Paradise Driver

Monday, August 13, 2007

POTPOURRI

DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN...?

All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?
It took five minutes for the TV warm up?
Nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school?
Nobody owned a purebred dog?
When a quarter was a decent allowance?
You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?
Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?
All your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done every day and wore high heels?
You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, all for free, every time?
And you didn't pay for air? And, you got trading stamps to boot?
Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box?
It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents?
They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed. . . and they did!
When a '57 Chevy was everyone's dream car...to cruise, peel out, lay rubber or watch "submarine races".
People went steady?
No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?
Lying on your back in the grass with your friends and saying things like, "That cloud looks like a... ".
Playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game?
Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger?

And with all our progress, don't you just wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace, and share it with the children of today?

When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home?

Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc.
Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was greater than the threat.

How many of you can still remember:

Nancy Drew
The Hardy Boys
Laurel and Hardy
Howdy Doody and the Peanut Gallery,
The Lone Ranger
The Shadow Knows
Nellie Bell
Roy and Dale
Trigger and Buttermilk.

As well as summers filled with bike rides, baseball games, Hula Hoops, bowling and visits to the pool, and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar.

Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, "Yeah, I remember that"?

Remember that the perfect age is somewhere between old enough to know better and too young to care.

How many of these do you remember?

Candy cigarettes
Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside
Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes
Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum
Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
Newsreels before the movie
P.F. Fliers
Telephone numbers with a word prefix...(RAymond 4-6015).
Party lines
Peashooters
Howdy Doody
45 RPM records
Green Stamps
Hi-Fi's
Metal ice cube trays with levers
Mimeograph paper
Beanie and Cecil
Roller-skate keys
Corkpop guns
Drive ins
Studebakers
Washtub wringers
The Fuller Brush Man
Reel-To-Reel tape recorders
Tinkertoys
Erector Sets
The Fort Apache Play Set
Lincoln Logs
15 cent McDonald hamburgers
5 cent packs of baseball cards - with that awful pink slab of bubble gum
Penny candy
25 cent a gallon gasoline
Jiffy Pop popcorn

Do you remember a time when...

Decisions were made by going: "eeny-meeny-miney-moe"?
Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do Over!"?
"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest?
Catching fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening?
It wasn't odd to have two or three "Best Friends"?
The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "cooties"?
Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot?
A foot of snow was a dream come true?
Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures?
"Ollie-ollie-oxen-free" made perfect sense?
Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles?
The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team?
War was a card game?
Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle?
Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin?
Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?

If you can remember most or all of these, then you have lived!!!!!!!

***

click for larger image

As hurricane Flossie draws closer it has really developed a punch. Sustained winds of 140mph and gusts to 175mph. The track has shifted slightly north and should now pass Mau'i about 250 miles to the south. It will begin passing over cooler waters today and should weaken a bit. Unless there is a drastic course change, we should just get some high waves and brisk winds. We might lose power, not an uncommon event in the islands. So if I go "off-line" in the middle of the week, you'll understand why and I'll be back as soon as the cable and power are restored. But that probably won't happen.

The "Worst Case Scenario" is if Flossie does what Iniki did 15 years ago, make a 90^o right hand turn and head due north. Every structure on Kaua'i was damaged in 1992 and it took almost 10 years to rebuild.

The last hurricane to hit Mau'i was in 1875.

Latest "Big Blue" image.

***
Maybe one of these will give you a laugh:

See y'all tomorrow!

Mahalo

Aloha

THE PICTURE GALLERY

Hawai'ian Sunrise

Expecting Surf Like This Soon

Windward Big Island

Windward O'ahu

***

"Let's all be careful out there!"

Sunday, August 12, 2007

BEAUTY

AND THE BEACH

Image Courtesy Of:
MAUI ACTION PHOTOS
Mahalo, Van!

***

It was a night of action, adventure and excitement. For everyone, except me.
5 "10-13's" (no-load/no-show). Not my personal ~~best~~ worst but just one shy of that infamous figure. Other cabs getting dispatched to OGGs or long dinner runs. I kept getting pu-pus that never showed up. And while I was waiting for those "no-shows", the cabs behind me raked in the moola.

First run of the shift was a medium length dinner return from town to Wailea. A family from Moscow, Russia. $13.70 fare and he hands me a $100 bill at the destination. I tell him that I don't have enough cash to change it out. I didn't understand his mutterings in Russian but I am sure I was being royally cussed out as he and the missus searched her purse for the $15 I was eventually given. There has been a large contingency of Russians at the Kea Lani this week. I think I am the only driver that received any form of a tip from any of them.

Later in the evening I picked up a nice family out of El Lay from Safeway back to Wailea. They expressed an interest in living on Mau'i when they reached their sunset years. I told them that it is not as idyllic as it seems from a tourist POV. On any given day 100 people move here from the mainland. One year later maybe 1 of those is still on Mau'i. They can't adapt to the culture shock. We are the richest "third world" nation and the operative phrase is "THIRD WORLD". The way things run here is like nowhere else in America. I've harped on this before, as my regular readers are aware. Mau'i is not Lodi nor Springfield and is definitely not El Lay, "Shy Town" or NYC. Anyone thinking about living here should probably take an extended leave-of-absence before selling the ol' family estate. Come and rent a place for a year before casting your lot. This way you have something to fall back on when everything goes to hell-in-a-handbasket.

9 fares / 105 miles / 2nd quarter $100 bracket

***

Well, I made it through the week. I sure hope this Quasimodo hunchbacked stance I've developed starts fading over my days off.

I know, I know. Life's a bitch and then you die.

Two days off!

I plan to sleep through most of them. Alone, sadly.

I'll be back for Monday. Hope you will be too.

Sorry about the blurry image of the "hotrod" above. There was some sort of car show going on at Azeka-Mauka Shopping Center last night. I didn't have time to stop and snapped that image on-the-fly.

Mahalo

Aloha

THE PICTURE GALLERY

Gated Home
Wailea

Wailea Beachwalk

Wailea Seascapes

***

98201

"Let's all be careful out there!"

Saturday, August 11, 2007

ROLLIN' HOT

FROM THE GITGO

Log-in and head to the front. 3 runs pending. Potluck, first to ONE-NINE's door gets the ride.

The winner was three young guys going to the "Triangle" for dinner.

While I never left town, my tips were fantastic!
The biggest was $35 paid on a $20.30, which was also my biggest fare of the shift, and the smallest was $20 on a $9.20. Maybe my Quasimodo physique is eliciting a "sympathy" tip. I'll take them any way they come.

By 9p, when I took over the phone, we were down to five cabs. Lost another one at 10p and yet another at 11p. That left 3 of us to cover the Friday night bar close. So many cars out on Tuesday nights and not enough on Friday. Well, I can't change it so I just have to deal with it.

Then it got worse. One of the guys got dispatched for a WAilea/MMMC round trip.

And then there were 2.

And we never stopped moving. Bar rush blended seamlessly into bar close. The guy that went to MMMC was back by 1:30a and snagged a Wailea to Ma'alaea Harbor. He could do no wrong last night. Then his luck ended. His last fare was "Uncle Tata", a really nice old scrawny Samoan guy. A "regular". Takes him to his house, which on a cul-de-sac off of our main drug street, a dead end road about 1/2 mile long. As he attempted to leave, the local punks had blocked the road with trash cans, boxes and boards. Then they threw stones at him when he tried to move some to clear a passage. He backed way off and called the police. Fearful that he was going to be attacked and robbed. Cringing in the shadows, he waited until MPD cleared the road.

2 runs on the dog-watch finished my night and I was home by 4:30a. Exhausted. One more to go.

17 fares / 115 miles / 4th quarter $100 bracket

***

Do me a favor.

Please.

As soon as you read this, go HERE and leave a comment. All it is going to cost you is just a few minutes. For each comment left, the site owner will donate $1 to TOYS-FOR-TROOPS. You may only leave one comment and it stops on Sunday, I believe. Maybe later today, so don't dally.

Those innocent kids in Iraq will appreciate your effort.

***

Have a great weekend and I'll chat again tomorrow.

Mahalo

Aloha

THE PICTURE GALLERY

Marriott Luau

Polo Beach
Wailea

Wailea

***

97914

"Let's all be careful out there!"

Friday, August 10, 2007

2,201 MILES TO GO!

1,201 MILES UNTIL ENTRIES CLOSE

So, please review your guess and make adjustments as necessary. And for those who haven't entered you still have time and those whose prior entries have expired still can Re-Enter.

GOOD LUCK!

***

Gas has dropped another 2-cents. "More bang for the buck", you might say.

15 minutes into the shift I am assigned a Wailea/OGG.

Kewl!

NOT!

Pulled to the front of the pick-up and the desk clerk comes out and asks:

"Are you here to take some people to the airport?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I specifically told them I needed a van."

"No worries. I'll get one here in just a moment."

"I told your call taker that there was a large amount of luggage."

"Ma'am. I am sure you did. Somebody didn't read or record that info. I apologize. I'll have a van here in just a couple of minutes."

"Thank you."

--- --- ---

"ONE-NINE"

"Go, 1-9"

"WBV advises that they specifically requested a van. Please dispatch next unit to WBV for that 7:30 OGG.

"10-4"

So much for going to OGG. I resumed #1 up. My consolation was a $5.60 hotel/hotel

A while later, I do get an OGG from the middle of Kihei. The house numbers didn't sound right for the street name. Also was given a telco # for the party. That was a good thing. I was correct about the numbers not sounding right. Dispatch had given it to me as 1258. It was 258. Called the party and made the pickup.

With ONE-NINE being a sedan, I am constantly getting screwed out of fares. It's beginning to irk me.

Over all, it was dead last night. Of my 8 fares, only 2 were tourists. And what few fares I had all tipped above normal. Thankfully.

8 fares / 102 miles / 1st quarter $100 bracket

***

Looks like we may have some "weather" headed our way.

Hurricane Flossie will probably only be a tropical storm by the time it reaches Hawai'i, maybe less. Looks like it is going to pass about 400 miles south of Mau'i. Most likely it will freshen the trades and add more rainfall to the windward side of the island.

The leeward sides of Mau'i (Lahaina/Ka'anapali, Kihei/Wailea) are in a prolonged drought. We could use some rain. Badly.

Enjoy your day and your weekend.

Mahalo

Aloha

THE PICTURE GALLERY

Luau
Wailea Marriott