Thursday - early

Not pretending I got up early because I wanted to hit the day running. I just woke up and wasn't able to get back to sleep so I decided I might as well get my butt out of bed and get the day rolling.  

Yesterday was long - longer than normal anyway.  I knew it would be before it started for I needed some new tires on the trailer.  I actually tried to get tires on it on Tuesday but Love's said it would be hours before they had anyone available to even get started on it. 

I just told them thank you and turned around and left.  I'm not going to voluntarily sit in a shop for hours waiting on tires.  That only happens if it's a blowout and that usually happens on the side of the road.  Love's is usually ridiculous on the wait times and I avoid them if possible, but if it's tires, I will go in and ask if there is a long wait.  You see no trucks in the bay? Yeah that means nothing. Their techs could be and probably are on the side of the highway somewhere fixing a truck or replacing a blow out. 

This time, I drove 35 miles to Hope, Arkansas and tried out the Southwest Tire Mart there.  We have a national account with them, but they aren't exactly known for their speedy service either.  I got there and it was a very old, dilapidated set of buildings but it was bustling with activity and a large number of tire techs working. Popular place apparently.  No other semis there tho.  It took a couple of hours to get 3 tires replaced.  

I had noticed a small but deep chunk of tire tread missing out of one of the drive axle tires, I had to have that replaced. Actually, I wanted their opinion on it but since it was at the edge of the tire, I knew they would say replace it.  I sat in the waiting room and played games the entire time, I'm not going to sit in boredom at least.

The part that got me about yesterday? I pulled into the Texas inspection station - I was forced in their by their flashing lights and the fact that I wasn't bypassed on the E-log device.  You run that device and hope that it says bypass on it, but usually I am pulled in there. You just roll through the scale and if they don't red light you or come out on the porch and wave you down, you just keep going.

Yeah, no. There was no rolling through. There was a trooped on the porch and waved me to stop.  He went to the trailer and started kicking the tires on the front axle of the trailer.  I saw what he was looking at, the outside tire was bulging - heavy load. Truck sitting at almost 78,000 pounds, the tires are going to bulge a little and if you happen to stop on a small bump, the tires on that bump will bulge out like that. 

He did that for a minute, completely missing the rather worn out tire on the axle behind it, was satisfied the tires weren't flat and waved me on.  I thought I was toast on that one.  Even one bad tire can get you put out of service and you have to have a tire truck come to the station to replace it.  Now let's get this straight, if you have a blow out on one tire, the world isn't ending.  You pull over, inspect the damage and you call for help. That's it.  The truck isn't going to blow up, roll over or otherwise magically disintegrate before your eyes. 

Anyway, all the tires on the truck and trailer are good and should be good for quite a while now.  I have negative feelings about constantly having to go into shops and spending endless hours in them.  I don't care if the company pays me for it - the pay isn't that much and it eats up a good portion of the day or even causes me to have to stay overnight.  

2 more days of work including today and then I get the weekend off.  No surprise there, I worked all last weekend and didn't say a word to them about it.  I just let it go, did the work and got it over with.  If they do that, I sure want my next weekend off or at the very least, Sunday off.  As for now? 

Well, the kids are getting up and it's soon time to get the daily grind going.

G'day

 Tuesday - evening

Another night of poor quality sleep.. If this continues it's going to be problematic.  I'm having too many nights like this and I need it to end.  I don't know what's causing it, I go to sleep most nights quite easily but staying asleep is another story entirely.

Anyway, I was looking forward to getting the work day done and go home and take a nap.  2 things stopped that.  1, I have 2 tires on the trailer that are in grave need of replacement. 2, I got a call: you have been chosen in the random system for a drug screening today.  Oh how wonderful!  It gets better, you'll have to go to Longview to do it.  Why not my home town? 

She couldn't answer that question for it was corporate that informed her about it and when these things pop up, you are supposed to immediately drop what you're doing and go straight to the testing location. Yeah, right. I was in Lufkin.  You basically get to the place as soon as you can and it has to be the same day it is handed out, that's federal regulations, not our company's policies.  Like, if you are taking cocaine or meth, 2 hours or 5 hours or even a whole day isn't going make a lick of difference, it will still show up in your urine panel.

Fortunately, I don't take illegal/illicit drugs/controlled substances and neither do I want to.  I like beers here and there, but the last alcohol I had was so long ago there is no way it's showing up on a urine test.  Not to mention I wouldn't dream of driving under the influence, not even if it was  only one beer.  It's just too dangerous and unacceptable.  It's really a moral issue in my mind, for not only are you endangering your own life, you are also endangering the lives of anyone on the road that has the unfortunate circumstance of you driving near them.

It took 2 hours to drive over there, sit in the waiting room forever, stop at a Braum's for a chicken sandwich and go home. And yes, they are paying me. I'm not driving 50 plus miles for free, that was their decision to bypass my town and make me drive all the way over there.  

Got home and yes, took my precious nap.  It's not really optional after a poor night's sleep, I need that 20 minute nap to make it the rest of the day.  After that, the kid wanted me to go on a bike ride with him, so I forced myself, I surely didn't feel like it at all.  Put away dishes and helped cook dinner and now here I am, finally, at a little after 5, 

 Monday - morning

I did, of course, procrastinate too long and now I only have 3 days to do my taxes.  Well, I have everything in mind I need to do, the biggest chunk is inputting receipts into the   quickbooks account which will take a while. 

I don't actually buy a lot of stuff now that the park is set up and running, excepting that I do have stuff I bought for the expansion and stuff I bought to repair the disaster I created in attempting to execute the work of the expansion.  That was a chunk of change. I can't imagine what it would have cost if I were to have actually found a contractor to do the work. 

I was completely exasperated at some point and felt overwhelmed.  It was mainly because there was a whole park full of people who had no water and thankfully didn't flush out their black water holding tanks while the system was down.  That and the endless problems, fix one and find another.  It was crazy and I never have gotten back to the expansion work. I keep trying to motivate myself but the thought of creating that kind of catastrophe again - well I need to deal with it in my mind and get past it so I can get busy.  I've already spent quite  a bit of money on it - the septic system, the electrical panel, renting the trackhoe and buying pipe.  There's some money right there but it will cost double that to actually get some lots up and running. 

Anyway, I was hoping to mow the grass out there today but it rained very nicely yesterday and it's probably still wet.  I'm going over there in a while to check it - maybe - I may get so caught up in taxes I won't have time for that and really, there is no expectation that grass can be mowed the day after a heavy rain. 

What I do need to do is go to the bank for quite a bit of deposits and also go get a haircut.  I may do that here quick, get a coffee from one of the endless coffee joints around here and then get back at tax junk.  This little town is know for donuts, liquor stores, car washes and coffee houses.  

Locals complain about it all the time, why can't we have other stuff here, like recreational things to do? Well, there was a bowling alley, a skating rink and a public pool. The public pool is next to the high school, shut down and full of black and green gunk. The skating rink I have no idea where that was, I do know it doesn't exist anymore and the bowling alley is a long abandoned building that wasn't making money for the owners.

In other words, these people want everything but they don't want to pay for it, hence, no sane business person is going to dump hundreds of thousands or more into a project that is quite risky and the banks will probably guffaw at any such ventures. I DO believe a mini golf course would work here, but that is a few hundred thousand dollar money dump and who knows if it would actually have a decent ROI? Or even pay for itself? 

Now if you could do the work yourself and cut out contractors, you could get it done for far less. I am no young man anymore with that kind of energy, that is best left either to younger generations or, if so inclined. to finance it and see what happens.  But, a bank would probably want surveys done in the area to find out what the potential market is - feasibility study - and that costs a chunk of change in and of itself.  I don't have the space for that at my park anyway unless I wanted to forgo the expansion in the back part and build one there.  There is room for one but no, no thanks. I would rather build in the city somewhere close to down town and there isn't that kind of land available there.  

Even if there was, they would want high dollar for it even tho this town is small, 25% poverty and a lot of abandoned structures all over the place from rotting houses to huge, brick building that have stood empty since long before I moved here.  

I'm looking at the clock and think how did the morning go by so quickly? I didn't play any games until a minute ago and that was just 2, short, 5 minute games, I closed out the app because it's distracting and I have stuff to do.  Oh, yes, I slept in until 10 am lol!  What can I say, just coming off of working the entire weekend, I felt the need to sleep in and catch some good shuteye, which I did.

I did wake up in the middle of the night and then I woke up for the kids so I could give them their Monday morning send off - which is simply looking at Facebook reels of all kinds of different content, the oldest likes to watch clips of Fortnite and also Fortnite content creators, which the internet is definitely full of.  He envisioned himself becoming a fortnite pro player for his future and becoming a millionaire from the profits of winning championship games. 

Yeah, buddy, so are millions of other people.  We kind of tried to derail him from that kind of thinking. He then said he wanted to learn how to become an engineer and work for one of these gaming platforms, probably a lot of people want that too, but that's more realistic.  I don't want to dissuade him from following his dreams, to the contrary, I talk to him about starting his own business and becoming his own boss.

I then talk to him about working at a fast food or similar place for a while to understand how the employer-employee relationship works and what is expected of you in a work environment.  Not a life long thing, of course, but the experience and learning is good.  

I actually feel quite chatty at the moment, however, I need to get busy.  

 Sunday late-afternoon

When a day clicks at work, it's nice. Now I've had 2 of them in a row, which is beyond nice, almost miraculous.  I got up begrudgingly for work - Sundays are not work days in my book - and got with it.  Got out  of the house, over to the truck, got out of the yard and not surprisingly considering what day it is, very little traffic. Took 25 less minutes to get up there because of it.  

At the scale, they were there before I even got back from the Port-A-Jon - had to go! Coffee! Over to the delivery shack, found a manager immediately, he didn't ask any questions, I just informed him the tank levels and he signed off on it. 48 minutes later - which in itself is very good beyond all the other time saving things that happened - I was out of there in no time.  

A bit of annoyance coming back with some dude playing around with trucks, won't go into that now for I don't feel like it, got home at 12:30 pm! That's GREAT for the Gurdon trip! We all went to Applebee's, including the mom. It is unfortunate that when she goes? The youngest child acts up and it got pretty bad.  He had a full blown meltdown over an issue that he knows he can't do when we're eating.  On the kids Applebee's Sunday event, I let them play their games.  

The caveat is they put the game down when ordering and be respectful to the waitress and also have to stop playing while they're eating. Never an issue - until today and mom sitting next to him. Mom says it's only because she's there and it does happen every time that when she goes with us to a restaurant? That kid loses it. So, when the food came and he continued playing, I told him to put the game down.  He didn't, I was about to say something else to him, but mom chimed in and then? He went ballistic..  

Anyway,, that's behind us, we're home and I'm about to get on my game.  Because it's Sunday and yes, someone decided to move in - today - at the park. I don't care, but I"m not going over there.  I was already there twice. I told him to pick a lot and we can square up tomorrow.  I almost never go there on Sundays unless there's an emergency or if I have to work. The truck is parked over there, which is quite convenient for  me.  

 Saturday - night

Get tomorrow delivery done and then off until Tuesday morning.  I mean, I didn't want to work the entire weekend, but since I'm doing it, might as well look at the bright side of things about it.  It's supposed to rain tomorrow - but not until after I'm long done with the run so that's a good thing as well.  I'm first load, another good thing and whoever is second load did not show up before me or even the entire time I was at the plant loading today. I got back at 12:30, which is quite good. 

I did not get any mowing done yesterday at all, contrary to the statement I made the day before.  That's because by the time I got over there, I had a massive headache from who knows what and it was rather debilitating.  I went home and laid down is what I did. I didn't take any drugs for it, I just let it pass on it's own and it hasn't come back since. However, it took quite a while for it to pass. 

Anyway, if it rains tomorrow, that will preclude me from doing any mowing on Monday.  The grass will be wet, just doesn't cut well when it's wet.   

I didn't do much after I got home today, another night where I didn't sleep well and we had a recital to attend for the oldest kid who is learning how to play guitar. The arts business that teaches kids to play various instruments has occasional recitals at the church for them to show off what they have learned. It was interesting.  The kids all put their hearts into the various instruments they were playing and a couple of singers. Each person had a short thing to play or sing excepting a couple of singers who did full songs.  

It took me back to the years when I was playing clarinet and learning other instruments before I gave the woodwinds up and learned how to play guitar.  A thing I have mostly forgotten, tho I did pick up a guitar a while back and I was surprised at how well I was playing considering the decades since I had last played anything.  I'm not saying I was playing great, but I thought I'd be starting at beginner level and that definitely isn't the case. I'm mildly interested in picking up the guitar again and seeing if I can get proficient at it. 

Seems to me life is full enough of enough stuff right now.  

I'm back to 2 spots open.  I have had people leaving a lot but new people coming in to take their places. A couple in west Texas wants to move over here for who knows what, work probably, I just don't know. 2 motorcycles, 2 vehicles and a dog run. I don't think I mind the dog run, someone else put one up, it looks ok but those people take care of their lot and their dogs.  

I just think that many vehicles is going to be too cluttered and I'm considering telling them of another park in the nearby area that has some HUGE lots.  And the owner doesn't mind having that many vehicles. I dunno what they charge, but I think that would be a better fit for them.

Speaking of parks, this acquisition company has been getting me to try and buy another park in Center, TX.  Center is about a 50 minute drive from where I live. It's a 22 spot park with a manager already living on the premises.  I don't know what amenities it has, I'm going to look up their park on the internet and see.  They want a little over 600k for it, which I won't pay.  22 spots in a small town in the middle of nowhere, I have no idea what the economic drivers are there.  I have driven through there probably 100 times but never really paid attention to anything. It's an unremarkable town and doesn't really stand out for much of anything that I can remember seeing. 

The problem with this place is that it's only 68% full. I'd have to do some research and see what other parks might be in the area, what the economy is, whether there is hope for getting the place more like 90%  full - at least and if it really would be a good investment.  I'm not sure about financing either.  I could run the park, yes especially if there's a manager already living there.  I can actually take a different route for the washout where I take the trailer before loading and go right through Center, giving me opportunity to stop on occasion and check things out.  

 Thursday - afternoon

Just got back from Arkansas.  Pretty standard trip replete with idiots cutting trucks off to the point that you wonder how they got their license, how they aren't already dead from making such risky and stupid moves in traffic and what goes through their minds when they are engaging in such unbelievable driving stupor. 

But, that is a daily occurrence, albeit the fact that there are some instances that stick out where you think, I could have just killed that person for what they just did and they don't even realize it .  Not that I want to kill anyone, quite the opposite, it's why I stay hyper-focused on the road while driving the truck.  The instance 2 days ago was one of those times.

Coming into Atlanta, Texas from the south on highway 59, you approach a stop light and are forced to make a left turn, at least for trucks, for the through highway.  Probably half a mile before that light, there is a highway that dead ends at 59. In the mornings, it is super busy in that area and the speed limit is 50.  Those people coming up on that dead end are always wanting to make a left hand turn into the lane/s you are already in.

There is so much traffic wanting to make that turn, they installed a sort of on ramp lane that they can turn into to give them a chance to speed up and merge with prevailing traffic.  They aren't supposed to just jump right out in front of oncoming traffic and ignore that on ramp.  But, 2 days ago? That's exactly what a mini SUV driver did.  RIGHT in front of me.  I had a split second to look to my right and hope that there aren't any cars in the lane next to me..  Note that I have to be in the left lane there to continue on 59.  Trucks are not allowed to stay on the right through restricted areas of town. 

There was a pickup just behind where I would come over and I went for it.  The pickup driver was paying enough attention to slam on their brakes, throw up their hands at me - clearly didn't and couldn't see what has just happened and continued to give me glares and stares after the incident occurred. 

You see, I was going 50 mph and that car that inserted itself in front of me wasn't even done making the turn, they might have been half way through it I would have t boned them and it is likely going that speed that someone would have died.  That is why I took the chance of side swiping the pickup, otherwise I would have spared the innocent driver who had nothing to do with it and just smashed into the car, come what may. 

The amount of stupidity and distracted driving going on out there just makes me want to quit driving today. I wish I could afford to.  

Onto other things. The man that moved in, paid for a month and then moved back out 2 weeks later - which was a few days ago - and THEN contacted me about issues he was allegedly having in the park.  The people next door have a trashy setup, their dogs are out barking until 3 am and they -are crack heads.  I don't want to waste a lot of time with this, so short story: THEY decided to take that lot, not me, I told them they could have nay of the 3 available lots.  THEY stayed their 2 WEEKS before they left and they KNEW what the next door neighbors place looked liked WHEN they moved in there. 

They demanded their money back. Again, they move out, claim issues with the park after they moved out and then the same day want their money back, the unused portion of their month long stay.  They were allegedly going to be long term.  Oh, and I didn't even collect from them until two days after they moved in, if they didn't like it they could have easily left. I would have wanted 2 nights stay worth of money but not a whole month. 

So, he's texting me his demand and I texted back that I am investigating this situation with the people you are complaining about.  I was not going to take this dude's word for it simply because he said so. I don't know if the dogs are out there barking all night long.  He then texts back that he wants his money right now and that I have until 5 pm tonight (that night) to send it to him or he is going to post a bad review.  I replied that I don't tolerate people threatening me and he won't get anything if he continues.  HE says it's not a threat, it's a promise.  I said bye.  Yes, he left a stupid review on facebook of which I have already replied the details of the truth that he left out.  

There are NO crack heads in my park. I do not tolerate drug use, at all.

I've now got all 3 mowers I took into that guy's place fixed and running smoothly.  These are nice mowers, the carbs were gunked up I guess and he cleaned out 2 of them and replaced one.  Sharpened blades, oil changes, etc maintenance and repair and all of them are purring like kittens now. Money well spent versus buying brand new ones that are quite expensive in this hyper inflated market. 

He told me to bring in the one that has been sitting there so long, it has weeds growing through it.  I said I'm not sure it's worth it? He said well even if I can't get it running the parts off of it are worth something. Yes, I would just give it to him if he can't get it going so I will be taking that one in as well.  We've gone through a lot of mower at the house and the property.  They stop running, we buiy new ones and I thought, this is insanity, let's try to get these things working!

Unfortunately, I have procrastinated this long and still haven't started on taxes. I have tomorrow and Monday off, I'm going to devote many hours on those days to getting it dealt with.  It's going to be exasperating and I'm not looking forward to it.  No idea whether I will get money back, break even or owe the government.  I'm good with it if I don't owe them anything. 

They are going to build a massive AI date center in a town 83 miles from here. It is causing quite a lot of stir in the local communities for people are fearing a lot of noise, power drain and most importantly: contaminated water.  I dunno, just sort of sitting back and watching this all unfold.  It will bring a lot of temporary construction jobs but not a lot of permanent positions so I am not all that excited either way about it.  

__________________

Night time.  We made dinner, watched one of the kids pouting, crying, fussing, throwing tantrums because he didn't want to eat the vegetables and then after all was said and done, he finally ate it all long after we left the table.  It's amazing how utterly difficult a child will make their life for want of having their own way, not listening and defying parents and generally attempting to make everyone else's lives miserable since they are going to sit and sulk in their own pudding bowl of misery. 

I've grown used to it.. They have tried everything and I do mean everything including psychological counseling. 

But, whatever.  It's getting late, I have been playing some games and it's time to go to bed. I hope to get a large chunk of mowing done over there tomorrow.  I have to work the entire weekend, I won't want to do any of that after having to get up early on both a Saturday and a Sunday plus missing church, gag.

If I get that mowing done in a reasonable amount of time, I might even jump down into the ditch and start putting pipe together again.  Except I think I need more primer and glue.  I won't make any promises in that department, there is a lot of grass out there and even with that huge mower, it's going to take a while to cut it down.  

Making no huge plans about that, I'll get done what I get done and that will be that. I need to spend time on taxes anyway, but, I can find time for the park and taxes, I think anyway.  

 Monday - night

Slept quite miserably last night. Slept like a baby the night before. 

It's 9:25 pm and after this, I'm going to bed. Whether I sleep or not remains to be seen, I don't much care for laying in bed and not sleeping. It's not going to sleep that gets me, it's waking up in the middle of the night and then not being able to get back to sleep. Well, except for last night, I couldn't even go to sleep to start with. That almost never happens.

Anyway, work today uneventful.  The washout took longer than usual and the loading took longer than it should but I still got home at a decent hour.  Kids were off school - have been off school since Thursday. I've never heard of the amount of days off kids get during the school year.  We never got half the stuff they get off now. 

Trump is threatening to destroy the entire power network and all the bridges in Iran if they don't make a deal.  I have no doubt that Trump will follow through with that threat.  The talking heads are saying it would be a war crime, that's total bunk. These people make up the script as they go along, as long as it condemns Trumps, it's all good whether true or false, usually completely made up gibberish.  Not always, but 95% of  the time it is.  

Now, is it a good ending? NO. The people of Iran - citizens that is - will be living in what Trump described as the stone ages. Pretty good description.  Better get some books written by the Amish, they could teach all of us a thing or two about living without electricity - tho they don't have to live without bridges. 

My other two mowers are repaired, just have to go get them.  The man is an expert, he's just working out of his house for now after taking a bad fall and even losing his memory for an extended period of time.  The things life delivers to you sometimes out of the blue....

I don't really have a lot today.  Kids acting up, delicious dinner tonight, the lady of the house made it and it was wonderful.  I figure it's the food around here making me fat and I'm going to have to lay down the gauntlet at some point, toughen up and start a ridiculous keto diet all over again.  The gauntlet challenge is to simply laugh in the face of food and eat what I need to eat to get rid of the weight.  Low carb and low total daily calories. 

It's much harder than people think if they've never done keto. I did it for years and it gave me high cholesterol.  But, I realized after the fact that I didn't have to eat all of that fat that gave me that condition. I was using ample amounts of heavy whipping cream in my coffee - i don't use it at all now.  I use fat free creamer. 

Oh, Saturday! It rained the entire day. It was POURING rain up there in Gurdon and my pants were soaked, my upper body was wet but not soaked, I had a wind breaker on that was also keeping the rain off of me.  Miserable, driving home in that no fun either.  After that, we went to an Easter Egg hunt at the church.  Even the pastor was remarking about how heavy the down pour was. When the kids and I got out of the SUV to go inside the church, we ran as fast as we could, it was raining that hard.  They did the "hunt" indoors.

After that, we went to a family friend's son's birthday party at Chili's. That was his choice. That particular Chili's usually gives me excellent service, but not that day.  I ended up writing a bad review for the waiter who has also given me the stiff arm in the past regarding any kind of service at all.  We went home after that for a few minutes and then went and saw some kids cartoon movie at the local theater.  That took us to 8:00 pm, Saturday was a very long day for me.  

Sunday was church, Applebee's home and hanging out the rest of the day.  

There it is in a nutshell.  

I'm quite fatigued from lack of sleep and I'm going to bed.  

 Ssaturday - early

I've got to take this load to Arkansas, offload it and then I'm off until at least monday.  A lot of jacking around with the schedule has occurred and a lot  of nothingness in the communication department has also occurred to the point I had to force the issue. 

Basically, I could have taken the early load today because I forced the issue. What I didn't know about the early load is that the manager changed it  from having to arrive at 8 am to having to arrive at 7 am.  He caters to this new driver, gives him priority and preferential treatment.  I most certainly got into it with the manager about this s*** yesterday and I didn't care the outcome at that point.  The manager didn't communicate with his dispatcher of whom he had directed days earlier to give me the option to either load on Thursday or load on Friday.

Because of the way I felt - physically not emotional - I do not regret loading yesterday but the whole thing blew up in my face because of the ridiculous way they run this company.  

I get these glimpses of what another job would be like, I just feel like it's so much energy and time and starting at the bottom all over again that I don't want to do it.  And yet, at some point, they will probably push me too far and I'll just show up with the truck in their yard, park it and leave. Permanently.  

To help the poor or not, that isn't really a question. Jesus wants us to help the poor but the question is, how far do you go with it? When the poor are living at your RV park and they are lying to you about paying rent and dragging and stretching it out month  after month, where do you draw the line?  When do you say ENOUGH WITH THE LIES< GET YOU AND THAT THING OUT OF MY PARK!  

I knew getting into this that the mentality of people who do not prioritize rent will be the same whether it's renting rooms in a house or renting a spot in an rv park.  If you give them an inch, they'll take far more than a mile.  To the point that I'm really struggling with this issue of how to treat the poor respectfully and still run a business.  After all the bs and the person telling me she would pay yesterday? I was driving into my park in the truck yesterday and they were dragging that thing out of there.  

And they left an absolute mess. They had installed a sand box for the grandchild that was visiting fairly frequently - they took the sand box but they spread the sand over a 20 foot section.  Instead of removing it like they said they would, the spread it out. I have about a 6 inch thick covering of sand now.  I was looking at the blocks, the wood and all of the sand and got fairly angry.  Help people out and they screw you up the @$$.  

I'm still a but peeved but I've had to let the anger go.  It's not helping me and they don't care. I tried to contact them and text them and received nothing back, of course.  If I were to see that lady right now, it would not go over well, I would say things I would later regret saying. She goes to the same church I go to.  They claimed all this bs about getting caught up on the rent, I had my reservations but I gave them 3 more days.  Was it a mistake? In the sense of money, no, I had already shut off the electricity to the thing since they weren't staying there and were allegedly moving back in;. I didn't want to pay to cool a trailer that isn't being used. 

I've BEEN paying for that trailer to be cooled and heated for quite a while.  That's what led this situation to a head: pay me money.  

What I find amazing is the priorities people set. They would rather prioritize anything else over having a place to have a roof over their heads?  This is very strange thinking to me. IT used to be people would put their living arrangement first and then pay everything else as they could. Now? 

It's not been bad with some other people who needed time to get caught up. One retired couple needed help and I helped them and now they are paying back an extra $100 per month.  My rates are far from exorbitant by the way.

Well, enough of this for now.  It's time to go to work but I had to write something to get it off of my chest.  It's going to rain today and I want to get this stuff over with.

G'day

 Thursday mid-morning

Absolutely correct decision to not load today and do it tomorrow instead.  The lack of sleep the night before and then working all day long - literally all day long from before sunup to after sundown - just put me in an almost catatonic state of existence last night where I couldn't focus on anything and was good to just get myself into bed, lay down and yes, I slept very well last night. Not saying I didn't wake up, but I went right back to sleep after.  

It would have been very difficult to work today.  Another factor that for me was and still is amazing: It's raining! POURING rain at that, the street looks like a river. Just makes me want to sit in my bedroom and do nothing but think about things, maybe watch a little tv and generally enjoy a day off.  

I do have plenty of stuff I could do, but who cares. Lol.  It's going to be wet at  the park so mowing grass is off the table.  Actually, the kid did quite a bit a few nights ago so it's not looking too bad. Just the front portion of the property needs mowed down, just not gonna happen today.  

418 miles driven yesterday. That's quite a lot for this job.  OTR drivers would laugh at that, but I'd laugh back at them considering the amount of things I had to do beyond driving a truck, which is far more than they would ever have to consider in any single, given day. The logs tell the story with stop after stop...after stop....I don't normally do that much, probably another reason I'm just not feeling it today.

As it stands, they completely changed my tablet loads, took out the one loading Saturday - I'll be delivering Saturday now so obviously I can't do both - meaning I currently don't have to work Easter Sunday. I was going to ask for it off, I'm glad I didn't.  It just ended up that way with the plant telling us they don't need that much product.  Makes sense, they were shut down, we had the tank filled up and as far as I know it, they still have the other tank shut down.  

The reason I'm glad I didn't have to ask for it off is that they make you pay for such requests. Ohh, but they do. They'll load you up with 3 loads, 2 of them will be the second/late/afternoon load which I despise. If I don't do that, I get  mostly morning loads with an occasional late load thrown in there.  I don't understand their mindset but I'm not getting into it with them about it. I'm trying to lay low as far as complaints go - tho my complaints are not just whimsical nothingness. They aren't petty and I don't say anything until the issue is forced on me.

But, if I don't say anything at all, I get better treatment. Yeah, if only I could just eat everything that comes my way with this job.  There are times when I have to say something, especially about other drivers cutting in line. I can't deal with that, I don't do that to them.  

And the mechanics were wrong. I knew they were but they insisted so I just shut my mouth. There is a quite audible air leak coming out underneath the cab of the truck. I pointed to the general area. They said no, it's the air bag for the sleeper. Yes, sleepers have air bags on them, actually it's the entire cab.  Makes for a much smoother ride and they also have shock absorbers on them.  They replaced the air bag yesterday and lo and behold when I got back to the yard and started checking everything? Same leak hissing from same general area - nowhere near that air bag.  

I guess I'm rambling, it's because I keep getting distracted with texts and other things going on.  The rain stopped but the forecast says potential for more rain until 1 pm. The mechanic is still arguing with me about that air leak saying it's "he might not have tightened down the fitting enough on the air bag". IT'S NOT THE AIR BAG!@!!

I'm getting offa here. I am doing laundry so I can say I did something today and it needed to be done. 

 Wednesday - late

7:30 pm last night.  The phone starts ringing. It's work, why are they calling me this late? But I quickly concluded they had some mission they wanted me to do and the manager would be all apologetic and blah blah blah. In other words, Wednesday - which is today - would no longer be a day off. I hit the nail directly on the head with that guess.

Some OTR driver is sitting in the yard in El Dorado, he has a load going to North Carolina but he's out of hours. I've tried everyone, I'm told.  I didn't want to be an @$$ at the same time I was looking forward to today off. I begrudgingly said yes.  It's just that it takes ALL DAY LONG to do those runs. There is no fast way into Eldo.  There are no Interstates, just 55 mph highways and going to Crossett to load, another highway that is 55 mph with towns at 35 mph thrown in for good measure.  

Did it take all day long? Why yes, yes it did! I put in a 14 hour day today. I was so close to being out of hours, my tablet was throwing warnings and about "warning, you are going to be in violation in x amount of time" etc so on and so forth.

But, the truck has issues and I figured it was time to get them squared away. Air leaks, brake issue and some tires needed to be replaced.  Plus they said it needed B service - which apparently is greasing everything. I got  up there, parked in the shop over the pit, went into the office and was informed I would need to take a gas mask test. It's where they light up this tubular thing that puts off this smoke that can raise the dead and then kill them again after they are raised. It is THAT bad. They light it up, it puts off the smoke and then they flash it all around the gas mask over your face.  

Can you smell anything? A little. Pass.  I never have to use it.  I don't haul stuff that needs such devices and I don't want to haul stuff that needs such things.  

After that, I went into the driver's lounge and literally passed out on the couch. You see, I couldn't sleep last night,. I have no idea why, but I tossed and turned all night long. I figured I might have gotten 2 hours of sleep out of the 8 I spent in bed.  

I've been sleepy all day long.  Anyway, I got the truck back, hooked up to a trailer, drove over to Crossett, loaded, drove back to Eldo, dropped the trailer and left.  I couldn't make it back. Maybe half way back, fatigue hit me so hard that I ended up getting off an exit in the middle of nowhere in a forest, pulling over to the side of the exit ramp and sleeping for 21 minutes.  I felt better, much better, good enough to finish out the drive. In time to collect money from an overnighter and see that a long term had also pulled in as they said they were.  Collected  money and then went to church to pick up one of the kids.

The younger one got in trouble at school today so he wasn't allowed to go to church.  Got him, then realized I had left my walled in the truck, so back to the park to get that and then home, finally at 8:00 pm.  I left at 6. Okay, officially on the clock it was a 13 hour day. Not much difference between that and 14, it's a long @$$ day, that's what I can say about it.  

So much so, I don't even feel like playing my video game. Just get on here, write this post and then I'm going to lay down, watch some TV and go to sleep early..  

Tuesday - noon

I got up late today - on purpose for I went to bed late. Like 12:30 am which is very late for me. 

Got my butt out of bed, did some stuff around the house, went over to the park, installed the new battery on the riding mower and it fired right up.

Contacted the kid, asked him to sharpen the blades  on it then proceeded to hook up my trailer. It has 2 push mowers on it that don't work and the man that does the repairs said the one I took several days ago is done. 

I got over there, he fired it up, sounded good, I dropped the other two off and proceeded to take the mower home.  

Okay, the underline stuff I wasn't paying attention to lol.  Anyway we have a small jungle going out front of our house even tho it was mowed a week ago. The grass grew back very fast.  This mower is the park's mower, but we needed to have our grass mowed and I wanted to ensure it was going to work and that grass was the perfect candidate. 

Mowed everything without a  hiccup, without even slowing down at all.  

So that wore me out. I said awhile back I"m out of shape, walking around a giant yard like that proved it, to me if not anyone else. I doubt I will mow the dog park today, I have tomorrow off as well I will do it then and hopefully the kid will sharpen the blades today after school so I can also get some serious riding mower time in. 

btw, the truckload of gravel I had brought in last week is working far better than I imagined. It is holding with all of that traffic going over it and there is no longer any dust kicking up. 

On to other things.  NO KINGS! YES, the U.S. has no kings, never has and never will! Thank you all you protesters protesting against what? The fact that we have no kings? Do you want a king? What is it that you were thinking? Oh, that washed up propaganda that Trump is a "king".  One of the biggest wastes of time I have ever witnessed coming from the left and notably, the whole thing is a sham that is being financed by the likes of Soros and other giant corporations that stand to gain from gullible citizens just following orders. 

It is amusing and exasperating at the same time watching these people trip all over each other to be the first to follow the commands of the propaganda machinery. 

Ahh, and Applebee's.  I was over there yesterday eating a light lunch and witnessed the sending off of the GM.  They brought her a cake, she came in, nothing amazing, she just grabbed her cake and personal items and walked out with little fanfare - nobody likes her. 

It came to light from both ex and current employees - they'll talk to me - that she is a real piece of work. Shaming employees in front of other employees and even in front of customers!  One of the best workers there - I won't say their position in case for some sliver of chance they might be reading this - said they were stood up by this person in front of a group of customers who were demanding a reduction in the bill. They explained that everything on the bill was what they ordered and consumed and finally this GM came out, ridiculed him in front of them and then did whatever to "make it right". 

She tried her bullying approach on us one a couple of occasions, including once when the food we ordered was completely incorrect. She came out there and glared down at us and I glared back at her. Who did she think she was? I am a very long time, regular customer over there.  I rarely send things back or say this is wrong, please fix it, but when I do, I expect them to just fix it. I don't make unreasonable demands and I don't get nasty with the waiters.  

She walked out the door and I asked if they all wanted to party? But, there was still a yes man there, he does everything she says without question and believes she is a queen so they all kept their mouths shut. Fair enough, I said I'd have a party for them.

I'll be interested in seeing what they bring in next. 

In fact, it's lunch time, I'm on a day off, I can go over there and keep the tab small and be nosy, lol. 

Out the door for me!

 Friday into Saturday - midnight

Today was an uneventful day, at least trucking-wise, besides one surprise, tho it had nothing to do any driving nightmares such as yesterday. 

You see, yesterday, there was this load I was working on finishing today and then another load for Monday, they were giving me Sunday off and I didn't have to ask for it. If I ask for any day off, even if it's owed me, I end up getting a trash schedule after that for at least 1 or 2 runs worth of afternoon delivery garbage. If I can keep my mouth shut, I hardly get any afternoon runs at all.  

They make you pay for asking for time off.  If I need it off, I'm taking it regardless.  I won't tolerate them giving me 2 afternoon deliveries in a row and they very well know that.  

Well, I get up this morning all groggy. 2 nights in a row I've slept well, but that means feeling icky in the morning for I haven't slept well previous to that so -- they say you never catch up on your sleep, I dunno what happens but whatever it is, it takes a long time to actually feel fully awake.  

Anyway, I look at the tablet and lo and behold, the Monday run is gone.  They don't bother to tell you about it, they just do it and I guess hope you end up seeing it.

Upon arriving at the plant, I went looking for a manager to sign off on the paperwork, there was this dude I hadn't seen in a long time in the office. He's a veteran and really chill (cool) guy.  He's talking to his help and asking whether another load is coming in today, the other guy says yes, there's a 2 o'clock load. 

Oh, well that's it for a week then.  I looked at him, probably funny and interjected, what do you mean?  We are shutting down for a week. It is a scheduled maintenance thing we normally do in November but for whatever reason they are doing it next week.  I know my manager didn't know anything about it for he was handing out loads for Sunday and Monday!

I texted the other driver I'm basically friends with and told him what's going on for they probably didn't tell anyone we are off for a week. He said that makes sense, my load for Sunday (tomorrow) was cancelled.  

Communication is not a thing with this company and also with the plant we deliver to.  They make decisions that directly affect us but don't tell us until the last minute.

Of course, the guy that likes to try and cut me showed up 30 minutes after I did, 4-1/2 hours before his delivery time. I didn't know if he was trying to cut me or not, I don't really care, as long as I'm ahead of him. I have never talked to this person for in my view, he's a total @$$.  I've gone into the details of this driver enough times in this blog, I'm not doing it here. It's getting late.  

Tomorrow is nothing but church, finish laundry in the morning, go to Applebee's, then off to Walmart and then back home to laze around the rest of the afternoon.  Providing I actually have Monday off, I'm going to be working at the park.  I say this because the company will inevitably call me and ask me if I went an Ennis load? I'll say no unless you need me to. They'll say no, we already have a crew that works that load plus other drivers from this division, if you're ok not working, we won't send you anything.

I doubt they'll need me. The truck needs some work so I may go up to Eldo this coming week - get up super early so I can be there close to when the shop opens up and get it done in one day.  It shouldn't take a full day, even, I just know that our shop typically - not always  but typically does a far better job of repairs then regular shops and much faster.  The thing is, it's 2 hours and 45 minutes up there so it's 5-1/2 hours of driving.  I guess I could ask them if I can take it to a local shop. 

The guy at the local shop has working on my truck several times now.  He's not the greatest mechanic on earth, made a huge mistake on one what-should-have-been simple repair but everything else he's done has turned out ok.  That's 10 minutes away.  I could get a ride home if it had to sit there for quite a while. 

Actually hoping they can do without me for a week.  I can get a lot done over at the property.  I had a load of gravel brought out the other day, I need another one. It's $800 per load, btw, it's not cheap.  But, the driveway is mostly dirt covered now, the gravel is buried.  I need to get the portion of it that is next to the park covered up again so there is no more dust flying up every time someone drives up and down it. 

There's a lot of mowing that needs to be done and of course, the project. I'd like to at least get the sewer line done. That's probably a couple days worth of work.  

Ugh, it's 12:15 am, I'm going to sleep. 

Saturday - early

There is one thing that saved me: There was no oncoming traffic in the opposite heading lanes. 

Approaching a certain intersection that is usually never that busy and is a interchange between the Interstate and a state highway is something you take cautiously. There are a lot of accidents there for a few reasons. People in a hurry is one of them.

Turns some distance approaching the bridge makes it necessary for traffic coming off of the interstate to stop and really look both ways - which people apparently don't do often-time.

The bridge is also perched up high and you really can't see the other side of it until  you are up on it. 

The speed limit is 60 mph, there are no lights there, just stop signs for the Interstate traffic getting off of the Interstate.  

I am approaching this thing yesterday morning.  I'm watching - rather intently.  It's dark, good visibility tho, there's those lights on those very tall poles - like 150 feet high? on both sides.  

A vehicle pulls out as I'm approaching, I'm in the right lane, they get into the passing lane.  This happens alot, I don't like it but it's not inherently dangerous so long as that other driver STAYS in that lane.  

Then a Penske truck pulls up. I'm too close for it to pull out so, tho I'm watching it, I'm thinking: surely this person isn't that stupid as to pull out of there now. 

I thought wrong. This driver not only pulled out - the other side of the freeway turning left into my lanes - but he didn't turn, he was going straight across.

All I see was a big box, this was a 28 footer - with the words Penske on it. There's a lot of thoughts that go through your head when you think you're going to die.  

It goes through your head quickly, almost instantaneously.  Like a computer type of speed.  What a way to go out of this life. Can I somehow get out of this? What can I do?  The only option to salvage this was to dive that tractor trailer rig into oncoming traffic lanes and hope beyond all hope that he clears it fast enough.  

Yup, I was clear over the other side of the highway, this dumb@$$ realizes his stupidity and guns it and fortunately, that truck had enough get up and go to get  out of my way just in the nick of time. If there had been any traffic coming, I wouldn't be sitting here right now typing this. I would either be in a hospital or I would be dead.  I wouldn't have smashed head on into oncoming traffic, that's not fair to those people who have nothing to do with this and also, a T bone is bad but not as bad as a head on collision.

Although nothing that bad happened after that yesterday, driving was insanity.  I don't know if it's a Friday type of mentality or what, but there was so much risk tasking and ridiculous moves people were engaging in, I just wanted to go back to the yard park the truck and go home. 

I didn't, of course.  I loaded the truck and went back to the yard and right now, about to leave for work.

G'day

Pilot/Flying J

 Just a short blog entry about  the truck stops - which are owned by the same company - listed in the title of this post.

First off, I have never liked either one, even before they combined together.  Pilots are trashy and cheapskates.  Flying J's have Dennys a lot of times but that's the only redeeming factor.  

Our company recently forged some sort of contract with them for purchasing all of our fuel from them exclusively.  I despised the idea of being forced to either of them. 

IN my route, there is only one of each, Flying J on exit 7 off of I-30, which has a very bad reputation for a variety of things and Lufkin off of 59 for the Pilot. 

I don't care how much fuel you buy, you aren't getting a free coffee from them. You can use your points to get it, yes, but the extra free coffee on top of that if you buy enough gallons of fuel the previous month? Nope.  Truckers from the golden age of trucking don't call these places truck stops. The era of free meals, drinks and perk  are over for the most part. 

Anyway, I go into the Pilot in Lufkin.  It's easier than going into the Flying J on 30 - that place is always busy and you can expect to wait for a while to even get to the pumps.  

I've been getting water refills since I was forced to go back in there.  Free, of course, most of these travel centers give free tap water regardless of fuel purchase. 

Imagine my surprise when I took an over-priced salad - $7.99 for this little thing - and a refill cup of water to the checkout and the dude charges me $2.08 for the water.  When I saw the total of over $10 I was like, what? He told me the price of each and I just said no.   We went back and forth, I told him I've been getting free water here.  Nope, he says, they are wrong and should have been charging for it.

At this point, I asked for a manager and told the guy behind me he could go ahead of me.  He just shook his head and stood there, apparently interested in seeing what was going to happen next.  If they were going to charge me for water, I would have just left my cup there and the salad, they can keep it, I'll forego the water.  

It took a minute, but the manager finally comes out.  She smiles at me and asks me how she can help me?  Yes, this guy is trying to charge me $2.08 for this cup of water. I brought this cup in with me, it only has ice and water in it.  The man interjects, yes, it's a fountain drink. The manager gives him a pretty interesting look and then back to me: did you tell him there is only ice water in here? YES, SEVERAL TIMES.  

She looks back at him: You KNOW this, we don't charge for water?!  He objects and she corrects him again!  What an @$$!  He finally threw his hands up in there, declared "WHATEVER!" and took the drink charge off of there. No apology, no I'm sorry sir, just pure attitude. Just another reason to despise this horrible chain of travel centers.  

 Wednesday - late night

I look at the pile of junk tablet  frequently to ensure things are right. It malfunctions frequently, they won't do anything about it, I'm tired of dealing with it. This morning, headquarters in Oregon sent out a statement that literally no one had done their DVIR's - Driver Vehicle Inspection Report - and chastised all of us, quite stupidly I might add.  The idea that over 100 drivers wouldn't do what the feds require you to do is ridiculous and asinine.  OBVIOUSLY SOMETHING WAS WRONG WITH THEIR TABLET SOFTWARE, AGAIN.  

Anyway, as of this morning, I was working tomorrow.  As of this afternoon? I am not working tomorrow, I am working Friday and Saturday. I do hope that is setting me up for Sunday off, for if it's not, I"m taking Sunday off anyway;  Don't really care, have worked 2 weekends in a row, I'ma get a day of rest.  Anyway, I'll take tomorrow off with no complaints whatsoever, stay up a bit late and get up late.  

I am going to continue work tomorrow on the driveway. I'd like to get it as good as I can with that tractor and then have some fresh - expensive - gravel brought out.  Just for next to the RV lots, not the rest of the driveway to keep the dust down. The price of gravel delivered nowadays is absolutely ridiculous.  $850 per load. I can remember it being $200 per load.  Don't have much choice, have to keep the peeps happy. A bunch of dust flying up every time someone drives through there is unacceptable.  About 300 feet of driveway covered with 2 truckloads of gravel should do it and keep it good for a while to come.  

Wish I had a trackhoe to dig out the side of the driveway and create a fresh path for rain runoff to flow through. I don't and I'm not doing that tomorrow - renting a machine and spending all day working on that.  There is a monopoly on gravel in this town. I can get gravel from out of town but the distance is too far and even with reduced gravel rates, the trucking costs go way up and you save nothing and actually lose.  

The kid wanted to mow the grass today, I told him to have at it.  He got back to me later and said the mower battery is dead. Not surprising, it hasn't been run in a while. I'll charge that tomorrow as well if I have any extension cords left over there - the thievery from "guests" is amazing. 

 Monday - night

I'm still riding my bike almost every day - I can't say daily, some days I just can't get myself to do it.  But, I'm slowly getting better at being able to make it around the entire block - we're talking about a half a mile with steep hills - without having to stop to rest, breathing heavily and feeling like I best stop before something happens internally.  I don't overdo it, too much risk I have seen in heart failures with people pushing it too hard at an older age.  But, I can beat  my 11 year old nephew in a race now!  He gets mad lol, I guess I should let him win a few for the "participation trophy" effect.. 

Back to the grind tomorrow morning, I can only hope and pray that this week will go better than last. Way too much stuff happened at both plants and I was not appreciative of all of it coming at me in one fell swoop.  It actually felt good to focus on the park today instead of having to drive a truck for 6 - 7 or more hours including loading or unloading. I could do that full time - the park that is - never drive a truck again and be very, very happy.  

I need more days off - at the same time, there's been a lot of unwanted days off in the past few months so I guess you can call all of this current work catch-up. But, I haven't been to church in a month and I really want church on Sunday.  They could work me the next 4 days and get the weekend off or work the next 2 days, have Thursday off and then work Friday and Saturday and get Sunday off. Any way about it, I'm going to say something to them about it if they have me working Sunday again.  Something like: NO, thank you. 

So, changing the subject, I have been posting in the local gossip group quite a bit about this water main break lately, one of the posts has more views than we have population in the city or the county. It was intentionally controversial, but in a good way. We have a crisis here even if the line was - temporarily - fixed with a water distribution system that was installed anywhere from 60 to 75 YEARS ago.  It's falling apart and they keep patching it. We keep demanding they replace the system and do the necessary work of attempting to gain grants and funding to get it done.  

But, today I put up a post about the local Starbucks which has so far reached over 71,000 people lol. Starbucks brings up passionate like and hate from people.  People hate it because it's expensive. Yes and so is everything else and everything in moderation. I don't go to Starbucks daily because I don't want to but there is a person in the house that definitely goes every .. single..day. 

I frankly don't care what other people think about Starbucks.  A 7 Brews coffee house opened up literally across the street from it last year and all of these people posted their love for that brand. All well and fine, I didn't feel the need to throw a wet blanket on their party but if you post anything about Starbucks? People come out of the woodwork to disparage that company and talk down to you. So much so that today, there was a person calling it "racist" and white people's coffee or whatever she said specifically, it was unbelievable and also unacceptable. I am an admin in the group and I immediately banned her. 

The race card doesn't work on my anymore, the meaning of it has been so watered down that people don't really even know what a real racist is.  If you like Trump? You're a racist! Whatever.  

But, the comments piled up and some people addressed me by name so I got right back in their faces. I wasn't looking for trouble but if they are going to have a meltdown over a brand of coffee, they need help.  

 Monday - afternoon

Stayed up a wee bit late last night, but that's because after 8 straight days of working, I finally got a day off.  That doesn't mean I didn't do anything, I just didn't have to get behind the wheel of a truck.  Anyway, I did eventually get out of bed, got up, coffee'd up, over to the park.  Figured out how to get that box blade attachment on there - it wasn't easy I can tell ya that - and got busy for about 3 hours of dragging the driveway. It was in bad shape and I had put it off too long. 

I could probably spend a couple more hours on it, but my friend contacted me and we decided to eat lunch and have a Starbucks. Starbucks has been closed all the way up until today because of the burst water main pipe and the requisite boil water advisory.  I think all of there stuff is just directly hooked to the water system and dumping bottled water into their machines was either not possible or just too much.  

So, the driveway is good enough until I get back on the tractor. I may carry on with it tomorrow for I'd like to finish it while the gravel and dirt are still pliable. You have to drive back and forth over it many, many times before it starts really getting into the subsurface and doing the repair work necessary. 

Work. Well, yesterday started off ridiculous. I got up there to deliver and some anal retentive dude said "you aren't supposed to be here until 10 am".  These people are clueless of how the trucking industry works.  It was 9:15, that's WELL within a window of acceptability to show up for either delivery or loading.  I was trying to bite my tongue, this guy was not being nice yet I wasn't starting any trouble with him at all. Just another person in love with the taste of limited power.  

Well, we have a 1/2 to 1 hour window for arriving.  Not good enough for him, I just said: Your tank is almost empty.  He didn't believe me. He got up without saying a word and went to the glue pit room.  He looked at the gauge and said, wow, you're right!  What, would I lie about it?  Please.  I didn't say that to him but I definitely had those thoughts.  He begrudgingly unlocked the valve, opened it and locked it up again.  I said thank you! Appreciate it! 

Beyond trucking and it's variables - traffic, truck breakdowns, etc - the only reason they came up with this new rule is to accommodate for the single tank in use.  They didn't want the second load run to show up early.  I was first load, I wasn't hours early and they were in NEED of the product.  In fact, there was room in that lone tank for THREE more truckloads - AFTER I WAS FINISHED UNLOADING. 

Anyway, the day before that loading? Well, after 2 loading events taking a total of 12 hours combined plus a tire blowout that added 3 more hours, I was really hoping to get in and out of there. Quickly.  

I got on the scale, they said Come on down! and so I went to that driveway to back in and...saw our loading bay completely blocked by a truck and equipment and men doing - whatever they were doing.  I backed down the driveway and stopped about 100 feet before the bay.  Obviously the loader guy didn't know that stuff was in there. When he came out, he went up, had some words with them and that entire crew proceeded to move all of that stuff out of my way.

Thank you! I thought.  I was in and out of there so fast it was amazing. 

Anyway, I am done with the park for today, just don't want to go back now.  I am going to throw in a load of clothes in the washer and get some cleaning done.  Oh, we had lunch a Taco Hell. Don't judge me! I LOVE their Mexican Pizza! and they have also been closed because of the water main break.  

My heart goes out to the family and friends of the now-deceased pilots of the Air Canada flight.  Horrible.  Whoever is responsible for that fire truck being out on an active runway, the pilots had zero culpability, imo, in any of it.  They were unwilling victims of someone's screw up.  I listened to the ATC conversation, it sounds as if the ATC controller  made the mistake and owned up to it.  It's just unthinkable that they could miss the fact that a commercial jet liner is landing AND they had a fire truck ON the runway at the same time.

The controller tries to get the fire truck to stop, which it obviously doesn't or doesn't in time and tries to get the pilots to initiate a go-around, obviously a command too late. A passenger stated that the instant they got the wheels down the pilots slammed on the brakes. An unimaginable set of circumstances they were faced with and instant decisions to do whatever they could to save lives. They are heroes in my book, they sacrificed themselves to save passenger lives.  

The bigger problem is the number of near collisions and controller errors that have been made in the last few years. I was watching Hoover - he's on Youtube, a pilot that does debriefs on air events - he showed one where a jetliner was lined up on the runway ready to take off - as they had been given clearance  - and another aircraft landing.  It was jumble of wrong  moves by both the ATC and the landing aircraft who simply should have gone around, but instead chose to land over the top of the aircraft on the runway? BAD DECISION.

But there have been lots of other close calls and crashed, such as the helicopter smashing into the landing jetliner.  I dunno what's going on with ATC nationwide, but it gives me pause to consider flying anytime soon. I don't want to be the subject of some human error and another statistic for the books. 

Then you have Iran allegedly wanting to make a deal and allegedly saying they will no longer pursue nukes. How many times have lied about that particular subject in the past? Too many to count, thanks.  I don't believe anything they say. It's a regime desperately trying to stay in power, as the continued executions of it's own citizens portrays and the big one that just happened with the Olympic wrestler being publicly executed for speaking out against the regime.  We've already gone this far with this operation, let's finish the job.  Because once we're gone, it isn't likely we'll be back there again any time soon. Israel may do that, but doubtful we will.  

There's a lot going on right now, but God is still on the Throne and Jesus is still the Prince of Peace, Lord of lords and King of kings! 

 Thursday - night

 Just got home 30 minutes ago. It's 8:30 pm btw. 

The last 3 days of work have been rather hellish.  

Today was over 5 hours at  the plant. They are having issues with one of their tanks and delivering it through the lines.  "Something" is wrong but they allegedly don't know what.  Considering I spent 7 hours in that plant 2 days ago, I started asking questions. Not in a harsh or critical way, I just wanted to know when I was going home? T he mom needs the help with me there to watch the kids while she goes and does her stuff.  

Today, however, the loader didn't like me asking him about it so he got on his phone and called for a supervisor.  Or whatever the guy's title is, I don't know, but he walked up to the truck and said "you called for a supervisor?".

No.  He started talking about me asking and I said yes, I asked when I would be getting out of here?  We went back and forth, I kept my composure, he did not. He started getting angry, I guess because I wasn't  backing down to him. Is there something wrong with asking questions? No, he replied, but you have an attitude.  Uh, no, I'm simply asking questions since I'm spending so much time in here lately.  You, however, appear to be getting angry. 

No, I'm not angry, you have an attitude! No, I don't, I just  want to get a glimpse of why it's taking so long for me to get loaded and get out  of this place.  Back and forth, I'm not going to back down to a power tripper tho I remained polite and respectful,, I just wasn't going to be intimidated by him, let  the chips fall where they m ay, I am not in love with this job as it  stands as long  time readers will already understand. 

Well, I heard you say God da** the other day when they told you it was going to be awhile.  NO, sir, I  do not EVER say that, ever.         I think I said damn because I needed to get home and help with the kids. I don't really like to cuss at all but sometimes it slips out.  He replied he has 8 kids and he has been here today for 12 hours.  Well you work here... but it gave a glimpse into a man's mind who is probably unhappy with his job having to be there so many hours and taking it out on someone he figured was easy prey.  i

Well you work here too, right? No, I come here to load. This dude had something up his crawl;, he couldn't accept  anything I said. I do not  work for that plant, I work for a trucking company. They pay my paychecks.....more back and forth and I said, look I'm hungry.  I want to get this done.  Oh, well we have food here. Yes and I was in there getting water right next to the food and I wasn't offered any even tho I was acknowledged being in there.  

The conversation was petty and the man finally said, well no offense, but  you don't have to come in here ever again if you don't like it in here. So, you are getting so angry now that you are inviting me to leave here?  No, I'm "just" saying you don't have to come back here.  Pettiness, complete and total petty, childish behavior  at this point.  OH and btw, you shouldn't be outside of the truck at all!  First time I've ever heard that at the plant but I decided that was my queue to end this, I got  back in the truck, shut the door and stared at him.  He walked off in a huff and a puff and I could have cared less.  

5 minutes later, this giant black dude - this guy is 6 feet 6 I'm guessing and a bundle of muscle - comes walking up to the truck with a bag in his hand.  Now what? I'm  thinking. He said he heard I was hungry and he was bringing me some food. Oh, well thank you!  but I was just invited out of this plant.  Oh, we're all grown @$$ men, just ignore him.  He handed me the food, I shook his hand and began eating some very wonderful smoked brisket and sausage with mashed potatoes, beans and rolls.        

I actually felt much better after eating.  ;The power tripper never came back, I was in there until mid afternoon and finally left. 

After fueling I started driving up the road. Got 30 miles and kablaaam!  A tire blew and blew loudly on the trailer. I succumbed to the fact  that this entire weeks? sucks and just accept it.  That was a 3 hour ordeal to get a tire truck out there.

Let's go into yesterday. I was at the delivery plant.           They have become anal about delivery times, which doesn't bother me, I show up 30 to 60 minutes early, completely acceptable in t he trucking industry.  But..;. it took 15 minutes just t o get on the scale to weight the truck in and then it took 45 minutes to find a manager to sign off on the paperwork and unload the lock on the valve on the pipe we hook up to. 

I finally got some guy to sign off on the paperwork that  I didn't even know had that authority.   The issue is that t hey are still down to 1 tank and they want us showing up  at our appointed times, not 7 hours early.  Yup, it's ONE driver that is causing all of this nonsense and yup, it's the dude that keeps trying to get ahead of me all the time. I won't go into my thoughts a manager who can't control his drivers and puts up with the contempt this driver is giving him.....

And then there's the day before that which was 7 hours and not even going into that. 

My days are being consumed by this job. For the slowness that it took them to load that stuff today, I expect it to take 2 or more hours to unload it tomorrow.  Whatever.  I'm not going to sit around crying like a baby, I'm just printing out my days and just how much of this I am willing to tolerate before I draw a line and say nope, it's time to quit.  

I'm tired. It was a 13-1/2 hour day. Reminder of days gone by when I'd spend that much and more on the road constantly. I don't want that life again.                                                                                                                                                               

Oh, did I say they are still having water issues?  They "fixed" it, but it's  a clamp and they dumped concrete all around it.  Many are saying it won't hold. I'm saying let's hope it does!  The kids are allegedly, finally going back to school tomorrow - can't  have a school without functioning toilets.  And then there's the  huge debate going on in the local gossip group. Much of that conversation was started by yours truly.

Anyway, I'm getting off of here, watch a little tv and going to sleep.                                                 

 

 Tuesday - evening

Went to the washout today, no issues and left quickly. Got to the plant, they told me to watch for people because there are a lot of external contractors there but go ahead and back in.

A few hours later, I wandered into the control room. When are you going to get to loading my truck? They had said nothing to me about any issues at all. 

The man replied he was going to get to it "in about 45 minutes" I knew that was a lie. If they say 45 minutes, figure a couple of hours. I contacted my management, who contacted the factory rep and after quite a while, I got the story that there is a malfunctioning valve and they can't transfer the product to the outlet for our product. 

Why on earth wouldn't the workers tell me that? It was near 5 hours before they even started loading the truck and 7 hours before i got out of there. Yes, it took them 2 hours to load it.  Ridiculous.   

I didn't get home until 6:00 pm and I was the first load. You  know, the latest loading time should be 1000 am?  

Things weren't any better around here. A 24 inch water transmission line ruptured in town today effectively shutting down water for the entire city.  They shut the water treatment plant down, which shuts down the pumps which of course means no water supply.  They very quickly declared our town a "local disaster area" which apparently frees up money from the state and other entities to help considering there is no water to flush toilets, take showers, clean clothes - you know, the basics in life?  

The city immediately got bottled water over to the civics center and started handing that out until it  was gone. They said 8:00 pm, they were out before 5.  There are more truckloads coming. Bottled water isn't that expensive at  the stores, but  that isn't the point. People will panic buy and clear out the shelves quickly.  

Most business shut down quickly and kids were sent home from school before the morning was out. Well, yup, you can't have a school full of people without working toilets.  That would get nasty pretty quickly. 

The REAL problem here is our  water infrastructure and the fact that officials have known for YEARS that it's old, rusted, worn out, valves failing, pipes bursting, needs completely replaced.  In the last 3 weeks, we've had 3 major pipe bursts, but this one by far is the worst. 24 inch line is huge and a lot of water going  through it. 

________

It wasn't until 8:30 pm tonight that the school district finally made up it's mind about kids going to class tomorrow morning.  The city had to call out an out - of - town contractor to come in and do the repair, they are estimating that the repair will be completed mid morning. So, the school district said they are going to have class starting at 10:00 am.  I get that they need their money - the school district that is - from the state but at the same time, how on earth do you leave 1,000's of parents up in the air about whether they need to find someone to watch their kids the next day or not?  

But, that's what this town does and has done quite well since I moved here 11 years  ago.  Uh, make that 12 years and wow,  it doesn't seem like I've been here that long! 

Time to go to bed. 

 Saturday - morning

Day off, doing laundry and cleaning whatnot.  

I've never been charged to go to a person's birthday party in my entire life that I can remember, so it's a bit  disconcerting to have to go to one for the first time. Well, I don't have to go but I was asked so I'm going. It's $11 person. It's  not a great deal of money, it's the principle of the thing.  I would never dream of charging guests to come to a party, even if it's being held at a restaurant, which this one is.  We will gladly pay for our own dining experience, but I doubt anything but cake is involved in this offering. 

Why not just have it at your house like everyone else? Then again, these folks used to be a part of our group of families and bowed out after meeting other people that they apparently like more.  I don't hold that against them for the most part, but it's not like they are an integral part of any of our lives.  At all. 

That's at 2.  I asked if we are staying long and I got a "no" reply so I'm good with it.  Money aside, I don't tend to spend much time at b-day parties, as most people don't. Show up with your kids, sing happy birthday, slice cake, hand out presents and then go home.  It's a day off and I have cleaning to do plus the kids are coming home today. They've been gone since Sunday morning and the house has been magnificently quiet without them around, especially the younger one who is constantly screaming - and yes, I do mean screaming - about something. Usually something minor/petty as well.  

We are bracing ourselves for that, they will be back in about an hour and a half.  I love those kids but I definitely like it when we get a break from them. Grandma always wants to take them, sure!  They'll be gone for 2 weeks coming the beginning of summer.  Make that almost 3 with the church camp.