Poor choices.

We all make them. I will confess back in 1980, I liked the American Motors Pacer car.

I will also admit, that while the rage is "six pack" abs, I thought "twelve pack" abs would be better.

That explains a lot. Especially, my physique.

This has been a week from you know here when you talk about the trucks. It has been hard. Krl had put together a string stretching into a couple of months that she had not brought a truck out of Laredo empty. That changed Tuesday. It has nothing to do with her or her efforts, I think it is all timing. The end of the month. Tuesday, she brought all three of her Laredo trucks out empty.

Lots of people don't understand dispatching. I understand enough to know I don't like it. I also know enough to know that Krl doesn't like it, but she does it any way. You have to have a lot of faith, because lots of time you put several days of work together going to an area, before you ever have anything coming back. That makes for a snaggle tooth dispatch sheet. Of course if you are off loading in Laredo on a Tuesday, and you already have another load to return to Laredo that loads Wednesday and delivers on Thursday, your window of opportunity is pretty small.

Thing is, you have to strike while the iron is hot and if you don't get loads in advance, you might not get a second chance. You snooze, you lose.

So, Krl had most of her week "going" to Laredo, mapped out. When normal circles failed to produce back hauls, she moved to the next circle. She found loads, but only one of them is in one of our favorite lanes. The other two off load in the metroplex. Worse thing is, they can off load on Saturday which means the chance for loads into West Texas are nil.

I try not to interfere with Krl's dispatch. But yesterday, when Krl called to tell me where she had taken loads to, I began to think outside our normal box, trying to make sure the trucks we sent had the equipment to haul these particular loads. The two metroplex loads are steel coils and require coil racks. When I asked Krl if the trucks had coil racks, she began checking. One did, two didn't. One had left theirs at the farm shop. (I will never understand this).

I know Krl has had a high stress week, but I was in so much trouble when I got home you would have thought I had personally thwarted her efforts.

From here on out, "mum" is the word.

I got a call from Ollie. I could hardly believe it. She wanted Krl and I to buy her a new computer. Then she wanted to know if we would give her one of our older computers. We had done this a few years ago when she was in Lubbock. She said it crashed, Krl says she sold it. I really don't care which it was. I told her I would think about it.

I talked pretty sternly to Ollie. I told her it was difficult to help her with anything, considering her track record. Especially the vehicle debacle earlier this year. My butt is still chapped over that scam. I told her it would be much easier to assist her if she was trying to help herself. I then got some baloney about, "I am trying to set some goals and turn things around". It would be nice if the goals were higher than the gutter.

I just don't understand. Ollie wanted to parade her real estate career in Lubbock. I asked her where is it now. Her response was that after the divorce and her move to San Angelo it was still there, it just wasn't active.

I don't know whether to try to put together one of our old computers for her or go to the store for a cardboard box and make her a cardboard sign and find her an intersection to stand at.

According to her, we were her third option she had asked to buy her the computer. First was Brad, second was her Maw Maw.

I suppose one thing that puts a really bad taste in my mouth is her reasoning. She told me, "I need a computer because I am fixing to have to go under house arrest, and I am trying to do a program on-line". It seems her probation officer has decided to either make her do some time in jail or under house arrest because she visited Brad at the jail. According to the probation officer, she was consorting with an unsavory person.

What really bothers me is that this is so "normal". Since when is it no big deal to be arrested or go to jail.

Needless to say, with Krl's truck drivers and with Ollie calling me, neither of us was in a good mood and our evening suffered.

My today is the quarterly reporting. I know. Today is the deadline. I have had motivational issues.

I caught a segment on the CBS Morning Show about insects. Good ones and bad ones, and going green in controlling them. A quick reference is that a rule of thumb is anything on the underneath side of the leaf is a bad bug. The entomologist said you could wash off unwanted bag bugs with a water hose, or you could use a vacuum cleaner and remove them or you could put on gloves and apprehend and crunch the critters. The final portion of the segment showed them releasing good bugs.

Of course the most popular good bug is the "lady bug". Another is what I have always called "the Devil's walking stick", a gangly green bug that is all long joints and eyes and if it crawls on you it is creepy crawly! It has a grip that drives me up the way. I guess it is all the spike like appendages on it's feet.

I can remember years ago, my grandfather joined an effort to control insects in his cotton crops by infusing "beneficial" insects. We would received cloth bags filled with lady bugs. We would store them in an air conditioned room until night fall. Then we would load the large stack of cloth bags into the pickup truck and drive through the fields, releasing the lady bugs.

It didn't take but one night to learn a lot. The lady bugs would crawl all over us, finding pockets and button seams and invade our clothes and bodies. It was miserable. From that initial night, we would take turns putting duct tape down the seams of our shirts, emptying our pockets, and folding them inside out, buttoning our collars tightly and putting on goggles.

At that point in time, if you were green, you ran John Deere equipment. We didn't know better.

I was a tree hugger!

Well, that is another stroll down memory lane.

Have a day!

FATHER, rescue us. Be with us as we deal with issues. We continue to lift up the kid's step Dad and Tyler for YOUR gifts of healing. Be with us LORD!