Here’s a summary of my cab shifts from last weekend.

I picked up an older guy from the Kaiser. I’d guess he was 60+. I have a hard time judging ages, especially those +/-5 years from mine.
He was heading back to his home in the Castro near the Seward Street slides.
He’s gay. We talked a bit [...]

Sunday was a busy and good day, buoyed by City events and nice weather. Monday and Tuesday were a bit slow.

As usual, I picked up a few lawyers going to or from work. (Work seems to always be the destination or origin for lawyers in my cab.) One lawyer was late for work but needed [...]

Time for an earnings update.

My earnings floor — the lowest take-home pay I can expect — is increasing from the record lows of the winter. In other words, it’s rare this time of year to see a shift that doesn’t net me at least $100. In the winter I had sub $100 shifts much more [...]

DPT officers get a bad rap. Everyone seems to despise them, yet they are a crucial element necessary to help all of us to effectively share our City streets.
Here are a few of the ways they make our lives better:

Parking meter enforcement: You think it’s hard enough to find parking now? Without meter enforcement you [...]

It was another slow weekend in San Francisco. During my shifts

I witnessed a non-trivial collision. A Toyota pickup truck was traveling behind me south on South Van Ness. As we approached the 16th Street intersection he passed me on the left and returned to my lane immediately before entering the intersection. The light had just [...]

I am so fond of ragging on San Francisco’s poorly managed Municipal Railway that I often overlook Muni’s remarkable, world-class achievements. (Yes, they really do have some remarkable, world-class achievements.) This post is a first attempt at fixing my glaring oversight.
Muni’s extensive trolleybus system is a modern treasure. Muni claims to hold the largest trolley-bus [...]

I drove 3 shifts in the past 3 days. One of them starts early at 5 am, the other two are graveyard shifts starting at 1 am. Each lasts 11 hours.
During my shifts

I picked up two young, professional nice guys downtown on Market Street. They wanted to go out to the Golden Gate Bridge. I [...]

I am a recently single guy and just realized how hard it seems to be to meet new people (men or women) in the City. One craigslist post summed it up well, “Ever notice how people (downtown anyway) just walk right past each other, no eye contact? Creepy.”
I heard a great Perspective on KQED on [...]

Let’s rewrite a few headlines to illustrate the point.
Case 1
The original headline reads, “Supervisor looks to limit liquor licenses.” Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval seeks to add a ballot measure banning any future City liquor licenses.
This headline should read, “San Francisco Supervisor seeks to inconvenience (but not prohibit) citizens’ access to a specific range of legal products [...]

December and January were tough months. Holidays meant many people left the City. There was very little tourism and few, if any, special events that draw large numbers into the City.
This weekend and last weekend produced relatively high earning taxi shifts. Nearly every shift was above my all-time shift take-home mean. These relatively high earning [...]