How long does it take..........

That's what it's for..... It's called QR code. There are barcode creators on the web for it too.

 

congrats on starting a new chapter in life and your new job at stevens, numbers. I hope it all works out well for you. It's also great that your uncle has decided to help you.

 

So you're in the thick of things for about 3 weeks now, numbers, just wondering how things are going for you??

 

Well, its the first time I've actually had time to get on the internet in about a month.

This is actually the first place we've parked long enough for me to have some free time to sit and log onto this site, not to mention the free internet access.

School was crazy, fast paced and no bs. The instructors were cool, one of them was a little short tempered, but overall the teachers and the school were ok....i dont really have anything to compare it to, but i just kept the mentality of "I'm there to get my cdl and get out" and focused on just that. I kept my involvement in the drama with other students to a minimum, I cooked all my own food with the kitchen you share, and avoided going out into town....the small town.....with the other guys. I just didnt want the hassle of getting involved in any of the bs. I shared a room with another guy in his late 30's and he respected my privacy as I did his. I spent most of my time studying, or reading some good books i picked up before i went out there.

On July 4th they took us by van over into the city for a street festival and fireworks which was nice, coll to get out and see another city. I kinda wondered off the beaten path found a really cool sushi place and a nice place to do a little shopping while we were down there. The only rule was no drinking.

Well on the 5th I passed everything I needed to first time out, and the actual driving test was a breeze. I grinded up the gearbox right out of the gate. The examiner chuckled, told me to relax, and in about 30 mins I was done.

Everyone in my class who was left...started with 9 ended with 7, first guy dropped after breaking his dang hand after he punched a wall....apparently his girlfriend dumped him over the phone or something.....but Stevens had no choice but to send him home after he got put into a cast. Second person got recycled into the class starting as we were leaving, he just needed a lot of extra help. He was able to do all the bookwork, planning, maps, logs, just was a lot slower then the rest of us out on the range and on the road, so he is repeating some of the course again.

Graduation day,about an hour after the testing lol, shake our hands, and put us back on the dang bus for dallas for orientation. Paperwork, physical, classes, paperwork, driving test, paperwork, videos, tours, red hats, paperwork. Then we meet with our "counselor" who will be our primary point of contact while we progress through training. I must have a new one because he calls every dang day lol. He informs me he has a trainer for me, but he wont be there for 2 days, so he gets me a van ride to the grocery store, and then back over to the hotel and tells me to hang out and when the trainer is en route he would get me a ride back over to terminal....ok......private room, kitchen, I make some calls, watch some movies and sleep.

Trainer gets here, nice guy, younger, very very pro stevens, tells me we have a load to pick up across town but not untill 5 pm that afternoon, and its around 10 in the morning. He needs to do laundry and talk to some people so we should be ready to pull out of there about 3pm as the ride across town will only take 45 mins or so. We hop into truck, i get my stuff stored, trainer is very very organized and a bit of a neat freak, fine by me, so we head across town. Arrive at shipper, pull into dock and wait for about an hour to get loaded. He gives me some qualcom tips, and goes over some paperwork. I'm going to be riding shotgun for the first trip while he shows me some things....fine i guess......we get loaded and off we go. Ft. Worth to Kingman AZ. we drive untill its time to shut down, wake up next day and start off, he realizes around nm/az border that since we hit some bad traffic in albuquerque he is going to be real close on his driving hours so he calls ahead to see if we could sleep at the dock...no problems......we get there, dock, and hit the sack until the morning when we were supposed to unloaded. We get a preplan that night so we are headed to Las vegas the next day. We get unloaded, and now its my time to drive, off to VEGAS BABY...most nerve wracking 2.5 hours of my life.....the whole time I'm driving and he is just chatting away, asking me about street signs we just passed, or about my life back home...i soon realize he is doing this because if i were to grip the wheel any tighter i'd probably would have pulled it right off its wrack....lol.

We get to vegas, do a pick up at some sort of beverage distributor and off we go to just south of Portland.....portland to Oklahoma City , OKC back to Phoenix, and here I sit just outside Roswell New MExico on our way to my trainers home area of Little Rock. He is scheduled for 3 days off, and so am I apparently. I am getting dropped at a hotel (stevens paid for) and he is headed home for a couple of days.

So thats it, there is more, but I just woke up, got showered, fed, and waiting on my trainer to do the same. It's crazy out here, crazy drivers, crazy people, crazy things to see, crazy truck stops....crazy.

I'm alive, well, and getting a go at it all.....thanks for everyone leaving me messages and all the well wishes.

I'll check in the next time I have time and a good internet connection!!

 

oh...and walmart...or wallyworld as everyone is fond of calling it.....great place to shop, sleep in the lot, but terrible place to unload...terrible....lol.....and our load taking us towards my trainers home area is to some big giant mothership dc in Arkansas, should be interesting.

 

Swift will take ya

 

uh.....ok.......i'll keep that in mind....lol

all joking and sarcasm aside, I'm with Stevens, out with my trainer. But thanks anyway.

 

Sounds like Stevens agrees with you and you're marching on towards Solo! So pleased for you, numbers!

 

This is a good read!! From someone like me who is getting ready to join the ranks of Truck Drivers, it was nice to read about someone who struggled with the idea of actually doing it, and the process of you doing it. Best of luck Numbers, hope you keep giving us updates.

 

Ya I replied to the first post. lmao... Without reading the thread.

Sounds like your moving. So that's good. Have you gone thru texas yet? I had a truck stop down there where I walked into the bathroom and there was #### ALL OVER THE TOILET, THE GROUND, THE WALLS OF THE STALL, THE CEILING. It was like someone let off a bomb of ####. I couldn't believe it.

You know what I had to do. I had to #### so bad I didn't give a ####. I ####### HOVERED OVER THE TOILET SEAT AND LET IT OUT. I couldn't stay in there but maybe 1.5 minutes. Then I had to clean up real quick and RUN.

It was so bad. I got out and threw up all over the side of the ####### parking lot. I got in my truck and my MENTOR is like whats wrong.. I was like go look at the bathroom. He did and he came back and threw up too. I couldn't ####### believe it.

I had to ####### GO THOUGH. lmao.... Ok story over.