Friday, April 27, 2012

Taxicab Vacation: Visiting Santa Monica

I'm a few leases behind in my fare reports. Sorry about that. Maybe I will be able to catch up tomorrow.

A few days ago (must've been Wednesday) I left Arizona to visit Santa Monica, which is in the Los Angeles area. The excuse to my family was that I was going to visit the Multiplaz office, for a demonstration of their plasma welding machine.

To get to Santa Monica from Phoenix, you take I-10 to the end and turn right. Ferdinand kept telling me to get on California-60, but I ignored those instructions. While Ferdinand is usually pretty good about getting me to where I need to go, sometimes he's a hapless explorer...


Multiplaz's system uses water-derived plasma to do its joining work. It also has the capability to incorporate an electric arc. The system was figured out by some Russians, but is manufactured in China. The demonstrators say they've been using tap water for the past year, and they haven't had any problems.

I went to a coffee shop on 3rd Street this morning, because I had two hours until my appointment. There were two little tables off to the right, and I claimed the one closer to the wall. Before long a woman sat down between myself and the man sitting at the other little table. Which was a little weird. Then she moved to the chair opposite me. I closed my laptop, then moved the case, and had a brief exchange with this stranger.

This woman had come into the shop for a bakery item and a beverage, before seeing a movie with her friend. After a few minutes her beverage was ready, which she retrieved before returning to the seat.

She has real problems getting her 4-year-old daughter to preschool at 8:30 am, as she's never had a job where she has to get up that early. I guess she's a single mother, and has taken the last few years to raise her daughter. Now she is thinking about returning to New York City, where she has owned an apartment for about 15 years, to reduce her total cost of living.

I guess this most important thing she told me was to visit Abbot Kinney in (near?) Venice Beach, because it's less "touristy". I think I will do that tomorrow.

My multiplaz visit was today. I'm sticking around for the weekend because my taxicab friend is quite delightful to be around.

Perhaps I will take an early retirement from taxicab driving and move to Santa Monica.

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