Happy Easter

Hello everyone. It's yet another Easter weekend. This year, it has been excellent thus far. I went out with Mark and Wendy for lunch at a place called The Fire Pit. The burger and fries were excellent. Have to go back and try their souvlaki at some point. Things seemed pretty dead there. Guess most people were doing other stuff. My computer has behaved itself very nicely this week. I have now acquired a time capsule and magic trackpad thanks to a generous financial gift from my grandmother. The Time capsule is a combination backup drive and router. Setting it up was very easy. Thankfully, I was familiar enough with the Mac way of doing things to get things going. I also have now produced an image of my current Windows state and copied it over onto the time capsule should the problem I encountered last week resurfice. I very much hope that it won't but can't know for certain. Still, it's nice to know that restoring to that point in time is far less of a headache to rebuild from. I also am able to transfer files between my netbook and the pc wirelessly using the time capsule as an intermediary drive. This will be very nice indeed when I'm out on the balcony this Summer.

This morning, I managed to walk to the mall and back by myself for the first time this year. That felt wonderful. It didn't go perfectly. I ended up at the wrong mall entrance going there and took one long wrong turn going back. However, the Trekker Breeze did its job and got me back on course with minimal fuss. Rose joined me for a coffee while I had brunch there. It always feels so much better to have someone across the table to chat with even when there's absolutely no chance for romantic attachment. We're too different in too many ways. She's an interesting lady whose mind is always ticking away. If there's anybody who I feel is likely to say something which gives me an inspirational idea for my writing, it's her. Also, when I need to know about animals, especially horses, she'll have the first-hand knowledge I'm after. She's also studied mythology among other things which can be very fertile ground for story strands and such.

Today and tomorrow, I'll be hearing as much of the Mushroom FM birthday bash as I can. Hard to believe they've been around for that long. It has certainly become something for which I'm very grateful. It's interesting how the Easter long weekend has revealed both the blind community at its worst in earlier years, and what is unarguably an example of us at our best this year. I can think back to at least two aweful examples where a lack of patience and short tempers have provoked disasterous damaging arguments within the online community. In both cases, I felt that the stakes were too high for me to stay out of them letting things spiral out of hand. It would seem so very odd to celebrate with family while feeling forced to engage in these out of control messes during the same long weekend. This year, in a wonderful act of redemptive contrast, I can sit here and join in the Mushroom FM birthday bash. This is an absolute triumph of the blind community. The presenters have drawn in a very large friendly audience who have proved to be a very stable restorative bunch to hang around with online. They really appreciate their listenners and are willing to engage in ongoing conversation with their audience members via email and twitter. I've gained many followers who are fellow listenners. A year ago, I was really hoping and striving for more offline "real world" friends and largely trying to turn away from the digital world. It seemed like such a hollow and meaningless place that I felt utterly trapped in. That's all changed now. I still hope for more engagement with people around me and less time in front of the computer. I'm gradually getting my wish there. Slowly, people are getting to know me more. This Summer should result in more of this as I encounter people on outdoor walks and possibly at the Dam. That stays open during the Summer also. Over the past while, the value of what I've acomplished and what I participate in online has been restored to me. There's a greater sense of being connected in a meaningful if somewhat different way. Twitter has certainly grown on me over the past while and I largely have Mushroom FM to thank for that.

Tomorrow, there's a church breakfast before the Easter service. It ought to make for a very cheerful morning with a community who, sunday by sunday, I've slowly become a part of. After that, I'll be joining my family for Easter dinner. It'll be great to catch up with everyone. My parents have enjoyed a trip along with their neighbours. My brother Dan has had laser sergery and begun the process of trying to switch from a career in restaurant management to being a firefighter. Who'd have ever thunk? Doubtless, I'll also hear lots about what my cute little nieces have been up to while they snarf down Easter treets and race around under sugar power. There's nothing planned for monday. However, there's a slight possibility I'll be woken up by a phone call telling me I've won $500 from Mushroom FM. Can't say I'd mind that at all. I've stumbled across a couple more free books about game development so I'll be looking through those over the next while to see if they have any lessons or ideas I might find useful. It would feel so good to get Enchantment's Twilight really moving again. When I finally finish the design document, I know I'll feel like a million bucks. That's quite a ways off though. It's good to feel a sense of the possibility of life; that new conversations and adventures might be waiting around the next corner or in the next hour. It's good to be at peace with myself and life in general. It's been a long time coming. I hope that all my readers enjoy a happy Easter long weekend weather or not they believe.

First Crisis with New Computer

Hello everyone. It's been a long last few days. It looks like I've just pulled through my first major crisis with this new Mac of mine. Slowly over the past while, working in Windows became more and more impossible as Windows Explorer would keep crashing and not being able to recover. This rendered the computer pretty useless for most things. Strangely, I could still always get speech and Kurzweil going. However, merely trying to examine a folder on the hard drive was usually a death sentence for Windows Explorer. I had to call the good folks at Frontier Computing who, when we found recovery was hopeless otherwise, showed me how to restore the complete Windows partitian from the Mac side using software called Winclone. This restored me to the state my computer was in when they first delivered it. I ended up having to perform this restoration twice more as I'd keep reaching points where I couldn't get speech going for love or money. Each time I did this, I unwittingly forfeited an authorisation for Jaws. Now, I've at last succeeded in reaching a point of apparent stability. I did this by disabling Jaws and using System Access and NVDA while the system obtained a whole thwack of updates for Windows7. The only other major difference is that I have elected to keep Internet Explorer 8 and not get 9 for now.

It was quite a long tedious process reaching this point. I feel like I've fought ten rounds only to win due to an unseen slippery patch on the ground that my enemy happened to step on. A pure fluke of luck. Did updates get installed differently? Did I do something different and crutial durring the last attempt that saved the day? I have no idea. Presumeably, I'll get new Jaws authorisations tomorrow and will be able to use it and my Braile display again. Meanwhile, I've been using mainly System Access. I managed to recover the text from the error event viewer which logged one of the last Windows Explorer crashes I experienced. Unlike before, the system was able to restart Windows Explorer and keep going without crashing. I have absolutely no idea why. Hopefully, the event error text will be more meaningful to other folks than it is to me. I'd hate to think I had gone through that slogging for no gain at all. Whether I've staved off the problem for good or it's slowly building to strike again is still uncertain. I'm going to back up absolutely every piece of writing I do for the next while. I'll also be slow to install more software until a virus of some sort is ruled out. Needless to say, I've tripple checked both my Imac and my external drive for any such thing. Initially, I found a couple of infected files including regcure and an unidentified trojan. Both have been killed and haven't resurficed.

On friday night, I was unexpectedly invited out for drinks and dinner with friends from church. It couldn't have come at a better time. Lost in my computer struggle, I had no idea it was as late in the evening as it was. Great conversation and good food were just what the doctor ordered. I enjoyed the evening thoroughly. On coming home, I stayed up until after two AM working on my computer. Had pretty much everything sorted and under control by around eleven. The rest of the day and today have been quite enjoyable. Damned nice to be able to look in a folder without freezing the system. Here's hoping it stays that way. I also fixed a lon-standing issue with Juice, my podcast grabber of choice. It's now operating very well. A matter of using compatibility mode. Once I get Jaws sorted out, I'm thinking of trying to use Winclone to make a backup image of Windows that I can restore much farther and faster from should I run into the same crap again.

I very much hope the weather at last makes up its mind to stay in Spring mode over the next while. It was snowing out there today and raining yesterday. I'd like to start getting out there and walking a bit more. To be at all motivated to do that, I need nice weather. Perhaps, this week, I'll also finally get to digging more into the Voiceover user guide and getting more of a grasp on the Mac OS which has seemingly just saved my busted Windows7 ass.

Suds, Sounds, Songs and Sentient Life

Hello everyone. It's been a while since my last update so I figured I was about due for another. It's a very nice day out there. I went with Shirley for a walk around the lake. Presuming this warm weather continues, Shirley is going to walk with me to the Dam this tuesday. It'll be the first time I've done that in quite a while so I'll be glad of her company the first couple of times. Hopefully, things will fall into place in my head and I can go confidently myself after that. The Trekker Breeze is working pretty well out there around the lake calling most landmarks off in timely fashion. I'm hopeful that as things warm up and I spend more time out there, more people will start to get to know me. There are a few things in my favour this Summer over my first one here:
1. I haven't burned the building down after more than a year here. They may not be able to imagine how I can cook and clean safely, but they have to face the fact that I've clearly been doing so for some time.

2. I know more of my way around and won't always be travelling with an instructor trying to teach me. Makes actual casual conversation much easier.

3. More stuff is landmarked in my Trekker Breeze so I won't be as worried about getting lost due to not hearing landmarks I pass.

4. I'm generally recognised as a friendly person by people around here. Haven't gone mental and thwacked anybody with my cane during my time here. I trust people have noticed this and nobody is concerned about that presuming they ever were.

5. I haven't needed a whole lot of help doing stuff and taking care of myself. Getting involved with me isn't like being indentured. I gratefully accept help when it makes sence to and am just as ready to turn around and help people when I'm able to do so.

I've finally gotten another nibble on Plenty of Fish. I had pretty much given up on that place. People seem to add me to their "favorites" rather than sending a greeting message of any sort. It makes you wonder how on Earth you could have made anything like that kind of impression on them. Perhaps, I'm merely overly sensitive to absurd use of words among other quirks. As usual, I sent her a greeting message in response to her adding me to her list of special folk. What will it be this time? Will I at last make a friend or something more special with someone close enough to visit and get to know? Will she lose interest once her initial curiocity has been slaked about what life is like for a blind man and simply disappear into the ether? Or, am I at last in for the third ironic or otherwise stupendously funny rejection to complete the trilogy of those grim dating chuckles I've experienced spread out over the past couple years? That penny has yet to drop. I'll try to use the tranquility and inner peace I've at last found here to take whatever comes in the best way possible.

I've just finished my second meal of pizza and wings. A young man tipped me off to a new place called Michaelangelo's Pizza and I figured this weekend was as good a time as any to give it a spin. Sadly, their first impression wasn't all that favorable. The wings are very small and weren't properly sealed in their container. As a result, most of the sauce leaked off the wings and into the bag they were in. Fortunately, that bag wasn't the kind to leak so there wasn't too much mess. That could have been horrendous. Enough sauce remained on the wings for them to still be enjoyable but like I said, they're very small. The large pizza was in fact large. However, it's way too soft and flexible when hot and fresh. I've enjoyed it far more cold. I still have some of that for tomorrow's dinner or lunch. I doubt I'll feel much like pizza after I'm finished it. However, should such an occasion occur, Pizza Pizza may get the contract. I got the app for my iPHONE and might take it for a spin. It'll probably be a while though. Nice not to have to cook more than two meals over the past couple of days as well as tomorrow though.

Things are going pretty well over all in other areas. I can only tolerate crawling through the Voiceover guide in small doses. It's as well written as any other manual I've ever come across but I just haven't needed to learn in this fashion for a very long time. I'll get through it though. My trainer came over for another cession and got me hooked up with a fellow Mac user in Barry who he knew. He was able to get me past at least one major hangup I was having with the Safari browser. I now have Skype up and running on the Mac side of things. However, it doesn't want to automatically read incoming messages like it will on Windows. There's probably something obvious there which both I and this friendly guru don't know yet. Windows7 is by no means as familiar to me as XP but I'm quite comfortable in it and can always find out how to do things in pretty short order. It's proving to be a very nice and efficient system.

My friend Stephen will soon be back from his trip to India. I very much look forward to seeing him again in person and hearing more about his adventures. His blog has made fascinating reading over these past months. Doubtless, he'll need time to recover and adjust to being back in Canada again. Another young friend of mine is about to start in on university life. He's currently pondering which of the offers he's received to accept. Clearly, all that private school education is paying off in that way at least. I just hope it does so when he actually goes job hunting; when the rubber truly hits the road. It would be an absolutely criminal shame if such a gifted man finds himself as shut out of normal life as I have. I very much intend to keep in touch over the years and follow his progress. Like me, he has a very supportive family backing him up to the hilt. That in itself makes so much difference in life. Volunteering at the Dam has given me a new appreciation of that.

Earlier today, I put in my next grocery order. It's a bit more expensive than any in recent times. I'm experimenting with some new things, restocking on others which have at last run low, and also going to see if I can make this ordder last all through the rest of April. My last order has seen me through around twenty days so I think I've got a fair chance given the odd meal out and such. I very much doubt my social life will change all that radically over the next while. That still bothers me but not nearly like it used to. A year ago, a dull and solitary saturday night would have felt like nails run over a chock board sounds. Not so now. I sit here having just polished off a rather enjoyable beer. Fearing propelling myself into gloom, I would likely not even have had that. Tonight, I'm listenning to randomly picked songs courtesy of Winamp and contemplating pouring a second beer soon. There are plenty of podcasts, a bunch of emails and always the slim chance of a phone call. Twitter is up and running. I find that it has grown on me over the past while. It'll never replace sitting in the real present company of friends. However, it really does take the edge off these solitary evenings and prevents them from dragging too terribly. Good heavens! How appropriate. Wang Chung's Everybody have fun Tonight was justpicked from my nearly 700 songs on the drive. Gotta love those coincidences. That settles it. Time for that second beer.

My New Digital Home

Hello everyone. I've been a little busy and insomnia prone the last while. This is my first blog entry from my new digital home, an apple iMAC computer. So far, I've been sticking with the Windows7 side of things and loved it. I expected a far steeper learning curve but so far, things have proved very intuitive. I've Essentially moved everything I want handy from my 400 gb external drive. Not everything's actually installed yet but it's all on the hard drive. The amount of space I have is fantastic. Each partitian has five hundred gb. There are certainly some differences regarding Windows7 but it's not the totally different beast I thought it might be. I also very much like the latest version of Jaws. Nice to have that all up to date again. I can at last get back into playing Nethack among other things. It ought to make a good way to get familiar with my Braille display. I was quite pleasantly surprised by how portable that thing is. It comes in its own carrying case and won't present any difficulties taking it where I need it along with my netbook or iPHONE. /

My new Bowse Companion5 speakers are terrific as well. It's not precisely like full 5.1 sound but it's probably the best one can get without actual speakers on the rear wall. Very impressive with mobies. I haven't installed any audio games yet other than Super Egg Hunt but it ought to be terrific for things like Super Deakout, Q9 or Alien Outback. There's still some fine-tuning with the woofer to get to. I've been experimenting with some of the audio enhancements offered through Windows7 but nothing's really sounded better than the speakers on their own.

I went to have dinner with the family yesterday afternoon and evening. Ava and Amia were in very high spirits and little Leah was very curious wanting to look at everything. Mom and dad are doing fine. Dinner was a delicious stew with home-made biscuits plus a torte for dessert. Earlier in the day, dad helped me get all my various computer dvds and stuff labelled and organised. There isn't nearly as much bloatware as I expected there might be.

Pretty son now, it'll be off to church again. Insomnia has an odd way of stretching time out on me. Yesterday feeels like ages ago. Adding to that impression, there's the amount of progress I've made getting things set on this new computer. Didn't think I'd be nearly so far along after a couple of days. It looks like I'll be using my training time mostly on the Mac side of things. This Windows stuff is a sinch but I'll be thankful for the pair of eyes around as I start exploring how Apple does things. That's an entirely new kettle of fish. Tomorrow, I'll be getting my groceries and then going off to Future Shop to get a Windows keyboard and USB hub among other things. I'm using all my USB ports and could use more to have my Braille display and things all hooked in directly. Tuesday, there's the Dam in the afternoon. After that, things are pretty clear for my training cessions. It should all make for a nicely busy week.

Saturday Thoughts

Hello everyone. It's early saturday evening. Jarte decided to crash on me in a very rare instance of recalcitrance. I had been lax in saving my work so this is my second attempt at a blog entry today. Follow me down yet another stream of consciousness. It's been a pleasant day. I've spent so many similar saturdays utterly frustrated at how excluded I've been from life. All that anger and frustration seems to have disappeared as if God just figured he'd zap it all away. I know I've written a little about this before but I'm still completely stupified by the phenominon. Too bad the cellulite didn't vabourise along with it. I'm not euphoric or anything. There's still a longing for more inclusion, more time talking with friends rather than typing to distant ones, and to be in love again. However, there's a kind of positivity which sort of balances that off now. Even during days spent completely alone, a kind of quiet enjoyment or joviality prevails for the most part. Insomnia and writer's block are still annoying me but that no longer prevents me from enjoying other things while I wait for them to leave off. I just know somehow that it'll all work out in the end and that things will get etter/more interesting.

I'm certainly in for some interesting changes over the next while. I've been approved for ADP upgrades to my access technology and that process is now underway. After ongoing discussions with friends and other blind folks, I've set my sights on getting an iMAC which has Windows7 on it. That way, I can best take advantage of both operating systems and can hopefully better dig myself out of trouble if stuff goes wrong given the Mac OS's built-in accessibility. I also hope to get a short and portable braille display. Negociations have begun with my preferred vendor and we'll see what they can do for me. That'll open up a lot of new possibilities when it comes to presenting my writing, doing more podcasts, perhaps even voice acting. At the very least, I'll hopefully be in a better position to help people in both the PC and Mac community.

An even larger change starts this tuesday. It'll be my first afternoon volunteering at The Dam. I've been eagerly anticipating this welcome addition to my weeks for quite some time now. My father will drive me over for the first week. The weather has been very cold and snowy lately and walking there would be somewhat dangerous. I have a few people I can turn to for rides so the Winter should be manageable enough in terms of getting there. I'll walk there and back myself in the spring, summer and autumn. Unlike when I published my computer guide, I don't have the jitters. I've done all I can to prepare and must simply try to be the best man I can be for the young kids and for those I'll be volunteering with. That's really all there is to it. I'll learn more once I'm there.

That attitude very much puts me in mind of Stephen Murgaski. He's made it to that school for the blind in India after some initial frustrations. I had to let slip the hounds of Google to find his blog since he didn't really tell me he started the thing. Unfortunately, he doesn't yet have the wireless internet access he expected and must post updates when he can plug into an ethernet cable from time to time. Hope they get those technical rinkles ironed out soon. They've certainly set him a challenging task. I'm not at all certain I could pull it off but if anybody can, he'll find a way as long as he can get the information needed. You can read more on this without needing to make use of Google by going to:
http://steveinindia.wordpress.com/

I can't help wondering if anything we do as young blind people will really make a bit of difference in our lives other than to our character. It seems like nothing we acomplish is ever enough to really make a difference to prospective life partners or employers. Society puts us in a very strange box. Not many people my age have met as many famous people, been on television and radio, had articles written about them online. We are given unique access to resources like funding for expensive access technology to enhance our personal lives. And yet, it's like we're punching at a brick wall for all the effect this has on the 80 percent unemployment rate the blind community suffers. It's like we're damaged puzzle pieces that simply can't quite fit anywhere unless something extraordinary happens to make a spot for us among the rest. I don't feel damaged. There are plenty of able-bodied folk who strike me as having far more damage to their integrity, honesty and other things. Yet, it too often seems that they'll get even second and third chances at at least a moderately good living while I'm barred from even earning a basic one. All due to that one sense I lack and they have. Once in a while, like when there's a blackout, people will actually need our particular skills and we'll be sought out. Once every so often, we'll notice that we haven't heard a curious child who has snuck away from parents. We may be in the right place at the right time to notice some strange sound or the absence of a sound that nobody else present notices. These things might just save lives once in a while. More often, we're in the right place at the right time when someone needs a good listenner or we come out with some thought that people think is profound. I've never thought myself particularly extraordinarily wise. I've just had more time to actually think about things than most people. That's what happens when you get largely sidelined by so-called normal life. Every great once in a while, some experience will befall us which enriches us or gives us a rare opportunity to really make a positive difference somewhere. I stil hold out some hope that we'll somehow cross the threshhold where people start inviting us into life's more serious commitments of love and secure jobs. That we'll somehow stumble onto a hidden experiencial equivalent of a spring which catapults us into that realm. Whether Stephen succeeds in India or not, he'll come back a somewhat changed man. I think of incredible human capital in someone like Stephen. To just march off like that speaks such volumes about him. Will even that be enough to make a prospective imployer or special lady change their question from a worried "what if?" to an eager "What can?" Sadly, I doubt it. It's definitely going to be a formative experience for him either way. Such things come upon us so infrequently that the effects can act as a lense for our thinking and worldview for some time after. My relationship with Janene was one such. It has definitely cost me a degree of selflessness, trust, and optimism. I won't be nearly as willing to just go off and start life fresh with someone unless I'm very convinced that they're really in it for the long haul. That's a pretty substantial change in character for me. No doubt my time at The Dam will prove a more positive such formative experience. I'll meet a lot of people with very good intentions and a lot of precious young minds. It is very unlikely, given past experience, to change my future prospects much at all. Going in with such expectations would be foolish and could damage the good I hope to do. I'm far more interested in learning about how today's kids and teens think about things. Especially moral issues. I can take those observations and eventually use them in building Enchantment's Twilight. I'll feel fantastic if I actually manage to help one or more young people avoid some nasty pitfalls. Everything else is just icing on the cake. I've come to believe that the only real way forward is to do as much good as selflessly as one can and let the chips fall where they may. I've seen so much good in people like Ron go to waste. There are tremendous transformations in character like what Earle has gone through. I've spent so many empty hours raging at how there never seems to be a positive echo for us; how the only satisfaction we gain is internal. Now, inexplicably, it just doesn't matter that this particular lot falls to me. Rage has done me very little good and I guess a bit of me has finally simply realised that. Our measures of success must simply differ from so-called normal able-bodied people. I didn't set out to be special and would trade all the extra time in the world away for a more ordinary life. However, society seems to need us where we are, ready to fill in the atrocious gaps left in the hectic lives of everyone else. I guess I've finally made a real kind of peace with that which wil see me through until either the next extraordinary experience or more drastic permanent change comes along.

Inner peace is one thing. Why then am I so very cheerful? It's as if I knew I was going to win a lottery or something. I guess I've just know that I'm at last on the cusp of an ongoing stable opportunity to actually do some good for people. Good has its own reward which I've experienced numerous times now. At the moment, it's a kind of glimmer of good feeling that tells me I'm on the right path. At times, I've experienced waves of sublime clarity. Sometimes, I have that sense when some profound idea initially presents itself to me. Usually, it's when I've done something which I find out has unexpectedly helped someone. Personal Power has given me many such moments over the years. So has Audyssey. There were times when I worked on those things that I felt absolutely fulfilled and content. A euphoric sense of rightness would sweep over me as if God was saying so that my very guts could hear: "Well done Michael. You're in the right place at the right time doing precisely what you were meant to." My world just suddenly seems to make fundamental sense regardless of all the disapointments and imperfections. I haven't tried any recreational drugs and have no desire ever to do so. However, I'd be willing to bet that none would produce a sensation which even came close to that kind of tranquil sublime euphoric contentment.

I've begun reading a book called Outside The Wire. It's about the experiences of Canadians over in Afghanistan. Any secondary school kid who smurks at Rememberance Day ought to be forced to read the book at gunpoint. It really brings home what kind of courage it takes to try and contend with political greed, stupidy, lust for power, and corruption. Even more than the CBC audio drama Afganada, this book gives you a substantial idea of the human cost of what we're trying to do over there. Reading the emails and letres of those who have died is particularly heartbreaking. How can so much shere good be so misconstrued that some folks there would try to kill these excellent people? It takes one's breath away.

Well folks, I believe I ought to sign off here and head to bed. I have a somewhat busier day tomorrow than I've just had. I welcome that. I went to bed early friday night for lack of anything at all to do. I feel far better about today even if I did lose a good chunk of blog posting due to not saving often enough. Where does that sense of digital immortality come from anyhow? Now there's a profound question to dream about.

Parties, Phones and Other Stuff of Life

Hello everyone. It's around nine o'clock on this monday morning. Amia's third birthday party was a lot of fun for the whole family. The trip to Chuck E. Cheese was a big success. Since we went in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday, it was actually not too noisy or crowded in there. I was almost even able to play a proper game of Airhockey but it wasn't quite quiet enough to hear the puck move over the table. Guided around by mom and dad, I followed my two little neaces and helped out where possible. It was lots of fun.

The next couple of days were pretty dull. It was very cold out so the expedition to the bank and to take care of a few other things will happen a little later this morning. It's apparently going up to seven today which is a heeping lot better than minus ten. Trust me on that one. All the more true when part of the plan involves putting a few more reminder landmarks into the gps on the various routes near the Meadowvale Town Centre. I can see my self getting confused next spring when I start using them more again. As much as I enjoy Harpal's company, I look forward to a spring and summer without these lessons when I can just live life knowing how to get around my immediate area. It's been a long year getting to this point.

I've been looking more thoroughly into this whole iPhone thing. In general, I've been impressed to a point where I believe I'll take steps to alter my spending so that I can acomodate one relatively soon. It looks like it'll make more sense to get one through Rogers and sign up for a contract. I can keep my phone number and save a lot on the actual iPhone at the same time. I've learned that it's somewhat important that I get a current iPhone rather than a 3GS one because of a difference in ram available which impacts users of Voiceover due to the extra demands speech output imposes on the phone's memory. Thankfully, I can go middle of the road when it comes to storage space and believe that a sixteen gb phone would do just fine for me rather than the more expensive thirty-two gb version. Of course, I have to plan for however much an extra battery pack costs. Especially when using Voiceover, battery charge gets chewed through more quickly. Each ap will also cost a small amount but I just have to prioritise and build my collection slowly and carefully. I'll have quite a bit of help finding out which aps are accessible with Voiceover as there's quite a community of users now. It's not like I'm going to be a pioneer at all here. Not this time. Given my finances, those days are likely behind me for good. I can't say I mind that overly much. When things are working fine, I'm a lot less tempted to jump off the cliff and try something totally new without having a backup plan.

While friday and saturday were two excruciatingly dull days, sunday was a different story. I had church in the morning which included a soup lunch. Finally got my container back from them so I'll be able to bring potatoes for the next soup lunch unless it's at a point in the Christmas holidays when I've got other plans. I always feel good doing that and people seem to enjoy them. Thought yesterday was games day also but was wrong on that by a week. However, I was able to enjoy another Mosen Explosion during the afternoon. Added to that was an unexpected gathering in the evening held by Doug and Nan. They've made a real point of including me in a good few events over the past while. They sort of ended up having more of an impromptu party than I believe they originally intended and it was damned good to get out and be with people. I figured most people would become fixated in a card game and brought my netbook along to be prepare for that eventuality. There were enough people present that I always had people interested in conversation and never really used it except to allow one of the kids there to see the version of Talisman I have on it. Also, other than brief periods, conversation continued among the card players. That doesn't seem to happen with sports. As soon as a game comes on tv, quality of conversation seems to suffer greatly. You'd think an active card game would have more of that effect. It often does in my experience but not this time. Conversation just kept on chugging along nicely. There's so much history in the church community. Also, there were enough people and things to update each other on that the dynamics just worked better for a pure conversationalist like me. It made me wonder how differently my life would have turned out had my family not moved around so much while I grew up. It's not like we changed cities every year or anything but each move would break off relationships I had started. I didn't know anybody going into my secondary school. Only a couple of people from those middle school days while we lived in North York have ever contacted me. If I'm ever going to find more in life than this apartment and too damned many solitary evenings, it'll be through friendship connection. I've all but given up on another wonderful lady finding me online. Same goes for the job front. I just have to hope that circumstance will provide opportunities for people to see enough of my capabilities and good character to think it worth-while making allowances for my disability in a context more life-changing.

Earlier that evening, I had a conversation with John Morgan. He's still doing well and was quite excited to hear about the iPhone's capabilities for blind people. He had seen them and hadn't given them much thought due to their flat screens just like I originally hadn't. It'll be good to be able to show him something new that he won't have had to pay for at least in my case. He does so much for so many people. Everything from helping them shop to taking them places to getting them equipment they can't afford for themselves. I wonder if anybody but himself and God has a real idea of the shere number of people he's helped over the years. He mensionned at least three people I hadn't heard of before.

It's the afternoon now. Dad and I went for quite a walk and put in the landmarks I wanted. They ought to keep me from too much confusion regarding which way the route to the bank from Symposium Cafe is, [to the right when facing away from the door to Symposium] and the route to the drug store and post office, [to the left past the front of the fitness centre when facing away from Symposium]. We also enjoyed a good brunch. I hadn't had a delux omelet in quite some time and the mango fruit smoothy was as refreshing as ever. There's also a cession of our church mens' group this evening which I'll be attending. A very sharp contrast indeed to friday and saturday's creeping empty dullness. This friday, there's a Christmas breakfast in our building put on for residents. I have a hard time picturing how that's going to work here indoors and how they'll set it up. I don't ever find many people gathered in the lobby at any time and haven't heard about any rooms in the building for that kind of occasion. My friend Shirley is going so I'll head down with her and find out. I don't think they could use a tent at this time of year. Warm days are getting few and far between.

This week will be pretty unusual. I don't often have things happen on three out of five week days. It helps keep me from feeling quite so cut off from the world and divides time up better. I guess this sunday is going to include a games night. Other than that, I have no other weekend plans as usual. Hopefully, a nice bit of inspiration will at last come my way regarding Enchantment's Twilight. A few additional special locations, perhaps an actual game character or two [Dare I hope?], or a chunk of overall story arc. It's such a complex large kind of thing that I guess it might well feel slow even if I were able to put in a solid forty-hour work week on it through some autonomic mental creative inferno. Haven't had one of those since I worked on the Personal Power guide. At least that burst of creativity went to a good cause. On the bright side, I'm getting enough sleep these days so writer's block and a thankfully punctured solitude are the only two demons I face currently. I hope to get through the rest of the year without my sleep being screwed up. That would be nice and might even be an attainable dream. We'll just have to see.

Puttering Through Potter and Passing Time

Hello everyone. I figured it was about time I wrote another update. Things have been pretty quiet over the past while. The weekend was pretty empty of people other than a dinner on saturday night with some long-standing family friends. The food was terrific and included some excellent beef tenderloin. I spent the majority of the weekend reading the final three Harry Potter books at long last. I wasn't ever going to bother having lost interest after the fourth book some years ago. However, seeing as I hope to be volunteering with The Dam soon, it occurred to me that I might as well find out what happened to the little rascal which has so captivated everyone else. I probably skipped as many chapters as I actually read. The books are very well-written and have some excellent morals within them. However, I learned all those lessons from other fantasies which came before. It just isn't quite my generation of fantasy heros. At least I know how it all ends now and have probably read enough to fake my way through a Harry Potter inquisition. I don't believe I'll look into Twilight. I overdosed on Ann Rice's vampire novels over a decade ago and it'll be a while longer before I look into that world again presuming I ever do. I guess I've learned over the past weekend that one can never say never.

This week is off to a good start. I had another mobility lesson yesterday. When we got to The Dam, a student who worked there was present and we got to go inside. I was glad of the opportunity to have Harpal, my instructor, go over the basic layout of the place with me. I don't believe I'll take long to become quite comfortable in there. Having a brief tour also gives me much more of a sense of the function of the facility and volunteer group. Clearly, the emphasis is about having safe clean fun and building mentoring relationships with the youth around that. They have an Air Hockey table in there. I haven't played that seriously for over a decade now. Presuming fairly quiet conditions, I can hear the puck travel over the table and used to be pretty good at it. Doubtless, I'm rusty as hell. There are still some formalities and details to finalise including that police check. I very much look forward to getting started there. If, God forbid, something stops me from working there, I don't really have a plan B. It's getting too cold out there to think about learning yet another route this year. I still have to go over the one to the church one more time with Harpal and make certain I have that down thoroughly.

Today has been a good one. The groceries came in this morning and are now all stowed away. I forgot to get some new granola bars but I'm sure I'll live without them for a spell. Everything else came. I got a couple of different kinds of tea among other things. My writer's block continues which is the only real downer other than not having friends near my own age around here who share interests other than computer games. Yes, folks. Those empty weekends and evenings are becoming well past tiresome. I'd give up a whole lot for a new love in life who was seriously in it for the long haul. The chances of that situation changing any time soon are ghost thin. The closest I'll likely come to having a bunch of friends to converse with are fellow listeners to the Mosen Explosion of Mushroom FM. Somehow, Jonathan and Julia manage to create a kind of community atmosphere which allows me to forget how far apart we all are and how empty the apartment is. It makes for a pleasant four hours on a sunday afternoon even if the music is often older than what I usually enjoy.

Thursday is Amia's third birthday. I haven't seen my two neaces in a little while what with all they've been doing. I hope she enjoys this birthday more than the last one. Dad and I picked out some Christmas gifts last week at the Dollar Store. Next year, I'll see where they're at mentally and whether to take another stab at something from the Discovery online shop. I jumpped the gun a bit with that talking globe but I'll get better at it as they get older and find more interests. Tomorrow, I'll be eating at the Symposium Cafe with my father. Wednesdays are Martini days there and it's been a while since we've managed to catch one. I haven't gone there on my own in quite some time. Lately, it's just seemed like a lot of bother to go there and then be made even more aware of the missing lover and friends who ought to be there with me but are absent from life. Financially, things have tightened up as well over the past while and I've had to re-evaluate a lot of things. I'd happily forego some of the junkfood and more expensive but excellent food I buy to eat here at home if I knew I was going to be eating out with people more often. However, there just aren't all that many activities and reasons to go out anywhere. For me, friends are what turn otherwise empty events into the stuff of good memories. Even a trip to an art gallery has the potential of being interesting if I'm with people who don't mind discussing what they see rather than just gawking at it.

This afternoon, I've been doing some listenning. Soundprint had a nifty documentary in their archives about life at McMurdo Station in Anarctica. It focussed on how people lived up there rather than being about all the science that goes on. It was pretty fascinating. After that, I started listenning to the November 21 episode of Spark. It started out with a neat segment on designing soundscapes for places and the effect of ound environment and noise polution of people. Julian Treasure, a soundscape designer, lived up to his last name for me. He tends to think of sound much as I do. He talks about how people invest so much in the appearance of places but not much at all into how they sound. I certainly choose favorite restaurants on the basis of their sonic ambience and ease of conversation with companions almost as much as the food served. It's nice to know that at least someone out there thinks about that sort of thing. I've paused the episode as I write this entry and soon will make my dinner. Chicken souvlaki plus vegies and dip and some bread seem about right. I'm going to get a burger and fries tomorrow so I'll leave my fresh bag of Yukon Gold potatoes to try another day tempting though they are. Aura, that nifty creation from a kind Russian soul, is up to its usual magnificence filling my apartment with quiet moving forest sounds. I'll hear the rest of the episode as I eat. I've fallen a bit behind with Spark and other podcasts.

I get the podcasts but often at a time when I can't listen to them right away. They'll sit around for days and sometimes weeks before I get to them. Mainly, that's happening because I've been so drained and bored due to how differently things have turned out for me socially than I had hoped. Also, being on that ODSP Fireside group had the same kind of effect that being with Rebecca was having towards the end of our marriage. She dwelled so often on the negative, on what we didn't have, on what was wrong, that I found that I began to do the same thing and ignore the blessings we had available to us. It's an awefully wasteful vicious cycle to get into. Thankfully, I seem to hit bottom and bounce out of it fairly quickly if nothing pulls me down. I don't look at ODSP Fireside trafic much at all these days but plan to keep looking in on things occasionally when I can stand the overarching negativity. Meanwhile, one of the things which has helped pull me up is that my own group, Silver Smiles, is showing some signs of life again. We're still only five members and need to grow a lot larger before anything like steady conversation develops. However, they seem fine with the settings I've come up with for our group as well as with the archives of messages being public. I've made it so that people need to be invited to join the group and can request an invitation. Also, messages from new members are moderated by me. This way, people can't just join up and start making other members miserable. I didn't really want a role of gate-keeper but it seems to have made my current members feel a bit safer so I suppose it's for the best. This isn't at all like the Audyssey community which grew quickly around my magazine. Siler Smiles is a small fragile thing which will need to be slowly coaxed into being. There's a kind of nagging dread of making some foolish mistake which will spoil everything before it really gets going. I feel partially responsible for everyone's well-being just as I did with the Audyssey community before I made the charter and turned it over to others. I take no small amount of pride and comfort from the fact that it's still going strong all these years later. Whether I manage to pull off something similar with Silver Smiles is anybody's guess at this early stage. I think it's a worthy concept and am once again hopeful thanks to today's activity.

Hope Restored

Hello everyone. Happy Thanksgiving. The actual weekend was somewhat long, lonely and dull for me. When you can't get around and you're single, that happens quite a bit. Due to the busy schedules of family members, we're having our Thanksgiving dinner this evening. I did go out for dinner with my parents on monday evening. Dad's back from his Golf trip which apparently went quite well. It'll be good to catch up with everyone tonight.

Last night was yet another unexpectedly empty evening staring me in the face. There seems to be nothing else I can do to somehow start connecting more regularly and deeply with people around me beyond family. Despite a great deal of effort over the past half-year focussed on building more of a life offline, there just doesn't seem to be a way to punch through from casual acquaintance to more actual friendship. People know who I am here in the building but don't seem interested in anything beyond passing encounters. Everyone is so confounded busy. You'd think there would be somewhere I could volunteer or a lady out there who would value a patient, compassionate easygoing guy enough to show some interest beyond emails. As it gets colder out, I'll be less eager to head out for walks outdoors. Those walks and church are pretty much my only opportunities for socialisation that isn't digital. Unless you're engaged in some common purpose, nobody seems to have time to just get together let alone anything more. There are times when I feel like I might as well be on another planet.

People think that a life on social assistance is so easy. It's true in many ways. I have time that most people my age would kill for. I can sleep in, spend a day reading, put off chores, etc. However, I grew up with the idea that there would be a job, marriage, some way I could contribute to the community around me and be rewarded with companionship among other things. What I've learned over the years is that money talks and nothing else seems to count for much beyond best wishes. Virtues like honesty, patience, compassion, being able to appreciate more than one side of a story; Those things just don't seem to count. The days and weeks pass by and you can feel the weight pile up of what that time could have contained had the right people come along or the right opportunities presented themselves. You do everything you can withing reason to contribute positively and it just flat out gets you nowhere. It eats away at what I think of as the best of me. To add to that, I heard a very angry man yelling at a woman who i presume was a girlfriend. He yelled so loudly and with such fury that I heard him clearly from within the apartment despite music and my computer making noise at the same time. He sounded ready to rip her head off or smash her to bits. Stepping out onto my porch, I could hear the fear in the young woman's voice but not whatever she said. I grabbed my cellphone with the thought of calling 911 if I heard things get obviously violent. At least a couple of other residents were on their balconies also. One of them yelled down that she would call the cops. The woman seemed to move off while the man stayed there and yelled after her. He was there for quite a while cursing up a storm. I presume he was on a cellphone and not just fuming to himself. This incident was the very first intense encounter I've heard since I moved in here. It made my lack of female companionship feel all the more ludicrous. As my marriage fell apart, there were times when I was certainly angry with Rebecca but she never had to worry about her safety. I handled the separation and divorce with as much generocity and fairness as was humanly possible to the point where my parents felt I wasn't looking out for my own future interests. When Janene devastated me on the Easter monday before the last one, she was so relaxed that she even tried to joke with me. I don't think she had any sense at all of how my world had come apart so incredibly unfarely due to her sudden desire after all my patience as she completed her degree just to be free. People just don't seem to have any sense of consequence, of human capital being utterly squandered by their whims.

Yesterday was going to be busier. I had my mobility lesson in the morning. Harpal is always very patient and pleasant to work with. I'm getting closer to masterring the route to my church. It's getting cooler out there. I doubt I'll actually use the route to get to church until next spring. It's utterly impossible once there's snow on the ground and even excessive wind would make trying to get there or back very uncertain. Too many places to go off course in such circumstances. There's also a mid-block crossing with a stopsign that doesn't have any landmarks leading to it. I'd be relying completely on my Trekker Breeze which frankly isn't always so reliable. Later on, I was supposed to go for a church men's group. However, that had to be put off until likely next week.

The rest of the day and evening passed pleasantly enough but I had reached the point where there was litterally nothing else to do but turn in. I decided to check Twitter one last time first. Heather, a friend I knew back in secondary school, tweeted that the first miner was coming up. I had lost track of that whole situation and didn't know that a rescue was at all imminent. Thanks to Heather's announcement, I was able to tune into CP24 in time to hear the first miner be freed. Hearing that happen was nothing short of incredible. I stayed up late to hear the first few get pulled out. It's not like I'm paid to be up on time. One of the perks of my situation is that one has time to take things in as they happen. What a fantastic moment for the world. Proof positive of what good people are capable of when God lends a hand and their hearts are in the right place. I'm not ashamed to say that it moved me to tears. The world needs such moments of inspiration. I had been reflecting a lot on how disconnected and fragmented we were all becoming; wondering if there was really any hope for me finding a jenuine life partner at all, starting to doubt whether my projects would ultimately do anything other than pass lonely time and make me feel productive. The latest episode of Spark on CBC had gotten me thinking on how little people seem to watch in common other than perhaps sports. We all seem to be on our own little islands. And then, Twitter plus a friend I'll likely never physically meet again got me on the same page as the world. At times like that, you keenly feel the absence of someone to hold. The couch stretches out empty on either side. Thinking of those poor men, what they went through and the small capsule they're riding out of the shaft in even now, I was profoundly conscious of the space in my apartment around me. Such an incredible epic story made all the more remarkable because it's real.

Hearing the rescue was just what I needed to put things in perspective. For a while, at least, it has restored and recharged my sense of patience and hope. Those miners believed that God and people on Earth would come through for them despite tremendous obstacles and what had to be an excruciatingly long time even more devoid of markers of its progression than what I experience. It reminds me yet again that things could be a whole lot worse than they are. The fact that people were able to get together and pull this rescue off does a great deal to balance all the crap going on in the world lately. It shouldn't. God knows how many people die from starvation, cureable ilness, poverty and outright stupidity every hour. I guess just knowing that everyone was as glued to their screens as I was to my computer speakers while events unfolded tells me that there's still some connection. It's enough to keep me going and to restore my hope for a more included future. That's the power of Twitter and a really positive news story. I'll never be able to think of Twitter with quite the same sense of derrision as I've been known to in the past. Through it, I was profoundly moved yesterday and caught a moment of history as it happened rather than after the fact.

An Early October Weekend

So, reader, we meet yet again. It's yet another long solitary saturday. Minney came down with a cold or something so she didn't feel up to coming over. She works herself so hard that nobody in their right mind would take that for a polite way of backing out at the last minute. I've certainly had friends who have done that before. Not her though. She's just plain run out of fuel. Hence, I find a yawning chasm of time alone before me. What else is new? It also happens to be raining out there. I only found that out after fetching my coat and Trekker Breeze and heading out the door. Not at all a day for walking around the lake. Nobody down in the lobby to talk with either. Nowhere to go but tons to blog about and listen to. Tomorrow will be a much more social day thank goodness. Church has become a very bright light for me. I'll also be seeing Sandy and John Morgan in the afternoon. It's been quite a while since those two have gotten together and touched base. As we move forward with Sandy towards his assessment for the Assistive Devices Program, I want to make certain we're all on the same page. Also, it's invariably interesting when one runs into Mr. Morgan. Acording to my faith, good works can't get you into Heaven. John is one of those kind souls who really make one think twice about that. He'll be helping Sandy financially by making the Internet affordable during this especially tough time in his life. He helped me by donating my Trekker Breeze to me. That opened up more of the world within walking distance to me than I ever would have thought possible. I never would have gambled that much of my own money on that gadget. I just couldn't fully appreciate its value. It's precisely that way with Sandy and the Internet. John has made it feasible for Sandy to enter the digital world with my assistance. God knows how many people John has helped go farther and take more chances than they otherwise could have.

It has been a truly excellent week for listening material. I've actually kept most of the podcasts which have whiled away the hours. I'm only half way through Aquainted With The Night which is proving to be an utterly splendid read. The narrator is excellent and the book is covering all sorts of fascinating things about night. There have been so many splendid observations from the illusive "green flash" sometimes visible just after sunset for ten to fifteen seconds to details about many various festivals. As just one modest example, I never knew that our celebration of Christmas is more of a private family-centred affair due to the Nordic Yule Log festival. Russians apparently throw empty bottles into the air at New Year's in order to capture the old year and smash it on the ground. So many wonderful details. When I come to create sunssets and festivals for Enchantment's Twilight, those sections of the book will be very handy indeed. I've thoroughly enjoyed the first part of the section on dreams and have paused the book to leave delving into an exploration of nightmares for a little later. It was also nifty to finally get a detailed idea of what a sleep lab was like. I've always wondered about that.

There have been so many auditory treasures this week. I've decided to keep hold of at least five podcasts. As much as I'm greatful for the stimulation, there's always that sense of incompletion. I wish I had a group of friends or a love in life to share and discuss all this with. Once the audio stops, it's just me here in the apartment with nothing but the quiet swish of the CPU cooling fan and occasional noises from my kitchen appliances. I sit there and reflect on what I've just heard knowing that there's likely nobody nearby who has even heard one of the items I've found so captivating. There damned well should be someone else there! Empty friday nights and saturdays seem to drag out and make a mockery of all my attempts to fit in and find lasting love. In order to keep busy on this one, I'm going to set down my reflections on five interesting podcasts which have captivated me. I'm sick to the teeth of hearing this stuff and then having all my thinking vanish forever into my subconscious or disappear completely for lack of use. Before I get to that though, there's a show called Ontario Today on CBC Radio1. One day this week, I caught it for the first time in quite a while. It was pretty grim stuff. I heard from a lady who was a prostetute. She described how she got into the trade as a result of her drug habit. I got the impression it was a kind of creepy insidious process where you get to a stage where there's no longer any sense of what's wrong in life. I had the same feeling as when I've heard people describe how they got into credit card debt. She's concerned that changes to the laws forbidding prostetution would make things even worse for the women involved in it since their johns would be less fearful of consequences. Immediately following that was a discussion about how bad things are in northern Ontario for the Native people living on reserves up there. Some folks wonder where I get my patience and normal good cheer from. How can I be so forgiving and understanding with so much potential untapped and so many doors closed to me in life? A part of the answer is that I'm keenly aware and appreciative of the many blessings in life even on days like today when my need for companionship isn't met. I heard about a couple of kids whose parents had been so tired of life that they hung themselves not even caring whether their young children saw it happen. That just struck me to the core. Up north, it isn't so much the price of housing as it is the price of groceries which can make things incredibly hard. There's corruption, no jobs even for fully able folks. The water from one's tap isn't safe to drink until it's boiled. Apparently, these kids were re-inacting the tragedy discussing how the rope had been used while looking out a window eating breakfast. What circumstances would drive two young people to that utter extreme? It seems so unthinkable that this kind of thing can happen in the same province I'm in. One of my chief blessings is a very supportive caring family who would do pretty much anything they could for me. I also have safe running water and am in a well=built apartment. There's just no comparison to the cross of exclusion I bear and the true utter poverty faced by these people. I have hope of things eventually getting better at least on the social front and perhaps other areas. There's enough, for the most part, to keep me going in life. I would never seriously entertain the idea of killing myself. Leaving that sort of trauma in the lives of my family and friends is utterly unthinkable to me. It's up to God to determine when I am no longer of value here on Earth. The least I can do is experience and enjoy his gift of life to the best of my ability. Hearing about such horrific circumstances has stayed with me for most of the week. I wish I was in a position to do more than simply bear a kind of distant second-hand witness. You want to reach out and fix things but there's just nothing a man like me could offer which would make the slightest difference. I feel completely and utterly dwarfed by such large-scale blatently unjust situations. Thankfully, the podcasts below were more positive.

*Scifi Talk:
ww.scifitalk.com

Last week's episode was about the upcoming sequel to the movie Tron. I've had a soft spot for that film since I was a kid. It was neat hearing Jeff Bridges and others involved in this new Tron Legasy speak their minds about what it all meant to them. I look forward to eventually seeing that one when it get onto DVD. The theatre is just getting too pricy. If I had a group of friends or special lady in life by the time it came out, perhaps then, it would be worth the expense if it were part of a larger outing. None of this "well that was good. Lets go home." crap. I'd like a chance to digest some food along with some actual time together talking about what we had just shelled out so much to see. It feels like nobody else seems to think like I do on that front anymore. I wish I had more to say about the actual story of the upcoming film but everyone was pretty secretive on that front.

*Big Ideas:
www.tvo.org/bigideas

There were a couple of very noteworthy items here. I don't find all of the lectures interesting but I try to check for new items of interest every few weeks or so. A very thought-provoking lecture was given by a Muslim lady named Ayaan Hirsi Ali.[Thank God for cut and paste] She illustrated how sharply the philosophies of the western and Muslim worlds differed. I may try to get her book Nomad: From Islam to America, A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations. If her lecture is anything to go by, her perspective in greater depth would certainly while away some hours.

Her main point was that while the western world focussed on making life on Earth better for as many people as possible, Muslims invested in the life to come after this one. I wonder how many of the Muslim friends I've briefly had over the years would agree with what she thought? I presume she was presenting a far more fundamentalist view than what I've come across in life so far. I've had somewhat limited exposure to Muslims. For instance, it apparently is counted against you in the Muslim afterlife if you have non-Muslim friends. Even more so if they're Jewish. If that's the case, how can we expect there to be any progress at all with coming to terms with each other? I've lost contact with the Muslims I once knew. Does my friendship with them still count against their eternal happiness? Talk about an unfair double-whammy.

Muslims indeed have the ability to ask for forgiveness as we do. However, it must be sincere to the point where you no longer commit that sin. That seems square enough as long as the list of unpermitted things makes sense. After death, you're quizzed by an angel and asked three questions. One's answers determine how comfortable one's time in the grave actually is. That grave time lasts until the great tribunal. A bit more low-key than our Christian Heaven and Hell waiting areas. On the day of judgement, all parts of your body speak against you. What a treassonous bunch. If the book of misdeeds recorded by the angel on your lef in life is heavier than the positive book recorded by the one on the right, you're sent to Hell where you do time for your crimes. It isn't eternal though. Eventually, you can get to Heaven. Sounds better for men than for women. Is there no religion anywhere who treated men and women as true equals from day one? I'd like to think that some group somewhere was smart enough to realise what has been planely obvious to me for as long as I can remember.

Everything in our democratic society is geared toward improving and extending life here. Schools, recreation, hospitals, etc. Life here is precious. She thinks Christians don't really describe Heaven or dwell on it in detail. Never really stopped to think about how much more descriptive Muslims were about their Heaven. That kind of gets them into trouble with their women to my way of thinking. It's clearly depicted as better for men. In our Christian vagueness lies some safety there I think. She goes on to tell how Islamic law developed consistant with that investment in afterlife. Virtue is litterally enforced on the streets. Right and wrong are made very clear. Do what's right in gray areas. Cannot compare tribunals to western system. Corruption means staying away from the Koran depicts as moral and right. Indivisuals don't choose but must submit. Western institutions want to achieve maximum happiness for maximum number of people.

Her final point talks about how we in the west think that any conflict can be resolved through human reason. We think of states as secular and basically reasonable. However, the Muslim perspective is that reason simply ought to direct people to the Koran which spells out what's right and wrong pretty clearly already. The fundamentalists feel it their duty to try to get Muslims who have been tempted by modernity and/or sin to come back to investing in afterlife rather than this one. Rejecting the Koran's message makes you an enemy of Islam. Attempts to win enemies back begin with communicating the message to them and when that fails, war. Pretty bleak stuff. I'm glad God comes at things a tad differently when it comes to choices and obligations to others on his behalf. Philosophy behind western influence on other countries is one of life on Earth. We try to modernise and improve life. Islamic fundamentalists feel like Islam is under siege by innovation and people investing in this life. It's a stark conflict with no middle ground for them. Philosophy of death needs enemies. Anyone who tried to change Islam from within was suppressed and labelled as enemy so change is far harder in Islam. She believes Iran's leader is trying to acquire the bomb. Westerners should try to understand how the leader welcomes death rather than fears it. He wil be a hero in their afterlife. Wow. Wish I could have heard the questions cession. How does one negotiate with that kind of thinking? Is there any hope at all? Are we just doomed to ultimate conflict with these more fundamentalist believers or is there something, some avenue forward that isn't obvious? What about extreme Christians? What are the worse case dangers actually presented by fundamentalists of my faith to the Muslim world? Christians are certainly not immune from siege mentality.

The other Big Ideas episode to grab my attention was one about the workings of Jewish humour. Ruth Wisse gave a fascinating lecture. It began with a joke which I'll set down here probably not verbatim: Four men went hiking together in a woods. They became lost and ran out of water. "I must have tea!" said the Englishman. "I must have wine!" said the Frenchman. "I must have beer!" said the German hiker. "I must have diabetes!" said the Jew. It took me about a half-second after the audience started laughing before it clicked and I got it. When I told Sandy this joke earlier today, it took him about a second and a half before he got it. I had just begun thinking I'd have to explain it or apologise for it, [He does suffer from the illness.] when he got it. Ruth took that joke apart and examined it under a microscope explaining how it wasn't really antisemitic. It operates on the different use of the verb "to have" and on the unexpected completely different track the Jewish hiker's mind was on. That made me think of a book called The Terminal Experiment by Robert J. Sawyer. He's a favorite author of mine as regular readers will be aware. In the book, an artificial intelligence pontificates on what laughter and jokes are. He said that we laugh due to new and unexpected connections between things we previously thought unrelated. Jokes create new nural pathways which we respond to by laughter. An interesting kind of parallel there.

The other part of Ruth's lecture which truly made me pause in shere admiring awe was when she described a tense department meeting. A candidate was under consideration for being added to the membership. Most members approved of this person. However, one Jewish man strongly opposed. The candidate certainly seemed to have what was needed but he just wasn't happy with him. Eventually though, things had reached a crisis point. A decision was needed right then. Clearly, this candidate was the best one going with the most conscensus from the membership. The Jew who had opposed his acceptance ended up making a joke which did a number of things: It conceeded that perhaps he had been too stubborn and picky in a way which also gave everyone the right to laugh with him and at him. He used humour to gracefully withdraw his opposition in a way which restored good will in the department. There's a kind of heroism in that. A moment of God's grace made manifest which I wonder how many people who were even present truly appreciated. It was an exquisite demonstration of the power of the Jewish style of humour to overcome obstacles.

*Tappestry;
www.cbc.ca/tapestry

What with my illness and all, I had fallen behind when it comes to this nifty show exploring how faith weives itself through modern life. They started off this season with a show about hope. I wasn't certain how that would actually turn out. The show host, mary Hynes, was apparently concerned about profound sappiness also. However, I was delighted with the result. Joan Chittister put any fears of a wasted hour quickly to rest. She's another author I'll have to look into. It's a pretty safe bet that at least some of her over forty books would be available in the CNIB digital library. One title, Scarred by Struggle; Transformed By Hope, definitely warrants my hot pursuit. Here's hoping Blio gets its accessibility act together *soon!* Joan recognises right from the outset that hope is something people need to get them through this life. People want to know about hope when they don't have any themselves. Excellent quotes fell thick and fast from her and I'll try to capture the ones which truly struck me:

"Hope is the capacity to dance around corners while still smiling."

"My hope for the future comes from my experience of the past."

"Hope is God's grace today. It's not a buy-off about tomorrow."

"Hope is marble. Hope's not marce mallow. We construct the statue of ourselves one struggle at a time and God does not, life does not protect us from those struggles."

There was a whole lot more in the conversation, but it's starting to get late and I think I've given you a good feel for things. I'll take a different approach from here on as this is starting to feel too much like university. It turns what should be vibrant, living aural discussion into dead words nobody is all that likely to read anyhow. Her words stuck a strong chord with me. It and humour have been what gets me, an extravert, through lonely days. Laughter is just as valueable and vital. I couldn't help think of that poor Native family up north. I've been pretty distressed and down at times but I've never gotten to the point where my drive to live on, at the very least, has left me. Is there any way I can share that basic optimism with people like they were? Joan spoke of how her struggle dealing with her mother's Alshimers made her look at other sick people differently. I can relate to that. People who have been more successful following what would still I think be seen as a normal path through life, [job, marriage, etc], can be very quick to judge and dismiss those of us who haven't ben able to as worthless and lazy. They don't take th time and don't have the time to really investigate and find out differently. It's just easier to lump everyone in a similar situation into one category. I'm not immune from the same thing. My past experience married to a woman who had depression would make me very wary of getting involved with other women who suffer that. I know there are doubtless women who either have a different level or type of depression. Also, people cope with and manifest their illness in different ways. My experience of and approach to blindness is, to some extent at least, uniquely my own. There are very likely women out there with depression who I with my optimistic nature might make a splendid companion for. Should one actually prove interested in me, I would gladly invest the time into seeing whether things would work out for us. I have tons of that after all. However, I would approach the situation with far more reservation and caution than I would a relationship with a woman with almost any other disability. Once bitten, twice shy they say.

The next guest was Neil Pasricha. He had the bright idea of starting a blog about all the little awesome things in life. Everyone should check that out. Go to:
www.1000awesomethings.com

People like him who reach out from their own private pain and put some soul back into the world always deserve a second look. I include myself in that pronouncement, feminine sighted world. God! I hate these empty saturdays. Neil has written a book based on his blog called The Book of Awesome. I'll want that as soon as it's made accessible. Neil's main thrust is something I've always found helpful. We tend to forget about the smaller pleasures in life which make going through all the disappointments not only possible but worth-while. You can just plough through a bunch of entries on everything from blowing your nose in the shower to smacking an electronic device and having it start working again. To a man like me, such a mass of positive cheerful reflections are better than music. It doesn't take much to make me feel a sense of appreciation for life. He carries the loss of a good friend who was inspirational in getting the blog going. You can hear the heaviness of that in his voice but he's found a way to memorialise him in the bestselling book which grew from his blog. Perhaps, one day, I too will have a truly catching good idea for another glog. That kind of thinking is part of what keeps me reaching out and keeps me sane. I would prefer starting more of an offline real-world conversation. That's more what I've been hoping for ever since my marriage fell apart. However, I'm coming to realise that no matter how hard I push nor how much I try to explain to people what I'm after, there's just no tipping the scales. I'm likely to be alone more often than not for the foreseeable future. Perhaps, I should turn my mind toward starting a brand new more immediately visible creative venture. Neither of my larger projects will be ready for years anyhow. Wny not add something new and interactive into the mix? Neil, You've got my creative wheels turning again.

Teri Degler also stepped up to the plate with some observations which have stuck with me. One of them was that merely having hope was actually a virtue. I had never thought of my hopeful nature as anything beyond fortunate given my circumstances. Scoring eternal brownie points while I'm at it? That's just cool. Thanks God. Hope hasn't failed just because a hoped for outcome doesn't ocur. Hope keeps us trying and keeps us facing our circumstances with greater positivity than could otherwise be done. I can certainly relate to that. Without that small spark of hope, there are plenty of times in my life when I may have gone more off the rails and given into destructive impulses.

You know what folks? I've done enough for today. You can hear the other two episodes of Tappestry if you've a mind to. I feel like I've been to a university class taking notes on these and I can't say I've missed that. It takes what was initially such a better more richly satisfying experience and salvages a fraction of my initial reflections. I can't say I've found the fulfillment I had hoped for when I started this. I wanted to set down something of my inner self; something of my world for people if only as a record of the kind of thoughtful man I am. What has emerged is just a faint flicker. I want to scream at more of the nareby real world to give me the ghost of a chance! Know me! I'll add as much of my gifts and talents to the community as I possibly can if I'm just given a pathway in and help getting started! Nights like this make me feel like I've been locked away in an admittedly comfortable cage and left to live out my days. Digital just doesn't do it for me. Give me honest to God in the flesh *people* in life! It's been a long day. I believe I'll turn in for the night.

It's monday evening now. Yesterday was wonderful. I guess you could say that I indeed spent it with honest to God people. The church community had a couple of surprises. One of which was a ceremony for Naythan who's just turned thirteen. It was a kind of Christian barmitsfa. He clearly takes his faith quite seriously. At his age, I was much more rebellious when it comes to belief. I wasn't yet an agnostic but had certainly started finding things to doubt and question. All four of his grandparents were there. That in itself was pretty awesome. They actually all sounded quite healthy too. I ought to be seeing my one remaining grandparent near the end of the month.

I got home just in time to meet up with John Morgan and go to Sandy's apartment. The meeting went quite well. Provided Sandy's computer keeps behaving until our assessments, we ought to be in pretty good shape. John was able to help Sandy with his internet costs. You could feel Sandy's happiness. I have no doubt at all that John could see it plain as day. If he's available, he'll be the one to drive us both down for our assessments provided they occur at the same time as we hope. Meanwhile, it's up to me and Mrs. Allison to bring him more up to speed with his computer. John didn't stay very long. He never does unless he's actualy doing something to help. I think Sandy has a harder time with that. It isn't easy accepting generocity when you can't return it even when it's clearly called for. People say I'm always gracious about that. I certainly try to be.

I spent sunday evening at a church service with a fairly siseable contingent from the Meadowvale CRC present. It was a celebration of the multinational heretage of the church. The two hour service didn't seem to drag at all even for the kids present. It was most encouraging to hear about all the efforts being directed at inclusiveness. Quite the contrast from how I spent saturday night. If I can just inject more into my weeks, I might not have to start yet another online project. That would be nice.

This morning started with me heading down to Sandy's apartment. He wanted to hear these Commonwealth games which are going to be streamed live on the Internet. On my computer, the Flash plugin gave me no end of grief until I finally managed to reinstall it. I hadn't realised for a few weeks that this was why IE8 would simply seem to disappear sometimes. For once, things worked perfectly on his computer without any fussing around at all. I figured I might be fighting that thing for a good half hour. It took perhaps ten minutes. Sandy's a pretty happy man. He'll just have to remind me when more of these games are covered and have me start up the live stream on his machine. Did a bunch of tidying up today. I also listened to a BBC documentary about aural history. Other than that, things have been pretty uneventful. I've worked some on this blog entry and kept up to date with news.

Tomorrow, I have a mobility lesson and may join mom and Dan's family for dinner depending on how things go. Mom seems to be doing fine. Dad's away on a Golf trip for the week. She wanted me to help move a heavy bookcase upstairs for dad's computer. I didn't think he'd want stuff rearranged like that while he was away. Mom wants things to look neat but I know how disconcerting I've found it when people have moved my things in my absence. I don't know if I quite convinced her to just wait until he returns. It looks like I'll be out with mom again on thursday evening. Kim and presumeably Mark will be joining us for dinner. Other than that, I have no other plans at present. However, I live in hope.

A Splendid saturday

Hello everyone. Today, the weather has finally permitted me to venture out of my comfortable lair. The heat wave wasn't fun last week but my air conditioner, cold drinks, the odd ice cream treat, and not having to venture out anywhere all conspired to stand me in good stead. I did go out to see my parents and Dan's family. Mom and dad's pool was actually warm enough for me for once. I had a good swim. Seeing Ava and Amia is always special. I'm hoping against hope that my insomnia has finally decided to leave for a while. Thursday was a very long day. I did two loads of laundry on what had to be the hottest day I could have picked. Stepping out into the corridor was like enterring ablast furnace. Still I god it done and had a couple brief chat with folks while I was down there.

I haven't gotten much done this week. Here's hoping once again that my writer's block also decides to back off soon. I'm managing to enjoy life for the most part but will only feel perfectly in balance when I start one of my projects moving forward again. Meanwhile, I keep looking for any opportunities to meet or talk to new people and listening to as much input as I can. One of the highlights took the form of a BBC radio drama about a family experiencing the events of July 7 2005. It was a very well done production and I hope they use it in their schools. It was the most moving thing I've heard in quite some time. Michael Walker always writes excellent radio dramas. His earlier work called Alpha looks at the intersection of religion and artificial intelligence and really provokes some interesting thoughts. Can't wait for his next one. Another highlight was the movie Unbreakable. I heard the described version of that and was quite impressed. All I need now is a girl friend to share this sort of thing with. I keep hearing this interesting stuff and then have nobody there to really talk about it with. So much just gets experienced and then lost. Everyone else is just too damned busy, too far away, or simply not interested. Were I some raving psychotic, I could understand. However, I think of myself is a pretty open-minded, level-headed, honest and fair sort of man. I don't have any hangups over appearances. You'd think there'd be a woman somewhere out there who was around my age, single, and would value what I bring to the table.

Today, I got up early again. Big surprise. I had a nifty chat with folks on Vipconduit. Gonna miss that community a little if I decide not to renew my membership in September. That hinges on what kind of a life I'm leading offline here. I'd much rather spend my money on people who I can actualy experience life with in person. Slowly, on days like today, I'm meeting more of my fellow physical community members. I walked twice around the lake today and ran into a lady who lives in my building. We had a good chat and exchanged contact information. That's a pretty rare occurance. She's a grandmother who lives in my building. Thankfully, she's got an English accent which she hasn't lost while living here so I actually have a halfway decent shot at recognising her voice from a distance or in a group. I've met so many people who sound too damned similar for easy identification but have no idea how tricky that is for me. Like a lot of folks, she certainly seems willing to help out. Hopefully, she'll be up for some interesting conversations. Just now, that kind of stimulation is what I need most. I'm taking pretty good care of myself in every other way. I feel like I've at least started that process of getting to know people. I met a number of other folks walking their dogs also. It's always fun to pat them but I'm just as glad as ever that I don't own one myself. Having grown up with a pet cat, I simply have no desire to be responsible for animals. That form of companionship just doesn't cut it for me. I need people who jenuinely care about me and who I in turn can care about and for. There are so many life experiences which are only enjoyed the most when they're shared ones.

Lately, as I've turned to the online world more for some semblance of company, I've found some solis there. There are some folks who just don't appreciate how circumstancially fortunate they've been in life to have found jobs matching their gifts. Blind people who have found that sort of success just can't seem to fathom how things simply don't work out for their less fortunate fellows despite best efforts. We're just not all superstars. I'd cheerfully shovel shit for a living if someone provided an opportunity with some degree of security. Just pay me enough to afford my own place and save a bit extra. Even unrewarded, I'll put in my best efforts to be as helpful a member of society as I can be. That should damned well count for more than it often seems to. I'd do much much more if I had the opportunity to which actually compensated me for such effort. Money's nice, but when you get right down to it, steady companionship of friends and, dare I hope, a special lady in life would be my ultimate reward. They say all things come to those who wait. I'm being as patient as humanly possible and will continue to be.
I talked to Rose for the first time in a little wile. She's had a bit of a rough week. Apparently, some idiot has accused her of taking advantage of me. I wonder if whoever it was has any conception of how good it can feel to actually be able to help someone during a time when you're feeling supremely unproductive and useless. She's pretty much the only member of the church who has taken the time to get to know me to the point where I can actually do some good. She's been completely honest with me. I have no false hope of us being any more than platonic friends. I would have cheerfully treeted a complete stranger to what I've treeted her to just to get out somewhere with an actual female friend who, unlike the rest of them, has time and inclination to make use of my gifts and time. For once, someone is taking me up on my willingness to help where I can. It's not like there are a whole flock of other people waiting to become involved with me as anything more than a charity case or someone who chats with me briefly on sundays. Though I still believe there's real hope for that over the long run, it's going to take all sorts of unnecessary time while everyone kills themselves racing through overly packed lives and I spend whole days doing next to nothing. Society certainly has a way of wasting human capital and killing or maiming kindness and altruism.

It's been a fantastic afternoon. I may come out again later this evening but the sun has begun to shine in an annoying way at the position on my balcony where I have stuff set up.
that always happens in the evening. I don't mind so much but it heats up my netbook and I'm a little concerned about that. I'm also expecting a delivery fairly shortly. Time to get this posted, pack up and head in after a wonderful day outside. There's church tomorrow. I haven't been in a couple of weeks so I'm looking forward to that. Catch you all later.

Thought I'd keep on going now that my delivery has arrived. I had ordered a Moshi talking alarm clock as well as a new cane holder. My old one needed "mending", as Rose says. Apparently, "sewing" is altogether a different activity deserving a different word due to scale of operation I guess. I like the new cane holder. It's better designed than my old one and ought to hold up nicely indeed. I had to engage in a bit of a battle with little Ms. Moshi though. The clock had trouble understanding that it was "sssssseven" rather than eleven PM. After finally scoring that verbal victory, I next discovered that you couldn't set the date vocally and had to use buttons. Thought I might get away without having to read the manual but I ended up needing it after all to inform her that it was july 10 2010 and not jan 1 2008. Having gotten that matter resolved, all that stood between me and success was getting Ms. Moshi to use degrees C rather than F. That also required the use of a button. Having at last said all the right words and touched her in all the right places, Ms. Moshi is Now behaving properly and will be ready with the scant but crucial information at her disposal when I need it.

Friends, Fish and Past Days

Hello everyone. It's ben quite a good week. Steve's visit went quite well. It was fantastic to have such a good friend there to enjoy this place with. He got to meet my pastor as well as Sandy. Neither of us really had discovered anything of interest to the other in terms of software, music, etc. However, Steve enjoyed listening to A Study in Scarlet as dramatised by the BBC. He also enjoyed an interesting audio drama from the BBC called Alpha about a kind of assassin/priest who worked for the vaticon in the near future. He and I enjoy the kind of deep soul-searching questions raised by that excellent drama as well as by our lengthy and at times late conversations. One piece of software which interested him was Microsoft Security Essentials which I helped him obtain and install. It's a lot less troublesome than AVG has become when it comes to working with screen-readers.

Sandy also got to have his first experience with chatting on the Internet. That was a hoot. One flurtatious wild southerner mistook him for a lady. Sandy does have a high-pitched voice and has an unfortunately gender-nutral name to go with it. Put it through any kind of transmittion process and it's easy to make that mistake. Even still, it'll be a while before the jentleman lives that blunder down given his long-standing delight in sturring the pot where women are concerned. Hearing him get a kind of divinely engineered just desert was priceless.

Steve was divinely aided when he left for Toronto also. Pastor Sam had offered to drive Steve to the Go station when he came to visit us. Steve was originally just going to call a cab. However, I thought I'd check to see if Sam was actually available. It was a good thing he was. The ticket booth was closed and Sam was able to help Steve buy a ticket from one of those automatic machines in time to catch his train. HI found it interesting hearing those two have a good conversation; A new friend and one of my longest surviving friendships. They come at the world in such different ways. Steve's going to get images of windmills on his eye patches. That certainly sounds like it would look neat. Hope it turns out to suit him visually. Talk about meddling with what you don't understand.

Hopefully, when Steve next decides to stay a couple of days here, I'll be confident enough to take him around the lake or to Symposium Cafe. I'm gaining more confidence in doing that. Earlier this week, I went out on my own for the first time and managed to have a good walk from which I returned safely thanks to the Trekker Breeze. Dad and I just discovered that the route I recorded going to Symposium didn't record correctly so it'll have to be re-recorded next time we go there for lunch. I'm glad it was that specific instance of a route and not the software in general that was misbehaving. I'm still waiting for that update for the Breeze.

Friday was a big day. John Morgan came over and brought a terrific computer desk for Sandy. I basically spent the whole day in Sandy's appartment. John ended up assembling the desk all by himself despite many offers of assistance. I expected to be turning screws, holding boards in place, etc. That's how things usually happen with my father. I figured that with his experience with so many blind people, he would expect one or both of us to lend a hand and be able to explain what he needed done. Sandy and I ended up talking for most of that time which seemed to interest John while he worked. After the desk was all together, John had to leave. That was when my work began. I set up Sandy's computer in its new permanent home. Those speakers caused me some unexpected grief and I certainly gave myself a workout crawling and contorting under the desk connecting cables. Once things are permanently in place, they ought to be splendid though. The control puck makes adjusting the volume and base nice and easy. AFter things were set up, Sandy made dinner and we enjoyed some of the evening. I was quite tired and slept like a log last night. Haven't felt as productive and satisfied with what I got done in a day for quite some time. It's just one step at the start of a very long road. However, it's a pretty important step. Sandy has quite a bit to learn and I'm just beginning to discover how he likes to be taught.

Yesterday started with me going down to investigate a buzzing noise Sandy heard coming from his speakers. It turned out that he had jiggled the speaker cables and screwed up the contacts. Those jacks are pretty sensitive to that. Otherwise, he's got some superb speakers there. He's planning one more rearrangement which I anticipate might move those cables. After that, things ought to remain stationary and I'll likely never have to crawl under the desk and fiddle with those cables again. The only two pieces of hardware that I feel uncertain of my ability to help him set up are the monitor and printer. I've connected the monitor but have no way of knowing whether I got that right until somebody sighted takes a look at it. The printer is one of those combination jobs and I have no experience with them at all. I'd rather have someone who can see present when that gets set up. I still have reservations about how useful that contraption will end up being for him. It isn't immediately obvious where you'd put things like mail which needs to be scanned. Kurzweil1000 ought to be able to control pretty much any scanner but you have to be able to physically put stuff in and line it up.

Yesterday, I ended up finishing a very good psychological thriller called Equation For Evil. It was set in California. The subjects explored included why people commit acts of hate, racial identity, and the nature of society. The lead characters, a special agent and a psychologist, were both very well written. I felt bad when one of them didn't survive. The book leaves you hanging in the sense that you want to know how numerous characters get on with life after the story ends. I don't often turn to mysteries but that one passed a good bit of time very pleasantly.

I was going to try for a second walk around the lake yesterday afternoon. It was a nice day out there. Unfortunately, the Trekker Breeze didn't lock onto me even after ten minutes wandering out there. I didn't find the path around the lake but took a brief walk around a fenced area where there are benches and I suspect a pool in the centre of the area. I didn't want to lose my orientation so I headed back before that might have hapened. I spent a little time out on the balcony with my netbook. However, there's just no percentage, other than fresh air, of being out there by myself for any great length of time. That'll change once I get a balcony table set up out there. I'll then be able to set up my USB speakers and work far more comfortably. I can also position my Blue Snowflake microphone for some nice Summer time internet chats. Hopefully, I'll spend a good portion of this Summer with people who I come to know in person around here. I'd like to think that things are finally moving in that direction. However, just like yesterday turned out, I have to face the fact that people just won't always be around when I'm eagter to enjoy the outdoors or feel like companionship. To one extent, I'll always be forced to live more of an introvert's life than I'd like to. It just isn't easy finding people who are interested in sharing the kind of stimulating conversation, programs like DNTO on CBC Radio or From Our Own Corespondants on the BBC. I may never find a group of people my age who I can truly share life experience with in person rather than online despite all my efforts in that direction. I'm far from giving up hope but a little voice in my head is saying: "Be ready for that possibility." The only real way to do that is to make certain there are enough islands of companionship to break up the solitude. Easier said than done, but at least I have an actual shot at pulling that off here over the next five years or so.

Today is one such island. It's a soup lunch day at church. Another chance to get to know some good people a little better. Something which differenciates the weekend from the rest of the week. People who work all week must have no way to imagine how time can stretch out when there are no clear borders to break it up.

Soup lunch was great. I met some new people and touched base with some long-standing acquaintances. Sandra was one of them. Haven't run into her since a gathering at her place a number of weeks ago. She was unfortunately sick recently. However, because of that, she at last found time to enjoy Stranger Than Fiction. I had lent it to her a while ago thinking that it might appeal to her. I'm glad it was there when she wanted something to take her mind off being sick. It was there for me when I needed to distract myself from the failure of my marriage. I also got to see Julius, Angel, Shane, Sue, Carl, Rose, and a few other people. Coming back from this excellent outing, I called on Sandy and was in time to meet a couple of his good friends from Toronto. They come across as the kind of friends anyone would be fortunate to have and it's obvious how much they care for Sadny. It's no wonder he misses Toronto. He's fairly far from them here in Mississauga and a lot of them don't have cars. It was a pleasure meeting them. Apparently, more of Sandy's friends have recently contacted him again and may eventually make their presence more felt in his life. I can only hope so. It was certainly interesting meeting Tom and Liz.

It's after nine o'clock on sunday evening now. I've come back from the second-last of a series of evening programs our church had which concern how to make people who think and believe differently than us feel safe and welcome in church. The focus was on people who were gay and lesbian but a lot of things could well apply to any marginalised group. I hope that if and when an opportunity presents itself for me to make a positive difference for someone, I'm ready to put some of what I've learned into practice. As open-minded as I believe myself to be, there are doubtless people who would present challenges. I have very little natural patience for overly negative people. While I try to be patient with people for whoom verbal communication is difficult, I can doubtless use some exercise in that particular area also.

Tomorrow, I'll be heading down to do some work with Sandy on his keyboarding. I believe a worker from the CNIB is coming also and it might then be possible to take a crack at setting up that printer. At the very least, I'll find out whether the monitor is actually working. I'm almost positive it is, but there's that nagging little doubt. I should have thought of asking while Sandy's two sighted friends were present. oops. Hopefully, it won't take too long to get to a point where Sandy feels confident enough to start trying things on his own. It's looking more like he'll have to find some way of affording his own internet access. That's too expensive for me to take on. I've found a way for him to be able to listen to CNN over the Internet. However, he'll miss out on a lot of sports he likes. I don't know where he could find those online but haven't investigated that area much yet. I'm not interested in sports myself and am not the best person to do that. However, it would certainly make the prospect of giving up cable TV more bearable for Sandy. Sadly, it's going to come down to a hard choice like that for him. I believe the Internet will do him a tremendous lot of good. However, music and TV are pretty much all he's had to count on for quite some time now.

For supper tomorrow, I really ought to bite the bullet and grille the tilapia I've got in the fridge. I removed it from the freezer thinking I'd need more than I ended up using when Steve was visiting. There are four fillets. I thought I'd have had more guests over the past little while. The tilapia is very enjoyable. If one has to eat something a few times in a row, there are a great many worse things to be stuck eating. The fillets grilled quite nicely for Steve and I. There's no reason to think they won't come out delicious another time. Which spices to try out on the fish is something to consider. Garlic worked well and I would think oregano might. Not so certain about other spices like sage or rosemary. Sounds like a job for Google. Well, it's getting a tad late. I believe I'll post this and turn in for the night.