Beginning The Change Of A Lifetime!

So weekend #2 in the books. Day four was really an uneventful day really. But it was a full day. We spent the majority of it going over the general knowledge sections in the manual. The teacher then gave us a couple oral exams plus three more written ones. A word of advice: I never really took much notice to the "test your knowledge" questions at the end of the sections, during my High Road or even in school but I would certainly recommend to anyone that they actually read them and write your answers down. I always just imagined that those questions would be in the multiple choice we get. I say this because our teacher gave us two tests like this and it really makes you think. Instead of memorizing answers in a multiple choice setting you actually must retain the information really think about your answers. I know the state test won't be like this but it's a much better way of keeping info in the brain.

So beyond that I did great on all of my tests. The class is moving along at a great pace which hopefully means that as soon as were ready will take our permit tests and get on the road. So pumped for that.

Also as an extended note. There is something I never thought we would have to consider while being in school. Hours of Service. Our teacher asked us to calculate what our hours are currently using the 7/60 and 8/70 rules. He told us that even though we would not be traveling outside of the state or even outside the 100 air miles rules we would still be required to follow this rule. So after calculation we figured out that I work so many hours during the week that when we get to Sunday i'll have to be one of the guys that drives first thing in the morning because my hours will be almost up. He said when we're in the yard it won't matter but on the road if something were to happen, even though we don't keep a log they will still check on this and it's something he doesn't want to chance. I tell you even if all this wasn't true i'm glad he knows enough to think of the details like this. He and the rest of the instructors are very safety oriented and that gives me a sense of relief.

See me next week for more excitement

End of day five! Today was hazmat day. We spent the majority of today going over that plus some tanker stuff.

We've got tomorrow left to finish the sections we need because we found out we're all scheduled to take our written exams for our permit and endorsements Tuesday. This is pretty exciting because that means only one weekend left till we hit the trucks. This is of course if we all pass which doesn't seem like it will be an issue with our class. Pretty uneventful day though so not much to report today. But as things wrap up and we the road I'm sure there will all kinds of stories.

Until tomorrow friends

So even though there really isn't anything to report about today's class I figured I would just check in. We did the rest of or doubles and triples plus combination vehicles. Finished with aces in the tests. Now we just review for my permit test Tuesday.

I will report back after I get my permit. Wish me luck!

Best of luck! But you're not going to need luck because you have preparation on your side with the High Road Training Program. Your scores were awesome so you're not going to have any problems with the CDL permit test.

Well Brett you were correct. No luck was needed. I destroyed that test in no time flat. Finally have my permit in hand. I guess I just have to prepare for my school final which should be easy and we hit the road! So pumped! I can't wait to start updating this thread with all the excitment that is me killing cones at first. I'm sure the laughs will be following.

Congrats man! Really glad to hear it. On to the next step!

Just a quick update from this weekend.

This was the last weekend in the classroom. Saturday was five hours of basically just quiet study. It's not like any of us needed it though because we had all got our permit last week. Anywho we left early saturday. Sunday was finals day. No big deal. Got in at 0700 and took the test. Easy as pie. Although I did get one wrong out of eighty. Damn! That only lasted till about 0830. After that we sat around a while and discussed how things were going to work in the yard next week. Here's the basic break down:

Since there was eight of us it works out great. They will plit us up into group of two. Two of those groups will go out on the road from 0700 to noon. Thats two trucks with two students and one intructor. I like that ratio. The other half will stay and do pre-trip and backing. After lunch we switch. I'm liking the idea of how this is all going to work.

I'll be back but next time i'll be in a truck!

Today was the day! Today was the first day in the trucks! It seems like it took forever to get here but we made it. We met over to the yard at 6:45 and that's where I'll begin.

After arrival today we went over the yard rules and did a quick walk around the yard to get a feel for the layout. The rules were pretty common sense things like idle speed only in the yard, make sure you use three points of contact getting out of the truck. Basic things like that. Although they must not be to basic because they had a student fall out a truck a couple months ago who's still recovering from knee surgery. So now they must stress things like this. Anyway from there they split us up. Three guy's went out I the road right away. The other six of us stayed back and began doing pretrip. This wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been 30 degrees out this morning! I know that's part of the job but damn that sucked. Finally after the instructor did a complete pretwerip with us he took a couple more on the road with him. That left myself and three others at the yard. We split into two groups and teamed up to do more pretrips. I guess they were right when they said you will have the procedure memorized before we're done.

Both my partner and I did pretty well I think on our pretrips for our first time on our own. By the time we finished all of this it was around 10:00. Then we began our straight line back. Now I'm not one to brag but this part was pretty easy. I've backed up 30 footers before so this wasn't much different. In a straight line of course ;). Anyway we all did pretty good and only one cone was killed during the making of a truck driver. Wasn't me thankfully. We finished up and took lunch at noon.

After lunch we traded places with the other groups and hit the road. Well sort of. Our instructor drove us down the road to an empty industrial park. After all we don't know what we're doing. Well I made the mistake of sitting in the passenger seat instead of in the sleeper area. Guess who got to go first. Hurray me! It's one thing to not know what your doing, it's a whole different thing to be put on the spot. So I jumped in and oh boy. Honestly though I didn't do so bad. I did grind some gears and did miss some shifts. Heck even one time forgot to move the splitter to high range before moving to sixth and I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't go into gear. I wasn't the only one to do this by the way :). So after embarrassing myself for twenty minutes I got to watch the other two do the same thing. That felt much better. I did find myself getting much better the more I did it. Which wasa relief. So after five hours give or take and many down shifts and up shifts we finally made it through the first step. Our instructor told us we faired much better than the morning group which was a mish Moral victory to say the least. He said we would indeed be going out on the actual road tomorrow. How exciting is that!

Well that about covers at the yard day one. Hopefully have much more to report tomorrow. Catch you on the flip side.

Awesome Heavy C. By the time I was in school a week I was doing pretrip's in my sleep. You'll get it all down quick the more you do it. Shifting is the same.....Have fun with it..

Day two in the truck! Boy was today interesting. Bright and early we were divided up. It was a little strange though because before that the lead instructor pulled everyone aside one by one. Except me and the other two that I was with yesterday. I didn't think anything of it. More on that later. Me and the same two guys stayed at the yard this morning to do pretrip and more straight line backing. Now before I said that yesterday was cold. Ha. Today was 20 with a wind chill of single digits. And boy was that wind howling. That made pretrips miserable. We each did one while the other two watched. It seemed like an eternity but we got through it. After a quick break we jumped into backing. All three of us did excellent. No cones hit no pull ups. It was a breeze. Then after a lunch the rest came back and we switched.

Same truck and instructor as yesterday when we were learning shifting. Well when we got in we found out that the instructor was so confident in out ability that we didn't need to practice anymore. So after we each got a quick refresher at the industrial park I was put in the drivers seat and we headed out on the road. Holy crap! Real traffic. Real situations! Let's do this.

We got going on some pretty easy country roads. Not to bad. Got a little miss up what gears I was in a couple times but was able to recover no problem. Then things got interesting. As I was heading down a 35mph zone I got to an incline. Not really steep or long but anyway I down shifted. My instructor said I was in the proper gear for the grade. But the truck decided it was done working right today. I couldn't get any power. The truck was shaking something fierce. I thought I was doing something wrong. So when we got out more level we discovered that anytime I tried to put any load our stress on the engine it would bog down and lose power. So after making the instructor nervous about the truck we pulled over and her did a walk around. He never found anything visually wrong but he determined that we shouldn't keep running it. He took the reigns and we went back to the yard. He immediately figured out that it was either the fuel filter or the diesel was gelling. But more than likely it was the filter.

We did finally make it back. Well what was strange was no one was doing anything in the yard. No trucks were moving. No students anywhere. Well another instructor came out and told us to hang out in the cab while he talked to us. He climbed in and said we had a choice. He said that we were far and away doing much better than the other students. They still were having a hard time straight line backing. So they needed much more truck time. Not to mention we found out that they never made it on the road they stayed in the park all morning. So our choice was to either hang out and watch them because they needed the truck time or we could call it a day three hours early. That was because they didn't have another truck ready to take us out with. So we all decided to get home and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Both instructors both praised us three about our progress. I for one was thrilled to hear that. To know that I'm right where I need to be is awesome. It was a little awkward when the three of us punched out and told the others we were on the road and they were like , "wait you guys actually drove around?" Well I was the only one able to but we all would have had it not have been for the truck. But like the instructor said, "welcome to trucking boys, that's a day in the life".

So I for one and thrilled about my progress and can't wait to get back in the truck next week. Please stay tuned for more