Day Eleven

Finals day. Major bad news last night. My wife called to inform me that my grandmother had passed away. I cried for a while. She would have been 100 this June. I wanna go home.

We showed up at the OC at 0630. After waiting for a few minutes, we were taken to a classroom and the Training Manager and TOM talked to us for a couple of hours. Mainly on what to expect and what was going to happen next in the process. Then we took our final written exam. After lunch we all sat around and waited for our drive tests. The tester that I was assigned to was supposed to start at 1430, but he didn't show up until two hours later. So the three of us that were testing with him had to do everything in the dark. They didn't train us in the dark! It's different.

I butchered my backing, though. When we trained at the school, we had plenty of room to pull forward and reposition ourselves. At the OC, we had about 70 feet...and there was a tractor coupled to the trailer directly in front of where I had to put my trailer. Not much room to move around. Luckily there was no trailer on the far side of my space or I really would have messed it up. I did pass, but with a lot of work needed on backing. Whew.

Now it's time for a midnight trip home, some sleep and a lot of laundry. Then I'm back on Sunday evening for a week of JumpStart...followed by OTR training.

Day Ten

More rain today. This is such fun. I'm wearing my heavy boots today and they keep interfering with the accelerator when I press on the brake. My instructor's only comment was "it's the other pedal."

Well, the driving instruction part is over. We're sitting in the OC eating lunch. The bus takes us back to USTDS in a few minutes. Then we will finish out our classroom stuff. Tomorrow is the final exam and the road test. Oh joy!

Day Nine

"It never rains in Southern California." Well it is today. It's rainy, cold and windy. Not wanting to splash around in the mud while practicing our backing, we practiced button-hook turns instead. Such fun. That's like trying to herd a wounded water buffalo upstream. After lunch the physical therapist talked to us about proper stretching exercises and things to do behind the wheel to help blood flow and keep us more alert. I hate the wind.

Today we worked on Trip Planning in class. This is about the last thing we have to cover before our finals on Thursday. We should finish it up tomorrow. I am seeing the benefit of Mapping Software already. It works great to double-check my routing plans. Did I mention that I don't like the rain?

It has been confirmed. SNI has cancelled their contract with this flea-bag motel. The class that started on Monday is the last to be here. When I come back for Jump Start next week, I should be in the new motel. Actually, it's the old motel, before they moved us to Days Inn. Maybe they'll have something other than milk and donuts for the continental breakfast. Did I mention that I don't like the motel we're in?

Day Eight

More backing practice in the morning and map reading/trip planning in the afternoon.

Day Seven

I wake up in my own bed and take a nice warm shower. Sneaking out the door before the kids are awake, I'm off into the pre-dawn darkness. Four and a half hours later I'm back in the motel parking lot...but this time I have freedom! One of the other students and I go to Walmart and then out to lunch! This is great.

Class doesn't start until 2pm. We arrived in plenty of time and started on map reading. The instructor gave us a warm-up exercise for homework. Find this city on the map, etc.

Day Six

Half day today. We are doing Module training. Power Pallet Jack, Pre-Trip, Backing/Pull-thru and Brake Adjustments. Such fun. Sure wish it wasn't so windy.

After an un-enlightening lunch at the OC, I ride SuperShuttle to the Ontario International Airport and board a flight to Phoenix. No, there is nothing in my shoes besides my feet. Stupid security inspections.

Day Five

I'm ready to back up to a dock and pick up a load. This is great! I can actually do this. Driving is starting to be fun and not a cause for stress anymore. I've pretty much gotten down everything that I need to...now for more practice. Wow, this 45 degree alley docking is a breeze. Oops, was that a cone?

I want my POV! We have a morning class tomorrow and an afternoon class on Sunday. I'm going back to Phoenix and pick up our van. This riding the bus crap and being stuck in a motel in the middle of nowhere sucks big time.

Day Four

We are in the truck all day today. Lots of driving around the surface streets, but not much on the highway.

My co-trainee is still having some trouble with basic things. He gets overwhelmed trying to remember everything he has to.

Day Three

Ugh. Today my driving instructor told me the story of "Club 215 & the Denny's Dollars." It seems that in the past, SNI used to issue "Denny's Dollars" to the trainees for meals. There is a strip club across the freeway from the motel. The story is that one of the students went over there and tried to buy "lap dances" with his Denny Dollars. Then he came back to the motel about 3am and started banging on the door to a room with two female students in it. He wanted to come in and "study" with them. This got back to SNI and now they don't issue anything for meals except at the OC. We all laughed about it.

Today we finished up Mechanical, Logging, Loss Prevention and DOT. We've taken four "Checks for Learning" so far. Tomorrow we have no classroom training. The class that is one week ahead of us has their final exam and their Drive Test is tomorrow, so the instructor will probably be at the OC helping with that. Driving is coming along good. I'm putting everything back together that I remember and incorporating new stuff with it.

Day Two

David's Rule of Computing #1...always make sure that the phone jack in the hotel room is analog and not digital. There is a "Data Jack" on the side of the phone, but no instructions anywhere in the room. I killed my laptop last night and had to reload some drivers to get it to work again. This motel sucks. Rumor has it that Schneider has canned the contract and we may be moved this weekend. I hope so.

More of the same today. Classroom training in the morning and driving instruction in the afternoon. We get back to the motel room in a daze and just fall into bed. So far no real homework, but I'm sure it's coming.

Day One!

DAY ONE is finally here. After getting to the motel lobby for the shuttle that is supposed to leave at 5:45am, we are told that US Truck Driving School (where I'm attending training) will send a bus that will be here at 6:10. Ok, not a problem. We rode to the school in a full-size tour bus that they use for bus driver training.

Not a bad trip. The music was good (oldies). We arrived at the USTDS school in Rialto, CA about 6:30am. Class didn't start until 7 so we had time to stand around and stare at each other like the strangers we were. There are 14 of us in class. Two women and 12 men. Three or four of us have either been to a school in the past or have some driving experience in the past.

Just before 7am, the instructor unlocked the door and we all filed in. We started the process to becoming a "truck driver." Paperwork, introductions, schedules, etc. After a couple of hours of that, he passed out our driver handbooks and started on Mechanical stuff. We spent two hours working our way through Mechanical Operations and Logging. We'll finish both of these up tomorrow...hopefully.

Off to the Operating Center for lunch. We are told that the Fontana Operating Center (OC) probably has the best cafeteria/catering contractors, compared to the other 10 OCs. That remains to be seen. Would you prefer grease, grease or grease with your grease? We tracked down the head honcho for training and received our little meal tickets. These are good for $5 worth of food (one coupon per visit per person) and we have enough to last us through the 11 days.

After an interesting lunch, we are introduced to our driver instructors. The school breaks the class down so that each instructor has two students in the truck. This makes for a lot of drive time. However, one of the instructors had been rear-ended (in his POV) that morning so we had to take one of his students. His other student went with another instructor. We were "taken" to an industrial park area directly under the flight path for Ontario International Airport. There we learned/relearned shifting and basic truck operations...sans trailer. I'm very happy that I remembered as much as I did and I didn't grind the gears much at all. (Very little, according to the instructor.)

Travel Day

It's time to go. One last kiss to the wife and kids and I'm off to the bus station for the trip to San Bernardino and the Driver Training Center.

Arrived in San Bernardino after a uneventful trip on a packed bus. No one attacked the driver or anything like that. I watched just to make sure though.