Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Busy Running Around

Frankly today is a busy afternoon. 1 round of dishes. Stuck out here in Langley waiting on my wife to collect a book from the library at Kwantlen - Langley campus.

Now sitting in Kwantlen Campus parking lot bored out of my mind waiting till she gets back from that library so that I can get back to cleaning up the house.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Nuclear Madness - Part 1 - Primary Targets

No-one thinks of Nuclear War at any time, it's not a very enticing image at the worst of times let alone the best. After watching Cold War - the Series on Youtube, I've been pondering just how safe Canada would really be in the outbreak of a war situation. With Putin and Co. posturing in a way that reminds me eerily of the Cold War relations between the former Soviet Union and the United States, we may have left the Doomsday Clock a little too far away from zero. Not to mention, China and their ever increasing posturing by creating ICBMs that can reach the North American continent.

Most of my friends and I live in Vancouver or the Fraser Valley and we don't think much of how much the Fraser Valley/Lower Mainland would be affected in the wake of an all-out nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia or any of the nuclear arsenals of any capable nuclear nation. We're all too concerned with our every-day lives, but I figured I'd ponder as to what sort of targets would be attacked and/or could be attacked by Russian nuclear missile forces.

In an all-out war, Canadian bases would be considered as alternate bases that US forward forces could deploy from after their home bases were targetted and taken out by SS-18s. These and international airports would be considered primary targets. These targets are the main bulwarks of defending our continent from armed invasion. Fighters, bombers and trasnports could deploy from international airport runways, so those will also be targetted. So what sort of weapons would target the international airports and Canadian bases. The SS-18 can be scaled from 1MT to 20MT. These would be the logical choice for taking out a high-priority target such as an air force base or an international airport. However the 90 missiles will be targetted more for US ICBM sites, CONUS Air Force Bases and more than likely, the missiles targetting primary targets in Canada would be 800Kt SS-26s or sea-based ballistic submarine launched nuclear surface to surface ballistic missiles.


Comox Air Force Base
Abbotsford International Airport
Boundary Bay Airport
Vancouver International Airport

Considering how scary this scenario is just by taking a look at the damage area, it's a wakeup call to first response units and Emergency Disaster units in the Lower Mainland.

In further posts, I will go into more of what other resources in the Lower Mainland will be considered targets. I suspect that any nation that is going to launch an ICBM strike is going to go for a scorched earth approach and target every possible resource that we have.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Finishing Up Living Room, Hallway and Kitchen

There are three places that require working on if we are to get the living room, hallway and kitchen clean. The hallway closet, and the stuff piled on the shelf, no matter how it looks, it doesn't look neat enough. It just looks like magazines piled on the shelf.



I've got a solution for this problem by doing this:



the small containers will take care of the brochures. And I have magazines that need to go in magazine holders: both photography magazines as well as aviation magazines. This will enable the magazines to have secure and sturdy support and it won't fall over when I go to remove a book.

I'm also hoping to take the hallway closet and put some containers on it so that it makes the towels piled in the hallway closet neat and tidy.

Trying to get this place clean, the way I want to get it clean and organized, is very costly. But it needs to be done, because I don't want to have to do another large cleanup which I have had to do every single year since the time I've gotten my own place and married.

The hallway closet solution would be something like this:

With the towels and sheets neatly folded and placed in 4 of these, it will make the closet a lot neater. And it will also make the area a lot tidier. When the towels are used, they will go immediately into the laundry hamper and when the laundry is done, the towels will be immediately folded and placed back in the container. That way it doesn't look as though the towels and sheets are overflowing.

If the house is organized right, the tidying will go a lot easier

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Going absolutely APE-SHIT!!!

What a mess, I've been busy damned near all day, with breaks to feed Storm. I haven't eaten at all today, yet and I've been going full blast since I woke up this morning. I want to get this cleanup done right so that I don't have to do this kind of clean up again. I got no problem with maintaining the place. I just don't want to have to do a massive cleanup every f*ng year like I have for the past 12 years.

We need to get a rug cleaner. The kids spilled hot chocolate powder on the floor and the carpets are stained all to hell.


The Living Room in progress

The Closet cleaned up.

The space between the fridge and the door.

Also cleaned up the printer stand.

The top of the pantry has been cleared off and restructured.

Top of stove cleaned off.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Which Actress Could Play Mara.

Mara is an in-depth character. She's tough, sarcastic, opinionated and all the things that Luke Skywalker would end up geting irritated at first with, but falling in love with eventually. Now a lot of people would cast Nicole Kidman, or Uma Thurman because they're focussed on the physical resemblance. But a part of the Mara role would be whether or not the actor could come up with the innate traits that Mara has, her abrasiveness, the bitterness that stems from being a pawn in the machinations of Palpatine. I don't feel like Nicole Kidman has the experience in her repertoire to play a tough, abrasive, bitter ex-Imperial assassin. Gillian Anderson has that innate toughness.

And her looks do match...especially in this pregnancy photos.

Now ideally it would be nice to have Shannon McRandle do the character of Mara as she was the one that was originally picked to be Mara Jade for the CCG. But in case they could not get Shannon to do it, with her family requirements, I would say that Mara would next best be served by an actress who gets the gist of the character and has had the experience playing the angst-ridden, sarcastic, former assassin who falls in love with Luke Skywalker.

I think this painting of Mara Jade was influenced a lot by Gillian Anderson

A few more links of photos of Gillian Anderson with long hair

Maxim Photoshoot
Gillian as Mara after the Nirauan drenching?
Gillian as Mara in a little black dress? Hmmmm?
Gillian in a green sweater Would be nice to see her in a black bodysuit.
Another shot of Gillian.

Yes, she definitely would work as Mara Jade.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Annoying Commercials

Annoying commercials are a part of the advertising lexicon. They tend to grab you by the ears and make you take notice, whether you want to or not. Here's a couple for your perusement.

The singer in this Heineken commercial (is it just me or are Heineken commercials the most annoying commercials on TV as of late? I can barely understand what the f*ng hell she's singing, let alone understand why they've got that song on the advertisement to begin with.

Now using a Bollywood song "Jaan Pahechan Ho" to symbolize a "date in Chinatown" and advertising GERMAN beer????? WTF were they thinking????!! Figures ad execs can't tell the difference between Hindi and Cantonese.

This ad, La Vie Grand Marnier (The Life Grand Marnier) and it's inbred cousin "Apres-Ski" (After Skiing) are earworms enough to make you want to scream and run for the hills. The liquor may be nice, but the advertisement makes me want to bash a full bottle of Grand Marnier over the ad exec's head. "Yeah...Bonjour Monsieur??? F* YOU!!!!"

Sure, freak the poor gramma out. Then she'll have a myocardial infarction, kick the bucket then you won't be able to feed her your cereal. I can't find the one Kashi ad that really pisses me off, but in that ad there's this woman who speaks pedantically, "This is a strawberry, a real strawberry..." as the camera pans over a strawberry...then "This is an almond, a real almond"...No fucking shit...I thought it was a kumquat!!!

Friday, March 2, 2012

Training Ideas for the Canucks?

How to get the Canucks players to become Zack "Smaassh"ian clones. How to train our goalie for playoffs. Poor Lu's gonna cry.

I think this is a great idea!

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Mini Goalie, Mini Player - Youtube.

Gotta love these McDonald's ads. ~evil grin~ Time for playoff hockey in 18 more games.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

More Funny Signs.







Yep...gotta find more signs

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

2012 - January Almost Over - New Plans

It seems as though 2012 is an year of renewal. I feel a renewed vigor in my psyche that I have never felt in the last few years. I'm looking forward to this year whereas January last year, I felt like the whole roof caved in and I was looking at "what the hell can happen to me now?" Well, this year we finally set our plans in motion and make concrete steps towards achieving our goals. When I say OUR goals, I mean OUR goals.

Heather plans on taking university courses to get her Bachelor's degree in Criminology and Psychology. She is hoping to also go down and see her mother and in the meantime, she is helping me to save up for the Nikon AF-S VR 600mm f/4 IF-ED.



I forge ahead in the aim to get a burgeoning photography business in wildlife photography off the ground. And it looks as though I will make headway. Two images have already sold. I look to add a few more sales this year before the year is out. I'm looking at a game plan to try to book a table for some arts & crafts fairs and try to get some stock footage out in print so that people can come out and take a look through my stuff and see if it is good enough to them to buy. Stuff like:



In any case, I'm glad that I chose my camera wisely when I first started to seriously look at getting a DSLR. I chose Nikon (mainly because I was familiar with their menu system thanks to Heather and I choosing a Nikon Coolpix E2200 way back in 2005 after my old 0.35 MP Agfa got toasted by my oldest son (when he was a toddler) dropping coffee all over it. In 2006 when I upgraded to a Nikon D50 (my first DSLR) it was more camera than I really needed. But eventually, I mastered the D50 and now, I shoot with a Nikon D300s and my first professional calibre lens (the 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII). I will always remain a Nikon shooter, because for me, Nikon is the camera that is best suited to my needs. My wife also shoots Nikon as well. I don't need to say any more than this:





Starting September 2012, the save up commences for the Nikon 600mm f/4 lens and will last 36 months from that time. The wildlife shots that I have always wanted in my inventory will come to fruition then. I'll leave off with "I can't wait for September 2015".