Beer O'Clock: Augusta Pils

I did something, this week, that I haven't done in many months: I bought beer.

Not only did I buy beer but I also visited a brewery. The last time I was in a brewery was when I visited Broadhead Brewing, after kayaking at Petrie Island, and DW, our Paddlefolk, and I stopped for lunch.

I ordered a pint with my meal but I actually didn't pick up any to bring home with me. I haven't had beer in my mini fridge since the end of May.

It seemed that I had pretty much given up on beer. I filled my mini fridge with flavoured sparkling water, ginger beer, and tonic water, but no beer. Even when I went out for my regular karaoke nights, I would sometimes drink a soda or some other alcoholic beverage. And if I did decide to drink beer, I'd have only one can.

I had sort of lost my groove for beer.

On Monday, I drove to Toronto with Kid 2 and my father. My daughter had come up to Ottawa to join her closest friends for a cottage getaway but asked me to drive her back to her Toronto home afterwards (she's a starving artist and couldn't afford return transportation). And it just so happened that my father wanted to go to Toronto to check out an old MGB that was for sale, so we made a day trip of it.

We left the house early and took Kid 2 straight home, where she dropped off her suitcase and changed into something more suitable for the heat of the city. The three of us then went for lunch, after which we said goodbye to my daughter, and my father and I continued to Etobicoke, where the car was.

My father was going to take a couple of hours to inspect the car and go for a test drive. I didn't want to interfere with his time with the car, so while he was busy, I performed a search for the closest breweries to me.

The closest beer shop was Rainhard, but because I remembered trying one of their brews and giving them a scathing review, I searched for the next closest brewery, which was in the opposite direction. It was Mascot Brewery.

I've also reviewed a beer from Mascot, last year, but didn't remember having done so when I made the decision to check out the brewery and shop.

When I entered their beer shop, I found two large refrigerators that were crammed with myriad cans. The person who worked the shop entered from the back and told me that if I took 12 cans, I would receive a 15-percent discount.

I was initially only planning to take six cans, but my mini fridge was even low on sparkling water and cocktail mixers, so I decided that this was the time that I'd start putting beer back into that fridge.

The first beer I sought out was a stout. It's still my favourite style of beer and I'm always looking for a new one. I saw many cans that were labelled IPA, so I asked the person behind the counter to describe the various cans: some hazy, some fruity, but none were true IPAs.

Sigh.

I picked up two kinds anyway, plus I grabbed a dark lager and a couple of pilsners. I had 10 cans and was looking for two more cans to get my discount, so I asked the person in the shop what she would recommend, based on what I had already taken and what was left.

She told me that her absolute favourite was a pilsner and she pointed out the can, which was tiled with various comic-like illustrations. I said I'd give it a try and took the two cans that made up my dozen.

And for my first beer review in more than three months, let's take a look at this beer that is the favourite of the person who works in the beer shop of Mascot Brewery. And it wasn't until I took the can out of my fridge and cracked it open that I learned something that was a bit of a surprise, as you'll see.

Augusta Pils (5% ABV)
Kensington Brewing Company
Toronto ON

Did you notice something? Yes, the beer that is the favourite of the beer shop employee isn't actually from Mascot Brewery. It's from Kensington Brewing.

I did a search and learned that Kensington Brewing, which was on Augusta Avenue in the Kensington Market, was permanently closed. This news rang a bell with me, as I remember not being able to find this brewery on a search, last year, when I was in this market area. Instead, I found Burdock Brewery and did a couple of reviews of their beer (a mango gose and a saison).

I also learned from a blogTO article that not only had Kensington Brewing closed suddenly, it had been acquired by Mascot. Mystery solved. Let's get back to the pilsner.

Appearance: a slightly unfiltered, golden yellow that produces a white head that starts with a foamy cap but settles to a thick lace.

Nose: grassy lemon (as opposed to lemongrass) and biscuit.

Palate: more biscuit and grassy lemon. The body is medium but with a light, short finish.

Overall impression: Augusta Pils (named after the street on which the old brewery resided) is a simple, typical pilsner. It's easy drinking and not complex, something that many beer drinkers would appreciate but beer connoisseurs might give a pass. It makes me wonder what the person in the beer store was drinking before she tried this pils and whether she has tried all of the beer that Mascot has to offer.

And if she has tried them and still prefers this brew, what am I in store for with the five other selections?

Beer O'Clock rating: 🍺🍺 I can't fault Augusta for what it is. It's exactly what I expect from a pilsner. But there's nothing that I found that stands out with it. It is what it is.

Next I'll try the stout and I'll give a review if it stands out or if it doesn't hold up. If it's a good, standard stout, I won't bother giving it a review.

So beer is back in my home. Is this the start of getting back to my usual stockpile or will I let the fridge run dry again? Stay tuned.

Remembering Peru, Part 1

It took me a couple of months but I've finally finished the first video of our vacation in Peru.

At just over 30 minutes long, it's the longest video I've made in a long time. When you get a moment, if you're interested, give it a look.

If you like the video, give it a Thumbs Up and subscribe to my channel so that you catch part 2, which should come out in a couple of weeks. 

Happy Monday!

Infrared

It's a photo-editing filter that I love to apply when I edit my model photography. I like it so much that I now practically use it every time I take a photo of a person.

Especially a nude person.

Oh, and this might be the best time to say that this post my not be suitable for viewing in the office. It contains nudity.

I never worry too much when a portrait shot isn't tack-sharp. No one needs to see every crease, every strand of hair, or every little blemish. As long as the photo isn't out of focus, capturing the person is what matters.

And if someone has a pimple, I'll happily clear it up in post processing for them. No one wants any focus on a zit.

Often, when I edit the photo of a person, I'll try to make him or her look as good as possible. I put their best foot forward, so to speak. When a lot of skin is visible, I'll tend to smoothen that skin after I remove unwanted blemishes.

When I attend a photo shoot, I sort of have in my mind whether I want a photo to appear in colour or in black and white before I even press the shutter release. I know how the light will appear in the unedited shot and compose the shot with this in mind.

It doesn't always turn out that way, but I try.

When I attend a high-key lighting event, with lots of studio lighting and a nice, bright background, I almost always plan for my final shots to be in black and white, as I would sometimes have trouble correcting the white balancing and the white background often ends up with purple highlights.

I'm getting better at correcting, and at my last shoot, I think I got the hang of it.

When I edit an image with a black-and-white result as my final intention, I do a couple of things in post-processing. For high-key shots, I'll brighten the image as much as possible without completely washing out the subject. I'll raise the contrast and add fill light, as well as raising the highlights.

When I'm happy with the overall look of the colour image, I'll then render it in black and white. In my photo-editing software, I initially let the program analyse my photo and suggest the correct amount of red, green, and blue. It'll place a small circle on a colour wheel, showing the percentage each of RGB filtering.

I rarely accept the suggested filter because, as I said, I already have an idea of what I want the black-and-white image to look like. So, I'll move that small circle until I see the result that I'm looking for, sometimes even going to the opposite side of the wheel from what the program suggested.

I'll also increase the brightness on a high-key image, just to further eliminate the background. But often, the conversion from colour to black and white is not the final step I take.

I like a glow over my models. Not a lot but just enough to give the overall look of the portrait a softness that stands out. And that's why it doesn't matter that the original, RAW image is tack-sharp.

I apply an infrared filter over the entire image. Just a touch.

For example, let's look at the last model shoot I attended, with New Zealand model, Lucy. The following photos show the edited colour shot that I took, at the top (obviously). The middle version of the shot is my rendering in black and white. The image on the bottom has a further infrared effect applied.

Which image do you prefer?

Now, when I shoot in low-key lighting, I find I have a lot more leeway when it comes to post-processing. I'll take a few initial test shots to make sure my exposure is what I want before I begin, and I rarely have to make adjustments, unless we change the configuration of the studio lights.

Usually, I find that white balancing isn't as much an issue with low-key photos as it is with high-key shots, though there's always a bit of tweaking. And for me, there's something about an infrared filter applied when there's a black background.

For low-key shots, I often skip the black-and-white rendering step and just apply the infrared filter. More times than not, I find the glow against a black background just looks better, anyway, and the filter automatically changes a colour image to black and white.

Have a look:

Which of these shots strikes you the most?

For me, studio photography lets me be my most creative in post processing. But one tool I'll always keep handy is the infrared tool.

(Now, I'm trying to think if I've ever used it on a subject that wasn't a person in a studio.)

Oh, and if you haven't already seen my other photos from my shoot with Lucy, check out this week's Wordless Wednesday.

Happy Friday!

The Homestretch

I've never written a book this quickly before.

Usually, it takes me years to write a novel. It took nearly 10 years to write Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary; it took about three years to write my teen fiction, JT (I even wrote some of it while I was living in South Korea); and it took more than two years to write my first spy novel, The Spy's The Limit.

Heck, I started writing the sequel to Songsaengnim in 2010, two years before the first book was even published, and I still haven't finished Gyeosunim.

In March of this year, I told DW that it was time that I started a new novel. Perhaps, I would even put my blog on hiatus once again to devote time to writing fiction. I told her that I'd like to try my hand at a murder mystery, and that weekend, as we drove down to Toronto to visit with Kid 2 and some dear friends, I started thinking of a good murder.

The Monday after I returned from that weekend, I was laid off from work after 19 years with the company. And I saw it as a sign.

Instead of taking a break from The Brown Knowser, I used the hours that I usually spent doing technical writing to write my fiction. And it has been working out really well.

For the first five weeks, I was averaging 20 pages per week, and that included a day of editing the new content. By the time our family left for our Peru vacation, I had more than 100 pages written.

In the past two months since we've been back in Canada, I haven't been writing at the same pace but I've always been moving forward. Some weeks, I'd simply research legal procedures and gather information about the Ottawa Police Services (the story is set in Ottawa). I even looked into criminal activities, online, hoping I wouldn't raise any alarms and have the police knocking on my door.

I'm more than 160 pages into the story and feel that it'll be wrapped up in about another 100 or fewer.

But this week, I've taken a break. Even though I feel I'm in the homestretch—that Inspectors Calloway and Hayes have all the pieces of the puzzle and just need to finish fitting them all together—I needed to recharge, to distract myself from the story.

This week, I've focused on videos for my YouTube channel. I put together the video of Saturday's Lock & Paddle event on the Rideau Canal, and I've spent the rest of the week finally putting together the first video of our trip to Peru.

With kayak season in full swing, I've been keeping our travel videos on the back burner. But no more: I plan to have the first video out on Monday, if not sooner.

Next week, I'll be back to working on Dark Water. I'm loving the story and think it might be my best work to date, if I do say so myself.

With any luck, I'll have the first draft of the fully-completed novel finished in early September. And if that happens, it'll be a record time in my novel-writing life.

Stay tuned.

Lucy

231 Boats

Yesterday, I told you about the 2025 Lock & Paddle event that was held by Parks Canada on Saturday, July 19. Today, I'm sharing the video I made.

It's just over six minutes. Give it a view:

As always, if you liked the video, please give it a Thumbs Up and subscribe to my channel.

Happy Tuesday!

Packed In

When DW and I bought our first kayaks, in 2020, we did so for a specific reason: we had been locked in because of the pandemic for months and we needed to get outdoors. Even more specifically, we wanted to get away from people.

This weekend, we got in our new kayaks, once again, and did the opposite of what we wanted to achieve more than five years ago: we crammed into a confined space with hundreds of other boaters.

And for the most part, it was a lot of fun.

For the second year in a row, Parks Canada held its Lock & Paddle event in Ottawa, opening its locks at Hartwell Station for canoeists and kayakers alike. At its height, we had 231 boats between the two locks.

Talk about being packed in like sardines.

The event was held to bring awareness to the fabulous waterways along the Rideau River system, in the hope of bringing more paddlers out to enjoy what our country has to offer. But the event wasn't just about the Rideau River, as two other canal systems participated in the event on July 19.

The Trent-Severn Waterway, in Peterborough, which has been running the Lock & Paddle event since 2016, is the largest of the events, bringing in thousands of paddlers. And the locks through the Lachine Canal, in Montreal, attracted many.

Apparently, when the Lock & Paddle event was held in Ottawa, last year, it attracted several dozens of kayakers and canoeists. Numbers this year crushed the attendance from 2024.

There were paddlers of varying levels of experience in myriad shapes and sizes of vessels. DW and I took our new kayaks but had contemplated using our old boats, for one more paddle; and, in retrospect, we should have used them because they're smaller with no bits sticking out (our rudders), but we've just cleaned and shined them up for sale and we didn't want to undo our hard work.

My sister, Holly, joined us on this paddle and she said she had a great time. She'd like to do it next year, in Peterborough, just to experience the lift locks.

For DW and myself, this was an interesting experience but it's now become one of those been-there-done-that moments. For us, kayaking is our zen and we enjoy getting out into the wilderness.

We still want to get away from the city and people.

That said, I did speak with some very nice people. One lovely woman got my attention and asked me if I was The Brown Knowser. I said yes and she told me that she's been watching my YouTube channel, that she and her husband have been using the kayaking videos to plan trips of their own.

I was moved to meet a fan. It's always nice to be recognized.

Tomorrow, I'll release a video that shares this unique way to get out with your kayak and get into a crush through a canal lock system. Stay tuned. 

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!