The Brown Knowser

By 1991, DW and I (who were only dating at the time) had travelled enough together and knew that we were very good companions. We had already been to New York City, Florida, Toronto, Quebec City, and around the Gaspé Peninsula, so we had a good feeling that we'd do all right on an overseas trip. When we decided to travel to London, to visit DW's best friend, who was there on a work visa, we also made plans to see other parts of England and venture across Wales before flying over to Paris to visit DW's sister, who lived there. This May will mark 30 years since that adventure, and DW and I have been discussing it a lot these days, mostly due to the fact that I'm virtually trekking across England with my Conqueror Virtual Challenges and I've been revisiting some places where I've actually been. And what DW and I have been learning is that a lot of this vacation is only coming back to us in foggy snippets. For example, we remember sharing a room in a youth hostel w...

Personally, I haven't worn it in several years. My expanding beer belly has made it quite snug and I fear that, once zipped up, I would split the zipper open, and I don't care to endure that sort of embarrassment. Some time before the pandemic, we were clearing out old clothing and I placed my old Blackstone Gore-Tex rain shell on the pile to go to Value Village. DW balked, "You're not throwing that out!" "It doesn't fit anymore." My first rain shell, Peggy's Cove, 1996. It was my second such shell and was, admittedly, a much-better quality than my previous one. I call it a shell because I rarely wore it without a fleece jacket or a sweater underneath this thin layer. Together, these coverings kept me warm and dry in any weather. From late fall to early spring, I wore this combination of outerwear for more than 20 years. My best friend, Stuart, had once loaned a similar though heavier-duty shell to DW when we were travelling around the Philadelph...

"Where did it go?" DW asked, as she moved beside me and raised her mirrorless camera. "Over there," I pointed, "on the shore." "Where? All I see is that muddy rock." "That's it," I said, "it's the muddy rock." Not sure whether or not I was right, she pointed at the dark mass, tucked in shadow, and took her snapshots. I was carrying my Nikon D7200, with my 70-300mm lens. My now standard camera for photographing the wilderness. The sensor isn't as good as my D750 but with the conversion of a non-full-frame camera, my 300mm zoom became about 450mm, allowing me to get a bit closer. I had followed the creature through the lens of my camera since he was swimming in the clearing in the ice, in the water of Mer Bleue Bog. He went under water a couple of times, to negotiate the ice that was still covering his path. But his course was a straight one and I was able to see him move to the shaded area by the shore, where he cli...

Ever since I started my LEJOG challenge, my virtual journey from Land's End to John O'Groat's, I've been trying to remember the trip that DW and I took in the very early 90s * , when we travelled around parts of England and much of Wales before heading to Paris, France, for a week. There are lots of blanks in my memory, and even DW says that some of that trip is a bit of a blur. Perhaps it was because of our little experience with jet lag or that we travelled so much that we didn't take the time to drink it in. Of course, 30 years is a long time to remember details of specific days where what we saw was so fleeting. But ever since I reached Salisbury on my virtual trek, I've been thinking more of that trip and have been searching for photographs that DW and I took, in an effort to retrace our steps. The biggest challenge, so far, is to find our photos. We have so many albums that are filled with printed photographs and slides, and when we moved from 35mm film t...

For much of the past week, my head has felt heavy and I've been very drowsy. I think it has to do with the massive thaw that has struck our city, particularly over the weekend, when the beginning of spring brought sunshine and temperatures to the positive double digits. With the thaw, the snow has melted with breakneck speed, exposing wet lawns and dormant plants, and with them, mold and spores. My sinuses suffer every year at this time, and this year I seem to be hit heavier than usual. Though I did manage to get out and enjoy the warmth, I didn't spend a lot of time outside and, when I returned indoors, all I wanted to do was lie down and close my eyes. I can't tell you the number of times I drifted off when DW and I were watching some of our favourite shows on our various streaming services. I'm going to have to re-watch a couple of shows to pick up the missed scenes. As I wrote last week, for about a month or so DW and I have been getting up early in the morning to ...

More than a year after DW and I started dating (before she was DW), we went on a trip to the UK, where we visited a friend in London before we rented a car and made a loop around the countryside that included stops in Stratford-upon-Avon, much of Wales, and the southern regions that included Bath, Salisbury, and a slight detour to Oxford, before returning our rental car to London and flying to Paris for a week. On this trip in 1990, DW and I learned that we travelled very well together. As much as I remember the trip and some of the spots in which we stayed, my memory of details of the vacation are beginning to fade. For example, I have vague recollections of driving to a camp site and arriving late at night, when the gates into the site were closed. DW and I had to sleep in our little Ford Fiesta, reclining our seats and trying to make ourselves comfortable. It was a damp, rainy night and with the windows rolled up, moisture developed on the inside of the windows. I have faint memorie...

Not so long ago, my eldest kid said to me, "You know, when the pandemic lockdown started, I was 18: on my next birthday, I'll be 20." I don't know what shocked me more: that the pandemic has been here for more than a year or that I've been a dad for two decades. And while it sucks that this is the second birthday where my kid hasn't been able to celebrate with her close friends, while she is alone in her college residence for this birthday, I'm thankful that she's healthy and safe. I'm also feeling older but not terribly so. Yes, the last 20 years have flown by, but as the adage goes, time flies when you're having fun. Happy Birthday to my first-born.

For almost every day since January 5, I've hopped on my spin bike and pedalled for anywhere from 30 minutes to more than an hour. There has only been one day (possibly, there have been two) where I didn't get on my stationary cycle machine, but on those days I did walk a few kilometres, at least. Once, when I walked a long distance, as part of my virtual challenge treks , I only had a couple of kilometres to make up for my daily target, and was on my bike for a little longer than five minutes (hardly worth it, but the day was almost over and I couldn't cover the distance on foot before midnight). At the time of writing this post, I have covered 1,131 kilometres over two challenges. Since the beginning of March, I've travelled just over 356 kms. To complete my current challenge , which is taking me from Land's End, in southwest England, to John O'Groat's, on the northern tip of Scotland, I still have 1,410 kms to go. I've just passed the 20-percent milest...

The view from our campsite, at Jones Falls, in 2013. Three... Two... One... *Click* It's been a ritual for nearly a month now. DW and I set our alarms, daily, so that we can get out of bed by 6:50. We trudge downstairs, to our dining room, where a couple of laptops await us. We power up, log onto the same Web site, and search for available spots, and count down the seconds to 7:00, when we can click a button. Reserve . Like hundreds, if not thousands of other people, we've been trying to reserve camp sites in the dozens of Ontario Parks grounds. The rules allow you to reserve up to six months in advance, and reservations can start at 7:00 in the morning. But because many people are turning to camping, rather than travelling abroad, because of COVID-19 restrictions, these camp sites are being snapped up at record levels. DW and I have created our own accounts and are trying to get a reservation at Killarney Provincial Park, where we'd like to kayak around the northern end o...

For years, DW has been telling me that we need to downsize when it comes to our collection of books. And every time she mentions this news, I've fought back. "But I'll read these books again," has been my strongest argument. "You're going to read every single one of these books again?" she challenges. There used to be a time that I would devour books. Every December, from my university years, I would make a list of the books that I would plan to read in the upcoming year. With The Brown Knowser , I would reach out to my readers for suggestions for what to read, and I received some solid recommendations. Often, I would start out with a list of 10 to 12 books, and when I got to the last book, I would add a few more. Some years, I would read about two-dozen books or more. I haven't had a reading list since 2013 . Honestly, I read more when I didn't drive myself to work. At least twice a week, I would take the bus to work, which took at least 90 minu...

On March 10, 2020, I left the office at lunch time because I was feeling under the weather. I was exhibiting the signs of a head cold, something that is not uncommon at this time of the year. I packed up my computer and headed home, where I worked online for the rest of the day On March 11, I worked from home because my head cold was settling in and I was going through tissues like they were going out of style. I was congested and felt tired, and the last thing I wanted to do was to pass it onto a colleague, especially because COVID-19 had come to Canada and was all that people were talking about. My co-workers even joked that that's what I had. On March 12, my head was so congested that I called into the office and said I was taking a personal day, to focus on clearing my head. I had a brief, online meeting with my director, who was in Seattle, and then took the rest of the day off. I pumped myself full of cold and sinus medication, drank plenty of fluids, and slept. By late eveni...

Just over 10 years ago, in February of 2011, I recounted a day on a crowded bus as I made my way to work and the most bizarre tale of a homeward commute, also on a crowded bus. This blog post was published in my old and now defunct blog, Brownfoot Journal . I came about my old blog the other night, as I was going through my neglected Facebook account, deleting old posts. I no longer actively use Facebook, though I still have a handful of connections, most of whom are family members and friends with whom I don't interact on a regular basis but upon whom I like to lurk every once and a while, just to see what they're up to. As I began deleting some links I had posted to my old blog, which is now only viewable by me, I came across some interesting, quirky, weird, and fun posts. One was an open letter that I wrote to people that shared a commute with me, back before DW and I purchased our second vehicle and I no longer used public transit. When I re-read the post, I thought, oh god...

In 1989, I was really getting into my stride with photography. At 24, I was the assistant manager at a camera store and I took every opportunity to hone my photography skills. My camera was always loaded with 35mm, E-6 slide film, and wherever I went in my car, my camera bag was usually on the floor, behind the driver's seat. When it was quiet in the camera store, I would pour over the pages of the photography books that we kept behind the display cases, often standing next to the premium SLR cameras. When the sales reps from Nikon or Minolta came to visit, they would always share great tips to get the most out of your camera. (It was through the Minolta rep that I learned the trick of how to advance the crank on my X-700 without moving the film, allowing for the possibility of multiple exposures .) One summer evening, I drove to the Arboretum to photograph the full moon as it was rising. And while the view from the lookout toward Carleton University and the Rideau Canal is impress...

It breaks my heart to think that I'm getting too old for this. From the time before I had my driver's license, I've loved being behind the wheel. My father first started showing me the basics of driving at the tender age of eight, when I would sit on his lap and control the steering wheel, while his feet would take care of the gas, brake, and sometimes the clutch pedals, as we negotiated the empty parking lots of the nearby shopping centres. Those were the days long before Sunday shopping made empty parking lots a rare commodity. At 13, when I could finally sit in the driver's seat and handle the pedals and see over the hood of the car, I was allowed to drive on the dirt roads around our house, when we lived up in the Gatineau Hills. Sometimes, we'd return to vacant parking lots, where my father taught me skills for accident-avoidance and what I like to call "offensive driving." I think he was grooming me to be a race-car driver. By the time I received my ...

A little more than nine years ago, I shared a double-exposed photograph that I had shot sometime in the late 1980s. It was a photo of the moon, superimposed on a capture of the Chateau Laurier and Daly Building (which was torn down in the 90s). To accomplish this effect, I first took the photograph of the Chateau Laurier and then had to manipulate my old Minolta X-700 35mm camera so that I could take another shot without having to advance the film. I also had to memorize the composition of the buildings in the first photo so that when I photographed the moon, none of the subjects would overlap. When I photographed the moon, I also zoomed in on it with my telephoto lens. I didn't know whether that effect was successful until about a week or so later, when I received my processed slides. Luckily, it didn't turn out too badly.* Today, the process is much simpler: I only need to take the two photographs and layer the digital images in post-processing. Or I can even skip taking a c...

These days, all of my travels to faraway lands are purely virtual. Whether I'm following the pilgrimage trail of the Camino de Santiago or hiking the entire length of the UK, I'm not really leaving the confines of my home or neighbourhood. But since last summer, I've also been taking a virtual beer vacation, travelling to the UK, India, Switzerland, and even the North Pole. My latest globetrotting with beer takes me to the far-away reaches of Madagascar. And the brewery that has helped me achieve these destinations has been Kingston's own Spearhead Brewing Company . The folks at Spearhead have been spoiling me a lot over the years, and I was delighted to find another six pack waiting for me on my doorstep last week. The latest offering from their limited Globetrotter Series is a German bock that is made with Madagascar vanilla beans and lush passionfruit. I'm used to seeing vanilla in stouts and porters, and I love them. I also love these German dark lagers and was ...