Trouble with Routes

I actually started on time today!  I was so excited to start work today since it could be a great night.  It is a Thursday before a long holiday (we get a lot of tourist come to see our amazing city over long weekends), the Warriors are playing at home for the semi finals, Hillary Clinton is in the city and I am feeling well rested and eager to pick up amazing people!

Tonight started with the airport, like always.  My first ride was a short but my passenger made the ride awesome.  He was here to put in new exercise equipment at the Ritz.  He said it was more updated computer system that will track your progress no matter where you are.  Very cool.  We also talked about how he moved into a new place and was suppose to built a shelving unit he bought at IKEA but the shelves were not the correct size for where he needed to put them.  He was all excited about buying a router and wood to make his own shelves.  I asked if he had actually made shelves before and he said no but he couldn’t wait to try.  That really inspired me to use the knowledge I received at HD to create something soon.  Maybe on Sunday, since I have the day off.  

After dropping him off I quickly went back to the airport for the short (a ride than can take me back to the airport in less than 30 minutes).  I picked up a mother and daughter who were coming just for the weekend to SF.  Mom had been but daughter had not yet.  The daughter was excited to see SF but was really interested in what was going on with her friends back home (her Mom asked).  I asked what their plans were for the weekend and Mom said they were not going to do the normal “tourist” things except the Golden Gate Bridge, Muir Woods, shopping and maybe the cable cars.  I suggested the cable car on California Street since it really isn’t a “tourist” cable car and it pretty awesome ride at night with the lights.  I also let them know about the whales that have been spotted in the Bay over the past few weeks so they might still want to go to Fisherman’s Wharf/Pier 39 area.  Hope they enjoy themselves and find a lot to do so they come back again and again.

I picked up 4 people from the hotel I dropped of the mother and daughter.  The people were not going really that far but with the one way roads and traffic it took a bit of time.  They were okay with both.  Actually they told me about a time they were with their boss and he flag a taxi to take them about 100 feet.  They taxi driver almost laughed at them but took them anyway.  They all laughed and asked if I have done that.  I said, yes I have but most of the time it is up a hill.  I let them know I didn’t mind.  Happy their other taxi driver didn’t mind either.  Also the lady with the Chewbacca mask came up as well.  It was so funny!  Only about half of the passengers knew what he was talking about.  Last week I had a passenger say I looked kind of like that Chewbacca lady.  I took it as a compliment.  She seems happy and extremely friendly.

I dropped off a passenger at 14th and Anza so I thought I would stop off at the California Academy of Science.  On Thursday nights they have adult nights, so adults can enjoy the museum without children in site as well service alcohol.  I heard it is an amazing night.  I got a little turned around when finding the museum and came “at it” from a different way than I expected.  That should have been okay but I sat there surrounded by people who were looking for their Uber/Lyfts.  What I saw just made me wonder what these young people are thinking.  Most waited and waited for their car to come (at least 6-10 taxis waited there as well) then had to ask 3-5 cars if this was their car.  Crazy!  I even watched a couple ask 3 cars if it was their car in about 5 minutes, waited on the steps for another 10 minutes then run and check another 5 cars finally finding their car.  Does this sound like something smart?  I don’t think so.  How is that more convenient?  I don’t know and I don’t get it.  

I did get a ride out of the California Academy of Science but it took about 30 minutes of wait outside.  When I did get a ride I made it out of Golden Gate Park with no problem but didn’t turn right just after leaving the park.  I knew as soon as I crossed Fulton I was going the wrong way.  I apologized to the passenger and turned off the meter until we got back to the correct route.  He said, his Lyft driver earlier got so lost in Golden Gate Park, it took him 30 minutes just to figure out how to get to the right place!  His ride wasn’t even 30 minutes away from the museum.  I did feel bad but he seemed okay with it.  

My next passenger was a guy I have picked up before, according to him.  Nothing we talked about made me remember him, I hate when that happens.  We get almost to his place and for some reason I wasn’t sure where I was going again.  Lucky I was in the right area and it all worked out.  

Happy I spent the rest of the night, not thinking about where I was going, not having any problems with rides.  Sometimes if I think of a route, I cannot imagine where I am suppose to go but if I just go on instinct it is really easy.  I guess I just need to have a little bit more faith on my knowledge.

Thank you again for reading my blog!  Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing and living it!

Late start

I have been starting late or not working at all on Wednesdays because of a family matter.  I love to spend as much time as I can with family but this has been a stressful time.

Today I went straight to the airport, picked up a lady who didn’t seem happy at all.  I tried to chit chat a bit but her answers were short and sweet so I left her alone.  I just let her know about a change of routes because of high traffic.  I was polite when she was finishing with paying me and wished her a wonderful trip and flight home.

Not much else was happening in the city tonight. The San Jose Sharks are now in the Stanley Cup playoffs.  They have never made it this far and I am very excited for them!  Even though I am a Detroit Red Wings fan.  Golden State Warriors are also in the playoffs, so it is a very exciting time in our area!  The Warriors have to win tonight and the next 2(?) games in order to go to the finals.  Hope they do!  I also hope the Sharks win Lord Stanley’s Cup.

Well, I need to go to bed now!  Thanks again for reading my blog.  I hope this weekend there are fun things to report!  I may have to finish writing about past days of excitement, haha.  Well, I should still do that, soon.

Full Moon Saturday!

It was a full moon Saturday and it was AMAZING!  The moon was beautiful and orange.  Every amazing passenger got into my taxi!  I was super busy but each ride were pretty short.  That is okay, it was a wonderful night!

I started at the airport with a very nice lady who was going to a SID convention starting on Sunday.  She was from India but had lived in Japan for the past 15 years.  She was so excited to visit SF again and do things she was not able to do the last time she was here.  She will not have much time during her stay but she will have next weekend to do something.  She was thinking Yosemite but didn’t want to drive since she had never driven in the US before.  In Japan and India they drive on the opposite side of the road.  She will check out to see if she can find a tour company that can actually take her to Yosemite or maybe someplace a little farther out of the city.

Flagged in the Fisherman's Wharf area doesn’t happen often but I picked up 3 people, I am assuming they were Grandparents with a preteen granddaughter.  They wanted to go to Pac Heights area for pizza and thought it might be in walking distance of their hotel on Mission.  I said, it was a very long walk but doable.  He said, well maybe we will go to closer to the hotel since they were a little tired.  The lady suggested we go down Lombard Street.  They were so excited and happy to go down the curvy street.  I also suggested that they go down the steepest street in the city since it was just a few blocks away and they were thrilled!  If you have not gone down Filbert Street off of Hyde you are missing a great view and amazing fun ride.  I finally took them to the restaurant they were asking about.  They said I was the best driver they had ever had!  I had a bit of knowledge that they had not received from the Hop-on-Hop-off bus tour they had been on earlier in the day.  I am always happy to tell something awesome about my city.

Picked up my Giggling couple again!  They are such a cute couple and I love chatting with them about everything.  One is now working a place that helps addicted people find places to live.  He loves his job and is trying to make a difference in SF.  We did talk about politics, which I try to steer clear of except the silly Trump stuff.  I also love that I know where they live without any help, except maybe their actual door.  

When you hang out in the same area you often pick up the same people over and over again.  Tonight it was the smoke shop guy.  I have picked up not only him but his partner, makes every ride even better!  He had also even got a new tattoo on his back.  He was sitting kind of strange so I asked if he was okay.  His back was still very sensitive so sitting back would hurt.  Poor guy but he showed me a photo of his new tattoo and it is awesome!  I hope I can see it again when it is finished.

I picked up a great guy who is interning to become a hair stylist.  He went to beauty school already but to work at this salon he needs to intern there for a year and a half plus pass “testing” for the salon.  He has about 6 more months and he is on his hair cutting part of the testing.  He asked me if I needed a haircut but I am really not ready to get my hair cut but I said my daughter is really in need of a hair cut. (Sorry I still love you!)  We exchanged business cards and maybe my daughter will call him.  So exciting!

Uber is on everyone's minds these days even my passengers.  I got into a conversation with a male passenger who wanted to know why I wasn’t an Uber driver.  I let him know my feelings about driving with them, non regulations, little to no background checks, so many of them out there that a driver can no longer make much money during a shift, they have to pay up to 30% to Uber and a few more things.  We ended up talking about why people switched to Uber/Lyft which is always fun.  I do think the taxi industry needed a kick in it's pants.  I still hear about smelly taxis, drivers not wanting to take credit cards, drivers who drive like maniacs, drivers who do not want to drive out of the “hot” areas, or not take passengers short distances.  My passenger agreed with me.  He prefers taking taxis but where he lives, it is hard for him to get a taxi to pick him up, it is also hard for a taxi to take him back home or even take a credit card.  I explained to him about the new Arro app, where the passenger can pay while in the taxi and the driver cannot say anything.  Sounds a little underhanded but if it makes the passenger happy, I am all for it!  He was so excited to have me as a driver and said he wished I could teach more drivers to be like me.  That made me feel real good!  Plus after dropping him off, I stopped for donuts.  

My last ride of the night I was driving down Mission Street and a male flagged me but a female was being hugged by another male, she was the one who got into my taxi.  I said, that looked like fun.  She said it was very complicated, she is a manager of a Latin club/restaurant.  I told her I understood since I liked to drive in the Mission.  We talked about her night, she had 8 shots tonight.  I asked if that was normal for her and apparently it is. She does try to eat healthy, drinks tons of water and hikes a lot.   

Well that is about all for tonight!  Getting a little sleepy.  My wonderful daughter set me up with a nice desktop computer and screen so it is so much easier than using the tablet we thought would work for me.  I love the tablet and will be sad it is gone but I love that I am not struggling with so many things.  I have the best kids!!

Thank you again for reading my blog!  I love writing it and hope you enjoy it.  Mistakes and all.  :)

Almost a full moon... You can tell

Last night my first ride was coming out of the airport (like normal) going to the Buena Park area.  The guy was coming to visit his nephew for a night and then going on a yearly birthday trip to warm springs.  This year they are going to a Buddhist warm spring.  His only concern was there was no wifi and no alcohol.  He said it was for only 4 days and he could manage because of the company he would be in.  He has taken the same kind of vacation with friends for the past 10 years.  Always having a wonderful time.  Plus he had this amazing bag that was a carry on but looked almost like a medical bag.  It was this amazing reddish soft leather bag.  Super cute.

I was surprised that I actually made the short back to the airport!  I don’t drive fast going either way but this time there was little to no traffic going there and back so it was easy!!  I was able to go the “front” of the line :)

My next ride was super excited to get home to his 3 year old little boy.  He had been gone for 10 days and couldn’t wait to spend time with him.  My passenger used facetime to keep in touch but it just isn’t the same.  He had many plans over the weekend with his son and family.

Since my last ride was just a few minutes outside of the airport so I went back to the airport.  This time I picked up two women.  The first lady seemed very nice and polite but the second lady….  She dropped off her suitcase outside of the taxi on the curb with the handle up and just got into the back of the taxi.  The other nice lady helped me put her carry on in the back and she said thank you very much.  I asked where they are going and the nice lady gave me cross streets and the rude lady said “no it is this exact address”.  At this point, I figured she was not someone who took questions nicely.  After leaving the airport there is a little dip in the road and the rude lady said it felt like they were still on the bumpy airplane.  The nice lady said she thought it was lots of fun, like a small rollercoaster.  They chated about work and the rude girl kept complaining about co workers and the nice lady would say something nice about that co worker.  The nice lady got all excited about a story on the tv in the back of the taxi about a lion cub.  She even got more excited when it came back on again and asked the rude lady if she could get one (no, they were not together just co workers).  The rude lady said, no, you cannot have a lion in the city.  The nice lady said, I know but look how cute they are!  Oh, and while we were driving the rude girl kept reading her text message from someone else.  The message were things like, “why are you ditching me”, “you need to drop your friend off and get here” and more like that.  The rude lady kept saying, “aren't’ these funny?”.  I didn’t think so.  So when I dropped them off and took their suitcases the nice lady was really nice and thanked me for getting her suitcase out for her.  The rude lady tried to turn the whole ride around with a nice thank you.  Just thinking if she had been polite the whole time, it would have been a great ride into the city.

Picked up a lady who looked really pissed outside of a dance club on 11th Street.  She got into my taxi to go to the Clift Hotel.  I asked how her night was going and she said terrible and then called someone.  I am assuming it was the person that didn’t help make her night nicer.  She kept saying things like, “why are you doing this to me?”, “why are you playing with me?”,  “You are suppose to be there for me this weekend since you know how hard it will be”, “I thought you loved me, why are you doing this?” and “baby do you love me as much as I love you?”  I think she was over 30 and should have been someone who didn’t need this male's support.  After a few minutes of talking to him like this, she started calling him Baby and Boo because he had turned the conversation around on her and made her the bad guy.  I was really embarrassed for her and him too.  When we got to her stop and she paid, I told her, I hoped she had a better night.

I dropped off an awesome couple in the area around where Candlestick Park used to be and after they got out of my taxi a crow, caw, cawed, very loudly!  I jumped!  I am not sure if the passengers heard it or not but I left really quickly.  All I could think of was the movie “The Birds”.  If you haven’t seen it, I would suggest seeing it!  Pretty amazing movie but a scary ton of birds.

Sounds like a super fun night of almost full moon?  It was!  I have the best passengers even if some of them make me a little crazy.

Hope you have enjoyed my night as much as I did.  Thank you again for reading.  I love telling my stories.

Not much is happening.

I heard this Sunday was Bay To Breakers.  I am not working so I am not going to be involved with the crazy race.  There is a pre expo on Friday and Saturday.  Maybe that will make it busy.  I am hoping since it will be busy since it has been a little slow lately.  I have had a few interesting passengers but nothing too exciting.  I feel all the exciting people are all waiting out there to get into my taxi but haven’t found me yet.  Hahaha.  

The week before Mother’s Day was a great week in tips for me, especially when I mentioned visiting or seeing Mom.  Sometimes using holidays in conversation can help with getting good tips.  I don’t use it as a reason for getting better tips, I use it more to connect with my passengers.  It seems a lot of people who live in SF’s parents do not live close so a lot of people spent the day with friends.  The day was perfect so I hope they had a fun day.

I really think I am watching too much tv, I don’t seem to have much time to write my blog.  I need to stop watching tv, I think.  Downside, I think there are so many amazing tv shows out there now.  Game of Thrones is AMAZING and I cannot wait for the next episode.  I also like all the old standbys of Big Bang Theory, The Fixer Upper and Awkward as well.

Thank you again for reading my blog.  

Happy night

Today didn’t really start great for me.  After taking my dog to the dog park, she threw up several times during the morning and wasn’t acting herself.  Happy after she took a long nap she was better, eating and acting like normal.  I don’t think she ate anything at the dog park, I tend to watch her very closely especially since there was another dog.  She does well with other dogs but I like to know she is safe and happy at all times.

After getting home I was able to sleep, which is a great thing since I didn’t sleep good the night before.  I am struggling with sleep right now.  I sleep great during the day but not so much at night.  Working nights is really messing with my sleep patterns.   

The airport tonight was moving!  Not real fast but much faster than it had before.  I was able to get a good ride into the city and make it back to the airport to get another great ride into the city.  After then I seemed to have someone in my taxi about every 20-30 minutes.  That is slow and steady for a Tuesday night.

I did talk to a waitress about what was happening in the city.  We shared views about the cost of living in the city.  We both agreed you have to work way to hard to be able to afford to live in the city.  She thought you have to have an amazing paying job to really be able to afford and to enjoy the city the way it can and should be enjoyed.  I think those people that make enough to afford to live in the city and maybe enjoy the city do not actually go out as much as they had before since the cost of living in SF is outrageous.  I do think people still go out but not like they did, maybe 2-5 years ago.  Now they pick and choose what days they go out instead of going out every night.  

On Friday night I picked up this young man on Mission and 17th St and he wanted to go to 24th St and Bryant.  I turned right onto 18th so I could turn to the left on Valencia since you can no longer make a left turn off of Mission St.  He wasn’t happy about me not being able to make that left but seemed to understand.  I asked him how his night went and he said he just got off of work then went for a few drinks with friends.  I asked him what kind of work he did, he said he was a chef for the bourgeoisie.  He then said he didn’t carry cash because normal people no longer have too (I thought that was a bourgeoisie statement).  He only takes Uber because the taxi business was gone because they suck.  I said, you are in a taxi (I thought you are very bourgeoisie).  He said, I really meant to get into an Uber because that is the best way around the city.  I said, you flagged a taxi (I again thought you are very bourgeoisie).  He said, well, you were there when I needed to get food.  He asked me why I didn’t drive for Uber since the taxi is almost gone.  I told him I much prefer the options that driving a taxi gives me as well as i am making more money than an Uber driver does.  I didn’t argue or make a big deal about his attitude but I really did want to toss him out of my taxi.  He ended up giving me a $5.00 tip.  Guess he didn’t really mind slumming in a taxi plus maybe I changed his mind about taking a taxi next time.

Happy my next ride was an awesome guy who gave me free tickets to see the USS Pampanito.  He said he was helping to restore this amazing submarine.  I am always excited to meet people who have cool jobs in the city.  I guess I never thought that the submarine still needed work.  I figured it was restored once and that was it, little did I know something is always getting broken on the sub.  Tourist do not always stay where they are supposed to stay.  Sad, we need to keep our National Treasures safe.

Often in the past I have heard how much of an awesome driver I am.  I hate to brag (I also hate it when people say that!!  Sorry!) but I have often received 100%+ for a tip.  That means that I not only do my job the way I should, letting them tell me the way they would like to go, talking to them about many topics, letting them know about all the cool things to do in the city and just being plain friendly.  I love almost every passenger that sits in my taxi.  

It is time for bed for me.  It is getting late and tomorrow is another long and exciting day for me!  Plus my kitty Loki is purring and walking all over my keyboard making it hard to type.  Haha!  Love her!

Thank you very much for reading my blog!  It makes me feel so great knowing others enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them!

Depression again

I haven’t written in a while because I have been very depressed.  Life here is wonderful and I am trying to do things to help me get out of this depression.  I am eating a little bit better, trying to get out of the house a little bit more and thinking about the positive things in my life.  I have an outward appearance of being happy but inside I am very sad and really just want to sleep and stay in bed.  I am even struggling with writing this blog post, which I love doing.  I love my job and I love to share things with you but when I feel like this, I just do not have the “time” to write my blog.  It makes me sad and the depression keeps coming back no matter what I do.  Such a horrible cycle.  Summer is coming so the tourists will be here and I will be busy again.  That normally helps with the depression.  I am still keeping track of things that happen to be during my nights via voice memo on my phone.  Much easier than trying to remember them after I get home and I am super tired.  

So I am doing what I can to survive and make every day count but it is tough.  I know it will be over soon.  Summer is coming.

Thank you again for reading my blog.