I forgot to post here last night because Ruby has a light on her dashboard. With as many miles on her, as she has, I am truly not surprised. I usually do a blog post right after I walk in the door after driving in Pinellas County, Florida all day. Since I am not able to drive until next Wednesday, I forgot to post here yesterday
so I am making up for that with this post. I cannot drive, and earn so I am forced to earn in other ways. So I setup
woo commerce and payments on this site. (Which is a good thing I suppose) so I suppose now I need to create a product
to sell also, so I am writing a document about the only thing I really know, well, driving rideshare. Then I will need to learn about
driving traffic here, which I will do with Facebook ads or google ads (probably both) the plan is to be making sales before I go
back to driving. That is the plan anyway. Arthur Jones the founder of Nautilus always used to say “Nothing ever goes as planned” I keep that in mind. I say “Things don’t always go as planned” but planning/preparing for anything/everything possible is always way better, I think anyway.
I had the oil changed in Ruby today in Bradenton, FL. Then I drove to Saki Endless Sushi which is in Clearwater, FL. When I went out and started Ruby I saw this on the dashboard, I was like huh? that is the warning that the hybrid battery is bad, I am familiar with that warning, I have replaced that battery twice. I pulled into another parking spot and connected the Bluetooth ODB2 interface and scanned it, and found this code. It was not the Hybrid battery in Ruby, but this part is not working it’s called an inverter coolant pump? So I drove her home, (she ran perfectly, like always) and parked her, my mechanic doesn’t have an opening until Tuesday. So I am not working, or earning with Ruby until Next Wednesday. I took a couple drone videos yesterday of a fire department in Pinellas County, FL, and also a cell phone antennae in Pinellas also. So I will edit them, and send them out the cell tower had an email address posted on it so I will try that first.
Still at home working on my computer. It takes forever and then you need to contact at least 5 suppliers per product. Tomorrow is the day that hopefully, a new wheel bearing will fix. I have taken my Sunday vitamins (Sundays have vitamin D in there for the entire week) I have ridden the Peloton and now I am waiting on the oven broiler to pre-heat so I can cook my rib-eyes.
Update: The new wheel bearings were installed in the rear and completely fixed the noise problem.
Today is Gasparilla day. I have driven for Gasparilla every year since I started driving for Uber. I planned to drive today but I cannot. Ruby has a wheel bearing that is going bad and I can hear it clear as day so I don’t wanna push it. The wheel bearings that are on there right now are Moog. Last week I heard a metal-to-metal scraping noise but only for about 2 seconds. I told my Mother and we used her CC to order new ones from 1AAuto. I made an appointment with Automedic to have them installed last Monday. 1AAuto shipped them the same day for free and UPS said they wouldn’t be here until Tuesday sometime. I advised Omar at Automedic and he said he would try to get me in on Wednesday. UPS dropped the parts off Tuesday at night late, so I just told Omar we will do it Monday 01/30/2023 he advised that was good. Yesterday that wheel started making noises intermittently. I understood what was happening and I wouldn’t be able to drive for Gasparilla. So I took one last big ride from Downtown St Petersburg to Odessa. Everything was fine until the very last part of the trip (I advised the rider of the noise problem as soon as he got in the car) it started making noise. I dropped off the rider in Odessa and drove about 60 miles home and it made noise pretty much the entire way home. I parked it and I will triple-A tow it to Automedic Monday morning.
let me talk a little bit about Gasparilla I have lived in Tampabay pretty much my whole life. I am in my mid Forties. I have never attended a Gasparilla parade. I drive for them only. This is what I know about Gasparilla. There are 300,000 people in attendance. They are pretty much scattered all around Davis Island which is in Hillsborough County FLORIDA. There are 300,000 people there drinking alcohol all day long. There are so many people in attendance the cell phone towers get overwhelmed and do not work. Humans have to urinate, it is pretty much an alcohol consumption party. So this happens EVERY YEAR at Gasparilla. A lot of people get arrested. You have 300,000 people on an island that have been consuming alcohol all day. It is easy for me as a male to find a tree or a bush or a corner to pee in, but it’s a little different for a female. So you have a lot of people, drunk, on an island that are pissed off because they can’t even request an Uber, Lyft, they can’t even call a taxi so they have to just wait it out or go to jail. It’s not worth attending in my opinion but it is VERY good for business! So I drive for it but nothing else. Last year, I picked up two dudes at 9:30 AM for Gasparilla and they understood the cell tower problem, so they were prepared with Walky Talkies lol. That is devotion!
The Uber driver app says I completed 5 trips today. I earned a little more than $100.00. Tomorrow is a big day for driving and Sundays during the day are almost always good. Ruby is making a loud noise from the right rear so I am not driving or earning for the next 4 days which sux but since I can’t drive or earn, I will try to learn something and source a product to sell on Amazon using FBA. I just took my vitamins but tonight is a no Peloton ride night. I will ride tomorrow A.M.
The Uber app says I completed 4 trips today. I earned a little over $105.00. My last rider was a male somewhere between 30 and 40. He reminded me that Gasparilla is this coming Saturday January 28th 2023. Gasparilla is an awesome day for Uber driving to the parade but I always have stayed very far away from the actual parade itself.