Days 9 & 10
Classroom training: almost over, thank heavens! I'm not going to bore you with the details of each chapter we covered; I'll just say there are 36 chapters in our textbook, and by the end of Sunday's session we'll have finished the book. The format has been pretty much the same: watch a video or two related to chapter-specific material, view an amazing powerpoint presentation summarizing the key points of the chapter, answer the quiz at the end of each chapter, than complete a separate quiz handed out by the instructor. All quizzes have and promise to be open-book. We grade our own quizzes, then hand them in so that the instructor may record our scores. What I don't understand is why I'm seeing papers turned in with "-2," or "-4," even "-5..." we grade our own quizzes, we used PENCILS THAT HAVE ERASERS to take the quizzes, so everyone should be getting 100's, right??
The videos are pretty dated, but the information is still very relevant. While great changes have been made in truck technology, the principles of driving and safety remain the same today as existed 30 years ago. We ended our classroom session early today, allowing us about an hour-and-a-half to go out to the trucks that weren't being driven to practice our pre-trip inspection. Next week I'll be on the driving range for three days, with three days unscheduled; those three unscheduled days means I'll be at the school practicing my trip-trip on parked trucks.
Monday I'm finally getting into a truck; I have been looking very forward to that for a long time now. Instead of reading about and watching videos on shifting, I'm going to actually do it. I'm very excited. I will also get to begin backing; all of the tips and advice I've been reading about backing I'll finally get to put to use. Small movements of the wheel. Turn towards the trailer. Monday can't get here soon enough.
I've been staying in this hotel now for nearly two weeks, and finally last night opened the directory to see what was in it. I found pages of ads in the rear, including one for a sharp-looking shop that made and sold custom cowboy hats, Rand Hats. Never having owned a real cowboy hat, and wanting something eventually that will be waterproof as well as keep the sun off my bald head, AND living in Montana for almost five weeks, I thought I'd look into a cowboy hat. I found one on their website that I really liked, but needed to contact them as prices were excluded from their online catalog. I received a reply today and, YIKES, it seems I won't be getting a real cowboy hat after all. I'm sure they're a good investment, quality is superb (beaver pelt/fur), but it's just very hard for me to justify spending close to $800 for a hat. And they don't recommend wearing them in the dead of summer, as they are hand-made using fur; the lady who responded to me admitted that even they wear straw in the summer!
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