Beginning FM Residency

I haven't posted since I was trucking. Since then, I quit trucking, attended an intensive therapy program, renewed my relationship with God, became a Home Depot associate, and moved to Georgia to start a Family Medicine residency. That's right! I've resumed medical training. Wow, a lot happens in a year.

Things I learned while trucking:
-Trucking is not the career for me
-The US is a stinkin' huge place full of great things to see and do
-I like knowing in advance when and where I'm going to sleep for the night (or day) and whether I will be able to do so legally
-More generally, I like having a home I can actually live in, instead of being on the road all the time
-A better sense of how to read the road while driving, especially when semi trucks are involved

Things I learned in the therapy program:
-I tend to stuff my emotions and the majority of my personality down deep lest anyone get a glimpse of them and judge me for them
-Emotions have a huge sway on how I see the world and the decisions I make unless I unpack them and sort through them
-God made me and redeemed me from sinfulness, and the disapproval of other people doesn't degrade my worth as a person

Things I learned working at Home Depot:
-While working in the parking lot, I rediscovered that manual labor is not my cup of tea
-Some people seem entitled to abuse people who are paid to help them
-Many unpleasant interactions between people can be traced back to poorly-communicated, pre-formed assumptions
-Many home-improvement skills

The latest development is being accepted to a Family Medicine residency in Georgia. I just moved into an apartment earlier this week and am getting settled in as well as possible while waiting for my belongings to arrive. The moving company misunderstood my request to move my container to Georgia and instead left it sitting in a facility in Colorado. It arrives at the end of next week, so I'll have the weekend to unpack and fully settle in before starting on Monday the 30th.

Tomorrow, I'm attending church in the morning and hosting a BBQ for the other first-year residents at my program in the afternoon. I think I have found the church I want to commit to for the duration of my time here, which is a big blessing. I was worried about finding a good Christian community. I'm looking forward to kicking off the year by getting to know the other residents because one issue I've had in the past is staying isolated, so getting to know the people I'll be working with in a more informal setting will be good.

I'm shooting for blogging weekly, with longer newsletter-style posts each month. We'll see whether my schedule and motivation level allow for that.

Scott

My aunt and uncle gave me this loveseat to help complete (actually, start) my furniture ensemble. It was made by another uncle.

Life on the Road

I finished my on-the-road training with Swift, the company for which I drive, the weekend before last. I got my own truck on Wednesday and hit the road, taking a load of empty beer cans to Ohio, where they would get filled. That first day was stressful, what with running around the Swift terminal like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to find an empty trailer. The way this can place works, we have to leave an acceptable empty trailer before hauling away the can-laden trailer. "Acceptable" is specifically defined, and hopping up in each trailer to check it for acceptability on a sunny day gets tiring, especially when you only have 15 minutes in which to find a trailer, get it inspected, and drive half an hour to pick up the load on time. I'm learning that I need to allow a lot more time for unexpected delays. Like, a lot.

I'm currently outside the Chicago Metro area, with my last message having informed me that there are very few loads in this area, so I should find a place to hang out. Thankfully, I am already parked at a Walmart near a few eateries. If I had to drive anywhere, my onboard GPS/computer would start counting down my daily 14-hour clock. Truckers have 14 hours from the start of our on-duty time in which to complete up to 11 hours of driving before having to take a rest period. "Fourteen hours is an eternity," you say? Well, it can feel like that at times, but when you consider that if my 14-hour clock started ticking at 9:00am and I got a load at, say, 8:00 this evening, I would be left with less than half of my daily driving time available, likely necessitating me to take an additional rest period on that run. Since the rest period must be at least ten hours, what could have been a leisurely trip with all the pit stops I could ask for easily turns into a harried butt-hauling session.

Speaking of butt-hauling, my second run was going to be leisurely. After taking forever dealing with the trailer's broken landing gear (retractable struts at the front), deciding to try adhering to my company's silly US highway route instead of my onboard GPS's faster interstate route, and getting a flat tire, I was really sweating it trying to get the load in on time. I kept having visions of having to sleep on the side of the road, getting a demerit for late delivery, not making it to Walmart to get groceries to put in my cooler (the horror). I like having the down time now, but I've never been good utilizing down time when I don't know how long it's going to be. So, I'm at a Dunkin' Donuts trying to find normal jobs back home and getting back in the swing of blogging.

A quick note regarding the tire blowout, the only clue I initially had was a weird noise. Apparently, 100+ PSI rupturing 3/8" of rubber makes quite the loud noise if I could hear it 60 feet away over the radio and engine. I thought it may have been cargo falling over, but I was on a glass-smooth road at the time (unpaid plug for the Indiana interstate system). A couple miles down the road, I noticed in the mirror one of my tires looked a little rough. If it hadn't been the obvious outside side wall of the outside tire, I may never have known I had a flat or what the noise was.


Below are some pictures of things I've seen along the way.

Scott

 You've heard of row houses. There are also row clouds above US 287 in Southern Colorado.

 

 

 Brilliant hands-free bathroom door handle in Toot 'n Totum north of Amarillo, TX. I guess you'd call it a footle.

 Parked back on the grass, you can see Mater. Tow Mater. Roughly near Alvord, TX.

That dark cloisonne truck, as Volvo calls it, is mine. I'm dropping off an empty trailer and picking up a load of empty cans in Golden, CO.

 

 Blown out tire, just East of the IL-IN state line on I-74.