Tag Archives: Disability

NIB 2024: A Day of Relaxation

Posted on by John

Ah, I meant to chronicle the rest of my time at the NIB 2024 Training Conference and Expo more quickly than I have, but alas work, cooler weather, and reading have interfered with my writing. (I’m already about to set a new record for books read [and listened to] in a year, as the old one is 79 and I’m already at 76). Anyhow, I wanted to capture at least one more day of attendance before it all becomes too distant in my ever-aging memory.

Wednesday, October 16: The day dawned crisp and cold. Most times I’ve visited our nation’s capital, the weather fluctuated crazily with temps in the 80s in the afternoon and snow at night. Granted those visits usually occurred in May, whereas October weather is more uniformly dreary. But the sun was actually out on this day as we meandered out of the hotel and across the busy street to a two-story McDonald’s. We don’t have many two-story restaurants here in North Carolina, but I guess you see them more in places where space is a premium.

I had a sausage, egg, and cheese McMuffin, while my wife probably ate a McGriddle (she likes sweet, I do savory). As we ate, she noted that there were some homeless individuals using the space probably to stay warm. I’ve also noticed that, sadly, that city seems to have a high population of unhoused individuals, perhaps because there are more services available? It’s an interesting question. Anyhow, she said there are signs that specifically say “No Loitering,” so if one wishes to remain for an extended time they must either buy food or devise other strategies to make themselves look occupied. I just hope we as a society keep moving in a direction where people will have fewer of these challenges, because the systems will work as they should.

Food consumed, we went to a little store to get snacks for later. I had a giant cup of grapes, because hey grapes are good for the brain. Back in the hotel, we milled about in the lobby for a while then decided to head down to the basement area to see what was going on in the conference. I then realized that I had missed the technology demo that was put on for the employees of the year, because at that time the app I was using to keep up with events was not sending notifications out. This was ok though, as I got to check out some of these devices in the exhibit hall. I’m always fascinated by what they have in these places, but also overwhelmed by the people pulsing from every nook and cranny. My wife had to keep me grounded and inside of the place. I held and listened to the Envision smart glasses speak. Those are nice and built specifically for blind folk, but at $2,000 I probably won’t be getting a pair. The Meta Ray-ban glasses are a likelier candidate, though I might just hold out and wait for a competitor as that market is now starting to come alive. Many of my trainees at work really want me to acquire those though, so I can show them how to use them.

Anyhow, I also checked out a Freedom Scientific workstation, equipped with a computer running JAWS for Windows and, more interestingly to me, a Focus 40 Braille Display. This is another device some of my trainees would like me to get for demonstrations, but alas. It had a whole lot of buttons and switches, and it is powered by a Perkins-style braille keyboard as opposed to my Mantis QWERTY device. I prefer the latter for writing, but the Focus does have many features that could make it desirable.

After checking those out, my wife and I decided to do a whole lot of, welll… nothing. Hey, one of the rewards of this trip was to be able to relax if one wished, and how often do you get to crawl back into bed and sleep on Wednesday afternoon. It was glorious, but I just wish I had drank more water as I tend to dehydrate easily if I do not and paid for this lacking later. Fortunately I was ok.

At about 5, we opted for another fine-dining experience and one we can no longer get in our area, and ventured to McCormick and Schmick’s. We had visited this chain in Raleigh for our “halfversary” after the first six months of marriage and fallen in love with it, at which point they took it away in favor of a Mexican restaurant. So we said whenever we got to a city with that establishment we would check it out again. Arlington did have a location.

This time, I ate some kind of salmon and mashed potatoes. It was delicious, if a little expensive. And as was the case in Raleigh, I loved the ambience of the place as it wasn’t too loud and we could easily have a conversation.

Before getting a Lyft back to our hotel, we walked around that area a bit exploring some of the ice cream shops and stores they had. You could tell we were in a different city, though of course it still had nowhere near the hustle of a New York or Philadelphia. I enjoyed the feeling.

And that was the crux of Wednesday, the midpoint of our trip. A little learning and a lot of rest. We sure needed that rest for Thursday’s tours, coming up in next post.

NIB 2024: First General Session, and Good Eatin’!

Posted on by John
The FDR statue. He’s sitting in a wheelchair. There were braille plaques nearby, too.

So, this is what happens when I am left to pack.

Tuesday October 15 dawned cold and blustery, as we knew it would. My wife had stacked sweaters on my couch that were to accompany my dress outfits so that I could stay at least minimally warm, but of course I didn’t notice they were there. This meant all I had was my sturdy jacket, which doesn’t always make the best dressing piece, comfortable as it is. So we needed to make a store run.

but first, we had to get ready. The bathroom in our room, and I presume throughout the hotel, was designed oddly. The showers had no curtains, only a half pane of glass that seemed to allow water to wet the floor more easily, and the head was of the rainwater variety, coming down from straight above. The bed was decent enough, but well let’s just say we have exacting standards about pillows that are rarely met in hotels.

These things were ok though and certainly did not cause a high degree of displeasure. Once dressed, we made our way down to the teeming ballroom for a light breakfast of yogurt with granola and peaches among other things (pretty good) and an empanada with egg and sausage. Then we made a quick trip back to the room to grab everything we needed before shoving off for Target.

I used the Lyft app to get around during this trip, and I was amazed by how accurate the locations were. For instance, it could tell me that we were standing inside of the Hyatt Regency Crystal City, of course, but it also pinpointed exactly which storefront we were in while waiting for our return ride. That kind of exactness would help blind folks more easily navigate, I would think.

In the store, we joked that we were exploring by doing something we could just as easily have done while in North Carolina. But that’s the truth, perhaps sadly: almost all of the world is now a big chain. Local stuff does exist, but it’s becoming increasingly harder to find.

We quickly found two nice, relatively inexpensive and versatile sweaters, then made our way to a Barnes and Noble to await said return ride. What I hadn’t known, because I wasn’t looking as it happened, was that Lyft had switched my car because a closer driver was available. This caused some confusion as a ride that looked nothing like expected pulled to a stop in front of us, but the driver called me on the phone to clarify and my wife could hear my voice coming through the window. So we felt ok about hopping in.

Back at the hotel, we opted for another meal at Cinnabar. This time, I chose a cheeseburger. It was ok, but didn’t come with any sauce or have a whole lot going on in the way of toppings. I had some mayo added, and thus managed to consume a fair amount of it with fries that were different from those we had on Monday. Then we briefly ran to the room for some R&R and to grab whatever we needed before the main event, the general session.

The ballroom was again teeming, with nearly every chair occupied. We’d located spots kind of far back from the speakers, so I could hear decently but maybe not well. This would definitely be a theme throughout my experience, unfortunately, due to my own issues and not anything conference-related. The session itself was interesting: the usual pageantry that accompanies such events. I listened with some interest as they talked about some of NIB’s achievements, especially as relates to helping those of us who are blind experience greater upward mobility. These metrics have definitely improved, and I am, I hope, an example of that.

What I most enjoyed though was the hearty reactions that went into celebrating employees of the year. It boosts morale among the workers, making us feel like what we’re doing matters. And it certainly matters in creating more jobs for blind folks in a way that is or can be transferable to the mainstream as attitudes towards disability improve. The session was supposed to be done by 4, but it actually lasted closer to 4:30 as a long discussion continued on areas that were slightly above my head.

Then the elevator madness ensued. This was another theme, especially as not all of the hotel’s elevators were working the entire time. They slowly brought more and more of them online, but until then massive lines and surges dominated. When we did wrangle a spot, we still had to wait as stops were made at nearly every floor.

After another brief respite in our room, we headed back down to the lobby around 5:30 to have dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. First though, we had to work out how we’d get there. The two of us LCI employees who had won Employee of the Year, our guests, and the higher-ups who had come to the conference as well were to be treated to a delicious meal at this pricey restaurant. The Arlington, Va. location was only about a half mile away, but given that it was already darkening and cold out, we summoned two Ubers and made the short ride over.

Into another elevator and up to the 11th floor of some sort of office building where the restaurant was housed. My wife said it gave a great view of planes landing and taking off from Regan. Though we ate in a private room, it was so buzzing with activity that I could, again, barely hear anything. Yup, same as always. But the food was good though. I had stuffed chicken, with cheese and a sauce of some sort. It was definitely filling. I also consumed a glass of wine along with some water, because why not? I mostly just took it all in and reflected on the significance of even being part of such an occurrrence.

And that was all for Tuesday. More in our next entry.

NIB 2024: Arrival

Posted on by John
Me standing near the Washington Monument and Reflecting Pool

And so it begins… This year, as I’ve noted, I had been invited to attend the annual conference of the National Industries for the Blind in Arlington, Virginia, as LCI had awarded me Employee of the Year. Well one of them, another individual with whom I’d actually done some training as it happens, also received the designation. I was allowed to bring a guest, so my wife came with me.

The good news for us is we didn’t have to leave super early. Our American Airlines flight from Raleigh/Durham International Airport to Regan National Airport didn’t depart until Monday October 14 at 10:45 AM. Having prepaid for parking the night before, we loaded the car with bags packed to the gills for our weeklong trip and headed to the Economy lot. A shuttle arrived shortly after 8:00 AM and took us to the terminal, where we then had to hoof it with those heavy bags and I was sucking air by the time we reached the check-in counter.

“Would you two like to each check one of those bags for free?” The woman behind the counter asked. I have never been so relieved to hear anything in my life. My newly acquired briefcase (I had to look businesslike, time to shed the backpack) felt light by comparison as we continued onto the security checkpoint. This was my first time flying since… well, 2020, and one thing I’d forgotten was how annoying this process could be. Or maybe my patience has just shortened over the last four years. It was belts off, shoes off, Mantis braille display out, iPhone out, and oh I forgot to take off the Apple Watch. Oh, well. They did two inspections of my stuff, having a little trouble unsurprisingly working out exactly what the Mantis might in fact be. It looks like a computer keyboard, but… where’s the screen! They also had to dust my hands I guess to see if I might have some kind of residue on them.

Anyhow, once I put myself back together again we made our way to the coffee line as my wife got a free one with the parking reservation and I wanted some in preparation for a long day.

The rest of the wait was fairly uneventful, nearly 2 hours because hey it’s better to be early than late. I thought someone else from my employer would show up, but as we sat there in the terminal no one did.

“Now boarding American Airlines Flight 5545, with service to Washington Regan Airport.” We make our way to the line for preboarding, as usual, and my wife tells the gate agent I am blind as they initially say we are not eligible to board yet. We are on an extremely narrow-body Regional Jet, so have to just about turn sidwways to make our way to seats way back on row 20. I learned something new about airplane seat configuration, too: when I first saw our tickets, I noticed it said 20A and 20c.

“Wait, someone’s gonna be sitting in between us?” I thought. But no, there are no middle seats on this aircraft. So I assume any window and aisle seats will be A and C, and F and D respectively. The middles, if there, will be B and E. Interesting stuff, if you’re a nerd like I am.

We took off pretty much on time, shortly before 11 AM, and had barely completed our climb before we began descending. We mostly just sat there and made small talk, as you really didn’t even have time to get anything out. I suppose even with those security hassles, getting there that quickly still beats driving.

As it turns out, one other person from LCI was aboard but he couldn’t catch us before we got to our seats. He did get an Uber for us all and we piled in to make the short jaunt to the Hyatt Regency Crystal City, which is an airport hotel. It took them only a few minutes to get our room ready, so we ventured up in the ear-popping elevator to the 17th floor to deposit our luggage.

Flying, even a short distance, tends to make one hungry. So the next thing we did was locate the hotel’s featured restaurant, Cinnabar. I’m not really sure why it was called Cinnabar, as it is a full-service, sit-down restaurant. Their food was delicious but expensive. I had a chicken sandwich with cheese, mayo, and tomatoes. I guess I ate too many of the fries though, as my wife regularly chides me for doing, because I couldn’t finish that entire fairly large sandwich.

Not much else happened prior to dinner. We went and officially checked into the NIB Training Conference and Expo, collecting our lanyards and my Employee of the Year swag. We also had to attend an Employee of the Year orientation at 3, where we discovered how many of us there were (like 70 people). I was excited, but parts of me became overwhelmed quickly because of my hearing problems among such large crowds.

And speaking of crowds, prior to dinner we dropped in on the Welcome Reception. This was open to all conference attendees, and it sounded like one full-on roar as we huddled in the hotel’s basement-level vault. I stood in a corner and sipped on a Corona, feeling nice and reflecting on how I got here.

And finally, there was dinner. It was a simple affair, served buffet-style, with chicken, broccoli, and potatoes. There was supposed to be a Murder Mystery presented along with our meals, and I think it did happen later, but it took them a little while to get everything together. This is because it was to involve the audience in some kind of who-dun-it, where they acted out parts based on their role in the so-called murder. My wife and I didn’t stay to hear that part though, as the day and all its activities had caught up with us. We again rode that elevator into the sky, headed into our room, and called it a night.

More in Tuesday’s post, including a description of the room and some of its features.

I Can Hear Clearly Now, Sort Of: On that Hearing Test

Posted on by John

So this past Wednesday, I toddled off somewhat unwillingly to my audiologist’s office for the pending hearing test. As I noted in the previous entry, I knew I needed this checkup as my role calls for me to be able to hear in more and varied situations and to work with individuals one-on-one and in groups.

The last audiogram (that’s the technical word for them) I had was in 2018, but I barely remember that. I think I intentionally block them out. I should probably call them audiograms more often anyway, as the word “test” connotes academics, and the feeling that I am not doing as well as I would like can make me feel a little bit of that failure feeling. The last audiogram I recorded in this journal was in 2016, and can likely be found under the “Hearing” tag.

I sat in the booth with a different audiologist and, I guess, her student who was doing most of the work while under supervision. First, they checked my ears to see if there had been any wax accumulation, but she said apparently I’m doing a pretty good job of keeping that at bay. I’ve learned some lessons after my much-documented challenges keeping hearing aids going as they constantly filled up with the annoying stuff.

“How long is this going to take, approximately,” I asked.

“It should take no more than 20 minutes” she replied. 20 minutes? It felt like an hour easy!

This test was different than the one I recalled from 2016. First, they had a recorded male voice reading back the words. They start to become predictable to some extent, or at least they make us think they are, as they say “Baseball,” “Airplane,” “Northwest,” and the like over and over again. And of course they test each ear, sometimes playing white noise or a wind sound in the other ear. Another, very real challenge I experienced was shutting down my inner thoughts: dinner, sleep, work the next day, etc.

One of the words that kind of caused me to laugh… it sounded like he said “Say the word Bi*ch”. Hmmm, I’m pretty sure he didn’t say that, I thought. “Ditch?” I tried tentatively. Probably… not that either. Ah, well.

I then had to get the beep test. I think I actually did better on this part, and especially when they put on the big clunky things that kind of fasten to your head as honestly I could often feel the beep more than hear it. We laughed though when at the end of the test she said something to me and my hand shot up as if I’d heard a beep again. “Sorry, you just get conditioned to do that’” I said.

“I understand,” she replied.

The results were a little worse than the last time. She said something like my word discrimination dropped from 80 to 55% in my left ear, and my right ear remained profoundly deaf as it has been for some time. “It’s probably time for you to consider a cochlear implant, especially on that right side” she said. “And as your left-side clarity diminishes”. I have noticed that this has happened, for sure, as my Norrie Disease-related progressive hearing loss keeps progressing. A little disheartening, but such is the way I guess. I just don’t know about CI’s, because I’ve heard all sorts of stories about them. There is a possibility that it might not work, and I think you don’t really have a way to fall back if they don’t. But I know that time is likely coming more quickly than I would like.

Meanwhile, she went ahead and made adjustments to the aids as a result of the tests. And they’re kind of a mixed bag. Sports sound a lot better, and I was much more able to hear my supervisor and trainee today at work. But I am still kind of working to adjust to my wife’s voice and others, as the sound while turned up is also somewhat muffled. I think I’m getting there though and will just have to be patient, while hoping others are patient with me. The paratransit vehicle I take to and from work also sounded really loud for the first few days, but that is starting to calm down as well.

So yeah, this issue is always going to be complicated. But ultimately I am grateful to those folks and their good work of really getting the aids to work for my needs. I still haven’t tried them in the holy grail of hearing, the restaurant, but I’m sure that is coming soon. That will really tell me if a difference has been made. And even more the National Industries for the Blind conference I will be attending in three weeks as a result of winning Employee of the Year. I’ll keep you posted, and I mostly write about this to help parents of children with Norrie gain some insight into what this experience might be like, again realizing that my voice does not represent everyone’s. I do hope it helps.

All Aboard for a Much-needed Weekend

Posted on by John

Do you have that person in your life who always gets you, no matter what? The one who, because of similar experience and an upbringing that involved many of the same challenges is someone to whom you always look for advice or just to vent. That person for me is my cousin: technically a year younger than me but seeming older in many respects.

For our early life, really until mid-20s, we were never that far apart. Both of us are totally blind and have significant hearing loss due to a condition called Norrie Disease, so we have to work hard just to fit in to this world. We went to college together and lived in an apartment (albeit a slum) for six years.

Then life rolled on, and we were both fortunate to marry wonderful women. That has though necessitated changes in our relationship, as is common for all adults really. Now, we usually see each other maybe three or four times a year (with the time from January of 2020 till May of 2022 being the longest we didn’t get to spend time together due to Covid).

Anyhow, that’s slowly, finally, starting to change. This past weekend, as my work life ramps up and I feel increasingly nervous about my hearing challenges, I decided to see if we could just have a marathon Saturday watching sports and talking about nothing and everything as I like to do. My cousin and his wife agreed to allow my visit, so I purchased round-trip Amtrak tickets from Cary North Carolina to Charlotte.

I had to get the 5:43 Carolinian train, being fully aware of likely delays as it makes its way all the way down from New York City. And delays indeed happened, with emailed announcements throughout the day that the train was getting later and later.

I had Lyft take me over to the Cary station after a long day at work trying to hammer out the material for our upcoming Microsoft Excel workshop. The building was cold, and I found myself wishing I’d chosen to stay outside in the beautiful Fall-like weather to wait. I sat, snacking and reading, and tried to make myself take a break so all of my devices would make it onboard with a little life left.

The train finally arrived shortly before 7, and as I feared I was given an aisle seat so couldn’t plug in as easily. I always feel weird about asking my neighbor if I can stretch the cord over their legs.

The ride down was uneventful, and we arrived in Charlotte around 10. Knowing I would want to pick up food on the way to my cousin’s house, I decided to try downloading the Jack in the Box app to see if I could place an order in advance of getting there. I get Jack in the Box whenever I visit the Queen City, because we don’t have any of those in our area. And this would have worked, if I had already entered my payment method or at least set up Apple Pay. Trying to do that at the last minute just… didn’t work. Choosing the menu items I wanted though was accessible. Anyway, the driver just rolled me close enough to the Drive-through window to put in my order and I collected the food and headed to my cousin’s house. I do love this tech that makes it so much easier to independently move around and run errands.

Because it was already nearly Saturday by the time I finally arrived, we just stayed up a little while listening to the NFL game in Brazil and scarfing down the food. Then we retired for the night. I’d already understood that we would mostly be spending Saturday together anyway.

Knowing these folks wake by 8 AM, I was crawling out of bed just as the smell of bacon and eggs permeated the air. My cousin texted me, and I headed on down to sink my teeth into it. A small cup of orange juice and a big, piping hot mug of coffee completed the morning.

As far as sports go, our Alma mater UNC Charlotte (they call themselves Charlotte in the sports world) played, and were pretty much slapped around by, the North Carolina Tar Heels. Bowling Green University gave Penn State a scare, and number 5 Notre Dame were nipped by the Northern Illinois Huskies in an awesome upset. The prime-time game, North Carolina State University versus the University of Tennessee, was a bust as State were dragged all over Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium.

While the games played, we chatted about our roles as Assistive Technology Specialists. We also noted the recent availability of high-powered, AI-driven Phonak Hearing Aids (NOTE: those may or may not be the right ones). Anyhow, I’m considering trying to get those, as they’re supposed to be really good at filtering out background noise. I have a hearing test (Oh fun! Except not), scheduled for September 18th, at which point I will begin this conversation with my audiologist. Where the money will come from for such a thing? Well… we shall see. No doubt I need it though, to help my rising career.

After our day of fun, we got food from a restaurant called the Skrimp Shack. (They mean Shrimp, but ok haha). I had a giant chicken “sammich” that I could not eat entirely, and a big styrofoam to-go plate of fries (the small is really small, the large is really large, no in-between). The food was really good, though.

And that was the crux of a great Saturday and weekend. I’m writing this as we speed back toward Cary on Sunday morning from 6:45 till 9:45. A bit of amusement: as we departed Charlotte, the conductor said we would be arriving in Cary, our next station stop, in 25 minutes. Cary takes three hours to reach, as suggested by the time I just posted, and it is not our next stop coming out of Charlotte. He meant a town called Kannapolis. I can only assume that it was too early in the morning for him, as it is for me of no or very little sleep. Although for some strange reason I feel hopped up on energy right now. Let’s hope that lasts till my Carolina Panthers (NFL) play the New Orleans Saints at 1, and hopefully start this season off right. You can’t get much worse than our 2-15 record the previous season. I do hope more of these restorative weekends are in store, and that you are able to find a way to lift your spirits when needed as well.

UNDERHEARD: Eating Out While Deafblind

Posted on by John

If you are like me, you wonder how and among whom the restaurant custom started. The idea of eating out in a place humming with activity, where all sound seems to merge into a full-on roar at times and you are left at the mercy of the wave as you, hopefully, enjoy some good food.

And of course before continuing, I fell down a rabbit hole and discovered, via a website on The History of Restaurants that they were supposedly started in France in 1765. I cannot attest to the veracity of this story, and wonder if some other culture might also lay claim to their origins. Anyhow, it’s good food for thought.

However they started restaurants are a venerated tradition of U.S. holidays and continue to bounce back after the dark days of Covid. Well, sort of. I accompanied my wife, her parents, sisters, and my niece and nephew by marriage to Red Lobster. That particular establishment does not seem to be faring as well, with many having gone into temporary closure and the business as a whole in bankruptcy. I guess they served too many shrimp.

We went to celebrate Father’s Day on Saturday, as is usual for us. It’s often less crowded on this day than if we wait till the day of, though going to eat at Fullers, a delicious local (to Fayetteville, N.C.) eaterie that serves just about everything Southern you can think of for Mother’s Day on the Saturday before, the place was brimming. I joked that it felt like someone was drilling a hole in my brain, because there’s just no really good setting on my hearing aids to help me handle such ruckous. But I made it through, as I always do.

Red Lobster, by contrast, was relatively quiet. We arrived at just prior to 2:00 and departed just after 4:30. I conversed some with those in my immediate vacinity, and ate my fill.

Ok first I had one of those delicious cheese biscuits, which according to my last doctor’s visit I don’t really eed to be eating. But hey, I offset that with a side salad. When I chose to order that salad, I expected to get basically a bowl of lettuce with bleu cheese dressing (another of my guilty pleasures). But actually it was loaded. Little flecks of meat, another kind of cheese (I’m not food afficianado, though I did apply to a food magazine as editor and they told me my resume was good once), croutons, and other stuff. Hey, my wife and I joke that my food critique is as follows: Real good, Good, Ok, not good, nasty! So there you go. Anyway, I had to stop eating before I became full off just that serving.

As we broke bread, talking about work, home, and life, the main course arrived. As I had on my previous Red Lobster visit, I’ve only eaten there twice if you can believe that, I had stuffed flounder (real good) with some kind of seafood sauce) and fries. I decided to walk on the wild side and went for a glass of mango lemonade, (good, I guess)? I don’t eat a whole lot of seafood, but I suppose it can be good on occasion, and I know it’s generally healthy as well.

The last sort of interesting thing I want to think about as a blind person is how we handle visiting the restroom. I needed to go before hitting the road, and it just made me think about my general strategy for finding what I need to find in there. When I enter through the swinging door, I immediately move toward the right wall and make my way around in a counterclockwise direction. This is because, at least in most of the men’s rooms I’ve seen, the sinks to wash hands are just to the left of the entrance with toilets in front. If I move in that direction, I usually manage to locate a stall, exit it, and get to the sink without any embarrassing mishaps. This time? Well, it was sort of strange as I did bounce off of someone as I made my way to the sink. Naturally, he then began providing assistance. It didn’t go completely sideways at least.

So there you have it, a little look into my mind as I work to negotiate the social norms that surround a typical holiday in my family. I enjoy it mostly, and by this point I know that most of the concerned parties know about my challenges and do not think any less of me. But sometimes having these hearing problems can be a struggle. Like when I find myself on a paratransit vehicle with a new driver who loves to talk, but I can’t comprehend him over the engines, as happened recently. I’ve learned though that the best, and really only, thing I can do is make the other person aware of this and take it as it is. More of my shenanigans as the summer time unfolds.

Why a Blind Man Watches Spacecraft Launches

Posted on by John

And yes, I used the word “watch,” as it commonly refers to consuming video content. I “watch” TV or YouTube, or what have you.

I tried to watch the launch of the new Starliner spacecraft yesterday, but unfortunately they still haven’t been able to get it off the ground. Of course because it is a new machine, I’m sure they have to take every caution in putting it into the skies. But I find it particularly interesting to catch it, as this will be only the sixth different American craft created since the U.S. space program began.

My earliest memories of humanity hurling things out of Earth’s atmosphere are the same as many of my generation: the very sad Challenger space shuttle disaster. Because a teacher was going into space, all of the schools had us tuned in to watch this spectacle unfold. I think I only partially understood what had happened that day, because I was only 6 years old. But it gave me my first taste of a desire to explore and the dangers that could come with it.

This desire was deepened, oddly perhaps, by the little-known sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (one of my all-time favorite books by the way) called Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. In this one, Charlie ends up riding the elevator, I think from the factory, into space where he encounters aliens called Vermitious Knids. I guess they were a sort of stand-in for bad kids? Looking back on his writing, it seems maybe the author Roald Dahl didn’t like kids too much. Anyway, I remember the aliens smelling like eggs, and I was rapt by this nonsensical story. It even awoke in me a need to meet people not of my background who brought different perspectives and lived different lives.

As I got older I watched many of the shuttle launches, always feeling a thrill as all that audible power thrust them up, up, and away! I’ve read nearly every story written about the Apollo missions, and was most focused on how the astronauts felt as they left our planet, a slow ride at first with increasing G-force and speed until suddenly you go slack and float off of the couches. How I would love to experience that.

My interest in space and space travel went through the roof (clouds?) with the Apollo 13 movie starring Tom Hanks, which I got to catch in theaters. It was even more awe-inspiring to hear that power projected through a good sound system. And obviously getting those folks back home safely after everything unraveled is one of the best examples of the good we can do when we choose to work together.

Fast-forward to 2011 and the second-to-last shuttle flight. I sat in the lobby of my graduate school department building, feeling ho hum as I faced an insurmountable workload and had no clue how to deal with it. So I took a break and listened to the shuttle blast off. When I finished, I met a wonderful Lebanese woman who helped me get through that last, bumpy year and a half. I have an entire entry about her if you’d like to read it, but it again showed me the power of meeting and getting to know people from different backgrounds.

And as we are still stuck in low-earth orbit, I have read and am reading some sci-fi novels that take me many parsecs (I learned that a parsec represents roughly 3.26 light years) away and years into the future. The Noumenon series, by Marina J. Lostetter, is one of the most imaginative series I have ever read, and I’ve read many of them (the Frank Kitridge Mars series is also excellent). In Noumenon, she has them awake while traveling incredible distances rather than being frozen. I like how she takes care to represent all kinds of people, including multiple cultures and even people with disabilities (a deaf woman and one in a wheelchair play significant roles.) The books, three of them, are long but worth it. So if you get the chance, check them out.

So yeah, my interest in spacecraft launches and space travel overall stems from all kinds of experiences. Hey, maybe I’ll do as I told my mom and be the first blind man on the moon (I’ll plant my cane there!)

#GAAD: On CAPTCHA

Posted on by John

Today, May 16, is Global Accessibility Awareness Day. Its purpose is to increase awareness of and understanding around why sites and components of sites need to be accessible. Of course complete accessibility refers to much more, ensuring that all areas of life are available to persons with disabilities. But I think this day has a primary focus of digital and web accessibility. In that spirit, I want to show what can happen when the various accessibility issues have not fully been addressed.

I made a post way back in 2006 in Live Journal, (remember that? Almost 20 years ago now!) In this post, I railed against CAPTCHA, which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (Taken from This site.) First, that’s a mouthful. And second, it has been the vain of my existence since its inception. In those days, those of us who were totally blind were pretty much left out of the experience entirely. This meant that, for example, we could often not sign into websites that had put CAPTCHA in place, because we couldn’t “type the characters you see on the screen.”

Eventually, and I’m sure with a lot of elbow grease and advocacy, web developers began to understand that there were a significant number of individuals who were being barred from accessing their products because of this spam-fighting tool. So they answered the call by creating audio CAPTCHA, where words or numbers are spoken aloud, often with some kind of noise in the background to make it harder for computers to pick up what is being said. The voice is also usually not completely clear. And this works for a lot of totally blind people, meaning they are able to “pass the test” and get done whatever it is they are trying to accomplish.

The problem? What happens if you have little or no hearing and partial or total blindness. I am totally blind and significantly hard of hearing, so even the clearest spoken language can be hard for me to follow. If they deliberately make it hard to understand what is being said, I will be lucky to get, say, two of the five words they say correct.

I had this happen just yesterday. While trying to complete a recovery of my Microsoft Outlook account (I locked myself out because I couldn’t remember the password, another issue about which I could write an entire entry,) I encountered one of these lovely CAPTCHA. I switched from visual to audio and must have tried eight different sets of words before I gave up in frustration. I’ll have to get that sorted eventually, but at least I’m still receiving email to my account. I assume it will be lost if for some reason I log out of my Outlook.

Ovviously, this can cause much bigger issues if one cannot access a site that uses either visual or audio CAPTCHA, and as far as I know deafblind individuals don’t really have a way to get past it without sighted assistance. I did try to have some of the various AI solutions locate and read the characters on the screen, but I don’t think they are easy enough to discern.

I guess I’m wondering why we even use these methods, in the age of two-factor authentication. Maybe a code could be texted to a user’s phone? I know this would not be a complete solution as some folks do not have phones that can read text, but it would allow many more to have easy access.

Alternatively, I’ve seen some sites that ask relatively easy math questions for the person to solve to prove their humanity. Whatever the case, I hope people continue to be aware of this issue and the very real stumbling block it puts in some people’s path.

Freeing Refreshable Braille for More Access

Posted on by John

Many in this era worry that the advent of digital audio technology will mean the end of braille as we know it. And there is already some truth to this, as very few totally blind people know or read braille as it is. But and I’ve seen this frequently in my training, those who depend heavily on audio to consume written content often are less able to spell correctly, which may well affect their ability to gain employment. Given the degree to which the cards are already stacked against us when it comes to getting jobs even without this challenge, we need to gain every advantage we can in any area.
These days, the answer to being more able to read materials in braille without having to produce the paper and take up the space this medium requires is to use a refreshable braille display. I’ve had a few of these devices, from the Braille Lite I got way back in the late 90s during my college career to the Brailliant BI 40 received from the I Can Connect program for deafblind individuals. And in 2020, I of course got the Mantis Q40 display I’ve written about a few times in this journal. And each of those devices opened up more of the written word in ways I could not have imagined.
The problem with these displays is and has been their expense. Most of us blind folks can hardly afford $2, 3, or $4,000 to get even a low-end display. Happily though, at least in the U.S, the National Library Service for the Blind (NLS) is making refreshable braille available for any eligible blind individuals. You have to be enrolled in the library for services, as I am, and call your regional library to request one.
There are two models of NLS Ereaders, as they are known: one provided through Humanware and another through Zoomax. I think you get the brand of reader that your library has available, so I received the Zoomax machine.
These models contain 20 braille cells, which is as much space as I had on my Braille Lite but only half the 40 cells on my other units. Reading with 20 cells is certainly doable, but it requires a lot more pressing of the panning buttons to advance through a single braille line. I’ve found though that as I practice I’m already getting better at it. My Mantis is currently on the fritz and I don’t know when or if I’ll ever see it again, so having this option so quickly available is vital to me being able to continue my work. I also like that it has a handy carrying case with magnetic snaps that keep it closed, which is kinda cool!
This reader is primarily designed to download and read NLS BARD books. However, it can connect via Bluetooth to your smartphone, and USB to the PC. It’s got an SD Card reader, and USB C port for the PC and a USB A port for a flash drive. I love that such a small unit contains so many ports.
It’s a pretty good device on the whole. The only issue I really notice, and this may be only in my unit, is that the battery gauge is unreliable. It says I have 50% charge, then 77%, then 19%, then 54%, so I can’t really tell how much juice it actually has. This is not a big deal though, as I’m usually close enough to a charging port at all times. I even have a portable battery I can plug in.
I am happy such a program exists. If you would like to take advantage of it, again just call your regional library and ask if they have an NLS Ereader. There was a slow roll-out, but they were at least hoping that all states would have units by the end of 2023. And happy reading!

“The Sign for Home” Examines Life and Challenges for a DeafBlind Individual

Posted on by John

Recent high-profile cases have shone a spotlight on issues regarding disability and independence. To what degree should one make decisions about one’s life, even if not fully able to perceive the world in what is deemed a “normal” way. Should family be able to basically dictate how a person is to live, simply because they believe they are protecting the individual from harm, thus possibly denying access to choices that other adults expect to have?
In his debut novel The Sign for Home, Blair Fell addresses this issue in a novel way. First, we have Arlo, a DeafBlind individual who resides with his devout Jehovah’s Witness uncle and receives information via a Tactile American Sign Language (TSL) interpreter who professes to believe the same. Arlo, wishing to explore possibilities in writing, enrolls in a class at a Poughkeepsie (NY) community college where he meets Cyril, another interpreter who accidentally or on purpose opens Arlo to a whole new world.
This writing class, taught by an unusual professor from St. Kitts, leads Arlo to explore parts of his past that he had been forced to shut away because his uncle deemed them sinful. These included an encounter with a deaf girl while he attended the School for the Deaf that led to his being sent to live with said uncle in the first place.
As the story unfolds, we learn that things with this girl are not as they seem. Arlo had been told one story about “the event” that ultimately ended their blossoming love affair, but… well as it turns out everyone has their secrets and lies. As the truth is revealed and Cyril and his associated cast of characters make Arlo more aware of possibilities regarding independence, he begins to push back against his uncle and Molly, the initial interpreter. This eventually leads to his seeking total freedom from his uncle’s guardianship.
Arlo and Cyril are primarily featured, with Arlo’s perspective being second person present and Cyril’s first person past. Both of these methods allow the reader to connect deeply with what is going on, offering a different set of feelings based on each. The former seems designed to ensure that one feels the experience of DeafBlindness and coping with a world neither heard nor seen insomuch as one can truly experience this, while the latter aims to allow access to the complicated emotions involved in helping Arlo deal with change.
At points during this novel, I as a DeafBlind person worried that the portrayal of Arlo made life for those living with these disabilities seem too simplistic and/or sad. Arlo knew little about how to operate in society when it came to moving around by himself and being willing to explore the wider world. The first part of this of course is that for some individuals who are DeafBlind, just as for those with other challenges, this is a true outcome. If one is not exposed to people and services such as Orientation and Mobility and Vocational Rehabilitation that are designed to help a person with a disability learn what is needed to thrive, one might indeed have a hard time. Even so, I appreciated that Fell included people who were functionally independent and who knew enough to teach Arlo, Cyril, and all in their circle some basic strategies to make his life easier. It is realistic, after all, to show that one might struggle with life as a DeafBlind person, but I believe it is equally if not more important to show that life can still be lived well with this or whatever condition one finds oneself.