Impressive Falls

This isn't a Wordless Wednesday. I felt that this photo needs some explanation.

A couple of weeks ago, DW and I went kayaking on the Ottawa River with a couple of our friends, who I will refer to as our Paddlefolk, going forward. We put in at the Rockcliffe Boat Launch, which is essentially below the residence of the U.S. ambassador, along the Sir George-Etienne Cartier Parkway.

Our goal was to paddle upstream, toward the Rideau Falls, and further, to the start of the Rideau Canal locks, just below Parliament Hill. We'd reach this point, rest, and then turn around.

There was some wind to contend with and because it was such a beautiful day, boats of all sizes were churning up the river, creating challenging waves. Not enough to worry us but enough to give my lower back a bit of grief by the time it was all said and done.

DW and I have paddled to the Rideau Falls before, and we both agreed that the river was much calmer then, as were the falls. But on this day, the falls were in full fury and were making an already challenging river all the more tricky. We were unable to get as close to the falls as we had been able to, a couple of years earlier.

One of our Paddlefolk was reluctant to get close to the churn of the water near the falls, and hung back, so we didn't stay very long. Being a bit cautious, myself, I totally understood.

I wanted to capture a photo of the western branch of the falls, as I hadn't captured many images of it when DW and I were here, in 2021. But every time I paddled as close as I could, the rush of water would push me back as soon as I took my hands off of my paddle and held up my camera.

It was my first outing with my newest smartphone, and I have to say that I'm not satisfied with the quality of image from my Samsung S24 than I was with my S10. Granted, I didn't go with the Ultra model, which has a fourth lens that offers great resolution, but I though the base model would be at least as good as my four-year-old phone, if not better.

With the water pushing me away from the falls, I had to move myself to a spot where the water was calmer, which was a stretch, considering the waves from boats in the main channel of the river.

I was so far from the falls that I had to use the 3x telephoto lens and use the digital zoom to 10x magnification. With this setting, and trying to steady my arm, I took the shot.

It wasn't sharp. I took a couple more shots, with similar results. Actually, the first shot was the best of the bunch.

The Paddlefolk regrouped and we resumed our paddle toward Parliament Hill. I'll have a YouTube video of this adventure in August.

Back home, I looked at the photo and was a bit disappointed. But knowing that I was pushing the magnification and was hand-holding my phone in rough water, I was surprised that the photo wasn't blurrier.

The photo reminded me of an Impressionist painting, so I decided to exaggerate the movement by applying a paint-stroke effect in post-processing, using PaintShop Pro. I increased the contrast, lowered the highlights, and gave a tad more saturation before I applied the paintbrush effect.

Here's the result.

The effect is subtle, just enough to make an unintentional blurry shot look intentional. It's gone from something that I almost deleted to something that I quite like.

Thoughts?

Happy Wednesday!

Breathing New Life

If anything, it could light the fire under my ass to resume work on the sequel.

I've all but given up on my first published novel, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary. Remember when I used to write about it a lot? Used to promote it?

I was so happy when I held a printed copy in my hand. That was just over 12 years ago. I would promote it at Christmas time, suggesting that it would make a perfect gift under any tree.

I kept several copies at home, selling signed copies for less than Chapters-Indigo or any other bookshop. I even gave some copies away, as a prize for my old Where In Ottawa? challenges.

It was a self-published work, something that I had to pay for, up-front, before I made any money. I didn't expect it to ever make a best-seller's list but I hoped enough people would buy a copy to make it worthwhile. I was ecstatic when I learned that the Ottawa Public Library, for a time, had a copy on its bookshelf.

I broke even in sales.

At first, my royalty cheques came in every few months, and I'd be happy. A couple of hundred bucks here, a few more hundred there. I made a decent profit off of my private sales. But over the years, the cheques came far and few between, and the amounts were very little.

The cheques came from an American bank, so I'd have to stick them in an envelope, enter the amount into my Canadian account at the ATM, and let whoever sorted it out to convert the cheque and credit me the difference.

But a few years ago, the ATMs went envelope free, and the cheques wouldn't be recognized, and were rejected. Even taking a photo of the cheque for my smartphone banking app would decline the cheques, so I ended up not cashing them.

No matter. They were only for a couple of bucks.

Over the years, however, I would occasionally receive an e-mail from various publishing houses, offering to publish my book. Unlike a self-publishing company, they would pay me up front, without me putting in any money of my own.

But they were based in the United States, like my self-publishing company. I didn't want American cheques and I didn't want to deal with tax forms from the U.S.

I never responded to the e-mail messages. Over time, when I received similar messages, I'd scroll straight to the signature area of the message, and if it was from someone with an American address, I'd delete the e-mail.

Many, I wouldn't even open. I'd just see the subject line and move it straight to trash.

I don't know why I opened the e-mail that was sent to me a few weeks ago, rather than just trashing it. But I opened it and scrolled straight to the bottom. And this time, the sender worked from a company that was based in Toronto.

I scanned the message, which told me that the printing house was interested in Songsaengnim. They worked with well-known publishers, such as Simon & Schuster, a company that I recognized.

I told myself that I'd look at the e-mail more closely when I had time, possibly on the coming weekend. A second message quickly followed, by the same person, telling me about a bookstore that they also own, in Toronto, that specializes in works by Canadian authors. There were pictures of the bookstore, attached.

More than a couple of weeks had gone by and I had almost forgotten about these e-mail messages. But over this weekend, I received another message from the company; this time, from someone else.

She essentially gave me the same message, but with enough changes to make me think that these folks work from a single template but personalize it a bit.

This time, I took some time to look into them. I Googled the bookstore and went to the Web site. I plugged the address into Google Maps and saw the store through the street view.

I Googled the printing house and visited their Web site. It was quite elaborate. They had links to their social-media sites and I visited three of them: Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

Man, they've made a lot of YouTube videos, promoting various books, going back more than two years. If these folks were scamming, they certainly went to a lot of trouble.

I responded.

I didn't say much, other than saying that I was interested in learning more about how they could get my novel to a larger audience. "What's the next step?" I wrote.

That's where I'm at. I've gone from all but forgetting about Songsaengnim to thinking how nice it would be to breathe new life into it. I've written about half of the sequel, Gyeosunim, but gave up on it last year.

I had lost interest in it.

If this printing house turns out to be the real deal, and if I start selling more copies, that could give me the push to returning to work on the sequel. Perhaps, even, another book after that?

For now, I'm not getting my hopes up. I'll see what they have to say and then go from there.

Stay tuned.

The Shortest Route

Through the morning haze, we could just make out the twin bridges, more than five-and-a-half kilometres away. We weren't even sure that what we were seeing was right, though it was in the right position.

We started paddling.

Often, when we take our kayaks out for a trek, we follow the meandering rivers or we cross back and fourth, following no set direction, making almost a scribble of a pattern with our GPS trackers.

But this time we were heading across the vastness of Calabogie Lake, starting at a cottage that our friends had rented, straight for the town of Calabogie, where we planned to have lunch. Measuring the lake, online, the night before, we learned that a straight line would be more than 5.5K. In good conditions, that would take almost an hour and a half.

Normally, we would putter around, taking in the sights, following shorelines to spy birds in the trees. But this time, we just wanted to get across the lake.

I trusted that what we were seeing were the two bridges that crossed where the lake turns into the Madawaska River, on Lanark Road, and basically kept my eyes fixed on those points. There was a light breeze at our backs and the water was a bit choppy, but manageable.

All four of us were determined to get to our destination as quickly as we could, so we paddled with purpose. We would only make short stops, to take a quick rest or drink some water from the bottles that were strapped to our decks.

As we got closer, we were able to confirm that, indeed, we were on the right course. For most of the trek, I kept my bow pointed at our destination.

The trip took just shy of an hour and 15 minutes. As we neared a boat launch that we had used in late 2022, we noticed a couple of docks to the opposite side of the dams and drop-off of the river and saw that these docks were closer to where we wanted to ultimately go, and that was the only time that our course changed.

Total distance: 5.791 kms.

We locked up our kayaks and walked for two minutes, and had lunch at the Redneck Bistro, a pleasant and more charming restaurant than the name suggests. Once we were seated and had put in our lunchtime orders, I checked the route map that my Garmin watch had plotted out.

It's the straightest line we've ever paddled.

I love my kayak. Any time the wind picked up at our backs, I'd only have to edge a little. Waves were no match for us, even when speedboats would race by and send us a sizeable wave. With our eyes locked on to our destination, we stayed true to our course.

Happy Monday!

Father of the Bridesmaid

An awakening reminder of how time sometimes slips away is to pay attention to your kids.

Yesterday, I shared a memory of a vacation in 2011. In the post, I included photos of Kid 1, who was 10 years old at the time.

Looking at those photos, it seemed like only yesterday.

A couple of weeks ago, DW and I went to our first wedding in decades. It's been so long since we last attended a wedding that we couldn't remember which wedding it was or whether we even had kids at the time.

There was one wedding, where DW was barely pregnant with Kid 1, and I accidentally tipped our hand in one photo, where a friend who took the picture noticed that I had my hand on DW's belly.

Oops.

But at this recent wedding, DW and I really noticed how time had flown. If our last wedding had, indeed, been when Kid 1 was still baking, this wedding involved Kid 1 as a bridesmaid.

She loved standing next to me, because with her heels, she was as tall as me. She kept ribbing me that she was taller in her shoes, but I'll let the photo that DW took of us show the truth.

She'll never really be taller than me but boy, does this photo ever make me realize just how much she's grown. Now, excuse me while I sob in a corner.

Happy Friday!

Riding the Waves

"I've never swum in the Pacific," I told DW, as we were watching the sun approach the horizon on Playa Santa Teresa, in Costa Rica, last February.

"What about when we were in California?" she asked, referring to our trip in 2016.

"You and the girls swam in the ocean," I said. "I watched our things on the beach."

"What's stopping you from going in now?" DW held out her hand to take my D-SLR and tripod, and my hat and glasses. I was dressed in bathing trunks and a quick-dry t-shirt, with my Keens on my feet.

I held onto my 360-degree camera, which was on an extendible, three-metre selfie stick. That, I would take into the ocean with me.

I needed some video footage of the massive waves that were crashing in.

So, I've finally swum on both coastlines: the Atlantic and the Pacific. I've been in the Atlantic Ocean several times—in Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, and if the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, in New Brunswick, counts, then there, too.

And then, there's Cape Cod.

In August, 2011, we made a last-minute decision to vacation in Dennis Port, on the southern shore. It was a very last-minute decision: DW found an available cottage for rental on a Saturday morning, booked it, and within an hour the entire family was packed up in our Honda Odyssey and on the road.

We pulled into the cottage around 10 pm that evening.

One of the nice things about the cottage was that it was right beside an old cemetery. The neighbours were dead-quiet. But the best thing about the cottage was that it was a short drive from a great beach with excellent sand and perfect waves: big enough to play in but not too big as to have us worry about the kids playing in them.

While I spent most of the time on the beach, watching our things, DW and the girls took our wave boards and played in the surf. I captured tons of photos of the three, having a blast.

At one point, DW came out of the water and reached for my D-SLR. "Go have fun," she said. "I'll watch our stuff."

She managed to capture me on the wave board, having fun, and spending some daddy-daughter time with Kid 1.

I don't go in the water very often because if my head goes under the surface, my sinuses often give me grief the next day. But on this day, in August of 2011, just as it was in February of this year, it was worth it.

I have shared some of the bigger adventures that we had on this Cape Cod getaway, be it whale watching, car woes, or avoiding a hurricane, so if you want to know more about this trip, you can click the related links.

But this day was one of my favourites of the trip.

Happy Thursday!

Stormhour

Exploring 1,000 Islands

Of course, we didn't paddle around a thousand islands.

We did, however, take our kayaks around about 20 of them.

We've adopted a habit of packing up our car and heading out to various rivers and lakes almost every weekend for the past couple of months. Our friends, Nina and Brian, have joined us on all of these outings, too.

We refer to ourselves, on our group chat, as Paddlefolk.

I haven't attached my video cameras on every trip, but so far this year, I've recorded four of our adventures. I wish I had recorded the weekend when we practised rescue moves, because I rocked. I never knew how easy it was to pull myself out of the water, in the middle of a lake, and get back into the cockpit.

I'll make a video of this another time, this summer.

So far, I've published two kayaking videos, this season, to my YouTube channel, with a third one coming on August 3 and the fourth one in edits. The latest one dropped on Saturday and you can view it here.

We visited Gananoque in June and paddled around the 1,000 Islands to the immediate southwest, on the St. Lawrence River. We covered more than 13 kilometres over about five hours, which included several stops and a picnic lunch on one of the islands.

We saw fish, found a shipwreck, and explored a tiny but interesting bay. And much more.

Have a look:

And, as always, if you like the video, give it a thumbs-up and subscribe to my channel. I'd like to hit 300 subscribers by the end of the year.

The next two videos were recorded closer to home. Stay tuned...

Productive Off My Feet

My feet just can't catch a break.

A few months ago, after seeing countless ads on my Instagram feeds and in the margins of my Yahoo mail account, I decided to buy a pair of Vessi shoes. I have several pairs of walking shoes but none that I can wear in the rain without soaking my feet, and I was able to apply a discount code, so I thought I'd roll the dice and try them out.

It's the first time that I've ever bought footwear online.

Ten days later, the shoes arrived on my doorstep and I was excited to try them on. They fit more snugly than a regular pair of shoes but that is by design. They're 100-percent waterproof so you don't want any gaps that can let water in.

I wore them around the house for a couple of days before taking them outdoors, and the only issue that I noticed was that if I sat with my feet up for any length of time, my feet would become numb: especially, my left foot.

That foot has hardware in it, from my reconstructive surgery, and so the top of it bulges just a bit more than my right foot. All of my shoes are more snug on that foot.

That's the price of a pain-free foot that I wouldn't trade for the world.

I started wearing my Vessis outdoors, especially on rainy days. I'd step in puddles that I would avoid in any other shoe. One time, while photographing a memorial site, I accidentally stepped in some grass that was flooded and the water came right up to my ankles.

But my socks and feet stayed perfectly dry.

However, after a weekend in Toronto, where DW and I walked everywhere—and me in my Vessis—I noticed a small blood blister had formed on the ball of my right foot. It didn't hurt so I ignored it, confident that it would heal in a few days.

I wore my other shoes, most of the time, though I would put my Vessis on if it was raining and I was only going a short distance. (Though, I wore them for the photo walk that I lead, in June).

The blister, which started deep under my skin, was making its way to the surface, and that's when the trouble started. I began to play with it while watching TV.

One evening, I absentmindedly started picking at it, while watching TV, and suddenly, it began to bleed. A lot. Without noticing, I had created a small puddle on the hardwood floor of our bedroom (thankfully, my feet were dangling off the bed).

I cleaned the wound (and the floor), applied some antibiotic ointment, and covered the wound in a bandage before heading to bed.

In the morning, I noticed that some blood had soaked the bandage but thankfully, did not get on our sheets. I cleaned the wound, applied more ointment, and placed a fresh bandage over the wound, which seemed to form into a berry-like bubble.

Walking on it was a problem, as I always seemed to burst that bubble. Over six or seven weeks, I had gone through dozens of bandages (which was actually for the best, as many of those bandages were at least a decade old). I used them all up before opening one of our first-aid kits that is packed with several boxes of newer bandages of various sizes and uses: waterproof, flexible, and breathable.

When it seemed like my foot wasn't getting any better and continually bled, I made an appointment to see my doctor. She inspected the wound and, to my relief, told me there was no infection. I was, however, treating it in the worst way by applying the antibiotic ointment and keeping it constantly covered.

It needs to air out, she told me. Keep it bare for a couple of days, at least until it dried out. She applied some nitrogen to it, which made it scab up, and wrote me an order to have some blood work, with which she would follow up in a couple of weeks.

The blood work was to determine whether I was diabetic or not. The wound shouldn't have been taking this long to heal, and because my father was diabetic, I was at risk.

I meet with her to discuss the results at the start of August.

So, for more than a week, I've tried to stay off this foot as much as possible. I sit barefoot while I'm working at my home-office desk and whenever I watch TV. I only apply a bandage when I have to go out and when I do, I wear my spongiest shoes and tread lightly.

It's getting better.

This past weekend, I bowed out of kayaking with DW and my friends, and I spent most of my time barefoot and sitting at a desk, editing video and producing content for my YouTube channel. Not only did I upload one video to my channel, which I'll share tomorrow, but I also produced a second video that will be available on my channel on August 3.

And I've begun work on yet another video. Plus, I wrote today's, tomorrow's, and Wednesday's blog posts.

Who knew that a pair of shoes could lead to me being so productive?

I still love my Vessis. They are comfortable (even though they produced a blister, I wasn't in pain while wearing them) and they keep my feet perfectly dry in the wettest of conditions.

But for now, I'm sticking to my other shoes.

Stay tuned for more news on my foot...

Still Dry

Overall, it hasn't been much of a challenge.

There have been a couple of situations where it might have been nice to have a pint of beer, a glass of wine, or a cocktail. But I weathered those instances like a champ.

Like the time I met a friend for drinks at one of Ottawa's breweries. My friend had arrived before me, and when I joined him he was already enjoying a dry-hopped amber ale. It looked good.

Yet, when our server asked me what I'll have, I asked if they had any non-alcoholic beer, and my friend's eyes almost bulged out of their sockets. I explained to him how I was going dry for July and that as much as I liked the beer from this brewery, I couldn't partake.

Play Lager

They did have a non-alcoholic brew—not of their own but from a brewery in Perth. I like what that brewery produces so I agreed to try it.

It wasn't bad. It's a lager (not one of my favourite styles) and it had a decent, biscuity malt, and was easy to drink.

I had two.

Corona Sunbrew

I've also been to a karaoke night, at a bar, and I learned that they had Corona's non-alcoholic option, so I tried one bottle. It came with a lime wedge in the mouth of the bottle, and I promptly squeezed the fruit and shoved it down the neck.

Folks, the lime was the best part of this brew. Without it, the contents of the bottle would be practically flavourless. When I finished that bottle and the server asked if I wanted another, I switched to Perrier water.

It was far more satisfying.

I've also gone away for a weekend at a cottage, and I brought more of the Perth Brewery lager. Though everybody else at the cottage was drinking alcoholic beer or wine, I didn't feel left out.

For the most part, I've been drinking sparkling water or lemonade, or even tap water. One evening, out for dinner, while everybody had cocktails, wine, or beer, I had a virgin margarita.

So far, Dry July hasn't been much of a challenge. Not really.

Though, there are times when I ask myself why I'm doing this, why I feel the need every couple of years to deny myself of having a strong drink.

It's to show that I can't be pressured to drink.

My beer fridge is filled with cans of beer from various breweries. I stocked my fridge at the end of June. There are also five cans of non-alcoholic beer: a Guinness 0 and more of the Perth Brewery's Play Lager. But I haven't touched any non-alcoholic beer, even, in almost two weeks.

Going dry, even at the peak of patio season, can be done. Here's to all of those who make the decision to say no to booze.

I know you can do it.

The Amazing Shirt

It's probably the oldest shirt that I own. And I'm amazed that I can still fit into it.

In 1998, DW and I took a vacation to Thailand. We were teaching English in South Korea, and after my abduction, we felt that we needed a getaway. I was able to convince my administrators at Jeonju University that I needed more than the one week that my contract allowed, and my fellow English teachers agreed that they could fill in for my classes for the extra days.

We had a great time, visiting Bangkok, Krabi, in the southwest coast of the country, and the small island of Ko Pha-ngan, in the Gulf of Thailand, which wasn't nearly as developed as it is today; especially, on its northern shores.

I'll never forget our tiny hut, just a dozen steps from the beach, and the restaurant of the Star Huts, which was half as far and had a 24-page menu. Ah, to turn back time.

I saw the t-shirt in a touristy part of Bangkok, and even though the cotton was thick and the shirt a bit big for my then-small frame, I wanted it. The black shirt had colourful lettering, with a stylized eye at the top, and read Amazing Thailand 1998-1999.

It's a bit faded, and covered in cat hair.

I bought it but didn't wear it during the day, as the temperatures were too hot for the fabric. Instead, in the cool evenings, I wore it on the beach in Ko Pha-ngan.

Before DW and I returned home, to Canada, in March 1999, we returned to Thailand one more time. This time, we arrived from the south, in Malaysia, when we took a bus from Penang to Krabi.

We revisited Krabi and then made our way to the island of Ko Lanta, but after a couple of days on a muddy and rocky beach, we decided to return to Ko Pha-ngan and Star Huts (we even got our old hut from the year before).

Of course, I travelled with my Amazing Thailand t-shirt and wore it more often when we reached Chiang Mai, where the coolness of the mountains made me want to wear a thicker shirt.

When we returned to Canada, spring hadn't quite arrived, and I was thankful for this thick, cotton t-shirt. It was also a bit of a bragging piece of clothing, as some people, who saw me wear the shirt, would ask me if I had actually gone to Thailand.

"Yes," would be my smiling response. "Twice, actually."

As the t-shirt showed, I had been there in 1998 and 1999.

I went through a period when I didn't wear printed t-shirts. I liked solid colours with nothing on them. And I also didn't wear t-shirts without a buttoned shirt over top: especially, when heading out of the house. And so, my Thailand shirt would move to the back of my t-shirt drawer, only making an appearance as a sleep shirt or when I did chores around the house.

Over the years, I started wearing shirts with brewery labels on them, and I even bought three printed shirts from last year's Spamalot musical in Stratford. Having returned to wearing printed shirts, I dug to the back of my t-shirt drawer and retrieved my Thailand shirt, thinking that I had outgrown it and wouldn't fit into it. Perhaps one of my kids would want it as a sleep shirt, much like Kid 2 had taken over my Great Wall of China shirt many years ago.

But it fit, much to my surprise, even though it was large on me when I had first purchased it.

If I wear it out of the house and anyone asks me if I've been to Thailand, I'll have an answer at the ready.

"Yes, twice, in both 1998 and 1999."

Someday, perhaps, I'll go back.

Happy Thursday!

Day Lilies in My Garden

Random Stratford (Again)

Half My Life

I've been with her for more years than I've been without her.

We met when I was 22 and started dating on my 24th birthday. As she has put it with our friends, "I didn't have a birthday present, so, you know..."

I like to think that I wooed her with three words: "Let's get naked."

And while we've been together for more than 35 years, today marks the 30th year since we've made our commitment to one another official.

We've travelled the world together, experienced new things. We've had our ups and downs but have weathered it through. We have two beautiful, wonderful children who have added to the joy of our union.

It's been a great adventure.

We don't know what the future brings (who does?) but we know that we'll face it together.

After all, we've been married for more years than either of us has been unmarried.

With Glowing Hearts

We're not perfect but we strive to be among the top countries in the world. And I'm proud to call Canada home.

There are some who claim that Canada is broken but those that do have clearly not travelled abroad. Those who say that this country is broken clearly have an agenda that is not sincere.

Sure, we could be better, but if we work together, we can achieve anything. 

Happy Canada Day!