The journey begins - purchased a truck.

@4mer trucker -

Well, it's been a busy and expensive 4 weeks. I haven't had a day off.

We had begun the process of moving the FIL to a nursing facility, but hit the brick wall of Medicaids' 5 year look back period. Even though the house and car were quit claim deed/gifted to the grandson, the state would have seen this and denied his Medicaid application, leaving us on the hook for 5 years at $190/day - some $51k/year after his SS was taken.

So, my brilliant idea, and one of her friends said the same - "Hey, grandson, you got a free house and car - guess what else you get".

She talked him into it. The grandson is 33 years old and has basically been financially supported by us for 18 years. We moved him into his grandfathers house, sold the rental he was living in, and he struggles to keep a full time job for varying reasons. She sold it to him as "here's your new full time job, his SS will cover all the bills and food, and we'll pay for an online school towards medical coding/billing while you're housebound. if the old man lasts another 5 years, we'll move him into the nursing facility".

However, she wanted the bathroom redone. Sigh. Fair enough said I.

So - in the above 3 posts, you'll see what I started with, and the end result. I paid a 63 year old ex ODFL good friend for 6 days (his weekends) $2700 to assist, and it still took me/us 4 weeks to complete. I could have sanded and replastered 20 times to achieve a better finish, but had to call it quits at 'decent enough'.

Working with old lathe and concrete plaster - not square - old plumbing/electrical - small room, retro fitting . . . it's a miniature nightmare. Her ordering 'stuff' online, didn't help a lot, the original shower unit she ordered July 9th still hasn't turned up. I talked them into a generic unit that I had to build a partition wall for, else the bathroom would still be out of commission.

I snuck in one LED sign load, but it doesn't quite pay for the $8k I've dumped on this little project.

Then the dishwasher went out at the house. $1k. And the half beef turned up - $1,200. I need to get back to work here soon.

 

Not quite the little load.

Relatively new agent called/emailed a load to me the other day - long story short, we're all in. First 'super load'.

20' wide - Springfield,MO to Cedar Rapids,IA. They wanted an 'all inclusive' quote.

We settled on a rate, maybe 'all too quickly'.

New customer to agent, new agent to me. Done 15W before, figure I can handle this one.

Customer agrees on rate - all go from here.

Contacted IA DOT, work the route in reverse - IA does not allow that width on interstate routes. Contact MODOT, get assessments of costs.

2 state police in both states, 2 civilian, route survey. Work with permit company first to submit route, furnish to surveyor - run route, submit, hopefully accepted, then work with LS HH to secure police.

IA State police - $250/day, $40/hr overtime. Cool.

MO Sate police - whoooooooah. Expensive. .55cpm for all miles travelled home to home. $64/hr average for time spent. I factored in time for all hours and miles to return officers to origin, but I could be wrong.

Route survey $2.50/mile -

2 civilian escorts. 2 police IA and MO.

520 mile total run, 390 MO, 130 IA -

$9,871 for route, escorts and cops.

Customer wanted a bid 'all in' - hope we have enough in this for me to eat Ramen noodles at the end.

Didn't tell you what the complete price was, if I post tears here shortly then I underbid it.

Learning experience.


I needed a challenge/learning experience, we'll see where this one goes. . . . .