Well.
Home from that one.
Illinois trip, thought I was going to sit for a day when I got there and they said "park it" at the guard shack. Turns out it was just a "maintenance" deal, but I know these people better than that, it was more likely a break down.  I sat out in the parking lot for and hour and a half - but - it's all detention pay.  I got around 9 hours of detention pay on this trip, not too shabby, the trip itself was a good paying anyway.

But, the strange part of this trip. I made it to my usual truck stop for the first night. It's just south of St. Louis and it's good enough miles.  It will be a 3 day trip regardless.  Well, I got off at the exit, about to make the right turn and see a huge sign saying "road closed ahead".  Gag.  It's like, turn right there, go a 1/4 mile, it ends at another light and then turn right and there you are, at the truck stop.  I didn't bother to try and "traverse" it, if the signs says the road is closed, it's closed.

I looked up another route, just up the road and come back down the highway the truckstop is on, and started to do a long turn to get around an island.  And there I saw it.  Water.  A lot of water.  I mean, the houses on the right side of the right were almost completely submerged in a lake of water.  The house on the right? Up on a hill, so they weren't affected - except they couldn't drive to their houses.  I thought not good news for the truck stop - cause it's directly across the other side.  I went up the road, got off the Interstate and walaah - another "Road Closed Ahead" sign.  I was running out of drive time.

Actually, I was running out of drive and on-duty time. The plant started late and I got out of there late.  But I had no choice, cruise the 27 miles to the Flying J - there was nothing else on the way.  I made it in time to do my 10 minute pretrip and get off the clock to off-duty status. 14 hour day plus the time before that getting up, getting stuff done and getting to the yard to hook the truck up.  But, it all helps when it comes to both the loading and the delivery plant holding me up.  I got back to the house at around 3:00 pm.

Just before I got to the other house to pick up my dogs, I got a text:  another run for tomorrow! And back up to Illinois!  Oh yes! I need to get back on track here. How did that happen. My manager went on a 2 week vacation. This other manager deals with drivers the way we should be dealt with, that's the end of the story.  I'll be almost out of hours after this next trip and I will have to do a 34 hour reset - on the weekend!  Yayyyyyy!

I mean, I could stay home and be happy! Lmao.  But that doesn't pay the bills, save up money or create dinero for next month's vacation.

The trip tomorrow is going about 75 miles further than the plant I went to yesterday.  It's great money, detention pay or not - but they always make you wait forever outside of the plant. The challenge is whether they will get done in time for you to be able to get back to St. Louis or even further south to be able to get home the next day.  Regardless, there is a great keto friendly restaurant in the town about 8 miles away : )  They had this amazing flank stake breakfast that I will be wanting to do again.

Of course, there's an 80% chance of rain in St Louis tomorrow, so, I doubt I will be heading to that truck stop I normally go to.  I'll just head to the Flying J in East St Louis.  It always has parking, at least in my experience, one of the few places that doesn't fill all the way up every night.  The nice thing about the Flying J is that it has a Denny's - which has very good Keto options for breakfast.  Get up early, eat a nice meal and get on down the road.

Home? I dunno.  A little friction going on over here. Not with me, I pretty much try to stay amiable regardless of what's going on. And, it's rather personal - not on my part but I'm not going into another person's personal details on the internet.  Not that kind of stuff.  But, it's affecting the house.  Whatever the case, I'm on the road for the next 3 days, should be home Friday night unless something happens.  I hope something happens, because that will mean extra pay : )

_____________

Wednesday Morning.  Looking forward to this trip - good pay, should be back by Friday, get on this week's pay period, and will be out of hours.  That means Saturday off at the very least, maybe Sunday depending on how busy we are on a 34 hour reset.  Well, I guess I'm not really looking forward to afternoon rain - not because I'm afraid to drive in the rain, but because of how a lot of other people drive in it.....

And onto politics.  Why not. Now one of these socialist idiots wants to give 3 to 6 thousand dollars to families - per month? - for being poor apparently.  So, if you got that much money from the government per month, would you want to work?  I guarantee you a lot of people would not.  Incentivizing dependency on the government is a dangerous path to take.  Trillions of dollars - these people literally don't care about money, it's all free!!!

Then you have Biden, who would "win in a landslide", the twisted news media declares, if the Presidential election occurred now.  A lot of these polls were largely wrong about states that were solid blue in the last election, namely Michigan and Wisconsin.  I don't trust the polls because a lot of them have skewed methodology that makes their outcome suspect at best.   Biden's past is being dug into and some gems are starting to come out.

And then, you have Ocasio Nutcase Cortez.  Fruitier than Fruit Loops, economics 101 was apparently a class she skipped - or flunked.  Her math and reasoning on all things economic is almost always wrong.  I'll never figure out how a person could rejoice in losing 25,000 jobs to the state she is allegedly representing into a region where those jobs - and ensuing money being pumped into the local economy - She proclaimed that the state was giving away money to Amazon!  No, lady, the state was promising a tax break - as many states, counties, cities do when a big time employer is making a decision about building new facilities.  These people think we are all stupid, the same as the "tax giveaway to the rich!".  No, the rich just got to keep more of their money come tax time. 

Anyway, about time to get out of here.  Have to get my keto food in bags and get out of here.

G'day. 


















+

Well, my calculations were off - like wayyyyy off - for my next run. I figured I shouldn't be going out before Monday morning at the earliest, instead, I'm the first load tomorrow morning - Sunday.  Although working to my favor, it further proves my manager's methodology is wayyy off in how she does it.  There is literally no way I should be the first load tomorrow morning going by her stated method of handing out runs.

I both love and hate working on Sundays.  I love it because you can make very good time and get on down the road without a lot of traffic. I hate it - because it is Sundays and I just have this built in thing that Sundays should be a day of rest.  And come around noon to 3 pm ? Some internal thing kicks in and I have to pull the truck over and go to sleep for at least 30 minutes, if no longer.  Don't know why, but I guess because most of my life Sundays have been a day of rest and only this job did I start working on them with any frequency. I figured the last job I had that had occasional Sunday work might have been 30 years ago. And I emphasize occasional - this job, I'm working a lot of Sundays. 

Whatever, I got busy first thing this morning getting stuff ready to go - laundry and attempting to decide what to take with me.  I also fired up the new smoker and the turkey is already in it.  I don't figure it will be done until 6pm at the earliest.  It's a big turkey and it's going to take something like 25 to 30 minutes per pound to cook.  Guess 30 minutes, that's 9 hours minimum.  But, 6 pm works, I won't have to go to bed until around 8:30.  Time enough for it to rest, eat, cool off, cut it up, put it away and get some packed for the road.  Well, get a lot packed for the road, you don't have a fresh cooked turkey every day.  Or even every month. 

Of course, that is..if...it turns out right.  They talk about bacteria growing on it for the length of time it has to cook, I'll keep the temp higher than they recommend so we don't all get sick and die lol. 

_______________
No clue about the turkey.  It's cooking, lol, in the smoker, what it will turn out like is unknown. It's currently at 145 degrees internal temperature, so a couple more hours to go at the rate it's been cooking.  Which would be great.  Some of the skin is black.  Oh well, peel off the skin, good as gold.  It will still have the nice, smoke flavor. This smoker isn't good for a piece of meat that large.  I would need a much larger smoker to effectively cook the turkey without having it burn up.  Smoking is a learn-as-you-go type of thing. A hobby in itself and an art, acquired competency over time and experience. 

But, my laundry is done, a few minutes left to pack the bag, get it into the vehicle and - not have to deal with that at 4:00 am.  Or, like I like to say it, 4 o'clock in the morning.  Hopefully turkey turns out edible, otherwise I have fresh chicken wings ready and waiting to cook if necessary. 30 minutes or so cook time.  I have to admit when i first start trying to smoke something different that I have never tried before, I don't necessarily call it dinner.  It may turn out to be acceptable for dog food.  It may not be the best dish on earth, or by chance, it could turn out incredibly good.  I've had results on both ends of the spectrum and in the middle.

I'm just trying to mentally prepare myself for a Sunday drive of around 600 miles.  I could say I hope for detention - which has happened numerous times, but it's nothing to count on. One driver went up there a few weeks ago and was stuck up there for 7 days.  I would absolutely love that from a pay point of view. 

There were 5 of our trailers down there when I got down to Brownsville last night.  No detention going on there lol.  In the year and a half I've been going down there, the most trailers I've seen is 3 and that is quite rare.  Whatever, the run is better than nothing and far better than a lot of other runs.

So the snake.  The one I have seen now several times in the back yard. The one that has been shedding its skin in the back yard.  That snake. Fearless of us.  Doesn't even coil up. Just sits there and stares at us.  I won't lie the impulse to kill it has hit me every time I see it. I dislike snakes greatly, probably from being from Arizona and running into rattlesnakes in various adventures into the desert - and killing them when they posed a threat.  You can eat those, tho. You wouldn't be eating one of these things.

It's fat and quite healthy, too, eating well.  It may have done something to the copperhead snakes. I haven't seen one of them around in quite awhile.  At least this sucker isn't venomous.

_____________________

That was last night.  Friday - late morning.  Got out and got a Butterball turkey - it's a bug that Taylor planted in my brain: smoke one.  It's huge tho.  I think when I get to smoking it that I'll smoke it 3 hours and then do the rest in the oven at low temp.  It's frozen so I'm not sure when I'll be able to cook it.  I doubt it will thaw before tomorrow.  I've never tried to smoke a turkey so it should be a bit of a challenge.

A branch fell off the large Oak tree out front the other day. I consider it a dangerous tree as branches have fallen from it frequently - the biggest branch was the size of a tree and did 11k damage to the roof of the house.  If the entire tree fell on the house - God help any of us that are in it's path. I don't know how many tons that thing weight, but if a branch of it can do that much damage, think how much damage the entire tree could do.  We'd get it cut down but it's going to cost thousands of dollars because it's right next to a telephone pole and power lines both on the street and coming from the pole to both our house and the house next door.  That will require a large crane to take down a large branch at a time.  I think it was quoted 4k, but I just put out a feeler for bids from several companies to come and give a quote on it.  I don't want to pay for it, but I'd loan them the money to do it - the thing is just rotting and you can see the rot in the branches that fall.

The closest bedroom to that tree is the boy's room..........right there.

I'd love to see all the Oak trees surrounding the back of the property come down as well.  They're nuisance trees, trust when I say never plant Oaks. They will torment you with constantly falling s*** all over the place.  Year round.  Not just fall, not just winter, year freaking round.  It's ridiculous.

I'm losing weight again.  I was on the up for a bit after doing that outrageous diet cheat day lmao.  I really went way overboard with it.  I figured my weight would go up and it did - 4 pounds before starting back down again.  So, this morning, I'm back down 3 pounds and close to my lowest weight I've been since starting this diet.

But next month? I'll be cheating for 3 days.  I know, sounds terrible.  But you only live once.  We're going to the beach in Galveston and I have no intention of doing any diet stuff while I'm there.  I want potatoes and pasta and rice and beans and milk and real bread and cookies, cake, ice cream and a Dairy Queen large chocolote with choco chunks in it Blizzard.  And whatever else comes to mind. I intend on fully blowing the diet for those 3 days and then, going on a 60 hour fast and then back on the diet afterward.  I'll probably gain 5 pounds at least during those days and I don't care.  I don't regret the last cheat - tho it took longer to get back on track than I thought it would - I won't care about this either.  You aren't going to get obese in 3 days, I can guarantee you that.

Motivation not quite there for much of anything today.  I'm thinking I have 3 days off after seeing how many trucks were in the yard yesterday and how little work is available.  I'll find out later - it's Friday and she sounds out Saturday through Monday work on Friday afternoon.

My finances are going to start looking pretty bleak if this work drought continues much longer.  That's usually the time I start looking at other job prospects.  Such as the line haul one I was asking a recruiter about the other day.  This week's paycheck will gross maybe $700 or $800 - one run on it and backpay for detention that wasn't paid out.  It's about half of net pay I should be getting on a weekly basis. This isn't the time of year that we should be experiencing a down turn in work.  I blame the new company and their bad reputation.  They may have changed their name after the 2 company merger, but everyone knows who it is.

I really think I"d like to get on with Gemini, just the daily commute would be a bit ridiculous.  Like 60 miles from here.  My company has a different division in Shreveport, that would be around 40 miles each way.  Still a lot, especially driving the vehicle I am with the fuel consumption it uses. I would have to get a motorcycle to drive to work - which I am more than a bit leery about getting back on a street bike.  Just too many idiots out there not paying attention to the road and running motorcycles over.  I also haven't been on a bike in years, that would take some getting used to, not to mention I don't even have a motorcycle license.

But still, it would be home daily work.  Either of those jobs.  There's a mom and pop company that's about 30 miles from my house that I would really love to work for - but they want minimum 4 years tanker experience.

I still look for jobs regardless of my pay/work situation just because work is up and down like a yo-yo.  It's a bit ridiculous and the fact that they keep hiring more people or bringing people in from other divisions doesn't help anything.  I should be en queue tho to getting another run rather quickly - IF - there are any runs to be had.  I don't have a copy of this week's schedule so I don't know what the load situation is.  But, on Sunday, a lot of drivers went out on longer trips so I know I beat all of them back, and there were only 4 trucks in the yard last night when I got back in.  I think I should be getting back out on the road either tomorrow or Thursday. A brownsville run would be good so I could get it on next week's check - otherwise, I"ll only have one run on next week's check as well.  That would only be around $700 gross pay - again.

Well well well.  Just found a job that pays minimum 75k per year, is a local job, home every day, 10 to 12 hours per day hauling crude oil to "injection sites", whatever that means.  High rated company from current and previous employees.  I have all the qualifications I need for  that job.  So, I filled out the app.  Hmm, maybe injection sites are new or renewing oil pumping locations that need primed.  I dunno, but I'll take that guess for $500.

Okay. Another hour and a half wasted with ATT - cell service. They tried to charge me $298 for last month, a non-happening event.  The first guy I talked to wouldn't budge.  I kind of figured that tho, they likely don't have any authority to change anything.  His manager, however, was a bit surprising.  He didn't even want to talk, he said fine, I'll hook you up with the disconnect department. After he did that? I was ready to walk.  Verizon has some deals, they have better coverage, screw ATT. But, I got to the loyalty department before disconnect, where I explained the whole situation - a third time.  I was on the phone for a long time with this guy.  It ended up I will pay what I was paying before but I will have more data.  I'm pretty sure I could get the same deal with Verizon - but with unlimited data and free hotspot.  The thing is, I still owe about 6 more months on these phone payments.

I was really trying to get them paid off first.  Then, if you want, you can bring your phone with you to a lot of other carriers.  ATT would have to sign off on it, but when they do, your phone is unlocked.  Instead of buying even more new phones, just continue on with the old ones.  And lose monthly payments on the phones in the process.  So, now that I have a "deal" - yet again - with ATT, I'll see how this works out.  The only contract I have are these phones, the rest of it I can get out of anytime. It's just ridiculous that I've had to spend so much time over the last couple of months trying to get this corrected.

That kind of soured the day.  The last thing I want to do is spend quality time with ATT customer service for endless hours seemingly on the phone.  Just not my cup of tea.  In fact, it took up so much time I won't have time to smoke a turkey today, which was my initial plan.  Just have to wait and see if I'm going out tomorrow.  If not, that turkey is calling my name.  Taylor wants a smoked turkey, amazingly enough.

So, for the rest of the day? No clue.  Probably a lot of nothing.  I keep looking at boats and I keep finding stuff that needs too much work. One guy was selling a dual engine, inboard on a very nice looking boat for $2,500.  Of course, read the fine print. Both motors are blown, making that boat veritably worthless.  I dunno how these people crack the blocks on these boats all the time, but it's an issue I will be investigating.  At least on car engines, it's pretty rare to crack a block. You'd have to wayyyyy overheat the engine to do that.

Oh, I see.  You have to drain the engine in the cold months apparently and if you don't and it gets cold enough, yup, cracked blocks. I could see that on the boat with 2 motors and 2 cracked blocks. I'm not sure I would want that boat even if it were given away.  I'm guessing around 10k to fix both of those motors.  I can see having to replace upholstery - most of the older boats people obviously don't go to the trouble of covering them up when they aren't in use.  A $350 investment to save that much money in upholstery recovering fees seems worth the effort to me.......

And there is just a bunch of junk pontoon boats at lower prices. You have to really stay on top of the ads to find a decent one - they go fast, like same day.  I don't want or need boat payments.  I'll just wait until I find the right one or just give up on it and move on to something else.  The other thing I don't want is a perfectly fine pontoon boat - but with an itty bitty motor.  Who on earth would think the idea of a 24 foot long boat should be equipped with a 25 or 50 horsepower motor? What were those manufacturers thinking?  This itty bitty little motor to power a rather large boat - and if you have a lot of people on it, it might as well be just a glorified trolling motor. There is a 28 foot pontoon boat advertised with a 150 horsepower engine, but the flooring needs replaced and the carpet.  I dunno how much of a project it is to replace the flooring, but it's probably a lot more than i want to get involved with.  Maybe if they bring the price down so I can pay someone to do it for me.

Anyway, my idea is to go out on the lake with James and Taylor when they want to - and they definitely want to. They could even bring the boys if I get a big enough boat, tho they probably would opt for a babysitter.  Bring the dogs wouldn't be out of the question on a large enough boat, either.  I would want to learn how to launch and reload the boat at the boat ramp by myself so that when they don't feel like doing anything, I can say ok, c'ya later! Hop in dogs, we're going to the lake!  Aspyn would love the water, Addler maybe not so much.  But I figure if I can get him on the boat without having to get wet he'd do it.

____________

And finally, a fruitless trip to Kroger's to get chicken drumsticks that are on sale - but they didn't have any and didn't offer any substitute or rain check. After getting that treatment from the meat department, I left the entire basket of stuff I had picked up in a cooler right next to where a bunch of employees were hanging out, told them they should have the stuff they have listed on sale - available and left the store.  Super 1 foods has a mega whatever sale where you buy 4 things of chicken and it's like $5 a piece.  So, I got 2 whole things of chicken drumsticks and the rest was chicken wings.  I didn't appreciate Kroger's attitude about it one bit and called the general manager of the store up to let him know - they normally don't treat their customers like that. 

In Phoenix, at Fry's -- which was bought out by Kroger's - if I came in for something that was on sale and they didn't have that brand available, they would substitute a different brand - always more expensive since I am always doing sale priced stuff on meat - and make the customer happy.  Customer service has slid to unbelievable lows in the last several years. I don't really get it.  Some of the mom and pop places in this town have far superior customer service.  And if they have a policy that customers might not like - usually about returns - they post it for you to see before you buy anything. 

Super 1 foods, unfortunately - cannot compete with Kroger's in terms of pricing.  And Walmart overall pricing on groceries is always more expensive on certain items, most notably meat.  Not to mention I hate going to Walmart and  limit my trips there to 1 per month, sometimes 2 if necessary.  A further strike against Walmart is they're doing away with live fish for aquariums (and ponds lol) nationwide.  Probably not a big money maker for them - and likely because they experience so much problems with sick fish.  It's just become 100% more difficult to obtain Koi fish in this region. 

Anyway, I'm getting offa here. I have, by some miracle, a Brownsville run tomorrow.  Ugh, well it's a good run but we're smack dab in the middle of Roach Check 2019 initiated by CVSA every year.  Going down to Brownsville there are 4 check stations and coming up I think there are 6.  Dollars to donuts most if not all of them will be open and doing truck inspections.  And high percentage I will get one of those inspections.  I can only hope everything turns out okay.  So far, in this company, the inspections they have done have come back clean and no negative points on  me.  It usually boils down to how you treat the trooper/s doing the inspection.  Respect them and ask them about family wife kids and the dog you will sometimes get them to give a blind eye to minor infractions. Give them a hard time, which many truckers do and to their own peril, they'll invent ways to find something wrong with the truck and write you up. 

There is an ABS light on in the truck, I turned it in, hopefully the mechanic will check it and get the light off.  Troopers will get up inside your cab and look for everything.  They'll check your electronic logs and if they know what they're doing, they'll ask for info off the logs that you have to know how to show them.  Not really looking forward to this, but, everyone is being subjected to it. 

I got to the yard 3 hours early, my manager didn't even ask for that, but she called me 10 minutes after I got there: they're ready for you. Great! I'll get this over with early and spend quality time at home.  I mean, these people are my family and they consider me their family.  That's where we're at.  Of course I stopped at Waffle House on the way to work.

And there, I got into yet another Keto diet conversation. I sat at the "bar" as I always do so I will get served faster and get out of there faster. This lady sitting next to me said something about her fat belly after I said I to the waitress I didn't want bread or hash browns.  Well, it isn't I don't want them, I just can't have them.  So I brought up low carb diet option to get rid of it. The dude sitting on the other side of me chimed right in, yea, the Keto diet!  

This led to a 20 minute conversation with this lady about this diet.  Very restrictive, very results driven.  I can't do without my fruits!  Well, you don't have to do without them forever, go on the diet for 3 months and you'll likely lose whatever you want!  It's just interesting how much interest this diet sparks - it's really spreading like wildfire.  America doesn't have to be fat and there is an alternative to make it happen without even having to exercise.  

Anyway, I get to the plant and they don''t ... have...enough...product... to load the truck.  "We're making more right now".  I'm thinking, why did you call me in here? But it was only 30 minutes and the system automatically started pumping fluid into the trailer. I've come to understand that this plant is highly automated. There are valves that have to be opened by hand, but once that's done, the system takes over.  

Anyway, got that done, back to the yard, out of there, to the Petco.  I found out today that Walmart is getting rid of their fish sales nationwide - I called the store and they told me that and that they were sold out of their remaining fish. Well I'm not going to Petco anymore without calling them first.  They sell out on Koi fish quickly after they get them in. It's a void in this region that needs to be fixed.  People want Koi, Koi aren't available.  I visited enough homes in the Phoenix area with a Koi tank set up to sell them on the side.  A 500 gallon tank, order them 200 and more at a time, sell them at a profit. I don't have time for that if work is booming,  but I know someone who has a lot of free time, needs money and could earn a nice tidy profit if the business took off.  

I was going to go back into looking at pricing on large quantities of 2-3 inch Koi and 4-5 inch Koi, but I ended up over at the cop's house next door and visiting for several hours.  He's a huge Trump fan and brought out his 45 acp that is a Trump model semi-auto pistol.  Awesome piece of metal. High quality, only 1,500 of them have ever been made  Can you get me one?  It's a collector's item.  Sure, I'll see if my supplier can get you one.Talked politics and the fact that some freaking thief siphoned gasoline out of my SUV tank overnight and left my tank empty today.

Anyway, the day is done.  I figure to get up at 6:00 am and get out on the road in the truck by 7:30 am.  11 hours is about the time it takes to get there with fuel stop and mandatory 30 minute break.  All the way through Louisiana and Mississippi, over to Birmingham and up to Decatur, Alabama. 

Well, it's been a fun day actually.  I got done so early I didn't expect to have that much time at home.  And Taylor and James took off to Walmart so I spent a couple hours playing around with the boys. Besides going to work, I didn't actually "do" anything today lol.  

Well, off to bed.  I intend on getting up at 6:00 am and getting out of the yard no later than 7:30 am.  

So, these keto strips the Taylor got me have not shown me in any level of ketosis since I started using them.  They're not the same as the ones I normally buy - I told her where they would be found in the pharmacy area of Walmart, but admittedly they are easy to miss. There is a diabetics section there that has a bunch of products all sold in the same colored box. The keto strips just say Ketosis on the side, it's just easy to miss.

Now, I wasn't sure how long it would take to get back into ketosis after that wild cheat day and literally eating hundreds of carbs.  But, I decided to go up and buy the normal strips I get.  Checked this morning and walaah! In the moderate range, which is the range I am usually in.  It's not usually either dark purple or light purple, tho if I go a bit over on the carbs it will dve down into the lighter hue, but that always reverses itself by the next day.  I'm bound and determined to get down to 186 this month - it's June 1st and get the rest of the weight off before we go to the beach. 

Okay, that might be a bit of vanity. I didn't start this diet, tho, for the beach, but now that I'm near my goal weight, I want to push forward and get this over with.  My lowest weight so far was 193.  I jumped up 3 pounds after having that extreme carb day - but never went back over 200 pounds.  I won't have another cheat day until we go to the beach and then, I'll probably do one total cheat day, the other 2 moderate cheat days and see what happens.

I''m also going to do some light working out with weights.  Nothing extreme, just sort of get my muscles back up to looking decent.  I don't need to be a muscle man, at all. Lol,  I'm actually still quite pleased with the amount of success I've had.  I'm even happier that I've talked numerous people into starting the diet.  People I know, acquaintences, people on the internet getting into my inbox - can you help me with this?  I just give them a few general sites that have recipes and plans and also direct them to a few Facebook keto groups.

Tho, those groups have both normal people in them and total trolls, pretty much like any Facebook group.  The group I have been helping manage for a couple of years - it's a political debate group with 15,000 members - I was able to clean up and throw out all of the trolls over a year's worth of time of working on it.  I said that in the group once a while back - that it took a while to get rid of the trolls and what happens?  A troll pops out of the woodwork and starts blasting me about even wanting to get rid of them.  Trolls are only there to disrupt, make fun of people and throw any good conversation into mayhem and chaos. In our group, when a troll comes in as a new member, they stick out like a sore thumb.  Our group isn't perfect, but it's a far cry better than most of them.  It was worth the effort to create a decent atmosphere for debating. Granted the hot topics always get people going - the abortion debate has popped its ugly head back up and of course people go bat shit crazy with emotion when discussing it.

I guess abortion is always a hot topic during any Presidential election.  Trump is launching his 2020 presidential campaign this month, I think this coming week.  That will ignite the maelstrom of  emotional outbursts. This upcoming election is likely to be even more fascinating than the last one.  Because the socialist movement is growing stronger and stronger, plus strong Trump hate from the left leaders and outlets such as CNN hammering down, yet again, on the same old, washed up narratives. CNN ratings are down 26%, you'd think they'd learn.  But it's nothing more than a propaganda machine.  New polls have come out showing a vast majority of Americans - not just Republicans - do not want impeachment proceedings to take place, but left leadership is hot on the trail of a Trump impeachment.

I predict that if they go that route, it's going to go badly for Dem leaders in the coming election.  They want a majority of Americans, including republicans, to go along with it before they start it - Nadler has specifically stated that - they're delusional. After the Mueller report came out and showed no collusion and no obstruction, that was the cue for Dems to let it go.  Instead, they started up new investigations and wanting to subpoena and interview the same people that Mueller has already interviewed.  Mueller himself gave a statement to the press - his bias is  glaringly obvious. He is also a Trump hater and should never have been appointed as special counsel.  Someone with no bias and would do the job without using their own prejudice to guide them was what they should have found.

But, hence, Barr doing his own investigation into the investigators.  Brannon, Clapper, Comey, Page and Strohk should be concerned, IMO, from the way Barr is talking. 

Well, I'm just kicking back and watching the s*** show going on with dems tripping all over themselves renewing outrageous and debunked accusations and key players - especially Brannon and Clapper - obviously nervous, obviously concerned. 

Meanwhile, I've another "split" run.  Today I load, tomorrow I go out with it.  Not a fan. But it shows that we are still not that busy. There were 5 loads going out tomorrow, I got one of them.  There were better runs but I'll take this one better than nothing.  Unfortunately, the schedule up in the office at the plant only goes til Monday and they don't post the new one until after Monday.  So I have no idea what's available next week.  I only know that the 2 major contracts are both fired back up, that should help get us back to normal.  Sort of. 

Ooops. It's the beginning of the month.  Sometimes I forget about credit card payments.  I have them all paid down but I still use some of them for the bonus points.  My capital one card has something like $150 worth.  I haven't tried to use it yet, but I believe you can use it just like cash for purchases.  I'm not going to use it until it has enough money on it to buy something - nice.  That might be years down the road, lol. 

Well, I have to leave early today. My manager wants me there early enough to be able to get to the plant quickly if they call and say we're ahead of schedule, send the next driver early.  I wasn't in that position last time and my manager simply told me that I needed to "be in the area" if it occurs again. Meaning I have to waste my own time sitting around waiting. This isn't a problem with most other drivers because they live in the yard.  So, if that call comes in, they can leave immediately. 

So, Happy Saturday. 

So, some stock market experts are all over these announced tariffs that Trump has declared will occur if Mexico won't step up its game again the flow of illegals coming to our borders.  Namely, the caravans they simply let travel through their country without doing anything about it at all.  I've seen dozens of videos, Federales, policia and government officials just standing there, doing nothing while thousands of them walk on by them.  Mexico could do a heckuva lot more about the drug flow into this nation as well.

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Well that was earlier. The point was potential for making a lot of money investing in stocks that dive but are highly likely to come back up.  I'm not acting on that - yet - I'm more watching the trends.  I could risk a grand on something that has that potential and see what happens.  Well I could risk a lot more, but I'm not going to jump into this like that and I'm still hesitant to do anything regardless.  I really would like to learn more about the stock market than what I already know to be able to acquire that understanding of how to invest.

But I suspect it's much like anything else, get the head knowledge, sure, but experience gives you the upper edge.  My experience is 401k and attempting to have my money invested in higher risk stock. In fact, I have very little in lower risk.  I may be getting up there in years, but I don't have near enough money saved for various reasons that I don't want to bother going into right now. 

Anyway, it's Friday night.  I got my run "for the weekend".  It's going to Decatur, Alabama.  It's 20 miles short of the distance it is to Brownsville, so the miles aren't that bad. Not that great either, but it's a 2 day run.  Or is it? Nope, I'm pre-loading tomorrow.  How does that help me? The company has a rule I didn't know about until the last trip I took that if you preload a trailer, you will get a minimum 200 miles worth of mileage pay, on top of stop pay.  Otherwise, it's 22 miles round trip which is worthless.  I'll give my manager kudos for doing as much as she can - but there were far better runs available that I obviously didn't and won't get.  Brownsville being one of them. Brownsville has the high potential of detention pay, this trip, never.

The plant in Mexico simply cannot mitigate the problem getting across at the border, so they can't stop the detention pay happening at least occasionally, tho it's more like frequently.  It costs them a lot of money, tho I hardly feel sorry for a plant producing HDPE pipe.  Some of the most expensive pipe in the industry.  I have never seen a single truckload of that pipe coming up from there, tho.  And if they are shipping it through rail cars, why aren't they getting the product we haul through rail as well? A rail car holds 3 truckloads worth and cheaper transport.  Oh, yeah, cause rail takes forever.  And who knows how long it takes to get across the border. 

Whatever, I'll take what I can get at the moment.  I'll get back faster than all those other loads going out on Sunday, I'm hoping that works in my advantage - if - the manager's statement that "first in, first out" is actually true.  A 3 day trip after this one and ending on or before Friday would go on the week after this coming paycheck.  I have no clue tho what's coming up next week as the schedule at the plant only goes as far as Mondays. 

Of course, i keep my eye on the help wanted ads.  One company advertising "dedicated lanes in your area" with no further detail.  "call or text"  I texted and the person wanted to call me back. No thanks, just text me the details.  Dedicated lanes from where to where?  It was "light unload" and saying the boxes are light but you have to unload them, and that you start detention pay the moment you back up to the loading dock. Well of course, if you are unloading you should also be getting a stop pay. 

Whatever the case, manager wants me at the yard early - in case the plant calls and moves appointment time up. I'm not particularly inclined to show up hours early for no pay for the plant's convenience.  If they wanted to pay for that privilege I would be more amenable to it.  When we're talking early, it's 2 hours plus, not 15 or 20 minutes. 

Whatever.  I'll show up early to get the 200 free miles of pay. 

Anyway, it's getting late. 

2:30 came awfully early.  I had the alarm set at 3:00 am, but I always wake up somewhere in that range every night, just happened that it was half an hour before the alarm.  I'm not much of a night driver anymore.  I really hate it.  Especially if I'm not fully rested and doing that nonsense early in the morning.  That trip should have taken less than 4 hours, it took 5, cause' Houston isn't exactly the fastest place to drive in during rush hour.  I got that truck unloaded, drove 100 miles back, pulled into a truck stop and went to sleep.

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That was yesterday.  Got that all done and then heard about work on "Sunday".  I bit my tongue about referencing the fact that it was Wednesday. Sunday is 4 days off.  The point being the really good runs are on Sunday. There are  a few good ones before then, but the yard is full of trucks, it seems likely the way she was talking that I won't be working again until Sunday.  3 more days off, having just finished a run that is rather worthless and will be the only thing on my next paycheck.  And looking at the other company that is taking a lot of the loads that used to be solely ours......

Annnnnnnddddddd....she is still bringing in drivers from other divisions??!!! To do what? Sit in the yard and not work?  These OTR drivers should be getting shipped to the hot markets where they are complaining they don't have enough drivers to cover the loads.  Not to a yard where there aren't enough loads to keep the drivers busy.

Well, I have 100 hours of paid leave time left.  I dunno if/when they expire, I need to find that out.  I'm going to use some of it up for this upcoming trip in July - if we go.  I mean, it's all set and things, but stuff happens.

I've been looking at trips to various places around the world, I found a few that look intriguing.  I also found a couple of cruises that look inviting.  I keep putting such things off because work keeps slowing down and i don't want to get caught in a financial bind. 

Meanwhile, maria declared she can't afford to live at that house anymore.  Okayyyyy......she has an offer to move to Minnesota and take care of an old friend's kids - the mother has leukemia I think she said.  I wasn't going to try to convince her in any direction. That's a decision she needs to make on her own, but if she wants to move, that's okay by me.  My dogs will survive at home, they'll just be like other doggies that are outside all day long. 

But, I asked  her what she was lacking?  She doesn't like asking for stuff, I get that, so I haven't really pushed her on that.  But she started talking about having to eat Ramen noodles and other basic necessities that she has to do without.  I mean, really.  I'll always help people with food.  If I had known I would have been doing something about that long ago.  We have 2 freezers full of meat, she is welcomed to some of it.  You have not because you don't ask........  Well, she has to get that room rented out again. The lady that moved in moved back out. She wanted to party all the time - even tho she was informed it's not a party house before she moved in.

That's a "whatever" thing. She paid the rent for the month. I need that room re-rented, tho, before the end of this month, which is almost here.  She was a bit surprised when I told her how much an empty room costs me.  It's not free, lol.  I explained to her the whole reason we got into that house, she already knew most of that info but apparently needed a refresher.  We need all 3 rooms rented out to be able to pay for it.  Well, you aren't really covering everything with 3 people in here at the rate you are getting. Nope, but it's not much and I don't mind for the exchange of watching my dogs, that's what the whole premise of this situation started as in the first place. I go on the road, Rene would watch my dogs.

But note, that Rene wanted to watch my dogs. It wasn't a chore for her.  So, Maria wants to stay, but at the same time probably needs to get a little less picky about who moves in.  Yes, we don't need nutcases but on the same there isn't anyone on the planet that don't have their little quirks.  Anyway, she said she actually wants to stay. She's made numerous friends in the neighborhood and is getting nicely settled in.  I hope this can continue to work out, but I won't be devastated if it doesn't. 

As for today, I am babysitting a sick little boy.  He isn't really that sick tho, it just started yesterday and the day care says they won't take him back for 24 hours.  I volunteered since I'm home - he's pretty easy to watch once parents are gone.  It's when parents are home he turns into the crying machine.  I dunno, but I got him cereal and juice, he's all happy lol.  Well, he's running around full of energy, so I really don't think he's sick anymore, which is a good thing because I am going to Walmart today and I may go to Kroger's and buy maria some hamburger meat that is on sale. 

Well, wish me luck. I'm off to Walmart with a 2 year old in tow, lol. 

Somewhere around 300 carbs consumed today, lolol.  That's 15 times the amount of carbs allowable on any given day with the keto diet.  Pasta salad, deviled eggs filled with carb filled contents, tortilla chips and dip, a giant baked potato, the pint (or quart? ) of Ben and Jerry's, of which I found out that thing had 4 servings and added up to 100 carbs in and of itself! lmao. In fact, it's probably much more carbs than 300.  A lowball estimate. Doesn't really matter, it kicks you out of ketoss and may take days or even a week to get back into it.

But, I am down as low weight as I have been in - in years.  I might gain a pound or two from this excursion, but probably not that much and not worth worrying about. It was planned, not a cave-in.

I got the giant planter planted, finished cleaning the back patio, brushed Aspyn - and brushed some more- and more - and filled an entire trash can full of her hair. Then I bathed both dogs.

In the middle of washing the dogs, Maria showed up with her deviled eggs and the wonderful pasta salad.  We ate a huge dinner.  Steak is great! But after not having pasta or potatoes for as long as I have gone without it?  I focused on that instead.  A nice long walk in the morning will help burn off some of the carbs.

It's been a very productive 4 days. That's over now.  I don't have to go to work until afternoon tomorrow and I am only preloading a trailer.  But I've done enough work around the house.

Aspyn is, for some reason, terrified of the ceiling fan.  She just sits there, staring at it with her ears held back and a very - bad - look on her face.

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Memorial Day shindig over and done with, Tuesday morning.  Actually, the only person extra that showed up was Maria, the other couple stayed home and "slept", but we had a good time anyway.  We tend to be able to have a good time without any outside influences, ie: more people.  Maria fits right in, she has the same type of sense of humor.

I have changed my plans for today as well. My load time isn't until 2:30, meaning I won't be out of the plant until at least 5:00 pm and possibly later.  Hopefully not later tho because I really need to be able to leave around 3:00 am from the yard with the load.  Regardless of how that goes, it seems a waste of time and fuel to drive all the way back here/home, be here for a couple of hours and drive all the way back over there.  Therefore, I'll drop the dogs off over at the other house before I go to the plant and just stay over there today.

The news, lol.  It's getting quite humorous.  It's been humorous.  Barr is expected to do real investigations and dem leaders are freaking out.  I wonder whyyyyyyy?  The left online saying we should just "drop it" and stop these endless investigations. Yup, well the right is just taking after the left, right? No pun intended.  In fact, Nadler is full steam bore onto more investigations, attempting to hold Barr in contempt of court and going after Trump's tax returns.  But we should stop these investigations?  Tell your dem leaders that and then get back to us. 

And the border. Now, the guy that started a GoFundMe for money for a border wall is actually starting the process of building it - on privately owned lands.  The left also took snipes about that one saying the money wouldn't be spent on a wall. Duhhh, is all I have to say about that. That guy would go down in flames if he were to do anything but use it on the wall.  A bunch of money has been refunded from those donations because he didn't come anywhere near a billion dollars, which was the goal and apparently a promise he made, or maybe it's GoFundMe rules? I dunno.  But, a bunch of money was kept because those donors said go ahead and keep it anyway and a single donor came along and give 6 million to make up for the amount that was refunded.  Stay tune for more: who knows what dems will try to do to stop this from happening? How can you stop a wall from being built on private land? And more to the point, why would you care if a person wanted a wall on their private property? 

And thennnnn, the freshly emerged abortion debate. Same old arguments from the left who want women to be able to have abortions into the 3rd trimester? Nope. They've come out with new ones now. Just as lame as the old ones, but give them E for effort.  Apparently abortion is going to be used as a campaign issue by some of the left candidates.  One of the new ones is a man needs to control his sperm.  They go on to say he should somehow stop it?  The argument is utterly ridiculous.  They think that because the sperm violated the woman's uterus, that in and of itself makes abortion viable.  I simply brought up the fact that the lady spread her legs and allowed that guy's penis in there and of course they tried to shoot that down.  It's interesting to see what they keep coming up with if nothing else.

And that's my take on politics.  Excepting for China and tariffs. China is an existential threat to world safety.  If you don't believe China is out for world domination, you aren't watching what's going on or you are listening to your masters of propaganda at CNN and MSNBC, among others, pumping out disinformation.  This isn't just about the 2 economies, it's also about the war chest China is building and the ever increasing in size military complex they are building, including the man-made islands they have been building for years now.  The arguments that Trump tariffs are hurting the US economy fall on deaf ears over here.  This situation has been talked about endlessly for years, if not decades and nothing has been done about it. 

Talk til' you're in your grave, at least Trump is attempting to do something about it.  China isn't our friend. They are a Communist nation that carries off their own people to labor camps with no trial or judge, they kill their own people and they beat them. They encourage neighbors to spy on neighbors and they have been oppressing their own countrymen for hundreds of years.  They want the world, that's a fact.  Don't be deceived by false news stories.  Just look at history, then look at what China is doing to build up their war inventory. 

Well, enough of that, time to be off to work!

G'day. 

4 days off, this being the 4th. Tho tomorrow is only a preload, then get up really early the next morning to drive down to Houston.  And then probably another day off at least unless these plants have reopened.  Don't really know. 

I blew the diet - preplanned - today and will resume with much more intensity tomorrow and going on for the next month or so until i can shed the rest of this fat and weight and be done with it at least temporarily.  If I can get down to 185, that's when I will switch to a low calorie diet, but not necessarily low carb.  In fact, likely not low carb.  Just not high sugar content. 

But, today? I just ate a pint of Ben and Jerry's chocolate something or another, it's chocolate plus chocolate lol.  I'm eating a baked potato for dinner with some pasta and that will be my cheating. Second time in - 2 or 3 weeks now?  Real ice cream - tho I should have gone to Dairy Queen and had a Blizzard, too late now, that was quite a bit of sugar I just consumed, I don't really want to do anymore.  The potatoes are just high carbs as well as pasta.  I'll be out of Ketosis for at least days, maybe a week or more.  So,, along with going ultra low carb after today, I'll also keep calorie intake down to around 1,200 per day. 

I actually can't wait for the baked potato : )  Load it up with sour cream, cheese, chives and maybe some bacon bits. 

Tomorrow, I will eat nothing but cream cheese, which will help kick start getting back into ketosis. 

As much as I didn't want to do anything today, the flowers we bought a few days ago couldn't wait. They dry out too easily in those little containers, they needed to be planted.  So, got that done as well as more cleaning out back.  The next chore and final for me today if I even get it done is to bath both dogs.  THAT is a CHORE.  A Great Dane that hates getting bathed - I will be soaking wet by the time it's done.  He'll sit there and keep shaking it all off and of course, all that water goes flying everywhere.  I'm debating it.  Really would be nice to end all of this activity around here and get some free time.

I finally found a boat! It was local and everything! Until I saw the size of the motor.  25 horsepower for a 20 foot pontoon boat? So go maybe 15mph with it loaded with people? BOOORRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGGG.  If motors didn't cost so much I'd just buy one of those local boats and switch out motors . I saw a 150 hp motor going for 2 grand lol.  No thanks. 

Well, I'd like to find a good war movie for Memorial Day today, but, for some reason? there aren't many on.  Didn't used to be that way, Memorial Day was one of the days where they'd load up the channels with all kinds of oldies but really goodies. 

I haven't tried smoking a brisket in a  while.  I"ve got other cuts of meat down pretty good, but the brisket remains a curiosity, as I have followed instructions on how to smoke it and have come up with dry meat.  Which isn't very good.  At all.

The last brisket I did came close, tho.  I just got done reading a site that says to cook it 12 hours at 225 or until 195 to 205 degrees.  Perhaps I'm getting it up to 195 too quick, I'm not really sure, but it takes half a day to get it there in a smoker.  Well brisket is finally on sale again, so I'm going to try this again.  Probably tomorrow.  I guess I could today but I'd have to run up to the store right now.

There is one thing tho that I read that might be making the difference: I haven't trimmed the fat off the meat down to 1/4 inch, and apparently not doing that can mean the difference between success and failure.  So, this next one I"m following the prep instructions to a T and see what I come up with.

I just didn't want to try brisket at regular price - it's not the cheapest cut of meat and if it gets ruined, it ends up being dog food.  At least there's one upside to  a failed attempt - the dogs will wolf the stuff down like it's prime rib.  Oh, I want to try smoking a prime rib.  That would be easy, much easier than this brisket thing.  Just smoke it to about 122 degrees, pull it out, let it stand for 20 minutes and walaah.  perfect prime rib.  Or pull it out earlier for redder meat.  But, not everyone likes eating next to raw meat like I do so I usually cook it til it's somewhere in the medium rare range.  Still red, still nice and tender, still juicy, just a bit more cooked.

Kroger's is having a meat sale extravaganza, they usually do the week of/before Memorial Day. The brisket is $1.67 per pound, St. Louis style pork ribs are buy one get one free (yes, I know they usually up the price of it for such sales but it's still a great deal), T-Bone steak is $4.77 per pound ( that's also a great price), I think there's something else, salmon I believe also on sale.  We're going shopping today to stock up the second freezer.  After this, I'm going to stop buying meat for a while and start working on emptying out the first freezer in using up everything that's in there.

Anyway, I may try the brisket tomorrow.  I've really got the temperature thing down pretty good on the chip smoker, it's not that hard to keep a constant temperature as long as you keep an eye on it here and there and adjust the air intake and the exhaust to keep that temp in as near the same range as possible.  Firing it up, you just have to give yourself time to drench the charcoal, light it up, get it hot and then get your chips and even small logs on it.  Walmart sells huge bags of small logs of various types which are perfect.  You put one log in the firebox, put some wood chips around it, get the fire going and then shut it up, close up the air intake and walaah, you are in the 230 to 250 temp range.

That isn't the only thing going on today, but Taylor asked if we could go together.  Sure, why not? Hopefully earlier than later tho.

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Well, yesterday was hopping. Not just to the store for meat sales, but also to Lowe's for flowers and then, I ended up buying a smoker/propane grill combo that I've been looking at for at least a year now.  Finally just said let's do it, tho she wasn't asking me to buy one. The current grill is busted, the bottom fell out of it and it's time to move on from it. It did it's duty well for at least 3 years.  Considering how much grilling we do, that's a long time for a grill to survive.  The one I bought is much heavier duty, actual steel plate versus the - whatever that thin stuff is they use on those propane only grills - and should last many years. 

But, we busted @$$ yesterday and did a massive property clean up both front and back yard.  It looks so much better out there now.  We should do that once a month and just keep up with it. But by the time we got everything done, planting those flowers was out of the question.  It was 5 pm and I had had enough.  So had everyone else. We went out to a mexican food restaurant where I had, finally, some authentic carne asada steak. I love that stuff.  The kids - mostly - behaved for that outing.

Arriving back home, Taylor apparently had a wild idea to jump right back in the truck and head over to a manicure place with James. Will you watch the boys? Sure! I was done for the day, the boys are relatively easy to watch since they mostly entertain themselves.  Shortly after they left, a pair of their friends showed up, lol.  I entertained them for an hour or so before James and Taylor finally showed back up and then absolved myself of social functions as I was exhausted. 

It's now Sunday morning.  I'm going to smoke a brisket in the new smoker, tho I need to get out there and get it going so I can get the smoker cleared out of any harmful chemicals- ie: smoke in it for a while before even attempting to throw any meat on there.  And of course the flowers to plant - later on.  They won't die if we don't get to it this morning lol. 

Yes, I have the brisket warming up to room temp in the kitchen, really need to get this show on the road.

So, the recent storm in Oklahoma shut down the plant - the entire town actually.  Highway 11 was flooded, no one was passing through there and the town's electric went out.  Like the entire town. Not that the place is that big, but still.  The plant uses copious amounts of electricity to run and I haven't seen any generators on the property.

So at least for this weekend there are no runs going up there.  To further exacerbate the situation, the plant in Mexico - the Brownsville run - is also shut down.  Something - major - in the plant is broken.  Well, there goes the weekend.  I just checked the schedule, there will only be 3 runs going out this weekend because of all of this.  Actually this is only Thurssday, so I don't expect to see another run until at earliest Tuesday. That's my guess anyway, since I just got into the yard yesterday and there were 8 trucks sitting there.  Meaning all those trucks have to go out on runs before I will get anything. 

I'll know after today what if anything is going to come my way for the weekend.  If it's a 3 day weekend - at least - well, Monday is Memorial Day and so, a holiday off.  Or, if I'm working on Monday, I get paid a nice little extra bonus.  It would be nice to have 3 days off - but not 3 unpaid days off lol.

I've grown rather frustrated with the boat search.  The only ones available in the price range I'm looking at  are hundreds of miles away.  Anything local either has too small of a motor on it or the furniture is in need of being redone and the carpet.  Why would a manufacturer of a large boat put a 25 horsepower motor on it?  That's barely enough to make the thing move.  125 horsepower or higher is better. I saw one with a 90 horse on it, but it was 300 plus miles away.  Just not worth driving that far and then potentially seeing it isn't what you expected and have wasted a good deal of time driving for nothing. 

I'm teetering on the verge of getting a couple more 4 wheelers and calling my boat search over with.  Or, not getting a pontoon boat and get a fishing/skiing combo.  They aren't as big and won't hold near as many people, but certainly would be fun. They are cheaper than pontoons as well.  At least the older versions of the same year range as a pontoon boat.  There's a couple of boats I let slip that I now regret. But, I wasn't serious about buying one at the time. The one with a 350 chevy engine that was 24 feet long and could do 65mph on the lake - that one I should have bought. 

Any good ones locally are 8 grand and higher. Just not going to spend that much money on a boat right now.  I mean, I could go into payments and such, just don't think a toy should be bought on credit. 

Well, I've been invited to have lunch at Chili's today. Can't turn down an offer like that! 

However, I have a list of things to get done on these potential days off, must get to it.

Well, stuck in Brownsville. How long, I don't know. I figured it a good sign yesterday when I saw 3 of our trucks heading up from here - and only an hour and a half away.  I thought - no way is there any trailers down there now with that many just freshly removed from their yard.  I was right, fortunately, so now I get to sit on the detention clock.  At a hotel, but of my own purchase.  They changed their deal down here, you only get a hotel if you stay a second night.  I wasn't feeling too good - 2 hours sleep and still getting over this bug - so I decided to take a stay at the America's Best Value Inn.

It's actually a decent hotel for the money. I've stayed here before on my own dime. But now, they've changed out all the bathroom fixtures from old rusty junk to new, modern looking outlets and valve handles. They replaced the entire bath tub/stall and the toilet.  The furniture in this room has degraded a bit - people obviously dumping food (or whatever) onto the couch and the chairs. That all needs a good shampooing.  But, everything else was great and I slept very nicely.

It's still early tho, I had thought about heading over to the yard and seeing if they know when/if a trailer is coming in. The dude usually has a pretty good ball park estimate.  Not always, but usually close.  The border situation hasn't gotten any better, so trucks are stuck in line for up to 10 hours at a time.

Meanwhile, the national tragedy that is known as the House of Representatives continues on with this ridiculous nonsense of seeking to find some criminal wrong doing with Trump so they can get rid of him. They aren't doing their duly elected jobs.  There have been 4 investigations now, FOUR of them, into Trump and whether he colluded with the Russians - all of them have resoundingly stated no, he did not.  Anything Trump says or does, the left calls him engaging in an act of obstruction now.  It's mind bogglingly outrageous. Thankfully, we have an AG named Barr who is going to get to the bottom of who/what/where/why this all started and I can predict it will go very high into the Obama administration.

Taylor - has been out of sorts ever since the uncle left.  I think she is seriously thinking about moving to Missouri.  I don't know what to think about that.  This is her favorite uncle and he's inviting her up there.  I think I'm just baggage that will probably need to go away and find something/somewhere else if that occurs.  Like go live on a beach or find a place in the mountains.  I just don't think I'd fit in in with that guy.  We didn't exactly clash at first, but I could tell there would be some tension.  Who knows? Would be a rather awkward move, I think.  It isn't anything on the near horizon - yet.   But, when Taylor gets something in to her mind, it is likely going to happen.  I'm just wait this out and see what happens.  The uncle invited her to come up and spend a few days visiting up there. If she does that, I'm 100% certain she'll come back wanting to move.  Just another bridge to cross in the game of life...would I move up there or just find something else to do?

After 4 Oklahoma runs in a row, the drought is over.  At least for one run. I have a run down to Brownsville.  This particular run would really be nice if there was some detention pay to make up for all of this nonsense of driving back and forth to Barnsdall and not making much money doing it.

Another plus side to not having had to go to Barnsdall today? Tornadoes and flooded roads. To the point the manager put out a mass text to everyone informing drivers that are going up there to use highway 123 - coming out of Bartlesville.  I used to take that route when I'd hang out overnight in Bartlesville instead of going to Barnsdall - where there is literally nothing but a small gas station and a restaurant that closes early. The roadway apparently was flooded on highway 11. 

And, that restaurant isn't open on Sundays, I found out on Sunday when I got up a bit early to go over and get a bite to eat.  Didn't really matter, that is the time I was starting to feel pangs of sickness which exploded on the way home and now - finally starting to feel better. 

Ahhh and watching the news there were 20 tornadoes that touched down overnight in various places and the tornado threat is still going - and some in Oklahoma of course.  I either got very lucky in not going up there or God is watching over me.  I'll take the latter.

I haven't checked the weather towards Brownsville. Not usually tornadoes going down there, but a lot of heavy rain is possible.  Uhh, yeah, I'm going to hit rain but if the radar is correct, it won't be anything too serious.  I'll hope the radar is correct - last time I hit heavy rain, well, Houston was a disaster. 

And with that, I'm outta here. 

4th consecutive Oklahoma run over.  Started feeling really bad a few hours out from the yard yesterday tho. I mean, like pull over in a rest area and sleep for 35 minutes bad.  Even after that it was a chore to make it back, get the end game paperwork done for the run and get home.  But I made it home, dogs in tow, and went to bed at 6:00 pm.  On the way into my bedroom, tho, I was informed that there was stomach bug going around.  That kinda of spoke to why I wasn't hungry.  12 hours of sleep later and I feel much better. 

Hopefully this passes completely before the day is over.  Tho, the schedule  - which is allegedly for the plant employees only to see (sitting in plain view of drivers that have to go in there and wait) - and now is sitting on the table on our office -shows not much work available for the next couple of days.  Of course, there are Barnsdall, Oklahoma runs on there, but there are always the Brownsville runs as well.  I'm still questioning this idea that it's "first in first out" nonsense and even if true, it's ridiculous that one person or even more than one could get stuck on runs that don't pay anything. 

Either way, the process is totally flawed. 

An idea that has been floating around in the back of my head for  a while now is simply to switch over to the fuel division of this company. But that would mean driving to Shreveport back and forth everyday - which I used to do with the old job - I don't miss that kind of wasted driving just to get to and from work.  And another idea - drive for Gemini, who supplies the Love's travel centers with fuel.  They run a class act from what I've seen and the drivers are making around 75k per year.  And, they're home every day.  I dunno if they'll hire without specific experience in fuel hauling tho.  They're also pretty far away for a daily commute type of thing. 

Much of the rest of the local stuff around here doesn't pay enough money to make it worth switching over to. Such as the oil job that pays $13.00 per hour!  Lmao, they guy tried to convince me that I could make "good money" simply by doing a LOT of overtime!  SCREW THAT. But, that's a taste of what the local jobs are paying around here. The really lucrative business of hauling for fracking operations means you are automatically out for 3 weeks at a time.  Staring out at 120k was temping until I found out that little piece of info.

Today? no plans whatsoever.  Sit around and get better. 

Look at boats lol.  Lots of them on there, all of the ones that catch my interest well out of my price range.  Plenty of stuff to do - always - no interest in any of it. 

Tornadoes at the town where I live.  Well, several tornado sirens, whether there were any tornados, I have no idea, but I was certainly getting people texting me about the sirens.  They went off 3 separate times plus phones being blown up with weather alerts.  No doubt about it, not the most pleasant place to live at certain times of the year, especially people that get very anxious about tornadoes, the sirens – they are a bit intimidating but they are designed for that and all the warnings that blow up your phone.

I’m not there.  In fact, all the recent tornado warning events? I’ve been out of town.  I did drive throw some seriously heavy rain earlier, but I drove on out of it.  It wasn’t a big deal tho, hardly any traffic on the road anywhere I was driving, even through the towns.  People apparently decided that on  a Saturday and with the weather? Stay home.  Fine by me!

I’m on the Barnsdall run for the 4^th consecutive trip.  I don’t actually hate the drive or whatever up here, I just hate the lack of money involved with this run because of lack of mileage. 

Anyway, driving up here? I saw 4 of our trucks heading back down – and I mean late in the day.  That wasn’t a good sign.  They can only use so much ethylene in their production.  I looked at the loading schedule – I take a photo of it every week now from the plant to see what is going where - one of those trucks would have had to been up here for 2 days.  Huh?  

Well I got up here and saw 2 of the 3 loading spots with trailers on them - meaning they are full and waiting to be unloaded.  The question is: do we get paid for waiting outside the plant when they don't have an empty trailer available?  I have no idea.  Everything has changed with this merger and I haven't had to do any wait time up here since before that merger, no clue.  My manager is off for the weekend and I'm not going to bother with this other individual running the show.  I doubt she would know, but it's not that important to me to find out tonight anyway. 

And, my bedroom is occupied again, lol.  The grandma is sleeping in there - I did offer since I am on the road tonight.  

No boats of interest yet in either FB marketplace or craigslist.  Well, there are certainly a lot of very nice units advertised, but will out of the price range I am looking for..

G'nite.

So the Barnsdall saga continues.  It will be my 4th trip up there in a row.  There were 2 brownsville runs available today and I think 3 of these worthless Barnsdall runs.  My manager stopped responding a few days and now has taken the entire weekend off, shifting this onto another dispatcher.  Wasn't worth trying to start talking this conflict with a person that has no involvement with it, so I just said thanks, have a great day after this person sent me the run. 

There is no way in hell that I just "happened:" to come in at the time that it would set me up for 4 Barnsdall runs 4 times in a row.  I don't know what the odds of that realistically happening per chance, but I'm sure it's quite high.  She does this with other drivers as well.  Now she can shirk responsibility - but note that she assigned these weekend routes, that wasn't done by the other dispatcher, the other dispatcher just sent them out via text. 

I'm beginning to get highly annoyed with this situation. 

Meanwhile, these people that installed the bathroom cabinet with sink in my bathroom did a lousy job of it. The simple plumbing set up is leaking, I don't know how long.  The set up they used for the pipes is ridiculous and dumb.  I'm going to have to change it when I get back from this run.  It didn't ruin the wood inside the cabinet - but I don't use that sink all that often so it's really no indicator of how long it's been leaking, but it shouldn't have been leaking at all.  I can only say that I only used them for that, after hearing that the main guy is an ex felon and has been stealing from my neighbors, I quit using him and ignored his text messages. 

The house has more guests. This time, a surprise visit for one of the grandmas.  The grandmas and uncle were heading to Missouri, but they had planned this over a month ago.  Bring grandma here to see the youngest son and visit for a couple of days.  She was totally surprised.  I offered my room - tho honestly I didn't feel like giving it up again after just being out of it for 5 days with her dad here.  But, they worked it out differently and I was fine with that. The uncle didn't want to stay here, he went to a local hotel to get some sleep and the grandma and Taylor stayed in the master bedroom and James stayed in the living room - James is at work now. 

She can have my bedroom tonight, tho, since I won't be here.  But, they were talking last night.  The uncle just moved from California to Missouri - and as usual for those scenarios, he's basically rich from selling an overpriced home over there and buying up property in Missouri.  He only bought 10 acres tho.  I mean, if I'm buying acreage, my desire would be at least 50 acres, but at least 25 as bare minimum.  Anyway, Taylor now wants to move to Missouri.

She looks at me,, do you want to move to Missouri?  Lol, I dunno.  I'd have to find a new job.  Not that that would be such a bad thing with what's going on here at this job anyway.  This manager is making a lot of people unhappy because she is totally incompetent.  If she really doesn't understand that what she's doing is totally unfair - handing out "first in first out" - then that just adds to the idea she has no clue what she's doing.  None, whatsoever, and word is back from other divisions that they don't do it like that.  Of course they don't, not if you want to have driver rentention.

Anyway, I travel through Missouri frequently enough. It's got some natural beauty to it.  I don't really have anything holding me here, or anywhere for that matter.  I dunno what Maria would do tho.  Taylor wants to take a vacation up there this year to see if it's anything she would want to get into.  Almost guaranteed she'd move, tho most of her friends live in these parts.  Last time they moved to Georgia and were terribly missing this place. 

I'll just let that one sit in the back of my head for a while. If I ever get out of this Barnsdall run and back up through Missouri I'll take a more realistic look at the area.  Lots of trees and some mountain areas i think.  The only thing I know is, I don't want to move to any big cities.  If they were to do that, I'd be parting ways.  The area where the uncle moved to is a very small town and the biggest town I think is St. Louis - 200 plus miles away.  So, a situation like that would have a drawback of having to drive a long way to get to an airport.  And who knows what job opportunities are up there. I don't really want to live with the uncle, either.  I don't know him at all and that's really nothing that interests me.  I like the living arrangement we have now - but we all no nothing lasts forever.  Been here, done that, things always change. 

So, moving on, I have a run today. Late start, 1:30 pm load appointment.  That puts me out very late to getting back down to Grant, OK.  I doubt I'll make it.  Depends on how I feel, really, but driving late into the night isn't my first choice, not when there is no need for the trailer back tomorrow anyway.  Maybe I'll last til 11 or midnight?  If i can make it back at least as far as the service plaza in McAlester, Ok, that would probably suffice.

Well, off to breakfast and other things before I leave.

G'day.

So, after itching and scratching and getting fleas off of me all night last night, both Adler and Aspyn have ingested $150 worth of flea pills to get rid of the damned things!  It's flea season, they're thriving, it just started with them.  Aspyn being the worst - those fleas get under her undercoat? There's no end to the endless scratching and itching.  I mean, pulling out tufts of hair to get at the flea. No, that happened with her yet. In fact, she hadn't even been scratching at all.

But Adler? Biting his flesh all night long and itching and scratching.  I do hope those pills work quickly.  I washed all the bedding in hot water and hopefully not another night of that nonsense.  Whatever. It's $150 well spend, as far as I'm concerned, cause' this only gets worse.  MUCH worse.  You try everything at Tractor Supply and Walmart to get rid of the fleas and guess what? They don't work. Not in this area.  Just nasty stuff.  The dogs got their relief, I'll have mine, over and done with.

I'm finding US and world politics to be particularly entertaining right now. Especially this Iran situation.  Iran says it can destroy our entire fleet out there with a single missile!  HIGHLY  doubtful. And wait until those fighter jets that got off of that carrier before you bombed it get back over to you with their  payload.  They'are talking clean out of their @$$es right now.  They know if they start a war with us, they are going to lose.  We won't need to deploy troops on the ground.  It will all be an air war, we'll take out all their bases and known nuke locations in a matter of a few days and that war will be over. 

And then, we have Dems wanting to put Barr in jail! lmaoooooo  Barr actually went up to Pelosi and asked her if she had her hand cuffs with her!  Lol!  Why is Barr is confident? Because the law is on his side. 

I will project right now that some heads are going to roll, the real Russian Collusion is coming, the people that wanted to take the President down - the anti-Trump FBI, DOJ and all the rest of it - is coming.  I don't know when, I don't care. But it's coming. Barr has his grip on this thing now, the real truth is going to come out and the nation should be shocked when it happens.  The FISA conspiracy will turn into the worst moment in American history.  It won't surprise me if this s*** goes all the way up to Obama.  It's already begun with Comey and Brennan and Clapper going at it.  They're nervous.  They should be.

I'll wait patiently and watch as this all unfolds. If it doesn't take too long, Trump will be vindicated completely before the next election.  I mean, in my view he already has been, but lets get to the nuts and bolts of this situation, get to the bottom of it and get this situation unveiled. Names, who did what, when and the obvious: why.  We  know why.

Back to my little slice of life, a several store hunt for specific bug killing supplies for the other house.  She -  Maria - want diatemacious earth.  Food grade, I found out, because I don't want my dogs around that stuff. Apparently food grade isn't harmful to animals or humans, the other stuff is.

And I "got into it" with my manager again today. She sent me the 3rd run in a row to go to Oklahoma.  It's a low paying trip, no one should have to go there more than twice in a row, I texted her and said fine, I'll do this one but don't send me a 4th one.  I'm not going to go into all of it because it's not worth the time to type all of it.  But, she threatened to "send me somewhere else" to which I informed her it wasn't very professional to threaten your employees with retaliation when they are asking legitimate questions - to which she replied this conversation is over, I"m going to have Tony (whoever the hell that is) take this over. 

It went back and forth, she stopped replying, I will see her tomorrow morning and we can have this conversation in person. 

It's whatever to me.  I'll find another job if I have to, that's the end of that story.  I have an impeccable safety record with this company, that's what matters. They can't use anything against me legitimately, because there's nothing to use.  I get the runs done way faster that most other drivers - which right now counts at least because we have been short on trailers.  I've followed all of their ridiculous rules, if I have a legitimate beef they should be well prepared to hear those grievances and deal with it. Threatening people is outrageous. 

I'm keeping my cool, I can say that. 

So, tomorrow, I "get" to go waste 2 days going on a trip that money-wise counts for one day. 

Whatever the case, my boat search has gone on - and on - and on.  I think I find one and then i read the fine print and say, noooooooo thank you.  25 horsepower motor? no thanks. "Project boat". No thanks.  Doesn't have titles? DEFINITELY NO THANKS. And more.  The titles are for the boat and the trailer.  Oh, I found a pretty good deal today until I got to the part about "bring your own trailer".  No. No. And no.  Boats are sold with the trailers that came with them. If they aren't, the price should reflect that and in every single case I have found? They want full price for the boat.  It's no wonder all of them I have found have been on the market for weeks and months.

I've put this boat search into the same mode I do with cars.  Take as much time as it takes. The only exception was the SUV I'm driving now.  But I know I got a good deal on it and it's in near perfect condition. There are zero dings anyone on the entire body of it.  The paint is perfect.  The interior is very good. Not perfect but very, very good. And I endeavor to keep it that way so I will get a good trade in value. 

Okay. My new grass plugs aren't exactly taking off yet, but there are green blades of grass coming out of them.  For them to die off would mean - well they claim they will replace dead plugs.  I dunno, but the information provided says it takes awhile for them to get going. It's been a few weeks?  The winter rye grass is still alive and looks like green velvet.  I hate that that stuff dies out in summer.  If it would live year round? The easiest, cheapest, most beautiful grass you need. But, the extreme heat is coming and it will definitely die.  It doesn't regrow the next cold season, either, you have to buy more seed and replant all over again.  Ugh. 

Oh! Can y'all tell me what democrats platform is? Beto getting a haircut?  Corey wanting us to become vegans?  Bernie - the rich dude that wants to redistribute wealth - except his own of course?You know, Marxism revisited?  LOL

Have a good evening. 

Well, that trip is over and done with.  I over slept this morning. I was planning on getting back at 8 am but instead it was after 10.  Not an issue with the company, tho, the trailer isn't getting used until tomorrow.  I'm off for what appears to be 3 days including today.  "My" boat was sold before I had a chance to go look at it. I knew it wouldn't last long. All the upholstery was redone on it and it had a 150 horsepower Johnson engine on it.  It was in good shape. Why they were selling it so cheap, who knows.  There's a couple more in there that look good, but they are too far away.  I don't want to drive 300 miles to get a boat.

There is one in Texarcana, but the upholstery is all torn up on it.  Costs a grand to have it redone. They want too much money for the boat. I got them down a grand but when I found out about the upholstery, no thanks.  I might pay 3 grand for it, but no way am I shelling out $4,500 for the thing.  They've had that one up for sale for over a month now.  Doesn't seem probably they're going to sell it for that much to anyone.

Ahhh. Hours later.  The entire family is back.  The refrigerator isn't working and more importantly, the AC went out.  There was a tornado over there 2 days ago and it did a lot of damage.  It's whatever to me, I'm cranking music tonight. They just got here half an hour ago, shrugs.  We've been cranking out tunes all night long lol.  I'm not doing it to spite them, not at all. I'm just living my life here with the other people here that love to play music.  This family is along for the ride.  I haven't had time off in quite a while, I'm going to enjoy it.

_________________

It started at  6:45 am. It's Sunday morning, I started this post yesterday. Kids - screaming and crying.  At 6:45 am.  I haven't had a Sunday off in a long time.  I'm pretty irritated right now.  They could have stopped them from making all that freaking noise, but they didn't.  They were running all over the house on top of that, no respect whatsoever for the people that live here.  The thing is, I was in my sleep mode - that's when I call it when I'm able to actually sleep versus waking up and laying there awake.  I tried to sleep for another 3 hours - on and off  - but I finally gave up on it. 

I'm considering going to a hotel today.  I am not going to sit in this house listening to this unending noise all day long.  Total lack of parental control.  They apologized profusely when I came out a few minutes ago - I must have had a look on my face. The look probably matches how I'm feeling.  Apologize as much as you want, tho, it's not impossible to get kids to stop crying and whining.  Or if they don't send them to their rooms. Pretty simple concept. It sure as gold at the end of a rainbow is possible to keep them from trampling around the house like a herd of cows in a stampede. 

I had plans for today, but I am nixing them. Stuff to do around the house.  Screw all of that.  Maybe tomorrow, but since they'll still be here tomorrow, I won't be able to sleep tomorrow morning, either.  They being that other family with the 2 very young girls. They have their own place now, but the AC quit working and the fridge as well.  They asked to spend a weekend here and so - here they are, on my dime actually since I pay all the utilities and wifi around here. 

I told you I am cranky, lol. 

And now they have left. Apparently they don't need to be here another night - or day.  I don't hate kids, but in this case? Good riddance. 

And I've also been sent a run for tomorrow.  I was hoping to have tomorrow off. She almost never sends me a run after Friday - she hands out all the runs on Friday to cover Saturday, Sunday and Monday. 

Life working all the time? Not such a pretty sight.  This run is going back up to Barnsdall, so at least it's not going to be a long trip.  My goal will be to get up there, swap trailers and get as far back tomorrow as i can, thus allowing myself some time at home on Tuesday.  Because apparently work is still clipping along.

Called mom for Mother's Day, just got off that call.  But I sent her flowers earlier this week and they are apparently still lovely, which was nice.  I wondered if my brothers did anything with her for her special day, but I didn't want to ask.  I figure my oldest brother probably did something, he's fairly good about that - now.  He didn't use to be, not sure what got him motivated to start giving her a little more attention but it's a far cry better than what he did with my dad. 

But I'm not going to get into that.

I'm spending the day petting my dogs, watching tv and doing absolutely nothing else. 

And with that, Happy Mother's Day to any that may happen to read this and have a great day!

Well.
I finally get the loaded trailer back to the yard.  A 3 day trip that should have been 2.  My 70 hour clock is run down to 3 hours.  That isn't enough time to do much of anything but perhaps get loaded at the plant - if nothing happens. My manager texts me after I leave the yard - don't make any plans.  I have work that needs to be done.

I texted back: I only have 3 hours left on the 70 hour clock. She replies that I'm picking up 9.57 hours at midnight.  Great, that's 12 whole hours! With loading, I spend more than that getting down to Brownsville!  And then she says I'm picking up 7.55 hours again at midnight 2 nights from now. Huh?  And?  I"m due for a 34 hour reset.  I have  plans, namely, to go look at a boat tomorrow.  It's here, in town, it's a great price, the upholstery and carpet have all been redone o the motor works fine. That's the big sticking point with any used boat.  Strong motor or not?  But a 150 horse motor! On a pontoon boat! Yes!  Oh well. If I'm on the road, I'm not going to be happy because it's almost guaranteed I'll have to do a 34 hour reset out there, on the road. Yes, they pay for a hotel while doing it, but I don't want to be in a hotel, I want to be home.  Well sort of want to be home - this other entire family is still here.

Thank God they weren't here when I got here at least. 

____________________

Friday - early - morning. Slept like a log.  I mean i really had a good night's sleep without waking up all night long.  I actually feel good lol.  But, I'm still a bit cranky about having to go up to Oklahoma today. 5 runs in a row without a single day off.  I wanted more work, but this much more? Nah, everyone has to have a day off here and there. 

I won't even have a full 14 hour clock to start with today, guaranteeing I won't make it back today.  It is possible, I think, to make it back in on day, especially considering I don't have to load the trailer, tho I do have to go to the plant and get new paperwork on the old load.  And, that load is 3 days old now.  I bet the pressure is going to be high on that trailer this morning.  I blew it off yesterday when I got back, but these are old trailers with old style insulation.

The new trailers have vacuum jackets around them, they keep the product cold much longer.  I dunno but I'm gonna fly that baby up there and they will be getting that product off there post haste, the plant I'm going to has been advised of the situation and willingly taking the product, knowing it's heating up.  When I say heating up, it means it's reached it's boiling point - I believe it's 120- , yes that's 120 below zero boiling point haha. 

Anyway, she put me - she being my manager - on a run that I should have no problem getting back on even with low hours.  It's less than 7 hours up, drop the trailer, pick up another and head straight back.  I usually end up at the casino truck stop in Grant, Oklahoma.  Whether I play blackjack or not really depends on my mood. I never do it if my mood isn't right, I know I won't win. Gambling and playing blackjack has no logical parameters for me, it's all about how I feel lol.  But, there is good food there if nothing else, so I will have a meal tonight - if - I make it that far.  I'm down 2 hours of on-duty time before I even start the day.

Right now? I'm sitting here enjoying a cup of Keurig coffee, a seemingly rare offering these days.  I always manage to find a cup of coffee somewhere, but not Keurig. 

Oh!! That family is moving out weekend!  Yayyyy! And apparently Taylor gave the guy some s*** about not doing anything around the house. Yes, he was there all day long, no, he did nothing to contribute to the household. You know, simple things like doing the dishes? Absolutely nothing.  He wasn't on vacation, he was living here. Albeit temporarily, but for free.  On my dime, actually, since all the extra usage of utilities with 4 more people living here all goes on my account.  I pay the utilities - all of them and satellite and wifi - they pay the mortgage.  I'm not complaining about that, it's not much more than just renting a room from someone else, but this dude. 

Grow up, get a life, stop acting like a freaking child.  Be a good role model for your children, don't pander to them,

Whatever.  I'm getting out of here. Get this day started, get it over with. 

Happy Friday. 

Don't forget Mother's Day coming up!  I already took care of my mom with some nice flowers : )