2/23/19

This was one of those nights that I never made it downtown.  It happens every once in a while.  Of course people can get just a drunk up north of town as they can downtown.  Such was the case with a Pilipino gentleman that I picked up at the Westin in the Domain.  Nice long drive to out north of Leander.  He assured me that even though he was drunk, he would not barf in my vehicle.  I told him where the barf bag was anyway and drove as fast as I could to get him home.  Fortunately he called a friend and talked to her for most of the trip.  This kept him awake and helped limit the risk of any drunk related incidents.  Nice guy.

Had about a 30 minute break in the activity before picking up a couple at Wild West.  That pushed me over where I wanted to be with the money for the week.

2/22/19

A renewed drivers license with a fresh new bearded photo was an inspiration to turn on the app again especially after several days of being beat up until late hours of the day at the real job.

Wow, there is a $6.50 surge bonus south of town but I am not interested in trying to blast my way down there.  The requests immediately started and after a short run I was headed to UT Campus for a pick up.  I arrived and 7 beautiful petite young ladies loaded up.  That may have tied a record for the number of people in vehicle (8 total).  These ladies acted quite bit more mature than most that I pick up over there.  They probably would not have fit had they not been petite.  Of course that ride was followed up by a group of 5 ginormous dudes that could barely fit through the door to get inside.  They were headed to SOCO (South Congress).  When I closed out that ride in the app and the active map came back to the display, KAPOW!  The $6.50 surge bonus was still there and the heart of it was only about 2 miles away.  I blasted off and nailed it down right at the 290 / 360 split in south Austin.  I was sure I would get pegged for a ride as I drove back north an Mopac and passed close to downtown and West Campus but I managed to get all the way to the Arboretum before the next ride.  Other than that stretch it was busy and I was getting bonuses on the rides.

Until I got a call that there was a fire alarm at the hotel.  That stopped the momentum and I was there for about 3 hours taking care of that crisis.

About 12:30am I started the app again and being a Friday in downtown Austin, I immediately got a request, followed by another.  The drop off for the second one took me out of downtown.  Even though the late night surge bonuses were starting to show up in the downtown area, I opted to continue to the north and see if I could make it home before getting another ride.

I was approaching the tollway (45) at 183 when the next request came.  I was having trouble staying awake and it scared the shit out of me when it activated.  It is interesting how I never get drowsy when I have riders late at night but give me 30 seconds without a rider in the vehicle and gets tough to stay awake.

I picked up a young guy at a club in Cedar Park and I could immediately tell he was drunk and that there was going to be conversation occurring for the duration of the ride.  He immediately started talking about nutrition and how it had affected him.  He was using big words that he could not pronounce in his drunken state and it was starting to frustrate him but I let him know that I knew what he was saying so he would keep talking and get on with what he was trying to say.  He absolutely could not say "artificial ingredients" and even as much as he was battling and being frustrated, he kept revolving his conversation around those words and kept having to attempt to say them.  It was really funny but, the point he was making was a very good one and after all of the drunken babble, his point boiled down to, "read the ingredients of a product and if you don't know what an ingredient is, then it is probably artificial and should not be eaten".  He says that the body does not know how to process artificial ingredients and there for they just stick around anywhere they can, kind of in a limbo situation until they are cleansed out with a product you can buy at GNC or by eating things that will help get them out of there such as blackberries or blueberries.  It sounded logical to me so perhaps I will come up with a new diet with the spirit of the above at its core and will name the diet, "La Dieta del Muchacho Borracho" (the Diet of the Drunken Dude).

It was 2:00am and I was heading back into Cedar Park from Jonestown I was fully expecting to receive a request from the Wild West.  It happened and I picked up a couple that were going to Leander at 2 stops.  The passengers were talking coherently but I could tell that the lady was about to go down for the count.  As long as she was talking, she stayed awake.  Of course the first stop was the drop off the guy.  He even commented that I was going to have to carry her when we got to her house.  As we left for the short remaining distance to her house, I began talking to her to keep her awake.  That worked for about 32 seconds as her side of the conversation slowly faded away into nothing.  "Well shit", I said to myself.  She was a big girl and there was not going to any successful lifting and hauling of her ass from me.  We arrived at the house and after 3 announcements of our arrival and turning on the inside light, she begin to move around, opened her eyes and noticed that we were at her house.  She begin a process of movements that seem to slowly build up to the final action of reaching over and opening the damn door.  I asked her if she needed any help.  She said no and successfully got out of the car and thanked me.  She stood for a moment and as I pulled away she started up her driveway.  I was going to just go straight out but had the though of her passing out,  falling down and rolling down her driveway into the middle of the street where she might get hurt, so I turned around to go back by and  see if she made it inside.  As I drove by she was at her front door looking down into her purse, presumable for her keys, and looked to be in control of her faculties.

I was done.  I ended up making more money than what I had intended for the day and had a couple of great stories.  And I got to drive around town all night.  Could that be some kind of weird latent subconscious addiction going back to the days on "the drag"?

2/4/19

The rider asks, "so back in their day, who was the hottest, Goldie Hawn or Sally Field."
My answer was that I have this thing for brunettes so definitely Sally Field. Nothing against Kurt Russell of course.

2/6/19

1,000 trips driving for Uber!

2/2/19

Went to pick up someone in the Seaholm area and could not find him.  Tried calling and did not get an answer then he called me.  I had a hunch that the app had me picking up around the corner instead of in front of the businesses, so I turned and went in front of the businesses.  We are talking on the phone and I see him about 25 yards ahead.  I tell him that I see him and I can see his lips moving and they are matching the words I am hearing so I know it is him.  He is looking straight into my headlights, "I don't see you man".  He walks past and is now behind me and I am telling him that I am right in front of him and I am flashing my brake lights.  He turns around and is being lit up with the red from my brake lights as if he was standing on the rim of hell.  "I still don't see you man".  "Oh!  Shit, sorry."  The guy is not into the blitzed stage yet but definitely in the toasted stage.  First words out of his mouth, "My friend is a Jew, I think Judaism would be a good religion for me.  Are you religious?"  "Fuck" I said to myself.  Its going to be one of THOSE conversations.  Everything from "I love religion" to "fuck religion" was coming up from the back seat.  I couldn't let him stay silent or he would pass out and who knows what would happen then.  So, to keep from having to deal with that, I kept pushing the conversation.  "Are you Catholic?" I asked.  That caused a shit storm but at least it kept him awake while I drove as fast as I could to get him to his destination.  The ride ended in a barrage of "you're the greatest", "thanks for getting me here", "this was the most awesome ride ever", "I love you man".  Yeah, that's the way it ended.  Holy Shit!  Literally.

2/1/19

The car was dirty and I was concerned about what a passenger would see when they got into the car.  I turned on the app anyway and to my surprise there were significant areas of high demand where surge pricing was in effect.  I begin making my way over to Mopac so I could stab right into the middle of area before I actually went online.  As I was darting back and forth between lanes I watched as the price in the high demand area kept rising.  It was up to $7.00 when I hit the zone and went online.  I immediately grabbed $4.50 and watched it climb as I penetrated deeper into the zone.  It made it as high as $5.00 and then I begin to exit the zone.  Now a couple of miles outside the zone, I carried my $5.00 bonus and a dirty car for the next rider to see.  Then it happened.  A request came in and I accepted it.  As fate would have it, a second stroke of good luck was about to happen.  As I arrived at the pick up spot, it immediately became obvious that the lady I was picking up was blind and was not going to see the dirty car.  This lady was the most upbeat person I have ever had a conversation with and she was going to the gym!  Completely awesome!