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Saturday, June 17, 2006

MAU'I FILM FESTIVAL

MOVIES UNDER THE STARS

The 7th Annual Mau'i Film Festival closes on Sunday. This event has really grown. Neat website, too.


Lots of events are associated with the film festival, including last night's Taste of Chocolate and Sunday's Taste of Wailea.



LAST NIGHT

Stayed active, 16 runs, but with my average $$ per run just over $8 the meter money was a bit lean.

There wasn't any excitement. No obnoxious drunks. There were so many cops in the "Triangle" that it looked like a new sub-station and everybody minded their "P"s and "Q"s.

Had dispatch duty last night. One of my pet peeves are people who call for a cab and when I ask them for the pickup location they start yelling to someone, asking what the address is.

I may be just a bit naive, but it would seem to me that before you called a cab, you would find out where you are. When they do this, I just press "end call". Of course, some are slower on the uptake than others. One guy called three times last night and each time started yelling "Where are we at?"

And I pressed that lil' ol' button three times.



RUMORS

The story going around at the moment is that THE Oprah is taking over The Grand for a week to throw a party for her friends. I'll believe it when I see the food delivery trucks triple their off-loads there.

VALIDITY RATING =


* * *

One birdie whispered in my ear that the 400+# guy from yesterday's post didn't make it to jail at all. Some "blue meanies" took him to an isolated pineapple field upcountry and gave him one hell of a whoopin'. He was still there, unconcious, when those "blue light taxis" left the field. Just a rumor, of course.

VALIDITY RATING =




Later.....

Wil
=8^))
"Let's all be careful out there!"

Friday, June 16, 2006

EXHAUSTED

CALLED OFF AGAIN


Woke up about 3:30pm yesterday, did my laundry and started trying to get ready for work. Every movement was torture. This poor body of mine has been insulted too many times over the past decades and now I am paying the price. Its a bitch to grow old.

Called off at 6:15pm and went back to bed.




Melissa, of NEW YORK HACK had this interesting photo in today's post. The sign in the rear window says:
Yes, I DO own the road

I couldn't find a blank "diamond" template, so I had to use a square one to make this:


I am going to print this out on some heavy stock paper, laminate it and post it in my cab's rear window. May even put one in my POV too.



HAWAI'IANS & ALCOHOL


Bad combination.

First, almost all people from polynesia have a low tolerance for alcohol. Two 12oz (355ml) cans/bottles of 4%-5% beer hits them like two 6-packs would most people of european decent.

The trouble reported at the "Triangle" in my prior post was caused by a drunk 400#+ (182kg+) Hawai'ian who decided he would urinate on the entry door to one of the bars. The bouncer chased him off.


After bar close, the Hawai'ian waited for the bouncer to get off work and "way-layed" him, right in front of the police. Choked the bouncer into unconciousness while viciously beating him.


He was Tasered multiple times before he could be shackled and placed in the back of a patrol car. Did it end there? Of course not. He kicked out a window, dented the steel protective shield between the front and back. Kicked a rear door so hard and so often that it was shoved 1 inch (2.5 cm) out of its frame.


This was a racially motivated hate crime. The Hawai'ian kept screaming the he hated "Haoles". Most visitors think that "haole" (how-lay) is the Hawai'ian word for "foreigner". Actually, the true translation is "a person without breathe (a 'soul')" and it is a pejorative word.

During the beating, the Hawai'ian also kept screaming that he was going to "trunk" the bouncer. "Trunking" is when a victim is beaten senseless, placed in the trunk (boot) of a motor vehicle, large heavy objects are piled on top of the victim and the vehicle is driven over the dirt roads in the cane fields at 50+ mph (80+ kph). Whats left of the victim is then dumped in some isolated cane field to live or die. They don't care. If the victim is female, she'll be gang-raped at both ends of the trip.

Will this be prosecuted under our Federal laws regarding hate crimes? Probably not. We don't have race/hate crimes in Hawai'i. Just ask the various "Visitor Bureaus". Everybody loves everyone here. Its the "Aloha" spirit. Excuse me while I go puke.


Personally, I would not have used the Taser. I would have put a .357 through the assholes brain.

Of course, I am from a different generation of law enforcement and "politically correct" just isn't in my attitude or my training.



Later.....

Wil
=8^))
"Let's all be careful out there!"

Thursday, June 15, 2006

SOME EXCITEMENT!

CALLING ALL CARS...


My first run of the night, finally, was from The Grand to Roys. The passengers were from the mainland and the man who road "shotgun" was with Homeland Security. A DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) agent doing the same job, basically, with a different title and chain-of-command.


We were northbound on the dark Pi'ilani Highway (SR-31), near my residence, when the car in front of us suddenly veered left, then right and then pulled to the shoulder. Then both the agent and I saw a man, dressed in brown clothing and sporting a backpack, land on the shoulder, rolling into the dirt. We were past this accident so fast, and the traffic was busy enough to make it too dangerous to try and turn around. It was more practical to keep going and just call 9-1-1. Which is what I did. About a minute later, two MPD cars, going "balls to the wall" passed us headed southbound.


After I made the drop at Roy's I returned to The Grand. Passing the accident scene, there were the two patrol cars parked behind the vehicle that was involved along the east side of the road but the ambulance and firetrucks were on the west side frontage road that parallels the southbound lanes.

Later in the night I spoke to one of the officers and learned that they weren't even sure if the subject had been hit or not. The lady driver said that the man had been walking in the middle of the #2 northbound lane and she thought she had hit him but there was no physical evidence of an impact on her vehicle. When she stopped, the guy begged her not to call the cops because he claimed to have warrants for his arrest. He fled across the highway, to the west, towards my house, and disappeared into the 167 new home construction area just north of where I live.

All the "nighthawks" searched for about a half-hour but never found him.


I guess even idiots have a lucky night on occassion.

* * *

Over all it was a strange night. During the first 7 hours (7:00pm to 2:00am) I only had four runs. The next 4 hours (2:00am to 6:00am) brought me 7 runs. While the tips were good, the meter just barely crept over the $100 mark.

* * *


To make matters even worse, our cell-phone service shut down just after midnight and Kimo, last nights driver/dispatcher, had to wake the owner up and get a different phone using another carrier. We were out of contact with the public for about an hour. This is not the first time this has happened and following SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) I called the switchboard at The Grand and gave them my personal cell # so we would be able to service them per our contract. During the hour the phones were down we just cruised all the bars, wasting gas, to make ourselves very visible. Crazy Brian lucked out and got a run to The Pride Of Hawaii at Kahului harbor.

* * *

I guess the day-shift was pretty miserable yesterday. 5 day drivers held over until almost midnight, trying to make a few extra bucks and screwing the night drivers out of their runs. Feces occurs. Today won't be much better since we only have one pre-scheduled run to the airport at 12:30pm.

* * *


"ICE" (smokeable crytal meth) reared it's head again last night. It was a very warm, humid night and our local version of gangbangers made their appearence at the "Triangle" just before bar close. Walking around wearing hooded pullover sweat shirts, with the hoods pulled up to hide their faces. The story I got was not verifiable but apparently they did find a victim(s) in front of Neptunes and caused enough serious injury that the victim(s) had to be transported to the hospital. There were nearly 100 witnesses but, of course, "nobody taw nuttin'".


While not PC, this is how the deputies I worked with handled this kind of problem.



Later.....

Wil
=8^))
"Let's all be careful out there!"

SPECIAL RESPONSES

Dctaxistories said...
I can tell you still love your ex, Will.
Yes, I do. But we mix as well as oil and water. We are friends and talk/e-mail every couple of months. She keeps me up-to-date with what is happening with the grandkids. A very nice lady.

Oh, its WIL not WILL. I got the "L" kicked out of me a long time ago.



Tropical Screamer said...
A deer. Right.

(How come you have the Friend Finder popping up from your site. Ick.) :)

Darilyn
If you are getting "pop-ups", its not from anything that I have done. Either Blogger/Blogspot is adding it or you have some "spyware" in your browser. I have one piece of spyware embedded in my MSIE browser called "WinFixer 2005" that nothing short of dumping all my files and starting from scratch will clear. When I switched to Firefox, I was never plagued again. Also, MSIE (every build) doesn't always display blogs correctly. It drops the sidebar down to the bottom of the posts. It does this on my blog and some others I have seen.

If you change to Firefox for your browser, this will usually stop. Its free, its better and its like switching from a Ford Pinto to a Lincoln Towncar in its quality. Also download and run Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy and run them on a daily basis to keep your system clean. You might also check your firewall settings to see where it is getting in at.



Cheffe said...
Hotels there are not really cheap if this is a good offer - I think I'll have to stick with the "Chinese Hawaii" - Hainan island.
The major hotels start at about $600-$800 a night and top out at $12,500 a night. So $119 is VERY cheap.

Renting a condo for $300 to $500 a week is a better deal and you won't be paying $12.75 for a "room-service" PB&J sandwich. Tuna salad sandwich goes for $17.95 and a cheeseburger will set you back about $30. And that doesn't include anything else. In the hotels, beer is about $6 a bottle.



Dogbait said...
I like it! Can you find some for us guys?

I saw one image once for a recliner chair that was equipped with a "potty", microwave, refridgerator, telephone, massage, surround-sound speakers and a universal remote inlaid in the armrest. For the ultimate "couch potato".



Later.....

Wil
=8^))
"Let's all be careful out there!"

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

AND ANOTHER WEEK BEGINS

YEAH, RIGHT

Most, but not all of the hotels are sold out this week. The Mau'i Oceanfront Inn (aka: MOF) apparently isn't.

Strange.



That a really good price. And the hidden secret is that it sits on the best beach on Mau'i (in my opinion) and shares it's driveway with the best (again, my opinion) restaurant, Sarento's On The Beach.


NEWLYWEDS

Brad and Amanda are from Dallas, TX, USA. They tied the knot this past Saturday, the 10th. Both are avid Maverick fans (for the rest of the world, the Mavericks are the National Basketball Association [NBA] team in Dallas) and didn't know about their 98-96 loss to the Miami (FL, USA) Heat. I didn't tell them. I didn't want to spoil their wonderful evening.


Oh, thats a Maverick's shirt that she is wearing.


LAST NIGHT

Another slow one. At 2:00am I only had 6 runs. Luckily one was from The Grand to OGG. No calls at all during my solo hours. Though I did handle my regular 4:30am in-town pu-pu run. Got back to The Grand about 4:40am and as I pulled up, Ray, the graveyard room service waiter was waiting for me with a cart full of food and drinks.

Hmmmm. No reservation that I have knowledge of.

What gives?

He wanted to know if I was there for the ????'s party.
"How many people?"

I saw my relief, Flor, with his 7-passenger van pulling in the driveway.
"Four."

"I guess I am. Where are they going?"

"The harbor."

"Kahului?"

"No. Ma'alaea. They're going fishing."

And that is how the shift ended, with a nice run, making a total of 8 for the night. Definately slow, but serendipity made the dollar$ equal to most of the nights last week.


YOU TELL ME

DS (dumbshit) Alex (not to be confused with TMR [The Mad Russian] Alex) claims that this damage was done by a collision with a deer, while he was enroute out to the Prince the other night.

What do you think?

Naw. Me neither.



MY FAVORITE BLOG

The Life & Times of Holly & Scolly


Holly & Scolly

* Gender: female
* Occupation: Demanding Toddler
* Location: Wallington : Victoria : Australia

About Me

I'm a demanding toddler, coming up to 2 years old in July 2006. I'm very smart, love to chatter non-stop and completely run our household!

Interests

* Being THE BOSS
* Books
* Swimming
* Hey Dee Ho (singing dancing & playing musical instruments)
* Riding my Bike
* Swings
* Slides
* Terrorizing my Mummy & Daddy in the middle of the night
* playing with Bunny & Elephant.

Check it out. I think you'll like it.

Link also on sidebar ---> ---> --->



Later.....

Wil
=8^))
"Let's all be careful out there!"

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

A PERFECT (WOMAN'S) WORLD

FOR THE LADIES









Later.....

Wil
=8^))
"Let's all be careful out there!"

CELEBRATIES

DON'T I KNOW YOU?


Saw where Melissa, aka: NEW YORK HACK picked up Jon Stewart.

That got me trying to remember the celebs that I've hauled over the years. Most were unimpressive. Just ordinary folks whom fate has shoved into the public eye.

  • Britney Spears

  • Justin Timberlake

  • Ray Ramano

  • Jason Sehorn

  • Angie Harmon

  • Jennifer Lopez

  • Eddie Murphy

  • Mike Tyson

  • Arnold Schwarzenegger

  • Maria Shriver

  • George Noory

  • Sally Fields

  • Sharon Stone


I know there are more but I can't remember who.

On Mau'i, celebs are "a dime a dozen" and you tend to become non-pulsed. Some are nice, some aren't. Just like every other fare we cabbies haul. They're all just human beings. The ones not full of themselves are generally the best.

Why do celebs take taxis rather than a limo?

Because when a limo pulls up anywhere, people gawk to see if they recognize who is getting out. When a taxi pulls up, people don't give it a second glance and the celebs can go about their R&R with little notice.


STILL 5 BEERS

Never did open that beer or the gin.

Like I said, I seldom drink alcohol.

Must be a personality flaw or sumptin'.


Blogger/Blogspot is still having issues with their new hardware/software. Seems like the more they fix it, the worse it becomes. [sigh]



Later.....

Wil
=8^))
"Let's all be careful out there!"