Officially disguised as a Canadian
I picked a new theme for this site, moved it over to WPEngine because I’m tired of managing WordPress sites and I couldn’t find a good enough static site generator that handled comments in a reasonable way. I’m also worried about COVID-19, but not in a panicky sort of way. It’s more a worry aboutContinue reading A new theme
I will be stepping back from a number of things in 2020, for personal reasons. I am still attending SQL Saturday Victoria, the MVP Summit, and SQLBits, plus I have the Calgary PASS user group to run, but I have yet to decide on PASS Summit. I love the SQL Server community and I’ve lovedContinue reading Some personal news
When I was born, the doctors, nurses, even my own family, assigned me as male. As I grew older, I came to realise (at around 18 years old) that I was not in fact a man. It took another couple decades to understand what this meant because I’m also slow. Here’s a list which mayContinue reading Gender-neutral terminology
Today, Jo removed all doubt. Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill If you need to understand why this is bad, readContinue reading JK Rowling is anti-trans
What you’re about to read is the story of the second worst day of my life (my father’s death was the worst). I have waited almost thirty years to tell it, and consider it my greatest shame. I am sharing it for two reasons. Firstly, I’ve needed to get this weight off my shoulders forContinue reading This whole post is a giant trigger warning
In 1987, a new file format was released by CompuServe, the Graphics Interchange Format, or GIF for short. While the format has been surpassed by better compression algorithms with no loss in quality (for example, PNG), GIF files made a comeback because they support animation. Animated GIFs are the bread and butter of modern informalContinue reading Gender pronouns and the pronunciation of the word “GIF”
On 19 June 2018, I wrote on Twitter that I was available for hire. https://twitter.com/_randolph_west/status/1009234713167347713 The economy in Calgary, where we live, was going through a slump. My regular customers in the energy sector weren’t doing the consultant thing, and I was not busy. I even considered going back to full-time employment, as long asContinue reading Thank you from the bottom of my heart
One thing I’ve been saying for many years, even as a young twink, was that if you have any questions about queer stuff, just ask. I’ve answered a lot of questions over the years, and wrote about some of them in a chapter in a book last year. Increasingly I’m finding myself answering questions onContinue reading Just ask
His nickname was Peanut, and that night, in the rain, I feared for my life while an 18-year-old boy tried to assert his masculinity over me by threatening to kill me. I was a year older than him (on account of spending a year at another college before transferring), and I remember thinking that IContinue reading I’m going to rip your heart out
(This post contains profanity.) Speaking of time in fractions of a century seems more dramatic than just saying “twenty-five years”. It’s been a quarter of a century since the last Father’s Day I celebrated. In ten days from now, my father will have been dead for a quarter of a century. About a year agoContinue reading Twenty-five years