Wednesday night.

Short here. 

We took the kids to church but I ended up getting them. 

I've been doing it for years, mom wants more involvement which is okay. I just don't want to be eliminated from this deal.  Which if it happens, I'll just let it go and relish in the fact that the kids have been exposed to the Gospel and teachings of Christ and that's enough.  

She was busy anyway.  I got there to pick up youngest from the children's church. Retrieving him I was walking out of the church when the pastor - who was leaning up against the wall - made a comment.  I didn't quite get it at first.  Huh?  

I commend you for everything you've done for that family.  This wasn't any type of confrontational situation here, don't let it fool you the way I'm saying it, I'm just getting to the point without a lot of "stuff" added in. I think it gets boring (or even irritating) and I don't like doing that.  I mean, I engage in conversations as they are fluid, but going into extremely specific details isn't my thing unless the situation really warrants it when writing about it.

Hmm, perhaps that's not too great thinking about it, some or a lot of context can be lost. The pastor is in his 70's and apparently he's not doing 2 services on Sunday now, he's doing 3. I didn't know they had kept the 8 am service. 

Anyway, I really didn't know what he was talking about for sure, I just figured it had to do with the baptism. Oh yes, that's it, he started out with "I hear you are baptizing people on Sunday".  When I got down to what was on his mind, he said he had seen the video of it and it made him cry.  The youth minister - she's the head of a huge children's network and in the church the programs for the children and intensely involved with everything - came in on that one. 

I was saying I wanted to see this video before Sunday, please.  She asked why, do you think it's going to make you cry? Well yes.  It made the pastor cry I want to be prepared. Well it's supposed to be a surprise. Ok, I'll watch it after service on Sunday when I get home - they post all of it on Facebook. 

There is no issue here. I'll see it eventually. I tried to show up on time to see the taping of it on Sunday, but I arrived as they were leaving and it was already over with.  I'm going to do what I have been tasked with, I want to do it and I think  it will turn out great. I have never baptized anyone but it's a pretty simple process - still - I started praying about it today, this  morning to be exact.  

If God wants to speak to those 2 through this, I don't want to hinder it and I want to facilitate it if that's what He wants me to do.  I'm open, God's will be done here.  

The pastor is a really great guy and he just kept going on about how great it is what I've done with that family.  

I do get what other people's perspective may be of it, I had no idea what they were saying in those interviews but now I have an idea - ugh. Sorry, I'm not in it for accolades, that all goes to Christ, all glory, honor and praise to Him!

HE is the one orchestrating all of this in my view of it, I don't want to piss on anyone's party or parade, I just want the real thankfulness to be directed to the King of Kings, the Lord of lords, the Prince of Peace. That's Jesus : ) I'm sure these people know that, I just feel uncomfortable with that kind of verbiage being directed my way. What can I say. 

I'm going to be early tonight, I"m worn out for whatever reason and want to try and get in some "extra" sleep. 

Editing here: if it made the pastor cry, is the whole church going to be crying too? Oh myyy. 

Nite. 

 Wednesday - morning

Since the last post a few things have developed, the most annoying of which was the central AC in our house went out.  It literally went out just before everyone closing (AC repair) on Friday afternoon, guaranteeing us a headache for the entire weekend.  I called a local guy over who apparently didn't know what he was doing even tho highly acclaimed locally for he misdiagnosed the problem.

I'll circle back to that in a second, but the situation developed that he said the mother board was fried and probably the fan motor. I mean, it's whatever, it needs fixed especially in this heat but that sounded like a lot for a newer system that's only been in there what, 2 ..2-1/2 years?  I'm not an AC person so I took his word for it. He said it would take 2-3 days to get the parts in.  

Well, the lady of the house went and bought a portable ac unit for her room, my room already has a new one in it that worked beautifully I might add.  It kept it as cool as I wanted it to be in here.  My room has always been warmer (or colder in the winter) than the rest of the house and I had to make up for it long ago using a window ac.  

But it's been so hot that the rest of the house was miserably hot.  So, I went out and bought a "new" window unit to help bring down the temp in the dining/kitchen area.  It is an 8,000 btu unit, not big enough to sufficiently cool it to whatever temp you wanted it to come down to but I figured it would help out.  It did, immensely.  It was $200, it was still in original box and packaging, you could tell it had never been opened, the owner brought it to our house amazingly enough. She said they had had it sitting in storage for a couple of years.  I just had to hope it was going to work and it did and does, thankfully.

It was fairly nice in there after overnight of it continuously running the compressor.  It actually brought the temp down in the dining room, kitchen and the rather large laundry and pantry room. That room is about 8 feet wide by 30 feet long. 

So come Monday, the father - who is on the road and they are firmly on their way to a divorce - called Lowe's I guess it was to have someone out.  I had contacted the company that came out and they hadn't ordered anything yet!  Lowe's is who contracted out to have the system installed. This dude shows up - he looks to be all of 20 years old - but he knew what he was doing and figured out the problem quickly. I had mentioned that the motherboard and the inside of that area had been completely covered with a lot of condensation and thought that didn't look right for the area they had the motherboard in (control board). 

He went and turned the thing on!  The entire unit fired up and started pumping out cold air.  He just looked at me. It had to be that water got on that board and temporarily jinxed it from carrying out it's duties and once it dried up it got back to work.  He agreed with that assessment and then said "you need to replace the drain pipe, it's clogged up".  He was absolutely correct.  When I cut into that thing, it was completely filled with gunk, there was no water going through it at all. This is the pipe that carries the condensation from the evaporator to the outside. 

Where was all that water going besides the mother board area?  I thanked him - everyone else was at the lake, I had had to work that day and I didn't feel like driving clear over there after they had already been there a while, I wouldn't have been there too long and then time to go home.  It was late afternoon. I went to Lowe's bought the stuff I thought I needed and then was going to put it all together when I realized I needed a few more parts.  No. Not today, I thought.  I rigged up the line to simply drop the water into a 5 gallon bucket and would fix it the next day.

I was amazed at how fast that bucket was filling up!  Too fast to the point we decided to leave the ac off for the night and I would fix that line system when I got home from work.  BUT, I would turn the ac back on in the morning and she would empty it as necessary.  It filled up 3 times I think during the day. 15 gallons of water!  That gives you an idea of the humidity in the air around here.  

That was yesterday, I got home from work, one of the kids decided they were going with me, went to Lowe's got the materials, stopped to see a friend for lunch at Chili's - he works there, went home, got it all put together and walaah.  No new motherboard, no new motor.  The Lowe's rep was $89 service fee call and that was it. And I've already been repaid for it, I wasn't waiting, let's get this done.  I contacted the other company and told them it was just a clogged up drainage system, nix the parts. They still  hadn't ordered them.  I mean, if I see anything asking for who to use for ac in this town again and someone mentions that company, I'm going to tell them NO.  

Anyway, I worked the entire weekend and Monday and Tuesday. I was supposed to work today and through Saturday.  But, my manager called yesterday while I was driving back from Arkansas and said they had cancelled tomorrow's (now today) load and he was rescheduling me.  That was alarming because I have something very important to do on Sunday: baptize 2 people, namely one of the children and the lady of this house.  The kid wanted to get baptized but then the mom wanted to too and they both decided I should be the one doing it.  

The church has already done the interviews on both of them.  They do a video taped production - they have experts that donate their time at this church - of them asking them questions. Lots of questions. Afterwards they edit it and come up with really a nice video, I've watched dozens of them now over the years of going there. They play that video before the actual baptism is done.  I haven't seen it yet but I definitely want to.  I only have to baptized them, the ministry does the rest. So, I ask each one if they have believed in Jesus Christ for everlasting life?  They say yes and they get dunked, separately of course I can't baptize 2 people at once.  Then the audience erupts into clapping, whistling and cheering - they really do and are really happy for the moment - then the pastor prays and that's it.  It's pretty cool actually. 

Well, back to the manager, he had put me down for tomorrow (Thursday) which runs into Friday and Monday/Tuesday run, but nothing on the weekend.  He knows me.  He said, well I could put you on a weekend run but I don't know if you have plans.  Yup, I made plans alright, it is the baptism that I confirmed with the lady of the house who confirmed it with the associate pastor.  I'm not bowing out of that one, to me that takes far greater precedence over working.  I said yes, I am committed to doing a baptism. But he already knew and I am 99% sure he had already handed out weekend work to other drivers who want the work anyway.  Once I came back into the lineup, their workload must have either decreased or they get dumped on the Ennis run.

I mean, if you're looking for a bigger paycheck, I would think they would want the Ennis run anyway? I'm not young anymore, I don't care about driving literally all day long like that, endlessly. I'll do that run once in a while if they get into a pinch, but I don't like it because they always put me on at least 2 of them in a row.  I have to demand to get back into the Gurdon lineup. I literally have to tell them I'm not doing anymore Ennis runs, please find someone else to do it, thanks.  I think that kind of irks them sometimes, which bothers me not. I have seniority over all of those drivers excepting one who has a weird schedule he does and doesn't conflict with anything I do at all. 

Well, it turns out that on Saturday, there is also the Reuggenfest festival.  It's supposed to be an Octoberfest thing so why they are doing it in September is beyond me.  It's going to be hot as blazes out there, it's kind of bewildering.  Yup, just checked again.  There's a slight chance of rain on Saturday the high temp will be 97 which will put the heat index into well over the 100 range. Gag. I mean, we're going and it's usually fun but this decision over doing a traditionally October-held even in September is not registering with me, I'm going to ask the guy that produces it when I see him Saturday.

Anyway, the AC is fixed, the cancelled load worked out in my favor for the weekend and all is well in this world.  Well, ok all is as well as it's going to get lol. 

What else is going on? Well I just figured that the wiring for the expansion project is going to cost around 3 grand.  It's very expensive per foot, it's expected and that's that.  I want to get that sewer line installed and ready to go.  It's so hot I've been putting it off but at the same time, I want to get it done, gag.  Electric is one of the most expensive portions of this project but the septic system was 10k so there is that.  

I'm going to put in much more heavy duty wiring than that contractor put in the park originally.  Way too much load on that line, I'm wondering if it's not the source of the breakers burning out last month.  I'm going to ensure no problems. Aluminum wiring, yes but that's acceptable and pretty much a requirement in underground stuff.  Copper costs way too much money to even think about using it.

Temps will start to drop near the end of this month, that's when I'm shooting to get restarted on this thing.  I will have help - hopefully anyway - that will motivate me to get this thing rolling.  I have one open lot right now, a person was supposed to show up but their work plans cancelled on them so now I have an open lot. And I'm still dealing with these people who are non pays, I am going to give them a 3 day notice today. It's not a pay or leave notice, it's a leave now notice and if they aren't gone in 3 days, they will be trespassed and the Sheriff will be called to escort them off the property.  If they refuse, well that's up to the Sheriff, but they can be arrested for criminal trespassing.  

\

 Friday - morning

Probably the last day of "freedom" I have from trucking for a while.  They promised to have the thing done today. The holdup? The spindles.  I don't  know what's wrong with them but they apparently aren't holding the bearings tight coupled with bad king pins made for the drive I was experiencing.  It wasn't drifting all over the highway, it was jerking.  You'd be driving along fine and then the next thing you know the whole truck would shift to the left or the right.  

Well, they couldn't get the spindle expert to come until today.  I've encountered this before where the person that is doing spindles or axle straightening is on a very busy schedule. Whatever the case, I guess after that person does that work they can just put it all back together and be done with it.  

The good news is that I had a huge paycheck.  My manager informed me the other day he was going to "give" me money, basically, well beyond what certain things were worth. For example, moving the from the yard to the shop - that's only 5 or 6 miles but the pay was definitely disproportionate to the "work" done.  I dunno, but it's my friend giving me the rides so I'm going to give her some of that.  Only fair, at least in my view of things.  I was really quite surprised at the paycheck.  

In a week, my mom moves up into her 90's with a 9/11 birthday.  I wish I could take a few days off to go see her but I've been off for so long. I mean, yes, I worked 8 days in a row before this latest shop visit but after this? I doubt there will be much of any of the words "time off" that will be occurring.  I'm planning on going for Thanksgiving. I have no idea how that will turn out, I haven't seen my brothers in many, many years.  I don't miss them, at all.  Sounds kind of harsh but we all grew away from each other after we grew up, became adults and went about our business adulting.

And there were clashes, most notably when I went to the mission field for five years and my brother was at the time working for Boeing producing those Apache helicopters.  Their security wanted to know where I was stating that I could be kidnapped and held for ransom in exchange for information about those helicopters.  I'm not sure what the extent of that was but my brother was angry that I was out of contact.  There were no cellphones in those days and at the time I was traveling around Mexico.  I didn't care, he told mom that one day those people showed up at his doorstep demanding to know where I am and he couldn't answer any more than "traveling around mexico".  The entire family thought I was involved with a cult and had loosely made plans to come extract me from it. 

Good luck.  Some of that ministry was WAYYY off, yes, but I was serving the Lord, preaching the Gospel and feeding hungry people.  Mexico is definitely a 3rd world country.  

But the thing that really got me was when my dad passed away and my brothers refused to come to his Memorial service. They had vague reasons about it, that he had "abandoned" them. My dad informed me before his mind went out the window to Alzheimer's and then died of complications related to it that he had tried emailing, snail mailing, calling, etc.  I remember him lamenting to his then-wife that "I bet they won't even come to my funeral". Chilling prophesy in my mind that came true.  I was disgusted with both of them and I let them know about it.  

So what would a Thanksgiving dinner with these people look like? Awkward at best.  A riot at worst.  I am not going to go there to start a fight, not at all, I'm going to see my mom  and my son, I really don't care about seeing them at all, but the the dinner will undoubtedly be held at my oldest brother's house.  I'll give him and his wife credit that they are helping mom deal with finances and the day to day stuff in her winter years.  It's the only reason I would want to live there now.  But, that entire area has grown to the point of insufferable, constant traffic, pollution with frequent pollution advisories and a lot of hate and anger in the populace. 

Pretty much what happens when a city and it's surrounding suburbs grows to millions of people.  I'm well acclimated to country living now and I don't want anything to do with big cities. Well, I do like to visit them once in a great while since they have stuff we don't out here, but that's a mini vacation type of thing and usually Dallas/Fort Worth area.  

Anyway, I have been contemplating when I'll start back on that expansion project.  I'm just not going to work out in this ridiculous heat.  It's supposed to be 102 today and who knows the real feel, 110? It's the humidity that gets me coupled with intense heat.  Closer to the end of September it will start to cool down tho I wouldn't exactly call it "cool" by any stretch of the imagination, at least in the afternoons.  Still, morning temps will be nice and carry to the afternoon hours.

I'm basically just going to have to force myself to endure the heat in the afternoons since I won't be able to work in the mornings - trucking takes all of that up. But if I could do a couple hours per day, I could knock it out in - several weeks I guess.  I want to get that done and get at least 3 or 4 more lots going.  I've got the septic, I've got the electrical started, I just need to get with it.  

 Tuesday - afternoon

Well, no word from the shop yet, but then again they told me yesterday that they generally have to have it a day and a half to install king pins. They usually find more wrong with it when they replace them and it takes longer to do, of course..  having to get the parts and do the labor.  And getting parts for an older truck isn't impossible at all but it does usually have to be ordered. 

I don't really care, I'll be ready to go back to work whenever it's done and they need me.  Of course, they'll need me right away and I'll likely go on another 3 or 4 consecutive run trip.  It's just that it's easy to not go to work.  I've been working almost my entire life time, I'm ready for something different.

Well I got totally distracted and now it's late.  Since they didn't contact me, there is no work for me tomorrow, I am guessing the truck will be done sometime tomorrow and I'll have to go pick it up and probably work the next 6 to 8 days.  Lol. 

Because I figure I'm going to be working - forever - I just did nothing today.  I never even left the house.  

And one of the kids came home sick.  99.7 fever, severe headache, no energy, etc.  Foregone conclusion he isn't going to school tomorrow which is something he doesn't like, he likes to have "perfect" attendance records.  Not gonna happen, never happens really.   

I'm getting offa here. Maybe I can write a full entry sometime tomorrow and discuss the ongoing war theater - well it seems like it's still a war anyway - over in Iran and all the rhetoric both Iran and democrats are pumping out about it.  Propaganda in other words. 

 Sunday - night

Friday night, the kids went over to a friend's house to spend the night.  I went to work Saturday morning and didn't see them again until Saturday mid afternoon.  The oldest was so tired, he passed out on my bed as soon as he came home. He was going to play games but sleep called his name. Why? Because he admitted to literally staying up all night long. Like until almost 6:00 am

Well, we had already decided we were going to rent a hotel room nearby to get access to the semi-large, 9 foot deep pool.  You don't see pools that deep around much anymore. It's old school, the hotel is old but it has been completely upgraded. They apparently just resurfaced the pool.  I honestly didn't know they even had pools that deep anymore, all of the pools I have been to in many decades time have been anywhere from 4 to 6 feet at most deep and 6 feet isn't even that common.  

So, we get to the hotel and the boy then passes out on one of the bed. We're trying to go to the pool and he's just laying there.  

Well, the pool woke him up and other families came and we all spent quite a bit of time socializing and swimming and horsing around type of stuff. 

We get home around 10 pm and he wants to play some video games with me. Cool.  What does he do? Face plants himself into the bed and completely and instantly passes out.  I just shook my head and got about putting stuff away and laundry, things I had started earlier but didn't have time to finish.  

About an hour later, I woke him up telling him to get into his bed.  Did he wake up? Sort of.  I've never seen anything quite like it. Between staying up all night long and playing hard in the pool for many hours, he was toast.  He sort of stood up and walked face first into the corner wall, smashed his head into it.  Did this phase him? No. He was wandering around in circles, headed towards the bathroom and basically was the closest thing to a real zombie I think I'll ever see.  

I ended up guiding him to his bedroom, taking his shoes off for him and hoped he could crawl up the bunkbed stairs and get into his bed. He managed to do that and again, he passes out instantly.  11 hours later, he comes into my room and says he doesn't know how he got to bed last night?  Lmao.  I told him the entire story, I KNEW he wouldn't remember any of that stuff. BTW, how's your head?  

It's fine, why? Because you smashed it into the wall last night!  He was trippin'.  

Anyway, yes we went to church but he didn't want to go to the student life thing at church, he was not feeling all the well.  Perhaps you'll think twice about staying up all night long? lol.  

After church the normal Applebee's routine, home, played a few games but got bored with it and then just watched movies.  The game I play started a new season and I don't much care for it. It's got a few interesting things I like on the map - the game plays out on  a large island and everything is mapped out. I kind of get bored with it after a while and just shut it off.

Tomorrow is also a day off as is Tuesday. :They want the truck there on Tuesday morning, I want to take it there just as they're closing tomorrow afternoon.  I think they close at 5.  I don't want them getting started on it tomorrow, I'll happily take Wednesday off too if it could work out that way.  Foregone conclusion I'll be working next weekend so I might as well get what I can off. 

There isn't much else going on, at least nothing I feel like writing about right now, it's kind of getting late.  If there is one thing to note of interest here, it's the absolute lack of rain. The grass is all dark brown everywhere.  I mean, we go from flooding to near drought conditions.  But, summers are like that here, hopefully the grass will come back if we ever do get some rain. 

There are slight chances of it coming in the days ahead, nothing reported as a day of raining.  

Anyway, that's it.  About time to go to bed. 

 Friday - afternoon

Well, kids out of school for the weekend soon, I kind of like the peace and quiet of having afternoons with no children until school is out, but, oh well.

I have to deliver tomorrow and then I'm for for a minimum of 4 days - allegedly.  Basically, they have 4 drivers now for this account and that's too many.  At the same time, I'm on my 4th run having worked 7 days in a row and finishing off tomorrow will be 8.

Welcome back to work life.

The kids want to go swimming this weekend, all well and fine but you have to find a place that has a pool and that they would like to go to.  And not spend a fortune.  There are no public pools in this area. Well, correction: there IS a public pool in this town, it's a huge one too. And it's been out of service for many years. It is covered with thick, green goop and is in a state of abandonment.  

It's actually not that far from our house, but it's quite useless.  People complain all the time about it but no one will actually do anything. The city can't afford it, that's no joke.  They have their hands full trying to keep up with just current day expenses and the only thing I can think of is perhaps local businesses could band together and create a funding pool to fix that public pool and get it up and running.'

But, who will run the operation?  

 Thursday - afternoon

I've been hitting it nicely with loading and unloading times and getting home at very reasonable hours.  Third load done since I went back to work and going smoothly. Another run starting tomorrow, I hope for more of the same.  

I'll have Sunday through Wednesday off.  I think.  It's because Sunday only one load is going out and they already have someone to do that and Tuesday the truck goes into the alignment shop and the shop already told them that truck is going to need to be there 24 hours.  No idea what they're doing beyond king pins and shocks.  

I'm almost back from the run today and get a text from my friend.  She is trying to locate the person at the church who wants to ask her about getting baptized but found everything locked up. Try the office.

The next thing I know,  I was being asked to come in as well.  The situation is that they want me to baptize them - they both asked for me to do it specifically, I did not prime the pump and suggest it at all, I figure that needs to come from the Lord.  So, they asked the kid about his faith at church on Sunday and now they had a conversation with her today in their office.

I came strolling in a short while later after getting the truck parked and doing post trip inspection and got into a fairly heavy conversation about my relationship with the Lord - Jesus Christ that is, I like to name His name for there is "no other name given among men whereby we must be saved" and "the name above ALL names" and so on and so forth.  Lots of scripture pops into my mind when I think about His Name and what He has done for all of us.  

Well, all of us who choose to believe anyway. 

I discussed my salvation and how I got to that point and then discussed my missionary work after the fact and traveling all over Mexico. He was surprised. I have just been going to church and I don't announce myself in any given way. I'm just another man in the crowd as far as I'm concerned, nothing special here.  But I gave details that he apparently didn't expect to hear from me and scripture? Is always running around through my head. 

I really mean that. It isn't often that someone says something to me and some scripture doesn't come to mind that applies to it.  I don't announce that at all either, I just think about it. 

It turns out the kid is really driving this thing here. He wants to get baptized with his mom, ok! But he also wants to do his video with mom as well.  Remember, they are both going to be baptized sort of at the same time. I don't see how anyone can baptize 2 people at once so I'll have to do them one after the other.  

The video is something they do before any and every baptism at the church. The person gives a sometimes long statement about who they are, what they like, what they are doing etc.  

  Tuesday - too late, lol, well not bad bad just I should l have gone to bed a little while ago.  Such is life, I'll hit the sack after this short entry.  

I finally went from 213 pounds to 211.  It was sitting at 213 forever.  I mean, I don't know that it will stay at 211 right off, it typically goes up and down and then will sit at 211 at some point and then, wait a long time and it'll go down again.  It took a long time to get this heavy, it'll take a long time to get rid of it. 

We booked a trip on the Polar Express!  A little pricey but it's fabled to be a glorious if short train ride replete with Santa Clause and dancers and singing chefs and such.  We'll find out.  Kind of waited too long to book tho. There were other seats I would have liked better and I would have liked to go in the dark.

Or would have I?  Hmmm.  I have never ridden on a train.  I've been on them but no rides.  I read that the scenery is beautiful so a day trip isn't going to be bad at all. The kids will enjoy the theme, they both love the Polar Express movie anyway, it's a yearly tradition to watch it together.  The oldest makes his own version of tickets and everybody has to have one to watch!  I won't go into the year 2 years ago when a certain adult in this house rejected it and gave the boy a hard time about it, we're talking kids here, they have imaginations and I just thought that wasn't so nice. 

But whatever.  I don't want to get too involved in this entry since I need to go to bed,  a few items in politics that have caught my attention, nothing major. We also need rain around here badly.  Yes, it's the time of year we don't get any but the grass all over the place is dark brown, dying and we're in a burn ban.  Not that I would want to light a fire anyway, the heat here has been very high.  

So that's it.  Mostly just finally got past a roadblock on my weight loss journey.  

Oh, I delivered today and was supposed to take the truck in tomorrow to have the rest of the work done on it. Yeah, no.  I was called today and informed that two more trucks are in the shop, they need me to work tomorrow.  Whatever.  I don't really care at this point, I'm fairly back into this wonderful routine called work and certainly I want the money so my savings don't go down.     

But, I have to get up at 5 am and get out here by 5:30 am, they want me there "earlier" so that I don't run into another driver who is constantly running. Unlike me, he doesn't go home every day, he just keeps driving until he has to take his 10 hour break.  Good for him! But his paychecks are nice! And whoopdedooo!  Hey, if my situation  gets bad somehow, I can always ask for more work.  Either Gurdon or pop me on Ennis runs temporarily.  

No thank you.

And good night : )

 Saturday - night

Not a lot of time here, I want to watch some tv before bedtime which is going to be early for I need to get up at 5:30 am.  

But, today went pretty well for my 1st official day back at work. I didn't have to have the trailer washed out, it was already cleaned out when I picked it up.  That saves quite a bit of time.  I'll have to do that Monday, just part of the job.

I got to the plant, they scaled me in, got me in a bay and got me out of there quickly. I was back at the park at 11:55 am.

That's very good.  I mean, so good I was pretty pleased about it and hoping tomorrow goes well too.

It should, unless something happens to the truck. Not a fan, as I have endlessly stated on this blog, of working on Sundays.  I need to go to church, it's beyond an "I want to go to church".  

Anyway, I want to get some tv time in. The kids are gone with the father at a local hotel. So a day of peace and quiet. They are apparently going to try to have a new approach and see if things can work out. They being the mom and pop. 

I suggested to her they start over when she said she was having doubts and thinking about trying to get back together.  Yes, but you need to start from a clean slate. Let everything go, all of it, as he will have to, and start out like you don't even know who each other is.

Apparently that had an effect for they are going to try to become friends.

I didn't know they had started the relationship out the way they had.  Many successful couples become besties first before marriage.  I do hope and pray it works out eventually but after hearing that I also suggested they should stay separated during this process. Not a hard thing to do with him being an OTR truck driver.

Anyway, that's it.  Watch a show I like and then go to sleep.

 Friday - morning 8 am-ish

I kind of posted yesterday's post this morning lol, forgot to do that when I went to bed.  I decided last night I best start getting to bed at a reasonable hour so 10:15 pm it was.

I got up early simply because i had 7 hours of sleep and after that? Hit or miss. Might get to sleep, might not.  

I have no idea when I might get a phone call from the alignment shop or a phone call from management saying, gee, they had to order parts.  Whatever the case, I am ready to go get it. I don't have to do anything else beyond that today, tomorrow is when I start back into the grind.  Starting back on a weekend.  Yuck. 

Then again, weekends you typically get loaded faster.  There is sometimes a silver lining in a cloud of undesirable "things to do".  

As for the situation around here, who knows.  I was asked if I want to move to Colorado. That wasn't my first thought.  Or even second. But after a bit of conversation I think I fairly well identified why that person wants to move there and I simply said that changing your geographical location will not offset any despair or depression caused by severe marital stresses.  

One thing I know that helps is personal counseling. I have actually thought about going through that again.  It's kind of a mental/attitude/outlook checkup.  When I went through it several decades ago, it wasn't actually too pleasant.  Those counselors aren't trained to sugarcoat as well they shouldn't be.  And they dig dig dig into your past and identify things that are causing you experience or see things the way that you are.

I haven't decided yet, I feel like you should be 100% to go through the process no matter how difficult it becomes to continue on with it.  It's been what, 3 decades since I did that? I think that I might benefit from another round of it.  

_________

As usual, I get busy or interrupted with "stuff" and leave the blog and come back to it later. Like 9 hours later lmao.  I got the truck out of the alignment shop.  They had a huge list of parts that needed to be replaced including the king pins.  THAT would definitely cause some of that problem I was describing in earlier posts and hadn't even thought about that as a potential problem.  

They said it's good to drive until they get the parts in, so I'm on the hook for working the next 4 days.  Not the end of my world, but I was astonished to see a paycheck with 3/4's of my pay on there. Like, how did this manager invent this for me? I looked, he gave me an excessive amount of money for just moving the truck around.  I don't know how he gets away with that stuff but I'm glad he does.  He's pretty good about stuff like that, it's the communicating that needs serious improvement. 

And I just spent several HOURS trying to figure out how to move files from an old computer to another.  I first tried the microsoft one drive method.  I ended up wanting to just chuck the old thing in the trash but I persisted until - I gave up on that. I tried other methods and finally got to the memory card.  

I was using AI the entire time, I am absolutely sure that if I didn't have access to it, I would either have spent days trying to figure it out or I would have  just said screw it.  I almost said screw it as it stands.  

But I have never done that before and there are a LOT of steps to take to first download the photos and apps to the card and then upload them to another computer. The whole point of doing this? Well, I have photos on that old computer that aren't anywhere else.  I have been wanting to do this for a long time, but I knew it would turn into a major ordeal and I was right.

However, what forced me to do it today?  My rv park reservation system app disappeared on my new computer and wasn't on my laptop either, it used to be on both?!!!  

I can't have that park without access to it. I don't really need the reservation system atm for I have all spots rented to long term, but I do need access to the card processing software that is also in that app.  I don't get a lot of credit or debit card payments now, everyone wants to pay either cashapp, venmo, paypal or cash.  But, I have one hold out that wants to use that card and I really need the ability to do so.  I just wish I had more spots for some overnighters.  

Enough. I"m going to bed early enough to get a decent night's sleep.  Or try to anyway.

G'nite. 

 Thursday - late afternoon

Just got home a few minutes ago. Took much long than it should have to get the truck and trailer and get back down here with it.

Why, you ask?

Because when I arrived there, the mechanic was doing something to it. Upon inquiry, he said the truck won't start.  Uhh, how long have you known about this? Since this morning.  Ok, I wonder why they didn't tell me.  He fiddled with it for quite a while before I just left and went to the office.  Chatted there then back to the truck.  Hung out there for quite a while and then realized this isn't going to happen anytime soon.

During all this back and forth, the manager was indicating he wanted to go to Plan B. I knew what he was going to say before he even said what it was: No thank you. I don't want to drive that truck - referring to a pile of trash truck that I had no intention of getting into. I gave my reasons and I just held firm, even tho he kept bringing it up.  Nope, fix THIS truck and let's get this over with.  

I went to the driver's lounge and went to sleep, actually. No one was in there - there hardly ever is - and I was tired from not having a good night's sleep. The manager came in after a while, chatted with me, brought up that POS again, nooo, thank you.  

Another 30 minutes and the manager came in again, it's done.  So, I go to the truck, turn it on and off several times and confirmed it was working. However, the seat wasn't. It wouldn't air up and it was sitting all the way down on the floor. Then I noticed wires hanging from underneath the truck and actually laying on the ground!  

But, another mechanic had shown up and he fixed those issues and I finally got out of there. Drove it back to my town and decided that yes, I'm taking it to the shop now, why get up at 6 am when I don't need to?  So, I dropped the trailer in their yard and then pulled into a bay. They wasted no time - literally seconds after I parked it - pointing out the fact that there is one new shock absorber but the other 3 are leaking oil. 

"We will check this truck out from front to back and give them a quote".  

He made it sound like there was going to be a lot of work.  I don't care at this point, another weekend off would be great.  I doubt that will happen but you never know!  

I called my friend, she came and got me and we got home ... to... the guy.  He came into town to visit the boys and apparently to discuss this marriage situation.  He told me a few minutes ago he apologizes in advance, but things might get a little ugly...

I want no part of it, not my crusade and none of my business, at all.  If they want to fight and argue, I only think they should not do it in front of or within hearing range of the kids.  They don't need to hear that stuff.  Just going to throw them into mental chaos.  But, who knows? Maybe face to face they will keep it civil?  I simply asserted a few times that I am divorced twice and not my fish to fry. 

....So now the oldest comes into my room crying, they are arguing out front, in front of the kids, something I hoped they wouldn't do.  AT 11 years old, it's going to be hard to process all of that. I don't recall them ever getting into real arguments or if they did, I never witnessed it.  

Not trying to sound unsympathetic, but I'm starving. It's almost 5 pm and I haven't eating in about 24 hours.  Not by design. I mean, yes, I am doing intermittent fasting but I don't go this long.  I was thinking I'd be up there, get in the truck, leave and be home no later than 1 pm.  I should have known better.   `

 Wednesday - morning

Got myself up at 6:15 am, doing that to get used to getting up for work. It's been quite a while since I've done that - work the trucking job that is - excepting the 4 days of Ennis runs in the middle of all of this. 

One of my work buddies was at the shop yesterday, he said the mechanic was working on my truck.  Ok - he's been working on my truck, but perhaps that means they got whatever parts in and he's installing them. So, I would expect that he should be done today or sometime very soon which will mean me somehow getting a ride up there, bringing the truck down here and into yet another shop. 

From what I've read, an alignment should only take at most 3 hours.  There are exceptions of course - if something else is wrong with it.  Very possible once you get actual alignment experts working on it. The other issue is how long before they can get it in? I've dealt with this place before, they have a waiting list, or had one anyway years ago when I was working for KAG.  

KAG - the company that runs you into the ground without a frown.  Most of the trucking industry is like that, tho, it's part of the reason so many people quit within their first year of trucking. They aren't used to 14 hour days and they thought it would be easy. Get into a truck, drive. That's it!

LMAO. The non-trucking public also thinks gee, you have it sooooo easy!  Ok bro.

I am expecting a call today or soon on that subject.  Tomorrow would be fine for me to go up there and retrieve that thing.  Non-happening event today, it's 11 am, just not going to get involved with anything like that if it doesn't start early or mid-morning.  

____________

Hours later, now afternoon and still no word from work? I'm not going to press it, if it's that bad it needs to be fixed.  I just don't know what they are working on now.

It's not the only thing on my mind but it's a pressing issue.  I can't financially survive without that income and tho last paycheck was only $400 short, next paycheck is going to be nothing unless they invent some way to pay me for --- what?  

____________

Many hours later and an earful of total bullshit later - that's a different story coming from a late pay at the park - my manager finally calls me.  There are only a few things left to go on your truck and it will be done tomorrow.  Good.  I have a ride up there as long as you will pay for it.  I don't hold back on that stuff, if they can pay to have the thing towed up there they can certainly pay fuel and then some for someone to go out of there way to drive me up there.  

Although, this person LOVES to drive so it's just another opportunity ride on down the highway!  

But, they don't want me to pick it up until Thursday to give the mechanic time to finish everything up.  Fine and well, go up Thursday, get up early Friday or actually just drop it off Thursday sounds better, then they can get on it whenever.  Slated to work the weekend of course, but I will be back at work. 

And I doubt I will have any days off coming for a- long time after that.  So whatever.  Good thing I'm getting myself used to getting up early again. 

I think this might have been worth it if that mechanic fixed everything, sounds like he's a stickler to have a truck running at the best it can be.  Lots of minor stuff wrong, I'd like to hope he got on it.  

________________

Late. Way later than I should be up, going to bed. Last night of freedom. Thursday is drive up there and take it to the shop - so probably around 6 hours total, Friday they work on it and - get it done I would assume but with everything else that has been wrong and done with the truck, it won't be shocking if they say it needs parts, lol.  But, by chance it doesn't, I'll be starting the daily grind.  I in now way wish to convey here that it's going to somehow be easy or otherwise desirable.  

It will be tough, I am sure, to get back into driving 6 days a week and oh well, I got a taste of retirement and I very much liked it.  Not today, not this week, not this month, next or any time soon.  2-1/2 years minimum if my health stays good and I can continue working. 

G'nite.  

 Monday - morning

I kind of left the last post hanging. Got busy with stuff and forgot about it but eventually posted it anyway.

MORE parts for whatever ELSE is wrong with the truck were ordered and they had "no idea" when they're coming in.  After that, I will have to go get the truck and bring it back here where I live and take it to an alignment shop. Tentative plan anyway.  Things can and usually do change in this job.  

But, the biggest question is how they intend on getting me up there.  I did find that a greyhound will take you to Ruston, LA and then a taxi up to El Dorado. You can also fly up there from Longview, but that's 40 plus miles away and I'd have to find a ride over there after returning to get my vehicle back.  So I dunno.  Not my problem, they'll have to figure that one out.  Well it is my problem because I'm directly involved in it but it isn't my problem to figure out what to do.

Thankfully, the manager is back at work. He was out for a long time.  I think he was still doing limited work from home but it wasn't much and he wasn't, after all, doing any dispatching.  I did inform him I'm not his Ennis man and I want my Gurdon run back after I ever get back into a truck.  

So, who knows, I'm assuming some time this week I will be able to start working again?  Not that I want to, lmao, I could do this nothingness for awhile. But, there's bills to be paid and debt I am paying off. Personal debt, not business related. Well I take that back. I got into personal debt in order to be able to finish the business build.  

I was looking at loans to bring the rate down and they all suck. Yes, they offering much lower interest rate but the price is 72 month term.  That's ridiculous.  I have 3-1/2 years left on the current loan and tho I could cut the payment down by probably $400 per month, there would actually be no savings and even further loss.  Yes, because of the extended length of a new loan.  So screw it. Just keep making payments on the current one and eventually the light at the end of the tunnel will be visible.

Whereas, 6 years starting now would seem insufferable. I'd be approaching 70 by the time I get it paid off? No thanks.  Once I get that paid off, I will have very little debt. I have some credit card stuff, but nothing to get excited about. I actually had AI do the math on the payments, lol, I didn't feel like it but I guess I better verify with a calculator that I am indeed, going to actually save money staying in this loan versus a new one. 

Ok, my calculations show I'd save 3k on a SoFi loan that is 48 months.  All the other ones I had seen were 72 months so I dunno how they did that.  But, SoFi has a notoriously bad reputation on approving loans, changing the interest rate after they "promised" a lower one, difficult to find anyone to speak to and a list of other alleged issues.  There's so much negative reviews that I am not interested in trying to use them at all. CreditKarma only has them listed currently for loans on there, like 15 of them  but all are SoFi.  My credit score is well back into good territory. 

I had the guy out there removing the weeds next to the ditch. We're talking probably close to 400 feet total.  So yea, I'm going to go over there and check it out.  He said he was going to treat it with weed killer, I forgot to ask if he had done that.  Those particular weeds do not pull out easily. You have to cut them down.  

Anyway, I couldn't do any work on the expansion if I had wanted to with all those weeds in the way.  

The group has apparently decided that we are all going on a cruise.  Either next year or the following.  5 days I believe and I would assume leaving out of Galveston since that's the closest port. 

I started doing some research. There is a LOT of nuance to this business of finding a good room that isn't near casinos, restaurants, noisy laundromats, etc. AI was at least helpful in noting that there are only a couple of areas on a ship with balconies that are preferrable and it even gave a layout.  Aft rooms and mid ship.  Apparenty aft rooms are preferred by "pro cruise shippers" who say the scenery is spectacular.  

Also apparently the front of the ship is no good because of noise from wind and going out onto your balcony will not be fun, at all.  I dunno but I'm going to do a hefty amount of research before I pull the trigger on anything.  Carnival is apparently the low cost version but also low quality, especially the builds of the walls and cutting out noise from neighboring - whatever is next to you.  It was advised that we would need 2 rooms.  

There's all kinds of additional fees and expenses as well beyond the base fare.  I'm not going to go into all of that right now, I just did some initial research, I will go into depth at some point. Reddit probably has some good posts from travelers who know what they're talking about, not going to just rely on AI, it can be wrong.  I'm sure there are blogs and websites out there about it too.  It's going to cost a small fortune and if I'm going to do it, I want to do it right.  

I"ve been forcing myself to get up early to get used to such a schedule and I can tell ya, I'm pretty tired right now. Going to bed too late, I'm going to cut myself off at 10 pm tonight and make myself go to bed at a more reasonable hour inline with getting up early.  

Tentatively thinking about November trip to AZ.  Not sure about the particulars, I will probably stay at a hotel and use Uber/Lyft to get around.  My mom can barely see at all now and I don't want to disrupt her from being to find everything where she has it laid out in the house. I will undoubtedly spend a lot of time with her and help out with whatever she needs while I'm there, it really isn't going to be a vacation.  3 days I'm thinking.  

Or, I could go next month for her birthday.  

Anyway, I need to get some stuff done.  

G'day

 Friday - late afternoon

A few things to discuss here. First I was over at the property hacking down tall grass in the front 5 with the Big Boy.  The man I pay to help me was out there attempting to hack down tall weeds next to the ditch.  He started talking about borrowing a weed eater with solid blades on it but his friend is using it. Well, no rush, it can wait so you can get it done easier. No big deal there, people from a tree cutting service were cutting limbs back on the property along where the power lines run.  I knew they were going to be doing that but I asked anyway lol. I got a lot of mowing done today, that was good. 

The trucking job.  Now they have found even more things wrong with it, ordered the parts but they aren't in yet.  Just how much money are they going to spend on that machine?  I'd love to find out.  I'm guessing at least 20k for all of it including parts and labor.  The discussion was that there is a truck sitting up there that I could use. Yes, you mean the one that I came up for several Sundays ago and the AC wasn't working? And it was going to be real feel in the 100's so I went  home? 

That took him by surprise, he didn't know I had come up there for that for he was out sick at the time.  I am not going to come up there for that truck, we discussed yesterday about Monday and I have plans this weekend. Which I do, nothing I couldn't abandon but I seriously don't want to drive that other truck. It''s a ridiculous pile of junk. Gutless, super singles, everything I hate in a truck? It has it. 

Well then he said that even after the parts come in, it still has to be aligned.  Yup and there is an alignment shop in our town, many of the major trucking companies use it. So that was sort of settled, I can go get the truck and take it there for the alignment. How I am going to get up there is another story altogether.   They can come get me, perhaps hitch a ride with another driver, take a bus, I dunno.  

 Thursday - morning

Got up early so I could see the kids off. In fact, I woke up 15 minutes before the alarm went off which was set at 5:30 am. The youngest was in a bad mood - predictable and expected - the oldest was in an ok mood, not used to getting up that early.  They went off and here I sit contemplating the day.

There is no truck work today.  It's been 11 days this time since I've worked.  Obviously I can't continue this forever and to that end I contacted my manager yesterday evening.  I really didn't know where the truck was or what was going on with it, I only knew Peterbilt passed the buck saying they don't do that kind  of work there.  

So, what happened and where is the truck?  Well, they had it towed clear up to the yard in El Dorado.  Lol.  We have a new mechanic who is allegedly a "real", certified truck mechanic.  He's apparently the one who's been working on it and diddling around with it.  What I heard from my manager is that he continued to find things wrong with it - yes, it's got a slew of problems but nothing safety related or that DOT would write me up and I've gotten used to a half working truck. 

It's why I refuse to sleep in it at all.  It's old, it doesn't have the modern conveniences newer trucks have, it's very plain Jane. It's good enough for a day truck, it isn't anything at all I would consider driving OTR.  But then again I wouldn't consider driving OTR in any truck so there is that.  

I"m sleepy.  I haven't been getting up early and so I pretty much need to force myself back into that habit.  Oh, off topic here. Another man working in the office who is co-owner of the company got mad yesterday and told the mechanic after the mechanic came in and said "I found this and that wrong with it" that he needed to have it finished by that afternoon before he goes home.

He did not finish it.  I don't know how much is left to go or even what's been done to it this time around.  The manager was speaking in generalities.  I'm more into specifics, I want to know everything and exactly what has been fixed.  The problem is this: once that mechanic gets done with whatever he's doing, then it has to be taken to a truck alignment shop.  

There isn't a truck

Tuesday - morning

No word on the truck yet.  I will make no assumptions, the trucking industry and truck repair can and usually is unpredictable.  Especially when they have to order parts and have them UPS'ed in.  I'm afraid that when I do get back into driving mode, they are going to screw me for a while.  Or try to anyway.  The last I heard, they wanted me on Ennis runs.  Yeah, no.  I'll do a couple more if need be since I've been off another 9 days - they pay a lot more I found out - but it isn't permanent.  

In fact, the only communication I've had with them in quite a while was yesterday when one of the dispatchers texted me declaring that she assumes that I left the hard hat, gloves and gear in the truck.  Referring to the truck I was going to drive a few Sundays ago that ended up having no AC in it.  No, I needed new gear badly, I kept it.  She must have gotten mad at that for she didn't reply a single word.  I don't care at this point, their style of running a business is a little off.  

But then again I'm not your average truck driver either. I don't want OTR, I don't want to constantly run up and down the roads, I've done that for years and years and I'm sick of it.  My normal run is fine by me.  

Anyway, allegedly today is the day they take it into an alignment shop.  Since it already has the new parts, I can't imagine this taking much longer. 

I can tell you, I could get used to the idea of not working anymore. It's not like I haven't toiled under the sun for many, many decades.  How long were we meant to work like this? 

So, finally, a few minutes ago I got on the scale aaaaannnnnd:  My weight finally dropped 2 pounds! It's been weeks worth of stall/plateau.  I've been at 215.2 for what, shortly after I came back from vacation and dropped a lot of what I had gained?  It now, finally, showed 213.  I mean, there are times when a stall goes on so long you just want to quit and do something else. 

But besides the Ozempic and other current fad weight loss drugs, I've tried most everything else. I would only do those drugs if I were so overweight that it would be considered morbid obesity, the stuff that kills people. I'm determined to get below the 200 mark.  I've resisted sugar filled foods and the foods I normally like to eat such as potatoes and pasta for quite some time now.  The vacation really dug it's nails under my skin in stubbornly saying no, you aren't going to lose any more than the initial weight you lost after returning home. 

Like, was it even worth it? Yes, I had a good time on vacation lol, I'm not going to wallow in regret over spending 8 days eating and drinking whatever the hell I pleased.  I just didn't expect it to take this long to start losing again.  I have checked my ketosis rate fairly frequently, I've been in ketosis for a while now. It doesn't show a deep rate of it, but that's because your body adapts eventually and doesn't flood your system with ketones as it does at the beginning of starting this type of diet. In other words, it won't show a deep ketosis rate, at least in my experience and that's fine.  

Now if I could just get down to say, 205 before another plateau that would be highly motivational.  I can tell ya one thing: pants that weren't fitting at all are now falling off my ass and I'm back to having to use the third hole on the belt instead of the first one.  That is significant, at least for me.  If I try to use the first or second one, my pants fall off.  I can tell by looking my legs are losing fat to the point that are starting to - narrow up - for lack of better terminology coming to mind. Slimming down is what "they" call it but I'm not slim so I refrain from using such verbiage.  

Oh, so finally.  I have used the word verbiage when the need for it arises for - ever - and when I do, spell check comes up and if you click on it, it says word not found or something like that. Excuse me, but I am 100% sure that verbiage is a word and verbage is not.  Oh, and there it is as well! The word verbage has the red, wavy underscore!  Verbage is NOT a word! Look it up!

Oh the ridiculous things I get caught up on in minutia.  But it annoys me that these machines had the gall, the utter nerve, to correct me! LMAO.  I do tend to get caught up in what I call conversational English in these blogs, I gave up on the "correct" English a long time ago.  Seemed too formal and this is certainly not a formal blog.  I am not writing essays for the English class in college. Yet, if I'm using a word and getting corrected on it by some person's coding in a software system I want to talk to that person.  And AI, whoever codes that stuff, well it's cutting edge technology so I'll give them a break on that.  It is slowly getting better.

I still get a bit nervous in thinking about AI being a reality.  Oh, there will never be a terminator type of scenario with it. If you ask AI, it will outline the reasons why it will never be self-aware. I have asked on a couple of occasions, lol, having a conversation with it to see how it does.  A written conversation I might add, the Google version of it. It gets too caught up in being hyper-focused on a subject to the point it overlooks other important factors to whatever it is you are talking about.  You correct it and it actually apologizes. But the idea that it is always correct is completely false.  If you bring up contextual factors, it looks into it and agrees with you.  

I got way off topic. Weight loss.  2 pounds doesn't sound like much, but to me it's monumental.  It's the weight I was at went on vacation and represents 28 pounds dropped.  Now if I can get to 212 or 211 quickly, that's new territory and will get my momentum going.  I haven't been cheating on Keto at all.  Even when someone else in the house decides to take a break from their version of a diet, I don't.  We went to El Taco the other day and I just stood my ground.  No beans, no rice, no tortilla chips.  But yes on a little of the salsa and the guacamole dip.  I had carne asada steak on a bed of lettuce with cheese, dumped some salsa on it and called it good.

If I really thought about it, I would have brought my own zero net carb tortillas with me.  I have started taking my zero carb monk fruit sugar substitute with me if we're going out and I want to order unsweetened tea.  Seems funny, but it gives me the taste I am craving without the carbs or the insulin spike.  

I had the strangest dream last night. I have no idea where I was at, we'll start with that.  I was walking along somewhere in the desert and a lion came running up to me -  yes,  a  lion in the desert - I thought I was dead.  Instead, the thing laid down, whimpering and apparently wanted help.  Well, there is no sense trying to run from a lion, you aren't getting away from them. I remember experiencing complete terror and now wonder why I didn't wake up from that dream at that point.  I started examining the creature and found what it was: a large amount of cactus needles stuck in it's face.  I started plucking them off, the lion winced in pain but started to relax. At least that's what it appeared to be doing.  I got all the needles out and still examined closely - like right next to it's teeth - to ensure that they were all out and then looked at it.  It looked at me and I woke up, lol. I'm not sure if the next move would have been me for it's dinner, probably why I woke up.  

Well enough. I'm expecting some kind of communication from the company today. Even if it's to tell me at least another day or whatever. I don't contact them, they are the management of the company, let them call me. They've gotten along without me is all I can tell ya.  

I've got a couple of people working at the park getting rid of all of those ridiculously tall weeds.  I need to take in quite a large chunk of cash to the bank and deposit it into the business account so I can pay the rather large electric bill sitting around 2k.  It's actually far better than last year.  I've come to understand that when people bring in those junky old trailers, it's not just their appearance that is off. It's whatever is going on with those old ac units consuming huge amounts of electricity. Of course I assume that at least some of these people turn the temp setting to the lowest possible amount which in turn uses up massive amounts of electricity.

I don't have any of those currently. I have a couple of somewhat older units but nothing like the one whose owner I threw out of the park after she started all of that shit with me.  Lying about paying rent.  I have proof, she had a made up template.  She was drunk, she later informed and "I don't know what that was all about" acting out like that, but I'm glad she's gone.  Byyyyeeeee. So instead of close to 3k I'm at 2k, a significant difference and considering the park is completely full,, that speaks for itself. 

Oh, well we're getting the weeds out and dousing that entire area with weed killer so they won't come back.  You just can't work with that stuff in there - the trench that is.  I've had inklings of wanting to drop down into that ditch and get back to work but that stuff was there.  It will take them days to get all of them out of there and this is the same person I was talking about before where he actually has a work ethic and does what he says he'll do.  He has an 18 year old helper on such chores.  Basically, he contacted me yesterday and said work has been slow, do I have anything for him to do? Yup. Doubt he's liking it but he's getting some money into his pocket.  

Those weeds had to come out of there.  They were probably as much as 4 feet tall and have small thorns on them. It's part of the reason I haven't gone back into the ditch. Admittedly the excessive heat has also been a huge factor in my rejecting the idea of getting back to work as well.

And finally, at least for this blog entry? The kids are going back to school on Thursday!!!! YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Summer is going to be over, they will be in school all day and we get a break from all of that.  When you have kids constantly asking you for this and that and it goes on day in and day out, yes, you need a break from it.  The flip side is yes, they are gone from early morning until around 4:00 pm, but they have to do homework usually and then they are in bad moods about that.  And of course "what's for dinner?".  We make them food, obviously, but our dinner time habits have changed substantially since both of the adults in the house started dieting.

She is doing a different take. She started working out religiously every day with some of her lady friends and typically is only eating one meal a day. It's not keto, it's just a huge reduction in calorie intake. It works for her, she has lost a substantial amount of weight and is determined to continue on with it.  She started after I announced the shock I had in getting on the scale and I am absolutely going back on Keto, sorry if it's disruptive to dinnertime meals.  We were eating huge amounts of pasta quite frequently. That stuff will pile on the fat and weight.  

See? I barely wake up and kids.  I love them, don't get me wrong, they are like family to me, but both of us need breaks from them........if I can get my "old job" back and back on the Gurdon runs, I typically get home anywhere from 2 to 4 hours before the kids get home.  Yup, it's a nice break, peace and quiet.

With that? G'day. Not sure what I'm doing today but right now, just enjoying a nice, hot cup of coffee : )

 Sunday afternoon.

It all started yesterday afternoon. A rogue storm came through - it only hit certain portions of this little town and our street was one of them - with high winds and an extremely dense downpour. Amazing when there was only a 15% chance of rain.

It's the winds that did it.  A large branch broke off of the tree that keeps plaguing us, fell  right on top of the power line stretched between the power pole and our house, knocked it down and burning up everything in the electrical can.  Not the panel but the can.  It's just a large interface.  It was so hot that a person stopped in their car and says to the lady of the house: "Ma'am, your house is on fire".  I was in my room when it happened so I didn't know what they were discussing.  

What I did know was the power went out but I didn't think it was because of our house! Like several houses lost power because of it.  The electricity kept flowing through the weather pipe that sticks up to the point it literally burned a 6 inch long hole through it. It is made out of metal folks, this isn't a plastic piece and the metal is relatively thick.  

We called the fire department, one of the battalion chiefs was out there within minutes in his pickup.  He checked everything out and declared it safe, the fire was just the electricity burning holes through everything and fortunately it's a brick house. He went inside and checked everything too, he had some sort of high dollar heat gauge to make sure there wasn't fire in the walls - between the drywall and the brick.  

Swepco came out a short while later and informed us that they aren't replacing all of that stuff on the house, they are just responsible for the line to the house. Figured.  I immediately got on social media looking for an electrician and also AI recommendations, but I remembered one of them was extremely reputable in the area.  Nevertheless, I did have a conversation with a man who said he could "come out in the morning and by the  looks of the pics, it will cost $1,800".  

I mean, I knew this wasn't going to be cheap but that sounded excessive.  I called the reputable guy and 2 of them were literally there in 20 minutes. We're talking a Saturday.  They said the same thing: can't do this until the morning. They also opened up the panel and said this won't pass code.  Why? Because there is no 200 amp circuit breaker to shut off the power to the entire house in case something happens.  Yea, that has never set well with me. So, to replace the can that the other guy wanted $1,800 for AND the entire circuit breaker panel and everything else?

$2,000. How much would the first guy have charged for that? 3k? 4?  And these people were great.  They showed up this morning and they got the entire setup installed by 1:00 pm. We're talking Sunday, people, not a weekday.  Awesome in my book.  I wasn't exactly happy about forking out that kind of money - I don't own this house - but selfishly, I need electricity on the same as everyone else.  But it wasn't all selfishness, I want the best for everyone in this situation.  House insurance may cover a portion of it, the lady of the house is going to investigate that.  

But, we have 2 upright freezers full of food, we have a couple k worth of food in all of our cold storage appliances. So, when it became apparent that we weren't going to have power for probably 24 hours, I went into action. Tried to get one of the generators to start, it kept starting and then dying. I kept trying until the battery was dead. Generator number 2?  It's a pull start and hadn't been fired up in many months either.  It took awhile and it choked quite  bit for quite a while, but I got it going.  I got all 4 fridges/freezers plugged in and that was it.  

It was immediately decided we were going to spend the night at a hotel, separate rooms of course, but yes.  We got packed, got the animals fed and left for a hotel 5 miles away.  This morning got up, got the free breakfast, dropped the 11 year old at church - he graduated from elementary school so now he is going to the student life center which is for his age up through high school. I didn't stay, coming back for the 11:00 am service.  We went to Applebee's after church.

Lousy service twice in a row. I told them if this is permanent, I will be taking my business to Chili's.  Similar in fare, prices a little higher, but good. The man across the aisle from us ordered a beer. Some 25 minutes later? No beer, he paid and left.  THAT kind of service.  

_________

Got busy with all kinda stuff. They got the electric done while I was sitting at Applebee's so I went home and started unplugging cords and turning off the generator and such.  That's all done and now doing other stuff such as laundry. And, of course, playing a few games.  

 Wednesday - late

The Peterbilt dealership passing the buck saying it's "alignment" issues and nothing that they did.  They "suspect" that the repair caused other issues to surface.  Whatever, I smell bs. 

What I know is I am NOT driving that thing under load until it's fixed.  I don't care what anyone says, it's dangerous and not worth the risk. A truck twisting like that is NOT an alignment issue. There MAY be an alignment problem, I don't know but that is not what's causing that issue.  

I can't believe I'm still going through this with this truck. .One thing after another after another.            

My manager called today and said he didn't know what was going to happen.  I don't either.  I don't know what's going on behind the scenes at my company at all.

But I can guess.  Not worth going into here, just some suspicions that may be totally off or right on.  

I'd like some cooler weather, please, totally changing the subject. PLEASE. Lol.  Not likely anytime soon. 

I am not going to write too much. I didn't work today, obviously, tomorrow is off as well and who knows when this will end?  Probably me finding a new job?  Sucks but that reality is slowly sinking in.  How long can I take off work? Quite a while, actually, but that means burning through savings.  Not ready to retire yet, I need all debt gone.

Well house debt I don't care, at least there's equity there and you can always sell off.  Housing prices over there have dropped significantly but I'm not underwater with the mortgage. 

I have not looked for a new job.  Nope.  I should be tho, there might be a gem drop in there some day and I won't see it if I'm not looking. Putting that on my daily list: comb through job openings.  

I bought some weed killer today at Lowe's while there getting new circuit breakers and some new keys made for the house.  I am going to spray that entire line along that trench, giant weeds grew up. No, maybe I should try to somehow get the bush hog over top of them. I could back the tractor up to the trench, that bush hog sticks off the back of it, I'm sure it would reach those weeds and tear them down.

THEN spray that stuff on there. 

You know, I could have filled up those 4 spots I was trying to get done easily by now. I get enough calls for long term.  

Sooo hot. I just hate it.  I'm not a young man anymore and laboring in the heat isn't my first, second or last choice of anything I want to do.

Sitting here making excuses......I could get help.....but I'd still have to be out there doing it lol.  

Time for bed.  

 Tuesday - afternoon

Well, I delivered the glue ingredient (it's not exactly glue, it's an ingredient they use to make it and then pipeline it off 30 miles away to make the product out of it) yesterday, no big deal there. 

But. 

The truck.  You hit the accelerator and the entire truck twists sideways to the right.  Let off the accelerator and it twists to the left.  Hit the brakes and it also twists to the left.  Number 1 it was very surprising at first.  I wasn't expecting that at all and I ended up in the shoulder or the right lane or contrary, the left lane several times. Not all the way over, but enough to be a bit scary actually.  I got it handled enough to make it to Crossett but as soon as I got there?

I am not loading this truck again.  I went into what I am guessing is wrong.  It went into the shop, they replaced the clutch and all of a sudden I now have this issue?  I'm guessing bad motor mounts, bad transmission mounts or maybe a u joint or carrier bearing.  

I went into it I should say with my company.  They finally found an actual diesel mechanic up there, allegedly pretty decent. It's not my decision where they want to take it but they asked if I wanted to bring it up there? NO.  Why not take it back to Peterbilt and let them go over their work? I think they didn't get something put together correctly.  They tore something up, they crossed threaded something, they didn't get alignment right, who knows but I'm at least for now putting this on them. 

Well, I contacted my manager about it - the initial contact was with the new mechanic and then the lady that deals with this kind of thing - but he wanted me to bring it to the shop.  Ok, but I'm bringing it up tomorrow, by the time I get there today the mechanic will be going home. 

It didn't stay that way tho.  The mechanic called back after the lady and corporate made a decision and said I need to take it back to Peterbilt. This went back and forth for a while but I finally just said - you discuss this with the manager and then get back to me the official decree as to where this truck is going to be taken to.

Note that I didn't want to take it to El Dorado.  Why? I'll end up staying at a hotel and although I do like that, I am helping out with kids here since the dad is gone - like permanently gone.  They did get back to me - take it to Peterbilt. Peterbilt argued with them on the phone telling them that it is an alignment problem. I laughed out loud when I heard that. This...is NOT... an alignment problem. If that were true, it would pull to the left or the right, it wouldn't pull both ways and the truck wouldn't be twisting.

It's called torsion pull - there are other descriptions as well but this one is adequate.  I drove clear over there and then the service manager started arguing with me.  I simply said this isn't an alignment issue. "Well we didn't do anything to the front end, we just replaced the clutch".  This guy must have thought I was ignorant about such things.  Umm, no sir, bad transmission mounts can definitely cause that to happen. "Are you accusing us of ...?"  I didn't wait, I'm not accusing you of anything.

But it's possible your mechanics made a mistake in reinstalling the transmission/drive train.  He was purposefully trying to make it appear that the shop would have no culpability in this at all.  Yeah, no.  If it isn't a problem they created, so beit, but I'm at least 60% leaning to the idea that they are.  He finally relented, oh yes and motor mounts can do that too!  All of a sudden, he knew what he was talking about.  No, he knew all the time, he was just playing the "it's not our fault" game. 

That's that. I left there in a Lyft - $99! but it's almost 50 miles so not really bad.  I'm not going to eat it anyway, the company will pay for it.  

Power issues at the park.  As of now, 4 50 amp breakers have gone out.  Like what?  These things are 3 years old and they all decided to take a dump? I'll guess the heat did them in since it's happened on both circuits, not just one.  I've got a man staying there who is a retired electrician, so he's been dealing with it, i'm going to give him money off his rent.  Only fair, he didn't have to do any of that. 

Weight loss.  I hit a snag.

Still doing keto - yes. I will be for quite a while.  But my weight started going back up! Hey now, wait a minute! I'm in ketosis!  I had to think a minute, gotta be too many calories.  Not enough to just be in ketosis, you still have to watch your caloric intake.  Wings. I've been eating a lot of them lately.  Totally keto friendly, not so much calorie friendly unless you're eating like 4 of them.  I looked it up - Chili's 8 count in buffalo sauce with ranch adds up to 1,300 calories! Yikes.  

So, getting off the wings and saving that for an occasional thing only.  Too much fat anyway, not good for cholesterol levels.  I had a santa fe chicken salad instead, no croutons or tortilla strips and didn't eat much of the excessive tomatoes they put in it.  

Walaah, weight started coming back down this morning.  At 217 pounds, I should be 4 or 5 pounds lower than this like now. Just going to have to pay more attention to calorie counts along with carb counts. 

It's 1:30 and I've heard nothing about the truck.  They didn't even know if they would be able to get to it today, but whenver they do get to it, I doubt it's going to take long to fix it if it's a mount or something they screwed up.  

As for the other driver getting ahead of me getting loaded 2 days ago, my manager called me to discuss it. Yup ,I was sitting there waiting over an hour, as soon as this other driver showed up? They called him right in.  I ended up sitting at that plant 6 hours. He didn't agree with it saying it was a decision the plant must have made, he didn't ask them to do it.  I believe him, but now that I think about it, I do wonder if the driver didn't call them and ask them to do that?  He's doing a constant back and forth run, no stopping except for 10 hour required breaks.  

I forgot to ask the plant employee what happened. But that's my guess.  

Finally? I am going to make an appointment to see the ophthalmologist. I'm having weird things going on in my left eye.  I'm guessing the cataracts are getting worse and likely at some point I'm going to have to have surgery. If I thought I could handle it, I'd just do a 21 day fast and see if that works. I know, you think I'm crazy about all this fasting.  But, I have read several accounts over the decades of people who went on an extended fast - and none of them that I recall were doing it for their vision - who noted that after day 21, their vision cleared up to the point of 20/20.  

Is this imagined or real? Well, I believe in God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit so I say it's definitely possible.  Jesus healed a lot of people of things that were impossible at the time to heal and even now certain things couldn't be healed by medicine.  Certainly never heard of a doctor raising a man from the dead who has been dead for some time.  

I just missed a call from the manager. As much as I could just sit around not driving trucks for another 16 days, the bills don't like it much, so I'll call him back and find out what he wants.  If he thinks I''m going up there to get a loaner truck? Yeah.  No.  Well, maybe.  I really can't see this truck taking that long to get fixed. 

 Sunday - The Eternal Day

Today was the beginning of the second Ennis trip. I left out of the yard with the truck at 7:20 am, I just now got home. It's 8:10 PM. 

What happened? Well, this is what happened. I showed up in Crossett, called the control room, they said the loader was out doing tests but he'd get right back to me.  

An hour and 10 minutes passed and then another one of our trucks came in, of whom they took in right away. He was in the loading bay for hours.  I don't know what took them so long to load him, but I was already fuming.  

I figured out what was happening before i found out officially. The dude delivered this morning, came all the way back, loading and going back in the morning.  This guy is brand new to the system, like most all of the new drivers, they give these people special privilege for a while until they get sick of me making comments that go from please to why the hell do I have to tolerate this shit from this company? 

Oh yes, I've got into pissing matches with the manager in the past.  He started it, I was already irritated at the time so I dished it right back to him.  There is one thing that is true of me at this point in time: I don't give two rat's asses whether I continue to work there or not.  If they want to start stuff with me, they are going to get an earful.  

And then tomorrow! They had me unloading at 4:00 pm!  No. I contacted dispatch and they said I could "show up earlier" if I wanted to.  How much earlier? Didn't get a reply for awhile but finally got: What time do you want to be there? EARLY.  Well, you can show up at 10:00 am and that should work. 

I can be home by 2 if I'm there at 10. 2ish I should say. Nothing like getting home at 8:00 pm. 

And then the 11 year old. I pulled into the driveway and he was teary eyed and quite emotional.  He informed me that he had just been informed that his parents are getting divorced.  He didn't know how to handle it. I just said let it all out, there is nothing wrong with getting your emotions out and starting that process, for to him, it's likely a grief process.

I'll try my best to help him through it but in the end he's just going to have to go through that process and eventually get better.  

_________

Got busy with things and now it's already time to go to bed.  It feels like I just got home from work.  Well whatever, tomorrow shouldn't be near as long of a day and after tomorrow, I fully expect to be back on Gurdon runs and if not, there is going to be a conversation about it.  

I could go into the divorce stuff, but it's pretty personal stuff on their part and I won't go there for their sake.  I don't know when they are going to do it, that hasn't been announced yet.  I don't think they're in a big hurry, I have no idea if there are going to be custody issues, who pays who what issues, whatever.  Divorce can get pretty ugly, we all know. Let's hope and pray that at least it can be a smoother transition than the ones I have seen and experienced.