Friday, July 31, 2020

Photo Friday: Twilight and Blue

The last time that I drove to Pakenham, specifically to photograph the Five Span Bridge, was Friday, December 15, 2017. I arrived in darkness and pulled into the small, snow-covered parking lot of the conservation area, just before you cross the Mississippi River.

It was about 6:30 in the morning and the village was still asleep. Only the occasional vehicle would cross the narrow stone bridge and make its way toward the Trans-Canada Highway. I set up my tripod and captured several images before my feet began to freeze and I had to turn back to Ottawa.

It was a work day, after all. I was in the office by 8.

This time, the weather was much warmer and I didn't have to get up at an unruly hour to capture this old bridge. I had plenty of light as I set up and lots of time to explore different perspectives from which to set up my equipment.

My favourite time of day to shoot pictures is either just before the sun rises or just after it sets: twilight. I also love the blue hour, the time just before twilight (in the morning) or just after (in the evening). For me, this is the time when the light is at its best.

I parked my car on the west side of the bridge, in Five Span Bridge Park. With about a half hour until sunset, I was one of only two vehicles in the lot. Kayakers were strapping their crafts to the roof of their vehicle—this could have been DW and me, and may be in the near future.

Before I grabbed my gear, I walked the shoreline, starting at the northwest end of the bridge and the rapids that were too shallow to navigate by boat. Because the river was so low, I could walk under the westernmost span and see the view from the other side.

Both spots offered plenty of angles from which to capture the fading light and bridge, so I returned to my car and grabbed my camera bag and tripod.

I captured dozens of images on both sides but my two favourite shots were on the southwest side, capturing the last of the pinks and peaches of twilight and blue hour, when the lights under each span lit up the rippling Mississippi.

For this post, I couldn't decide which one I liked the best, so I've posted them both.



Which one do you prefer? Click one of them to enlarge it, and then use the right and left arrow keys to toggle between the two. It's kind of like turning a light switch on and off (I literally did that a few dozen times while I tried to pick one of them).

Happy Friday!


Thursday, July 30, 2020

Throwback Thursday: Conwy

Now that I'm back in high gear, writing my novel, I've recently expanded on a character that was briefly mentioned in my first book, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary, but who takes on a more solid character in the sequel, Gyeosunim.

And I have to admit that when I started writing about this character, again, I had totally forgotten his name. I literally had to pick up a copy of my last book and flip through the pages in search of him. In the first book, he is simply known as Brian, Siobhan's boyfriend with whom she lives on a posh street in New Town, Edinburgh.

In the opening chapters of Gyeosunim, Roland finds himself back in Scotland, where he visits his family while he's between contracts in Chŏnju, South Korea. Roland had originally gone looking for his mother, who lives in the Sandy Hill neighbourhood of Ottawa, but the ice storm of January, 1998, made her decide to ride it out with her daughter, Siobhan, and her boyfriend. And that's where he finds his family.

Because Brian plays a bigger role in the sequel, I needed to give him a last name. I also needed to give him a bit of depth, so I decided that Brian is a Welshman, from the town of Conwy, in the north of Wales.

DW and I drove through the Welsh countryside in 1991, and Conwy was one of our favourite stops. This small town was fortified in the 1280s, when Edward I waged war against the Welsh. A castle guards the mouth of the river that empties into Conwy Bay, an inlet of the Irish Sea. The old town is enclosed by a high, strong wall that stands to this day.

When DW and I visited this town, we toured the castle and then walked the entire length of the wall, which runs west, from the castle, for about a half kilometre or so before it cuts to the northeast and ends back at the river. At the elbow of the farthest point, where the wall changes direction, you have climbed a slope that gives a commanding view of the old town and the castle.



Continuing around the battlements, I stopped and captured some of the chimney stacks of the houses that butted up against the Medieval wall.



Wales still rates high on my list of places I've seen, and among our many stops, as we drove from the north, through Snowdonia, and all the way to the south, Conwy rates among the top.

It's only fitting that I create a character who comes from this historic place.

Happy Thursday!


Tuesday, July 28, 2020

The First Chapter

I'm done. I hope.

I've worked Chapter 1 of my novel, Gyeosunim, so many times over the years that I never thought I would get on with the rest of the story. For years, ever since I decided to go back to North Berwick, in 2010, I knew that I wanted the sequel of Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary to begin in Roland Axam's home town.

When I met some of North Berwick's actual residents, I included some of them in the story—although, in a fictitious manner. And while Chapter 1 was the first chapter that I had written—before I had started on the prelude—I've gone back and forth on it several times.

Now that I'm using some of my vacation time to stay at home and commit to finishing my manuscript, I've given Chapter 1 another look and added some more varnish to it. And I can say that I'm pretty certain that it's completed, save for an editor's eye.

As with other segments that I've shared on The Brown Knowser, here is the full first chapter. I hope you enjoy it. If you have any comments, please share them, below.


Chapter 1

Monday, February 2, 1998

February in North Berwick is miserable. Cold, grey, and dark, with only a few hours of real daylight. Skies are overcast most days and it often rains, the wind converting the minuscule rain drops into ice pellets that leave painful, relatively larger welts on any exposed face that suffers the misfortune of heading directly into it. If the wind were fortunate to blow in from the south, Berwick Law, the breast-shaped hill that was a volcanic plug from the Carboniferous age, would protect the town.

The Law would protect you.

If the wind were to come from any other direction—in particular, if it came in from the icy-cold north—then God help you.

North Berwick is a ghost town in February. No tourist ever ventures out here at this time of year. The West Links and Burgh courses are closed for the season, as is any souvenir shop, the owners having the sense to do their golfing and vacationing in warmer climes. The town's wealthiest residents, who also own property in more civilized environments such as Spain and southern Portugal, are long-gone and would be absent until late April or early May.

There is no reason to suffer the East-Lothian winter if you didn’t have to.

I would never understand why my parents had decided to leave this Scottish hell and move to Canada’s capital, with its sub-Arctic February chill and deep snow. But now, walking the streets of my hometown, I understood why: Ottawa’s wintery chill in February is blatant. It cautioned you to bundle up and you were foolish if you ignored the warning. North Berwick, with its rare snow, did not come with such warnings. Today, like so many winter days, there was no snow. There were no parkas, no toques. Just the wind that blew the rain that settled on the walls of the houses that backed onto the Firth of Forth and then turned to ice to remind you it was winter.

I was ridiculously underdressed in my spring jacket, which was warm enough for early April in Ottawa but was not even slightly suitable for the February weather here. Walking up Berwick Law had been my daily ritual for years, but I only ascended it when the weather was agreeable, and this afternoon’s walk had been a bit of a risk. The path had been frozen and slippery in some patches. On such a winter’s day, there was a possibility that with the low cover of clouds, a view of the town, Bass Rock, or the North Sea was not even guaranteed. And, with the coming storm off the North Sea, I took further risk of descending in treacherous weather.

Such was February in North Berwick.

I was home. It was my first time back to my hometown and my second home since before the accident. The last time I had been here was in May, 1995, just six weeks before that fateful crash, before everything had turned upside-down. Three months short of three years. Not much had changed. Nothing, save the weather.

Back in town, I walked eastward, along High Street, where the low buildings kept me somewhat sheltered from the wind. I kept close to the shops on the northern side of the narrow, one-way street. Walking toward St. Andrews Blackadder church, I would easily skirt up Balderstones Wynd before turning eastward again, toward The Auld Hoose.

The town's oldest pub—forever associated with Dad—was where I enjoyed my first legal pint. I was eighteen, having attained the legal drinking age for this East Lothian parish. I was still under-aged for Ottawa, would have to wait for next year. Dad might have suspected that my friends and I were already crossing the border to Hull, Québec, to Shalimar and Le Crystal, but he wasn’t spoiling the illusion that he was introducing me to the pub culture. And in a way, he was: he was introducing me to the Scottish pub culture, to his favourite drinking spot in his hometown. Dad cherished that moment: his son, coming of age, as it were. As I remembered, it was in the month of May, in 1983. May in North Berwick would always be marked by milestones for me: my first time drinking in a bona fide pub, my last time visiting with Kristen and Laura. May was a lovely time here; February, however, was not.

Dad’s usual seat was vacant. It was the chair that was closest to the side entrance, where he could come and go without much ado, without notice. I also entered by the side door, my closest escape from the outdoor chill. The place itself was all but empty, with just a young woman who I didn’t recognize, positioned behind the bar.

Where was Lyle?

Back in my dad’s days, a woman landlord was unheard of, would not be tolerated unless she was offering more than a pour of a drink. Lyle MacLeod had run The Auld Hoose since I was a child, since Lyle himself was a young man, perhaps only in his early to mid twenties. A large man with a large barrelled chest and solid frame, a deep voice of authority that commanded you to behave yourself in his establishment. Even the older men, like my father, wouldn’t mess with Lyle. The Auld Hoose was the oldest pub in town, the current building having stood since 1898, a hundred years, but the pub had burned down before then, existing since who knew when. Passed through time, through many hands, but it was Lyle who I knew. Over the years, "visiting home,” as Mum put it, I would always make a call here, would always occupy Dad’s stool when he wasn’t here. Lyle would see me walk in: his nickname for me was Wee Axam. I walked through the Forth Street entrance expecting to hear “well, if it isn’t Wee Axam.” Today, the shout of recognition didn’t come—the call of a familiar voice was absent. The young woman who, only moments before, was reading today’s Scotsman, looked up at the stranger that I was and saw an unfamiliar person. And yet, with the new face entering her pub, a welcoming smile appeared with a “hello, welcome.” She was very pretty, with long, reddish-brown hair tied into a ponytail. A cheerful smile and twinkling eyes told me it was okay to be here.

For me, a slight hesitation caught me: where to sit? The last time I was here, I had taken a seat at the stool next to my dad’s usual spot—leaving his space open, should he walk in, however unlikely—with him being in Ottawa when I last found myself at The Auld Hoose. But now he was gone for good. Would an Axam ever fill his seat again? The regulars knew this spot was Iain’s, and if Wee Axam wanted to fill those big shoes, no one would object. Certainly not the young lady behind the bar.

“Where’s Lyle?” I asked, fearing he had retired, or worse—that he had joined the ranks of my dad, Kristen, and Laura Elizabeth. Things were changing in North Berwick, had changed tremendously since I was a student at the high school, but Lyle was an institution in of himself. Losing him would be like losing the heart of this town.

“Ehm, he’s away today, gone to the city.”

The city: Edinburgh.

“He’ll be in this evening,” she explained. It was still early, though dark with these short winter days. “He ken you?”

“Yes, he knows me, though it’s been a few years. He knew my dad better. The name’s Axam: I’m Roland.”

Eyes looking upwards, head tilted to the side, she asked, “Wee Axam?”

Surprise. Face warming, reddening. “That’s what Lyle called me. You can call me Roland, if you please. But you have me at a disadvantage: you are?”

“Ehm, I’m Katie. Lyle’s daughter.”

“You can’t be Katie, you’re too grown up.”

“I’m twenty-two,” she said, sounding hurt and defensive.

“Well then, Katie, you’re all grown up, and into a real beauty.” I remembered her, but only in vague snapshots of a murky memory: a wee lass, coming into the pub to bring her dad a message from home, or in her early teens, sitting at a corner table, completing her homework, her dad enforcing her studies and warning the younger patrons to keep away from her. She was cute then, a real looker now.

Time for her face to redden, but in modesty. “Thank you. Can I get you anything?”

“A pint of Best, thanks.” Lyle would have remembered: Katie could be forgiven.

“Thank you,” she sang, happy again.

The place hadn’t changed. The pub was L-shaped, with a larger sitting hall and lots of tables to the left as you entered the main doors of the bar, a games room bending off from it, toward the washrooms. A few sofas and some lower tables finished the furnishings. Something new from my father’s days occupied the far walls: electronic poker games, ready to take your cash. Most of the older locals, my dad included, preferred the bar area, with the six display barrels above the shelf or whisky and spiced-rum bottles. The fireplace was now filled with an electric-bar heater. The painting of Bass Rock hanging above the archway to the other side of the pub remained, though it was showing its age.


I took Dad’s seat, the brown covering having been replaced since he had last occupied it. The refinishing of it almost said that I could now take it. “While you’re at it, Katie, can I also have a Laphroaig?”

“Of course, thank you. Did you want some water with?”

“No, neat, if you please.”

“Thank you,” she sang again.

I felt out of place. Though my surroundings were familiar, it was as though my memories were a dream. The last time I was here, I knew who I was. Iain Axam’s son, grown up, successful, married and with an adorable child, happy, and healthy. Today, I was a shadow of the man I was when last I graced this establishment. I had lost so much weight, a weight measured differently in the three places in which I now called home, however loosely I used the term. Here, my home town, I barely weighed ten stone; in Canada, where I made my home, less than one hundred and forty pounds; in Korea, my home-away-from home, shy of sixty-three kilograms. Mum dutifully accused me of not eating enough in Chŏnju, when she had seen the photos I had sent her during my first year. In truth, I had not been eating as much processed food as I had in Canada and was consuming a lot less meat and dairy. These days, I mostly ate rice and veggies. Yes, I was thinner, carrying less fat, but I felt healthy. Grown and healthy. Now taking Iain Axam’s place at The Auld Hoose. But it was questionable whether I was successful: no longer married, no longer with a child. I had rediscovered love but then lost that love.

“That’ll be three pounds eighty, please. Thank you.” I reached into my pocket and handed Katie a five-pound note. As Korea had now conditioned me, I handed the note to her with my right hand, supported by my left hand. A slight bow, but I caught myself before I made a full one. “Thank you,” she sang again, looking at me queerly, not knowing what to think of the gesture. She had no idea where I had been, what I had experienced, what I had endured. Not in Korea, certainly, not in Canada. Or did she know? Had word spread to North Berwick, where everybody knew everyone and everyone knew everybody’s business. Of course Lyle would have heard about the accident, about the loss in the Axam family. My mother had been back several times over the years—last July, most recently, to mark the second anniversary of the loss, Mum and Siobhan came to North Berwick, had climbed Berwick Law with a small container of Dad’s ashes, had waited until they were alone at the summit, when they removed the lid from the container and let the wind carry the remains over the town, out to the Firth of Forth, over Craigleith. Dad’s favourite place on Earth, flying above it all. Siobhan and Mum were moved and comforted by the memorial and planned to return on the date each year, carrying more of Dad’s remains until it was all gone. I wanted to be there, someday. I had missed the memorial last year, instead climbing to the summit of Namgo-san, a small hill to the south of Chŏnju, where I remembered my family in my own, solitary way. I was teaching and couldn’t be with my family, and wasn’t ready yet. This year, I was planning to be back in Korea. I would make an effort to remember the day there. Next year, I promised, I'd join Mum and Siobhan.

Next year, for the fourth anniversary: it seemed so far away.

“That’s your Laphroaig,” said Katie, placing the tumbler in front of me, “and your Belhaven Best. Thank you.” The pint was still settling in the glass, the creamy foam cascading towards the base.

“Sláinte,” I said, raising my whisky to her.

The front door opened and a frosty breeze was ushered in. The rain was now falling in earnest and I could also hear frozen droplets tapping on the windows. Freezing rain that would quickly melt, not like it did in Ottawa. Last month, an ice storm had come through from Southern Ontario into Eastern Ontario, and onwards through Montreal, Quebec’s Eastern Townships, and as far as parts of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. In Ontario, hydro-electric towers crumpled under the weight of the clinging ice, looking like crushed bugs from aerial photographs. Trees were down, damaging houses and cars. Most of Ottawa was without power for about a week. Mum had pulled out an old camping stove—a Coleman burner—and cooked meals on the front veranda of her house until it got too cool to sleep comfortably. That’s when she flew to Edinburgh, to be with Siobhan and Brian.

Without telling me. Her next-door neighbours of more than 15 years would watch over the Sandy Hill home. Having a spare key, they would check on the house when the power was restored, would make sure that nothing that shouldn't be on was running.

Of course, there had been no need for Mum to let me know that she was leaving Ottawa: I was in Korea—or so Mum thought. When I heard about the ice storm, I made the decision to go back to Canada to spend the month with my mother while I awaited my new contract. It was to be a surprise and so I kept silent. By the time I was back in Canada, the storm had passed but the damage was apparent: bent or broken trees along the airport parkway and in my neighbourhood. Entire maple sugar bushes were gone. The power was back on in Ottawa—still out in Montreal—but Mum had already left. I had spent a week at my house, touching base with friends and colleagues, before making the flight out to Scotland.

From the front door entered an elderly woman who I immediately recognized as Mrs. Macrae, my old primary school teacher who was long retired but who now cleaned houses, including mine. She acknowledged Katie but took no notice of me and sat at a table near the fireplace. Without a word, Katie picked up a fresh pint glass and began pouring a Deuchars IPA. “Let me get that,” I said to Katie, producing a two-pound coin and laying it on the counter.

“That’s one pound eighty, please, thank you.”

“Eh, what’s that?” said Mrs. Macrae, not having realized that she wasn't alone in The Auld Hoose.

“Allow an old pupil to buy his favourite teacher a pint,” I said. Mrs. Macrae looked at me for the first time and gave a sheepish grin.

“You were always my favourite pupil, Mr. Axam,” she said in a tone that told me she said this to any of her students that she encountered. “I trust you found your house in tidy order?”

“Aye, as always, Mrs. Macrae, as always. Thank you for keeping it so spic and span.” Mrs. Macrae checked on the house every fortnight Thursday, when she would dust it and water the few plants that managed to survive the years without a resident. When she knew I would be coming home, Mrs. Macrae always popped by that morning and made sure that there was the latest edition of The Scotsman on the entrance table and a fresh bottle of milk in the fridge. Worth her weight in gold, she was.

Of course the town would know about the Axam family loss. There was Mrs. Macrae. She was one of North Berwick’s most-prominent gossips.

The bar was slowly starting to come alive with the regulars who didn’t leave town at this time of year—with those who kept the town going, who weren’t dependent on the tourists for their livelihood. Hugh MacAdam, who ran the Boots on High Street; Alison Hunter, one of the town’s librarians; Ewan Burns, fisherman; Billy Gentleman, an old schoolmate, who now drove the ScotRail train between Edinburgh and North Berwick. We had lost touch when I moved to Canada, some eighteen years ago, and we now had little in common. But we always had kind words for each other whenever our paths crossed, which was usually in this public house.

"You chose a strange time of year to take a vacay," said Billy.

"Not a vacation," I corrected, "between contracts." Billy had no idea what I was up to, didn't know I had spent the better part of last year teaching English in South Korea. There was no point in getting into it now. It was a conversation that would beg many questions, call for too many answers. Korea was too far removed from this small, seaside town. I wouldn't be surprised if Billy couldn't put Korea on a map. Before I researched it, I'm not sure that I could have, either.

It had been a tough year in Korea. An economic crisis in East Asia had made it difficult for so many. Businesses failed, including the language institute where I had worked. The Korean currency, the won, had crumbled. There was still so much instability. It was not something I wanted to discuss. It was not something that I thought Billy would understand, living so far away in a culture with which he was unfamiliar.

Mercifully, I didn't have to delve into a conversation. Billy's girlfriend sauntered into the pub and took his attention, leaving me to my pint and tumbler.

Discomfort averted. For now.


Monday, July 27, 2020

Walking Away from Facebook


For the past couple of years, ever since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, I've been shrinking my presence on Facebook. Primarily, I used that app to keep in touch with family and very close friends, and for many years I found it a great way to see how everyone was doing.

But as the years went on, I found that there was more junk in my timeline than I cared to see, and the security issues started to weigh on me, and I decided that I wanted to shrink my presence.

Over the years, I culled people who weren't active on Facebook, but I then started cutting connections with people that I either saw on a regular basis (pre-pandemic) or to whom I was connected through other media—Twitter and LinkedIn, or Instagram.

I started deleting photos from my Facebook account and eventually began removing old posts. Then, last November, I removed the Facebook app from my smartphone and stopped posting. I'd check in on my remaining friends and family members, which numbered at about a dozen, but would rarely comment on their posts. I figured that these remaining people would stay in my list or it would be they who severed our connection because of my inactivity.

I only look at Facebook, at most, about once a month. And, when I'm there, I delete posts that show up in my Memories page and other older posts on my main page. With the exception of a couple of posts—DD17 performing live with JW Jones, my video of Korea, and some historic photos around Ottawa—I've deleted posts as far back as January, 2017.

When I spend time on Facebook, these days, it's to erase my history on the app. Eventually, I'll stop following everybody in my connections. I still have Facebook's instant-messenger service, which I use to contact 'old' friends on Facebook, and I imagine that will be the tool that I use exclusively to reach these people.

If I'm really curious to find out what these folks are up to, I can simply ask DW: she's connected with practically all of my family and close friends, anyway.

What about you? Have you cut the cord with Facebook? Share your experiences in the Comments section.


Friday, July 24, 2020

Photo Friday: In Search of NEOWISE

At first, I didn't want to photograph it.

I've had some pretty bad luck in the past, standing out in the middle of fields, camera pointed skyward, trying to capture celestial bodies. The aurora borealis; countless meteor showers; the Milky Way.

I mean, I know how to take pictures of the sky at night. And, over the years, I've had varied success. And I'm quite good at capturing images of the moon. But it seems that when particular cosmic events come along, I somehow come away empty-handed or with images that I'm less than pleased with.

My photography meetup group posted a meeting last Saturday, to gather at Shirley's Bay Park, where Rifle Road ends at the Ottawa River, to get shots of the NEOWISE Comet (NEOWISE stands for Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, NASA's space telescope that discovered this comet in March of this year). I was tempted to join my fellow photographers, but after a day on the St. Lawrence River, kayaking around the 1,000 Islands off Gananoque, I was too tired to go. I had also convinced myself that I was going to screw up taking the photo.

On Tuesday, when my photography group again announced another meetup to capture the comet, I thought, what the hell: it was a nice evening. I hadn't been to Shirley's Bay Park since the late 80s, when I took some sunset images with coloured filters. It was time to revisit this west-end part of the Ottawa River, across from Aylmer, Québec.

At the very least, I'd get some dusk and blue-hour images of the Ottawa River.

I arrived just after 9:00 and found the parking lot packed. Lots of people had come out to this park to enjoy a barbecue dinner, to watch the sunset, or just to hang out where the view of the Gatineau Hills from across the river is gorgeous. I managed to find one of the last available parking spots, and got my equipment out of the trunk.

While there were a lot of people on this rocky shore, groups were keeping their distance from one another. I scoped the area for fellow photographers and saw a small group setting up their tripods near the water. These people were not social-distancing, so I told myself that I didn't want to be with them. I saw what appeared to be a father and son, standing alone with their tripods, cameras faced skyward, so I approached them and asked if they were with the photography group.

They said no.

I saw a woman in her mid to late 60s with a tripod, also facing to the evening sky. She was alone, sitting on a small folding chair, and so I approached her and asked her the same question. Again, her answer was no, but she pointed to the cluster of other photographers, their number growing.

"If that's them," I said to her, "no thanks." I moved about 20 or so feet away from the woman and set up my tripod.

Because it was less than a half hour after sunset, there was still plenty of peach-coloured sky on the horizon and so I shot a few photos. I wasn't going to go home empty-handed. I saw that just over the treeline on the Québec side of the river, clouds had gathered and were moving slowly, despite the steady breeze that was mercifully keeping the mosquitoes to a minimum. Directly overhead, wisps of cirrus clouds were also threatening to obstruct the night sky.

I looked at my watch: it was a quarter past the hour. I knew that the comet would be at its peak brightness between 10:00 and 10:30. I told myself that if the clouds were still around at 10, I'd pack up and call it a night.

As light faded, many people began to pack up and head out. As I had guessed, most were here to see the sunset. But some people, without cameras beyond smartphones, remained. Perhaps they were here to try and glimpse the comet with their naked eyes.

My eyes scanned the sky, through the gaps in the clouds. I could count a few stars, making themselves visible as the darkness grew. In the area where I expected to see the comet, clouds still moved across the sky, but as 10:00 came, the clouds seemed to dissipate, and so I readied my camera.

When I thought I saw a faint trail of light, I turned my D750 toward it with my telephoto lens set to 70mm. As soon as I had the object in my frame, I zoomed to 300mm.

It was a small vapour trail, left by some long-gone aircraft.

At precisely 10:15, I saw a tiny blur of light just below the Big Dipper. Again, setting my lens to its widest field of view, I located the object in my viewfinder. Even at 70mm, I knew I had the comet. I zoomed to 300mm and shot. My exposure was set to four seconds at f/8, with ISO at 800. The comet was a decent size in the frame but my exposure was a little low, the comet faint but visible. The tail was barely visible.

Over the next 15 minutes, I played with my exposure settings, firing off a total of 28 shots. By 10:30, I was packing up and heading home.

Looking at the photos, once home, I was pretty happy with the results. Though some of my exposures were a bit too long, making the surrounding stars appear like streaks in the night sky, the comet itself looked pretty good. I even managed to capture an image as a satellite, which I could not see with the naked eye, crossed the comet's path.

My favourite shot of the bunch was taken at an exposure of four seconds at f/8, but with an ISO of 10,000. The surrounding stars show a bit of motion but the comet is clear. The sky was a bit darker, having been shot at 10:27.



I may have blown off my photo group that evening and left myself to my own devices for capturing this comet, but my results renewed my faith in my ability to capture a celestial body in the night sky. In the past, I've sometimes blamed my equipment: my Nikon D80 wasn't robust enough; my D7200 had too many features and I didn't fully understand them. Those statements may have been true with the D80, but I was blaming the D7200 for my own failings.

The D750 is the most-advanced camera that I've ever had but it still came down to my manual settings and experience. The difference this time is that I had a little more faith in myself.

Happy Friday!


Thursday, July 23, 2020

Throwback Thursday: Cars of Yore

Growing up in a family with a car salesman, I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said that in my life, I've driven at least 100 different cars. Perhaps, even, as many as double that number.

Even before I had my driver's license, my father taught me how to drive. Most of the time, we used our own vehicle, but because he was known for buying trade-ins from the dealership, keeping them for a short time, and then re-selling them at either a profit or for what he paid, we often rotated our family car several times in one year.

When I had my learner's permit, my father would often let me use one of the demonstrators that he would use as his day-to-day commuter car. In the early 80s, car sales were good, and it wouldn't be unusual to swap this demo for another one because it sold. One time, I remember my father heading to work with one demo, coming home for lunch in a different demo because he sold the first one, and then coming home for dinner in a third demo because he sold the second one.

Though I wouldn't drive his new demos every day, it would be fair to say that in the course of a month, I would drive 10 to 15 of them.

So, maybe I'm underestimating when I say I've driven at least 100 cars.

Not too long ago, I was reflecting on some of the memorable cars that I had driven—a 1985 6000STE, a 1986 Fiero GT, a 1987 Sunbird GT, and a 1989 Firebird Trans Am convertable, among others—but particularly, the cars that I've actually owned over the years.

(Side note: in creating this post, I realized that I didn't take many photos of my vehicles: only a couple of the following images are my own; the rest were plucked from Google searches and may not exactly match my vehicles.)

I didn't own my first car until 1987, when I got my job as a reporter at The Low Down to Hull and Back News, in Wakefield. Before then, I held jobs where I could either walk to work or could borrow our family car. Having to drive from Parkwood Hills to Wakefield, and also to drive to stories, I needed my own set of wheels.

I turned to my father for help, and I only had a couple of days to find myself a set of wheels—actually, as soon as I was hired, I was asked to start the next day: I had to borrow the family car until one for me was found.

On the day that I started my job in Wakefield, my father found a trade-in at his dealership that he thought could do, for now. It wasn't the optimum vehicle: it was a gas-guzzler, but it was safe. And it was in mint condition with low mileage. The car he found me was a 1981 Chevy Malibu: a four-door, V8-engine vehicle in two-tone brown.

Source: Google
It lasted only a couple of weeks. Right from the get-go, it was obvious that this was not the car for me. First off, it was too big. With its massive engine, it went through a lot of fuel. I filled the tank every couple of days. With some of the stories that I covered happening all over the area from Low, Quebec, down to Hull (as the paper was named), I could sometimes find myself filling my tank every day.

This new job was going to cost me a fortune.

Even though my father found the Malibu so quickly, he never expected me to keep it and he continued to search for something better. Two weeks after taking the Malibu, he found another car that was better.

A 1979 Pontiac LeMans: two-door, V6, in a light blue. For being two years older than my Malibu, the LeMans came to me with even lower mileage from its previous owner, and again was in like-new condition. With the smaller engine, I found myself going to the fuel pumps less often, but I was still spending a large portion of my pay on gas (even though, to some extent, the paper was compensating me for fuel).

Source: Google
My father, forever on the search for good used cars, found a third car for me, a few months later, after I left The Low Down. This car was much better suited to a 22-year-old: a 1984 Pontiac Sunbird. This four-cylinder, five-speed manual hatchback was a two-tone of dark blue and grey, and even had a sunroof.

© The Brown Knowser
I loved this car. I drove it everywhere: several trips to Mississauga, to visit a girlfriend. To Montreal, to New York City, and all the way to Fort Lauderdale, in Florida.

To date, it's still in my top-three cars that I've owned. I had it for three years, finally giving it up when I went back to school and couldn't afford to keep it while paying tuition and rent. With great regret, I sold it and went for a couple of years without a car.

Eventually, I got tired of renting cars for getaways, and my father was looking to sell one of his trade-ins that he bought at work. It was a 1980 Datsun 200SX hatchback. White, with a red interior, it was a fun car and reminded me, in some ways of my Sunbird, but this had an automatic transmission and was somewhat gutless. It also had a recurring problem with the brake pads seizing, and we did have the muffler disintegrate on a road trip to Cape Breton Island.

Source: Google
It was the first car that DW and I owned, buying it just after we got married, in 1994. (Oops, I'm not supposed to say how long we've been married.) We kept the car until we moved to South Korea, when we sold it for the same price that we originally paid for it.

When DW and I returned to Canada, in 1999, we needed a car so that we could get around without having to rely on parents for a vehicle (DW's folks didn't have a car to spare and it was a big ask for my folks, who only had one family car and a demo). Again, I turned to my father to find a good car in short order.

He found a 1994 Chevy Cavalier: red, four-door, automatic, base model. It was one of the most basic cars we owned. We kept it, until spring of 2001, but when our first-born daughter came along, we wanted something bigger and safer.

Source: Google
At the time, my father was looking to sell his 1994 Toyota Camry LE, and the decision to take it off his hands was an easy one. It had low mileage, was in nearly new condition, and I had already driven it a few times.

Source: Google
It was the best car that I've ever owned. Smooth, responsive, comfortable. It was a classic deep green, with lights across the entire back end and a spoiler on the trunk. We drove that car everywhere, including to PEI for a summer vacation. We would have driven that car into the ground, which probably would have been until 2010, or longer. It was a well-built car.

Sadly, a heavy downpour in heavy traffic brought that car to an untimely end in a collision. No one was hurt but I cried at the loss of that car, in 2006.

For a replacement vehicle, DW and I decided to up-size and get a minivan. We had two young kids and we often found ourselves schlepping a lot of over-sized things that taxed a sedan. We also liked to travel with our parents, and a seven-seater vehicle seemed the best choice. My father pointed us to a friend who managed a Honda dealership, and we got a great deal on a 2003 Odyssey.

© The Brown Knowser
We drove that vehicle into the ground and went everywhere in it (it was, after all, our only vehicle). While we owned the Odyssey, though, we did make the decision to get a second vehicle, one that I could use to commute safely to and from work. In 2012, we bought our first new car, my Ford Focus Titanium hatchback.

© The Brown Knowser
Enough has been said about this car.

In 2014, when our Odyssey grew long in the tooth and was costing us more to maintain than it was worth, we returned to the manager of the Honda dealership to get another deal: this time, on a 2012 CR-V. This car has been great, and we continue to drive it. We expect it to last us at least another four or five years.

Source: Honda des Sources
This year, when I finally got tired of the problems that wracked the Focus, we traded it in for a 2019 Kia Niro hybrid. So far, both DW and I love this car. It can go about 800 kms on a tank of gas, drives extremely smoothly, and has more toys on it than any other vehicle we've owned. Because it came equipped with roof rails (as did our Odyssey), we bought crossbars and have added racks for our kayaks. Even heavily laden with two kayaks, the fuel economy is better than any of our past vehicles.

© The Brown Knowser
While I've only owned 10 cars in my lifetime, I have driven (much) more than a hundred. And I didn't even touch on the dozens of cars and trucks that I've rented.

What about you? What are some of your memorable cars? Leave a comment.