Cab Driving Zen #Whatever

6 Weeks...

I really should stop schedule experimenting. Thursday through Friday were damned crazy. Seriously. Thursday, my arthritis flared so bad that I had to get the back end of the day off while I waited for the drugs to work. Friday, I thought trying to work in the Bay Area during Spring Break week while everyone was in Galveston (you know, where I can't work?) was a great idea... bleech. Saturday, I tried making up for those days by working a double.

A double, by the way, is not entirely legal and damned long.

I spent today recovering. The good news was that I am, in fact, caught up financially. But... damn. I rested, I recovered and I ruminated.

Silliness aside, I'm going to stick to my original schedule. It seemed to have worked. It was a slight pain in the butt, but it definitely had the merit of actually working. As bad as yesterday was, I was happy to have this last story be part of the business.

Pick up at the Casa Ole on South Post Oak. A youngish couple, and for some reason, they'd been given the option of going to jail or calling a cab. Apparently, there was more involved than just drinking... although that was a big component of it. I bundle them up and start heading up 610 with the thought of heading west. However, the girl in the couple starts getting sick and we end up flying up 59 north looking for a serviceable exit with a parking lot (preferably without security guards or cameras) for her to upchuck in. We find it, I pull over, she finds some fence line to take care of business on.

So, while her BF and I are waiting for her to divest herself of margaritas #x - #z, he asks me if I know of any hotel rooms nearby. Not being that familiar I say, "not really, but the GPS is linked up and I can find one relatively closeby, I'm sure." I tap the screen a couple of times and get this:

La Quinta Inn - Greenway; distance, 36.6 feet, travel time 1 second.

I step out of the cab and walk around said fenceline and, sitting like the Emerald City just north of Pukeville, is the La Quinta Greenway. She finishes, I drive them the 40 feet, plus the distance to the breezeway, collect my fare and make sure they haven't left me anything. The cab is clear and I scoot... calling it a night.

Another interesting difficulty factor yesterday was the fact that my GPS kept getting unlinked from the satellite system all day. I double checked the NASA-SOHO website, and we've apparently been on the receiving end of what's left of the mid-week's coronal mass ejection. Either that, or the Garmin I just got is turning into a mountain of suck. However, when it worked yesterday, it was delivering quite nicely. I just hope that it's only related to the recent solar activity.

All for now... G