Is It Really Goodbye?
Well I certainly hope so, with circumstances allowing me to take a few months away from taxi, and if other projects work out, like finally finishing my newest book and getting a good publishing deal, I will be permanently away from a world I first entered in September 1987. I have too many good reasons to leave to ever want to come back to the thankless task that is driving cab. Thankless? That seems a harsh assessment because passengers do appreciate a good ride, often showing their appreciation by tipping me more than I warrant and deserve, along with verbally expressing an esteem for obvious taxi professionalism.
While yes, that's great but my body has been telling me for a long time now that it is tired, that it needs a prolonged rest, and I damn well will be providing that, just exiting out of the cab for how many weeks a balm for body, mind and soul. But if a miracle happens in October, and the resurgent Mariners baseball team makes it to the World Series, then I will be sorely tempted to come back and work what would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Having early on worked a NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four Tournament here in Seattle, I would enjoy the exhilaration of being in the middle of a city-wide celebration. It would be fun, something taxi has long ceased to be for me, fun. Drudgery, yes but pleasurable, no. Screw taxi? Yes and no.
In the upcoming weeks and months, expect a different approach to this blog, shifting away from daily concerns to book reviews and even a serial novella, "The Five Thousand Dollar Cab Drive (Plus Expenses)." For you Charles Dickens fans, you might remember that the majority of his books were published in weekly serials in the newspapers. No tale of two cities here, but two states, Washington and Montana, and maybe three if you count Idaho's panhandle.
The books I will be reviewing, in no particular order:
"Super Pumped---The Battle For Uber" by Mike Isaac
"Today In The Taxi" by Sean Singer, poetry by a once cabbie
'Transportation Network Companies And Taxis---The Case Of Seattle" by Craig A. Leisy. My blog is quoted therein.
I will also be writing short essays on all subjects taxi. One possible title could be "How American Taxi's Inherent Criminality Welcomed Uber and Lyft." Yes, stuff like that.
Uber No Friend of Mine
Uber reported its first quarterly free cash flow of 382 million dollars since it started trading stocks in 2019, but it also had a quarterly loss of 2.6 billion dollars. But what really got my attention was their 4 1/2 minute average response time from getting the call to picking up the passenger. That is really good. At one point not that long ago, the average passenger calling Seattle Yellow could expect a response pickup time of 5-15 minutes depending on which part of the city you called from. Of course those days are long gone! Whose fault is that? The City of Seattle and King County for providing Uber an open passage to our customer base, thus destroying in mere months what took decades to build. Oh well go to hell was their message. And hell is where we reside with no place to hide!
New Haiku
thimbleberries a
pleasant surprise reddening
my eager fingers
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Most recently I have been walking daily in the Llandover Woods, 14499 3rd, Avenue Northwest, Seattle, and have been coming upon these wonderful berries, rubus paraviforus, in larger numbers than I have usually experienced. They are very soft, breaking easily once picked, the juice reddening your finger tips. Yum!
So what's gonna happen to your new cab then? Why replace it if you were going to just retire?? You mentioned yourself that every cab needs to be out on the streets servicing calls and the customers that are desperate for rides.
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