So... yeah....
Yup. Another of these long ass posts to catch up on my life. Sorry.. I'm sure most of you will "tl;dr" this, but whatever. I write these posts mainly for myself anyway. :P
I went to Michigan a few weeks ago for the remembrance party. It was the biggest party on my parents' farm since the grandparents' 50th anniversary in June 1993. Saw many people I haven't seen in years. Saw my grandparents' first great-grandchild (born in March 2007). Improved my relationship with several family members, caught up on everyone's lives. Got many comments about how I seem to love Colorado.. and I really do. Also talked to a few people about my girlfriend and how awesome she is. :) Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. I met someone about three months ago and we are still together... no words can describe how great we are for each other. Or how she has changed things for me so fast.
It's been an interesting few months. I've learned a few things about myself. You know, it's funny how everything I've done with my life surrounds the fact that I am deaf. My activities on the internet, what I do for a living, who my friends are, what I've done the last few years, and so on are heavily influenced by this.
I've also felt very alone for a long time.. and very frustrated with my life in general. My brother asked me a long time ago, "How come you never seem happy?" I didn't have an answer until fairly recently. You know that whole deaf thing? Yeah. My frustrations got stifled, but they still get channeled in a passive-aggressive way. I tend to do things forcefully. I rarely get what I want out of my relationships with other people. Every day for the last 25 years I've paid the price. Almost everyone does something that reminds me that I am deaf, every day. Friends, family, strangers.. they all do it. So in general, my frustrations get channeled by my intentional ignorance of society's "rules", among other effects. After all, people don't respect my rules, so why should I respect theirs? I also tend to be more blunt than most people. I'm working on being more gentle.. honest!
It used to be a malicious thing. People would treat me poorly for it, on purpose. Now it's become more of an unintentional side effect, happens without thinking. But it still irritates me, especially when I am trying to get people to perform services for me. I tolerate it when friends and coworkers do it, since I get something from them. But I'm becoming much less tolerant of this sort of bullshit from strangers and especially people I am paying to do something for me.
On that subject.. I've noticed that people who are in a business not involved in computers tend to not offer any alternatives to communicating with their customers besides the phone. Many others offer email communication but pay no more than lip service to it; i.e. you can't actually accomplish anything through email. And a few others offer complete service via email. To those I salute you. You make my life infinitely easier and are MUCH more likely to get my business.
For the rest, I'd like to find a solution. Yes, I could ask my roommate or g/f to handle phone calls on my behalf.. but I would really like to find something that allows me to deal with my problems myself.. when the solutions require contacting people to have services performed.
In the USA, we already have a relay service program where I can use a text device to call an operator that can communicate with others via voice on my behalf. However, the reverse of that process is considerably less convenient. I generally have to educate people on the process.. and at the moment it is not actually possible to do the reverse without a landline. My mobile phone has programs that allow me to use a relay service, but have no provisions for the reverse (someone calls a relay, relay calls me - can't do this because the relay has no way to contact my mobile like it's a TDD or other textual device).
I was thinking about this problem today.. and it occurred to me that one thing that would be really cool is if you could give people your phone number, and you could have the provider configure the number to reach a relay operator, who then attempts to communicate with your device in a textual manner. That would be totally awesome! How come no one's done it yet? What about phone number to relay to AIM/MSN/Yahoo/whatever? Even better, since that can be implemented in a standard way. Most mobiles nowadays support these standard instant messaging protocols... and of course a deaf user would get one that had a real keyboard so they could respond quickly enough.
Another thing, while I'm on that subject.. the relay system today gets abused very frequently by people who use it to scam or prank others.. or if nothing else to avoid paying long distance charges. Why do we have such a stupid system? It's only supposed to be used by deaf people, not you fucking jackasses abusing it for your amusement or financial gain. What we should do at the minimum is: require users to register with a central authority and provide their registration for each relay call. If we implement convenient reverse relay, we could require the caller to provide the number of a registered user. Problem solved.. and everyone will benefit because the system's cost will be lowered, and thus the subsidy paid by all telephone users through their bills will be lowered. Heck, I wouldn't mind having to pay for those calls myself, assuming the system gets improved.
Hmm. I've started working on the landscaping. Landscaping materials are surprisingly cheap! I got my west side yard leveling/grading project started today.. I think I'll be able to fix it pretty well. I've also started using Weed & Feed (thx Lindsay :) to fix my lawns. I want to re-do the landscaping, especially in the back yard. Thinking about using shrubs along the fences, except for a portion with the best sunlight exposure, which I'll use for a flower garden. Then along the house edge it'll be stone. Then to divide the lawn from the stone I'll use big wood blocks, with the stone beds 2-3" lower than the lawn. The west side yard, which can be accessed from the front, will be lawn as well, but I think the east side yard, which probably almost nobody will ever see, will be mainly stone bed. I think it'll work great. :)
I am also soliciting quotes for a major electrical system upgrade (new circuits in the basement, new main panel) and a new air conditioning system (house doesn't have one). Considering the cost of these upgrades (around $2-3k for electrical and $4-5k for A/C), unless my financial situation improves, I think that will be the last major project I do on my house until 2008.
Bedtime for me! Night.
I went to Michigan a few weeks ago for the remembrance party. It was the biggest party on my parents' farm since the grandparents' 50th anniversary in June 1993. Saw many people I haven't seen in years. Saw my grandparents' first great-grandchild (born in March 2007). Improved my relationship with several family members, caught up on everyone's lives. Got many comments about how I seem to love Colorado.. and I really do. Also talked to a few people about my girlfriend and how awesome she is. :) Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. I met someone about three months ago and we are still together... no words can describe how great we are for each other. Or how she has changed things for me so fast.
It's been an interesting few months. I've learned a few things about myself. You know, it's funny how everything I've done with my life surrounds the fact that I am deaf. My activities on the internet, what I do for a living, who my friends are, what I've done the last few years, and so on are heavily influenced by this.
I've also felt very alone for a long time.. and very frustrated with my life in general. My brother asked me a long time ago, "How come you never seem happy?" I didn't have an answer until fairly recently. You know that whole deaf thing? Yeah. My frustrations got stifled, but they still get channeled in a passive-aggressive way. I tend to do things forcefully. I rarely get what I want out of my relationships with other people. Every day for the last 25 years I've paid the price. Almost everyone does something that reminds me that I am deaf, every day. Friends, family, strangers.. they all do it. So in general, my frustrations get channeled by my intentional ignorance of society's "rules", among other effects. After all, people don't respect my rules, so why should I respect theirs? I also tend to be more blunt than most people. I'm working on being more gentle.. honest!
It used to be a malicious thing. People would treat me poorly for it, on purpose. Now it's become more of an unintentional side effect, happens without thinking. But it still irritates me, especially when I am trying to get people to perform services for me. I tolerate it when friends and coworkers do it, since I get something from them. But I'm becoming much less tolerant of this sort of bullshit from strangers and especially people I am paying to do something for me.
On that subject.. I've noticed that people who are in a business not involved in computers tend to not offer any alternatives to communicating with their customers besides the phone. Many others offer email communication but pay no more than lip service to it; i.e. you can't actually accomplish anything through email. And a few others offer complete service via email. To those I salute you. You make my life infinitely easier and are MUCH more likely to get my business.
For the rest, I'd like to find a solution. Yes, I could ask my roommate or g/f to handle phone calls on my behalf.. but I would really like to find something that allows me to deal with my problems myself.. when the solutions require contacting people to have services performed.
In the USA, we already have a relay service program where I can use a text device to call an operator that can communicate with others via voice on my behalf. However, the reverse of that process is considerably less convenient. I generally have to educate people on the process.. and at the moment it is not actually possible to do the reverse without a landline. My mobile phone has programs that allow me to use a relay service, but have no provisions for the reverse (someone calls a relay, relay calls me - can't do this because the relay has no way to contact my mobile like it's a TDD or other textual device).
I was thinking about this problem today.. and it occurred to me that one thing that would be really cool is if you could give people your phone number, and you could have the provider configure the number to reach a relay operator, who then attempts to communicate with your device in a textual manner. That would be totally awesome! How come no one's done it yet? What about phone number to relay to AIM/MSN/Yahoo/whatever? Even better, since that can be implemented in a standard way. Most mobiles nowadays support these standard instant messaging protocols... and of course a deaf user would get one that had a real keyboard so they could respond quickly enough.
Another thing, while I'm on that subject.. the relay system today gets abused very frequently by people who use it to scam or prank others.. or if nothing else to avoid paying long distance charges. Why do we have such a stupid system? It's only supposed to be used by deaf people, not you fucking jackasses abusing it for your amusement or financial gain. What we should do at the minimum is: require users to register with a central authority and provide their registration for each relay call. If we implement convenient reverse relay, we could require the caller to provide the number of a registered user. Problem solved.. and everyone will benefit because the system's cost will be lowered, and thus the subsidy paid by all telephone users through their bills will be lowered. Heck, I wouldn't mind having to pay for those calls myself, assuming the system gets improved.
Hmm. I've started working on the landscaping. Landscaping materials are surprisingly cheap! I got my west side yard leveling/grading project started today.. I think I'll be able to fix it pretty well. I've also started using Weed & Feed (thx Lindsay :) to fix my lawns. I want to re-do the landscaping, especially in the back yard. Thinking about using shrubs along the fences, except for a portion with the best sunlight exposure, which I'll use for a flower garden. Then along the house edge it'll be stone. Then to divide the lawn from the stone I'll use big wood blocks, with the stone beds 2-3" lower than the lawn. The west side yard, which can be accessed from the front, will be lawn as well, but I think the east side yard, which probably almost nobody will ever see, will be mainly stone bed. I think it'll work great. :)
I am also soliciting quotes for a major electrical system upgrade (new circuits in the basement, new main panel) and a new air conditioning system (house doesn't have one). Considering the cost of these upgrades (around $2-3k for electrical and $4-5k for A/C), unless my financial situation improves, I think that will be the last major project I do on my house until 2008.
Bedtime for me! Night.