Near Stryker, Ohio.  

I arrived much earlier than I have ever made it up here - but that's due to the early load time I had yesterday. So it was before noon eastern time I called them and asked if they could unload me today.

Of course not, lol.  "Our tank still has product in it" and "no one will be here that early to unload it".  Well, I could show up and have them off load it at whatever time they wanted...but I'd have no time to get anywhere after that.  I decided to stay at a hotel down the road and enjoy some time out of the truck.  

Rooms are pricey here, don't know why.  Small town out in the middle of nowhere, the Holiday Inn across the way has very few vehicles parked there. I asked for a trucker's discount. Some places do give that. No, no trucker's discount. Well, everything I saw on the website says $76 per night, not $95. We're talking a Super 8 hotel, this is nothing fancy but I've stayed here before.  

I'm here, lol. Went to Buffalo Wild Wings and had some lunch, came back and just resting.  

The appraiser was at the house today.  Mark said he was there 20 minutes and left.  20 minutes? for $500?!! Okkkkkk The appraiser allegedly said "I'm impressed".  Well, I dunno if he was just saying stuff, but Mark keeps the place immaculately clean.  I could show up out of the blue and the entire premises would be completely clean, nothing out of place inside or outside.  

Whether that "being impressed" translates into a good and high number remains to be seen.  I hope this person does their due diligence to seek out real comps, not just going by whatever has sold in the neighborhood.  It's worth double and then some whatever is selling in the neighborhood, save the site built houses.  The only one of those that has sold recently has an error on the selling price - over a million dollars. No one in their right mind is going to pay a million bucks for a house like that.  I'm keeping an eye on it to see if/when they are going to fix the mistake. But, I remain hopeful - and I hope that this thing can close if it's good and get over there before any vaccine mandates are required for domestic airline travel.

I will not be getting that vaccine.  I have gone into that many times in this blog, not going to scratch that surface again.  I'm just not going to subject myself to something that mau have serious side effects to my system.  Period. 

Anyway, I'm 2 days from home.  Offload early morning, get on the road, drive out my hours.  Finish on ... Wednesday.  I'm hoping to get another short run that will keep me out til the day before Christmas and then, walaah. Home for Christmas!  Yea, well one can hope, I didn't ask for it off and I did get Thanksgiving off, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  

Many states are embracing the $15 per hour minimum wage.  Good for them. That amount of income will be as worthless as the $7.25 fed wage is now in a short period of time. Inflation is already devaluing the dollar - feds have been pumping trillions of dollars of cash into the system. The dollar isn't worthless, but it's value is shrinking.  Buying power shrinks with it. 

If you increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour, the price of everything will go up so that that $15 per hour will become default the same as the federal minimum wage that already exists.  Period.  Inflation.  Then I'm going to want even more money - as well as all of my fellow truckers. Because we can.  I'm not saying 90k per year is a pittance, but if those people that are doing unskilled labor can make that much, then I want that much more.  Everyone in every industry that had to have some kind of skill or head knowledge will be saying the same thing. Guaranteed.  

If I'm going to spend days at a time away from home - and many truckers spend weeks at a time - y'all going to pay for it if these people doing menial labor tasks are going to get paid that much money.  See how that works?  It is not in anyone's best interests to raise the minimum wage, in fact, I don't even believe in minimum wages at all.  But I don't feel like getting into that subject. 

What I feel like doing? Is getting into bed, even tho a tad bit early, and going to sleep.  I already did earlier for an hour or so, felt good, I think I'll do more. I'm getting up at 5 am anyway.  In fact, it's an hour ahead of the clocks I have going, later than I thought.

G'nite. 

 Saturday morning. Thunderstorms and lots of rain, a nice day to stay home.  Well which I am, lol, I'm not on the road today. I got back from Oklahoma yesterday, was headed home when Taylor redirected me to Chili's. After that I took the dogs to the property for a nice long walk.  Last night, we wen to Wonderland of Lights - the town dresses up this city's version of down town, especially the old courthouse - with a lot of Christmas lights.  There were train rides, carousel, ice skating, face painting, etc.  We spent a few hours there (at least), went out to dinner and that was that.

However.  Yesterday.  Long time readers will remember that there is a certain plant - actually a certain company that runs thousands of plants nationwide- that I have been banned from. I won't be saying it here, don't want to draw attention to myself.  I got a text from the dispatch manager yesterday with the work sheet to go to the plant in Stryker, Ohio.  I haven't been up there in - 2 years? - or so - because of this permanent ban.  I haven't unloaded a trailer anywhere since I was banned as well.  I don't want to go into the reason I was banned, it would just take too long to tell that story and I don't feel like it.  I have never regretted getting banned from that place where I was at that day, I just didn't know at the time that this huge corporation was running the chemical portion of the plant. 

Their name was nowhere to be found in that plant so it just never crossed my mind.  But again, no regrets. I have been doing easy runs ever since.  Now, that doesn't mean they are all gravy runs, I just said easy. When you don't have to unload? Yup, that's an easy run.  

I immediately texted back that I can't go to that plant because of that ban.  She said, yup, I know, I texted the manager right back. Apparently, I am the only one "qualified" to go tomorrow.  Meaning, capable of unloading trailers. We have a slew of new people that apparently aren't trained in offloading.  The manager said yup, send him, he's the only one available.  

Let me just say here that I don't like this run.  It's usually 4 days because when you get up there? They won't unload you thee second day, they make you wait until the third morning. And then, they come banging on your door at 5:45 am to get it done lol. Well at least you get an early start.  It's just that it should be a 3 day trip that is dragged out to 4. The last I heard, we were getting detention pay for having to wait. But that was a long time ago.  If I get up there Monday and they can't unload me (it's can't, not won't, they order ahead, before their tank is empty, their tank has to be completely empty before we can offload and that usually isn't the case on the second day), I will text my manager and find out what's up with the wait time.  I've been known to drive to a nearby town and spend the day and night in a hotel, get up early and get it done.

The only drawback to that is losing drive time going to the plant and on duty time that next morning. It's better to just sit outside the plant and wait that entire afternoon and overnight for that purpose alone. Then, after you offload, you have full drive hours to get back - probably somewhere near Little Rock if I hustle - and leave maybe 3-1/2 to 4 hours left for the 4th day.  I have this all down.  The first day, I try to make it to Farina, Illinois. It's close to 700 miles.  The second day, I drive up to the plant and if I do happen to get offloaded, I drive ack to Farina. It takes all day to do that and then, if I really hustle, I'll get back to the yard the third day. 

Anyway, I'll be interested to find out if the senior manager that banned me knows about me going up there. This plant rejected me from taking a load sometime last year up there because my name is on a "list" lol.  If they know about it there is nothing to worry about. If they don't know about it....well, they don't ask names when we go up there, so unless they remember me I will probably get away with it. I can't imagine my manager sending me all the way up there without them knowing tho. If they say no, you can't come into the plant, then what?  Drive the load all the way back to Texas? Redirect to another plant?  Who knows. 

Today? Well it's supposed to rain into the afternoon. I'm just going to continue on the closet cleaning project - I left it a week ago and got busy with work. Maybe I can get the rest of the stuff out of there, scrub it with bleach and then, there will still be the base board I need to replace before putting my stuff back in there.  It's been nice tho. I've thrown a lot of stuff I don't need in the trash.  Too much "stuff".  

As for the appraisal.  Well, I got a call from a 480 area code- that's Phoenix metro area - and I almost never answer them. They always way they want to buy my house. I now tell them I want a million dollars for it - the number of those calls coming in has shrunk dramatically lol.  Anyway, it was an appraiser! The lender didn't inform me they had found one, so it was a bit of a surprise. Are you available on Monday for us to come out and do the appraisal?  Yes, I probably won't be home but someone will be there to let you in, there are no dogs so your personnel will be safe, thank you.  

What time is good for you? 7am or noon? Noon, I thought, I don't want to subject Mark to a time frame that he may not be home for, he's an early riser and does stuff in the mornings.  I let him know a few weeks ago that one would be coming out - but - assuring him I'm not selling the house, it's a refinance.  It will doom that house as far as my owning it goes, I'll have sucked all the money out of it and the mortgage will start all over again. I mean, I'm not throwing them out, I'll continue on with them living there in the setup that has gone on for 7 years now.  I mean, 5 years down the road there will be some equity back in it?  Mark replied to my text informing him they are coming Monday at noon in the affirmative. 

I also informed the appraiser that there aren't any comps in the entire neighborhood. Mine is a manufactured home, yes, but the rest of the mobiles in that entire neighborhood are far older than mine and the other housing in there is site built homes.  Oh, I'll let them know that. Thank you and the call was ended.

I dunno what's going to happen with that. Kind of biting my fingernails type of thing.  Zillow has it showing at 279k.  Even with 10% margin of error, it would still be worth 250k, which is what the lender went off of in telling me I would be approved for 90k cash out.  But is that house really worth that much money? In this market? Yes. Whether the appraisal comes out at that or not, I would list it at 300k and come down to 250k - after that any potential buyers can go find some other house to lowball owners on.  The house does need some minor appearance work - probably a couple thousand worth, which I have been considering having done.  And it's probably due for a paint job. I dunno, but I have money available in case stuff goes bad. The AC system is getting old, tho the AC repair guy that lives behind us has done a nice job fixing things that break on it. 

The house still has lots of plants - tho Mark is not a green thumb and he let my evergreen die.  I had told him that it needs to be watered every day in the summer. He said "everything is dying" and I don't know why. Well I figured it out pretty fast once I found out he's not watering daily.  It's Arizona, it gets very hot and it rarely rains there.  If you want green plants, you have to water them.  I got on his case about that.  He was saying "everything in the neighborhood is dying". Yes, because the price of water has gone up so high, people probably aren't watering their plants.  Arizona has been in a severe drought for years, just like California.  The only difference is Arizona has water conservation districts they set up decades ago to manage the water supply.  

Arizona - at least the Phoenix area - is fairly well doomed tho if the rain and winter snow doesn't start picking up.  They can't just keep building out in all directions, there simply isn't enough water to go around.  I'm surprised they haven't done as Cali has and limited watering and grass and even dictating days you can water or even wash your car.  AZ also has the advantage that they started building reclaimed water - sewage water that is treated, not potable but usable for landscaping, gold courses and also cools the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant - they run a huge diameter line from Phoenix area out to that plant so they wouldn't have to use drinking water to cool it.  

California is way behind in both of those aspects. Cali would rather just dictate to citizens what they can and cannot do instead of actually trying to figure out answers to these problems. They have a vast supply of water on their coast line, it's amazing to me that someone hasn't invented a system to remove salt from water without having to use heat to do it. That's the drawback, it takes too much resources in the current method they have to remove it.  I believe someday sooner or later someone is going to come out with that invention and that will change everything. No more water wars on the Colorado river, Arizona can draw much more water from it, Cali won't need it.  

Well that's it.  My power pole - still ain't up.  I really don't need it up just yet, it's going to start costing me $150 per month once they do put it up, but I'm glad I ordered it when I did, I have no idea how much longer its' going to be.  I've got the engineer's number, no need calling him until I get close to needing it.  The land clearing is slated for some time next month. I went ahead and pulled the trigger on that, I figure to have that done before the end of this month.  I was going to go out there today - but the rain said something different lol.  I had to look up whether I can get 220 volt out of only one power line. There are only 2 lines coming through there, one has the power running through it at 7,200 volts and the other is a neutral line - or ground - depending on who you ask.  

Apparently you can get 220 out of it.  I don't need 220 for the RV sites, they are all 110 stuff. But I want 220 for dryers, AC, pool heater, etc.  Of course, one could work around it by using natural gas water heater and dryer. I assume you could find a natural gas heater for the pool as well, probably more efficient. 

I'll let the electricians play that game, I really wanted to run my own lines but I have decided against it.  I have no clue how it works off of only one power line.  They seem to think it will be perfectly okay, all I can say is I will be watching, taking notes and taking pictures of the installation process.  Come time to upgrade the park with more sites? Now there, I might just go ahead and do the wiring myself if I have enough confidence after watching them doing it to do it myself.  Maybe.  I was talking with people online that are in the business of building RV parks - they said the septic quote was way low?  Ohhh?  I only have 14 lots to start with.

Yes but it's still low and so is the electricity. One person said it was costing them 400k to install just the electric for 50 lots What? I think that person is getting ripped off, but what do I know.  Others said all of the quotes are well within reason and are actually low. That made me feel better because I am not hearing back from the other electrician and tho he said he wants the job - he certainly isn't acting like it.  I gasped at the 26k quote for electricity is all I can tell ya.  It really took me by surprise. 

Well, I think that's enough. I'm feeling pretty lazy. Rainy days do that to me.  Keeping the hope alive.  Now that I have the land clearing set for next month - no day given yet for their arrival - it will force me to finish measuring out the lots and ribboning the remaining trees.  I've still got a couple of days of work left out there, I'm assessing. And a bit of undecidedness on some areas where I can't decide what to leave up and what to take down.  I think I can just leave stuff up and if I need it down, well, it can be a future project.  

With that, I bid you a good day.

 I've made 2 trips now with that new, inward facing camera - with microphone - covered up with duct tape.  No one has said anything to me about it - yet - and I was speaking to my manager about something else that was bothering me today.

THAT situation were the endless phone calls I have made to corporate trying to get them to send me a copy of my 2019 W2.  In total, I made 57 phone calls over a few days span.  Not one single time did the corporate front desk answer, the HR department or the payroll department. This has been going on for a week and the lender was really grinding my balls about getting it.

So, today, I just started leaving message, after message - after message.........after message - to the payroll department since they refuse to ever answer their phone.  I then contacted my manager and told him I still do not have the W-2.  I then suggested and asked if it would be a good idea to contact the vice president of the company? Her email was listed and open to receiving questions.

That got an almost immediate reply: NO.  Lmao, I knew that wouldn't go over so well but he start sending them emails and they responded to him almost immediately as well. I finally got the W2 sent to me by the manager of payroll - I now have her email.  Anyway, that W2 has been sent to the lender, who sent more forms that they want me to print out and send back to them.

Gag.  Forms filled out, signed and sent. The biggest issue is getting info from my mortgage company, they can feel free to get whatever they need from them, I don't have the time to keep sending them the info they ask for and then they say, no, that's not what we want....the land lender wanted the same form filled out, direct communication, leave me out of it, there is nothing my current mortgage company has in terms of info on me that I would want censored from this lender.  

Anyway, I've made no mention of that camera situation to my manager and he's said zero, squelch, nada to me about it, it would be nice if it could stay that way.  

________________

Well the above was a few days ago.  I had  a weird dream.  I was in the truck, it was loaded with Ethylene.  I was driving down a road that came up to a building, the road went under the building. So, I drove down this 45 degree angle to the bottom and then tried to drive up the other side.  The truck wouldn't make it up and started sliding backwards.  I found myself backed into a room at the bottom and the trailer started leaking the chemical.  It was coming out in a small stream.  A man came up to me and told me I couldn't park there so I somehow got the truck up and out of that place.  The next thing I know, I'm driving up to a flood zone. There was an alligator that started chasing the truck, I wasn't worried about it but it was interesting to watch.  And then, the road ended at a street that was completely submerged in water.  I could tell by a stop sign a block away that it was at least 5 feet deep but I for some reason decided to drive through it anyway.  The entire truck slowly rolled over and disappeared under the water, which was also strange because the water wasn't that deep.  I got out of the truck, went over to dry land and then this man walked up to me with an apparatus that had 3 pipes attached together.  Is that the inside of the trailer? Yes, he said.  Oh, so it all leaked out? Yes.  The man was Titus, a person I haven't seen or heard from in at around 30 years.  Another driver came up and started laughing at me that I would have to go find a new job.......

I don't normally remember my dreams but this one was so odd, it didn't go away.  I did drive down a hill at a 45 degree angle once.  Coming back out a few weeks later - the truck and trailer were to be parked down there for a tent crusade,, it took me several times to get it out of there.  I ended up going around 50mph at the bottom of the hill and going up it to finally make it to the top.  I also worked with that kind of pipe for 12 years. The truck represented the current job. Titus - he was a young man in his 20's I think last time I saw him in the .....90's...... went to a church I used to go to.  I don't have any great meaning out of this dream, but it was so odd that so many things were in it that have been a part of my life at one time or another.

Whatever the case, the telephone pole is still not installed and they can't find an appraiser yet.  They said after the new year, probably.  Oh? I thought you said my rate was only locked in until the 23rd?  Oh don't worry I have that rate as long as this loan is active.  Ok.  I don't really want to wait that long to find out what they think the house is worth, but I have no connections to appraisers in Arizona lol.  I have been working so I haven't had time to get back to the property and try to finish the tree ribbon job.  I just got back from Brownsville today and will be heading to Oklahoma tomorrow.  I suppose I will have time on Friday to get out there and maybe Saturday since I will likely need a 34 hour reset. 

I'll need to check my hours available tomorrow. If the Oklahoma run will eat up enough hours, then I will definitely make it an overnight run so I will have most of Friday and all of Saturday off.  I need the work but I also need to get this ribbon stuff done and over with. I can probably get it done in 2 days worth of work.  I think.  Just want to get the land clearing on the dude's book for a date.  Not til next month, that's for sure, it's already the 15th and Christmas and New year's coming up, I figure mid January.  

By then I will know whether I am getting the loan. Well, by then I should either have the loan and the cash or the deal is called off - it really all depends on the appraisal.  Zillow has it showing at 279k.  Whether it's worth that much, who knows. It's showing a house that a man built years ago at over 400k and that sounds pretty high. 

Well I'm tired and don't really feel like going into anything else.

G'nite

 Spent a good part of yesterday traipsing around the property putting pink ribbons on trees I want to save.  I have a lot left to go, but I did the entire 1,351 feet of driveway, down around the back side and coming back towards the street on the other side. I got tired of getting pricked by thorns and left after I had been there quite awhile and decided I had accomplished enough for one days' worth of pain and blood.  

Okay, the pain isn't that bad lol, it goes away after a while but it is recurring, no matter how hard you try to get around those thorns, they are everywhere and there is no avoiding them completely.  I'm going to get assurances that the dozer they bring will include blading the entire property around the trees and getting that s*** up off the ground, those thorn vines just grow directly out of the ground and up trees, shrubs, bushes or just - grow up. 

That stuff has got to go and I want a guarantee on that. It's 12 grand, I want my money's worth out of it. 

With all of that junk in there, that property is absolutely useless.  

The cash out loan plods on.  More info they want and the appraisal was rejected by the company doing the appraisal, they wanted near $700 after being offered $550.  That's crazy. My land cost $350, I think, nothing even close to that?  It'll be more work, tho, the house, in trying to find comps.  Whatever the case, the lender is going to try to find another company to do it.  

I don't want to spend $700 on a loan I might not even get....

Did I say I despise going through this process? having had been through it already not that long ago? Oh, yes I have probably said that a dozen times on this blog lmao.

I'm still trying to get corporate to send me the W2 from 2019.  I'm going to go through everything yet again, I know I didn't throw it away, I just can't find it anywhere. I have no clue what I did with all of that. Probably hid away in a safe place .... so safe I can't even find or remember where I put it!

It might actually be out in my SUV, a place I haven't checked yet and a thought that popped into my mind.  I was using all of that stuff for the last loan, but I thought I was using it in here, in the house, I had no use for out there.

Another thought that crossed my mind is that I will very likely have to travel to Phoenix to sign off on everything if this loan goes through.  I know they are requiring masks on airplanes, I don't think they have started requiring vax for domestic flights yet..I hope not because I will reluctantly make the journey over there to close if I must. Excepting this time, I'm leaving from the airport in Longview, I'm not driving clear to Dallas or Fort Worth unless the savings are that substantial. 

But there is free parking at the local muni airport and it's 35 miles away versus 157 to Love field and paying exorbitant prices for daily parking.  The money spent may be the money - and aggravation of dealing with that entire area - saved.  For that much money I will definitely fly to Arizona, but it will be a fly in and fly out, try to do it all in the same day type of thing. No visiting anyone.  

I've been sick a lot this year and I am not taking the chance of giving my mother some kind of illness that potentially could be signing her death sentence. No thanks.  Covid has changed everything, literally, in the way we see and think about things such as travel. Tho, we don't observe any notions of in house masks and no one here is getting vaccinated and we will have over whoever wants to come over.  We only give out warnings if someone is sick.  Then the person or people visiting have the option to make up their own mind about whether they want to come or not. At the moment, everyone is healthy and we'd all like to stay that way for a while.....

And so it is, it rained last night so the property is probably muddy.  A funny thing tho, after I bladed portions of the intended RV park, grass started growing. I mean, all over the freshly bladed areas. there was no grass there before and I certainly didn't plant any seeds. It's like seeds fell from the heavens to make the earth green!  Yes, I know bird droppings can do that, but that much in such a short period of time?  I dunno, maybe.

Regardless of the mud and the fact that it's chilled right on down since yesterday - it was in the high 70's and today it's looking to be a high of 50 degrees - I'm going over there for at least a few hours and continue on with this nonsense.  Yes, getting cuts all over my arm and neck and junk going down the back of my shirt is nonsense, IMO, necessary nonsense, yes, but nonsense never-the-less.

What am I waiting for? Uhh, just a dose of motivation, lol. I'm only doing a couple of hours worth and it's only 9:39 am, so yeah, I have plenty of time.  I will pick it back up after this Brownsville trip - we are getting at least a day off atm after every trip.  I don't really want a day off after every single trip, but everything slows down this time of year and we have lost a lot of business to other tanker companies entering into the division to haul what we once had a monopoly on. Blame the company that took over our company for that, they didn't heed existing management's warnings, didn't get enough equipment - namely new trailers - to cover everything and walaah. 3 different companies came in and took a chunk of our work away from us.  I've still made quite a bit of money this year, I can't really complain too much. 

So losing this job over a camera? Well, sorry Charlie, that thing is going to be covered with tape on every single trip until they attempt to call me out on it and then, it will likely result in parting ways.  It's amazing how many people just accept it as "normal" and just give up their personal privacy in the name of - what exactly? Safety?  How does a camera facing inward increase safety? How does a microphone listening in on your conversations increase safety? Just too creepy for me, I can't deal with that s***,.

Get the park up and running, that's what i need to do. Get something going and get headed towards the ultimate goal of not having to work for anyone. But with the park running even at a small capacity, I can find a local job and supplement my income with a 5 day per week, weekends off job that has me home every night. I won't need to make the money I'm making now to be able to afford to live my current, lavish lifestyle.

Lmao.  I don't lead a lavish lifestyle, lolol. I have a 10 year old vehicle, I live in a rented room. I have some debt but nothing too great and - if I get this loan - I'm paying all of that off.  Reduce my expenditures to next-to-nothing and then I can lose the job altogether and not even replace it with another one and probably still be able to live solely off of RV park revenues. 

I've done the math. At 80% occupancy per month, deducting 30% in expenses, I will have $7,056 left over to pay myself with - and save for further expansion.  I could easily live off of that.  Especially after paying off debt. And after a year I can apply for a business loan, showing my net income and not have to project anything at all, it will all be based on immediate history.  More than double the size of the park and walaah.  A very decent income even after taxes.  Give my friends full time jobs if they want them - and yes they have good work ethic - and make it a family style venture that hopefully will continue to expand in scope and size for years to come.

And, I still haven't ruled out buying much smaller properties, loading them up with mobile homes and renting them out.  I'm hoping and praying this cashout will go through, this will finance everything else I need - excepting more lots, it won't do that - and I will have the structure set up for a very nice park with all the amenities that people will hopefully rave about in reviews and direct traffic my way.  That coupled with the website designer helping me get the word out - he's very knowledgeable and very reasonable rates - it shouldn't be too terribly hopeful in assessing a successful business even charging the same rates everyone else is doing in this region but giving much more amenities.  

Well, after a morning full of kids crying and temper tantrums, meltdowns I am off to a much more peaceful and serene environment.

 The man promised me that the list he initially sent me was all he would need. \

This being for the refi/cashout to help finance my RV park project.

But, of course, just as the land deal, I was getting endless requests for far more than this initial list of things, which was pretty small.

He should have just been upfront with me about it. I would either agree to all this nonsense or I - wouldn't.  And right now? I'm not in the mood for going through all of this yet again with no guarantees that I'll even get anything out of it.  Yes, I have been approved, but that can always change, we all know this.

And the appraisal - if that doesn't come out good, then it's all off anyway. I'd just rather wait until the appraisal is done, see what they say and move forward - or stop - with those results. 

So I mentioned this to the this agent a few days ago. 

He had a literal cow.  It came out mooing, looking for hay.  I won't even go into all of it, I was instantly ready to say goodbye, have a nice life, don't call me because honey, I won't be calling you.  It was unbelievable the tirade this man went into.  I was appalled, astounded and amazed all at the same time.  

His threats to end the deal were laughable.  I was highly amused at that, as if he had some sort of leverage on me, lmao.  I let him stew for a day on it without responding after I had had enough.  He went off again.  My replies? Wow.  And then Wow again.  That was it.  And then I let him think about his behavior for a while, this dude isn't doing me any favors and they are certainly taking their chunk of change out of this deal if it goes through, please spare me.

I let him know after the threat that I am not desperate for money, it would be a tool that I can use for the purposes that I intend to use it for, but in now way, shape or form do I absolutely have to have this money. I will not lose my dignity and have to think that I am begging some dude that works for a giant company to bail me out. I don't need bailed out of anything.  If it comes down to my current supply of money not being enough? The project can go on hold.  

He took a completely different tune today. He is not the captain of this ship, I am the client, the consumer, I am what he is in business for. It is a service industry. I had half a mind to contact his corporate offices and let them know how he is treating their customers, but I decided against it. See if he would change his tune.  Plus, this dude literally has all of my personal information.  He could trash my life - at least temporarily until a lawsuit would be filed - engaging in cancel culture and using my ss and dl numbers to open up accounts, etc. You never know what people are capable of.  In this day and age, I count nothing out.  

So, I am just going to go with this until it either pans out - or - this dude just goes too far with it. Sort of what my company is doing with this microphone and inward facing camera nonsense.  Crossing lines.  The microphone is muted and the camera has a piece of duct tape on it....I'll let y'all know what becomes of that.  As for now, there are 3 sun visors that fold down from the ceiling of the cab. The center one is not wide at all, maybe 8 inches and they placed that camera right where the center of that sun visor comes down. I don't really need tape, just put the visor down and it's blocked.  So that visor is - permanently down lol. 

Anyway, I barely made it to the receiving plant near Tulsa with the time left on my 14 hour clock.  I got the loaded trailer dropped and then came out into their parking lot to spend the night, get up early enough to get an empty after 10 hours and head back  That will be 5:30 am, a bit early but nothing like this morning getting up at 3:30 am.  I'm so tired yet I am not in the "sleepy" phase yet, hopefully that will hit soon.

What's in the news? Good Lord, what isn't in the news. Rumors of war with Russia, China flying military planes over Taiwan and wanting a presence in the Atlantic with a base, Biden's edicts being put down one after another with vaccine mandates, border chaos continuing on, progressives being snubbed by more moderate democrats, Supreme court justices being threatened if they overturn Roe v Wade ...what a hellish nightmare this nation has engaged in the ruthless slaughtering of innocent babies.  I'm going to stop there, there is still a slew of other things I didn't mention. But this abortion subject has vexed my soul for decades now.  I know lots of people - people I call friends - that think abortion is nothing different than going to the local gas station to get a drink. 

I'm stopping. It's getting late - well it's not that late but I didn't sleep well last night and I'm very tired.  It's actually only 9:00 pm, which is early for some, late for others, in between for me.  I have 3 more days of Facebook suspension and then I'll have to make a decision.  I just give my opinions on things but Facebook calls it hate speech or bullying.  I'm sick of Facebook, for that reason.  It's not that I'm engaging in any real form of bullying or hate speech, lol, it's that Facebook wants people to conform to THEIR way of thinking.  That's all it really is. If I stay on my own page and don't comment anywhere else, maybe  I could stay out of their crosshairs.  But I have liberal friends on there - well not so much friends after the Trump years and the left still bashing Trump supporters.  But you get my drift - I have had them reporting me for comments I have made on my own page. 

It's so easy to just block a person you don't like, unfriend them, do anything but whine like a little child and act like a petulant teenager and report people because you don't like their opinions. 

I won't be back home tomorrow until much later than I anticipated because of 6 plus hours of breakdown time today. So I won't be getting over to the property to do more measuring.  But, Brownsville has been down for 11 days and I suspect after hearing what other drivers were saying today that I won't have any work for at least a couple of days after this run. I'll have time to get out there, I think. Many times I say stuff like this and then I'm given a run somewhere or a paying task to do, such as traipsing around the country doing chores for the company, lmao.  No calls for LNG delivery on the east coast - yet.  It isn't really that cold yet, it's when those blizzards hit over there and the temps drop below zero is when they amp it up and call for help outside of their regions. 

BTW, I am not getting vaccinated. I don't care if it means I never fly again.  Well, I do care but I have spelled out the legitimate, valid reasons on this blog several times now why I will not get vaccinated and it has nothing to do with being "anti-vax".  AT ALL.  

I am probably going to need to fly to Arizona to sign papers if this deal goes through on the refi cashout.  It will take too long to drive there just to do that. Fly in, fly out, same day if possible.  Not see anyone? I can't see my mother, tho I think that could be arranged by simply inviting her to visit at a restaurant - outdoors if need be - and getting tested before I see her?  I dunno. See my son at least.  I'm saying all of this because there are hintings that the Biden fiasco is hinting at domestic flights requiring passengers to be vaccinated as well.  If I have to drive there, so beit, I'm not getting vaccinated. Get it?

Y'all have a good evening.

 Tire repair guys are never in a big hurry.

The day started at 3:30 am.  Did my normal thing at the house in getting up, got out of there, got to the yard.  Sure enough, I saw that new camera gleaming in the darkness.  Whatever.  I'm already looking for new jobs.  

Anyway, I get in the truck, fire it up, put a piece of duct tape over the inward facing camera and the microphone, go to turn on the headlights and running lights - nothing.  

Wut.

They were working just fine when I parked it, I assumed instantly that the dude that installed this garbage did something to the wiring.  An hour later and very late to the plant, attempting to use 4 different trucks, I was at the loading plant and there was already another truck who snuck ahead. They had been there allegedly since 4:30 am - flow rate was allegedly "off" and that's why it took them so long.  

I didn't believe the operator, but it's whatever.  20 minutes later and over an hour past my official load starting time, he got my truck hooked up.

Back to the yard, drop the trailer, hook with my truck. They found the problem: the dude didn't reattach the electrical connector to the headlight switch.  Go figure. 

Already well down in hours, I still had a chance to at least get up to the plant near Tulsa, drop and hook and then come back to the truck stop casino.  

Fast forward 80 miles and on highway 271 in Texas near Talco, and a loud kablaaaaam!!!! I looked in the rear view - tire literally blew up.  Pulled over, got the flashers on, got out to look. A few minutes later fire trucks showed up. Huh?

They pulled in behind me. "we had a report of an explosion" referencing a caller that thought an actual bomb had gone off, lmao.  Uhh, no, just that tire. It did blow up tho!  They all laughed and the clear leader of the group asked what I was hauling?  I named the chemical and he was like, well, if you see this driver running, best run too!!  

The tire was literally destroyed, it was absolutely amazing that no other damage beyond a damaged rim occurred.  Well, anyway, I"ve been sitting here near 3-1/2 hours. I decided to get out the laptop, that would get the dude here, I thought.  It happens a lot - you pull out the computer and walaah, the repair guy miraculously shows up. 

I am not even sure I'll make it up to the receiving plant today, much less make it any distance back. 

I did find a large number of local jobs that I might be interested in. They will mean pay cuts, but if I am forced out, there are options at least.  One of them is fuel hauling to gas stations, local job and they have paid training.  All the benefits I currently have, about 15k less in pay, but I can deal with that if I have to.  

If I have to find a new job, I'm looking local first, that's what I'm saying.  Because I have no inclination to be bent over backwards with this outrageous idea that these people that employ me should be able to listen in to anything I'm saying at any time I'm in the truck or that they should be able to see anything I'm doing in the truck that I both drive AND live in.  That is beyond the line of things I will not tolerate from a company. 

As I have said numerous times before, this company doesn't care if you stay or go.  There is no job security here.

So that's that.  The auction yesterday? Really incredible. A hundred people showed up and a couple of guys with money bid everything WAY up.  I mean, it was amazing.  They even bid up an undivided property to 30 grand!  I'm betting they have no idea what undivided property means and that they don't actually own the land, you are co-owners with however many other people.  

They'll learn, as I did the hard way, tho I didn't spend anything even remotely close to that much money on it.  I lost something like $800.  

No, I didn't score any land, I won't pay those prices.  I won't take time off work again, either.  If I happen to be home when the auctions occur, I will go. It only takes a couple of minutes to figure out whether any of the deals listed will stay as deal or if they will be bid so far up as to go beyond even what retail prices under realtor listings are priced at.

Amazingly, this dude is already almost done! 

I'm offa here.

G'day

 Apparently the days of bargains for land at the tax lien auction are long gone. Today was not the first one I've been to where the bidding went well beyond anything that would even remotely resemble a deal of any kind.  Some of these people winning these bids are out of their ever-loving minds.

The worst one today was 8 acres  - of undivided land - going for 30 grand.  I made this mistake of undivided property as well, but I didn't spend hardly anything on it and my yearly property tax on it is now pegged at $57.  I'm afraid I'm stuck with it. I guess I could give it away? lol ....it's a nice piece of land but in my mind it's basically worthless. You don't own it, you own a portion of it, along with however many other people are on the deed.

I was surprised even the rich dude who shows up and bids everything up wasn't hardly bidding on anything. There were come newcomers there that were far outspending anyone and it was crazy.  Some day down the road I may just go ahead and bid up to get land, right now that money goes to my RV park. A couple of thousand I could have done - which I was expecting since this was the end of year sale where everything that was already put up for auction earlier in the year that didn't sell was up today.

Instead of waiting for the auctioneers to switch from listed price to - whatever anyone will bid price - these people went straight to not only bidding the listed price but going WAY up from there against each other.  

It'w whatever.  I'll go to future sales if I happen to be home - there is the possibility that all of these people will not show up at the regular auctions an perhaps a deal can be had.  But I'm not taking time off anymore for them. I didn't today, it was off time and I'm very glad I didn't bother to take time off.  

I didn't get over to the property today to try to get more of the lots measured out for tree purposes.  I got done with the auction, got a bite to eat, went to get my haircut and headed home.  The land will have to wait until after tomorrow's trip.  

I did make it a one day trip yesterday, but I won't have a 16 hour exception for tomorrow, unless the run goes perfectly it will be an overnighter.  I have yet another Oklahoma trip tomorrow and it's an early load at 6 am.  It's almost better to just go over there tonight and not have to fool with getting up way early tomorrow at 3:45 am  - at the latest - to get loaded and get on the road.  I'm half considering it, still early yet.  

____________

Sent a load for Oklahoma tomorrow.  6 am load time.  Not my favorite, it means getting up really early and I'm not typically able to get to sleep early enough to be well enough rested.  

Oh well.

G'day.

 Okay the last post was gross with the blood. Just was annoyed trying to take simple measurements and getting pricked by sharp thorns all over the place. 

Apparently the only other way to do this is to have a surveyor come out using expensive tools and maps to do it for you.  

I don't want to spend that much money. I got one side done, the other to go.  THEN I will have to try and determine which trees to keep up and the rest - which is most of them - to take down.  

Once it's all cleared out, measuring the actual lots will be easy.  Or should I say - should be easy.  

But clearing the land isn't going to be done until I get this done and I don't care how long it takes, it's too important to me.  I have my eyes on Thuga trees/plants whatever they are as well.  10 inch plants, gotta start somewhere. Hedges between lots.  

____________________

Monday morning. Had the weekend off.  Just another Oklahoma trip, but not bad coupled with the West Virginia trip.  The dispatcher is sick so the awesome dispatch manager is taking her place for a while.  Usually means I get better paychecks, to put it in a nutshell.  Oh oh, I just wrote that and she just texted us that she is now coming down sick as well.  Uhh, she gonna have to take time off, that's my advice to her. It will only get worse if it's anything like what I just had.  

Ahh, she's saying something is going on at the loading plant - probably scheduled maintenance.  I may be in for more time off than I want.  Sure enough, only one load per day going out starting tomorrow through Friday.  I'm guessing I"m going to have several days off after this run....

It will give me time to go out to the forest, get bloody with all of that nonsense in there and hopefully mark out the trees. I haven't even started marking anything yet - I can't until I finish with marking the lots and we're talking approximation markings here, nothing like what I will do once the forest is cleared out of there.

Anyway, the next "door" neighbor over there happened to show up yesterday, I called him over to the fence line, I was well back from the road, like around 700 feet in the thick of things.  Just discussed with him about the trees along the fence line and my intentions to take most of everything else down, including on "his" portion of "my" property.  He had no issues with that, we're leaving up the giant trees along the fence line, probably some smaller ones away from it since I can't use the land anyway and just have a natural look there of a tree stand the 1,351 feet of barbed wire fence that exists there.

He was asking me what I'm doing - I told him this time.  No use in attempting to keep secrets any longer, there isn't much any of them in the neighborhood can do at this point beyond perhaps making it difficult to get a permit to get septic installed. But, just as they have friends in high places, I do as well.  And that individual works with those higher ups, not just acquaintances.  And, the higher ups know what I'm going to do over there and they just said well, he has to get a permit for septic.  

Just saying all of that to say that eventually this would have come out anyways and there is already a private RV park - club thing - down the street and several other businesses, including this guy next door. He doesn't live there, he has a big building where he does car restorations. He isn't there much, at all, that was the first time I'd seen him in at least 5 weeks and I'm over there pretty frequently.  

And, when I told him that, he said "I'm sorry to hear that".  Not shocking, actually, but I did ask him why.  I'm afraid of theft.  Flatly spoken as if my intentions were to open up some slum s*** with a bunch  of drug addicts and slobs who have no more inclination in life than to take from others whenever the opportunity opens up.  

I explained to him that the operation wasn't going to be that kind of deal - AT ALL.  I am eyeballing baby boomers, my generation, people with money and expensive rigs. Or not even that expensive, just people that don't need to steal to survive. Further, I stated, the entire street is full of all kinds of businesses, including yours.  It was a bit offensive for him to assume I was opening up some s***hole that would just degrade the neighborhood and fill it full of undesireables.  

Whatever he's going to do with that info, I'm prepared for the worst, at least mentally and hoping for the best. Like, oh well, can't tell him what to do with his land.....but you know human nature. People don't like something and they try to bust things up. Hopefully this dude isn't like that, but word will spread.  Well, word has already spread so that's that.  It isn't going to disturb anyone living nearby excepting maybe the renters next door - the dude that parks his tractor-trailer rig on my driveway......there will be increased traffic on the road, but there are already RV's going up and down it and big trucks hauling salt water from various wells along the road.  

In all of this time, I have yet to see a single tanker truck going on my driveway.  If they go to the well and the giant tanks, there will be tracks left. That's good news, actually, that means they don't have to go in there that much with noisy trucks. Just pickups and I'm going to get a handle on that as well. Namely, speeding up and down that road.  There is a company imposed 10 mph speed limit on that driveway and I intend on making sure their employees start adhering to it.  

Time has gotten away from me, it's time to leave, lol.

G'day.

 

Somebody please tell me this is worth this much aggravation? I’ve only made it 300 feet. Have to wind the tape measure back up in reverse through all this nonsense and then start a fresh 300 feet…

2 cara in center median, toast. Pic of traffic waiting for investigation to end. 7+ mile backup, vehicles completely stopped. Accident long since over, must have been a fatality to have it shut down like that. That’s I-40 somewhere west of Nashville, this morning. 

Truck fire, it was burning pretty good. 

Random tree on the property. 

And yesterday’s sunset in the rear view mirror. 

Started early to beat Nashville rush hour and was pleased with the results. Should  be back at the yard today by 4:30. 

Sweetgum tree. Finally figured out what they’re actually called. They don’t really look that bad. I intend to try and leave up 2 per site. Later down the road I’ll plant pines near them. 

It’s Friday. I dunno when I’m going back out but hopefully not tomorrow. Just gonna have to cut brush out of the way if it comes to that to measure the lots. 

460 miles to go. 

G’day

Long day.  Smiths Grove, Kentucky to South Charleston, West Virginia and then ended up here, at Cross Plains, Tennessee.  It's the way I design these trips to go - if they can work out that way.  I had an audience at the plant, there is a construction crew doing some sort of earth work at the site where all of the cryo stuff goes.  I'm not sure why they were looking so intently at what I was doing.  It was kind of strange, actually now that I think about it lol.

Got to this Mapco truck stop in Cross Plains and literally no parking. Even the creative parking was taken up and beyond that, trucks blocking in other trucks. That's a big time no-no in the trucking world. If you can't find a place to park that isn't blocking other trucks in, MOVE ON.  But I've been here with no parking available, the street has no, no-parking signs, it is hardly used at all from local traffic and it's very wide.  So, that's where I'm at for the night.

I sent a text to the construction company this morning.  Basically saying I'm ready to do this, let's get moving.  I just need a bit of time to figure out how to mark the sites so I can figure out which trees I want up - it's hard/next-to-impossible to use a tape measure in there because of the thick underbrush.  He had his office send me a contract via email. It wasn't an E-sign - where you sign documents online such as I just did with the refi-cashout loan the other day. So, it will wait til I get home, print it out, sign it and hand deliver it.  

I did flat declare to him that I was getting a second quote on the electric, no offense intended.  It's a huge expenditure and I need to at least know for sure you're in the ballpark  In reality, I want to use the other guy, his knowledge and his reviews for his work are impeccable from what I can see. I have time for that.  He didn't have a problem with that- pretty much standard operation to get multiple quotes....

.....but, I need to get the land cleared and get moving with this.  Slow progress is better than no progress.  I'm content with the way things are slowly shaping up, it's not really unexpected that it will take forever to get things done.  Just that one guy that wouldn't even respond to my texts or phone calls.....

I was watching some footage of kids from the Oxford high school where 4 of the students were murdered and 7 people went to the hospital.  It's a tragedy beyond imagination.  I saw a picture of one of  the deceased, Justin - whoever I can't remember the last name - a huge smile on his face, gleaming, bright eyed, looked like a person that was loving life.  The boy that indiscriminately shot these people has declared his 5th amendment right and has pleaded not guilty through his lawyers.  

There is surveillance footage of the incident - I didn't see it I don't know if it's posted online but a prosecutor was discussing it and horrified what he had seen on it.  What goes through the mind of a person to wantonly set out to end people's lives and destroy others' while doing it?  It's unfathomable to me and it's heartbreaking to listen to the surviving students tell their stories about the deceased.  

With all of this evil going on, if I had kids in school, I would be - seriously asking to say the least - to the school system what they are doing to protect our kids while they are in your care?  I dunno about anywhere else, but the school system in our town is literally flush with money.  As evidenced by the gigantic covered stadium they built last year.  I was shocked to see it going up - what on earth?  I have no idea how much money that thing cost, but was definitely pricey. Perhaps that money better spent on hiring off duty cops to protect the kids....

With that, I am getting off of here and going to bed. I am bushed.  This is a lot of driving, this particular trip. It's not the only trip with lots of driving but I don't get the longer trips that much anymore. It's either Oklahoma or Brownsville.  

Unfortunately, I can't start driving again til' shortly after 8 am - I'm about 30 miles from Nashville, ugh.  They have a pretty raunchy rush hour.  OH well, maybe GPS will give me a route around it, lol.

G'nite.

I'm bushed. 

 Shouldn't be shocking to anyone to understand that I a pro-life.  I doubt God is very much pleased with the tens of millions of babies that have been murdered in wombs across the country for the last several decades.  People on the pro-death side openly flaunt killing their children in this era of - whatever the heck is going on in this nation.  Godlessness, that's what I'll call it. A nation where the enemy of your soul is running rampant, seemingly doing whatever he pleases wherever he pleases to do it. 

So it is with some pleasure to see not only the Supreme Court take up the case from Mississippi but all the pro-choice pundits going ape wild s*** over the possibility that it could be completely reversed.  As much as I would love to see that happen, I seriously doubt that's going to be the end result. What would be nice, at least, is having it restored to the states purview to make their own decisions on abortion laws.  You can be rest assured that New York, California and Illinois will continue to offer internal child slaughter without hesitation.  Places like Texas and Florida, on the other hand, would likely make it completely illegal, replete with jail time and huge fines for any "doctor" who does the procedure.

It was quite interesting reading the Justices reactions and questions, grilling of attorneys and even openly speaking against one another.  We are in living in a very strange era.

Changing the subject, we won't hear a decision from the court for quite a while.  

I didn't order the vegetable seeds as I stated in the last entry, instead, I was near Lowe's yesterday and just decided to go in any buy them.  Same price as online and I bought enough to start a mini-farm's worth.  It isn't really just-in-case, Taylor asserted a while back she'd like to have a piece of land on the new property to grow the stuff and I was happy to oblige.  Nothing planted, that won't happen until Spring - and I'll have to have a water line run over there.  It might be something fun to do. It takes a bit of work tho and some attention and loving care.  I'm over there frequently, if she doesn't have the time for it I will fill in the gaps.  

The new website? Didn't start it yet. I have a lot going on right now. I'm on the road as it stands, just got into Smiths Grove at the BP truckstop and parked for the night. This is a pay-to-park truck stop, guaranteed there is always a place to park here. this entire I-65 corridor is a very difficult place to find parking at night.  I don't mind stopping here every time - if I can make it this far, it's  a bit of a drive to say the least to get here and going through 3 cities that can be nightmarish in nature depending on what time you are driving through them.  I'm 670 miles by the time I get here.  It leaves the door wide open to making it back to the yard in 3 days.  

As much as I despise trucking at this point in time, I'm happy to get this run and get some money going.  Been some slim pickins as of lates, being off work 6 or 7 days didn't help anything.  

Oops, forgot to add I'm headed to South Charleston, West Virginia.  I never say the names of companies/plants I am going to or the plant I load it - cancel culture.  I don't need people calling my work complaining about whatever.  I've had that happen before under a different scenario, it didn't get that person the results she wanted, but I learned from that experience.

On the drive up here today, someone on the driver's group text said that there was a box full of window mount cameras that arrived today. The issue? These cameras have inward facing lenses as well as a view of the road.  They also have a microphone so they can hear anything you're saying.  Last year, the CEO flatly stated that they wouldn't be installing inward facing cameras but they wanted road facing cameras to protect drivers and the company from people who drive - less than competently.  

Another driver got on the text and said "they told me at the Quaalcomm repair shop that the inward facing camera would be disabled". Bunk.  Don't be so dumb. They had to order the cameras with the inward facing option and pay more for it, it wasn't free.  If it's there, it's going to record.  I'd like to offer the minds that came up with this s*** at corporate a compromise: If you all will have cameras installed in your bedrooms then I'll agree to having it installed in my truck.

That's exactly what it feels like, a huge breach of privacy. Yes, it's their trucks  and yes they can do whatever they please with them, but I didn't sign up for peeping Tom's looking at me whenever they want and hearing any conversations I might be having on the phone.  Or just talking to myself. Yes, I still do that even at my age. Lol.  If they do install it, I'm going to put tape over the lense and mute the microphone.  If they don't like it, they can get rid of me, period, end of story. I quit the last job over that. It wasn't the only reason I quit but it was by far the biggest, most prevalent reason.  

I suspect a large swath of drivers will quit over it, as evidenced in just that small group chat.  But I don't care what anyone else does or does not do or tolerates, I'm not going to lay down in front of the gods of micro-management and succumb to that horse-shit.  They can have their job and find someone else that willingly gives up their privacy.  I saw a place 15 miles up the road from my town - while driving up here today - with a huge sign stating that they are hiring local drivers for $25 per hour.  It would be a pay cut but I can make do with it.  That's a home every night job.  Just saying, I'm always looking around for something local...

The property.  The other electrician texted me back yesterday, Roger Houston we have ignition.  He's going to get me a quote at "some point and thank you for your patience".  I don't need that quote right away, but I will be needing it soon enough.  If I don't hear back from him in a couple of weeks I'll just text him again.  At some point, tho, I will do the same with him as I just did with the water install guy - bid him a good life and take care.  

I have determined to go with the company that gave me quotes to do everything. They are the best price I have received for land clearing so far. Oh, let me clarify: for the land clearing only.  I gave up on Mr. Waterinstall, he just won't answer his phone and he won't even reply to a text.  I haven't called this other guy back, yet, I just wanted to sit on it another day before pulling the trigger on it.  

It will be at least 2 or 3 weeks before they can come out and do the land clearing, I'm just not in a hurry to do the wrong thing. I have to sleep on it a few or many nights and be comfortable with it.  It's a lot of money, at least in my world, at 12 grand just for the land clearing and includes nothing else.  It actually isn't unreasonable - a crew of people and heavy equipment.  And all the expenses a company has plus trying to make a profit.  Unfortunately, I'm going to have to get out there and cut down underbrush and trees with a chain saw around 1,000 feet in length on both sides of the intended driveway to be able to measure out lots so I can determine what trees to keep.  Unless this guy at this company has a better idea. I'd like a couple of the trees on each lot.  If'when I decided they are in the way or replaced with pine trees - my goal in the future - they can simply be cut down with a chain saw and come along with a stump grinder to get it at or below ground level.  

I think that will do it for this one for the day, It's not terribly late at 10:25 pm, but I'm bushed with all the crazy drivers out there doing stupid stuff and having to be hyper-focused much of the day.  The worst incident was when a  driver in  a small car got on the highway from the on-ramp, came over one lane, then another and then just kept coming - right into me. Or would have if I hadn't slammed on the brakes, he would have just crashed right into the side of my tractor.  Pure stupidity, one wonders how people like that stay alive driving in such an erratic and ridiculous manner.  It just makes me hate driving and trucking in particular that much more.  I don't want to get into accidents, I don't care if it's the other guy's fault.  Dead is still dead.  

I'm just happy the day is over, deal with tomorrow when tomorrow gets here.

G'nite.  

 

 Oops, just one more thing tonight before I go to truck sleeper bed heaven.  I am going to have the website designer make me a personal page that I can go to the internet with. Yes, this is the internet, lol, but it's pretty well hidden.  Not a lot of traffic here.  I'll start a "Trucker's View Of the World Today" page or some junk like that.  Or whatever, That probably doesn't quite best describe this page, this is a mix of my personal life and my political views.  

I'll have to step it up with more pics and stuff to keep people's imagination soothed and stimulated.  

I'd like a pic of me and my truck as the profile pic - but - it's got the company name on it and you know what happens to people that become victims of cancel culture.  My company name is nowhere listed on any of my internet venues and for a very good reason. 

But stay tuned, I'm going to email him tomorrow and get that going. He's a very talented person, he will get something up and get it up there in the google search ratings in a couple of months time...

Just a head's up. 

 Repeat of last trip. Up to near Tulsa, drop and hook and back to the casino truck stop for the night, where I"m at now, up early am and back home early.  I would like not to have a repeat of that idiot in the car starting trouble with me.  

Regardless, yet another phone call - endless supply of them on a daily basis - from an Arizona number, I mostly ignore them.  Or I answer and make funny noises.  I'm through with asking them to stop calling me, they won't. It's been going on for years now.  The only thing that has worked is having the kids answer the phone or just making up gibberish type noises that are nothing but made up words that have no real meaning.  

Hooloooloooo stonatons papoppum stoons, sir.  Pee poppum spooms.  As I said, utter gibberish, more like madman stuff lmao.  I'm getting less and less of the calls lol.  Anyway, I took this call off of a whim and was glad I took it. 

Cardinal Finance - it's a nationwide lender, big company I found out after Googling it and been around a while.  I applied for a cash-out loan with them a few weeks ago - but I never finished the application. It got to the part where you have to give your social security number and I instantly got a bit apprehensive.  I don't like giving that number out.  Call me old school, but that number was never intended to be an identification number that everyone wants nowadays in order to check your credit and such. 

Too much abuses can become of giving out that number.  So, a rep called me today.  That's the point where I decided to Google them and see if they are legit. Now, it's not like they called first or anything. I was looking on my CreditKarma account and this was the highest one on the list for refi options.  I've acquired several personal loans off of Credit Karma - they have the best rates I can find and approval every time without a lot of hassle.  Plus they already have my info I don't really have to fill out too much.  

Anyway, the man wanted to run my credit score so I begrudgingly allowed it - it's another thing I don't like to have done too often. A hard check of your credit stays on your report up to two years and tho it doesn't take out that many points, it looks bad if you have too many of them.  They start thinking you are desperate and need the extra credit to pay for everyday things and such.  Or something like that, lol.  Anyway, long, long story shortened.  Cause he needed a lot of information - they always do, just went through this garbage with the land loan.  

The interest rate is locked in a 2.3 percent. That is awesome in case you don't keep up with things like that.  I don't want just a refi but if I did, I would definitely take it.  No, if this didn't come with the cash out option, I wasn't taking the deal. I told the guy right upfront this is a manufactured home.  What he came back with about blew my mind: as long as the appraisal is good, you can get up to 90k cash. Yup, I'm taking the risk and spending the money.  It is what it is.  This RV park will work - or it won't - but I'm believing it's going to pay for itself and make a decent profit.  It might not happen right away after it opens, but who knows.  

Remember the last time I had to wait on an appraisal, for the land loan? lol.  I dunno how long it's taking to get them done in Arizona and it's a house, not land.  

Zestimate is $276,700.  Zestimate range is $243,000 to $307,000. Is any of that anywhere near accurate? I have no idea.  I do know that finding comps in my neighborhood is literally impossible.  The rest of the homes there are old - ooooollllllddddd- home excepting the site built homes.  Those are worth more than mine and there are a handful of them. Zoning in the city doesn't say you can't build a regular house there.  But the rest of it is old, aluminum sided mobile homes with metal roofs for the most part. Even the ones with shingle roofs are 25 years  old or older.  

So it will be interesting to see how this appraisal company is going to come up with comps. When I got the new house, they had to go look at comps in completely different neighborhoods many miles away.  Redfin has the house valued at 120k lmao.  Sure! And it has a picture of the old house that burned down in 2007!  Yea, if they're going by that house, it might be worth that just because of the red hot housing market. This is what I'm trying to take advantage of, the housing market in Phoenix is through the roof, it's a seller's paradise.  

That's the pic Redfin has on their site.  I haven't seen a pic of the old house in ages, I don't even know if I have any.  That's the house that burned down.  The entire property is completely different now.  I mean, totally different.  Some memories there, tho.  And a lifetime' worth of nostalgic items burned.  Memorabilia, burned. A huge stash of photos of my son as he was growing up - gone.  I'll never forget the day it burned down. Sunday morning, my son sleeping next to the wall where the flames literally burst out - he would have been burned alive and I doubt he would have lived through it.  Michael basically saved his life.  He came to the bathroom, pounding on the door, yelling at me that there was smoke in the house. I was about to take a shower.  I got my clothes back on and in a hurry ran out, saw the smoke, got my son out of bed and everyone else for that matter, and out of the house.

I was trying to get some items that I would truly miss (worthless to anyone else, only had meaning to me)  if they burned up and when I went to go back into my bedroom, kabaam! And that wall burst out, flames shooting out of it - right where my son had just been sleeping a few minutes earlier.  I was halfway down the hallway and the heat from that burst of flames was unbearable, I ran out of the house.

It's a long story, but that photo brings back those memories. We were truly blessed that no one was hurt that day - but at the same time, my life became a living hell for a while, literally had to go buy new clothing, all of it was gone.  I didn't even have a shirt on.....

Anyways, maybe Zillow has that thing listed way too high - but I doubt it's that far off.  Old junky homes in that neighborhood are selling for 120k and more.  Location is everything. 10 minutes from downtown Phoenix, the only affordable option left in the region for people wanting to leave near downtown, it's an old neighborhood.  Houses - regular site built houses -in nearby neighborhoods start at 300k and go well up from there.  The fact of the matter is, not much sells in my neighborhood because people couldn't afford to live anywhere else in the city.  Or neighboring cities.  The ones that do sell, the people dump money into them and fix them up or replace it with a regular house.  

Enough of that. It will be weeks before I hear back what the appraisal comes up with. 

I was in Kroger's on Sunday - morningish - I was buying some ingredients for dinners we are making this week. I went by the manager's specials meat shelves - which have been empty every time I've gone in there the last several months - and saw a huge number of packages of thick smoked bacon. What?!!

No one was even at the manager's special area, I went over there and looked at one.  1.25 pound packages for $2.99 a pound!  Expiration date was is the 6th of December.  I don't care about that, it would alllllll be frozen.  I started grabbing them and chucking them into my basket.  They don't have limits on that stuff, first come, first served. Everyone else ignoring it, their loss.  

I felt eyes on me.  What's going on here? some random stranger asked.  I ignored him, still grabbing the packages.  Other people started chiming in.  What's the deal, I thought?  This stuff has been sitting here and it takes some dude grabbing them for them to notice it? The manager's special bay is at the same place, every time. They don't move it around the store, lol, if you are interested in such things, LOOK AT IT when you go in there.  I look every single time I go into that store. I don't have to be getting anything even on that aisle and I'll still go over and look.

It was a gold mine for me. I grabbed 18 of them and then decided that all of these people that were lusting after the bacon could have the few that were left.  I was going to take ALL of them.  Chicken and chorizo in there as well, I grabbed some of that for freezing when I got home. 

I can safely say the freezers are literally full.  I also got another prime rib roast - amazingly they still had some. They usually sell out by thanksgiving. Inflation - they weren't exactly the greatest price, but a prime rib roast on a random, non-holiday day?  Amazing.  I've got 4 of those.  I didn't score on turkeys this year save one.  It's in the freezer, they were really high priced. And hams weren't too great on the price, either, I just got one this year for the Thanksgiving feast. I normally would get a couple of them and freeze them as well.  

I saved $50 on that visit to the store and that doesn't include the savings on the bacon. The savings for manager's specials won't show up on the receipt, as the checkout clerk asserted, you saved a LOT more than this with that bacon!  We do like our bacon.  Inflation be damned, there will be months worth of bacon available.  This is the way I do it.  See it on sale? Something we eat regularly, frequently, often or even just here and there? Buy as much of it as they allow.  Another freezer will be coming soon.  It will also be filled up. Freezers don't cost much to run - if they are full.  The frozen stuff helps keep it cold and the compressor doesn't have to come on that much.  

I'm going full out on this.  I'm putting in an order for seeds for a huge variety of vegetables tomorrow.  We started growing some stuff this year for the fun of it, but if any of these "experts" that are predicting an elongated period of inflation are correct, I want the option to grow veggies on the new property.  Plenty of land, folks, plenty of space to put in a small patch for a dozen or more different varieties of vegetable plants.  

What are they predicting? Food shortages on a global theater and giving numerous reasons why, much of it tied to inflation and the cost of farming, especially hard on family farms.  Seeds are not a huge investment, they don't cost that much.  I'd like to see a vegetable patch going regardless of economic downturns and hyperinflation, it's fun to watch stuff grow.  It's also fun to eat and not be hungry : )

No, I'm not fretting over the economy or inflation. It's hurting a lot of people tho.  I just don't want to be hungry. And even if it never happens, it still saves a bundle of money.  40 pounds of this, 35 pounds of that when it's on sale.  Maybe I should just buy a side of beef for the next freezer, butcher wrapped.....

I like to keep challenges in my life.  The Biden administration is offering plenty. He doesn't give a damn about the flood of illegals coming in and apparently making reparations to them....Afghanistan....inflation - they are totally disconnected from that, they are all rich and don't give a s***.....New Covid strain- gee, let's get MORE vax shots!! ---- this dude is easily, IMO, the worst President that has ever occupied the White House, far worse than even Carter - and his polling numbers show it.  

But whatever. Y'all wanted this dude, you are now paying for it, you are literally paying for it and if that 5 trillion reconciliation bill goes through? Y'all gonna lose your minds with the taxation that is coming YOUR way.  "Anyone but Trump" didn't quite work out that well for ya, did it? Oh, and if that bill goes through? You think inflation is bad now? Oh, my peoples, are you in for the rudest of awakenings....

G'nite. 

 So, yesterday, I got up at 4:45 am, got rolling at 5:05. Left the truck stop casino parking lot - and no I didn't do any gambling, I just went to bed after the night before not sleeping but maybe an hour.

Got oto Paris, Texas, stopped at Love's to refuel, coffee, water.

Pulled ouf of the Love's to the 4 lane highway, it's highway 271.  There is an acceleration lane for trucks turning right to get the speed up a bit before attempting to merge into traffic. I turned right into that lane, started shifting through the gears.

Another car was coming, but it was in the passing/inside lane, so at the end of the acceleration lane, turn signal on of course, I merged into the outside lane.  

This car comes speeding up in the inside lane and then slows down to match my speed, right beside my trailer.  I thought nothing of it - at first - they were supposed to slow down for the slower speed limit, tho not that much. 45 mph, we were going 35.  I just sat at 35 thinking he would just speed up and get past me.  

He did not. I needed over in his lane to make a left hand turn at the light about 1,000 feet up the road.  So I accelerated to get past him and get over.  He accelerated when I did.

It was then I came to understand we were going to have a problem.  +I slammed on brakes, slowed down way faster than he did and got behind him.  He slowed down to 20mph.  I just slowed down even more. Note there wasn't any other traffic out there, it was early  Saturday morning.  He limped his old, junky looking car up to the light.  I'm calling it as it is now.   

He made the left turn, got onto the on ramp to the highway and sped up a bit.  Got ahead of me and then put his arm out the window, replete with the middle finger.  I don't know if he thought he was making me angry, I was just at the point of attempting to determine whether I needed to call state troopers and started taking video of this nonsense. 

He flipped me off for a while - bad mood? Juvenile?  Just lost all his money at the casino? Thrown out by his girl friend? Just a wanton as*****?  Who knows.  I do know that I did nothing to warrant him acting out against me like that. I was literally minding my own business.  I don't look at people in traffic much anymore, they tend to get up set and the first thing they do is call the company and make up a story about how I cut them off or something like that.

He then took off , got about 500 feet ahead of me and turned his lights off.  Even tho it was dark, I could still see the outline of his car in the darkness.  Why he did that? No clue.  He then got off the highway at an offramp and pulled up to a red light down there. I accelerated, not gonna wait around to see if he's still going to play his games.

I got past the on ramp where he was the other side and up to a light on the highway. I passed through it and it turned red afterwards.  Yup, he got back on the highway and .... ran the red light.  Didn't even slow down.  He comes racing up to me, flashing his lights from high to low beams, straddling the center lane. Where are the police when they could be useful for something?  

I had had enough.  I started to pull over to the side of the highway. I was going to stop the truck, get out, get his license plate number and call the police. He had kept himself just out of sight enough for me to get that number, otherwise the police would have already been called.  Consequences be damned - and there  can be a lot of them even tho the CDL driver has done nothing wrong. Companies tend to believe drivers that "have gone out of their way" to make that call to them. They judge and jury the driver before even asking them the first question about the incident.  

I thought about that, but I also thought - I have a video of most of what this idiot was doing.  If they fire me, so beit. I'll find another job.  But it didn't come to that, this guy saw what I was doing and took off.    As I said, I had had enough.  If he had a gun, a knife, whatever, at that point I didn't care.  I'm getting that license number and calling the police and then come what may.  I was never able to get the plate number, unfortunately, for even after the fact, I still would have called and reported this guy.  

I haven't had anything like that happen in a long time.  What set this person off? I did nothing, literally, to this person. 

That was the beginning of my day yesterday. Fortunately, the rest of it went rather well. When I got home, we went out to Longview to try out a new restaurant. It's called Hook and Reel - a bit on the pricey side bit it's seafood and it's always higher priced plus inflation right now is killing everything. Delicious, wonderful food.  Great service, it was really worth the drive over there.  I had heard good things about it.  

Today/Sunday. No load today, thankfully. Didn't want one tho I never said anything about that to dispatch. I'll pretty much take whatever they give me without complaining.  I'm going out early tomorrow. 2 Oklahoma's in a row - but - there are a lot of trucks sitting in the yard and there are a lot of those unbelievably bad Cheniere runs going out.  I'm glad to have no part of them.  

Today? Continue on my closet project and probably take the doggies for a walk.  I'm still grounded by mama Facebook.  I doubt at this point I will ever get rid of the account myself, they'll just have to do that for me, which I presume is coming sooner or later.  Whether I end up starting up another one with a different email address, who knows.  

Rain - it's been raining here, the only reason I might not go to the property. The ground will be wet and in the back, I dunno if that equate to mud or not.  I would like to traipse through the front portion tho and see if there are any obvious water channels running through anywhere.  Mark them on GPS for future reference.  The rear I don't much care about, but I also would like to see if the stream has picked up any. It hasn't been running very heavy in recent times.  I bet that's different now.  

I'm going to start looking for a blogging platform that also allows for uploading videos. This one doesn't do that. Every time I try to upload one, even a short one, it won't do it.  If Facebook goes away for me, I want some platform to be able to show videos of some of the stuff going on.  It may or may not attract that much attention, but I want the option available.  

Tomorrow, I'm going to start calling the water install guy once a day, every day, until he answers his phone.  That's the only way I know of to get a hold of him. If he doesn't answer tomorrow, I will follow it up with a text, which he probably also wont respond to, but trying to get him to get out there and give me a quote on land clearing.  

I will also call the electrician and see if he's had a chance to get out there and take a look.  Again, another guy that is hard to get a hold of, it seems like they all are. I'm not a regular customer of theirs that takes priority.  But, patience.  It's pretty obvious that even if I had all the money I needed to do everything right off the bat? It would take a year to get it done. I've read this from other people trying to build new parks, it's just a slow process and don't be in too big of a hurry. I'm not, now, it's winter. I'd love to open up next month and get the operation going, but realistically? It's probably 6 to 12 months off.  I can't see it taking any more than a year tho.  It really shouldn't even take that long.

Well, the day ain't getting any younger and I have things I want to get done today.

G'day. 

 Happy Saturday morning from near Bogata, Texas!