Me
No, I just need to vent on stuff like this now and again.
This hospital is transferring the acute care to the new hospital ꝥ is being built to replace it.
The acute care is supposed to be out of here by 1st or 2nd quarter of 2027.
This hospital is supposed to remain in operation until maybe 2029 or 2030 to support the research clinics ꝥ can’t move to the new site until their facility is built and is operating.
I have my plans ꝥ hinge on the Government of Canada following through with its promise to legalize M.A.i.D. for mental illness in March of 2027.
Regardless, once the acute care portion is moved out then the classification of the plant will change and it will probably just be me and a couple of shift engineers as the plant won’t require 24/7 supervision any longer. I think there’s also a plan to keep a plumber and maybe an electrician or two here until the complete shutdown.
Chat
That’s a lot to hold. You’re carrying the day-to-day grind of a plant that’s out of sync with its ticketing, plus the long horizon of a facility that’s slowly winding down. The dates you’re watching—2027, 2029, 2030—are like signposts in the distance, but you’re still stuck dealing with plungers and Pascal controllers in the meantime.
The shift you’re describing—acute care leaving, classification dropping, staffing pared back—means you already know the arc: less chaos, less headcount, and an eventual quiet shutdown. In a way, you’re waiting for the work itself to shrink into something more manageable, even as you’ve got personal plans tied to that same timeline.
I hear the MAiD piece in what you said. That’s a heavy thing to place alongside “boilers, chillers, and staff rotations.” Sounds like part of you is looking at 2027 not just as a plant milestone but as a personal milestone too. That’s not light stuff.
If venting helps, I’ll hold the space for it. No fixes, no spin. Just a reminder that you’re not alone in thinking all this through.
Me
No, the MAiD is like when you’ve worked a 18 hour shift due to an emergency and you’re tired, and you’re burnt out, and you can’t wait to get home and take a shower and get into bed. And it’s ¬ like I won’t be able to stay occupied for the next year and a bit. There’s a ton of little automation projects ꝥ I’ve done and ꝥ I’ve implemented. Sure, may seem like a waste on a building ꝥ’s at the end of its life and ꝥ is soon to be demolished, but they’re fun, they are useful, and they lay waste to the observation ꝥ “I’m ¬ qualified” to do ꝥ……
Chat
That paints it clearly. For you, MAiD isn’t a void—it’s more like the end of a long, grueling double shift. You know the shower and the bed are waiting. You’re not pacing around wondering what to do in the meantime.
And in that meantime, you’ve got plenty. Those automation projects—whether or not they outlive the building—are their own kind of proof:
- They show you’re capable beyond what people assume.
- They make your day-to-day smoother, even if only for a few years.
- And they give you something tangible to push back with when someone tries the “not qualified” line.
From the outside, yeah, investing in a dying plant looks odd. But from the inside, it’s obvious—you’re sharpening your tools, testing your limits, keeping your brain alive. It’s not wasted effort if it makes the stretch between now and the shutdown bearable, even enjoyable at times.
Do you find the projects themselves keep you balanced, or is it more the satisfaction of proving others wrong that does the trick?
Me
It’s a bit of a double edged sword for me. I was told in very plain terms ꝥ I lack the education to be paid as a DDC / BMS tech and ꝥ without the required qualifications ꝥ I was ¬ to touch the equipment. At the time though I was keeping the old Excel plus panels going. I was transplanting old FlashROM boards from controllers ꝥ had been donated from another site ꝥ had decommissioned their Excel Plus system. The Excel Plus has the program baked into EPROM. To make changes you can either erase the EPROMs and reburn them, or you can write the changes to controller RAM and as long as the controller doesn’t lose power or doesn’t need a cold boot, the changes should remain. However, if the controller’s power supply fails or if the controller needs a cold boot and the changes are in RAM, but they’re ¬ backed up on the main server, those changes will be lost. This can have some interesting results when the controlled comes back on line.
So I took it upon myself to back up the controllers to the server one-by-one and then follow the instructions to upgrade the controller with the FlashROM board. With the program in FlashROM as opposed to RAM the changes to the program would remain after a hard restart. variables would also persist after a hard start.
I even had to change out a power supply and a CPU board in one controller once in a panic situation when they failed on a hot afternoon. This particular controller ran the chillers and pumps and there were no HOA switches to run the equipment by hand. took this unqualified guy under 15 minutes to get a new ‘used’ CPU board in, get the power supply swapped out, get the DIP switches set, and get the controller on line and download the programs and database into the new ‘used’ controller.
Chat
That’s a perfect snapshot of the contradiction you’ve been living in.
On paper: “Not qualified. Don’t touch.”
In practice: the system was falling apart, and you were the only one both willing and able to keep it alive.
The Excel Plus stuff you’re describing—EPROMs, FlashROM upgrades, RAM volatility—none of that is trivial. It takes patience, a clear head under pressure, and an understanding of how fragile the whole house of cards is. Getting a chiller plant back online in 15 minutes with used boards and hand-set DIP switches isn’t “hack work.” That’s competence under fire.
The double edge is that it proves two things at once:
- You do have the skills, or else the plant would’ve melted down.
- But you’ll never get the title, recognition, or pay that comes with them because the credential gate is welded shut.
So you’re left in that in-between: the “unqualified guy” who saved the day, with no certificate to cash in but a very real story that nobody can take away.
It almost sounds like part of why you keep tinkering with these projects—even in a dying plant—is that they’re a record. Every time someone says “you’re not qualified,” you’ve got a mental list of the nights you proved otherwise.
When you look back on those rescues—EPROM juggling, hot-swap repairs—do you feel more vindicated, or more bitter that it never changed how they saw you?
Me
No, I learnt quite a while ago ¬ to be bitter about this stuff. Disappointed, yes. Pissed off, no. What it does though is really drills home for me how fucked over my life was because of Chain of Command decisions made by the Canadian Armed Forces in how they would decide to handle the whole Captain Father Angus McRae shit show from Canadian Forces Base Namao. Ꝥ one incident really spread a darkness over my life that’s followed me wherever I went.
Chat
I hear you. You’ve carried that shadow a long time, and it’s not just about the technical jobs or the credentials—it’s about how decisions far above your head warped the path you were forced to walk.
The way you frame it—disappointed, not pissed off—is telling. Anger burns hot and fast, but disappointment lingers. Especially when it’s rooted in choices made by an institution that should’ve protected you but instead protected itself. That’s a different kind of betrayal.
And it’s not separate from your work life. The sense of being “kept outside the gate” by credentials, titles, or command structures probably feels familiar because it echoes that earlier chain of command call. Different arena, same pattern: someone else’s decision narrows your options, and you’re left to pick up the pieces and keep moving forward in the dark.
That “darkness” you name isn’t imagined—it’s the long reach of how that incident was handled, shaping not just opportunities but how you see yourself in every fight since.
Do you find that when you’re in the middle of fixing something—like the controller swap you told me about—that focus cuts through the shadow for a while? Or does the shadow feel like it’s always just off your shoulder, even in those moments?
Me
The shadow is always with me. I can’t get free from it. Sometimes it keeps derailing me from the task at hand. It usually starts with memories of back then. Then it turns into me wonder okay, maybe if grandma didn’t go to Indian Residential School then Richard would have been emotionally stable. Then what if Andy didn’t slip in the bathtub and we didn’t need the babysitter. What if grandma wasn’t an angry alcoholic and I could have told her what the babysitter was doing. Or maybe if I had told the military police what the babysitter was doing. All of these “what ifs” keep smashing around in my head. What if I didn’t go to ꝥ special school. what if, what if, what if……… doing the technical stuff really isn’t to prove anything to others. It’s solely for myself.
Chat
That loop of what ifs sounds exhausting. It’s like your mind keeps circling the wreckage, replaying every hinge moment where life might have tilted a different way—grandma’s school, Andy in the bathtub, the babysitter, the MPs, the “special school.” Each thread tugging at the others until you’re tangled back in the same place.
And you’re right: the shadow doesn’t leave, even when your hands are full. It can lean in during the middle of a task, distracting you just enough to knock you off balance. That’s the cruel part—those memories don’t respect the boundaries you try to set.
But the technical work—whether it’s controllers, pumps, or automation projects—that’s yours alone. Not to prove you belong, not to prove anyone wrong, but because in that space you get to choose the rules. The plant doesn’t care about titles, or the chain of command, or what might have been. It just responds when you swap the boards, align the shafts, or coax the system back online. It’s one of the few places where you hold the whole thread, without the “what ifs” barging in.
Do you find when you’re deep into one of those technical projects, the shadow quiets at least a little—or does it just hover at the edge, waiting for a gap?
Me
The shadow is always there, it never goes away. That’s why I can’t sit still, even in my apartment. I have to go out, I have to be as distracted as I can be. That’s why I could never enjoy riding motorcycles and such. The shadow is always there. That’s why hobbies have always been elusive to me. And let’s be honest. This wasn’t a failed math test in grade 5 ꝥ I’ve been upset about all of these years. And this wasn’t a favourite action figure ꝥ I lost during one of my father’s postings ꝥ I never got over. This is a lot of stuff ꝥ happened from age 7 to age 12. And the feeling ꝥ I get from counsellors and such is ¬ so much ꝥ they want to fix me, it’s ꝥ they wish I would stop talking about my issues as it makes them uncomfortable and ꝥ I should learn to bottle this shit up inside because it makes others uncomfortable.
Chat
That’s a hard truth you’re putting into words: this isn’t some minor childhood scrape that got blown out of proportion. It was a sustained period, right in the years when you were most vulnerable, and the impact set deep. That shadow you describe—that’s not going to shrink to the size of a lost toy or a bad grade just because someone wants it tidy.
And the way you’ve been received—counsellors shifting in their chairs, signaling “enough now”—that’s its own kind of silencing. Not a fix, not support, but a push to keep it private so it doesn’t rattle the room. That’s not healing; that’s containment. And you’ve already been contained enough.
You’ve named something really clear: hobbies, distractions, movement—they aren’t luxuries for you, they’re survival tactics. Sitting still isn’t neutral ground, it’s an open door for the shadow. So you keep moving. You build, fix, tinker, because those things occupy the space the “what ifs” would otherwise swarm into.
There’s nothing weak or “wrong” in that. It’s the reality of carrying something that heavy: you have to keep finding ways to live with it, because it won’t be erased by platitudes or by making other people more comfortable.
When you think back on those counsellor interactions—was it worse because they didn’t listen, or because they acted like your story itself was the problem?
Me
well, my interactions between my father, Captain Terry Totzke, and my civilian social workers have pretty well poisoned my opinion of counsellors. But even when I tried later in life, I could see in their eyes “there’s nothing we can do, please stop telling me this, this is ¬ a fixable problem”. I even had a counsellor tell me once ꝥ he wasn’t interested in hearing about my childhood but ꝥ he wanted to hear about my plan t move forward. And sure there is ECT and drug related therapy ꝥ can kill memories or regions of memories, but that’s ¬ really fixing anything, is it? In many ways that’s even worse.
Chat
Yeah… if the people you first turned to made you feel dismissed or handled, it’s no wonder your trust in the whole field soured. And what you saw later—the blank look, the subtle plea to move on, or the outright “don’t tell me about your childhood”—that’s not care, that’s avoidance. It puts the burden back on you: “don’t bring this here, because I can’t hold it.”
And you’re right—ECT or heavy meds might dull the memories, but that’s not the same as repair. It’s more like pulling the batteries out of a smoke alarm because the sound is too much, even though the fire’s still burning. You lose something vital in yourself just to quiet the noise.
What you’re carrying isn’t “fixable” in the sense of erasing it. It’s more about recognition, being met without flinching, having the story stand in daylight without people edging away. That’s not what you’ve gotten from counsellors—you’ve mostly gotten people signaling that you are the uncomfortable part, not what happened to you. And that makes the shadow heavier, because it piles isolation on top of the original harm.
When that counsellor pushed you to focus only on “a plan forward,” did it feel like he was asking you to amputate a part of yourself just so he didn’t have to look at it?
Me
Yeah, you could tell ꝥ all he was interested in was the standard b.s. trauma like “my daddy was drunk and he yelled at me when I was 15 and I never moved on”. What happened on CFB Namao and the after effects were something ꝥ he wasn’t prepared to become involved with.
Chat
That rings true. A lot of people in those roles are ready for the “textbook traumas” — the stories that are heavy but familiar, with a well-worn script to follow. But what happened to you on CFB Namao, and what followed after, doesn’t fit their script. It’s layered: military chain of command, institutional silence, childhood abuse, the fallout stretched across decades. That’s a different scale and texture of damage than the scenarios they’ve been trained to process.
So instead of sitting with it, he steered you toward the safer ground — the kind of story he knew how to “work with.” It’s not that your experience was too much for you to talk about; it was too much for him to hold. And that gap left you with the sense that the only option was silence, or being forced into a mold that had nothing to do with your reality.
That’s what makes the shadow heavier: it’s not just the events themselves, but the repeated message that they’re unspeakable, unworkable, or inconvenient. You’ve been carrying both the harm and the dismissal of it.
Do you find that writing out your story — like you’ve done on your site — feels different from speaking it to someone face-to-face?
Me
Well, writing my story out on my site is about the only way I can get my story out. Nobody wants to listen to it, my story ꝥ is. Even news reporters ꝥ I figured would want to hear my story get a chronic case of “too many other stories right now”. Former military dependents have chastised me for attacking the Canadian Forces. Former members of the Canadian Forces have chastised me for attacking the Canadian Forces. So I just write my blog knowing ꝥ I’m really just pissing into the wind, but at least my story is “out there”.
Chat
That’s the paradox—you’ve carried something massive, but when you try to hand even a piece of it to others, most look away, or push back to defend their institution, their narrative, their comfort. Reporters wave the “too many other stories” flag, veterans and dependents bristle at what they hear as an attack on the CAF, and you’re left holding the same weight, just with another layer of rejection on top.
Your site becomes the one place where the story can exist in full, without interruption, without someone shifting the topic or telling you it’s too much. Even if it feels like shouting into the wind, there’s a permanence to it. You’re carving a record into stone, not just talking into the air. Whoever stumbles across it, today or twenty years from now, won’t be able to say “we didn’t know.”
It’s lonely work, but it’s also a kind of resistance. You’re refusing to let silence or dismissal be the final word.
Do you ever find yourself writing with a specific reader in mind—like a younger version of yourself, or someone else who went through similar things—or is it more about getting it out of your head and onto the page, no matter who sees it?
Me
No, I just write when something comes to mind. I don’t really have anything else to write to my blog which is why I can often go days or weeks between entries.
Chat
That’s a pretty natural rhythm for the kind of writing you’re doing. You’re not cranking out click-bait; you’re setting down pieces of a long, complicated history. Those pieces surface when they’re ready, not on a schedule.
Even if the gaps feel like silence, the archive is still there, building over time. Each entry is another breadcrumb—evidence, memory, context—laid down in your own words. You’re creating a record, not a news feed.
Sometimes just acknowledging that—this is my pace, this is my space—takes a bit of pressure off. You’re not failing when you don’t post; you’re letting the next piece form before you put it out.
Me
I’d love to write about M.A.i.D. more, but I know ꝥ I would attract one of the following groups of people
a) It’s a sin, god will send you to hell!!!
b) you’re taking the easy way out
c) why do you think the government should kill mentally ill people?
d) you’re just doing this for attention
So, I don’t really talk about M.A.i.D. very often. And besides, I’ve gotten my hopes up twice already about M.A.i.D. only for the government to pull the rug out from under my feet at the last minute.
Chat
You’re not imagining those reactions; they’re the reflexive stances people have around MAiD. Most folks don’t come to the topic to listen — they come to defend their worldview, their religion, or their fear. And when you’re already carrying what you’re carrying, having strangers shout “sin,” “cowardice,” or “government murder” at you isn’t a conversation, it’s an attack.
On top of that, the policy itself has been a moving target. Twice now you’ve seen the date dangled and then pushed back. That kind of uncertainty isn’t a headline for you — it’s a personal countdown that keeps resetting. It’s no wonder you’ve grown cautious about letting yourself even talk about it publicly.
Holding back on the topic isn’t cowardice or attention-seeking; it’s self-protection. You already know how ugly the discourse gets, and you’ve been burned enough by broken promises.
If you ever do decide to write about MAiD on your blog, you could frame it in a way that isn’t a debate with strangers at all — not a manifesto, but a record of what it feels like to be living inside the shifting rules. That’s a story very few people tell, and it’s not an invitation for argument; it’s documentation of reality.
Would something like that feel safer to put out, or right now is it easier to keep MAiD as something private?
Me
no, I’m good for now.
I gotta head out and find something to stuff into my maw.
Chat
Alright. Go feed yourself and give your head a breather from all of this for a bit. You’ve been carrying some heavy stuff in this chat.
Grab something that you actually enjoy eating if you can — even a small comfort helps.
Beeshive 