Wow, what a long day yesterday was. As you know, we made our first pick-up on Wednesday but couldn't make the other two on time and they were rescheduled for yesterday. It worked out nice because by the time we got the first drop picked up, it was after 1800 so we drove down to the Gearjammer Truck Stop where we grabbed something to eat and spent the night.
Got up yesterday morning, showered, got fuel and headed out to our first appointment which was at 1830. For anyone that may be going to CPC Intl in Tieton,WA, MAKE SURE you take N 40th St South to Summitview and go that way. DO NOT go the other route they give you which is Hwy 12 West to S Natches Rd. That bitch is steep and has hairpin curves. I'm talking we had to downshift to 4th gear to get up it and some of the turns are marked 15 mph. And if there is another truck, let alone a 4 wheeler coming around the curve at the same time, you are screwed. Just a bit of advice. Go the other way!!! Ok, so we get there, get in line, wait about 25 minutes and get to a dock. We get loaded and take off back to the Gearjammer to weigh. According to the bills, counting the first stop, we already had on 37,000 lbs plus on there and quite a bit of room left at the back. We were worried that we would be heavy. Got to the scale, and sure enough, we were over by 700 lbs on our steers. No problem, slide the tandems. I needed to move them 3 holes to get legal, but we could only move 2. We were all the way forward. It helped, but we were still over by 200 lbs when we re-weighed. Couldn't move the 5th wheel either because it was all the way back. Moving it forward would move the 500 lbs forward that I just moved back. Sooo, off we go back to the shipper to have them re-load it. Get there, get that done, go scale again and it worked. It moved 1400 lbs back so we are good to go.
Then we headed to Basin City,WA to pick up 5000 lbs of onions. This will put us at a gross weight of about 78,500. We are heavy. They closed at 1700 and we got there at 1650. Whew, barely made it. Having to mess with re-weighing the 2nd stop and having it reloaded really messed with our time for the day. But we get there and J goes in to help the lady load it because they had to shrink wrap them, and pack them with something then cover them because they needed to stay a little warmer than the rest of the load. She was really nice and when she came out to seal the load she gave us a bag of onions. I thought that was really nice and we like onions. I actually have two in the truck at the moment that I have to take away from Bandit sometimes because they are yellow and she will pick one up and bring it to me thinking it is her yellow tennis ball. It is really funny. I can tell when she has been in the back playing with it because she will come up front and smell like onion. Phew!!!
So yesterday we both got up at 0600 and made the decision to switch shifts. Since we figure will will deal with more shippers and receivers in the reefer business during the day, we decided to let J deal with them. If the produce is bad or something and we don't want it on the truck, I may not be forceful enough with them and J has no problems with that. :) So starting yesterday I started driving afternoon shift starting at 1500 and he is taking the day shift starting at 0300. We will see how that goes. I know I had a LONG day yesterday though. Finished up the day at 0045 in Haugan,MT. There is a place there called 10,000 Silver Dollar Saloon and Restaurant. It is at exit 16 if you are ever that way. Pretty good restaurant and the bar is really cool. It is old, but when people come in, they give the bar tender a silver dollar, and he has them all over the wall, laid in wood with the persons name and date I think, and maybe where they are from, and then it is sealed in with polyurethane or something. But the walls are covered with the silver dollars. Last time we were in there, not yesterday, they told us tehre was over $14,000 in silver dollars on the wall. Pretty cool. Anyway, stopped there around 0045 got out and took Bandit for her walk and then hit the sack.
Set the alarm for J to get up at 0500. He couldn't legally drive till then because I took over at 1900 yesterday so 0500 was his DOT break.
Oh, forgot to mention that the brand new microwave that we bought went on the fritz. We just bought the damn thing last Friday in Springfield. So we are going to have to return that at a Walmart when we get a chance and get another one. We have done really well eating in the truck having that and have only eaten out twice this week, once with friends in Clines Corners and then when we spent the night at the Gearjammer. So I really want it fixed, or a new one, so we can keep eating better. It is also good having Bandit with us because we have to get out and walk her so that gives us a reason to get out and walk some.
Speaking of Bandit, she is liking being in the truck with us, but we are thinking of letting my Mom take care of her and us taking Smokey with us. My mom really misses Bandit and now that she is moving back to Lubbock, she will be able to keep her. So that may be what we do. Besides, with Smokey being a puppy, it may be better to raise him in the truck so that will be what he is used to.
Someone asked about getting enough miles. I think it was Heffard. We are having to readjust our thinking when it comes to miles and money. When you are running off a percent of the revenue more miles doesn't necessary mean more money. For instance, this run we are on now is about 3200 miles counting all the stops. We will use about $2000 in fuel. But the run pays $4500 to us. So we are looking at a $2500 profit. Now keep in mind that with this run and the one before it, we will have to make our weekly truck payment of $950. But we should still have a good week as far as profit goes. I think anyway. We will know on the 18th because that is when we will get paid for these two runs.
It is all still really new so we don't know how the heck it is going to turn out. But it is looking good and we will just play it by ear.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
I'm Back!!!
I was having serious withdrawls not being able to get online and blog. I think I have become a blogging addict. I wonder if they offer any kind of Bloggers Anonymous? Maybe that is something I should look into...
Ok, boy, I have a LOT to catch you guys up on. We finished the Prime orientation last Thursday, a week ago today. We stayed at the hotel again because our first run didn't leave until Friday at 1800. I'm glad it didn't leave until then because we had so much to do to get ready to leave. When we got to the hotel Thursday night, we looked over the leasing contract and did laundry. Then Friday morning we got up and headed to Prime. Went over to leasing and returned the signed lease after getting our Fleet Manager (FM) to sign his portion. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack at the young age of 37 when I handed that over knowing that I was committing to WEEKLY truck payments of around $950. YIKES!! That means we have to run our ass off. Anyway, the rest of Friday we spent going to walmart and getting a few supplies, picking the truck up and getting our stuff loaded in it. Then we grabbed some lunch and headed back to Prime to get the stuff we would need for running reefer. We had to get stuff like load locks, pulp thermometers, log books, permit book, comchecks, etc. Got all that, got fuel and then checked with Drivers Lineup to find out what empty we were supposed to take and to get them to send us our first load over the Qualcomm. Man, we were so busy trying to get stuff ready. We wanted to make sure we did everything right and didn't forget anything. Got it all done and headed over to our first pick-up.
Our first pick-up was at Kraft there in Springfield,MO and we were delivering in Fort Worth,TX. This worked our really well because it enabled us to go by our house. But I will get to that in a minute. So we head over for our very first pick-up in the reefer division with Prime. We weren't really sure what to expect, because we thought it was going to be a live load. We both head in to the Shipping office since this is all new to us and we both need to learn how this side of shipping is handled. We get in there and find out that our load is on another trailer loaded and we just have to drop the empty that we had. SWEET. This is starting off good. So we drop the trailer and back up to the loaded one and wait for them to tell us it is ready. Get the green light, pull up, shut the doors and head back around to the office for our bills. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention, or maybe I did in another post, but since we have never worked reefer, we were really stressing over the actual reefer unit. We have never worked one before and nothing was ever actually shown to us during orientation. But once we actually picked one up and got to physically touch it, it is really very simple. One less thing for us to stress about. LOL. Ok, get the load and head back over to Prime to scale it. We are really close so why pay for a scale when we have a free one at the yard. J takes off driving and gets us to McAlester,OK where we stop for about 2 hours to sleep. We had both been up since 0600 and were exhausted. I had hit the bunk earlier, but he just didn't have it in him to go much further.
I get up the next morning and get us in to Fort Worth about 45 minutes before our appointment. Figured it was a good thing to be early for our first run and not late! I get there and we get unloaded. Then we dropped that trailer there so that we could go to our house and pick up the rest of our stuff and get our dog Bandit. Boy was she happy to see us! We get to the house and start getting the truck set up like we wanted it. It litterally took us like 5 hours. We got the microwave set up, got the cooler packed, got the mattresses in here (our memory foam ones), took a shower, got the food and other misc stuff in here. It was a long process and we weren't done till about 2000 hrs. And I had been up since 0300. At this point we head back and pick up our empty trailer and head out.
Now it is Saturday night we are headed to our second run. This one is picking up in Amarillo,TX and has two deliveries. One in Fife,WA and the other in Renton,WA. Both are suburbs of Seattle,WA. We head out from Fort Worth and J drove till about Wichita Falls,TX and we stopped again for a few. Neither of us had yet to get much sleep since we were trying to get the truck ready. Anyway, he stops and I get up Saturday morning and get us in to Amarillo for our pick-up at 1100. Get loaded and head to the Pilot just down the road to scale the load. Total weight is just over 70,000 lbs so we are good to go. We also took this time to scan our info from our previous trip, the one we dropped in Fort Worth, so that we could get paid. I know I totally screwed it up, but I figure they are used to it with new lease operators starting each week. haha (But I did call in before I sent in our second one to make sure I was doing things right). The way it works with Prime is that when you finish a trip, you scan all your documents and bills at a Transflow location and then we keep the originals for our files. It is actually pretty cool.
Ok, get that done and head out. I drive until Santa Rosa,NM and get J up and he takes over. He drives a whopping 57 miles or so to Clines Corners, NM and we stop for the night. Now I know what you are thinking. We aren't going to make any money if we keep stopping, right? Well, we couldn't deliver our first drop until Tuesday at 0800, so we had plenty of time. We also talked to another couple that we know from SNI and they were on the other side of Albuquerque headed East and we were headed West, so we stopped there and met up with them and had dinner. They are contemplating becoming lease operators so we are letting them know all of our experiences and our numbers so that they can make the decision for themselves. They are a really nice couple and it is always good to meet up with them on the road. Of course, when we do, it always turns into a 4-5 hour lunch because we can't quit talking. :)
Ok, Sunday morning, get up and head out. I make it to Green River,UT and J takes over and gets us into Ogden,UT. Fuel up and stop for a while. Monday morning I get up and get us into La Grande,OR and J takes over and gets us to Ellensburg,WA. Now we had plenty of time to get on in, but we didn't know how much room was at this receiver so we decided to park there for the night and go the last 140 miles in the morning so we wouldn't be trying to find a place to park over night in Seattle. Because they places to park a truck there are few and far between. I get up and head out Tuesday morning and get us there about an hour early. Get unloaded there and we are off to our 2nd receiver. Get there and we have to get a lumper. This was a first for us. So we called in to make sure we were doing it right. It wasn't as hard as we thought it was going to be. But I think when you are new at something, you stress over every little thing until you actually do it because you don't want to do something wrong.
Ok, get that taken care of and are ready to head out and we get our next load. THREE pick-ups and three deliveries. When we originally got the work assignment it showed our first pick-up before 1700, not a problem, but our second pick-up was before 1400, which IS a problem. We left Seattle at 1200 local time, had to drive 178 miles to our first pick-up, which put us there at 1530 local time. See where this is going? How can we be to the 2nd stop by 1400 when we can't even make the 1st stop until 1530. So we called and had them re-arrange the appointment times. We picked up the first one yesterday and then we are picking up the 2nd and 3rd ones today.
Now, we just picked up our second delivery and are headed back to the Gearjammer Truck Stop to scale this. We have about 15 ft of space in the back end of the trailer and already have 37,000 lbs loaded. I'm hoping that we aren't too heavy on the front. I guess we will find out. So that is where we are now. Now that I have a connection again, I will be able to keep this updated. I am also going to load a few pics of the new truck here in just a few. I gotta do some paperwork first. :)
Ok, boy, I have a LOT to catch you guys up on. We finished the Prime orientation last Thursday, a week ago today. We stayed at the hotel again because our first run didn't leave until Friday at 1800. I'm glad it didn't leave until then because we had so much to do to get ready to leave. When we got to the hotel Thursday night, we looked over the leasing contract and did laundry. Then Friday morning we got up and headed to Prime. Went over to leasing and returned the signed lease after getting our Fleet Manager (FM) to sign his portion. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack at the young age of 37 when I handed that over knowing that I was committing to WEEKLY truck payments of around $950. YIKES!! That means we have to run our ass off. Anyway, the rest of Friday we spent going to walmart and getting a few supplies, picking the truck up and getting our stuff loaded in it. Then we grabbed some lunch and headed back to Prime to get the stuff we would need for running reefer. We had to get stuff like load locks, pulp thermometers, log books, permit book, comchecks, etc. Got all that, got fuel and then checked with Drivers Lineup to find out what empty we were supposed to take and to get them to send us our first load over the Qualcomm. Man, we were so busy trying to get stuff ready. We wanted to make sure we did everything right and didn't forget anything. Got it all done and headed over to our first pick-up.
Our first pick-up was at Kraft there in Springfield,MO and we were delivering in Fort Worth,TX. This worked our really well because it enabled us to go by our house. But I will get to that in a minute. So we head over for our very first pick-up in the reefer division with Prime. We weren't really sure what to expect, because we thought it was going to be a live load. We both head in to the Shipping office since this is all new to us and we both need to learn how this side of shipping is handled. We get in there and find out that our load is on another trailer loaded and we just have to drop the empty that we had. SWEET. This is starting off good. So we drop the trailer and back up to the loaded one and wait for them to tell us it is ready. Get the green light, pull up, shut the doors and head back around to the office for our bills. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention, or maybe I did in another post, but since we have never worked reefer, we were really stressing over the actual reefer unit. We have never worked one before and nothing was ever actually shown to us during orientation. But once we actually picked one up and got to physically touch it, it is really very simple. One less thing for us to stress about. LOL. Ok, get the load and head back over to Prime to scale it. We are really close so why pay for a scale when we have a free one at the yard. J takes off driving and gets us to McAlester,OK where we stop for about 2 hours to sleep. We had both been up since 0600 and were exhausted. I had hit the bunk earlier, but he just didn't have it in him to go much further.
I get up the next morning and get us in to Fort Worth about 45 minutes before our appointment. Figured it was a good thing to be early for our first run and not late! I get there and we get unloaded. Then we dropped that trailer there so that we could go to our house and pick up the rest of our stuff and get our dog Bandit. Boy was she happy to see us! We get to the house and start getting the truck set up like we wanted it. It litterally took us like 5 hours. We got the microwave set up, got the cooler packed, got the mattresses in here (our memory foam ones), took a shower, got the food and other misc stuff in here. It was a long process and we weren't done till about 2000 hrs. And I had been up since 0300. At this point we head back and pick up our empty trailer and head out.
Now it is Saturday night we are headed to our second run. This one is picking up in Amarillo,TX and has two deliveries. One in Fife,WA and the other in Renton,WA. Both are suburbs of Seattle,WA. We head out from Fort Worth and J drove till about Wichita Falls,TX and we stopped again for a few. Neither of us had yet to get much sleep since we were trying to get the truck ready. Anyway, he stops and I get up Saturday morning and get us in to Amarillo for our pick-up at 1100. Get loaded and head to the Pilot just down the road to scale the load. Total weight is just over 70,000 lbs so we are good to go. We also took this time to scan our info from our previous trip, the one we dropped in Fort Worth, so that we could get paid. I know I totally screwed it up, but I figure they are used to it with new lease operators starting each week. haha (But I did call in before I sent in our second one to make sure I was doing things right). The way it works with Prime is that when you finish a trip, you scan all your documents and bills at a Transflow location and then we keep the originals for our files. It is actually pretty cool.
Ok, get that done and head out. I drive until Santa Rosa,NM and get J up and he takes over. He drives a whopping 57 miles or so to Clines Corners, NM and we stop for the night. Now I know what you are thinking. We aren't going to make any money if we keep stopping, right? Well, we couldn't deliver our first drop until Tuesday at 0800, so we had plenty of time. We also talked to another couple that we know from SNI and they were on the other side of Albuquerque headed East and we were headed West, so we stopped there and met up with them and had dinner. They are contemplating becoming lease operators so we are letting them know all of our experiences and our numbers so that they can make the decision for themselves. They are a really nice couple and it is always good to meet up with them on the road. Of course, when we do, it always turns into a 4-5 hour lunch because we can't quit talking. :)
Ok, Sunday morning, get up and head out. I make it to Green River,UT and J takes over and gets us into Ogden,UT. Fuel up and stop for a while. Monday morning I get up and get us into La Grande,OR and J takes over and gets us to Ellensburg,WA. Now we had plenty of time to get on in, but we didn't know how much room was at this receiver so we decided to park there for the night and go the last 140 miles in the morning so we wouldn't be trying to find a place to park over night in Seattle. Because they places to park a truck there are few and far between. I get up and head out Tuesday morning and get us there about an hour early. Get unloaded there and we are off to our 2nd receiver. Get there and we have to get a lumper. This was a first for us. So we called in to make sure we were doing it right. It wasn't as hard as we thought it was going to be. But I think when you are new at something, you stress over every little thing until you actually do it because you don't want to do something wrong.
Ok, get that taken care of and are ready to head out and we get our next load. THREE pick-ups and three deliveries. When we originally got the work assignment it showed our first pick-up before 1700, not a problem, but our second pick-up was before 1400, which IS a problem. We left Seattle at 1200 local time, had to drive 178 miles to our first pick-up, which put us there at 1530 local time. See where this is going? How can we be to the 2nd stop by 1400 when we can't even make the 1st stop until 1530. So we called and had them re-arrange the appointment times. We picked up the first one yesterday and then we are picking up the 2nd and 3rd ones today.
Now, we just picked up our second delivery and are headed back to the Gearjammer Truck Stop to scale this. We have about 15 ft of space in the back end of the trailer and already have 37,000 lbs loaded. I'm hoping that we aren't too heavy on the front. I guess we will find out. So that is where we are now. Now that I have a connection again, I will be able to keep this updated. I am also going to load a few pics of the new truck here in just a few. I gotta do some paperwork first. :)
Monday, April 7, 2008
computer problems
We are having problems and all I have is my BlackBerry. Too much typing to post from it so I will update this as soon as we figure out what the problem is. I haven't forgot so keep checking in.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Prime Day Four
Well, we are ALMOST done! After we finished our classes today we went over and picked up our contracts. All we have to do is get ours signed and return it in the morning. The truck is ready for us to pick up. When we sign the contract in the morning we will pick up our key. Then we will have to get the rest of the stuff that we need from Drivers Lineup, go to Walmart and get a few things, come back to the hotel and get the truck packed, and then we will be ready. We have our first load already. It is picking up at Kraft here at 1800 and then we will take it to Fort Worth. That works out good for us because we will be able to pick up Bandit and get by the house to pick up the rest of our stuff. We will figure out the particulars later. LOL!
So we are exhausted but tired. We still haven't seen an actual reefer trailer. I have to say that I feel that the training is really lacking in that department. For those of us that have no idea about pulping product, setting temperatures, covering the holes in the trailer when you have a freeze load and other stuff that only reefer drivers would know, it is really necessary that we are trained to operate these things before we leave. I feel that they dropped the ball on this and that it could be greatly improved. Tomorrow one of the drivers from our class that used to be a Prime Trainer (he just came back) has offered to show us how to work these. I will admit that the people are extremely nice, for the most part, and that we have been lucky with the ones that we have dealt with.
Oh, looking at our contract, our fixed cost will be $943 a week I think. I added it up but didn't write it down. It was right under $950. I do remember that because we were doing all of our figuring at $1000 a week so I was happy to see that we were definitely under that amount. We met with our Fleet Manager (hereafter refered to as FM) and he seemed nice. Showed us some things on his end and how he handled things. Said that he tries to get teams 2 coast to coast runs a week with a short 1000 mile run or so at the beginning or the end on one of the coasts. That will work for us. He also showed us a comparison on his computer of two of his drivers and how one is getting 4.84 mpg and how the other is getting 6.27 and then he was able to show us from the report how much time they are spending at what RPM's and at what speeds they are running. Very cool to see that. I believe the info he showed us is what they will pull off of our truck once we have been out for 5-6 weeks and we come back for the ACEII class. I like that they have that access on hand so we can just call and see how we are doing. He said that those reports are pulled weekly. (Not sure if I heard that correctly though.)
We are really excited and ready to get started. We are finishing up laundry right now and are then going to head to bed. Next time I blog, it will probably be from our new truck! We keep forgetting to get pictures, so we will make sure and get them tomorrow when we pick up the truck and I will get them posted!
So we are exhausted but tired. We still haven't seen an actual reefer trailer. I have to say that I feel that the training is really lacking in that department. For those of us that have no idea about pulping product, setting temperatures, covering the holes in the trailer when you have a freeze load and other stuff that only reefer drivers would know, it is really necessary that we are trained to operate these things before we leave. I feel that they dropped the ball on this and that it could be greatly improved. Tomorrow one of the drivers from our class that used to be a Prime Trainer (he just came back) has offered to show us how to work these. I will admit that the people are extremely nice, for the most part, and that we have been lucky with the ones that we have dealt with.
Oh, looking at our contract, our fixed cost will be $943 a week I think. I added it up but didn't write it down. It was right under $950. I do remember that because we were doing all of our figuring at $1000 a week so I was happy to see that we were definitely under that amount. We met with our Fleet Manager (hereafter refered to as FM) and he seemed nice. Showed us some things on his end and how he handled things. Said that he tries to get teams 2 coast to coast runs a week with a short 1000 mile run or so at the beginning or the end on one of the coasts. That will work for us. He also showed us a comparison on his computer of two of his drivers and how one is getting 4.84 mpg and how the other is getting 6.27 and then he was able to show us from the report how much time they are spending at what RPM's and at what speeds they are running. Very cool to see that. I believe the info he showed us is what they will pull off of our truck once we have been out for 5-6 weeks and we come back for the ACEII class. I like that they have that access on hand so we can just call and see how we are doing. He said that those reports are pulled weekly. (Not sure if I heard that correctly though.)
We are really excited and ready to get started. We are finishing up laundry right now and are then going to head to bed. Next time I blog, it will probably be from our new truck! We keep forgetting to get pictures, so we will make sure and get them tomorrow when we pick up the truck and I will get them posted!
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Prime Day Three
But first let me say that even though I don't know the vast majority of the people that follow my blog, I just want to say that you guys are truly the greatest and I really thank you for following us in our travels and sending prayers and good thoughts our way. It means a lot to us.
Day Three was one of the longest so far because of the idiot that kept turning on his truck right outside of our window last night. J hollered at him out the window at a little after midnight and they guy was a smartass so we called security to come have him move. Don't know if they showed up or if they called his room, but about 15 minutes later his truck was gone. He has been turning off and on his truck AND running his APU unit both nights and he parked right below our window. Our main problem with this is that we are at a HOTEL. If you are going to be up all night in your truck with it on and/or running the APU unit, then you need to go park at a truck stop where all the other running trucks are at. You don't need to be at a hotel where people are wanting it quiet and trying to sleep.
Today was our next to the last day. We are almost through with all of this though. I would post more, but honestly, we are wiped out again from no sleep last night. I will probably have more to post tomorrow after we sign our lease and after I recover from the heart attack I am sure to have once I realize I have signed a contract for the most expensive weekly payment I have EVER had...... and without a dime to our names......yet...... :)
Day Three was one of the longest so far because of the idiot that kept turning on his truck right outside of our window last night. J hollered at him out the window at a little after midnight and they guy was a smartass so we called security to come have him move. Don't know if they showed up or if they called his room, but about 15 minutes later his truck was gone. He has been turning off and on his truck AND running his APU unit both nights and he parked right below our window. Our main problem with this is that we are at a HOTEL. If you are going to be up all night in your truck with it on and/or running the APU unit, then you need to go park at a truck stop where all the other running trucks are at. You don't need to be at a hotel where people are wanting it quiet and trying to sleep.
Today was our next to the last day. We are almost through with all of this though. I would post more, but honestly, we are wiped out again from no sleep last night. I will probably have more to post tomorrow after we sign our lease and after I recover from the heart attack I am sure to have once I realize I have signed a contract for the most expensive weekly payment I have EVER had...... and without a dime to our names......yet...... :)
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Prime Day Two
Another early start, but then again, that is how this whole week will be going.
Back in class at 07oo for day two. This morning we covered Introduction to Business, Success Leasing, Financial Terms and Tax Preparation. This afternoon we covered How to get paid, Hazmat, and the Vorad system. Then they called some names who went to get their trucks today based on how many vehicles they had available. We were lucky and they called our names! It meant that we had another late day, but we were able to get a truck and tomorrow will be a normal day for us.
We were able to get a new truck. A 2008 with only 1004 miles on it. We only had 4 to choose from being a team. They were all the same price so the really only difference was color. We ended up with one that was Woodland Green. We didn't really like the Emerald Green, cuz it was a little too bright, and the other choice was a brown which we didn't like either. We had to race another couple to the Leasing office to get the keys. Thank goodness we were younger! :) LOL But we were able to do a truck inspection on it and get that turned in. But what can you find that needs to be done on a brand new vehicle? We are going to have them add the left hood mirror and get an inverter hardwired into it. At the moment, there is a 2 month back up to get an APU so we are going to wait on that. We are going to want one, but we aren't going to be able to get it right away because of that back up. I need to find out how large of an inverter we need to run a small microwave. We can only install a 1000 watt one right now. The APU comes with a larger inverter though when we get it. So that is the only thing the truck is in the shop for right now. Also what I thought was wierd is that there is no curtain for the front window. There isn't even a track installed for one. I find that strange. Also the Qualcomm bracket where it hangs is on the back of the top shelf behind the drivers seat, next to the bunk. I find that a wierd spot also. Some small things that we are going have to get used to, but that will come with time.
I have to admit that the truck payment is SCARY, and we haven't even signed anything so I don't yet know what our fixed cost will be because we still have to add on the insurance and all that other stuff. They did give us a sheet so I am going to go back and look at it and plug our payment into it with the other fixed costs and see what we end up with.
When we went over our, well they call it our ACE1, class today, they broke down how very important your fuel mileage is. OMG, I had an understanding of it before, but it makes SO much more sense to me now. And you can really really make or break your business depending on how you do with your fuel mileage. It makes so much more sense to slow down and get better mileage. That is just money in our pockets! So I am excited to see how well we can do on our own, in our own truck with us in charge. It is going to be a challenge, but one I feel we are up to.
Back in class at 07oo for day two. This morning we covered Introduction to Business, Success Leasing, Financial Terms and Tax Preparation. This afternoon we covered How to get paid, Hazmat, and the Vorad system. Then they called some names who went to get their trucks today based on how many vehicles they had available. We were lucky and they called our names! It meant that we had another late day, but we were able to get a truck and tomorrow will be a normal day for us.
We were able to get a new truck. A 2008 with only 1004 miles on it. We only had 4 to choose from being a team. They were all the same price so the really only difference was color. We ended up with one that was Woodland Green. We didn't really like the Emerald Green, cuz it was a little too bright, and the other choice was a brown which we didn't like either. We had to race another couple to the Leasing office to get the keys. Thank goodness we were younger! :) LOL But we were able to do a truck inspection on it and get that turned in. But what can you find that needs to be done on a brand new vehicle? We are going to have them add the left hood mirror and get an inverter hardwired into it. At the moment, there is a 2 month back up to get an APU so we are going to wait on that. We are going to want one, but we aren't going to be able to get it right away because of that back up. I need to find out how large of an inverter we need to run a small microwave. We can only install a 1000 watt one right now. The APU comes with a larger inverter though when we get it. So that is the only thing the truck is in the shop for right now. Also what I thought was wierd is that there is no curtain for the front window. There isn't even a track installed for one. I find that strange. Also the Qualcomm bracket where it hangs is on the back of the top shelf behind the drivers seat, next to the bunk. I find that a wierd spot also. Some small things that we are going have to get used to, but that will come with time.
I have to admit that the truck payment is SCARY, and we haven't even signed anything so I don't yet know what our fixed cost will be because we still have to add on the insurance and all that other stuff. They did give us a sheet so I am going to go back and look at it and plug our payment into it with the other fixed costs and see what we end up with.
When we went over our, well they call it our ACE1, class today, they broke down how very important your fuel mileage is. OMG, I had an understanding of it before, but it makes SO much more sense to me now. And you can really really make or break your business depending on how you do with your fuel mileage. It makes so much more sense to slow down and get better mileage. That is just money in our pockets! So I am excited to see how well we can do on our own, in our own truck with us in charge. It is going to be a challenge, but one I feel we are up to.
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