Location: Wheeling, WV

I was so tired when I got around to writing that entry last night I forgot the best part of the day! Jason and I had spent the day picking-up returns from various cabinet outlets to take back to the plant in Indiana.  More precisely, I was.  I had decided on Tuesday since he was going to get-ff the truck, time was becoming more of a factor than a couple of days worth of tedious training.  In short, I could get the work done quicker if I did the driving.  So on Wednesday he rode around while I worked.  Late in the afternoon as we were leaving Bellighma, MA he crawled into the sleeper for a nap.  The next stop was a Home Depot in Seekonk, MA just east of Providence, RI.  I parked by the receiving door and went inside to get the returns.  After about 15 minutes of looking around and calling what were presumably more informed folks, the guy in receiving decided he couldn't find them.  Not a big deal, it happens.  So I went back to the truck and proceeded on toward another Home Depot in Warwick, RI, about 30 minutes southwest of where I was in Seekonk.  In Warwick, I spent maybe 30-45 minutes getting into the docks, loading-up, etc.  When I came back to the truck, there was a message waiting on the Qualcomm for me.

Jason was still in Seekonk!  This is the part in the story where I went "BWAAAAAhahahahahahahahahahhaha."

Apparently, at some point in the fifteen minutes I was inside, Jason got out of the truck.  He claims he tried to find me, however, he obviosly didn't come in through the receiving door or I would've seen him.  When he couldn't find me, he decided to go shopping!  When he came back from his food hunting and gathering I, of course, was gone.  Long gone.  In all fairness, perhaps I should've double-checked the bunk before leaving.  By the same token, I'm not someone's baby-sitter.  He's, techincally, a grown man.  He should've taken more responsbility in the matter in making sure I knew he had left the truck.  Even if it was just leaving a note on the driver's seat. Sheesh.

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They have lots of fun names for towns in the northeast.  Seekonk is a fun name.  I think the town name of Woonsocket, RI has become my current favorite name, though .  How cool would it be to say "I'm from Wooooonsocket!"  It sounds like a euphemism that would be used in a bad Penthouse Letter.  "I thrust my manhood deep into her inviting woonsocket!"

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A couple of months ago I had my first, real experience with Russian cuisine while visiting with atthestarz in Minneapolis.  My impression of it was less than stellar However, I was assured that the restaurant wasn't all the great in general, as it was her first time there, too.  When I was in Mahattan this past weekend, my pal mybluenotepad took me to a Ukranian place near Irving Plaza before the show.  I had some veal goulash that was spectacular.  Yay for good Russian food!

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Also while in NYC, I did manage to catch-up with draysha68 and dcminser for breakfast at the Tick Tock Diner on Saturday morning.  Accroding to draysha68, they have the. best. pancakes.  And that may very well be, but I seldom eat pancakes.  Too rich and sweet for me.  And as an illusion to the itch Hedberg joke, about halfway through you're fucking sick of 'em.  Instead, I had an awesome omelet with mushroom, mozarella cheese and sun-dried tomatoes. Mmmmm.  It was nice seeing he again and getting to meet David.  We talked and chugged coffee for nearly three hours.  They seem happy together, and in particular, draysha68 seems a lot happier, energetic, and enthusiastic.  Good for you, draysh68, everyone should have as much happiness as they can stand. :)

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I think Jason may have had a "personality conflict" with me.  Whilst trying to negotiate his getting off the truck to "go home" for a few days and him acting really strange and secretive about it, it was relayed to me by someone in Student Planning that he wasn't going home.  Apparently, he was going to wait for another trainer.  Ha!  He doesn't know how good he had it.

When we were in Connecticut on Monday night, he had run into a dude that had been in orientation with him.  They sat in the truckstop for hours talking...  and I'm sure they compared notes.  Jason probably got the impression that he wasn't as far along as the other guy.  Well, duh.  I spoke with the other guy briefly and he was coherent and intelligent; of course he was further along than Jason. I knew something was up earlier today when I wrote my comments on the back of Jason's progress report.  He was driving while I wrote them, then we stopped for fuel and I hopped out of the truck to begin the process.  He was all. over. that report, reading what I had written, like white on rice...

like gravy on biscuits...
like flies on shit...
like bad cliches on my livejournal...

Whatever.  So long Jason.  Good luck... you're gonna need a shitload of it.

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So I have a new trainee.  His name is Delroy.  He will be with me for the first half of his training, until stormodacentury joins me in mid-April.  Then I can talk shit about stormo and you can all laffs! at him.  Delroy is...  a trip!  I will talk more about Del at a later date and I think you, too shall see how interesting he is.  All I will say about him now is that, when he drove for the very first time tonight, he climbed from 2nd to 9th gear flawlessly.  I mean, he didn't grind a single one.  No trainee had done that yet.  I was impressed!  He's already a better driver than Jason.

Doth the moon care for the barking of a dog?  -Robert Burton

Of course she does! 

So let's back up.  Monday, Jason and I did some cabinet delivering around Massachusetts until we discovered that we were leaking air from the brakes.  I could've babied the truck until we got out of the northeast, but since Jason was to be doing most of the driving, I thought it best to get them repaired.  This unfortauntely meant driving down to Connecticut to a truckstop.  Turns out it was merely a loose air line which they fixed in about 15 minutes. Of course this was after waiting for 4 hours! 

Then Tuesday morning, Jason announces that he needs to go home as soon as possible, since he has things to take care-of back in Illinois.  Rejoice!!!!11!!!  I suspect he has decided that trucking isn't for him, but just won't admit it.  In conversation he has mentioned some places he had put-in applications leaving messages for him.  I think he wants to sniff them out.  I hope something pans out because, quite frankly, he isn't going to cut it as a driver.  While he has improved a lot over the past couple of weeks, he still has a LOOONG way to go.  And I have serious reservations he would ever approach adequacy.

So Tuesday night, we parked in Quincy, MA and I met-up with mandy_moon again for the evening.  It was really neat when I walked out of the train station.  She and Buddy were waiting for me on a bench and Buddy had this look of recognition in his big, brown eyes.  This time I was not remiss in bringing certain items which I had promised, namely: shoes for her tree, a superball she unwittingly bounced from Massachusetts to Ohio, and what is quite possibly the world's giantest jawbreaker.  I'm happy to report that the Shrine of Lionel lives!  In hindsight, I wish I had taken a photo. We went to get some grub and she took me to a place where they have the BEST SANDWICH IN THE WORLD.  I mean, she even admitted having dreamt of this sandwich.  An opportunity like this could not be passed-over, so away we went.  It was indeed a very good sandwich.  It was probably enhanced by the really cool 70's rock overhead.  It's rare you get to hear The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks" or the Modern Lovers' "I'm Straight" anywhere other than your own stereo.

I wanna hold you, wanna hold you tight! Get teenage kicks right through the night!

So tonight I'm slowly getting snowed-in in Warwick, RI (hi rasa!).  They're calling for 6-10 inches!  We have one more stop to make in Coventry in the morning then we head back for Indiana.  He'll most likely get-off the truck in Allentown, PA or Springfield, OH.  I assume I'll get another trainee then, too.

I'm totally in love with ( Metric )

As a result of a comment to ajgeurtz in the Cracker Barrel entry the other day, I was inspired to try my hand at doing a Jason impression.  Obviously, this is comedic hyperbole, but I think you will agree, it has a basis in reality.  I call this one:

"Jason Explains the Internet"

I saw this show, on the Discovery Channel once, where they had these typewriters with little TV's that sat on top of 'em.  Do they have the Discovery Channel where you're from? I think they costed about three thousand dollars! And people wrote things on them and stuff.  Yeah, about three thousand... maybe 900 dollars.  And they use the Ty-uh-TV, mm-writers to talk in ciphers.  You ever hear of anything like that? They said something about "cipher space" or something.  And I think I remember ciphers being like secrets, only not letters, but 8 numbers you can't hear.  But we don't have anything like that in Harrisburg.  Do you know James Berman?  He had a TV repair place in Harrisburg, but he was from Aynisscratch, Illinois.  I thought he might've fixed your TV one time because he had a goldfish he bought at the State Fair in Louisville 6, no, maybe 15 years ago.  He went to ITT Tech, or maybe MIT to learn engineering on TV's and he says they have this inner net that catches everything you type to send it overseas and the goverment's worried about pirates.  I didn't even know they still had pirates, did you?  We sure don't have anything like that in Harrisburg.  It sounds sorta scary, 'cos the pirates have viruses that infect the males with worms, which sounds kind of gross, ha ha.  And I think it must only infect the really strong guys who work-out and stuff because he said the worms were in "he-males".  He said the worms can travel the whole world in a couple of hours without dying.  I guess that's 'cos of all the oceans being wet.  That's why the government is building the Reformation Super Highway to cross the oceans safe and not have to worry about pirates and worms.  Someday, like maybe next year, you'll be able to drive from here to China, or Canada or something.  I think that'd be kinda wild, ha ha. To be able to drive to Canada?!?!!




I think I hurt myself.

I would, however, entertain the idea of taking requests for things you'd like to hear Jason explain.

Last night, as we were approaching Nashville (at 4pm I might add), I got brave...  on a hunch.  I said to Jason:

"We will be following I-24 east through town.  I want you to navigate us through Nashville on your own.  I don't want you to ask me about which lane you should be in or what you need to do.  I want you to concentrate on your task, read your signs, and get us through here.  If you begin to make an obvious mistake, I will correct you so we don't get terribly off-course, but I won't advise you of what you need to do before-hand."

And so it began. On two occasions he tried to ask me about what he needed to do and I just shrugged my shoulders and told him I wasn't going to answer him. His brow would furrow and he'd concentrate even harder.  And you know what?  He did it.  Flawlessly, I might add.  Afterwards, I told him:

"That was awesome!  See?  You can follow these signs.  When I'm sitting here with you, it's too easy to just ask what you need to do rather than figure it out for yourself."  He smiled when I said this because he knew that's what he'd been doing.  "In the future, I want you to treat every city and junction just like that.  I'm still going to be sitting here watching you for quite some time, to make sure you've got it, but I don't want you to ask just because it's easier than figuring it out for yourself."

A couple of hours later, I drove the point home as I was driving us through Chattanooga.  "Remember how you felt when you were driving through Nashville?  How you had to pay attentnion to every sign and watch for directions, lane changes, and interstate junctions?  Every time you go to some place unfamiliar, you have to concentrate like that.  I'm doing that right now.  I haven't been to Chattanooga in years... and never in a truck" [This was a white lie, actually].  "And never on I-24.  I have never done what I am doing right now.  So, I'm doing exactly what you were doing in Nashville this afternoon: concentrating on following these signs because it's the only way I can figure out how to dive through here.  It's not as difficult for me since I've had lots of practice doing it, but it's still the same basic task that you performed in Nashville."

So we've had a real breakthrough. His shifting ability continues to improve constantly, as well.  A few times, I observed him doing a gear search on the downshift in an almost automatic nature while he continued to be cautious of his surroundings.  He continued to roll until he got his gear, rather than have to come to a complete stop to recover it.  Who da man?  I am! Go soopa! Go soopa!

We did have a small blunder this morning while leaving Talladega, Alabama, but of a new variety we hadn't encountered yet.  We were bobtail (sans trailer) and turning right onto a 55mph, four-lane highway.  He turned onto the highway into the right lane, then signaled, checkd his mirror, then changed into the left lane.  In all, a flawless execution and he deserves props for remembering all of these vastly important steps in the task.  But he didn't take into account his speed (20mph) when judging the distance of the tractor-trailer barreling down the hammer lane at 60mph. I saw the truck in the mirror back-off and take for the center turn lane to avoid him.  The other driver sounded his horn.  I made him aware that he was cutting off the other driver.  Jason said he was "way back there" when he decided to change lanes. I calmly mentioned the speed differences and he looked at his speedometer and promptly gave the truck some fuel.  I didn't want to be too hard on the guy, he had been aware that the truck was at least THERE afterall and didn't do anything erratic or dumb upon realizing his error like switching back to the right-lane without checking mirrors, etc. 

Baby-steps... baby-steps.

So today we're moving some empty trailers from one location in Birmingham to another in Talladega.  Then we're taking a load out of Talladega to... Oregon! A nice, long trip to the west coast with all sorts of new cities to traverse where Jason can hone his newly acquired skills.  He got a taste of mountain driving while crossing Tennessee last night, but he'll get the real deal over the weekend as we cross the Rockies, Sierra Nevada and Cascades.  Interestingly, this is an identical trip to one I took one year ago.  The last time I made this trip, I had attempted to visit the semi-ghost town of Goldfield, Nevada but had not been able to because it was dark when I got there.  Maybe I'll have better luck this time.

Jasonism^TM of the Day

[pointing to a Cracker Barrel restaurant whilst travelling through southern Illinois]
Jason: "I've eaten there.  They have souveniers and stuff in there you can buy, too. Have you ever been any place like that?"
Me: "Cracker Barrel is a chain, they're all over the place."
Jason: "Really"? 
Me: "Sure there's two or three of them in Lexington."
Jason: "This one had a pool game and this other game.  Do they all have that?"
Me: "I haven't been in enough, different Cracker Barrel's to know."

Location: somewhere in eastern Colorado (3/2, 10:00am)

Today's Jasonism^TM

Jason: "If you were going to California, could you take 70 west?"
[assuming he meant from our current location in Colorado]
Me: "Well, it would depend on where you were going in California. California's a pretty big state."
Jason: "You could take 70 east?"
Me: "It's not that big."
[realizing the sarcasm would probably be lost on Jason, I decided to elaborate.]
Me: "California is west of here, so the only way to go to California would be to head west. 70 doesn't actually go to California.  It ends in Utah.  From there, you could plan a variety of routes, depending on where you were going in California."
[after about 30 minutes of silence, I'm guessing after chewing on this new piece of information for a while, he re-opened the conversation]
Jason: "So, if you were going to California from Indianapolis, you would take 70 west to Utah then get off on another road?"
Me: "It would depend on where I was going in California, where I would leave 70.  California is a very LONG state.  800 miles long from one end to the other."

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Location: somwhere in central Kansas (3/2, 2:00pm)

Today has been a rather uneventful day, professionally speaking.  The difference between Jason's shifting ability yesterday and today is remarkable.  I'm learning that, with Jason, he is incapable or processing multiple things rapidly.  They take time to soak-in.  He requires time to reflect on things.  He told me he "thought about" the process of shifting last night.  Today, as we stopped in Salina, KS for a break, he executed his first flawless downshift during the exit process.  I told him that was awesome.

I think Jason has an ability to concentrate on a singular thing that is admirable, but he can't do it in the heat of the moment.  I've wondered how he has survived this long as an adult and it's becoming apparent.  When there is a task at hand to be learned, whether it be a life-lesson or a professional duty, he works and thinks about it until he has it conquered.  Once learned and maintained on a regular basis, he is as capable as anyone.  It is the more complex things which require abstract thinking, understanding of complex disciplines, or critical thinking in which Jason is incapable.  While driving is a set of composite skills, it is nothing more than that, a set of skills.  It hardly requires critical thinking, knowledge of techincal information, or abstract thinking.

It, however, does require judgement; good, sound judgement.  So far, Jason's epic blunders appear to be nothing more than inexperience, underexposure, and ignorance - things I can combat with application and education.  There is nothing in Jason's nature or character which suggests he is incapable of good judgement, merely insufficiently prepared. I think (and hope) now that he is conquering his ability to shift, he will be able to devote his concentration to other things in the near future. In short, Jason may not be bright, but he compensates with effort. I think I can make a trucker out of him after all.  I'll see if I still feel that way after we navigate the urban highways of Kansas City tonight.  lacyunderall and justamy: this is a red alert ;-).

Some other things you may not know about Jason, just to give you an idea of the type of person he is.  He is highly organized, probably an over-compensation for his lack of intelligence.  He is also meticulously neat, like, gay neat to offer a classic stereotype and to fuel the ever-burning imagination of hockeyfag.

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Location: Topeka, KS (3/2, 6:00pm)

Socially, my day will be eventful.  I am to meet up with justamy for dinner in KC as I'm wont to do when I have the time.  She, of course, made it clear the night before in an IM that she was dying to meet Jason, since I've made him a bit of a "star" in my journal.  I've tried calling lacyunderall but she's probably in some Pop-Tart induced coma. 

It's something I frequently do with trainees, but not something I have done with Jason yet: buy them sporadic meals.  I guess after this great day of not making me fear for my life or the safety of others it is warranted.  So, I have invited Jason to join us for Mongolian.

Jason: "Is that Chinese food?"
Me: "It's Mongolian."
Jason: "Isn't Mongolia in China?"
[this actually impressed me that he was nearly correct]
Me: "Mongolia is north of China."

And I went-on to explain the particulars of the restaurant and cuisine in which we would dine this evening.  Maybe he won't be totally shell-shocked by the experience, then again, perhaps for the entertainment value of Amy's benefit, I should've let it be a total surprise.  Regardless, unless Jason decides to be incredibly shy in the presence of our dinner companion, I'm sure she'll get her fair share of first-hand Jasonisms^TM.

Tonight, we will stop in Concordia, MO for showers, fuel, and preventive maintenance work that has been scheduled for the truck.  I will probably have to do some driving later tonight and get us to other side of St. Louis if we are to make it to Pedergrass, GA by 11:00pm tomorrow.  I imagine it will require an extreme bit of concentration on my part as Jason drives us through Nashville.

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Location: Concordia, MO (3/3 1:00am)

Dinner with justamy was delightful as usual.  She got to witness, full force, the power of Jasonism^TM.  I think Amy learned really fast that, there's no fighting Teh Jason.  You realize it would be entirely too much work to try and correct 28 years of monumental, chronic ignorance in casual conversation.  All you can do is observe and enjoy the entertainment.

Jason: "I have pictures of relatives from the 1830s."
[as I recall the camera was a relatively new invention during the time of the Civil War in the 1860s, but ok...  but he continues...]
Jason: "I had two relatives that were 7 foot 7 tall.  There's a brain tumor that makes you tall like that, but I don't think they had it."
Amy: "Wow."

[talking about the new guy she's dating]
Me: "What does he do?"
Amy: "He's an aeronautical engineer."
Jason: "Did he go to ITT tech?"

[I had already explained to Jason that Amy was a school teacher, prior to our get-together.  I don't remember the exact context in which she said it, but she made some mention of "teaching" in the conversation, to which Jason asked increduously]
Jason: "You mean you're a trainer, too?"

The amount of Jasonisms^TM I deal with on a regular basis makes it hard for me to always remember them all.  Hopefully, Amy will remember more than I did and preserve them in her own journal (hint hint), for Jason was certainly in fine form tonight.

I know most people reading my journal won't care about my ramblings on my Slint-capades over the course of the next month.  I mentioned I had started a blog for this at my website.  Now you can have the best of both worlds.  You can have it syndicated to your friend's list if you like, or ignore this if you really don't give a hoot. And I won't cross-post them here. :)

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A photo of Jason

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And finally, the answers to yesterday's little homage to the current meme making the rounds.. everyone was so gracious with their comments, my e-mail inbox was bursting!  I thought it only appropriate to offer a little effort in my answers, by presenting them in PICTURES.
( Answers to X Things )

Ahhh, March.  I can smell the madness, just around the corner.  One of my favorite times of year filled with basketball games and horse races.

Spent the night in Limon, CO last night at the Flying J.  Jason was driving last night, so he was the one who turned off the freeway, drove to the truckstop, into their lot, and parked the truck for the night.

This morning, leaving the parking lot, he turned the wrong way to get back to the interstate.  Apparently, in the future he plans to "write it down."  How can someone LIVE like this?  I'm just waiting for the night when he parks in the back of some really large truckstop and can't find where he parked the truck.  I know he hasn't taken the care to memorize the truck number. I have visions of him climbing up on every red truck to look in the windows until he finds it again.

Jasonism^TM Of The Day
[reading exit sign]
Jason: "Is that Peoria, Illinois?"
[I decided to not just respond "No." as in the past and try to help him with this]
Me: "We're in Colorado, Jason."
Jason: "There's a Peoria, Illinois.  Does it mean that?"
Me: "This is Colorado."
Jason [increduously]: "You mean there's a Peoria, Colorado?!"
Me: "Yes."

Then later this morning, we were navigating through Denver's packed freeways.  We were taking I-70 east to I-225 south, eventually taking us to I-25 south, en route to Pueblo.  While on I-70, the signs began appearing the for I-225 junction.  I pointed the sign out to him, insuring he understood that he needed to be in the right lane for the upcoming exit.  He properly signaled and made his lane change.  As we neared the junction, another huge, green sign informed us that "Two lanes exit". Another sign just below it, indicated that that the furthest-most right lane was exit only and the other lane provided both an exit and continued through-traffic on I-70, by means of little arrows.  As the two lanes were breaking off from I-70, he followed them as he should have.  Then, without warning, signal, apparent reason, or checking his mirrors he began moving into the left lane.  Luckily I was on top of things and immediately checked his sight-side mirror and spotted the minivan beside him.  This was kind of a repeat of the incident in Indianapolis last week.  I lost it.

Me: "WHAT'RE YOU DOING?!?!?!!?"

He hesitated a moment and, for a split-second, drifted back to the right a little.  At first I thought he was coming back into his lane properly and had seen the van.  Apparently I was wrong and he began to go into the left lane once more.

Me: "THERE IS SOMEONE IN THE LANE BESIDE YOU!!!!!"

He swerved back into his lane.  Of course, the minivan had already taken to the shoulder to avoid us.

Jason: "Do I need to be over here?"
Me: "YES! YOU WERE DOING JUST FINE!  WHY WERE YOU CHANGING LANES?!?!?!"
Jason: "I got confused by the sign and I thought I needed to be over there. I never saw an exit sign pointing that way."

We have been working on basic sign reading on the interstate for the past couple of days.  I had shown him how, in the rural stretches of interstate highway, there is a standard lay out to exit signs.  There are typically three: 1 mile away, 1/2 mile away, and one at the exit with an arrow pointing to it.  I've also explained that in the city, especially with multiple lane highways this is not always the case.  Since exits are much closer together, there can not be as much warning.  In addition, sometimes signs for multiple exits will be bunche together and one has to be pay extra attention to the exit numbers and which one they need. Moreover, due to the multiple lanes, signs are typically hung over the freeway where all lanes can view them.  Apparently, he had focused a bit too literally on the standardized layout from our previous lessons and when he hadn't seen the arrow on the sign pointing in the direction, it threw him.  I was beginning to calm-down now, so the volume of my voice reduced, however my general tone was not.  It was firm and overbearing.  We are now into our fifth full day of driving and some things have GOT to start making sense to him really soon.  I haven't told him this, yet, but I probably will when we do his progress report for the week.

Me: "Regardless of how confused you were, you were going to change lanes without signaling or checking your mirrors?!?!?"
Jason: "I thought I had taken the wrong turn and needed to be over there."
Me: "Over where, Jason?  Back out on the freeway?  What were you going to do after you changed lanes?"
Jason: "I was going to get back over there."
Me: "So, after changing lanes without signlaing or checking your mirrors you then were planning on crossing the the shoulder of the ramp and the shoulder of the freeway to get back on I-70?!?!?!"

Keep in mind we were already on the exit ramp.  To get back onto I-70, he would had to have done just this.  Cross a lane of traffic, then cross the "triangle" where the ramp had already split from the freeway, then into a lane of travel.  You've seen boneheads do this all the time on the freeway, although usually in the opposite direction, from the main freeway onto the exit ramp because they ALMOST missed it.  Naturally, Jason had no response for this.  What could he say?  I presumed his silence as guilt.

Me: "That's not only illegal, Jason, but very, very dangerous.  Driving a vehicle, whether it be a car or a truck is all about commitment.  You commit to what you have done.  Erratic driving is what causes accidents.  You never, ever leave your lane of travel unless it is planned and properly executed.  If you HAD made a mistake and taken the wrong exit, or made a wrong turn, then you finish it.  Then you find a place to turn around and go back. But you don't just go leaving your lane and crossing shoulders because you've taken the wrong turn!"

I felt this was the best course of action to take.  It's not so much a problem that he got confused by the signs, but that his actions were so heinously wrong.  Sign reading will come with exposure to all these new-fangled super highways run by the satellites which they don't have in Harrisburg, Illinois.  It's his judgement about basic driving techniques and getting him used to the demands of driving such a large vehicle (mirror usage, shifting/braking, backing) that concerns me most.

Again, to his credit, he is making progress, but we're doing these in baby-steps.  His shifting is becoming more solid.  After a brief conversation this morning after a missed turn on the way to our first customer, I think it's finally soaked in that he needs to get down into idle gears (those in low range below 5th gear) when approaching turns.  He has had this bad habit of running-up on his turn in 5th or 6th gear, then having to do one of two things: try and lug through the turn in an inappropriate gear, or stop in the highway and shift back to his take-off gear (2nd).  I've been trying to impress on him his need to get down to a minimum of 4th gear when approaching a turn, but until today I don't think he's ever fully grasped that.  He's beginning to plan his deceleration further in advance and get through his downshifts.  I'll keep reinforcing it positively until it becomes habit.  I think once we get his shifting solid, and he's not spending inordinate amounts of time thinking about it, it will free his limited resources to concentrate on other things. 

This is the general case with all new drivers, actually.  The chore of learning to downshift in the first few days requires an immense amount of concentration.  Not only are you learning the gear pattern, remembering the splitter, coordinating your feet to operate three pedals simultaneously, AND learn to match road-speed to RPM's for gear synchronization, but you are doing this while attempting to make instant assessments of the traffic around you (front, side, rear), clearances (beneath and above), the distance you have to travel before you stop/turn, and the particulars of a specific turn you may have to make.  In time, all of these things become automatic; you don't really think abot it, you just do it.  But for the new driver, it's a lot and things get missed.  This is why I sit here during the first couple of weeks, to be the other set of eyes and to offer guidance. 

In Jason's case, not only is he dealing with all of this, but he's hindered by a sheltered existence in Bumfuck, Egypt and his limited mental processing resources.  I don't think it's impossible for Jason to become a good truck driver, but I think it will require an immense amount of effort on his part to do so.  So far, he's been up to the challenge, but the progress has been slow.  We'll see how patient he remains with me as my patience shortens as I'm already beginning to feel happen.  I may have a conversation with him to this end; to let him know that I will be riding him harder and harder about things until he picks it up, especially with these fundamentals.  The part I won't tell him is that this will serve one of two purposes: either I'll hammer some of this into his thick head or he'll get so frustrated with me he'll want off the truck.  At this moment, either option is acceptable to me.

Oh Mike, Mike... wherefore art thou, Mike?

After the conclusion of this trip to Pueblo this afternoon, we're scheduled to take a load to Georgia.  It is rare for me to go to the south, so I'd definitely be interested in meeting up with a southern LJ-friend if things work-out toward that end.  Currently, details are sketchy as to time-tables, but perhaps the notion of a cup of cofffe in Atlanta could be entertained with kinkerbelle or partial_reality.  The mind races with the possibilities.  More as/if this develops.

( Some additional geeky stuff about Livejournal... )

Location: Salina, Kansas

The other night, Jason said: "I always thought all truckers knew each other."

He was making this statement as the result of his realization that we, in fact do not.  So we're making some progress.  Now if I can only get him to understand that I don't know everyone from Kentucky.  Apparently, he has this problem of extrapolating his experience in Harrisburg, Illinois to all other locales regardless of size or demographic.

Jason: "Isn't Muhammad Ali or George Foreman or somebdoy from Louisville?"
Me: "Yes, Muhammad Ali was from Louisville."
Jason: "Do you know Ryan Roaker?"
Me: "No."
Jason: "He sold some stuff to Muhammad Ali one time.  He was from Muncie, Indiana then moved to Louisville.  He sells air plane filters.  Do you know what air plane filters are?"
Me: "No. Should I?"
Jason: "They're filters that clean the air in your house, like, .01 microns of dust and they cost about four thousand dollars.  Ryan Roaker sells them and he comes to Harrisburg to sell them.  And they're about four thousand dollars.  I thought you might know him."

Why he calls them "air plane" filters might remain one of the great, unsolved mysteries of our time.  The only thing I can come-up with is that maybe it is a brand name called "Plain Air" or something.  I nearly lost control of the truck when he said "microns", not that I think he has the fogiest idea what it means, he's just parroting something he heard.  Hell, I couldn't tell you what a micron is. His reptition of the cost of these filters made me think of that scene in Rain Man when the doctor is asking Dustin Hoffman how much a candy bar and an automobile costs.  Jason is actually making some improvement, albeit miniscule, in his driving ability.  I have a glimmer of hope and will keep slugging away at it. It's become, like, a challenge or something; to make a driver out of this guy. 

He hit a stop sign today, though.  He didn't, like,  nudge the edge of it with the trailer, he flattened it.  I have been on him constantly about not paying enough attention to his trailer.  I've told him repeatedly, that, in addition to keeping an eye on it all the time, he needs to be particularly vigilant anytime his vehicles are not in a straight line.  Obviously, I didn't use the word "vigilant" when speaking to him, he'd probably think I was talking about a fancy salad dressing they have at Ponderosa.  He was turning right from a little side-street onto a four-lane city boulevard.  Immediately to our right, and crossing the boulevard just beyond our right-hand turn, were a set of railroad tracks.  The corner was really, really tight and as he began moving into the boulevard it was obvious he was turning entirely too soon. 

"You're not going to make it like that," I said, while watching the trailer tandems arc toward the curb in the spot mirror beside me.  He hesitated in the street for a second.  Apparently, I assumed too much; that he had stopped to actually look in his mirror.  I might've noticed he hadn't but I was still watching the corner in the mirror.  He then continued moving forward, which at first didn't concern me because it was still correctable if he would've turned outward for a while and let the trailer finish clearing the curb.  To my amazement he continued his current course and all I could do was watch in the mirror and say "Stop, stop, stop, stop...."  I'm not sure how many times I said it.  I kept saying it because he. wouldn't. stop.  As I watched the stop sign slap the ground like a fly-swatter beneath the wheels of the trailer, I said "You just hit the stop sign."  I think it was at this moment that he finally checked his mirror.  And stopped....

...in the middle of the railroad tracks.

"There's nothing you can do about it NOW, Jason.  You're stopped ON RAILROAD TRACKS!"  He put it back in gear and completed his turn onto the boulevard.  His explanation was that he thought I had meant something in front of him, an oncoming car or whatever.  Which that may be the case, but it's still no excuse for not watching your FIFTY THREE FOOT TRAILER as you're executing a turn in downtown Wichita.  I added that, for future reference, when I say "Stop", I don't mean any other moment, reality, or plane of existence than the present one.  Of course, not in those words, I didn't want the poor guy's head to explode.  Later, after navigating him back to the freeway toward Salina, I summed it up with the following.  "I hope your little incident back there will finally make you understand why you HAVE to watch your trailer in a turn.  You can never assume it's following you the way you're expecting it. Never!"

Hopefully this hard learned lesson will stay with him and it's something I won't have to worry about anymore.  I doubt it.  To his credit, though, he did do an awesome job backing just prior to the stop sign fatality.  The customer from where we had just come was a lumber yard.  Their receiving dock isn't impossible by any means, but it's not exactly a cake-walk either.  You have to back into it from a relatively small city street.  While he had some trouble visualizing the "setup" and I had to talk him through that part, once he began to execute the actual backing manuever, he did rather admirably.  Maybe there's hope for the boy, yet.

Some more recent Jasonisms^TM:

[here is a perfect example of what it must be like to be inside Jason's head when it receives information and he tries to process it into useful knowledge]
Jason: "The super highways and interstates...  they have satellites telling them where to go.  You ever watch the Discovery Channel?"
Me: "Yes, I've watched it a time or two."
Jason: "They did this show about the satellites pointing at the earth and... they have things, like, so far apart all along the highways that make them run straight."
[I'm assuming he saw a show about how GPS works and got REALLY confused.]

[travelling westward in the right lane]
Me: "When we exit at Seneca Boulevard, we need to go south."
Jason [pointing left]: "That way?"
Me: "Yes."
Jason: "Does that mean I need to be in the left lane?"
Me: "No."
[I should add that evey exit so far had been right exits and there were no signs indicating our upcoming exit was to be a left exit.]

I've explained numerous times to Jason how exit numbers on most interstates correspond to mile markers; except for those weird fuckers in the northeast with their sequential exits and the dipshits in California whose mellow would be harshed to number their interstate exits at all, dude.  But, he still hasn't seemed to be able to grasp this concept yet.  His total lack of comprehension of this has been the source of these beauts today:

[I had told Jason we were taking I-135 north to I-70.  After driving for a while and apparently brain-storming on this for some time.]
Jason: "Will I-70 be at Exit 70?"
Me: "Probably not.  If it is, it's just a conicidence."

[earlier, on I-35]
Me: "When we get to Wichita, we'll be looking for U.S Highway 54 and U.S. Highway 400.  They run together through the city."
Jason: "It'll be an exit ramp?"
Me: "Yes."
[later, coming into Wichita]
Jason: "So, like, how that sign says "57" I'll be looking for a sign that says "54" "?
Me: "That sign's exit 57, Jason, we're looking for highway 54 and highway 400.  I'm not sure what exit number it is."

Location: Monrovia, IN

The real problem with the level of Jason's mental faculties is, I don't know where to start.  It's becoming obvious to me that he needs to rather serious lessons in fundamentals.  Tonight he was negotiating a ramp in downtown Indianapolis.  In attempt to help him with his preparation for the 40mph curve which lie ahead, I suggested he begin his downshift and braking.  He hesitated briefly but then took my adivce and began to do so.  The shift was rough but tolerable.  Then for no reason, he begins veering off into the right lane, oblivious to the semi that was passing him on the right side.

"What're you doing? "

He didn't aswer and began to straddle the dotted line.  I saw the truck take to what little shoulder there was and back off.

"You nearly forced a truck into that concrete wall over there."

He looked in the (wrong) mirror to which I said, "This side."  Then, "Why are you leaving your lane?"

He moved back over into the left lane.  He said he had become confused by "the sign or something" and thought that with the curve, he might need the extra space (or something).  I really didn't get any sort of satisfactory explanation for what had just occured.

"You don't have to leave your lane to make turns on a free way and even if you did get confused, why would you leave your lane without checking your mirrors or signaling?"

To which he didn't have an answer. 

I've also spent a good portion of the day constantly explaining what signs mean.  One time, he exited I-70 onto a state highway because the sign said "west".  I asked him, "West what?" 

Jason: "I don't know, but it said west."
Me: "There are lots of highways which go west.  The one we need is the one we were on.  We're taking I-70 all the way to Illinois, Jason."

So, like, how far down do I have to go?  I mean, I know it's my job to train, but things THIS fundamental I think is beyond my general scope of having to deal with.  I may call the training department tomorrow and pose the question anyway.  It's just that, at the moment, it seems I'm going to be having to explain EVERYTHING.

Like the difference between a "Merge" sign and a "Yield" sign which I had to do this afternoon in Columbus.  Fortunately, the 4-wheeler he cut off figured out he wasn't yielding before things got ugly.

---

I wrote that last night right after the incident in Indianapolis.  Today, I decided to take a fresh approach.  We got up this morning and drove for about two hours.  I had him sit in the passenger seat and observe while I explained some things to him.  We worked on lane control and shifting.  I also spent about an hour on the interstate shwoing him signs, over, and over, and over.  How they're laid out, what the different types of signs there are (blue=info, green=direction, brown=point of interest, yellow=caution, orange=construction), and how there is a method to the madness of their placement along the highway.  Every exit we came to, I would reinforce the system (green exit signs, yellow caution signs, blue info signs) and hopefully it is sinking-in.  We are stopped in Monrovia, IN at the TA here just outside Indy.  I'm meeting my very first trainee, Paul, here for breakfast.  I never wrote much about Paul because when I was training him was back during the Soopageek Blackout of 2004 when my computer died.  Paul got on the dedicated account I work for and so our paths cross from time to time, but this is the frist time we've both been able to get together for a little bit and catch-up.

When we leave here I'm going to have Jason put into practice the things he observed this morning.  We'll see how it goes. :)

Location: Wheeling, WV

Ok, I see how it is.  Write something personal, thoughtful, and/or thought provoking and you get nada. Make fun of the dumb guy, suddenly everyone wants to leave comments.  At least now we have a base-line measurement for the lowest common denomenator of my readership.

And whore that I am...

My two favorite Jasonisms^TM of the day (so far):

Let me set this one up just a little.  Jason drove last night across Indiana, then Ohio and into West Virginia where we swtiched seats.  I drove us to Pennsylvania where we were to get our load this morning.  Beavertown, PA is a small town in the central part of the state.  The only way in and out is over some two-lane highway and, quite frankly, I wasn't ready for Jason to tackle this just yet, at least, I didn't want him trying to navigate through Lewistown, PA.  It's a nightmare even for a seasoned pro doing it the first time.  So, I drove us back out of there to the turnpike.  We stopped at the Sideling Hill Service Plaza where I grabbed a Starbucks Caramel Macchiato and we switched seats.  I explained to him that we would be reversing what we had done the night before... out Pennsylvania, through the panhandle of WV and traversing both Ohio and Indiana into Illinois where we are delivering this evening.  Maybe an hour later, we're crossing a somewhat long bridge over a decent-sized river on I-70 between New Stanton and Washington.

Jason: "Is this Kentucky?"

In retrospect, it does look like a smaller version of the bridge spanning the Ohio river we had crossed just a few days previously when I was heading home.  But one would think the absence of a teeming metropolis like Louisville with its skyline, multi-highway junctions, and traffic would've been a clue, not to mention, you know, the presence of mountains.  And of course, in addition to me explaining we would be back-tracking through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana.

---

The other one's a quickie:
Jason: [quoting a highway sign] " 'Left Lane No Trucks'.  What does that mean?"

So let me tell you about Jason:

Jason is 28 years old and is a resident of a small town in southern Illinois.  I made mention that he is somewhat daft.  I'm beginning to discover that he is like an iceberg; the depth of his unfortunate ignorance I haven't even begun to fathom.  In a way it's kind of sad, not to mention scary, that he has been able to survive this long with such a fundamental lack of understanding.  Whereas Roger was just crazy, with boneheaded ideas about how the world worked, Jason is more like a child; he hasn't even formulated an idea about how the world works.  He has an innocence and naivete that is due in part to his backward, insulated upbringing in Po-Dunk, Illinois but is owed primarily to what appears to be a general mental deficit.  I grew up in Po-dunk, Kentucky, afterall; being from the sticks doesn't necessarily equate ignorance.  So it's not just that Jason is uneducated or unrefined, he is unintelligent.  I'm not saying these things to mean, because, I actually like Jason.  He's a nice, easy-going and considerate person.  Imagine a real-life Forrest Gump.  Even his speech patterns are reminiscent of Forrest, although not as heavily affected as the one chosen by Mr. Hanks in the film.

On the one hand, as his trainer, it's frustrating.  I'm finding out I have to dumb everything down to a very basic level so that he can understand it.  I think I will be able to show him the mechanics of this profession; the physical act of driving a truck.  You remember these guys in high school.  We smarter kids might've been smug about the curricula of shop-class, but goddamnit they could build an awesome birdhouse.  It's the mental aspects of this profession I'm worried about him grasping: the use of the Qualcomm satellite, route planning and map reading, etc.  Of particular concern is the fact that he has almost no experience driving on the interstate highway system.  He has no former knowledge of basic things like how to read exits signs (exit only, A-B exits, etc), mile markers, or highway designations (I-70, U.S. 27, S.R. 37).

On the other hand, being with Jason is going to be like an adventure all in itself.  His wide-eyed, child-like interaction with his environment makes for unusual conversations that one doesn't typically have with an adult.  I imagine this won't seem so novel after a while, but for the moment it's providing countless hours of entertainment.  So for the next 2 months, my entries will likely be filled with what I call Jasonisms^TM.  These will be the direct quotes from my resident man-child.  The Jasonisms below, are just from today.


Jasonisms^TM:

"Do all these exits go into towns?"

"I used to be good at algebra and then they changed it and had some tests like SAT's. You know, algebra? Equations and algebraic numbers."

[Driving on I-70] "Is this a superhighway?  I saw on the Discovery channel about these super highways that go into certain places to help them out."

"Do they have the same things on TV here that they do in southern Illinois?"

Me: "The truck speed limit in Ohio is 55mph."
Jason: "We're in Ohio?"
[I should add he drove us into the state and we had been parked at a truckstop about ten miles from the Indiana state line for about 5 hours while I took a nap.  About 30 minutes later, remarking on an interstate exit sign]
Jason: "Is that Springfiled, Illinois?"
[During the writing of this, I've discovered that Jason doesn't understand that we recycle city names in this country, so whenever he sees a sign with the name of a familiar U.S. city, it goes something like this:]
[In Ohio]
Jason: "Does that mean Baltimore, Maryland?"
Me: "Does what mean Baltimore, Maryland?"
Jason: "That sign back there.
Me: "I doubt it."
[Still in Ohio, 10 minutes later]
Jason: "There's a Newark in New Jersey, right?"
Me: "Yes."
Jason: "Is that Newark, New Jersey?"
Me: "That's Newark, Ohio."

[After being passed by a garbage truck] "This guy named David Briggs used to drive a garbage truck"
[Blah blah blah, I kinda tuned him out for a few seconds] "Do you know David Briggs?  He's on the city council."
[This is actually a regular occurence, his asking me if I know someone who drives a truck.  Even after I have explained to him that there are somewhere around 3 million trucks on America's highways]

[I mentioned earlier to Jason that he would drive over a couple of mountains this evening as we entered West Virginia.  Between Columbus and Zanesville, OH there is a stretch of straight highway with considerable hills.  As he is driving through this:]
Jason: "Is this a mountain?"
Me: "No."
Jason: "You said we would be driving through some mountains..."
Me: "Yes you will, closer to West Virginia."
Jason: "Is that part of the Adrionic Island mountains?"
Me: "Huh?"
Jason: "The Adrionic Mountains, part of a New York chain of mountains."
Me: "I think you mean the Adirondac Mountains."
Jason: "Oh."
Me: "The Adirondacs are in New York... they're part of a larger chain of mountains called the Appalachian Mountains."

[After driving through the western suburbs; after driving through downtown Columbus with its fantastic skyline; and after driving through the eastern suburbs back into the pitch-black night of rural Ohio; in all a 45 minute urban-highway drive with multiple lanes, twisting ramps, and thick traffic.  After all of this] 
"Are we in Columbus yet?"

I can't make this shit up, people.

Location: Indianapolis, IN

• Slint was amazing.  I will be writing more in depth on this later.


• Everything has finally been switched to Dreamhost once and for all.  I'm glad to have this finally settled.


• My new trainee Jason isn't the brightest crayon in the box...  it's gonna be a LONG seven weeks.


• I bought into the free Ipod thingie in an attempt to help hockeyfag get one... but since I'm signed up, why don't 5 of YOU go and use my referral code. I command you, go forth now, bitches.