First week with Central

He everyone!

I said I was going to give a run-down on how the training is going with Central so here we go:

I've been in locally training, with a friend, locally since Monday 2/25.

Good hotel as far as hotels go.

School starts at 7am, ends at 3pm, depending on how things are going.

Instructor is top-notch. She's never been a driver but she knows how to teach and makes it fun.

She went all-out to help anyone that was struggling and drove people to the doctor and picked them up from the hotel in the morning if they didn't have a car.

First thing on Monday was to head to the doctor for physical. Drug test, eye test, blood pressure. hernia test, nose, ear, throat.

I was stressed about the blood pressure because I've been borderline for about ten years but ended up well with in range. Might have been the change of diet over the last month and exercise. Dark chocolate is your hearts friend. Sodium is not.

The physical took about 3 hours because of the waiting time. Received the health card before leaving.

Went back to the school and after lunch we started with videos and filling out the first log in the log book.

Monday night we studied in the hotel for about 3 hours (not enough).

Tuesday we had a couple more videos and some sample tests to get us prepared for real tests.

Tuesday night we studied for about 5 in the hotel, maybe six hours (still not enough).

Wednesday (today), took 3 "pre-tests". These prepare us for the "Finals" tomorrow.

We have to score a certain percentage (study, study study).

One guy got sent home because he failed his blood pressure test a second time (he failed it on Monday too). He can go back again after 1 month after being on medication.

Tonight is more studying.

Everyone is going home tomorrow one way or another. Those that pass are going to Hollywood er, I mean Utah, on Saturday.

Just so 'ya all know, if you can't verify employment for the last three years it will become an issue. I was self employed for the last 20 years so make sure you can prove you haven't been unemployed. Driving record has to be squeaky clean. They found something on my record from 16 years ago but it was minor. They asked me about it though.

I'll let 'ya know how it goes tomorrow.

 

Forgot to mention:

General knowledge is mostly common sense stuff. Mostly.

Doubles will be on the test even if you won't be driving them.

Air brakes are important to study hard for for as well. More than you even wanted to know about air brakes.

'Ya might never physically see an S-Cam but you'll need to know what they do and how they operate.

 

Yep, SLC. Get on the bus Saturday.

 

Yea. It ended up being expired tabs or something.

 

Please delete this post. It was a double post.

Thanks

 

Whew! Passed the written final exams. Went to do the lifting exercises and got through that. Tough if you don't normally lift heavy stuff all the time. You will break a sweat. Wear clothing that allows you to move easily.

Massive stress for me. If anyone else was stressing, they didn't really show it.

I mentioned the air brakes in my first post. That is the test I barely passed. The other tests I did fine.

I can't stress this enough: Study air brakes and doubles 'till you can't stand it. Then study it some more. Watch videos on youtube on how they operate. Take the on-line tests on this site. Do this before you even start class.

How to couple and uncouple a trailer. You have to be able to do it in your sleep.

I will have to take similar tests the first day in Utah.

Make sure your blood pressure is well under control before you start class or you will be sent packing. It may raise somewhat under the circumstances. Leave some buffer room for that.

Fail on any of the above mentioned stuff: Take the bus.

If you get a roommate, unplug the TV and quiz each other. It helps a lot. Forget you even have a phone. If I could have physically seen and touched the parts of the truck that were on the tests it would have made it easier for me to comprehend some things.

One other thing we were told. When your taking the test (it's on a computer), you have to keep moving the mouse because if the computer goes into sleep mode, you have to start the test over.

Maybe they changed the sleep time lately, I don't know.