A Quick Introduction/Bio to This Particular Blogger

Hello everyone and welcome to this newly paved avenue and street of the taxi blogger-sphere, if indeed one exists, or is it just all my imagination?  77 fares this pass weekend tells me that indeed it does.  Seattle, my friends, is truly a taxi-user city though few would guess that.  For most Americans people only take taxis in New York City and Chicago.  Everyone else drives their own automobiles.  But I can tell you that taxi use in on the rise,so jump into my taxi blog week after week and bump along the roadway with me.  By the way, you can thank my friend Laura, a Brooklyn native, for this at least weekly missive.  She has kept bugging me to do this, not dissimilar to the drunken bachlorettes poking and prodding me every few anguished feet.  At least I will never have to toss her out of the damn taxi for at this point she refuses to ever ride with me again, despising the fact that I am still driving a taxi cab all these years later since 1989, the year we met. As I began this utter madness back in late summer 1987, Laura has heard too much about taxi.  Maybe that is why she encouraged to do this, so someone else will have to listen to stories she can no longer stand or tolerate.  She has had enough of taxi.  Like most long-time drivers, I can say the same but next weekend, beginning Saturday morning I will be back at it, my schedule being two days on, five days off.  What a dream job, you say, ain't Joe such a lucky guy!?  Well, all I can say, after I recount some real-live actual nightmares you might begin questioning my sanity, which would be okay as all cabbies are deranged, we all know that.  I make the joke that taxi is one occupation that when given a neuro-psychological panel of testing, and failing, your hand is warmly taken as you are welcomed to the dazed fraternity that are taxi drivers.  And a fraternity it is, national and world-wide, all the drivers I have talked to during my various travels welcoming me like a long-lost brother, everyone recognizing a fellow veteran of the taxi road, the unique experience of residing beneath the shining top-light a bonding experience, that glorious beacon welcoming one and all to your taxi.  And indeed, welcome to my world, one I have come to simultaneously love and hate.  The only time it is boring is when you are waiting, waiting for the next fare, then roaring off with a complete stranger to bar or hospital or home, sharing the most intimate few minutes.  Clearly, there is nothing like taxi.  It is literally accelerated madness, stepping on the gas and flying down the road.  I can only hope you enjoy the ride.  If not of course, you are free to hop out at the next corner.  Don't concern yourself with the fare.  The ride is on me.