Ten Years

Can you believe that today marks 10 years of The Brown Knowser? I sure can't.

Two thousand, one hundred, and ninety-seven posts. Countless photos. Music. Contests. Giveaways. Rants, reviews, and raves. Fiction and reality.

This is how my brain works. This is my journey.

I once wrote that The Brown Knowser is neither a diary nor a scrapbook, but that you can take pieces of this blog and get a snapshot of the type of person that I am. I like to think that nothing has changed in that regard.

For those of you who have been with me from the very beginning, I thank you with all my heart. You have supported me through thick and thin, and I'm eternally grateful. To those of you who have only recently joined in this journey, hold tight: the ride's not nearly done.

Though I don't know what's on the road ahead, I've packed pop and sandwiches. We'll be fine.

It Used To Be The Other Blog

On the fifth anniversary of what I originally called The Other Blog, and what is to be the one-thousand, two-hundred-and-first post, I look back on all that I have achieved (possibly, all the time that I have wasted) in putting this blog together.

When I first started blogging, in March of 2008, I wanted to continue with a newsletter that I had originally started as an e-mail message, to let friends and family know what was up with DW and myself. I started the e-mail newsletter when we were living in South Korea and travelling throughout Southeast Asia, but I continued the newsletter when we returned, although not with nearly the frequency of the ones from Korea.

My Brownfoot Journal blog followed the theme of the newsletters, letting friends and family know how DW and I, and our kids, were growing in Ottawa, telling about our travels and adventures. Of course, with any blog, it could be accessed by anyone, and as time went on, I felt less comfortable sharing my family's story with strangers. I started writing less about my family and more about whatever came into my head.

On June 1, 2011, I decided to end the Brownfoot Journal and start a new blog, one that let me unload random thoughts, share opinions, and show some of my photographs. I didn't have a working title for my new blog, so I simply called it The Other Blog. It was DW who ultimately suggested the title that you have now come to know.

Since The Brown Knowser started, it has received more than 175,000 views from around the world. For those of you who regularly read my rants and admire my photos, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

When I started my short-lived hiatus, I cancelled one of the recurring posts that helped define The Brown Knowser, and for the fifth anniversary of this blog, I'd like to bring it back.

Where In Ottawa.

If you've never participated in this challenge, the rules are simple: below is a photo that was taken somewhere in Canada's capital. Your job is to identify the location as accurately as you can, but to win the challenge, you must provide your answer in the Comments section of this post. If you follow me on social media, you can't contact me through Twitter or Facebook to provide your answer: your guess must be transparent to the readers of The Brown Knowser.

You can guess as many times as you like. For every day that passes without a solution, I will provide a clue to the location: clues will appear at the top of the right-hand column, just above the photo of me. If no one has solved the challenge by 8:00 pm, EST, next Tuesday, June 7, the contest will close and I will post the location next Wednesday.

While there is no prize for winning Where In Ottawa, you will be able to claim bragging rights and I will post the winner in a subsequent blog post.

That's all there is to the contest. Ready to play?

Here's the photo:

Think you know Ottawa? Prove it!

Good luck, and thanks for reading The Brown Knowser.

Brown Knowser on The Brown Knowser

Every once and a while, I perform a Google search on myself and my blogs to see what comes up. To see if I've actually written something that is worth copying. So far, other sites have sited some of my writing but no one has outright copied it.

Last week, it seems that I had performed my first search since I launched The Brown Knowser, and I was surprised to learn that I had inadvertently copied something myself. Well... not copied. Not really. Because I didn't know that what I had used had already been used before. So it's not really copying.

And what I had copied doesn't infringe on anyone's copyright.

Just what did I use that isn't original? I used the name Brown Knowser.

Apparently, there was a WWII B-24 bomber that also went by the name Brown Knowser. Same spelling. And the pilot of this Liberator was Thomas Frank Brown. No relation, I'm sure.

I tried to find more information about this plane and its crew, but so far to no avail.

Because you can't copyright a title, there's no infringement, so I'm safe. But it's funny what comes up when you Google yourself!