Good morning my friends! The date today is November 16th, and it's a beautiful sunny day out today. The sunshine and warm(ish) weather make it pretty hard to get motivated to prepare for winter, but we all know that it could strike at any moment, so that's what I was doing this past weekend. My dear truck has gone in to the shop and had some winter tires put on (BF Goodrich Winter Slalom KSI for those who are interested) as well as some mud flaps. Of course now the weather, which was getting colder by the day, seems to have levelled off and is holding right around the maximum recommended temperature range for winter tires, so I'm constantly concerned about driving and causing unnecessary wear on my tires. Oh well, better than being caught in the snow unprepared.
After getting my tires installed I headed over to Canadian Tire to pick up an ice scraper for my windshield. It's the kind of thing that so common that you don't really think about it, but it would have been very embarrassing to be caught without.
There's a hotdog stand outside of my local Canadian Tire, and I stopped there to grab a hotdog on my way out. I was just standing there soaking up the warm sunshine, enjoying my lunch, and it occurred to me that there wouldn't be many chances to do that left in this calendar year. It's funny how we begin to savour these simple, summer activities when we know that winter is almost upon us. I've grabbed many a hotdog from that stand in my day, but for some reason the impending cold and gloom just made it taste that much better. I guess it's just part of living in a part of the world with rapidly changing seasons; you learn to enjoy what you've got while you've got it.
Of course, it doesn't have to be cold outside for me to get excited for Vegas! I'm getting pretty pumped to head South. I know that it's not going to be tropically warm down there in January, but it'll be a lot warmer there than it will be here in January. I'm sure I'll be very happy to get whatever weather Vegas throws at us.
We have been examining another potential activity for our trip down there, which may seem like a bit of a strange holiday adventure. We're thinking about hitting a gun range. Yup, that's right. Firearms. It may seem like an unusual thing for me to be seeking out, but I'm viewing this as an opportunity to try an activity that just isn't available to me here in Canada. Las Vegas' aptly named The Gun Store (http://www.thegunstorelasvegas.com/) features a firing range in which you can rent weapons from a massive catalogue. Everything from James Bond's famous Walther P99, to the infamous AK-47. They advertise that you can come shoot a real machine gun, appealing to the fact that machine guns aren't exactly commonplace items. However, for me handling any gun would be a unique and exciting experience. I've asked some enthusiast friends around here and they've assured me that, while The Gun Store will rent me a pistol to fire off a couple rounds, here in Ontario that would be quite against the law. So, as strange an activity as it may be, I think I'm going to jump on it just because it's an opportunity to do something that simply isn't available as an activity in my area.
Well my friends, that's about all for me this week. Here's hoping that you're all having a great day, and that wherever you are right now, it's still free from winter's grasp.
2 comments:
Looks like a good choice on the tires. I would not sweat it too much driving in this weather, it may be considered warm for a winter tire but with the amount of people who drive on them all summer it's not like you will be tearing them to shreds any time soon.
I likely did more damage to my tires on the short drive home than you could possibly do in several weeks, traction control off in the rain is fun.
As for the end of Summer, I will miss it but I also enjoy the Winter weather, so I don't feel too bad. That being said I do wish winter was a little shorter.
Shooting sure sounds like fun, I have done skeet shooting a few times as a work activity, there seemed to be no issues about borrowing a shotgun, maybe it's the renting that's the problem or is it the handgun factor^
Yeah, I'm not too worried... you just want to take care of something that costs so much money.
I've just got them mounted on the steel rims that came with my truck. I'm considering buying nicer rims in the spring for my all-season tires, but we'll have to see how the finances are at that point.
I think the handgun factor might play a significant role in the inability to rent around here.
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