Blogging with mehar_mah

  Sailboats in Warnemünde, Germany Its a Pirate Day! Lets sail and talk like a big, burly PIRATE! The holiday (yeah, we're calling it a holiday) was first imagined in 1995 by two US residents from the state of Oregon. September 19 was chosen for the annual observance since one of them had an ex-wife whose birthday fell on that day and they figured they could remember it. A few years later, seeking widespread adoption, they pitched the idea to humour columnist Dave Barry, who wrote, 'Every now and then, some visionary individuals come along with a concept that is so original and so revolutionary that your immediate reaction is: "Those individuals should be on medication"'. From there, it went viral, and these days, September 19 is celebrated internationally, with major brands and media personalities joining in the silliness. We're fans, too. Just picture us typin' this here with an eye patch, peg leg, an' pocket full o' swag doubloons. Arrr!   

NASA astronaut works on the International Space Station during a spacewalk in 2006(© NAS) A stroll above the stratosphere If this photo from 320-plus kilometres above Earth dizzies you, imagine how it felt to be Alexei Leonov on March 18, 1965. The Soviet cosmonaut achieved the first-ever extravehicular activity (EVA - but you and I just call it a spacewalk). He spent about 20 minutes outside the orbiting Voskhod 2 capsule. It was the ultimate risk: no one knew just what could happen to a human body in the vacuum of space. Near heatstroke, drenched with sweat, and with his suit dangerously inflating, Leonov barely made it back inside the airlock. Of course, the art of EVA has been perfected since, and that vertigo-inducing panorama is now the view from the office for those aboard the International Space Station. The spacewalker you see here isn't Leonov but NASA's Robert Curbeam busily replacing a faulty component. On this mission in 2006, Curbeam set a record wi...

Boats resting between the Granville Bridge and the Burrard Bridge in False Creek, Vancouver