Obituary of Adam Douglas CONRAD

September 16, 1977 – Calgary, Alberta
January 26, 2021 – Calgary, Alberta

Adam Conrad (a.k.a. Infinity, a.k.a. Tsenjin the Immortal) of Calgary, Alberta, Canada passed away after a long battle with cancer on Tuesday, January 26, 2021 at the age of 43 years.

Adam was born in Calgary on September 16, 1977 to loving parents, Douglas and Wendy Conrad. His brother, Chad, was disappointed that he was a boy, because he was afraid he might have to share his toys. He got over it.

As a child, Adam was happy and energetic, and enjoyed gymnastics and outdoor activities. In his early youth, he was proud to earn the Chief Scout’s Award.

Adam was a popular child—especially with the girls—and had a natural gift of making other people around him comfortable. Even when he became a jaded adult, many others still described him as a loyal friend and one of the deepest, kindest people they knew.

From the first time he drove a car until shortly before his death, Adam loved to drive them hard and fast, going through numerous clutches in his life, along with a few suspensions, much to the consternation of his father, who may have had something of a similar history in his youth.

Almost from the time the Conrad family bought its first serious PC in the early 1990s—since before the internet as most people know it even existed—Adam (“Infinity”) lived almost his entire life online, at first by dialing directly into bulletin board systems (BBSs) with a slow modem. A number of people who consider Adam to be among their closest friends to this day are from the BBS era.

Adam eventually discovered World of Warcraft (WoW), a game world in which he was known as Tsenjin the Immortal, and in which he formed many other enduring and very real friendships. Adam told one friend that they spent more time together hanging out in Discord and playing WoW than they spent with literally anyone else on the planet.

For Adam, computers were an all-consuming hobby that became his vocation and profession in the most serious senses of the words. He embraced the open-source software movement and became an important contributor to Debian (a free operating system) and an advocate of the free software movement. This eventually led to a successful career with Canonical Ltd. working on the Ubuntu operating system that powers a significant portion of the internet. This career took him all over the world, to developer conferences and Canonical meetings, where he got to meet some of the wonderful people he knew mostly online. At Canonical, among other accomplishments, Adam was instrumental in creating and running the machinery that reliably churns out new Ubuntu releases year after year. According to a former Canonical CEO, the work Adam performed there “has had a huge impact on millions of people.”

He was passionate about his work and insisted on doing things perfectly. That was true whether it was his professional work or whether he was doing something else, like helping Dad lay tile for the longest home renovation project in history.

Adam was smart. Like, scary smart. He made leaps to answers and couldn’t always see why the rest of us couldn’t see what he could see. As one of Adam’s friends noted, “the world is a dumber place without him.”

However, being exceptional also led to Adam being bullied in childhood and adolescence, which likely is part of what drove him to find friends in the online world instead. Bullying is probably what also transformed Adam from the happy, lighthearted child his father remembers, to the darker cynical man most people got to know.

Adam eschewed convention. Whether it was the conservative religious norms of his family, or the societal expectation that he wear a suit to court for his brother’s bar call, Adam didn’t see the point of doing something just because other people did so or thought he should. This was another great benefit of living online, where he could find like-minded people to appreciate him for who he was. In the words of that great Frank Sinatra song, Adam did it his way.

Adam loved to help other people who were having trouble finding their way in the world, whether it was forgivable loans, a place to crash in another city, or just providing a listening ear. Several people shared stories of how Adam helped to transform their lives for the better.

Adam has been described variously as brilliant, intelligent, one of the smartest people they’ve met, a character, one of a kind, a great tank and a cool guy, sarcastic and crusty, sarcastic and cynical, evilly sarcastic, a cynical asshole, acerbic, funny and snarky, hilarious, flippant, a smartass, and brutally honest, but also gracious and sensitive, compassionate and caring, and quick with a supportive comment.

In summary, according to a friend, Adam was “a beautifully crusty man, who put off such a gruff exterior, but was definitely a softie on the inside. He was a man who would do anything for friends, and would give the world for cats.”

Ah, cats. As the tributes came in, nearly everyone mentioned cats. Adam’s mother, Wendy, also took great solace in cats; Adam, Wendy, and cats understood each other in a special way.

Adam is survived by his father, Douglas Conrad and his wife May Way; his brother Chadwick and his wife Melinda and their daughter Abigail; and Piglet (“Piggy”), the cat he shared with his parents; all of Calgary, Alberta; as well as by numerous cousins and friends.

Adam was predeceased by his mother, Wendy; and Bob Dole (“Bobby”), the other cat they shared in recent years.

We are grateful to the many physicians, nurses and other caring and dedicated health care professionals who tried to cure Adam and who provided as much relief as they could in the final six months when they knew they could not, especially Drs. Jenkins, Shafey, and Peloquin, and nurse Joy.

We are also grateful to Adam’s amazing employer, Canonical, and to the many friends who have reached out to share what Adam meant to them. May he long be remembered.

An informal online memorial will be held on Saturday, January 30, 2021 at 10:00 a.m. Calgary time (17:00 UTC). To receive the information necessary to join the meeting, please send an email to estate_of_adam_conrad@shaw.ca and indicate how you knew Adam.

Condolences, memories and photos may be shared and viewed on Adam’s obituary at www.McInnisandHolloway.com.

In living memory of Adam Conrad, a tree will be planted in the Ann & Sandy Cross Conservation Area by McInnis & Holloway Funeral Homes, Park Memorial, 5008 Elbow Drive SW, Calgary, AB T2S 2L5, Telephone: 403-243-8200.