Pics from the Colorado trip back in November, 2009 (with Ujwala and Maa). We spent two days in Rocky Mountain National Park and a day over in Colorado Springs and around (Manitou Springs, Pikes Peak – highest peak in that area).

It’s heavenly – have to go there again in Spring 2010 )along with the parks in Wyoming, Montana).

Click on the photo to get to my SmugMug page – feel free to leave a comment

And I have to remember this blog for ever. I wrote it right at 1234567890 UTC (and on Friday the 13th!)

$ watch -n1 -d 'date +%s; expr 1234567890 - `date +%s`'
Every 1s: date +%s; expr 1234567890 - `date +%s`

1234567890
0

Last weekend I, Ujwala and two of my old time friends, Daboo and Nandini met up in Vegas.

We went around, saw the fabulous (should I say decadently smashing) hotels/resorts/casinos and did a little money-wasting (it would be hard to call slot machines gambling). The Cirque Du Soleil Mystere show was really superb – perhaps the best live performance (in theater/circus area) I have seen. The crazy horse show was… well… disappointing.

We had Grand Canyon in mind when we were planning for the trip but heavy snow and bad weather made us cancel it. And Hoover Dam too…

But we did go over to Death Valley National Park Area and Red Rock Canyon – was rocking!

My top five of the trip are -
1) Cirque Du Soleil Mystere show
2) Red Rock Canyon
3) Badwater Basin (and the drive to/from)
4) The fabulous Vegas Strip – special mention goes to Bellagio fountains, the Wynn resort, The Mirage Volcanic fountains
5) The view from top of Stratosphere tower

Taking this opportunity, let me showcase a few of my pictures. All my photos from the trip at arnab-o-scope on smugmug.

Daboo also took some great pictures. They are at Nandini’s picasa album)

Just got back from Las Vegas. The trip was good (details and pics coming soon) – but I did not tip the cab on my way back from Sea-Tac Airport to my place today.

I usually do. And a lot. In fact my friends say that I tip too much – whether in restaurants, in saloons or in cabs. Today was different – and I honestly did not think that the driver deserved even a cent. Moreover, I actually wrote down a big “$ 0.00″ in the tip section of the receipt. Here’s what happened, from scratch.

Got down at Sea-Tac around 9:35 PST. The Seattle Metro bus 194 had just left and the next one was a 30 minute wait. BTW, the Metro 194 route is a real nice transport to/from the airport if you are in downtown Seattle. The route is via I-5 and it takes about 30 min to get there – hassle free. And after you read what I am about to write, I hope you will also rate the Metro 194 as a good service – at least better than some cabs.

So we decided to get a cab home – and got into one. I have taken cabs from SeaTac to my house 7 times in the last 1.5 years. And I am positive that it was always around $34-$36 – and I would mark it up to $40 and a nice “thank you”. Today it ran up to $41.

Anyway that’s not the problem – I wanted to know if the fare had increased (I remember that there is a flat rate of around $33 to/from SeaTac and downtown). So I asked the driver if there was a flat rate from SeaTac. He said that it’s $35 flat from downtown to SeaTac but not while returning. And I thought they have a card in every cab that states the flat rates – so I asked for it. The guy was pissed off. I don’t know what crime I committed (as far as I know, I asked him in the most polite way possible – I didn’t want to come off as a cheapo).

He got agitated and said that there’s no such card, the fares increased in October and I can pay him $41 now. So I asked him if he can swipe my card (I was carrying $40 cash – as my previous experience had thought me to to). He took the card, swiped it and asked me to sign my receipt.

It was all okay till this part – here’s when the fun started. I was giving him my autograph when he started off in Hindi – “Tum saale Desi logon ka yahii problem hai”. (for my non-hindi-speaking friends, that means something like “This is the problem with you Desi (Indian) people”) hmmm… I was not gonna take that sitting back – and I thought it was a racial slur. As far as I am concerned, the situation or my behavior did not warrant a racial slur (really, nothing does. Or should). I had never heard (or maybe I never recognized it) racial abuse so far – and that too from another Indian/Pakistani? . So I told him, in English, as I didn’t want to go down this path – that, this was uncalled-for and was really bad.

By now he was out of control – shouting and enraged (and I swear I did not call him any names at all). So I said, I am not going to sign the receipt if this goes on. I asked him to shake hands, take the receipt and go home (Ok, even I was not the most polite person by now, but I was not bad-mouthing). His reply was – “Pay and get out of my cab.” He tried to threaten me by picking up the phone and starting to dial someone. I thought it was the police – and that they would be fair mediators So I said, “Who are you calling, the Police? Ok – let’s wait for them – I am not signing the receipt till then.” And then he gave in, again shouted me to get out of his car.

Anyway, I got his badge number and details – and he asked me if I was going to file a complaint. On hearing “yes, obviously” he shrugged and muttered something.

So – I just left all the details of the complaint on the Seattle TaxiCab complaint hotline (BTW – a nice IVR system. I initially expected them to call me back during “working hours” – the number’s 206-296-TAXI). Also left a voice mail with STITA cabs complaint line.

Maybe the fare has risen and is now more than $40. Maybe the sites that Google turns up are still not updated with the latest fares (they still say the fare should be around $35) -
http://www.engr.washington.edu/epp/icders/transp.html
http://www.portseattle.org/seatac/ground/groundrates.shtml#d

Or maybe the meter was rigged? Maybe STITA cabs really deserve the bad bad reviews they have on yelp (oh and they are going to get another one in a few minutes).

But what I am sure of is that it did not deserve all the rude behavior, racial slurs I got from the driver.

Let’s see what turns up – both complaint lines acknowledged the entry and said that they will get back (in fact I have heard good things about Seattle Cab complaints) within a few days. Will update the blog when I hear from them.