The Brown Knowser

I like to think that I have good taste in music. I have shared some of it with my friends, and they have liked what I have introduced to them; some have even thanked me. I'm talking about the friends I've recently introduced to artists like Hawksley Workman and Sam Roberts, or to bands like Metric. In high school, I was the first of my friends to be into Led Zeppelin (first of my friends in elementary school, actually) and Peter Gabriel, to which my old friends still groove. My kids have benefited from my music tastes, as they also like these bands and artists. My youngest loves Sarah Slean, and couldn't get enough of her on Canada Day . She is always listening to her music and has two autographed posters in her bedroom. But my eldest daughter has branched out and discovered new music, and both of them listen to a pop-music radio station on a regular basis. That's okay. I feel that I've laid down enough roots and introduced them to music that they will ta...

Last week, I racked up my second Master of Beer Appreciation (MBA) status at Mill Street Brew Pub in Ottawa. I know, it's a tough life when you consume 85 pints of beer and receive recognition. I, by no means, am a leader in the MBA members at Mill Street. A friend of mine, who has been going to the pub for as long as I have, is either close to his fourth MBA or has just achieved it. Another regular to the pub, has earned his fifth. I love beer, but I don't have an addiction. When you achieve your MBA, you receive a few perks from the pub. You get a pint glass with your name engraved on it. You can take it home or you can keep it at the pub, where you can have your pints served to you in your very own glass. You also have your name engraved on a plate, which is affixed to a stainless-steel keg that celebrates all of the folks who have earned their MBA. Also, you are treated for a dinner for two at the pub. On Friday, I shared my MBA dinner with Lori and the kids. It...

I could see that I wasn't going to reach my destination by sunset. That fiery orb was sinking too quickly toward the horizon, the dark storm clouds were moving to intercept. I made the decision to be late. I knew that when I showed my waiting family the reason for my tardiness, that they would be okay with my reason. While I took many shots as the sun set, I waited until it had barely disappeared behind the cloud to take the following shot. I wanted the cloud lining to glow. If you look carefully (click the photo to enlarge it), a bird made its way into the photo. But that's okay: we both had places to be. Happy Friday!

Aww, that's nice: Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, has given birth to a healthy baby boy, Prince George of Cambridge. Eight pounds, six ounces. Ten fingers, ten toes. Two eyes, a nose, and mouth. As far as we know, a typical example of the male gender of the human race. Now, can the press and media—and I'm including social media—please stop talking about him? Until, at least he does something that no other child does? And, I'm including nude photos of him with an unknown person at a frat party. I understand that there are a lot of fans of Will and Kate, that the lovers of the British Monarchy live for this type of attention given to the Royal Couple. I admit, when the young couple tied the knot, my family was caught up in the wedding... I mean, Pip in that dress? What warm-blooded guy couldn't become interested? Two years ago, when the Duke and Duchess visited Canada and made an appearance in Ottawa for Canada Day, my family and I headed downtown, climbed a lam...

Having consumed two bottles of wine, I feel that I can finally write this post. I've never written a blog post while under the influence of alcohol. I have developed a slight buzz from some high-alcoholic beer while conducting a review, and I admit that some of the chapters of Songsaengnim were composed with a few Manhattans under my belt, but I've never needed to use booze to share some feelings on The Brown Knowser . Until tonight. For those of you who are coming to my blog for the first time, this post may seem déclassé : me, outing somebody publicly. For even some of my long-time readers, this post may sound harsh. But The Brown Knowser is a place where I feel I can air my feelings, vent my frustrations. Open my heart and soul and bare myself. Can I? How's my spelling? Grammar okay? Stephen Page, in his early days of the Barenaked Ladies, once sang: If there's someone you can live without, then do so . Throughout my life, I have been lucky enough to make a...

Many times, when we're at social outings, I often stay behind the scenes, with my camera firmly affixed to my face. This photo proves that I can sometimes be part of the action. Happy Monday!

I love keeping my D-SLR in the car with me. It means that often, when I see a photo op, I can whip it out and start shooting. Assuming that I can pull over somewhere safely and legally, and that I'm not late. On Wednesday, as I was driving along the Ottawa River Parkway, heading west, I could see dark clouds moving eastward, that rain was falling, and that the sunshine, which was only able to peek out from time to time previously, was now being consumed by the coming storm. The light was dramatic, with the orange glow of sunshine being capped by black clouds, and fine tendrils of streaming water was falling from the sky. I wanted to capture the moment immediately. Unfortunately, being on the Ottawa River Parkway, there is nowhere one can pull over. Neither safely nor legally. There are turnoffs for parking areas at Westboro Beach and the Deschênes Rapids, but I had already passed those and was approaching Lincoln Heights. And, besides, I was running late for picking my ...

It starts out almost imperceptible. A soft, steady throb that grows, a pulse that sounds like a beat against various lengths of plastic tube. The sound stirs me, makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, compels me from slumber to rise from my bed, shuffle across the room, and make it stop. Because of its gentle beginning, Lori doesn't often hear it. She sleeps more soundly than I. Though I can awake at the slightest of sounds, my reaction comes quickly. Even in some of my deepest slumbers, I can get to the Off button in time. It's only in my most sleep-deprived state that I don't reach the alarm in time. And then it gets noisy. On the mornings where I get up early, at 5:25, I do everything I can to be as silent as possible. For my alarm, I use an app that plays music from my iPhone, which is docked in a charger that has speakers. The docker itself is a clock radio, but neither the built-in beep nor the radio can provide a calming sound. Because I generally aw...

I know she means the best. My wife wants me to be healthy so that I can live a long time, so that I can take out the trash, mow the lawn, shovel the driveway, refinish our bathroom, and empty the dishwasher. Among other chores. She's the one who talked me into participating in a Try-a-Tri event a couple of years ago, a couple of swim-cycle events, to take spin and step classes. It was she who signed us up for the 175-kilometre cycle tour to Kingston last month (who, by the way, changed her entry to the 100K route only a couple of weeks before the event). I'm not a health nut. I try to eat in moderation and get a bit of physical activity a couple of times a week. I love to ride my bike, but I don't do it out of a sense to train for any event. I'll talk about my love of cycling in another post, but that's not the focus of this blog post. I think my wife is trying to kill me. In her latest scheme of physical activity, Lori has planned our vacation, which we...

Now that my beer reviews have moved from their own blog back to The Brown Knowser , I thought that I would start things with a twist. First: today's review is a guest post * . Second: it's not a beer review. That is, it's not an alcoholic beer (and I don't mean one of those lame, 0.5% "de-alcoholized" brews). We're talking root beer. A couple of weeks ago, I organized a photo walk along the Ottawa River Parkway, where we all ended up at Mill Street Brew Pub and then turned the event into a tweetup. It was a fun event and, as always, the crew at Mill Street treated us like royalty. My eldest daughter, Sarah, took part in the photo walk and stayed for the tweetup: it was her first time at both events. Being under the drinking age, and not liking beer anyway (don't worry, folks, I'll have her straightened out by the time she hits 19), she opted for something else that the brew pub produces: root beer. She enjoyed it so much that she asked ...

I've started doing something to my photos, lately, and I kind of like the effect. Previously, when I played with HDR images, I would work with three or more bracketed images, merging them and getting a single, evenly exposed image. But sometimes, no matter how much I played with the settings, I couldn't get the merged images to come out exactly the way I wanted. A couple of weeks ago, out of curiosity, I wondered what would happen if I used the HDR tool on my editing software with a single image. Would anything happen? The first attempt can be found here . I liked the effect, so I tried it a few more times. My latest attempt was the other night. I shot this photo during the summer photo walk that I led on the Canada Day weekend. It's a couple of kids, presumably boyfriend and girlfriend, walking across the Prince of Wales Bridge that spans the Ottawa River and Lemieux Island. I didn't like the shadows that had been cast across the couple, and my attempts t...

There are people out there, who, when they discover my age, say, "no way." I'm 48. When those people express their disbelief, I have a pat answer: "I know. I get that a lot. It's because I act like I'm 12." The evidence of my childish behavior lies in some of the posts I've blogged in the past. To wit, my posts about my Top 5 List . Like the Ross of the 90s show, Friends , my wife and I devised a list of the five celebrities, who, if given the opportunity to sleep with, would be allowed to without any repercussions toward our relationship. Lori kept her list private. She's smart. And mature. And, I don't think she really made a list. I, on the other hand, not only made a list, I told people about it. Unlike the fictional Ross, I didn't laminate the list on a wallet-sized card: worse, I posted the list on my blog. I started following three of the five on Twitter (I don't think the other two are on Twitter). And, I tweeted lin...

More photos on Flickr .

This weekend, when my girls and I were visiting family up at the lake in the Gatineau Hills, I had Lori snap a picture of me while I was swimming. When I saw the photo later, I thought to myself, that sums up me and my life perfectly, right now: up to my neck, nearly in over my head. This photo is now being used as my Twitter avatar. I felt that life was getting so busy, so hectic, that I was drowning. I have more projects on the go at work that I can't work at them all at the same time. I get confused, having to try and remember which issues go with which document on which product. At home, I have so many chores that it would take me a couple of weeks, without interruption or distraction, to get through them. And, in whatever leisure time I have left, I have blog posts to write, photos to shoot, and novels to write. If I'm lucky, I get five hours of sleep each night. Once in a while, I'm spoiled by seven. I love to write and I love this blog. Though I know...

Guesses for the last Where In Ottawa challenge came in after a few days and clues, but in the end it was solved on Saturday by someone who already has a copy of my book. But that doesn't stop Marc from claiming bragging rights for knowing this city. Congratulations, Marc. The location is Lemieux Island, along the Ottawa River, where one of the city's water-purification plants is located. Here are the clues, explained: Not "fire" works—while the water flowing from the fountain sort of look like fireworks, they aren't. They are water works, just like the water works plant where this little pond is located. Water, water, everywhere... but is there some to drink?—located on an island in the Ottawa River, you can only drink the water after it is processed at the plant. All will be made clear—at the water-purification facility. Future O-Train stop?—the Prince of Wales Bridge, which runs north and south of the island, is owned by the city and may someda...

Last weekend, I attended another model photo shoot, working with low lighting to capture dramatic contrasts. It was the first time that I used a beauty dish. A beauty dish is a parabolic reflector lamp that focuses the light to a single point. This means that you can have a subject in a dark setting and the light will only fall on your subject, as long as the dish is not pointed towards the backdrop. For this shoot, we suspended the beauty dish directly above our model so that the light would fall straight down. Our model stood in front of a black background, allowing us to create a stark contrast of light and dark. The following shot was taken with a single beauty dish and no other lighting. I shot at 1/100 of a second at f/8 and ISO 200. The focal length was 70mm. Post-production work was performed by using PaintShop Pro X4. What do you think? You can see more photos from this shoot on my Flickr page . Happy Friday!

Three years ago, I wrote this post for my other blog. Today, I bring it to The Brown Knowser with a slight update. It's hard to believe, sometimes, that Lori and I have been married for 19 years. A couple of years ago, Lori and I discussed our long-term relationship: Me: So, are you sick of me yet? Lori: For the most part, no. Me: The most part? Lori: Yeah, I mostly still like being around you. You have your uses. It seems, after 19 years, I still have my uses.

Happy Canada Day! As many of my fellow Canadians celebrate the 146 th anniversary of confederation, I wanted to also remind you that today is the first Monday of the month, which means that fellow Ottawans have something else to celebrate: the Where In Ottawa contest. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this contest, the rules are very simple. Below, I have a photo of somewhere in this great city, the capital of Canada. Your job is to tell me where I shot it. But there are a couple of catches: If you were with me when I shot this photo, you cannot play, so please don't tip anyone off. If you know where this photo was shot, you must leave your answer in the Comments section of this post (that is, no tweets, Facebook posts, or e-mail messages will be accepted). That's it. If you are the first person to correctly identify this location, I will reward you with a PDF copy of my novel, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary , with the following exception: if you have a...