Special day

This morning I took Brandon to shoot for the first time and it was amazing.  While Maggie has enjoyed shooting in the past, she was against Brandon participating till he was older and more mature and well that time has come. 😉

It’s been a while since I’ve been to Silverdale and they’ve changed a few things up.  We went to the action range and Brandon mainly shot Maggie’s Ruger 10/22 and her S&W M&P22.  He did try some 9mm out of my HK SFP9 but found the recoil a bit too heavy for him so he stuck having fun with 22LR which is fine.  Whenever I bring a new shooter out it’s always about their comfort level and I do not push them to shoot anything beyond that.

Like every new shooter, Brandon held the S&W M&P22 hard, hard enough that sometimes he was shaking but that’s common from many new shooters to squeeze the gun super tight.  I’m glad my 22LR guns eat the cheapest crap though the Remington Yellowjackets did vary in power a lot, sometimes while the bullet exited the barrel (I’d do my ACTS & PROVE) it wasn’t enough to cycle the slide and we had a few FTEs.  I don’t think it’s due to the M&P22 being dirty, I cleaned it beforehand.

I’m glad he had fun, I really enjoyed taking him out and he was all smiles the whole time he was there. 🙂

Busy day

Today was certainly a busy day as Brandon had two important activities, his BJJ grading and a scouting event later in the afternoon.

Since we had the scouting thing, I asked Kevin the main coach if Brandon could do the grading with the 9-11 year olds so we’d have enough time and he took it easy on the small kids.  Brandon is pretty good with not taking advantage of less experienced or younger kids so the coach was totally cool with it.

My boy earned his solid grey belt, he’s worked hard in the sport and definitely deserves it!  I’m very proud of him and it’s great to see his progress.

About 45 minutes later, he joined the Scouts joined the Cubs & Beavers at iFly and while Brandon was scared, he went through with it and had a good time.

Little Georgia went too but she was so frightened, she didn’t participate. Ahh well I think she’s like 6 and that’s how it goes sometimes with the younger kids.  iFly looks like a lot of fun and maybe I’ll take the family there in the future, it’s pretty close to our house so why not right.

It was a pretty busy day, all for Brandon but that’s my job as his dad and I am thankful for it. 🙂

Myrtle Beach

So last week we headed down to Myrtle Beach for a quick impromptu vacation.  I didn’t really want to go but Maggie was jonsing for some nice weather so whatever.  On the way down we hit a huge snowstorm and because we were going south, I didn’t bring a snow brush with me which ended up being a big mistake.  The first and only thing I bought on the trip was a snow brush from somewhere in Pennsylvania.  The snow came down so hard I had to pull off at the first opportunity and we stayed at another hotel for the night.  The next morning we continued down to Myrtle Beach and get there for dinner.  We’ve been there before and did a lot of touristy stuff so this time it was more low key, Maggie did some shopping, we spent some time on the beach of course and I booked a boat tour looking for alligators.  Unfortunately we didn’t see any, combination of early in the year for them and that they’re really hard to spot.

The nicest thing about being in Myrtle beach was walking around in 20+C weather and it revitalized Maggie at least.  It was a short trip, we came back on the weekend and in the last photo, I parked in a spot far away, there are plenty of other spots but this guy and his big truck needs to park right next to me.  I guess at least he’s in the lines…

Short and relaxing, that’s what the doctor ordered and it makes me wonder maybe I should retire and just enjoy life now. 😉

Auroras!

I’ll post an update on our trip over the weekend but wanted to do a quick post on a spur of the moment photoshoot I did last night.  There was a large solar storm earlier in the week and it hit the planet last night producing some beautiful auroras.  I’ve never seen them before so it was quite a treat and thanks to Cav and his finance Carrie for joining me last night!

The auroras were much fainter than the photos indicate, these shots were all 15 second photos so my Canon EOS R5 was able to capture a lot more light and while I could see the green colour, the purple as not visible to the naked eye.  I did bring my night vision along and that was a lot of fun to use, on a near moonless night you could really see the auroras dance.

LOL Cav and I made the decision to go see the auroras around 10:30pm and since they were moving East to West, he came to me and we drove about 30 minutes North of my house to a random farmer’s field because it had a good view of the northern sky. Ended up chatting and taking photos (took a video through my nods with my phone, will post later) till about 2am so I’m pretty tired today but it was worth it.

This was definitely on the bucket list and man I can’t wait for the next solar storm to try this again!

Just back from a quick vacation

Went to Myrtle Beach last week and got back today in the afternoon.  It was nice to be in 20+ weather for a few days and to watch Brandon play in the ocean (which was freezing cold) anyway we’re back safe and sound and I’ll post updates tomorrow or later in the week with pictures. 🙂

Slow walking into WW3

So I’ve blogged a lot less recently and I’m not sure if I’ve spoken about the conflict in Ukraine yet but man as an outside observer it feels like all politicians want WW3.  Why are we governed by people who act like school yard children on the world stage?  Sure Russia is the belligerent however this immediate invasion and conflict did not start last year but has its roots going back much farther.  Watching Western media cheer weapons deliveries and escalation as good things boggles my mind, neither side Russia or NATO (Ukraine is being used as a pawn unfortunately) want peace and at every opportunity either side has only turned up the heat further.

There are no negotiations going on because the logic of thought from both sides are the same.  One wants to negotiate from a position of strength but if you’re in a position of strength continue the fight.  Start to lose and propose talks but don’t want to negotiate while weak so must fight more to get into a better position and around it goes.

I don’t know what the answer is to this conflict, I think the West should acknowledge Russia’s security fears and recognize that it lied to then Russian leaders saying NATO would not expand one inch East after the fall of the Soviet Union and that it had a hand in the 2014 coup in Ukraine, that’d probably help.  Finally give Russia a way out, yeah they were stupid to start this war but if you push Putin into a corner without any options then well we’ll see the actions of a very desperate person…

If only leaders had to fight from the front instead of sending conscripts to die for idiotic political reasons…

No I wasn’t driving

I forgot to post a weekend update, it was uneventful but we did go to the park for a quick walk around in the dark.  Unfortunately it was muddy so the walk was cut short but in the car, I asked Maggie to take a picture of me with my nods on while in the parking lot.

Haha turned out pretty well & no I wasn’t driving.

Fun weekend project

Some people know I’m a bit nuts and over the weekend for fun I built a few faraday boxes to hopefully keep my electronics safe in case of…  well whatever might happen in our crazy world.

I bought a steel garbage can, picked up some cardboard boxes and lined the interior, nothing conductive is touching the metal so enclosed my stuff should be fairly protected.  After doing the quick insulation, I put a cell phone and radio inside to test and neither could receive any electromagnetic signals so that’s a positive!  In addition to the garbage can, I also did a few extra 50 cal ammo boxes I had laying around. 🙂  Colin wants his creature comforts at the end of the world. 😉

Other then that we didn’t do too much, the weather was nice but we hung around the house mainly.  One of our rental properties was vacated at the end of last year and needed a bit of work done to make it look nice, that was completed late this week and I just listed it for rent.  The previous tenants while leaving a bit of a mess were pretty good and I hope I can find another great tenant to work with.

Didn’t do too much

So with Brandon home for the weekend, my non planned weekend with Maggie didn’t materialize but that’s ok.  Still bummed out by what happened to John but that’s the cycle of life.  Last week I got a set of Chinese repro Ops-core AMP helmet kit, they look pretty cool but I wanted to see how it fit before I sprung a lot of money for the real set and yeah they’re pretty comfy!

Locally Cold Harbour Supply sells them and when they’re back in stock I’ll get a set.  I have a pair of MSA Sordin Supreme Pro with the boom mic along with my NVGs and all this other crap on my head lol…  When am I going to use the headset, I don’t know maybe if airsoft survives C21 I’ll play with Brandon so fingers crossed there…

Back to the grind tomorrow, hopefully it’s an uneventful week!

Thank you John

Last night we took Brandon to the meeting point for his scout camp and found out that John the head Scout leader passed away. 🙁  I believe he was in his 80s but still it sucks very much and I will miss him.  He was such a positive influence on countless children over the years so the group will definitely feel a huge loss.  I don’t have any other details, camp was cancelled and I guess I’ll wait to hear about when his funeral will be.  Sigh 2023 has not been a good year so far and I hope this is the end of people we know dying.