Hi, my name is Jody, and I'm a Nano-holic.

Some people (read "kids") are able to fill up their iPods overnight, stuffing them with complete CDs for the full oeuvre of Dirty Old Bastard. My experience has been more laborious and selective, but no less fun.

I now have 185 songs on my 5 gig iPod Nano (and the memory isn't quite half-full). The vast ( Read more... )

The web site job came with an immediate challenge: How to get a nightowl out of bed in the morning and into the office by 8 a.m. (The copy desk job I held the last two years usually started at 3:30 p.m.)

Simple answer, right? "Uh, Jode, you have heard of alarm clocks, right?"

Uh-uh. Try depending on one of those things when you're stone deaf in your ( Read more... )

Been a while. Apologies.

I had an insight a few days ago, after I took off the CI and hearing aid (using both now) in preparation for bed. In barely a month and a half, the sound environment provided by the devices are my new "normal." It's what I expect during my waking hours. The stark mufflage of sound, when all the toys are put away, is now the ( Read more... )

My brother- and sister-in-law are coming this weekend, along with their toddler daughter and young German shepherd, Bob. Muchly looking forward to that, and not just because they're good folk.

When my hearing was on the fritz, I tried to enjoy being around people. Sometimes I succeeded. But the barriers were always there. The wall between me and ( Read more... )

The May 9 mapping cleared up the cutting-out problem I was having the first month. Colleen figured it out, bless her. The CI no longer just shuts off, forcing me to slide the battery out and in to reset it.

But now there's another type of cutting-out, and though I can live with it under my next appt in SF in July, the oh-so-likely reason for it is, ( Read more... )

OK, the way I see it, when I had normal hearing, that was Jody at his first stage -- 1.0. Then it all started to go south, and about two years ago I got a hearing aid for the right side.

Jody 2.0.

In March, I went under the knife to nest electrodes in my ear parts. On April 16, audiologist Colleen Polite added the behind-the-ear processor and ( Read more... )

Had a wunnerful time at Chez Harris as we observed Pop's seven decades on this dustball (has anybody told Dad yet that he and Saddam Hussein were born about a week apart? A bunch of lunatics in Iraq marked what would have been the Butcher of Baghdad's 70th on April 29).

Kelli rolled out the snacks and drinks. We sat in the shade on a gorgeous 65- ( Read more... )

Looking forward to Wednesday's appointment with Colleen. I'm even looking forward to the imaginative route I'll take to get there, thanks the melted I-580 connector near the Bay Bridge. I plan to drive to the South Hayward BART station, ride to the 16th/Mission stop, then take a taxi to UCSF. The fried overpass is the one I always use to head east ( Read more... )

Not that I've found the culprit of my cutting-out problems (bum battery), and can focus more in battery life. So far, it looks like the longest I've gone is 11.5 hours. Not bad. Won't get me through a day, though. That tells me I'll need to carry a backup, especially at work.

Playing CDs with the CI has been a revelation. I flip between the programs ( Read more... )

I switched to the CI's third and final program Tuesday morning, during a session with Kathyrn, my listening therapist. I remember what Colleen said was the main feature of P3: the electrodes in the cochlea would fire individually, instead of in pairs at they did in P1 and P2. The result should be a smoother, but probably flatter, sound.

Right on ( Read more... )