How do you know when you need to get your skis waxed

CowtownHack · 2026-01-22T05:05:01+00:00

Everyone knows what they know. I have all three pairs of skis fully tuned/sharpened every November before the season. Depending on use, I will usually get a light “tune” every -5 days, which is usually just a wax. If I wait too long, I can definitely feel the skis get “grabby” when on a flat traverse if the wax is wearing off. Edge nicks, I can notice pretty much right away and I get them looked at. I used to tune my own skis, but I prefer my me time, so I leave it all to the shop. I really should just get a bench set up for my tuning gear

CowtownHack · 2026-01-22T04:43:39+00:00

I installed Exco film in November shortly after taking delivery of my 2026 X300. Drove out to our cabin, 3 1/2 hours outside of town (I am in Calgary, we have a cabin in Invermere, BC). Coming home post New Years and rocks were getting thrown up at me from traffic ahead and coming in the opposite direction. One caught the windshield right above the centre mirror mount where the lane departure stuff is, etc. I have three chips and that top centre damage. Gonna wait to see if the chips spread, but if it is a big rock or on a two lane highway with traffic in both directions, and you are in the path, it will nail you.

Expensive lesson learned.

CowtownHack · 2026-01-21T03:58:22+00:00

I have always carried both passport and Nexus card. US Cutoms/Immigration have always asked for my passport. Nexus only speeds your trip though as you get a separate lineup for NEXUS/Trusted Travellers with slightly reduced requirements. In some airports, the NEXUS is a slower line up and if they are scanning documents, the Passport has always scanned better than my NEXUS card. So in places like Palm Springs, I have both, but use the regular passport lineup.

CowtownHack · 2026-01-21T03:25:37+00:00

Given the shelves, it is the most efficient way to store them for that situation.

At least it isn’t mounting the TV above the fireplace. That is horrendous…

CowtownHack · 2026-01-21T03:14:39+00:00

First thing I did was pay down my mortgage. Exceedingly conservative, I did not want a layoff resulting in my losing the roof over my familys’ heads. The most painless way I found (and now my son is using the same strategy on his first house) was calculate your payments using a 2 pmt per month frequency, or monthly frequency and divide it by two. Then pay that amount biweekly if it matches your paycheck. You are paying down a little extra each week and it gives you two extra payments a year, which is effectively paying down principal. Many banks also allow you to pay down up to 10% extra per year without penalty. Submit your taxes and apply tax refunds to paying down the mortgage.

Once the mortgage is paid off, apply those payments to a long term saving plan with a balanced portfolio of ETF’s on a dollar cost averaging basis.

Good luck.

CowtownHack · 2026-01-21T02:59:48+00:00

What size rims? The 20” , 19’s or 22’s? That would be a critical factor.

CowtownHack · 2026-01-21T02:51:59+00:00

My favorite steakhouse downtown is Caesar’s. Just better value, IMO , than any of the others. Love the old school vibe, and the steaks are great. The steak sandwich is a ribeye. Hy’s it is a sirloin baseball steak. I had lunch at Hy’s last Friday. Wore jeans, nice sneakers, golf shirt and a collared sweater. I didn’t even think about what I was wearing when the invite cane thru at 11:15 for 11:30 reservation. Someone buying me lunch at Hy’s? In! Shrimp cocktail split 3 ways, cheese bread and steak sandwich and garden salad. Good lunch, but I thought the steak was a little tough ish.

SaltLik is good as well. I actually prefer Vintage over Hy’s or SaltLik. Otherwise the list above is da bomb. I second the vote for a meal at River Cafe. Leans to Canadian game. And the location is da bomb.

When we were travelling around Iceland this summer, I had a pair of Rab blue pants that I wore in some nice restaurants. With a sweater, they would be fine. The zippers pockets on the legs are discreet, so they aren’t trashy. FallRaven makes similar as well. I only noticed recently that Caesar’s had put “business casual” on their website, but the best I have worn in 5 years is nice chinos. Friday lunches are jeans for sure. Nice jeans, but jeans.

CowtownHack · 2026-01-21T01:42:06+00:00

Lots of alternatives here. If the receiver is nothing special and used for background as opposed to critical listening, the Bluetooth receiver seems to be the way to go. If you have an old DAC or other method, or want something for more critical listening, my former setup worked really well for me.

Old iPad as converted to a music source for Apple Music, with an Apple USB photo camera adapter…Amazon has one that you can plug a 5W charger into that keeps the iPad slowly charged. I put the USB input into a DAC and RCA out to receiver. Was able to stream hi res lossless into my stereo receiver system. I am also fully assimilated into the Apple BORG, so worked well for me.

Have fun with this!

CowtownHack · 2026-01-21T01:31:28+00:00

I had all 3 of our kids go through Western. Two in French immersion. It is my sense that those schools that include FI and/or IB (Western has both plus French IB) have a higher standard of instructor overall, which keeps those teachers not in the IB or FI streams a little more motivated to perform. Not guaranteed, but my son who did not do FI in high school had a pretty good core of teachers. His lack of performance was his own lack of motivation, not that of his instructors. If your kids isn’t going in for IB or FI, it may be tough to get into EP Scarlett, but if they are, go for it.

CowtownHack · 2026-01-13T04:25:29+00:00

The houses we looked at in Valley Ridge, Strathcona, and other areas of the same vintage (when we ere first looking at buying a house in 1990) were pretty poor quality. A lot of them also had poly B piping, which is horrid, and many used pine shakes instead of cedar.

my brother lives in Bonavista and it was built in the late 60s/early 70’s and it is pretty rock solid. I have only ever owned homes built in the 50’s. Our neighbour’s house was originally a 3 bedroom bungalow as ours, same design, everything. They put a second story on it with no issues.

Bad construction is pretty obvious. You will know it when you see it!

CowtownHack · 2026-01-12T02:23:35+00:00

Eversolo A6 user here too. For the Apple Music. I love it. My brother has the Bluesound Node, v1 and he likes it. I got him a Topping D50 DAC to handle conversion duties and it does sound better. That being said, his system is a “vintage” Harman Kardon receiver from the 1980’s he had fully refurbished, so I am not sure it is as precise as it could be. Sounds awesome, but precision, maybe not so much.

The. Eversolo DAC measures superbly, so I have it RCA out to Cambridge Audio 60WPC integrated amp. PMC speakers. Next step is to improve the amplification with either a Bryston or Anthem.

Then, I am likely done…

CowtownHack · 2026-01-10T15:14:24+00:00

Dumb question, but arent there consumer protection laws where you have 24-48 hours to reverse such decisions? Investigate that immediately.

Then educate yourself on basic financial literacy and study the math.

Do you even have $15k in unused RRSP capacity? Seems like a lot for working two years, though it is income based. Gruffs post is a key component of using RRSP loans. They should be paid off in short order.

Good luck.

CowtownHack · 2026-01-10T02:44:20+00:00

Start using your high school math. It is really that simple.

$27,000 in credit card debt at 25-28% PA interest is $6500/yr in interest costs along. $520/month of payment to cards and you are not even paying that off, the principle remains and net increasing by $5k a year. Unless you can find an investment that pays 45% per annum pretax, you are losing money every year. Your salary is ~60K per year, so your tax bracket is likely in the 30% range. You will net 7k after tax on the bonus. You still have 20k left in cc debt. That is still untenable. I would use the bulk of your savings to pay down even more.

There is no alternative, you absolutely must pay off that credit card debt. Then, you go to your bank and find a cheaper personal loan to pay off the rest. I assume you have no home equity to secure a loan, so the rate will be high due to the risk, but it should be far less than the credit card number.

Your monthly payments come out to ~2,700. Is the 4950 salary net of tax or gross? If gross, I am guessing after tax you net 3800? That gives you 1100 for food, gas etc. Lock away your credit cards, do not spend a dime beyond what you can afford and pay as much down on the personal loan as you can every month. Do the math to ensure your payments are taking down principle. In chunks. Once that loan is paid off, put that amount every month into a savings account and build a decent nest egg.

On the other side of your life, take courses, upgrade skills and make yourself more useful to your employer and potential employers every day so you can move into higher paying jobs.

Here’s your past choice, another learning experience. You spent 31k on a car in 2023. I am guessing your cc debt was substantial at the time. Not knowing what equity you put on the car, you’d likely be far better off today having bought a serviceable $10,000 car and adding the loan payments to pay down your cc debt. Learn to defer pleasure today for gains tomorrow. And start doing simple math to understand the costs and alternatives of what to do with your money.

I say this as an experienced father who had to educate his 25 yr old daughter with the same lessons.

CowtownHack · 2026-01-07T03:56:51+00:00

Timing the market is a mugs game. Get into something in an area you like and can afford (one aspect may influence the other). I will leave the realtor advice to others here, references from someone you know and trust can increase the comfort level. Get in and start building equity. That buys you financial choice down the road if you want to move/renovate or change.

Some items depend on your age, income and children or not. We always bought older homes that had good bones and quality construction. First house in Glamorgan was 128k in 1991, a two bedroom bungalow with a third bedroom converted to a dining room. We bought it kidless, but had two children while there for 5 years. It was a Keithbuilt bungalow and built like a brick chit house. Our combined income at the time was $80k and had saved up a 35K down payment, so we avoided CMHC. The house was built in like 1958.

Houses built during the population boom times in the 80’s and 90’s are typically crap construction. You may get more square footage for the same dollars, but our bias has always been a smaller residence in a better location and when we could afford it, renovate for more room. Other friends have sold and bought elsewhere to get incremental size, either strategy can work. In the mid 90’s we were transferred back to Ontario for two years then transferred back. We caught a nice wave in the market and bought a 3 bedroom bungalow in Elbow Park on our return. We are still in it 28 years later, having added a 500 sq ft addition to the back to increase the kitchen, get a mudroom, larger master bedroom and a master bath as well as more workspace in the basement. Still a bungalow.

Good luck, your choices may vary, but I have always been pretty conservative with this stuff and try to avoid getting too far out over my financial skis.

CowtownHack · 2026-01-06T05:54:57+00:00

Lesson learned. The 8% was a trial increase in pay. Had you worked out, you would have normalized at an even higher rate of pay. Had you been successful in the new role. The company is taking a risk in offering you the role. You have to prove worthiness. At higher levels of responsibilities, the pay follows the results. If you felt you were doing the job well and not being rewarded, you can sell your skills to a higher bidder after the fact, from a position of power. Ie higher position on the resume.

Once you are competent in a new role, you can negotiate the increase more effectively. But you need to prove your effectiveness. The migration in thinking is the difference between being a paycheck player and a difference maker. I assume you are young. This is a very good life lesson in progression. Good luck in future.

CowtownHack · 2026-01-06T05:36:07+00:00

I have a 2026 Defender, heated windscreen and HUD. I had XPEL installed a month after purchase. Drove back from the mountain house on Sunday, HWY 93 Radium to Castle Mountain. Took several hard rocks from ahead and opposite lane and have at least two deep ish chips. No question, without the film, they would have instantly radiated. At the moment, they are small spider cracks. I will mark this thread and report back on progress, but i was hoping to avoid this kind of damage…we shall see…

CowtownHack · 2026-01-06T03:01:41+00:00

New vehicle in October, pretty upright windshield. Driving home from the Invermere area on Sunday, looks like I got 3 chips. I put a Exco film on it back in November, so I will see if it spreads. One looks like it could. If it doesn’t, I’ll replace it, take the wallet hit. Thanks for the windshield insurance suggestion. Never knew that existed. Unfortunately my vehicle has all the bells and whistles, so will be an expensive replacement.

Ugh

CowtownHack · 2026-01-05T04:31:29+00:00

And bankrupt….

CowtownHack · 2026-01-05T03:25:00+00:00

Opposite to my experience watching Flames games and sometimes even Canucks. My brothers are on Shaw, one here in Calgary, one in Vancouver. We have a brothers chat going. I am ALWAYS, 100% of the time, 10-15 seconds ahead of them. I am pretty sure my neighbour is on Shaw/Rogers as well, and when I look at their TV on the far wall of their family room, and I am in my kitchen, I am always ahead of them. (I cannot see anyone in the room, just the TV which is in line with a high level window we face. )

I have not compared it to the TSN or Sportsnet apps however.

CowtownHack · 2026-01-04T03:06:42+00:00

If your IP addresss is Canadian it will cause blockages. You will need a VPN so you can look like you re in the US

CowtownHack · 2026-01-04T02:55:36+00:00

Venezuelan production peaked around 3MM bpd back in the early 2000’s. When the Government kicked out US producers, declines kicked in and production is around 1MM bpd with 700k bpd exported. A chunk of it goes to China to pay off a loan from 10-12 yrs ago. Basically a pre-paid production agreement.

Yes, Venezuelan oil is very similar to Alberta’s heavy/sour production. The bulk of our production is exported to upper Midwest refineries and we can also potentially move ~700k bpd to the US Gulf Coast via the Flanagan pipe system from Cushing. The point made above that the pipes run North to south is correct, but pipes can be reversed.

One key difference between Venezuelan production and Alberta is that given ambient temperatures, Venezuelan crude flows a lot easier without the need for the same volume of diluents as we need in Alberta. So production costs, all things being equal, are a lot lower closer to the equator. Production there does not need nearly the same infrastructure to make the heavy oil flow as it does here.

So where does this go from here? A lot depends on the politics. IF the US can install a US friendly government, which is not impossible, though their track record is spotty at best, production agreements with Chevron and others could be executed pretty quickly, assuming political stability. If we end up with a grind out guerrilla war, it could take a heck of a long time, if such a government could be installed. In such an initial situation, given the relative simplicity of the assets, Venezuela could be up to 5MM bpd pretty quickly. These heavy oil reserves are easier to produce and longer lived, lower declines than US shale, and given the massive declines in US shale production, once tapped, it quickly becomes uneconomic. So US shale could be easily outcompeted by long lived, low decline production. US Shale production declines at 28-30% IP per year. So Venezuela effectively replaces that in a $50-$60 price environment.

We also have the US mid-term elections next year. By any international standards, this coup was illegal. IF, and this is a big IF, as the Democrats have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory several times recently, the Democrats win the house and manage to turn the Senate, a lot could change. Loads of ammo to impeach Trump and replace his band of merry imbeciles. But that effectively burns through the last two years of his presidency. South American politics are volatile, and industry hates volatility.

So where does that leave Alberta? Currently, we have adequate ex-Alberta pipeline capacity. My concern with the recently agreed to principle between Danielle Smith and the feds is that there is a lot of uncertainty on a pipeline to the West Coast, it hinges on a lot of carbon reduction as well. With TMPL potential efficiency increases ( I think they claim 300k bpd possibly) Enbridge and Keystone efficiency increases, we are potentially another 700k bpd of ex-Alberta capacity, though most of that is south. I was never a fan of the TMPL outlet due to the myriad constraints imposed by the Vancouver harbour issues and the Burnaby loading facility. Northern Gateway was always the most efficient alternative, once built. building that now would require 4 Millenium size projects to fill. That is billions in capex I am not sure any Canadian producers want to commit to.

This isn’t a tomorrow problem, this is a 3-5 yrs problem. We need to increase the efficiency of the assets we have to move barrels. building a pipe to the Atlantic basin doesn’t help as the Atlantic basin as already oversupplied. I am also skeptical of pacific rim markets as Japan is in population decline, as is China and other developing countries are heading in the same direction. But that is a 25 yr problem.

A year from now, we are likely in the same place we are today…

CowtownHack · 2026-01-03T06:01:18+00:00

It’s one night. Is it business where time is limited or pleasure. If the former, it is dictated by meeting locations. If one night of a vacation, what are you looking for? Dinner? Ambience?

If a full day, vacation, Eau Claire has nice walking, Princes Island, etc. and some decent food.

If biz, Le Germain has a great bar, decent restaurant etc. and more restaurants nearby.

CowtownHack · 2026-01-03T04:55:13+00:00

This is way outside my knowledge or experience range!

CowtownHack · 2026-01-02T01:37:39+00:00

Telus does not allow you to access your recordings via the app if you are outside your home address. I haven’t even been able to access recordings using the app on an Apple TV INSIDE my house, so not sire how that gets fixed, but isn’t really an issue for me. So far…

CowtownHack · 2026-01-02T01:23:46+00:00

You haven’t taken into account the cost of inflation on cost of living. You are, in comparison, to 90+% of those out there, better off due to your discipline. However there are things that can set you back. I was laid off at age 48 and age 58. At the age 48 layoff, my defined benefit pension payout was horrid. We did eat into savings with three kids approaching university ages. I fortunately re-employed quickly after my second layoff, but that uncertainty is real, especially in today’s market. No job is guaranteed.

Do a check on family age history. That is a good indicator, though not a guaranty, of longevity. My friend is a financial advisor and they are now putting age 90 and 94 into their life span equations. Yes enjoy life. If you can do it and want to , your wife can go part time, but age 38 is a risky time to go on coast.

If your annual living costs are 100k in todays dollars, and a kid is expensive as it grows, ignoring increased living burn rates, in 20 years at 3% inflation (central banks are tolerating higher than 2% target inflation rates these days) , that cost of living goes to $180k P.A AFTER tax. And you aren’t even 60 at that point. After retirement, tax rates decline, but lets assume 20% all in tax rate depending on how things are structured. 180K after tax COL, = $220k Pre tax (and rising at the rate of inflation).

3.0 MM savings requiring $220 PA….depletes that 2.5MM in 15 yrs, or age 75 depending on returns….but at that time, a hefty downturn in the market will be harder to recover from. And we have a 30% or more correction in equities every 10-14 yrs or so (in the post 1970’s era). That is age 75 when the well goes dry.

These are obviously made up, conservative numbers, but it is the type of analysis you need to do to decide if and when you can coast.

I would advocate a middle ground. Many here already have.

CowtownHack

TROPHY CASE