It's Never Just the Equipment

Just a warning about this post: it's not safe for viewing at work. It contains nudity.

On Tuesday evening, I did something I haven't done since mid-May: I picked up a camera.

No, not my camera on my phone, or the action camera that I take with me when I go kayaking. I mean one of my Nikon D-SLRs.

It's hard to believe but I haven't taken a photo with one of these cameras since I was in Peru. That was two months ago. And I'm retired. I have all the time in the world to go out and take photos.

But even looking at the photos on my smartphone, I haven't even used this pocket device to take many photos in the past couple of months. I've taken one or two shots whilst kayaking, the photos to be used for a thumbnail for an accompanying YouTube video.

I took a few shots a couple of weeks ago, on the evening of DW's and my wedding anniversary, as we strolled Lowertown and visited the new Kiweki Point for sunset. But that's pretty much it.

And after taking the shots, there were so many that I didn't look at again, afterward. They sat on my phone, virtually ignored. Here's one (on the right) that I only looked at to share in this post, as an example. It's unedited, shown exactly as I shot it.

There are quite a few more, which I may share next week, for Wordless Wednesday, just so that I can say that I did something with them.

Even when I took photos of our old kayaks, to list them for sale on Kijiji, I put little effort into the shots. I took a couple of snaps and that was it. I included an old YouTube video of the kayaks in action, in the ad, and hoped it would provide a good example of what the kayaks looked like and how they performed.

(They're still on the market, if anyone is interested.)

So, on Tuesday afternoon, when my phone gave me a reminder for an upcoming photo shoot, I had to make sure that my camera batteries were fully charged.

This photo shoot was held in a studio at the RA Centre, near Billings Bridge. I had never attended a shoot at this site before. Several years ago, I went to a meet-and-greet with my photography club, and the RA Centre was looking to get new memberships for its photo club, to which several of my photo club belonged.

I decided not to join because the annual fees were ridiculous, on top of which you had to pay if you wanted to book the studio. And, of course, any models would be extra.

The studio is in a former racquetball court, which is perfect for a photo studio because of the high ceilings and plenty of room for backdrops. The theme of this photo meetup was Figures and Fabrics, and featured New Zealand model, Lucy, who I had already been following on Bluesky for a few months.

It was nice to meet her in person.

Lucy would be posing, nude, while working with various pieces of fabric—wrapping it around herself, surrounding herself with it, or throwing it in the air. We also had some rectangular and square shapes, on which she would climb and pose.

She was great to work with.

As an added challenge, for myself, I chose to work with one fixed lens. I usually bring a couple of lenses to a photo shoot and almost always bring my 24–70mm f/2.8 zoom. But for this shoot, I'd only have my 50mm f/1.8 lens.

But I also decided to further challenge myself.

During these photo shoots, there are typically four or five photographers and we each take turns working with the model, rotating every two or three minutes. When it's your turn, you have the only active light trigger on your camera: everyone else must switch theirs off or remove it from the hot shoe.

But you're still allowed to photograph the model using the ambient light, so long as you don't get in the way of the photographer whose turn it is, and you don't try to direct the model.

All of the other photographers would continue to use their D-SLRs, without the triggers, and would change their exposure settings to suit the ambient-light conditions. But my further challenge had me set down my Nikon, and pull out my smartphone.

The camera in the Samsung Galaxy S24 is pretty good. And I wanted to put it in the Pro setting and see if I could capture Lucy with my phone as well as I could with my $2,600 D-SLR setup.

Admittedly, some shots didn't work out. In the low light, if Lucy was moving, there would be obvious blurs. Subtle movements of her face, hands, and hair would make an image unusable.

But some shots turned out rather well.

The following shots were captured with my Galaxy S24 and my Nikon D750. Can you tell which camera took which shot? (Don't let the proportions of the photo fool you. I expanded the empty space in most of these photos, during post-processing.)

Leave your guess in the Comments section.

One of the photographers in our group saw the results that I was getting from my phone and commented that she could never get images like that on her iPhone 13S. As evidence, she tried taking shots but I think she was shooting in fully automatic mode.

Not to fault her but no wonder she couldn't get the images she wanted. And, admittedly, a lot of shots that I took with my Galaxy S24 weren't very good. I shot hundreds of photos with my phone while I waited for my turn with my Nikon and there are still hundreds that I'll have to cull.

But some of them weren't bad at all, if I do say so, myself.

Seeing the quality of photos that I'm getting with my smartphone, I may use it again in future photo shoots. But it will never replace my D-SLRs, which can do so much more.

Though, when the technology in a smartphone allows it to sync with studio flashes, that might be a game-changer.

Happy Friday!

Strange Solicitor

Unless I'm expecting a visitor, I almost never go to the door when the doorbell rings. I'll pick up my phone, open my Google Nest app, and see who's on my porch.

If it's somebody I know, I usually open the door. Not always—sometimes, I'm in the middle of something and don't want to be disturbed—though I'll reach out to that person later. If I don't recognize the person, I won't go to the door.

I'm a bit antisocial, you see.

When I work from home (writing my novel, Dark Matter, that is), I sit at a desk with my back to the front window that looks onto our porch. Any visitor who takes the time to look through our sheer curtains can probably see the glow from my computer screen.

I'm probably hidden by my chair, which has a solid back and tall headrest. But if the cats have been at the window and have knocked the curtains, a gap could very well show a visitor that someone is seated on the other side of the glass.

Still, I won't get up to answer the door if I don't feel like it.

Yesterday, our bell rang just after lunch hour. I was working on my novel and didn't even flinch. But I did pick up my smartphone to see who was at the door, without swivelling around and looking with my own eyes, possibly getting the attention of our caller.

I opened my Nest app and saw a young man, tall, thin, wearing khaki shorts and a white golf shirt with what appeared to be a black name tag. At first, I thought he might be a Jehovah's Witness, but his behaviour told me differently.

He appeared to be holding an invisible golf club and was lining up for a drive. Check it out for yourself:

What would he have said if I had come to the door while he was in mid-swing? There was something printed on the back of his shirt, which made me think that maybe he wasn't a JW after all. I couldn't read everything on the back but I thought I saw the word Gutter.

But whether he was selling his religion, golf lessons, or gutter cleaning, I didn't answer the door. Would you?

Happy Wednesday!

Jones Creek

I used to wait until the weekend to work on my videos but then it dawned on me: I'm no longer working so I can make them any time I want to.

And yesterday was the day to do it.

Last Saturday was a blistering-hot day. I started it by heading outside to mow the lawn and when I was done, I was soaked in sweat. I hate cutting the grass on days like that, especially in our backyard, where the heat seems to get trapped because of our fence.

But as soon as I was done, I headed for a shower to cool off and decided that we couldn't stay in the city. So DW and I chose to head to the St. Lawrence Seaway, and we invited our Paddlefolk to join us.

Last month, DW and I drove to the Thousand Islands Parkway, left our SUV in Butternut Bay, and cycled from a free parking lot to Rockport, and back. As we cycled along a dedicated path, we passed over a bridge that spanned a waterway that looked suitable for kayaks, so we vowed that we'd check it out, someday.

That someday was last Saturday.

We parked at Brown's Bay, where there's a nice beach. We stopped there on our way back from our bike ride, last month, and had to pay five bucks—for the both of us—to have access to the facilities. It was worth it, because they had a change room, showers, and toilets, as well as a canteen (though, we didn't buy anything there).

For a car, it costs $21 for day-use. I saw that they had a senior's rate of $11 so I asked if 60 was the magic year (I turned that age in March). The guy at the gate said the senior's rate applied to people 65 or older, but said he'd give me the rate anyway.

Nice.

The wind was fierce, threatening to blow my hat off as we carried our kayaks from the parking lot to a spot just west of the marked swim area. There are stone steps that lead down to soft sand.

Once in the water, I found it so windy and choppy that I deployed the rudder on my kayak. We decided to stay fairly close to shore, paddling around the designated swimming area and those swimmers who went beyond the zone. Even so, waves from passing boats, in addition to the wind, gave us a bit of a workout.

Our new kayaks handled it easily.

We paddled downstream, eastward, passing lots of lovely and very expensive homes until we entered a bay that led to Jones Creek. In this sheltered area, the wind relaxed and the waters calmed, and I pulled my rudder back out of the water.

But why am I telling you about our adventure when you can see it for yourself? After all, I'm retired and had the time to put a video together yesterday. Have a watch:

What I recorded but decided to not include in the video was when we reached the beach and jumped into the cool water. I also left off that the showers and toilets were closed off because they became backed up by the time we returned to Brown's Beach.

I hope they were able to fix that problem quickly. During this heatwave, folks are going to want to visit Brown's Bay but it won't be fun without proper facilities.

Thanks for watching. If you enjoy my kayaking videos, do me a solid and subscribe to my channel. Give the videos a Thumbs Up so the YouTube algorithm will share them with more people.

Happy Tuesday!

More from My Smartphone

Beyond customizing my wallpaper for my lock screen and home screen on my smartphone, or choosing specific ringtones, I've never done much more to personalize any of my last four Android phones.

With the latest OS update on my Samsung Galaxy S24, I've decided to delve more into what my phone can do, and I'm having a bit of fun. Some of the features aren't new to the One UI 7.0 update but it wasn't until I saw significant changes to my phone that I started paying attention.

A lot of these features may be well known to some of you but please indulge me. It's all new to me.

I like to keep my home screen simple, so I only have my essential or most-used apps on display, lumping some of them in folders. Because I can easily recognize each app by their icon, I've now removed the labels, which seemed to clutter the home page unnecessarily.

For security, I've hidden all of my banking apps and my Google wallet. No search for these apps will reveal themselves. But what I've done is added them to the side tab of the screen, which is the only place that these apps can be found. And usually, you can see where the side tab is on the phone by a narrow strip that hugs to either the left side or the right side of the screen.

I've raised the opacity of that tab to 100 percent, so that it's invisible. That side tab will only appear if you know it exists and you know where to touch on the screen.

Routines have been around on Galaxy phones for a few years but I've never used them. I've used the Sleep mode and the Driving mode for a few years but I've never set routines to help me get the most out of my phone.

I've set up a routine that disengages the face-cognition or thumbprint requirement to unlock my phone while I'm at home, but that resumes those requirements as soon as I'm outside of my home Wi-Fi networks.

I've set up a routine that automatically engages the power-saving feature if the phone isn't plugged in, for charging, between midnight and 7 am. This way, if I forget to plug in my phone before going to bed, it will conserve energy so that I still have power the next morning.

Now, if I do remember to plug in my phone before I go to bed, there's a routine that turns the fast-charging capability of my phone off between midnight and 6:30 the next morning. I also set the battery protection to stop charging when it reaches 90-percent capacity.

Apparently, lithium-ion batteries don't like maintaining a 100-percent charge status, so it's not a good idea to leave them plugged in when they're fully charged. By ending the 90-percent charge limit at 6:30, I have a half an hour to fast-charge the phone to full for when my alarm wakes me up.

I still have a bad habit of staring at my screen until late at night. But I've set up a routine that puts my phone in dark mode, runs an adaptive eye-comfort shield, and dims the screen to 80 percent. That way, it's easy on my eyes, plus it reminds me that I shouldn't be on my phone.

That routine starts at a quarter to midnight and runs until 6 am.

I have a routine that only lets me stream video when I'm on Wi-Fi. And a routine that keeps Bluetooth enabled when the rest of the phone is in Airplane mode.

I've also customized my lock screen, with a font style and size that I like, located in a position that doesn't cover the focal point of my wallpaper. I have added icons that show me what the outside temperature is and my battery level, and I've changed the quick access to my phone to the quick access of attaining a QR code link.

The wallpaper, itself, is adaptive. The photo changes with the time of day, such that it gives the sky a warm glow at sunrise and sunset, it goes dark and gives the impression of moonlight on the subject, and will convey the current weather, such as when it's foggy or when it's raining, with animated fog and raindrops, respectively.

I've even customized how I take a screen capture (as is evidenced by how many screen shots I have in this post!). I used to just ask Bixby to take a screen capture (I found pressing multiple buttons at the same time awkward); now, I just swipe my hand to the right, across the screen. I find it faster.

Speaking of Bixby, I've modified it so that I don't have to say, "Hey, Bixby," before it wakes up. Now, I can make my request right away by saying something like, "Bixby, set a 30-minute timer," without waiting for the chime that indicates Bixby is listening.

I know, I know: now, Bixby is always listening. Whatever.

I've also set up the phone to allow for a split screen, so I can check an e-mail message while I'm scrolling through Bluesky at the same time.

There are probably some customizations that I've made but have forgotten about, and I'm sure I'll take advantage of more convenient, time-saving features as I get to know my phone better.

What about you? What neat features do you use on your Android? What do you think of the latest OS upgrades? Leave me a comment.

Happy Monday!

Leisure For Sale

The time has finally come.

After five seasons of excellent use, DW and I are finally selling our old kayaks.

My Delta 12.10. I'm going to miss it.

As of tomorrow, I'll be posting them on Kijiji. DW, who still has a Facebook account, will likely add them to the market site.

It took several hours of scrubbing out the nicks and scrapes of all the rivers and lakes we've paddled on to get my boat sale-worthy. There were marks that I thought were permanent but they've cleaned up quite nicely.

When DW and I picked up our new kayaks, in April, we talked to the folks at Frontenac Outfitters about wanting to sell our old ones, and asked about how much we should be seeking. The owner said that Delta kayaks hold their value, and that he, himself, couldn't discount his demo models by more than $200.

I described the shape ours were in: the bottom hulls have a few scratches from general wear and tear, but are still solid. They've never been abused. The stickers on the sides of the deck, near the cockpit, have been scraped up from the straps that we use to secure the kayaks on our roof rack. They don't affect the kayak at all but might not look great.

We bought new stickers, which we'd be willing to throw in if someone doesn't like the look of the old ones, but we won't replace them ourselves. It's nothing a hot hairdryer won't be able to lift off but it's time-consuming.

The owner of Frontenac Outfitters gave us a maximum asking price and a minimum price that we should accept. Delta kayaks are a hot commodity and sell out quickly, he added.

I loved my Delta 12.10. It's solid, stable, and manoeuvrable. Its design helps keep it in a straight line and it's perfect for weekend camping and day excursions. Though not designed for rapids, it could easily handle class 1 or possibly class 2 water conditions.

There's ample storage in the bow and stern, and an easy-to-access day pod holds snacks, keys, water bottles, and whatever you need to quickly get to. I used mine for light snacks, to hold spare batteries for my action camera (though the pod has an air-tight lid, I kept the batteries in a secondary, waterproof container), keys, and more.

DW's kayak is in equally good shape. It's 10 inches shorter than mine (Delta 12S), which makes it even more manoeuvrable. My kayak weighs 41 pounds; hers, 38.

We're hoping to sell the kayaks together and are more likely to cut a deal on them as a set. We want $1200 each but can negotiate if someone wants them both. The price includes the kayaks only: we're not selling any other accessories.

We still need those.

You'd also be saving on sales tax, so $1200 is a savings of more than $600. And these Canadian-made kayaks are so worth it.

How about you? Interested? Here's the Kijiji link to the listing.

Serious inquiries, only.

Flyover

There's something about flying my drone that gets my heart pumping.

Years ago, I bought my first-ever drone that turned out to be a waste of money. It was super-lightweight (136 grams, though it felt lighter) and was more of a toy than anything else. The remote controller was flimsy—there was no spring to the joysticks, which were too sensitive and wouldn't make the drone stop if you let go of them.

Almost any time I flew that drone, the lightest of breezes wind would either send it into nearby trees or would make me fight to maintain control of it. I would never feel inclined to fly it, and after only a couple of short flights, I gave up on it.

The camera sucked on it, too. It was low-res (720p), wobbled from the spinning propellers, and had serious sound issues, playing the first few seconds of the obnoxious drone engines and repeating a lot of it, or cutting out sound altogether (which was preferable, actually).

I recorded my first flight, in January 2017, which you can see here, if you like. I spent most of the time just taking it above my house, trying to understand the controls. It mostly fought the wind, at one point being blown toward a neighbour's tree (I cut the engines before I lost total control).

I hated that Dromeda VISTA so much that I didn't want another drone. I flew it one more time, at the Experimental Farm, a week later, but was unimpressed and left the drone on a shelf in our basement, where it gathered dust.

I didn't touch it again until the summer of 2020. In fact, that flight, which I'll get to in a minute, made me reconsider whether I wanted to own a drone or not.

Of course, I finally got around to buying a better drone—a DJI Neo—last fall, though I didn't start using it until early this year.

I haven't flown the drone as much as I've wanted to. Looking at videos on my YouTube channel, before this past weekend, I only had six videos that used my drone and only two of those were exclusively with the drone. The other four videos had only a few seconds of footage that was captured with the Neo.

This past weekend, DW and I went to our friend Alex's house to celebrate his recent birthday. Alex owns a farm near Plantagenet, along the South Nation River, and I've photographed it a few times, sharing some of my photos in past Wordless Wednesday posts, among others.

It was actually at this farm, in 2020, where I last flew the Dromeda VISTA drone. I was trying to capture some above shots of Alex's property, even though I knew the camera quality sucked. It was better than nothing.

Yet, within a minute of getting the drone above the farmhouse, the wind sent it into a nearby tree. The drone hit the tree so hard that it knocked out the microSD card that was sticking in a slot to the side of the drone.

I never found the card but didn't care: I was never going to fly that drone again.

Fast-forward five years. Here I was, again, at Alex's farm, with a drone, looking to get a flight in. Though we were there to celebrate our friend, I thought he would appreciate some aerial shots of his property.

We never achieved that task in 2020.

There was a torrential storm that hit shortly after we arrived and it rained off and on throughout the afternoon, keeping us indoors. But just before DW and I had planned to head back home, the rain stopped and I got the Neo in the air for just a few minutes.

Though the Neo weighs a gram less than the VISTA, it feels more solid. And because the remote control for the Neo is more responsive and the technology in the drone far superior, I wasn't as worried about it being blown into a tree.

The Neo will drain its battery to hold itself in place, rather than risk being swept away.

I wasn't planning on making a video with the footage I captured. Some curious friends wanted to see demos of the Neo, so I used the automatic settings and the controls with my smartphone before connecting to the dedicated remote controller.

From Alex's back porch, I flew the Neo over the South Nation River, trying to see one of his guests, who took a canoe downstream. I hadn't engaged the recorder until I was halfway over the river, by which time the canoeist was almost out of sight, just a dot on the water.

As soon as I pressed Record, I noticed some birds were annoyed by the Neo's presence and started flying around the drone. Being terrified flying over water, at the best of times, my heart rate increased. I turned the drone toward the farm and brought it over land.

Despite a bit of wind, the Neo held its own, with very few corrections needed by me. I flew it over the barns, over the farmhouse, and over his vast field before brining it in. The recordings I made seemed to be in haste, as I'm aware of the 15-minute or so limit on the battery and as I said, I wasn't planning to make a video.

But I did want to show Alex the aerial shots, so I took parts of some of the video clips and made a 104-second montage. Have a look.

The Neo's 4K, 30fps camera is way better than that of the old drone.

I still need to slow down when I'm making a recording and actually think about a shot before recording it. After all, I bought this drone to supplement footage that I take on vacations and while kayaking, and I need to master both the control of the drone and how to best compose a shot.

There's so much to think about when using a drone. And so far, flying gets my heart pumping: sometimes, out of fear of losing the drone; other times, from the excitement of flying a camera in the air.

Happy Thursday!

Date Night at Kìwekì Point

Size Matters

When I first came up with my detectives for my novel, Dark Water, I wanted them to stand out. From a personality point of view, they're both strong, intelligent, and insightful characters, and the more I write about them, the more I see in them.

I also wanted the characters to contrast one another, physically. I wanted the older, more-experienced detective, Mickey Calloway, to be a towering figure, at two metres tall (more than six-and-a-half feet tall). By contrast, Erin Hayes would be just over five feet, at 154 centimetres.

When I asked ChatGPT to create an image of the detectives, I provided a full description, including their respective heights. It came up with a good first attempt, though the height differences weren't quite right and Hayes looked older than her 28 years were.

So I had ChatGPT try again, stressing Hayes' age but not so much her height. And the vertical difference between my detectives wasn't stark enough, so I tried a third time, noting the importance of getting their height correct.

What the AI took came up with threw me off, because the difference was staggering. So much so, that I deleted the image that it had created, thinking the tool had made a big mistake (it wouldn't be the first time).

In that image, it had looked as though Calloway was standing next to a little kid. The AI must have come up with the wrong proportions, I told myself, and had ChatGPT create Hayes such that the top of her head came up to Calloway's shoulders.

After a bit of tweaking, the created image looked pretty much the way I wanted the detectives to appear. I've shared this image before but here it is, again (I find I'm reusing images in my posts a lot, of late. I hope you don't mind):

But if I wanted to stick to my initial thought of having Calloway two metres tall and Hayes just over a metre and a half, I needed to know what that would really look like. So I turned to HeightComparison.com.

This handy site lets you enter the height of two or more people and will then create a 2-D shadow of that person, based on the sex that you provide. When I entered the numbers for Calloway and Hayes, the outcome was eye-opening.

ChatGPT, it seems, got the height of the detectives correct. Seeing this comparison, it was apparent that I had created a giant and a teenager. It made my characters seem comical.

There is only one reference in the book, so far, that talks about their height difference, but I don't think they have to be extremes. With the differences in height that I had created, almost anyone who would encounter the detectives would want to react in shock or make some sort of comment, and I wouldn't want that. It would become the defining characteristic and be a distraction.

I still want Calloway to be a large, broad, imposing figure, who is two metres tall. When he walks into a room, he commands attention and is, perhaps, feared by some.

But Hayes doesn't need to be so short. I want her to be someone who, when seen for the first time, is not identified as a small person. I want her to be seen as someone who is, while "ridiculously beautiful," according to Calloway, is someone who is regarded as a person of authority.

I've added 16 centimetres to Hayes. For those who still use Imperial measurements, that brings her to roughly 5' 7". To further illustrate, I put my own height into the tool and came up with this comparison:

This new height for Hayes seems more realistic to me and I think will help with how I bring the two detectives together for the first time. I initially made Calloway to be a stereotypical gruff cop who dismisses his new partner straight off. He sees her, thinks her beautiful but tiny. He questions how she'd hold up in a tough situation.

But I never wrote about how Hayes sizes up Calloway (no pun intended) on their introduction to one another. She is simply the rookie inspector who was introduced to Calloway, and I had written from Calloway's perspective only. I'd like to round that scene out and share Hayes' perspective, too.

Once I get the descriptions of my characters sorted, I'll get back to focusing on the actual story. But now that I've seen how my detectives stack up to one another, I truly see how size matters.

Feeling Blue over My Kayak

I haven't yet clicked with my new kayak. And I think it's the colour that's to blame.

I mean, paddling in my Delta 14 is a dream: it's fast, it's stable, and when I've used the rudder, it moves in a perfectly straight line.

I love paddling in it.

When DW and I decided to upgrade our kayaks, it didn't take us much convincing to go with the 14-foot Deltas. We loved our old Deltas and knew that if we wanted to explore larger waterways, we needed the extra length and the rudders. It was a no-brainer to stick with the brand that we knew and loved.

The only real consideration, after taking a test paddle at Frontenac Outfitters, was to decide on a colour. I really liked the lime green, but so did DW. I didn't want to have the same colour of kayak that I had before, even though I loved the red, and the green was the next colour that appealed to me.

Delta had come out with a new colour, a rich orange, but I felt that it looked too similar to red, and I wanted the new kayak to stand out, especially in our videos. In retrospect, I might have been happier with the orange.

I mean, I liked the Azure colour that Delta had, but I feel that I settled for this colour, rather than saying, "Yeah, I want that colour for my kayak."

When we picked up our kayaks, at the end of April, and saw them unwrapped, I liked the blue. We were looking at our new crafts in a heavily overcast, rainy light, and the blue really punched. Maybe I would be alright with this new colour, I told myself.

On our first paddle, I was overwhelmed by how well the Delta 14 performed, how comfortable I was with it. It felt strange looking down the bow and seeing such a bright colour, but I told myself that I'd get used to it.

After viewing the video footage, I wasn't so sure. The blue didn't look like the rich blue that was unwrapped at Frontenac Outfitters. It appeared pale, like a light sky blue.

If the colour that was captured by the video camera was the true blue of my kayak, I wouldn't have chosen that colour.

I've been out in my kayak five times this season, and every time we've gone out, the sky has been cloudless and the sun has shone brightly. And when I've made a video of our outing, the blue of my kayak has not been accurately captured.

Have a look at the latest YouTube video, when we paddled the Mississippi River from Pakenham to the base of the Blakeney Rapids.

Pale, huh?

DW asked me, after this paddle, if I liked my new kayak. "The kayak itself is fantastic. I'm just not feeling the azure colour. I should have stuck to red or gone with the orange model."

It's too late. There's nothing I can do about it now.

On Saturday, for our fifth paddle, we put our kayaks in the Jock River and did a 10K round-trip trek toward Richmond and back. It was late in the afternoon and a lot of time, we were shaded by trees on the western bank of the river. And for most of the paddle, my kayak looked like the blue that I saw when we picked it up.

Ironically, I decided to leave my video equipment at home. I just wanted to paddle without thinking about capturing our trip.

As the sun got low on the horizon, I took a photo with my smartphone. And for the first time, I saw my kayak by its true colour. The photo has been unedited.

I'm sure I'll get used to the colour and hope that I eventually bond with it, no matter what light hits it. After all, the kayak itself is awesome and I know that when we hit big water, there's no kayak that I'd rather be in.

Lucky 7

I've been writing for a very long time.

In the fifth grade, I wrote a short story called The Hiccuppy Monster. It was about a monster that had the hiccups and couldn't shake them, and a few friends suggested ways to get rid of them. It took a kid scaring him to end his hiccupping fit.

One friend came up with the idea, another friend drew the illustrations (he was quite talented), and I wrote the story. Our teacher liked it so much that he had me read it to kids in a couple of first-grade classrooms.

In the sixth grade, we had creative writing each week, and my teacher, Bill Townsend, encouraged me to challenge myself. He liked my writing so much that at the end of each week, he'd have me read my work to the rest of the class. He told me that if I chose to be a writer, I'd do well.

Bill Townsend was one of my most influential teachers.

In my late teens, I continued to write short stories. This was at a time that I devoured spy novels by Len Deighton, and when I created Roland Axam. I was inspired by Deighton's Game, Set, and Match trilogy and thought I would write an entire novel for Axam.

My first novel was a spy thiller called The Spy's The Limit. It featured Axam, in Berlin, as an agent with the Canadian Security Intelligence Services. He was assigned to assist his controller, Charles Townsend, who used to work for British MI-5 and who, himself, had been invited to bring a long-time agent back to the west, from the Soviet Union. Townsend had been in charge of the West Berlin portfolio and was the only person the agent trusted.

Axam was to be an observer only, but Townsend had other plans. I won't tell the story because I don't want to spoil any surprises, should I ever revive that story.

I actually turned The Spy's The Limit into a trilogy, taking Axam from Ottawa to Berlin, from Berlin to North Berwick, Scotland, and back home. When I finished the third book, Clear Spies Ahead (the second book was called Spy Will Be Done), I read everything, from cover to cover.

And wasn't happy.

I felt the story was too simple and not believable. I decided to shelve the trilogy and maybe revisited it after I had more writing experience under my belt. But I had completed three novels.

Sadly, in the moving that DW and I have done over the years, I've lost the manuscripts. I was upset but figured that perhaps I wasn't meant to be a spy novelist.

I moved on to another novel soon after. It was about teenage suicide. JT was about a teen, Joseph Thomas Smyth, in his final year of high school, and deals with the pressures that face youths. Written from the viewpoint of JT, it follows his last two weeks of life.

This novel, I thought I could get published, so I sent it to several publishing houses. Every one of them rejected the story with a lovely form letter that essentially told me to fuck off. But one of those letters was covered in hand writing around the margin, apparently by the person who actually read JT.

The person said that she actually enjoyed reading my manuscript, felt the main character compelling, and was touched by the emotion the book set. And while her company wasn't interested in this type of story, she encouraged me to keep writing.

Four books written: zero published.

The next novel that I wrote was started in 2001, after DW and I had returned from South Korea, where we taught for two years, and after we bought our first house and started a family. The book was based on our experiences in Korea but as seen through my eyes.

I should note here that all of my short stories and all of my novels were written in first-person prose. Though my sixth-grade teacher never encouraged this writing point of view, it was something that interested me.

Also, none of my books have happy endings. I just don't like them. Sorry.

It took me more than 10 years and three iterations to complete my fourth novel. I eventually brought Roland Axam into it, as the main character, complete with a sad backstory, and made him the person who experienced the things that I had while living in Korea.

Plus some fiction, for good measure.

That book did get published, although it's self-published. It's Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary.

Five books written: one published.

When I wrote Songsaengnim, I initially planned to write it to cover the span of my two years in Korea. But as the story progressed, I realized that the book was getting long, so I decided to split it into two stories: one, the first year of Roland in Korea, with his backstory as a second arc; the second story would follow Roland in his second year, where he teaches at a university.

I also decided to add parts of The Spy's The Limit—or at least what I could remember of the lost manuscript—as a secondary arc. There are actually three arcs in Gyeosunim, the sequel.

I got about two-thirds through writing Gyeosunim before I lost interest. It took 10 years to finish Songsaengnim and I didn't want to take another 10 years to write the sequel. I was bored of the characters in the main arc and needed to do something different, so I shelved my work.

For now.

Five-and-two-thirds books written. Let's say six.

My seventh book is Dark Water and is my first murder mystery, which is a departure from my other books. It's my first book that is not written in first-person prose (it's in third-person) and it's one of the few books that doesn't feature Roland Axam (JT is the only other novel that is Roland-free).

I have friends who think I'm a novice writer. Heck, I have friends who sometimes forget that I'm a writer (even though I worked for 25 years, writing documentation for various companies). I do lack confidence in my writing ability but I look back to my fifth-grade teacher, who liked The Hiccuppy Monster so much that he had me read it to younger kids (and I think he kept the only copy of that story), to Mr. Townsend, who encouraged me to write, and to that unnamed reader at a publishing company, who told me not to stop.

I'm having a lot of fun writing Dark Water and think it is probably my best work yet. Maybe, it'll be my Lucky 7.

Happy Friday!

Partially On the Wagon

If you've been reading The Brown Knowser for a while, you know that it's no secret that I love beer.

And yet, recently, I've sort of been off beer, avoiding the beer section in our friendly neighbourhood LCBO and not ordering from my favourite local craft breweries. There hasn't been any beer in my mini fridge since late May.

I still drank beer, but only occasionally. For the first couple of weeks, while attending my local karaoke venue, I gave up having my usual pint of IPA from Ottawa beer shop Overflow Brewing, opting for ginger ale to keep my vocal chords lubricated.

It threw the bartender, Kevin, who was reaching for a cold can of ale as he saw me approach. He wondered if I was okay.

I find that my overall alcohol consumption has seriously waned over the past few months. Not only have I not had the desire to drink, I also find that if I have more than one or two drinks in one sitting—depending on the beverage—I feel it the next morning.

I don't mean that I'm actually hung over: I simply feel tired, dehydrated (even though I usually drink water between drinks), and my head feels a bit heavy. Booze makes me feel weighted down.

I don't like waking up that way.

Lately, I've limited my drinking to times when I go out for a social event, like karaoke night, or meeting up with friends. And starting this month (though, we're only a couple of days into July), I'm going to limit myself to only one drink during those outings.

I asked for a G&T.
Didn't expect it to be blue.

Last night, for example, DW and I went out in celebration of our 31^st wedding anniversary. We decided to try a nice restaurant in Westboro—Brassica—which was excellent. Usually, when we dine out for our anniversary, we'll order a nice bottle of wine, which gives us three glasses, each.

At dinner, however, I didn't really want to drink, but old habits die hard and I did have a gin and tonic. But only one, and when DW suggested afterwards that we find a patio where we could watch the sun set and have a drink, I said I wasn't interested in having another drink, though I was up for finding a place to watch the sun set.

We went to the new Kìwekì Point, and it was a great venue for the sunset. More on that place in a future blog post.

On Canada Day, we had some sangria, and when we visited my folks for dinner, I was offered a pint of Innis & Gunn, which is pretty hard to say 'no' to.

Because there had been several hours between the sangria and beer, and because after the beer, I stuck to water, I felt fine the next morning (although, when we got home, that night, DW accidentally closed the rear gate of our Niro on my neck, so that was throbbing when I woke up, yesterday).

I don't need to stock my fridge with beer. For more than a month, I've filled it with flavoured sparkling water, of which the whole family goes through a lot. We prefer it to sugary drinks.

At this time of year, I would usually end my work day by grabbing a can of beer from my fridge and enjoying it on our front porch. I haven't even had the urge to do that, let alone have the beer to sip on it.

I had written all of the blog posts for this week, except for today's post, last week. Today's post was meant to be a Beer O'Clock review, that I would have gone shopping at the LCBO, brought home a new brew (new to me, that is), and tried it. But when the weekend came up and DW and I did our shopping, I didn't feel like popping into the liquor store. I had no urge to get beer.

For more than a year, I've been starting to feel my age (notice how I didn't say act my age): I have aches and pains; I'm not as strong as I used to be; and, since last year, my lungs have given me trouble. Maybe a lower tolerance for alcohol comes with the territory.

I'm not saying that I'm on the wagon. Not fully. But I can see a time where I'm no longer drinking alcohol or, at most, enjoying it rarely and sparingly.

Does this post mark the end of Beer O'Clock reviews? We'll see.

Thirty Plus One

I had to do some math.

There's no such thing as a perfect marriage but I'd say we've had a lot of fun, despite the imperfections. All of our travels, our kids, and the life we've built together.

All worth it.

We've been married for longer than I've been unmarried. I said that last year, too. We've been together for much longer than we've been without one another, and I could never imagine being without her.

Happy 31st anniversary, baby!

Canada Strong

The other weekend, when DW and I were cycling along the Thousand Islands Parkway, between Butternut Bay and Rockport, I received a notification on my phone that read "Welcome to the United States." Apparently, we were close enough to the American border to ping off a cell tower that was across the river.

"Fuck you," I said to that message. I looked across the water to the tree-lined shore and thought to myself, I'm glad I'm not over there, in that dumpster fire.

I'm glad to be Canadian. We're not a perfect country—there's no such thing—but compared to our neighbours, we're about as close as you can get.

Happy Canada Day!

Image: theflagstore.ca

Training for a Ride

In September, DW and I will be joining some friends for an adventure in the Saguenay region of Québec. And we feel that we need to be prepared.

Two other couples will spend about 10 days with us for an active vacation, where we will cycle 250 kilometres, over five days, around Lac-Saint-Jean. Each night, we'll stay in a different hotel, inn, or B&B, and will average about 50 kms each day.

When we finish this cycle route, we'll spend three days kayaking on the Saguenay River, taking in the splendid high cliffs that make up the fjord and, with any luck, spying some beluga whales in the distance (but, you know, if they swim up to us, that'd be okay, too).

We're sure that our Paddlefolk will have no issues in kayaks, and we'll be spending weekends, going out with our other friends, lending them our old kayaks, to get them used to paddling on larger bodies of water than the Rideau Canal. It'll be fun being out in so many boats.

But DW and I also want to make sure that we're in shape for the cycling part of our trip. We haven't cycled great distances in a long time and want to be sure that our legs (and butts) can handle multiple days of 50K.

The other weekend, we drove down to the St. Lawrence Seaway with our bikes in the back of our CR-V. We stopped in Prescott, for breakfast, before continuing to the Thousand Islands Parkway. We parked our vehicle at a free parking lot for the waterfront trail (there's a bathroom there, too), near Butternut Bay, and cycled westward, to Rockport.

On our handlebars, we mounted some carriers that we had purchased in 2020, when DW and I were planning a cycling trip from Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, to Bruges, Belgium, naively thinking that the pandemic would be over by autumn of that year. We've never used these carriers until this bike ride.

In our carriers, we carried swimsuits and towels, and I also threw in my drone. I plan to document our Saguenay trip and am hoping to get some aerial shots of us on our bikes.

The trail along the St. Lawrence is about as challenging as what we expect for the trek around Lac-St-Jean. It's mostly flat with a couple of gentle but long hills, and we think that the wind off the St. Lawrence could be similar to any wind we'd get off the large lake.

In Rockport, we stopped for lunch at a café that was in the harbour and had a patio that looked out into the river. The food was decent but not very expensive, and the stop gave DW a chance to rest, as it was her first time out on her bike for this season.

On our ride back, we stopped at Brown's Bay to cool off. It's a paid day-use beach that costs $21 for cars and only $5 for both bikes. The fee gives you access to a change room, with showers and toilets. We set our bikes up against some lounge chairs and we took turns going into the water, to cool off, while the other person watched our bikes.

The beach is close to the parking lot where we left our SUV, so we were still feeling refreshed when we made it back. The total distance for this round-trip ride was just shy of 40 kms, which was good for DW's first ride.

I also got a chance to use my drone, setting it in one of the automatic modes—Follow—and riding for about five minutes while it stayed behind me, despite other cyclists around me. I think it'll be a great addition to our trip and I'd like to try other modes on future rides.

Summer is our time where we get out in our kayaks almost every weekend, so we have no fear that we'll be ready for the Saguenay River in September. We hope our friends will have built up their confidence, too. And we're hoping to get more rides in, adding fully-packed paniers to the back of our bikes, to simulate what we'll be carrying as we cycle around Lac-St-Jean.

We have about two-and-a-half months. There isn't a moment to waste.

Friday Fiction: Lest I Forget

Previously, I've made all of my Friday Fiction posts about writing, when I've posted excerpts from some of my fiction. Starting today, however, my Friday Fiction posts will also be about the process of writing: my thought processes, my ideas, and the tools that I use to help with the story.

We'll see how it goes.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been reading my manuscript for Dark Water more than I've been writing. It's my first crime novel and I want to make sure it's a good one, and so I want to make sure that I have covered even the smallest of details.

And, I'm almost reluctant to say, I've been relying on AI to make sure that I don't forget anything.

Before I even wrote the Prologue, which sets up the overall arc under which the story follows, I created a spreadsheet that outlined the story, from the discovery of a body until the killer is found. And then, after getting this bare-boned story outlined, I started filling the spreadsheet with 'meat' (yes, I'm going to use this metaphor again), giving background information and adding layers to the characters and plot.

I'm finding that, unlike any other novel I've written before (hey, did you know that this is the seventh book I've written? I'll share that story another time), a crime story is incredibly complex. Even my spy stories that I had written, decades ago, weren't this complicated. (And maybe, that's why I never tried to have them published.)

Calloway & Hayes, by ChatGPT.

I have a victim. I have suspects. I have red herrings. And I have two detectives who I'm not only trying to flesh out, with background stories and depth, but I'm also trying to have them solve the murder from a perspective where they're going in, knowing little, while I try to not give too much away because I know everything.

At least I know almost everything. Every so often, I encounter a new arc in the story that I hadn't initially thought about, and I have to follow it.

The other week, I realized that I wasn't keeping track of all of the evidence, and so I had to create another spreadsheet to track it, with columns that tell me whether that evidence is actually useful for the case or it's irrelevant.

It's tough.

So, I've been writing less and reading more, checking what I've written and listing the evidence. I have a feeling that I'll have read this story dozens of times before it's done.

Because I have no background in law or in police procedures, I've been doing a lot of research. Google has been fine for a lot of fact finding, but because my story is fictitious, I need to know if it stands up to what I glean from facts of law and what might make for good reading.

And for that, I've turned to AI.

What I've started doing is giving ChatGPT breakdowns of the story, typing summaries of the plot, and asking it if it makes sense. I know that the AI programming is meant to give praise, and it's pretty good at stroking my ego. But it also does tell me if what I've written is realistic, from a legal standpoint and from a hypothetical one.

For example (and, hopefully, without giving anything away), I've provided the AI a scenario that the detectives are playing out, trying to piece together the final moments before the murder against an alibi, and coming up with a couple of plausible explanations. I then ask ChatGPT if the suppositions are realistic.

Sometimes, it says no. Legally, the scenario wouldn't hold up and I'm given parts of the Canadian Criminal Code to prove it (and yes, I'll independently confirm that section of the code through a Google search).

Because ChatGPT knows I'm writing fiction, it sometimes says no, from a legal point of view, but says for dramatic effect, in fiction, there's a way to make it believable. However, most of the time it comes up with rule-bending ideas that just don't fit with the story that I'm telling—and make no mistake, this is my story, not ChatGPT's story.

When the AI confirms that my ideas are realistic, it does provide information about what the detectives need to do to follow that line of inquiry. And it's that kind of information that I put into my spreadsheet.

Lest I forget.

Yes, Dark Water is my work of fiction. I'm the only writer. But ChatGPT is almost like an editor that reminds me to include information that will make my story more believable and interesting to a reader, and I'm glad that I have this tool to use.

Of course, like any tool, it only makes my job easier. I can focus on the storytelling and it will keep me on course for the overall arc.

And when I'm done, I will use a real person to do the important editing of the whole story. AI should help us do a job and should never do the whole job for a person.

A friend, who also writes murder mysteries, told me that I should befriend a cop to hash out the story and get factual information, and I just might do that. But for now, I'll let ChatGPT do that. I may be a novice police-procedural writer but I've been writing fiction for more than 40 years.

I'll trust my instinct. Wish me luck.

Nap Time

Kindergarten was a funny time.

It was only a half-day in school, and yet there was a designated nap time, where all the kids in the class were told to lie down on mats, and the teacher would turn out the lights. I don't remember how long we'd be made to stay quiet but my guess would be 15 to 20 minutes.

Maybe, even half an hour.

I could never sleep during nap time, though I learned how to stay quiet and lie still. I was four, and had a pretty active life, already. I was used to running around with my friends, in the neighbourhood, when our moms would kick us out of the house and tell us to be back for lunch, only to kick us out again afterwards and not want to see us again until dinner.

We roamed the neighbourhood and sometimes, beyond.

I didn't appreciate a nap until after I became a dad. Of course, DW did the heavy lifting—getting up in the middle of the night for the baby's feedings and spending all day with our wee ones—but I was a light sleeper and would often stir when she woke to feed our daughters.

At work, I would get tired around lunchtime. I would schedule my break so that many of my co-workers would be done their lunch, and I could snooze on a sofa in one of the break rooms. I would also sometimes nap at my desk, setting a 20-minute timer, reclining my chair, and propping my feet up on my desk.

One time, I awoke from a nap and found an envelope with my pay stub resting on my chest. Apparently, my manager had come to deliver it and didn't want to disturb me, but also wanted to let me know he had been by while I was sleeping.

He had kids. He totally got it.

There was a long period, after my kids got older, where I didn't feel that I needed naps. Even when I found myself staying up late and getting up early, the next morning. I could put in a full day at work without the need for a mid-day shut-eye.

But when I started working, full-time, from home, I found I needed naps again. I suspect that, while working at home, I would make myself a proper breakfast each morning and would prepare a decent lunch, so that by mid-afternoon my meals would make me sleepy.

I'd set a 30-minute timer and have a good nap, and then get right back to work.

I'm no longer employed but I still spend my weekdays at my desk, writing my murder mystery. And, mid-afternoon, I still have naps.

I was shuffling through photos, the other day, looking for a random photo to post on my Bluesky account, when I came across a picture from 2003, when Kid 2 was a few days old. It shows our old sofa, our old kitchen floor, and a much younger me.

And, of course, Kid 2 and I are napping.

We still have those throw cushions, though they're now on a different sofa in a different room. I still use them, each day, to rest my head when I nap.

So maybe I didn't nap in kindergarten but I'm making up for it now, and then some. (Maybe, nap time was more for our teacher than for us?)

Happy Thursday!

Paddling Through the Heart of Ottawa

I can't remember who it was but someone, some time ago, asked me to make a video where I paddle the length of the Rideau Canal Skateway.

I mean, they didn't want me to do it in the dead of winter, when our canal is frozen over and turned into the world's larges skating rink. The person wanted me to cover that same area during the months where the canal is filled with water and the lockstations are opened for traffic.

Although, I can now picture myself bundled up in the cockpit with skate blades strapped to the bottom hull. That'd be something.

Because I'm between jobs (I'm not yet calling myself retired), I have the benefit of taking my kayak out whenever I want to. And so, last week, I strapped my kayak to the roof of my Niro, threw my gear into the trunk, and drove to Hartwell Locks, near the Arboretum and the Central Experimental Farm.

I could have called the Paddlefolk, who are officially retired, but I wanted to do a solo paddle. I just wanted to get in the water, paddle my route, and get back out. I haven't done a solo paddle since I ventured out to the S.S. Pumper, in 2021.

I was overdue for some me-time on the water.

I have to start out by saying that the parking fee at the Hartwell Locks is extortionate. The last time I parked at the locks at Black Rapids, I'm pretty sure I paid $4 for the maximum allowed time, which I think was three or four hours. That was only a couple of years ago.

A couple of weeks ago, when I kayaked at Petrie Island, parking cost $2 for five hours. That was a real bargain.

However, at Hartwell Locks, it cost $15 for four hours, plus there was a surcharge of 70 cents for the privilege of me scanning a QR code and jumping through hoops to get my car registered.

I'll never do that again. And neither should you. In retrospect, I should have driven to Old Ottawa East, where I believe there is street parking for up to three hours. For free. I had brought our kayak cart to help me get the kayak from the car to the water, anyway, and there's a doc on the canal near the Flora Footbridge.

That's where you should go if you want to paddle on the canal.

I've documented this paddle, covering the parts of the waterway that is frozen over for skating, in winter, and then some. Here's my YouTube video. Have a look:

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I don't remember who asked me to make this video but this one's for you.

Paddling Petrie Island

It's somewhere we've been meaning to go pretty much since we first ventured out with our original kayaks, in 2020.

In our very first kayaking video, where we put our red and yellow Deltas into the South Nation River, at Jessups Falls, we drove past the turnoff for Petrie Island, on the eastern limits of Orleans, in Ottawa's east end. DW and I mentioned that it would be nice to check it out—and in fact, we once drove onto the island to see about putting in our kayaks but didn't have them strapped to the roof of our Niro at that time.

But we never actually returned with our boats.

So far, this kayaking season, we seem to be making decisions almost last-minute about heading out on the water, and at that, we haven't really had places in mind. Our paddle out at Burritts Rapids was almost improvised, though we're glad we went. We thought we might go to Petrie Island on that day, but by the time we got moving and were able to mobilize our Paddlefolk, I felt it was too late in the morning. I had the impression that you had to get to Petrie Island before the crowds flocked to it.

So we held out, and made the last-minute decision to try this spot on the following weekend.

Surprisingly, there was already a lot of activity on Petrie Island when we arrived before 8:30 on a Saturday morning. We discovered, when we reached the parking lot that's closest to the put-in spot for canoes and kayaks, that there was a race that was being held by several of the canoe clubs in the Ottawa area.

We had no problem getting our kayaks in the water on the docks that are in this bay, but race officials warned us to not go left when we exited the bay, as there were lanes marked out and canoeists were racing along that area. There was still lots of public space if we paddled to the right.

Not being familiar with Petrie Island, we didn't know where various channels around the many islands led, whether we'd take a bay into a dead end or find a narrow channel that would keep us moving westward. But that was part of the fun of exploring somewhere new.

DW and I were thrilled to see so many Delta kayaks on the water, from recreational crafts to long, touring vessels like ours. Seeing a Delta gives us the same sense of excitement that we imagine a Ferrari owner gets at seeing another Ferrari on the road.

I almost feel that way when I see another Niro drive past mine. There aren't a ton of them on the road.

We spent less than two hours and covered more than six kilometres. And surprisingly, we performed one portage—something we didn't expect to do when going around a set of islands.

Check out the video. It's 12-and-a-half minutes, so give yourself a break.

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(And no, I didn't forget a zero.)

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Happy Monday!

Dow's Lake, Differently

On Monday, I left the house early-ish to go for a solo paddle on the Rideau Canal, through the heart of my city. I put my kayak in at the Hartwell Lockstation and paddled all the way to the locks that cut between Parliament Hill and the Chateau Laurier, and back.

I have a YouTube video that documents the trek.

When I reached Dow's Lake, shortly after setting out, I couldn't help but pause and take in how calm the water was. Naturally, I had to take a picture of it.

I've taken countless images of this Ottawa landmark, and even though the background has more tall buildings, it seems, every time I visit Dow's Lake, I wanted to do something different, so that this image wouldn't be like every one before it.

Did you notice what's different right away or did you have to take a second look?

Using Snapseed, I gave the sky, water, and buildings a dramatic look. But that's not how I made this image different. Still not see it?

I've turned the image upside-down and flipped it so that the buildings aren't mirrored.

Whilst in my kayak, I had to paddle backwards to stop my forward momentum, and unfortunately, I added ripples to the water where it was like glass only moments earlier. I should have glided, which would have made the illusion more convincing.

Oh, well.

Happy Friday!