I wrote all of this up at the trailer in the mountains, so posting regardless if the next day:


Well, here I am up in the mountains again.  Took care of a problem with being able to winterize the unit - it has tubes hanging down below the trailer and you simply remove the end caps on the tubes to let the water drain out.  The problem? Those caps must not have been off of there for a long time and 2 of them busted off the lines without much effort in trying to remove them.  I had to replace them  - but I put valves on them instead of replacing them with end caps.

I was then going to fix the deadbolt on the shed door on my mom's property, but after looking at it, it's simply the striker plate.  It is too small to adjust it to a new position, so I will be bringing up a new one next time I am up here.  She is very concerned about it because she won't be able to lock the door - I had to lift up on the door handle, hard, while turning the key at the same time to get it to lock.

It is absolutely gorgeous up here.  The wind is blowing a bit hard, but it's nice and cool, it is quiet, there aren't many other people up here right now.  My mom's neighbors aren't up here at all, which is very nice to have a place like this all to yourself.  Nice place to take a couple days off. Came up yesterday and will be leaving tomorrow morning.

I have needs to get back to the valley and get some situations dealt with.  Namely, the college kid that has been slow paying on rent and the situation with the trailer tenant that reached a head last night in communicating with him via texting.  He told me he was going to pay me on Monday, then it changed to Wednesday and then it changed to Friday.  So last night I texted him stating I fully expected to get money from him tomorrow (today).  He asked me if he could just stay until the end of the month - for free apparently - and then he would be moving.

Knowing full well this guy got paid, I declined.  No, I texted back, and if you aren't going to pay, you need to get your stuff and get off of my property by morning.  That's when it turned sour and he started cussing me out.  I didn't bother to tell him I am not in town, I replied to him that if he wanted to come in and talk to me face to face, we can have a conversation about his tones towards me. He did not reply to that text and he has since removed his possessions. I had Mark lock the thing up, if there is something in there he missed, someone will have to get it out of there for him as he is not going to be going back into that trailer.

As for the college kid, he has also changed his payment story a couple of times.  I left him a note under his door before I left informing him that I fully expect him to pay up what he stated he was going to and also about his laundry habits.  He does 8 to 10 loads of laundry per WEEK.  This is one, single individual.  He runs the washer on double extra rinse cycles.  He uses hot water on every load. He sometimes does the same load twice.  Need I say that this is beyond excessive use of a freebie thrown into the rent?  What single person needs to do 8 to 10 loads of laundry per week?  I get by with 2, sometimes 3, cold water, no extra rinse cycles and certainly not washing the same load of clothing twice.  I'm just dealing with stuff that is beyond the scope of what a normal tenancy/rental normally is.  If he wants to continue to use my machines like that, he is going to have to pay $1.50 per load after the 3rd load (giving him 3 for free).  Washing clothes twice counts as 2 loads.  Hot water is .50 cents extra.

I left at the end of the note for him to contact me as to whether he wants to agree to these terms and also about the rent.

Truck Driver Disrespect

It so happened last week that I was in one of our competitor's store, a very large facility, getting some material.  I find it unfortunate that we frequent a competitor for parts, but we do. They don't have the same rules that our company has in inventory - they will carry whatever and leave it out there for however long. Our company ranks inventory and when it gets to D rank, it's toast.

So, they carry parts we don't and sometimes if we don't have something we normally carry, we go to them if they have it. They mark us up 10% on parts, we mark them up 10% on parts, a mutual agreement.

I have been in there 50 times at least over the last 7 years.

Random interjection: I am up in the mountains, the wind is howling and it's starting to rain heavily.  The wind is blowing so hard the trailer is shaking, the trees are dancing and my Direct TV dish on it's stand just blew over. I am not watching TV right now anyway, so no biggies.

Back to the story.  The place has very little driveway space. To go in there with a semi means a rather involved ordeal of backing around a lot of objects to get turned around and then pull up to the place next to the dispatch building - blocking much of everything but there is no choice.  They are moving soon to alleviate that problem.

I went in there last week to find the place filled with trucks. I stayed out front, but my truck was parked directly in front of the will-call (store) entrance.  People had to walk around my truck to get into the store.  I left the truck running - it was warm that day and the truck gets hot inside even if only warm outside - and started to walk into the store.  I heard a noise behind me, someone yelling.  I ignored it and continued walked.  But then the yelling occurred again: HEY, FERGUSON, YOU NEED TO MOVE YOUR TRUCK!!! This wasn't a "nice" request to a customer, this was a verbal command being yelled at me such as I used to hear schoolyard teachers yelling at us kids as 5 year olds in elementary school.

I ignored it again and continued walking.  I do not respond to people yelling at me.  Ask me nicely and with respect, the same as I will give to you.  His voice got as loud as it could go, apparently, as he yelled a 3rd time, I looked around, told him I don't respond to yelling and walked into the store.  I had never seen this guy before, to add to this story.

This guy followed me right into the store - where many employees were working behind the counter - and he started to raise his voice to me again.  I interrupted him loud enough that everyone could hear it: Are you going to start yelling at me again?!!  YOU NEED TO MOVE YOUR TRUCK!!! I was at the counter, I turned my back to him and completely ignored him.  He just stood there, staring at me at that point.

I was outwardly keeping my cool, inwardly I wanted to deck this guy.  The counter manager for the waterworks side wasn't there.  I waited a while, there were plenty of plumbing associates but they don't deal with the waterworks material or tickets.  Finally, a salesman came out.  We shook hands and I told him what I was there for.  He knew the ticket and headed to the doors to the warehouse, but not before this dude stopped him and informed him that I "won't move his truck".  The salesman said nothing to me, disappeared behind the doors along with this fellow and came back several minutes later.

I informed the man that I hadn't moved my truck because of this individual's attitude.  If he had asked me nicely, I would have gladly moved (but to where, I have no idea, their yard was full of vehicles).  This guy, the yeller, is standing there with this icy glare, arms crossed and attitude written all over his face.  Is Vito here? I asked, because I know Vito will not tolerate this kind of shi*** behavior from workers.  No, he's somewhere out back.

Well, some words were exchanged as I had had enough of this guy's BS, I had my material in hand and walked out to the truck, half expecting this moron to follow me out there.  He did not and I had to back out of that place because, again, there was too much traffic back there to do anything.

I was back in that store again several days later.  Several individuals started smiling - back for more, huh? - referring to the dude's attitude of several days earlier. I got into a discussion with them about that guy, he did not get out of that mess scott-free.  In fact, he got into quite a bit of trouble.  Vito was sitting there and profusely apologized for the man's behavior and demeanor and informed me that man shouldn't even have been up here at the store, he is a yard worked and belongs - in the yard.  Vito then stated that he had forgotten to discuss with the general manager this guy's attitude.  Well, we talked about that for a while, but got lost in the discussion of a P.O. (purchase order) that was skewed. I had to call our salesman a couple of times to clarify things that  - our salesman had not made clear and I wanted clear before getting stuff from this company. They have a no-return policy with us.  We buy something, we own it forever.

When I was leaving, Vito got up and went in and started discussing - rather loudly and door opened - the event that had transpired earlier in the week.

This isn't just something I am writing about concerning a particular thing that happened - though I frequently do that.  This is also to describe how truck drivers are treated at many places.  At many warehouses and DC's and such where drivers have to deliver, you are treated as nothing more than a number.  You are a piece of dirt, in umpire's terminology.  Many of the people running these places have no respect for drivers and could care less how disrespectfully they speak to drivers.  It's quite amazing to stand there and listen to some of it.

I am not "just" a truck driver.  I am a representative of our company and I am involved with just about every detail of running a store, when I go into a place such as the place I was at in this story, I am a customer and I demand to be treated like one.  When I see long haul drivers coming into places like this and being treated rudely, I almost always speak up.  I have gotten into altercations with arrogant, obnoxious, self-aggrandizing idiots that have a title in these places and have gone to their management to complain about how they are treating drivers.

Eventually, reform to the trucking industry will be forced upon it.  The hours; the wages; the disrespect.  All of it.  As I have stated several times in the past: the newer generation is generally not interested in the trucking industry.  They do not want to spend their lives out on the road and they do not like the pay.   If they knew how they were going to be treated out there, that would only add to the list. The over-regulation of this industry is so grand, it is amazing any of us drivers can actually drive without getting into trouble at every turn, it is not possible for humans to meet the over-bearing amount of regulation without violating some of it at any given time.  We aren't walking computers or robots.  It will eventually come to a head.  There will be, at some point in time that I cannot predict but I can tell you it's definitely coming, a shortage so severe in the trucking industry that at some point, news media coverage will become much more intense about it and the public outcry will emanate so loudly that Congress will have to force the FMCSA to reduce it's extremely severe restrictions on drivers.

They are enacting even MORE HOS crap on drivers (hours of service) to the point that the trucking industry outcry was enough for a petition to halt the implementation of it for at least 3 months while they decide whether this new regulation, on top of new HOS regulations ALREADY put into place, is really going to do any good - at all.

But the sticking point? When the public has to pay so much at the furniture store; the grocery store; the whatever store because the costs of transporting the goods  there have skyrocketed because of the extreme shortage of "qualified" drivers, THEN and only then will this issue be crammed down Congress throats.  Well, if truck drivers could ever truly unite and simply stop driving for a week, oh myyyy.  What would happen then?  But drivers are hugely divided group of people and coming together even on something that would benefit the entire industry?  Probably not going to happen.  So, I leave it to the statistics that show the younger generation is generally disinterested in trucking as a career and the ensuing chaos it will have on the transportation of nearly everything that is grown, produced/manufacture or shipped into this country in getting goods from point A to point B.  When the older generation that is the current majority of drivers all retire?  Yeah, good luck!

Dorrie

I just found out today on visiting her Facebook page that she was involved in an airplane crash.  Her last entry was how excited she was to go back to CA to see her folks.  Someone posted a short news blip of the crash - it shows the plane.  How anyone survived through that I don't know, the nose end of the thing is totally trashed.

Dorrie is such a sweet, energetic, personable, caring and loving person, the things that happen to good people in life just are confounding sometimes.  She just entered retirement, what, a few years ago at most?

Dear Father God in Heaven: I life Dorrie up to you.  You know her intimately.  You know the condition her body is in right now.  You are the giver of life and you are the Creator.  You are the Healer and you are able to fix those things that happen to your creation.  I pray your healing hand washes over her brain and all those things that have been damaged in that accident.  I ask that you restore her fully back to the life she knew before this accident.

Your will be done.

Thank you Lord, in Jesus name.

Amen.

ben

Saturday

As a certain tenant promised last week, he (did not) delivered on his promise of $100 to be paid weekly until it's all caught up.
No, he didn't pay a dime actually but he did, at least, communicate with me that he had a sit down with the director of whatever at where he works who reinstated his hours.  They had done a department-wide cut of hours after a new director came in to take the old director's place.

This is what I was told anyway.

Apparently feeling my angst about this situation, he came out of his room a while later and informed me he was going to go out front and continue where I left off in pulling weeds and grass.  I have most of the weeds pulled, some small ones left.  The grass is an on-going problem of which I have devised a solution to.  It will mean a trip to Whitfill's to get even more of the ground covering plants that I already have out there.  Those plants grow thick and will drown out any grass systems/roots that are in place.  The plant puts out a lovely yellow or white flower and looks pretty good.  Much better than a bunch of unwanted grass, that's for sure.

Thanks to my neighbors and their refusal to deal with their grass problem which eventually spread to my property.  I pulled it and pulled it and pulled it but it finally won out.  The only thing to do is plant something else that will drown all of it out.

I will give the tenant his due: he did quite a lot of work out there.  However, that does not take the place of money: I made no concessions for partial rent for work, I already have that with Mark and Lynnette and cannot afford that kind of situation with anyone else.

Whatever.

My dead-looking ficus trees - I have several small ones and 2 that are about 9 feet tall - are showing signs of life.  Well, there are 6 of them that look completely dead. But I have been watering them and finally, today, saw some very tiny, green buds coming out of what would otherwise be described as a small, dead tree with dead leaves still on it.  Come Christmas?  I am going to buy enough C-9 Christmas lights - well C-7's work and they are a bit cheaper - anyway - to cover all the plants that I now know will suffer dramatically in a freeze/frost situation.  Wrap lights around the plants that won't survive and cover them with sheets and they  will do nicely.  The lights give off heat is the point and covered up they apparently do enough to keep the frost from setting in as I have tried that in the past and it has worked.

So, the property is coming back to life, Spring is basically here for all intents and purposes (was 89 for a high here today) - though it is possible that another cold front could come back through before Spring officially here.  The eloquent weather forecasters declared a few days ago that we are 20 degrees higher than what our normal temps should be for this time of year.

Well, my version of a short entry.  I am going to bed.  Yup, even on a Saturday night?  I go to bed early.  Just a good habit to stay in if one wants to be able to get up on Monday without feeling - very out of it.  OH, and speaking of work, I am getting my 2 days off this coming week. My plan is to go up north for a couple of days - well 2 nights so 3 days - but I never put that in "concrete/stone".  Plans can always change : )

ben

Well, amazingly enough, this lady that came over with my tenant and his girlfriend last night?  Used to go to a church called Gospel Echoes and knew about a church I used to go to.  It was an interesting visit and if nothing else, everyone loved my slow-cooked pork ribs : )

However, during all of this last night, I had "opportunity" to see 350 man standing out in front of his house, gabbing with his lady neighbor on the west side of him.  The man has "power of persuasion" and has people in this neighborhood fooled into thinking what wonderful person he is.  I could really care less, to be honest, what other neighbors think of him or me, but I am not going to tolerate this guy just walking into my backyard for whatever reason.

So I went down there, stood on the sidewalk right in front of his house and let him know how I felt about him entering my property.  He denied it, threatened to kick my @$$, and I invited him to do so.  He was trying to lure me onto his property, which obviously I was not going to do.  I simply stood there, informed him that I was not afraid of him and if he wanted to follow through on his threat, there I was.

Instead, he told his lady friend to call the police, which she did.  No worries to me, I went home, got out the copy of the restraining order - expired but enough regardless - went back outside when I saw the police down there.  They were not, as it turned out, even going to come talk to me.  I don't know if that's because there are "notes" about this situation in their system or what, I didn't ask that question.  The officer was disinterested - but told me I should probably get another one of those orders against this guy.

That didn't take long at all, amazingly enough.  Whatever the case, came back inside, finished the dinner with everyone and that was that.  They all left, George, the tenant, was going over to his girlfriend's house and the lady I was visiting with also lives there temporarily.

Friday.  Yesterday was a rather long day at work, but only because things have slowed down considerably.  It has been the same across the board for all of our region's branches - I can tell that looking by their sales numbers for the month, not to mention when I go downtown, at least one driver is there begging for something to do.

Which invokes the "time to leave for work" excuse.  It is, literally, time to go to work!

G'day.

ben

350 Man

A couple of days ago, I came home from work only to be informed by Mark that I had left the east gate open the night before and the dogs got out the next morning.

I flatly denied that possibility, even though I am the only one that uses that gate.  I make quite sure that gate is closed when going through it every single time.  Mark was all shaking his head and saying no, you must have done it.

No, I did not.

Fast forward to last night.  4 loud bangs on my door at around 10:30 pm.  Woke me right up out of a nice dream. Whatever it was, I was never to return to it, that's for sure.  Went out and heard a conversation going on between Lynnette and someone else about 350 man and then informed me Mark was outside, the person that had banged on my door.  JD was also out there.

Turns out that 350 man had entered my back yard through the west gate.  WHAT he was doing there, I have no idea, Mark had gone out to find out who was there and apparently 350 man had walked around the other side of the house, through the east gate, through my front yard and then was finally seen by Mark walking back to his house.

Mark started arguing with Lynnette about him actually having had been in the back yard, he must have only been out front.  No, she stated because she heard someone walking along the side of the house where the east gate is.  Pretty easy to hear, makes a crunching sound walking on the decorative landscaping rock and their window is right there.  Since their window was opened, she heard him walking through there.

I admittedly became enraged and marched down to this freak's house. His blinds were drawn on the sides of the house, but you could see right through the front window.  I did not, however, go on his property.  But I did yell loud enough to get the attention - of the entire neighborhood I am guessing.  The "man" did not come out of his house.  This is the answer to the gate dilemma.  What befuddles me is that fact that this guy is walking into my back yard with seeming impunity.

He knows I am armed and since he has threatened to have me killed in the past and since this guy is so big, I would have no other choice but to shoot him if he decided to go after me in my own back yard.  Further the complication that I have already had a restraining order against him. What is this guy doing back there and  does he not even have a tinge of fear of the homeowner, me, who already does not like him?

   I didn't call the police.  They aren't going to do anything, as I have found before when I have called them concerning this man's lunacy.  If you want to protect yourself and your property, you are pretty much charged with the "do-it-yourself" method.  If that guy thinks he's going to come into my house.  Well, no point in going there with this.  Of course, if I catch the man in my backyard, the police will have no choice but to do something about it as I will hold him there until police arrive.

As for my vacation days, completely changing the subject, I found out that I am not getting today and tomorrow off, instead it will be next week.  I was, frankly, looking forward to this weekend being the 4 day weekend that I had asked for.  The problem is I asked for this time off and didn't know I didn't have it off until a few days ago.  Everything I had heard told me that I would have Thursday and Friday off this week.

Whatever.  Blind date tonight.  Not really a date, more like a sit down at my kitchen table and eat dinner with this lady and my tenant and his girlfriend.  Sort of a date I guess - but not going out anywhere.  I have no expectations and if I don't like what I see or if she doesn't like what she sees, oh well, no biggies.  In fact, I haven't really been looking except for Christian Mingle site online.

More, yes, but no time to go into things now.  Have to leave for work in a few minutes.

I have been weaning myself of my son's presence for quite some time now.
Not because I don't love or like my son, but it's only natural that sooner or later, he is going to depart on some adventure in life.  He is going to go out and find his own way.

So, the news that he is going to spend a year in Hawaii didn't come as a shock to me.  It's a Salvation Army training place, I think, and it raises up young men in discipleship in the Lord.  I know, you think they are going to be on the beach and catching waves and I am sure on their off time they probably do do some of that, but that's not what it's about at all.

Regardless, this is what he has chosen to do and in whatever he does, I will support him.  Well, if he was a drug addict and selling meth I would support him in finding help, lol.  But, he's leaving in September as long as he is approved by the administration and he will be gone for an entire year.  I will definitely miss him, but I do not need to "brace" myself, I have been mentally preparing myself for this time for some time to come.

His mother?  Dunno. Probably ain't gonna like it.  At least not the separation.  She's used to having him around half the week.

But whatever.

I came home from work today to find 3 items of furniture from my son's room out on the driveway.  No idea.  He is, after asking, transforming his room to a more adult theme.  Not sexual, lol, but just away from the "kid" type of stuff to an organized, nice looking room. We were having a discussion when offered this: "then after I leave, if you want to, you can rent the room to someone".

It took me tenth of a second of thinking, if that and I replied: no, I won't be doing that.  Even if he never comes back, I would like to have some sort of guest room.  Not a rental room, but a place for any guest that might come to visit.  And of course, a place for him if/when he comes back.

The end.  Gotta git to bed!

ben

Hummingbirds!

There be HUMMINGBIRDS, Captain!  Star Trek, Engineer Scott on a Klingon ship that has traveled back in time to acquire 2 Humpback Whales to save the Earth from a giant probe in orbit that is wreaking havoc upon the earth.

Of course, I changed it from whales to hummingbirds.

There are still 2 of them in that little nest!
And they have outgrown that nest!
The only good thing about the situation is that it is pretty cool out there, those 2 bodies smashed against each other should be helping to keep them warm.
I'll take a video of them today or tomorrow.

College tenant just came and handed me $100.
That was definitely not what I expected.
I expected at least $300, considering how far behind he's gotten.
His "plan" is go give me $100 per week until caught up.

That will take a while.

I intend on keeping after him about it.

He might be able to find cheaper rent somewhere else - but - he won't get internet for free and he will have to pay a percentage of the monthly electric bill. That's what most if not all of the cheaper rent rates are doing.  It sounds like a good deal until you add up the extra expenses and then - you have a total bill that exceeds what I am charging and is usually not as large of a room.  Many of the rooms I see posted on Craigslist at cheap rates are 10x10 or 10x9, the room he is in is 11x13.

And then you see the following, as copied and pasted from various ads:
No overnight guests preferably, no drugs, confidentiality.

 Rent is $375.00 a month plus 1/4 of utilities. Utilities include electric, city water, bottled water, gas, trash, Cox tv, and Internet

Asking $550 rent plus $200 deposit and we split utilities

Just a sampling from 3 different ads.

Well whatever.