UBER DRIVER SHORTAGE?

Both Uber and Lyft are complaining that they do not have enough drivers.  Every time I log-on, I'm bombarded with bonus offers for recommending other drivers sign-up.  Not only that, but it's been really busy lately.  However, many of the trip requests I get when I'm out and about are often 18 or 20 minutes away.  (I always reject them; no need to drive for 18 minutes to pick up a passenger who's only going five minutes from his house.)  Uber came out with a notice to us drivers that said, basically, Enjoy the extra money now, chumps, because once the pandemic is over and things get back to normal, your earnings are going to decrease!

Uber is operating under some assumptions.  A couple of them are, I believe, false.  First, they evidently believe that their drivers are standing-down out of fear of catching the coronavirus.  They also assume that some number of regular Uber drivers have switched over to delivering food (which is correct).  But they also feel that once the pandemic is over, food deliveries will be reduced since people will stop ordering out.  Thus, drivers will return to actual passenger runs.

I think they're wrong.

Not so long ago, generally (in most of the country that wasn't New York City), just about the only food you could have delivered to your house was pizza.  People certainly could just drive out to the pizza place and pick it up themselves.  But they put up with the extra cost of having it delivered due to the huge convenience it provided.  Now we can get just about anything we want delivered to the house.  Even restaurants like Texas Roadhouse and Olive Garden (which previously didn't even have the availability for you to order to-go food over the phone or internet and have it delivered) have stepped up their game. It's great to be able to order stuff that previously would have required a visit to the actual restaurant.  The future is now!

A cabdriver friend of mine recently ditched the taxi and switched over to doing ride-share.  He did it for a couple of weeks before concluding that it was too many miles of driving for too little money.  He switched over to delivering food and, voila!, now he makes more money and actually drives less.  Most likely, he won't come back to delivering people.  I have heard this before from other drivers: "Delivering food simply gives you better revenue-per-mile."  Which it does.  (Me, I just don't want to deliver food - I like the people aspect of ride-share driving too much.)

Very simply, Uber and Lyft are going to have to pay their drivers more to entice them to keep working on the "legacy" apps and not defect to the food delivery side.  To do that, Uber will probably have to raise their rates.  But remember, one of the big selling points of Uber was that it was "cheaper than a taxi."  Nevertheless, rates have come up.  Uber/Lyft may still be cheaper than a taxi, but not by much.  And in some markets, not at all.

Personally, I believe that customers have become so accustomed to using Uber/Lyft that they will pay...whatever.  Even if ride-share rates rise above those of conventional taxis, people will pay them.  There are a number of reasons: Convenience of using the app; knowing who your driver will be, seeing his picture, and knowing what kind of car he's driving; knowing that the car you'll be riding will be clean and well-maintained; seeing the car's progress as it comes towards you; knowing the price of the ride up-front; and not having to pay for the ride while in the car.  These are not small things.  And exactly none of them have been available to a customer calling a conventional cab.  

So there is a huge benefit to using ride-share.  And I think people will realize that it's a premium service which justifies premium rates.  Customers have been lucky that the "introductory" ride-share rates have been so low. But now that the taxi industry has pretty much been made obsolete, the party is over.  Will some riders rebel and go back to regular taxi services?  Perhaps.  I could see that happening in certain areas of town where price-point is most important.

In any event, I am enjoying the fruits of this "driver shortage" right now.  It means that I do not have to work as long to make my meager target daily revenue.  Less work for more money = good thing for Bob.  I'm not worried that the coronavirus pandemic will suddenly be over and Uber/Lyft drivers will rush back to work.  I only envision that happening if food deliveries drastically drop off - but as I said, I don't think that's going to happen.

Highpointers

It occurred to me that in all of the nine summers I spent in Washington State, I never once visited their tallest mountain. That would be Mt. Rainier, which towers up to 14,411 feet. Imagine my surprise to discover that here in Florida I'm living in the veritable shadow of the tallest point of the state! Britton Hill is in Lakewood Park, which is just 54 nautical miles to my east as the crow flies. Now, it may not have the snow-capped grandeur and majesty of a Mt. Rainier, but hey, I'll take it.

I figured that riding the motorcycle out to and climbing Britton Hill would be the adventurous thing to do, because I am an adventurer at heart, and...well, adventure! Since I'm not really in peak mountain-climbing shape anymore (the dreaded "COVID-15#" - you know what I'm talkin' about), climbing from the base was, as the kids say, OOTQ*. I was hoping that there'd be a road I could ride on leading up to a point where I could park and maybe hike the rest of the way. Or maybe one of them cable-car thingees...that would be cool.

So I packed me a bottle of Gatorade and some honey-roasted peanuts and headed off on a beautiful, chilly Monday morning, eastbound and dowwwwwn (obligatory "Smokey and the Bandit" reference) on Interstate 10, opposite the flow of the hordes (well, dozens) of rush-half-hour commuters heading into Pensacola. Sadly, that has always been my lot in life: I'm going thisaway while everyone else is going thataway... I am never in sync with the crowd. I took my "big" Harley, the Super Glide (aka "Stupid Glide," officially the FXDBi Street Bob)....the one I desperately want to sell. There is a woman who sells Harley parts in the town of Florala, Alabama which is coincidentally right near Britton Hill. I wanted to see if she maybe had a better seat for my bike. I don't really want to spend another dime on this P.O.S., but I hate the "stock" seat on it so much that I'd rather not inflict it on a future purchaser. I'm not that depraved.

I did get to Britton Hill and managed the arduous climb to the top. Well... as luck would have it, I was able to drive all the way up. And even "up" is an exaggeration; the stone marker is right by the side of the road. Spoiler Alert: It's not very impressive - 345 feet. Turns out that Florida has the lowest high-point of all 50 states. Delaware is next, with a high-point of only 448 feet. Even flat and swampy Louisiana has a higher high-point than us: 535 feet. I know you're wondering... Alaska has the highest high-point. It's Mt. McKinley at 20,320 feet.

Here's the view you get from the parking lot at Florida's highest point. Pretty much the same view at you get anywhere else in Florida.

They call them, "highpointers": People whose goal is to visit the highest point in every state. Their website has a list of all of the highest-points in all 50 states. You can look at it HERE. And now I've joined the club! I'm in, baby! I got my first one out of the way! Only 49 to go.

Okay, so it might not have been as much of an adventure! as climbing Mt. Rainier would have been, or Mt. Kilimanjaro as one of my friends wants to do for his 40th birthday. Sometimes you have to make do with what you've got. This is Florida, after all. Everything is flatter here: our beer and our women. And most certainly our mountains.

*I don't think kids really say this.

Dear Diary

I used to blog a lot.  But now I do most of my writing on Facebook.  There, I make semi-regular posts.  I jokingly started referring to them as my "Morning Coffee Rambling" because I'd post them as I drank my...you get the idea.  I actually stole said idea from my friend, Russell Madden, who usually posts long daily missives filled with common-sense and wisdom.  To differentiate myself, I formalized, titled and dated my posts.  And as goofy as the name is, it stuck.  I do post other crap on Facebook during the day, but my serious ruminations are generally reserved for my "column."

I try to keep my Facebook posts short, but at four paragraphs in length (or longer), they can be challenging for the typically impatient short-attention-span social-media reader.  Even close friends admit that they do not read my posts.  They sigh, roll their eyes and go, "Too long."  I understand.  Facebook is usually not a long-form medium.

I don't spend a lot of time on "analytics."  In fact, I never really researched the actual numbers until starting to write this post.  It turns out that I have 155 Facebook "Friends," and another 150 or so "followers."  I don't automatically approve every Friend Request, although my profile information is public.  So my posts are searchable and "shareable."  And sometimes (rarely) they are.  Theoretically, 300 people or so could see my posts...*if* they show up in their Newsfeeds.  But I doubt that 300 people view my crap, given the small number of "Likes" each post gets.  Facebook's algorithm is weird in the way it selects what you see each day.  And Facebook doesn't let us see how many "hits" our individual posts get.

But there are tracking programs for blogs that allow you to see who has visited your site and where they are.  By comparison, each post on this here blog gets very, very few views.  The sad reality is that I don't reach a large number of people through this blog, but I reach way more people on Facebook.

So is the blog format dead?  Oh no!  At least, I hope not.  I do like the blog.  Facebook posts are very temporary; they evaporate quickly in the daily clutter of everyone's Newsfeed.  On the other hand, blogposts stay up as a permanent record.  For me, they become a running commentary on what's going on in my life at any given time...a diary as it were.  

I started this blog way back in 2006 when I went to work for a guy who was trying to restart the production line of an old helicopter from the 1970s.  (Unfortunately, we were ultimately unsuccessful.)  Back then, I used to lead an interesting life, or so I thought.  Now, fifteen years later, things have kind of calmed down.  I don't fly much anymore...and I may not ever fly for a living again, in fact.  The pandemic cancelled the motorcycle trips I had planned for 2020, and I'm not even riding as much as I'd like here in 2021.  So my life - like yours, probably - is kind of on hold.  There has been little personal crap to write about.  Maybe that will change!  

Maybe the coronavirus pandemic will fade and our lives will return to some sense of normalcy.  And now that I'm retired and don't spend so much time up in Washington State, I can start doing some fun stuff here in Florida.  If I do, I'll certainly blog about here...whether anybody reads it or not.

CORONAVIRUS: Some Numbers

Let us be very, very clear: The death rate from COVID19 in the U.S. is 1.8%. In other words, if you get the disease, you have better than a 98% chance of survival.

It is reported that 547,649 people have died from COVID19 in the U.S. That number is arguable, but let's accept it for this exercise. It is also reported that 29,632,042 people have tested positive for the virus. Okay, this is easy! If you divide 547,649 deaths by 29,632,042 infectees, you get 0.0181...or 1.8%. That's how we derived the above survival rate. 100% minus 1.8% equals 98.2%.

But wait, there's more! Estimates are that, over and above those who've tested positive for coronavirus, X-number of people have it but don't have any symptoms and haven't been tested. Some experts put that number at "8X" the number of who have tested positive. But let's be conservative and just use a multiplier of 5X. Okay, so if we multiply 29,632,042 by 5, we get 148,160,210 people. Stay with me. Now if we take the number of deaths (547,649) and divide by 148,160,210, we get an actual death rate of...(drumroll)...0.37%. *POINT* three-seven percent....basically just under four-tenths of one percent. So turn it around. It means that your actual survival rate from COVID19 is in the area of 99.6%. Pretty good odds, I'd say, even without a vaccine that is said to be 95% effective.

Will those number I used go up? Certainly - we're not done with this virus yet. But I believe the relationship of those numbers will remain the same. Fake news outlets like the fear-mongering CNN and such are trying very hard to panic us into thinking that COVID19 is some horrible, deadly threat to humanity. The hard numbers tell a different story.

I do not get a flu shot every year, because I never get the flu. Apparently, I have a pretty good immune system or something, but seriously, I never get sick. So guess what...I won't be getting the coronavirus vaccine either. I just don't believe that COVID19 presents that much of a threat to our health. At least, not if you go by our government's own numbers.

WHAT ABOUT THE FLU?

We do know that a number of people die from the regular ol' flu each year. The trouble is, we really don't know how many people get the flu each year, because so many people simply self-medicate without going to the doctor. So it's very hard to come up with a reliable death rate for the flu. Any number would be a guess. Similarly, we really don't know for certain how many people have the coronavirus but don't have any symptoms and have not been tested. Again, it's a guess. You might point to positivity-rates of those who do get tested, but I would counter that people who have no symptoms are very unlikely to be tested in the first place unless it's a job-requirement. And so many of the "asymptomatics" remain invisible to the statisticians. But either way... If you go by the numbers we "know" (i.e. number of people who tested positive and number of deaths attributable to COVID19), the threat of you dying from this disease is tiny. This is obviously no comfort to anyone who's had a family member die of the coronavirus. But as horrible as that is, I think the threat to the general public is vastly overblown. Why is this? I do not know.

CORONAVIRUS: Hey Abbott...!

In discussing the coronavirus pandemic, one of my friends sighed, "I just want this to be over." A sentiment shared by all of us, I'm sure. I expressed my doubts that all this will ever be "over." I think that mask will still be required in certain places from now until...like...forever. And as a society we will always be suspicious when we're in the presence of someone with a cough or cold. Our economy may never fully recover and return to the pre-pandemic glory days. To the dismay of parents nationwide, kids may never go away to college anymore now that online classes are not only "a thing" the *the* thing. The nests will stay full and jobless junior may never move out, living in the basement, playing video games and intending on inheriting the house upon his parents' (surely accelerated) demise.

On the other hand, some "medical experts" say that the coronavirus will become like the common cold or flu: an annoyance we'll all just have to live with (pun intended) as we move forward. It is obviously not a hugely fatal disease - I think we can admit that now - although a shit-ton of people have died from it worldwide (or so they say). Older people with the infamous "comorbidities" will probably always have to be cautious and accept the fact that they may still get the COVID and they may still die "from" it, especially if they're in their 90's and get hit by a bus. My advice: Don't get old.

Apparently, Texas Governor Abbott feels the same way as my fatigued friend in the first paragraph. Abbott is lifting the mask mandate in his state, and has expressed his desire to get Texas 100% open, 100% now. This, even as the scaredy-cat mayor of Austin is calling on the governor to continue and extend existing restrictions.

So is this smart of Governor Abbott? The spread of the disease does appear to be abating here in the U.S., but Italy and Brazil are seeing increases in the number of new coronavirus cases. And our amigos in France? After peaking at nearly 89,000 new cases per day in early November of 2020 (merde!), France has seen a decrease but is still chugging along at around 20,000 new cases per day, showing no signs of slowing down.

So...I dunno. The sad, ugly truth is probably that X-number of people were always going to die from this coronavirus and, vaccine or no vaccine, there wasn't a whole lot any government could do about it. And so we'll see - probably shortly - if Texas Governor Abbott is right or wrong.

TACO TUESDAY

 I had a hankering for Mexican food last night. Instead of going out, I made some shrimp tacos, which turned out great if I do say so myself. I know that Tuesday is official "taco day," and so I may have violated some law by having them on a Monday. Oh well, sue me.  Anyway, it reminded me of the Tuesday nights in the summer up in Washington State when all of the cherry-drying pilots in our company would descend on one of our favorite restaurants in the area, The Club Sports Bar and Grill in the town of Okanogan. They had a deal where you got three tacos for $3.00.  

All of us...usually twelve or thirteen...would amass and terrorize Connie and John (the proprietors) and their hapless but unfailingly accommodating staff.  We'd eat tacos and drink beer until the wee hours, playing Tom Jones' "What's New Pussycat?" over and over on the jukebox until the regulars got frustrated and left...until we were all good and drunk and the female pilots would be up on the tables, dancing topless.  Well, usually the female pilots.  The owner of our company stopped coming to Taco Night.  Even he didn't want to be associated with us.  The "clippers" (the kids who worked in the nearby marijuana fields trimming the product) always eyed us suspiciously.

"Bruh, I think those guys over there are helicopter pilots!"

"No bruh, they must be sailors.  They're drinking and cursing and partying like they're on shore leave."

"Bruh, that one chick's been dancing on that table since we got here."

"Bruh, the chick in the blue polo shirt with the gray hair?  That's a dude, bruh.  He's, like, the ringleader or something. And he's got them...whaddya call 'em...manboobs."

"Bruh, no way!  Maaaaan, they should just smoke weed like we do and chill out."

"Bruh!  Pilots can't smoke weed - it's illegal for them!"

"Bruh, the FAA ought to make alcohol illegal then."

I was usually designated to make the reservation because we need a very big table.  Very quickly, The Club began recognizing my phone number.  If Connie answered, I'd hear a long, exasperated sigh followed by, "Bahhhhhhhhhb...." (Another sigh) "How many tonight, Bob?"  I mean, you'd think she'd be happy to hear from us!  Then again, twelve pilots ordering two "sets" of (3) tacos apiece meant that they'd be making up to 72 tacos - just for us!  They would sometimes run out of taco shells, or meat.  And even if they didn't make money on the loss-leader tacos, they certainly made money off us on the beer...which is, I think, the point of Taco Night.

Anyway, when we finally left, usually as the sun was coming up, the 17 year-old grandson of our owner had to drive us back to the compound.  He was the least-drunk of all of us.  He didn't drink at the bar, but what he did before he got there, we didn't know and we didn't ask.  The other pilots were all, like, "Bob, you should drive!"  But Bob is not stupid. Or so I tell people.

Yes, we had some great times up there in Brewster, Washington, eating and drinking (mostly drinking!) at great places like The Club, Smallwood Farms, and of course, the Sweet River Bakery.  That episode of my life is over now, but I think back fondly on it every time I eat a taco.  Even on a Monday.

Political Advice From Actors?

The headline in my newsfeed read: "ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY REACTS TO TRUMP IMPEACHMENT."

Hmm.  I don't know about y'all, but I'm really kind of tired of *actors*...let's say, "all people in the entertainment industry" trying to tell me how to think.  I mean, I really don't give a shit.  What makes friggin' Alec Baldwin an expert on anything, much less politics?  George Clooney?  Come on.  I might cut Arnold Schwarzenegger a little slack because he was actually governor of California.  Then again, seeing the idiot who currently holds that office, I'm not sure the hiring standards are all that high.  So stuff it, Arnie, nobody cares.

Why do some people listen to these nitwits?  Do we think that the ability to act and communicate (or host a late-night talk show) imbues them with some special power or insight that nobody else has?  Puh-leeze. 

There sure was a lot of scoffing about Trump  I'm tempted to cue-up that video...I'm sure you've all seen it...from back in 2016...the montage of people (both inside and outside of politics) who were ABSOLUTELY SURE that Donald Trump would never become President.  Oh, how confident they were!  And they were all...umm...what's the word?...oh yeah, *WRONG*.  Remember Nancy Pelosi? "Take it to the bank, Donald Trump will not become President of the United States."  I wonder if she regrets being so vocal about that now?  For it's quite embarrassing.  

Given the abject hatred of Donald Trump by Liberals...  Given the repeated failed attempts at removing him from office... It would not surprise me in the least if the DNC spent the last four years concocting a way of making sure Trump didn't win re-election.  And yes, that begs the question: Can a election be rigged?  Some people say, "No way! Not in America!"  But 74 million or so other people suspect the opposite.  74 million people think that politicians actually could be that devious!  And before anyone dismisses Trump supporters as unwashed, uneducated, deluded, cultist boobs, let's realize that there are some pretty smart, highly-educated people both inside and outside of government people who agree that the election was tampered with.  Do we just cast them aside as kooks?

I don't know.  But I certainly don't need Alec Baldwin to give me political advice.

"Simple" Jobs

I walked into my laundry rooom the other day and thought I'd entered a sauna.  Most of the year, that's not a totally unfamilar sensation here in Florida.  But in January?  Something was wrong.  You've probably already guessed that the dryer hose had become disconnected.  Not a big deal, right?  Pull the dryer out, clean up all the lint and lost socks and other crap behind it, reconnect hose, push dryer back against wall.  Simple, right?  Riiiiight

The hose that connects the dryer to the wall is not that long.  So the dryer cannot be too far away from the wall with both ends connected.  (So there's not a lot of space to work in back there, is what I'm saying.)  There's a plastic cap with a 90-degree angle that slides onto the dryer outlet.  There is a little hole in the thing, providing a way so that it could be secured with a set-screw, I suppose, but there is not a corresponding hole in the outlet on dryer and it would be a bitch drilling one.  So I, like probably most of you, just pushed it on hoping it would stay there.  Then I pushed the other end onto the wall inlet.

Now the only thing to do was get out of there.  Turned out I could not lift my fat ass up and over the dryer.  One complication was the shelf that is installed on the wall above the dryer, which blocked any vertical movement by me.  So I pushed the dryer out from the wall...and the hose disconnected again.  And I'm thinking, "How the hell did we get all this crap together in the first place?"  If I owned a small child, I could hold him/her by the feet and dangle him/her upside down behind the dryer to hook things back up.  No such ruck.  Dammit, being single sucks!

In the end, I did get the hose reconnected and the dryer pushed back into position.  But it was not easy.  It was one of those deceptively "simple" tasks that ends up being a sonovabitch.  At least now all of the wet heat from the dryer goes outside of the house like it should.  And with our daily temperatures down in the 50's, we need all the help we can get!

Lesson In Humility

It was Saturday, January 2nd and I was out Ubering, now that that's a verb.  I had both the Uber and Lyft apps on.  I get a Lyft "ping" to pickup at the ghetto Walmart out on Mobile Highway.  We Uber/Lyft drivers usually decline such trip requests, even at the non-ghetto Walmarts.  Most WM shoppers live pretty close to the store.  The trip usually involves a ton of grocery bags for a $3.00 fare.  And they never tip.  Not worth the time and effort, in other words.  But I took this one.  Sometimes I am a cold-hearted, money-hungry bastard; sometimes I am a glutton for punishment.  

I roll  up and see two Black women with the typical grocery cart full of crap, PLUS two small girl's bicycles with training wheels.  Warily, I get out and see that many of the grocery bags are full of toys...Christmas toys?

After years of doing this job, you learn a lot about people.  Not all assumptions are correct, of course, but most of them are.  If you get a "ping" to pick up "Destiny" at one of the fleabag motels in town, you can expect the girl to come out with her "luggage" consisting of plastic garbage bags.  She will reek of cigarettes and weed and God knows what else.

At Walmart, the heart-breaking realization dawns on me that these women (a single mom and her mother, I'm guessing) probably had a really austere Christmas, and they've gotten their stimulus money, and so they went out and bought the stuff to have a "delayed" Christmas for the kids.  

I could have told them to call for an Uber XL and "noped out of there" as the kids say, but the Jetta has a huge trunk.  And what am I, Scrooge?  I  had to get creative, but we somehow managed to fit it all in.  "Where we headed?" I ask as we start out.  "Bobe Street, across from the Fast Lane gas station," the older woman says. "You know, the trailers."  Ahh, The Trailers.  Indeed I do know The Trailers.  They're right around the corner.  It's a big ghetto trailer park...mostly tiny, old, rundown FEMA trailers left over from some past hurricane that were never intended to be anything but temporary shelter while your real house got rebuilt.  There are actually a couple of trailer parks like this here in Pensacola. This place ain't exactly Beverly Hills.

We pull up, and I start unloading. The women bring the bicycles in, and I can hear the squeals of joy from the little girls (twins, I think).  The "Christmas wrapping" of the other toys and gifts is just grey Walmart bags, but it'll have to do.  The kids probably don't care.

A lot of people got their stimulus money early, deposited right into their bank accounts.  Mine took a while last time, and will probably take a while this time too.  Not that I care.  Money is not much of a problem for me these days, and I've been sort of scoffing at this pathetic $600 handout.  When I was younger, I could blow that much on coke and booze on any given weekend.  But this one Uber trip reminded me of those who are less fortunate...those who couldn't give their kids a proper Christmas - but were now actually able to.  To some people, this stimulus money is not a "handout" at all, but thank the Lord, it's a little New Year's windfall.  Lesson learned...again.