Tag Archives: Lyft

Home Is Where The Heart Is ► UberLyfting Thoughts

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I didn’t recognize the address of the homeless shelter right away, but I should have. I’ve actually picked up several other people there in the year I’ve been UberLyfting.

It’s one of those oddities of modern life that some homeless people have both cellphones and UberLyft accounts. This wasn’t the first homeless person from this place I’ve transported. One went to his mother’s place way up in Boca Raton. Another just went to Dania Beach to spend the day with friends. Both were men and, I want to emphasize, neither were a problem.

It was 6:05 in the morning when the order came in. There were several other people around because these folks are disgorged back onto the streets at 6AM, when the shelter closes. My fare had a woman’s name, which is no guarantee it would be a woman; some people use other people’s accounts. Then I saw her on the sidewalk, huddled in a blanket, with a duffle bag and a small luggage hand cart that had several bags attached. Because of all that stuff, the long handle could not be lowered and it had to go into the trunk sideways, on its back, with the rest of her stuff.

I need to describe Sally Ann [not her real name, but one that’s appropriate]. She was magazine cover stunning; my idea of beauty personified. I have always been attracted to women who look just like her. Furthermore, she was a wonderful example of it. She was not disheveled in any way. Her hair was brushed. She wore a slight amount of makeup. Her clothes were clean; baggy sweatpants, with a layered sweatshirt and hoodie combo. I’ve always liked funky gals, as opposed to prissy ones, so her dressing down only added to the overall effect. She was simply gorgeous.

All this only made her story sadder, but it shouldn’t have.

She clearly wanted to talk and was a self-starter. I merely asked a few questions, to keep the conversation going. In the 15 minutes we were together, I learned this much of her life:

She was frustrated when she got in the Grey Ghost because the shelter in which she spent the night evicts people while it’s still dark out. She feels they should wait until it’s light. I was taking her to another homeless shelter where she can get some breakfast. “Why can’t they all serve breakfast?” she wonders.

Sally Ann can barely believe she ended up homeless. It still seems like a dream she can’t wake up from. She had a college degree and a well-paying job. Divorced, she raised 2 daughters alone and put them both through university. One has a Masters; the other a PhD. Neither will give her the time of day or lift a finger to help her.

Opioids ruined her life.

She started the same way that so many addicts start: A tumble down some stairs and a doctor who over-prescribed meds for the chronic pain. She could only afford a few weeks of physiotherapy, so the pain continued, masked by the drugs. Then, before she knew it, the drugs were in control. “Bip, Bop, Boop! It all happened so fast,” she said.

She admitted that she made many mistakes with her daughters while still addicted. She lied to them. She stole from them. While she’s been clean for 8 months, her daughters still refuse to help her.

“Over the years I paid a small fortune to educate them. Charter Schools. University. I sacrificed everything so they could have better than me growing up.”

She lost her job before she lost her addiction. However, once she cleaned up, Sally Ann was convinced all her bad luck was behind her. She was working, although waiting on tables paid far less than her previous [undescribed] job. But the bills were getting paid, even if there was nothing left for frills.

Then a cascade of events (some of which may have been women’s health issues, deduced by the way she skipped over it, as if embarrassed) put her farther and farther behind. The bad knocks wouldn’t stop. A small kitchen repair after the sink overflowed. Unexpected car repairs. The A/C crapped out in the house. just one after another. “Bip, Bop, Boop!” she said again.

So many people are just a paycheque or two away from the same fate. Sally Ann said she had a 5 week cushion when the bad dominoes starting falling against each other. She couldn’t stop them. She started having to push one bill off against another. Then her creditors ran out of patience. Suddenly her house was in foreclosure. Then she was living in her car. Then the car was repossessed. “Bip, Bop, Boop!”

By that time we had arrived at our destination. Her story — and her beauty — got to me. A part of me wanted to say, “I have a spare room. Can you cook?” But I kept it totally professional.

The breakfast shelter didn’t open until 7, so there were a lot of scruffy men milling around. That made me nervous for her. “You going to be okay here by yourself?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. I know all these people. These are my friends.”

As I wrestled her stuff out of the trunk, my next fare was flashed to me by the UberLyfting Machine. I wished Sally Ann GOOD LUCK and zipped off.

It was hard to get her off my mind. I couldn’t get over the fact that she looked nothing like what I expect a homeless woman to look like. She was difficult to shake.

A couple of hours later I got an UberLyftee going to the Miami airport. As I popped the trunk to toss their luggage inside, there was Sally’s blanket. We had both missed it in the dark.

It was a big, thick sports blanket. It wasn’t a cheap blanket when it was originally acquired.  By whom? When?

Pops would have loved this blanket, he was such a Michigan fan. Was Sally Ann from Michigan? Could we know some of the same people? Or, did she just pick up the blanket somewhere in her travels?

I let myself have a good cry driving back from Miami. I’ve been close to homeless myself and was now ashamed that I had her blanket. I’m sure having it was very important to her, judging by the way she had it wrapped around her when we first met.

I drove straight back to the shelter, but now it was about 4 hours later. All I had was her first name and made a total fool of myself describing Sally Ann to several people there. No one admitted to knowing her, including the staff. They may have been trying to protect her from a weird man who showed up asking questions. I know I would have.

In the end I gave the blanket to Marley and $250 in cash to the Salvation Army. Maybe they can use it to serve breakfast.

A Name Change To UberLyfting Thoughts

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UpLyfting Thoughts is now UberLyfting Thoughts and here’s the reason why:

My last UpLyfting Thought (#8 in a series) was all the way back in November. I thought it might be my last one, which is why it was called “Last Lyfting Log?” I won’t repeat any of that, but here’s the next chapter:

Three days after Lyft suspended me I signed up to Uber. 

After 2 weeks, when I still had not heard back from Lyft, I sent an email early in the morning. Immediately, I received a reply which said I had been reinstated. It was dated 2 weeks earlier. It HAD to be triggered to be sent by my email because it arrived in my inbox in the blink of an eye, in less time than it would have taken to open it and read the 1st paragraph.

I stated this to Lyft in a subsequent angry email and they actually disputed that. They claimed they sent it 2 weeks earlier.

At that point I gave up, which is uncharacteristic of me. Maybe I’m growing up.

I could have proven it with the internal date stamps attached to the email, but I had already lost 2 weeks of driving. Any more time spent on this was just eating into my bottom line. Besides, I wasn’t sure how hard I wanted to bite the hand that partially feeds me.

Since then I’ve been driving both Uber and Lyft. I should have done this from the beginning. I’m making more money. While Uber is busier than Lyft, Lyft always seems to be there to pick up the slack when Uber slows down.

I’ll be writing more about the differences as time goes on.

I’ve not stopped collecting vanity plates. I have so many I can easily string that into a series of it’s own, but I won’t. Here’s a selected few:

ESCAPEE ■ SOD DAWG ■ RWDY DOG ■ D-TOTO ■ SELENA P ■
KIK ASH ■ CARIOCA ■ LUV U ED ■ IZZY IT ■ O-ELLIE ■ NYC BOY ■ JIM SLIM ■ CREATOR ■ GNDHG ■ TOMY GRL ■ BE LIGHT ■
DATA GUY ■ CABARET ■ I ZUMBA ■ BET ALL ■ ZOOKPR-7 ■ SCOTTY 2 ■ I JETFAN ■ B1K1N1S

While I still have dozens to list, I’ll have to save them for another day because I need to service 2 13-year legacy clients. However, I’ll leave you with the best vanity plate I’ve seen so far. How do you think this got approved?

WHTHFK

 

Write of Refusal ► Unpacking The Writer

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First things first: An apology to my regular readers. I’ve not published nearly enough lately. Sorry.

Yes, I’m still crafting my regular Friday Fox Follies for PoliticusUSA, a column of Fox “News” criticism I’ve been doing since October 2014. However, that’s the only freelancing I’m doing for other publications at the moment.

The rest of my output, such as it is, has all been here and on mindless social media.

Since the last time we’ve had one of these little talks, I’ve started a new series, UpLyfting Thoughts, which has been very well received. Maybe too well received. I created it for two 2 simple reasons: 1). Interesting things happen in the Grey Ghost and I wanted to share them with my readers; and 2). It was a stopgap measure. I knew would have less time to write. UT is something I can put together fairly quickly. It’s based on notes jotted down at traffic lights and coffee shops while I’m out and about. I already have 3 more in the hopper, but I certainly don’t want this to become a Lyft blog.

A recent email from one of my secret sources in The Grove said:

Just an FYI, a lyft blog is a great story….
While not as satisfying, it makes a connection with readers.
My 2 cents.

Sadly, they are right. It’s not nearly as satisfying.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love writing UpLyfting Thoughts — and I have some really interesting ones partially written — but the truth is they take little time and effort to bang out. There’s no research. They are merely anecdotes, which I attempt to make pithy in the editing process. [You be the judge.]

I could probably drop one of these every day but I don’t want it to become a Lyft blog. The other topics are what keep my interest and, hopefully, the interest of readers who come back for more.

My (now semi-)regular series Monday Musical Appreciation and Throwback Thursday provided more of a writing challenge as well. I’d wake up at 5 and start the coffee. After catching up with some mindless social media, I’d take a look at a few history sites until I found the music or event I wanted to highlight. I’d do some research, craft an essay, move paragraphs around in the editing process, add pics and/or vids, and — finally — publish the sucker by 9. It was like being given an assignment with the due date RIGHT NOW!

You may be surprised to learn that the Not Now Silly Newsroom is a non-profit . . . and that’s not by design. That wouldn’t be the case if more people clicked on the adverts. However, I can’t game the system by asking. I just need to hope that people think of it on their own when they’re here. It also wouldn’t be the case if more folks contributed to the Go Fund Me at the bottom of every NNS page, but I’m not going to beg.

You may also be surprised that the bills to keep the bricks and mortar Newsroom afloat continue to come in every! single!! month!!!

That’s why I traded in the immaculate Lexus for the Grey Ghost and taken up driving for Lyft: to pay the bills. The Lexus, as deluxe as it was, was simply too old to meet Lyft’s requirements.

Lyfting changed everything. I am still trying to adapt to an entirely new writing schedule because it leaves far less time for Not Now Silly.

The best time to Lyft is early in the morning, soon after I wake up. I shower, jump into my shoes, and log into the Lyft app. I spend a few hours every morning meeting new Lyftees. When things slow down, I go home. All too often, when I get there, I don’t feel much like writing.

My best writing has always been done early in the morning. I’ve found that, as I get older, my writing suffers later in the day. It’s not as sharp and focused as what I craft early in the day. It’s more of a struggle to find the right words and craft sentences that are not typo-filled. That’s one of the reason I gave up writing after noon. By then, because I’m up at 5, I already have some 5-7 hours of writing behind me.

However, I’m trying to adapt my writing habits in various ways. First I am using my downtime between Lyftees to continue to work on stories, even if it’s in longhand in the Grey Ghost.

That’s how this essay started. It was punched up and polished at red lights and in parking lots. Then it was brought back to the Newsroom, and converted from analog to digital by the sheer will of my fingers. Pictured at left is one of my final edits as I monitor the Fox “News” Channel for egregious lies.

I’m also learning to write later in the day (all over again), but I know better than to publish any of that effluent. I edit the raw wordage early in the day, before my brain turns to mush all over again. That’s why I have several articles in various stages of completion. Eventually at least one of them will be complete.

All I can do is promise my faithful readers that I’ll try to do better and more. Now it’s time for me to go out Lyfting again. Back on the roadway “already in progress”.

The Strangers of Kindness ► UpLyfting Thoughts #2

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Some people are incredibly kind.

The other day I picked up 3 women who took a very long time to get to the car.

TO BE FAIR: It was a gated community without a guard. I needed to wait outside and they were forced to walk to me. The youngest actually arrived very quickly. She explained in broken English that her mother and very pregnant sister walked much more slowly.

The Lyft app has a countdown timer. If my client doesn’t arrive in time, I’m supposed to press a button and drive away because “other people may be waiting.” I ignored the app and stayed where I was even though they went 2 minutes over the 5 allotted minutes.

Some rules are made to be broken.

Then . . . I was mildly irritated that, during the drive, all 3 were talking loudly in Spanish — two of them on their cell phones. It wasn’t that they weren’t speaking English that bothered me. It was because I had to turn my music down while they were on the phone.

If there’s no music playing, I forget how to drive.

When we got to their destination — at Sawgrass Mills, a massive mall near me — the two in the backseat opened the doors on both sides of the car, which always makes me nervous, especially if the driver’s side opens up onto a lane of traffic. They closed the doors and as I was waiting for them to clear the car so I could drive away, when both back doors were suddenly opened again.

Thinking they may have dropped and lost something, I got out myself to help them look for it. However, as I stood there (dumbly) I watched them pull the floor mats out of the car and shake them off. They apologized and said they had tracked flower petals into the car when they got in. They youngest gestured to her mother and said, “She teach us to leave a place like we find it.”

I thanked them profusely. I would not have noticed that until much later, probably after the petals had already been ground into the Grey Ghost.

Coin of the Realm ► Unpacking the Writer

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It’s been a whirlwind few months at Not Now Silly, and not all of it was spent writing.

As longtime readers know: Pops died late last year. Since then the Newsroom has expanded from a single small room into several spacious rooms.

Consolidating items, rearranging furniture, and jettisoning what doesn’t work, it’s now pretty close to what I envisioned. There are still a few broad strokes to go, but after that it’s just minor cleanup.

The biggest change is the new Media Room I built just off (and visible from) the Newsroom. It contains a couch; tee vee; sound system; VHS, DVD,  and CD players; along with 62 linear feet of CDs lining 2 of the walls. I love music. Music is important to me. Subsequently, I have a lot of it. If I’m not watching the Fox “News” Channel, I’m listening to music. Music makes the world go-round. Music is the best.

FULL DISCLOSURE: The Frank Zappa collection takes up 51 inches of that (and I am still missing almost 50 Zappa CDs and box sets). The next largest section is The Beatles at 43 inches, but that includes solo work and tribute CDs.

NOW IT CAN BE TOLD: I didn’t write about this previously for security’s sake, but I’ve been dying to because it’s been an interesting process . . . in both a journalistic sense and a nostalgic one:

Pops left behind a coin collection.

As a kid I remember him spending his spare time in front of his roll top desk examining coins and looking them up in the many books he had on the subject. He owned his own stores in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. Back then one could still find rare coins in circulation. I’m sure Pops looked at every coin that came through his till. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if he got rolls of coins from banks just to look through them.


Pops still had hundreds of Mexican coins left

He tried to get me interested, but I wasn’t having it. Now I wished I had paid attention because my oldest sister (who is Pops’ Executor) and I spent the last several months liquidating Pops’ coin collection, which he spent a lifetime acquiring.

Over the years he sold a some of his collection here and there. For instance, I recall when he and my Mom traveled through Mexico, he collected gold coins at a time when owning gold wasn’t possible in ‘Merka. A few years back I asked him whatever happened to those and he told be they paid for the down payment on the condo.

As many as he may have sold over the years, there were still tens of thousands of coins left. My sister and I treated liquidation like it was a job. And, it was.

Luckily, just before we started this process, I happened to hear that the biggest coin show in the country was happening in Fort Lauderdale. My sister and I went. Because we didn’t know what we had yet, all we really did was collect business cards, ask the out-of-town dealers who they’d recommend that was local, and/or what to look for in a honest coin dealer. We also got a sense of what was happening in Coin World. It was worth spending an afternoon there.

We knew that before we could ask a numismatist to give us a valuation, had to know what we had. Sounds simple, right? Did I mention there were tens of thousands of coins? Maybe hundreds of thousands. Blue books with coins slotted into the holes, 3-ring binders with coins in plastic sleeves, individual coins in plastic sleeves, rolls of coins, cigar boxes full of coins, and loose, unsorted, coins of every description and denomination. I wish I had thought to weigh it because it was serious tonnage.

B & I met once a week for 6 or 7 hours a go. The first several weeks we did nothing but sort the coins by category: ‘Merkin and foreign first. Then we took all the U.S. coinage and separated that into denominations: nickles, dimes, quarters, half dollars, pennies, wheat pennies, steel pennies, Indian head pennies. Who knew there were so many different kids of pennies?

Once it was sorted, we started creating spreadsheets. Each workday we’d open a new spreadsheet (or several over the course of a day) and log the coins by denomination and year. If Pops had noted a condition, we put that on the spreadsheet as well. However, about 95% of the coins were not graded. Coin grading being such a specialized field, we didn’t even bother to guess.

Filling the spreadsheets — logging every coin — took another 5 or 6 weeks. Two more weeks were spent sorting all the foreign coinage by country. One thing I have to say is there are (were?) some beautiful coins from around the world. Contemporary coins are not nearly as pretty.


Pops didn’t discriminate. He had many Nazi-era coins. I took other pictures, but this one had the least number of swastikas.

We continued until we had every coin sorted, logged, boxed, and sealed into various lots, as we named each spreadsheet.

We were both rookies when this process began, but my sister and I learned a fair bit about coin valuations as we researched what we were discovering.

We learned enough that, when it came time to start selling the coins, we could take one of the smaller lots to several local dealers. We knew the value of this set of quarters, so we could judge what they told us. Then we discussed the spreadsheets.

Without knowing the actual condition of the coins (on the spreadsheets), we could only get several ballpark figures from several dealers. They were all within the same range, but the difference of a penny a coin adds up when you have so many. In the end we went with our gut and chose the dealer who made us feel the most comfortable. He was the same price as another guy, but the other guy felt off, if yannow what I mean.

This gent was up in Boca Raton, so for the next 3 Mondays running, instead of my Boca sister driving here, I’d load the car up with coins and drive up there. Each time it was most of the morning (into the early afternoon), a process that was greatly streamlined because we had prepared all the spreadsheets. He said that he’s rarely seen a collection organized as well as we had done.

The first week he double-checked our tallies, but that got old after a while, especially after they all turned out to be correct. Despite how much the spreadsheets helped speed things up, it still took 3 weeks. We’d haggle a bit here and there over price — because we had been learning valuations on our own and consulting other dealers — but we also knew we were being treated fairly.  It went both ways, in fact. It was a good relationship and I was kind of sorry when it ended.

One of the things I learned from him is that coin collecting is a dying hobby. Just as I wasn’t interested in learning Pops’ hobby, later generations didn’t care either. Now coin collectors are literally dying off and the market has suffered because no one is collecting. These days there’s more profit in the melt value than you’d get by finding a coin collector looking to fill out their collection, if you could even find one.

IRONY ALERT: Obviously, melting coins makes the ones that are left rarer. However, that’s still not increasing the collecting value of those that are left. Eventually, at this rate, none of these coins will exist.

BOTTOM LINE: All the time we sorted the coins my sister and were hoping to find that BURIED TREASURE. I guess we watched too much Antiques Roadshow. While, there are coins worth tens of thousands of dollars, we didn’t have any of those.

Although there were a few coins that did alright — well above face value — there was no great score. Wheat pennies and steel pennies, which we had tons of (and that might not be an exaggeration) did okay — depending on condition. Because there was so much of it, it added up quickly.

However, most of what we cashed in went for melt value, or even face value. Not everything Pops collected increased in value.

KA-CHING! One Indian head penny we sold him brought in over $40. Later he admitted to us that it was a counterfeit coin, which he took the blame for because he had given it the once-over.

All in all it was an interesting experience.

ME’N’MARLEY: Marley has settled into the Not Now Silly Newsroom nicely and has become the perfect writing partner. She’s helped me put together the latest stories on the Coconut Grove Playhouse, which is heating up again. Meanwhile, we’re still following West Grove, and the new plan to bring much-needed money to alleviate the ghetto conditions along Grand Avenue. We’ll see how that all shakes out over time.

Meanwhile, Marley has taken down the details of several intriguing stories that sources have called in. I’m still chasing these down to see if they pan out, but she takes good notes.

While Today’s Top Ten is always in flux, the All Time Top Ten has settled into a nice groove, and one I’m proud of. [All numbers were reset at the beginning of the year, when we opened up this new joint.]

I never thought there would be another chapter in the Johnny Dollar Wars, but there it is nestled in at number 3, as Johnny Dollar Outed As Roger Ailes Operative?

Speaking of Fox: I continue to craft a Friday Fox Follies for PolitucusUSA and boy have things become interesting lately. Trying to keep the columns to a reasonable length has been a chore.

Getting back to the Top Ten at right: Just below J$, is my demand that Tom Falco issue a retraction and apology. If it’s that high on the All Time Top Ten, imagine how many people have read about his cowardice and scumbaggery.

Holding down the #6 position is the day I shaved my head. You need to see it to believe it.

However, the rest of my All Time Top Ten are stories I’m particularly proud of. Check them out. Collect them all. Trade ’em with your friends.

COIN OF THE REALM: Speaking of which, we’ve sold the Lexus and purchased a new mobile Not Now Silly Newsroom, a 2012 Ford Fusion nicknamed The Grey Ghost. When it’s not being used by Marley and the rest of the News staff, I am driving for Lyft. I’m sure I’ll have stories as time goes on, but I’ve only been doing it for a week and have just 20

See you next time, dear reader. We do it all for you, to coin a phrase.