April 13, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For decades (2 to be exact<\/em>), a solid chunk of my life, if you will\u2014my office was inside a taxi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I spent my working years navigating every corner, countless hours spent at red lights that never change, and one by one, learning where all the businesses are, the apartment complexes, the shopping centers, and everything that goes with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I didn\u2019t just drive cars; I drove people through their lives. Many, in one form or another, became friends. Some I refused to pick up, but all in all, what I experienced as a cabbie, the laughs, the stories, \u201cyou can\u2019t make this stuff up<\/em>\u201d kind, and all that goes into living out your life as a taxi driver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And what did I learn from all those hours? More than you\u2019d think. I learned how to listen. I learned to spot the tiny signs of trouble (sometimes<\/em>), like for example, I smoked cigarettes for the most part while driving a taxi, and not everyone who bummed a smoke ran on me, but everyone who ran bummed a smoke, funny how that works<\/em>. Most importantly, I learned that every journey, no matter how stressful or how mundane, is a story waiting to be told. The person in the back seat\u2014whether they were rushing to an airport, heading home after a tough day, or just out for a laugh\u2014had their own narrative unfolding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And being robbed once by a young black kid who couldn\u2019t have been 15, who kept saying, \u201cdon\u2019t make me shoot you<\/em> \u201c. In the end, I got out alive with the only long-lasting wounds of emotional duress, and he got about $70. I think I got the better part of that deal. And knowing how the streets work after over 20 odd years of driving a cab, this \u201ckid\u201d will do prison time someday. Being as he has graduated up to armed robbery, it\u2019s only a matter of time, how much time he gets, if he lives long enough to enjoy<\/em> prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, I became, by necessity, a professional listener and observer of human experience. It was a demanding gig, but it gave me something invaluable:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perspective.<\/u><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Chapter Two: The Gear Shift<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, life has done a big gear shift. My days driving around in circles all day are over, and I\u2019m happily settled into a rhythm that is more predictable (and much quieter!<\/em>) than chasing fares all day. The stability of Social Security is nice, and I am truly grateful for every dime I get, but like any good cup of coffee, it doesn\u2019t quite cover every single craving or ambition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This realization\u2014that my experience was gold, but the currency wasn\u2019t enough to fuel the next chapter\u2014is what finally made me sit down and dust off this keyboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I decided that if I had spent decades absorbing other people\u2019s journeys, maybe it was time to start sharing some of the map-reading wisdom I\u2019d collected. This blog is born out of necessity (full disclosure)<\/em>, yes, but more importantly, it\u2019s fueled by a renewed sense of purpose. It\u2019s about finding ways to make the next chapter with a few more bucks in my pocket \u2026 exciting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chapter Three: The Unexpected Detour (The Passion Project)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, if you\u2019ve been reading this so far, you might be thinking: Okay, great advice, sensible plan\u2026 but what about the exciting stuff?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, I\u2019m going to give you something exciting. And it has absolutely nothing to do with commas, SEO keywords or anything like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have been involved with a sport called Sim Racing. When I was a young boy, maybe 9-10 years old, my dad took an 8\u00d74 sheet of plywood, bolted it to the wall in the basement, longways, put hinges on it so it could \u201cunfold\u201d with legs to swing out, and on this was bolted a HO race track and cars (remember those?) As a result, two things happened: one, all the kids in the neighborhood came over to race, and two, it put the racing bug in me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now here I am, some 60 years later, still racing. I do it for one single purpose: to have fun. Period. Right now, I find it kind of interesting that although I\u2019m a slowpoke compared to some of these racers, you have to consider that I am racing people some 40-50 years younger than me or more. And on days I find myself in a competitive race, well, that\u2019s just icing on the cake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" April 13, 2026 For decades (2 to be exact), a solid chunk of my life, if you will\u2014my office was inside a taxi. I spent my working years navigating every corner, countless hours spent at red lights that never change, and one by one, learning where all the businesses are, the apartment complexes, the shopping […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-20","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n