New Reno, Old Idea

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 be shut out of rooms and would try to dig themselves under the door space. In the nearly 24 years and with seven cats living in this house, every bedroom door has been shredded nearly to the underfloor.

The handiwork of seven cats over 24 years.

Years ago we didn't complain because we thought we'd rip the carpet up and replace it with flooring, as soon as the kids were older and less likely to knock their heads on hardwood, or slip down the stairs.

But other expenses crept up and we decided that the kitchen and family room were a priority, so we renovated our cooking space and put hardwood throughout the main floor (the carpet in the family room looked far worse and was more noticeable to guests).

With three cats in the house (sometimes, four), the upstairs is looking awful and even becoming hazardous in some spaces. We figured that now's the time to get it done.

We contacted the folks who laid the hardwood in our kitchen/family room area, as they did an expert job of matching the colour of the original hardwood, in the living/dining rooms (they had originally installed that flooring). You really have to look hard to see where the original hardwood ends and the new hardwood begins.

They came over and measured our bedrooms, hallway, and staircase, and their estimate made our jaws hit the torn-up carpet. We decided that we would explore doing the bedrooms and hallway, ourselves, and getting them to do the stairs when we were more financially ready.

DW has watched countless videos and talked to friends who have laid their own flooring. We even have a friend who used to own a kitchen renovation company, who has also laid hardwood many times. He even has tools to lend us and will come by to offer assistance, when and if needed.

He'll probably be needed.

We've ordered the wood, which has filled our living room. This weekend, we'll start ripping up the carpet. We'll tackle the hallway first, then our study, and then the two bedrooms (Kid 2's bedroom was converted to a study after Kid 1 moved back home).

DW wants this project completed before Christmas. If things go well, that shouldn't be a problem.

But as we've learned from past renovations, not everything always goes according to plan.

Our old idea of having hardwood throughout the house is finally becoming a reality. The new reno is just getting underway.

Wish us luck, and stay tuned.

Mill of Kintail

Road Trippin' Part 1

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 check out my channel and help support it.

Work has begun on part 2, which will cover Stratford. I hope to have it ready by mid-December, but time is flying and I'm now using a new computer and new video-editing software. Stay tuned.

Kind and True

"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 people to think I was phony or insincere," I said. "I always want to be true to who I am."

"Authentic," she said. "That's one of the listed traits."

"That's what I strive to be. I won't pretend to be someone I'm not (though, I did pretend to be Roland Axam, years ago). And if I'm true to myself—authentic, as the book calls it—I hope that others will see that I'm fun, caring, kind, smart, and a good person. I want to be remembered as a good person for all of the traits that I hold true and for the actions that come of those values."

"Yeah, you're a pretty good guy," she said, warmly.

"I have my moments."

What about you? What are the two words that you think define your qualities? How would you like to be known?

Happy Monday!

No Frickin' Way

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, the microwave section—the band around the base of the superstructure—would display a rainbow colour for a couple of seconds before changing.

I focused, slowly let out my breath, and pressed the shutter release.

The first shot appeared crooked in my frame so I recomposed my shot, ensured that I was steady, and repeated the process.

The viewscreen at the back of the photo showed me that the tower was straight, so I didn't hold up my family and friends any longer. It was pretty nippy in the big city.

Later that night, I removed the image from my camera and edited it on my smartphone. Actually, I had very little editing to do, only adjusting the contrast so that the black of the sky was truly black. But it wasn't until I started editing that I could see people in the image.

Not looking out the windows of the superstructure (though, that would have been cool), but standing on the slanted roof, outside.

I know that there are tours of the tower that take you outside, safely secured to railings through a harness system. Being afraid of heights, myself, it's not something I can see me doing.

But I thought these tours were only performed during the day, when the participants could clearly see where they were stepping, where they could see right across Lake Ontario and see the mist from Niagara Falls in the far distance.

I'm sure the city lights must be beautiful at night, but I could only look at these people in the picture and think, no frikkin' way would you ever get me to do that at night. All the power to them.

Happy Friday!

Memories Fade But the Photos Linger

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 Wales have not. It's a trip I'll never forget and I hope to one day return to this beautiful country.

Happy Thursday!

Random Carp

What's With That Particular Post?

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 insist on watching it every year. (It's one of my favourite Christmas tales, more so now that I'm becoming a Grinch as Christmas approaches.)

But please do me a favour, will you? Make sure that you read the updated version in December. Thirteen times is a charm!

Back to Toronto

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 that I took over the weekend, after I wrote the content. Hopefully, it's a photo worth stopping by to see.

Happy Monday!

Is It Still My 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 what I imagined it could be after I tapped the shutter button.

With my D-SLRs, I often have ideas of what I want to capture before I even set out. I know that the shots that I take may not quite match what I had envisioned, but I know that my go-to editing software can bring my vision to reality.

And I even have some old 35mm film images, which I have scanned and cleaned up, or have even reimagined with the help of various photo apps, like Prisma. In these cases, the only hand I had in the end result was my choice of filtered effect.

This 35mm print was originally so muted and dull before I ran it through Prisma.
Now, it's a personal favourite that hangs as a 24 x 36 canvas print on my wall.

Are these photos still mine?

I say yes, they are. AI didn't choose the subject, didn't get itself to that site at that time of day. AI didn't compose the shot, didn't wait for the right second to press that shutter button.

Artificial intelligence didn't choose the file that would be edited and which one would not (I take several shots to make sure I've captured what I wanted). And it's me who decides the edits are acceptable: I don't let AI say, "Here's your end result: take it or leave it."

I modify whatever AI offers and reject it if it doesn't satisfy my vision for that image.

AI is a tool, like a paint brush, that I can use to assist with the creation of what I want to show. I use it to create art, not to display what I saw through my viewfinder. It's an interpretation.

A year or so ago, I read an online article about AI photos and it had a challenge, whereby you were presented with a series of photos: some were AI-generated and some where not. You had to determine whether the photo was taken by an actual photographer or created by AI.

At the time, I was able to see subtle differences that allowed me to ace the challenge. But I don't know if I could do that again, now that AI has become smarter.

I, will, however, continue to let you know if the photo is solely mine (though, possibly improved through conventional editing software) or has been enhanced by my AI-assisted editing tools.

But no matter what, the end result will be mine. It will still be my photo.

Happy Friday!

Beer O'Clock: Landlord

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: fresh-cut grass dominates but there's an underlying buckwheat honey aroma. With some perseverance, light citrus can also be detected.

Palate: a piney bitterness hits first with an overwhelming mouthfeel that screams chemical, like acetone. I suspected a flaw in the bottle so I dumped it and cracked open my second bottle.

This bottle poured with a slightly paler head that settled to a thin but solid cap, so I suspected the first bottle was off. This bottle's nose also wasn't as grassy and the honey stood out more.

This time, the acetone was gone and the piney resin taste was more tempered. There is still a bitterness but it didn't overwhelm me, and there was some honey that also came through. The body is full for a 4.1% brew but not heavy, and the finish lingers with flavours of a strongly brewed tea.

Overall impression: let's forget the first bottle. Landlord reminds me, in ways, of a classic IPA, though it's a bit milder. I find American pale ales are lighter in colour and in body, and are more easy-drinking.

If Landlord is the classic pale ale, it sets a new touchstone for me. But I think I prefer the lightness of an APA: if I want more bitterness, I'd opt for an IPA.

Still, Landlord has won many awards, winning both CAMRA Champion Beer of Britain and the Brewing Industry Awards Gold Medal four times.

Overall, it's an enjoyable ale that I would drink again, as long as it doesn't taste like the first bottle I opened.

Beer O'Clock rating: 🍺🍺

You can find Timonty Taylor's Landlord in the LCBO.

Cheers!

Station to Station

Catfishing

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 many details at this point because I have a curiosity that I want to pursue. So far, I haven't been invited to invest in cryptocurrency. We've just engaged in friendly chitchat and this person hasn't sent me any photos.

For all I know, it's the same person with a different persona. The syntax of their language seems to have a similar style. The person does not write like someone who's native language is English, as they claim it is.

That's all I want to say for now. I hope I haven't said too much and frightened this catfish away. I want to keep her on the hook at least until I find out what she wants.

It's a weird past time for me, entertaining catfish. But for now, it's a lazy distraction.

Stay tuned.

Forever Remember

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 of months before it.

Beer O'Clock: Bitter & Twisted

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 the overall flavour profile but did catch my attention the more I drank.

Overall impression: I'm reminded of other golden ales that are mass-produced in Canada, like Molson Canadian or even Steamwhistle. But an elevated version of these popular brews. It's not particularly my sort of ale but I can see how it would appeal to the masses who like mainstream golden ales.

If you like Canadian, Steamwhistle, or Beau's Lug Tread, you'll like Bitter & Twisted. I don't like any of those but I liked Bitter & Twisted more.

Beer O'Clock rating: 🍺🍺

While there were several bottles of this ale on my friendly neighbourhood LCBO, I saw none in the shop where I stocked up on more of the Ola Dubh (I went to both stores in Barrhaven). But I'm sure it's around.

Cheers!

The East Block

Flush with Photos

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 Hill photos, tomorrow, for Wordless Wednesday.

That weekend, DW and I also headed to Carp for brunch (it was a spur-of-the-moment decision). I grabbed my camera as we headed out the door, and after we ate, I wandered around this small village and captured a few images.

I'll share more of those on an upcoming post.

Last Friday, I once again headed out with DW for her pickleball club, and while she played I took more photos. And again, this weekend, we went for a hike in Mississippi Mills, and more photos were taken.

I'm flush with photos.

I'm realizing that the thing I miss the most about working from the office is that when I was done for the day, I took the time to follow my passion for photography. Working from home, I finish my day and turn on the TV.

No more.

I know that the sun sets earlier now, but I'm going to try to take advantage of whatever light I have to take photos, and when it gets darker before I'm done work, I'll focus on my night photography.

I think I'll also force myself to get up early, some mornings, and take some sunrise shots.

The past few weeks have revived my passion for photography. I'm looking forward to where it takes me.

Wherever it is, at least I'll be getting out of the house.

Proof of Concept

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 woes to DW, who has told me that her office MacBook Pro has a faster video card than our home computer, and that it would be able to process my videos much more quickly.

I told her that as long as that computer belongs to her old company, I'm not going to use it. I don't use my work computer to do my photo or video editing, so why would I use her work computer? (Sometimes, after I finish a day of work, I may write a blog post on my work computer, since I'm sitting at my home-office desk, but I never plug any external drives into it, so photos or videos are a no-go.)

Also, I've been using Windows computers for decades and I'd have to get used to using an Apple interface.

The other day, DW and I went shopping at our local Costco and came across a Windows OS laptop that had lots of RAM and a powerful video card. It also had a decent price, at about $1,600. I even found a gaming desktop computer, and I started thinking that for what I was doing, I didn't need portability.

DW and I started rethinking computers.

DW steered me toward some Mac Mini units, which had loads of power for video creation. She suggested that if she can't keep her MacBook Pro, the Mini could be an option.

But then she started pricing out a new MacBook Pro with an M3 Pro video card (meant nothing to me). She really likes the portability of her Apple computer and said that if she has to return the work laptop, she will buy herself one of these high-end MacBooks.

All $3,500 of it.

"If you're set on doing that," I said, "that settles our next computer. We won't be able to afford anything else."

"You'd be able to process your videos much more quickly," she said. "And I would install Final Cut Pro. It's supposed to be a great video-editing tool."

Hmph.

DW couldn't wait. She downloaded a trial version onto her work computer this weekend. She also downloaded Insta360 Studio, the computer version of my app that I use on my smartphone to edit my 360-degree videos.

I shared three clips from a source folder, where I keep my Insta360 files. I have about a half-dozen folders of raw footage from kayaking, cycling, and other events that I haven't processed. When she had everything on her MacBook, she talked me into sitting in the driver's seat.

"Walk me through your workflow, from editing the video clips to putting them into a single file for YouTube."

I didn't know the software but I did my best.

There is no voiceover, though not all of my videos use it. It's basic, with an intro title, music, fades in and out. Three clips from my Insta360 X3, edited in the dedicated software that I haven't used in years. The soundtrack, which doesn't really go with the visuals, was taken from Final Cut Pro.

Usually, for a two-minute video, it would take me about three hours to go through my entire workflow of editing the video files, exporting them to an MP4 format, creating a video project, putting everything together, and rendering the final results.

This time, it took less than an hour.

I'm intrigued.

DW says that her office MacBook has an M1 video card. With a new MacBook Pro with an M3 Pro card, processing the videos would be even faster.

Here's the test video, which I made as a proof of concept for working in this new environment of new tools on a new operating system.

What also impresses me is that I didn't know the software and was able to figure things out fairly easily. If I become proficient in Insta360 Studio and Final Cut Pro, I can only imagine my videos would be much easier and faster to make.

I'm almost finished a video that I'm making on my old system. Perhaps, after that one is done, I'll switch to a new way of producing my content.

Stay tuned.

Absolute Photo

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 top-10 list of places to see in Ottawa.

Taken about six years ago or so, my most-viewed photo is of the Absolute Comedy club on Preston Street, in Ottawa's Little Italy neighbourhood. As of the beginning of November, the photo has been met by 1,187,041 viewers.

I mean, it's not even a great photo. It was shot on a night when I was taking a stand-up comedy class and was about to perform on stage for the final class. My instructor, Pierre Brault, was also an emcee for the club that week.

In total, my contributed photos have had more than five million views. If only I had that many views on my blog or on my YouTube channel.

I suppose my Absolute Comedy photo has some nice colour saturation, but it surprises me that it's received the greatest amount of views. And that includes photos that I've taken in Europe, the Caribbean, and in South Korea.

Perhaps, in these days of economic, environmental, health, and political turmoil, people really just want a good laugh.

Happy Friday!

Beer O'Clock: Black Oil

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 that combines both beer and whisky.

This heavy-hitting dark ale, Ola Dubh (pronounced ola-doo), was matured in 12-year-old Highland Park whisky casks. They also produce this award-winning ale from barrels that are 16 and 18 years old but I didn't see any of those on the store shelves, though I did find a 21-year reserve listed on the LCBO site that isn't listed on the tag that hung from the neck of my bottles.

Let's look at this version.

Ola Dubh Special Reserve Oak-Aged Stout (8% ABV)
Harviestoun Brewery
Alva, Scotland

Appearance: pours a deep walnut brown, almost black (Ola Dubh, after all, is Gaelic for black oil), with little fizz and almost no head (hardly even some loose lace). Bubbles are miniscule, with nothing clinging to the sides of the glass. It had lost almost all of its fizz before I was finished my glass, though it retained all other characteristics.

Nose: intense flavours of whisky, dates, caramel, and dark-roasted coffee. There's a definite burnt sweetness about the bouquet.

In some ways (and thanks to DW for noticing), there are aromas that bring an aged (possibly over-aerated) port wine to mind. Once she mentioned it, I couldn't get those thoughts out of my head.

Good thing I love port.

Palate: after the initial smell and knowing the alcohol content, I expected a boozy punch in the face. Instead, I was warmly greeted with dark chocolate and coffee, with a follow-up of fruitcake and toffee. The finish is short but comforting, leaving a hint of whisky with chocolate.

And though I said that the fizz was gone before I finished my glass, it was by no means flat. There was still plenty of luster and life in the glass.

Overall impression: I have to admit that I've had Highland Park 12-year-old whisky before and have always found it too balanced and smooth, compared to my usual Islay malt preferences. But because it's coming off from the barrels in ale form, that smoothness makes this dark ale just right. It's bold yet easy to drink.

I loved it.

When I was still writing my novel, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary, I'd often sit in a pub with my laptop, sipping both a stout and nursing a whisky. They seemed to make a perfect marriage of liquids that kept my creative juices flowing. Ola Dubh does just as nicely in one glass. I've returned to fiction writing and kept a glass of this whisky-flavoured stout at my side.

Beer O'Clock rating: 🍺🍺🍺

I also loved how the bottle comes with so much information, not only on the front label but on the tag around its foil-wrapped neck. I saw the signatures of the master brewer, the master whisky maker, the bottle number and the date that the stout was bottled (February of 2022). The care that they put into the packaging is a direct reflection of the care that they put into the beer inside, and I'm going to keep my eye out for more beer from this excellent brewery.

Just one more thing to bring out my Scottish pride. And I'm sure Roland would want to enjoy this brewery, were he a real person.

Cheers!

Standing Outside a School at Night