year end reflections

Year End Reflections for 2018 Hello everyone. I haven’t done a personal blog entry in ages. The Personal Power guide I’ve been working on plus segments I’m doing for Kelly and Company have scratched that blogger’s itch. The rest of life certainly hasn’t been uneventful. I just don’t have the same need to document everything as I once did. However, I feel a need to take stock today at year’s end. Where to begin? Married life seems a good place. Sara and I are enjoying a largely stress-free and happy marriage. We’re both pretty good communicators and overall positive people. We certainly have disagreements but have typically managed to talk through them without inflicting pain on each other. Both of us have our own separate spheres of life and share enough interests to value our time together. It’s hard to believe we’re i our fourth year of marriage. The work I’m doing for Kelly and Company on AMI Audio has proved to be very rewarding and also quite challenging at times. How to cram all the information I want to impart into fifteen-minute segments isn’t always easy. However, it has helped organize my thinking when it comes to working on Personal Power: the iOS Edition. Increasingly though, it’s harder to make the two projects dovetail as the guide enters what I hope will be the last stretch of work. It’s been a very long haul and my initial enthusiasm for the guide is fatigued. There’s still quite a lot to get done before it’s ready for release. I’ve done way too much work to cut corners or just walk away from the project. It’s got to get done right. Financially, AMI Audio has continued to compensate me for the segments I prepare and I’m ever so thankful for this opportunity for paid work. It still feels precarious despite this being my second year of producing segments. I’ve just passed the 100 segment mark. I didn’t imagine it would last so long and there’s still the niggling dread that one day, it’ll just snap off like a switch and vanish. That keeps not happening though. Because of this income, I’ve been able to acquire a lot more apps and try things that I simply wouldn’t hav felt free to without it. The guide will be a far better resource due to this. My library of legally owned books and audio dramas has certainly gotten larger. So far there haven’t been any issues with ODSP or Peel Housing. I don’t think the upcoming changes to social assistance will cause us any trouble. However, I have a distrust for Conservatives and their tendency to dismiss and devalue people who haven’t managed to become self-sufficient. I worry tremendously about our new premiere and his habit of ignoring science in favour of ideology. It’s a case of scrapping every bit of long-term thinking the other side did regardless of merit. There’s already a stupid amount of that going on south of the border. Greed and self-centred short-term thinking is sadly winning the day right when the planet needs the exact opposite. I don’t think Trudo has much of a chance of surviving the next election. Too many mistakes made and too many badly needed initiatives promised which take god damned time that the other side will wipe out before they can realistically have any long-term results. That deeply frustrates me. This year’s politics really leaves me angry and wanting drastic world change which seems impossible right now. It feels like it’ll take some catastrophic disasters to really get people to change and ditch this us versus them crap. It sounds like those might even occur in my lifetime if the UN scientists are right. I hope we don’t waste all twelve of these next apparently crucial years we have to get at least some kind of grip on climate change. It should be the kick we need to start doing something about societal equality but people keep finding ways of dismissing or fighting against that kind of thing. I keep thinking there must be more good news out there that I’m just not coming across. Part of that has to do with how long working on this guide has dragged on. It makes me feel more stale than seems warranted given all the interesting apps and things I’ve learned and found while working on it. Another big milestone was that I’ve reached a point where I’ve gone completely legal in terms of the books I have. I now own every book I’ve wanted to own since my teenage years. I’ve done this without breaking the bank thanks largely to Kindle and Audible. Knowing how very hard it is to write the stories which have done so much to shape me over the years, this feels tremendously good. Once my guide is finished, I might well take another stab at writing a short story collection. Alternatively, thanks to the Voice Dream Reader app and sites like Storybundle, I have a substantial collection of books about creative writing and game development. Those will help whether I pursue rpg creation or story writing. But first, there’s the guide to finish before it drags me under creatively speaking. I still feel that it’ll fill a gap in the help that’s available for people who have or contemplate getting iOS devices. That hasn’t changed. I’m still using my iPHONE7. Unless my carrier offers me a super deal, it’ll stay that way for potentially the next couple of years. Sara upgraded to an iPHONEXR at far less expense than I had thought possible. So far, she’s pretty happy with it. Understandable coming from a 5S. It’ll be interesting to see what she does with so much more room and other advancements. The guide will be a better informed document taking her experience of these advancements. I’ve invested in some new peripherals. A great new Bluetooth speaker called a Fugu Tough has proved to be an excellent addition to my travel kit. Sadly, the Go Duo speakers didn’t last as long as I had hoped when I backed them. The Tough seems rugged and even has speech prompts about charge levels and connection status. The other major acquisition was another successful Kickstarter. It’s a Hexgears X1 mechanical keyboard. It’s being used to type this entry. The key feedback feels very nice and it’s far more comfortable to type on than the Microsoft Universal Mobile keyboard I’ll still use and deeply appreciate when travelling. However, there’s a noticeable lag and occasional missed keystrokes. I think this is a bluetooth issue and wouldn’t be surprised if these issues went away in time. I’m still getting used to the new keyboard and its quirks. It’ll certainly stand up to the amount of typing I do. The keys are rated for seventy million clicks. The Lifepack Hustle has been a very nice travel pack for longer expeditions. It just got another bit of use on our Christmas visit to sara’s family. Plenty of room for a home base away from home and I love the shock protection. It should last ages with the possible exception of the internal mesh pockets. I can see those tearing eventually although they haven’t at all yet. The apartment continues to be a good home for us. No serious issues at all to deal with. There are maintenance projects and that sort of thing but they really take care of the building and us renters quite nicely. Sara knows far more people here than I do these days. That’s largely due to her guide dog Aladdin. I really have to get out more this Spring and get into the habit of walking more like I used to. It’s less fun with hearing loss and the hearing aids being rendered useless by too much wind or background noise. Still, I’ll need that motion and different place to help deal with the race to finish this guide in the time frame I’d like to. I’m a deacon at my church now. That happened in September and so far, I think I’ve done alright in that role. I’m still learning a lot as I go but people seem largely happy with me. It’s a three year commitment that I mean to see through barring any unexpected life-changing opportunities. Going to different churches continues to be a source of interesting talk and reflection for Sara and I. It hasn’t proved anywhere near as divisive as I once would have expected. She remains the choir director at her church. I frankly never thought of myself as deacon material but when the call came, I couldn’t turn it down. My church has been there when I’ve needed them as much as that kind of organization can be. It’s only right that I do likewise. In a few hours, our New Year’s party will begin. I think it’ll be a good one. I haven’t seen as much of any of my friends as I should have. I plan to work on that a bit more this year. 2019 should be a more social and less isolated year if I can manage that. Hopefully, it’ll also see a new creative chapter begin. I’m at last close enough to finishing this guide that I can realistically hope to get to the end before iOS changes yet again. Just not as far before that happens as I would have liked. Well I think I’ll leave you here for the moment. Perhaps, I’ll get back into more of a blogging groove. Only time will tell. Have a happy new year, everyone.

And Then There Was One

Hello everyone. As I begin this doubtless long entry, it's monday morning. It's been an interesting and mainly pleasant last while. This is despite my decision to break off my relationship with Janet last night. That wasn't pleasant at all but could have gone far worse considering my complete inexperience in being the one to decide to end a relationship. It simply became more obvious as we continued to talk via Skype that she just wasn't the right match for me. I found that our conversations were getting shorter and shorter. I thought I could live with that in a partner but have come to realize that this is one area where I frankly can't compromise in as much as I thought I could. When you have more substantial conversations with even newly found friends than you do with a significant other, it's definitely a warning sign of dissatisfaction down the road. Over the past while, the glow of at last finding someone who was actually interested in me was increasingly overridden by doubts about our suitability for each other. Actually going to see each other would be prohibitively expensive given our similar financial situations. One of the real dangers of such long distance relationships is that over time, the chemistry just fades away. I've experienced all of that now. While I could have hung in there out of the thinking that I might never find a more ideal partner, this would have been dishonest of me. I no longer felt love for her above the esteem and affection I have for a good friend and had to set things right. I've been passed up by enough people to know precisely how painful it can be.

This is the first time that I've been the one to break off a relationship. Both Rebecca and Janene decided that they no longer wished to be with me. I can't say that it's a very enjoyable experience being a dumper. One has to face some pretty ugly truths about the limits of lasting worldly love. I thought myself capable of living happily with pretty much anybody who truly loved and respected me. That just isn't the case though. Whoever I end up with simply has to have good conversation and communication skills and also share some similar interests or there just isn't going to be enough common experience to keep things going. She took it remarkably well. I think she had the sense that things had changed. For all my intelligence, I had absolutely no inkling that Janene was about to ditch me like she did that Easter Monday which feels like forever ago now. It looks like Janet and I will remain friends while each of us looks for a relationship to pursue hopefully somewhat closer to home as well as to the kind of partner we're each best suited for. Because she's approached her life in much the same manner in terms of values, she has built up a real place for herself in her community much as I've at last begun to here. She has become a very welcome, reliable and needed friend to many people there. It just doesn't feel right asking her to step away from all that before life circumstances otherwise force her to move on. This is particularly true in the case of her best friend Lori. Janet adds tremendously to the scope and possibilities of her life. She's quite a bit more child-like than Janet in terms of mental capability and must also come to terms with losing her sight. In both her and Janet's case, I find it far too easy to take a kind of friendly stance which veered dangerously toward the more fatherly stance Gandalf had towards the hobbits. Perhaps, that's what Janet wants or even needs in a partner. That's for her to determine. For me, it's very important that I'm with a lady who doesn't evoke such feelings. We've got to be equals. Unfortunately, when it comes to intelligence, I'm faced with the reality that most women I'd take an interest in simply wouldn't be interested in me. Most of them anywhere near my age are already spoken for or are hooked too deeply into our society's need for material wealth to even give five minutes to a permanently unemployed guy on an overly ambitious creative quest. While I could now at least offer a safe and secure home to a life partner who's in a similar financial situation to mine, that's all I can bring to the table outside of my own reasonable outlook, optimism, patience, easygoing nature and good character. These assets have certainly gained me a number of good friends and despite everything, I still find myself hopeful of eventually finding someone who proves to be a better fit for me and wants to take things further. There are plenty of other circumstances which place people on ODSP or outside what passes for normal life. Certainly, I've met people with other mental deficiencies whose ability to converse and basic good cheer were unimpaired. However, especially if I'm going to do the long-distance relationship thing again, it's pretty vital that conversations be stimulating and that we have more common ground regarding interests than I did with Janet. Sadly, a similar moral outlook and religion just isn't enough. It sounds so damned shamefully elitist, but it is nonetheless true for me.

I guess I've come away from this knowing more about my own real desires for a life partner as well as my own limitations when it comes to what I'd be willing to settle for. Good conversation is more of a must for me than I thought. Having been dumped twice, I've never really looked at that aspect of myself so clearly before. Like everyone else, I too have hopes and dreams that I'm unwilling to part with. It's an ugly truth to find that someone who you like, respect and admire lacks what your sustained worldly love requires. At last, I believe I can truly better forgive Janene for walking away from our engagement. Was it the prospect of having to earn all the income unless or until I came up with something creative which I could sell? Was it all the art she did which I would never see and could therefore not appreciate? I guess I'll never know. Whatever it was, I now have a greater understanding of the pain she went through even as she utterly devastated me to the point where I nearly attempted suicide. We took things too far to avoid that indescribable pain. Thankfully, due to that distance between Janet and I, neither of us were hurt badly. Both of our lives have been pleasantly added to. I needed and craved that sense of being wanted by a woman as more than a friend, of no longer being alone in life in that way. Through finding Janet, I've come to better appreciate the friends I have who now include her. Paradoxically, despite this experience clearly showing that my range of possibilities for stable life partnership is more constrained by my own requirements than I would have thought, I find that I have more hope of eventually finding a better match. I at least have the fortitude and sense to act if things don't feel right. Janet has proved to me that there actually are women out there who might find me worth exploring possibilities with. I'm not quite in a completely hopeless situation. Realistically though, I know my wait will most likely be a long one. Until a woman who meets my criteria comes along though, I simply have to keep hopeful, happy and patient. I'm also comforted that I haven't become so jaded that I'm completely beyond being swept into something. I'm still human after all. Exploring love's possibilities always comes with a cost. Compared to my last two serious relationships, I've gotten off remarkably lightly this time. I hope Janet eventually finds someone who has the resources and approach to give her a good and happy life companionship. I of all people know well the frustration of being overlooked due to a disability. The temptation to jump at any opportunity for love no matter how unsuitable or likely to last can probably only be understood by people in a similar situation.

For the record, here are my current known criteria for an ideal life partner:
1. She must be able to engage in deep and meaningful conversation. Words and ideas are at the very core of my life and my significant other needs to have the ability to communicate and explore such things at least as much as my friends do. She needs to be able to communicate her thoughts and argue her case well enough so I don't feel in danger of railroading her thinking. I don't care particularly that she have a formal education equivalent to my own. I've frankly met secondary school dropouts who have taught themselves as much or more than some of us with degrees have ever learned about the nature of real life. The desire and capability to explore ideas and discuss rationally are what I'm after here.

2. Over the years, my faith has become more a part of life. I don't think I could entertain the possibility of marrying someone who doesn't share at least a healthy respect for my religious convictions. I'd very much prefer to find someone who would enjoy going to church together as a couple. It's become an important enough part of my own life that I'd like to share it. It should be something which draws us closer rather than separates us. That blocks not only non-Christians who want no part of church, but also blocks the more extreme kinds of Christians who think poorly of all non-believers, reject modern life utterly, frown on anything not mentioned in the bible, jump to idiotic conclusions about modern culture/art, or think the world's nearly at an end and it's about damned time too. I try to find the good in games, movies, music, people, and life in general and want a lady who will enjoy these things with me. It's still not completely outside the realm of possibility that I would come to love and marry someone of a different faith or an agnostic. After all, had Rebecca not fallen in love with me despite my agnosticism at the time, I wouldn't likely be a Christian today. All things being equal though, I would far rather find someone of similar core beliefs.

3. She should fit in well with family and friends. A serious relationship is a package deal. There's no getting around that. I need to find someone who can partake in activities and get along with my family and friends. Someone who feels uncomfortable or begrudges having to go to family functions ought to look elsewhere for companionship. Mine have supported me through a lot of the worst times in my life. I simply won't hook up with someone who has no use or respect for them. While it's still possible that I might be convinced by a partner to move away to somewhere new, I'd really have to be sold on the idea. If we did, my friends would have to be welcome to visit and I'd expect us to go from time to time to visit them as economics and life reasonably permitted. People get into all kinds of trouble when they allow someone else to remove them from their support network and cut them off. I would never do that to a life partner and won't allow that to happen to me.

4. She must be able to respect how I've lived my life. Instead of banging my head on the brick wall barring job access for people with my disability and particular gifts, I've chosen to take advantage of the economic security and place society has offered me. Were the opportunity presented to me, I would cheerfully work for my living. However, despite sustained attempts supported by a government agency, I simply can't find my way into the labour force. I've therefore made my peace with that reality to the best of my ability and chosen to find alternate means for contributing to the good of others while still enjoying life and keeping cheerful. It hasn't been a short or easy journey. Should my circumstances change dramatically, I would absolutely be willing to work in order to support a married life, help keep a business run by a spouse afloat, etc. Under these rules and circumstances, however, I've figured out that I'll end up feeling far happier, contributing more, and feeling more productive doing what I'm doing. Should opportunities come up, I'd cheerfully volunteer three days a week just to be more a part of the community and feel more productive. Just get me there and back safely. If you can't get your head around that and respect my voluntary efforts to contribute to a society which can't see its way to rewarding me financially, you have no business getting serious with me. Respect has to be a two-way thing right from the start. I've got a hard-working family plus a lot of fully employed friends who have managed to make that leap. I'll stand for nothing less from a potential partner. Rebecca had no respect for what I did voluntarily and thought I should do nothing productive or contributive towards society if I wasn't going to get paid for it. I'll never stand for such a situation again. We're not going to last long if you can't see beyond the world of dollars and cents. Even if I at last find a way into the labour force through some miracle or other, I don't plan on turning away from the projects I've started.

5. I've learned what happens when you put all your eggs in one basket. I did that too much with Janene thinking that we'd be starting life together in a new place and everything would therefore be different. I would have gone with her absolutely anywhere and had no reason at all not to fully trust her. My friends and family were ready and committed to supporting her also and were as shocked as I when she suddenly pulled my less lonely future out from beneath me. None of those people have a true sense of what that put me through despite their best intentions and efforts. I intend to make certain that from now on, there's always enough of life not dependent on a relationship that I never go through such a long vicious downward slide again. That was just too painful and doubtless more rough on those closest to me than I fully realize. In other words, there's going to be more to my life than our relationship. Deal with it or get lost.

6. She needs to have a basically optimistic and cheerful appreciation of life and of people in general. Five years is long enough to have spent walking on eggshells and doing damage control. One thing I really admire about Janet was such a positive attitude despite the rejection she has faced in life. It really hurts me to now have to count myself as part of that rejection. However, if she didn't have that basically cheerful good attitude, I never would have explored more serious possibilities with her in the first place. Especially when you live on something like disability support, the benefits of such a fair-minded, level, patient and positive approach to people are incalculable. People who focus all their energy on society's shortcomings and discount their blessings aren't doing any of us any favours. I'm no longer a member of the ODSP Fireside list. It has some very useful information and clear-headded considerate people on it. However, far too many of its members simply spend all their time bitching and complaining. I can't be part of a group stacked so heavily in that direction and refuse utterly to be with a partner who can't find reason for happiness in life. Don't get me wrong. There are days when I'm angry and plenty of reasons for anger and bitterness in this crazy world. However, spending all your time angry just pushes people away from you and eats you up inside. I've been as far down that particular road to destruction as I ever want to go. An ideal woman for me must be able to see the bright side of life most of the time.

7. She needs to enjoy touching and physical affection. That's certainly something I want to experience from a lover again in life at some point. I saved it for last because it's only really meaningful after the rest of my criteria have been established and we've built up the appropriate level of trust, respect and genuine love we can have confidence is going to last. I'd rather have no relationship at all than go through another one which simply can't last due to improper construction. I was quite willing to go through the rest of life without sex had the rest of Rebecca and my marriage been at all salvageable. I felt that this was a part of honouring the commitment I had made. Even in marriage, sex should never be considered an absolute right. That kind of intimacy is a precious gift. Personal space should always be respected. However, if you don't appreciate physical affection, you really ought not to fall in love with a blind man to begin with.

That covers the basics pretty well I think. There's certainly a little wiggle room on these but not a whole lot. Due to the happiness I've found here over the past while, I'm strong enough to get out of what isn't working for me. Hopefully, I'm also strong and kindly enough to do so without hurting anybody too badly. I'd really prefer it if my own happiness in a relationship didn't come at someone else's expense. It should be all about building up hope and possibility for each other and for those whose lives intersect ours. Perhaps, in this self-centred world, that makes me too much of an idealist. I've heard it all before. I just can't make myself believe that this is such a fallen world that quantity is the only way to go in the love department. Women are simply worth more respect than that. Even if that weren't the case, our consciences, our very souls are worth infinitely more respect than that. I dearly hope and wish to find a life partner who I can experience stable growing married love with. Not, however, at any cost. For me, there are things I won't stoop to and things I refuse to give up. If that condemns me to singledom from here on out, so be it. Thankfully, God has blessed me with the ability to patiently hope that this isn't the case. I'll keep open to realistic possibilities. I'm making new connections and new friends these days. There's a whole lot more cause for hope than before this Summer.

This Autumn hasn't been devoid of activity either. I've had a remarkable Thanksgiving weekend. On Saturday, I was contacted about a text book for game designers which I had bought and found to be largely inaccessible due to restrictions placed on the pdf file. To my surprise, the author himself contacted me. It was terrific to hear from him. He was very encouraging. Through his efforts, I obtained a copy of the book which I'm able to easily move through and read. Nothing forced him to go to bat for me, a complete stranger. However, he found enough kindness and faith in me to do so. I've plunged into his book a fair way since then and dearly wish it had been one of the first ones I came across. It's great in that it provides a good overall order in which to do things. I've never really had that and will benefit in many ways from his experience and thoughtfulness. Anybody who is seriously planning to design a game would do well to get Fundamentals of Game Design 2nd edition by Ernest Adams. It's geared towards computer and video games but what he says easily applies to other kinds of games including what I'm trying to create. The other very helpful book was one I found on www.audible.com called Reality is Broken Why Games Make us Better and How They can Change the World by Jane McGonigal. The psychological in sites she provides will serve my project quite well also. I have a whole lot to read, learn, and think about over this Winter. I also have a somewhat better sense of the scope of what I'm trying to do. Even the design document and process is going to take at least another year and possibly two. It's so important to get things nailed down before you go much further.

There have been other good times also. I attended a Thanksgiving party held by members of my church. Despite difficulties hearing due to my illness, it was still very enjoyable and added greatly to an altogether spectacular Thanksgiving weekend. Seeing the family was also fun. Everyone was in good spirits and the dinner was just wonderful. Occasions like that have a way of sticking nicely in your head.

I was also very pleased to have Reverend Chong drop in for a visit one morning. He was a part of the group that I went down to Grand Rapids Michigan with during the Summer for the multiethnic conference. It was great just having him over for a friendly chat in here before heading off to the Dam later that day.

It's Tuesday morning now. I've had a broken but apparently sufficient sleep. Saw the doctor last week and he seems to have hit on something helpful. He suggested I try saline solution sprayed into the nose to clear my stuffiness. Who'd have thunk that salt-water would be as helpful as it's been? Later on this week, I'll be fasting and going in for standard blood work. Everyone says I should lose more than a few pounds. Guess this will be a start. There's also groceries to order and laundry to do. A nicely busy week to help life keep moving along after the breakup. King of Dragon Pass has proved to be every bit as marvellous as I could have hoped. I've already spent hours playing that game. What's more, they're still updating and adding to it. Once some of the rougher aspects of Voiceover access have been polished in the next update, I'll have to try doing a Blindcooltech episode about the game. Meanwhile, I can thoroughly enjoy playing it as I engage in other aspects of life. More blind people are hearing about the game which pleases me no end. I hope the developers are getting lots of feedback.

Doubtless, more has happened over the past while which I have neglected to blog about. It seems a lady who found me on Audioboo is interested in getting to know me further. She goes by the nickname buschic and it seems to be very well earned. She doesn't tend to fit in with the blind community often having different and at times unwelcome opinions. I had a couple of short conversations with her. She seems nice if a little rough around the edges. She seems to be quite interested in me and is thankfully a whole lot closer than Janet was. I could actually see us getting together without going bankrupt. She can certainly carry on a good conversation. Apparently, she considers me cute of all confounded things. The older I get, the less applicable that word seems to me. Given what I've just been through though, whatever happens will take its own time. I've made that pretty clear and she seems alright with that. She'll clearly make for an interesting friend with her radical opinions and justifiable anger considering even the fraction of her experience she has related to me. but whether she fits into the rest of life is a question to be explored slowly and with care. I tend to favour the patient diplomatic approach. She strikes me more as someone who'd charge into a situation and take no prisoners. Somewhat like my good friend Steve Murgaski in that respect. She's apparently spoken briefly to him on some occasions but doesn't know him that well. She makes no secret of her mental issues which at least speaks to her honesty. They're somewhat different than what I've had any experience with. While that at least means things would be different, it still tells me that caution is a good idea. Frankly though, it is damned refreshing to actually have a new lady to even contemplate getting to know. A pretty sharp change of pace from the usual months which stretch on and on between the occasional serious female interest I've experienced. Mustn't let it go to my head. Ah well. Life continues. I'll be off to the Dam pretty soon. Had a delicious brunch which turned out perfectly. No egg on the counter this time. I find that I very much look forward to finding out what the topic for the week's forum discussion after the dropin will be. So far, I've managed to contribute a little to the discussions. It at least makes me feel productive at the end of the day. Hopefully, the dropin will be more eventful for me than the last one was. More people seem to be coming which has raised the noise level considerably. Think I'll take my full set of gear including my portable speakers. If I'm going to be sitting around for hours, I may as well have the ghost of a chance of hearing what my netbook says in there. Who knows? Maybe, some of these new youngsters will have a bit of healthy curiosity. I can hope.

Drifting into Autumn

Hello everyone. I've been happily busy this past while. Lately, my sense of blogger's guilt is telling me that it's way past time for another entry. There's a lot to cover including a few events which could well have had their own blog entries had I gotten around to writing them. Summer is firmly behind now as I start writing this entry on the last day of September. The leaves are all over the ground now on the path around the lake. I know because I went to vote this morning with Shirley. She voted earlier but didn't mind taking me for a walk over. I hadn't realized that the advanced poling station was right in the community centre I walk past when going to the mall and the Dam. This time, I had my voting card and it was simplicity itself. No long lineups or anything. I've officially done my civic duty. Guess we'll see what befalls this fine province on Thursday evening, election day.

For the past while, I've been plagued by an annoying cough/cold. I thought it was allergy-related for quite a while but no longer believe that to be the case. A lot of other people are coughing away too so I guess something's going round and my number came up. I'm just glad I got to enjoy the rest of the Summer this time. Such a splendid remarkable Summer. There are times in your life when you really turn a kind of corner and know that the past while has changed your outlook permanently for the better. This Summer has really shown me that I have far more reason to be thankful, scope for engagement with others in my community, and more hope for social satisfaction in this world of frightfully busy people than I could have imagined before. As I wrote in an article just published in my church's newsletter, I've at last truly found home.

It's Sunday morning now. I've been awake through a whole lot more of it than I would have preferred. However, I'm feeling very good just now other than the somewhat degraded hearing this illness now seems bent on throwing at me. Not nearly so bad as last Summer's illness. Breakfast went far more smoothly today than it did yesterday. A nice muffin and some fresh pineapple proved far less troublesome than the eggs I spilled yesterday. It ought to be a pretty good Sunday. There's church, the Mosen Explosion, and probably a visit with the family later on.

I guess there's a whole lot of past weeks to cover. I intended to do a blog entry a whole lot sooner than this. The first major thing I should write something about was my Aunt Kay's 90th birthday party. That already seems like ages ago. There was quite a bit of driving to Sea forth and then Stratford. We first had a pleasant afternoon with Kay's friends and relatives who attended. It was good to chat with some of Kay's friends who I hadn't met before, and it's always nice to see the folks who have been an intermittent but integral part of my life for about as long as I can remember. I wish we weren't all so spread out. Aunt Kay seemed to enjoy the afternoon thoroughly. There were something like sixty people in attendance. At times like that, you get a real sense of just how wide and positive the impact of a life well lived can be. We then proceeded to Stratford where we enjoyed a catered dinner at the Queen's Arms Inn. The food was terrific. After dinner, some of us gave short speeches. I took a stab at it and quit before I got too emotional. The core of what I said bares repeating here. If there's one thing I'll always treasure that I've learned from Aunt Kay, it's a deep appreciation for rarely encountered often old things. She probably still has that wonderful room in her house where a child of pretty much any age would find some quaint old toy or game which they'd never have come across anywhere else in life. You never got the sense that the possibilities of finding something else of interest on a future visit had been exhausted. Through my writing and other efforts, I hope to pass on that sense of appreciation and wonder that so much of this generation seems to have lost. Even costly video games are now mainly designed to be won and then disposed of rather than kept and cherished. Not so in Aunt Kay's day. Not so for me either. I want people to hang onto my creations be they writing or game. I owe no small part of that resistance to the use it and lose it consumerism plaguing modern life to Aunt Kay and that room of wonders.

It was great seeing Neil and Cathy again. They don't visit that often at all so spending time with them was a lot of fun. After they left, my next big trip was out to Canada's Wonderland with a few friends I hadn't seen in pretty much a year. It was great to be back in the park again. Perhaps, I'll get a season's pass next year. I seem to know enough people who go there often that it would easily pay for itself over a summer. Even better was just catching up with the happenings in the lives of Shane, Crissie and Angel. We just hit it off like we did when they lived nearby and had a very good day together. Sadly, Shane must now deal with the reality of Crones disease which my mother has. He's just starting to blog about what he's been going through. I hope he finds that to be as helpful and therapeutic an outlet as I've found blogging to be. Check it out at:
http://tsholock.blogspot.com/

I've also reconnected with Angela and Tony. Angela came out a couple of times, once to have lunch with Michelle, Gerry and I. She came a second time a week later so that I could update her Trekker Breeze for her. It's all up to snuff now with the latest software and maps. Nobody ever told her she should register it with Humanware to be notified of updates. I cringe at idiocy like that. Same goes for how Jerry didn't get an SMA with his Jaws purchase. If anybody needs things to be easy and up to date, it's someone like him. He doesn't have the technical skill to deal with the adversity he's going to needlessly have to over the next four years until he can get an upgrade. That presumes those who deal with him don't take advantage of his ignorance as has clearly happened this time. He's stuck with version 11 and should have been able to upgrade to 13 like Michelle and I will be. Michelle has the ongoing problem of her visual capability not being understood by people who deal with her. She has to bend very close to the monitor to see it and often can't see things like buttons in the middle of the screen. She notices a lot with her sight around a room or outdoors but this doesn't mean she can when things are close up and small. It's not that she isn't trying. She simply often can't. I've been surprised by what she's able to notice at times so I have a dim understanding of how other people might reach the unfortunate conclusion that too many have for her. I couldn't help her as much as I would have hoped this week when I went to see them. All I could do was take her to the place where she could change colour and font. I just have no direct experience and only a dim theoretical grasp of what these things are. I can see both sides of the coin as usual. It's understandable if regrettable that trainers will lose patience trying to help her and Gerry. It takes them longer to grasp technical concepts and such. Poor Gerry actually ended up frustrated with the phone as he tried to call Swiss Chalet to order our dinner. He really seems caught in a world which has moved beyond him technologically but he's doing quite well considering his late introduction to computers. It's just going to take longer for him to really start grasping stuff well. Too long for trainers busy making a buck to do much more than write him off after a certain point. How much collective wisdom is forever lost to society through the impatience of others?

Back from church now. That was a great service as usual although my illness robbed me of my accustomed ability to hear easily. My article got published in the church newsletter and a few people commented favourably on it to me. I enjoyed a light lunch and am now awaiting the start of the Mosen Explosion on
www.mushroomfm.com
I just read an article by my good friend Adam Taylor. He's studying to become a journalist and got published in his college's newspaper. Check out his article at:
http://sheridansunonline.sheridanc.on.ca/business_ads.html
Looks like he's started a nifty blog also for gamers. Have to keep an ear on that. Check that out at:
http://adambladetaylor.blogspot.com/

Life has somewhat settled down now for me. I don't expect any major outings over the next while. That'll be good for my bank balance. Even these more empty days seem to be going past at quite a clip. I've read some good books including The Rule of Nine which was a very well-written thriller. I've also re-read the Moon Maze Game which is just terrific and well worth the waiting for. I'm about due for another Audible credit and am debating which book to choose next. I may go for World War Z despite it being abridged in the spirit of Halloween. However, there are quite a number of titles on my wish list including Ready Player 1. That one sounds very interesting and comes highly recommended by Dani Hood, a former neighbour and current friend. There are also a couple of game development related books. Now that work on Enchantment's Twilight is on the move again, they also present some temptation. Robert J. Sawyer also tugs at my heartstrings as I'm sorely tempted to get the WWW trilogy over the next few months. So many choices. If there's a sale as there sometimes is, there's always a chance that a book I'm interested in will be included in it. However, I can't count on that and must make my monthly choice accordingly. As my budget improves and recovers from Summer, I'll have more freedom of action but that's how things are for now. Rather than being put out, I see it as only fair that things tighten up for a bit. It all comes down to perspective and I seem to have well and truly found my equilibrium.

Looks like I'll be joining my parents for dinner at Kim and Ernie's tonight. It's always good to catch up with them. Saw the three nieces last week. They're all doing alright despite dealing with colds. School is going well for both Ava and Amia. Little Alleah won't be ready to join the educational system for some time yet but she's a cute grabby spunky little one for all that. I'm glad Neil and Cathy got to see them while they were here.

As offline life slows down a tad, my online existence is becoming more interesting. One of my Twitter followers, Julie Einarson, participated in the Sears Run which raised funds for research into curing Cancer. Apparently, she did quite well and her team came in second. Tom Ward just announced that he's doing a small Halloween game as a kind of break from ongoing work on Mysteries of the Ancients. Thank God people have proved more understanding than past experience gave me any cause to hope they would. So far, no flame war or harsh backlash against Tom for daring to take a short creative break and switch gears for a bit. Hope it does him some real good to make something unhindered by the desires and hopes of the blind gaming community. He's been hemmed in for so very long by trying to do a good deed. Team FM has been very successful in its launch and I'm tuning into a couple of their shows. Mainly, I've thoroughly enjoyed the Bear's Lair on Saturdays. That in itself has been wonderful to have back. Lulu plays some terrific stuff and that whole community Twitter interactive thing just makes an otherwise empty Saturday feel special. It's nice to know that weekends this Winter will have two events, the Mosen Explosion on Mushroom FM plus the Bear's Lair on Team FM, which will be points of contact with communities of listeners. There's also Cathyanne's Soothing Sounds and Erin Edger's Melting Pot, shows I catch on a semi-regular basis. Pretty soon, King of Dragon Pass will at long last be accessible to me via the iPHONE. I have every confidence that this game will keep me spellbound for hours of stimulating story-driven play. That's a very good thing as I'll be saving any extra cash for the whole Christmas thing as well as any social opportunities which might come my way. Podcasts are going to become more welcome things in life. I have tons of Spark episodes to catch up on among a great many other things in that department. I have, however, enjoyed a number of From Our Own Correspondents episodes over the past while during less active times. It's positively delightful and unbelievable how far out of my digital world this past Summer has taken me. The whole tambour of life has well and truly changed.

Janet and I have been chatting on Skype most evenings. It's damned good to have someone to do that again with who really seems to love me. I can't help but be drawn in by her simplicity and obvious affection. However, when you get right down to it, all we've done is talk and email each other. The whole question of how well the chemistry will work outside of Lake Joseph's special environment still remains to be answered and doubtless will for some time. Having a friend like Carine to talk with is helpful. Like me, she's in a long-distance relationship and must deal with some of the same issues. This includes the same tendency to analyze things to death. Will we find each other to be stimulating when together on our own continuously or simply find that things run out of steam? We operate on two very different mental levels. Janet has a very simplistic way of approaching things including faith. God will provide. It's a foregone conclusion for her as reliable and all-encompassing as the sunrise. With intellect comes a knowledge of how things work which precludes such easy refuge. I'm forever weighing and pondering, wrestling with the very essence and consequences of what I believe. As with my faith, so too it is with the rest of life. Particularly when it comes to my hopes for life-long female companionship, I'm probably altogether too mindful of the consequence of choosing wrongly. I get a strong sense that we would both be useful additions to each other's social circles. However, while I was listening to some fantasy book or lecture, would she take an interest or simply be bored to death? Would we listen to radio shows or podcasts and have meaningful talks about them, or would that simply be an ideal I'd do better to let go of? I can sort of see myself getting into some of the mystery and crime shows which fascinate her but am never going to be enthralled by comedies, campfire singalongs or other things which amuse her. There would certainly be compensations in terms of the freedom of action her sight would provide us. Also, while I'm apt to get mired in detail and counter-argument, she's the type of kind soul who's apt to come up with one of those breath-taking "why didn't I think of that?"-style conclusions. She doesn't say what she doesn't mean. There's no ambiguity. I would always know precisely where I stood with her. Ability-wise, each of us can nicely fill a lack experienced by the other. That could either lead to a kind of stability or not. Eventually, we'll doubtless manage to visit each other and really find out where things might go. Until then, I take comfort in my new lovely lady at a distance and explore what ground Skype makes possible. Our road to togetherness will be a very long one. For me, it'll be full of weighty questions which only time together will answer but which I can't help but wrestle with anyhow. I don't ever want her to feel belittled or inferior to me if she can't immediately grasp things or can't get into things which interest me. She has, in many ways, surpassed me in how she has approached things and/or dealt with her limitations. It's not at all the same as having someone to go on dates and start experiencing life with. Hopefully, the distance between us will prove to be a means of building a solid foundation of understanding upon which love can grow. For the present, having Janet to talk with and write to is a whole lot better than the big zero relationship wise. It's so damned nice to finally have a possibility for long-term companionship to at least explore with someone who takes the possibility seriously.

It's Monday afternoon now. Dinner with the Perins was delicious and entertaining as always. Their computer needed quite a cleaning as they hadn't really known to attend to that over the past years they've owned it. I trust that they'll notice quite a speed boost now that a disc cleanup and defrag have been done. I seem to be doing a lot of basic computer maintenance for people these days who either don't have the time or inclination to learn to do it themselves. I can relate to that. There are certainly things, particularly fashion-related, that I could doubtless grasp more firmly but simply aren't worth my bother. There's that palpable sense that Fall has arrived and with it, a bustle of activity you never quite feel in Summer no matter how full of adventure it is.

Carine called unexpectedly this morning. She and Kevin have been pretty busy lately, as have I. It was good to go for a walk around the lake with her dog Breeze and my Trekker Breeze GPS. We went off to Symposium where I had the breakfast of champions. That'll pretty much be my meal for the day. Kevin and Carine want to take me tubing this Winter. Carine also seems to like hiking. Haven't had a whole lot of opportunity to do either of those things in quite a while. It's great to have people who think of me when they're considering doing something and have them be so close to where I live. It'll be fun including them in some of my gatherings also.

Apples have definitely made their way back into my list of liked fruits. They're a nice change from oranges this time of year. Dad says oranges are to his liking just now so I may get some with my next grocery order in a couple weeks or so. I have a Fall coupon book which I intend to get some use out of. The coupons are five dollars savings plus one for ten. That doesn't really justify doing an extra order what with the delivery fee but I'll still save at least fifteen or twenty just sticking to my natural schedule. They do a good job of reminding you when codes are about to expire. I appreciate thoughtfulness like that. When it comes to customer service, Grocery Gateway truly has its act together. Wouldn't mind if the bills were lower, but would mind extremely if they ever went out of business.

It's been a pleasant afternoon and is now well into evening. The wind has now passed well in to the realm of chilly. Time to close the balcony door for the night. People will be coming to check on and perhaps repair the balcony railing tomorrow so I've moved the table into a corner and the chairs inside. I've never gotten to meet and talk with the folks who do that kind of work. That could be interesting. I wonder what tools they might carry or whether they leave everything in a truck until they perceive an apartment which needs their attention. There are so many things like that which I guess are just obvious to sighted folk but that I've never gotten round to finding out. The railing certainly seems just as safe and solid to me as it ever has. Do they use some special equipment to examine them and how well they're set into the concrete of the balconies? Also, what possible insights might such a career lend itself to? They see the inner sanctums and visible possessions of so many people. What do they actually think of it all? What impact might it have on their sense of place and accomplishment in life? I think of people like Franc Snape, who I've always thought of as Uncle Franc despite our not being related. You can read a bit about him in the previous blog entry. There are so many different approaches to wisdom and depth of character.

At last, I learned today what Julie sounds like. She's the lady I mentioned earlier who's running in the Great Canadian Run for Cancer soon. I finally got to hear a Youtube clip of her speaking. For quite a while now, I've known what two thirds of the Twitter triangle[twiangle?] of Dani, Jacqui and Julie sound like. Dani was a neighbour of my parents and I and still comes over on some occasions. Jacqui is Dani's friend who I've also had the pleasure to meet and talk with over the years. The most memorable thing I've done with them so far was eat at O'Noir when they wanted to experience eating in the dark. That seems so damned long ago. So much has happened to me, them, and Stephen since that evening. Now, I can have some sense of how all three members of the twiangle would sound saying what they tweet to each other. It's one of those things, like putting that last dish back in the cupboard, which imparts a disproportionate degree of satisfaction. Sort of like having a matching set of stuff. My impression of Julie as an interesting and caring person hasn't changed at all for finally having heard her. We might never actually meet as is the case with so many of my online acquaintances. It's just a tiny bit of curiosity put to rest.

Tomorrow afternoon, I'm going to be leading the Forum discussion at the Dam. My previous experience explaining to students and others about life as a blind person will hopefully stand me in good stead for this. I hope I can keep them interested and pass something of what life has taught me on to them. This is a fantastic opportunity for me to make some real headway with whoever ends up staying around for the discussion and pizza. It's been on my mind most of the day. Thank God for Twitter and other seemingly trivial stuff of life. As the author says in Stranger Than Fiction, that seemingly trivial stuff does a whole lot to save our lives. It saves us from taking ourselves too seriously, from becoming too obsessed for our own good with what we're about. It can give us that small speck of distance we need to stumble across what our most intensely focused careful thinking can never find. Mostly though, it saves us from the crushing weight of time we cannot more profitably use. I was going to publish this entry today, but believe that I'll hold off. Tomorrow's forum is a pretty important first stab at youth leadership for me and you all deserve to know how it turns out.

It's now Tuesday evening. I'm back safe and sound. It's been a pretty good day. The balcony workers were extremely quick. They walked through, hammered a few times on the railing or something out there, and then left. Couldn't really chat with them but got to chat briefly with the building superintend ant. He seemed somewhat surprised that I was cooking despite it's being lunch time. The Apple press event was unfortunately less than informative regarding IOS5. The only real piece of info I learned before having to leave for the Dam was that IOS5 is going to come out on October 12. That ought to be interesting.

The Trekker performed beautifully today on the way to the Dam. My hearing, however, was somewhat problematic. This time, it was that lack of the clear crisp hearing of my surroundings which got me turned around heading accidentally back towards my apartment until the Breeze announced familiar landmarks which clued me in. That added five minutes to my otherwise excellent walk over there. Crossing the street was a tad more nerve-wracking. One car was quiet enough and moving slowly so I didn't realize it was anywhere near until it was very close indeed. The driver was obviously well aware of me. It seemed almost criminal after the forum to accept a lift back home but given that hearing difficulty, I figured discretion might be the better part of valour this evening.

My first forum was quite a success and turned out very differently than I had planned for. It ended up being about getting to know me. I shared some antic dotes and basic information about how I approach things as a blind person. I think it'll make it easier for them to approach me with their issues during the drop in. Robin seemed to think that it was quite a success and everyone was interested all the way through. They want me to lead another forum later on where I tackle the rest of what I planned to do in this forum.

The rest of this week will be pleasantly busy for me. I'll be going to Symposium Cafe on Thursday to have lunch with Michelle and Angela. Michelle's computer seems to be working better for her but I've no clear idea what happened to accomplish that. Face book is still a bit more difficult but seems to be manageable for her. It'll also be interesting to find out how Angela likes her Trekker now that it's all updated. I'll have to read up on entering addresses into the Breeze so I can explain that better. I haven't used that feature a whole lot but it would come in pretty handy for Angela. I guess tomorrow and Friday will be when I do laundry and other odds and ends. Thursday is also election day and I'll certainly be tuned into CBC Radio1 for their coverage that evening. At some point, I'll have to catch a full length news broadcast and get caught up with that. What with all the happenings and tech stuff, I guess I've let my grip on world events slip a tad. Rather than finding that annoying, I find it a welcome indicator of just how much things have changed for me over this past while. It's high time I got this entry published. I'll be Skyping Janet and her friend Lori fairly soon once I've gotten a nice cold drink. Until next time, my good readers all.

Birthdays and Other New Starts

Hello everyone. It's a somewhat humid Sunday afternoon as I start this blog entry. My ride to church didn't materialize this morning. That's happened quite rarely with this church. They've been excellent about the whole transportation thing. Stood out there for just shy of half an hour enjoying the outdoors. I don't mind the humidity as much as a lot of people seem to. Had to use the AC a little yesterday when I got back from Ava's fourth birthday party just to take out some of the heat and stuffy ness. It seems to be quite a good little air conditioner. Nice to know it'll be there when I finally cave in and need it. Having been married to a woman who got all out of sorts in the heat and then lived with parents who liked the windows closed for most of the Summer, I'm pleased to at last be somewhere that I can actually enjoy the hot season for what it's supposed to be. I just hope my social life warms up a bit.

And what, you may wonder, did I decide to do while I thought I would have been in church? Elementary, my dear reader. I satisfied my long-standing curio city about how Hollywood chose to interpret Ann Rice's book Queen of the Damned. Deliciously unexpected and delightfully twisted of me, wasn't it? Admit it. You'd never have guessed in a million years. Sadly, any redemptive elements found in the book were summarily dismissed by the film. I might have known. My optimism has received a number of small kicks in various areas lately so why leave out that incurable hope that says not to entirely give up on those multi-million-dollar creations? Glad I waited until I got the descriptive file and didn't waste money on that one. Avatar was quite a nicely done movie but essentially, it was Dances With Wolves in another time period all over again. The acting was excellent as was the music. However, you'd think marines would be equipped with energy weapons or something other than machine guns by the time we explore other worlds. Laser weaponry is being worked on right now for crying out loud.

What other small kicks has Mike's legendary optimism received lately? The update for the Trekker finally arrived. I took it out for a test with Adam coming along in case things went cocky. It was a damned good thing I didn't just march out there alone. Things went pretty well until we went under Glen Erin. From that point on, it thought we were off-route. My landmarks eventually got us to the Meadow vale Town Centre but the routing instructions didn't ever catch up with us. What did work extremely well was my Blue Snowflake microphone and netbook as recording apparatus. Soon, there should be an update to the maps used by the Trekker Breeze. Mine must be at least a few years old now so that very well might be part of the problem. That new feature which searches for nearby points of interest will point you in the general direction but I wouldn't trust it unless I had no other choice or was in a different less urban area. It may route you to the Meadowvale Town Centre but don't expect it to get you to any of the store entrances on the outside of the mall. Later this week, I plan to go out with my father and give it a fair crack at redemption. An attempt to go to Symposium Cafe on my own didn't go so well either. I had originally wanted to just walk around the lake but a passing bicycle rider informed me of a bee's nest on the path. I didn't want to chance giving accidental offence by unwittingly tapping on their home so I change my plans and headed out to the mall. I actually remembered a little more of the route than I thought I would but the GPS didn't call out direction despite numerous resets. I needed to ask three people for help on the way there and was thankful that Peter, a custodian in my building, happened to be heading back and offered to take me back also after my drink. The fruit freezie was splendid as always. It would be so damned nice to actually have a girlfriend to enjoy those with.

As dubious luck would have it, what would have been my first gathering of new friends in my apartment fell apart on me. Chrissie and Angel had to go elsewhere despite their having picked Friday night to visit Sandy and I. I had been keenly looking forward to having them all here. It would have been an indication that my social life had at last truly taken a turn for the better. It would have meant a great deal to know that I had at last found a couple of ladies around my age who found me worth taking the time to hang out with. I know how busy life can get for sighted folk so I refuse to take it personally. Circumstances just didn't pan out this time. They gave us lots of notice so it's not like I ordered extra stuff that would go to waste or anything. I told you. "a couple of small kicks." Not a knockout blow. Even if this Summer does turn out to be a lonely one, I still consider myself well ahead of where I was not even three months ago. So much solitude while being near so many people is going to eat at me and will doubtless frustrate me to no end. There'll be countless times when I go to Symposium Cafe, try, and fail not to dwell on the fact that nobody else is sitting at my table. That won't stop me from going there. "Build it and they will come." the saying goes. I'm making both myself and my apartment as ready for friendly company as I can make them. Hopefully, sooner rather than later, they will come. Before I pass any long-standing judgements on how things are going to go here over the long haul, I'll keep doing what I'm doing for at least a year. That ought to give me at least enough of a baseline to start adjusting stuff to deal with whatever foundation for long-term happiness I've managed to build by then. Who knows? Perhaps, Plenty of Fish will even startle the wits out of me and cough up another interested special lady who happens to be close enough to actually get to know. That's one area where my optimism is truly starting to fade. It's been over a damned year now.

I haven't seem much of any of the new acquaintances I've made lately. Cesar came over for help with another essay. He gets a little better at it each time he writes one of those. I've pretty much given up looking for a shortcut for him. It'll just take more practice and exposure to proper sentence structure. Time, unlike company my own age, is something I generally happen to have. It certainly beets helping people I'll never meet. There's actually some friendship growing there. He's a good man with a whole lot on his plate. Lela and Fernando have been pretty busy also. I bumped into Fernando on his way to a dentist appointment. Now there's a trip I seriously don't envy anybody. For the most part, my teeth have been surprisingly good to me especially when you consider my love of sweets.

On Thursday, I joined John in Sandy's apartment and we managed to get a scanner working in tandem with Kurzweil1000 on Sandy's computer. At last, there's something simple I'll be able to teach him to do with his computer which ought to truly benefit him. That's one project for this coming week.

Another project has come up in the form of an old friend and reader of this humble blog. She wants to try a collaborative writing project with me. As far as story and such goes, I've been dry as a post for quite some time now. On that unexpectedly empty Friday night, she hooked up with me over Skype. We were pretty good friends in secondary school. I remember spending many happy lunch hours in the school cafeteria with her and the rest of our small group. It did me a whole lot of good to talk with her again. As usual, she's way to far away to hang out with and perfectly happy single. She sounds a whole lot like I remembered her sounding but different than I would have expected. A very pleasant person to talk to just as she always was. I won't say too much about our project until I'm firmly convinced it's going somewhere. She has somewhat more faith in my writing ability than I do at the moment. Enchantment's Twilight hasn't gone anywhere lately. Perhaps, working in a new universe with a thoughtful and intelligent partner will kick start my writing engine again. At this point, Summer is looking pretty empty unless I get something going. Short of shooting myself in the head to impart motive energy to my brain cells, I'll try damned near anything to shake off this creative paralysis. It's a nifty opportunity and it might even ultimately be published. If she's willing to give it a try with her busy schedule, I'll certainly do my best to hold up my end. I guess that's what it all comes down to. I just have to keep ready and open to whatever opportunities present themselves. Sooner or later, I have to believe it'll all lead somewhere less solitary but hopefully just as comfortable as where I am now.

Ava's fourth birthday party was this weekend. It seemed to go quite well. I brought my netbook and Blue Snowflake microphone along. The recording turned out quite well considering the unfavourable acoustics. I'll have a bit of a job editing the 108 minutes down to some of the highlights which recorded nicely. Goldwave and I are slowly becoming better acquainted but sound editing will never really be my art. Just hearing those kids run around the place was exhausting. Initially upset at the prospect of turning four, Ava ended up really enjoying the party with her friends. Amia wasn't left out as I thought she might have been either. They all enjoyed it. So did her Uncle Mike. I'll try to get more events recorded as she continues to grow up. She'll have more than pictures and I'll have a little more to work with than fading memories. I'll have to acquire more shirts with pockets. I found it ever so convenient to just stick the mic in there and have both hands free. Also, the cable leading to the netbook doesn't interfere with my cane at all when the pocket and netbook are on the left side. It's not stereo but I'll happily settle for very good omnidirectionarl mono recording.

It's now a very pleasant Monday morning. I had an excellent sleep. I've just enjoyed a couple of cinnamon crunches plus a bowl of pineapple for breakfast. Perfect when followed by the wonderfully aromatic hot cup of chai tea I've just polished off. Things feel very fresh and new today. Last evening, I indeed went to church as planned but ended up taking the first of the membership classes I had thought started somewhat later in May. So far, things are tracking with what I remember from the Oakville CRC church. It's been quite a while so these classes are a very welcome opportunity. Pastor Sam is keen for our group to get to know each other which, as you may imagine, suits me just fine. It's a good group with thoughtful people spanning all of life's ages. Last time I took membership classes, we were all around the same age so this ought to be even more interesting. If nothing else, it's something stimulating to end the next several weekends with. Very welcome indeed.

After returning from church, I thought I'd take a stroll on my balcony. My cane struck something unexpectedly soft and large. I stood still waiting for the squawk of some injured bird or animal but nothing came. Bending down, I discovered that either a small set of track pants or perhaps a heavy shirt lay at my feet. It must have blown or fallen off a balcony above me. I knocked on my neighbour Red's door to see if he knew where we were to take found objects in the building. He was busy cooking dinner and looking after one of their kids. Despite that, he was still up for sharing a couple of drinks and some very welcome conversation. He shared some wine with me and I brought over a beer which he seemed to enjoy. I got to know Marco a little. He's feeling a little under the weather but still enjoyed his father's cooking and was a very pleasant and polite young lad. Hopefully, he got a good sleep. I was able to inform Red of some of the places he might enjoy taking his family. I hope he manages to find work soon. He and his family are very conscientious hospitable folks who are eager to learn about Canada and its culture. I'll cheerfully do whatever I can to be of help to them. Events like last night's unexpected get-together do a great deal to brighten my outlook on the future here. There is a real chance for me to build a more robust social network for myself here. It'll just take time, patience, and the odd stray or mysterious article. Think I'll head down and check my non-electronic mailbox. Later, folks.

Not a whole lot is happening in the world according to the news I just heard at noon. Writing hasn't gone overly well this morning but the day's only half over. I have my balcony door open and there's a nice breeze coming in. Apparently, there may be some thunder more towards the evening. My father and I are planning to go on a walk tomorrow with the Trekker Breeze. Hopefully, we won't find ourselves wading through wet stuff.

life's improving tambour

Hello everyone. I guess it's been a couple of weeks. Time certainly proceeds apace here. There have been a couple of very enjoyable gatherings. Last friday evening, I went to one and made some roasted potatos which seemed to have been enjoyed. I'm still tinkering with the timing of those but have reached a point where I can count on them turning out well. It was good to get to know the people who attended the event better. The food was terrific. Mainly though, I enjoyed the conversation. I felt like I was in my element.

My futon, coffee table and two end tables arrived last week. Mark and Wendy came over and assembled the tables for me. It didn't take them long with the help of one of those diagrams. The futon didn't need much assembly and the delivery guys handled that. One of them bumped my desk on the way in and was surprised when my computer's voice suddenly began speaking. It seemed to break the ice wonderfully. I gave them a couple of softdrinks as they left. It was a marvelously warm day and I figured they could use them. The place feels so much more complete now. It makes a relaxing change to sit on that futon and enjoy music, podcasts, etc. The two tubchairs will get here some time over the next month or so. There are a number of people who I'm very much looking forward to inviting over for visits including a Spanish couple who I've become acquainted with who live in the building. I've seen Sandy a few times and have helped him move some stuff around in his apartment. He's have some ups and downs healthwise. However, he has at least been in contact with some more helpful people. They've managed to assemble the new furnature he recently got. It seems like he's pretty serious about making the best of life. There's still a kind of listlessness to him but it's no great surprise given what he's experienced. There's a lot more sunchine in him than when we first met though. He seems to think I've done him some real good already and we haven't really gotten to serious computer efforts yet. It'll alll some in due time though. I expect we'll be hearing from John Morgan soon. I wonder what he got up to in England. Some day, God willing, I'll go there with a special lady or one or more very good friends.

I'm still slowly proceeding through Stephen King's Duma Key. It's keeping me interested so far. Also, I've started going through a book called Brain Fuel which is filled with scientific facts about all sorts of foods and other things. I believe it will eventually cover more than chemistry and biological stuff. I still have quite a bit to go through. Browsing the CNIB digital library, I found another interesting-sounding book called Our True North Strange and Free. Apparently, that's got a bunch of strange stories and facts about Canada. Books like that are splendid for when you don't really feel like engaging with a story.

Tomorrow, I'll be taking another stab at trying to help improve the situation with the router my parents have. Dad's computer is just wizzing along on the information superhighway but nobody else is able to connect. Dad looked at some pretty negative reviews on Future Shop's site which may have given the key to solving the problem. Apparently, all the trouble might be resolved by updating the firmware in the router. We got it on sale just before Christmsa and I never would have figured he'd have to bother upgrading the firmware this soon. My own router seems to have come with the latest firmware already installed. Thankfully, it appears that D-link has made the updating process quite easy. Here's hoping that this step restores mom's ability to go online with her laptop.

Adam came over on wednesday. He arrived just as I was heading back upstairs with my laundry. We had a good visit and went to Monahan's in Oakville for wings. That certainly brought back some memories. The wings are more pricey now but thankfully, the taste hasn't changed. We'll doubtless head back over there on a monday to take advantage of their wing night. We hoped to play a game called Settlers 7 but found that my computer just wasn't up to it. The lack of a wide-screen monitor doesn't help its gaming capabilities. However, its CPU and outdated graphics card are larger issues. It will still be perfectly suitable for my own needs. Accessible games don't have nearly the same hardware requirements. Nor does any other software I'm likely to use. Fortunately, Hinterland turned out to be playable if a bit awkward due to not having a wide-screen perspective.

I'm taking it fairly easy today. Other than this blog entry, there are two weeks worth of groceries to order. It's that time once again. I'll have them come early next week. It has gotten quite cold here again. The weather people don't think that'll last too long. Hope they're right. I've never been fond of the cold. CSUN is happenning right now in the states. Still no word about either Trekker Breeze's update or of the Blio Reader. Their site is still up but I haven't had any news from them since sighning up for their news updates. I hope nothing has tangled them up. Regarding Dragontavern and Plenty of Fish, I'm toing equally dismally on each of these fronts. Seeing as I haven't yet sorted out my profile on POF, that's not too surprising. I also haven't kept up with the forums there and have to sink some time into all that soon. DRagon Tavern is another matter entirely. I've had a run of utterly dreadful luck. Poor Eldrex has been killed so many times now that I'm laybouring under a half-million-point XP debt. Every time I manage to chip away at it, another nasty fate befalls my brave adventurer as his controller, yours truly, takes one too many chances with his fate. What can I say? I find it good to have one area in life where decisions can be made and risks taken without fear of consequence.

It looks like I'll be seeing my two new Spanish friends Lila and Fernando tonight. We'll have drinks and some good conversation. It'll also be interesting to let them have a look at the various talking gadgets I have in here. Nice not to have another empty evening to look forward to. My grandmother will be coming late next week so she'll also get to see my apartment. I expect I'll be going on one or two family outings over the next while. The haircut I got recently seems to be a good one judging from the feedback I've gotten so far. All in all then, I'd say things were going pretty well. Think I'll end on that high note, whip up some hot chocolate and then look through the Grocery Gateway flyer which arrived in very timely fashion into my in-box.

fantastic holidays and new beginnings

Hello everyone. A brand new year has arrived in fine style. I hosted the New year's party here at my parents' house and it went quite well for those of us who showed up. Sadly, three of my friends couldn't make it due to illness. Janene came back from visiting her parents in time to attend. Everyone got along quite well with each other and it hopefully won't be another year before we all get together again. Having good friends around to start the new year with has always meant a lot to me. I'm very glad Janene also enjoys that. I guess the next New Year's Eve I experience is going to be somewhat different. We'll be married and living either in Janene's apartment or possibly somewhere else by that point. I very much look forward to the changes this year will bring to my life.

For the past little while, I've been making some purchases which will make me a lot more able to travel easily. The Trekker Breeze will help prevent my getting hopelessly lost in my local area. I still expect to travel mainly with other people. However, I'll hopefully be able to be a little more adventurous knowing that I won't necessarily have to ask people to get me back home if I've turned down one street too many. The other thing I wanted to do was make travel with others a lot easier. I tended to bump into folks when I had my fully loaded laptop bag over my shoulder. Now, I believe I've managed to outfit myself a lot better. I purchased a combination backpack and suitcase from Mountain Equipment Co-op. I also bought a smaller bag from Mountain Equipment Co-op which was recommended in a review I read for carrying netbooks. A new and much better set of Logitech USB speakers will provide good sound from the netbook. They aren't nearly as liable to fall off my portable table at the slightest bump. They have stands which fold out and the cables are actually in the stands. I only have to attach two cables now. The memory upgrade I purchased for the 900HA was as easy as people said it was going to be. Dad didn't have any trouble at all. The extra gig makes a big difference when you've got AVG and Jaws going all the time. Everything is working quite well. The only thing which has yet to show up is a USB wifi adaptor.

The netbook I ended up deciding to go with is the Asus Eee PC 900HA. How's that for skilled marketing gone amuck? Fortunately, Asus seems to be far more adept at producing extremely portable computers than it is at naming them attractively. I'm having to adjust to the smaller keyboard. It's not too much of an issue but having all the keys closer together throws me off my stride a little. The right shift key is giving me the only serious trouble. I find I have to pause and think carefully before typing a shifted character on the left side. I also occasionally hit a left bracket when I mean to hit a letter p. I expect I'll be up to speed on it in fairly short order though. I can also attach the flexible full keyboard via USB port assuming I'm somewhere with some desk space. Some of the keys are double-mapped. The left right, up and down arrows double as home, end, pageup and pagedown when combined with the fn key. I tried playing Superdeakout on it yesterday and had no difficulty at all. Having 160 GB of hard drive space is absolutely splendid. I can bring all my audio drama, movies, books, music, and games along wherever I go. While I could have been happier with a ten-inch keyboard, I believe I've made a very good choice given my economics. All three blind people I spoke with who owned netbooks went with the 8.9-inch ones. Two of them owned the 900HA. Because I went with a smaller model, I saved close to two hundred dollars. The prices of the ten-inch ones just weren't dropping like I figured on. It's good to still have a little spare cash after such a major upgrade.

Christmas was a terrific time. Ava and Amia combined cute with hyper energy in equal measure. They're inn undated with new toys. Mom and dad got a new web cam which they've just started using yesterday with my old laptop. I've turned it over to mom so that she has a computer and doesn't have to use dad's work laptop. They got onto Skype and had fun talking to Janene this morning. It's a whole new world for them. They'll have lots of fun talking to Dan and seeing Ava and Amia.

This weekend will wrap up the holidays for Janene. We'll be having brunch with some friends of hers tomorrow. It's a place called the Hothouse Cafe. I had never heard of it before. It ought to be an interesting trip. I'll be picking up work on the design document for Enchantment's Twilight on Monday. There's still a whole lot to learn about the netbook. Also, I've got loads of stuff to get installed before it truly feels like my new digital home away from home. There's such a difference between desktop and netbook that it'll add a different dynamic to my work while travelling. Perhaps, like others have, I'll just get used to the different keyboard and hardly have to consciously think about it. I hope that happens. Either way though, it's a tremendous step up from the older laptop. I can put everything I need for a weekend in one backpack and just go. It'll be a lot less awkward in more crowded areas. Well, I guess that pretty much does it for my first blog entry of 2009. I hope all my readers had as restorative and fun holidays as I have. I'm a truly lucky man.

riding the technology wave

Hello everyone. A couple of very interesting things have happened this week. My Trekker Breeze arrived and is now charged up for use. Unfortunately, the weather and GPS gods haven't been all that kind right off the bat. I haven't yet gotten the high GPS coverage which would let me feel confident making important landmarks such as the location of home. Once the landmarks are set accurately, I think lower GPS coverage will still give me enough confidence to explore knowing that the Breeze at least knows precisely where I actually want to go. I think the snow in the air might have screwed it up over the past couple of days when I've tried it. Even under that limitation, it still was able to figure out which street I was on eventually. Clearly, I have a lot of experimentation ahead of me with the Breeze.

Dad and I took a brief trip to Futureshop one morning. It's been quite a while since we've done that sort of thing and it was fun. I finally got to feel a few of these netbooks and get a tangible idea of what they're all about. Even the 8.9-inch keyboards feel a lot more comfortable than I initially expected. Given that I'll be using my netbook more extensively and for longer stretches than most average people, I think a ten-inch model is a good investment. In particular, I'm going to try and get an Asus EEEPC 1000H. It seems to be the best option from my purspective. The power management will be completely accessible, it has the new N wifi capability built in, the keyboard is roomy, the battery life is excellent and it even has good built-in speakers. For gaming, I expect I'll still need to carry my XT1 speakers due to the distance between the built-in ones unless they've somehow dealt with that problem as well. That's worth a little extra cash considering I'll be using it over at least the next four years or so barring catastrophy. It's also one of the easiest units to upgrade or replace batteries, hard drive, etc. I'm counting on getting a good deal after Christmas online. The EEEPC 1000H isn't sold anywhere we could reasonably drive to unfortunately.

I'm all ready to enjoy some nifty holidays this year. Janene's going to be with her parents. I would certainly have enjoyed having her here with us on Christmas but she very much wants to spend some time with her parents. We'll be alternating between families when it comes to Christmas after we're married so when you look at it, this is probably the most fair way to spend our last Christmas before that starts. She'll be back to join me for New Year's Eve which I'm going to host here at my parents' house. I keenly look forward to that. Meanwhile, I have a lot more to look forward to. Unless fate is unusually cruel, this should include talking with Janene via telephone hearing her fully rested and healthy this time. She needs time off that she doesn't have to spend recovering from illness like what happened last year. She works so hard and deserves the kind of restorative enjoyment which comes with having time and the energy to put it to good use. Things are winding down much better this year for her.

living in interesting times

Hello everyone. It's been interesting over the past while. Certainly, the political stupidity our esteemed leaders have displayed lately has been nothing short of stunning. Let's all go for a power grab right when the economy is tanking and people actually need good government the most, shal we? They should all be held acountable and summarrally replaced with more sensible and civil people. It's been a while since being Canadian has had any real embarrassment attached to it for me but the past while will keep all of us from getting too smug for some time to come. I'd love to use my cane to knock some sense into the lot of them when they go back, dare I hope, to actually get some god damned work done?

Janene and I got together yesterday night after she finished writing her last paper for this semester. We had a nice dinner at East Side Mario's. Their Hell's Kitchen Chicken absolutely rocks. Thankfully, Janene can do a lot more relaxing over the next while. She keeps everything together quite nicely but it can certainly ware her down when the major stuff comes due. She's definitely in the Christmas spirit now. If anybody deserves to be so, it's certainly she. While she's been chasing high marks, I've been after a little high technology. For the past while, I've been fascinated by the rapid emergence and development of these netbooks.

A lot of people are complaining that they aren't powerful enough to run Windows Vista on. There are already a couple of exceptions to that though. For me, a netbook represents quite a welcome upgrade where I actually want it. They're a heaping lot lighter and smaller. They have far longer battery life. I can get one with a minimum of twice and quite likely four times the hard drive space for much less than my current laptop cost. Also, they use Windows XP Home edition. It's probably my last real crack at getting a new system using that operating system. I'll be able to run my current version of Jaws on it. It'll take care of my portable computing needs for the next number of years . Janene wants my old laptop for those relatively rare occasions when she could use one. I just need the prices of the current crop of netbooks to come down a chunk or to find a good deal on one as stores shift to the newer netbooks starting to come out. The conditions are all present for such a price drop to take place.

I saw a terrific deal on Ebay where I could have had an EEE PC1000H for less than $300. It was the first Ebay auction I entered for myself. Right up until damned near the end, I was the highest bidder. However, at least a couple of people got into heavy bidding action near the end and the winner ended up paying something like $400 US for it. It was a fun experience despite that though and I may try again if another such opportunity presents itself. Despite being far above what I would pay for a netbook which doesn't come directly from a store, he still got it for a bit less than normal current prices for it. I don't think that will hold true for much longer though. Given the desperation of retailers in this economy and the appearance of the next generation of competing netbooks, I feel confident that I'll be able to get one at a reasonable price by the middle of next month. Of course, I hope not to have to wait that long. I am, after all, a gadget freak. Also, I don't mind not having the absolute latest and greatest. Even 80 gigs is plenty of space for my travelling needs. It'll be nice to have something that much more portable.

My training cession went very well with Linda today. We went through installing Calendar Magic. She hasn't done a lot of installing different programs like that and I think it was a good overall experience for her even if she doesn't use the software. We also did some downloading of electronic Braille volumes from the CNIB digital library and I showed her how easy it was to load them into Kurzweil 1000 where they're instantly translated into ordinary text. In the process, we also got her profile set up so she can actually find more such books. I'll never be caught dead using Norton security software though. That stuff causes some serious accessibility grief. She's going to stick with it for the next two hundred plus days until her current subscription expires which shows far more patience for it than I'd have. My AVG Internet Security software is purring along quite contentedly and fully under my control.

The only thing that hasn't been so under my control is my sleeping lately. I seem to get enough to manage but I'm always waking up at five thirty or possibly even earlier these days. It's not that comfortable gentle sort of "I could lie here and mentally drift for a few hours" kind of wakefulness either. It's that "Gotta get up, get going, get that brain in proper gear and do something fun with it!" kind of wakefulness. Thankfully, there's plenty to keep me busy. Plenty of podcasts and sites to keep an ear on as my quest for a good quality but inexpensive netbook continues. I've also been playing more games lately. Smugglers3 and Nethack are the two most common. I also play the odd game of Superdeakout and Alien Outback. One of these days, it would be terrific fun to get a few friends together for an afternoon game of Talisman. I've had fun fiddling with it but you need other players to truly enjoy the game. Perhaps, someday, I can arrange that circumstance. The next order of business in that department is to start working on New Year's Eve.

A most rewarding evening

Last night, I was the guest speaker on a show called Tuesday Topics which is heard on ACB Radio. Paul Edwards did his customary excellent job as host. It was a terrific opportunity to spread the word about Personal Power. I had gone in expecting all that and wasn't disappointed in the least. What I didn't expect was to have a living example of the effectiveness of my guide appear on the show. He wanted to thank me for giving him hope and purpose in life again. He showed a good deal more courage and determination than many novices. Not only was it his first venture into an online chat room. He also hung in there when a technical difficulty presented itself. I was absolutely blown away by his words. A woman in the audience had just asked whether I had any incidents where my guide had helped older people. I had no idea that such a definitive answer was going to present himself. I hope that people in charge of funding for access technology will hear Bill Morgan's words and think twice before dismissing what falls outside education and employment related skills. There's so much untapped potential beyond those things that goes to waste in people like Bill who aren't lucky enough to find similar resources. There isn't much that can eclipse such a powerful sense of the good one's work has achieved. However, complementing that praise for my efforts, I learned from the show host Paul Edwards that my guide is now required reading in a college course concerning access technology. I never would have expected that to happen. Not in a million years.

Earlier this morning, I looked up an article Bill wrote about himself. It's in the November 2006 issue of the Braille Monitor at:
www.nfb.org
This gentleman has lived quite an eventful life and come a long way. As a young boy, he would help guide his blind mother around to beg on street corners with what little sight he had before it was lost. He eventually overcame alcoholism, became a business man, and ended up meeting President Reagan in the white house. And he thanked me for inspiring him?

Knowing at such a fundamental level that my efforts have well and truly hit their mark is a tremendous reward and inspiration to me as I embark on my next project. It's been quite a while since I've had such a powerful and unexpected moment of triumph. That kind of vindication is absolutely beyond price. For once in my life, I had a lover, friend and partner present for that moment of personal success. My parents have been there for most of my achievements. However, close friends haven't typically been there to share such moments with me. I didn't exchange a word with any of my fellow students during or after graduating. We all just went our separate ways. My ex-wife wouldn't have understood why I put so much effort into the project and probably would have chalked last night up to another ego-boosting experience I didn't need or deserve. It meant a great deal to me that Janene took the time to attend. She actually understands and respects what makes me tick. That makes a more profound difference than I can express in words other than two. True love. I'm a very fortunate man in many ways.

I've been shot!

Hello everyone. I bet that entry title got your attention. Fear not, Reader. I've just gotten back from a dentist appointment and getting my flu shot for this year. It was one of the most painless needles I believe I've ever had. Dentist appointments are never all that comfortable with all that scraping and poking at one's mouth going on. However, My dental higenist and dentist are quite nice and engaging people. I'm not usually bored while it's all going on. Besides, I'm now safe until April. yay!

Things have been going very well these days. Lately, I've been once again contacting people and organisations regarding my computer guide. I just hope I haven't accidentally contacted anybody more than once about it. I don't believe I have. It looks like I'm going to be on Tuesday Topics next week on ACB Radio. That will probably result in even more email activity. I very much appreciate receiving emails particularly from people who have found my guide to be helpful. When you're working on as large projects as I am, you've got to guard against Ivory Tower sindrome. My social life has certainly been given a very nice boost ever since Janene and I found each other. It's not such a severe danger as it once was. Still, I've got to keep my guard up against it. Particularly with the accessible game, it would do major damage were I to let that isolated stuffiness creap back in. I'm actually hopeful of finding something to counterbalance all that creative writing with. A couple of the organisations I contacted this week about the guide may yield completely different benefits. I ought to know in a few days or so.

It's damned good to be fully healthy and back in territory like this again. With the holidays getting closer and my Christmas shopping basically done, there's that terrific sense of new possibilities in the air. Thanks to a very generous man, I'm also soon going to be in posession of a Trekker Breeze. Just a couple of weeks ago, I never dreamed I'd even have a chance to look at any of these GPS devices let alone own one. I don't have any illusions that it will completely solve my mobility troubles. However, it'll increase my confidence so that I can explore a little without worrying so much about getting lost. This Spring may turn out to be somewhat more active for me than prior ones.

Janene and I are doing well. We'll be going over to see two new friends this Sunday. Hopefully, Ron will also be able to join us. He's been going through some pretty painful stuff lately. He and Sylve have officially separated. Ron's going to remain a good friend of mine for life but I don't think I'll ever hear another peep from Sylve again. She's gotten so volatile that it's probably just as well.

It looks like the release candidate for Topspeed 2.1 is getting more popular these days. Perhaps, I'll be able to join in a few races if somebody sets up a server at a good time for me. I'm not the expert I once was at the game. When you turn, the car slows down so you lose more speed for a sharper turn. I'm still getting used to not whipping around those corners at full speed. It adds a lot more strategy to things.

Later tonight, there's a nifty documentary on CBC called Web Warriors. It's all about the battle between spammers and hackers and those who try to protect us from them. I've been looking forward to this all week. It starts at 9 o'clock.

Well folks, I guess that pretty much gets everyone up to date. The next while could get pretty interesting with all this going on. Keep well, everyone.