Got the CDL, now for the Diploma

Merrily now has her Commercial Driver’s License in hand and is fully legal and trained to drive big rigs.

Of course, her goal was to become a safe competent driver of our own home and that, she has accomplished through this 8 week truck driver training class.

I am sure that she could have gotten a license on her own without the class through study and some practice with our own rig. But, what she wanted was to be safe, confident and comfortable doing it and that takes a lot of hands on time behind the wheel.

Most of her 10 hour days were spent on the practice field where they have the various field exercises setup with trucks and trailers, obstacles and simulated typical situations to learn to navigate.

Typically, 3 hours of each day was in the classroom learning terminology, technology, regulations, map reading and how to fill out log books. With the possible exception of the log books, all of other content goes to training a driver to be more aware even when a situation is not in play.

The rest of the day was spent getting hands on experience in their trucks with their instructors. That has trained her mind, eyes and muscles to reliably respond correctly in real time situations. This not something that one can get from books. Neurological patterning and muscle memory training has to be done through conscious repetitive actions and that means some long exhausting hours behind the wheel.

Prior to this class she had never driven a truck while towing a trailer of any sort. By itself, that makes for a huge confidence gap. Add to it virtually no experience backing any sort of a trailer and you have borderline panic just thinking about parking our rig.

Now, her confidence is solid and her fears are gone. Add some time on the road and she will be as comfortable handling our rig as she is running to the grocery store in our Smart car.

Congratulations, my Love!

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Two down, One to go

Today, Merrily passed her DOT maneuvering tests (backing 100’ in a narrow channel and a 90 degree backing between two trailers).

She said that was easy compared to the equivalent tests to pass the class. They have less room, tighter limits and less allowance for slop and oversight.

She is happy. Still has just one more test to go, her on the road DOT driving test and then she can go pick up her CDL from the DMV and start driving solo on the road.

I am just about to bust a gut because I am so happy for her! This is just terrific!

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And now.. A Double Wooohoooo!!!!

Merrily passed her 10 speed truck driving certification today!!!!   Momentous occasion!

At this point, at least 6 students out of 43 were unable to pass even a single truck certification and were dropped from the course.

Tomorrow and Wednesday they will take the two  90 minute tests (one each day) for Maps and for logs. If you ever thought that truckers don’t have to be smart, this course will change your mind.

Sure, a few rogues skip by for awhile and make a bad rep for the rest but a career professional driver has to be smart or have a short career, period. 

Merrily is closing in on the end of the class… less than 2 weeks away.

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WooHoo! Merrily qualified on the 9 speed… One more to go…

To most, this probably seems like … “….what?…”. But this is a really big deal.  In order to be certified and get her CDL, she has several tests to pass. Some are written but the hardest are the driving qualifications in the big trucks. They have 9 speed and 10 speed semis with 48’ trailers at the school and to pass the class and get a certificate to exchange for your CDL at the DMV, you have to qualify on both kinds of trucks.

She almost qualified on the 10 speed, yesterday, but due to a capricious decision by the instructor, she didn’t. Today, she did qualify on the 9 speed trucks so just one more to go.

To graduate the class, she still has to pass several different backing  tests (90 degree to a dock, serpentine offset to dock) and the 100 foot alley back (which is not as easy as it sounds). You only have about 6” on either side of your tires to work in to back a 48’ trailer 100 feet in a straight line.

She is very close, though. She has really worked hard at this course and will definitely be a better driver than I am when she graduates from the class in a couple more weeks.

I love her so much but I admire her equally so it is impossible to not be excited and proud for her.  I don’t know how many other 60+ year old women would even consider making this effort but she has and is owning the show and we are going to have an unbelievably great life on the road because of it.

WE, not just me, will travel the country, safely and comfortably and, as always, know that someone is always there to have our back

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Good Morning Pandora!

I love Beegie Adair’s music style! Pandora (I love it, too) just pushed me a note that they have put up a new set of selections from Beegie Adair so I had to check them out.

Yep, Beegie is in there, somewhere.

Pandora, if you have not tried it, is Internet Radio thematically corrected by you for your own listening styles. it does not play just the specified artist but Pandora will find music that seems to fit the same style… Sometimes we don’t see eye-to-eye on what “same style” means but if I strongly agree, I give the piece it is playing a thumbs-up. If I really don’t want to include it, a thumbs-down click will sculpture Pandora’s selection criteria a little to better fit my preferences.

By building multiple playlists or “Radio Channels”, I can have a broad choice of music sources to match my mood. Because Pandora throws in “similar music” as well as the specific artists I choose, it gives me a taste of randomness, but not as uncontrolled as XM or Sirius Satellite Radio.

All-in-all, for a free service (yes, as usual, there is a “premium” version, too) Pandora is nice.

You can setup Radio channels that you configure for the type of music (style, artist, genre, etc.)you would like to hear.  At any time, thereafter, you can switch to that channel and start hearing that type of music.

I also really like GrooveShark which lets me build playlists of just the artist I want without contaminating the mix with similar artists. I can build playlists of pieces that fulfill my own music preferences without semi random insertions by the service.

Both have worked fine over both park wifi and Tethered phones and sound good to me. It is very nice to  not be limited to a specific set of tunes on specific CDs that I have to try to read the labels to pick from.  Heck, by the time I find the CD I want, I am too tired or frustrated to bother turning it on…. maybe next time?

Both are also available (Pandora is free but not Grooveshark) on Android phones and will let me use the playlists I built on my computer.

A Big Hand for the Little Lady

Merrily made another qualification drive, today. it was with a driving instructor that she had not driven with in a few weeks.

She did almost perfect and literally “stunned” the instructor with how much better she was than the last time he rode with her.  He really verbally praised her improvement and said he could not believe how much better she was doing than the last time.

She got kudos for getting up to speed, smooth shifting, great turns, just everything. She came off of that ride with a really big grin on her face, I am sure.

Then, while they were out on the practice field, one of the other students came up to her and put his arm around her and said “Miss Merrily, you are soooo nice. Everyone in the class just loves you. They respect you and if they happen to let a bad word slip out, they immediately apologize all over the place. No one else gets that kind of respect.”

I see that, as usual, she has really set the bar high for everyone and they know it.

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Lets hear it for the girl..

Merrily passed the first of a number of skills tests she will have to perform to get her CDL license and graduate from the truck driving school.

Before any driver gets into a truck and drives off, a pre Trip Inspection (PTI) of the vehicle must be done. This consists of visually and mechanically inspecting and challenging 100 specific points of the truck.

Some examples are:

1. check to see that there is no more than 1” of movement in each brake slack adjuster.
2. Make sure that none of the springs are loose or broken.
3. Make sure that tire pressures are all correct.

Etc… for 97 more things.

The last few PTI items are done in the cab of the truck. Merrily got 99 of the 100 correct. These checks must all be done from memory, too. She only missed 1 thing…… she was sitting in the cab with her hands on the steering wheel at the end and still had about 3 minutes do go to complete the PTI test.(You only have 20 minutes to do it in).

She felt she was forgetting one thing but just could not think of what it was. She turns to the instructor and said that she was finished.

He said she missed one. She said “which one?”

He says “Steering Wheel Check!”

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