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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

I'd Like to Build a Doomsday Device.

There are many reasons I'd like to build a Doomsday Device.

A Doomsday Device, for those of you who live under a rock , is a theoretical weapon that could wipe out all life on the planet. Thankfully for all of us reading and writing this blog, none have been used yet. At least not here on Earth.

Now one might ask what a lower middle-class ... or maybe upper lower class... or maybe something else... average or so guy like me want with a device that could destroy all life on the planet or even the entire planet?

Well I'll tell you.

Firstly, upon completion it significantly improves your resume. Building a doomsday device is a pretty tecnically advanced project, and I'm certain you would find few jobs would turn you away when you can show them you built a device capable of ending the lives of 8 billion people.

The challenge of building a doomsday device is pretty attractive too. I'm sure brainstorming ways of spreading chemicals to all ends of the earth or figuring out how to space and detonate nuclear warheads so that they amplify their shock waves would be really interesting.

In order to assemble a doomsday device I'm certain one would have to attain some very difficult things, completely in secret so that party-poopers won't know what you're up to. I'm certain you would need to do a fair bit of travel to find and import what you need. Seeing the world is definitely a perk

Of course its going to make travel a lot easier once its done too. When you've got a weapon of total destruction, it doesn't make much difference if you're on the plane or on the other side of the planet. Why bother with the check, you're screwed either way. Carry on sir. Next.

Respect. We all need it. I'm sure I'd get it.

Free Ramen. Feed me or I kill everyone anyone ever knew. Ever.

Heck I could even make up a new title. Doomsayer Pilot. That has a nice ring to it. Armageddanaut.

I'm not really sure about this one, but again, who knows. I figure once you've got a machine capable of complete eradication of the human race, they'll give you a golden Safeway card that will get you anything in the store for the difference between regular price and club price. Like if regular price for ketchup if $4.50 and the club price is $4.29, gold card gets it for $0.21. Total sweet benefit.

It might seem pretty selfish to want a doomsday device, but you can see how much things would improve if I simply had a device capable of destroying the planet. It would have its downsides like my wife would always be looking for a reason why I should get it out of the basement, and I'm sure it could leak sometimes which would be some bad business. But I think overall, a doomsday device would be a pretty sweet deal.

Blackberry Post

Woo posting from my Crackberry.

Holy Crap

One week into the workout, I'm STILL doing it and seeing results! Wowzers!

This coming Saturday I'll be doing an exhaustion test for my curls and will be doing my initial exhaustion test for the 100 Push-ups.

Incidentally if I find the guy who produces Mini-Pops I will punch him in the face.

A Tad Suicidal.

So gonna try again for the millionth time to get myself on some sort of regular workout. I figure trying and failing a million times is like at least as many times you'll get one workout in.

So I'm trying for the Two Hundred Sit-up Challenge. A pretty hefty - and frankly one dimensional - workout program, but I have to incorporate in a fairly large way before June: an extensive cardio/walking training and probably phase in the 100 Pushups and 200 Squats Challenges too. One of my challenges in the walking/cardio will also involve training Bootsy, but I do need some sort of quantifiable goal program for that whole section yet.

You can follow my progress there on Twitter. Or just check out My Profile on their Logger.

What do I need all this before June for? One reason is a secret and the other I'll tell you about in a future post! (Hint - it involves buffalo!).

A Paint Job - Among Others

So I've given the place a little facelift. Got a few more ideas I'm gonna be playing with. Might as well do some playing here.

Gotta find some WIDGETS! We'll soon have it. Widgets can be hard because so many are so difficult to edit. ReverbNation is the best in my opinion. I'm gonna try giving my sidebar more real-estate. Try and share with y'all my life through the use of not only the article and comment aspect of this blog and Pilot's World, but show you what's up with photos, video, related content and probably some tunes and crap too.

It's all gonna be a work in progress, but I assure you, I'll be editing stuff as I go, so comments are always welcome! Unless you're trying to sell DYC|< eNH4N{EmeNT P1lL5.

Fuck Off

Back to y'all regular scheduled readers, thanks for sticking 'round.

Pilot's World

Wow. Year 5. Guess I was wrong.

I'm thinking back to that first post now. Winter : LaRonge : facing the forest out the window. There was snow on the ground and I knew I was gonna be bored. Wanted to make Pilot's World a whole series of things, and I suppose it it's way, that's what it's become. Pilot's World has fused with my Google account and the rest is history. I basically wanted Pilot's World to be my start page. My iGoogle page does it now.

But I still hold on to this blog because it's been something else to me. And now all I ever do it write a nostalgic post about it once in a while, do a few good posts for a few weeks, then something else catches my attention and I forget the blog for a bit.

And so the cycle continues . . .

I am so depressed right now.

I've been robbed. The province of Saskatchewan and Rider Nation have been ROBBED.

I don't want to cry. I am crying.

More speaking on the Grey Cup

Well Grey Cup Fever has hit me like a brick off a 10 storey building. Like Tai says "Look out Grey Cup, here we come!"

So of course it's created a week of ritual and ceremony in preparation for the luck of the game.

At this time last week I found out that I had a ticket to the Western final and my Western Final plans wouldn't be happening. The game would turn out to be legendary in the annals of Rider lore I'm sure. ("I've never seen Taylor Field so GREEN").

All week at work has been casual if you wear green/Riders clothing. Well hell. It's all the City of Regina can talk about, the local economy is doing gangbusters on any item that has a hue between aqua blue and orange. The local water supply has a slightly green hue as the population washes all their green clothes so they have something to wear to work tomorrow.

Excitement for this team is incredibly high. We're fresh off a Cup and we've had a good couple seasons in the meantime and really rebounded well from alot of fame-jumpers after the last Cup.

Rider Nation is poised to explode.

Now I'm not saying our boys have an easy chore tomorrow. Chances are pretty good we'll be welcoming home less metal than we'd like, but this team is good and is going to play VERY hard in Calgary tomorrow. A

And I cannot wait to watch that game.

November Post?

Well I need a November post and what better to say than... THE RIDERS ARE IN THE CUP!!!! WOOOOOOO!!!!!!


Discuss

Parenting - 2009

Que sera sera.

That about sums it up. I find parenting to be a guilt filled venture.

In the olden days it was the church and your family telling you how to raise them. Or I guess your religion and culture would be more accurate than "the church". That's just my upbrining. The Church is always well related to The Government. So they told us how to raise our children. How many times to hit them when they did this, instilling the fear of an omnipotent God in them for those we didn't catch, and how long to put them in jail when they grew up and we figured they were killing a few too many of the more useful people in our little group.

Then Democracy hit. With it came free markets. So not only did a man have the freedom to speak, but also to make as much money as he could fit in his big fat gullet. The Corporation began to become a being, with it came funding. With funding came science. Lots of it. Within 100 years democratic countries went from horse and buggy to nuclear, nanotech, microchip and everything else. By opening the markets, the nation grows fat on Corporate tax, but thing is, when people give a lot of money to you, you gotta start listening to them. Suddenly The Church means less.

With the drop in spirituality, so comes the change in the family unit. People are becoming increasingly polygamous, even if we don't see it. We're having children with multiple partners more often. It means for the sake of this essay that the effect of the family on raising children is different.

People are increasingly influenced by the science of child raising. This of course is provided in large part by Universities that get research funding from all sorts of great places. Places with lots of money to spend. So we get breakthroughs in the materials our children are in contact with - Lead and BPA are two of the more prominent breathroughs of this type in the past while. But they spark massive purging and binging sessions as old products are discarded for new. Advancements in child psychology and biology has this mass of information bombarding parents with facts and statistics, some very contradictory (I've seen VERY strong arguments AGAINST c0-sleeping in recent weeks, in sharp contrast to past research I've done). Of course with every new discovery comes a product or a book or a DVD. Because of this potential for money making, there is a lot of shock factor and guilt delivered with their announcements. It shoots up sales. The longer you keep it in the press cycle, the more units you sell.

I'm getting tired of the research and the guilt. I want to find my own path to parenting. Maybe it won't be the right path, but even with all the research and perfect living, well you're condemning yourself to a pretty stressful and boring life. I want to live a little closer to the edge. Emotionally, spiritually and parentally. I want to tickle my child well past the point that you could call it torture. I want to let her scream at the bedroom door for her mom. I don't want to worry about the cup that she drinks from or the food that she eats. I want to be a little negligent, so they can learn to become independent.

And I want ramen noodles for lunch on Saturdays in the winter.