This weekend,

• The Oracle OpenWorld conference started Sunday, bringing bunches of people to the city and blocking off Howard Street. It was a busy weekend.
• I took a French speaking mom and daughter from the Haight to Union Square. My French is rusty by now, but I still pick up most of what they’re saying. I feel bad not disclosing that I can overhear their conversation, especially when I hear them talking about me. But, at least they said nice things.
• A middle-aged transgender female flagged me down at Market and Church. I took her and her girlfriend back to their apartment in the Tenderloin. They didn’t speak much in the way of English, but I learned one was from Cuba and the other from Italy. They said I was a pretty cab driver and asked for my number. I gave them a DeSoto receipt with the dispatch number.
• I took a fun Swedish family back to the airport to go home. The dad and I had a long convo about lax copyright enforcement in Sweden, socialist governments, and the like.
• I took a radio call to pick up a lady in the Sunset. I rang the bell a bunch of times, but she never showed. I left after 10 minutes – what seemed like an eternity on such a busy weekend. The dispatcher got mad when she called back later, but, hey, what am I supposed to do?
• I saw a confused looking family waiting for the 24 Divisadero near Haight. I circled around the block. They flagged me on my second time around. They couldn’t get a hotel downtown because of the Oracle conference, but we had a great chat about SF’s unique neighborhoods and how they’re close to a few already (Haight, Castro and Mission).
• A big family visiting from Hawaii was heading from their hotel near Upper Polk to a convention hall at 19/Sloat. For some reason my van had all the ladies. They wanted me to do the return trip, but I would be off duty before the reception would have concluded.
• My car overheated on Sunday. I turned it in and got a van an hour later. And, I got to do the ‘makeup’ hour in the super-busy afternoon hour. Yay!
• I took a family that speaks only (what I assume is) Chinese from the Mission out near Balboa Park. They are visibly frustrated that I don’t know the Balboa Park area. I feel bad, but I almost never get out there. Not much opportunity to learn the streets.
• I waited in a taxi stand at a hotel. It’s not something I do often, but this one netted me an airport run. I was tempted to wait at the airport — it looked busy — but realized that is almost always a waste of time.
• I spoke with many people this weekend who were frustrated at the difficulty of hailing a cab. I spoke with them about the idea of peak medallions.