The Brown Knowser

Oh, how I wanted Fred to come back to Ottawa. I was first introduced to this Cork, Ireland, band in late 2008 or early in 2009, when some friends of mine, who lived in that city at the time, were big-time fans and had pointed me to Fred's website. My friends told me that if this energetic band came to town, I was not to miss them. In July of 2009, I got a first-hand taste of Fred: not only did I attend their Ottawa show , I had the privilege of meeting the group and chatting with their front man, Joe O'Leary. Five years later, at what seemed to be the height of their career, the band members went their separate ways. You owe me another show, lads! For Music Monday , I thought I would share the first song of theirs that I had heard, before I saw them perform live. This song, Skyscrapers , shows the fun, goofy side of the band. It also features a short-time member, the uber-hot Carolyn Goodwyn. Enjoy! See also, Get Fred .

Last Friday, a large group of my photography meetup group gathered on the Mackenzie Bridge for a late-night photo walk that took us along the canal to the locks between the Chateau Laurier and Parliament Hill, over to the National Gallery, and finally, at the Alexandra Bridge, which was closed to traffic, for maintenance. If you saw my Wordless Wednesday this week, you've already seen some of my photos from that evening. Our walk took us underneath the War Memorial, where Wellington and Elgin meet, and where my family ended our summer canoe vacation , which had started in Kingston. This underpass is clean, unadorned concrete, which I'm happy to say is free of graffiti. I've taken photos under here before, but never at night. The lights that illuminate this area are multicoloured, but the eye wanted to blend them into a uniform tone. But my camera and photo-editing software know better. Happy Friday!

As a parent, the only things you wish for your child is for them to be safe, healthy, and happy. There are plenty of things you can teach them about being safe: to not climb too high up a tree; to wear a helmet when they ride their bikes. To look both ways before crossing a street. And to never get into a stranger's vehicle. That last point is something you teach your child, but always hope that you never have to see put into practice. And if it must be put into practice, you hope for a safe outcome. On Tuesday, one of my kids was put to the test. As she walked from where her school bus lets her off to our house, she noticed a rusted, white pickup truck parked on the side of the road, less than 100 metres from our driveway. She didn't notice the make, but when she pointed out a similar truck in a neighbour's driveway, she remarked that it didn't have "that little door behind the driver's door." It wasn't an extended cab. The engine was turned...

Saturday started great. I awoke at seven and immediately started making breakfast. A simple meal: oatmeal with fresh raspberries and sweet maple syrup. Mango-orange juice. I turned on CBC Radio One, catching the latest news. The radio also helped me keep track of time. I went to my daughters' rooms and gently woke them up. Told them that I had a warming meal for them, that it was time to get ready for dance class. They got out of bed easily, without the need for me to call out to them, over and over, with my volume rising at each call. We had a great breakfast. Off to dance class, and then home, where I cleaned the kitchen and then sat to process the photos from the night before. A late-night photo walk downtown, which ended on the Alexandra Bridge, which was abandoned, closed due to maintenance, though there was no sign of workers. The photo walk got me home just before two in the morning. When both girls were finished with dance, I took them to the Walter Baker Sports Centr...

This is another song that I received as a free download at Starbucks. Starbucks, I love you: you give me satisfying coffee, tasty treats, and music. I know nothing about Lanu or any other song they perform. All I know is that this is a feel-good tune that lights me up whenever it comes up on my iPhone. It's a perfect tune to start a Monday. Happy Monday!

If I'm not mistaken, spring, the vernal equinox, arrived yesterday at almost 1 pm. I'm pretty sure that last year, at this time, it was mild and a lot of the snow was gone. Two years ago, temperatures were in the mid to upper 20s. I'm tired of the cold. I'm tired of the snow. I'm ready for warmth and colour. I can't wait for the tulips to come alive. Piss off, winter. You've overstayed your welcome. Happy Friday! (Not you, snow.)

When I was growing up, my dad always told me that he had "no use" for his family. The thirteenth child of fourteen, most of his brothers and sisters were nearing adulthood or had even reached it and moved on while he was a young child. You would think that with 14 children, my grandparents had lived on a farm. But no, they had lived in Rosemount, in downtown Montreal. With that many children, Elizabeth and Sidney Brown actually took up two apartment units. Dad was only two years old when his father died: his baby brother, Don, wasn't even born, was still forming in his mother's womb. The older siblings gathered to help out at home and take care of the newborn, and so my dad fell outside of the family spotlight. He carried resentment throughout his life, feeling that the world had treated him poorly. His brothers and sisters made him grow up quickly, and when he was old enough, he grew away. "I have no use for them," he told me, countless times. He ...

I'm old. My memory is fading so that I can't remember what I ate last Thursday, what movie I watched on Saturday night, or the last book I read. I can't even remember details of the last book I wrote. As I write Gyeosunim , the sequel to Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary , I find that I have trouble remembering details of the first book. Like people's names. And things that Roland said and did. There are details that should be fresh in my main character's head, that should, at most, be only a month or two old. I finished writing my novel about three years ago. It's been available in book stores for more than two years. And it's somewhere in between those years that I had last read my manuscript. I have never read the final, printed version. And the final version is not the same version that I started selling or giving away. There are four or five story lines that changed, and I can't remember which one ended in the published version. So, before I wri...

I first got into Winnipeg band, The Watchmen , several years ago, when I was car sitting. My next-door neighbours and friends, Marc and Vicki, would travel to Belgium for a couple of months to train for cycling, and would leave me with their Matrix to look after and keep running while they were away. Tough gig: drive a car during the coldest months of winter, instead of taking the bus to work. One year, they left a CD in the car, and I would play it when I wasn't listening to the CBC. It was The Watchmen's album, Brand New Day , and I was hooked. I added one of the songs from that album, Zoom , to my playlist for my own cycling, and it's one of my favourite songs from the band. It has a good pace and a driving chorus, just what you need to keep the pedals going. It's also a great tune to get your week moving. Enjoy: If you like this song, give a listen to another song of theirs that I love, All Uncovered . Happy Monday!

On the Road to 50 , I ran out of gas. Before I even started my new project, where I planned to take a selfie each day for a year, I knew it was doomed. I hate photographing myself. I don't do "creative" under pressure. I had only a handful of ideas, and most of them involve better weather. On Day 7 of my Road to 50 project, instead of capturing an image of myself, I went in a different direction: I removed the previous six photos from my Flickr album. We will never speak of this project again. Because I much prefer to be on the back-side of my camera, my next photo project will not have a single image of myself. You're welcome. I still want to challenge myself, and I want to further overcome my general shyness (stop your snickering: I am shy!), so I'm going to start a project that I've been thinking about for a couple of months. A year of strangers. Throughout the year, starting on March 31, I'm going to approach total strangers and ask them ...

I believe in working hard for what you want. But sometimes, you need a hand. Whether you get that helping hand or not depends, for me, on whether the cause is worth supporting. Crowdfunding, the act in which you ask a large group of people to donate a small amount of money, in order to cover the cost of a project, seems to have become popular over the past couple of years. With the economic downturn in the United States, crowdfunding has been a method for keeping some struggling businesses afloat. If you believe in that company or that project, crowdfunding is a great and inexpensive way to show your support. But should you always support a project or company? Last year, I participated in a crowdfunding venture to raise funds, in support of PEN Canada , "a nonpartisan organization of writers that works with other to defend freedom of expression as a basic human right." The Bare It For Books project offered a calendar in exchange for your support. It features some of Ca...

I'm a fairly happy-go-lucky driver, but my mood changes when I get behind drivers who don't know the rules of the road. I use my horn. I make unkind gestures. I curse like a sailor. Traffic circles are a fairly new phenomenon in Ottawa but they seem to catching on, particularly in new neighbourhoods. I love them. They are an effective means of keeping traffic moving at busy intersections, plus they mitigate the damage and potential injury in the event of a collision. This year, a traffic circle replaced a busy intersection in my neighbourhood. What could once take time to navigate now takes a fraction of the time, especially during weekday-morning commutes, where everybody seemed to be out on the roads. Being in a residential zone that had two nearby schools, mornings could be brutal, as kids were delivered to their classes and folks were trying to get to work. The circle made perfect sense. But there are many drivers who don't know how to navigate a traffic circl...

I really can't believe it's over. One year ago, I decided that every time I crossed the Champlain Bridge, whether I was going to work, going for a ride in Gatineau Park, or heading home, whether I was in the car or on my bike, I would stop at the same spot on Bate Island and take a snapshot of the same view. I would always use my 50mm lens, always shoot at 100 ISO (almost always: sometimes, I forgot to reset my camera from a previous shoot ). Rain or shine, hot days or downright frigid, I would take that shot. I didn't cross that bridge every day. Some days, I worked from home or was sick. I rarely crossed the bridge on weekends. And then there were vacation days, when I was nowhere near the city, let alone the Ottawa River. I captured 296 images over the course of my Bate Island Project . Some are good, many are bad. A few look a lot alike. But it's interesting to see how the lighting changes, how the river can be choppy or calm, how the bush fills out, changes...

My wife isn't going to like this post. She didn't like last week's Photo Friday, and it was safe for work. But she doesn't like that I attend model shoots. She likes my photography, even helps me with some post production, because she works for a company that creates photo-editing software. There are two products that she works on, and I love them, and I love it when she shows me great effects. But my dear wife, who I love with all my heart, doesn't like when I go to a model shoot. She doesn't like me photographing women she doesn't know. Especially, when they're naked. "You're a perv," she has said. "It's so degrading to the women." I love my wife, but I disagree. I love women, but I'm not a pervert. I don't oggle the models. I treat them with the utmost respect, and when I'm looking at them through the lens, I'm focused on the composition of the photo and the lighting. I use their eyes to focus my...

Not only has this week been the last that I shoot photos for my Bate Island Project , it is the end of Bate Island itself, the way I have known it for this past year. A couple of months ago, I noticed that some of the mature trees were beginning to shed some of their bark. Because it was winter and none of the trees had leaves anyway, it was hard to determine if they were sick, but I knew that bark shedding was not a normal process. Unless, perhaps, they were sick or dying. I'm not a tree expert. I don't know if these trees are oak, or ash. I suspect they are oak, only because some of the fallen, dried leaves that flutter across the snow-covered park are of that species. About a month ago, during one of my afternoon visits, I saw that several trees were painted with a red X, below which a number was also painted. The first trees I saw were numbered in the 20s, but I saw one tree numbered 53. A shitload of trees were going to be coming down. This Monday, as I s...

Where one photo project ends, another begins. This week brings the end of my Bate Island Project . My last photo will be taken on Friday, as I head home from work. Over the weekend, I will select the best shots and compile a short video to show the changing weather, the changing seasons, the changing light. The bush, so poorly positioned in the foreground, which was my guide when the cityscape was obscured by fog and snow, will sprout buds, grow leaves, colour, and lose those leaves. No more will I keep an eye out for creepy guys and wacko ladies. I'm not saying I'll never take another photo on Bate Island, but I'll never feel compelled to. But before the Bate Island Project ends, another project will begin. Tomorrow, I turn 49. It will be the last year in my 40s. And I thought that to mark this close to a decade, one of the best decades of my life, I would take on a true 365-day project. I call it The Road to 50 . I will take a selfie of myself, every day, until ...

Okay, I'm going to talk a lot about a location in Ottawa, but it is not the answer to this month's challenge. Let me be clear on that point. One of my greatest memories of my grade-12 graduation celebration was the dinner and dancing at the top of one of the city's prestigious hotels, one with a revolving restaurant, where, over the course of the evening, I could look out and see all of Ottawa laid out below me. NOT the location of this month's challenge! Today, that is the location of the Ottawa Marriott . Which is not the location of this month's photo challenge. So, you may ask, why did I even mention it? Good question. This month, as my Where In Ottawa challenge has gained a larger interest and more recognition, the Ottawa Marriott has partnered with me to present a marvelous giveaway. The first person to successfully identify the location of this month's photo will come away with the following: A one-night, weekend stay in a traditi...