My aunt and uncle—the ones who live in Southern California and own a farm up in the mountains—tried to visit me in Las Vegas yesterday. They hopped on Interstate 15 to drive north towards Las Vegas, but after a few hours, they called me and said that they had to turn around and go back home because of traffic.

A bit confused, I looked at Google Maps and saw deep, dark red blanketing the traffic map of Cajon Pass and Mountain Pass. Even more confused, I searched on Google News for those areas… to discover that they were apparently completely blanketed in snow, and cars weren’t managing to make it through.

The snowstorm was obviously unexpected, because the only snow that I could see out my window was the snow far up in the mountains. But Cajon Pass and Mountain Pass are 3,776 and 4,728 feet in elevation, respectively, so it’s quite a bit higher than the Las Vegas Valley, and thus a whole lot more prone to snowstorms.

I watched a story post of someone I’m following on Instagram who was also making the drive from Southern California back to Las Vegas; she stuck through the drive, and apparently, she left SoCal at around 3 PM and arrived back in Las Vegas at 1 AM the following day.

… That sounds terrifying.

My local post office is the one in downtown Las Vegas, one block away from where South Las Vegas Boulevard turns into North Las Vegas Boulevard. Specifically, the address of my local post office, and my PO box inside of it, is 201 Las Vegas Blvd S # 2222, Las Vegas, NV 89101-5780.

If you ever forget that address, have no fear. Some troll took my PO box and added it on Google Maps as my “corporate office” named “Adam Parkzer.”

Anyway, I just got back from a long string of travel, so naturally, I stopped by the post office to check my PO box to see what I missed while I was gone. The problem was, when I arrived, I noticed that the post office’s doors were chained shut. I figured something had happened on that side of the building and walked around to the other side to take a back entrance directly to the PO box area… but that was locked too. I went around to a third entrance, and noticed a sign—that the post office had temporarily relocated… to the “parking lot.”

Confused, I went back out to the parking lot where I had parked my truck and looked around a bit. I did notice that a big trailer had been added to the parking lot, but I didn’t really find it that interesting, so I had initially disregarded it.

On closer inspection…

Yes, that is indeed the “new” temporary post office. They moved all post office operations, including the PO boxes, into that trailer while the main building was undergoing construction on the upper floors.

I think that is one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen.

My trip to Illinois has finally almost come to an end. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I flew out to the Chicagoland suburbs to watch my parents’ business (a laundromat) while they were out traveling to South Korea. They’re due to return tomorrow, and I fly out of Chicago and back home to Las Vegas the day after that.

… And if you weren’t able to guess, yes, it is freezing cold in Chicago.

I’ve been both very productive and unproductive at the same time. I have a lot of time to sit in the office in the back of the laundromat to do my own stuff, but I also face a ton of interruptions from customers, and I’m confined to a Chromebook while I travel because I never bothered upgrading to a newer laptop. What I have been able to do, however, is browse through some of my old photos and back them up on Google Drive.

While I did that, I noticed I had a handful of photos from recent times that I never got to post. I picked out a random set of them to post here.

The first is of a “chicken” “sandwich.” I placed both of those words in quotation marks because I’m not really sure if the chicken was real (and if it was, then it was wildly overcooked), and I’m not sure if placing a thin slice of pita bread on both sides of the meat and vegetables counts as a sandwich. It was also extraordinarily expensive… though that fact is mitigated because this was from a restaurant in downtown Long Beach. I think the food was borderline terrible, but at the very least, I had a pleasant experience.

The next couple photos are shots I took from the balcony of my condo back in Las Vegas. Being high up has the benefit of letting me see a massive slice of the Las Vegas Valley at once, and the view becomes surprisingly different depending on the time, weather, and other factors.

I also have a clear view of the Stratosphere from my balcony, which was recently rebranded to the Strat. To go along with the rebranding, they put “STRAT” in blue letters down the side of the building. I managed to catch it before they were done.

Because my travel scheduling was so tight, I flew straight to Chicago from Oakland after the PUBG Global Championship. Unfortunately, there were no non-stops from Oakland to Chicago, so I had to take a layover in Salt Lake City. Upon landing, I was (un)pleasantly greeted by… snow.

Unfortunately, because my layover was so short, I didn’t have an opportunity to walk around and explore Salt Lake City International Airport—all I had time for was to deplane, go to the bathroom, answer a few emails, then board my connecting flight. But, seeing as my feet did technically touch the ground, I can say that I’ve been to Utah now.

I’ve been waiting patiently for the Tesla pickup truck for over half a year. I was disappointed when the reveal kept on getting postponed, but when the date was set for November 21, I was counting down the days. When I woke up this morning and saw that it was the 21st, I was actually excited.

At 8 PM PST, I tuned into the Tesla live stream to watch the reveal. The broadcast started with a weird light show, then the truck came out. At first, I thought it was a meme.

But the truck stayed on the stage, and Elon Musk kept talking about the vehicle.

The vehicle that looks like my GPU failed 1/10th of the way into rendering all the polygons. The vehicle that looks like one of those unrealistic cars that children draw when they aren’t quite old enough to be able to fully translate what they see in person into a proper depiction on paper. The vehicle that looks like it hasn’t quite found its Up-Grade and Dubious Disc so it still isn’t done evolving into Cybertruck2, then Cybertruck-Z.

If anyone thinks that the Cybertruck is going to change the course of the pickup truck market, then I think they are sorely mistaken. A majority of people who are true pickup enthusiasts probably wouldn’t even classify the Cybertruck as a real truck. The Cybertruck is a malformed SUV at best, and a model that ceases production after one year at worst.

The reason I had such a personal interest in this vehicle is because I was actually planning on upgrading to an electric pickup truck in the coming few years. I own a GMC Canyon, and there’s an ongoing class action lawsuit against General Motors in regards to a malfunctioning transmission—a trans­mis­sion used by my truck. Because of this, unless this class action lawsuit resolves and I can get an entirely new transmission or something, I’m not too excited about keeping my truck past its powertrain warranty.

Electric pickup trucks are beginning to get revealed nowadays. In a year or two, they’ll actually be under production and start going on the market. Buy­ing a brand new vehicle right away isn’t a great idea though—it’s better to wait a year or two to let the manufacturer collect consumer feedback and make any necessary changes and fixes first. This puts us at right around four years from now as a great time to buy an electric pickup truck—which is right when my powertrain warranty runs out.

I’m part of the “newer” generation of truck owners who like pickup trucks for slightly different reasons than traditional truck drivers. I own a truck to use as a daily driver, not just for extreme hauling/towing or work. Sure, I want to be able to haul and tow in case I ever need it, but to me, the versatility and just the ability to do whatever I want with my vehicle is basically just as important as actually going out and doing it. Chances are, I’ll be happy that I know I can haul and tow if I want to, but I might not ever actually go do it on a regular basis.

Thus, just the numbers and specs of the truck aren’t going to be enough. I’m not just going to look at min-maxing payload numbers, towing numbers, and price to optimize my purchase; instead, I’m going to look for qualities of the pickup truck that people would look for in regular sedans, crossovers, and SUVs too.

When you buy a sedan or SUV, you’re not just looking at the best specs for the best price. You’re also looking at features, aesthetics, and overall com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with your personality type. When I went to buy my pickup truck, I considered all those elements, and more. I looked for a pickup truck with a design that I liked—and most new truck buyers will do the same. And most new truck buyers generally opt for trucks because they want something that looks ag­gres­sive.

Pickup trucks are generally associated with toughness, so newer trucks are all coming out with angry-looking front fascias, bold and powerful body styles, and sharp grilles that make nearly a 90° angle with the hood. If I were to come up with a visual representation of exactly how not to look aggressive, I’d probably now show everyone the Cybertruck.

Another element of pickup trucks that appeals to me—as well as a lot of other pickup truck owners—is the customizability. In my opinion, a truck needs to look good stock right off the dealership’s lot, but it also needs to have some degree of “plainness” to it to allow it to be a great canvas for mod­i­fi­ca­tions. Too much plainness and the truck will look boring and unappealing, but too little and it just ends up being too complex. I’ve also noticed that pickup truck owners have a greater degree of pride of ownership than most other vehicle owners, and it’s tough to be prideful of your truck if you can’t change it to truly make it your own.

There doesn’t really seem to be much you can do to customize the Cybertruck. I’d imagine that you can go all-out and add graffiti spray paint onto the surface so your Cybertruck is a rolling piece of art, but beyond that, there doesn’t seem to be much you can do.

The wheels and tires seem to be very unique to the Cybertruck, and I’d imagine you can’t just go buy new rims and stick them on. There’s automatically-adjusting air suspension, so you probably can’t lift the truck. The back is pre-covered like an SUV, so you can’t pick your own style of bedliner and bed cover to fit your needs and wants. The exoskeleton is a single piece, so I’d assume you can’t swap out the grille.

So where does the Cybertruck fit in, if it’s not likely to appeal to the current pickup truck—neither the more “modern day” pickup truck buyers, nor the traditional pickup drivers who use them for work?

For this, I draw a connection to the Jeep Wrangler. Technically, the Jeep Wrangler is just a regular SUV, but when people rate SUVs, they consider Jeeps to be their own sub-segment. You’ll rarely see Jeep Wranglers listed within traditional SUV ranking, and even when you go to rent a car, they’ll often separate Jeep Wranglers into its own rental category. People don’t deny that it’s an SUV—it’s just that it’s a bit too different to be properly comparable.

The Cybertruck will likely end up being its own sub-segment of the pickup truck category. It definitely has a bed, and it’s definitely just as capable and versatile as a pickup truck… but it’s just a bit too different to be properly comparable to the pickup trucks we have today.

If I were to take a guess, I think this would actually appeal more to supercar buyers than pickup truck buyers. The transition towards crossovers and SUVs is definitely still happening (albeit plateauing for now), and someone who normally drives a supercar who wants a bit more size to their ride might opt to get the Cybertruck. But other than that, I think that if Tesla was truly targeting the current pickup truck market, then they missed the mark.

I will not be purchasing a Cybertruck.

I used to be a loyal Discover credit card user, but I ended up running into two main problems. The first is the bit more obvious one that had begun ever since I first created a Discover credit card, and it is that Discover is not accepted in as many places as Visa and Mastercard. Discover claims a rate of 97% merchant acceptance, except I’ve run into that 3% in quite a few instances. When I’m with someone else, I can just have them pay for me, but when I’m alone, that becomes a bit problematic because I would only ever carry the one credit card and never carry cash.

The second problem I had was that Discover doesn’t have any credit card options that come with “luxury” benefits. The no-annual-fee Discover It card was great, and it had pretty good cash back options, but I wanted a high-end credit card that offered lavish and over-the-top benefits. Discover only had the basic credit cards and nothing that catered to an elite audience.

To address these two problems, I got myself a Visa Infinite Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card back in the middle of 2018. It came with a $450 annual fee, but $300 of that would always come right back to me in the form of a travel credit, and being able to get 4.5% of travel and dining and 1.5% of everything else back in travel redemption meant that I got a lot more value for everyday spending. The card also came with free elite status for car rentals and offered lounge access at airports, along with tons of other perks like extended warranty on purchases and insurance on travel-related incidents.

Since getting the Chase Sapphire Reserve, I ran into literally no problems. Visa is one of the most wildly-accepted credit card brands, and unless I was going to a place that does cash-only transactions (which usually meant I would just leave, because I don’t carry cash and don’t agree to giving business to people who don’t offer the convenience of cashless transactions in today’s age), I never had any payment problems. As you can imagine, having my grocery store stop accepting Visa credit cards was quite a shock after getting so accustomed to it.

So yes, this does mean that I will end up having to drive about an extra mile in each direction to and from the grocery store, because I’ll be shopping somewhere else other than Smith’s. It’s a little disappointing because of the extra time and mileage I’ll have to put in just to do basic grocery shopping, but I guess there isn’t really anything else going wrong in my life right now, so I can’t really complain.

So instead, here is a picture of twilight that I took this morning at around 5:30 AM – a time when my life was simpler because I had not yet discovered my new Visa credit card conundrum.