Today I took my truck to Jiffy Lube to get serviced. It's a 2001 GMC Yukon with 215,000 miles on it. I bought it from my father-in-law for $1000 earlier this year. It's the car I drive 80% of the time. I really like driving it.

I asked one of the guys how long he thinks the Yukon might last. He said he's seen GMC and Chevys come through with 300,000 miles, but once he saw a Honda with 700,000 miles. He said its owner took very good care of it, always taking it in for maintenance at the right time.

He also told me about an Audi owner who came in once, whose car was in terrible shape. He had been neglecting it. The guy goes, "dude, you have a $90,000 car."

When I drove my humble Yukon home, I felt deeply satisfied that I had spent the time and money to take care of my car and help it last longer. I felt content and secure.

Sometimes I see a Porsche or Audi on the road and get seduced, thinking "man that would be a nice car to have." And indeed, I could go buy one tomorrow, and the engine would sound awesome... but would I be any happier?

I think there's a very important life lesson in this conversation I had with Danny, and it's not about car maintenance; it's about happiness. I can pretty much guarantee that the lady who owned that Honda was enjoying her life more than the Audi driver.

Happiness is hard to universally define, but to me it's the feeling of satisfaction with one's life: appreciating what you have and always looking forward to tomorrow. Another word for it is fulfillment.

There's some point between poverty and wealth where all of one's needs are met, and one can be satisfied with that. There's joyful stability in reaching that point and staying there, wherever that may be for you.

Happiness is the state of mind where you don't need more.

I rented a 3 for a couple days using Turo, just to try it out. The one I had was the performance version. Pic related is me enjoying a beautiful Colorado sunrise while zooming down an empty road. Here are my impressions of the car:

Pros

• It's fast as hell
• It's really quiet, and the sound it does make when accelerating is like a sci-fi spaceship
• Its clutter-free interior has a certain zen to it
• The regenerative breaking is very weird at first, but once you learn how to use it it's a nice way of conserving range. Often I don't need to use the break pedal at all until the car is basically stopped and I just want to go into "Hold" mode. It makes a lot of sense for driving in town.
• The ability to configure driver profiles with things like steering, acceleration, "creep", is really nice
• You can idle guilt-free
• You just feel cool driving it

• When going 60mph+ the dash sometimes makes creeky noises that indicate something is loose; it feels a bit cheap
• "Easy entry" is, in my opinion, awkward and annoying... and I'm 6ft tall. I guess it's more for people like Shaq.
• I did miss having physical buttons for certain things, like climate controls and opening the trunk. I think they took the touch screen thing too far. It's not possible to use the screen without looking at it. You can't just use tactile feedback + muscle memory.
• The car allows equally strong acceleration when in reverse; this surprised me when I was parallel parking and I almost went onto the curb. I guess this isn't an issue if you're not a noob. It only stunned me because the car had "creep" disabled so I had to use the accelerator.

I suppose some of these points apply to all of the Tesla models (or even all electric cars), but this was my first experience with any of them.

I was considering buying a Model 3, but after lugging two kids in car seats around in it my conclusion is it's not a good family car. It's perfect for a commuter, or perhaps a couple with older kids. For us, since we're aiming to be a single-car family I think it would have to be Model X (or perhaps Model Y, depending on what that turns out to be).

Fucking hell. I can't believe it. Just like that it's gone. I went all cash this morning but later in the day I almost bought some of this shit. Seemed like a bargain. Luckily I'm about to buy a house and imagined what my wife would say if I did that and lost our down payment. Crypto has made me expect the worst, and I'm grateful for that. RIP you crazy fucking over-leveraged piece of shit.