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...

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.