The Brown Knowser

I still have this shirt. I still wear it. When I put it on, it usually sends the message to all who see me sporting it that I'm relaxing, taking it easy. Don't ask any work of me. I bought the shirt in 1998, on the island of Pha Ngan, in the Gulf of Thailand. It was the first purchase when our long boat reached the southwest village of the same name. I held the shirt against my chest and told DW, "This is my perfect island-retreat shirt. When I wear it, it means 'I'm on vacation: leave me alone.'" With it, and a pair of swim trunks, and a cap from an Ontario winery, it was the perfect outfit for being a beach bum. Our hut, on the north end of the island, was literally 20 steps from the water, right on the beach. The Star Hut restaurant, less than a dozen steps. I could wake up, step over to the patio, eat breakfast, and then wade into the surf in fewer than 40 steps. DW took this photo of me from outside our hut. Standing in the same...

If truth be told, I didn't want to do the challenge almost immediately after I started it. In fact, on the first day, I almost forgot about the challenge altogether, remembered it just as I was getting ready for bed. I was brushing my teeth when I thought about the Rebels United Photo of the Day challenge for May, known by the hashtag #RebelsUnitedMay2018POTD . When I was finished, I wiped down my sink, pulled out my smartphone, and photographed a flowing tap. The theme for the day was Water . The objective for this project was simple: a theme was provided for each day of the month. You had to post the image on Instagram, with the day, theme, and the hashtag. For my first day, with the water and faucet shot, I wrote Day 1: Water #RebelsUnitedMay2018POTD . That was all. I'm used to a POTD challenge. Last year, a camera never left my side. I never missed a day in shooting something new. With the exception of my week in Cuba, I posted to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, a...

There's a film producer , best known for his work on National Lampoon's Vacation , among other titles. A Formula One Managing Director of Motorsports . A software manager. An Australian rower . A comedian-writer-actor. A Belfast Green Party councillor . There's even a gorgeous British actress . All of these people have one thing in common: they all have names that are variations of my own. It's something that I haven't done in years , but this weekend I decided that I would perform a Google search of my name, just to see what came up. Ever done it, yourself? What I found most disturbing was that the first auto-prompt, when I started typing my name, was "Ross Brown obituaries." I couldn't help myself: I had to look. Hauntingly, the first Ross Brown on Legacy.com was a man from Massachusetts, who was a year younger than me. The images that appear when I search for my namesake are diverse. None of them looks like me. Lucky them. I gue...

Surgery is the next step. Tomorrow, I return to the Ottawa Hospital for my third round of steroid injections for my feet , and I have my fingers crossed that they'll be as successful as the last round, which haven't quite worn off but are just—oh, so very slowly—starting to. It's a vast change from the first round. When I received my first shots , in September, I was told that they could last for as little as six weeks and as long as six months. I was hopeful that they'd fall somewhere in the middle, lasting me as much as three months. Three months is, by the way, the minimum period I had to safely wait between shots. They started to wear off at the seven-week mark, and were completely spent at week eight. Through a communication issue with my surgeon, who will eventually treat the secondary problem, my Köhler Disease , I had to wait until January 19 to receive my second round of arthritis-numbing shots. By then, my feet were unbearably painful. I had picked o...

I have a perfect cure for hiccups. Perfect for me, that is. I take a deep breath, as much as my lungs will hold, and I hang on. I keep that air inside my lungs for as long as I possibly can, even if a hiccup comes while my diaphragm is tense. Slowly, evenly, I let the air out. I keep my lips together but slightly pursed, as though I'm about to plant a small peck on someones cheek. The air flows until I have to push with my diaphragm to get every bit of it out. Immediately, I swallow another huge gulp of air and repeat the process. If I hiccup at any time while I'm exhaling, I start the process again. I have to be able to let the air out without any interruption. If I'm successful, I make sure that I don't cough, sneeze, or belch for about five minutes. Nine times out of 10, this will cure my hiccups. I have no cure for a migraine. If I'm lucky enough to catch it before it starts, I can take two or three Advil tablets to avert the storm. If I can't ta...

The video said that with three people, the assembly would take about six hours. After about three hours, our third person bailed on us, and the project was supposed to be about half-finished. With two people, we worked for about two hours before the rain forced us to stop, and we were still only half-finished. We started early on Saturday, while the sun was shining. We were trying to get the gazebo built before the forecasted rain, but we hit some snags. First, one of the corner pieces was bent, so I had to hammer it out without further damaging it. Then, one of the pieces was poorly cut and didn't fit into its place. I owe a big thank you to one of the guys in the tool-rental department at my local Home Depot. I explained what needed to be cut, asked for help, and he took the piece into the back room. Five minutes later, he came back with the piece, cut and cleaned, and wished me a good day. No charge. When the rain started to fall, we decided to take a break for lu...

Where Ottawa's Flora Street meets Bank Street, in the lower part of Centretown, an unassuming building has been transformed from a repair shop for cars, trucks, and motorcycles to the city's newest brewery. From the front, very little has changed: fresh paint and new doors (although, the original shop doorways are still apparent). On the inside, however, a full-fledged brew pub with a bar, tables, and store. The fermentation tanks are clearly visible, toward the back. Flora Hall Brewing opened its doors a little more than six months ago, and I finally made my way to it last week. On a sunny, early Friday afternoon, its centre door was wide open to welcome in the patrons. Already, several people were crowding the bar and a few tables were filled. The doors to the left of centre led me to the shop, where refrigerator cases displayed several varieties of cans and bottles through glass doors. Because I was alone and because I had another place to be before making my way ho...