GM Dealer Adventures: as my wait for an engine goes into its fourth week, I’ve been evaluating emergency options. Here are some observations.

1. Deny. Deny. Deny. Only one sales guy was straight up and real with me on the engine problems. If I buy a second vehicle it will be from him. Funny enough one vehicle at his dealership I had a purchase agreement for, got snatched up by a colleague who would not have known I was also looking at it. But it matched the specs we’d look for and was priced right.

🧵 @GM’s Big Engine Problem
@mtbarra @amyklobuchar @TinaSmithMN @keithellison @StarTribune @WSJ @PioneerPress

GM’s 5.3,6, and 6.2 engines are failing in mass across the country. Causing hardship for small businesses and retail customers.

In some cases, barely off dealer lots. In recent weeks the crisis has begun to snowball.

Mid year I started noticing posts in industry groups about operators having engines going out in their SUVs. And how they were struggling to get them replaced. And if they were still under warranty? They’d sit at the dealer for

Story:

A couple of years ago in the midst of the post pandemic revenge travel period, we had a very busy morning. All cars booked 3am-7am with my last run of the early morning rush being a double car seat order in Fridley.

On the way to the airport there’s this number blowing up my phone and it seems familiar.

I get to the airport, unload the family, then check voicemail. Sometimes voicemails can delay appearing on my phone but thankfully not this time.

The woman on my voicemail is sobbing and accusing me of taking advantage of an elderly

The day after the attempted assignation of Donald Trump I started to notice really erratic behavior in Minnesotans.

I should say that for the most part Minnesotans as a people are quite predictable, and that in my 15 years of dealing with them in this capacity, I haven’t really seen behavior this odd.

Everyone seemed almost panicky and it was really showing in their behavior with money. And in the time leading up to Biden dropping out it continued to get worse. At times it almost felt like some economic collapse was imminent based on how people were

I have some added developments regarding the predator that I posted about recently.

Back around the time that looked into him because of suspicions of predatory behavior, he won a bunch of money on a special side bet on a baccarat game. This would have been late April/early May Depending on which player you speak with some say he hit this special side bet for big money several times over two days. Possibly winning 20-30k. The amount doesn’t matter other than it’s important to understand he was flush with cash.

During this same time period he took

Story Time

Saturday night I received a call from a man inquiring about a ride to Souix Falls to pick up a rental car. For the next morning. I say, sure we can do it and I give him a price. He says it’s more than he was expecting. I figure that’s that. He’d been grounded(can’t fly) and needed a rental car one way back to Boise because of bad vertigo. But you can’t get a one way rental car out of Minnesota in the summer…

For lots of reasons, taking an Uber to South Dakota is a bad idea.

Story Time

Awhile back I got a DM from a political figure. Asking if we were good. They heard that I had said some unkind things, and were surprised.

I was also surprised! The night prior I had been driving a local Mayor and their spouse and this person had come up in convo. No unkind words were said from anyone in the car. The opposite in fact. I was baffled.

Then the political figured asked if I knew a so and so. Well actually, I had just met so and so at a party the weekend before! They said oh… I bet that person is using you to get back at me.

I’ve learned some interesting things about the 35W bridge collapse through the years. 🧵

The 9/11 structural collapse event was made even worse by radio problems between first responders. In 2002 Mpls Mayor Rybak attended a FEMA course on emergency readiness. There weaknesses were identified and when he came back he made significant investments in Mpls comms and Incident Command System training. This would aid in the response to the 2007 35W event.

On the local and state level you had agencies from all over “self deploying” to

Real talk for a min on Fani, cash, and paying your way.

If you know about my history this story I’m about to tell you will make sense. If you don’t, it might not.

Around 2006 or 2007 I was dating a Mexican MBA. Brilliant guy, a CFO today. Anyway at the time I was working for a tech company in the warehouse district and as a server in Uptown at Chino Latino. A top tier earning restaurant of the 2000’s. One night in his North Loop condo he tells me he wants to PAY me to quit my job at Chino. Something about how

They aren’t. 🧵 Since title IX in the 1972 the gender gap has almost entirely flipped.

And in less privileged groups the gap is even greater. If you’re a guy under 30 you might be saying this isn’t a man’s world. Women are out earning me, getting degrees at a higher rate, ect.

https://twitter.com/lebassett/status/1729292623171527133

But we need them to be ok. Because who will all these highly accomplished women date, marry, and have babies with, if the men are being left behind?

As Paul Wellstone said, “we all do better when we all do better.” The gender gap is one of many societal problems I keep and eye

I had four belligerent boomer men screaming at me in baggage claim few weeks back while I was doing a meet and greet telling me I can totally park outside baggage claim because their kids do it all the time.

Despite their 70 years on this earth it never occurred to them that maybe there is a reason they’ve never seen a shuttle, limo, taxi, rideshare, city bus, coach bus, etc outside baggage claim.

And that somehow they would know better than me what the regulations are at the airport because they are 70. Of course on Twitter there’s a weirdo arguing

Driftless Area Recommendations: A few of you have emailed and DM’d ahead of the holiday asking for recommendations. Sorry for the late response.

In the interest of time let me just rattle off a few places. 👇🏻 Lodging

Charmant Hotel La Crosse

Dubuque has some nice airbnbs

There’s some scenic camping near Bluffton Iowa also recommend canoeing the Upper Iowa River in the same area.

Rumors have been circulating that VXXX was dismissed from 3M due to getting caught up in a prostitution sting in Woodbury. And that he has a record for similar conduct from back in 2001.

Clearly I wasn’t hired as a consultant on this because I’m here to tell you some things. First. Men who get caught up in stings are either cheap or are into some predatory shit. Guys seeing professional companions don’t get caught up like that. Also to get caught once or more you have to be doing it A LOT. Also there’s two types of men in the world. The kind the pay

Took a gal to the airport and she said I drove her on her wedding day and asked if I remembered a wedding in Rush City in 2017. Yes!

I often say I can tell a lot about a man, and the relationship, by subtle things. Her husband brought her luggage out to the car, put it in the back, and she waited for him to come hug and kiss her before she got in the car. That’s all I needed to see to know they were ok.

Another couple I drive, worked together for twenty years at 3M, and instead of having me drive them when they got married they asked me to come to

The trucker and his adult adoptee part three: I told you this summer of the long interview I had with an Ohio man planning to adopt a pregnant 18 year old from Greece and how he was going to be on a tv show. I’ve driven a lot of people, and I’ve heard a lot of things, but my conversation with this man was absolutely chilling. I wanted to call the FBI or INS(or whoever) and say do not let this girl come to America in the next two weeks. She’s in danger. I told you how his wife wasn’t on board(rightfully so) and how while on the phone with her in my

“Minneapolis today has 48 licensed taxi drivers in the entire city compared to 1,359 10 years ago.”

Thread:
I was one of them and here’s some interesting info for you. Back then I worked mostly off my phone and the internet. While most cabbies took runs of the cab computer and

https://twitter.com/h_pan3/status/1484575848896339976

walk ups, people prearranged with me directly via text. Called me from Yelp. And hailed me off of Siri. I’d fill in the extra time doing cab company fares and medical account runs. Around the time Uber entered the market in 2014 I was nearly 100% off my phone so I didn’t need to