This last weekend, Judy and I attended the Expediters Online Expedite Expo in Wilmington, OH. This is basically a truck show / convention dedicated solely to the Expedite Trucking segment of the trucking industry.
We drove down early on Thursday afternoon, and stayed in a motel in Wilmington, about 7 miles or so from the Expo site. To say it was hot, would have been a gross understatement! We about melted walking around Wilmington!
We were fortunate enough to spend a good portion of Thursday evening with a couple that has been in expediting for several years. They were able to answer a great many of the questions we have about trucking in general, and about our chosen carrier, FedEx Custom Critical. We left feeling much more confident than we were beforehand, although we know we have a tremendous amount yet to learn.
We arrived at the Expo Friday morning around 8:00am. The couple from Thursday night were part of a group that had organized an early morning "P.J. Walk." This event is designed to promote healthy driver habits (exercise, good nutrition and good sleep habits.) Judy decided to participate in the aprox. mile and a half walk. I on the other hand opted out, and headed inside to pick up our show materials.
The rest of the 2 days were filled with visiting with other drivers, seeing what the vendors had to offer, attending workshops and generally having a good time! We even got to see John Ratzenberger, better known as "Cliff" from Cheers! His father was a truck driver, and he is a big supporter of the trucking industry.
We spent about three hours on Friday with a couple that drive a truck very similar to the one we have been assigned. They drive an Expediter Services truck and are leased on with FedEx CC. They were very gracious and shared a great deal about the truck, FedEx and trucking in general. By the end of the Expo, our heads and brains were certainly filled to the brim! Talk about information overload!
One of the most exciting things that happened was that we were able to find out more information about the actual truck we will be driving. We will be in unit# DR4393. We were very thankful to our recruiter at FedEx, who happened to be in attendance at the show, for getting us this information. We may be able to pick up the truck even earlier than we originally expected. That would be great for us, as it would allow us additional time to get the truck ready before heading out to orientation.
Can't wait!
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Pre Driving Mode family
This is my first post. Hopefully the first of many to come. Jim and I were talking the other day about where each of us is in relationship to beginning our new adventure. Jim and I are both excited about getting started and planning, although we are moving forward in different ways. He is making lists of what we need when we get the truck and I'm making lists of the things I want us to do before we get out on the road.
Our family is quite close and we're trying to spend as much time as we can with everyone. Casey and Kira are off on their own adventures this summer, so we can not spend time with them. Katie is home so we are getting to spend some time with her. She goes to college at TU, so she will be around to take care of the house. Our extended family is quite close too, so we've been spending time with my sisters, brother and nieces and nephews. Jim is an only child, so my side of the family is who we have and spend time with. Our travels are going to take a little getting use to since all of our family is about 10-20 minutes from our house. Thank goodness for technology so we can talk on phones, facebook and email, we have even started playing computer games with each other. Cards and games are what we enjoy doing while we are together. In the weeks to come before we get on the road, we are planning on spending as much time as possible with our family. We have a great-nephew whose 1st birthday party is coming up, one of our niece's 18th birthday is in just a couple of days, a nephew's 20th birthday on the day we get our truck and our niece is getting married the week of our training. So we have opportunities to spend time with everyone before we leave.
I also have a large extended family. My dad was one of 12 and my mom was one of 5. One of the things that I wanted to do before we leave is to spend some time with my aunts, uncles and cousins. Time is growing short to work that out, but I can still try. In the meantime, I started a facebook page for my dad's side of the family, so that will be a nice way to keep up with my cousins and their kids. Only one of my dad's sisters and two of his brother-in-laws are on facebook, so I'll have to rely on my cousins to fill me in. I am planning on taking phone numbers with us so that we can touch base with everyone. My cousin Jessica is working on putting a cookbook together of our favorite family recipes combined with some favorite family stories to be ready by Thanksgiving. We have a family get together every year the week before Thanksgiving. From my grandparents on down we have approximately 310 family members. Our hope is to get as many as we can there for this Thanksgiving for a group picture. We'll see!!
I think that the most difficult part of being away from home is missing the time we spend together as a family. As hectic as our schedules are, we find time to get together for different occasions. I will miss being around to get together on the spur of the moment. As much as we are able we would like to plan on being around home for the occasions when we can spend time together with family.
Our plans are to use technology to stay in touch with family so it won't seem like we are so far away from each other. Google talk, skype, facebook and cell phones will help us stay in touch. Now if we can figure out how we can eat birthday cake through computers, it would be like we are actually there. We've also checked out how we can have multiple people online video chatting at the same time...I'm not sure if the technology has caught up to the speed of our conversations. Another difficulty is being able to get everyone on at the same time. Hopefully this will develop further in the future. If anyone knows of good video conferencing please let us know.
Our house is in the process of getting a new roof. We hope that they are done with it before we leave, otherwise we will have to have a family member help close the deal sort of speak. We will be home every once in a while. Our truck owners want, at the very least, for us to be on the road for 3 weeks. After that period the dispatcher will try to get us a load close to home where we can come home and spend some time. This will give us opportunities to be home not only to spend time with family but also to do any maintenance on the house and/or cars. That is also one of my concerns...being out on the road and the kitchen sink decides to flood or something. We've always been hands on with the house, it will take some getting use to being away from the house and relying on others to take care of small emergencies that might pop up. We know that family will be around if we need something done before we can get home. It will be interesting to talk to other expediting teams to see how they handle being away from their homes. They will also probably be able to give us some tips!
Jim and I both like to write, so at least one of us will keep the blog updated. I tend to like to write about the people part of what we are doing and Jim will probably tend to write about the technical part of being on the road, driving and obstacles that we run into. I tend to be the wordy, more journalish type of writer. Jim will be more concise and write more technically. So you will get the best of both of our worlds. We will post pictures of our adventures so that others can see where we've been and what expediting is all about.
Thank you for your interest and your following. Please post questions, comments and stories of your own.
Peace and blessings to all,
Judy
Our family is quite close and we're trying to spend as much time as we can with everyone. Casey and Kira are off on their own adventures this summer, so we can not spend time with them. Katie is home so we are getting to spend some time with her. She goes to college at TU, so she will be around to take care of the house. Our extended family is quite close too, so we've been spending time with my sisters, brother and nieces and nephews. Jim is an only child, so my side of the family is who we have and spend time with. Our travels are going to take a little getting use to since all of our family is about 10-20 minutes from our house. Thank goodness for technology so we can talk on phones, facebook and email, we have even started playing computer games with each other. Cards and games are what we enjoy doing while we are together. In the weeks to come before we get on the road, we are planning on spending as much time as possible with our family. We have a great-nephew whose 1st birthday party is coming up, one of our niece's 18th birthday is in just a couple of days, a nephew's 20th birthday on the day we get our truck and our niece is getting married the week of our training. So we have opportunities to spend time with everyone before we leave.
I also have a large extended family. My dad was one of 12 and my mom was one of 5. One of the things that I wanted to do before we leave is to spend some time with my aunts, uncles and cousins. Time is growing short to work that out, but I can still try. In the meantime, I started a facebook page for my dad's side of the family, so that will be a nice way to keep up with my cousins and their kids. Only one of my dad's sisters and two of his brother-in-laws are on facebook, so I'll have to rely on my cousins to fill me in. I am planning on taking phone numbers with us so that we can touch base with everyone. My cousin Jessica is working on putting a cookbook together of our favorite family recipes combined with some favorite family stories to be ready by Thanksgiving. We have a family get together every year the week before Thanksgiving. From my grandparents on down we have approximately 310 family members. Our hope is to get as many as we can there for this Thanksgiving for a group picture. We'll see!!
I think that the most difficult part of being away from home is missing the time we spend together as a family. As hectic as our schedules are, we find time to get together for different occasions. I will miss being around to get together on the spur of the moment. As much as we are able we would like to plan on being around home for the occasions when we can spend time together with family.
Our plans are to use technology to stay in touch with family so it won't seem like we are so far away from each other. Google talk, skype, facebook and cell phones will help us stay in touch. Now if we can figure out how we can eat birthday cake through computers, it would be like we are actually there. We've also checked out how we can have multiple people online video chatting at the same time...I'm not sure if the technology has caught up to the speed of our conversations. Another difficulty is being able to get everyone on at the same time. Hopefully this will develop further in the future. If anyone knows of good video conferencing please let us know.
Our house is in the process of getting a new roof. We hope that they are done with it before we leave, otherwise we will have to have a family member help close the deal sort of speak. We will be home every once in a while. Our truck owners want, at the very least, for us to be on the road for 3 weeks. After that period the dispatcher will try to get us a load close to home where we can come home and spend some time. This will give us opportunities to be home not only to spend time with family but also to do any maintenance on the house and/or cars. That is also one of my concerns...being out on the road and the kitchen sink decides to flood or something. We've always been hands on with the house, it will take some getting use to being away from the house and relying on others to take care of small emergencies that might pop up. We know that family will be around if we need something done before we can get home. It will be interesting to talk to other expediting teams to see how they handle being away from their homes. They will also probably be able to give us some tips!
Jim and I both like to write, so at least one of us will keep the blog updated. I tend to like to write about the people part of what we are doing and Jim will probably tend to write about the technical part of being on the road, driving and obstacles that we run into. I tend to be the wordy, more journalish type of writer. Jim will be more concise and write more technically. So you will get the best of both of our worlds. We will post pictures of our adventures so that others can see where we've been and what expediting is all about.
Thank you for your interest and your following. Please post questions, comments and stories of your own.
Peace and blessings to all,
Judy
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Counting the Days / Making a List
In just 19 short days, we'll be picking up our truck, and we are really starting to get excited about the whole prospect of finally getting started. We should be able to pick up the truck in Akron on Aug. 5th. Then home for the weekend, to pack most of our things, and install some of our electronic gadgets.
We been spending some of our time recently making a list of things that we think we'll probably want to bring with us. It's time consuming, and frankly a little scary, but like someone pointed out, you're never far from a Wal-Mart. So, if we do forget something, we should be able to stop and pick it up.
So far, our list includes:
We been spending some of our time recently making a list of things that we think we'll probably want to bring with us. It's time consuming, and frankly a little scary, but like someone pointed out, you're never far from a Wal-Mart. So, if we do forget something, we should be able to stop and pick it up.
So far, our list includes:
- Bibles
- Clothes (enough for about a week or so)
- Sweatshirts, and possibly a coat (it can get cold at nights, depending on where we are)
- Pillows, blankets and quilts
- Tools (Bringing some of mine, and some of my Dad's)
- CDLs, Passports and Medical Cards (and any other required paperwork)
- GPS
- Laptop
- Xoom tablet
- Printer / scanner
- Phones / hands-free headsets
- Chargers / mounting stands to all above mentioned electronic devices. (Not much good if it don't run!)
- Various pens, pencils, paper and other office supplies
- Road Atlas / Maps
- Camera / lenses / camera charger / usb card reader
- Trash can
- Trash bags
- Cleaning supplies (Armor All, Windex, Water Bucket, Rags, Towels)
- Steel Toed Boots
- Safety equipment (Safety glasses, hardhat, reflective vest, gloves, first-aide kit)
- Flashlights and spare batteries
- Food and water (Don't know what yet, have to wait to see how big the fridge in the truck is)
- Porta-potti (I think, although I've been told you wouldn't want to be on the road without one)
- Sunglasses
- Earplugs
- Duct Tape!
- Sense of Humor!
- Sense of Adventure!
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Updates: Judy gets her CDL / FedEx Approved / Orientation Scheduled
Been a while since I updated, and lots of things have been happening. ~
The last major hurdle is cleared as Judy passed the driving portion of her CDL exam with flying colors! She is now holds a Class B Commercial Drivers License with a Hazmat endorsement. She was pretty nervous about passing the tests, but she did very well. She only a very few points taken off on the road portion, and had perfect scores on the Pre-trip and Maneuverability potions! (She actually scored higher than I did!) I knew she wouldn't have any problems,but we are very glad she decided to attend the Big Rig Truck Driving School training class. They were great, and she really got a lot out of the class.
We are also pleased that we have been officially approved by FedEx Custom Critical to drive for them. We are actually listed as active drivers in their system, but still have to attend orientation in order to start hauling freight. We are scheduled to attend Surface Expedite orientation Aug. 8-10.
Another piece of the truck driving puzzle is also in place, as we have been approved for the White Glove division of FedEx Custom Critical, and will be attending the White Glove orientation on Aug 12-13. White Glove trucks offer additional services, and may be best explained from this quote from the FedEx Custom Critical website:
Even though we are attending White Glove orientation, we still do not know if we will be starting out in a White Glove truck. (A White Glove truck carries a great deal of additional freight handling equipment when compared to a Surface Expedite truck) We have selected Expediter Services as our Fleet Owner. If they have a White Glove truck available when we attend orientation, we may be able to start out in that truck. If not, we will start out in a Surface Expedite truck, and switch over to a WG truck when one does become available. Either way, we will have the White Glove orientation out of the way.
We hope to pick up the truck on August 5th. That way we would be able to bring the truck home and get some of our things packed, and some of our electronics (GPS, Phone, laptop and Xoom tablet) installed. Although we are looking forward to getting started, we still have many questions on what to bring with us, and just where is it all going to fit! Still excited about finally getting started and really looking forward to getting the truck!
We will be attending the Expediters Online Expedite Expo in Wilmington next Friday and Saturday, July 22-23. We are hoping to talk with current expediters, as we have many, many questions about life on the road, and hauling freight in general. We attended our first Expo about three years ago, and are really looking forward to this one! It's a very informative event, and very family friendly. (And it's FREE!!!)
We have been slowing getting a list of things we think we will need on the road. I'm sure we will forget something, but hopefully, we'll have a better idea after talking to some of the current drivers at the Expo. After all, there is only so much room in the truck! A fun puzzle to solve.
One of the things I have been wondering about is tools. Our fleet owner takes care of all the major maintenance and repairs that our truck will need, but we are responsible for minor items (replacing light bulbs, loose items, keeping mirrors adjusted), so I know I will need some tools.
I spent part of the day yesterday going through my Dad's old toolbox. It brought back a flood of memories for me. I used to help Dad with a good deal of the maintenance on his trucks, and have used almost all of the tools in that old toolbox many times over the years. I don't think I'll have to purchase any tools right now, as Dad's toolbox had about everything I think we'll need. He was partial to using only Craftsman tools, and they seemed to have stood the test of time. Good tools and guaranteed for life.
As I picked up each wrench, socket or ratchet, I could almost see Dad using that particular tool on the old Kenworths. Bittersweet in a way. At least a good portion of those old tools will be traveling with us on the road. I guess Dad will be there also every time I pick up one of his old tools. Glad to have him along for the ride!
Jim
The last major hurdle is cleared as Judy passed the driving portion of her CDL exam with flying colors! She is now holds a Class B Commercial Drivers License with a Hazmat endorsement. She was pretty nervous about passing the tests, but she did very well. She only a very few points taken off on the road portion, and had perfect scores on the Pre-trip and Maneuverability potions! (She actually scored higher than I did!) I knew she wouldn't have any problems,but we are very glad she decided to attend the Big Rig Truck Driving School training class. They were great, and she really got a lot out of the class.
We are also pleased that we have been officially approved by FedEx Custom Critical to drive for them. We are actually listed as active drivers in their system, but still have to attend orientation in order to start hauling freight. We are scheduled to attend Surface Expedite orientation Aug. 8-10.
Another piece of the truck driving puzzle is also in place, as we have been approved for the White Glove division of FedEx Custom Critical, and will be attending the White Glove orientation on Aug 12-13. White Glove trucks offer additional services, and may be best explained from this quote from the FedEx Custom Critical website:
FedEx Custom Critical White Glove Services feature specially trained drivers and specialty equipment for the safe transport of your most sensitive shipments. These services include a full range of temperature-control offerings as well as a complete suite of Secure Transportation Solutions.Essentially, this means we will be hauling freight that requires additional care and handling. It could literally be about anything. We are very happy to be accepted into White Glove, and it affords us an opportunity to increase our earning potential. White Glove loads usually pay more (in some instances, a great deal more) than regular Surface Expedite loads do.
Even though we are attending White Glove orientation, we still do not know if we will be starting out in a White Glove truck. (A White Glove truck carries a great deal of additional freight handling equipment when compared to a Surface Expedite truck) We have selected Expediter Services as our Fleet Owner. If they have a White Glove truck available when we attend orientation, we may be able to start out in that truck. If not, we will start out in a Surface Expedite truck, and switch over to a WG truck when one does become available. Either way, we will have the White Glove orientation out of the way.
We hope to pick up the truck on August 5th. That way we would be able to bring the truck home and get some of our things packed, and some of our electronics (GPS, Phone, laptop and Xoom tablet) installed. Although we are looking forward to getting started, we still have many questions on what to bring with us, and just where is it all going to fit! Still excited about finally getting started and really looking forward to getting the truck!
We will be attending the Expediters Online Expedite Expo in Wilmington next Friday and Saturday, July 22-23. We are hoping to talk with current expediters, as we have many, many questions about life on the road, and hauling freight in general. We attended our first Expo about three years ago, and are really looking forward to this one! It's a very informative event, and very family friendly. (And it's FREE!!!)
We have been slowing getting a list of things we think we will need on the road. I'm sure we will forget something, but hopefully, we'll have a better idea after talking to some of the current drivers at the Expo. After all, there is only so much room in the truck! A fun puzzle to solve.
One of the things I have been wondering about is tools. Our fleet owner takes care of all the major maintenance and repairs that our truck will need, but we are responsible for minor items (replacing light bulbs, loose items, keeping mirrors adjusted), so I know I will need some tools.
I spent part of the day yesterday going through my Dad's old toolbox. It brought back a flood of memories for me. I used to help Dad with a good deal of the maintenance on his trucks, and have used almost all of the tools in that old toolbox many times over the years. I don't think I'll have to purchase any tools right now, as Dad's toolbox had about everything I think we'll need. He was partial to using only Craftsman tools, and they seemed to have stood the test of time. Good tools and guaranteed for life.
As I picked up each wrench, socket or ratchet, I could almost see Dad using that particular tool on the old Kenworths. Bittersweet in a way. At least a good portion of those old tools will be traveling with us on the road. I guess Dad will be there also every time I pick up one of his old tools. Glad to have him along for the ride!
Jim
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