My dad in the US was trying to send me some money, to my US bank. There’s nothing like interac, and even if he could figure out Zelle, I doubt if I could set up an account for my US bank account without a US address.
He tried to mail a cheque, but it never arrived: him? USPS? Canada Post? None of them are super reliable these days….
He wired it, which cost me $15 to receive.
Interac is amazing. I can’t even with the backwards American banking system.
If your US bank is a member of the Zelle network, which most non-credit unions bigger than just a few branches are, then you already have the raw ingredients for a Zelle account. At your bank website figure out how to activate zelle and it’ll want to know whether you prefer to be found by others via your email address or your cellphone number. That’s it. You’re in.
Getting Dad to figure out how to opt in at his bank is a taller order. But once he’s done that, all he needs is your email or phone number, whichever you chose as your Zelle identity.
I thought we were done.
We’ve had winter, false spring, second winter, the spring-like illusion of hope, winter part III the blizzarding, and I thought we were finally arrived at true spring.
But no. It’s Winter 4.0.
Just keep practicing until you get it right, apparently.
Seriously, 4 winters seems like quite enough, even for the Great White North. Sorry to hear you’re suffering.
I don’t know how the US money transfer systems work, but one of the great things about Interac is that neither the sender nor receiver needs to set up anything in advance – all they each need is a bank account.
Exactly.
It’s not a problem I really want to solve: his interest in giving me money is more about him than me, and I am already on his bank account so I could actually just take the money myself were I so inclined.
(This was a Christmas gift from last year. I don’t care about that, but the implications of not being able to manage a simple, self-appointed task for four months bother me a lot. He has the energy to go to the gym six days a week, but that literally saps 95% of his energy for doing anything else, but he can’t admit it. #%^!*¥! stubborn self-sabotaging old people. Family and doctors have been trying to get him to step the workouts down to reasonable for where he is, but it is his firm belief that only exercise keeps him alive. Nutrition optional.)
Tomorrow is the beginning of summer. Don’t talk to me about calendars and weather and stuff like that, tomorrow the Camry gets its original factory wheels with regular tires put back on!
The winter tires and rims will be returned to the Lovely eX-Wife to do with as she pleases – I never want to see them again. I believe she’s planning to sell them through her various social media marketplaces, and is welcome to keep the proceeds. Due to her belief in winter tires and the number of cars she’s been doling out to various offspring, part of her garage looks like a tire warehouse. But it’s not a belief that I share. I drove year-round with regular all-seasons in the minivan, and the Sebring had a nice set of Firestone “Weather-Grip” all-weather tires, but only on the front.
I brlieve it was @Spoons in the recent “It’s hot in here” climate thread who said they’d not needed snow tires this year and intended to abandon the now-unneeded ritual next year.
Wasn’t me, but FWIW, there may have been only two or three days locally this winter when snow tires would have been handy. I kept my regular tires on all winter.
You can have my Hakkapeliittas when you pry them, um, off my rims, I guess. Please don’t.
Back in the days of my youth, back in those rosy days of careless youth when I bought my beautiful, gorgeous brand new 1977 Chevrolet Caprice, I considered it a given that I would get stuck in snow at least once every winter, and probably more than once. As indeed I did.
The difference was that I then lived in a snow-belt area, climate change was not what it is today, and rear-wheel drive generally has shitty traction. Also, I lived in a townhouse complex with an outdoor parking lot, which was plowed, but obviously not plowed around the huge snow accumulations right around the cars.
Those days are but a distant memory. With FWD or AWD and climate change, the idea of being “stuck in snow” seems rather quaint.
Of course there’s the safety factor of winter tires, and they do have better grip in low temperatures, but how much better? Winter driving today is mostly over wet roads if not actually dry roads, not snowy or icy ones, though the latter can certainly occur. But it’s rare.
Apparently excellent tires if you live in the center of the Antarctic or, at the other pole, if Santa Claus is your next-door neighbour. Or, as in your case I believe, if you live on the prairies. During my previously mentioned frequent travels throughout Canada, I was always impressed by the snowy beauty and crisp dry cold of Saskatchewan winters, but along with that you get, you know, cold and snow. 
Although we had more snow than usual this winter due to La Nina, we normally don’t get much, and climate change is definitely raising average temperatures noticeably more than the global average. Only once this winter have I driven on roads that actually had snow on them. Snow tires are simply no longer justifiable here. I hope that enough people feel otherwise that the LXW can get some decent bucks for the snow tires.
Meanwhile the institutional mentalities lag behind the reality. In some jurisdictions (Quebec for one, I believe) winter tires are mandatory at specified times of year, and here in Ontario where they are not, auto insurance provides a discount if you have them. Which reminds me that I must notify my insurer before next winter that I no longer do. Honestly, I’m sure that the pittance of a discount isn’t even enough to cover the minimal tire swap fee even if you have the tires on their own rims. In this area it’s just not worth it any more, but again, totally depends on where you live. In some places nothing less than studded Hakkapeliittas will do.
ETA: It should be pointed out that the proper term for these kinds of tires is “winter tires”, not “snow tires”, because in addition to offering better grip on snow and ice because of the tread design, they’re also made of rubber that is more pliant in cold temperatures than regular tires. But, again, in some situations it’s just not worth it any more.
To be honest, no. It was on a suburban street pointed towards the wrong direction…
And in different news, I live in a suburb with very narrow streets, parking is tough. I drove down to the shops, and while in there the car got towed by some arsehole resident, presumably for blocking their access.
I paid a homeless guy for this information. Now I have to go negotiate with the police…