Wawa opened today in Tampa

Frank and I stopped by the new Wa Wah store which has the cheapest gas in town. They also have delicious food and fresh Coffee which is out of this world. The staff at Wawa is friendly and eager to help. Overall, a good time for all customers.

new store

cheap gas!

Gandy Bob in his Yellow Cab of Tampa

Many long term drivers may know Bob. He used to work only days and only in the Gandy area of Tampa. He switched to nights when the economy went bad in 2008; he has stayed on nights since.  He showed up last night at the Britton Plazza stand as he was waiting for an airport call (Yellow cab got much of our business when our management fucked up last year in thier very shitty atempt to install this nuew dispatch system that drove most drivers to poverty and desperation).
Bob says he pays more in stand dues but he believes he has a better chance of making money where he is at. If it works, stay with it. He was fired from United Cab when he had too many wrecks. He always seems to be in a good mood...kind of a take it go lucky guy.

Tampa Taxi Shots Has A YouTube Channel

Tune in everyday and see the new videos of the Tampa Taxi driver Tim Fasano as he shows you Tampa Bay in the only way a cab driver can. You have no idea what you have been missing. Tim goes all over the place to give you first hand insight on what is really going on in Tampa. Check it out.

You can find the site at: http://www.youtube.com/tampataxishots

My internet connection has been down for the last few days. That is why I have not been able to post much. I am back up and running. I hope I can keep it up this time.

Is Occupy Tampa Over?

This morning after sunrise I noticed about fifty 'Occupy Tampa' protesters standing around with blankets wrapped around them. These protesters had slept in the park all night and they were cold. The first major cold front of the season came in last night and the temps dropped into the mid 50's.

An article in the Tampa Tribune said that these protesters were being harassed by the police at night by being awaken and told to get off the sidewalk. I will be there in the morning and see if that is true. I will get that on video and put it on YouTube if it happens.

Ground zero for the 'Occupy Tampa' protest
Do you see anyone?

When I went back to Curtis Hixon park in the afternoon, there were only about ten people standing around and no protest going on at Gaslight Park. Is this movement dying on the vine? There was nothing going on and I did not bother to park and go over. I was wanting to interview some of the protesters like they are doing in many of the major cities. Now I feel like Tampa is not holding their own. Come on Tampa, lets get with the program.

It could be the weather.

As I was leaving downtown this afternoon, I saw a truck leaving ahead of me with "Occupy Tampa' painted on the back of it. I guess they were going home and would not be sleeping in the park tonight when the temps will be very cold.

"Occupy Tampa" Protesters Invade Tampa...Not Really

The protesters began to show up after the lunch hour. I thought they would be out all day; I thought they would be camping in Gaslight Park. I hear the police will not let them, so they have to leave and return the next day. No problem, this means they can drink in the bars all night.

Most of them seem to be coming from the University of Tampa. Could it be they are just young, bored and looking for a little excitement? They should be studying finance so they can become part of that 1% they are railing about.

Hippy protesters seen from the taxi downtown Tampa

I picked up a fair that wanted to go downtown Tampa and see the protesters. At the time we were there, we really had to look hard to see them. I think for this demonstration to work, they will have to really "Occupy" the downtown area but that would mean they cannot drink, screw and order pizza. Protesting comes with sacrifice.

The movement is new and perhaps it will work, with time. I am already making some money off of this event, so that is cool. I shot a video and put in up on Youtube. You can see it here.

Heavy Rain Before The Atlanta vs Tampa Bay Game

This road is under water. My fare was one block away. I cold not get them

This was bad. The rain came down in buckets two hours before the Atlanta game. This is the time when we count on to make money. I was getting calls but I could not get down many of the streets because the water was up in peoples yards. There was no way I was going to flood out my car. If you do, you just bought yourself a car as far as the taxi company is concerned.

The company uses Ford Crown Victoria's. They are a model that takes on water because the air intake is down low. I would not take the risk and went home.

I am still waiting for next Monday Night. We just may have a sell out so the game will be broadcast on local TV. That is the best time to drive a taxi.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers May Sell Out The Monday Night Colt Game

The best situation for a Tampa taxi driver is a sold out stadium. You simply get more action. More people go to the games and more people go to the sports bars to watch on television because the games are not blacked out. Cab drivers can make more money. That is what it is all about. 

I also believe the more any product is put in front of a possible customer base, the more tickets they will sell in the future. Success feeds on itself. The best thing about the Buccaneers going to London this season, is that game counts as a home game and it will be telecast. The things you have to do to avoid a blackout. 

Personally, I think the blackout rule is arcane and was invented in a time when most televisions were in black and white and people used rabbit ears to see only three channels. Today, with alternative media and internet, people can pick up streaming video of the blacked out game, and any other game they want to watch. There is just to much competition now for the NFL. They need to reconsider what they are doing and become more creative and developing fan bases.

 "Might the Tampa Bay community stain of blacked out Bucs games come to an end in 10 days when the Colts come here to face the Bucs on Monday Night Football?

Rick Stroud, of the St. Pete Times, apparently is hearing that good things are on the horizon, so he Twittered this morning.

@NFL Stroud - With a good week of ticket sales, Bucs Oct. 3 Monday Night Football game vs. the Colts will most likely be a sellout and televised locally

As Joe has written, there’s something dreadfully wrong if a “football town” with a good team can’t sell out a Monday Night Football game early in the NFL season. That might happen here, and Joe expects this will come down to 11th-hour sales. But Team Glazer really would be missing the boat if it didn’t do whatever needs to be done to make sure Monday Night Football is available for the many hundreds of thousands of locals who will sit home and watch it.

Joe’s desperately hoping it gets done by any means."

via www.joebucsfan.com

I was wondering how long this blackout would last. That would be nice on a national televised game, that we could sell out so the announcers will stop talking about how poor Tampa Bay sports fans are.

$1.89 in gas..poor customer service for United Cab of Tampa

I hope my first fare does not go very far; I have very little gas in the tank. I used dimes and pennies too buy gas this morning (my quarters are gone). After going three days without my blood pressure meds, a driver lent me the $4 to get it. I owe my company over $600 and my landlord $1,200 (he is ready to put me on the streets). I have been waiting two hours this morning but there are no calls. Every day they sign up more and more refuges from turd world countries to drive cab. "Yes we can." "Hope and change?" Life is so good right now.

I ran into 'Big Mike' today. He is a long time cab driver of over twenty years. He is not making a living. He tells me all of the old guys are not making a living. In fact, most of the taxi drivers in Tampa OWE money to the company. By rights, if the company just let the ones go, there would be a balance point of the correct number needed to sustain his market. The owner of this company does not see it this way.


He has not read the newspapers or watched cable news. He has no clue that he cannot expand and flourish in the economy. The tactic he is using is foolish, and in the long run he will have a weaker company for it. He should let his GOOD men make money, so that when things get better, he can hire the number he wants.We will have a larger customer base by then, and he will be richer becasue ot it.

He wants it now...there is no now...that may finally be sinking in.

If the 'Big Crash' hits. It will all sink. Those leases that are charged to drivers will have to come down, or the number of drivers will have to come down. Sorry, but that is an economic reallity.

Mohamed Atta Had A Hack License From United Cab OF Tampa And A Commercial Pilots License

Mohamed Atta once had a hack license issued by the Hillsborough County Transportation Commission. Atta never came back to pick it up. He had applied to work at United Cab of Tampa, but never showed up for work either.

My research shows he was living in the Tampa area for some time while taking flying lessons in Venice Florida and Jones aviation in Sarasota.

Most people were told that he only had a few hours on a simulator and was not interested in knowing how to land. This is not true.

The owner of Huffman Aviation in Venice said Mohamed Atta and a friend walked in the front door one day in late 2000 and wanted to know about getting pilots license and how much that would cast. They were told the cost was $18,000 with $1,000 down and $1.000 a week for the entire 18 week course. They paid with a check drawn on First Union Bank.

All did not go smooth as their first instructor found them arrogant and hard to teach. They switched instructors and were able to finish the course and Atta earned his "Temporary Airman's  license" with a score of 90 of a 122 possible points during a five hour exam.. This allowed him to rent out planes on his own which he did on many occasions.

Proof Mohamed Atta Know how to land and take off in an airplane

Atta did not stop at this, he went on December 21, 2000 he earned a full instrument ratting and a COMMERCIAL PILOTS LICENSE. ("airplane multiengine land/ instrument airplane/ private pilot privileges/ airplane single engine land"). (Source) He earned these credentials in a rather short period of time. 

I believe he was running out of money and It was during this period that he applied for a hack license in Tampa. The TPC still has his license on file. It is unknown what his intentions were about driving a cab, considering he had goals of altering world history for ever. He flew planes to Miami from Venice and from Jones aviation to Tampa. He knew how to take off and land. Skills that he really would not put to much use.

It was from Tampa where he flew American Airlines to Spain to meet with representatives from Iraq.

I Take My Coffee Black

The meter is running and the taxi is in park. Normally I’d be outside of a strip club or message parlor, this time it’s a book store. I’m waiting for my passenger to return.

The large poster declaring 20% - 40% off looms over my cab parked outside of Borders Books on N Dale Mabry. This well publicized sale has brought customers to this store in record amounts. The idling of my engine cuts through the conversations of happy patrons leaving with newly prized possessions.

It’s just after sunset. I’d normally be home drinking beer at this hour - a well ingrained habit since the economy fell apart like a two dollar watch.  Habits are hard to change as you get older.

I turn the radio down as a motorist asks if I can move up a bit. In over fifteen years of coming to this store I’ve never seen it this busy. I guess I’m not the only one that read the newspaper article about the store closing. Then it hits me - Why does Tampa (whose economy is supposedly tied to tourism) have so many people that read books. We are not supposed to be Boston?

I think back over the last decade or so. I have spent a lot of time in Borders. Coffee, reading, chess, browsing, music, liberal lap toppers, this place had it all, a great way to kill a Sunday afternoon and relax. You could have a bit of a repose from the ‘real world’ as books took you to other places and experiences that you one day planed to get around too, one of these days.

The Seattle’s Best Café. Yes, that was the first thing you saw as you walked in the door. Get your espresso and stare at twenty thousand square feet of wonder, knowledge and entertainment. In the next couple of hours, you would walk out smarter and more at peace with yourself then when you walked in. All of this augmented by a fresh cup of Joe (I take my mine black).

Coffee in a book store is Popcorn at the movies. Would it not be a shame if one day all things are by Amazon or Kindle? To me it would be like going to a prostitute for love or eating steak with a balloon on your tongue. You would still get the same knowledge and nutrition - so what’s your problem?

I do think it is a problem.

In the future they say you will just take a pill for everything you need or pick you kids out of a test tube (I prefer the old fashion way).

I once met Jack Harris at a book signing here. I once saw happy kids at Harry Potter night with expressions on their faces not seen since the family trip to Disney World. Do we really want all this to just go away?  It is just all about the discount? What ever happened to smelling the roses?

Anyway, my fare comes back to the taxi and tells me there were at least eighty people in line with all the cash registers ringing. You hear that Borders….You finally figured out how to get Amazons money.  Perhaps there is hope for Western Civilization.

Tampa Mayor's Race: Tom Scott Insults Taxi Drivers

I was taught by my parents the dignity of work. There is no job that is demeaning to any man. I wish the Tampa Mayor Candidate Tom Scott felt the same way. In his mind, there is work that is beneath him. I am a driver. I am proud to be a taxi driver. He seems to believe that only racist drive cabs, or something like that. The Tampa Tribune played into the comment Dick Greco made in Thursdays debate. I wonder what Scott thinks about dishwashers, bricklayers, construction workers, dog catchers, ditch diggers, electricians, garbage collectors and so forth. This attitude makes him unfit for office. I am a PROUD DRIVER for United Cab.

Things Are Getting Better

CC Sabathia Bring it on!

Are things better off then they were two years ago?  Yes.  No doubt about it. In 2008 all hope was gone. It could not have been worse.  We had no calls, we had no riders, we had no nothing.

Now, we have conferences, meetings, business travelers, conventions, tourist and so forth. I don't know if the President is the reason. However, if you are going to blame him when it is bad, you have to give him the credit when it is good.

I know many people are without a job but you would not know it by how much activity there is now in Tampa. I am coming out of my depression and I feel like living life again. My jaded cab driver friends say I am just getting used to misery. I don't think so. If you tossed a baseball my way - I would knock it out of the park!  GO RANGERS!

Flooding In Tampa Bay

I sort of had a strange 'accident' Sunday afternoon. It was raining cats and dogs and if you drive in Tampa you know that the roads flood like Noah's Ark. ( It is a problem I thought they had fixed with all the pipe they had been putting in for years). I had a call on north B street just north of Kennedy.

I picked up Orlando (my fathers name) he is a regular and goes to a restaurant on south Howard. In front of his house was a puddle of water. It did not look that deep. "Turn around don't drown" is the saying. It really did not look that deep. I drove through it and my car sank hard. I did not see the pot holes that lurked below. I was almost underwater!

The problem with that is that if you taxi cab takes water into its engine - you just bought it. United Cab has a 'no tolerance' policy on this matter. I also heard a very load bang sound. When I got to the stop sign at the end of the block, the car was knocking. I must have taken in some water. I have never don that is all these years of driving cab.

Later, when I was at the gas station, I filled up on premium thinking that would get rid of the knocking - no such luck. It was running rough man...very rough.

This morning it was a little better and by the end of the day, my taxi was running just fine. I think I burned the water out of it. It must have been just a little bit.

Cypress Point Park Tampa

Cypress Point Park Tampa

For some reason, I am getting many Google searches for this nice little park at the end of Cypress ave in Tampa. It is locacted behind the Homeland Security Office, which is really the Immigration office.
There is a nice beach and picnic area at Cypress Point, as well as, great fishing on the long beach.

UFO Fireball Seen Over Tampa Florida

In the classic sence of a UFO meaning an unidentified flying object, this fit the bill. Nobody in Florida was ready for this. I was pulling onto Fair Oaks blvd, looking for my fare, when I saw this illuminated plume in the distance. It could not have been the Space shuttle because it was not scheduled to launch for months. What was it? It turns out that it may have been the Delta 2 GPS satillite that the Airforce launced and that explains why it was not on the NASA website

Gaybor In Ybor Tampa

Ybor City in Tampa is becoming gay. That may not be all bad. For many years the stupid shits that owned the night clubs in Ybor catered to the underage crowds that had no money to spend and where only looking for trouble. They found it. Hardly a weekend went by without someone being killed in Ybor. Ridiculous.

The gays are well behaved, have more money to spend, and travel to Tampa as everything from 7Th ave and 17st West is becoming an exclusive gay Zone, hence the name "Gaybor." This is a photo of "G Club" or "G Bar" perhaps the most popular gay night club in Tampa at this moment.

I have also noticed more art springing up in the area. There where at least two art shows that I found on the same block today. This is certainly what we have needed.

Downtown Tampa From A Moving Taxi Cab

Check out downtown Tampa on a cloudy day from the front of a moving Taxi Cab. Tim Fasano is the cab driver who shot this video.

Tampa International Airport

This was the view today form the new holding area at Tampa International Airport. What the authority has done is move us over to the quad areas. They believed that the cabs were the cause of the traffic tie ups in the terminal. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is because in Tampa Florida we now do 5 times the volume of traffic since the airport was built in the early 1970's. I guess they needed someone to blame all of this on.

Anyway, I did not have to wait long today and caught about 4 rides in 2 hours. They did not go far, but tipped well and it was well worth my effort. With things getting cold up north I need to incorporate the airport more into my daily activities. I did take this guy about my age who had meet this chick on the internet and they were like video caming for the last year and he was now in town to get laid I guess. I wonder why he went to a high end hotel. Love modern style.