shaping the future

Hello everyone. Things have gone quite well over the last few days. Sandy had a good meeting with John Morgan on saturday. As always, it was a personal pleasure to talk with the man. He had a good look around at Sandy's and my apartments and also took a brief exterior look at Sandy's computer. He thinks it looks to be in good shape but we'll have to get it up and running to really know what we're dealing with. I took some time to show John a bit of System Access and why I believe it would possibly be better for people like Sandy than Jaws is. He'll look more into that for Sandy as well as other people he helps once he's back from his trip. If anybody deserve to enjoy himself on a trip, it's John. Hopefully, I'll hear bits and pieces about it as we try to help Sandy. I've always wanted to go to England.

Sunday also went quite well. Sandy enjoyed coming to church and out to lunch afterwards with this nifty family, Sudan, Shane, Chrissie and Angel who introduced themselves to me a week ago. There's a kind of awkwardness about Sandy that I believe comes from his very different experience of blindness so much later in life for him. He's been left largely on his own for the year he's lived here which doesn't help either. I can't anticipate all of the social ramifications of this. Today, I got in touch with my former mobility instructor at the CNIB who will write referrals up for both of us so we get the help we'll need. Thankfully, I seem to be running into some good people who can accept us as the very different blinks we are. I enjoyed another lunch today with Sandy. He makes a much better tasting cup of tea on his stovetop than I've yet managed to produce from my Brewstation. I have faith that I'll yet figure out how to get a nifty cup of tea out of the thing. I can produce very good tea in my microwave with the aid of a small plate or saucer set atop the heeted cup. However, the Brewstation, although designed for coffee, seems like a perfect and more convenient tea-making alternative presuming I can get the details down. What can I say? I'm seem to be born to fiddle with gadgets until kingdom come. I wouldn't have it any other way. Single life has too much time in it to bare comfortably if you have no capacity and erge to tinker with stuff and look for alternative ways of doing things. That erge doubtless drives wives to utter distraction. However, I do believe it's a saving grace.

So far, I seem to be doing well socially here. I did my two loads of laundry today. That certainly chewed up some change. I'll have to be careful to keep enough on hand for laundry and won't be able to give as much away as tips as I've become acustommed to. Fear not though. I won't turn into any sort of selfish bastard. No ghosts of Christmas past, present and future need visit me although I would doubtless find such supernatural visitors fascinating company. I met three of four nice ladies today while I was down there. One of them gave me her email and phone number so I could call her if I ever needed any help. She seems interested in getting to know me as a friend. Having a family of her own already, that certainly as it ought to be. One thing I hope never to be responsible for is the destruction of anybody's marriage. I wouldn't wish that painful experience upon anybody. Not a bad start at all. If this kind of luck holds, I should at last be able to build the more integrated social sort of life that I can best enjoy and feel at my most productive while living it. Doubtless, it'll take years to get precisely right but it certainly seems possible here.

There's still lots of mom's chile for me to eat. That'll make for a nice simple dinner this evening. I've begun working on my next order of groceries. Perhaps, I'll have it come on wednesday or thursday. There's so much different stuff to try at Grocery Gateway. I know that eventually, it won't seem like that years down the road when I've had all the products which currently strike my fancy. There's certainly enough to find a nice variety of foods to rotate through. Most of my furniture should arrive on friday if all goes acording to plan. The two tubchairs might take until May but that could change again to a sooner date. I got a call from Customer Service at the Brick. It'll be good to have some proper seeting for guests to use. I'm also keenly looking forward to the arriveal of my icecube trays with lids over them to prevent cubes or water from spilling. Such a simple thing; the ability to add ice to drinks. I didn't think I'd mind its absence as much as I have this past while.

To cap off the excellent weekend, I listenned in on one of the last shuttle missions as they landed safely after quite the successful construction project. The station is pretty much complete up there now. I can only imagine what our planet must look like through the new window on the world they've got up there. Now, I think we'll begin to see the real benefits of such international cooperation. The building is at last truly ready and the focus can shift to all the science people want to do in space. We have so much to discover and so many keen minds who can put the facility to excellent use. Perhaps, my incureable optimism is getting the better of me. However, I suspect a lot of the critics who keep popping up saying we should spend all the money on Earth will be forced to eat their short-sighted words while this blind man laughs in the years ahead. Who knows what marvels we'll discover up there? Also, there are the political benefits from such cooperation to be considered. As a species, we have to grow better at working with each other and playing to our strengths.