@yerbearserker

It started snowing outside a few minutes ago. Consider the morning hike… postponed lol *for now* I don’t think it’ll be hanging around but I may as well wait for the snowfall to stop and the clouds to possibly move higher up the mountain (or lower down the valley) Winter to summer tire swap appointment is next week so…. I’m thinking not too bad on the scheduling of that one. Here’s one of those realities of living across several countries, and more nations, in the past few years. Every place sort of requires a certain amount of seasonal knowledge for different regular tasks, and just good to knows, and you have to (get to?) learn those new things again in each new place. Vancouver? It just rains for the most part lol, but you’re going to get potentially a couple snow falls when it’s chaos out there as a lot of people don’t change their tires, and don’t know how to drive smart in the snow. TLDR on that one? It’s a shitshow and the best place to be is sitting back and watching it unfold, as you slowly navigate the chaos on your winter tires, avoiding the especially stupid early morning commute insanity by just going earlier when the only other people out are the more cautious and sensible. (TBF it’s usually really wet nasty snow, & doesn’t often last) Montana? Other than the one rare long autumn, it felt like it was more long winters and long summers, with a bit of shoulder seasons. Dry cold. No plowing on side roads. The Subaru was a good choice. (Even though I’m not a female lesbian. [It’s a thing😂]) Kept the winter tires on a lot longer than parts of me felt like I should and that was the right choice. Actually felt like the Winter tires spent more time on the car than the summer tires tbh. Poland? A bit more like Montana than Vancouver, but really it’s own thing. Definitely has all the seasons. Winter is cold dry snow for the most part. Similar to Montana where you can get a good snowfall and then it won’t snow again for awhile but the snow will just keep moving around/relocating from the wind. Felt like the season was more defined and once it was over it was over. Also helps that the areas around/outside of Warsaw are pretty flat for the most part (the mountains are more down to the south). Poland is probably the more consistent and you feel like you get good use out of the winter tires, as opposed to Vancouver where most of the time you’re just driving through rain and then there are the random moments where you’re thankful you made the switch (and during those times all the tire place go psycho ofc with everyone wanting to get their tires on lol) The South of France? Well… I got the winter tires on because while I wasn’t actually too concerned/interested about any real snow there, I did know that we could easily be getting news/life changes/etc that would see us easily driving north into the Alps, through France of Italy, into Switzerland, or beyond to Poland, so…. got them on even though the in-laws were giving me looks 😂 but I’d sooner be prepared and have them think me odd, than not be prepared. Which ofc paid off when we had to drive across the Alps in late autumn (b/c the place we’d thought we’d be staying for a few months in France had very high mold levels 🤮 So anyways… living in different regions/places is very fun! It expands your perspective and understanding of the world, of other people, of oneself, in invaluable ways. And part of that includes the time cost + opportunity of learning a bunch of new things. Simple things maybe, but it all weaves together. And for @push- I’ll now reference the driving things I’ve been paid to do in my life (that I can remember off the top of my head): Paid to drive a 12 seater van full of Uni students + coworker (occasionally pulling a trailer) across Western Canada in all weather conditions (including snowstorms, isolated logging roads, highways ofc), & again when Dean of Men at a boarding school in Saskatchewan for a bit. Paid to drive the short bus full of campers/students/client groups to and from the canoeing site in BC Paid to drive a cargo truck empty then full of furniture to/from camp (because I had my air brakes ticket from my time as a Volunteer Firefighter who could legally also drive the Fire Truck [which I did a few times]) Paid to drive my personal truck to the grocery store to buy (& smash up) some Oreo Cookies when I was Crew Chief at McDonald’s (19?) and we’d run out for the McFlurries & had more coming in later that day on the next ferry 😂 Paid to drive a few times in South Africa during the time there with the above uni program (but rarely b/c we mostly travelled in a coach bus, that I wasn’t driving lol) That’s basically it afaicanremember Aquatic Bonus points: Had my boating license and was paid to ferry some people on a zodiac during a few weeks working on an island teaching nature studies/local history to school students on spring break. And ofc paid to be on a lake canoeing A LOT during my years as a canoe instructor Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk. I will now go make breakfast 😏 cc: @bizarrebeast @degencummunist.eth @yes2crypto.eth @adrienne @nounishprof @pichi @chriscocreated @mvr @arfonzo

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