Walaah.
I got a call today from soon to be ex-landlord. New property
owners said I could stay til' Sunday to get my stuff out of  here.
Were they being nice or did they contact the Realtor to find out
their rights? I hope the former and that they are being nice to let
me have the time I need to get everything accomplished.  I was
over at my potential new place today - the bedroom is awesome.
It's huge with a HUGE private bathroom and a very large walk-in
closet.  I find out Saturday about whether these people will actually
rent to me.

I have a bad feeling about it, to be honest.  Yes, Val got this going,
but I didn't realize that this is a much younger couple with a newborn
baby. The baby doesn't scare me, the younger couple part does.
Simply because that age realm usually likes to hang out with - the
same age realm, not a much older person.  I had my hopes up about
this place, now I don't know.  I guess I better start looking again
in case this falls through.

Early to work today, normal time getting off, busted @$$ all day
long. Felt good.  Same thing tomorrow, at least about starting
early, I was informed as delivery to be made at a place that is
1-1/2 hour drive and delivery needs to be there by 8.  Well, I'm
going to show up at 6:30 and if it gets there by 8, wonderful, if
not, oh well.  

Fallout,

Roller coasters go up and down.

And around.

Some of them go upside down - several times and then around and up and down.

Imagine being on one all the time and never getting off of it.

Regardless, intended move date is Friday.  Actually, I can't move into new

place until I meet the husband of the lady that offered the room.  He has

been out of town and won't be returning until late Friday night.  Which means 

I don't get to meet him til' Saturday - but - I have to be out of this place no 

later than Friday.

Actually, they tried to change the move-out date to Thursday/tomorrow to

which I refused.  They didn't even give me 30 days notice to move, which is

required by law if I wanted to be a stickler about it and then they gave me 

Friday as a "no-later-than" move out date and then at the last minute attempting

to tell me I have to be out Thursday?  No thank you.  The current owner said

okay then, I'll just let them know.  

I then found out she didn't even ask them if I could stay as a renter or not.

She had told me on a couple of occasions that she would.  Perhaps I will meet

the new owners on Friday since it will close and usually new owners want to 

move in right away - I know Val is planning on the same thing as soon as she

can get on her new property.  But it isn't her property until her house closes,

the money is transferred to all the intended recipients and her house is officially

owned by someone else and her new house is officially owned by - her.  Back 

to the subject, if, by some remote chance, the new owners would let me stay,

moving becomes a moot point.  I would love to stay right where I am at.  

Regardless, I have a new place to live - potentially anyway it's not set in 

stone yet - and it's 15 miles closer to work.  It's 15 miles further away from

church but the loss of miles to work far outweighs many other factors.  At

least for the time being anyway.  There are other factors that may present 

themselves in the not-so-distant future but I refrain from going into that right

now since nothing is definitive yet.

Now - is just a waiting game.  Packing is almost complete, I am in a small

place and I don't have a lot over here.  In fact, the furniture belong entirely

to Val as she set this place up before I came to town.  It is all going back to

her place as intended new living arrangements is fully furnished and no need

for anything at all from what I know.  I need to call that lady today and make

sure we are still on that course.  It's "all but guaranteed" that I can move in, 

the husband thinks he should meet me first even if there are no reservations at

all about it.

I don't blame him. They didn't advertise their room for rent, the former renter

moved to another town.  They "didn't want just anyone" moving into their

home.  I've been doing that for years with my house in Phoenix, but it is a

 totally different story over there.  It's a come what may situation and if whoever

comes doesn't work, they are summarily removed - legally of course - but

they are given the boot.  It takes a truly rotten person for it not to work over

there.  And yes, I have had some truly rotten people in there.  

German Wing Airplane that crashed into the French Alps.  I have a love affair

with flying, even though I will never be a pilot though in the last 2 years I have

been able to get on some commercial jets and get some passenger time in - 

crammed to the gills situations which I was not accustomed to but whatever.

I have watched probably every episode of Air Crash Disaster and Mayhem

and I think there's another one.  Which doesn't make me afraid of flying, 

much to the contrary, the shows give glimpses of different aspects of how

commercial jets work as they delve into the specifics of why any particular 

airplane crashed.  This latest one has been described as a debris field of no

more than 2 football fields wide - which means to me the thing came straight

down and explains why one official said everything is "pulverized".  

I feel for the families/loved ones of the deceased as no-one survived, but still

it is a fascinating subject.  The reasons for these crashes vary greatly.  The

last episode I watched was of a plane that got into the draft of a jumbo jet

ahead of it.  The pilot punched the aileron pedal to the left, then the right,

then the left, then the right and then the left again.  Or the other way around,

I don't remember, but there were 5 hard inputs that the aircraft was not designed

to be able to hand, which led to parts of the aircraft breaking off and the aircraft

plummeting into the ground.  Turns out the carrier had trained the pilots that this

was an acceptable method of attempting to correct an aircraft and bring it back

to level flight. Not until after that crash and investigators eventually found out

what caused the crash that it became known that that is NOT an acceptable

means to correct the aircraft.

Simply saying that there are so many things that could go wrong after watching

so many of these investigations that speculation usually doesn't do much of anything

but feed the news medias headlines to keep it of interest to the general public.  And 

attempt to allay fears that there is something inherently wrong with that aircraft - or

conversely - attempt to show that the aircraft is a dangerous piece of junk flying

through the air as was the case with the DC-10 and it's numerous crashes back 

in the - 80"s? 70's? don't remember.  

Enough.  

I was going to meet up with two people today to look at rooms they had for rent.  One texted me and said a person that had viewed the room previously had decided to take the room and was going to pay her tonight.  The other - I drove clear out there at previously agreed time and find out the dude is still at work and won't be home until 8:00 pm - we were to meet at 6:00.  Kinda pissed me off he didn't bother to contact me about that.

I've been spending more time than I care to admit to try and find a new place to live and am not coming up with anything good.  There was a duplex that sounded good - until I got there and saw this trashed out looking dump that I would never even think of living in.  I've looked at apartments, duplexes, rooms, whatever.  One place has an RV for rent but it's $475 per month.  That's pretty pricey for an old RV, even if it is in good condition.  There are not a lot of options out here, not like Phoenix.

Got on the 4 wheeler today and took a ride around the property.  No-one was there, I beat them home from wherever they were at.  It's really a beautiful piece of land.  I drove to an area of thick trees and sat there.  Quiet, beautiful, serene.  That is until a yellow 4 wheeler came zooming up with Nathan on it.  Hadn't seen the kids since Sunday.  We talked for a while until a very loud voice yelled out: Nathanael!!!!! from up above.  Ummm, Nathan, did you ask if you could go for a ride?  No.  Ohhhh, I think you're in trouble.  But, he's always in trouble so he doesn't really care that much.

I have too much going on and taking a ride to get some peace was good.  More of that is necessary for me.  Alone, away from people and all the noise and chaos.

Work pretty much blowing up.  Young driver went into our manager today and "informed" him that another driver is lazy and doesn't do anything.  The manager looked at him and said, "well isn't that kinda like the pot calling the kettle black?".  The kid driver goes around bashing everyone behind their back, yes he's the worse employee there. These new devices they dumped on us show everything.  I mean everything.  Where you are at. The entire route you have taken. If you stopped somewhere, it shows where you stopped and how long you were there.  They were looking at a route he took last week.  He was going 100 MILES out of the way to get to a job site. Why? Because he wants to drag out his runs and make sure he doesn't get back too quick.

He has made enemies out of the rest of the drivers.  On another front, the receptionist was cussed out by purchasing agent. She - the receptionist - is not a person you want to mess with and this "man" is going to find that out.  She stopped him in mid sentence - on the phone that is - and told him ... I don't know who the f*** you think you are talking to, but this ain't going to fly with me.  It's the most poorly run operation in terms of tolerance for unbelievable verbal abuse that I have ever seen.  And even more going on over there that I won't bother going into because I don't feel like it and it's getting late.

I mean, I drove over to that area to meet that guy and see the room and he was held up.  I went to the property and rode my 4 wheeler waiting for Val/kids to get home. Then we did my taxes.  That took an hour and a half.  $1,600 coming back, so I ain't going to complain but I am extremely tired and it's time to go to bed.

G'nite.

So, I'm at work today. It's pouring rain starting early this morning.  I mean, there are 4 drivers standing around doing nothing.  The rain has been going on for quite a long time now, it has hit our business hard.  Hours cut back for drivers - from 50 per week to 45. Gonna hit hard the first paycheck that sees that kind of hour cut.  I came out here expecting 50 hours of work per week because that is what I was promised.

Anyway, I'm standing in the shed - they call it a shed it's a very large metal building used for material storage. Pretty much when there's nothing to do we go out there and hang out.  Eddie - another driver - comes walking out from the building across the way yelling my name. Ben!!! Ben!!! He gets close enough to respond without yelling and I'm like - what?  Why the hell didn't you tell us?  Why didn't I tell you WHAT?!!
What the bleep are you talking about?

These new phones! You knew what they could do and you didn't tell any of us about it!  He starts telling me he had a friend technician take a look at it.  Well that's heavier than a phone and that ain't no phone.  Nope, I said, it isn't a phone.  It has phone capabilities but it's far from a phone.  It is Big Brother.  These things are the newest generation of delivery tracking devices such as you see FedEx or UPS using - but it's smaller than an Iphone and is all touch screen.  The first time I looked at it I told them - management - what I thought about such technology being used "against" it's own personnel.

They can listen to your phone conversations, see every text message, see where you are at anywhere at anytime. But this thing can be used to remotely listen to your private conversations.  Both the microphone and the camera can be turned on remotely.  It can be turned on remotely AND you, the driver, won't know it's watching and listening to you.  I spoke my extreme resistance to the thing and told management I would be bundling the thing in a towel so it can see or hear NOTHING of my private life inside a truck.  They don't NEED to know that.  Humanity has survived - forever - without such s*** and can go on without it.

How did I know the thing could do that? I didn't know, I just knew.  Technology is going too far.  It is intruding into our personal lives and taking over society.  Some of it was good in the beginning, but it is going to far.  Scientists are attempting to devise a system that literally reads your mind.  Do you really want that? Because if they persist, I believe they will eventually get it.  How far do we let this stuff go before we say gee, this isn't such a great idea after  all?  I grew up without all of this stuff and life was grand.

How Eddie knew I knew I have no idea.  I didn't ask him as the conversation went directly into what this thing's capabilities are.  You don't spend the kind of money the company spent on it for something that doesn't give them the information they are looking for.  Data and research be damned, this world is going to hell and technology is making it happen much faster.  But then again, the Bible speaks of such.

It is no secret the advancement of technology. Police cars can be equipped with readers. The car is parked facing traffic with this reader reading license plates. Traffic tickets are mailed and all kinds of information is acquired.  It's outrageous. I don't care what "good" they affix to it, it's total bulls***. Just like when police want to search your car or home.  What do you have to hide? When you tell them no, which I have done. I have nothing to hide, I have everything to resist.  You have no right to search anything unless you have probable cause and nowadays, that is a slippery slope. A lot of "probable cause" issues that have come before courts have been tossed when the facts come out and it's established there WAS no probable cause.

The conversation in the shed ended with gee, yes, if you don't want them to hear your personal conversations or be able to video record what you are doing, take that freaking thing and wrap it up to the point it can see or hear nothing.

Driver's license renewal.
Gag.
I was first told that I had to make an appointment in both Texas and Arizona  to do any CDL transactions.
In other words, to show up at a drivers license office, I had to make an appointment in either state.
The lady I finally spoke with, however, contradicted that. No honey, you just show up here with proper
credentials and we will get it done.
Arizona? Found on their website two locations that don't need an appointment, one of them a place I have been going to for a long, long time anyway.

The dilemma is simply that my commercial driver's license is about to expire.  To renew it in Texas I need a birth certificate, which I don't have since I never replaced it after my house burned down some years ago and almost everything in the house burned up with it.

To get a Texas CDL, I need proof of residency. To get proof of residency, I have to register my vehicle.  To register my vehicle, I have to have an inspection done on the car.  Etc etc etc.  Yes, I am going to try doing all of that, register the car, already have a new birth certificate ordered, have the rest of the documentation but in the end?  I may have to end up flying back to Arizona to get this done.

The worst part of all of this is this is a complete oversight on my part.  I should have seen this coming and started this process LONG ago.  But I didn't even realize my license was going to expire until last week when my company sent my manager a notification that it is about to expire and it needs to be renewed and sent into corporate.  I'll give my company credit for catching this in time for me to have enough time - hopefully - to get this resolved.

It's fairly stressful since my livelihood depends on that license.

Oh well.