Back in the saddle again (re-introduction)

Well, After a couple year absence I'm behind the wheel of a semi again. Back in 2010 I attended Smith & Soloman driving school, got my CDL and started driving OTR. Found out quickly that being away from home for weeks at a time wasn't for me. I stuck it out for about 6 months.

After spending the next year unemployed I got into a job with a well drilling company. My CDL-A license helped me jump ahead of the other people applying because they had a few Freightliner straight trucks with air brakes. Did that for a year and I must admit, It was the hardest job I'd ever had. All day long shoveling wet mud, carrying bags of concrete and sand plus carrying the 5 foot long augers around. Too darn hard for a 51 year old guy.

After spending 30+ years as a dealership auto mechanic I wasn't looking forward to having to fall back on that. I had hoped I moved on from that line of work but with bills rolling in I almost had to crawl back to the dealerships again.

Lucky for me I have a friend who drives for a building supply chain, he runs a 26' boom truck. The company was looking for another driver to replace a guy that was leaving. They hired me even though I hadn't been driving for a couple of years. As soon as they saw I had a Class A license as opposed to the B license they pulled me out of the 26' truck and have me driving one of their 3 Flatbeds. They are Mack Visions with a 45ft flatbed and a moffitt on the back.

So here I am back in the saddle again. Amazing how quickly my shifting and judging corners deteriorated over those two years. But I have to learn fast because we are really busy delivering lumber to homes on the Jersey shore that were wrecked by the storm. It's less than fun right now navigating this truck through those tight shore town streets. But as my driving improves it will get less stressful.

But I wanted to pop back in and say "Hi". I met a lot of good people on this forum when I originally joined back in 2010. I hope everyone is doing good.