Sitting at the plant - in my truck - in the passenger seat. New policy here. But, it allows me to pull out my laptop and get some bill paying done.  They actually built a platform out of scaffolding at the entrance to the plant for a person to stand on with a thermometer to take everyone's temperature.  It's one of those kind you just aim at the person's forehead, the thermometer never touches you.  I had heard about this so I took my temp this morning before I left the house, well within normal parameters. 

Frankly, I'd rather go lay down in the sleeper and take a snooze, but that isn't allowable. They won't let you sit in the driver's seat - I guess so you can't turn the truck on and move it, but they take the key from you anyways.  Just weird.  At least it isn't hot out today, they aren't allowing us to run the trucks for AC or heat, either.   And I won't be able to take a pic of the weekly schedule now since we aren't allowed in the container where we used to wait.

I didn't squawk about any of this, people are contracting the virus here - as is the case pretty much everywhere. I believe the only good isolating ourselves from everyone else is doing is to make it so hospitals aren't all overrun at once everywhere.  Because as I said early on, before it ever left China, this virus is going to spread around the world and everyone is going to get it. Most will live, some will die.  And that's really what is happening.  Lots of conspiracy theories about China inventing this virus to spread it around and cause the US economy to fail. Would I put that past China? Absolutely not.  But I tend to dismiss those types of theories unless there is solid evidence. 

The local news is reporting 26 new confirmed cases in this region - where they're lumping several counties together for the states in the "northeast Texas region". And 3 new deaths.  This area is expansive, with small towns and people living out in the country with a lot of ranches and private properties people use for hunting.  So to say 26 in one day is probably a lot.  But, the last flu that went through here earlier this year?  Our little town was saturated with people acquiring it.  Social distancing probably does work, I've been doing as much as possible, but there are those places you have to go to to get food, gas, etc.  There is no apex yet and there is no sign of the virus abating, not really anyway. Less new cases, they say but no apex yet or flattening the curve they like to call it.

The plant I'm going to doesn't even want you getting out of the truck.   They don't want you signing in as normally the case.  Just pull up to the auto gate, drive to the scale, get weighed, drop the trailer.  Get weighed tractor only again, hook up to an empty and get out.  I won't make it today as far as I normally do because this is a late load.  I'll get back tomorrow afternoon and I'll have Monday off as well unless this manager does things differently, I don't know. Previous manager sent out work on Friday covering Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  I frankly don't mind a full day off.

Well I think I'll try to take a nap. This passenger seat is pretty uncomfortable, was never forced to sit in it before this.....

Everyone at the house in Phoenix are "essential" workers, hence I am not worried about loss of income to pay the bills over there. Well, Lynnette is only working one day a week right now, so I let her off paying rent for this month.  The card reader for electricity is in the $600 range currently, a few months worth.  That's what she pays, the electricity over there.  Not during the summer of course, their rent isn't that much.  The bill during the 3 hottest months is usually over $400.  For right now, I am happy that the house paid for itself this month and no cash outlays.

The other house - over here - different story. That lady is still in the hospital.  She has been removed from ICU but she's still going to be in a rehab or something for 3 or 4 weeks.  She is on disability, this virus does not affect her ability to pay the rent, but I suspect I'll end up eating that money this month.  People get weird ideas in their heads.  Well, I'm not there so I shouldn't have to pay the rent.  No, you rent the room regardless of whether you use it or not, it's occupied, I can't rent it out to anyone else.  I have no idea what's going to happen there, but I'm not prepared to eat two months worth of that nonsense, not when she is perfectly capable of paying up.  In fact, her expenses at the moment are zero since she's on medicaid or medicare, not sure which.

At the house here, Taylor got her Fridays back.  That will be really helpful for them.  James is still at 4 days per week tho and that situation apparently isn't going to change anytime soon. 

My work is fairly constant atm.  I'm going to Oklahoma today, just got back from Amarillo yesterday late morning.  Not the greatest run - Oklahoma - but if I get something better this coming week that will make up for it. That's a big if, I never know what I'm going to get sent.  They brought several drivers into our division - temp or not I'm not sure - but it's too many.  And two of them are complainers.  If they don't get the runs they like, they whine about it to the manager. Clarice, however, said none of that will phase her and she'll dish it right back out to them.  Yes, from historical context, I believe she would. 

I'm going to see if I can find out what that plants makes that gets shipped to hospitals when I'm up there today.  I only know they make wax, anything beyond that? I've never really asked. 

 Speaking of drivers, one of them called me yesterday questioning me about the West Virginia run. "ben, they have me going up here with one of the new trailers, do you know if they're taking those up there now or is that a mistake?" I knew instantly what he was concerned about and told him yes, we have been taking the new ones up there for at least a year now.  The new trailers are 10 feet longer than the old ones, the facility up there is very small and it's a challenge to get a small one in the hole where they go, much more a much longer one. 

He's not a good backer is the point.  Everyone knows it tho we cut him some slack on it. I told him to cut as close to the building as possible and swing it wide after driving over the concrete pad where the trailer goes.  "Well did they expand the facility, move the fencing or anything?". Nope.  They actually could, there is a huge field right next to the facility which belong to them, it's really a giant complex, Union Carbide.  I just assured him he could do it. You might have to do several pull ups but you'll get it in there.  He'll be up there this afternoon, I could tell he was nervous about it.

Are you sitting at home? I've gone out to support local business here for curbside service. The Schlotzsky's - great sandwiches.  No one was there when I went the other day.  Lowe's - it's the only big chain type of home improvement store in town and they are already shutting stores nationwide, they've been doing that before this virus.  So I went in there for a short visit to get some supplies, it would truly suck to have to drive clear to the nearest town that has a Lowe's and Home Depot over 30 miles away. I actually like Home Depot much better than Lowe's - but not enough to drive that far every time I need something from there.  Of course the local Kroger's, that's really unavoidable.  I have home made hand sanitizer, I do not have a face mask - yet.  You can't find those anywhere as it stands. Now they're telling us to use non medical grade masks - such as you can find at Lowe's for contractors - but I suspect they've sold out of those by now. 

James went to Walmart yesterday and said there was actually toilet paper in there.  Did you get any? No.  Why not?!!!  We have some  toilet paper, maybe enough to last all of us a month, we don't have a hoarder's supply.  Another pack of it would have been good.  I don't go to the store looking for it specifically anymore. I look if I happen to be in a store, but it's not my goal anymore.  He just replied that we have enough. Okayyyy lol.  I wasn't suggesting buying 100 rolls but another 6 or 8 pack would have been good.

Well the boys finally woke up. Now I can get my stuff done.  On Saturdays or Sundays, if I'm home, I don't do anything outside of the bedroom until they are awake. Cause' I don't want to be that guy that woke them up, forcing the parents out of bed earlier than necessary.  I'm out of here at 10:15 am, about an hour and a half from now. Plenty of time to make a nice breakfast, finish my laundry - dryer - get the vehicle packed.  There isn't a trip I go on no matter how short of a distance or short duration that I don't take at least 7 days worth of clothing.  I had started to get a bit less on the amount taken with me - until the Oklahoma breakdown - which reinforced the idea of taking for more clothing than necessary for you never know what's going to happen. 

And finally, I'm ready to go back on the diet.  But, I dunno if it's a good time for it.  You eat what you can eat right now, and those choices are greatly limited.  There are several restaurants with drive thru windows that only allow drive thru, you can't go in and you can't walk up to the window, they won't serve you.  I might wait until this virus stuff is over and back to normal - are we ever going to get back to normal? Or will life unalterably change after this thing is done and gone? Oh, I was reading a scientist has developed an antibiotic - yes an antibiotic, not a vaccine - which works on rendering the virus useless.  If you've seen the pics of the virus, it has those spikes on it. The scientist was discussing how the virus uses those spikes to invade cells, the antibiotic he developed rids the virus of those spikes so it can't proliferate. 

He also stated that antibiotics are vastly easier to make and much more quantity can be produced in a much shorter period of time and expense.  His work has been handed over to military medical teams - that specialize in this kind of thing - and hopeful that by summer, human trials can begin.  Regardless of how bad this virus is, you can't just start injecting people with stuff and not having had done scientific, clinical trials first to ensure the public isn't going to die from the cure. 

Well, off to the races. 

Text message.

Don't worry about the trip number.

From the new manager. 

???

That was the text, lol. hadn't spoken with her since yesterday so I had no idea what she was referring to.  A while later another text: Take LE075 to Amarillo to have it repaired.  

Good Lord, I'm not even at the house, I thought, is this something that has to happen right now?

So I said I'm not at the house ATM, can it wait til later or even early morning?  

She said tomorrow would be better, just treat it as a regular load and leave when you would with that. 

In other words, we are slow and she is trying to keep people busy.  Oh, I would have left today.  But I was literally in the middle of smoking a ham and cleaning and getting stuff done. I can drop everything I'm doing - but the ham? Yeah I could have dumped the thing in the oven at 250 and it would have been good for them by the time they got home for work.  

I would have gone if it were an emergency or if she just said she needed it to go. 

So I figured to get up around 4 am, get over to the yard, fire up the truck and hook to the trailer and get on over to Amarillo tomorrow - 500 miles - and try to get back at least 100 miles this way.  For the life of me, I can't remember where I stopped the last time I did one of these runs.  Cramming my brain but it's not coming to me.  I'll have to look at a map. 

___________________

That trip over.  Dallas this morning was a mess. Not much traffic, but even in light traffic, people just don't deal with driving in the rain very well. Case in point was the idiot driving at least 80mph if not 90,. He went over into the exit ramp lane to pass everyone, then attempted to zip over 4 lanes. I saw it coming before it happened and immediately started hitting the brakes - heavy.  He lost control of the vehicle the car spun around 2 times, how he didn't crash head on into the center divider, I have no idea.  How everyone else that this occurred directly in front of was able to stop before ramming into him - well I'll just assume that everyone was actually paying attention to the road.

But even braking early, I came awfully close to ramming one of the cars and subsequently pushing it into the idiot in the car that had stopped, facing the center divider. Yes, I call him an idiot because he was driving stupidly for the road conditions.  Whatever.  Driving further, 2 cars had collided.  Further - a car on fire in the center lane.  No apparent collision, not sure what happened there, but it was holding up traffic. Further down, a truck accident, then a pickup that slid off the road, down a steep embankment and got stuck.  I should have figured this would happen in the rain and just gone around Dallas, but I thought since traffic would be light because of the virus, there wouldn't be so many issues. 

I dunno, but I stayed away from people as much as possible on that trip. Amarillo is under heavy reporting of people contracting the virus, I didn't do anything there but drop the trailer and get out of there. I never came in contact with anyone there.  My stop last night at the truckstop the same.  Minimal human contact and staying away as far as possible.  Love's - the 2 stops there, well that's a roll of the dice.  The first one was virtually empty, just washed my hands really good and got out of there. Today's stop? Fuel, bathroom, wash hands in hot water and soap and get out of there. I can only do so much, but I'm doing whatever I can to keep from getting this virus. I'd hate to bring it home and get everyone sick. 

I figure this virus is going to change a lot of things about how we live our lives in this nation.

I dunno, but while I'm maintaining as many safeguards as possible, I"m not happy about the idea that the government has basically taken over everything without even having to declare martial law.  But I have no desire to go into all of that right now, I just got home, got a hot shower, washed thoroughly.  Dunno about any work.  This is Friday so runs get handed out for the weekend today.  Nothing yet, but it's still early. 

Anyway, enough for this one. 

So we're on lockdown.
What to do today.
Well, smoking a brisket or nice meat sounds good.
But it means I'd have to go to the store.
There is no ban on going to the store, it's just risky as far as I'm concerned.
A teenager working at Kroger's yesterday was coughing all over the place.
No, he was not covering his mouth.
I got the hell away from him, whatever he has I don't want it regardless of
whether it's this virus or not. I cannot understand how people can be
sneezing and coughing in public and not at least try to cover their mouths.
I might go tho, a nice brisket sounds really good.

Meanwhile, the lady at the other house.  They finally found family members
somewhere in Illinois.  The hospital warning they were going to convene and
ethics committee pretty much told the story.  Guessing, sure, but probably a
good guess: someone has to make the decision to take her off the ventilator.
Presumably, when that happens, she dies.  A rather gruesome and sad prospect.
This lady just moved in there.  I'ma lose some money on that house over there
this month - just turned the 1st of April.  Don't disparage me for thinking about
money in such a situation, I'm the one holding the bag for that place when
something goes foul with it.  Really would like to find a way to get Maria
out of that house and into something to live in that doesn't cost me anything.

Such as a travel trailer on the property.  I doubt it's legal here tho.  Most cities
have ordinances against such things.  Just another reason I'd like to be living
in the county, outside of the city.  They mostly don't care what you do out
in the country, keep it to yourself. Hunting, shooting, fishing, living arrangements.

Unless I took out a loan, the prospect of getting land is well out of reach right  now.
Well, I mean there are things I could do but those considerations are at least for now,
off the table. My consideration to take out a loan is rather dampened with this virus
running around messing with the economy and the fact that I already have 2 small
loans going which were intended to pay off credit card debt - which they are.  But
I don't think it's a good time to be getting into another loan.

Got back to the yard around 12:15 am last night.  Got out of there at almost 1 - a lot to do to get out of there including turning in a lot of paperwork, which I have to double check to make sure it's correct. Get home around 1:40, dogs in tow.  Yes, I went and got my dogs that late, Maria said it would be no problem so there ya go.  Slept 5 hours and then off to the races.  The bank with a bunch of cash - the bank is not allowing anyone inside.  Starbucks for Taylor,,, she wanted an iced whatever. Over there with that drink, then to Schlotzky's - the doors are still open, you can go inside, you just can't sit down to eat in there.  Then to Kroger's, where I found a lot more stuff than what has been "normal" Still zero toilet paper tho.  When I say none, I mean, NONE. 

But we have enough tp now, all 3 of us have gone on missions to find it and at least have enough for maybe a month and a half or so.  However, there was PLENTY of pasta, that had been all gone, so i stocked up on that and various dried goods.  Enough to make me think our pantry is at least on it's way.  But, before I put that stuff in there, I need to check dates on existing stuff and chuck what is beyond expiration. 

Meanwhile, the loading plant. The first load today?  He got on the group text and said they weren't loading, something wrong with the pump. that was like 6:30 am. It's now 1:50 pm and they still haven't fixed their pump. This problem has been going on for months and months now. They need to replace the damned thing, but they're trying to nickle and dime everything.  I get it: it's a million dollar pump. It's also over 40 years old. So now they are sending the trucks that are there back to the yard.  Well, I know I won't be getting a run tomorrow. All the stuff today will have to be loaded before they can move forward with more loads. And they have to fix the freaking thing before anything is going to get loaded.

So, if this goes on for a while, I'm going to ask yet again about going to Austin to get the railroad card.  LNG is up and down, but when it's up, they can't keep up with the demand. 

I took my temp a little while ago. 97.8. I had to look that up, seems low, but the range for normal starts at 97.7 from what I found.  So it's fine. The least I can do before anyone gets home today was to wash up, clean my hands thoroughly before preparing dinner and check my temperature.  It could all be futile in the end, but I've also been engaging in social distancing - to the extreme. I stay away from people in truck stops as far as possible. 

All that driving yesterday for naught. They needed that trailer back for a load this morning - second load to be precise.  Not that it's a bad thing I got back even if late.  Roads are veritably deserted.  I mean, there is very little traffic out there anywhere, even Houston at 7:30 pm on a monday night there was hardly any traffic at all.  So much so I was able to take the 610 west loop instead of going all the way around on the Beltway 8. 

Meanwhile, my GE stock is up again.  Not much, but it is up.  The Dow Jones is down, but not over a 1,000 points down. 
____________

Our town is now subjected to shelter in place rules.  Okee dokee.  I'm not sure I had plans to go anywhere tomorrow anyway.  Restaurants? No, curbside service.  Bars?  Nope.  Movies? Nope.  Can you even fly in the states now?  No clue.  Plenty I can do around here if I go stir crazy. 

Whatever the case, this one is done. 

Day 3 in Brownsville.
Starting to get antzy. Not because I hate waiting, but because they ran out of drivers to haul loads up there and had to cancel a load coming down today.  So now, no matter what time a trailer shows up today - there are supposed to be here - I will have to drive all the way back.  Meaning if one got here at 9:00 pm I"d be driving until 7:30 am to get it back.  No thanks.  I'll do it, yes, but pleeeeaaassseeee I'm hoping one gets here soon. It's 12:30 pm right now, I'm good for driving up until around 1:00 am.  After that I'm toast and fighting to stay awake.  Even 1:00 am is pushing it. 

But I'll do whatever I have to to keep my  job.  They can easily push me out of their system to get someone who will do the night driving, I'm not taking that chance.

Since our company laid off 400 drivers, especially. But - most of that was in the fuels division.  Obviously, fuel consumption in this nation has gone way down because no one is going anywhere besides truck drivers.  But I just read that our company is fighting to give the rest of the drivers facing lay offs work outside of our industry. They've already connected with Werner, JB Hunt and others to haul loads for them - that's all grocery stuff,  the hoarding is still continuing but sooner or later, I'm assuming most people will run out of money for over stocking their pantries and buying hundreds of rolls of toilet paper.  But I'm glad they are finding ways to keep our drivers working.  It may not be optimal, but it's far better than nothing, or being on unemployment and not getting near as much as you normally would with a paycheck.

Just disconcerting that we don't have enough drivers right now to cover the loads.  Sounds like they could easily bring in a couple more drivers to pick up the slack.  A person hauling fuel can easily pull what we pull, they just won't be able to do any offloading at the plants.  We have lots of drop and hook places we go, including Brownsville. I'd rather see them bring in a couple more drivers than watch our business go out the window to a different cryo hauler.  We had that happen in 2018 and we never got those accounts back. Well sometimes if the other hauler is too busy, but for the most part, they get those runs. It's limited and not that much, but it took business away from us.

Even more conversations with other drivers about the now gone manager.  This one driver was getting set for up to 8 DAYS at a time.  WTH.  He admitted he doesn't run as hard as some of us do, that might have something to do with it.  These brownsville runs they want down here same day unless its impossible because of hours to get it here.  Still, 8 days. If you have that much disdain for a driver  you should just get rid of him.  But, she was doing that to a lot of us, just not as much sitting.  It was really obvious, too, who was getting all the runs because they were on the group chat ALL the time giving updates on loading times when they were getting loaded.  Why she played favorites I'll never really know for sure, I just know I have a pretty good relationship going with current manager - trying to keep it that way and keep busy. 

So, here I sit, keeping an eye out for any trucks coming in with our trailers. This yard has all kinds of trailers in it, only a limited number of them are ours.  I suspect all 3 of us waiting down here will be out of here today.  I'm first out, thankfully.

The disruption to our lives with this coronavirus is spreading. But, we now have enough toilet paper to last a while - no we didn't hoard we just wanted enough to last a month or two.  We're there.  If people would just calm down and understand the food chain supply isn't down, go back to buying normally, we wouldn't be in this dilemma.  I found more water today at the truck stop, so I got another case. We're good with that for a while too. But it took so long to find any, I have 2 cases in my truck now instead of the one I normally have.  That isn't hoarding. Hoarding would be buying 10, 15 or 20 cases of water, well beyond anything you directly need. 

I have stepped back a bit watching continuous news.  They are literally reporting this virus news around the clock. I was watching a lot of it until a few days ago, I decided to back off a bit. Not totally, I want to see what's happening with it, but I just don't need to be filling my head with that stuff all day and night long.  I tend to get carried away with watching the news when stuff like this happens.  I watched all of the OJ Simpson trial coverage, for example. I watched the news forever in 9/11.  Operation Desert Storm the same.  But this is going to go on for a while.  The only real changes are the numbers of people getting it are going up and up and the complaints of ventilator shortages keep rolling in.  Essential workers are getting pushed hard - doctors and nurses especially. Truckers? We run hard regardless to make that paycheck.  It's just that we are not sheltering in place and the don't want us to.  For obvious reasons.  Well, ok and they are asking truckers to drive longer hours in temporarily suspending HOS rules. You can drive as long as you want. Instead of 11 hours you can drive 15 if you have to, but the same rules about the 10 hour break are in place, so I've heard anyway. Once  you are done driving that day, however long you drove, you still have to take a 10 hour break. I'd be fine with an 8 hour break.  I don't need 10 hours and many truckers have complaing about that rule for a long time. 

I'm not sure if they suspended the 70 hour rule. I haven't looked into it. Our company hasn't suspended it that I know of but certain operations might have, such as oxygen to hospitals.  Well, I"m get offa here and get prepared, I have word that a trailer is coming in soon.

Arrive at the plant today. Get through the security gate and over to the scale. Sit there and wait.
Normally don't have to wait more than 5 to 10 minutes. I was there 40 minutes.  First load, it's early but that doesn't mean anything at that plant.  Well, except for today.

Everything changed there overnight, they didn't bother to tell anyone outside of the plant.  The scale house is closed even to plant employees, the only ones allowed in there are the personnel assigned there.  So, the loading rack personnel can no longer go in, input the weight of the truck/trailer and then go to the rack.

So, after sitting there all that time, a plant pickup pulls up next to my truck, a dude gets out - it was still dark - and then I recognized him when he got up to the window.  I'm thinking, what is this dude doing?  He says he can't into the office, I can go to the rack. There is a readout on the building in full view of the trucks so you can see what your empty and loaded weights are.  You need the empty weight to give to the rack employees, you definitely want to know your gross weight. If it's overgross, we be going back to the rack and getting product unloaded.

So anyway, I get to the rack and everything there appeared normal. But it was not.  I got into the container - it's a shipping container converted into an office - sat down as normal and then saw the operators looking at a printed sheet.  In huge letters it said that drivers were not to come into the office at all.  So I just sat there and waited for them to tell me whatever. They had contacted us about all of this stuff.  The main operator was clearly irritated.  He didn't want to answer any of  my questions.

Note: He is normally very sociable and we talk alot, so this was unusual in itself.

Next thing I know, yes, please go get into your truck in the passenger seat, we will bring the paperwork out to you.  This is all Corornavirus stuff.  As the pandemic spreads, so does the fear.  Not that I want to get that s*** and neither do I blame them for not wanting OTR truck drivers in there potentially bring that virus in with them without even knowing it.  But please. Get rid of the attitudes, we are all in this together, we all have difficulties to face in this crisis, don't act like you are alone in your misery.

Of course I didn't say that to him, I just got up and walked out, got into the truck and texted the group of drivers about everything going on.  Also note: you are not allowed to run your truck while you're forced to sit inside the thing and wait. It wasn't hot this morning, but hot days are here. Sitting in a hot truck without the AC? No thanks.  I'd rather sit outside under a shade tree than sit in a hot truck.

Clarice saw my message to the group and later asked if I was off the rack? Yup. Call me.  She dropped more F bombs and other lovely niceties than I have heard coming from anyone in a while.  She was pissed that they hadn't contacted her about this change and also extremely irritated that drivers were having to sit in the truck while loading explosive material. We can't see if there is something going on at the back of the truck.  That wasn't my concern tho, lol, I just don't want to sit there sweating my ass off the next time I go in there and it happens to be warm and humid. But she went on for 10 minutes, dropping expletive after expletive after expletive, about her disdain.

What's more fun than getting up at 4 am for work? 
Being awake half the night.
First, with stuffed up nose - allergies and then the kid next door.
He decided it was a good idea to come backing in between our houses with
a diesel pickup truck, revving it up and making all kinds of noise.

This is going to be a looooong day. 

Oh, btw? The internet here comes on and off.  Why? Because everyone is at home. 
Everyone is on the internet. 

Lol.  I'm going on the road 4 days, that's all I can say.  Brownsville 2 days and Oklahoma 2 more. 
Got my hand sanitizer, made a bunch of food and likely the roads are still going to be pretty light, even through Houston I'm guessing.  I'll find that out later on - well you know, as long as yet another truck doesn't break down somewhere..

Yea, a bit of a pessimistic mood this morning, probably cause' I didn't get anything even close to enough sleep.  I mean, I got up 20 minutes early because I gave up on it, hence the time to write out a post. I have no idea if I'll be on here again in the next 4 days, definitely not tonight. By the time I get to Brownsville and operating on not enough sleep, my first thought will be to go to bed. 

And I'm only going to check one place for tp down there, the only place I found it last time. But I will try.  James scored a 6 pack at Walmart yesterday. He actually showed up before Walmart opening time - they are all closing now at night to restock and sanitize the store. There was a line of 50 people he said when he got there and then line doubled by the time the opened the doors.  He said by the time he got in there, all the toilet paper was gone - excepting one 6 pack that was hiding in the back.

Hey, at least we aren't going to run out this week. And on the road I never have a problem - the rest areas are always well stocked and the truck stops are usually stocked. 

I"m curious through all of this coronavirus woes going on - people dying, people getting extremely sick - how this will change our society going on in the future after this thing is over?  Will we look at how we interact with each other differently? Will new technologies emerge?  Will society create new social rules that won't go away?  I dunno, just musing. 

But for now? Time to get my stuff out of the fridge and get ready to get out of here.  Taylor is worried she's going to catch this virus and die.  Literally, she is. She has respiratory problems, lifelong version of it.  Jaxon, the 3 year old, has asthma.  Those are not helpful things to have when confronting a virus that attacks your respiratory system.  I dunno what to tell her.  Stay away from people as much as possible, yes social distancing, sounds ridiculous but it's a thing now, wash your hands often, keep your hands away from your face at work and do whatever you can to keep yourself free from it.

Cause' honey, we have 2 cases of it in our little town now and it's only a matter of time before more get it.

I predicted when they first spoke about this virus in China, before it went anywhere else in the world, that the entire world would get this thing, we would all get sick and some of us would die.  Grim prediction, but it doesn't take a genius to figure it out.  People travel to China - lots of people. Even people in this little town, some of them are from China, here studying at one of the local colleges.  I think the colleges are shut down now, I know all of the grade schools are shut down and kids are - whatever the remaining working parents are doing with them.  That's gotta be an additional hardship if you are used to having the school system having your children while you're at work.

I think it's time for us all to get on our knees and seek the Living God and ask for His help.  That's what I think. 

Trip to Oklahoma.
First off, the old "POS" - piece of shit - truck - that's what they called it I knew nothing about this truck - was definitely that.  Smelly, old, falling apart, AC in the sleeper doesn't work, no mattress in the sleeper and other internal things. But the worst part?  Hit about 35 mph? And the front end would start shaking violently. Get up to 50?  It wasn't even funny. The whole thing felt like it was going to bust apart.  I texted the shop foreman about it. Yup, he replied, that's why we're getting rid of it.

They knew about the problem but were having me haul 40,000 net payload of Ethylene.  Was rather shocking, actually.

I thought, well, if it comes apart, I hope it doesn't cause an accident.  But it came to pass after stopping it, that taking off, the next time it didn't do it. So subsequent times it did do it, I pulled over immediately and started from stop.  I decided to get rid of the loaded trailer first and then head over to Oklahoma city. 

After parking that truck in the Peterbilt lot, they brought my truck over to where I was.  I said thanks, I'll give you the keys to this truck after I'm done, I have to move out of this one and into that one.  So getting into my truck, I felt nothing but warm air coming out of the AC.  Huh?  I fiddled with the controls, nothing was working.  Nooooo! It was 92 degrees in Oklahoma City yesterday.  So I drove the truck back to the service entrance and they were like, huh?  Umm, when I brought this truck in here, the AC was working perfectly. 

The man runs into the service area, pulls out the records and notes that they, for some reason, pulled the AC lines off to change out the turbocharger. A service tech came out and was perplexed.  He pulled out the AC machine and said he was going to evacuate all of the freon in the system to see if they forgot to put the freon back in.  He then went on for 10 minutes attempting to figure out why they even pulled those lines off of there.  Had nothing to do with the turbo and there was no ticket for checking the AC system. There wasn't one because there was nothing wrong with it.

An hour later - no, they hadn't refilled the freon, hence the system obviously wasn't working - and I was out of there.  But only to the lot next door, lol. I was out of hours and spent the night there.  This morning, I got up, took the truck a mile down the road to Blue Beacon truck wash and got the thing washed. After that? The oddity.  Rush hour traffic time and  very light traffic. I know, the town is shut down to Coronavirus, but the reality of it sinks in when you see with your own eyes the lack of people going to work.

Several hours later - Dallas - the same thing. Like traffic you would find on Sunday.  Everywhere I got, businesses are shut down with signs out front.  Even a Waffle House was closed. Not open and selling food out the door, totally shut down. THAT is very odd for Waffle House, they are the restaurant chain that stays open during catastrophes. 

AT 2 Loves, they had the soft drink fountains barricaded - literally, I mean barricaded - off to customers.  They had an employee working the fountain. Same with their roller grills.  Even guys after peeing or using the toilet in the restrooms were actually washing their hands! THAT  is an anomaly.  Public restrooms are gross because people use the toilet and come out and walk out without washing their hands.  Even weirder these people will talk on their cellphones while pooping and flushing the toilet.  But the new class of truckers is a lot of nasty people with very little hygiene habits.  So I am glad they had that stuff barricaded.  Keep that nastiness out of there. 

In the Carl's Jr. connected to the Love's in Van, Texas, the manager of the store told people to leave.  They had ignored the signs coming into the store saying "NO MORE THAN 6 PEOPLE IN THE RESTAURANT AT A TIME" and an advisory to stay 6 feet apart from others.  She was short and curt about it. 

Now, a 2 TRILLION dollar bill, passed. I can only say that I think it outrageous that we think we can spend this kind of money - that we don't have, dumping that much more into our debt load and that much more on required interest payments.  Trump is on now reading out a list of stuff the money is going to. I don't support Trump or any of the rest of them in this pork filled bill. The should have done a 1/3rd of that much to start with and related to the virus only.  But whatever, this country will eventually face austerity measures.  It will come to that someday.  All of this just motivates me more to get achieve my goal of having rental properties to sustain me in my old age. 

Anyway, I got back to town at 1:30 pm, got 2 runs for the weekend. Yup, she's been keeping me busy. Obviously I couldn't work without a truck but she's definitely making it up.  A run to Brownsville tomorrow and then a run to Oklahoma on Monday.   I don't know about making it back in Brownsville in 2 days - a lot of times that happens, but definitely not all of the time. 

I always take food with me anyway, but I'm not taking any chances.  4 days on the road coming up? Yea, I'm taking a small refrigerator full of food with me.  Eating junk in Truckstops is better than nothing - that old truck had no refrigerator so I took no food with me - but I'll be busy making food for the road in the next few minutes. 

And finally, the lady in the other house.  She was carted off in an ambulance over a week ago, put on a ventilator in ICU and has been in there ever since.  We aren't related, so they won't tell us what's wrong with her or if she's even going to live.  It's - an interesting - thought that we may all get this virus.  But, I predicted when they first came out with the news that it was in China - hadn't spread anywhere else at the time - that the whole world would get it just like any other virus that passes around everywhere.  And here we are. 

Umm, I think I"m done here. The politics involved with this virus is dumbfounding. People are dying, but both sides are playing blame games and politicizing it.  Shameful. 

Talking to Mark today - seeing how things are going in Phoenix.  Not well. they have caught up to everyone else. Many were boasting how Phoenix is "still good" when everywhere else had stores emptied of most everything.  Not so now.  He was lamenting how he can't get anything, every time he goes to the store everything is gone. 

I asked him his age - I thought he was in his mid 60's.  "I'm 72".  Oh.  Well, you can go to Fry's then early and they have a time set aside for seniors to shop before anyone else gets in there.  I had to get him to understand that most of these stores stock up overnight and then are emptied out early.  I dunno if that's so in Phoenix, but it is here and everywhere else I've been to.  So get over there early!

But, besides Lynnette - they're a couple - her hours cut back to one day a week - 3 of the 4 other tenants are working and one isn't working but collects Guard pay. He goes to college and does national guard stuff.  Arizona has placed a no-eviction status in place. Not that I'm looking to evict anyone, but Mark brought it up.  Please don't tell anyone that, mark. If they are earning the same paycheck they always have been, they should be paying their rent. If they have lost hours or cut off altogether, different story obviously. 

For Mark's sake, I let them off the hook next month for rent. Lynnette was the one lying about the rent payments, Mark knew nothing about it.  She kept him in the dark. Well I"d do it for her too, just because my faith in the Lord.  But it still leaves a sour taste in my mouth thinking about how long she did that and the trust I placed in her.  In Mark's case, I am pretty much resolved that I will be helping him out for the rest of his life.  He'd end up on the streets if he lost the security of my house to have a place to live and live out his old age in.  He's been there for what, 11 years now I think? 10 anyway. I can't do that to people. I'm not like that. 

Note, I wasn't thinking of kicking them out, I got over the Lynnette lying thing already, just the thoughts started running through my head about this dude. He helps people - all over the place. He goes to widow homes and people as old as him to help them out with stuff they can't deal with.  He's not in the best health, but he's not an invalid either.  There's almost $700 on the electric card reader now. That's enough to last into - July actually. Not all the way through July since the heat fires up into the 110's range, but it will get it there.  He takes care of the house too. Keeps it immaculate inside and out, literally.  He's a good guy, I would have to be in a really bad place to think about having to change that situation, such as selling the house. 

But if I can get the other 4 tenants payments next month, it will be fine. 

Well, enough of that. I am going out in an old "piece of shit" truck tomorrow - as my manager described it. I don't know this truck, apparently it's in the yard.  It disgusts me to get into a nasty truck. I've only been told it's a piece of shit and old as the hills.

My plan is to take the loaded trailer to the plant in Oklahoma first and then drive over to Oklahoma city and get my truck.  If I run out of driving hours - and if that truck is that nasty, I will pay for a hotel rather than sleep in a thing like that.  I have standards. They shouldn't even be dealing with trucks that old.  The company makes huge profits, replacing trucks however isn't high on their priorty list.  Every company has it's pros and cons. 

Whatever the case, off to bed. 

Wednesday.  Since I didn't get the Brownsville run, this is 4 days off of work. I actually didn't mind a day or even two, but I can't afford extended time off.  Word is that truck had a busted differential and for whatever reason, they aren't going to fix it right away.  That truck has a brand new engine in it, that kind of decision is perplexing. Is the company sinking financially?  I heard rumors that other divisions lost money last quarter, ours made money hand over foot.

Regardless, I just texted the shop foreman to find out if the truck is done. I need to get back to work, whatever is available, I want it.  Well, some runs I don't really want but right now, I need something to keep the paychecks rolling in.  I spent a chunk of change stocking up the freezers. I didn't leave myself broke but I'd like to get that money refreshed in my bank account. 

Okay, my breakdown pay will save me this week at least.  It's not quite as much as I expected but it's still a good number. 

Ahhh, the truck is finished. Now I need to get my manager to get me up there somehow. Bus, rental car, airplane, I don't care. Well are airplanes even flying now? Well I"m going to get my laundry done before contacting her, if she gets a wild hair to do it right now, that's exactly what she'll do and I have to be ready to go. 

Did I make a foolish investment?  I dumped $200 into a stock yesterday.  It had been tanking for weeks.  Okay, $200 is a mere pittance in the stock market, I'm not ready to start dumping thousands of dollars into one stock based on my very limited knowledge of it.  But $200 is a risk I can accept.  As of right now, it's up over a buck a share from where I bought it yesterday and it is still trending upward.  I'm not day trading. I'm hoping it will get back up into the $12 or higher per share range it was at before this crisis and more than double my money off of it. 

The other stock I got 3 or 4 weeks ago was a foolish mistake, energy was not the stock to get into at the time.  But, since it was a cheap stock to begin with, I've only lost like $75 on it.  Live and learn.  More research is necessary when buying stock than what I did with that one, for after I bought it, I started finding more - interesting - information that would have had me put the brakes on it.  I'll just hold onto that stock, it seems to have hit the floor.  Even if it hasn't, I have no impetus to dump it. Energy will eventually come back up, breaking even on it would be nice at least. 

Well, the stimulus package apparently is going to go through.  So, here we go with 2 trillion more debt, and the ensuing interest payments that must be made on that debt.  I'm still shocked that even conservatives are agreeing with this nonsense.  It may help in the short run, in the long run it's going to bite us in the ass. 

Whatever. My laundry is done soon, then I'll text my interim manager and see about getting up to OKC and getting into my truck and getting back to work. 

Another 75 miles down the road and I could have at least gotten breakdown pay for a day or - well probably much longer but they would have brought me back before then - and get some money out of this trip. Instead, 26 miles out of town, the transmission went out on the spare truck.

I take no responsibility for someone else's shit shifting the gears. Because that's likely what it is and that is very likely the guy that drove the truck before he got fired's doings.  I drove the truck around 1,200 miles before this happened. But, who knows how it looks on me having 2 separate trucks breaking down in a week's time?

Anyway, I made a left hand turn at a light in Henderson, Texas and got a few hundred feet, shifting gears, when the thing went into this loud clunking sound and trucking not moving, clearly coming out of the transmission and clearly - well likely - bearings gone out on a spline and/or broken off gears from faulty driving.

I was pissed.  $1,100 trip down the drain.  I knew what was going to happen.  Another driver would be sent to pick up the trailer and a tow truck to get the truck.  Actually, it was up in the air after contacting my interim manager - Clarice - and her telling me that between drivers off, drivers doing reset and drivers set to do runs tomorrow, that she didn't have anyone.  I don't always believe terminal managers, they have a lot of pressure to keep product moving. But what was I supposed to do? I had already called the terminal mechanic and let him listen to the thing when I put it in gear.

But, Clarice sent a driver that was going to be going on an Oklahoma run down - he arrived quickly, motivated by getting off that horrid Oklahoma run and the prospect of getting more than double the money, he was actually happy about it. I wasn't. I was counting on a beautiful paycheck next week - meaning 2 Fridays from now.

Although I blamed the previous - fired - driver - and yes I still think he brought this about - we are also dealing with trucks with mega miles on them.  I'm on 35 years of driving, I have never burned up a clutch and I have never trashed a transmission.  So whatever happened, was already going on before I ever got in the driver's seat.  I can tell you, with only 448,000 miles on it, the transmission shouldn't be giving up the ghost.

My truck - the one at a Peterbilt shop in Oklahoma - had a bad turbo. I knew that, but it was nice to hear that my analysis was right on. They are fixing it, according to the shop foreman at my terminal.  It's an easy fix in truck mechanics world, it won't take long, I'd like to go up and get the thing tomorrow.  Or the next day at worst.  I dunno, I'll ask Clarice about that tomorrow.

For today? Just sucked that I lost out on that much money.  I might have made $175 at max.

Good news? Krogers in the town where the yard is at? Had some stuff. Milk - for the boys, beef - not alot and limits, but still. Paper/tp aisle empty except for Kleenex, so I got a 4 pack of them just in case. And an abandoned case of water which I quickly grabbed up and put into my shopping cart.  They were sold out in the store of water to the point the water section is filled with Coca-Cola products.  I found it - funny actually - that they had removed the entire egg racks, it was just an empty, rather large, slot in the giant cooler.

We're not going to starve, tho I never expected to.

I had to clean out the spare truck of my stuff today. Just unbelievable.

_________________

Now Monday.

Still reeling at the prospect of losing that much money because of a junk truck.

I have no idea what's next. I mean, I should be getting sent to OKC to get my truck - but I've heard nothing from Clarice. It doesn't matter I guess, the day off will be used to go around to a few stores in town and see if I can find some beef and chicken.  Probably not going to be any toilet paper, but I scored a 4 box pack of Kleenex yesterday, those will work if/when the rest of the supply we have is gone. 

But if I hear nothing about getting my truck back by the end of the day? I'll be texting the shop foreman about whether they finished it or not.  It's  just a turbo charger. Easy access. 4 bolts hold it in, some tubing to have to remove, not a big deal. 

The Dow continues to tank. From a high in the 29,000 range not long ago, it's not in the high 18,000 range. That's a lot of wealth wiped out.  I  wonder if my oldest brother took his money out of the 401k he had going?  He also gets a pension.  Business shutting down. People staying home. Money not being made.  Now the government wants to throw money at us.  A mere pittance of what it will take to survive an extended period of no cash flow, it's a waste of taxpayer dollars and they shouldn't even be considering it. I can see offering small business loans - that eventually has to be paid back.  Other ideas I might get on board with, but a trillion dollar package?

It's going to be interesting to see where we are at in 3 months.  And also interesting how long I will have work - provided I get a truck again of course - and when production in these plants starts winding down.  In my view, it's not a matter of if, but of when.  It's all interconnected, the economy. 

Anyway, it's raining out, but that's not going to stop me from heading up to the stores and at least seeing if some supplies are available.  Maybe it will keep others from going? Lol, I'll find out soon enough. 

The loading plant yesterday had an unusually large number of trucks loading and I was already a late load as it stood.  2:30.  I got there at 2:15 and waiting an hour and a half before they could even get to me.  They were out of product and were making more. But it takes time.  I didn't get out of the plant until 5:00 pm. Faced with the prospect of either driving all night long or - quitting after around 300 miles and just finish today.

But, the way this interim manager is working things, she is keeping me far busier than the previous manager, I figured she'd dump me with a load for this weekend. So I decided to battle the fatigue and drive all night long.  I got to bed "last night" at 5:00 am. I can tell you, around midnight? I'm ready to go to sleep.  I pushed through it, got it done and now sitting here waiting on a trailer to come up from Mexico. Actually, I still have over an hour before I can start driving again anyway, taking my 10 hour break.  6 hours of sleep is all I could manage, going to try and get an hour nap here in a few minutes. 

Yes I'm in Brownsville and yes I decided to try hitting up the stores here again. The HEB store had a hundred people waiting in line to get into the store. The Walmart parking lot was almost completely full. I didn't bother wasting my time at either but I did, finally, find a 6 pack of paper towels!  And James found chicken at one of the supermarkets yesterday - buy as much as you can.  He got $80 worth.  No ground beef was available. I'm half thinking to stop at one of these small town grocery stores on the way back up and see if I can score some meat at one of those. 

All the restaurants are closed to dine in and many of them aren't even letting you in the door. In fact, some of them actually have barricades in front of the doors.  It's drive thru only and truck drivers - can't go through drive thru windows. So I gave up on all of that, but - the Wingstop doesn't have a drive thru window so everyone has to go inside the store to order, fortunately for me, so I got a nice healthy order of cajun seasoned wings.  I have plenty of food with me, I just wanted something hot. My food I have with me will last me through next trip - which will be on Sunday.  It's Friday, I'm hoping to make it back home tonight, get the dogs and get a full day off from work at least.  One can hope! 

Actually, I have a package of liverwurst in my fridge - I'm looking forward to a nice sandwich made with that later on.  That was like the only meat left in the Kroger's I was at the other day 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 I haven't had that stuff in a long time, just kind of forgot about it lol.  I'm not starving and likely won't be, just a few extra added inconveniences on the road. I'm still perplexed by all of these drive thru's that basically telling truckers to screw off.  Truckers have LONG memories of getting such treatment.  Not that some of these places give a damn, but there are certain things that some municipalities do, for example, that piss off the trucking community to the point that they start calling for a ban of taking anything into those towns.  You put up enough no parking restrictions in a town for truck drivers to take their breaks? It gets on social media and the next thing you know "I'm not taking anything to that (town, city, state).  Lots of drivers won't even go into California.  It is, by far, the worst state to drive a truck into and drivers just summarily reject loads going into that state.

Not ALL drivers of course, but there is a substantial number of them that refuse to go anywhere near that state. 

And now word that our small town is shutting down as of tonight. That's the deal where restaurants and bars are closed down, save doing curbside food service.  And probably the theater will be closed down as well.  There are several colleges in town, but they've already implemented their own lock downs and severe restrictions on students traveling anywhere and trying to keep them engaging in "social distancing". We don't have any big sports venues in our town.  It's mainly just going to affect the few bars that are in town and all of the restaurants. It was only a matter of time, I'm kind of surprised they waited this long. 

Well, hopefully y'all are faring okay in all of this. I don't know of any place that isn't really being affected by all of this, the restrictions are starting to grow more and more severe.  I think New York was contemplating a "shelter-in-place" decree, California just did that, tho I don't know the specifics.  Been kinda busy today to do much reading of news and it's all the same s*** every day, the only real news is that drug that already exists that may be able to ward off this virus.  Oh, that and some politicians that are raising eyebrows about selling off stocks at the "right" time before the stock market tanked, some straight up in-your-face questions being asked of them. 

It's some strange times we're living in.  I am still perplexed by the hoarding.  I can see people buying up food - but the toilet paper thing is really strange.  I thought it funny  at first - just ridiculous really - but now that the hoarding has crossed over into food - all kinds of food from fresh meats to canned and dry goods - it's not really funny anymore. 

But whatever. We aren't starving and besides bottled water shortage - I really need that for my truck, I keep a case of it in here at all times, not just this virus garbage - I'm doing ok.  No signs of any sickness - yet - washing my hands whenever I can, using the Purell sparingly - I only have a tiny bottle of it.  Keeping my distance from people. Given a warning when I come home that I was going to be sprayed down with lysol - lmao - I replied I'll just take a good long hot shower and clean up well.  I understand them being a bit wary of a person living with them that travels all over the place and potentially exposed to this crap and having 2 little kids that don't need this stuff.  I don't wonder if I should just stay away from the house temporarily - my boss is keeping me busy enough that I could basically live in the truck.

I dunno. Perhaps just isolate myself in my bedroom and keep the kids away from me, that's where all of this stuff gets spread around. 

Anyway, taking a nap and hoping a trailer shows up soon. 

Hope beyond hope this morning that they got the truck into the shop and at least started looking at it. Hope deferred as I was informed they still hadn't moved it and my interim manager insisting I come back today. I didn't argue with her, I said okay.  Would you be okay getting into Danny's truck?  she asked. Only if they get that thing detailed, I replied. Danny was a nice guy, had some temper tantrums here and there and anger issues - which got him fired.  Specifically, cussing out a Peterbilt service advisor at the shop in Tulsa.

So she said they had put a new mattress in it and that they were going to get it detailed, but I wanted her to check on that, I am not getting into a totally nasty, disgusting truck, thanks.  But the word cam back that they had paid extra to have the truck done right.  She got me a rental pickup truck, took an uber over there - and saw people sitting in restaurants?  Huh?  OKC definitively stated they were not allowing anyone to dine in at restaurants.  Well, I got the truck and went to Waffle House for a bite to eat. Back to the semi, got my stuff out - it's really hard to drive a truck without all of your stuff.

Back to the hotel where I have been having elongated conversations with one of the hotel desk staff since I've been there.  Got my stuff, finished up talking with her and got on the road.  Some people are saying the roads are deserted, I'm not seeing that at all. Looks like just another normal day out on the Interstates.  Long drive - seemed to be anyway - back. 350 miles seemed like 600 for some reason.  Weird cause I wasn't driving slow lol.

I asked Clarice - the interim manager - to please let me have my truck back whenever they get done with it.  Yes, I'm not trying to take you out of your truck, we just need you for runs right now. Lots of people out and enough slots to fill to keep me busy.  So I'm out again tomorrow - a Brownsville run.  I can't complain, I really want as many runs as I can get before it inevitably slows down and we are screwed. Okay, that's not a very positive outlook, I get that, but it's realistic.  People are out of work right now, all of these businesses shutting down is going to have a ripple effect across the spectrum.

Casinos are shutting down, bars, restaurants, sports venues, other venues that accommodate large crowds.  This is all recreational expenses - the money people spend that's "left over" when they pay their bills and such.  All of those people that aren't working - now can't pay their rent.  They can't pay their credit card debt.  Next thing you know, we have a reenactment of the 2008 housing bubble.  We could be facing a serious financial crisis - and probably are just hasn't fully materialized yet.  Our stocks are heading to half the value they were 2 months ago.  But can we possibly absorb another trillion dollar stimulus bill.  Do we really want to go that route?  I've lived through very hard times, I didn't get any government help - tho admittedly I didn't want it and I didn't ask/apply for it.

I'm home.  Late load tomorrow, I won't make Brownsville tomorrow unless I want to drive until 3am.  2 am at the earliest. Can't start driving an almost  600 mile run at around 4 - 4:30 pm and expect to get there by 6 to 8 pm as it normally is.  I'll see how I feel tomorrow night I guess.

The entire world is on edge now. Everyone's every other word is Coronavirus/reference to it.  I know lots of people right now that are suddenly not working.  I have no idea what food availability going down to Brownsville is right now, a trip to Kroger's tomorrow is in order. I hope they have some food left, supposedly they got their shelves restocked.  Since I am taking a break from the Keto diet - it's senseless to try and do that diet when I don't know what kind of food I might even be able to access - I am going to make a nice pasta salad for the road.  I'd make it tonight but I don't have the ingredients.

Anyway, the earth keeps rotating around it's axis and the sun hasn't gone nova yet.  We will survive this - some might die but most of us will survive. I think if I get this virus? I'll survive it. The gun hoarding going on now? I have enough guns. Going to a gun store isn't on my list except possibly to get some ammo. 

So day 3 here. Well really day 2, I was supposed to get here before midnight the other day but the tow truck broke down and we didn't arrive until 3 am instead. 

Whatever the case, it's early, I couldn't sleep.  It's nice and quiet in this room, just sleep eluding me right now, my tooth thing is still sore. I wish I would have brought that Tramadol with me, it would have helped immensely yesterday.  But then again, I couldn't find out if they had looked at the truck, come up with a diagnosis and fixing it until afternoon.  Today will be different. I'm going to need to know if I am staying another night before noon, which is checkout time here. I have no where to go and I suspect even if they do get it done today, it won't be before noon. 

Meanwhile, this coronavirus pandemic. I don't care where you go - anywhere, size of town irrelevant - it's affecting the entire nation.  I'm in Oklahoma city where the mayor has made a decree of no venues being open with over 50 people.  He didn't include restaurants in that decree, tho, so I can still go sit down and eat breakfast this morning. Is that a good idea? Should I instead just have them hand breakfast to me in a bag and bring it back to the hotel room to eat? I dunno.  I haven't decided that yet.

A friend just advised me that the entire City of Houston has shut down all restaurants and bars. Restaurants can still give people food to go, but there is no sit down service and it's going to last at least 15 days.  There's 2 schools of thought here. The first is the idea of eliminating the scenarios where the disease is transmitted from one person to another in a setting where there's a bunch of people congregated together. The second thought, however - and is pervading the minds of most people I am encountering - is that if all businesses shut down like this, the economy is going to collapse.

And make no mistake, it will collapse if businesses shut down. People won't be making money, they will eventually not be able to make their rent or mortgage payments, they'll have to prioritize whether they can eat or have a place to stay.  Credit card and other debt is a foregone conclusion: when it comes to eating or basic life necessities or paying a credit card bill, which do you think a person is going to choose? 

I don't have the answers. No one really does.  How long would it take for life to get back to normal if the economy completely collapses and we are all broke?  Would there ever be  a normal again?  I guess officials think stopping the spread before it just goes hell bent loose on everyone is the better choice than having it perhaps slowly infect everyone?  So shut everything down?  I don't know that they are thinking through the potential consequences? Or they are and they think this is the best option.  Lots of politicians own their own businesses so I they must understand what may - or inevitably - happen with these kinds of decisions. 

I was thinking now is a good time to buy stock.  But stocks continue to plummet. I don't know where the floor of this thing is.  I've been following several of them, they continue to down, down down.  One of them is less than half the price it was just 3 weeks ago. 

Now I'm thinking it's a good time to hold onto the money I've got.  I may need it.  If work wants me to stay on the road, I'm staying on the road and making whatever money I can. Because it isn't going to be shocking to find out that the plants we deliver to slow production or shut down completely because of lack of demand for their products.  Get whatever I can get while I can get it.

My house in Phoenix is also of concern. What if the people living in it lose their jobs or just have temporary lay offs and can't pay their rent?  What am I supposed to do in that situation? Throw them out on their asses and say have a nice life?  Not really the Christian thing to do and some of those people have been living there and faithfully paying rent for years now.  A bridge I'll have to cross if it happens.  Just from a practical sense, if I threw them out how hard would it be to find people to replace them? There's lots of questions and there are not any answers.  The people in the other house? 2 of them are living on government payments. I wouldn't say it's "guaranteed" money, but it's probably more secure than a regular job right now.

So, I sit here in this hotel this morning thinking about all the ramifications of this virus - it isn't the virus itself I am leery of, it's the consequences of the virus on the American economy.  And people are STILL hoarding!  What the bleep. Videos and pictures are still surfacing of people stuffing their shopping carts with toilet paper and other supplies - supplies that those stores should be limiting quantities of.  This is utter selfishness. But it's also the outcome of media fear mongering.  People are literally panicking - that's just not going to work. 

I will remain focused. I have questions, I have ill feelings about what may happen, but panicking is not going to be on my list.  If I get sick with this shit, I'll ride it out and hope to survive. If I don't, we'll c'ya on the other side!!




\

The ordeal started today after leaving the plant, driving some 140 or more miles, ending up on the Indian Nation Turnpike in Oklahoma.  I was climbing a hill - truck loaded heavy at 79,250 pounds.  Suddenly, a loud whirring noise started coming out of the front from underneath the hood followed by a very loud KLUNK!! and then?  The truck started to run like s***.  I went for a few miles like this, wondering how many hours it would take just to even think about getting off of this turnpike going the speed I was going?

I couldn't pull hills more than 20mph after whatever happened - happened. The top speed on straightaways was 53 mph.  The engine was making a strange noise afterward.  I contacted my mechanic - "I would pull over if I were you". Yes, well I wanted to hear that from the company.  In some kinds of mechanical breakdowns, continuing to drive the truck can do serious damage to the engine. 

So I pulled over, called Road Squad who went through the process of attempting to find a tow truck.  I knew I would be there for hours. It was Sunday (was because it's now almost 3 am Monday morning), out in the middle of nowhere and trying to find a company that would haul hazmat fully loaded trailer.  Trifecta!

It was almost 6 hours later a tow truck showed up.  Hooked the truck up, we got moving.  80 miles down the road? Maybe  a little further, we were talking about something when something caught the corner of my eye.  I turned and looked but whatever it was was already gone.  But, while I was looking more of it - sparks coming out from underneath the engine hood on the tow truck!  WTH.

STOP THE TRUCK IMMEDIATELY!! My mind was going to the trailer full of 37,000 pounds of Ethylene.  We aren't burning down a truck, another truck behind it and then a trailer full of explosive liquid.  We both jumped out of the truck, he pulled the hood open and I immediately saw what the problem was.  The alternator was glowing red from behind the fan blades on the front, the bearings were literally burning up.  CUT the truck off!  He did so and then? The damned thing started shooting flames out the alternator!

Fire extinguisher, now!  But I ran to my truck, it has 2 fire extinguishers in case he didn't have one, I wasn't waiting around to find out. He did, indeed, have one tho and put the fire out.  You see, I had explained to him what was in the trailer, what it's potential is and how we really don't want any of those things happening before we went anywhere. So his first thought of seeing fire was the same as mine: if this truck burns down, we are screwed.  He would have tried to unhook my truck from his truck, he later stated, if the fire had become uncontrollable.  Smart thinking! 

But, we were still almost 90 miles out from Oklahoma City.  They decided to tow it there instead of Tulsa, that's just what they wanted to do, I offered that Tulsa was in the direction of where I was going, but in the end? It's their truck, it's their money, if they want to tow it an extra 60, 70 80 miles? That's their business. I just open my  mouth and say things I feel I must in such situations to cover my ass. You know, like "well why didn't you tell them to just tow it to Peterbilt in Tulsa"?  Yes, I did, thank you, they said it was better to go to Oklahoma City because the Peterbilt shop will get it done faster.

After hearing that, I really wanted it towed to Tulsa.  I'll take as much breakdown pay as I can get.  I'm pretty sure it's a blown turbo charger and I'm also sure that those things don't take long to fix.  But, there are several trucks that had been towed in there ahead of me.  Perhaps it will take at least 24 hours from the time I got onto breakdown pay? That started after 1:00 pm yesterday afternoon. 

Well, the repair truck showed up a few hours later.  I had gone to bed.  My truck still runs, it just doesn't have any power.  I had heat and I had protection from the rain and a comfortable bed.  They got the tow truck fixed and we got underway again.  Arrived in Oklahoma City a little while ago, the driver had the key to the gate to get into the facility after hours.  We dropped the trailer on the street outside - they don't allow trailers in there.  Our company doesn't like trailers on the street, especially full and I was going to have the driver at least drop it in the yard  sitting outside of the facility and off the street - until I realized the trailer sitting on the street in front of us? Was from another division of our company.  If they can do it, we can too and I didn't want to cause that much trouble for this tow truck driver. We had both been through an ordeal, it was late, we both wanted to go home/hotel and get this day over with. 

And so it was.  He dropped me at the hotel on his way back to his house.  14 hours after this situation started, I am sitting in an - okay, not a really nice but okay - hotel.  It's 3:17 am and I am just trying to unwind.  Plus my removed tooth hole is hurting.  I took an Alieve 10 hours ago? No help there.  I bought some acetaminophen at the front desk of this hotel, it's sore and it's irritating.  It may just be pain from the shock of the tooth being removed - or it may be the damned thing is getting infected and I best get my ass to an urgent care to get some antibiotics. I'll make that decision in the morning. 

Right now, I'm really just waiting on some pain relief, because I won't be able to sleep with this.  I know, I almost never stay up this late, I had no choice today.  I'll have a nice paycheck next week tho. A Brownsville run with 14 hours of detention pay and I'm guessing at least 24 hours of breakdown pay.  Heck, if they get this done tomorrow - afternoon at the earliest please - I will get back in time for another run to count on the pay period.

But I have to interject here, when I'm out on the road a lot, I get to missing my doggies.  And my friends at home. And their kids - they are always in my face whenever I get home.  It's a decent life.  I have no mate, not looking for one. As time goes on, who knows, maybe I'll look again, right now my situation is fine.  Excepting, of course, the volatility they are facing with their finances and being able to pay the mortgage. 

It's easier to deal with now, much more than it used to be tho. 

Enough. It's soo late. I don't care if they do get the thing fixed before noon, I don't want to hear from anyone until AFTERnoon.  Thanks have a great day! lol

I was laughing at people hoarding toilet paper and hand sanitizer.  How many of these people actually used hand sanitizer before this virus?  Why didn't they already have it considering the flu is flowing across the land quite nicely - hit 3 people in my house already and it's quite nasty.  And toilet paper. Who needs 100 rolls of toilet paper?  No one, not a regular household anyway.  So yes, that was funny.

But the laughs are over.  Now, they are hoarding food and water.  Meat, dairy, canned goods, bottled water has all disappeared. HEB last night?  There were a thousand people in that store.  As soon as they got off work, they scrambled to the local supermarkets down here in Brownsville and emptied out the walmarts, HEB's and other types of stores that have the stuff they think they need  in order to survive a 14 day quarantine.  If I would have just made it down here a few hours earlier, I would have been able to get the stuff I wanted.

No biggies, we'll survive.  The stores may be temporarily out of stuff, but it's not going to stay that way forever. People hoarding will already have everything they think they needed and then the normal people can come along after the stores are restocked and get what they - normally buy - hopefully anyway.  Probably none of these people - on a nationwide basis btw - have the Cornoavirus and probably don't even understand why they are hoarding. They just know everyone else is doing it so they better too!

Fortunately, the freezers are at least half full at the house. I've been emptying them out trying to eat it all up and then start over again with fresh meat.  But there's still plenty in them.  Canned goods not so much. Depleted a lot of that for the same reason - get rid of old stuff and bring in fresh.  Just a bad time to have done it lol.  So, I'm not really worried about this situation yet.  The grocers are working full tilt, according to the stories, to restock everything. The DC's aren't empty, they just have to try and catch up now that everyone went to the store last night, bought the stores out and left them virtually empty. 

THIS is why I like to keep food on hand.  THIS is the reason that you should have a couple of months food available.  At least.  Have you ever seen a nationwide hoarding event? Maybe in one of the world wars? Before my time but I bet food was a bit scarce back then.  You see this happening in regions during hurricanes and such, but the entire nation?  Weird, really.

I have to say that more disconcerting is the situation at the house.  Their hours drastically cut, trying to cut corners, they are broke and I overheard them talking about not being able to pay the mortgage.  Like, foreclosure in 2 months.  If they were really going to get foreclosed upon in 2 months, that means they already aren't paying the mortgage.  Their mortgage is only slightly higher than the going rate for renting a house or apartment in this area - unless you want to live in an utter dump, trashy place, then it's cheaper.  They don't have any utility bills to pay and I cover wifi and satellite. 

They're both trying to quit smoking - that's a very expensive habit nowadays that should be one of the first things to go by the wayside if you are finding yourself in desperate straits concerning money.  So at least they're trying.  Drinking as well - vices are expensive and unnecessary, recreational money you don't have? Dump it, at least until you get back on your feet.  James wants to get into trucking, but he has to take a 5 week course first and then he's going to have to get in with a driver and learn the ropes.  So I dunno about that.  How are they going to survive while he's in school? They tried to get loans to cover that time period but they were denied.

I'm not insensitive, not being judgmental, but I'm not offering that kind of loan.  They're going to have to figure this out on their own.  I'd hate to have to move, but if I have to I will just take my stuff to storage temporarily and figure out what I want to do next.  But if they move out of state, that's a drastic move that I dunno whether I would tag along or not.  Depends where they go and if it's something I want to do.  I'm making good money where I'm at and it's not easily duplicated in this industry and I spent a lot of time trying to find this job and get the qualifications for it. I have aspirations that I have created that are based on that region.  I guess I could do it somewhere else, but why? 

I dunno, but if they are "planning" on defaulting on the house loan, I'd like to know about that a while in advance.  So I dunno if that was a serious option or what.  But, just in case, I"m going to come up with my own plan B contingency plan to deal with it at least temporarily.  As I said, just take everything to a storage place and weigh my options.  Or come up with a plan before that.  Kind of hard tho, when you really don't know what they are thinking.  I know if James could get into trucking the bills could get paid. It's not an optimal career, but it's something that is relatively easy to get into and your house payment isn't an issue.  You may not have a lot of extra at first, that's true with any profession, or most of them anyway. 

Let me say here, tho, it's not like they aren't trying.  They're both working 2 jobs now.  But her hours were cut, no more Fridays. His hours were cut back to 32 I believe.  That's more than 2 days a week worth of pay gone. He was getting lots of overtime is why I say that it's more than 2 days per week, at one point he was working Saturdays and also getting several hours per day during the week of OT. Life was good. 

So, this virus isn't really my main focus right now.  In fact, it won't ever be. If I get it, I hope to survive it just like any other nasty virus and move on with my life.  It will probably lay me out in bed and I'll probably be miserable - just like the flu bug already going around.  But when you're thinking about where you are going to be living in a few months? That is something to stand up and take notice of.  I'm busy, that's all I can say.  I'm saving money - trying to anyway.  That was for land, but if I have to use it to move, no biggies. 

At work, they pushed out an owner operator into the LNG system. They fired a driver and pushed 2 others out that were not originally hired to work our division.  So now, we seem to be pretty busy.  One of the guys pushed out is very happy, he's busy all the time and making nice paychecks. That's what we all want, nice paychecks.  Today I'll get 14 hours of detention pay, that clock started last night and is almost up.  I'm hoping an empty trailer will show up soon so I can make it back tonight and get rolling again in the morning going to Oklahoma.  If that happens, I'm already good for the next pay period and possibly a third run going on there, which would be gravy. 

So what to do? I'm going to start going through my personal stuff and get rid of stuff I don't need or want and box up stuff I don't want to part ways with.  I'll store all that in my closet - my room has a walk in closet. It's not huge, but it's big enough to store my stuff in.  I won't let them see what I'm doing, I have no plans to move until I see anything changing and moving towards that direction.  I would likely go rent a place. I don't have enough money saved yet for the down payment for land - with a house on it.  It's not going  to work if there is no house, I mean I could live in a travel trailer for a while I guess, save even more money and go that route. 

Don't mind me, all the different possibilities always start going through my mind. What if I do this, what if I do that?   Can I do this, can I do that?  At least I have a trailer to haul all of my stuff on and a vehicle I can pull it with.  There's Maria as well. I could just take a room in that house for a while and pay my share of the rent. The new lady - is sort of working out? She doesn't take showers often, sometimes pees her pants and isn't a terribly good cook. Dependent on Maria for rides to the store as well. But, in my view, that isn't near as bad as the last 3 people before her.  She just needs to wear her adult diapers - she drinks and when she does she loses control down there.  But her drinking apparently isn't to the point of getting nasty with anyone. 

I dunno, I just listen to Maria and how things are going there.  Maria is having difficulty attempting to deal with other people living in the same house. She's not used to it and after all this time, still having trouble with that.  Getting late in life, I can see being set in your ways. But, also, see the blessing it is to have a place and be able to have your 2 dogs and a parrot - not my dogs, she has 2 dogs as well. 

Well, I'm getting off of here. I gave up on attempting to find supplies down here, it's just as bad here as everywhere else.  I know a couple of truck stops that "usually" have cases of water stacked up out front, I'm wondering if that stuff will still be there?  I'll find out today if a trailer comes in. 

Canning the Keto diet for a few days while this hole left behind where a tooth used to be heals up. "don't eat anything crunchy", my new manager informed me - she was actually quite helpful today with advice and also getting me off the hook for a run tomorrow that I was pretty sure I wouldn't be having too much fun with just after having this done. The doctor said eat "soft food".

That doesn't mean I'm going overboard off the diet like I normally do when I plan a cheat day.  I'm getting out the crockpot in the morning, loading it up with navy beans, some prime rib roast bones I had in the freezer, chopping up a small skirt steak to throw into it, chopping up some bacon and ham slices as well. Throw in some chopped onion, beef broth, maybe some frozen veggies and spices.  Adding the bacon, of course, is the key to an excellent tasting soup.  The Navy beans are currently in a large pot covered with water, soaking overnight.

Regardless, from searing, hellish pain this afternoon to nothing now.  I only took one of those Tramadols this afternoon and now I'm good. I knew I didn't need a whole bottle of those things.  Save it for some future pain-ridden event? I'll hope to not have to use them. One thing I don't have: temptation to take pain killers long after I need them.  They say this stuff is easy to get addicted to.  I wouldn't know, it made me high as a kite for a few hours, then made me drowsy and now I don't feel any effects of the pain killer.  Just weird the hole in my mouth isn't hurting at all after all of that.

The 5 year old still has a pretty good fever going, so he's staying home with me tomorrow.  I'm not doing anything tomorrow beyond laundry and some light cleaning duties. I'm going to take it easy. But that virus those kids and Taylor had/have is pretty wicked looking stuff.  Jaxon - the 2 year old - had it 7 days and was miserable. Taylor the same and the 5 year old is on day 6 I believe.  I may be watching him tomorrow, but I'm staying away from him as much as possible. He'll sit around watching cartoons all day long, which is fine by me.

The weather is actually pretty nice right now. Like, nice enough to go boating : (  Haha, something always coming up whenever I might be able to take it out on the nearest lake.

____________________

Well we're all screwed.  A man was diagnosed with Coronavirus 2 towns away, is in isolation and a local college has shut down all on-campus activities.  I dunno, but if I get that s***, I'm toast.  At least I have a lot of vacation hours available if I do contract it.  But this virus already going around town here is miserable at best.  Phoenix - the 5 year old - has been coughing since he got up this morning.  And they left the cough medicine at the other house : ( Maria is bringing it over, but she said that over an hour ago.  He's been hacking away the entire time.  I can't go anywhere, he's too sick to go and I don't have a child car seat anyway. 

I've been saying this all along: How do you stop a virus? Why even try?  It's gonna do what it's gonna do regardless.  Educate the public, give them advice on how to stay away from it, but all of this quarantine and stuff? It's a great idea, I guess, I highly doubt, in the end, that it's going to work.  More and more new cases all over the world every day.  I don't want to live my life in fear, so I'm not.  I'll get hand sanitizer and do whatever I can to stay away from it, but in the end, if I do get it?  Shrugs. 

We are all gonna die somehow.  Nothing new under the sun here. 

But still, you hear about it coming near your town and a college in your town preparing for the worst......

OMG
First, I figured the tooth would have to be pulled when I went into the dentist's office.  Never had one pulled before, wasn't looking forward to it, but I guessed that's what the dentist would tell me.

The tooth was in such pain I didn't care what they had to do, I needed it dealt with.  So, they took an X-Ray and said they couldn't see anything bad.  I replied that I saw a line going down the tooth last night that appeared to be a crack. 

The dentist did more looking and said, yup, we're going to have to pull it.  Well, at first he was like, trying to talk me into it.  But I needed no persuasion, lets get this over with, I'll have to deal with replacing it at a later date.  So, he injected a half vial of Novocaine into the gums. Came back in a while and I said - still in pain.  He dumped the rest of it in. Pain. Another vial - pain started to subside. But by the time he got back - he left for 45 minutes - the pain was there again.  So even more of this stuff.

He finally got it all numbed up and then went about the business of pulling the tooth. The tooth broke coming out and he had to use a grinder to make ledges to be able to pull the remaining root out.  He got that out, wrote me a prescription for Tramadol and probably 10 minutes later, the novocaine wore off and I was in excruciating pain. Like nothing I had ever experienced before excepting possibly when I burned the fingerprints off of my fingers or the episode with kidney stones.  It was in the top 3 pain level I've ever experienced.  My insurance covered 2/3rds of the bill, so I didn't end up having to pay that much. 

I rushed over to CVS to get that prescription filled.  I told them I had just had a tooth pulled and my mouth was in severe, nauseating pain.  They said 15 minutes, but the pharmacist saw me walking around wincing in pain and got it done in 5.  I blew off the diet - hadn't eaten all day, got a large chocolate shake at whataburger and downed one of those pain pills right there. Drove home - that stuff didn't really start working for over 2 hours.  I just couldn't believe how much pain this thing was causing. 

I put ice in my mouth to help with the pain, it helped a little.  My manager sent me a run to Brownsville tomorrow, I immediately got into a conversation with her about what I had just had done.  She gave me all kinds of advice, said hold tight I'm trying to get someone to take your load tomorrow. Yes, please and thank you! I wanted the run, but I had no idea how I would feel in the morning and it was the first load.  I decided better safe than sorry.  So, she got that covered thankfully.

Oh, the tooth? was split from top to bottom. I have a faint recollection of chewing on something many months ago and hitting a bone in some food that shouldn't have any bones in it.  I remember the pain, but it didn't last long.  I guess that's when I did it. 

So what's next? They told me $4,500 for one single implant. The heck?  I'll be shopping around, see if I can find somewhere to do it cheaper. I know there is a process to it and that it includes surgery, but for that much money?  But looking at dental bridges, they're in the 2k range.  I was thinking something temporary until I get a couple of loans paid off, but not at 2k.  That's not temporary pricing.  Implants are best, that's my opinion after having had read about them in numerous different articles. 

Well whatever. It's done and over with. I'm feeling mighty high right now with this Tramadol stuff.  Actually a bit nauseated. But it finally cut the pain down to a level that I can deal with. 

Well, that didn't work out so well.  Dentist out for a week.  His daughters Spring Break, they shut the entire operation down...?  Okayyy then.  I thought dentists got someone to come in and sub for them when they took vacations, not just say okay, peeps, we be gone, if you have a problem, call someone else! But, someone did answer the phone - obviously - to give me the info.  And then direct me to another dentist in town taking care of his emergencies if such arises.

Of course, calling that dentist, they knew nothing about them being his back up.  But, they said they'd work me in tomorrow.  Which is good, because one of the teeth is in on and off agony mode. It's either not hurting or it's causing me to lose my marbles.  I've never had tooth pain before, nothing of note anyway.

I mean, it wasn't all that long ago I was in the dentist office getting the last of the work that I am getting done - done.  I dunno how they could have missed this, taking x-rays of all of my teeth.  I will assume without any proof whatsoever that the fillings they put in weren't done correctly, even tho it was done by the dentist himself.

In other news, James job has reduced his hours to 30 or less. The company lost some contracts, workload is way down, apparently this company has gone through this before. But, the last time it was 4 years worth?  Lol.  I come home today and he's already here. Early afternoon.  He's going to truck driver training school as soon as he gets a student loan worked out.  Nope, that didn't come from me.  I wouldn't necessarily recommend a truck driving career to anyone.  I'm stuck in it, tho I'm trying to get out of it, it's going to take - quite - some time to get there.  James has had trucking in his mind for a long time, long before I met him.

This situation at his current job has been deteriorating for a while now.  But less than 30 hours? When he was working twice that not that long ago?  He's bound and determined to do it, too. A 5 week course, the training school claims they can help him find a "local" job.  Tho it sounds more like regional, but he has to get the income going to pay for everything.  I'm paying all the utilities here, they have a lot more than just utilities to think about. These sick kids have been costing them a small fortune.  I mean, it can be a lucrative career - maybe.  I wasn't trying to discourage him from it.  You gotta do whatever you have to do, especially when it comes to supporting a family.

________________________

And the next day.  My tooth was hurting so bad last night .... I just .... yikes.....I can't wait until 1:00 pm, when I'll head over there and they do what they have to do.  I don't care if they have to yank it. I'll leave it an open hole until I get a quote from my regular dentist about how much it will cost to put an implant in there.  I have 3 teeth that are hurting, but the other two are just on and off.  Today, I just want to get this really bad one dealt with.  I used my insurance up in January having 2 more crowns put in, I don't think there's anything left on insurance so it's going to be completely out of pocket today. 

In other news, the Dow has already dropped 1,000 points this morning. I'm afraid to look at my 401k's, so I'm not going to. I just have to trust that eventually the markets will come back up and so will the amount of money in those accounts. As they always say, you are in it for the long run. 

On February 12 of this year, we were at 29,551.  Right now, we're at 24,056.  I do find it interesting that some stocks are going up even tho a lot of them are going down and down and down.  If you could just predict those stocks going up, lol, you could get rich!