Another "Next Step"

As is often the case, things emerge that inspire one to think, "I can improve on this to make a little better money or work fewer hours." Whatever the case may be.

As it is, Houston has a lot of roads that are divided - sometimes in more than one spot. Another piece of advice I got was "just use your Key Map, you'll find it just fine."

Bullshit.

Today, I finally dropped the dime on a GPS receiver... the Garmin Nuvi 200W. They just dropped in price to $139.99 at Target, so it was time. I figure I've lost the equivalent of 3-6 trips during a 12 hour day due to being "lost" in some form or fashion. If this thing saves me time and money, then it should pay itself off in about a week.

So... how the rest of Saturday went. Feh... somehow, I managed to get stuck around MLK between Almeda-Genoa and Airport for two hours. Finally, I started working around Hobby airport and found my way back to my part of town in time to pick up a girl I'm going to call "Donna."

Donna was drunk, and ran at my cab in high heels... and let me tell you, people who run in high heels when they're plastered are damned funny. However, I still give her props for not wiping out on the tarmac. However, she would be my last trip of the night.

Apparently, it was a sign from above that I was pushing too hard or whatever, but I'd accepted another trip... and I started feeling my cab pulling to the right. I'd run over something at the club where I dropped Donna off at. I tried dropping the spare, only to find that the geniuses who configured my cab decided to mount a post where the nut that spools the spare tire down was. This stopped me from using the jack kit included in the cab. In the future, I'll have to use my portable power rachet and an appropriately sized square-shaped socket.

Bottom line... since I give myself Sundays off anyway, it was only a slightly premature end to the night. I still spent a little extra time today waiting for the flat to be fixed over at Yellow. I had it towed that morning. Apparently, the extra 5 bucks a week I pay in comprehensive coverage is going to cover it. Free tire! Woot!

Also, one more piece of the puzzle is completed. I decided, because of my cab being out of service all morning, that I would run over to the badging office at the Houston Airport System and I finally got my airport security badge. So now, I'm going to try - sometime soon -hanging out in the airport queue and seeing where that will take me. Again, the possibility of getting time to write while I wait, and then getting a big score going out of one of the airports is too interesting to ignore.

All for now... more as it comes.

G