So now our company is back to installing cameras in every truck.  Forget that the fleet is aging and most of the trucks need replaced - we're talking as much as 900k miles on many of them in the fleet. Mine has half a million miles and THAT is considered well over the threshold of most major trucking companies for how long they will keep a truck before getting rid of it.  

The thing that bothered me about this camera stuff was the inward facing junk.  I would have seriously considering quitting over that.  They don't need to see what I am doing inside of the truck.  We LIVE in those things when we're on the road, we do things other than just driving it. They want to be able to "coach us" if they see something that they don't think is "safe driving". How will they know when that happens? Are they going to have staff going over countless hours of driving to find ever driver's mistakes? Who is going to coach us? I've been driving 36 years, I doubt there is much of anyone available that is going to show me anything different than I already know.

Knock on wood, I have never had an at-fault accident in a truck and I intend on staying vigilant to make sure it doesn't happen in the future.  Anyway, they canned the inward facing thing - drivers gave their opinions and it wasn't anything the company wanted to hear - people talking of quitting.  I worked for a very short time for a company that had inward facing cameras AND microphones listening to everything you're doing in there. Just won't do that again.  I'd hate to have to leave this job right now, but I'd find something else even at lower pay before putting up with that nonsense. My reaction to such foolery is to ask them if they are going to have cameras in their bedrooms as well that we can see? They look at me funny. Exactly, those trucks are also our bedrooms at night.  We take our clothing off in there and we sleep in there.  I don't want you watching me doing my private, personal stuff, thanks.  

And got a text from my manager, I knew this was coming sooner or later as the news of at least 47 loads going there came at me a few days ago: Cheniere.  I don't need to tell you how I hate going to that place since y'all already know. I'll just grin and bear it and hope that by some miracle I can get it done tomorrow and not have it dragged into a second day!  The truck is filled with fuel, at least. If it were to come down to a time thing and I could possibly make it back tomorrow night, getting fuel on the way back up can be bypassed. 

The truck arrived with the dirt.  It's a lot of dirt lol.  More than I wanted but it's on the property now.  I am not doing any of that today, the jackhammer was enough of an ordeal for me.  I just wanted it here so my next day off I can start hauling dirt to various places around the property, both out front and mostly in the back.  Since the hole in the front was my doings and also the hole for the in ground pond in the back also my doings, I had no problem paying for this load of dirt in here.  It was a lot more than it's likely worth, just needs to be done and spending too much time looking for that "deal" wasn't worth it to me.  I can get stuff done, including mowing the back yard as low as the mower will go and shave it down to the ground.  Then plant rye seed. It has transformed into very little grass and some sort of low lying weed that doesn't grow high enough for the current setting for the blade.  Smart weed? I have no idea, but that sucker will go to almost ground level. Rye grass grows easily, like weeds really.  And it's beautiful, even if only for the winter.  It's going to take turning up all the dirt with a machine next season to actually get some bermuda grass growing in there.  

Not sure I'm that motivated.  Just a lot of work.  And rather costly for renting the machine and buying all of that grass seed. And even more work maintaining it with all of these trees dumping garbage all year long all over it. And then dogs pooping all over it lmao.  

FINALLY!!! The no bark collars finally arrived. 3 of them.  These aren't shock collars, they let off a vibration that dogs don't like and on high setting, also some sort of noise they apparently doing like either.  They will all be set on high setting the first day.  Aspyn has gotten them all barking. Even Adler is barking far more than normal.  I've had enough of it and they aren't going to like it, but for our sanity and the neighbor's we had no choice.  My cop neighbor says he never hears them barking, considering they bark all day long on their side of the house, that's amazing. But still, they drive us nuts with the incessant noise. 

I just increased my 401k savings by one percentage point and apparently started a Roth IRA account - which I didn't know I had available - and decided to put 1% in that.  Yes, that's a pittance but what with what I am having deducted to my 401k and the automatic deductions going into my savings account with Chase bank, it's really getting up there on the savings stuff.  I'm around 25% of my income being saved now.  Funny how making good money allows for that and still live your life and do pretty much whatever you want to do within reason.  Beyond my automatic deductions, I dump a lump sum into my savings account every month - up to $500 depending on the income that month and where I want my savings account to go to.  If I'm at $9,100, I'll put in $400 to bring it up to a nice $9,500. stuff like that.  

Truck purchase put on hold.  No way of knowing what's going to happen today or whenever the presidential candidate is declared and what's going to happen next.  I don't think it prudent to be getting into a higher monthly payment with the uncertainty that lies before us.  And, I have decided that I don't want to pay 35k for a used truck.  It's probably a good deal for what it is, but it's too much money. I'm frugal in some things and not so much in others, but with used vehicles? This is why I wait for a while and let reason and analyzation have time to kick in over the "wow that's awesome i want to buy it today" stuff.  My limit will go down to 20 to 25k - lower payments, will result in needing to buy a bit older vehicle, which I'm okay with.  My thought process, tho, is buy a brand new truck that will last me the rest of my life.  Fun, yet unreasonable. 60 plus thousand will be a pricey monthly payment.  

I've seen plenty of older trucks that I would love to be in.  In fact, the alien type design of new GMC vehicles I don't even like.  Amazingly, I love the look of the new Fords and could handle that - but - no thanks.  A GMC diesel, 4 door with long bed.  That's my "dream" truck.  

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Wednesday morning.  The presidency is still in limbo.  Both sides are claiming victory.  Talk of people burning flags? Wisconsin running out of ink? Millions of ballots still needing to be counted in Pennsylvania and other states... The only good news I have heard is that Republicans have retained the Senate, regardless of which way the presidency goes, the Republic is saved. From what? AOC types taking over Congress and pushing this nation off the far left cliff.  That's what.  The House is still undetermined by they are calling it for Democrats.  That's kind of a downer since the House controls the purse strings of the nation and Pelosi has done nothing but play political games with it. Didn't expect that to flip, tho, and was holding my breath about whether the Senate would remain under Republican control. So, even if Biden does win, there will be gridlock for 4 years. McDonnell easily won his state, we'll have the same majority leader who has, imo, done an excellent job at least in recent days of standing up to Pelosi and her minions.  

But, I will still stand my prediction that if Biden wins, the stock market will crash at some point in the near future, if not immediately.  

Whatever the case, I'm going to watch some news and try to get caught up and try to wrap my mind around a Cheniere run coming up today.

G'day.  

 Well I finally did it. Had today off, voted last week, didn't need to go to the polls.  Taylor is still home - she starts new job this week sometime, we went out to eat breakfast with Jaxon, who had a slight fever at the day care yesterday and they sent him home. Like a 99.1 fever.  They have to stay out for 24 hours and not show any further fever.  Anyway, we went to the rental place after eating, got an electric jackhammer, brought it home and got that cement garbage out of there.  

It was quite the chore.  I'm not near in the shape I used to be, as I found out that today more so than ever.  Just holding that thing up and keeping it in place was quite the job.  They make quite the money off of those rentals. $75 for the jackhammer and the bit.  You rent the bit separately - I guess if you ruin it you get to buy them a new one.  It's done, regardless, it's level with the ground. That was easily the hardest part of this pond installation.  I am now looking for a partial truck load of dirt to be brought over - or have it dumped onto the trailer and bring it home myself.  I need to fill in where the pond used to be and I need to level out where that concrete stump was.  

However, finding dirt hasn't exactly been a cake walk. A person 2 towns over was selling it - but neither can bring it here or load it onto the trailer.  I have no idea what that setup is and I don't want to find out.  I want the dirt loaded onto the trailer at the very least, I don't want to have to shove it onto the trailer and then shovel it back off.  No thanks, more trouble than it's worth.  And found a guy who is bringing out a large trailerful of it. Probably lots more than I need, but these companies won't just bring you a partial load even if you tell them you'll put for the whole load and just put on half or less. So whatever, it's coming today, in about 20 minutes in facts. There are some low spots in the yard that need filling and there is still the remnants of a hole I had dug out front for a pond that, after having it dug, I realized was a bad idea and never finished building that pond.  

So I got something done today at least.  "Minor" cheat day.  Had some potatoes this morning and having pasta tonight.  After that back to the diet and seriously considering switching to a different one that isn';t quite so hard to do, especially when out on the road.  As long as I can still keep the pounds off and lose even more.  

The news - full of election day stuff. But there are no results being posted yet, it's too early, so I have it muted.  Just turning up the volume to anything that looks interesting.  I was watching Jaxon while Taylor went and got her allergy meds.  I have no idea who is going to win this election.  I really have no indication either way. I hope it's Trump but there is certainly no guarantees of that happening.  Apparently a lot of people are going to the polls today, which is amazing because 100 million people have already done early voting.  Which is also amazing.  The commentators and the pundits are all whipping this up to be a Biden landslide.

I don't believe it's going to be a landslide either way, but I'll truly be shocked if Biden actually does win in a landslide.  And sad, because I fully expect the stock market to crash if he wins.  The news channel I'm looking at on the internet is showing nothing in any of the states yet. It's too early, but if you can't tell, I'm fully engaged in this. This election cycle has been horrible.  The name calling, the accusations, the finger pointing, all of it, unbelievable. I'm ready for all of this to be over, whoever wins, wins and maybe get back to some sense of normalcy again?  

Alright I'm getting offa here for the man with the dirt will be here soon. 

 Off to Brownsville, I'm the first load which is - early.  Got a reprieve with Daylight Savings Time going back an hour, We're 2 days away from the election.  I'll be on the road today and tomorrow unless I get hung up in Brownsville which would have me coming back through Houston on Election Day.

Not too worried about that tho, I doubt we're going to see the results until late night or some are predicting even days and weeks because of the massive numbers of mail in ballots.  But, reports also declare that Biden has hundreds of lawyers poised to file suits in every state in the Union. 

That alone tells me that this is going to be a contested race and could drag on for a while without any declared winner.  

I think we're in for a wild ride here.  Predictions that major cities will erupt into rioting will probably come to pass, seems like the people perpetrating that nonsense will use any excuse to loot and then burn down buildings.  

Anyway, we pretty much spent all day yesterday doing Halloween. I'm usually not home for any kind of holiday, so it was a treat for me. We couldn't find a single pumpkin anywhere in the city or the next city over. Kind of waited a bit long to get some but I've never seen a town completely sol out of them.  Didn't really make sense.  The boys were a bit disappointed in that.

We decided to go to a neighborhood known for houses giving out treats and tho it wasn't near as many this year as last - Taylor said the entire neighborhood was doing it last year - there were still plenty of houses with people sitting out front, dressed up in costume and giving out candy. I drove the pickup, they sat on the tailgate with the boys safely in the bed of the truck and I only went like 5mph to be safe.

Yes they asked me to drive as Taylor had seen so many people doing it that way last year.  It became readily evident that we would have to go through a large portion of that neighborhood to get any real amount of candy.  The boys were having a blast. Phoenix was dressed up as Spider Man and Jaxon was dressed up as a police officer.  The only glitch was we showed up too early, so we went to Chili's and had a bit, used up an hour there and were just in time for the festivities to begin. We were the first wave of people going through neighborhoods.  

Saw the cop next door at the Chili's - hadn't seen him in a long, long time.  He said he would be sitting out on his porch tonight, come over and visit. So when we got back, I did just that.  he had been working security at Sam's Club for 8 months and making bank in doing so. $40 per hour plus OT.  he said in that amount of time he was able to stash away 40 grand on top of his regular pay as a banker.  Wow is all I can say about that. At the same time, sacrificing your life for money isn't really all that worth it for me.  I guess I put in plenty of hours, but what he was doing was even beyond what I do.

He's done with that now, he says, and will be home a lot more.  Since he's a cop he told me he could get me a pistol that I've been wanting for $500. That pistol is easily over a grand anywhere and you can't even find that version of a .45 ACP right now.  I've looked.  What do you need another pistol for? I"ve always wanted a .45.  He said next time he's in Dallas he'll get me one.  As of right now, he's having his knees replaced next Friday.  

Well I can't go on too long here, work looms. It's Sunday, so the dogs are staying in my room until they get up this morning. I had to order 3 new bark collars, Aspyn has them all barking now and they are ALL going to STOP with that nonsense.  It won't take much to get Addler ot stop, but Aspyn won't shut up unless I go out there and yell at her.  

Anyways, off to the races. I do hope this trip I get a bit of detention pay even if only overnight version.

G'day.  

 Just a quick update. 

The truck would be in t he mid 30k range.  It's what I expected after looking up pricing from various sites.  The interior appears to be in excellent condition.  My monthly vehicle payment would go up from the $350 it is now to somewhere in the $500 range. I could easily swing that.  5 year loan I'm assuming. 

Giving this some serious consideration. The only thing I really don't like about the truck is that it's white.  I like something with some color to it, but it's definitely not a deal breaker.  OTOH, there will be more of those trucks coming in over time. The Ford dealership I am doing business with bought out the Chevy dealership in this town so I know people will trade in their older vehicles to buy new ones.  I just won't buy a new vehicle, They're nice, yes, a novelty. A novelty that loses thousands of dollars of value when you drive off  the lot.  And the price tag with a new version of this truck would easily be in the 50k range.  

But, I'm in no hurry to make the wrong decision.  Just in the thinking process right now.  

 Darn alarm. Goes off at 5:00 am. I set it a half an hour after I should have left this morning, but I was soooo tired last night.  And so it was, I was dead asleep when that thing went off. Last night I pulled into a truck stop that I figured would have a lot of spots.  I was wrong. There were 2 left and I got the one and shortly after another person got the other.  It was pouring rain - I've driven in rain the last 3 out of 4 days.

__________

Friday - morning.  Day off. Truck needs all kinds of required services, the mechanic said, he's going to do that today.  Plus the air leak, they need to find that and fix it.  It's gotten worse and I'm not comfortable with it. Yes the giant air compressor on the truck can more than keep up with the leak.  I reported this problem 2 weeks ago and now I just forced the issue: time to find the leak and fix it.  So it should be in the shop there now.  It'd be nice if it went over into tomorrow. I don't mind a couple days at home. 

However, talking with the manager yesterday - who is never very chatty - but he let get the info that next month is going to be extremely busy.  he said there were 160 loads to do.  Uhh, I thought, we can't do that many, even if we drove every day for the entire month. He agreed. He said he just tells them we can do it because they always cancel.  Yup, Brownsville, Oklahoma and probable Cheniere always cancel some loads.

Cheniere, however, is firing up a new "train", they call it.  Turns natural gas into liquid and then they ship it overseas in giant tanker ships. When I say giant, I mean giant. You can see those things sitting in the port.  They attach what appears to be 24 inch diameter pipe to the ship to load it.  I can't guarantee that size because you can't get close enough to really see it well enough, but just the point: huge lines attached to fill them up.  I assume overseas they convert it back to gas.  They say a lot of it goes to Australia.  

Anyway, there are over 50 loads going there, so I know I'm going to get some of those runs - or a lot of them, I dunno.  There are equal numbers of Brownsville and Oklahoma runs. The driver trainer expressed his hope that the other driver that came over from another division - who does only gravy runs - will have to be trained to offload so we all get equal shares of those crappy runs. Tho, this is the cheniere in portland, at least there is some miles in it - 400 each way.  But it adds hours onto the delivery time to have to offload - they make you jump through a lot of hoops to get into either of their facilities.  You can easily be there 3 hours before you even get to start unloading the truck.

Okay, enough of that.  Just hold my breath and hope for equal amounts of decent runs with the garbage ones.  I went and voted, just got back. No way was I missing this election by being out on the road on election day. I prefer to vote on election day, but it's whatever at this point and the job I have, just don't want to take the chance.

There was no line, thankfully. I drove by there last week and there was a huge line and there were pics in the press of long lines as well.  Taylor says she thinks it's cause' it's cool and weather - even just a little coolness - makes people not want to do anything lol. It's Texas lol.  I was particularly concerned with this city's desires to give themselves far more powers than they currently have.  I voted against all of it excepting a couple of them. One was giving citizens powers to start recalls and have 15% of registered voters.  Anything that gives citizens more powers than the city? I'm all for that, for the most part.  Don't want anarchy, either, but this town has enough power, most of it was directed towards taxation and....no thanks.  I did vote for the extension of  1/4 of 1% tax  to maintain the roads.  I don't think they are necessarily spending that money well, this town's roads are horrible.  Maybe they should have put a "repave the roads" initiative on there and I probably would have voted for a temporary tax increase.  Anyway, I was happy to get that over with and done.

Taylor asked me to go to Longview with her to get Phoenix (the 5 year old) a Halloween costume. She ordered one on line and it got hung up in Houston.  Jaxon's already arrived from another company she had ordered on line.  The boy's little feelings would be hurt, lol, if he didn't get the costume he wanted, especially considering the 3 year old got his.  So I thought why not.  I was wanting to do that concrete thing in the back yard today, but I really have little energy.  Too much time on the road does that too me.  I usually need a recovery day - which would be today. 

Would you want Warren and Bernie on finance committees, knowing their views on "democratic socialism" and spending?  We're going to have a nightmare, IMO, for a federal government if Biden gets elected.  I don't care what you think about Trump, what we are going to get with that disaster group is going to be far worse than anything Trump has done.  That's all I will say about that here for now.  Election day is almost upon us. It's reported that Biden has a team of hundreds of lawyers in all states ready to file lawsuits or whatever for any "issues" in voting.  I hope the courts are ready to make quick decisions on all of this.  Whoever wins, we need to have that answer sooner, not later.  We don't need the election dragged out for weeks - which is what it appears will happen at least in some states.   

In other news, the dealership called asking if they could give me a quote for trade in value for my vehicle? I've been thinking about it. Really undecided. Pay this thing I have off and then get my truck, or get rid of it, trade it in and get the 2500 HD GMC pickup she just sent a pic of to me.  141k miles, not too bad tho it's only a 2015 so someone's been driving it pretty good. it's 4 doors, 4 wheel drive.  Very tempting, but she didn't give me a price. So I'm going to look up bluebook values for it and take it from there.  I just like this SUV because it's the long version and the dogs easily fit into the back with ample room.  The truck would either be the back seat or have to have kennels for the bed.  I don't like the idea of transporting dogs without having them nailed down somehow.  i see people with dogs running around in the back of their pickups and I just am not comfortable with that, at all.  I doubt that truck will last long, it's a Denali HD, they are pretty popular - but I know they're also pretty pricey.  

Well, time to go to longview. 

g'day

 Drove long and hard yesterday, almost 700 miles.  Got to Farina - with scant few minutes left on the clock - got up this morning and drove the rest of this route out.  I called the plant from the Love's about 40 miles away.  Can you offload the truck today? I don't think so but let me check.  Nope, sorry, the tank has too much product left in it.  

And these people expect us to come up here, wait 16 to 18 hours because - why?  This has been going on for years and I thought - my time is so worthless that I shouldn't get anything for excessive waste of time waiting here for them to get their act together?  Why can't they just wait another day to order? Why do drivers get treated this way at this particular plant?  If they want us to wait, they best be willing to pay for that privilege. That's how the trucking industry works.

So I wrote my manager a text - are we still having to sit around here for 17 hours to wait on this plant to be ready to receive the load and we should just eat it? Why do we get paid everywhere else we go and have to wait but here?  

I followed it up with - I mostly want to know because if we're not, I am going to go to a place 20 miles down the road instead of sitting in a dustbowl in front of their facility for all that itme.  He called me back - thought it's bs that we have to do this and said he would contact Eastman, there's no reason we shouldn't get paid for waiting.  

So I dunno how that will turn out, but I decided to get a hotel room and  spend the day here versus sitting in a truck.  I was hoping I could unload today, turn around and get back to Farina - I had enough hours left to do that - and then get home tomorrow.  That obviously isn't going to happen, drag the run out another day and make it less valuable.  

Well whatever.  Mark called and went on and on about some guy that left a room trashed - literally full of trash. He'd been living in there for years but bought his own house and moved out.  And left a huge mess.  Dunno, we don't go into people's rooms checking up on them, tho I think that's really something that might need to be looked at once in a while.  

Taylor was telling me I need to get home, she's bored lol.  She doesn't start her new job until the 6th, tho she decided to go on a house cleaning rampage, even sent me a pic of this huge list she made for herself. 

Amy Coney Barrett confirmed, the next Supreme Court justice has been installed.  I'm willing to bet she won't be near as far right as lefties think she will be.  I think she's going to go by the Constitution, not her own personal feelings or beliefs on things.  I dunno, time will tell.  Basically, I don't believe she is an activist judge.  

Anyway, just a short entry.  I have to go to bed to get up at 5:00 to get up, get some coffee, take a shower and get out of here around 5:40 am to get to the plant at 6, hopefully get unloaded straightaway and get at least 600 miles back towards Texas tomorrow. 

G'nit.e   

 This'll be a shorty versus last post lol.

Brisket was a success.  The thin end I knew was going to be rather dried out - I know some find ways to deal with that while cooking it, I usually cut the large end off from the thin end and cook them separately.  It wasn't too bad on the thin end, the only reason I ended up cooking the whole thing is it was frozen last night and after thawing out beef I don't like to refreeze.  No way to cut it frozen, obviously so it is what it is.  But the big end was juicy and delicious.  

A huge amount of food was devoured because James friends saw my post on Facebook and said they wished they could have some. Well yea, come over!  They literally live 2 blocks away lol.  So they showed up, Maria, everyone was hungry, the cauliflower bake I made was almost entirely devoured - that was 2 heads of cauliflower - the 2 pounds of bacon - gone, half of the brisket, gone.   It was a huge brisket so half of it gone was quite the feat.  

I like when I make food and most of it is devoured.  I don't like a lot of leftovers, especially here, they mostly won't get eaten.  6 adults and 2 children, that makes it more likely more of the food will be gone.  Plus sending food home with people.  

The day is done, the kitchen is cleaned up, I retired to the bedroom, everyone left and boys and J/T went to bed. 

As for me, it's time to go sleepy time.  The next 3 or 4 days will be busy, long days.  

 Oklahoma run over with.  Although, not without seeing another wicked accident.  A Mercedes sitting in the median, cables - those type that stop vehicles form crossing over the median into oncoming traffic - destroyed and the entire roof of the car torn off.  Ambulance come and gone by the time I got there, I have no idea if those people lived.  But the stuff I see out on the highways all the time!

Well, okay, the plant took 4 hours to get out of . They keep getting new people in there. They get one trained and finally figure out what they are doing and then? They bring another brand new person in there and taking literally FOREVER to do the paperwork after you are done getting loaded.  It's ridiculous. Before the lady that retired left, we were in and out in 10 to 15 minutes on most days.  A room full of other drivers yesterday,  some there longer than I had waited.  

I ended up using my 16 hour exception so I could make it to the casino truckstop near the Texas border.  Got done last night at midnight, slept 7 solid hours, went into the casino this morning for free coffee and cheap breakfast - but no gamlbing, didn't feel like it  -  and left there. 

Yesterday, however, I received my work assignment for the next trip.  The pic of the paper that has all the info on it was sent. I was thinking, hmm, I"m out of hours, I don't have enough hours left to go anywhere, not even a short run.  Just get back to the yard.  I clicked on the pic, it's a run to Stryker, Ohio. Not in love with that trip, but I'll take it over an Oklahoma.  Around 2,000 miles, the issue is it takes 4 days versus the 3 I could do it in if the plant would unload us as soon as we get there.  The last time I was up there, they did, indeed, unload my truck that afternoon.   Instead of having to wait up to 18 hours to unload the next morning. I was informed by another driver that they aren't doing that "anymore", as if it had been going on forver.

What I am going to do this time? If they make me wait? List it as detention time. Sit in front of their gate and wait the entire 16 plus hours and let them pay me for it.  If they refuse, I'm going to make some arguments about this nonsense of having to leave 3 days before the unload time when it only takes a day and a quarter to get up there.  Why should I be penalized for the plant simply wanting to dictate terms? If they are going to make me wait, pay for it.  

Well, anyways, it's Saturday 4:00 pm. I got back in town around noon today and decided to go grocery shopping - something I haven't done in literally weeks - go get some fuel for the vehicle, visit the eatery and then come home. That took 4 hours lol.  Dogs were howling lol. Temps have dropped considerably, it's back to outdoor fire pit season.  Not today tho lol, I'm in the bedroom, watching the news - yes I know I said I wasn't watching much of it, but there's so much coming out so fast now, and the election literally around the corner I have been watching some of it - petting the doggies, home alone.

James and Taylor took off to Arkansas with the boy to see mom/grandma.  I invited the ladies over tomorrow for steak.  I dunno if Kim will come, Maria is coming.  My trip to the grocery store included buying new york strip steak in case they wanted to come.  It's on sale so yea.  

______________________________

Sunday morning. Weather has dropped enough that I wanted to run the furnace - James and Taylor are coming back from Arkansas today.  The thing starts up making a humming noise and then it kills itself.  I have no desire to open that thing up and see if I can figure it out.  The exhaust vent has a huge opening on it and so I wouldn't run it anyway.  Carbon monoxide poisoning isn't a very pleasant thought of how to go out of this life.  I warned them even if they do get it fired up that thing needs to be sealed up good, can't be any leaks at all.  

In reality, an AC repairman said last year it needs to be replaced, the entire unit, it's on it's last leg.  If it were my house I would have already replaced that entire system and just make payments on it - they aren't cheap.  But it doesn't seem to be a priority to them and I am not spending my own money on replacing it. I have had it fixed in the past at my expense, I had no problem with that, but I'm not spending 7 or 8 grand on this house, it isn't mine.  I have a big room heater in my room and a window ac unit.  I'll neither freeze or burn up in here. Whatever they decide to do I'm fine with, it's their house, their expense.  They are both just starting new jobs and I suspect bills are piling up, so replacing it is very likely not on their priority list.  

And, the bills that cover utilities are on my dime, so regardless of their finances - I'm only guessing - the utilities aren't getting shut off. That's my rent here, I pay all the utilities and the wifi and the satellite. Sounds like a lot but it isn't really that bad and I get a huge room with it's own bathroom in exchange.  And pretty much do whatever I want within reason, such as the smoker and the pond situation.  

Alright, well I'm not spending my day off messing with that thing, I have a 3 or 4 day trip coming up, I'm going to stay home and hang out with my doggies and smoke that brisket.  In fact I need to get out there and fire up the smoker, it takes a while for it to get heated up and then stabilize the temp. Like a half an hour at least.  But this time, I'm just smoking it for like 3 hours and then I'm finishing it off in the oven. I've read on smoking sites that lots of people do that and it doesn't change the outcome of the brisket, just the purists who think you should smoke it all the way to the finish line think that's "wrong" lol.  

Ok, smoker fired up, brisket trimmed, rubbed with a nice home made rub and in the smoker as of 2 hours ago.  Still has a ways to go to get to the smoked appearance I like before I remove it from there and put into the oven.  Absolutely giant brisket, it's going to take half the day to cook it even at a higher temp.  Brisket has to be cooked to 195 minimum to get to the tender, juicy stage. Sounds ridiculous, it did to me at first too, but cooking it to any other temp below that and it was tough and dry.  Trip to Walmart as well since I was low on charcoal, smoker logs and smoker chips.  Of course they moved all of that "elsewhere" since Christmas stuff takes over the garden center.  

Adler is following me around like a puppy dog today, sticking his head into my side constantly and refusing to do anything but be near me.  Typical dog, even more typical for Great Danes.  He certainly loves my queen sized bed! lol

And, I've been reading texts from drivers all morning long. The COA - Certification of Analysis - is coming back bad.  Amazingly, they are still loading trucks anyway.  Like, if they can't get a good COA reading, they're going to have to unload all of those trucks, get that product back into the system and purify it some more.  That would take the rest of the day and probably into tomorrow.  ATM, my trip tomorrow is up in the air.   I mean, they'll still make me do the trip, the question is when? I don't really want to be doing an afternoon load on a trip that long, it will have me driving late into the night and I'm not a big fan of that. It's 7:30 load time tomorrow - gets me done with the day no later than 9:30 pm, probably earlier than that depending on how the day goes.  But if this stuff drags into tomorrow, kiss that schedule goodbye.  

Strange how over the last several months they've been having so many issues with both product and ability to pump the product into the trucks - tho more product issues.  They "fixed" the system and it has never been right since then.  

Well, the Presidential debates are over - thankfully - and countdown to election day.  A lot of people have already voted but I assume they can't start counting any of that until the 3rd - and then it's probably going to take more than a day in some areas to count all of that.  And likely, a lot of votes are going to be disqualified because of technical issues with not signing the ballot of filling it out correctly.  I wonder how many will be disqualified and if it would actually affect the outcome of the election?  

Texas has early voting, I just need some time on a morning here to go in and get it done.  Supposedly there are long lines tho, which is kind of strange in a small town.  I'm not going to risk waiting until election day to vote and find out I'm on the road somewhere and can't vote at all.  This is one election where everyone must go out and vote. If you're a Trump supporter, you don't have the luxury of thinking that there are enough votes to cover it without yours.  The polls are shrinking - I don't necessarily trust them anyway - but if theyre anything accurate, the gap is close, but some swing states have Biden winning. There are a lot of factors that people are discussing about the "hidden" or "secret" vote of Republicans who are tired of being shamed by democrats and won't talk to the pollsters on the phone or won't tell the truth about who they're voting for.  I have no such qualms, I will gladly tell everyone everywhere that asks or is discussing it that I am voting for Trump.  They aren't going to be spitting on me or ripping the hat off my head without consequences.  I've only received strange looks so far.  

Not that I'm going out looking for trouble, but I am not going to be shamed into a corner.  The one thing I have done is ensure that my employment information is to be found nowhere on the internet.  I would be concerned about the cancel culture, I have no idea how my company would react to a smear campaign.  Right to work state, they could release me without any explanation.  So I'm cautious on that point.  I could go out and find another job, yes, pretty quickly, but I found this one after a long search and it works for me- for now.  Not going to do this forever, but until I get my land and get an RV or mobile home park going or some kind of other mass rental type thing such as a small apartment complex, I need to keep working.  I'm up to 15 grand in cash saved, still have  ways to go. Maybe double that anyway if it's going to be down payment type thing.  All of it and then some if it's going to be a tax lien auction situation.  Get the land, wait the 180 days, get the title cleared up and then use the land as collateral for a construction loan.  

Around 50 grand to have a company come in, clear a lot, install the utilities, install pads for the RV's, make the roads/driveways.  Probably put up one of those moveable instant home things as an office to begin with and improve the property over time.  Make it a destination in and of itself. Which requires a lot of land so people can bring their ATV's with them and go riding.  A swimming pool.  A clubhouse with activities.  I know how to do this, I just need the capital to get it done and some legal help to get a contract for people staying overnight and something else for people living there, etc.  Oh, and of course permits, county approval - I don't want to do this in town, cost too much and too much regulation.  Taylor said a long time ago she would love to do the business end of this deal in paperwork and keeping track of revenue and expenditures.  

It's been a long term goal - for a long, long time I've wanted to do this.  I just feel like now with greatly improved credit score, a very good paying job and getting some cash saved up I can start to see some light at the end of the tunnel. Just a glimmer of it at the moment, but it is actually becoming doable, I believe.  This is something that I have never let go of. I got the taste for rental at my house and that has never left. Whatever happens, everyone needs a place to stay.  A lot of people live in RV's around here.  Mobile home park will have to be something out in the future, if ever, it really doesn't matter to me, RV parks actually look nicer and are less prone to becoming as trashy as MHP's.  They need less land, less amount of utilities since everything is closer together.  

But, at the same time, people like them to be a destination place as well as a place for those that are traveling can pull in, set up camp and sleep for the night.  I was watching one being built over several month span of time down south.  They got the place up and running - it's bare bones park too, its nothing but crushed rock driveways and a small module at the front for an office, the utitlies and that's it.  But every time I drive by there, I see the place has at least 25-30 RV's in there.  That's a more "prime" location tho, right off the side of the highway where travelers can stop.  For what I want, I'd like more trees - not to many but some - and a nicer drive way and pad set up.  

But I have to get the property first.  That's been a major hang up.  The final auction of the year should be the best one. Where they have properties that weren't bid on so they start the bidding at a tenth of the original bid. They take a loss on not getting the tax revenue out of it, but, they have someone buying the place and start collecting current revenues on it again.  Otherwise, they have property that is absolutely useless to them and not collecting any tax revenues at all.  I'm going to start looking every day for that next auction, the last one I didn't see until just a few days before it was to take place. There was no time to do research and I ended up having to work that day.

This time, if I catch it early enough, I can ask for the day off and I can go to the courthouse and research it.  Foregone conclusion I'm not taking any of those gas well sites.  What a trick they play.  They use up the gas that can be extracted out of the ground and then they just let the property go, they don't pay the taxes and therefore they lose the property.  But that also means they don't have to dismantle all of that equipment they leave behind.  It must make them a lot of money to be able to set up something like that and then just leave it.  I'm curious if that is an EPA nightmare and if they can actually get away with doing that.  The thing is, a lot of those properties are in excellent, prime areas where you could easily set up a nice RV lot.  But not knowing what I'm getting myself into with all of that stuff they have out there, I don't want to become liable for someone else's garbage.  

The other thing I am considering is buying up small lots in town where zoning allows a mobile home and then placing a small mobile on it and rent the property.  That is easy stuff there. Get an income from it, pay off the price you paid for the house and the land and then start generative profit.  Even mobiles are going high for rent in this area.  It's really odd to me that a small town out in the middle of nowhere would have such high rent for everything.  I don't get it, but I want to cash in on it.  Anyway, the auction I went to, lots of those properties didn't sell, no one bid on them.  

_____________

Seems counter-intuitive to cook beef to 210 degrees internal, but that's exactly what I did. I had to take it that high before it got nice and soft and juicy.  The brisket is sitting on the counter, resting.  Maria is on her way over for dinner, I think I'll just serve that instead of cooking steaks.  I didn't know if it would be done in time for dinner. James and Taylor stopped at Walmart and will be home shortly.

Taylor sent me an invite to an app called Life360.  She, James and two of their friends are on it.  It shows where anyone is at at any given time and if they're driving, how fast they are going.  You can see up to 2 days history - before you have to pay to use it if you want to see further back.  It's pretty cool albeit a bit intrusive, but it's voluntary intrusiveness. And I can shut off location services if for some reason I don't want them to see where I'm at lol.  

They'll see me all over the place, especially this next trip going through Texas, Arkansas, outskirts of Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana and finally Ohio and back.  I have the route memorized. 

Okay, well the day wears long and I still have some stuff to do for the trip - but the food is all cooked, just needs to cool off. I also made some stuffed chicken breast. The stuffing is cream cheese, sharp cheddar, fresh spinach chopped up, fresh green onions also chopped, some cayenne pepper, garlic power, salt, pepper and a dash of love lol.  I'm not going to go hungry on this trip, once it cools down I'm going to drain green beans and put the meat in a container with green beans, I only need have to warm the stuff up in my truck microwave : )

I best be getting off of here.  

G'day. 

 Long long day.

Up at 5:30 am, make my coffee - I have a Keurig in my truck and I use it regularly - off to the races.  The only abnormality coming back up was the amount of Texas State Troopers out there. 40 of them at least.  Far more than normal. And one of them following behind me for miles and miles.  I promise I wasn't doing anything illegal lol.  

But he followed me for so long, I just wanted him to pull me over, do whatever he's going to do and get it over with.  Instead, he eventually - after like 10 miles - came up beside me, looking who knows what - and then sped way up and headed on down the highway.  Weird.  Whatever his beef was, he got over it, apparently.  

Whatever that was all about, the rest of the day was basically normal.  Back at the yard, I dropped the trailer I was pulling - going back down to Brownsville in the morning - and then hooked to a different trailer going up to Oklahoma tomorrow.  No, lol, I don't get a 4th Brownsville in a row.  

I need this next trip to be a "normal" one for two reasons. first, I want half of Saturday and all of Sunday off.  Second, they are going out of town for the weekend - up to grandma's.  So I need to be here to tend to the doggies.  And just be home, frankly.  They want the boys to be able to visit their half brother - I think it's called - before a custody battle start brewing.  The mother wants to move to florida and take the boy with her.  That will cut the grandparents totally out of his life - they live near the mom. That's gonna get ugly. Actually it already has. 

I did watch the debate tonight- Trump nailed it this time, Biden went off the rails. End fossile fuels? End fracking?  and a ton of other things he said including a reference to Hitler that was ridiculous and outrageous.  

Whatever the case, a very busy evening is over with, time to go to bed.

 Got to the yard in Brownsville at around 7:30 pm and there were fully 3 empty trailers sitting here and no other drivers here or at the truck stop.  I know they weren't at the truck stop because I went there to fuel up thirsty fuel tanks, close to empty.  I was hoping no empties to get some time to sleep in and relax a little, instead I'll be getting up at 5: 00 am to drive back up to Longview.  I mean, I guess I could get up later, but something in my brain will wake me up before the alarm goes off and tell me it's time to start driving. Get it over with, get home, spend a night at the house.  

I'll have enough time for a brownsville run or less after this trip on the 70 hour clock.  I figure around 27 hours left. That's not enough time to go on any longer trip, but it's enough for Brownsville, Oklahoma, Cheniere, Houston and La Porte.  I'll take whatever they give me without complaining - well I usually don't complain anyway, at least to them, unless they are dumping me with more than one crap run in a row.  

Well heck, that's going to be Friday for any run, they can't give me a 3 day run so I will at least have Sunday off, - I think lol.  Yes I know, lots of Americans are broke, facing mortgage or rent payment crisis and otherwise in finanical woes. I feel for them, but I've worked through this entire pandemic. I didn't get free $600 per week plus state unemployment, I didn't get to sit at home doing nothing while getting that money and still can't go anywhere of any consequence for a vacation.  Then again, I make far more money than all of that free money so it doesn't matter, but I'm ready for a real vacation.  

One like James, Taylor and I went on to Galveston beach.  That was my last real vacation.  Where you hang up the phone, go to the beach and spend days swimming out in the water.  And forget about work, life and all of it's problems.  James and Taylor won't be taking a vacation like that anytime soon.  James just started a new job - I didn't even know about this one and not sure how he landed it. Actually it's just a test run to see if he can do the work that the job demands he has the skills for.  Taylor has had several interviews. Her last day at her current work is Friday.  She's sweating it but now that she's had interviews I'm confident she'll land something somewhere. She's competent, well articulated, a great personality, easy to get along with.  She does her work, she adapts quickly and I think any decent employer will see those qualities in her if they do a competent interview with her.  

But vacations with them are out of the question since they basically have no money. I'm itching to go to Disneyland - it's shut down. Apparently that lovely governor over there doesn't want theme parks - which is a large source of revenue in that state - to be open to the public. I believe Disney World is open, tho, maybe a trip to Florida, I haven't been there in decades. There is no point to going overseas, European countries aren't exactly welcoming Americans with open arms right now.  But who wants to go to a theme park alone?  So probably not.  Like, you're in a sea of people but you aren't actually with any of them.  Probably take some of the fun out of it. 

Ugh it's already time to go to bed.  

Nite. 

 Well, the drive back today was uneventful.  Manager calling me asking me what trailer I'm bringing back. Ok thanks.  That was it.  He's not one to mince words, but now that I've found out that he gets literally hundreds of phone calls per day - and from drivers that are calling him for things they need not bother him with more often than not - I have more sympathy for him rarely ever talking to - most of us.  He is dealing with numerous different divisions that aren't even in our state.  These people constantly call him.  I mean, literally, when he calls me, is directly to the point and the call if over. If it lasts 15 seconds that's a long phone call. I'm surprised he didn't just text me for the info.  

Not really complaining about that, it's the runs that I was getting I was complaining about, but now he's given me a third Brownsville run - that's 3 in a row - I 'll take a s*** run after this without any yelping.  I'm shocked they are giving me 3 of them in a row, to be honest.  I don't do the run any better than anyone else - well most anyone else, some people have issues making it down there the same day and back up the next day if a trailer is available.  But I'm thinking too much about it, me thinks. Could be payback for al the crap runs, mistake, just next in line, who knows.  You get 3 of those runs in one paycheck such as this will be? Oh yes, that's a very good paycheck.  Maybe because it shifted back from the dispatcher to him - he was on vacation for over a week.  Sheila gave me the first two Brownsville runs. 

Home today.  I got back at 4:45 pm, so I wasn't going to stay in the truck tonight even tho it's a 6:30 am appointment,  if it were 7 or later, I wouldn't have come home.  Kids. Standing at the door. Waiting.  I have no idea why they are so enamored with me.  Can we come in your room? Can we do - this that and the other thing.  I helped the 5 year old with drawing pictures for quite a while. I'm not a drawer, tho, I just looked up tutorials on how to draw whatever really - you put it in there and a video is going to come up and show you how to draw it.  Well, maybe I'll become a drawer, he is constantly asking for help with drawing.  That's not a hat I normally wear lol.  

Well, it's past bed time, just relishing a few moments at home before having to get back out on the road again.

G'nite.  

 4:00 am.  Slept poorly.  It happens, unfortunately, it happens a lot when I have to drive all day long.  Best I can do is sleep in the truck while they're loading it, by then I'll be wanting to sleep lol.  

The election nonsense is heating up even more than it was already at.  With the revelations of the emails on Hunter Biden's laptop computer and implicating Joe Biden in schemes to use his position to gain money, Trump and republicans are ramping up their rhetoric, going as far as to call Biden and his cohorts a criminal enterprise.  

Pelosi basically is waiting for the election to take place, apparently she believes Biden is going to win and they will simply start writing checks in stimulus money that, allegedly, is going to go to bailing out large cities with huge pension funding headaches and looking for a way out, an easy way out.  So basically, taking money from other states that had nothing to do with those scenarios and giving it to poorly managed cities.   I will be curious if Nancy's posturing and holding up this stimulus is going to affect how people are voting and will vote on the 3rd.  

There isn't any way that I could possibly, legitimately say that either side is going to win in a landslide.  I don't think the polls are accurate and even Biden's own campaign team came out and said Biden doesn't have an 11 point lead such as one of the newest polls came out with.  Most people I read opine that the polls are done to shape public opinion, not show what it is.  

Then you have the censorship going on with Twitter and Facebook.  At face value, it does appear they are trying to censor republicans and give democrats a pass.  

Whatever the case, I doubt much of anyone can remember a year with so much that has happened in it other than 2020.  Trump was impeached and the coronavirus hit the entire world, screwing up giant economies and throwing the world into fear, finger pointing and death.  The stock market crashed and then came all the way back up.  Tens of millions of people lost their jobs and now, alot of that unemployment has been reversed. Not all of it, of course. 

Just a bizarre year tho.  We're only a few weeks away from this election.  Come what may, I want to get that over with and get that behind us.  Democrats are promising packing the courts, extreme gun control, raising taxes that Biden continues to claim will only affect the super high earners - but many analysis have shown it will trickle down to the middle class.  I've never heard a platform for a Presidential candidate proclaiming increased taxes and thinking that's a good thing. Specifically, getting rid of the "Trump tax cuts".  i can tell ya that a lot of people I know said they saw a decrease in their taxes and those people weren't making 400k plus per year.  Biden wants to mandate nationwide masks and other virus restrictions. I have no idea if he wants to shut down the economy?

I dunno, but we've been on a wild ride. Like a rollercoaster ride that has gone out of control and is flying along the rails without anything able to stop it, the virus in particular has done so much damange not just to people that have died from it but to the entire world.  Kids are starving in far greater proportions in nations where they were already having hunger issues.  Stuff that we don't think about or know about and how it has affected other nations.  

I can only trust in the Lord, give him the Glory, know that He is God.  This world is under a curse and the only thing that breaks that curse over individual lives is the blood of Christ.  I won't be surprised to see that some of this may be the results of our nation allowing tens of millions of innocent babies being killed inside their mother's wombs.  Abortion is truly one of the most horrific bloodbaths of current time, IMO.

I have to go to work. 

G'day.  

 Sat in Brownsville until Friday 5:00 pm, drove around 400 miles, stopped at a Flying J in New Caney for the night, had breakfast at the Denny's the next morning, drove out the rest of the trip, go home yesterday around 3 in the afternoon and now it's Saturday morning.  At least that Brownsville trip I was sharing it with another driver who is chatty and isn't - strange.  

Oh, just didn't feel like driving all night and there was no good reason to, they didn't need the trailer til Monday. And Monday - I have the first load going back down to Brownsville, lol.  

And now have another Brownsville trip Scheduled for tomorrow/Monday morning, first load, early rise.  Truck is already hooked to the trailer, at least I won't have to do that .  

That out of the way, I'm very unmotivated today - but - if the rental store was open I would have definitely rented the jackhammer to get that concrete out of the way of putting up my new pond.  I want that going and soon, before it starts getting cold.  I suspect  I won't have 2 days off anytime soon, so I"m just going to have to bite the bullet and do it on a day when I'm only getting the day off.

Meanwhile, the boys have been in my face literally all day long.  To the point I had to go outside where Taylor was hanging out - away from them as well lol - and get some quiet time.  It's just a really slow, almost boring day at home - but I'm not going to say I don't like that.  They are taking a nap now, finally. I love those kids but dang, I'm home for down time, not play time all day long lol. 

There isn't a heckuva a lot else, My nephew is being deployed to Germany, I think he's Army.  That's pretty safe as far as risk factor goes.  I've tried to keep up with his life but it makes it difficult when your brother, whose son that is, has written off the entire family and wants no part of us for the rest of his life.  He hasn't talked to mom in almost a year now.  Same s*** he and my oldest brother did with my dad.  I'm personally glad he isn't going to the Middle East is what I can say about that.  

Without giving away too much detail - ugh I can't even say that, oh well.  It's concerning my son and I promised I wouldn't say anything about what's going on with him on the internet, so I will adhere to that promise.  Once he comes out with it - if ever - then I'll have the freedom to discuss it.  It's just a weird request that I have never even heard of anyone going through before - tho I am sure it's probably happened to many people.  

BTW, I have been hearing about how so many people have contracted the virus.  Can anyone tell me how we are going to stop this virus from affecting the entire nation? Wouldn't it be better to just let it play itself out like the cold or flu and get it over with?  Who really believes the President could somehow, magicaly stop this virus?  I'd like to see anyone somehow prove that the President could have done anything different that would have a different outcome?  

And Amy Coney Barrett. She's a gem.  I still just sit back and behold her superior intellect over all of these senators that wanted to get her backed into a corner with gotcha moments.  They simply couldn't do it, no matter how many of them that tried to attempt the same thing.  She's more than qualified to be a Supreme court justice, that's my opinion but that's also the opinion of legal experts the nation over.  I hope she's voted in at the end of the day. I truly believe she will conform to the intent of the Founding Fathers, and if she makes a decision I don't agree with, I'm still good with that.  

Ok enough. I ordered more pond stuff, I'm going to do this one up nice.  And still some to go.  I have the seeds for beautiful pond plants, got to get to Lowe's - but I am not going anywhere today - to get containers to grow the seeds.  

Anyway, Addler is laying on my bed, of course, lazy dog and lazy day : ) 

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.