And leaving him with Ron DeSantis. Who’s the guy DJT should take but won’t because his thing is intemperate MAGA yes men.
Ya know, Ron DeSantis is…
Not MAGA, not really
An adult. You want to say he’s an asshole? He might be. But he’s an adult.
Would probably take the job (to run)
Probably has more of Mike Pence’s good qualities that made Pence say nah to Jan 6
Is smart, would see to overlay and execute an ideological vision such that DJT and repubs would win (and ya know, its 50/50. Biden could very easily win).
Live shot of my untrainable lab / heeler who’s made it to almost age 12 here without us taking her out to a gravel pit. In fairness to us, I don’t think a dog with heeler brain can be trained to do much except herd other critters and scan the horizon for interlopers. That’s what they do really. They are watch dogs, protecting their pack. That’s more their attribute than ‘herding’. So we’ve had this dog, and she’s not really all that trainable, not a terribly good obeyer (she’s passable). She’s probably had some effect as a watch dog though.
Alright, Kristi Noem….
I have squirrels in my yard, gray and red, and they fill the engine bays of my cars with black walnuts and then little nests. I live in an exurban neighborhood and the houses are not far apart, but I have an airgun and I have the skill to wipe all these little fuckers out without my neighbors being wise to it, such that some of them would care. And I should do this, I would almost say, as the solution to my problem.
But I don’t. Because I respect animals more than that.
Now it’s fair, probably, for farmers / ranchers to be more practical and less sentimental about animals to the point you will kill them for convenience. I can see it. And then It’s fair to the point that it’s not not necessarily ‘wrong’ for her to have killed that young healthy dog. You call that ‘putting down’ an animal, and it happens for a lot of reasons. People are having a reaction because it’s a dog, no doubt. But if she’s what amounts to a pro dog person and she doesn’t want to maintain the dog or sell it to the public, can a layman question that with any standing? Not really.
You ain’t truth bombing the world with cosmic righty wisdom though bitch. Animal killing is minimally a thing that should be discrete.
And you can get away with a lot here say in terms of piles of this and that in your yard.
But study of business models yo: I have shirt tail acquaintances who are making a living cutting wood fall down wood for mantles and table tops. Can be done. You need the equipment (saw) and yeah the space.
That being a minor local controversy on the Twitter.
Ya know I have a running “yuk / not a yuk” here where I say the name of my town is “Exurban Bedroom Community”. And that term is something my dad would have written in a summary description field on an appraisal form for a neighborhood or town (I doubt that he came up with that term but he really wrote with precision for that type of thing, and he d/n go to college). And I use that term on the blog for IDK to not have my commentary be a direct google hit for things in my town, and cuz I think it’s funny, and ironic….
Couple few exurban bedroom communities that are not really “suburbs” (LE, Afton, Lakeland, Hastings), and then…HORSE FARMS. And hobby farms. Grant, Afton, Denmark, West Lakeland. She has Cottage Grove as a lil bit of a suburban mass but not Woodbury, her district curls around Woodbury.
This district strikes me as the compositional equiv of Corcoran or Medina. And she’s the sen, and a DFLer, and she won by 321 votes last time. So yeah, she’s going to need to make a convincing case she’s a moderate coming out of ‘The Session for minor gender conversion” and “$15B of $17B flushed down the toilet”.
Derusha thing yesterday. To say yeah there is an evaluation of the DFL having “overreached” yo.
Good for Derusha, he hits her with a proper question, ie “aren’t you just posturing such that you haven’t used your nay vote power here such that you’re almost certainly caucus whipped what with the 1 person majority in the senate?”
Whatevs. AKSHULLY, the Mn Gun Caucus people (Doar) think she’s a pretty sympathetic ear to their concerns. So….
I said yesterday that, essentially, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Joe Biden won in 2024. Judy doesn’t run again until 2026 but I wouldn’t bet she could hold the district again then given the session of 23.
MAGA deadenders hardest hit. Talking Dominion now etc. Just did a word search of the blog here, and I’ve never used "Dominion". Cuz… I wasn’t ever under the spell it was a stolen election.
BTW, I voted for Kanye in 2020. AS A SANITY CHECK of the system, just because I was curious, and my vote for a D or an R wouldn’t have mattered. In retrospect I could have picked a candidate who would get one vote and be less embarrassing. But, Kanye did in fact get one vote in the Exurban Bedroom Community precinct in 2020. So…
I know how software works and what it takes to make it, and embedded systems, I mean, so I know as reality that voting machines didn’t create a Biden victory. That it was absurd.
OMFG, I used to read and post at some other boards here in town and you had grown ass men with masters or better educations saying, ya know, Soros rigged the software yada yada.
I’ve been a homeowner for here for 23 years now. The limbs have never come down in a squall the way they did this Friday night. I’ll show a pic of my yard, which had plenty of small to medium limbs down. That was pretty light compared to the rest of exurban bedroom community. In addition to limbs, lines were down in the streets in multiple places, blocking ways out.
Need for a second car was acute last weekend. Went out on Saturday, and coming back without one was not really an option. The governing and relevant deets:
Straight cash baby, had $6k in my pocket. Guiding principle / first choice was used Honda or Toyota. I was conceding I’d be buying something with more than 100k miles on it, but I really wanted to stay away from cars with 150+, 175+, 200+, 225+. Thing being, there are a ton of superficially decent looking cars out there with enormous commuter miles on them. Those aren’t even necessarily cheap these days, certainly if they aren’t that old. I don’t like the risk proposition on high 6 figure engine mileage, even though my other calc is that buying Honda / Toyota is buying into a certain amount of “will run forever”. Even the Japanese engines, you got a common necessity for high mileage repairs… heads, timing belts, water pumps.
You can get a decent used car for $6k ya figure, but not from a biggy dealer. I don’t think they even want a transaction under $10k. So you’re left with “car lots”, both legit and under the radar.
The under the radar car lot ecosystem is nuts man. Driven by CL and FB marketplace. I think we have 4 of these guys in Exurban Bedroom Community. The under the radar lots is where the very high mileage but decent looking sub $10k sedans are going. The under the radar car lot guys are buying them from the trade in auctions and flipping them. Maybe they fix a few things in between, maybe they don’t.
I went out on Saturday looking to buy this one guy’s 2008 Acura (Honda) TL with relatively low mileage. Got there, and it was a little less impressive than the picture had led to believe. AND. Drizzle storm the night before, and the doors were frozen shut.
Nice guy actually, and his vibe was accommodating and not shady. I have this Subaru he says, but I haven’t cleaned it. Subarus are cool, thinketh I. I’d like to drive that, sayeth I.
2010 Outback, 120k miles. Strong runner. Was dirtier than all get out, the interior…. Borderline “Pulp Fiction” mess in that car, and I’m only mildly exaggerating. Edmunds said the deal for it was $3k under retail. Bought the car, we’ll get it detailed.
Subaru’s have a flat 4 engine that has a head gasket thing that goes on, and I didn’t have that in my mind as a “don’t go there” car buy alert. Turns out they fixed it just before 2010. Whew.
[Borat voice] My wife and I want to get into ebiking. We’re over 50 (she’s ’50’, I’m over). Seems like a thing that’s fun where you can exercise a little more intensely at this age duh.
8 or 10 weeks ago I started the process by buying an “Aventon” cruiser from Best Buy, because there were so many things about the larger direct to consumer Chinesium ebike ecosystem that I couldn’t discern and articulate. Best Buy seemed like a bet you could have some confidence in (was not wrong about that in any way).
Also: youngest child started working at the C store. C store manager says, hey you’re into ebiking now? Offers me 2 little foldable campus scooter ebikes for $250/ea. I bought them. One for each kid. These bikes were an Amazon best seller in 2021, they are alright.
Before Grandma’s weekend, 6/17 – 6/18, we take the big bike and one of the little bikes up to Duluth, have a lot of fun biking the lake front from the north end of the city to Park Point.
I’m on the internet that night at the B&B, looking for a bigger bike for myself. Kinda want a fat tire ebike, though I don’t really know why. I see a different brand for one than “Aventon” on Best Buy’s sight for $1599. But then on a search I see someone’s comment, says they are $999 direct in a summer sale.
I mull.
Go to order one like 8 hrs later and they are out of stock, e-cart is disabled to order entry. That’s fine. Any time I’m not compelled to spend 1k I’m kinda put at ease. But I liked the bike, and I want to see this bike project with me and the wife move forward. I put myself on in stock alert list.
Then I web read some and see this particular model is kind of a private label Alibaba thing (like many others in a class of product), and there’s another vendor for the exact same model. This new company I see is literally in City of Industry, CA…. why is that important… everyone’s ebike advertising is very much hooked into “the mission” of ebiking. Eco and Health. I dunno, I see “City of Industry” and I get a picture of a warehouse condo and a container getting dropped and 3 guys slapping outbound Fedex labels on bike boxes. And materially / cosmically, this does not constitute “black turtleneck ebike visionary shit”. It’s greasy / grimy Chinese import / export, no more.
City of Industry outfit is assertively saying they don’t collect sales tax. That’s $70. Plus. Bike is in matte black. Minus. I hate matte black in anything. Other joint’s thing is candy apple.
I get in stock alert from the first place. I look at the web. Will get back to it in the evening.
Get back to it in the evening. Out of stock again.
Look at the bike on this company’s page each of the next two days. It keeps going in and out of stock. Seems sussy.
Late Sunday night, think it’s 6/19. Bike shows its in stock. I say, wtf, it’s a credit card order, I’m protected. Key the order.
Next morning, out of stock email. Literally says they will “get container” end of the week, and fulfill week beginning Monday 6/27. OK…
Get to 6/27, no news. Get to 6/28, no news. There’s a reality where I could just chill, but… I want to call sales customer service. And ya know, if you speak to someone and they tell you they aren’t ready to fill the order, that’s still confidence building in a way.
You can’t call customer service. They have a phone number, but it’s bullshit. To voicemail.
There’s a Facebook group for owners of this brand of bike. You get a bike, eventually, but the universal frustration is there’s no customer service. You can’t ever speak to someone live, and they don’t call you back.
“I AM, AFTERALL….ME…AND I HAVE A PARTICULAR SET OF SKILLS”…. I figure “I” can find a phone number to dial that someone will answer. Google, google, google… secretary of state pages, bizwire article listing name of CEO… Oh he’s a board member of a [low-ish rung] “capital fund”… I bet that “fund” owns the company.
Also, btw, we’re talking about a consortium of linked / aligned businesses in Seattle. Fund itself has a nice professional web page. So, investment fund people I’m sure wear shirt & tie most of the time right, but the web sight vibe is contemporary black turtleneck, what with mention of investing with “imagination” and “innovation” yada yada.
Call the fund web sight phone number, it’s dead. Dead number. Ya call the contact number listed on the Washington State SoS… it’s dead. Dead number.
“I AM, AFTERALL….ME…AND I HAVE A PARTICULAR SET OF SKILLS”…. I’ve spent all of twenty minutes on web searching…. Seeing some addresses, going to google maps. The confirmation bias I want confirmed actually is that these are small footprint companies operated out of warehouse condos and not black turtleneck ebike visionary companies with office space and design teams.. so I’m going to google maps to check that out. Seeing a lot of business correspondence directed to $7m private residences on Mercer Island though, and this is starting to irritate me as an obnoxious social class thing such that you can’t get someone to answer the phone on a public facing number.
But I really do not want to ring up a house on Mercer Island and have some old lady answer the phone.
Like, page 4 google result, well within the link spam results, I pick out one number to call for the CEO of the bike company. Call. THE GUY answers.
Me: Jason of Maguffin Bikes?
Him: Yes…?
Me: Jason, Bill of Exurban Bedroom Community, MN. Maguffin Bike customer. Am I going to get a bike anytime soon?
Guy was sheepish for 2 seconds, but transitioned into executive loquaciousness easily enough. He knew exactly what I was talking about… we didn’t even have to go over the reality of his sales and fulfillment problem at his company. He apologized for ‘customer service issues’ without being prompted (he’s not staffing “customer service” is a reality. So that’s not actually an ‘issue’).
Guy said I could expect to see a Fedex notice later in the week, by Friday basically if not explicitly. I was totally cool with that. Probably would have been fine if he’d said I’d have to wait until mid July, but he said “end of the week”. Which was prior to the July 4th weekend.
I was totally nice to him, and wasn’t a cray cray customer.
Did try and open a simultaneous CS ticket on their portal software, just to have another channel. It did seem useless and bot driven.
Get to Thursday… no status tickets, no Fedex tracking.
Ya know, I coulda been patient, and the order would have been fulfilled as a matter of course… but something about the liquidation pricing and the out of stock resets and the black turtleneck ebike visionaries being greasy grimy import / export guys yanking my chain in ever so little ways diminished my confidence and patience. And as a practical matter, I figured if the ship date slipped past the 4th weekend I wouldn’t get a bike until the 3rd week of July. We want to get biking, ya know. And people were saying the City of Industry bikes were being drop shipped expediently.
So I texted the CEO guy… cuz I wasn’t going to be so high maintenance that I’d call him again… and told him to ship me a bike and get me tracking that coming day by 2pm Seattle time. OR. Cancel and refund me. So like, it’s a choice, and you have most of a business day to figure it out, no big deal. It might mean pulling my order from the queue and doing it. And if you don’t want to do that, don’t.
Keyed the same instructions to the bot.
Get to 11am our time on Friday, and the bot is acting like a real person and telling me a bike is coming. Fedex # is forwarded to me. I’m an advanced fedex user, I basically know that means we have a label with a bar code on a box somewhere.
30 minutes after that, CEO guy responds by email kinda sourly to my morning text telling me “sorry it didn’t work out”, and says my order is being canceled.
I go, but warehouse guy got me a bike….? Warehouse guy didnt say to you, hey, I found this guy a bike….?
CEO guy goes “I’m responding to your request”, like its a fuck you no soup for you. I go to the card web sight. The charge is actually reversing.
And then…. there’s a bike box with a fedex label on it for me somewhere and the warehouse guy is apparently so literal that he does cancel the order upon CEO instruction but he doesn’t pull it from the stack on the loading dock. I’m hitting incoming on the app periodically over the weekend and watch this box get picked up in Tacoma and go down I-94. Bozeman, Billings, Valley City, Mahtomedi. Tuesday morning it’s out for delivery and the reversal goes from pending to closed on my card.
“I AM, AFTERALL….ME…AND I HAVE A PARTICULAR SET OF SKILLS”. I always go up the fanny on stuff like this a little. Guy wasn’t terribly rude to me, and no one got called an asshole. But it was there. So, I read about him. 47 yo guy, went to UW, dropped out sr yr, has built businesses in Seattle, has gotten things into Costco, Target, Best Buy. Has been sued. Has (I’d guess) a low 8 figure net worth. Ya know, contains diluted Bezos and Jobs and Zuckerberg like substance. Black turtleneck, for lack of a more specific idea. But also a greasy grimy import / export hustler. Ya know, where it’s not the same shit anyway.
Chinesium bike is flipping awesome. I won’t avoid him, but I’m not going out of my way to see that guy’s books get reconciled on it. I know a lot about the larger direct to consumer Chinesium ebike ecosystem that I can discern and articulate.
… I don’t want this to be in anyone’s successful google search. I graduated with Matt, and he’d remember me. He had journalism in HS with instructor Bev Skoglund (legend) I think I recall, as did I, but he didn’t go to J school (I kinda did…Beaver J School… which woulda been fine, I coulda got a job if I was any good at it at age 24… and I was not). At the 30th reunion I talked to him (Early. I wasn’t drunk at that moment) about Strib journalism. It was not a terrible conversation but I think I talked 3-4 minutes too long at him and he got bored like he didn’t think I had anything valuable for him to hear. Ya know, maybe, maybe not! He’s been doing reporting a long time.
Nice guy with emphasis on "nice". Cordial manners from as long as I remember him. Very well liked back in the day. Eric Stoltz vibe, had red hair (I think he’s gray now). Brainiac. BUT. When I read stuff he wrote that I know about, it always seems wanting. Now, there’s a wisdom chestnut about journalism that describes exactly that phenomena. Anyway, here he is on LE. I think he’s got the east metro beat for the Strib these days. I grew up in LE. He grew up in StillH20. Same school district but strong cultural demarcation line there.
This Met Council thing… missing in his description is the idea of ‘affordable housing’ that was to be integrated into the council’s demands, and then Lake Elmo’s resistance to that. Twas a big flashpoint for a long time. And the thing about Lake Elmo politics that made it crazy in the last 15 years (maybe more) was the bourgie NIMBY-ism.
Upshot: Ya do a story on Lake Elmo being the fastest growing muni in the state, ya gotta hit that bourgie NIMBY-ism on affordable housing. What’s kinda new in Lake Elmo are some houses on the low $400s range, by the airport, where I grew up… That’s as cheap as the new houses have yet gotten in LE. Prior for 25 years, new houses were custom houses a rung or 2 rungs above McMansions, $600 to $1M I’ll say. A tension with that was between the old timers, who were not that wealthy, and the new money making LE this little executive hamlet. Matt isn’t on that.
Met Council vs Lake Elmo was also a Jason Lewis riff on his show all through the oughts. Hope Lewis is doing OK with his Galt coins in this era of crypto skepticism…
IRONY: the sleepy bedroom community for comfortably paid office workers that resembles LE in the 80s is where I live now 5 miles to the east, Exurban Bedroom Community. Quite a few of my high school peers live here having grown up in LE.
Grew up in LE and I don’t know him. Coulda been Pony High class of 85 or 86, but also strong likelihood he went to Hill Murray. Philosophy undergrad! and Ex-Mil. Very similar to Orput.
That time we bid over list and won our house: In summer of 2000 we were say 5 months married and 4 months from having our first child and living in an apartment. Father in law spotted this house cruising garage / estate sales in exurban bedroom community. Twas perfect… Perfect enough size, perfect enough price, we wanted it. There was a paucity of listings at the time too, I recall. Not like today, but it was a tough nut to crack.
House was available for a deal “now”… Family of the 85yo selling it communicated generally that they thought $135k was the correct area of an offer. We were aware there was at least one other interested bidder. Wife did the thinking on this…. she said, how about $135,500. We got the house, bidding $500 “over list”.. And here we are… Taxes and Zillow says it’s a $300k house now, and they are probably right. It wasn’t all merely monetary inflation. The joint has been spiffed up.
No, there won’t be a ‘crash’ not in literal terms. Or practical terms.
Literal: a housing crisis without a foreclosure crisis isn’t a crash. And no ones hardly using ARMS anymore. People in there houses aren’t going to lose them in a soft economy like they did in 2009. Literal: a house appreciating 1% over a year rather than 30% over a year isn’t a “crash”. Practical: We have a structural shortage of housing. It’s still going to be in demand.
Zingy Skyway Lunch 