Revelation!!

It was another “work on the house” weekend. This time we had Gabe for two days to finish the ramp—which I sometime feel is a never ending operation – and fix anything else in the house and as I have said many times, as a person with limited hand function and ability to get out of my chair and crawl round on the floor, under sinks, up ladders or get under the house, I take any and all help I can get when the help is offered.

Saturday Dianne finished painting the ramp along with Bridget's help leaving Gabe free to attack the kitchen. He put the new handles on my sink—the “hot” lever has broke for what seemed like years and is actually months. Gabe also looked at the big kitchen sink and found the sink was not as bad as I had thought. I thought we were going to he to replace the whole basin and infact just the disposal needed replaced. So now we have a great working regular sink and I have both levers working on my sink and a disposal to boot.

I had resigned myself to the fact I was going to be housebound until what ever was painted on the ramp dried. I figured I would just have to deal with the confinement. What I had not thought through thatI was going to be housebound with my infant grand son, Asher. Actually I was to be house bound with ?Asher AND Anakah, Asher's older sister.

Friday, Dianne and I had been to Lowes and on a mad impulse we purchased a propane grill, a small thing we could light at a moments notice and cook a couple of steaks, burgers, dogs are what ever. Now the process of stoking and firing up the smoker is pretty defeating. The major problem was the grill comes dissemblance. So, Anakah and I subjected Asher, first to another showing of Babe which Asher surprisingly tolerated an then in a mad flash of genius I decided to begin assembling the grill—I must have been insane—but you know what it worked. Anakah, Asher and I quietly and respectfully put together a propane gril and it worked too!! Dianne cooked a couple a three t-bone steaks for dinner Saturday night!!! It's funny how everything tastes better when you do it yourself. I was impressed with the lad. I knew Anakah could work together—I was surprised that we stuck to the conclusion o the project—Asher watched Anakah and I put the little cooker together screw, by screw by lug nut for the whole project which took hours( it was only supposed to be 30 minutes.

It was fun! What I thought was going to be long and tortuously confining was in fact fun and liberating as the three of us worked to complete our first ever project together.

Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head....

Remember,a couple weeks ago how I was going on and on about the new roof we were anticipating putting on our house, then actually getting the funding and contacting or being contacted by the roofer the Russian or the Russian the roofer—however best that comes out. We did it, we bit the bullet , closed our eyes and jumped into a new roof. The job was clean and fast and not short on comic relief with a Russian, making it in the USA, trying to supervise a handful Mexican (nationals no doubt). Anyway we have been enjoying our new roof all summer till Saturday afternoon.

Saturday, was beautiful, clear in the morning accompanied by a wind of change. I had been out on the bus system getting my power chair looked at. I was afraid the back might becoming off so I was out to Magic Rest and charging my chair a couple hours , on my return, I sprinted back up to the Red Box and got a couple of movies for the evening and a couple of warnings from passer bys that I had better get in before the rains start. I just smiled and nodded my head kept on my journey. However, the winds were picking and the winds were warm and laced with spits of rain here and there but nothing significant...yet. The clouds were mashing up an turning dark and blustery-something was coming.

I was still dry by the time I had gotten home but now the winds were beginning whip and the rqain started. At first just a couple of drops the a few more then the deluge started. The rain hammered the front of the house at the beginning then the rain was blown sideways as it was blasted in sheets. Lightening was frequent and the thunder loud and constant. The hail started and joined the party bouncing off the pavement and shredding tree leaves and taking many of the re plum tree leaves in the front yard off all together. We had been sitting in the door watching all the weather, DD got up and went to the back of the house to the laundry. She called me in and showed me water streaming down the back walls of the laundry, in one place the water was coming in a steady stream.

We have had a couple of small spitters, a little rain but nothing like the rain which hit us Saturday afternoon. When we had the roof put on we had the contractor put an outlet for the dryer up through the ceiling and through the roof to the outside. Dianne thinks this vent was poorly made. I have been wondering if indeed the vent is OK but due to the amount of water and the wind driving this water maybe that is what happened and water just gushed down the pipe or what ever. I am hoping that whatever us the problem the fix will be easy and swift and the discussions with the Russian will be productive and low stress. We took a video of the “water full” which I plan to post in the near future

The shining ray through this whole mess is the area where we had the leak in the bathroom, before the new roof , was high and dry—is this a half full or half empty kind if thing?

I See Dead People

I woke way early this morning and knew I was not going to get back to any meaningful sleep for the rest of the night and finally drug my butt out of bed to begin my day at 4:30 just because I could not stay in bed any longer. I was a half hour ahead of my usual schedule when I left the house heading up to State street and my bus stop. Right now being a half hour early is not so bad—the place where I catch my morning bus is literally infested with wifi hot zones, Beans and Brew, Zions Bank even Fed Ex has an office on my corner and they were offering wifi. I connected and read my email and caught up on the news. It is really too bad that Utah Transit Authority does not offer a wifi connection on their train services so I ended up reading my e-book and trying to stay awake.

I have to travel a block or so to get to my office. I travel from the downtown train station cut through part of block then travel to the corner and cross the street to my office. This morning when I emerged from the alley I noticed fire engines and police cars parked in front of the Art Space apartments. Now emergency vehicles parked in front of this building at this time of the morning maybe unexpected but, really not that unusual what was unusual about a half a block down from the fire engine was a corpse covered with a white sheet-just like on TV. There were cops standing an squatting around waiting for coffee and possibly doughnuts and folk waking by just like Tuesday morning—the scene was surreal. I was across the street behind a lamp pole trying to get a decent image of corpse and not be seen as a rubber necking, camera toting opportunist jerk taking images of the newly dead. I was using my cell phone and got a couple images the best I cropped and uploaded. Not the best but you get the idea—nothing is ever dull down town.

Turn, Turn, Turn

A couple of years ago I gave my wood lathe and turning knives away to my brother ina fit of exasperation because I could not access my garage. Since then I have picked up two lathes but still I do not have any knives. Hopefully that is about ready to change.

I have missed working in my garage and working on my project of making sticks. I want to get back to turning and turning out sticks so I have started searching for turning knives. I looked at the local tv station website on their "Classified" section, I even went so far as to re awaken my membership to Ebay and entered a couple of auctions. Luckily i was out bid for a set of tools--this is good because after I made the bid I saw the auction would not even close until sometime next week. I usually can fins something on the Classified section of the local TV station but not this week. My work mate thought I should check Harbor Freight ( which I am surprised I had not thought of earlier) and sure enough there were a couple of sets available but still would have to go through the mail--then i called the local store and they had the same items at the same price so I will be able to drive down and pick up a set of knives and get to work--I am really hoping the knives will drive me back into my garage and back to my lathe...we will have to see.

Slipping again

One day begets another, begets anther, and soon there is another week where in I have not written in the blog. Honestly, I have something to say and just not the time nor the energy by th end of the day.

M360P

I work with a women who actually has a project at the local Airforce base. It called the 360 project and what that title means I do have a clue but I like the title so much I decided to steal number and work it into my own project and thus I have the Meadowlark's 360 Project or M360P. I have only been doing the project for a couple of weeks now but I have been getting good responses.

The M360P is really an off shoot of the Train People project, where I snap an image each day with cell phone and upload the image to my Facebook page. I started turning a circle while filming with the cell, usually at one of my train stops. Now that the “360” is its own project I hope to be turning circle just about everywhere and posting the results.

Read My Lips

http://www.ustream.tv/flash/video/16293961

I was desperate for an interview a couple of weeks ago for the bi-weekly internet broadcast I do when I was contacted by a gentlemen fishing for funding for his program for deaf folk. I turned the call and soon had my last Thursday of July filled. I was a little concerned that this was a interview with person who is deaf. I have purposely stayed away from this disability group because of the captioning thing. I believed once I did the deaf interview then I was on the hook for accessibility to the rest of the interviews we have done. I know we should be captioning or providing some form of interpreting but our budget I so tight—there is absolutely no funding for anything but answering the phone. A couple of years ago, when we at least had budget for two operators—I had the other operator transcribing the tapes from the interviews with the hopes of using Movie Maker software to run a trailed under the video of the actual speech—I figured if we ever did get busted I could call “reasonable” accommodation —the transcription project quietly died when Tory moved on to another job outside of State service.

I made it clear to the folks who are deaf I could provide interpreter and when they started pushing my on the idea I told them I was dropping the interview like a Republican contribution slip. They came back indicating they would take care of the problem. When they showed up for the interview the did not have an interpreter and the event went down hill from there. I have kept the interview—what it was-- on the web site to illustrate the need for accessible and affordable communication options. I told them I would try to find a sighner for a re-do of this interview in two week.

So, I called the or the Deaf and Hard of Hearing an pike with an old friend, there who directs the program. She even indicted she may have a little funding to provide an interpreter. She a good State employee and cautious and will commit an interpreter until she has visited with the couple. She wants to be sure the interpreter will be signing the truth—there seems to be some issues with couple. So, no I am waiting to see if I have interpreter services for my next show the 11^th of August. An what about beyond?

I have the director of the state program scheduled for later this Fall which is a good thing. I have opened the door to the whole deaf thing and now can see where this elephant will go. Maybe the deaf folk an provide their interpreting or maybe a way for us to to get our shows captioned. Already with the director’s I know we are doing the right thing and I think some doors might open up for our little interview project. Now I just have to figure out a way to diffuse the whole deaf interview from last week. Check out the interview talk about Marx brothers...

OK, but not Celestial

I was about to get ready to launch another rant about the restaurants in this city which are not accessible. Really cool places which have great food but I cannot access due to architectural barriers. There had been a heavy rain all morning but lunch the clouds were breaking and I was thinking on heading out for lunch. I was going to try to satisfy myself with what I had in the fridge but in the end I felt I needed to leave the office and enjoy the weather—the colder air of winter is coming in less this ten weeks, this Summer's days are numbered.

Invariably when I try to find somewhere interesting to dine downtown SLC I always end up at Gandolfo's on Main Street located upstairs over the Stepdown Social Club which always looks like they have a great lunch menu. Today, I finally got someone to send down a person to take my order. The sandwich was OK—not celestial but definitely OK.

August Rain

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=2059176163159

I am going to try to write everyday this month--maybe not the 500 words, I like to write but something like this morning-it is raining in downtown slc, which I feel is extremely odd for August go on ad on about the end of days when it is just a rainstorm in August...