Reviving this blog and An Ode to Old School

 My-oh-my, time does fly.  When I started this blog, I had every intention of chronicling my time spent driving a big truck.  I figured I'd encounter many circumstances and experiences that would be worth sharing, and that this would be a good place to put it all down.  Well, I most certainly did have those experiences, but composing them here proved more difficult than I'd anticipated.  A gentleman I considered my mentor writes a blog, "Life as a Road Warrior," found here: http://lifeasaroadwarrior.blogspot.com.  He also has been a prolific contributor to the forum on another trucking website, Trucking Truth, which can be found here:  https://www.truckingtruth.com.  On the forum he is known as "Old School."  I mention him because when I began researching the whole truck driving thing way back in late 2016, I found the Trucking Truth site, which is phenomenal, and from there was led to his blog, "Life as a Road Warrior."  Old School, beginning with his very first post, teaches.  It was an amazing journey, reading his words of wisdom from his first post to his most recent.  I was in awe, that someone with zero experience in driving a big truck could impart so much insight and knowledge of the lifestyle.  

Not lost on me was the time Old School must have put into his writings, from adding to his blog to participating in the very busy forum of a popular trucking website.  He writes with eloquence and purpose; there are no wasted words, especially on the forum, where he has written thousands of responses to others' queries.  Everything he writes is incredibly well thought-out, drawn upon his own experiences and acumen.  I thought that in his former life, before he began driving a big truck, he must have been a pastor... all the pastors/ministers I have known were expert linguists and great communicators.  Turns out Mr. Old School had owned an electrical-manufacturing type of company, a large one, using big trucks to ship his products nationwide.  His background wasn't in public speaking... he was just an amazingly astute and articulate man.  The prevailing mystery to me is where in the heck did he find the time to do all that writing?  As a truck driver myself, I/we only had 10 hours, sometimes eight, from the time we stopped driving 'til the time we were able to start driving again.  In my case, it was always a 10-hr break.  Normally I would have already showered at some point during the day before stopping for the night, so I had 10 hours to wind down, make & eat dinner, sleep, wake up, and ready myself for the next day's work. On days I hadn't showered before stopping for the night, add the shower to the mix.  My point is I had no time, zero, to write in a blog, much less write in a blog while participating in a forum, answering questions and giving advice to would-be or new truck drivers... how the heck did Old School find the time?  I never asked him.  I suppose I will at some point.  

Now that I'm retired, I'm going to effort to share some of my experiences driving a big truck.  It's not going to be easy; my days are now filled with spending time with my wife, drinking coffee, riding my bikes, walking our dogs... all the while encountering new circumstances, the present drawing my attention away from the past.  I'll see how it goes.  As the love-fest with Old School has apparently drawn to an end here, I'll close with a few photos that I don't think he'll mind if I share... they were taken from his public photos shared on the website Trucking Truth.

The most well-known photo Old School is known for...

Doting grandfather.

Everyman's hero.

  

Meet Wanda Arlicious!

Wanda Arlicious… she’s my truck.

Mostly at my wife’s insistence, and to some extent my own amusement, I named my truck.

It was no easy task, let me tell you.  Hercules had an easier time taming the horses of Diomedes.  Like everything else I do, I overthought it by about six days.  It wasn’t on my radar as a crucial decision I needed to make, unlike choosing a CDL/truck driving school, trucking  company, or which type of truck I wanted to drive:  

    ⇦flatbed...

    ⇦dry van...







       ⇦reefer...

⇦tanker.  

The difference between dry van and reefer trucks is that ‘reefer’ refers to ‘refrigerated;’ see the box attached to the front of the trailer?  It’s a refrigeration unit that keeps the contents of the trailer cool or frozen.

…but at my wife’s insistence (insistence is such a nicer word than if I had said constant  nagging) I needed to come up with something.  And I knew she wasn’t going to let it go.  It’s sort of like when I’ve plopped down onto the bed at night before brushing my tooth:  she’ll start poking me while repeating “hey Pete, why don’t you go brush  

your teeth… poke-poke-poke- hey Pete, hey Pete, hey Pete, the Cavity Creeps are coming, poke-poke-  hey Pete, hey Pete… poke-poke-poke-  over and over and over again, until I get up and brush my damn teeth.  It can be quite maddening, but in a loving, hygienic way.  

She thought I should give the truck a female name, but what sort of  girl’s name do you give to a  behemoth that can pull 80,000lbs up a hill?  Olga?  Helga?  Bertha? 

And who, on God’s green earth, of non-German or -Eastern European descent would name the object of their affections Olga, Helga, or Bertha?

I knew I needed to get to know my truck first; did it have a personality?  What sorts of quirks were I going to find?  Over the course of several weeks I became familiar with my truck, learned its moods and idiosyncrasies, and the name just came to me.  Wanda Arlicious.

Arlicious Street is a road I passed while driving with an instructor during my time in Schneider’s bulk training program in southeastern Houston.  What a great name, Arlicious Street.  I had hoped it would fit, somehow.  To understand the name Wanda you need to be familiar with 1990’s pop culture… there was a short-lived variety show on the Fox network, In Living Color, that in my opinion far exceeded Saturday Night Live in its consistent hilarity.  This is where Jim Carrey honed his funnyman skills, as well as the entire Wayan clan along with Jamie Foxx, David Alan Grier, and Tommy Davidson, just to name a few.  Oh yeah, and a dancer on the show named Jennifer Lopez went on to sing a few songs and dabble in a few other ventures.  

Jamie Foxx as Wanda

In Living Color featured a recurring skit where Jamie Foxx played a character named Wanda; Wanda was a kind soul who just wanted to be loved.  She was constantly being set up on blind  dates by her friend, but the dates never panned out, or even lasted through dinner.  Maybe it was the up-turned lips, or the crazy eyes, or the thrift shop hoochie-mama skirts; Wanda had many flaws, but she had a good heart, she meant well, and she just wanted to take care of someone and be loved in return.  That’s my Wanda.  She’s  full of defects, and has a ton of issues.  Her body is scraped, dinged, dented, and gouged, her interior shelving units didn’t have shelves, her set of tire chains was incomplete, her seat won’t adjust backwards away from the pedals as far as it should, and her engine powers the truck up inclines slower than anything else on the road, but she too means no harm, and I get the feeling just wants to take care of me, so I treat her with equal amounts of respect and love. 

The a/c works great, keeps me chilled on 100° days and 80° nights, I acquired shelves for her interior, and her motor has not failed to get me up and over any hill yet, no matter the length or grade.  I keep her clean, full of fluids, and even carpeted her floor.  We seem to have a mutual admiration for each other, and I couldn’t be happier with any other truck.

Wanda's backside (left cheek)

Right cheek.

Jamie Foxx as Wanda

In Living Color's Wanda

Schneider Bulk Training, Weeks 3 & 4

Our time with the TE was supposed to last two weeks. Mine was considerably shorter; I got picked up Wednesday evening in Houston and dropped off eight days later at our operations center in Gary, IN. That time included the Memorial Day holiday, where we sat for several days due to lack of loads. I admit I had hoped to get a bit more experience driving with my trainer engineer. I was getting pretty nervous towards the end of the scheduled two-week TE phase, as I really didn’t have a very good handle on operating the Qualcomm with relation to the work assignments or logging hours, the paperwork we were responsible for completing and sending in, and had hoped we would encounter more challenging roads than the relatively flat Mid-West had to offer. 

During my time with my TE I did most of the driving, with him sitting, awake, in the passenger’s seat. There were a few times when I ran out of hours and once when we were heavy on our steer tires when he took over. We did one pump unload and one air unload ourselves, and the customer unloaded us the other times. And I will say, in real-world scenarios the unloads went very differently from how we were trained. It was all accomplished safely and efficiently, just different. 

I experienced my first truck stop shower, and was surprised how clean & dry it was… towels were provided… as nice as a hotel room shower. My TE had an EPU on his truck, so our cab was cold at night, without idling the engine. I slept as well in the truck as I have at home. We’d park with trucks all around us, and in the morning they’d be gone, and I never heard them. 

The TE phases ended early on a Thursday as my trainer engineer had previously requested time off, so I had 3 1/2 days to kill before beginning my final phase of training, a three-day review period where I’d get tested or reviewed on my abilities to unload a tanker using the pump and the air compressor, my proficiency at driving a tanker to include slow-maneuvering and backing, and some book knowledge and trip planning. This was a breeze, and I got the impression the instructor leading me through this process was struggling to find things to coach me on after 2 1/2 days. 

I spent the second half of Wednesday making travel arrangements to get to my newly assigned truck, which was sitting in Dallas, TX. The company initially offered to fly me from Gary, IN to Dallas, but I rejected that idea and opted for a rental car instead to drive down, as I’d acquired way too much gear to bring onto a plane. It was an easy drive, fueled by my excitement of meeting my first truck and beginning this career/lifestyle for which I’d been preparing for the previous seven months.

Schneider Bulk Training, Week 2

After spending two days on the unloads, we got our first opportunity to drive since we’d arrived. There’s a new law in TX that states before you’re allowed to drive a tanker, you have to be certified to drive a tanker, which is really back-azzwards because you obtain this ‘certification’ by pulling a dry-van. So we drove dry-vans for two days to re-familiarize ourselves with shifting and driving a big rig, before testing out and actually driving tankers. WOW!… what a difference. Driving dry-vans felt like being behind the wheel of a Cadillac compared to the tankers. Filled with water, as you might imagine the sloshing and the surge was everything it was hyped to be. The biggest surprise came on a slight downhill portion of the interstate, where the water felt like it was on my back, pushing me down the road. It’s something I’ve since become accustomed to, and have to be mindful of on long downhill stretches. The momentum of the surge can push the truck to speeds in excess of 75mph if you allow it. 

I had one instructor working with me beginning with the unloads through the end of training, and I enjoyed his sense of humor. He had names for the three tankers we were training with: “Sergio,” as in ‘surge-e-o,’ “Miss Wallbanger,” and the heaviest of the three, “The Godfather.” The Godfather beat me up the least, but when its surge did strike, if felt like a 50lb sledgehammer slamming into the back of my seat.

Me & Mr. Leo Williams, trainer extraordinaire

We drove the tankers the rest of the week, tested out in those, spent Saturday reviewing anything we felt deficient in, and preparing for the next phase of training, the two-week OTR phase with a trainer, or in Schneider-land, a ‘trainer engineer’ (TE).

Our four primary instructors.

Schneider Bulk Training, Week 1

I closed out my SAGE training diary with the successful acquisition of my CDL-A and words of thanks to those following my diary and offering their encouragement and support, especially G-Town and including Han Solo Cup, Brett, and Old School. I began my bulk training period with Schneider on schedule, beginning Monday May 8. Schneider’s bulk or tanker training last approximately 4 1/2 weeks, and right on schedule, my last day in training fell on the 31st day. 

The first day of bulk training, and when I say ‘bulk training,’ I mean chemicals, not food-grade… as a Schneider associate we are going to become “Chemical Unload Specialists;” The Big Orange does not haul food-grade products, but chemicals only, many of which are HAZMAT. The first day of bulk training weeded out half of the prospective trainees, mostly due to high blood pressure; on that 1st day experienced and inexperienced drivers alike all go through the same DOT physical process. After Day 1 my class of inexperienced drivers only lost two additional persons, one because of stupidity and the other due to bad knees (there is a fair amount of climbing on-and-off the top of the tankers, especially during training… in the real world not so much: most customers unload your trailer anyway and don’t allow you on top of the trailer while on their property… liability reasons). So climbing on top of your trailer often is limited to how thorough of a pre-trip or en-route inspection you want to perform. 

Pretty much the first week was spent in the classroom; we watched training videos and modules, saw some really amazing powerpoint presentations, signed up for employee benefits, received our fuel cards, and received a very large duffel bag with which to store all of the chemical gear we might be called upon to wear: a chemical suit, chemical boots, chemical gloves, respirator, FR coveralls, hard hat w/face shield, and an enormous pair of goggles. 

We ended the first week and began the second week with a much more hands-on approach, spending one day learning how to unload the contents of our trailer using the pump, and one day learning how to unload our trailer using the air compressor. That’s when the training really became fun for me. It’s one thing to observe a procedure while watching a video, it’s quite another actually doing it. With only three of us in the inexperienced group remaining, I had as many opportunities as I wanted to practice the unloads; I basically kept practicing until the end of the day arrived and I was encouraged to stop.

Me, Jimmie, & Jimmy... wearing our 'basic PPE:'  hard hat w/full face shield, steel-toe boots, long pants, long-sleeve shirts, and gloves.

Truck Driving School, Final Entry Part II

Final Entry/Last Days Pt. 2

...Friday morning to calm myself I walked four miles to a bakery for a donut, cinnamon bun, and coffee, and then four miles back. Saturday morning I walked the 3-4 mi. round trip to the Wal*Mart, to begin stocking up again for another week’s worth of groceries, and later that evening walked 4.5 miles to a pizzeria, and 4.5 miles back. By Sunday I was feeling good again. Sitting inside a coffee shop I decided to check the DMV site using my phone, and Holy Cow, someone had cancelled their exam, because there was a 10:30am slot available for the next day, and I jumped on it. I got to the school early the next morning to let them know I was testing that morning (Mon. morning) instead of Thursday, and to hopefully lay claim to my favorite tractor trailer, the 10-speed Peterbilt & 53’ trailer. I’m happy... no, elated to say, it all worked out. I breezed through the pre-trip, this time getting the coupling devices & trailer, nailed the in-cab and air brakes test (leaving nothing out this time), performed the straight-line, 90º, and off-set backing maneuvers without a hitch, and then went out and got one of the better road-test scores our school director had ever seen. What a relief! Ever the perfectionist, I was a little dismayed that I had gotten some things wrong on the road test; I’m sure the trailer drifted onto the white line on more than one occasion, I ground the heck out of the gears several times, even losing the gears once while making a turn, but each time I recovered well, which is what the examiners want to see. It’s o.k. to make mistakes, but can you recover from the mistake, essentially proving that you can control the truck. 

Fortunately my first failed attempt at the test did not affect my job… I had wanted to get into orientation Monday of this week, but in retrospect am thankful the earliest they could set me up is Monday of next week. That’s one phone call I’m glad I didn't have to make… “Umm, sorry guys, but I can’t make the orientation next week because I’M A FAILURE.” So I’m set to begin orientation with Schneider Monday morning… I’m presently on a bus making my way to Austin, TX, where I’ll spend two days with an old friend before continuing on to Houston. 28 days of training in their tanker/dry bulk division, and then I’ll be on my own. I reckon this will wrap up my training diary; if you’ve kept up with it, thanks very much for reading. I’m undecided about writing a training diary after I begin working for Schneider… if it happens it will show up in this section (Training Diaries) of the forum. 

A mighty ‘thank you’ to Errol V., G-Town, and Hans Solo Cup for your earlier words of encouragement. I’m very excited and proud to join your ranks, and hope that our paths cross on the road as well as in this forum.

"Nice work Pete! Congratulations!"    -  G-Town

"Fantastic Pete! My parents always said and now I always say "Everything happens for a reason." You got a lot of walking in which helped clear your mind and relax your body... and, lo and behold, a testing slot opened up. You weren't stressed and the timing was right. Well done. I hope you decide to write another training diary and I will eagerly await its appearance. Good luck!"  -Han Solo Cup

"Pete, Congratulations Man!

I've been following along in here, although silently for the most part. I'm really glad to see your progress! It really is tough when you first get started at this, and you will experience many more trying things as you progress, but you are really doing a great job of it!

I loved your analogy about a guy finishing at the bottom of his class in Med School - it really is true. I tell people all the time about how my three daughters all learned to walk at vastly different ages. Once they had been walking for a few months they each walked just as well as the others. It really makes no difference how many times they fell down at the beginning.

I'm glad to see you doing the walking... I walk a lot, it is something that you can do to get out of the truck and renew your self while out here on the road. I'm actually parked on the beach today in Pass Christian, Mississippi taking a nice 34 hour reset break. I walked several miles down the beach yesterday, and will do the same today. Jackson Brown once wrote a line in "Taking It Easy" that said, "Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy." Out here you have got to get away from the truck sometimes to take a break from the constant running just to make money. There has to be a balance in this OTR lifestyle, and I'm sure you will find it. Don't be a slave to that truck. Work hard when you are up to it, but take a break every now and then so that you don't burn yourself out.


You really did put together a great diary, very valuable information in here. I know it is a lot of work to do this type of diary, and I appreciate your contributions in here! Best of luck to ya Pete, I am looking forward to hearing more about your career as it progresses."  -Old School

"I, for one, would love to see you continue your updates as you progress. As one who is considering this profession, every inside glimpse or piece of advice I can get from someone going through it is truly invaluable. Thanks for the updates and congratulations!!"   -Deke

Truck Driving School, Final Entry Part I

Final Entry/Last Days Pt. 1

What do you call someone who finishes last in their class in medical school? Doctor.

What do you call a guy who fails his CDL exam the first time but passes it the second time?  Truck driver!

It’s been awhile since my last entry, but there had been only one or two more driving and range sessions, which were largely uneventful, and then the CDL exam last Thursday, which I absolutely did not want to write about. 

One final road session gave me confidence heading into the exam, as we covered the examination route and I felt like I drove it pretty well, hitting the upshifts and downshifts without too much trouble. There was only one curb that was of concern, but as long as you can be patient and wait out the traffic, eventually you will get an opening so that you can make the right turn into the oncoming traffic lane, giving the trailer plenty of room to clear the curb. The day of the exam I had a four hour range session, of which I used only about two hours… after you get the hang of backing up, it almost becomes mundane. Wow, never thought I’d say that. Wonder how it’s going to go in the real world, when I don’t have cones to my left and in front that I’ve been using as markers, turning the wheel one-and-a-half-times at that cone and straightening the wheel at this cone… should prove interesting. I do have the concept down, which is the goal. 

Our CDL exam is split roughly into three parts, as I imagine most are, and we figure we have about 30mins per part. The first part is the pre-trip inspection + air brakes test; no problems whatsoever with the pre-tripping. I was prepared and could have easily pre-tripped the whole truck, but was only given the approach & engine, and the coupling devices. Everyone does the coupling devices, and beyond that it’s either the approach + engine, the driver’s side of the tractor, the trailer, or the whole thing. Then it’s to the in-cab, where we pre-trip the interior of the cab, finishing up with the brakes & air test. Guess where I botched it? 

After performing a safe start and completing the in-cab inspection I began the brakes test well enough, doing the tug test against the tractor, trailer, and service brakes, but after I shut the engine off and turned the electronics back on, I proceeded directly to fanning the brakes down to 60 psi to activate the low pressure warning gauges, and then further down to 20 psi until the two valves (red & yellow)…(trailer brakes & tractor protection) popped out. And then declared “Done.”  And that, my friends, was an automatic fail. I completely forgot to perform the one-minute air loss test, where you depress the service brakes for one minute, making sure that you don’t lose more than 4 psi (3 psi for a single vehicle) during that one minute. 

Unlike the other parts of the exam where you are allowed to miss pieces of the pre-trip, or allowed mistakes on your backing maneuvers, and afforded mistakes on your road portion of the skills test (with a few exceptions such as running the rear tandems over a curb or stalling out in the middle of an intersection), with the air brakes test there is no margin for error. None. Nada. Zilch. You screw up any one part of it and you’re done. Thanks for participating, see you next week. A horrible feeling washed over me that remained for the rest of the day. My re-test was scheduled for the following Thursday. I had to wait another whole week! At $60/night in my hotel, that was going to be a very costly mistake. 

What was I going to do for an entire week? I already knew the pre-trip, and really, I knew the air brakes test, I just farted inside my head and left something out. It’s like testing on numbers and having to count to ten, and forgetting number seven. You know there’s a number seven, you just forgot to say it. The despair I felt left me shaking for several hours. Fortunately, as I was about to leave the building, one of the instructors mentioned that you can view the CDL exam schedule on-line, and that sometimes there are cancellations and you can move into an earlier slot. So I checked that night, several times on Friday, and several times on Saturday, but to no avail. ...

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