Four hours until the movers get here, which should give me some time for a grocery shop and getting a local Co-op account. There’s a few big to dos, but it’s only been an hour and a half. Already registered with SaskPower and SaskEnergy, SaskTel guy will be here shortly, life is good!

I need to figure out how I’m gonna set up the living room, and I need a table with more legs than my current one.

The yard appears to be husky resistant. We will see how Sammy likes it when she gets here.

But most importantly.

My neighbours had a going-away party for me tonight, as summer is about to kick off and all of them will have stuff going on in the coming month. It was nice to see everyone in not a work capacity. It's hard to relate to people who are parents and grandparents when... I don't know, I own a dog? I still don't think I'm a real adult.

They said they'd miss me, as I was someone they saw around a lot in the community in my work capacity. And I never really thought about the fact that I actually exist in the minds of other people. They remember me coming for school presentations, ceremonies, or helping with a dodgeball competition at the school. They remember me in my work capacity showing up where they work, or helping them. They remember me just... walking my dog, or stopping in to talk with people in uniform. And apparently a lot of the community is sad to see me leave.

It makes me feel like maybe I've been too hard on town here. To me, it's been a hard five years. To them, it's home. And to them, I'm someone they trusted to keep them safe, and hopefully did that.

It's weird when you stop to think about what effect your presence has had on the people around you, especially in my line of work. What's your disaster is my Tuesday. I couldn't tell you the names of everyone I've worked with. But I still have people from years past come up and ask me how I'm doing, when it takes me a few minutes to remember how it is I know them.

I think I'll miss it.

I will preface by saying I bought the car. It's a 2014 Mustang GT in black, six speed manual, leather seats, Shaker audio, a smidge under 83k km, and that's pretty much it. I love it, and to show thanks to one of the most important men in my life for getting me to this point (my late grandfather), I named him Sandy.

Now here's how I'm a complete moron and spent several hours today trying not to die.

Our story starts on Tuesday, after once again taking too long to pull the trigger on a Bullitt, I didn't get it. Which means I emailed immediately when I saw this post, which was less than 24 hours old. Naturally, when you really want something, not getting it is a bit of a kick in the pants. And as such, I opened up the floodgates to "a Mustang with a V8 and a manual that looks cool".

Enter: the 2014 Mustang GT that popped up in my Kijiji recommended feed, wrongly listed as a Ford GT. I emailed right away, got a response back almost immediately, and set up an appointment for 1 pm today.

However, yesterday rolled around, and @atfsgeoff once again poked and prodded to remind me that the car could be gone before I even look at it, regardless of appointment. So I texted the dealer (Riverside Dodge in Prince Albert) to move my appointment, and set out.

It drove nice, wasn't in perfect, but I liked it. Definitely felt like a good fit for me. The Coyote has noticeably more grunt than the old Modular 4.6, the six-speed is geared excellently, and it just felt good.

Reasonably, I sat down with the finance person, looked her in the eyes and said "I know I haven't got a leg to stand on based on the current market, and any negotiation attempts can basically be ignored." She just nodded along and said "yeah, that's about right".

Somehow, I negotiated $700 off. It's not much, but I'll call it a win. Cash is still king in some places, as long as you're not at Windsor Ford in Grande Prairie, Alberta.

Anyway, we left to pick it up today. The weather called for some rain, then 3 cm of snow. Nothing bad, nothing I haven't done before. There was the odd bit of rain in the first hour and a bit, but it was barely noteworthy. Once we hit Melfort and I got the draft from the bank (who also very politely spelled my last name wrong by ignoring half of it [I don't understand how or why hyphens make people stupid)], we continued on our way to Prince Albert.

A funny thing happened, though. So that rain? It made the highways wet. The snow? It sticks to the roadway, and was quite slushy already. The wind? Constantly blowing onto the highway. Visibility was poor, the roadway sucked, and I told my driver that I should probably pay him more. He agreed.

However, a Mustang ahead of us made me go "I guess that's a sign, if he can do it I can do it", and we carried on. That Mustang pulled off pretty shortly later, but hey, metaphors don't last forever.

A hop, skip, and jump through awful weather and dumb paperwork, and the car was mine. All clean, all ready to rock and roll home. I wasn't optimistic. Neither was my ride up, who I treated to lunch and who I still owe basically everything. We parted ways, and the drive home began.

The car is a perfect cruiser. Effortless passing power, good sound system, the exhaust was beautiful, pretty good ride, I can't wait to take this to the... PNW Off-Road meet. Uhhhhh sorry @CarsOfFortLangley , I may need to bum a ride at some point. And for the brief bit the roads were good, it was magic.

And then, of course, Saskatchewan Spring showed up. It was a beautiful sunny day and there was a 40 km/h wind, blowing the snow across the highway and slowly freezing the slush. I found a car in front of me, decided they were my new best friend, and followed them faithfully. We averaged about 50 km/h the whole way back to Melfort. I stopped for a rest and to wait for the plows to come out, and guess what?

They didn't.

So it was a very similar story all the way east. And with the sun setting, the drive south was terrifying. Quite possibly some of the worst roads I've seen, combined with a 420 horsepower RWD muscle car on all-season tires. The scrapes of snow and ice against the undercarriage hurt my soul, but I carried on, thankful for my lengthy driving experience. Had I been five years younger, I would've been in a ditch easily.

In any case, four and a half hours I left Prince Albert, with a one hour pit stop, I made it home. I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have put my friend at risk in this weather. But... we all made it home safe, so lesson learned.

I would also like to thank Pirelli for making the excellent P Zero Nero tire. It has an M+S on it, but no three peaks. I don't know how, but they were a lifesaver.

Now, I guess it's time for plans. Right now, I'm very happy, but I'll be removing the windshield sun visor strip as quickly as possible. After that, mud flaps. And that's my plan for the car this year. Next year? We'll see.

Thanks for reading. I'll try to get some better pictures soonish.

Cool dealer order tax. Seriously, Riverside Dodge knows how to order cars for the lot. 392, T/A, manual, the only thing it needs is a shaker hood and to not be $71k CAD.

My transfer is now set in stone. Thankfully, work pays for my move, and they’ll ship one vehicle, which is incredibly convenient. This means, on top of all the work stuff in my task list to do, I have to:

• clean out my house
• repair damages
• find a house and get a mortgage
• try not to cry

This is gonna be great for my mental health! At least I won’t have to drive 45 minutes for groceries!

My Kawasaki Z400 that I’ll write a review on at the end of the season. Probably.

I assume my views of the northern lights won't be as frequent once I move. It's almost comforting and surreal when the lights are active, and tonight they were incredibly vivid.

The moon is actually a huge problem for astrophotography, especially when photographing the northern lights. The large ball of brightness was a crescent moon before six seconds of exposure had their way with it.

Even with the moon as a massive hate ball, I love this one the most, I think.

@Photography

@Dr-Zoidberg is right: this car is a hard one to shoot accurately. The colour is lovely, the engine is fantastic, 10/10 car right here.

It also handles Seattle traffic like a champ.

Is it weird to have someone else's car as your phone/computer background?

Anyway, I will get to the other meet photos when I am less tired. Only 645 more to go through!

Autumn is lovely and lying in the grass under a tree is a small pleasure in life. Mental health day is going great.

Imagine coming home to your house, going to reach for something you need, and it's gone. Maybe it was in the yard, or your garage, or your car, or the house itself, and now you have no clue where it is. You take a further look, and notice a bunch of things missing. Now you realize that your stuff has been stolen.

You file a report with the police. You give them a list of what was stolen, and when they ask if you have any serial numbers, there's a long and awkward silence.

"Nope."

Now imagine being a police officer, standing in a garage filled to the brim with stuff. Multiple repeats of the same types of tools. Chequebooks and credit cards strewn throughout the mess. A stack of bicycles of various sizes, but you're certain the small pink bike doesn't belong to the grown man who is now in custody.

And every serial number you run comes up clean. Nothing reported stolen, as certain as you can be that it was. And because you can't prove it's stolen, you can't do anything: the onus isn't on the accused to prove they didn't steal the thirteen power drills they have on a workbench, it's on the prosecution and police to prove that they did.

What to do? Is there any easy way to prevent it, or help people get caught?

Yes and no.

The easy thing to do is to keep your things locked up and prevent it from happening: lock your garage and shed locked, your vehicles locked, and your house locked. Put your things away when you're done using. A lot of these crimes are ones of opportunity: if they try your door handles and nothing happens, odds are good that they'll move on.

Furthermore, don't keep sensitive things in places that are easy to access! I've met people who keep their wallet and keys in their unlocked garage. I know people who leave sensitive legal documents in boxes in their garage. Find a safe spot to keep these, and maybe invest in a paper shredder.

The big thing is gonna be inventorying your things. And it's a nightmare to do! I'm finally doing it after years of not, and holy crap do I own a lot of stuff! The simple way to handle it? Add anything new you purchase right away to your record, and as you use things in your house, add the serial number. I'm using a Google Doc because it's stored in the cloud, so if literally everything I own gets stolen and my house burns down, I'll still have access to a copy. You can use whatever system you like, as long as it makes sense to you!

That way if it's stolen, you can give police the number, and they can add it to their database. Here in Canada, if police query a serial number, it will come up if any police agency has it flagged as stolen. And they stay up for a long time. I'm aware of a case where police recovered a gun in 2019 and saw it was stolen in 1996, and got it back to the family that owned it!

What if you don't have a serial number on a product, like a gas can or the like? Either write something on it or carve something into it. Doesn't need to be an exact science, just something recognizeable. If police come across Jerry's gas can, they can get in touch and figure out if it's been stolen.

One thing I see mentioned a lot is filming your house or taking photos as an inventory of your stuff. Not a bad idea, so that way you don't have to fight with insurance about what things you owned and their condition. Even better, film it like an episode of MTV's Cribs if you want to give yourself and your adjuster a laugh.

Things being stolen sucks. You can't 100% prevent it from happening, and the people who do it aren't always caught, but by keeping record of what you have, you increase the chances of it being recovered. Report things being stolen to the police, even if it's little stuff: you pay for the service, might as well use it. And by reporting, you let police know where hot spots for thefts might be, and can increase targeted patrols to that area, which can either deter criminals or get them caught.

@TheJWT

Hell yeah.

@Highlander Accidentally left? No, the husky escaped something and made its way there.

@MrSnrub V8 seems like overkill for only 350hp, but I won't say no. My only reference to boat engine power is an 80s/90s Johnson V6 that made 175hp, so what do I know.

@Vondon302 Godspeed and good luck. I’m a union man, and I hope that they can figure something out quick so you guys get a better a deal and can get back to work.

@nickhasanexocet said in Poll - are UAW demands reasonable?:

@CB It's just tone deaf to make these demands.

We know this is true.

Okay.

@nickhasanexocet said in Poll - are UAW demands reasonable?:

If these workers were negotiating in 2021 or 2022, you might have a great point. Unfortunately for themsprofits, the pandemic party is over. Banks aren't lending, people aren't getting gubmint money dropped into their accounts, and car sales are dropping. Stellantis won't exist in 10 years, mark my words. It's just going to get worse from here. UAW is fighting over who controls the slow death of their own industry.

If you look at my post, there are included numbers from June 30, 2023. So yeah, it's reasonable to make those negotiations now.

@AestheticsInMotion said in Did I buy a fuzz pedal solely because it hit the nostalgia button?:

You better sign your name on the front

You can also bet that the subject will be Music.

@MUSASHI66

I stand with workers.

100%, absolutely. It's made by the Winnipeg Electrical Company as part of their Homework series.

To the non-Canadians and people a different age from me, these notebooks filled my elementary school life. I was in a school the other day, and guess what was sitting on the principal's desk? One of these. Truly a Canadian icon.

Now I have to wait for power and another cable for the bass guitar before I can use it. Oh well.

@farscythe I’m sorry for your loss, bud.