The Brown Knowser

I've often thought about buying a drone. To get a bird's eye view from a spot that only a bird could see. And a few years ago, I bought a recreational drone , but it was as cheap as it was inexpensive, and I could never get the control or quality of image that I wanted from it. I still have it but will likely never fly it again. It's useless in wind and I've crashed it into too many trees. I have as many reasons for not owning a proper drone as I have for wanting one. And so, I sit on the fence. But I can still get drone-like shots from my 360-degree video camera and I'm having lots of fun with it, even though I can only get so much height as my monopod and selfie stick allow. Last month, DW and I took our kayaks out for the last time of this season. We drove to Long Sault, along the St. Lawrence Seaway, and paddled around the chain of islands that are linked by the Long Sault Parkway. It's in this area that, in the 1950s, the St. Lawrence River was flooded so ...

These days, when I see IPA on the label of a beer can, I hesitate. Is this going to be a true IPA-style beer or is IPA on the label simply to draw attention? Is it an IPA the way the British had intended or is it a contradiction, like a black IPA or a hazy, tropical-fruit punch? When I see IPA on the label, that's what I want: a deep amber gold to copper colour, creamy head, with notes of grapefruit and pine. I want good hops and a solid, bitter finish. Don't get me wrong. I do love those hazy, fruity ales. I just wish brewers would stop associating them with an IPA. So when I saw that Spearhead Brewing Company has introduced a collaborative brew with Australian brewery, Sea Legs, and called it a "Transcontinental IPA," I was a bit nervous. After all, the Aussies aren't known for embracing anything British. What was I going to see when I opened the can and poured its contents into my glass? What would I smell? How would it taste? Here are the answers I was waiti...

When the cold weather settles in, I turn from the lighter ales—sessions, saisons, wheat ales, Kölsches, pale ales, and so on—to brews with a bit more body and lasting finish: stouts, porters, wee heavies, brown ales, Scotch ales, and the like. And then there's amber ales. I have to admit, though I like amber ales, they are not the sort of beer that I turn to very often. I don't know why that is; perhaps, it's due to there similarity to Irish red ales, of which I'm not a great fan (though I have had some exceptional Irish reds in my days). They're similar, but not really the same. And yet, I don't often yearn for an amber ale. Until one fell in my lap (or, rather, came to my doorstep). The folks at Spearhead Brewing Company, in Kingston, have been kind enough to send me care packages over the years. They were one of my favourite Ontario breweries well before they started doing this, and I have really appreciated their generosity, especially during the pandemi...

In January of 2020, before everything went to shit, DW, our then-16-year-old daughter, and I went to Toronto because of a music workshop that our kid was attending, and she was also considering the big T-O as a candidate for post-secondary education. It was also a good time to visit with some friends who live in the GTA: one, who was soon to be celebrating a birthday and had offered to put us up in her Airbnb unit, just off the Danforth. For her birthday, our friend wanted us all to go out for an evening at an axe-throwing game bar. We have one in Ottawa's east end, which I had visited two years earlier, and I was looking forward to burning off some aggression, as January of 2020 was the month in which I had participated in Dry January . BATL Axe Throwing is located in the old port district of Toronto, Port Lands, just south of where the Don Valley Parkway ends at the Gardiner Expressway. At night, this part of the city looks downright dodgy; in the day, it seems to be an area of ...

I've been reluctant to put myself around strangers during this pandemic. For the first year, I only went to grocery stores when we really needed to stock up, and I would only go at off-hours: I'd hit up our local Farm Boy on a Friday evening about 15 to 20 minutes before the doors closed. With only a handful of customers in the store, I'd be able to zip around the produce and negotiate aisles without encountering anybody. For trips to Costco, DW and I would go as soon as doors opened, and again we were able to quickly get what we needed before the crowds arrived. For other shopping, I'd either do a curbside pickup or have a required item delivered. My family and I didn't dine in restaurants, even when restrictions were eased. We would either order take-out food or have it delivered to our doorstep. But after DW and I were fully vaccinated, we ventured out to our first patio in more than a year. It felt strange, and we almost forgot how to interact with a server, tho...

Our neighbour's tree, which towers above our shared front lawn, is close to bare. Typically, this honey locust changes from a bright green to a rustic yellow over the first month of autumn, and over the fall season, until the first full snow, the small leaves drop and are carried down the street by the October and November winds. That didn't happen this year. Instead, half of the leaves seemed to turn yellow overnight, and within less than a week, almost all of them have left the tree, fully covering our lawn and blanketing our car in the driveway. To see our walkway, I had to sweep it, providing me with a preview of having to break out my winter shovel. Saturday's rain. By Sunday, most of the leaves had left the tree. Indeed, it seems that this past weekend, with the heavy rain and light but steady breezes, the leaves are leaving trees much more quickly than usual. And last week, with the above-average temperatures, and this weekend's sudden drop to just-below-normal t...

Photographers do it all the time. We take a series of flash photos, and sometimes the flash fails to fire. We look in our preview screen and a black void stares back at us. And so we take another shot, the flash goes off, and we don't give the dark shot another thought. Until, that is, artificial intelligence came along. Ever since DW gave me a copy of Luminar AI photo-editing software, I've gone back to some of my older photos and have seen if I can further enhance an image. Sometimes, I fill a blank sky with clouds or a sunset. Other times, I see if I can add a filter that changes the overall look or mood of the photo. And sometimes, just for fun, I see if I can bring a lost image back to life. Because Luminar AI has some neat portrait filters and editing tools, I've been going back to some of the model shoots that I've done, over the years, to see if I can change or improve what I've already created. I've seen if I can change how the light is cast over a mode...

Years ago, after my novel had been available for online purchase from a handful of book stores and shopping sites for several years (it was published almost 10 years ago), I found myself checking these sites to see if there had been any reader reviews. I'm genuinely interested in whether someone who has graciously taken the time to read the 440 pages has given even more of his or her time to let others know about their impressions. At that time, only one reader had left a review, on Amazon.ca , for Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary . The reviewer had given my novel three stars out of five, which is actually a score that I gave myself after I read the completed, printed book. Roland is a fairly believable character and we can easily follow along with him as he experiences a new way of life while reflecting on his past, from which he is desperate to escape. But at times, I find the writing tedious and I've always found that the ending wrapped up a little fast. It's not a happy e...

Whenever our orchids start to lose their flowers, I get a little worried. You see, DW and I used to be the killers of orchids. As much as we were careful not to over-water or under-water the plants, as much sunlight as we gave them, they seemed to thrive for the first month or so that we had them, and then, when the flowers dropped off, they never came back. A year after, with no signs of life from the orchids, even though we continued to care for them, we would give up and replace the plants with new ones, only to go through the sad process again. A few years ago, we bought a pink orchid plant. That same week, my mother gave DW a white orchid plant for her birthday. We still loved the flowers but we were becoming used to keeping them for only a year. That time seemed to be no different. Except, about six months after they had lost their flowers, new buds appeared on both plants. A few weeks later, both pink and white orchids were growing in abundance. Our losing streak seemed to have ...

It's Canadian Thanksgiving. I hope you are able to safely celebrate with your loved ones. We celebrated, last night, in Toronto, surrounded by family in an Italian restaurant. Around the table were DW, our kids, my parents, and my younger sister, who lives in the city. We were thankful that we're all fully vaxxed and healthy, and able to celebrate together. But we ate no turkey. That's okay. While we love a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, it's nice to change it up every once and awhile. Decades ago, when my siblings and I still lived at our parents' home, there was one year that my mother decided that she didn't want to prepare a big turkey dinner, that she wanted to be pampered. So our father packed us all up and went downtown. We ate a wonderful meal at Mamma Grazzi's. Another Italian restaurant. If we do this one more time, it'll be another family tradition. Happy Thanksgiving!

The pattern of the high cirrus clouds was captivating. It was as though someone had taken a giant can of white spray paint and had slashed it all over the sky. Walking from the exit doors of my local Home Depot, I couldn't help but turn my head upward. As DW and I made our way through the parking lot to our car, I knew one thing: as soon as I had free hands, I would capture this image. Yes, I did increase the contrast and saturation, and lower the highlights. But that's it, and by no more than a 10-percent increase for the first two aspects, and a 25-percent reduction for the highlights. As I said, I thought the sky looked as though a graffiti artist had taken spray paint to the sky. But when I showed the photo to my mother, later that evening, and as some of my Twitter followers also attested when I shared it on social media, she said it looked more like something that Vincent Van Gogh might have painted. I stand corrected. Happy Friday!

I miss my girls. Both are away at college and university. Both are following their passions: one, pursuing her love of games; the other, living her dream of being a musician. I couldn't be happier for either of them. We keep in touch regularly. I send them text messages, asking how they're doing. I occasionally send them pictures of our cats, as the kids miss them, too. We have FaceTime chats where DW and I find out how they're getting on and whether they need anything. One lives in residence, just down the hall from the cafeteria, for which she has a meal plan, and she tells us what she likes to eat and what she dislikes. The other lives in residence where she has to prepare her own meals with groceries that she has to buy from a grocery store, a couple of kilometres away. When she's busy with an assignment and forgets to eat, we order food for her and have it delivered. We stay on a chat with her to make sure she knows when the driver is arriving, so that she can go d...

I'm getting so close to calling the whole thing off. DW and I have been desperate to travel since our vacation to Europe was cancelled. We had booked our flights and accommodation in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands, where we were supposed to go at this time, last year, only to have the pandemic come along, causing us to put a pin in our trip. Like so many people, we've been anticipating the so-called return to normal, when we can start travelling again. In the meantime, we've made lists of where we want to go when it's safe to board a plane and leave Canada. DW and I absolutely loved our Mexican vacation, where we stayed in an all-inclusive resort on the Mayan Riviera and rented a car, which allowed us to explore the attractions, on our own. We still watch the video that we made, and long to return. To that end, we booked a return trip for next February. But DW wants to get away sooner, and so she searched for vacation deals in December, before Christmas. She...

The mall was just as I had remembered it. I entered by the northwest entrance, at the back of the building, where the t-shirt printing shop had been replaced with a drycleaner, and then a print shop. Over the years, I had used all three businesses at one time or another. The businesses were easy to forget, as they were hidden from the main part of the mall. Merivale Mall, today (photo credit: First Capital Realty) Walking through a second set of glass doors, I could smell the ammonia and shampoo from the hair salon, Hair World. For decades, this was where I could have my hair cut and styled by Valerie, who knew exactly what I wanted. Looking through the entrance to the salon, I waved at Sandy, who was answering a phone call from behind her reception desk. Though she returned the wave, she was obviously focused on the caller. Swiss Pastries was the next store, as the rear entrance widened to reveal more businesses: Farm Boy, Baskin Robbins, TD-Canada Trust. The rest of the mall lay ahea...