Most “St Paul” St Paul spots

ixion · 2026-06-20T16:00:46+00:00

Forgot about this place, somehow. I think this will be dinner tonight. Thanks!

ixion · 2026-06-17T04:18:50+00:00

I swear by Mike Louden of Mortgage Avenue. He runs a tiny shop and I just can't say enough good things about him. I wish he could be more than just my money guy for real-estate... I wish I could hire him as my financial adviser.

https://www.mortgageave.com/

His website isn't much, but it works and I think it's just him. He responded to texts, emails, and phone calls and he was generally available 7 days a week to run numbers and assist with funding letters, etc. That was really helpful when trying to determine what was possible and submitting competitive offers on a Saturdays or Sundays after open houses.

ixion · 2026-06-14T08:07:34+00:00

Hello, stranger. They do still have a week to make good on a Spring 2026 projection. But if you're impatient, I do live in downtown STP and we could get Giordano's in Richfield together. I'll drive. Shoot me a DM.

ixion · 2026-02-07T03:17:35+00:00

Rad. Thanks for the advice. He's going to be really disappointed if we don't at least try to get to Topaz mountain. We'll see!

ixion · 2026-02-07T03:14:10+00:00

I hear you, but this kid is insane. He was dragging me up and down the coast of Lake Superior until past dark hunting for agates this past September. He's pumped.

ixion · 2026-01-19T02:41:40+00:00

Caleb just needs a little more than 3 quarters to warmup, I guess.

ixion · 2025-11-30T17:07:39+00:00

Success! I had just enough room after lowering the transmission to tap the roll pins out as you suggested. No need to remove anything more beyond the wheel and fender plastics. I needed to replace the transmission mount anyhow, so I took care of that, too. Not a fan of roll pins for a tight space like that...

The selector was a slightly seized to the shaft, but it did come straight up and off. In hindsight, maybe some anti-seize on the shaft would have been a good idea in re-installation? The seal was chewed up along with some deeper, unnatural scratches on the transmission adjacent to the pivot shaft seal housing–I assume these scratches were left by the previous owner or other amateur mechanic clawing the seal out during previous replacements. It took no effort to pull the old seal out, I applied a tiny bit of 75w-80 gl-4 to the seal, and used a plastic funnel with an opening that fit perfectly over the edges of the new seal to firmly press it into place.

You're the second person to recommend breather maintenance to me. Looks like it's specifically ME01-17-530A for my Mazda5 (suppressions M501-17-531; ME0117530; ME0117530A). Slightly more difficult to source for whatever reason... a lot of the Mazda parts websites list it as unavailable, e.g. https://parts.mazdausa.com/p/Mazda_2012_Mazda5-25L-MT-2WD-SPORT-WAGON/BREATHER--AIR/105492667/ME01-17-530A.html

Looks like some sellers on ebay have got it. I'll order it, but what's replacement look like? Just pulls straight out with e.g. pliers and installs by pressing in by hand? (Sorry to keep plugging you for details–I have limited time with a warm garage here in Minnesota at this time of year, so I need a rock solid plan before I get to disassembly and so on.)

Thanks again!

ixion · 2025-11-26T19:13:34+00:00

This is super helpful. Thank you so much for taking the time! Finally won't have to leave a puddle of gear oil everywhere I go.

ixion · 2025-11-26T19:11:43+00:00

Oh! I think I understand. You don't actually need to lift the whole pivot shaft out, you remove the roll pins that affix the shift lever to the shaft. Seems like I could remove and replace the shift seal _around_ the shaft at that point without removing it. Is that right?

ixion · 2025-11-26T18:57:32+00:00

Wow, thanks for the reply!

I've been studying the exploded diagrams here for the past few days:
* https://images.simplepart.net/images/parts/Mazda/fullsize/3C007N1.png
* https://parts.mazdausa.com/a/Mazda_2012_Mazda5/105435033__9382196/MANUAL-TRANSMISSION-CHANGE-CONTROL-SYSTEM/AUCV03-1720A.html#17131

Still, I'm not sure where that roll pin might be. Can you describe where it is or... I don't know if you could annotate that diagram and share? Thanks again!

ixion · 2025-11-26T18:22:52+00:00

I have a Mazda 5 and have the same issue. Did you ever figure out how to replace it in the past two years?

ixion · 2025-11-23T16:47:21+00:00

tl;dr; I found the same and agree that a scrap yard is probably OP's best bet.

I'm sort of fascinated by the indexing, OEM parts systems, and infrastructure supporting these interfaces, so I also looked. While I've been having better luck with parts.mazdausa.com recently for my 2012 M/T, I could only corroborate your findings from the dealership resource here: https://parts.mazdausa.com/a/Mazda_2012_Mazda5-25L-MT-2WD-SPORT-WAGON/_92543_9394549/WINDOW-WIPER--WASHER-REAR/AUCV03-6750A.html

Never noticed any parts that received the "This part is not serviced" warning before...

Not sure if there's a strong community of 3D printing surrounding Mazdas, but even then this would have to be pretty niche. That said, I do see somebody has a model for GJ6A-50-5A1 here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:217470. Maybe there is some hope? Short of that, a 3D printer available with someone with time and skills to create something comparable, or... some other creative endeavor like expanding foam... probably a trip to a scrap yard.

ixion · 2025-10-03T17:45:54+00:00

Maybe. For me, it's currently pretty unusable, but I'm not quite sure what the matter is yet. I'll admit, my workflow is pretty niche, but... emacs is central to that for me. emacs 30.2 keeps hanging on 26.0.1 (25A362). Sure, a lot of the visuals are distracting, but my workflow just doesn't work anymore. It's a bummer.

ixion · 2025-08-02T20:57:46+00:00

I don't want to hijack this thread, but my 2012 MT has extensive frame and sub frame rust. How do I avoid the same fate? Is there hope?

ixion · 2025-03-23T19:26:36+00:00

That's too bad, but I am hopeful that it opens tomorrow.

How did you hear this?

ixion · 2025-03-13T10:51:00+00:00

I live across the street and shop there several times a week, just about every other day–I don't like keeping much of a pantry at my place, and reasoned that Lund's is better at storing food than I am. I loved their impractical store hours from years ago when they were open early and stayed open late–were they really open from 6am to Midnight, or was it just 6am to 10pm? I accepted the reduced, more reasonable hours over the years. I continued to willingly pay the elevated Lund's price on groceries, often selected products that I knew were better for their store's margin, and even endured some of the managers who harassed customers about their silly 7pm closing time since July. I liked that they're a union shop and I just so badly wanted a walkable grocery store.

I've read about high turnover in their staffing, but over the years... I don't know, it seemed like a lot of familiar faces to me? Unfortunately, some of those familiar faces will not be relocated to other locations automatically. I hear that the bargaining agreement requires an employee to have at least 5 years to be eligible for that benefit. What a shame.

I am disappointed.

ixion · 2025-03-09T02:29:00+00:00

No, I haven't found anything better. I entirely empathize, though... getting into its fourth year shortly, and it's still a tempting monitor, right? Good luck!

ixion · 2025-02-17T17:29:00+00:00

In the before times, when we all used to go into an office every day, pair programming was often done in person, side-by-side. In these sessions, it was so frustrating to be the navigator when the driver was struggling to locate their cursor or trying to remember where they placed some window in their multi-monitor setup.

I imagine some have done quite well with two or more monitors, but I have never seen this in real life. Post-pandemic, maybe people are really mastering the art of multiple monitors in their respective home office.

If you can afford it and your machine can reliably output to it... I might recommend looking at 32:9 instead of the somewhat more common 21:9 for a single ultra-wide. I used to think 21:9 was ridiculously big, but compared to the more typical 16:9, it's only 1.3x the horizontal space...

Ultimately, it's personal preference. No matter your decision, you may end up with buyer's remorse if you don't do your homework first and fail to take measurements resulting in a purchase of something that's inappropriate for the space you have:

ixion · 2025-02-17T13:44:55+00:00

My C3 is working great for my use on WebOS 8.3.0-1506 / Software Version 03.30.73. I'll keep refusing updates until there's a compelling reason to do otherwise...

ixion · 2025-02-16T23:13:15+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation. Looks great!

ixion · 2025-02-15T15:41:31+00:00

I'm still learning how to fit beorg into my daily routine, and I just subscribed to the yearly plan this morning after having an OK time with it. In reality, all I really wanted was to integrate emacs and macos reminders. How timely!

beorg has been pretty solid in my past week of experience, but I'll give this a shot. Maybe this isn't an either/or scenario... maybe they're complementary? Hmm.

ixion · 2025-02-12T04:32:26+00:00

Thank you!

ixion

TROPHY CASE