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| Manhattan:
So, I'm headed to the upper east side for my left hand lady's birthday party. I got off of the Long Island Rail Road at 34th St. Penn station running late already, so I decided that I should cab it over instead of take the train.
Hailing the cab was easy. There are two taxi stands by the station. The trip was short and quiet until I reached my destination. The driver tallied the fare and put it on the rear screen, which prompted me to decide whether I wanted to pay with cash or credit/debit. I didn't stop to get any money from an ATM, even though there are Chase ATMs on every other block, so I tapped credit/debit and then waved my card past the cab's chip sensor. To my horror, "Transaction Denied" flashed across the top of the screen! So the driver, a French speaking African with a thick accent, told me to swipe again. I did, and the message flashed again.
Now in confused crisis mode, I instruct the driver to go around the block to the Duane Reade we passed on the way there (all Duane Reade's have Chase ATMs). At the same time, I call up my bank (thank goodness my phone is voice activated so I didn't have to search for the number by hand). The Duane Reade was closed, so I got back in the cab (the driver was already shaking his head at this point). To my surprise, it takes only a minute to get an operator who informs me that the debit/credit card system is down for maintenance and that even if I had gotten to the ATM in the Duane Read, it would not have authorized my card! I ask how long it'll be down and he tells me around 30 MINUTES! However, he also states that they started 20 minutes ago (at least it wasn't identity theft). So I let the driver know what's going on, by which time his demeanor deteriorated to angry.
We start to play the waiting game. He steps out of the cab and starts mouthing off to someone on the phone, while I wait in the back of the cab. After the ten minutes is up, I swipe again... No Bueno. The driver hops back in to the driver's seat as I call my bank again. While I'm on hold, he non politely tells me that he could just drop me off at a police precinct nearby. So I non politely (but without swearing) inform him that doing so would be fine with me as I wasn't trying to cheat him out of a fare, and money wasn't the issue. My bank's silliness was. So he shuts up (I guess realizing that I'm not a pushover). Meanwhile, I'm on hold for what seems like an eternity (I would bet that other customers calling about the same problem had started to flood the phone lines).
This time a female operator picks up. I start to explain my situation in the tone of an angry businessman that just lost a million dollars in one second. She at first gives me more bad news, stating that sometimes system downtimes could be up to an hour! My heart starts racing because I'm late for the birthday party and this driver looks like he wants to fight (I was bigger though). In speaking with her I realize something, the actual system that was down was the system that allows sensors to communicate with the chip built in to the card. The first operator was wrong. If one swipes that card (using the magnetic strip on the back) it should work assuming there's money in the account, which there was. So I swipe the card and the transaction goes through as my heart rate decelerates. Crazy... I give the driver a nice tip since my bank did waste his time. Time is money for cabbies.
Hicksville:
A few days later, I call a cab from work. I lost track of time and ended up missing the driver. He left, picked up another passenger then came back for me. When I get in the car, the driver and I have a short exchange about why I was late. He's initially a little bit annoyed because I caused him to miss an arriving train at the Hicksville Long Island Railroad Station, but calms down because my explanation is plausible.
After he drops off the other passenger, he proceeds to ask me about my job and crack jokes about medical issues. While doing so he informs me that he used to be a member of the NYPD. He served in Brooklyn in the seventies and eighties. I'm surprised by the fact that a former police officer is now a cabbie and start to wonder in my mind why that is. He proceeds to tell me about the crime rates and issues in Bensonhurst and Bedford-Stuyvesant where he served. I'm starting to feel comfortable so I add my two cents to see if what he's saying is true. I let him know that I used to live in Brooklyn. He asked where, and to my surprise, he correctly identifies the precinct associated with my old neighborhood (The 75th Precinct, Cypress Hills). Furthemore, he starts spitting out more crimes rates and statistics which sound right!
At this point, my mind is racing to try to figure out how this seemingly knowledgeable guy managed to lose his job as a police officer. Here's how: He went through with drug test and his superiors found out that he was smoking weed! So now we start talking about weed and how it relates to the Mexican Drug wars (The idea is that if you legalize weed you take away some of the income from drug traffickers). This cabbie hasn't had a moving violation since the 1970's and stopped drinking but he still smokes weed to this day!
You'd think I'd be satisfied with my answers, but I had one more as I exited the cab: Did this guy smoke up before picking me up? I hope not.
I should get back to work... I think I'll make this a series though... | | |
| Got this idea from Sarephina.
I took a personality test from the following site. http://www.quizbox.com/personality/test82.aspx. Some interesting results came out. You be the judge though.
Your views on education
Education is less important than the real world out there, away from the classroom. Deep inside you want to start working, earning money and living on your own.
The right job for you:
You have plenty of dream jobs but have little chance of doing any of them if you don't focus on something in particular. You need to choose something and go for it to be happy and achieve success.
How do you view success:
You are afraid of failure and scared to have a go at the career you would like to have in case you don't succeed. Don't give up when you haven't yet even started! Be courageous.
What are you most afraid of:
You are concerned about your image and the way others see you. This means that you try very hard to be accepted by other people. It's time for you to believe in who you are, not what you wear.
Who is your true self:
You are mature, reasonable, honest and give good advice. People ask for your comments on all sorts of different issues. Sometimes you might find yourself in a dilemma when trapped with a problem, which your heart rather than your head needs to solve. | | |
| I was thinking about the things I'd like to do one of these days. I figured I'd give the old Xanga page some action by writing some of them out. Some of these are actually dreams and not necessarily things I could actually pull off. If not, maybe I'll have children and one of them will (I know, maybe me having children isn't all that likely either, lol).
I'd like to go on a cruise to the caribbean one of these days.
I want to visit the pyramids.
I want to visit the Taj Mahal.
I want to learn to Rock Climb.
I'd like to sit down one day and trace out my family tree.
I'd like to go to Haiti one of these days (Believe it or not, I've never been there).
I want to drive a car over 120 miles/hour one of these days (maybe on a race track or something).
I want to learn to fly both fixed wing and rotary air craft.
I'd like to go sky diving.
I'd love to chill on the North and South Pole for a minute.
I'd love to run for public office in NY (Do you trust me? lol...No Spitzer business on my watch, lol).
I wouldn't mind going to see the entire Summer Olympic Games (Perhaps in NYC if the IOC would let that happen).
I'd love to play in the NFL.
I'd love to compete at the Olympic games one day. I have no clue which event though.
I'd like to experience being President of the United States one day.
It'd be great to win a Nobel Prize one day. Maybe I could cure a disease or end significant suffering somewhere in the world.
I'd love to take a walk on mars.
That last one is one of those dreams that has next to no probability of happening, but seeing how the president is black, I'm going to go ahead and say, "Yes We Can!" Maybe I'll add to this one of these days. I need to go read somethin' right now though. All this slackin'... ::smh:: | | |
| I've got some issues (No one crack jokes here). I've got issues with "Drivers" that can't drive. Here's what I'm talking about: If on a highway, you're the type of driver that lane-shifts into the left/passing/fast lane and you impede the flow of traffic by maintaining the same speed as the middle lane, you don't know what you're doing. If when entering a highway, you do not use the on-ramp to accelerate to a speed which more closely matches that of traffic already on the highway, but instead stay at 30-40 mph, forcing drivers already on the highway to abruptly brake or change lanes, you don't know what you're doing. If you're one of the those drivers on the highway that drifts into or out of lanes without signalling and without regard to other drivers beside or behind you, you don't know what you're doing. If you're one of those drivers that enters the fast lane, stays in the fast lane during a curve, and then brakes hard when entering the curve, you don't know what you're doing. If you're one of those drivers that enters the fast lane, stays in the fast lane during a curve, but then encroaches on the inner lane when negotiating a curve, you don't know what you're doing. If you encroach on any of your neighboring lanes when driving, you don't know what you're doing. If these scenarios describe the way you drive, please don't take offense. Just take note that doing the aforementioned kinds of things puts you and others at risk for accidents, seriously. Here's the problem, a whole bunch of drivers aren't going to read this and make note of course. So I think state governments should make a new class of licenses, "Delta Class". Drivers would take extensive, time consuming, classes on defensive driving as well as high speed driving and maneuvering and then take a road test on it all. Those drivers who pass would then be allowed to drive over the speed limit, at a higher speed limit than regular drivers. In addition, big states would be allowed to make high-speed lanes that only "Delta Class" drivers could drive on, at any speed above the speed limit just like on the German autobahn. No one under ~24 could obtain a Delta Class license. lol, What do you think? (I'm so frustrated. Can you tell?). | | |
| What a night... So I'm walking down 144th Street between Convent and Amsterdam. All along the Northern side of the street was a whole bunch of Hispanics sitting in lawn chairs outside of their respective buildings as though they were chillin' at the beach. As I stroll along, wondering why these people have nothing to do but block the path, my left foot hits something that feels like a small animal (e.g. kitten), nearly causing me to trip. In actuality it was a considerably large rat! I looked down and the nasty thing rolled under a car. One of the Hispanic men witnessed this and without missing a beat, he said “Hey! Whoa! Say you're sorry." Anyway, I continue on to my destination, a friend's birthday party. The event was cool. Afterwards we end up going to this interesting take out steakhouse place on 14th and 9th. I was the only on who wanted to eat there so the rest of the group went elsewhere to eat and returned to meet me there later. In the meantime, I ordered food and as I ate it a seemingly homeless woman walks by the window, looks inside, then continues walking. She returns after a few seconds and this time comes in and sits directly across from me, at my table! She sits there silently while I'm thinking to myself, "This is weird. A whole bunch of trendy looking people eating at this sort of trendy looking place and here I am sitting across from this silent, homeless lady." What do you think I did? I'll tell you. Half of the party had already returned and gone deeper into the facility so none noticed my situation. I continued to eat while trying to figure out what to do. I figured it's not cool to just finish and leave, so I gave her my fries, which were virtually untouched. I then told her to have a good night. In retrospect, I think I chickened out on a uniquely rare opportunity. First, according to what I say I believe I could've/should've talked about God and Jesus, but I didn't. Second, I could've/should've gotten her more food (I say never give money). Third, I know that part of me felt that the situation was embarrassing and that it wouldn't be "cool" for me to be seen sitting with or talking to a homeless person in an establishment obviously geared towards the trendy/cool. As is all of this weren't exciting enough, there's more! I decide to take a cab home. During the ride I figure it would be a good time to write up this little web log on my “handy dandy” Motorola Q9h. I end up falling asleep somewhere around the end of the rat tale and when I snap back awake, I realize that the driver has driven past the exit to my apartment and is continuing north on the West Side Highway towards the Bronx! I instructed him on how to get back all the while hoping that he would stop the meter or ask me to pay less for what I felt was his mistake. He never did. Should I have argued? Maybe. I don't like conflict though, so I let it slide. Whatever, too much going on that night, it was time to go to bed. | | |
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