Carin’s Guide Dog Diary: Day 4

Well, it’s 6:30 in the morning and I’m awake and thinking. Thinking about a lot of things. Today’s the day everything’s going to change. There’ll be no more getting up at 6, it’ll be earlier because the dogs have to be fed, watered and relieved by 6:30 which means I have to look half presentable when I go out to the relieving circle. This leash beside me will no longer be empty. A wild, somewhat devilish beast will be at the end of it. I’ve wanted this so bad, but I dread the beginning. I dread the leash burn. I dread the feeling of being exhausted from getting this dog to respect me. I’m afraid I’ll make the same mistakes all over again. I hope this new start will be more successful. Don’t get me wrong, I’m
excited, but my belly is a little flippy.

Damn it I think I’m getting a cold. My throat is slightly sore. Noooo! Well, if I do, I know where the nurse’s office is for some cold medication. Suck it, cold, you’re not going to keep me down.

Let’s check the class schedule. Did I tell you there’s a button on the phone you can press for the class schedule for the day? That is the coolest thing, cause I didn’t bring the big one they sent in the package. I was going to get Steve to email it down, but I don’t need to! I say again, um, wow. So, this morning is some more juneauing. In case I didn’t explain what Juneau is, it’s either an instructor at the end of a harness, or the instructor holding a roled up rug and you hook your leash onto it. Either way, it’s to simulate what a real dog will feel like, and you get to practice corrections on Juneau to your heart’s content and not feel guilty about hurting your puppy’s neck. Praising a rug is really odd. But now that we’re used to it, we’ll probably see a lot less of Juneau. So Juneau obedience and how to keep a well-behaved guide dog. Then it’s lunch which is shrimp creole or some kind of delly salad. No thanks! And dinner is this flank steak with noodles and peas or some kind of soup. They didn’t mention dessert. Hoo hoo hoo. I didn’t get my chocolate mousse damn it, I’ll have to make sure I get it next Tuesday. Then in the afternoon, we get told a few things and then…we get our puppy puppy puppy puppy! Eeee! Today is the day I get my new start, scary as it is. The first dinner is going to be real fun. Imagine 4 dogs at the table together. Shenanigans ahoy. And so it begins.

I was having a peek at the lectures last night, now that I figured out their weird little Victor Vybe players they lent us, at least they look like Victor Vybes. I think they’ve been through the war. The braille is all raggedy jaggedy and hard to read. But I got it going, so I guess that’s all that matters. They had these computer voices read the lectures. They sort of sound like the RealSpeak Solo voices for JAWS 8. I love how the first voice says dog. It sounds more like daawg. Y’all come back now, ya hear?

I saw David last night in the computer room. I’m so confused. He was being nice to me, which I don’t get. I’m just as much involved in this chat we had with the staff as Autumn is. He claims he skipped dinner because he didn’t like the dinner, and some stuff came up which he says he wants to tell me about tomorrow. Ok chief? I think I know what the stuff is. He still weirds me out. He’s like jeckle and hide.

There’s one thing I hate hate hate here, and it’s the showers! You turn on the hot water, and you get hit! Pinned! Against the wall by a jet of cold water. Coldcoldcold! Then once it’s warm, you barely get any cold water added to it and it’s coldcoldcold again! And they have liquid soap in the bathroom. A bar soap at our little sink, but liquid in the bathroom. No biggy, just weird. It’s almost breakfast time. I should comb my rat’s nest. I hope Autumn feels better, she wasn’t feeling well this morning, but she doesn’t want to see the nurse.

Carmen’s nickname might get changed to human pretzle because of all her yoga experience, but her back hurts today.

Interesting. In Ottawa, it was relieve, feed, relieve, but here, in the morning it’s feed, relieve, and in the afternoon it’s relieve, feed. Makes more logical sense. Now we’re in the music room, Juneau time.

I’m trying to help Carmen with her Victor Vybe. It’s hard to explain to someone who doesn’t read braille how to find the play button. I hope I can explain it.

We learned about the high collar correction. In extreme cases, you lift the collar up under the dog’s chin and then you go sideways with the leash as if you’re holding a baseball bat. Ah the baseball bat. It looks evil. They showed us on this stuffed dog that got corrected once so hard that it took off one of his ears! Wow! That’s one hell of a correction! Yikes. Then I did obedience and did really well. Yea! off to the lounge again.

I have a new nickname, twinkle tows or twinks.

Ug they’re teaching us about moving turns. Those are tricky. You have to slow down, make the turn, and if it’s a right then you have to make a step back, and if it’s a left, you make a step forward, and in either case, you say the word a couple times and signal accordingly. Eekers. This could be tricky.

It makes me laugh when Mike says something about earning dough ray me for money. So he’ll talk about earning your dough ray me. He’s a funny guy. I think I’ve explained who Mike is, right? He’s the class supervisor. The head honcho, even though Jen is the lead instructor.

Carmen knows someone who used to be on MacGyver. Wow, she used to be in show business too.

Poor Amy’s got her ankle iced again. At least my throat isn’t so sore. This is good.

That was a nasty Juneau walk. She veered into traffic to see what I’d do. You have to stop in the middle of the street and tell him to hop up. Stop in the middle of the street? God! Say goodbye to Juneau…well they’ll probably Juneau walk us through the obstacle course. Yep, every day when we go to the buses, we walk through an obstacle course. Ug I can’t remember where to turn. You have to do it all so fast!

The IT dude is fixing the computer in the downtown lounge! They’re fast! I love them….again! Everywhere else computers are the last thing on their minds. Much love to the IT dude.

Carmen keeps calling Mike Mikey.

That lunch was good. I ate it all, and a slice of pineapple upside down cake. Mm. Sweet. I got to talk to Barby. That was cool.

So now I’m sitting here waiting for lecture to begin. I left my cane in the room. I played taps for the cane. Har har. Frank, get here, you’re holding up the little lecture before I become the proud handler of a guide woofer.

Looks like we’re starting without Frank. They’re going to tell us all the names of our dogs, and then they’ll take us back to our rooms and then take us to meet our dogs! Then they take us back and we play with our dogs and then do heeling practice! My belly is woozy. They’ve already set out our doggy beds and dishes etc. Oh come on start giving us our dog names!

Finally, the names begin. Here they are. I get a female black lab and her name is Trixie! Crash gets a female yellow lab named Estelle. Carmen gets a female black lab named Val. Bernard gets a male yellow lab named Trusty. Jill gets a male yellow lab named Storm. Autumn gets a female yellow lab and her name is Beauty. Frank gets a male yellow lab named Anton. David gets a female black lab named Maylee. Amy gets a male black lab named dynamo. Al gets a female black lab named Bahia. Meredeth gets a male yellow lab named Sedgewick. These are the coolest dogs ever. I’m shaking. I can’t breathe. I hear footsteps.

I got my dog! She’s 55.5 pounds and 22 inches tall. What a cutey. Her Birthday is April 9. She’s got a lot of spunk. I had to show her how to heel. Not too much I certainly don’t have leash burn, but she was a wild beast.

We relieved, and at first, they pick it up for us. Wow I feel rusty. forgetting how to leash relieve. She went like a trooper. Both times. I don’t have to worry. This is so much better than the Ottawa way. They’re out there with you and they tell you if she went and what she did.

Gotta go to the dining hall now.

Well, Trixie’s full of tricks, but she’s not nearly Babs level. She likes to whine, so we’re working on that. I’m tired, but I have 0 leash burn. This is a step up. She likes Dynamo. That’s for sure. She through herself at him, so Amy says she’s a seductress.

We got her water and she drank like mad. And then she relieved again. Peed and the other. Wow, this dog’s got a lot of pee.

I managed to send off the emails. A few rejected recipients, but most of them I can let know another way. Did I mention how much she likes to
whine?

Poor Autumn’s getting sick. I’m worried about her. In other news, I feel like the sore throat is worse. Oh well, it’s nothing major.

Alright, crash time, not as in fall down go boom, but more like fall down and sleep like a log. Oh one last thing. Frank hates it when I say holy crap. He says it’s unbecoming of a young lady. Crap? I could be saying far worse. But whatever floats his boat, I guess.

Alrighty, gotta set the alarm earlier, gotta start taking puppy out to relieve, and tomorrow I have to strip my damn bed too. Ug of all the days to need to do that. Alright, queue the z’s.

Spammers And Bankers And Rage, Oh My!

So, how’s everybody today? Hopefully good. I’m doing ok. A little sluggish, but that’s alright, I’ll get over it eventually. Maybe writing might help get me going, so I figure that’s what I’ll do until I run out of things to talk about or get sidetracked by something else.

Everybody keeps asking me if I miss Carin yet and if it’s weird around the house without her here. The answers to those questions are yes and it’s getting there. I don’t mind being by myself, I used to live alone and for the most ppart it was a pretty good experience. I’m the type of person that enjoys my own company and doesn’t have much trouble staying amused, so not having other people around isn’t something that bothers me much. Where it gets weird is knowing that I don’t live alone and that the person I share my space and my life with isn’t just out for the afternoon or a day or 2, but for a whole month. Every routine I have is slightly different. For instance, when I sit down to have dinner and watch the news there’s nobody to talk about the day with, not to mention that I have to get used to cooking for just one person again. There are countless little things like that that I’m having to adjust to, and the funny thing is that by the time I get myself into that groove it’ll be time for Carin to come home and I’ll have to adjust all over again.

Speaking of Carin, I’m glad everybody seems to be enjoying her updates. She’s gotten a few nice emails and I’ve even gotten 1 or 2 thanking me for putting them up, so it’s nice to see that people are getting something out of them. Yesterday was officially dog day for her, but I’ll let her break that news on her own whenever the next update gets here. From what she says and what I’ve always heard, now is the time when things start really getting crazy, so if the updates aren’t as timely as they’ve been up to now, don’t be at all surprised.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about all of this talk from Jack Layton and the NDP about how unfair ATM fees are. He’s pretty much come right out and said that the charges banks force consumers to pay to access their own money is one of the top issues facing the Canadian public, and that we’re all up in arms about it. My question is a simple one. Is this guy serious? This is a top issue? We’re up in arms? All of us? Who is he talking to? I’ve never in my life heard a person complain about these things. Well ok, to be fair, a lot of people complain and rightfully so about the privatley owned machines in a lot of places that can charge whatever they want and usually do to an outrageous extent. Those things are evil and can burn in hell as far as I’m concerned, but the solution to that problem is easy. If you don’t want to pay a $5 surcharge to take out 20 bucks, don’t. If you have absolutely no choice and you need money at that exact moment then I feel bad for you, but otherwise, the fact that you’re getting gouged is your own problem until the government steps in and tells the people who own these things to knock it off.

But those aren’t even the machines that Layton is concerned about. The one’s he’s targeting are the ones owned by the big banks. He feels that there’s no need to levy what is essentially a convenience fee or what I’ve heard called a tax on the poor when a person uses a machine owned by one bank to take money out of an account at another. Again, simple question time. Why not? A system that allows me to use my Royal Bank card to get money out of a CIBC machine at 3 in the morning on a Sunday is definitely what I consider convenient, and I accept the fact that I need to pay for that. Nothing that easy is ever free, and this is no different. Keeping a network as large and sophisticated as that one running as well as it does can’t possibly be a cheap thing to pull off, and somebody somewhere has to foot the bill. Layton makes it seem as though people don’t have a choice about paying these fees, and that’s just not true. I’m sure that somebody somewhere doesn’t have a choice and again I feel bad for that person, but most of us have options. if the fees are more than you can handle, then don’t use other people’s machines. Wait for your bank to open, walk inside and stand in line like we had to do back in the good old days. I know that for some people a dollar or 2 can make a lot of difference, but that doesn’t change the fact that nothing pays for itself, and if we weren’t paying the buck at the machine, that same charge would be hidden somewhere else. Either way, we’re still paying for it, so we might as well pay at the pump so to speak.

But if you want to talk about taxes on the poor, then why not target the whole idea of service charges? Those things are a tax on the poor if I’ve ever seen one, especially that minimum balance bullshit they came up with. That’s ridiculous. by opening an account, you agree to always keep X number of dollars in it, and if you don’t, we’ll take more of your money away from you making it even harder for you to get back up to where we’d like you to be. How does that make any sense? The way I look at it, the more money you have, the bigger the favour the bank is doing you by looking after it and the more you should be paying them to do it. You’d think that a lot more time and energy would go into looking after thousands of dollars than would go into hanging onto a few hundred bucks that Jerry who works down at Subway managed to stash away somehow. It’s a bigger responsibility, much in the same way that watch my baby for the afternoon while I go out and do a few things is a bigger responsibility than hold my coke for a second while I find my glasses. You can charge by the hour for babysitting, but nobody ever gets tossed a 5 for hold this. Why should this be any different? Lay the charges on the people who can afford them, the ones with those high interest accounts with lots of money in them who need more attention. it just makes sense. You can say that money is money, but that’s not the way banks look at things. if you’re broke, they want nothing to do with you and for some reason they see fit to lay all of the charges on you. Why not look into regulating that attitude and forcing banks to charge the people who are using more resources the appropriate rates for them? it seems to me that would be a much better use of government’s time and energy than going after the machines.

I think spammers are starting to get a little bit desperate. I just got one that said “For God sake don’t pass this bye!” Hopefully that means business isn’t going so well.

I mentioned the other day that I saw something that got me very upset. I had a person ask me about it and I was thinking about posting it anyway, so here goes.

Some of you might have noticed little references here and there over the last few months to some family situations I’ve been going through. What happened was my dad and one of my grandmothers both had strokes about a month apart. My grandma is back at home and doing quite well now, but my dad wasn’t so lucky. He’s back home too, but he’s only got the use of one arm and one of his legs isn’t quite right either. he’s also not totally with it mentally because of some brain damage he suffered at the time.

Ok, now that you’re all caught up, here’s the story.

When I was visiting family a couple of weeks ago, my sister and I decided to pay him a visit to see how he was doing and chat with him for a little. While we were there, he went to the fridge and offered me a beer. It’s at this ppoint that I need to back up again and fill in an important detail. My dad has been an alcoholic for longer than I’ve been alive, and I’m just a few years away from being 30. So the fact that he had booze in his house was a bit of a concern considering that it was a major factor in why he’s in the shape he’s in now. I took him up on his offer figuring that he only had the couple that we saw in the fridge. I thought that if I drank one it would leave one less for him to play with, and hey, who am I to turn down free beer? In retrospect I really should have known better, because if experience has taught me anything over the years it’s that there’s no such thing as *a* beer where dad’s concerned. And sure enough, he asked my sister to go down and bring some more up from the basement. Yes, the basement. A steep flight of stairs. A steep flight of stairs that separates a partially paralyzed stroke victim with a drinking problem from the nectar of the gods. Gee, I don’t see what could possibly go wrong.

that by itself is bad enough, but you also have to take into consideration that dad is pretty much housebound at this point unless somebody takes him out. That means that somebody else is the cause of this. Some as yet unidentified asshole, probably one of his drinking buddies, thinks that they’re being helpful by getting cases of beer for the poor guy and hiding them downstairs so that people won’t find out. What kind of mental retardation does it take for that to seem in any way logical? You don’t have to answer that, it’s a rhetorical question. I know exactly what kind it takes because I spent my life growing up around it. But even though I’m used to it, it still hurts just a little bit each time I see it in action.

I hate to end things on such a down note, but I’m out of things to write about and I’m getting really really hungry. The joy and fun will return very soon though, so don’t you worry. Thanks for reading this all the way to the end if you made it that far. I’ll be back later.

Odd Combination Of Things Number 4

Before we get started, here’s a quick update/correction. The
story in Things Number 3
about the
drunk who said a unicorn was driving his car when he had his accident
turns out
not to be quite accurate.
There was no unicorn, just misunderstood slang that came out of communications from the prosecutor’s office. Apparently anybody who has a stupid excuse for what happened is said to be using the “unicorn defense.” This guy definitely qualifies, having told police in various statements that he had a broken left leg, panicked and had even fallen asleep before deciding to blame the incident on those damn woman drivers and pin the whole thing on his girlfriend. Not bad, but the unicorn thing makes for a much better story.

Ok, now let’s have some fun. Just remember that objects on the blog may be less online than they appear.

*Next time you commit a crime, forget trying to make any sort of spectacular escape from the scene. Seriously, take your time. Grab some booze, have a snack, catch a bus. hey, it worked for
this guy,
who the police still can’t find.

*
this
is an interesting look at 10 of the worst acts of hockey violence in history. I love the descriptive writing. CBC always does a great job on these retrospective type things.

*
This story about the Waitakere City Council in New Zealand taking itself to court for failing to get proper permits before moving 6 homes
almost didn’t make it here because it sounded too ridiculous to be true, but the large number of official looking press releases and court filings I found while looking it up combined with the fact that there are governmental elements at work here seem to back up it’s truthfulness.

*Elton John may be banned from performing on the island of Tobago in order to
protect residents from being turned gay.

*What in the world could be causing this explosive gas? Is it the Mexican food, or could it be
the golf ball-sized grenade I stuffed up my dumper
before they hauled me off to jail yesterday?

*
Valet Crashes Car Into Hospital, Hits Car’s Owner
And to top it all off, the owner of the car was an amputee in a wheelchair. The valet is now being charged with careless driving, which I’m not sure is fair considering that the car was built for use by a handicapped person and not laid out like a normal vehicle.

*It’s official, British governments are certifiably batshit nuts. the latest scheme, which comes from the Ealing town Council, will see small cameras installed in items such as cans of beans and building bricks to
help the government catch people who aren’t putting their garbage out when they’re supposed to.

*Good idea: Teaching your 9-year-old child about sex. Bad idea:
having it while she watches you in the hopes that she’ll figure it out.
The girl’s mother and her boyfriend were allowed to plead guilty and receive probation rather than jail time in order to spare the kid the pain of going through a long trial.

And to add one more strange element to the story, according to the Reuters article, the judge in the case was named Jeremiah Jeremiah Jr. that means that there has to have been a Jeremiah Jeremiah SR at some point, which is a frightening thought. Seriously, how many guys have you met in your life named Bob Bob? Probably none, because I’d like to think that most people wouldn’t do that to their child.

*
German man chainsaws house in two in divorce split
I honestly don’t understand why we don’t hear stories like this more often. It seems like something that should happen more than it does.

*
I think this guy might be just a little bit paranoid, how about you?

*It’s no wonder kids don’t want to participate in sports anymore, what with crazy parents like these who
karate kick small children for messing up during soccer games
and
throw their children’s wrestling opponents in the air because their kid is losing.
In the second case, the parent *was* one of the coaches.

*What the heck, le’ts go for the insane parent trifecta and throw in a story about 3 members of an Italian family, the father and grandfather among them, who
beat up a school principal
because they didn’t like the grades their kid was getting or the school’s new ban on cell phones.

I think that’s enough for today. As always, feel free to send things in, we like that sort of thing around here.

By the way, I’m glad that everybody has been enjoying Carin’s guide dog trip updates. there’s a new one right below this post for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.

I’ll be back with something later on, so I’ll talk to you then.

Carin’s Guide Dog Diary: Day 3

Grrr. There’s never enough time. Never! Last night, after I wrote that entry, I went to send it to the computer, but Autumn ran back to the room and said lock the door lock the door! So I did, apparently she was running from David! He’d ordered pizza, apparently he and Amy have hollow legs. Anyway, he called the pizza guy a spic, which pissed off everyone around him. This morning, if I can catch Autumn, we’re going to talk to the instructors about this David probem. We already spoke to him about having respect for our space and it got us exactly nowhere. Also, he was threatening to tackle Rain Man just for fun. There’s something wrong with that boy. I don’t want to live in fear for the rest of my training.

Autumn and I just laid down and talked for a long time. I didn’t nod off until close to 12. But oh my body had me awake at 5 for some unknown reason.

I’m happy. I’ve finally tamed that devilish alarm clock. God damn that thing is like a rebel guide puppy. It has a mind of its own! But I now know how to set it so if David plays with Autumn’s power bar it’s no big deal, I’ll just set it for her later and show her how. I love the comradery that happens at guide dog schools. We all help each other. I helped Frank with his phone, Amy helped me with the alarm clock, I love it. Everybody helps everybody.

Oh, I like Bernard now. He’s hillarious. Apparently the reason he was sorta creepy was he had a fever when he got here! The poor guy. Now we can’t shut him up. But I llike him.

David is in here again. I guess we’re not talking to the god damn instructors! Eeeee! I’m going to lose my mind. Going to lose it! Lose it! Real soon! Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

I forgot to mention the dinner chimes. They ring these pretty chimes when it’s time to eat. I guess that way nobody can say that they missed dinner cause they didn’t know.

This morning they fed us pancakes and sausages. Mmm.

Tonight we’re having yoga. They’re going to teach us stretching exercises to prevent shin splints. Cool! Yoga! Isn’t that the most awesome thing?

Almost time for class. Damn damn damn when are we going to deal with this? She claims he’s going to respect boundaries. Let’s see.

Mmm. Today’s lunch is a club sandwich and I’m trying the shrimp salad for dinner.

This morning we’re doing commands and then we’re going to Juneau in downtown San Rafael. Yee ha, man on a leash time! At least the locals are used to it. I just learned how to do the formal recall correction. Pretty straight forward. The dog starts screwing around, you just yank it back past your leg cause that’s where you want him to go! That went really well. I think I’ve got all the obedience commands down. Sweet. Went out on my first Juneau harness walk, sans rug, thank god. Ick that would be bad. Those rugs are all ripped to hell. Man it feels good to be walking with a harness again. We got to try the 3 hop ups, one for speed up, one for come on, doggy, focus, and one for ok we’re close to something but I can’t quite reach it. I think I’ve got them down. It’s all about the intonation. Got the lefts and rights straight, har har. I think I’m starting to know where I’m going. Gimme my doggy now! Gimme gimme gimme!

Autumn *says* we’re GOING to talk to the instructors. She claims she didn’t really want him in the room this morning. I can’t keep up with this, and I told her so. God damn. Everyone else I love to death.

Sylvia’s wrist is still bugging her, poor woman. I guess she’s 77 years old. Um, wow. Amy fell! Ouchers! She’s now crash junior. We’re droppin’ like flies! Don’t get booted Amy! Please please please!

Lunch was good. I liked the clam chowder. I didn’t get to try the chocolate mousse though. Oh well, we’ll get it for supper.

We went and talked to Jen about David and they said they’d talk to him. Should be interesting.

Now it’s lecture time. Controling your guide dog. Ok that was embarrassing. I fell asleep for a second. Um, that was a woops. Then I did more obedience and I think I’ve got it. It’s sit, down, stay, then formal recall where you make him stay and then you make him heel. So I think we’re going to the downtown lounge for more juneauage.

Uh-oh. They just called David to the office. This could be awkward. Oh I hate the way my body gets when it’s stressed. Hope there’s time to visit the john.

Well we went over to the lounge, and I was able to help Carmen with her email. I went out on another Juneau walk with more lefts in it, and wow, I could go faster!

David is officially an asshole. The guy went and laid on Amy’s bed because we said he couldn’t come back into our room. What a class act.

Mm dinner was good. Shrimp salad and chocolate eclaires. I’m an idiot though. I asked for iced tea and forgot that it’s just cold tea. *Ug*! There’s a note to all Canadians. It’s not your iced tea! And I was even warned! God I’m an idiot head.

Now David’s refusing to come to dinner. Like what the huh? He’s a strange individual.

Wow, it looks like a short update today. There’s not much left to happen, just yoga. But who knows? Maybe I’ll run into Seizure Augustus, or Seizure Augimpus as she is now calling herself because of her little fall. She seems to be fine now. I’m worried about Sylvia though. She’s at the doctors. That’s never good. I have to return Carmen’s pen. Autumn wanted to write down all the commands and stuff so we teamed up and wrote them down. Man I’m jealous of Al. He brought his own laptop with wireless access. If I had that I could email these from anywhere and not have to use the public computer at specified times.

My feet really cry out when I’m standing in the halt position. I hope that gets better.

Is there anything else I can say? Damn it I went back to give Carmen her pen and I missed the phone! Aboo! Please leave a message, please please, I’m on my knees! Voicemail? Lemmy check! No message damn it oh no! Let’s see if it was mom and dad. They never leave messages, the silly ones. I have no caller ID here! Arggy! I’m listening to the silly spanish collect call music. Ah come on hurry up and reject the call and then phone me back, ok? Come on! I don’t have long now. Well it wasn’t mom and dad. Arg must go to yoga now. Must pee first.

That was good, but I didn’t make it to pee. It’s hard to lie still and relax with a full bladder. But that was good. My muscles feel much looser. I finally met another of the continued assessment girls, her name is Nancy and she has one hell of a lot of arthritis. Poor girl. But I’ve never seen yoga perform such a miraculous transformation on someone. She went from “oo ee aaa” to “this feels much better!” and the instructor asked her if it really felt better, and she said yes! Wow! How cool is that? There I go again.

I met Nicole, the other continued assessment girl, and she has the cutest little voice. She said we were laughing so hard they could hear us down in the retrain wing.

I don’t think dear old Matt is getting a guide dog. We saw him trying to lead a puppy in harness back out into the driveway without help. Oops. The dog’s name is Martin. Wouldn’t it be funny if you knew a Martin like I do, and then you had a dog named Martin? Oh boy.

I think that’s about it for today. Woe! A short day! Holy crap! Or at least a short summary. Tomorrow we get our four-legged woofer friends.! I’m going to try and send this now, maybe it won’t look as bad as last time.

Carin’s Guide Dog Diary: Day 2

Well, I survived the first day. This morning was an interesting start. Amy had a seizure and Jill had to yell for help. I was in the shower when
it happened. I miss everything.

Frank’s cool. He can speak many languages. So he makes a point of speaking to the kitchen ladies in Spanish or some kind of philipino dialect. I like Frank. He seems nice. We don’t like Dave. He creeps us out, Autumn and I. We locked our door and he rattled it this morning! Gotta go to the dayroom. I wish Autumn would come.

They’re taking meal orders. mmm ravioli and chili. or some tuna salad or salad with blue cheese. we see Tamara and now Audrey and Jessica. Wow everybody loves gdb. Ooo Mike Delross. Uh-oh code of conduct time. god communication protocol again? ug. Ooo! Yoga tomorrow. I just met Sue…Sullivan, and Laurie. She’s a sweetheart. Man they take care of us, shopping, checking the mail, all that good stuff. Man there are a lot of churchies.

We have our leashes now! Heehee! I feel like such a non-newb. Tamara has a chihuahua. All these extra dogs. Ooo now we have Juneau the rug. I did my first heeling. And the damn slip collar. Live rings, dead rings, aaaa! But I think I got it, just one feels right, and the other one feels W R O N G! The way it works is there’s this collar, and you have to slip the chain through one ring and the other ring goes onto the leash, and you have to put the collar on the right way or you have no correction room. It’s hard to explain but I think I have it. Wow don’t mess with Carmen. She ripped Juneau’s head off.

In day room. waiting for puppies that aren’t our puppy. I got to heel a puppy. His name was Morgan. He was a wild one, I had to give a lot of corrections just to get him to heel. Man I can see how I let Babs away with murder. Now I got to walk Tania. What a cool dog. I didn’t have to give her much of a correction at all. But my corrections are all off kilter. Too hard when they should be softer, too soft when they should be harder. Silly Tania got her paws all caught in the leash. What a cutey. It’s hard watching them leave with the puppy. They even have an O and M! They have everything!

Sad news! Amy’s going home! She had a seizure and you have to be seizure-free for six months before you can come here, I guess, and boom! she has to go home! I don’t get that. Seizures happen and you never know when, so how can you get excluded? Plus, people get seizure dogs, so it’s not that you can’t take care of a dog. What the hell? so we’re chipping in to get her a stuffed puppy and we’re brailling a note. I feel like crying, I have to figure out a time to go see her, the poor woman. I really liked her.

I’m going to have to use ye old communication protocol real soon I think on David. He’s always in our room. But he is nice. He’s just uber annoying, and he’s never gone. I know his room-mate is Bernard, so who wants to go there, but e gads does he have to be all over Autumn? Gonna have to think a bit to figure out how to approach it. He really is not a bad guy, I don’t think he’s evil or anything, but he creeps me out. We even locked our doors because we were afraid of him. And he rattled our door, I think it was a joke, but oy yoy yoy.

Amy gets to stay! she gets to stay she gets to stay she gets to stay!
Gotta talk to her later.

I just did some obedience work with juneau the rug dog. Now I correct too hard. Damn you Babs what have you done?

Ok, so much to catch up on. Where do I begin? We ran over with Laurie from admissions and got Amy a stuffed dog. Then we ran back and went to the downtown lounge and we all walked around holding the end of this PVC pipe thingy that they called a modified sighted guide tool. They took the other end and then we read traffic and aligned with it. I apparently rocked, which is a miracle because my instructor used to say “I don’t want to have to line you up like a chess piece.”

Oh, I forgot to mention we got a tour of the downtown lounge, and how cool is that? It has:
A kitchen with a water dispenser. Here I was buying a water bottle.
Computers that apparently have minds of their own because they spontaneously forgot they had authorizations. Oh well, they will heal.
A TV room, and I think that’s about it.

So we came back from that, brailled out Amy’s note and put it in the bag, and oh my the fun began.
We were all in Amy’s room to give her her gift. She gave us all hugs. She is the coolest woman. I have to have a long, long, long chat with her. I have much to learn, she is the wise one. Anyway, when we were all in there, this dude charged in and started talking to us all really fast. I can’t simulate it except to say that he reminded me of Rain Man when he goes “two minutes to wapner…gotta get my boxer shorts…K-Mart.” So he’s going at us really really fast, and we realize that he was one of the continued assessment dudes. Oh boy. I think he’d confuse the dog. I can just hear it. Juneau left right sit down stay. Holy crap what am I supposed to do? So we’re all doubled over because he’s so hillarious. And we all vowed that before class was out, we would watch Rain Man because of him.

And then stuff started to go straight to hell. Not in a bad way, but a look how immature we can get kind of way. We started nicknaming each other. Amy became seizure Augustus because that’s what she named the stuffed puppy that we gave her. I became rubber gills..well..long story time. I said that the Ottawa school was held together by spit and rubber bands, which made Autumn laugh and laugh and laugh, and then I said I was stuffed to the gills after eating Chili and pear crisp, and she thought that was hillarious. I was going to be Canadian fish, but she thought rubber gills was funnier. Ok, so we’ve got Amy and I. Frank became drank because that’s what they wrote in his braille card at our seat assignment. By rights, I should have become Crin, but I’m not complaining. A few braille mistakes won’t kill me. So Frank is now Drank, or Jrank depending on what it says. This guy is hillarious. He’s so easy to make turn red. Now, the rest of them took longer. Autumn became Heave ho because…long story. David decided to show his assholery in more vivid colour today by attempting to football tackle Autumn for no good reason. Oh yeah, this dude keeps dropping change all over our room, which could get us in trouble when puppy comes. Oh, we spoke to him, it’s gotten us nowhere, and now this apparent physical violence is not sitting well with me. Autum and I are coming to see the instructors. Anyway, I called Autumn a human projectile because he was threatening to throw her over the entertainment centre. So then I said something about heaving her, and I was like, not heave like puke, heave like heave ho! So she’s Heave Ho! Jill is Rec because…long story again. When we first met Matt, AKA Rain Man, he said something about not liking the south because there were way too many red-neck evangellical christians out there. And we said something about someone and Jill said, “Oh lord!” and the way she said it, it sounded like she was one of those. So she’s now Rec. Ok this is mean. Sylvia is now crash because she fell today pretty good and messed up her wrist. Carmen is Ave Maria because she sings all the time. Meredeth is smoky the bear because, oh my god our innocent little Meredeth smokes! I saw Bernard, who we now call snooze, getting a smoke from her! Yeah you can guess why we call Bernard Snooze. Al is Mouse. And David? Well? He’s Pizza Booky. He was Booky because he was being a book nird and not talking to anyone, so we called him booky because it had a double meaning, and then he ordered pizza, and so we called him pizza booky. He’s also been known as Jingle bells because Matt called him that when actually it was one of the staff’s puppies going by. He was called Elvis because he can do a pretty good Elvis impression and did he have another nickname? I don’t think so. So we have now nicknamed our class the class of oceans 11. We don’t know what happened to no. 12, but oh well.

What else can I say? Oh! Two things.

1. Everybody here loves dogs, I mean not just likes dogs loves them. Has puppy raised them, has career change dogs, I have never seen a more dedicated group of people from the admissions staff right down to the kitchen staff. Um, wow.

2. I had a little interview thingy with all four instructors where they asked me if there was anything else they needed to know when it came to matching me with woofer. I said I liked working with the second puppy better because she didn’t require a lot of correcting. They all had puppies in there and the whole room smelled like woofer. I asked them questions about how to prevent the dog from licking people’s coffee cup, and the chewing thing, and they said they’d give me a gental leader! I love these people.

So, Wednesday will be the beautiful day. Now, must transpose this, and fall down to sleep.

Carin’s Guide Dog Diary: Day 1

Holy crap it’s happening. I’m on the plane. I’m on the plane I’m on the plane! Man oh man what an early rise this morning. I’m so glad I packed yesterday afternoon. It was such a relaxed day yesterday. I had everything planned out. I was actually able to enjoy having mom and dad around. It’s funny. For this trip, I really didn’t want mom and dad to drive me to the airport. I thought I wouldn’t be able to say proper goodbyes to people, pack, etc. but because I started packing on Friday, I really didn’t have to do much packing once they got here. I could just hug them. I could hug grandma too, she sent me some money! Sweet! Much love to Grandma. I mean I’d already taken out the American money and all that, but unexpected dough is always a pleasant surprise. Anyway, I got all packed and got up this morning and didn’t have to do much last-minute preparing. Ok, this was funny. We left at 5 in the bloody morning. My flight was at 8:40. That should have given us enough time to have a nice
breakfast at this truckstop that dad likes, right? Wrong! Bzzz! Sound the buzzer. Not if you’re my dear old dad and decide you’re going to try and take a shortcut to Highway 25. We end up wandering aimlessly around *guelph*! for a half an hour. So guess where we ate breakfast? At the airport! Ouchers on the pocketbook. I couldn’t believe it when, at around 5:30, dad says, um we’re at Victoria road. Oo there’s York Road. Uh, chief? that’s in Guelph still! *arg*! And that was the part I was the least worried about. I figured mom and dad knew how to find the airport. Arggy.

We get to the airport, and holy crap this group of two in front of us take forever to get processed, and we managed to lose dad! He went to the washroom and took forever to find us again. I was starting to worry the group in front of us had been flagged as a security threat they were taking so long. Well they weren’t getting shoved over to the side, so that was good. Anyway, at 7, we finally get seen, they stamp my passportt and look at my ticket and give me a bording pass. They tell me I should get my butt back to the waiting area by 7:30 and they’ll help me through. So we wolf a breakfast so fast and then we go use the washrooms. So they take me back to the waiting area, and we twittle our thumbs for another 20 minutes! Gees! I would have eaten much slower if I’d known we had 20 more minutes. Then they started taking me through the various gates, etc. and holy crap I felt like the hot potato in a game of, well, hot potato. First dude leads me through and this scary woman asks me where I’m going, but starts to smile as soon as I tell her I’m going to get a guide woofer. Then, they pass me off to a security dude who leads me through this area that’s beeping and beeping and beeping. I have to take all my stuff that I’m taking on the plane with me off. So that’s this elba doodad, my fanny pack, my purse, my coat, and even my cane! I told them the elba was a computer, and I didn’t even get asked to turn it on. Awesome! Then I get everything back and the security dude hands me off to this woman who hoofs me through a gate almost to the plane, and then two flight attendants decide to help me. It’s really weird watching your luggage get put on the belt. After every leg of the journey and each time I was passed off to someone else, it took everything not to ask if they had my bags. Not that I’m complaining about how they treated me or anything, it was just a lot of pass-offs. They were pretty cool, telling me how many rows back the washrooms were, where the life vest was god forbid I ever need it, the jazz about the oxygen masks. I’m in a window seat. There’s a dude two seats over in the aisle seat. He seems pretty nice. We haven’t said much to each other, but he was cool enough to help me with the jammed final section of my stupid cane. Ha ha, cane, your days are numbered once again! I can’t believe this is actually real. It’s 10:15 now, so 7:15 California time. I still have lots of flying time. I wish this stupid headache would go away. It’s not horrible, but it’s annoying. Luckily I brought some Advil with me. Man I hate saying goodbye. I suck at it. I always feel like I’m being rushed off elsewhere. The goodbye was so quick with mom and dad. I said I’d let them know when I was at San Rafael. Those poor souls, having to drive home now. They’ll be driving about as long as I’ll be flying. I’m so excited! Heehee!

Man there was this weird older lady in a wheelchair. While we were waiting to be the hot potatos in the great old hot potato game, she kept referring to all of us as the cripples. Ok, that’s one way of putting it. My poor confused parents. They somehow thought I was flying directly into San Rafael even though I’d been telling them it’s San Francisco! It’s San Francisco! They kept asking people where the flight to San Rafael was. Oy yoy. But I love them. God the airport was a zoo. Just to get from parking to the airport was all screwy, and then we had to find the floor we were supposed to be on, which wasn’t exactly easy. But at least finding food wasn’t hard. They had pictures of knives and forks directing us there.

I didn’t get a chance to get headphones. I was really sleepy when they were coming around with headsets. Apparently you get to keep them now. Allrighty then. Poor Steve, having to share a rented headset with someone else. That would have sucked balls.

I’m so restless. I know I still have just under four hours to go, but I’m so restless. It’s funny. If I’m riding the bus, I’m not nearly this bad. But then again, I’m never riding the bus to woofer school.

God I hate being short. The call button is out of my reach. Not that I need anything right now, but if I did, I have to bug the dude two seats over and ask him to push it for me. Stupid shrimpiness.

I hope poor Steve got some sleep. When you have to get up at 4 to catch a plane, that’s one thing. When you’re just awake because everyone else is running around getting ready to leave, and you have a stupid cold, that just sucks. There’s a baby on the plane who isn’t very happy. Not fun, not fun at all. Guess there isn’t much else to say yet. I’ll say more when I get settled in my room. I wonder who my room-mate’ll be. Stop hurting, you stupid head! Ok, I must be crazy, talking to my own head. Hopefully no one’s bored yet. Now maybe I’ll go write a list of questions I want to ask the instructors. Well that didn’t take long. I swear I had more questions. I’m sure I’ll think of them. Man I hope the time-change doesn’t mess with me. With all the sleep deprivation I’ve had, I hope I sleep like a baby. Oh, guess who I get to meet tomorrow? Sue…Sullivan? She said I meet her tomorrow. Man it was cool calling and getting my phone number. They say when we arrive in San Francisco it’ll be 20 degrees! How cool is that? Man over the last week I’ve been saying How cool is that? a lot. Should stop doing that. Maybe I should stop writing for a while until I have something useful to say. only 3.5 hours to go. Gick I’m restless. Damn I’m tired. Must remember my cane when the flight is over. It had to be stowed. It must be the relief that this is actually happening. I was actually able to have a nap. Slept for a half-hour. Man the lady who does the French has trouble. Oh, the weirdest thing happened when I was getting on the plane. One attendant asked the other if I could read French braille. French braille? What the? I said it wasn’t my native tongue. What did they have in French braille that they wanted to give me. That was weird. Oh crap I wonder if the seatbelt sign is on. Well nobody’s telling me to shove this underneath. Ooo we’re supposed to arrive early. 20 minutes early. Hope the instructors will be there. Only 2.5 hours to go then!

Man I feel like a fool. They came around offering drinks and I asked for a snack, fully intending to pay, but they somehow teefed a little bag of cornchips from the first class snack stash. Oops. And they not only got one for me, but they got one for the dude sitting in the aisle seat of this row. I feel bad, I haven’t spoken a word to him. For some reason I’m shy. All I know about him is he likes to read, from the amount of page-flipping I’ve heard. 55 minutes to go. come on come on come on! Man I wish I knew what to do with my garbage. I don’t want to set it on the tray like some kind of shlub. But this isn’t like the bus where there’s a garbage bag beside me. My head still hurts damn it.

Well, I’m off the plane! I’m now sitting in the bus. I’m the only one here. We arrived early. It was lucky I wrote down the instructor’s cell number. I phoned her and said hey dude we’re early. She’s like ok come to baggage claim. My god that time at baggage claim was the longest ever. But finally both my bags showed up, safe and sound. So she led me out here to this bus and gave me a sandwich, a cookie and a water! She even told me where I could get more water if I wanted it. She’s off getting more students. Get this. Some people do worse than I did in Ottawa. They bring so much luggage that the instructors need a cart! A cart? Good lord! She said I packed “quite reasonably.” This is good to hear. Hahaha. So anyway, she led me here, and I’ve now eaten a turkey sandwich. I had a scary moment where I thought the turkey was going to disagree with me and I was going to lose my lunch right on this bus. Ouch that’s a loud horn. Hope that doesn’t mean anything bad. But luckily for me, I didn’t hurl. That would have been uber embarrassing. So I’m sitting here, waiting, apparently seven more are coming, I want to meet them. I wanna meet them now now now! I wonder which one of them will be my room-mate. Maybe none of them will be, and it’ll be one of the other four that I guess are driving? I don’t know. Heehee I’m in the GDB bus! So far I’ve met Jen. She seems nice, we had a good giggle all the way to the bus so that’s cool. Come on it’s almost noon, I wanna meet more folks. She was impressed that I wrote down her cell phone number and had it on me to call her. Well duh, that’s what they gave it to us for. But maybe I’m just anal about making sure I get where I’m going, hahahaha. Damn my head it still hurts. I felt sorry for the flight attendants. They were getting yelled at by some woman who thinks she’s so important because she’s in first class and knows french,and she thinks the french lady said the wrong flight numbers or something. She wouldn’t leave them alone! I managed to learn that the dude sitting in the aisle seat lives in Toronto, goes to Greenwood College, and was visiting his aunt at Burkley. Man it’s warm in the sun. Heehee it’s nice here. Guess I’ll stop for now and eat my fig newton now that my stomach settled down. Ug that was scary. Ok it’s now 12:10. I really hope someone shows up soon. Is everyone lost but me? 7 lost people? Holy lord! I know it only seems like an eternity because the plane landed at 11 and I guess it took a while to get my bags and get out here. But eek eek I hope someone gets here soon cause this is mildly spooky. Ok this beast decided to get all weird. Ok it seems fine now. Icky I’m sweating. It’s 12:15. Ok I took my coat off. Jebus I’m hot. Met one person, Jill. has four kids and a grandbaby. not my room-mate. Two more people just joined us. Sylvia and David, seem to be together. *What was I smoking? They were just on the same flight. David is a highschool senior, I don’t know what to make of him. He’s very quiet, but when he speaks, he’s a total asshole. I didn’t think much of one of the guys from my Ottawa class either though and he changed, so maybe this’ll be the same. Sylvia is very much older than young David! Oh god I was stupid to think they were together. I guess Sylvia lived in Oakville at one point. Met my room-mate, Autumn. This could be interesting. She’s happy to have a Canadian Room-mate so she can come to Canada sometime. Ok then. She’s a ball of energy. Carmen is a quiet lady. David won’t get off his phone. Very odd. Bernard sounds like my friend Anton. He scares me a little. He had a giant suitcase. He’s weird. Later on, he fell asleep while they were reading the code of conduct/contract. And I don’t mean drift off, I mean snore snore snore! Um ok. He doesn’t speak much, and when he does, he mumbles and talks very very slowly. Then there’s Amy. I think I’ll like Amy. She’s from South Carolina. She not so proudly says her town was the birthplace of the KKK. She made fun of Autumn for treating me like some kind of alien entity, being Canadian. Then she said, “Well, now you can go back and say you’ve officially met a redneck hillbillie.

Have I got everyone? Autumn and I, Jill and Amy, David and Bernard and Sylvia and Carmen. Yup. So we all took off, and went for a bus ride that seemed to take for frickin ever! Then we finally arrived, and one by one, they led us to our rooms. My room was right after this funky loading lounge thingy, so that confused the hell out of me. My room’s pretty cool. They even brailled out instructions for the phone! How cool is this? Oh there I go again. But you can dial a number and get your class schedule for the next day, the menu, and all that stuff. Pretty sweet.

Then the alarm clock, ug the alarm clock. Now that I’ve mastered the beast, it’s all cool, but it was a stubborn sucker. It also helps when you find the switches on the sides. Uh-huh, that was not so brilliant.

They took us for a tour. If I could just tie things together from one side of the hall to the other, I think I’d get it. But I can find the day room, dining room, my room, which his key, and the computer room. I know where the nurse’s room is if I need it, because it’s right by this buzzing laundry room. I’m happy. The dryers are stacked, but the buttons are in the middle! I won’t need a stool like in Ottawa!

It felt like I could never unpack. I’d just get started and the phone would ring, or I’d have to go somewhere. We had to go and meet at 5 and they had to read out the boring stuff, and, er, Bernard had a nap. We met the rest of the class then. There’s this slow but sweet lady named Meredeth I think that’s how you spell it, a loud rehab counsellor dude named Frank, and a guy named Al who seems very quiet and stuff.

Then we went for dinner! Mmm prime rib! And espresso ice cream. and then I wonder why I’m still awake. But I’m gonna keal soon. I’m finally unpacked and stuff. I’ve felt very anti-social today, but there’s so much to process! But this place rocks! I think that’s everything for today. If I think of anything else important, I’ll throw it in another entry.

Odd Combination Of Things Number 3

Sorry for not having this posted sooner, but between seeing a friend I don’t see much, setting up my new computer, going away to see family, seeing something that made me profoundly upset [possible post to come on that one], running around getting a bunch of things done so I don’t have to think about them anymore, getting a cold that my family gave me, having Carin’s family stay with us for a couple of days and now seeing her off to California for a month, there just hasn’t been a lot of time or energy going into the site lately. I’ll do my best to work on that, but I apologize if the next little while is a bit light, I’m feeling kind of out of it these days.

As usual, some of these links might not work by the time you see them. I’m going to keep saying that because I know if I don’t I’ll get yelled at by retarded people, and I don’t like getting yelled at. It makes me angry and I tend to lash out and not act very nice.

Ok, let’s go.

*I agree with everything in this column accept for the title.
the problem with digital downloads is the DRM *and* the music.

*Nothing bad happened and I’m sure it won’t end up being a huge story, but this made me chuckle so I’ll throw it in.
Not-so-precise Swiss army unit mistakenly invades Liechtenstein

*And maybe it’s for the best that the invasion was a mistake, since according to
this,
Swiss tanks have trouble surviving collisions with farm tractors, so they’d probably be screwed in an actual war.

*Here’s an
amusing article
about remote-controlled pigeons and other equally valuable technologies and what they could mean for the future.

*If you’re looking to get yourself one of those
beer launching fridges
I mentioned
last week
and really, why wouldn’t you be,
here
is the official site, featuring lots of explanations of how it works, a video of the thing in action and contact info for the great man who invented it.

*It’s stuff like this that makes me want to kill somebody. Police near Sarnia pulled over a man who was driving 40 kilometres over the posted speed limit of 80 and watching a television that he had mounted on his passenger side visor,
and all they could give him was a $295 fine.

*On a similar note,
it is not ok to shave while you drive,
especially when you’re a safety expert who helps police with accident investigations.

*Note to criminal masterminds everywhere: It is never a good idea to
offer cash to young children if they’ll piss in a cup so you can use their urine samples as your own at your parole hearing.

*Also, if your job is making drug deliveries, you might want to consider getting drunk *after* you get the loot out of your car, just in case you happen to
drive into a state trooper’s cruiser.

*Then again, if that happens you could always
try to claim that if you had only not let the unicorn drive, none of this would have happened.

*Sign number 3144952 that the world has gone completely friggin nuts:
Organizers of a children’s entertainment festival tried to have the Three Little Pigs removed from a show so as not to offend Muslims.
Thankfully, logic and reason prevailed for once.

*I’m not sure what’s stranger. The fact that there is such a thing as a mailbox in which you can put an unwanted baby, or that a fully grown drunken man smoking a cigarette was
able to fit himself inside of one.

*If you’re looking for something to read after you’re done here, consider trying to track down some of this year’s contenders for
oddest book title.
My favourite? “People Who Don’t Know They’re Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It”. Yes, I know that one was technically from last year, it just happened to be the funniest one on the list, followed closely by “How Green Were the Nazis?” a book about, yes, the environmental policies of Hitler and company.

And speaking of being done here, I think that’s all for today. I’m hungry, I’m tired, I’m finished. I’m also buried in email, but I can always use more, so feel free to send along anything you think I might be interested in. I’ll be back with more later, including the first of Carin’s guide dog diaries. See you soon.

A Shining Star

I knew something was missing in that hodgepodge. Man, even though my sleep is much better, thanks to probably a decreasing list of things to do, and sleepytime tea, my sleep is still somewhat screwy and that leaves me absent-minded and doing a lot of stupid stuff. Like today for example. Every time I went to leave the laundry room, I’d go the wrong way! Like, what?

There’s one big thing that I meant to mention in that last post. Ah hell, maybe that’s for the best, maybe it deserves its own post anyway. That big thing is that Star Computer Services is awesome! If you need a computer, I’m sure he’d build you a fine one. But more importantly, if you’re a blink and you need a computer, you should so talk to him. He is the best access technology vendor I’ve seen in a long time. Let me make a list outlining his awesomeness.

  • When you contact him and tell him you want a computer, he will tell you exactly what your computer will consist of. Most other vendors just give you sizes and stuff, but not brand names.

  • He’s damn fast! He’s an email fiend, and he knows his stuff.

  • I’ve seen two examples of his handywork, and they’re both fine, fine machines.

  • After you get your machine, he’s actually good for the tech support if you need it.

  • He sells other stuff, and at good prices too!

  • When you buy stuff through him, he tells you how you can claim it on your taxes for medical expenses. How cool is that?

  • And here’s the coolest. When he had to send something to Steve through the mail that Steve had to sign and send back, he brailled on the outside of the envelope, and made a line you could feel where he had to sign. This man thinks of everything.

I want this man to be in business when I need my next computer, so if anyone needs anything access-technology-related, I highly recommend you check if he sells it, and give him a try!

Thought Hodgepodge

I just felt like posting about a bunch of stuff, and since this is going to be the last bit of sanity I have before my life gets turned upside-down by guide dog school and puppy’s arrival, not that I’m complaining, I figured I should take it!

So it’s 3 days to go, can you believe it? I know I can’t. Strangely enough, it feels more unreal now that I can look at the tickets, my travel insurance letter, the American money I got than it did when I was waiting for the package. Things are falling o so smoothly into place.

I’m looking forward to the weather there. This week has been awesome here, but today it chilled right off. A few days ago, they were threatening a winter storm for this weekend, which sent my guts into knots. When was the winter storm? This weekend! When do I fly out? This weekend! But the threat of nasty blizards seems to have lessened. Now that I’ve said the weather looks good in California, I’ll feel like a rubber ducky because it’ll rain and rain and rain! Ah it’ll still be fun.
But I may have jynxed myself today by doing the unthinkable. I may have sent myself into peril by, *gasp*, deleting a chain letter. It claims if I delete a letter telling people how much I love them, hateful things will happen to me. Even if I send it on, but not to enough people, hateful things will happen to me. What is that? Message of love from the mob? Tell your family you love them or else…we’ll wack you and everyone you care about? God I hate those forwards. I hate the tone, I hate the guilt, I hate it all. They assume I don’t tell the people I love how much they matter. What if I do, and what if I, horror of horrors, use my own words to say it? But if a plane bound for Sanfrancisco out of Toronto crashes on Sunday morning, I guess we’ll know why, hahaha. Wow I feel evil.

But the best part about getting this forward was what the person sent it said on the top. She said, “Sorry.” Sorry? If she didn’t want to send the forward, and felt she needed to apologize for it, why did she send it? Did someone have a gun to her head? Did they tell her they’d personally make sure bad things happened to her if she didn’t send it to 50 people right now? What was up with that?

And here’s something baffling. A commercial came on for some Crayola product, and at the end, they said, “Look for it in the Crayola aisle.” Crayola gets its own aisle? Ok, this is how I picture an aisle. It’s got two sides, each with multiple shelves. Crayola needs a whole one of these just for its stuff? Holy crap that’s a lot of Crayola, and I must be out of touch when it comes to the sheer amount of drawing supplies out there!

Is that really all I can think of? Damn that’s disappointing. I swear I’m forgetting something, but my mind is so muddled with things to remember to pack, remember to do, when my parents are coming to help me with some last minute jobs, all manner of crap. I’m going to try and do something cool. I’m going to keep a journal of what guide dog class is like, and I’m going to email it home to Steve who’s going to slip in as me and post it for me. If I’m lucky, I’ll even get a picture of my new puppy to put up! Yea! We can post photos now!

So If I don’t post something before Sunday…you’ll probably be glad to be free of my jabber for a while. Hope it warms up again so we can all enjoy it!

R.I.P, Richard Jeni

I was saddened to hear about the weekend suicide of Richard Jeni, who was without a doubt one of the world’s greatest comedians.

I’ve noticed a few searches in our stats looking for information on what happened to him, so I thought I would print this statement from his family.

A statement from the family of Richard Jeni 

Often times, when we are faced with a sudden and tragic loss, there is a natural curiosity – a need to know what exactly happened.

The family of Richard Jeni would like to put to rest any assumptions as to the cause of Richard’s death. Despite the fact that the coroner’s office has publicly stated that a suicide ruling will take two weeks, pending the results of an autopsy, Richard Jeni did take his own life.

Rumors have been circulating as to the cause of his death and have included speculation of Richard being depressed over the state of his career or a physical ailment. His career was not even addressed by his specialists when they were trying to diagnose Richard’s illness. In fact, he had just enjoyed one of his most financially rewarding years to date. He was consistently creating new material for his busy touring schedule, and during the last week of his life, he had meetings scheduled with Chris Albrecht, Chairman and CEO of HBO, to discuss future projects following his last HBO special. In actuality, the past few years had been more prolific than ever. As his agents can attest, prior to his illness, Richard only missed one engagement in over twenty years, and that was due to weather.

The truth is: earlier this year Richard Jeni was diagnosed with severe clinical depression coupled with bouts of psychotic paranoia. One only needs to have a family member or friend with a mental illness to understand that there is nothing rational, predictable, or fair about these diseases. Mental illness is as serious as any physical affliction and can be just as devastating.

He was not down or blue, he was ill. If you knew Richard, you could understand, this was as much a shock to those close to him, as it is to his fans and colleagues. Perhaps Richard’s passing will encourage people to have sympathy, compassion and understanding for those who are afflicted with mental illness. As we are all trying to make sense of this, take time to remember the joy and laughter Richard brought to the countless people he touched during his much too short life.

As for me, I don’t have much to say in terms of a eulogy, I think his friends are doing a much better job of that than I could ever hope to do. But since I’m here and writing about him now, I guess the best thing I could say is thank you. Thank you for the years of laughter your work has given to me and to anyone else who considers themselves fans. Thank you for helping me through a lot of bad days, for forcing me to smile and laugh when those things felt impossible. But most of all, thank you for giving so much of yourself to make the world a little bit happier and a whole lot funnier. I’m not much for all that religious stuff, but I hope that wherever you are now is treating you well, and I hope you realize how much we’ll miss you here.