Home on the Range

Today was day two on the range and it was just as hot as yesterday. I sure am glad this is October instead of July! Okay, second day was a little more disappointing than I had hoped for. It seems that I have a killer instinct when it comes to those little orange cones and even one larger barrel! Actually it was not that bad but there is a lot more to the maneuvers than I would have thought. Today we spent the most of the day practicing the Serpentine; which is a maneuver in which you back through a set of obstacles with these little land-mines (orange cones) all over the place. I did kill one cone but it was asking for it just sitting out there and all and somehow the main obstacle, the barrel, jumped under the trailer as I was safely passing it!

We are watched closely and one bad day out here can put you back one week in training. If it looks like you are not catching on or just goofing off they can 'recycle' you. I think that is going to happen to one of the guys in my group tomorrow. He just had a horrible day today. We'll see.

Yesterday we started practicing the vehicle pre-trip inspection and straight line backing. It went very well and that’s why today was probably a little more difficult than it should have been for me. Every time I have an easy day out there I find out how little I know about this whole experience the next day! But the days go by very fast and it is actually a lot of fun for us newbies. It would be really amusing if they line up a bunch of Drivers with millions of miles under their belts to watch us backing around a bunch of soccer cones! They would probably demand to be supplied with things that they could throw at us and would leave in disgust one way or the other sooo….Anyway, tomorrow is the ‘alley dock’ exercise.

The car pool deal is going really well I have been driving for the past few days so tomorrow will be my last for a few. It is really nice getting on the road before everybody wakes up and hits the road. There is a motorcycle parked where we park in the mornings and it is pretty obvious that it does not belong there at 4 in the morning, it's new and really nice. It has been there since Monday morning and I’m sure someone is missing it. I guess I should call someone if it is still there in the morning. As of yesterday I still am not receiving snail-mail so I will probably get a bag full when it does catch up to me.

Well, I think that is most of what was consequential the last few days.

Milestones ahead:
1-pass range test (this Saturday)
2-spend a week hauling stuff locally (next Monday for 5 days)
3-pass the MVD skills test to get CDL

Category Posted: General