Got Blood?

This time three years ago I was plowing through a horrendous snow storm. and I was reminded of that fact just yesterday as I went to take some blood to the hospital from Canadian blood services. Our company has a contract to transport blood up the hill to the hospital, we only get $4 for the short trip but we are doing our part to help.

Three years ago I took kidneys for transplant to the Hospital in Halifax normally a 4 hour drive, the trip took me 7 hours I took a friend with me and we made the run and returned to saint John safe and sound. The story hit the papers and made the news every were in Canada. I am reminded of it every year around Christmas. Rightly so the story made it into a book as well and you can see it online at Amazing Stories. I love that I got the chance to do my part and I still get to from time to time in the cab.

Busy?

The question most asked by fares, in fact almost all fares ask, "busy tonight?". Friday and Saturday were both busy, lots of Christmas parties and massive amounts of people. Saturday was nonstop from 3pm to 4am the only breaks I got were to re fuel the car which I did about 3 times and I traveled over 700km and I was all over the city from one end to the other.

A lot of the work was charge work where various companies pay for their employees to go to and from their Christmas parties. this made for some hefty fares, $40 calls $50 calls and the regular fares we get each weekend.

I was so busy my right leg fell asleep like 400 times and I had to get out once and a while when I was waiting for a fare to come out of their house and stretch my legs.

Made some Christmas money and the final week will begin soon I'll have to get out and finish my shopping between fares this week.

The Hat made some tips and I now realize that once you put it on in the cab, you then become the sexiest man alive and every one wants to ware it and try it on. Also guys on the way to the bar realized this too and offered me a lot of money for the kewl Santa hat.

I visited Christmas lane this weekend and dropped a passenger off there and that was the first time I had ever been on that particular street.

Also in my travels to the home depot to get a Christmas tree stand and a few stocking stuffers I took time to snap a few shots of my grand daughter who already loves driving as you can see. If you have never seen one before the car she is in is a shopping cart.

Ya Never Know

Why stay so late? Asks the wannabees They all leave as the day drivers arrive at 3 or 4 am. they aren't real cab drivers only rookies who don't know how to make money and it is great that they don't because it helps me make a living.

I come in at 4pm and stay until 6am. Yes I know that it is long but as one old cabbie once told me "you gotta stay in the car to make money" SO I do and the money follows.

Also a wise old man also told me this "Liam, Ya Never Know!" Meaning you will never know what will or could happen and there will always be surprises. If he reads this and he might, I wanna say it is the best advice he ever gave me, and I often find my self sitting in the cab saying to my self,

"Liam, Ya Never Know!"

Early Thursday Morning after the rookies went home I got a call to go to Tower St, over on the west side of the city. My dispatch said "89 head over to tower street and meet the police they have a passenger for you and have a nice trip"

Now most of the time when the dispatcher says "have a nice trip" it means your headed out of town. In this case I was headed to St. Stephen. A $120.00 fare. I arrived and was greeted by Saint John's finest. They kindly helped me load this lady's bags into my trunk and the lady cop put her hand on my shoulder and whispered " she's ok, just had a fight with her daughter and we had to come break it up...... Oh yeah......and she's a little nuts"

A little nuts??? Holy shit..... this lady was more jumpy than a sparrow on Jolt cola. She was very upset with her daughter and kept talking to herself about the whole situation. It was a stressful 75minutes to the boarder town. She constantly wanted to smoke in the car and she wasn't taking no for an answer. Fighting with her about My rules would have resulted in me putting duct tape across her mouth and shoving her in the trunk. So Asthma inhaler in one hand and a cigarette in the other she was lighting up like clock work every 15minutes. I really fail to understand smokers.

SO every 15 minutes she stuck her head out the window right up until I dropped her off next to the boarder.

Being the stupid genius that I am I neglected to grasp that I had already driven most of the night and I was low on fuel when I reached St. Stephen at 4am. After dropping off my Smokey cargo I went on the hunt for Gas. Well wouldn't you know there are no gas stations that stay open over night in St. Stephen.

They all open at 7am, a shitty notion at 4am but not with out a solution. A short trip across the boarder was in order. So here I was at 4am trying to explain why I wanted to enter the good Ol US of A just to re-fuel my jet and fly back to SJ. Our armed friends south of the boarder spent the next 30minutes turning my taxi upside down and hauling the carpet up in the trunk to find the 3000 pounds of invisible hash I had stashed back there. After finding out that I was not driving a stolen car and understanding I wasn't a criminal fleeing Canada they made me fill out some paperwork and let me pass, not with out giving me the absolute best directions to the closest gas station.

Concluding my business in America, I made for Canada and was back on home soil in a 10 minute round trip minus my 30minutes with US Customs. Returning to my home country was quite funny. Canada customs greeted me with a big smile at quarter to 5 in the morning and asked "anything to declare" and I said "Just cheap gas", she smiled and said have a nice day and sent me back out into the darkness and home to Saint John.

Here's a paradox Gas in the US was 10 bucks cheaper to fill the cab and it was the same gas that sells here in Saint John and is refined here. I have resolved that the boarder is a magic line that turns gas cheaper some how. Then I remember that Iraq's best friend "W" is the magician and the magical line we call the boarder is only an illusion.

"American Go Juice"

"Tastes like the Canadian counterpart with slightly more of a Gold taste"

AIR LIMO

Earlier before I headed off to work I watched my favorite channel "discovery" and the show daily planet. They had a story about this airplane turned limo. Some Mexican company buys weird stuff and turns it into cars and limos and other forms of transport. I guess it cost a $1000 bucks to rent the thing and it has all the wonderful amenities that you could imagine being in a limo of this size. They took a Benz bus for the engine and put the plane on top with I imagine a few minor adjustments. Found the picture so I thought I'd share....

Keep It Clean!

A CLEAN CAR 89

I don't take cabs much my self anymore for the simple reason I am always working and don't have the need. But when I do I only call my friends and co-workers who I know keep their cars clean.

I can't stand the guys who live in the car and can't keep it clean. I however have the clean bug. I must keep my car as clean as I can all the time. I wash it and rub the amour all into it's interior as much as I can. I share my car with a day driver and I will say this she is not as clean as I am. She is not nearly as bad as some of my other driving partners. I have driven with guys who were so dirty I had to clean the car as soon as I got it just to feel comfortable driving it.

A clean car gets you more money and tips from passengers. I fail to understand why the people of this little city put up with the cruddy drivers who are stinky and dirty. Most of the problem is the smoking issue here in this city. There are by-laws in place to prevent smoking in all public places of work in the province. These laws are not enforced and fail to purge smoking from the cab industry. People here still want to smoke in cabs and I loose a lot of fares because people want another cab that will allow them to smoke.

I have heard it all from customers begging me to let them smoke. "I'll roll the window down all the way and stick my head out" " ahhhh come on"

I hate these people they are fucking brain dead!

They don't care about anyone but them selves and don't realize that they dirty my cab and my lungs. I don't allow them to smoke and yes I loose business but at least I have a clean car and my health goes un affected.

" ahhh please can I take a shit I really have to go I'll roll down the window all the way, I'll even stick my ass out there in the cold"

The root of the problem is the drivers who smoke themselves and allow people to smoke. They ruin it for the rest of us and force people to get into big fights with non smoking Cab drivers.

I try not to have attitude with my smoking customers who have the nerve to ask. but some times I sound really pissed when they do and this doesn't help my case either.

SO whatever, it won't be solved until smoking and smokers are done infesting our planet.

So to you smokers and cabbies who allow smoking in their cab FUCK YOU!!!!!!

Don't worry it's ok I stuck my head out the window when I typed that!

Weekend finished

Had an uneventful weekend nothing too exciting. Most of the evenings fares were from Christmas parties, however people don't seem as wild as they used to be when it comes to the office party. I even had passengers talk about the regular party animals even going to lengths to tone down their antics. I think that people are listening more and more to the advertisements surrounding their drunken mishaps with co-workers. I have seen several news stories and TV shows that deal with the office party. The embarrassing drunk making an entrance to said party is no longer acceptable for some reason. This is by far not the rule because I know there are many out there who would beg to differ with stories and examples from this years batch of Xmas party goers. But Driving cab is no science and the possibility of not getting as many drunken fares is maybe just Luck, who knows. I will say this The season is far from over and the closer we get to the holidays the stupider and crazier people will get.

Port City Puncher

So the other night one of our boys gets a call to the local bus depot. Here he finds a girl shivering in the cold and looking only half awake and surrounded by luggage. As he loads her luggage into his car she begins to tell him her story.

You see she had a long day that had her spend a while coming home to Saint John on the Bus. The very tired girl arrived at 8:10pm, she awoke on the bus at 9:30pm on a dark bus cold and shivering.

She had a hard time figuring out what happened to her at first and soon she found her self struggling to find a way off the bus as it was locked. Eventually she found a way to open the doors and she rushed over to the bus station office, which was just locking its doors for the night. She explained her self to the guys locking up and they took her for some local crack head running around in the cold with out a Jacket. She persisted and explained that her luggage was in their office and they had better get in there to give it to her. Finally she points to the bus she had just left and shows them the door is open and unlocked. Then they believe her and proceed to get her things.

I have fallen asleep on a busy city transit bus and have ended up on the other side of town but this takes the cake. Apparently the bus driver was in a rush and failed to check his bus before parking it for the night. I later had this girl as a fare and she told me the whole story.

Another unrelated story,

Our city has a transit bus that runs after hours on the weekend helping the drunks from the bars get home. It goes from the east side to the university and makes stops uptown. It is a nuisance to cab drivers as it steals our business. The city exclaims that it is a method of prevention, to stop drunk drivers from taking the car home from the bar.

This is retarded since this bus provides transport to mostly UNB students and the majority of them do not own cars. So simply said it is stealing the bigger in town fares from taxis.

Well I had to laugh this week since last weekend a fight broke out on the bus and a few bloody noses had the bus driver calling police to help empty the bus. Which was happened quite fast since the bus occupants all fled the bus when the boys in blue arrived.

Freddybeach has told us about his “Vomit Comet” so I figured this would be a good opportunity to tell you about our bus and aptly name it the “Port city Puncher” Since it is a boxing ring on the weekends and it punches holes in our profits.

Winter Wonderland

Winter has begun in my part of the world and snow has infiltrated and stayed on the ground for a few days thus far. This has made it a bit busy for us and the money has been better. Tree lots have started their annual sale of Xmas trees and things are getting more festive looking around the city as Christmas approaches. Here are some shots to reflect what I have seen the past few days.

Lights at the Hospital

Early Morning Drive On the Highway

See if you can find Jack frost in the cloud

in the center of the picture.

Take me Down Town to Monkey Town!

Where have I been???? Busy with the other Job. That is Eastlink Door to door shuttle express! Yeah I move people around eastern Canada mostly in New Brunswick. Yesterday I was busy being Shuttle "C" for the Skate Canada Eastern Challenge. I bring people from one of the local hotels to the rink and then back again. I now know I do not want to ever be a bus driver doing the same short route all the time it would really begin to suck!

SO I have been in Moncton most of the weekend and I did have to take some time out to do another run to Woodstock while my boss took care of skate Canada. I missed out on a great night of Cab driving, the weather was horrible everywhere in New Brunswick, As Freddy Beach can attest to and he has the scars to prove it. "Poor guy" Read his last post and you'll understand.

SO I am here until late tonight and then it's off to Freddy to get a passenger and take them to Halifax on Sunday. Hope the weather holds off I am a master of winter driving but that doesn't mean I want to stick my head in the lions mouth or bash my head of a rear door hatch!

Yeah and I added EastLink's web site to the list so you can find out more about my other Job!