If the last couple of weeks have taught me anything, I've learned that I spend far too much time indoors.
Looking at my Google Maps timeline proves it. Most days of the week, I don't leave my house. And if I did leave the house, I stayed in my neighbourhood, rarely leaving Barrhaven.
And because I stay home, I don't get much use from my D-SLRs. Remember when I was going to start another strangers project? I've only gone out once to do it: I'm still at two strangers for that project.
Sad.
But a couple of weeks ago, I made an effort to get out of my house for the sole purpose of taking photos. The first day, which was rainy, didn't turn out like I had planned, but I did get a couple of decent photos.
And then, one Friday night, as DW was heading out to play pickleball, I decided to tag along. While she knocked balls around a court, I went downtown and captured images near city hall, along Elgin Street, and on Parliament Hill.
I'll share some of the Parliament Hill photos, tomorrow, for Wordless Wednesday.
That weekend, DW and I also headed to Carp for brunch (it was a spur-of-the-moment decision). I grabbed my camera as we headed out the door, and after we ate, I wandered around this small village and captured a few images.
I'll share more of those on an upcoming post.
Last Friday, I once again headed out with DW for her pickleball club, and while she played I took more photos. And again, this weekend, we went for a hike in Mississippi Mills, and more photos were taken.
I'm flush with photos.
I'm realizing that the thing I miss the most about working from the office is that when I was done for the day, I took the time to follow my passion for photography. Working from home, I finish my day and turn on the TV.
No more.
I know that the sun sets earlier now, but I'm going to try to take advantage of whatever light I have to take photos, and when it gets darker before I'm done work, I'll focus on my night photography.
I think I'll also force myself to get up early, some mornings, and take some sunrise shots.
The past few weeks have revived my passion for photography. I'm looking forward to where it takes me.
Wherever it is, at least I'll be getting out of the house.
Though DW was laid off from her job in July, she has yet to return her office laptop to her former company. It's a MacBook Pro that she loves and would like to keep.
They're negotiating.
Meanwhile, I've been using an Asus computer for the past couple of years, writing my blog posts, processing my photos, and creating my videos for my YouTube channel (I'm just shy of 200 subscribers, so if you could do me a solid, please subscribe).
My laptop is fine for editing photos but when it comes to editing video, it's slow, to say the least. Sometimes, when it's rendering video clips that I've imported into a project, the program chokes or worse, it crashes.
When I pull a video file into the channel that I'm creating, it can take 15 to 20 minutes to load, depending on the length of the clip. I'll often spend time watching other videos while I wait for the clip to load, when it'll finally allow me to work on it.
I need a faster computer.
I explained my woes to DW, who has told me that her office MacBook Pro has a faster video card than our home computer, and that it would be able to process my videos much more quickly.
I told her that as long as that computer belongs to her old company, I'm not going to use it. I don't use my work computer to do my photo or video editing, so why would I use her work computer? (Sometimes, after I finish a day of work, I may write a blog post on my work computer, since I'm sitting at my home-office desk, but I never plug any external drives into it, so photos or videos are a no-go.)
Also, I've been using Windows computers for decades and I'd have to get used to using an Apple interface.
The other day, DW and I went shopping at our local Costco and came across a Windows OS laptop that had lots of RAM and a powerful video card. It also had a decent price, at about $1,600. I even found a gaming desktop computer, and I started thinking that for what I was doing, I didn't need portability.
DW and I started rethinking computers.
DW steered me toward some Mac Mini units, which had loads of power for video creation. She suggested that if she can't keep her MacBook Pro, the Mini could be an option.
But then she started pricing out a new MacBook Pro with an M3 Pro video card (meant nothing to me). She really likes the portability of her Apple computer and said that if she has to return the work laptop, she will buy herself one of these high-end MacBooks.
All $3,500 of it.
"If you're set on doing that," I said, "that settles our next computer. We won't be able to afford anything else."
"You'd be able to process your videos much more quickly," she said. "And I would install Final Cut Pro. It's supposed to be a great video-editing tool."
Hmph.
DW couldn't wait. She downloaded a trial version onto her work computer this weekend. She also downloaded Insta360 Studio, the computer version of my app that I use on my smartphone to edit my 360-degree videos.
I shared three clips from a source folder, where I keep my Insta360 files. I have about a half-dozen folders of raw footage from kayaking, cycling, and other events that I haven't processed. When she had everything on her MacBook, she talked me into sitting in the driver's seat.
"Walk me through your workflow, from editing the video clips to putting them into a single file for YouTube."
I didn't know the software but I did my best.
There is no voiceover, though not all of my videos use it. It's basic, with an intro title, music, fades in and out. Three clips from my Insta360 X3, edited in the dedicated software that I haven't used in years. The soundtrack, which doesn't really go with the visuals, was taken from Final Cut Pro.
Usually, for a two-minute video, it would take me about three hours to go through my entire workflow of editing the video files, exporting them to an MP4 format, creating a video project, putting everything together, and rendering the final results.
This time, it took less than an hour.
I'm intrigued.
DW says that her office MacBook has an M1 video card. With a new MacBook Pro with an M3 Pro card, processing the videos would be even faster.
Here's the test video, which I made as a proof of concept for working in this new environment of new tools on a new operating system.
What also impresses me is that I didn't know the software and was able to figure things out fairly easily. If I become proficient in Insta360 Studio and Final Cut Pro, I can only imagine my videos would be much easier and faster to make.
I'm almost finished a video that I'm making on my old system. Perhaps, after that one is done, I'll switch to a new way of producing my content.
One of my work colleagues told me that when he was exploring some team-building activities, he considered a hike to the Carbide Wilson Ruins, in Gatineau Park.
"I went onto Google Maps to check it out," he told me, "and the first photo I saw of the site belonged to you."
Indeed, one of the photos that I took of the falls below the old mill has been shared with Google. For years, I've contributed reviews and photos of various sites, restaurants, stores, and more for the search-engine giant. And that particular photo has garnered more than 277,000 views.
But it's by no means my most popular photo in terms of views.
Not surprisingly, restaurants and images of food get a lot of views but even they don't get beyond a few tens of thousands of views (however, a photo I shot of the outside of Bite Burger House has seen almost 883,000 views). My most-viewed photo is almost obscure in terms of venues, as its not a world-famous spot nor is it likely to make the top-10 list of places to see in Ottawa.
Taken about six years ago or so, my most-viewed photo is of the Absolute Comedy club on Preston Street, in Ottawa's Little Italy neighbourhood. As of the beginning of November, the photo has been met by 1,187,041 viewers.
I mean, it's not even a great photo. It was shot on a night when I was taking a stand-up comedy class and was about to perform on stage for the final class. My instructor, Pierre Brault, was also an emcee for the club that week.
In total, my contributed photos have had more than five million views. If only I had that many views on my blog or on my YouTube channel.
I suppose my Absolute Comedy photo has some nice colour saturation, but it surprises me that it's received the greatest amount of views. And that includes photos that I've taken in Europe, the Caribbean, and in South Korea.
Perhaps, in these days of economic, environmental, health, and political turmoil, people really just want a good laugh.
Ever since I created my fictional character, Roland Axam, I've had a great love for Scotland and its people (hard to believe that Roland is almost 40 years old!). And while I do have some Scott's blood in me, it's so little that it's hardly worth mentioning, though I do feel a close connection to this miniscule part of me.
I've been to Scotland a couple of times and I've been hooked on Scottish author Ian Rankin's books for nearly two decades. It was Rankin who got me into Scotch whisky and he even gave me a personal recommendation for what is one of my favourite malts.
Scotland even makes some pretty outstanding beer, and whenever I see a new label in my friendly neighbourhood LCBO, I feel obliged to become familiar with it.
Last weekend, I picked up two Scottish ales and an English one, too, and over the next few weeks I'll share my thoughts on all of them. But for this week, I thought I'd try the bottle that seemed the fanciest of them all, one that combines both beer and whisky.
This heavy-hitting dark ale, Ola Dubh (pronounced ola-doo), was matured in 12-year-old Highland Park whisky casks. They also produce this award-winning ale from barrels that are 16 and 18 years old but I didn't see any of those on the store shelves, though I did find a 21-year reserve listed on the LCBO site that isn't listed on the tag that hung from the neck of my bottles.
Let's look at this version.
Ola Dubh Special Reserve Oak-Aged Stout (8% ABV) Harviestoun Brewery Alva, Scotland
Appearance: pours a deep walnut brown, almost black (Ola Dubh, after all, is Gaelic for black oil), with little fizz and almost no head (hardly even some loose lace). Bubbles are miniscule, with nothing clinging to the sides of the glass. It had lost almost all of its fizz before I was finished my glass, though it retained all other characteristics.
Nose: intense flavours of whisky, dates, caramel, and dark-roasted coffee. There's a definite burnt sweetness about the bouquet.
In some ways (and thanks to DW for noticing), there are aromas that bring an aged (possibly over-aerated) port wine to mind. Once she mentioned it, I couldn't get those thoughts out of my head.
Good thing I love port.
Palate: after the initial smell and knowing the alcohol content, I expected a boozy punch in the face. Instead, I was warmly greeted with dark chocolate and coffee, with a follow-up of fruitcake and toffee. The finish is short but comforting, leaving a hint of whisky with chocolate.
And though I said that the fizz was gone before I finished my glass, it was by no means flat. There was still plenty of luster and life in the glass.
Overall impression: I have to admit that I've had Highland Park 12-year-old whisky before and have always found it too balanced and smooth, compared to my usual Islay malt preferences. But because it's coming off from the barrels in ale form, that smoothness makes this dark ale just right. It's bold yet easy to drink.
I loved it.
When I was still writing my novel, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary, I'd often sit in a pub with my laptop, sipping both a stout and nursing a whisky. They seemed to make a perfect marriage of liquids that kept my creative juices flowing. Ola Dubh does just as nicely in one glass. I've returned to fiction writing and kept a glass of this whisky-flavoured stout at my side.
Beer O'Clock rating:🍺🍺🍺
I also loved how the bottle comes with so much information, not only on the front label but on the tag around its foil-wrapped neck. I saw the signatures of the master brewer, the master whisky maker, the bottle number and the date that the stout was bottled (February of 2022). The care that they put into the packaging is a direct reflection of the care that they put into the beer inside, and I'm going to keep my eye out for more beer from this excellent brewery.
Just one more thing to bring out my Scottish pride. And I'm sure Roland would want to enjoy this brewery, were he a real person.
