Well, Tuesday would have been Scott’s 51st birthday.
But looks like he’ll be 50 forever.
Is he in a better place?
Nope.
Is he in a worse place?
Nope.
We didn’t believe in heaven or hell or the imaginary friend in the sky.
This existence is all we get.
In many ways I’m jealous of Scott.
For Scott, there’s no more pain and there’s no more suffering.
He’s no longer plagued by daemons of what could have been or what should have been.
No more memories of growing up, of the babysitter, of our grandmother, or of our father.
All that shit is gone.
What killed Scott?
Was it the ketamine, his epilepsy, or his heart condition?
Officially the Alberta Coroner will only say that his death was due to a ruptured spleen after a fall.
What caused the fall the medical examiner can’t say because his body was fairly decomposed when he was found.
2 weeks in an apartment in the Edmonton summer will cause a body to break down fairly quickly.
But if I had to speculate as to what the root cause of my brother’s death was, I’d have to say that the Indian Residential School System would probably factor in as a significant contributor. I’d also say that the desire of the Canadian Armed Forces to hide the true extent of Captain McRae’s child sexual abuse exploits on Canadian Forces Base Namao were also a significant contributor.
In life, every action has consequences.
Some consequences are felt immediately.
Some consequences appear as ripples at a later date.
Grandma was a very angry and disturbed woman from her time in Indian Residential school.
She was not a loving or caring woman, except for her alcohol. She loved and cared for her alcohol.
My father was not much better. He was already a heavy drinker at 16 when he joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1963.
Grandma should never have had children.
But she did.
My father should never have had children.
But he did.
Luckily neither Scott nor I reproduced, so the dysfunction ends with us.
From the time I left the house in 1987 when I was 16 until 2013 I never really had much dealings with Scott.
When I went up to Edmonton for a couple of weeks in the summer of 2013 I mentioned to him that I never thought that I would have ever spoken to him again.
Scott knew from reading my blog back then that I was having some dealings with a constable from the Morinville RCMP detachment and Scott asked me if I could arrange a meeting with this constable as he wanted to know if this constable could read his CPIC file to see if there was some explanation as to why he was frequently being pulled over for traffic stops.
I did arrange for a meeting between the three of us at a Tim Hortons in St. Albert on the St. Albert Trail. Just after my brother started asking about what his CPIC file contained the constable kinda feigned a radio call and said that he had to go.
When I talked to the constable by phone the next day he said that there were issues on Scott’s CPIC file that would have warranted his arrest, and that he didn’t want to do that as this constable was familiar with what we went through on CFB Namao.
When I collected my brother’s belongings and his remains last August, the one thing that I did notice in his passport was that he had tried to enter the United States of America but that he had voluntarily returned to Canada.
Scott had quite the criminal history.
Some people may say that Scott’s criminal history was his own doing.
But it wasn’t.
Scott’s criminal history was 100% Richard’s fault.
When we lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview in North York, Ontario my brother started running with a bad crowd.
I think that was the difference between Scott and I.
Scott wanted to be popular and to have friends.
I was majorly depressed and just wanted to be left the fuck alone.
Scott wanted to hang out and belong.
I was the type of kid that the popular kids picked on for entertainment.
Richard had absolutely no interest in the either of us.
I had my after school and weekend jobs.
Scott had nothing to do but hang out with the thugs he called friends.
And these guys were literal thugs.
Auto thefts, B&E’s, robberies w/o weapons, credit card fraud, etc…..
And this was all before he was 16.
Richard, our illustrious father, was too busy kissing ass and polishing knobs in the Canadian Forces to climb the ranks to give a shit.
Scott’s troubles and his frequent stays in group homes and detention were solely due to Richard’s inability to give a fuck about anyone other than himself.
But to hear Richard tell it, Scott’s issues were solely due to:
Grandma’s drinking
Grandma’s cruelty
Our mother’s absence
Insanity that ran in out mother’s family tree
Me not raising my brother properly
Me letting the babysitter on CFB Namao molest Scott
The parents of the other boys not raising their kids right.
Schools not teaching Scott properly.
The civilian public schools not using corporal punishment like the schools the Canadian Forces ran for the kids of military families.
Richard was a complete skinflint.
As he told his airforce buddy Jacques Choquette once after Jacques asked my father why he doesn’t just drop Scott and I off with our mother, “As long as I keep these kids under my roof, I control the costs. If I send these kids to their mother, then I’ll have to sign my fucking pay cheque over to that bitch, and that’s sure as fuck not happening”.
So no, there were no hobbies, no activities, no trips, no going to the movies, no going to sports games, no fucking nothing.
Scott’s legal troubles would plague him well into adult life.
It’s too bad that Richard died back in 2017.
It would have been nice to have seen Richard tortured and tormented by Scott’s death.
Both the fact that this is a common attitude amongst people, and the fact that yes, while I suffer from major depression, I can get shit done.
High functioning depression is what they call it.
And it fucking sucks.
So, last week I did yet another thing that I am totally NOT QUALIFIED* to do at work.
I know that networking is not covered in any of the 4th class Power Engineering modules that I undertook via correspondence.
At work there was a standalone building management system put in that wasn’t connected to the main network for an unknown reason.
Stand Alone Building Automation System
MOXA NAT-102
Wasn’t a concern until the system started doing funny things during the recent cold snap and we had no way of logging into it to see what was up.
It had become painfully obvious to me that this standalone system needed to be connected to the main network so that the shift engineers could get into it to manually override it if required.
I think this is the 4th MOXA NAT that I’ve installed at work in the last couple of years in order to put building automation and HVAC equipment on to the main network.
The most significant problem is the addressing for the network and the building automation equipment and the HVAC equipment have two completely different addressing schemes.
Most equipment shows up with the factory default addresses being used which typically are in the Class C range and are usually beginning with 192.168.xxx.xxx
The main network is a Class B network and starts with 172.24.xxx.xxx.
The NAT allows communication to flow between the Class C network and the Class B network without causing any headaches.
From MOXA NAT-102 manual
Basically in the NAT I have to create two VLANS (virtual local area networks) assign the WAN (wide area network) to one VLAN and the LAN (local area network) to the other VLAN and then create very specific rules to allow traffic to flow between the LAN and the WAN.
I create a 1-to-1 routing rule. The rule would look like this:
incoming -> 172.24.81.30 goes to 192.168.3.1, blocks ICMP, allows TCP and UDP.
outgoing – 192.168.3.1 goes to 171.24.81.30, blocks ICMP, allows TCP and UDP
All other IP addresses on the LAN are blocked from any type of communication with the WAN port and conversely the WAN can only see the single device on the LAN.
The MOXA device itself is set to respond to pings so at least IMIT can see the device is present, but even IMIT can’t see to the other side of the NAT.
I’ve had to use NATs before to let the Emergency Generator Control system and the Elevator Dispatcher to be accessed from the main network for access to readings, logs, and alarms.
Elevator Control SystemPneumatic Tube System12.4 kV to 600 volt transformers
Well Bobbie, the answer is clear, you need to take a course in networking if you like this so much!!!!!!
The thing is, I don’t like this.
There is absolutely nothing special about this, and the way I look at this, if an imbecile such as myself can do this, then really anyone can do this.
I had an interest in computers and electronics when I was a kid. But my father did everything that he could in order to shit all over that.
My father would spare no expense when I was a kid extolling how much of a fuck up I was, and that I was pretty fucking stupid no matter how good I was a picking up electronics and computers.
My father’s disdain for my interest in electronics and computers was legendary.
When I was in grade 8 (1985 – 1986) I had built a 5mW helium neon laser as a science project. Not going to go too far into it, but by using a pair of mirror mounted on voice coils I could scan the beam to any X-Y coordinate on a wall or screen. Or I could just feed audio into the amplifiers that drove the voice coils and I could create patterns.
My science teacher, Mr. Bowles, was blown away by this.
My brother Scott decided that he was going to sell the device that I was using to generate the X-Y scan patterns.
My father of course wasn’t concerned in the least.
Scott was acting this way because of what I had let the babysitter do to him.
Scott was acting this way because I wasn’t raising him properly.
If you’ve followed my story, you’ll know that I moved out of the house in late 1987. I really wasn’t safe in the house. Richard was absolutely unsuitable as a parent, and my brother Scott had become uncontrollable and was definitely running with a dangerous crew.
Getting work right away wasn’t an issue. Since I was about 14 I had been servicing arcade games, pinball machines, and jukeboxes for two different route operators in Toronto.
I beat a DeVry certified electronics technician at the repair of one video game that he had been stumped on for over 2 months. Took me four hours to get the machine up and running again. And it was just an 8-bit bi-directional latch that crippled the machine.
I realized quickly that although my knowledge in digital electronics had saved my bacon, without a certificate or diploma I was never going to make a living off this.
No matter how much I’ve tried to steer clear of anything to do with electronics or computers, I always get drawn back into it. And as much as I despise electronics and computers, they have saved my bacon as they offset all of my character flaws.
The last time I spoke with my father was in August / September of 2006. He brought up the topic of my laser himself and he wanted to know why the fuck that was such a big deal. It wasn’t like I had made the laser tube from scratch, or designed the power supply from scratch, I had just purchased a used laser tube and I had built the power supply using pre-made components.
When my brother came down to see me in 2021 after the public release of the 1980 Military Police investigation paperwork which proved that our father was a liar, we went for a walk around the seawall.
Out of nowhere he brought up the topic of the laser and wanted to know why it was such a big deal. Apparently while Richard was still alive between 2006 and 2017 he had talked to Scott and compared me and my laser to that kid in the states that was busted by the FBI for modifying a clock controller from a VCR and using it to control things at preset times.
I asked him if he knew what a “hacker” was and how the term originated.
I explained to him that the term “hacker” originated with people who would take electronic devices or computer devices and make them do things that they weren’t originally intended to do by “hacking” the components or the programs.
Almost everyone who is a somebody in the field of computers or electronics started off by taking things apart or decompiling code in order to see how things worked, and then making changes to make the devices work better or to do things that were more beneficial to the user.
Christ, some of the earliest hacking / phreaking involved blowing a Captain Crunch toy whistle into the receiver of a payphone in order to make free phone calls.
But, back to me. I turned my back on electronics and computers many, many moons ago.
The memories of my father’s derision, and his utter contempt towards my interests in computers and electronics was just too fucking painful.
I still work with electronics, computers, and networking even though I am NOT QUALIFIED*. I have no choice. In this day and age there is no reason for a facility like mine to not be able to extract operational data from building automation equipment and HVAC equipment.
But, every time that I do this work it tears me apart with never ending thoughts of what might have been or what could have been or what should have been.
Sure, it was my father that was an asshole.
But it was Captain McRae and his teenage accomplice what diddled about 25 children on Canadian Forces Base Namao from 1978 to 1980. It was also the Canadian Forces military social worker Captain Totzke that ensured that I knew that I was to blame for allowing myself and my brother to be abused.
And of course, my father being a lowly corporal in the Canadian Forces ensured that Captain Totzke’s opinion of me would notn be questioned by my father.
So, not only does working with electronics and networking at the hospital raise up questions about the way my father belittled my blossoming interests, but it also make me wonder how things would have turned out had my brother and I not been molested, had the Canadian Forces not buried the matter in 1980, and had I not had Captain Totzke as my social worker.
Well, in 27 days it will be the start of the 730 countdown until March 17th, 2027.
March 17th, 2027 is the day in which we find out of the government of Canada has the fortitude to stand up to the chicken littles and allow fully competent adults suffering from mental illness to end their lives through Medical Assistance in Dying.
I took vacation time off work in March of 2023 with the hopes that I would have been able to make the application for Medical Assistance in Dying via my nurse practitioner.
But of course parliament caved at the last minute.
Parliament caved to well organized, and no doubt funded by American dark money, “grassroots” campaigns that had convinced enough Canadians that if M.A.i.D. was legalized for mental illness, that the government of Canada was just going to send white vans across the country murdering unsuspecting people who had mental illness.
M.A.i.D. for mental illness was pushed back until March 17th, 2024.
Took time off in March of 2024 as well only to find that Parliament pushed M.A.i.D. for mental illness back to March 17th, 2027. This time the general fear was that the government was going to start starving the disabled and thus forcing them to choose M.A.i.D. instead of living in poverty.
I wish that these concerned citizen groups would get as concerned about how the federal government, the Canadian Armed Forces, and the Department of Justice seem hellbent on keeping the child sexual abuse the children endured on military bases in Canada hidden away from the public eye.
Nope.
These people are so very concerned about grown adults making rational choices.
I’ll never understand what it is that gives people the right to assume that they know what’s the best for me based on their fear of death.
Are people afraid that if I die via M.A.i.D. at a time of my choosing that they’ll have to admit that I got severely fucked over by Captain Father Angus McRae and his accomplice?
Are people afraid of having to admit that I got severely fucked over by my military social worker, Captain Totzke?
Are people afraid of having to admit that life sucks in general and that some people get fucked over from the word go through no fault of their own?
My brain is so fucked beyond belief.
People have asked me why I’m not concerned about how my death would affect those that know me.
Well, my entire family is dead. So I don’t have to worry about that.
Never received anything that I would consider a “gift” from my father. Any thing that he “gave” to me was always an obligation to keep social services at bay.
My mother was never around. Sure, wasn’t her fault, but that doesn’t change things.
My grandmother gave me the gift of PTSD and alcoholism from the Indian Residential Schools.
Any “gift” that I ever received from anyone else always seemed to come with an extremely high price.
I just don’t make it a habit to hang out with people.
I like to be on my own.
I grew up not having anyone to depend on. I had no one in my family that was dependable to rely on.
I can share laughs with people.
But I really really don’t like small talk or talking about personal “feelings” or things.
I hate the idea of having to form political alliances at work, but that’s the way it actually works.
There’s nothing better at triggering “shields-up” than small talk or asking me about my feelings.
I like to be out and about, just walking around or riding around on my scooter. The crowds and the traffic are distracting that keep my mind off things.
I go to concerts, but I keep to myself. I don’t like “meeting” people.
When people get to know me they start to not like me.
So I just avoid all of that drama and I just keep to myself.
If I knew in my teenage years what I know now I’d probably just suggest to myself the best and most humane ways in which to end my life.
I would tell my teenage self that justice is what rich people get and that dogs like me just get a rolled up newspaper on the snout if we ask for a little bit of justice.
I really wish that things could run along the lines of sappiness that this prompt is trying elicit. You know like “I’d tell myself to tell my granny I loved her before she died”, or ” I’d tell my daddy that I loved him and that I knew how hard military life was on him”.
But what the fuck could I tell my teenage self that wouldn’t be fucking devastating.
“Hey Bob, your father actually knew the truth about CFB Namao but he sold your mental health for some favours from the chain of command”.
“Hey Bob, you actually weren’t to blame for yourself, your brother, and the other kids being abused. This is just something that Captain Totzke concocted to shame you into silence so that you wouldn’t tell any civilians about what happened”
“Hey Bob, you mother didn’t abandon the family, your father had your mother thrown off the base by the military police because the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations allowed for this to happen”
“Hey Bob, your father knew exactly how damaged your grandmother was and that she was an alcoholic and that she was extremely cruel to you and your brother”
So, what exactly could I tell my teenage self that wouldn’t have led me to having an extreme mental breakdown?
He had already been retired from the Canadian Armed Forces for seven years at this point after serving in the military for 30 years.
Not too shabby for a guy who joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1963 with a grade 8 education and a drinking habit that would make a longshoreman blush.
Me?
Because the baby boomers insisted on hauling up the ladder after they had their climb, I will have to work for at least 12 more years if I want to even think of retiring.
Hopefully I can avail myself to M.A.i.D. in 2027 so that I no longer have to live with the daemons that my father gave to me.
My mother would have also been 54 in the year 2000.
I have absolutely no idea what the fuck she was up to. The last time I had spoken with her at that point in my life was in the spring of 1992, when after moving to Vancouver she told me to “never fucking call her again”. I honoured this command until 2013 when I had to call her to discuss with her some of the answers that my father had given to me for federal court. When I met her in 2013 she was a fucking dead zombie. She already had a bunch of aneurysms. And she was nothing more than the walking dead waiting for her death.
I don’t know if she ever retired from a job that had a pension.
I never lived in a place that I would call a “home”.
And I never lived in any place that I would call a “dream home”.
The houses I lived in were all fucking traumatizing nightmares, and I don’t mean that they all had the same fucking paint scheme no matter which base they were located on. Living in an abusive dysfunctional family in military housing on military bases was the traumatizing nightmare.
I grew up living in Private Married Quarters on Canadian Forces Bases.
And with my rage prone alcohol fuelled father, these weren’t homes.
They were houses.
It’s where I kept my shit.
It’s where I slept at night.
It’s where I was absolutely terrified to ask my father for help with school homework as that would launch him into a rage and fury.
From the time my mother left in 1977 until September of 1985, I never had a birthday. In 1985, no doubt due to my father’s rampage in the PMQ during the summer of 1985, I had a “birthday” of sorts. A small cake and a $20 bill. And a promise that he would never forget my birthday again. That was the last birthday of mine that he ever acknowledged. I guess once he realized that the base military police were not going to inform the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto about his massive meltdown in the PMQ in the summer of ’85 he didn’t have to pretend to give a shit about me any longer.
My alcoholic grandmother living in the PMQs and raising my brother and I didn’t make things any easier. If I had to take a wild guess, I think that my father got his mental issues from her. As much as he would claim that she was an alcoholic that was cruel to his children, he was the exact same.
When my father received his final posting in June of 1990 to go back to CFB Edmonton in anticipation of his retirement, he and my stepmother bought a house in Morinville, AB.
I lived in an actual house for the first time in my entire life. Not a military PMQ. Not a rooming house where I rented a room after I moved out of the PMQ on CFB Downsview when I was 16. An actual house, with walls that you could hang pictures on without fear of pissing off the base construction engineers.
Yeah, my stepmother had me booted out within a week of us moving from CFB Griesbach to Morinville.
She apparently did the same with my brother when he finished his sentence at the St. John’s Training School for Boys in Uxbridge, Ontario and moved to AB to stay with our father as Scott was still only 16 when he was released.
So yeah, never really did live in a real home as a kid.
I’m happy with my bachelor apartment.
It’s not too big.
Growing up in my father’s house it was either “go the fuck outside and stay the fuck outside until the lights come on” or ” get the fuck up to your bedroom and stay there” or “get the fuck to school”. There were no weekend nights playing boardgames or watching Disney on TV or any other family style of activities.
And that’s why I like my apartment.
I’m either sleeping all day, or I’m at work, or I’m out and about trying to keep my brain from ruminating over and over about what I could have done differently in life.
My apartment, just like the PMQs, is just a place where I store my shit, and go to sleep.
Beeshive 