• Mike’s Minnesota Minute:

The crew kicks off with elevator-music hype before grilling Mike on where he actually lives. Minnesota becomes the star with fun facts—like having nearly 12,000 lakes instead of 10,000—and the birthplace of the Mississippi River. Cryptids, folklore, and the “hairy man” show up early.

• Snakes, Coyotes & Desert Life:

Mike shares stories from New Mexico and Nevada: rattlesnakes everywhere, bowls full of collected rattles, coyotes bringing hambones back to the porch like gifts. Everyone compares snake-free Washington to the reptile-rich desert.

• Friendsgiving & Holiday Season:

Mike talks about giving up traditional family Thanksgivings since the Navy and instead doing a long-running Friendsgiving with his wife. Holiday decorations are delayed thanks to a basement remodel and a pile of boxed-up Christmas gear.

• Weather Check-In:

Minnesota has snow through March, Tacoma has rain for 10 straight days, and everyone debates what counts as “cold.”

• Nerd Miner Deep Dive:

A huge geek-rabbit-hole opens: Mike discovers tiny WiFi-enabled USB devices that double as DIY Bitcoin solo miners.

The crew loses it laughing about Linux, dongles, and whether anyone will ever mine a whole block.

• Holiday Movies:

Die Hard is definitely a Christmas movie, Scott’s wife is getting forced to watch it, and Nightmare Before Christmas gets respect as a universal holiday classic.

• Classic GCP Wrap-Up:

Charlie Brown references, blockhead energy, and the classic “You’ve been listening to the Grit City Podcast” outro.

⏱️ Loose Time Stamps:

00:00 – Elevator music & introductions

01:30 – Mike’s Minnesota Minute begins

04:00 – Minnesota lakes & cryptid talk

26:00 – Snakes, coyotes & desert life

32:30 – Thanksgiving food & Friendsgiving

33:40 – Nerd miner & Linux rabbit hole

57:50 – Christmas weather check-ins

01:09:00 – Holiday movie favorites

01:12:30 – Charlie Brown & outro

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• The Union Club: The Union Club is a coworking space contributing to Tacoma's growing artistic and entrepreneurial communities. It combines a maker studio, event hall, and office coworking space, in a 15,000 square foot historic building in downtown Tacoma, Washington.
  

Support The Grit City Podcast

Links:

• Hugag - Wikipedia — In American folklore, the hugag is a fearsome critter similar to a moose with an extensive upper lip, preventing it from grazing, and jointless legs preventing it from lying down
• GitHub - BitMaker-hub/NerdMiner_v2: Improved version of first ESP32 NerdMiner
• Home - NMTech
• T-Dongle S3 – LILYGO®
• Pepie | Cryptid Wiki | Fandom — The monster is called Pepie, after Lake Pepin, which forms the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin, where it is said to live.
• GitHub - i-am-shodan/USBArmyKnife: USB Army Knife – the ultimate close access tool for penetration testers and red teamers.