The Blog

Posted on

Road Journal

Today’s post is about……yep another journal! This one I actually found, a nice black leather Moleskine pocket journal! I did contact the person it belonged to, they had only used one page, and listed their name and an email. I sent them an email stating I had found it and three years later I still have not heard from them….Dufresnes party of two….has anyone seen the Dufresnes…who can eat at a time like this, the Dufresnes are missing….and if you do not get that reference you are a sad little person.

So after about a month of not hearing from the owner I took it an put it in my car, it was going to be a journal for anything note worthy during my driving job. I started driving part time for an app based taxi service (Uber and Lyft ) back in 2016. I am not sure about the legal ramifications of putting my passengers dirty laundry out here so lets just say I am a Taxi Dork or TD for short. I will change the names, dates, locations and even embellish a few details for story telling purposes but for the most part what I am going to share did happen. Please keep in mind when you get in my car, you are MY entertainment!

I will share three stories from the road journal today, these stories are not works of fiction. As time goes on I will share more of these, there are too many to plop out all in one post. On with the first post of the Road Journal Story Time:

Story #1:

While out and about I was driving through a generic nondescript downtown area and I saw a guy walking down the sidewalk. Nothing out of the ordinary but you could see that he was drunk or high. He had that thousand yard stare and very stiff movements, but then I saw the one thing that made this a true spectacle….in his left hand he had a fist full of uncooked lasagna! I tried my best to get his attention just to see if he would even register what planet he was on, but sadly he was locked in the throws of a pasta night daydream. He walked on like an Olive Garden solider, left, left, right, left….oh shit did you see that plumber stomp the crap out of that turtle!

Story 2:

Out driving one day and I ended up in the hills of fuck nowhere-ville San Jose and I get a ping from a possible passenger. I say possible because there are all kinds of things that can happen between the ping and your cheeks gracing the fabric of the car of awesome. But any-who, I am driving through the hills of San Jose and as I turned a corner, I see a small group of people just standing in the street. There was even a guy kneeling down on the grown holding up his phone, he was either taking a picture or a video of something. So, I rolled on up and go around this strange man….and then I saw it….the biggest fucking spider I have ever seen, just crossing the street! I swear it was as big as a soft ball! I would have loved to have gotten out of my car and gone over and used the guy kneeling down, inches away from this nightmare inducing creature, like a club and kill it before it reproduces! But I had a passenger waiting for me and with a little bit of luck we would be driving far far away!

Story 3:

I will finish off this post with one of favorite stories of alcohol, gambling and very poor life choices.

There I was out doing my duty, trying to earn some extra money doing my Taxi Dorking. I get a ping, just around the block from where I was parked, at the casino. Most of the pick ups I get here are from people that work here, but this night was going to prove to have a bit more spice! The second he got in I knew this was not going to go as planned. He literally jumps in and then jumps out mumbling something about his cellphone being in the casino. He returns just a few seconds later with his cellphone in hand and gets in the back. I confirm his name and the address I was dropping him off at, drunks have a tendency of just getting into any car. That has never happened to me but I have heard some stories about that from other drivers.

Now to add just a pinch more of ‘Dear Gawd’ to this story the ride was to be a Shared Ride event. This is where cheap asses share their ride with other strangers going in the same ‘general’ direction. You get a cheaper price for their ride when using this option. For the record, drivers LOVE these type of request!…Just to clarify we do not. Well I do not. If you send a request for a shared ride, I will not wait any more than the required time before I am allowed to cancel, collect my fee, and bounce. No hard feelings, you get 5 minutes to come out. No soup for you! If you send for a regular request I will go out of my way to find you, call you, even get out of my car if I see you need help. But shared, you get five minutes and we (or me) are out!

Back in the car of awesome we have this rather intoxicated man rolling around in the back seat, nothing really going on until he decides to face-time his girlfriend. Just as hi does this I get another request to pick another single serving friend! Now, this guy is in a suit, sober as a judge and looks about as square as square can be. He is about to serious regret his decision to go cheap on this ride.

Here is the dialog from the Casino Man and his soon to be ex girlfriend:

(Keep in mind this is on Face-Time on his phone and at full volume)
Casino Man: Hey baby whats up?
Girl: WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU!
Casino Man: I….I am *urp* in the taxi coming home, where are you?
Girl: I just got home from WORK and you were supposed to either be home or out looking for a FUCKING job! Where have you been?
Casino Man: Ah baby I got bored and went to the casino….
Girl: WHAT…with what money!!! Dont tell me you just spent our rent money on booze and gambling!
Casino Man: What, are you talking about I will pay you back
Girl: You have no MONEY and NO JOB *incoherent screaming and cursing in Spanish filled the next 20 seconds or so* 
Casino Man: Baby, I dont know why you you you are so mad, I should be the one that is mad. The only reason I went out was because I thought you were cheating on me.
Girl: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT! *More screaming and cursing, not sure what language was being used at this point, it was pure anger in its rawest form at this point*

It was about at this moment I came to his stop, and he staggered out and I gunned it! I did not want to be there when his girl sent him into the next life ass first. As all of this was unfolding the other guy, who was sitting in the front seat, did not move a muscle. It looked like had gone into shock or something, he was so far out of his comfort zone I swear he was seconds from jumping out of the car. I pulled up to his stop just a few minutes later and he gets out without a word. No words ever came out of the suit. I really wished he would have said something but after thinking about it his silence. It would have made it that much more entertaining for me. The second he was out of sight I bust out laughing, and this is why I do this. Yes I love the money but you cannot make up this shit!

I have more stories but lets just say that is enough for now.

So till next post; journal often, journal more and take pictures of everything.



Posted on

Jnco Jeans

I recently came across an old picture of me and my oldest son, Devon. The year was somewhere around 1999, the place was my mom’s old house in Linden New Jersey and the jeans where….JNCO’s!

Now, I will admit that I am stuck in the 90’s, that was my youth so it is hard to let that go! But I have let go of the hair styles, my beeper, the VCR, the Ford Station Wagon and even many of the styles, but the one thing I wish I had kept were my JNCO jeans. I love wearing jeans, they are my favorite thing to wear and JNCO’s have to be the most comfortable! .

Stock Photo I borrowed from a news article about the company going out of business last year JNCO 2018

The style is super dated but I would still rock the shit out of pair of JNCO jeans. I still have a pair of cargo pants made by Caffeine from those times but the JNCO’s were retired some time ago. You see, they were super baggy and super long so they dragged on the ground and they would get that cool frayed look. But they would also get that not so cool rip that would travel all the way up your leg look.

So I went on a search to see if someone was selling these, and the internet did not let me down! Prices ranged from about $80-$300, yeah…..I like the jeans but not that much ha! But if anyone is looking to be my very best friend here is what I am looking for:

JNCO on eBay

And I know I would totally look like ‘That Guy’ but as I have gotten older I finally understand ‘That Guy’. This was from a time when nothing hurt, life was hard but I had tons of energy, no grey hair and my waist was a 35…..but in all honesty I do not want to ever be that skinny again! Becoming ‘That Guy/Gal does not happen to everyone, I think it happens to guys more than girls, and I know there have probably been psychological studies on this but lets just say I see more That Guy than That Girl ha! And just to be clear I am not a lost cause to the 90’s, I have moved on with tech, fashion and to some degree music. We all know what we like and we all know what we love, wear it if it makes you happy and blast those tunes that have been now classified as ‘Classic Rock/Rap/Pop’at high volumes in local neighborhood!

So till next post; journal often, journal more and take pictures of everything.

Posted on

My Personal Journals

I have had numerous journals that I list as ‘Personal’. These are the ones that I write….well personal stuff! The large black one was started in October 2009, yes almost ten years ago! And I am still not done with it, I am not as consistent as I would like to be.

The other one I bough at a renaissance festival on September 1, 2012. I could not help it, I have an addiction and it had to be fed! This is my travel easy personal journal. I tend to keep this one with me at work or on trips. The journal itself is completely hand made, had sewn and bounded! So, yes I HAD to have it even though my other journal was still being written in!

Each one of these have my life stories, worries, thoughts and life events. They even have actual artifacts from some of these said events. I will be adding some of these as time goes on, they will be out of order and pop up in random post. Because that is kind of how my brain works….

I am going to share one of those stories along with a life artifact:

One night back in 2011 Doug (My brother-in-law) and I decided we were going to walk to a local watering hole, it was one of those places we always said that we were going to visit but never did. Well this was to be the night we took that adventure. The name of the bar is Nugent’s Tavern, it is in Elizabeth New Jersey and if you are a fan of beers, bar food and pool please visit. It is a small local bar located right off the sidewalk in your friendly neighborhood of Elizabeth. *wink wink*

So, the walk over was pretty uneventful. We get there and there is a pretty good crowd, so we mossy on in and plop ourselves down. There was nothing in the atmosphere that put us on our guard, hell I was pretty sure we were the only people in here that were not off duty cops! I currently did not have any warrants, all of Doug’s were from other states and we had not done anything yet!

So the night wore on, we slugged back the amber nectar of the gods, we joked with a few people around us, made our one night moment friends and all was good. But then I felt someone tap me on my shoulder, and I turn to my right. Nothing. I turn left thinking it was Doug, but what was before me confirmed it was not Doug. He was in handcuffs! I was rather drunk at this point so it really took about 30 seconds for me to register what was going on. And also the fact he was alone wearing handcuffs was messing with me. I mean, it would have made more sense if there were a group of cops holding him against the bar in handcuffs, but this was just….odd.

In my slow-mo state I do not think I even batted an eye, and then the owner of the cuffs came over laughed and unlocked him. Doug then thought it would be a good idea to challenge this joker. He wanted to see if he could unlock the handcuffs while locked in them. So he snapped the prong off one of the forks and then proceeded to fail at getting out of the handcuffs.

He was eventually let out of them and we all got a good laugh, drank some more and I swear I saw the same joker pinch Doug’s ass. But that might have been me making shit up, I have a horrible time with my memory and alcohol almost always makes things…fuzzy. Even to the point I might have a few detail mixed up, but it did happen and here is the souvenir of that night:

Good times were had by all, I have been back to this bar a few more times. But sadly that was the only real story from this place. There will be more stories to come and more post about my journals,

So till next post; journal often, journal more and take pictures of everything.

Posted on

My Journals

I have been wondering how I came up with the name to my site, I tried various other names but they were taken. But in the end I came to Journaled Times, and it got me thinking…..I have been journaling my whole life!

I got my first journal when I was about 9, and I had that journal well into my teens. I did not write in it very much so that is probably how it lasted so long. It seems I tend to write the most when under stress, you should see the one I had during my first marriage!

Sadly I do not have my first journal, during one of my many moves it was lost. But that is where my love of the written word began, There is just something about hand written notes, letters and journals that fascinate me. Maybe its the idea of how much effort one has to put into the creation of these items or the old lure from a time long since past when anything that was published was done by hand..

I have always admired people that have beautiful penmanship, my chicken scratch is legible but nothing worth bragging about. My writing is OK at best, but I like doing it so if you are a grammar Nazi you can go eat crow. I do not mind actual constructive criticism but if you are going to sit there and tell me my post is crap without helping me out, well….fuck you.

My writing style could best be described as free roaming I guess, and my ability would be best categorized and unorganized gobbley gook. But as I was pondering this post I thought I would gather all the journals I have and post a picture. I have journals for work (on the right hand side) and my personal journals (the other side..duh). My work journals consist of ‘How To’ manuals, my day to day work, projects, guidelines and doodles. And the funny thing about those journals, they are almost completely filled! Where as my personal ones have huge gaps, half filled and very neglected. In my personal ones I have my life journal (which is my third one since I was 19), my ‘How To’ cook notes, jokes, stories that I have been working on since I do not know when, my driving journal, and even one for job interviews. I will be posting more about each one of these, come to think of it I think that is how I follow up this post! I am glad I thought of that, thank you for coming up with that idea….I am welcomed!

I am still learning and feeling my way around the working of this web site thing. It is a little confusing but thanks to my friend YouTube I am making head way. I still need to clean up my site and figure out plugins, commenting, and other media stuff. But this is a working process and I feel the biggest hurdle has been past…..getting started.

So please stay tuned, my plan is to post multiple times a week. Everyone loves story time and I am full of stories, most of which begin and end with ‘Hold My Beer!’ In the coming post I am going to chat about my personal journals, because the work ones are pretty boring but I will get to them as well.

So till next post; journal often, journal more and take pictures of everything.
Posted on

Day one of many,

Family road trip: Me, the wife, motherinlaw, Seth (missing: Lucas and Devon)
This is my first post, and it has been an adventure getting just here! I have had a blog for almost 12 years but it has been collecting internet dust for probably about 2 years and the idea of going back and trying to re-blog and clean up 12 years of my stupid gave/gives me heartburn!
My first blog, which is still active FeelingStoopid , started off with a bang. I made actual friends on here that I am in still in contact with to this day. And in all honesty BlogSpot was the easiest web page to use. But it has it limitations and I want to try and take on more of the internet world.
I am the forever journaling boob, I love journals….I am currently trying to finish one that I started in 2009. It is one of the nice leather bound journals you find at Barnes and Noble. I blame my lazy and lack of focus but whatever the reason I am still writing in it. I also have various other journals I have started. Joke journals, book idea journals, my struggles with work journal and my most recent one my adventures as a Lyft driver journal.
So I am a bit of hack when it comes to writing, I am not very good at it but I like doing it. So this is my first test run with WordPress….lets see what happens!