Sunday  Mid-Morning

Got up somewhat early, just to get things done.  Got up, had some of that nice, free, complimentary breakfast with coffee, milk, orange juice, meat and potatoes.  It was very good.  

After that, I made the decision to go get a coat at the nearest Walmart supercenter.  Uber there, Lyft back (I check them both, whichever is cheapest).  They had a decent coat for $22.  That was the cheapest thing they had. Not that you would expect to get a coat for any cheaper than that.                          

Now? It's a little after 9:00 am and I am going to have to leave here by 11.  That's their checkout time. A bit early if I do say so myself, but whatever, I need to get back and get my mind into this frame of thinking that I'm going to have to get up super early tomorrow morning and try to convince this trainer I'm good to go by being able to recite everything from memory.  

Trust me, I've endlessly gone over this entire thing from start to finish in my mind.  Today, once I get back, I will be speaking it out as if I'm talking to someone.  It's one thing to go over it in your mind, quite a different thing to verbalize it.  Once I feel comfortable with that, I'm going to write it all down, step by step and have a training tool in case I get flustered at the racks for whatever reason and have a memory lapse. 

It happens.  

I'm just trying to get out of here, folks, memorizing all of these steps is the only way to do it.  This trainer isn't going to sign me off without seeing that I know certain, major things not to do and to do at the same time.  

So I'm bagging everything up and fixing to get out of here.  I will try Uber and Lyft again, I tried earlier and they had cheaper prices than the taxi service. But, will they actually show up to take me out there? One of the drivers this morning said he couldn't understand why they would turn it down, it's not that far and "I'd rather drive out of town than being stuck in this city all the time".  So who knows.  I'll get everything ready to go and then see if I can get one of them over here.

Back later.  

 Saturday is over for all intents and purposes.  

Went out for a bit, did quite a bit of walking, got some Thai food - spicy chicken curry to be precise - at that - wonderful.

The price of everything here is high.  That was $16 for a meal that probably should have been around $10,   I just ate a blue cheese burger that cost $12.50.  That was the burger only, nothing else and that's all I got.  

Got my laundry done with no problems, no one was using it and no one wanted to use it after I was done.  I know because I checked that laundry room several times today attempting to decide when, exactly, to do it.  One more thing I don't have to do tomorrow. 

I will probably Uber myself to the nearest grocery store tomorrow before checking out of here, get what I think I will need for the next .... well we'll call it 4 days ....and then get a ride back to the A frame house.  I asked the taxi company if they are open on Sundays, yes, we are.  Okay, because I didn't have any luck with Uber or Lyft to get a ride there.  It wouldn't be good to not be able to get back there, lol.  

I need lunch stuff and a few dinners.  And another bottle of unsweet tea.  And whatever else I am not thinking of here.

I miss my new doggie.  I think by the time I get back he's going to have let me go out of his memory banks.  I'll have been gone longer than I've had him or somewhere around the same amount of time.  

I really don't ever want to do this again - taking off for what will amount to 3 weeks. They best not be giving me a hard time about going home for - many days.  Many, many days.  Like 5 to 7 days.  I might go down to 4 but it's not going to be any lower than that.  Sorry, I have stuff to do, y'all kept me out a lot longer than I was informed of, my vehicle is still sitting at an airport, I have thing to do, I'll get with the driving after I get this stuff done, g'day.

Well I miss everything really. Home, the kids, Taylor, James, dog, fish, cats, the feeling of home, the feeling of being home, all of that stuff that makes you feel like you are living a life.  This hotel diversion was very much needed, but it's not home.  If my new doggie was here I probably wouldn't care about much of anything.  

I don't know when checkout is here, but I'll guess  noon and work my day around that appropriately.  I brought the entire suitcase because I had all of those dirty clothes. Today was the last day worth of clean socks I had since the last time I did laundry - a week ago?  

I am, of course, hoping for another good night's sleep. It will be the last for a while. Tomorrow, I can take an afternoon nap - at that "thing" they call a house.  

I know, tomorrow another day off. But, I am ready to get this over with.  I spent quite a bit of time today going over loading and unloading routines in my mind and calling it out.  I'm alone, lol, I can do that without people looking at me funny. 

 Saturday  Semi-Early

Well, my new definition of early anyway.  Since getting up at 3:30 am is a thing with this company, I'll have to redefine my old version of "early", which would be something like 6:00 am-ish.  

As hoped - very much hoped - I finally slept.  8 golden hours of sleep.  Only woke up once, was a wake for a little while but eventually dozed back off.

No people clanking things around in the laundry room. No laundry room door smashing against the building. No people in the middle of the night banging on the office door.  No bed bugs.  No uncomfortable bed.  NO Interstate noise at all.  That was one of the biggest ones, all night long, cars and trucks rolling by as if they are passing you in the room.  

Just the sound of the wall unit AC system that I turned the fan setting on high. That is my optimal sleep condition, white noise in the background, a comfortable bed and no other noise.  

I do not feel all that great tho.  You can't lose as much sleep as I have and expect to feel all wonderful and such with such sleep deprivation going on.  I will be walking to a store later on, maybe a restaurant much later on and that will be it, the rest of the day I'm going to laze around here, rest, nap, rest some more, nap some more, see if I can find anything on this cable tv system worth watching and that's about it.

The complimentary breakfast here was amazing. Cubed potatoes, bacon, sausage, eggs, a whole line of fresh fruit, cereal, coffee, etc.  You don't see that much anymore at hotels.  I also apparently hit it quite lucky: The Ducks are playing an away game today.  I had no idea I was a mile away from the University and if the Ducks were playing here today? This room would have been more than double the price and there would be people everywhere.  Apparently these Ducks fans will travel wherever to go see their team play.

I had to come to terms with my situation this morning.  However hellish this trip has been - and it's been a doozy - I had no choice but to come out here and get with it and get some money earned.  It's really the only reason I pushed through all of these days of trying to work on sleepless nights.  It was in the back of my mind - my checking accounts aren't so peachy right now, have to get some money in my coffers before I am so broke, I can't even pay current bills. 

I don't have to do anything today or tomorrow beyond laundry, which I am doing here since it's cheaper.  Apparently get up very early on Monday, I think if I interpreted the text from dispatch correctly, there is a start time of 2:00 am.  I hope I read that wrong.  I also hope I feel much more rested by the time whatever the start time is on Monday.  Pretty sure I will if last night was any measure, I can sleep another good night and then - well let's not go into trying to go to sleep in the "bunkhouse" Sunday night.

As I said in a previous entry, I am going to be focusing my mind today on the steps you take to load and offload a certain product, which is what I am pretty sure they will have me do a "final" on.  It isn't rocket science but there is a sequence, an order of the things you have to do and I want that firmly settled in my mind so that Monday, I can just breeze through it like I've been doing it for a decade.

Whether it works out that way or not, who knows? lol

In another - quite helpful - event, the house in AZ says they are making their deposit today.  This basically saves my @$$ on the mortgage.  Well, it's the weekend so I could have made that payment anyway without consequence, but I have gotten so far down in the money department that I have been waiting until the last day of the month to make the payment. So, I'll make that payment - right now actually while it's in my mind, get it over with.  

Whew.  That hurt, lol, I hope they are telling me the truth about the payment, but even if they didn't make it today, as long as they make it by Monday afternoon, I'm good.  

I think I'll see if the laundry machines are free and get my laundry junk over with. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

 So I'm here at the hotel. 

Downtown Eugene.  

It was the nicest thing available without spending a fortune. If you can believe it, Motel 6 was listed at $80 and I think it was America's Best Value Inn was in the $90's range. These are low quality, dive, crack-hole hotels. I might as well just stay at that facility at the trucking company, it's about the same.  

So whatever. It's a nice room and I hope I can finally sleep for once.  Or not?  

Who knows.  I just needed a substantial change from the 12 days of that horror movie called "3 Weeks In Earthly Hell".  If I would have known I would be staying here and ending up not getting home for 3 weeks, I probably wouldn't have come.  Instead, I would have started looking for something else in the local range. 

____________

A college town, walking to a Mexican food restaurant with rave reviews had me walking around young people frequently.  

The birria tacos were amazing.  So tasty and the bartender brought me some sort of sauce he says he dips his into, even more amazing.  I sat at the bar because there was no other seating available and why not.  I don't really care.  No one else at the bar but I struck it up with the bartender.  He looked to be a college student himself.  

He had no suggestions for things to see and do here, I didn't expect that he would but I asked anyway.  Back to my newest temporary home, I can hear nothing but the fan on the window ac unit.  If it stays this way, I will sleep well. Or even if I don't, I will not have to get  up at 3:30 am, I can get up whenever and the same Sunday morning.  I intend on at least attempting to getting myself to feeling better by getting some sleep.  

It won't be surprising to me if I just lay in bed til' mid-morning tomorrow and then get up, use the Keurig machine they have in the room - or go down and get the free breakfast. And come back up, get back in bed and screw all of this.  

I'm just tired and cranky. The Mexican food outing was fun but that's over and done with now.  Time to get ready to go to bed.  

 I'm exhausted.  Not tired, not a little weak with fatigue, I am exhausted.

This was an 11 hour day and it got me pretty good.  

I went straight into the office, put my stuff down and waited there until people were "unbusy" with stuff.  Then we got into a discussion.

Not a heated discussion or contentious, but I wanted a game plan - well I called it an exit plan but whatever - and I wasn't going to be leaving until I got it all laid out in front of me.

Because it was a foregone conclusion in my mind that I was going to have to spend another weekend here if I'm going to follow through with this and finish it out.  I'm making money and right now?  I need a cash infusion. It's to the serious point because I'm not there to collect rents.  I have near 3 grand owed me in the next 3 days and I am asking James to please go over and collect, I can't go another week on the money I have in my checking accounts, payments will start to bounce. 

Anyway, the manager over the entire western region was still there, thankfully, he came up with a smile on his face and asked me how it's going?  I said great and went straight to the question: What is the exit plan for me?  He didn't understand so I clarified: for going home? 

Oh! Well, we are putting you with Ken on Monday and possibly Tuesday, when he thinks you are good to go he will sign off on you and you can leave no later than Wednesday.  

I can tell ya nothing is what I "really want to hear" right now beyond fly home and take some time to get my stuff in order.  But whatever, this is pretty much what I expected to hear, that the dude that decides whether I get to leave or not says I can leave - or not.  Well, I can tell ya, I will be going over in my mind all the steps it takes to get loaded from figuring out how much product to put in the tank to the loading process and then all the steps it takes to offload.  There is a particular product that they deliver a lot of which I am guessing will be what this guy will have me doing to sign off on me.

I'd really like to get it done Monday and be out of here on Tuesday.  I get that they want to be sure I know what I'm doing, hence the idea that I'm going to sit around and write down everything on paper out of memory and then just get it into my head.  Pressure offload:  Get out of truck. Chalk the tires. Get out small tarps and buckets. Put them under connection points - you don't want any product getting onto the ground.  Get the air hose and hook it up to the connection point on the trailer.  Get up to the top of the tank and open the small valve up there, that's where the pressurized air goes.  

Hook up the hose from the trailer to to the plant.  Double check everything.  Check that you are at the right tank, with the right product  and product name and number.  The numbers on the tank should correlate with the number on your paperwork.  You find out if there is enough room in the tank for what you have.  If there isn't, you can't deliver it, they don't like you having partial loads driving down the highway.  So you have to find out the capacity of the tank, take 10%  off, that's how much it can hold, they don't fill them more than 90%.  

Then you find out how much product is still in it, subtract the full amount from the amount in it and whatever that comes out to is how much product it can take.  You verify with the operator everything.  They have to sign a paper acknowledging receipt of product before you start delivery.  

When everything is good to go, you open the valve to let pressure start going into the tank.  You do not let it get up to 30 pounds of pressure. That can and will cause "tank failure".  Delivery pressure is 25 psi for most products.  Get it up to around 15 psi and then you can open the internal valve on the trailer first and then the hand valve. Make sure no leaks, go to the receiver's valve, open that up and product will start flowing into their tank.  

You just stand there and wait until it's empty.  You know it's empty when the line starts cavitating.  You get up on the top of the tanker and make a visual check that yes, indeed, it's empty.  Get down, close the internal and hand valve on the trailer and turn off the air pressure to the air line.  Take the air line and hook it to the bleed off valve at the hand operated valve.  Open the valve before connecting the line to ensure there is no product to come out.  Hook it up, turn on the pressure and the product is forced through the line and into the customer's tank.  They do that for maybe a couple minutes and then turn the valve off at  the customer's tank. Close the valve at the hand wheel for the air line and then go to turn off the pressure.  

Open that valve again and let off any pressure still in the line.  Pull the big line off, there shouldn't be anything more than a few drips coming out of it.  Put the camlock lid on it, seal it, go to the customer side, same thing.  Put everything away and, double check your valves are closed and you can leave.  

If it sounds complicated, it really isn't. It's just a lot of steps you have to remember.  I just wanted to write this down now before anything slips out of memory.  Writing it helps me.  The big thing about pressuring off is not to let the air pressure in the tank get up to or above 30 psi.  

Far different than cryo days where you build it up to around 85 psi to pump the cryo out of the trailer.  

Anyway, I have the fill and offload procedures memorized.  I stood up on the rack the other day and just went over the loading procedure from start to finish probably 20 times - 15 at least - while standing there waiting for it to fill up.  

Now then. What to do with an entire weekend?  I can tell ya right now, there is going to be at least one hotel night if not two.  Im seriously considering getting a room tonight. 

Yup, I'm going to Eugene tonight - I think, lol.  $20 for Uber shuttle.  Get there, get in the room, take my laptop and clothing with me and do laundry there if I want to or just wait until I come back sunday afternoon and do it then. I'd say for sure Sunday but I have no clean jeans now.  I'm not sleeping in this hell hole for the entire weekend.  No thank you and no thank you please.  It's going to cost a few bills, I'll put it on a credit card and pay that back when I get my first paycheck on the 7th.  

I've been sleeping like hell and I need a diversion from this ridiculous place.  I'm tired but not so tired I can't just up and leave here right  now and take off.  I've basically talked myself into it. There are numerous restaurants within walking distance and that's what I'm going to do.  My first paycheck will be over 2 grand, I'm not concerned about treating myself after 12 hellish days/nights of this nonsense. 

I'm getting off of here and will make an entry later when I'm all set up.

 

 Friday - early

And when I say early, I'm talking 3:30 am rise.  Not 6 or 7 am. 

And I'm irritated. I have been irritated with these people for numerous reasons, but now it's becoming clear.  There is only one driver trainer here that I am actually supposed to train with.  

They have him training someone else this week.  The person that is responsible for signing off on my training isn't available until next week.  How do I know this? He doesn't work weekends.  He will sign off on this other dude today and then they might? get to me next week.  

The reason this is irritating is because this trip was set up 2-1/2 MONTHS ago.  Not 2 days ago, not a week ago, not 2 weeks ago.  They did it this way so I could have access to this person, his knowledge and experience and learn the correct way. 

Instead? I am going out learning about giant bladders today.  These are large plastic bags that hold thousands of gallons of liquid that they strap down to a flatbed trailer.  I won't be doing any of this.  I won't be pulling a flatbed and I won't be hauling bladders. The only good this does me is earn some money for a paycheck.  It does nothing to help me finalize my learning and go through "finals".

Finals is apparently the last day of training when you go with this official trainer. You get assigned a load and you have to do the delivery from loading it into the tanker to offloading it at the customer. If you can do that, you get signed off.  That isn't even in the works and it certainly won't happen this weekend since the trainer....doesn't......work......on.....weekends.  

So, I am facing another full weekend here either working or doing nothing.  Working? I've just done 6 days in a row and going on my 7th of work.  Not classroom training, working.  I haven't been sleeping, which is another story I've been talking about, last night being no different.

There are definitely bed bugs in this bed.  But beyond that, someone or something made a loud banging noise at midnight and I woke up and - never really got back to sleep.  Every day, I've been operating on 4 or so hours of sleep. This  makes me cranky.  I've got my last day's worth of lunch food in the bag ready to go for today, after this? I'll have to go to the nearest walmart or safeway some 17 miles away to buy more food on my dime.  

I don't want to work another weekend and more importantly, I don't want to be here another weekend.  

In fact, this is pressing me so strongly that I am just going to text them once they are in the office later on and ask them the "exit plan" out of here.  If they don't think I'm ready, fine, that's on them, actually. I'm a fast learner and I have most of this stuff in my head now.  I could probably do the entire load from loading to offloading and get all or most of it right.  The serious parts i definitely have memorized now. The biggest thing is making sure the dome on the top of the trailer is opened when offloading - unless - you are doing a pressure offload.  

There are other important things, but not destroying the trailer is the most important part. 

Anyway, I have more to say but I have to get out of here.

G'day

As stated in previous, short post, the day turned out to be something much different than what I expected.  We drove most of the day - it was about a 12 hour day.  I got a chance to take a  nap and the dude I was with was very cool and like minded on many things.  Offloading was a breeze, I could easily handle that one.  In fact, I can pretty much do all of it now.  A few refreshers would be good, but I'm going to write it all down out of memory and keep it for future reference.

However.  There has been no word on leaving.  I was assigned to another driver tomorrow - but - the driver responded an hour after the text was sent and said TWIC card.  Meaning i have to have one to get into the plant he's going into.  Yea, I don't have a valid TWIC. It expired a few years ago and there was no need to renew it.  

I will be asking about going home tomorrow afternoon.  I'm not very much interested in another week of this and my checking accounts are bone dry. I need to collect rents. I can probably do some of it from here, but the cash paying customers...I'd have to have Taylor or James go over there collecting and then I'd have to have them deposit the money into the bank.  I may have to try to get them to do that anyway.  I'm going to be looking at the accounts in a while and see what hits when from previous months. 

Forgot. I can easily scroll through on my phone and see what's what. I'm actually good if it's all correct for now.  Plus I have a house payment coming in on the 1st.  If the 3 people don't leave, their check will be sitting in the mailbox between tomorrow and the 1st.  So I can breathe easy a little bit, I'm not spending any money out here besides the food I bought.  I mean, I did make a trip to that food truck once and spent $10 over there.  I've spent less in the last getting close to 2 weeks than has happened in a long time.  

Well, I am with the same driver as I was with today.  He has a relatively easy day tomorrow.  I will learn nothing with being with him on that trip.  He is doing bladders and I will never be doing any of that.  So, I am getting up early and can only hope that I will be able to sleep tonight as I did not last night and the last several nights before that. 

I'd take a nap right now but I'm too wired out for that.  I actually don't feel that bad right now, those naps helped me today.  So, an easy day tomorrow but that may mean I don't get to get out of here until next week? I really have no clue what they want from me.

What I do know is that my guess about yesterday was correct. We were, indeed, empty.  The catastrophe in the plant could have easily been averted if we had shut the air off and closed the valves going to the tank.  The air would have stopped pumping in and the foam would not have been created.  This was my guess yesterday afternoon while at the plant.  When I saw the weight of the trailer after we scaled after leaving the offload area, it was pretty obvious we were empty.  

So, the driver was partially at fault.  In my view anyway, not that I'm saying anything about that to them, they can draw whatever conclusions they want. But, if he had picked up the hose to see if it was heavy or light and repeated doing that during the offload, we would have known when it was empty, shut everything off, everything would have been fine.  The plant, however, is at fault for not having an operator monitoring that tank from the inside, we can't see it from the offload area and also at fault for not having the information provided that introducing air into the mixture will create excessive foaming.

The easiest thing to do is climb up the ladder and just look down into the tank to see if it's empty. That plant and many others do not allow you to climb up on the tanks. But, some of these plants instead have rolling staircases that you put up next to the plant, they have platforms on the top and you just walk up the stairs.  This is something they should consider having at any offload area where there is any caustic or hazardous chemicals.  

That guy was not in a good mood today and I'm glad I'm not with him. The reason I know the tank was empty is the office personnel had it checked at the yard.  We saw him driving the truck up to the wash station this afternoon.  We kind of laughed because he obviously didn't start his day until very late.  They instructed him to take that tank up there ASAP at 9:00 am and it was almost 3:00 pm when we saw him driving up there.  

Enough.  The boys called today so I got to talk to them for a bit on the phone.  I also got to see some very beautiful countryside today.  The plant we went to was nestled up in the mountains and it was pretty cool all of the stuff and the little towns you pass through.  Again, this day turned out nothing like I thought it would but it turned out very well.  Thankfully.   

_________

Many hours later. I had some wine to maybe help me sleep at the winery across the road.  Note that I didn't say drunk or anything remotely close to it. A sleep aid.  I made my lunch for tomorrow and now am out of supplies to make any further lunches.  4:30 am depart time, I will have to get up at 3:30 am again to shave, shower, coffee,etc.  

I was informed to ask the dispatchers and manager over this entire region tomorrow of when I am departing tomorrow after work.  Okay?  Why doesn't she know this information?  Not her problem, of course, but whatever.   

I'll get my ass out of bed at 3:30 am, get myself ready to go, leave and come back.  I need to be impressed, for I certainly have done my part in this matter.  

 

 I got lucky. On the road writing this, not driving. Turns out this truck has to go to a plant in Washington on the coast. It’s a long drive but we’re in Washington. After we offload and drive back, that’s it for the day. So just a couple hours in a plant and I’ve already taken a nap to make me feel a little better. 

 Thursday - 3:30 am

Slept very poorly.  I just can't sleep in this house for a variety of reasons.  This driver telling me "t's going to be a llong day" didn't help.  I will likely be forced to take nap while he's driving and I don't care what he or anyone else thinks about it, send me home if he or this company doesn't like it.

Literally.  Send.  Me.  Home.

This is day 12 of this nonsense and I am beyond done with this.  

To think that I am leaving here in 10 minutes and probably won't be back until 14 or 15 hours from now isn't even in my scope of comprehension atm.  How many loads is that? 3 or 4?    

Oh well. Wish me luck.  

 I'm going to recap this here.  This is if I decide to leave without finishing. I will do that if they don't release me from here after Friday. I might think about staying a weekend to finish training if I need more of it, but I'm not staying into next week.  I have an RV park to run and rent to collect, it's not going to continue having 15 of 16 lots full if I'm not there.  Sunday is 2 weeks, which is what I agreed to, so I would consider staying that long - maybe. 

However.

1.  No sheets for the beds, no blankets.

2.  $15 a day for food.  And that was taken from me on Saturday, which means 5 days I've had to cover my own food and rest assured, you can't eat on $15 per day.

3.  No hotel.  You are put into this bunkhouse, with sheets full of rules posted on the walls all over the place. It's more like a Boy Scout camp or a prison situation, a nanny house with rules towards grown adults.

4. There are no tables or desks here.  You can't sit down and eat your dinner at a table or put up your laptop on a desk.  The have TV tables, those little things you put in front of you while sitting on a recliner, for that's all that's in there are 2 recliners.  

5. You have no control over the heat in here.  That is left to the whims of the office manager who has decided that 68 degrees is sufficient.

6. The laundry room is directly below a portion of this house and it is open 24 hours a days. There are many nights where people are doing laundry in the middle of the night, making a lot of noise and don't care or know that people are attempting to sleep above them.

7.  Interstate.  The Interstate is about 150 feet away from this house. It is noisy and the noise goes on all night long.

8.  The nearest grocery store of any consequence is about 17 miles from here.  There are no stores where this place is beyond a food truck.  

9. There is one vehicle available. It is not available on the weekends and it is only available Monday-Friday 8-5. 

10.  Good luck finding time to go the nearest town to get any supplies during those hours.

11. Heat. You want heat in that place you’re SOL. The thermostat is in the office and the manager dictates the temperature you are comfortable with. 

You are not paid for the first day here, you have to go through drug testing and a bunch of physical tests that takes around 3 hours.  It's not fun, btw and they should be paying you for anything you are doing company related.

The first week is orientation. If you work hard, you can get done early on most days.  The second week is actual truck training.  

No hotel and your trip here is dictated by the company. I was stuck in the middle seat on an almost 4 hour flight over here and had to pay to upgrade to an aisle seat.  

There is probably more I am forgetting, but I wanted to get that down before I forget any of it.

I have lunch ready for tomorrow and coffee brewed, just reheat it, drink a cup when I get up and take a cup with me. Also shaved already to get that over with and minimize the amount of stuff I need to do.  

This presidential debate is boring. I'm not going to watch any more of it.  

 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.