Part of my Saturday was spent brokering a peace accord between two truck drivers. They have been slip seating (sharing the same truck on different shifts) and this week neither one of them have done close to the number of loads they have done in the past. Of course both of them blame the other.

"I can't make more loads to make more money because he doesn't get the truck back to me!"

As it turns out, the driver who was really irate was the slackard. It is always interesting to do truck and driver settlements and see who is producing, who is steady and who is a flash in the pan.

We finally separated the two drivers on two different rigs.

Krl and I went to Midland Friday afternoon to get a few parts and some supplies. Another stop was the local office of the IRS to pay the heavy highway use tax for two trucks we are using out here. One of them is needing license tags and the tax has to be paid prior to registration. As per usual, that was a miserable stop. The office was not anything like the one at home. You could not just walk in and make a payment, you had to take a number and sit and wait to see a revenue agent. I spent two hours there and learned a lot of Spanish as I was the only non-Hispanic in the office. When I was finally summoned the agent began to speak to me in Spanish. Hold on there. I must have gotten in the wrong line. I didn't take offense as she was the only agent and had no idea who would walk around the corner from the waiting room.

Worst part of the long visit was it knocked us out of getting to go somewhere and eat. We had seven stops to make while we were in town. The restaurant would have been eight! As it turns out, on our way out of town we went through the drive thru at Fazolli's and took it back to the compound. I would have loved to sit down and relax.

Probably our most productive stop was at Staples. Out here we have found that is the only place to go. The have a large inventory and their people are very helpful. Being faithful Office Depot customers at home, we tried that route only to be disappointed every time, so we just by-pass that stop and go on down the road to Staples.

For convenience I have always saved all my records to disc. Out of habit developed over several years, I used floppy discs. They had always served me well and were very mobile but when the were full, they were full. Often times they would not even re-open and I would be rebuilding settlements. On rare occasions, my computer would blink and I would lose whatever I was working on. Totally. I was visiting with another contractor and he told me I need to get a USB flashdrive, that they were just as mobile, had greater capacity and were much more stable. As it turns out, Staples had a 4Gig on sale for thirty-six or seven dollars and I now own one. So far so good. In the beginning for some reason, anytime I would insert the flashdrive, I would have to reboot my computer. Just as weird, after the first few times, it quit making me do that.

I was NOT in the mood to do settlements yesterday, but I persevered. I think, and I say that gingerly that I have them done, waiting on Krl's final proofing. Numbers were down across the board, the result of three days of icy roads and a maintenance Sunday.

One of the other contractors came to me and wanted to know if they could move some seed for me. I told them sure, we would move two loads per day from the seed storage house with their one rig. This contractor's nephew is the truck driver and I had heard stories about how lazy he is, but yesterday I got a full dose first hand. Just before eight in the morning the contractor called asking me if we were on and if so to get things set up. He assured me the truck would be in place in minutes. Two and a half hours later the truck rolled under the conveyor. And it was in the compound the previous night. The truck was loaded and left, took seven hours to make the round trip and then the driver parked it at the compound for the night late yesterday. I looked for the contractor but apparently he had gone home for the weekend.

That might explain why his driver was fired at his last job. 300 miles for the day.

Christmas plans are being put into place. It would appear we are going to get the most days off we ever have. Three and a half. I think if we can pull the seed inventory down I can probably let my seed trucks go earlier than that, and that would be good because the majority of them are from South Texas. The bale trucks won't be so lucky, but then most of them reside in the general area.

I can't believe it is already December and '08 is right around the corner.

Time marches on.

I had better make my rounds. I wasted part of my morning trying to see how the Plowboys did against the Moguls. I was glad to see the Eagles soared.

Have a day!

FATHER, I ask YOUR peace for me.