A Lazy Sort Of Day

Hi folks. Class today was...... well class. Not much to say really as nothing really happened today. We had a bit of instruction on the Super 10 speed split transmission and allot of Q&A and review and input on yesterday's driving. I was sorta glad to hear that everyone had problems with downshifting yesterday, not just me. I also talked with a few of the phase 2 and 3 students today (phase 4 graduated on Wednesday I was told), and was informed that they also had problems with the truck I am now driving (#9128) . So it might not be just me, although I am sure a good deal of it is me. I figure if after driving this truck all next week I can't seem to get much improvement I will ask if I can get a different truck for a day and see how that goes.

Now I can hear the current truck drivers already saying, "In the real world you don't have that option buddy!", and they are correct, however near the end of next week we start pulling a 48' - 54' trailer and start backing exercises. Now that will be a real pain in the ass to learn if I can't even drive the truck because I am unable to downshift the damn thing. I would rather get the skills learned than fight with one particular truck. Also, our current truck assignment is the same truck we will take our CDL exam in, and again, it would not be a good thing if I go to take my CDL in a truck that I can't seem to downshift worth a damn, regardless of whose' fault it is.
But, I might just be getting a bit ahead of myself. After all I have only driven the truck for a whole 45mins for a total of 3 miles. Not exactly allot of time, so I might be being a bit hard on myself and not very fair to the truck either. Next week I will get MUCH more driving time and then I think I will be able to get a better handle on it. I really don't want to be the person that asks for a new truck just because I can't seem to figure out the trucks quirks.

I definitely feel like I need to learn things faster, and that I am taking to long, even though I still have 9 weeks of school left, and I have lots of time to learn. LOL.

You might also notice that I changed the archiving format from weekly to monthly. After some thought and the length that the archive column was getting to I decided that this would be the better way to go. Also this weekend I will be playing the email-to-post feature to see if they got all the bugs worked out of that system. So if you see a very odd post or a test post that is what is going on. Tomorrow I will recap and get you caught up on some things happening here on the home front. So stay tuned, and we will see you tomorrow!