Ya I got a great motel with a nice view of a bunch of trucks,I'm at motel 24613 and hav'n lot's of fun. Monday should be the day I talk to Cole at SLC about all this fun he needs to get me back ASAP and then home for awhile. As far as load times I hear alot about the hurry up and wait game from some of the drivers I talk to but I also wonder what or who brought them into the company. I had a long chat with Cromedome last night and he opened my eyes to a number of things so my view of how I will do my job is clearer. Hope thing get better for you guys.


Take care 6pak

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Like my boss used to say keep that old cab over runnin she's still got a mile or two left in her.

and remember freedoms like a dollar sometimes you gotta fight to keep it

All I have to say is that, I had not talked on the phone to anyone for 4+ hours like that in years. And my body was complaining when I got up 5 hours later to run to Oak Grove.
Was a nice chat though. Keep your attitude positive and I think you will do great.
I need to end calls before midnight from now on though lol, 3am was late.

Sorry bout that I forgot I got to in LOL.

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Like my boss used to say keep that old cab over runnin she's still got a mile or two left in her.

and remember freedoms like a dollar sometimes you gotta fight to keep it

Lol at get better JJ left this morning at 6:00am to pick up a load of Spuds, at Hammett ID to take to Frito lay SLC, the dead head was 80 miles, he gets to Hammett and there are a few trucks in front of him so he sits and waits to be loaded, some of the other trucks there were Central trucks, to make a long story short the Spud place had a breakdown so no more trucks will be loaded there for a couple of days, he called weekend Dispatch and they tell him to wait there while they see what they can find, they offered him one load with more dead head miles then loaded , he asked them to try find something else, which they did, he has a load from Boise ID to PA tomorrow, so he dead headed home another 80 miles and will pick up his load in the morning, so so far for the start of the pay week for him he has 160 miles dead head.

OMG you had one long phone chat LOL and im glad your feeling better about things.

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The Two J's living in the house Peter bilt.

Anyone heard from Dragon yet? Just wondering how he was doing. Wayne is good. He said the trucks they use for training are old and was told you can't grind gears or you fail.....lol...He's wondering how that was gonna go with the old trucks. Hey Jess, hopefully JJ can make up for the time lost. I would get irritated with the whole, hurry and wait stuff.....lol

Irritated was putting it mildly! I loved having the extra day with JJ, But the whole hurry up and get there for your load and then waste a full day and not even getting to load once he got there.

But the run to PA is 2400 miles so that takes a lil of the sting away.

I'm pretty sure they won't fail him for a lil gear grind Lol, I have seen very experienced drivers grind them, when there not familiar with the truck.

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The Two J's living in the house Peter bilt.

LOL, he was told that the test people were jerks. But i guess that could be from some who failed. He said some of the guys were keep overs or something like that. He said that he is sure some will be going home soon. He will test out either Friday or Saturday. I am hoping he does well.

JJ will be in WVC this afternoon, Tell Wayne to look out for him and say hi, He will be the short Guy, with a goatee, ball cap and Glasses Lol. The keep overs are the ones that failed there road test, When JJ tested one of the Women failed because she couldn't get over to the right lane to turn and she retested the week after and passed with flying colors.

Like all testers, some are good guys and some are real Jerks.

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The Two J's living in the house Peter bilt.

You can fail if you grid the gears too much. Grinding gears are considered making mistakes and you will loose a point or two each time you grind.
If there are mechanical problems ie clutch out of adjustment then they can not count grinding against him.

There is a difference between scratching a gear and grinding it.
The biggest way to insure you so not grind them, and to help with shifting in general, is a simple trick.
Shift with your finger tips. If you wrap your hand around the shifter and grip it, you will end up using your arm and shoulder to shift. This leads to missing gears, and hitting them at an odd angle, because your arm wants to pull the shifter toward your body when you shift.

If you use finger tips then you are shifting with your wrist. Also this way you cannot force it into gear and break teeth.

Old trucks shift looser, less grinding.