missing me. In his mind, I'm probably like his previous owners: gone.  I like him, but we haven't grown seriously attached to each other yet.  That takes time, a lot of time, like a year or something.  

Next week will be much more grueling than this one. Apparently the main trainer is up early - picks this other guy up here at 3:30 am.  They were out until around 1 today. At least they didn't have to work the entire daytime hours.  I used to get up early on occasion for the previous job, but it's not something I actually like, lol.  I don't really care at this point what I have to do to get out of here. If it's up at 3:00, to be ready by 3:30, then so beit. They think he'll be ready to leave by Friday. I'd like to get the same results.  They load and unload the trucks, so there will be some new variables thrown at me on that, but I am confident I can learn whatever and have it memorized by the time 4 full days of it is done.  

Anyway, I'm getting offa here. I want to get caught up on some of the news.

 Wednesday - early

After spending the entire day doing modules, I went back to the = house is what they're calling it, I'm calling it a boy scout camp host room - and at some of the food I bought on Monday.  I won't last much longer on that food, I'm ito have to go to town to get some more and it will have to be during working hours.

This is because you are only allowed to use their compnay vehicle between the hours of 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday. If you want to go to town on the weekend? That's apparently on you.  I can imagine the cost of an Uber/Lyft for whatever it is pretty well up there and I just looked at hotels, pretty pricey stuff.  But, it's Oregon and they have a hotel tax here, I am understanding, that is outrageous. The kind of thing you'd expect to find in a Dem run state where taxation is loved by the many. 

This other dude showed up yesterday while I was making dinner.  We got into an hours-long conversation about this company and other stuff in general.  I was wondering if he was seeing this place through the same eyes that I am seeing it as.  He went off on them, lol.  

And off some more but was relieved because he only has a couple of days left here and then he gets to fly home. And yes, he spent the weekend here doing nothing for they don't have weekend drivers available to train.  I can tell ya right now, I am not spending an entire weekend sitting in this - place.  I'll spend credit card rewards points on a hotel and go spend a couple of nights in town, eating at restaurants and seeing whatever sights there are to see.  

I'd rather work, get into a truck with whoever, get the training started and get it over with and get the Borg out of here.  I'm preparing myself mentally for the idea that I'm going to be stuck here doing nothing, which is ridiculous.  You aren't getting paid to sit here and do nothing, btw.  

I mean, it's my fault I'm here I guess. I started getting the instinct that this place isn't really right for  me once I started getting information close to departure date.  Now that I'm here, I'm going to struggle through this ridiculousness, get it over with and go home.  I have no intentions of going straight to work even if I "pass" all of this stuff, I intend on going home and spending time with family and making sure everything in the park is going good. Rest assured it will need mowed by then.  

Well, the morning rituals come and go in these days, another long day ahead of me as I was informed by this other guy that after I get done with learning how to adjust brakes, I'll be spending the rest of the day doing hazmat modules on the computer.  In other words, a repeat of yesterday, different subject matter. He said they intentionally dragged it out at the brake learning portion for they didn't want to go do more modules.

Yeah, well, teach me how to adjust brakes, I'm sure it takes 10 minutes and get me back in the building. I don't want to drag this thing out any more than I have to, get it over with and move on to whatever is next, which I believe after hazmat is learning their tablets.  That will probably take some time, new electronic devices and learning the functionality of them usually does. But I think tablets are tomorrow. 

Basically, the safety guy wants me to go slower and drag it out so I can get more pay.  Thanks, no thanks, get it done so I can head home - or just to get it over with.  It's a daily pay anyway, not an hourly pay and if they try to screw me on that, well...

The tent lady finally figured out that "someone has hacked my card".  She claimed that someone took $100 out of it. You know, I've offered to her several times to just reduced the bi-monthly payment to make it more affordable.  She keeps talking about "getting behind" on it, I don't really care as long as she makes some kind of payment that is at least $250 every 2 weeks.  In other words, pay the lot rent and pay something on the motor coach itself.  I don't know if she's telling the truth or not, I just   said well, we can put off this payment if you like. No, I appreciate the offer, etc.

So I took out $200 on the 4th try. I don't like all of these declines I have going on the card site.  I want her to check to make sure the money is in there.  I asked her to this time and she was sure it was there.  No, it wasn't there and tho I haven't heard anything from the card company, I do wonder if it looks bad on me in making several attempts for a declined card?  Or worse, that I'm getting charged each time?  Ill have to find that out, they take out a lump sum of a percentage every month of what I have run through their system.  It's why I raised my nightly rate by $3, to cover that charge.  I'm not paying it, so to speak, I want the customer to foot that bill.

Ok, well I guess I best get ready to leave. I just realized I haven't really looked a the news lately, guess I'll get caught up today

Oh, and sleep.  Well, I must have been too tired to care about the road noise last night because I slept a full, much-needed 8 hours and only woke up once and fell right back asleep.  I feel much, much better this morning, quite thankfully. At least I won't be dragging through the day, dead tired.

G'day

Probably before then.  

 The  end of the work day, 4:00 pm they go home.  I didn't ask for use of the vehicle for I have nothing in me to want to go anywhere but bed.  

Last night was the dude up til 3:30 am, bed bugs (I'm guessing, I have several fresh bites on me), Interstate noise and little sleep.  I won't last here like this.  I can't go 2 weeks without sleep.  I'll be one cranky person if every night goes as it did last night. 

I sat there all day long working on 63 different modules and got them all finished, only taking 1, 10 minute break after 6 hours of going at it.  The safety guy said "you got them ALL done?" Yes, isn't that what you wanted? Well yes, but what I want and what I get are 2 different things, you are ahead of the curve.  

Well I guess that's good, but there is still a plethora of things to do before I can even get to trailer training. Tomorrow they want me to learn how to adjust the brakes.  I already know how to do that, but I didn't bother to tell them since I haven't done it in so long, the whole setups might have changed.  Plus it will be far easier to learn how to adjust brakes than sitting in that hard chair all day long doing those endless modules with endless tests. 

There is a food truck across the main street about 500 feet from here.  They not only serve dinner, they also serve wine. I don't wonder if a nice glass of wine would help me at sleep better.

But, I don't even feel like walking over there. My arm skin is all dried out and flaky, desperately need some lotion.  Probably should have asked for the vehicle but driving 16 miles each way just isn't in the cards for me today.  If only I can get some decent sleep tonight, I can get tomorrow work day over with and go into town.  There is literally nothing else out here beyond that little food truck.  It's also a winery outlet. The people own a  winery and a food truck? At this exit out in the middle of nowhere. Just a little odd.

The tent lady paid today? No, not yet.  She needs to get this issue of telling me to process her card and having it declined behind her. I doubt it looks good trying to process cards with insufficient funds from the same person happening every time. I'm waiting for her reply, but I'm not running it again until she fixes it or lowers the amount.  She doesn't necessarily pay what we agreed to every time, but then again I offered that to her.  It will just push out the length of the repayment time.  Oh, yes, I ran the card and it declined.  The money would be great but no thanks to declined cards/  I only have one more payment due before the end of the month and that would be the "hunter" that wants to bag some deer. But he doesn't know if he's staying or not.

Oh and the New Jersey people. They are a needy bunch.  They're always broke. Seems like she gets her disability check and it's gone immediately, hence the reason I'm on her doorstep when she gets it.  

Yes, checking my book, the NJ people owe - they always owe and Lot 2 will owe on the 27th.  After that, there will be a large number of payments due around the 1st.  \

I'm thinking I best pay someone to go out there and mow the lots next week.  I mowed the 3 people that were talking about leaving before I left, but it'll need it mowed again.  It rained a couple of times now and that's enough to get weeds and grass flying right on up. 

Well I'm done with this. Going to lay down even tho it's only 5:15 in the afternoon, just need to rest a little. 

 Tuesday - early

Not sleeping well. Too much Interstate noise and its like the window just lets all that noise in. Its going to be a long day.

Plus there is a very strong musty smell in the room I am staying in.  Lunch time today will undoubtedly be nap time.  Don't care much what they think about it, perhaps put people in better accommodations and they won't have sleep issues. Probably not true with everyone that comes through here, but I'd bet money I'm not the first person that had trouble sleeping in this setup.

I didn't help that whoever is staying in the other room was up to 3:30 am.  TV on, bathroom visits which is near my room, etc.  

I also was bitten by whatever in multiple places on my body during the night. I have a couple of huge welts. It's a bad cocktail of things adding up to misery.  I would have been happy to have a hotel room and drive a rental vehicle to the building every day like most other trucking companies do. They are having trouble recruiting new people and I can see why.  

One of the negative reviews, however, wasn't right. It doesn't smell like dog urine in the main building and there aren't any animals in there that I could see.  But pretty much everything else was right on.  These are nice people and all, they just don't appear to have any understanding of how to make people feel like they are at home, ie: sleeping quarters that are a place that THEY would like to stay in.

It's clean in  here, but that's about it.  

There isn't much noise from the RV park, which is amazing because there are a lot of people crammed in there. Heck, there's a crew out there right  now working on electrical for the new lots they are building, don't hear them either. But what I do hear? Constant Interstate noise. I must have been extremely tired 2 nights ago to be able to sleep through all of this. 

The only change today is that I bought a can of coffee and some creamer yesterday while at the creditless-card Winn-co grocery store.  I was trying to put some of the purchase of the items on this company credit card which they alot you $15 per day to eat.  

$15 per day.  I mean, you can buy food and make your own meal for that much money, you can go out to eat once if you're lucky, but for a whole day?  These are the major disconnects I'm having with this place.  

Well, for now, I'll grin and bear it, maybe less grinning.  I have this week to do modules on the computer and next week is training.  I "get" to go home if I can complete trailer training next week. Probably one of the few things they have right: you go out with an experienced driver to do hands on training.  You can't learn that stuff in a classroom, at least I can't.  Have to go to the job site and see it, learn it and try it.  

I'm sort of getting burnt out on having to learn new stuff all the time. The shed was all of that and more, installing a new pedestal, all the stuff I had to learn from scratch and mostly You-Tube videos being done at the park.  I'd like everything to go on auto-pilot for a while and just be able to not have to stress over things.

The good thing that happened were the 2 that paid for another month and another paid via cashapp this morning.  Much needed money and I haven't checked the book yet, someone is due in the next couple of days I think.  

At least the testing junk is over with.  That wasn't much fun either.  Maybe after training today I will take that van of theirs if it's available and go to town and get a "free" bite to eat.

Or, I will be to tired to do anything and just force myself to go for a walk and then spend the rest of the day in this "house".  I do start getting paid today.  

This RV park next door. This isn't "long term", well I guess you could call it that if you want. It's permanent.  Like, this is the house, this is where we live we are here to stay type of thing.  They obviously don't care about the age or appearance of the trailers. Some are new looking, some are very trashy looking.  The thing is, it's full.  I mean, even the new spaces as they are completed fill up.  It's their business model, more power to them.

The cost of housing in this area is very high,  A one bedroom, plain Jane apartment going for $1,300?  This is why the RV parks are filled up as people who can't afford regular housing find living in RV's to be much less expensive.  The trainer said yesterday the owner of the trucking company is charging them between $400 and $500 per month, including electricity.  This is pretty much what I do, I just don't have a lot of junky trailers. I do have one, it's behind the shed and mostly out of sight.  I tired of those people.  They fight with each other all the time.  They make life difficult for the tent lady. Their car was parked in the main driveway the other day when I was leaving town, a thing I forgot to address them on.  If the car is out of gas - again - push the damn thing out of the driveway.  It's not mine, it's shared. 

Well, getting close to time to get out of here. Not much access to do anything on the internet during the day, they have signs up "no cellphones" but I don't care about that if we aren't doing anything. I'll get it out and check it anyway. They do all the time. 

Oh and finally looking out the window, I had thought I as in the rear of the house.  I'm on the side of it and it's angled towards the Interstate.  So yea, that's why I am hearing this noise all the time and likely why the other dude - who was here before me - took that other room. There is a third room but it has a sign on it saying Private. I don't see anyone coming or going out of it, no one is in there. This is a 3 bedroom "house", as it was described, perhaps someone put that up there for their own private oasis when they come into town?  

Fortunately for me, this laptop started working pretty good again. It must have been all of those endless updates.  It was updating every day for a while there.  And those updates aren't 5 minute deals, it takes this thing an hour, hours, a day to process it.  It's ridiculous and it is beyond my understanding why they think it's such a great thing to force updates all the time.  It may be security stuff, but do it once a week not every day. 

Well, the dog is doing ok, so I've heard.  James will have taken him on by now.  He likes the dog, fortunately for me. Not sure how that is going to be when I finally get home.  Or anything else for that matter. They said I might be driving a truck back from here, told me that before I came out here. Well, that is impossible if they were referring to anything in the yard. All the decent trucks are on the road. There is a grass burner, I guess, that works ok, it's old but it's clean. There is no mattress in the sleeper tho.  

And finally - if they have me doing nothing this weekend, I am not staying here. I will go to Eugene and burn up credit card rewards points on a hotel stay for 2 nights. I don't see any reason to subject myself to this hellish place when I'm doing nothing. I'd rather sit in the comfort of a Marriott Residence Inn or similar, nicer hotel establishment.  

15 minutes left, I have to get ready to go.

G'day

 Well, still Monday and Day 1 is over with. 

I can't say it was fun or anything like that. 

Filling out all kinds of paperwork that I have already filled out several times, handing over my driver's license 4 times to various people, going to this Dr office and going through unbelievable testing.  

Easily and hands down was the blow into a tube test.  This is where you take as deep a breath as you possibly can and blast it out as forcefully as you can all at once and then, keep blowing until there is basically nothing left in your lungs.  

The assistant said 3 times unless there is too much of a difference in between the first 3.  After 5 times I said no more.  I was seeing stars, lightheaded, this isn't something you'd just normally do hanging out at the house - or ever for that matter.  

The other thing I didn't much care for was lifting 70 pounds from the floor to a shelf that was 6 feet off the ground.  It wouldn't have been an issue, but they wanted me to do it 12 times in a row!  And the beam test.  Where you are balancing yourself on this plank of wood that is 12 feet long.  You balance yourself across it, turn around without touching anything to hold you up and then back across, turn around again, back across, turn around again, and then you finish.  

This took the morning up.  It was more waiting on the various technicians/dr's than it was getting the stuff done. Waiting on the physical ability testing was an hour in itself.  I grinned and beared it, that's all I can say about that.  

I then stopped at a Winn-co on the way out. No sense in going back to the yard which is out in the middle of nowhere and then having to drive all the way back again.  I bought a little over $60 worth of groceries, enough food to last many days worth of eating without having to buy anything else, anywhere else.  I had a feeling I wouldn't want to be driving 16 miles each way just to get to a grocery store.  

There is a little eatery across the street from here and they have rave reviews, I might check it out, but my fried chicken is pretty tasty and it was in the refrigerator waiting on me after I was done for the day.  
Did I say I hate this new keyboard?  Piece of junk.

Anyway, getting back from that wasn't the end of the day as I was originally informed.  Oh nooo.  Now we fill out more paperwork and then do a road test. Road tests are mandated by federal regulation.  

I can't really tell you how I felt about that before getting back into a truck, I just figured I'd get the hang of it back quickly and that would be the end of that.  And it was true. Like I had never left trucking.  Old trucks here, a yard full of junk equipment that is never used, the good trucks are all out on the road.

We went through 2 trucks before finding one road worthy enough to get out on the Interstate - which is literally right here, 100 feet away? However far it is, it's just far enough you couldn't throw a stone onto the roadway but definitely close enough to hear the highway noise.  Fortunately, my room is on the back side of the building and there is a portable ac unit in here with fan settings, I just turn that on for background noise plus the Interstate dies down with traffic at night time.

It's I-5, tho and it's very busy daytime.

Well, I got the tractor backed under the trailer, hooked it all up, did a pre-trip, etc.  The man was watching but more interested in his phone.  I dunno, guess he just figured I knew what I was doing after finding out I had been driving since the mid 80's.  Well, we got onto the Interstate, shifting was a breeze - thankfully they don't believe in automatic transmission and they don't believe in inward facing cameras with microphones either.  A big plus considering some of the negatives going on here.

We got back, I parked the trailer, unhooked the tractor, put it back in it's place and then he asked me how I thought I did? I replied I thought I did pretty good considering I haven't driven a truck in 13 months.  How do YOU feel I did? Yup, you did good actually, no problems.  Well that's good. 

Finally done with that, he told me what to expect tomorrow and the  next several days - mostly just doing online stuff. HE's hoping to get me in a truck with another person for the weekend, otherwise he said I'd be sitting around til Monday. NOOOOOOO, I want to get this s*** over with and get home.  Not sit around a whole entire weekend doing nothing.  I didn't come up here for a vacation.  

Oh, btw, for a company's safety director to tell you you did great driving? That's high compliment. Those people never have any issue telling you about yourself if you are doing something they see that they don't like.  

Ok, well it's 3:22 pm here.  I have a lot of time to kill.  I dunno why they  just didn't start me on the training today, I just want this garbage over with. I have passed everything but the drug test. That won't be back for a few days, rest assured I don't do illicit drugs and will pass that easily.  So what am I going to do with the rest of the day?\

I'm totally worn out, that's what.  I found pillows in a closet and yes I brought a pillow case with me along with my own sheets.  I will double pillow my bed and take a nice, long nap.  Yesterday wore me out worse than I thought it would and I have no idea how I made it through today without feeling more sluggish than I did.  It was 2:00 am my time - central time - before I got to bed last night and tho I slept 5-1/2 hours without a problem, that isn't anywhere near enough sleep to go through a day like today. 

And miracle of miracles, the people that disappeared contacted me. They are staying another month and I will be happy to charge their cards for another month. That is a big relief, actually, I won't have 3 empty lots sitting around for however long, it's still just the one.  

There. 2 more lots charged for another full month, you don't know how much of a relief that is right now, knowing there will be another high electric bill coming next month. Hopefully not as high as the last one, but it's still going to be up there.  There are no new reservations in the only available lot and I'm pretty much saying if someone wants it long term, they can have it.  \

The forecast for my town where the RV park is at changed quite a bit.  Now, it's in the high 80's but more low 90's than anything. That is a significant change from just seeing 2 low 90's days and the rest in the 80's.  It's still not as hot as it was a week plus ago, but that's still pretty high.  Just that night time lows are getting down there very nicely, so the real heat of the day isn't lasting terribly long.  Alright, I  need to get the park book out - yes I brought that with me - and see who is upcoming on the rent payment list.  

I'm gonna call this one done and over with.  Might check the news and see what's up. It's pretty much the same garbage day in and day out with Republicans and Democrats fighting each other constantly.  Gets old seeing that stuff, but I still like to keep up with what's going on.  I just don't do near as much as I used to, it's just too much negativity and I don't feel the need to expose myself to too much of that.  

And anyway, that nap is calling my name.  

Monday. 

Very long day yesterday.

the shift key on my computer keyboard broke, there may be instances of no caps when there are supposed to be, oh well, at least the keyboard still works. 

Anyway, flying to DFW wasn't any big deal besides the man sitting next to me that didn't fit in his seat.  WAY too big.  I didn't say anything because it was going to be a short flight. He did ask if he could be moved up another row, the flight attendant refused, saying all of those empty seats were upgrade seats you have to pay for. 

Ridiculous.  If you haven't sat in a commercial jetliner any time recently, you aren't missing anything besides a very uncomfortable setup where they cram as many seats in there as they can possibly get away with.  

DFW, found a restaurant and ate.  The cheapest things on the menu were burgers which didn't feel like eating, so I opted for the next cheapest thing which was a half slab of ribs, mashed potatoes and a house salad. IT was a lot of food, thankfully, that was yesterday afternoon and i'm still not hungry.  Which is good because there isn't any food here besides some canned vegetables. There is no coffee, either, which is pretty messed up.  

Sitting in DFW for 5 hours was neither good nor bad.  Just sit there and exist.  

Getting into the Airbus A320 was nice tho,  A newer plane, in great condition. Seats crammed together of course, but the bonus was the middle seat was empty.  There weren't many empty seats on that flight, i counted that as a blessing. The lady in the window seat was a very strange person, i'll leave that at that.  

However.  We sat there quite a while until the captain finally came on and gave the usual rundown of weather of where we're going, etc, but then threw these two little gems in; We are experiencing a minor maintenance issue and we are having a minor paperwork problem.  We expect to have these issues corrected within the next 15 minutes.  

"minor maintenance issue"

Why he thought informing us of that as being a good idea I will never know.  A man boarded the plane with an American Airlines safety vest on, did something in the back and got back off.  We didn't take off until 45 minutes later than we were supposed to. 

The flight - almost 4 hours of it - was uncomfortable but at least I could move my legs around what with no passenger next to me.  People don't know how to walk down the aisle without hitting people either.  

Anyway, we get to Eugene airport. Smaller but nice facility. Waited for quite a while for the luggage, the taxi driver was out there waiting and had been waiting for over half an hour.  Not my fault, but I did end up giving her a tip on top of whatever they paid her for  the fare.  Got to this place and ugh.  Yes, that RV park is filled with old junk RV's and newer ones as well.  Crammed in together.  

Found this A frame "house", found the entrance on the second floor.  This is something you would think of staying at when you were 10 years old going on a Boyscout outing, not something you would bring in new drivers to make a lasting impression with. Well, there's an impression alright, not a good one.  It's clean at least, but yes, there is no bedding, no pillows that I could find, they did have clean towels at least. Refrigerator is empty and there is no coffee.

Emphasis on no coffee.  So, this recruiter just texts me and tells me not to show up at the front until 8:00 am.  I wasn't planning on it.  I did say there isn't any coffee over here hopefully y'all have some over there?  Well, we recommend you don't drink coffee until after testing.  

This testing....it sounds like something that isn't pleasant, is elongated and at least a medium probability of failing it.  I was up until 2:00 am last night (Central time, it was midnight here) and I'm not really feeling it too much right now. Especially with no coffee.  That'll just make me grumpy.  No one needs a grumpy old man, especially me, lmao.  

I'll go through this testing with no coffee in my system and if I pass, they best be doing some stuff  to impress me.  I'm not beholden to them and so far, there is no reason to believe this is any great company. The only good thing I've heard is the taxi driver saying, well, they've been around a long time.  It's a good company, without expressing why  it's a good company and probably having no idea what she is talking about.  There's lots of bad trucking companies that have been around a long time, they exist usually with the help of newer drivers that can't get anything else.  

Well.  I'm watching an RV park tenant with a dog and a kid sitting ou by the street, apparently there is a bus stop here as a busload of kids already went through here and now thes older kids.  This place is not well maintained.  This house is right next to the RV park, I mean right next to it.  There is a crew of workers out there working on an obvious expansion of the park and there is an Interstate maybe 150 away from this property.  

At least there are some mountains here.  

Anyway, my time is up. No idea when I will be free again, probably not anytime soon.  

G'day