I forgot to post this earlier, this was from the weekend before when I went up North and it’s a drive from Gravenhurst up Highway 169 to Lake Joseph Road.
Man there are some nice roads and scenic drives up North, I can’t wait to redo these in the spring or summer when everything is alive. 🙂
So we’re currently doing renovations at the cottage in Belleville and we had another contractor come to our house in Toronto to take a look and will be starting renovations here soon. Ugh so much money but it’ll be worth it on both fronts. We’ll do both the kitchen & main bathroom, both are in dire need of an update.
Other then that Sunday was pretty lazy, there’s suppose to be a heavy snow storm coming in the middle of the week so I took a look at the snow blower to see if any maintenance was required. One of the tires is flat and no longer sealed to the rim but because of the cold, I wasn’t able to seal it and inflate it back up so I might have to go through the rest of the season with one flat tire. 🙁 It’s been like that for a while though and I hope that it’s not harming the drive system, Tuesday it’s suppose to be above 0 so I might give it a look again then.
Lazy days are nice especially in the winter where I don’t feel bad for doing something productive with my time lol.
Today Maggie and I took a joy ride out to the cottage in Belleville through backroads and it was really nice since my mom was looking after Brandon at home lol. We took the back roads which was fun and it was just nice to talk about random things and reminisce about the past. We’ve been through a lot in our time together and while things haven’t always been rosy we’re good and importantly stronger together.
What we both thought was really cool, close to the cottage in Northern Belleville we spotted two bald eagles flying in the skies! I suspect they were fishing, looking at the water patches which is amazing and man I so can’t wait to take Brandon birding in the future! I went back to the spot where we saw a bald eagle land on a tree but by the time I got there it had left. 🙁
After getting some lunch we drove around the roads of Prince Edward county and it was nice to see some landmarks from my time when I played airsoft at PRZ, the old military hospital ahh that brings back memories.
We got back in the mid afternoon and pretty much chilled the rest of the day/evening. It’s pretty damn cold out so I know we’re fortunate to have a nice home to reside in. We have no plans for tomorrow, it’s a bit warmer so I might take a look at the snow blower and do some maintenance on it before the snow storm next week hits us. Both our cars are filthy but it’s the winter so whatever, I’ll keep them nice and clean in the warmer weather. 🙂
So I haven’t ranted about politics in a while and this is stuff south of the border but this is great news for American workers.
Aunanimous Supreme Court ruling Monday in Hughes v. Northwestern University ensures that Americans will still be able to sue employers and Wall Street banks that bleed dry their retirement accounts — a landmark precedent in protecting the $7.3 trillion Americans hold in 401(k) accounts.
The 8-0 ruling, written by Sonia Sotomayor, found that 401(k) plan participants could continue to take legal action against employers for including high-fee, high-risk investments in their 401(k) lineup, even if they also included lower-fee, lower risk options.
The decision could be a blow against powerful private equity industry titans, who for years have been aiming to convince 401(k) plans to include their high-fee, high-risk offerings. Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman has said accessing retirees’ 401(k) accounts was “one of our dreams.”
Later in the article…
James Watkins III, an attorney who has been involved in 401(k) litigation, said that the ruling will force accountability from Wall Street.
“I gave a presentation one time at an event, and I was eating lunch, and the guy behind me said ‘very impressive presentation,’” said Watkins. “He introduced himself and said he was the CEO of a company. One of the things I have told employers is that you really need to provide plan participants with a basic education class. He told me, ‘Our company will never voluntarily give investor education to employees because they would realize how bad the plan is and then they would call you and you would sue us.’ This decision today forces them to rethink that.”
Source: Jacobin
A huge win for workers and should tell everyone never to invest in actively managed high fee mutual funds, the “small” management fee will bleed your return totally away. As Jack Bogle once said, “you put up 100% of the capital, take 100% of the risk and get 30% of the return” and this should really be a wake up call. Actively managed funds are a scam and if your financial advisor says they’re great they’re right in a sense that they’re great for them and the fund managers, not you.
I think it’s safe to say that if Wall Street & big banks are for something then I’m against it.
So here’s the full Highway 141 video from it’s start till end going Westward.
Mmm what a great drive, I wish I were out there right now! The frozen water on the rocks at near 3:41 is also very pretty, yes up North you see frozen water on rocks all the time but not like that. Fun times, as you can see I really enjoyed myself on this one. 🙂
Yesterday I went for a joyride up north, Brandon had a Scouting activity and Maggie took him so I was flying solo and boy did I have fun. 😉 I first drove up to Gravenhurst (~1 1/2 hours) then took highway 169 to Lake Joseph Road which is the old highway 69 and it was great because it reminded me of when I was a kid going up to my parents cottage back in the day. After I drove on highway 141 and it was great, a very scenic road with a lot of twists and turns.
I was recording most of the drive with my DJI Osmo Action however half way going East it fell off the windshield so I took another recording with me going Westward and this was the prettiest part.
I’m currently uploading the whole drive however it’s just under 70GB (it’s in 4K 60p so lots of data) and taking its sweet time so I’ll share that when it’s ready. The highway was great and I loved the tight twistys, in the summer I’ll go back and go a bit faster and push the Lexus IS 350 AWD a bit harder lol. I have a brand new set of Michelin Pilot Sport 4 AS tires so let’s take advantage of some of that grip right.
Today was the opposite of yesterday, did absolutely nothing but clean a few things at home and relax. Took a nap in the afternoon and now my weekend is gone… 🙁 Easy come, easy go and I’m pretty lucky as I like my job so I do look forward to Mondays. 🙂
We survived the blizzard unscathed and I have to say, I love my snowblower! We got ~40cm of snow in less than 24 hours and if I had to shovel the snow manually well I’d probably die. The snow was so high, it was over the scoop and even with that thing, it took me over an hour to clear my driveway and sidewalks, then I helped my neighbors.
Unless you had a tall SUV or truck, getting around yesterday would be near impossible and neither of our vehicles would have made it far as the Lexus CT & IS are both pretty low. Makes me wish I got another NX now but oh well it’s too late for that now. Played with B in the snow yesterday and it’s quite difficult to get up once you’re on your back as the surface area of your back allows your weight to be supported quite high by the snow but when you push down with your arms and legs, you go right through.
Hoping everyone can stay home and safe today while city crews do their work.
Biggest snow storm of the winter so far, it’s not cold out but yeah there’s a ton of the white stuff. Looked outside today and it was a big nope, I’m not going outside till much later when this is all done!
It’s days like this I’m so glad I have a snow blower!!!
Today we went to Oxtongue River Ragged Falls provincial park for a hike and it was so nice to get out. The temperature up north was a balmy -13C but we were dressed for the weather and after walking around we were all sweating so if anything we wore a bit too much. I’ve always wanted to take the family there and will definitely visit again, we saw what I think are the ragged falls but we followed one path and didn’t explore the other. That’s ok we had a great time anyway. 🙂
Next to Algonquin park, it’s been pretty cold there for weeks and while there was ice, it was very thick. I did venture onto the ice myself to get a picture (that didn’t turn out) but made sure Maggie & Brandon kept their distance. Some portions of the trail we walked were difficult but it was worth it and we had a great time. We got back late afternoon and with the incoming snow storm, I topped up both cars and Maggie picked up some groceries so we’re pretty set.
I think I’d get in trouble for that salt covered license plate cover… to be fair I wanted to get a car wash (before putting the IS away for the week) but the no touch car wash had a line that looked like it was 12 cars long and I didn’t want to wait an hour so I’ll do it later.
Funny Brandon’s suppose to go back to school tomorrow but might get snowed out, I guess we’ll find out in the morning if he’ll have to do another day of online school.
Slinky loves the sun as much as any other cat and when possible is always in it. 🙂
I love how fuzzy he still is and he’s such a great cat and family companion.
