Cartersville 6/9 class

Day 2

Today was not as fraught with, ahem, misadventures. I got there to the classroom before anyone else (well, the lights were out). I bandied about in the break room for a bit and some of the other students showed up.

Today we got log books and were shown the way to fill them out. We did a log day for yesterday, and a log day for today. It is important, we found out at the end of class, to only log your most recent status change; nearly every one had a mark from Greg's red pen because we drew a line for off-duty to the end of the day. I started to, but only got about an hour filled out before i realized, "Crap. Not supposed to do that." A bit late to correct it now.

After that bit of practice with the logbooks, we went on into trip planning. Well, eventually anyways. In the meantime we discussed various things like the cameras in the trucks. I know it's a touchy subject for the more experienced truckers, but here's where I stand on it.

I work for an ambulance company that has the same setup on all of the ambulances. They run the same loop as the Millis trucks, and activate under the same conditions. They are not constant surveillance. They have saved our ##### when car drivers ran into us, and buried (figuratively) a couple of EMTs who claimed that an accident was another driver's fault. I have no problem with them. There are loads of threads about the #### things on here, so if we could keep further discussion about them in those threads that would be great.

We soon discussed how to read the map books and plan trips. After lunch, we did some map reading exercises (and by the point my table was working together, mostly). Hoo boy. By the time we were done with that, there must have been steam coming out of our ears.

Helpful hint, even if it may keep you from a learning experience: Always check when planning a trip to make sure that a city name isn't "North Whatever" or "West Whatever." For example, Frankfort, IL, is nowhere near W Frankfort, IL. Just saying'.

We ended the day with a trip planning exercise that included planning the stop for your rest break. I, like several others, had to finish that one as homework.

I'm really excited about tomorrow. We get to do the Millis 500, which is laps around the terminal yard where we learn how to shift. I've never actually been in a tractor before, so I am really looking forward to it.

Outside of school, I made it back to my buddy's house and let his dogs in before it rained. I went up to the room I'm staying in just in time to hear a crack outside. I go outside to see that a tree limb has hit my car's rear window, just in time for the rain to hit. I am, therefore, not in the best of moods at the moment.

 

I just remembered that you said you live in Smyrna, Tennessee, tntim. I was born just south of there in Murfreesboro and actually lived in Smyrna for the first eight years of my life. The majority of my extended family still lives near the Nissan plant.

 

Day 3

Today was a nice, if slightly nerve-wracking, change of pace. We went straight out into the terminal yard and were split up into two groups, one with Jamie and one with Greg. The four of us with Greg got in the '96 Freightliner and the other five got in an '06 Kenworth T2000. Alex (I think that's his name, but I'm terrible with them) started off the rotation. We all ground the gears, missed shifts, and did the typical newbie learning-to-shift-a-ten-speed-behemoth mistakes.

The real fun started after lunch when we were split into three groups of three people and we each got a truck to circle the lot in - without teachers. We were told to occasionally switch out what trucks we were in so we'd get experience in all of them. Alex, tntim, and I were grouped together and we got in the oldest truck there, a 93 or 91 Freightliner. Those details are a bit foggy to me. What I DO know with no loss of clarity that each of the trucks had its own character. The oldest truck - while lacking such creature comforts as "head room" or "air conditioning" or "passenger's side doors that opened" - was the easiest to shift. The slightly newer Freightliner seemed a bit rougher and the gears were tighter; I'm not saying pieces were falling off of the interior, but if there was a little man behind the curtain we'd have ascertained the identity of the Great And Powerful Oz. The Kenworth was the most comfortable but I'd say ugly as sin and the shifting was... a challenge.

Our three person group did a few self-imposed exercises that the other two groups didn't do (at least not until after they saw us do them, the copycat bastiges). We went wide around the area past the cones, made a circle around that area to loop back around into the main loop through the yard, and we made a couple of "stop signs" out of a few places in the yard to practice downshifting and coming to a complete stop. The last one was tntim's idea, if I remember correctly.

Let me just tell you, tntim drove all three trucks like he'd been driving them for years. After a couple of hours, he was giving Alex and myself pointers on how to drive, and not in the "backseat driver" fashion. I still need lots of work (which can only come with time) and I believe Alex needs some more practice downshifting. Overall, though, by the time we left today, our whole group's confidence level was miles ahead of where it was this morning.

Sitting here at home, my leg doesn't yet hurt from all the double clutching... It worries me a bit. I'd say it's because I'm out of shape, but "pear" is a shape, as I said previously to my fellow students.

There was no mention today of the homework/last assignment from yesterday, and I spent enough time on it that ###### someone grade it or SOMETHING! It's probably because we spent all day in the yard. Hopefully we'll go over them tomorrow so we can get feedback.

One thing I'd like to mention - our class is rather diverse, but no matter the group I've been in, it has been all of us helping each other. That's been a pretty nice experience. I know not to necessarily expect that out there on the road, but it's a good start.