February 7, 2017 by Lee and Tracy

First Time Gate Guarding – Day 27 – 29

Day 27

It was Super Bowl Sunday and once again Lee let me change the schedule so I could watch the game. I was nervous about wearing my Patriots shirt in the heart of Texas but a couple of the guys actually talked to me about it and spoke with respect. Since there are some New England haters out there I thought I would take a moment to talk about my team.

We moved to New England in 2001. I was new to the area and new to the New England culture (which is quite different than the Midwest) but I did bring a love of football and an appreciation of the game. Since the New England games were always on in the area, I watched them and soon became a fan. Living right between the Bengals and the Browns I loved pro ball, but never had a team. I had the Ohio State Buckeyes of course, but at the pro level I always just appreciated good play. And I loved the underdogs. So in 2002 when this little known duo of Belichik and Brady won their first Super Bowl I was hooked.

It wasn’t even really Tom by the way, despite his good looks and amazing game play, it was Bill. He reminded me so much of my dad and his mantra of “Do Your Job” really spoke to me. Plus, to be honest, having a sports team to talk about when working in a male dominated industry is a good thing. So at first it was fitting in, then it was admiration, but the year the Brady broke his leg and the backup quarterback stepped in and they did so well, it was true respect. The same with this year. Say what you want about “Deflategate” but those coaches did a hell of a job with a 2nd and 3rd string QB that kept them in the running despite the 4 game suspension.

So I am really really happy they won. Not only won, but set so many records, first QB and Coach with 5 Superbowl wins, first game won in overtime, largest deficit (by far) overcome to win a Superbowl game. Plus it was great to see my favorite sportscaster Howie Long on the field with his son becoming only the fourth ever father/son team to both win a Superbowl. And when Tom knelt on the field at the end, I’ll be honest I had tears in my eyes. Because these players to me represent what makes this country great. Any given Sunday, anything can happen. Teams that shouldn’t win, do. Players get hurt or sidelined and unknowns step up and become stars. Grit, determination, and yes, pure love of the game can make all of the difference. And even if you “hate” a team you can admire their play. It is uniquely American and I love it. And I love the Patriots and am very proud to be a fan. (And for those of you who don’t care about football, or can take it or leave it, do yourself a big favor and take five minutes to enjoy this. – Lee)

I am writing this right after the win, so I’m on a little bit of a “high”. Thankfully things were pretty slow. Lee actually went to bed because he was tired and I thought the game was done and thankfully there weren’t many trucks so I only missed one of the two-point conversions. Yes, the world of oil drilling goes on, even during the Superbowl, although I have to wonder if they would have shut down for the night if Dallas was in the Superbowl!

It was quiet all night except for a black cat that was making one of the sensors go off. That’s a little unsettling, having the chime go off but not seeing what’s setting it off. I like cats and it occurred to me I could make friends with it, but then I realized that it would just hang around and keep setting off the alarms which is not a great idea. Frankly, I am surprised that a cat could live out here with all the large raptors and coyotes, but it is jet black so maybe that’s helping it.

Pretty cat, but anything that sets off the sensors is not good

Day 28

– – Today started out as another pretty slow day and just to show that things can change quickly they did. Around 7:30pm we were handed a printed email from one of the company men that stated our old company man (who we liked very much) had moved onto another rig and he was our point of contact. The email stated that starting immediately ALL gates associated with this oil company were to be kept closed, and opened and closed for each vehicle. Well, that’s not good news. I keep it closed at night, at the request of the ranch owner, but the traffic is much lighter than in the daytime. Lee gets probably triple the amount of traffic I do and this will increase his task time significantly. (Right now when folks are already in the database it takes less than 30 seconds to check them in and you can usually do that while sitting under the awning which protects us from sun and rain. Going forward, the process will involve walking to the gate, unlocking, logging the vehicle into the tablet, opening the gate, waiting for them to drive through, then manually moving each piece of gate back to the center and clipping. This may not sound like a huge deal, but takes a very simple 30 second task and turns it into 90 second task, at minimum, and possibly longer. It may end up not being a big deal, we will have to see, but it kind of stinks to have things changed up when you have established a comfortable routine that works well. After checking around it’s probably the result of a new safety policy, but if that’s the case I actually feel less safe when I am standing right next to the gate when the big rigs go buy. Much better to flag them in from over by our rig. – – (We asked, but haven’t heard exactly what the point of this new rule is. To be clear, we do not make ANY decisions as to who comes through the gate. ALL we are supposed to do is log the traffic, so there doesn’t seem to be any reason for this, other than it prevents someone from “sneaking” through the gate if we go inside for a few minutes. I don’t personally care what the reason is, all I care is that it has tripled our workload. Trace has more on that, so back to Trace…-Lee)

And in case you are thinking “You are getting paid to work, so what’s the difference?”, well that is sort of fair and kind of not. As you can see from the latest spreadsheet our hourly rate has steadily gone down as truck patterns have spread out and most days even our adjusted hourly wage is less than minimum wage. One of the things that still made that OK was the amount of downtime within most hours and anything that increases the workload and consequently reduces the downtime must be taken into the equation. For example, in the time it took me to write the paragraph above that is between the dashes I went outside four times to unlock the gate and check a truck in. So it took me roughly 20 minutes to write one paragraph. Hard to get into a creative flow under those circumstances. Well, like I said, we will have to see how it goes. Here’s the spreadsheet for last week. You be the judge.

Day 29

I forgot to mention yesterday that we received a call that the fuel for the generator would be a day or two late. Lee checked the tank and we were doing fine with 1/3 of the fuel still there (a couple of “solar only” afternoons helped) and we were very happy to get a heads up so we could have adjusted if necessary. A couple people have mentioned using our own generator, but while we could certainly use our generator if our batteries got too low, that wouldn’t work for the outside lights because they are hard wired into that generator. The lights are the big thing, because running this gate without them is not fun, and unfortunately there is no substitute for that. (It’s really, really REALLY dark out here when those lights are out. Not to mention using our generator eats our propane. – Lee)

Lee spent the morning with the new process in place and he was not happy. He did some time studies and for him it used to take 20 seconds to log in a truck (30 seconds if it wasn’t already in the database) and now it is taking at least 80 seconds, and if there’s any wind at all, closer to 120 seconds. This significantly reduced the amount of time he was able to do other things. The gate is very difficult to manage in the wind. You have to manually close both sides, one at a time, and the wind will push them in either direction. So you have to gauge the wind, which is gusty, not steady, and push one gate, then push the other before the first gate swings away from the center. (The gates swing in both directions.) I am actually better at this than Lee, mainly because I am willing to scamper to catch the gate. Lee not so much. (I am a little on the large side for scampering. I mostly amble. Sometimes I strut. – Lee) It’s tough to explain, so I took a series of pictures to show you. It looks kind of funny, but try doing this 50 times a day. (It’s actually more like 80 times a day.) This is all one instance of trying to get the gate closed while the wind was blowing.

First he swings the left side to the middle,

Then walks over to swing the right side to the middle. As you can see, the left side is waiting there patiently. And the a little gust of wind comes along….

….and blows the left side open while he brings the right side to the middle.

This is FUN!

Soooo, he walks over to retrieve the left side while the right side waits patiently……

….aaaaaand the right side gets blown open.

Wheeeeeeeeeeee. It’s like being at a theme park, except NOT.

Anyone want to guess what happened while he was getting the right side?

When it goes over the ditch you have to grab it close to the edge which requires some muscle because you are pulling the entire weight of the gate right at the hinge. Plus you are standing on the cattle guard so balance isn’t that great. Those bars are about 8 inches apart, and there’s a 2 foot drop. That’s a leg breaker for sure if loose your footing. I try to avoid this scenario at all cost.

Soooo, bring back the right………………

……and while you go get the left, the right swings back in the other way.

Won’t stay in the middle and nothing in place to make it stay there

If a gust hits when it’s this close it can still get away from you. Need to be careful too because the gate is heavy. You’d be amazed how hard that gate can hit you once it starts to swing.

Success

So, the above took about two minutes or so. More excitement, same money.

After the gate closing we sat down and talked about it. Lee had put a question out on our gate guarding Facebook group and the general consensus was, yes it does happen, but it is rare and very unpleasant when it happens. A few people said “suck it up” but many others said they would never take a job where the gate had to be manually opened or closed every time. One person even said to make sure I took off my rings because his wife’s finger ring got stuck in a gate and was ripped off and worker’s comp refused to pay anything because they were independent contractors. I actually had heard that story before from our neighbor down the road, but I appreciated the reminder and as of right now my rings are off. In any event, sometimes it’s the oil company, and other times it is the ranch owner, and sometimes the ranch owner can supersede the oil company, so maybe we will get lucky there. It is definitely a question the more experienced folks ask prior to taking the contract, and a big lesson learned for us. After we both spoke about how we were feeling, I laid out our options as I saw them.

Do nothing and live with it. This might work in the short-term but we still have a couple months left in this gig and it was pretty unpleasant for Lee. (I hardly ever think that “do nothing” is a solution. There’s always room for improvement, and while I believe in balancing effort with return, there’s almost always something that can be done. – Lee)
Talk to someone at the gate guard company and try to get it changed. Lee really wanted to do this, I thought it was an incredibly bad idea. He felt we had nothing to lose, and even thought we might ask for more money since we were on the bottom of the pay scale as it is. I pulled our contract and looked at the language and it is very specific that we have to guard the gate however the client wants it done. So not only do I think it will accomplish nothing, but I also think it will overspend what little capital we have managed to earn with these folks and possibly damage our long-term relationship. Lee was much less concerned about that. (Only from the standpoint of having a relationship where I am being taken advantage of is not a relationship which I care about damaging. – Lee) As a side note this is sort of an ongoing conversation we have been having, and although I have come much closer to his way of thinking, I can’t look at every one of these jobs as unique entities, especially not this one since there is such a tight community. (Just to clarify, my problem is not what they want us to do, my problem is that they gave us an assignment with very specific parameters for a very specific price, and that price was partially justified by the ease of the work. The parameters have changed, the work has tripled, the price should change. If I hired a contractor to build a porch, and my order didn’t involve a railing, and then later I decided I wanted a railing, the contractor isn’t going to throw the railing in for free. Not even the labor. I happen to think that “scope creep” is a serious problem, and while I agree that a little extra for free is good for building good will, I don’t think that applies here. – Lee)
Passive/aggressively fight the rule. Follow the rule for a few days then go back to the old way and see what happens. Slow down work so it’s an inconvenience to everyone and see what happens. Lee was 100% against this approach. He simply was not going to change his work ethic in response to a rule, no matter how he felt about the rule. I, on the other hand, was surprised I was actually thinking along those lines. For many years I have been a person who handed changes to others. I have seen first hand their reactions, and although I like to think I did a better job of communicating why we were changing things, I also know that sometimes I made people’s lives much more difficult. In those situations, employees don’t have much power but they do have some and I have seen many changes simply fail to “stick” because the employees behaved in the ways I described. Sometimes it made the employers really think about what they were asking for and sometimes it just wasn’t worth the fight. It’s never been my way of handling things either, but now that I am in the situation I really get it. Everything was fine, and now it’s not, and no one even bothered to explain why. That’s tough to swallow and the “you’re lucky to have a job” mentality has never worked for me and probably doesn’t work for most people.
Leave. The nuclear option is always an option, but in this case pretty extreme. We don’t have another job to go to, for one thing. It would damage our relationship with this gate guarding company and probably cause us future problems with other companies. Some of these work kamper jobs are like this. They aren’t all stand alone. Plus, we need the money. If we were doing this for extra money that would be a different conversation, but the first problems still apply.
Swap our shifts. This is what we ultimately decided on. Night shift has always had the gate shut, and because there is tons of down time in between trucks it’s not a big deal. It will give Lee all the time he wants to edit, and I will go back to squeezing my blogging and recipe book project into what downtime I have. I’m not sure how great that is going to work out for me. I’ve known all along that I had the better end of this deal from a traffic and free time perspective, and it is going to stink to give that up. Still, of the options I can see at this point it is a place to start and we can always choose another one if it doesn’t work out. Plus, who knows? Other folks with more reputation and emotional coin may fight back against the rule and it could be overturned. Again, this is definitely not the norm and since it was done for multiple sites, other folks are also being affected. We will see.

I will just say one more thing though. Every time I start to think, “this is getting boring”, or “I am running out of things to write about” something like this happens. It’s like God/Universe says “Challenge accepted!!” Seriously, I have got to stop thinking that.

Update: After Lee proofread this he asked why I thought I wouldn’t like days. That was easy. I just barely think this gig is financially worth working nights and that is because of all the free time I have. If I change to days and all the free time goes away, at that point you might as well get a job making more money. Lee at this point changed his mind about swapping shifts. He didn’t see any reason why both of us should be unhappy, and he thought any benefits he might get by working nights would be outweighed by actually working nights. In that case he would rather do the gallant thing and stay on days, but he is keeping the option open to say something to the account manager. He promises not to throw a grenade on the situation but it is important that he lets her know that he thinks this sucks. So it’s status quo at least for now. (I just need to figure out a diplomatic way to put it. Diplomacy is not my strong suit. Why burn a bridge when you can take it out with a ballistic missile from orbit? Seriously though, any suggestions on how I can make my point clear without doing any damage are welcome. I’ll even make it a contest! Best submission gets a free packet of desiccant in the next package of bacon bits that they buy! – Lee)

Camper Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. We very much appreciate any purchase you make via our website links. There is no additional cost to you and helps support our blog. Thank you. Search Amazon.com here

February 5, 2017 by Lee and Tracy

First Time Gate Guarding – Days 25-26; Wedding Anniversary and Taking Some Time Off

Day 25

I wanted to start of with some thoughts from Andy one of our readers who used to gate guard. I think he makes some excellent points and shows a perspective that is important if you are thinking about doing this.

An observation from someone who has gate guarded for more than a few years………

I volunteered to change the oil and filters on the company generator. I am on a slow gate and have the time to do it.I text my service guy 4 days before I need fuel. I have 10 gallons of emergency diesel on hand just in case.If my water guy misses a delivery, I run off my onboard tank. He usually shows up the next day. No biggie.If my generator craps the bed at 11pm on Saturday night, I drag out my little Honda 2000 and fire it up. If it is cool weather, most likely I will call on MONDAY and tell ’em I need a fix. If it is hot and I need AC, I call Sunday and have the nurse trailer buttoned up and ready to go when they get here with a swapout.

Why??????? My experience has been the fellas that service the needs of the gate guard people work really hard. Erratic hours, weekends, call outs when there is a problem etc – they always seem to have more on their plate than they can get done. They work hard and the job can be pretty thankless.

Most new gate guards think establishing a good work rep enhances their employment opportunities. Maybe not so much if you think about it. Gate guarding is not rocket science MOST of the time. You show up to check them in or out in reasonable time and that is pretty much the crux of it. Easy peasy. That may not be the case if you have an emergency onsite. Perhaps a fatality, serious injury, H2S incursion, distillate tanks blowing up, fires or serious oil leaks can change the game in a matter of moments and you best be ready to bring your best game at that point. Things can get deadly serious in a heartbeat and your role will be important and pivotal. Been there and done all those things listed at some point in the past.

What really counts as far as job security and steady employment in this business is low drag. The less burden you are on the company, the fewer resources they expend on you, the less time they have to spend on your comfort, necessities, well being etc the more valuable an asset you are to the company. When the bottom dropped out of the Eagle Ford in early 2014, you better believe when all the gate shuffling was over that the remaining gate guards were most certainly of the low drag variety. I joke with my supervisor that if I EVER call him, his next call will probably be to 911. He laughs but he KNOWS and I KNOW what I am really saying.

Sorry if this went on for too long and please understand I am not preachifying. I enjoy your blog and it brings back some (good) memories when I was first starting out and trying to understand this oil field business and the odd culture that is so important to its’ success. Keep up the good work y’all. God bless ya, your hearts seem to be in the right place.

I appreciate the perspective Andy, and from a business perspective it makes perfect sense. If the job indeed is so easy that anyone can do it, and there is high demand for the job, then sure, whoever costs the least (either in pay or services needed) would get the work. I think personality and relationships help also, but I get it. I will say that although that may be the case, for this kind of money I am not prepared to worry about how much water I use or fuel I use (assuming it is not above what I am guaranteed in my contract) The old me probably would have. I would have worried about being valuable, and not making waves, and being a good little worker bee. I still do a good job, but I am not going to those lengths anymore. I like the job, I would like to do the job again, but if I can’t, then I will find another way to make money. $125 a day is not going to be that hard to beat, so if the position isn’t comfortable along with the low wages, why bother? That’s just me though, and I appreciate you are sharing this, because it honestly didn’t occur to me, but I have no doubt you are right. Company hopping would work in the short-term to make it a non-issue because they wouldn’t know how much you cost in services until you completed a contract, but long-term you might run into a problem. For me I guess my reaction is if they would rather hire someone else to make a couple of extra bucks so be it. I open the gate and shut the gate as professionally as possible. Again, I appreciate you thoughts!

OK, so onto the blog. One of the things that continues to surprise me about Texas weather is its extreme variability. There are two factors that account for that: sun and wind. WE grew up in Ohio so we are no strangers to weather changing quickly from day to day or even moment to moment, but the extremes here continue to surprise. The sun is HOT for one thing. So when the sun is out, regardless of the wind, if you are standing in it it feels hot. This can be managed by going in and out of the shade to some extent and the wind is actually a bonus generally on these days. The wind though, that’s something else. It usually has a real bite to it, and when it’s strong can bring a chill in the shade. When there is no sun it’s downright cold and that’s what we have experienced the last couple of days. Sitting in the truck helps, and we often sit more in our rig and pop outside, especially at night, but the wind can make things challenging for sure. It’s not windy every day though. Some days there is the barest of breezes and other days it is more intense.

We experienced this in Quartzite also and understand that with the wind also comes the dust and it really gets everywhere. In our case though the big 18 wheelers certainly don’t help and we have a pretty thick layer of dust on our rig and the window screens. It’s not a deal breaker for us, but I thought I should mention it because if you are a neat freak you might have an issue with this. I tend to largely ignore it and wipe it up when it gets too bad, but since we are in and out of the rig so much there is little point frankly. The good thing is it’s not super gritty like we experienced in New Mexico. Clouds of dust frequently come our way from trucks, but I don’t feel like I am getting pelted when that happens. Speaking of which, I shower every morning but as soon as I walk outside my hair is pretty full of dust. I try to ignore it the best I can, but it’s worse when it’s getting shaggy as it is now.

We started our new schedule today and I liked it. Breaking up our time together seemed to make sense. Not sure if Lee is a huge fan, but we will give it a few days and adjust as needed. He was much busier today with trucks coming about every 7 minutes for a while. We are pretty sure they are going to start fracking soon and we are seeing more deliveries of equipment coming in. Because of all the trucks he wasn’t able to do as much editing, but he did finish this great sledding video and another one of my youngest’s third birthday party at Chuck E Cheese. Some of these I have never actually seen and others I barely remember so that’s been fun. It’s also been great to pass these videos along to family members and friends who are in them. If I have never seen the video odds are they never have either. Lee is an electronic packrat…lol. In the old days this was way more difficult, but in the digital age all of this information really doesn’t take up that much space though. He’s uploading some of the smaller ones, but eventually he is going to need to make a trip to the library and upload the rest. Our data plan can’t handle this many large files.

The only strange thing that happened this evening was I went out around 10pm to open the gate and I was having a hard time seeing the license plate. I had barely gotten out of the way when a truck with a large trailer flew close enough by me I could feel the wind. That was a first. The truck behind him was from the same company, and I mentioned what had happened and the guy said,. “He is a crank.” My polite response was ,”You might want to mention that he may not care about hitting me for my sake, but if he did he would definitely have a problem.” The guy said he would pass it along. I also wrote down the license plate and will be passing it along to the company man. They keep telling me to let them know if I have any issues, and since this guy is one I haven’t seen before I am going to mention it.

That’s really all for today, really looking forward to our anniversary tomorrow. I did want to take the time though and answer a readers question about our recent budget post. Cathy P asked “Perhaps I misunderstand, but what about a category where money is being accumulated to pay income tax on wages that are not taxed? Something like gate guarding, isn’t that something where they aren’t taking out taxes?” It’s a fair question Cathy, and my leaving it out was in no way an attempt to be disingenuous, but it’s complicated. Individual tax rates are very different and with our new lower income level and our business expenses to write off I have no idea what that rate will be. We are also working some jobs where taxes are taken out (camp hosting, Amazon) this year and others where it is not. We claim zero when we are having taxes taken out and then have some business expenses to help offset the other income. Originally I thought I would take a standard % off of the non taxed income (and I may in future once I have more data), but for now I decided to show cash flow and in this case cash flow is the full amount. We have $6K in tax money put aside that we didn’t use at all last year and are carrying it into 2017. Not sure yet what 2016’s taxes will be so there may be some left over from that or there may not. Once 2017 is done we will have a better idea where we stand going forward and I agree that a percentage should go in that account. We did put 50% of everything we made 1099 earlier in the year in that account which is why it has so much in it, but at this point that doesn’t make a ton of sense. Short answer, if we are working a 1099 job, you will need to mentally adjust the revenue to account for taxes. So far that would be both the Christmas Tree money and anything we work gate guarding. I’ll let you know when I get a handle on how much tax we are actually going to be paying going forward.

Day 26 – Happy Anniversary To Us!

Our relief came an hour early and he was a very sweet older Hispanic gentleman who seemed perfectly content to sit in his truck for 7 hours. Since our hourly wage is only $5.15 an hour that will only be around $38 for him, but he seemed happy to be there. His coming early enabled us to leave by 12:40pm, which turned out to be a good thing because traffic was heavier than we thought it would be. It actually came to a standstill about 4 miles away from the theater., but Google maps rerouted us and the delay was much better than it could have been. Still we arrived at 2pm, the movie started at 3pm, and neither of us had eaten. My original thought was Texas Roadhouse, but the parking lot was packed and there was a 15 minute wait. Instead we went next door to Saltgrass Steakhouse. I had eaten at these a few times on work trips to Dallas and wasn’t a fan, but it was either that or Taco Bell, plus Lee had never eaten there.

Not only did they expedite our food so we could make it to the movie in time, but it was fantastic!! Lee’s steak was cooked perfectly and my ribeye with an “Oscar topping” of crabmeat and lemon butter sauce was amazing. It wasn’t cheap, but we have spent more on lesser quality food and we were both pretty happy. While we ate, Lee admitted he really didn’t want to see LaLa Land. I was pretty bummed since I had picked this theater and time specifically to see it, and actually thought about going to separate movies, but that seemed like a bad idea for an anniversary outing. So we settled on Rogue One and were both pleasantly surprised. I have always been more of a Star Trek lover than a Star Wars fan, but I have still seen them all and in general they are always best seen on the big screen. For some reason I thought the story was a total one-off, but that absolutely wasn’t the case and I really enjoyed both the special effects and the story. Lee is not a huge Sci-Fi fan but he loves big action movies, so this had enough pure action to keep him happy. It was a very nice movie, and then we drove home and managed to make it there by 7pm on the dot. Very nice day and despite the cost, really glad we did it.

My ribeye with Oscar topping resting on asparagus, The side vegetables were also perfectly cooked

Lee’s ribey was perfectly rare and the potatoes were really good

I even liked the mushrooms, which I generally don’t like in restaurants.

Now onto the somewhat mushy part. Last year was our first wedding anniversary on the road and I wrote a bit of a love letter to Lee, talking about our life together. Instead of rehashing that I am going to link to it here. If you’re curious about how we became us, you might want to check that out. This year I wanted to do something a little different. In the spirit of lists, here are the things that Lee does for me every day. Without him I truly don’t know if this lifestyle would be possible for me. Certainly not in this setup. And I think it’s important to share it and say thank you.

He does most of the driving. I have learned how but was able to learn at my leisure. He, despite having zero experience driving a fifth wheel, jumped right in and never looked back.
He hitches and unhitches. I am learning, but slowly. Again with no experience he took this over.
He takes care of the poo. Yes I have learned how, but this is still something he normally deals with and of course it’s not always pleasant.
He fixes things. It may be clear from the above that I do not naturally have a high mechanical aptitude. Lee does and I can’t even imagine being on the road without someone who have the ability to fix most things. Yes, he went to school to learn more, but that just shows his level of commitment to being self sufficient. On those rare occasions we get into issues he can’t fix it is a total pain in the butt and usually costly.
He manages our network and electronic storage. We have multiple computers and devices and Lee maintains them along with managing our substantial electronic data collection. This makes my life richer in about 100 different ways and although I am trying to get up to speed, once again it is coming slowly.
He goes to the grocery store. I make the list and the menu plan and he almost always goes to the grocery store. Some of those trips can be pretty unpleasant, so I appreciate him doing that. It also helps me not impulse buy. Passing up a sale item at the grocery store is pretty tough for me lol.
He does the laundry. He has done the laundry since the day we moved in together and continues to do it today. That includes most of those infrequent trips to real laundromats which I find so unpleasant.
He talks to the kids frequently. Since our children are adults we are maintaining long distance adult relationships with them which is not always easy. We decided early on we were each responsible for our individual relationships with them and he does a pretty good job of it. They talk to the two of us about different things usually and I know he has given them all some great advice over the last two years.
He is the dreamer. Because he dreams big, he had brought many wonderful things into my life. Things I would never had experienced or even thought of frankly.

I’m lucky to have him in my life. Not just because he does all those things of course, but also because of how much he loves and supports me. But in a partnership there should be an equitable distribution of work. When I was working so much and making most of the money, I always felt it balanced out. Since that is over, I have tried to step up and help out in other ways, but it hasn’t always been easy. He’s been pretty wonderful about that. It may all sound pretty practical, but I learned in my early 20’s (when we had two small babies) that true love was changing a dirty diaper. Now true love is taking care of the black tank. So here’s what I think in pictures from the last year. Thank you for all you do honey. I love you.

Truly a renaissance guy. He can sew and drill :)

Lee fixing my favorite jeans shorts by sewing a patch on them! Oh yes he sews way better than I do

I was thrilled when Lee solved the proiblem of where to put the containers

Lee completely reorganized the cabinets so that the most commonly used items were my height

Playing with our nephew Abram who not surprisingly adored him

Lee’s dad, Lee, his mom, and stepdad Denny. If you had a family emergency, he is the guy you would want to call.

He’ll do darn near anything to get the shot

The man truly enjoys his food, especially pie..but you all know that!

And sometimes he lights up like a little kid

Lee on the rotating flocking stand. Isn't he handsome :)

He knows how to work hard but he also makes it fun!

Seriously. What’s not to love

February 3, 2017 by Lee and Tracy

First Time Gate Guarding – Day 22 through 24

Day 22

Our water was refilled today and since we had a full week of water usage we have a better idea of how this is going to go for us. Turns out just fine. We get 300 gallons each week and that’s enough to shower every day (roughly 100 gallons), do dishes every day (roughly 70 gallons), drink lots of water (roughly 20 gallons); we are filtering it twice before drinking, and with what is left over we can even do a couple loads of laundry. I’m glad, because being on water restrictions would make this a lot less pleasant. We do keep our showers on the short side and then on water day I take an extra long one lol. As Lee mentioned he is starting a spreadsheet this week so more data to follow. Update: We never saw our water guy so around 6:00pm I texted and was told he would be here tomorrow evening. He said based on last weeks usage we should have 120 gallons. I explained we had 15 gallons left because last week was not a full week and we used some of our own fresh storage tank. His response was “10-4”. Alrighty then. I have to say this really bugs me. Not so much that it’s late, but there was no notice. Our fresh water tank is full and we consider it our emergency reserve but I think we have a reasonable right to be notified if there will be a delay in services. We do our job every day with no issues, all they have to do is provide us with clean water, generator fuel, and pump out service. In the last two weeks there was an issue with the water, a delay to a delivery, and we ran out of generator fuel once. I’d love to just shrug it off and say these things happen, but I don’t think they would feel that way if I stopped opening the gate one night, so fair is fair. It’s just another example of companies not putting people first, and since this company provides services provided by people you would think they would make taking care of their resources a priority. Obviously I am annoyed.- Tracy

The other thing that happened today was our Account Manager stopped by with the owner of the gate guarding company. We hadn’t seen anyone from the company in over a week so I was surprised when they stopped by. She started by giving me a hard time for not wearing my bright yellow vest, but after that things were fine. Update: I put this out as a question on our Facebook group and apparently everyone wears their vest. Getting hit by a truck is a real concern and since I work at night I should be extra vigilant. They also made the point that if you weren’t wearing the vest you wouldn’t get worker’s comp which is another good point. Alright, I will wear the vest already, but I won’t like it! – TracyThey observed us for a while and I think it was obvious we know what we are doing. We talked a bit and then they left, but before they did the account manager mentioned getting someone to give us a break for a couple of hours so we could spend some time together. This is something that was mentioned in our orientation as well, but the person who used to do that is now part time. Since the account manager brought it up I said, “Well, our anniversary is Feb 4th”. Crickets. It’s OK if the company doesn’t do this, because apparently it’s not a common practice with other gate guarding companies, but if you are not going to do it, then you really should stop mentioning it. They are also unable to give us any idea how long this job is going to last. It seems like to some extent it is the nature of the business, but I am not sure how people make this work other than sitting around and waiting for new assignments to open up. Back when folks were making more money per day they could probably afford to have gaps in their schedule, but at this rate the down time must be quite a bit tougher. Comes down to supply and demand though. As long as more people want the work than there are jobs for them, folks just have to accept the terms, whatever they are. That’s where building a reputation is important. Being high on the list for the next open position minimizes the down time.

The common practice (as I understand it) is gate guards are responsible for finding their own relief and paying them. There are relief lists on the Facebook group and basically folks subcontract with people to cover for a specified time. It’s a pretty common practice, but usually folks do it so they can take a “vacation” or need some time off for a family issue. As I have said before, it’s a small community, so often folks have friends they have cover for them. It doesn’t make much sense for us to go down this path for just a few hours though, so I will probably drive somewhere and get carryout. There is one Chinese buffet in Pearsall, but we could only eat there individually which doesn’t make a ton of sense, and there is a Pizza hut. Lee wants Chinese and I want pizza so we will see who wins. Maybe we can get both.

Oh, and I should also mention that there is a library in Dilley. Apparently it’s small, but it’s there, so we will definitely drop off the books we have ready to donate and check out their wifi. Tommorrow is the first of the month and we are both pretty excited to get some new groceries in here. We’ve had plenty to eat, but are both a little tired of chicken.

Day 23

Well, I think I finally figured out a solution to the temperature issues while sleeping. Turning the AC on, but at a temperature of 70 degrees, appears to be working well. The fan runs continuously for white noise, but the AC portion only kicks on when it starts to get hot in the morning. I slept pretty well with this system last night. Just in time really, because the temperature levels have risen and it is getting pretty hot in the daytime. It’s OK when you stay in the shade and there is a slight breeze, but direct sun is a killer. So Lee and I are breaking down and buying a cheap pop-up canopy shelter. We looked at several and the weight and size mean it will probably end up being a throwaway item, so we decided on a $46 model we could use temporarily and then let go if we couldn’t find space for it. Between 2pm and 5pm the sun is merciless and the angle of the sun makes our awning completely ineffectual. Since this time period is also pretty busy because of “shift change” or people leaving to eat, we really felt like we needed to do something.

I woke up, took a shower, talked to my mom, and then went outside to cover for Lee. He has a list of errands which include checking out the local libraries wifi and donating books, checking out the Chinese Buffet in Pearsall (that was my idea to help us decide what to have for our upcoming anniversary dinner, and going to Walmart. The water did come early this morning, which was a good thing, because we ran out about midnight last night. Thankfully, we have a full tank now and can make that work, but hopefully the point was made that in the future if there will be delays someone really needs to let us know. I’m doing fine outside, because I have thrown a pair of shorts on and I am trying to get a little sun on my very white legs! Some vehicles you can stay in the shade but others you need to walk out either because of the angle they stop at or because they need to be added to the database. A little sun is OK when you’re mostly in the shade and hopefully I can get a little more brown on my legs without burning.

Overall the truck drivers have been really nice to us, but when someone is not it really stands out. I was inside today helping Lee put away the groceries when a car drove up and honked. Now this rarely happens because we are quick to be outside, but in this case I didn’t see them because I was facing the fridge and Lee was facing the sink. Anyway, I didn’t mind the honk, but I did mind the “Is anyone working?” comment when we walked out. I’ve checked this guy in and out at least a dozen times and he’s never had to wait so I thought the comment was pretty unnecessary. It must have shown on my face though, because when I stated “I was putting away groceries,” he immediately apologized. I checked him out quickly, pretty steamed at the comment, but when he came back in he actually apologized to Lee again so that made me feel better. As Lee says, we are not getting paid enough to be treated poorly and since we know we do a good job a little courtesy is called for.

I do recognize I have been a little short tempered the last couple of days, but I don’t think it’s because the job is getting to me or anything. Then again sometimes those things are hard to tell so it’s probably a good thing that Lee agreed to taking some time off. We are going to be off on our anniversary from 1pm -7pm and are going into San Antonio to see a movie and grab a quick bite. It will be good to step away for a little bit and if nothing else get a change of scenery, so even though it will cost us 25% of what we make that day I think it’s worth it. I also think I need to start getting out a little more in the daytime. I don’t have a ton of time between when Lee eats lunch and when it’s time to start my shift but a couple hours away every now and then would probably do me good.

One good thing; we went to the little library in town and they were thrilled that he brought in so many Louis L’Amour books. Apparently they are big hits down in here in Texas and the librarians were practically giddy. My fantasy books weren’t as big as a hit, but hey, some kid in this town must like dragons and stuff!

Day 24

Last night was really quiet which was great, and I had the opportunity to try a new recipe called Quickie Donuts. It’s so simple I had to pass it along. Buy a roll of refrigerated biscuits. Heat some oil (I used vegetable but I am going to experiment) to 375 degrees. Use your fingers to make a small hole in the middle of the biscuit. Pop in the oil and fry until golden brown (this took less than a minute per side). Drain and then place in a Ziploc bag of powdered sugar and shake lightly until coated. Eat Warm. These aren’t as good as a beignet, but the work to taste ratio is fantastic! Since the desert section is full, I am adding it to my potluck section. Potlucks in the RV world are different than the traditional ones you think of when everyone has campers close by. Lots of times we have multiple grills running or multiple fryers and food is often cooked to order. I can totally see commandeering a fryer and cooking a bunch of these bad boys up for a little dessert and of course they would be awesome for a breakfast/brunch potluck which we have also done many times.

Thanks Josh for our little fryer. It’s perfect for these

Finished product…yummy

The only traffic last night came around 3:10am when the enter chime went off. I looked outside, but no truck and since they do false alarm occasionally didn’t think much of it. Then it went off again and I looked out the window and saw either a fox or a small coyote. It was on the edge of our light circle so it was hard to tell. By the time I got the camera it was gone, but it was a little unsettling. No animals have gotten that close to the rig until now (a benefit of somewhat steady traffic), so I will need to be more cautious on slow nights. I did start using our large round light on the side of the rig to enhance the light nearest to us a bit and it worked great. I was worried it would attract bugs, but they stayed over by the big stadium lights on the generator. The main concern is as it starts to get warmer a snake being in the dark part I walk through to get to the lighted gate area, but this little bit of extra light helped quite a bit.

One other thing that’s kind of weird is we are hardly spending any time together. In the beginning we were doing pretty good there but as we have settled in it feels a little like two ships passing in the night. We did sit down to talk about it though and decided breaking up the time we are both awake might work the best so we put together this schedule. Hopefully this will make things a little more equitable and allow us both to enjoy some time off during the day hours.

4:30am – 12pm Lee working; I’m sleeping
12pm -1pm I’m off; waking up, eating breakfast
1pm -2pm Lee’s off, doing lunch and dishes
2pm – 4pm I’m off, my chance to leave the site and get stuff done
4pm – 6pm Lee’s off
6pm – 8pm We both cover, cook and eat dinner
8pm – 4:00 am I’m working; Lee sleeping
4:00am -4:30am Both cover

Last thing, Lee has finished a few of the home videos and put them out for our kids and relatives to see. It’s interesting watching those from “here and now” because the “then” me could not have even conceived of a life like this. Raising three kids, especially in the younger years, is pretty all consuming and my attention and focus was all about that. What’s really cool about it is the conversations it is sparking between our now adult kids. They remember these events but in the hazy way kids do, and obviously each of their perspectives is pretty narrow. You can see the seeds of their adulthood in certain moments though, which is fun to watch, and their sister dynamics were at play even when they were very small. If nothing else I love that he is doing this for that reason. I wish we would have video of when I was a child to watch, but there is precious little of that because no one had that kind of money. Even for us the purchase of our first video camera was a huge expense ($500 if I remember correctly), but now with camera phones anyone can take videos.

Really the last thing!! We are getting more flies and bees now that the weather is warming up, so Lee is going old school and made a bee catcher with a 2-liter of Mountain Dew. Since the more expensive traps aren’t working on the bees, we will see how this does.

February 1, 2017 by Lee and Tracy

January 2017 Budget with Revenue

For 2017 we are going to be posting both our costs and our revenue, to give folks an idea if we are able to make it on our costs versus the revenue we can generate with seasonal jobs. I am going to be looking at this from a cash flow perspective month to month so in January you will see the $6K from Christmas trees. Technically that money was earned in 2016 (and I will adjust it out in the end of year summary), but we received it on January 4th. I think cash flow is important because it’s not just about if we can earn enough overall, but also how much we have to dip into or can put into savings. This month we did really well and were able to put $3K of that $6K into our operating income account. Lee is always very happy when we get to move money into that account, and the fact that we were able to do that much is a testament to how little we spent and the fact that we started generating revenue pretty quickly in 2017.

So how did we do? We had one of our best months with expenses coming in at $2940. We were paid $1500 in gate guarding in addition to Christmas Tree money for a total of $7302 in revenue. Our net cash flow was $4362 for the month, a great way to start off the year. We spent so little because we came in under in almost every category and spent nothing on clothes, personal care, or entertainment. (We don’t look great, but we saved lots of money! – Lee) We also didn’t have to pay health insurance this month (we double paid in December), but we did had an unexpected truck alignment and tire expense which actually wipes out that saving and cost us $200 more. So it was a good month. We didn’t pay for life insurance as I originally budgeted (still trying to find a reasonably priced plan). Anyway, the detailed accounts are below, but like I said, good start.

Campground Fees – Very happy we only spent $128 in this category because it could have been much worse. We were scrambling to find places to stay when we were waiting on the warranty inspector and nothing was very inexpensive. Thankfully we found the great Passport America park and were able to stay for only $22 versus the $40 prices we were seeing in New Braunfels. The rest of the month was covered by our work kamping jobs.

Groceries – We were extremely rigid with grocery shopping this month, menu planning, sticking to lists, and eating what we had. Consequently for the first time in forever we came in right on target on the food budget and $107 to the good on non food items. This month definitely proved to us that it can be done, but it did require major adjustments. We are starting February off with a menu plan and a list so hopefully we can continue on as we have begun. (If she has to eat toast for every meal, we’re going to beat this category into submission. – Lee)

Dining Out – Again this may have been the best month we ever had and that’s not for lack of opportunity. We could have ordered pizza or bought food locally but chose to eat at home. That makes the win in the grocery column doubly good because we didn’t supplement that budget with eating out. The $74 we did spend was primarily eating lunch while our rig was being worked on. We had to eat out three days in total for that.

Cell Phone – I spent $49 to pay off the phone on my Verizon plan, which put us over but we should get that back with switching to ATT and using Lee’s old Iphone 4 (which is working great by the way.) The bad news is we went seriously over in data which will cost us an additional $60 on next months bill, but that prompted us to start tracking our data daily, which again for the year should result in a win. We went over in data 4 times last year for a total cost of around $150. If we can avoid that for the rest of the year we will still spend less on data YOY.

Entertainment – We spent nothing although I was seriously tempted to put that extra data in this category, because at this job the internet is our entertainment.

Truck Fuel- One of the side benefits of limited grocery runs, no eating out, and no entertainment is you don’t spend much in fuels. This category was extremely low at $84 for the month.

RV Insurance – We were overcharged due to a clerical error (they were showing I had no drivers license for some reason),but this has been reversed and the over payment will be credited back over future months.

Laundry – Despite the craziness with the water when we first arrived here, we managed to save enough water to use our washing machine which was great. Lee did a great job of that and I wanted to mention it because we could easily have spent $30 or so at the laundromat. He gets full credit for that not happening. Plus we both really don’t like laundromats and are happy when we can do laundry in our rig.

Personal Care – I’m getting pretty shaggy and will definitely need a haircut in February, but with everything going on in January neither one of us got our haircut. That was a function of lack of opportunity and time ans much as trying to save money. (You watch, the haircut will turn into getting her nails done, and a pedicure, and some kind of weird massage. That’s where all our money. That and shoes. – Lee)

Home Repair – We were right on the money. $77 of that was to Camping World for diagnosing the problem on our furnace and the rest was, well I am not sure what the rest was, Lee will have to tell you. (It was for a replacement valve for our flush king, and replacement hose for our blue boy, and new weather seal for one of our baggage doors. – Lee)

So from a budget perspective it was an excellent month. Probably the best we have ever had if you look at how we did category by category. And our life itself wasn’t that bad. Our goal for a while has been to find jobs in the winter and reduce our spending, because there are so few places we can be and things to do. We definitely accomplished that, and more importantly we started the year off with a plan to improve several categories and thus far it seems to be working. Lee said I would be very happy with it, and truly I am. This doesn’t feel like one good month as an anomaly but rather a start on the new normal. Only time will tell of course, but I feel pretty good about it.

Camper Chronicles

Travel Tales from Working Full Time RVers

Month: February 2017

First Time Gate Guarding – Day 27 – 29

First Time Gate Guarding – Days 25-26; Wedding Anniversary and Taking Some Time Off

First Time Gate Guarding – Day 22 through 24

January 2017 Budget with Revenue