Continuing on with yesterday's theme, I "figured" out what I was going to do alright.  It was getting late - past 4:00 pm - in terms of getting a load for tomorrow (today) so I asked her if I was going to be sent out tomorrow?  2 minutes later I get a phone call from her.  Dusty's truck broke down and I need to get that load delivered tomorrow morning.  Meaning leave today - yesterday,  drop what I'm doing and get on down the highway.  I was all for it, but I cautioned her that I was about 2 hours out from being able to leave.

I never stopped to consider the timing of when to leave, just sounded like get in a hurry to get this run done.  So she said she would see who's at the yard.  I said cool, just let me know if you want me to do it.  Back on the phone again, I don't want Gary to do it, he's too slow.  In reality, Gary would never drive that late into the night for any reason.  I don't necessarily blame him, but I do think it limits the loads he gets.

Oh, about the timing. Well she gave me the run - which is a hoot'n'anny'holler better than the thing she was going to dump me with today.  A Houston airgas run, in the top 3 of the most worthless runs we have.  When I got home, I started thinking. I am driving to Tellulah, Louisiana to get the trailer - the truck broke down there and is still  there.  Good thing for the driver he gets hourly break down pay.  After that, drive straight on through to Decatur.  It was 5:00 pm and I started thinking about the mileage of that run.

600 miles.  If I leave too early, I thought, I'll get there too early and then I won't have enough on duty hours to deliver the load, much less find a place to park afterwards.  Then it dawned on me, I will have to drive alllllllllll night long and into the daylight to get there on time.  My manager was seriously concerned because this account isn't "our" account, it belongs to the plant that manufactures the product. If we don't show up on time, or very near it, they will start handing out the loads to some other company, the thing they did last year and we were hurting seriously because of it.

BTW, the Decatur run is a little bit more miles than Brownsville. The only thing that makes Brownsville better is the detention pay.

So I texted Ann: I'm leaving at 9:30 pm and driving all night. Otherwise, the load won't get there until around 5:00 pm (if I stopped for a 10 hour break before getting there). She said fine.  I immediately went to bed.  No sense in wasting the available hours to catch a nice 2 hour nap, which I did and then got up, got out of there, got to the yard, and yes, I drove all night long.  I arrived on time - can't say the same for the people assigned to unload the truck - got into the plant, got to the unloading rack and waited until they showed up. It was 3 hours in that plant and I was dying.  Exhaustion hit and it was all I could do to stand up.

I got to the hotel after that with 15 minutes to spare. Why did I get a hotel? Because the ac/heat decided to stop working altogether yesterday and I am not going to try to sleep in that truck after being up for 32 hours straight without it working.  I contacted my manager: I'm getting a hotel because the truck AC isn't working, I intend on putting the receipt in the package with the rest of my paperwork and getting my money reimbursed. She said fine, thanked me for getting her out of a bind and that was that. 

I really, reaaaaalllllllllyyyyyy wanted to stay at that huge Marriott Residence Inn!  That thing is a mammoth! I've never seen one that big before.  But there wasn't any truck parking there.  Marriot Courtyard and Holiday Inn same thing. Along with La Quinta.  So I opted for a mid scored brand in the Microtel. It was that or Econolodge.  Actually, I might have been able to find parking at the Residence Inn, but from the front appearance it didn't look promising and more to the point: I've been awake since yesterday morning and fooling with parking was not high on my list of things I wanted to do. 

The room isn't bad at all.  No strange odors, nice carpeting, nicely appointed furnishings, an island jutting out from the wall with a dishwasher, microwave and a sink - oddly no stove top with all of that. 

32 inch tv perched way up high on a cabinet they have on the wall in the middle of the room? Not good.  Good thing I don't feel like watching any tv, whatsoever.  I am so tired right now, that I'm too tired to go to sleep. 

________________

After vegetating for an hour, I am no longer tired lmao. 
I can say that I haven't done an all-nighter in - decades?  I came close a while back at 4 am, but that doesn't touch getting to the plant at 7:25 am and then staying at the plant another 3 plus  hours. I'm quite enjoying this particular hotel stay for unknown reasons. It's just relaxing this time around.  I'm not stressed.  I don't care about much of anything at the moment. I'm in some sort of daze, not confused, just a fog around my brain from lack of sleep. But it is strangely comforting.  It doesn't hurt that this stay is - or will be - free. And that I filled my gut at Logan's steakhouse just down the street. 

And so it is.  I think I'll peruse dishnetwork on my laptop and see if there's anything good playing. 

How fast will a 150 horse Mercury Black Max motor push that boat around a lake?
I do hope soon to find out.
Payment for parts made, hopefully this dude will get them ordered, installed and get that thing running correctly very soon.  My friends laughed at me and said when I get it running I'll have to work two weekends in a row!  Gag, that wasn't nice! Lol it was all in fun.  Still, hope persists.

Meanwhile I was watching videos of this particular motor on various boats.  Flying across the lake.  I'm torturing myself watching this stuff.  Because why? I can't do that  - yet.
Or just get it way out there somewhere, stop it, get out the fishing rods and start catching dinner.

I'll take a finely crafted, executed, written and acted old Western over much of anything that is coming out of Hollywood any day.  On that note, I have my Dish Network installed - at a much cheaper rate than what I was paying for DirecTV (tho admittedly I could have reduced service with DTV and gotten a cheaper rate as well, but I was through with them).  But what am I watching? Reruns of Bonanza on Roku, the free stuff they offer.

____________

Monday.  Just spent literally HOURS on the phone with ATT mobile and ATT Directv. A debit in the amount of $164.26 was taken out of my account.  There was no rhyme or reason for it, so I called the mobile side of it first. After almost an hour on the phone with them, it was verified that that amount was not taken out. Direct - the same old s***.  Get connected with one person, switched to another, dumped into the main system, start all over.  I was getting very annoyed.

After unknown amounts of time - I started this earlier this morning and now it's 12:30 pm - I finally got to the bottom of it.  I had cancelled my account.  11 days later, they took out that $164.26.  They shouldn't have taken anything out, according to the guy I was talking to (of whom I got his ID for future reference).  But, instead of getting my money back instantaneously? Or even in a few days? They are sending me a visa gift card in that amount instead? And up to 3 MONTHS to get it?  If there was any reason not to deal with this company after all I've been through with them, this certainly topped it off nicely. ATT is history as far as I'm concerned.

Now, in my quest to get rid of ATT altogether, I found out I could get 3 lines with unlimited data on Verizon for a total of $165 per month after taxes.  I'm paying $200 now but that includes the monthly payments.  I don't have unlimited data now.  I have 20 mg's and it's only on my phone, the other two phones, they have to use wifi if they want to access the internet on them.  It's unlimited texting and calls, but they have no frills plans. 

I'm actually considering dumping the other two lines and letting them pay for their own service. After finding out that they have lied to me about the monthly rent deposits - namely - their portion of it - I kinda got bent out of shape.  "We'll put our $250 on later this month" - onto the M Power for electric service that is, it's cash you go to a machine at a grocery store, dump the money into it, it loads it onto a card, you take the card home, put it on the machine and walaah, you have that much added to your account.  Well, she has only been putting $100 per month on there for a long time now, on one month they didn't put any money on it.  I knew something wasn't right, I just didn't have the facts to support my theories.  If I dump their phone service, the money lost will be partially made up. 

Their problem is that they got into 13 grand worth of credit card debt and now they are drowning in monthly payments. In their financial situation, they shouldn't have gotten credit cards at all.  So apparently, I'm the one that has to eat the loss, not the credit card company?  But, now that she knows that I'm on this - I didn't specifically address it but she knows I can see if she's adding anything - I will be in position to ask her at the beginning of next month why she either A: didn't put anything on there or B: put the full $250 on? That's all they're being charged to live there. 

You don't just presume that a person will agree without asking that they can just not pay the agreed to amount.  I did them a favor long ago letting them come live on the property, they've done me a favor, so-to-speak, of  taking over the house.  But the agreement was they would pay $250 per month.  And frankly, if they didn't have that house, they would very likely be back out on the street. I don't wish that upon them at all, at the same time, telling me all this time they were going to put that money on later in the month and then not doing it is very troubling for me.

After months of high temperatures, yesterday being 92 at high dew point/humidity and real feel well up into the 100's - the temps finally came down overnight. It's in the mid 60's outside right now, just about cool enough to start burning a nice fire in the fire pit outside again.  Probably not today. I'm a bit exasperated that I had to go through all of this yet once again with ATT/Directv.  You end the service, you expect them to stop taking money out of your bank account. I have no access now to my Directv account online since it's been deactivated. I could have found this info out if I had been able to just access those accounts. 

Just mystifying the way that company treats it's customers.

Work? No clue. Off two days now, I should be going out tomorrow, but who the heck knows. 

The rest of today? No clue.  Not in the mood now to do much of anything. Hang out with the dogs. I've been contemplating for a while now of getting a generator.  The lightning strike this morning caused the power to go out, then on, then off, and then partially on before the power company came out later and clicked the giant fuse on the telephone pole up with that very long rod they use to reach up there and do that.  Power goes out frequently here.  Just a lot of money tho, about $500 for the size I want - to cover what I want it to be able to power up, which would be alternating between freezers and the refrigerator and my window AC until so at least one room is cooled - or the room heater if it's cold - and some lights.  Very frequent occurrence of power going out and it gets old on the days off. 

Oh, and the other thought?  Cooler temps have arrived. No skiing or tubing now whenever this boat gets going.  Lol. 

well, I'll figure something out. 

The biggest thing that's been on my plate for over a month now is this boat.
And getting it fixed.
The first mechanic finally started talking to me after 17 days of blowing me off - through FB direct message but better than nothing.  He claims he's been laid up in bed and sick.  I have no reason to believe or disbelieve him - tho I have noticed they haven't updated their ad in almost 2 weeks so that lends some credibility. 

But, he went into this long thing about other mechanics are going to want to replace the stator, the power pack, coils, all the ignition stuff.  Notwithstanding the fact the he wasn't going to come out and fix it, he certainly had his opinions on the matter. Well, the other mechanic by that time had already texted me back after asking if he had any luck yet - and had narrowed it down to "Well its sputtering at all rpm ranges. If the carbs were rebuilt within 2-3 years, they should be fine. Compression is good on all cylinders. All 6 coil packs are good according to multimeter. The only other possibility is the power packs, stator, trigger, and rectifier. The voltage regulator appears to be fine because voltage is steady, not erratic. The trigger sends current to each power pack bank at a certian degree in rotation, basically a distributor. It is good because you would have no fire at all if not. I havent checked powerpacks yet but i will. That is my best guess hypothesis"

Later on, he called me.  Said he had checked everything. The stator has a hole through it - so much for the first mechanic's theory that the stator isn't bad - he had replaced a power pack with a used one he had, had found that only 3 of the 6 cylinders were working, but after putting on the power pack 5 of them came to life and that some switch box - didn't understand that one - was also bad.  Something like this motor's version of a distributor.  He had taken compression, it was all good.  That's the thing that worries you right off the bat.

If the compression isn't good and not within 10 pounds of the other cylinders, you are in for an expensive repair job.  If the compression is good, then you are looking at either electronics of fuel.  Or a combination thereof.  Anyway, he came up with $260 to order the parts.  I don't really have any choices here, I have to take his word for it and hope he's right. He tested everything with a multi meter, he wasn't just guessing. Well he was guessing at first as evidenced above, but he wasn't going to do anything until he was certain that he had a correct diagnostic. 

So I was going to send him money via paypal, facebook dm, or cash app - or whatever he preferred.  He doesn't do business that way, lmao.  It's cash in person.  So, he won't order the  parts until I hand him the cash in person.  Not to worry, the place where he is doing the repair work is also his house.  I know where he lives, lol, and I will be getting a receipt.  He "seems" to be an honest, upright person that has some morals and values.  That was my first impression and I have no reason - yet - to think anything else.  It's just plain and simple here - there aren't that many options for getting the thing fixed. It's an older boat and the shops mostly don't want to touch it.  If I had taken the boat to the place that said they would look at it, they would have sent it back because they didn't want to fool with electronics and apparently, electronics are what the problem is.

This is a live and learn process for me.  Boats are out of my range of knowledge and I'm a newbie.  I'll get the thing going one way or another - got some money tied up into it now, no looking back part came and went a while ago. 

Onto other things. After having a long discussion with another driver who has also been doing the 2 day sitting thing in between loads - while seeing others going out the next day or the day after - we came to the conclusion that our manager is really only going to consider what's in front of her. If you are in her chair, sitting in her office, you are going to get a load.  If you aren't, good luck.  If you text her telling her you are ready and available to go out, you will probably have better chances than not saying anything at all. I have refrained from saying anything because she is easily offended at even the slightest hint that you don't like the way she is running things. But if I sent her a text saying "Hi Ann, I'm at home and ready to go out again", without inferring anything about the way she does things, at least I have given it a try.  If I get into it with her about her "first in/first out" and the fact that it doesn't actually work that way, she'll go directly into sending me out into the system on-call.

That's her standard, modus-operandi with everyone. Instead of discussing anything, she gets defensive and just basically tells you she will get rid of you.  Well, I would go out on-call for a week or two, maybe, but I wouldn't do it permanently. That would be the cue to go find a new job.  And right now? I don't feel like going through all that s***. It's a lot of work and mentally draining and sometimes even depressing looking for jobs. 

And then there's the "other" house.  Maria is getting discontent with her living situation.  I saw that coming, just waited for it to materialize.  I'm not going to help her anymore than what I am already doing, which is quite a lot. If she doesn't like it, she can go find a new place to live.  My name isn't even on the current lease now, so it's whatever to me.  I've already discussed with James about watching my dogs if it comes to that to see what his reaction would be - and also offered to pay him for the headache. Tho, my dogs aren't that much to deal with. Put them out in the morning, bring them in at night and please feed them. That's it.  He likes Addler anyway - I think everyone likes Addler - that helps. 

Anyway, she got all pissy with Taylor a few days ago. Taylor went out of town for work for a couple of days, maria agreed to watch the boys, for pay of course.  When Rene was here, she did it for $40 per day.  Or even less if Taylor said she was in  a pinch financially.  Or babysitting - Rene would do it cheap.  So, Taylor went to Houston on work assignment last week, Maria agreed to the $40 per day. But, by the time Taylor got back, the whole story had changed.  She was angry about "not getting paid enough" - even tho she agreed to it.  It was obvious those boys had gotten to her.  They are several handfuls, not just a handful.  She's demanding double the pay.  Listening to Taylor relay the story, I got a bit irritated with Maria. 

She wanted the same from me.  She wanted me to start paying her to watch my dogs.  This was after we had already agreed that if she stayed at that house after Rene left, she would watch the dogs, I would be responsible for the bills and I would pay whatever is above and beyond what the 3 incoming rents didn't cover.  Tho I went well beyond that buying her food and supplies for the house. She doesn't have any grip on me, my dogs don't have to go over there. It's a better setup if they do, but it's not mandatory. They're dogs, they will survive. She knows this.  She is poor, broke and has nothing.  Instead of being thankful for people helping her out, she is getting pissy about it all and if she starts up with me?  I will give her a dosage of the foulest tasting liver oil she has ever had from anyone.

If you're going to be thankless, ungrateful and belligerent when people are trying to help you, piss off.  Is that the Christian thing to say? I don't know, but I grew tired of being a doormat long ago, when people would tell you you aren't a Christian because you won't beckon to every command.  You offer to help people and they walk allllll over you.  That didn't stop me from helping people, but it certainly changed how I go about doing it.  I could write a book about helping people who came to the point that they thought I was their personal slave and could just call me at any time of the day or night and demand I come over right now and do this and that.

I'm not making that up, it's no exaggeration.  I learned how to place boundaries and limitations.  People calling me non-Christian because I wouldn't drop everything I'm doing and go help them right then and there began getting it right back at them.  There's a mechanic shop down the street from your house, go pay them full price for the work. Or - there's a Uhaul at such and such address, they will rent you a truck versus taking mine, emptying the gas tank, leaving dents on the body and leaving it trashed out.  And a LOT of other stuff that I am not going to bother going into here. The point is my views of helping people have been tempered with a lifetime of experience with it.  Once a person starts showing signs of discontent, I'm inclined to start pulling out of the situation..

But, I'm not going to say anything to her, the signs are telling. The 18 year old she let in there was of her own accord, I neither asked her to take him in nor pressured her - and even gave my doubts about it.  Now she is regretting it and that's alllllll on her.  The boy is working now, at least.  I'ma play this one by ear and see where it goes.

On the way down here yesterday - I'm in Brownsville again - I saw one of the worst wrecks I have ever seen.  I came up on a back up of stopped traffic. Got out my GPS and saw it went on for literally MILES.  I was amazed GPS hadn't alerted me to this and given me an alternate route.  I looked, there were definitely ways to get around this mess, but by the time I got to the back up, too late. I was stuck in that for an hour and fifteen minutes, stop and go, mostly stopped, until I finally got to the accident.  The skid marks showed that something had rammed into the center divider, bounced off it, skidded along way and then....finally getting past the fire trucks and wreckers.....a mobile home, still attached to the truck pulling it, the truck was totally trashed and the front axle was hanging over the center divider!  That divider is 3 feet tall, it's taller than others that appear about 2 to 2-1/2 feet tall. It must have been a terrible impact for it to force that entire truck up that divider and over the other side.  That's solid concrete reinforced with rebar - it didn't phase it.

I didn't think I was going to make it down here yesterday, but I pushed hard and got down here with 5 minutes left on the 14 hour clock before I quit for the day.  There was one other driver ahead of me getting down here. He apparently had tried to let me get here first because he had just pulled in when I got there. He left the plant 2 hours before me and didn't get stuck in that traffic. I know how some of these drivers work, lol, they want that detention pay as bad as I do.  But, he still beat me.  There are no other drivers waiting down here, so I doubt it's going to make any difference. Those empty trailers almost always come in one right after the other. Unlikely that I will get much more wait time than he does. 

But, I don't have another run until Tuesday at the earliest.  So it would be nice if there were no trailers coming in today, otherwise it's just another 2 day off scenario. 

Well, that's enough for this one. Sit and wait.  It's 10:00 am, if trailers get here before 1ish pm, I can make it back tonight. 

Well today marks the first time that I can prove that the manager is playing favorites or using whatever system she is using to give out routes - whatever it is, it isn't what she claims it is.  Because yesterday, a driver who had left ahead of me got in after I had already been a the yard quite a while and almost ready to leave.

Yet, this morning, he's already back out on a run and I didn't get anything.  Not that I wanted a run today, but this claim of her's that its' "first in, first out" that she tells everyone - and many have questioned - can now be proven to be false. I don't know why she is doing thing the way she does, just no clue.  One driver gets all the longer runs.  Which I don't care anything about, but there are plenty of drivers that want those runs as well, never getting them or getting them in 6 month intervals.

I didn't actually want to go out today anyway, that's not the complaint. The complaint is simply she isn't doing what she says she is doing.  He didn't get in until late, she would have had to have given him today's run before he ever even got back to the yard.  Now, there could a factor here where her system is so flawed, she doesn't actually even know what's going on and is just guessing.  I dunno.  I'm not going to say anything about it for now, just information that may be useful if the discussion ever comes up.

Meanwhile, this boat mechanic finally stopped talking through his wife and contacted me directly after I demanded my money back.  "The service call was 150 you paid 2p for a bow saver and gave 20 for parts you didn't receive. I got your motor running for you. Gave you about 4 hours work and spent 30 in gas going there and back. But please tell me what you think I I owe you sir."

I wasn't asking for all of my money back, I purchased the support from him for 20 bucks.  But his claim that "I got your motor running for you" is false. It wasn't running any better after he left than when before he came.  His 4 hours of work didn't result in any difference in the engine's sputtering and coughing and not running smoothly and dying out.  He knows this, so why he's trying to purport that "I got your motor running" I don't know, but I replied to him and flatly told him the motor wasn't running any better after then before you arrived, why did you leave me hanging for two weeks and why haven't you followed through?

I, of course, have received no reply.  I would rather resolve this amiably with him, but it's become obvious that he never had any intention of coming back out here, contrary to his word and obviously because I gave him money to buy the fuel pump parts.

Anyway, I've given up on him.  He will send me partial money back or I will cause him trouble.  He doesn't know that yet, not wise to say what I'm going to do if he doesn't do what he said he's going to do, I'll see what happens.  But, they do all of their advertising on social media and I can respond to their ads telling everyone what kind of people they are and tagging facebook group admins in to alert them that these people are basically thieves, certainly not people of their word. They also have ads up in Craigslist, I can run an ad using the pics he posts to advertise and warn people in that manner as well, as well as contact Craigslist, tho I don't know that anything would be come of a complaint to them.

Regardless, I've contacted this other guy I found and now I've been told of yet another person that is a licensed boat mechanic that is also local.  Otherwise, I have to drag the boat over 40 miles to the nearest shop that will work on it.

___________

Smoker going, a pork loin and a beef roast in it.
Meanwhile, the boat mechanic - the one that is local here, not the dude that is giving me the shaft - contacted me back and said I can bring it over this afternoon.  So, that's exactly what I'm going to do.  Once I get the smoker to the desired temperature, I am now able to get it to stay at the temp for several hours without having to bother to look at it. Took quite a while, honestly, to figure out how to do that.

It's mostly started with ample coal in the basket where the fire pit is on the smoker.  Enough charcoal will ensure there is enough fuel to supply the smoker with heat for hours.  Too little and the fuel is exhausted - the coal itself - quickly and you have to keep adding more.  The problem was figuring out how to get it to correct temperature - the answer was to dump a bunch of fluid on it, let it soak in, fire it up, let it flame for quite a while until nice hot coals, dump some wood chunks for smoke on top of it, close everything up, make the adjustments on the air inlet and the exhaust outlet til it's where you want it and that's that.

And I"m still highly annoyed by the revelations that the screen view of purchases on the power company's website has provided.  There is some serious explaining to do.  I don't have to ask anymore how much is on the M-power machine, it's shown on the website. So now, I know that there is $300 and change on the card - A typical September power usage is well under $300, the temps have decreased substantially in Phoenix and they are enjoying super nice weather. But, she said she would "add hers" to the card.  Well, okay, add it then.  $250 please.  I've basically been funding the house out of the 4 rooms with either no payments from them or very little.  I wonder if they thought they were going to get away with this forever?  Their getting themselves into credit card trouble is not my problem, I don't own it or take responsibility for it.  If it's too big an issue, they can declare bankruptcy and that will be the end of that.  But, she said the engine in her car died, so now she has to rely on either friends or the transit system to get around.

The Phoenix bus system is unbelievably SLOW.  It takes forever to get anywhere.  But, I've been there and done that.  Not fun, but you do what you have to do.  And now, her job is moving their location from near the house to downtown Phoenix.  I dunno what she's going to do and I may just have to let it ride for a while, them not paying anything - but - they should be  upfront about that and tell me right off. Not tell me they will add theirs later in the month and then come to find out that either hasn't happened or is less than half of what they are committed to paying to stay there.

Remember, their $250 per month gives them a large room, unlimited wifi, excellent Dish Network package, includes all utilities. The Phoenix rental market is starting to skyrocket. Even room rentals are going way up.  But, I don't want to try to get too much and then have trouble renting rooms.  Not getting that $250, tho, has been noticeable and hence finally drove me to call SRP, get them to set me up with a screen name and login password and see for myself.  It shows payments up to 36  months, tho I only needed to look at summer to see that I have basically funded the electricity without any or very little additional input from their finances. 

I'm still going to have to tread these waters pretty lightly.  They're running the house.  If they get mad and leave - tho I don't know where they would go or how they would survive - I would instantly have to start the process of getting rid of everyone in the house and putting the house up for sale.  Zillow has it valued at 192k.  Zillow's accuracy in the Phoenix market is 98.5 % within 10% of home sale price. Of course, 10% of 192k is a lot of money, but still would be more than I owe on it. 

It's nothing that I want to have to deal with right now, so I guess I"m going to not say much of anything besides the indicator I gave her yesterday about going through all of it.... and saying nothing more. She is aware now that I am  seeing everything and that should either force them to make this month's payment or start making requests.  Forgive the past, but start asking about where this month's payment is if it doesn't happen. 

Well, I"m fixing to get out of here, call the dude and tell him I will be on my way over there with the boat.

Ahhh, the luxuries of staying in a nice hotel, company paid, on the top floor : )
I haven't had this in a while.
I stayed at the cheap hotel 2 weeks ago - but I did that cause' I wasn't sure if I was going to get reimbursed.  They did reimburse me.

I actually did the same here cause' my manager was on the road and wouldn't do anything and I didn't want the whole day to waste away, so I got the room but 10 minutes later she had the confirmation down at the desk.  And then warned me - a thing I didn't know - to not turn in the receipt because the company is now not paying for detention time while you're in the hotel.  What a hoot - this new company totally sucks.  That's just the grasp of it.  Waiting down here for days, at least the second night you really should be afforded something other than Truck Sleeper Inn.  From now on, if I realllllly want a hotel, I'll eat the cost and not turn in it at all.  I will make the money back in a few hours of detention pay and then still get the rest.

It's Sunday, that;s all. I've been here since last night.  Anyway, I always find out about these lovely new rules after the fact.  Still, my manager said to not turn in the paper, that way I will get away with it.  She said she would keep doing it that way until they get on her case about it. So maybe I will try it again, but next time make sure I go through her. But, I tried for almost 4 hours to get her to do it and she wouldn't until she got to her destination.

I just love this hotel. So quiet and peaceful.  The expressway is right there, but I'm near the back, I don't hear any of that freeway noise. And it's carpeted, a thing I really like over those tile/wood plank floors.  Well, as long as the carpet is clean and not nasty smelling and sticky, lol.

Anyway, if I get back tomorrow night, that allows me the opportunity to get to the auction on Tuesday morning.  Trailers will have to show up early enough tho for me to be able to do that.  Otherwise it will just have to wait until they have another one.  Tuesday, tho, providing I'm back, I intend on taking the boat to a local mechanic and now have found another one that is allegedly a certified boat mechanic.  Things "might" be looking up.  Someone can fix the thing, I'm certain of that.

Other than that, just another day in Paradise?  In politics, absolutely not.  This circus about the Trump phone call to the Ukraine has gone full scale off the wall.  I have read the transcipt and the whistleblower document and see absolutely nothing in there about Trump  engaging in quid pro quo and trying to manipulate the 2020 election through a Biden investigation.  And even more facts are now coming out.  You just have to wait a while - a thing Democrats refuse to do in the case of this president - for all the facts to get dug up and come out.  There will be more, I suspect.  But, the dems went straight to impeachment, before they even got a chance to see the transcript - that they demanded and now are saying isn't good enough, just as they did with the Russian collusion s***.

Modern day politics has gone completely off the rails.  Since when do we trust hearsay as evidence, especially considering impeaching the President of the United States? Or start demanding impeachment proceedings before you've seen any evidence at all?  BECAUSE this whistle blower is giving second hand information, that person should be identified. And I bet there are a lot of people that are trying to uncover that as we speak. Should we even accept second hand info from "whistle blowers"? Or is this just another attempt to force through a Trump impeachment by Trump haters that don't care about the truth and potentially could just be making all of this stuff up?  Well? Certainly isn't beyond the realm of possibility that none of this person's claims are true.

Whatever the case, I take breaks from reading the news because right now, the top news stories are ALL about this situation. Like the first 5 stories plus a bunch of sub stories below each one of those 5.

Well anyway, off of that. I can't imagine most Americans are happy with the way any of this political scene is going.  But, we don't have to get totally caught up in it. Let them fight it out. The only thing you can do is call your representative and let your opinion be known. And vote next November.

 Oh the weather has gotten nice and dreary.  Okay, not dreary, but lots of people call it that when it gets dark, the wind starts howling and the rain starts pummeling the earth.  We've been in a dry spell, so I'm happy to see it, even if not at the house.  Giant American Flag flowing nicely above the Volkswagen dealership 100 feet away. Well, in the spirit of trying to save money, I'm going to bring my food from the truck up here, heat it up - well not the salad lol - it's left over prime rib and I have a lot of it.  Yeah, good stuff.  Salad and some soup I have should make a delicious dinner.  Of course, Texas Road house is directly across the expressway.....sooooo tempting.

But no. My Prime Rib roast turned out excellent. Even the 2 and 4 year olds were wolfing it down with seconds and thirds - and it was quite rare meat, tho, I was surprised those kids were liking that stuff.  For them it would be akin to eating raw  meat, I think.

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Time almost done at this hotel.  No call yet about trailers coming in. Another driver over there at the truck yard decided to stay the night in his truck and would call me if trailers come in. I don't expect anything til' later this afternoon, but you just never know with this stuff.

I"m realllly wanting to go to that auction tomorrow, but the later it gets, the less likely that becomes.  It's almost 11 am - checkout time. I usually figure that anything past 2 pm I will not make it back that night, even tho on occasion I have just decided to go straight through.  Like last trip, when I spent 2 hours stopping and looking for a place to park and finally got disgusted with it and just drove the route out until almost 4 am.

I was also supposed to drag the boat in today to the repair place, but that is obviously not going to happen.

And I think I figured out why Addler is starting to get fat.  Maria just lets him eat as much as he wants to over there and apparently feeding him that cheap Purina junk.  I buy him Iams, which has kept him trim and fit.  I don't want him eating that garbage food with all kinds of junk in it that isn't really good for him - at all. And I certainly do not want him getting fat. I'll have to have a "gentle" discussion with her about it, I made my desires about it known at the beginning, but apparently that is being replaced with whatever she wants to do.  Her dogs are fat.  I was wary of this at the get go.  But Addler has been healthy all this time, I figured he would still remain lean.  Instead, he's put on a lot of fat and harmful weight. Not good for large dogs to be overweight. Not good for any dog, but the giant breeds are prone to heart problems and weight issues don't help with that.

It's really quite annoying because I said well over a month ago I'm putting him on  a diet. She obviously didn't receive that too well and she believes her dogs look "normal". Trust me when I say those dogs are quite over weight.

________________________

Home.  Yesterday, 2 trailers showed up at once, despite the yard guy's adamant statement that only one was coming up.   But, my Quaalcomm had going into drive mode when I had it on Personal Conveyance mode - causing the on duty clock to start. The company knows about the problem, I subsequently found out, but has done nothing to fix it.

So, I finally had to get an account set up with SRP online to see how much is being spent on electricity.  Because I am being told one thing and the amount I am getting is telling me another story.  I was shocked.  I was literally shocked. They have been lying to me and I just have no words.

I knew something wasn't right but right now? I'm attempting to get my expenses under control. The house in Phoenix always paid for itself until we got to summer.

























                                                                                                                                                                          

Sunday morning. 

Got to the Brownsville yard last night to find no empty or filled trailers and no trucks sitting there waiting.  Gag, I thought, no detention pay on this run.  After dropping the trailer, however, I went to the new, nearby Love's and found fully 3 other of our trucks sitting there, waiting on trailers.  2 of them should be coming in today, but no way are they bringing up 4 trailers. They have never done that and I will be spending the entire day and night down here.  I fully intend on requesting a hotel room, as stipulated in our new "rules". 

Used to be you could get a hotel the first night down here. Now, the manager doesn't even reply to a valid request for the second night.  Meaning, pay out of pocket and hope the company pays me back.  BUT, if I text her a couple of times and receive no reply, no matter to me.  I'm getting the hotel and I fully expect it to be reimbursed.  It was the last time I did this not that long ago. Then only reason to "fear" not getting repaid is other drivers saying they were given a hard time about doing it on their own.

In reality? I would far rather the company get me one. If they get the usual - Marriott Residence Inn - I will get free dinner and a very nice room.  If I don't do it through the company, no way am I paying regular rates for a room like that. I'll just go to the cheaper chains and deal with it.  But, probably won't be able to get into a hotel until this afternoon, so I have a lot of hours in between to fill.  The unfortunate thing is that the new rules for these electronic logging devices say you can only use the personal conveyance - meaning you are using the truck for your own use, not on duty time - option for an hour.  Why the bleep do they care how much time I use the truck on my own, personal business?  I'm off all day long, it takes a while to get anywhere in this town. It may not be that big of a town, but there are red lights everywhere and people drive soooooo slowwwwwwwww.  If the speed limit is 45mph, they're likely going 25 to 30 or even slower.  Drives me insane!  lol

Well, I've gone through reviews on every single movie in the theaters and I'm not impressed with anything that's playing.  I usually wait until I can watch it free when I have doubts.  I don't go to the movies that often - mostly because of the fact that much of what is produced nowadays is either rehashed versions of old movies or completely lame, new themes that have no intellectual discourse or story lines that don't go beyond brain dead, boring trash.  If I want to be bored, I can just sit in this truck.  I don't neeeeeeed to go pay to be bored.  

So I dunno what I'm going to do, which usually means I will do nothing until I can get into a hotel later on.  Around 3pm I'll be contacting the manager, telling her I was the 4th driver waiting down here today, no way are they getting 4 trailers up in a single day, hotel please.

Meanwhile, I"m going to go take a shower. I get them free at Love's : )

And just like that, I remembered having a conversation with a person selling a boat here locally a loooooooooong time ago. I went through a hundred Facebook messages before finally finding the conversation we had had about a boat he had for sale and him saying he was the mechanic that had fixed it and the owner failed to pay him, so he was selling on a mechanic's lien.

So I contacted him earlier and he said yes, he can take a look at it.
I have no idea his credentials, I don't know if he has a shop or what.  Well he must have something going to be able to put a mechanic's lien on a boat, I don't think you can do that without having a shop, can you? I dunno.  But it's local. There were 2 other shops that said they'd look at it - each 1 being exactly 41 miles away, lol.  I found that interesting, but in different towns. 

So I'm in a rather slow back and forth with this guy about how to go about getting him to look at it. It's been this long, I'm resolved to just take as much time as it's going to take to get it fixed. I have no options besides buying another motor for it, I remain hopeful that won't be necessary.

I've been sitting 2 days - not shocking considering the number of trucks that were sitting in the yard when I got back from last trip and the small number of runs that are available on the schedule. I actually thought I might be sitting 3 or 4 days.  No matter, the boat can't go out on the lake atm and so, I don't really care that I'm going out tomorrow.  I was very glad I did not get the Stryker Ohio load tomorrow.  The only options for today tomorrow sunday and monday are brownsville runs and the single Stryker load - I missed that by one spot. Someone got that before me - they can have it.  It's 2,000 miles round trip but it takes up 4 days.  If I get detention pay in Brownsville - even just overnight detention - I get as much money for a 1,187 mile trip and much less hassle for 2 days.  3 days and I make more than that 4 day trip.

Anyway, I met up with Taylor at In Japan, a local Japanese restaurant that has rave reviews from all kinds of people - many of which were just passing by our little town on the way to wherever and thought it odd that a sushi/hibachi style restaurant with this high class of food and freshness existed here. "Where do they get their seafood, it tastes fresh?".  Well, in reality, there are ports only 250 miles from here.  But, most seafood is flash frozen out at sea just after it's caught, from what I can understand.  If you're ON the beach, I suppose you might be able to get fresh seafood that has just been caught? I dunno.  Unfortunately, I cannot have sushi at this point in time, none of it on the menu was Keto friendly and so I opted for a Hibachi cooked steak with vegetables - very delicious. 
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I smoked a beautiful Prime Rib roast in the smoker today.  I took extra caution to wait for 45 minutes to even out the temp at 225.  Once I was sure that it was where I wanted it, I put that baby on there. It's actually been sitting the freezer for 10 months - I bought it when it was on sale last Christmastime.  Yes that's 10 months ago and yes, the roast turned out wonderful. It had no ill taste from being in the freezer that long, no freezer burn.  But when I saw the date on it going through stuff in the outside freezer, i thought it's time to cook this baby!

I'm going through a lot of stuff in the freezers - we're emptying them back out again slowly but surely so we can fill them back up with fresh stuff. 

But it's bedtime.  The Brownsville run is a long one and I need my sleep. 

Long day?  Yeah, sort of.
I got up at 3:30 am to get out of that truckstop I had been sitting at all day and get through Houston before rush hour.
I made it through 610 west - if you can believe that - without any problem excepting one accident that only slowed us all down a little for a couple of minutes. Other than that, it was free sailing through there.  My intention was to get south of Houston and then I could take a nap. 

Just was very tired, 6 hours of sleep will do that. 

Fast forward to arriving in Brownsville. My heart sank when I saw an empty trailer sitting there. Ohhh nooooo!  Oh well, I thought, I'll just hook up, drive a few hours back up North - I only had 3 hours left to drive anyway - and then call it an early day somewhere, probably around Victoria, Texas.  But wait! I decided to call the driver ahead of me, he was supposed to be behind me but all that s*** from yesterday moved me back.

And  then is when I got the good news: TWO drivers ahead of me, the one on the phone and another that had been waiting for days.  The plant is way behind again, yay!  So, it isn't even 1 in the afternoon and I thought about the rare luxury of getting a cheaper but still nice hotel and spending the day and night in there.  The driver told me that there may only be one trailer coming up tomorrow.  Well, even if there's two, I'm going to make a chunk of sitting change both with being down here and yesterday.

My only regret is that if I had gotten down here yesterday, I would have been able to get a room at company expense and also would have gotten much more in D pay than in Breakdown pay. But it is what it is.  I can't complain too much, it's great money, next week's check with 2 of these high D pays on them will make up for the abysmal thing I'm getting this week - the pay period with only the El Dorado run on it.  If it's a $200 check after taxes and deductions I'd be surprised. 

So  yes, anyway, I got the hotel room.  And I'm fixing to take a nice nap after I get done with this, I have a minor headache from getting up so early and driving in the dark.  Night driving just messes with my anymore, I don't like it.  I can do it, no doubt, it's not that I can't see or anything, I just don't like it.  More attention has to be paid because - it's dark lmao. 

Oh, the boat. I contacted those people yet again. Did he happen to get to the parts store? All I got back from her was a giant thumb's up, no explanation, no date to come and finish the work.  I haven't given up on them yet since I'm not even there. I mean, I told them they can come and fix it while I'm out and the people at the house were expecting us, but that was it.  So whatever. If they don't say anything about coming when I get back, I'm dragging that boat to an actual shop and getting this over with.  I could have gone boating numerous times now. 

Ugh. I need a nap.

There's nothing like Monday.  It either makes you or breaks you.  You don't plan or want trouble, but often times it comes at you, especially if you're at work.

And so it was today.  Everything went smoothly - at the plant I was out of there much faster than normal, so fast so, in fact, it threw up warning flags.  Hmmm, how is this day going so great? I loved it tho, figured I could get to Brownsville much earlier than I normally would.

I got south of Lufkin, going through a small town named Diboll when one of the super single trailer tires blew out. And when I say blow out, I mean this one was a real doozy.  The entire tread came almost all the way off from the tire, slapped the tire and wheel in front of it, breaking an air line, smashed the air line on the wheel it was on, tore up the mud flap, damaged the rear strip on the trailer with the tail lights in it and destroyed all 3 tail lights on that side of the trailer.

When I say destroyed, I mean it ripped the lights right out of their sockets, pulled out the wires and stripped the wires themselves.  I was stuck on the side of the highway, there was no hobbling down the road to a safe place to pull out, the trailer is loaded and the whole thing leaning to one side because of that huge tire all but gone.  Super single tires are those huge tires that are over 2 feet wide. You only have one in place of duallies.

Ridiculous nonsense.  Yes, I did a thorough inspection of the tires this morning, but they've been getting these retreads lately and they don't last long.  A waste of money and now a waste of productivity.  My company - also ridiculous.  I had to call the tire hot line through Michelin to get the tire replaced, I had to call a repair hotline to get the lights and other damage fixed.  Michelin ended up having Love's come out to replace the tire and then the repair hotline also called out Love's - excepting - Love's wouldn't be available for another 5 hours.

The dude said well we can fix this if you come back to the shop.  The hell you say.  You are the company that is supposed to fix this, but not for another 5 hours!  Yup, it's first come, first served he said.  I knew that, I just didn't want to sit in this little town, I wanted to get on down the highway and get this portion of the trip over with. I informed him I would not be driving 20 miles to the Loves without any brake or turn signal lights on that side of the trailer no only not working, but not even there!

Dangerous and this area is loaded with State Troopers, city cops - yes Diboll as small as it is has it's own police department and sheriffs everywhere.  I'd be a sitting duck target for them if they saw that.  I told him to make sure he looks at that mess and get everything written down that's needed so that whoever ends up coming doesn't have to make a trip back to the shop or a parts store.  I then told him  I was driving down to the nearest truck stop 2 miles down the road.  It may be dangerous to drive it without those lights, I deemed it far more dangerous to be sitting right on the side of the highway with traffic zooming past a foot away at 60 to 70 miles per hour with a trailer loaded with 8,000 gallons of Ethylene.

I figured if I did happen to get pulled over in those 2 miles I'd easily talk my way out of it, even if I couldn't, my company would back me in such a move and at least try to fight any tickets or out of service s***.  But. I waited before taking off from there until I could see that the highway was free of any traffic coming - I could see back about 2,000 feet - and took off, got here and have been waiting ever since.  This ordeal started at 10:00 am and it's now 3:35 pm.  Love's called about half an hour ago - we're getting the paperwork ready and getting this paid for before we come out there, do you have a phone number or know how this is getting paid for?

Yeah, I have no clue how they are paying for it and not my problem, gave them the phone number and wished them luck trying to get through to those people.  I haven't heard anything back, but at this point, I don't care.  I won't be leaving here until probably 3:30 am, that is if they even get this nonsense ever fixed.  Would have been faster to just send our mechanic down here to fix this stuff.

I have 4-1/2 hours left on the 14 hour on-duty clock.  By the time they get done here, I figure at best there will be 2 hours left on it.  That means I could drive 2 hours and then have to stop.  Guess what's 2 hours away? Yup, Houston.  Screw that.  I went off duty almost 4 hours ago, 6 more hours and I'll have a fresh 14 hour clock.  I see absolutely no good reason to leave here with only 2 hours left on the drive clock and be in Houston during rush hour traffic and trying to find a place to take a 10 hour break. Makes absolutely no sense to me at all so I made the decision about an hour ago after seeing it really is going to be 4:30 before they get here to just spend the night here.

I've made $125 sitting here and I suspect I'll make minimum $50 more before it's done. Maybe even longer if they don't bring the right parts. They actually have to get a wiring harness for all of those lights, the connectors were stripped off the wires. The wheel hub covers have to be replaced as well as air lines and the mud flap has to be replaced as well.

____________________

I made the decision after the Love's mechanic finally showed up.  Note: I could have fixed all this stuff myself if had had access to the parts to do so.  I looked in the truck stop here but they didn't even have the lights much less the wiring harnesses to go with them.  Anyway, the northern part of Houston being 1-1/2 hours from here and having 3 hours left on the clock, I simply decided to stay put.  Rush hours - not hour - goes on for a while in Houston and I would have ended up smack dab in the middle of that nonsense and then attempting to find a place to park for the night - no thanks. I"m parked.  I'll drive this route out tomorrow.  The driver behind me will be ahead of me now. He should get there tonight.  Anyone sitting over the weekend should also be there or gone if trailers show up. 

But I am now placed last in line down there when I arrive and I just got almost 7 hours of breakdown pay, if I can stay down there until Wednesday add 14 hours of detention pay (at least).   The only downside? There is another Massachusetts run going out on Thursday!  I'm going to have to ask my manager about that run, when did we acquire it and how many loads per week or month are going there? I'm not the biggest fan of 7 day runs but it's good money.  At the same time, the Brownsville run is just as good as those long runs if there is a wait period.  Even if only overnight, it's guaranteed 14 hours when there's no empty available.

Ok, honestly, I just want to go to Massachusetts! When it isn't snowing, haling, the roads aren't covered with ice and snow and there aren't any white outs like there was when I was doing that LNG gig quite a while back.  That was Amherst at the Amherst University. I got a written notice that I had "falsified logs" after that 2 weeks of icy cold hell.  They said I didn't spend enough time at the fuel aisle dumping diesel into the tanks!  A freaking blizzard, with the wind blowing it almost horizontally into your face, you are not going to waste any time fueling up that truck.  I didn't care, either and told  my manager as such. 

That was then, this is now. The more time I have invested in this company, the less likely I am driven to leave it.

Well, that's it. The boat mechanics wife I contacted hours ago never replied.  Shocking. Not.  It's just going to the shop if I don't hear back from them before I get back to the house.  I could have already had this thing fixed from a shop,  just didn't want to fork out the dough I know it will cost.  At this point? Don't care. 

Friday - noonish time.
The decision to take the alternate route was a sound one, speaking after the fact.
I got to the juncture where I would either head down the normal way through Houston or go the alt route and something in side of me said - alternate route!  I hated to do it because I didn't know whether I would have enough hours to make it to Brownsville the same day going that way.  I have never taken that route, tho one other driver said it adds 30 minutes to the drive. 

I was halfway through that alt route - passing under I-10 well west of Houston - when my manager texted everyone:  The roads are closed in Houston but Highway 79 to 77 is still good.  It wasn't long after that that I started seeing the images of the flooding in Houston and a picture of I-45 in North Houston.  The pic showed the entire Interstate flooded, a lot of cars and trucks - all bunched up on the side that had tried to escape the flooding.  Most of those vehicles did not appear to have avoided it, many of them were half or completely submerged.

And other pics of neighborhoods flooded, service roads flooded and reports that most if not all highways had been closed.  If I had taken that route, I would have had to turn around, go almost all the way back up and take the alt route anyway.  I did, indeed, make it down here without much time to spare either on the 11 hour driving clock or the 14 hour on-duty clock.  The alternate route takes you through a lot of small towns with 35 mph speed limits, lots of traffic lights and lots of cops watching.  It was rather annoying, to be honest, to have to go through all of that, but it's whatever.

One little town had this 10% grade with switchbacks going up it.  Narrow road and not enough room if a truck is coming down and one is going up.  I found that out because I was hugging the wall they had on the shoulder while this other truck was coming down - 2 feet into my lane as he passed by, coming very close to hitting my trailer.  SLOW DOWN, was the thought going through my head, why is this driver in such a hurry?  20 mph speed limit, he must have been going 40.  That doesn't sound like much until you appreciate the steepness of the grade and the sharpness of the turns. 

Anyway, I decided to stay at the new Love's again last night, figuring there was no need to spend the night in the truck yard since it was fairly reasonable to assume that there would be no empty trailers coming in early - and that assumption was correct.  When the man that runs the yard finally got there, he said there were no trailers in Matamoros, there would be one  leaving the plant - that is 4 hours south of there.  Lol, they had me thinking that plant was IN Matamoros, now find out it's nowhere near it.  And then, when it does arrive at the border, you don't just sail right through there. There is a line of trucks you have to wait in line for to get inspected to come into the U.S. 

He said this afternoon.  If his 4 hours stuff is correct, I'm guessing 4 pm, which is far later than acceptable to be able to make it back today.  I simply refuse to drive all night long to get back to the yard anymore unless there is a need for the trailer the next morning.  The yard is full of trailers right now.  I'll drive til 1 pm at the latest and then stop for 10 hours and finish out the drive the next morning.  Just for me I won't feel like crap all day the next day after getting home and wanting to do nothing but sleep or lay in bed. 

And the dude that was behind me - he loaded directly after me yesterday - just now pulled in down here.  He got caught up in a rainstorm that had hit the alternate route. I saw that the alt route wasn't free of the rain from the Houston area, I just happened to beat the worst of it. I only had to drive through some sprinkles here and there, he experienced the deluge.  That always slows everything down and it caused him to not be able to make it down here by 3 hours lol.

Anyway, I tried to contact the mechanic but he's unavailable right now.  So I dunno when he's coming back to finish the boat.  If he just isn't coming back, I'll find someone else.  I don't know where the vacuum lines are supposed to go, that's not really anything I would know unless I had taken it apart in the first place.  It's one of those things where I would have taken pics of the lines - there's a lot of vacuum lines on that thing for some reason - so I would remember how they go back on.  Any mechanic project I have ever gotten involved with where there are a lot of lines and electrical coming off I have always taken pics and/or taken notes to ensure  that the whole thing gets put back together correctly. 

The "boy" living at the other house - that's his nickname until he earns a more respectful title - has allegedly found a job and is going to go to an orientation at IHOP this coming week.  His mother is still pandering to him - tho it's in my favor so I'm not turning it down - by co-signing a loan with him to pay the rent next month.  It's whatever to me, as long as the rent is paid. Maria has to "nag" him to do simple things such as clean up after himself when he's done eating or occasionally take the trash out.  It's just a weird situation as far as I'm concerned, but Maria is trying to work with him.  His parents obviously failed him.  She brought this upon herself tho, so I have a little less sympathy than I might have otherwise. The parents did lie to her about his lack of work ethic and lack of motivation to do much of anything beyond playing video games, eating and sleeping.  I did spend a half hour with them in the living room over there the other day attempting to chat with him.  He's not a very sociable person, but at least he wasn't rude.  He's just completely caught up in his own little world.  I'll give him credit for trying to break out of it and get a job, I guess.  We'll see how that goes.

Not much else going on. Gonna end this one.

The biggest question for me today?
To go way around Houston or to attempt driving through it with that tropical depression Emelda lingering around over everything.  I'm not going to make it to Brownsville today if I get caught up in weather related flooding or accidents holding up the freeways through there.  Not to mention everyone slows down automatically when it's raining, often times when slowing down is unnecessary and just wasting time. 

I get it if visibility is reduced.  Many times that isn't a factor and they still go way under the speed limit and block the passing lane while doing it.  I mean, I don't care if you slow way down, just don't slow me down with you.  But they'll sit there at 50 mph or even slower in a 75mph zone and not pass or speed up or slow down to get out of anyone's way.  Often times they'll put on their flashers as if that's helping anything  - which it is not and authorities don't even recommend you do that. It's likely I'll try going around Houston, I just have no idea whether that extends the drive time too far to get down to Brownsville? 

But, I will check the traffic map for that city before I make my decision and that won't occur til' later on today.  The last time seriously heavy rain occurred in Houston and I was driving through, it flooded the service roads and turned them into lakes with cars submerged and even more cars that had tried to flee the flooding and drive up on the embankment.  It took 3 hours to get through there and that ruined my chances to get to Brownsville - and the delectable detention pay that is a staple of those runs when you do, indeed, get it. 

So, I'll just be thinking about that this morning.  I have the alt route planned, I've never taken it and it will definitely add at least 30 to 45 minutes to the drive.  So really, it's kind of more dependent on how long I get stuck at the plant today and how much of my on-duty time I have remaining after leaving there.  Because I usually have at least an hour left hour of drive time when I get to the yard in Brownsville. 

Mother - is doing much better now and finally got herself a new phone.  I may call or at least text her today and see how she's doing anyway tho.  She claimed that the doctor said she had some sort of virus. The paperwork appeared to say something different.  I dunno, just glad she's better. 

The boat mechanic is supposed to come tomorrow. I won't be there but I definitely want him to come and finish this motor project.  Okay, I'd rather be there when he is there and ask him some questions, but geeze, let's get on with this already!

G'day. 

El Dorado trip done and over with. Always a one day trip - at least - and considering it doesn't pay hardly anything it shouldn't take more than a day.

Only one load going out today.  That's how bad it is right now with the schedule.  Yet, yesterday, arriving in the yard there were only 3 trucks. The schedule has been light since last week so either people are going out on call duty or they are going home.  Otherwise, there should be at least 10 trucks sitting there.

Highly likely I will not get that nice Massachusetts run. I haven't been to that state in forever, would be nice to go just to see it - before winter gets here.  We must have picked up a new contract because I'v heard of this run for several months now.  Not many loads going up there, but it's a nice paying gig.  It's hard to live like this when you have no idea when you're going out next and your manager is never specific when you ask.

Or doesn't reply at all.  Which has always been normal for her, but still. Do you meal prep or not? Do you wait until the end of the day and hope you have a run "somewhere"? For example, if I did get the MA run, I'd want to know the morning before, like right now.  Spend the day cooking some stuff for the road.  It's a 7 day trip I think. 6 anyway.

But, if I'm going to Brownsville, not so much pre cooking. In fact, I can get away with none at all if it came down to it, with the Stripes gas station selling baked, half-chickens I can wing it for eating. Just get some veggies and some heavy whipped cream and a few other oddities for the road and I'm set.

It tout the Keto diet everywhere I go when the subject of diets comes up - and amazingly that subject comes up pretty often.  You see a heavy-set person and they are talking to another heavy-set person about diet and Keto just pops out of my mouth.  I tell them if you've tried other diets that have failed, try this one.  It will work if you follow it correctly.  And it works fast.  I got into that discussion yesterday at the guard shack at the plant I was at.  The drawback for everyone is always when you go down the list of things you can't eat, which is probably 90% of what any given person has been eating up until that point.  Lots of negatives but the huge positive is results.

Today? I have let the back yard go.  I mean, I don't do anything with it now because of the neighbors uphill of us.  They simply will not clean up the years old mess back there and every single time it rains, all of that s*** comes floating over onto our property and I just got to the point where I had had it.

Think of spending hours sweeping or using a blower to clean up twigs, branches, dirt, leaves and debris and then the next day a rain comes and their yard dumps all over yours?   Hours of wasted effort.  Really started getting to me and so I just stopped.  Well, James told me last night that they had finally cleaned up over there. I haven't been outside yet, remains to be seen but I'll go take a look in a few.  If they really did, I'll do a light cleanup and see what happens. Wait, maybe not. It's supposed to rain today so that kind of nixes that plan.  Hard to sweep or blow wet concrete.

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Day over.  Next trip sent. I dunno, I would say my manager screwed up, but this week's schedule is way messed up, light less than half the runs we would normally have.  I didn't get the Massachusetts run, but I didn't expect it.  I did  get a Brownsville run, the other alternative tomorrow was a Houston run. Another worthless run that takes up a day - or if a split trip - 2 days. 

I'm happy to get the Brownsville run. The one I did 2 weeks ago that had me down there 2 nights was worth $1,600. That's just 3 days out. I'd gladly take another of those, but even at mileage and stop pay only I'm good with it.  Oh, and my company did reimburse me the hotel stay.  The next time I get stuck down there 2 nights and my manager doesn't respond to my text for a hotel? I'm going to Marriott.  That's what the company gives - I won't get their rate and I don't care.  I'll get reimbursed and that's that. 

Oh, and yes, they did clean up their back yard next door!! I was shocked.  It was allllllllll cleaned up, the only thing on the ground was the leaves that have fallen off the trees since they did it.  I love trees, I really do, but these trees?  Can burn.  I would say struck by lightning but they are so big they would crush this or their house if they fell on either and anyone in it's way would be quite dead.  These trees are HUGE. 

Well, time to go to bed. 

It's Sunday night.
I haven't worked since I got back Thursday.  I assume I have nothing until Tuesday.
Although I know we're slow, we are never that slow.
I have, however, decided that the time off is good and so I am just going with the flow.

Monday morning, however, I'll be be contacting my manager for work on Tuesday. No way I should have to sit 5 days unless we just went dead broke dead on work.

Well anyway.
The dude showed up - james and taylor's friend - today with the family actually.  Wife and son.  I came to the understanding quickly he didn't have any knowledge about boat motors. Not a problem, I found someone anyway this morning to come over.  They came over to party lol. The kid with their kids and them with all of us.

Well, after I got to that understanding I went ahead and had the mobile mechanic come out.  I found him on Facebook in an ATV/off road local group and away we go.

When he got there, he started chuckling. "I know this boat".  That didn't sound good.  Oh, how's that?  I worked on this thing for a guy not long ago.  2 + 2 still equals 4. I immediately deduced he was the guy that sold the boat to James and was the middle man. He confirmed my conclusions.  Yup, the guy that owned it wanted rid of it.  I had rebuilt the carbs, but we needed to get the boat into a body of water to adjust them.

When we got out there, he continued, he told the man that he had to adjust all 3 carbs on it and that it would take a bit to do it. The man who owned the boat got mad and said f*** this, I just want to get rid of this boat!  He wouldn't allow him to finish the work and they left, sold the boat - to me but through James and that was that.

Umm, so we were at the same place he left off. "Do you have a 55 gallon drum or something we can put the engine in? Cause' the only way to properly adjust the carbs is with the boat in water and having that back-pressure".  Um, no, I'm not sticking the thing into my Koi pond.  "well when we're going to have to go to a lake to finish this".

I wanted to visit with these folks, not go to a lake. I mean, yes i want to go to the lake with the boat but in running condition and with everything that needs to be done - done.  We ain't there yet. Getting much closer, but not there yet.  I did not, however, verbalize those sentiments. I immediately said yes! let's go!  In fact, we weren't even going to float the boat, we were going to back the thing into the water far enough to get the lower unit in the water so the impeller can pump water to cool the engine.

This prospect wasn't as terrifying as actually attempting to launch the boat...until we got there.  A "primitive" site, the ramp was very steep and no pier. In fact, it was just a dirt lot and this ramp going at a maybe 35 degree angle? Whatever it was, it was more than I wanted to deal with the first time backing a boat trailer into the water. But we were there, no turning back. Not to mention the place was less than a 15 minute drive from the house.

Well, I backed the thing down into the water until he told me to stop. Then, we got it going - eventually - but it was running erratic.  Not smooth at all and kept dying out.  A single ramp, two other vehicles parked with boats already in the water, didn't really expect to see a bunch of people showing up there. I mean, this place is dirt, weeds a cement ramp and nothing else.  We were blocking the ramp for a while until a family floated a ski boat in.  They started asking questions. We'll move out of the way.  No, we're not ready yet, they had just floated the boat up to the shore to get the truck and do whatever they were doing.

Well let us know when you want to use the ramp and we'll move.  20 minutes later - we'd like to load our boat. So, this mechanic was taking the engine apart anyway.  I told him I want the thing working properly, I don't want anything half assed and I want the motor to purr like a kitten. Or as close to it as possible.  It was then I found out he had done a compression check on the cylinders previously and found them all at 125 excepting one at 123. Perfect.  The amount of compression in each cylinder isn't as important as the compression being within 10 pounds of pressure of each other.  That made me very happy to hear.

After pulling it out of the water,  he began researching online, calling people and making discoveries. The fuel pump needs rebuilt and there is a vacuum leak.  He got the thing running as smooth as possible with those deficiencies, but a vacuum leak will cause the engine to run bad and so will a fuel pump problem.  Bad bladder.  We put the thing back into the water after all of that so he could adjust the carbs, regardless of those problems, he said, he could get the carbs set and we wouldn't have to go back there to test again.  No matter to me, I had no idea that reservoir was that close.

We were there a long time and I observed people launching boats and retrieving them back onto the trailers. They were all much smaller, tho, I had my doubts about it going so smoothly with this bigger thing, but it's all the same principle.  I also watched a lot of jet skis being put out into the water, including a group of people that had brought two of them.  After they had launched, pretty simple thing after watching it for such a small thing, they had to sit there and jump start from one to the other one of them. Then, the thing took a while to get going. And after a while of this - they took off out of sight.

I saw them over an hour and a half later.  Both of them had died on the water and they were swimming, pulling them back.  A girl had swum ahead of them proclaiming to us that they had just spent the last hour pulling them back by swimming.  It's a wonder to me that the other boats that had launched didn't see them and help them, but the main portion of the lake/reservoir is out of site of that ramp so I just assumed no one saw them.

A family of 5 in this small boat also came floating into view. I couldn't imagine having that many people on a boat that size - but they seemed perfectly content.

Well, after the carbs were set I headed home. He said he would get the parts and come back tomorrow and finish the job. Fine by me.  He also sold me his "transom saver" - its a bar that attaches to the lower unit of the motor and rests against the trailer. It keeps the engine from bumping around and eventually breaking the transom.  I have seen them, it's a bar with rubber covered protrusions on each end.  I have also read you should have one. Yup, well I hadn't gotten that far, so I bought his after he offered to sell it to me.

_____________

Monday.  I expect today to be the last day of the "vacation" that isn't really a vacation.  I haven't even contacted my manager yet about the 4 days off, whether it was intended or an oversight.  The boat repair guy is supposed to come back today and finish the job, I did just contact him and awaiting a reply.  He showed me nicks in the hull, well, pointedly where the boat has been captured back on the trailer that needed addressing, gave me a tube of Marine JB weld and said that would definitely do the trick for such small holes.  They aren't holes per se, not all the way into the hull.  They're deep scrapes where he said water would probably seep through.

Thankfully, the bilge pump works lol. Anyway, I just got done from climbing all the way underneath the boat and applying the weld to about 7 places. only 2 of them were deep enough to really warrant the stuff but since I was under there, might as well.  Upon closer inspection of the transom at the bottom, there is some minor hull damage right a the corner about 4 inches long It's obviously they ran it into something because it's all chipped off there.  I applied a goodly amount of the weld there and hoping that will solve the problem. If it doesn't, I wouldn't expect a huge repair bill from the shop that specializes in fixing such things.  But I will see if the JB weld does the trick first, ie: take the thing out on to the lake and see if there is still water entering in through the bottom.

Also going to ask about various openings in the sides of the water craft, what they're for and are they potentially letting water in?  The only one I know of for sure that would let water in is a plug at the bottom of the thing that you are supposed to pull off after every outing.  Any water build up in there will just flow out of that plug opening.  And contrarily, leaving that plug out would sink the boat, lol.

It's nice to be home alone.  Yesterday was a consortium of people over and screaming kids.  A little solitude - with the dogs of course but they aren't a bother - is very nice.  I'll have to attempt to get my mind functioning in work mode, a thing I always find difficult to do after I've had some time off.  But it's time to go back to work and make some money.

_______________

Boat back at the other house, light fixture exchanged at Lowe's, food picked up for dinner - if I don't cook there may not be dinner, laundry, etc etc etc.  Normal household chore stuff.  And word back that the mechanic won't be back until Wednesday or Thursday 🙁🙁🙁🙁🙁🙁🙁🙁🙁

Oh well.  Nothing I can do about it.  I still have that list of stuff that you are required to have on the boat to buy.  Just not buying anything else until the motor is dialed in.  I just thought it a bit disconcerting he told me he was coming back today and now backing it off by 3 or 4 days.  However, the only thing over that I paid him yesterday was for the fuel pump kit, so to "lose" that money would be losing $23.  But, even tho he's changed the date, I don't think he's a ripoff.

And now, confirmation. The big account that was going to shut down for a month and a half - has  shut down.  It's at least 10 loads a week gone.  Some drivers have been "sent out of the system". By their own choice, they get to some other division temporarily until work picks back up.  If I can't get anything more than one load every 4 days, I'm going to have to do that as well.  One load every 4 days is just that load per paycheck. Might be close to okay, might be shit.

What I got? Shit.  The worst, lowest paid run we have to El Dorado.  It's a day trip almost always, a 14 hour day, but a day trip never-the-less.  When I asked her about what's going on, she simply replied that she could send me out into the system.  She gets defensive too easily, too quickly. I didn't even say anything offensive or abrasive, I was just inquiring as to what was causing the slowdown, not complaining about the run.

So, I'm on Facebook wishing my mother a happy birthday and seeing nothing from her.  Weird.  She's usually on enough to at least see such posts.  I was out driving down to Brownsville, I was going to call her and wish her a happy birthday, when I started receiving texts from my oldest brother.

I don't get texts from him, or my other brother for that matter, something must be up.  Mother had been to the hospital, had taken an Uber, lost her phone, purportedly left it in the Uber. Alarms went off - if mother went to the hospital, something serious has to be wrong cause' she doesn't just get up and go to the hospital.  Today, he sent a text showing the hospital's doctor's statement of what was up.

It was all doctor jibberish to me, might as well have written in Chinese.  I gathered from the paper that she had some sort of thyroid problem but the rest of it? I have no clue what any of that meant. Worse, my oldest brother didn't know either, hence the reason he posted pics of the statements to us to see if we could make anything of it.  My middle brother is a paramedic, so he eventually got on there and said everything looked "fine".

Again, mother does not go to the hospital because she's "fine".  She's up in her 80's. Things may affect her worse than earlier in life.  I dunno, I can't talk to her because - she doesn't have a phone. My oldest brother is an extreme minimalist in giving out info. He doesn't like the family, he loves his mother I believe but the rest of us can go to hell - and has been that way since he's been a child.  Growing up with him was like growing up with a ghost brother. He was only around when he was forced to be at the house.  He had nothing to say to any of us.  I don't know what is wrong with him, I never will.  I accept that I cannot change my family, but I also accept that I don't have to have much of anything to do with them, either.

I'll get the information I need when Caleb goes over there on Saturday. I intend on having him hand mother the phone.  Again, I have zero info on what actually happened to her, I just know that she's home, got up out of bed after being in bed for a day and is moving around.  I didn't find out about the hospital visit until after she went home.  Very disconcerting.  I mean, to the point that if I don't find out some info soon, I'm flying to Phoenix and I'll see what's going on with her.  That's my resolve.  But I think when Caleb goes I should be able to get a LOT more information than my oldest brother cared to share - although that's probably all the info he has because that's all he probably cared to find out.

My brothers are like strangers to me.  That's all I will say about that at this point in time.

It's midnight thirty here.  Yes, that's 12:30 am, just my way of saying it lol.

That makes it Friday early morning.  On Wednesday - the second day off in a row and relaxing, doing much of nothing and enjoying that status - I texted my manager about whether I was going out tomorrow - which would have been Thursday.  I didn't receive a reply right away and I just put it out of my mind. Not unusual to not get a response from her about upcoming work, I don't get pushy, I just ask the question and let it ride until she has time to give me an answer.

Well, instead, I got a phone call back a couple of hours later.  You want to go down to Brownsville and pick up a trailer?  I knew we weren't short on trailers, the yard was starting to get full again.  This was a mission to bobtail down there - bobtailing is driving the semi tractor without a trailer attached to it - get an empty and bring it back.  We didn't need an empty, the yard is full of them. Several of them are trailers that can be used in Mexico.  I wasn't gonna argue tho, I said yes. Got my stuff, got the dogs, took them to the other house, got to the yard, in the truck and headed down to the border.

Hence, the reason I'm awake at midnight thirty.  Cause she didn't call me about that run until it was after noon, meaning not getting out of the yard until almost 2:00 pm.  It set me up for failure in Houston. Both going down and coming back I was smack dab in the middle of their version of a rush hour, which I can tell you is as bad as most anywhere you will find them.

So tomorrow. Well, I think I'll drive on up to the upholstery place and take a lookit the boat. It was out there in front the other day, looked like they had replaced most everything - but that was from a distance.  I didn't stop, just didn't feel compelled to.  Give them as much time as they need to get the job done right and not make them think I want a rush job or something.  But it's been there a while now, so I do want to see what's been done.

Nothing too great.
Driving on Sunday is great for traffic, terrible for my psyche.  That's a I-want-to-stay-home-and-do-nothing-day.  It wears me out.  I was awfully tired this morning.

OOOH MY.... the dogs smell TERRIBLE!! What on earth have the been into?!!!! Gross!

My goodness, I may have to throw them clean on out of here tonight, that is disgusting!  Smell like death, rotting garbage and a bit of skunk thrown in.  Okay, maybe not THAT bad, but it's pretty bad ugh.

Last night was quite trying when I arrived at that yard down there. There was only one parking spot available for the trailer I was pulling. Clear in the back of the lot, in a corner.  The lot was so full that they had dropped empty trailers in front of trailers on the lines.    The only way to get the trailer back in there was at an extreme angle relative to the spot, and then just as the tandems on the trailer started to pass the corner of the trailer on one side, crank the truck steering tires the opposite direction and try to jackknife the thing in there. 

It was late, it was dark, I was tired and I had to get out like 15 times to walk back there and make sure I wasn't about to run into the trailer on the other side, my blind side. That's that kind of backing where you expect to have a spotter help guide you in.  I'm not joking, either, I got my exercise last night just getting in and out of the truck. A good way to get fired? Just back a trailer into one of the other company's trailers. 

Well, I got it in there. Then I thought there were no empties because the other 3 trailers were on the concrete slabs, normally meaning they were full. Otherwise, they just drop them on the dirt.  But I checked the water meter gauge - tells you if there's any fluid in it or not - 0 inches.  Gag.  No detention pay : (  Well whatever, I went to the new Love's truckstop which was totally full - excepting the bobtail spaces where I parked, went to bed, got up this morning, go under the trailer and got out of there.

And now? Worn out.  It was cool tho, that when I got back to the yard they were having yet another BBQ cookout and they offered me some.  It was amazingly good! They had lightly smoked the meat with cherry wood chips and had marinated it with whatever - it was really good stuff.  They have a culture there of eating together if any of the regulars who are actually social are there.  There are plenty there are very unsocial and don't like to talk to anyone unless they are bitching about something. 

But these guys are good guys and fun to hang out with.  The manager showed up about the time I pulled into the yard - she had a newborn baby.  Sleeping, quiet little thing.  I asked how it was related if at all? Oh, you know the 16 year old girl we took in?

Okayyyy.  16 year old having babies!  That'll change your life forever.  Especially at that age.  No judgement from me, it's whatever. Condoms work tho!  Lol  Grandma was happy, didn't want to poo poo on her party. 

And arriving at the other house has turned into a entertainment/shit show.  This 18 year old kid has no manners.  Has no work ethic.  Has no schedule to do anything.  He plays his video games and he sleeps and he eats. He has no social life excepting what I assume through the games he plays, you know, like talking to people on group games while you're playing? I'm only assuming he does that, I have no clue if he really does. He's very unsociable.  He got made at the ladies today because the other lady tenant didn't invite him with them to go get DQ blizzards. 

His parents came over yesterday and told him they weren't going to pay for next month's rent, he needs to go get a job.  His parents. Again, I hate to judge, but how do you raise a boy to be that socially awkward, self-centered, introverted and stuck up?  They basically lied about the whole situation to get rid of him.  I wasn't a part of any of those discussions so I don't know what was actually said, I am going by Maria's retelling of the stories.  I can only say that I gave my hesitations about getting an 18 year old in there, especially if parents are bringing him there, out of THEIR house. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. 

It isn't a ghost, but it sure sounds like it has the stink to high heaven problem.  And it did.  I was right, but I didn't rub it in.  Just knew this would turn into a problem.  This kid doesn't want to work and he doesn't care.  He'll have to sell his high dollar gaming computer to pay for next month's rent.  I'm assuming the parents paid the thousands of dollars that thing cost.  It's not that they can't afford to pay his rent next month, I assume they are trying to wean him off the bottle. They should have started that process - about what, 17-1/2 years ago?  And then dumping this shit onto someone else, leaving out large portions of what's actually going on?  And trying to say they "thought he would be more motivated to get a job"?  Do they think the rest of us are that dumb?  You throw the boy out by leading him to a prepaid room and think that that is going to magically change him? 

What he needs is boot camp.  Or some similarly structured environment that is disciplined and has rather rigid structure concerning your daily schedule.  Anyway, I stay tuned to this situation intently since I am directly involved with it.  Regardless, he could probably sell that computer for a grand, easily.  But - he would be a totally miserable adult child.  I don't take pleasure in other people's suffering - unless they're people like Isis - but at the same time, it would be a nice wake-up call. 

Enough of that. Tomorrow I'll run to 2 towns over and get the new starter, get some other stuff done while over there, head back here and take the starter to the shop where the boat is.  I want to see if any progress has been made - I have no reason to suspect they haven't I just want to see it - and use the starter as an excuse. Actually, I want to put that starter in and take the new one that doesn't work out and get it sent back and get my money back.

I hate that Sears went out over there in that town. They shut that huge, giant store down.  I liked clothes shopping there and looking at things such as grills and tools and such.  Really a dynasty gone south.  I really liked Sears, I know they were a dying brand but it was one of my favorite places as a kid and I still like it today.  Internet shopping is fine, but a big brick and mortar such as that one is pretty cool with all the diversity of items they have. 

Well, it's getting latish. Not really late but enough. Time to go to sleep.