Thursday, March 19, 2020

Eight Years? WTF?!

Yes yes, I know. It's been a while. And I didn't exactly leave things in any sort of good way. But then again, does a real blogger ever QUIT blogging? 

According to this post, no they do not.

So why start back up now? Well a few reasons but the biggest one is that I'm now stuck at home for an indefinite period of time due to the COVID-19 break-out and I wanted to journal a bit of that. Additionally, I write for a living now and I need somewhere to practice a bit and keep my skills up. MAD skillz.

So what have I been up to between Steven Harper banishing the penny and the world coming to a screeching halt? Are these things connected? Did I ever finish watching all of Lost?  All excellent questions, all will be answered in time.

In the last eight years, things have been interesting. I think I'd already built my full complement of children by the time I posted last, Tai, Kayah and Jonas. We moved to a bigger house in 2014 and we've been living the 'hood life with them and 3 animals. 

Yeah, three animals.  For those who followed this blog but somehow didn't keep up with me otherwise, the sweet beauty that was Bootsy passed away back in 2014 not long after we moved. It wasn't necessarily a clean end and it still breaks my heart to think of those final weeks with someone so gentle. 

Before Bootsy left us we did welcome another pet into the household however, Chopstick the tabby cat.  We had a bit of a mouse problem and Choppy was simply the best in the business- and he hasn't let us down.  We experienced nothing short of disaster when some jackwagon from the neighbourhood shot poor Choppy in the butt, vaporizing the bones in one of his hind legs.  He survived but lost a leg.  He can still catch mice like no one's business.  You don't mess with Chop.

Finally, Bootsy somehow returned to us in the form of an adult-female husky named Leika that we adopted in October 2014. She's the embodiment of that dog and has proven to be an excellent caregiver to our children and a kind loving companion. 

The Criminal Kid found it's end in around 2015-16 (it was all a little fuzzy). We're still all friends and do jam on occasion - lots of stories there but for another time.  I did putz around a few other bands but have frankly struggled to play with anyone for the last 5 years or so.  To supplement, I started a radio show with my brother, Andrew, called The Cockpit on 91.3 FM CJTR in Regina.  My involvement with the station has been very intense and I find myself currently the president of the Board of Directors for the station. A trying job in trying times I can assure you.


Well, that's about enough updates for now.  I'll post again tomorrow - probably more COVID-19 related because there are some thoughts and observations I'd like to write down at this early part of the disaster.  We'll do more catching up in the weeks ahead. I have stories to tell and I'm looking forward to talking to you again.

Thursday, September 06, 2012

Stephen Harper - pennyscourge

Steven arrived home after a long hard day of handshaking and baby kissing. He walked to the fireplace, dumped off a load of change from that hippie bakery on the mantle.

His face darkens as he separates the copper from the silver and in a loud booming voice he cried "I WILL DESTROY YOU".

Best thing that man has ever done. The legacy project to end all legacy projects

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Solar Imaging

Last weekend I attended the annual Saskatchewan Summer Star Party in Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park.  I HIGHLY recommend this outing for anyone with an interest in astronomy.  I learned more in 3 days - particularly about telescopy and observing - than I've learned in the past year on my own.

I was very fortunate to have access to my dad's 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope on a motorized mount in  addition to my very old (30 years almost!) 4" on equatorial mount.  Big words.  I know.

The best part though is that I was let loose with the motorized Cassegrain during the day last Saturday.  So I took out my nifty iPhone telescope mount, some filters and a big ol' sun and got some great shots!


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Thursday, August 02, 2012

So Tired

Being a father has had a ridiculously negative affect on my sleep.  I thought working shift work was bad, but having one child who has night terrors and another that is still nursing through the night means that I haven't slept with any regularity basically in the four years since Kayah was born. 

I normally have never been one to be too pissy about losing some sleep - and I've not only been operating but actually thriving in the past few years so it can't be that bad.  But there are days where I can't lift my head by supper time.  And I drink too much coffee.  Way too much.


Tuesday, July 31, 2012

That''s a SPICY Meatball

So when you start looking at all the stuff out there in that big old space thing, a few things come clear.  As time passes and things break apart, they cool.  So anything of a certain age or certain size has cooled from a ball of lava to say - a rock.  That changes things, because atmospheres disappear and the places become big crater balls.  There are moons around Saturn and Jupiter with active volcanos.  They're still seismically active, just like Earth.

So this got me wondering, will the Earth eventually cool and harden to rock?  When this happens, the giant mass of iron at the center of the planet will stop spinning and the magnetic field that protects us from the worst of the sun will stop.  Freaky stuff.

So tonight I did some looking at it seems that in fact, the Sun will go red giant and vapourize the planet way before that happens.  The earth would take 10,000,000,000 years to solidify, but the sun will destroy the earth in 7,600,000,000 years.  The sun takes it by a hair.  If we don't do it first.

Refreshing.

Monday, July 30, 2012

Mark Interacts with another animal.

Can it be? Yep, let's get this blog Rick rolling in style.

Mark interacts with Bootsy

Divide and Conquer

One of the driving forces for getting Pilot's World rolling again is that I have a desire to share some of my hobbies with the world. Twitter does this a bit, but it's not the best outlet. I considered starting some specific blogs, but to be sure, I'm too lazy. So I'll put it all here

I will use tags an try to set things up so that you can find what it is you want to see.

I'm going to start having subject features that fall in with my interests.

Astronomy - photos, drawings and anything else I can think of. I have much of this on my wife's Flickr page right now, I'll be moving it here soon

Camping - reviews of gear, camp inventions and thoughts. My family and I are avid tent campers and I want to share my thoughts on the subject.

Music - I'm winding down my time with my band, The Criminal Kid, but I have a lot to do there yet. I'm also planning on a solo project incorporating some more noodly jam stuff and a punk band. I also want to start an indie musician advice column focusing primarily on the subject of live performance.

Photography - I will likely have less emphasis on this subject than in the past, but I love instagram and I like taking pictures. Some of that will end up here too.

Minecraft - I run a private MInecraft server, it's the best game ever. So I'll probably do stuff with that here, but I don't know how just yet.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Ok let's get this going again why not?

Keep up with me on Twitter - @PilotsWorld. I've got some witty things there I suppose.

Gonna put some photos together and reformat the page.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Congrats

Congratulations to Danny Martin and Nathan Van Betuw who won a pair of tickets each to our show at McNally's on May 26th!

Tickets to this show are available from the band, so get in touch with us if you want tickets. We will debut 3 never before heard songs at the show, so come on out and get your full fix of the The Criminal Kid!

Monday, July 05, 2010

Mark Interacts With Animals - 5th Time!

So to celebrate the impending visit from one of my oldest and bestest friends, I present you with a long overdue.. and frankly pretty old picture of MARK INTERACTING WITH ANIMALS!

Saturday, May 08, 2010

Ahh Coffee

So the wife and I are in deep discussions on re-doing our living room. What we have now fit in the "barely functions" category. We still have an old CRT TV (LD bizzatches!) whose sound doesn't really work anymore (most viewing is at 80% max volume or higher), a monstrously large couch/hideabed/two recliner couchtrosity that has a habit of eating anything and everything that comes near it. A week doesn't go by that I don't walk in to see one of the kids or one of the dogs struggling to escape its bottomless pit.

Of course we're agonizing to no end over how to use our limited budget and credit options to the best end. And of course there is always some TV on for a great price that is just a little smaller than we'd like or a couch that is perfect for our plans but costs a hellatillion bux.

Sigh.

Well we'll get it figured out soon enough.