Beginning The Change Of A Lifetime!

Weekend number two. Saturday was a great day. My group of three started the day on the road. And in what has become tradition I got to go first. My group started on the road first thing in the a.m. It was nice being in a truck that ran correctly this time around. It wasn't terribly exciting as far as the roads we drove on. It was all county roads and pretty easy going. That's fine with me so I can get used to the truck of course. We all did really well and then spent the rest of the day doing more straight back while waited for the rest if the class to catch up in terms of ability. Not much else to report for Saturday I'll be sure to post more after Sunday

An uneventful day during the course of training is normally a good day. The eventful days when you're brand new to trucking often mean a lot of stress or bent-up trucks. I'd take "routine" over "eventful" any day!

Day four with the trucks in the books. Today was a lot more fun. Expect the weather. The weather was a mix of sleet then snow then more sleet then rain. That made for some miserable pretrips. We're getting faster at them though so it wasn't to bad. So my group started at the yard first thing this morning. We got started with X backing. For those who don't know it's one truck two lanes side by side. You stay in one lane and back into the opposite lane then pull forward and do it again. It's how we began practicing parallel parking. Let me just say: that was easy! We all nailed this skill. The instructors even set up some middle cones to try and throw us off but we still crushed it. I don't want to sound like I'm being ****y but we did that good. Not a single displaced, crushed, out other wise mangled cone to speak of. We even did well enough that they cut us out a half hour early for lunch. Everything went just perfect this morning. After we got back from lunch it was road time. Anyone wanna take a guess on who went first. Yup that was me. And I'm staying to see some trends forming. Like me going first with everything. Also with me breaking every truck we drive on Sundays. Last Sunday the fuel filter clogged and shut us down for the day with me in the seat. Well today wasn't quite as critical but it was just as lousy. We had the drivers side wiper blade cone after going down the road. And it was raining so we kind of needed it. So my driving loop ended up bringing us back to the yard. No big deal really but I felt like it cut into some of my driving time. Oh well. Other than that little hick up everything went smooth.

My only hope now is that we get to drive some different trucks on the road because so far all we've driven is a ten speed freightliner. Other than that little gripe everything is good.

Day five in the trucks. Today was a fun day. The day began with a recruiter for H.O. Wolding paying us a visit. He made a pretty presentation but don't they all. He made them sound like the perfect company. I will admit though they are on my radar if I can't get into a local gig. Anyway after wasting about an hour of our time we got into the yard.

Today we got to learn coupling and uncoupling. The instructors gave us the run down first when we each got a go at it. Pretty easy but you just don't want to miss a step. Not much to report on that. In between everyone's go round on that the other two were practicing parallel parking. I think I'm down right getting the hang of this. No issues with that maneuver at all.

Now today for some reason they broke up the groups we have been in. No big deal really. I do kind of feel bad for the one guy in out group though because he hasn't progressed as far as he should have by know. When we were on the road he just wasn't doing much well, but I guess he's still got some time I guess. But back to my driving time. The instructor decided to go down a fun route today. And by fun I mean narrow, winding, hilly road. I wish you guys knew the area so you really had a visual but oh well. This road was certainly a white knuckle drive for sure. Speeds from 25 to 50. Upgrades, downgrades. Narrow. Twisting. You get the point. I got through it though. I was first to go this afternoon so I had to sit while other two drove.

When we finally got back to the yard I finally had a chance to ask my instructor how I did today. I was very pleased with his response. He told me that I'm far and away doing better then I should be at this point and that's why he brought me down that route. He said it's a road he likes to really test his more advanced students. Now of course I wasn't perfect, I did miss a gear once and also was in to high a gear for a hill climb and bogged the engine a little. I tell you though it was great to hear that I'm doing well.

Well that's it for today. I'll be back tomorrow!

Nice man! Great to hear you're rolling right along nicely.

Have they given you a tentative schedule of when you'll be testing out?

They haven't yet Brett. We're going to be missing to weekends because of Christmas though so my graduation date isn't until January 12th. They did say it should be that following week. It would be nice to get an idea though so I can put in for the time off.

Day six in the trucks.

Today was a strange day. We had a part time instructor come in this morning to add to current set of instructors we already had. So this morning myself and two others stayed at the yard while two went out in the freightliner while the part time guys brought one guy out in the MACK day cab for some one on one. At that point I was thinking "sweet we get to try a new truck and different instructor". No Such luck for me anyway. So back to the morning. Today was more about how the testing day is going to work. They had the cones set up exactly for the state course today. And broke it down for us. You get one hour to do four manuevers, pretrip, and road test. So after doing our pretrip a whole lot quicker this time around one of us went over to do a drop and hook while the others practiced three of the four skills. Straight line, forward off-set, and Parallel. We spent the first two hours doing that until the first one on one guy came back. He then grabbed one of the guys from my group and brought him out. So from that point (9:30ish) till lunch we practiced our skills. I would say I've got at least those three down pretty good. We don't start alley dock until next week.

After lunch only two of us hadn't gone on the road yet but we weren't sure how they were gonna work it. Well they decided to take both of us out on the Freightliner. AGAIN. I was so looking forward to trying something a little different, but oh well.

As far as driving goes today probably could have gone a little better than it did. I was first one out, as usual. Everything went well so I thought. After my time was up I parked the rig on the road side and we got out for a break. My instructor proceeded to tell me that I should be going for my pilots license because I spent more time in the air then I did on the ground. Apparently I was going a little to fast through some areas where were driving. Now I wasn't speeding by law but he tld me that I should have slowed down through some parts that we were in. I honeslty didn't feel like I was going to fast for the road, but he knows way more than me so I'll take this and learn form it. He said that it wasn't so bad to warrant lowering my grade or taking me out of the seat he just wanted me to know. So other than that though he said both of us were definitely ready for some city driving. I feel pretty good still about my shifting and making my turns now so bring on the city.

Now I have a surprise for everyone who is following along. I decided to go onto google maps and create a route plan of where I drove yesterday. I'll post the link below. I know many of you don't know Maine very well so hopefully this will give you an idea of what I drove through yesterday. Many of you won't find this kind of driving challenging but it was still a good route. I tried the link with Chrome, and IE and only chrome seemed to work. Firefox should work too. I add some points at the intersections to give a quick description of what it was like. I like to give you guys a little interaction, plus I know there was a member here who was going to be attending this school so it gives them a clue on where you drive.

Here's the link:

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zLzht-SBE2Dk.kJWpfe8yelOM

To get an even better idea go to street view and follow along.

Hey that's a cool map! You guys really covered a huge area! I don't think we went more than about three miles from our school when we were learning.

And I didn't know Google Maps Engine existed. I've used their API's for static maps and interactive maps for years but I didn't know they had Maps Engine. Cool!

Yea Brett I figured if anyone had a program to make that map it was Google. I think it came out pretty good. As far as covering a big area, that's about the size area we've been covering since day one on the road. Well except when we were learning the shifting. I'm surprised to hear you say that your school didn't take you out that far at all. It just seem like you would get that many driving challenges in such a small area. I could be wrong though.

Oh and I forgot to mention. We got our testing dates. Not the exact times but the days anyway. They told us it was going to be the Thursday and Friday BEFORE our final weekend at school. Now I can see good and bad things with this. The bad is that it gives us one less weekend to practice. The good would be that if we should fail a certain part of the skills we have two whole days to practice what we failed. So it could go both ways. My wonder is if we should pass then we get to back to school with our CDL already to just hang out. I think i'm getting ahead of myself though because they said only about one out of five have been passing first try right now. I hope to be that one though.

Only one of five passing first time? Wow, I can't make any sense of that at all. Obviously if you had those kind of numbers in a regular classroom the teachers and administrators would all be fired. So either they're not teaching you guys right or they're having you test too soon. I'd love to know what the school has to say about that.

I built the High Road Training Program to prepare people for the written exams. We've put several thousand people through it and the overwhelming majority get perfect scores or nearly perfect scores on their written exams. When people tell me they passed but missed even a few questions I think, "Oh man...I hope my program didn't let em down". So for your school to have four out of five people failing the test the first time - something is obviously very wrong with their approach.

But hey, whatever, ya know? Just keep working at it, get your CDL , and move on to the next step. If you fail the CDL exam a time or two, no biggie. You just take it until you pass. There is no bonus for getting high scores or passing the first time. You pass, you're all set. Simple as that.