First up, to compliment the driving gig, I went out and snagged this:

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/samsung-n150-plus.aspx

While this was a bit pricier than some other netbooks, this thing has the BEST keyboard of any netbook I’ve ever looked at. While the keyboard size is a wee bit crampier than a regular board, its still comfy for extended typing adventures, and does so in a form factor that is light years easier to haul about than my ol’ monster laptop. AND with downtimes in the taxi game, its easy to pull this out and write or slide over to a wifi spot and check mail/surf/etc.

Oh I’d also be remiss if I didn’t say that I wiped MS winblows off the thing within an hour of purchase and installed the wickedly cool Ubuntu Netbook Remix instead.  Obligatory screenie is here:

So my inner geek is satisfied, and my creative side now has an outlet while staring out the window of the car between fares.

The observation is simply this:

When a person climbs into a cab for a ride to somewhere from somewhere, and the cabbie smiles and says, “How are yo doing this –fill in the blank time of day–?” 99% of the riders begin blabbing more than how they are doing. They literally find that question the trigger to unload their lives to the driver. This isn’t a complaint. More often than not its very enjoyable and gives a person such as myself (creative type) fuel for characterization beyond pure invention. But it is interesting how very like a bartender the cab driver actually is, and how very like a good psychoanalyst a driver needs to be in order to please the rider and get that all important 10% tip over the fare.

I’ve only been doing this gig for a short while, but I’m guessing that if a person takes up the driving game without good people skills, they will quickly start wondering how to make any money after paying for the overhead costs that the transport biz requires.

Personally, just a smile and a small interest in the passenger’s tales usually generates a LOT of extra income above the fare itself in the form of tips, and during slow periods, this really can make the difference between a profitable day or a break even day.

While I’ll be using this space for some interesting stories from the world of the driver here going forward, I’ll first say that I will NEVER break confidentiality or name names. The point of this blog is for me to have an outlet for things I find interesting, not anything else. So if you happen by here and something sounds familiar, well that is because (another observation here) it just might as a LOT of people’s stories have a similar feel after awhile.

Mostly I’ll focus on me and my reactions to things as well as car driving adventures and leave the taxi cab confessions to HBO. –that show is more realistic than I could have believed though. -grinning.