08/29/19

Sometimes, at first site, there appears to be a mismatch between people and their interests.  I could not help but feel this way when a tall, 22 year-old beautiful female with a British accent, loaded up in the passenger seat next to me and then went nuts when she saw a '65 refurbished Ford pickup truck.  It did look very nice.  I cannot help but wonder what the chain of events in her short life were, that lead her to this specific type of vehicular interest.  Oh, and it was a real turn on to hear her say words like Uber, beer, and any word that ended in "er", with her British accent.  I am sure she was turned on by my Texan accent as well.  We had an awesome conversation.

In fact all of the riders tonight were talkers.  This most likely was the first night where that has been the case.  Lots of interesting conversations.  Tarrytown to ATX Cocina, back to Tarrytown then to Shady Grove, The Oasis on Lake Travis to the Renaissance Hotel in the Arboretum, Estancia Brazilian Steakhouse and dropping off at Seaholm area.

08/25/19

Avery Ranch to Georgetown, Round Rock to the airport, a canceled ride and a guy with freshly turned brake rotors, made for a Sunday Slam Dunk of a quick $75.00.

The airport ride ended up having both terminals included which was good as I had not been to the South terminal yet.  This gave me a daylight opportunity to figure it out.  No arrival passenger to pick up this time.  Disappointing.

I was about 100 yards away from the pick up point when the rider cancelled.  It always ticks me off when I am that close and they do that.  I am sure that it is not anything mischievous but I always have this vision of a couple of kids watching me approach on the app and see how close I get before they have to cancel the call before the grace period time runs out.  I guess it could be considered as payback for those times we would call someone and ask them if their refrigerator was running, and when they said "yes" we would tell them they better go catch it.  Then we would hang up.

It is interesting how a specific road will end up being the road most traveled for that given day.  I have made comments in previous posts about this phenomenon.  Today, there were not enough rides to really qualify any road although I35 at the Kamer Road area was visited 3 times today.

08/20/19

A most awesome Tuesday evening and night from my rideshare perspective.  Not the weekend type of riders although there a couple of "clubbers" but steady all night.  I finally had to go offline and go home.  14 rides and $104, on a Tuesday.  First time ever for me on a Tuesday.

Another great conversation from the passenger seat and from a female.  Her frickin' driveway was almost straight up for 50 yards.

08/15/19

Almost 11pm when I finally left work.  Had a nice little flurry of activity that ended up with a drop-off at Mopac and Wells Branch that left me in a good spot for a little shorter drive home.

I had picked up this last group after rolling 25 feet down the hill on 7th street from where I had just dropped off the previous group.  Some just starting their fun on 6th street while others were done.  Well, almost done as they were having a good time all the way to Round Rock.  They were Mexican Americans and we were laughing about the different accents of saying my name.  The guy in the group was cheering on one of the girls as she kept saying it more and more sexy.  Then she added the word "abajo".  "Abajo Yose, abajo".  I had to keep myself from getting too carried away as I think she was actually serious, based on the way she was looking at me.  I was tempted to say, "hasta donde", but I kept things professional and kept myself out of trouble.  The next headlines would have been,
Uber Driver Overtaken by Fun Foreign Phonetical Fornication game.

08/14/19

Sometimes it just works out.  Picked up a rider at the Doubletree on 15th street and dropped him off at the Domain.  That put me half-way home with the earnings paying for a couple of days gasoline.

08/12/19

Very busy.  I probably could have made a million dollars tonight.

It was after 6pm and I was thinking most of the rush-hour traffic would be done.  NOT.  I picked up the first rider on West street next to the new big ass library.  We almost immediately ended up with a conversation about the idiots that many refer to as homeless but these people are not homeless.  You could give them a house and they would have it destroyed in less than a year.  Most of them are just stubborn belligerent assholes.  We had a good conversation and as she was exiting the vehicle with her nice looking workout gear, I thanked her for such a good conversation.

I knew Keller Williams was having a big event at the Convention Center but as I made my way to Mopac I thought maybe my timing was off and I was just going to miss out.  I got a ping from Mopac and picked them up.  They were going to the Launderette which was the first time in a long time that I had dropped of there.  Before we arrived I had received another request and from that point forward, it was on.  Uber X, Comfort, XL and even a LUX tonight.  Ride after ride and they were all dropping "F" bombs.  I was starting to feel like Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.

I finally got to see those darn bats flying out from under the Congress Street bridge.  Just happen to pass over the bridge at the perfect time.

As always, after each ride I start migrating towards home.  If I make it I stop and if I don't make it, I don't stop.  Surprisingly, at about 9pm my migrating pushed me out of downtown, passed the Arboretum and Domain areas and nothing going on in the Lakeline area at that moment.  I made it home and went off line.

Lots of tippers today.

08/10/19

One of the later starts that I have done but I knew that even at 10pm there would be someone wanting to go somewhere and that I would probably end up downtown sooner or later.

Sure enough, a request came in.  Beautiful young lady that went straight for the passenger seat.  We talked for the duration of the trip to downtown Austin.  I noticed that the app had me going to I35 but in our conversations I wanted to run her by West 6th so she could see that area.  Even as we turned south on Mopac, the app kept trying to redirect us.  I begin to suspect that something was up downtown and then I remembered that it was Pride weekend.  My offer to show off part of the town turned into a traffic and pedestrian nightmare as the events were ending and we were right at 5th and Guadalupe where they had all ended.  I was finally able to make our way to 6th and Colorado and she was fine with walking a few blocks to 6th street.  She asked if it would be safe and I told her it would but to not talk to strangers. 

So, I dropped off the first rider but was still stuck on Colorado and now another request had come in from west 6th and I had no way to turn around and get back to 6th street.  It took forever to get up to 7th street where I turned west and then begin working my way to the pick up.  I had been texting the rider and letting him know what was going on.  I made it to the pick up spot and couldn't find them.  I went around again and saw who I thought was them across the street but I was in no position to get over there so I started around again.  They sent a text letting me know they were outside and I explained to them that I thought I had seen them and was going around again to be able to pick them up.  I went up an extra block and then turned west on 6th giving me lots of room to maneuver in the packed traffic to get over to them.  DAMMITT! the guy yelled out when I pulled up and called his name.  He wasn't mad, just relieved that I had finally made it.  I too expressed how glad I was to see them and to finally get them into the vehicle.

After dropping them off I had a pick up at BT2 and going downtown.  Dropped them off and had a Pool ride with 2 of the riders going back to that same place.  The other group in the pool was headed to Top Golf.  From there picked up someone on Rock Rose in the Domain that were going out to 360 and 2222.  Got pinged from Shooters and took them to Steiner Ranch.  I usually don't have a problem with 2am stuff but I was feeling like I was going to fall asleep so I headed home.

08/09/19

I was supposed to head home after work today and I did, kinda sorta.  I turned on the app and set my home address to see if I could sneak a ride in while I was headed home.  Since I was still downtown, there was a very good chance I would get a request even with the address restriction in place.

I immediately got a ping and it was just around the corner at the state capital.  As soon as turned left from Brazos street on to 11th street the riders spotted me and began waving at me.  I easily pulled up and two nice looking oriental ladies ran to the vehicle and jumped in.  "We have to get to Greyhound and catch a bus" they franticly stated.  "Okay, we are on our way", I responded and we took off.  I looked at the clock at it was exactly 5:00pm.  "What time does your bus leave", I asked.  Keep in mind that the evening rush-hour traffic is in full effect although it is usually a little lighter on Fridays.  They told me that their bus was at 5:25pm and because sometimes the busses leave a little early, they were not sure they were going to make it.

By now we were on Lavaca and I could see that there was a delay up at the light at MLK.  I cut across 17th street to Colorado and then continued over to MLK and successfully avoided the jam up at the Lavaca and MLK light.  MLK to I35 was a little slow but it was moving and the turn to the I35 ramp was packed and not moving.  I swung wide and stayed on the frontage road bypassing all of the stopped traffic and then had to do the same thing again and the next on-ramp.  As I zipped past 38 1/2  street I held to the far left lane.  I could see that past the tracks and up the ramp the traffic was moving slower in the other lane.  I was easily able to slide through the traffic, over the hill and down onto the on-ramp to I35.  The next exit was the one that I needed so I never really merged onto I35.  The whole time I am taking glances at the clock and we were getting really close on time.  I exited on 2222 and just as before I was able to slip through in the left lane all they way to the traffic light and after a brief wait for the light to change I lifted off while in a left turn for the final leg of the journey.

I could see the building with the Greyhound letters across the side and could also see that there was no traffic for this final stretch.  I accelerated rapidly, then slowed equally as rapid to turn into the driveway.  The time was 5:20pm.  Nice, we had made it with 5 minutes to spare.  The ladies had already bolted out of the vehicle thanking me as they ran to the door.  I once again began my journey home as the earnings for the ride popped up on the screen.  Wow.  It seemed like more than what it should be.  As I stopped for traffic on Airport Blvd I reached up and opened the detail section of the earnings to see why it was so high.  What I saw made me smile.  It was almost like receiving a secret message.  The ladies had added a large tip to the ride signifying that we did make it in time and that they were pleased with how I had accomplished that.

I made it the rest of the way home, picked up my wife a daughter and we headed out to try out a restaurant that I had seen on one of the past journeys.

08/08/19

First ride was to the airport.  Just like earlier in the week, when I dropped off I immediately received a request for a pickup.  This time I nailed it.  Yellow Zone 3.  Present and waiting when the rider arrived. 

As I headed up the acceleration ramp, that was at a slightly steep angle and was aiming the vehicle at the sky, the collision warning system picked up a traffic sign that was 20 feet up in the air and activated the collision warning.  I almost had a natural disaster in my pants as the alert was totally unexpected due to the fact that there were no cars in the vicinity.

Third and last rider of the day was headed to the Mohawk to see Mike and The Moonpies.  Her good friend's son is in the band.

08/07/19

After making it all the way out to 2222 on Balcones, it was good to finaly get a request so I could get away from the fumes of this frickin Dodge Charger that was somehow picking the same roads that I was.  I think I breathed in enough of that crap to take care of the ozone layer for the next 2 years.

Took three people out on 620 south of Mansfield dam.  Surprisingly I immediatly got another request out there.  I pulled up to the Hudson Tavern and waited for the rider.  I saw him coming in my rear-view mirror and although he was not staggering or anything, I could tell that he was drunk.  He opened the passenger side door and before I could greet him he announced to me and anyone else that was within a hundred yards in all directions, "I am day drinkin!'".  We had good conversation and he was guiding me through the navigation of the roads to get to his house.

I had no idea that today was Blues on the Green at Zilker Park.  Picked up a group of 4 guys in Cedar Park and dropped them off at the event.  Made it all the back home without another request and called it a night.

08/06/19

Wide awake at 5:00am so I decided to head out early and see if there were any riders going downtown.  I set the address on the app and made it to work really early as no one was going my way at that time of the day.

Much later evening start than what I wanted, in fact it was almost 10:00pm when I left work.  Still was able to get 2 rides.

08/05/19

The evening rush out of downtown was over but I turned it anyway to see if I could get a few rides.  Made it almost to the arboretum before getting pinged.

The ride was to the airport and after an uneventful trip and dropoff I immediately got pinged for a pickup.  The pickup was in the new pickup area that I was not familiar with yet.  After two misses and having to loop all the way around, I figured out how to get in to the pickup area.  The rider was there patiently waiting and then off we went to the Hyatt Regency.

From there I made it home without any additional activity.

08/03/19

Dropped off first riders in Leander in one of the new subdivisions. The streets weren't even on the map.  Turned the corner and some girls were selling lemonaide so I stopped and bought a cup.

The next rider was on an HOA board of directors somewhere and was on the phone for most of the ride, dealing with a problem of a neighborhood dog that had been biting other dogs and people.  It was one of the longer rides that I have done.  Leander to down south past where Mopac ends.

I kept Mopac ablaze tonight with over half of the trips being via Mopac.

All male group of 3 riders.
Rider 1:  we should do our formal thing
Rider 2:  yeah, I would be totaly down with that.
Rider 3:  ....

Rider 2:  which dates should we bring?
Rider 1:  no dates, just us.
Rider 3:  .....
Rider 2:  we have to bring dates.  I could bring Sarah.
Rider 1:  Okay.  I could bring Katie.
Rider 2:  who the fuck is that?
Rider 1:  she's got big fuckin tits!
Rider 2:  .....
Rider 3:  .....
Driver:  .......

One female rider was having her 25th birthday.  She wanted different  music and climbed into the front seat to find a good song on the radio since I was driving in downtown and couldn't mess with the radio.   Another large group of females was able to get their Bluetooth to link up and play their songs, all of which I could have done without.

3 Comfort rides tonight.  Uber may be on to something by adding this level of service.

Finished off the night at 1:45am at the Whataburger on 620 near Lake Creek Parkway.