Sunday mid-morning

Was awakened this morning by kids yelling, screaming, having all kinds of fun - at the expense of any adults that wanted to sleep. They know better than to do this, especially on a Sunday morning.  Talk about waking up on the wrong side of the bed.  I don't even know if I'm going to take them to church this morning, perhaps they should sit one out and have time to reflect on why they didn't get to go to one of their favorite things of the week to do. 

However, another part of me says it's really not right to keep them from church for most any reason.  I have no parental say in giving some other kind of disciplinary action out, such as them not playing their games for the entire game instead.  

So, 30 minutes from leaving time I am still undecided as to what I will do. 

Yesterday, however, was great.  I was asked where I would like to go for  my birthday treat.  Uhh, well get back to me, it was still early.  I thought about it for a while and settled on Outback Steak House.  Haven't been there since I was there with my dad many, many years ago.  I don't even remember when, more than a decade I can say.  Longer than that.

It was a great meal and the staff sang an Australian version of happy birthday the restaurant clapped and shouted. 

Meanwhile, been collecting rents.  I mean, I'll be able to pay the electric bill and get a good chunk into the property taxes, but I had to pay myself some money just to be able to stay afloat.  If I didn't have to do that, property taxes would be a breeze and so would other things such as saving money for expansion.  I didn't go into business to not make money and atm, it's a necessity. Not often, but certainly enough to make a dent in the business checking account. 

_________

I decided to go ahead and take them to church, if nothing else they were being extremely apologetic.  But, this happens to frequently and I'm going to have to figure out how to deal with this, I do not like being awakened on a day off AND a Sunday morning for no more reason than kids playing.  It's bit ridiculous and I am not the only one in the house with that sentiment, thankfully.

My park is completely full sans that space behind the shed that was vacated to move a new trailer to one of the regular lots.  That will change as of Tuesday.  I have a guy coming that's been here several times now on work assignment that wants it, it's the only thing I have so i offered it to him, detailing it's behind the shed, in the dirt and only 30 amps. But I know his trailer is 30 amps so that isn't a problem.  

Unless I hear from the contractor, I will be renting the tractor next time I get a full day off, preferably 2 days actually, it works out better to rent it one morning and bring it back the next.  I don't have any other options and something has to be done about that thing. The only other thing I know of I could possibly do is to put a lot of weight on that setup I bought for taking out weeds for the 4 wheeler quite a while back. It has teeth on it.  It's not enough weight to do anything, it needs a few hundred pounds of additional weight mounted to the top of it to be able to do anything to that driveway.  

Whatever the case, I have joined some HipCamp manager's groups on Facebook. Thought had never actually occurred to me to do so or it had and I spaced it.  Like, what is anyone else doing, specifically that owns an RV park and trying to get some side hustle in?  I've got an area for them, I've got facilities, what else can I do? So I asked. This is what I have, what can I do better?  I also asked if installing a kitchen would help?  I don't know and I don't want to spend money on something that won't produce results.  I could get kitchen stuff used pretty cheap and I have the outlet already installed for an electric oven and I ran a drain outlet to the outside of the shed right where I figured I would want to install a sink if I ever do this. 

Now, I would have to remove some drywall to get to hot and cold water, but that's the worst of it and drilling a hole through the floor for the drain.

Am I doing that? No, not without some kind of confirmation that it's actually going to greatly increase customer base.  Make me $400-$500 a month on it and I'll consider it, I really want honest feedback.  We'll see.  

Well, it's been a nice 2 days off and the restaurant thing yesterday was cool.  Lufkin in the morning, birthday tomorrow as well, hopefully I'm not stuck all day long somewhere with some nonsense, 7 hours and I can be done, even faster if it works out.  

Anyway, after this repeat customer comes back, I'll be completely full. Yes, there is room for Hipcampers, I can always make room for them, that's on the "secondary" stuff, but, I have removed that from the site because people were like "well, I know this isn't the main RV sites but do you have anything available anyway?"  People expecting a premium site for half income, that isn't going to work.  I may end up removing the actual RV sites from it and just doing the "alternate" site which is just a place to park and run an extension cord ot them. That's pretty much what a lot of HipCamp is.  

It isn't necessarily fancy accommodations, it's just a "cool" place to park or a place to park in between places, cheap, offers what they need without getting high dollar about it.  

Anyway, Appleebee's is allegedly going to offer 1,000 more of the Date Night Passes.  You know, the ones that sold out in 30 seconds online when they opened it up for sale? Meaning they basically had almost none to being with? My guess it was 1,000 or less that they were offering.  I heard they are going to have more through an Appleebee's employee, but they had no information on when they were going to offer them.

It did end up raining, just not near as long or heavy as they predicted, which was fine by me.  It did hail for a little bit last night.  

Not much else on the home front, nothing new that I've seen on the Texas/Fed "war", I'm figuring Abbott will come out with more things to do.  The Supreme Court can keep knocking his actions down, but as we have seen, he keeps coming up with something new.  SCOTUS can't tell Texas to stop doing something they haven't even done yet.  It's unchartered waters, basically, with new methods to physically stop illegals from crossing and Federal government taking these actions to court.  It's been interesting to follow all of this.

 Well that was fast.  I beat another truck to the washout and I was in and out of there in half an hour.  Loading plant the same, straight to the loading bay and then loaded and out of there in an hour.  The only real sweat today was the CMV station was open - commercial vehicle check station - and the trooper was looking at me kind of funny. Well, it is a pink truck lol.  I flashed all my lights on and off - there was a sign there saying to turn lights on - he waved me on.  Thankfully.

That can end up taking hours of time, usually at least an hour.  

I have yet to be inspected or waved into the shack at any of the ones I have to go through yet, knock on wood. No day is a good day for it, but some days would be worse than others.   

____________________________

Many hours later, 8:30 pm.  We're all sitting in the dining room which is next to the back door and suddenly we hear this horrific wailing from what sounded like Obi out back.  I mean, the dog sounded like it was being tortured, it was really bad.  I opened the door and heard the sounds of other dogs doing the same thing. Then it registered: he's learned the habit from the other dogs to howl a fire trucks going by on the highway which is a couple blocks away.  

I've never heard a dog making such a horrific noise that wasn't in awful pain.  The realization that the dog wasn't in any pain turned into laughter.  We all busted out laughing.  Taylor said she had heard it for the first time a few days ago, I had never heard him making such noise!  I'm going to try to get a video of him howling, well a video but not with him in it, if he sees me he'll stop and run to me, just a video with the phone poked out the back door so you can hear this stuff. You really won't believe it. 

I just got back from the park collecting rent from various people.  The newbies I had never met but had been there for 3 days - I've tried to catch them home, they are here on work assignment and they are only there later on in the evening.  I typically don't go over there at night time unless there is a problem.  So I got their money, the next door neighbor's money and then to the 3rd lot. 

I pulled up - on the main driveway mind you - at the rear of their RV.  There is a large window there.  They have that window partially covered but certainly not enough to block out the view of whatever is going on inside.  I was just going to get out of the vehicle, go to the door and collect the money, I had already contacted her earlier that I was coming. 

Unfortunately, out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement and human nature, I looked.  I am only saying all of this because these people were having sex right there, half exposed through the rear window facing the main driveway where there are other RV's on the other side of the driveway and anyone could see them doing it. How can you have sex in front of a window that you know people can see through?

Whatever. I went and knocked on the door, I don't care about that, I want my money, this is the people that asked for a week grace period and that week is up today, please pay me, you can get back to your activities after I leave.  The man opens the door and says "hello" with that sort of whiny way of saying it when you start at a higher octave, go down to a lower octave and end in and even higher one. As if to say, who the hell are you and what are you doing here?  

Didn't phase me, I'm here to collect the rent.  I want my money, I paid to build this park, they can give me the money when it's due.  I was tempted to say something about putting something up on that window, but I decided to leave it alone for now. Getting late, I didn't want to spend however long with it, whatever.  At least it's dark in the park, the only real light is the one I have on my shed.  Some people have outdoor lights but the rest of it? Dark.  

If you're going to have sex with someone, wouldn't you check to make sure that no one can see what you're doing? Or have that well established long in advance of the act? I'm just saying, no one wants to see you doing it. No one. Or if there are people that do, that's weird.  Whatever again.  Not to mention there are kids in the park, tho they aren't out running around at night time.

Oh.  And the new guy said a box blade would work on the driveway.  But the one they rent doesn't have any teeth on it.  He thought about it for a while, yes, but enough passes on it and it will break it up.  I mean, I've got to do something. I texted the contractor again today, no reply. It's pretty normal for him.  

That's it. I'm going to write myself an owner's draw check, deposit it electronically and take care of stuff on my personal account before it hits.  

 Home by 8, not bad.  Not great, but not bad.  I was driving through the park after getting back and remembered after finally seeing the guy there (versus having never seen his pickup there in the last 3 days) that he needs to pay up.  But, I didn't have my computer fired up, it would take half an eternity to do so, I blew it off. Need to go over there tomorrow after he gets home and not terribly late.

A 7 mile backup on I-30 going the opposite direction while driving up there, I was aghast at the lengthy backup of vehicles and the fact they were going extremely slow.  One lane shut down for some sort of accident cleanup replete with earth moving equipment.  

And I once again saw a practice that some truck drivers engage in that is maddening. It frequently happens that in a major backup, 2 trucks will get side-by-side and slow down to around 3 mph.  This enables them to put their drive clocks into on-duty mode and not burn up their driving hours. That's all great, nice, fine and dandy, however....  IN almost all of these instances that I have seen them doing it, the nearest traffic in front of them is thousands of feet away.  

It's a ridiculous practice, if you want to save your drive hours, get off the highway. Pull over on the shoulder, but don't hold traffic back that far.  I can't believe some of these people actually do this.  

Hipcamp. I revised my entire setup on there, eliminating the secondary parking, since people seemed to think they were getting a regular lot, even tho it was detailed in the description of what they were getting, that option is entirely gone. I then upped my price, just a bit cheaper than my regular, overnight prices but still up there enough to actually make some money off the thing, after Hipcamp takes their rather large bite out of the profit pie.  I've had 3 or 4 bookings since then, including one that just came through and I approved.  

It's getting to the point that I'm just going to have to try that box attachment without the teeth and see what happens.

And the sleep tracker is telling me it's time to go to bed. Actually, it is, for I have to get up early for my next run.  I just have a hard time going from driving mode to sleep mode in such a short period of time unless it's transitioning from the driver's seat to the sleeper bed.  A thing I rarely do anymore and thankful for it.  

 Oh the day just gets lovelier.  The manager called and said: "They don't want the load delivered until 4:00".  

Talk about figuring out ways to screw up a person's day.  Oh well.  I'm going through my book, I have a lot of rents due tomorrow.  I have one that was due last week that they were asking to hold off until tomorrow as well - the freezing event that basically had people off of work because employers were canceling saying the roads were too icy to drive on.

They were, however, correct in that assessment, the roads were horrible.  However, I have bills to pay as well and creditors don't give me time to pay, they just ding your credit score, add late fees and tell you to have a nice day.  

I find it hilarious that Chase Bank wants to charge you $10 per month for a business savings account.  You are keeping money with them and not using it, they are using your money for loans and making interest off of it, what is the deal here?  I've had thoughts of switching to another bank, but there are so many automatic payments and direct deposit and such tied in with my Chase accounts, it would be a huge ordeal.  

OK, it's free if you have over a grand in the account.  Well, I won't have a grand in it for over 3 months, this is the savings account I was referring to in previous entry so I can start saving for property tax payments.  I'm going to start a business savings account somewhere else if they offer one for free. If they all charge you to save money, I'll have no choice, but there are lots of local banks, surely one of them has something that I can get started with for "free".  

There is a local bank that is charging $5 per month and this is the bank I want to eventually try and get a business loan through.  Not happening now, but if I get started with an account with them and show that I am saving money from the business, perhaps that will help.  They came highly recommended, I just am not interested in high interest loans right now nor do I think I will qualify with my debt-to-income ratio currently.

Anyway, I need a separate account to save this money in so I can not get hammered near the end of the year and beginning of the year with these costs.  Insurance and property taxes equal over 4 grand.  

Actually the property tax bill is a little lower than I remembered it being. $2,406.50. It was over 3 grand?  I don't get it. Still, with a $1,700 electric bill coming up, that is a lot of money.  For me, anyway.  I'm going to try and pay that bill by the end of this month.  After I get my second paycheck this month, I'm hoping to cover it, if I can't, I just am going to have to because after this month? They start assessing penalties.  

And I still have to figure out what to do with the driveway.  

This is my life currently, should have followed through with my plan earlier last year to save even $200 per month towards these bills, I didn't do it - tho I really couldn't. I was struggling to make ends meet hence getting the job.  The job helps, it isn't really enough but it does help. 

So, I'm facing getting home around 8:30-9:00 pm, go to bed and get up again in the morning for another load.  I have Saturday and Sunday off, my birthday on Monday where I go into my 6th decade of existence.  Lord willing, of course.  But, I'll work all of  this I have been working to get this coming weekend off and hopefully if I get a load on Monday it will be done quickly and early.

I take that back, they dumped a load on me for Monday, just remembered, but it's the 10 am instead of 2 pm slot, I'll take it, hopefully home no later than 2, leaves me the rest of the day to enjoy my day off, I intend on cheating on this Keto diet and eating to my heart's delight.  Namely, a Dairy Queen triple chocolate chunk Blizzard, large, or whatever that thing is called. It's chocolate to the extreme and that's what I want to treat myself with.  I'll get up earlier on Monday to get to the washout place at their opening time. I usually get there around 8:30 am, it basically works out to getting to the plant either early or on time.  The plant doesn't really care when you get there, but if you get there early and other trucks are ahead of you, yup, you wait.  

Speaking of property, back to that subject, there should be a check coming my way here sooner or later from the mortgage company.  It's a nonprofit and they send back whatever overages ther are, percentagewise, to everyone.  Last year I think it was $600, money I could definitely use right now. 

Anyway, I need to get to the bank and deposit the now-reduced monthly check from the pipe welders.  

 Wednesday - early.  

I have one more payment on the washer/dryer set, I thought I was done as of this month, I thought wrong.  That will free up some money every month to help pay for other things, it comes nowhere close to what I am facing financially right now.  

The tent lady affirmed to me yesterday that she will get her tax return completed and "give you money".  I've made it clear to her that it's time to start paying.  She isn't using a walker anymore and she is getting around just fine.  She may not be 100%, I'm sorry.  

Of course, no dog poop has been left in the park since I put up the camera.  Of course not, people understand that I am not happy about the situation and I have made it well known my intentions if I find out who is doing it.  Like, tell that person to take a hike out of my park, permanently.  Or, pay a heavy fine - and if I could actually get someone to pay a heavy fine, I'd just give it to the lady that's been cleaning it up.  I don't want to leave a camera out there permanently, but apparently I have no choice if I want to keep this from happening again.

I still think someone is going to just blow it off, walk out of there with their dog and not clean up the pile and bam.  Someone is doing it, no one is confessing to it.

Those are, of course, the least of my problems yet still, it's irritating.  Others take their dogs in there and find a pile of s*** sitting there.  It's not my fault, of course, but the park gets blamed anyway, right? That's how stuff works in this society.  

I had a pleasant conversation with a man that is staying with his with for 4 days.  "You have a nice park here". I haven't heard that in a while, it was nice to hear. He was commenting on the nice job of the gravel and how everything looked nice.  That coming from people that travel full time in their RV, that's a pretty good compliment.  Makes me feel like I'm doing at least something right.  

I'm going to have to at least do a temporary fix on one of the potholes, it has evolved into a giant mass and it's pretty bad.  Filling it with dirt will do much of nothing, I think I can mix dirt with that river rock in the back and try to see if it will stay put for a while.  Or not, I dunno. Someone tried to tell me that "oh that box attachment on that tractor" will definitely do the job of fixing that driveway.  I replied it has no ripper teeth on it. They didn't care, they thought it would do the job nicely. 

Maybe with 100 passes of it? I don't know.  It'd be one of those things where you spend the entire day trying to go over and over the affected areas and hope that it all comes loose and then work it until there's nothing but smooth, level driveway with a lot of the gravel brought back up to the surface.  

I did find a bobcat for rent with a "planer" attachment that would work. However, the daily rental fee is so high might as well just pay an expert to do it for me.  I'm still waiting on that expert to quote me a price.  I mean, at some point I may be forced into trying this tractor with the box blade that has no teeth.  It would likely simply mean that I would have to run over and over and over the same areas until the dirt and rocks are loosened up.  If I had my own tractor I would have already tried this.

People continuously ask me why I don't have my own tractor? Money, folks, they are expensive and even if I could get one on payments, that's too much money for me to handle on a monthly basis right now.  If I had a tractor, I could keep the driveway repaired before it get as bad as it is now and also could slowly work the terrain in the field that are just weeds.  I'm at least a little hopeful that all that grass and ground level weed stuff is going to stay put and not just die out, it's thick and should keep weeds from growing.  

Oh, did I say that someone just dumped a bunch of trash in front of the dumpster? Yeah, household trash laying all over the place.  I haven't been able to get my hunting camera to work and I keep saying no to buying new ones but perhaps it's just something I have to do, buy a couple of new ones.  

Oh, the reason I"m up so early is kids making a lot of noise this morning.  Strike that: ONE kid making a lot of noise.  It's to the point with me that I will just not have anything to do with that one when they come home from school. Explain to him why I'm doing what I'm doing and stay out of my room, stay away from me, do not bother me today.  He does it all the time and doesn't care one way or the other.  

And my offload time is 2:00 pm, I'm going to show up there around 12:30.  That will be after the first load is done and should be fine to do it that way.  I let him know, the other driver as well. He doesn't have a problem with it and neither do I if someone shows up early - but after the first load time is done.  Not, show up so early that you are there at the first load appointment time or even earlier.  I don't want to be on the road until 6 or 7 pm.

That's it for now. My fantasy of getting a new septic system are trashed and stashed on a memory shelf somewhere, I have no way to even think about doing anything like that unless I get a loan and I don't want more loans.  This would be the year to get that park increased in size to vamp up for accommodating for highway workers coming in 2025.  Or whenever they get here, but 2025 is the beginning date for that stuff and I would think that also means a lot of workers are going to show up and it definitely means that at least some of them have trailers.  Without another septic system, the only other thing I can do is tie into the existing one and then face pump out charges however often.  It's $400 I think  it was to have a truck come in and pump it out.  

I just giving up on it for now.  Praying and asking God for guidance, definitely.  Loans are at such high interest rates now anyway, it would be ridiculous to get one unless it was just an extreme thing where "I have to do it".  Property taxes aren't anything to fool with, I just have to find the money somehow and pay them.  They were lamenting here at the house that their property taxes have more than doubled.  Yes, we are living in a greedy little town that wants to build new schools - one of which they already have - and greatly expand and rehabilitate old schools.  "There will be no new taxes" they keep saying, I voted that one down last election, I did not see the results of that election but I suspect people probably voted it in, duping citizens into thinking that it "isn't going to cost anything more".

The proof is in the pudding, if their property taxes went up, everyone's did.  I knew mine would go up for building the RV park, but I also knew after they shut down that power plant that those millions of dollars would have to be made up for somewhere.  Just ream people that own property, everyone else gets away with paying nothing.  It's "always" been this way but I have "always" hated it.  Why do so many people that have kids in the public school system not have to help out paying for that system? Texas was supposedly doing something about bringing down those taxes on property owners, but so far, I've heard nothing concrete about actual results.  

The real problem I have with property taxes is that in essence, you really never own the land even if you paid it off.  If you can't or won't pay those taxes, they will come take it away from you, auction it off and you are screwed regardless of how much money you dumped into that land or how much you are losing.  Instead, there should be some sort of school/ISD tax added to county or city or both sales taxes or some way to come up with the money without forcing it down land owner's throats.  How many land owners are paying for schools that they don't even have children in the system?  

The thought of losing the land is why I am stressing over this.  It wouldn't happen right away, of course, but they start tacking on fees/fines and the amount goes up that you owe.  It really lends to the thought that I should just be taking out the money every month so I am not caught up in this nightmare every year.  It would be something like, ok, once that last washer/dryer payment is paid, start taking that money and dumping it into a savings account so I have money at the beginning of next year to cover this nonsense.  Oh, and thank you Californians for forcing the prices of housing and land up around here.....

G'day

 Tuesday  mid-morning

Later load time, actually an odd load time today.  Noon isn't a time they typically ask me to load. It's either 10:00 am or 2:00 pm.  I didn't mind, I slept in a couple of hours and feel a whole lot better than if I were to have gotten up at 5:45 am.  

The other driver allegedly saw one of the wheels/tires yesterday. My next trip up there, which will be Wednesday, I'll be looking where he said it's at.  

He also said they are considering shutting down the run at the Lufkin plant for the Gurdon stuff and having it being hauled out of the Crossett plant.  It's a 114 mile trip that allegedly we wouldn't be taking.  Well what are we going to be doing? Cause' honey, if they think I'm going to start going long-haul, they have another thing coming.  I made it crystalline clear, I don't know how many ways I put it but crystal clear is the proper way of saying it, I just added the other stuff for clarity. 

There is no way they don't understand that I am not going anywhere on long haul.  I originally agreed to an "occasional" run to Georgia or Florida, I have yet to do that and I don't want to do that.  I like coming home every day, or most days anyway. \

No, he said we would be doing Ennis.  Leaving from Crossett.  It's a much longer drive that he, the other diver, was lamenting about. He's older than I and his energy levels aren't that great when it comes to longer drives. I don't blame him, but for me?  It might mean the prospect of larger paychecks, something I could use right now.  We're talking 650 miles round trip, which is much farther, obviously than the less than 400 I'm doing now on a 2 day round trip tour.  

This is a wait and see thing, I'm not preparing for anything until I hear it officially, tho I suppose I could ask down at the plant today what their knowledge of this story is. 

Well, it's time to get ready to go and today I need to collect rents, well the next several days.  I'm still pretty peeved about these people busting the line, it must have been spouting off like that all night long to create that much of a bill.  She promises she'll pay it back, but when?  I need money, now, not 2 months from now.  

And the dog park camera. Well, I'll wait until the lady says she found a pile of poop in there and then I'll start looking at footage.  I can see almost the entire park and the few little portions at side corners I can't see, the dogs aren't defecating there anyways.  Whoever is doing this, they are going to get caught, or not.  2 of them yesterday were sitting there staring at the camera, I didn't announce it to anyone excepting the lady that has been cleaning up the messes who said she isn't going to do it anymore. I don't blame her, tho I am giving a discount on her rent....kind of paid help without paying them.

Oh, yes, it's getting late in the day, I best be going.

G'day

 Uhh, Monday night.

This situation with the tent lady and their blowing up the water line cost me $200.  At least, conservative estimate.  I had enough, I've been thinking about this anyway, these people need to find a way to pay or I'm sorry.  Occupying a motorhome that cost me good money, using my utilities,  using my bathroom and laundry facilities, doggy park, occupying a space here.  She didn't apologize for the water line blowout, instead went into excuses. I cut that off quickly, I have done nothing but be nice to them and I don't see why the man can't go get a job or do something to help them.  

It's start paying or leave, I don't have the resources to leave these people in there forever without paying anything and it was never promised to them. 

People staying for a few days contacted me and said the sewer connection is busted. First I've heard of it and they are on their second day. I ended up having to bust the fitting out of the adapter which ended up destroying the adapter.  So, cut the entire thing off of there, go to Lowe's and install a new adapter.  This is Mark's doing, btw, the dude I threw out of the park.  Nothing like a final touch to stoke old feelings. 

Someone's dog is still pooping in the park and it's owner isn't cleaning it up.  Everyone denies it, of course, so now I moved the camera on the outside of the shed over to the doggy park.  I only told the lady that's been cleaning up whoever's mess, I did not tell anyone else. It's on a tree at the back of the park, but 2 people noticed it, I could see them looking at it and saying whatever.  Don't care, really, I'm going to find out who is doing this and I'm going to deal with it directly and ... quite firmly.  It's a ridiculous notion that someone thinks that everyone else has to clean up after their dog's shit.  

I'm a little irritated right now after seeing the water bill. More than twice it's normal amount. 

Whatever. I took the load up to Gurdon, unloaded it and got back by just after 1:00 pm today.  I have been informed that the Lufkin plant is going to "temporarily" stop sending product up there and apparently they are going to get it from a plant nearby.  Then, we are supposed to start doing Ennis runs. This according to another driver. I don't know, but I have no desire to be driving up to Crosset every other time to get loaded. It adds hours to the drive and doesn't add any miles.  They can go find someone else to play those games if this is true, but I have already decided to look for another job anyway.  Yes, I've been looking. 

My mind is going all over the place with everything that is going on.  I'm frankly worried about all of these payments coming up and wondering how I will afford them, keep the lights on, keep the county and ISD off my @$$ and fix the damn driveway.

I need a break from all of this plus a trucking company that has no clue.  

I'm done here.  

 So the guy that had a brain tumor is moving out. That was expected, the other 2 are not leaving, apparently, as I got a phone call from one of them today asking if he could move his trailer into that guy's lot.  Sure, why not.  So instead of losing 3 people, I am only losing on and I have a potential renter already.  

I took the chance of backing my vehicle up to the trailer and sure enough, I was able to get it out of there without getting stuck. The soil is very wet, but I wanted that trailer out.  I was going to go get some rock from Lowe's just to fill the potholes even if temporarily, the closest thing they had is river rock.

Well, river rock isn't driveway gravel and I have a truckload of it dumped onto the ground in the back that I can just shovel up onto the trailer for free if I'm going that route.  Which I probably will do.  I would do it today, but it's in the back and I dare not drive my vehicle back there, yet.  It is supposed to rain again, so that will put it off even further.  

Applebee's Date Night Pass scam.  Yes, it was a scam.  That became obvious after I did some searching on it and found out it sold out in less than a minute.  That makes it a scam because that means they didn't have that many to sell in the first place and they are just trying to drive business to them through an advertising scheme.  It is backfiring.  People are pissed and story after story of people saying they were there, on their site, clicked on the button to buy the pass. They then filled out the information and it came back "date night pass is sold out". Or people that tried to get it but by the time the site showed anything, it already showed sold out.

Bad marketing move, someone should have thought that one out better.  People are pissed enough that they are saying they are writing off Applebee's forever. Whether that comes to pass in reality or if they're just saying that, who knows. It will bear out a few months down the road if some reporter does some research to see if Applebee's profits have taken a nose dive - or - if the "boycott appleebee's" statements actually take effect.  

So, now what?  I have to get out my book and see who owes what in rent. It has been a difficult last 5 or so days and I have just put it off.  Most people contact me about their rent anyway, there is no good reason not to state up front if you are having difficulty, such as one guest stated the other day. I'm giving her a week grace period to pay up, she has a job, she was off work for 3 or 4 days due to the roads being iced over.

The weather has really been screwing things up, I can attest to that.  

++++++++++++

That was last night, I normally just move onto another post, but what the hey, I went to the trouble of writing it....

Saturday - mid morning.

Enjoying my last few hours of being home alone.  It will get noisy once they get home, tho the older boy is going to a sleepover this afternoon, the younger will be upset and then here we go.  The younger truly believes he has the right and license to do anything and everything that the older boy does.  

I have not heard back from the contractor. Pretty normal for him to not get to things terribly fast.  I need this done and soon, but who knows if I can even afford it? I won't know until he gives a price.  A $1,700 electric bill coming up next month - usually due on the 10th - and this and property taxes.....There's almost 5k right there without the driveway job.  I dunno, but that electric bill took me completely by surprise.

Shrugs shoulders.  I'll do what I can do.  I'm going to be down with that guy moving out that had the brain tumor - however - there is another person that wants to move in.  Hopefully he's still a go.  

I have work tomorrow and the next 3 days after that, and then who knows.  Probably be useful to work the next 2 days after that and then have Sunday off.  Or just work, it's not like I don't need the money right about now.....

 Friday mid-morning

Yea, I didn't bother getting out of bed until around 7:30 am, and that was just to let the dogs out and make a cup of coffee and then? Right back to bed, turn on the TV and start watching the news.

And if you are following the news, you have seen the situation going on in Texas between Governor Abbott and president biden.  

It's turning into a tense situation with Texas saying they are not going to relinquish control of Shelby park and the feds demanding they do so by end of today, Friday.  

You also have this issue with the concertina wire, the SCOTUS backing the feds but Texas saying whatever, we're going to install even MORE wire.  As it's been described, the court did not forbid Texas from putting up more wire, it just sided with the feds and saying they can cut the wire if they so choose.  

So, tell us, why would the feds be against this concertina wire stopping illegal aliens from entering our nation - illegally of course?  I heard one democrat senator saying a bunch of word salad but kept insisting these people are seeking "asylum". Well if that's true, why don't they just go to a regular border crossing and present themselves for consideration for such?

The answer is simple. Most of these asylum claims are rejected by the judges that hear their cases.  Why don't these people just go to a neighboring country to ask for asylum instead of traveling clear up here? Well, simple. Biden has invited them. Look, my job hauling pipe and fittings to construction sites in various locations in Arizona for many years had me on jobsites almost daily with illegal aliens working at those sites.

Whenever the feds/president at the time said anything about dealing with border crossing, guess what happened? These people disappeared.  They would show up again 3, 6, 9 months later and in asking them what happened to them? They said they were afraid of what the president was doing and didn't want to get caught, so they left the country.  

When you hear people saying Biden invited these people in, but have no understanding what that means, you can draw some interesting conclusions. But if you look at it from an illegal's viewpoint, it makes a lot more sense.  Now, these people are going to start hearing about the actions Texas is taking at the border to stop them and then what? Well, I suspect they will either stop coming at some point or they will move elsewhere to try crossing the Rio Grande.  

Where is this going? Abbott is openly defying the feds, or more distinctly, Joe Biden.  Look at what Biden is doing to this nation. I just saw a report he is shutting down any new permits for new LNG plants - liquid natural gas - effectively shutting down  huge, new projects.  They showed pics of Cheniere, the place I used to love to hate going to because of the security guard treatment and the amount of time spent waiting to get in to unload the product, which is used to help keep the LNG cooled while it's in a tanker ship cruising to wherever, Australia I think it was. 

His war on natural gas appliances. His "bidenomics" which is a complete and utter failure.  EV mandates.  Shutting down coal fire power plants.  On and on and on.  He has no standing on the world stage.  He's incompetent regardless of his dementia or inability to speak coherently . Those things just compound the issue.  

Are we headed to civil war? I don't think so, not yet anyway.  Will there be a conflict between the Texas military and BP agents or even worse, if they send in some other arm of the DHS to do what, exactly? It would be a huge mistake, IMO, to start an armed conflict with Texas.  Especially when you consider 25 governors have now voiced their support of Abbott.  This will all play out in the courts, but if SCOTUS keeps striking down Abbott's attempt to secure the border, I suspect Abbott will just keep putting new policy in place and taking different actions to stem the tide of these people entering our nation.

I still have to ask why the feds would want to stop Texas from stopping or at least stemming the flow of these people coming in here?  It's overwhelming the welfare systems and hospitals are over run with these people.  Abbott's move to send them to New York and other places had a distinct effect on changing people's minds on "sanctuary cities" and their smug stances on letting the entire world in here.  Well, now that they are having a taste of the consequences, we are seeing they aren't so much in love with it anymore.

I'll just throw in here, IMO, Haley has no chance of winning the nomination and is wasting her time.  DeSantis saw what was going on and dropped out, it's wasted time and energy.  

--------

Enough of that.  I don't know what I'm going to do today.   The driveway is nothing I can do about unless I want to go buy some bags of rock at Lowe's to fill in some of the bigger potholes.  Filling it in with dirt obviously does nothing but a very short term fix and with all of this water? It's not even a short term fix. Just turns to mud and gets all over vehicles. The problem is, the trailer is parked in an area where it turned into mud and I have no idea whether I will get my SUV stuck going in there.  I'll have to go over and look, I am not putting bags of rocks inside the SUV, no thank you.  

That's the biggest pressing issue over there beyond all the rest of it.  I dunno, but I keep asking the contractor to give me a quote, he keeps saying yes he'll go look but he never does it.  I expect his quote, now that he's talking about going over there to look, will probably be a lot more money than I can spare right now.  I'm kind of at a lost beyond having him come to fix it as to what to do given my financial state of existence at the moment and facing a huge property tax bill that needs to be paid.   

So I guess at least putting some rocks  in the big holes is better than nothing.  I'd love to try that tractor with the box attachment  out from the rental company, it's an over $300 gamble and if it doesn't work, there is that much money down the drain.  

And I just checked the electric bill. $1,700.  This is really demoralizing.  People are obviously using electric heaters instead of using their propane furnaces.  Free electricity? Sure, just leave everything running, put 2 or 3 electric heaters in there and let them run all day and night long! I didn't get into this business to lose money or just break even.  It's forcing me to have to pull the trigger and install meters.  I don't have the money to install meters.....if half the park leaves because of it, what difference does it make? I'd rather have the lot empty than having these people taking advantage of me.  

Just stuck right now.  Money being the key issue, but before I do any expansions, it's obvious I need to install meters.  It's around $100 per meter, so $1,400.  Lower the rent by $50, give them $50 free electricity and then they will pay anything over that.  Yes, I'll lose guests and it may take time to get people back in there.  If I had known when I started this project what I know now, I would have had meters installed at the outset and just charged for power regardless of how long it would take to get people in there.  

I'll find a way to get that money, I'm not going to continue to do this like this without a plan out of it.  I'm making very little money and that shouldn't be happening.  I should be grossing at least 4k per month profit.  

__________

Yes, the more I think about this, the more I am decided to do the meters.  Now I have to figure out a way to pay for them.  I hate to use more credit, however, the money spent will be a lot of money saved.  I don't know what else I can do. This really took me by surprise, this huge electric bill. Like wow!  

 Thursday afternoon

I woke up feeling rather miserable this morning. I think it's just the gloomy weather we have been having and 3 days worth of constant, non-stop raining.  Reminds me of my 3 month stint in Seattle, where it literally rained every day I was there.

But, I had to get the glue up there, get it off and get home.  Yes, it was raining this morning, the forecast called for an end to it late this morning.

And thankfully, yes! The rain has not only stopped, there is a decent amount of clear blue sky and the sun is shining bright! This makes me very happy, really it does.  I like a little rain, not so much rain that it starts affecting everything you are doing.  

The glue flowed out quickly today, was empty in less than an hour, I was thankful to get out of there and get headed home.  I did look for those tires/wheels and the brake drum, I never saw any of it.  

My driveway is fairly well destroyed in about a 100 foot swath of it.  I am so tempted to get that tractor with the box attachment, but what if it doesn't work? Then I've wasted over $300 for nothing.   So I'll wait until tomorrow and see if the contractor can give me a price before making any decisions.  

Anyway I'm tired and I am very likely going to take a nap here quick. The house is empty besides cats, the dogs I put outside as soon as I got him, it's a beautiful day, finally, they can spend the rest of the day out there until night time.  They have been holed up in the house for days - they don't like the rain and will camp out at the back door. We just leave them in in weather like this, they are both fully house trained and never pee on the floor or furniture.  

I have 2 days off now, going back to work on Sunday.  I parked the truck at the front of the driveway regardless. It's a mud pit back there and it is going to take at least a couple of days of drying before I'll even think about driving that truck back there. My parking spot is just water and mud.   It's kind of an ugly site to see that truck parked up there like that, I have no choice.  It's there or find a pay to park place. Screw that and if people don't like it, I can't help them.                                                              

Enough of this. I have laundry to do as well. 

 Wednesday - evening

Where do I start with this nonsense?  Yesterday morning.  I do a pre-trip inspection, including climbing up the ladder to ensure the loading plant hasn't closed the valve to allow both air and water into the tank.  Air pressure pushes the glue out, the tank will not unload gravity feed for the line goes up a 20 plus foot wall to overhead-dump into the giant storage tanks.  

Anyway, I drive straight to Gurdon, no stops (usually do now, I was stopping at a welcome center rest area for free coffee in Arkansas but I have since ditched that to just get up there and get this over with).  I pull up on the scales, get out of the truck, walk back to the scale house, open the window - they want you to do this instead of them - and say hello to everyone inside.  I then glance around for unknown reasons as the scale master is handing me back my BOL and was absolutely shocked to see both wheels/tires and brake drum gone on the driver's side rear trailer axle. 

I don't mean just the tires, I mean the wheels the tires are mounted on.  WTH? The scale master is looking at it in bewilderment as well.  

Let me preface this.  It was raining when I got up yesterday - Tuesday -  but it had been raining long before that.  

These wheels flew off, where?  Visibility was poor, very bad and looking into the sideview mirrors? You saw nothing but road spray.  Not to mention the wheels that came off were on the rear axle. You couple extreme road spray blocking your view plus rear wheels and you can't see anything going on back there. It rained constantly and quite heavy.  

I just stood there looking at it for a few seconds before coming to the quick conclusion that whatever is going to happen, I need to unload the trailer first.  And it was a very long ordeal.

After draining the tanker and going back to the scales to get empty weight, I sat on the side of the driveway outside of the plant for a long time. It took my company forever to decide what to do and then to actually act on it. I disagreed with their intended  line of action, but it's their truck and their company.  They wanted to chain up the axle on that side of the trailer and have me drive to Love's. 

I have no problem driving it with a chained up axle on an empty trailer, it's actually legal.  I've read about it in the past.  As long as the weight of the trailer doesn't go over the allowable weight for the tires, we are good.  But why go to Love's? Why not just drive it to the shop and let them deal with it?  I asked the shop supervisor that. Oh noooo, we don't want you driving it that far with a chained up axle.  

Why?  If I can drive it to Love's, what's the difference?  It's just too far to do that.  I caved quickly, no sense arguing with them, but I knew I was in for a long ordeal if taking it to Love's.  And that it was. It was 5 hours before they decided what to do and how to get out there to chain it up - Love's wouldn't do it.  5 HOURS.  It wasn't that this place was 100 miles away, it was my management taking their sweet old time deciding what to do.  This place was in town 2 miles away!

I knew after inspecting the damage that either Love's couldn't do it or it would take until next century to get it done. It was the latter.  My company called Love's in advance, but that didn't matter. I would have to wait 2 hours before they could do anything and even then, they weren't sure if they could do the job. My company insisted on having Love's do it for Love's is the screwup here. It was plainly obvious that they had either not torqued down the lugnuts or they had replaced the lugnuts with the wrong size, either way, those wheels were doomed.   

It wasn't 2 hours, Ohhhh noooo. It was just short of 6 hours before they got to it. It was almost 1 am when they finished the repair and I was dying.  Exhausted.  No entrance to your truck, they make you wait on these metal chairs that are abominations when it comes to physical comfort.  And I was faced with having to find a place to park when I got the truck out of there.  It was pouring rain - it literally rained all day long yesterday and has been raining since then.   

It gets better.  I go to bed at 1 am, I just parked in a "creative parking space" in front of the shop and didn't care, they certainly didn't care to make me wait that long. I was out of hours, I had to stay the night, but I had clocked off and in off-duty mode once I got to the shop, I knew I wouldn't have enough hours to drive home after they fixed it and there was quite a bit of hesitancy to whether they would even be able to.  

I got up at 5:45 am.  And it was not a good sleep.  I forced my ass out of bed, got moving and got out of there. I drove 70 miles before stopping for a cup of coffee.  I got just outside of my town and realized if I went home, as I planned to do to take a shower and get some clean clothes on - I would end up going to bed, I was not happy and not rested.  So I just kept on driving clear down to Nacogdoches for the trailer washout and then to Lufkin for the loading. Neither of which was particularly fast, especially Lufkin where it was almost 2 hours before they even started loading my tanker.  

I don't know how to convey the hellishness of having wheels falling off your trailer, endless rain, getting soaking wet unloading the trailer, dealing with a company that can't make up it's mind what to do, being accused of somehow being at fault for trailer WHEELS coming off the trailer.  Tires? Maybe, the entire wheels and tires? No, no, no.  Not from my company, but from Love's employees trying to "stand up for their company".  I quickly shut them down and they quickly conceded. I'm not new to trucks and I did truck mechanics for 6 years. Wheels do not simply fall off because a driver did that. No, no and NO.

I'm home and alone. Family left for not terribly far from where I deliver glue to. Death in the family, they took the kids out of school, took time off of work and they are gone until sometime on Saturday.  

I probably left a lot out of that story, I did not want to revisit all of that. Not in the mood.  

The main driveway is in horrible shape. It's drainage issue and I will have to deal with it after I somehow get the driveway fixed.  I have a plan, but its useless without dealing with the driveway first, including cutting out a channel for the water to drain into and then installing a large pipe under the driveway to drain it all out to the other side.  

It's an issue that is pressing on me and I can't get an answer from the contractor. He'll come out when he wants to.  Or he won't come out. I dunno.  

I work tomorrow and then off Friday and Saturday (unwanted, actually, I need the work atm) and then loading on Sunday, deliver on Monday and repeat for Tuesday and Wednesday.  Why am I loading on Sunday?  The dispatcher asked me, she was sounding pretty desperate about it, I don't know why she's got me off Friday and Saturday?  

And that's it. There is more. I don't feel like writing any more. I don't feel like doing anything. I think I'll put on a movie, watch it and go to sleep. 

 Sunday - Night

I just looked and realized I haven't posted since Thursday.

Uh, so I got a call on Friday while I was on the road from a new guy saying that a trailer 2 spots over from him was "leaking a massive amount of water from underneath their trailer".  Huh?  Do you want me to shut it off? YES PLEASE!!  City water isn't cheap, I was already facing a big enough bill with the motorcoach fiasco, I don't know how long this thing was dumping water, but the man described "a lake" at the site.

Gag.  Those people have disappeared, btw, I haven't seen them in a while.  No worries, I think I wrote their phone number down, the water is shut off.  They are "interesting" people and I'm not necessarily sure they make a good fit in the park.  I don't know where they went, perhaps they weren't able to deal with the cold in that thing. The outside of the trailer is in excellent condition, but it happens a lot that the inside of a trailer can be totally trashed. I don't really care about that, it's the external I concern myself with. 

As for offloading yesterday....it was 24 degrees when I arrived at 9:10 am with a real-feel of 17.  The gauge on the trailer was at the lowest point at 30 degrees.  It was obvious this was going to take a while. It became more obvious when I couldn't get the cap off of the tube that sticks out under the trailer to hook the hose up to.

It was frozen on there. A few taps of a hammer got it off to reveal ice. I had to get a screwdriver and dig that ice out of there. After attaching the hose, the valve wouldn't open all the way, the internal valve wasn't either.  I had to stand out there in that windy cold for quite a while before the valves would eventually free up and I could open both of them fully. But, it still took over 3-1/2 hours to unload that trailer.  

The good thing? I got a call while doing all of that - can you skip tomorrow and work on Monday instead? Why sure! I was scheduled to work today, I was very happy to be asked to do differently.  So today off was go to church with the kids, go to the property, turn the truck on, go hiking in the woods while the truck was idling (this was their idea), turn the truck off, check everything in the park, leave, go to Applebee's for a light lunch and then home where I just said nope, I am not doing anything else today.

Well, I was asked relentlessly and finally caved to the oldest boy's requests to help him hot glue felt onto cardboard cutouts he had made to make his own 5 Night's of Freddies costume, specifically Freddy himself.  Both of those kids have become enthralled with that movie, the characters and endless YouTube videos of different things people have made about it, including a lot of home made costumes.  Amazing the cult like following some of these movies get.  I mean, in my mind? Better doing something constructive than playing video games all day long.  

Last night was card night which was fun.  I finally got texted back from the contractor - he hadn't seen my texts, apologized and said he'd have to come look at it to give me a quote.  I said ok, but that didn't sound too good.  I don't have a lot of money for that driveway right now.  His expert operator could probably have that thing done in a couple of hours at most.  So, I will wait with some hope that it being a small project, I won't get charged terribly much.  Maybe an in-between job for something to do in down time.

Weather. The cold spell should be over as of today  At least the extreme version of it.  Tonight it's supposed to start raining around 2 am and if the forecast is correct - which it probably is not - but if it's correct, it's supposed to continue raining clear through Wednesday.  I can't imagine what the driveway is going to look like after 3 days of rain, the snow/sleet junk already messed it up nicely.  I don't know what I'm supposed to do, I don't have machinery, I can't rent a grader, I can't afford several truckloads of gravel and I'm in between a rock and a hard place. 

I think for right now, I'm going to buy 50 pound bags of gravel, enough of them to fill the pot holes and just have to wait this out.  I'm kind of getting tired of spending all my money on "things to do" at the park.  If it were upgrades, I could see that, but this isn't upgrade stuff. The bags are 5 a piece, not sure how many of them I'll need, probably 20 or so, it's just a temporary fix until I can do something about this situation. I don't expect you can grade driveways in rain, I could be wrong.

DeSantis has quit his bid for presidency which leaves Haley and Trump left. Haley hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell of winning the nomination, she never did.  She is fooling herself if she thinks she's going to win it. Her newest attack against Trump is to use the same tactic as being used against Biden: dementia.  She claims he is too old and blah blah blah.  I could agree, but if the left can pick a man who can't remember where he's at or who he's talking to, the right can pick a man that still has a grasp on things regardless of what this disaster of a "hopeful nominee" says.

The situation on the southern border is shaping up for a potential confrontation between DHS/Feds and the State of Texas, who has defied a "cease and desist" order to allow BP agents access to Shelby Park, where Texas Military has taken over, denied feds in and has begun arresting people they believe are illegal aliens under a new law recently signed by Abbott.

I can tell you, people around here are seriously wondering if we are in for a civil war.  I don't think it will go that far and it would be a needless war with needless casualties.  The federal government is tasked with protecting our borders, which it has intentionally and purposefully failed to do under the Biden administration.  I support Abbott in taking steps to ensure the safety of Texas citizens, which is what this really boils down to.  These aren't just regular people coming through there and Trump was correct when he said it years ago about the SOME of the people that are crossing.  Murderers, rapists, people on terrorist watch lists, thieves, whatever.  

I'm sick of this nonsense and it has to be stopped. I don't want to see a civil war, I want the laws that are already in place to be enforced and deal with this situation.  Biden is inviting the entire world to come cross the Rio Grande.  Just step right up, folks, we'll even cut the razor wire the state of Texas has erected to keep y'all from entering.  Jean Pierre - what a nutcase - sits there and tells you with a straight face that "razor wire doesn't work".  Ok, ma'am, we will erect a wall of that wire such as was put up along the river down south and then you can just go ahead and climb right over it.

Don't worry, we'll have paramedics and even doctors there to perform surgery if necessary in case one of your arteries is punctured.  

This current WH administration is nothing short of a global disaster on all fronts. 

Anyway, it's an hour before my bedtime, I have to get up early, go out in the rain and do my thing with the truck.  I'm hoping to work all week, even Saturday, I need the money. I just got paid and it was slim pickings, but that was expected with the holidays and now I've had 6 days off with the weather so next paycheck won't be so great either. I have seen a semi-decent check with enough working days on it, I can live with it, I just need the work load to get me there.  

I don't know what else. There's more, it's just escaped me right now, I'm thinking of bedtime, maybe watching a re-run of something I like and doze off into sleepy land.  I've been having these recurring dreams of people coming to our front door in the middle of the night, pounding on the door and demanding we let them in.  I grab either a shotgun or the AR depending on which dream it is, go to the door, tell the people if they try to break in they are going to die.

Whoever they are, they aren't police.  I know that for sure, they don't say what they want beyond they want entrance to the house.  Then James comes out from his bedroom with a pistol in his hand and we are ready for bloody war.  About the time the people try to break the door down, I wake up.  

Oh btw, the message at church was great today.  It got me thinking about things in my life and where I'm at with the Lord.  I have been considering getting involved in one of the Sunday morning adult groups.  It would mean going to church at 9:30 am instead of 11 and staying for several hours. I haven't brought it up to the boys yet, they like church for they get to play pretty rough and the service is geared towards kids in there. I just don't know if they could handle 2-1/2 hours of it. 

I have made zero attempts at making any kind of friendships or relationships at church, by choice.  I have been burned in churches, as has been so many people, I just go for the kids to get exposed to the Gospel, worship the Lord in a worship service and listen to a message and leave.  Free coffee isn't too shabby either.  I just really haven't felt the desire to get involved with it, I have a long history of giving my all to churches in volunteering for ministries of various nature and getting shafted by gossip, hateful people, people who talk behind your back, leadership that is authoritarian, etc etc etc.  I don't need that, I don't want that and yes, I have rejected making any friends whatsoever because of it. I've had more than my share of it.  

I feel like the Lord is poking me to get back into the swing of things.  I don't want to, I can tell you that. I have friends, lots of friends, but a lot of them aren't Christian at all.  ATM, that doesn't bother me at all.  I have found that non-Christians make far better friends than these fake fairies you find at churches.  They put on an act and go around acting like people that you eventually find out, if you do indeed get involved with them - aren't like that at all outside of church.  

I freely admit I am far from perfect, get mad in traffic, drink my beers here and there, have basically backed off from society in many ways for the garbage that's gone on with people and really don't miss any of it.  But, if you could find a handful or less of true Christian friends that you could fellowship with? That would be cool, I think. Motivate me to dig deeper into the Lord.  

I dunno, I'm going to bring it up to the kids tomorrow and see how they feel about going to church for that length of time. I suppose I could run home after an adult meeting, get them and bring them back if they aren't wanting to deal with it.  I want them to continue with church.  I just feel it's a good influence and the people running that children's ministry are solid as far as I have been able to tell- and yes, I have been watching.  They didn't see gee, we don't want that kid back here (the youngest) after he disrupted the entire service for not getting out of the play tubes. I told them he wouldn't be there next week, which they said ok, but we want him back!  That's the type of attitude you would expect to hear from Christians involved in a children's ministry.

I've gotten long winded and I'm getting off of here. 

 Thursday - Afternoon

The Park driveway has turned into a crisis.  I have no choice but to do something about it. It's just a mud pit now what with the recent snow/sleet/freezing rain combo. It was already bad enough before that, but people driving over it has turned it into mud slosh. I'm afraid I'll lose people over it and I have to do something about it. 

To that end, I first called to find out gravel prices.  The prices have gone up yet again. SB2 is now $850 - a year ago or maybe a little more it was $450.  Iron Ore mix is $650.  It's very high prices for rock but they are the cheapest thing around.  

I then texted the guy that built the park. Do you have anything that can blade my driveway? It's in bad shape. "Just my dozer".  Will it work? "It should with my operator".  I must say here that his operator is one of the best I have ever seen.  He's pretty much awesome with that machine. I asked how much, still awaiting a reply.

The logic here is that if it's in the same ball park as having rock delivered, well, there is rock under all of that dirt.  He could both level it and pull up that rock to the top again.  

_____________

Many hours later, still haven't heard a price. The man gives me breaks sometimes, maybe he'll work me a deal here, so I'll wait until tomorrow to try and contact him again about it.  I don't know how busy they are right now anyways beyond their normal septic maintenance stuff what with the weather.  

I dunno, but the only water problem I have had in the park so far is the hose that is going to the motor coach.  She was supposed to turn the water off to it, she didn't and I ended up using warm water so I could turn the valve off.  2 days later, she went out, turned on the valve and when I came this morning? There was a small lake of water out there and a geyser.  Who knows how many hours she had it going like that and yes, I said something to her about it.  Like, this is going to raise my water bill quite a lot.  

This is the tent lady and going on 4 months, I think, of nothing coming from her.  She said 2 weeks ago she was going to find a job, apparently that hasn't materialized. I don't see any answer to this any time soon and I'm going to start getting a bit antsy about this situation.  Is this supposed to go on in perpetuity?  

Enough. Time to kick back, watch a bit of TV and doze off. 

The Problem With Today

 Wednesday  semi-early

I wasn't going to get up this early, but something woke me up and I just said oh well and got out of bed. The dog wanted out as well.  He's a real trooper wanting to go outside in 10 degree weather and tromp around all over the place - that won't last long tho, lol, and he'll be whining at the door. Yes, I let him in, we aren't making the dogs stay outside in this below freezing weather.  

Yes, it's 10 degrees and it feels like 10 degrees.  

So what is the problem with today? Well, to start with, the roads are still covered with this sleet/snow mixture that starts to melt down on the top and the refreezes and has done that several times now. I can't imagine trying to get to my park right now much less down to Nacogdoches to wash out the trailers.  

Second is the fact that the truck refused to start 2 days ago. Batteries didn't have enough juice in them to crank the engine.  I put a charger on it, left and thought I was coming back. But by the time I was going to try to come back, the roads had iced over again and I said no thanks, not worth it.  As it is right now, not worth it. 

Third, if I can even make it down there, how many trucks will be sitting in that washout yard ahead of me, waiting to get cleaned out? How many hours might I have to sit there and wait?  If I drive down there, will I even get the truck loaded today?  

4th.  Is the fuel gelled up in the fuel tanks?  I know they put anti-gel in the fuel at the truckstops, but is it enough and strong enough mixture?  

5th.  Just how long is this day going to be in terms of leaving here and getting back home?  I truly wonder if I even do make it back home today.  If I can't get the truck running? They'll send someone out to jump it.  They will get it going, I can guarantee you that unless the plant in Lufkin says nope, we don't have anything ready because we are shut down.  

6th. The fact that the dispatchers are no pro-active. They don't call the plants, they wait for the plants to call them.  It's kind of dumb.  Who cares since it's the drivers paying the price for their lack of initiative, right? 

So what to do now? I'm going to sit here at least until the sun is beaming and doing something to the ice on the roads. I can't drive my SUV over there in this stuff. It's not a 4 wheel drive and it's got highway slicks for tires on it, not all terrain tires.  Next time I have to replace tires I will definitely be putting something that gets traction in mud, snow, whatever.  In fact, 2 of the tires are getting close to replacement time but guess what? 

There isn't like a huge pool of money laying around to pay for them and I am trying to not put anything else on credit cards.  It is going to have to be an extreme emergency to use credit for anything right now.  

I'm not going to see any big paycheck with all of this time off that's been going on.  The pay period ended on the 15th and I think I had 8 days of work on it.  That's a 15 day pay period with only 8 of them having had worked.  I do have a full park - we'll see how much of any profits are eaten up by excessive electric bills for running people's electric heaters.  These people will and do take advantage of free electricity and eventually, I am going to put a stop to that even if it means people leave the park.  

And yes, I'm still worried about the water situation.  We'll find out about that either later today when things thaw out or, if it doesn't thaw out today, it definitely will tomorrow.  Today is only slated to get up to 40 degrees and then back down to freezing or slightly below 32 but tomorrow? Mid 50's.  

Anyway, I have no idea when to actually try to leave here?  It's almost 9:00 am now, considering trying to get out of this neighborhood. I got stuck the other day trying to climb up the hill, the wheels just spun. I had to back up around 300 feet to get to level ground, turn around and try another route home.  But, if I can make it out of here, apparently the highways are relatively clear. Well, take that back, 59 is doing ok, 43 looks pretty bad, I'd have to go out of my way to get to 59 and take an alternate route down to Nacogodoches.  

_________________________

9-1/2 hours later.  The drive over there was a bit white knuckle. Roads were still covered with that sleet/snow mix and has iced over several times now.  I slid a few times, kept it very slow and did, indeed make it. Once I got the truck out onto the Interstate and then the state Highway, it was great.  The roads were clear.  

The visit to the washout was not fun.  There were no other trucks there and there was a reason for it. Their equipment was down. They originally told me it was water frozen in the feeder tank to their machinery that pressurizes the water and also heats it if they so desire.  But that wasn't the case at all. It was their machine that wasn't working. I suspected right away that the pump was simply frozen and they needed to do something to warm it up.

I didn't bother to tell them that, they wouldn't have listened to me anyway.  It took them over 3 hours to get it running. I was the first truck they had tried to even get the stuff up and running for since the winter event took place.  It was nearly 4 hours before I left there.  The plant was great.  They loaded me up quickly, it was after hours and the people running that place after hours are quick and efficient. 

But, it was still a 9-1/2 hour day due to the washout.  

Tomorrow will be another long day. That's because the trailer is out of inspection and needs to be inspected immediately. Who knows how many hours that's going to add to the day.  They are talking having me go to El Dorado to the yard to get it done.  That's easily another 3 hours.  

Anyway, it's getting late and I am beat.  I just knew this day was going to be something like this. 

 Tuesday mid-morning

The roads are icy as a winter's hell.  I just saw pics the police department posted, you can tell there is an icy sheen all over the roads.  I need to go to the park, I never did yesterday because of the same factor: poor driving conditions.  But today? It's far  worse.  The roads looked nothing like what the pics are showing this morning.

It's very simple: the roads everyone was driving yesterday, creating slush and such, then overnight, all of that stuff froze up and now? You have hellish driving conditions, especially for 2 wheel drive vehicles. 

__________________

That was this morning.  Never left the house, the roads were not good and I didn't see any reason to risk going over to the park.  Someone called and said there is water leaking onto the floor in the bathroom. After some questioning I figured that the drain pipe outside must have frozen up and backing up the drip I had going. I asked them to turn the drip off. The shower is still dripping according to them, hopefully that's enough.  I have it dripping out of the hot water faucet, so it's going to keep the hot water line that is outside going inside moving inside of the line and also keep water moving in the main line going into the shed. 

The rest is up to the heaters to keep it warm enough in there to keep the interior lines from freezing up.  the electric bill is going to go way up and it's really starting to eat at me.  Not just because of the shed, but because it's "free electricity".  In a pig's eye it is, it's free to use as much as you want if you aren't paying separate for it.  It's already decided for me to start buying the conversion kits as I can afford them and install them until I have the entire park done.  

At first, I can monitor what each lot is using. People going way over may get a notice, or I will probably end up charging separate to everyone for electric and reducing my monthly rate to make it more appealing. So, cut my monthly rate $50 but guests have to pay for their own electricity.  This move, when I get there and it will be a while, I certainly can't afford 14 of those setups right now, but then again, it's not terribly expensive - will undoubtedly drive out some people who love the taste of running everything for "free" and most parks around are giving one price for everything.  

But I see no point, now, in giving away free electric to people who will abuse it to the point you aren't making that much money.  If I could fill up the park with people paying for their own electric, I would be making so much more money.  I am in competition with other parks, yes. It might be spartan for a while, I don't know. I won't be charging overnighters for electric, that's included in the nightly rate. Just long-term guests.  

It's $39 for the kit and another $40 for the meter, plus tax and delivery.  So I dunno, $90 we'll say, or just say $100.  Installation? I would do that, not paying anyone, I have already looked at some youtube videos, doesn't look like anything particularly difficult.  Just have to shut the power off each time you do it.  But if you have everything in place, it's only maybe 10 minutes shutting off the power.  

What's pushed me to this point is the fact that i am just not making that much money off of this park and I see no reason to continue on with this in this manner.  I didn't get into business to make spartan income, I want to make decent profit off of the investment and that's just not where it's at right now. A full park is great - until you start spending the gross profit on expenses.  It's electricity, water, power, property tax, income tax, maintenance, repairs, upgrades, etc.   Just not seeing it.  It just seems to me that it's more prudent to do this first before thinking about adding another sewer system.  

So, once I get these property taxes paid - which I don't even know when, I have to come up with the money soon or they will start imposing late fees - I will start on this and I will also have to think about summer grass being planted in the Spring. See how that works? Money, money, money for everything.  

One more laundry payment and I will have a couple hundred plus more per month to work with.  After that, it's the shed and after that? There's nothing on the immediate horizon that's going to be paid off.  Get rid of those 2 payments, however, and the only recurring, monthly payment for loans is the mortgage which is sitting at $440 per month, hardly any great expense.  It's my personal expenses racked up doing the stuff I had to do after the cash ran out that's eating me alive.

And will continue to do so until I can figure something out - the best option would be a big loan to pay it all off. Just not going to do that until interest rates come back down. If they ever do?  

Work. Well, I never got over there but I did inform the company today that truck isn't starting.  I also said I have a battery charger on it, so hopefully tomorrow morning I can get it running.  I dunno, but it's not supposed to break the freezing point until noon tomorrow.  You think I want to run on roads in 8 degree weather? You should have seen the pics they were showing of the roads around here this morning....

I called the washout place, the man said he was going to go over there early, but not guaranteeing me that he can do any washouts before noon.  I wonder what kind of crowd is going to be there waiting? No one has been able to get washed out in the last several days now at that facility or any other for that matter that is experiencing these kind of freezing temperatures.  

I texted the dispatcher - she isn't really useful.  She didn't call them or do anything but say "I don't know, it's a go unless they call and say otherwise". What the hell good is that? Never heard of being proactive?  CALL THEM AND FIND OUT, I'm thinking, which is what I did after I got that info from her.  Roads good or bad, why should I drive down there to find out they can't do it until noon and I have to sit there for almost 4 hours?  I texted the manager, who called me - he doesn't like texting - and just discussed the situation and he just said probably don't plan on being there until noon.  

I expect tomorrow is going to be a very long day.  It just is.  

If you want to know what's really weighing on my mind, it's that if these pipes are, indeed, frozen, what's going to happen when they start thawing out? Are some of them busted and just not spewing out water because it's an ice cube inside? I'd like to be there for any kind of event like that.  You know, if it is just getting above freezing at noon, any frozen pipes are going to take a long time to thaw out and then? It's going to get below freezing at night until Sunday.  

I dunno. Hopefully nothing or not too much anyway will have to be repaired and we can all go on living our lives without mother nature throwing curve balls at us.   

 Monday mid-afternoon

I had no choice, I needed to get over to the park, check the water outlets, put one of the cameras on a charger, put the shed faucets on drip, try to start the truck and generally check everything. 

I was lucky on the drip. Someone had flushed the toilet and it suck, the thing was just draining water when I got there.  Lucky because that means it didn't allow the lines to freeze up.  The water heater is outside in this mess, it is probably running continuously, unfortunately.  I could turn it off, I guess, but I'm afraid of the tank freezing up and something happening to it.  

I turned on the other space heater in the shed for it wasn't exactly warm in there.  The truck wouldn't start, so I ran extension cord to it and put it on a battery charger. I tried to turn it on, no go.  So, I figured after 4 or 5 hours of charging and warming up the batteries I will go back over and try again and also put the camera back up, it should be charged by then. It lasts 3 weeks or so on one charge, at least.  

The people that moved into lot 1 were busy installing new flooring? In this weather? Whatever toots their horn. They were the only people I saw. I think a couple other folks were home, the rest of the park was deserted.  I couldn't get water to come out of the valve on the outlet by the septic system.  I dunno, I'm just hoping it doesn't burst for I will have to shut down the water to the entire park.  

The roads were not bad this morning, but now they are slick and icy.  People driving like idiots in town, watched to people spin out and several others spinning their tires.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out you slow way down on icy roads if you should be driving on them at all. I had to go to the park, this was a must do thing to deal with everything listed above, but especially getting the heat up in there and dripping the faucets and putting up a sign.  The truck? Oh well, I figure it will start when I go back.  

 Sunday - night

Guess I forgot to post a couple entries.  It's currently snowing outside, very light snow, the street is covered with it, it's melting on the grass for some reason - current actual temp is 21, feels like 11.  This isn't he cold night, btw, that's coming tomorrow night and Tuesday.  

I did get the generator up and running with a couple shots of ether.  Fired up, shut down, gave it a couple more shots, fired up and ran it for about 30 minutes to ensure it was going to stay running. We haven't even had any flickers yet signaling any power outages, I just wanted to be prepared. EPCOT is asking for voluntary reduction in use of electricity - if possible.

Our furnace runs off of natural gas, the electricity used to run the fan is minimal.  Our water heater is also gas.  I have space heaters in my room - because it gets cold in here. Even after they installed a new furnace/AC and put in new ducting, this room still gets either hot or cold depending on the time of year. This is an add on, it was a carport. I assume they didn't put in too much insulation in the walls.  

Realistically, in cold like this, who in their right mind is going to say, yeah, we'll cut back on heat! I imagine most houses around here are running natural gas furnaces anyway, but it's likely there's a lot of space heaters going on as well.  

The space heater in my park laundry room is running non stop now.  It's not keeping it particularly warm in there but it's enough to keep the pipes from freezing.  If it's in the mid 30's or higher, it keeps it warm in there, these temps and weather are an anomaly, won't last forever and just going to hope there aren't going to be any blown lines anywhere either here or at the park.

As of late afternoon today, I had heard nothing from work. I was going to text them but i thought, maybe they updated the tablet. Sure enough, they canceled my Monday and Tuesday load and moved it to Wednesday. We've had freezing rain and sleet today besides the snow and more freezing rain coming, I'm not particularly interested in driving to the grocery store much less all the way down to Nacogdoches and Lufkin in this kind of road conditions.  I'm not glad I can't work, I am glad I don't have to try to deal with it.  

We did go to church today, it was so cold going outside. It was real feel 19 degrees, I'm just not into that anymore.  I'm thinking that if a water lines does blow with it being this cold, I won't be able to fix the it, the glue will never set.  Or who knows, I'll be looking that up online how they do glue repairs in freezing cold weather.  Hopefully won't have to fix anything, I want to be prepared.  

A large number of people in the park are gone. They have gone to family/friends houses to keep warm.  I don't blame them. I'll be over there tomorrow if I can make it to check on everything, especially the shed.  I have another heater in there, if I have to fire it up to warm it up in there, I will do so. In fact, I really should have turned it on today when I was over there. It will be turned on tomorrow, but I won't drive over ther if the roads are too icy. 

I've got 2 more days off. I can do some paperwork at least during those days stuck in the house.  

I'm just resolved at this point to waiting this thing out.  Send it off to wherever it's going and bid it a permanent goodbye.  

It's getting late.  

 A little less painful than I imagined. In fact, it took far longer for the Love's people to do the paperwork than to simply install the filters. Still, the whole thing was less than an hour and the thing fired right up without shutting itself back off, which is what happened the last time the filters were replaced.  I decided to go ahead and fuel up while there and treat myself to Denny's - I don't get to go to Denny's too often. I don't have time to stop at  one at a truckstop on the way back from Lufkin and the nearest one to my house is either the one I went to today or the one over in Longview.

Anyway, that misery over with (I'll find out next load whether it fixed the problem or not, I bobtailed the tractor over there today), I decided to get the generator, fill it with gas and take it home.  I couldn't get it to start, tho the battery was fully charged. Couldn't find my starting fluid, I'm going to have to go buy another can of it.  It's cold and that thing has been setting quite a while.  Plus it was almost completely out of gas so whatever was in there probably went bad in that length of time. It has fresh fuel, but I think just giving it a hit of ether should get it running again.  I got the hard part done, lol, if the power goes out, at least I'm not faced with having to go clear to the property, hook up the trailer, go to the rear of the property, get the generator loaded, take it to a gas station, fill it up, take it home and offload it. 

That's all done and it's sitting in the back yard.  

So yes, I'm fixing to head up to the auto parts store for some ether and probably go to Kroger's for some supplies. I will not be caught red handed without sufficient food stock and we just bought several cases of water yesterday in case (almost guaranteed) the city water lines are affected, read: sprout cracks and they have to not only shut off the water, but also give out boil water notices.  I'd rather be prepared and it turn into a nothing-burger than not be prepared and left scrambling at the last minute. We've done the latter too many times, it's not a good feeling.  

Plus Kroger's has Rao's spaghetti sauce on sale, it's $4.00 off the normal price and no limit. I'll take at least 7 of those if they have them.  It's normally very expensive stuff.  

Many people are leaving the park for the extreme cold event. Long term, they have friends or family nearby they are staying with.  Some are staying and have adequately taken care of their hoses for the most part, have contacted more of them about dealing with this situation adequately so they don't incur damage in their unit. At worst for me, a line could blow and I would just have to replace some parts.  Not a big deal at all, besides having to do it in frigid cold temps outdoors in the wind.  

Oops, I need to contact the college kids. I don't know if they're staying or going home, but I need them to deal with it either way.  It's their parent's rv, it's only a few years old, a burst line can do significant damage to the interior of an rv trailer.  Put that on the list to contact them today.  That should be just about it tho.  

I found out more about the guy that had brain surgery. He had a tumor on his brain and they had to open him up to cut it out. I have no idea the prognosis, whether he's expected to survive it or what. I justknow that the dad who also lives in my park called his neighbor tenant to shut off their water.  I am going to unhook the hose to allow the water to drain out on both of their units.  I dunno why the dad didn't contact their friend that also lives there to do that?  

The tent lady is allegedly trying to go back to work. She complained the other day that she's broke, can't afford anything and needs to get money coming back in.  Her brother - I hate to judge the man - but he's completely useless. He is able bodied, he just has no motivation.  It's amazing he can't get off of his @$$ to go get some kind of income coming in so he can help his sister.  Not to mention they are living in my motorcoach and are using my electricity to heat that thing.  This isn't a freebie for me, but at the same time I am just considering the bible and what Jesus had to say about helping the poor. Still, that man could do something to help the situation.  I dunno, sometimes people just get to the point in life where they don't care about anything anymore. I can only imagine that's where he's at.  

I guess where I'm at with it is that I am helping her, not necessarily him tho he's being helped because of it.  I don't know where they are getting their cigarette money - certainly not from me.  

I guess I'm a bit consumed with this cold weather coming up and getting it dealt with in advance.  The house will be fine, especially if my generator is there and James welder which is also a generator.  We had both running during that almost 7 day power outage last summer. 

So, to that end, I am going to get moving again.  

 Friday - 8:20 am

The storm petered out last night, went all around us. We got 5 minutes of rain and that was that. No tornadoes, no hail, no freezing rain. I'm not complaining, but for all the hype they made about it....

We still have Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to go as far as bad weather is concerned.  We'll see.  I was going to go get the generator today, instead, I am forced to take the pink glory to a Love's and see if they can fix it. I'm guessing fuel filters again, our mechanic said the same.  Just strange it's doing it again so soon after replacing them.  Not that I want to go to my property, drop the trailer, drive over there, wait for probably hours and then drive back.....

The cheater wasn't there yesterday at the offload plant.  Thankfully.  Not only that, but offloading was quick, the product was warmer and flowed out much faster.  The problem with the truck started after I left there about 4 miles down the road.  I was intent on just going home, didn't really care at the time, no regrets now.  

I'm fixing on leaving here and going and dealing with this nonsense.  If I don't, I will be stuck doing it on a day when I am assigned a load and will add many hours to any given day.  I am not keen on taking the truck clear up to the yard in El Dorado, especially with it running the way it is.  Like, 10 miles to get to 65 mph and then it just chokes out.  I would just change the damn filters myself but they won't allow it.

It's fairly simple. Take off the 2 filters, get the new ones opened, fill them up with diesel fuel, install them, and then pump the primer on the fuel pump 100 plus times before even trying to start it up.  It will start up, the question is will it stay running?  The mistake these people did last time is that they tried to start it and when it died, they didn't refill the filters. They just kept standing there pushing the primer pump forever.  It took half an hour to get that truck started.  

Anyway, I don't want to fool with it. If something goes foul they'll blame me and I don't need that at all. 

If I can get this done before say 2: 00 pm - I brace myself for long waits at these places, they usually take forever, a day and a half - I can get other stuff done. It is, however, getting quite cold out there. funny that in the middle of the night last night it was almost 70 degrees and now? 

The 4 nighter showed up yesterday, despite my warnings of potential foul weather.  He replied to my email that he's coming anyway, but is it possible to stay longer if necessary?  Of course.  I wouldn't dream of trying to force someone to head out on the highways if the roads are dangerous.  I blocked that space out so that no one else can take it in case he does, indeed, need to stay. 

The forecast for Monday, however, has been consistent showing either a wintry mix or a wintry mix followed by snow.  I mean, if he headed out Sunday after he's done, he might be okay but I have no idea where he's going and how long he would have to be on the road to get there.  He's slated to leave by noon Monday.  But, if the forecast is accurate - which it often times is not - it will be too late. 

I do not own cats, but they visit me regularly, especially the dark brown one, which is currently sitting on my lap. The kitten messes with her quite a bit, sometimes she seeks out humans to shield her from the "abuse", lol.  This cat is perfectly capable of handling herself, I don't know why she allows that kitten to mess with her like that.  

The dog is the dog.  He's sitting there this morning staring at me, yes I got up late and yes, he wanted to go out.  He's a pretty good doggy, just needs a little more training in certain areas.  I'm not a fan of dogs not listening when you tell them to do something.  I have him close to being at an automatic-sit when coming in or out of the house, we're not quite there yet but almost.  I haven't been walking him that much, he runs like crazy with the other dog around the back. He's still skinny as a rail, the dog's bones are still protruding from his sides and when he eats, you'd think he hadn't eaten in a week.  I don't know what else to do about that, he gets plenty of food, trust me on that one.  Twice a day feedings in fact.  

I'm just trying to get my head into this mode of driving over there to get this nonsense taken care of, if you can't tell, I don't want to do this at all. It's just a hassle, won't pay that much but it will save me time whenever I go on my next run. Slated for Monday, the washout place said nope, if the weather forecast is right, we won't be here.  I told them that in Gurdon and they just said "we're going to play it by ear".  Well, don't expect to see any of us up here if we can't get the trailers washed out or if the highways are bad.   They will have enough glue to last them for a few days at least up there.

They have 2 huge tanks and if they are both full I suspect it's enough to keep them busy for a while.  We might have to do a lot of loads to get caught up, meaning they'll bring in people off the road to help out that don't know anything about that plant and aren't told anything.  They just show up, do whatever they're going to do and that's that.  It usually ends up in some sort of small disaster.  To the point the head honcho up there asked me yesterday if I was blowing out the lines when I'm done? Yes, every time. I don't think the problem is with me or the other normal driver, it's everyone else they bring in here.

He'll have to address them all individually.  It's become obvious those drivers don't care about flushing out the line and then pumping air through it.  

Anyway, I guess I best git.  It's almost 9 am and I don't want this dragging out all day long.

G'day