Ok, so here it is. I'm bored and raised minnesotan. I live as close to another state right now as I ever have in my life (I'm about 30min from Hudson WI). I've endured silly winters that dump two feet of snow in april, brutal temps that actually cancel school (seriously, they cancelled two days of school this week due to extreme heat). I've driven alongside every possible variation of immigrant driver that does not understand basic road courtesy, on some of the worst roads imaginable. Frost heaves+ warm ups=holes everywhere. My fellow MN people can attest to this. It's not without it's positives though. Food here is pretty awesome... you're generally 20min or so from quiet/countryside- I can get good fireworks in WI (Though, WI residents can't!). Everyone is pretty mellow, and from what I've noticed, pretty willing to help their fellow man out. All in all, not a bad place to live, if you can deal with winter (I can't, but that's a different rant for a different time). BUT- MN seems BENT on killing car culture and any semblance of Americana. Case(s) in point-

1- Stupid light rail. I get it, we need a better mass transit infrastructure. I have no problem with this. HOWEVER- when they decided they needed to run the damn thing right down University Ave- it KILLED the cruising corridor. Porky's, a MN landmark for 50+ years, had to close as a result of business lost due to the stupid rail tearing stuff up. Used to be every Friday/Saturday from April-October... Porky's was the place to be. Get you a strawberry shake, a cheeseburger and a bag of onion rings and just watch the cruisers. You saw it all. Lowriders, imports, bro-dozers, mullet rockets, hot rods, muscle cars, frankenstein freakshows- it was all there. People were always cool, always able to hang out and shoot the E36 M3. It was a lot of fun. I can't share that with my son, as he was born the august after it closed (he's two now). I can say I have a fairly special memory of that night- Was super tired, on my way home from...something. Decided to cruise university one last time to see if anything was up for the last weekend. I got about 6 blocks away, and I knew something was up. Got out in front of porky's, and it turns out there was a burnout festival happening. One of my friends happened to be spectating, ran out in traffic and demanded a burnout from me. I obliged. Spent the rest of the night hanging out, talking to a ton of people, having a good time. My (then) pregnant wife felt Gibson kick for the first time that night. The only problem is, it's a memory. I'll never be able to show him that. And it galls me to no end. Porky's was replaced by.... a stinkin' old folks home. We got enough old people homes here. We don't need one right in the heart of old St. Paul.

2- berkeleyING WALMART. I'm sorry, I know people love the Walmart for their cheap prices on things, but screw those crosseyed butt-tards. I was driving home one night, and decided to take a pass by the drive-in theater to see what was playing. Oh, there was nothing playing. There was nothing even on the sign, because there was no sign. Screen was gone, whole property fenced in, and it was clear something was replacing it. I decided to go home and do a little investigation. Turns out- Walmart had bought the property the theater sat on, and was putting another goddamn Walmart up. WE DONT NEED ANOTHER WALMART. There are no E36 M3- 5 other walmarts in a 15 mile radius of where this one is located. Eagan, IGH, WSP, Woodbury, Hastings. Now I understand drive-ins are dying because of the sad state of affairs with 35mm film. But this isn't right. The theater wasn't given a chance, and now I got more low rent chinese bullE36 M3 getting flooded into an area that could use more local business, and less Walmart. I refuse to set foot in a Walmart anymore as a result.

3- This one I just discovered today. One of the two local roundy roundy tracks, Raceway Park, is closing. It's been a damn landmark in Shakopee since the 50's. Admittedly I've not been there in a few years. Between having a kid and a wife and all of that, it's hard to get to the track. BUT- it was always a good time. It was a really small paved oval, and they ran everything out there, from late models, to thunder cars, to figure-8's.... it was all there. They'd recently taken to letting drifters on the track too, for the infield. All in all, a sweet little venue. And it was situated right across the street from ValleyFair- our local theme park. Guess what's replacing it? AN ASPHALT RECYCLING PLANT. Yeah, that totally won't make riding the rides smell like butthole whenever I take my kid there, not to mention, I can't even take him to the damn track! He's getting old enough now that racing is something he is quite interested in. Too bad I can't share this with him.

So yeah, screw MN.... takin' all my fun away. If I wanted to be a bike pedaling granola grinding free range coffee drinking hippie, I'd live in uptown. I don't. I want my cars, and my drive ins and my cruising spots.

/rant

Welcome to 2013

At least you can still drive down any two lane road and still get stuck in a Minnesota moron train....

oldopelguy wrote: At least you can still drive down any two lane road and still get stuck in a Minnesota moron train....

Oh yeah, there are plenty of those. I run boosted cars for a reason. I may or may not have passed 9 cars in one big train one time.

There is the cruisein in North St. Paul every Friday night, and another one at the Minnetonka Drive In every Thursday. There are two good car shows tomorrow (Sunday 9/1), the Twin Cities Collector Car show at Aquatore Park in Blaine, and the Minneapolis Messaround at Memory Lanes Bowling Alley in south Minneapolis. http://www.minneapolismessaround.com/ You can keep track of car shows in Minnesota (or across the country) at http://www.autoswalk.com/

stuart in mn wrote: There is the cruisein in North St. Paul every Friday night, and another one at the Minnetonka Drive In every Thursday. There are two good car shows tomorrow (Sunday 9/1), the Twin Cities Collector Car show at Aquatore Park in Blaine, and the Minneapolis Messaround at Memory Lanes Bowling Alley in south Minneapolis. http://www.minneapolismessaround.com/ You can keep track of car shows in Minnesota (or across the country) at http://www.autoswalk.com/

I was unaware of the North St. Paul one. I knew about Minnetonka- I didn't know there was two shows tomorrow.... thanks for that link though. I guess it was more of a "they're bound and determined to give me less reasons to leave the house" which I don't have a whole lot of anyhow.

New Jersey is still way worse. I couldn't even dream of moving back to the town that I grew up in today, due to the property values & taxes. When my family moved to that town in the early seventies it was a rural farming community, today its McMultiMillionDollarMansionville.

Let me tell you, nothing ruins a neighborhood like 1%ers

I've decided not to stay here another winter (two were enough) and am moving south.

The area is a nice area to live about 5-6 months of the year except that it is the buggiest place I've ever lived.

Spending the weekend donating stuff, trashing other stuff, and generally preparing to move.

I did post a Craigslist ad for my snow tires/wheels yesterday that has an autographed World's fastest Clown poster in the background of one of the pictures.

move farther west.

Ya know what grinds my gears? Keyboards with no return button!

Sorry you hate MN sometimes. Could be worse. I hate it ALL the time! Is the muslim scourge as bad as it's made out to be?

Move to Detroit !!! Three road racing tracks within a couple of hours, small ovals all over the state, Woodard cruise, drive-in movies in Plymouth, pro sports teams, less snow than where you are now, what's not to like?

poopshovel wrote: Ya know what grinds my gears? Keyboards with no return button! Sorry you hate MN sometimes. Could be worse. I hate it ALL the time! Is the muslim scourge as bad as it's made out to be?

Depends on what you mean by the Muslim scourge. Muslims in and of themselves are very easy to deal with. We've got them from all over the place. However a certain nation by the name of Somalia has a significant population in this area. I am told it is the largest Somalian population outside of well... Somalia. I won't comment much due to not wanting to flounder this thread and turn myself into patio bait- but I will say, I don't have much positive to say about them as a whole.

T.J. wrote: I've decided not to stay here another winter (two were enough) and am moving south. The area is a nice area to live about 5-6 months of the year except that it is the buggiest place I've ever lived. Spending the weekend donating stuff, trashing other stuff, and generally preparing to move. I did post a Craigslist ad for my snow tires/wheels yesterday that has an autographed World's fastest Clown poster in the background of one of the pictures.

I don't blame you. I've sort of backed myself into a corner with recent choices- we've decided i'm a stay at home parent, and the wifes job is entirely too good to give up for a move to warmer climates.

T.J. wrote: I've decided not to stay here another winter (two were enough) and am moving south. The area is a nice area to live about 5-6 months of the year except that it is the buggiest place I've ever lived. Spending the weekend donating stuff, trashing other stuff, and generally preparing to move. I did post a Craigslist ad for my snow tires/wheels yesterday that has an autographed World's fastest Clown poster in the background of one of the pictures.

If you think the bugs are bad in a part of the country that's frozen for months, you will be sorely disappointed with that aspect moving south.

Bugs weren't even bad this year, at least my side of town. I can count my mosquito bites on one hand. I believe TJ is much further out in the sticks than I am, the bugs are nasty the closer you are to some woods.

Ha. Try florida for bugs. Which u really should move too. No snow!

My wife was at the Minnesota state fair today. Over 200,000 people. She said it was like those movies you see of Beijing 20 years ago where it was non stop people moving shoulder to shoulder all day. She loves fairs and she almost didn't have fun.
That's really all I have. You can go back to complaining about bugs now.

Florida is high on my list. Strangely- ATL area never was, until I started frequenting here. I would consider GA now. Arizona/New Mexico are also on my list, actually close to the top- because I hate humidity, and there really isn't any in the middle of the desert. What tops my list?

Plano Texas. Seriously. It's like MN with drive through liquor stores.

mazdeuce wrote: My wife was at the Minnesota state fair today. Over 200,000 people. She said it was like those movies you see of Beijing 20 years ago where it was non stop people moving shoulder to shoulder all day. She loves fairs and she almost didn't have fun. That's really all I have. You can go back to complaining about bugs now.

Yeah, your wife kinda got the bad end of that deal. We've had this WICKED heat wave that kept people out of the fair since opening a week ago thursday (heat indexes 100+ nearly every day). Today was the first real bearable day, and the people are showing out in DROVES. They're predicting record numbers for the rest of the week since the heat wave broke.

Move to Kentucky. Seriously.

BoostedBrandon wrote: Move to Kentucky. Seriously.

My sister lives there. She's a lunatic. The further away, the better.

mndsm wrote:

BoostedBrandon wrote: Move to Kentucky. Seriously.

My sister lives there. She's a lunatic. The further away, the better.

Touche.

mndsm wrote: Ok, so here it is. I'm bored and raised minnesotan. I live as close to another state right now as I ever have in my life (I'm about 30min from Hudson WI). I've endured silly winters that dump two feet of snow in april, brutal temps that actually cancel school (seriously, they cancelled two days of school this week due to extreme heat). I've driven alongside every possible variation of immigrant driver that does not understand basic road courtesy, on some of the worst roads imaginable. Frost heaves+ warm ups=holes everywhere. My fellow MN people can attest to this. It's not without it's positives though. Food here is pretty awesome... you're generally 20min or so from quiet/countryside- I can get good fireworks in WI (Though, WI residents can't!). Everyone is pretty mellow, and from what I've noticed, pretty willing to help their fellow man out. All in all, not a bad place to live, if you can deal with winter (I can't, but that's a different rant for a different time). BUT- MN seems BENT on killing car culture and any semblance of Americana. Case(s) in point- #1- Stupid light rail. I get it, we need a better mass transit infrastructure. I have no problem with this. HOWEVER- when they decided they needed to run the damn thing right down University Ave- it KILLED the cruising corridor. Porky's, a MN landmark for 50+ years, had to close as a result of business lost due to the stupid rail tearing stuff up. Used to be every Friday/Saturday from April-October... Porky's was the place to be. Get you a strawberry shake, a cheeseburger and a bag of onion rings and just watch the cruisers. You saw it all. Lowriders, imports, bro-dozers, mullet rockets, hot rods, muscle cars, frankenstein freakshows- it was all there. People were always cool, always able to hang out and shoot the E36 M3. It was a lot of fun. I can't share that with my son, as he was born the august after it closed (he's two now). I can say I have a fairly special memory of that night- Was super tired, on my way home from...something. Decided to cruise university one last time to see if anything was up for the last weekend. I got about 6 blocks away, and I knew something was up. Got out in front of porky's, and it turns out there was a burnout festival happening. One of my friends happened to be spectating, ran out in traffic and demanded a burnout from me. I obliged. Spent the rest of the night hanging out, talking to a ton of people, having a good time. My (then) pregnant wife felt Gibson kick for the first time that night. The only problem is, it's a memory. I'll never be able to show him that. And it galls me to no end. Porky's was replaced by.... a stinkin' old folks home. We got enough old people homes here. We don't need one right in the heart of old St. Paul. #2- berkeleyING WALMART. I'm sorry, I know people love the Walmart for their cheap prices on things, but screw those crosseyed butt-tards. I was driving home one night, and decided to take a pass by the drive-in theater to see what was playing. Oh, there was nothing playing. There was nothing even on the sign, because there was no sign. Screen was gone, whole property fenced in, and it was clear something was replacing it. I decided to go home and do a little investigation. Turns out- Walmart had bought the property the theater sat on, and was putting another goddamn Walmart up. WE DONT NEED ANOTHER WALMART. There are no E36 M3- 5 other walmarts in a 15 mile radius of where this one is located. Eagan, IGH, WSP, Woodbury, Hastings. Now I understand drive-ins are dying because of the sad state of affairs with 35mm film. But this isn't right. The theater wasn't given a chance, and now I got more low rent chinese bullE36 M3 getting flooded into an area that could use more local business, and less Walmart. I refuse to set foot in a Walmart anymore as a result. #3- This one I just discovered today. One of the two local roundy roundy tracks, Raceway Park, is closing. It's been a damn landmark in Shakopee since the 50's. Admittedly I've not been there in a few years. Between having a kid and a wife and all of that, it's hard to get to the track. BUT- it was always a good time. It was a really small paved oval, and they ran everything out there, from late models, to thunder cars, to figure-8's.... it was all there. They'd recently taken to letting drifters on the track too, for the infield. All in all, a sweet little venue. And it was situated right across the street from ValleyFair- our local theme park. Guess what's replacing it? AN ASPHALT RECYCLING PLANT. Yeah, that totally won't make riding the rides smell like butthole whenever I take my kid there, not to mention, I can't even take him to the damn track! He's getting old enough now that racing is something he is quite interested in. Too bad I can't share this with him. So yeah, screw MN.... takin' all my fun away. If I wanted to be a bike pedaling granola grinding free range coffee drinking hippie, I'd live in uptown. I don't. I want my cars, and my drive ins and my cruising spots. /rant

The owner of the Cottage View drive-in, Jerry Herringer, has said himself several times that he likely couldn't have afforded to keep the drive-in open as he needed expensive new projection equipment. The City didn't close him down as some people want to make it seem. It was his own decision to sell to Wal-Mart. Property taxes alone on his 25 acres were crazy expensive.

The Cottage View sign is now next Porky's drive-in down south of Hastings on the Little Log House property.

Hastings has a rather large car show every other weekend in the summer. It has had 500-600 cars a few times.

As already mentioned, several other car related events to partake in around the cities if you look.

Vali-Hi in Lake Elmo is still going

What you really should be worked up about is all the free welfare given out to able bodied people, almost on a no questions asked basis in some cases here. Little to no supervision or fraud enforcement. Collect a check from Cook County, ride the megabus to the cities, collect another check,,,deal some drugs on the side, pay no taxes, don't work or hold a job, hey life is grand. And yes, this does affect all of us working tax payers in the end.

Yeah, I know about Heritage in Hastings, I drive by it regularly. I also know the owner made the decision to sell to Walmart, but we don't need another berkeleying walmart. Cottage grove should have been more proactive, IMO. I'm a little sour over a lot of this......

And trust me, I have plenty of problems with welfare in general- but that's another time and another thread i ain't startin'... I have no desire to be part of a patio.

In reply to drainoil:

Wait, are ALL Cook counties crooked? (Says a Chicago boy.)