Comments By FreakTrain

The ones who didnt show will be the failures or quit in training. the ones who did will be successful. this is how easy it is for companies to see it too.

I was thinking the same thing, Rainy. Funny how the ones that needed practice the most didn't bother to take advantage of the extra time.

Oh well, their loss was my gain. I'm keeping my eyes on the prize.

There's snow and there's ice,

The truck slides left and right,

Drivin' through a winter wonderland!

Was there a special reason for opening on a Saturday?

I think it was because of the weather this past week. Several students were supposed to take the CDL exam, but the DMV offices were doing the pretrip only due to icy conditions. I was truly surprised that more students didn't take advantage of the extra truck time. It was great not having to wait for an available truck to practice with. Sure beats sitting in the hotel room all day.

In my former life as a sign guy, I lettered more truck doors than I could count. My all-time favorite company name was "Dead Broke Trucking".

Thanks, Turtle.

Best of luck to you, Christopher. That long bus ride is the hardest part!

Thanks, Big Scott. The school was open for an extra day today, got to spend all day practicing all of the yard manuevers. Only about half of the class showed up, so I got more truck time today than I've had in the past three days. It paid off well, just need to polish up my alley dock a little before I'm confident enough to test. Everything else I've got down pretty good. I'll finally get some on-road time this coming week. Looking forward to getting school finished and getting started with CFI!

Day 10

Started out today with the usual pretrip inspection, afterwards my group worked on parallel parking on both sides. Getting better every day! Can't wait to get some more on-the-road time, it will probably be first of next week before it's my turn. There's a lot of students here, and we're expecting about ten more on Monday. Anyhow, I was one of two students that were chosen to be evaluated on pretrip inspection this afternoon. It's conducted exactly the same way as the actual CDL exam. I'm pleased to say that I passed, missed only five items on the entire vehicle. I'm aiming for missing zero on the next one. I'll have a 'bonus day' tomorrow to get in more pretrip and yard practice. Hopefully by this time next week, I'll be the proud owner of a brand new CDL.

Time to get back to studying that pretrip before hitting the sack.

Thanks for reading!

Day 9

Spent the morning on going over pretrip inspection, and did a couple of offset backs. Pretty much have 'em down pat now. Two of the trucks were out with students getting road time and testing for their CDLs, so there were only two trucks available for backing practice. I was waiting my turn for the alley dock when we stopped for lunch. Finally got to get some alley docks in this afternoon, still getting the hang of it, but each time it gets better and a little easier. It's all good, my personal goal is to get better every day.

We'll be getting an extra day on Saturday this week. I plan to take full advantage of it, since I'll be testing for my CDL sometime next week and definitely need all the practice I can get.

On a side note, two of the new students quit today... one couldn't stand the cold weather ("It's not like this in TEXAS!") and the other thought they were already 'Super Trucker' since "my uncle taught me to drive and these people don't know what they're talking about". That's OK, more truck time for the rest of us!

That's about it for today, and thanks for reading.

Got family in Rockbridge, on my paternal grandmother's side. Both of her brothers were in the timber business there for many years. We used to have our family reunion at the old Palmer schoolhouse every summer. Beautiful country up there.