Start CDL School For Stevens Transport Mon. 6/6/16 (Whew, Glad That One Is In That Date!!)

Be prepared for some real "characters" when you get to orientation in Dallas. Keep your chin up and plow thru it. You will love it when you get that nice shiny truck.

DSTURBD, I just read your entire diary. Thanks so much for staying on top of it. I graduated from the Swift Academy on FRIDAY THE 13th of May! Just finished week three of Road Training with my Mentor yesterday, 50 more hours to out and go Solo! I am 56 years old and also dealt with several D#&$%# Bags in my school class. I passed all of my evaluations on the first attempt as well as the State CDL exam. A couple of those A holes didn't and one failed three times and didn't get his CDL. I wish I could feel sorry for him but I can't. I have taken this whole thing VERY seriously. It has been a huge investment of my money, time and sanity to get this far. this business needs more "Seasoned Citizens" like us with a level of maturity that seems to be lacking in our society today. Keep up the good work.

Tractor Man

Thanks T-man!! Yeah, I'm right there with you. I have passed all of my tests on the first attempt, and I agree with you about the financial and personal investment in accomplishing this whole thing! We "Seasoned Citizens" definitely need to stick together and teach the young'uns how to act appropriately!! LOL Just 'cause you're a truck driver doesn't mean you have the excuse to be crude, slovenly, uncultured, and borderline violent!! Hopefully, those are the extreme minority we will run into out there!

I have been using your success along with that of a few others as my benchmark to achieve. Good luck, and you keep up the good work as well! Hope to run into you somewhere out there and have a visit!! That would be fun!

DSTURBD

At 49 and planning to be in school the end of this year or beginning of next, the success stories from the people here help to give me more motivation to follow my dreams. Thanks

57 and start school 7/11 in Jacksonville. Another old-timer-newbie.

Thanks for doing this DSTURBD. You did a really good job with it, and it helps a lot!

57 and start school 7/11 in Jacksonville. Another old-timer-newbie.

Thanks for doing this DSTURBD. You did a really good job with it, and it helps a lot!

You are most welcome sir. I am happy to be doing it. I will do today's post a little later, right now I'm in the middle of paying bills on-line. UGHHHHH! I love that I can do it all on-line, I just hate paying bills....

DSTURBD

Think we all hate paying bills.

I got bills a multiplying!!

Day 14 of Official Training

Today we started out by going toward Denver and running around in city traffic. We got a little of everything from in-town traffic and side streets from neighborhoods and shopping centers, to state highways (two and four lane) through heavy industrial areas and through-town truck routes. We had a lot of stop lights to time our approaches to and deal with, cars zipping in and out to not get stuck behind the big slow "Student Driver" semi, as well as many other situations often encountered any time the elephant is moving around in and with all of the scurrying mice!! LOL I did get caught by one stop light on a highway truck route. I knew that the light would be a long one because of all of the truck traffic that uses it all of the time. I kept waiting for it to change and was prepared to downshift and stop, but it never did...that is until I had decided it wasn't going to change and I sped up to go through it!!! THEN it changes and catches me between gears and unprepared. Needless to say, I missed the downshift badly and couldn't recover it and had to come to a stop out of gear in neutral...MAJOR NO NO!!!! My instructor just laughed at me and didn't give me a hard time as he saw the preparations and timing I was trying to make and just said, "Yep, and ya still missed it, didn't ya?" He said that all in all, I did just fine except that I need to turn my head more checking the intersecting side streets as the tester will not know that I am checking them if he doesn't see me turn my head more and will count me off on it. Oh, also, Colorado has recently fallen in love with roundabouts!!! I hate them personally, but I'm old and stuck in my ways, I guess. Today I got the pleasure of taking a seventy-three foot semi through a roundabout!! That was an experience!! At least you take up the whole thing so cars can't do stupid stuff around you, ha ha.

We have two more days of instruction and will test either on Thursday or Friday as we are a big class so they have to split it up. Two more days to practice alley-dock as I have everything else pretty much nailed. I'm not sure what our morning drives will be yet, but I'm sure Brian (our instructor) will come up with a few things to terrorize us with. He's pretty good at that (and he enjoys it, too) ha ha.

So today was definitely a very good day and I am definitely still having an absolute blast!! Oh!!!! I almost forgot to tell you, one of their previous grads stopped by with his Stevens rig that he just got a couple of weeks ago after finishing with his on-road trainer as he was in the area and can't pick up his next load until tomorrow. It is my absolute dream truck!!! A 2015 Kenworth T680 and I was drooling all over it all afternoon!!! He said it had about 20,000 miles on it when he got it and MAN is that thing beautiful!! I told him that he was living my dream and he said that they are real good about trying to get you the truck you prefer if they have it, that they definitely do listen to you about your preferences, so that's cool. Stevens is getting ready to film some stuff for a commercial up here on Thursday so I'm looking forward to seeing that.

Still having a blast and gettin' ready to start livin' the dream...

DSTURBD

Oh those pretty Stevens Trucks.

Day 15 of Official Training

Today was a bit different for the morning drive. He took us each to an area that he thought we needed more training or practice with. He took the one guy who is having a good bit of trouble in general to the turns loop. He took the other guy through some on/off ramps and more typical general stuff. It was a pretty rough day for both of them. When my turn came, he just had me drive and he relaxed visibly and appreciably. We did a bunch of frontage road stuff we hadn't done before and at one point, he even said, "I want to try something here, let's take this roundabout." It was a different one from the one before and was much busier. It is right off of the four-lane major State highway we were using the day before and he had called our attention to it every time we passed it on the highway above it yesterday. I don't know, but I got the feeling that he had enough confidence in my driving to extend my training to some things that he might not always try with most students. Maybe it's my imagination or maybe I'm overly confident in my own abilities, but you know when someone trusts what you are doing and that was the feeling I got today. I didn't miss a single shift today up or down and he was completely silent for about 95% of the time, not giving instructions or corrections, so things must have been as he wanted them. I know that this will sound like bragging and I apologize for that, but I am definitely the smoothest and most seamless driver on our truck. Needless to say, I got out of the truck feeling pretty darn good about how the morning went.

This afternoon, we did more alley-dock practice and I actually stuck it really well a couple of times. The instructor is really cool, (I told you about him before) and he was complimenting me on that one and I just said, "I guess even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while." He chuckled pretty good at that. I have had a pretty good challenge with this as I have also told already, but it seems to be getting better. I tried the trick he suggested at the end of yesterday's practice and it did help quite a bit. I can definitely see the back of the trailer better! He had said that like me, he couldn't turn his head 180 degrees anymore like these young kids can and I should try putting my arm back beside/behind the seat (as opposed to on the window sill) to give me more twist in my back to turn towards the back of the truck more. It did help, but still not the same as being able to turn like the kids can. He said that he has been doing it long enough that he just "wings it" for those few yards that he can't see and it usually ends up where he wants it by the time he can see it again.

Not sure what tomorrow will bring. I know that we do have our morning drive, but we have the "Senior Lunch" at the office with the owner and we think that the afternoon will be taken up with our paper tests and such. Thursday and Friday are our skills/road test days, so tomorrow is our last day of instruction!!! OMG!!

I will update this again tomorrow and let you all know just what is going on. Definitely seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and am most definitely having a blast!!

DSTURBD