Lol.  Oklahoma trip was normal.  Go up, drop trailer, hook to empty, come back.  Since it was an earlier load time, I was able to make it back to the casino truck stop - 552 miles by the time I get there and then only about 125 miles left for the next day, which is today.  No, I didn't go into the casino. It's just a good place to stop for there are always parking spaces available, unlike the Love's 20 miles down the road which is always full at that time of day.  

Manager is out on vacation, so get to yard, do my paperwork and immediately leave.  Get home. I don't hear the dogs, they usually start fussing when they hear my SUV pull up.  But I didn't think anything about it.  Dumped my bag in front of my room door, went and put my food away in the refrigerator.  Got into a conversation with James. Went to take my bag into my room, opened the door and.....dogs. James forgot about them. 1:00 pm lol.  They were probably in there for - 18 hours lol.  

I can blame my dogs for not whining and making noise. 

_____________________

Wednesday.  In Brownsville.  Normal trip - well wait.  The Interstate construction going on for the entire length of this run in various places is getting ridiculous.  I got hung up in 3 different lane shut downs for construction and lost 45 minutes of drive time.  These people running this show either don't understand that we still have to be able to get the miles or they just don't care, their Interstate takes priority over people actually needing to use the road as intended.  There is another way down here but it's much longer and if anything goes wrong at all, you don't make it.  However, I'm forced to conclude that sooner or later, we're all going to have to take an alternate route or end up being stuck overnight somewhere other than here, in Brownsville. 

Whatever the case, I got down here, stopped at the Love's and saw fully 3 of our trucks sitting there.  Ohh?  Am I sitting here 2 days again?  I wouldn't mind, actually, since they are running me like crazy, might as well just get the money for sitting around waiting.  But I drove past one of the trucks, it was hooked to a trailer which turns out was an empty.  And then got here and there was an empty in the yard.  So I am guessing sometime tomorrow they'll be bringing up 2 trailers - they usually do - and I'll be heading back.  But at least I get overnight detention pay so not bad.  I'm making a lot of money - yes - but I'd happily take some home time.  

Really wish I could discuss what's going on with my son, it's worrying me.  Major life event, they call it.  Not a pleasant one, either.  I guess I'll have to leave it at that.  

I'm also concerned about my dogs. I can't have them being left in my bedroom for 20 plus hours.  I still can't believe that twice now that's happened they didn't piss somewhere.  If they did, I don't smell it and neither does anyone else that checked it out.  Big dogs - they don't succumb to that as easily  But still, it kind of spells out that they aren't necessarily being thought about much while I'm gone, and that's quite a lot. With Rene -she took excellent care of them regardless of other issues.  Maria did too.  

It would be hard to imagine having to let go of my doggies and finding them new homes. But this stuff is concerning and if it happens again, I"m going to have to rethink having dogs at all.  My lifestyle - well my work - is dependent on other people helping me.  No one is obliged to help me in that department and taking them to a kennel every time would neither be good for the dogs or my checking account.  Perhaps I could find someone to pet sit.  I don't really think they would like that, having some stranger dealing with my dogs. Just things that go through my mind.  

Amy Coney Barrett. Far outclasses these democrat senators that are trying to get a gotcha moment.  She is far superior in her intelligence then any of them.  I'm not saying those senators are all stupid - well I think a couple of them are rather low in that arena or just being extremely calloused  in their disdain for anything Republican and especially if Trump's name is attached to it, which this situation definitely has that aspect - but they are playing the political hackery to the point that they are embarrassing themselves and I don't think they realize it.  

Ugh, there's more but it's getting late. 

 So here we are. The beginning of the confirmation hearings of Amy Barrett. Of course the left are going insane with - jealousy I'd call it - they are hating republicans right now and blood lust to regain power in the Senate.  But even if they do accomplish that feat next month? The "damage" is done.  Democrat Senators are already taking the opportunity to bash Trump and Barrett together in one fell swoop.  I do hope Barrett has a strong backbone, because it's only going to get worse as this hearing proceeds.

And rest assured, Dems are digging up her entire life's background attempting to find anything that they can use as fodder against her being confirmed.  Senator Whitehouse is going off on emotional rants at the moment, blaming the coronavirus on Trump, blah blah blah, everything he's saying is irrelevant to this hearing.  But I expected that.  These people make themselves look like blooming idiots, let them flap their lips and go off and let citizens see how they really are.  

Whatever.  Kim going off on Maria, day two now.  Maria hasn't texted me in weeks, I dunno what's going on with her.  Kim says she has had enough, wants to move to Arizona, the trust will buy her a house and pay the utility bills.  Indefinitely - it's over a million dollars, as far as  a place to live she's set for life.  Maria?  I dunno what she's doing but she's screwing up royally. She drove out other tenants at the other house, she just has issues with people in general. It's kind of hard to have sympathy for a person that is screwing up a very good living arrangement.  She is definitely not in any position to be giving a take it or leave it attitude.  

And not so surprising but - sort of a bit - that Taylor sent me a text today saying she's quitting her job.  Taylor is a level headed person, intelligent, organized at work, learns and adapts quickly.  The owner of the place was abusing her position with Taylor and even reduced her pay after Taylor asked her what her new role would be. Taylor simply asked it to be defined, the owner/manager said you are showing attitude. I read the letter Taylor sent her, it was a professional, business-type of letter. There was nothing attitudinal in it.  Most people want their work requirements defined. They kept expanded it for her and wanted to include doing another person's entire job on top of hers that also just quit.  

No, she doesn't have another job lined up.  Yes, she is ramping up her search now.  I know for me I'd want another job first, but Taylor has been very unhappy in recent times and she brings it home with her. Not too bad, I will say here, just noticeably unhappy person. Work can do that to you.  My job hasn't exactly made me happy in the last few weeks not letting me have even a full day off. Today is different, but only because I was out of hours, they couldn't have sent me anywhere on less than 10 hours left on the 70 hour clock.  I'm not looking for another job tho, lol.  I have very little interaction with any management. They basically leave me alone. They only contact me with a new run or if there is a question about a run I did or if they need to know which trailer I am hauling back so they can assign it for the next day.

And trust me, that communication is not that much. And when I"m on the road, I rarely ever hear from any of them.  It's not that I have problems with management, I just don't like being questioned about what I'm doing when they know I am getting the job done. Yes, some drivers have issues, but they can see that on the GPS whether any given person is getting to their destination on time or taking too many breaks. Or taking their time getting back to the yard when they need the trailer.  These trailers aren't cheap and we don't have excess numbers of them.  It got bad enough that they took very old trailers that were used for LNG and converted 2 of them to Ethylene.  I'm talking 30 year old trailers. This last trip is case in point.  3 days - brutal, long hours of driving, pushing it until the very last minute of my available driving time on the first day - I call it brutal cause you start feeling like a prisoner behind that steering wheel. 

But - you don't get home staying out there doodling around stopping everywhere.

Regardless, I'll be happy to see Taylor a happier person.  Like her old self, really.  Maybe anyway.  She's going to need to find a job quick - tho she did give a 2 week notice and as long as the owner doesn't tell her to take a hike, she has time to find one.  They are going to find out just how much they miss having her around when she leaves.  I'll even cover a month's worth of mortgage here - paid back eventually tho - if necessary to help this situation along.  

I started laundry last night.  It's been an all day process.  Just put in the - 6 th load? - and that will do it. Dogs - bedding - get nasty after not that long of a period of time, and I don't like the way my room smells after it's been too long.  Today was an "everything" day, that's dog bedding, my bedding, even the pillows.  Included in that was truck bedding, truck sitting pillow and the throw rug I have in the sleeper.  

And now? Well, I think we should do Wing Stop tonight. They're there, take advantage of it.  

 3 grueling days of late night, well tonight not quite so late but it is almost 11 pm and I just got home.  The first night I was behind schedule because the plant took too long, but I got to the goal destination at Smith's Grove in Kentucky with exactly 1 minute to spare on my 14 hour clock.  The second day - up the plant and back to Smith's Grove - I had over an hour left on the clock then but I was burnt out, no need to drive any further, I thought, I can make the trip home tomorrow - which is today.

663 miles on the drive today and home sweet home. Nothing was assigned to me for tomorrow - and no I wasn't asking for anything.  With only 10 hours left on my 70 clock, I couldn't go anywhere, even a short trip, anyway.  The best I could do is pre-load for someone else and  - NO THANKS. 

34 hour reset, won't surprise me if they try to dump me with something on Tuesday.  I won't turn it down, I guess, but I won't want it, either. 

I dunno what's going on here, I haven't heard from anyone at the house in 2 days.  I did hear from Kim - the lady that Maria is living with - and that went on all day long yesterday.  She was talking about Maria.  Maria - hasn't texted me in almost 2 weeks.  She is in some sort of misery. Her life not going as she planned, I know she has some health issues but she is capable of spending half the day cleaning house, she is capable of doing something for a job, even a part time job would get her double the money the government is giving her right now.  I'm not judging her, really, but if she wants a better lifestyle, she's going to have to do something about it.  

For most people, money doesn't just fall into your lap.  

Whatever the case, Kim has as much complaints about Maria as Maria has about Kim.  That obviously isn't working out.  I'm not really sure the exact details because the sides give conflicting stories. I just know they are both miserable and it's time to move on.  Kim says she's moving to Arizona, the original plan, up to Prescott. She has the trust her dad left her - it's a very large chunk of change.  It has lots of stipulations, but it will buy her a house.  If she does that, I don't know what's going to happen with Maria.  Kim said that Maria told her she would rent the rooms in the house - but that won't pay the bills there. Yes, the master bedroom is a luxurious room  that could be rented for $600 per month - providing she can find someone.  But, even if she had all 3 rooms rented out and taking in $1,400 per month, that isn't going to cover everything.

Maria is in a bad place right now, I feel for her, but I don't want to be responsible for that anymore. It was costing me too much money.  I don't know if my current situation is permanent - tho I've been here for  a long time now - things change.  They always do.  I've never had a living arrangement that didn't end up "going away" and having to start over again.  I wish that weren't so, especially here, but I keep that in my mind.  I have no desire at this point in time in leaving this area for I am making money like I've never made before and getting ahead.  

Never know what the future holds.

Tomorrow? Well, the weekend is over so everyone here is off to work and school, well not James tho he put in an application at a previous employer that will likely hire him back.  It's over 50 miles from here, tho, that's a long commute every day.  

I dunno, but it's bedtime.  

 I feel exhausted.  Run run run.  Get done with work, go home, go to Chili's go to the store go home go to bed. Get up, make food, take a shower, etc etc etc.  After all that, I only have 20 minutes left before I have to leave for yet another 3 or 4 day run - that totally depends on things like how long it takes to get loaded today, how traffic is the entire way up and back, any tire issues or breakdowns - etc.

After this run I am going to push for a couple of days off.  Maybe. Last time i did that they left me hanging for 8 days.  Of course, my hours will be down there on the 70 clock, but there will likely be enough for a short trip by the time I get back to the point they could actually send me to brownsville, oklahoma or some crap run. 

I dunno, but too much work gets old the same as too little work. My pond project has been on hold for lack of time to get anything done with it.  James has been working on getting rid of that solid concrete stump.  I am of the thought of renting a machine to break it all up into pieces and be done with it quickly.  But, that costs money but more importantly time - of which I don't have.

And now? both my manager and the dispatcher that took over again are out on vacation.  "Don't call unless it's an absolute emergency. If you can't get a hold of me (manager) call Kenny".  I won't be calling, thanks, I rarely ever do, in fact, I don't.  He calls or texts me, not the other way around. I'm quite self-sufficient and even with a breakdown or flat tire I don't need to call any of them, we have numbers that we are to call in such situations where the person on the other end of the phone sets up the tire guy or repair guy to come out or a wrecker if it's really bad.  

Ugh, whatever the case, it's time to hit the road. 

G'day.  

 I had this feeling today.

Driving back, I was like, I bet they're going to keep me going.  I won't get any time off.  

Sure enough.  I get sent a trip to West Virginia and a message after that: Is this okay with you?

I thought about it quite a while and talked with others about it before I gave an answer. Because I am ready for just a single day off. Most people get a couple of days off here and there.  Except truck drivers. 

They don't care if you run constantly or if your weekends are constantly eaten up and can't spend time with "normal" friends who don't work weekends.  I can't remember the last time I had an entire weekend off.  A day, maybe.  But Friday evening through Monday morning?

I replied - eventually - that I would take if you need me to, but I am looking for a day off, soon.  That isn't a refusal of the load, I also said, I don't do that.  So she eventually wrote back and said she'd get me a day after this trip, but that 2 drivers are out because of the hurricane.  Oh, didn't think of that. 2 of them are from the southern Louisiana region.  I didn't hesitate after that to say yes, I'll take it.  I mean, it's good money, I just want to spend some time here and there with people beyond Facebook and text messaging?  

You start feeling alienated from the world when you've been out too long.  A connection with humans is not a bad thing.

So, I invited them out to eat tonight.  Chili's it is!  Phoenix ran straight for me after he eyeballed me at the restaurant - I arrived before them, sat down next to me and was wanting my attention, hugs, etc the entire time.  It had been 6 days. He wanted to go home with me as well instead of in their vehicle - but I was going to the store and they needed to go to bed, school is open in Texas.  He was very unhappy that I wouldn't let him go with me and no amount of explanation would assuage his feelings, sorry buddy.  He's only 5 years old, he's a very emotional person and he doesn't understand such things.  

They were in bed - the boys that is - by the time I got home. But I haven't been to the grocery store in almost 2 weeks, have been short on supplies in the truck and couldn't possibly imagine driving another 3 or 4 days without replenishing supplies.  No food, mostly.  No sugar free sweets, no drink shakes for the mornings.  No paper plates or cups for coffee. No heavy cream for coffee. Etc.  

Noon load time. Way late for this run, I don't know how they've gotten the schedule so screwed up with loading times for particular runs, it means I'll be running midnight plus tomorrow night.  Smiths Grove Kentucky the first day goal, Charleston and back to Smiths Grove the second day goal and back to the yard the 3rd.  Doesn't always happen that way, but that keeps it at 3 days instead of going into a 4th day.  

So yea, I'm getting a little burnt out here. It's either feast or famine with this company.  You are either running as much as you can for 70 hour clock or off 2 days at a time between runs.  I should be thankful, a plant or more will shut down eventually and we'll be begging for work.  My mindset is at least a day off after 7 days working. Well, actually, after 5 days working.  

Whatever the case, they are all in bed - they have been doing hat in the last several months, going to bed early (not the kids, that's a given, the adults).  I'll get up early and see everyone off, at least Taylor and the kids, James is still unemployed tho he has a good lead on some work.  

Me? I have to get my mind into going on a relentless, 3-day run that goes on and on and onnnnnn......until the last day and I re-enter Texas and I'm like - home!

 Hmm, a couple of posts that I forgot post. Oh well.  I ended up stuck down in Brownsville not one, but two days which entirely blew out my hopes of going to the auction.  There will always be another one, yes, but now that i have a cheaper, simpler plan to at least get some kind of business going, getting land is the prerequisite.  Mobile home parks take a lot of land and a lot more resources to make them viable. RV Parks, on the other hand, only take a small plot of land and a lot less infrastructure in terms of quantity and hence cheaper to build.  It would still cost, but not near as much as a full blown mobile home court.  

I'm just thinking of what I can do in the near future, instead of something that will be years and years down the road.  A 20 spot RV court wouldn't take more than a few acres of land.  It would bring in enough to pay for a person to live there and run the place and other expenses that are germane to such a venture.  Pull throughs/overnighters could be charged a fixed sum per night - much higher of course - and not have to have electric meters and water meters at them, the permanent ones where people are living in them would have to have at least electric meters. A lot of those parks don't charge extra for water tho.

Scaling down my ambitions would make it a more viable goal, is the point.  Start small, stay small if necessary, but have more than one location.  As I said in a previous post, there are RV parks all around this area and they are all either totally full or mostly full.  Make it appealing, no trashy dump type of place and get it done.  If I can just get the land, I can take out a loan to do the infrastructure installation and doing the driveway and pads.  And interestingly, a lot of these places are not in town and are outside of the city limits.  County rules are almost always more lax than in-city rules concerning building and restrictions.  

Whatever the case, an empty trailer showed up around noon yesterday, I hopped right on that and headed on down the highway.  My manager calls an hour later, puts me on conference call with another driver who showed up last night, complaining that I had taken the empty trailer?  Dude, I have been there two days, that was my trailer to take.  That ended that conversation.  My manager ended that call and called back without the conference. Did Sheila say something about my going on vacation? He asked, referencing a statement I had made in the conference call about having had heard he was already on vacation. 

He was worried about that for some reason.  I replied no, another driver made that comment.  Gee, you guys really do talk alot among each other! Well, yes we do to some extent.  It wasn't long and Sheila texted me - with a run for tomorrow which is now today.  Gag, I thought, I'd really like a full day at home after being on the road five days.  But, after seeing it - it's an Oklahoma run, late load time at 2:30 pm.  So, It's overnight trip and then back home tomorrow afternoon. So I slept at home last night, have this morning here with the doggies, out again but back soon enough.  This OK trip will go on the same pay period as the 2 brownsvilles which will make an extraordinarly large paycheck.  My manager indicated he had hoped the Brownsville would make up for the s*** runs he had given me.  

Well sort of, but I have two low paychecks in a row. I would need two big paychecks to make up for that loss.  

One of the drivers that doesn't unload? Is now an unloader.  Thanks to another driver who has been there much longer than me, we have talked alot about this situation and how to go about addressing it to the manager.  I talked to the manager about it followed by him on another day. Calm, cool, collected, making valid, rational reasoning arguments, no emotional outbursts.  The manager agreed to let him train the two drivers.  This first one hadn't knowingly whined about having to unload, it's the other dude that boasted he will never have to learn. No one likes that guy because he has a really bad attitude all the time.  Be that as it may, he still should have to do the same work everyone else has to do.  So, it will be interesting to see if the manager also forces him to get the training as well and what this guy's reaction to it will be.  I'm sure he's just loving the constant Brownsville runs.

Another driver made a comment to him about "Brownsville is your exclusive" run, which is when the driver got pissed and walked off.  Look, it's really management's fault that they haven't forced these people to learn, but the driver going around boasting he doesn't have to unload and that the company never will force him to - kind of pours gasoline on the fire.  And makes the rest of us more determined to get him to learn or get him moved to another division.  It's quite easy to fill spots in our division because it's become known that it pays quite well - but that's only because of us being part of another company before being bought out. THAT company paid quite well. The new company took away several perks, but we're still making good money.  

The insurance company is supposed to get back with them - James and Taylor - today about what, if anything, will be covered.  They said the moisture is "in" the house, not coming from outside of it.  Well from where? Was my question. The AC is on all the time taking moisture out of the air. We can't find any water leaks anywhere, that is very perplexing.  I dunno how that is going to pan out, but if they don't cover any of it, the fact of the matter is we're going to have to do the kitchen at the very minimum.  

Some extremely disheartening news about my son - but I am not at liberty at this point to speak that out to anyone.  Major life event, I'll call it. No, nothing about his health.  It was kind of shocking to hear the news.  I wish I could go into it but I promised him I wouldn't say anything on social media or the internet about the specifics of it, so I won't.  Once he comes out and says something about it, then I'll be at liberty to say.  

James has been working on getting that concrete pillar out of the ground.  He's determined, I'll give him credit for that. The pond setup is in limbo until that thing is out of the way.  I haven't even checked on the fish, best go out and make sure the aerator is still on and pumping air into the bucket.  They're abourt 2 inches long, nothing huge but I don't think they can live in there indefinitely.  But I have nowhere else to put them, so I can only hope they will survive in there.  Even after James gets that thing knocked out, it's going to take quite a bit of work to get a pond up and running before I can dump fish in there.  Plus the part about snakes and birds and raccoons that I have to deal with.  

Well, it's amazing how fast time flies by when you don't really want it to.  The morning is almost gone, I need to start getting ready to head out.

G'day.  

I'm home!

No, not really lol.  I left Brownsville this morning, drove all day, got to the yard and  - walaah. I'm still at the yard.  There is absolutely no sense, in my mind, in driving all the way home to spend less than 2 hours there awake, go to bed and get up early to come right back to work.  Okay, if I lived close to work I would do that, but 35 plus miles each way? Just doesn't appeal to me, especially on an early load. If I had either gotten back earlier or had a later load appointment time, I would have gone home.  

I was sent another run to Brownsville late morning while driving back - from Brownsville.  It's cool with me, I need the work/money and I am not going to complain about a Sunday run down there. It had the highest likelihood of having detention pay.  The problem is I only saw one truck driving down there today, so there is a real possibility of an empty trailer waiting for me tomorrow when I get there.

Speaking of home, I got a text from Taylor.  The flooring in the house needs replaced.  Huh?  Very long story made much shorter: The flooring by my bedroom was buckling up.  She didn't know what to think about it. Well pull it up and see what's going on under there?  James did that today and found 4 layers of vinyl flooring, replete with water detention.  Is there any black mold?  Not that we could see. They are going to try to put a claim against their insurance.  Good luck!  I dunno if they'll cover that or not, I really don't think so, it's just old flooring.  People putting layer over layer on there wasn't a good idea.  

_____________________

Got busy last night, went to bed, slept fairly well, got up in the truck, in the yard, went to the plant, got loaded, drove down here - I'm in Brownsville. No empty trailers here, usually what I want to have happen...but..

I check online for tax lien auction of property regularly. So I was shocked to see yesterday that there is a sale on Tuesday.  Tuesday? Did they just put this up or what? How can you check out any of the history on anything such short notice? You can't even access that stuff on the weekends, not that I could at the moment anyway.  But I was like, what!!  I mean, I checked earlier this week and there was nothing up there.  

Just a bit irritating.  Anyway, I looked at the list of properties for sale and several of them stood out.  Going cheap for starting bid.  Who knows, if I can be there, I might actually get something? Several 20 plus acre stuff with starting bids between $3,500 and $8,000 range.  Just depends on how many people show up.  But it was obvious that rich people show up to these auctions, buy a bunch of the properties and likely resell them. Probably how they got - rich.  A few of the same people were buying stuff and bidding certain properties up as high as 90 grand.  

So I"m not really sure if I will ever have a chance to score at any of those auctions, but if I'm in town Tuesday morning, I am going again.  That's why I kind of wanted an empty trailer down here when I arrived.  I could get home by3 pm tomorrow and definitely be able to go.  Now, who knows?  There will be more auctions but the thing is, you can't do anything with this properties for 180 days. That is the redemption period for the owner to come and pay up the taxes and the fee and whatever charges given to 

The point is, I will be working forever to be able to retire on just my income from work, even tho I'm saving a lot of money, it would take over a decade, maybe longer, to have enough money to live comfortably on.  I've downgraded my goal from mobile home park to just a travel trailer park.  They are much cheaper to build, have few requirements and people live in those things.  The RV parks in the area are filled up.  I need property out in the county, tho, outside of town, for the town has too many regulations and very few areas where you could even open one up.

But, if I have to wait until the next sale, or the next after that, so beit.  Just one of those things I would like to at least get started on now, not 5 years from now.  I'm not getting any younger.  

Monday Morning. Just sitting here waiting on a trailer.  If one doesn't get here before 1 or 2 pm, I doubt I'll make it home today/tomorrow early morning and just have to wait for the next auction.  

Actually, after looking at the available land, much of it is priced far too high.  I mean, the back taxes in the 12 to 25k range.  Unless it was some prime piece of property I wouldn't pay that much anyway.  And I have no way of finding out in time what is what.  So if I don't make it this time, probably not a big deal. 

Anyway, it's time to go get coffee and breakfast.  

 So, my manager, this time, kept his word and actually gave me a run to Brownsville for today.

Yesterday - I drove the rest of the way down to La Porte after spending the night in a small truck stop in Seven Oaks, unloaded, drove back up. Almost got to the yard and was informed that the trailer I am pulling needs to be preloaded and would you do that please? Sure, after spending 2 days on a nothing route, I might as well make a few extra dollars to help boost the numbers.  With a bit of dentention pay at the plant, that was an extra .. around $140 for 2-1/2 hours.

Trump and his wife have acquired COVID-19. It is being reported - widely actually - that people are wishing him death.  I don't know what kind of spiritual sickness that is pervading our nation to the point that people wish death on the President.  I can tell you that I despised Obama's policies but I never would wish death upon him.  It's rather evil to wish death upon a political opponent.  

Whatever the case, I have that nasty run behind me, I'm certainly hoping for at least overnight detention pay in Brownsville. I should be the second load going down there, so perhaps there is a chance.  I have the 9:00 am load, someone else has the first load that is - loading right now actually.  

Anyways, I have to get going, just watching the news about how this Trump getting the virus news is evolving.  

Y'all have a good day.  If your heart if full of hate, regardless of why, inspect your inner man/woman and perhaps do something to change that. His name is Jesus Christ, to put a "cure" to it.

 Tuesday. Got a day off, at least. 

Manager calls me a while ago, I missed the call - I usually have my ringer off. I called him back, no answer, turned the ringer on, he calls me.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news.... and goes on to tell me about a run to La Porte, TX.  He then attempts to tell me about all the "shitty" runs others have gotten. All of them paled in comparison to 2 Chenieres and a Baker in a row and I flatly stated as such.

His "records" didn't show that. Whatever dude, I went to Cheniere twice and then a Baker after that.  Well it shows you did a Baker, Cheniere and then a Baker.  No - but that's not so great either - I replied, I did two Chenieres in a row. 

This guy has a short and bad memory and I don't mind bringing it up to him at this point.  He clearly isn't cut out for this job, he doesn't like it and he should move on and find something he likes to do.  His wife is making bank, there isn't any reason why he should just go find something else to do.  

After I said it to him a third time - he  then claimed it wouldn't let him see that far back.  This particular run doesn't require a driver to offload, but it's Houston area and back thing, like other runs that are just as undesrireable down there. The driver that doesn't unload? bumped me on this one.  

I can't really complain too terribly much, I've had 3 good runs in a row, but these other drivers get all good runs in a row, or a few lessor ones thrown in very infrequently.  And he specifically mentioned the name of a driver that refuses to learn how too unload that was getting the run I was supposed to be getting.  I started getting edgy when he told me that - this run he's dumping me with is not a driver unload, there is no reason at all that he should be getting another gravy run.  

The manager quickly stated he'd put me on Brownsville for Friday, apparently attempting to dance around the issue.  I was going to press it, but I do better with that kind of thing in person than on  the phone or texting.  I let it slide - for now - but if he tries to bump me off of the Brownsville run?  There is going to be words exchanged.  It may be respectful, but it's going to be very blunt.  

__________________

Wednesday. Sitting here balking at the idea of having to load at 3:30 pm, drive 4 -1/2 hours, offload and then drive back.  I won't be out of the loading plant before 6:00 pm, I won't make it to the other plant until at least 10:30, at least two hours to unload, that's midnight thirty or even 1:00 am before I am unloaded.  I'm not driving back tonight, I can almost guarantee  that.  There are truckstops down the road from where the plant is, hopefully one of them will have a parking space available. 

And spent an hour looking for my wallet - I misplaced it and I couldn't think where.  Until, I remembered that I was in James' truck last night in the back seat with the family after going out to eat.  I had gotten my wallet out - I cheated yesterday, just sort of happened - so I went full out with it.  We went to DQ after the chinese food place and that's where I left my wallet, in the back seat.  But my search went on so long I started having thoughts of having to replace everything and actually had gotten out my birth certificate and passport to go get a temp driver's license.  

It was only after just sitting there thinking- where was I? when did I take my wallet out? that it finally hit me and walaah, there it was.  

That's kind of a scare - because replacing a DL, a concealed carry, a boat registration card, several credit cards and other stuff in there - not a pleasant prospect.  

Anyways, James tried to take out that concrete pillar as well. He had obviously been beating the heck out of that thing - to no avail.  He said he was going to try using concrete bits, drilling several holes in it all over and then see if hitting it with the sledge would help.  Good luck!  

Anyway, with this load today, that will eat up half of tomorrow and allegedly I have a Brownsville run on Friday. We'll see. I wouldn't mind getting back on Saturday and then having nothing until Monday or even Tuesday.  

Regardless, it's finally time to get out of here. 

G'day.   

 Well, I was going to get on here yesterday while I was waiting at the plant up in Illiinois, but I ended up taking a nap, after getting up then got on here and found the flower arrangement for mom's birthday. This is what she wanted, flowers and not until she got back from the mountains.  By the time I got done with ordering the flowers - they make it a really long, drawn out process for whatever reason, the dude from the plant came to get me to rehook to the trailer and leave.

That was rather shocking. It was only a couple of hours, it normally takes them a minimum of 4 hours to offload.  I spent 2 nights at the same small truck stop.  I almost always stop there on the way up, I usually bypass it on the way back for I normally have enough driving time to get well on down the road.  But, by the time I got back to St Louis and south of it,  I was burned out from staying up til 2 am the night before, the result of having been given a load time so late in the day.  And it was raining, and it was dark out.  those 3 factors sent me back in there for another night's sleep.  It was a total of around 550 miles round trip yesterday, so I didn't think much of it, plus I knew I could make it back to the yard today.

the only oddity on this trip, really, was when I arrived at the plant. Another driver - who had loaded the day before - was just about to go into the plant to get his trailer.  He is another of the slow drivers that stops often, but I don't give him trouble about it, he's really cool dude and getting up there in years, as most of the drivers in our division are.  We talked for a bit, then he got his trailer and took off.  

It was a bit surprising to drive by a small rest area just south of the Missouri state line in Arkansas - Highway 67  - and see him parked there.  He not only was hours ahead of me, but he would have had his 10 hour break done long before I was passing by there.  I don't know how many miles later, I stopped in Searcy at the Love's for fuel and the required 30 minute break. He showed up there shortly after I was done fueling and parked next to me.  He was in a talkative mood again, so we chatted for 15 minutes before he headed back to his truck.  It was then he revealed he is retiring in 3 months from now. Lucky you, I thought a bit jealously, I have many years left before I can retired.

I congratulated him on it and wished him a happy retirement : )

I was not, thankfully, given a load for tomorrow. I only have 18 or so hours left on the 70 clock, I could only do a s*** run such as Cheniere with that few hours left. I'm hopeful that by now, Cheniere is filled back up and we won't be hearing from them for a while.  I've been driving for 5 days in a row, I am ready for at least a day off.  

Of course, after being gone so much, both the dogs and the kids were happy to see me and wanting all kinds of attention lol.  The 5 year old fairly well demanded attention - not being bratty or stupid - just wanting me to look at his new toys and horse play.  I'm just an old kid in some respects, I love horseplay so I engaged for a while lol. But now? I'm in my room. I'm really zonked out, needing some down time from the road.  This last trip I didn't want to do and that mindset, unfortunately, didn't leave me the entire time.  The only respite was going into the Bar/Grill, having dinner and a beer last night, talking with the bartender and just relaxing. 

Other than that? My disdain for driving hit me and I just couldn't shake it.  In fact, the bartender said the same thing.  'I don't come here for fun on my days off, it just feels like I'm going to work". I agreed, when I get in my personal vehicle, it just feels like I'm at work again.  I don't mind driving around town in my personal vehicle, it's a small town so that's not a big deal. But anything other than vacation driving - no thanks. But let's say I was going to go on a cruise out of Galveston? I would despise the drive down there, for most of the way there is also the same route as going to Brownsville. Am I going on a cruise or am I going to Brownsville on a work run?  

Tomorrow? No clue. James said he was going to figure out how to get that concrete pillar out of there. Have at it!  It's still there lol.  He's home, for how long I don't know, there's more work to be done up there apparently.  I doubt I'll have the desire to go attempting to beat down concrete tomorrow, in fact, I have already determined it needs a jackhammer. If he want to beat the crap out of it with the sledgehammer, be my guest tho.  My pond project is on hold until it is gone.  Now, if it was gone, I'd have the motivation tomorrow to work on the pond. But going and renting a jackhammer? Maybe if James will help.  

Other than that, it will be room laundry day - cleaning dog and human bedding.  I don't know about any running around town stuff, haven't really given it any thought.  I don't feel like smoking anything.  I don't feel like doing anything.  Living in a truck has it's disadvantages.  

I think that's enough for this post.  

No issues on the drive back from Brownsville yesterday - no detention pay but I have 2 of those trips and an oklahoma going on next weeks' paycheck, so even without detention it will be a decent paycheck.  I was looking forward to have at least today off. 

At around 6:00 pm, heading home from the yard and thinking about what I am going to do today - which most certainly would have included more attempts at getting that thick concrete pedestal out of the ground - I get a text from the manager. Actually a group text to 4 people: Y'all have work tomorrow, details coming shortly. 

Really? Wait until  it's almost the night before to tell us about work the next morning?  And what kind of run?  How far?  I wasn't prepared for some long thing taking up days and days, a short run I could deal with. Just my frame of mind atm, it changes from day to day lol and still not 100% from that headache/bodyache stuff, whatever that was all about.  He sends me a run half an hour later to Pennsylvania.  

I looked at that and said  no, in my mind anyway.  I don't want to go up there, wait 36 hours to unload and then come back. That's about how long the wait is.  You get up there the third day, park for the night, have the entire day the next day waiting and then over night again.  That's my main objection to that run: they want you up there early - for what?  You don't get paid for all that waiting, either. And frankly? I just don't feel like driving almost 3,000 miles round trip.  

So I stared at that text for a while, trying to figure out how I could get out of it without lying about it.  I don't like lying, it doesn't set well with my Christian beliefs.  The Bible says specific things about liars.....I do tend to take a lot of what is said in the Bible literally.  So, I thought well there isn't any reason I can't say I'm not feeling well, that's true, just not near as bad as it was.  So I texted him something along those lines and he called me. I told him what was up. Do you have a fever? I don't know, I haven't been checking that. But then, I remembered the plant had taken my temp the day before so I told him that.  

Well, he didn't want to let me off the hook, it's either call in sick or take a run.  Well can you at least send me on a shorter run?  I didn't think that unreasonable at all considering I've been bumped from good runs recently for other people who can't unload trucks. And besides, most of the drivers love this PA run.  Especially the ones that don't live around here, they are on the road regardless, they don't care how long they're out.  So it's not like I was trying to dump a "bad" run on someone else.  

So he got off the phone, did whatever, called me back and gave me a choice between PA, Morris, Illinois and some other run I can't remember what.  I asked for the Illinois run, it was the shortest one, even tho it's still 3 days out.  I drive up to Barnhart, Missouri today, then up to Morris tomorrow, try to make it back to at least St Louis tomorrow and then back to Longview the 3rd day. Well, I'm not stopping in St Louis, I want no part of the civil unrest going on there, I'm unarmed, I have no way to defend myself against a crowd short of running people over - which I really don't want to have to be forced into a position to do.  Barnhart is south of St Louis, a small town with a truckstop, pretty much where I stop every time. Not likely anything rioting going on there.

And then? I will drive around  St Louis.  I'm not looking for trouble, I doubt I would see any on the Interstate, but I don't need problems while carrying 37,000 pounds of flammable liquid.  There is no good day to blow up, thanks.  These stupid people that mauled that truck driver with that gasoline tanker could be seen in various videos attempting to open the valves that allow gasoline to dispense from the trailer.  What kind of idiot would do that?  Trying to kill yourself?  These people are either stupid or the mob mentality creates an atmosphere where they simply don't think.

So, at least I got out of a 7 or 8 day run. Illinois is 3 - either of the runs to Illinois, Morris run is like 70 more miles each way.  And, you have to wait several hours for them to unload, which gives me a chance to take a nap in their parking lot, eat lunch and do whatever or nothing at all.  Plus a little detention pay in the process, it's actually better than the Mapleton IL run in that regard - more miles and more detention pay but the say amount of days out on the road.  I need only make it back to St Louis tomorrow after offloading to be able to make it back to Longview the third day.

I'm still a bit unhappy that the manager would wait literally until the end of the day to dump a run on us the next morning.  That's uncalled for.  I need time to prep food and get ready, do laundry, lots of stuff before I go on a longer run.  I don't believe they just dumped those runs on him at the end of the day, the only thing I can surmise is he was waiting to see what drivers would be available to fill the slots.  I should have just waited until today to turn in my paperwork lol, that's how they determine who is available, by looking into the system and seeing who has turned in paperwork after they are done with a run.  

Whatever the case, I'm attempting to get my mind into dealing with an extremely long day. For not only is it a 3 day run, it is also a late load time.  Noon.  His scheduling is weird.  These Illinois runs are usually first or second load at best.  Now? I am faced having to drive until midnight or even later to make it up to Barnhart.  If I don't make it, it just adds another day to the trip plus management will probably be unhappy that I am not arriving earlier than I am at the plant.  

Well enough of this.  I need to get off of here and get stuff ready. Still a couple of hours before I need to leave, but I also have to make a grocery store stop along the way.  

 Well now Taylor has this same headache crap I had, so I dunno what's going on.  Mine is completely gone, thank God Almighty, that wasn't something I would want to have to live with on a daily basis.  

You start feeling the bad and you start wondering what's next. 

Whatever the case, I believe I have gotten the man a job.  He's the acquaintance - sort of friend, he's really a friend of James and Taylor but I have hung out with him on several occasions when he's over here - that I contacted my company has an opening for.

Well ok, I didn't get him a job, he has to get that himself, I gave him a good lead. And the pay they are quoting him is quite nice.  What I didn't know about this guy is that he actually went to school to learn diesel mechanics, he should be a top candidate.  Last time they were looking for a mechanic, they had all kinds of people coming in there wanting the job.  

I promised him that if I get the bonus for referring a mechanic - the company has a long standing offer out for referrals for both mechanics and drivers - I'd give him half.  I mean, I wouldn't have gotten it without him mentioning my name, seems fair to me.  I really can't remember how much it is, I haven't looked at that poster in a while, it's up in the office.  I think it's a grand tho.  So $350 a piece or so after taxes.  

I watched the press conference with the DA in ST Louis and the Breanna killing by the cops earlier today and wondered, how long will it take for the rioters to show up and start assaulting cops? I was just watching the news, 2 officers have now been shot.  People all over the internet are condoning the shootings.  Shoot an innocent civilian, shoot innocent cops? Anarchy. That's the definition of anarchy.  Couple that with defund the police shit.  But, the cops looked ready and waiting for come what may and allegedly the Guard has been deployed, tho I didn't see any of them in the coverage.  What's going on in America is appalling, insufferable and must end.  I'm sickened and saddened by what's going on - but this moral decline is directly related to the removal of God in everything.  That's my stance on it and that isn't going to change by anyone's arguments so don't bother trying.  

Well, I have a run in the morning. 2cd load.  5 am rise.  Weather forecast looks great, no or very little rain.  Just need the sleep, lol, which comes and goes at a whim's notice.  One night I sleep like a log, the next I wake up at 2:00 am and am up for 2 or 3 hours.  Which in this case, effectively means I woke up at 2:00 am. I truly hope that doesn't happen tonight.

With that, I wish you all a good evening.  

 A day off is nice.  Especially after not feeling so well the last two days.  I mean, yesterday I finally started feeling better getting close to evening time.  And I just got done with 9 glorious hours of restful sleep, only waking up twice. The first time - dunno why, the second time, the kids this morning blowing a whistle.  Kind of got me irritated, they are up at something like 5:45 am for school.  Maybe a little later, they leave at 6:15 is all I really know about that.  

I have no tangible plans today. I'll probably go out and about and get some things, but as far as getting anything done beyond cleaning and some laundry? probably not.  I certainly don't feel like going and renting a jackhammer - if I have tomorrow off I may very well do it then.  Get that over with and get that pond going.  I was thinking I could just dig that thing out of there, but no.  The whole platform is also concrete.  The concrete platform is level with the ground so I don't have to get rid of that, thankfully.  

James? No clue.  They have been working every day on whatever the project is, but they are apparently no where near being finished with it.  He was going to stay up there 10 days, apparently that may get pushed out a bit.  I mean, he's earning money, it's something better than nothing at all. 

Ginsburg being remembered today.  I don't really get into all of that stuff where the media spends days "mourning" the loss of some "great" leader.  Lots of people die every single day whose faces and names aren't plastered all over the media everywhere, I would rather that all of these "news" outlets stick to real news. Oh wait, most of them don't do that.  They engage in partisan activism, promoting whatever their political preferences are -- usually democrat.  

And speaking of that, democrats continuing on with their petty outrage over the fascist idea that Trump will nominate another SCOTUS appointee! The scandal of it all! The shame! He's a racist! lmao  They can't stop him and they know it. They may be able to slow down the procedure in the Senate, but they absolutely aren't going to be able to stop the President from posting a nominee.  So Schumer threatens to alter the way the Senate is made up and pack the courts, pelosi threatens to impeach. These are the idiots that are running our nation.  The idea that a President is actually engaging in his duty being an impeachable offense? What is wrong with these people.  

Bloodlust for power.  To invariably change the fabric of our society, even the capitalistic structure that allows people to become rich - or stay poor - or everything in between - to some socialist/communist scheme that gives a few people power and riches and everyone living in poverty and even hunger?  No thanks.  I believe patriotic Americans would engage in an uprising at that point.  When they come for your guns, what are you going to do?  Because they'll have to get rid of the guns before they can achieve that kind of power. They know and those of us that own guns know it as well.  How amazing it is that so many Americans don't understand the history of Socialism and Communism.  Just take a peep at China or the former Soviet Union.  Stalin, Mao, Lenin, Castro, etc etc etc....lots of names I can throw up here.  

The sad part of this is that eventually they will have power again - the White House, House and Senate - and they will try to force this s*** on us.  

COVID-19.  I feel for all the people who have died. I am listening to Fauci right now saying some stuff about the after effects of people who have had it, even after they are asymptomatic, there are lingering issues in some people.  As much as I hate masks and social distancing, I have done my best to keep my hands washed, stay away from strangers and wear a mask where appropriate.  But I will not get the vaccine.  That's from my history of getting faccines and having serious side effects.  He is saying they are doing clinical trials on humans - which we all knew - but that it may be ready for distribution by the end of the year and are already producing the vaccine for widespread distribution.

Seems a bit of the cart leading the donkey.  What if it isn't good? Then you've wasted all that money ane resources for nothing.

Well, my manager just sent me a load sheet for tomorrow: Another Brownsville. So, providing I get back by Friday, that one may go on next week's check. Even without any detention pay, 2 brownsvilles and a oklahoma run will make for a decent check. I don't assume detention pay anymore now that our manager is back in charge and doing his best to get rid of that pay.  Always perplexing, I made my case and so did everyone else, had no effect.  

I'm a bit amazed that I got a B-ville run. One of the drivers that doesn't unload came back after at least a week off.  He always gets the best runs, period.  No one denies that, including the manager. The manager doesn't say it in that manner, but he agrees the setup is wrong - yet he does nothing to correct it.  As of yet, I have heard no plea for someone to volunteer to be a trainer.  I don't want the position for I have had run ins with two of these individuals.  Spending a week with them in their truck would be awkward at best.  Even with a hotel on any nights out, it just isn't anything I'm interested in doing.  

Well enough of all of that.  Dog bedding is already quite dirty again, time to get that stuff into the washer. 

 Well.  I didn't actually start feeling better from yesterday morning's wake up call until this afternoon.  

The rain coming back up? Not near as bad as the reports said it would be.  I was glad going down and coming back up that I didn't take an alternate - and much longer route.  

However.  One of the other drivers got onto our group text. Note again, this is the "new" group text void of managers and personnel from the loading plant.  I don't know whose brilliant idea it was to include those people on a driver's forum, but  that's over.  There are only 7 out of 13 drivers on the text.  2 other drivers are not welcomed into that group and neither would they participate (from other divisions, they want no part of us), the rest don't want to be on the group text for reason ranging from not wanting to receive text messages at 6:30 am to fear that there will be reprisals from management.

Except, the manage doesn't care if we have our own private text club.  And why should he?  

Regardless, one of them got on there this morning and said "first load started".  Brownsville? I replied - that is usually a brownsville run and he likes to get reports on who is down there waiting/ are there any empties waiting/will I get detention pay type of stuff.  He replied "Lost it to a nonunloading driver...again."

The ensuing conversation was regarding the fact that we have all been bumped from good runs, given to these drivers, and we are given junk runs in place of what would have made a nice paycheck.  Then, one of the drivers that's been in our division over two years and apparently still doesn't have to unload trucks - getting mostly gravy runs all the time - made a personal comment against me.  I had ended my comments with a text about one of the non-unloading drivers getting a run to Virginia.  He had come back from that 6 day, high mileage run and was given what else? A Brownsville run afterwards.  

His comment was, "You should train for CO2 if you want that Virginia run." May sound benign, but it was a swipe at me for saying anything about this other guy who gets nothing but gravy runs - literally - all the time - and then given a run that is in his realm of expertise. Remember, this dude got this huge mileage run and then upon return went straight to Brownsville. 

  The conversation degraded from there.  I kept my composure but I had no problem calling him out.  "It's easy to cast aspersions from the perch of privilege" apparently is what got him annoyed, lol. But of course.  Easy to diss others that have to do the pain of doing the low paying runs when you are doing nothing but getting good paychecks - really good paychecks - week after week after week.  Where the only time you get a junk run - which in his case would be Oklahoma - is when other plants shut down.

I ended the conversation with 2 texts:  "Btw when was the last time you were at Cheniere?".  Crickets. 15 minutes later, from me: "That's what I thought.  I'm done with this "conversation". Feel free to throw out more disparaging statements.  Have a nice day" - replete with smiley face.  He never responded, but tried to call me.  I didn't answer the phone - I was sleeping, taking my midway nap.  I didn't bother trying to call him back.  The guy that started the group text sent a picture to everyone after my nice day greeting of a beautiful women and "have a booblicious day".  Lol, ok.  

Nothing else was said after that and I have determined that I will no longer be commenting on anything excepting giving my view of things on there besides giving updates on the loading situation.  

Well I skipped something, uninentionally lol.  I said to this dude giving me crap that i would "leave this group and relieve myself of having to hear it from you.." going on to identify him as one of the gravy runners that doesn't have to do anything but drop and hook - of which he never denied.  The dude that started the group? Replied: "You need 2/3rd majority vote to leave the group. Request denied!!  

Lol, we see things at the same level. He is ex military, married, has a couple of teenaged girls, good guy.  

I'm not tired of the job.  But I can't live off of low paying runs.  Well, I can pay my bills.  Retirement, saving for property, recreational stuff out the door.  Unfair, there is no reason the low paying runs shouldn't be evenly distributed among everyone.  There is definitely no reason why these people shouldn't be trained. I can guarantee you, any other division you go to, the first thing you do is go through training. 

I probably should take the boat in tomorrow - I'll think about it.  40 miles each way.  The only place I've found with any competence.  

Oh. Lol.  Amazing stuff here.  Taylor - long after I got home - got a sheepish look on her face.  What's wrong?  "I forgot to let your dogs out this morning".  Oooooohhhhhh myyyyyyy.  21 hours. Those dogs were in my room 21 hours.  In all of that time, they did not pee or poop on anything.  They didn't chew anything up.  I was shocked.  The bathroom door was open, thankfully, dogs drink toilet water without a problem lol.  I'm just amazed that 2 dogs would last that long without having any accidents.  I'm sitting here in my room, it doesn't smell like pee or poop.  I'm so proud of them : )  But I wouldn't have been upset if they had done their duty. I know I can't go that long without peeing.  

I mean, I wasn't upset at Taylor either.  There's a lot for her to handle alone in the morning. Normally James deals with my dogs.  That isn't a part of her normal routine.  She knew she had forgotten something - I have that same feeling. A nagging sense that you aren't remembering something but you can't think of what it is - until it's too late lmao.  Oh well, they had access to water and the room was cool, not the end of the world tho I wouldn't want that to become a habit.

 Very, very long day. Not because of the tropical storm, rain, driving or any of that, but because of how I woke up this morning.  It never left me.  Even now, 15 hours later, I still feel groggy in the head.  It happens.  Wake up in the middle of a deep sleep and it can mess up your entire day. I'd literally rather wake up 2 hours earlier, not in deep sleep and even tho I don't get enough sleep?  I feel far better than this.  

I don't know where people get off saying that truck drivers have an easy life and do much of nothing. If you think getting up at 5:00 am for work and getting done with work at 8:00 pm is easy, then please tell me what kind of job you are doing that forces you to do that and what you have to do all day long?

Because I can tell you, driving near 80,000 pounds of machinery down the road for near 11 hours and everything else that this job entails?  Isn't "easy" work by any stretch of the imagination.  I digress and not going into all of that.

I'm just glad to be done with today, kick back in my bed in my sleeper, wind down and hopefully get some good rest and wake up feeling better tomorrow.  It's only 8:17, I can't go to bed this early.  Even with my head throbbing, just going to give it another hour and then hit the sack.  

Oh, today's drive? Not really that much. I saw a lot of red on the radar on the weather app - that always means a heavy downpour, but I didn't experience any of that.  I was getting pushed around by the wind a bit - quite a bit in a few certain areas - but I was surprised with all of these forecasts and not experiencing anything near what they were predicting. Perhaps it happened after I drove through there?  Or the forecasters are way off, yet again.  I didn't alter my course, I was going to go an alternate route starting in Henderson, Texas.  I just had this feeling, no explaining that, just went the normal route.  

Unfortunately, we are back to the manager's "old" ways of getting rid of detention pay - which our company doesn't pay for, the company we haul for does. The dispatcher was a gem, a gold coin, a rainbow with piles of gold buckets at the end.  This dude, however, is too new to the company, is being hounded by his managers, but I am still perplexed at the idea of free money that goes to the company and the driver.  OH, well there were 2 empty trailers sitting here when I got here. No point in wasting time, got hooked up to one, but I doubt I will be leaving too early. Set the alarm for 7:00 am, if I wake up before then and feel ok fine, otherwise, I'm "sleeping in" until 7:00 am.

As for the boating trip.  It fired right up at the dock.  We went down quite a ways to a point where i was able to tie off to a floating log and do some fishing from there.  Tho I didn't feel like fishing, I was just enjoying being out on the water, Taylor was trying to catch something.  When we wanted to move somewhere else - what happens?  The engine won't start.  It was a good thing I charged that battery over night.

I was sitting there after 20 minutes and looking up Allstate and my boat coverage to call someone out, it wasn't trying to start at all.  I let it sit for a while, then squeezed the fuel bubble several times and after a few tries it finally fired back up - and kept running.  We went back up the channel we had come down and were admiring the houses - the entire right side of the channel for as far as we went up it were lined with houses both on land and on stilts over the water.  Some houses were million dollar homes - guessing of course but yea, they spent serious money on that stuff. Other homes not so much but still cool to look at. 

Some of the stilt homes actually had elevators on the sides of the houses, lol.  We dreamed of living off of a place like this.  The thing is, tho, you are hearing boats roaring up and down that channel all day long, at least on the weekends.  Still, the thought of it was very alluring.  Anyway, going way up the channel, finally found a place. The engine died, but it fired right back up. That 45 minute thing where it wouldn't start, tho? Not fun.

Then, later on ,back at the dock, it died again and wouldn't start, tho I only tried a few times, I figured we could just pull it up far enough on the trailer that I could get the strap on the hand crank on it and just pull it up. 

Yup, the boat is going back to the shop. They actually did get it working much better, but there is still something that needs addressing on it, what I don't know.  I still think it has a fuel problem. 

I'm hopeful they'll figure it out. I don't have the time or patience to pull out the flooring over top of the fuel tank - it's not a small job - and see if there's a problem there as that one dude told me a long time ago.  Well I might have the time - occasionally - just not on my list of things I want to do, lol.

And with that, this one's over, for I want to go to sleep.

 Going to work isn't on my list of things I want to do today.

I was in a deep, restorative sleep when that alarm went off. Undoubtedly would have slept several more hours before waking up.

Not to mention there is a tropical storm that is heading to or already  hitting Houston today that I'll have to drive through.  Even the route going around it will get his and I'm not sure it will save any time.

That's a call I will have to make later, very well may be a drive to Brownsville that takes more than a day to get there.  I do have a 16 hour exception available that will add 2 hours of on-duty time if I need it, but I'm more thinking I'd run out of 11 hour drive time.  

I dunno. Not going to fret it.

Whatever the case, it's almost time to go already.

Lol.

G'day.  

 3 low paying runs in a row and finally I  get a Brownsville run for tomorrow - Monday.

Yesterday was spent going around town with Taylor and the boys doing this that and the other thing. I mean, we spent like 4 plus hours going from one place to another.  How the boys were able to manage all of that and keep smiles on their faces I have no clue - tho that changed after we got home lmao.

One of the things we did yesterday at the end was go get the boat out of storage, bring it home and park it in the driveway.  I have had the battery charger on it - tho it wasn't dead it wasn't fully charged either.  Put the rest of some 2 stroke mix I had in it and now about to go to the gas station and get another 5 gallons of gas, mix it with the 2 stroke oil and pour as much in there as I can.  I have no idea how much fuel the gas tank holds on the boat and I have no idea how much fuel is in it, excepting the 10 gallons I have already poured into the thing.  

I don't figure we'll come anywhere near burning up all the fuel, but when you don't have a functioning fuel gauge, better safe than sorry.  One of the things I like about this boat insurance policy is that they'll send a boat to save you, lol, if the thing stalls and won't move, you know, like in the middle of a lake?

We haven't decided which lake to go to yet, but we are going today.  The boys are going to maria's and we are either going to Lake O' The Pines (yes, that's it's actual name) or Lake Caddo.  I'm opting for Caddo since it shows a lot more varieties of fish and reports that people are actually catching them.  I never did purchase the fish sonar.  I just dumped that money from the deposit on the house into savings and haven't yet touched it. 

Still trying to learn about those things and buy something that works that people agrere is good enough to do the job without spending a truckload of money on it.  Oh, it's just Taylor and I going, James is still up northing doing some project that his uncle asked for help getting done and since James isn't employed atm, might as well take advantage of a money making opportunity.  

Oh, and this Brownsville run?  names written on it and scratched out 3 times before it was given to me.  My name first, another driver, then another driver, then finally back to me.  I don't know what the manager thinks he's accomplishing by doing that.  Irritating drivers, for one thing. Second time he tried to bump me off a brownsville list without starting over on the paperwork - versus scratching names out and showing that he was going to give my run to fully two other drivers before it came back to me.

One of those drivers went to South Carolina this week, there was no reason on earth he should have even been on that Brownsville run after I just did 3 garbage runs in a row.  It really doesn't set well with me that this manager is engaging in this type of foolery.  His error is in leaving paperwork in the bin in the office. IT's in the "driver lounge", if you can call it that. After every run, drivers put their paperwork in that bin. He hasn't been emptying it lately so I have gone through all of that stuff to see who is getting what.  Some other drivers are also getting the shaft with consistent low paying runs, but none of those were forced to do any Chenier runs, much less 2 in a row.

Whatever the case, I'm going to be looking through that pile of paperwork simply because it's there. No one told me I can't look at it and it's not in his office, so I have no problems seeing who is getting what.  There are some drivers from other divisions that are now "in" our division, tho they are still hauling other products that are also ending up in there, but that stuff doesn't count. Oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, - other types of chemicals.  

Well the queen of the house just texted me, she's taking a shower and getting ready to go, so I need to go to the gas station quick and fill up the can one more time.

G'day.  

 An exasperating, long, drawn out day.  

8:50 am, I pull up on the Ethylene rack to get loaded.  Dude comes out: There's gonna be a wait.  I need you to move off the rack until we're ready to load you.

Slow product, was the claim - it's been going on for weeks, you'd think their maintenance department would have fixed this issue by now, it's costing them literally truckloads of money.  

4:30 this afternoon, they start loading it.  Yup, I sat there all day long.  2 other trucks showed up, around 4:00 pm they sent them out of the plant, but me? Ohhh noooo, can't do thhhhaaaaaatttt.   

I started seeing product coming out of the vent - that's a big time no no.  Then I get a call from my manager, well they're sending you out of the plant, the trailer has a leak. OH?  An hour later, after they drained out everything they had pumped in and got rid of the vapors the let me go. Go - that is - to get another trailer and come right back.  

This just went on and on and on. I finally gout of that plant at around 8:30, cruised back to the yard and went home.  I had less than 2 hours left on my 14 hour clock, no point in trying to drive anywhere and I didn't feel like sleeping in the truck since I didn't have to.  

That's it, lol. I have nothing else. For whatever reason, this all took it out of me today and I quite exhausted. 

So, going to sleep. 

 It isn't really shocking that I got dumped with another Cheniere load. I reminded my manager that he had told me that he would make it up to me.  I heard nothing back from him - as is his want - i therefore communicated again. He replied and said everything is shut down, only 1 load went out yesterday and 2 the day before.  

I get what he's saying, the loading plant has had issues for a couple of weeks now.  But he's played this game with me several times.  He's bumped me from good runs to s*** runs several times as well, finally figuring out that I am getting a run these -4 drivers I have found out now - can't do because they "don't know how to unload".  

FOUR drivers out of 14. Such bs, it irritates me.  So, I am going to waste a total of 6 days for 2 crud loads.  2 days for the first load, a day off in between, 2 days for tomorrow and then at least another day off.  Next week's paycheck will be slim pickings. 

I suppose I could think back to the days of Ferguson where the amount made on this paycheck will still be more than 2 weeks pay there after the new manager cut out all of our overtime.  It's all in the perspective, right? Knowing that other drivers will be making a lot more money than I am making simply because of a lame excuse, however, doesn't set well with me at all.  

I wasn't going to argue with my manager, simply make my position clear - as I have been.  I will volunteer to be a 'certified trainer' if that's what it 'takes to get these people doing the same thing everyone else has to do. We don't have a constant influx and people leaving like other divisions do, once you get them all trained there are no more excuses.

Okay, well I'm about to start this day.  Another waste of my time and dealing with overly authoritarian security guards who act as if they are protecting the President or something. Perhaps there will be different guards there today, I had never experienced that much of it before the other day.   

 I will make my confessional.  My manager called me this morning and I intentionally did not answer the phone.  I sat there and thought, I'll cal him back in about 20 minutes and let him deal with his "emergency", get someone else to do it.  Hopefully by the time I call him back, I was surmising, he'll have someone else lined up to take that run. 

What run? Another Cheniere.  Suddenly, Cheniere wants all of these loads taken down there.  It's they way it goes with them, they'l order mega numbers of loads and then you don't hear from them for a long, long time.  How did I know that's what he wanted? Cause' he sent out a mass text to everyone asking for a volunteer to take the run today at 3:30 - 20 minutes from now lol.  Literally no one responded lmao.

I told him yesterday that not a single driver likes this run and everyone hates it.  He knew the reasons why - too many layers of security asking you for the same information and waiting too long to get into the plant to unload. It's like they want to run your 14 hour clock out so you can't make it back the same day.   

It was actually 35 minutes before I called him back, he was busy and said he would call me back later. I replied I was just responding to a call I missed from you. Oh, well no worries, I got that covered.  Yayyyyyyy!!!! I didn't say that of course, but I'd rather stay home and not work rather go to that hell hole.  I haven't heard back about a run tomorrow.  Not concerned, my activities today have left me needing to continue on tomorrow if possible and attempt to finish this project I started this morning.  

I don't mind getting last minute calls - for decent runs - but not this garbage after I just got done doing one.  And finding out fully 4 drivers do not go to Cheniere - or anywhere else with driver unload.  4 drivers - gravy runs, every single time. Outrageous and unbelievable.  

Anyway, I did as I said I was going to do this morning: Got started on the new pond project.  I realized I would have to drain the existing pond first, attempt to save whatever fish and get it out of the ground so I could shovel the dirt from the giant, built in planter into the pond hole.  That took quite a while, a pain in the @$$ and was cleaning up yet another 2 weeks worth of leaves from the next door neighbors, stuff was decomposing, attracting flies and mosquitoes, looked and smell bad.  I got as many fish as I could find and dumped them into a 5 gallon bucket, put an aerator in there to keep them alive.

I got stuck however, at a cement post that whoever put in this planter. It's about 16 inches diameter, solid cement and isn't budging. It's sitting right where the new pond is going to go.  I was already over 3 hours into this stuff when my legs told me it was time to take a rest.

Funny how your body tells you about yourself.  Truck driving like I do now without the physical exertion I used to have has made me rather out-of-shape.  I have myself to blame. I just need to get out there and do yard work and stuff every time I come home, even if only a couple of hours.  

The back yard is a tragedy.  Just no other way to put it.  I cleaned up the leaves around the pool area at least.  But there is so much to do back there, just to get it nice looking.  Just so much work, it seems, with little satisfaction. Now that the neighbors cleaned up their pigstye in their back yard I"m hopeful our side of the fence can stay relatively clean now without the rain washing all of that s*** onto our property every time it rains. 

Anyways, I left after hours of doing that this morning to get stuff.  Met up with Taylor at the local coffee shop, then to Harbor Freight for a sledge hammer, off to Walmart for a bunch of stuff I have been needing, especially for the truck but for the house as well, over to Chili's for lunch and then back home. Back out back, I put up 2 fly traps - the flies are unbelievable back there. They attract them all quickly, I'm guessing if I went back out there right now there would be dozens in there already.  

I did not try to bust that cement thing down. I'm toast for today, enough is enough.  No run sent to me - yet - if I don't get one I'll be back out there in the morning attempting to bust that thing down.  If I can't get it out of there with a sledgehammer, I will have no choice that I can see but to go rent a jackhammer setup and bust it out of there.  Whatever the case, it needs to go. That planter set up was ugly, I wanted ridded of it but they only agreed on it recently when Taylor was happy to be seeing the end of the inground pond and also happy to allow having the horse trough setup.  

As for now?  Out to the kitchen to make dinner.