Die Laughing

I couldn't stop laughing and I was worried. But it would have been a great way to go out.

The last time I hung out with my brother, Chris, before the pandemic, was in a social setting with my family, his daughter, and our folks. We wanted to get out and do something that everyone could enjoy, at all age levels: Chris' daughter, Piper, was under 10; my kids were 18 and 16.

We decided to go to Level One Game Pub, near the ByWard Market, because it had games for every age level and the adults could enjoy drinks, too. It was our first time checking the place out and I'm glad we did so, even though it nearly killed me.

Much like fine restaurants have sommeliers to help you choose the best wine to go with a meal, there were experts at Level One that could determine the best games to play, based on age, level of complexity, and the interests of the gamers. Because there were eight of us, we had various games at our table and we split up the players into groups of four.

At one point, Kid 1 and Kid 2, Chris, and I played What Do You Meme?, where you try to match images with relatable memes, much like how you try to pair questions and answers in the game, Cards Against Humanity. And like CAH, some of the choices are rather risqué.

And hilarious.

My girls have pretty twisted senses of humour, much like their dad, and some of their photo-meme pairings were downright hilarious. Also, when I was trying to match up my own memes to images, I'd start laughing before playing the cards.

And I mean laughing hard.

So hard, that I couldn't stop. My face turned a garnet red and I had difficulty catching my breath. My laughing fit became so intense, so unstoppable, that everyone at the table stopped what they were doing. My brother asked me if I was okay, and I said, between gasps, that I didn't know.

DW captured some images before putting her phone down and wondering if I was going to keel over. Even people at surrounding tables couldn't help but notice.

Of course, I didn't collapse, didn't drop dead. After a couple of minutes, I was able to get my breathing under control, slow my guffaws to a mere giggle, to sighs, and regain my composure.

But we had to end the game. Any match I tried to make would get me going again. Not as bad but we didn't want me returning to that state.

Yes, when I finally go out, I would love to die laughing. At least then, anyone around me would know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I died a happy man.

Happy Thursday!

Visualizing Roland

As I said in yesterday's post, how I find it a challenge to visualize the characters in my books, and how I asked ChatGPT to create the detectives in my novel, Dark Water, based on my descriptions, I was finally able to visualize inspectors Mickey Calloway and Erin Hayes, which has actually helped me develop their characters more.

Thanks, AI.

For fun, whilst creating that post, I uploaded images of singer-songwriter Midge Ure and of myself, from when I lived in Korea, and asked ChatGPT to merge the images to come up with Roland Axam, the central character to my novel, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary. Here's what it came up with:

Image: ChatGPT

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Though the film noir feeling that Ure's portrait for his The Gift album cover suits him perfectly, I wasn't feeling it for Roland (though, as my novel tells, he has a dark past). So I asked ChatGPT to add colour to the image and use the background from the photo of me.

Image: ChatGPT

And while it still looks like the person in the first image, I felt the face was too round for Roland (it captured the roundness of my face perfectly) and it had also created somewhat of a double chin for the character, something that I definitely didn't have in 1998. So, I told the AI tool to slim the face and lose the double chin.

Image: ChatGPT

I can actually see this as Roland Axam. Well done.

I can finally stop visualizing either myself or Midge Ure when I think about my character, who will make an appearance in another book, someday.

Happy Wednesday!

Visualizing Characters

Midge Ure in 1985.

When I created Roland Axam, more than 40 years ago, I had a clear picture of how I wanted him to look. My favourite band at the time was UK new-wave band Ultravox. Around that time, front man Midge Ure had started releasing solo albums, and the cover for his first one, The Gift, featured Ure in a black-and-white, slightly noir head shot.

Roland Axam, in my mind, didn't look exactly like Ure but close enough to win a look-alike contest. Roland had a more-defined jawline and eyes that always looked half-closed, like he was either in deep thought or was sizing you up.

If you ever looked at Roland, you would never know what he was thinking. And that was perfect for the short stories and trilogy that I wrote, in the late 80s, where Axam was a spy.

Me, in 1998.

By the time I wrote Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary, Roland looked like a cross between Midge Ure and myself, especially how I looked at the end of my first year whilst living in South Korea. I often visualized Ure, on the cover of The Gift, and a photo of me in a Seoul market, and I mashed them up in my head to create an image, but that image was never clear to me.

When I write about other characters, however, I don't always see a face.

When I started writing Dark Water, a few months ago, I didn't have images for most of the characters. When I created the victim that is discovered in the Rideau River, I just imagined a woman in her late 20s or early 30s, with long, red hair.

Once she was extracted from the water, I kept picturing one face as I wrote about her. And I'm a bit disturbed to have my image be that of Ottawa journalist, Rachel Gilmore.

I say 'disturbed' because while she fits the profile of my victim, I would never want to see any harm come to Gilmore. She's great at her job and I enjoy following her on Bluesky and YouTube.

So far, I've been unable to clearly visualize my two inspectors, Mickey Calloway and Erin Hayes. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, when I asked ChatGPT to create a book cover that included these characters, I purposely requested that the detectives faced away.

The AI tool was actually pretty good at visualizing my description of the detective duo.

But this week, as I was reading through my rough manuscript, trying to flesh out the characters more, I still couldn't give Calloway or Hayes a face. So I finally asked ChatGPT to do it.

Image: ChatGPT

The first attempt was pretty good and I liked the face that was given to Calloway. I think he could be 'drawn' taller and more imposing (he's a solid 2 metres and broad-shouldered).

And while the image of Hayes is good, I think she appears in the image older than she is in the book. She's supposed to be 28 and, as Calloway put it, is "ridiculously beautiful." I mean, the woman in the ChatGPT image is pretty but not ridiculously so, IMHO.

I then asked the tool to make her prettier and younger, reminding ChatGPT that she's supposed to look 28. I think the woman in the first image looks mid-30s.

Here's what it gave me in its second attempt:

Image: ChatGPT

Closer. I prefer the Calloway rendering in the first image but Hayes looks closer to her age this time.

As I've written her, Inspector Hayes is half a metre shorter than Calloway. In the image that I had ChatGPT create where the detectives are faced away, I asked it to change the image so that she was 75 percent shorter than Calloway, and the tool gave her the legs of a child but kept the proportions above her legs the same.

Talk about ridiculous. Obviously, I didn't keep that image.

I'm not going to mess with the characters' height in this image. It's not important. I just wanted to create some faces to give me a better visualization for when I write the story, and I think these images help accomplish this objective.

Unlike how ChatGPT visualized Roland Axam when it merged our photos.

Happy Tuesday!

ChatGPT's first interpretation of a merge of me and Midge Ure, as Roland Axam. Hmm...

Learning to Fly

I'm a lazy SOB.

I bought my DJI Neo drone on Black Friday, last November, as an early Christmas gift to myself. And because it was my Christmas Gift, DW made me wait until December 25 to open it.

In the meantime, I watched countless YouTube videos about the best settings for the drone and about the best way to configure the drone, and several reviews that put the Neo through its paces. And even though DJI doesn't recommend flying the drone in sub-zero weather, I saw one reviewer fly it in –20°C, in Saskatchewan, without any issues.

I can do that, I told myself after watching the video. I live in a similar climate. As soon as I have some free time, I assured myself, and as long as the wind wasn't too strong (I find that it's much windier in the Ottawa area than it used to be), I was going to head out.

Of course, I hate going outside when it's –20.

I did drive out to the Experimental Farm, one weekend, to try my hand at my drone, using the automatic functions, while DW waited in the car, keeping the head going. I had the drone follow me, fly straight up for 10 metres, while the gimbal was pointed straight down. I had it fly an orbit around me and had it perform a 'selfie' flight, where it backs away from you while climbing, and then coming back along the same route.

That's about as much as I did before I felt too cold, and we returned home to a nice, warm house.

I did take it out again, one weekend, when I was snowshoeing on a trail. I had it perform the dronie manoeuvre and follow me as I ran in my snowshoes. I also had it follow DW and she skied along a parallel trail. But I didn't have it do much else because while we were out, it started to snow.

I shared that footage as part of a video about winter in Ottawa.

I wanted to get more practice with the drone but I've turned lazy when it comes to going outside and doing this sort of thing. I bought a large telephoto lens so that I could photograph birds, and knew that I should practice using it with the birds at Mud Lake, in preparation for our trip to Peru, but I was too lazy to go out.

I knew that I really needed practice with my drone before going to Peru but apart from flying it, one afternoon, in Claudette Cain Park and getting it up high for a sunset hover above my neighbourhood, I didn't master my drone before our trip.

As it turned out, there were so many places that we visited where drones were prohibited that I only flew it a couple of times. It wasn't worth bringing it on the trip.

I initially bought the Neo because I thought it would be good to have when DW, our Paddlefolk, and I got out in our kayaks. I thought it would be good to get some video from high above, while we paddled on a river or lake.

The previous weekend, we went out for our inaugural paddle with our kayaks, and I brought my drone along. But because we were setting out from one of the Rideau River lock stations, which are run by Parks Canada, the drone was prohibited. I knew that you couldn't fly a drone in a national or provincial park without special permission, but I didn't realize that the rule applied to the locks.

When we got away from the locks, I thought it would be fine to fly the drone but the wind became blustery and there was no way that I was going to attempt to land my drone on a moving kayak.

This weekend, we went kayaking on the Ottawa River at Petrie Island, in the city's far east end. We've never paddled here before but we had heard great things about the place, so it was high time that we checked it out.

We were meeting our Paddlefolk but DW and I arrived early so that I could fly my drone. But when we reached the canoe and kayak put-in area, we discovered that there was a race event going on. I could have walked over to the north-east end of Petrie Island to fly my drone, but I got lazy and instead packed my carry case in the storage compartment at the bow of my boat.

We set out and moved away from the race area, and headed west along the southern part of the chain of islands. There were so many people out in kayaks at canoes that I didn't want to fly my drone in this part (also, because I don't feel confident enough to land the drone while in my kayak).

When we got into the main channel of the Ottawa River, we made our way eastward, following the northern shores of the islands. The wind had picked up and caused little swells on the water, but it was nothing that our new kayaks couldn't handle (they're made for this kind of water).

There are sandy beaches all along the northern shores, so at one point, we moved in to take a break and stretch. I find, lately, that I just don't have enough padding on my ass and it gets sore when I sit for too long.

While we took this break, I thought I'd try using my drone. The wind was a bit strong but I figured that the Neo could still handle it. I also hooked it up to the dedicated remote-control unit so that I could have better control.

Almost immediately, I could see that the Neo was working hard to maintain its position against the wind, leaning into it and boosting its motors. Because I had it over water, I was very cautious about how I wanted to position it to capture video. I couldn't fly it too high because the wind was too strong above the trees.

My anxiety shoots up when the Neo gets to a certain height and this flight, over the choppy and fast-moving Ottawa River stressed me out. But I did get enough video to make it worthwhile.

But this flight told me one thing: I have to stop being lazy and take the time to properly learn how to fly the drone. Because even though I'm on the ground, I'm still considered a pilot of this flying machine.

Because of its size, I don't need to be certified nor do I need a permit for it, but I still need to fly responsibly.

It's no longer –20°. I have no excuses for staying indoors.

Also, I'm currently putting together a video of our Petrie Island paddle. It'll be ready later this week: stay tuned. (Here's a sneak peek at the thumbnail shot for the video.)

The Hidden Door

I didn't notice it until the day after I had taken the photo.

I can usually park on Kid 2's street, and had I been able to do so, last Friday, I would have never seen the artwork, let alone what it concealed. But there was construction that had a huge swath of the road torn up, including in front of her house, so I had to keep driving and found a vacant spot four blocks away.

It's hot in Toronto and our kid lives in a triplex where her bedroom occupies the third floor, and because heat rises, this room swelters. She had the same issue in the last apartment she kept, and so DW and I bought a small, portable air-conditioning unit that didn't draw a ton of power but kept her room cool enough to sleep comfortably.

But when our daughter moved out of that place and was going to be staying in a new place that was too small to afford space for the AC unit, DW and I brought it back home, where we kept it in the basement, waiting for when she'd have a place that had room for it.

Little did we know that she'd be moving out of that small place a few days later.

Shortly after we returned from vacation, Kid 2 contacted me to say that her new apartment was becoming hot and she'd need the AC unit as soon as it was possible to bring it down. Because I'm not working* these days, I said I could bring it down on her next day off.

That next day was last Friday.

Thankfully, the drive to Toronto was uneventful that day and I made it down fairly quickly. As I reached Scarborough, Kid 2 called me to let me know that there was no parking on her street due to construction. I said no problem, that I would find a place nearby and call her once I had, so that she could meet me and help me carry the parts for the AC unit.

Hence the space four blocks away.

Kid 2 led me along a side street that was a bit longer of a route than the main street, but she thought it would be easier to wheel the AC unit along a sidewalk with fewer people, and she was right, though the sidewalk on the side street was somewhat uneven for the small wheels of the unit.

When we reached her house, I realized that I had forgotten her jacket, which was in the back seat of the car. Kid 2 had worn it to Ottawa the day before we flew to Peru, and because it was too warm for where we were going, she had to leave it behind.

Kid 2 needed to take a shower so I told her that I'd go back to the car while she did so. This time, I walked along the main street, as it was a shorter route.

But I also noticed, as I got to the car, that there was an alley that ran immediately behind the buildings on the main street and it seemed to go all the way back to Kid 2's street. And so, once I had her coat, I took this seemingly deserted lane.

Toronto, like many cities, is full of graffiti. It's something that I love to see, and as you may know from many of my previous posts, I love capturing some great examples of this street art. About halfway down the lane, there was one piece of graffiti that caught my attention, so I stopped to photograph it. Though I did throw one of my D-SLRs in the back of the car before I left for Toronto, I only had my phone on me.

By the time I got back to Kid 2's place, she was showered and dressed, so we went out for lunch. Though brief, it was a nice visit. But because I wanted to beat Toronto's rush-hour traffic, I gave her a hug after lunch and said goodbye.

Toronto traffic is unpredictable and even at 3:00, it still took me an hour to get through the city and reach the 401.

I didn't look at the photo that I had shot until the next day. And looking at the relatively small size of my smartphone's screen, I thought that the colours and the texture of the snail were particularly good. It was a shame that some of the paint had been scratched off and that there was some sort of sticker on the shell.

It was then that I looked closer and saw that it wasn't a sticker on the paint. It was a steel plate and a handle to a door. When I had taken the photo, I hadn't seen the door on the wall at all.

If I hadn't mentioned the hidden door in the title or said anything about it at all, would you have noticed it right away?

Happy Friday!