Kirk McKusick's Family and Friends

I enjoy swimming, scuba diving, and wine collecting. The wine is stored in a specially constructed wine cellar in the basement of the brown shingle cottage that I share with Eric Allman, my partner of 40-and-some-odd years. While our legal wedding was in October 2013, we celebrate our anniversary on May 18th on which we had ceremonies in 1979 (signed apartment lease together), 1986 (signed house purchase together), 1993 (City of Berkeley domestic partner registration), 2000 (California domestic partner registration), and 2014 (fully recognized marriage). You can learn more about Eric on his web page.

It was difficult for gay males to have their own kids when we were at an age that we wanted to do so. We adapted to that challenge by helping a few of our friends to raise their kids. This approach worked well from our perspective, because we were guaranteed to have kids whom we liked (and who liked us) - plus we always had their parents to fall back on to deal with the difficult child-rearing issues.

We have four sons the eldest three of whom are shown here. All but Ben are shown with me here. Our four sons are:

We were interviewed, in 2001 by a (now defunct) group that provided resources to gay teenagers. The interview touches on the issues of being involved in raising kids and in the effect of being openly gay in our work places.

I grew up in Wilmington, Delaware. My father lived there until his death in January 2005. My mother died when I was 21; my father later remarried to Ginny and following her death to Emily. I have one brother, Jim, who retired from being dean of the Honor's College at the University of Missouri Kansas City. I also have one sister, Kate, who retired from being Director of Scientific Software at Vir. The company is a small startup based in South San Francisco working on diagnostics for Rheumatoid Arthritis and other autoimmune diseases. Here is a picture of my brother, father, sister, and me on a wintery day in Wilmington, Delaware.

The church across the street from us has decided to replace their parking lot and 90-year old parish apartment building with a complex with 35 affordable units for seniors. The first step of the construction was to demolish the old building and rip up the parking lot. This video chronicles the three days that it took to accomplish the demolition.

In October 2018 I recorded a history lecture on the history of the Berkeley Hillside Club:

On June 11-22, 2018 Glyn and I made a diving trip to Palau:

Glyn and I composed many songs while travelling. Here is a rendition of one titled ``Old Halls Creek'':

And here is one that explains Waltzing Matilda:

Here is a presentation that Glyn and I did at Hackers 2007.

In 2004, I flew to the Mojave Airport to witness the second of two flights of Spaceship I into space to win the $10,000,000 X-Prize. See the pictures here.

In 1997, I organized a Grand Canyon trip with nineteen of my friends.