Took Brandon to Silverdale this morning to do some shooting and it was great!
Brandon got to shoot his GSG-16 rifle, he enjoys it quite a bit and even though he didn’t initially like the recoil from 9mm pistols, he enjoyed shooting the Glock 19 on the steel plates. 😉 The ting from striking steel is very satisfying and I’m glad I can share this wonderful hobby with him.
My friend Andrew made me three helmet display stands and they look freaking awesome!
Allows me to balance the helmets out and it looks great on the shelf behind me during video calls. 😉
We went on vacation to Myrtle Beach (yes again) the last week and while it’s not cold here in Toronto, it was much warmer and nicer down south. My mom accompanied us down so she and Brandon shared a room. It was a very laid back vacation, we’ve been there many times so we mainly enjoyed nature and the beach.
One of the days, Brandon and I did break off and go for a nature walk and to do some birding (more on that later), for the short hike it was interesting that it felt like walking around nature at home but I didn’t recognize the trees or leaves on the ground. We visited WonderWorks, it’s kind of like the Ontario Science Center but a bit more fun oriented.
For birding, Brandon and I mainly walked along the Myrtle Beach and saw a bunch of brown pelicans and seagulls fishing (and fighting over food). We also visited Huntington Beach state park where we saw the some egrets and a pink spoonbill fishing in the marsh.
I haven’t taken many photos recently and this trip really revitalized my love of photography which was great. I also spent some really amazing quality time with Brandon, some of the best moments I’ve had in the last little while… On another note, Brandon really liked using the Canon EOS R6, let’s see over the years he went from the Canon T4i to M50 to RP to the R to now the R6, lol what a lucky kid huh. He did mention how he wished he could get closer to the animals and yeah his EF 70-300mm lens is a bit short, debating if I should get the new RF 100-400 as that thing looks to be a great value.
We came back yesterday afternoon and you could tell Slinky really missed us. A great way to end 2023, today we’ll just be relaxing at home as I’m tired from all the driving and enjoying the last long weekend of the year.
Last week Jupiter was in opposition (closest point to the Earth) so I took a photo and it worked out pretty damn well!
Amazing that you can even see the various bands of the clouds on the planet! That and the 4 Jovian moons are also visible which is amazing. One of my best photos, I’m really happy with this one.
Picked Brandon up from camp last night and it was great to see him. He said he had a decent week, though was frustrated at the younger kids for not listening and messing around when instructions were given lol yeah that happens. Next year he wants to attend but as a leader in training instead, he saw a few of the older scouts doing that and thought it’d be fun.
Before I picked Brandon up though I went for a walk with Mike, he wanted to explore the trails at Edward Gardens so I arrived an hour early to take a picture of the bugs and they did not disappoint!
I was using the Canon RF 100-500mm lens and it’s macro capabilities aren’t bad at all at 0.33x magnification (though I’m not selling my Canon RF 100mm macro lol). As for the park, when Mike arrived, we walked down the main path down to Sunnybrook park. He wasn’t feeling super hot though so we turned back soon but it was really nice to get out and walk around at least.
With Brandon returning home, I slept much better last night. He has a lot of experience outdoors so I was not worried something would happen but still I feel better when he’s around. I’ll sleep the best after Maggie returns from China, right now that looks to be around middle of August but we’ll see.
Last weekend (yeah I’m behind) I went to Toronto Airsoft to pick up some BBs. I still have some of my old BB Bastard stuff but most fields now require bio BBs so I’ll try some of TA’s house brand to see how it goes.
Hehe Slinky always has to investigate when I’m going to take photos and made himself at home laying on his back and taking a nap while I did my thing. 😉 Picked up 0.28g BBs for myself and 0.25g for Brandon to use with his CA MP5, I also got a bag of 0.2gs for chronying. The CA MP5A3 came in at 388 fps which is perfect for outdoor play while the PTW with the blue cylinder shot 390. Glad after all these years of storage it still has a good seal…
There’s a local airsoft outdoor field within 30 minutes of my house and the next time they have a newbie game, I’ll attend with B. Can’t wait to share the hobby with him, it’s going to be great. 🙂
The Canada day long weekend has been going well, I’m still recovering from shingles, the rash has gotten much smaller but the pain has remained and sometimes there’s a sharp stabbing pain from the right side of my toros which is pretty annoying. Hopefully when the disease subsides completely I’ll be back to normal. Friday & Saturday Brandon had some friends over, end of the school year and he did well academically so it was hard to say no.
Yesterday we didn’t do much, went out for lunch then relaxed at home. Since I’m not sleeping well, I’ve been taking naps but not being a nap person, I sleep too long and am groggy afterwards. 🙁 Today Maggie went to play badminton and we all met up to have some dim sum which was great. I guess I’m the biggest reason we didn’t do anything, driving is difficult due to the abrupt bumps in the road, when I hit one there’s quite a bit of pain so I’m trying not to go anywhere really.
In other news, I picked up a Classic Army MP5A3 for Brandon.
He’s turning 13 in August and I wouldn’t mind playing airsoft with him, he seems interested so why not. There’s a local field in Clarington that’s around a 30 minute drive and they have newbie days, when I’m fully recovered we’ll give that place a shot and see how it goes. The MP5 was one of my first guns (albeit I had a TM) and I really love that platform so it’s quite nice to hold one again. We’ll see what the future brings but I stopped playing because of my fatherhood duties, perhaps now that he’s older I can get back into the hobby. 🙂
So shingles has been kicking my ass and this morning I decided I wanted to go for a walk in the park and took Brandon along with me. The walk itself wasn’t too bad but the bumps on the road as I was driving was quite uncomfortable…
I still love my 3 year old Canon EOS R5, in the first two photos the foreground is quite busy but the camera could still snap onto the subject perfectly! I tell you animal eye AF is like cheating… Nothing spectacular but it was great to get out and shoot something, I haven’t done enough of that in the last little while and quite enjoyed this.
As for my issue, the rash is no longer growing but it’s pretty deep red and it feels like I got beat up. According to the NIH website I’m at #2, and this is definitely going to last more than two weeks… 🙁
I received this email yesterday and it was such a nice touch.
It’s been a while since I talked about the hobby airsoft and I had some great times showing new players what I’ve learnt over the years. With airsoft getting a reprieve from the government (it was slated to be banned), I’m glad people will still be able to enjoy the hobby. In fact I’ve been thinking about getting back into it myself, Brandon is old enough to play now and some of his friends have been talking about it, what fun that would be to experience with my boy.
Needless to say the sender made my day and thank you, I’m happy I made an impact and glad that you can share this wonderful hobby with your boy too!
Today I went to Edward Gardens with some of the guys to take pictures of the flowers & bugs; got rained on the whole time we were there but it was worth it! Perhaps it’s because it’s still early June but not a lot of flowers were blooming yet and some of the flower beds were just barren. Still we got lucky as some of the bugs were still out and made the day fun.
We wrapped up just after 12pm and just our luck as we were starting to leave, the sun comes out grr… Ahh well we still had a good time and hit up Jack Astors for lunch.
Good day all in all and I have to get out to shoot more.
