De Niro

Yesterday I was sitting in my office and actually having a pretty good day for getting up at 3:30 a.m.—not knowing I had gotten up an hour before I usually do—when my old boss C. came into my office. She was the person who hired me for the position I am in now. She her position her as executive director went back to school and finished her PhD and now is a professor type at the local university. In fact she teaches a disability studies course which is pretty cool. The class is a graduate level class, small and populated by seven or ten focused little graduate students all seeking to make a difference.

In fact, back in October C. asked that I come and present to her class. I figured “why not”. There is not better shot in the arm then yammering in front of a bunch of folks who think you know it all. This stroking is really enough for me, getting to talk about myself. But when the class was over and I was preparing to leave C. in passing mentions that she has a small budget to pay for stipends for guest lectures. I assured her that was nice, and filthy lucre would be nice but really playing professor was enough for me. But know when some drops a bomb like “ we can pay you a little” it starts working on you. C. said she would have to submit the “request for payment” and the University would send the check in a couple of weeks but if I did not get money. I just sort of blew it all off until It got closer to the holidays and extra funding would be appreciated.. I saw C. once or twice over the holidays and subtly hinted that I had not received anything and I would not ask but hey we’re in the middle of recession and so… And again nothing happened an I survived the holidays and wrote off any compensation as a good like in graduate class is payment enough.

So I was more then pleasantly surprised when C. came into the office and handed me an envelope she said had been riding in the bottom of her purse for a couple months turned round and left. The envelope was an official University envelope with my name scrawled across the front. The envelope slightly bulged. Payola!

Sure enough, I tore the envelope open and there were three bills two twenties and a ten. Fifty bucks, cash, salad, de niro! It seem strange though cash, waded up cash, like cash which had been in a purse and pulled out and stuffed in a office envelope and given to someone who thinks their owed. Dianne thinks I am being set up and that is why the cash. I doubt it. I think that perhaps there really never was a stipend or if there was it was taken back or something leaving C. holding the bag and to stop me from asking, everytime she sees me, she thought ‘what the heck’ ergo the cash. No nice crisp check with all the tracking stuff on the attached page. So, I have been paid. I’m happy. I spent most of the “pay off” at my very local Office Depot( which is going out of business). Before C. hurriedly left my office after dropping off the envelope she asked if I would sit on a panel in a couple of week. Sure…no problem.

We are doing another broadcast of Access Utah Now this Thursday and I have just sent out a copy of the February Quantum the e-newsletter of Access Utah Now. I made a gigantic list of names in my address book of folk I think would be interested and blasted it out—the list is a little over three hundred names and growing. I am finding I am finding I am sending a message down the list a couple of time a month, once before each broadcast and when I send out a new copy of the Quantum. So far I have got a couple of emails from people either demanding how I got their email or to have their name stricken from our list

I guess I cannot blame not blame them as much as I have bitched and moaned about getting “forwards” from people I know who send them out by the hundreds and I suppose these folk see these announcements showing up in their “In Box” as a form of junk mail. But I doubt I will stop sending out the announcements. Sure I’ll remove the names from the list when they request but that is all.

The snow fell during the night as I came to work from the Planetarium Station I was able to get this image. I liked it.

The Right Thing To Do

Remember the loaner chair I borrowed from the Utah Independent Living Center? The chair which I ended up taking the top part off and putting my seating system on has been working very good, actually like a dream after I got used to the slower speed and remembered to buckle myself in, every time I use it. Last week I for some reason I remembered that the chair which died on me, my chair which I left at Magic Rest still had my new set of batteries in it, the batteries I had to wait till the end of Summer so my insurance would purchase them some thing ling $200.00!! I called Magic Rest and sure they still had my batteries and the pulled them and load tested the batteries and they reported the batteries were still charging at 70%. We made an appointment for Saturday, today to have me stop by the shop and have the boys switch out the chores.

The doomsday weatherologist reported last night the skies today would be grey and weepy rainy all weekend long so I was a little surprised when I left the house and there were clouds but the temperatures were spring like with patches of blue. I am sure it was just the heat of the new cold front “pushing” it’s way in but the warm air felt good. I was totally surprised when I got to the shop and the traded the batteries right there in my van in about ten minutes they were going to give me the batteries but those batteries were not mine—and the batteries they pulled out of my chair were new batteries, newer then my batteries. Those batteries were the Center’s. I told them to hold on to them and I would have someone from the center pick them up next week.

I should have kept them, the batteries. You can always use a second pair of batteries, back up batteries. Oh when I was there I noticed Brent the sales guy was in and I asked him about my new chair, had he heard anything—and he had. My new chair should be in town the end of next week!!! I cannot believe it my wait is about over. Now I have to seriously think about the $2,000.00 which will be my responsibility. This makes me a little nervous. So I will have new batteries when the chair comes, brand new cores, and I will have these 70% cores which I am riding on now and I feel it is just right to make sure the batteries which came with the loaner go back to the Center. Really, I am not that much of a good guy it just seems like the right thing to do.

Cloudy Afternoon

It’s Thursday/Friday, the last two hours of our ten hour/four day week and Monday was a holiday and I really am glad he weekend is here got me. Today has been a light day as I have watched a storm struggle to make its way into the Wasatch Front and scrub some of filthy atmosphere out of the City. I was able escape the office a little while after lunch—I was invited to a “focus group” for the Salt Lake Arts Council—hosted by VSA of Utah—no food just bottles of water in the new trendy art space of Art Access, a private non-profit I have been loosely affiliated with for them pas twenty years. Art Space is lack of better words Salt Lake’s art colony. Creative types with lots of political mojo wrote some grants, reclaimed a warehouse from the industrial district the city fathers are trying to bootstrap, clear the bums out, fumigate, paint and build some lofts. A perfect art space.

VSA of Utah Art Access is the Utah affiliate of Very Special Arts, the touchy feely non-profit maintained my the Kennedy Foundation. Bringing art to the crips is what they do. Yeah I know I’m cynical of these guys its hard not to but I have to admit I have been one over by VSA even if I still gag on their use of “Very Special” in their title. In another life I started an acting company and Art Access hosted the acting company and put on the plays we produced that I wrote. Art Access published my writing on a regular basis, every time they published their yearly offering Desert Wanderings. Lori, a good friend of mine, was the editor and she always make sure I had space if I had something to publish. It was cool, she even bought my work, it was not much but $30-$40.00 for q couple pieces of poetry and the write to say I have published work and not be lying and when Art Access would publish the volume Art Access always had an open house, where wine was served along with cheese and crackers. The press was invited and the opening was held during the monthly “gallery stroll” and I was expected to read selections. I even wore a black turtleneck and a sports jacket all I needed was a pipe and elbow patches. Heck, I even met a writer for the local news paper, we became close friends who has even done some fairly extensive stories on me. Again, I know it more then hokey buy this kind of attention feels good so I don’t have a problem when Ruth Lubbers calls ad needs people to sit in on a focus group now and then to show her board or another agency like the Salt lake Arts Council, they are reaching out to all the community in order to keep their funding money coming in. After all it’s Thursday afternoon, and gets me out of the office, its light duty—I’m here taking calls and not a whole lot else.

Somehting's Wrong Here

Something has changed on my system here at the office and I cannot figure out what the problem is. But somehow the computer has stopped showing my quicktime films and somehow not being able to view the Q-times is messing up being able to download the broadcasts I have been doing with Ustream.tv. I have been down loading a lot of programs especially programs for things like converting video from one format to another and a couple of months I got rid of Quicktime in a fit of anger and after a couple weeks after I had cooled down I tried to re-install Quicktime but now QT would not load unless I have the dreaded Windows XP Service Pack II. I really don’t know how many times I have tried to install this patch or whatever Service Pack is but my system has never recognized the software and I can no longer run Quick-time movies. This non-file recognition has not been a problem until this morning when I tried to view a couple clips I took on my way into work and all I got from the play back was the audio and audio is so lame after one has had video. What really worries me and my mind always comes back to the thought is I may have down loaded a virus which is slowly occluding my system from working the way it should. I also worry that if in fact my system is infected I will have to call state IT in and the will have to “nuke” my system and start over. Not only is this time consuming but also way embarrassing.

I Just forgot

The black line on the left side of the image is my course of travel and where that lack line ends is where we collided!!


Thursday I stayed late since I had to close up, everyone was gone leaving on vacation for the four day holiday or just gone. I was in pain too long on the old butt. I had to get home. The train was mercifully quite as I road home reading or trying to read. When I go off the train I immediately headed for home. I may have described this before but when I get off the get off the train at 6400 South and 300 West I have to travel North on 300 West and the first half a block or so has not been developed, there is no sidewalk meaning I am having to roll, facing traffic on the side of the road. Now add to this an undeveloped train commuter parking area. So there are always a handful of commuters who de-board along with me but since they re able bodied they just cut across the tracks and across the 300 West to their vehicles and head for the street where I have to go all the way to the corner an start my home commute along the side of the road. There is also a drive way to 300 West on the North end of this commuter parking area. There is where people heading North from the parking area will merge with Northbound traffic on 300 West.

So Thursday night, I am bundled in my great white jacket with my hood up looking straight ahead, belted in and heading North. It takes a little skill to keep the power chair on the edge of the paved street and keep out of the way of on coming traffic. So I note but do not pay much attention as I approach the drive way from the parking area. I since a care and I can see the highway illuminated in front of me and I figure it is just one of the commuters—now, here I must take responsibility and admit I should have stopped my forward progress and looked for traffic but I did not. I just kept pushing forward. The illumination increased again I figured this was traffic getting ready to merge—no problem and continued on an then I felt a nudge and looked down to see the bumper of a car pushing my the left side of my power chair to the right an I thought, surly now they will see me and stop-the car did not and continued o move forward and I kept being pushed to my right and I then knew she s not going to stop and I was BEING RUN OVER!!! Then I got pissed and all I could think of doing as hitting the hood as har as I could, it was certainly close enough. So I raise my hand and came down as fast and hard as I could. I cannot remember hearing the sound of the impact of my hand striking the hood but it must have worked because the car jerked to a halt and I sped on my way. A second later a car pulled along side of me and a twenty something jumped out asking if I as OK. I nodded I was OK—and I did not hurt anywhere to speak of so I did not engage her further then that. I could tell she was spooked though she had come pretty close to wrecking her holiday weekend and mine too for that matter.

The next day I was sore but I am sure the soreness was from muscle tensing and I am OK now. I just hope this is as close to getting run over again I come in a long while.

Kicking Back

My butt feels much better today, but it’s early but I am thinking maybe the time off and attention to the wound this weekend, this long holiday weekend. That’s it though, I suspect those of you who are reading and following this blog are getting sick and tired of getting the low down on my anatomy, I plan to move on now and get on with healing a and reporting my life. But keep in mind as an aging crip I am deeply concerned as to my physical condition and living life as I can as independently and free of physical pain and strain of all sorts as I can. So a wound anywhere on me will get good play in this blog.

It’s a holiday today and I am home and enjoying the day. We are making ham and lima bean soup and just laying low. The sun is out and Salt Lake is deep into inversion the day looks nice ,even warm but the atmosphere is dangerously dirty to breath and the inversion causes the temperature to be much lower here on the valley floor where the temperature will struggle to get out of the thirties up above the inversion in places like Park City the temps will rise into the forty’s and maybe even higher mixed with much cleaner air. I would like to go out but there really is nothing to do except get cold. So I am sitting by my window looking out on the street which runs past my home.

Not Fast Enough

I was hoping that my butt would be feeling better with all the time I have been off it this weekend but I don’t think the healing process is happening as quick as I want the healing to. I have tomorrow off for the holiday but come Tuesday, I am back in the saddle and I will be driving my hair into work and , I feel, is really going to stress the old butt. So I guess it is time to head back to the wound unit to get their input. Going back to the wound clinic spooks the hell out of me but I have to have the situation looked at and get the wound under control and get some more resources. The last time we went, the clinic gave us these really great bandages and were supposed to have a guy follow up but he has never followed through. Dianne is hoping that when the new wheelchair arrives a new cushion will come with it and the new cushion will offer a lot relief. I am too.

Lay Down and Take A Load Off

I am up today. I forced myself to say in bed all day yesterday to relieve pressure off my rear end. The old wound, I have, refuses to heal. /actually Dianne says the wound has healed but now has broken down again. Not big and not bad…yet, but needs to have attention one way or the other.

As I have discussed in the past I have had wounds before right after my accident I had a few decubes and these wounds were heart breaking for me but taught me valuable lessons as far as skin maintenance and a healthy distain for anything which might put me to bed for days if not weeks at a time. Am just plain fortunate, I think I have skin which fight pressures sore anyway did for forty some years which re really the time I have gone between skin breakdowns and I probably have been pretty irresponsible with my skin care .

I don’t know about other gimps but I strongly suspect most feel as I do: anything which limits your mobility is greatly feared. I have visited with a couple of caller at Access Utah Network who call, especially when they have had a skin breakdown and just need someone to talk to. These folk have serious breakdowns which could kill them if they don’t take care of the condition; they’re in bed months years at a time and a couple have even died. To me skin breakdown is right up there with kidney infection which will really make me change my life style and start taking care of myself. And the best way to care for myself now is to take the time and get off my butt. I hate to be down though. I believe it has something to do with my perceived mortality or just having to be trapped in bed and watch the world and history go by and me not being part of it.

So Thursday night when I went to bed Dianne let me know the skin had finally broke and a wound, small, was present. The depression waved over me and I looked at a ruined weekend, and a holiday weekend at that. But I also decided to take the problem in hand and fight the issue even if fighting the issue meant staying in bed all weekend along in order to be well enough to be up and go to work Tuesday morning. It took a while to accept this new maybe proactive approach to taking care of myself. So after rising yesterday, shaving making a quick breakfast so as to take my meds I returned to be where I stayed the remainder of the day. The day was not bad, I really need to move the TV to where I can see it better. As it is the TV is behind me and I have to turn over in bed to watch which is not really comfortable or practicable, but I did it. I was down all day and last night when Dianne checked my butt indicated the would was looking this morning better, the same for this morning’s check. So, I am thinking maybe I will be up only part of the day and hopefully I can handle this outbreak with out going into the wound unit.

Smooth Operator

One of the cool things my boss does when she is free of meetings in or out of the office is surf the net and that’s cool she surfs the net in the line of work, not like me, IF I were to surf the net. My boss actually finds material about people and programs influencing people with disabilities. Earlier this week I got a forward from the boss which she found, I guess it was sent to her by the county mayor’s office with a link to a clip about Nick Vujicic, a little born again, Australian trolling for souls on the Pacific. When I first played the clip I figured the boss just got pulled in by another super crip easy to do when you have un dying faith in your common man/person.

Nick Vujicic has no arms or legs, actually he has some sort of appendage(which probably should have been a leg, in another dimension but not in this one and he I able to use the appendage very effectively. He is smart, good looking head, has an Australian accent, and really knows how to work a crowd. I could also say he has Christ as a brother in his back pocket but I won’t because I am trying to be impartial and not as cynical as I usually am. He is a charmer and somewhere along the line her learned that he can control the crowd with a wink and a smile and a good story and giving the world permission to stare at him, better yet even hug him. What a deal. I have a friend who is similar but has enough body parts that he drives and gets along pretty good independently. My friend is a federallie working for HUD. Brian is a Quaker and is not out their like Nick, bearing his testimony every time he turns around. Brian does good works because that is what people do for their fellow man/persons. I think inherently Nick is too but he is also a hustler hustling for God. Now, I am going to tell you something I want you to keep secret at all cost, don’t tell anyone because if you do my tough guy rep is in serious jeopardy, but the little squirmer got to me!! Not his born again, I am saved and I am going to save you but the motivational, I can do it, I did it and so can you; that part where he falls over like a great tree and whistles when he goes down and then pops himself back up. It is so hokey that it’s impressive. Check him out http://www.maniacworld.com/are-you-going-to-finish-strong.html

Good News Bad News

I got the call yesterday afternoon, my durable medical guy called and informed me that my insurance approved my mew power wheelchair!!! We had gone through and eliminated a number of the features I had planned to get on the chair like the six inch seat elevator. I think that item alone was something like $10,000.00! I mean really, how many parade do I go to in an years time and I can always ask someone at the market to hand me down the olives on the top shelf. So the chair I am getting will have the large motors which will give a lot more speed, the speed I need for getting back and forth to my train station, implanted tires so I will be “flat free” and tilt in place seat, allowing me to shift the weight off of my butt(very important feature). That’s the good news, the bad news is my portion of the purchase will be $2,000.00. I better start looking for a dish washing job or something.

Tick, Tick, Tick

Seconds. Life is made up of seconds. There is not better example of this then missing my train into the city by just this morning I seemed to be running late from the minute I woke and found I had over slept by seven or eight minutes and that seven minutes haunted me all the way the to the office where I was a good fifteen minutes late just due to seconds. And it was not just the seven minutes late getting up, it as also the transfer from my manual wheelchair to the power chair and my foot slipped off the foot plate of my jazzy causing me to almost slip to the floor, I hooked my arm round the back handle of the power chair and muscled myself back into me power chair but that seemed to take for ever and like totally drained myself of energy. Even drained I crawled into my huge white coat , grabbed my back pack, watch cap and glove and headed out the door trying to make time. As I passed the ancients I noticed they had not picked up their newspaper from the drive way so I grabbed the paper and threw it on their back porch and used the bumper of Al’s pick up to push myself up straight in my chair. Then I shot out the driveway out on to the street, seconds, ticking seconds. I was on the street heading to the corner when I realized I had not strapped in. Yes, I am strapping in all the time now, especially since I was thrown out of my chair this Christmas season and it two guys and a hernia to get me back into my chair. So I blew another five minutes if not longer trying to 1) find my safety belt and two freeing my safety belt from the tangle of my chair and finally secure myself in to the chair and be on my way but all the time seconds, seconds adding to minutes.

By the time I got to the train stop my regular train had left the station and the next train had also just barely left. I was going to have to wait at least another ten minutes before the next train would come. As I was sitting another passenger who it seems also missed the same train approached me and started a conversation about having to wait for the next and how that will make her being late will make her miss the heavy rail train up North to her job. We talked she was nice, we talked about disability, she is a recreation therapist. Then my stop came and she asked the question, “would you like to make extra money?” “ Sure who wouldn’t” and then she thrust a card into my hands as I drove my chair off the train at my stop. The card read something about Teambuilders when I got to the office I r an the information through Google and found this organization was just another front for Amway—I did not think Amway was even still round, but Amway what kind of person does that to a stranger? Amway. I cannot believe I got Amwayed. My multi-level sensors must be getting old like me. I am usually pretty good at staving these kind of vampires off.

Sunday Considerations

There is a spot when transferring from the wheelchair to some place else which is the go for broke spot, the place where one has to shift their weight or lift their weight from one point to the next. If one does not commit to this shift they whether have to fall back to bed to re-group or end up on the floor or worse. I sat on the edge of my bed this morning for at least twenty minutes as I tried to make the transfer from bed to my manual wheelchair. I couldn’t try as I may, I had the strength but the wheelchair I was transferring to would just not stay still. Every time I would try to shift my weight the wheelchair chair would move enough for me to realize if I continued on with the shift the chair would slide and I would be on the floor. This is new behavior for me. I have felt it coming on and I cannot pinpoint what the problem is. I suspect or I want to believe the problem is with my equipment. The wheelchair is an old quickie, the brakes are poor and light weight. I have had Dianne keep the tires pumped up so the brakes will bite fairly well but the floor is pretty slippery and even if I have the strength to do the lift and transfer if the chair will not hold sill I am still on the floor.

So what am I going to do? If this continues sure enough I am going to wind up on the floor, and Dianne will not be able to get me back on the bed or on the chair then it’s a call to Gabe, Mark A or 911 and get the firemen over to get the old codger back in his chair. Once when this happens its OK, the fire guys smile and are glad to help-it’s their job. If it happens again in short succession then they look concerned and ask you to be careful, and three times then you get a call from Adult Protective Services—the Gestapo with a heart or so they would like to have you believe. Three strikes and you are out and you get three strikes if nothing more serious happens like what if I fall and on the way down I land on my arm and break am arm. I think then I would have to consider the long term care facility a.k.a. nursing home; at least until I could get rehabed to the point of returning to my home if the care facility did not kill me first.

It’s happening I am growing old before my very eyes. I am going to grow old as gracefully as I can but I have a feeling the process will not be pretty. I just spoke with my mom, who is old and who is living in a long term care facility and we both concur that any day that we both get through is a good day and a day to be thankful for.

Doubt

Dianne dropped the van off at the cousin’s on Tuesday and there it stayed the rest of the week. I purposely did not even think of the van being thankful that I had the ‘loaner’ chair from the Center, and the huge white ‘rapper’ jacket and the train to get me back and forth from work. Luckily I had done the shopping last Saturday. Dianne got stranded durning thr snow storm on Monday but after that with the van gone she was OK to stay home and wait for the repair. On Wednesday after I am beginning to get nervous since I have not heard a word from Dianne of the Cousin so I call and find they have not really looked at the vehicle yet but they were sure to “get it in and would have something for me on Thursday.” When I called Thursday it was very close to the same discussion except they had looked at the van by then but really could not find anything wrong but they were going to take it out on the Interstate and “shakeit down” and see what they can find. Again, all this is cool since I am doing great with the power chair, the snow has finally stopped and high pressure is building. I should be just fine

Its funny when I have the van I really don’t go anywhere except for shopping and other events I cannot get out of. I hardly do of anything elective. But as the morning at work on Thursday( Thursday Friday since I am a State worker), Chapman asked me a couple of times what I going to do on the weekend and each time I would actually telling her something Dianne and I might do or something that we might like to do only to be jolted into reality by the memory that I am not doing anything since I don’t have a vehicle the runs. We are staying in and at best watching cable/direct tv.

Friday morning, yesterday, broke with blue skies and sunshine. I felt pretty good. We made a great ham and egg breakfast and I cleaned up and got ready for the day. I finally called the Cousin for the news and get this the cuz and his minions could find nothing wrong with the van! The battery is charging just fine and everything else, except for a leak here and there ( which I already knew about). “So just watch the vehicle and call us when and if the behavior shows itself again. So I suited up and drove my power chair down to the shop where we had the discussion all over again, with my interjections of what happened and the frustration of know the behavior would happen again at the least opportune time. How can these people say this when I am sitting there writing out a check for nothing. The tow truck was $55.00 and the examination was $45.00 a hundred buck for nothing and you know what I know I am going to get to so it all again. For the record I think I am losing or have lost my alternator. I just hope this comes out the next time and I get a vehicle I can depend on.

I Converted

My quest is nearly complete. I have been searching all week, actually since last December, when I accidentally deleted my last broadcast, for software which can convert FLV files to any file that You Tube or video editor can read. The broadcast was done on my Ustream.tv account and when I was trying to replace the broadcast with a copy that I had fortunately made of the broadcast and saved to my hard drive, I found one piece of software which would broadcast the file as a new broadcast. I tried to just publish the broadcast to my Youtube account but found out my file was too big. I then thought I could cut the broadcast into three segments—awkward but doable but I could not find an editor which would read the file to cut up. I am going to have to convert the file from a FLV which is a flash-video designator to something like AVI, mpeg, mpeg 4 or what ever.
I finally found a converter which was not too silly, oh it is silly enough. The gimmick is has to force a person to register (buy) the product is this converter just converts the first 20 minutes file and the software converts very well.

I of course want to convert the complete file, that only make sense, there fore I have to register the software which is $27.00which is not a bad price—but if I am careful from here on out I won’t need to use the software. Chapman, my work partner, wants to find a super duper piece of software which will do everything especially from a video editing point of view, which would be handy but by the time do all the checking and frogging round we will have wasted a ton of time and not got anything accomplished. Anyway, here it the twenty minute version.

WWJND

I am still fretting about Don Juan out in the hall an all the blessing I could have reaped over the Christmas season, just past. Not that I am an opportunist, which I guess I probably am but now the Christmas season is past Don Juan hasn’t. He’s still out in the hallway just on the other side of the door leading into our office. Don Juan is out there everyday like clockwork, like a job. He is a greeter, he comes up to everyone and smiles, says a few words , in some cases shakes their hands and he even may hand them something. Keep in mind these people, Don Juan is “greeting”, are folks in line to the Mexican Consulate. Don Juan works the crowd like a pro. Today was a good day. I noticed that his odor was not nearly as strong as it has been. Staff here at my office think he is homeless and living at the men’s shelter a couple of block from out building. It is common knowledge the local men’s shelter turns all it’s guests out every morning at 7:00or 8:00 a.m. and their not allowed back until later afternoon, the idea being these guys or either out looking for work or actually working and the poor souls who are not working or actively looking for work must then wander the streets until they an get back into the shelter. In good weather these souls have congregated in the park, close by but when the weather turns foul and the temperature dives to deadly realms these poor souls must a means of survival. Somewhere along the way Don Juan has found out building. I have noticed the last two days a couple of other Hispanic males, who don’t look as good as Don Juan but seem committed to our building. FNG(Frank the New Guy) says these guys sometimes sleep in the stairwells of our building; these stair wells are not heated but better then being out in the snow for six to eight hours.

OK so, what can I do—when the good Samaritan picked up the robbed and stripped guy and carried him to inn and set him up until he as OK. The Samaritan did not seem to care if the was a habitual looser getting drunk and beat up time after time like helping Don Juan by giving him $5.00 and Don making a bee line to the 711m for Smokes and the State glass house for a fifth of hooch. What would Jesus do then—how many times would he give Don Juan a fiver, a job, maybe even a blanket and a bar of soap. How do I approach Don Juan I am pretty sure he barely understands English but I get the sense that he likes me. He always greets me and tries to find things he thinks he can do for me—what if I give him a five and old coot “adopts” me wanting to sleep under my desk like a service animal.—wow!!! What an idea, what if I would get Don Juan a green card then have him be my service animal(that really sounds cold)…really WWJND( what would jeasus NOT do)

What Now??

Yesterday, I left you all with me getting a list of items which Dianne needed at the market, a simple zip out to the van, zip to the market and back . I wish that was how things had went but no a few zips turned into a fairly challenging afternoon. I got out and in the van, fully loaded, out of my chair into the drivers seat( no problem) but when I turned the key over there was only shudder of a hint of power, but nowhere near enough energy to crank the old van into life. I was not very surprised since the temperatures have been so cold and I know enough about batteries to know severe cold can bring out the worst in batteries an if a battery IS going to go the battery will go then. I had enough energy left to honk the horn and Anakah came out and I sent her cross the street to Dan the neighbor. Who came right over and jumped the van and it took off but had to be jumped again when I put the van in gear and ite instantly died and would not start at all. Dan did the job again noting that the meter was indicating that the engine was not charging the battery and it looked like I had a bad alternator- and I should drive right over to Sears and have them check the vehicle out. I should have but I didn’t. Instead I ran the engine for about twenty minutes in an effort to charge the battery. As I was doing running the engine I noticed the motor started running really rough backfiring and making all kinds off odd and weird noises; almost as if the timing was off. In fact at one point I had to keep gunning the engine in order to just keep the engine from stalling. At one point I turned on them heater and the engine almost expired right then but with more gassing the engine I managed to keep the engine going. I don’t know why, maybe just morbid curiosity I turned on the heater/blower again and the same behavior but the third time I did it something happened and he engine immediately settled down and ran smooth as ice. I slipped the transmission in and out of gear a couple time: no problem. I decided to take the chance an drove over to the market the long way—trying to charge the battery as much as I could.

I rushed through my shopping at the market and having left my lift down, to ensure no one parked too close for me to load when I wanted to go, I was relieved when the lift raised me without issue up to the van and I turned the key, the van jumped to life and I was able to get home without issue. Dianne had a doctors appointment this morning. When she started the van to go it started right up ! It was only when she tried to return home the battery acted like it was dead. She got a jump, then had to get another but the vehicle kept stopping on her on the way home finally getting a last jump she got into the drive way with electrical odors and massive smoke coming from the rear of the vehicle, close to the gas tank!!!
Luckily no explosions or fires to report but we are getting the vehicle into the cousin’s tomorrow and I am sure I’m looking at thousands in repair if not worse.
Why does this not surprise me? Happy New Year?

Baby Its Cold Out There!

It’s cold today very cold, you know the kind of cold that keeps on from going out. The clouds moved out and open blue sky just invited the temperature to plummet as far as it could. The sun does little, unless coming through a window on the south side of the house. There I can sit, doze even fold clothes if so motivated and think about the new week/year beginning at work to tomorrow. Yesterday or the day before I crept into my work email and caught up a little on the week of work I just missed. The boss is calling for a couple hour staff meeting, Tuesday prepared with a list of new year goals and things to consideration. In years past when I had read these type of email, the email would just about ruin my holiday. However, I have learned to really use this time to actually set some goals. Rather then using this goal setting behaviors as a way to punish, the boss really supports and helps me achieve the goals I set for myself. I have learned not to go overboard too as well as if I set a goal make the goal something I like to do and something which is fun to do too. I think I will work on my projects growth and development—maybe this year try to raise some money or get some equipment donated for my broadcast project. So what used to set a small terror inside me now end up being something which might even be considered as fun. I just hate being off the phones for at least the two hours this staff meeting is scheduled for at the present time.

So feelings I have had which were pensive at best are now feelings of excitement. I have things to look forward to. One and maybe major for 2009 is the new power wheelchair which I hope will be approved soon. I have made some adjustments and trade offs and I think I have come in with a chair which will offer me the speeds and protections I feel I can live with at a price which feels like something I can handle. Even if the chair was approved tomorrow( which I doubt) I would not get the vehicle until sometime in March at the earliest. The chair I am using on loan from the Center is meeting my needs and should see me through this winter. I have some great ideas for people to interview for the broadcasts I will be doing this year and who knows where this project will go. So this could be one of my best years ever. Hey I think I am getting excited.

Dianne just laid a list on me of things she need from the market, and Anakah just called looking to escape the confines of her place for the totally open opportunities she has at grandma’s.she will be here at two and sounds like they are going to bake. So I will go mount my power chair and head out into this cold Sunday afternoon, suddenly not so cold after all.

So Long 2008

I guess I am done for this holiday season. Finished with today’s meal at the Shang hi, one of our favorite spots to eat in Salt Lake Valley. I have been wanting to get to the Shang Hi all holiday season. Going out for a couple of meals during the holidays has become a bit of a tradition—too bad but we have only managed one meal out and that meal was with Mark and his family. We really have not had time to visit with them this season so we set up lunch for today. Anakah had spent the night jumped at the chance of getting some cousin time in this case not only with Jasmine( who was in questionable humor) but also with Sommer, the fifteen year old. I really think if Anakah has a chance of a choice of younger or older kids she will always choose the older kids, the teenagers, the cool kids and Sommer has certainly moved into those ranks.

So now I am ready to face 2009. The only remnants of the season is row of Christmas and holiday cards lining our hallway and I will take those down either tonight or tomorrow and slip the cards and their envelops into an appropriately marked folder and place them in a file drawer until November and that’s it. We really never have decorated much for the holidays for a number of reasons, mostly due to lack of space but the kids were never round much over the season so why bother, we were both working and we never had the time or the energy to decorate for our selves. Too bad, I kinda of miss the transformation to and away from Christmas, and really the only reason we so what we do now Anakah. I know she thinks it criminal that we do not have a “real’ Christmas tree. I am sure in a few years she will drag one in like a “care package” when we are too old and feeble to fight off her need to see us celebrate the holiday as she thinks we need to celebrate it.

Anakah took off with Mark a and her cousins after the meal leaving Dianne and I to return to an empty, quiet house. Dianne took a nap and messed round on the computer and listed to the storm come in. I don’t know when I will be able to post this offering maybe not until tomorrow. So long 2008 and 2008 holiday season it was nice.

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year! We past a quiet new Year’ Eve, watching a few movies and giving it up at 11:00 and going to bed. I went right to sleep only to be woken at midnight to the noises of New Years. I really wanted to explode my illegals which I have been holding the past couple of years but no, not this year. Maybe next year if I am lucky enough to live another year.

Earlier in the day we dropped by my brother’s house a couple of blocks from my house. Gabriel had dropped Anakah early in the morning to watch. Dianne had a doctor’s appointment at 8:30 and we were out the door as soon as she had arrived for the medical center for Dianne’s tests. When we had finished with the hospital Anakah—I think desperately searching for something to do with another little person rather going back to the house and the fossils of her grandparents for the rest of the day. She has a cousin who is watched by my sister-in-law similar to how we look after Anakah many days. So with this in mind Anakah “strong armed’ us to stop my brother’s home and see who was available. Her cousin was not there, one of the few that she would not be but Anakah wanted to visit with Jean, my sister-in law, who I believe , Ani believes is “back up” grandmother. I stayed in the van, of course, I really cannot access my brothers home independently, without a lot of processing, we really cannot o the “pop-in” but that’s cool.

The sun was brilliant yesterday, the last morning of the year; the sun heated the inside of the sealed van, so staying in the van was not too difficult a duty. I was bout ready to dive into my back pack and find my new book when I was startled my Carl pounding on the window and motioning for me to roll down the window. I was pleased to see him and we started visiting. I have not really visited with him for over a year now and found the action of talking with him enjoyable. I would like to think we are close as brothers go, but I could be delusional. How much we really know each other is really a question which I wan to explore this year. Anyway—the cold air finally forced Carl into the van but we continued to chat and I was a bit surprised as our conversation turned to death…ours. Carl is new retired, the last three months and is learning to be retired. Carl still rises early every day as he always did when he worked. He does the “honey-dos” and home project he has not been able to get to but even those been completed. He is taking one of his grand sons every morning to school and that is cool and even with that he is searching for his new place in his new life. But Carl is more and more aware that he is getting to the end of his life. I was a little surprised to hear him speak of his demise so casually. I know I have been having the thoughts more and more: “cremation VS burial”, what kind of service, what music or speakers, DNR or no DNR—can I afford a long medical battle if I needed to. What happens if I have a stroke or worse same with Dianne interesting questions. Carl has been have the same What will the end be like? It was interesting to hear what my older brother’s thoughts on this topic was and that thoughts were not so different then mine. But perhaps more important was just being able to visit with a brother I have with for a long while. Happy New Year!!

Lost Chances

I have been stewing over event which happened at the office last week and the holiday season. I cannot believe I let an opportunity of its magnitude slip through my fingers. I am usually so much more tuned into opportunities for altruism. As a firm believer of “bread on the water” mechanics of self-perseveration I give when I can and I usually keep a couple of “ones” dollar bills in my back pack to give hobos and panhandlers. I have learned in my life experience if one gives “here” one gets “there”. This I believe and this I know—this belief has never failed me.

If you have followed the blog at all, you will know that I work in the same building which houses the Utah Mexican Consulate. I am not sure what the consulate does but I know they channel through hundreds of folk through consulate each day they are opened. The consulate is not a low-income service agency due to the kind of vehicles which park in front of my window each day. However, because the consulate is governmental agency I am seeing more and more low-income-poor folk show up at out building. Lately, there has been this one old guy, even older then I am, lets call him Don Juan. The last couple of week Don Juan has been hanging right outside of our office door which is right next to the entrance to the building and Don Juan stands there by the doors and I thought was welcoming folk to the consulate, directing them up stairs and into the right office. But with the cold snap that the area has just finished the odor surrounding don Juan has become more and more intense. I mean this guy ,I think is peeing his pants I swear, and every day I don’t think the odor can get worse, the next day the odor IS worse. In fact one day, I swear, as I was going into my office I saw a puddle at don Juan’s feet—it was only later when I was visiting with staff over lunch that Red—our front desk person—indicated the puddle was probably Don Juan’s only way or retaliation against management for keeping the bathroom doors locked. The bathrooms on the second floor, where the consulate is, is rumored to have open bathrooms, but I am sure the consulate has already kicked old Don Juan off the premises.

Anyway the other day, my last day in the office, Christmas Eve, I over heard Don Juan approach some folks in line to go upstairs to the Consulate and asked for what I could make out was “Dinero “. The old guy was shaking down folks going to see the consulate. Don Juan was panhandling. I could have, should have given the old coots a few bucks—but he stuck, he smelled. Still I could have made a difference even if the difference was two bottles of rotgut rather then one. What I should have done was taken him out and found a tub to throw him in and cut some of the urine off of him. Maybe even got him a ten dollar gift card to Micky D’s down the street—then Son would at least have a chance at some protein before he started downing bad booze. But I didn’t I guess I was too self absorbed. I let my best ever Christmas miracle slip through my fingers and I have been repenting all weekend lone and probably will do so for the next year. I need to start thinking about my brother again—when did I turn away?

Hang Time

I call the week between Christmas and New years “Hang Time”. Hang time is thesplit second in time when a ball throw in the air or a skater hurls up in the air seems to be suspended before gravity overtakes event and it begins to descend. This time between holiday feels, to me, like being suspended in time. I usually take the time off from work if I can. The risk is low there will really be few calls in the Call Center during the in between week and few people will be in their offices or at least any type of decision makers. So I can stay home and just enjoy this Hang Time.

Snow has been good for a Christmas, lots of the white stuff along with the frigid temperatures. I forget how cold. Like yesterday I had to get out because I was going buggy but to do so required me going out and shoveling snow from the driveway beneath the lift on the side of the van where the lift deploys. I wore just a heavy sweater and that was all I needed. So I dug out the van and cleaned off some of the driveway and warmed up the van and drove to the market to do some shopping. The market was OK, I found a spot down loaded and closed the vehicle up. I don’t know why I did this time because one of the reasons I leave the vehicle open and lift deployed is to discourage other shoppers from parking too close; allowing me the space I need to load up when I get down with my task. I should have done this but I didn’t. Sure enough when I was done with my shopping there was a little vehicle with “crip” plates parked right next to my big old van.
I clearly had been ready to go but there was no way short of asking a stranger to get in my van and back it out so I could deploy and load. As I said the air is frigid so I had no choice but to head back into the market and keep watch on the van and vehicle so that when it finally moved I could flash out and start my process and get gone. I was kind of hopefull that then owner of the vehicle was going to be one of those fast in and fast out job. But of course this was not to be. I sat there on the other side of the automatic doors 3watching cars pull in park get out and actually shop then leave while I sat and watched a car that would not move. Eventually, a person abut my age came through the check out with her very own “ancient”. Her mom obviously. I could have acted like a snot but I didn’t. I did, however, glare as they check out(which seemed to take an eternity). I was wearing a face hood so just my eyes were visible-so I doubt people could really tell I was glaring but I watched “hard” just the same. When I saw for sure this couple were the one parked by my van I powered out to the van and watched them load their groceries. The daughter finally felt the stare and turned and asked if I needed anything and I did say, “ JUST FOR YOU TO MOVE SO I CAN GET IN MY VAN”

So its Hang Time , the space in between. I am going to B&N today, Anakah spent the night and the sun is shining brightly on the new snow. I think I love Hang Time.

Merry Chistmas

Merry Christmas Everyone--quiet still early--I may write more today may not we'll see. I hope this is a beautiful day for all.

Well this week never end…

I have to admit I was kinda of excited at the thought of driving the new loaner hair into work this morning. I don’t know what I was expecting but after yesterday’s horrible snow fiasco, and later bathroom fiasco I did not think the week could have any further challenges well I was way wrong.

I don’t know this chair maybe as quick as my last chair. I first thought the chair was slower. But now am not so sure. The chair is smaller seems but I don’t know how that can be with my seat that I transferred from the dead chair to this loner chair I got from the ILC. I was pleased to find the loaner is easier to transfer into and out of the older chair—that is good. So, I was dressed and out of the door in pretty good time. When I transferred into the chair the sheep skin curled up under my but and kind of pitched me forward in my chair and gave me a “tippy” sensation but not “tippy” enough to cause me problems.

When I got into Salt Lake Planetarium station, my usual ending, morning stop, I came down the high block ramp, crossed the street and entered the parking area of the Utah Paper Box company . I come this way every morning—even though there is a sign which states “No though a fare” I take this to mean for autos but not for pedestrians. The controller on my loaner chair is quite sensitive I just barely have to touch the ‘on and off” button and the chair will stop, immediately seizing the drive wheels. This is new to me on the loaner chair and I still have to get used to the buttons sensitivity. So as I was traveling the parking lot I hit some rough ice which must have bounced my hand enough to hit the button and the chair switched off but I kept my forward motion out of my chair and onto the ice.

I found myself lying on my back in my great white coat staring up into the dark morning sky, there was a light snow falling and I traced individual flakes as they came into view and fell slowly onto my face. When I fell I lost one shoe and my pants fell dangerously down my hips I must have looked like Charley Brown being hit by one of those line drives—Shultz drew so graphically in the comic strip Peanuts. I was laying non my back, I could not move, I just laid there. My cell phone was in my back pack, which I could not get to. I was not worried because sooner or later I knew there would b e someone driving into work. This worried me a little with their sign posted about it not being a ‘thorough fare” So I just laid there and yelled for “help” I did this for about five minutes before I realized I was being approached by two fellow. It took a moment before I realized the two were asking me questions: “was I alright?” Did I need an ambulance?”. I assumed hem I was OK and did not need an ambulance but did need some assistance to get me back in my wheelchair. These two lads did not know what they were getting into but they were “gung-ho”. One grabbed hold of each arm and tried to haul me up into my chair but that a no go. The they pulled me up into a sitting position and tried to then grabbing each arm pulled me up again and almost made it. They ended getting me to sitting on the foot plate an then we all took a break to catch my breath. The we tried the “one two three” method and surprisingly enough they got my butt precariously perched on my the seat of my wheelchair, enough to let me hook my arm round the handle on my seat back and pull myself to the seats safety. In the process of this my pats had fallen to my knees. I asked the lads to give my slacks a pull and got myself somewhat presentable particularly with my great white coat pulled way down over my hips.

I thanks the guys for the assist and tore out of there as fast as I could holding on to my back pack and both shoes on top of the backpack. I finally got to the office. Stowed my gear and head to the bathroom to re-dress myself.

Again, exhausted before the day even starts—this holiday week HAS to end soon.

I Need Another Nap!!!

I am just exhausted, my muscles hurt and I just want to lay my head down on my desk and sleep or an hour or so. I did not go into the office as I normally do, this morning. My goal today is to get some form of mobility device which I can use until I can order my new chair which will be 120 days at the earliest. I think, because its me the time till I get my chair much longer. When I was at the Independent Living Center last Thursday I noticed there was a Jazzy 1121, a power chair I thought I could live with if the Center would let me check it out for a couple of months.

I called the Center a little after 8:00 am this morning and asked to speak with their A.T.(Assistive Technology)coordinator, Janice. Janice and I go back quite a ways so I figured it would be a pretty straight forward project but Janice directed me to the new guy who was handling the equipment loan program. I got hold of the new guy and he basically said the chair was there but he had not checked the chair out yet and the final word would be Kim, my best friend’s who associate director of the Independents Living Center. I figured I would go head shower and dress and drive on down to the ILC and by the time I got there Kim would be in.

I have to admit I was a bit intimating. It has been a long while

since I really pushed my manual chair on the outside—out in real public, transferring in and out of my Quickie even just rolling down my ramp can be terrifying knowing that if one my front casters hits a crack the wrong way I could go flying out of my chair. But if I am going to get myself back to being in the game I am going to just have to be careful but keep moving forward. I opened the door and found snow blowing sideways to my front door.. I took a deep breath and rolled down my ramp. The night had been warm temperatures in the mid 30’s—the ice was melting so at least there was not the ice flows which have been on the ramp of late. I wish I had spent more time this weekend on snow removal. Oh yeah, I did not have a chair to use. I have forgotten how hard it is to push my wheelchair in the snow. It’s damn hard. I got stuck, took me for ever to get to the lift and then to get on the lift and then to raise it up because I was so unsteady. Eventually though I was in th van and driving to the IL.

I was pleased and surprised at how well project of getting the loaner . Kim was GREAT!! Kim adjusted here and lengthened there and soon I was ready to go. I drove myself over to Magic Rest, where Saturday the tech said if I were to get this chair they would change my old seat from the dead chair to the loaner plus my new puncture proof wheels… Everything worked—just the way it should—so rare in my experience. The loaner is not as fast as I would like and I am not as comfortable as I would like but I can make it and I well make it. Now I just have to put the pressure on Randy and on to the new chair!!!

Nap Time

It's that time of the season when there does not seem to be enough time for anything. I have been neglecting my blog the past few day. When I have had the time to write I have not had the energy. The cold weather is sapping any extra strength I have as well; cold weather and stress. But to catch up here a s glimpse of my last week. On Thursday we had the staff holiday function—very different this year. No going out eat as we have done in years past. This year we just sort of hung round the office as Claire surprised us, staff, with bringing in to the office an actual masseuse—since she is pretty sure hold outs like my self would never do a massage on y own accord. I still have the massage Claire gave me for my birthday pinned to my office bulletin board. Each staff member got a 15 minute massage. The massage was not bad. I got through it with my clothes on.Still I don’t think I would ever pay real money for such a luxury.

I think we probably would have gone to lunch but I was a bit of a humbug. Thursday was the day UILC had their Christmas/holiday offering to the community and I have been their Santa for the last decade or more. I must do a fairly good job since the Center keeps asking me back year, after year. This Christmas function has changed over the years from a community open house to a consumer—in the old days the function would run from four to seven or later. This was a major event for the Center, as I am sure it still is but I feel clientele has changed significantly. No there seems there are interlopers, from a couple of care centers and special education programs who bring in what seems like buses of folk. Severely disabled developmentally disabled folk—I suppose their coming is just as well, over the years the regular consumers from the office have faded away. I have uploaded my entrance.

Friday I accompanied Dianne to Anakah’s school pageant an exercise in controlled chaos. Dianne has become a kind of “room mother” to Anakah’s class. Dianne grades papers on Thursdays and just helps the teacher out so Dianne has a bond with the kids and it show. We got in the back door, behind the scenes visiting Anakah’s before show time. The event was fun being the grand parents. Bridget sat with us and the whole thing was just Celestial. We did some shopping and returned home in the cold snowy weather. I was exhausted the rest of the day.

Saturday was Anakah’s dance recital. More chaos and holiday stress battling with other parents and grandparents and who knows who and what else might be lurking in the audience. This is Anakah’s first year but she did well. This is not like a ballet school in the traditional sense a neighbor hood mom with re3all ballet training earning few bucks and keeping her fingers in the dance pie—she has three kids of her own in the class but all the kids are cute and Anakah seems to like class. I` plan to write more on this later. But as I was getting situated for the class I noticed my chair would only turn in circles. The motor was gone. Later Dianne and to Magic Rest who gave the final diagnosis and pronounced the chair dead! Magic Rest did provide me with loaner but one which is way too small and way too painful to use. Tomorrow I hope to get a loaner form the IL. I am just exhausted. I need a nap.

Baby It's Cold Outside.

A hobo just walked past my window pulling a wagon with a massive sleeping bag rolled neatly in the wagon and a small dog at hobos side. The hobo was dressed in winter garb, a hat, over alls, and rubber boots. He pulled the little wagon behind him holding on to the wagon’s handle with both hands—his hands looks old, weathered and cold. The hobo’s hands looked like my dad’s hands when he would come in from feeding the cows “evening hay” in winter. I wonder if the hobo would wear gloves if he were given a set. I should carry an extra set of gloves for just the purpose. I wonder what he would do if I made such an offer.

My office is a couple of blocks the main shelter and soup kitchen and many hobos pass in front of my window daily. We are also just down the street from a major Salt Lake City park—Pioneer Park. This park is where a lot of the hobo’s spend their time when they have to be out of the shelters. The city is trying to take this park away from the hobos and the homeless(is that redundant) by gentrification. The new yuppies are taking over-

Walk In s

This has been a Walk in Day. A day when people walk past the building and drop in looking for services, really do not deliver any individual services but these folks do not know this. They just see the name on the building and assume we do provide services. And, since we are downtown not far from the shelters for the homeless it is not surprising. Many times these Walk Ins are quite colorful and many times they are also heart breaking. I suspect one of the reasons the frequency of these walks in increase is the cold weather and a few minutes in a warm building is worth the indignation of submitting yourself to a State social services agency. As I said we ( my parent organization ) is not a social services agency but since my part of the organization is information and referral these folks are hustled into my office where I do a light version of an intake and try to refer them to the most appropriate agency or program.

Today it was Joe the Bummer. I had just poured and doctored, and had returned my desk to leisurely wander through my emails and transcribe the weekends phone calls when Frank ushered Joe in. A young looking guy, possibly even handsome under other circumstances; dressed in winter street clothes packing a backpack with a rolled up sleeping bag. Joe’s hair was a little messed but eyes looked bright and aware. We shook hands and he informed me that he had been in my office earlier in the summer. I kind of remember Joe but truly, I did not—I see many folks in the course of the year as they walk in my office for one reason or another. I like what I saw though and wished there was more I could have done for Joe. I sat him down in my office, and we visited as I struggled to ascertain the level of his need and where might be services to benefit Joe. I found he was homeless, in need of mental health services, vocation and housing services.

I finally felt I had enough information I could refer him to at least three different agencies. I left him sitting in the front office as I returned to my office where I looked up each agency and copied and pasted the referrals to convenient document for Joe. I was just pasting the last reference to the file when Red called back to inform me that Joe had left the building. Joe had left a note, apologizing for smelling bad, looking bad and not being in the right frame of mind. Sure enough he was gone, slipped through my fingers—I don’t know if I offended him when I left him to go type up the referrals or what. I man I was close to him and I did not smell anything. It looked like he had some trauma of some sort to his face which had me a bit worried.

I had another walk in today a well, a slick operator who was looking form an “in”. He had a voice like a radio announcer and the hair of a model and made all my “shields go up” when he entered my office. He had a program he wanted me to refer folks to but I backed away—Slick made me feel like he was the ain character in a Stephen King Novel. Of my two visitors I think I would rather have lunch with Joe the Bummer

Happy Birthday Jaemine you are fantastic!!

Just Another Sunday Afternoon

More images from yesterday Dianne Birthday dinner...


Yesterday’s snow has melted and froze and was snowed upon again today and now the temperature is dropping an there shall be a hard freeze tonight meaning tomorrow’s commute in and out to the train will be quite a struggle. I am not concerned so much about the temperature a much as I am concerned at the ice flows which will be all over he sidewalks. People usually do a fairly good job of clearing the walks of snow it is the industrial section which I travel I am most worried about. The folk who do the snow removal only the industrial sidewalks usually just push the snow off the end of the walk right into the cut out at the end of the walk, where the side walk meets the street and there snow “bergs”, turn to ice, and remains until the thaws. I am not worried…much. When the snow and ice is like this I am really thrust into the street, even more then I like. I just have to be careful. I now have the new tires with good tread and this will help to some degree. I also have my new, huge white coat and I should be warm as toast no matter where I go.

This year I m going to try something I have not really tried in years past. I am going to report ice flows which cause people walking and in wheelchairs to have to be in dangerous places. I kind of did this last year to limited positive result but this year I aim to put the full press on the Murray city government and whine, cry and bitch to make sure my path of travel is safe. Just a Sunday night.

Thanks--happy Birthday

I have said it a million times—I don’t write to be recognized, I write to force myself to write in hopes that some day I will be a writer. I doubt I will ever be a “writer” with tweed jackets and elbow patches and a pipe but I continue to write when ever I can for the pleasure of writing. So, I don’t look at my page every day with the hopes that someone has written a message or something; I am pleasantly surprised when I do see an indicator that someone has left a message and even more so when that someone is not a brother or sister of nephew or niece type person. Not, that these folks are comments are not credible or appreciated it’s just they are family and usually they have to love you and accept you. So, I was pleased yesterday when I was looking at my blog and noticed a comment and the comment was a long comment -actually the comment was a blog entry in and of itself.

The comment was written, I believe, by one of best friends, especially in grade school. He did not sign his comment but he left just enough identifiers I know who it is. He is a consummate professional having careers in the Unions and the Federal sector. He is a professional and lives and acts like it. He is smooth and calm. I don’t think I will ever be a professional like him; I am just too “un done”. I am so “un-done” I am honored that he would leave a comment like a rock star or Palin stopping by the blog and leaving me message. He is methodical, logical and empirical. Here is an example, of how cool he was, from my blog of a couple of years ago. In fact when and if I do write a life history or a novel of my child hood, I think I could easily conceive a couple of complete volumes of just my life and times with friend his brother and my brother. So thanks for writing, thanks for stopping by and saying “hi”. Merry Christmas to you as well and hopefully I can visit with you more this Christmas season.

Today is Dinne’s birthday we are cooking and staying home to enjoy the day. Dianne, Bridget and Anakah and I are baking cakes, bread and shrimp etouffee and having a pretty good time. It snowed this morning and there is still more snow forecast for today and tomorrow and beyond. Dianne brought in arms full of wood last night for the stove. Its beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. Happy Birthday Dianne…I love you.


http://meadowlarksmind.blogspot.com/2006/04/birthday.html

It's ten oclock Do you know where your gimp is?

A couple months ago I lectured a graduate social work class for a friend of mine here at the office. I love doing graduate classes because the classes are generally more intimate, students are more mature, and they usually offer a stipend. This class is a class on disability and I show up and till my story and leave. I can go on for ever if I need to after all I get to talk on my favorite subject…myself and then there is always the Q&A, where you get to ask the gimp everything you have always wanted to but good manners and good conscience prevented you. The question asked that evening was “what did you parents do which h helped you the most come to grips with your disability?” Yesterday at lunch as were all yammering over our lunches, my office mate ( who I did he lecture for) indicated that the class really liked my lecture specifically the parent question and so the same question was asked again and I had to once again answer that I think the best thing my folks did was treat me no different then any of the other kids in the family—this was how I say it. Actually the more I have thought about this I really don’t know anymore. The best think the parents did was not to restrict me. In the years following my accident in 1966 to aboutn1972 when I got my first car with hand controls I did a lot of hitch hiking. We lived on a small farm about two and half miles South of Boise and I would take rolling toward Boise and either sit there on the side of the road with my hand out (my thumb did not work) or if I rolled long enough someone would drive by stop and ask if I wanted a lift and I would say “yes” and away I’d go.

Many times I would not get back from town till after 12:00 A.M., I remember only once of rolling all the way home. My mom had the habit of sitting up and falling asleep in front of the TV and often I would come home to her sleep and then she would get up and go to bed.—still there were other times when they went to bed. These two prayed a lot and so often I was consigned to God’s hands Who always seemed to bring me home safe and sound. I would never have that kind of faith. I am a parent now and if my kids were quad teenagers and out on the town on a Saturday night, even if that Town was Boise in 1968, I would be shadowing them in my big old van. And maybe that’s the difference my parents had the faith in my abilities where as I love my kids but my faith in them or their ability was not as strong. Humm I am not sure if that came out right.

"I'm Out of the Office right now..."

I work in a State office and my phone system is part of a greater system which has automated answering services. I hate the phone system we have—I feel the phone system is alive and it lives just to make my life miserable. The phone system is one of those which supposedly allows a person to record a message so when people call and when you’re not at your phone and the message clicks in and lets the caller know if you are in or not. And my boss wants all the staff to update their message daily. This should be a simple process but for some reason whenever I try to update my message, the updated message never makes it my phone’s box. And what I end up with is messages which can be anywhere from a few days to months old. To make matters worse I have two mailboxes I am responsible for my mailbox, and the mailbox for the office phone So now the problem is compounded.

My first order of business every Monday morning after I turn on my computer is to take the messages off the phone service. Every Monday I have eight to 15 calls backed up on the machine. I am usually by myself when I do this and often I listen to the calls on the speaker phone so I can write the information down as I hear it. This frees up my hands allowing me to write the information better. This Monday Chapman was in the office as I took the messages. One of the callers griped that the message on the machine still said “October” something and he made it sound like we had no been in the office the date. Since I know the phone system I out to get me—I don’t pay any attention to the remarks and just go on to the next call. Well, yesterday Chapman heard the call and kind a of put her off, that someone would be so rude as to leave such an unkind remark. I really never think bout the rudeness, I mean I used to work as a telemarketer an I have heard rude comments—and I deserved the remarks I got, and those remarks were delivered in person and not put on the safe medium of a recorded machine.

Maybe one day I will exorcise the evil spirits lurking in my phone’s answering system but until them if you call me and get my service and the message says it’s “July 24 2006” just know it’s the phone gremlin at work and that I am in the office or away from my phone and just leave a civilized message and I’ll get back to you just as soon as I can…

Autumn Snow

The snow is tumbling from the sky like a 1980’s love song, you know, snow turns to rain on Christmas Eve while reliving a old time love affair, which did not happen but should have. The snow has been tumbling all morning. I knew it was supposed to snow but I did no think there was going to be this much snow—luckily the earth ism still warm from the past couple of weeks of autumn heat the snow will not lay down. However, that is changing now I have noticed the past hour the snow IS beginning to lay down. The grass outside my window is now white and the median in the street has a white skiff of snow. The temperature is holding right at 32 degrees and I think that is making the difference a few more hours of the snow and the 32 degree temperature and I’ll be riding home in the snow.

This is not going to be a big snow, I already know, the weather guy said so, but this is a precursor to change to our weather pattern: mean, dark cold storms setting up to :”march” through the region beginning the end of the week. Storms forecast for the next three weeks even Christmas Day!! Of course I will believe all of this when I see it with my own eyes. However, a cold white Christmas would be a nice twist to the season. It’s almost two in the afternoon and I am hoping and almost praying the snow stops by six when I have to leave for home on the train.

Steady As She Goes

I am going to do it. I have made my decision I am going to jump in and order my chair. Ordering a new hair is not as easy as it sounds but I am going to start the process. The scariest part is I am going to be responsible for about $4,000.00 after my insurance pays its portion which I think will be round $8,000.00. I think I can get a little assistance from different programs but I will do some scouting round and see what I come up with. So now I have decided I want the chair to be here yesterday but realistically speaking I doubt I will see the chair until February and that’s if the chair were ordered today. Brent my DME guy is not about to order until he has been assured I am good for the insurance and my part of the of the payment. Hell, he still has to take the authorization back to my physical therapist what has to rewrite the order so the order will fit my needs exactly—and this is all going to take time. So what I have to do now is keep my other chair alive until I can get the new product. I really cannot dump anymore dollars into the old chair but I must keep the chair going. The $150.00 for the new tires is the last I am going to pay. I am concerned that right motor my give way any day but I guess I just have to keep the faith. I suppose if the chair does completely fail, I can beg a chair from the local IL or maybe I can rent one from the DME but I should not have to—oh and that rent would be for the insurance to pay. I realistically don’t think that is going to happen, but one never knows…stead as she goes.

http://www.pridemobility.com/pdf/Brochures/Jazzy/Quantum_6000Z.pdf

Lights, Action Camera!!!!

I would have really liked to post yesterday. In fact I would have loved to post yesterday I certainly had the content but I just did not have the time. Yesterday was the second broadcast of Access Utah Now, the production I am doing on the www.ustream.tv.com Website. Tory and I spent the morning setting up the camera’s and trying to make sure everything was OK and online. In fact we had actually ne exercise the day before and everything looked like a go, but as we got closer to the 11:30 broadcast time something was desperately wrong. I had brought my old Sony DVD cam corder in and had figured out how to run the content from the camera directly into the computer then on to USTREAM.TV but as of 11:00 yesterday when we tried to broad cast our video the other office machines were not getting the content. We have other staff in the office monitor the broadcasts for two reasons: one to build audience and two to see how the broadcast ise coming across. It was not until Tory had the great idea to call Dianne to see if anyone else was getting the broadcast we figured and Dianne was getting the broadcast just fine so we figured the State has some sort of filters on the State computers and cannot pick up these broadcasts. We ended uo taking off the camera I had brought in the DVD cam and replaced the camera with the computer cam we used last month. I want to try again with the DVD cam and see if the camera broadcast a better picture. Also with the DVD cam we would much more ability to produce better shots of the show ability to do close-ups and move the camera from speaker to speaker would increase the quality and watch-ability of the show.

We interviewed UATP’s CREATE staff, briefly CREATE is Utah’s assistive technology re-utilization program. Long story and maybe I will explain in depth some day. But the two characters from CREATE arrived about 10:30 and had to hang out while we ran back and forth looking totally un professional but they seemed to be good sports and we did the show and all seemed well. www.ustream.tv.com Website. Tory and I spent the morning setting up the camera’s and trying to make sure everything was OK and online. In fact we had actually ne exercise the day before and everything looked like a go, but as we got closer to the 11:30 broadcast time something was desperately wrong. I had brought my old Sony DVD cam corder in and had figured out how to run the content from the camera directly into the computer then on to USTREAM.TV but as of 11:00 yesterday when we tried to broad cast our video the other office machines were not getting the content. We have other staff in the office monitor the broadcasts for two reasons: one to build audience and two to see how the broadcast ise coming across. It was not until Tory had the great idea to call Dianne to see if anyone else was getting the broadcast we figured and Dianne was getting the broadcast just fine so we figured the State has some sort of filters on the State computers and cannot pick up these broadcasts. We ended uo taking off the camera I had brought in the DVD cam and replaced the camera with the computer cam we used last month. I want to try again with the DVD cam and see if the camera broadcast a better picture. Also with the DVD cam we would much more ability to produce better shots of the show ability to do close-ups and move the camera from speaker to speaker would increase the quality and watch-ability of the show. We interviewed UATP’s CREATE staff, briefly CREATE is Utah’s assistive technology re-utilization program. Long story and maybe I will explain in depth some day. But the two characters from CREATE arrived about 10:30 and had to hang out while we ran back and forth looking totally un professional but they seemed to be good sports and we did the show and all seemed well. USTREAM.TV has this great function which is supposed to archive the show is done with its live broadcast. Well he show did not “archive” from what I could see. Actually, the show DID archive but not so the show would play when a person clicks the show image. I could see the broadcast sitting there but it would not play. Luckily I was able to down load a copy of the broadcast so I can load it to the website’s media page. Luckily I did this because I some how deleted the entire broadcast a few minutes later when I was trying to get rid some of the “test” broadcasts I made which had been archived. I was trying to get a “blooper” file but I was getting some pressure from other staff to remove them and that is when I think I deleted the CREATE broadcast. I think there is a way to upload video to the site I just have to figure it out. I have the next scheduled broadcast in January but maybe I’ll have a holiday broadcast sometime this December just for fun.
(Here is the ink to the Access Utah Now `page
http://www.ustream.tv/search/all/access%20utah%20now

A Day of Transfers

What a day! I am exhausted with still a little over an hour to go. I had back two meetings today, back to back one across town from the other. So, I brought in my van today to cut down on the time for travel. I stared the day by stopping at the local Shell gas and go. I had really planned to gas up some time during last week’s long holiday weekend but that never happened. But that’s OK I was fresh this morning an left early enough so I had the time. I am not sure what the problem is maybe its because I am not driving every day as I used to and I am not transferring like I used to but I am barely able to make the transfer back to my chair from the drivers seat; transferring into the driver’s seat is no problem since it lower then my power seat. I can fall really good. I did find one of my sliding boards in the van and it worked fairly well…the transfer was still a struggle but not as bad as with out the board. Into the office , I took calls and worked on tomorrow’s broadcast and left for my meeting at the Buffmire center. Again falling into my seat and the transferring back at the center; by this I looked a real mess and quickly excused my self to the restroom when I rearranged myself—oh I forgot. At my office, there was a car parked too close to my van—one of the reason I hate top drive—and I had to back onto the lift which takes a bit of skill. I missed he lift gate a couple of times hitting and bending piece of metal on the end of the lift gate which now sprung out of shape prevented the lift gate to deploy. The sprung mental would hang up on the handle of the and not deploy. Luckily I got someone at the Buffmire to get me out of the van and I got some of the guy in the metal shop at UCAT to bend the metal back into shape.

Ninety minutes into the first meeting I bailed to drive to my next meeting. At least at this meeting they serve a fairly good lunch. But I still had to make a mad dash to the bathroom in order to throw myself together one again. To my frustration this time as I was pulling up pants an pulling down sweaters I had a massive leg spasm and lost both shoes: frustrating but not defeating. I finally got myself dressed again and made my meeting. Back to the office after meeting and another transfer cycle. The sun has set and I am finishing my day. I have just one transfer cycle left and I should be finished for the day. I seem to be doing better then I had anticipated I just have to pace myself now and finish the day. Tomorrow the broadcast.

Squirrelly

I am waiting, patiently waiting for my durable medical dealer o get back in touch with me to give me a status on the purchase of a new power chair. I understood that Brent was off all last week, it being a short week with the holiday and all but come on. It’s the new week, people are back from grandma’s even with the air port closures in the Mid-west from cold and snow a good salesman would be back in the saddle. I am escalating by focus to order my new power chair since I am running into dead ends I have been trying all day to find a used or rebuilt motor but there does not seem, to be any such motors anywhere. The best I have been able to find is an outfit in Whittier ,California who will actually rebuild my motor but I’ll have to take my motor off and send it to these folks who will do the rebuild and send it back. Great, but what do I do for mobility in the process? The main cost of the rebuild would be $255.00 and what ever shipping might be involved and I just don’t know how much more money I want to dump into this chair if I am getting another at some time in the relative near future. I may have some options but these folks are also not returning my calls or at least it feels as if they are aren’t responding to my pleas. I am getting back and forth to work OK for the time being my chair is just handling a little squirrelly at the moment.