The Brown Knowser

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I knew that water levels in rivers around the Ottawa River have been lower than normal, due to the lack of rain in May and most of June. But it wasn't until I headed out to the Chaudière Falls and saw such a trickle of water pass through the dam. It would not be a challenge to walk from end to end. For a comparison, see my blog post from a few years back . Just imagine how this great set of falls looked like before the dam. I hope we get more rain soon.

I don't know what made me decide to do it. It wasn't a conscious decision. I just got lazy and let nature take its course for about a week. When I finally took action, I only did so in a half-assed way. I'm talking about growing facial hair. Every few years, on a whim, I decide to grow a beard. It's not a good look for me, as some spots on my face just don't seem to want to grow hair, especially around my sideburn area and where a moustache meets up with the beard. Also, as each year passes, my beard has changed from a dark brown to a salt-and-pepper grey. As May was nearing a close, I stopped using my razor as part of my morning routine. It's not uncommon for me to not shave on weekends, as I often get up early and head out, either for a bike ride, kayak paddle, or to hit up a store before it gets busy, and when I get home, I don't tend to want to take the time to shave. When Monday came around, I woke up later than usual and again, didn't want to take ...

I thought I was done with this topic. I thought I had shown you the best part about getting up before sunrise to capture a partial solar eclipse, but enjoying the pre-sunrise sky much more. I thought I had written about how I had blown capturing the eclipse because I didn't use my neutral-density filter, thinking I could use highlight recovery to fix the blown-out sun, in post processing, only to prove myself wrong. But there was more. You see, I had my Nikon D750 on a tripod with my 24-70mm lens. And while this setup still didn't capture the eclipse in its full glory, I did have an ultraviolet filter on it, which I use to protect the glass. It is a $2,000 lens, after all. That extra layer of glass over the elements does something when the sun is in the camera's frame: it creates an apparition of light. With a solar eclipse, the apparition shows the eclipse. Do you see it? Find the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill and look down. As I said last week, I was able to see the ecli...

It always terrified my friend, Al, when I handed him my camera to take a photo of me. I don't know if he was afraid that he was going to drop the camera or mess up the settings or do something that would prevent him from taking the photo. Perhaps it was a combination of these actions. But I had him put the strap around his neck so that the camera could not fall to the ground. I set up the aperture and shutter speed so that the exposure would be fine, and I focused the lens so that I wouldn't be a blurry blob. All he had to do was point the camera at me and press the shutter button, which I showed to him. Easy-peasy. I should have told him to also compose the frame so that as much as me could fill the frame as possible, without cutting off my head. When I finally saw the photo, I could see that he had made sure that my face was in the centre of the frame: lots of sky above me and my lower legs cut off. Oh well. At least Al got me, leaning against a cannon, on the outer ramparts ...

I was 23 and alone, in Glasgow. I had never left North America before, let alone on my own. But a friend had travelled to Scotland, in his third year of university, in an exchange program. And when he left Canada, I promised that I would visit him. Al was staying in a University of Glasgow student residence building to the northwest of the Botanic Gardens. We would walk up Byres Road, up to Great Western Road, cross to the gardens and cut through, and then take some residential streets to his building. His girlfriend was also in this residence, and he would stay in her room, so I had his cluttered room to myself. Glasgow Botanic Gardens, 1988. Glasgow University residence, 1988. He took me to his student cafeteria, once. The special of the day was lasagna, so that's what I ordered. When the plate was passed to me, I noted the mashed potatoes with ground beef, in a brown gravy under a layer of melted Mozzarella cheese. "What's this?" I asked the woman behind the counte...

In retrospect, I suppose that going for a 50-kilometre bike ride wasn't the best idea after having received my second vaccination against COVID-19, and yet, on the road I went. I mean, after my first jab, in which I received the AstraZenica vaccine, I managed to get some chores done around the house, go for a 30-km ride, and grill up some dinner before the side effects kicked in, before the chills, aches, and headache hit me like a ton of bricks and had me in bed from a Saturday night to Monday morning. When I received my second dose on Saturday—this time, the Pfizer mRNA vaccine—a woman who was in the waiting area, after the dose, told me that her husband had also received mixed doses and had reacted badly, several hours later. Hearing that, I wanted to get my ride in, lest I be unable to do it later. I was almost 20 percent into my Icelandic virtual Ring Road challenge , and I wanted to log enough distance that, should the vaccine take me out of action for a day or two, I would s...

I've already added it to my calendar, with a reminder one week before; another reminder, one day before. Ottawa, Monday, April 8, 2024. I didn't put my neutral density (ND) filter on my lens. I wasn't worried about burning out the sensors on my D-SLRs, as I was when I photographed the solar eclipse, in 2017. After all, I've photographed countless sunrises and sunsets, without risk to my cameras. This sunrise was going to be partially blocked by the moon. When I had used the ND filter, it had turned the blue sky to a night black, and I didn't want that in my photo. I had chosen a spot to shoot it where there was a lovely skyline, with the National Gallery of Canada and Notre Dame Cathedral providing an easily recognizable silhouette. Shoot the photos, I told myself; edit them later. I knew that the sun would be blown out, but I could use highlight recovery in post-processing. I was wrong. While I've always been able to claw back overexposed regions of RAW files, ...

I initially planned to make this rant for my Brown Knowser YouTube channel , but I didn't think anyone would want to watch a middle-aged man (almost senior) ramble on about beer without actually reviewing one. Though, I will touch on the subject in an upcoming  Beer O'Clock review and I may have more to say in further reviews. The first India Pale Ale (IPA) that I drank was in The Olde Angel Inn, in Niagara-on-the-Lake, about 25 years ago. My good friend and future brewmaster, Perry Mason, and I were enjoying some beer after a day of volunteering at a wine event—it was our mutual love of wine that brought us together, a couple of years earlier, but beer had been a passion of Perry's for decades before then. Perry ordered beer for both of us, because I knew nothing beyond the pedestrian Labatt's and Molson brews, and they are what had me turn to wine in the first place. Perry started us off with an English bitter but we then moved on to an IPA. An IPA, Perry said, is w...

I was sure that we had an unopened bottle of lemonade, one of those giant Kirkland brand that they sell as a two-pack at Costco. I was sure that someone in the family had carried the bottle up from the basement and set it on the kitchen island. I had already added the ice and alcohol to my glass and would be damned if I let it go to waste. Four ounces of booze was going to be used, somehow. In the fridge, we had a jug of mango nectar, also from Costco. Would this make a decent substitute for lemonade? A couple of years ago, I posted a recipe for my version of a cocktail that I had when the family and I were in sunny Cuba. It was a lemon-based drink that featured Kahlua and dark rum, and an 'elixir' that I could never determine. It's called a mulata . When I tried to replicate the cocktail, I ended up making something different but that captures the essence of the cool summer drink. I ended up calling it the Brownfoot Mulata . So, here I was, with a 20-ounce pint glass, fill...

When I started my latest virtual challenge , the Ring Road in Iceland, I didn't know a lot about this northern country. It was the land of fire and ice, with volcanoes and geysers, snow and icebergs. A few years ago, there was a now-forgotten airline that offered $99 flights from Montreal to London, UK, with a 24-hour layover in Reykjavik, and I thought that was a tempting offer. Of course, I never took advantage of the offer and Iceland just became one of those places that I though would someday be a nice place to visit. When the Ring Road virtual challenge had me setting out from Iceland's capital city, I hopped on my spin bike and fired up my television, watching YouTube videos of things to see and do in Reykjavik. After a couple of those, I watched videos where people had actually travelled the Ring Road, renting camper vans and staying at the many camp spots along the way. DW joined me as I watched these videos and worked out. When a video would end, she would search YouTu...

"I've been waiting for this moment my entire life." I don't know why the television commercial for the Bank of Montreal (BMO) eclipse Visa Infinite card bothers me as much as it does, but it does all the same. I mean, there's this guy and his friend who go to a park to watch a solar eclipse for what appears to be the guy's first time. He's clearly excited to catch this celestial phenomenon. And out of nowhere, there's a banker behind a desk (played by the funny and talented Lamorne Morris, from New Girl ) who tries to interest the couple in a credit card that goes by the name, eclipse (with a lowercase E). And while he distracts them with his sales pitch, the couple miss the solar eclipse. "You saw the only eclipse you need," is what the banker says, not sorry for depriving the poor man of an event he had been waiting his whole life to see. Anyway, the ad bugs me. Why can't the banker simply wait for the solar eclipse to pass, and ...

As a small kid, I could never sit still for a camera. I always wanted to ham it up. The first time that I introduced DW (then, my girlfriend) to some of my closest friends was at a wedding, in Kingston, in 1991. It was the first time all of us had been together in more than five years, since we graduated from high school, so I wanted to get a group shot. And because my friends had also fallen in love with DW, they insisted that she be included in the shot. She just couldn't sit still for the camera. Happy Thursday!

Near the end of the road. I haven't been this active since the mid 90s. Back then, DW and I worked in the Merivale Mall, where there was a Y gym. In the mornings, before work, we would go for a step class or get on a bike for an hour. Sometimes, we'd join a fitness class after work. But we wouldn't do it every day or even every other day. At most, we'd hit the gym two or three days a week, and back then, that was enough for our late-twenties–early thirties bodies. We weren't battling any bulges but we were maintaining our slim selves. Having a gym so close to work was a great motivator to be active. We were either already heading to the mall—we just had to get up a bit earlier—or we were already at the mall and just had to go upstairs, to the gym. When we moved to Korea for a couple of years, our diet became much healthier and we got plenty of exercise from walking around our city and exploring mountainous temples and other sites on the weekends. It wasn't u...

Without a doubt, if given the opportunity to cycle on my road bike or on my spin bike, the choice is very simple: I'd choose the road bike every time. But this choice brings some pros and cons, and because I've spent a lot of time on both, this year, with my virtual challenges, I've given a lot of thought to each and have started wondering, have I chosen the right exercise vehicle? Of course, the biggest advantage of the spin bike is that it's an all-weather machine. Snow, rain, wind, and extreme heat and humidity are not a factor. My bedroom is always dry and mild. I don't have to contend with the elements. And, as an added bonus, I can watch TV while I spin. But on a beautiful day, nothing beats being outdoors. Fresh air, mixed with the beauty of the scenery (living in Ottawa, there's no shortage of scenic beauty). However, with spring cycling, the pollen in the air is the cost of taking in the blossoming beauty, and I have to remember to take allergy meds ...

When I want to take a sunset photo, there are only a few places that I consider but almost all of them are along the Ottawa River. Of course, I'd love to be on a tropical beach for sunset, but this Ottawa lad is being realistic. My go-to place tends to be Andrew Haydon Park, where Holly Acres Road meets Carling Avenue, nestled between the neighbourhoods of Bayshore and Lakeview Park. I always park in the east parking lot, as close to the eastern path as possible. From there, it's a short walk to the eastern pond, where, in my opinion, is the best place to capture sunset. There are beautiful trees on the opposite banks of this pond, and a wooden windmill turns effortlessly in the breeze that blows in from the river. They cast a perfect silhouette and reflection. Last Sunday, after dinner, I grabbed my two D-SLRs and headed to this park to capture the sunset. I've barely snapped any sunset photos all year—save for a couple on my smartphone and one evening in January. And, sin...

It's a long way away, but it's our light at the end of the tunnel. Both DW and I have received our first dose of the vaccine against COVID-19 and I'm hoping that I will soon have my second jab. This is the first step to returning to normalcy, though I imagine that we'll still be maintaining social distancing and wearing face masks around those who have not been fully vaccinated or the vulnerable for some time yet. But we're hopeful that life will soon return to normal, and that includes travel. Our 2020 vacation to Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany was cancelled early into the pandemic, but DW and I are determined to make it happen in the autumn of 2022, preferably with the same destinations and accommodations that we had painstakingly arranged for last year's vacation. But we want to travel as soon as it's safe to do so, and that means looking for another place in the interim. DW's and my last big vacation, together, was to celebrate our 25th weddin...