The Brown Knowser

We've been talking about doing it for at least a decade, long before we decided to renovate our kitchen . And for years, the cats have been helping out by starting on the work, themselves. When DW and I bought our house, while it was still under construction, we debated about whether to have wall-to-wall carpeting or to have hardwood laid throughout the house. But we were relatively poor when we bought the house and we thought that, with the prospect of having kids, we were best to have soft flooring in areas where the kids would be and to have stairs that provided some grip and protection. And so our family room, stairs, and entire top floor (except for the bathrooms, of course) were covered in a beige carpet. It was simple and timeless. And prone to stains and ground-in dirt. We've almost always had a cat in the house, and over time the carpet was put under grueling tests. The cat—or cats, as it later became—would sharpen their claws on the staircase. They also hated to b...

We've been to Toronto three times since late September. The first time, DW and I spent a couple of days with Kid 2 and some friends who live in the area, while also acting like tourists. We checked out an art event on the downtown streets, visited an art gallery, joined a walking tour of York, and discovered a small farm in Cabbagetown. I captured a lot of it, and more, on video, using my smartphone on a gimbal, but I also just captured a lot of stills—also with my smartphone and with my D-SLR. When DW and I made this trip to Toronto , it was the first leg of a trip that would also take us to Mississauga, Stratford , St. Marys , and Guelph , before heading home. I've put the first part of this vacation into a video, which I posted to my YouTube channel last week. Have a look. My channel is still small potatoes but I'd really like to have 200 subscribers by the end of this year (at the time of writing this post, I'm only two subscribers away from that goal). Please...

"What are two words that define who you want to be known as?" DW asked me as we were driving home from Toronto, last week. "As in, character traits?" "Yes," she said. "They are qualities that define how you want to live your life, like 'courageous.'" "Kind," I said, without hesitation. "I try to always be kind. I don't always succeed but I'm making great efforts to be kind toward others and to be kind to myself." (I'm my own worst critic.) DW has been listening to an audiobook about self-improvement, and apparently this is one of the questions that the author addresses. She listed more traits: adventurous, honest, fun, trustworthy, and smart, to name a few. I liked fun and smart, but to me, those are qualities that I can't hold for myself. Only other people can think of me as being fun to be around or intelligent. My actions would cause people to hold those opinions of me. "I'd never want peopl...

I didn't see them, at first. They were too far away. I was more than a kilometre away and on the street, at the corner of Dundas and St. Patrick streets, near the Toronto cop shop. And I was finally going to make use of the camera that I had been lugging around all day. Actually, I was carrying both of my Nikon D-SLRs, but I had actually used my D750 a couple of times through the day. It had my 24–70mm f/2.8 lens, so I had captured some street scenes as I trekked around Toronto with DW, Kid 1, and our friends, Brad and Randi. But my D7200, which had a 70–300mm f/5.6 lens attached to it, hadn't been used all day, as I hadn't spied anything from afar that I felt that I wanted to zoom in on. Until this moment. Without a tripod, I had to crank the ISO up to 16000, and still, I was only shooting at 1/90 of a second. At 300mm magnification, I was doubtful that I'd be steady enough to get anything. The lights on the CN Tower were constantly changing but every few seconds,...

I don't remember the place, though the country was Wales . We were possibly near Cardiff but I can't remember with certainty. It's been more than 32 years, after all. DW and I were travelling the countryside and we had heard about a medieval festival, with mock battles, plenty of costumes, and simple food. But sadly, that's all I remember from this short stop. At one point, we went into a stable and were able to try on certain costumes from that time. I know that this photo was taken in that stable because in the original, underexposed photo, there's a life-sized model horse behind me. And I placed a helmet on my head. DW had taken the shot but there hadn't been enough light and the colour in the processing made my face a bright red. I needed to use both of my photo-editing software tools, after scanning the negative, to get this photo to look as good as it is (and I know, it's not very good). While my memory of this day has faded, my memories of travelling ...

I've included this post, or variations of this post, 12 times. I'll be posting it again, next month, with a new title and a few edits. But for some reason, the 2016 post of my Grinch story seems to get the most hits and I always ask myself why. Image of The Grinch © 1966 Warner Home Video. All rights reserved. Is it one of the hits that comes up when somebody Googles "Grinch"? If that's the case, then I'm cool with that; a little flattered, even. And now that it's becoming one of my most popular blog posts of all time, I imagine that it'll grow. You can see it, now, in my Popular this Month section in the margin, can't you? And I imagine that it'll be there until at least Christmas, as more and more people search for one of the classic holiday cartoons, and others will click the link at the side of my blog because they see the Grinch and are curious. I don't blame them. After all, we have a DVD copy of it in our house and my kids still ins...

It's our third visit in as many months. But we have good reason to visit Ontario's capital city: our younger kid lives here. Seeing her is always a treat. It would have been even better if we could visit on a weekend when she is performing with one of her three bands but we'll always take what we can get. My sister also lives in town, and even though we don't always see her when we pay a visit to Toronto, it's nice to know she's close by. This trip, we did manage to see each other, briefly, and it was nice. This weekend, in which I booked an extra day—today—so that we could pack more into it, we're sharing the visit with our good friends, Brad and Randi, who are also here to see the kids (we brought Kid 1 with us) and us. It's the first time since 2019 so it's high time we got together. Because we've been in Toronto since Saturday and don't get home until later tonight, I wrote most of this post a few days in advance. I leave you with a photo...

A couple of years ago, DW gave me new photo-editing software for Christmas. Ever since I've started using it, I've had some trepidation in using it on my photos. I've also had some fun with it. While it's true that it has saved some photos that were thought unusable , it has also become a crutch for when I don't like an element of an original photo, and I just replace that element or supplement it. Sky enhanced with Luminar AI. The rest is real (though touched up with PaintShop Pro). When I share an AI-enhanced photo on social media, I always include a disclaimer that the photo has been enhanced. Is it still my photo or does it belong to the AI programming? Am I simply a co-contributor to the final image? When I shoot an image on my smartphone, the technology in the camera does enhance the resulting image to some extent. Often, I'll further manipulate the photo, through Snapseed, to bring the picture to what I had imagined that I saw before capturing it , or wh...

Whenever I see a 500 ml bottle of ale, I feel some trepidation. If it's an entirely new beer for me—new style or new brewer—I'm a bit hesitant in picking it up and adding it to my shopping cart. If I don't like it, 500 mils is a lot to pour down the drain. But when I went shopping for new brews (for me) from my friendly neighbourhood LCBO , I spied one bottle and decided to take the chance. It was a British ale, and I have yet to try one that I didn't like. Or love. The bottle is simple enough: a typical English landlord (bar keep) pouring a pint, with the name of the brewery and the ale circled around the drawing. And it tells you that inside the bottle is not only a classic pale ale but "the" classic pale ale. Let's find out, shall we? Landlord  Pale Ale (4.1% ABV) Timothy Taylor's Keighley, England Appearance: pours a clear, deep copper with a dense, foamy head that lays like a thick, beige cap that settles to almost a centimetre in depth. Nose: ...

So, my previous catfish was apparently reading my blog posts. The very day that I published the last post about a supposed young Korean woman who befriended me through Instagram, she sent me a photo of herself—again, immaculately dressed—and wished me a good day. Her message reached me at about noon, and I returned the message, wishing her a good day and to "Be awesome!" That evening, I pinged her and said that I hoped that she had had a good day but she didn't respond. I never heard from her again. Also, every photo that she had posted on Instagram were removed from her account. All activity seemed to have stopped. Caught. "Эстетика" by Сергей Иванов, Wikimedia Commons CC0 1.0. Last week, I had another person reach out to me, complimenting my photos on Instagram through DMs. Another young, pretty woman (not shown: the photo is from a common photo database and is the only non-fish image I could find by typing Internet catfish ). I don't want to give too man...

The very day after Hallowe'en, my Threads timeline showed a post by one of Canada's major television stations that showed people in festive sweaters and scarves, surrounded by snow, with a caption that read, "Are you in the holiday spirit?" If they were referring to the next important 'holiday' date, Remembrance Date, then yeah, I had attached a poppy to my jacket and I was giving thought to those who fought and made tremendous sacrifices so that we could enjoy the freedoms that we have today. But I wouldn't say that I was in any kind of 'spirit.' Tomorrow, I will take a moment to reflect on the men and women, past and present, who have served our country with distinction. Weather permitting, I'll head to the Cenotaph to join in on the remembrance ceremony and to thank a soldier or two. And maybe, just maybe, in another month or so, I'll give some thought to the holiday that seems to overshadow every other important date that comes a couple...

After enjoying the whisky-barrel-aged stout from Harviestoun Brewery, last week, I had to run back to the LCBO and pick up more. I may just clear out the shelf of every store in my area before long. It's that good. But when I had originally shopped for this wonderful dark ale, I picked up a couple of bottles of another offering of this Scottish brewery and I was now looking forward to trying this very different brew. Would it be as good as Ola Dubh ? Bitter & Twisted Golden Ale (4.2% ABV) Harviestoun Brewery Alva, Scotland Appearance: pours a clear, golden honey with a very light, white head that settles to a fine lace. The effervescence is alive with miniscule pearls. Nose: honey isn't just its colour. There's a clover-like scent of honey and cantaloupe, with a bit of lemongrass. Palate: it's light and grassy with a bit of piney bitterness that gives a full body and a lingering finish. At times, though, I almost taste a residue of soap, which didn't ruin t...

If the last couple of weeks have taught me anything, I've learned that I spend far too much time indoors. Looking at my Google Maps timeline proves it. Most days of the week, I don't leave my house. And if I did leave the house, I stayed in my neighbourhood, rarely leaving Barrhaven. And because I stay home, I don't get much use from my D-SLRs. Remember when I was going to start another strangers project? I've only gone out once to do it: I'm still at two strangers for that project. Sad. But a couple of weeks ago, I made an effort to get out of my house for the sole purpose of taking photos. The first day, which was rainy, didn't turn out like I had planned, but I did get a couple of decent photos. And then, one Friday night, as DW was heading out to play pickleball, I decided to tag along. While she knocked balls around a court, I went downtown and captured images near city hall, along Elgin Street, and on Parliament Hill. I'll share some of the Parliament ...

Though DW was laid off from her job in July, she has yet to return her office laptop to her former company. It's a MacBook Pro that she loves and would like to keep. They're negotiating. Meanwhile, I've been using an Asus computer for the past couple of years, writing my blog posts, processing my photos, and creating my videos for my YouTube channel (I'm just shy of 200 subscribers, so if you could do me a solid, please subscribe). My laptop is fine for editing photos but when it comes to editing video, it's slow, to say the least. Sometimes, when it's rendering video clips that I've imported into a project, the program chokes or worse, it crashes. When I pull a video file into the channel that I'm creating, it can take 15 to 20 minutes to load, depending on the length of the clip. I'll often spend time watching other videos while I wait for the clip to load, when it'll finally allow me to work on it. I need a faster computer. I explained my woe...

One of my work colleagues told me that when he was exploring some team-building activities, he considered a hike to the Carbide Wilson Ruins , in Gatineau Park. "I went onto Google Maps to check it out," he told me, "and the first photo I saw of the site belonged to you." Indeed, one of the photos that I took of the falls below the old mill has been shared with Google. For years, I've contributed reviews and photos of various sites, restaurants, stores, and more for the search-engine giant. And that particular photo has garnered more than 277,000 views. But it's by no means my most popular photo in terms of views. Not surprisingly, restaurants and images of food get a lot of views but even they don't get beyond a few tens of thousands of views (however, a photo I shot of the outside of Bite Burger House has seen almost 883,000 views). My most-viewed photo is almost obscure in terms of venues, as its not a world-famous spot nor is it likely to make the t...

Ever since I created my fictional character, Roland Axam , I've had a great love for Scotland and its people (hard to believe that Roland is almost 40 years old!). And while I do have some Scott's blood in me, it's so little that it's hardly worth mentioning, though I do feel a close connection to this miniscule part of me. I've been to Scotland a couple of times and I've been hooked on Scottish author Ian Rankin's books for nearly two decades. It was Rankin who got me into Scotch whisky and he even gave me a personal recommendation for what is one of my favourite malts. Scotland even makes some pretty outstanding beer, and whenever I see a new label in my friendly neighbourhood LCBO , I feel obliged to become familiar with it. Last weekend, I picked up two Scottish ales and an English one, too, and over the next few weeks I'll share my thoughts on all of them. But for this week, I thought I'd try the bottle that seemed the fanciest of them all, one ...