Millis Transfer Training, Richfield Wisonsin

That was extremely entertaining and funny. Thank you for that. I look forward to reading your diary if you write one for Richfield.

Holy hell that's funny.

I have a physical scheduled in less than 24 hours so if I can complete the mystery instruction I'll let you know.

Holy hell that's funny.

I have a physical scheduled in less than 24 hours so if I can complete the mystery instruction I'll let you know.

Please do. After writing that post i was curious and checked my paper work and the doctor definitely put that i had passed the hernia check. Now she did poke around my abdomen for awhile so maybe ahe felt she didnt need to check under the hood? I dont know but ill trust her professional jusdgement.

I would advise to stay fully dressed at all times. I told my mom who was a nurse practitioner for years who found it hillarious and said its normal and that kind of stuff happens at least once a week. Which made me feel a little better. Until she asked me why i took off my shirt. Which to be honest I hadnt even thought of until she mentioned it. "Why did you feel the need to take your shirt off for a hernia check?" "Thats a good question mom"

Anyway good look on your physical and dont embarrass yourself.

Just got a 2 year card. I missed out on any kind of paper shorts attire. BP was crazy high on first run, second was 138/86 so I need to work that down some, would hate to get to Prime and get sent home for BP management.

Im afraid I cannot complete the mystery as my doc did sort of a hip press hernia check. So maybe it was "dont get naked there will be a nurse in here in about 2 min with your paperwork."

My wife laughed harder at that story than I did.

Just got checked into the hotel room. Unfortunately I do have a roomate but he seems like a good guy. Completely new to driving like I am so we will both be starting from scratch. He has the same concerns I do regarding backing and memorizing pretrip so the good thing is we can drill pretrip together to learn it easier. Now if only I could remember his name........

They will be waiting to pick us up at 630 am tomorrow and Ill try to keep you guys posted.

Good luck sir the instructor in Cartersville speaks highly of the man in Richfield. Hope you have a great week, be sure to hydrate tonight those hand cramps are serious business.

Good luck sir the instructor in Cartersville speaks highly of the man in Richfield. Hope you have a great week, be sure to hydrate tonight those hand cramps are serious business.

Thank you for the tip! Probably wont hurt for the drug test either!

Ok day 1 is done and in the books! And yes my hand is cramped from filling out all the paperwork. A big thank you to Pete for the heads up on the staying hydrated to combat the cramps.

The day started at 5am because we were paranoid about oversleeping and wanted to be ready. After morning routines we made our way to the hotel lobby area to see what the breakfast was all about around 615am. Breakfast starts at 6:30 here in Richfield but the nice lady had things ready earlier and we were allowed to eat. Pretty good food and it seems something for everyone, your typical eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits and gravy, cereal, fruit, and juices. As we were milling about it became apparent we were all here for Millis after akward small talk. There will be 6 of us in this class and everyone seems to be a good guy. The instructor ate with us as well and introduced himself, seems very down to earth.

So at Richfield the drug testing is done on site so that was nice. I held it in all morning and was ready to burst so in typical noob fashion it snowed 6 inches last night and the tester is running late.

After introductions and a bit of chat the tester showed up and off i went. Things almost got wierd again for me but i calmly yelled at my crazy brain to not be crazy. So there are a few drivers in the terminal lounge where the tester were waiting on service. The tester asked me to remove all my loose clothes prior to the test and not to run water or flush in the bathroom.

In my crazy mind the phrase " loose clothes" mean all clothes. Why wouldn't it? I still think it does actually, its a terrible phrase to use in my opinion. But i slow my mind down and think about it and decide he probably means my pullover and hat and i buckled my belt back on. Now i will say i did think of my DOT physical disaster (previous post) in that moment of stripping down naked in the drivers lounge but what really stopped me was the look on peoples faces when i unbuckled the belt. I think Im becoming more aware of societal norms and am finally growing as a person.

Anyway, after testing it was a marathon of paperwork. Not much to say about it because its pretty boring.

We went to Subway for lunch and i felt bad for the two girls back behind the counter as 7 large men showed up but they did fantastic.

After lunch we started on the textbook which is gigantic.

We watched a video on FMCSA which was brutally boring and made me miss paperwork.

We also went over drug and alcohol policies.

Learned how to do logbooks and practiced filling them out. We will continue this every day of class.

We also learned HOS ( hours of service) and watched some videos on it aswell.

Got some homework tonight on reviewing some of the stuff we went over today and a few recomended videos on pretrip which like Pete said will mainly be up to us to learn on our own time.

The instructor was great, he was very upfront about the fast paced school and the fact that school doesn't end when we leave the terminal. Studying at the hotel is a must and its on you as the student to get that done. It seems harsh but i love it and he was also very clear about asking for help whenever you need it.

Looking forward to tomorrow. Ill keep everyone posted.

~Noob

Yea I think if I were you I would ask for clear instruction for any clothing removal moving foward.

As far as that book goes I asked if I could buy one for self defense once I have my own truck. Good luck, and remember expecting perfection just adds pressure.

Day 2.

Started the day at 530 am and breakfast at 615. We left for the terminal at 640am on the dot.

The day started with filling out our logbooks and updating yesterday's information onto todays. From there a quick recap of yesterdays topics and then we started trip planning. I need to invest in a magnifying glass for this road atlas I hadnt realized how old my eyes have gotten along with the rest of my body until i started to look for New Liberty Iowa. Lots of discussions of tolls and the best ways to avoid them as well as major cities and some pitfalls you might come across with poor trip planning. Then we went into basic systems and basic controls. PowerPoint presentation going over all the details. Following that was another powerpoint for shifting and transmissions with alot of class discussion on the topic as well.

Then we broke for lunch at a local buffet which was fantastic. Amazing fried chicken and great cheddar brocolli soup.

After lunch we recapped the previous sections on basic systems and controla and took some quizzes. Then onto the yard. None of us had ever even been in a semi so our instructor took us out and gave a brief overview of the controls and drove ua around the yard a few times. It was an automatic and we all took turns making the Millis 500. This thing is massive and i wont fall into the trap of thinking i drove an automatic around the yard without a trailer with no problems so this is gonna be easy. We did that for a bit then came in and watched a pretrip video and that was it for the day. We got some review homework of trip planning and all met together in the hotel lobby to work out some routes and everyone seems to ve getting it pretty well!

Tonorrow is pretrip out in the yard and manual double shifting, weather permitting of course. We're supposed to get 4 inches of snow and sleet and ice so we'll see what happens.

Ill keep ya posted.

~ Noob