What's new

GIVEAWAY! Brrrrrrr - It's COLD out there CONTEST

As I type this it is 11 degrees outside with winds of 28 mph. No better time for a contest about the cold and no better time for you to have three chances to win something to keep things warm...

Here is how you enter:

Tell us about a time you were cold - what was it like?

The three winners will be selected by random.org after this runs a few days. Each one of the winners will get to choose one of our popular shaving scuttles to keep their lather warm. This is CONUS only please. Here are some pics from our store of the four different colors. More info about each one can be found right here.

Have fun with the stories!


IMG_5859.jpg
IMG_5976.jpg
IMG_5851.jpg
IMG_5855.jpg
 
Last edited:
I was young (maybe 10) and living in New Hampshire at the time and was out riding snow mobiles with family.
My cousin was not paying attention and jerked his snow mobile forward, tossing me off the back and breaking my arm.

Luckily my family knows what they are doing and stabilized the arm (bad break) - but that left me with a good part of my upper body exposed to the elements. The pain of the break kept me somewhat distracted from the cold - but brrrrrrr just the same.

Luckily you heal quickly when you're young!

Stay toasty gents!
 
It was the late 1970's. I was in boot camp at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and had been there for about three weeks when something went wrong with the showers. Only one shower was functional and that one dispensed freezing cold water because we were in the middle of an exceptionally harsh winter.

After three days of smelling myself and everyone around me, my bunkmate and I decided that we were going to take a shower even if no one else had. The water was so cold it felt like needles hitting the top of my head. Fastest shower I ever took and quite unpleasant, but it sure was nice to be clean again.
 
Last edited:
Not in (Canada), but a great PIF. Good looking scuttles.

To put my local weather into perspective, it was minus, yes minus, -19f this morning (with wind, feels like -40) when I took the dog out for an hour long walk in the forest, through a foot of fresh powder snow. We were the first ones to hit the freshly snowed trails, not even wildlife had been on them. It was a blast.

This was a pic from the other day, when it just as cold and another fresh snowfall.

You know it's cold when the dog gets an ice beard.

PXL_20211227_155410786.PORTRAIT.jpg
 
Last edited:

Ron R

I survived a lathey foreman
Those are some nice looking scuttles to keep lather warm this time of year, nice colors.
Well this is very nice contest and I live in Canada so I'm out because its for CONUS rules.
But this morning it was -39C or -39 F (close enough)this morning and had my shave and you know I still enjoy a cold water rinse after each pass but I still warmed up my ceramic bowl for nice warm lather. Warm lather is nice in winter months.
 
One winter, about 20 years ago…Was hanging out in Baltimore. It was not too terribly cold and I was accustomed to riding my motorcycle in cold-ish weather. Figured it was a doable ride to head up to Boston to visit a friend…bad move.
Front came through. Rain, winter mix, sub freezing temperatures. “Gonna be dumb, gotta be tough.”
Rode through the mess; got to Boston. Wet, clothes frozen, mild frostbite, no feeling in the extremities, and my torso had turned a disturbing shade of mottled blue. Cold? Nah…can’t be cold when you have NO feeling in your body. Decided later it was not one of my smarter moves.
 
I'll start with the classic "It's so cold out, I saw a dog stuck to a fire hydrant".

Several years ago in February, it was below -20 F.
Not wind chill -20, it was *real* -20.
What was strange was that usually when it's that cold in the Southern Tier
it doesn't snow very much. But this time there was a blizzard.
I worked with a crew of drivers and we had to move cars in the airport parking lot
for the snow plows.
What mostly impressed me, was that a week later
when the temperature went up to -10,
I was walking around with my coat open.
I was amazed at how easy -10 was
after becoming acclimated to -20.
 
Last edited:
Not in but here is my story. It was in the middle of the winter and I went on a case in San Juan, PR. 86 degrees F and very high humidity.

I get a call from my office. I am needed in Duluth MN ASAP. I take a flight from San Juan to Chicago. It was 0 F. I then take a flight from ORD to Green Bay WI. Back then you would enter and exit the airplane from outside stairs. It was -10 F in Green Bay. I then arrive in Duluth MN where the temp was -15F with a wind chill of -25F . From +86 to -25 in less than 8 hours. The first night I spent in a Best Western Hotel overlooking Lake Superior where the temp of the room would drop every time the door was open. I was there for three or four days and shivered the entire time.
 
The first time I went ice fishing. I was freezing my tail end off, and worst yet...wasn't catching any fish. I noticed another guy, less than 40 yards away, catching fish left and right. I walked over to him, shivering with cold, and asked, "How is it that you are catching all of these fish?" He himself had a difficult time speaking, and I thought the extreme cold had gotten to him as well. He then puts his gloves hand up to his mouth and spits into his gloved hand, and then looks at me and says, "You have to keep the bait warm!"

At any rate, I freeze every winter and simply stay indoors when all possible. This is to be expected when you have iced tea for blood! Time to move to the south, or southwest!
 
My first exposure to memorable cold was on a Boy Scout campout where we built lean to shelters and spent the night in them. We didn't bother bother to put a door on it. The temperature dropped at night.

It wasn't below freezing, but in Redwood country the air is really moist. It was the most miserable night I have ever passed.
 
I’m in.

So the Canadians among us get colder, but we get cold in Minnesota. I have found that if you get outside every day as the temperatures go down you adapt. One can actually stand some pretty cold temperatures. About a dozen years ago I worked in downtown Minneapolis. Most of the buildings are connected by second floor skyways. Many people can get around town in shirtsleeves during the work day. However, our building was out connected to the skyway system and we didn’t have a cafeteria in the building. So to get lunch I had to go outside. Fortunately, I only had to walk a block and a half outside. Or, a half block away one could get into a parking ramp. It wasn’t heated, but it was out of the wind.

In any event, I went out one lunch, no coat, just shirt and a sweater and was about a half block from the office when I realized it was 20 below Fahrenheit. I was quite surprised to realize that while it wasn’t comfortable it wasn’t painfully cold for that short walk.
 
I'm in.

My most memorable cold story is walking to the bar in college in the middle of a blizzard. It was a quarter of a mile, but the wind and snow were falling so hard that my scarf (which belonged to my then soon-to-be-fiancee) blew right off me even though it was securely tied when I left. I arrived nearly frostbitten at the pub and didn't dare walk down the long street home, but had a roommate come and pick me up, 5 Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat Ales later. I never found the scarf again and my stupidity was a source of consternation to my girlfriend and her parents.

It was -60 or -62 degrees Fahrenheit with windchill. That is not an exaggeration - I remember being shocked when I saw the weather advisory. Wind on the plains in Minnesota is crazy.
 
I endured 5 winters in a small town in NW Ohio. I knew I had acclimated to the Tundra when I was walking down Main Street one afternoon and it seriously felt balmy and spring-like. I was unbuttoning my coat as I walked past the bank and saw the temperature was 30 deg. F.
 
Well, okay I'm in.

I've worked for a railroad contractor for the last 25 years. I've endured folks from the south stating that the 35-40 deg F weather was too cold for them. And conversely the fine folks from the Great White North that regularly work in places like Church Hill MB where the highs are -40 (not including wind chill). Honestly I've been in really cold places, but never for any extended period of time. And for some reason, I have a much easier time dealing with really bitter cold days than I do with days that are circling the freezing mark.

I guess one of my most memorable cold spells was there were a few days we were working between Parkersburg WV through Wheeling WV and on into Youngstown OH. It was pretty cold (below zero F at least) for a few days but for the most part of a long weekend in Youngstown it got down into the -20 range and the railroad shut us down because they were having issues with their own equipment freezing up (even though it had been "winterized").

It wasn't such a horrible experience as I was much younger and have a tendency to be a bit warm blooded anyway. My boss took the vehicle home for the weekend and left me to wander town on foot. I didn't wander too far, but I did find a small strip mall where I was first introduced to a local Ohio gastronomical delight called Skyline Chili.

And that is the only real point to that whole story. And, yeah I've told that story a multitude of times and it really only serves as an avenue that leads to my first taste of Skyline. It is still a favorite to this day, even though the only way to get it is through mail order.
 
Eighteen years ago, right around this time of year, I was a 22 year old truck driver that was about to experience what winter was all about outside of my hometown in central California. I had a job at the time driving an 18 wheeler for a restaurant supplier. We delivered for Outback restaurants all over the western United States. My partner was a friend of mine from high school. He and I drove a regular route from Shafter, CA to Twin Falls, ID delivering to 6 or 7 restaurants along the way. We spent an idyllic summer and fall on this route, completely oblivious to the wake up call that was coming our way. My first harsh lesson from Old Man winter started peacefully enough. We offloaded at about 5 restaurants around the Boise area on a Thursday. The weather hovered around 10 degrees below zero but was blessedly devoid of rain or wind. We made our way to Idaho Falls congratulating each other on our cold weather toughness and stayed the night at a hotel before delivering to our stop the next morning. We woke up on that Friday morning and flipped on the news to start our day. When the weather lady said that it was -40° and that the wind was blowing at 50 mph I couldn't quite register exactly what was being said. Right around the time I heard the words "polar vortex" being uttered my partner jumped out of bed, headed to the window and opened the drapes. The awesome might of mother nature was on full display. For a moment I thought I had woken up in some far off and frozen land but it slowly dawned on me that I was in Idaho and still had a job to do. When we walked out of the hotel and into the open air I felt like I got punched in the gut. That icy air reached into my throat and pulled out the warmest parts of my soul. We fought against the wind to get into our truck and looked at each other with shock and relief when it actually started. We sat silent and motionless for the next half hour until the vents started to finally blow hot air. After I was able to start stirring around, I threw my paperwork binder onto the back bed and it sounded like it landed on a concrete floor. I went to investigate and realized that our posturepedic mattress topper had frozen completely solid. Everything had. We finally felt warm enough to head over to our restaurant which was only a few blocks away. After parking, we braced ourselves and exited our just warmed up truck and started to remove the locks from our trailer and start the delivery. The locks were frozen completely solid, of course. I got some hot water from the restaurant and was able to start breaking everything open. It was the first time that I have climbed into a refrigerated trailer and felt warmer than being outside. That frozen box was like an oasis of warmth and peace in between all of the dolly loads we were pushing into the restaurant. I'll never forget the frozen whip crack of that wind hitting me every time I came down our trailer ramp. That delivery couldn't have ended soon enough. Our reward was getting to drive another couple of hours in a blizzard to Twin Falls to complete our final delivery. I don't think we spoke a single word while offloading at our last stop. We just surrendered to what had to be done and made our way home as fast as possible. We normally stopped in Jackpot, NV for a burger and to pull a few slots but we just kept on trucking until we dropped below the snow line. It was 45° outside in the Nevada desert when we finally pulled the truck over at a rest stop. We stood there, wearing only t-shirts and jeans while we absorbed the sun's warmth and truly feeling it as the source of all life. I spent a couple more winters at the job before finally moving on to more local work but nothing kicked my *** quite like that first winter storm.
 
we were camping in the snow in tents without floors... we woke in the morning and it was freezing and we started talking without sticking our heads out of our sleeping bags.... at one point someone said, "Mark, where are you?" I stuck my head out and saw that over night i had rolled against the wall of the tent. The tent pegs came up and i had rolled outside...no wonder it was so cold. when i got back inside the tent it seemed downright balmy. even tho it was 28 fahrenheit as I recall.
 
Top Bottom