Art's world of the weird and wonderful

Well, I've gotten my 240 hours in, and my 40 backs. Should be in a truck this week.

This whole experience reminds me so much of going after my pilot's license. So many similarities: Pretrip inspections, keeping a logbook, weight and balance, trip planning, high fuel prices...

And like flying lessons, your instructor may be there for the love of teaching others, or he/she may have other motivations. Also, there are extremely knowledgeable people, and there are great teachers, but rarely are both found in one person. I'm not speaking of my mentor, I'm just saying...

My hangup in flight training was the expectation that, if I just tried hard enough, and studied all I could, I could be proficient in all I needed to feel safe and competent when I got my license. That was not the case at all, and I wasted lots of time dragging my instructor onto flights when she had nothing left to really teach me. That little nagging uncertainty - "Do I REALLY know what I'm doing, or am I just checking off something on a syllabus?" - was the end of my pursuit of a license at the time.

I'm glad I had that experience, because it relates so much to this. I wish I could practice backing maneuvers until I could do them in my sleep. I wish I could know that this speed is safe, in this corner, in this weather. To open my eyes like Neo and go, "I know Kung Foo". Well, it doesn't work like that.

Certainly you should try and learn all you can, and get as much information and training as you can in order to make good decisions. But at the end of the day, decisions aren't based on having all the information you need. If you did, they wouldn't be decisions - they would be foregone conclusions.

I decided that I didn't want to get a pilot's license feeling as I did about the training. Right decision, wrong decision, it was a decision, but perhaps based on a flawed perception. Now, at the end of my CDL training, I feel almost as I did in flight school, but with a different perception. I know how to operate this vehicle. I know I drive within safe limits. At worst, I'll get a little frustrated, or a little embarrassed, or a little lost, but I'll be fine.

They say that a pilot's license is a license to learn, and I didn't really understand that at the time, but I get it now. It's the difference between learning, and putting what you've learned to use.

 

Three weeks in the books (Or is it four...), and I'm taking my first hometime after "The Great Empty Trailer Hunt". Actually, I've had two "unofficial" hometimes, which were honestly better because they came as a surprise. Nothing like the moment you first receive a preplan going somewhere you actually had in mind to go. It also helps to not spend your official hometime performing emergency road service on your brother's pickup.

My truck has been reliable since a failed brake chamber the first day, but wasn't cleaned terribly well from the previous driver. In one of the cabinets, I found an old Styx CD. Styx isn't the first band that comes to mind when you think "trucking songs", but goodness, doesn't "Come Sail Away" qualify?
"On board, I'm the Captain". Darn right!

The thing I miss most, or maybe the only thing I miss, about having another person with me, is having someone to hold the tandem slide release lever when it's being stubborn, and my God can that thing be stubborn...

I'm also trying to MacGyver some kind of ghetto/redneck air conditioner, because I still feel guilty to defeat the idle shutdown, even though Mr. Stocking says it's all right to sleep in temperatures meant for humans.

I've yet to buy a CB, as I've yet to feel a pressing need to have one. Came close at the Pilot on 465 southwest of Indianapolis, which shares it's driveway with a fleabag motel, but I decided that listening in on someone else's "Living Hell" was not the best use of my time/money... Neither would running over the "Kid Rock's scruffier brother" pimp, but at least that might've made me feel better.

Otherwise, it's just been a blur. I've seen deer disfigured/dismembered in more ways than I can count. I've had my extreme safe following distance justified by the smashed-in rear of a towed camper, thanks to a semi who couldn't stop when a construction zone brought traffic from 60 to zero faster than he could brake. I've seen 3 different cars crumpled from a semi making a lane change. I've come to realize that at least 50% of the population does not know how to merge properly onto a freeway. Yadda yadda, etc... etc...

I posted about the similarities between flying and trucking before, and I've latched onto another similarity - the "go around". When you're coming in for a landing, and you realize you're too high/too low, too fast/slow, not lined up with the runway, whatever, you abort. Pull in the flaps, add power, and go around.
In trucking, we have the "pull up", and this is fine when you're a little off. But, especially when you're just starting out, it's just as important to know when you aren't even close to being set up right, and abort the back right then and there.

I had one day that I just knew was going to go well because time, for some reason, seemed to be going slow. I don't mean slow in the "this is taking forever!" sense, it was more like I would perform some task, and have more time remaining than I'd normally expect to have. I need more days like that.