Xscapee. Double dog dare you. Reliable Reply Guy for rent. Hourly rates. Call 867-5309. Putting the 'dope' in dopamine. Posts pithy replies for posterity.
Connecticut, USA
Joined April 2022
- Tweets4.9K
- Following623
- Followers202
- Likes1.2K
Pinned Tweet
I still say Twitter. But I do like to refer to myself as an Xscapee. Carries a certain gravitas.
Bill Chellis retweeted
INTRODUCING FUC-EES
I have a business plan and I would like investors.
Six locations. Every one sits four hundred yards past the California state line on Interstate 15, Interstate 40, Interstate 10, Interstate 8 and Interstate 80. Arizona and Nevada. You will see the sign before you see the border.
And a seventh, which is the flagship.
Stateline, Nevada. Right at the edge of Lake Tahoe, close enough that the second floor deck looks straight out over the water. You drive out of California, cross an invisible line, and there it is. Alpine lake, pine trees, a hundred and twelve gas pumps and a full service tire shop.
That one has slots.
Because it is Nevada and there is no reason not to. You can use a clean bathroom, play a hand of blackjack, eat at an all you can eat buffet featuring nine things Sacramento has outlawed, get four new tires fitted, and walk out having won a gas generator.
Nowhere else on the continent can you do all five of those in ninety minutes. That is not a truck stop. That is a civilisation.
No refinery at Tahoe though. Even I have limits.
Here is what we sell.
Gasoline at the actual price. Not the California price. The six interstate locations get their own small refinery, because two of theirs are closing and somebody has to do it.
Generators. An entire wing of them. California has banned the sale of new gas generators in a state that turns the power off on purpose, and I intend to be four hundred yards away when people work that out.
Leaf blowers. Chainsaws. Pressure washers. Lawn mowers. Everything with a small gas engine, which is now everything California will not sell you.
Those little green propane cylinders for camping. Banned there this year. We have a pallet.
Fireworks. The real ones. Not Safe and Sane. The other kind.
A plastic straw. In your hand. Immediately. No conversation about it.
Incandescent bulbs. A whole wall of them, warm and humming and gloriously inefficient.
Gas stoves, gas water heaters, gas anything. The gas department is enormous and the salespeople are unbearably smug.
Dishwashers that finish in under an hour and showerheads with an opinion.
Foie gras. Illegal there since 2012. I am not certain how many people want it, but that is rather the point.
The candy aisle carries every dye and additive Sacramento has taken a run at, plus a dedicated cooler for whatever they added to the list since I wrote this.
And a full sushi counter with actual sushi chefs, because Californians know sushi and it is the one thing on this list they will genuinely miss.
Two hundred and forty gas pumps. Eighty-three bathroom stalls, cleaned hourly, and the bathrooms are the entire point, because anybody who has driven that stretch knows exactly what the alternative is.
Brisket. Obviously brisket. And no, we are not carrying tri-tip. Tri-tip is a very good steak and it is not barbecue, and I will not be taking questions.
Nothing in the building carries a Prop 65 warning, because we are not in California and nobody has to tell you the parking lot causes cancer.
Now the part where I get sued.
Yes. Buc-ee's will sue us. Their legal department has flattened bigger and better funded people than me over a beaver, a font, and a general vibe of Texas.
I welcome it. I would like to be sued by Buc-ee's the way some people would like to meet Springsteen.
But I would rather partner.
Here is the pitch, gentlemen. You have forty odd locations and not one is within a thousand miles of the largest captive market in North America. Forty million people, an hour from a border, who cannot legally buy half of what you sell.
We are not competing with you. We are the customs checkpoint.
And the Tahoe location has slots and a view of the lake.
Call me. I will bring the numbers and I will wear the good shoes.
🦋
🤖 Made with AI
Bill Chellis retweeted
NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE YOU.
Its you, just you. Know that.
Now put on your fuckin big boy pants and fix it.
Grading some LLM related work responses. 1 to 5 scale. Have to say I enjoyed writing this score context: '1 - another zero score candidate that unfortunately benefits from the unearned grace of the grading scale.'
Bill Chellis retweeted
The reason people are invading Ceuta, Spain right now is because that removes Spanish control from both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar.
So you're going to have the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea and the Strait of Gibraltar contested, cutting off all transport to the Mediterranean.
This is how all world wars begin, over vital trade routes.
Bill Chellis retweeted
I’m convinced 90% of a founder's job is to just do 3 things:
- be delusional in your optimism
- push everyone to move faster
- make it crystal clear what to work on
Spending part of this Independence Day hammering out a new LLC with a long time friend and former colleague. Ok, the forms and fees suck. But this Entrepreneurial spirit is at the essence of what makes the United States of America such a blessed place. Happy 250th Birthday America! And here is to the next 250! Now, grind on until the burgers are ready!
Bill Chellis retweeted
I'm a heart doctor.
I've held a stethoscope to the last beat of a life more times than I can count. And I promise you — nobody, in that final moment, wishes they'd optimized more.
So let me tell you what the heart teaches, from someone who has listened to thousands of them.
1. You are already living the days you'll ache to return to.
Not when the money comes. Not when the body is perfect. This ordinary Tuesday — this is the one your future self will beg to touch again.
2. No one is coming. And that is the good news.
I grew up in Tehran, then England, then here, an exile learning three times over that no one hands you a life. Terrifying — until you feel the pen already in your hand.
3. "Later" is the most expensive word in any language.
I'll call my father later. I'll rest later. I'll live later.
Your children will not be small later. Some hearts stop mid-sentence. Say it now.
4. Choose your hard.
Building something real is hard. Regret is also hard. Loneliness is hard. Every road is hard — so choose the hard that builds you, and walk it like your life depends on it. It does.
5. What you seek is hiding inside what you avoid.
The health you want lives past the walk you skipped. The love you crave lives past the conversation you're dodging. Stop collecting information. The heart already knows the next step.
6. The body keeps a ledger.
Every skipped night of sleep, every swallowed grief, every unspoken word — the heart records it in muscle and rhythm. Live as though your body is listening. Because it is.
7. Joy is in the becoming, not the having.
The arrival is always quieter than you imagined. The real music is the reed being carved — the ache that lets the breath pass through and turn to song.
8. "Be realistic" is a cage.
The ones who changed the world were called unrealistic their whole lives. God did not knit galaxies into you so you could play it safe.
9. You don't plan a future. You plan a today.
If you lived this exact day one hundred more times — better, or worse? That single question is a compass.
10. The climb is not in your way. It is the way.
The struggle isn't the flaw in the story. It's the ink your name is being written in. Be grateful for the mountain. It is making you into someone who can survive the summit.
The world will rush you through every season and sell you the lie that joy is over the next hill.
But I have listened to too many hearts fall silent to believe that.
The life you're dreaming of isn't waiting on the other side of someday.
It's beating in your chest right now.
Don't wait for later.
Later doesn't always come.
Blessings,
Ash
Made an old pic a little older with the B&W treatment. View of part of the neighboring 130 acre farm.
