Day Two at Orientation

Today started off with dividing the class of seventeen into about half. One half went out in

the trucks to start getting evaluated, just to see where we stood in our driving and backing skills. The other half, my half, got to stay inside and watch videos. The first few of these were on the Smith System of driving. After going through it, I wished that I had seen it back when I started with Werner. It is just a few simple concepts, but when put together they really do make a difference in how one drives. Just another thing that someone thought of and is making tons of money from.

We took a brief test on the Smith System, watched a few other videos, then out to lunch. Once again I packed, have to save money somewhere. So far I am fairly far ahead on food, most of my lunches this week were purchased at home for less than twenty dollars. I have also gotten lucky in finding reasonable places to eat dinner at. Tonight I found a little place buried near the vacation and beach houses near Lake Michigan, called The Flamingo Pub. I had a fantastic Reuben sandwich with a good portion of fries for less than eight dollars, including my iced tea. This was truly a neighborhood bar, each person that walked in the door was greeted by name by at least one other patron. Then it was off to the beach.

I had already been at the Miller Beach prior to eating dinner. Talking to a person there, I found out about the Flamingo, and that the park stopped charging for entry at 6PM. They had several trails, as well as the long beach area to wander, which I did. I got to see a lot of girls in bikinis, and these were girls that were supposed to be in bikinis. In one of the pictures above you can see Chicago and the Sears Tower in the distance, past the dunes and over the water.

I got so sidetracked by eating and the fun at the beach I almost forgot to talk about the second part of my day of being evaluated. Once again we were divided, this time between two trucks, one group for a road test, the other for backing tests. Wanting to see how a spread axle turned, we were doing the driving test while pulling a flatbed trailer, I decided to not go first. The guy that did go first had a few problems shifting, and wanted to discuss this fact with all of us, so he turned to ask our, the three guys riding in the bunk area, opinion. Since he was doing around 35 in a 30, had just passed a sign that said dangerous curve with a 90 degree arrow, all I could do is look at him and point straight ahead, at the scrap yard and concrete wall he was about to run us all into. He managed to make the turn by jumping on the brakes and lugging (had the transmission in a higher gear than the speed required) the engine. I was more than happy to jump in the drivers seat to go next when we got stopped for the switch. Mainly I was hoping to get it over with before anything else heart pounding happened to throw me completely off my driving. I didn't do too badly for it being a completely unfamiliar truck, but I really did feel that I should have done better at it. I was happy at the finish of our trucks evaluation, that I seemed to be the best driver in it, which really wasn't saying a lot about the over all skill level of the group.

Next was the backing test, after getting a mulligan on the first try, I got perfectly lined up one space to the right of the one I was supposed to, I did quite well at the three different tests. I definitely feel that I was the best in the group backing, just due to the amount of time and tries it would take the others to get backed in.

The area we were taking the backing tests in was dry and dusty. The dirt had been driven over so many times that it had been ground into a fine powder that would billow at the slightest breeze. The wind wasn't blowing when I took the third picture, but the look of the ground can give one the impression of how dry it is.

In talking with the road test instructor, I did find out that we were now a group of sixteen. One person had been sent home after making the transmission in the road test truck go bang, none of the people in the truck knew exactly what had happened mechanincally, but it did seem to work afterwords. Apparently he hadn't passed a single backing test prior to driving, so they told him it was time to go. I don't know if it was back to school to practice more, or just get out, but he is gone.

That is all for tonight, I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow brings.