NICE IS GOOD

NICE AND PROFITABLE IS EVEN BETTER

Like the prior shift, last night was very genial. I didn't have one passenger who even approached being obnoxious. That's rare. Also, no fights at any of the bars that I am aware of. That's even rarer. This change in personality may be do to the fact that we are back in our normal Tradewind weather. Moderate temps and lower humidity. At bar close (2:00am), the outside temp was 73^of (23.8^oc), which is a drastic change from the high 70's and low 80's that were common last month.

The only driver who had a rough night was Kimo. Kimo has been with Royal Cab for about 12 years, or so, and is THE senior driver. He is 72 and is very healty and as strong as an ox. His age is showing by the hearing loss he is experiencing. By his own admission, he is totally deaf in his left ear and probably has 50% use of his right ear. When he is using to cell phone to take calls, he can't hear the radio and misses a lot of radio traffic. You usually have to call him on the radio 3 or 4 times before you get an acknowledgement. When we are busy, this can really put a damper on the pace of the shift. He also starts getting a bit "fuzzy" after 11:30pm and keeps forgetting what the lineup of cabs is or that he has already dispatched one for a run.

He knows that his days as a cabbie are numbered and I will really miss him when he parks his van for the last time. I tried about a year ago to make things easier for him by realigning the dispatch duties among the other drivers but "Crazy Brian" bitched about having the phone two nights a week and the owner ordered Kimo to take it on Wednesdays. Lets face it, all of us serve at the whim and whimsy of the owner and are subject to termination at any time, for any or no reason at all. Feces occurs.

Speaking of termination, "Drunk Don" involuntarily ended his tenure with Royal yesterday. He did a "meet & greet" at the airport and at the end of the run, to The Grand, he demanded a tip from his fare. The run was on a voucher being paid by the hotel, for a VIP. The VIP was the son of the General Manager of The Grand. The son told his father what had happened and Art, Royals owner, got the call from the GM stating that he didn't want "Drunk Don" ever having contact with any of The Grand's guests in the future. Art went ballistic when he heard what had happened. Basically, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out".

I mentioned before that "The Jerk" is now driving ONE-NINE a few days a week. Well, last night I noticed that the transmission was developing a jerky action when I was just cruising down the highway at 45mph. I have had this happen before on cars with 200-300,000 miles on the odometer. It is the overdrive failing to make contact properly with the engine. This is caused by excessive wear to the transmission. The trouble is that ONE-NINE only has 41,500 miles on the ticker. The only way this could happen would be that the vehicle was doing drag race type starts from a dead stop. Multiple drivers have observed "The Jerk" do this, in ONE-NINE and cab #7, the Lincoln, on multiple occassions. They reported this abuse of company property to the owner and were basically ignored. One commenter here asked if "The Jerk" was related to the owner. The answer is no. And none of the rest of us can figure out why he is still driving. I have seen many drivers let go for far less.

"Mexican Mary" called me at 3:51am this morning, saying she was ready to come in and take over ONE-NINE from me. I had four runs pending and there wasn't a snowballs chance in hell that I was going to give any of them up. Hooked up with her later and explained about my shift hours. She and I have known each other for about 10 years, way before either of us started driving cab, and she was very understanding. We settled on an arrangement for the future that will benefit both of us.

Like I said, it was a very genial night

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TODAY'S PICS

General seascapes

Have you ever seen the Painted Desert in Arizona?
How about the Painted Desert in Australia?
As evidenced here, the crater in Haleakala is easily their peer

Later.....

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

NORMAL IS NICE

I HOPE IT LASTS

The sun was setting as I drove to work. A short while later, the full moon finally crested Mt. Haleakala.

Overall, it was a pretty decent night. I didn't get any long runs but I stayed busy and just kept adding up the miles (and dollars). A total of thirteen trips. All the passengers were very nice, and generous, and only one woman was teetering on the borderline of obnoxious. Even my solo hours generated 3 really decent runs.

"The Jerk" called at 4:00am to advise me that he was my relief and that he was going to be driving ONE-NINE.

[count softly and slowly Wil, 1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10...]

In a very even and calmly neutral voice I informed him that my shift was not over. That my shift ran until 7:00am. That I was currently under fare and would not be back to Wailea until around 5:00am.

When I finally had a face-to-face with him I explained a lot of other things, very calmly. Seems "The Jerks" had a run-in with a senior driver, who threatend to "bitch slap" the S.O.B. Within 30 seconds, "The Jerk" was on the radio complaining to the owner about what was said.

The senior driver involved made a tactical error. You never tell anybody what you are going to do to them. You just do it and then ask afterwards if they understand why you did what you did. If they have not gained comprehension, then you do whatever you did, again. It is one of life's better methods of instruction.

Anyway, I hope that the rest of the week follows last nights trend. It would make life so much easier.

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TODAY'S PHOTOS

AZEKA - MAKAI

AZEKA - MAUKA (north wing)

AZEKA - MAUKA (south wing)

HALEAKALA TRAILS

Looking back at the West Mau'i Mountains

The Islet of Molokini

Molokini, up close and personal

For this ...

...To become this

Will take another 10-20,000 years of this

Sunset sequence

Later.....

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

A BEAUTIFUL NIGHT

I HAD TO SHARE THIS:

Captured within minutes of each other at about 0135 hrs, local.

Its bright out tonight!

Mauna Kea webcam

Mana Kai webcam

Later.....

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

G'DAY TO THE LAND OF "OZ"

HAVE A NICE NIGHT

Some beautiful orchids

This is Haleakala road
About 1/3 of the way to the summit

About 2/3s up the mountain
Just below the afternoon cloud

Dr. Quack

I wonder what its song is like?

Green sea turtle, native to the island
Their habitats are Federal sanctuaries

Some waterfalls

La Peruse Bay

Charlie Young Beach, in Kihei

The islet of Molokini

Sunsets

Sunsets are beautiful worldwide
These two are of San Francisco, California, USA

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NO ROOF AD SIGNS ALLOWED

Its one of those things that you see but don't notice. No taxicab in the State of Hawai'i have a roof mounted sign for advertisement. Nor do any of the public buses have advertisements on their sides. Many years ago, the State of Hawai'i passed a statute banning all billboards from roadsides. A provision of this law also disallowed any advertisement on any public or private conveyance. Exceptions were vehicles owned by a business, signed to promote said business.

This may be a good thing, actually. Since most cabs on the islands are some form of a van and noting that many pick-up and destination locations involve entering structures with "low" vehicle height restrictions. Also having witnessed many different drivers, very few of which would qualify as reasonably intelligent, forget that their tailgates were still open when entering such structures (removes that thing right at the hinges. Ouch!). Taking all that into consideration, those signs probably wouldn't be too cost effective.

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DINNER

Took Judy, David and David's 16yo son, Russell, to dinner. We had a great time celebrating. Midnight has passed here, so it is now David's 46^th birthday. Born on the mainland, he's lived most of his life on Mau'i.

My meal was a great. Chopped salad with chunks of bleu cheese. A jacketed (baked) potato, with "the works". Crowned rack-of-lamb. Two small lobster tails and a fistfull of jumbo shrimp (that has to be an oxymoron). Turns out that Russell had never tasted lobster before, so I immediately donated one of mine to further his education in the nicer aspects of "life". He really, really liked it. I may have created a monster. LOL!

Have a good night, and a better tomorrow.



Later.....

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