This is Carrie's first attempt at backing into a dock. Great job!!!
You've Been Researching This How Long?
- Thread starter sanbomi1
- Start date
You'll see in this video that apparently I don't know my left from my right. Don't know why I kept saying "hard right" when I needed her to turn to the left. Good thing she couldn't hear me. This was so much fun, my first ever You Tube try as well. Carrie did such a great job, especially since I'm not a trainer. So proud of her!! I love this woman so much!
Wanted to provide some information on Carrie's CDL Training. Haven't had an opportunity to get her on video, but I will. She now has her training certificate and will be going to the Secretary of State office to get her Class B CDL next week.
First Day of CDL Training
Second Day of CDL Training Update
First Day of CDL Training
Second Day of CDL Training Update
Congratulations to Carrie for obtaining her Class B CDL today!!! Once she receives her updated license in the mail we can move forward with getting our hazmat, tanker and TWIC. She still needs to get her passport, will be working on that as well.
Carrie finally got her CDL in the mail yesterday, took about 3 weeks from the time she went to the Secretary of State office to the time she received it (we are in Michigan). It took about a week longer than I had anticipated. She did, however, get an enhanced license so that may have taken a bit more time. Last night we made appointments to get our fingerprints done for our hazmat endorsements and TWIC. Appointments are set for June 18th, the earliest appointments they had available. In the meantime, we will be studying for both our hazmat and tanker endorsement tests. Once our fingerprints are done we should be ok with submitting Carrie's passport application. We didn't want to do that prior to the fingerprinting due to the fact she needs her birth certificate for the fingerprinting appointment. I anticipate receiving my passport and passport card in the next couple of weeks. Our goal is to start this new career in August. which initially, seemed like a long ways off. Now, with everything we have gotten done and everything yet to do, seems like August is approaching us quite fast. I believe fingerprints and backgroud checks take at least 30 days to complete, then we need to get our endorsements. If it takes another 3 weeks to get our licenses with the endorsements added we are looking at about the 2nd week of August or so before we can move forward with the application process with the carrier, once accepted by the carrier, get scheduled for orientation, complete orientation and get on the road. Oh boy, looking more like the end of August into September before we are actually on the road. We'll see how everything plays out.
Wow, this is quite the process. Stay tuned.
Wow, this is quite the process. Stay tuned.
It's early and I may have misread but if there is a 2-3 week window for getting tanker endorsements you can probably skip that part and be ready that much sooner unless the carrier you have chosen has asked you to get that endorsement. I've never heard of anyone doing true expediting doing any sort of tanker work. YMMV
The tanker endorsements we could get now, but we will be taking the tests for both tanker and hazmat at the same time. The fingerprints and background checks for the hazmat are the delay. The carrier we will be associated with does haul some liquids in totes that requires a tanker endorsement.
Not necessarily the carrier but the team we will be joining requires tanker and hazmat. We will also have our TWIC and passports. We won't be required to run Canada but we will definitely give it a try to see how it goes. We believe the more qualifications we have the better off we will be for load opportunities.
Here's a video Carrie and I were able to do recently. Just sharing our journey with everyone.
Too bad you could not have coordinated to have the hat done all at the same time. Would’ve saved you time and money but probably would have set you back further.
Hi Treadmill,
Not exactly sure if we would have saved any time or money. Carrie needs to have her license in hand before she can do her fingerprints and background checks. I called to check to see if she could do it with her paper copy of her CDL and her old license but the person I spoke to said no. Initially there was an error on her birth certificate so we needed to deal with the State of Michigan to have that corrected. If there wasn't that issue, we may have been able to get her passport done before the fingerprints and background checks. It's all a timing thing I guess. We are not in a position that we "have" to start driving in August as we are both still employed but would still like to get as much driving under our belts before that white stuff starts falling from the sky.
Best regards,
Mike
Well, hazmat background checks are in process. We need to go back next week for our TWIC card applications, unfortunately, our appointments were not set up correctly. I had called TSA prior to making our appointments and was told we only needed the hazmat appointment, that both the TWIC and hazmat appointments could be combined. Oh, so I need to make two appointments I asked? No, just the one would be all that was needed, well, that didn't work out so well. I wasn't happy and respectfully and calmly let the agent that was handling our hazmat appointment know what happened, what I was told by the TSA representative on the phone and that this was going to delay Carrie's passport application due to the fact we need to send her birth certificate in with her application. The agent was very apologetic and stated he would pass this issue on to his supervisor. He also said he would take us in as walk-ins if we could come back in next Tuesday morning (he just didn't have any room in his schedule to work us in yesterday). I really appreciate his willingness to do this. We did have to do the online applications and set appointments (which are scheduled for July 2nd), but, again, he will take us next Tuesday.
We continue to move forward in this process. Looking forward to the Expedite Expo July 19th and 20th. Hopefully will have our endorsements by then and possibly be set with a date for orientation.
Getting a bit nervous? Yup. Excited? Yup. A little scared? Yup, but some of the most exciting rides are when we are a little scared, that's why so many people pay good money to ride roller coasters.
Regards,
Mike
We continue to move forward in this process. Looking forward to the Expedite Expo July 19th and 20th. Hopefully will have our endorsements by then and possibly be set with a date for orientation.
Getting a bit nervous? Yup. Excited? Yup. A little scared? Yup, but some of the most exciting rides are when we are a little scared, that's why so many people pay good money to ride roller coasters.
Regards,
Mike
After this whole process is complete and some time goes by, you will look back and say “this was really worth the hassle”. Everybody goes through it in one way or another.
Got my passport book in the mail yesterday. It took 6 weeks and 2 days to receive it from the time I mailed out the renewal application. My passport card should be here shortly. Should be able to get Carrie's application sent out next week after our TWIC appointment on Tuesday. We will be paying an extra $60.00 for her passport application to be expedited. Normal passport processing time is 6-8 weeks ($140.00 for passport and passport card). Expedited processing time is 3 weeks ($200.00 for passport and passport card).
Best regards,
Mike
Best regards,
Mike
So, we had our TWIC appointment yesterday. We got a few blocks from where our appointment was and the road was blocked off, a house was being moved and it was sitting in the middle of the road. No problem, just a short detour. Well we go inside for our appointment and the agent informed us that, due to the house being moved, their internet was down and he didn't know how long before it would be back up. Great, strike two on our TWIC appointments. This time I remembered to ask the agent if Carrie would need her birth certificate for the TWIC appointment since she has an enhanced CDL. We want to send in her passport application which requires she send in her birth certificate. He did, however, inform me that since Carrie has an enhanced CDL she wouldn't need her birth certificate for the TWIC appointment. Good, at least we can get the passport application going. Wish he would have let us know that last week. Next Tuesday is our next TWIC appointment, hopefully this will finally get this taken care of.
Regards,
Mike
Regards,
Mike
TWIC appointments on Tuesday. Carrie has an appointment to take care of her passport application tomorrow. We have both received our background check letters from TSA, now to schedule Hazmat and Tanker endorsement tests. I have received my passport and passport card. One step at a time, we're getting there.
Regards,
Mike
Regards,
Mike
I don't know if this is everywhere, but if we get our hazmat first, we can get a $20 discount on our Twic cards. Right now I have all my endorcements except for Hazmat, and my wife needs to get tanker and Hazmet. We are not expecting to enter into expediting until sometime at the end of October or begining of November.