Training Adventures with Sage in Cheyenne, WY

It's an App called "My Tracks". I have a Motorola Droid phone. You enable your phones GPS, and then start up "My Tracks", then hit record track. When you are done hit stop recording, and then you have the option of uploading it to your Google account.

 

Thank you it is installed and I will check it out

 

It's a little different when you are at 79,500 GVW on an icy road with a helacious cross-wind - no guard rail, and a 500-foot drop on the downwind side of the trailer. But it's good they showed you what a mountain road is like... you went down with the transmission in low gear and the jakes on, right?

The Henderson CO SAGE school showed me how to do it on I70 in Mt Vernon Canyon. You'll find a lot of new drivers that have never been on anything but flat roads when you get out there...

 

They don't have Jakes in the trucks. We went down in 8th (was driving a 10 speed), about 45mph, and kept it around 1700 RPM. I was told they took the Jake Brakes out to teach proper gear selection, and breaking technique. The hills coming down Happy Jack are no where as steep, or long, as that area going down into Laramie. There was the nice typical cross-wind that seems to always blow up there.

The other truck was a 9 speed, but he said he used 8th also. There are 20K lbs of old tires in the trailers, is what I'm told.

By "out there" you mean the prairies of the Wyoming/Colorado Oilfield? Hopefully I don't totally bomb the road test they want to give me. Unfamiliar truck and lowboy, and 13/18 speed might make me nervous. Hopefully he doesn't mind me going really slow until I get a feel for his equipment.

But I understand what you are saying about folks not used to driving on mountains/snow/ice/dirt, etc. I did all of that back in NJ, except for mountains, hauling Military equipment from base to base, but never drove anything bigger then my Dodge and Camper Trailer up in the mountains (Snowy Range, and the Big Horns).

 

Drive 10 yesterday: yard time doing 90s and Off-Sets

Drive 11 (Final drive): Took a leisurely stroll back and forth across Cheyenne, and I-80 & I-25, and to Sapp Bros (Seems they like this truck stop). Made sure I was good to go on all everything. Was a little easier driving this truck since it was a 9 speed, and I never used 1st gear, just 2-9 in the H pattern. 5th gear started to pop out of gear about half way through the drive, but for some reason this 9 speed had another "5th" which was all the way back over to bottom left and was in the "high" range of gears, but it seemed to be geared lower then the normal 5th gear. It messed me up on shifting after becoming familiar with the shift pattern so I just held the normal low gear 5th in so it wouldn't come out until I wanted it to.

Overall the SAGE class was good. They could get some newer equipment, but it serves it's purpose. Instructors are knowledgeable, and approachable for questioning when you have a question about something not covered in the course. Maybe it was that I had had prior experience driving trucks, but I never had an Instructor in the cab more then a minute while in the yard practicing backing and maneuvering. That stuff was kind of easy, and so was driving on the road. For me the course was more of a refresher, and a chance to become familiar with the 9/10 speed manual transmissions, double clutching, and the Civilian side of trucking.

I would recommend the school for those looking to get their CDL.

So now on to the Job hunt. I do have a local Oilfield company I need to contact tomorrow for a road test, so hopefully the Job hunt is short. If hired I'll probably start up a thread about "Adventures with Company XXXX"

Thats all folks (Jynxx, thanks for letting me highjack your thread and continue on with the "Training Adventures with Sage in Cheyenne, WY")

 

Not a "training" post, just an update on possible employment.

That original Oilfield company hasn't called me back yet for a road test so I applied at two others. One has me scheduled for a road test on Monday, the other must have started running my application (Dropped off yesterday after I talked with the Regional Ops Manager) through because I just got a call from the background check company they use asking to verify my Military status. They wanted to know if I had my DD-214 yet, which I don't, and needed to verify my "Supervisor" contact info. Hehe, Supervisor...I out-ranked him, just didn't take the Supervisor job due to me retiring LOL. Air Force personnel center, who do the 214's, is backed up a few months last time I called them, so I probably wont see mine until after my date of retirement.

So now if I get job offers from both I'll be torn as to who to work for. One is a large liquid handling company who has locations accross the US/Canada, the other is a small Wyoming company. Both pay about the same ($16-$18 Starting).

 

So, overall, it just over a month for you with Sage?

 

Yes 9 May-13 June. Some folks go longer; the folks who need "extra" driving/practice time, or have to go to the port again because they failed the first, second, third time...

Also depends on how many folks are in the class, and when they can finish their drives due to scheduling.

 

Yea, ok. I'm starting sage in Florida soon and they told me it varies with the student. But generally about a month.

 

Well the second water hauling place had to cancel my road test Monday due to the trucks all being out. "Rain For Rent" is in the works of sending me an offer of employment. The regional manager said it should be here in a day or so.

Now, after leaving the "Rain For Rent" yard this afternoon, I got a call from the first Oilfield company asking me to go take a drug test. Went down and did it, and called him back and he asked if Monday would be good to start, I said yep. Then I get home and they call me back and asked if I would go out with one of their guys tomorrow to ride along hauling some water down into Colorado for the day.

So now I have three companies; two looking good, one a maybe, I can choose from. But I may just go with my first application because they pay more then RfR, and have more hours. The other water hauling place is very busy and didn't know when they could spare a truck for a road test. I guess I can run with these guys for a few days, and if it seems like a good job then I'll politely tell the other two, sorry, but please keep my application on file in case this gig doesn't pan out. Have never been in this type of situation before so I'm not sure what the proper etiquette is for declining employment, but still being on good terms and not burning bridges.