Lol - Highway trouble and tornadoes

Now who had the worst time?  You pick. 

Yesterday, I arrive at the plant to find FOUR trucks waiting in line in front of me.  Note that I showed up 15 minutes early, as mandated by our company.  I parked the truck looking at all of this and thought about it for a few minutes.  Get upset because the driver that is getting loaded didn't bother to text and let me know that there would be a 3 or 4 hour wait?  Or, be happy that I was getting some detention time? 

I'll be honest, it took me a few to figure out how I felt about that one, because I had to process it first.  The fact of the matter is, this run is the only one that's going to be on this week's paycheck since I sat - not by choice - for 3 full days.  Couple that with finally getting a Brownsville run and getting a late load - meaning not possible to get there the same day unless you want to drive until 5am  Literally, it would be 4:30 to 5:00 am before getting there.  I opted to take the brighter view of things and figure I would get 4 hours of detention time, as long as I could make it south of Houston, I would be okay with it. 

I didn't get out of the plant until 6:00 - by the time I got to Houston, it was a breeze. Just flew on through there.  Nightfall, I'm well south of Houston and on open highway out in the middle of nowhere.  Little towns here and there, a lot of dark highway.  And so it happened, kablaaaaaaam!!!!! Nearly pee'd my pants.  Looked out the side rear view mirror and saw sparks flying everywhere, including up at the trailer. Hey, what a great thing! Sparks flying at a trailer filled with 8,000 gallons of product that is more flammable and explosive than gasoline! WooooHOOOOOOO!!!!!

I knew instantly what it was, but you just aren't ever prepared for that noise - it literally sounds like a small bomb going off.  Tire blowout.  It blew out alright.  Steel cords dragging on the highway causing all those sparks.  Pulled over to examine the situation.  No fires, shouldn't be when you catch it right away. You usually only see fires on duallys when the truck has been driven so long that the lone tire left starts heating up and the two start rubbing together.  I've seen plenty of burned down trailers because of that - hence - every time I get out of the truck, I'm looking at all the tires on it.  You can't have fires and a tank full of Ethylene, the 2 don't mix.  Well, actually, they mix quite well if you want an explosion taking out at least a couple of city block's worth. 

I looked at my trucking app that shows where the nearest truck stops are.  Just down the road, a Love's.  I knew it was down there somewhere, but in the dark I couldn't tell where I was at.  Hardly any traffic out there, I drove the minimum speed limit - which eliminated the sparking - and got there hoping I could get the tire replaced there. We have some account through Michelin Tires - those are the only tires the company allows on the trucks - so, the Loves had to have the right tire in stock. Which they didn't.  This ordeal on the phone with this dude from the call center to get the tire replaced was ridiculous, but I won't go into that excepting to say it took well over an hour on the phone, then waiting for a call, another phone call, another phone call, until he finally got this figured out. 

Okay, I guess it doesn't help that by the time I called him, it was 11:30 pm.  I mean, I got to the Love's and I needed fuel, so I did that first before doing anything else.  Then I had to find a parking spot- of which there was none so I illegally parked next to a curb with a red line - meaning fire department restriction, no parking there - didn't care, sure as HELL wasn't going anywhere.  There was  nowhere else to go in that vicinity, the next nearest truck stop heading south was 15 miles away!  NO thanks.  Or ANY kind of parking area, just not happening.  Well, the dude finally gets it done - Love's doesn't have the correct tire and the dude that would bring one and install it would be there in 90 minutes.

90 minutes? Dang! Where is he coming from? Named some obscure town of which I don't recall the name. Well give him my phone number, cause honey, I'm going to sleep for a while if it's going to be that long.  OH, we already did,

I got into my sleeper and drifted off into a very deep sleep.  150 minutes later - I dunno why the guy said 90 minutes, why not say an hour and a half?  Maybe they way they talk from wherever he was located at - 2-1/2 hours later, the phone rings.  I mean, I was in dreamland, out for the night type of thing.  I reached in the dark for the phone, it was the tire dude.  I'm here, where do I go? I'm near the front of the tire shop, parked next to the red line, you can't miss me.  I'm not even trying to wake up, to be honest. I was out of it.  He came rolling up, parked in front of the truck - got out and said huh? 

Huh what? was my reply.  I thought you had a blown out steering tire.  I was trying to be nice to the guy, but being awakened like that out of that deep a sleep? It's a real struggle. I wanted to say duhhhh, do you SEE either of the steer tires blown out? But I pointed to the trailer - see that tire?  I clearly told this "Michelin" dude on the phone that it was a TRAILER TIRE. not a steering tire.  The guy looked at me funny, said I "brought a steer tire, it took me an hour to get here, I am not going back there to get another tire!!".  I don't blame you, I said, put that thing on there and let's get it done.  I wasn't even about to argue what kind of tire it was, even tho that steering tire costs twice as much as a trailer tire. 

I sat there dazed, just can't describe my state of mind being zonked out that hard and the phone ringing. It's why I turn the ringer off at night.  There isn't much that can happen that I would want to be awakened out of that kind of sleep for. I can think of a few things, yes, but those types of things would be life altering events that I'm really not hoping will ever happen.  One of them will, for sure.  But I don't dwell on such things as life is here in the present, someone's death is not, that's a bridge you cross when it happens.  Anyway, it took him and hour and 22 minutes to change out that tire.  I have no idea why it took him that long.  Maybe he was having a bad night, maybe he didn't want to come out at midnight, I dunno, but I was nice to him. 

It was 3:17 am when he finally got done. I know the times to the minute because I get paid for waiting and I want it exact. I don't want paid more time than it took and I don't want to get paid less time. I want the exact amount of time it took to get paid for it.  10:23 the previous day to 3:17 the following morning.  That's almost 5 hours.  That's going to add a nice chunk to the pay for this trip. 

So, I went to bed.  I woke up at 9:00 am.  An hour before I could leave legally via the ELD. See, I had done my pretrip before  I had gone to sleep for the guy to bring the tire. There was no reason to stay on the clock and I wanted to get down to Brownsville as fast as possible, there might not be a trailer down there and I will get even more detention pay. 

Well, I got out, went to the Love's, got a nice McDonalld's coffee, got a Egg McMuffin - took the McMuffin part off of it and ate the internals of it. Walked back to the truck and - noticed another tire half flat.  My gosh, what happened last night? A blown out tire on the trailer and a flat tire on the truck?  I got the tire gauge to confirm what my eyes were telling me. The tire was at 75 pounds of air pressure.  It should be at 120 pounds.  That's close to half flat.  DOT will call that a flat tire regardless.  But I don't need DOT to tell me there is a problem and it needs fixing.

Ugh. So here we go again.  I call this 800 number and the Michelin lady gets on the phone.  I envision things related to Michelin commercials lmao, I have to entertain myself, this stuff otherwise would be nauseating.  After all the rigarmoroo, I say "Look I'm parked right here next to the Love's in Hungerford shop, I'm pretty sure this tire just has a leak, nothing serious.  Can we do this here without having to call some dude from Netherlands here to fix it?".  It never works that way with large trucking companies.  They have protocols and the call center people will stick to it regardless. 

Well, I wasn't on the clock yet so I didn't care as much.  Get this nonsense fixed and get on the road, but don't take my hours away trying to get the damned thing fixed!  After a lot of shit, and going into the shop itself, showing them the numbers and such, this lady I was speaking to called them, the dude put it on speakerphone.  What do I need to do to make this happen?, she said.  Good start.  They read off everything that they needed to authorize the work that I had already given them. 

Turns out, it was just a nail.  Nothing serious, tire didn't need to be replaced, but that took an hour and 22 minutes from time initiated to get it fixed - until it was fixed. 

It's 11:22 am.  I know this out of memory because, as last night, I have to keep track of actual time spent.  Nooooooo, it was 11:23 am when it finished, 10:02 am when I got this ball rolling.  It all pays, is the point.  I contact my interim manager.  yada yada yada.  Okay, well I may need you to go to Baytown to pick up a trailer.  Huh?  We need one for tomorrow load. I didn't laugh at her, but the fact of the matter is, I had enough hours to make it to Brownsville, drop the trailer and maaaaaybe make it TO Baytown, but not even thinking about making it back to the yard. 

It's then she informed me that as far as she knew, there are no trailers available in Brownsville.  Yayyy!  I drove the 302 miles down here and sure enough, no trailers. The man that runs the place - speaks very broken English but intelligible enough to understand - tell me no trailers today, there will be one coming tomorrow. It will arrive in Matamoros - the town on the Mexican side of the border at Brownsville - but it will take alllllllll day for it to cross. As I have said before, the mess that is going on at the border with the unprecedented numbers of illegals trying to cross has strained the manpower down there. Works to our advantage if we want detention pay - which I do.  I am guessing I won't be leaving here until 3 or 4 pm at the earliest tomorrow afternoon. I got here at 4:25 pm, which means somewhere close to 24 hours worth of detention pay.

Yes - this, again, is the only run going on this paycheck. As long as I get it turned in sometime Friday, I have it next week.

So, that was MY day today. What about THEIR day? Where I live? My friends in Marshall?

Taylor had texted me via FB Messenger "what a day!".  I had no idea what she was talking about, agreed with her tho considering what I had been through with a night ending at 3:30 am.  She sent me pics. Tornadoes.  I mean, these were TORNADOES touching down!  WTH!!!  In OUR little tiny town!  She said those sirens went off and they ALL went into my bathroom and got into the shower stall. 

It's the safest place in the house.  Actually, they don't really need to get into the stall, just get into that room and shut the door.  It's a small bathroom, the structure is built tight around it, it's got more strength to it than anywhere else in the house and less vulnerability to a roof caving in. There are no windows in that bathroom, another plus. The tornadoes did some damage too and there are wicked cool photos that were taken of it- I posted them in a post about my tire ordeal on my FB.  Probably should just put a separate post up cause those photos are crazy! 

I can tell you,  whatever my tire ordeals were? I would far rather endure that than tornadoes.  The power was out 13 hours.  13 hours of all my frozen food in the freezer - starting to thaw  But, they never opened the doors on either freezer after the power went out so I"m hopeful the food is still good.  Those things powered back up an hour ago, I suspect they're still running now trying to get the temp back down. At 5 degrees, I don't really think they got up above 32.  Not considering how full both of them are - more food in a freezer means less time the compressor has to work keeping it cold in there - and in this case - a lot longer time for the freezer to get up to less than freezing temp. 

Which - for as often as the power goes out there - validates my need to get a generator.  3,000 watts should do it.  Run one freezer, unplug it, run another, unplug it, plug in the refrigerator.  Meanwhile, run the AC in my room - there is enough room for everyone to hang out.  If it came down to it, we could all sleep in there.  My AC runs off of 110 and keeps it quite cool in there.  James and Taylor could have the bed, the boys could have the couch and I would just sleep on an air mattress.  It isn't ideal, but I can't have my food being threatened by this nonsense again.  There must be at least a thousand dollars worth of meat in those freezers, not to mention everything in the refrigerator. 

I take having-enough-food-in-case-of-emergency seriously. Hence freezers full of meat. But weather, jeopardizing that? No more. 13 hours, even with them full and no one opening the doors was enough for me. Several recent incidences of the power going out, not for that long, but I've had enough of debating in my mind whether it would be worth it.  It's also quite humid out, my room could serve as a relief from that. I was talking with my cop neighbor - I don't say that in a disrespectful way, btw, I really like this guy, he's cool as heck - who was lamenting about the electricity being out all day, his wife not happy and noting that it wouldn't come back on until 10:00 pm.

Look, tornadoes.  I get it. Mother Nature.  Sure - and there are ways to defend yourself against this.  We live in an area where tornadoes hit a lot.  Got it.  Time to do more to minimize the effects.  I'll be looking for generator pricing as soon as I get done with this post, actually.  I"m sitting in the yard at Brownsville. They changed the hotel policy - now you can't get a hotel room until you've been here a second day.  Pretty much eliminated hotel stays down here.  Now, if I would have been able to get down here last night - no way possible - but if I could have - I would be in a nice hotel room right now. 

Oh well. I thought about getting my own room, but didn't want to waste the money. 

It's been an interesting 24 hours. 

Lol.
I arrived at the yard today and walked into the office, one of the drivers about s*** his pants.  What, what, what are you doing here?  I mean, are you loading today?  Yup.  Welllll, what time?  2:30 appointment.  I dunno what he was thinking, but he was scheduled for the appointment before me. I had shown up early.  Well, he got up and went and got in his truck and took off.  He wasn't late or anything, but it was apparent I wasn't going to get to load early - at all.  20 minutes before my load time, I left the yard as well.  Like an hour and 20 minutes later. 

Lol.  Upon arriving at the loading rack, I was greeted with the sight of fully 4 trucks sitting there ahead of me. One getting loaded and 3 waiting.  It was already 2:30, I figured I would be at the plant until 6:30, I was off by 23 minutes on that guess.  At 6:07 pm, I finally got out of that plant and headed down the road.  That is a very late start to be attempting to get much of anywhere.  My only goal? Get south of Houston today.  Well it's past midnight now, so that was yesterday.  And  did!~ easily I might add, that late at night there is very little traffic on Houston freeways. 

So I'm toodling along, about 30-40 miles south of Houston, kablaaaaaaim!! Look out my mirror, sparks flying everywhere, was dark, couldn't see what it was but knew instantly it was a blown tire.  Of all things to have happen this late at night.  I was planning on driving another 100 plus miles down the road before I stopped.  I had no intention of making it to Brownsville - I'd have to drive til almost 5:00 am to do that. I just wanted decent miles behind me.

Instead, I was stopped on an overpass with very little shoulder room, got out, found the flat instantly, said the heck with this, got back in the truck and drove 45 MPH - minimum speed limit out there - until I got to the Love's travel center 12 miles away.  I kept my eye on the blown out tire the entire time. Any sight of smoke and I'd just  have to stop it on the side of the highway and have a service truck come out there. 

Upon arrival here started an unbelievable ordeal with my company in order to get the damned thing replaced.  Call this number, they send me to another number, which is a separate company that deals with breakdowns and tire blowouts.  I was literally fooling with this guy on the phone for an hour in waiting for him to figure out how to do his job.  He hangs up one me, calls me back 15 minutes later:  the Loves doesn't have the right tire, a service tech will be there in 90 minutes.  OMG.

How does Love not have a standard trailer tire? 11R 22.5 - it's a very common truck sized tire.  Of course, the answer is: my company insists on using Michelin only tires and Love's didn't have one.  They had 11R22.5's, just not Michelins. At that point? I gave up on driving any further today.  Then, the dude puts me on hold, gets back on.  Umm, can you move the truck somewhere else?  I mean, I could but I really don't want to.  Well, let me talk to these people again.  Just ridiculous amount of time to get a simple tire replacement accomplished.

And so now? It's past midnight, I have to wait that 90 minutes for the dude to get here to replace the tire.  I'm sooooo tired!  I'm going to go to sleep anyway. They have my number, they are going to call when they get here.

So, I started walking again today.Gonna try to do it every day for a while, just 25 to 30 minutes worth.  Took the dogs to a giant doggy park which is hardly ever used by anyone.  The dogs get to run their legs off and I get to walk a brisk pace in giant circles until the time is up. It's easier to walk the dogs off leashed in an enclosed environment than walking them with leashes. They get exercised much better.

I also started pumping iron again a few days ago.  Nothing serious or going on for hours, about 20 minutes worth.  My arms just started getting sore today.  Meaning I'm out of shape lol. But, I had to cross this bridge. I knew dieting, no matter how effective, would not be the end game.  Cardiovascular and muscle training needed to eventually be added to it. When I was working at Ferguson, I was getting a lot of exercise and lifting a lot of heavy items every day at work.  This job now - nothing like that at all. The worst I have to do is stand out in boiling heat or pouring rain to unload.

So, my arm muscles especially have deteriorated and I am not liking it.  It doesn't take much to pump them back up and keep them looking good.

Okee dokee.  2 things I don't want to do today I just scheduled.  Addler at 1:30 for heartworm shot and dentist at 3:00 to get this broken crown dealt with.  I'll be quite curious about whether they are going to try and make me pay for a new crown all over again - I'm still paying off the debt for all of that work from last year as it stands.  I just hate doing any of that stuff.  The dog especially - he hates needles and he growls at everyone once they stick him. That and the fact he almost always refuses to get on the scale.  They have to weigh him to determine how much heartworm medicine to give him.

Tho ballpark he's around 140 range right now.  He's been given too many treats lol and has gained some weight.  Another reason I wanted to get him and Aspyn to the doggy park, get them healthy again as well.

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The brined, smoked chicken turned out very nice. I was keeping a good eye on it. Not that I wasn't with the turkey last week. You can only do so much.  But I have come to the understanding now that with a large bird, you need a much larger smoker.  Where you can get the bird away from the heat of the firebox. This whole thing about smoking is a learning experience.  I also had a rack of pork ribs going on the propane grill side and those turned out perfect. Just had one burner on, keeping the temp at 290 degrees until it was done. Juicy, fall of the bone tender ribs. I had them around 190 internal  degrees.  It doesn't sound right, but with those types of ribs, you have to get them heated up internally, nicely, to get the tenderness you want when you bite into a rib and the meat falls off the bone.

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Tuesday morning. After not getting a run  for today - yesterday - I texted the interim manager. I've been off 3 full days, I need some work.  She said she had a run for me but there was no paperwork sent to her on it yet.  Going to Brownsville.  Cool, I thought, I have a decent run at least.  Until I found out it's a 2:30 this afternoon loading appointment. That's very late.  Brownsville runs are always 1st or 2cd load. The late load means I likely won't make it down there today for I am not one to drive til 2 or 3 am.  I have done it a couple of times, but I doubt today I will be doing that.  Drive til around midnight, stop somewhere for 10 hours, finish out the run, drop and hook up to a trailer if one is available and head back.  It will take 3 days to do this run.

It's been a week and a half or so since I was down there - and there were fully 5 empty trailers sitting in the lot. I have doubts there will be any detention time on this run unless they simply haven't brought up any more empty trailers - which is highly doubtful.  When possible, my manager will send a driver down there bobtailing (no trailer) and pick up an empty.  But she's not in for 2 weeks. It's whatever, I guess, to me, but it's going to be the only run on next week's paycheck, so that's going to suck without any detention. 

Oh, I found a boat! told them I would buy it - and - they sold it to someone else that had gotten their bid in on it before me.  Lol.  Happens every time. I just don't see the new ad in time before someone else sees it and snatches it up.  I would have gone 12 miles up the road, bought it, had it parked here.

Next time?  Lol, off to the races. 

Well, it figures I'd get a good week's work and then - get 3 days off.  2 days was good - yesterday and today - tomorrow? Not so much.  I don't want 3 days off unless I'm on vacation.  In the local work force, 2 days off is the norm.  After that, you ask for the extra day off. I'd love to never work again and go traveling around the world.  yeah, money is the issue there.  If I don't get a run sent to me by 3pm tomorrow for Tuesday, I'll be contacting this person about what's going on.

Lol.

I got up at 9 am today.  I was going to sleep even longer, but it just was enough.  I got up, took a shower, got a cup of coffee and then? the power went out.  Lol, Happy Father's Day!  Everyone came filing outside, the kids at the door, the 4 year old saying how creepy it is being in the house with no lights on and why won't we fix it?  I tried explaining it to him several different ways, he did finally grasp the concept that we were incapable of fixing the problem, that would have to be done by "the power company".  Of which he tried to say the word company at least a dozen times.  He tried lol.

We ended up leaving.  We were going to anyway.  IHOP for breakfast.  Then - back home - but that plan changed on the way back and we ended up in a bit larger town about 30 miles away.  We went to several different stores.  And wandering through the mall.  It was fun to do something different.  I would have rather gone fishing on the boat I still don't have, but that's a different story.  They would have, too, actually.  They want to go fishing as it stands, sitting out on a lake would make that a much more fun proposition.

Anyway, my son and his wife sent me a gift certificate to Texas Roadhouse, so we ended the day there. The boys were getting a bit cranky - they didn't get their nap - at all today, except Jaxon - the 2 year old - slept the entire trip back home.  IT was raining all day long to boot, but that didn't stop us.

We had a good day despite the rain or the power outage or the fact that ATT shut off my phone service - bill was paid a week ago - it's whatever.

Tomorrow - continuing on with experimenting and attempting to learn how to use this new smoker and the grill.  It's just a different dynamic with a half barrel concept that I've never tried before.  A lot less heat needed to get good results, I'm thinking anyway.  I've been brining a fryer - chicken - for almost 24 hours now. I was going to smoke it today, but we did other things as mentioned above. My reading says that you can keep it in the brine up to 48 hours.  So that will be fine.  I've also got a rack of ribs defrosting and will lightly smoke it and then low heat grill it.  I'll figure this all out sooner or later, but definitely going to use the cheaper, on sale meats to get that knowledge versus trying to smoke expensive cuts of meat and potentially ruining it.

Oh, and I made an offer on a huge "barge" - they have a lot of different names for pontoon boats - this one needs a new floor. I've offered them a grand less than their lowered price. They have had the thing up for sale for something like a month and a half now. At least.  I don't expect them to take that offer right away, but I do expect that if nothing else comes their way, they will potentially take it.

Police excitement!

My next door neighbor is a cop. I'm sure I've stated that on here at least a few times.  Well, he was out on his front porch so I mozied on over and sat down to have a chat.  Well, he's got his police radio on and listening to this chase going on over in Louisiana.  It had caught his attention because they were headed to the Texas border and potentially, that chase could come all the way through our town.

So we're listening to this thing go on for quite a while.  The dude was driving a stolen SUV and a cop had tried to pull him over in Shreveport, I think.  Anyway, they tried putting out the stop strips that flatten your tires, he got around them. They tried again on I-20 near the weigh station - somehow he managed to get around them again.  Well, this guy gets into Texas.  Now we're listening to this insanity with this guy driving the wrong way going 100 mph - presumably to avoid any more spike strips, but also putting a lot of people in harm's way. 

As we're listening, he starts talking about getting his 12 gauge shotgun, going out on the interstate and blowing the tires off - I can assure he was dead serious and he's been doing this for 30 years.  This person is getting closer and closer to the main highway that runs through our town.  Let's go!  Let's take your SUV!  Okay! YOU drive, not me, lmao.  So, we get into my ride, he starts driving 80-90 mph to get into position in time on the Interstate to be able to get that shot off.  Well, this dude turns onto the highway going through our town and starts driving northbound in the southbound lanes. 

I dunno how fast he was going, but my cop friend flipped a uey and guessed the guy would head down highway 80 once he got there - so, we got to 80 and were going to wait.  Sure enough, the guy turned onto 80 - but - he crashed into a vehicle in the intersection while turning, totaling that other person's vehicle and having a dozen various agency police vehicles on his tail, they had him and the passenger arrested and hauled out of there in no time.  I was going to get my video rolling and video him shooting out the tires on that vehicle, it almost happened lol.  Well, went down to the scene of the accident and parked in a Walgreens right there at the corner and watched for a while. 

He knows all of those cops from all of those agencies out there, save the 3 Louisiana State Troopers that stayed on that guy's tail.  Turns out both occupants of the vehicle had felony warrants on them - in Texas. 

It was a bit of excitement.  I don't know why people think they can out run the cops.  They made their situation worse by putting other motoring public lives in danger. 

He did not get the bank vice president job.  He was being seriously considered - besides being a cop he's also a banker - but they chose someone else.  So, he's definitely running for Sheriff next year, campaign starting early next year.  He has a lot of support from a lot of rich people that want to get rid of the current Sheriff.  I dunno how that's going to pan out, but it will be exciting, I think, to see small town antics going on around here.  He was talking about having me run around with him going to scenes and getting in on some of the excitement.  I do think that would be fascinating, especially hanging out with the actual sheriff of the county? lol. 

Other than that, I have done absolutely nothing today and I don't feel bad about it.  Well, i did go to Walmart and pick up an order Taylor made.  You can order everything on line, pay for it and then they get it ready for you, you just come pick it up. 

Well, tomorrow off. That's a granted cause I haven't received anything and it's 10:00 pm.  I suspect I'l be back at it Monday. But a good 2 full days off is nice after a full week's work.  Tomorrow, I'm smoking a whole chicken fryer.  It's brining right now. 

It was 4-1/2 hours to get up to the delivery plant today.  Eastman - the plant where I load - had a frozen pump. When I arrived at the plant and got to the loading rack, the first load was still sitting there.  Upon observing the lines hooked up the truck, there wasn't any frost on them at all. That was a very bad sign.  If the product is going through those lines, it looks like it's covered with snow.  The temperature of this stuff is well below anything nature provides us, it could be 150 degrees outside and it would still frost those lines.

Anyway, that screwed up the rest of this trip.  Not to mention a bad accident in Little Rock that had traffic backed up for miles and miles on both side of the Interstate.  Anything that happens, affects that time I will arrive at the delivery location.

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Lol, that trip is over, I'm home, dogs in bed, a cat that loves to hang out with me -not my cat but this one makes me rethink cats.  It actually likes me. It lets me pet it like I pet my dogs.  It refuses to be picked up, but that's okay, I don't pick my dogs up normally either. 

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Try this again!  It's now Saturday morning, at least today off, maybe tomorrow as well.  Not sure about that tho. I knew I'd have today off because I only have 10 hours left on my 70 hour clock which isn't good for any trip, even a short one.  I could pre-load a trailer I guess, but that's it.  But, they could technically send me out Sunday since the 34 hour reset will be done by Sunday at 4:00 am.  I'd rather stay home a couple days, but I am not going to ask for it. The yard was almost empty of trucks - a thing I hardly ever see anymore, so I'm guessing they're going to have me back at it quickly. 

For some reason, we are getting the Morris run again. They were giving that to another company - losing that account is part of why we started sitting around alot.  It's the run I just got done with and it's a very good paying one.  With 1,700 miles round trip, plus stop pay, plus around 7 hours of detention pay, yea, that's a profitable 3 days, at least in my world it is. There were 3 of those runs this week, plus a bunch of Mapleton runs, some Stryker runs and a couple west virginias. All of those are excellent paying runs, some better than others but I wouldn't complain about getting any of them. 

And in a new turn of events, one of the household cats has decided it likes me and now jumps up in my lap.  That cat's been around at least a year or longer and has pretty much avoided me until lately when it decided it would rub up against my legs and seeking attention.  I'm not sure what to think of it.  I used to be a cat person when I was young, but I kind of got away from cats altogether and just have dogs.  Addler is extremely jealous of the limited amount of attention I have given the cat lol. 

No great plans today. Taylor wants to go to a movie - hubby is at work all day long today.  He's been working Saturdays a lot and bringing in some pretty healthy paychecks to show for it.  Which is good, they are going to need some extra cash for our upcoming vacation.  I will too, for that matter, but I already have that covered.  Taylor has an agenda including going to some giant aquarium and some thing on a pier.  I decided we should go on a boat tour - no whales but they claim a lot of dolphins out there. Just a 2 hour tour and you're back. That way if I get seasick at least I'm not stuck out there for the entire day.  If the waves are choppy and the boat starts rocking sharply from side to side, that will make me quite sick.  Even with the pills, the patches, all of it, I've tried all of it and the only thing that works is to drink copious amounts of alcohol - I'm not a fan of getting drunk but I did drink quite a lot on one of those sport fishing trips in San Diego.  I was getting sea sick and there wasn't any remedies.  I actually felt fine after about 4 beers lol. 

My legs are white as sheets so I'm going to start wearing shorts around the house and get some sun on them.  I should have started doing that last month but it just never crossed my mind until I thought about being out on the beach - and have these glaring white legs.  Lol.  Not that I will be self-conscious about it if I didn't do anything, but I thought I'd like to look at least half decent.  My weight is still below 200 pounds, I'm going to do a bicep work out today, an intensive one and get my arms pumped up again.  It only takes about 30 minutes and then don't work out again on those muscle groups for at least 3 days. 

Oh, anyway, we're taking the kids to Maria's for her to babysit and then to the local theater.  matinee price is $5.00 lol.  After that probably go get a bite to eat - she likes to go out away from the kids.  They're still very young and they clamor to her all the time,  crying, making demands, wanting attention - you know, the normal stuff kids do at that age.  I'm being very quiet this morning - if I'm home on Saturday or Sunday I always make it a point to tip toe around the house in the morning, those kids can sleep as long as they want to, no one will be bothered by that lol. 

I had thoughts of smoking a chicken today, but I forgot to get one when I was at kroger's yesterday, and I'm not smoking any birds again without brining them overnight.  Just doesn't turn out as juicy if you don't brine them.  I won't smoke another turkey, anyway, until I get at least smoking a chicken down first. Turkeys are flat too expensive to waste on experimenting on how to smoke one.  I am still shocked that Taylor at almost all the blackened skin off of that thing. I had no clue she would eat anything like that - but admittedly, that was the best thing about that turkey.  But it turned out dry and I knew I should have brined it first.  Oh well, live and learn. 

Oh, and I applied for my first real bank credit card.  Well I guess Capital One is a bank - they have locations over in Louisiana all over the place - but it was "suggested" by Credit Karma to apply for a Bank of America card with "excellent" approval odds.  Well, every time it's said excellent odds, I've scored.  Not this time!  Bank of America came back with a "we need to further review" and that almost always means they are not going to give you the card.  Meanwhile, Wyndham rewards sent m an offer for a card in the mail.  I'm looking for a card that gives travel rewards, specifically.  Wyndham is the mother company of all kinds of hotel chains including La Quinta, Ramada, Microtel and a bunch of others.  La Quinta is my favorite of their chains, kind of pricey tho.  You never see it lower than in the $90 range regardless of what day or time of year it is. 

I've also been pre-screened for Wells Fargo, but I kind of hate to try again and not get the card.  My ongoing credit issue - even tho I have a much improved score now - is the late mortgage payments in 2016.  They are still counting that against me and unfortunately, I found out they can use it against you for up to 7 years.  Lol. 

Now then, a boat.  2 of them I've been looking at for a month now.  Obviously they aren't selling. One of them has a 3.0 mercruiser, inboard motor that needs no work.  The other is a 28 footer with a 150 horsepower outboard motor - but the floor needs replaced and apparently they tore it down to replace it and never finished the project.  They wanted 5 grand for it - and have over the span of having the thing up for sale time brought it down to 4 grand.  I offered them 2 grand cause I don't want to replace the floor, I'd just take it to a shop and have someone do it for me.  I'm not exactly a "boat person", tho it's probably not that difficult.  Regardless, I won't give them 4 grand for a boat in the middle of a project.  I might go 3 grand, but that's tops.  The people selling the first boat aren't exactly that motivated.  I asked them how fast it would go on the lake - kind of boring if it's too slow - she said she would find out 2 days ago and has yet to get back to me. 

It doesn't need any work and she's come down to $3,850 - from original asking price of 5 grand. Still in the "thinking about it" stage.  And with that, I'm done here. 

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?