I feel much like a child does immediately after Christmas. Now what do I have to look forward to in the near future?

I suppose the two blips on our schedule I was so looking forward to have come and gone. In fact the next blip looks more like a fly speck, way down the calendar. The trip has come and gone and now the reunion weekend with our co-workers from the Fall jobsite has been completed and personally I feel like I have fizzed out. Now I am beginning to fight being depressed. I suppose I need to get a grip.

I am working on one "fly speck", but it will probably be at the end of summer or just prior to departure for the Fall work. At the present I am not ready to divulge any of the details!

Thankfully, we do have some weekend activities coming up. This coming weekend finds two family reunions taking place less than a mile apart. One is my paternal side, the other my maternal side. The paternal side is a weekend activity, the maternal side is a single day event taking place at SHCoC. Actually it hadn't registered until a few moments ago that they were both this coming weekend. Now I have to spazz about meeting commitments. I had committed to attend the single day event last year at the urging of a cousin. She has since been taken from this world to the next level. The way I see it, a commitment is a commitment. I will attend to honor her wishes, I am hopeful the other cousins she threw down the gauntlet too will do the same. I had verbally committed to play in a family golf scramble with the paternal reunion group. This has gone out the window with the conflict of scheduling. It was to take place beginning at seven Saturday morning and concluding with a noon meal. Problem is, I am scheduled to run the reunion auction, along with Waylon, at the paternal reunion. This is scheduled for two Saturday afternoon. My best solution is to attend the maternal reunion through the noon meal and then leave to perform my duties at the paternal reunion.

Whoever said "Ain't it nice when people fuss over you?", obviously never lost an appendage! (I think it was Hogue in Driving Miss Daisy.)

We are going to do what we can do.

A couple of notes from our co-workers visit. As regular readers are aware, while we were gone, Trc re-did our home. While we were gone in excess of six months, we returned prior to her completing every detail so some things have been dragging along. In addition to her project, we had been waiting on roofers for something like two years. They had received insurance proceeds from hail damage and we had received a deep discount for being patient. Thing is, part of the back porch needed to be stripped and re-decked prior the painter doing his thing. The only other visual incomplete were the naked window awning frames awaiting their new fabric. Krl had thrown down the gauntlet to all the participants of the house project, they would be done by the visit of our co-workers! The roofer did his thing, although he has some fine tuning to do, but he had failed to put the porch back together as everyone assumed he would. That left it to me and Jim, the painter, to finish up so Jim could finish his painting. Thursday night, about ten, the carpentry work was completed. Friday was paint day. Friday morning saw rain but by late in the day Jim completed his work. I appreciated him going above and beyond the call of his duties. He has been kind of hit and miss this summer, either being super busy or not working at all. Lately he has had work but so far has been unable to collect, so we were more that happy to give him some additional work. Krl and I had resolved ourselves to the fact that the awnings would not be in place by the time our friends arrived Friday evening. That was exactly the case. We had been in the back yard for thirty minutes or so when we heard someone yelling. It was almost seven in the evening, we were in the middle of entertaining guests when the awning people showed up. It would have been no big deal if they had only done the front awnings, but in a bit they were in the back yard installing the rear awnings. Picture this, in the middle of our back yard party, the sound of drills and the chatter of three co-workers trying to do what should have been done weeks ago. Thing is, the three awning men were too dense to even realize they had missed their bogy and that they were interrupting our evening. Thankfully our friends are good friends and they were understanding. The woman I live with was not near as forgiving of the intruders!

I suppose the awning people were bad, but they were just ahead of the people that had committed but didn't show, and they know who they are. Sometimes you get tired of sucking hind tit, that is where I am at now. There are no free rides.

July see's the second and final reunion weekend the week of the fifteenth. Lake Brownwood. I plan on attending for the first time in about three years. I am hopeful Krl will also. We have booked the company trailer for that weekend.

The coming week should be a full work week. I plan on helping KO with his core customer. Since it is the last full week leading up to the Fourth of July it should be packed! It is unbelievable how much cola is consumed. I would imagine that the coming week will be filled either with double metroplex days or double Lubbock and Odessa days, maybe even throw in a Waco.

It has been a different type summer for me. It is not often that I have opportunity to sit behind the wheel of one of the big rigs. It usually riles the truck drivers when I tell them the easiest part of the trucking industry is getting in that truck and closing the door. They would prefer to think that they are indispensable in and of themselves. Fact is they are a part of a team effort. In addition to making notes about equipment and making repairs, I am able to relate to what these people are facing on the road. It also plays to my managerial theory that "You never ask someone to do something you can't do or are not willing to do". If you are effective as a manager you find someone who is more proficient at a given task than you are. Back to that Billie Sol theory, "Surround yourself with good people."

I continue to look for drivers for the company trucks, but in many ways I am enjoying filling in. I do look forward to returning to my coordinating role this fall although I may expand my duties.

In the near future I am hopeful that after the Fourth of July cola slow down, the compress transfers will pick up. If not, I still have the option of helping KO in the office since one employee has quit and the other is going on vacation. I'm just not sure how I can justify parking one of the company trucks if I don't have drivers in them by then. I guess I am like a doctor. "Do no harm". Priority is the company I work for (that pays me), then additional opportunities personally (which puts a short time employment opportunity with KO at the end of the line).

Hard to believe summer is half gone.

FATHER, thank YOU for blessing me with skills and opportunities. Lead me through them.