Adventures with the QuizMan

In an earlier blog, I mentioned my telephone call from Dick Bartley. I matched wits with the QuizMan. You, too, can as well. Visit dickbartley.com and try your luck.

Click the link to hear the actual broadcast sample that I heard this morning.

Houston Escapade

Skillet Meals: Quick and Good!

I enjoy reading cookbooks. I like the meal ideas and the fantasy that I might actually cook one of the recipes. I don't anymore. FMS has curtailed my gustatory adventures. A Flash in the Pan is a neat little book. It reminds me of some of those cooking with 5 or 3 or whatever ingredients or less books or those great meals in 30 or 20 minutes or less books. The ideas are at times elegant, at times practical, but always easy to prepare. Many cuisines are represented: Spanish, Thai, Mexican, American Southern, Italian, Moroccan, French, Provencal, New England, and more. The book is in Braille, BR 15255 which I like because I can skim thru it quickly. Get that skillet out and enjoy!

Technology: Breaking in a new Braille note-taker

Am I the only person who gets so used to one kind of technology that I despair of learning newer and differently designed models with newer software? Wouldn't you like to sit in on the design meetings for some of these products and software? Click the link and hear my adventures or non-adventures with a notetaker.

Traffic fatalities and the blind: I speak for Brandy Prince--or try to

Blind pedestrians are injured in traffic accidents, even killed. The sighted people causing the accidents often get very little punishment. See the blog item from a recent issue of The Braille Forum produced by acb.org

Tune in August 17 and September 21 for calls relating to social security and digital media respectively.

Call (866) 633-8638. The ID for these conference call meetings is 53878255. Calls begin promptly at 6:30 p.m. Pacific time (9:30 p.m. Eastern).

Conference calls

Give Me a Break review: Part III

Give Me a Break review: Part II

Give Me a Break: Book review--Part I

I found this book provocative. I agreed with John Stossel's points on many subjects. I think terminally ill people should have the option to use experimental drugs provided their physician agrees and they sign a waiver releasing Big Pharma from liability. (Perhaps, more integrative medicine may help provide other treatment options for us all?) I agree that telephone service improved markedly after Ma Bell got dismembered. I agree that consenting adults should be able to do with what and to which and to whom providing it does not involve any minors. Legalized prostitution in places other than most of Nevada might be an excellent source of tax revenue?

I do not support euthanasia because I don't want some doctor offing me or deciding the disabled don't need to be around as we take up too many resources. Glad Beethoven, deaf in his later years; J. S. Bach, blind in his later years; Julius Caesar, epileptic; aren't around now! While I can see the medical necessity of abortion, I think it should be a last-resort. Birth-control AND abstinence should be considered first--even adoption, open or otherwise. I was disappointed to hear that organic farming can be bacteriologically harmful if fertilizer (i.e.) bovine manure is not processed correctly.

I do not have Stossel's faith in the market place's ability to regulate itself. Being blind and at the mercy of the economy of scale or lack thereof, I cringe when I have to buy something like a treadmill, a jam box, or computer. I need adaptations that may not exist (despite the universal design people) or if they do as in text-to-speech software can be extremely costly esp. to one on a miniscule monthly government assistance. Do we really need billionaires? Was it their skill alone that made them this rich??? Curious minds want to know!

Stossel did not mention the hydrogen economy of the future. Hmmm. He did suggest that some medical sources doubt the existence of fibromyalgia. (I must humbly beg to differ with these students of Hippocrates. I was disgusted at the uses to which the ADA was put by people who claimed spurious disabilities. I think Stossels makes a valid point when he suggests loser-pays-all and even loser's lawyer pays some might be a deterrent to America's sue happy craze. I also agreed that the sports stadium thing is a scam. Wish I could scam on the mega-level and then convince myself that I was not really scamming but was helping everyone in my city make a buck while I made a few nickels, too.

Click on my three-part commentary to learn more.

Lafayette bulks up with fiber

Hooray! Advocates of a citywide fiber-optic network have won in Lafayette, LA, David Faucheux's town, and you can read more in the main TeleRead blog.

Net tools: Bookkeys and blog carnivals

You learn something new everyday as the old bromide goes. I learned about bookkeys, and web favorites and even what a blog carnival is.

God: Who is She, and what is His role in existence?

Hear about a book I just read. It might change your life.

Buyer beware

You've heard the commercials on TV and radio; even seen them via email. If something is too good to be true, then it's not. Have you, my loyal readers, ever responded to the siren's call of one of these ads?

'Blind to his own good works'

Here's part of Blind to his own good works, a beautifully written story by Amy Starke in the Oregonian (warning: the link may soon vanish):

Larry VanWyngarden believed his blind clients could accomplish just about anything.

Larry was the most exuberant employee the Oregon Commission for the Blind ever had. He made sure his clients got out into the community rather than sitting at home.

He took blind people on tandem bike rides to the San Juan Islands. He took them cross country skiing, crabbing at the coast, white-water rafting. Then four years ago, he started a dragon boat team so blind people could become more confident about themselves and about life.

His pocket calendar was jammed with times, dates, people, things he was going to do. Larry was dogged for much of his own life with both profound and minor depression. He found staying busy could stave off the black cloud.

He routinely worked until 9 p.m. He moonlighted. If you passed by the office on a weekend, he'd be working. He helped blind clients move, or gave them rides home even if they lived 50 miles away. He helped a single mother of a blind child buy shoes. Just call Larry; he'd say yes. He was always running late. He couldn't fit it all in, and the work didn't seem to ever tire him.

Work had always helped pull him out of depression. Retiring last fall, due to changes in PERS, was the worst thing he ever did. His life spiraled downhill and he was never able to crawl back up. He took his own life on May 23, 2005, at age 58.

The good news is that he is both well-remembered and well-missed:

This year, [members of a blind dragon boat teams]dedicated their Rose Festival races to Larry. On June 12, the first team, Blind Ambition, won a silver medal. Several members qualified for the world championships in Germany. When they beat 40 other teams with a time of 2:52.36, they could clearly see how far they had come.

David Faucheux heard from Ms. Starke, when he inquired about a permanent link, and here's part of what she wrote:

I'm always pleased to see how far afield my stories go...

I think that Larry's bipolar was far beyond the scope of a drug like Lexapro to handle--he actually took lithium and that class of meds. But in my experience as a feature obituary writer, bipolar is a very difficult illness to treat, and it often ends in suicide. It is too bad.

It is an ironic twist that thanks to the manic side of his illness, he helped a lot of people get adventures they might never otherwise have had. And being on a dragonboat team really helped a lot of his clients, who were newly blind, climb out of a bit of depression themselves.

Glad you are reading our life stories--I was pleased to hear from a blind person last week who uses JAWS software to read OregonLive. I had never heard of that kind of software; I learn something new every day.

Automatic Millionaire: A book review

As readers/listeners of this audio blog have come to realize, I enjoy books. During the past week I read/heard several interesting books. Blue Plate Specials and Blue Ribbon Chefs by Michael and Jane Stern, Talon of the Silver Hawk by Raymond Feist, The Last Waltz by Nancy Zaroulis, Fish! Tales by Stephen Lundin, and The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach. Check out the audio to see which one got the review.

Blind-oriented chat site

VIP Conduite, Inc. has created a new audio chat site for the blind.

Taxis, Part II

Taxis and the blind

Blind people must surely be more aware of taxis than the average Joe. We use them as a sort of everycar. You can learn a little about the internation taxi services of Londan.

Several cities--an e-friend in Milwaukee mentioned this to me--supply vouchers for blind and disabled people who cannot afford to use cabs regularly.

In Lafayette, Louisiana, each time I use the paratransit van is said to cost roughly $15. I wish I could have that $15 or even only $10 to spend as I wished.

Others might argue that where high quality mass-transit exists, we all should use it. Of course, the purveyors of the bus system in Lafayette would need to undergo some major sensitivity training--which wouldn't hurt the taxi drivers either. I am informed that in metropolitan areas using subways, conditions vary.

Washington, D.C. has an outstanding system with adequate tactile arnings for blind users approaching the edges of platforms. In New York City and Boston, some blind commuters become seriously injured or even die because of inadequate safety precautions.

This issue was debated, if memory serves, by several major consumer groups of and for the blind. The arguments were, on the one hand, that sighted people have environmental safeguards, colored lines, lighted markers, to assist them; and, on the other, proper cane technique or a properly trained service animal should be sufficient to insure a commuter's safety. This argument became rather heated in the mid 90s when Washington, D.C. was considering installing tactile markers for blind subway users at a rather significant cost.

In my opinion, anything I can have to make me feel safe, is fine with me. If sighted people think this means that I am "a helpless, dependent, complaining, hand-out-grabber"--well, tough titty!