September 2018

Welcome to the CDL club. I have had my class A w/ tanker for nearly 15 years now. Working for a municipal utility company running repair crews, we have to drive trucks w/ trailers and backhoes. It is a whole lot easier than over-the-road trucking.

In other news, my September has been interesting. Instead of putting our kids back in public school, we actually pulled them out and started homeschooling them. My wife is having fun with that.

Also, I had my archery elk hunt for the past 9 days. I got a nice bull so my family will be eating good for the next while. I dropped the head off at the taxidermist yesterday to get a nice European mount done. He was a keeper for sure as well as my first elk. Several of my Rangers were jealous that they didn't get to go archery hunting with me. My rifle deer hunt starts right before Halloween, so I might be stuffing my freezer full this year, especially since I got my archery javelina tag filled this past January.

tbrown3589 wrote:Welcome to the CDL club.  I have had my class A w/ tanker for nearly 15 years now.  Working for a municipal utility company running repair crews, we have to drive trucks w/ trailers and backhoes.  It is a whole lot easier than over-the-road trucking.

Thanks. One of my instructors signed my graduation cap said, “welcome to the club” too. I have tanker endorsement and written portion of hazmat done. I have to start the tsa background portion of the hazmat next. My plans are to do my year of long haul and seek local or regional positions. Have you done long haul before?

RRCmdrBennett wrote:

tbrown3589 wrote:Welcome to the CDL club.  I have had my class A w/ tanker for nearly 15 years now.  Working for a municipal utility company running repair crews, we have to drive trucks w/ trailers and backhoes.  It is a whole lot easier than over-the-road trucking.

Thanks. One of my instructors signed my graduation cap said, “welcome to the club” too. I have tanker endorsement and written portion of hazmat done. I have to start the tsa background portion of the hazmat next. My plans are to do my year of long haul and seek local or regional positions. Have you done long haul before?

I have not done any over-the-road hauling. All of my CDL experience has been intrastate travel between jobsites within the Municipalities I have worked with. I rarely take our rigs out of the city limits. I have one of those easy CDL jobs, you know how us government workers are!

Busy week, and still more to go. Tue-Wed was a great overnight co-ed retreat for our high school students. Amazing what can happen around the campfire. I guess that's what makes RR so good, huh?

Thu-Fri I was on the road again, helping another Christian school get ready for their accreditation. Fri-Sat was on the other side of the state, attending a conference and listening to my spiritual hero, Del Tackett (The Truth Project). He's just a regular guy who heard from the Lord and has made a big difference.

I bumped into him beforehand at a hotel and had a nice conversation. Gave him a big hug. Later, I got him to autograph my DVD set and he added "Gal 6:9". It was hours before I got to a Bible (no, I don't do phones or apps). I opened it to the exact page, and it was exactly what I needed.

Gotta take a moment to praise the Lord for saving my bacon 2 days ago.
About 3 AM Monday I was almost back to the office in rainy weather. At a bend in the highway, my tractor hydroplaned & started sliding into the next lane. (unoccupied thankfully) I was not speeding either! I was running below the speed limit due to the rain. The road turned & I did not not. I realized I was going to go pile it into into the median & yelled out " LORD HELP ME!" As the last word came out of my mouth, the steer tires suddenly bit in & swerved me me back into my own lane! God is good!
Took quite a while for my heart to slow down.

ccm2361 wrote: Gotta take a moment to praise the Lord for saving my bacon 2 days ago.

We've all got stories like that to share. Mine involved an angry Western diamondback rattler, 2 feet away from my face on a ledge I'd climbed up about 25-30 feet to get to.

All I had time to do was say "Jesus." Next thing I knew, I was on my feet at the bottom, not remembering how I got there.