The Brown Knowser

Please don't judge me. I had every intention of doing it. Yesterday, Lori and I packed up the girls, picked up Grandpa Stan, and headed to Hogs Back and Mooney's Bay to participate in the National Capital Tri/Du . I was signed up for the Super Sprint SwimCycle event, a 500-metre swim and 20-kilometre cycle. Lori was participating in the Super Sprint Tri, which included a 5-kilometre run, on top of the swim and cycle components. She's hard-core. The swim component was taking place in Mooney's Bay, only there was a problem: for more than three days, the beach was closed to swimming because of high e-coli counts in the water. E-coli. Enough said. For the past month, Lori and I were driving up to Lac Bernard to practice swimming in open water. We mapped a course that was 530 metres—longer than the race distance. It was perfect. I loved that swim, but I was noticing that after the workout, later in the day, I would always feel like crap. I was congested, had itchy,...

Are you a wannabe blogger but haven't started your own blog yet? Are you a blogger who is looking for a change and want to see your words elsewhere? I'm looking for guest bloggers. I'm looking for you. Basically, I'm fairly open about the content, with a few exceptions. First, I'm not interested in selling anything, so no sales promotions. I won't consider anything that shows a strong political or religious slant. But if you have creative writing or want to share your opinion on any other topic than the aforementioned taboos, then I want to publish it on The Brown Knowser . Let's talk. If you're interested in being a guest blogger, please contact my by e-mail at roland_axam@yahoo.ca * . There's no deadline: this is an open invitation. Consider yourself invited! * If you know my personal e-mail address, you can contact me there too.

Some truths are stranger than fiction. What you are about to read actually happened on an evening in August, 1998, when I was living in South Korea, teaching English. I have told this story at my local Toastmasters club and I told a shortened version during a phone-in show for CBC's Ontario Today , and I am planning to fictionalize it in a chapter of Gyeosunim , the sequel to Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary . This is a story of alien abduction. Before this happened to me, I didn't believe in such a thing. Now, I fully believe in alien abductions. Because I was the alien. Why we decided to change our plans was beyond me. We were, after all, creatures of habit, predictable. It was Friday. I knew where we would be in a few short hours. The ex-pat community was much smaller than it had been when I was there a year ago. Economic hardships saw English language institutes close. Friends came and went. But because Lori and I worked at different institutions (Lori was at Chŏnbuk N...

Every time I say this, I get a big laugh from my wife, my kids, and my friends, but it is so true: I'm shy. No in that hide-in-your-shell kind of shy, where I'd rather lock myself in a room and only communicate with people from a distance. I'm shy when it comes to talking to people, one-on-one, where I feel that I'm expected to initiate conversation or keep a topic going in a lively, thoughtful kind of way. In that regard, I'm incredibly self-conscious and would rather have someone else lead the conversation. Don't get me wrong: I like people and like to be social. It's just that sometimes, when I am among others, I feel incredibly uncomfortable finding words, starting conversations. When I'm among people that I don't know well, I put on a brave face. Because I want to be there. When I was asked to emcee Blog Out Loud , I wanted to do it because I like being out in public and I really wanted to meet other writers. And with my Toastmaster exp...

Well, it looks like the heatwave in Ottawa is over. How did you fare?

Last night, the girls and I chose to beat the heat and avoid the soccer pitch. Ottawa hit the hottest day on record: at its peak, the day hit 36°C—factor in the humidity and it felt more like 46°C! I said hot , not H.O.T. ! Luckily, we already had these plans to go to our air-conditioned Canadian Museum of Nature , where we attended a 3-D dino tweetup. The evening included a 3-D film about the final days of the dinosaurs, narrated by Donald Sutherland. At one point in the 20-minute film, Sutherland said that the Earth was hotter than we've ever known. Clearly, he wasn't talking about yesterday's temperatures! The girls really enjoyed the film, and afterwards we explored a wildlife photo gallery before Lori and the girls went to one of their favourite areas of the museum: the bird gallery. Meanwhile, I met up with some Ottawa tweeps and met some of my Twitter peeps for the first time. Great people! So day two of our heatwave went fairly well. How did you b...

On Day 2 of our city's heat wave, it'd be nice to take the day off, drive up to the cottage, and plunge into the cool waters of Lac Bernard. Wishful thinking. Actually, for the last couple of weekends, that's exactly what we've done. Lori and I are training for our 500-metre, open-water swim in the National Capital sprint triathlon and swim-cycle , which happens on Saturday, July 30. So we'll have to wait until this Sunday before we can jump in again.

Every once and a while, I perform a Google search on myself and my blogs to see what comes up. To see if I've actually written something that is worth copying. So far, other sites have sited some of my writing but no one has outright copied it. Last week, it seems that I had performed my first search since I launched The Brown Knowser , and I was surprised to learn that I had inadvertently copied something myself. Well... not copied. Not really. Because I didn't know that what I had used had already been used before. So it's not really copying. And what I had copied doesn't infringe on anyone's copyright. Just what did I use that isn't original? I used the name Brown Knowser . Apparently, there was a WWII B-24 bomber that also went by the name Brown Knowser . Same spelling. And the pilot of this Liberator was Thomas Frank Brown. No relation, I'm sure. I tried to find more information about this plane and its crew, but so far to no avail. Becau...

My oldest daughter's bedroom door is covered in all sorts of signs, like this one: You've been warned. That is all.

I had such great plans today. I was up at 5:00 this morning, was going to cycle to work, get a jump on the day, be productive, and then cycle home, have dinner, take L to soccer, and then perhaps attend a tweet-up. It was going to be such a good day. But then, out of nowhere, a migraine came along and changed all that. I know, I look like shit. This is what migraines do to me. It could have been worse: the migraine could have struck halfway into my ride. That would have been the worst. I would have had to call Lori and wait, wherever I was, to be rescued. Suffering in public is never good. It's after lunchtime, and I'm only now coming out of the fog that is my migraine. By some standards, this wasn't a bad one. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 leaves me with vision trouble but no pain and 10 is all-out war on my brain—sight, sound, and touch is unbearable; breathing is heavy, body is in spasms, and I'm spewing from both ends (sorry, awful picture)— this one was...

One of the things that I love about my iPhone (yes, I said "love" and "iPhone" in the same sentence, get over it!) is that I can combine my photography with my tweeting. Okay, my phone is never going to replace my Nikon, but depending on what I'm shooting, it's not a bad instamatic-type camera. One of the apps that I've added to my phone is Instagram , with which I can quickly shoot a picture, apply a number of cool filters to it (or not), write a caption, add a location, and send it out through Twitter, Facebook, or other electronic means, including by e-mail. I wish there were a way to instantly post these photos to my blog. Last week, I showed you one of these pictures . But to do that involved me e-mailing the picture to myself, saving the photo, and then creating a post. If anyone knows of a way that I can access my blog directly through Instagram, please let me know. So today, because I didn't have much to say, I present you with a coupl...

The more blogs I read—other people's blogs, not my own—the more I think I need to be better at my writing. I mean, there are some really good writers out there. Last week, I attended Blog Out Loud Ottawa for the first time. It was the third year for the event, and I had the honour of hosting. Of being the Emcee. And I had a blast. This was my view for much of the night. What I liked most about the event, at first, was that I had the opportunity to meet some of the peeps that I follow on Twitter and some of those whose blogs I occasionally read. It was nice to be social in person, and not just on the social net. But what I loved about the event was that not only did I hear some amazing blog posts—posts where people really put themselves out there (stories about abuse, about loss, about love)—but these blog posts were delivered in a way that put my Toastmasters club to shame. These were not simply readings; they were performances. I listened to women talk a...

It's been a while since I've posted a blog entry (three days is "a while" for me) and I just wanted to check in. Let you know that I'm still here. The truth is that, since Thursday, I've been pretty busy and I burned myself out. Literally and figuratively. I've been so tired that it's a struggle to stay awake at times. Also, there was a time where I had so many things that I wanted to write about that I suddenly felt overwhelmed, and so I wrote about nothing. I took the easy way out. This year, I wanted to hone my writing skills and I thought that the best way to do that was to keep writing. And so I wrote steadily. This post will be my 167 th post this year between my two blogs. This doesn't count the rewriting I've been doing for Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary and the new writing for my next book. So yeah, I've been writing a lot. Maybe too much, and this weekend, after my last post, I felt somewhat burned out. Also, last week, I...

In 1991, Lori and I took our first trip overseas together, to England, Wales, and France. It was not our first trip together, but I think I can safely say that it was the one trip that proved to us that not only could we travel together, but that we could do it very well. We are excellent travel companions. We started in London, and after a couple of days we rented a car and hit the road, heading north, towards Stratford-Upon-Avon, and then into northern Wales, where we worked our way south, to Cardiff and then followed the southern end back into England, where we saw Stonehenge, Bath, and Salisbury, before finally returning to London and then over to Paris. I loved Wales. Such raw beauty. In fact, several times I was so overcome by the splendour of the countryside that I had to pull over, had to stop driving so that I could take it in. In the six days that we were in Wales, we visited 10 castles and abbeys; nearly all of them, in ruins. One of the prettiest sites that we visited...

I hadn't planned on blogging today. I was getting all psyched up for Blog Out Loud , which happens tonight—if you're in Ottawa, I hope that you can make it. As I said, I hadn't planned to post anything on my blog today. But yesterday, when I posted a photo on Twitter, I received such positive feedback that I thought I'd share with my blog followers. Like most Wednesday's, I worked from home. I've set up a small desk near the window in my bedroom. I have a great vantage to my neighbourhood and can see when the school bus drops off the kids, and I can watch them make their way home from the stop. I can also watch the changing weather, and that's what I did yesterday. My iPhone was handy, and with the Instagram app I have, posting images is really easy. Thanks to everyone for your kind comments. Enjoy your Thursday!

There are people that come and go in our lives. Some who are with us for long time that are forgotten after years of absence; others, who are with us for a relatively short time, but are remembered, no matter how long they are away from us. I only knew Joy for a year, maybe longer. She stopped being part of my life more than 30 years ago. But as a young teen, she was my first love. It was her wonderfully twisted sense of humour that first attracted me. Her wit. Her sarcasm. Her sly eyes. She took crap from no one, would dish out a double helping of any trouble she was handed. Woe to those who ever wanted to bring trouble to her. Joy's round face usually had a smile. And it was that smile that distinguished her from her twin sister, Joanne, who tried—and failed—to fool me into believing that she was my girlfriend. I remember one time, at their house: me, sitting on the sofa, listening to Leonard Cohen, waiting for Joy to rejoin me after a trip to the washroom. The person...

</ br> It's time to go global. </ br> If you're a follower of my blog, you're familiar with my Where In Ottawa contest: identify the location in the photo and win a prize. I'm giving away an electronic version of my book, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary . </ br> This time, the photo is not of a location in Ottawa (that's a bonus clue). You're going to have to look beyond my city limits. Here's the photo: </ br> </ br> Think you know where this place is? Think you know the world? Prove it! Leave your guess as a comment to this post. The first person to correctly identify this spot wins. It's as simple as that. </ br> I'll be posting clues every day on the right-hand side of this blog and on Twitter. Keep checking, and good luck!

Early Friday Morning, on Canada Day, I drove my parents to the airport, where they were flying to my brother and sister-in-law, who are expecting a baby this week. Their flight left Ottawa for Phoenix at 6 A.M., which meant that I needed to get them to the airport by 4. Like the good son that I am, I didn't mind.   With traffic that light at that early hour, I managed to drop them off at 3:45, just before the early light of dawn broke. And with them safely delivered, and me wide awake, I decided to take advantage of my free time and take some photographs. In May of 1989, just a couple of months after Lori and I started dating, I also found myself wide awake at dawn, wanting to take pictures. Back then, I headed for the outskirts of town. This time, those outskirts are now very close to my current neighbourhood. And so, not wanting to stray too far from home, I thought I'd return to where I shot those photos more than 23 years ago. Back then, fog hung thickly in the air...

For those of you on Twitter, who wished me and my family luck in going downtown to see Will and Kate: thank you! We got lucky. We took forever getting out of the house this morning. Leisurely breakfast, getting dressed and packing up, walking to the transitway, and taking the bus downtown. By the time we arrived, it was a quarter to eleven: one hour before the royals were scheduled to ride along Rideau Street in a Landau. We were pooched, I told Lori. But we all agreed that we would make our way up to the War Memorial and at least take in the crowds. As predicted, the crowd that pressed up along the barriers were about 20 or so deep. Police kept a pathway behind the throngs where people could still move, but not stop. The crowd continued around the property of the memorial grounds. But much to our surprise, a lamppost that was easily scalable was vacant. No one was even standing around the base. We took our chances. We hoisted up the kids and then I followed. We could see the...

It's Canada Day, and so far all I've done is shot a picture of my chest for you. We're going to head downtown, amid the throngs of people eager to see Will and Kate. Wish us luck. I'll post more later.