Checkout operator

The wall has moved out by 4 inches, I thought that the trees might have pushed the wall out. The engineer I spoke to thought that it is roots of the trees that is holding the wall up.




Its mustache month !

You see! Jack L was on
Such is life, the ebb and flow of people coming and going in Ireland.
So many Polish and Latvian have gone home.
Today I had an Italian guy going to UPS to send his luggage home. He is heading to Italy and then to Barcelona to do his PHD, I suppose I will all have to call him doctor the next time we meet.
I have become something different after driving a taxi, I greet and talk to people without any inhibition. The staff in Aldi and Lidl for example. When you learn something about a stranger sometimes it leads you to a new startling discovery.

In Aldi on 4 occasions now something strange has happened.
I would greet my usual girls and ask them how they were going on etc.
Then as I approach the checkout one of them might say, "go to checkout number 6"
She would then open the checkout, serve me and close it when I am finished.
They tell me that I am one of the few people who talk to them !
I ask you !
What have we become when we don't talk to checkout staff ?

I have spoken to the most spectacular people working at the most menial jobs.

These people are often really well educated intelligent people. Just because the are on a checkout doesn't make them a lesser person.
Anyhow 3 of my checkout girls are moving on. I appreciate that they came to me to say goodbye. Perhaps we will stumble across each other again in a far flung land.

I was saddened when one of my serving Lady's told me she was going home and wanted me to collect her and bring her to the airport.
It is fantastic that once again she will be back with her people, though perhaps I feel sometimes like I am loosing a friend and a missed opportunity to learn more about their country.

A pal of mine once put this perception of what you are in others eyes.
"Are you mad buying a taxi? People will now look at you when they hear what you do for a living like the way they look at a piece of dogs shit that is stuck on their shoe. " Some did, some of them were bankers, now they know how I felt.


I have just noticed that I am like a boat with a broken rudder, drifting here and there. A ship with no destination, no star to follow, no destination in my sights.

Now that in itself is not a really bad thing BUT I should put a plan in place for the future.
Set my sights and get a plan in place for my life.

Perhaps I need a life coach.

Marathon over

A seasonal portrait at Nixons studio on Clontarf rd



A marathon runner looking dejected. Like a turkey looking for a warm oven


Halloween has come and gone, I am sorry but I can't stick a camera into peoples faces and take photographs. But some of the costumes were great.

The marathon on Monday kept things alive.
One comment from an English couple was that it was not well organised.
There was NO water at the 1/2 way stage and the wait to get their goody bags and clothes took forever. To cap it all they only had small size tee shirts.
The water thing is crucial and a very serious error.
I told them to fill a hot bath with Radox bath salts and get in together, it would do them good and they would enjoy it.
"Seems like a good plan"

A taxi driver frend put it well.
"They only look after the elite runners, but without the thousands who have paid €70 per head there would be no prize money at all for the big runners."

The Schools are on holiday and this morning I drove for more than 15 miles and got one fare of €7.50. It would be very tough if you had outstanding loans and kids to feed for sure.
I had to come home to meet a drain guy. A high pressure drain clearer on a truck.
With the covers lifted the jetting of high water pressure water began. A substance like oil came out at first then with the sheer pressure the liquid burst throught the concrete the surface.
"Broken pipe! Dig there, so there I will dig.
When I was hosing everything down I saw where an earlier attempt had been made to do repairs at that same spot.
If I was to get in a company to do what I will be doing tomorrow it would cost around €2,500. With the money I am making at present my Christmas money would be gone.
I guess most trades have gone underground at present, "Sorry I don't do receipts", or it will be 40% dearer if it goes through the books.

To be quite honest if I did all the work that needs doing around the house I would not drive the taxi until the new year, on the other hand I am by far the best and cheapest person to do this work.

There is a bit of scouring at the foundations of a railway bridge on the Dodder which is effecting the Dart service. But with the holidays it is making little difference for the taxi trade.

There is loads of things going on. Jack L was in concert. He has a powerful voice and a great drummer in his band. His drummer was in my car twice, the second time he remembered me, he tips well too.

Very few taxi drivers would agree with the sentiments expressed in that song.
Its great when someone new comes along and you find them before they become too famous, when tickets become expensive and hard to get.
Their act might become careless as well.

Just one other thing as Colombo might say.

Listen to the drumming on this song. Good ?

Web Forum

I met them in Fairview, 3 girls from Mexico looking through the window of the bridal shop. One was trying to take a photograph of the other with the bridal dresses in the background. I know the girls who work inside and I knew that they would get a good reception. So I ushered them inside. It is wonderful to see those pretty exotic girls so happy with life !
They told me that I was such a kind man, sure why not? Its good to be nice.



Just a chance shot of a lady passing by with 2 little baby's in the trailer.

A big web forum is in the RDS this weekend, one of the guuests is the man who invented Skype1 He was on the radio talking about innovation.
He had failed with 2 business ventures and was reluctant to risk more money, but his wife helped him on. So he tried again.
Skype took off and he sold it for $3.5 Billion US
Then the buyer decided that it did not fit into its business plan and put it up for sale. So he bought it back again. 5 years later he sold it again to Microsoft for $8 billion. Not bad for a guy who failed twice.

But he said that failing is OK as long as you learn from your mistakes.

I saw my first Christmas shop window today.
Is this a record ?.

I had an enchanted day, one after the other they came to be driven. Coming home for dinner I was 4 hours late. Must not complain.

In my local supermarket I saw a lady that I thought I knew. I feel sure that I do know her but I can't place where or under what circumstances we met before. She is Hungarian and lived in this locality. Like me she felt she knew me but couldn't remember from where.
I must be getting old.
They say the memory is the second thing to go.
I'm damned if I can remember what the first thing was.

Today again the dart was stopped and I picked up a stunning German blond going to Google. Very healthy fit looking, wonderful blue eyes and quite clever as well.
She and her mother had gone into west Berlin when she was 6 years old. The reunification of Germany was a fantastic feat. They rebuilt the east, roads power lines,airports, even cities and telephone networks.
This was done while they exchanged eastern marks for western Duchmarks. In effect devaluing their currency by more than 50%
High taxes followed.
But they did it !
Now the Greeks and the Italians and the Irish are begging to have thoughts of debt forgiveness, all because co corrupt politicians and greedy bankers.


I would like to introduce to my friend Ted.com
He is a great source of education and fun

Brazil taxi

If you click on the link for Brazil taxi you can read this story in it origonal form.
Until today I couldn't follow it until I found Google translate.

This story shows me how lucky I am, I hope you are lucky too.

Chronicle of an abandonment

It was past midnight, the taxi driver John Person down the avenue when he saw the couple making a sign on the sidewalk. The man was holding a guitar case, a woman, clinging to his arm, looked cold.

He was a musician, had left the bar he was playing in to solve a problem with the woman. He tried to convince her that she had done the right thing. He was married, she needed to understand. He promised he would get the money she needed. Had taken a loan. The proceeds would she buy a shack in the village. He also promised her a job in a firm friend. Everything would be fine.

She said nothing, she was drugged, doped. He tried in vain to dry up a runny nose that ran down his nose. Dry eyes. It was not cold, it was cold. She wept in silence.

The man spent the money for the race and asked the taxi driver take the woman home to Garden Village. Before landing, embraced her at length, asked her to take the medicine and slept as much as possible. He swore he loved her.

She was not home. He asked the taxi driver to take her to a brothel in the neighborhood Navigators. There, the girls already waiting at the door. When the woman told what she had done, the prostitutes are mad. Neither the left of the cab. Play all embarked and sent to Joao Pessoa Avenue, before it was too late.

The women all spoke the same time. They said he could not get any money, no job, he would disappear from her life. She could be a whore, junkie, not home, but had friends. They will find a way.

The woman was stunned. I did not know what was the exact container - the damn garbage containers were all the same. Fortunately the truck collection had not yet passed.

A taxi driver and four prostitutes in a desperate search for multiple containers, until they found the newborn child, abandoned, innocent, sleeping between the plastic bags as if nothing had happened.

Posted by Mauro Castro
Sunday, October 16, 2011

Broom Bridge Cabra

Christmas is coming !
Aldi and Lidl have had Christmas cards, puddings and cakes on the shelves for the last 4 weeks.
My house is full of clutter and the long haul begins to tidy up for the big day!
Yes folks it all begins NOW.
One of the best tips you could ever get for this time of year is to empty your freezer and clean it out.
Why?
This time of the year you will have power cuts, as a result you may loose the contents.
Plus.
This the hot tip !
There will be bargains as Christmas approaches. Plus you will have room for your Goose.

What about this for a coincidence?
I picked up a lady in Stoneybatter with a load of shopping.
I had to say to her that I found her accent had me puzzled.
It was mostly Irish, but there was something in the mix, I had to ask.
I have lived here for 17 years, I am Swiss.
I came here to look after 3 children long ago.
Now I have 3 children of my own.
I brought her up to Cabra park and headed of to Cross Gunns Bridge where I clicked again. "Go back this way" she said. She gave me a destination which I did not recognise. So I pumped her for more information. Then it clicked! Broom bridge station.
She was trying to go to Manooth by train and the station in Drumcondra was closed. She wanted to get cash and when she went into a local shop I asked one of the local deadbeats where exactly the station was. They told me that the station was closed owing to flooding.
So when she came back I told her that we could go to Broombridge and it may be closed or, we could go to Ashtown station which was operating.
So we went to Ashtown.
She had an accent.
Where was she from?
Why do you ask ?
I am from Switzerland I have lived here for 22 years.
Now she too had an Irish accent except for the letter D, that was slightly different

I really love when you hear some slight inflection in an accent.
Then you find that the person has a past which took them from Peru to Scotland to an education in Oxford.
The result?
An accent rich in musical inflections.
One of the best I ever heard was a South African girl who had moved to Scotland when she was 16 or so.
What a beautiful accent, it was music to the ear.

Such is my life, like a bee sucking nectar from the different flowers which come my way. Without that I think I would give up.

Do you know the importance of Broom Bridge to the world?
Well, there was a famous scientist caller William Rowan Hamilton who was walking with his wife along the canal. He had been working on a formula and he had a Eureka moment!, but he had no paper to write down the formula.
So he scratched it on the side of the bridge before he forgot it.
The theory is very important to science.
Look here
So there you are.

WATER LEVEL FALLS

If I ever have to live another day I would hope I would never have to live through that storm again. The scary part is that the flooding was caused by blocked drains !
At no point was the flooding caused by the sea jumping on to the road.
A Philippine nurse drowned in her apartment and a young Garda who was off duty died in the deluge as well.

God bless and RIP

When such a crisis occurs you get trapped with people for longer than you might expect, tensions are heightened and they tell you things that they would not tell their lovers !
Its true.
The lady in question was from South Africa she was 40 and now she was pregnant.
She told me of the time she was at university and "Fell" pregnant when she was only 20, I have a beautiful daughter at home.
I came to Ireland to work and one day I met a man. It was like a lightning strike for both of us. I have never thought that I would meet such a man in my life!
My partner and me decided that we would never have any children, but it wasn't just sex we fell in deeply love in a way that you would never dream could happen.
So we decided to have a baby and now thank God I am pregnant. I can deal with any problem, we are living in a dream.
We never have been so happy in our lives.
Now my life begins again, not that my past life was bad, no, but now things are so different now and I pray to God every day for blessing me.

So you enter an immigrant workers life for 1/2 hour and you see another side to your world.

You know people who come here with nothing willing to work,they appreciate the chance thay have, their grandchildren will be giving our grandchildren jobs.

On the other hand the ferries were busy and all the dart services and Luas were in chaos that all kinds of work came our way. I had a few early starts(5.30) and I had to go to bed in the middle of the day.

I DIDN'T TURN OFF MY ROOF LIGHT AND HAVE A FLAT BATTERY.

So at present I am in dry dock as I can't find my battery charger.

I picked up a lady on the coast road, we had met before several times.
As per usual she had to stop for cash on the way. Then into town.
I spoke about the lady and man who had been knocked down last week.

"I think you know my partner" she said
Then she went on to explain that he had been struck by a car while crossing the road.
Broken ribs, vertebrae, skull, leg etc..
He is in a full body cast in hospital.
I should have asked if she had a photo on her fone as I probably did know him.
Some people you meet week after week.
Then they go.

You never know where.

Sometimes you meet them in a bar somewhere and you both stop and think, then walk on.

So you see boys and girls.

Pay attention, if things are bad they might get worse


Then there is The TANGO

Rain Rain

The presidential candidates arrive at Google HQ to have a debate !



This was the road home !

Hows about this for a traffic report !
Last Updated: 24/10/2011 21:22:59
Dublin Summary Report

* Expect heavy traffic around Dublin City and County due to the exceptional weather conditions. Do not make any unnecessary journeys. *TRAVEL* *LUAS* Luas Red line services are only running between Tallaght and Blackhorse. Luas Green Line services are only running between Brides Glen & Beechwood due to flooding on the lines. Dublin Bus are honouring tickets. * Drivers are being advised not to drive over the Luas tracks in Saggart. *IRISH RAIL* All Northern Commuter, Belfast Enterprise and Sligo and Maynooth Commuter services have been suspended due to flooding. All DART services have been suspended and will be for the rest of the evening due to flooding. * The M50 is closed northbound between J14 Leopardstown and J12 Firhouse due to heavy flooding. Also flooding southbound at J6 Blanchardstown. * Traffic is down to one lane on the M1 from the Airport to Balbriggan.

* The following roads are impassable or barely passable due to flooding: * Gardai advise that N81 is impassable between Citywest & Jobstown. * The Ballybough Rd is closed. * The Rock Rd is closed. * The Grand Canal Quay is closed. * The Dodder Rd is now closed. * Blake's Cross to Lusk Rd is now closed due to flooding. * N7 Naas Rd is down to one lane both ways between J3 Citywest & J4 Rathcoole. * Rathcoole & Saggart Villages are impassable. Robin Hood Rd & Nangor Rds are closed. * The Crumlin Rd is impassable between Dolphins Barn and Sundrive Rd jct. * Avoid Kilmainham completely. Conyngham Rd is impassable as is Old Kilmainham Rd. * Blackhorse Avenue is closed. * In the Crumlin area Bunting Rd is closed, as is Balph Rd East & Harty Ave. * Motorists trying to exit the N4/Lucan Rd for Ballyefermot should drive through Inchicore as the Ballyfermot Rd and the village itself are impassable. Cold Park & St. Laurences Rd are impassable.

* Impassable at the Cookstown Industrial Estate. * The Strawberry Beds in Lucan are impassable. * Parkgate St outbound is flooded before the Infirmary Rd jct. * Flooding on Seapoint Ave in Monkstown and also on the Rock Rd at Booterstown Ave. * Carysfort Ave in Blackrock is almost impassable. * The N11/Stillorgan Rd is flooded at Fosters Ave. Further out there's flooding at Cornelscourt. Flooding on Dodder Rd. * Reports of flooding on the Belgard Rd approaching Mayberry towards Clondalkin. *NORTHSIDE* * Flooding in the north and south bore of the Port Tunnel. The tunnel remain open, however. * James Larkin Rd inbound is closed to traffic due to flooding. * Flooding on the Howth Rd at the Clontarf Rd jct. * Avoid the Phoenix Park. The N3/Navan Rd is badly flooded at the Church.

* Flooding on the N1/Swords Rd outbound before Santry Ave. Severe flooding on Griffith Ave approaching the Ballymun Rd and the Collins Ave jct.

A very stormy night !

The Sam Beckett bridge at night, not too bad a photo.(click on it to enlarge)



A Danish sail training ship



When you buy a bike you must buy a good lock or it might get stolen!
Everything was stolen but the frame .



And now an app for your fone to tell you how long the next bus will be.


Tonight we have gale force 9 on all coastal waters, sailings canceled, OH THE LIFE ON THE OCEAN WAVE !



Tears in Paris while there is dancing in the streets of Wellington New Zealand.

Such is the world of sport.

France 7 New Zealand 8 Rugby world cup comes to an end.

Did you ever see this clever advert for Toyota ?.



Last week there was a woman knocked down by a car.
This week a young guy ran straight into the path of a truck !

It must have been very bad because they closed the quays and brought the emergency services up against the flow of traffic.

I had come into the situation after dropping off a chef on Sycamore St. then I came out by Fitzpatrick's pub. My new passinger was very glad to see me.
"Quick down to the four courts,I might be late, there was a fucking eejit back there who ran head first into the path of a truck,he didn't even glance to where he was going. He bounced twice on the road he got such wallop,he won't be getting up again!"

Such a heartless reaction to a person probably being killed,a big contrast to last week.The lady that time was so upset by what she saw that she wanted to abandon her trip to England.

As Colombo might have said."Just one other thing"
The Jaguar E type is 50 years old this year, If you have ever seen the Jaguar XK it would remind you of it BUT IT WOULD BE A LOT BETTER THAN THE E TYPE
There is one featured Snday Toimes motoring section. There is often one parked in Sandymount Green. I spoke to the owner one day and he told me that I would be surprised at how little a second hand one would cost.
But with fuel the price it is a 4.2 litre engine would drink fuel and tax and insurance would be a nightmare. Lets leave it to the Clarkesons and the J Lenos of this world.
Still a nice car