Perfect Limo Service, Inc.

05/29/2026

A little while back, I wrote about a Waymo vehicle that drove away with a customer's luggage at a California airport.

Could you imagine one morning, enjoying your morning coffee and getting ready to head off to work? You get into your car, and as you prepare to back out of the driveway, your vehicle's sensors start bleeping away. What the heck?

You get out of the car to see what is going on, only to find out you can't get out of your own driveway because there are a whole bunch of white computerized vehicles circling and moving aimlessly around with no sense of direction as to where they are headed.

I saw this report a couple of weeks ago about Waymo cars being stuck on a side street in an Atlanta suburb. There were enough to clog the street. When I Googled this to find out more, this was not the only issue they have had over the past few years in existence.

Maybe that chauffeur who yaps a little too much, really isn't that bad after all? Look, I'm not picking on our guys, but the majority of them like to talk.

Thinking about chauffeurs who talk too much has always been a challenge as to which customers not to send them to. Because not all of you like to have a conversation while you are making your way to wherever! You might be doing work in the vehicle or making a phone call. When, all of a sudden, you ask innocently, "How are you today?"

Was that a mistake, because now the chauffeur, who may be working on his fourth cup of coffee before 7 AM, thinks this is his opportunity to let you know how his day is going!

Sometimes it works the other way. We may get a phone call from a customer who wondered why the chauffeur didn't talk at all to them. "Did I say something wrong?"

Look, I know myself, it's hard for me to be on an elevator for thirty seconds without striking up a conversation, let alone a two-hour ride in a car to JFK, crawling along the Van Wyck Expressway!

"How are you today?"

John A Sutich
Just Another Story Blog -

 Who remembers Super Bowl  XLVIII?  For those of you who are not Roman, who remembers Super Bowl 48, at Met Life Stadium. I'm not talking about the trashing Peyton Manning took from the Legion of Boom and the Seattle Seahawks. I'm talking about the aftermath of the game and the thousands of peop...

05/22/2026

Just when you think flying has thrown you every possible curveball, along comes the "sinkhole". Yes, LGA had a sinkhole on Wednesday on Runway 4-22, which wound up causing 321 delays and 288 cancellations as of Thursday. Hope you weren't trying to "get out of Dodge" for the coming weekend, because they are still mounting today and probably until Saturday sometime.

Sinkholes have been popping up, wrong phrase, dropping down lately in the Tri-State area. Remember when it only happened in some "where the freak is that" small town in Florida?

Airports have been in the news for reasons we really don't want to know about. Like, envision tooling down the NJ Turnpike and as you glance over to take a look at the airport to imagine where you want to head to on vacation, then there is a sudden roar of jet engines and an abrupt thump on the top of your truck.

That's correct, United Airlines flight 169, upon approach to Runway 29, which requires the planes to come in low, passing right over the highway. In this case, it was so low that the landing gear whacked the roof of a bread truck on the roadway along with a light pole. Has that guy got a story to tell!

According to the story I read, the driver only had minor injuries! Can you imagine that?

Not sure how I would have handled that phone call? "Boss, I had an accident". Okay, what happened? "I got roof swiped by a Boeing 767 jumbo jet on the Jersey Turnpike." Really, why didn't you just tell me you had a flat tire! That is a little more believable!

Perfect Limo always expects our chauffeurs to be on location for a pick up ten minutes before the scheduled time. Do they adhere to this rule? They better, GPS tracking lets us know everything.

I mention this because being on time is very important in our industry. Hey, planes may get away with being late, but a chauffeur running behind is unheard of! Would he lose his job? Depends upon the history.

Now, if you were Austin Gaugert, caddie for Garrick Higgo at the 108th PGA Championship this past Thursday, you became the fall guy and got fired because Higgo was at his time 30 seconds later than his 7:18 scheduled time.

Seriously, who even pays attention to the second hand on a watch anyway? Fire me for giving you the wrong club, but what is he supposed to do? Grab the guy by the ear and drag him over to the tee. I'm not a golfer, so I guess I don't understand.

As you get ready to enjoy the 'unofficial beginning of summer', per AI, please remember this is a day dedicated to mourning and honoring all military personnel who died while serving in the Armed Forces.

Be safe.

John A Sutich
Just Another Story Blog -

 Football ju**ie that I am, I had to watch the NFL Draft, once again, Thursday night, round one, like it was a Sunday afternoon and Big Blue is ready lock horns with the hated Eagles.

05/15/2026

Who remembers Super Bowl XLVIII? For those of you who are not Roman, who remembers Super Bowl 48 at Met Life Stadium? I'm not talking about the trashing Peyton Manning took from the Legion of Boom and the Seattle Seahawks. I'm talking about the aftermath of the game and the thousands of people who were stranded at the stadium because everyone thought the train was the way to go. Oops! Somebody didn't plan that too well.

As Mike Tyson once said, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."

I mention this because the World Cup will be played at that very same stadium this June and July. FIFA and the people in charge of this event being played at Met Life this summer, apparently, weren't at the stadium at 1 AM trying to board the only train that goes to Secaucus Junction to connect to a train to NYC after the completion of the big game.

Maybe they are planning something different, who knows. But soccer, worldwide, is much bigger than our Super Bowl, and I'm guessing there will be plenty of international guests descending on the Tri-State area to be involved.

After game chaos! Who knows, maybe these 82,500 soccer fans will have better luck than the 82,500 football fans. Just saying.

Mass transit is a great way to go if the numbers work out. Like, last week, Doris, myself, and three others were leaving NYC, and we went to Port Authority to take a bus. Not just any bus, the 158, which goes right by our apartment in West New York.

Normally, the bus leaves out of gate 202, but after 10 PM, they switch it to gate 302. Up we go to gate 302. Never-ending lines of people going to gates 303, 305, 323, etc. As crazy as this sounds, this is organized chaos. As the bus arrives, we start making our way through the terminal area, out to the platform, then onto the bus. We were probably in the middle of the line, and when we got onto the bus, Doris and I were lucky to get seats in the front of the bus while the other three were spread out a little further back. Seems like everyone likes to head to the back of the bus. Me, "front row". You remember that line? Bob Uecker.

People kept coming on. Standing room only. It got a little scary because we had people stacked in front of us right up to the infamous white line that passengers are not allowed to pass. Some worker from the platform yells to the driver, "How many you got?" Over 90, he responds. Four people standing on the front steps were begging to get on. Nope, off. Get off my bus! They were that close. They must have stopped to use the restroom.

Now, the reason we were in the city was because we went to see a musical called The Buena Vista Social Club. It's about a club in Cuba in the late 1950's before Fidel Castro took over. The play was a lot of music in Cuban Spanish.

I was so lucky to be sitting in front of somebody who knew the words to every song and felt it was his job to provide stereo for me. I got used to it until he started clapping in rhythm to the songs. Then it became a little annoying.

But what the heck, he was a proud man enjoying his heritage.

John A Sutich
Just Another Story Blog -

 Football ju**ie that I am, I had to watch the NFL Draft, once again, Thursday night, round one, like it was a Sunday afternoon and Big Blue is ready lock horns with the hated Eagles.

05/08/2026

Not sure if I need to get my eyesight fixed or my hearing unclogged. According to my wife though, it would be both.

The other day, I saw a guy on the news talking about parking in NYC and the comical signs you see on the street about what you can and cannot do when it comes to parking your vehicle in the Big Apple. What I thought I heard and saw was NYC.signs.net, but when I applied that to the search bar, it came up with a whole bunch of crap about signs, alright! Sign makers, signs for business, etc. Nothing governmental to help navigate yourself away from getting a parking ticket.

So, I tried a different way and put NYC Parking, and I got a simple answer of NYC-Parking Signs locator, which actually brings you to a map. Now, this site is pretty cool. On the map, you can enter a street, say, 42nd Street, and behold, the map brings up all the signs in the area selected. You then highlight one of them, and you are good to go. If you can decipher it correctly.

My first thought as an owner of a transportation company was, " This is a fantastic tool." But then, I thought to myself, who will take the time out for that?

We have gotten our share of parking tickets over the years. Back in the early nineties, there was a time it got so high that one of the vehicles was impounded in Brooklyn while the chauffeur was getting a cup of coffee. This was a very expensive cup of java, my friend. First, we had to pay to get the car out of the impound lot, then go pay the fines, which, after adding fees and penalties, came to $1,700. Remember now, these are all phantom summonses, because our guys are so good, they never get parking tickets of any kind!

That was not a sarcastic statement; that was the truth. It happened to me. I was sitting on a side street waiting for Doris, and about a hundred feet away or so, I saw a ticket meter guy walking and staring at me. Never stopped, never waved to move, nothing. About a month later, there was a ticket in the mail with a fine, because it wasn't paid on time.

So, I'm at the NYDMV in Brooklyn, where the towing company told me to go. I waited patiently in line for close to an hour until I got my turn at the window. When I pulled out all my information, like tickets, plate numbers to make sure there were no more fines lurking around, the woman very nicely said to me, "For a business, you need to go to the Manhattan office downtown".

Now, I looked around and very kindly said I didn't notice any signage to tell me this. Her answer was, "because there is none". I'm not sure of the following conversation we had, but I remained calm. Boy, did I feel like screaming, but I remembered what Kim in our office used to tell me. "You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar".

I had already placed all my paperwork on the counter, and I noticed she started running printouts of each vehicle as I was jabbering away about basically nothing. I said if she needed me to leave, I would go to the other location. "Just stand there and don't say anything," she retorted. Which I did, and in about ten minutes, I was able to receive everything I needed without having to go downtown. She was great, but then again, I wasn't an ass to her, although I think I had every right to be.

Thank goodness I left the vinegar in the car.

Be safe.

John A Sutich
Just Another Story Blog- https://jasutich-perfectthought.blogspot.com/

 Football ju**ie that I am, I had to watch the NFL Draft, once again, Thursday night, round one, like it was a Sunday afternoon and Big Blue is ready lock horns with the hated Eagles.

05/01/2026

I have an Apple Watch, like the rest of America. Not sure about all the functions on it, but to me, it is basically used to know how many steps I take and the time. Need to know the time! Oh, and at least 100 of those steps get calculated because I forgot my phone on the couch and went to the kitchen. Then had to go back, but left my coffee in the kitchen. You know the routine.

Sure, it's got workout stuff, heart rates, better known as BPM, among other stuff. The one thing it has that I wind up activating many times is a "help, I've fallen, and I can't get up" thing. Well, what it actually does, almost every time I get down on the floor to do my stretches, is the SOS goes off and asks if I'm okay. Now, almost all of those times when I'm exercising, I don't have my reading glasses on, which means I can't read crap, especially on a 1 1/2 by 1 1/2 inch screen.

This means, with my blurry vision, I have to find the cancel alert button so I don't have a whole mess of first responders showing up at my front door.

Remember when the only warning light we ever had to worry about was the engine light on the dashboard of the car we were driving? I could go on forever about all the alerts or warning signs we get. But I'm sure you are already aware of them. But here is a new one for you.

We have a house in Point Pleasant Beach, and although we live there year-round, the insurance company we have considers it a second home. So, they sent me a letter that when we are not there, we have to drain the water system during the winter so the pipes don't freeze, or they will not be responsible for the damage.

That's ridiculous! Or, I can install a Moen Smart Flo System? I had no clue what this was, but as it turns out, it is pretty darn good. When it was first installed in the winter, we were not home. This is important because it starts recording a history of your water usage. Which, at the time, was basically nothing.

When we left for Florida at the end of January, I used the little button on the app to shut off the water. While we were in Florida in February, my son and his friends stayed at the house as a weekend getaway. So, Friday afternoon of that weekend, I hit the little button on my app, from Florida, and turned the water back on, because the children do need to drink water (and flush), right?

Saturday morning, I get a text message from my Smart Flo that in five minutes, it's shutting down the water. I guess everyone got up to take their AM showers? Not an issue, I just responded that everything was good from my Moen app 1500 miles away.

Fast forward to this past week. Doris took a bath, and I was taking a shower, so I didn't see the warning that in five minutes, "no water for you". Can you imagine we used 42 gallons of water? Yes, Moen shut us down. I had to go on the app and restart the system. I hope it learns fast because this could be a long learning process for us. The great part about the app, there is no more dragging my butt into the crawl space to manually turn the water on and off.

Can you imagine it is Spring? Sure as heck doesn't feel that way. But May 2nd, we get the Kentucky Derby, which is one of those days that tells us Spring is in the air.

Be safe

John A Sutich
Just Another Story Blog -

 Football ju**ie that I am, I had to watch the NFL Draft, once again, Thursday night, round one, like it was a Sunday afternoon and Big Blue is ready lock horns with the hated Eagles.

04/24/2026

Football ju**ie that I am, I had to watch the NFL Draft, once again, Thursday night, round one, like it was a Sunday afternoon, and Big Blue is ready to lock horns with the hated Eagles.

Nope, just a regular old Thursday watching young men become millionaires. Good for them.

Amazing the drafts that the professional leagues have. You stink, so you get to pick first, putting all your faith and your livelihood in the hands of a 20-something-year-old.

Thursday was also Bring Your Child to Work Day. Right! This wasn't a novelty thing to do for us; this was a way of life. Our boys grew up going to work at Perfect Limo. I remember our youngest at 3 or 4 would ride his tricycle around the building. HQ, the Octagon House, after all the crappy interior walls were removed, became a regular Daytona racetrack. Around and around and around he would go. When he got older and knew how to answer a phone and say, "Hello, Perfect Limo", the tricycle got parked in the closet.

Yes, if you were inside the eight walls (octagon) of the business and a phone rang, it had to be answered. We didn't care if you were a dispatcher, chauffeur, the mailman, or the boss's kid. That phone had to be picked up before two rings!

Phones ringing reminded me of the early years of the business. Not sure what year we were finally ready to go on a vacation, but it wasn't easy to walk away. We left the business with a teenager, who was still in high school! Desperate to get away? What do you think?

Anyway, at the time we were dealing with a company in Los Angeles, and they would wait until after 5 PM their time to call us to give us rides. Calculate that, folks! 8 PM Eastern Standard Time.

So, Doris and I head to Miami for a weekend getaway. While in South Beach, we find a Cuban restaurant that someone recommended. Unfortunately, they only had one table available the owner's table. What's the problem, we wondered? The restaurant's phone was on the table; it was for the big boss man. Oh, they had a second one at the front desk, but this was the old Ma Bell rotary phone. Ring, ring.

I'm hungry, let's do it. Yes, the phone rang, but the beauty was that we didn't have to pick it up by the second ring.

For those young men drafted by the Giants and Jets in the NFL Draft, Travel and Leisure had this story:

According to a new study by DuelBits, New Jersey is one of the best states in the U.S. to see the American dream in action—and to work to achieve it for yourself. https://www.travelandleisure.com/best-places-to-live-in-new-jersey-11762258

Live the dream.

Be safe.

John A Sutich
Just Another Story Blog - https://jasutich-perfectthought.blogspot.com/

The Garden State offers the comforts of suburban living and the conveniences of being near big cities.

04/17/2026

I'm stuck. Got nothing to talk about.

Let's try this. I turned 72 yesterday. April 16th, is that anything to chat about? Look, when I went to bed on the 15th, I was wondering what it was going to be like on the 16th. Nothing. Same old aches and pains, nothing new.

Remember when we would look forward to the big day. When the new calendars came out, you would flip through the months and see what day your birthday would fall on, even though it was simple enough to figure it out, unless it was a Leap year. That would freeze the brain for a minute.

If the big day fell on a weekend, you would mentally work out your plans for the big night, even though it was six months out. I'm gonna have a heck of a great time!

One thing I never did was take off from work on my birthday. Here's the best part. At Perfect Limo, whoever's birthday it was on any particular day, they got to choose where lunch was going to be purchased from for the big day. Lunch on the bosses for everybody. Some would choose Davey's Locker, others pizza, or maybe Manhattan Bagel for some fabulous pastrami sandwiches.

Me, I wanted burgers from Montvale Bowling alley, right across the street from the Octagon House. Take your Davey's burger. Me, the bowling alley had the greasiest grill that made the most delicious burger. And the fries! Followed in the same footsteps as that greasy burger. You can taste the oil dripping out of them. I sort of wonder how I made it to 72?

Funny thing is, no one ever chose to go for sushi or a salad. It was always the most fattening crap we could find.

Something that has nothing to do with food, but is about the Octagon House. We got a letter the other day, in Point Pleasant, from the zoning board, pretty much off-season, that one of our neighbors wants to build a cabana on their property, in a spot that probably will not be great for everybody in the surrounding homes. Maybe no one will notice it in their mailbox!

When we bought the Octagon House back in 1998, we needed to do the zoning letters ourselves to be able to run a limousine business out of the building. I believe it was around Labor Day weekend, and the woman we were working with at Borough Hall said to send them out on Thursday. Surrounding us were businesses, so she said, "Send them out on Thursday, no one will be around to open their mail". So we rushed to get names and mailing addresses of everyone within the zone.

Now, we were fortunate because we got no pushback. Not sure if they were happy to have us, or if they never saw the letter.

Be safe.

John A Sutich
Just Another Story Blog -https://jasutich-perfectthought.blogspot.com/

04/10/2026

Hatuna Makata. (no worries)

Yes, a motto our 21/2 year old Granddaughter lives by. Well, at least when she is in the bathtub swimming around rubber duckies and bubbles.

Maybe it's not a a bad way to go through life. Yeah, staying in nice tub with hot water and bubbles isn't a bad idea either.

So, I wanted to write about Artemis II making history by reaching the dark side of the moon and parlaying it with Pink Floyds album Dark Side of the Moon. The ironic part, and I lived in this generation, is I Googled what it was about, only to get this answer through AI:

The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) by Pink Floyd is a concept album exploring the pressures of modern life, focusing on themes of time, greed, conflict, death, and mental illness.

I think it would of been better if they sang Hatuna Makata. Would of been pretty cool, don't you think?

If you want to live the Hatuna Makata life, maybe you should consider packing your bags and moving west to Fremont, CA. According to a poll by WalletHub, this little piece of paradise is ranked number one as the "Happiest" place to live.

Look, you can always settle on number two, Bismarck, North Dakota, but me, I'm looking to stay close my roots and pack the U-Haul and get myself all the way down to Jersey City, coming in at number 31.

AOL just did a poll a few days ago of rudest states in the US. Proud to announce, NY and NJ were one and two respectively. Turns out, according to this poll, we are not really rude, just in a hurry living in a busy section of the world. We don't have time for the small stuff, so we come across that way to the visiting public.

Let's hope for a safe return today for Artemis II today and a safe splashdown in warm Pacific Ocean.

Be safe.

John A Sutich
Just Another Story Blog

04/03/2026

My last train story.

I was on the auto train last Friday, getting all prepared to watch the big game between Duke and St. John's. I had dinner at 7 PM and didn't get back to my room until 8:35 PM. I was planning to eat really fast and hurry back to stream it on my phone. Because it was starting at 7:05 PM, I figured, maybe I'd skip the dessert and just miss some of the first half.

Slight problem with the dinner plans. The people I was seated with were actually a good time. This is probably the first time I've enjoyed other people's company on this trip since I've been doing this adventure. Besides, although I was planning on skipping dessert, this gave me a reason to stay and eat the blueberry cheesecake, which is very, very good.

Did not plan on the wi-fi being this lousy, though. I was attempting to watch it on Paramount on their live stream. This was not working too well, so I switched to Pluto TV. No good. Then, on the game scoreboard feed was a live button which brought me to the good old CBS app. I got it finally, but with less than a minute to go in the game. Hey, I'll take it. I watched about 30 seconds, then it froze again, then all I got from there, about 5 minutes later, was the final score of 80-75 Duke victory.

This jubilation didn't last long because Sunday Duke blew a 19-point lead to lose in the final second. Hey, football will be here before we know it.

Speaking of Sunday! Doris and I were at a Church in Naples, like most weekends, and in Naples, the Churches all have this audience of well-aged customers. Chances are, you will normally get a little cough splattered around the crowd.

This Sunday, it was like an orchestra playing the 'cough' throughout the theater. All around us. Cough, hack, and kackle. Just like the cereal commercial!

I wasn't worried, though, because a number of years back, I had a customer in my vehicle, who I was taking to an airport. We got into a conversation about health because I mentioned that when I was doing my Sunday duties, there was a family of five in front of me, sniffling and sneezing, and I was very concerned about my well-being.

This is when she was kind enough to inform me of the golden rule of Sunday Mass. You don't get sick when you are inside the four walls and praying! It's that simple.

Be safe.

John A Sutich
Just Another Story Blog -

 Wednesday, we made a trip from the west side of Florida across to the east side to visit friends. We've done this trip numerous times, sometimes in the opposite direction, depending on which friends we visited first. Yes, we are lucky to know wonderful people on both sides of the state willing to ...

03/30/2026

"On the road again, I just can't wait to get on the road again".

Yeah, Willie Nelson at his best. Well, I'm on the road again, but I'm going to fill in the verse with:

"On the auto train, I just can't wait to get on the auto train".

I was thinking about this auto train ride. When I was about 10 years old or so, my neighbor in North Bergen used to take his family to Florida on the auto train. That would be around 1964! Now, I'm not really sure if these are the same trains from then, but some of them appear to be aged.

We rented in East Naples this time around, and the house was on a big circle. When we came off the main road, you had to make a right and another right and make our way around the block. About the third house in on the left side of the route home, there is a guy. No, he's not my guy. He is the neighborhood guy. Larry.

Larry has four chairs outside his house, and he is there almost all the time. So, one day I decided to stop and say hello. Turns out Larry is from Pennsylvania, but also lives in Florida. At the house on the left.

Also, he knew Mahwah, NJ, because when he was young, he worked at the Ford plant that was on the property of the Sheraton.

Anyway, Larry is a big guy, and we got to talking about the auto train, which he uses. The auto train has different types of arrangements for traveling. A coach seat, a roomette, tight, but you have a bed. A one-room, which is bigger and comes with a bed, toilet, and shower. This is the best, but they get taken quickly, and they are pricey.

All those options are upstairs. Or you can get a family room, which is downstairs, fits a family of four, but the shower and toilet are outside the room, so basically, the roomette people can use it if you don't mind the stairs.

While talking to Larry, he said that because of his size, he gets the family room for himself. That is the way to go. We were talking about the ride in general, and he mentioned that last year, the room he was in was reupholstered with new leather. I can't for the life of me think it is leather, though. I'm thinking the famous leatherette!

Maybe, when I board the train today, I might be getting a whiff of some new leather seats!

Be safe.

John A. Sutich
Just Another Story Blog

 Wednesday, we made a trip from the west side of Florida across to the east side to visit friends. We've done this trip numerous times, sometimes in the opposite direction, depending on which friends we visited first. Yes, we are lucky to know wonderful people on both sides of the state willing to ...