[INSERT BLOG TITLE HERE]

I've been getting caught up on blogs that I read and thinking that maybe I should post. But what to say? I don't even know what to use for a title.

You know, I've renamed my blog site to do with the fact I'm a truck driver, but haven't really talked about it yet. Maybe I could start there. Let's see.....

I've been driving now for over 4 years, all for the same company. My company was strictly an auto shift fleet. That kind of bummed me out. I've wanted to drive truck since I was a little kid and always imagined shifting through all the gears. And then BAM!!! Auto shift.

Now, people that have never driven an auto shift truck probably imagine something along the lines of a car style auto. It's not. It's actually a manual shift transmission, but it is computer shifted. The downfall is that you don't get the true experience of driving a truck and your stuck going through every gear up and every gear down. On most auto shift trucks anyway. My first one was a Volvo with a 12 speed auto shift and it would actually skip gears according to how fast the RPM's went up.

But our Freightliners are 10 speed Ultra-Shift and go through every gear.

Then one day I hear this rumor about my company buying 185 manual shift trucks and only giving them to trainers. Hmmm, I'm a trainer.... Sure enough, I got the call to pick one up. YAY ME!!!

Now, I've been nearly 4 years driving an auto shift, but I know how to drive a manual from a previous job and I drove one in trucker school. But the job was a decade ago and school was only a couple of weeks. One week in the truck.

It was embarrassing LOL.

I figured I had better take a week off from training so that I could get used to the truck before I tried to show a student how to drive one.. I'm pretty good at it now. But I do have to say, when I'm in traffic, I kind of miss the auto shift LOL..

I'm sure those that have seen our trucks have also noticed that we were a 100% dry van company. Well now we are starting to dabble in reefer units. I quickly got under one. Longer miles and I get more places than we do with a dry van. Plus the trailers are assigned to us. No drop and hooks, but I always have the same trailer. I'll actually spend the extra cash to wash my trailer now.

The other plus is that my company just started putting new logos on the new equipment. So both my truck and trailer are 2010 models with matching logos. After being with the old logos for so long, I think the new ones look GREAT!!

With only 51 trailers and 186 trucks (one older truck and trailer was relabeled) out of 2,000 trucks and over 5,000 trailers, I feel kind of special...

I sure am rambling on for someone with no clue what to talk about today LOL.

But, on that note...

- Chip