I've been speaking to people at work about retirement savings.
The subject comes up frequently. But it is shocking to find out these people - late 50's/early to mid 60's - have little to nothing saved up for retirement! These people are making 80k and more per year, and have anywhere from nothing to - next to nothing - saved.  It kind of made me feel good that the pittance of money I have saved now is far more than anything most of them have saved?

Just weird that people making very good money would have very little saved up.  People that are living on the road most of the time.  They have home expenses - but so do I.  When I was working at Ferguson, it was hard to save anything because I wasn't making that much money, but I still put at least matching employer contribution amount in. 

Both Prudential and Wells Fargo - I have 401k accounts in both - always say to up it a "little more". I can't contribute to the Prudential one because it's the former employer's 401k - it's doing so well there is no point in taking that money out of there.  But I think it's a better idea to find some savings account or some way to save extra money beyond those venues that is easy to save, a pain to get access to.  It seems more prudent to have a savings account with some real cash in it in case of emergencies.

Just very interesting to talk to people that are saving nothing or have very little saved up that late in life.  I feel like the 300k I hope to have by the time I retire is not nearly enough. But I'm not going to work til' I'm 90, thanks.  What kind of lifestyle do they expect to have living solely on Social Security?  With only 10 or 20 k in 401k savings, you can't do anything with that.  You'd just leave it alone in case of emergency? It would be easy to burn up that much money in a very short period of time. 

"The bad news is that almost half of Americans approaching retirement have nothing saved in a 401(k) or other individual account. The good news is that the new estimate, from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, is slightly better than a few years earlier.

Of those 55 and older, 48 percent had nothing put away in a 401(k)-style defined contribution plan or an individual retirement account, according to a GAO estimate for 2016 that was released Tuesday. That’s an improvement from the 52 percent without retirement money in 2013.

Two in five of such households did have access to a traditional pension, also known as a defined benefit plan. However, 29 percent of older Americans had neither a pension nor any assets in a 401(k) or IRA account. 

What, exactly, goes on in the minds of people facing retirement that never saved a penny? There's at least one at work: she brags about having saved nothing.  She will live on SS payments. Well I'm sorry to tell you this, but that isn't going to be much of a life?!!  Even in my poor and broke days, I had money being taken out for retirement, tho all of that disappeared at the time of divorce. 

Anyway, I just found out I'm heading up to Oklahoma tomorrow. Really? How did I get ahead of everyone in the queue?  It's literally the only run going out tomorrow. I mean, I'll take it over nothing, I'm just baffled how that worked. Took  a bit to get my mind into - "work tomorrow" after thinking I'd highly likely have the entire weekend off.

Anyway, I met Maria's - son - and - his - girfriend today.  They came into town to visit with mama - which is Maria. Another one is - well probably there by now.  The son - was a girl.  He has had the complete, full-blown sex operation to transform from a female to a male. I was quite surprised to hear his/her voice, it sounded like a guy.  I was informed that testosterone does that. Yeah, I knew it did other things, I had no idea it also affected your voice. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it was a point of intrigue.  Why would someone go to that much trouble to alter who they are physically? I saw pics of her before the operation, she was an absolutely beautiful woman.  So much so, that even with the deep voice and the breasts gone, still looked quite - female - in facial features.  Times have certainly changed.

Now, if I were where I will be tomorrow right now, at the casino? I'd be in there playing blackjack. I have the hankering. But, tomorrow is a different day and my mood may be completely different. I always - well usually - stop at the casino truck stop.  It's the best place to stop without wondering if I'm going to find a spot further on down the road. Paris Loves is full by that time of day, guaranteed.  There's a very shoddy, abandoned truck stop that I have no interest in stopping at. Well we'll see. 

It was actually quite shocking this morning to find out that my "MyLovesRewards" account has $885 on it, not the $88 I thought it was.  I have 88,500 points, my math was way off, lol.  Each point is worth a penny, my mind somehow thought that amount was worth $88, not $885.  Loves has a huge selection of smart phone accessories, certain lines of clothing products and depending on the size of the store, a large selection of electronics and even small refrigerators. 

The nearest Loves is 40 miles away.  I'll likely save any shopping spree for a time when I am spending the night at a loves so I can have time to look around and see what i want.  Guaranteed $885 is enough to buy any single product in the store and really, several higher priced things.

It is no wonder it takes so long to build up each $100, I have been thinking for a while, why does this take so long? I buy at least 1,250 gallons of fuel per month there.  Loves has different tiers of points awards for each gallon of fuel you buy.  0 to 500 is "base", 1 point for 1 gallon, 500 to 1,000 is Gold, 2 points, 1,000 to 1,500 is Platinum - 3 points and unlimited drink refills and free showers, Diamond is over 1,500 points accumulated per month and the same as Platinum except you get 4 points per gallon.

Diamond is elusive for me because we just aren't busy enough for me to be driving enough to be able to buy 1,500 gallons of fuel.  And right now, we are very slow  and I wouldn't be surprised at all if I wasn't given any work for either Saturday, Sunday or Monday.  These plants all shutting down at the same time created the perfect storm of no work available.  If it continues too long, I may be forced to ship out to another division for a while to actually earn a paycheck.  Of course, that means I won't be home for 2 weeks at a time, so that's kind of a last resort.  The thought of finding a new job, however, after seeing how much money I made last year and having the same problems - plants shutting down - have cemented in my mind, at least for now, that regardless, the work will pick back up and I will be busier than I want to be at some point. 

Well enough.  Laundry day - have to do all dog bedding, it doesn't take long for it to start smelling with all the rain we've been having.  Aspyn especially, who loves to run around in it until she is both muddy and completely soaking wet.  Much more rain in the forecast, I'm not taking her to a dog grooming place again until all of this season of rain passes.

Quick trip? Not exactly. It takes over 13 hours to do the La Porte trip from the amount of time spent in the plant loading and getting paperwork, driving down to La Porte (Texas), getting unloaded, driving back up, doing paperwork and getting it over with. 

I slept miserably last night.  I went to bed at 8:30 pm, woke up around 1 am, couldn't get back to sleep.  Until somewhere around 3:30 am, where I fell asleep, half an hour later the alarm went off. Must have been REM sleep because it was horrible.  My brain was foggy, I couldn't wake up.  I mean, that lasted all the way down to La Porte, where I got the opportunity to take an hour and a half nap. The plant worker came pounding on the door of the truck when they had finished. Seemed like 5 5 minutes - the time I went to sleep shortly after they hooked up the trailer - to the time they were telling me they're done. 

But I got out of Houston at 2:30 pm, well in advance of rush hour and the drive back to the yard was seamless. 

The unfortunate part of today was looking at the schedule. Spartan.  I figured getting back, I might get a run on Sunday until I found out that the Brownsville run is down until Monday at the earliest. 

That means the schedule is wrong.  So tomorrow, there is only one run going out - that one to Pennsylvania. The driver that was taking it happened to be in the office. He said he hates PA and lamenting how terrible it will be to go there.  I thought how lucky he was to have such a run in the times we're currently in. That's close to 3,000 +-miles of driving, a very nice paycheck for 7 days on the road compared to the crap that is on there now.  Saturday, one run, because brownsville run is down.  Sunday, ZERO runs because brownsville is down. It was only today that I found out the Oklahoma run has been  down. 

So in the next 3 days, there will be two runs going out.  Gag.  That, however, doesn't take into consideration the plant attempting to find other runs to sell their product to. There may be other stuff come up, who knows. 

Well it's 29 degrees here at 10:30 and getting up to 60 for a high tomorrow. Not exactly my idea of boating weather.  ATV? I dunno, maybe. 

Home for my birthday.
Also going to be the day Trump is acquitted for the impeachment.
I have much of nothing planned for today, because that's what I want to do: nothing.
Passing the mid 50's mark isn't really anything I want to celebrate lol. 

I'll probably go to Applebee's down the street and have a couple draft beers, a steak lunch and that will be about it.  90% chance of rain today as well, which kind of has a "stay at home" or even a "stay in bed" type of feel to it.

I made Keto friendly Salisbury steak last night, but I should have read through the instructions. I didn't get to the end until I was at the end of following the instructions. It said " doesn't make much gravy but it's ohhh so good!".  Ummm, you know, gravy is the best part of Salisbury steak.  So I improvised and made probably quadruple the amount of gravy, just adding some beef broth, more heavy whipping cream and a few spices. Turned out very nicely and almost all of it - 3 pounds worth - was eaten last night.  I'm always happy when the effort put out is worth the time and energy spent. 

And here comes the rain and thunder!  What a brilliant day to just stay indoors!  But I think my trip to Applebee's is going to change to a trip to Chili's - a bit further down the road - for Keto free birthday treat.  I put up a post on my Facebook wall to see if anyone would say stay on Keto! or Cheat!  Lol. 

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

And cheat it was.  A burger and fries - at Chili's.  Very lovely time even if alone, I'm pretty good at starting up conversations with strangers when I'm in the mood.  And then, Taylor inviting me to dinner for my birthday with the family this evening.  Not too late, I hope, because I just got a Happy Birthday! from my manager followed by - now let me ruin it for ya! lmao.

And it's one of the worst runs we get.  La Porte again - near Houston.  And first load, gag.  But I"ll take it, that money will go on this pay period paycheck, which currently has a brownsville with detention pay run, but more needed to make it a full paycheck.  It's a day trip, at least, I have never had this run go more than a single day.  So hopefully that guarantees me a run this weekend - and yes - probably on Sunday! lmao

Oh, and Donald John Trump, the President of the United States of America, has been acquitted just minutes ago of both the Abuse of Power article and the Obstruction of Congress charges.  We knew this was coming, what's next?

So I got down here last night - down here being Brownsville - and saw an empty trailer sitting there.  But, I decided to drop my full trailer and go stay the night up at the Love's truck stop.  Get up early, get home this afternoon.  It's Monday morning, btw, almost 7:00 am now.  So that's what I did, got up early, before 5 am, took a shower at the Love's gotta cuppa, headed to the yard and.....the driver that loaded 2 hours behind me was already under the empty and hooked up to it, presumably waiting for his 10 hour reset clock to be up and leave.  I could've gotten back by around 4:00 pm today. Maybe a little later, just depending on traffic.

I guess the good news is that I get detention pay on this trip and considering there were 15 trucks in the yard yesterday morning, that's a good thing. That guy that took my trailer won't get any detention pay.  15 trucks.  Rarely see that many drivers all in the yard at once, meaning we've slowed wayyyyyy down, so taking an extra day to get home - depending what time an empty trailer might arrive here - is probably a good thing.

But you know, you wake up early and get it into your head that you're going to get moving down the road and get home.  Just takes a bit to get that out  of your head.  I could have slept in, lol.  There's 5 loads going out today, I took a snapshot of the schedule, so that will get some of those trucks out of the yard, but 2 of them are short, junk runs and they may end up getting back before me.  It just all depends on what time an empty shows up today.  I'll be fighting to get back tonight if one shows up early enough, get back in the queue for another load before some of those drivers do.

But, my birthday is on Wednesday so getting home tomorrow would work out better, that would all but guarantee I'll be home for it instead of on the road.  I have no idea about any days after today on the schedule, the plant schedule ends on Mondays and they don't put the new one up until Tuesdays - today.  I was actually pretty lucky to get this run.  It will highly likely be the only thing going on this pay period so I'm not going to complain about sitting here - probably half the day waiting - for a trailer to show up. I'll hopefully get an estimate of an arrival time from the yard manager whenever he shows up.

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12 hours later I'm home.  Trailer showed up around 12:30 pm, I hooked up to thing and got out of there.  Figured if I move it I can get home tonight. Of course, I didn't plan on the drowsiness that hit me 250 miles up the road.  Well,  you have to take a 30 minute break anyway so I found a rest area, set the alarm for 40 minutes, and fell into a deep sleep.  It was more than enough to wake me up and keep me chugging along for the rest of the 325 miles.  I'm not exactly sure if it was such a good idea to get home tonight tho. Those 15 trucks that were in the yard yesterday? There's only 6 now.  There are times when I hope I don't get a run, the next 2 days? I hope I don't get a run. 

Well enough of this.  Time to go to bed!

Dogs were smelling horrible. Like a bunch of barnyard animals living inside of the house.  I know some of y'all think 61 degrees is mild - and it actually didn't feel too bad considering we finally have a sunny sky for once - but I decided to brave the freezing cold water and cool temp to take Adler out front of the house, drench him in water and scrub him down completely with some very nice shampoo, rinse it off and then put conditioner on it.  I dunno if you're supposed to put conditioner on dogs but I did cause' I wanted to make sure he would end up smelling good after that ordeal.  It's not a walk in the park washing a dog that absolutely hates the hose.

Aspyn? Forget it.  She was smelling twice as bad as Adler.  Just horrible lol.  German Shepherd - will sit out in the rain getting drenched for hours and hours.  They haven't been washed in 2 months.  But I didn't want to go half baked with her and the undercoat and the extreme shedding, so I took her up to Petsense a few minutes ago, opted for all services - nails, ears, bath, trim, brushing her hair out for like 20 minutes I think it says and even brush her teeth.  The dog stinks and all the hair - just decided it would be easier to pay a professional to do it. 
\
She'll like it. She loved the attention last time I took her to the other place  which is closed today.  If she does a good job on Aspyn I will remember to tip nicely too.  Adler's white portion of his coat - actually looks white again lolol. 

Impeachment trial is basically over, for all intents and purposes. They will have closing arguments on Monday and allegedly making the vote on Wednesday, where they will almost guaranteed vote to keep Trump in office, they aren't going to remove him.  I'm ready to see the end of this. But, Democrats have been touting the idea of introducing more articles of impeachment.  This isn't going to stop until the election.  If Trump wins in November, who knows how this is going to play out?  Chaos is my expectation.

Brownsville tomorrow early. Yup, I predicted another Sunday run and that's exactly what I got.  Just get it done.  Likely be the only run on the pay period it represents, I can only wish for some detention pay on that one. 

Well it's 4 hours for aspyn so today is kind of wrapped up. It's already 2:30 pm anyway.  But I need to make some thing for the road. last trip to Brownsville  I didn't make anything figuring I could just stop to get something to eat and regretted it.  Just happen to have chicken, I'm going to make some keto chicken parmesan, an easy recipe, looks delicious, only 5 carbs per serving : )

In fact, I think Ill do that now. 

Home.
Stopped at Cherokee Pass last night. After looking at the weather radar and hitting snow, I decided I would rather finish this trip out today instead of at night when you can't see well enough to determine the road conditions well enough in advance. Not that that ever stopped me before, but I made 350 miles last night and that was far more than enough to be able to make it home today with available hours.
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Well that was yesterday. There were very few trucks in the yard, which may mean I'll be going back out soon. But I don't have a copy of the schedule so I don't know how many runs there are available for Friday through Monday. I would expect to go out again this weekend and if history is any indicator, it will be a Sunday run lol.  I pass by all sorts of churches in session on Sunday mornings after getting out of the plant and think about stopping, but the parking lots aren't exactly truck friendly and some of them even say "no trucks".  It's funny how this world hates trucks yet relies on them so heavily for its everyday functions.  We want what you've got, but we don't want you or your machinery in our - town, parking lot, street, etc etc etc

There's even one town that doesn't allow hazmat tanker parking, it literally has an ordinance against it lmao.

I'm starting to get burned out on the Senate impeachment question stuff.  I listened most of the day yesterday, but it's all getting repetitive now.  Both sides are basically saying the same stuff they've been saying all along now. It's finally over for today anyway, tomorrow they are going to argue and allegedly vote about whether to allow more witnesses. I could give my opinion on it, but I don't feel like writing that much text to adequately explain why I think they should not allow more witnesses. But in the end, I don't care either way. If they allow more witnesses, estimates say this trial could and probably will drag on for many more months.  All fine and well, let's do it.  Schiff, however, wants a "week".  Yeah, no. If we're going the witness route, we're going to here from everyone, a lot of people.  The Democrats have tried to manipulate how the Senate is going to work this trial since before the Senate trial began. Did you see senators attempting to demand that the House run it the way they wanted it run?

I'm not the biggest fan of Chief Justice Roberts - he's made some decisions that I thought were way off, including the idea that Obama's penalty for not getting Obamacare if you don't have your own private plan a tax instead of - a fee/penalty. That was an egregious error IMO.  But for Warren to pass a question to the Chief Justice tonight and ask about the legitimacy of the Chief Justice and the Supreme Court because, basically, House managers aren't getting their way in the Senate, was not only outrageous and ridiculous, but a glaring sign of the things to come if Warren or any of the rest of them win the White House in the next election.  People that aren't registered? I encourage them to get registered to vote and not allow this type of nonsense to rule the nation.

These progressive left candidates are solely aiming for Communism. Yes, I firmly believe that and you can't say anything to convince me otherwise.  Socialism is the stepping stone to Communism. But even if it were "just" socialism, how can you possibly ignore the history of Marxism and all the rest of it that ended cumulatively in the deaths of millions upon millions of people being killed or dying of starvation?  I'll tell you one thing, if any of these progressive candidates do win the election, I'm going out and getting an entire array of hunting gear from the killing end of it to the butchering and preserving end of it.

You think I'm kidding. Get out the books folks, google it folks, Socialism never ends well.  Lots of deer and pigs in this region at least.  They won't get there overnight, but once any of them gains power, they're going to attempt to take massive steps to get there.

Whatever the case, I'm not working tomorrow.  I texted Ann, she said she would know tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow is the day she hands out runs for the entire weekend including Monday. I'd just as soon go out Saturday with a good Brownsville or another 3 day run (turned into 4 days because of the 28 hour wait) like I just go through with.

Addler had a literal freaking cow when I pulled up to the other house to get him and Aspyn yesterday.  He was talking to me - loudly - as soon as he realized it was my vehicle that pulled up to the house. Aspyn is much smarter than him, lmao, she knew right away.  He was crying, yelping, making these noises - next time I'm out for several days I'll try to remember to get a video of this stuff.  Hard to "describe" it, just have to see and hear it.  He doesn't go off on me when I'm gone for 1 or 2 days, but 4 or more days? lol

Speaking of the other house - I managed to get that lady out of there without having to go to court.  She was threatening to somehow get Maria thrown out of there?!!  But, the kid decided to spite Maria and piss all over the bathroom floor, they took food and smashed it into the hardwood flooring, left gunk on the windows, etc etc.  She cleaned all of it up and I know she wasn't too happy about it, I took her to Applebee's today for a treat. Of course now we are faced with the rather formidable task of finding another renter - but - that woman needed to go.  I just don't want to get stuck with the bill of having an empty room for however long. They left early, I have 2 days until it starts costing me money.

I'm trying to make it work, but we aren't finding anyone that really works for a room rental situation. Just slim pickings here.

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I'm trying to learn how to invest in the stock market - beyond 401k that is, I have 2 of those going and they are both doing well. Well, until today anyway. The Dow Jones has tanked 525 points currently - it's going up and down - because of investor fears of the China coronavirus and the impact it may have on the economy... see it's stuff like that that perplexes me about the stock market.  I should probably find some sort of online course to learn how to effectively invest.  It's that or join one of these sites with alleged experts who give suggestions on which stocks to invest in.  I am a bit suspicious of their claims tho. 

I'm not going to get rich off of 401k's.  I'm not necessarily looking to get rich at all, I just don't want to work until I'm 70 years old in order to be able to retire with a nice nest egg.  I don't even have 100k saved up yet.  By the end of this year I should be around the 100k mark, but that falls farrrrr short of even remotely being able to retire.  I'd want minimum half a million to retire - that's not going to happen at the rate I'm going.  At the rate I"m going, I'd expect about 300k or more depending on the stock market by the time 10 more years passes.  investing in the stock market would be separate from all of that and I wouldn't decrease the amount I have being put into my 401k.  In fact,, I am considering upping the deduction to 14% from 11%.  I think it's at 11% anyway, I'd have to check.

At some point I'm going to jump in and dump a few thousand into some stocks and see what happens.  I'd just like to know what the experts sue as definers for good risk for investment, what they look at and what information they use to determine whether they invest in any particular stock or not. 

Anyway, it's now Friday, this has been a 3 day post lmao. The impeachment hearing drags on.  They are arguing now whether to call more witnesses or not.  None of them are saying anything different than what they've already been saying for quite a long time now. Repetitious, boring, circular arguments, things they've said hundreds of times they're just repeating. To the point I muted it, I can't stand to hear any more of it for now.  They should have just jumped to the vote, IMO.

And the engine light is back on  on my SUV.  Getting very disconcerting. It's running fine, I guess I"ll go back up to Auto Zone and have them plug in their computer and see if they get anything definitive as to what's wrong. I will not contend with a vehicle continuously breaking down, I will get rid of it before I have to keep fooling with it for too long.  Regular maintenance is all I want to have to do with a vehicle. Occasional repairs aren't a big deal but if they are occurring frequently, then you have a situation where you don't have a dependable vehicle and that is not something I am going to just live with. 

But I'm not quite at the point of trading this thing in.  I am not at break even yet - the point where what you owe on it is what it's worth.  My house, however, is a completely different story. I don't know how accurate Zillow predictions are, but if it's even within 10k, my house value has skyrocketed in the last 6 months.  Up around 36k.  That's quite a lot of money in a 6 month period.  But I'm not selling it - yet.  It's value is just going to go up and up and up. The location is excellent, it's 10 to 15 minutes to down town Phoenix depending on traffic conditions.  Longer if it's rush hour, of course, but that is a far cry shorter commute than all of those people living way out in the east valley.  Everything, literally everything except for a few plots of land right up against South Mountain is built up now, it's a highly desired area. Supposedly they are building a casino across the street.  I actually hope that isn't true, I don't think casinos up home values at all and probably increase criminal activity.

Well, enough of this. I'm still waiting to get whatever work I will be assigned for the weekend.  I'm hoping it's not tomorrow.  Another Sunday run - love/hate relationship with those runs - would be better. 

After 25-1/2 hours, they finally came out to get me to bring the trailer into their facility, drop it at the rack and come back out to wait for them to unload it.  A 3 to 7 hour proposal, but I'm finally going to get out of here today.  My goal will be to make it to a truckstop just south of Neelyville, MO today and then finish the rest out tomorrow.  I've stopped at that truckstop several times on this particular trip in the past - just lack of available hours to get any further down the road.  Under normal circumstances, you start in St Louis in the morning, finish the drive out up here and then get the trailer unloaded and then start heading back. So you are already down 8 or more hours off the on-duty clock.

I won't have that problem today, but I doubt I"ll want to drive past 10:00 pm, which is when I expect to hit Neelyville.  That is, if I get out of here when I figure I will. I have to say I wouldn't have minded another day here, easy money.  I thought I would have such a chance earlier when I saw all kinds of service vehicles coming in, including a truck with a new heater blower - big ole' giant thing used in the chemical process - and then a crane to lift the old one down and the new one back up.  As it turns out, it only shut down half the plant, the other half still functioning so they were able to get their ethylene levels down enough to be able to take my truck full of it.  They're still busy installing that new one.

As it stood, I went to my favorite restaurant 12 miles away, ate the skirt steak they are famous for and now am stuffed lol.

Enough of this. The Republicans are done with the defense of Trump and now question and answer session going on starting tomorrow.  I'll be watching as much of that as possible. And after that whether they are going to allow additional witnesses, which I suspect will be a contentious engagement, but time will tell. As for today? They are venting off the vapors in my trailer and I will be leaving soon to hit the endless road. 

Well this is different.
Normally - always - when I come to this plant (Ilinois, 60 miles south of Chicago give or take) - I come to the plant, call them, they come out and get me and then wait, up to 7 hours, for them to offload the trailer.  This time? They have too much ethylene from the previous trucks that were here - 1 yesterday and 1 the day before that. They didn't tell me that tho, the man on the plant phone said he'd "let them know". An hour and a half later, I went back to the phone - it's outside the plant, you have to call them to get in - and then was told that information.

I'm closing in on 4 hours waiting outside this plant.  The man said "it'd be a while" lmao.  I know what that means, hours and hours...and hours.  And then, when they do finally get to the point they can take the product, it will be a minimum 3 more hours to unload it.  So, this 3 day trip highly likely going to turn into a 4 day trip, nothing I can do about it. But I'm getting paid to sit here and do nothing so I'm good with it, especially considering work has temporarily slowed down once again.

The funny part? Their rail cars showed up. They don't even need what's in the truck now.  I doubt they'll send me back, they're going to pay shipping costs regardless of whether they take it or not.  They started using rail cars to get rid of us and the higher costs of trucking it up here versus a rail car that can hold over 3 truckloads worth of product and lower shipping costs.  Plus we get paid to sit around waiting, that's even more expense. 

So, what to do? Listen to the impeachment trial of course. It's on right now and I'm listening to it on my bluetooth earphones. At least until I get bored of it, tho now it's Republicans turn, we haven't heard much from the Republicans in these proceedings, Schiff and Nadler have consumed most of the time. 

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7-1/2 hours now.  I'm ready for a hot meal.  If they don't come out and get me in the next hour or so, I"m going back to the phone and asking them what's up.  This plant is probably open 24 hours but that doesn't mean they unload trucks 24 hours a day. 

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Now 9 hours.  I've been dying for a cup of coffee all day long. I had one cup this morning, but I usually drink 2 or 3.  Plus it's cold out, just a good day to have a cuppa or two.  The plant won't let me in to do anything and now that I"ve been sitting here so long - on off duty status on the ELD - I'm only a couple of hours away from a full 10 hour reset.  Meaning I could drive all night long if I wanted to, which I don't, but just saying it would be a waste to throw that out the window to drive the 9 miles it would take to get to the nearest convenience store. Yes, 9 miles.  Lol.  I dunno why, but a lot of these chemical plants are built out in the middle of Nowhere, Egypt.  You'd think they would have a hard time finding people to live out in the middle of nowhere - but the pay is extraordinary. 

Meanwhile, Taylor sent me a video clip from the video camera.  I clicked on it - and watched a man walk by our house, drop his bag in front of the driveway and then just walk right up onto the porch.  We do not have a view of the porch - which will now be fixed with another camera - but the camera has audio and you could hear him trying to open the front door.  Just like that, just try to walk right into the house and presumably take whatever he could find.  My gold chains are well hidden - he'd have to do some serious searching.  But, there's video games and video consoles he could easily walk out with and other stuff that is worth money. 

I was wondering what happened to the ultra large keto group I am in.

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What on earth? There were over a million and a half people in that group!  Oh well, there's a bunch of other groups out there, I just use them to find new recipes.  I don't need to learn any more about the keto diet, but there's always some new recipe someone is putting up somewhere that looks  delicious and many times is delicious.  

Anyway, I'm spending the night here in East Saint Louis, Illinois at a Flying J truckstop.  It's about as far as I can get without worrying about finding a parking spot.  There's a Love's 36 miles up the road - but yeah, it's tough to take that chance going up there and finding out there isn't any parking.  Run the clock out and then what?  A very nice discovery, however, is that they are building a brand new Love's literally a mile away from this Flying J.  I try to buy all my fuel at Love's.  If I make at least Platinum status every month (1,000 gallons of fuel purchased), I get unlimited free refills on drinks - that's soda or coffee, I think it's 3 points on my account for every gallon of fuel purchased (you spend them in the store, I have almost 90k points right now) and you get free showers.  Love's has, by far, the best rewards program for company truck drivers.  I've been told that Petro has the best rewards for owner operators who get actual cash back for buying X amount of fuel, but don't quote me on that.  

They get that Love's going and that will be my destination when I come through here.  Tho, I don't even remember the last time I got a trip up here. The Mapleton plant blew up - yes, it literally blew up and they are busy rebuilding it right now - and the place I'm going to now gets most of our product via rail car.  It just happens that from time to time, the rail cars aren't going to make it in time and they have to use us to bring them the product.  I left this morning, I'll have it there tomorrow morning around 9 am.  Always a nice bit of detention pay too, at least 4 hours usually.  Sometimes 6 or 7.  Just can't have them keeping me there too long or the trip goes from being a 3 day trip to a 4 day trip.  As long as I make it back at least to the Saint Louis area, I can make it back to the yard on the 3rd day.  

I count myself lucky to have gotten this trip. I was looking at this coming week's schedule, spartan.  Hardly any runs until the weekend.  When I get back, it's likely I won't get another run until the weekend, if that.  But, the sooner I get back, the sooner I get put on the waiting list and beating other drivers to get on that list.  This trip is worth around $1,100 - I'm guessing that's going to be it for this pay period.  Unless she can give me a s*** run - one of the worthless runs that would actually be okay combined with a run like this, well, it is what it is. 

The problem is that the Brownsville run has shut down yet once again. They must be having problems at the plant because they have canceled a bunch of loads.  That really hurts us when it comes to talking about having enough loads to keep us busy.  This business is crazy. These plants shut down at random times. Something breaks and the entire plant is shut down until they fix it.  So, if I had gotten the Brownsville run today? I would have had nothing.  That was the first load and I ended up getting the first load and whoever got the canceled run? Gets put back on the waiting list - from scratch. That's hardly fair, but I've been on the receiving end of it.  

Well anyway, tomorrow fireworks start up again in the Senate. Excepting now, the President's legal counsel actually gets to speak.  

Well I asked lmao.
Do you know if I have a run going this weekend?
Same answer every time: I don't know yet.
Okay I replied, lol, what else am I going to say?  Just a reminder I'm there, thanks, please give some something to do to make some money. 

Nawww, I don't say that to her, there's 20 other drivers wanting the same thing.But I've paid the price, I've done the shit runs, it's time to give me something decent.  Brownsville always preferable since it's usually 2 days work for 3 days pay : )

That was this morning, so it was a bit shocking to hear from her 2 hours later - loooong before she normally sends anything - to see a text from her.  Now, before I open that text, I can see the pic she sends, just a miniscule version of it. She takes pic of the paperwork and sends it.  I open it up - pleeeaaasseee have something decent on there, please mama I need money! Lmao

And there it was. One of the Illinois runs I was speaking about in a post earlier this week.  Notably, the Morris run.  Haven't been there in a long time. They get most of their product from rail cars, but if those cars don't show up? We Be Peeples Be Taken' Care Of Them.  Yup, it's very improper English. Lmao

It will actually be refreshing to get a trip going somewhere else.  You drive up there - well stop somewhere around St. Louis or maybe further north if there's somewhere to park, stop for the night, drive the rest out the next day.  Drop the trailer in their yard, they unload it and then up to 6 hours for them to unload the thing.  Lol, that's detention pay so it's fine. I drive to the nearest town - umm 10 miles away? I don't remember.  But there's a restaurant there that has this wonderful skirt steak and yes, I"m still doing Keto, it's not going away for me any time soon. Back to the plant, sleep for a few hours - get on the internet - whatever - get the trailer, get back at least south of St. Louis and then make it back the 3rd day.

________________

That was yesterday.  Today has been spent hanging out with friends and making food. When I make food for one of these longer trips, I always make lots extra and then we can all eat some of it as well  I look back on the last 16 months and cannot believe I've lasted on this diet this long.  I've read a lot of articles saying this is one of the worst diets to get on, because most people won't stay on it. They quit  Others say it's because the consumption of huge amounts of red meat is bad for your heart - but the Keto diet doesn't require you to eat "vast amounts" of red meat. I'm not eating any more red meat than I used to before this diet.

But while they're dismissing this diet, how can they dismiss the idea of getting almost all sugar out of your diet?  Anyone ever hear of diabetes?  Or that this diet can either reduce the effects of type 2 diabetes or completely eliminate it altogether?  And what about all the diseases related to being overweight, extremely overweight or morbidly overweight?  I've see hundreds of before and after pics in a huge Keto group I'm in, the change is amazing.  300, 400, 500 pound people transforming their bodies into these really healthy looking bodies.  People like me? Well I didn't have that much to lose, but I was rapidly gaining weight and getting rather depressed about it. It's what keeps me on it.  I'm floating between 192 pounds and 205 pounds  I could lose the rest of the weight I need to - probably another 10 pounds, but I'm comfortable where I'm at for now.

Getting off the diet, however, has show to regain weight quite rapidly.  Tho I can't say when I cheat that I'm just cheating "a little". I pretty much go way overboard and I expect to gain 10 pounds.  To finish the job off, I would have to start a real exercise program again, a thing I have found elusive in my motivation department.  I life weights - here and there. I do pushups - here and there, just not enough to make any substantial difference. 

After being on the diet so long, tho, it starts to become natural to not eat the beans, the rice, the potatoes, the tortillas, the sugar filled junk, the carb laden foods.  It's just part of a normal day after a while.  You don't think of having a bowl of sugar filled cereal for breakfast, you think of a low carb Atkins drink, a low carb breakfast from Whataburger or make your own if you are able to do so. You get tired of the same stuff every day, so you start to look for new Keto recipes and experiment. 

But I freely admit the thoughts of Dairy Queen Blizzards and a huge pile of french fries eventually creeps up on me and yes - I eat both on any given cheat days lmao. 

Well, time to finish preparation for tomorrow's trip. 

La Porte, Texas run over and done with.  I've had a Cheniere, La Porte, Houston and Baker run this year along with 2 brownsville runs. Overall, not going so well, especially considering the other runs that have been available .  Regardless, this one yesterday?  My manager informed me it was a preload deal.  Where you load one day and deliver the next.  They've never done that at La Porte and the run is such a waste of time, it just doesn't pay any money, any real money anyway.  This stuff starts to eat at me.

She simply said call them. So I did, immediately.  The guy said he'd call the plant and ask if I could unload today (yesterday) at 4:00 pm.  He called back and said yes, they'd do it.  So I got the truck loaded and drove straight down there, got there at around 3:35 pm.  Which is a good thing, because they were getting ready to go home!  They did not like seeing me pull in there, lmao, but they got right on it.  I got out of that place just in time for the Houston 5:00 pm rush hour! Wooohoooooo!!

But I made it back to the yard last night and got home around midnight.  The whole point of getting this over with asap was to hope and pray that I get one of these good loads going out this weekend, including a couple to a place in Illinois not terribly far from Chicago.  But West Virginia and brownsville are all on there.  The only "bad" load is Oklahoma.

Whatever.  Day - 4? - of this Senate impeachment fiasco.  Boring. I listened to all of this rhetoric the House impeachment managers had to say over IN the House.  Schiff is a bonafide liar, Nadler just blatantly exaggerattes or makes things up and those are the 2 biggest one in that mess.  So I've just been listening to the highlights off the news instead of watching any more of it.  Extremely repetitive, lots of mud-slinging, it's time for the Republican defense to be heard, finally.  I mean, I've already made up my mind.  I did that long ago when Pelosi declared that the House was going to start an impeachment inquiry and in the same breath admitted she hadn't even bothered to read the transcript. She presumed Trump guilty before ever seeing any evidence whatsoever.  Schiff - made up his own version of a transcript and read it to Congress.  And a whole host of other things they have done to cement this thing into the annals of history of being a total sham. 

Democrats are supposed to wrap up their side of this today and then I guess Republicans start tomorrow - but it will be Saturday and pundits are suggesting that they will have a short hearing and then dismiss for the rest of the weekend. 

Now, if you want to hear about something that we might be concerned about, this coronavirus s***.  If this garbage starts spreading throughout the US, I dunno what I'm going to do.  I'm already going to the store and getting antibacterial hand wipes and gel.  I do not want to get sick again.  And the problem here is those kids. They go to preschool, kids share their germs and then they bring all that crap home.  Even worse, the news reports that a person generally HAS the illness for 2 WEEKS before they even show any symptoms, so a person can be walking around spreading this crap all over the place and not even know it. 

I guess I screwed myself on traveling plans by having all that time off during the holidays. At least for a few months anyway. Just spent a wee bit too much money lol.  And then starting off the New Year with all of these low paying runs lmao.  I gotta get out of this mind frame and just assume that eventually I'll get a spree of good runs that will make up for it. 

Anyway, off to the races.  What races? I dunno, but I'll figure something out lol.

Guess it's been a few days since I posted.

Seamless trip to Oklahoma and back. Got my 560 miles in - as much as I can get done in the time allotted. Just too many small towns and slow speed limits to get any more miles in. I usually stop at the casino truck stop, which I did last night but had no desire, whatsoever, to go in and play blackjack.  Last time I was here same thing. It was in the 20's last night, good thing the truck heater works well!

 That was yesterday,  I ended up watching as much of the Senate impeachment trial as I could stomach.  It went until 1 am my time, 2 am Washington time  and the only reason it dragged out so long was the Democrats continuing to attempt to have endless resolutions passed and both sides having to argue all 11 of them.  That pretty much took up the entire day for them. 

Oh, I also went to the mechanic's yesterday and had him install the weird, 3 part heater hose. No more leaks, vehicle running good so far.  We'll see. The thing had been leaking on electronic inputs going into the fuel injectors, some sort of sensor sitting there and a few of the ignition coils.  Whether any damage done to them remains to be seen.  But if I have further problems it will go to Ford and I will point out what happened so they have a place to start with. 

Rainy day here and cold - okay our version of cold at 35 degrees at almost 10:00 am. That means I will be doing much of nothing today.  Which is fine, I'll probably tune into the senate trial once again at 1:00 pm washington time and at least see whats happening next.  I really think Chief Justice Roberts needs to get the decorum under control.  He made a rebuke last night, but if they all start this bantering again, he should shut it down and force the normal decorum of how Senators should be acting in the Senate back into play again. 

And having had received my tax bill for the property in Phoenix, I ended up going to the tax assessor's site to find out what, exactly, I'm paying for.  2 perplexing "taxes", one called a desegregation tax - I have no clue what they are referring to, maybe busing students from one district to another to somehow add minorities to a school system?  and a "State Equality Tax".  I don't even have a guess what that one is.  I also have zero idea why I'm being forced to pay for a technical college or why the city of Phoenix is taking money and what it's going to. There is no explanation, just the amount.  The rest of it is 6 line items going to a school district in the neighboring city.  Makes sense, there are no schools on the edge of the city where we live, they have to be bused to the next city over.  I don't mind paying for elementary schools and high schools, but I definitely object to paying for colleges.  I look at some of this junk every year and just shake my head.  If you own property, you are enslaved to the government system of being forced to pay what amounts, IMO, to a sales tax on it every single year. 

In what other venue do you buy something and then have to pay the same taxes over and over again on it?  I've been an open proponent of doing away with property taxes altogether and recovering the necessary funds for school districts in some other way.  People lose their properties because they get into a position where they can't afford to pay the taxes.  If you own the land outright, that's just sad.  You never really own the property with that s*** constantly looming over your head.

And with that, looks like I missed yet another tax sale.  No biggies.  Just want to go and check one out and see how it works. 

And, the lady of the house has agreed with me that spaghetti with meat balls and meat sauce sounds delicious for dinner.  Indeed it does. 

Okay, per the last post, a trailer didn't show up down there until 3:00 pm. So I drove 450 miles, went to bed at a truckstop and drove the rest of the route out, which was yesterday.  While at the office, a driver was complaining about an "itty bitty run" he had gotten from Ann - an Oklahoma run. It may be itty bitty but it's not neat as small pay as several other runs, I immediately volunteered to take the run if he didn't want it.

Yes, I know I had been out on the road 5 straight days, but as I said not long ago, I'm trying to earn some money to pay off Christmas bills.  He immediately backtracked on that one, I was serious too.  I'd be in the plant right now getting the trailer loaded.  Ann had told me just before that that I wouldn't be getting sent out again until Sunday or Monday.  Seems likely I'll only get one run in on this current pay period that starts today for 2 weeks from now paycheck. 

I can only hope for a Brownsville run or the West Virginia run that's available. 

Well, I left the yard and contacted the mechanic.  Are you available today? Yes, but I'm on my way back from Dallas.  All fine and well, contact me when you are home.  I stopped at Auto Zone and picked up 8 spark plugs.  I had bought a new ignition coil for the one that was bad but I figured all spark plugs should be replaced. 

That turned out to be a good decision.  A bit of sticker shock for plugs tho. $77 for 8 plugs?  When he started working on getting the plugs out of there, he immediately  noticed a crack in a heater hose fitting that was leaking coolant.  It became obvious the coolant had been leaking for a while.  It had seeped down the spark plug threads and gotten on to the tips, gunking them up. The cylinder that reported non firing from the computer results had a plug that was completely clogged up, no way that thing was working at all.  $210 on the plugs and the ignition coil spent, off to Auto Zone again to get the heater line.

Another $88 spent on that, which had to be ordered (supposed here at 7:30 am, I'll be going up there in a bit to see).  And of course pay the mechanic to install it.  I probably could - but I've all but given up on doing mechanics anymore.  1, because I work enough as it stands.  2. because I spent decades doing that stuff and I'm just plain burnt out on it. I just don't want to do mechanics anymore.  I'll just pay someone else to do the stuff for me, and this dude isn't asking a small fortune for his services. 

I have no great plans today. 5 days on the road deserves a day off. Laundry, dogs, basic stuff but nothing too involved. The front yard is covered with leaves - it won't get done unless I do it, I guess - I have a huge bag of winter grass seed I bought a while back. But, can't plant it with a yard covered with leaves. 

Enough. Haven't had enough coffee today lol

I have to admit that I sometimes get an - eerie - feeling about hauling this stuff.  Ethylene that is.  I'm mostly comfortable with it now, tho with a serious dose of respect, but there are times when you start thinking about the 40,000 pounds of volatile, explosive, highly flammable cryogenics you're hauling down the road  I can't quite explain the feeling, but it's almost like dang, am I going to blow up today? type of thing. 

It crept into me today.  I think it was the workers at the plant, started talking about it's volatility and it's rating compared to other highly flammable and explosive things such as gasoline.  Or one of the plants I go to. They used to just treat it like unloading a truck full of water - which I thought a bit crazy. And then one day I went in there and they literally shut the entire road down with cones and caution tape from both directions.  "Why are you doing that?".  "Well we read about this stuff after being warned about it's flammability.  We didn't realize the potential for disaster while unloading it".  And things of that nature. 

It didn't help that I watched a video on one of the trucking groups I'm in - they post all kinds of different stuff in those groups, much of which has nothing to do with trucking - where this dude pours 5 GALLONS of gasoline onto a pile of rubbish.  I already knew what was going to happen before it happened.  I frequently start fires for burning grass and brush in the open pit we have in the back yard with gasoline.  I put a layer of stuff down, then pour the gas over it, and then dump a bunch of stuff on top of it and then, a little more gas and a trail about 20 feet long of gas to light it with, stay out of harm's way.  But I don't even put a quarter of a gallon of gas on there, I know what will happen. I light the trail on fire and back up even more before it hits the pile. There is always a thump sound, as the gas ignites underneath.

It works very well.  The leaves and branches will burn even if they're green.  Anyway, this guy doesn't even try to light up a trail leading up to the pile, he just lights a piece of paper on fire and throws it onto the pile which instantly explodes.  The next thing you hear is this dude gasping for breath and the guy that's taking the video asking him several times if he's okay?  The guy doesn't say anything. The video ends, no idea whether he was hurt or just had the wind knocked out of him, but standing that close to that explosion? I assume he was hurt.  That's just sheer stupidity right there.

I got past that feeling after a couple of hours, just have to clear the mind and get peace back.  Yeah, this gig pays a lot of money but there's a certain amount of risk involved with it.  But I'm good now lol. 

Anyway, I was third load this morning, one of the loads before me was a Brownsville run as well.  He got down here long before I did and fortunately for me, he was forced to back under the only empty trailer there.  Meaning I get detention pay. He won't, since there was a trailer there.  I mean, I'm not gleeful he didn't get the D pay, I'm just glad I am, lol.  Especially after the Houston trip, gag. Just trying to make some decent checks here lol. 

I had thoughts of having my SUV towed out of the yard and over to a shop while I was gone on this trip.  Just get it done so I don't have to be without a vehicle.  I dunno.  It's running enough to get home.  Just sucks dealing with it.  I don't need a vehicle breaking down all the time.  Not that it's done that, but the last deal was a $1,200 strut job on it.  Not cheap and I don't want to start getting nickle and dimed with this thing.  If it's going that route much longer, I'ma dump it and get something else.  I really should have thought about this a bit better tho, I could have dropped it off in the town my work is at yesterday and have it ready by the time I got back. 

 Well I'm going to bed lmao. It's midnight. No trailers will show up until 11:00 am at the earliest but I need my old age beauty sleep : )

Woke up at the truck stop this morning in Houston via the alarm clock.  Got dressed and ready to go, opened the curtain from the sleeper, to see? Rain.  I literally went back to bed.  I have to 11:00 am to get there.  Well, I went back to bed after checking the forecast.  It said it would be gone in an hour.  An hour later? Alarm goes off again after resetting it - and more rain. But, I decided to get up, get some coffee, get over there. Good thing, too.  First time I have ever encountered or heard of anyone experiencing them not being ready to get you in and get you out of there.  

Meaning, sit there for 6 hours waiting on them to unload into a tube trailer and then get rid of the vapors.  They didn't bring the tube trailer up for 2 hours after I got there and it takes eternity to load one of those things.  They hook up this little bitty tube to fill it with 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I already knew I was in for problem when I looked at that gauges on their tank. The pressure was sitting at 150 pounds -  fully 90 pounds over what I will even think about offloading at and they had 10 inches on the water meter - tells you how much fluid is in the tank.  They can't offload a truck without having their tank totally empty.  Further complicating the situation - 2 men standing there looking at the tank. I approached them - electricians.  They were there to deal with the ground pump - that's the pump that offloads the truck into the tank.  A very in depth conversation about why they were there and what they were going to do ensued.  Yup, that's just me, very inquisitive, especially in a situation this totally off kilter. But these guys knew literally nothing about how all of this works, they only knew they could turn the pump on and off! LMAO

 I have to say I wasn't feeling right today, so spending 6 hours laying in bed in the truck wasn't that big of a deal. Plus it rained - off and on but mostly on- the entire time I was there. 

Well whatever. Truck unloaded, I was out of there in time for? The beginning of rush hour traffic in Houston! Wooooo hoooooo! Y'all gotta love that!  I was halfway back and Ann contacted me.  Are you going to be back today? Yup, I just left there.  She then texted me a run - to Brownsville - for tomorrow morning!  I didn't go home today after this run, lol.  I am spending the night in the truck. I can go to Maria's, get the dogs, go home, spend the night there, get up early, take the dogs back to Maria's and then drive all the way back to work? Or just stay here.  I've kind of gotten used to the idea that it plain isn't worth doing all that driving if I'm getting sent out again the next morning.  

And I can tell ya, after this worthless Houston trip, I"m very glad to be getting a Brownsville run!  

Well lots more, but I'm tired. 

G'nite!

Started smoking that roast yesterday far too late.  11:00 am. Sounds early, but it's not. Not with a pork roast that size and slow cooking it at around 225 to  250 degrees. That went on until after 9:00 pm last night lol. I actually could have cooked it another hour or so, but it was getting too late. You have to consider pulling the roast out, letting it sit for 20 minutes, cutting it up and letting it cool before you can put it in the refrigerator.  I just got busy with other stuff yesterday and it went out of my mind until late morning.

But it turned out delicious and I just had a nice portion of it for dinner tonight. It tends to taste better the next day. I can't explain that to you, but that's my experience. 

I did end up taking the SUV to the Autozone yesterday. Their read out came up with bad ignition coil on cylinder 4 and spark plug.  Well, I bought the coil.  But I think I'll go back and get the plugs and wires as well and replace all of that.  I will let the mechanic I have found do that work - I'm not interested in dealing with electronics on a newer model vehicle.  I was going to take it to Ford but this seems pretty straight forward and simple.  We'll see, I guess lol.  Likely the spark plugs and wires have never been replaced, undoubtedly the ignition coils are the originals. 

Tornado sirens went off last night. I slept right through it.  I know, pretty insane for a light sleeper but I never heard them.  And it's LOUD.  But no tornadoes actually touched down, it just rained a bit. The bad stuff went around us.  Taylor said the lights flickered at midnight, but the power never went out.  My dogs didn't wake me up, so it must not have been that bad. 

That was yesterday, just hung out, mostly, it was nice and cool so I had a fire going outside all day long while the smoker was running.  Taylor smokes, so she came out and enjoyed the heat from the fire as well while toking on cigarettes.  I'll give her credit. She works a full time job and now has a job that has her working some 30 hours a week extra. She loves to buy stuff : )  She spent all day yesterday doing her job - it's an at-home job now - and all day today. 

Me? I was in no mood to drive today.  It's Sunday.  I've worked Sundays for however many in a row.  A lot.  I kept my crankiness to myself. Addler understood tho, lol. He was allll affectionate and giving me the eyes you can't resist.  Dogs know your moods.  They really do. If you don't believe that, you probably have never had a dog.  They respond to every mood differently.  But, unlike humans, they never reject you. 

Anyway, I got to the plant only to have to wait a long time for the truck in front of me. I didn't care about that tho. I was only going to be driving to Houston, I thought, I can sit here for hours and get paid.  It was like an hour past my appointment time before that truck was loaded and gone. The problem? That driver showed up 50 minutes late.  Figures.  Not our company, those people either show up hours early and try to sneak in/encroach upon another appointment for someone else or they show up wayyyy late.

I was sluggish when I started out driving. What the h*** am I doing out here on yet another Sunday.  I had pretty dismal thoughts.  But, a couple hours into it I was out of that thought line and into  - get this over with.  I was surprised at how busy the freeways were in Houston on a Sunday night.  Moderate to heavy traffic. Huh? What's going on here? lol But I made it here - a truck stop in south Houston on the 288 highway, it's a pay truckstop but it's the closest thing to the plant I'm going to in the morning and I"m going to turn in the receipt and see what happens. Other drivers say the company pays for paid parking, I didn't have that luck the first time I turned in a receipt and explanation, I"m going to try again. 

But I would have come here anywhere regardless. It's close, it's convenient, it keeps me out of the worst of the Monday morning rush hour s***.  I just hate this run because it's like giving away your time for nothing.   It's around $300 for 2 days worth. You might as well be just giving away your time.  I make $350 minimum a day going to Brownsville.  Whatever, I'm just going to hope for some better runs going forward, because I have been dumped with this pile of garbage and a Cheniere this year.  I had the Brownsville last trip, just saying I've had 2 out of 3 trips that are low paying and full of headaches. I have to unload this trailer tomorrow morning, so I get to stand around an hour and a half messing with tank pressures and keeping an eye on it.  Plus driving back. Im just text Ann as soon as I get on the road: I'll be back X time, please put me on the list. 

I vent a lot on this blog.  Lol

My hair. Growing back, but seemingly far too slowly.  And misbehaving even with gel.  Like the stiff gel that could put most hair up into a mohawk.  It's just not long enough yet.  Might be a couple of months or more before it is long enough that I can force it into submission. If I last that long, I may just end up going to the barber "cut this all off" and never try this again? I dunno. For right now, I'm trying it. But when I wake up in the morning, my hair will be a total disaster and not much I can do with it without showering and getting it soaking wet and more manageable. 

Well whatever. It's not getting late but I'm tired. It's  a Sunday thing. 

Saturday. 
Vehicle running poorly. 
Going up to Auto Zone since I  have no other options, have them plug in their computer and see if it comes up with anything. I'm guessing and actually hoping it's just a sensor.  They can be pricey, but not near as pricey as some other things that can go wrong on a vehicle. 

If they can't figure it out, I'll have no choice but to drop it off at the dealership. I'm not going to start taking it to auto shops and pay money to have them not be able to diagnose it. Been there done that, would rather just take it to Ford and have them get it right the first time.

I'm not really sure I should be trying to drive it to work tomorrow. 

Regardless, it's a cool day out - mid 40's, good day for a fire.  Excepting all the wood is soaking wet lol. but that's when those fire logs come in handy.  They'll burn regardless and then you dump the wet wood on top of it and eventually it will start burning. 

And smoking.  In fact, I need to get out there and get the smoker going before it gets too late. 

Yup, best get moving here. 

Well, I posted a day and a half ago's post - just now actually.  Got busy when an empty trailer showed up - I get distracted at that point. Put everything up, let's get moving.  That was around 4:00 pm yesterday (Thursday). I figured to drive to south of Houston and stop for the night. It would have been a 3 am night if I had tried to drive straight through and there wasn't any need to do that. 

100 miles into the run, I got pulled over yet again by a Texas State Trooper.  No rhyme or reason, she was wanting to do a roadside inspection.  I didn't bother to tell her it was less than a week since I got inspected last.  I figured I was good for an inspection, let's do it.  So, that passed, the only drawback is how much time it takes.  Even a short inspection will take a while because they have to do a lot of inputting into their computer in their cruisers. 

After that? I stopped at a place in Robstown - maybe 50 miles down the road - another driver told me about it in Brownsville, it was worth the stop.  It will become a regular stop from now on, actually.  Just incredibly good food!

After that, I figured the time to get to the truckstop just south of Houston.  And then, a 10 hour break and then what time I would be heading out. Ummm, no. It would have been around 8:00 am, just when things are getting shi*** for traffic in Houston, so I decided to drive through Houston and find a place north of there.  It was quite the drive north of there before I found a place. Midnight I was done, but better than 3:00 am. 

After arriving at the terminal, I heard my manager yelling at the top of her lungs, in very emototional manner, at someone on the phone.  She had the door shut but it was quite clear she was very unhappy with someone. I figured a higher level manager, because one thing I heard clearly was: "I give you my input on what we need to do but you never listen!!!". She was crying and screaming at the same time. 

She had texted me before she went in there about my next load - a worthless Houston run, which only helped that I could back under the trailer and get it ready for Sunday. It's either a whole day wasted - starting early morning to get there in time or 2 days wasted - get there the day before and not have to get up at 2 am.  It will be 2 days wasted for me, I'm not getting up that early in the morning for this run. Sunday I will go over to the plant, get loaded, head to Houston, stop a truckstop near the plant and head over the next morning. Avoid rush hour traffic as well. 

Well anyway, after that I had walked into the office, some other drivers were in there, we were all chatting when all the screaming started.  Ouch.

After getting home? She texted me asking to confirm I had received the dispatch for the Houston load. Yes ma'am, are you okay?  She was like, huh? I explained we heard her "talking" to whoever, it was carrying through the door. She called me and we had a lengthy discussion.  I'm on her side, tho, I don't have to like some of the loads I am getting to understand that she does her best.  It could be better if she could keep better track of what drivers are where and when they are getting back and dispatch loads accordingly. I don't say anything to her about that anymore, it doesn't help anything. 

It turns out they were wanting to get rid of 2 trailers.  She was standing firm on the point that we don't have enough trailers as it stands.  She said we can get rid of one trailer - it's in very bad condition - but the other one? We are not getting rid of.  Another interesting piece of news is that the Mapleton run is coming back, as early as March, maybe even sooner.  That run, when added with everything else, helps keep us all busy. Without it - and another run in Illinois that we probably will never get back as they switched to getting their product through railcars - we aren't near as busy as we used to be.  Now, it turns out, there are 3 trailers - old ones but in good shape - that are sitting somewhere that could be converted to ethylene - that was a product of her call today, they are going to work on doing the conversion and getting them into our yard. 

I learned alot of things today that I didn't know, actually.  Not going into all of it, just too much information and not likely that interesting.  But one other thing are drivers that take too long of breaks.  3 or them, or more maybe, that are close to retiring.  One foot out the door, they don't really care if they get back with trailers quickly, which hurts the rest of us.  I like a day off between runs. If I've been running hard for a while, a couple days is good. But 3 or 4 days?  No thanks. 

So, it's Friday evening. I have the rest of today, all of tomorrow and not needing to be to the plant until 1:30 pm on Sunday off.  Bad weather coming in a bit here. Likely tornadoes and preparing for power outage.  Why? Because every time a bad storm comes through, the power always goes out.  So at least get the candles out!

I'm now in Brownsville, Texas.  Got here late last night, around midnight.  I had a late load yesterday morning and didn't get out of the plant until almost 1:00 pm - but I was bound and determined to get down here regardless and get some detention pay if available.  Sure enough, no trailers here and now it's the next day - Thursday, they're saying trailers won't be here until around 3: 00 pm.  That's great, Ill have my 14 hours of detention pay in, I can drive 5 or 6 hours, spend the night somewhere south of Houston, get up tomorrow, finish out the trip and have a decent paycheck next week.  I only got paid for 2 trips for this week's check - but that was 2 Brownsville runs plus holiday pay plus $75 for getting pulled over by Texas State Troopers and getting a passing report on the inspection. 

The company is not, obviously, so fond of non-passing reports, it assesses points against the company and the driver.  So, they incentivize making sure your truck will pass an inspection at all times by giving you both some money on your check and some credits towards their catalog.  I must have a lot of points by now, I haven't used any of them in a long time and they keep accruing.  I don't need an incentive from the company, however, to make sure the truck is safe and really, those troopers are looking to ensure your truck is safe when they do inspections, not be some sort of demons from hell that are solely there to aggravate you.

But, some drivers get extremely aggravated, angry and even hostile towards troopers when they get pulled over for safety inspections.  Pretty dumb, IMO, to let your emotions get the best of you in a situation like that.  The trooper will find something wrong with your truck when you are acting like an ass towards him/her.  However, other driver reaction to troopers is not my problem, they want to pile tickets on themselves, be my guest.  

So, it's almost noon here and I just got word that 2 trailers will be coming in around 3:00 pm.  Since none of the border tractors have left the yard yet, that is probably correct.  They hook up to other types of  tankers and take them across the border and then bring our tankers back across.  I assume these trailers are en-route from Altimira and they are simply waiting until they get here or get close.  Hopefully not too late, I can leave out of here, drive 5 or 6 hours, spend the night somewhere just south of Houston, get my 10 hour break in and leave in time to miss Houston rush hour traffic.  I will not try to make it all the way back if they don't get here before 1:00 pm. I simply have no need to be driving til 2 or 3 am or even later.  It messes up my internal clock.  I got 8-1/2 hours sleep in today, but that doesn't mean I want to drive all night long.  Last night I pushed it got get down here so I could get that coveted detention pay.

As for other things, the drama in the other house - not really subsiding that much, because that lady really doesn't understand the idea of respect for others and not being so selfish in their living with other people. So, we continue to press it with her. The latest is taking food into their room and not bring dirty plates, dishes and silverware back out - and more pointedly now - silverware disappearing never to be seen again.  I agreed with Maria to tell them if they can't/won't bring out their dishes, no more eating in their room.  They're down to 4 spoons because apparently they "accidentally" threw them away.  That kind of stuffs annoys me greatly.

I'm finally starting to feel better after - 9 days? - of being sick.  The coughing is still there but not near as bad as it was and the runny nose and headaches and such are all but gone.  I really could go without getting sick again for a long, long time. This is the second coughing cold in a few months time. I'm considering just making sure, when anyone in the house gets sick, to simply stay away from them and keep to myself in my room when home. I guess that's not very likely but the older I get, the worse the effects of any kind of sickness seem to have on me.  I still managed to work/drive but it wasn't fun at all.  It's during those times when 2 or more people are sick in the house that I wish I was out on the road on some long roadtrip, like to Stryker, Ohio or perhaps West Virginia.  

As it stands, this week's schedule is light on long trips and  heavy on shorter ones.  There's a Brownsville run every day this week through Monday, but just one per day.  The rest is Oklahoma runs, one Stryker, a Houston Airgas and I think there was a West Virginia in there somewhere.  I'll take any of them, I guess - except the airgas, a completely worthless run that just wastes time.  

As for politics, Pelosi has far overstepped her authority, is still attempting to do so and I'm aghast at the powers she believes she has.