Just Another Day In The Trenches

School today was not much different than yesterday other than it involved more classroom time and familiarization with what will be expected of us as students and what we should expect in over the remainder of the week and an overview of the next 2 weeks.

It is also apparent that of the 14 members in the class 5 might not make it past tomorrow due to their physicals or problems thereof. So the lesson there to other would be truck driving students would be to get the physical on your own before going to school or make sure you at least have the names and contact information from your previous doctors so if you run into a problem during your DOT physical you have the information so the doctor can talk with your physician/doctor and get the questions that he needs answered to clear you.
With at least 2 of the students, one has a problem with a previous prescription issued by his doctor to help him quite smoking. Unfortunately, this medication is on the "watch list" of medications, and if the doctor that gave us the DOT physical cannot reach this students doctor by tomorrow night, the student may get shown the door. The other student requires some additional paperwork or contact from his doctor as well for diabetes condition that is controlled by diet and not by insulin. I am not sure what the other 3 students that had problems with their medical clearance are, but they are probably similar.

I am getting along pretty good with one member of the class named Mike, he is a cool guy. He is an Electrical Engineer/Designer so we have similar technical items in our respective fields that we discuss. He is also ex-military which is cool too. He would be a cool person to team up with, if we the students get to choose our teaming partner to train with. (2 students per truck)

We also had a guest speaker today. Can't recall his name but he is a driver for Schneider and has 3.5 million safe miles (meaning accident free). It was funny to hear about some of his road stories as well as his thoughts on certain difficulties, new HOS (Hours of Service rules), etc.
In addition, we got the "grand tour" of the trucking facility, as well as more instruction and procedures on usage of the repair bays, breakdown procedures, and where we can go and where we shouldn't go, as well as the why. We share the building with the motorcycle training department, diesel repair, auto repair, and body repair departments.

I didn't have time today to get over to the Financial Aid Office and find out about getting money back for what I had to spend to get into the truck driving course. So I hope I will get a chance tomorrow or maybe on Friday as the afternoon is "student time" (free time) for self study on Friday's.

Tomorrow we should be starting to get really started on learning how to fill out our log books as well as more classroom study to prepare for the written test to get our CDL Instructional Permit. (This is just like your learners permit for your driving license except it is for a Class A or B license). Our evening session (5pm to 8pm) we will be practicing the pre-trip inspection on an actual truck, so that will be cool.

The only thing that is a bit of a drag is all the classroom sitting. Seriously, my ass is getting sore sitting on these hard plastic chairs. I would kill for something with just a hair of padding.

So I am going to do a little bit of studying tonight and get to bed early as tomorrow will be a long day. Till tomarrow..........