I'm very happy right now. 

They did not finish the truck today. They are replacing an entire wiring harness. I knew when they told me that it would take hours upon hours to finish that.  At around 5:00 pm, I asked the supervisor - do you think y'all think you'll finish this today?  Uhh, no.  Lol, I smiled, thanks! I'm paid by the hour, I actually don't care how long this takes.  

I'm curious as to whether they will finish tomorrow. They may get the wiring harness done, but they still have another problem they haven't even looked at yet.  Further, there is no guarantee that when they get all this wiring back together, that the problem won't still be there.  Remember, this is the 5th shop this truck has been at for the same problem.

_______________________________

Day 4.  Had an excellent meal at a local Mexican food restaurant last night.  I had Fajitas without the fajitas, lol. No beans, rice or tortillas.  Spiced it up with having them bring me a couple of sliced up jalapenos, seeds intact.  It was quite tasty and keto friendly. 

This morning? I'm at the 3rd hotel since coming here.  This one is a keeper.  6 story affair, has it's own breakfast restaurant, rooms are clean, nothing fancy but great service.  I'm expecting this to be my last day here.  Unless the clunking noise is some huge problematic fix issue, I should be out of here today.  Well, that's also dependent on when they get the wiring harness back together, install it and the electrical problem goes away - or doesn't.  I'm curious as to whether they would want to continue on with the truck if their fix doesn't work? 

Remember, this is the 5th repair shop and the 4th Peterbilt shop it's been to. But, none of the other shops took out the wiring harness to figure out the problem.  This shop has gone to great lengths to try and figure out what's wrong with it and get it back on the road issue free. 

After much consultation yesterday, I determined that I finally got the pay for the Amarillo run. It was confused by the fact I got a $450 safety bonus.  Not really sure what that was for but I won't turn it down.  It was a rather large check - for once.  After weeks of small checks, this one was really needed.  And, the one I'm working on now.  I'll have 72 hours of breakdown pay as of an hour and 45 minutes from now.  Give me one good run after this and 2 paychecks from now will also be nice and hefty.

Right now, tho, I'm trying to make up my mind about owning my own truck.  The lady from that company - it's not our company at all, it's a separate finance company that our company uses - is supposed to call me today.  I have lots of questions for her, she didn't want to do it email which is fine.  A few questions - what's the oldest truck allowable?  How much of a down payment?  How much are the monthly payments?  How frequently are the payments made? Auto-deduct or bill pay? 

And a question for my company, since we're hauling hazmat, how much insurance do I need? Probably a lot more than any regular trucking operation.  I have other company drivers that I can ask about who they get their insurance through, unless our company offers that as well.  I was also talking to an OO at the shop yesterday. He's only been trucking for 6 years, but jumped into owning his own truck after only a couple. The point is - there is a lot more money to be made doing the exact same thing I've been doing for decades.  I've always been hesitant about it, just seems like you're "married" to your truck.

But I'm "married" to a company truck and there doesn't seem to be much difference besides the amount of paperwork you have to fill out to keep track of your expenses for tax-time. There is no breakdown pay for OO's and you have to save up some serious money in case something goes wrong.  Engine overhauls can be as much as 30 grand.  In-frame 15 grand.  Transmission problems can go into the ten's of thousands as well.  That's the other question, who can I buy a truck from? Does it have to be a dealer or can it be private?  I'm thinking a dealer, tho, with a warranty.  Even a purchased warranty.  I've seen it happen too much a driver buys a truck and something major goes wrong with it and they are zapped with a huge expense right off the bat. 

But, the end game here is retirement. There are plenty of OO's taking home 125k, 150, some even more per year after all expenses and taxes paid out.  The driver I was talking to yesterday says he spends 60k on fuel per year - but even with that he still takes home around 130k. I'm saving somewhere around 10k per hear. With that kind of money I could put away 50k per year and be done in 10.  This is something that I am thinking is worth the risk. The worst that could happen is I lose the truck, go bankrupt and oh well.  Neither of those are in any part of my "plans", I just tend to look at every possible ending. The realistic end game is that I might not make as much per year as some of these truckers that are on the road 24 hours a day, but I know i can make a good chunk of change from the reports of other OO's in our division. 

I honestly hate driving trucks. But it's the only thing I know that can make any kind of money. Forklift operator? Sure, I've operated forklifts since 1985 - you'd be lucky to find a place paying $20 per hour.  More like $16 or $17.  That's Ferguson, 35k wages - in my view that's poverty.  It doesn't even sustain a decent standard of living.  When I say decent, I don't mean brand new vehicles and big, lavish houses, I just mean a normal, American lifestyle.  Of course, normal for us? Is filthy rich to most people in this world. 

Anyway, I expect that the phone call today will help me make up my mind one way or the other, but if I'm going to do this, I want to jump into the pool and get completely immersed in it right away.  Even if it means going out "on-call" sometimes and being away for a few weeks here and there, the end goal is worth the sacrifice - if  - it gets me there. I don't want to be working when I'm 70, if I make it that old.  65 at the most.  In order to do that, I have to have a rather radical plan to achieve that, get half a million saved up at least and finally retire. 

Well, whatever. My checkout time approaching.  Enjoyed this hotel tho. Wifi works good, quiet, clean and nice, undented furniture and chairs without stains on them.  I'm kind of ready to go home tho.  If they don't get this truck done today, another driver I was talking to says this particular shop is closed on the weekends.  Worse comes to worse? I'll take Taylor up on the idea of coming up and getting me, for the weekend at least. 

Yesterday - being stuck at that shop from noon til around 5:00 pm, started getting old.  They won't give me a time frame so I can't ask for more than a day at a time for the hotel, meaning hanging out in the driver's lounge.  At least they have cable TV with half decent channels on it and numerous electrical outlets.  And several restaurants right there.  But it still gets boring.  

Well, it was boring until this other Hispanic/Latino driver showed up. I'm one of those "how's it going" people without being asked if they want to be spoken to.  We get into this conversation and lo and behold, this guy is from Brownsville - the place I like to go as frequently as possible and haven't been there in a while.  So we had some common ground and he named a few places that I have been to down there.  

So, this dude pulls out his phone, pulls up a video and hands the phone to me. Shocking video.  I sincerely mean that.  I watched from the camera view of a man sitting in the back of a pickup driving up to a house.  The man stands up, pulls up a fully automatic,  military grade assault rife (a real assault rifle) along with the others in the back of the truck and immediately starts blowing away people standing in front of the house.  I mean, I sat there and watched them dump at least 50 rounds into one of the men's bodies.  They jump out of the truck and slowly start walking towards this house, into the garage, having killed unknown numbers of people, their bodies laying there, freshly dead.  

They were in no hurry, no panic that police might arrive.  The dude explains to me while watching that the people in the pickup are a local drug cartel and that the people they went to find and blow away are a cartel from Tijuana - a long way away from Matamoros - and were encroaching on their territory.  A big no-no, apparently, in the world of cartels.  I then asked why they seemed so calm?  Why aren't they in a hurry to get out of there? Aren't they afraid of the police showing up? "No, no, he laughs, they own the police, they tell the police what to do".  They would have blown the police away if they had shown up.  And with that kind of weaponry, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near those people.  Like the cartoons, it seemed like they had endless rounds going through their rifles. 

Then I had to ask the question: How do you know these people?  Oh that guy with the camera attached to his body is a friend from High School days. They tried to recruit me into that - I used to be a bad ass in high school - but I told them that I was married with 4 kids and I had settled down. 

I mean, it was surreal.  Just some random stranger handing me their phone showing me that stuff. It was all done in Mexico, no laws broken here.  The only recompense these killers will ever get will be in the afterlife.  Not wishing that upon them, but obviously they are immune to anything law enforcement there will do.  I've encountered Mexican police many many times, every single one of them is corrupt.  They want your money, you don't have to have done anything wrong, they see you're white, pull you over and give you 2 options: Pay them off or go to jail.  Jail? Is a shack with a dirt floor and a hole in the middle go to the bathroom in, filled with other men.  I've seen it first hand once when trying to bail out a friend over there that had done something stupid.  

Anyway, I was warned a while back while in Brownsville not to go into Matamoros, but if I did, stay in the central part of town and don't be there after dark.  Well after seeing that video - the dude claimed it happened 2 days ago - I'm not sure I'll ever go back to any border town in Mexico.  Maybe, I really like going shopping over there, haven't done it in ages, if I'm stuck down there at some point, who knows.

Speaking of stuck, they told me last night that the truck wasn't going to be finished.  I said great! lol another 14 hours at least of breakdown pay!  I'm pretty sure that breakdown pay is continuous, 24 hours, not like detention where they take out 10 hours every day.  I went to get some clothes out of the truck - upon getting to it, well they had the front end torn off of the thing.  Wires laying out, some dude working on a seal on one of the rear axles, all kinds of electronic equipment hooked up to it. 

Yeah, no, lol they weren't finished yesterday.  I asked them about the lights - they had found the problem, one of the main connectors for electrical wiring had burned out for known reasons.  But I forgot to ask about the rear tail lights.  I'll be doing that today.  I'm not leaving there until all the lights are working.  They didn't even know about the clunking noise, either.  I told the lady whole was writing stuff down.  I dunno if she just didn't get it written clearly, but they gave me a look like they didn't know what I was talking about.  Well, when I'm loaded heavy around 80k pounds and turning there is this evil clanking going on. And bob-tailing up here, I was hearing the same clanking when hitting bumps. Like metal on metal.  

Well, okay, when we get the truck back together we'll take it for a drive and check it out. 
Good cause' whatever that noise is, something's going to give sooner or later.  I'll take another night here if possible.  As it stands, I've got 48 hours here coming up in just 45 minutes.  That's a nice chunk of change.  It's not enough for an entire paycheck, but it actually comes close.  And since I doubt I will get it in time today for next week paycheck, whatever driving I do this coming week will be clumped together with it and that should equal a nice, healthy paycheck for once.  

Well, we have ourselves February, so today the last day of the month.  Usually catches people by surprise - for paying rent.  Thinking they have 3 or 4 more days before the 1st.  But I have a new tenant in the house over there, hopefully he'll ante up, all 3 rooms are filled until the beginning of next month.  That pays for all the bills there excepting maybe $15 to $25 and that I gladly pay in exchange for my dogs having proper care all day long versus being left alone in the back yard, getting into trouble - allllll day long.  As it stands, my friends got a puppy and it's left outside from early morning til around 7 or 8 at night.  

So what does the dog do?  IT gets into everything, including my pond plants, which it knocks over, pulls the air hose out of the pond - it aerates the water for the fish, jumps into the pond takes a bath.  I'm thinking I'm done with ponds.  At least in this setup.  Just not worth trying to keep something nice and having a stupid dog tearing everything up. Their last dog did that too, tearing up the pond and jumping into it all the time.  You can't keep a pond in nice condition with a dog toying with it all the time and the only way to keep them out is to put up a fence around it, which sucks and defeats the purpose of having it.  So I'm likely to get rid of it, have a truck full of dirt brought over and fill up the hole this summer.  

I mean, if you have a dog and you don't give it attention, they are going to find things to do and the aftermath is usually not so great.  As it stands there is stuff laying all over the place from the dog getting into everything.  Between that dog and the neighbor's trees constantly, year round, dumping stuff onto the yard?  I don't have the time or the motivation to deal with it.  And it's not my house, so I don't feel compelled to be the only person having to deal with yard issues.  I get why some people get dogs and don't give them attention: protection in the back yard during the day when they're at work.  Next door neighbor has one that is alone all day long.  But when you come home, I'd think you'd bring the thing inside and give it attention.  They didn't say protection was the reason for getting the thing, tho, they just wanted their own doggy. 

Anyway, Just something I have to bite my tongue on.  Not worth getting into.  The back of the house is in a shambles and when I clean it  up? It's a shambles again in a couple of days.  Like I hadn't done anything.  I've never seen trees that dump stuff all year long. Leaves, dead branches, these gumball things they call them with spikes all over them - they're the seeds.  And acorns.  Acorns everywhere and a pain to rake up. The absolute worst part, tho, is the neighbor's yard. It is covered with a thick layer of that stuff, they never - and I mean never - clean it up and every time it rains?  That junk comes flowing throw the chain link fence and right into our property.  If it were my place, I'd put a block layer about a foot high there and force that water to go down towards the stream, where it can flow into all day long and not affect anything.  

  I would never, personally plant those kinds of trees. I would plant pine trees if it were my property.  I don't care about pine needles, they're easy to clean up.  As long as you keep on top of it...but again it's not my property, I'm not spending any money on it excepting making my room nicer and I guy grass seed and small ticket items here and there.  Well, I also by stuff you have to have - like paper towels and such. And of course I pay the utility bills there and internet and satellite.  It adds up to maybe a little more than a room is worth, but it's fine. It's a huge room, walk in closet and it's own bathroom. 

Okay, well enough of that. Trump's summit failed - Kim refused to agree to getting rid of all of his nukes and the US said no thanks, we aren't lifting sanctions til you do.  Cohen fed his lines of bs yesterday and of course the left fell for it hook, line and sinker, CNN falling all over itsself coming up with dozens of stories before the hearing was even concluded.  I have no idea what's going on in politics today because I burned myself out on it yesterday.  Nothing new, I'm sure.  Well, I take it back, I did see that Joe Biden is calling Trump supporters names.  

"Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden assailed President Trump’s supporters during a speech Saturday at the annual Human Rights Campaign dinner in Washington, lamenting that “virulent people” and the “dregs of society” still had a friend in the White House.

Mr. Biden told an enthusiastic crowd of LGBTQ rights advocates that social conservatives at home and abroad who used religion or culture as a “license to discriminate” were committing a “crime” of prejudice.

“Despite losing in the courts and in the court of public opinion, these forces of intolerance remain determined to undermine and roll back the progress you all have made,” he argued. “This time they — not you — have an ally in the White House.

“They’re a small percentage of the American people, virulent people,” he continued. “Some of them the dregs of society. And instead of using the full might of the executive branch to secure justice, dignity [and] safety for all, the president uses the White House as a literal, literal bully pulpit, callously exerting his power over those who have little or none.”

That'll win you votes!  Call a bunch of supporters stupid names. Worked well for Hillary, calling us Deplorables! Ended up they made and sold T shirts, coffee mugs and hats out of that "slogan" lmao.  See, what I've been noticing for the last year or so is a bunch of undecided people that are throwing in their vote for Trump come next election because they're sick of the way the left is acting out.  Many of them don't even like Trump, but refuse to support a party acting like babies.  

Whoops, forgot the truck purchase.  Valley of Decision time. They changed their stance, I can purchase a truck through their program and stay at the current terminal, but....if it gets slow I have to go temporarily somewhere else until the work picks back up again.  That means I would be shipped out before any new people or even the loaner drivers.  Not exactly fair and I could be out for weeks - anywhere in the US.  I asked the lady to send the particulars - of which she sort of did. It didn't say anything about whether they have new and used vehicles available and how much the payments are, operating authority, etc etc etc, lots of regulatory stuff.  

I want to know the payments, the frequency of the payments and how long I would be stuck making those payments before the truck is paid off.  It isn't rocket science, but prying info out of them seems to be much more problematic than necessary.  I never heard about if I buy my own truck, either.  Plenty of used truck dealers around, I dunno what they want for down payment or for payments, but the cost of a new truck is quite outrageous.  Well over $100 grand and that's for a base model. Whereas, you can get a used one in good condition for around 30k and at $1,200 per month payments, which seems to be the norm, it's not going to go on forever.  3 years max and it's paid off and done with.  I could deal with that.  I really don't know what I would be getting myself into going OO, I've asked other OO's there and they are good with it, but still.  

So I sent her another message asking if she knew about those particulars.  Awaiting a response. There's actually quite a lot more I could put into this post, but it's getting pretty long. Still a couple of hours before I'm forced out of here and back to the repair shop, I'm going to relax and take advantage of it.  This Marriott I'm in now is far better than the Best Western i was in yesterday.....g'day. 

Wednesday, 27th of February.  Watching the spectacle of Michael Cohen's testimony about to begin and the summit with North Korea.  And on Facebook in groups where people spout off "facts" that have no clue what they are talking about concerning politics.  People hear what they want to hear and turn it into a twisted story of their version of truth.  Some of it is highly entertaining, some of it is amazingly stupid. 

I'm waiting until around 9:30 am to call the shop and get a report.  Well, maybe 10:00 am, I don't have to check out until noon.  My hope would be that they can't fix it today and spend another night here, the reality of it is: who knows?  This problem has eluded numerous other mechanics, but this shop says they are going to discuss the situation with the actual manufacturer of the system that is malfunctioning to see if they can fix it.

Our mechanic, after looking at the codes, spelled out what he would have to do to find the problem.  A series of tests throughout the system that would likely take "days" to complete.  Not really in love with having to take Lyfts or Ubers back and forth, I'll get reimbursed but if there is another night here, it's not going to be at this hotel.  The only restaurant nearby is the one in the Holiday Inn and there is nothing else within walking distance.  But, that bridge can be crossed if it comes.  I'm closing in on 24 hours of breakdown pay, something I haven't had in a while and something my paychecks have reflected.

That along with not enough work.

No great plans for today.  Nothing to do but watch the news and read stuff on the net.  At least this hotel had breakfast and included sausage, something I can eat on my diet.  They had egg omelettes of which I grabbed two, started to eat one and then realized they may have added milk to it.  Milk is a no no.  They actually had almond milk in the fridge down there, amazing surprise.  Keto/low carb is much more popular than I understood it to be. 

The Holiday Inn restaurant didn't have any actual keto selections, but a lot of meals can be modified to make it so, I just ended up with a burger, no bun or sauces save mustard, some broccoli and - got stuffed on it. The burger patty was huge. 

I haven't lost any more weight, so I'm going to get serious about this again. Not that I have strayed from the low carb stuff, but more serious about counting calories along with carbs.  It would be really nice to get down to goal weight and get this over with.  Right now, I just eat whatever is low carb and keep track. I kinda lost the idea of calorie counting. Starting today I'm going back that route.  I had 4 small sausage patties, about 370 calories. My goal will be to keep it around 1,200 today and go for a walk, at least, to burn off some energy. 

And the speculation about Cohen goes on. He's going to call Trump a bonafide racist, reportedly and allegedly show ties with Russia.  The man is a certified liar, his credibility will be shot before he enters the hearing room. Whether he's telling the truth or not?  Well, I'm more interested in the never-ending Mueller investigation and the elusive report. Supposedly the new DOJ director is ending the investigation and the report will be out soon.  And supposedly, they may try to keep the report from the public. 

I don't care what that reports says, after all of this time? I want to see what it says, especially considering the amount of division this investigation has caused this nation. 

Soooo.......I am talking to my manager and they are talking about sending the truck up to Texarcana to a peterbilt shop up there.  Like, who were they going to send up there?  I don't get these people, but this is what they were going to do last time this happened and the truck was at the yard.  I'll be happy to take the truck up there myself.

Why? Because I am paid trip mileage and I am paid an hourly wage after I get it into the shop.  And, with the list I'm going to give them? It's not going to be in there for an hour.  It might be in there for days, frankly, which means 24 hour pay plus hotel stay unless they drive up to get me.

Which, judging from the stay over in Lufkin, isn't going to happen.  It's actually a little further from our yard to Texarcana than it is to Lufkin.

___________________________

So, it's the the next day.  In Texarcana.  Been here 3 hours - our company called and made appointment.  Been sitting here 3 hours and they still haven't even taken the truck into the shop - and I gave them a list of things that need to be done to this truck.  I'll be sitting here all day until I can finally get them to tell me they won't have this done today -- which I can't imagine they will but who knows - and then I can call my manager and tell her to either send someone for me if they want or set me up at a hotel.

I'll wait to make that call, tho, since I'm making breakdown pay right now, pay that I would really like to accumulate for a couple of days if possible - hence the long list of items to fix.  The electrical problems should keep them busy for  a while.

Anyway, I'm sitting here with this old vet who's got more stories than Carter's got liver pills.  Interesting, but I kind of had enough after a few hours of it.

That's it for now. I'm a wait til later before going into anything.

Monday morning.
No clue what's going on at work with  the truck, but I"m going to find the number for the lady over purchase program and call her in a while and find out the details of their program.  Rest assured I do not want to buy the truck I am currently driving.  700k miles, endless problems, no thanks.  I don't even know if I'll qualify or what the requirements are since there is nothing I can find anywhere on the internet from this company telling about the qualifications. 

Meanwhile, flooded with emails and a few phone calls about the application I put in.  But, as suspected, they are all OTR garbage, not interested. 

__________________

Well. I got started on the leaves out front.  Huge mess, hasn't been touched the entire leaf-falling season.  When I come home, it's raining almost all the time.  So it eliminates the ability to be able to do anything about it.  Well today it's not raining, tho it's windy and that was making it difficult.  I've got 2 huge piles right now going.  I only stopped because of the endless phone calls that I am current getting - and ignoring from prospective trucking companies - one of them was my manager.

She asked me why I hadn't shown up for the load today?  Uhhh, Ann, I thought, are you daft, but not saying it?  She has a very poor memory.  I informed her that the truck had lights out and a fuel gauge not working, remember?  She replied she "thought you were going to use another truck". Well whose responsibility is that to assign that other truck, much more bring up the subject?  She still asked if I wanted to transfer to another truck - no thanks. I"m tired of that. 

I'm not going to keep writing up the same problems, over and over and over - and have those same problems continue to be ignored.  After the phone call, I took a screen shot of where she left this. The conversation was that the repair shop was now closed on weekends so I replied, "Okay, now what?".  Receiving no reply, I said take it to Peterbilt on Monday. Or take it to National I guess?  It was hours later she finally responded and said I will discuss it with Ryan (mechanic) and we'll take it somewhere.

There was no discussion about another truck.  She isn't playing that one off on me.  This is why I keep all of my text messages with anyone associated with the company. 

Anyway, I ended up calling the truck purchase program office and asking about the details.  The lady said she would send them to me - which was hours ago and still nothing either in regular inbox or spam inbox.  I'm guessing she didn't write my email address down correctly. I'll have to call back and ask if she had sent it yet. 

But, in all of that, I have still been outside, raking up leaves, hauling them around back and burning them.  After hours of that, I can honestly say I am tired and don't feel like doing any more today.  I'll undoubtedly be home tomorrow. I can pick up where i left off.  I got all of the leaves that I had raked up at least to the back and burning.  Would be a waste of time to do all of that work and then just leave this huge pile sitting there for the wind to scatter back all over the yard again. 

I literally could have a job with 50 different companies right now.  Not a single place that has called me would turn me down.  Only a few I was interested in. Tutle and Tutle being one of them - until I found out reading their website that the "typical well" runs out in about 2-1/2 to 3 weeks and you are expected to stay there the entire time? lol

Another is the wood chip hauling - they are still hiring from my town.  That's a day job.  There's a fuel hauling gig out of Shreveport, but I'm not sure I want to drive that far to work anymore. Did that for 3 years and really wasn't in love with it.  Then there's this guy practically begging me to join his company - it's literally the owner of the company, been texting me since yesterday.  But that's out 5 days. The only good thing is you're home 2 days every week. The overall pay, tho, I don't think would be even what I'm making now at current company, so scratch that. At least I get home after every run on this job.

I didn't think it would be easy find the job I want. Gemini isn't hiring out of the terminal I would need.  UPI apparently isn't interested in me, for I have never heard back from them.  A bunch of other small outfits out here that aren't paying anything. So, I'm just kind of hopeful that I can get into my own truck - with a lot less miles on it - and work at current employment for a while.  If I'm forced into it, I'll take the chip hauling job and just continue to keep my eyes open for a local gig that actually pays something. 

Smoked pork loin roast, yum. 

Letter to the president (of our company) written.  Read it through and adjusted some things. That was last night, today I'll take a 3rd look, finish it up and send it off. No rush there, I don't even know if it will get read and even if it does, I have no idea whether they will give it any credence, take it seriously or reply to it. Although it would be in their best interests to reply to my demand for immediate payment for the trip made over 2 months ago.  They've had almost a month since I started asking for it and they have done nothing about it.

Meanwhile I went through my own internalizing all of this nonsense this morning.  Got myself riled up, actually, but that's a good thing. Get it out of my system and don't actually take it out on anyone.  I had forgotten about the favoritism in that email to the president, I added some of that to it - but only the stuff I know for sure is occurring. The rest is hearsay. That would be something I would want to ask my manager directly about - is this true? But she will get defensive and angry, from what I've been hearing.

Not that that will stop me from asking tho....  At this point, after all I've been through, I'm not really concerned about any consequences from this company. The worst they can do is fire me.  I'm prepared to deal with that.  I keep flip-flopping on sending out a bunch of applications.  I want to but something in me tells me to wait until I send out this letter and see what happens. And also, to call the lady over the purchase program Monday and see if that is anything that would work in my favor.  Not ready to burn my bridges just yet, is what I'm saying.  Well, unless it blows up I'm not going to burn bridges anyway, not really anything going on here worth burning bridges over.  A person can leave a company without going out in a fiery blaze of glory.

I didn't even do that at Ferguson - that manager certainly deserved, IMO, a good taste of hearing about himself. Instead, I just left that last day.  My manager was hiding in his office - he wouldn't talk to me the final week after I put in my notice.  I have no intention of ever going to back to that company, so I'm kind of proud of myself for keeping my mouth zipped and just letting it go.  He can sit around in eternal self-righteous contempt for me and I am fine with that. They only thing that really perplexed me was these "Christian" salesmen who refused to give me a goodbye handshake.  I was on good terms with them.

I'm thinking of going to the yard today, tho, and getting my stuff out of there. I forgot my new computer is in the bunk.  The truck is locked up  - but they have no choice but to take it into a shop. The mechanic is sick with pneumonia, he isn't going to be around for a while.  I'm thinking I may end up finding myself a new job - I have one in mind already. The pay is equal to what i am taking home now. Not equal to last year, but equal to now.

The job is either around 14 hours a day 5 days a week or less and spread it out over the weekend. Non hazmat, wood chip hauling, they always have ads up for hiring new drivers.

Ok. I just put my name in a data base that puts your name into - probably thousands but at least hundreds - of trucking companies.  One of them showed up as a local job that has excellent equipment and pays almost as much as I'm making per mile now.  Home daily.  I dunno what, if anything, I'm going to pursue, but now I'm seeing plenty of regional runs and even a few local type jobs that would work for me.  That job is a bit far away for a daily commute, the only problem with that. Like 60 miles each way. 

Soooooo.....
Just got back from another Oklahoma trip.
This morning, I did my pretrip inspection and found the tail lights out on the tractor.  Odd.  No other lights out on the entire truck or trailer.  I tried finding the relevant fuse for it.  A huge fuse box, I carefully looked at all of them. Only one of them came close to referring to it, so I took it out - and it fell into the engine compartment somewhere and I couldn't find it. Which caused turn signals to stop working.  Gag.
Had to leave it til the next truckstop - 25 miles away - to get a new fuse. 

While driving to that truckstop, I got a notification on my screen that one of the low beams had stopped working.  What on earth.  That many lights don't just happenstance go out at the same time. 

Then, after replacing the fuse and filling up the tanks at the truck stop, the fuel gauge needle started popping back and forth between empty and full.  Now I am 100% sure there is an electrical problem and there is no way I am going to diagnose that s***.  These "modern" trucks are loaded with electronics and wires.  I don't know how they even begin to try and figure out a problem like that.  Codes come up on their computer when hooking it up to the truck, but they aren't going to pinpoint the problem. It will come up with a bunch of different "possibles". 

Anyway, I texted my manager.  All this stuff.......I hear back from her half an hour later.  Then I got into it.  That ABS light on that trailer has been reported 3 times in the last two weeks and I told the mechanic specifically to his face what was wrong with. "Well that's because he's come down with pneumonia". NO, I replied, he got sick LONG after he knew about this problem.  Then she disappears again and comes back with "well he doesn't have the computer stuff to diagnose the problem." By this time, we weren't texting, we were on the phone.  Well while y'all aren't doing your jobs, that light is on and if  trooper sees it, he can pull me over and write me up for it, it goes onto MY record and points against me. 

Meanwhile, one of the drivers popped up a group text message - separate from the one I had been having personally with manager - he texts: "There are 4 trucks in the yard with expired IFTA stickers!"  I immediately texted, "Yeat, one of them is mine".  Then, my manager gets on there and says "that's part of your pre-trip inspection"  "Yes", I replied, "reported that a long time ago, nothing was done about it".  My manager conveniently disappeared out of the conversation which went on well after that with other drivers chiming in. 

THEN< this safety officer - useless, absolutely useless person that does nothing - sends me and one of the other drivers with old IFTA a message: "grace period ends next week".  I'm like, what on earth is he talking about? Is this some sort of veiled threat? So I asked him What are you talking about? 

IFTA - next week the grace period expires. Great, I replied, y'all do nothing about this stuff and dump this s*** on me?  No thanks.  This is YOUR responsibility, it's already been brought to your attention, y'all did nothing about it, I relieve myself of any responsibility.  This guy gets offended easily, but at this point I was pissed with all of it.  I went into all kinds of safety related issues that he couldn't defend. 

This went on for hours with my manager and the safety dude.  I wasn't backing down. There are not going to shut me up and the safety officer was obviously not liking the idea of me contacting the President and giving him a lengthy report of why drivers are not staying in the company.  They had a high ranking management person out this week asking drivers about that and all of them are always talking about driver retention - but the steps they list do nothing to address problems.  I saw this guy pull into the yard when I was leaving the yard for my last trip. I didn't know who he was but even if I did, I had no time to talk. 

Then, my manager told me that our account with National - a local truck repair shop - had been reinstated, take the truck and trailer there.  Well I already knew National was either closed or would be closing soon and told her that. She said she would call them.  I get a text half an hour later to take the truck and trailer over there.  So I get into the truck, text her I'm rehooking to the trailer and then 30 seconds later get a text that National is no longer open on the weekends.  Well what the hell?  She told me she was calling over there and then apparently just decided to tell me to go there without verifying it - and then - obviously called and found out they aren't open? 

Anyway, the end of the story - is nothing.  Nothing was resolved, I won't be able to take the assigned load to Barnsdall on Monday because - the lights. I will not drive a commercial vehicle with lights out on it.  I did this morning but only because there was no way to get it fixed where it was at.  After getting it back to the yard, that's where it's going to sit.  I told my manager I was going to look in to purchasing a truck through the company program and if that doesn't pan out, I'll be looking for a new job.  I will not waste any more time with this company with this bs, especially since paychecks are getting pretty slim. Money is always the bottom line, if that's missing, bye!  I'm on track to making 25 grand less this year than I made last year.....

Yup, after writing this post, I'm going to write a first draft to the President.  I'll cover everything I can think of and then let it go for a while, come back, read it and then more will pop into my mind.  There is a lot going on here, I know I'll forget some of it on the first round, I'll edit it, add to it, proof read it make sure I'm not getting into "out of line" speech/insubordination, remain respectful but still make quite clear my facts and points.  I'll let it go again - a day or two, I dunno - maybe just a few hours - but then I'll come back to it for a third read and then send it off. Do nothing rash here - and no, telling my manager I'd be looking for another job isn't being rash. I've given that considerable thought, it was time to come out and say that without any ambiguity.  It's time.  I did this with Ferguson, waited too long, but that was pay.  A bad manager, yes, but pay was the biggest issue.  Pay going down here? That's the line. 

Anyway, I'm home, the weather is finally nice for once!  It's been raining here forever.  Today? No rain here. It was misting all the way back from Oklahoma.  I got lucky I never saw a state trooper in either state.  I took a chance but I didn't really have a choice. The best I could do getting pulled over would be explain truthfully that this stuff all just happened.  They could still write you up.  But, if you're respectful you can sometimes get away with stuff. 

Any my Daffodils! They survived the cold after sprouting early and now they are in full bloom! They are beautiful!  I have no plans for today besides working on the letter.  I need to wind down after this nonsense earlier.  No more texts, I got off of it because I was starting to get angry with their replies. Not worth it.  Let it go, go well up the chain of command, get past all these people that are obviously sugar coating what is going on in the rank and file and let the main man hear directly from a driver whether he wants to or not. My future with this company is irrelevant to me at this point, if they no longer want my help, that's fine.  I've learned from my past, time to move on. 

So, I have all this stuff revolving around in my mind, I need to get it written out.  G'day.

Weight stuck at 199.
Better than going up to the 235 I would be at by now - at least - if I hadn't started on this diet many months ago. 

Anyway, I just took the entire Convertible Sofa assembly out of the huge box.  There were gaping holes in the box so I was concerned the thing was damaged, but it appears to be alright.  But, as expected, looks like quite the project to put the thing together.  I'll be working on that today and also some errands needing to be run around town. 

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The whole day is now gone. I ended up just shoving the sofa into my room - in it's folded up state in a corner.  I went out side and got out the blower and started on the front yard.  I spent well over an hour just trying to get the leaves up off of one corner of the lot.  We let it go too long. Several layers of leaves and the bottom layer is wet. There is a HUGE pile of leaves against the house now where I blew all that mess to, replete with snakes flying up in the air as I was disrupting their habitat.  No snakes were harmed in this operation, but if I had the chance, I would have killed them. They got back into the leaves before I could do anything,. 

Anyway, I went to several stores, took over the top mattress of the futon for the dog bed here - I had 2 mattresses - for them over there at the other house. I bought dog beds for Addler and Aspyn when we first started this stuff over there, but they don't have enough cushion for Addler.  He's too big and heavy even for the dog bed version.  The futon mattress is thick and he will enjoy that much more.   And back home, making 2 dinners.  I figured the chicken wouldn't be enough for me to have enough to take with me on the next trip, so I made this weird meatloaf full of ground beef and chorizo.

Somewhere during all of this was my next load sent to me: Alabama.  I had to think about this one for a while.  I haven't been to that plant in at least 8 months.  I have no understanding how she goes about handing out routes, but others that have been there for a while and observed her - her being the manager - have stated that her methodology for handing out routes is quite unfair.  Whatever. this is a decent run. Should only take 2 days, or at most 2 days and back the 3rd morning. 

What's the take? I'm getting sent out, at least for now, after a day home instead of after 2 days home.  My paychecks will pick back up.  But only if it stays this way.  And yes, I'm happy about it even if it means on the road a lot more.  But, this Amarillo run - done in November - that I still haven't been paid for and they are still playing their little games with. I'ma send my manager and this clown in payroll a notice if I am not paid for this run on Friday: Get it on my next paycheck, or expect to hear from upper management.     

And so it is. Other things going on, but I need to get my stuff ready for the morning. 

Uneventful trip to Oklahoma. No detention - didn't expect any - and no delays.  Back to the yard at 9:30 and now on a 34 hour reset  I haven't had a "needed" 34 hour reset in a long time. I get 34 hour resets after every trip - but not because I need one, but because they have me off for 2 days.  My paychecks have been reflecting that time off.  Now? They brought the loaner drivers back, which was stupid.  I hate to talk negatively about work all the time, but that is literally all I hear from every single other driver, frequently.  They want to tell me their frustrations because they are afraid for whatever reasons to express those sentiments to management.

As I said in another post on here a while back, I have no such reservations.  I don't get disrespectful, but I will speak my mind about situations that IMO are egregious and shorting people on paychecks? That's egregious and incompetence.  I don't believe it's intentional at all - it's just the level of "quality" that we have with this new company and it's employees that do the paperwork.  They just plain, fat suck at their jobs.  And my manager?  Nice lady, but we've all come to the conclusion that she has literally no clue what she's doing.  And, possibly, she doesn't care. 

I'm off tomorrow and I'm going to continue to peruse available local jobs.  I'm really local for a truly local gig - where you're home every day or night.  I mean, the President of my company may actually care, but he can't run the whole company If you have people working for you that don't give a s*** about their roles in the company, the company is eventually doomed, especially in this industry where truck drivers will leave in a heartbeat for something better.  The problem with local gigs is I have had a taste of good money and that would be hard to walk away from.  I can find other jobs going out of town all the time like I am now and be in comparable yearly salary, but the good local jobs are hard to come by and are gobbled up quickly. You really have to keep on top of the listings to find them and you'd better drop everything you're doing if you want a real chance of landing one of them. 

I'll keep trying.  Meanwhile, my new futon is in. I'm not doing that today, I simply don't feel like it.  Tomorrow I'll take it out of the box and inspect - there is a huge, gaping hole in the box and several smaller ones. If it's not in perfect condition, they can either come get it or give me a partial refund.  I paid good money for this thing, there is no way I will settle for anything less than perfect condition unless they agree to give me some of the money back. Which I doubt they will do.....

In fact, it doesn't look like it's going to rain tomorrow, if it doesn't, I'm doing the leaves.  I was half expecting the Daffodils to have bloomed by the time I got back today. The flowers are showing some of the yellow, but so far they aren't sprouting.  I mean, if they're going to sprout early, I at least want t see them before it might freeze again and ruin them.

___________________

Some days, I go overboard on eating. Not carbs usually but calories.  Today was one of those days. I ate a whole pint of the low carb ice cream plus a bunch of pork rinds, plus a steak dinner and I ate at Waffle house.  It's probably 3 to 4 thousand calories I ate today lol.  Well, once in a while isn't going to hurt. 

I just got done eating a pint of chocolate ice cream.  It was ooooh sooooo delicious.
It was also only 6 grams of carbs for the entire pint : ) I've been wanting to do that and tonight was the night.  I paid enough money for that stuff, might as well indulge.  I have other flavors as well. Mint, cookie dough - of which I've had some already and it's quite delicious replete with large chunks of cookie dough in it - I think another flavor I can't remember what now.

I think the test strip was bad or something, I took a reading this morning and it showed nothing.  But, I just did it again and almost in the moderate range, the best range to be in.  So who knows?  But I'm still under 20 carbs today even with that pint cause' that reading this morning startled me and I ate nothing but fat and meat today, zero carbs, zero sugars. 

Umm well anyway, I got back to the yard today- I'm done with the 4 day trip to and basically unleashed. The truck still has all of those warning lights showing - after what, a year now? - it's back to having the cruise control not working more often than not.  Let me tell you, when you're sitting behind the wheel for as many hours a day as I do, you need that cruise control to work.  I've gotten to the point now that I have trained my left leg how to use the accelerator and braking because I can't use my right leg on that foot pedal all day long.  But I flatly told my manager and the mechanic who happened to be in there that I was drawing the line. 

The manager informed me I am going back out tomorrow.  Okay, where? Baker.  Back and forth for a while - you have Brownsville runs? Yes I got 47 of them for this month.  Well send me to Brownsville! But, she's handing out the routes as the drivers roll in.  She has no sense of fairness, actually, when handing these runs out . She will give a person back to back Cheneire runs if it works out that way in the order they come in, instead of ensuring that a driver get a good run along with a bad run.  Well whatever, I'm going to Oklahoma tomorrow morning after just getting back from Ohio today. 

A bad thing? No, my paychecks have been terrible, I'd take back to back work for quite a while just to get caught back up.  34 hour resets are mandatory, so those would be my saving grace.  In fact, now that I think about it, I'll need a 34 hour reset after these 2 trips.  I'll be off for 2 days - legitimately off - not off because there isn't any work. 

But today, after getting home........another driver called me.  What's up?  He went off for a full 5 minutes of bitching about the manager, the job and getting shafted on pay - that will piss off any worker at any employer. He's had the same problems I have in getting shorted on pay - tho I have also been shorted an entire paycheck.  And I'm still waiting to get paid for a run from last year.  He stated he knows the President of the this new company personally - and gave me his personal cell phone number.  LMAO!!  Umm, yeah, that's bad news for my manager and that idiot payroll person in Amarillo. 

It was a rather long conversation not worth going into all of it, but the end of the story he gave me this dude's number and his blessing to tell this President that  he gave me your number.  Well, I have a lot of things I'd like to point out to this individual if I ever do call and actually do get his ear for a few moments of time.  I'm not acting on that right away - but I will if more of this nonsense occurs.

So that's it for now.  Off to Barnsdall tomorrow, be home on Sunday morning/early afternoon. 

Up in Stryker Ohio.  Sitting in front of the gate at the plant. 

I was here at 3:30 pm, plenty of time left in the day to unload the truck.

But they won't unload a day early.  I knew that before I got up here and I knew I would arrive well early of the delivery date and time, but what are you supposed to do? I'll tell you one thing I could have done, and that is stop in Indianapolis and see a friend I haven't seen in decades.  I opted against it because I would only have a few hours to visit and then I would have to leave - hours on the on-duty clock would wind down and I have to be here the day before.  

I thought about going to a hotel, but I opted against it for two reasons.  First, because I need to save money and spending it on hotels too frequently isn't conducive towards that end and second, because I don't want to have to get on the on-duty or drive clock tomorrow morning.  I can just pull into the plant, unload the thing and get on the clock about an hour before it's unloaded and I'm ready to leave.  Last time up here, I lost 6 or 7 hours due to the weather and them not being able to get to me the first thing in the morning.  That shortened my drive day to 400 miles. I prefer to get 600 plus miles in tomorrow and then have a bit shorter drive the final day - which would be 400 miles or less.  

Plus, the final day of this tour will be Friday, I will be home in time to visit with my friends and such before they go to bed since it will be the weekend.  

Instead, when I got up here, I went to the Petro a dozen or so miles away, fueled up - it's cold up here, I'm running the truck 24 hours a day on this trip, making sure I have enough fuel to idle all night long plus during the unload - and get a bite to eat.  This Petro has a nice little privately owned diner attached to it.  It isn't the Iron Skillet restaurant, which has okay food, but just okay. The diner has 24 hour breakfast - so - a pork chop, sausage, bacon and 2 eggs.  I forgot about the ham. They didn't have it on the "sides" menu but I bet they had it available if I had asked.  Anyway, it was delicious and I have food with me in case I get hungry again - cause mama, there ain't nothing out here.  There is this plant, a few farms and that's it.  

In fact, I have a steak in the fridge and I might just gobble that down a bit later.  Stick in the microwave, heat it up nicely and have a nice meal, replete with a bed of lettuce and dressing.  It's not as bad as I thought it would be hanging out here in the truck.  I have very good reception for ATT and I will be watching "data-free" tv here pretty quick. But the internet is my connection with people when I'm on the road.  

Anyway, Taylor found a hotel right on the beach and made reservations.  So I made mine as well - it doesn't take your money up front and it has free cancellation anytime up until July 11th.  But then I did some reading about this place called Commodore On The Beach. Yes, it's on the beach but I wasn't impressed after reading the reviews.  I'd rather spend an extra $60 per night and have a decent motel, but I understand they are on a budget.  The reviews are not so great about the cooling and heating.  Middle of summer, you want the cooling to work.  Some said the rooms smell and other things about the place.  I try to look at all the reviews of a place and try to come up with a "somewhere in the middle" type of thing.  But there are plenty of pics of the place, it's right on the beach and that was the only redeeming feature about it for numerous reviews.  

But there were reviews that said it was good enough.  I dunno. I found a few other places. La Quinta is only $15 more per night and that is almost always at least a decent hotel brand.   But there were places that were $229 per night and up - those were the places that appealed to me.  Look, it's the middle of summer we're going, it's the most popular time of year there. Any other time and the prices are less than $100 per night.  Whatever.  I'll take my own pillows and sheets.  I'll take Lysol and other things, but the idea of the cooling not working so well is a bit daunting.  And "spotty wifi".  I mean, I can deal with that with my phone I guess, but the place is going for $167 per night, that's pretty steep bill for bad AC and WiFi, doncha think?  

But, Taylor says we're only sleeping there so no big deal. Yup, it's the sleep quality that makes or breaks a vacation.  If you sleep like s***, you have sh**** days.  Just plain facts.  Oh well, I'll take my big box fan as well.  

But on a good note, this has motivated her to start Keto again.  She wants to shed pounds so she can look - whatever she said I can't remember - for being on the beach.  Well, it's 5 months away.  If she got on it and stuck with it, she could lose 40, 50 even more pounds.  The reason it's good is because that helps me.  She'll go all hog wild on finding recipes and then we'll all eat the stuff, including James.  So there doesn't have to be 2 versions of the same dinner served every night. I've been winging it tho.  Finding recipes that are keto friendly that are also delicious.  Made some meatloaf that was absolutely awesome.  And a version of crock pot swiss steak with a red sauce that I loved.  I added some ingredients - the biggest being tomato paste for extra added tomato flavor.  They loved the taste of it too, thankfully.  I have the leftover with me, it's what I ate yesterday. 

But, it's much easier to do this diet when everyone's eating it.  I've stuck with it long after Taylor quit. She got me started on it - but she only lasted a week.  The diet sucks at first, there is no getting around that.  All diets suck at first tho.  This diet has the best results I've ever seen.  I get compliments all the time now for the amount of fat I've dumped.  I still have fat, not saying I'm skinny at all, but I'm much leaner than when I started this thing. It's what's motivated me to stay on it almost 4 months now.  We started October 15th and today is February 13th.  I'm hoping she'll get going on this thing and stay on it.  She just gets into moods and eats to compensate. Some people do that, I get it, makes it difficult to stick to a restrictive diet like this.  

Anyway, I'm getting offa here and watch some tv.  

And just like that, the weight starts coming off again. ???
Down to 198.  My goal weight was 182 originally, but I adjusted that
to anywhere in the 180's.  Cause' I don't really think I need to be that thin.
182 was my weight for most of my adult life - it flucuated around that but
it was always around that number.  I was pretty skinny.  I dunno, but it feels
good to be below 200 and going down. 

According to one chart I was looking at, I was obese at my highest weight before
starting this diet and I'm still overweight now.  It also says for my height I need to be
down to 182 at the most to be in the normal range.  I'm guessing that's probably about
right, actually.  Another site told me close to the same thing, but giving me up to 188
pounds to be in the normal range.  See, the thing is, overweight is the new norm in
America.  Being 210, 220 pounds people consider normal.  Which I know it's not
and never accepted as such, I just wasn't doing anything about it. 

My BMI is too high and even my BMI scale tells me that beyond these charts I
have been looking at.  It's not discouraging - at all.  It actually motivates me even
more to push forward and move on with this.  At one point in my life, I had 4.9
percent body fat, now I'm way higher than that, tho the mirror is, thankfully, showing
the results.  My gut is disappearing, my butt is disappearing, my thighs are shrinking. 

On the road again.  Tuesday morning.  I'll be heading out to the yard to get the truck, hook
up to a trailer and head out to the plant.  Destination: Stryker Ohio again.  Looking at the
radar map, I'm either going to be running into rain or snow - or both.  Actually, I dunno.
I might actually be avoiding all of that today, looks like snow in/near Stryker tomorrow.
The good thing is the temps are expected to be 23 degrees, which is a far cry better than
the temps it was at last time up there,  showing up at the plant in zero degree weather.

I just get concerned about slippery roadways.  Especially hauling what I'm hauling.  I'm not
afraid of it, per se, but I have a healthy respect for foul weather conditions considering some
of the pictures of stalled out trucks and trucks that have slid off the highway that surface
every time a snow storm goes through any given area.  Last time up there - which wasn't long
ago - I saw at least 100 trucks stalled out on the side of the highway.  I don't want to be one of
those people.  Well, ok, I sort of do, breakdown pay is excellent and starts the second the
truck breaks down, lol.  I have plenty of warm clothing.

There usually isn't any chance of detention pay on this run.  But it's over 2,000 miles round
trip so it's good mileage pay. 

Oh. Yesterday.  I was over at the other house. Rene is definitely intent on leaving, good thing
she's sticking around long enough to get some new people in there.  But there was a new family
that just moved in across the street and the dude  came over to discuss guns and Texas laws.
They just moved from Washington State, Seattle to be precise, which has ridiculous, outrageous
gun laws they recently enacted.  He stated that half of his gun collected will become illegal to own
there when the new law goes into effect and that was the line that was crossed to make them want
to move.  The other ridiculous scenario is outrageous taxation.  There's a reason people are leaving
California, New York and other states.  These people love these wonderful socialist programs -
until they have to start paying for them. 

Anyways, best be off of here to get my stuff and get out.  It's always nice, tho, to start my SUV from
my bedroom and have it warmed up by the time I get to it : )

Time for a fat intake day.
Not because I want to, but I've been slowly going out of ketosis.
Too much protein is likely the culprit.
No matter there, I'm going to eat cream cheese all day long.
That usually does the trick.
I love cream cheese, it's full of fat, the only meal I'll eat will be dinner tonight, the rest of the day will be cream cheese- maybe some pork rinds.

I could also make some fat bombs, which I am contemplating.
I haven't really made any of that so far, but they look delicious
and they serve the purpose.  I think I'll also put a couple tablespoons of butter in a cup of coffee.
These are all tricks people use to get back into ketosis. I'm in "small" ketosis right now which
isn't good enough.  Although it's possible that I have become "keto adapted" and the ketones
just aren't showing up as much.  Another thing people do is fast for 18 hours.  But I've already
eaten a large amount of cream cheese and my final cup of coffee of the morning is definitely going
to have butter in it.

Meanwhile, my new convertible sofa - should be here tomorrow. That's unfortunate because I'm likely not going to be here tomorrow.  I can only hope upon delivery that it's put on the porch and out of the rain and that no one will come along and us their 5 Finger Discount card to acquire it. I'm really looking forward to getting rid of this thing I have in here now. It was my friend's - they had no use for it so I've used it as a dog bed for the last couple of years - but it's done, toast and fried.  I'm going to pay them for the amount they paid for it since my dogs have basically trashed it and then put the new thing in it's place.  It won't last forever either, but it's much better looking and I do my best to keep large blankets over them to keep dog hair and odor off of them.

It rained all  night long, no chance of blowing the leaves up again.  In fact, the only way those leaves are coming up apparently is good ole' fashioned raking.  I'll finish the back yard before I start on the front.  And maybe build a fire.

_______________

Just spent the afternoon visiting with a new neighbor over at the other house.  They just moved here from Seattle, Washington.  Long story - but they are initiating extremely restrictive gun laws - mostly aimed at semi-autos and with that? They decided to leave the state.  Yup, people tend to leave when their rights are being stripped of them.  Couple that with high taxation and liberal policies? A conservative isn't going to want to live in an area like that.  It was pretty interesting conversation that went on for several hours. It was nice.

The new tenant that is moving in there is also pretty cool.  I think I may have just found some friends.  I dunno, but I'll definitely pursue it.  Until it either pans out is a dead end on either party.  I just need more friends here is all. I'd probably be more motivated to go out and do things outdoors if I were hanging out with like-minded people. 

Anyway, I reminded my manager I'm here, asked her if I'm being sent out anywhere and she said yes.  That was earlier, no run yet.  But, she doesn't deal with that stuff until the end of the day.  That's just the way the industry works. 

And, finally, put cube steaks into the crockpot with a nice tomato sauce and some vegetables.  I decided to throw in a small roast with it.  I'm going out on the road, might as well have something to take along with me. 

Home.
No detention in Brownsville, yet again. I guess I was just hitting it lucky? Whoever went down there today  - I saw the truck driving down there - they are the lucky one that gets at least all day tomorrow for detention.  It's a matter of the day I"m sent out.  I have far greater chance of finding no trailer down there if it's a Saturday run versus this Friday stuff I"ve been getting.  I really could use some sitting around time to puff up a paycheck or two.

As it stands, I was sent nothing for tomorrow or Monday, so I guess I"m sitting at home for the next 2 days.  Unwanted, thanks.  Uneventful trip anyway.

Filed my taxes before I left. I'm only getting $500 back. After paying 10k in federal taxes, one would hope to get a bit more of it back than that.  That was a bit disappointing, I was hoping enough to go out and buy a used 4 wheeler or maybe an old fishing boat.  Instead, I'll just save that $500 for the upcoming trip to Galveston.  It should pay for the hotel cost at least.

Anyway, I found a really cool dude to take the open room in the other house. About time.  I have 2 good people in there, just need one more after Rene leaves.  She is intent on moving back to Michigan, some friend is going to let her use a guest house for free - so she says anyway - but the real deal for her is free pot.  It's whatever to me.  She is free to do with her life as she pleases. Meanwhile, I will still have a place to take my dogs when I go on my runs.  Maria says she wants to do it.  Otherwise, I have zero need for that house as I'm not making anything off of it and the market here is very tight for finding renters..

As it stands, I'm going to look for other rental houses, owner finance and rent to buy places next month before April gets here. A larger house would be nice, but the point is the over priced house we are dealing with now.  I want a bargaining chip - if they don't bring the rent down, I'll move the whole lot of them into another house and wash my hands of that place.  I intend on getting the price down one way or the other.

And, my ice cream arrived!  Good Lord, I just now remembered it.  6 pints of heaven sitting in the freezer.  7 grams of carbs for the entire pint!  I don't think I can eat it today, actually.  I'm close to my carb limit.  I think I'll eat a whole pint tomorrow and just eat mostly meat the rest of the day.  I haven't had ice cream in many months.

Umm, so my friends have a lady over from work.  "In her 40's but looks like she's 30, blonde, hot".  I'm told. I'm going to meet her in a minute. I needed to come into my room, sit down and relax after a day of driving.  I walked in the house and saw no one anywhere. The lights are all on, but they are...where?  Oh, in their bedroom? Weird.  They never do that.

I've got the dates now for the vacation to Galveston - July 12-15, 3 nights.  I don't know where they are wanting to stay yet.  But I'm going to do the rounds of the hotel searches - Expedia, Booking, Priceline etc and see what I can find.  One night at a resort hotel would be awesome.  But it's the worst time of year to go speaking on the pricing of hotels.  Motel 6? $127 a night. For a Motel 6!!! LMAOOOOO. I'm not sure they are going to be able to afford a beachfront property, but we'll see.  The decent ones are in the $200 plus-per-night range.  And that's now. And waiting too long probably means everything sells out.  So I'm going to push them on this.  I guess it just depends on the experience one wants. If you want a beachside hotel that is decent, fork out the cash. If you can deal with staying in a city 10 miles away and driving to the beach - save a ton of dough.  I personally would rather do a beachside deal, it's a vacation, might as well spend the money and do it right.

Okay, I met the lady. Nice enough - but about 100 pounds over weight. Not my type.  Sorry if it sounds shallow, but looks are part of the equation, in my book, of any potential relationship.  I'm definitely not looking for a relationship, tho and really not interested.  My relationship desire has been soured to the point of not wanting one.  Not at the moment anyway.

It has been a long struggle to stay away from carbs.
It's truly a battle at times. When you see a baking sheet freshly pulled out of the over with hot, crispy french fries sitting within arm's reach, the temptation can be great, such as it was a few nights ago.
There simply is no real substitute for potatoes.  There are Keto foods they have the claim a "good" replacement, but alas and in the end? Not.

However, there are substitutes for sugar.  We all know that - sweeteners that have zero or very low carbs in them.  And a few of them actually taste pretty good.  I'm getting a shipment of 6 pints of "Rebel" ice cream coming in a few days.  7 to 9 carbs per entire pint.  I mean, I stuck with the flavors that have 7 grams.  I will be eating an entire pint the first day.  After that, I dunno.  That's a lot of carbs for one sitting for this diet.  It's just that I can't not indulge in something any longer.  I've been following this thing almost to the T for 3 months now, I need some kind of break.

The results, tho, are my size 34 waist jeans are now getting loose.  After having had that done with size 35's.  I actually think I could fit into 33's.  I'm not going out and buying 33 size jeans at the moment, I'm not buying any pants right now . I have all my old 34's I'm wearing now and the off chance I slip into the 35's? Yeah they won't stay up on my waist now. They just fall off.

So, the results of this forced abstinence of eating the foods I love has had palpable results.  That is what has made this journey worth it.

I talk to people about going on this diet all the time.  But it becomes a non-starter when I start telling them they can't eat pasta, rice, most beans, potatoes, sugar, etc.  All the foods you love? Are gone.  Wait, but not all! You can eat any meat you want!  You can dump ample amounts of butter on everything!  In fact, you have to eat a lot of fat on this diet.

But, you can get tired of eating meat all the time and not eating everything you see everyone else eating.  The Keto diet has become very popular, but no-one I know in person is doing it. People online I know are doing it, some have started it after seeing the results i have posted online.  It does work for most people.  I say most people because some have stated they don't lose anything.  I think they aren't doing it right.  Ketosis is the goal - your body feeding off your fat.  That only happens with under 20 carbs per day and high fat intake.  High fat intake is actually quite important because if you eat too much protein, your body can do some sort of thing where it converts it through some process (sorry, I don't know the technical terminology, I just read about it today) to glycogen/glucose and you aren't using fat as energy.

Tho, to be honest, even if that happens, you are still likely going to lose weight if you aren't consuming sugars and high carbohydrate foods.  See, we are addicted to sugar in this nation.  And high carb foods.  It's why we have so many diabetics in our society. Everything has some form of sugars in it.  It's why this diet really requires you to prepare as much food at home as possible.  Yea, I eat out a lot but what I eat is quite limited.  For example, I'm going to Brownsville tomorrow.  I'll have an Atkins drink in the morning, eat some pork rinds and some cream cheese in the morning and then, when I get to Refugio, Texas, I'll stop at Stripes.  Stripes is a gas station, some of them are truck stops and several of them have huge offerings of various types of Mexican food.

And the offering that appeals to me is the baked half chicken.  Skin and all - skin gives me the fat I need.  I always get 4 roasted Jalapenos with it and it's quite delicious.  Carl's Junior - has lettuce wrapped burger option.  I mean, low carb has taken a foothold in this nation and a lot of restaurants are happy to adjust some of their offerings to make it Keto compliant.  I just find it amazing that I was able to get all of this fat gain reversed. I no longer feel like I am doomed to become a 300 plus pound fat old man.  I really thought at the rate it was going I was going to be there in the next few years.  I was rapidly gaining weight.  I have pics of a large gut.  I now have pics of a greatly reduced gut.  People telling me I've lost enough weight.  I'm sure I haven't but it's good to hear the feedback without asking that my gut is gone.

I feel like I could go off this diet for a few weeks, eat whatever I want, gain 10 or 15 pounds, then go back on it and lose it all over again. I won't do that.  I keep thinking I'm going to cheat for a day or two - but I haven't done it.  But if I do? It's going to include Dairy Queen Blizzards!  And french fries!  And spaghetti!  lol

Should I have to follow this diet so strictly forever? The answer is no, of course.  I'll get myself there - to the Blizzard that is - sooner or later.

Meanwhile, it's not late but it's getting late for my wake up time in the morning.  After 2 days off, I now remind my manager that I'm ready to go somewhere.  Brownsville tomorrow. I haven't had much detention pay lately, a good couple of days would be nice.  But not expected.  It's just random when it happens.  Very nice tho!  I have the Brownsville run memorized. The only help I need from the internet is to find the fastest route through Houston.  Mostly it's the Beltway 8 loop, but there are 3 other options for looping around downtown - which I cannot legally drive through - to take. I'm always looking for the shortest time option - time is my enemy in the trucking industry. Making it down there the same day as getting loaded is fully dependent on getting out of the plant in less than 2-1/2 hours and not running into any significant traffic.

Wednesday.
State of the Union address was marvelous.  Trump said all the right words and put the onus on Democrats to stop with the political games and start dealing. Of course, democrats came on after the SOTU and called Trump all kinds of stupid names and said the speech was horrible and did nothing to unite the nation . Of course it didn't, that's their progressive agenda.  They can't have a President who is facing an election in a year and a half having any wins!  That would be horrible!  Lmao.

Actually, Dem reaction was predictable. Just as predictable is that nothing will get done in Congress. It may not be such a bad thing that bills with outrageous spending on them such as the Green New Deal will go absolutely no where.  7 trillion dollars was one estimate I read for that nonsense.  Every expert on greenhouse energy has stated that it's impossible to be 100% renewable energy at the moment, but any person with any amount of common sense and who reads about this stuff would have already known that.  They won't have it in 10  years, either, which is the set date for 100% energy being sourced by renewables.  The only source of energy that exists that could cover all of that is nuclear power plants and those are extremely expensive to build an maintain - but it does not rely on fossil fuels.
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I got distracted yesterday and didn't remember to get back to this.  Day 2 of being off.  I figured that was what was going to happen.  I'll hopefully get a run for tomorrow, a good run - 2 day solid one at least and then maybe one for Monday again. 

Yes! Just looked at my paycheck for tomorrow - more than the last 3 paychecks combined. That's what I need and should be getting every week.  That makes me feel better at least.  Next week should be very good too, those runs are already turned in.  Actually, next week should be a thousand more than this week's. That will get me all caught up. Which doesn't mean I'm not going to stop looking for a new job.  I'm just being picky about who I apply with and so far I haven't heard anything back. 

Meanwhile, Taylor called me out to the kitchen last night with a proposal: Let's go to Galveston Beach!  Ummm, okay!  Not til' this summer, but sure, why not? Get away from here, have some fun on a beautiful beach and have a good time.  They're going to work it out so James parents come down and watch the boys - it really wouldn't be much of a vacation if you brought those kids. They are too young yet to be able to just romp around on the beach without constant adult supervision. It would just be a babysitting outing. I did specify that I was not going to drive - at all - and that I would be getting my own hotel room, thanks.  They didn't care about either stipulation.  Good.

Now then, it would be nice if they could work out the specific dates so we can book rooms in advance.  I'd just get the insurance in case the dates change, but summer time at Galveston Beach is a very popular place and time to be there.  Hotel rooms likely go for much more than they are right now.  There are some really nice resorts down there - tho paying that much money isn't really in my mind and they wouldn't want to do that anyway. But a Comfort Inn or a Holiday Inn brand would work nicely.  I think it's 4 days/3 nights we would be staying down there, which is about right for me.  I'm kind of excited about that - but it's really depending on if they follow through and actually do it - which really depends on their tax return. 

Taxes - really need to get that going.  I have my W2 from last year, it would be pretty simple to go ahead and Turbo Tax it and get it over with.  I should be getting a huge chunk of change back, well I dunno, I think anyway.  I'm in a different tax bracket, one I've never been in so I dunno how that works.  Just have to fill out the forms and find out. 

Anyway, I'm going to go to Tractor Supply today and get professional strength dog deterrent. That dumb puppy craps all over the porch and it's disgusting.  They put down the cayenne pepper as I relayed to them the info about how to get the puppy to stop doing it there, but they didn't put down the vinegar first, so the puppy wasn't deterred and just started crapping on the porch all over again.  They sell stuff that will make it very unpleasant for them to want to be anywhere near that area. I want to work out and get my arms and chest back to some semblance of what it used to be, but no way am I working out in the midst of a sea of dog poop, that's just gross. 

Speaking of animals, I opened my closet door and leaving it open. The kitten - which is almost not a kitten anymore - goes in there and sniffs around. I'm sure that's where the mice are coming from, a cat is the best deterrent around.  But I'm getting more glue traps anyway, really need to catch the mama and nip this in the bud. 

As for today? 90% chance of rain.  I didn't do anything yesterday cause' I didn't feel like it. Today, I wanted to blow the leaves off the front yard.  That isn't going to happen, it's already raining.  Gag.  The front yard is literally covered with leaves.  The natural look, lmao.

Alright, so I finally got back into town.  I mean, it didn't take any longer than I thought it would, I just wanted this trip over with.  However, I was listening to the State of the Union Address Trump was giving, amazing.  I mean, this wasn't the "shoot off the hip" stuff, this was a very well written speech. 

But anyway, I went to Applebees' for birthday dinner. Why not? Everyone here would be asleep, I was starving and I figured a steak would be nice.  I sat down at the bar across from some rather beautiful young black ladies sitting there.  They were getting drunk - there were numerous empty glasses sitting there which were margaritas and they had consumed several shots.  The amusement came from the old guys sitting at a table behind them. 

Actually, they were total asses but they offered to buy these girls shots of Patron after overhearing these girls ordering house tequila - cheap stuff, not very tasty but after you've already been drinking,  pretty much irrelevant.  So the girls took them up on the free shots but I could tell they weren't interested in them as far as "let's go home and have fun" stuff. 

But then, one of the girls said they were there celebrating her birthday!  I immediately asked if she was serious?  She went digging for her ID. Lol, no, it's my birthday too!  Tho I wasn't hitting up on her, just random coincidence.  I mean, how often is it that you encounter someone having a birthday the same as yours?  But these dudes were intent on making their move and it was appalling.  Just pathetic treatment.  They moved to the bar from their table, uninvited.  Buying more shots, basically thinking they were going to buy their next sex encounter.

I dunno how much they spent, but it was money wasted for their intended, obvious, desired ending.  The girls weren't biting and they finally paid up their alcohol bill for them and left.  Amazing. Amazingly pathetic, but amazing.  I also left after them - I wanted to get my dogs and go home - wished her a happy birthday of which she wished the same to me.

 And so, home I am.  I'm off tomorrow but I'll be reminding my manager that I need to work tomorrow afternoon.  Why? Because I need to keep working right now. 

Well, it's almost midnight, I'll enjoy my last few minutes of my special day...and go to bed. lol

Yesterday, screwups at the plant ruined my plans to be home today for a good portion of my birthday.
Figures.
One truck developed a leak after filling it. 
They wasted a bunch of time determining that they couldn't fix it and then hours more unloading the trailer. 
It threw everything off for everyone else after that, which was every other load, since that load was the first one.  I mean, my manager could have bothered to tell me that this was going on, I wouldn't have shown up to the yard until last night. 

I went and did some shopping after showing up to the yard and finding all of this out.  But I had no idea it was going to be so late before I ever got out of the plant - 9:30 pm - I didn't even know they stuck around that plant filling trucks that late.  I drove til 1:30 am and that was it.  I couldn't do anymore, my eyes were telling me it's time to go to sleep, so I stopped at the service plaza on the Indian Nation Turnpike and here I sit, waiting for this ridiculous 10 hour nonsense to elapse so I can start driving again. 

I'm wide awake, well rested, there is no valid reason, besides government intrusion and over-reach that I shouldn't be able to get in the driver's sit and get this trip over with.  I still have 131 miles to the destination and then 335 miles back.  I will most likely make it home today, but not until around 9:00 pm or even later.  In my view, I could have started around 7 am this morning, drove up there, drop and hook trailers and then started back, pulled over somewhere, taken a 30 minute nap and then drove the rest of the way back to the yard.  This is why so many truckers are pissed.  The government doesn't know what I need for sleep or when I really should take breaks, my body tells me that information.  I could have driven all night long last night - and that would have been really unsafe, again, government intervention is total bs. 

So anyway, here I sit for another 45 minutes waiting for the government, installed courtesy of my company, via an electronic device, to tell me when I can start driving again. 

The bright side of this is that there is a McDonald's 100 feet from me and I absolutely love McDonald's coffee. I decided to waste money on 2 Egg McMuffins as well - it wasn't the easiest thing to take off the buns, nicely toasted and buttered, and throw them in the trash can.  Leaving very little product left to eat.  But that was birthday breakfast.  It may very well be that when I get back to the yard tonight? I'll just head over to Texas Roadhouse and finish the day off there.  My friends will be in bed sleeping by the time I get home. 

I think I might be a bit grumpy.  It's just the fact I could have left here hours ago and gotten this trip over with to be home at a decent time.  And probably the fact the circumstances at the plant yesterday that caused all of this to begin with.  And likely because I've had this coughing going on for a week now and it's starting to irritate me.  And....letting them know yesterday that today was my birthday and could I switch with someone for a different load?  They just laughed at me.  I shuttered the urge to let loose on them.......I missed Christmas at home, I didn't think it was too much to ask for my birthday, especially considering drivers sitting around doing nothing claiming that they want more work.  Well here it is!

And then.....listening to this long time driver - he's been with the company like 28 years - bitching about the workload. Every time I see this dude he goes off. Like, okay dude, I get it, it sucks, but I don't need to hear this every time I see you. 

Oh, and finally, a trip I made in November, I think it was.  They "skipped" paying me for it and I raised hell about it.  Well this lady in payroll is finally getting back to me about getting paid for this what, 2 weeks later?  It's like $600 that I could really use right now to buffer my checking account and get it back up into a good healthy "ahead" range.  I received an email from her this morning about it, but it was just a forwarded email.  Apparently my manager had gotten a request from her about it and my manager? Had done nothing about it.  So, 15 minutes after this email is put out, I get a text from my manager. 

She wants to know the trailer number and details of the trip?  LMAO.  yeah, that was months ago and you expect me to just cha-ching that info up in my computer data based memory? Lol. Not to mention the fact that I turned in all the paperwork - to HER - for that trip? She has the paperwork - somewhere.  This is all on her.  But. I went through old texts and found the trailer number at least, she had never issued a trip number so that as well is on her.  She claimed she would get this taken care of, at least I have the lady in payroll riding her ass about it to get it done. 

This is what I go through at this company and this is part of the reason I have considered finding a new job.  Money talks, tho, above all of it.  So I'm going to see what this next paycheck will be and the one after it should be quite healthy.  If it isn't, if I'm shorted again, I'm going to be bypassing people in the chain of command and go straight for the CFO or CEO. They won't want to hear from me, but they're going to anyway.  The CEO lives in some mystery wonderland of how everything is going so wonderfully with drivers and trucks and how everything is run.  They likely don't hear from people like me. Or, more likely, the people they do hear from have the same gripes but are too afraid of "job security" and "powerful management" to speak up.

I have no such problems. Never have.  To a fault at times.  If you're going to ask me how things are going in the company, don't expect a sugar coated version of it. Don't expect an exaggerated version of how bad things are, either.  You will hear specific details of what's good and what's bad.  And right now, it's mostly on the bad side.  This isn't the company I signed on with, that's just the plain hard facts. I either have to deal with it and stay with them or move on and say screw this.

It's just hard because I really wanted to stay with hazmat tanker stuff.  I don't have enough experience yet to get on with the really good, local companies. 

Well anyway, I'm going to end this one. Get a refill on my McDonald's coffee, do some cleaning in the cab, do my reports and get ready to go. 

Monday morning. 
Preparing - mentally - to go out on the road.  I'm just happy it's about a 24 hour trip.  I mean, it would be optimal if you could leave in the morning and get back late that night, but it's just a bit too far to make it. I've made it within 25 miles of the yard before I had to stop.  In the good ole' days, I could just finish the run with no problem regardless of hours.  No one would say anything and nothing would become of it.

But now, with ELD's - electronic logging devices - there is no leeway. It's kind of dumb to have to stop 25 miles from your destination for 10 hours.  In fact, it's extremely stupid.  Truckers are getting pissed about the stringency of these elogs and are actually striking for a day here and there over it.  I find a one day strike useless tho.  If we all shut down for a week, the economy would come grinding to a halt and we could pretty much get whatever we wanted. 

It may happen someday, but it wouldn't include the mega carrier drivers who are too afraid of losing their jobs - tho I don't see why, it's a driver's market now, not the other way around.  Anyway, until this situation is dealt with, I just tolerate it.  On paper logs I could just cheat, frankly.  And I don't care about excessive government regulations made by people who are clueless about the driving culture and how it works.  They think they know better so the make one-size-fits-all rules that are outrageous and ridiculous. 

It's a lot of kneejerk reaction to that actions of a few drivers that get into horrible accidents.  But, cars get into a lot more accidents than trucks, they don't think to put a lot of this nonsense onto drivers of cars.  Accidents are going to happen regardless of the untold amounts of excessive regulations they put on truckers, period, end of story.  Your 30 minute rest rule has done far more damage to getting freight to locations on time than any good it has done and that has been statistically proven. They are now considering getting rid of the rule.  I don't need the government tell me when to take a break.  If I get really tired, I'll pull over without their coercion and take a nap of my own accord.  If I'm near a delivery or end point, I shouldn't have to pull over because my hours ran out - yet I'm only 20 miles out.  Or even 30 or 40 miles out. 

Whatever the case, I think I'm probably lucky to be getting any kind of run with only a day off since the last one considering the slow down. drivers are complaining and the manager is getting an earful on a daily basis.  I simply made my case without cutting her down or trying to make her feel bad.  This new company takeover is what's at fault here, not her.  I'm not, however, going to go broke and start using credit cards again to survive.  If it comes to that, bye!  And I can say that another 3 or 4 paychecks like what I've been getting and I'll be at that bridge. 

Meanwhile.....time to get ready to leave.  But, perusing some jobs that  are local or regional.  Cause I have the feeling that I'm going to have to move on.