01/27/22

Add Waco and Temple to the list of cities where I have driven Uber.  Helped the lady load and then unload her laundry.  Picked up a nice elderly man from one rest home and took him to another.  Making the rounds I guess.

It struck me as both odd and brilliant that someone would build a funeral home right behind a rest home.  

01/07/2022

I have noticed that most times it takes a while to get the first request.  Then once the first one hits, they become almost continuous.  I started out with the errand of mailing a box that was already ready to go.  I had almost made it to the post office when the first request came in.  It took 4 rides before I finally made it by the Post Office.

All of the rides ended up being in the Cedar Park, Leander, North Austin area spanning from as for south as the Domain and as far north as Liberty Hill.  There have been very few times where this has happened.  It is more common to take someone downtown and then never escape.  I had 2 requests in Liberty Hill which was a first.  

Another first was a person's name that I had never heard before.  

Did about 4 hours of driving today.  Trips were shorter and it took a little longer to get the money I wanted for the day.

Had a family from Minnesota that said it was -20 degrees when they left this morning.  I stated that our 38-degree weather today was probably a heatwave for them.  This was the only group that was very talkative.  None of the other riders throughout the afternoon had much to say.

As I walked into the house, I had a random thought about how a caveman would go out during the day with the goal of bringing home dinner.  Upon his return he would step into his cave and announce to his significant other, Honey, I'm home! but in a grunting kind of caveman language.  He would hold up a malnourished, roughed-up, chicken-looking thing that he claimed to have killed with his club, but that in reality was already almost dead anyway, and he would present it as a trophy that the great hairy caveman had overpowered and brought home for dinner.  In my case, I step in the door after being "out there on the hunt", and say, "babe I am home" in English, hold up my smart phone to celebrate the "victorious hunt" and to signify the electronic equivalent of money that I can transfer electronically to my bank account, and we can go have dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse.  Quite the contrast and definitely evolutionary.

01/02/2022

 I knew I had missed adding another round of rides between Austin and San Antonio to this journal but apparently, I missed 2.  I can only assume that they were uneventful although they totaled to over $200 worth of uneventfulness.

Tonight, however, things were a little more interesting even though it was only for about 2 hours and 50 minutes.

I was temporarily bummed out when a rider received a call from a friend informing him that his young son had been hit by a car while riding his bicycle.  The boy was in the hospital and was unconscious.  His father did not know whether he was going to live or not.  I said a prayer for the child and hope that he pulls through.

Dropped off at several restaurants.  It made me hungry and thus made me cave in easier when my wife called and told me to come home so she could make me a sandwich.  Hooters, Higher Ground, 24 Diner, Eddie V's, Fogo de Chao.

I picked up a lady with a couple of young boys who I assume were her sons, or at least one of them was.  I dropped them off at Hooters.  Wish my mom would have taken me to eat at a place lake that when I was 12 years old.  Oh, wait.  There were no places like that when I was 12 years old and certainly not in the area where I grew up.  And my mom was anti-anything that was even remotely sexual.  It kind of makes me wonder how in the fuck I was conceived.

Haven't had many trips downtown since I started messing around with this again.  Tonight was a little different.  Made the trip from Jollyville to downtown and the trip took us up East 6th Street.  There was not very much going on there at all.  Compared to Sunday nights in the past, it was beyond sad.  The rider stated that many of the bars were bankrupt and that there had been a lot of changing of ownership.  He also said there has been talk of completely blocking off the street and making it pedestrian only.  He sounded like a person who was "in-the-know" but I have no way of verifying that.  After dropping the rider off I continued down West 6th Street and it was much more impressive.  It had a very good vibe in the air.

I had engaged in a good conversation about restaurants with the gentleman that was going to Fogo de Chao.  We agreed that there are lots of good restaurants in Austin and he stated it was because we all like that "hippie shit" that is everywhere here.  He also told a story of a $150 steak that a certain restaurant serves that is in no way worth $150.  He was on a first date with a lady, and she commented about the $150 steak.  He told her that it was not worth that price and guess what she did anyway?  I laughed and he stopped me saying that "wait, there is more".  He said that she only ate 3 bites of the steak.  At the end of the date, she said that she had fun and that they should go out some more.  He told her "NO" which offended her.  He then elaborated as to what one could expect in the future from a lady who only ate 3 bites of a $150 steak.  I must say that he made a good point as he presented his case to me.  Predicting the future from a $150 steak had never crossed my mind.

I had told my wife that I was only going to accept one more ride, but I did 2.  I am glad I did because the last one was a home run from the Hilton downtown out to some apartments behind Bass Pro Shops near the outlet mall in Round Rock.  It was the longest trip of the evening.

Stats: 

- 2 hours and 50 minutes driving

- 45 miles

- 7 trips

- $85.00 before late tips

- 5 Restaurants

- 2 Hotels

- 11 people

- 2 pieces of large luggage

- 1 four-letter word (wow, that has to be some kind of record)