The Winter-Beater

Lot’s of good stuff in my Globe today. Liz Renzetti kicks things off with a beauty take-down of Facebook on A2. Also in the first section we see a nice tribute to “The Rock” and how being cut from the Stamps practice squad twenty years ago helped make him the A-list commodity he is today, and a moved-me-to-tears profile of a young actor who inexplicably checked out when everyone around him believed he had it all going on.

Further in we’ve got Doug Saunders, aka “Mr. Renzetti,” with a lengthy polemic on why we need another sixty-million immigrants to properly colonize this great land the Indians so generously gifted us, so lengthy in fact that I’ve had to put it aside for later while I mollify the Farm Manager with a display of “doing something” around the place. For once I do not begrudge The Korean his $6.30.

Now that summer’s over we’re finally getting some decent summer weather. Me and the FM spent some quality time on the patio at Dockside Willie’s yesterday afternoon, watching the melancholy spectacle of a few die-hard pleasure boaters try to wring the last few drops of pleasure from the summer that wasn’t.

Picked up an older Subaru last week. I’d set out to find a set of snows for the current ride. For not a lot more money, I got a practically new set of snows with a Subaru attached. Overall I’ve had good luck with them. Of the three I’ve owned, two took me well past four hundred thousand clicks. The other one was a lemon. This one has about eighty thousand fewer kilometres on it than the GM product that’s been my daily driver for the past few years, so with a little luck I’ve found a winter-beater that should last for pretty much however many winters I’ve got left.

Must do something with the summer vehicle situation. The Mustang 50 is a nice enough car, but I’d never have bought it had I known the FM was done with her driving days. For a thirty year old car it’s impeccable and has lots of jam, but if I’d known, I’d never have bought one with an automatic. For me, a sporty car is just a whole lot sportier with a manual. Also, I’ve only had one ragtop in my life, a ’64 Bonneville with a 348 4bbl and four speed, and I figure it’s high time I did that again. There’s a very pretty ’69 Dart GTS (big block, four speed) convertible at Cars-on-line that’s been calling my name, but the Farm Manager swears it’s really shouting “denouement.”

It’s Concours weekend at Cobble Beach, so there’s been some inspirational traffic going by Falling Downs today. Maybe we’ll check out the show tomorrow.

In the meanwhile, I better get on with “doing something,” – re-arranging the parts vehicles behind the barn… and maybe see what I can do about the mirror on the Ninja. If the FM gets into her Netflix, maybe I’ll have a shot at a 10k blast around the block.