Adventures in Trucking

Got a Call From My Trainer

2011-03-12T16:38:00.000-08:00

I got a call from May, they said they had a trainer for me and that he would call in awhile. It was about five minutes later the trainer called. He told me he'd pick me up in Roseburg, we'll be heading south. He said to bring warm and cold weather clothes, sounds like we might be all over. I asked him if there would be enough room for me to bring my laptop, he said yes, so I'll keep posting while on the road. I'll try and take pictures and post them too. I think I'll be leaving in the afternoon, but he's trying to get the load earlier.

Orientation is Finished

2011-03-11T11:18:00.000-08:00

I finished orientation yesterday, nothing too exciting about day two and three, just a lot of classroom stuff.
Some of the things covered was the Policies and Procedures of May Trucking, Insurance and Retirement Plan. We were also trained on the Qualcom, it is the onboard computer that enables the company and drivers to comunicate. It also keeps a log of your duty status, ie: driving time, on duty not driving, sleeper birth and off duty.

Orientation Day 1

2011-03-07T18:30:00.000-08:00

My first day of orientation went better than expected. I had been trained on a ten speed transmission and May uses thirteen speed. My tester knew that, so he just had me shift as an eight speed, basic H pattern, four low and four high. While in high range the four gears can be split, which would be eight in high range, 8+4 add granny gear makes 13 speed. It was so easy to drive compared to the old International I trained on. I was the first one to take the road test and passed, everthing went really smooth. The next thing we did was the skills test, basicly it is an obstacle course of tight real world situations that you will see while out there driving. I feel really good about my performance, I didn't hit any cones, I backed into all the space they had setup. The course was setup so tight if you were off by more than six inches or so on the lupe part, you would have hit a cone.
Not sure what we will do tomorrow, I think class room, let you know tomorrow.

Refresher Course

2011-02-28T13:57:00.000-08:00

At the moment I don't have much to write about, so I'm adding this to keep it going. One week from today I will be in orientation at May Trucking Company. It's been almost a month since I graduated from Commercial Driving School, and I'm concerned I may need a refresher day to keep me sharp. Therefore I talked to my trainer at the school, she invited me to come in this week and drive for a few hours to sharpen my skills up before going to orientation. I'm not sure that I will be driving during orientation, in any case it will help.

http://www.maytrucking.com/

http://www.umpqua.edu/commercial-truck-driving

I Finally Got The Call

2011-02-21T21:45:00.000-08:00

I finally got the call from MTC confirming that I've been hired. My orientation date is Monday March 7th, orientation will last three days. I'm not sure how long I will have to wait for a trainer, hopefully not long. Once I do start the training, it will last between one and three weeks.

Preparing to go out on the road

2011-02-19T13:59:00.000-08:00

This is the first blog of our new adventure. My wife and I are getting ready to hit the road, but it will be awhile before both of us will be out there together. I just graduated, the first week of Feb., from Umpqua Community College CDL training. I have applied to a company and my application was approved and is being proccessed. Assuming they hire me, the next step will be going through company orientation, which takes about three days. I then will be put on with a trainer from that company. Training usually takes between one to three weeks, depending on how quick of a learner I am. Then I believe there will be more testing to show the company your ready to solo. If everything goes good then they will issue you your own truck. Once I solo then my wife, Carol, will be able to ride with me. When we do hit the road together, we would like to be as prepaired as possible. We have been doing a lot of research and reading many trucking websites along with talking to truckers. We've gotten a lot of good ideas and thought of some good ideas of our own. In my next post I will be going over the things we've come up with to save time and money, and how to eat healthy and smart on the road.