Well, stuck in Brownsville. How long, I don't know. I figured it a good sign yesterday when I saw 3 of our trucks heading up from here - and only an hour and a half away.  I thought - no way is there any trailers down there now with that many just freshly removed from their yard.  I was right, fortunately, so now I get to sit on the detention clock.  At a hotel, but of my own purchase.  They changed their deal down here, you only get a hotel if you stay a second night.  I wasn't feeling too good - 2 hours sleep and still getting over this bug - so I decided to take a stay at the America's Best Value Inn.

It's actually a decent hotel for the money. I've stayed here before on my own dime. But now, they've changed out all the bathroom fixtures from old rusty junk to new, modern looking outlets and valve handles. They replaced the entire bath tub/stall and the toilet.  The furniture in this room has degraded a bit - people obviously dumping food (or whatever) onto the couch and the chairs. That all needs a good shampooing.  But, everything else was great and I slept very nicely.

It's still early tho, I had thought about heading over to the yard and seeing if they know when/if a trailer is coming in. The dude usually has a pretty good ball park estimate.  Not always, but usually close.  The border situation hasn't gotten any better, so trucks are stuck in line for up to 10 hours at a time.

Meanwhile, the national tragedy that is known as the House of Representatives continues on with this ridiculous nonsense of seeking to find some criminal wrong doing with Trump so they can get rid of him. They aren't doing their duly elected jobs.  There have been 4 investigations now, FOUR of them, into Trump and whether he colluded with the Russians - all of them have resoundingly stated no, he did not.  Anything Trump says or does, the left calls him engaging in an act of obstruction now.  It's mind bogglingly outrageous. Thankfully, we have an AG named Barr who is going to get to the bottom of who/what/where/why this all started and I can predict it will go very high into the Obama administration.

Taylor - has been out of sorts ever since the uncle left.  I think she is seriously thinking about moving to Missouri.  I don't know what to think about that.  This is her favorite uncle and he's inviting her up there.  I think I'm just baggage that will probably need to go away and find something/somewhere else if that occurs.  Like go live on a beach or find a place in the mountains.  I just don't think I'd fit in in with that guy.  We didn't exactly clash at first, but I could tell there would be some tension.  Who knows? Would be a rather awkward move, I think.  It isn't anything on the near horizon - yet.   But, when Taylor gets something in to her mind, it is likely going to happen.  I'm just wait this out and see what happens.  The uncle invited her to come up and spend a few days visiting up there. If she does that, I'm 100% certain she'll come back wanting to move.  Just another bridge to cross in the game of life...would I move up there or just find something else to do?

After 4 Oklahoma runs in a row, the drought is over.  At least for one run. I have a run down to Brownsville.  This particular run would really be nice if there was some detention pay to make up for all of this nonsense of driving back and forth to Barnsdall and not making much money doing it.

Another plus side to not having had to go to Barnsdall today? Tornadoes and flooded roads. To the point the manager put out a mass text to everyone informing drivers that are going up there to use highway 123 - coming out of Bartlesville.  I used to take that route when I'd hang out overnight in Bartlesville instead of going to Barnsdall - where there is literally nothing but a small gas station and a restaurant that closes early. The roadway apparently was flooded on highway 11. 

And, that restaurant isn't open on Sundays, I found out on Sunday when I got up a bit early to go over and get a bite to eat.  Didn't really matter, that is the time I was starting to feel pangs of sickness which exploded on the way home and now - finally starting to feel better. 

Ahhh and watching the news there were 20 tornadoes that touched down overnight in various places and the tornado threat is still going - and some in Oklahoma of course.  I either got very lucky in not going up there or God is watching over me.  I'll take the latter.

I haven't checked the weather towards Brownsville. Not usually tornadoes going down there, but a lot of heavy rain is possible.  Uhh, yeah, I'm going to hit rain but if the radar is correct, it won't be anything too serious.  I'll hope the radar is correct - last time I hit heavy rain, well, Houston was a disaster. 

And with that, I'm outta here. 

4th consecutive Oklahoma run over.  Started feeling really bad a few hours out from the yard yesterday tho. I mean, like pull over in a rest area and sleep for 35 minutes bad.  Even after that it was a chore to make it back, get the end game paperwork done for the run and get home.  But I made it home, dogs in tow, and went to bed at 6:00 pm.  On the way into my bedroom, tho, I was informed that there was stomach bug going around.  That kinda of spoke to why I wasn't hungry.  12 hours of sleep later and I feel much better. 

Hopefully this passes completely before the day is over.  Tho, the schedule  - which is allegedly for the plant employees only to see (sitting in plain view of drivers that have to go in there and wait) - and now is sitting on the table on our office -shows not much work available for the next couple of days.  Of course, there are Barnsdall, Oklahoma runs on there, but there are always the Brownsville runs as well.  I'm still questioning this idea that it's "first in first out" nonsense and even if true, it's ridiculous that one person or even more than one could get stuck on runs that don't pay anything. 

Either way, the process is totally flawed. 

An idea that has been floating around in the back of my head for  a while now is simply to switch over to the fuel division of this company. But that would mean driving to Shreveport back and forth everyday - which I used to do with the old job - I don't miss that kind of wasted driving just to get to and from work.  And another idea - drive for Gemini, who supplies the Love's travel centers with fuel.  They run a class act from what I've seen and the drivers are making around 75k per year.  And, they're home every day.  I dunno if they'll hire without specific experience in fuel hauling tho.  They're also pretty far away for a daily commute type of thing. 

Much of the rest of the local stuff around here doesn't pay enough money to make it worth switching over to. Such as the oil job that pays $13.00 per hour!  Lmao, they guy tried to convince me that I could make "good money" simply by doing a LOT of overtime!  SCREW THAT. But, that's a taste of what the local jobs are paying around here. The really lucrative business of hauling for fracking operations means you are automatically out for 3 weeks at a time.  Staring out at 120k was temping until I found out that little piece of info.

Today? no plans whatsoever.  Sit around and get better. 

Look at boats lol.  Lots of them on there, all of the ones that catch my interest well out of my price range.  Plenty of stuff to do - always - no interest in any of it. 

Tornadoes at the town where I live.  Well, several tornado sirens, whether there were any tornados, I have no idea, but I was certainly getting people texting me about the sirens.  They went off 3 separate times plus phones being blown up with weather alerts.  No doubt about it, not the most pleasant place to live at certain times of the year, especially people that get very anxious about tornadoes, the sirens – they are a bit intimidating but they are designed for that and all the warnings that blow up your phone.

I’m not there.  In fact, all the recent tornado warning events? I’ve been out of town.  I did drive throw some seriously heavy rain earlier, but I drove on out of it.  It wasn’t a big deal tho, hardly any traffic on the road anywhere I was driving, even through the towns.  People apparently decided that on  a Saturday and with the weather? Stay home.  Fine by me!

I’m on the Barnsdall run for the 4^th consecutive trip.  I don’t actually hate the drive or whatever up here, I just hate the lack of money involved with this run because of lack of mileage. 

Anyway, driving up here? I saw 4 of our trucks heading back down – and I mean late in the day.  That wasn’t a good sign.  They can only use so much ethylene in their production.  I looked at the loading schedule – I take a photo of it every week now from the plant to see what is going where - one of those trucks would have had to been up here for 2 days.  Huh?  

Well I got up here and saw 2 of the 3 loading spots with trailers on them - meaning they are full and waiting to be unloaded.  The question is: do we get paid for waiting outside the plant when they don't have an empty trailer available?  I have no idea.  Everything has changed with this merger and I haven't had to do any wait time up here since before that merger, no clue.  My manager is off for the weekend and I'm not going to bother with this other individual running the show.  I doubt she would know, but it's not that important to me to find out tonight anyway. 

And, my bedroom is occupied again, lol.  The grandma is sleeping in there - I did offer since I am on the road tonight.  

No boats of interest yet in either FB marketplace or craigslist.  Well, there are certainly a lot of very nice units advertised, but will out of the price range I am looking for..

G'nite.

So the Barnsdall saga continues.  It will be my 4th trip up there in a row.  There were 2 brownsville runs available today and I think 3 of these worthless Barnsdall runs.  My manager stopped responding a few days and now has taken the entire weekend off, shifting this onto another dispatcher.  Wasn't worth trying to start talking this conflict with a person that has no involvement with it, so I just said thanks, have a great day after this person sent me the run. 

There is no way in hell that I just "happened:" to come in at the time that it would set me up for 4 Barnsdall runs 4 times in a row.  I don't know what the odds of that realistically happening per chance, but I'm sure it's quite high.  She does this with other drivers as well.  Now she can shirk responsibility - but note that she assigned these weekend routes, that wasn't done by the other dispatcher, the other dispatcher just sent them out via text. 

I'm beginning to get highly annoyed with this situation. 

Meanwhile, these people that installed the bathroom cabinet with sink in my bathroom did a lousy job of it. The simple plumbing set up is leaking, I don't know how long.  The set up they used for the pipes is ridiculous and dumb.  I'm going to have to change it when I get back from this run.  It didn't ruin the wood inside the cabinet - but I don't use that sink all that often so it's really no indicator of how long it's been leaking, but it shouldn't have been leaking at all.  I can only say that I only used them for that, after hearing that the main guy is an ex felon and has been stealing from my neighbors, I quit using him and ignored his text messages. 

The house has more guests. This time, a surprise visit for one of the grandmas.  The grandmas and uncle were heading to Missouri, but they had planned this over a month ago.  Bring grandma here to see the youngest son and visit for a couple of days.  She was totally surprised.  I offered my room - tho honestly I didn't feel like giving it up again after just being out of it for 5 days with her dad here.  But, they worked it out differently and I was fine with that. The uncle didn't want to stay here, he went to a local hotel to get some sleep and the grandma and Taylor stayed in the master bedroom and James stayed in the living room - James is at work now. 

She can have my bedroom tonight, tho, since I won't be here.  But, they were talking last night.  The uncle just moved from California to Missouri - and as usual for those scenarios, he's basically rich from selling an overpriced home over there and buying up property in Missouri.  He only bought 10 acres tho.  I mean, if I'm buying acreage, my desire would be at least 50 acres, but at least 25 as bare minimum.  Anyway, Taylor now wants to move to Missouri.

She looks at me,, do you want to move to Missouri?  Lol, I dunno.  I'd have to find a new job.  Not that that would be such a bad thing with what's going on here at this job anyway.  This manager is making a lot of people unhappy because she is totally incompetent.  If she really doesn't understand that what she's doing is totally unfair - handing out "first in first out" - then that just adds to the idea she has no clue what she's doing.  None, whatsoever, and word is back from other divisions that they don't do it like that.  Of course they don't, not if you want to have driver rentention.

Anyway, I travel through Missouri frequently enough. It's got some natural beauty to it.  I don't really have anything holding me here, or anywhere for that matter.  I dunno what Maria would do tho.  Taylor wants to take a vacation up there this year to see if it's anything she would want to get into.  Almost guaranteed she'd move, tho most of her friends live in these parts.  Last time they moved to Georgia and were terribly missing this place. 

I'll just let that one sit in the back of my head for a while. If I ever get out of this Barnsdall run and back up through Missouri I'll take a more realistic look at the area.  Lots of trees and some mountain areas i think.  The only thing I know is, I don't want to move to any big cities.  If they were to do that, I'd be parting ways.  The area where the uncle moved to is a very small town and the biggest town I think is St. Louis - 200 plus miles away.  So, a situation like that would have a drawback of having to drive a long way to get to an airport.  And who knows what job opportunities are up there. I don't really want to live with the uncle, either.  I don't know him at all and that's really nothing that interests me.  I like the living arrangement we have now - but we all no nothing lasts forever.  Been here, done that, things always change. 

So, moving on, I have a run today. Late start, 1:30 pm load appointment.  That puts me out very late to getting back down to Grant, OK.  I doubt I'll make it.  Depends on how I feel, really, but driving late into the night isn't my first choice, not when there is no need for the trailer back tomorrow anyway.  Maybe I'll last til 11 or midnight?  If i can make it back at least as far as the service plaza in McAlester, Ok, that would probably suffice.

Well, off to breakfast and other things before I leave.

G'day.

So, after itching and scratching and getting fleas off of me all night last night, both Adler and Aspyn have ingested $150 worth of flea pills to get rid of the damned things!  It's flea season, they're thriving, it just started with them.  Aspyn being the worst - those fleas get under her undercoat? There's no end to the endless scratching and itching.  I mean, pulling out tufts of hair to get at the flea. No, that happened with her yet. In fact, she hadn't even been scratching at all.

But Adler? Biting his flesh all night long and itching and scratching.  I do hope those pills work quickly.  I washed all the bedding in hot water and hopefully not another night of that nonsense.  Whatever. It's $150 well spend, as far as I'm concerned, cause' this only gets worse.  MUCH worse.  You try everything at Tractor Supply and Walmart to get rid of the fleas and guess what? They don't work. Not in this area.  Just nasty stuff.  The dogs got their relief, I'll have mine, over and done with.

I'm finding US and world politics to be particularly entertaining right now. Especially this Iran situation.  Iran says it can destroy our entire fleet out there with a single missile!  HIGHLY  doubtful. And wait until those fighter jets that got off of that carrier before you bombed it get back over to you with their  payload.  They'are talking clean out of their @$$es right now.  They know if they start a war with us, they are going to lose.  We won't need to deploy troops on the ground.  It will all be an air war, we'll take out all their bases and known nuke locations in a matter of a few days and that war will be over. 

And then, we have Dems wanting to put Barr in jail! lmaoooooo  Barr actually went up to Pelosi and asked her if she had her hand cuffs with her!  Lol!  Why is Barr is confident? Because the law is on his side. 

I will project right now that some heads are going to roll, the real Russian Collusion is coming, the people that wanted to take the President down - the anti-Trump FBI, DOJ and all the rest of it - is coming.  I don't know when, I don't care. But it's coming. Barr has his grip on this thing now, the real truth is going to come out and the nation should be shocked when it happens.  The FISA conspiracy will turn into the worst moment in American history.  It won't surprise me if this s*** goes all the way up to Obama.  It's already begun with Comey and Brennan and Clapper going at it.  They're nervous.  They should be.

I'll wait patiently and watch as this all unfolds. If it doesn't take too long, Trump will be vindicated completely before the next election.  I mean, in my view he already has been, but lets get to the nuts and bolts of this situation, get to the bottom of it and get this situation unveiled. Names, who did what, when and the obvious: why.  We  know why.

Back to my little slice of life, a several store hunt for specific bug killing supplies for the other house.  She -  Maria - want diatemacious earth.  Food grade, I found out, because I don't want my dogs around that stuff. Apparently food grade isn't harmful to animals or humans, the other stuff is.

And I "got into it" with my manager again today. She sent me the 3rd run in a row to go to Oklahoma.  It's a low paying trip, no one should have to go there more than twice in a row, I texted her and said fine, I'll do this one but don't send me a 4th one.  I'm not going to go into all of it because it's not worth the time to type all of it.  But, she threatened to "send me somewhere else" to which I informed her it wasn't very professional to threaten your employees with retaliation when they are asking legitimate questions - to which she replied this conversation is over, I"m going to have Tony (whoever the hell that is) take this over. 

It went back and forth, she stopped replying, I will see her tomorrow morning and we can have this conversation in person. 

It's whatever to me.  I'll find another job if I have to, that's the end of that story.  I have an impeccable safety record with this company, that's what matters. They can't use anything against me legitimately, because there's nothing to use.  I get the runs done way faster that most other drivers - which right now counts at least because we have been short on trailers.  I've followed all of their ridiculous rules, if I have a legitimate beef they should be well prepared to hear those grievances and deal with it. Threatening people is outrageous. 

I'm keeping my cool, I can say that. 

So, tomorrow, I "get" to go waste 2 days going on a trip that money-wise counts for one day. 

Whatever the case, my boat search has gone on - and on - and on.  I think I find one and then i read the fine print and say, noooooooo thank you.  25 horsepower motor? no thanks. "Project boat". No thanks.  Doesn't have titles? DEFINITELY NO THANKS. And more.  The titles are for the boat and the trailer.  Oh, I found a pretty good deal today until I got to the part about "bring your own trailer".  No. No. And no.  Boats are sold with the trailers that came with them. If they aren't, the price should reflect that and in every single case I have found? They want full price for the boat.  It's no wonder all of them I have found have been on the market for weeks and months.

I've put this boat search into the same mode I do with cars.  Take as much time as it takes. The only exception was the SUV I'm driving now.  But I know I got a good deal on it and it's in near perfect condition. There are zero dings anyone on the entire body of it.  The paint is perfect.  The interior is very good. Not perfect but very, very good. And I endeavor to keep it that way so I will get a good trade in value. 

Okay. My new grass plugs aren't exactly taking off yet, but there are green blades of grass coming out of them.  For them to die off would mean - well they claim they will replace dead plugs.  I dunno, but the information provided says it takes awhile for them to get going. It's been a few weeks?  The winter rye grass is still alive and looks like green velvet.  I hate that that stuff dies out in summer.  If it would live year round? The easiest, cheapest, most beautiful grass you need. But, the extreme heat is coming and it will definitely die.  It doesn't regrow the next cold season, either, you have to buy more seed and replant all over again.  Ugh. 

Oh! Can y'all tell me what democrats platform is? Beto getting a haircut?  Corey wanting us to become vegans?  Bernie - the rich dude that wants to redistribute wealth - except his own of course?You know, Marxism revisited?  LOL

Have a good evening. 

Well, that trip is over and done with.  I over slept this morning. I was planning on getting back at 8 am but instead it was after 10.  Not an issue with the company, tho, the trailer isn't getting used until tomorrow.  I'm off for what appears to be 3 days including today.  "My" boat was sold before I had a chance to go look at it. I knew it wouldn't last long. All the upholstery was redone on it and it had a 150 horsepower Johnson engine on it.  It was in good shape. Why they were selling it so cheap, who knows.  There's a couple more in there that look good, but they are too far away.  I don't want to drive 300 miles to get a boat.

There is one in Texarcana, but the upholstery is all torn up on it.  Costs a grand to have it redone. They want too much money for the boat. I got them down a grand but when I found out about the upholstery, no thanks.  I might pay 3 grand for it, but no way am I shelling out $4,500 for the thing.  They've had that one up for sale for over a month now.  Doesn't seem probably they're going to sell it for that much to anyone.

Ahhh. Hours later.  The entire family is back.  The refrigerator isn't working and more importantly, the AC went out.  There was a tornado over there 2 days ago and it did a lot of damage.  It's whatever to me, I'm cranking music tonight. They just got here half an hour ago, shrugs.  We've been cranking out tunes all night long lol.  I'm not doing it to spite them, not at all. I'm just living my life here with the other people here that love to play music.  This family is along for the ride.  I haven't had time off in quite a while, I'm going to enjoy it.

_________________

It started at  6:45 am. It's Sunday morning, I started this post yesterday. Kids - screaming and crying.  At 6:45 am.  I haven't had a Sunday off in a long time.  I'm pretty irritated right now.  They could have stopped them from making all that freaking noise, but they didn't.  They were running all over the house on top of that, no respect whatsoever for the people that live here.  The thing is, I was in my sleep mode - that's when I call it when I'm able to actually sleep versus waking up and laying there awake.  I tried to sleep for another 3 hours - on and off  - but I finally gave up on it. 

I'm considering going to a hotel today.  I am not going to sit in this house listening to this unending noise all day long.  Total lack of parental control.  They apologized profusely when I came out a few minutes ago - I must have had a look on my face. The look probably matches how I'm feeling.  Apologize as much as you want, tho, it's not impossible to get kids to stop crying and whining.  Or if they don't send them to their rooms. Pretty simple concept. It sure as gold at the end of a rainbow is possible to keep them from trampling around the house like a herd of cows in a stampede. 

I had plans for today, but I am nixing them. Stuff to do around the house.  Screw all of that.  Maybe tomorrow, but since they'll still be here tomorrow, I won't be able to sleep tomorrow morning, either.  They being that other family with the 2 very young girls. They have their own place now, but the AC quit working and the fridge as well.  They asked to spend a weekend here and so - here they are, on my dime actually since I pay all the utilities and wifi around here. 

I told you I am cranky, lol. 

And now they have left. Apparently they don't need to be here another night - or day.  I don't hate kids, but in this case? Good riddance. 

And I've also been sent a run for tomorrow.  I was hoping to have tomorrow off. She almost never sends me a run after Friday - she hands out all the runs on Friday to cover Saturday, Sunday and Monday. 

Life working all the time? Not such a pretty sight.  This run is going back up to Barnsdall, so at least it's not going to be a long trip.  My goal will be to get up there, swap trailers and get as far back tomorrow as i can, thus allowing myself some time at home on Tuesday.  Because apparently work is still clipping along.

Called mom for Mother's Day, just got off that call.  But I sent her flowers earlier this week and they are apparently still lovely, which was nice.  I wondered if my brothers did anything with her for her special day, but I didn't want to ask.  I figure my oldest brother probably did something, he's fairly good about that - now.  He didn't use to be, not sure what got him motivated to start giving her a little more attention but it's a far cry better than what he did with my dad. 

But I'm not going to get into that.

I'm spending the day petting my dogs, watching tv and doing absolutely nothing else. 

And with that, Happy Mother's Day to any that may happen to read this and have a great day!

Well.
I finally get the loaded trailer back to the yard.  A 3 day trip that should have been 2.  My 70 hour clock is run down to 3 hours.  That isn't enough time to do much of anything but perhaps get loaded at the plant - if nothing happens. My manager texts me after I leave the yard - don't make any plans.  I have work that needs to be done.

I texted back: I only have 3 hours left on the 70 hour clock. She replies that I'm picking up 9.57 hours at midnight.  Great, that's 12 whole hours! With loading, I spend more than that getting down to Brownsville!  And then she says I'm picking up 7.55 hours again at midnight 2 nights from now. Huh?  And?  I"m due for a 34 hour reset.  I have  plans, namely, to go look at a boat tomorrow.  It's here, in town, it's a great price, the upholstery and carpet have all been redone o the motor works fine. That's the big sticking point with any used boat.  Strong motor or not?  But a 150 horse motor! On a pontoon boat! Yes!  Oh well. If I'm on the road, I'm not going to be happy because it's almost guaranteed I'll have to do a 34 hour reset out there, on the road. Yes, they pay for a hotel while doing it, but I don't want to be in a hotel, I want to be home.  Well sort of want to be home - this other entire family is still here.

Thank God they weren't here when I got here at least. 

____________________

Friday - early - morning. Slept like a log.  I mean i really had a good night's sleep without waking up all night long.  I actually feel good lol.  But, I'm still a bit cranky about having to go up to Oklahoma today. 5 runs in a row without a single day off.  I wanted more work, but this much more? Nah, everyone has to have a day off here and there. 

I won't even have a full 14 hour clock to start with today, guaranteeing I won't make it back today.  It is possible, I think, to make it back in on day, especially considering I don't have to load the trailer, tho I do have to go to the plant and get new paperwork on the old load.  And, that load is 3 days old now.  I bet the pressure is going to be high on that trailer this morning.  I blew it off yesterday when I got back, but these are old trailers with old style insulation.

The new trailers have vacuum jackets around them, they keep the product cold much longer.  I dunno but I'm gonna fly that baby up there and they will be getting that product off there post haste, the plant I'm going to has been advised of the situation and willingly taking the product, knowing it's heating up.  When I say heating up, it means it's reached it's boiling point - I believe it's 120- , yes that's 120 below zero boiling point haha. 

Anyway, she put me - she being my manager - on a run that I should have no problem getting back on even with low hours.  It's less than 7 hours up, drop the trailer, pick up another and head straight back.  I usually end up at the casino truck stop in Grant, Oklahoma.  Whether I play blackjack or not really depends on my mood. I never do it if my mood isn't right, I know I won't win. Gambling and playing blackjack has no logical parameters for me, it's all about how I feel lol.  But, there is good food there if nothing else, so I will have a meal tonight - if - I make it that far.  I'm down 2 hours of on-duty time before I even start the day.

Right now? I'm sitting here enjoying a cup of Keurig coffee, a seemingly rare offering these days.  I always manage to find a cup of coffee somewhere, but not Keurig. 

Oh!! That family is moving out weekend!  Yayyyy! And apparently Taylor gave the guy some s*** about not doing anything around the house. Yes, he was there all day long, no, he did nothing to contribute to the household. You know, simple things like doing the dishes? Absolutely nothing.  He wasn't on vacation, he was living here. Albeit temporarily, but for free.  On my dime, actually, since all the extra usage of utilities with 4 more people living here all goes on my account.  I pay the utilities - all of them and satellite and wifi - they pay the mortgage.  I'm not complaining about that, it's not much more than just renting a room from someone else, but this dude. 

Grow up, get a life, stop acting like a freaking child.  Be a good role model for your children, don't pander to them,

Whatever.  I'm getting out of here. Get this day started, get it over with. 

Happy Friday. 

Don't forget Mother's Day coming up!  I already took care of my mom with some nice flowers : )

So, I'm stuck at the plant in Portland, Texas.  The rules for unloading here say to call 30 minutes before arriving to ensure that they can unload you.  So I did, before turning on the on-duty clock on my electronic log device.  They said yes, bring it.  So I brought it, called them again from their staging area and told me they had some sort of compliance operation going and it would be quite a while before they could get to me.  I replied that I had just called 30 minutes ago and y'all said it was fine to bring it? Well, he was unaware - referring to the guy I talked to the first time.

I'll get detention pay, fine, but I hate sitting in these parking lots like this.  The real issue is running out my 14 hour clock and not being able to make it back today.  Well how long do you expect to wait?  I don't know.  I've been here and done that before, it could be an hour, it could be 6 hours, it could be longer, who knows? They just keep you in limbo. The fact that they told me to come is what is annoying me. I would have far rather stayed at the Walmart parking lot, I did some shopping but then realized I had forgotten some stuff. I could have gone back in there and got the rest of it.  But oh well, I guess I shouldn't complain too much, making $25 an hour to sit around and wait isn't that bad. 

I'm just ready to go home.  I've been out on the road for a week, the period of time between the last trip and this current trip I didn't go home, it was late after I got into the yard so I just stayed there and then went out on this trip late the next morning/yesterday.  We're busy again, but there is no guarantee anymore that we'll stay that way.  I'll take what I can get when I can get it, but I want to see my doggies and visit with friends and also get some things done that need to be done. 

Meanwhile, yesterday!  I knew I was in trouble before I got into Houston when I pulled out the Houston Transtar app - just Google it, it shows current traffic conditions on all the freeways in the Houston area - and all of it was red.  That means it's stop and go traffic and you probably aren't going over 3 to 5 mph when you are moving.  I looked at the Tollway 99 - which goes wayyyyyyyy around the city, it only had one red area and I thought I would save time taking that route even if it was well out of the way.

I was right, too.  But I wasn't able to get off at that exit. Why?  There must have been one devilish storm that came through there before I got done there because the service roads next to the freeways were completely flooded. When I say flooded, I mean cars submerged in water.  It was raining, lightning and thunder and high winds as it was when I came through there. But, the first wave of traffic came well before I even got into Houston. Somewhere between Humble and Cleveland. 

It was there that I saw a pickup truck with water halfway up the side of it.  It was toast.  A bunch of traffic on that service road stopped with no where to go.  I finally got up to where the highway was flooded with water and hence, everyone slowing down and trying to get over to the left to avoid it.
But I could see the white highway lines under the water, it wasn't that deep so I just drove through it. 

After that, well, everyone was driving slow.  The flooding on the frontage roads must have happened quickly because there were literally hundreds of cars that had driven up the grass embankment, stopping at the trees trying to escape the water and the ultimate damage it would do to their vehicles.  There were hundreds if not thousands of cars stopped on the side of 59 - for what reason I have no idea.  I guess they were afraid to drive.  I finally made it to the Beltway 8 - and lo and behold, for the first 20 miles there was hardly any traffic at all. Again, people panic in weather like that  - which was a bonus to me because I was able to cruise at full cruising speed and get some of the lost time made up a bit.

But that wasn't going to last long.  I caught up to traffic on the Beltway and it slowed down to around 15-20 mph until we got back to the transition back to 59 and then it was stop and go.  I have to take a loop around downtown with hazmat, I can't just drive straight through downtown on 59. It would be a hefty fine if caught doing so.  Once back on 59, same stuff. Cars stopped along the side of the highway and massive amounts of vehicles stuck on the service road, service roads being flooded.  But it got worse.  The service road was 3 lanes wide at some points and it was full of vehicles - not moving at all.  On 59, we were moving along, finally, between 5 and 50 mph. For miles, I saw cars backed up on the service road - there was no where for them to go. There's businesses along there and some cross roads - but those cross roads were flooded and had cars on them stuck as well. 

When I finally got to the end of that mess, I saw why no one was going anywhere.  The service road was a literal lake.  There was a car stuck with it's front end completely submerged in water.  There was literally no where for anyone to go anywhere. I can't imagine how long all of those people had to sit there in their cars? Hours? Maybe still stuck there? I have no idea.  The city of Houston had trailers with boats on them heading to these areas and I saw some boats on the service roads helping people.  That's right, they were boating on the service roads. 

Getting south of Houston - after hours of this nonsense - was no better. Rosenberg area, which is basically a suburb of Houston, or at least that's what it looks like on a map - the highway is under construction.  They are transitioning it into and Interstate highway and they are building bridges over all the cross roads and re-doing everything. It goes on for 21 miles like that.  So, it's down to 2 lanes and at some point, it all stopped again. Slow and go. When I got up to what the stoppage was - the road was flooded.  But again, I could see the pavement underneath, it might have been a foot of water, I just drove through it, but understandably, traffic had slowed way down.  It took another 30 miles to get completely clear of the traffic and be able to get back up to cruising speed again. 

It was raining but nothing that should have slowed anyone down. But slowed down they were. Driving with their flashers on and going 35 to 50 in a 65mph zone, it took awhile to get past all of that.

Anyway, it took hours longer to get down here than it normally does, it was midnight by the time I finally got here, so I decided to go to bed at Walmart parking lot instead of unloading it that late at night.  I was too tired.  I had enough time to unload but it was too late for me.  I don't really regret it now even tho I'm stuck here just because staying up til 2:30-3:00 messes me up the next day. 

Anyway, I put the electronic logging device into off-duty mode. It still counts against my 14 hour clock but it doesn't count against my 70. That way, even if I happen to somehow run out of hours for today's driving, I'll still have enough hours left to make it back tomorrow.  Hoping that they won't leave me out here that long, tho.  I have about 5 to 6 hours I can sit here/get unloaded before I won't have enough hours left to make it back tonight.  It is what it is I guess.  I don't get near as homesick as I used to when I first started this job, but there is a point where it's time to go home, thanks.

At least I got to eat a nice Keto breakfast at the IHOP near the Walmart this morning.  I would have rather gone to Denny's but I didn't feel like walking a mile for breakfast and then have to try and walk back with a full stomach afterwards. 

Unfortunately, I've been out on the road so much that I'm almost out of data for the 30 day period.  I still have 8 more days before it renews......I'm seriously thinking about paying myself out of this contract and switching to a company that gives you unlimited data.  It's just a gamble, tho, as to whether those companies have enough coverage in the areas I go to to be able to get on the internet.  T Mobile has a great deal going, but will I get coverage at least in most places? Verizon is just as expensive as ATT  or even costlier.  It's just a bit outrageous, as far as I"m concerned, the amount of money these companies want. 

Anyway, I'm ending this one.  I want to look at phone plans and continue to look for a boat. 

So, trip to Brownsville was "short and quick", I guess.  Lots of trailers in the yard when I got down there yesterday. No free hotel, no detention pay.  Oh well, can't win em' all.  Driving back up today? Just didn't feel like driving. When I'm in that mindset, it's a real chore to get the 587 miles behind me.  But I got it done and back to the other house around 5:00 pm.  Sat around with Maria and a neighbor from directly across the street. Real nice lady, we chatted for an hour and a half and then? Home.  Home - has 4 very young children and 2 married couples living in it currently. 

Not necessarily fond of home right now. Mostly 2 kids - one from each couple - that love to scream and cry constantly are the issue.  I love helping people, but right now? I'm tired and I don't want to hear all of that.  I don't know what those kids are even doing awake right now. It's almost 9:00 pm, they should have been in bed by 8:00 pm.  But whatever.  I agreed to it so I'll live with it. Won't go on forever.  

I admit I'm rather cranky right now.  I've gotten used to have a day or 2 days in between runs.  Tomorrow I'll be on my 3rd consecutive run. That's another trip to Corpus Christie and after that trip, I'll be out of hours.  I'll have to stay home a couple of days, or at least a full day off anyway.  Although the real reason I'm cranky is a lot of missed sleep.  We've had thunderstorms here and going on all night long. The first night, the lightning was striking in this neighborhood. It woke up  at 1:00 am and I basically didn't get back to sleep. 

The night of my last trip, same thing.  Hours and hours of lost sleep.  Last night I slept well but it wasn't near enough to make up for all of that.  

But tomorrow morning? There is a change.  I don't have to be at the loading rack until 1:15 pm.  That means I can sleep as long as I need to and try to get to feeling normal again.  I can attest to the fact that it truly sucks being a light sleeper.

____________________

I think it's Monday morning. Whatever it is, now that the dad of the young girls is here, all 3 of them are here. Which meant a lot of noise at 7:00 am.  I had planned on sleeping in but that wasn't going to happen. I'll be out late tonight trying to get down to Portland, TX and getting the trailer unloaded.  If I can get that done, I'm good. Drive the drive back the next morning, get back sometime mid afternoon and definitely have a couple days off, or at least one full day since I won't  have any hours left. 

And I have a lot of stuff I need to get done.  My day off won't really be a day off, but it also won't be spent in that truck.  As it stands, I forgot to pay credit card bills - but fortunately not too late to incur late fees.  I usually get it done on the first.  Care credit is paid down to $595 and that remaining balance is due the end of July. 

My boat aspirations continue.  I've been looking every day.  Mostly for a pontoon boat but a flat deck boat or a large fishing boat would also suffice.  Lots of people want to go fishing and I would likely find the activity more enjoyable with sociable people also there wanting to fish.  But so far, in the price range I'm looking, it's mostly a bunch of barges that need work.  Or they are in good condition but have small motors on them.  I'll just keep looking until I find the "right" on.  Maybe if it needs carpet or a bit of upholstery I'd go for it, but anything needing massive repairs I simply don't have the time for.

Meanwhile, we are back to "feast" mode at work. IE: too much work and not enough drivers or trailers to keep up with the demand.  The whole thing is pretty weird the way it works.  Not having enough trailers tho is totally on them.  They should have dealt with that problem long ago. They got 5 new ones in and then a few more after that.  This is how we lost work, not enough trailers and then not enough drivers.  The trailers are extremely expensive, yes, but they make a lot of money off of this type of hauling.  Whatever the case, my manager just responded to my text asking if there was a trailer in the yard for today's run: Not yet. 

Dunno, but I'll leave in time to get there to hook up and leave for the plant. If there isn't one there, oh well! 

Off to the races. 

Today was messed up.
After leaving Cheniere, I went to Walmart to park for the  night - I had very little time left on the 14 hour clock, Walmart is down the road and this one actually has truck parking next to it.  Anyway, getting up this morning, I walked over to the IHOP, in light rain, walking back, heavier rain. After I left there, I was still in medium rain. At the Love's travel center in Sinton? I pulled in a fuel isle, got out, got my cards into the reader and then?  The wind started howling. I mean, in a matter of seconds it went from almost nothing to winds that were forcing me to push against it.

Well, that wasn't the bad part.  Because, then, it started pouring rain. Because of the wind, it was coming straight at me, underneath the canopy.  I was soaking wet in a matter of 60 seconds.  Water pouring into the fuel tanks as well while fueling it. I had no choice, the truck was near empty.  Nearest "authorized" fuel stop after that 100 miles away.  It just wasn't pleasant.  I finished fueling, and took my time strolling into the store in the pouring rain since I was already soaking wet.  No point in rushing myself in there.  Leaving the store, the employees standing at the door, holding it open for people rushing in said "good luck".

I'm already soaked. I walked normally back to the truck, rain pouring out of the sky and ignoring it at that point

It's other drivers that irritate me in the rain.  The block the highway going 25 mph below the speed limit and won't move out of the way.  GET YOUR ASS OVER TO THE RIGHT LANE AND GET OUT OF MY WAY.  Thank you.  Appreciate it.

Well, I got back to the other house to get my doggies and sat around with a lot of people hanging out there - room mates and neighbors. pretty cool, actually. But then I got the text that I am going out again tomorrow.  Okay!  I'm going to Brownsville tomorrow and then? Back to Corpus Christie the next day.  I've got the hours on the clock, I think, to do all of that. Or if not? Well who knows what is going to happen. A delay at the border would cancel the Corpus Christie load and it wouldn't bother me at all.  But whatever.  I need the money, I'll get busy when it's available.

__________________

Saturday morning.  Thunder just shook the house.  I mean, that's how close it was.  It's 4:00 so I had to get up anyway, tho I most certainly didn't want to.  Went to bed too late last night and will pay for it today, driving all day long down to Brownsville. I absolutely hate the first load time, I hate when I get it and always hope I get at least second load. Second load is another hour's worth of sleep.

James was already up - something lodged in his eye bothering him all night long to the point he couldn't sleep. 

Well, off to the races.  I'll just have to take a nap later on when I'm 6 hours on the clock at least. 

Well then.  Thursday morning. Cheniere on the horizon again or today - but the one down near Corpus Christi. More miles at least.  I haven't been to that facility since the last time when their tanks were at capacity and we had to sit there for hours to get permission to over fill them.  That was sometime mid last year.

And...last night.  I finally caved!  I'm not going to feel bad about it, either. I had 2 very large slices of Supreme pizza, a large McDonald's fries, Taylor's half a box of the fries she didn't want and 2 large chocolate chip cookies.  I mean, I had a sugar high like crazy but I went to bed before the crash so I never experienced that. What I did experience starting at 1:00 am was a wild lightning-thunder storm that was making so much racket I doubt too many people in this area slept through all of that noise. 

And it's still  going on now.  I'm wondering if the loading plant is even opened.  They shut it down when there's lightning.  For good reason, too.....but I haven't received any notices yet about it.  Just haven't seen a lightning show going on this long for quite some time now.  I mean, it's constant lol

And good for my new grass plugs.  They are finally putting out some green blades of grass.  When they arrived, they were all brown, looked dead to me.  But I went through the trouble of planting them and walaah.  How long will it take to spread to the entire yard? Years I'm guessing. But that isn't my plan. I want to see if they are going to take over even the portion of yard they are in before I spend any more money on that. 

In fact, I'm not really looking to spend any money on extras right now at all.  Except the boat.  That is in my savings account, something I've been saving for quite a while for.  I've given up on land for the time being.  That's a long term savings goal. They want too much money down at 20% and unless I want to take less acreage - which I haven't succumbed to yet - I'm just going to have to keep saving for that one.  I don't just want land, either, I want either a house already on it or a loan that will pay for a house to be built on it as well.  I can get land with a house on it already, but that's still 10% down and at 250k plus, it's still at least 25k down.  Further, I want land that I can split and start on a small mobile home or RV trailer park.  In my view, the land needs to be able to pay for itself.  Cattle could also pay for the land, but that costs a lot of down money investment as well in actually buying the cows and the bull and the equipment you need to maintain them. 

Towards all of this end, I'm hoping to take some of my savings and start investing in the stock market.  I just haven't take the step yet to actually give the go ahead on any particular stock, tho I have located some investment sites that allegedly have a solid reputation for gains in their predictions of stock to buy.

Well, I think Taylor may be regretting the decision to allow the lady and her 2 very young girls in here.  The youngest one screams as much as her youngest boy - something she literally cannot stand.  Plus, the living room is being occupied by the lady to sleep in - which throws off James activity of watching TV and relaxing after the the boys go to bed and Taylor goes to sleep as well - she goes to bed early.  More mouths to feed as well.  I bought enough pizza yesterday for everyone, including all 4 kids, but that's got to be a strain as well.  This house would have to have a 4th bedroom to really make this work out well.  I have a room to disappear into when it gets to be too much : )  The kids all like me and all, but I only have enough energy to put up with that for so long and then? I just quietly disappear lmao.

In fact, the oldest girl absolutely adores Adler.  Adler was out of sorts when I got him the other night. I've been gone too long and about to leave again. At least this time it's only out overnight.  Even if something happens at the plant down there, it shouldn't force it into a 2cd night/3rd day. 

Speaking of that, the other house is back to paying for itself again.  I dunno how long that's going to last, but now that Rene is gone, there isn't a dictator over there getting cranky with everyone, blowing up people's phones with drunken texts and acting like she owns the place, telling everyone what they can and cannot do.  Absolutely ridiculous.  I don't think Maria will ever not tell me about what's going on over there again with tenants. I know nothing about the newest young lady, she doesn't spend much time there but she did send me rent last night so that was nice.  In fact, the only rent left is Maria's, she gets that on the 3rd of the month I believe. 

Well, it's almost time to leave.  Gotta get my food ready - lol I may have cheated once, that doesn't mean I'm giving up on Keto.  Gotta stick with it! 

The situation in Venezuela is fascinating.  Albeit, brutal, sad and unacceptable, but still quite engaging.  Because of the players.  Cuba, Russia and China. It appears to me that Venezuela - Maduro specifically - is a puppet for Putin.  I mean it's late and I'm not going into all of that here, but if you are following the news, you can see the volatility of the situation and the potential for a bloody war. A coup attempt is already underway, I'm just following this stuff as the news comes out about it.  Lots of video.  I see the citizens of that nation having nothing to lose in backing a coup attempt.

Now then.  I could have stayed at the Marriott again last night - the information that a trailer was coming last night late? Was erroneous.  I stayed up until around 10:00 pm - well after the stated time for the truck to bring the trailer into the yard down there. I could have asked for a hotel at that late hour - I can do that at 3:00 am if I want to, but I decided to just go to sleep in the truck. I kind of regretted that this morning after sitting there waiting until 11:00 am for the truck to finally arrive. I could have had a nice, hot breakfast and a shower.

Well I finally found the info on Care Credit.  Took a while. If I don't pay that off before May 28, they will take another $1,300 in interest back on to the account. That's a lot of money! I paid off the big amount today and will finish the other one when it comes due.  Just fortifies my decision to take out a low interest loan versus letting them tack all that interest back onto the account.  And I've done it early so in case they do - something - to not apply it, I will have time to contest it.

As for today, I have very little motivation to do anything. I've been out of my room for many days and out of the house even longer, with only a couple of visits that were short in nature.

Whatever the case, I'm watching the Barr testimony - current on lunch break - with fascination.  Democrats are vapidly attempting to find something, anything, to back Barr into a corner.  Some  Democrat senators took some snipes at him - but I expect that anymore. They don't know how to be civil, they just know that he must be hiding something and therefore, they can take whatever jabs they want to because the end justifies the means and they are on the "moral high road".

I'm not sure how much longer it's going to go on for, but I intend to watch all of it.  Mostly because I intend to do nothing else.  Besides eat lunch lol.

I have no idea when I'll be sent out again, is the basis for my not wanting to do anything. If it's tomorrow, a full day to sit around and do nothing seems warranted.  Still looking at boats, I would go get one today if I thought there was anything worth going and looking at.  But the nearest one that looks appealing is 95 miles away, driving that far is definitely not on any agenda I have.  I'm waiting for something to pop up within 40 miles give or take.

Ugh. Got in here around 9:30 - Brownsville that is - but waited for a loooong time for a hotel room.  In fact, I simply contacted my manager after almost an hour and a half and said don't worry about it, I'll just sleep in the truck tonight.  Well obviously she fell asleep on me - I had awakened her to ask about a room - because she said "I'm still waiting" and then 60 seconds later, there was a CLC for a room at the Marriott Residence Inn. She could have just admitted she fell back asleep without doing anything about it. 

Whatever the case, I didn't get a shower yesterday because I spent the night at the yard in the truck, so that's pretty much the reason I wanted a room beyond just having a nice place to stay.  Regardless, I didn't get to sleep until after 1:00 am - which is pretty much making today? toast.  But, I took a nice, long hot shower earlier, had some Canadian bacon for breakfast (yes, they were actually serving that here!) and now just relaxing in the room.  I won't be heading back to the yard until checkout time here, there is no good reason to because of the time it's taking for them to get trailers over here.  Especially after Sunday - when this commercial port is closed. 

Politics with the election next year is both entertaining and saddening at the same time. I now find myself in a position to ensure that I am voting against socialism. Not that the current crowd of Democrats is anything I would vote for. Biden - racist, groping pig.  Sanders - hypocritical socialist that has a huge net worth.  Will he redistribute his own wealth for the common good? I didn't think so.  Harris, Booker Warren and all the rest of them are nutcases with no qualifications to fill the position, Beto being the worst.  He's "cool man", so vote for him! With absolutely no policy platform listed anywhere of his own? No thanks.

Biden, according to the polls, is at the top of their heap. I mean, a dude with his background and all the ugliness they are unearthing about him? 50 years of politics, there's bound to be a whole lot more.  They have already dug up all of Trump's alleged garbage, exposed it for the world to see a billion times over and then some, there is nothing new to see there. But Biden? Lol, the game has just begun.  The pacs are likely already digging through his history.  Some news story proclaimed his records were sealed somewhere and wouldn't be available until I guess near or after the election.

Who cares? All of it is on public record - ie: the news media.  If there's dirt, they'll find it eventually.  I'd love to see them find a secret taping of him saying something ridiculous in private, without his knowledge, and then leak it out to the world like they did with Trump and the "pussy grabbing". Every politician has skeletons in the closet, just have to find them. 

And then there's Barr, whom democrats tried to accuse of with holding info.  Except he stated all along he would release a redacted version of the report - just like they do with every single other report from the government that has info in it that would jeopardize lives or otherwise compromise an investigation if it's leaked out.  This isn't anything different than has been going on for decades.  But let the real investigations begin!  FISA court compromised with false information and ommitting pertinent info - you know, like Hillary paying for Fusion GPS to hire Steele, a British spy who hates Trump, to write up a bunch of reports making it appear as if he was in collusion with the Russians? Reports that are either uncorroborated even to this day or have been found false?  Lol, the stuff we are supposed to wholly swallow and believe coming out from the democrat leaders and others in the party with big mouths and a lot of air time...

But I've watched so much coverage that I'm currently burnt out on it.  Like, a few minutes of news and that's about it.  I might read it online, but the news outlets on TV get into ridiculous, heated arguments with each other, interrupting each other, cutting each other off, even making outrageous hand gestures. 

Well whatever.  My loan hasn't come through yet, tho no big hurry, it's all going to pay off the credit card debt.  Just need it before the due date and the interest adding date.  I'm still half-heartedly looking for a boat - probably not the best idea on earth, but I'm tired of sitting at home doing nothing and there isn't a lot to do in my region without having land, or ATV's or - a boat.  At least in AZ I could take off to the mountains, had a place to shack up in, plenty of hiking and now, if I were living there, I could have ATV's to ride on the endless trails through the woods. 

There were some disadvantages of moving out of AZ, that was one of them.  My mother wanted the trailer off her property, so I got rid of it.  I don't blame her tho, I wasn't going there and those things need somewhat regular maintenance even if you aren't using them. You get a rain water leak in there and let it go? It will eventually trash the interior of the trailer.  I miss the mountains tho, that's all I'm saying. But at least east Texas is filled with pine trees/forest type scenarios. 

I've been out of my bedroom for 5 days now I think? I'll be ready to spend some quality time in there with my dogs when I get home. But...I'm still looking for that deal on a boat.  I did let one slip through my fingers - it was $2,500 for a nice looking deck boat with a nice sized engine in it for both fishing and cruising along for the fun of it.  But, my work schedule gets in the way of a lot of things.  I'd really like to spend another night here in town and get that detention pay, as work has allegedly slowed down again - tho not for certain drivers - and I might as well get what I can here.  The reality is there will probably be a trailer there this afternoon and I'll have to take it.  Then come home and sit for another 2 days?

Gag.  Well, whatever the case, my time at the hotel is winding down.  I stayed up way too late last night and I think I'll nap in the nice bed for another little bit before leaving. 

My loan is approved.
It's the loan to pay off the Care Credit debt. Instead of losing a year's worth of interest free payments by virtue of them adding all the interest back on if you don't pay it off in that year's time, I was definitely opting to do something else.

And, instead of dumping it onto another high interest credit card, I got a much lower interest rate and my payments are only going up $20 per month over what I'm paying now with the Care Credit account. That with an extra grand involved.  I went over what I needed for the purpose of either getting a boat or for the upcoming trip to Galveston - or - other things.  That card will be paid off in a few days after I get the money deposited into my bank account.

I am wondering, tho, what it's going to do to my credit score.  My credit cards will be at zero balance, all of them. Ok, the credit score calculator figures Transunion to only go up 11 points.  If that happens with Experian, tho, my credit score goes up to very good range.

Well anyway, it's Saturday and I have a big whopping zero on my list of things I want to do today. It's just odd being in a hotel in the same town where you live lol.  Even more odd having all these days off and not being home for it.  This isn't something I would want to do frequently.  Might as well just be in the truck driving somewhere..... but that doesn't happen until tomorrow morning.

_______________

Sunday morning.  I opted to spend the night in the truck, in the yard, versus yet another hotel. They may be paying for the hotel stays, but they aren't rich.  Not just doing them a favor, tho, it's much easier to wake up here and just make a pot of coffee and have some alone time to boot. There is no one here, the yard is empty of other tractors save 2 and there is no one in them. 

I slept 10 hours, 6 straight hours without waking up.  That's the biggest advantage. Unlike other trucks here, mine is not equipped with an APU and I have to run the truck all night long for AC or heat. Which I love, because the engine just keeps me asleep. I know that sounds funny, but years and years of living like that in the 80's and 90's sort of spoiled me.

I'll still get sleepy today - it's Sunday and something about Sunday afternoons automatically kick in and say "it's time to nap, thanks" and nap I do. So I'll just work the 30 minute mandatory break to coincide with that.  But, since it is Sunday, the trip should be a breeze comparatively speaking. Much less traffic on the road. To top that off, there is another truck going down there ahead of me. Hopefully that will wipe out any available empty trailers in the yard down there and cause me to have "FORCED DETENTION" as my manager "yelled" it to me one day, notwithstanding the fact I knew nothing about having to put that on the paper because......she never told me. 

She apologized after that little outburst when I told her I hadn't heard that. 

Anyway, I can at least legitimately hope there are no trailers down there this time and even have a stay in an awesome hotel at company expense.  It's a hope, not a guarantee. Just that they don't run across the border on Sundays and there have been other trucks going down there, it's certainly quite possible I will have to wait at least until tomorrow afternoon for a trailer to come up. 

As for the unfair treatment - well - the sheets the safety guy puts up tells part of the story. Those sheets show infractions and percentages of how good you did in numerous categories, I guess they put them up as sort of a competition.  I'm always down the list on idle time - because of not having an APU.  That one shouldn't strike against me, but it does and I don't care.  If any of those safety people or my manager ever tries to give me a hard time about it, they have something coming back at them.

Anyway, the sheets also say how many days of that week every driver has worked. It doesn't say where the driver went, but it's a good piece of the puzzle.  The guy we suspect only does on run a week and it's always a gravy run? Yup, he only does one run a week, it's a 3 day run and he's got the easy life.  Not that I only want one run a week, but that guaranteed gravy run is bs.  Another other drivers  - on 6 or 7 days.  Consistently.  I had one week only on 3 days - there's currently 3 sheets of 3 previous weeks up there. And other drivers not getting as much work as others. And then, there's those that aren't only kept busy, but they get nothing but  gravy runs.

Now, they've been there a lot longer than me, I guess it's only fair they get a little better treatment, but not to the point that I'm getting s*** runs and they aren't getting any s*** runs. 

Whatever the case, it wasn't a mistake to spend the night here and I may do more of it in the future.  It's pretty easy and peaceful to just get up, go make a pot of coffee, do the paperwork and then sit around sipping coffee for a while. Instead of rush, rush, rush.  The only disadvantage is taking my dogs to the other house the night before. I like to spend as much time with them as I possibly can.

My boat search? I've had a few I considered.  I would have done it, too, if they weren't 2 hour drive away.  I mean, you want to look at what you're buying first, if you drive that far one way and it doesn't turn out to be what you want, well, you've just wasted 4 hours of your time and the fuel in doing so.  Occasionally there is a decent looking one 25 or less miles away, but that doesn't happen often. Maria says she knows how to off and on-load boats. I have never done it, she claims she learned young with her father. 

I guess. I also guess that means she wants to go boating lol.  I think my friends would go too, but I'm sure I'll have to do all the work. They're not highly motivated, I have noticed, to do much more than hang out at the house. The notable exception being her dad being here for the last 4 days. I think they're leaving today. I'm sure they'll be gone by the time I get back from this trip.  I only saw them on day, the rest of it they've either been gone when I'm over there or I've been gone.  Yesterday evening, the entire family across the street was sitting in the other house carport with Maria, cooking on the grill. 

So we kinda of tentatively agreed/talked about going over to their house for a cookout sometime in the near future. I can't guarantee any particiular day, obviously, because of my job.  But they guy is really cool and we hit it off the first time we met and every time after. 

Well, it's time to get out of here.  Fun time over.

Good Sunday to everyone. 

Wednesday morning.
A much needed 2 days off has expired. I now "get" to go to Cheniere. The only nice thing about it is I will be back tomorrow. The bad thing about that is I won't be back here.  But I've already decided on one of two hotels to stay at, one in this town the other over where the truck yard at work is.  That one over there has a decent Super 8 - not the greatest in the world but far from the worst - right down the road from the yard.  A Kroger's and a restaurant directly across the street, cheap enough, it's probably what I'll opt to do, leaving the dogs at the other house and just won't bother going back to this town.

Unless, of course, I don't have a run coming on Friday.  Then that plan may change.  I'm definitely not looking forward to wasting my time at Cheniere. It's a near worthless run, it makes you stay out very late to get the product delivered and I just don't understand why this company can't force them to pay more for a run that simply doesn't pay that much.  Our time should be worth the same as our time anywhere else.  The only way this run can pay out anything is if there is extensive detention pay time going, which has happened, but far and few between.

___________________

That run is over with.  Of course, they played games down there and kept me far longer than necessary which ate up my 14 hour clock and didn't make it home last night.  Didn't matter, tho. I slept quite soundly in that truck, for 7 hours straight.  That's very good for me.  Not to mention I"m "out of a home" until Sunday I think.  It's very odd that all of a sudden, we have slowed down at work yet once again.  To the point that another driver came back from going on-call because - we were busy.

I dunno what's going on, but my "awesome" paycheck is going to be a pile of rubble tomorrow. I checked it online today, about $1,300 less than what i was expecting. And of course, after a lot of emails, I was shorted yet once again. The disturbing part about these deals where they short my pay? They will never catch their mistakes.  If I don't catch it, I just lose it forever.

_______________________

Friday morning. Stayed at La Quinta so I could have my dogs with me. Likely will stay somewhere  cheaper tonight and leave the dogs at the other house to save on expenses.  But, the dogs liked it and I enjoyed their company.  La Quinta is a more expensive hotel - but - they likely have higher expenses. This is truly the "Dog Hotel".  Cleanup of a room is likely more involved with getting out dog hair and any dirt that a dog might track in.  So I don't really blame them.  I was going to stay at Motel 6 across the street, but when I showed up at the front desk, they informed me no dogs over 40 pounds. That eliminated both of my doggies from the mix.  Rather rude clerk at the desk anyway.

Tonight? I won't have the doggies with me. I'm leaving them over at the other house. And depending on what is going to happen tomorrow work wise, I may just stay in the truck overnight.  My manager hasn't responded to my text asking when/where I'm going next.  I'd prefer a shorter run, no more than 3 days out if possible.  Just trying to get the negativity of being in the driver's seat of a truck all the time out of my brain. Note that being in the sleeper - sleeping - really has none of that associated with it.

I'm still at the hotel - the doggies went out and did their thing earlier and now lying contently on one of the beds.  I assume la Quinta expects that to happen, I dunno, but the bed covers are all white, meaning they probably bleach them pretty good on every wash.  So, I'm not concerned about that at all.  What I did find out, however, is that I can go through my company and get corporate rates for a hotel and then just have them deduct it from my paycheck.  This hotel would have cost about $35 less if I had gone that route.  Now I know.  Very good to know for the future in case this happens again. They have great accounts at higher end hotels for prices you would expect to pay a lower end hotel for.

Anyway, what to do today?  I just filled out a loan application to pay off the Care Credit loan - and not have all the interest I would have incurred the entire previous year before it, added back to the account.  That would be a waste.  I'm guessing they would add at least hundreds of dollars back into it. That was this morning's offerings, now I'm considering going back to the house and cleaning out my SUV.  It needs a good vacuuming and treat the interior with some of the plastic/vinyl guard stuff. Or, just go hang out.  My boat dreams? I've found a couple of decent looking boats, the type I've been looking for in an excellent price range.

____________

Now then, the end of Friday.  Spent half the day over with maria, the cool neighbors came over and we hung out for quite a while. After that, I really didn't feel like going back to the house so I came for my hotel.  This one quite a bit cheaper - but far from free. I don't go out on the road again until Sunday morning, unfortunately.  That's basically me being home the entire time her dad has been here.  Running up a bill. I think tomorrow night I may just go and spend the night in the yard in the truck. It's not that bad and it will be free.

Beyond that, I'm going down to Brownsville so not that long of a trip, either.

And now even more hours later, after an elongated series of texts with a "senior" driver - who texted me out of the blue and started in on the whole deal going on there.  It's been obvious there has been favoritism going on between the manager and certain drivers.  But it's far more obvious to those that live in their trucks nad spend a lot of time in the yard.  They see what's going on. Such as a driver that just got in tonight, dropped a trailer and immediately hooked up to another trailer. 

Meanwhile, this driver I was talking to has been sitting in the yard 3 full days. And seeing firsthand - for a long time - what's been going on. He's been there 15 years and ready to quit.  You know, you get enough long term drivers quitting and perhaps upper management might eventually see a pattern? Or turn a blind eye? who knows.

I'm wishing my doggies were with me right now tho.  But it's $15 per dog to have them in here. I won't lie, I'd love to go get Adler. He was just staring at me over the fence when I was sitting there visiting with people out front at the other house today. I had him out front laying down next to me for quite a while, but I was going to leave so put him in the back yard. Then the neighbors showed up and I stuck around chatting for quite a while with them.  I mean, the alternative was going to sit in a hotel alone, I'd rather socialize for a while. 

Taylor texted me earlier about going to a catfish restaurant that is popular here - but I was finally settled in here at the hotel and I am not  a big catfish fan. She's having a blast with her dad. That's what counts to me, cause right now? I could really be in love sitting in my office chair in my bedroom watching my 65 inch screen tv and all the other amenities I've dressed my room up with : ) 

Well enough for one post.

So, that run is over.  I got back Sunday evening to the house in time for Ribeye steak dinner. Which was quite delicious if I do say so myself, tho I didn't cook it. And......the bottom of the grill fell out of the grill, onto the propane tank, on fire and scared the pee out of James! lmaoooo lololol.

Ok, I knew we needed a new grill, I didn't know we needed one that bad haha.  That's the one my mom bought for me 3 or 4 years ago, we've used the heck out of that thing. I mean, it's gotten a lot  of use, so as much as I hate to say goodbye to it, it's time to part ways.  I was looking at an Oklahoma Joe grill at Lowe's yesterday. Kind of expensive but heavy duty thing.  It's a barrel smoker on one side and a propane grill on the other.  It's pretty cool.  

I resisted the impulse to buy it tho. $400 is a tad high just to be able to grill meats.  It is an important part of our lives, tho, I'm just looking around.  I could just get another propane grill with out the smoker combo for half that price and be all good.  It's getting to the time of year where they should be having some sales on grills coming up any time now.  

Anyway, the plant the other day took 5 full hours to unload that trailer. They make you drop the trailer and leave the facility. You can hang out out front or go to town - I opted to go to town and get an amazingly wonderful breakfast.  The ladies at the counter said the skirt steak was the best of the 3 breakfast steaks they have on their breakfast menu, I took their word for it and was not let down at all.  When I got back to the plant, I started getting nervous about how long it was taking.  I mean, the dude said it only takes 45 minutes to unload, it's taking the pressure on the tank back down that takes so long.  I could easily dump that pressure in 20 to 30 minutes and get it over with, but their policy is to have it down below 20 before it can leave the plant.  

Limited hours when I finally got out of there to drive, I hoofed it back down to below St Louis and at least got myself positioned to be able to make it back the next day - Easter Sunday - which I did.  I was so sick of driving after I got back from this last trip that I specifically asked my manager for another day off after yesterday - Monday.  I could really use  a vacation at this point.  Our trip to Galveston beach is still 3 months off, that's a bit too long.  I'd like to just go hole up somewhere away from people and enjoy some time off.  A nice run with a couple days detention would work, lol, but that's wishful thinking. 

As it stands, the boys are back from Arkansas and the lady and her 2 girls are living in this house right now. That's 8 people in here total.  Tomorrow, 2 more people coming - her dad and his girlfriend - to be here 5 days.  So today, I'm finishing up detailing my room and making it nice as they will be staying in here and it will work out nicely that I'll be out of here.  Just about guaranteed I'll be sent out somewhere tomorrow, for the sake of not having to give them hotel expenses, I do hope whatever I get is a 3 day run. 

And...after all this time, like 5 weeks, the room at the other house is finally rented.  I'm definitely eating some expenses over there for this month.  2cd time that's happened I think. There was another month last year where one of the rooms was empty and I ate over $400 in costs - but - the rest of the time the house almost paid for itself, with only $30 or $40 per month that I had to pay. Which I'm fine with since the trade off is a place to take my dogs when I'm on the road.  That's not much to pay to have your dogs well looked after.  Anyway, hopefully this new lady will stick around awhile. She said she is here for management training and will be given a store to run after she's done.  She's thinking she will get the store in my town, which would work out nicely.

It's funny tho, that people who run stores - I know another one - in this area aren't making that much money. Like, 30k per year? To put up with all of that nonsense?  I dunno, but making any rash decisions about changing jobs isn't on my horizon at the moment.  As much as I despise some of the s*** going on with this company, there are far worse scenarios out there.  The truck situation was insufferable tho, just ridiculous that a big company like that has trucks driving down the road with 700k miles on it and endless problems.  The flip side, of course, was if a breakdown occurred on the road, I got breakdown pay - but that didn't always happen and I was sitting home sometimes up to 6 days.  

Now that I'm in a much nicer truck, it's a bit better.  I still don't like being out on the road more than 2 days, just gets old.  

:Yesterday, I got up early and finished putting all those grass plugs in the ground. Not anything I wanted to do first thing in the morning after being out on the road that long. Remember, I finished a run, came back at 3am and then the next day went right back out again.  And the run before that, I was only home a day. I keep telling myself I'm going to buy a boat or another ATV and I keep looking at them and then I keep saying no, save for land.  This kind of thought process goes back and forth in my mind, but I suspect eventually? The boat will win.  I saw a nice flat bottomed boat with a 350 chevy inboard motor in it for $3,500 the other day.  Another other, cheaper fishing boats.  The issue - not really an issue, just a determining factor - is that my friends want to be able to go fishing too - and that would be nice as well.  But a boat big enough for 3 or 4 people doesn't really have to be that big.  

So whatever.  Today is finish my room day, a bit of laundry, mow the back yard and anything else that I may or may not want to get done around here, but I'm spending at least half of relaxing and doing nothing.  Actually, I'll be watching movies and kicking back with my doggies.  

Well, off to Waffle House for keto breakfast, to the store for a roast and veggies for whatever road trip tomorrow, get the laundry started and get today's chores done and over with.  

Lol. The plant used another driver and I as guinea pigs this more.  See if they can load 2 trucks on the rack at the same time. It sort of worked.  Got to talk to this other driver that's been at the company for awhile about this particular run I'm on since I've never done it before.  He expressed the idea that if you "don't mess around" you can get it done in 3 days. 

I've encountered this phenomenon with other drivers in this company. Perplexing.  They stop a lot while on the road, they don't necessarily get a lot of miles done on any given day and it seems as if they aren't interested in making money.  Just the bare-bones minimum.  I dunno, but for me?  Once I get out on a run, I want to get it done as fast as I possibly can - meaning drive all day long after the truck is loaded until I either run out of hours or come to the understanding that I might have to quit a bit early to find a place to park.

The variable on this run - according to him - is that it can take anywhere from 2 to 6 hours to unload the truck.  6 hours?...geeze. I need it done tomorrow in no more than 4 hours to be able to get home on Sunday and enjoy a nice, steak, Easter Sunday dinner.  Won't be the end of my little world if  I don't get home Sunday, but it would be nice.  I'll get holiday pay, an extra $170, for driving on a national holiday. 

So, the dude whose truck I am in now - he quit the company a month ago - is already back with the company lmao.  The grass was dead on the other side of that  fence.  My manager asked me last night to leave his bag - it's got all this expensive fire-proof clothing and equipment in it - in the office.  I assured her without her saying anything about it that he was not getting his truck back.  He quit, tough, eat it, deal with it.  She agreed, lol, wasn't even going to ask.  Anyway, upon arrival at work this morning, early, she was there. 

Good morning Sunshine! What are you doing here so early?  Just behind in work. And for whatever reason, decided to go into the subject, unsolicited and frankly, not exactly wanted of colonoscopy.  You know, where they stick a camera up your @$$ and take a look at your innards?  I have resisted it because I don't want a camera up my ass, I don't want people standing around making jokes about it and I have other diseases in my family lines that I am basically in fear of, colon cancer isn't in our family lines. We have far worse shit - Alzheimer's all over the place. Which would you rather die from - losing your freaking mind to the point you can't even remember who you are much less your own family or offspring? Or some cancer eating your innards away until you - die from it's complications? I'd rather be blown up  than get Alzheimer's.  That crap has taken alot of people out in my extended and close family lines. 

I'll never understand my dad dying of that disease when the Bible says that God gives us "the power of a sound mind".  It clearly states that in the Bible.  He served the Lord his entire life and then what, go out not even remembering who his own son was?  I'd seriously rather have a bullet in my brain than go through that.  Note: I'm not suicidal, at all. But I've given a lot of thought about this devilish, nightmarish disease called Alzheimer's and there are a thousand other ways I'd rather go out than forgetting everything in my life and everyone that was important to me in my life.  That's a disease from the pit of hell.

Uhhh, yeah, moving on.  Okay I'm totally sidetracked now that I started thinking about all of that nastiness again.  Some of the stuff that goes on in life is utterly pathetic and shitty. 

Shifting gears.  I made it almost 600 miles today, I could have gone another 30 or 40 miles further, but the truckstops available in that range were listed as "some spots". At this time of day, "some spots" - that's a generality of how much truck parking is available - can disappear and be listed as "lot is full" in a matter of 10 minutes. I've seen it countless times.  I calculate - always - the next day and the rest of the trip as to whether I should risk going for it or stopping a little short at a place where I have a 90% confidence that I'll find parking.

I opted for confidence and wasn't let down. 

Now then, DirecTV. They have the worst customer service on earth, I can guarantee you that. 20 plus years of dealing with them, there isn't any other service that has consistently horrid service as ridiculous as they do.  I wasn't let down looking at $196 and change being taken out of my account this morning. $116 to $196 in one fell swoop. NO email, no notation on my account online about it, but just "Hey, we're going to screw you up your ying-yang and you're going to like it!". 

I got this guy in customer loyalty this morning who obviously knew nothing.  He had no customer relation skills and kept saying the same thing over and over: do you like your Showtime channels?  I immediately told him I wasn't going to argue with him, I wasn't going to consider having less programming and that his "offer" was to bring it "down" from $196 per month to $132.  I mean, this dude wouldn't listen to me.  His offers remained the same and I said 3 or 4 times: get the price back down to $116 or I"m going to switch to Dish Network.

I wasn't lying, either. I was fully prepared to switch over. This guy wouldn't change his offer and wouldn't shut up.  I finally hung up on the dude.  So what does he do? Calls me back! I was looking up the number for Dish Network, I didn't want to talk to him or anyone else from that company. And I flatly told him so Why are you calling me? I didn't ask you to call and yes, I hung up on you.  He went into the same stupid s*** all over again.  Get off my phone!  This time he said fine and he hung up. 

So now, I"m not considering whether to get Dish, I'm already there with that one. Get it, get a much better deal and screw DirecTV.  So, while I'm doing that, this dude calls again!! WTH  Oh, well I talked to my manager and she had listened to the conversation and said that she could give me - $110 per month and a $100 credit. He then profusely apologized for his obnoxious behavior on the phone so I caved and agreed  to it. That's on the rental house out here.  The house in Phoenix, I just remembered, Dish just upped the rate there by $20 and I forgot to deal with that.  No mood to do that tonight, I'll call them tomorrow.  They just do this stuff and they don't bother to even give you a notification about it.

But I will give ATT credit - they own DirecTV now - ATT gave me 35 gigs of "bonus" data last month - of which I never came even close to using, and they did it again this billing cycle!  I dunno how long this is going to last, but I'm streaming all kinds of stuff while on the road.  Watching movies, yes! 

I didn't sleep well last night and didn't get enough hours from the start of it to begin with. The sleep bug has hit me and I'm getting offa here. This engine vibration along with the sound of the AC fan humming makes me sleep better in this truck than the setup I have at home.  The bed vibrates all night long. That may not be for everyone, but it just amazes me, haha. 

G'nite.

Well here we go.  I figure 3 day trip, I have never been to this plant before but it's only like 50 or 60 more miles further up north than Mapleton, Illinois.  I can basically just do the same route excepting near the end staying on I-55 instead of taking 155 up to Pekin.  The point being I know where I"ll end up after today's drive is over, or at least have some idea of the region I'll be in. How far I make really depends on any given day. How long it took to load at the plant, if there were any traffic snarls, weather, etc.

I'm not really happy I didn't get those plugs all in yesterday since that box is going to be sitting there 3 or 4 days, but then again, I got quite a lot done considering the time frame I had to work with.  I wouldn't have done any of that stuff, tbh, if I had known I was going out today.  Just drench the boxes with water and hope for the best.

Meanwhile, DirecTV zapping it to me yet again.  This time, instead of adjusting the bill for one extra receiver, they for some reason decided to add $69 to the bill. Looking at the bill itself, it doesn't show anything but a higher cost for the same package.  I get so sick of the games directv plays, and it hasn't gotten any better - actually worse now - since ATT took over.

Well whatever, off to the races!

G'day. 

And enough is enough.
2 boxes of the plugs, I got through one of them and then it started pouring rain.  I bought nowhere near enough of them to cover the entire front lawn - but they aren't cheap - I am focusing on the barren areas for now.  Anyway, I was covered in mud, soaking wet and just decided I'd had enough for one day.  If I get sent out tomorrow, I'll douse the other box with water and hope the next run isn't a long one.  If it is - well - it is what it is. 

Besides, it's 5:00 pm already. I had forgotten that I had a late start on the day.  A nice, long, hot shower made me feel righteous again. 

Okay. My manager sent me a run for tomorrow. It's a 1 day trip, down and back up the same day.

Strike that, she just called and switching me over to a 3 or 4 day run to a place I haven't been to yet.  Morris, Illinois.  In all this time I've been working at this company now, and this gravy run getting around to everyone, I have never been on it.  My rest of the day of rest? Turned into a flurry of activity to try and get ready.  I wouldn't have even bothered with any of the grass if I had known I was going on a run like this. 

Now, I've got a meatloaf in the oven, cut up leftover ribs into small chunks and saturated it with keto friendly bbq sauce, and found everything else I wanted to take with me and got all of that ready.  Laundry - yup. I wasn't going to do that today, either, but I don't have enough clothes to last potentially 4 days and I always pack for 6 or  7.  Yup, if that truck breaks down or something goes wrong, I don't want to be caught without sufficient clothing to last that long.  Been there done that, bought the farm.

But - I am exhausted.  I am sooo tired.  I was really thinking with all the trucks sitting in the yard today that I would have tomorrow off.  I'm just plain worn out and ready for a break.  I'll just have to let the motivation of yet another excellent paycheck 2 weeks from now motivate me.  I may ask for a couple of days off after this trip - then again - maybe not.  Seems like I "got what I wanted" in her keeping me busy, saying anything about it might hard the future of keeping on this pace.  I didn't make 80k last year sitting at home, that's for sure. 

Lol, I'm going to drench the sod and put it out of the sun on the porch and hope for the best. 

A sailboat. My buddy Finn suggested that in my search for a boat.  My dad taught us boys how to sail when we were kids.  A small sailboat, but it was quite the learning curve.  I'm not sure I could handle a 26 footer, not at least without some instruction from someone that knows anything about them.  I don't even know how to launch a boat into the water off a ramp - yet.  I've watched a few videos. The only reason i say that is cause' there are ample videos online of people losing their vehicles going too far into the water and the water? Carrying their pickup trucks right out into the water! 

But the videos I have seen, you actually have to back the vehicle partially into the water to get the boat - larger boats anyway - far enough into the water to be able to float off of the trailer. I think if I do get a boat, I'm going to go to a boat ramp and just watch people doing it with all kinds of different boats before I even attempt that.  I can just see my SUV floating off into a lake! lolol.  I have to wonder if insurance covers that....cause' it surely is a total loss once that water gets into the electronics. 

Okay.  I'm trying to mentally shift gears from "tomorrow is a day off" to "tomorrow is the beginning of another rather long trip".  That's one of those things that takes a little time. I just wish it wasn't so late already.  Like, 7:30 and I still don't have everything ready.  I figure I'm going to start really missing my doggies after this next trip.  Adler is contently laying in my bed right now, lol. 

__________

And there it is. Ready to go, totally worn out, not rested from lack of sleep last night, not necessarily going to like tomorrow, but who knows?  Lately I've had more energy even on lack of sleep. Doesn't always work out, but I can have hope, lol.  Whatever the case, there was too much to do in too little time and now I'm totally wide awake - and it's time to go to sleep!

Outta here.