The Rolling Stables Blog

Well, I’m starting to think that maybe this blog might turn into a weekly update. Mainly the reason is that trying to find a free wifi connection in a big rig is impossible. I’m limited to truck stops which usually charge a fee for connecting. It’s like $2.00 American for an hour. Once I get a few pay checks under my belt and can afford to spend a few dollars here and there for internet then I might make more posts. Anyways, here is an update of how the rest of last week went.

So last I updated you all I informed you that I was in a truck stop after having drove for about eleven hours and was waiting to continue on to my final destination. Well, I ended up doing that, heading down to Lebanon, Tennessee. When I got there I unloaded two large aluminum coils before heading back on the road just a few minutes away to Nashville, Tennessee. There I unloaded three large aluminum coils at a smaller building that was hidden among off the path streets. That was interesting to back up to their bay. But not the hardest thing I’ve done. Once I was finished there I went to find a pay phone which was a feat and a half trying to find one in Nashville that works. And mind you I’m driving a big rig to do this! I ended up giving up and heading north again towards Kentucky to a rest area and finding a payphone that barely worked. Got information for a new load that I needed to pick up in south-western Kentucky and the only quick way there was to back track back to Nashville to take a highway up from there. Well I got there, almost out of hours and got loaded. By the time I was loaded and began strapping things down I was out of driving hours. But this place was in the middle of nowhere. I mean creepy nowhere. So I logged that I stopped driving but headed to the nearest truck stop only ten minutes away. I wasn’t going to stay there.

The next day I ended up driving all day back up into Canada, where pretty much I had to stop in Windsor for the night because I ran out of hours again. After stopping for the night and getting up the next morning I headed up to Cambridge, Ontario where I unloaded the load that I picked up in Kentucky. Once done there I was brought back to the yard at home base to drop that trailer off and pick up a new one. Once done they sent me to downtown Toronto to pick up some aluminum coils. Well… only problem was my dispatcher didn’t have a pick up number and this place closed at four. It was two-fifteen when I left the yard. Made it up there for three so not too shabby. Went to give the shipper at the location a name of the company I was bringing it to and the shipper said he needed more info than that. Called my dispatcher again and he gave me a bit more, still no pickup number though. Shipper said he needed a number. Another driver for my company was there too, he seemed to be having trouble getting his load as well. So he was talking with our dispatcher about both our loads and our dispatcher said he would straighten it out and to give him five minutes. Well, we knew we would be there a while so just sat back and relaxed. Four rolled around and still no call so we called him back and told him they were closing and we couldn’t pick up the load. The other driver was pretty much going back to the yard and home for the night, but the dispatcher sent me up to Kingston to pick up different coils. So another three hour drive roughly and I was up there picking up two very large coils to load onto the trailer. Found a place to park that night and then the next day woke up, drove quite a number of hours down to Ohio where I unloaded those coils as well. Then on Friday my last day I picked up a load in Detroit and brought it back to the yard.

It was a crazy week, but quite enjoyable as well. I love traveling and there is a sort of freedom while driving a truck that you don’t get in a place like Tim Hortons or McDonald’s or any office job. It’s nice really. Next week I’m not sure what it will bring, but I will update as soon as I can. Latest will probably be next Saturday if I can’t get wifi while I’m on the road.

So I haven’t updated here for a bit. Been quite busy over the past week. So I’ll give you a quick run down of essentially what last week was before telling you about what happened today.

So last week I ended up having my final road test with the company and then got signed on and given a truck on Wednesday. I’m now making normal pay and am an employee of the company. They had me make my first run on my own on Thursday, delivering two sport trailers to Lindsay in Ontario. It was a bit of a drive, but beautiful with the changing weather. As I got to the location though my day started to go downhill from there. Found the place but the building looked deserted (it was) and while focusing on the building I misjudged the height of a tree and a branch banged against one of the trailers and dented/scratched along it. Dispatch found the place I was supposed to go (address changed) and the guy met me where I was to lead me to the new location. When we got there I showed him the damage. They weren’t impressed obviously, and I wasn’t sure what they were going to do exactly. Well we unloaded the trailers and when it was all done they said not to worry about it. They needed to paint/decal the thing anyways so they said not to worry. Regardless we have documentation if they change their minds, but I hope they don’t since I would end up having to pay for the trailer. Ugh.

And then Friday came. Oh how I bloody hated Friday. So I end up being sent to a steel place we do a lot of work with in Burlington because they wanted a load tarped and moved out of the garage into the yard. I already hate the idea because it’s pissing rain and I hate tarps. Anyways I go and begin to get it ready to tarp and find there is only one tarp with the trailer. So now I have to go find another. One thing to mention about these tarps is they are awkward and HEAVY. You have to get them up on top of the trailer, then on top of your load. It really sucks. Anyways, got most of it done but then was kicked out to finish out in the rain because I took too long. Finally finished (all that took me 3 hours to complete) then was sent to a location in Scarborough where I had to pick up some slabs of stainless steel and tarp it. Thank god though this trailer had the tarps I needed, the load was small and I had all the time I wanted to tarp INSIDE. It was so much easier. But then came the drive home. It’s thanksgiving Friday. The highway is a PARKINGLOT. It takes me 3 hours to drive what would normally be an hour and a half tops. Ugh. But when all is said and done I’m now in the company signed on.

This leads me to today. Well today I just drove eleven hours and am currently sitting in a truck stop in Kentucky just outside of Louisville. That’s right folks. I work on my own local for two days and they send me on my first long haul run ON MY OWN (they were supposed to send me out with someone for my first time >.<). Anyways, it’s interesting to say the least. Currently laying in my bunk as I write this. The drive down was good, border wasn’t too bad, and because it’s the holiday Sunday the traffic wasn’t an issue at all. Anyways, that’s my update for now. I’ll try to post more tomorrow, though it’s dependent on if I can find a connection source point.

Well, today was the day that I was scheduled to go up to Guelph for a day of “Defensive Driving 101” with Markel, a driver training company. Woke up bright and early to be at the yard at seven to take one of their company trucks up to the “school”. I drove seeing as I knew where I was going and my dad didn’t. I must say driving an automatic pickup is boring. Give me a manual transmission any day. Anyways, got up to the school nice and early, had some coffee and then got to sit in a classroom listening to theory about defensive driving till about twelve-thirty. Honestly though, it wasn’t as boring as other classroom lectures I’ve been through. Learned some things I was not aware of in regards to the trucks I’m driving, and also learnt about mirror optimization. For those of you that don’t know, trucks on average have 3 different kinds of mirrors per side of the truck. Each side has a flat-panel mirror, a convex mirror just under that, and then a convex mirror attached to the hood of the truck. Each mirror is there for a specific reason. The flat-panel mirror is there for the driver to see the best he can behind him. The convex mirror just below that allows him to see vehicles that are beside him back near the trailer and just before the cab area. The mirror attached to the hood is used so that the driver can see any cars that are right beside his cab. Major blind spot for those trucks without hood mirrors (there are some out there). So we learned how to optimize the mirrors so that you are seeing the most you can out of them.

Anyways, once the in class was finished we headed out on the road in a dodge caravan (LOL). We figured we would be driving a rig since that’s what we were going to this day course for, but soon found out why they have you practice defensive driving in a caravan. Pretty much the reason is when a driver is behind the wheel of a big rig they tend to be more careful than if they were behind a wheel of a car (due to the fact that a car is far simpler to drive than a big rig). Some of you may find that laughable with the way some truck drivers drive, and I know because I’ve seen them as well, but that was the reasoning. So pretty much what we had to do was as we drove we had to verbally talk about each action we were doing. Including turning on the turn signals, what we see as far as pedestrians and vehicles in front or behind us, signal lights multiple blocks away and what states they are in (things like stale green, just turned green, changing to red, red, etc), and pretty much everything else one would do in a car as they drive. I do have to say it’s an interesting way of doing things, but it does work. You tend to find yourself looking around more cautiously and driving safer when you verbally tell yourself what you are doing. Anyways we did that for a good chunk of the afternoon for about three hours, then headed back to the building where he actually showed us how to adjust the mirrors properly.

That was my day essentially, though one exciting piece of news I have to share. When we got back to the yard we poked our heads in at the office to see what was going to happen for tomorrow. Tomorrows schedule consists of what they call a “final road test” where we go out with one of their trainers and when we come back they look over how I did. If I did well, they sign me on with the company and start paying me full pay for work and give me my own rig!! If I didn’t do so well, they send me out with a trainer for a bit longer. But I’m very excited about this. If all goes well tomorrow I should be in my own rig and making regular pay soon! I’ll update tomorrow with how things went.

Alright, so update for the previous week. I meant for this to be a multiple day multiple entry thing, but with training being so hectic I’ve been too tired to worry about updating every day. So here is an update for the previous four days of training. These being Tuesday through Friday of last week. I won’t go into deep detail about each pick-up and drop off that we did, but I will however mention important events that did happen.

One of the major things that I have worked on over the last four days is my backing. On Monday my backing was rather difficult and took quite a few tries for a simple position to get into. But over the past week my backing has greatly improved. So much so that on Friday my backing skills were tested three times. The first was backing a trailer into a very tight space at a place between other trailers, leaving hardly any room if any for people to walk beside the trailers. That’s how tight the space was. I had to pull forward to correct my positioning only once for that manoeuvre. But the best thing you can do if you have the room, is to line yourself up straight from the get go. This makes it soooooooo much easier. The second was backing a trailer 90 degrees in quite a tight driveway. This required pulling forward a few times, but even a professional driver would have had to do that due to the driveway. The third was backing up a trailer into a bay at a location where you couldn’t line yourself up straight right away. Needing to back almost a 90 degree position though having a bit more room to work compared to the previous one. The only problem is this one is backing into a bay with walking platforms on either side of where the trailer was going, causing the bay to be quite tight and needing to be precisely aligned. So overall, my backing has greatly improved over the past week. These trailers are more difficult as they are tandems, having an axel at the very back of the trailer, and another axel with quite a bit of spacing between them. This causes the trailer to take more to manoeuvre it around locations compared to if you were backing a normal van trailer.

Also, aside from backing, the trainer I’ve been with has been having me take in the orders to the shippers to help me get used to dealing with them. It can be tricky at times, not quite knowing exactly what the shipper is asking, so getting me used to it while he is around is best. Some shippers are no problem to talk to, some not needing much information at all as it’s already on the paperwork. Then there are some shippers who just don’t want to read and expect you to know everything about the load you are dropping off. Those ones are harder to deal with. But the worst are the shippers who just have a poor attitude all around. It’s difficult to deal with them and not let their sour mood affect you.

Driving with these rigs and trailers is actually quite like during school. You just need to mind sharper corners a bit more. Have run over a few curbs but that will happen here and there. Especially with some of the corners that you need to manoeuvre around. It’s difficult sometimes.

So far honestly the only thing that I’m not liking too much about this job is the times when you have to deal with tarps. There are different kinds of trailers with things like slider kits (entire setups where a flat deck turns into a van just by sliding the covering back and forth), rack and tarp (where the sides are put together with posts and boards with a tarp covering the top), and then just straight tarping. I hate just straight tarping. These tarps are heavy. When rolled up they weigh somewhere around eighty pounds or so. They are hard to lift/handle (especially if you’re not muscled) due to the fact that they aren’t just a solid object. They flex and shift and everything, making getting a good grip on them difficult. The hardest thing though is once the load is tarped, trying not to kill yourself as you walk over your now tarped product where you can’t see gaps and such in your load.

Overall though, I do have to say doing this job is a whole lot better than working for Tim Horton’s making minimum wage. I don’t have to deal with pissy customers all day which is absolutely wonderful. This week I will try to update more regularly, just so long as this week isn’t as exhausting as last week.

Well, today ended the first day of training for the Mare-Vixen and her new trucking job. And let me tell you, it was certainly very interesting. Started off simple enough; waking up at 4:45 AM to get all ready to head to the yard. Got there and was not really sure what exactly to do, didn’t know who I was working with that day and wasn’t sure what entirely to expect. So started off standing around for a bit, chatting with one of the truck drivers before he had to go get his truck ready. Ended up asking the dispatcher who I would be driving with that day. Come to find out I got to drive with the mechanic/yard supervisor. He isn’t even supposed to be driving trucks seeing how he is on salary. But anyways, we needed to move around a few things in the yard and fix a load on one of the trailers first before heading out to drop off a roll of aluminum to a warehouse.

Of course on my first day it just has to POUR! So when we were out working on fixing one of the loads on the trailer it was pouring rain. It was already loaded with a couple of covered items, a large steel pipe, and a tall/wide metal rack of some kind. We needed to get out the forklift and move the pipe over a bit on the truck, then move the rack over so that we could add two wooden boxes on the trailer as well. Ended up learning a lot about securing a load within my first two hours of just starting on the job. Well as that was finished we left that trailer and hooked up a rig to another trailer with a coil of aluminum on it. Did the pre-trip inspection on the truck and headed off to Burlington. Pulled into a warehouse (thank god it was just a drive thru bay) where we undid the covering of the trailer to allow the crane operator to pull off the coil. Once that was done we moved over just a couple streets to another warehouse to pick up four pipes. So one thing I’ve learned, don’t bother trying to get your load done when it’s lunch time with union folks. Pretty much just sit in your truck and relax. We ended up waiting for an hour and a half for a job that took five minutes. But oh well.

After all that was said and done we headed back to the yard and dropped that trailer off with the four pipes and headed out to Hamilton to pick up a slab of steel. These are big slabs. I’m talking about forty thousand pounds or so. Anyways, we get to the yard, there are supposed to be slabs for us, but come to find out the only ones that we can pick up are forty-nine thousand. Well that’s too heavy for our trucks in the current combination we had. Since it was steel/aluminum. If it would have been aluminum for the trailer then it would have been fine. But it was too heavy. So we sat at that yard for two hours waiting for our dispatcher to figure out what was up before finally being told to just drop the load order and head back with an empty trailer.

Anyways, that was my day. Thirteen hours on duty from six this morning till about seven this evening. Not every day will be that late (that is until I start doing long haul) but that being said it will certainly get me ready for long haul.

Well, as of September 21, 2009 the Mare-Vixen has a possible job opportunity with a company close by. I went in for an interview with the company and they wanted to do a couple things with me while I was there. The first was take me on a road test. This road test consisted of a simple circle check (making sure the truck is alright to drive with nothing broken or disabled that would make it dangerous or illegal to drive), backing up to a trailer to hook up to it (all the trailers they haul are flat beds), then taking a quick drive out along the highway, get off then back on the highway, come back to the yard and backup back to where the trailer was originally positioned. Well, I passed that part of the test with 5’s all across the board (5’s being the highest you can achieve).

I was actually very happy with the outcome of how I did during the road test. Sometimes I have to reposition my truck when backing up just because sometimes you can get it in the right position right away. But both times I backed up, both hooking up to the trailer, and backing the trailer into it’s original position I did perfect with no need to fix it. Even the guy who was watching me for the test said that he was very impressed as I was the first in just over 2 weeks that had done it without needing any help or guidance. So I impressed them right off the bat with my driving skills, then came the interview.

The interview was rather simple, just the owners son talking about what the company is all about, making sure I understand what I’m getting into, and then asking me just some simple questions about where I see myself in the future and what I’m hoping to get out of working for them. When it came near the end he asked me about filling out their application and resume and such, and so I handed it to him. The problem is I have points taken off my license for a speeding infraction a couple years ago. I was afraid that this would affect whether I was hired by them or not (as it was hindering being hired by others as well). Well, they liked how I did so much so that they are using their good standings with their insurance company to get me on board, even though I still have that infraction. So this coming Monday at 6:00 AM bright and early I start my training. And should everything go well, I’ll have my own rig ready to start working full time within a week or so from Monday.

I’m really excited about all this and am looking forward to the things I’ll get to see while on the road. Here in this blog I’ll be posting updates about what I see on the road with pictures on my website, interesting events, rants, things I find and all sorts of other things on this blog. So if you want to follow along with me on the road, keep checking back in on this blog regularly. I hope to update it as much as I can.