Starting 5 days off

Well, the new schedule I have (10 days on call and 5 days guaranteed off) is a pretty darn good one. I worked 4.5 of my available 10 days and now I'm one day 1 of 5 which I can just relax and get a bunch of errands done. Many of them happy to be car related.

First off, my last little bit of flying was great. Spent a night in Scottsdale AZ and visited a very nice pub called the Tilted Kilt. It has a great pub atmosphere, great food and a little something else you can probably guess by viewing their website.

I was called out while having coffee yesterday. I was asked how quickly I could be at the airport and told not to worry with a uniform and to just get there. A plane had gone mechanical in Victoria and we needed to get a working plane there, and also a mechanic to fix the other one. I was all excited to go flying without the uniform, woulda been a very nice change. However, at the last second we were stood down. Plane was already outside, fueled, ATC clearance received and then they went with another option. So it was back home for me, oh well, next time.

My car is heading in to have the back bumper repaired this week, from when my neighbor misjudged his parking attempt back in August. I will be happy to have that all fixed and done with, but I will be without the car for a couple days.

I was looking online at some prices for winter tires and came across a phenomenal deal on some Yokohama AVS Winter tires. My old roommate Mike had these last year and thought they were really good. The great thing about them is they're designed not only for winter driving, but still maintain good dry weather handling for those days when it's -15 but the roads are clear. So, nobody around here could match those prices and with free shipping it was no contest. The tires are enroute to me now and should arrive by UPS within a couple days. I was getting along OK with my all season tires and the all wheel drive, but last year had a couple of close calls, both of which were at less than 10km/hr when I lost traction on small little hills and then couldn't stop on the icy roads. So that is the main reason, I need better protection for the slow speed maneuvering on the icy roads that develop here in Calgary.