Brownsville, Texas. 

They're in this yard dumping material on the ground again.  

This yard gets messed up.  It's small, there are a lot of trucks coming in and out and it rains frequently.  So, they have piles of - whatever it is, concrete shavings mixed with asphalt? Kind of what it looks like.  They have these piles everywhere, difficult to get around this yard. They don't have anyone here with machinery yet to spread it out and compact it. 

I was second load yesterday, late start for getting down here, but since I was second load, the first load beat me to the only empty trailer down here and they are undoubtedly well on their way back to Longview by now.  Not that I mind, it's all detention pay for me and I didn't feel like driving this morning anyway.  

Umm, I have a couple of draft posts I never finished and therefore never posted, hence the gap in putting anything up. Not that there's anything new to report anyway.  

I went to the lender's place yesterday and met the guy in person.  Gave them a check for an appraisal for a property - I can't buy.  $350 for nothing.  I wonder if there is any way to force the seller to pay that back, I entered into a contract with him to buy the land and - he couldn't deliver, no fault of my own.  My lender was ready to get this done.  

I've scoured the properties available, nothing really stands out.  There is one property about 11 miles north of me, about a mile off of Highway 59 that is of "some" interest, but the area doesn't look like it's ever taken off.  Location is everything, that's what I read over and over when it comes to RV parks and of course that should be true.  This location? I'm just not sure about.  The 35 acres for 87k is a wonderful deal tho.  But, I don't want to dump money into a property and then find out it isn't going to attract anyone. And, this property has been for sale for almost 300 days, not like I could turn around and sell it off if it didn't work out.

I'm in no rush on that one.  I do want to walk the property and see what's on it, it appears to be elevated so thee shouldn't be any standing water, or not enough anyway to cause a problem. 35 acres is a lot of land, there must be some portion of it usable for what I want to do with it.  But, a minimal investment for around 15 lots and see what happens? Dunno.  Electric, water and ATT right there.  Might even be sewer, not sure about that one.  

No rush on that one.  I see nothing else in my price range right now that will work.  Well there is one, Taylor even said it might be worth and extra long drive each way for a location like that for that kind of money. I dunno. It's probably 35-40 minute drive each way to get there. Along a busy highway, yes, 48 acres, yes, my price range, yes.  I'd rather have something closer to home and easier and quicker to get to tho. 

So right now, there are no properties that stick out besides over priced properties that are well outside of any price range I want to pay or could even afford. Well I could afford any of it, but it would eat up all of my finances.  I'm just going to wait a while and see if anything new comes up that might fit the bill and is in closer proximity to my house.

Today is Thursday and also the second Thursday of the month, meaning a city council meeting tonight.  I will likely be driving, I can tune into it and see what kind of ridiculous nonsense they are going to engage in.  I try not to miss any of these meetings, I had no idea how clueless these people running our town are.  They don't do any research on anything, they vote out of their feelings.  They have no understanding of contractual obligations or how such things work.  The city manager has pulled his hair out of his head attempting to explain such things to these people and they still don't get it.  

I could literally do a better job than most of them on that council and I make no claims that I have any grand knowledge of those types of things, but I clearly have more knowledge than most of them. Would I run for the position? Probably not, I"m not a fan of having my entire life scrutinized from since I was a baby so that opposition can find a gotcha from when you were a teenager and declare you unfit for the position.  It is a position of power considering you are responsible for where the money goes in the city. Which is what is confounding.  They just vote on things they think sounds good and nix anything that makes far more sense.  

I will listen to it, that's for sure. And I installed Zoom on my phone just so I can voice my opinion. Last time, their zoom wasn't working and most of the meeting wasn't even broadcast due to "technical errors".  

No idea when/if an empty is coming today, but preferably before noon.  After that, they still expect you to get the trailer back before loading time in the morning, meaning you drive all hours of the night to get it back there. That's the only real drawback to this run.  If an empty shows up at 4:00 pm, they want it back, no questions asked.  

I've heard nothing from my realtor in a couple of days.  Not unusual at this point, there is nothing to go look at, she knows what I'm looking for and she knows that I have looked at or dismissed from the start everything that is available.  She won't contact me unless something comes up that she thinks might work.  Or, if by some miracle, the Finklea property actually becomes available, I get to use the $350 appraisal and get this property searching over with. That would be grand.  

Nothing else terribly important. The "other" brother is coming down for a 2 week visit with the boys.  They all like each other and get along pretty well, tho the youngest still has issues with selfishness and wanting everything to be all about him. I guess that's typical for a 4 year old, but he's slowly learning he doesn't always get his way and tough.  The temper tantrums aren't quite as ridiculous as they once were, but they are still there.  Lol.  

The house is getting cleaned up - quite nicely.  Sooner or later it's going to be time to start on that back yard.  I have already stated I will do nothing to it until I get a chance to dig out a trench in between properties and see if that can stop or greatly reduce the amount of junk coming from neighboring properties.  I have cleaned that back yard up far too many times to see it trashed with just one rainfall.  I don't see the point in spending hours and hours cleaning something up and then having it trashed again the next day or in the next few days.  I may very well get motivated to do that, but since the rest of the house is getting cleaned up, I started focusing on my room and attempting to get it looking a little more classy.  Getting rid of the convertible sofa I bought for Addler, he doesn't like it and it's taking up space.

Aspyn uses it but I can get her a doggy bed, put the two beds side by side in front of my bed and open up some space in the room. I also want a new computer desk - a more fancy looking thing with plenty of drawer space.  I have no place for my important papers besides a very small drawer in current desk, I want to change that scenario and get something with a hutch and a corner desk for more room.  The rat infestation got into my closet, they opened up a hole at the bottom of the wall and - crapped on everything.  I have to go through all of that stuff now and throw most of it away I guess. Many knick knacks from my previous living arrangement in Arizona, mostly kept for if/when I got my own house.  I suspect much of it will have to be trashed.  Rats don't care where they poop or pee. 

Well that's enough for this one. Hurry up and wait.  It's 10:30 am and have heard nothing from anyone about an empty coming.  

G'day.  

 I am in no wise in a state of desperation to sign on the dotted line, hand over the cash and call it good on any given property.

So, it is with a great sigh of relief that I went out there to inspect this property myself.  

When the realtor went out there the other day, she was there at sunset.  The mining operation had closed down for the day, apparently, and there was no noise.  

Well, this is Sunday and there was a great deal of noise coming from that operation, specifically the sounds of the backup beepers on the front end loaders and trackhoes and the sounds of what is probably the loader dumping the lignite into trucks to be hauled to the power plant.  

But, of greater concern was this small sign I saw on the street corner of Ponderosa and Holcomb road.  I got out of my vehicle to go up and read what it had to say, if someone went to the trouble of posting it there, I wanted to make sure it had nothing to do with anything going on there.

It was a notice that there is going to be a hearing before the county judge about closing the road permanently!  Holcomb road is the access road to Ponderosa road, Ponderosa road is the road these two properties I bid on are located. There is no other access to Ponderosa road besides going through Holcomb road, I know this because I drove to the end of Ponderosa and it dead ends. .

That just blew my mind.  I instantly thought of some dude selling off his property because of no access.  Yet, how could they get away with shutting off access to property owners?  That makes no sense whatsoever.  Was the mining company going to pay to build another road to access it? Was it going to pay property owners somehow? Why would they want to shut the road down?  If I owned property on Ponderosa, I would be at that hearing and pretty vocal about it.  Still, one wonders if this is actually going to happen and that's why this person is selling the property.  

With that in mind, the road closure and the constant noise, I texted my realtor and asked her to contact the realtor and bow out of it.  It is quite fortunate that on all of these contracts, they all have a provision that the seller or buyer can opt out at any time. I would be a very unhappy camper right now if I were bound to that contract. 

Now? I'm still interested in the 22 acres with the gas well on it.  I Just haven't been able to get anyone to answer the phone at the gas company to ask questions about the signs they have on the proeprty - no hunting, guns, dogs, fishing, etc.  And the fact that they feel like they can lock the property up - that they don't own.  

Other than that, some properties of slight interest.  They're far away from my house or they are well out of the way of any major highway and down county roads that really aren't suitable for people driving a motorcoach. Possibly okay for a pickup pulling a bumper pull or 5th wheel, but I just don't think such properties are appealing even if the price is fantastic.  

I guess I will just wait for more properties to come on the MLS.  My credit will have to be redone with the lender anyway.  I'd like to say time is on my side.  It really isn't.  Perhaps I should just scale this thing down to less than 5 acres and start with a parking lot style RV park versus a much nicer operation with a lot more acreage?  I'm looking online at smaller properties, they want too much money for them.  I can't get a loan on less than 10 acres of land according to this AG lender.

Well, enough of this.  Get some stuff done.  

Happy Sunday. 

 A product of my own ridiculousness last night, I got into the yard, dropped the trailer did my paperwork and headed to the property.  It was too late and it was raining.  Darkness settling in, I decided I'd go back tomorrow - which is now today - and try again.  

Headed to Applebee's - hunger and the fact that no one was home cinched that idea easily.  I got to talking to an older couple at the bar -  the place was empty - and a few hours passed by without my realizing it.  Got home - still hadn't checked the clock - saw the cop/banker guy out on his front porch - that's a pretty rare thing to see, he works 7 days a week - and went over there instead of going in the house.  That went on for a couple of hours and before I knew it, it was after midnight!

So much for getting up early to go look at the property, it's almost 9:30 am, lol.  It's supposed to rain today. That isn't going to thwart me from going over there, I figure I'll take an umbrella and still walk the property.  The only thing I can tell you is that I am not in love with the last - 100/200? - feet of roadway going back in there. 

I did see the old mobile, and yes it's overgrown with bushes and vines and there are 4 pine trees in the front of it - directly in front of it, growing up against the side of the mobile. The front door was open, not a good sign if you had any thoughts of salvaging the thing and redoing it.  That means rats, mice, snakes, animals whatever can and probably have gone inside of it.  I quickly wrote that thing off, tho I suspect I will go into it today to look anyway.  Umm, pistol in my pocket thank you very much.

I will probably take the dogs as well, they are due for a hike, that is, if I can motivate myself to get out of here soon, it's not raining right now and apparently won't be until this afternoon.  

About the time I was going to bed last night James and Taylor showed up - they went straight to bed, it was 1:00 am at that point and just have to kick myself today for staying up so late needlessly.  Oh well, it was fun socializing with people.  

Besides the portion of road I don't like, I remain hopeful to like the property at least and also hunt for the water supply.  Everything is covered with long grass, if it's out there it's going to be difficult to find. The only thing I can say is that the Texas PUC map overlay shows both properties in that grid and therefore in that water supply system.  That does does not automatically mean there is water line under the ground going through there. It just means I can get service to the property, but likely would have to pay for it to be run from wherever it stops to the properties themselves. 

Oh, it's Sunday and I have the day off. Finally, a Sunday off.  I'm going to get out of here, get over to the property, take a good long look rain or shine and then get back home, do some cleaning and enjoy the day off.  Tomorrow is off to Oklahoma - late load means I won't get to do it in one day unless I stay up until 4:00 am - no thanks, I'll just get back to the truck stop casino where I normally stop, spend the night there and finish out the trip on Tuesday.

With that, I best be going.  

Probably do a live stream on Facebook.

G'day.  

 I'm not really a big fan of washing my dogs, I'd rather take them somewhere and let people bath and brush them, I'll gladly pay the price. 

But, when I walked into this bedroom last night at 1:30 am, the smell was revolting.  It just assailed my nostrils and I decided today was going to be wash day for both of them.  

It's a chore.  It took almost an entire bottle of dog shampoo with conditioner and quite a bit of time to scrub them both down. Aspyn was loaded with excess hair, it just came off in globs.  Shedding time as it is, summer is coming and she is going to get rid of that stuff.  Well, between washing her and after she dried, pulling it out and then brushing it down, she's looking much better.  

And smelling a thousand percent better.

Addler is much easier. Short haired Great Dane, hates the baths but just stands there and takes it.  

___________

Friday, early morning.  

I saw a new listing come up, informed the realtor I would be looking at it when I get back - going to Brownsville today, leaving the house pretty quick here actually.

She grabbed her whole family, got into their car and drove over there and took two videos of this place.  It looks like a nice property, but even with a video it's kind of hard for me to try and place a bid on something that I haven't actually visited and experienced myself.  

The issue? If this property is as good as it looks, it probably won't last very long, especially at the price.  There is water and electric and perhaps even sewer nearby. The only real issue I might have with it is it isn't exactly close to any major highway.  Probably 4 or 5 miles off of 59 and another 4 miles added to that to get up to 20.  

I looked at a satellite of it and it appears there is also a pond on the property, a huge plus if it's decent.  There's lot of ponds that - are not decent - as evidenced by a small property I looked at yesterday.  Nasty, green, full of algae, it wasn't exactly pretty.  It is right off of 59 a bit south.  I was thinking of putting some mobiles on it or 10 or so rv pads.  But I would have to have electric run from across 59, water is hundreds of feet up the road and septic installed.  And of course the obligatory clearing of the entire lot - it's just filled with thick underbrush and those nasty thorn bushes.  I don't know that names of that particular plant, but this region is full of that garbage along with thorn vines.  Oh and the noise. 59 is a major truck route, this property is right next to the highway and there is constant, loud highway noise.

The odd thing? It is obvious that people don't appear to care about highway noise considering the large amounts of homes you see all over the place positioned right next to busy interstates and state highways. 

Well, I'll think about it today.  If it weren't dark I'd go look at it before going to work.  It's tempting to pull the trigger on it, I'll say that. It isn't that far out of the way, not like some other properties I've looked at. It's 20 minutes or so from my house.  

Anyway, off to work.

G'day. 

 I just stood in awe of the people that showed up.

Not because they were anything special, but because after the auction started, these people were going wayyyyyy beyond anything even reasonable for even market price, much more what you'd think you would score at an auction.  

2 acres - $18,000.

27 acres of inaccessible property - literally there is no legal way to access it - 60 grand. 

Properties with junk houses are uninhabitable - 10, 15, and more thousand. 

People buying up empty lots for ridiculous amounts of money.  I waited until all the properties I was interested in were bidded on way too far for anything I would even consider buying and left.  

No, I'm not disappointed, more properties will come next time. And the time after that.  It was just a slew of people with money-lined pockets getting into bidding wars.  I do wonder if they will regret any of it after they find out that what they bought? Was nothing worth near that much money. 

One house that was burned down sold for over 10k, I can't remember how much, but it's worthless.  The property is definitely not worth that much money,. lol. I did warn the man next to me about the 27 acres - you can't access that property, dude and the person that owns it tried for a year to sell it.  He stopped bidding on it. I don't usually warn people but this dude was standing right next to me.

So, I ended up leaving there empty handed. Yes, I could have bid way up, but why?  Here's what's going to happen, these properties will end up going for sale it ridiculous amounts of money and they will sit there forever.  No one will buy them and I will laugh at them.  

I came home after that, sat around talking with Taylor and waiting for the rain to stop.  When it did finally stop, I took the boys with me - get them out of mama's hair for a bit - and went to search out this 22 acre property. They were determined to go hiking, I described it as an adventure, but not all of it would be fun.  I knew that because this entire region is vexed with thorn vines that are not pleasant to get stuck inot your skin.  

I was as patient as I can be with a 4 and 6 year old, tho the 4 year old was definitely not liking some of it.  He didn't hate all of it, but when we got down the grade and into the thick of everything, well I was helping him quite a bit.  Not that that matters, but he was hollering and whining alot.  We got in there as far as I determined I could go with these boys and decided it was time to head out of there. The brush was only getting thicker.

I likely won't even take my dogs in that this stuff, they will get cut up pretty good plowing their way through it. 

After looking at the 2 videos I made, I determined that I need a body cam to take decent video of everything in front of me. It's too hard to try and make your way through all of that stuff and try to keep the camera - Iphone - in a position to get a good view. Neither video was all that great in those terms.  

I mean, if I'm going to take videos I don't want the view to be terrible and annoy the viewer.  I've seen enough videos of incidents and terrible views, a body cam is affixed and isn't subjected to moving of the hand that is holding the camera.  They're kind of pricey, but it's a hobby and hobbies you spend money on.  

So that's that.  I don't consider the auction a waste of time - it just depends on who shows up and some of these people knew each other - they weren't at any previous auctions, I remember the faces of the people that are doing a lot of bidding. The rich dude showed up, he was bidding up lots of properties including the 2 acres I wanted.  I went up to 8 grand and quit. The property ended up going for 18 grand, they can have it, it's simply not worth that much money.  Not to me anyway.  

Other acreage out in the middle of nowhere also got bidded way up.  I was in awe of how much money these people were willing to pay for this stuff. Do they know something I don't? Overpriced properties simply don't sell,, I could link just one of the realtors sites loaded with auction properties that no one is buying.  

Okay, so the property I was looking at today with the boys? That driveway, starting at the road, is around 900 feet long.  I could do something with that property just from the driveway alone and save the rear of the property for a later date.  If it's even accessible.   

 Memorial Day.

Got up at 7am.  Looked out the windows, no empties.  There wouldn't be any, but I had to check.  The other driver in line ahead of me nowhere to be found.  I got my coffee maker going, had a cuppa and got out of the truck and walked around, stretched.  Later on, I saw on of the yard guys had shown up, taking readings off the tankers.  

Any idea if/when an empty will show up today?  He got a blank look on his face, thought about it for a few seconds and said, I don't know if any are coming today or not.  Okay, thanks. He then asked if I had brought a certain trailer into the yard.  No, not me, why?  The driver hadn't put the papers/bills into the mailbox. 

That was my cue to contact my dispatcher.  Umm, 83911851, they're saying the driver didn't put the bills for that load into the mailbox.  She replies, the bills for which trailer?  Remember, this is all texting, in writing.  "83911851".  So the bill of lading isn't in there? No, the driver didn't leave ANY of the paperwork.  I then went on to say that the man stated that he didn't know if any trailers were coming today, and I couldn't be waiting around until this afternoon for empties to show up.

"Let me contact (the manager)".  She texted back several minutes later: You can go home, sir.

And leave I did.  All the way up 50 miles, where I passed by a large number of state troopers parked on both sides.  I passed on of them and he immediately jumped out onto the highway, cut in between the vehicle behind me and my truck and I knew I was going to get pulled over.

Inspection. And asked all kinds of questions, wanted to see my logs, lights, turn signals, tires, brakes, etc etc etc etc. And then asked where my "spare fuses" are.  I had some in there, but I don't use them and I couldn't find them.  He wrote me up for not having spare fuses......and also for the fire extinguisher. The clasp that holds the band on it had come open. Instead of just saying - the thing needs to be clamped down again  - he wrote me up for unsecured fire extinguisher.  Petty, bs nonsense.  They are warnings, yes, but warnings count against the company.  

It's the CSA crap  - just more federal bs leveled against companies and drivers to make lives miserable.  There was no good reason to write me up for either of those things, neither of them have anything to do with "safety", the fire extinguisher is in perfect working order, it's just the clasp came loose and fuses have nothing to do with highway safety.  

This crap is the reason many older generation drivers are exiting trucking.  And why the increase in the numbers of drivers needed nationwide.  None of us want to continue to put up with this bs.  The federal government won't catch a clue about it until so many drivers are gone and the cost of everything goes way up for supply and demand.  Just pile on even more garbage, watch the exodus grow. It's going to affect you - yes you, whoever you are- eventually at any store you go to.  I don't even care anymore, I'm looking to get out of trucking and hopefully tomorrow morning I'll catch a gift in the right direction to getting there.

After that bs, I got caught in a mile long wait at the immigration checkpoint about 89 miles up the road.  After that, long lines of cars going through small towns. Everyone must have been going home from Padre Island is all I could surmise.  

Arriving at the yard, I went into the office to find two drivers in there.  They were both quite drunk.  Somehow the subject got onto the tattle tale driver who reports everyone/thing to corporate.  I flatly told them do not drink in this office around that dude, he will report your @$$es and try to get you fired.  The one dude looked at me in shock after I relayed to him the fact that he had already tried to get 4 people fired.  Seriously? 

Yes.  I personally don't care what anyone does in their off time, regardless of whether they are at the yard - many of them "live" there.  But the company does - if they catch anyone drinking on the premises they will automatically be fired, no matter they aren't driving anywhere, it's a gated yard and private facility.  That means cops can't come into the yard and arrest people for DUI for sitting in an idling truck, the facility has an automatic gate.  

The company can operate however they please, everyone knows the potential for trouble, but with a driver tattle-taling?  Just don't do it when he's there guys, that's all I can tell ya, don't want to see you get fired.  Ok, in reality, the manager is never there at night.  Upper level management make visits occasionally - it's nowhere near any of them, they have to come in from out-of-state.  If they show up, it's day time, not night time, excepting one middle level manager who will arrive at night and try to catch people doing things they aren't "supposed" to.

Anyway, I made it home. Steak dinner waiting in the microwave. Decent hour, not too late, I can watch some tv, look up a few properties a second time and make a decision on whether I want to bid on them, get a decent night's sleep and get up in the morning for the sale.  It's supposed to rain - pretty much all day tomorrow.  Maybe it will keep people away from the sale, tho it  didn't last time it rained, the rain wasn't that bad last time. It looks like thunderstorms, I can hope people don't show up, especially the ones with money lol.  

I have an agenda well beyond the sale tomorrow - that shouldn't be at most a couple of hours if I end up buying the property I want - just go to the bank, get a money order, get in line, pay it up and leave.  After that, a trip to both properties on cooks road - depending on the rain. Aspyn - really need to get her into the vet. Addler - get him into the bathhouse.  Aspyn needs it too but she needs her rabies shot first.  And other things on the list that I need not go into, for I doubt I will have time after I get other things done and probably will be sent back out on Wednesday.  

Well, I really want to find the time to drive over to Longview and get this AR scoped and some ammo and try shooting it.  All of that can be done at the indoor shooting range over there.  That probably won't happen tomorrow, not if I can get the dogs into the bathhouse and the vet.  

Whatever the case, I have a couple of properties to look over again and then, watch a rerun of star trek or the Big Valley, lol and go to bed.

G'nite.  

 Pick up where I left off. We viewed the property yesterday. The front is about a 500 foot long driveway, about 100 feet wide with 75 feet of trees deep next to the driveway. At the end of the driveway is the gas well operation.  It expands to the entire width of the back of the property, hundreds of feet wide.  But it's just a couple of tanks and a piece of equipment used to bring the gas out of the ground.  The rest you can just drive through there with no problem.  

The back - is where the problem was.  I got out of the pickup, started walking back and  - found basically a dropoff.  About 10% grade for a visual.  It goes down appears to be hundreds of feet at that angle.  No RV'er is going to want to drive down that steep of a grade even if I had it paved with asphalt or concrete.  I didn't have time to walk all around and see if there are any other access points.  The boys were in the truck and we needed to go home for arrival of a new dishwasher.

Before we got to that property, however, we ended up at the other one I had originally gotten approved for.  I started reconsidering that - and eventually caved.  I offered 10 more grand less than what the owner had dropped the price to.  He's been sitting on that property quite a while now and that is his business - buy tax lien sale properties and resell them. Oh how I would have loved to have been at the sale when this one was sold. He only paid 11 grand for it, but paid other taxes apparently and it ended up being 15 grand.  I won't hear until later this coming week what his reply will be.  

Meanwhile, I had to drive down to Brownsville today.  I mean, I knew there weren't going to be any empties down here.  I pleaded with this new dispatcher to give me an Oklahoma run, she was having none of it and for whatever reason I was forced to come down here.  So, I'm going to sit here until about 10:00 am tomorrow morning and then tell her I need to start heading back up, are we still honoring the commitment to allow me to bobtail back up since no empties are here? She'll have to contact my manager and then a decision be made.  In reality, this decision should have been already been made and disclosed to me.  I was approved for the day off, there isn't any good reason not to allow me to have it.

Anyway, I knew there weren't going to be any empties because another driver called me when he was just leaving down here earlier today saying that two empties had come in, he and another driver took those and there is still another driver waiting down here. It's Sunday, they aren't bringing in any more empties or if they do, it's only going to be one for him.  

As I say, I'm not going to let them get away with just forcing me to stay down here until late afternoon for an empty to arrive. If one arrives mid morning, I'm fine with that, but I don't want to be driving until 2 am to make it back and get very little sleep and then up and at it for the auction. 

Well I'll be. A further look at satellite of this newly listed 22 acres on Cooks road reveals a road going down the side of it all the way to the back and then onto other people's property.  I never saw that road when I was there the other day.  This is worth taking a look at.  This is not part of the tax sale, it's just property for sale but I'm guessing - and will look - that it was also bought at tax sale however long ago.  Hmm, inconclusive whether that was a tax lien sale. It says HCAD trust - that's the appraisal district, but I haven't heard of that term before or how you would get a trust property?  Must be some other type of sale that I don't know about.  

Well, answered that one. They also have separate trust sales listed, currently none in my county but I have no idea how often those sales are held or even where.  I will be looking at that, this property was bought under a tax sale, apparently, just another type and apparently was done late last year in December.

Learn as I go here, folks, I never said I was an instant authority on this subject.  

Well, I'm stuck here for the night anyway, so I'm going to watch a movie : )

Have a great evening!

 Okay.

Back from Oklahoma. Opted to spend the night in my truck versus using my 16 hour exception - which adds 2 hours to the 14 hour on duty clock and get home last night.

The reason is because the dispatcher insisted that I take the Brownsville load tomorrow, even after discussing with here the fact that oftentimes on Sundays - which is what tomorrow is - there aren't any empties. The 2 hours? That helps if I have a breakdown such as a blown tire and I need the extra hours to either make it down or make it back up without going into a 3rd day.  

I informed her I would be fine with taking an Oklahoma run - they go out every day as well.  She just wouldn't have it, she is sending me to Brownsville and that's that.  Fine, but you know I need to be back Monday for my thing I'm doing Tuesday.  She informed me that she would contact my manager and ensure that if there aren't any empties available, I can bobtail back up.

So why do I have to go down there instead of someone else?  I didn't ask, I don't want to get on her bad side.  She is giving me a lot of Brownsville runs, which I like, just didn't want one this time.  But I'll take it and run with it and hope there aren't any issues and hope that there is an empty down there so I don't have to force the issue about coming back up.  It just mystifies me that there are drivers going up to Oklahoma tomorrow, any one of which would gladly take the Brownsville run save one person that doesn't like going down there.  

Now then, property. James and I are fixing to go over, cut the lock on the gate and go take a look.  Yes, I said cut the lock on the gate. The gas well company keeps putting locks up on the gate and the realtor keeps going out there and cutting them off.  The gas company doesn't own the land, it's an easement, they buy the right to use the property, not the right to control what others do on it.  They can't lock it up.  They can't put up signs saying no dogs and firearms and such - as this one has.  Unless it is written into a contract with the property owners somewhere, I'd have to take a look at that first.

If it isn't written into the contract with the property owners and if I bought that land? I'd take the gate down and remove that sign.  They have wells all over the place, one right down the street, they don't have those signs up on any of those properties....

I mean, the rear of the property is nothing but trees and enough land there to do what I need to do with it.  I could just build a separate road back in there and the gas people can have their own deal and I'd have mine.  I've noticed these well operations don't make noise - at all. Only if trucks are coming in removing salt water will you hear truck noise.  

Ugh but taking a real satellite view of the property, it doesn't look promising.  You'd have to drive through their operation to get to the rear of the property.  Curb appeal - zero, tho an RV'er wouldn't even see that until they drove all the way down the road to get to it.  Property way overpriced, they are extracting their money out of the ground, keeping the mineral rights and attempting to make even more profit off the sale of the land.  

Well we're going to go look anyway.  Just to curb my curiosity if nothing else.  

The other property on the same road is looking more appealing. I originally wrote it off because of the gas well there.  But it's on the edge of the property and most of it is on the property next door.  If I could get them to agree to me building a road for them on the same edge of the property, I wouldn't have to worry about it.  And get the perimiters of the easement clearly defined.  

Just got home, the boys are down for a nap so gotta wait til they wake up to go and cut the lock.  

Okay enough of this.  I won't be getting anything done at home today. It's already 2 and I intend on relaxing besides going and looking at this property.  The Brownsville run is a rather ruthless drive in terms of traffic, small towns and idiots on the road.  It takes it out of you.  Sunday drives are better, I won't lie.  And going down on Sunday means I don't have to content with all the Padre Island traffic coming up. 

Addler came in the house, said hello in his goofy way and proceeded to take over my bed lmao.

G'day.  

Friday morning.  

This "new" dispatcher isn't doing very well. She just doesn't know what she's doing.  She's been in the position long enough she should have learned a lot of this by now.  She contacted me last night telling me I would have to take a later load time so I can get my 34 hour reset in. 

Okay.  She never contacted me back with that load time.  So this morning, I'm laying in bed wondering if I'm going to work the time I'm scheduled or going later?  I have enough hours left on the 70 clock to do this Oklahoma trip, there's 17 on there that's plenty.  It takes about 14 on duty hours to complete that trip from start to finish.  So I contacted her a bit ago, she told the plant that I'm running late and I will be there at 11 am instead of 10:30. am.

The plant doesn't like drivers showing up late.

Regardless, I scoured the property sale sites yesterday and found only one property on there that might fit the bill, the rest of them are either too high priced, over priced per acre, under water or have other issues that make them unappealing, such as being out in the middle of nowhere.  The property I did find, I couldn't access, there is a padlock on the gate.

It's a live gas well operation, they apparently believe they own the property, replete with signage at the front declaring that guns, dogs, alcohol and other things aren't allowed.  Never saw a sign like that at any of the other properties, has my curiosity piqued.  Like, what's going on back there that makes it different than others of their properties?  It's not likely a good location for an RV park unless I create another road into the back of the property where there is plenty of room for RV pads and facilities.  That is possible, the front of the property is nothing but a long driveway at least 300 feet long with trees next to it.  Take down the trees on the corner of the property and create a separate road in there and I wouldn't have to fool with the gas operation. 

But I need to be able to get back there to see for myself if/how that would work out.  And most certainly not paying what they are asking for the property, they are getting their money out of that place, premium prices per acre are not warranted.  They must have had this property up for sale previously, for the for sale sign out front has underbrush grown up all around it and you can hardly see it.  

Whatever the case, I need to get out of here.  Another rainy day in this region, a long day to boot. Whether I make this a one day trip depends on how far I make it tonight.  I'd like to get this over with today and have tomorrow completely off, but that remains to be seen.

G'day.  

 So the bad news.  Seller's realtor contacted mine, who repeated this to me: "Agent said the chances of this property being sold without involving litigation is very slim, and more like none.".  

Heirs.  This is the problem and likely not to go away anytime soon. I was offered to end the contract and get my earnest money back or - wait indefinitely for something that may never happen.   

As much as I hated to do it, I terminated the contract.  I don't have until the second of never to get something going.  I love that property, but I had to let it go.  It was at least agreed that if this seller ever does get this stuff taken care of, we'd be the first to know before it gets put in the MLS for public acquisition.  

So here I am, after all of this, back at literally square one.  I've accomplished absolutely nothing in all of this time, other than to secure a land loan that I can't use.  

The property I was interested in looking at today (it's 1:30 am, later on today I was going to to look at it, it just came online a few days ago)?  It's already sold.  

Am I being given a sign that I shouldn't even be trying this?  I mean, I am running into dead ends at every turn.  The only thing that was encouraging is the land loan going through - albeit with quite a lot of ordeal, it's there, it's available.  

I dunno what's going on. I"m going to try and get that 2.2 acres coming up in a few days.  It would make a great "parking lot RV park", where you just cram them in there and they pay you and they - don't seem to mind. Or if they do,  they chose to come in and park.  It's prime property, it's north of 2 other RV parks and therefore, before you get to them off the Interstate.  

I mean, you really can't do a lot with 2 acres for that kind of setup.  I don't want to get too far into talking about that property, because it might go away - be withdrawn - or it will get bid too high.  Who knows, but I doubt I'm the only one that understands that the location is pretty good.  

I've had thoughts, even, about buying the 8 acres I was originally going to buy and just run with it, live gas well and all.  

There aren't many properties that would be suitable that are available and they are well over priced.  And have been sitting up for sale for very long periods of time because of it.  There are plenty of buyers out there - that's obvious whenever a good property comes up, it's gone quickly.  

Running out of time.  A property has to be closed on before the 90 day period for the loan - before I have to go through all of that again.  

I uhh, don't know now what to do.  I think people might take all of this dead ends as a sign to stop, do something else, just keep working, give up.  But the thing that keeps me going, that makes me not want to stop is the idea that I do not want to keep on trucking forever.  But that's exactly what I'd have to do if I don't find something different.  

I'm kind of at a loss here.  Is the Lord simply not in this endeavor?  Or am I just being held up for the right property?  Or...what.....

I have no idea.  Wish I had the answers - I simply don't.  

I think I'll find the resolve to simply continue on this seemingly endless search for a suitable property.  There are a couple of places I haven't seen yet except through satellite - didn't look too promising from that view but, now that I'm back to nothing, I'm going to go take a look and probably tomorrow....uhh, later on today. 

It's late. 

Some sleep might help.

 Brownsville, once again. I will never tire of coming down here, especially considering this is the 5th time in a row down here that I am getting detention pay.  This trip I would have gladly turned around this morning and gone straight back up - I have business to conduct, namely, look at the rest of these properties on the tax lien sale in person. 

I just finished going through the entire list - that took a while.  The biggest lot for sale is 27 acres for 15 grand.  Great price, but this property has been up for sale for quite a while.  NO takers.  Why? It is completely landlocked.  The description from the realtor is that "owner is attempting to gain access". Good luck with that.  Without paying for an easement, you have completely worthless property. I'm not fooled by this kind of thing.  If someone buys it, they are going to be greatly disappointed.  Only if they have money to pay a property owner a decent amount for an easement will they be able to access their property.  Otherwise, it goes to the backburner and comes up again later this year, bidding starting at $30.  Then I"d bid on it.  Yes, because there are numerous properties surrounding it - all with the potential of being greedy enough to allow easement access for the right price.  

What's more, you can see giant washes whenever it rains.  It obviously floods out whenever we get a storm.  

There's something like 20 houses on that list.  Some of them have already been redeemed for the taxes owed.  Many of them  -- not yet anyway. Yes, I have the cash to buy any of them at starting bid, but buying another house isn't high on my priority list, as long time readers well know.  I have 4 solid properties that I want to bid on. Well one of them I still need to go look at, it's out of the way -  which doesn't bother me for the price tag - but I have to see if there's water and electric available.  

On the houses, yes I"d get one of them if they bidding doesn't go too high, but I suspect this list will attract the people with deep pockets considering the large number of houses on there.  

The tax lien sale is a secondary project. It's not priority at the moment and so, getting any thing off of there will have to go pretty cheap. One property in particular I will bid as high as I can go before I have to say no more.  The one way out in the middle of nowhere possibly as well if there are utilities available.  

Speaking of that, I will call the water company after this entry - providing an empty doesn't show up, the dispatcher said one is coming this morning (it's 10:30 am, I hope it comes soon so I don't have to be out late driving tonight).  The power company will hook me up, they said that at least. The water company - who knows - but probably have to pay for the installation to the property is my guess.

Other than that? Nothing.  I'm hungry, sitting in this yard since last night, but I don't feel like eating sandwiches.  The big decision, lol: Leave and get something to eat or just sit here until I get so hungry, a sandwich starts to look appealing?  

I'm going to - slightly - bug my realtor today about the property.  She is pretty unhappy person and I hear the other realtor is too with this seller.  I dunno, people get to that age they get set in their thinking.  They're going to do things their way and if you don't like it? That isn't going to change anything.  I'm referring to the seller, at 84 years old, he probably doesn't really care how long it takes, unless he's desperate for money for some reason.  If that's true, my loan is ready and waiting.  I guess it's a good thing that I don't have to worry about the loan going away for the 90 day period - which is slowly wasting away.

Whatever the case, I'll have to take a 34 hour reset after this trip. I was only 2 hours away from a reset when I started this trip. But I'm glad it didn't happen, it's possible that I will have to work straight up to the tax sale and that wouldn't work out too well.  I need to see the properties I'm bidding on first, otherwise I won't bid on them.  A few of the houses are starting low bid price.  But who knows what condition they're in?  

Alright enough of that.  I think I'm going to get out of this truck, stand up and stretch and walk a little.

G'day

 Tuesday morning. 

Had Monday off. Can't say as I got much accomplished beyond laundry, some cleaning, getting a pond liner off and talking to my son - he turned 28 yesterday.  He's doing really good, amazingly enough, he went into full detail about how his life changed after the divorced and how he has his small grouping of friends.  

He's also saving to get his own place and has amazingly saved up 10k in a pretty short span of time. He must have my mom's genes. I am not the avid saver either of them are, I like a mix of saving and living life at the same time.  That does not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean that I am not saving.  Hundreds of dollars come out of every paycheck and go into 401k.  Hundreds more go into savings every month.  

I could be saving more, tho.  But, I see people wait until they are retired, well past the prime of their life and wonder how that works out for them.  

I finally found the utility company map from the state of Texas - something I'm going to be saving so I don't have to dig it up again.  It shows the name of what company that serves where.  Water utility to be precise. It does not show it serves my intended property, but it does show the property across the street.  I assume that means I can have a line run to my property - but assumptions are not facts and I will be calling them about that if/when I hear anything about the property.

Which, of course, no news came yesterday.  I will be contacting my realtor today to ask about what the other realtor came up with after meeting with the owner.  

Well, I'm off to Brownsville. A later load than usual, and later than I like at 10:30, but nothing as bad as when you start loading at noon or later. It's the time of day that the run keeps you out til to make it down there.  I probably won't be out of the plant until 12:30 at the earliest, meaning a 10:30 night - at the earliest - today.  That's not terrible, it's not great but it could be worse. 

And with that, time to be off to work.

G'day. 

 Looks like it's been several days since I last updated.

Today is my son's birthday, I think he's 28 today. Gonna call him, haven't heard from him in a while.

Yesterday was a Oklahoma run.  I had it in my mind that I was going to make it a one day trip - and that I did.  I drove straight up there without a break, took my break while doing the drop and hook procedure, then drove straight back down, running out of drive hours only 8 miles from the yard. I used a bypass that is legal by going into personal conveyance mode on the quaalcomm, input "seek safe haven" - that's something that hazmat haulers can use - and legally drove out the 8 miles.  

The nearest safe haven was the yard. The nearest truck stop is probably another 7 miles further away.  Unfortunately it was a late load appointment time yesterday, so I got home rather late and didn't get into bed until 3 am.

There was a reason I wanted the truck in the yard, however.  The vibration in the truck got much worse yesterday after I left the plant.  I had half a mind to turn around and take the loaded trailer back to the yard and tell the dispatcher she's going to have to have someone else haul it.  But, I decided to run with it. If the truck breaks down, it's not because I haven't reported it numerous times to our shop mechanics.  

Anyway, I texted them and hopefully they will look at it and figure it out. I couldn't, I don't know what's wrong with it excepting guessing that one of those new recaps they put on the drive axles is bad.  You can have a bad recap that looks perfectly fine when inspecting the tire.  If they take the truck to a tire shop they can have the tires balanced and see if one of them is seriously out of whack.   The vibration is to the point I don't want to drive that truck again until they fix it.  

That kind of throws off today, however.  It's 10 am and I've been awake for a while. Jus that thing that gets into my head, sleep or no sleep, it's daytime, time to get up. 

And an update already: the lead mechanic texted back and said my truck is up next, will be in the shop in 30 minutes. I replied thank you, I don't want to drive it again until it's fixed, I'm guessing a bad cap. 

Now concerning property.  A new property came online and is already sold.  It was well out of my desired price range per acre, I wouldn't have bought it anyway but it was a very nice piece of land just outside of city limits.  Now, another property has surfaced, less appealing but still would work.  I started looking again regardless of how burnt out I am at looking for properties.  I am going to go look at some of these houses in a few minutes, see if any of them are worth bidding on.  

I've got 8 days to see what I'm going to see with properties and then the sale.  I don't blindly bid on properties, if I haven't seen it, I ain't bidding on it.  There are a couple of small properties I need to go take a look at as well, outside of city limits, do-what-you-want-with-it land without the encumbrances of mini-god-like humanoids who exert their will over anyone who dare wants to do anything with property within "their" city limits.  

Now, concerning the land I am under contract with?  Look, this property is highly desireable land, but the strings attached to it so far make it less than desireable.  While I'm out, I'm going to drive by the entire tract of 36 acres and see if the surveyors are out there. The seller's agent is going to meet with the seller today to get an update on where we are with this.  I'm hoping he doesn't come back and say nothing had been done.  I expect/want a report by the end of the day, tomorrow at the latest. If I hear nothing, I'll contact my realtor.

Must be reading my mind, my realtor just contacted me, but concerning another property. It's under contract, she texted, I thought, yea I know, it wasn't up for sale but 2 days.  I don't really have any great choices concerning land right now excepting to wait this seller out.  I put a quasi-deadline on my desire for the land, but that can change if it must.  The property I am under contact was never listed on the MLS, if that happens someone will come and buy it right away, I can almost guarantee that.  Location, utilities, peaceful, nature, beauty, it's just a no brainer to me it would sell quickly.

With that, I best get my butt up and moving. 

Have a great day.  

 I am wasted tired. I think I got 3 hours of sleep last night.  Never-the-less, I pushed myself hard to get down here - here being Brownsville Texas - and potentially get that sweet detention pay.  You never know if there's going to be empties or not down here unless another driver tells you about it.  Well, there are no other drivers down here right now, tho the tattle-tale is behind me.  

Anyway, I got in there and no, there weren't any empties.  I got in and out of that yard fast.  "No trailers upon arrival" written on my tour sheet. Dropped the trailer, put my paperwork  in their mailbox, back in the truck and the hercules out of there.  I have no desire to be getting up early tomorrow morning to leave and now, legitimately, I can not only sleep in, I can also get detention pay.  

I was lucky I have enough fuel to last until tomorrow morning.  The Love's is closed. I mean, they actually locked the doors to the establishment, their network is down, apparently, they can't sell anything - including fuel - and I have no idea when they are coming back online.  I've watched truck after truck after truck pull up in the fueling lanes, get out, try using their card, then walk to the entrance door to find it locked.

I wondered when they would actually put some signs up on the pumps saying the store is closed until further notice, save people a lot of hassle.  There's a truck stop 30 miles north of here that accepts my fueling card. There is a Circle K truck stop not far from here - I don't know if it accepts our fueling card but if I get into desperation mode - the tanks on E - I will go over there and find out.  Worse come to worse I'll pay for fuel out of my pocket and get reimbursed for it.  

Don't ask me why I couldn't sleep, I don't know. I went to bed at 9pm, was awakened at midnight - well wait, I did get back to sleep around 3:15 am, but had to get up at 4.  So a little more than 3 hours of sleep, but you get the picture.  

They already have me scheduled for an Oklahoma run for Sunday.  I replied to my dispatcher that FYI< there were on empties here.  She said it's fine, if she had to readjust the schedule she will.  I don't care about going to Oklahoma, that's fine by me, but right now? I don't want to do anything.  I'd go to sleep but it's not even 7:00 pm.  

Oh, I found another property. 22 acres, 95k.  It's not the greatest location but it's good land and it's just outside of city limits.  Price is too high, I'd offer $3,500 per acre if it comes to finding something else.  It's covered with trees.  In fact, I love this road it's on, it's all farm land and cattle ranches. Beautiful area.  

I did not get the promised update this week on the property, that is not my realtor's fault. She tried to get them to update her, they just aren't doing it.  There is likely nothing to update.  Who knows.  Maybe she'll hear from the other realtor this weekend. I just want to know if they're actually working on this or if this is a doomed deal and time to move on.  

And we congratulated the 6 year old for graduating kindergarten today.  Replete with pics Taylor texted me, I didn't know graduating from Kindergarten was even a thing, but I try to go with the flow here. Times have greatly changed since I was that age, whether I agree with how they do things now or not is irrelevant.  The boy gets his day in the spot light and that's that.  Ok I'm battling extreme fatigue here, I think I'll end this one.  

 Short update.

Going to Brownsville tomorrow, 6:00 am load time : ( not a fan of that early stuff.

It's almost bedtime at almost 9:00 pm lol.

We went shopping today for all kinds of stuff.  Kids clothing, a few pairs of jeans I miraculously found in my size and a bunch of other stuff.

Prime rib roast for dinner, turned out excellent.  

Was hoping for tomorrow off and get Aspyn rabies shot and take addler to Petsense and get him bathed. Will have to wait until next week I guess.

And I have several houses to check out - I've found a dozen houses on that tax sale list now.  What condition they are in? Won't know til' I drive to them and see what they look like.

No word from the realtor, therefore I assume their realtor didn't give her the update she requested.  

I've looked at several property lists all over again, there is nothing available in the price range I'm looking at that is any good for what I want to do with it. It's this property or nothing, at least nothing under a loan.  

That's it.  I'm toast, slept 10 hours and now I feel like I could sleep another 10. That last trip kicked my @$$.  I was glad to get some good sleep.  

I'm not going to complain about another Brownsville run, tho, just that early stuff just hits me and it's a battle to drive all day long versus pulling over and going to bed lol.  

With that, I bid you a good evening.  

 3 more days of Facebook jail.

If they do it again, I'm going to download all of my photos and delete my account. Or deactivate it, one or the other but I don't care that much about Facebook anymore.  Once I stopped engaging in political debate groups, I realized how much time I was wasting with it.  

Facebook is operated by far leftist extremists, in my opinion.  I like being able to connect with friends - I don't like supporting a platform that engages in raw censorship of political opinion they don't like. It's their platform, but I am reverting my mindset back to the days before facebook.

I didn't cross the Facebook bridge until well after my friends, family and associates did. And even then, I didn't seen the value of it until I started seeing people I haven't talked to in years popping up. Then it got fun.  But now? My calling a person, putting up a post in an RV park TIPS group, who posted a post about how shitty Americans are - he is Canadian - and going off on the US - an arrogant, French Canadian was referred to as hate speech.

Whatever. I don't regret saying it and it is definitely not "hate speech".  Facebook has become too big for it's britches. It wouldn't bother me if they suspended my account indefinitely, tho if they did that I would delete it.  I only want my years worth of photos off of it.  There's some memories on there that I can't duplicate elsewhere.  Other than that, Facebook can piss off.  These people running these social media platforms have more power than any politician.

People are too dumb to research issues on their own.  Facebook is clearly in the progressive lane of thought.  And they have a huge amount of influence. 

Anyways, a rather large agenda tomorrow. After getting this trip from hell over with, I have a bit of running around to do tomorrow. That will hopefully include a trip to shooting range where I can get a mount and scope and some ammo for the newly-purchased AR15 and hopefully go to my hunting property and shoot off some rounds at a target that I already have in mind that is well out of the way of anyone in particular, that property is well enough away from any houses that I don't have to worry about it.  

I've found many more houses tonight on the tax sale list, amazing.  I mean, they not only show on the tax assessment statement, they are showing on satellite as well.  I will do my due diligence to look at every one of them in my price range.  I mean, it's not impossible that the people showing up to previous auctions get discouraged and don't show up.

Even then, most of them don't bid on anything.  

One of the 1 acre properties is now canceled off the list.  It's possible that too many of them will pay off unpaid taxes and make it a waste of time going. We'll see. I don't mind that people pay them up and keep their property tho, I am not a proponent of property taxes.  At all.  

It's amazing how you can pay off a property, come on hard times and then the government comes and takes it away from you. How we as citizens tolerate this nonsense, I have no idea.  Taxes for schools can be generated from a myriad of other sources.  An initial property tax - when you buy it - I can deal with that. Paying a sales tax on a piece of land you own, every year, forever, is outrageous.  What other things do you pay taxes on after you buy it?  

Whatever the case, time for bed.

 The 16 hour day srtarted with the pre-trip inspection yesterday.  

I always do my pretrip before I get on the clock - if there's something wrong, I can get it fixed or get switched to another trailer without wasting my 14 hour clock. 

Tires.  It was immediately evident someone had locked up the brakes.  Tires had flat spots on them - deep flat spots where the tread was completely gone.  I went into the office, informed the mechanics of the situation. They ran out there (they literally ran), looked and said back the trailer into that bay, we're replacing 4 tires.  

That, in turn, caused me to be late for my appointment to get the trailer loaded.  No worries, when I showed up at the plant, it was shut down. 40 minutes later and they were letting us in.  After that.....I get to the loading rack. Sorry to inform you, Mr BenB but they are working on that rail car and they have a procedure they have to do to it which will force me to stop loading until they finish.  

Yup, it ratcheted up the time it takes to load by another half an hour.  As you can tell, the day wasn't exactly going swimmingly. I dunno how I got in and of the scale house so quick, that was the only thing that went well there.  

Driving down the road, going up through Oklahoma.  Got to the end of the Indian Nation Turnpike, 75 northbound coming up to Henryetta.  It's a down hill to the stop light.  The truck wasn't slowing down.  I mean, a little, but something was definitely wrong.  I got the thing stopped into before smashing into an unmarked police cruiser in front of me, went through the construction site with barricades - there was no place to pull over.  I got through that and several people in a small dump truck were waving at me and pointing at the back of the trailer.

Never a good sign when people are trying to get you to stop - I was going to do that anyway but now I really wanted to see what they were pointing at. I got out and went back and it was immediately obvious: a brake chamber was on the ground, hanging on by the air lines. 

Brake chambers actuate the brakes.  No brake chamber, no brake on that particular set of duallies.  But worse, air was just dumping out of it.  Twofold problem  I just left it parked there, got out the orange triangles, put them up, called our company's breakdown hotline.  

I was so tired anyway, that after I made that call I crawled into bed in the sleeper and went to sleep. I had awakened early that night and wasn't able to get back to sleep. Well, this mechanic showed up in less than half an hour, amazingly enough, but what transpired after that was - interesting.  Replacing a brake chamber is a relatively simple operation that should only take like 10 to 15 minutes.  It's easily accessible, right there under the trailer.

At least, it should be a simple operation.  It took this dude almost 4 hours to replace it.  And after a couple of hours he had a total meltdown.  I was sitting in the truck and I could hear him screaming, I thought he had gotten hurt or something and rushed out there to see what happened.

Nothing happened. He was screaming obscenities, throwing wrenches, bashing his head, temper tantrum of the ages.  I SHOULD BE F***** HOME RIGHT NOW! GD F****** GD THING!!

You get the picture, that went on pretty much the rest of the time he was under there.  He called his boss several times, his boss just told him he probably didn't have the diaphragm in there right.  This guy was screwed, he had to fix it.  Those trucking company corporate accounts are coveted and worth a gold  mine.  You get one of those and you are going to have business and it's high paying business.

If you don't fix something because you - can't do it - you lose that account and they find someone else to deal with their breakdowns.  On his final attempt of taking that chamber apart and putting the diaphragm back in, he finally got it right.  His anger subsided, the rage left him and he was happy - happy that is until he found out the ordeal it is to get my company to pay the bill.  

I got out of there, went up to the Love's fueled up, got a lettuce wrapped Carl's Jr burger and forced myself to continue driving up to the plant.  I can tell you, I was done with that day and wanted it over with.  But, they want this stuff up there and I got that done, drove 25 miles back down the narrow, winding 2 lane highway out of that area, down OK20 and parked at a place that has been a reliable parking spot - meaning there is always a place to park  - since I found it a few years back.  I went straight to bed.  

I can only hope and pray I don't experience anything even remotely as ridiculous as yesterday went.  It's raining, I'm waiting for my 10 hour clock to be done and get on down the highway. I'm still a bit tired but I couldn't sleep any longer.  I really do not want to go to work tomorrow.  A day off and sleep in would be nice.  I'm not going to ask for it, but it sure would be nice to get this out of my system and get back on track.  

And my Keurig coffee maker has failed.  The one for the truck. The one that gets me a cuppa when I wake up in the morning and I'm not near a truck stop or a convenience store.  It's going in the trash, I just ordered another one, but a different model this time. It's the Keurig mini - it just makes one cup at a time. That's all I need.  So, crisis abated, I can happily move on without coffee being an issue, lmao. 

Uhh, close to time to get moving.  6 hours back, I neither had the hours or the desire last night to do any more driving than getting to the nearest parking area.  I don't regret that at all, I was dead tired and there wasn't going to be any parking spaces anywhere else within 100 miles besides places you aren't allowed to park, but there's room for a truck.  The problem, of course, is when security comes along and tell you to move along, you can't park here, didn't you see the signs? 

So, hoping for a bit better day : )

G'day.  

 Being highly motivated to get this trip over with and get home at a somewhat reasonable time, I cruised almost 500 miles without stopping except for 2 minutes to use a rest area restroom - run in, run out - literally.  I had to stop in Lufkin for 2 reasons.  1, because I had only a few minutes left on the 8 hour drive clock and 2, because I was near out of fuel. The stop is planned, I know both of those things will occur by the time I get there. 

My motivation was to get here - home that is - see my doggies, Addler is being very needy lol - and get this tax sale printed out and start taking notes.  

Unfortunately, the first property I'm looking at his no address or the satellite view attached to it, but it does have some sort of geo code.  So, I entered that code into a code reader and it showed me - Rome Italy, LMAOOOOOOO.  Umm, I used the wrong reader, or something. I have no clue, honestly.  Maybe Google Earth? I'll try that next.  If that doesn't work, I'll call the county tomorrow and ask them how to do this.  Or, I can go to the county appraisal building and they will usher me into a room and I can look up all of this stuff on their internal system.  

Oh, well anyway, the trip back up was pretty normal, besides a few odd things I saw.  Like a car that had run into another car in a ditch full of water. The offending car was trying to back out of this deep water but the wheels were just spinning. It was really strange because it wasn't moving at all, it obviously needed to be pulled out of there.  And it rained half the way back - again.  I used to love rainy days, now I'm getting sick of them.  We need some clear blue skies for a little while here. Alas, it's going to rain tomorrow and the next day.  So much for - putting the pond up.  It's fine tho, I have my day planned, lol. Taylor is going through the pantry and throwing away old cans of stuff that is outdated - I offered to help with that.  

And I'm going to a couple of properties on the tax sale - rain be damned, it's not going to stop me from going down there and looking at this very prime property.  The 10 acres was just the first appealing property on the list, solely from an acreage factor.  It's a 13 thousand dollar opening bid, so not high on my list but I still want to see it.  Interestingly, the person that bought it - acquired it also through the tax sale in 2015.  Guess he couldn't keep up with the property taxes, or lost interest, or possibly serious issues with the property itself.  It will be interesting to see if the deep pocket people at the sale - providing they show up - bid on this one. They obviously know far more about all of this than me, I'm still on the learning curve.  

My Verizon bill came down almost $40 with recent offers to reduce the bill.  Not a reduction in service - I never do that. If I have to do that to get a "normal" bill, I quit the service and go to someone else.  As noted by the outrageous bill I was getting from Dish Network. I called on 2 different occasions to get it back to what I was originally paying.  They said no, either reduce the service or tough.  I called a third time - after getting pissed by curt and rude people and just said cancel the service.  I'm done with this. The house can go without satellite until I get Directv installed again.  I despise ATT but I'll play this little game if it saves a sizeable amount of money.

So, I am switched to someone - who tells me they can remove over $50 on the monthly bill. I had to ask, why couldn't or wouldn't these other people I already spoke to do this?  Because I was quite serious, stop the service and now.  I dunno, they didn't give a good explanation, they just gave me the deduction and now I'm paying less than when I was under contract with them.  On both accounts - I was ready to cancel the one where I live as well.  

Now to Cox; We got a "Countour" box a while back - 2 years at least - which was supposed to be $20 per month. It was, under their introductory offer, but then it went up to $70.  No thanks.  They only wanted it at the house over there - in Phoenix - for the "free" HBO Max.  Yea, I can get it for $17 per month added to satellite.  Everyone can watch it and I will save even more money.  

Ugh it's getting late and I wanted to do more research on the tax sale list - it can wait until the morning.  Excepting I'm not sleepy, Addler is still wanting attention and I am watching a movie while writing this.  I could have driven for several more hours tonight if I had needed to.  Well rested is a thing but it doesn't come frequently to me. I can drive all night long when I am in that mode. 

So, I'm home. 34 hour reset - mandatory. Not from the Feds, when we get down to single digit hours available, the company automatically puts us on reset.  I'm fresh off of 3 Brownsville runs in a row - more money than I could have ever dreamed of making in my younger days - all 3 have detention pay on it - it's mostly the only thing I like about this job.  Honestly I hate trucking.  I despise going to work.  It's just nothing I want to do anymore.  Which is why I'm going to look at properties tomorrow - besides the property I'm trying to buy. 

I'll have a decision to make on June 1st if this deal with the property I am really in love with hasn't had any progression in getting the stuff done the seller needs to get done in order to sell it with a clear title.  Bow out of it, bid higher on a property that has enough acreage to do my RV park - or - not of course and wait this property out.  And still, bid on the small acreage properties and hopefully get one of those.  

I dunno, but I'm going to watch this movie, get sleepy and go to bed. 

Traffic

 Okay I give up on trying to upload vlogs to this site, at least through my phone. It uploads, then says ok, proceed or whatever and then? It disappears.  Lol, I've tried several times, I may be messing it up, or it just doesn't work, I don't know.

I'm back down in Brownsville and for the third time in a row, there are no empty trailers here.  Plus, another driver came down here ahead of me, tho it was pretty odd that he had just - literally 5 minutes before I got here - shown up.  He should have been about an hour and a half ahead of me.  He said a friend called him and asked him to come over for a short visit - in Conroe, Texas.  I mean, that's actually a godsend for him, he avoided all the hell I went through today.  

But still, I kind of have an issue with him doing that, he's actually trying to get in behind me so if there is detention to be had, he'll get it if only one trailer shows up, I'll have to take it since I showed up before him.  He's done this before and if it happens again, I'll be contacting the manager about it - this dude is getting my detention pay because he did "something else".  He's a nice guy otherwise, we get along and such, but this stuff has to stop.  Regardless, I showed up far later than I should have because...

I was driving down 59.  I got into the northern metro area of Houston - that's what I call it - any big city, there are smaller towns all around them going on for miles and miles. People live in the small towns, go to work in the big city.  Anyway, I came around a turn and saw it about half a mile ahead. Brake lights, lots and lots of brake lights.  OHHH NOOOOO.  I kicked myself for not checking the GPS. I know better.  When going anywhere, you look at the GPS. It doesn't matter if you know the route by  heart, you need to know if there are any traffic snarls.  

This was bad, too. They had shut down the highway going both directions.  Everyone was getting funneled off at 3 different exits going southbound, but  it was stop for a while, go 50 feet, stop again, etc etc etc. For an hour and a half.  I lost that much time. They were doing some repair work on an overpass and apparently needed to shut everything down to accomplish it. It is actually going on all weekend into Monday. 

But, when I arrived down here, I was actually glad I went through all of that.  It caused me to still show up after this other guy and I am getting at minimum overnight detention pay.  I'm trying to get as much money as I can in my bank accounts right now.  Well I always try to do that, if I'm going to work, make as much as you can.  But with this tax sale auction coming up, I'd like to get 5 or 6 grand extra in there so I can spend it on a property, if possible.  

I left the yard after having a conversation with him - good conversation, I didn't bring that up, no sense in it.  I came up to the Love's - there are actually spots here and that company that uses their parking lot as a second lot apparently has been driven out of here.  I mean, there isn't a single one of their trailers in here and that's the first time I can remember seeing that since not long after this place opened.  You take out 10, 15, 20, 25 trucks and suddenly you have parking available for paying customers.  

I wouldn't mind no trailers showing up tomorrow and go get a hotel tomorrow night.  Probably won't happen, but one can dream.  It will be a Sunday, tho, and there have been plenty of Sundays when they don't bring any empties back up from Alta Mira.  

A little over 2 acres just south of the Interstate.  Perfect location.  I want that property.  Others might want it too, but I'm definitely going to bid on that baby.  It's just south of where the "commercial property" - 4 acres is listed for $400,000.  Lol.  I'm looking at some of this stuff, but I'm going to wait until I get home to do much more research so I can  print out all of it.  Much easier for me to go by.

As for now? I'm at the truck stop.  I can hear that damned thing.  A reefer unit just backed in beside me.  I won't be listening to that crap all night long, I can back up in the space 20 feet and get that noise out of my ear drums. I can't stand the sound of reefer units on trailers while trying to sleep, it's ridiculous amounts of noise. 

With that, I'm offa here and going to bed - soon anyway.  

 Today wore me out, I'm plain flat tired. It's not that I had to get up early - I was in Brownsville this morning waiting for an empty trailer. They showed up with one at 9:45 am, amazingly enough, making it possible to not only get back to the yard today, but driving all in daylight.  I figured I would get to Houston around 3:30 and I figured right.

I didn't figure I would run into horrific, nightmarish, rush hour traffic at that hour.  I've been through Houston hundreds of times, I can only surmise that because it was Friday afternoon, people got off work early and everyone - literally everyone - was going home - all at the same time.  That kind of traffic is nerve wracking and doing it for 30 miles of stop and go even more so.  Not to mention numerous construction zones where it was also stop and go and then, a portion of highway was on fire and the firedepartment had the road shut down to put it out.  

So yes, it was a very long day.  It only got more interesting that, after I texted the dispatcher which empty trailer I had - presumably for the next driver to be assigned to for the morning - she said stay under that trailer, you can take it in the morning.  I mean, Im not going to complain about 3 Brownsville trips in a row, it's just that I'm wiped out right now.  Just a tad bit too early to go to bed, so I thought I'd catch up on my blog. 

Oh - I didn't go home.  I'm sleeping at the yard.  In the truck, it can run all night long and that's that.  See, I didn't get here to 8:36 pm and I have to go back out early am. I figured the amount of time I would have at the house - drive home, go to bed and get up at 4:15 am, it's just not worth it.  I lose time I could be sleeping.  I don't do this often, but when it needs to happen, I am fine with it.

The only problem is, there is no one home. James, Taylor and the boys headed up to Missouri early this morning to meet up with her dad at Grandma's house for a visit for the weekend.  So, the dogs are all home alone.  Maria went over there earlier to feed them and put mine in my room and the other in their room, feed the fish and presumably the cats are already fed and don't need anything.  I would have like to seen the dogs but oh well.  

I think I fully explained what was going on with the property in the last few entries, nothing is likely to change with that for a while - if at all.  But because it appears there is a chance that this deal isn't going to go through, I started looking for properties again today, online of course.

There isn't much new on there.  One property with 11 acres looked very appealing until I saw that it is within the city limits. No thanks.  Another property, 8 acres, looked interesting but way overpriced.  And not in the greatest of locations.  I'm really going to be discouraged, to be honest, if this property I have been looking at multiple times now doesn't go through.  

Yowsa! I've been checking the tax sale for my county sale to come up every day.  I checked earlier today but it wasn't up yet. Now? There are 6 pages of properties on there.  

Ohhh....myyyyy. I just looked through all of them. A large number of 1 acre or so lots with small enough price tags on them.  5 lots 8 to 10 acres at low starting prices. Other lots going much higher than they are even worth - how does the taxes get so high on property that isn't even worth the starting bid?  I've got my work cut out for me, something to keep me occupied while this property deal either goes through - or doesn't. 

The work is looking up the property ID numbers and then looking at a satellite view of the property - if it's listed on the tax appraisal site.  See what it looks like, if it's out in the county and if I can see where it's at so I can go take a look.  Find out of there is water and electricity at least on the properties.  This is exactly what I was talking about before - small, acre lots where you put on a house and sell the entire property or - see if you can rent it out. Renting would make far more money in the long run.  

I wish I were at home, I could print all of that out.  I write notes on all of the properties of interest and I also write notes of properties that have serious problems - like rotted houses or situations that would cost a lot of money to fix/upgrade.  And then, at the sale, I look to see if anyone bids on them.  People just show up to these sales and don't do any homework.  I don't say anything, not my place to, I think I"d probably get some heat for telling everyone that's bidding on a property that there is a 2 story house that is falling apart and you're going to have to raze it before you can do anything with it - or worse - properties where the city has come along and put "condemned property" signage on the front of it.

Anything condemned will have to be torn down and if you aren't doing it yourself, you are going to pay thousands of dollars for someone to do it for you. Is the property worth it? Maybe sometimes it could be if it's a nice enough property in a good area. This will really help to take my mind off the land deal.  I can focus on something else that I've been wanting to look at anyway.  There is one mobile home for sale on there, but it's listed way high. It would have to be a really nice unit to be worth bidding that high on.  It's likely no one will bid on it and it will end up at the year end sale starting out with a $30 bid.  

Oh, speaking of properties, 6 months will be up next month on the four that I bought. No one has come to redeem them.  I am going to try and get titles cleared for them and then they are going up for sale.  Or, if the title stuff is too expensive, I'll do one at a time and sit on the rest.  There is no requirement for me to do anything with any of those properties.  There are no houses on them, the city hasn't sent any notices about the condition of property, and I only have to pay property taxes.  That's in the $50 range and that's cheap.  I also found out that the city allegedly allows for a modular home on certain properties - information that dude/king at  the city planning and development office didn't bother to tell me when I was asking.  I found that out through a realtor website I was looking at. 

I am in the "teach an old dog a new trick" mode. It seems late in life to be starting on such endeavors, but hey, it's such a nice challenge!  I"m definitely going to the next sale - providing any of those acre lots are out in the county.  I would love to get just one of them - I don't want more than one - and then put something on it, probably a mobile home to keep costs down - and then see if I can rent it out.  Actually, on an acre I could put several mobile homes.  I don't want to get too far ahead with this right now, you know what my thoughts are concerning these things, I have only written about it exhaustively on here on so many occasions. 

Still, it's exciting to see all of that on that list.  The only other caveat that - isn't so nice - is that any or all of those properties could get yanked up to the last minute and not be for sale.  The nature of the beast, yes.  

Oh, and yesterday I tried to upload a Vlog entry on here.  It took a few minutes to upload it off my phone, it said it was finished and then  I posted it - and ..... nothing.  That's the last entry with nothing in it.  I'm going to try again tomorrow. If that doesn't work, I found my old YouTube channel - I haven't posted on there in years, I might try to put one up there instead.  I kind of thought Youtube would have taken that channel down by now since I haven't posted anything there in so long.  I dunno, but I'm interested in possibly firing that up again - with some of the content from my treks through the woods.

Anyway, enough of this. I want to look up a few of these properties before I go to sleep for the fun of it.