Goodbye, My Love

June was a pretty good month, all things considered.

I got out a lot, despite my ongoing lung issues. I was able to spend time with so many good friends in all sorts of events: dinners, drinks, kayaking, and more.

And I met new people.

I took lots of photos in all kinds of situations. So many that, come the end of the year when I show my favourite photos of 2024, it's going to be hard to select just one from this month.

But June is all but gone and next week starts the beginning of a new July. What will it bring? With any luck, more of June, only better.

For my final post of June, 2024, I bid the month a fond adieu.

Happy Friday!

Beer O'Clock: Zero

I've said it before: Dry January is easy; Dry July is a challenge. 

In January, it's cold and I tend to stay indoors. I don't socialize as much and, therefore, drink less. In July, it's hot and the patios are open. It's fun to socialize and, therefore, I tend to drink a bit more.

It's not easy to restrain yourself from reaching for a cold brew on a hot July day. And yet, this July, I tend to do just that.

Now, I've tried a few non-alcoholic brews and there will be some that I will likely pick up for the month, but I find it hard to locate a good zero-alcohol stout. Sure, they're out there, but they're often not easy to find.

Over the months, however, I've seen online friends raving about a non-alcoholic Guinness, and I decided to try some out in preparation for Dry July.

Here's what I've thought.

Guinness 0 (0.05% ABV)
Guinness & Co.
Dublin, Ireland

Appearance: It pours exactly like a Guinness. It has a nitrogen widget that creates a cascading foam, which turns to a deep-walnut brown. As soon as I cracked it open, I poured it quickly into my glass and created a perfect, creamy-taupe head that was the perfect height.

Nose: dark-roasted malts with a hint of milk chocolate and espresso. Had I not known better, I'd swear I was given a traditional Guinness.

Palate: a light-roasted coffee and notes of caramel, with a bit more sweetness than a standard Guinness and a waterier body. The sweetness, though, isn't cloying and the finish is flavourful.

Overall impression: while it looks and smells like a traditional Guinness, it doesn't exactly taste like the true stout. Sure, it does taste undeniably like a stout, there's something different from the old faithful Irish brew.

Still, it's a very good stout. And because the standard Guinness is only 4.2% ABV and you can't really taste any booze, the non-alcoholic stout can pass for one with a slight kick.

I think I've found my stout for Dry July. Though it's funny how the warning on the label still tells you not to drive after consuming it.

Beer O'Clock rating: 🍺🍺 + .5

You can find Guinness 0 at your friendly neighbourhood LCBO.

Cheers!

Sunset Photo Walk

Product Placement

It could easily fit in the palm of my hand.

It looked new and it probably wasn't cheap. Big name brands, especially products made for tiny kids, usually aren't. But somebody got home, wherever home is, and discovered the loss.

It was last seen by me on Wellington Street, where it becomes Kichi Zibi Mican, across the street from the Canadian War Museum, at the western set of traffic lights.

Good luck to the parents of the owner.

Happy Tuesday!

Engaging a Flerfer

I tried to be respectful and polite.

I simply wanted to try to understand. I have a curious mind and I had questions.

As I stated a couple of weeks ago, I've been delving into the world of conspiracy theorists: in particular, globe deniers. Flat-Earth believers.

Or, as flat-Earth debunkers often call them, flerfers.

Eventually, I knew something would come along in one of my social-media feeds. And when it did, it was a random post from someone who I don't follow and who doesn't follow me.

I get a lot of that in Threads, as the algorithm sometimes goes into overdrive. This time, however, they brought me someone who seemed to play into some of the YouTube videos that I watch.

Someone named Roman Beskostõi posted the following question:

"Do flat-earthers believe *all* planets are flat, or only this one?" — @rombesk

I was curious to see if any true flerfers responded to his post, and I saw this response:

"Flat-Earther here. I believe there are no actual planets. They’re stars embedded on the top of the firmament. All photos of galaxies and outer space are false. NASA is paid millions to push the narrative." — @sweetkamirose

Speaking of narratives, this is the kind of stuff that I've seen countless flat-Earthers preach.

I was reading this thread while I was still lying in bed, on Sunday morning, and I hadn't yet made plans for the day. DW had already left for the gym and our smallest cat, Cece, was curled up next to me, making it enticing to linger beneath the sheets.

I responded.

"You understand that the Earth was proven to be spherical more than 1,000 years before NASA, right? Why is it that Flat Earthers can't decide on a definite map of our world? How is it that we can calculate sunset and sunrise throughout the year? Explain seasons. Explain solar and lunar eclipses. Explain how ships, moving out to sea, disappear on the horizon, bottom-up."

Someone else joined in on the conversation, stressing how Kami said she "believed," to which she replied, "Correct… I also trust it to its core."

And in that statement, I think that Kami has summed up all flat-Earthers. It's a belief that they come to trust. No fact will ever dissuade them from this belief. It's like a religion to them. Kami further proved this idea when someone else asked her what the point of a NASA conspiracy would be.

To this, she replied, "To denounce that (sic) there's a higher power."

There it is, folks.

But I had more questions, especially when Kami started talking about an ice wall that encloses the edge of our earth pizza, and how it's guarded to prevent anyone from reaching it.

I mean, considering that largest naval fleet ever assembled in our history was during Operation Neptune, which included the D-Day landings, and it consisted of nearly 7,000 ships but only covered the English channel, I had questions.

Note that I was being respectful in my questions, never once accusing Kami of being off her rocker or delusional. I simply wanted to see how my issues could be addressed. And to Kami's credit, she never said anything negative to anybody who chimed in, even though some of them were being harsh.

Of course, I never got any answers that amounted to anything, that couldn't be proven. Kami never told me to do my own research.

With no answers to my questions about logistics or to any of my first few questions, I decided to jump off the thread.

That was my first engagement with a flerfer. I doubt it'll be my last.

Random Street Photography

One Week Away

I have to admit that I haven't been pushing this photo walk like I have with others that I've hosted. But that doesn't mean that I'm not looking forward to it.

Next Friday, June 21, I'd like to invite you to a two-hour event to photograph the Ottawa River between Lemieux Island and the Chaudière Falls, with a side trip to the Chief William Commanda Bridge. Weather permitting, we should be able to capture some golden-hour, sunset, and blue-hour lighting along the river, at the falls, and of the Ottawa skyline.

The overall walk shouldn't be more than five kilometres, at a gentle pace.

There is no required level photography: anyone from novice to seasoned photographer is welcome. And any camera will do. In previous walks, I've welcomed people with smartphones and Polaroid instant cameras, though for this walk, you might want to bring a tripod that supports your camera, for blue hour.

Or not. I've never needed a tripod for blue-hour shots with my smartphone camera.

We meet along the Ottawa River pathway at the entrance to Lemieux Island, at 8:00 pm. There is limited parking before the bridge that leads to the island, plus there is usually plenty of free parking along Bayview Station Road.

If you have any questions or if you want to let me know that you're coming, reach out to me at brownknowser@gmail.com.

I'm looking forward to seeing you there!

Beer O'Clock: Haze of the Dead

It was bound to happen, eventually.

In March of 2016, long before the American election, my family and I were in the United States, and I had made the decision during this trip that it would be my last one to that country. I could see that it was becoming a very polarized place, and I was just done with it.

Sure, Canada has its issues but the polarization doesn't seem as bleak.

After the Orange Felon was elected, I really decided that I was done with the US and decided that I would avoid buying anything made in America. When we went shopping, I'd always check the origin of a product before adding it to our shopping cart.

That also included beer. I haven't bought an American beer since 2016. Except for just recently.

At my latest visit to my friendly neighbourhood LCBO, I saw so many new beer labels that I had to pick some of them up. I picked up a session IPA from Mill Street and some other local brews. I also saw a striking can of a brewery that I hadn't heard of, and without looking any further than the name of the beer and that it was a double-dry-hopped IPA, I threw two cans into my basket.

It wasn't until I got home and was putting the beer in the fridge that I looked closer at the label and realized that I had bought a beer from Illinois. But because the Orange Felon had also just been convicted of all 34 charges in New York, I considered these to be celebratory brews and would not return them to the LCBO.

Here's the beer and what I thought of it.

Haze of the Dead Double Dry Hopped Hazy Imperial IPA (8.5% ABV; 83 IBUs)
Destihl Brewery
Normal IL

Appearance: pours an opaque orange, like orange juice, with a creamy white head that maintains a solid cap.

Nose: tangerines and pears.

Palate: bright citrus tones with a mild pine mouthfeel and a full-bodied, long finish.

Overall impression: For an ale with high IBU and alcohol levels, it's neither overpowering or boozy. On the contrary, it's quite easy to drink, though at 8.5 percent, you'll want to take it easy.

I'm finding it difficult to come out with distinct descriptions of these hazy, fruit-forward ales, and Haze of the Dead is no different. It's a good DDH Imperial IPA but I found nothing that jumps out at me. There's nothing wrong with it and it tastes like every other beer like this. I would never turn one down, if handed to me, but I would not necessarily seek it out over another DDHIIPA.

I probably won't buy any more.

Beer O'Clock rating: 🍺🍺

You can find Haze of the Dead through the LCBO. Cheers!

Sk8rboy

Reluctance

There really is no excuse.

Now that DW has a new, super-fast laptop (albeit, a Mac) and some dedicated video-editing software, there's no excuse for me not to put my recorded clips together into a cohesive video that I can upload to my YouTube channel.

Last year, as a comparison, I was working on my old Windows-based computer with a massively clunky video-editing program, and I still managed to crank out 15 videos over 12 months. This year, I've only produced two videos, the most recent one being put together over this past weekend.

The most time-consuming part of my workflow is to edit my 360-degree video clips. I wirelessly connect my phone to my camera, edit a clip, and export it from the camera to the phone. When I've finished editing the clips, I have to get the footage from my phone onto the Mac computer.

In Windows, that was easy: I simply plugged my phone into the laptop and moved the files from one folder to another. Because my phone is an Android device and Apple doesn't play nicely with it, I had to download some third-party software that would talk to my phone and allow me to copy the files to the MacBook.

It's only one more step but one that I wish wasn't necessary, and it still eats up time.

But once I had all of my clips organized into a project, working with either photo-editing software was straightforward. Except, my Windows program was clunky, as I said. I can produce a video on the MacBook in about a third of the time, if not faster.

So why am I not cranking out videos? I still have lots of footage of Costa Rica to go through and feel I have four or five videos to make from it. I've also started kayaking again and have recorded two of my last three paddles.

Which comes to the point of today's blog post: on Sunday, I produced and uploaded another YouTube video—the second one of the year. Take a look:

It took a couple of hours each night for about four nights to get the video from my camera to my phone. Maybe eight hours: maybe a little less.

On Sunday, I started work on the Mac at about noon. Both DW and Kid 1 were heading out for the afternoon so I took advantage of a quiet house to get my work done.

I have to admit that I don't like working on the Mac. I'm too used to how a Windows computer works and I find I have to stop and think about so much. For me, a Mac isn't as intuitive.

It took the most time to transfer my files from my phone onto the Mac and to set up a library, event, and project in Final Cut Pro X. But as soon as I had my video clips, sound recording (bird call), music, and photo in place, the workflow of FCPX was pretty smooth. By about 4:30, I had the MP4 video ready to upload to YouTube.

By 5:00, DW and I were watching the video from my YouTube channel on our big-screen TV.

I think my hesitation with producing videos comes from my initial reluctance to use the Mac. But as soon as I get going, I'm fine.

I've already started downloading the video clips of my latest kayaking adventure, so I may have another video out by the end of the month or early July, depending on when I actually have time to sit in front of the Mac again.

My June calendar is pretty full.

My clips of Costa Rica have already been saved to a hard drive, so it's only a matter of coming up with a storyboard and recording some voiceover material, but I hope to be more frequent with my videos.

(You can help by subscribing to my channel... hint-hint!)

Where Did I Go?

As I age, I'm starting to see less and less of the old me, and more and more of my dad.

And it scares me.

When I was younger—in my late teens to early 40s—I saw a perfect balance of both parents. From the top of my head to about my mouth, I saw my mom's side of the family. My jawline has always been from the Brown side.

My torso was from my grandfather on my mom's side. He was tall, as are some of my uncles. But when we all sat at the table, I found that I sat just as tall as they did. My dad was shorter than I am, due to a compact torso and short legs.

My legs are clearly from my dad, as they are also stumpy. They never seem to be in proportion with the rest of my body and are especially noticeable when I wear shorts.

There's a reason that I don't wear them often.

If I had legs like some of my mother's brothers, I would probably stand at close to six feet tall. When I was a young adult, I stood at 5' 7". These days, as I approach 60, I seem to have lost an inch.

This year, I seem to have made more of a transition to a Brown, resembling my mom's side of the family less and less. I've gained a bit of weight since DW and I returned from Costa Rica, which has accelerated that change.

The first thing that I notice, when I've put on some kilos, is that my face rounds out. A major Brown trait. I now wear glasses all the time, something that my dad did, too.

I find it hard to picture my dad without some baseball cap: something I rarely sport, and when I do, it's a totally different style. But I often wear my expedition had when I'm out in the sun, and the fact that it covers my hair, like his baseball cap (though, he had a huge bald spot underneath, whereas I still have a full head of hair), our similarities come through.

Last Friday, when I posted some selfies that I captured while kayaking, the first photo doesn't look like how I imagine myself. I look very much like my dad (though, I don't think he's ever been in a kayak in his life).

Here's the photo again, and another photo of me and my dad, when I was about 30. (In that photo, my dad was actually younger than I am now!)

I look at these pictures and I think to myself, why didn't I get more genes from my mom's side of the family? In that mid-1990s photo, I look more like my mom than I do my dad.

Last week, I took a selfie of my mom and me. Yes, you can still see that we're related, but the Brown gene is dominant.

Still, I look at that picture of me, even from my birthday, last March, and that photo of me in my kayak, and I think, where did I go?

And how do I get back?

Weekend Selfie

For the past three weekends, DW and I have joined a couple of our friends and have headed out on various waterways in our kayaks.

We have upgraded from a couple's activity to a foursome.

We started the season on the South Nation River, paddling a stretch that we had intended to traverse on April 8, either in advance of the total solar eclipse or, if the weather gave us overcast skies, during the eclipse. The weather was perfect for kayaking, as long as no one tipped over.

We ended up not pulling out our kayaks in April and waited until mid-May to head out on the water.

One week later, we were back out; this time, on the Clyde River. We put in at a boat launch, in the small town (village?) of Lanark, about an hour west of Ottawa, and paddled upstream as far as we could go, past Kerr Lake, until we were stopped by a low set of rapids.

We turned back but when we reached the boat launch, we decided to paddle a little further downstream, where we knew that a dam in the town would mark the end of our trek. We were forced to stop about 100 metres away from the barriers that would warn us of the dam by a bridge that was too low for us to pass under.

It was just as well, because the current was picking up and we didn't feel we'd see much more, anyway.

So far, the Clyde River has been my favourite of our three paddles. Last weekend, we returned to Gananoque, where DW and I had paddled before around the 1,000 Islands. It was the first time our friends had kayaked on the St. Lawrence and it was a good experience for them.

On our Clyde River and 1,000 Islands kayaking treks, I mounted one of my 360-degree cameras on the deck of my kayak. I plan to make YouTube videos of each outing. But one of the great things about these cameras is that in addition to capturing video, they also take some impressive stills. And while I don't generally place the device in Photo mode, I still get good stills off of the video footage.

In reviewing the video clips, there were a couple of angles that I made into snapshots. One captures me as I get as close to the rapids as I could before having to turn around and ride the current.

It's a decent action shot, though the action isn't particularly intense.

One style of selfie that I like to capture almost every time I'm in my kayak is the tiny-planet selfie, where I extend the monopod as far as it will go (in this case, three metres), making it appear as though the shot was taken from a drone.

I have taken lots of shots using this effect but I never tire of them. For one, the surrounding is always different, as is the sky. And also, I just like the effect.

You?

Happy Friday!

Beer O'Clock: Spin

It's been such a long time since I've done a review of a Mill Street brew that you might have thought that I had forsaken this great Toronto brewery. And perhaps, to some extent, I had.

When Labatt bought this powerhouse brewery, I did feel a bit sad, that the owners had sold out to a macro-beer giant. And with the sad passing of the founding brewmaster, Joel Manning, I have to admit that some of my love for the brewery waned.

But I have to admit, despite the changes, Mill Street still puts out great beer.

So when I saw a neon pea-green can with Mill Street's logo at the bottom, as I shopped my friendly neighbourhood LCBO, I thought I was overdue for a revisit. If not, for anything else, for the memory of the kindness that Joel, and so many others at the Ottawa brew pub, had shown me so many years ago.

Spin Session IPA (4.9% ABV; 25 IBUs)
Mill Street Brewery
Toronto ON

Appearance: a slightly unfiltered, pale gold. It's not cloudy, as you can see the effervescence throughout the glass, though I could only see my fingers on the other side of the glass as pale shadows. The head pours a sudsy white and settles to a solid, creamy cap.

Nose: lemon, lime, and a touch of pineapple and mango.

Palate: lightly tart lemon with a bitter, hoppy mouthfeel. The body is full with almost a slightly soapy finish.

Overall impression: I think Spin does a good job of combining the light flavours of a session ale with the full-bodiness of an IPA. There are good citric flavours, but I also find that the soapy finish doesn't do it for me. With other Mill Street brews that I've tried, I've often enjoyed the flavours from start to finish.

This one is great from the start and the middle, but I don't care for the finish.

Beer O'Clock rating: 🍺🍺

I'm glad I was able to pull out one of my many Mill St. beer glasses, again, and hope to fill it up again soon. And with it, I raise a glass to the memory of Joel.

Spin is available at the LCBO, at various grocery stores, and through Mill Street.

Cheers!

The Lighthouse that Was Once a Windmill

The New Me

Image: Radiopaedia, via Google (not my lungs).

This is something that I'm just going to have to get used to.

I dreaded the worst when I went to my follow-up appointment with the lung specialist. After all, just a few days before, I received an e-mail from one of many health-report sites that my doctor and some of the area hospitals subscribe to. This report had the results of my recent CT scan, which I had done at the hospital in Renfrew.

Of course, the report used a lot of medical terms with which I was unfamiliar. I had to do some Google searching to figure out what they meant, and the biggest one that stuck out grabbed my full attention.

Partial collapse in both lungs.

My brain went into overdrive, as I imagined doctors cutting into my sides, inserting tubes and re-inflating the lungs. Trying to remain rational, I hoped that the specialist would simply prescribe medication that would get my lungs back to normal.

I called the specialist's office to get a follow-up appointment and learned that he was booked up. July 4 was the earliest that I could see him.

With the thought in my head that my lungs were partially collapsed and that the specialist was willing to wait another month to see me, I started telling myself that it can't be that bad if I was to wait that long. I've learned that if doctors aren't moving in haste, that's usually a good thing. Last year, the surgeon wasn't in a huge rush when it came to my appendicitis. And when Kid 1 was born and not taking well to breathing, I learned, standing next to them, their lack of chaotic movements in getting our baby to respond meant that they had everything in hand and that they knew what they were doing.

She turned out just fine. Though, my heart probably skipped a few beats in the minutes that seemed like hours.

Two days after I made my appointment, however, the specialist's receptionist called me back.

"Doctor B—— just learned about your follow-up date and he's not satisfied with it. He wants to see you right away. Can you come in tomorrow?"

Now, I worried. He wasn't filling in a cancelled appointment with me: he was either bumping someone or making time to squeeze me in.

He also wanted me to take a lung-capacity test, which would be conducted in his office.

Of course, I accepted the new appointment but now, my mind was going to the worst-case scenario—or, actually, the second-worst-case scenario. One of my best friends, who knew of my condition going into the appointment, went to the worst-case scenario, fearing that I had lung cancer.

My mind went to cystic fibrosis, which, one might argue, is just as bad.

At the appointment, I was brought in to the test room by a pleasant technician who seemed to share my sense of humour. At least, she laughed when I hoped she would and she made similar jokes throughout the one-hour test.

I sat in a plexiglass chamber and had an air tube placed in my mouth with my nose pinched closed. I would have to inhale and exhale at certain speeds and with varying force, as well as hold my breath. The technician turned her computer screen such that we could both view it, though most of it made no sense to me.

With each result, she wrote up a report, and when we were done, she had me return to the waiting room while she submitted her report to my doctor.

I waited less than two minutes before the doctor called me in to his office. He explained that my lungs do have reduced capacity, though nothing that would be concerning to him. He said that the space that is working inside my lungs seems strong.

I also have bronchial asthma.

I raised the issue about the report that stated my lungs were partially collapsed and he said that while that medical term can mean a collapse, this was not the case with mine. Rather, there had been some infection that had damaged parts of my lungs, making them inactive.

"Okay," I said, "how do we fix them?"

"I'm afraid we don't," he said. "The damage, unfortunately, is permanent."

Crap.

He did, however, say that I can enhance the quality of the working parts of my lungs with a new inhaler, for which he wrote me a new prescription.

"For how long will I have to take this inhaler?" I asked.

"Forever," was his short answer.

I'm to take this medication twice a day, every day. I'm to also continue to use my Atrovent inhaler for emergencies (I had told him that I was using it with my Symbicort inhaler because, even though he said that the Symbicort inhaler was for use twice a day, plus for emergencies, I explained that there are times when I need a puff and am not near a water source to rinse out my mouth, afterward. He accepted my logic).

I asked him about resuming my activities—cycling and kayaking—and he said that I could resume those tasks, though it can take up to a month for the new inhaler to take any noticeable affect. He added that before I go for a ride, to take a couple of puffs from my inhaler. It would help with the ride.

"Also," he said, "before you start any outdoor activity, check the air-quality reports. If the air quality isn't good, don't head out on your bike." He added that if we have smoke from forest fires, as we did last year, to not go outside at all.

So this is the new me. Or will be, as soon as the meds kick in.

Circling the Rabbit Hole

Yeah, like I needed more stress in my life.

It isn't enough that I'm constantly worried about what kind of life my kids are going to have in this economy and environment, where owning a home is a fantasy and some governments are actually working against reversing the effects of climate change. We really have left our kids with a horrible mess.

To escape the stresses of this world, I often escape to a good show on one of the many streaming services I have or I surf YouTube for a channel that will either inspire me, educate me, or entertain me. I've shared some of the YouTube channels to which I've subscribed in a previous post (here, too)—some of those channels I've dropped but most of them I still tune to.

I've also started subscribing to some YouTube channels that are not only educating me but they're also stressing me out.

I stumbled upon one channel, SciManDan, a science educator who makes videos about debunking a lot of the misinformation that we see out on the Internet and on social media. In particular, Dan debunks Flat-Earthers.

And after watching a couple of SciManDan's videos, the YouTube algorithm started suggesting other channels, to which I have also subscribed: Dave McKeegan and Conspiracy Toonz. Through these channels, I've also gone to (but not subscribed—god no!) the actual channels of the Flat-Earthers that are being debunked.

I've also subscribed to a conspiracy theory podcast, aptly named Conspiracy Theories. In this series, there are stories around UFOs, strange phenomena affecting neighbourhoods, Harry Houdini's death, and more. This podcast doesn't stress me out as much as the YouTube channels, as I see these stories unfolding more as entertainment.

I think what stresses me out the most is how some people truly seem to believe that there are coverups everywhere and that science is a joke. There are people who believe nothing except what comes out of their fellow conspirators or Flat-Earthers.

It's like society is taking a giant leap backwards.

I haven't fallen down the rabbit hole, eating up the conspiracies myself, though I do joke about them. Rather, I'm circling the rabbit hole—taking a peek without falling in. Looking to see what the other side thinks while holding onto my own understanding of how the world works and that the Earth is truly, undeniably, a globe.

What I've discovered is stressing me out.

Happy Monday!