I woke up.

Which is different from “coming to”,   which is a rather insignificant family joke that I might explain some day.

I’m sure there were many,  many folks who were somehow disappointed to wake up this morning,  fully expecting as they had,  to be swept away yesterday as a result of the Second Coming.  There’s probably a pun in there somewhere,  but I’m already breaking my “no sex, no religion,  no politics” rule ever so slightly as it is.

I absolutely promise to leave this one alone,  with the possible exception of there being another prediction for next year.

Having said that, I do wish to mention this one thing:

Far be it from me to wish harm on most anyone,  but if you really and truly believe that you’re about leave your earth bound shackles behind,  then you really need to put your money where your mouth is and drink the “magic cool-aid”,  and be done with it.   Actually, I’m referring to “Flavour-Aid”,  but you know what I mean.

In spite of the humour that this type of foolishness evokes,  I really hope to never hear about it again. 

 

Annoyingly,  I found myself waking up a few times last night.  Not sure why,  but I woke up at midnight,  then three,  then again at five.  It’s Saturday morning dammit,  I wanted to sleep in until at least seven! 

As it was, I was up and out the door around 7:30 to first hit the bank machine,  and then go down to the subway for a couple croissants.  This is not any reference to Subway,  the sandwich chain,  but the “U-Bahn”  station around the corner from our front door,  where there’s a bakery on the entrance level.   Kinda handy.

Travelling Companion’s hair appointment was the reason for the trip to the bank machine.  It’s probably best that I don’t come out and say just how much this type of event costs?   It’s no different here than at home it seems.  The only major difference seems to be the amount of time involved.  The appointment was for 9:45,  and I’m pretty sure she came back around noon time.   There was one lady who took along a lunch.  Seriously,  she packed a lunch to go to the hairdressers!

 

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Someone mentioned yesterday in a comment that it seemed kind of early to be putting on snow tires?   Actually,  they tend to call them “winter tires” here,  since we really don’t even get that much snow in Lower Austria.   The thing is,  winter tires are made up of a softer compound,  and therefore tend to grip the road better in lower temperatures.   If you’re driving in any conditions where the road temperature is below 5°C,  you really should be running with winter tires.    That’s all there is to it.   All those folks who go crashing and banging into each other each and every fall,  and most definitely as soon as there’s any kind of cold precipitation,  are most like using “all season radials”,  which is a poor substitute for actual winter tires.  If you’ve never had the experience of driving with winter tires,  it’s a concept that’s very hard to grasp.  Kind of like explaining the idea of a telephone to a South American Pygmy. 

 

 

We’ve already had the little chime go off in the car,  telling us that the temperature was 3°C,  and that was last week some time.

 

The garage that stores our tires has two guys doing this.  One guy balances and then checks tire pressure after installation,  and the other guy only removes and installs.   I didn’t actually time them, but I don’t think it took them more than 10 minutes.

 

I recall having a brief chat with a cab driver on October 12th of 2009, as we were heading to the airport, when he mentioned that he had to get his “Winter Reifen”  installed.   He was going to visit a friend up in Tyrol,  and they had already had snow!  I was kind of new in these parts,  but then when I realised the extremes of the geography here,  it made perfect sense.

Actually,  this past summer we had snow in the mountains in August,  and it stuck around for a few days!

 

Other than that,  pretty much an ordinary Saturday here in Wienerland.   The steaks have been marinated.  The BBQ is heating up.  Spuds are cooked and the salads are made.

Looks like we’ll be doing the church program again tomorrow.  I don’t recall what the music program was going to be,  but it’s always worth the visit.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

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