Paradise Driver

Monday, February 19, 2007

ITS PRESIDENT'S DAY

I HAD TOTALLY FORGOTTEN

But that explains why my counters have "nose-dived" this weekend.

I am from an age where we celebrated Lincoln's Birthday (February 12th) and Washington's Birthday (February 22nd). Never did adapt to this consolidation.

Everyone is either getting out of town for the long weekend or are still busy shoveling their drives and walks. More and likely, the latter.

Tuesday is Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday). The population of New Orleans is going to go all out for their celebration. They've had 26 homicides since the first of the year. Maybe more, I haven't checked since Saturday.

As usual, I slept most of the day away. Awoke before sunset. Grabbed a bite to eat and sat down on my couch to see if there was anything worth watching on the tube. After 15 minutes, I was sawing logs again. Oh, well.

THE PICTURE GALLERY

PARKER RANCH
BIG ISLAND

***

"Let's all be careful out there!"

Sunday, February 18, 2007

END OF MY WEEK

BRAIN FARTS

I wonder if the folks at NASA "do launch"?

Sushi:

If you roll it in corn meal and fry it up, it tastes just like fish.

*** *** ***

I must have slipped through a rip in the fabric of space-time last night and slipped back to last year.

It was that good!

20 fares, 3 were $20 or better and 3 were less than $10. The other 14 fell between those bookends. Metered as much last night as my weekly total has been in the recent past. It felt really, really good.

Every ride was just common decent ordinary people. Not overly intoxicated, not obnoxious. Our everyday "bread and butter" business. The people I seldom even mention.

BLOGGER DOESN'T SEEM TO LIKE THE USE OF "TABLES"
KEEP SCROLLING DOWN FOR THE REST OF THIS POST.

RUN	FROM:	TO:	COMMENT
1	Renaissance	Sports Page	Couple From Norman. OK
2	Shops At Wailea	Henrys	Kama'ainas from O'ahu
3	Safeway	MKaui Lu	Tourists from Edmondton, Canada
4	Renaissance	Kihei Ali'i Kai	Tourists from Vancouver Island, Canada
5	Luana Kai	Sansei	Solo Tourist lady going out on the town
6	Haleakala Gardens	"Triangle"	Emplyee going to work
7	Kihei Shores	Four Seasons	Employee going to work
8	Koki Street	"Triangle"	3 guys going out on the town
9	Roy's	The Grand	Dinner return
10	The Grand	Sansei	Dinner and drinks
11	"Triangle"	The Palms	Dinner return
12	Haleakala Gardens	Welakahao Street	Kama'ainas visiting relatives
13	Sansei	The Grand	Bar close
14	Sansei	The Grand	Bar close
15	Maui Coast	Maui Lu	Tourists
16	OGG	Maui Banyan's	Delayed America West arrival
17	FoodLand	Paradise Gardens	Bar close
18	FoodLand	Wailea Elua Village	Bar close
19	FoodLand	Humupea Street	Employee going home
20	Hoolike Street	Maui Banyan's	Tourist returning from relative's house

Today is my 5th anniversary of driving cab on Mau'i. Sometimes it seems like it has been a lot longer and other days it seems as if it was only yesterday.

THE PICTURE GALLERY

PARKER RANCH
BIG ISLAND

***

"Let's all be careful out there!"

Friday, February 16, 2007

I AM NOT A...

HAPPY CAMPER

Showed up for work and no ONE-NINE. It took 10 minutes before I could make telephone contact with dispatch. He told me that a day driver was in ONE-NINE and had just made a pickup from Safeway to an address is far north Kihei. TMR had dispatch and said ONE-NINE should be back at The Grand in about 15 minutes. It wasn't.

At 7:35pm I called back. TMR raised the driver on the radio and got a "non answer" answer from the him. I said "fuck it" and went to Judy's to visit and kill some time. Called back a little after 9pm and was told ONE-NINE was parked, finally, in the garage. Logged on at 9:25pm. I had missed all the dinner and OGG runs. Now I had to make my income on what few bar runs that might appear. Luckily, it was steady with short pupu's for most of the night.

Picked up the reservations from The Grand, for today, from the valet desk about midnight, it was long. About 2:15am I acquired the list that TMR had taken during the night. The 2 totaled out to 20 runs for today. 7 of them between 5am and 6am. Of those 7, 2 were pupu's, 1 was to Ma'alaea and 4 were headed to OGG. A lot of day drivers checked in early, having been forewarned, but I was able to get 2 of the 7.

Wanna to guess which 2?

Aw, come on, guess.

Yep.

The 2 pupu's.

I got screwed coming and going. I did luck out with some decent runs during my solo hours. In fact, I never stopped moving from 2am to 6am. Pulled down 13 trips and did meter over $150. Which was waaaay better than I had any reason to expect, considering.

*** *** ***

The first 9 images in the PICTURE GALLERY today are courtesy of MAUI ACTION PHOTOS. Thanks Van!

THE PICTURE GALLERY