19 years

So today Maggie and I celebrate our 19th anniversary and my god where does the time go!  She’s the best wife & partner one could ask for and I always feel lucky to have Maggie in my life.  Thank you for everything and I look forward to what the future brings!

2024

I’m not typically a doom and gloom guy on my blog but I have to say I have a pretty bad feeling about 2024.  There are so many conflicts & potential conflicts that could flare up around the world, I get why aliens don’t visit us.  Our political leaders act like children on the world stage and it’s maddening that they wall want war.

Sigh, I weep when I think of all the lives lost needlessly so far and those that may lose their lives in the stupid fights that may pop up.  Also do not buy the narrative that one side is the bad guy and “our side” is good, it’s much more complicated than that and what’s occurring didn’t happen in a vacuum.

With that said as an individual in Canada, I have absolutely no ability to sway things so I’m just going to do my best to try and make sure my family is as insulated from any shocks that may come.  I hope I’m wrong and that this year turns out to be peaceful so we’ll see what’s in store.

Wishing you the very best for 2024!

End of year vacation

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.

Toys are fun!

I’ve always liked radios & communications gear and back in my airsoft days after jumping from radio to radio, I finally settled on a Motorola XTS 2500 Model 3.  It worked great and I absolutely loved how durable it is, being a klutz not breaking when I fall on it is a big deal. 😉  Anyway recently I picked up another, this time the model 2 without the keypad but meh good enough.  I like the fact it has digital output and ADP encryption (my original is a military version with AES 256 but my new one is from a Washington state police dept) so people can’t snoop on my messages, easily anyway.

The Motorola ASTRO 25 CPS software is not easy to use, I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise and it took me about half a day’s tinkering to get everything working properly but yeah now these two are good!  Due to different firmware and hardware options, I couldn’t simply clone one radio to the other so I had to compare settings and there are so many, it can make your eyes gloss over.  I still have some Baofeng radios, used those when I was still a Scout leader and while I’m not really active, or need radios for anything I still want to get a few more.  Just in case right… 😉

Gunshots!

Brandon was a bit bummed out that his hike tomorrow was cancelled so I took him to walk around Darlington provincial park for a walk this morning.  It’s a nice park and while we were walking the trails, in the distance we could hear shotguns go off.  It’s waterfowl season and hunters can hunt in a small area of the park.  Didn’t bother either of us obviously we’re use to guns and what they sound like, just a nice distraction from the droning highway off to the North.

With the heavy rain yesterday, the park was clear of people which was nice.  The paths were a bit muddy but both Brandon and I know rain is just another form of weather and can be enjoyable.  Didn’t rain too hard while we were out but it wouldn’t have mattered as we were dressed for the weather.

It’s the little things like going for a walk with my boy in nature that I love, it may have looked gloomy outside but it was all sunshine and rainbows for me. 🙂

What a disaster

This was a heart breaking video shot & narrated by some AP journalists about the opening days of the Ukraine/Russian conflict in Mariupol.

Be warned, there are lots of graphic images & videos of dead people (kids, families, etc) and the only thing I could think was that our political leaders on the world stage all act like god damn school children arguing & fighting in the yard.  What will all this death and destruction achieve, was it really worth it for Russia to gain a bit more territory or for the Ukraine’s “allies” to feed Ukrainians into the meatgrinder?  Another thought I had while watching was that I hate how media & games glorify war, it’s not fun it’s terrifying and horrible.  I’m guilty of enjoying violent videogames, I enjoy shooting guns and hell I played airsoft but I never deluded myself to think I’d be actually good in a real war; I’m certain it’ll be a nightmare.

We should throw out any politician that talks up war or considers it an option, only dialog can help sooth our differences and make things better.

Jupiter in opposition

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.

No wonder

As a species we fight over the stupidest things, no wonder aliens don’t visit us.  While I find the clips coming out from the Hamas attack, Israel retaliation & footage from the ongoing Ukrainian war, it makes me so sad to see the needless killing.  What is this all for really, all the fighting does is harden all sides in the conflict making peace less likely.  As much as some may dislike politics, it’s a necessary evil to help solve our problems and only when we talk and address the root causes of the problems in our world will we move forward and make things better.

Why?

The Thanksgiving long weekend was relaxing but that’s overshadowed by world events.  Looking at the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, I understand that what Israel is doing with Gaza is wrong and that the roots of this go back many decades but what was the point of Hamas attacking Israel?  They didn’t think they could actually hold territory right, was this all just to hit back hard for once?  Didn’t anyone have enough foresight to realize Israel will retaliate and when they do, it’s the people of Gaza who will suffer?

I always side with the oppressed and thought the BDS movement was the only way to cause enough pain for Israel to give Palestinians their own home but this was just stupid.  Attacking military or governmental entities is one thing, attacking innocent civilians (sometimes brutally) does their cause a great disservice and only hardens resolve.  You can’t kill or fight your way out of this (for either side), there needs to be political will and right now everyone is acting like a bunch of school children.

Netanyahu’s grip on power was tenuous but now it’s as solid as ever, the world needs that asshole to leave before we can move forward and the weekend attack by Hamas has only set back that timeline and their cause.