11-14-06 - Tuesday - Chores

Chores! Yup. That's how it works. I did my share of chores today, but that's ok. While I was at driver training and OTR training and CAT training, my wife bought a beautiful new house here in the Denver area and we have been spending the past few days getting it ready to move into. This morning I was busy breaking down boxs and stuffing packing material into one big box. Our furniture and other household stuff just arrived from Germany, where I was last stationed in the Army, about 10 days ago, so it's been a busy time getting the house back to a little likeness of normal.

I did take some pictures of the outside of my truck this morning when the sun was shinning and I will have them posted as soon as I download them off of my camera. My camera is in the truck right now and it's cold as hell outside, so I will get it tomorrow and upload them. Also, as per a request I got, I will take some pictures of the sleeper and cab and post them too. Give me a few days.

I will also post a picture of what's left of my TV. That's right, the careful and considerate government contracted movers destroyed my TV. It's actually really amazing how destroyed it is. I mean, it's in a zillion pieces. Pictures to come.

I should get some sleep now. I have to be up at 730am to wait for the phone comapny to come hook up service at my new house. They will be there between 8am and 530pm. That's a huge window. I wonder if I told them I would be there between 8am and 530pm and they could just wait for me to get there, if that would work? Probably not. I am at their mercy. I also have DirecTV coming tomorrow to get the TV thing setup for my wife. I want to get everything setup as much as possible before I hit the road again on Thursday.

That's all for now.

11-14-06 - Tuesday - Answers!

It's really late here now, or early, I'm not sure which. I was just reading some of the comments about this blog and I'm going to try to answer some of them while I'm at home with a good internet connection.

~john said...

"Hey does CRE pay a driver referral bonus?"

The answer is yes. But, I would only personaly refer a person that I believed would be a good potential driver. There is so much that is involved in being a sucessful professional driver, I would only want to steer a good candidiate into the profession. But, to answer the question as clearly as possible, England has a very good recruiting program that rewards drivers that find other good drivers to join the England team.

devildice said...

"I even spoke to one CRE driver about 3 weeks ago at a TA about it and he also confirmed it was almost impossible to stay ahead.

I am assuming that you also crunched the numbers and everything worked out other wise you would not be signing a lease. So my question to you is......how can you do it? What is the secret?"

OK, there are many drivers at England. Many thousand to tell the truth and each one will have his or her own experience. If a driver is willing to never turn down a load and do whatever the Driver Manager asks of them, they wil be sucessful. England wants it's lease operators to be sucessful. England doesn't make money unless the drivers do.

There are some drivers that spend alot of time sitting in truck stops waiting for a GOOD load or spending too much time at home there are many ways to fail, there is only one way to be sucessful. The secret, do the right thing! It's your business, treat it as such. Being sucessful or not is entirly dependant on you the driver.

I hope this answered some questions. I will keep blogging as much as I can. I believe that the more information that is presented to potential drivers the better. There are so many misconceptions and driver tales out there, I hope to be the voice of truth. Driving is a great job, as long as the expections are realistic.

Two more days of home time and it's back on the road for me!

11-12-06 - Sunday - Home Time!!

I'm home! For the first time in about 2 1/2 months, I'm home for a few days. Actually I'll be home for about 5 days and it's great. I miss my wife and son so much, it's absolutly wonderful being home!

I went through the lease signing process on friday afternoon. It took from 12 noon till about 5 pm. Long afternoon and it seemed to drag on forever. We all just wanted our permit books and to get on the road. I was one of the lucky ones. I got a load going home to Denver friday evening.

After the long drawn out afternoon of signing papers I got out of Salt Lake with a K-Mart load to Brighton, CO and hit I-80 east at about 630pm. I drove until about midnight and stopped in Rawlins, WY for the evening. I delivered in Brighton on Saturday, but not after getting lost in farm country in Colorado looking for the K-Mart distribution center.

I have my GPS navigation system and CB now and am in the process of installing them in the truck. I will never be lost again and that is good for a number of reasons. Being lost and off-route is dangerious and it costs money for the independant contractor in the way of fuel and time. Never again!

For now I'm happy to be home and I'll be on the road again on November 16th. As happy as I am to be home, I'm looking foward to running hard and bringing in some good money before Christmas.

I'll get some pictures up on here soon of my new truck. Look for me and give me a wave, I'm in England truck 92741!