Back to Basics

That's a pretty impressive sight, Amirite? That's ten 70-foot-long semi tractor-trailers all lined up and ready for action at the Roadmaster Driving School in Lithia Springs. I took this shot at the end of the day this week after spending over ten hours on-site, working on pre-trip inspection, practicing parking maneuvers on the pad, and getting in a little drive time out on the open road.

I have to tell you, going 'Back to School' after more than 25 years out of the educational grind has been an eye-opening experience.

As I have mentioned to many of my friends and even some of my classmates at driving school, getting the hang of all of this new information is like trying to drink water from a firehose. The facts and figures are coming at you fast and furious and at some point it's just hitting you in the face and splashing off without absorbing into your brain.

I took Auto Tech as a class in high school and it was great, as far as being able to learn how to service your car's engine, do minor repairs and maintenance, or take apart and rebuild a lawn mower engine. But that didn't completely prepare me for dealing with these monsters!

The semis are hiding more than double the horsepower of our usual cars under those massive hoods. We're basically learning a new language when dealing with these incredible machines. For the first week, we spent at least 75%  of our time in the classroom learning the rules of the road, basic premises and formulas for figuring out how to manage your truck on hills, curves, intersections, traffic, open road, etc. We also spent dozens of hours outside, looking under the hood and walking around, crawling under, and hopping up inside the cab of these trucks.

Our goal? To learn pretty much what EVERY part of the truck is, what it does, and how we can inspect it in a way that allows us to get things repaired or replaced before we ever get on the road, so that we can drive this potentially 40-ton truck on the open road among all of the 2-ton vehicles that 'regular folks' like you are driving in each day.

It can be pretty darn intimidating to lift the hood up on this truck and look at the all of the hoses, wires, fluid reservoirs, metal shafts and rods, brake parts, and tires. However, the more you look at them, talk about them and put 2 & 2 together, they all begin to make sense and work together logically in your head. For the state's CDL (Commercial Drivers License) exam, we will have to do a front-to-back pre-trip inspection for the State Examiner, name each part, what it does, and how we'll inspect it. The examiner actually decides which section of the truck and trailer you'll be inspecting.

After the outside inspection, we'll have to do an in-cab inspection and perform what is known as an air brakes leakage (LAB) test and also the air tank 'build up' test. Then we have to perform a 'tug test' which tells examiner that you know how to test both the brakes of the trailer and the tractor once the two sections are 'coupled' or joined at the back via the 5th wheel assembly (seen in the picture above) and the air hoses at the back of the truck.

Above is the culmination of several days of hard work, studying, and practice tests. I received my CDL Learner's Permit. It's basically like the learner's permit you get when you're 15 to drive a regular car, but for people driving massive 18-Wheelers. The test is much more difficult, but at the very least it allows us to move to the next phase of drivers school and begin practicing in the trucks on the parking pad and out on the open road. I received 95% on the test which is nearly 100 questions covering three separate areas: General knowledge, Air Brakes, and Combination Vehicles. If you don't receive above 80% on General knowledge, you're not even allowed to move on to the next section, and so on. Once you get 80% you can move on, but if you get the first two sections banged out, but not the third, you have to come back in a couple days and re-take the part in which you were deficient. It was a good feeling being able to knock this out in one day. Out of our original class of 18 people, only six of us were able to pass all three parts on our first visit and receive our permit. The rest of the class returned a couple days later. A couple people had to return a couple days after that to get the final part. Also, 3 people ultimately had to drop out of the class because they were simply unable to complete the core work of the class.

So, now that I have my permit and I've passed the Roadmaster School's teachers' evaluation of my pre-trip inspection process (I received 86 of a possible 90 points!), which is NOT the same as the state's CDL exam, what's next? We get to move on down to the parking and maneuvers pad. That means for the first time, we'll actually be driving these beasts and trying to squeeze them into tight spaces at the most ungodly angles. Hilarity ensues. Until next time! (Honk, Honk!)

Catching Up On The House

Greetings!
After looking back at previous posts and how I ended them so abruptly prior to us moving back into 713 East Paces Ferry (EPF), I realized that I never provided the satisfaction of a finished product for all of my fans and followers! (Snark)
I'll start with a couple pictures from earlier this year, which give you a good idea of what the house looks like under normal circumstances.

This wide shot gives you a decent look at the house when the lawn is mowed and the front privet shrubs are pruned relatively well. It's a much different look than before and a whole lot more room!

Here's a close up look at Chez Fors. The spacious front porch is obviously a wonderful addition aesthetically and we do enjoy hanging out there with friends and family on occasion. Especially in the morning on weekends or in the evening after dinner with a "mild libation." Another one of my favorite activities is to go out and sit in one of our rocking chairs with our dog Charlie and enjoy a good Summer thunderstorm. Just the other day we were out there during a rocker of a storm when a bolt of lighting hit really close to the house, so the thunder was immediate. Charlie took one look at me, got up and walked inside. He'd seen and heard enough on that day. LOL!

Here are a few images of the Fors' Folly on EPF during the splendor of a snowy winter wonderland. The above picture was taken in December of 2017, just days before we were to head to Australia for a few weeks. Atlanta got hit with an earlier-than-usual snowfall that year and it provided for a wonderful backdrop for us to "Get the Hell out of Dodge" and head Down Under.

Grace and our former neighbors, of course, took the rare opportunity to enjoy the cold and wet snowfall to have the obligatory snowball fight and then get down to business to build a snowman. Cue the Frozen movie soundtrack ("Do you want to build a snowman?"). That's the next door neighbors' house in the background, not ours.

Finally, a quiet and serene vista of Chez 713 with its fresh blanket of snow on the ground. I snuck this photo before the kids got to it and shredded up the snow with sleds and out-of-control, frantic gloved hands trying to pack snowballs together.
I know it's ONLY been 4 1/2 years to get these pictures of the finished product up there, so I hope the wait wasn't TOO anticlimactic. :-)

Switching Gears - Flip 3.0!

It's hard to believe, but it's been just over four years since my last post! What the HELL has been going on in all of that time? Well, a whole Hell of a lot! We are going on four years since moving back into our 'newly' renovated house, Kristin and I just celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary, and I'm unemployed again. (Record scratch sound effect goes here...)

Yes, you read that correctly. Flip Fors is out of work for the Second time in my entire life since I was 14 years old. This time it was actually against my own will. I was laid off, not fired, from The Dairy Alliance at the end of 2018. The dairy industry has been in a financial free-fall for nearly five years after a banner year in 2014, and about 25% of all farmers across that U.S. have sold out and gone out of business in that time frame. It's truly sad, and my old employer's bottom line was entirely dependent on the volume and price of milk that farmers were paid. Not a good combination when I had been promoted to 'middle management' at the organization during the summer of 2017. I loved working there and for the hard-working dairy farmers of the Southeast. I probably should have seen it coming, but I was too busy working for our farmers and trying to figure out ways to get their message out to consumers so they'd buy more dairy products.

I'm not going to cry over spilled milk, because there's nothing I can do about it now... I have to look and move forward. I started looking for work nearly immediately, but truly going all out after the holidays and once my severance package ended in January of 2019. I was looking for roles in the Communications and Media Relations fields. I applied for unemployment insurance since I was eligible, and searched diligently for a new gig, at least 3 or 4 jobs a week. I was looking in the private sector, public universities or government agencies, the occasional non-profit, across the entire spectrum of possible companies and organizations. Nothing, Nada, Bupkes. I earned several phone screens, second-level interviews, and about a half dozen face-to-face final round interviews. In each case, I felt like I did really well or nailed the interviews. But in each case, I was beaten out by someone who had more experience in a very specific area for the position that I was competing for. In some cases, it wasn't even an area that was in the job description or originally mentioned during the interview process. That was extremely disappointing and eternally frustrating.
Without completely giving up, what could I do to find work that's in demand, that I would really enjoy, and has the potential to make good, or at least solid money?

Yes, that look of confusion, consternation, and impending catastrophe on Snowman and the Bandit's faces should say it all. I have decided to become a professional truck driver. As in Semi-Tractor Trailer trucks. I'll give you a moment to pick YOUR jaw up off the ground. Take your time...

 As of mid-June, I am now enrolled at Roadmaster Drivers School in Lithia Springs, Georgia which is just about 15 miles west of Atlanta along I-20. Roadmaster is a school that is owned and managed by Werner Trucking, which is one of the major trucking companies in the U.S. Werner is based in Omaha, Nebraska, but happens to have its primary Southeast hub next door to the school.

So, you're probably asking yourself, "Flip/Eric, How in the heck did you end up there?" It's a short story, but it's been playing itself out over several years. While I was with The Dairy Alliance, I had the opportunity to do a lot of driving around the Southeast. I visited our wonderful farmers as far west as Louisiana and as far north as Kentucky or northeast as Virginia. Sometimes I would fly to my destination, but most of my travel was driving. While I was in the car, spending sometimes in excess of 6 to 7 hours at a time just to arrive at my destination, I noticed how many trucks were out on the road. I mean, I'd spend all that time in the car, not getting anything done, just to spend a couple hours giving a presentation, or visiting a farmer or two at their farm for a project. But the 'good' stuff was only a couple hours at best. The drive became 'dead heading' for me, because I couldn't really work. Maybe a phone call or something, but aside from that, it was wasted hours.

I'd often look at the truckers that I was zooming past and realize, these men and women are IN their offices. They're doing their job out on that road we're traveling on. You know what I also realized? How much what they do truly impacts our lives every single day. I loved my job(s) and understand that they were valuable for the services they provided, but they were mostly nebulous, intellectually-based, 'information' and messages that either did or didn't simply evaporate into the ether. It was hard to truly measure the value of what I or my organization or station was producing and providing. I know that dairy farmers were definitely producing something of value. It was tangible and I understood its absolute value and all of the hard work that went into producing it. Again, I know that I worked extremely hard and so did my colleagues, but it was hard to quantify exactly what we did and 'see' how our work impacted the greater good.

So, that brings me back to truck driving. These people know how important their jobs are to keeping our country moving and the economy strong. They're delivering all of the products and goods from state to state, city to city, often across the country, so that all of us Americans can visit stores and buy what we need on an everyday basis. This is NOT a job or service that can be outsourced to vastly underpaid or drastically unqualified labor abroad and overseas. Drivers know at the end of their day or shift, that they have provided a valuable service in getting these items from point A to point B, and can feel satisfied, even fulfilled in that notion. That has a certain appeal to me.

I was also very interested to find out that there is a growing demand for drivers, which could be a crisis in the next 5-10 years. Right now, estimates are that the nation is at least 125,000 drivers short of what is needed. That number is expected to grow a lot in the near future. It's estimated that because the average age of a driver is pretty much my age (almost 49) or older, about one-third of current drivers will be aging out and retiring from driving by the year 2025. That's not good- or actually it's good for me. Part of the problem is that the majority of our children, or at least the younger generation, have been taught to believe that a job is only worth something if you sit in front of a computer or have a smart phone in your hand. That somehow, valuable blue collar service jobs can't get you ahead or be fulfilling. I'm here to tell you that that's not true. That's a major factor in why I have decided to reinvent myself, at 49 years old, by literally "Switching Gears" to create Flip 3.0!
I will continue to post updates on this blog with details on the classes I'm taking and any job possibilities and offers. Stay tuned! (Honk, Honk!)