Hello From Ariel, Washington

Yep thats one of the great post I checked out on the forum first thing. I'd like to see more of that here. He did a great job putting the information together and it speaks volumes.

I heard Ton Ostergard (CEO aka big cheese) isn't signing a new contract so it'll be interesting to see what tack the company takes on that front. And I imagine Duane Ackley will have more of a presence in Lincoln which from what I hear will be a Great thing.

Man I'm really jonesin to get back out there...lol

 

I'm actually about 1 mile east of 503 when it turns south, I live on the spur just past Shelter road so I know exactly where you launch! so cool! In fact I walk my dog next to the river in the woods south of the 1 lane bridge so we pass Cresap on the way down, we'll look for ya. Mostly we go to Yale lake since we're about 2.5 miles from the park. BEAUTIFUL boat btw.

Welcome to the industry! I've heard good things about May and actually when I went to Crete it was a toss up between May and Crete and Crete won because they were paying 42 cpm vs. 36 cpm. You'll have to post for us and let us know how much you enjoy May after you've been with em for a bit.

Thanks for the come back

 

Well I had a truck that was a real lemon. Swift had given it to another driver first and he had it in the shop twice for the leak and when I got the Volvo (it had approx 35K miles on it) it still had the diesel fume leak so I put it in the shop 4 times, the last time being Volvo shop, and it was still leaking so severely that the raw fumes were coming out of the AC. Of course I didn't want to park it cuz as you know if our wheels don't turn our bank account goes empty. The tough part was there was NO blowback so we couldn't figure out what the problem was and believe me we tried. So I was poisoned pretty badly having driven it for a few months that way.

If I only knew then what I know now I wouldn't have been such a cowgirl and played so tough, which is; Diesel fume poisoning is much more serious than most people will tell you. It's actually like having Black Lung which is a coal miners disease. It damages your lungs and leaves scars on them it causes them to fill up with fluid.

For the last 5 yrs one of the things I notice was I was more susceptible to bronchitis, dust and smoke in the air and then finally about 1 1/2 yrs ago I drove home for hometime parked the truck in our yard and just made it to the house, I was pretty weak. My lungs were so full of liquid I could barely breathe and thought I had a really bad chest cold. My better half wanted to take me to the hospital cuz he was pretty worried and after a week I finally let him. They said I was borderline to having pneumonia.

Its kinda similar to any chemical burn to the lungs, you come away from it in a weakened state and small things like colds and such tend to effect you more than they do normal people. Its a permanent situation but I'm fairly stubborn when it comes to letting things take me down.

Now my lungs are constantly full and I make noises when I breathe but si la vie, such is life...you just learn to deal you know? I think if I had it to do over again I would've parked it until they got it permanently fixed or had another truck available for me.

 

Wow! Sorry to hear about your relationship going south thats a tough one...unfortunately it happens to all of us but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with I know.

Yep I was concerned about the long duration between then and next spring when I go back to work as well, it'll be just shy of 2 years by then. I did call Prime a few weeks ago and they told me I needed to go to a community college and do a refresher course of about 15 hrs before they would consider hiring me but by the time I go back (2011) they're projecting a 400,000 driver shortage so hopefully they'll just have a trainer take me out for a few weeks or if I'm really lucky just do a driving test and let me roll...but who knows I'll cross that road then.

Now as far as re-training...I know that Crete is training new drivers now so as long as your CDL is clean you may want to look into someone other than Swift or the pumpkin. With all your experience no sense in goin though all that nonsense but good luck no matter what you choose and thanks for the comeback

 

Yep diesel truck exhaust fumes thats correct. Ummm not sure about the lawsuit and honestly I haven't driven a Volvo since then Crete has Freightshakers and my last company had Petes and KW's so I'm not sure what they're like anymore but thats always a possibility.

 

I know right? How lucky are we... every time we take our vacation friends and fam ask us where we're going and we always tell em we are exactly where we want to be so why leave