The Brown Knowser

To say I took a lot of photos in 2017 is a huge understatement. With my Photo of the Day (POTD) project, my camera rarely left my side. And if I didn't have my D-SLR, my Android phone, which I replaced in March, was always on me. Even if I didn't look for a specific subject for POTD, I attended enough events and travelled enough to capture lots of images. Obviously, not every picture I took was great, or even good. Naturally, however, having taken more than 365 distinct photos, I have more favourites than I usually do. But there are more photos that I shot, that I never showed, that weren't used for my POTD project, that I also really liked, and those tended to be overlooked. If you want to see my POTD project, you can see them in my Flickr album . This year, instead of sharing my favourite photos of 2017, I'm going to share the other photos that made up this year. The ones that, for the most part, didn't see the light of day, this year. There are, howeve...

Our parents taught us to never play with our food. Alphaghetti changed that. When DW and I were first dating, we would often snack on a bag of hard pretzels that President's Choice packaged. They were shaped in letters. DW had been snacking on the floor. She had grabbed a handful of those alphabetic snacks and lay them on a towel, to keep crumbs off the carpet. At one point, she got up and left the room, heading toward the bedroom. After a few minutes, I noticed her absence and immediately saw the pretzels that she had left on the towel. Good ol' days.

I first posted this story in 2011 and have now made it my holiday tradition. If you haven't read it before, I hope you enjoy it. If you have read it before, I'm hoping that you make it your holiday tradition in reading it again. Merry Christmas, and all the best over the holiday season! At first, we did it out of excitement, unable to wait. Later, it became a game about how far we could go, how much risk we were willing to take. In time, it became a ritual. The first time we crept downstairs, anxious to see what Santa left us, my younger sister, Jen, and I faced an obstacle: each other. "Go to bed," I whispered, not wanting her to make any noise, thereby arousing the attention of our parents, who had only a half hour or less gone to bed after placing our wrapped gifts under the tree. Our older sister, Holly, was sound asleep, able to contain her excitement and curiosity. The first time that Jen and I met on the stairs, we got our parents' a...

He never cared for Secret Santas in the office, or anywhere, for that matter. He d id n't feel the need to pick a random name from a hat and then try to figure out something about that practical stranger ( he just kn e w that, as luck would have it, he would pick the name of someone that worked in a distant part of the office, someone that he d id n't know well), and he would then spend money and time choosing a gift that would not enrich the life of that individual , would not be something t hat would give th at individual anything that he or she would truly want. He used to participate in Secret Santa at work, feeling compelled by peer pressure. But over the years , he had become immune to peer pressure , would only participate in an office social activit y if he truly wanted to. And, usually, he d id n't want to. He wasn't a Grinch, nor a Scrooge, but especially, he wasn't a Secret Santa. It was Christmas Eve and, as with every ye...

This blog post was originally posted on December 20, 2011, and has become a traditional Brown Knowser holiday tale. If you have read it before, I hope you enjoy it again. If this is your first read, I hope it won't be your last.   * On some level, I'm not a fan of Christmas. Not of the decorating, nor of the card giving (actually, the Brownfoots have pretty much given up on that front), nor, especially, of the shopping. I hate going near the malls and department stores at this time of year: fighting crowds, standing in lines, searching for that ever-elusive parking space. Not being religious, the spiritual side of Christmas is lost on a cynic like me. Our family doesn't go to church, participates in no rituals that have long ago been stolen from the Pagans. We have no manger on display, no angel on high. My participation in these year-end, winter festivities usually includes some shopping, taking the family to a farm to search for and cut down our tree...