November 8
th, 2011 was a Tuesday Night. It's been a long time since I've posted any entries here at Craziest NYC Taxi Stories blog and I'll take tonight's blog to describe some of my activities outside of taxi driving since I've lately been busy with other things – I have quite a different background than the typical taxi driver, perhaps I can use this blog to describe it. A few months ago, I was offered a temporary job for a manufacturing company in Manhattan to do some programming and design on databases (this is what I was educated in) and mostly my primary area of expertise. Because of this contract I returned to a 9-5 type of job in an office setting, really none too exciting as compared to this line of work. This project lasted about 12 weeks full-time. Office work you will find is less tiring than driving a cab, but it might also be considered less interesting. On the downside, its also a bit annoying because you need to wake up on time in the morning like a real adult – I much prefer to wake up late and go in to work in the afternoon, granted the level of respect you receive is lower. Working the night shift feels like you are out partying all night. So there are pluses and minuses to each career. After completing this IT project I had another little side detour, flying down to South Beach/Miami area for a week-long vacation at the beach. This was quite a good time and a detour from my usual routine. South Florida is warm year-round and this October it was in the 80s and humid. I took a flight from La Guardia to Fort Lauderdale airport, rented a car and drove to a hotel in Hollywood, Florida, a budget place to fit in with my relatively limited income. The car rental agency gave me a convertible, a Mitsubishi Spyder, quite a hot car for being a budget rental!
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| Topless Spyder |
South Florida is so pristine and laid back, as compared to busy and crowded New York. Its more of a suburban area, but it does have a few things in common with New York. I stayed in Hollywood, Florida, but spent most of my time down in my Miami (about a 20 minute drive). Hollywood is more of an Old Florida type of place, if you will, for American tourists and old south types like myself to visit on vacation. What I like about it is there is a boardwalk along with a lot of old school bars and restuarants facing the beach, its pretty laid back.
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| Hollywood, Florida |
On the other hand, Miami is a pretty flashy city. Miami and South Beach are much more cosmopolitan and international, not unlike Manhattan. This area is filled with vacationers from New York, and other parts of the north, as well as South Americans, and many Europeans. It is quite different from the rest of the American south. Another unique aspect of Miami is that it is mostly Hispanic and Spanish speaking, with immigrants from mostly Cuba, Colombia, and other parts of South America. The beaches of Miami and points further south and very pretty with white sand and clear aqua colored water, so much nicer than the beaches in New York City.
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| South Beach, Miami, Florida |
In addition to being much nicer this is the place to go to the beach, its also much warmer than New York metro area beaches and that is why I love it like many other “snowbirds.” I've actually considered moving to south Florida a number of times before because of the weather, although its difficult to find a job down there. My vacation consisted of nothing more than enjoying the weather, the beach, sand, scenery, and the ladies of south Florida. I had some reservations about the weather because it looked like a showery forecast, but luckily things cleared up – only the first day was showery with temps in the 80's all week. One other benefit of south Florida, is that not unlike NYC, there is quite a selection of hot ladies around to date. The girls I actually met over the course of the week were from Brazil, Cuba, or Russia. Other than pursuing the ladies, getting a little R and R, and enjoying the sun, sand and sea, there isn't much of a taxi driving story here this time.
