Starting Katlaw School, Austell GA, 1/12

Thanks .. I got that impression when I met him Fri .. and talk about easy going .. I'm sure when driving he will 'ramp' it up a bit, not a lot of time for confusion when behind the wheel.

Yep .. got the Gump reference .. 'lew-ten-ent Da-an'

Steve

 

Yep, I'm lovin it. Here we start out in 4th, being emt, so 5th is ok. It's starts getting exciting when you hit the switch and go to 1st .. which is now 6th .. still not too bad. Most of my class, except me of course, hehehe .. had problems finding 7th. Either went toward 9th or worse reverse. When they get confused they stop double clutching as well .. which don't work .. and don't get me started on downshifting. I even had a little problem there but was able to do it. I can't believe they aren't rebuilding trans every 6 months the way some struggle with it. But heck, it -was- the first day.

Hey I'm thrilled when I remember to turn the turn signal off after the turn .. hehehe ..

 

Well, back in the classroom to make up the days I missed jumping into the truck early. I'll be there tomorrow too and then it's all truck driving after that, staring Wed. As I understand it, we'll be spending 1/2 the day backing and parking and the other half at the 'shifting park', and industrial area where we drive and practice shifting, turning, breaking etc. Once we do well at the 'park' we'll be on the roads for that 1/2. I already learned the straight back, offset and parallel .. now I just need the 90 deg alley dock and lots of practice time. Can't wait !!!!

Steve

 

Had some fun today. The Kenworth came back from the shop and was sitting out there hooked up to a trailer. I was just making up classroom time by myself since I've taken all the tests already (classroom, not just DMV).

So I went out and pre-tripped the rig for a while .. alone. It's really cool getting to fire it up and mess around by myself. Would have been nice if I could have taken it around the complex .. but that's not doable. Tomorrow I should get some more time with it and I'll see if they'll let me pull it up front and drop and hook the trailer a few times. Someone will probably have to come sit with me to be legal, even though I'm only moving it a few hundred feet .. but I bet they will. They like my enthusiasm!

I start on Wed with my new instructor, a 40 yr .. 4 million miler .. known as Lt. Dan. We'll be in the Volvo then so I'll have some time in several different trucks .. pretty cool. Not sure of the model .. 670 probably .. I'll post it soon. Need to get a pic with it so I can have a new Trucker avatar!

Later .. Smash