Dana

I know this blog is about my experiences in Des Moines, but I want to tell you about my new daughter-in-law, Dana. It isn't often when a dad marries off his son and also walks the bride down the aisle, (no, the bride and groom are not brother and sister), but that is exactly what I did on July 18, in St. Paul. I was honored and touched to be asked by Dana to walk her down the aisle at my son's and her wedding. It was a very emotional day for me, I'm glad I doubled up on my Prozac. I think Dana is a person who you not only become closer to her as time marches on but you also become closer to your own family because of her. Enough said. Thanks, Dana.

Banquet

Sorry about being delinquent in writing in my blog, but I had little access to a computer the last week. I also married off a son, and I got to walk the bride down the aisle! It was double frosting on the cake.

Today at the Center we had a run-through or practice of the meal that we will serve at the 50th anniversary of the Center. We had a local chef who directed the practice run. The meal consisted of a pork loin stuffed with sausage and various spices, a wild rice recipe, a very good soup with shrimp in it, mixed vegetables with tarragon butter on it, and finally for dessert we had two different kinds of cheesecake. With the help of another student who read the recipe which was in braille, we made the wild rice recipe and we also helped make the dinner rolls. The wild rice recipe consisted of wild rice, onions, baby portobello mushrooms, spices, and chicken broth. We had to mince the onions and mushrooms, sautee them, and also also mince some parsley that we added at the very end. The wild rice came out quite tasty. After everyone was finished cooking we had an elegant dinner. Most of the food was eaten up, but we had 23 pounds of pork loin and we could only eat about half of that. Many staff members were included in helping make the dinner and in eating it as well.

Tomorrow we will have a normal class schedule and I hope to buckle down on my computer and my braille. I've also stained my picture frame, and the next step will be to varnish it. And in Travel I'll be practicing going to Fareway, as today I went to the bus stops that I'll use to get to the food store. I have made it across the alley from hell many times and will probably quit calling it that name.

I almost forgot that last week I had my first real big solo trip traveling by myself (with my shades and white cane). I went to one of our favorite restaurants which I had to walk a couple of blocks to catch the bus, ride the bus to a stop near the restaurant, and walk the rest of the way to the restaurant. I made it without making any mistakes. Later about twelve other students met me at the restaurant and we had a very good dinner. The crowning glory was my meal which included chile rellenos and an enchilada, except that they were all meatless with cheese and it was the next day before I found out I received the wrong order and the vegetarian in the group got my beef enchilada! More later.

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Traveling

Travel is my last class of the day and my favorite class. I think I like it so much because I get outside. The instructor Mark is calm--I don't think he'd raise his voice even if a semi was barreling down the street towards us. Lately I've been crossing streets and discovering new bus stops. Crossing streets is not the easiest thing because sometimes I don't go straight across. Sometimes I take a 45 degree angle while crossing the street. There is one street corner, 4th and Grand, which I do very well most of the time. Why? Because the crosswalk is at a 45 degree angle! I've discovered a few new bus stops that I will take during my travel class to different destinations. Tomorrow I'm taking the bus to La Hacienda, a favorite Mexican restaurant, on 31st and Ingersoll. Later on this week I plan on taking a group of students there for dinner.

Finally I want to talk to you about an alley from hell. Whenever I cross the alley next to the school building I either end up walking down the alley or in the middle of the street. Today I was so mixed up and in the alley for so long that I ran into the dumpster on three different occasions. We practiced crossing the alley about a dozen times, and the very last time I ended up in the middle of the street. The problem with the alley is it slopes down into the street and I follow that. I'll just have to keep practicing going across that alley. More later.

Catching up

I've been a little delinquent on writing lately, so I'll try to catch you up on things. First, thanks to all who read my blog and thanks to all who post comments. Also, when I'm in Des Moines I will talk to Chris and using the speaker phone I will dictate my entry to her. It's not as easy as sitting down at the computer and writing it myself. She does a great job with it and is so very, very patient. Thank you, Presh. I want to thank all the visitors to Des Moines who come to the school. Tylie, Lynor, Denese and Sally. Kay and Homer, David, Tom and Jane and if I missed anyone I'll add them later. A special thanks to those who haul me to and from Des Moines. Chris and I will be on way to St. Paul for our son's wedding. Zach and Dana will be married on Saturday. Great guy and great girl. Well, enough of this stuff, as you all know: It's all about Kenny:)

Update on classes:

Computer class is going very well. Cip (sip) is a great teacher who uses applicable situations to teach shills on the computer. For instance, I write a document to another teacher who is in charge of putting out a newsletter. In the process I've learned many important keystrokes. It's a bit harder for me right now to edit word processing without seeing the document on the screen. As I've said before there are no monitors for the computers. I've also entered a list of keystrokes to a document on the computer. This reinforces my memory of the keystrokes. God knows I need help with my memory.

Braille has a teacher. Rebecca has replace Mary who retired last month. I have only had Rebecca for a teacher for a few classes. She is very organized and very patient. A soft-spoken instructor, (most teachers are except Cip). Rebecca is the instructor who does the newsleter and she knows sign language as well as Braille. Pretty cool. I'm seeing progress with my Braille. I'm giving Rebecca most of the credit now that Mary is gone. I listen to a cassette tape in class with my name on the tape in Braille. I can actually read my name in Braille. I can write my name and read my name now and I'm only 55 years old. Yowzer!

In shop class I'm working on my picture frame. I've used a radial arm saw, a miter saw and a power sander while making the frame. I've used a variety of clamps in the precess. One, in particular, was like teaching an albatross to run. A very awkward tool, the frame clamp, was really a help while gluing the frame together. Rick is probably the most laid back, patient teacher of all. Never one to get excited. Rick is always calm and collected amongst shaded students using power tools. Rick also knows his music. He might get some tickets to hear Iris Dement when she comes to Ames. If he gets the tickets, I'm there, man. Iris is on my list of performers I would like to see before I die, or she dies. I don't think either one of us has plans of leaving soon, though.

Cooking class also has a new teacher since Mary has retired. Larry took over the kitchen chores just this week. My first recipe was tofu cinnamon rolls. They tasted a whole lot better than they sound. Larry has already orchestrated a fine lunch made by the students under his supervision. I'll give a more detailed update on Larry as I get to know him better. Oh, yes, he also drives the "white whale", the name we call the bus which takes us on field trips.

All the time I have to write now. More later.

Camping II

The two incidents I mentioned in the previous entry I'll expand on in this entry. First, the raccoon encounter. Although I was not present the night it happened I heard about the raccoons a number of times.

It seems that raccoons enjoy a little sodium in their diets as they devoured a bag of Doritos. They made quite a racket eating and fighting over the snack food that was left out under a screened shelter. The shelter had no floor so the varmints entered through the bottom of the shelter. A teacher was in the shelter as well, lying on a picnic table after he left his own tent for fear of snoring and waking up his fellow tent mates. Bang! Something fell to the ground. Screeeee! The two raccoons seemed to be fighting over the same chip. The teacher exits the shelter in a hurry. One student whose head was only a couple of feet away from the melee was oblivious to the noise that everyone else was kept awake to, he is deaf and losing his vision, slept through the whole episode.

I wrote a bit about sitting around the campfire and singing to the strumming of a guitar the second night of the trip. The guitarist, who has love on his mind, left his rather nice guitar out all night long in the rain. Luckily the guitar was in its case and only got a little wet. He would have to buy another case but the guitar sustained little damage.

Camping

This week the school went camping at Backbone State Park. We loaded up the bus with all our camping equipment before the 4th of July weekend. I missed a day of camping because of doctors appointments. They had to put up the tents with their shades on as well as walk the trail with their shades on and visit Niagara Cave in Minnesota, also with the shades on. I missed all three of those ventures.

When I arrived on Tuesday afternoon I got to cook using my shades. First I scrubbed some potatoes, cleaned them up, and then cut them in bite size chunks. Then I fried them on a huge griddle with butter and onions. Then my partner for making dinner grilled some brats and hot dogs. By the time we ate, which was about 8:00, everybody was starved. Off came the shades. They scarfed up the potatoes and brats and hot dogs. For dessert we made s'mores. Then we sat around the fire and listened to one of the students play guitar. We made our own lyrics to "Sweet Home Alabama." The young kids were getting a little loud and fairly graphic.

After a few more songs we heard thunder in the distance. We called a few people to check on the weather for us, and decided to slip into the tents early. Soon after we were in our sleeping bags it started to rain. Through the night it rained on and off.

We woke up to a steady rainfall and decided against making breakfast at the campsite. We loaded up the bus with our tents and other camping gear and headed back to Des Moines, stopping in Oelwein to eat breakfast at McDonald's. We arrived in Des Moines to partly cloudy skies and took out all our camping gear and tents and hung everything up that was wet in the shop class. No shades today at all.

Thursday morning, after everything has dried, we'll bag up everything and put it in the storage room, ready for the next camping trip. A couple of incidents at the campsite included an encounter with a couple of hungry raccoons and a waterlogged guitar. I'll write about those in my next entry. More later.

(Here you go, Checker... and thanks for reading my blog, Chad.)

Tandem

About fifteen minutes before I left for Reform School, a few weeks back, I purchased a tandem bike. You know, a bicycle built for two. I didn't have a chance to ride it until the July 4th weekend, and ride it I did. I started off on Thursday evening with Zach. We did a nice little loop on the bike trail. I tried to steer it from the back seat from time to time. That didn't work too well. Have faith in your pilot. On Friday, Gary came over and it went somewhat better. We had some trouble stopping and I had a little more faith in my pilot steering around corners. Later on Friday, buddy Steve came over for another tandem trip. More faith in the pilot still. Not that one pilot is anymore trustworthy than the other, but I just stopped leaning and trying to steer from the back seat. Finally, I went for a thirty miler on Sunday with buddy Poot. Excellent day, excellent ride. The thing you must remember while riding on the back, you have no control over the bike. At least very, very little control. I'm sure the next time Zach or Gary takes me for a ride, the ride will be much smoother. I'll just look at their back when we are turning a corner. I'm off to the baseball game. Taking the tandem. Should be fun.

Solo

I did my first true solo on Wednesday. It took me around the "home block". The "home block" is a four block square which encompasses the school. South one block, west one block, north and then east until you get back to school. It's flat and fairly safe. There are a couple of parking garages, a few trees at the edge of the sidewalk and four corners. I had three small incidents: I walked into two parking garages and stepped off the sidewalk into the street.

The first incident with a parking garage took me into the garage a fair distance. I knew I made a goof when there was no breeze in my face and the sun wasn't shining. I stopped to gather my thoughts then heard a car engine someplace near me and waited for it to pass. It didn't pass. I'm thinking, "Why don't you go around me?" Then I moved to one side and the auto moved by me. I guess I was standing right in front of the car. I then followed the sound of the car and after several steps was greeted by a breeze and sunshine. That happened one more time but I only ventured a few steps in before I realized that I was in a garage and exited the garage and went on my merry way. I also stepped off the curb but righted the situation quickly. I made it the rest of the way pretty much without incident. I did not peek once. That would be cheating and give me no satisfaction from the journey. I'll be crossing streets, and visiting retail stores in July. That may be interesting. More later.