Tampa Taxi Shots

This is just a test of a new app. It is supposed to perform direct video upload. It also allows easy photo loads and sections. Such as Love Smith was fired last night.

My new blog about Vegas taxi There is a rule of the jungle "adapt or perish." I try to live by that in how I approach taxi driving. Dynamics change and you must be attuned to that and work in different ways. Uber presents something, however, that I can't adjust to. They have taken just too much from us. I don't know if I want to continue living in Tampa now. In the service industry, you can only make real money four months out of the year. The good news is today is the beginning of that four month run. The airport will be my only hope. I don't have it in me to keep going on after that, especially in the face of Uber. They have devastated the good street business we have had. This is a secret I did not want to revel to my readers. I will now. Its over. White people who do not want blacks to pick them up, have won. Uber riders can now get their Lilly white guy or girl to pick them up. Have fun. Uber will take that cease and desist letter from PTC and wipe their ...

Lim James on the left and blogger Genti on right Lim James, the Diary of a Singapore Cabby blog was recently let go by the largest taxi company in Indonesia. It seems out of the 50,000 customers he has picked up over the years, one of them put in an exaggerated complaint. His blog is very successful worldwide and he has a large readership. He let his fans know what happened on his blog but first lamenting how he is getting older (he is 67) and how life is an injustice we never asked for, but must face on our own terms. "Sometime I felt a tinge of sadness and misgivings. I wonder and so do many elderly people, how did time sped away so quickly? Wasn't it just yesterday that my eye sights and legs were stronger? My hair is still reasonably black but my skin is crumpled with age spots. Yesterday, my memories were like daylight. And climbing, running, jumping and squatting were taken for granted? Today, aches, pains and comatose are my un-welcomed friends. I learn to be ph...

I am entering a new phase of my life. The economy is getting better and things are finally beginning to improve. I should soon have a new computer, and finally get back to serious posting.  Viewers from years ago expected it. Time is marching on; Tim is marching on... hence the metaphor of the taxi meter running. I started blogging in 2005 during the heady days of the Tampa blog scene explosion. It was new and fun and I could not wait to get home and blog about the daily trips I had. Something changed along the way, however. The United States economy fell apart like a three dollar watch, killing hope and breaking the spirit of many. Most of the local bloggers just went away. Their dormant blogs left abandoned years ago, a testament to a vital community killed off by fast change and greed. Many Tampa blogs  still show the last post from way back. During this time, FaceBook was taking off and it seems to be where most people are at. The blogging scene just a faded memory f...

Tim Fasano publisher of Tampa Taxi Shots I started this blog last year because I was bored. My original Tampa Taxi Shots was gone. I still had many of the images and the stories were still in my head. However, my ten year old laptop took a shit. Since then, I have been going to the library, but mostly loading with an android phone. That is a piss poor way of doing it. But its all I got. Today was the first time since 2007 that I did not owe United Cab money. I paid off the balance today, and actually got money back!!! At this pace, I should be able to buy a new laptop soon and be able to do some serious writing from the comfort of my home, instead of trying to write in a crowded computer lab with the guy in the green shirt (the same shirt he has had on for weeks) sitting across from you and chewing his tongue,  while making funny noises. The traffic on this site is growing and I know if I put myself 100% into it, I can make it big. July 4th is a good benchmark, and time to ...

Over the years I have moved on from just being a taxi driver. Since the taxi business in Tampa is on the rebound, and I am having the best summer I have had since 2008, I have come up with a new blog theme. I driver taxi, take photos, hike, camp, and have many hobbies. This new blog is about me, and who I am. I feel much happier on this blog. Please check it out. at Tim In Tampa .

Take one cab driver, one digital camera and one computer and you end up with Tampa Taxi Shots written by Tim Fasano. This is really cool. He share cab driver insights, and photos he has taken as he goes around the city. There are photos of models C.J. and Raquel Gibson (who just hit the big time), actors in period costumes in a History Channel production at Plant Hall, Hillsborough County Public Transportation Commission Regulationsvarious waterfront photos and others, including an interesting insight into the Tampa Trib's newracks. He advised us where are the best places to flag down cabs. We all have our daily routine, seeing the same things every day. As a cab driver he cuts across those routines, giving him the opportunty to show us slices of Tampa, that we might not see. The *TBT! or the Weekly Planet need to do a story on him. ----------------------------------------- This was posted about the original TAMPA TAXI SHOTS by the Seminole Heights blogger when it was new...

What kind of guarantee if any awaits the intrepid driver when facing a new day?  Physical pain certainly, aching hands, back, legs and sometimes your head, especially if incoherency is included.  Physical exhaustion must also be added to the list.  Come down to the lot at any shift change and its a "Night of the Living Dead" revival, one shift of zombies changing positions with the next.  One remedy is reducing your hours, exhaustion replaced by a gnawing anxiety holding its own special wear and tear, lesser hours equaling fewer fares meaning you haven't won because you are losing.  All this translating into relentless stress because not finding a fare anywhere,  ticking minutes becoming hours and now after paying your lease and gasoline you have three remaining hours to make your day pay.  Try that for weeks on end and see how you feel.  Read more here:

The image below is a 2005 TBT article I still have about the Tampa blogger scene. The big boy was Tommy Duncan. He stopped blogging around 2008, and was never seen again. Here is what Creative Loafing said about that era: "The 40-something blogger founded the most-often-cited independent Tampa Bay news blog, Sticks of Fire, in Feb. 2004, and the site, without much financial assistance from advertising, is still going strong today with a stable of more than a dozen regular contributors. In 2005, Duncan was featured in a tbt* story about the young lions of the local Internet. Today, about half of them have fallen by the wayside or (in the case of famous sexy blogger Rachel Moran) moved to New Jersey. Duncan keeps on posting. The local digital scene has grown, but he's not sure it has improved in quality."

These is this guy from New York who does a taxi blog called Return Cabbie that actually tried to look me up when he was in Tampa two years ago. Unfortunately, it was at a time when my site was down and the email was not in use. I was unaware of his coming by. I just now found this blog post. Whats crazy is that I WAS THERE when he came by. In fact, he took a photo my van parked across the street and he had no idea it was mine! I am one of the few United Cab drivers that park off lot. It seems he came by in the afternoon - right at the time I would be there. I really would have liked to have met him. I don't get many visitors and would have been flattered to know he came from New York to visit me. How cool is that! I wish he had asked Paul Hinto. He would have contacted me by cell. Now that I think about it, there was a commenter who moved to Tampa and drove taxi for a month. He wad from australia! This is what RETURN CABBIE had to say: "I knew he drove for United Cab, and...

A screen shot of the blog One thing I have noticed is the hate you find in Bigfoot research does not seem to exist with Taxi bloggers. They, unlike the Sasquatch boys, will link with each other. None of us are out for a great discovery (only a decent tip, if you could be so kind). Taxi Tales (a British Blogger) has linked to me in his sidebar and I will return the favor. How cool is that? I just took a short look at his blog and he seems to keep it up on a regular basis. Good. The last thing you want to do is let a blog go dormet.

Left wing blog Ybor City Stogie has a live feed link on this blog. How cool is that!? Stogie is a popular long running blog and he has a tee shirt! Thanks Stogie.