The Brown Knowser

DW and I aren't sure why, but for more than six months, we've been receiving the BritBox streaming service, even though we haven't subscribed and aren't paying the monthly fee. We're not complaining. A couple of years ago, DW did subscribe to BritBox so that we could watch our favourite crime series, Shetland , and also so that we could check out other programs. But as soon as we were finished catching up on Shetland , we cancelled the subscription. We had planned to renew our subscription when a new season of Shetland started up, but life got in the way and we never got around to it. We received reminders of the latest Shetland on our Apple TV box but did nothing about it. Finally, about six months ago, DW and I decided that it was time to renew our BritBox subscription and clicked on the Shetland tile in our Up Next list on the Apple TV box. And, to our surprise, we weren't prompted to subscribe to the channel: instead, the show just started up. We expected...

It was going to be sunrise in about an hour and I hadn't slept all night. I had been writing fiction, working on a story that would become part of a trilogy. My head was full of ideas and I was trying to figure out some broken ties. Though I had stopped typing—yes, I used a typewriter in 1989—my brain was still working away. I also missed my girlfriend. We had only started dating a few months earlier but we had known each other for about a year before then. Shortly after we started our relationship, she had told me that she had a summer job, up in Northern Ontario, planting trees, and she would be away for two months. Little did either of us know that she would later become DW. With the story tumbling around my head and thoughts of my absent girlfriend, it was no wonder I couldn't fall asleep. And, finally noticing the time and realizing that the sun would be up soon, I decided to grab my camera, jump in my car, and drive. I had no set destination. It wasn't uncommon f...

I've started revisiting some of the slides that I shot decades ago and digitally scanned about a dozen years ago, but haven't touched since. After I had scanned the slides, I concentrated on the ones that were my favourite, working hard to bring them to digital life. I've already shared those photos in various blog posts, back then. But because I do a random search for photos, which I share on my Bluesky account , I'm running into more of these images that I had simply scanned and stored. Looking through my feed, I literally did nothing with them, as the vertically oriented images appear in my file folders on their sides. I wasn't even careful when scanning these B-list slides, as many are covered in dust. But now, I'm having a second look at these images that I even didn't care too much about after I had initially captured them. At the very least, I'm turning the vertically shot images the right way up. With some, however, I've digitally removed the...

I'm the first to admit that I'm pretty fortunate. Both DW and I have good jobs and a roof over our heads, with not one but two vehicles, even though we're now both working from home. (We've all but given our CR-V to Kid 1.) When we go shopping, I'm notorious for not looking at the price tag in the grocery stores. If I saw something that I wanted, I simply put it in the cart. We're not rich by any stretch of the imagination but we're comfortable enough that we can afford most things that we want. But lately, I've been paying attention when I go to the stores. Not by looking at the price sticker, particularly, but looking at where the item is from. I wrote about this, last week, and how I've started using an app that helps me determine if something is a product of Canada, made in Canada, or not from Canada. But I was using that app at stores where I already shopped, and it helped me determine whether I put the item in my cart or back on the shelf. Last...

In all of the years that I've been able to vote, I have. Not only do I feel it's my right and privilege, but I also feel it's my duty. For me, it's what being a responsible citizen is. Not voting, just because you don't like any of the candidates or because you feel that your vote won't make a difference is, in my opinion, irresponsible. If you don't like any of the candidates, vote against who you absolutely don't want to win. Just think about what that might have done in the United States with its last federal election. I work for a global company where some of my colleagues, with whom I work directly, live in the U.S.. On the day after the November election, when I was chatting with them before a meeting, two of them said that they didn't vote because, while they didn't want the Orange Felon to win, there were policies that they didn't like with Kamala Harris. Idiots. The United States is a two-party system. Either A is going to get in or ...

For the first time ever, DW and I got out of Costco, last Saturday, spending less than $100 on our grocery run. Our bill came to $77 and change. We managed to still buy our essentials but there were many things that we usually get, but ended up putting them back on the shelf. Why? Because they were products of the United States. We said no thanks to our usual case of Bubly flavoured sparkling water. We said goodbye to our mango nectar, which I usually add to my morning smoothies. Having finished the last of the jug that we already had at home, I've switched to tap water. Being a potato-chip junkie, we came away empty-handed. DW and I cruised our usual route around the aisles of Costco but before anything went into the cart, we checked labels for where the product originated, and when the label was unclear, I whipped out a handy phone app. Shop Canadian app tile. Shop Canadian . This app scans the UPC or QR code of a product and tells you if the item is a product of Canada, was made...

It's a part of my family that I only just learned about, recently. My mom was going through some old photos she found and she sent my brother, sisters, and me this one: It was taken around 1923 or 1924. In it, my great-grandmother, Florence Fairey, sits on the left; a young girl, Lena, is two or three years old, and would later become my grandmother. Sitting on the right, in a military uniform, is my great-grandfather, William Whimp, who has another young girl seated on his lap. She's my Aunt Mae, who passed away in 2005. But I didn't know who the young man, standing in the background, was, so I asked my mom. And, apparently, he's my great-uncle of whom I knew nothing before. It seems that my great-grandmother had been married to a man with the last name of Wren (my mom doesn't remember his first name), and they had two children. One had died in infancy and the other, Arthur, the man in the photo, was adopted by William Whimp when he married Florence. Sadly, Florenc...

For the past few weekends, DW and I have tried to get out and enjoy the winter. On the very morning that the Rideau Canal Skateway opened to the public, DW and I were out there, first thing. We've also taken in some Winterlude activities, and even got in some snowshoeing (for me) and cross-country skiing (for her). And every time we've been out, I've had some video equipment. Over the weekend, in between heading out to the driveway, to clear away the 60-some centimetres, I would work on putting my footage together in a short video that I would later upload to my YouTube channel. Have a look. For 2025, I've started experimenting with new fonts and titles, and I won't be using most of my choices again, in future videos. Some of the labels got lost in the white background, especially when the video is viewed on a TV screen. I also trusted the editing software to automatically apply an HDR effect to the video. I won't be doing that again, either. This video also ma...

I've finally started reading again. I've always been an avid reader. From as early as when I learned to read, I loved finding good stories. I regularly hung out in the library at my elementary school, and even as early as the sixth grade, I decided that I wanted to be a writer. There was a period, in high school, where I didn't want to read the books that were thrust upon us by teachers. I liked picking my own books to read and would rely on Coles Notes when it came to tests and assignments in English class. My marks would often reflect that minimal effort. And ironically, I eventually read all of the books that I dissed and discovered that I had done myself a great disservice by not reading them when they were first introduced to me. For most of my adult life, I've devoured books, sometimes reading around 25 a year. Even in the early days of The Brown Knowser blog, I'd make a list of books to read for the coming year and often exceed that list. And then my reading...

It happened while I was sleeping. At the beginning of this year, when I was checking the metrics of my blog, I realized that I was very close to achieving one million views on The Brown Knowser . I was about 43,000 views away from reaching that number and guessed that I'd hit that milestone within the next couple of months. I thought it would be nice to hit the million views in time for my birthday, which is next week, so I wrote a blog post about that wish . And, boy, my readers didn't disappoint. Over the past year, I've had around 15,000 viewers to my blog each month. Sometimes, more; sometimes, fewer. Getting 43,000 in two months was a challenge but not impossible. But, boy, have you come through for me. In January, my blog was visited 34,247 times. You rock! And as February moved along, I was seeing high viewership again, and calculated that I would hit the million mark by the middle of the month. It happened in the wee hours of Valentine's Day, while I slept. I aw...

One wears it better. Last weekend, DW and I headed out to the Rideau Canal to check out the Winterlude festivities. It wasn't our first time, this season, on the canal, as we had hit the ice on the first morning that the NCC opened it to the public, but it was the first time since our city's annual celebration had opened. We parked in Centretown's Golden Triangle neighbourhood, not far from the Corktown Bridge. DW's plan was to skate from this pedestrian bridge to the 0-kilometre marker, near the Canadian Senate, and back, past her starting point, to Fifth Avenue, and then back again. Because of my reconstructive foot surgery, back in 2018, my left foot no longer fits into my skate. And even if it did, there's a spot on the top of my foot, just above where a metal plate and eight screws take the spot where I once had joints, where, if any pressure is applied, causes intense pain. Sadly, my skating days are over. But that didn't keep me off the ice. Armed with on...

There was a time when DW and I would travel with a couple of suitcases. On flights, we'd have one checked bag, one carry-on, and a personal item. And we'd convince ourselves that we were still packing light. The exception, of course, was when we moved to South Korea, in 1997, and we each had one huge suitcase, a sizable carry-on (back when airlines didn't insist in tiny suitcases), and a personal item that was almost as large as the carry-on bags are now. Of course, back then, we needed things that would sustain us for the two years that we had planned to stay in that East Asian country. We weren't just vacationing: we needed things that would help us live. First family flight, 2005 When we started travelling with our kids, we began economizing on travel items. On the kids' first flight, to Winnipeg, they each had their own backpack, full of necessities to keep them occupied. DW had a mid-sized suitcase, which was checked, that held her things plus the girls...

I didn't know it for very long. I had my first taste of a Conspiracy Theory beer at Greenfield's Public House almost seven years ago, killing time while Kid 1 was at a nearby martial arts school. It was a decent beer and the person behind the bar had told me that it was a local craft brewer. Very local. Paul Card, the brewer, was creating beer out of his garage in Barrhaven. Shortly after, I sought him out and tried his products for a Beer O'Clock review post. But in truth, I never tried the beer after that. And not because I had anything against the beer: it was just because I never saw any on tap at Greenfield's any more (they rotated several of their taps, including Conspiracy Theory, and it was never there when I was in). At our meeting, Paul had told me of his plans to open a brew pub in the strip mall that was under development at the time, along Greenback Road, near Highbury Park Drive. But he was having issues with their management and might have to look...

I was originally going to turn my nose up to it. I was meeting up with some long-time friends from my journalism days at a roadhouse near IKEA, last summer, and the beer menu didn't look promising to me. There were the standard Molson Coors offerings and no local craft beer, and I was almost going to order a glass of the house red. But there was a brew that I didn't recognize and sounded Spanish, and I became curious. It's a lager, which also made me tempted to pass it up, because that is one of my least favourite styles of beer. But then I thought, what the hell, I might as well try it so that I could objectively poo-poo it down the road. And it was summer, and I was hot, and needed something light to quench my thirst. To my surprise, I actually ended up ordering a second. This stuff wasn't that bad. And when, a few months later, I came across a four-pack of it in the LCBO, I decided to pick it up to do a proper review for Beer O'Clock . And then, I promptly forgot...

I felt like a newbie. And, in truth, I was. Kou's Taekwon-do is gone. And I'm not really surprised: Master Kou was about my age, if not a year or two older, and is probably enjoying a much-deserved retirement. And, apparently, no one was willing to take over the business—at least not in the Barrhaven Mall. Walking down the familiar steps to the lower level of the mall, it was like stepping back in time. The Nepean School of Music was still open; no doubt, getting ready to close for the evening. The door to the reception area was open and friendly, young faces smiled as I passed by. A turn to the left took me down the narrow corridor that would have taken me to the taekwon-do school, maybe 10 years ago, but instead of hearing the shouts of active black, blue, of yellow belts, without the smell of sweat and bare feet, I heard a song by Johnny Cash and a baritone voice. It was the man who I had met at Conspiracy Theory, a couple of Fridays ago, whose name had escaped me after ...

It was something that I never expected that I'd ever hear from DW: "I don't want to, and it would hurt, but I'm prepared to walk away from it all." Last week, I pulled the plug on the last of my Meta accounts, Instagram. I had already said goodbye to Facebook (including its Messenger service), Threads, and WhatsApp. Instagram was the hardest but in truth, I haven't actually missed it yet. I've been adding photos to my old Flickr account and I've been sharing photos on Bluesky. I'm good. On Friday, I officially closed my Amazon account, ditching Prime Video in the process. And on the weekend, DW and I took our time in grocery shopping, making sure that nothing that went into our cart was American. We're doing our best to do our part. Shop Canadian! Last year, we started making plans for our next big vacation—months before our trip to Mexico, last December. It'll be our first family vacation in about seven years, and everyone is keen. ...