Arriving at Galveston beach, the hotel let us in early.  No time to waste, Taylor had her itinerary and we weren't in the hotel 10 minutes before she had already ordered a Lyft ride to Moody Gardens.

Pretty cool place. We spent 5 hours there I think.  We saw everything there is to see.  Didn't quite do everything, but that's just because the price goes way up.  Like the zip line. $35 just for that.  We did do the rope course tho. It's 4 stories tall with varying degrees of difficulty in crossing solid platforms to much more difficult ropes that you are "standing" on.  I did that for an hour, lol, and regretted that.

Not because I fell off, but because my legs were very sore!

Oops!

I may have lost weight, I am still not in any kind of "great" physical condition, not like I used to be anyway. It was fun tho. Going through the aquarium and the rain forest was also pretty cool. Well, cool in the aquarium, very warm in the rain forest! Oh, and no  one got drunk. 

Yikes. Just got out of the shower, they are already texting me for breakfast at Denny's. Sounds wonderful! 

I only know today's agenda has some shopping in some touristry type of location in town. Other than that, well, I think she wants to go to Pleasure Pier - it's an amusement park on a pier - I want to walk over to the ocean and sleep on a towel?  And maybe actually brave the waters and fungus junk and get wet?  

Who knows!

Here.....we.....go!!!

Last night? Supreme pizza night.

I decided vacation officially started last night and had a pizza to celebrate.  Well, I had 3 slices of pizza, the rest I gave to James. I can't eat more than 3 slices before bedtime - I'll be awake all night long.  I have no idea what it does to my system, but whatever it is, sleeping will not be part of the equation.

And sleep I did! Until 5 am when James got up and shut the refrigerator door hard. I managed to get back to sleep until the kids - woke up at 6:00 am.  They never wake up that early. But grandma is here and she is taking them to her home in Arkansas to watch them while we're on vacation.  There was no getting back to sleep. I was planning on getting at least 8 hours of sleep today, that turned in to 6 hours and oh well.

So, they just left.  Taylor and I will be heading to the bigger town 35 miles away to do some shopping. James is at work.  She has some stuff to buy at Kohl's, I want a plain ole' beach towel and a couple of cheap beach style T shirts.

__________________

Vacation day has arrived. The alarm went off at 6 am and abruptly woke me up out of a rather strange dream and deep sleep.  I had driven a truck to some sort of encampment. Was filling in paperwork when Addler appeared out of nowhere (my Great Dane).  What are you doing here? How did you get here?  He wasn't in the truck with me. After that, there were a few faces from the far past appearing in that dream, none of really made any sense.  Then again, a lot of dreams are weird and seem to have  no specific meaning to them. 

Anyway, I forced myself out of bed - I could have easily gone straight back to sleep - took my shower and demanded to know if everyone else had also awakened with me?  Yup, they were already up. Got the dogs, walked out the front door and saw.....James truck with a flat tire.  What a lovely way to start vacation! 

Whatever the case, there was a good spare underneath the truck and a full size tire at that, not one of those worthless donut tires, so he put that on while I took the dogs off to Maria's place, who in exchange handed me a huge plastic container full of these wonderful, mini cheesecakes.

I can see I am destined to gain 10 pounds on this trip.  No worries. I will go on a 60 hour fast after I get back and kick start ketosis again.  Ok, I'm not hoping to gain that much weight, but I bet it goes up 5 pounds. 

I'm not abandoning the diet but I am taking a much needed break from it. So far I've had a hamburger with the bun, lots of potatoes, a sugar filled coffee drink and a few other things.  Today, Im not really sure, but I hope breakfast includes hash browns. 

We've come to the conclusion that we're not going into the ocean.  Yet another case of that flesh eating bacteria has surfaced, this time a woman from California whose foot was eaten down to the bone. Rather disgusting photos of it too.  There is a huge pool at the hotel, we'll go swimming there. 

I'm ready to get this trip rocking and rolling, just waiting on them. We should have left 25 minutes ago, lol, but the flat tire kind of threw a monkey wrench into the mix. 

Oh, I should add that Taylor decided we were going to Longview yesterday.  We had lots of fun going around to different shops looking for things for the trip.  Not that I spent a lot of money, but I was along for the ride. As long as I'm not driving, I don't really care.  Of course, the state of Texas hasn't sent me my new license, so I'm stick with this paper license. They just give you a plain paper, 8X11 "license" while you're waiting for the new one.  It looks rather worthless tbh.  I wonder if any place would actually take it as ID.  I have my passport with me in case I run into a snare. 

Well I"m cutting this one off. I hope we leave soon cause' I intend on going back to sleep for a while after we get rolling. 

The end is coming.

The end of work for 5 days anyway, lol.

My first diet free meal will be on friday, and I want it to be a Schlotsky's sandwich.  But it could just as well be Denny's with everything I normally get, but add hash browns and toast to the meal : )

The hotel we'll be staying in - La Quinta East Beach Galveston - has okay reviews, not great but not terrible either.  I thought it was worth an extra $20 per night to stay there than the place they wanted to which was cheaper - but had terrible reviews.  Focusing in on "the AC doesn't work in my room" which was repeated in numerous reviews of the place, no thanks.

Other, nicer hotels were much more expensive. I would have paid it, but I understand they're on a budget.  Regardless, the ocean is right there, I mean, you walk out the hotel and turn towards the ocean and there is the beach.  Some reviews also said there are very nice restaurants within walking distance. I promised them again yesterday that I won't be driving, at all, thanks : )A vacation for me necessarily means no driving. I mean, if I were driving to an airport, of course but I really don't want to be driving anything.

_______________

Okay then.  I ended up going to the dentist.  I had that crown break off almost 2 months ago and finally have a day off, they got me in there and put a temporary tooth in there until they can get the crown made.  It looks a heckuva lot better than what was there before I walked in there! And, I don't have to pay for the new crown, as well I shouldn't.  But in this world in the new era of greed and lack of business ethics in the corporate world, I wasn't holding my breath.

I've got an appointment to go and have the crown put on the day after I return from vacation - I took an extra day off for recovery. Not really interested in doing that on a day off, but, it needs to be done. I'm having 2 more crowns put on the lower front teeth as well to fix that mess. If I'm doing it, might as well do it all!

After that, the bank - deposited a grand I've been saving up cash for the trip, but put it into savings account. I just can't deal with "reserved" money in my checking account, if it's in checking, it's fair game for bills.  Over to Chili's for lunch, my local hair salon for a cut, Kroger's to get Marie the stuff to make homemade cheesecake, over to Marie's to deliver the stuff and finally back home.

I was happy the dentist got me in - someone failed to show.  They asked me if I could be there at 9:30 - am - and I looked at the clock, it was 9:17. Lol, I wasn't even dressed but I said yes! I'll be there! Rushed into the bathroom, cleaned myself up, got dressed and - well -the dentist office takes 3 minutes to get there so I was there on time.  Now I can go on vacation without this ugly front tooth missing. It's only a temp replace thing but it looks farrrrrrrr better than just this little stub of a tooth sticking out that is intended to hold the crown in place.

Welp, I'm looking at airfare to Ireland.  Hotel packages with it.  But, I don't know where to go, exactly and the advice I got - I thought I had saved and lost it. A gentlemen that lives in Ireland gave some excellent advice and here I am, forgetting to save it?  Or I did and don't remember what file I put it in. Oh, wait, that was my old computer lol.  It on that hard-drive.  I may very well pull that hard drive out of it and install it into this computer so I can find that very excellent information. I can't remember where he said was the best city to go to, excepting somewhere in northern Ireland. Dublin was not on his favorite list and deemed a huge tourist destination.  He gave all kinds of suggestions of cool places to visit.  Hope I find that again, or fine another Irish person to give some clues on what's the best places to visit. I want to see old castles, museums, visit the countryside.  I don't want to sit around in a hotel, but I do want a decent place.  I'd like to find the same hotel to stay at and venture back and forth from there.

But I'm not cemented on that idea.  Traveling around the countryside really could mean staying in a different hotel every night.  One has to be able to plan such things in advance in order to make that happen.  I mean, if I were rich and could just spend as much time doing whatever I pleased over there in traipsing around the countryside at will, that would be a different story.  Looks like I can get an airfare/hotel package for staying at the same place for around a grand.

Meanwhile, my temporary tooth fell off earlier.  Gag. It's not glued in there but I think he puts some sticky substance on it to help hold it in place. My last crowns, none of them came off.  I'm just pushing the thing back up on there.  Not very nice tho.

I'm worn out.  It's been go go go for weeks now.  I finally get a 34 hour reset - today and tomorrow off. I got back to the yard earlier at 8:00 am, so I basically have all day today and tomorrow to rest.  I just got home, but I could literally go to sleep for several hours and since it's Sunday, I will definitely be taking that afternoon nap. 

Vacation coming up in 5 days.  After this reset, I'm hoping but not expecting a good 3 day run to help offset having 4 days off.  I don't expect anything good anymore from this company because this company is jacked up, they don't know what they are doing, they are just a big corporation that is full of people with swelled heads who think they know better than everyone else.  I heard another driver's story of "it's our way or the highway" take it or leave it s*** yesterday.  He said he was pushing at the verge of leaving - but he wants to stay in the hazmat tanker business and the other carriers aren't paying as much as we do.

So he said. But if you take all these crappy runs that are forced on us, our pay is going down to likely where those other carrier's pay is.  It doesn't "even out" among drivers.  A few select individuals magically hit the jackpot every time they go out.  They must be really lucky or - something else.  I'm guessing the latter. 

I came home to a deserted house. The vehicles are in the driveway, my dogs were in my bedroom - I left them home this time - but  no one home? Is it possible they are still sleeping at 10:30 am?  I guess it is, but those kids never sleep in this late.  I tried texting Taylor but have as of yet to receive a reply.  Whatever the case, I think I'm going to turn on the TV, find a decent movie and watch it until I fall asleep. 

With in a 2 year span of time, my 2 uncles and my dad passed away.  Today, the oldest of them - at 90 - passed. I have no idea of what, there hasn't been any communication coming from that side of the family since my dad started with Alzheimer's years ago.  The daughter despises all of us sons of my dad's and sticks her snoot up at us.  It's typical family bs that goes on in lots of families in the US nowadays, I just ignore her.  Anyway, since there has been no communication from any of them, there isn't any feelings attached to his death from me, just the thought that they are all dead now in a fairly short time span.

It's weird, I guess is what I'm saying. But life is strange as it stands sometimes.

Take this med card situation.  I gave up a good, 4 day run so I could get it done.  I initiated that, saying I don't want to let this go any longer.  You want to get it done in time to make sure they get it input into their system in time so your CDL isn't suspended.

Well, this interim manager decided that I was going to go out on a s*** run the next day instead of doing that.  The Oklahoma run.  Then, when I got back, instead of letting me do the exam, she sent on yet another s*** run to Houston, which then was changed to Cheniere as a favor to switch with another driver.  There's 2 crap runs in a row.  Today, I finally got the exam done after getting back from Cheniere and then? She sends me back to Oklahoma today?

I said something about it.  I wasn't being nasty, but I did ask her why she didn't end up giving me the Stryker load she had promised.  It was canceled, she replied.  I replied well you  could have given me some kind of decent run to make up for all of this.  Otherwise, the way it worked out with her continuing to shift my exam date, I could have just taken the damn run up to Stryker, got back today and done the exam on Monday morning. 

Beyond that, when I tried to send the exam via fax today, it wouldn't work. I tried like 5 times and it failed, 5 times. So I went into the DL location in that town - to find something like 60 people all crammed in this little building waiting to do whatever.  No thanks. I left there and went to the itty bitty one in my town - only a few other people in there.  But they informed me because it was less than 10 days until the old med card expired, I would have to pay an $11 fee. After that, I find out they had to actually issue me a new CDL with a new picture and all of that on it to be able to process my med card in time!

THIS, because this "manager" kept putting me off, giving me crappy runs in the process and making my life more difficult than it needed to be.

The "conversation" blew up when she started insulting me and making it personal.  I gave her a stark dose of her medicine right back at her.  I did you a favor and you screw me in exchange.  She was getting all pissed off, she has anger issues, she blows up instantly whenever anyone challenges her.  I'm assuming that is also tied to ego and authoritarian issues.  Whatever the case, if she reports it as anything but her doings, I'm going to show whoever the text messages, because it's alllllll in writing.

Well, I already have to get out of here. I have first load, fun fun.   

Well that was fun.
100 miles into yesterday's trip, I realized I had forgotten my wallet. Driver's license, truck fuel card, debit card - everything I need.  No way was I turning around and going back to get it after having driven that far, I just decided to go ahead and finish the drive up to Barnsdall, drop and hook and then ask for a T-Check to be electronically sent to the Love's in Okmulgee, OK.

Well, that was the "old" way of doing things, apparently, before our company got consumed by another, much larger company.  The "new" way of doing things? Nothing.  I was informed to call the card issuer and cancel the card.  Ok, well that didn't work.  Then I was informed to call an 800 number and get a T check. That didn't work. Then they called both those places, still didn't work.

Finally, T-check said just have Love's manually input the info.  Yup, that didn't work either When they got to my driver's license number, it wouldn't accept it.  Yes I had the right number, they tried several times and I finally said screw this and dumped $85 of my own money into the fuel tank to at least get me down the road, possibly even make it all they way back to Longview.

Well, this morning I tried another Love's that's on the way - Paris, Texas - same results. DL number was't accepted.  So this fill in manager tells me that I don't need to give them a DL number. Sorry, but the system is requiring it, it won't allow them past it. Then this lovely person took it upon herself to get salty with me and start saying I shouldn't have forgotten the fuel card and this wouldn't be an issue. Instead of attempting to figure out how to deal with this problem, she just shoved it back on me.

This is their truck, not mine.  I asked her if I was just supposed to sit there and do nothing? She came back with more s*** , which is when I ended that "conversation".  I texted her "have a wonderful day!!" and that was it. I decided to drive it out and see if I make it. If not, well, they'll have to send a truck with fuel and get it running :)

I basically made it back to the yard running on fumes.  Not the optimal thing you want with a tractor trailer rig, but I did, indeed make it back and decided that I wasn't going to do my physical until tomorrow.  I need a day off from this nonsense.  Imagine a trucking company that doesn't have a contingency plan for if a driver loses the fuel card, or if the card stops working, or in my case, just plain forgot it?  I've never even heard of such a thing, much less had to personally experience it.

I was quite annoyed with that manager, but I bit my tongue.

Another driver at the yard stared at me in disbelief when I told him the story.  And even more people are talking about quitting now.  This "new" company totally sucks.  They are interested in numbers, not people.  Drivers are just numbers on a screen to them.  There is no sense of belonging and the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.  The communication is terrible.

_________________

Thursday.

Sitting in the kitchen last night, I heard thunder. Everyone said no, it's not supposed to rain, that's the motorcycle next door.  Ohhhh, I replied, sure sounded like thunder. A few minutes later, another one. And then, a REALLY loud one! KaBLAAAAAAM! Like it was in the friggin' living room.  And then, 10 minutes later? Another loud one and yes, the power went out.  For almost 7 hours, the power went out.  I hung out at the cop house next door for hours since there was nothing else to do and chatted about all kinds of different things.

About 10:23 pm, I decided to go home and try to sleep.  Meaning no AC, no fan, nothing. Took a while but I eventually drifted off to sleep - on the hard floor.  The bed was too hot.  At 2:30 AM, wake up call! Lights came on, window AC unit came on, back in business. 

Then, this lovely  manager giving me all the shit about fuel yesterday calls me about 20 minutes ago. I was thinking about getting out of bed anyway, but my load isn't until 2:30 this afternoon.  I'm going to Houston.  It used to be a day run, now they have you preload and you don't deliver until 8:00 am the next morning.  It's a really messed up load because it isn't worth anything - but - it used to only take one day.  Wasting 2 days on a worthless load isn't my idea of fun.

But, the manager says that Preacher - his permanent nickname, another driver - called her at 2:30 am and said her daughter had some sort of medical emergency and had to take her to the hospital, can you switch loads with him?  I said no immediately, because I have to get my medical exam for my med card done this morning.  I mean, it's not like I haven't said anything about this to them - like half a dozen times on separate occasions now spread out over more than a month.

I dunno what's going on, but I guess we got busted @$$ busy all of a sudden in the last few weeks because I've been running like crazy.  But I thought about this.  Houston or Cheniere? They are both equally worthless.  The only advantage to Cheniere is it's a bit further for more miles and you don't have to drive anywhere near Houston. Because my plan today? Do the pre-load and drive straight down there, avoid the heavy Houston early morning rush hour traffic and stay at a truck stop about 5 miles away from the plant. It's really kind of hard to just change your plans like that for these runs.  Especially when they're calling you only a few hours before the proposed change has to occur.

But, I decided to switch, told her I would do my med card tomorrow when I get back. Basically I saved her ass, she didn't have anyone else to do it and you can't just not do a load, the loading plant says fine, we'll use another carrier and walaah. There goes more work.  However, some other company has been doing the Cheniere.  I would rather not work than go to that stinking place to be honest.  They don't care how long you have to spend there, I guess that's a plus for detention pay - but I want to get in and out of there.  It's hot and muggy down there and there are these giant biting flies.  This is 2 crappy loads in a row, I best be getting a decent run next or, I'll just open my mouth and say something again. 

Meanwhile.....I was looking at my settlement sheets for my pay yesterday.  I finally got on their email list to get them sent out.  The information does not show up on your paycheck.  Anyway, an entire trip worth at least $1,200 was missing.  This is happening far too often.  That's a healthy chunk of change, I was expecting at least a $2,500 net paycheck this week. So I contacted this lady that continues to screw up the payroll 90% of the time.  I didn't get pissy with her, I just said the Union Carbide/Charleston, WV run is missing on my paycheck. Amazingly, she not only got back to me right away, she admitted her mistake and promised to have that money deposited separately into my banking account tomorrow! 

It's kind of easy to think about starting to get pissy with a person that can't get their job right.  She does this with everyone, not just me.  If you have any detention pay due on any given run, you best be writing it down somewhere to record it so you can match it with what she gives you, cause' honey, there is an almost 100% chance she's going to either miss  it altogether and not give it to you at all, or, she will give you less than what you should be getting.  I scour my settlement sheets for errors.  I shouldn't have to, but to get the pay I deserve, it has to be done.  But, kudos to her for owning it and immediately dealing with it.

So, anyway, here we go.  I'm getting a little nervous about this medical card.  If you don't have it renewed before the expiration date, TEX DOT downgrades your commercial license to a regular license and then, you have to go through the written AND the driving test all over again!  But, I just looked at the notice, I have more time than I thought.  It doesn't expire until the 18th.  So getting it done tomorrow will be fine.  Just have to get it into them ontime for them to process it and get it added to your license info.

Welp, off to the races. 

So here we go again with yesterday's schedule, all over again. 
And it's Sunday.
Seems like I work most Sundays, a thing I would love to see change.
But, Sundays are great days to drive in terms of traffic and driving through
Houston isn't any fun no matter what type of vehicle you are driving. 

I'm watching the news and just have to shake my head.
There's too much foolery going on in politics.  I don't even want to label
that to one party, the whole thing is messed up and it doesn't matter who
we vote into office, they become a part of that machine, eaten and swallowed up
whole.  They just abandon their political platforms that they run on and go with the
crowd.  Excepting  a few notables.

Regardless, my medical card is about to expire.  I told my company about it last
week and have heard nothing back. THEY should KNOW about this, that should
be part of a program that pops up a notice for any drivers whose medical card is about
to expire. Cause' if you let it lapse? The state you have your CDL will revoke it until
you get it renewed. States store the information now - as evidenced by the State of Texas
sending me notification a month and a half ago and then another notice that it needs to
be renewed.

I can't just go to "any" place for this exam either.  I mean, I can to cover myself, but my
company wants drivers to go to specific facilities and get it done their way. 

Well, if my company continues to drop the ball, I will go to the nearest place and get my own
exam done, because getting your CDL reinstated is, I have heard, no short process and isn't
worth it. 

Okay. Off to the races. Hopefully not a repeat of yesterday. 

Well, that was irritating.  Number one, I woke up at 1:00 am and never was able to get back to sleep - and at this point in time rather cranky and irritable unfortunately.

Then, leaving the house at 4:30 am, I arrive at work to - the trailer that I was supposed to take not being there.  I spent over an hour and a half trying to call my manager.  Nope, she never answered.  So,  I took a trailer I know is good for Brownsville and went over to the loading rack.

During that time, another manager replied to me but she didn't know about what was going to happen.  Because, just before I was to pull up to load the trailer, my manager finally calls back. That's over 2 hours, 30 phone calls trying to get a hold of her.

At first she said, ohhh, trying to figure out if they will accept that trailer down there. But all of a sudden, her memory returned to her. Ohh, that load canceled yesterday! She went on to making her excuses as to why she forgot to text or call me that information.  I bit my tongue.  But pulllllleeeeeeeeaaaaaaasssssssseeeeee spare me the excuses.  At least she apologized eventually after going through all of that. 

I was exhausted.  I still am.  And I've tried to sleep and I just can't do it right now.  I got home - James and Taylor gone.  I texted Taylor - please turn off the alarm so i can go in the house : )  She did and I ended up explaining her the whole story above. They did a spur of the moment thing - which is really good they did for once - and took off to Hot Springs, Arkansas this morning.  I didn't know anything about it, but then again, they aren't accountable to me lol.  They took the kids with them - the grandparents don't live that far from there, they are going to meet them, take the kids and husband and wife are going to have some alone time in a cool place. 

The plus for me? It was actually a good thing I didn't have to drive clear down there today - excepting the fact there are no trailers down there and likely not to be until Monday. Which would have given me at least 2 days worth of detention pay. But I'm so tired right now, I would have been miserable forcing myself to stay awake for 10-1/2 hours of driving.  I can do it, don't get me wrong. Have done it for decades, but it isn't pleasant. 

I can't sleep right now, I tried and I'm just in some funk.  It'll hit me later an I'll crash.  The other plus is that I have the entire house to myself. No kids crying and screaming, just peace and quiet. 

My manager has informed me that I will be going on the same run - tomorrow - same early load. 

So what am I doing today? Nothing.  Watching movies and shows that I have recorded on my DVR.

And with that, offa here. 

We had a really nice fireworks display last night - well out into the country, well out in the middle of nowhere.  No cops were called, cause' it was county land and the county doesn't care what you do unless there is a burn ban.  Well, none of that going on with all the rain going on around here recently.

Unfortunately, when I got home, Aspyn was gone.  She doesn't like the fireworks and I forgot to put her in her kennel.  I left Addler in my bedroom. I just can't do that with Aspyn, she chews stuff up and sometimes expensive stuff that isn't too fun to have to replace.

Well, I went out looking for a while, but it was too dark to see a dog in the dark unless she was running down the road.  No clue, came back to the house, went to bed actually, it was late.  I can't imagine those boys today, they were up til 10:30 or later last night, well past their bedtime.  Jaxon was terrified of the loud booms of the explosions, but he seemed to have started to like it a little later. The older boy was having fun with it.  We were out in the street, setting off a rather large stash of fireworks that took a few hours to light off.

Well anyway, I got up this morning - late actually, I wanted to sleep in and I did -  texted Maria about Aspyn, please keep and eye out for her - and then went to the pound.  They didn't have her but asked for a pic and phone number, so I got the lady's phone number and texted it to her.  Maria decided to get into her vehicle and go looking, I was joining her after that. We ran around that  neighborhood for quite a while until Maria texted that the letter carrier lady saw her just a few minutes go, at the time of course, on Woodland street.

Cool, I was over there and then scouring the neighborhood as well as Maria.  Up and down streets - up and down same streets twice to get a second look - people giving interesting looks lol after the second pass - and then, Maria found her at a residential intersection that I had just had been at a few minutes earlier.

Poor doggy was hot and panting heavily. It's hot and muggy outside, not great conditions for running up and down neighborhoods without access to water. She had been out there all night long, whether she had been trotting all over the place all night long is unknown.  What is known is that when she got into the back yard, she went straight to the water pail and drank heavily.

I ended up meeting up with Maria at the local Applebee's.  She doesn't get out much - financial situation - so once in a while I meet up with her and she gets whatever she wants.  Note, not a relationship thing - at all.  At least, not dating.  A friendship relationship, yes, but nothing beyond that.  I'm really not looking at the moment.

So anyway, the fireworks are over so I don't have to worry about Aspyn taking off.  Poor little doggy.  I dunno how Addler was during all of it.  He was on my bed and I had the TV going.  He wasn't going anywhere, but he has started to get visibly nervous in previous fireworks events going on around the area.  I really need to get them both chipped.  I had the chance last trip with Addler ot the vet, but I totally spaced it while I was there.

_________________

Saturday - early morning.  Going off to Brownsville. Was very glad to get that run versus anywhere up north.  Northern runs are good, but I like them balanced out by a more "local" run, even if it's 580 or so miles south of here.  And, another weekend gone to working.  Oh well, we are getting excited about the upcoming trip.  And frankly, even tho I'm working lots of weekends, I'm going to have a couple of good paychecks in a row.

As it stands, Taylor is getting pretty restless. They spend most of their weekends home, doing much of nothing. It's a pretty gruesome rut to be stuck in, if I do say so myself.  One of the reasons I wanted to get a fishing boat - they like to fish, they just don't go.  But I stopped looking at boats temporarily, got tired of seeing boat after boat in the price range I want that has something wrong with it.  Usually a major engine problem. There was a pontoon boat that was in excellent condition judging from the pics - but the engine is trashed. 3 grand for a boat that will needs thousands of dollars worth of engine work? No thanks. I'll give ya a grand for it.

I do lowball them on offers when they have jacked up engines.  They laugh - but their boats don't sell.  Some of them have been for sale for months now. You are buying someone else's costly headache. They had their fun with the boat, burnt the motor up and now trying to sell the thing at a profit? Screw that.

Happy 4th of July!  Independence Day! Wait, we are becoming totally dependent on the government! What are we independent from?  lol

Drove all day yesterday and ended up at the casino truckstop. It was late, I didn't feel like gambling but I did feel like eating so I went in there to grab a bite.  Well, Chili's was closed and the other restaurant was cram packed full of people, plus a live band, plus a bunch of drunken revelry going on. It was very loud in there.  I skipped eating and got the bug, so I went to the ATM, got out $140 and sat down at a blackjack table.

Fun to watch people getting so upset about a game where they know there is a good chance they are going to lose money.  Especially people saying that money was supposed to be use for whichever bill they now can't pay.  I was there for the fun of it, not because I think a casino is some sort of bank.  That's desperation and you can't effectively gamble if you are desperate. 

But I did have a lot of fun!  I went up and down in terms of winnings, but near the end of my table play, I had gone up to $675.  I placed a final bet of $75 and lost it, decided to walk before I went all the way back down again.  I was there 5 hours until 3:30 am lolol.  It did feel good tho to actually have some fun and walk out with a lot more money than I walked in with : )

Woke up 4-1/2 hours later after going to sleep in the truck and drove the rest of the route home.  I figure it's about time to take a nap, since we have all been invited over to a 4th of July BBQ at one of Jame's friend's house.  I dunno when they intend on going, but they took off after putting the kids to bed - I didn't want to go buy fireworks, I've been out enough thanks, time to rest a bit. 

Anyway, my Bank of America card showed up in the mail while I was gone - I'm not the biggest fan of BOA but they gave me a card with a $7,500 line of credit - none of which I intend on using.  It's a travel rewards card and you earn points for every time you use it, or so it claims.  I'm still reading through the fine print trying to find out how many points it takes to actually do anything with it, ie: go somewhere via airplane.  Now that I have this card, I suspect I will be getting a lot more offers for the "good" cards.  I have the mediocre ones now, but not the ones that really give you good rewards returns.  Well, Capital One gives me some decent rewards, I have a couple of hundred in cash that I have earned with them. 

I suppose I should clarify, I intend on using the card but I do not intend on having any balances on it. Pay it up at the end of the month, no interest and rack up the rewards.  That's my goal anyway.

Well, I'm really worn out from all the driving.  I mean, I got back from Mapleton the last trip and was sent right back out yesterday on this trip I just finished.  I need at least a full day off. Whether I get it or not remains to be seen, but since I worked today, I get the holiday pay bonus.  I think it's $170 for working on a holiday. Not really that much - many  holidays I'd rather be home and skip the bonus pay, but couple that with my winnings last night and that's a nice chunk of extra change I wouldn't have been getting otherwise.  The gambling winnings and the extra pay are going into my travel fund.

Specifically, for our upcoming adventure at the beach.  But, now I have so much cash saved up, I do not intend on using all of it for just 4 days at the beach.  Some of I'm going to save for the next trip.  I am still fully intending on at least trying to get my @$$ across the ocean this year, even if I have to go it alone.  But, to start off using my new card, I'm going to charge the entire bill to to it which will be $1,150 or something like that - half of it is my hotel room the other half is theirs which they will pay me back - and get a good jump on points. 

Reeeeeeaaaaaalllllyyyy want to go to Ireland, there are so many interesting points of interest in old structures and cliffs and water views.  London, too, but I think I"ll pass for the time being considering all the Trump hate going on over there and an incompetent mayor that hasn't got a clue what he's doing. 

Just did a search, random dates in September, the lowest fare available was $704 round trip. Not bad? I dunno, really don't know what is a good deal for international traveling . I'm more concerned about leg room and sitting cramped for hours in a giant sardine can where they cram as many people in those things as they possibly can.  I don't blame them for wanting to get the most profit, but that is a long flight to be crammed up.  I have long legs and they start hurting if there is minimal leg room. 

Justfly has an even better deal at $526 round trip - but it's got 2 layovers.  31 hours, sounds like a longer than normal time to get to Ireland from DFW.  Depends on where the layovers are an if there is enough time to investigate the surrounding areas.  Great price, I think. 

Okay, enough of that. At some point I'm going to pull the trigger, buy the tickets - and insurance just in case - and just do it.  But I"m going to wait until after this month's journey to Galveston beach.  I'm in fairly decent shape now for beach going.  I'm in size 34 jeans but they are falling off of me the same as 35's were a few months ago.  I have a pair of 33's in there somewhere, I'm going to try them on again and see if they fit now. 

And for that, the end of this post.  Time to get ready to go light off fireworks!

And another trip cashed and done.  Well, no cash yet lol.
Got up at 3:30 am today, got on the road, got it over with. 
I'm off tomorrow, already, to Oklahoma.  Now, I don't mind those runs coupled with a good run such as the last 2.  It's that situation where there's 4 in a row, a Cheniere and a Houston run that doesn't really work for me.
___________

Well, it's Wednesday.  I got in yesterday at around 11:45 am.  In other words, I woke up really early yesterday, decided it wasn't worth trying to go back to sleep, got up, mozied over to the truckstop, got a keto cup of coffee (just means I add heavy whipping cream to it, which I have to take with me since you aren't going to find that stuff anywhere except at grocery stores), and got on down the road around 3:45 am.  Truck hadn't been washed in quite a while,  so I detoured on I-40 to the Blue Beacon truck wash just east of Little Rock. I got lucky on that one, there were no trucks waiting in line, just 2 trucks in the wash bays and that didn't last long.

Drove it on out, got back to the yard, hoofed it over to an inspection place, got my registration renewed, paid the rent for the other house - for whatever reason they were really  wanting that check by 11:00 am yesterday.  Which, of course, didn't happen but I got it there as quick as possible.  Allegedly the brother of the man that owns the house showed up 2 nights ago wanting that check.  They usually don't show up until the 3rd or even the 4th or 5th for it. It had slipped my mind that I needed to take it over there, but I figured I was ok. 

I dunno, but by law there is a 5 day grace period so they can't charge late fees and they really shouldn't be getting upset about it.  If they had wanted it on the 1st, they should have said something. That is not their normal habit is all I can say and I told Maria she can direct him to call me if he's going to get pissy about it, I'll deal with it.  He didn't call me, of course, he already knows I won't put up with shit, but left instructions to please take the check to his house and give it to his son - well it turns out he lives less than half a mile away from me, so that wasn't a problem.

Anyway, I haven't even been home a day and I'm already going back out this morning.  This time is an Oklahoma run.  I don't mind doing them here and there, I just don't want to get stuck in a rut of having to do them every trip.  I don't know how to bypass that tho.  I don't know who is coming in, when, from a trip. If I did, I could position myself to turn in my paperwork to give me a better run.  I guess that would be cheating somewhat, but when you get stuck on low paying runs for 2 consecutive weeks, you will pretty much start trying to invent ways to get out of that rut.

Well, anyway, Not much time to do anything.  Yet, that vacation is coming up and I don't mind working as much as I can before then.  I'm going to use vacation hours, tho, at least have something for those 5 days off.  The hourly pay for vacation totally sucks.  It's the same wage as I was making at Ferguson. It's the only pay that is really below what it should be paying. 

Whatever the case, Trump walked into NK for the first time in American History that a sitting President has done that and of course the liberal left had a tizzy about it.  The normal narratives came flowing out. Pathetic stuff, I just shake my head listening to all of this nonsense. In fact, I've turned a lot of it off.  I'll watch the news and then that's it.  I can't handle all the negativity anymore, the President that can't do anything right. 

Whatever the case, I need to get offa here and get ready to go!

G'day. 

Well I ran that one hard.  Yesterday, I was in Smith Grove - I think it's still Kentucky - wasn't paying attention what state - after running 671 miles.  That's a lot of miles for a truck set at 65 mph in 11 hours of driving time. I had 3 minutes left on the drive clock when I pulled into that place.  I read on the trucking app that they charge you to park there - but there are no signs out there saying such and no one ever came to make me pay  up.  But, I would have paid, it's as far as I can get usually on that particular run without running out of time. 

The reason I would pay for that particular place is because, theoretically, I can make it back to the yard from there the same day.  It was 653 miles I believe, that I was facing yesterday morning.  You just never know what you are going to run into for traffic, but I remained hopeful.  First hurdle was getting through Nashville just before the rush hour - the real rush hour anyway - was going to start.  I was slowed down there for a loss of maybe 10 to 15 minutes.  Then, after driving through Memphis, of which I wasn't slowed down at all, dark clouds and...rain!

Well, I thought, I might just stop in Texarcana today cause' there will be accidents and people driving 45 mph in a 75 mph zone.  Sure enough, traffic slowed to a stand still. After a mile of that we all came up on a truck sitting in the median - it's dug down so he's 10 feet down there - still up right, stuck.  But, the traffic wasn't moving even after that, my guess the driver wasn't paying attention, looked up, saw traffic stalled and headed out into the median. I'm sure he/she has some explaining to do to their company, but the good news is from the looks of it, it's just mud and would just have to be pulled out of there. 

Several miles later of stop and go traffic and there it was.  A truck had rear end another truck. Got rolling again, the unbelievable high speed of 65 mph! lmao.   I calculated that I still could make it even with that loss of time. Hours and hours later? I'm rolling into the yard with 31 minutes left.  That was cool, because my manager had called me a little earlier asking what trailer I had and that I was going to Mapleton, Illinois on Sunday, which is tomorrow. Early load, first load actually.  I could have used a couple days off? But I greedily accepted the run.  Getting caught up is more important than time off. Plus, Sundays are the best day of the week for driving and not getting caught up in heavy traffic anywhere. 

I did very well on that trip limiting myself to just eating what I brought with me. I have also slowed way down on eating pork rinds for snacks.  Not really all the good for you, even if it works for the diet.  In fact, I've slowed down on all pork products, but especially bacon.  I've got a tray of boneless chicken breast and a small roast to cook today.  I'm taking radishes and celery sticks this time instead of pork rinds.  I'm really trying to get myself motivated to make some keto friendly treats, such as wonderful brownies or "fake" choco chip cookies. Except the ingredients for those cookies have to be ordered online, I can't find the chocolate anywhere around here.  Even Walmart's extensive line of the weird stuff doesn't have that kind of chocolate. 

It's just that this particular diet is rather time intensive on making anything because you can't really find it premade anywhere  - or if you can, it's outrageously priced.  I'm not really losing any weight atm.  But I'm not gaining anything either.  Plus, I've started light workouts.  Not so bad.  I was going to take the dogs for the walk today, but it's raining.  I'm not that motivated.  But, I will get out back and do some bicep workouts today.

My credit cards have arrived. I didn't ask for a Sears Mastercard, they just did that on their own. I have a Sears only charge card, but apparently they think I should have their version of a bank card.  Whatever.  I've used the old one once.  My Chevron card also came - just replacing the old one and awaiting my Bank of America card. I actually despise BOA, but that for their checking accounts and the ridiculous amounts of fees they charge for everything.  I shouldn't have to pay to have my money in their account.  Anyway, this card had the allure of cash back and especially if I spend I think it was $1,500 on it in 3 months I get $200 free from them. I can just pay for everything with that card, pay it back immediately (in other words, no balances and no interest charges) and get there easily.

Well, off to the keto recipes to see what I might be able to make for keto desserts.

Well, I wasn't going to write another entry, but oh well.
I wore the dogs completely out.  I mean, by the time we left that doggy park, they were just standing there huffing and puffing.  I wasn't feeling so good myself, but I wanted to go 30 minutes.  I wasn't forcing the dogs to follow me around, I figured if they got tired they can just stand or lay down under the shade of the giant trees in that park.  They couldn't resist.  They started out galloping like horses, they ended up barely moving lol.

There is water for dogs there, but the won't drink out of it.  You just press a button and a flow of fresh water comes out of the faucet into a saucer on the ground.  The dogs are supposed to drink out of it, but they are afraid of it and won't go near it lmao. Hey, I made the effort to give them water, they turned it down.  Besides, we were going straight home with 10 gallons of fresh water sitting out there.

After that, I decided to crock pot the pork loin, so I got started on that immediately.  It seemed to me a good idea to go ahead and fry the outer portions of the roast first and give it a nice brown sear. After fooling with all of that for a while and getting it in the crock pot and going, I then got out the rack of ribs.  I made up a nice dry rub and put it on both sides of the rack of ribs. After that, I put it in a pool of Dr Pepper on a tin foil lined baking pan, turned the oven up to 250 degrees and that's now slow cooking.  Plenty of time left in the day for that to cook 3 or 4 hours - however long it takes to get nice and juicy and most and fall off the bone.

After that,  I got busy with this cloud bread. It's a little bit more involved than I realized because you are mixing with a hand mixer the egg whites into a stiff texture.  Then, you combine the other ingredients and then you fold the whites into the other mixture.  Admittedly, I haven't folded whites into anything in a long, long time, so I had to look at a video on Facebook to give myself a refresher course. Not difficult, but for the effort might as well do it right? That mixture is in the oven.

Beyond that was getting my bag ready for tomorrow - that entails counting out the numbers of pairs of socks, underwear, pants and shirts.  I usually try to have a minimum of 7 days worth of clothing, especially on a longer run. The "just in case" something goes wrong type of deal.  I know it sounds odd, but a broken down truck wouldn't bother me a bit consider break down.

Now? I made a made-up concoction for breakfast that was so tasty, I'm going to make a nice pile of it again and take it with me for breakfasts.  It's just that thin ham for sandwiches, chopped up into small cubes, 2 jalapeno peppers sliced, a good bit of red onion.  Put that in a pan, add pepper, red peppers, a little garlic powder, salt and some  cayenne pepper (I'm a big fan of it for adding some spiciness to many dishes and blending in with the taste of the dish nicely) cook it in some avocado oil - or whatever you want to use - get the onions just before carmelized, pour in some heavy whipping cream. Stir the whipping cream with the mixture until nicely blended, cook it down a bit, add some cheese on top, melt it and walaah.  I was going to put eggs on top but it tasted so good, at least to me, I skipped the eggs.

Very easy concoction to put together, doesn't take long to cook and is delicious.


And right now, I'm just looking for the "easy and delicious" stuff after all of what I have already done.  but, a calculated diet doesn't rely on happenstance.  Sometimes it's impossible not to have to just wing it, but mostly, you can put stuff together that is delicious and satisfying so you don't have to wing anything.  Often times I will eat breakfast at a Denny's or a Waffle House since I can get  a keto friendly breakfast there with no problems, but dinners - a different story.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Long day.  I don't know why, I drove out all 11 hours minus a few minutes.  But I only got 628 miles.  I was hoping for at least 650 miles. Trying to get this run done in 3 days, I'm not sure that's going to happen.  I dunno, but looking at the app, all the truck stops and even the rest areas were filled up long before I ever got up here.  However, none of those were on my list of places to stop because I already knew that was going to happen.

The truck stop in Cross Plains - not a lot of parking spaces actually - had the best chance.  The last update when I was looking whether to stop there or not was 55 minutes before I got there and it said "some spots" available.  It was that or run up to the Kentucky Downs and park out in the dirt.  I like to think God is watching out for me : ) Cause I got here and there were 3 spots left, I got one of them and the rest were taken up quickly after that. 

And now, a huge lightning and thunder storm has shown up, the parking lot is flooding, the rain is pelting down on the truck, lightning is flashing endlessly. The rain can stay, the lightning can go.  I can't sleep with all that noise with the ensuing thunder going off.  And now, a continuous flow of trucks driving in and out of here looking for a place to park. 

Anyway, I was watching the democrat debate for president but I got bored with it.  The top contenders are tomorrow night, the mix of them on there tonight were a bunch of lame, clueless people that have zero chance of winning the Presidency.  There are two that might  - and mean marginal - chance of winning and that would be Booker and Warren.

I am not a Democrat, but I was trying to watch this to hear their platforms, I didn't realize the real people running weren't on until tomorrow night.  So I turned that nonsense off.  I'm pretty much ready to go to bed - but I have to get out and check the pressure on the tank.  Lol, I'll wait. It's raining so hard right now, that getting out of the truck, I would be soaking wet within 30 seconds. 

Well, I'm going to sit in the cab for a while and watch all of this going on here. Between the thunder and lightning, truck drivers filling up their tanks getting soaking wet and other trucks driving in and out of here looking for parking, it's rather entertaining. But mostly the thunder and lightning lol.

I had a sweet tooth last night that I couldn't shake. It almost led me to wanting to quit the diet and just eat some ice cream.  I mean, I couldn't shake it.  Bed time took forever to "get here" just because it was stuck in my head. Just came out of nowhere, too, not like anyone was eating anything to tempt me.  Well, I finally got to bed and now - that whole thing is gone out of my mind, thankfully. 

What I really need to do is make some keto friendly brownies or something and have them frozen and ready to eat when that feeling hits me.  They have all kinds of sweet tooth recipes, I just haven't tried making any of them. Haven't really had these kinds of urges for quite a long time.  I'm going to look up some recipes and think - at least think about - making one of them. As it stands, I'm going to make cloud bread today - it's zero carb bread that is allegedly delicious and fairly easy to make.  Of course, you can buy cloud bread online, for like $30. 

Keto is such a scam in terms of people making baked goods and selling it at outrageous prices that I really have half a mind to solicit Maria to start baking the stuff and selling it online.  She loves baking, I love to make money.  Lots of people are doing that on a local basis - making their own, fresh baked "keto friendly" pastries, donuts and cookies, posting them for sale on Facebook groups and making tidy profits. Keto is starting to really take a hold of this nation in terms of a diet that is very effective and people willing to shell out the bucks for it. 

An actual bakery that is licensed, selling it online, would be awesome. But I have no knowledge of how to go about doing that.  Well I have a bit of info on it.  Just the complexities of selling such things, shipping them and dealing with potential customer complaints.  Plus you have to have it all labeled and the chart that food has to have on it.  I was visiting with Maria yesterday and it totally escaped my mind, discussing with her a couple of business propositions she could engage in from home.  I'm still on this tank full of fish thing.  There is no possibility of losing the money spent on it, if it were slow sales, the fish would live, grow bigger and be worth more money.  Minimal maintenance, the only costs really are to buy the equipment to keep them in - probably around $500 for a smaller version that could keep 200 small fish in it - and the cost of buying the fish bulk. 

They send them to you overnight on FedEX.  It's like almost $200 just in shipping charges as well. 

The house is finally empty, I get a day home alone, thankfully. Grandma and Grandpa left early this morning, the same time James heads out to work. These folks visiting wasn't anything like that family that was living here for a month, tho.  That really started to annoy me, mostly because the dude, when he was here, would do literally nothing. He wouldn't even run the dishwasher and clean up after themselves.  He is an attentive father as far as dealing with his girls, but that's where it ends.  I was reeeeeaaaaalllllllyyyyyy glad when they left.

But, these folks are really cool. They didn't accept me at first - for quite a while they didn't.  I mean, they didn't shun me but it was obvious they considered me something as a temporary fixture, something that wouldn't be around long.  I don't really know how much these kinds of situations are going on in the US - with strangers living with strangers - at least starting out as strangers.  I do know the cost of housing and the costs associated with it - electric, wifi, water, sewer trash - bills, all of it, add up to putting the average family in quite the bind to be able to pay the bills every month.  How much is left over for any kind of recreational use? I'm guessing a lot of families don't have any extra money.

It's a viable alternative -if you can handle having someone you don't know, initially, moving into a bedroom in your house and helping you pay those bills.  I am thinking they thought of me as just a temporary dweller.  But I'm called Uncle Ben now, this has has transgressed far beyond any "tenant living in a room in the house" situation.  It may or may not be permanent, who knows. But as for the here and now, it works and I am content with the setup.  I really do like meeting all kinds of new people, James and Taylor have mostly really cool friends.

Anyway, I was talking with the grandpa for several hours yesterday.  I didn't get up to see them off tho, lol, I was sleeping and no reason to disrupt that sleep cycle. I'll see them again next month when they come get the boys while we go off on vacation.  It's exactly what Taylor needs, a break from those kids and being in the same rut day after day.  Which reminds me, I really need to get dressed, get out the door and take the dogs to the doggy park and get them and I exercised today.  They love it, I don't really love it considering the temps and humidity, but I endure it.  About a half hour of brisk walking in giant circles. The dogs pounce around for about the first 15 to 20 minutes, then they start to succumb to the heat and slow wayyyy down.  It's nice tho, no leashes required and a lot of room for them to gallop around.

Meanwhile, my manager called me this morning. My real manager, not the interim one while my manager was on vacation.  Wasn't really sure what she was calling me about, but I hoped she was in a good mood.  I was sleeping - the ringer wasn't on but the vibration from the phone woke me up anyway, I'm a really light sleeper.  Unfortunately : (   So many people I know that could sleep with a fire truck wailing sirens on it driving next to their heads and not even stir them.  Why can't I be like that?  Anyway, she said she was just checking in, first day back at work.  She sounded happy and refreshed, at least.  She should have done that long ago.  A short discussion about her vacation and then asking me when I'm ready to go back to work? Uhh, right now? lol .... whenever you have something for me. 

I have West Virginia going out 2cd load tomorrow, does that work? Heck ya it works!  Here's the kicker, it's not even 9am and I'm getting notification in advance!  I wish she would do this on every trip, it would make planning sooooo much easier.  I am always in limbo until usually late afternoon of the day before a trip.  I dunno, but I"m headed to Charleston, West Virginia tomorrow.  I haven't been on that run in a long, long time.  It's a great run at almost 2,000 miles.  About a $1,200 trip which can, theoretically, be done in 3 days if the planets are aligned correctly.

In other words, everything has to work seamlessly and I have to make it a certain, minimum distance each day to make it work.  Tomorrow, I'll have to make it at least as far as Cross Plains, Tennessee on I-65 northbound.  That's minimum distance.  The next day, I'd have to make it to Charleston, drop and hook trailers, and get back at least as far as Elizabethtown.  Preferably further down I-65 if possible, such as as far as Franklin.  But I have to make it back to I-65 at least that day to even have a chance of getting back to the yard the next day.  Those are long days.  But the pay makes it worth it. 

My goal would be the 3 days if at all possible, tho, because then it would be getting back to the yard on Friday evening and having that trip pay next week.  Right now, I think the only thing going on for next week is the Portland/Corpus Christie trip.  I think I'm going to make around $800 on it because of extra pay for the second load, but that's not much of a paycheck in and of itself.  Most drivers I have found aren't motivated to do things like making this upcoming trip a 3 day version.  They're content to make it a 4 day trip and call it a day.  But besides getting me back in 3 days and getting on the pay cycle I want it to, it also puts me back in queue for another run faster. 

Anyway, I'm going to prepare some dishes to take out with me, including that nice cloud bread.  Some ribs, a little pork loin and a nice large serving of chicken wings.  Add a keto friend veggie bowl to that, a large one and some other things.  There really aren't many places to stop and eat on this particular run, if I don't take stuff with me, I'm doomed to be eating unhealthy stuff that I don't want to eat but will out of being forced to if I don't prepare enough food in advance. 

I'm not, however, smoking any of it today.  I just don't feel like sitting out there in the heat today tending to a smoker all day long.  Oven cooked works.  And a small pork loin roast, a rack of ribs and chicken wings don't take long to make.  30 minutes for the chicken wings, something like an hour and 20 minutes in the oven for the pork loin and a couple of hours on low heat for the ribs.  I might do the ribs on 225 for a more tender meat outcome. 

Now then. Gong to spend sometime online today - now that the house is quiet and I can focus better - on attempting to learn the basics of stock trading.  It just isn't conducive to studying with kids screaming running around the house all day ..... but that not until after I take the dogs for a nice walk.

G'day. 

Ugh.  I feel like hell.  That unload in the heat this morning took it allllll out of me.  So much so, that when we were done, I made it 60 miles up the road, pulled over and went to sleep.  I made it another 70 after that and - went to sleep again.  I think part of that was the fact it's Sunday, tho, but I was feeling my oats. The second sleep did the trick, made it the rest of the way back to the yard after that.

Uneventful trip besides unloading the second trailer.  Still waiting to hear what extra pay I'll be getting for that.

Meanwhile, I have definitely decided the next purchase is going to be a generator.  I'm thinking at least 4,000 watts.  The power went out for 13 hours a few days ago, and then went out again the next morning.  This power outage stuff happens far too often around here.  I've got wayyyyy too much money in meat in the freezers. They sat around in this miserable heat for hours.  If there was a generator here, my bedroom as an 110 AC unit, they could have plugged that in and the TV and the Directv box, plus run an electrical cord to one of the freezers . And just switch from freezer to freezer every so often. Walaah, Meat saved, people cool, problem temporarily solved.

__________

Well we have Monday morning going here. The grandparents are still here so the boys are home today.  It's summer, so school is out - not for the boys, they are too young anyway - but grandma works at a local school in the area she lives in in the cafeteria.  Grandpa is an ex - cop and has decided to go back to work for the county Sheriff he lives in doing security at a court.  They're really cool people, fun to hang out with.  I'm not sure why I always end up hanging out with either cops, ex cops or military and ex military. Just seems to work out that way. 

Well, I just spent the entire weekend working, I doubt I'll do much of anything today, especially with all of them here.  And I don't know when I'm going out again. There were 8 trucks including mine in the yard last night, 2 trucks were hooked to trailers.  According to the schedule, there are 3 trucks going out today.  So if all 5 other trucks are available to go - which you never know, they might be on 34 hour reset, they might not even be in the yard at all, there's also a couple of other trailers that don't belong to us so I dunno if any of those trucks are with those trailers - highly unlikely I'll be going out tomorrow.  Although the lazy factor in me would love another day off, the get the money factor inside me says it's time to go! Get a nice run done in time to turn in for next period paycheck.

Well that's enough for this one, I'm going to kick back, drink some Keurig coffee and watch a show. 

Here we go with a cellphone entry. I don’t do too many of these. But this was one loooong day. I can only say that I was elated that the loading plant got me in and out if there in record time!!

However. Drove down here. Attempt to find a phone number for the plant .. we have to wait in a staging area well outside the actual plant and all of no-one else was there. Stifling, humid heat, even at 10 pm. Sweating like crazy lol. And this ya at night Lolol!

Got done with that, headed over to Walmart - this place actually has truck parking lanes - and there I found the other driver. Ugh. Tomorrow is out in full sun with a much higher heat index. Note I didn’t volunteer for this, it was dumped on me. I’m trying to claim “forced layover’” since this situation was not derived of my own doings. It would give me 14 hours of extra pay. I dunno if that will fly or not, but I’m going to affirm my desire for sone pay to make up for this.

Now? I’m hanging out at Applebee’s. Dinner and a beer. We switched trailers and he took off. Don’t
blame him, I would too. However, I would not and do not play these types of games trying to get away with not doing required credentials so you can get out of not having to do certain undesirable runs.

And with that, I’m offa here. Time to walk the half mile back to truck and go to bed. Just before midnight, but I can’t go back to the plant until around 8:30 am.

Well, last trip was 3 tires, one of them a blowout and a mudflap gone.

This trip? Who knows, but already a wrench thrown into the works before I even leave the house.  Oh, well I'm going down to Portland near Corpus Christie.  It's one of the Cheniere facilities.  But, one of the drivers credentials to get into the plant expired - a loooooong time ago - and never went back to the class to renew it. The class - truly sucks.  No doubting that.  But I found out fully 6 drivers do not have the necessary credentials to get into either Cheniere facility, which is quite unfair.

They don't have to do the s*** runs.  Well, Portland isn't that bad, at least a few miles in it, unlike the one near Cameron, it's just not a popular run for both the lack of miles and the length of time wasted trying to get unloaded once in the facility. They aren't in a hurry and most of them don't know what they are doing.

Anyway, I have to unload 2 trailers because of this driver's lack of motivation to get his credentials and the fact that we have loads that need to be covered.  I for one don't want us losing any more contracts so I simply agreed to do it without fussing about it.  It's worth maybe $100 of pay - depends on how long it takes but probably 3 hours when it's all said and done - and that other driver won't be getting the stop pay - rightfully so.  As long as it doesn't take more than 2 days to do this it's fine by me.  It would take 2 days for the run anyway, so a bit extra money isn't going to hurt my feelings - but it's hardly desirable.  I won't be able to unload the second truck today, there won't be enough hours left on the 14 hour clock to get it done.  So, it will have to be tomorrow morning. 

Anyway, I'm leaving early so I can go to Waffle House and get a keto breakfast.  The house is filled with people again - grandma and grandpa are here and brought the other kid with them.  I offered my room tonight - but hopefully I'll be back tomorrow night and will be wanting it back lol.

Anyway, time to get out of here. 

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.

__________________

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.

______________

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.