"I'm Somebody, Now!"

Several months back, during the heat of the summer, I responded to a dispatch of a fare in Arlington Heights, the town in which I spend most of my time at work. It was a little old lady whom I had picked up before, and she usually goes only a few blocks, so I knew it was going to be a small fare.

My job is pretty boring; not in the "I want to kill myself I'm so bored" way — I mean, I do get to meet some interesting people — but there's not a great deal of excitement in my typical day.

However, on this particular day, as I was heading to pick up the boring fare, a peculiar sight crossed my view. It happened too quickly for me to take a photo, and my sense of duty to some boring old lady waiting for her boring taxi ride in the heat of the boring day wouldn't allow me to follow it so I could take a photo, as this was certainly something worth blogging or Facebooking about. And after I dropped off the fare I tried to find it again, tried to guess what route it might have taken, but I failed. I never saw the Google Maps StreetView car again.

But then a thought occurred to me. I may not have gotten a photo of the Google Maps StreetView car (it was clearly marked as such!), but he may have gotten a photo of me!

Then I meant to at least mention it on Facebook, but a day got past me, and then another. And another. And soon I had forgotten all about it.

But tonight, as I was chatting online with a friend who lives in Italy, I took to Google Maps to check out her town...and I remembered the incident from last summer! I feverishly checked StreetView in Arlington Heights...

(Edit 12/13/15: As Google Maps updates its Street View annually, the original link I had posted here no longer shows my taxi in the image — if it loads at all. In its place is this screen grab I made at the time it was current. ATG)

THAT'S ME!! I'm Google Famous! Sorta. They blurred out my license plate and cab numbers. However, if you click on the "+" at the upper left corner of the image above, and then click and hold on the image to move it around, you can see two things: you can just barely make out my cab number — 573 — on the green oval on the driver's side rear passenger door; and you can just barely see the shocked and excited look on my face as I saw the Google Maps StreetView car driving past! You can find this image on your own if you Google Maps Arlington Heights, Illinois, zoom to the corner of Sigwalt and Evergreen streets, drag the StreetView guy to the south point of the intersection and rotate the view to see my taxi.

I'll bask in this sudden fame for, oh... about a minute or so. I have other blog posts to get to....



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