OH! MI SPATULA! =P

So lets see, what to write about tonight. ;) Let me start first with the title. I bet some of you read that title and thought "da fuq?" lol! ;) Well, it was a saying me and my friend James did in high school when we were making a spanish video. We had an assignment where we had to demonstrate our knowledge of the spanish language, and so what James and I did, we took this stuffed toy that looked like a chicken, and a stuffed bear that looked like these creatures that I think were from Starwars.

We had a spatula tied to the arm of the teddy bear, and we had this cooking pot, and the stuffed chicken in the pot, and the bear next to it with the spatula in the pot, and we started to record the video, and I was making the bear swirl around in circles like he was stiring, and we were having the bear and another bear talk in spanish. Then james said something, and I responded in a spanish remark that was basically a smart ass remark, and using his bear, james grabbed the spatula and threw it, and I put the bear's hands on his face in shock and went "OH! MI SPATULA!" Doesnt seem too funny now, but back then, we watched the video over and over again and we couldnt stop laughing. I guess when you're a high schooler, some things might be hilarious, but later on in life, its like "yeah that was funny, but oh well!"

So there you have it, thats the reason behind the title tonight. Today when I logged on blogger, I looked at the views of my blog, and I guess I have had at least a few views, so I'm not just talking to myself like I thought, so that motivated me a lil bit more to write. I can sit around and talk to myself without posting publicly, so its nice to know that I've had a few views. So anyway, This morning I got Lex up for school, didnt walk down to the bus with her this time, but then went back to bed. Erin got up for her Orientation at 9, and she then started her normal shift at noon. When I got up, Zoe and I came downstairs and we had breakfast. Erin was able to come home briefly between orientation and her normal shift, so that was nice to see her. Our food stamps had come through today officially, so when she came home, she had gotten some groceries, and surprised Zoe with a lunchable.

So then while Zoe was watching a show on netflix, I got on the phone and called Sneider, and got connected with the recruiter I had spoken with about a month ago. Got him right away, and after talking to him for a few minutes, he recognized who i was. I had explained i was with england, and a few other things, and he goes "Oh! I remember you! You had some very specific questions!" So we talked for a few, but he had a meeting for lunch he had to go to, and so he was like "can I give you a call back later this afternoon?" I was like "yup, sounds good" and he was like "what are you doing today?" I was like "just here with my youngest because my oldest is at school and my wife is at work, so I'm free all day." So he said "i'll call you around 3."

So just after getting off the phone with Tim from Sneider, Marten transportation called, and the lady I had spoken with the day before yesterday was like "I was just calling to tell you that your application has been approved and wanted to know when you want to attend orientation." I was like "now you say that my application has been approved, but two of the other companies that said I was good to go, then turned around and said my application had been rejected because of the fact that I had been discharged from JB hunt." She was like "no, since you've said it was only because of the road test, there should be no other problems. We could get you on an amtrak sunday and have you at orientation on monday." I figured, I wanted to talk to tim from sneider first so I was like "can I talk to you tomorrow? I want to discuss it with my wife." She was like "thats perfectly fine."

So 3pm rolled around and Tim called back. We talked for like, 45 minutes. He was running checks on me while we were talking, I was asking him any additional questions that I had, and finding out about how the orientation would go, etc. I had explained the issue with jb hunt, and he explained that I could do the orientation 1 of 2 ways. I could basically do it the "experienced" way, like i did with jb hunt, which would have bene basically I get road tested on day one, and its rushed, or he could put me in there as needing a bit of longer training, which would basically mean its like 3 weeks of training and then 3 days home, then starting my 6 days out, and 3 days home schedule. And apparently I'd get paied $80 per day, and so like my first week i'd get paid for 4 days, then 7 days the 2nd week, then 6 days the 3rd, and so all in all, not a bad deal, plus with sneider, because i'm a veteran, I can use my GI bill to get paid an additional $1,000 per month on top of what I will be making with sneider. So although I'd like to start earlier like i would with marten, I like the job option with sneider better, and after talking with Tim for a while, and getting all stuff checked that he was looking up, and having no additional questions, he was like "Sounds great, well Chris I'd like to officially offer you a conditional offer of employment. Here's the number to the medical group. When you get off the phone with me, give them a call immediately and get that started, and then we will go from there. I will call you again early next week as we get closer, because you'll be traveling on the 17th and starting training on the 18th." I was like "Sounds great! I look forward to moving forward" He was like "and congratulations about the offer of employment. Have a wonderful rest of your day and talk to you soon."

So while i was talking to him, I was making sure to write everything down. I can verbally tell erin about stuff, but its much easier if she can look at it and see the information. So all in all, not too bad. Then I emailed our landlord and explained the falling through of the jb hunt job, and that I already have another job offer, but that it doesnt start till the 18th, and that we are scrambling to get something figured out so that we can catch up on rent with her. Then I got on the phone to Verizon *not sure why i had put it off, but i just was not motivated to make the phone calls*. I explained the job situation, and after talking to them for a while, was able to get our service secured till the end of this month. Our electric is ok I believe because we made the past due payment, but our cells havent been paid on in a while because when I was working with CR England, I wasnt making anything the past month, and so we have just fallen further behind. So hopefully once I start working for sneider, hopefully we can start to slowly catch back up. I'd like to be fully caught up before we get our taxes so we dont have to use a huge chunk to catch up on bills like we did last year. That'll make our taxes be a lil bit more freed up than they were. I think we went through like $3,000 last year just with catching up on our electric bill and cell phones and stuff like that.

So, erin had a really long day, so by 10:30, she was ready to go upstairs to go to bed. I would have gone up too, but erin's work clothes were in the washer, so I wanted to at least stay up till they could be put in the dryer. Had the netflix on for a bit while I started doing my blog entry *after I cleaned up the counter in the kitchen really quick first and put water in the baking dish to soak*. Shoulda been up to bed 30 minutes to an hour ago, but I kept getting distracted. Fun times.

So I guess its time to bring this entry to a close. So in conclusion, erin rented, I think it was called "Silent House" tonight. Was interesting. Basically this gal and her dad were at this old house that wasnt being lived in anymore, fixing some stuff up, packing stuff up, and getting it ready to sell. Only thing was, there was no electricity in the house, and so they were using lanterns, and stuff like that. This gal started hearing things, and so her dad went off to check, and then she heard a loud crash and she found her dad unconcious and bloody. she kept seeing some guy walking around the house, like he was looking for her, but she kept hiding. She had trouble getting out of the houes because there were padlocks on most the doors, but she finally got out. She ran down the street and she ran into her uncle who was coming back to the house to help again, and she told him there was someone in the house, and that her dad was hurt, and he went with her back to the house, and they walked around the house. Her dad was gone, and someone knocked out her uncle and dragged him down to the main floor. Then suddenly, there was this girl there talking to her, and she herself was the one dragging her uncle into the room, and she looked at the girl and goes "did i?" and the girl goes "sarah, you dont remember. you still have holes in your memory."

She found her dad, and out of the blue, she looked at him and goes "shhh, be quiet now, you dont want to wake mommy up. if you wake mommy up, I will have to punish you." Her dad was like "sarah, you're imagining things, you're seeing people that arent there, imagining things that didnt happen, please let me go." So she lets him go, and he knocked her down, takes off his belt, and starts wipping her with it. Her uncle goes "John leave her alone!" and her dad goes "peter you shut up and watch, enjoy the show like you always did." Her uncle holds up a pair of scissors and goes "LEAVE HER ALONE!" and her dad goes "are you serious?" and kicks the scissors out of his hand, but as he turns around, sarah knocks him out with a sledge hammer and then beats him bloody, killing him with it. She then starts to move with the hammer towards her uncle and peter is like "oh god Sarah, please, i'm sorry, please, I know it was wrong, I know i should have stopped if, i shouldnt have let it happen. I'm sorry, sarah pleas!" and right as you expect the hammer to hit him, she dropped it to the ground, and walks out of the house.

Apparently all this stuff she was seeing, was memories she experienced but had pushed those memories deep so she actually didnt consiously remember the stuff that happened, but she had been the one who attacked her uncle and dad. Other than that, we watched the last few available shows of greys anatomy on netflix. My gosh that was a tear jerker! These doctors were on this plane going somewhere to represent their hospital, and the plane crashed. Some people I think were missing, and merideth's sister was pinned under a large piece of the plane and died, and others were seriously injured, and everyone back home who is waiting for these doctors to get back has no idea what has happened, or that some have died, and by the end of the episode, there are voicemessages basically saying "their plane never arrived,and its been a while and I'm starting to get very concerned." Basically, it ended like that with making you look forward to the new season when we will see everything that happens after that.

So, yes I know that conclusion was pretty long, but like i said a while back, I'm trying to allow myself just to write and write, and maybe I can start doing that with my book again some day soon and get to a point where I actually finish the book. Maybe I will make it a best seller and not have to work a regular job and still be financially free. Who knows. Hey, a guy can dream right? its not entirely impossible. In fact, I know that its very possible. I just have to read to re-acquaint myself with where I was going, get back on the same page with myself so to speak, and just push forward. To really close off this entry, the job with sneider, I will eventually need a car myself because I'll have a sleeper cab truck for my 6 days out, but then I will have to leave the truck at the depot when I'm going for my 3 days at home. Basically, I will have to commute between home and where'ever my home base is, because there will be I believe '3' of us drivers rotating out of the truck. That'll be interesting, but hey, it'll be a decent job, so I'm going for it. But although having to eventually get a 2nd household vehicle will be a pain, being home for 3 days after less than a week out, that will be cool. So anyway, I'm going to end with that. I hope you all are well. Take care, God bless, and talk to you again soon. Time to head to bed! Gotta get up in 6 hours or so to get ally up for school *but its ok because I will then climb right back in to bed. She's not getting herself up just yet, and we cant risk her missing the bus since she cant exactly walk to school*. So anyway, later all!

C

Humidity Sucks!

Hey all. You know something? I think when I had one or two entries at xanga that got like 80 visits in one day, and otherwise on other days i might have had 10 visits, it made coming online on my xanga blog and posting daily very easy because I knew I wasnt for the most part just talking to myself. Here on the other hand, I dont think this blog is looked at too often. I know i'm connected with Erin and Melissa, but for the most part it might as well just be Erin because who knows if melissa and i will ever talk again. Stuff happened in the past apparently where we both were going through a difficult time, and then like, 2 months ago, we started talking again, and then when Ash and I fell out, i noticed that Melissa hadnt been responding to any of my texts for about 2 weeks prior to that, so apparently I pissed her off again or whatever. Who knows. Thats one thing I love about Erin. She and I will talk about things when there are things bothering us.

Thats the way it should be. Where as the way some people now-a-days, when they get upset about something, whether someone did something deliberately or by accident, or didnt do anything at all, sometimes people will just stop talking. I know they say "when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me, which when you put together, spells out the word 'assume'. However, my gut feeling has usually been pretty spot on. I would love to think sometimes that I'm just being negative, but there have been too many times with friends and loss of friends for this or that reason, where we went from talking pretty often, to silence, or just very rare talking, and so I would end up being like "is everything ok? did I do something to upset you or whatever?" and sometimes I will be told "no, we're good." And sometimes it was that we were good, but something eles had pissed them off and they just didnt want to take it out on me or anyone else. Then there have been even more occasions where when I asked about it, they immediately said "no, we're not good," to which I try to find out just what exactly happened that made us not good. The other instance would be when they originally said "no, we're good, dont worry," only to come back hours later or the next day and be like "actually, there is something bothering me."

I have always believed the saying "gut instincts are often correct." I cant say that is true for everyone, but it has definitely been true for me. Some people obviously just worry no matter what, or are constantly asking friends "what did I do wrong?" Where as, I have asked that in the past when things changed pretty drastically like one day we chatted pretty often for the past month, and then suddenly there was silence and non-responsiveness, and so my gut told me "something is up, they are never this quiet unless something is bothering them". So yeah.

So, on a different topic *sorry, I was rambling, but I guess I allow myself to ramble when I write at times because my main goal when I come on here to do a blog entry, is to write and write. Will it all make sense? Probably not. Will it all be puppies and rainbows? Heck no! In fact, depending on if I ever get any other visitors or followers here on blogger, *which i'm sure eventually i might*, well when that happens, i may even piss people off because my opinion on things, or whatever.

So, lets see, let me think of a random topic that I can ramble or rant on about. Lets talk about the current presidential campain going on. Who are you for? Why? What draws you to that candidate? Would you like to know where I stand? Well tough! I'm going to tell you anyway. HA! ;)

So, my views are like this. I actually am a supporter of President Obama. This does not mean that I am not open to someone else as president. In fact, I did like a few of the things that VP Candidate Ryan talked about. For example, I heard he suggested for social security, that instead of the way the government does that currently, which from my understanding, our money comes out of our checks, and goes into an account with the government, an the government borrows against that, so from what i've heard, there is this metaphorical box where our social security should be saved, but instead there are I-OWE-YOU's in there. Now, is this true? I have no idea. Thats one issue I have with these elections is one side tries to bash the other side, and then you have people you know in person, or on facebook that will bash obama for this or whatever, and say he's the cause of this or that, and its all just annoying because other than hearing someone talk about something, or read something that was printed, how can anyone say that something that is said is definitely fact.

I don't think its fair to say that President Obama is the cause of all the current problems we have with the country or government, and yet say that they thought Bush was a great president. Did I support Bush? Yes I did, when he first ran, and I did vote for him when he ran for a 2nd term, but I wasnt as big of a supporter during his 2nd term. More views are, yes there are things like the national debt is a larger amount, and that sucks, and yes its not what President Obama said he would fix. Is that even something that he "Can" fix? I think thats a problem that we all as a country would need to come up with a way and work together to get that debt down. One man, whether he's the leader of the free world, or some common person on the street, one man can not fix a problem like that on his own, but not especially in one term. I think that the president has done other things he said he would do. For example, he has withdrawn troops out of Iraq, and tried to bring some of our troops home. I've heard he has downsized the military, but I don't know if this is fact or not. Like i said, this is something that i see as accusations that is simply that. Show me proof. Not just, "this news paper said this" or "this person said that" or "i've heard this." If you cant proof to me what you are claiming, then dont bother.

Its just like movie reviews! *lol* yes I'm rambling and i've just taken a fork in the road. You know when you come to a fork, you go on a straight road and you come to a point where it will either go left, or right? Well, thats what I have just done. I was going down the path of political argument, and I just forked off a different direction to talk about movie reviews. Have you ever wanted to go see a movie, but someone else either saw it, or they read the review about the movie like, 2 thumbs down or whatever, and so they told you "dont waste your money, i heard it got bad reviews" or "I saw that and I thought it was really bad," yet you saw the ads for it, and you thought it looked like it'd be a really good movie, and you really wanted to see it, yet now after they told you what they heard, or what they thought, suddenly you were thinking about whether you really wanted to go see it? Well, from personal experience, I have never let other's opinions about movies I wanted to see make me not want to see it.

I figure, you are your best judge of whether you will like something or not, so the way I think about it is this. So what if it got bad reviews, or so what if a friend of yours didnt like it. So what if they heard it was horribly shot. If you wanted to see it before you talked to them, then you should still go see the movie! Cmon now! Its like restaurants! *hahah! yup, another fork, no pun intended*. I have restaurants that I love, and some people I have known, thought those same restaurants were crap. Or I've decided to try out restaurants even though others said that they were not very good. Sometimes I ended up thinking that the restaurant was really good. Other times I found out that the advice of my friends was accurate. One example was when I was working for Schwans in Iowa. I had one day on my route that I was in the town where I lived. On that day, sometimes me and the other drivers that were all in clinton that day would call eachother and try to arrange to meet up for lunch. There was this new restaurant that had opened up, called DJ's Rib Shack. I had never eaten there, but one of the days I was in clinton, my co-worker, Larry, called and said he wanted to try the rib shack. I was like "i'll try anything once," and so we went there.

It was me, him, and another schwans man, and larry got bbq ribs, and he thought the restaurant was he thought it was the greatest. I ordered fried catfish, thinking "fillet" or something like that. Nope, I got a whole freakin cat fish, head and all, that had literally been fried. When they put the plate in front of me, I went "you're shitting me right?" Larry was like "what you've never had it like that?" I was like "noooooo. I mean, with the head not even cut off?" I couldnt eat it. I literally went up to the counter, paid for my meal, and left. I went down the street to caseys and got 2 slices of pizza. I could have very easily refused to pay for my meal since it was completely unusual compared to what I was thinking it would be. But, I did the right thing i think by paying for it.

But on the flip side, so there was the rib shack which I hated, and Larry loved. The next time through clinton, he called and asked where I wanted to go to eat and I said lets go to the Riverside Restaurant. Erin and the girls met me there, and larry then met us there. We all enjoyed our meals except Larry. Me, erin, and the girls ordered regular meals, and Larry must have thought that because he was over 60, that he should order off the "senior" section. But when he did, when we left, he said he would never go there again because he felt like there was hardly anything in his meal. I was like "well you got the senior meal, those are smaller, what did you expect?" LOL! So, that is another point, that some people will have their opinion about things like that, like restaurants, types of food in general, movies, or presidential candidates, and it is up for each one of us to make the best decision we can, not based off of what others say or think, but off of what we have been able to find out about the issues or whatever.

So, in conclusion, today was ally's first day of school, and from what she told us, it went well. Got her up this morning, walked down to the bus stop with her, then came back right after, and went back to bed. Erin got up and headed to work *i was tired and figured I would just let her go ahead and drive today since the car has been cooperating* Zoe came in eventually and she went back to sleep laying beside me, and every half hour for about 2 hours, she would wake up and wake me up, and finally i was like "why dont you go put a movie on in the kid room?" and she did. Every so often, she would come up and wake me up or whatever. I couldnt help it, and I couldnt explain it. I just, was wiped out, and didnt want to get up. Every time I woke up it was the feeling of "ohhh man.. gawd i'm so tired! I just want to go back to sleep!" Probably by like 10:45 or so, she had come up again, and I forced myself to get up. I didnt "want" to, get up, but I forced myself to get up. I'm not sure what it is. Obviously, even though I've been home since leaving england, I havent exactly been "on vacation." I wish. When we can afford to, that'll be really nice, go somewhere for two weeks and not have to wake up at a specific time, and just take it easy an relax. Thats like when we went to chicago, only that trip wasnt long enough. Was a really nice 4 day weekend, and we had a blast, but like i said, wasnt long enough. It flew by way too fast. So, to close this entry out, what do I plan for and look forward to? A family vacation! Of course that will be after we get all our finances in order. Thats the sad thing is even as a truck driver, it wasnt like a vacation although I was in new places all the time. The problem was, yes i was there, but I was working, and plus it wasnt like i could afford to do anything for fun most times, so yeah, we need a REAL vacation. ;) So on that note, hope you guys are all having a good night. Talk to you again soon, God bless!

C

Happy Labor Day!

Hello all! Hope you're all doing well. Today has been slightly uneventful. Woke up and took Erin to work, came back here, and layed back down for like an hour. Didnt go to sleep or whatever, but just layed there. It was nice. I wouldnt have minded going to sleep. Heck, when I finally got to bed last night, I had mentioned to erin that since the car has been cooperating lately, that maybe she would be fine to drive to work this morning without me having to get up.

However, when her alarm went off this morning, i had been having a very unusual and slightly disturbing dream, so I thought wtheck and went ahead and drove her to work this morning. Plus I figured, didnt want to let Ally to sleep too late because she officially starts school tomorrow morning! She's so excited *not really*.

So, she has to get her bookbag together and put out an outfit for tomorrow. Then all we have to do in the morning is either walk down with her, or watch her walk to the bus stop just down the street. The school is like, 2 or 3 mile away or so *not too far* Pretty nice school. I never went to middle school myself. I went straight rural school that went all the way to 8th grade, then I started highschool in 9th grade. Other kids though, like ally is doing, went from 5th, to middle school in 6th, 7th, and 8th, and then to high school.

Gah! You know what sucks? Its cool outside yet its too warm inside. Yes it nice to not run the ac, but at the same time, if i'm not in front of a fan, I'm finding myself sweating. Its like, cmon! Thats why i cant wait for the cooler months because its so much easier to warm up than it is to cool down, especially for me because I'm naturally a heater. So, currently, being that today is labor day, lots of places are closed including potential employers, so of course, its been all about putting in applications and playing the waiting game. So, for the time being, i'ms till between jobs. I'm hopeful that it will change soon, being that I am a cdl holder/truck driver, but one thing I did differently with the recent applications was I didnt say a word about jb hunt. I figure, jb hunt saying I was discharged even though i technically didnt work for them, had a negative impact on usa trucking and usx so I figured, they apparently are one of thoes employers that I approach with the mind set of "i didnt really work for them much, so I dont even list them on my resume or experience sheet."

Theres a job back in clinton that is like that, It was called DM Services. Basically it was a call center where you could either be an inbound representative, or an outbound collections, and lucky me, I got hired for collections. When the manager interviewed me, she asked me which one I'd prefer, if I would prefer inbound or outbound, and I actually said "i'd prefer inbound honestly because i'm not really a huge fan of outbound or collections." She then responded with "well I'd like to offer you an outbound collections position." I was like "there's no chance of an inbound position?" She was like "it might be possible down the road, but for now, this is what I'm offering." I was like "well I need a job, so I will accept." That job was fun *sarcasm*. Basically it consisted of calling people one after the other who's accounts were past due, and I was calling to get a payment over the phone, or a promise to pay.

I went through 1 week of training, and then I hit the floor to full force. The first week or two of being on my own wasnt too bad. I think it was kind of like working for metro pcs call center. It seemed great for a little while because I was thinking "commissions!" However, after a little while, approximately 2 weeks, the being cussed at on the phone finally started to bug me, and so I had been applying around to local places, was leaning towards getting a security job, and so I got an interview with Ashford University in their call center, and an interview at the casino for overnight security *more like, overnight monitor watching*. I first had the interview with ashford and I had a good feeling about that one. I really wanted to work there, but they scheduled a 2nd interview. Then I interviewed at the casino, and the guy interviewing me offered me the job unofficially. He basically said that they had to run their checks, and then if everything came back ok, that I would get a call either way.

So by noon the next day, I received a call from the casino, officially offering me the job. I accepted and they scheduled me to come in to fill out the remaining paperwork and schedule orientation. I didnt want to turn the job down, but I really wanted to give ashford a chance to call and hire me. When I came in to fill out the paperwork, I asked if I could take two days before finishing the process and that i wanted to wait to see if I received a phone call. I know now that i should have just taken the position since it came up first, and rolled with it. Who knows where I would have ended up job wise if I worked there. I may or may not have worked for schwans. Their starting pay was like, 9.50 starting with a bump to 11 after 90 days. Not a bad position. Of course, I was trying to work them both an what ended up happening was, I thought I had a job offer set in stone, so I gave my two week notice at DM services, and then it came time to quit, and I didnt get the ashford job, and so I called the casino back again and they decided to go with someone else because the guy that interviewed me was upset that I was still looking. I was like "i just needed two days, but I was accepting your offer." So, then suddenly I had quit my job, and both potential jobs had fallen through, so i was at square one. I guess thats kind of where I'm at now in a way.

Quit CR england to take the job with jb hunt, which fell through, then had two other interested companies, that after hearing i was discharged from orientation, decided they werent going to move forward with me driving for them. Meh, whatever. So I am just pushing forward right now. Not much else that can be done! I just have to trust in God and have faith that everything will be fine. Its hard, because its so much easier to be down when things dont seem to be working out. Its much easier to think "Why?! Why me? Why are things so screwed up?" But that wouldnt solve anything. So, I recently was reading this free book from this pastor, Dr. Tony Evans, called Sacred Sex. You should look him up, hear his sermons, and order your free copy. Basically this book is all about how you should save yourself for marriage, and when you are married, how you should watch how you act, what you look at, etc. Very good info. I'm not going to go into it too much, because I would rather you ordered it for yourself and checked it out. It is 100% free, they ship it to you for free also. Thats why when I saw the post about this on facebook, i thought "there's nothing to lose because I'm not paying anything for it, so i might as well read it."

Small book too, was about 70 pages. I read the last 35 pages today, and then i handed the book to Erin and was like "i've already read it, you should too. :)" I'm not sure if she will, but hey, at least she now has the option. After reading the last of that book by dr tony evans, I read a bit in my bible. After that, logged online on my class and did my bio post. Today is day one of the class. So I have 9 weeks of this class and then my last class to get my associates degree will be a retake of algebra. Not looking forward to that, but maybe I will fight hard because I will know that all i have to do is successfully pass that class in order to have my degree. So close i can almost taste it! Although, if the last class was like my last 4 or 5 classes, I would know that my degree would be a slam dunk, but I dont think its set in stone because I took algebra twice and failed both times, and so I'm hoping I can pass it this time. We'll see! Again, gotta trust and have faith.

So in conclusion, today Erin and I watched the Haunting at Whaley house. That was pretty good. Apparently its a real haunted house. While we were watching, Erin looked them up online on her phone to see that it was in fact real. So other than that, we have to get ally to bed in the next hour or less, and probably zoe too shortly after that. Dont want her to go to bed too early because she then wakes up at like 7 and wants breakfast and erin and i are like "ugh, zoe please go back to bed" and she's like "no the sun's up! its sunny day outside! i need to get my wakeup clothes on!" What can I say? I'm not a morning person. Although while driving for England, yes there were times that I had to get up at OHDarkThirty, being anytime between 1am and 4 am, and would take off for my drive shift. Sooooo, yeah, I'd almost prefer 'that' compared to get up at 7 or 8 am. So on that note, I will call that it for tonight. I hope you all are well! GOd bless! And talk to you again soon!

C

PS: I'm really hoping to be able to work something out with verizon and see if we can delay us being suspended for at least the next few weeks. thats my big worry right now because, although I know we can be ok without the web, I dont want to take a leave of absense from school, and if I cant get online, I'm SOL(that means shit out of luck). So, again, I guess I just gotta trust and have faith that somehow, some way, God willing, that everything will work out. I read something posted by Dr Tony Evans on facebook that basically said, your level of worry and anxiety is the same as your level of, or rather, lack of trust and faith in God. That's so true. Its hard for me though, but I'm trying. Back when I was on the road, in the days of daily oovoo webcam chats with friends and stuff, it was easier for me to not let the negative things worry me to death, but ever since that changed, i have felt more solo on that, and it has been much harder to keep focused.

PSS! Last night after I applied with Marten Trucking, I tried to search online for how I could find out how i could be a civilian truck driver for the government overseas, and I had some issues finding actual sites. I found quite a few postings where people talked about driving over seas, like blogs and what not, but no actual "this company hires civilian government drivers to drive in iraq! Apply now!" So, yeah, nothing has come of that yet. Ash if you make your way to this blog and that worries you, I'm sorry, I dont like the idea either, but you could say I'd do it for the money because of how things are really tight right now and I have to do "something." That reminds me, when I log off here, i have to check and make sure that this blog is open so that people dont "have" to be registered to view. Obviously I'm open to comments and stuff, but hey, right now I have erin as a follower, and melissa as a follower *although melissa and i arent exactly talking anymore*. So, on that note, catch ya'll later!

a nice sunday so far

Hello all. It's so much different posting here than on xanga, but hey, i'm glad i at least still have a blog to post in. If I'm not let back on my xanga account, then at least I'm here. :)

So up above are a few of the photos I posted online recently that I am reposting here. There are others, but apparently they were posted via my phone and so I dont have a copy of those on my computer just yet, but I will see what I can do to get a copy posted on here.

So anyway, this morning church service was really nice. Since we are in the tail end of summer, the humidity is still a factor, and its pretty warm in the church. They had the windows open, and fans going, but i'm a natural heater, so even if its like 78 degrees with a slight drizzle making it feel cooler, inside the building its still muggy. But I didnt feel too bad because the pastor up in front doing the sermon, you could see that he had sweat on his head as well. Felt bad for him in a way, because I dont like being hot myself.

It definitely made it worse a bit because I was tired, and so then you add in the heat, and I was a bit top heavy. Although, our church service isnt too bad. I remember going to churches in the past where when the pastor would do his sermon, it'd seem like the sermon took 2 hours to get through. I dont mind sermons at all. In fact, I usually enjoy them because I enjoy anything that helps me to draw closer to God. When you're tired, and then hot on top of that, it can feel like it drags on. It didnt feel that way today. I cant tell you what the sermon was about right now, but i'm sure thats cuz i'm tired.

So we got home from church, and watched a few episodes of supernatural, then we watched Jumangi, and now we have fern gully playing. Ally heated up the vetos for her and zoe for lunch. Ally's veto was a can of pork and beans *she loves that stuff*, and zoe's was a can of spagetti o's. I grilled some brats. Other than that, just kinda hanging out. I do have to get on my school sometime today and do my last assignment for this current class. I start my next class tomorrow. I have to call verizon and see if they will not suspend us for a lil while longer because they are how I have been getting online, and if they suspend us, we will not have cell phone service, and no service will mean no internet as well, which will mean no netflix and i wont be able to get online to do my school. Sooo, i'm giving it all to God and having faith that everything will work out. Otherwise I would be completely stressed out and freaking out because of worrying how things will work out. I just need to have faith and trust. Since its the holiday weekend, I wouldnt reach anyone or get a call back from anyone driving job wise until probably on tuesday.

So now I will begin to close this entry up. *hopefully I'm not inadvertantly breaking rules or whatever here on blogger. Something makes me think though that blogger isnt as nitpicky as xanga might be. Like i mentioned before, to my knowledge, I hadnt done anything that was against the rules, and I even read over the rules and stuff after I was shut down to see what i might have done, and I couldnt pick up anything out that I did that the rules prohibited, so oh well!*

So in conclusion, not much planned for today except hanging out, homework, etc. Other than that, no other plans except to perhaps read some of my bible, and maybe play some mario bros on my DS. ;) I dont know if any of you have played that, or played mario bros on the wii, but they are basically the same type of game *just slightly different versions*, and when I play the mario bros on the wii, I do half way decent. I'm ok at the game. Getting better, but I still struggle quite a bit compared to when I play mario bros on my ds. On the ds, I just deleted one of the files and restarted from the beginning, and I played for like, an hour and a half and I'm already in world 3, with like, 35 lives so far. I dont remember ever having that high of a number of lives in the past. Do I die? Yeah, of course, i'm not perfect. But I am like flying through the game. Fun times! In fact, since me, erin, and Ally all have a ds, I wanted to see if getting the same game for both erin and ally's ds, if we each had the game cartridge for mario bros in our ds, if we could play team with mario an luigi. So I went with the girls to Game Stop, and I talked to the guy running the counter there, and basically found out from him that even with multiple cartridges, that it wouldnt let you play team with mario and luigi but you can play the mini games. I was like "i can do that with the wireless download." I dunno, Now that I think about it, maybe I will do a web search to see if the guy was giving me correct information because I coulda sworn that i had been told a while back that you could use multiple cartridges and play team play, but I guess I will find out. Who knows. So anyway, on that note, I will call that it for this entry. I hope you all are well, and I will talk to you all again soon! God bless!

C

hm, thats quite interesting

Sorry ya'll, I know i havent been here on this blog for a bit because I've been posting on my other one. To my knowledge, I havent one anything against the rules *unless posting links to my previous network marketing business was against the rules**or unless posting movie quotes as my title and stuff was against the rules or something*, but otherwise, I cant think of anything else I did wrong.

However, Erin went to get on to see my blog this morning and she got the message "your xanga has been shut down for some reason for violation of the rules" i was like "what?!" So, of course, I cant even log onto my site, so I emailed customer service. You would think, that they coulda contacted me to tell me if i did something wrong so I could fix it. Nope, not at all. THey simply shut me down. So I emailed hoping that it wasnt all lost, but if it is, then I will probably stick to posting over here. I dont like that I can be shut down for something and have never received any warnings or whatever. How hard would it be for a site to message you and say "hey, this one post, this one thing you mentioned, or this title you posted, you shouldnt have posted because its against the rules. If you want to keep your site open, you should delete it immediately" I woulda been like "ok! I'll do that!" But nope, just, like i said, one day there, the next day i'm shut down. So like i said, i'm hopeful that i didnt lose everything, but i spose if i did, oh well, there might not be anything that can be done about it.

At least I copied and pasted "some" of the blog entries i posted on there over to here, but the last week or so i know i havent, and that sucks because I did a lot of posting over the past week, but hey, you win sometimes and sometimes you lose. Tis a part of life!

I will definitely say that I wonder if posting movie quotes can be considered copywrite infringement, i wouldnt think so, but the one entry i did a few days back where i posted a movie quote from dr who, instead of the usual 5-15 hits I usually have on any of my entries, that entry i had almost 100 in like 2 days and my site isnt connected to that many people, so i have no idea. Oh well! Maybe I will hear a response back from them and will be allowed to fix it, otherwise I will just stay here. If thats the case, i will just take the other site as a loss and go from there. So anyway, be on the look out for more posts here now most likely ;) *although currently i think i only have 2 followers*. So take care! God bless! and talk to you again soon!

PS! I will try to post pics

blogs from the last few days copied and pasted over :)

Friday, August 17, 2012

good to be home
Hey everyone. Yup, I'm officially home. Gosh I was wiped out when I got home. I felt half way decent when getting off the bus. I grabbed my carry on bag, got off the bus, got my suitcase *did I mention that my suitcase weighed 72 lbs? Yeah.. it weighed 72 lbs*. Then I wasted no time. I hauled butt over to the building next door which is where the trains were. I got to the concourse level, hurried over to the help desk and asked "hey Sir, I have a question." He was like "how can I help you sir?" I was like "I'm trying to get to Ardmore, which train do I need?" He was like "let me see whats coming next." And he looked over a computer screen and then goes "You'll want the train arriving at platform 4b." So I thanked him and hurried away. I took an escalater because this suitcase being as heavy as it was, I could only carry it for very short periods of time.

So I get downstairs to the platform, and as I'm getting to platform 4b, a train is arriving, and so before getting on, I wanted to make sure it was the right one *i was pretty sure*, so I approached a guard and was like "sir is this train going to ardmore?" He was like "it sure is!" So I got on. Now this was fun.. oh gosh was this fun O_O. I went into the train car, got to an open bench, and I had to put my suitcase up overhead on the luggage rack. I knew this would be a BLAST. O_O. So I put my carryon bag, and my two pillows on the bench, and I began trying to lift my heavy *** suitcase over my head to put it on the wrack. I almost got it up there, and my arms started to give out. I was obviously struggling because a guy on the other side said "do you need a hand?" I was practically falling over and was like "that'd be wonderful if you dont mind that is." But right as he went to get up, I must have found some hidden strength because suddenly I managed to be able to lift it up above my head and get it up there. I plopped down on the seat, scooted as close to the window as I could, and had to calm down a bit because my heart was racing and I realized that the physical exersion I just performed had zapped whatever strength and energy I had left in me, and suddenly my body realized that I hadn't really eaten a whole lot lately because I was tiiiiired. Weak, and tired.

When the conductor came around to get people's tickets, or to get their cash to buy tickets, I paid for my ticket, and asked what they would be calling out when at the stop in ardmore, and she said "they will call out ardmore." I was like "ok, cool, just making sure because I've only ridden 3 trains in my life and I want to make sure I get off at the right one." Erin was texting me going "how long till you're here so I know when to leave?" And of course, I was like "well I think 45 minutes probably." This was like at 6:25PM, and by like, 6:40, I heard them say "Next stop, wynwood station!" I was like "well crap! That's where I got on and off when I was in town last! I'm getting off here!" So when they stopped, I manhandled the suitcase back down. Thank you God for giving me the strength to get that heavy thing down without dropping it on anyone because I was afraid I would honestly!

When I slowly worked my way off the train, the conductor was like "i thought you were getting off at the ardmore station" I was like "well this is in ardmore and I have gotten on before at this one so I know where I'm at." She was like "sounds good, have a nice day!"

So when I got off, the problem with that station is the area that you get picked up on is on the other side. And the main way you get there is by climbing down a long flight of stairs, going through a little tunnel, and then up another long flight of stairs. I stood there for a few minutes first thinking "gawd this is gonna suck." So I picked up the heavy suitcase, and slowly went down the stairs, across the tunnel, and then manhandled it back up the other flight of stairs. Got up, went to the bench and literally layed down on the bench for a few minutes while waiting for Erin and the girls to come. I was jittery and stuff because after manhandling the suitcase I was suddenly starving and tired.

So when Erin showed up, she hadn't told the girls that I was coming yet because we wanted it to be a surprise, so you shoulda seen their faces. Zoe was obviously very surprised, she was like "Daddy? DADDY!" lol. Ally tried to play it off like she knew. She was like "i knew it!" Erin was like "yeah sure you did!" We went to a pizza place called "Peace A Pizza" and we each got a pizza slice, and a drink, and the girls got cookies. Then we came home. Was nice to shower and get cleaned up. Of course, I heated up a thing of soup because one or two slices of pizza def didnt do enough for me.

We watched the movie "The Tooth Fairy" with Larry The Cable Guy, and then Erin and I watched Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol. That was a pretty good movie. Of course, being that I only had 2 one hour naps over the past 48 hours, I quickly started to fade out, so I wasnt going to be able to stay awake for the whole movie, so I ended up crashing by lie, 11:45 or so. We finished watching Ghost Protocol today. This morning I hooked up the Verizon MIFI upstairs on the charger, and turned it on so we would have internet here at home *since our verizon fios is still on suspension till we can pay the bill*

So to close out this entry, I have today, tomorrow, and part of sunday before Erin will drop me off in NJ at the hotel. Monday morning around 6 am, I start orientation. I'm glad that it will be paid. Minimum wage, but it'll be 4 days of like, 7.50 or something per hour, for like, a 8 or 10 or whatever hour day. I have to worry about breakfast and dinner, but they are providing lunch. And I will be in my own hotel room, which I was surprised about because I half expected to have a roommate, but I'm not going to complain ;).

Now we are just sitting around, me working on this blog for the past hour or so because I keep getting distracted, Ally working on a puzzle, Zoe sitting next to me eating sliced apples and grapes, and Erin on her computer over on the recliner. After I finally finish here, I will have to log on to my school and catch up on my assignment posts for the week because I didnt get online at all on the computer while at the greyhound station in Gary, or while on the bus. I could have I guess, but I focused more on my bible, and watching Merlin on netflix. I'm up to episode 19 now. :) If I wasnt doing either of those two things, I was just sitting and watching out the window, relaxing and just hanging out. Plans for today? I don't think we have much planned. Maybe a trip to a playground for the girls, not sure yet. :) I def need to get my assignments taken care of today, but other than that, just chillin and not doing much. Hope you all are well! God bless! And talk to you again soon!

C



PS. I thought I gained weight over the past 2 months, but I was mistaken. When I left here last time a few months back (2 months at least), I weighed close to 270 lbs. Last night I hopped up on the scale and I am down to 255. So I just need to still be vigilant about my eating habits and see if i can keep going downwards. :) So, that was a good surprise last night. :D


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Thursday, August 16, 2012

almost home
It's been a very interesting ride the past day or so on the greyhound. The Lord def blessed me with a safe and relaxing journey. He even helped me to catch some small cat naps when I have always struggled to nap on buses.

Every long layover flew by like it was no time at all. Also I'm thankful I was blessed with being on an express bus the whole time. Those are the nicer more comfy buses. He also blessed me with another former England driver that was on the same bus with me almost the whole way, so he and I chatted quite a bit. Haven't really been able to just "chat" lately so it was very welcome.

Something happened today that I prayed and thanked God for. At every stop, and on the bus, I would have my bible out working on my study plan. Well when we left Pittsburgh this morning, he leaned over to me and goes "hey Bro, can I see your bible for a little while?". I didn't question but immediately took it out of my bag and handed it to him. While watching netfiix, I glanced over every so often for the next hour or so, and noticed him on different books, very much very much deep into it.

I thanked God because, although I don't know what inspired him to want to read my bible, but I felt like God worked through me to touch him.

On a diff note, when we first took off from Pittsburgh, the driver concluded his greeting over the intercom with "and may the Lord grant us a safe and speedy journey". To which I said "amen!' And this female maybe in her twentys sitting one row up from me stuck her finger in her mouth like she was gagging. I felt compelled to say a silent prayer for her also.

All in all, a very nice trip. Def the best greyhound trip I've ever had.

To close out this entry, i read something earlier that said your level of worry shows the level of faith you have. Worry not, have faith and know that God has everything under control. That'll be all for now. I might come back on later. Typing up blogs on the phone is def a challenge but it is well worth it! God bless and till next time!

C

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and off again
Onto the 2nd leg of the trip home. Thankfully, I will be on an express bus the rest of my trip. That doesn't mean any faster, it just means a more comfy bus, and when you are traveling 18 or so hours, its nice to be as comfy as possible.

I've def felt God present. When we were getting ready to board the bus out of Gary Indiana, I was chatting with this guy that I could tell was a party guy. I mentioned having myself good to go because I have my psp, my ds, and my kindle with me. He was like "oh, a psp? Sweet!". I was like "and I also have my bible". He was like "oh you're one of those? Youre into the bible eh?". I was like yeah im constantly studying it because I want to be more knowledgeable about God's word".

He was like "honestly dude I don't care. I don't do anything with that stuff. I just want to and try to have fun.". I didn't say anything else. And he had a ticket for a different bus going west instead of south east like we were going. He tried to talk his way on the bus but the driver wouldn't let him on because it wasn't what he had a ticket for. He got really pissed and yelled and stormed off.

When we were layed over in Indianapolis, me and this other guy were chatting, he went off to get a drink and I pulled out my bible and started reading. He came back and was like "ohhhhhh. That's why he thought you were witnessing to him". I was like "I wasn't tho. I just told him I brought my bible". Then the convo was quite interesting.

Here's what I notice when I think about it. I couldn't get an earlier bus, that's true, and the afternoon bus was full so I and several others missed it. Even with things not going how I would have liked, I was still cheerful and content. Yes it wasn't the best situation, but I was ok. I just wanted to get home and I had faith that God was with me and that this path was laid out for me by God and He will be there with me every step of the way.

This other guy, let's say his name was Jose. Jose missed the afternoon bus, was not allowed to get on our bus to Indianapolis because of the wrong ticket, and both times really pissed him off. I mean storming off yelling bad language kind of pissed. Remember how I mentioned that he said he doesn't care about that stuff because he just wants to have fun? Well one other interesting thing is this guy, Jose, not long ago got dropped off by a bus in the middle of the night and was sitting there waiting for his next one and a car pulled up and these guys got out and robbed him at gunpoint.

So after getting to Indianapolis, me and this other guy, let's call him Bob, after he mentioned my bible and stuff, I told him how I'm daily studying it because I want to know and understand God's word better. I was like "and since I've been trying to live more in a way pleasing to God, and studying His word, over the last four weeks things have really changed for the better. And think about it Bob. Jose isn't into anything with God and just wants to have fun. But there are 3 things that tell me he needs to make a change. He seemed to have worse luck today than anyone, first the missed bus, then the wrong ticket, and then you throw in there he was robbed at gunpoint.

Maybe God is letting these things happen to him with the hope that it'll get him thinking and coming back to God". Bob had that look like a lightbulb went off and he was like "you know? That makes sense! I can see that being the case with how things seemed to be going for him, and how pissed he got when he missed both buses.".

I was like "and I'm not preaching. I'm just pointing out to you how he seemed to have issues that I can easily see are probably tied to his lack of a relationship with God". Bob was like "I didn't think about that before but now that you mention it, I think yours right!"

I'm not to the point yet where I feel comfortable just talking to random people, cuz I would have liked to say more to Jose, but I went blank. But it felt good to talk to Bob because at least I was able to help one person see the difference with someone like me who is constantly growing with my relationship with God, and someone like Jose who has no relationship with God based on his statements, and how he has had a number of stressful and hard things happen lately.

Def makes me think a little more. With God in our lives, He shoulders the weight with us so our burdens are still there but they are not as heavy. He gives us peace. He protects us.

Made me start praying that if it'd be the Lords will , that He would lighten my heart so I'm not so scared and that he would use me to teach others just by not being afraid to talk about the Lord with them. Work in progress I guess. Gotta crawl before I can walk, and then when I'm walking, I must do baby steps for a while till I have learned what I need to learn.

So in conclusion for this entry, you may not notice just how strong God's influence is in your life till you come across a non believer and you hear of several things that they've delt with recently. It's not just coincidence I yell ya! I mean let's face it! I love "fun"! But is it worth Hell? Absolutely not! And we can be with God and still have fun. ;).

So on that note, I must be tired because things are blurring together. I may come back on here later in my trip as I slowly travel towards home.

C

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Wednesday, August 15, 2012

rollin rollin rollin
So first off, this entry is from my phone, so it prob won't be perfect and for that I appologize. Plus it might not be too long and for that I appologize, but I wanted to come on. In fact I wanted to come on last night but I was up really late cleaning the truck out and getting my stuff packed so I would be all ready this morning. Then went to sleep for 5 hours, got up, finished my luggage, and took off again. I had 4 hours till the Indians cre drop yard.

Then I got my truck turned on, and had to catch a cab to the greyhound station. My bus that I was told I was to be on was at 255pm. At 255, the bus showed up but me and 12 others were turned sway because the bus had been overbooked. So the next bus was scheduled for 710pm. I hoped and prayed I wouldn't miss another one. Having been up since 3 am, the 710 bus will get into philly by 530 tomorrow night.

I kbow I'm gonna be exhausted. Plus I didn't want to be stuck at that greyhound station over night because I was told that this got got dropped off in the middle of the night and he got robbed at gunpoint. So yeah. I didn't want to be there too late.

So, the 710 bus came and I am officially on it. Woohoo! I told Erin that if the kids jump on me tomorrow, I might end ul going down. Figured if it happens, she won't be surprised. She was like "sleep on the bus". I was like "I've never been able to that much, but j try.".

So last night I was saddened because in order to be able to carry my stuff home, I had to ditch stuff. Like a cooler, a small tv, a fan, my food. It sucked. Putting some of these things in the trash or near it, I was like "I'm do sorry". Especially the fan. I loved that fan. After I was all packed and still emotional , I prayed that God might help me to be strong because I know they are material things and I shouldn't be that attached. Oh well. After a Lil while I felt God embracing me and taking the emotionalness away.

So I'm on the first leg of my trip. This bus will stop in Indianapolis, IN. Next I believe is Ohio. Not sure off the top of my head as far as the next one. But I heard back from jbhunt today and it sounds like I'm all cleared for the most part, so still a go for orientation on Monday. That'll be nice. Can't wait to be paid well for what I do.

In closing, it looks like we are almost to the stop in Indianapolis, so I'm going to sign off. More later perhaps. ;)

C

ooooklahoma every night my honeylamb and i!

Sorry, I stared at the screen for a sec going "well gee, what shoul the title be?" lol. I'm weird yes I know. Do I care? nope, because I have to amuse myself somehow. ;) So lets see, whats up? Me? not much. Didnt really accomplish "TOO" much today. Got to my delivery this morning by 8am, was there for probably like, 4.5 hours before i got unloaded, had to go to the nearest Loves Travel stop to fuel which was probably 30 minutes away, but I was in dire need of fuel, food and a restroom break so it was worth the drive. Plus it was in the general direction I had to go anyway for my next load. I fueled, grabbed a $5 foot long, and hit the road towards my pickup which was still a two hour drive from where I was at. For the sub, I got a foot long meatball on wheat. Of course, after I bought it, I immediately started driving, and I had two thoughts going through my head for a while as it layed there on the seat next to me. I thought "dang I'm hungry!" followed by "i wonder if i could pull off eating this sub while driving without making a huge mess!"

I say making a huge mess because I have this bad habit with meatball subs to be lenient with the meatballs and let them sneak out of the sub. Not really, I don't "let" them, but they always find a way out, they're sneaky those lil guys! lol. After a while, i still had over an hour to go to get to my pickup, and so I decided I would try. Thankfully I managed to be able to eat the sub without losing any of it on myself *kings to me!* ;)



So I went to the pickup, of course I didnt wash the trailer out *because sometimes I cant afford to pay out of pocket for it, so I have always just gone straight into the customer and 99% of the time, they have not care. Sometimes they have made me take it to a truck wash to get sprayed out, like if i'm getting ready to haul a load of meat or something. Tonight they had me put it in the dock, then they had me come inside and go in with a broom to sweep it out. They also had me wear not just a hair net, but a beard net also. I just thought about that and thought "dang! I so shoulda taken a pic to upload!" but alas, I didnt think about it. I had other stuff on my mind. Like for instance, by this point, my 14 hour clock had already gotten below 5 hours. The trip from the pickup to indiana where I'll drop my truck off and get a greyhound ticket home, is like, 950 miles, so my hope today was to be able to get the load, do at least half today, and get to indiana tomorrow. But by the time I got out of the customer, I only had like, 2.5 hours left, and so I took off, drove just over 2 hours, and then pulled into the first travel plaza i came across. FIgured, "hey, MickyD's, why not." Was just sitting in the drivers seat browsing facebook for about 45 minutes first, then went inside. As I went in, this busload of like, 20 girls from a soccer team or something was coming into the mcdonalds. I thought "i'll use the restroom, then get my chips and gatorade to see if I can avoid the huge crowd." When I came back into MickyD's, it was only like, 10 minutes later and I was almost expecting to still be in a huge crowd, but to my surprise all the girls team was gone.

I asked the girl running the register "What did they only get french fries or something?" She was like "heh, nah, they all got like a $1.00 cone." So I proceeded to order, I was going to get the chicken selects, and when she asked "what sauce would you like?" I said "ranch please" and she did this inhale and goes "ohhhhh.. i'm sorry, we're out of ranch." I was like "well what do you have?" She goes "barbeque, chipolte, honey mustard." I was like "Hm. let me get the combo with the chicken blt sandwich and a tenpack of nuggets, do you guys carry honey?" She was like "oh definitely!" So thats what i did. When I typed "honey mustard," I for some reason typed "honey money." NOt sure why i did that, but that'd be some sticky money!

So instead of getting to indiana tomorrow, I have like, 8.5 hours till I will hit the road again, I'll drive as much of the 850 miles remaining, then stop for another 10, then drive the rest. So I estimated to Erin that I'd hopefully get to indiana by early on wednesday, If I get there early enough, I may be able to catch the 11AM bus to the greyhound station. Otherwise, 3pm is the next one. I figure, as early as I can be on the bus home, the better. ;). Speaking of the upcoming job, I spoke to someone at JBhunt today about the orientation on monday, and was told that I just gotta check into the hotel in NJ by any time sunday, and just tell them I'm with JBHunt, and the room is payed for, and he made it a point to mention "Oh and single occupency too." I was like "sweet, I was half expecting to have a roommate." He was like "nope, not at that one." Cool stuff. I guess with England during both the school, and the upgrade process, I had a roommate each time. During the upgrade, I had this roommate that was apparently still a week out from getting his licence, and he had this lil "pep talk" with me about how "i'm sure we're both here to change our lives, and I wont mess with you, you dont mess with me, " or whatever, until i mentioned that I was already licenced and was upgrading, he was like "oh, well cool! sorry man, you just never know, there are a lot of these guys that really couldnt care less!" I was like "oh i know what you mean!"

So to backtrack a bit, today at the pickup, this other england driver was there, and i was parking beside him. I hadnt set up properly because of where I was at before, and when I came in, I think i bumped his mirror that is up on the corner of his hood *used for being able to see your blind spot easier" because his driving partner pointed it out to me. I didnt say anything at first to the actual owner of the truck, but went inside to figure out what I needed to do with my trailer, and the owner of the truck comes in and goes "we gotta do something about the mirror bro." I was like "yeah i know, Im sorry about that, let me see what I can figure out." Because when I bumped it, the mirror cracked, so he was like "first major bump I hit, its going to break completely." So he and I were talking about if we could figure something out between the two of us without reporting it, and I was able to get an express code for a com check for him. I figured, it was such a small incident, wouldnt be worth points on the licence, and since he was willing to figure something out between us, I was like "sure, that sounds good." Otherwise I would have written him a check for the $75 we thought it might cost to fix, and asked him to hold it for two weeks till I hopefully get my first paycheck plus the sign on bonus.

To top that off! the trailer I was getting had one number difference from the paperwork i had, so i went in and told them and he was like "yeah its the right trailer, I just put it in wrong, but I loaded it myself, so let me change the number really quick." So he did, and then the trailer didnt want to cooperate with me as far as hooking up to it, so I was out in the 100 degree heat cranking this thing away, and about 45 minutes later, finally FINALLY I was connected, and I was drenched, heat exhausted, and seeing spots. I pulled myself back into the cab with the AC blasting, and must have easily went through a quarter gallon of my water bottle. After I did the water, I definitely started to feel better after a while.

So forward tracking again! tonight on facebook there were a few funny posts, like pictures or what not, and people making smartass comments. LIke the picture I saw that erin and I both made comments on was this guy, apparently ran from a cop, jumped out his window, and ended up hanging from a phone line, and the pic shows him completely naked and the female cop at the window with this look like "omgosh." Then a bunch of us making smart ass comments like "full moon on a wire" or "but I thought we could just hang out!" or "But mom I swear dad said he does this all the time!"

Yes it is stupid in a way, but a little laughter each day is good for ya. Sometimes if I'm chatting with Erin, or my cousin Mary, or there have been times where I was being quite a smartass to Ashley. lol. *sorry :P* some days are definitely different and better than others, some days I'm the usual smartass self :P. I dont plan it! lol.

So yeah, i really wish I had taken a pic of me all funky with the hair and beard net and safety goggles. lol . That would have been a keeper! :D

In conclusion, I was thinking recently about how when I get back home and end up home nightly, and off 2 days a week, I will still be a few weeks out from the end of my current school class, and with only two left *including algebra.. ugh, not looking forward to that again!*.. I may try to give the CLEP test a shot for algebra. I havent done it yet because out here, I'm rarely home, and when I have been, I was always broke so I couldnt. But it may be possible, and if I pass, it gives me credit for the class and I wont have to take the actual class! So Ash, fyi, for your nursing stuff in the future, keep CLEP in mind because you can test out of classes and not have to actually take the class. I'm sure you already knew about it, but I just thought I'd throw it out there for ya just in case. ;)

On that note! I will call that a night. Gonna finish my nuggets and fries and the orange drink, and do my prayers and bible reading for the night. Tonight's chapters are 2 Kings 5, 17, and 22. There are often times when I read the chapters from the study plan, and I end up going further in that chapter because what I'm reading intrigues me a lot. Other times it still intrigues me but I stick to the study plan. Fun stuff! On that note, I wish you all a good evening, God bless, and Good Night!



C