Canadian Armed Forces – Page 10

Did the Canadian Armed Forces really think that I was a fucking patsy?

The one thing that I will never get over is how the Canadian Armed Forces wrote me off as an insignificant patsy of absolutely no consequence.

When Petty Officer Steve Morris of the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service called me on November 4th, 2011 and told me that “the investigation couldn’t find any evidence to indicate that the babysitter was capable of doing what I accused him of”. He did this with a laugh in his voice. A laugh that was meant to convey a not too subtle “fuck you”.

I think that’s the one thing that’s driven me so fucking hard to keep digging and digging.

The other thing that has driven me so fucking hard was the telephone call I had with Master Corporal Christian Cyr on May 3rd and May 4th 2011 when he let slip that the CFNIS knew about the connection between my babysitter and Captain McRae

In the August 1985 Edmonton Journal article about my babysitter, the crown prosecutor mentioned to the judge that my babysitter was already serving 2 years of probation for molesting a young child in Manitoba.

I had dealings with an RCMP constable in 2012. This constable ran a CPIC check on my babysitter based upon the information presented in the Edmonton Journal newspaper article. The constable didn’t give me any details save for that unlike what the Steve Morris told me on November 4th, 2011 the babysitter had a very extensive record of child molestation running from 1982 until beyond 1990 with many charges and convictions with many more charges withdrawn or stayed. The RCMP constable confirmed that the babysitter had been charged and convicted in Manitoba for molesting a young boy.

It was also this constable that laid to waste the lies uttered by Master Corporal Christian Cyr to me on May 3rd, 2011 when he insisted to me that the babysitter was only 12 or 13 years old in the spring of 1980. The babysitter turned 15 in June of 1980.

Anyways, last week I was as sick as a dog. So I spent time at home in bed with my laptop and my Newspapers.com subscription.

One of the many searches that I had done yielded information about the military social worker that I was in the care of from age 9 to age 11, Captain Terry Totzke.

But, I also hit upon a jackpot with the babysitter.

A newspaper article from 1985 centred on a woman who was trying to get stiffer sentences for child molesters in Manitoba. The woman, speaking under a pseudonym, mentioned that her two boys, one 2 years old and the other 4 years old at the time of the abuse, had been molested by their male babysitter who was only 17 years old at the time he abused the two boys.

She also mentioned that a 6 year old girl had been molested by the same babysitter that had molested her children and that this girl had been forced to watch the babysitter abusing other kids and was having all sorts of psychological issues because of that.

A quick bit of math shows that 1985 – 3 =1982. 1982 – 1965 =17.

What the fuck are the odds?

Oh, it gets fucking better.

The sexual abuse happened in St. James, Manitoba.

Wanna guess where St. James, Manitoba is located?

What the fuck are the odds?

It just keeps getting better and better the more time rolls onwards.

I’m doing a little bit of research right now and I’m just waiting for some information gel before being able to 100% link this 17 year old babysitter to my babysitter who would have also been 17 years of age in 1982.

And this really makes me wonder just how many times did the Canadian Armed Force move child molesters from one jurisdiction in Canada to another.

From the bit of research that I’ve done on pedophiles (people with sexual attractions to prepubescent children) and hebephiles (people with sexual attractions to children ages 11 – 14), these people tend to develop their attractions in their teen age years.

So let’s say that someone develops their attractions while they 12 or 13 years old.

A military dependent living with their serving parent could possibly have 2 or 3 moves with their serving parent between their 13th and 19th birthday. How intense this predator’s urges are will determine how many instances of abuse that they could cause.

Let’s say that a 14 year old boy living in the military housing attached to Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt molests a 6 year old girl living in the City of Victoria.

Let’s say that it’s a year before the girl works up the courage to tell her parents.

Let’s say that the boy’s father had been posted to CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick.

How would the Victoria PD ever be able to make the connection?

Let’s say that this boy molests a few more kids in the small towns around CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick.

Let’s say that this boy’s father is posted out to CFB Borden in Ontario.

How are the New Brunswick police supposed to link this boy to the crimes in Victoria, BC.

Let’s say that the boy molests some children in Barrie, Ontario

Let’s say the boy moves out of the military housing a year after arriving at CFB Borden.

How is this boy ever going to be linked to any of his crimes?

Unlike in the civilian world, the Canadian Armed Forces were using taxpayer money to move this boy’s family due to the serving parent’s transfer.

But don’t worry. It’s not just the Canadian Armed Forces that have problems with military dependents sexually abusing other military dependents in the housing provided to military families on military bases. The US Military also has a substantial issue with this.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/u-s-military-fails-to-protect-children-from-sexual-abuse-on-bases-ap-reports

How bad is the problem?

The Canadian Armed Forces, the Department of National Defence, and even more tragically the Department of (anything but) Justice will circle the wagons, call me a loser, and carry on like nothing ever happened.

The problem comes down to the fact that the CAF, the DND, and the DOJ claim that children living on military bases have no right to expect to be safe and that the CAF and the employees of the CAF, including military police, are under no obligation to protect civilians living on defence establishments.

My Military Social Worker.

If that’s one thing that people have trouble wrapping their heads around is how did I have a military social worker.

But Bobbie, you weren’t a soldier. You weren’t in the military. How could you have a military social worker?

Back in my day, we couldn’t get medical care at the base infirmary. We couldn’t get dental care at the military dentist unless the base we lived on was far away from the nearest civilian dentist.

But when it came to social workers, especially in “sticky situations”, the Canadian Armed Forces had no problem with unleashing their employees onto the children of military service members.

I didn’t pay much attention to Totzke’s career after I was no longer involved with him in 1983.

I should have though.

He joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1966. Seems to have been involved with the naval band when he first joined.

Sometime after 1983 the good captain became a lieutenant colonel.

By 1984 he was the Area Social Worker for Pacific Command.

He was involved with the Sea Cadet program on the west coast.

He didn’t seem to stay in the Canadian Forces for much longer as by 1989 he was working at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital’s Dufferin Place extended care unit as a social worker.

Nothing much more out of the ordinary with Terry Totzke. He seemed to have retired from social work in the ’90s and went on to play drums in a band.

The band had some religious connections.

The one thing that does stick out though as interesting is that one person that Totzke had direct involvement with committed suicide with a crossbow.

Not too much was publicized about the suicide other than it appears that the man who committed suicide was suffering from a mental illness and Totzke had been involved with denying this man the ability to see his mother in a nursing home as Totzke was concerned that the man’s mental illness would be upsetting to the mother.

Really, none of this is surprising.

The counselling that I received from Totzke from October of 1980 until April of 1983 had driven me to attempt suicide two times in that period of time.

Social work and military didn’t really work back then.

Social work in the military was more about control and contain.

Blame the victim.

Make sure the victim understood that they were just as guilty as the abuser.

I wasn’t a 7 or 8 year-old victim of the babysitter and captain McRae for a year-and-a-half.

No, I was a budding homosexual pervert that enjoyed being abused and enjoyed watching my brother be abused.

During our meetings or the school visits, Terry would often remind me that he had the base military police watching me to see if I ever tried to kiss or touch another boy.

Terry was the reason that I wasn’t allowed to play team sports anymore. Might be naked boys in the change room. I might lose control of myself and start having sex with these boys.

And don’t forget, as Captain Totzke’s affair, it was his responsibility to get me the treatment required for my major depression, my severe anxiety, and my haphephobia.

In fact, he just seemed to stand by and watch me deteriorate to the point that I was supposed to have been institutionalized.

Even when Alberta Social Services finally began to put the pieces together and realized that I was in danger the longer I stayed in my father’s house, Totzke appears to have been very instrumental in helping my father obtain a posting out of the jurisdiction of Alberta to avoid my apprehension.

And even at our new posting, the new military social worker, Captain Linda Tyrell, offered absolutely no assistance to the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto when CAST tried to contact my father.

What do I complain about the most?

What do you complain about the most?

Well, that’s a hard one.

When one suffers from major depression, severe anxiety, and trauma from untreated childhood sexual abuse one tends to have a lot of observations, but I wouldn’t necessarily call this complaining. Okay, maybe some of it is complaining, but fuck it.

It’s just that when one has to work so hard to get to a certain place in life while watching those who have never suffered a single bruise or blemish in their lives cruising through life and reaping all the rewards without the slightest in effort, it gets fucking annoying really quick.

I think one of the things that pisses me off the most is watching those who came from supportive families cruising through life with nary a want or a encountering an unfulfilled desire.

Did my father ever show an interest in school when I was a kid?

Nope.

Did my father ever get his drinking under control?

Nope.

Did my father ever protect my bother and I from his alcoholic mother, who in his own words to social services, was extremely cruel to his children?

Nope.

Did my father stand up to the chain of command in 1980 when the decision was made by the Canadian Armed Forces to minimize the number of charges brought against Captain McRae?

Nope.

Did my father help me with my first car?

Nope.

Did my father help me with my first apartment?

Nope.

Did my father help me when I ended up on the streets after one job prematurely ended and a promised job after relocation fell through?

Nope.

Did my father write me into his will?

Nope.

Did anyone help me with the last minute and completely unexpected travel expenses and cremations expenses to dispose of my younger brother’s body?

Nope.

So here I sit, at age 53, watching all those that came from good families, that never had a single unfulfilled want in life, go through with their happy fantasy lives while I get told to be happy because my life could have been so much worse that what it actually is.

And yes, I’ve known people who have been in the foster care system. A system that I could have been placed into had it not been for the actions of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Terry Totzke. These people seemed to enjoy the support of their foster families. All the while I keep getting told that I should be happy that I lived with my father.

Even though my grandmother went through the Indian residential school system, and her alcoholism that led to my brother and I being sexually molested by our babysitter and Captain McRae could rightfully be blamed on the trauma she endured at residential school, do I get any sort of support for this.

Nope

Let’s face it, my father’s anger, his alcoholism, his cruelty, his complete lack of concern for anybody but himself, and his inability to take responsibility no doubt originated with his mother. The fact that she was an alcoholic during her pregnancy with him probably explains a lot of his behavioural difficulties. Do I get any type of support for this?

Nope.

In fact, when I bring up what I believe to be the root of my family’s dysfunction, I get called a “pretendian”.

I also get told that I should be thankful that I had the opportunity to grow up in a safe environment like Canadian Forces Bases and that I had the opportunity to play with military toys that kids in the civilian world would have enjoyed.

So yeah, I guess I have a lot of gripes.

However, people telling me to get over the past and simply move on with my life are probably my biggest gripe.

Fuck I hate those assholes with every fibre of my being.

Say it ain’t so.

Why am I not surprised in the least.

At this point in time the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service needs to be shut the fuck down and the military should lose the right to operate their own justice system in times of peace.

These fucking clowns are beyond compromised.

They are soldiers first, police officers second, and they are beholden to the chain of command at all times.

Members of the CFNIS are nothing more than meat puppets on the end of marionette strings being pulled by the chain of command.

I have a bunch of alerts set up on Google that alert me to when anything involving specific topics hits the media. This is how I was able to locate my babysitter back in 2015.

But at least 2 or 3 times a month I get alerts about the Canadian Forces military police and the CFNIS.

It should be obvious to just about anyone who pays attention to current events that the Canadian Armed Forces and the military “justice system” have some very serious issues that need to be dealt with.

But there are still those in the public realm who for one odd reason or the other have an undying fire in their belly to protect the military police no matter what the cost.

Take this letter from a concerned citizen that believes that the Military Police Complaints Commission should stick to its very narrow mandate.

Yep, the military police don’t need any oversight from a pesky outside civilian agency that doesn’t understand the inner workings and traditions of the Canadian Armed Forces.

The chain of command should be left to deal with these matters internally and out of the public eye and without the need for external supervision to ensure that matters are actually dealt with and not filed away in the circular filing cabinet.

After all, look at how well the Canadian Armed Forces handled the Captain Father Angus McRae child sexual abuse scandal on Canadian Forces Base Namao.

What would I do if I won the lottery

What would you do if you won the lottery?

I don’t play the lottery. Never have, never will.

Lotteries are a tax on poverty.

But, let’s say that I did win the lottery, what would I do?

Depending on how much money I won, I would probably hire a PR firm and do my best to destroy the squeaky clean image that the Canadian Armed Forces have been able to build over the years with massive amounts of tax payer money poured into professional PR firms.

I would probably set up a foundation or a trust for military dependents who fell through the cracks while living on the bases pre-1998 and who have suffered with mental illness and trauma.

I would hire the best psychiatrists and psychologists to lobby on my behalf and on the behalf of other military dependents who wish to obtain Medical Assistance in Dying for Mental Illness as the Sole Underlying Medical Condition.

Buy a fancy luxury car? For what? Can’t use the fancy car to drive away from the past.

Buy a house or a condo? That’s not going to erase the past. And 2027 isn’t really that far away.

Go on fancy vacation? My idea of a vacation is just going somewhere and walking around off the beaten path. But besides, I don’t really have the desire to go anywhere. I go places out of necessity.

What is my dream job?

Daily writing prompt

What’s your dream job?

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to have a dream job, I suppose one would have to have dreams.

And dreams are something that I’ve never had, at least not for a long while.

Growing up, especially in the aftermath of Canadian Forces Base Namao, my only dreams were to die. To die and have my father blamed for my death. That was about my only dream.

I always had dreams of Richard going off to prison for a very long time

When we lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario, my father and my stepmother used to use Canada’s Wonderland as “Richard’s and Sue’s Discount Babysitting Service”, or at least that’s what Scott called it.

Back when Wonderland first opened up, and I think for the first season or two, it had introductory unlimited access and unlimited rides for $29.95. Richard and Sue would drop

I used to dream that I’d get kidnapped from Canada’s Wonderland, that I’d get murdered, and that my body would then be found by a hiker in the woods. And that after identifying my skeleton, the police would go talk to Richard, and Richard would lie, and lie, and lie, and that he’d eventually fess up and that the judge would sentence him to prison with extra time added on for his lies.

But, that never happened.

I’m now 54 years old, and I still dream and ponder about how life would have worked out for Richard if I had been kidnapped and killed.

So far as dream job goes, I’ve never had a dream job.

I wanted to join the Canadian Forces when I was younger, but that never went anywhere due to the recruiting centre “obtaining some information” about me that indicated that I was an unsuitable candidate for service. I think this had to do with Captain Totzke’s paperwork being in my father’s service file, which would have been available for the recruiting service.

I’m probably lucky that I was never enlisted in the Canadian Forces. I don’t really know how well my psyche would have held up in an environment where the truth isn’t based upon reality but is instead based upon the whims and desires of the chain of command.

If I had enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces I’d probably have to have hidden so deeply in the closet that I’d be somewhere in Narnia.

Working in bowling centres was never what I’d call a dream job. But seeing as how I brought skills to bowling centres that most bowling centres wouldn’t be able to afford, I was always afforded a lot of leeway. I don’t know how well me being trans and going on hormones would have been tolerated at some of the centres, but other centres would have been okay.

There was one guy I worked for in Vancouver. He owned an electronics installation company. He started the company with money that he got from his parents. He couldn’t understand why I just didn’t get some money from my parents and start something up that I liked to do.

Two problems with that. There was never going to be any money from my father, or my stepmother, or my real mother. I don’t blame Sue. I didn’t burst forth from her crotch. Richard? Yeah, fuck no. His responsibility to my brother and I ended when he ejaculated. My mother? Richard having the military chuck her out of the military housing on Summerside destroyed her and turned her into a husk of herself, especially with Richard’s bullshit about her just abandoning the family and running of with a guy named Gus from the P.P.C.L.I..

People often ask me why I’m so leery about guys like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Donald Trump, or the various others I’ve known in my life that often portray themselves as self made and living the lives that they lead after years and years of hard work.

I worked under a general manager once who only got his job because his father knew one of the board members of the company. His business degrees were worth less than used toilet paper. His managerial skills consisted of overt threats and convincing people that other people were out to get their jobs. Yes, this manager ended up getting replaced, but not before numerous people who had been with the company for years up and quit. Of course, as fate would have it for the well connected, he ended up failing into a job with more pay and more prestige.

I had a co-worker that wasn’t all that bright, caused far more harm than good, but as he didn’t have crippling depression and debilitating anxiety he could glad-hand his way into positions that he didn’t belong in.

It’s as they say, if you can’t dazzle ’em with brilliance, baffle ’em with bullshit.

If it wasn’t for Errol Musk and his involvement with emerald mining, especially being compensated with roughage that he could then process and keep the proceeds from, Elon wouldn’t have been able to jet set from South Africa to Canada and then into America. According to Errol, any time that Kimbal or Elon needed money for anything, the safe was wide open. If it wasn’t for Maye Musk being Canadian, there would have been no back door for Musk to entre America through.

Musk didn’t found Paypal.

Musk didn’t found Tesla.

Musk did assemble SpaceX, but without SpaceX being awarded a multi-billion dollar contract from NASA for flights to resupply the International Space Station, SpaceX would never have become anything. What’s even more amazing about SpaceX is that it received its first contract with NASA without even having a rocket ready to go.

Jeff Bezos nearly lost everything in the early ’90s with his early attempt at a being a book reseller on the early Internet. Luckily for Jeff, a near 1/4 million dollar loan that his parents facilitated kept him from insolvency and allowed him to start what became Amazon. And now Amazon both via patents and just the sheer magnitude of his empire, Bezos can prevent any and all competition.

William Henry Gates the 3rd is NOT the plucky little guy that started from nothing. The Gates family is a well established and well monied Seattle family going back generations. Bill Gates and Paul Allen both went to the same exclusive school in Seattle. Their respective families were able to get them access time on mainframe computers where they could hone their programming skills. This was at a time when access to mainframes was about $1,000.00/hr. This was before the advent of home computers.

Bills mother was a socialite who hung out with the wives of board member of IBM. This was at a time when IBM was looking to release a personal computer. IBM had the hardware, but they didn’t have an operating system. However it happened, Bill’s mother found out from a wife of an IBM board member, and Bill’s mother told Bill.

Bill Gates then did what any kid with access to easy money did, he bought a licence from a small company in Seattle called the Seattle Computer Company for their product called “Quick and Dirty DOS”, rebranded the QD-DOS as Microsoft DOS and sold a lot of units of this new “MS-DOS” to IBM, and quickly pissed off the Seattle Computer company.

Did I mention that Bill had one of the most influential Seattle lawyers as a father and the founder of the Seattle First National Bank was his grandfather?

Donald Trump is the ultimate Nepotism Baby. Donald would be nothing if it wasn’t for the real estate empire that his father built in New York city. This empire was built from tax payer dollars that were paid to Fred Trump by the US Govt. to build housing for American troops returning from WWII. The fact that the Trumps are even in America is solely due to the fact that when Friedrich Drumpf immigrated to America, immigration requirements were almost non-existent. Friedrich Drumpf immigrated to America he only to avoid a prison sentence in his home country of Bavaria which he was given for failing to enlist for compulsory military service. Friedrich also had no proper documentation when he came to America as Bavaria had stripped him of his citizenship. If Friedrich Drumpf were to try to immigrate to America today he would be refused entry.

Fred Trump was one of the most reviled slumlords in American history. The many scams of the Trumps are far too numerous to list here, but they are publicly available for review.

Needless to say that Donald wouldn’t have reached where he is today if it wasn’t for his family’s money.

Almost everyone in a position of influence these days got there solely due to family money.

This isn’t to say that I would have had a happy life if I had family money, but having family money opens up a lot of doors for a person.

I’ve had co-workers that fell into good positions in life solely due family money or family connections.

And quite honestly I do get rather sick and tired of people telling me that if I wasn’t such a lazy asshole and such a whiny crybaby that I could have simply applied myself and I could have easily been something.

A lot of what the world is these days is people using their family capital to build their personal wealth and empire. And once they build that wealth, they use every means at their disposal to prevent challengers. Microsoft, Apple, etc. don’t own thousands upon thousands of unused patents for no reason at all.

But having family money early on would have allowed me to go to school, maybe to have travelled when I was younger. Maybe bought a house. And afforded myself the ability to have recovered from the trauma of CFB Namao, of my grandmother, of my father, and of Captain Terry Totzke.

Maybe then I could have discovered what a “dream job” was.

When I was 10 years old I was given an IQ test as part of a psychiatric evaluation by my civilian social workers in an attempt to ascertain what the fuck was going on in my brain.

136 +/- 6 was the result of my test.

At work I’m reviled by everyone there.

Every attempt that I make to bring my section into the modern era is met with heavy resistance. Almost every initiative that I’ve tried to institute to ensure compliance with the Safety Standards Act just meets with more stubborn resistance.

I know that I shouldn’t be here.

But power engineering was the only way that a “poor” like me could get into a union position that would protect me and allow me to move out of the life of poverty that the Canadian Armed Forces and my father had assigned me to.

I thought that power engineering was my ticket to the future, but then I very quickly realized that power engineering is just to ensure that there is a warm body in the plant so that mgmt. can assure Tech Safety BC that they are meeting the requirement to have a warm body in the seat as required.

And that’s it.

Nothing more than glorified plunger jockeys.

Yes, I know that I’m too smart for my position and that my knowledge and my abilities intimidate other people.

Yes, I know that I am a complete asshole for not teaching people how to do what I do because I do it so easy.

Yes, I can troubleshoot computer networking issues. But it’s not because I received special training. I just read the books and read the manuals.

I don’t like computers. I don’t play computer games. I don’t edit videos. I don’t make music.

But I can RTFM ( Read The Fucking Manual).

I am also not afraid to call or email tech support for guidance.

It seems like anything that I do at work unleashes the rage of my co-workers.

Run a fibre optic network between the Generator Control system in Phase II over to the Burrard Building power house to eliminate a long standing communication issue with the 600 volt breakers in the Burrard Building?

“Why the fuck is that asshole sticking his fucking business into this, why doesn’t he fuck off and stay in his own lane?”. “The Fuck is wrong with him, the asshole isn’t a licenced electrician so he shouldn’t be touching any of this fucking shit!”

Troubleshoot a long standing communication issue with the Phase II Delayed Vital MODbus network?

“Is he even fucking certified to work on this? What if he destroys a breaker?”

They may think that I don’t hear them, but I hear them.

Their voices, and their sideway glances, and the conversations behind closed doors are easily overheard.

These are the things that I’ve heard all of my life.

“Bobbie’s just trying to make me look bad”

“Bobbie’s just hiding this knowledge from me. If it was easy for a moron like him to learn then he should be able to teach me. Sure, I don’t like computers, I don’t even own one, but he should be able to teach me how to set-up a MODbus to IP gateway ’cause if Bobbie can do it how fucking hard can it be?

“If he wants to work with networking or electronics, why the fuck isn’t he taking a diploma course?”

People have asked why I’m not going to the new hospital even though I was involved on the design committee for the new site.

There were two individuals in particular that went to every extent possible to make sure that I understood that my presence was not wanted on the committee and that I was to stay in my own lane and that anything that I had to say was limited to my power engineer certificate and that anything that I had to say beyond this was not going to be accepted.

These two persons in particular, well there’s a third, but I don’t have to deal with him, made sure that I understood what my place was and that freaks like me aren’t welcome in their new state-of-the-art playhouse.

Get a diploma?

Get a certificate?

Fuck, I don’t even want to get out of bed, how the fuck am I supposed to have enough strength to overcome my daemons and get a fucking diploma or a certificate?

And besides, I’m not fucking 18 years old, or even 24 years old.

I’m 54 fucking years old.

No savings, no real estate, no fucking nothing.

So no, there is no dream job.

There’s just the fucking eternal hell of knowing that I’ll never have the opportunities that should have been mine. That certain assholes will always dangle these opportunities in front of my eyes to ensure that I know that they know what I’ll never have.

p.s.

There was a study that that looked at the outcomes of children with high IQs. It was started in the 1920s in California by the father of the modern IQ test, Lewis Terman. These children were traced all throughout their lives. What surprised Lewis Terman 30 years into this study was that his hypothesis that IQ levels were hereditary was wrong, the parents of the children with high IQs that went on to have better incomes had higher educations, had better jobs, lower divorce rates, and more books in the household. Almost all of the kids that came from poor families with lower education levels and lower expectations of their children ended up as “failures” of no significance that “wasted” their talents.

Portland, OR

So, here I am on my last night in Portland, OR.

Nice city. It’s walkable. But it’s also dominated by car culture.

Massive freeways all over the place.

It’s hard to get away from the car.

The downtown is nice and walkable.

Same homelessness and drug use issues that Seattle and Vancouver, BC have, but still no where near as bad as the drug problems in Edmonton, AB.

Did the usual thing, just walked around the city, steering clear of anything that looked like a tourist trap.

Came down here to buy socks.

Yep, socks.

Place down here sells nice cotton knee high and thigh high socks that come in an assortment of colours and patterns.

They work out to about $30/pr in Canada, but with Sir Misogyny the Orange wanting to start a trade tariff war, I thought that it would be a great time to pop on down for a long weekend to grab some socks and take advantage of the duty exemption that comes into play after one has been in the US of A for more than 48 hours.

Willamette River Download

There are a lot of these water fountains around the city. And it looks like they keep them running around the year.

Portlandia, a sculpture by Raymond Kaskey.

If you ever get to Portland, you gotta check the statute of Portlandia out. It’s perched over the entrance of the Portland Municipal Services Building located on S.W. 5th Ave., between S.W. Main St. and S.W. Madison St.

This city has a lot of bridges. 12 large bridges and a good half dozen pedestrian bridges.

Most of the bridges have a good coating of graffiti, stickers, and other colourful distractions from the banality of life.

My hotel room had one of these in it.

Kept waiting for the psychologist to come in to analyze me, but they never showed up.

Another panorama, this time facing downtown.

Portland Downtown Panorama Download

And me on a bridge.

And one more panorama shot…

Bridge Panorama Download

And finally, no trip would be complete without me checking out the HVAC system in the hotel where I’m staying. Polished spiral duct. Long radius elbows. Looks like a variable flow refrigerant system so it can do heating and cooling. Easy access to the filter.

Why don’t you trust the police?

Never have trusted the police.

When they were supposed to be there, they never were.

And this was more than just on one or two occasions.

Police, by simply being a “Peace Officer” as defined by the Criminal Code of Canada are often thought of as infallible and beyond reproach.

The roads in British Columbia are governed by the B.C. Motor Vehicle Act.

One would think that the police in this province would know the motor vehicle act like the back of their hand. But they don’t. And honestly they don’t care.

I find that the civilian police operate much the same as the military police.

“BLAME THE VICTIM”.

It’s just much easier that way.

Today I was on my way to get a bit to eat when I had a police officer in a cruiser no less, tell me that my scooter wasn’t a vehicle and that I shouldn’t be on the street.

No wonder alternate modes of transportation have never taken off in this city like they should. This place has year round cycling facilities that should make it second to none in the world, but Finland, Norway, and even Iceland have better year round cycling levels that Vancouver does.

With mis-informed police like this, no wonder no one in the city likes to ride on the city streets.

https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/96318_00_multi#part13

Bicycle riders, and via the pilot project in effect in the lower mainland, operators of e-scooters are required to operate their cycle following the same rules as car drivers.

https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/96318_00_multi#section165

Here is a link to the e-scooter pilot program.
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/transportation/transportation-environment/active-transportation/scooter/safety

Under the motor vehicle act, a bicycle operator and an e-scooter operator wishing to turn left at an intersection must do so from the right side of the lane closest to the centre line of the road.

The only other requirement for bicycles and e-scooters making left hand turns at intersections is that in the case of multiple left hand turn lanes, the bicycle or e-scooter operator must only use the right most left-hand turn lane.

This is what this would look like in the real world.

Marine Drive and Capilano Road in North Vancouver.

Bicycles and e-scooters are permitted to make left hand turns from the right most left hand turn lane and never from the centre left hand turn lane.

When making a left hand turn from a two way to a one way on is to turn from the lane to the right of the centre line and one is to guide their vehicle into the driving lane closest to the left hand side of the one way street. If there had been parked cars on the left hand side of Nelson street I would have turned into the second lane from the left hand curb.

Well, I present to you the BC MVA COP. A transit cop. A transit cop that probably lives in Abbotsford or Langley where killing bicycle riders is a team sport.

Yep, you’re not imagining things. He rolls down his window to announce “you’re not a vehicle, get off the road”.

Nope

Daily writing prompt

Can you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved?

View all responses

This one is a very simple question to answer.

Nowhere.

Seriously.

My father was a piss tank alcoholic with a metric shit ton of demons.

My grandmother was a piss tank alcoholic with her own metric shit ton of demons.

There was absolutely no love in my family.

Anything that resembled love was just an attempt at blackmail.

I know that it’s weird to think, but the only time that I think I will ever feel loved is when people stop forcing me to live.

The best way for people to show their love to me is to admit that not everything is fixable and that sometimes the best course of action is to end the suffering, the depression, and the anxiety.

Interesting…….

Did one of those DNA tests a while ago, and the results are interesting.

The “France” area doesn’t surprise me as my mother was dyed in the wool French from Quebec.

The Indigenous Americas doesn’t surprise me as my paternal grandmother was Swampy Cree from Northern Alberta.

What is interesting is the Scots. My father always told me and my brother that we were “mutts”, a mix of Irish, French, and Cree. He never said anything about Scottish. And it’s funny seeing that my DNA matches with more DNA samples from Indigenous Americas that it does with samples with Irish DNA.

So, what does this all mean?

Not a lot.

It’s just interesting though.