Saturday, Feb. 25, 2012

This will be a bit short and probably not very informative. I am on my way by Greyhound Bus - that first-test to see if you REALLY want to be a truck driver- to De Pere, Wisconsin, home of WEL Companies. With some good fortune, they will be my employer in a couple of days.

I start orientation Monday morning at 0700 when I meet Scott for my drug test and physical. After that, who knows? Paperwork, policies, and procedures no doubt. If I make the cut, a week driving around Green Bay then 4 weeks over the road with a trainer.

Right now I'm one hour into a 5-hour break in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I have Lady Antebellum playing in the headphones, the iPhone hooked to one of the few power outlets (when will public transportation centers learn to install more than the overnight cleaning crew needs?) and I'm patiently waiting. Wondering. Listening to the Amtrak trains, wishing I was on one of them and not a bus.

Ah, well. It must be done.

President's Day, 2012

Normally, a federal holiday for a federal retiree is not much of a day about which to blog. Yesterday, however, was, and it had nothing to do with federal, holiday, or retirement. It had to do with weather in Oklahoma City, where three of my children and a grandson live.

It started with several rapid-fire tweets from Gary England, the main weather dude in OKC. He's been there for about 469 years, I think, and shows no sign of slowing down. He's also one of the nation's premier tornado predictors - is there really such a word? - because, well, they do have some tornados in Oklahoma, as you might know. How this slight diversion ties to the main subject is this: Tornados are really bad storms and Oklahoma City had a really bad storm yesterday.

Take a look at this:

Before you ask, yes, this is a real picture of a major dust storm, taken by a TV photographer, as it approached. I had children heading south, away from Enid, Oklahoma, and children very close to the nasties. Fortunately for them - and me - none of them were caught in the storm and debris and they all made it to their home in Oklahoma City.

I read a trucker's blog about a big rig that wasn't so lucky. Somewhere on I-40 in Oklahoma City, the truck hit some debris and broke an air line, which in a commercial motor vehicle with air brakes, is not a good thing. They fixed it and continued heading west carrying their load of FedEx freight...until they got to Arizona and all the snow, ice, and traffic accidents we all heard about, including a major tie-up between a CMV hauling gun powder and a tanker hauling caustic chemicals.

Wouldn't a leak there have been fun...

Friday, Feb 17, 2012, was a good day!

I passed the Michigan Commercial Driver's License practical test! Let me tell you about it. The test has three parts:

• The pre-trip inspection test 
• The basic vehicle control skills test
• The on-road driving test

Let me briefly explain each of them so you know what I did.

The pre-trip inspection (PTI) test. The applicant walks around the commercial motor vehicle and points to or touches each item on a lengthy list and explains to the examiner what is being checked. For example, the steering linkage, which on a truck is pretty complex, as you can imagine. I would point to it and say, "The steering linkage, steering shaft, pitman arm and castle nut and cotter pin, drag link, upper steering arm, lower steering arm, tie rod and steering arm are securely mounted with no cracked, bent, broken or missing pieces. There are no loose or worn joints or sockets, no loose or missing nuts, bolts or cotter pints." There are 17 pages in my manual that contain the items to check. The PTI took about 40 minutes for me to complete. Because all parts have to be repeated in case of failure like I had yesterday, I did better on today's inspection than yesterday's. In fact, I did not miss any; I was allowed to miss 29 items.

The basic vehicle control skills test. This test consists of four basic off-road (meaning not on a public roadway), the forward stop, straight-line backing, 90-degree alley dock (the task that kicked my butt for a couple of weeks), and a right turn (the reason I failed yesterday.

1. The forward stop requires driving into an "alley" (lines painted on the ground with cones at strategic places) and coming to a stop as close to, but not past, the end line, without looking out a side window or standing up to see the cone or line. It's harder than it looks, but I did not miss any points.
2. After that event, I leave the "alley" and position the truck for the straight-line backing. Then, on the examiners signal, I back the truck straight back through the alley until my bumper is clear of the other end. I did not have any problem with this one pretty much right away, so it was a 'gimme.' Not so the next event.
3. The dreaded 90-degree alley dock requires positioning the truck 90 degrees on the sight side to the alley. Then, at the examiners signal, I back into the alley, taking care not to hit any cones or touch any of the boundary lines and coming to a stop as close to the back line as possible. Keep in mind the back line is 60 feet away from the driver, so making that judgement is tough. And those cones and lines represent things like buildings, cars, and the alley dock itself into which a driver spends much of his or her time backing. This kicked my butt good for a long time. I was penalized four points yesterday and only one point today. Good show!
4. The right turn is the final event on the range and consists of making a right hand turn around a simulated corner with a curb, coming as close as possible to, but taking care not to touch, the cone on the corner. I killed the cone yesterday and did not come close today, so my total score was one point!

On-road driving test. After completing both of those parts, the examiner, applicant, and truck head out into the world for "real life" driving. Small city streets, Interstate highways, multilane road, school zones, busy and not-busy intersections area all included. There is no backing but there are lots or right and left turns, curves (some were pretty 'good' curves for a 60 foot commercial vehicle!), railroad crossings, urban and rural lane changes, and awareness of bridge, overpass, and regulatory traffic signs - the one he pick out for me was a "Bridge May Be Icy" sign somewhere in the middle. While following his directions, I was graded on speed and lane control (refer to 'good' curves comment above!), clutch usage, brake usage, proper gear selection (there are 10 forward speeds from which to choose), vehicle spacing, steering, my decision-making, and the one thing that cost me most points, traffic checks.

An applicant can miss 25 points on the on-road portion and still pass. I missed 10; the examiner said the average applicant will miss 15-18 and anything below 15 is "excellent." So having not done so well yesterday, I was pretty happy with the result. Even though my CDL does not show any grade, I came away from the test knowing I will probably not kill anyone (like I did that 5-year old standing on the 'curb' yesterday...) as I make the next step in this journey.

Next step for me is to go to work. I have picked a company called WEL Companies (http://www.welcompanies.com) based near Green Bay, Wisconsin, because they offer the best balance of equipment, range (how far do they really go?), pay, and whether I can take the truck home during my home time. Right now, my plan is to start their 3-day orientation on February 27, after which I will drive locally with one of their trainers for one week then go on-the-road, or OTR, for 4 weeks all over the country.

I am glad my initial training at West Michigan CDL is over. It was challenging, rewarding, very frustrating at times, and very intense at all times. I would not want to repeat it nor would I want not to have done it. And I think I am well-positioned for the next step on my path to become a professional truck driver.

There might not be many posts for the next week or so, dear reader, but please look forward to more as I move on to become a driver for the WEL Companies!

Thursday, 2/16/12

Bad news. I took my CDL test today and did not pass. I did well in the pretrip inspection; this takes about 30 minutes and is a thorough, front-to-back check of the tractor and trailer to make sure everything is safe for operation. Then I went to the range for Part 2 and did something I have not done since the first week I was a student here.

I crushed an orange boundary cone that was set up in a right turn maneuver on the range to simulate the curb trucks have to deal with when making right turns.

If a small child or handicapped person had been on that curb...well, the picture is not pretty and I deserved the failure.

Retest tomorrow!

February 13, 2012

Today is Monday and begins the last week of my 3-week CDL school. I have been extremely impressed with the school facilities, the instructional and support staff, the owner, Mike, and his trusted sidekick, Bob, as well as the instructors. The course has been very intense, pretty stressful, and filled with learning of all kinds. As I read about other for-profit CDL schools on the Internet, I believe what I have learned - primarily the tasks the school taught us in the truck and classroom - will do me well in my first important year as a new OTR driver.

The next three days are really all about one thing, however: sharpening our skills to pass the CDL test that will begin for us on Wednesday and Thursday. That is not to say we will not be exposed to new skills. In fact, if all goes well (meaning if the snow that should fall tonight does not negatively impact what we do) we will be exposed to the dreaded and much-feared blindside parallel parking. I cannot even imagine how that is going to be done or why I would have to do it in a truck. It also happens to be one of the items very few CDL schools teach, which makes West Michigan CDL a pretty special place.

Hopefully, in the next day or two, I will share the good news that I did pass my CDL test. I am also working on picking a trucking company with which to start my OTR career and I think I have the list narrowed down to three; perhaps I will have a final decision on that, too. I hope so!

Stay tuned, dear reader. When my CDL journey is done, I will start taking you on a 4-8 week journey around the United States (depending on the company I pick) with a driver trainer/mentor. That will be interesting to you, I hope, as we share experiences in all the regions and weather of our great country.

Tell your friends to subscribe! :)

February 11, 2012

Today is Saturday and I have not written a blog post this week. Mostly, that's because I have been just completely whipped when I get home after class. To be honest, we were told that the second week would be the most stressful but merely being told did not prepare me for what I experienced. The good thing is it ended well, albeit with a final city drive in 4 inches of newly-fallen snow. That, of course, made the drive quite, um, "interesting," to say the least, but it ended without incident. So what did we do to make the week so stressful?

It's not so much what we did, because we did the same tasks we've done for the week. But two events stand out - beside the 90 degree alley dock that continues to whip my butt - that made being there use a wee bit unpleasant. We have four students in my class: a young 20-Something whose Dad is a career truck driver, a Hispanic male, an Egyptian male, and me. Just that mix of cultural and age differences has made for a wonderfully diverse mix of opinions and behaviors, but two of them went off on each other this week. I won't say which two because I don't think airing that kind of stuff is appropriate, but I will tell you one of them has been consistently late for our early morning classroom session from 7:00 - 8:00 a.m. and has a habit of leaving early, even though we are to be there until 5:00 p.m. He has a somewhat superior attitude and does not take positive criticism very well, even when he does not perform the maneuvers in the prescribed way, as we all have done.

Well, the two of them got into it and if it weren't for one of the other students, there would have been a physical fight, but the other one did take one of the two away from the area and it calmed down...after a while.

The second unpleasant experience involved one of the two original "combatants" and me. It was quite cold on Thursday, though not snowing, and when it was my turn to drive, the fellow jumped in the right side of the cab, where it was warm. He said, "That is how we're going to do it now. One rides while one drives." I was not going to have that on my session and told him to leave or I would not drive. He refused many times, stayed in the truck, and I finally shut it down, got out, and went to the office to file a complaint. About mid-day on Friday, the company owner came to me and said he had received the complaint and would deal with the other student. He said he had a "heart-to-heart" chat with him about the first incident and would do so again.

That kind of experience did not help reduce my stress, I can tell you that. OR my performance, which just seemed to go downhill after that, making that day not so good.

Anyway, next week is geared toward fine-tuning our tasks in preparation for the state testers beginning Wednesday and for being exposed to some experiences we won't be tested on but might have to perform in the field, like the blind-side parallel park, the mere thought of which scares me to death! You know how hard it is to parallel park a car? Well, imagine doing that with a 60-foot commercial motor vehicle using only mirrors to "find" the curb on that side. Oh, boy....

Hopefully, the next time I write I will have good news about being the holder of a Commercial Drivers License. Then, of course, comes the matter of picking a suitable OTR trucking company to work for. I have narrowed the list to six, but picking The One will be difficult.

Thanks for reading, my dear reader. You have no idea how much it helps me, knowing that someone is reading my words.

Even on Super Bowl Sunday, I work

Today is Sunday, February 5, 2012, and it is Super Bowl Sunday, so you might think I would give myself a day off to relax and enjoy something. But no. I just returned from spending a couple of hours doing a pretrip inspection, or PTI, on the tractor and trailer in the West Michigan CDL parking lot because nobody is there, the weather is wonderful - 42 degrees and sunny - and the only deficiency I have found in training so far is the instructors did not do a step-by-step, item-by-item PTI early in the week. For those of us who didn't tear cars apart and rebuild them as teenagers, learning the difference between the air conditioning compressor and the air compressor and water pump is challenging, especially since the engine compartment of a commercial motor vehicle is packed with large, sturdy pieces of metal, hoses, and electrical wiring.

Fortunately, there is YouTube and there are examples from other CDL schools that point out each item, so I spent time doing that then validating the pieces on our own equipment.

I also have a take-home test to complete and must spend some time visualizing the shift pattern of this 10-speed transmission, especially downshifting and shifting from 7th to 5th, the turning gear. As I have written, this whole truck driving experience is very complex and I'm having a bit of difficulty managing the myriad tasks that come quickly to me when I am:

• Planning far enough ahead to make that turn up there, while
• Getting into the right lane to turn without hitting the curb and without leaving enough room for a 4-wheeler to squeeze to my right (which almost happened once, which is a VERY exciting experience, I can tell you) while
• Slowing down well ahead of the stop line, and
• Downshifting from 8th or 9th to 7th 
• So I can be in 5th gear before the turn.
• If the light stays green,
• I must be in 5th before the turn, so I can
• Make the right turn at a very slow speed, while
• Driving as far as I can into the left or on-coming traffic lane, so I can
• Complete the turn without hitting anything or running the rear tandems of the trailer over the curb.
• Oh. And I must remember to put the right blinker on and turn it off. A truck blinker is not automatic.

So, dear reader, the next time you make a right turn in your 4-wheeler, think about the myriad tasks you are completing without consciously thinking about any of them - you just do each of them to perfection and adjust to anything out of the ordinary, also without consciously thinking about it. If you can, try to remember what you were like when you were learning to drive and making right turns was not a natural, well-practived task. That is where I am in truck driving.

Then again, I have only been at it for one week and I have two more. I am pleased with my progress, dear reader, and thank YOU for reading and staying with me.

First full week is in the can

Today is Friday, February 3, 2012, and the end of the first full week of my training for a Commercial Drivers License, the CDL. This has been a very hectic week, filled with stress from learning new skills of which I had no idea one week ago, and of feeling pretty good about the progress I have made. There are two more weeks to go and I am going to need both of them to get my skill performance up to a minimum level to pass the Michigan test, but I do think I am on the right path. I did choose the right school; of that, I am sure.

So let me recap what I've done this week:

• I have learned to start and move a commercial motor vehicle pulling a 53' trailer;
• I have learned to shift all 10 forward gears - though there is considerable room for improvement! - and one reverse gear;
• I have learned to drive straight forward out of a "dock" and reverse the course, backing in a straight line into and back out of the dock;
• I have learned to perform (though not consistently well) a 90 degree alley dock, which is still the most difficult maneuver so far;
• I have learned to drive on public roads of all kinds, including industrial park, small neighborhood streets, main city multilane thoroughfares and divided roads, and part of the Michigan Interstate System with speed limits (for cars) of 70 mph;
• I have learned to shift up and down, though this is another area in need of more practice;
• And I have learned to perform a pre-trip inspection of my tractor and trailer.

The days this week have begun with a one-hour session in class learning about defensive driving, which as you might expect, is much more complex for a commercial motor vehicle than for a 4-wheeler car or motorcycle. A CMV is, after all, a regulated vehicle of great mass. Next week, we get into the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations and logging of our drive and duty times, both of which will be challenging and rewarding. Out on the range, we will be exposed to blind-side parallel parking, by far the most difficult maneuver. In case the name doesn't give you a good idea, it's parallel parking a 65' combination vehicle against the curb on the right side using only mirrors.

Uh huh. Fun!

We will also begin actually backing the combination vehicle into one of the maintenance bays in the school building. Up to this point, our practice has been based on yellow lines on the ground in a very large parking lot and orange cones to show obstacles. Next week we experience real obstacles...like the walls of a building!

So, dear reader, thank you again for keeping up with my progress. I hope what I am giving you amuses you in some way and I hope you continue following my journey to becoming a "truck driver."