Episode 158 - Patriots, Perseverance, and Professionalism: Navigating Challenges Together

Music. What's up jfw family welcome back to the channel 23 podcast the purpose of this podcast is to reach out and touch the fleet to engage and inform everyone with all things jfw welcome back jim white brother dave white and super dave welding good morning man hi everybody morning everybody man i've been really feeling patriotic lately it just feels different you know i haven't really you know the political stuff you know the last four years it's been kind of a bummer but

I don't complain or anything like that.

But man, I just feel really encouraged lately. Feels good. There's a different wind blowing, it feels like, right? Yeah, there's hope. Yep. With that, I'd love to say the pledge. And I did see, Paul has ordered a half-mast today for a fallen officer. Yeah. I didn't see that some. The golden car. Yeah. Drunk driver too. Yeah. Isn't that horrible? That first snowstorm we had, yeah. Yeah, they trapped the two under the car, I guess.

Yes, and there was another officer that was critically injured too. And nobody's talked about her. It was a lady. Yeah, I didn't get my flag down in time. I saw that when it was already gone. Yeah, that friend we were with on vacation, her son is a fireman. We had all the alerts and all that kind of stuff. Wow. A side note on that. Did you guys know you could buy a flag that has been used at the Capitol? And it's actually signed by the governor.

Oh. And you can. You lost me at something. You can then fly that. You lost me one. Huh. It's good. Cool. Do they, do they remove it when it's still in good shape then? I believe it's, it's promised to have been flown for one day. Huh? So it's literally a new thing. But it's been flown from the Capitol. Well, let's see who the next government is. And if I like them up, go get one of those flags.

Yeah, the, the, yeah, let's definitely say the allegiance jam, but along with the patriotism and stuff. And, you know, I, I just got back from Arizona and I noticed even coming in last night. All I really wish is everybody would pick up their signs and throw them away. I wish that every election. There's a lot of trash. Every election. I mean, in Tucson, the signs were just lined the streets and you're just like, ah, it's time to take the signs down. Pick up.

And put your card away while you're at it. Yeah. Put the stuff up. So should we take Gabe Evans' sign down at Yard 23? Not displayed. It's just out in the middle of the, it's like in the middle of 270. Oh, gotcha. Those signs that are just left down the roadway, it'll end up being trash. Yeah. You know, that's the only thing.

Gotcha. Well, here we go. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one mission under God, invisible with liberty and justice for all. Father God, we thank you for the opportunity to go out and do some trucking today. We pray for the safety of our fleet, all of their families, and all the other families and individuals we come across on the road today.

We pray for patience in making good, safe decisions. We pray to be accident-free and that we all make it back to the comfort of our homes this evening. We pray for healing and 100% recovery for all of our family members that are ill. No matter what, we trust you, God, and it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. As a reminder, anything you hear on today's podcast is not the opinion of JFW. It is just the men in this room's expressed opinion.

Episode 157 had 248 downloads. We are at 84.4 thousand total downloads, and we are up to 648 followers. Awesome. It's time for the Dad Joke Challenge. Who wants to kick that off? I can go. I'm living on the edge. It's a really good quiz question, kind of in a joke. Okay. Do you guys happen to know what a penis and a spider have in common? Man, I don't know that. Super Dave. No, I sure don't, Jim. Everybody exaggerates about the size.

You can kind of follow that one up with a blonde joke. Do you guys know why the blonde wore condoms behind her ears? Wow. No. Because she didn't want to get hearing aids. Ah, not bad. Boom. What do you got, Sue? All right. I got a golfing joke. An old man and a young man are paired together at a golf tournament. They're playing a long par five that dog legs around some tall trees.

As the young man sets up his tea shop to hit into the fairway, the old man notes, when I was your age, we used to hit over the trees, not around. And so the young man decides, all right, fine, I'm going to readjust. And he tries to hit over the trees, but he can't clear them and loses his ball. And he tries again and loses that one, too. And then the old man says, of course, when I was your age, the trees were only 16.

That's awesome, Dave. The last time I was at the dentist, they offered me dentures for a dollar.

It sounded like a good deal at the time, but now I got buck teeth. I got one more to follow that one up, Jim. Do you guys know the difference between a camera and a sock? Nope. A camera takes photos and a sock takes five toes. Ah. Ah.

That's funny. All right, moving on. New employees. We got Luis Cantino and Gerardo Gonzalez. Welcome to the fleet, man. Welcome. Welcome aboard. Celebrations, anniversaries. Zach Tharp hit one year today. Man, that time flies. I feel like he's been here for five years, though. All the things that he's done, you know, he's a good ant. Yeah, absolutely. Good driver, good person. Yeah. Outstanding human being. Right. Mike Heinrich, one year tomorrow.

Happy anniversary, Mike. Yeah, happy anniversary, Mike. Francisco Alvarez, three years this Friday. Wow. That's crazy. Yeah. And then Gabe Colemanero hits two years this Saturday. Congratulations, you guys. Yeah, happy anniversary, buddy. Yeah.

Before we move on to birthdays, as always, Brenda Alvarez has a message for our husband, Francisco. Good morning. Hopefully, I get to news on time. This Friday will be Francisco's three-year anniversary. Woo-hoo. Although I remind him of this every day, our kids and I want him to remember how proud we are of him. We also want to remind him that he is so appreciated and that his hard work doesn't go unnoticed. Oh, man. That is awesome.

That is sweet, isn't it? We have other supportive wives out there, so I don't want to say nobody else is, but Bender wins the award for emo supportive wife. Absolutely. The most vocal about it anyway. You know, as a man going to work for your family, that just feels so great. Man, if I was driving around today and I got that message on the podcast and be like, man, I feel good. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. Congratulations, Francisco. That's awesome.

Birthdays, we don't have any birthdays, but our family has birthdays. Alan Martinez, which is not Chili Dog, but Tony Martinez's son, he turned 13 years old this past Monday. So happy birthday, Alan. Happy birthday. Junior Alvarez, Francisco's son, turned four this past Monday. Happy birthday. And Ataya Coleman, Tony Martinez's significant other, has a birthday on Friday the 15th. Outstanding. Happy birthday, everybody. buddy. Absolutely. Good stuff.

Hope I pronounced her name correctly. I did it wrong last year. He sent me a couple of voice texts this year to help me pronounce it correctly. I've been practicing and once you look at, once you know, you know, so hopefully I did it right. Hey, on the, on the birthdays, Jim, cause maybe I haven't filled something out. Do you, do you know when you run the birthdays to like a podcast today? Do you run them to Sunday? I go from this past Sunday to Saturday.

Okay. Okay. Perfect. So whoever you're looking for will be announced on the Mike's podcast. That's all. Let's announce it now, too. Because it could be me that I didn't feel something out that I was supposed to. Well, I go Sunday to Saturday. Okay. Just for a week of. It's all good. You're on it. Thank you very much. No problem. To check with you next week to make sure. I'll probably forget. We did announce Erica last week. It's Holly's birthday. Holly's birthday. On Sunday. Oh, yeah.

So she'll, she'll get, yeah, she'll get the employee and the family member birthday. Exactly.

She'll get two, two announcements. Yeah. That's awesome. Shout outs. I want to give a shout out to Mike Cisneros. So unfortunately on Monday, we had a driver get injured. I was helping Mike hook up a trail at the time, told Mike, Hey, you know what? I got an emergency. I got to go. And Mike dropped what he was doing to come help. And he was truly concerned about this other driver. So, and he followed up with me the other day asking, Hey, is that guy?

Okay. So thank you, Mike, for helping out. Just speaks to your heart and your character. Good stuff right there. Shout out to you. Coleman wants to shout out to Joanne for all the help while he was out on medical leave. I guess she helped him take care of some business. And then shout out to everyone who's been out on the Utah run. There's been lots of adversity and things we've had to face and overcome. Thank you all for the hard work and the effort going out there.

And we fought some stuff last week. You know what I mean? There was some adversity, lots of chaining, lots of issues, lots of hiccups. And I just want to throw an extra kudos out there to everyone that did that run last week and this week, everyone has just done it. It's, it's out of our norm, right? But it's becoming our norm because it's going to be a large portion of what we do. And everybody that's done it has been warriors. You know, you, you mentioned Mike Cisneros there helping out.

He was one of them that was on it and chain also. And we put chain in someone else's truck to go out there and he and Mike stayed together. You know what I mean? They had to chain up. They faced all this adversity and their log books were perfect. They just, you know, shout out to those guys, especially because it's, they're rock trailer guys. You know what I mean? It's definitely out of their norm and chain not being in his own truck.

So yeah, everybody that's done it, good job. I know we've made some mistakes. I know we've got some hiccups. We're going to discuss them, but keep up the good work. You know, I look at our creed and every person that's done that has faced and overcome what stands before him.

Right? Yeah, that run, if it goes, if there's no problems, then there's no problems, but there's not room for a lot of problems on that run. Right. You almost got to be perfect. Yep. Thank you. Shout out to the safety team and Tracy for jumping in trucks Friday morning. You know, last Friday, everything was shut down except for plan two. They needed to have two or 300 tons of material. And we just wanted to make sure that got done before the snow really started flying.

So safety team and Tracy, who's been jumping in a truck often, it seems like he's going out of town on the run tomorrow. Or Friday, I should say. So yeah, shout out to those guys. You were part of that, Jim. All you guys, we had a small window of opportunity before the weather set in Friday morning. It cleared in the afternoon, but we had this tiny little window to knock it out. And you guys barely, barely made it. As a matter of fact, I cut the last two trucks. They were in route.

And I was looking at your guys' photos coming down in the in-cab camera. And I'm like, nope, nobody else can go. It was not worth it. I got to tell you, coming down out of Young's Ranch, it was, you got to pay attention. And when I say we were in second and third gear coming down that hill to try not to wipe out. And there's one corner, it's like, I don't know if my eyes were playing tricks on me or shit was going sideways or not, but it was slick and it was,

yeah, you got to pay attention. Yeah. There's a lot of things that can happen in those moments, even when you're going slow, Jam, because a lot of the emergencies that happen during those moments, you have to react opposite. Right? You know, generally, we always talk about stop. You just got to stop. And, you know, I'm totally making a story up. But if that trailer is coming around on you and you're going three miles an hour because you're on the brakes,

you need to let off the brakes and get on the accelerator. And it's the last movement you or your body wants to do, but that's what needs to happen. And I'm making that part up. Yeah, you got to be quick on your toes. Absolutely. And sometimes do something opposite of what you feel would be your normal response. Well, going fast definitely didn't feel like what we should do. So we went slow. Well, thank you guys. Yeah, safety team all jumped in there.

I mean, everybody jumped in the truck, yourself included, and went and got it done. It was awesome.

All right. Let's talk about the Utah run and ELDs and... Jim, you got any shout outs? I was going to have to back you up, Jim. We were going slow, but we weren't going slow enough. I just wanted to jump in there, and I was going to say it on the prayer, and I know we're going to talk about some work comp stuff here, but we got a couple guys that got hurt and wanted to make sure they were in their prayers.

We're not mentioning their names just for personal privacy, of privacy, but you know, they, they still need to be mentioned that our prayers are with them, that they, you know, get healed up here as soon as possible and get going. And I want to mention that and a shout out to them for, you know, they're here trying to do their job and they got hurt. You know, that's the, that's the bummer thing, but that can happen any place.

And then I just want to tell a quick story. You know, the, you know, we're talking about all the things that went wrong to in redmond or the the utah hall and being out of town all i'm doing is looking through the text looking through the emails and you know you guys make it sound pretty light because you were here handling it but holy shit you guys it was hit after hit after hit that i got with the with the texts and the and the emails you know there was.

Tickets for not chaining there was over hours in the log books there was you know we had a truck towed we we ran too far we did this we did that and you know shout out to Dave here Dave's I talked to him on Saturday and Dave's like man we're we're missing it here we're missing it there we're not doing it here we're not doing it there and I'm just like yeah I see all that you know and and for a personal note Dave says yeah I said I I didn't want to drown my sorrows but he said I

had to have a couple of drinks Saturday night. He said, it was, it was a long week to end up. But where I'm going with this is I talked to him Monday morning and he was like, we got this, we got this. He said, everybody, you know, you guys jumped in the trucks Friday. You know, there was all the stuff dispatch did Saturday. He said, this is kind of like the Coors run. When we first started Coors, it sucked.

We were like, we can't, we can't do this. Why did we take this on we have guys doing at nights and he was just so optimistic come monday morning and that's that's i think how everybody is and one of the big things he said to me is how many great people we have here and when you get the you know the the chain you know the chain tickets are just just the stupid things that you're just trying to learn and make yourself better none of those really count for how good our people are here.

Right. And, and Dave was adamant about that, that we got this, you know, as bad as all the emails and texts seemed, we got this and we'll just get better and better and better and pretty soon it'll be nothing. You know, we won't even think about it, but it is all new, you know, it is like, it's just not what we do. And it's in the creed. He, he brought that up in that conversation too. He said. Everybody that's out there that made this run, whether they made a mistake or

not, the one, we face and overcome all that stand before us. Absolutely. And I just want to, we'll cover it at the end. We'll say it at the end. We'll cover it several times through here, but I want to tell everybody thank you. Yeah. Yeah, it definitely felt like we were taking our lumps, but you know what I'm saying? It's not how many times you get knocked down. It's what you do when you get back up. And every person here got back up. Yeah. No doubt. Any other shout-outs, guys?

Covered me that way, Jan. Thank you for backing up. Thanks for remembering. All right, let's get into the Utah run and ELDs. Item number one, Brother Dave, you mentioned, no use in the cruise control in adverse weather. If the roads are slick, you don't want to have your cruise control on. Some people even include rain in that. They suggest not having that on. I think rain up there, Jammer, in a mountainous region, we could face freezing. Absolutely.

You know what I mean? There could be, you know, your dash display could say 34 degrees and that area you're driving into, that may not have changed yet. And you hit 31 and there's just that little slick spot. Or you hit a bridge. Give you some fuel. Right. You know, the bridge will freeze before the road. So I just, I want to clarify, cause we read a pretty long piece last week on, you know, Potter challenged everyone to, you know, perfect their craft and use their crews.

And I have to say we left out one of the most important parts, not in weather events. You know what I mean? Please use your crews, but not in weather events. And I know that sounds silly to some people why we're having to clarify that, but. I think we need to clarify it. And I think that's, that's part of your craft though, you know, cause the, the, the email he sent was very long and really detailed and I, I just skimmed over it.

You know, I even told him that, and I should have grabbed it again. There was pieces out of that, that we should read every week, basically just to help educate people. But I think that, that weather piece, Dave, and you're right, we need to bring it up. We need to talk about everything, but that's learning your craft. Hey, it is 32 degrees or 31 degrees. I'm not going to run with my cruise on.

Right. You know, and where, where I've ran into it or feel it is so is that obviously the cruise will gas your truck or fuel your truck when you're not expecting it. That could be on the bridge, right? It's just, it's powering into it. But I think when it throws the jakes on, that's when it's bothered me the most because the jakes are so powerful. Sure. You know, if it over speeds when it comes on, that's where it would really

worry me. And maybe it's a combination, not, not to take anything away from what you said, Dave, but maybe you flip the Jakes off and run the cruise. But again, learn your craft, you know, learn, soak everything up you can on that run and, and, and put it to use.

It's not only the freezing conditions, but in rain, you could hydroplane. The slick. Yeah. Or the hydroplane. Yeah. Don't think that truck won't hydroplane. It damn sure will. Yeah, and you were just talking earlier about sometimes having to do the opposite of what we think we should do. But if you have a cruise control on and you start slipping, you don't have control. So you got to take care of that problem first before you can even fix anything.

Exactly. So you're not doing yourselves any favors like that. Yeah, and just to, I mean, everybody should know, but hitting the brake kills the cruise. Right. And you may need to step on the accelerator. That doesn't kill the cruise. Right. So there's a piece to that, yeah. All right, next on the list. Man, this has been a topic of discussion here at JFW for a long time. Tending windows. And typically, we don't run into problems with tending windows here in town.

It seems like when we start going out of town, it's just easy pickings for DOT. When we were doing that Texas run, picking up those trucks, it seemed like every week or a couple times a week, we were hearing about violations for having tending windows. Yep. Who wants to take that? because I know you guys have your own stance on the tinted windows. I mean, if it was me, Jam, I would take it off.

You know, I just wouldn't. If you're one of the guys going out of town, it's not worth the hassle for the trooper to take it off, but I'll look right at you and go, I have tinted windows on my pickup, right? And we've allowed, guys, because you made the statement, we don't get picked on here in town. Well, to do our job better, you're not supposed to have tinted windows.

Do I, do I give my personal opinion that I think the trooper that sucks for the trooper to do that? That, that's a little, that's not a safety violation. I mean, Jim, we got stopped by a trooper yesterday, right? Never a thing about the tinted windows. And I'm, I'm pretty sure that truck has tinted windows, but we weren't at a port. It was just a random stop. Sure. Right. Sure. Never, never said a word about the tinted windows.

Sure. But we went to the port and got written up for tinted windows. Yeah. I mean. Maybe this is a little bit off subject, but you guys have all seen all the trucks that run around here with the different colored lights facing all sorts of different ways. Yeah, on the dash. On the dash. You couldn't do that over the road. Right. You might be able to get away with it here, but you can't do it out on the road. We can't have tinted windows out on the road. Right. So, Gemma would...

I would remove it. I just wouldn't. I just. I think maybe if you want to run that run successfully and guarantee no problems, don't have your windows tinted. I think that's kind of it in a nutshell. And we haven't ran into anything in Utah yet. No. And supposedly they're building a, I don't know. What a super poor, super, super coop. You know, but not somewhere out there. Not to bring Potter up, but I remember Dave, you, you've told me the story.

Potter got pulled over or potter was doing something dave and he just said i'll take it off right he said i'll just strip it off because he just didn't want the hassle yeah yeah he was going to texas oh that was something and i told him the story about scooby and sean and all the guys get, hammered down there only because the trooper was sitting on the side of the road and saw one of our trucks go by with tinted windows yeah and he got the

whole group i think four or five of them wasn't it Jim? Yeah. And Potter was like, I don't need that hassle. I'm taking it off. Hence easy pickings. Yeah. And so it's like, give them a reason. Well, don't take your window tent off. Yeah. Yeah. And refresh my memory. I want to say you guys, Texas, it was a fine. It was like 125 bucks or something. Mail in or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't just, here's your sheet of paper against you. Right. Here's your fine and a ticket.

Just to be clear any tent is illegal just because a factory tint from the window from the windshield or the windows i should say that's already maxed out you can't have anything more than a fact anybody that comes to us and goes oh i got the right percentage i'm okay no you're not yeah because a commercial motor vehicle yeah we bought meters we've done all the stuff we've done yes it doesn't happen. Yeah, and there's a couple trucks here. I don't remember which ones.

I'm sure they're at both yards. They are freaking dark. Yeah. I don't like driving those trucks. No, I don't either. I certainly don't like dropping and hooking or, you know, hooking up. Yeah. You can't see anything. The windows go down immediately, right, Jim? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of cold out there this time of year to run to Utah and back with the windows down.

Right. Might be a little rough. It's also a sign when you're pulling, if it's 10 below and you go into a point of entry with your windows down, they're not idiots that work in there. They've seen it all. Right. Exactly. You know, but don't, you know, because we're asking you to take your tint off or we're not asking, we should suggest it. It's a, it's a, you know, a stupid law. But the, but the thing is don't, don't let this deter you from going and running the run.

Yeah. You know, this is, this is a, this is a good run. We got, we got lots of loads. Like we've been telling everybody the busiest winter we'll, we'll probably ever have, or not ever have, but we've had. Yeah. To date. And yeah, it's just, we need to overcome. Don't let them set the rules. Be better than that. Let's, let's kick butt. Well, here's the proactive part. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's the, I mean, it's, it's the next line down.

Talk about being proactive for chains. And you guys can talk about it because you were here dealing with it. Yeah. So chain law, when the chain law is in effect, you have to have four tires chained. It doesn't matter if it's the four outside tires or the four tires on the rear axle, or if you wanted to struggle to put them on the front axle, that's fine, but it's got to be four tires. Absolutely. Four drive tires. Four drive tires, yeah. Yeah. And do we, you know, is it, I mean.

Have we discussed it enough? Cause I know you, you got a set of, what are there? Three railers. Is that the name of them? Yeah. I know a dual set of chains. Yeah. Cover a set of duels. Yeah. Are we, are we against that? Was there any more cost Dave or. There are a hundred bucks more a set. But they, but they cover the two tires. Oh, it takes care of the problem. Yeah. You chain the rear four and off you go.

So yeah. And I mean, the second part of the chain law is again, not only four tires and it doesn't matter what wheel positions, it does not matter, but there's a big difference. And we just ran into it this morning already. There's a big difference when you get up there between traction law and CMV chain law. We had a couple of guys pull over to chain this morning and it was just for traction law. Traction law is only for vehicles, passenger vehicle.

And adequate snow tires are asking them to have adequate snow tires. Yes, exactly. I don't know how you know. Which to me, 99.99% of the public has no clue. Right. It has to say mud and snow on the side of the tire and they have to have at least one eighth of an inch of tread is the rule. Sure. Sure. So you don't need to chain with traction law. Traction law has nothing to do with a CMV, which CMV stands for commercial motor vehicle. When you guys see CMV chain law, you need to stop and chain.

Usually it says where we're at and, and what to do it. And just because we're going through it and learning, we're going to try and contact everybody. Like we held everyone up this morning. We knew a little storm was coming through because we didn't want anybody to have to chain. It's just faster, right? There's no chain law up. We just blow through. I would rather drag my feet a little bit and blow through and that won't work on every trip.

You know, we have plenty of time, even if we leave here at seven or eight, that gives us enough time to make it to Redmond and load and stay at the hotel or, or continue to drive depending on, on our drive time much time. So, and that brings up one more thing that was just brought to us is while you're outside chaining, very, very, very important. Have your phone on you.

And that's for two reasons, because we were able to catch the two guys today and keep them from chaining, which saved them a ton of time. And wear and tear on the chains and just drive time. But also if something were to happen and you had a slip and fall or something like that, and you were outside the truck and you didn't have your phone on you, not safe at all. So keep your phone on you outside that truck. And I think with that, Dave, and I know it's the next thing,

but I'm in a bad habit. If I mount, if I put my phone in my car on a mount, cause I have that, I often get out and forget it. Sure. and the phones have to be mounted. And I know we're going to go to that. So there's that step because otherwise I just know my phone's on me all the time.

I would get out, do my stuff and chain because my phone's on me. But your phones have to be mounted in some kind of mount where you can visually see it to be running an ELD. That's something we learned also. So you got to, Dave's saying it, you got to pay attention, grab your phone, take it with you if you have it on the mount in the truck, which to me is really easy to forget. I forget it all the time once it's mounted.

Perfect example is a driver that got injured the other day. He was able to call us from his trailer, you know, if he didn't have his phone on him and he, and he couldn't get up to like, you know, how long would he have laid there? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's a, it's a good safety feature. Yep. Yep. Jim, you did just touch on it. Phone must be mounted in a fixed position. This isn't for distracted driving purposes, which is also a good reason to have it mounted.

But it is the law, and we did get a ticket for that. It can't be on the seat. It can't be in a cup holder. It can't be in a cubby hole. It's got to be in a fixed position where you're able to see your hours of service. Next on the list, the bill of lading information.

Okay, what is the bill of lading information? once you guys get loaded your ticket will have a number on it that's your bill of lading number for for all purposes of this law but that needs to be entered in your eld and jam is it just the ticket number that's all that needs to be in there doesn't need to say like loaded like redmond companies or i don't even envirotech services or anything like that i don't think there's a place for that okay but if there is yeah i mean the more

information you guys fill out on this eld the better right you know there's always a spot for remarks make the remarks you know so when you get loaded in redmond you're going to show your location you know on the eld in the logbook itself so that will correspond with the bill of lading number but yeah i don't believe there's a place for what you're mentioning yeah we don't have it on here jam but i'll i will bring up just because you made me think of it where,

when you do put remarks on the, on your logbook, keep them appropriate, keep them professional, would you, you know what I mean? If you just stop for a break, just take right break, you know, or bathroom break or whatever, just keep a professional on there. We have, we see those at any time we can be audited, you know, they can look at those and how do you want to appear to the state patrol if they're auditing your, you know, or looking at your logbooks. So.

I mean, if I, yeah, good point. I'll just leave it at that. Another requirement is the in-cab materials. You, if you get pulled over for an inspection, you will be asked by the DOT officer for your in-cab materials. I've asked a few drivers if they know where they're at. I've got responses like in the glove box and wherever, right? That's not where they're at. They're actually on your phone. They're in the Samsara app. But to get to it, you need to be logged out.

The NCAB materials are in the sign-in screen of Samsara. So when you go to that screen, you'll see it'll be very specific. It'll say ELD NCAB materials. You click on that, and you will see the ELD manual. This is a manual that tells you how to use the ELD. The other thing you'll see is the sheet transfer instructions. That is how you transfer your logbook to the DOT officers, right? So they're not going to ask you to memorize what's in there. They're going to ask you if you have those materials.

And if you do, great. And all you have to do is log out and show it to them. I would suggest reading both of those though. Read the manual and read the transfer sheet instructions. The transfer sheet instructions are going to be important to know how to use the ELD to actually give them your logs. So does that make sense? Absolutely, Jam. It's, it's kind of one of those things about perfecting your craft when a state patrolman stops you and you don't have a clue what you're doing.

You're in trouble. Yeah. You're in deep doo doo. Cause if you know what you're doing and you can explain to him what you're doing and it makes sense, pretty good odds. He's going to realize, you know what you're doing and let you go. So. Be aware, read that, go through that because it is frustrating. It isn't something we've done, right? It isn't something we've been doing.

It isn't something we've trained anyone on, but we're trying really hard to educate everyone as we're going through this process. Case in point, I got a call from a driver at the port. He says, hey, Jim, they're asking me for my logs. I'm like, okay, are they asking you for your local timesheet? You know, why are you calling me? You know, that's not what I told him. I was polite, but I was just trying to figure out what exactly does this driver want.

And I could hear the DOT officer in the background say, we want the in-cab materials. Okay, so he wasn't even asking for the logs. He was asking for something else. So yeah, educate yourself. As BD just said, perfect your craft. Know what you're talking about. You know, it's just like when you get pulled over and you open the door and McDonald's bags falls out on the ground. You don't look like you're organized. Well, if he can't even keep the cab of his truck clean, what else is in an order?

I bet his log book is in an order, you know, stuff like that. Yeah. Also the, you know, it's like when they ask you for your driver's license and you don't have your driver's license on you, be organized. You know, we, we ran into that too with a, you know, something else Dave told me about. We were giving out fuel cards to get fuel. One of the drivers left the fuel card in his house, at his house for his second trip.

Guys, guys got to carry those. Got to have those with you. You got to, we're, it's just, everything's a little different, but you got to be proactive. You got to be ready to go on your, on your trip. You know, got to be on top of that.

The joke from the old days is you got your log book. Yeah. Which one you want. Right. Can't do that anymore. All right. Let's talk about adverse weather and when you could use the adverse weather condition exception. Okay. This was another learning experience for us. You can use adverse weather to get to your safe haven at the end of your trip, okay?

And what we mean by that is if you leave Commerce City here and the chain law is up on Genesee or Vail or any of those passes, okay, that is in the beginning of your trip, and you cannot use adverse weather conditions in those moments. Adverse weather would be used at the end of your trip to extend your drive time to be able to make it to a safe haven. Okay, so meaning you are 90 minutes from the hotel, okay? And there's a snowstorm and you're at 11 hours of driving.

You can switch over to the adverse weather conditions because you are currently in adverse weather trying to make it to your safe haven. Make sense, everybody? Yes. Jim? Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm still struggling with that. I think the word you used was currently. Current, yeah. The way it's explained is you can't even, you know, if you knew there was weather ahead of you, you can't even use it. Right. You know, it's the way that it's described in the FMCSA website.

Like, it's got to be, you know, you have had to have had no knowledge of this weather.

There's a lot of gray area in it the way they explain it jam you can interpret things many different ways but regardless we have every opportunity to stop at our our 11 hours driving right you know what i mean there you go so it it i think that's the big thing is we need to stay within we need to stay under that 11 hours driving and under that 14 14 hour on duty yeah and that's the way the dot officer explained to me it's like yeah you use adverse weather but at you know 6 a.m this morning,

it's, you know, 6 p.m. at night right now. Right. Why didn't you stop here or here or here or here? Right. Right? Yeah. Yeah. You just extended your trip when you did not need to. There was plenty of safe haven. Yes. The way you explained it. I like it. Okay. You know, we just already mentioned it. You can't drive over 11 and you can't be on duty more than 14 hours. Otherwise, you are in violation. Okay. Unless you had an exception. Okay.

And then, Chip, go ahead. I just want to mention on that too, you guys, the run's been ran easily, lots of lots of loads, except for the chaining part of it, where you go to Redmond, you get loaded, and you make it to Grand Junction. You can easily make it to Grand Junction on a good run. So please don't dilly-dally just because you don't want to stay in Grand Junction or there's another thing.

That's not what this is for. you know there is we we know how the run can be run now but also when you get to those 11 hours you know dispatch is going to try to still help watch but you know that's also the reason for your ELD being in a cup holder here's your hours call somebody and go I'm not going to make this where can I stay right you know again you're the captain of the ship we had we had a driver run way way over hours because he was just trying to get the job done.

Most of the time we're, we're trying to get the job done. Where else can you stay? What green river, one of them. Absolutely. Green river, Salina. Yep. Fruita. Yep. We have options for you. We have options, you know, and we will help when we get into those events, we're going to help with that. But also it's part of your job. If you get to Redmond and you load and you show you only have two hours of drive time left, you're not going to make it.

You need to stay in, in Salina or Green River. So. One of the big parts that we haven't really talked about is please, please, please communicate. You know, I think it sounds kind of redundant, but I think if you're going to stop and put on chains, it might be worth a call. If the road conditions look good to you to call dispatch and go, Hey, I'm showing chain conditions are up or chain laws are up.

Can you just verify that for me? I'm going to stop and chain and the roads look perfectly fine, you know, and let us help with that decision-making. The same goes for if you load at Redmond and you only show two hours drive time. Hey, I'm only showing two hours drive time. Ask, should I stay in Selena or should I, you know, make it to Green River or, you know.

Right. Hell, worst case scenario, we joked yesterday, we're going to have you hop off at the Moab exit and go south into Moab and stay at a hotel, you know, because once you've left Green River, there's not a lot of choices. So. Gotcha. Yeah. And the thing too, Dave had a really nice discussion with one of the drivers. they were talking about, you know, being done for the day by the time they're loaded and maybe staying in Green River, but you have an hour's worth of drive time left.

That just means you have to drive another hour the next day. So we don't want there to be a confusion too. You know, if you could drive 11, you only drive 10. That means instead of driving eight the next day, you have to drive nine. And we're trying to have you use as much as your time so that when you get back here in town, you can grab a couple loads. Right. Fill that window.

Yeah. Fill that window. We're just trying to, same hours you would work here in town. That's all we're doing. Yes. All right, let's talk about Yard Move. Yard Move can only be used on private property when loading or unloading. Okay, this isn't for fueling. It's not for on duty, not driving. It is for when you're in Redmond getting loaded or when you're unloading here in town. So Yard Move can only be used on private property with no public roads intersecting.

So if you're at a fuel station or anywhere else, it can't be used. So I've been seeing that on some logs. Also, the point of yard move is if you're in Redmond, you are able to drive over five miles an hour when you're in yard move. Typically, your ELD is going to kick you to driving when the truck reaches five miles an hour. Yard move, you could move up to 19 miles an hour without being put into driving. The thing is the speed limit at Redmond is 15 miles an hour.

Okay so if you're doing 15 miles an hour and you're you're in yard move you're gonna be fine the other thing about yard move which you can use to your advantage is that time can be used for your 30 minute break as long as it's oh i didn't know that jim yeah so if you're in yard move for 20 minutes and you haven't taken your 30 yet and you're done loading hang out another 10 minutes right that counts as your break right that's huge i didn't know that yeah ah very cool that's

kind of a little aha moment yes did who found that but i don't remember but huh but you've already just you've already driven eight though you got to do it before your eight hour eight hours yeah you have to take your 30 minute break in the first eight hours yeah yeah i just didn't want seven hours and 59 minutes yeah yeah i just didn't want somebody to get confused that hey i made it to redmond i'm going to do my half an hour because it's a yard move but you're past your eight hours sure

yeah you gotta do it before that if weather's good theory says you can make redmond under eight.

So guys are doing it yeah yeah yeah if you're running into adverse weather conditions you're not going to make it and you need to stop somewhere and take your 30 yes right yeah that's that's a key yeah that's a little key component there every part of this trip is kind of right on the cusp of everything yeah you know what i mean we're we're right on the edge of making redmond and using your yard move for your 30 minutes you know grabbing fuel and and getting back to grand junction

in under your 11 drive time i mean we're we're just under all these wires you know so that's that's actually kind of cool but it's perfecting your craft it is it is it's good to know stuff this is how it can be ran yep last thing i got on the eld discussion is if you start your day on the eld you must finish it on the ELD. Yes. So when you're coming back on day two and you hit town, you don't log out of your ELD and switch over to hourly. You got to finish your day on the ELD. Correct. Okay.

That local exception, you have to start and stop in the same place in order to use a 14 hour rule. So.

That's it on the ELDs and the Utah run, guys, unless you have anything else you want to add. Just thanks, everybody. Yeah. I mean. I want to encourage everyone to go. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? We've kind of heard some pretty party stories already about some good times that has happened over there. I'm not going to mention any names, but some tattoos have been had and some parties have been attended. Just got to watch the spelling on the tattoos. Right. That's what I hear. We the Popal. Yep.

So it's it sounds like a fun trip to me yeah it just reminds me that it's the i don't even know what the commercials for might be insurance or whatever but it's for the kansas city chiefs and they show the coach the oh it's a snickers commercial guys all proud on how he how he labeled the field and the whole bit and the coach walks up bill belichick right is that Andy Reid. Andy Reid walks up and goes, ah, that looks great, but who's the chefs?

That's funny. Well, that one movie with the guy, he's got the chest tattoo, it says no regrets. Yes. Yeah. Too funny. All right, questions from the audience. Gilly, he has a question. He wants to know if we can make chain classes mandatory. Oh, I see a finger in the air. Well, no, we did it last week, I guess. It was a point of finger, not to- It was a point. I was pointing to God. Did we talk about Veterans Day Monday last week? We did. We did cover it right

last week. Yeah, we did. And what's next? But I will tell you that we saw Armando Del Valle yesterday, and he looked full from all the free food he had on Veterans Day. Nice. Good. Nice. Good. He didn't understand that conversation you had until just now. I didn't understand that. Okay. Yeah, he's got a list of restaurants that give free food to veterans. So he takes the day off and just goes and eats for free everywhere. That's awesome. He deserves it.

But yesterday was like, oh man, I feel like I was going to throw up. I was so full. That's awesome. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Yeah, well-deserving. Thank all the veterans. Before I had a chance to make an announcement, somebody did. And yeah, thank everyone that served. I know I'm sure appreciative for my freedoms, and I know all you guys are too. And we thank you for your time and your dedication

and you put your life on the line for us. And thank you for that. Amen. Getting back to, can we make the chain classes mandatory? Man, I mean, we could, and I would just hope that if you don't know how to chain, we had four chain classes this year. So to me, if you don't know how to chain, you would think that you would go and want to learn how to do that, you know, because it's important. And if I'll reiterate, if you need a chain class, please get with one of us to schedule it.

We can't just drop what we're doing especially at the end of our shift and just run out and do it in the dark if you if you want to schedule it because you're prepared to go and you're worried about not knowing how to chain we are more than happy to help but give us the opportunity to schedule it we we can't just drop what we're doing and go do it it you know takes every bit of 30 minutes 45 minutes maybe even longer depending on how much chit chat goes on it's not something you do quick

there's a lot of explanation to it but it is easy it's not rocket science we could probably talk you through it if you're on the side of the road right yeah i i think with that though you guys and and love the question there's so many things we could make mandatory right you know and we and we just don't want to right we can make listening to this podcast mandatory and i'll probably solve half our problem right it would a lot but but the thing

too is we talk Talk about being an advocate for yourselves and we've talked about it on here. I call it YouTube you, you know, we've, we've all nicknamed that YouTube university. Just grab some, some videos, you guys, there's a lot of great videos on tips and tricks to do everything with your truck. There is there, the, the trucking community is huge, you know, and, and you can, if you, if you just spend a little time, you can educate yourself along with us helping educate.

You because we want to educate you also but if you're in a pinch you know check out a video it'll help you yep you can help you help you yeah i i mean the big videos i watch that help me the most with programming my damn garage doors that was depending on what style you have it's a pain in the ass right working at working on my furnace man i've seen yeah you mentioned that dollars right yep yeah yep absolutely. Are we going to skip the what's next? I didn't have anything for what's next.

I have something for what's next. Can I say it? Can I say it? Can I say it? That's the reason I brought up. Sweet. Veterans Day. Did we talk about that? That was what's next. Why didn't you jump in? Well, that was last week. I know, but I want. What's next is this coming week. Saturday. Do you guys know what Saturday is? No, I'm off. Saturday, Saturday, Saturday. Dave, you know what Saturday is. Saturday. Man, you guys are letting me down. Train the trainers.

Oh, it's true. We've got a train the trainers meeting Saturday. That's a big meeting for our trainers. It is. Ken sent you the text to remind you. Yep. I wrote it down. Train the trainers. Do you guys know what Saturday is? Train the trainers. I know I'm off Saturday. So can we make chain classes mandatory? I don't think we're going to make a mandatory ghillie, but we would ask that if you don't have a chain, please learn and don't ask us at 520 at night.

And I think there's a lot of guys that have just ran this run that maybe got chain tickets. Anyway, it's fresh in their mind. I bet a lot of them can help right now. I bet we have some trained chain people. Chainers. Chainers. Yeah, not trainers, but chainers. Chainers. The other thing to help us out, I had a call on Saturday afternoon. Hey, I'm going to town Monday. I need to be set up on ELD. Well, I guess I'll see you Monday morning at five. Right. Yeah.

And I know that driver would have liked to have left at 3 a.m., but you got to help us help you a little bit. Absolutely. All right. Safety topic of the week, and this is a big one this week, and it is titled, Three Points of Contact at All Times. I got to back up one more time. Yeah, back it up. Back it up like a dump truck.

And it's a little bit of a complaint, but the only reason I want to complain about it a little bit is please don't send texts at 10 or 11 o'clock at night unless it's an emergency. We all have our phones on 24 seven and any text I get in the middle of the night, I look at it. It wakes me up. It's too important. We have Coors guys running at night. We have night mechanics. We have wash bay people. And if you have a question, please review the question and send it in the appropriate hours.

I know there was a, there was just a text. I won't, I won't bring it up because I don't, I want, I don't want to bad mouth the person or anything. But just watch your texts, make sure they're in the business hours, unless it's an emergency or something. You know, we had a hydraulic line break last night, not late, late, but late. Those are texts that we all have to handle, be aware of in case we need to send somebody out to fix the hydraulic leak.

But please watch your texts, if you would. I'd appreciate that. Amos. All right. Three points of contact at all times to prevent falls and injuries while entering and exit trucks or trailers, as well as when climbing on or off equipment. So the policy is going to be you must maintain three points of contact. Always maintain three points of contact with the vehicle or equipment when climbing or descending.

This means having both feet and one hand or both hands and one foot in contact with the vehicle at all times. By the way, if you haven't picked up on this, we've had two accidents that could have been prevented by using three points of contact. And these injuries are serious. You're not like, oh, I fell and, you know, I'm a little banged up today. I'll come back tomorrow. Yeah, these both involved hospitalization and extended time periods off of work.

You want to use designated access points. Use handrails, steps, and ladders provided for safe access. Do not jump from the vehicle or equipment. You want to face the vehicle. Always face the vehicle or equipment when climbing or descending. Some other considerations. Footwear. You want to wear sturdy closed-toe footwear with good traction to prevent slips and falls. Hand holds. Ensure hand holds or hand rails are clean and dry and free of grease of oil. Weather conditions.

This is really important. Use extra caution in wet or icing conditions. Not just climbing up and down, but even walking through the yard. You know, we talk about the poopy walk, you know, to make sure you don't slip and fall.

A couple of us I know have cleats that just kind of strap on to the outside of your boots. Those really work well, and I would highly suggest those. And remember, three points of contact policy is a simple but effective way to prevent falls and injuries. Always prioritize safety when entering, exiting, or working on trucks or equipment. If you have any questions or concerns, consult with your supervisor or safety manager.

So, yeah, I mean, if you think about slip and falls, a lot of times we just think about, oh, somebody fell. But injuries, man, who wants to be hurt? Oh, yeah. By the way, if you have found not being in adherence of our safety policies or doing something that we have a policy on and you get hurt doing it, there is a 50% indemnity rule.

In workers' compensation, an employee may lose up to 50% of their lost time compensation benefits if their injury was caused by willfully failing to use required safety devices or willfully failing to follow a reasonable safety rule, being intoxicated by alcohol, .10 BAC or higher. Testing positive for marijuana or other prohibited drugs. If the 50% rule applies, the employee will still receive all medical benefits until they reach maximum medical improvement.

So it's just talking about your wages, right? So if you're hurt on a job, you're entitled to wages. But if you're hurt on a job and you fail a drug test or alcohol test or you weren't in adherence with the safety policy, you can or may lose up to 50% of your wages. Yep, yep, absolutely. So it costs you too. That's what we're, that's what we're just pointing out. It costs you, it costs us, and you're the one hurt, you know, and we, we can't have those.

We, you know, we're going to bring this up again. We have to have to bring all of this to everybody's forefront. And we just talked about it on the several of the podcasts coming up to this point about the liners, the truck, the ice, all that kind of stuff in our snow notes for, for this year. And, and, you know, we'll have, we'll, we'll have the yard full of ice and that poopy walk. You're, you're spot on, but we, we have to make it that it costs you too.

And it costs you guys the most cause you're injured and we don't want that. Nobody likes being hurt. Yeah. Tips and tricks from Ray Davis. Knowing your materials and the difference in the materials. We haul different materials every day to plants. We haul three-quarter wash to many plants and it is called different names at different plants.

It can be called three-quarter wash, 5767 rock, 57 and just 67 rock. Yes, it is the same rock but some plants may call it a different name. Main thing is always read your taro. We also haul three-quarter river rock. River rock is three-quarter wash river rock, but it is in a different color and shape. It's basically smooth compared to granite, which will have the jagged edges. Absolutely. Coming from the side of a mountain versus the bottom of a riverbed. Yep.

Right. 100% fractured face or smooth. There you go. Right. That sounds like some ready mix lingo there. Alluvial. Right. If you are ever not sure what bin of stockpile to dump in, ask. If there is one, if there is no one there, climb up on the trailer, grab a handful and compare it to the materials in the bins and make sure it is the correct bin. It is better to take an extra few minutes to double check than to dump in the wrong bin or stockpile.

You should always familiar yourself with all the materials at pits and bins and plants. Also, do you know the difference in washed and dry? Washed always goes to a concrete plant and dry to an asphalt plant. But the biggest thing is always ask. Just don't load anything, just because. You should ask if you don't know. Make a call and check first. The dumbest question is one never asked. Hope all is well with the JFW family, friends, and listeners. Remember, safety has no blind spot.

Sit up in that stool, look and lean. Don't be that fool. Remember, it's safer to be slow than sorry. Much love and respect, always. The Black Sheep, RayRay, 0013. Nice job again, Ray Ray. Yeah. I heard this one was recycled, but. It was, but it was modernized. Gotcha. Yeah. It didn't sound familiar to me, so good job, Ray Ray. Yeah, I was just wondering, listening to that, and I mean, you compare the materials, you know, like he said, Jim, and like you read and stuff like that.

You know, find somebody, ask somebody, maybe even contact dispatch at a less, you know, last resort. But I think if we can't get a hold of anybody and you can't get it solved, maybe dump away from the pile just a little bit. Leave some space where it could be moved if there's any kind of question. You don't have to dump it out in the middle of the yard. You don't have to dump it right on the pile. Just move away a little bit and dump it.

But by saying that, I also don't want somebody to go, oh, I didn't know where it went, and they just dump it. right? We always got that gray area, the interpretation. It's just something when you've exhausted all your resources, this is what you could do to get dumped. Sure. Makes sense. So, you want to hit us with that High Road Holland? High Road Holland. Sure. So, in the High Road Hollands of past, we've talked about self-esteem and things that will help you be successful in life.

You know, if you need to increase your self-esteem, you need to build confidence. So today's High Road Holland is specifically about confidence.

Confidence is a belief in oneself, the conviction that one has the ability to meet life's challenges and succeed. Being confident requires knowledge of one's capabilities and understanding what it takes to achieve one's goals. Projecting confidence helps people gain credibility, make a strong first impression, deal with pressure, and tackle personal and professional challenges. It's also an attractive trait as it helps put others at ease. So you might be thinking, how do you build confidence?

Confidence is not innate. It's not a fixed characteristic. It's an ability that can be acquired and improved over time. Anxiety can take hold when people are plagued by self-doubt, so putting themselves in and getting accustomed to the specific situations they fear can assure people that nothing truly bad will happen and that activity gets easier with practice. One can gain a sense of confidence from personal and professional accomplishments and.

Continuing to set and achieve goals can enable the belief that one is competent and capable. How can I improve my confidence on a daily basis? Being confident means knowing that you can handle the emotional outcome of whatever you'll face. Begin by acknowledging every emotion, including difficult emotions, rather than avoiding them. Speaking up for yourself, limiting self-criticism and other strategies can help build emotional strength and the confidence that comes with it.

How do I build confidence in a specific situation? Well, confidence is not all-encompassing. You can have high confidence in some areas and low confidence in others. In whatever new domain you choose, hone your skills and develop self-efficacy. I knew I was going to have trouble with that word. By watching others, practicing yourself, and taking advice from the experts.

Overconfidence versus underconfidence. A realistic appraisal of one's abilities enables people to strike a healthy balance between too little and too much confidence. Too little confidence can prevent people from taking risks and seizing opportunities, such as in school, at work, or in their social life. And too much confidence can come off as cockiness, arrogance, or narcissism.

Overestimating one's abilities might also lead to problems such as failing to complete projects or overlooking important details. And what are the reasons someone might have low confidence? A few of the ingredients that determine a person's confidence level include genetics, temperament, cultural background, and early life experiences, such as parenting style or past trauma.

Although those elements are generally out of our control, there's still plenty of ways to gain confidence throughout our lives. And the link between confidence and competence. Research has suggested a link between confidence and performance, which can impact perceived competence.

Confidence will increase with training. The more you train, the more you learn, and the more confident you are in your abilities, and that directly corresponds to a higher achievement level in work, school, athletics, and even relationships. Being all that you can be is dependent on many external and internal issues, But if you feel your confidence needs a boost, remember to set achievable goals, be prepared by doing your homework, and celebrating when you reach a goal.

And a goal not reached is not a failure, but an experience to learn from. And the quote this week by none other than Helen Keller is, which blows me away because that lady was deaf, dumb, and blind, and she achieved more than I'd say most people do in a lifetime. What does a dumb part mean? Can't speak. Which is a byproduct, really, of not being able to see or not being able to hear. Right. So you can't learn to speak, which she did.

Eventually, she did learn to speak. Man, I bet you couldn't call somebody that these days. Right. Deaf mutant blind, probably. Mute, yeah. And her quote is, optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.

Love it yep good stuff really good so true super the the i'll go or jump in there because mine really you know attaches itself to that when you talk about confidence because what is i mean it's hard to ask i guess because i want to lead into my deal but when you're when you're working on your confidence what are what are you doing you know you're you're trying to make yourself better, you're learning, it could be so many aspects.

And my quote here is, a seed grows with no sound, but a tree, when it falls, makes a huge noise. Destruction has noise, but creation is quite quiet. This is the power of silence grow silently. Wow. And I just, it felt like it really went with that, Dave, because as you're, as you're learning, you know, because you confidence, I like some people because they can be cocky in a way that's like, oh, you, you, you're confident. You feel good in yourself.

You have to have that, you know, but then you got that, you go over the hill a little bit and you're like, ah, you're just cocky. Cocky. Yeah. You know, and it bothers you, you know, but. Also sometimes you've just put in the time. You're that good. You've, you've, you've earned that. And, and, but I bet the whole time you were earning it, you were doing it very silently.

You know, it was all those hours of practice or, or going to Utah, going to Redmond by yourself, learning your craft in that truck. That's going to build confidence. Confidence, exactly. And you ended up doing it silently, you know, all the way there, all the way back.

Two things one you should say that quote for the silent warrior luncheon this year yeah i think that's good that's good and then i think for me confidence is learning to believe in yourself you know you like you said you've done you've done a homework where you know what i can do this you know versus cocky where you you're letting everybody know my buddy's got a t-shirt it says be humble but let let i'll just say everybody know.

But that's but that's it jam i mean there's that such a fine line because to believe in yourself you got to be confident you got to have that air about you right otherwise you won't make that first no no oh i can't right and we talk about that all the time yeah talking about i can or i can't are you the can or can't person yeah you know it's making that you know making that shot or that basketball shot or throwing that pass or you know making it to again making it to redmond back, chaining,

you know, all your tires and no logbook violations and boom, I can do that. I'm confident. Right. I can do that. Yeah. Yeah. It's just a, it's, I don't think there's a better feeling than that. You know, when you have that confidence, especially when you, we, you've self earned it. Confidence in that shot, right, Jim? Yeah. I've been thinking about that, but I want to remain humble. I get it. But you and I talked pretty in depth about it Saturday.

And what Jim just explained is exactly what you did. You had the confidence only because you had educated, you had all the tools, you had the knowledge, you had the understanding, you didn't have the experience, but you had everything to create your ability to take that shot. You know what I mean? And that's, that's exactly what he's talking about. Yup. I mean, like hands down. I, I mean, I'll speak on it a little bit cause you brought it up, but.

I tested it, you know, I tested it not to 700, five yards, but to 500 yards. Right. And I got the data and I did research and I had three different apps and well, this one says this, this one says that and they're all kind of coinciding where, yeah, it did when, when the moment came, it's like, it's time to step up. This is what you've been practicing for and everything. Now the confidence was gained once that buck dropped. I'm like, it was like magic. So yeah, then the competence is like,

wow, this really is truly proven data and it works. Absolutely. And because there's lots of answers to my question, Jam, and hopefully I can get the, you pop out with the first one. But to make that shot and practicing that and to do that, why did you do that? Why did you practice that? Why did you need to practice that?

I mean, what's the end results? and it's not not filling your freezer yeah yeah i mean i mean mainly you're taking a life you know so for for me in this situation you know life is valuable whether you think you know human lives are more valuable than animal lives or however you look at it but to be blessed to be able to harvest an animal there has to be respect and when there's a life on the line I didn't want to take a shot and injure

the animal or gut shoot it or cause it unnecessary pain or miss. You know what I mean? Miss is the worst, right? But, well, not. It's not the worst. It's not the worst. Miss is almost a blessing. Yeah. No, you answered it just like I was after, Jim, because that's the what if. Right. You know, because why would you want to hurt that animal where it suffers? There's a, there's a hunter's prayer and I don't know the whole thing,

but it's like, I pray that I kill clean, but if I miss, I miss clean. Yes. I like that. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I just, you know, back to this, to this stuff, it's the confidence to do this run. Cause when we miss. Lives are on the line. Lives are on the line and it, and it hurts all of us. And, and yeah, I would rather have a clean miss, you know, than not. So yeah, it's great high road hauling, Super Dave, that confidence can be put in so many places, you know? Absolutely.

Education is clear in all the decisions we make you know i i don't know another word to use for you jam but i'm gonna say you had an educated guess and i don't know if guess is the right word but you made an educated decision you didn't just look at that animal through the scope and go i'm gonna raise the gun x inches pull the trigger right you had just like you said all the data I knew the bullet was going to drop 122 inches. Right. I knew how much to die. Right.

And it was like, honestly, having that experience is one of the best things that ever happened to me. To be able to, you know, I don't know how that would ever happen again. Yeah. Honestly. And I wasn't trying to do that. Yeah. And I tried to talk myself out of it a few times.

And then I just felt like, wow, this is the opportunity. and even leading up to the point it's like all right well you know do this and then see how it feels and then do this and see if you really want to do it and then everything was just lined up and it's like the rest was a out-of-body experience like something else took over throughout the rest of that process it was it was great i think i think your education i think that's what,

when when all else fails it's your education that kicks in it was just funny jam because i i talked only because we were at my brother-in-law's house and he's a pretty avid hunter and he takes his kids hunting and stuff. Sure. You know, they've been going for 25, 30 years. Right. And I told him about the shot you had. And he's like, oh man, he goes, I don't even attempt it. He said about 300 is my limit.

I don't even mess with anything beyond that, but he has none of the data you have. Right. Right. And then his wife, she doesn't go hunting. She's been on the trips, but she doesn't hunt. Right.

And it was kind of funny because she's like, well, how did he even see to hit it like like you took your scope off of it instead of adjusting for the shot her thought was you just raised the gun up and pulled the trigger right like you lifted the gun because I told her when you told me that was just impressive to me you know that bullet dropped 122 inches you know and you're like okay so you have to adjust for all that right where in her eyes oh you just lift

the gun up x amount right how many degrees do I raise the gun to make that shot. And, you know, as. I'll use the word i'm ignorant when it comes to that right so it was cool to learn your process and understand that you know what i mean because not knowing it i would sit there and think what do you do just raise the gun up you know man just so you know i had a weather meter with me like that i was plugging in different times throughout the day which didn't affect things as much as i But like.

You know, I learned a lot by just keep like running the weather and looking my calculations and doing all these things. And, you know, the first time I went hunting, I went with a group of guys that are hunters and all my rifle experience has been long range precision. Not that I was a, you know, now I would consider myself a long range precision shooter because it was precise until that day I wasn't, I was, you know, practicing.

Right. but they used to talk about well if it's 400 yards hold a half an elk high i'm like what is what does that even mean what is that like a full-grown elk a calf or a cow like how do you hold a half an elk high right at 400 yards and i mean that isn't data that's like that's winging it yeah i mean i mean that muzzle velocity i'm like it was there was a lot into it but honestly like having all that data made it easy yes like oh i got a dodge 12.2 and there was no wind which

made it just you know now i don't have to that that half to half the problem is eliminated more than half and it's just like you know and i got on that that got behind the rifle and my reticle was just the solidest it's ever been it wasn't moving with anything and i was like Yeah, it's time to go. Yeah. So how do we take all of that that you just said and relate it to the Redmond run?

Well, you know what I mean? All the data you have, all the research you've done, all the education you created for yourself and what other people had told you, we need to look at that and apply that to this run. Right. Do we got guys going out there holding a half elk high? Right. Or they got the data in the dialing?

Exactly. difference exactly and honestly i think it boils down to interest in what you're doing yeah it's you it's your passion and i and i think that's you know but i but on that i think there's a there's a combination that me and dave would want as owners that you you find that passion but you also you also take that passion for whatever you have and let it bleed over into a lot of things in your life. Sure. Right, Dave? Absolutely. You're driving your relationship, your kids.

You know, some people are so passionate about this, but they miss letting that bleed over into their other things, which... Driving a truck where you could hurt somebody is where that needs to bleed over, I think. I think it's the importance. And there's lots of jobs like that. There's a lot of dangerous jobs. Yeah. We've talked about, you're talking about having passion bleed over to other areas of your life. And we've talked about this.

The way you do one thing is probably how you do everything. That's a spot on one. And I joke, but I used to, my joke used to be like, I could tell a lot about a man by how deep he squats. And I'm not talking about somebody with a hurt back or bad knees. I'm talking about a healthy person. I would learn a lot just by watching him squat. Like, oh, he's not really squatting. Like, I wonder what else he's cheating on. He didn't really put that basket up. He only put it on the curb.

When you return your carts, do you push it into the other cart? Do you lock it in there? Or do you just throw it in the corral? So hopefully the wind will blow it out. Yes. Yes. Which one are you, BD?

Jam, I just, there was a kid, a mom made her daughter go put the cart back. And the cart, the little corral had like three carts in it. And both were at the, hers was the third cart. The two were kind of aimlessly put in there, kind of crooked. And hers didn't fit, you know, how they like develop into the next cart, right?

And they fold into each other and she just kind of threw it in there and i showed up and like my cart i would have just left it outside the corral and i'm like i you know and she's walking off and i kind of did the head shake like oh man right right and i like i had to straight everybody that watched me had to be like wow this dude's anal about his carts because i had to fix the corral had to push him halfway into the middle point stack them you know what i mean and

i'm like okay all right i left this better than i found it i'm good with that but i want to get back to the passion part. And I think we're talking about passion when in actuality, I want to switch to the word professionalism, right? What you did was a passion, Jim. You were passionate about how well you hunted. You were passionate about gathering your data.

We need everyone to have a level of professionalism and it's a professionalism in your craft, which could be a passion, if it's a passion of yours, you know, we have a lot of people here that they want to drive a truck and they want to be perfect and they have a passion for it. And we have some others that aren't as passionate. No fault to their own. They can come in and do it just fine.

But be professional. Yes. We need a level of professionalism and knowing how to chain, knowing where to chain, knowing when to chain, knowing how fast to go with chains, knowing to know you have bungees on your chains. You know what I mean? All of these things, you need the data, you need the education. I'll say the words you need the passion, but you need the level of professionalism because we need to be professional out there. We need to raise the bar.

You know, the majority of the accidents that happen on that I-70 corridor from out-of-state trucks that don't know this. Here we are, a local trucking company, and my eyes have been opened to that I-70 corridor this last two weeks. With all the snowfall, I mean, last week was rough. It was, I seriously, man, my gut hurt. And that's no lie, man. I told Jim, I had two drinks Saturday, and I'm not a drinker. Like when I got home, I was, I was physically and mentally done for the week.

And Janet asked me, she's like, are, are you guys good? Is this, are you prepared for this? We're in it. You know what I mean? We got to win it. And, and the thing is we can do it. It's really not that big a deal. You know, it's just a, it's just another step up in our game that we can show everyone how bad-ass we are, how well we can do the job and how easy it can be done. And, you know, we've got people out there making it look extremely easy.

We've got some others that we need to coach up and help through the process. They're on their way to be becoming professionals. Yes. I'll tell you where. So, and, and sorry to interrupt you, Jim. I was interrupting you. I just, you know, I have to let everyone know that's done this. And I know we've mentioned it a couple of times in the podcast. You are a warrior if you've made this run already, right? You're a warrior. If you've changed, you're a warrior, even if you've made a mistake.

Because you went out and you tried to do it. That's way more, you know, we talk about this. I don't know. I can't remember if you have a saying for it, Dan, but you know, you talk about the fighter, the guy sitting outside the ring criticizing the Pfizer fighter that's losing his nose bloodied. What gives him the right? Right. What gives him the right? You know, I, I'm not the man in the ring. They were out there doing it. Kudos to them. I'm impressed. Right. And let us help you get better.

There's a couple of guys that struggled a little bit more than other guys. Yeah. Right. Those guys are going to be better drivers. The next time they go out to Redmond, especially if they have good weather. Right. It's going to seem like the easiest thing they've done in a long time. Like, right. I just need to drive there and not worry about weather and not worry about adverse and not where they're going to go out there.

To rock it out or they're going to hit some weather and understand like oh i remember throwing chains last time here's what i did wrong here's how i fix it that experience is going to make them better yeah and i mean listen we gave a we gave out a ton of wrong advice with the weather exemption you know what i mean we didn't help anyone with giving the wrong advice oh also apology to jr because we were talking about personal convenience yesterday i told

him the wrong thing because he has been telling people you can't use it and i told him the wrong thing that you can't and then we corrected that before the podcast we looked up the law gotcha but it can't but it can't be abused you know what i mean it has to it everything's going to be being used i want to go back dave listening to your your the key on professional that jams shot there was was passionate, but except for being paid, you became professional. You're a professional hunter.

And, and I, and I know they're passionate about it and he's passionate about it, but I'm, so I'm thinking, you know, a professional athlete, they, they get paid, but then I, then I worked all around in my mind. You're a professional truck driver. You are getting paid. Yes. You, you are getting paid. So become professional, you know, take that, take that next leap and, and, and maybe it'll become passionate for you. Yeah. Honestly, I'll go to God on that. I'm,

Yeah. My story has glory. It was, it was, it was crazy. And then one other thing, Jam, and I couldn't, well, I didn't have it with me, but you know, I mentioned to you all the deer on the course playing golf this weekend. And, you know, Dave joked with me, cause I know the elk up in, up in Estes, Estes is huge too, all in the parks and stuff like that. But I so badly wanted to take my phone and hold it up to my range finder. Cause a deer was literally like 25 yards in front of me.

Here's my shot. I'm trying not to hit the deer with the golf ball and I couldn't, I couldn't get it to work to send to you. So there was some big bucks on the course. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. There was, there was does or bucks. There was all sorts of, you know, animals. And I'm like, cause you know, and, and the girls, they were like, I think I'm going to hit it. I think I'm going to hit it. Cause we couldn't, we couldn't really go. And I'm like, wait, we gotta go.

You know, I mean, I guess if you hit the deer with the golf ball, hopefully it doesn't really hurt. I don't know. Those animals just get so used to that. They do, Dave. When I was spreading fertilizer on that golf course up in Estes Park, man, I'm literally like pushing them with the truck. Get them out of the way. You'd pepper them with the, I would think, okay, I'll rattle them with some fertilizer, the pellets. Because I tell you what, it gets your damn attention when you do that.

For elk or what? Elk. Really? Didn't phase them. Really? Didn't phase them. And I mean, I'm telling you, you, when you get peppered with that thing, you know it. As, as, as they're little, they're little BB stings. Yeah. When we've, when we turned it on. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. There was a coyote, same kind of thing. They walked right up to the carts. Wow. Like, like people have fed the coyote, which is really wrong. Yeah. You know, cause it. Did you guys pet the deer?

Just about Dave. I'll tell you what, they must've known it wasn't hunting season down there or something because those elk and the deer and as soon as soon as that first line and that first day of hunting season they get smart yeah i'll have to get it from jenny but she literally i'm like you're going to take a selfie with the deer and it like dawned on her her ball was just there in like 20 yards so she did it looked like she's got a selfie

with the deer standing right behind her kind of like who did that with the cow at the dairy had this selfie yeah somebody did uh sergio was it sergio yeah sergio did it i think oh i had another question from the audience from martinez I almost forgot. Better late than never, I guess.

It's for Martinez's, oh, oh. Go, go ahead. Go ahead. Hey, good morning. Question for the brothers. Now that we're all running Utah and laying over, wanted to know, have the brothers ever thought about using CLC, which stands for Corporate Lodge Cards for Our Hotels? Thanks, Bam Bam Dolor 19. No, I guess we'll have to ask or get learning and heard of it. Learning every day because we're looking into other gas cards so that we can gas card, gas at a fuel, excuse me, fuel at a different station.

That's a program that you enroll in. I think it probably costs money too, but you get discounts at lodging and probably restaurants for being commercial. Mm-hmm. For survivors and stuff. I know the card we're looking into will be our fuel card, but then you can get a personal card that every time you fuel, even though you're using ours, you can use yours for discounts. Oh, that's right. A personal card at the station. Right. And you can go in and get, build points. Yeah, build points.

It's like perks points, right? You can go in and get a free coffee or a hot dog or chips or soda or whatever. Free can of chew. There you go. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Cause we're after no SIGs and Rigs. Oh, look at that. No trans and Trump. I see what you did there. So I just, I got to throw in one more shout out and it's, it's kind of funny you guys. I hadn't really thought about it because it's been nice to have a podcast with no politics, right?

I mean, we're not ranting and raving and talking about this and talking about that. And now we just have to wait and see what goes on and we hope for the best. Right. But I want to throw a thank you out there to everyone that jumped in, voted. You know, I had Lexi and Andrew. I really worked them over pretty hard in the wash bay about, have you guys registered to vote? And I've been on them for six months and, you know, I, I hit them a week or two before and then got right down to the wire.

I was so proud of them too. they came in and they were like, Hey, I just want to let you know I voted. We, we got registered and voted. It was last minute, but we went and did it. And they were so excited about it. And then I've just had so many other people approach me that, you know, have been thankful for being involved and getting involved and talking to people and understanding the truths and, or, or, you know, beliefs. You can, I, everybody can believe what they want.

You know what I mean? But I get, I'm just thankful for the engagement. And I just want to say that I truly believe the majority of our people are engaged and it was it was it's been an exciting process.

So exciting right by the way i mean i know we talked about taking the signs down but congrats to gabe evans i was just gonna say that jam right we didn't know last wednesday right and we got the house yep yep the senate the presidency it feels good to win yeah yeah it's it there could be a some change happening here in colorado you know with gabe's seat that puts that four and four and that's pretty interesting nice that's pretty damn interesting so yeah yeah good stuff.

All right, everybody, don't forget to like and subscribe to the Challenge 23 podcast. Hit that follow button. Also, don't forget to go back to listen to episode 72 to help find Amber's mom. Links to her story will be in today's show notes. Let's save the creed and get on out. Let's do it. Together, we face and overcome all that stands before us. Together, we are free. Together, we joyfully create honest value for those we serve.

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