I'm a Truck Driver

Howdy all! I went home over the memorial day weekend and it was really nice to have a few days off. Really enjoyed being home with my family. The dogs were extremely happy to have me home. They sure are good to help a body feel wanted.

Well, the week has had its ups and downs. It was only 4 days long and it really went fast. The week at a glance.

May 27: The weather forecast for today was for bad, stormy, wet weather. So the decision was made to stay in the classroom. We arrived at school and there was plenty of sunshine. At 10am it was still nice. Noon, nice. The weather never got bad and we stayed in the classroom. Took several tests to catch up. But, we needed to be out in the trucks. Has been at least 5 days since my last shifting class. Makes it tough to get good at this when we can't get on the road. Oh, well, maybe tomorrow will be better.

May 28: Arrived this morning with lots of clouds. It is looking today like it was suppose to look yesterday. Mr. Warren is not feeling well today and he will not be at school. Mr. Warren is one of our instructors. Mr. Bentley told us almost as soon as we arrived to pack up and head over to the truck yard. Did not take long to clear us out of there. The yard is where we want to be.

Because Mr. Warren is not here we cannot go out in the road truck. There must be an instructor with us at all times. If Mr. Bentley took any students out in the road truck the rest of us could not use the trucks on the backing range. So, we are going to work on the backing range and Mr. Bentley is going to teach us how to do brake checks. We are required to do this every day to make sure the truck is safe. While the first group got the class on brake checks the rest of us were practicing our backing. We are now working hard on getting ready for our skills test. Then it was our turn to learn how to conduct a brake check. We are required to check the parking brake, emergency brake, air loss, low air pressure warning, and the spring brakes. The brakes are controlled by compressed air and there are times when there can be a leak. That is very dangerous. The trucks have warning alarms to alert the driver that the brake system is losing air. If too much air is lost the emergency spring brakes come on to bring the vehicle to a stop. You hope it never happens.

Well, after our turn at the brake check, we headed back to the backing range. But, while we were moving over there a gentleman from TDOT Safety showed up. Mr. Bentley was required to go back to the main campus for an audit. That meant no more driving at all. It wasn't even noon yet. So, we all worked on our pre-trip inspection the rest of the day. We needed to work on that, but we were all pretty unhappy that we could not drive. Another day lost.

May 29: FINALLY!!!! I got out this morning with 2 other students and we went out in the road truck into traffic, pulling the trailer. We first went back to the prison area, and then turned around and headed into really populated areas. Lots of cars and trucks. We changed lanes, had to stop at lights, crossed railroad tracks, dealt with avoiding cars and trucks. Was a very good experience. I did pretty well. Only had a little trouble shifting. For some odd reason I could not down shift into 5th gear. Last week it was 6th. That one was easy this time. Too long between driving turns. I made good, clean turns and did not hit anyone or anything. After my time in the truck I headed back to the backing range. We are working hard on the parallel parking. That is not real easy to do with a 60 ft vehicle.

I have been putting in applications to different companies and today I got a call from Conway/CFI. That is the company I am most interested in driving for. I was very excited to get a call from them. They need me to send them some documents and then will call me either tomorrow or Monday to conduct an interview. So, things keep on moving toward me becoming a real truck driver.

May 30: Last day of the week. We went straight to the truck range today. We have a recruiter coming to talk to us at 10:00 and then we are going on a field trip to Western Express after that. So we are working on our backing as long as we can before heading back to the main campus. I need to do a lot of working on the parallel parking. It is coming a long, but I need more practice. I should be ready when testing comes. That will happen two weeks from today.

The recruiter we listened to today is from McElroy Trucking. It is a flatbed company. They sound really good, except they are flatbed. The tarps are very heavy and I don't think I could handle that kind of thing. Oh well.

While back at the campus I asked if my documents could be faxed to CFI and they did it. I had a lot of documents to fax and I was surprised the school did it. That was great of them.

We went to Western Express today. They fed us lunch and gave us a tour of their facility. They are the 5th largest trucking company in the U.S. Very clean operation. They keep their trucks clean and looking good. I was impressed. If they did not require a person to drive so many miles a week I might be interested in them.

I am in Dover for the weekend. Was sitting listening to the news when the phone rang. It was CFI. Christine is the student recruiter and she was ready to conduct the phone interview. Only took about 10 minutes. She is scheduling me to start orientation up in Joplin, MO on June 30. Orientation will be completed on July 7 and then I will go out on the road with my finisher. I will be with an experienced driver for a few weeks to learn more about driving a truck and all the other things necessary to be a successful truck driver. Here we go!!

Monday Mr. Bentley will start training us in the road truck and Mr. Warren will continue our training on the backing range. Mr. Bentley says we are going to get LOTS of road time now. We should be out getting a couple hours or more a day driving the road truck with trailer. ALL RIGHT!!!!