After getting jazzed by Las Vegas Cabbie Chronicles blog post the other day, I decided to take my trusty netbook out with me and do a blow by blow as it happens journal of a typical night. Figuring Friday/Saturday is NOT the best time to try this as those nights are non-stop mayhem, I figured I’d take a couple slower nights and so, with minimal editing, here’s the result:

Wednesday, 06/01/2011
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Wednesday, 06/01/2011 07:08:56 PM
Booked in and ready to roll. Some jobs out there, but at the moment my zones are quiet. Futzing with this journal tool called “Rednotebook”. Pretty nice interface.

Wednesday, 06/01/2011 07:23:22 PM
First bell call. 80th/sheridan-king soopers. On it.
short hop with groceries. deaf in one ear, and possible brain leak in the other, but hey, fare was paid.

Wednesday, 06/01/2011 07:39:18 PM
bell call. house of babes -short hop. cleared at Wednesday, 06/01/2011 07:54:09 PM

Wednesday, 06/01/2011 07:54:23 PM -rolling to get signal to meter. -blargh. This is annoying as hell. There are deadzones in the northern ‘burbs to our autocab computer system…gps works great, but no signal…no jobs.

Wednesday, 06/01/20117: 59:01 PM bell walmart short hop
clear at Wednesday, 06/01/2011 08:13:46 PM

Wednesday, 06/01/2011 08:22:11 PM staged at 92nd/sheridan kinkos. email check.

Wednesday, 06/01/2011 08:39:41 PM bell call to Saudi Arabian student apartments. 112th ave.
Semi-regular customer. Good guy and tips. probably will direct call for return after the movies.
cleared at Wednesday, 06/01/2011 09:02:10 PM

staging at the Westin Hotel at Wednesday, 06/01/2011 09:02:25 PM
doorman pokin’ his nose about. douchebag…Sent him on his way with “on hold for one of your customers”. lol.
Bells are piling up in Aurora again but dead in my neck of the woods. might re-stage over at Starbucks again for wifi. -typical Wednesday. hopefully it will pick up in a bit.

Wednesday, 06/01/2011 09:20:37 PM bell call to fed/80th liquor store. sigh.. we’ll see.
Oh wait. its L the Asian-micro-mini-massage therapist. 😀
Mouth like a sailor, barely speaks English, and hilarious every time she gets in my cab.
“My ex, he have-a the sex with an old beetch. I tell him…you go away…stupid bastard…I mean, have-a the sex with young honey, no problem, but old used up beetch? I divorce him last year…bastard.” -just one of the quotes during the ride.
Cleared Wednesday, 06/01/2011 09:41:27 PM

Wednesday, 06/01/2011 09:41:49 PM bell to players club to pick up used car salesman who was seriously hammered. Got him home as Big B (regular) called for a ride. Wednesday, 06/01/2011 10:02:21 PM

Dropped B and his girlfriend L at the trailer. Took a bio break and got smokes at 7-11 with meter stopped to avoid another call.

cleared at Wednesday, 06/01/2011 10:22:27 PM

staging at 7-11. Board died off a bit. change up time. rolling for more coffee at starnobles. If no calls, I might as well.

Wednesday, 06/01/2011 10:33:07 PM mmmm coffee goooood. All set for the next half o’ the evening. board is picking up. might bid something just for a change o’ pace if no bell……….er……… damn it all. firehouse tavern bell. 104th and quivas with the ladiesnightfreebeer idiots. x’in fingers that its not, but hey.

cleared at Wednesday, 06/01/2011 10:51:00 PM and it was a good fare/tip/plus round trip at the end of the night. -maybe.

staged at kinkos again for wifi at Wednesday, 06/01/2011 10:59:41 PM

Wednesday, 06/01/2011 11:16:10 PM bell for at amc theatres for my semi-regular customer and back to Arabia apartment land with him!

cleared at Wednesday, 06/01/2011 11:31:47 PM

looks like I’m going to get belled immediately…unless that bid is a van job. we will see…..oh this fracking stupid cab computer…it loses signal to base all the damn time…and I’m betting I just lost a gig because of it….again. sigh. yep. job gone. FRACK. rolling back to my stage point. blargh.

bid call at Wednesday, 06/01/2011 11:54:42 PM -dammit that should have belled to me, but noooooooo. got it anyway. house call.

Thursday, 06/02/2011 12:43:00 AM cleared….gads. The droogs were wanted by the cops. At pickup location, black/n/white is looking for someone…cop approaches my car and as my address looks bogus we’re both sitting at the entrance to the place (townhomes). He gives me a description of the woman he’s looking for and asks for a 911 callback if my ride matches up. A couple minutes later I hook up with my fare for a 4 block ride. They were a couple not matching the description the cop gave me, but acting weird plus… 4 blocks…uh, yeah. Arvada PD wanted to talk to the woman because apparently she flipped/crashed/wrecked her car and ran. The two droogs that got in the car went 4 blocks….and were really sweating the fact that the cops wanted to speak with them or the woman. My job isn’t to deal with confrontation, so dropped them off. Turns out that the two in the car didn’t match his description, BUT the lady waiting for em’ with a beat up P.O.S. 4×4 at the gas station DID. some nights…sheesh. Anyway, their license plate was bent up…and off they went. (They paid and tipped though, so what the hey!)
I called 911 as requested by the officer that had been looking for the suspect.
After chatting with 911 dispatch…off I went as well.

Picking up my regular at Charlie’s web now. Back to normal.
Thursday, 06/02/2011 12:46:02 AM

Staging at Electric Cowboy now at Thursday, 06/02/2011 01:20:36 AM

Thursday, 06/02/2011 01:53:38 AM -called a slightly early night. Made lease plus some. works fer me.

Thursday, 06/02/2011
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Thursday, 06/02/2011 06:54:38 PM -made a lease payment at Metro HQ. Rolling to northern burbs to start the night.

Thursday, 06/02/2011 07:14:13 PM- booked in zone 214. board is clear in my neck of the woods. Sitting at Kinko’s enjoying a wonderful sunset…well soon to set anyway. gorgeous and 85degrees out right now.

Thursday, 06/02/2011 08:29:59 PM -hoping to jinx the job board into a call into my zone by typing about it here. Took a break for dinner, watched the sun set into the west and caught up on email,f.book, twitter stuff, political reading, and now updating this here journal. One gig up my way, but waaaay up north at 136th at the walmart. Too far to go for a guaranteed short hop ride. blargh.

Thursday, 06/02/2011 08:32:43 PM-flatirons crossing. got one! Rolling.

Thursday, 06/02/2011 10:02:16 PM
Okay. bell bell bell. Since my last entry, I’ve rolled the flatirons call (with Canadians….oooh 50 cent tip on a 20buck ride. Gotta luv them canucks. -sigh. Then nailed a drunk/sick/latino guy who missed his bus. He tipped a buck….on 6, so latinos 1 canucks 0. Then right after that a regular call from Big B for a ride from the laundromat to home…short hop, but he’s always a good ride and tipper. THEN immediately bell’d to walmart. Lady had a TON of groceries, stocking up as her husband and her are in town for seasonal pool construction work. Nice tip. And now, sitting at 72nd/Sheridan near drug transaction central at the McDonalds. board died off, so gonna roll back up to my stage zone at Starnobles.

Thursday, 06/02/2011 10:21:23 PM regular call from Old Town tavern. rolling. Again a short hop, nice tip. (gotta love regulars!)

Thursday, 06/02/2011 11:01:37 PM board is STILL dead. This is a slow Thursday, and I’m irritated a bit. I’m pushing up on rent this month, and I didn’t need a slow week…of course murphy’s law, and now I’m knockin’ on wood to avoid the cabbie gods wrath.

Oh yeah. Cabbie gods. They are a subset of the serviceindustrygods, inc./tm. who dole out good/bad nights/days to those of us taking care of the public. My twitter buddy LVCabchronicles has mentioned that the cabbie gods forbid two days in a row of good fares, and I’m hard pressed at this point to dispute that claim. Of course, its not quite bar rush time yet, so hey.

Oh and I will again re-iterate just how much I think the invention of the laptop/netbook touchpad is the result of drinking drano by some 5th avenue marketing dude. I pine for the old IBM trackpoint keyboards (with the little eraser in the middle) which didn’t go ballistic if you breathed on the damn thing wrong. meh.

Board is picking up again, but nothing in my zones as of yet. I should move out of this area (old town arvada) as I’m in position 2 and that’s usually not the best position to be in. Yep. blazing a bit further north at Thursday, 06/02/2011 11:07:34 PM

Thursday, 06/02/2011 11:15:15 PM belled to hutches blue bar (seriously divey biker bar on the north side). Quick ride. A regular call to platinum 84 and then quickly another call at Thursday, 06/02/2011 11:55:06 PM to Firehouse tavern. Gettin’ busier.

Dropped firehouse tavern and cleared….and then the damn board went dead. This is a strange thursday. sigh. Oh well. Picking up another regular at Charlie’s Web on 88th in a short bit, and bar rush is coming up in about an hour. Might roll late tonight fishing for DIA calls. Not sure yet.

Regular P84 customer called…as did P84. Got my regular…I think the cops got the other customers as they weren’t out front…but a Fed.Heights cop was bustin’ some folks in the parking lot. ka-whups.

Finished the night and….(about 30 minutes later at Friday, 06/03/2011 03:08:58 AM

So, p84 called again for a stripper pickup right as I got home…and of course I’ll roll to that call as they are good customers, but….strippers are sometimes the ultimate airheads (my regular girls being wonderful exceptions) and this one….stood me up. Got there and she had left…how? The doorman didn’t have a clue and he was pissed, because he called for her. This is NOT anything new though. The largest group of “no jobs” I get on a nightly basis are almost ALWAYS strip joints. Either the customers decide to get in their car and chance it or the stripper gets a ride from a customer, and I end up wasting a trip. Tis part of the game, and I get it, but I doth grindeth my teeth about it from time to time.

Back home and…

So fair journal, I leave you now for other home stuff and will commence the nightly journey in about twelve hours. Gonna roll early on Friday.

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Oh and all real names have been changed to protect the idiots/droogs/goofballs as well as the cool folks who inhabit my “office” from time to time!

😀