I started out life as a military dependant. Got to see the country from one side to the other, at a cost.
Tattoos and peircings are a hobby of mine.
I'm a 4th Class Power Engineer.
And I love filing ATIP requests with the Federal Government.
To clear up some things about my DNA results, because I was directed to a CBC program by my brother.
I wasn’t aware that so many people don’t understand DNA and what the DNA results mean.
The first thing that needs to be made clear is that all of the DNA testing available on the consumer market is only as reliable as the sample pools.
My DNA results state that 15% of my DNA is shared in common with indigenous communities in North America. All this means that that 15% of my DNA is shared in common with those who have submitted DNA tests to Ancestry and who have self identified as indigenous. Due to the small sample sizes Ancestry will not be able to tell me which nation my DNA is derived from. To do that Ancestry would need a much more detailed pool to pull from.
This also why even though my father and his father identified as Irish, I only share about 3% of my DNA with persons who identify with being solely Irish.
This is where things get really murky with DNA results from England and Northern Europe. England will include a massive amount of Irish. Same thing with the Scottish. As England was conquered numerous times over the ages, and as England conquered its neighbours numerous times over the years it’s pretty easy to understand that there would have been migrations and marriages between the people of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, along with the Republic of Ireland.
Again, unless everyone alive in the UK and the Republic of Ireland took a DNA test you’re not going to be able to pinpoint my ancestry down to a specific village or a specific county.
My DNA results will not explain why I like to wear dresses or why I don’t identify as a male. There just simply isn’t enough DNA sampling coupled with clinical research. And DNA will never explain societal norms such as boys wear pants, girls wear dresses, pink is for girls, blue is for boys. And this is because societal norms are learnt behaviour, they’re not encoded in your DNA.
For instance up until the 1930s, pink was the boys colour as it was seen as being the diminutive of red and red of course was seen as being a man’s colour. Blue was for girls as it was seen as being dainty and delicate. Why it changed? Who know. But it changed around the 1930s and it seemed that it was large American retailers that decided that in American pink was for girls and blue was for boys.
Dresses for boys? Even in America as late as the early 1900s it wasn’t uncommon for boys to wear dresses until they were breached around age 7 or 8. Even historically in England boys wore dresses. There are portraits of English nobility and for the longest time researchers couldn’t figure out why the boys were never in the paintings, why it was always the girls. Not too long ago historians finally realized that some of these “girls” were actually boys. And that the only way to tell the boys from the girls in these portraits is that the dresses worn by boys were plain and the boys weren’t wearing any type of jewellery where as the dresses worn by girls often had patterns or trims and the girls were always wearing bracelets, necklaces, or earrings.
Why aren’t boys in modern media and modern history depicted as wearing dresses or wearing pink? As is the case with war stories, things get cleaned up and adjusted to fit the modern narratives.
What DNA can tell you, but again without 100% certainty, is what type of genetic characteristics you will possibly express. Are you ambidextrous? Can you taste certain foods? Do certain foods taste repulsive to you? Are you double jointed? Are you left handed? Can you digest lactose?
Again, this is only as accurate as the number of samples that these DNA companies receive.
And as far as I know, these DNA companies all steer clear of known genetic markers for disease and disabilities. And this is because you can have markers for MS, or a particular kind of cancer, or for Down syndrome, etc. But just having these markers doesn’t mean that you will develop these issues nor does it mean that you will pass these genetic issues down to your offspring.
So no, DNA testing will never explain why I like dresses, or why I don’t identify as a male.
But what DNA testing will do to a certain extent is let me fill in my family tree.
I’ve already come across numerous connections for every branch of my tree except for the paternal side of my father side. The Gill tree is a complete dead end after Arthur Herman Gill. Maybe someday in the future someone from the Gill side of the family will submit a DNA test that will let me fill in Arthur Herman’s side of the family, but until then I’ve got numerous 2nd or 3rd cousins from the Gill clan in the Durham and Peterborough region of Ontario, but nothing yet that directly ties them to Arthur or his son Richard.
So, last night got up to go to the bathroom. Before I got to the bathroom I did a deep stretch with a deep yawn and felt the pins and needles coming on.
Next thing I know I’m laying on the floor of my apartment. Knees all cut up and sore, ribs sore, and head sore. I obviously dropped pretty quick and hard.
When I came to I was having random visions and scrambled thoughts flying through my mind and then I realized where I was.
So I got back up, took stock, and took my heart rate which as 70 BPM with an O2 level of 94.
Fuck did my head feel groggy. Like it always does after one of these.
And no, these aren’t seizures.
I had these since I was a teen.
They got really bad until my mid 20’s, then they just went away after I quit smoking.
They started coming back about 2017.
I don’t know if these are related to my undetermined heart issue, but no one has come up with a good idea as to what these are other than just calling them “syncope”.
I’ve had holter testing which hasn’t revealed anything.
I did EEG testing during a sleep test which didn’t reveal anything.
I went for EEG testing around 2012 to see if I was prone to seizures. Nope. Just prone to migraines.
Usually these episodes are triggered by me standing up, stretching, and yawning right after sleeping or napping. I usually get one hell of a good head-rush and if I feel the pins and needles sensation coming on then I can grab on to something to steady myself. But if I don’t find anything to steady myself with, then down I go.
What about your meds Bobbie? Maybe these are triggered by your drugs???
Don’t think so.
I didn’t start escitalopram until 2021, and I didn’t start estrogen therapy until back in May of this year. I don’t drink and I don’t smoke nor do I partake.
Strokes? Mini-Strokes? TIAs? Testing hasn’t said anything so far.
All I know is that I’m going to have some pretty decent bruising on both of my knees over the next few days.
My blood work looked fine, so I’ve graduated from 50 microgram patches to 100 microgram patches.
And we’ll do the same thing in a month’s time. I’ll got for another blood test. And if my liver isn’t showing any signs of not liking the estrogen, then I can graduate to 150 micrograms. And so on and so on.
The goal is to get my testosterone down to around 1.9 nmol/L while getting my estradiol levels up to around 500 pmol/L without going over 700 pmol/L.
Should be an interesting ride for the next few months.
Okay, so the babysitter matter seems to be winding its way through the lawyers, which is nice.
But one matter that won’t ever get taken care of is the ’95 mugging.
As I mentioned previously in other postings, I had been to a late show at the Capitol 6 on Granville St. I went to see Congo at the Capitol 6.
Going to the late shows was something that I got into the habit of when I first moved to Vancouver. This was due to the fact that most of the jobs I had were evening jobs.
Most of the theatres on Granville were running late shows. The theatre on the south west corner of Granville and Smyth was forever showing Bob Guccione’s “Caligula”, the Caprice was showing films like Clockwork Orange, 2001 A Space Odyssey, and old black and white films.
Once the City of Vancouver turned Granville Street into Booze Can Alley in the early 2000’s all of the theatres were converted into booze cans / night clubs. The Capitol 6 was shut down in the early 2000’s to make way for condos. The Granville 7 ceased operations in the late 2000. Outside of the Vogue theatre, which itself was at risk of being gutted and converted into a bar, there are no movie theatres left on Granville St.
In July of ’95 I was working for Elashi developments / Lois Lanes Bowling & Billiards out in East Richmond on Gilley Road. I got off work as I usually did at 22:00 and I caught the #410 to 22nd street station. And like I did every Friday previously, I took the train downtown instead of into New West.
I forgot what I wanted to see, but I ended up seeing a movie called “Congo”. This movie was panned and reviled by the critics at the time, but the film that I had wanted to see wasn’t going to be shown as the film hadn’t arrived on time.
Young kids these days will never know the frustration of showing up to a theatre and being unable to see a film because it didn’t arrive in time, it got sent to the wrong theatre , or it got so damaged that the theatre had to request a new print. Nowadays theatres get their movies either via digital satellite download, or by a hard drive package.
Before leaving the bowling centre, Rosa had given a fist full of Canadian Tire money as she knew I was planning on going to Canadian Tire the next day to pick up some parts for a car that I was trying to get running.
I’ve gone into detail on this matter before, so I’m not going to go into the details again. But to quickly recap, some guy and his girlfriend in the concession stand line mistook the Canadian Tire money in my pocket as high denomination bills.
Security tape from the theatre showed them leaving the concession line as soon as I did, and they followed me right into the theatre. The same tape also apparently showed them leaving the theatre and following me right out the front doors.
The movies would end around 01:30 to 02:00 and as is still the case these days, there is no Skytrain back east at these hours. The only way to get home to New West was to catch the #19 which would make its way from downtown to Stanley Park. And the only way to get a seat on the #19 would be to board the bus over at Pender and Burrard. And that’s where I was heading after the movie was over.
The blue asterisk is where the Capitol 6 used to be. The Yellow dot at Pender and Burrard was my intended destination. The black star is as far as I made it.
Looking south on Burrard to West Georgia.
This is where I got “clubbed”.
Didn’t hear much except for somebody running up behind me. As I had just passed the bus stop in the photo I assumed that it was just someone running either for the bus or was running down to Pender to get the #19.
The guy was about 6′ tall, East Indian male, beard, well built.
The female was white, about 5’6″, white heels, white mini-skirt.
He was armed with a red steering wheel club.
From what I can remember, he didn’t have this is the theatre.
The female was armed with a fair sized kitchen knife. I distinctly remember the three rivets in the handle.
I don’t think that most people walk around with a 10″ chef’s knife in their purse.
The only thing that I can think of is that they had a car parked nearby. And if they were this quick to arm themselves, this probably wasn’t the first time they had jumped someone.
He kept striking me with the club as I was on the ground and kicking me in the back and in the head. As he tried to search my pockets for the “money” he’d keep telling the female to stab me with the knife if I tried to fight back or tried to hit him.
All they managed to get was my wallet that didn’t contain much in money. The security guards from the Hyatt Regency raced over and chased them two suspects away.
Hyatt Regency hotel across the street where the two security guards came from.
I spent Saturday morning getting stitches in my scalp from the blows from the club.
The Vancouver Police Department officer, Constable Gil Puder, was a complete jerk. Even the nurse putting my stitches in was getting upset with him and told him that his questions were inappropriate and that he’d have to leave.
As he walked away he tossed the statement sheet on my stretcher and said that when I felt like telling him the truth I could fill the form in and get it back to him
When I was released Rosa came to pick me up and drove me back to my apartment.
My jacket had so much blood in it that when it dried out it was not flexible. I had to crunch it up to get it into the washing machine.
Looking North on Burrard to Pender.
I went back downtown on Monday. I was hoping to find my wallet as it had all of my identification in it. When I got to the place where I had been mugged, the maintenance crew from Park Place were outside using the pressure washer to clean my blood off the sidewalk. I guess it had dried on Saturday and Sunday and was proving difficult to clean off.
I traced my steps from the Saturday morning and I figured out that it had to be someone from around the movie theatre. It was just by chance that I decided to ask the theatre if they had a video tape of the Friday night.
The manager was nice, she asked me for a description of the people, and then she went to view the video tape. She came back about 20 minutes later and said that she saw the two people I had described and me. She said that they were in the concession lineup next to me, they seemed to get excited when I pulled something out of my pocket, and then the left the lineup and followed me right into the theatre. When the movie was over they followed me right out. When I went to the washroom, he followed me into the washroom, and then he followed me right out.
What did they get excited about?
The Canadian Tire money.
The manger said that she would put the tapes aside and if the VPD officer wanted to come by and pick them up that they’d be waiting.
I called constable Puder.
Nope, he wasn’t buying it.
He had made up his mind that I was a gay male prostitute and that I tried picking this guy up in a gay bar and that until I admitted the truth he wasn’t going to waste his time.
Now, after having spent three years in the care of Terry Totzke for issues related to the apparent homosexuality that I had exhibited when I “allowed” myself to be molested, I wasn’t in the right mindset to deal with this.
I still don’t know what it was that made Puder think that I was gay, let alone a prostitute.
First, I didn’t drink, so I wouldn’t be anywhere near a bar.
And at that point in my life, you couldn’t have found me anywhere near Davie Street. I would have gone out of my way to stay away from any place like Davie street.
Second, I was still quite fucked up from having been dealt with by Terry Totzke, so I wasn’t even sexually interested in anything back then.
Was it the way that I dressed?
Was it some sort of lisp that I wasn’t aware that I had?
Was it my moustache that I had at the time?
Was it my haircut?
At the time I had been mugged it would have been 12 years since being dealt with by Terry Totzke for being a “homosexual”.
I survived working at Classic Billiards with my sexuality being questioned by the two co-owners who were police officers with the Metropolitan Toronto Police service.
I lost a job that I had moved to in Toronto for because my manager hadn’t been told that he was getting a fruit.
So, to have constable Puder literally blame me for getting myself mugged it was the CFB Namao matter all over again.
When cops tell you that there is no such thing as the “thin blue line”, they’re full of shit. The problem with cops is they’re trained in the “us vs. them” mentality. They’re trained, and it’s drilled into their skulls, that they are the only ones standing between law & order and the complete collapse of society.
And the VPD had all sorts of problems back in the ’90s. The dysfunction within the VPD is what led to Robert Pickton’s murder spree in the DTES.
When I went into the VPD on Main Street and tried to make a complaint against Puder and to ask for the case to be transferred to another constable I was literally shown the front doors of the Main St. station and told to get out and that if I came back again that I’d be charged with trespassing and harassment.
Puder died in the late ’90s.
I had someone I knew suggest that Puder’s brain tumour had fucked him up so badly that his brain was fried.
So whaddya think?
Was it Puder’s brain tumour that fucked up his common sense?
Or is “gaydar” a real thing and that gay/bi/trans people give off “signals”?
I mean, the babysitter and McRae, Totzke, Earl, Ed, Dirk, Don, Puder, Ron, Alex, and others can’t have just been randomly guessing that I was “gay”.
Even the kids at Pierre Laporte in North York often claimed that I was gay, a fag, a homo, that I walked like a girl, etc.
I do have the VPD incident report, and except for the notes from the morning that I was in the hospital, there’s nothing else to the investigation. I guess that Puder really did kill the investigation.
And so this one will go down as another unsolved crime.
Work is interesting, but it’s extremely stressful. And not in a good way.
People ask if I’m going to the new site when it opens.
FUCK NO.
Three people on the committee planning the new site made it very clear that I am personna non grata at the new site, so fuck it. My life has enough shit going on in it, I don’t need to go there and take a shit shower from these three.
I love it when my ideas and suggestions and ideas are “too outlandish”, and “too silly”, and “completely unjustified”. But yet they show up in the current build as someone else’s proposal.
I was so looking forward to having made my application for M.A.i.D. this past March, but the fucking milquetoast liberals got a bad case of the chicken shits at the last moment.
Basically I’m holding on to my current job as kinda a massive “fuck you!” to certain federal agencies in Canada that decided that my mental health was expendable.
I’m also holding on to my current job to spite all of the corporate bag lickers and pole smokers from my past jobs that said that I would never amount to anything because I was too damaged.
Once operations at the new site start to wind down in 2027 I should have a better idea as to whether or not I’ll be able to undergo M.A.i.D.
If the right wing tide of hate keeps sweeping across North America then M.A.i.D. will still be unavailable for persons such as myself.
If that’s the case then my intentions are to stay at the old site until it shuts down in 2030.
By that time I’ll be able to retire and walk away from it all.
Well, I realized that the results of my latest blood test were posted on my health account for me to view.
At first I was a little concerned as when I logged in the system said that there was a test that was outside of normal limits.
Not sure what was wrong, I clicked on the link to see my lab results.
The Alanine Aminotransferase at 16 indicates that my liver seems to be doing fine.
The estradiol at 179 pmol/L indicates that I have elevated levels of estrogen in my blood stream, but not yet near the upper limits for men. For trans females the ideal range for estradiol in my blood stream will be 367–734 pmol/L so I can stand to go up some more.
But the reading that I am the happiest about, and it is the reading that got flagged by the system, is my testosterone levels. At 4.95 nmol/l I’m below the range acceptable for males which is 6.30 nmol/l at the lower limit. The target for this seems to be 3.4 nmol/L to 1.04 nmol/L.
So, I’ll have to see which way things go on my visit to my doctor next week.
Hopefully I can get my estradiol dosage upped a little.
And it would be nice to look at the possibility of androgen blockers.
When will the federal government ever learn that the Canadian Armed Forces are incapable of operating their own police service.
The Canadian Forces Provost Marshal has absolutely no business whatsoever investigating or prosecuting for any criminal code offence.
Since my first tango with the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal and the Military Police Complaints Commission in 2013 I’ve always said that there is massive fuckery afoot within the confines of the Provost Marshal’s office.
What type of batshit insane lunacy allows for the provost marshal to determine what, if any, information will be handed over to the military police complaints commission?
Nothing more than poorly written legislation that allows the provost marshal to do so at whim.
Now, I fully understand that there will be those amongst you that will say “But Bobbie, why didn’t you tell the MPCC about the missing information”.
That’s not how it works.
That’s not how any of this works.
When a person makes a complaint about a military police investigation, the first place it goes is to the exact agency that you’ve made a complaint against.
And actually, a person such as myself can’t complain about an investigation or the outcome of an investigation. The only persons who can complain about interferance in an investigation are the investigators. But the MPCC pointed out previously that relying on the investigators themselves to make interferance complaints on their own may be impossible as the investigator themself may be completely unaware of any interference if the interference occurs high enough up the chain of command.
All a person like me can complain about is the actions of specific investigators.
If the investigation went off the rails due to “lawful” commands from up the chain of command, the last thing that the provost marshal will do is publically announce that the Vice Chief of Defence Staff or someone higher up gave instructions to the CFNIS about the investigation.
Remember, under the National Defence Act the Provost Marshal is directly subordinate to the Vice Chief of Defence Staff, and that the VCDS has the full authority under the National Defence Act to issue instructions to ANY CFNIS investigation.
The provost marshal has absolutely no interest in covering themselves with shit. So the first thing they do is they take the information in your complaint and use that to sanitze the complaint investigation. They know that you’re more than likely going to make a follow up complaint to the Military Police Complaints Commission so they take all of the information they have at hand and then package it up in a pretty little package with a pretty little bow on top.
Even gift wrapped, it’s still just shit.
And as luck would have it, the Military Police Complaints Commission has to accept whatever documents the provost marshal choses to pass along to the MPCC. During a complaint review the MPCC cannot subpoena documents, it cannot subpoena witnesses, it cannot administer oaths.
As recently as 2015 the Military Police Complaints Commission said that it really didn’t know how the Canadian Forces Military Police Group operated as it had never been given access to the orders and procedures governing the military police. And this means that the MPCC might not even know what evidence to ask for.
Globe and Mail interview with then chairman Glenn StannardFrom the interview of Glenn Stannard by Gloria Galloway
It’s not very confidence inspiring when the agency overseeing a particular agency doesn’t know how that agency is supposed to work.
When I was interviewed by the MPCC in July of 2012 I seriously felt sick to my stomach after the interview. I went for a very, very long walk and it took ever fibre in my body to keep from jumping off the Granville Bridge.
The two MPCC interviewers from Ottawa basically gave me a lecture on why they weren’t going to find any fault with the CFNIS investigation. They came to Vancouver with their minds made up already. The sad thing is, they’re retired civilian police officers who viewed the CFNIS as just being a military version of the civilian police and therefore their “brothers in blue”.
When I filed for Judicial Review in February of 2013, the CFNIS was required to forward to me a certified copy of all of the documents that the Provost Marshal had given to the MPCC in 2012.
It was fucking disturbing just how many records were missing and how many “errors” there were in the SAMPIS.
What an absolute fucking joke this was.
Basically what the Provost Marshal submitted to the MPCC was that I was a cheap two-bit conman looking to milk the Canadian Armed Forces for some easy money.
The MPCC really should have known better. But as it turns out it’s not allowed to know better.
“But Bobbie, why didn’t you introduce all off these missing documents during your hearing for Judicial Review”.
That’s the problem, you can’t.
Under the rules for MPCC Judicial Review you CANNOT introduce to the court ANY document or evidence that was not before the MPCC while they were conducting their review.
And the Chief of Defence Staff knows this.
And the Vice Chief of Defence Staff knows this.
And the Provost Marshal knows this.
The CDS, the VCDS, and the CFPM know that they can sell any bullshit story to the MPCC as the MPCC doesn’t have the power or authority to question what they’re being told.
And if the MPCC doesn’t like what it’s being told and instead wants to have an inquiry? That requires the permission of the Minister of National Defence.
Inquiries have too much potential to damage the Canadian Forces Military Police and that’s why they’re held so very infrequently. Just look at how damaging the MPCC review of the CFNIS investigation of the death of corporal Stuart Langridge was. The ass-whooping the CFNIS received from Michel Drapeau could never have happened anywhere outside of an MPCC inquiry.
“Shades of Somalia”
The military chain of command does NOT allow for independent investigations.
Yes, you’ll have the provost marshal and the Chief of Defence Staff and the Minister of National Defence tripping all over themselves to exclaim that investigators with the CFNIS are free and independent of the chain of command.
This is absolutely B.S. and they know it.
There are absolutely no exceptions to the service offence of “Insubordination” in the National Defence Act. All members of the Canadian Armed Forces are subject to being charged with having committed the service offence of “Insubordination” if they disobey the “lawful” command of a superior.
And yes, there is a significant difference between “lawful” and “legal”. Basically “legal” infers that the command does not violate any criminal code statute. “Lawful” just means that the person issuing the command has the authority to issue the command, lawful does not vouch for the legal status of the command.
Insubordination is the most serious service offence that a member of the Canadian Forces can commit. Insubordination comes with an automatic sentence of life in prison or a lesser sentence.
In between when I became ensnared with the defective military justice system in 2011 and now we’ve had the External Review conducted by Madame Marie Deschamps, a retired Supreme Court justice.
Then we had another External Review conducted by the Honourable Louise Arbor.
Both reviews basically said the exact same thing. The Canadian Forces Military Police are inept and unskilled when it comes to sexual assault investigations.
Then we had the Third Independent Review of the National Defence Act conducted by the Honourable Morris J. Fish, a retired Supreme Court justice.
While Mr. Fish makes some very powerful recommendations it would appear that Mr. Fish was shielded from the fact that the CFNIS and the Provost Marshal often overstep their jurisdictional boundaries and involve themselves with investigations involving only civilians. This runs counter to the spirit of CFPM 2120-4-0.
These reviews resulted in the Minister of National Defence instructing the military police in 2021 to hand over all sexual assault investigations to the civilian police. The investigation into my complaint against the man in the sauna was retained by the CFNIS with no explanation as to why other than that I was told by the CFNIS that the CFNIS was the only police agency able to work on historical military cases.
And before my time there was the military police fiasco in Bosnia and then subsequently the military police fiasco in Somalia which led to the elimination of the CFSIU, the creation of the Provost Marshal, and the creation of the CFNIS.
And who can forget the “CFB Gagetown Rape Controversy”.
The CFB Gagetown Rape Controversy is well worth the read, and it highlights all of the long standing flaws in the National Defence Act and how civilians are an afterthought to the military justice system and how civilians are at a substantial disadvantage when navigating the military justice system.
And as the offences that are alleged to have occurred during the CFB Gagetown Rape Controversy occurred pre-1998, even if the RCMP were to become involved with this investigation they’d have to hand it right on over to the CFNIS as these offences occurred on a defence establishment making them service offences. And as we all know, there is a 3-year-time-bar on all service offences that occurred prior to 1998. Yes, Rape was a crime that was specifically excluded from prosecution by the military tribunal system, but there was nothing stopping the military police and the CFSIU at the time from investigating this matter. In fact as this occurred on a defence establishment it would have been well within the mandate of the base military police and the CFSIU to investigate. So yes, the 3-year-time-bar would apply. And as these service offences occurred prior to 1998, the commanding officer of the accused would be required to review the charges before sending these charges to the provincial crown prosecutor. There was no mechanism in the pre-1998 National Defence Act to allow for the military police or the CFSIU to bypass the commanding officer and go straight to the provincial crown.
And as luck would have it, the Military Police Complaints Commission is not allowed to look at or review pre-1998 military police or CFSIU investigations.
So here we are again. It’s now 2024 and the CFPM, the CFMPG and the CFNIS still exist.
How many more years of dysfunctional and unaccountable military police will Canadians be willing to endure? Or is this a case of “out of sight, out of mind”?
Will the recommendations from Deschamps, Arbour, and Fish amount to anything or will the MoD, the CDS, and the VCDS slap a fresh coat of paint over the mildewy wallpaper without addressing the rot and disease underneath?
The Provost Marshal and the military police, including the CFNIS need to be scaled down. They need to have their responsibilities limited to offences of a purely military nature. Any crime of a civilian nature that occurs on a defence establishment or involves someone subjected to the Code of Service Discipline, especially if the victims are civilian, needs to be handed over without question or delay to the outside civilian authorities having jurisdiction.
Sure, you’re going to get a lot of naysaying from those involved with the Canadian Forces. But that’s only because the people making those complaints understand the need for the military to retain its own police agency in order for the military to hide secrets from the civilian world.
Many of our NATO allies currently operate with civilian police attending to civilian matters and the military police attending to purely military matters. Doing the same in Canada shouldn’t be out of the question, and its definately preferable to allowing the military to keep doing its own thing.
Well, one thing that I’ve noticed over the past few weeks is how soft my skin is now.
Since I started taking estrogen a few weeks ago my skin has become noticeably softer and smoother.
And yes, this was to be expected, but I didn’t think that it would have been this noticeable.
My breasts are noticeable, but not that noticeable. I’ve seen guys with bigger Molson boobs than what I currently have.
They’re just barely large enough to show through my tops, but they are large enough to snag the shoulder strap of my laptop case.
I don’t think I’ll have to resort to the Judy Blume exercises…….
But hot damn my nipples are super sensitive.
My body fat feels different too. It’s a lot more squishy and jiggly.
Mood?
My mood is different. Can’t quite explain it, but it’s different.
I’ve got an appointment with my doc next week.
See how well my kidneys and liver are taking to the new hormones.
This will be the first of my never ending blood tests and we’ll see how much estrogen was in my bloodstream on the final day of the four day period for my patch.
We’ll decide if I stay with the same patches or if I go up in strength.
And we’ll eventually decide if I go on androgen blockers.
Then I’ll know for sure what the mood difference is between androgen and estrogen.
Sometimes when I go to apply a new patch, the exposed portion of the patch will fold over and touch itself. Because of the adhesive I can’t get that half apart. I wasn’t sure what to do with the 1/2s that were good. Well, I can actually cut off the stuck together part of two different patches and then use the good parts as one patch and cover them with Tegaderm. Just like new!
After I posted my last post, I reached out to one of my followers that had been married to a member of the Dagenais clan. She put me in touch with her daughter. And her daughter sent me links to a marriage licence and a census report.
So, I’ve made decent progress on the maternal side of my family now.
The Dagenais Clan.
I don’t know how much luck I’m going to have with the paternal side of my father’s side of the family. I have made out pretty good with the maternal side of his family. I should know everyone up to the my great-great-grandparents on the maternal side of my father’s family.
Paternal side of the Gill family
And here’s what I’ve been able to piece together for Susan’s family.
The Zwolle Clan
I don’t really know much if anything about Sue’s side of the family.
Whenever she’d go shopping at Knob Hill Farms in Oshawa we’d always stop in for visits with her parents on Gibb Street so I spent far more time with her parents that I did with my father’s father.
I’m pretty sure that both of her parents spoke English, but with very heavy Dutch accents.
Even when Richard was with us we’d never go visit Arthur Herman Gill.
Not once.
After we moved to Canadian Forces Base Greisbach in Edmonton in October of 1980 we inherited uncle Jimmy’s samoyed dog named Lady.
Uncle Jimmy lived in Fort McMurray and had worked on the tug boats on the Athabasca river hauling tar sands from the pits to the refiners.
Jimmy was having health issues and he couldn’t look after Lady any longer. And Lady had always been an outside dog with little discipline.
On Greisbach she was always getting us in trouble with the base officials as she’d dig up the lawn around the PMQ and in the spring and summer she’d shed her massive white coat.
But once we moved to Canadian Forces Base Downsview in April of 1983 Lady was sent to live with the Zwolle family out in Oshawa.
I think Lady died sometime around 1986.
The Zwolle house is long gone. It looks like it was possibly bought along with the two other houses on the patch of land they occupied by the Oshawa school board to allow the expansion of the school grounds.
So far as my background, it looks like this.
First Nations relatives.
German relative.
French relatives.
Scottish relatives.
Icelandic relatives.
Irish relatives.
And a bit of Scandinavian thrown in for good measure.
No wonder when I used to ask my father what my background was as a kid he’d always say that I was a mutt. Not an “Indian” like my grandmother, not Irish like my grandfather, not French like my mother.
Beeshive 