This guy really doesn't communicate too much lol.  I went over to the property today - and it was a really beautiful day, took the dogs with me - to see if they had shown up yet to start this project.  

No one there.  Drove to the back and walked to the west side, to the rear of the place.  There is a nice stand of pine trees over there. There are stands of them in various places but this one I really like.  But that area isn't for me.  It's where I want to put some tent camping sites.  But this time, I was really honing in on how I could get people back there without even using the easement up the hill.

I'd rather not use it because it's a very good drop off there.  Would be a very steep drive for anyone to drive their vehicle back in there.  I don't really envision cars driving back there even on a better road setup, it's got to be pickups only. 

Anyway, I want to start with two of them back there and another one further up, sort of off to the side of the gas well operation, but in another stand of pine trees.  I plan on making a trip to the local state park at Caddo Lake to see what they offer for tent sites.  What I mean is, what do they do for the tents? Just an open area? Some kind of platform?  Like if it rains and water is running through, something that elevates them off the ground? 

I never tent camped like that but I'm taking it campsites put some sort of platform in and some of them put in sand pits.  These will be primitive sites. There will be nothing offered beyond a campfire pit, a picnic table and a place to park the vehicle beyond the tent site.  It's a very beautiful, serene, peaceful area.  

Addler was so happy to be back there that he was tromping around all over the place, making all kinds of noise. I had to call both dogs over and make them sit and be still.  I wanted to hear whatever sounds there were to hear.  Nothing but nature, I was hoping.  The breeze flowing through the trees. This is exactly what my version of tent camping is.  

The property is a real gem and the price tag on it was even better.  My overlooking it at the get go was only because I found places I thought were better.  Well, one of them I still really wish I could have gotten, but I see now that what I have is much better. Much more land, city water, internet is right there, close to the city yet definitely not the city feel at all.

I  tracked what I thought would be a good road to build into that area back to where the well site is and then, found a much better approach to driving back there than anything I had seen before.  I mean, it has to be cleared but it's not that much that has to be moved out of the way.  I plan on spending some time with this contractor back there and showing him what I want done in terms of trails, a road, leveling some camp sites.  I expect at least 5 grand more added to the price tag.  So beit.  These are must haves in my view.

Back to the vehicle, but I was looking at the other above ground pipe setup.  They just repainted all of it.  They don't ask permission, lol, that's all their stuff, I just see it after the fact.  They also completely cleared out the corner that was overgrown the last time I saw it - which was not too long ago.  See, I like them taking care of that stuff. Less for me to do or pay someone else to do.  

Stopped again and listened to the sounds.  The cattle rancher was out there so the cows were howling, that's what I call it anyway. It's beyond mooing, they start making a lot of loud noises when someone they know comes along and they figure they're bringing them food.  That didn't last long.

The only real, annoying noise is the train.  Most trains fly through the tracks, you hear them a couple of minutes at most and that's that.  This trains?  It honks every couple of seconds.  2 short blasts.  Wouldn't be a big deal but it must be traveling really slow because you can hear it for 15 minutes.  I've heard it a couple of times out there and today was one of those times.  It just went on for so long.  

Still, the noise people must be hearing at all of these sites right next to Interstates and major highways is constant and loud.  So a bit of annoyance here and there? I'm not going to worry about it.  The only way to get out of all of the noises altogether is to go well out of town and well off the beaten trail and then? Good luck getting people out there unless it's its own destination spot that has plenty of stuff to do.  

Well, off to make a donation.  A person's mobile home burned down yesterday and they needed help and were asking for donations. I remembered when my house burned down and all the help I got.  I had to do something.  The post was just asking for stuff, I just wanted to give money. Yes, they will need other stuff - there were pictures of the house while it was burning down form the local fire department, total loss.  So I went to the bank and yes, they had an official account set up for it.  

Dollar General, Kroger's, an oil change place and then Chili's later, I texted the contractor.  When is the start up date?  I need to know.  I need a date.  I mean, yes, if weather is bad such as it has been I can see it. But give me a date so I have something to latch onto, not these endless generalities.  It took a while to get an answer.  Tomorrow.  Followed by "wanted to make sure it was dry". 

So, tomorrow, they are going to be out there dealing with all of that stuff.  I will be heading down to Brownsville, unfortunately, I'd rather be home for the beginning of this.  But he understands my ribbons, that's pretty easy, the rest of the stuff comes out and they will put it in huge piles. It will dry out and eventually can burn it. That stuff can go down at the other end where I'm not going to be doing anything for a while with the land.  

The day of reckoning is coming.  I will have to make decisions.  My mind is all over the place.  If I have to sacrifice one thing for another - keeping costs down and trying to make money versus getting into a lot of debt - there are things I think I can compromise on, in my own mind if with no one else.  A simple barn shed that costs a few thousand dollars (or less) can work for laundry.  People want laundry.  I can see it.  They don't want to have to wait at a laundromat, they want to be able to just do it wherever they are staying.  

Perhaps the same setup for a single bathhouse if I can do nothing more.  Just a small shed thing with a full bathroom including shower in it.  

Or no bathhouse to start with and let's get this going.  In my mind, walking trails and a pond are more important. 

I'm going to wait on some of these decisions to see what I have left after the basic stuff is installed, paid for and over with.  Well, I guess just the price tag, whether it's done or not, so I can figure out what I have left over and what I can do without spending anything more than what I have left and leaving some working capital.  What I'm kind of not knowing right now is the cost of the driveways and the pads.  I'm guessing another 20 - 25 grand.  That's going to eat up a lot and I will still have wifi after all of that to install.  

Yes, I will take out another small, personal loan - if I absolutely have to - but right now, my thinking is to get whatever I can get going - going. Save up as much of the income as possible and expand.  After everything is all said and done - whether I get a pool loan or not is unknown at this point, no decision on that yet - the next priority will be to double the number of sites.

I'm not feeble minded, I'm just trying to figure out what I really should have based on the information I have before starting this endeavor up..  14 sites won't be much, but if I can fill them up it will be more than enough.  People will come - I think - if the right amenities are in place.  WiFi is one of the highest if not the highest priorities and I want that to be right regardless of start up expense.  If you have good WiFi, you will get the reviews to back it up.  If you have bad WiFi, you will get those kinds of reviews to cast a pall over your operation.  It's really that important to many of the people that come into those places.

It's rather perplexing to me, because if I were full time RV'ing, I would just have what I have now as a truck driver: unlimited Verizon with unlimited Hotspot.  I wouldn't rely on the campsite for it.  But if there is one complaint that stands out above all the rest of it, its the idea of a campground having bad wifi.  And even worse, if  a campground claims on their website they have good wifi - but you get there and it sucks. 

Okay, I have an early rise tomorrow.  My mind is refilled with thoughts again now that the construction is finally going to begin.  This has been a long road and it's not even half over yet.

 Trip to Oklahoma yesterday? Mixed bad

I forgot that my fuel gauge isn't working and paid a good price for forgetting.  10 miles on the Interstate going to work and the thing started dying. It slowly droned down to zero miles per hour and I knew I was screwed. Sunday, early morning, no one awake, no one answering the phone.  An app to get help? No luck nor tow trucks. 5 miles to the nearest gas station.  Eventually James came and rescued me.  That SUV holds 33 gallons of fuel and yes, it took just short of 33 gallons to fill it up.

Off to work.  Fire up the tractor, get my stuff and - find out the cab heat isn't working. It is cold here, at least my version of it, anything below freezing is cold to me.  

Anyway, the rest of the trip was a nothing-burger.  Snow on the side of the road, no snow on the road and no ice.  Up to the plant, drop and hook, back to the yard. Very possible to do it in a day if the trailer is already loaded and you don't have to waste the time going to the plant and doing all of that.

Birthday - was wonderful.  Fattening, but cool.  My stomach is just popping out too much.  I am on my 38th hour of a water only fast - well there is a little black coffee in there too to keep from getting headaches - but yeah, it's time to get serious about the diet.  I've done enough cheating, the fat is piling on, time to reverse that.  Fasting will get ketosis fired up again quickly, it did the last time I tried it a month or two ago.  

Crypto - mixed results. One of them is up 40% - I dumped $100 into that when I bought it.  That's a good rate of return. Others are up a little and a few are down a little.  I could see how if a person could hit one right and dump a large sum of money into it, you could get some serious gains quickly. Of course, you could also lose it.

No, I'm not dumping my park money into it, this is all money that comes from paychecks.  I'm about $250 cash into it, probably going to do a couple thousand after I get acclimated to how this stuff works.  So far, I am seeing everything I have bought go way up - and then crash way down - and up and down like a roller coaster ride.  I guess you just have to hit it when it goes up and get out of it quickly.  But - none of them stay down lower than what I paid for it, eventually it goes back up again.  I mean, if you had 100k and got a 40% increase 3 days later - well do the math.  

But, like gambling or the stock market, it has risk attached to it and therefore, I'm not jumping in the deep end. It's just something I've been looking at for a while and wondering why I don't at least give it a try.

Property? No idea. The trackhoe is over there, I'm home, going to load up the dogs and go over there ina bit and see if they have actually shown up to commence operations.  That's all I know, everything is is ready for them, the only change I made was moving the park another 75 feet south to the edge of the gas line easement. This creates a huge swath of room for a large dog park that won't interfere with other plans.  People want a large dog park, I'm going to give it to them. The only cost is putting a fence around it, a gate, installing a dog doo post with a trash can and plastic bags and grow some grass.  Probably the cheapest amenity I will have that people really want.  

As for all the other amenities, I am just holding back until the utilities are installed.  My view of it changes with passing time.  Perhaps the park could have a "soft opening" with nothing more than the utilities at each site and the doggy park, advertising it as such in bold print so people are not going to be able to say they were mislead. Well - and the walking trails.  I want those done as well.  That might cost a couple thousand to finish them but the end result will be worth it.  If I limit amenities at the get-go, I also reduce the cost of liability insurance.  It would be nice to have a couple of washers and dryers there, tho.  And I am going to have to have someplace to put the wifi hardware.  

I can simply offer a reduced fee for a soft opening and if I can keep the place filled or mostly filled, I will still turn a nice profit to begin with.  

Am I sold on this line of thinking? No. Just thoughts - wondering how much all of this gravel and pads are going to cost that might eat up whatever I have left in available cash.  It's 56k for the full hook ups and then whatever after that for gravel/pad creation and whatever after that is for the dog park and whatever else I can afford.  I'd like to not have to take out any personal loans.  I have around 120k available to do whatever I can get done.  

I have conflicting thoughts on amenities right now, is my problem. Yes, I can buy a cabin shed - it's just a shed with a porch - and have an office with a couple of showers.  But - is that what I want permanently? No.  I want a log cabin - a real log cabin - setup.  I go back and forth in my mind with this. "If I buy the cabin shed, what will I do with it if I have a cabin built?".  "Use it to start a parking lot style RV park that is just overnighters stopping on their way to somewhere else".  "So, buy more land?". "Yes, you were going to do that anyway, a couple of acres right off the Interstate".  "But I wouldn't be able to do that for years". "So?  You weren't going to upgrade to a building like that for years, either".  

That is my thought process, lmao.  Don't tell me y'all don't get into arguments with yourself over tough decisions lol.  

Yes, I thought about the Google reviews and what might happen with a soft-opening, but if I advertise it truthfully - this is what I have, this is what you are going to get when you arrive here - type of thing, what can they say? Well, they can say anything, that's for sure and some of them will, that's also guaranteed.  Nit pickers and people generally unhappy in life will poop on everyone else's parade regardless of how good a setup it is.  I could have a perfect park and someone will find fault with it and they will publish their discontent. 

The biggest priority on people's list - I have been researching this for a while now - is good wifi, a doggy park, lots of room for the pads. People are sick of tiny parks with small lots that have no room between sites.  My latest post in a giant RV tips group - I didn't see a single person say anything about a bath house. That was kind of odd.  Many wanted a pool or a place to swim, many more said they didn't care about a pool. Some want concrete or paved roads and pads. That's a no-go.  Think gravel is expensive? Try having asphalt roads and pads installed. 

The fact of the matter is, is that I'm coming to the point of a reckoning.  I'll have to decide what I have to have and what I don't have to have and move forward accordingly.  What's going to bring them, what might be appealing to a certain crowd of them, what isn't really that big of a deal that I don't need.  

To that end, I am going to go to a nearby state park with a lake and see how they have their campgrounds set up. Tent camping that is.  I don't know if they put some kind of sand pit or what for the tents or if it's just like the good ole's days, find a level spot on the ground and pitch the tent. I always went tent camping with air mattresses, which I assume a lot of people still do. Still, I'd like to see how the state parks do it just to get an idea since I do want to have a few tent camping spots as well.  

With that, I am out of here, going over to the property and see if anything is going on. If it is, there will be pics or maybe a live video stream on my Fakebook page.

 It dawned on me that they will probably start this project on Monday.  So, if on Sunday I get an early enough start - which I will - I should be able to make it a day trip.  That's because the trailer is already loaded and I won't have to drive to the plant  and in the plant, wasting around 32 minutes of drive time while doing so.  

The roads should be fine by then, they have already cleared up quite a lot since I checked earlier today, looking at GPS and most of the red line stuff is gone.  Getting it done will have me home on Monday unless of course this rather - edgy - dispatcher is looking to get me on the road again.  She claims she is short-handed, we'll see if that rubber actually meets the road.  i don't need to be there for them to start the operation, not at all.  The trees are plainly marked that I want to keep up with bright pink ribbon.  

I went over to the property today to drop off the contract and tried to open the gate lock but the wheels you turn to align the numbers were frozen. I stopped smoking cigars a while back so I didn't have a cigar torch with me, just ended up leaving. It was cold out, I just wanted to see if they had taken any equipment to the back, the owner of the company had asked for the code a few days ago.  

The 7 year old was with me, he wanted to go as long as he could bring his new Nintendo Switch, lol.  We ended up at Applebee's eating lunch and then home for the rest of the day, watching some Disney flick this evening, - the entire family - a movie called Encanto.  James and Taylor went to the local movie house for movie style popcorn, they already had the movie. Anyway, I don't often watch Disney cartoon style movies anymore but this one was entertaining.  

I did by some more crypto currency today.  $100 worth this time.  I'm sort of dipping my toes into these waters and trying to figure out how it works.  I have 6 of them now and they move up and down.  If you could figure out when it's going to move up and buy before it does that, well, like day trading on the stock market seems to me.  I'm going to dabble in it for quite a while before I decide to dump, say, a grand into one of them and watch it on whatever day I would do it on and see if I can dump it at a higher price.  Still trying to figure out how this stuff works.  

I sort of feel like it's a younger generation's platform.  But I see nothing wrong with taking a gamble.  Right now I'm maybe $20 ahead of what I've spent. It was up higher but several of them dropped their value.  

Anyway, in an RV park buy/sell group I'm in, a person posted the results of a question he posed to get the pulse of RV'ers. ""If you could tell RV park and campground owners one thing... what would that be?" He posted pages and pages of answers on a PDF file. So, I decided to ask the same question in an RV Tips group I'm in. That's RV'ers, not RV managers and buyer's sellers The answers were predictable but I wanted to refresh my memory.

:Larger sites - when they say that they mean wider. So many pars are sardine can style. Good wifi. Rules that are enforced. Pool, laundry room, pull-through sites. Large dog park with grass. Lots of other stuff that I have seen over and over. Since this thing appears to be at a starting point, I want to get refocused. I've kind of gotten away from it because this has been dragging out for so long. I do drive by or to the property frequently. It's like, here it is, let's get this going.

I really just want to get this money spent on what it needs to go to. I figure I'll be down 50 grand pretty quick after they get this land clearing up, going and done.

Anyway, that's it, lol, g'nite.

 Finally.

Well, first the work situation today.

I knew it was going to be bad up in Oklahoma, but I didn't know how bad.  The forecast continued to change over night until the point it seemed and untenable undertaking.  But, I showed up at the yard, hooked up the truck, went to the plant and that's - where all the trouble started. 

Not with the plant, but with my dispatcher.  She called me and said that another driver who left for the plant up in Oklahoma yesterday was stuck at a truck stop. I was all gung ho, let's go, come what may.  Then the driver sent her a pic of a snow covered road and commented that no one is moving. There were no tracks in the snow and I couldn't tell if it was iced over, but if this driver said he was stuck, he's stuck.  

This led to me reminding her I have Saturday off and her saying I said "if possible", my replying you said I could after I had asked and then her telling me that she didn't have anyone to replace me.  Well who is going to drive up there? They're going to get 170 miles out and then what?  Sit like the other driver is? What sense does that make?

Back and forth until I just contacted my manager - if anyone will save my day off, it will be him.  

Then the dispatcher called me and told me I am calling to tell you I don't appreciate you being rude, blah blah blah. I wasn't being rude, I was telling what she had told me and that there is no way anyone is going up to the plant today anyway, it's too dangerous.  My manager had told me that national guard had been called out and they were directing people off the highway.  

I then looked on GPS and that told the entire story. The entire span of the Indian Nation Turnpike had various hues of red - meaning stopped or very slow moving traffic.  No thanks. My manager then said something about the roads being bad through Saturday and he didn't have a problem with me taking the load on Sunday. I didn't ask for Sunday, I was just insisting on having my Saturday off.  I'm sorry they can't cover it, I rarely ask for time off and when I do, I want it off. 

What happens if I decide to go to the high school 40 year reunion in may, buy airplane tickets - or drive not sure which - and they tell me no?  Nah, fam, we aren't doing that.  

I dunno, but at the end of it, the dispatcher wasn't talking to me, my manager promised heartily that there wouldn't be any retribution, ie: my on the dispatcher's s*** list because I wanted the day off and that I could just take the load out on Sunday. He probably called up to the plant, told them situation and they just - what are they going to do?  If we can't get up there, there is nothing anyone can do, period.

So, I took the loaded trailer back to the yard, parked it, went into the manager's office. He wanted to show me what he can see on these new cameras - they believe the inward facing cameras aren't even turned on. I don't know, I don't trust them.  But, he showed me on 3 different incidents where - someone cut me off and were directly in front of me - "all they want to see is that when that happens, you hit the brakes or let off the fuel".  I tend to stay up on them so I can pass them since they cut me off and are going slower than me and if I back off, more care will cut me off leaving a net zero differnce.  

He then showed another driver who was riding a car's @$$ in front of him, I mean right up that car's @$$.  That was rather dangerous.  And then another where the light was turning red but he didn't hit the brakes, until the last second and then had a "sudden deceleration event" otherwise known as hard braking.  "He wasn't paying attention, I can tell ya that".  

It's exactly what I thought it would be.  

____________________

Friday morning.  Looking at GPS of the road up to Tulsa - unbelievable!  It's almost ALL red lines, including probably 85% of the Indian Nation Turnpike.  I-40 going through Tulsa area is nothing but solid red.  I would be stuck up there right now, sitting there scratching my head wondering why I agreed to take this load with these conditions?  Because we do not get paid for foul weather conditions where you are forced to sit somewhere and wait for the weather to pass. Now if that were true, I'd be happy to sit in it with full fuel tanks, a refrigerator full of food and enough water and coffee pods to make cups of hot coffee.  Yesterday, I had a refrigerator full of food, I thought about the idea that if I was going to get stuck somewhere, I wasn't going to starve.

Fortunately I went through the ordeal with the dispatcher to get out of it.  That other driver must still be stuck at that truck stop, or, he is going 3 mph or whatever for hundreds of miles.  I don't have to take the load up until Sunday and I'm going to leave early.  I don't have to load, the truck is loaded, if the roads are cleared by then I should be able to make it a day trip.  Well, unless there are no empties up there, I'm not sure what I'm going to run into in that department.  

My crypto experiment is interesting. I'm not doing it like I think these guys making the dough off of it are. I have 5 different versions of it and now I'm almost $50 ahead.  I'm rich!  But I can see how if you dump enough money in to any given currency and IF it goes up, you could make a ton of money in just a single day.  I'm not that brave, but I'll probably put a few hundred more into it and maybe start moving some of it around if it goes up substantially.  

As for today? Well I have to go to the property and drop off the letter I sent to apparently the wrong address that has the signed contract for the land clearing.  With the machinery I saw on my land yesterday, I can see them getting it done in days, definitely not weeks. That track hoe is huge, I'm happy they have equipment like that, this portion of it won't drag on forever.

However, I can easily predict they won't be out there today.  It snowed over night, the ground is probably hard and pulling out the trees will be - harder and maybe not get the roots out.  I want all of those tree roots out of the ground, I want nothing left to start growing again. I have already seen some of the trees I cut down to maybe a few inches out of the ground have shoots coming out of them. They are nothing but giant weeds.  I still insist on leaving some of them up, but not too many.  

Oh, it wasn't that much snow but it stuck and is still there.  

Ugh. I wanted to take the dogs for a walk but there is snow and it's below freezing.  I guess they might still want to go? Addler will freeze, lol.  

Done with this one, g'day. 

 A rare Illinois trip, over and done with, just short of 1,700 miles round trip.  I also dodged a bullet, severe winter weather is heading into Missouri and Illinois.   Another driver allegedly up there today, I don't envy him.  I was very glad when I got up to the plant that they got the thing unloaded and had me out of there in around 4 hours.  I've spent as much as 18 hours waiting at that particular plant.

No rhyme or reason why we got these runs, they only order them through trucks when the rail cars are showing up late and the chemical company that loads our trucks gave those contracts - the 2 Illinois plants - to the competitors out of spite for our company and the actions they took against the previous manager.  

I suppose it's a good thing for them that we don't just say no thanks, you didn't want us to do those loads at all, find someone else. Of course, there is noone else, save a company that has 2 trucks dedicated to that particular product but only haul back and forth to Houston area and another company that hauls it's own product for their company.  

Thinks are slowing down with drivers coming back into the rotation after being out for various reasons.  A good and bad thing for me I guess.  Means I'll likely be going back to having a day off in between runs.  I mean, I made excellent money last year in spite of that so I'm not going to complain.  I did ask for my birthday off which is on Saturday and the only thing I got back was "I'll try my best".  

That isn't good enough. If any of us asks for time off, it's either yes or no, not - gee, it might happen or it might not.  I won't have a cow if I don't get it off but anything important that I must have off? I'll just have to pass that through my manager who will get it done. 

So yes, I have tomorrow off and then they will only be able to give me a 2 day run before Saturday - if she gives me anything at all.  I'd prefer an Oklahoma run since 2 day trips to Brownsville are never guaranteed.  

Considering running for City Council election coming up in May. I have until the 17th of February to file the affidavit.  Why? because the town is run by a bunch of liberals, people who do not understand contracts and construction companies and have no sense of real priorities, such as the city's crumbling infrastructure.  Underground water mains and sewer lines are 50 plus years old. They continue to patch  the problems, the council doesn't even discuss a plan to replace the system.  They're building sidewalks while the roads are falling apart. Literally everyone complains about the streets but the city doesn't even discuss it.  

People bring rogue ideas for consideration - such as putting people into jail for having old, rotting houses on their properties.  They agreed with the state to reduce the speed limit on the Interstate going through town without even asking citizen' input.  The things that matter to citizens doesn't matter to them - at all.  They only meet twice a month and it doesn't cost me anything to file.  I won't be putting up posters or doing much of anything.  The other person in my district running is also a no-name person that no-one knows either.  

What is the city doing to encourage development of housing projects? Apparently nothing since you see none going up. You might see a single house going up here and there, the city's planning and development manager is a person that apparently isn't interested in seeing the city grow.  I've listened to the meetings on zoom while on the road, appalling.  If it's nothing more than filling in some forms and walaah, I"m going to do it.  I can participate Zoom - as they have been doing anyway since covid started. Some have finally come back to City Hall for the meetings, some are still doing Zoom calls.  It's basically a volunteer position, I don't think there's any money involved with it or if there is, it's certainly not enough to live off of.  

They have no vision and the city is paying for it.  There is a huge lack of rental housing and I don't know why developers don't want to come to the city to build housing.  There have been various business projects going up over the few years, the most notable is a new Chick-fil-a that's going up on the main highway - they are dumping some serious money into that thing.  But they keep building and there simply isn't enough population here to sustain it. They rely on highway 59 traffic passing through, but when Interstate 69 is all done, it will go around the city, not through it as it currently does and they will lose a lot of that business.  It needs a modern sports complex for famliies/kids.  I could go on and on......

I asked a while back if they even considered writing grant requests for the infrastructure and received no reply.  The state and the feds will give huge grants to replace water and sewer systems, not sure about roads and streets. Anyway, I intend on going to city hall and getting the application packet.  The worst that can happen is I don't get voted in.  Oh well, not the end of my life, but I have complained about a lot of this stuff, the only answer for me now is to simply do something about it.  I've done plenty of volunteer work in my life time - 5 years on the mission field and 10 years on a Little League board doing just about everything.  Not to mention church service, it's not like I am new to the world of volunteering or understanding how an organization works and what it takes to keep things running.  

But just keeping things running isn't good enough, you have to have a vision and have to want to see it through.  Anyway, the person that is leaving the council is being forced to because they have term limits here.  At this point, I am going to say that term limits would be a very good thing for Congress.....

Well that's enough of this.  I'm going to bed early.  

 There isn't much nice to be said about getting to the plant early - after being asked by plant personnel - and then having to wait an extended period of time for the other personnel in the scale house to actually do their jobs and get drivers out of there in a short amount of time.  Versus sitting on the scale both coming in and out for long periods of time just waiting for them to take the weight and save it and then going in and waiting with other drivers eternally, wasting the clock, wasting the day and generally wondering why am I still doing this job? Well I don't have any choice atm, is the easy answer.  There are plenty of jobs where I live, but they are either all low paying or it's skilled labor - for skills I don't have. 

The days drag on with this profession, some days I'm good, other days I'm not so good with it. Today was a "not so good with it" day.  It just dragged on until after 10:00 pm when I finally got to the Choctaw Travel Plaza - I believe this is Grant, Oklahoma - where I stop frequently for the night.  Just seemed like it took forever to get to the end of the day. It didn't help that a J B Hunt truck was going so slow on a 48 mile stretch of highway that is 2 lanes and only 1, real, passing lane.  There was a very long line of traffic stuck behind him - but when we got to this 4 lane stretch for passing, about a mile long, he suddenly was going something like 75 mph.  And then, back to 2 lanes? Yup.

Doing it on purpose.  

Whatever. 

I was looking at this sheds on both the Home Depot and the Lowe's sites today. It suddenly dawned on me that they sell them as well.  Their prices are much better but they simply don't have the right style.  I guess I don't necessarily care too much about style if affordability rules the roost, but so far I have only found them with barn doors.  I need a regular door on it, like the cabin sheds have.  

This is one I found on another site. It's 14X20, the pic is deceiving, makes it look much smaller. It's 12 grand plus $539 I think to build it if I don't want to build it myself (which I don't, simply don't have the time for it).  That is Wayfair site, which has a large selection of them. The drawback? Those doors.  I do like it tho, other than that and I'm sure the doors will work. It would be a combo small office/laundry/at least one shower/bathroom combo for men's and women's rooms.  

Certainly not sold on that one, still looking atm.  I'll be stopping by both Lowe's and Home Depot in Longview on the way home from work tomorrow - they are conveniently located next to each other lol.  Home Depot has a huge selection of them, but it's something I have only glanced at previously, nothing I took a good hard look at.  There is a place in Shreveport that has a huge selection, I think that was a Home Depot as well (I don't get to Shreveport much anymore since I quit the Ferguson job 4 plus years ago).  

Oh, an RV park I have been watching them build for almost 2 years now has finally opened up.  It's nothing but an RV parking lot.  There are no trees, no picnic tables, no fire rings, pool, laundry room, nothing. It's just lots all crammed together with a very small office - a portable building such as I am musing but very small - and very gaudy looking. Exactly what I'm trying to avoid. Some of these sheds look great, many of them I think are a turn off for anyone approaching a place and saying, what the heck is this?  So far, I've only seen one rv parked there.  Looks like about 50 lots and very small  

People are trying to cash in on the RV boom.  People are buying RV's at staggering rates and parks are filling up.  But I never got into this with the thought of "cashing in" in mind. Yes I want to make a profit, but it wasn't because there is an RV boom. I didn't even know there was any such thing occurring until I started doing research after I had started looking for the land to build one.  

This RV park is directly next to a very busy and noisy 4 lane highway, I mean, right next to it.  It's pathetic looking, just bare bones minimum garbage.  It's on the way down to Brownsville, I'll be watching it to see if it ever gets any units in there.  In no way am I wishing them bad luck, I just wonder how much thought they put into it.  

Whatever the case, it's almost midnight and time to go to sleep. 

 It was a bit disheartening to find out today the contractor isn't coming on Monday. I keep having to contact him for any updates.  This dude comes highly recommended by numerous people and excellent reviews.  No one in this area has anything bad to say about him/company at all. At least not publicly and I've looked.  So, he told me late next week instead of Monday.  I dunno what to think.  Just wait and see I guess.  I also contacted the other electrician of whom I talked to almost 2 months ago.

I frankly told him that it wasn't really all the great that he obviously just blew me off. It's your company, you can do whatever you please but it also might affect your reputation.  Well it didn't take him long to respond to that.  I kept it pretty short and sweet.  He actually profusely apologized and - made a bunch of excuses of which were of no importance to me, I dismissed him in my mind a while back when it became obvious he wasn't going to do anything that he said he was going to do.  I instead went into a few groups full of people that build RV parks and presented the numbers I had been given by this company I am attempting to use and they said it either looked good or was cheap.  

They seriously couldn't see how I was getting off so low on the septic system. Turns out, other states have much higher minimum gallons per day requirements for a system.  Why? I have no clue.  This state is allegedly 40 gallons per day. Other states are 120 and higher per day.  I've spent plenty of time in RV's, I can't imagine going through that much water.  You get pretty sparing with using it - tho that is usually because you are working with a fresh water tank that might hold 50 gallons of fresh water which doesn't last long if you are just using faucets as normal.  

I've spent a lot of time listening to rich people telling either how they got rich or what you should be doing to protect your money and where you should be stashing it.  One of them is off the cuff but quite humorous.  He had a 5 point plan he was giving today - Don't have anything in your name, either put it in an LLC or corporation, have life insurance with long term coverage, 40ks, annuities and I can't remember the last one. All of this is difficult or impossible to subject to lawsuits was his point.  I'm going to follow some advice to put the land in one LLC and the business in another.  I'm still trying to under C corporations.  

These people know things that most of us don't know.  They have knowledge and some of them will impart it freely.  It's certainly worth the time to at least hear them out.  Not that I intend on becoming filthy rich, but I do need some business knowledge and short of going to school, this is at least something that might help me out.  And most of them will tell you that you won't learn the things they learned from any schools.  

Anyway, Brownsville run over, another run in the morning, but I decided to go home anyway. They have me penciled in for 10:30 load, meaning a bit more morning time to get up and get out of here.  Everyone is in bed at this time of night but the dogs are always happy to see me whatever time it is lol.

I'm going to remain optimistic that this guy is going to finally get freed up and get started on my project. Not like there are a lot of options around here. Well, land clearing is endless contactors, but the rest of it, not so much.  

Time for bed. 

 Brownsville, Texas.

This yard is very unpleasant when it's been raining.  There are standing pools of water everywhere, some of them are huge and all of them are in the only places left to park.  Regardless, no empties but allegedly some coming tomorrow morning.  Fine by me, I don't have to get up at 5: 00 am to leave out of here.  More likely not leaving til mid to late morning.

An old friend - way back to the 80's from the mission field days - trying to hook me up with a friend of hers.  I had to think about that for a while. She's a very attractive, beautiful lady who has had 2 husbands that both abused her in some way that I am not sure of the details.  But I'm not really sure I'm wanting any type of relationship like that right now.  My energies are fairly well exhausted between a rather heavy schedule for driving - albeit and thankfully a couple of days off was nice - and attempting to get the project going.

Relationships take time and energy.  I just think it's kind of a bad time to be thinking about starting something like that with all that I've got going on.  Haven't been looking anyway, even before this project came along, 2 failed marriages seems enough for me.  Haven't really decided on it yet,  just thinking right now not a good idea.

Texas charges $300 to file an LLC.  Lol, there is nothing cheap about this entire proposition.  Endless expenses.  Some advice says to separate the land from the business and have 2 LLC's.  They didn't say anything about the costs of filing them tho, lol.  I'm going to get this thing done soon enough, no desire to tonight, I"m going to bed soon. But I want to start up a bank account for this thing in LLC name, not my own.  I'm going to research this idea of putting the land in a separate LLC from the Business.  I'm thinking reducing liability. Whatever the case, I don't want to have it in my name at all. If you want to sue, you'll have to sue the LLC, thanks. 

Nothing else new over there. Just took the dogs out for a nice long walk and got that marking stuff over with.  Well, I could do more but I've had enough of it.  The circumference is done.  Maybe I'll figure out where the building is going to go and see if I can figure out a few trees to leave up near it.  Someone posted in a Facebook group that they bought a 16X32 building for 12 grand.  12k?  I'm seeing 29k for that size around my area, gag.  

G'nite.  

 If you include Friday being off - I was home by 10:30 am - this is day 3 off.  It is probably prudent upon me to get out there and finish this tree marking project.  It's going to rain today and that is supposed to start at 1:00 pm-ish. So, I'm going to go out and mark the rear that hasn't been marked and just leave the rest.  Anything that needs trees I will simply plant them and 20 years from now it will be good to go, lol.

Seriously, tho, the project is 233 feet wide. There are towering pines on the east side and a variety of mature and very tall and large trees on the west.  I'm tired of marking trees and a portion of the property being tree-less isn't going to bother me.  Plus, on that side, the driveway is still marked with numerous trees. I think besides the southern end = which will probably take 30 minutes to mark off, just leaving a natural barrier between the end of the park and a 10", above ground natural pipeline.  I don't really care what all that stuff looks like, it just needs to stay.  

Today I opened a coin base account, added a method of payment, did the extension and bought $25 worth of some unknown crypto currency.  Going to start investing time to attempting to understand the nuances of buying and selling this stuff. The markets are still going down, so I'm not dumping too much into it to start with.  

Meanwhile, we have Russia talking tough, especially against the US if they deploy troops to the Ukraine.  I'm not a big fan of needless wars that do nothing for the US. I can possibly see sending over armament, but do we really need to engage in another war, especially with a superpower that definitely has nuclear capabilities?  NATO can deal with this as it sees fit.  I think there are wars that were necessary, of course, I don't see this potential conflict as one of them. Same with China and Taiwan.  Now, if either country wants to confront, say, Japan, then we are talking about world aggression and attempts to dominate the world, surely we would get involved then.  But I think the cost of human life would be so great, one has to wonder what cost of life is worth all of this bloodshed, misery and suffering?  Whoever engages in wars doesn't come out without wounds - both to life and treasure.  

Sit back and watch the show, I guess.

Whatever the case, I am going to try to get the rear of the property done today, I think, and also go look at portable buildings, costs and some idea - if these places have any such estimates - on how much to finish the interiors.  I could actually do most of that work myself - if I had the time.  Get an insulation company to come in and blow the walls and subfloor with it, get the electrical, water and sewer line in, put up the drywall, install the outlets for the washerss/dryers and only leave the bathrooms for a professional.  Cause that is a bit out of my league.  It's not going to be cheap, that's all I can say and am prepared mentally for.  It will eat up some finances. Don't really like the idea but it's a necessity to have a successful start up.

I am finding it amusing to see all the anti-biden/harris angst in the liberal media.  Apparently "anyone else would be better than Trump" isn't panning out in real life.  

_________________

Decided to get out there before the rain started. Glad I did. An approximately 400 foot long section of the west side hadn't been done yet. I remembered after getting there that I had run out of tape and also desire that particular day to finish it. This is the side with the "disputed" land and so, I just plan on leaving many of the larger trees up. It did alter my plan for the park setup once I heard this from both the surveyor and then the landowner next door. But it's not the end of the world.

I also decided that I would just go all the way back to a back row of trees and gain an extra 75 linear feet to the south.  That's a gain of approximately 15,000 square feet, provides more area for amenities, the dog park will go back there as well as a potential pavilion of some sort - a bit pricey right now in terms of lumber for construction, but it's in the plan at some point.  A swimming pool, there is lots of room at the back for everything I eventually want to get in there.  The point is that after looking at it, the gas line doesn't come up out of the ground until into the portion where my fence line turns to the west.  So there isn't really anything for anyone to potentially run into that whole back section. Just made sense to keep the pines  back there and a few other trees for appearances sake but get rid of the rest of it in front  of it.

I'm trying to make the best use of this money I'm going to have to spend to clear this portion of land. I don't want to have to go back and take down a bunch of trees. I can see having to take down a few that might have been mis-marked - that's fine.  But let's 98% of it done right off the bat and make the best use of the money. I can plant trees and will undoubtedly be planting both them shrubs - that is also not a priority, just a "down the road" thing. Buy a few here and there, plant them and slowly put them in strategic places.  I did find a huge pine tree in the middle of everything I hadn't seen before. I have no idea whether it will be able to stay up or have to go down once the park is designed, but I'd rather error on the side of "yes, gee, it was in a perfect position!" than, gee, I took it down, a big, beautiful tree and then find out - it could have stayed up.  

Well, the day is wasting away. I finished throwing stuff away in my closet.  That was the aftermath of a rat infestation.  I also got a new baseboard to put across the hole they made to be able to get in there.  Last thing I need to do is bleach the floor, make sure it's cleaned up nicely and then put what's left back in there.  It felt good, honestly, to get rid of stuff I am not using and probably won't ever use. I threw all of the clothes away, the thought of wearing clothes that might have had rat poop on them.  Just no, I can buy new clothing.  We can hear no rats moving around in the attic area.  My desire is if it happens again, we are calling an exterminator the day we hear any of that activity. 

Off to a portable building sales lot.  Well, if the rain doesn't get too heavy.  

G'day. 

I went into the office today after dropping the trailer and hooking up to another one, asking about this new Quaalcomm and the fact it took me quite a while to figure the thing out.  The manager eventually changed the subject to that surveillance system that has cameras facing forward and inward.  "Did anyone tell youi about that". 

I was quite blunt about my feelings of inward facing cameras.  He then said "off the record" and said they were trying to figure out how to silence the microphone. "Oh, I already shut off the camera and the microphone", I replied, since we were "off the record".  The lead mechanic across the hall busted out laughing and said yes, with duct tape!  

Well I figured they knew I had the thing covered up with it. I don't take it off now. I did at first, but then I thought: why?  If they don't like it, I don't care!  My manager informed me that the microphone could probably hear me through the tape. Perhaps, I replied, and hence I have been acting like and insane person making noises and speaking gibberish, singing, ,etc etc etc to the thing. 

They all busted out laughing at that.  Yup, well he then said he'd take a look at some of my recordings and see.  Yeah, don't tell me that, I thought, from the way he was talking it was obvious he had already looked.  So, the next thing will be several - and I mean several - layers of Gorilla version of duct tape.  Probably 4 layers and covering the entire rear of the damned thing.  

If you believe that I should have a camera and a microphone viewing me 24 hours a day while I'm in the truck, I invite you to set up a camera in your bedroom, your living room, your workplace and have a body cam - and make sure you don't turn any of it off for personal conversations.  Or while you're eating.  Or drinking.  Or smoking.  Or whatever.  Please do that and then post links to online access. Then I can watch YOUR ass living YOUR life and then come back and tell me about how companies should have access to it.  

I want to hear every conversation.  Mate, work, friends.  All of it. I want to see your face, all day long. 

Yeah, I thought so.  This is communist China bullshit.  Don't tell me it's in the name of "safety". I've been driving trucks since 1985, I don't need your intrusion in to my private life.  

I started looking at videos, one in particular has a guy taking the thing apart and showing the guts of the thing, including the things that show everything in darkness - hidden behind giant blue tabs.  This is all done to make a person think in the darkness, they can't see anything. I didn't believe that for a nano second, but some drivers will.  

I've been looking at driver comments about these inward facing cameras and most of it is in my line of thinking. I have choice words for all of this s*** but I will refrain.  Y'all don't want to read that kind of stuff, I'm sure, keep it to myself.  I flat out told my manager I quit my last job for inward facing cameras.  

I was then informed that they don't review the inward facing stuff. Lol my ASS they don't, but let's hear it.  WHY did they buy units with the inward facing s*** to begin with?  That's not what they want to know.  Oh, I see, they want lily white, perfect little driving angels that never make mistakes. Might as well fire the entire fleet.  It's a foregone conclusion any of us driving through Houston will get "dinged" and I don't want to hear about it.

I'm already looking for new driving jobs. It's inevitable.  Looking local first.  They aren't going to pay as much as I'm making now but if I can make 75k at least I'm good.  Just have to scale back on "recreational" expenditures.  

Y'all can have your autonomous trucks. Then you can blame computer software for killing people instead of truck drivers.  And, you will watch thieves stealing everything inside of those trucks.  Don't even try to tell me that isn't going to happen after watching several news reports of thieves emptying out rail cars and dumping the contents all over the place in the news.  They aren't going to be able to keep up with that many trucks and driverless trucks will become instant targets for far more than your average, every day thief. Organized crime will  get techs involved with it and try to find ways to take over the computers that are driving those trucks. Whatever they do, thievery is high tech now, these thieves have upped their game in tech and thievery.  

Terrorists from foreign nations could also try to figure out how to over a truck and drive it into  into - whatever. A crowd, a nuclear plant, into other vehicles, buildings, etc.  But truck-jackings will definitely become a thing to common thieves.  What's going to stop them from simply getting in front of one of these trucks, slamming on the brakes and stopping it?  A stolen car, license plate numbers won't matter.  The truck isn't the Batmobile, it's going to sit there and obediently have everything lifted off of it.  

A strange new world we live in, indeed. I'm ready for a simple lifestyle and let's get on with it.  

This stuff - companies scrutinizing your every move - irritates me so much that as much as I abhor the thought, I am actually considering trying to get an SBA loan NOW.  God have mercy on my soul. Yes Lord, please do have mercy on me, but also just the idea of going through all of that yet again. 

Yet, it would get me out of this trucking s*** and I could join the ranks of the older generation hanging up the keys permanently - and continuing to screw the trucking industry which in turn screws the nation.  Truckers don't want to screw the nation, they just want to end this bs.  I find it hilarious and outrageous at the same time that people think we should have this kind of scrutiny. Oh really? Why aren't you advocating for everyone driving cars to be put in the same kind of scrutiny? You know, the majority of the accidents - and hellish ones at that - that are their fault? Oh, those evil TRUCKS! But those angelic cars! Bullshit.  I watch what people are doing in their cars and it's a wonder there aren't millions of accidents a day.  But those BIG trucks!  

GOOD, GET RID OF US!! Vote us out of our pathetic existence!  Something like Defund The Police, it will be "GET RID OF TRUCKS, THE DRIVERS ARE DANGEROUS!". Yes!! Yes Yes Yes!! get rid of all of us RIGHT NOW!!! We are so inherently bad and maligned, and stupid!! Shut trucking down now! Advocate for it, right now! Call you senators and representatives! Get on social media! Talk to the media! Start a drive to get rid of truckers!  I beg you to do that! Please do that! INSTEAD OF SITTING ON YOUR HIGH F***** HORSE, LOOKING DOWN YOUR DAMN SNOOTS AT US.  I am SO sick of this bs and so are so many of my fellow drivers.  They won't be able to get autonomous trucks out fast enough to equalize the numbers of drivers that are quitting NOW.  

It's SO bad that Congress is authorizing a pilot program to allow teenagers to drive trucks across state lines. You don't trust me, an old dude that's been driving 37 years but you'll trust a kid? LMAO!!! YES< GET  AS MANY OF THESE 18 YEAR OLD AS YOU CAN, LET THEM TAKE OVER THE INDUSTRY!

Why is there a shortage of truck drivers? It's not only that they have trouble recruiting people into a loner lifestyle, segregated from society.  It's also because long time drivers are quitting in droves. It's either early retirement or they're finding something else to do. I have read countless posts where drivers that own their own trucks have hung up the keys and their truck is sitting at their house, idle and not hauling freight.  

Oh, but it's such an easy job! I'm not even going to try and defend that anymore.  I'll tell you where to stick it rather than attempt to go into the entire detail of what a truckers life is - most of y'all couldn't stand it. Don't tell me about money, either, are you willing to go out there and trade your life for the road?  If you say yes, your ass better be getting into a truck and then come back after you get trained, get with a trainer in a truck and the out on your own for at least 6 months and then come back and tell ME how freaking EASY it is.  

This s*** pisses me off.  

I know the hellish thoughts I had going through these last two loans yet I can't escape the idea of just getting a huge loan, developing it all at once, get it over with and start a new life . The cons of such a proposition in attempting to get such a loan are so high, however, that it's a giant obstacle in my mind to try and get over it.

Yet, I can assure you, that in the next coming days, I'm going to try and overcome that mind jumble and see if I can find it within myself to just go ahead and do it.  

Not going to write too much about that because I certainly haven't convinced myself that I need to do that.  With only 14 lots, however, I can't live off of that.  

SBA is back in my mind again.  
Far from decided on, just in there.  And will be thinking about it - as well as looking at that infinite paperwork that's still there in my email account - and pondering.  

This post started out with the camera crap and I guess digressing into other negativity that has been eating at me.  Disdain for truckers got old long ago.  You hate trucks and truckers but you would have meltdowns and your way of living would come to an abrupt stop if we all just quit and said fine, live your life how you want to live it without our input : )

Whatever the case, I still have work tomorrow - dunno how long that's going to go on with this particular company - but as long as I have the job, I'm going to do with excellence.  

  So, I texted the owner of the construction company again today. It's Wednesday and it's not that far from a potential starting date of Monday. So I simply asked him if he was still going to be tied up in Dekalb next week?  A few hours later, he replied yes and then another text saying he will be finished next week and will be starting work on my project 2 Mondays from now.  

I'm okay with that. Would have preferred to get it started next week, it is what it is.  Oh and there was another few texts about putting in the gravel, it isn't part of the bid and I wanted to see if he does that as well.  He will basically build me an entire park as far as the driveways, lots, electricity, water and sewer/septic system is concerned.  

The office building - if that's the route I go for also installing showers, which it kind of makes sense right now to do so considering the costs of everything - would be hauled over by the seller and presumably set up by them as well.  Of that, I have no actual clue.  That will be a discussion with them. They do sell those things with a down payment and monthly payments after that, which would help keep from draining my bank account completely dry.  

So, a few things in the offing for fact-finding missions is whatever portable building I will buy, how much it's going to cost to do the interior and also getting quotes on building a swimming pool.  These are the major expenses after the contractor completes his work, the rest of it will be minor compared to the costs of these things.  I"d actually like to get under contract with them and get the prices set.  

However, the pool requires financing and tho I believe I can get financed, that's not set in stone. I looked at few pool financing options today, pretty high interest rate, I'll keep looking.  I don't need an $800 per month payment on a pool.  That just sounds like a lot of money for such a thing.  But, those were personal loan rates, I'm going to see about other types of loans with potentially lower interest rate.  

The cash out money was wired into my account today. I have all the money I'm going to get for this venture without having to borrow more money.  If you skip the pool, I have enough to pay for everything, I think, without any more loans.  Beyond the office/bath house/laundry room facility, there's advertising, signs, picnic tables, fire rings, a doggy park, grass seed/install, probably a lot more minutia I'm just not trying to think of right now. It was just encouraging to at least get a date set for the ground breaking and also the money coming in to my account.

The refi ordeal is over. Next is to pay off some debt.

If you're questioning my pool desire, it's an absolute necessity IMO.  If I'm lucky, I'll be opening by summer time. It gets hot here.  If I want people to come year round, it's going to be because I have something for them to do - year round including summer time.  A pool doesn't make your park a destination in and of itself, but it definitely adds to the appeal.  It will suck into my initial opening phase profits, of course.  It will pay off keeping  the place full (I'm hoping) and certainly when the park is expanded.  

Oh, I'm in Brownsville again.  Last 6 out of 7 trips have been to Brownsville. I was pretty annoyed when I showed up to work this morning, got in the truck to fire it up and was greeted with a new Quaalcom ELD.  I didn't know they were even considering replacing them.  No announcement was made and I had no clue how to operate the thing. Much different than the one they replaced it with.

It took a while for it to even get running and then, a lot of stuff was missing and a few things weren't even working, such as the ability to actually get into on-duty mode and log my pre-trip inspection.  It eventually worked.  

After loading this morning and driving down the road, it dawned on me that this thing might just have a camera on it.  It took 2 seconds to locate the camera and the microphone, both of which I covered with 2 layers of duct tape.  This is a non-starter for me.  I don't care what they think about me covering it up and I'm not trying to hide the fact that I'm doing it.  If they don't like it, we can part ways. This is a line they can't cross with me, this makes a total for 4 cameras that have in this truck.  2 front facing and 2 inward facing with 3 separate units.  

It is a given they can't afford to lose any more drivers, but this company will cut off it's nose to spite it's own face type of thing.  They don't care - and therefore, neither do I. I'm not married to this company, I am not under contract to this company, if they want to force their surveillance s*** down my throat, they can have their truck back and I will find employment elsewhere - without the effing cameras.  I don't care what anyone thinks about this, either and I frankly don't want to hear about it.  I have lived without these damned cameras my entire trucking career until this company.  

That particular subject irritates me.  Especially the part about the COO promising that they will only install forward facing cameras.  Liar.  

Enough of this.  I'm a bit cranky, I woke up in the middle of the night and spent 3 hours trying to get back to sleep.  Just the way it is with me, I either sleep like a log or I don't hardly sleep at all.  My afternoon nap when I stopped for my break? I would have probably slept for hours if I hadn't set an alarm on my clock.  I'm hooked up to an empty - no detention pay this time - get up at 4:45 am and get back up to Longview.  

Not to mention other things going on that I cannot - well I will not - go into on the internet.  These are hard times for some people, is what I will say about that.  And my oldest brother - I have no idea how he's faring after he became deathly sick with a Covid booster shot.  My son is feeling better at least.  My mother is doing okay as well.  We can only live one day at a time and thank God for His goodness and mercy that He freely gives us.  If we're looking to the future for "better days", probably a good time to stop and think about that assessment.  You are not guaranteed tomorrow - or months or years beyond that.  I'd like to be alive and in decent health another 30 years, but I face the reality on a daily basis that people are constantly dying all around us - and all different ages - and you could be next. 

I don't dwell on it in a negative sense, I just think how wonderful it is to be alive, even if there are tough times going on in the economy and inflation.  There are always tough times in some sector/aspect of life.  Just have to make the best of whatever is going on and enjoy life.  If you think I'm a completely negative person, think again. This is my blog and I just write the thoughts as they come to me.  The land and house loans were admittedly a pain the ass and I didn't want to deal with it, but it's over and now I can rest easy from it.  I also admittedly don't enjoy having to leave the house all the time and go on the road endlessly.  But every day presents some good things and I'm grateful to still be alive at almost 58 years old, I've live a fairly hard life. That's not a complaint, it's just reality.  

That's all this blog is, really, reality.  I could fluff it up and speak of other things, but I tend to just keep it real here.  This is the place where I write some of my thoughts and then I scrutinize them.  And make adjustments.  Or give considerable thought to what I'm doing and if there is a better or different way.  Fortunately there isn't any drama in my life such as when I was living in Phoenix and dealing with someone else's kids of whom they weren't taking care of, weren't feeding and I did my best to help them out, only to get a lot of threats and eventually carrying a gun with me all the time.  Evil, wicked people that have no conscience and have no regard for life.  

Well, that IS getting negative, thinking of the past sometimes does that for me. Regardless, it's my self imposed bed time and that is what I'm going to do - go to sleep and hopefully stay asleep all or most of the night.

 Somehow I managed - without asking for it - to get a day off.  I can't adequately convey how incredibly worn out I am right now.  I woke up early this morning but I have done nothing but had a few cups of coffee, pet the doggy and nothing else.  There is no way, at least not feeling like - lethargic, groggy - this that Im going out and marking trees today.  Perhaps I'll feel more energized this afternoon? No clue, not going to stress over it if I don't get over there.

Because the price of everything is off the charts right now, the idea of having a bath house built is likely going to go out the window. At least, not the way I intended to do it.  It's just going to cost far too much money and that is nothing I want to get involved with right now.  I am, after giving it some thought, going to likely buy a larger office building than what I was going to. You know, those portable "shell" buildings that you buy and then you have to do the interiors? 

I did check on shower trailers, the prices are absurd. 50, 60, 70k? No thanks.  I can get a larger office building for around 15k and spend around 10k putting in everything needed to have an office and 2 shower rooms.  And renting them is like a grand a month.  There are a couple of places in town that sell the portable buildings - and they have a large selection.  So I will be checking them out and looking at pricing.   

Inflation? Yes. An RV park expert who owns hundreds of them around the country was discussing the subject in a podcast.  He pointed out that costs for everything are likely to go up for at least another year, possibly much longer, and that if you had any upgrades or major purchases you needed to do for your park, you are best off doing them right now.  Don't wait even a few months.  Economists have had the same, gloomy outlook. And now Rand Paul put out his version of a report that blames the government spending spree for Covid relief as the main culprit for 7% year over year inflation, which the story labeled as a 40 year high.

As far as the cost of everything, right now is absolutely the worst time to be thinking about building anything. An RV park is filled with costs for this, that and the other thing when contemplating building one from scratch.  The only real way to save any money is to do as much of the work as you can yourself.  I don't have carpentry skills and putting up a building is a bit beyond my skill level.  Interestingly, if I wanted to do that, I wouldn't need any kind of permits from the county. They don't care and they make no bones about telling everyone.  If you live in the county, outside of any municipality city limits? You pretty much have free reign to do whatever excepting what the state imposes.

I was thinking about trying to find a competent handyman, but the last time I tried doing that they all wanted very high hourly wages or they wanted to give bids, which turned out to be very high and untenable.  I moved on quickly from that landscape.  It's true that I am in a limited market for anyone with skills, this is a rural area and it's not densely populated.  Therefore, whatever the price of a service is? You are stuck with it. You can try to get everyone in the area to give a price/bid, in the end, you'll have to deal with one of them for it isn't going to be cheaper to try to drag someone from 100 plus miles away.  

So I will just continue to look at what options I have.  I could go without a bath house, I suppose, but there is so much information that details the necessity of having one if you don't want to isolate a large portion of potential customers that might otherwise come.  It's at the top of the list of priorities many RV'ers have when considering a campground.  

It's getting a bit dismaying to see the costs of everything going up so high that the money I will have in a few days would have built this version of a park and then some plus money left over, but now I am looking at spending most all of it just for a 14 space operation.  I was quoted 28k just for gravel yesterday. Yes, that includes delivery, but 28 thousand dollars for gravel?  Did the earth run out of raw materials or something?  I can tell ya right now I am not going to spend that much money on gravel, I will find cheaper material somewhere else or I will do something different. I don't know what, but rocks simply aren't worth that much money.

Anyway, I think I will just go right back to bed and take a nap.  Why not?  

 The finance center for this RV park is becoming problematic.  I had a company quote me $26,000 for gravel.  

Twenty-six thousand dollars.  For gravel. Huh?

There is no shortage of gravel. It doesn't come from China, Indonesia, the Philippines or India. It comes from a quarry locally.  Yet they feel the need to drive up the prices for rocks as well. This is just price gouging.  

The thought of paying that much money for just 14 spaces is appalling.  Just for gravel? That's even more than the electricity quote.

I dunno, I'll pay whatever I have to pay, that's just one company and I haven't pursued it too much in asking for price per ton, delivered.

But it gave rise to the thought that having a bathhouse at this stage is premature.  Well, not having the bathhouse, but having one built.  It dawned on me that a bathhouse for 14 lots and one for 50 are 2 entirely different animals.

If I ever get the park going - which I intend to but there are so many obstacles - and if I ever get it up to 50 lots, the size bathhouse I intend on building for a 14 lot site will not be sufficient for one for 50 spaces. It means I would have to build another bathhouse.  

I looked at portable versions of it a while back, but now? I'm going to do a lot of research on it. Both for buying and if available, renting.  A 14 lot site will not have a huge demand for it and with current inflation, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me to spend the kind of money it will cost if there is a better and cheaper alternative out there that will cover the need at significantly reduce price.  

I am not trying to spend all of this money I am going to have after the house cashout arrives in my checking account just because - I have the money to do so.  

Other things but not going into that now.  I haven't been home but 2 hours and it's time to go to bed.  I was looking at hotels in San Antonio tho, found one that looks quite awesome. Actually, there are several that look good, but they have to have accommodations for 3 people and not all the in the same room.  Vacation time is coming.  No dates yet, but that's only because I'm looking at what's available.  I'm not staying at a crappy hotel for a vacation, thanks.  

Off to dreamland.  

 Completely lost track of days.  Last entry I wrote "Thursday morning". It was actually Friday morning. Down to Brownsville pick up and empty and straight back up, no detention pay this time.  Which is fine, I didn't want to wait down there.  I am dispatched to a plant in Kentucky tomorrow and wanted at least a few hours at home tonight to visit with everyone and enjoy - not being in the truck.   

The plant is about 565 miles from here.  I've never been to this plant, btw.  Apparently they normally get the product we haul via rail cars.  I would venture to guess rail cars are held up somewhere and won't be there in time enough to supply their needs.  Another driver at the yard today told me that you take the truck in there, drop the trailer and then have to leave the plant.  3 to 5 hours to off load. Which is quite a bit of time but it's whatever to me. I'm just concerned about the weather.

Anyway,  I was talking to my mother today. My oldest brother got the booster show and now is deathly sick.  This is from the booster, not from getting Covid itself. I keep hearing about how safe the vaccine is and I keep seeing how badly it's affecting members of my family.  My middle brother refuses to take it - and he's a paramedic.  I've been of the mindset not to take it regardless of what my family believes - or anyone else for that matter.  But, we are labeled traitors, people that want to kill others and other such nonsense by politicians from the President on down if we dare oppose the woke culture. 

Fortunately, I don't give a damn what any politician thinks, Hollywood elites can go suck a rotten egg, mainstream media can also jump in a lake.  I have yet to have anyone telling me to my face that garbage and if they try to, they aren't going to be having fun doing it.  These people live in bubbles, isolated from reality and from society, surrounded by their ilk, they mouth off their rantings. In love with the sound of their own voices, they mistakenly believe we all love to hear them mouthing off as well.  

Whatever the case, my son still isn't out of the woods, I was thinking he was, but he said "apparently, there are phases to this virus".  I was concerned about my oldest brother, but as normal for him, he isn't giving much details of what he is going through, just that mother said it's not good.  

Then I mentioned I wanted to come to AZ to visit everyone. She said no, that's not a good idea, it's too dangerous right now.  Ugh.  She then went into other stuff, part of which was about things she wanted to discuss about the inheritance we would all be getting after her passing.  I really don't like talking about that.  I am of the thought that whatever she desires, that's what should happen.  But she has totally changed her stance on this situation. Before, it was the idea that she was just dividing everything 3 ways, but it would be up to us to agree on who gets what. 

I dunno what changed her mind about it - she has been of that thought for decades now.  Apparently she has divvied up everything, to the point telling me that her truck will be mine.  Uhh, mother, are you sick? Been told something that we don't know about? Nope, this is just the way she is about this stuff.  I don't really enjoy the thought of my mother's passing, but she is definitely getting up there in age.  She's still in decent health is all I can say.

_______________

Sunday, 6:45 am.  Looks like it snowed over night in areas going up to Calvert City including in Arkansas.  How that plays out on driving and the roads? I have no idea.  It's going to warm up into the high 40's today in that area so hopefully any icing will be gone by the time I get going through there. 

My sign has arrived, btw, in all of it's "will be trespassed" glory.  I need a post to hang it on and time to go out there, dig a hole and put it in the ground.  Unfortunately, I will have enough hours for another trip somewhere, probably no more than a Brownsville type trip, after this trip is over.  What I'll want is an Oklahoma trip, where I can have at least most of a day off plus a full day after that to reset the 70 hour clock.  

Anyway, it's time to get out of here and go face the day.

The dude showed up late.  He also said there were 170 pages of documents he would have to go through and signing a large number of them.  

It took much longer than expected.  The land loan was a fractional amount of paperwork and signing than this behemoth.  

I have 3 business days to change my mind - which puts it at Tuesday. Monday is Martin Luther King day, they consider that a national holiday.  I doubt I will be changing my mind, but now that I have the entire thing in paper format, I'm going to go through it all again - without this guy just showing me it, explaining it and telling me I can read it later - and scrutinize everything.

Actually, I was appreciative the man showed up. It was last minute stuff for him, he certainly wasn't obligated to take the job - but I'm sure it pays well.  

I texted my dispatcher after and she informed me that they had found someone else to take the empty trailer to Amarillo.  Well thanks for telling me....I was going to ask to just take it tomorrow considering how late it's getting. Instead, she tells me I have a load for tomorrow but didn't tell me where and hasn't sent the paperwork yet.

______________________________

Thursday morning 

I'm just going to tolerate this dispatcher, act as if nothing is wrong. The other drivers are putting her through the wringer, I am not going to add on to it. And besides, she sent me yet another Brownsville run, that's 5 in a row.  Even in the best of times that was unheard of. I would actually like an Oklahoma run, that way I could have most of tomorrow off, but, this is good money and I will just deal with the nuances of this particular trip, the worst of which being the drive through Houston.

I'm going to redo the park plan map I made for the contractor and add 4 spaces to it, see what kind of increase in cost it will give me.  Probably around 10k.  18 spaces would be a better position financially if I could keep them mostly full most of the time, at least during peak season. 

Whatever the case, my math was off, I had not added on the additional 14k I received recently and just showed up in my bank account.  After the 66k is dumped in there, I should - hopefully - have ample finances to fund this project. 

With that, I'm outta here. Going to get to the yard early and get to the loading plant early as well.

G'day

 So, finishing my shower, I received an email from the loan company with the final version of the closing.  I was literally shocked to find out that instead of the 85k I was going to get, it went down to 66k.

Now there's a history behind this.  The loan officer called me the other day asking me about this 20k that was "hidden" behind the loan. Yes, I told you about that at the beginning.  Okkk, he says, well that wasn't included in the loan amount.  

So what are you telling me? I replied. Are you going to take 20 grand off of the cash out?  He was looking at it while on the phone with me for a while, said well no, it looks like it was baked into the loan itself.  I said great.  Fast forward to literally just a few minutes ago and I'm looking at this thing and my plans going right out the window.  

I wanted 70k left over after paying off debt.  I texted him my dismay and confusion about this. He immediately called me - I'm speaking of the loan officer -and went off how he told me the other day about this.  Yes, you did and you said the 20k was actually part of the original loan, nothing to worry about.  We went back and forth for several minutes, until he finally apologized.  He said he thought he had clarified it for me and it's up to me.  He did go over the details of even with only 66k, I'm saving a ton of money off of the current loan because of the way they made it up. 

Yes, I didn't know they had made it a 40 year loan, that information wasn't disclosed to me at all.  They must have just slid it on by me without my knowing it, I would never have agreed to a 40 year loan.  Or would I? My memory serves me that the loan was 30 years.  That means right now, I should have around 22 years left on it.  It was a modification made during the Obama era, well after the 2008 housing bubble that - screwed America up for quite a while.  

I knew about the 20k thing, I didn't know about the 40 year thing.  Anyway, it had dropped my monthly payment almost $300 and I was quite pleased with that.  

We discussed this new loan for a bit and I just opted to go ahead and continue on with it.  I can't get 66k loan at 2.3% interest rate anywhere else, that's a fact.  And it's only adding $300.  A 66k personal loan would have me in the $1,500 per month range.  So, still waiting on the dude to show up, but now my mind is flooded with new thoughts about how to handle everything.  Should I still pay off some debt and get 2 loans paid off and some credit card debt pay off?

I think the easy answer to that is yes, definitely. But now, how much of it should I pay down?  I am paying it down $500 over minimum monthly payments as it stands, but it was going to take a while to get them down into near zero territory.  

I'll be thinking about that for a while.  No need to rush it, but I will pay off those small loans this month.  I also realized I won't have to pay the mortgage this month.  The loan will be paid off, there is no need to make that payment.  I can use that towards paying off those loans.  

I just have to rethink what I am going to put up initially.  I still need a bath house and an office.  I'm guessing around $35k for those two, maybe 40k.  A swimming pool I wasn't going to pay cash on anyway, I was going to try to get a pool loan. 

Actually, thinking about it, I just want to get my credit cards down to 10% of total available credit. That's when your credit score cranks up nicely.  The rest I'll just pay off over time, continuing with making large cash payments towards the highest amount on one particular card that I've used quite a bit.  

Ok. Getting it down to 10% won't be that much money, I should have round 122k after all is said and down towards building out the park. 26k for the utilities, probably another 15k for the gravel and lots, 8k for the office building and unknown for the bath house.  I was thinking 20k but that might be low balling it. I'm not planning on building a huge bath house, just maybe 1 bathroom/shower for men and 1 for women plus a small laundry room on the side - or - get another portable build for laundry.  

Actually, I can get a decent sized portable building for a bath house as well, around 10k. But, you have to do all the interior work.  I bet another 10k to do all of that.  I'm not really there yet, sort of tho now that I won't have as much money as I originally anticipated.  

Well with all of that I'm at no more than 75k, I'll say 80k to be safe.  That's 42k left over to do everything else.  I think I'm safe.  The other stuff is a doggy park, finish the walking trails, dig out a pond and develop the lots - new, small trees to be planted and plant grass. Put some bushes near the trees and over time it will all grow to be a beautiful setup.  Oh, picnic tables at every lot and fire rings.  And also tent camp sites - but those shouldn't cost too much.  Primitive sites, they will have running water, picnic table, fire ring and considering building these pads they put up with sand in them - I think it's sand anyway - to pitch a tent on and have a more comfortable setting.   and that's it.  If they want electricity, they can stay home lol. No way, at least currently, that I'm running electricity all the way back there, far too costly.

Some day, if I ever decide to build a house back there, then yes, they will have to install telephone poles to run the power line over the easements.  Not sure how I'll get water back there with those easements, perhaps I can just install the line with shut off valve, if they need to dig up a portion of it in an emergency, just destroy the pipe and do what you need to do, I can fix it after they're done. A separate septic system would have to be installed back there.  

Oh, back on Keto. Went off of it for the holidays, started back up about 5 days ago.  Getting fat, the problematic point for me is contemplating having to buy the next sized up pants. No thanks.

Anyway, the officer should be here any time now.  

 News

A local loan officer will be here at 1:00 pm to do the closing signing.  You can't just have any ole' notary, I found out, you have to have one certified in closing documents. Learn something new every day? I guess, a regular notary would have just brought the papers, had me sign them, endorse it with their signature and stamp, enter into their log and be done with it. Right? I will find out soon enough, it's 11:30 am.  The loan officer from the company I'm doing the refi/cash out said that if I want to have it wire transferred, I need to fill in a block of info on the signing.  

Yup, I don't want a check, I want it wired directly into my account.  After that, it's going to go into another account. Last I checked, you are only covered up to 100k at a bank, after that,  your loss.  Just going to dump that entire amount into a new bank account after I get it set up, a local bank at that.  

Beyond that? Well my dispatcher apparently has been starting a lot of trouble with other drivers, I found out from the guy that initiated the driver texting group.  First, she sent out a text to all drivers - excepting me, I'm not on the list and knew nothing about until yesterday - saying that Comacho - he's the dude that runs the transportation department of the company that has us hauling all of that cryo product down to the border.  She informed everyone that detention pay would not longer be paid 14 hours from the moment you arrive, detention time would start after 10 hours of being down there.  

That would all-but-effectively end detention pay.  When we go down there, we start the 14 hour detention clock immediately.  After 14 hours, we are "off" for 10 and then if we stay a second day, the 14 hour clock starts again after the 10.  Note that the old company I first worked for before it was bought out by this current company gave us detention pay the entire time we were down there.  

She started a firestorm of angry drivers, apparently, contacting her, her manager and our manager.  Shortly after she sent out this text, her manager sent out a group text, including to her: Ignore Amanda's last text, nothing has changed with detention pay.  Must have been a slap in this new dispatcher's face, she for some reason hates that we get paid for waiting down there and has made it very well known to everyone, including my manager, who apparently had some choice words for her.  HE got the contracted re-worked after this  new company bought us all out and got us the 14 hour wait pay. They were going to do away with it altogether.

There would have been hell to pay with that decision, no one would want to go down there. Why should we? Wait for up to 2 sometimes even 3 days for nothing? No thanks.  Especially knowing the fact that our company gets paid for that wait time regardless.  

After that, this driver that called me went down a list of people she had pissed off. He said that if I ask literally anyone in our group if they had had a bad encounter with her, they would all give a resounding yes!  Typical truck drivers, speak first, think later.  But, perfectly understand the derision that ensued in mocking this dispatcher - tho I won't engage in that.  He then found out I wasn't on that list and apparently a viola! went up - he wondered why I hadn't jumped in there and said something immediately.  I probably would have, tho not deriding the dispatcher, I would have questioned the validity of her statement.  

Apparently this dispatcher has caused so much angst and anger among drivers, most of them are hoping she is fired and many are looking for new jobs.  This company couldn't cover a bunch of drivers walking out.  There are having a hard time finding new drivers - as are most all trucking companies - and are giving away prizes and lots of cash to anyone that can recruit new drivers into the company.  It's probably why they have, so far, tolerated me covering up the inward facing camera and microphone with duct tape.  

I'm actually glad I missed all of that.  

As for today? I have no desire to drive, yet, she wants me to take an empty to Amarillo for service and bring an empty that has been serviced, back.  She knew I had this going on today, but she told my manager "he has some personal business" to attend to. She neither knew the time it was going to occur nor did she care that I wanted the day off and that she had already given it to me. I am weary from constant working. I need a day or even two off right now.  From now on, I'm copying both the dispatch manager and my manager with any promises of time off.

We are planning a vacation to San Antonio soon - no date yet.  Probably 3 nights. Doing the river walk. I haven't been there in many, many years.  There's a lot of stuff to do there and there are some really nice hotels. But once I we get a date and I ask her for the time off, I'm making sure that this isn't going to happen again.  

The land clearing? I've asked this contractor a few times in the last couple of weeks, via text messaging, when he was planning on starting the project?  He never replied, so yesterday I asked again. No reply, so I sent a ? and then finally he said he was hung up on a project in DeKalb (small town probably 90 miles north of here) where he was building another RV park.  He said the rain had stopped work and they were waiting for the land to dry up so they could resume and finish. He said "probably" the 24th, which is two Mondays from now.

No, I am not upset about that. I have yet to finish the tree marking and frankly, I'm weary.  I could have gone out there this morning and done it, but I instead have been sitting in my bedroom for several hours.  I got up early, went with Taylor to take the 7 year old to the bus stop and then the 4 year old to day care.  Then off to breakfast, over to Super 1 to get some hamburger meat that is on sale - a lot of it - home, roasted a whole chicken, have that ready to go and now? Just going to take a shower, get ready to go after this guy shows up and we do the signing.  I wouldn't mind if he didn't show up until around 5:00 pm. I could then legitimately say the day is gone, I can go tomorrow or you can find someone else.  I've already made over $2,000 for next pay period, I'm getting a very large paycheck tomorrow, had a large paycheck last friday and the one before it was great as well.  

That's the only benefit of endless driving.  Huge paychecks.  I'm always of the thought, however, that there is more to life than working or money.  Money is good to have, yes, but it shouldn't consume an entire life to the point you have no time for anything else.  Hence, wanting to get into the RV park business - get that up and running, expand it when I have the financial capability to do so and then do that full time.  Home every day, have some part time employees helping out.  Taylor will arleady take care of the books and phone calls.  She found someone to clean the bathroom once a day.  I only need someone to clean up the property here and there - or I guess I can do it when I'm in town but I'm not sure I'm home often enough to keep up with it.  

Initially, the park will not have on sight management. It will have video surveillance to at least keep an eye on things.  And limited surveillance. The outside of the bath house, the entrance to the small office, probably the entrance and exits to the lots.  Oh, and one on the gas driveway.  That's about it, I don't want to get too intrusive with surveillance.  I'm not sure how I would sell firewood with no one there to collect the proceeds.  I'm not going to give it away.  I guess I could just have several cords out there and "please call" this number, say how many bundles you want and we will charge the credit card on file.  Maybe.  It's not just to make money, it's for all the people that want to have fires - there isn't going to be any wood laying around out there. 

Anyway, I need to get offa here, take a shower and get ready for the day ahead.

G'day.