Which Daniel MacKay is this, anyway?

I was born in 1963, of parents Earl and Heddy, in Shelburne, Nova Scotia during the total eclipse of the sun. We lived in Barrington Passage until 1974, then moved to Pinehurst, Lunenburg County.

I loathed New Germany Rural High School from '76 to '78, and was delighted and privileged to move to the newly opened Parkview Education Center outside of Bridgewater. I graduated from there in 1981.

I went to University of Kings College for a year, decided to do a BSc with a major in Computer Science at Dalhousie University, and from there the storyline gets a bit complicated. I came out in the gay community, met Norval, moved in with him a few months later, dropped out of university for a couple of years to work freelance, then finished my degree and got a pretty wonderful job with Dalhousie, building the Internet in Nova Scotia and Canada starting in 1989.

I was there, at Dal's Communications Services, a part of University Computing and Information Services (UCIS) until February 2003 working at the Network Operations Center as NOC Manager. Mostly I did administration of various Internet systems and managed a team of clever Internet geeks.

Precisely a year later, I was the first employee of the Barrington Consulting Group with the auspicious title Senior Technology Consultant until October 2013, doing big Internet and database projects.

And then, it was time for a career change. Since then, I've been installing and servicing renewable energy equipment - solar panels, wind turbines, offgrid homes, the works.

I'm active in the gay community in Halifax, with Wayves magazine, eleven times yearly and am one of the editors of the Halifax Rainbow Encyclopedia gay.hfxns.org and on Friday at suppertime I hang out with, and help run solar courses, publications, and events for Solar Nova Scotia.

You'll see me around town on my motorbike, a fire engine, candy-apple red, '96 Honda Pacific Coast.

My brothers G ar y & Michael Blades, are somewhere in the global village, and in Vancouver respectively.

Updated 12th December, 2011 daniel@bonmot.ca