A couple of funnies

During the snowstorm we went traveling with a substitute travel teacher. Her name is Tai, (it rhymes with sky), because my regular travel teacher was out for a personal day. As a fellow student and I were walking during travel class we noticed Tai had fallen back some distance from us. Tai is completely blind but is an excellent traveler, so it was unusual for her to drop back. Melissa and I turned around and shouted back to her. We couldn't hear her reply so we walked toward her. "My eye fell out!" she shouted. One of Tai's prosthetic eyes had fallen out. She was terribly concerned as the eyes cost a few thousand bucks. We lifted up our shades to look for the blue eye but had no success in locating the eye. Suddenly Tai yelled, "Here it is!". The eye had landed in the sleeve of her coat. We all had a big laugh after she finally put the eye back in.

Another funny thing happened to me in cooking class. I was making a three course lunch and was preparing to frost my lemon cake with lemon frosting. I had two different courses on the counter, and each were in identical pans. Along with the cake I also had a green bean casserole. Sitting side by side I started frosting what I thought was the lemon cake. As I was putting the frosting on, it seemed like the cake was crumbling off every time I tried to frost it. Well, if you've ever tried to frost a green bean casserole the fried onions on top will adhere quite nicely to the frosting. Ugh!

All through the meal I was asked what the lemon taste was in the green bean casserole. I finally told them my mishap with the frosting. It didn't seem to bother my guests as there was little of the casserole left after the lunch.
More later.

My shop project is going to be a big surprise for my wife. I think I’ve told almost all my friends what the finished project will be so, if you know, please keep it from my Presh.

I have learned a lot about woodworking, the power tools, (and their names), and terms that I never heard before. Considering the environment, my shop teacher, Ric, has been extremely patient and helpful.

One thing I found out while doing this project with my sleep shades on is that I have become quite intimate or attached to my work. I have become quite the sander. Without ever seeing my work I must touch and feel the wood to see if it is in the condition I want it to be. While sanding I keep feeling with my fingers to see if it is smooth enough. Without vision I can’t say, “ That looks fine”, or “That’s good enough”. Touch seems to be a much more intimate sense than vision, especially when the only sense you are using to assess your work is touch.

I have used tools such as a table saw, miter saw, mortiser, planer and jointer.

Again, thanks Ric for being a good guy.

Alumni Banquet

The center has just celebrated its 50th anniversary. Fifth years ago, on November 1, 1959, the Adult Orientation Center took up residence in the YMCA building at the corner of 4th and Keo in Des Moines. To celebrate this historic anniversary we held a fabulous banquet and dance.

About 200 alumni, staff, and friends of the center gathered in the assembly room to rehash old times, eat a delicious meal, and listen to an array of speakers.

The people began to arrive an hour before the 5:00 starting time of the banquet. Everyone had a smile on their face or were listening intently to stories about the center that usually ended up with a hardy laugh.

The alumni came from all over the state and a several others from as far away as San Diego and Hawaii.

As we entered the Assembly Hall we were greeted with the fine music of pianist Curtis Chong. Our table contained a basket full of rolls. We quickly devoured them. After a few minutes our server brought us a bowl of dirty shrimp soup. This was one of my favorite courses of the meal. The soup was followed by a plate of pork tenderloin stuffed with a sausage and seasoning mix. We also had some mixed vegetables and a wild rice dish with mushrooms and celery. For dessert we had a slice of cheesecake with a berry compote drizzled on top. All of the food was prepared by the current students at the center. I was proud of our culinary skills! After dinner we settled in for some tributes, awards, and a student graduation.

Jim Witte, a former manager of the center, talked about the early days of the center. It was very interesting to hear about Jim’s time with Ken Jernigan, the founder of the orientation center.

After Jim Witte was finished speaking Karen Keninger, the director of the Department For The Blind, spoke about the experiences she had growing up blind. I enjoyed hearing Karen’s take on the half full, half empty glass metaphor. She explained that you may have a glass half full or half empty but the important thing is whether you are pouring into the glass or taking from the glass.

A good buddy of mine graduated from the Orientation Center at the banquet. Terry was given his certificate in the frame he had made in shop class. I will truly miss Terry.

After the banquet we walked about one block to the Convention Center for a dance in honor of the anniversary. There we had beverages to drink and watched the center’s instructors let their hair down. Boy, do they know how to party! It was a night full of memories and fun that I will never forget. More later.

Observations

Here are some observations I’ve made at the center in the last four months.

When I’m out with the gang and there is a sign for a restaurant or some other business I can’t ask the students who are with me, “Hey, what’s that sign say?” That’s the same with t-shirts with logos on as well. If the logo is big enough I sometime can read them, but usually I can’t unless I get real close and then the person thinks what the hell are you doing?

Once there were four of us watching TV and a funny scene flashed on the screen. I looked at the person on my right and asked what was the scene about and he looked to the person on his right, and that person was clueless. Then I asked the person on my left and she just shrugged. No one picked it up. I think we all laughed at the scene even though we didn’t know what it was all about.

Sometimes you can tell who a person is by the way they are tapping with their cane. Some tap, tap and others brush the floor more than tap. Whatever their method it should be in the shape of an arc. The cane should go out three or four inches wider than your shoulders and about an inch off the ground.

Voices are pretty individualized. Most people have a unique voice, probably like fingerprints, although some sound pretty similar to each other.
More later.

Ledges part II

After my third dismissal of offered help I stretched to the second to the last block. I started to lean toward the road, over compensated too much to the right and toward the runoff pool and s*@*, I was falling into the water! My left leg stayed on the edge of the road but the rest of me fell to the pool of water. I landed on my rear, with the left leg following in about 3 feet of water. Water was up to my neck. It took my breath away. After I had regained my footing and stood up I reached for a couple of helping hands. No way could they pull my sodden body and clothes, which included blue jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, out from the pool. I finally climbed out on the road after two or three unsuccessful attempts to free myself from the freezing water.

I was a bit embarrassed, but mostly angry at myself for not accepting the help from my teacher. We still had about a mile of walking ahead of us until we reached the shelter we were going to eat lunch at. When we finally got there my knee started to swell and hurt. I did not have to go to the doctor for my knee, and it is doing much better.

Nest time a teacher offers me some help, I'm sure I will take it.

Trip to Ledges State Park

On Tuesday the school went to Ledges State Park near Boone, Iowa. It was supposed to be a walk in the park but ended in a soggy mess.

Once a month the school plans a group activity for the students and staff. For the month of September a field trip was scheduled for Ledges State Park. We were to walk some trails, eat a picnic lunch and play some group games.

It all started out fine with a beautiful walk on a couple of trails. We were all sleep-shaded (wearing our blindfolds) as we navigated along rocky trails that traversed up and down and around the park. Our canes came in very handy on the stone steps. The steps had varying degrees of width and steepness.

After walking about one hour we came across a rocky ledge called table rock. At that time our trail leader (who was totally blind) told us we could take off our shades. It was a beautiful view with breath taking descent to the road down below us.

I had heard a few cars on the park road and also heard the cars splashing through some unseen water.

After trekking down to the road I could hear running water across the road. When our group encountered the water we had two options: walk through the two inch water flowing across the road or try to walk along the edge, half skipping and half jumping from one cement block to another block. These blocks were about 18 to 24 inches long and about 8 inches wide. The distance between each cement block was approximately two feet from each other.

While being sleep-shaded the step from one block to the other block was anything but easy. If you slipped off one of the blocks you had two directions you could fall. One way was back on the road and step into the two inch water. The other direction was to plop into three feet of water that flowed to the river. You can probably guess which direction I took.

I had already crossed over one set of blocks without too much trouble. It was very exhilarating stretching from one block to the other. After successfully finishing the challenge, I gave a war cry and thought the water crossings were over. Not so. Up came the second water crossing.

It seemed to be a little deeper on the road as the cars made bigger splashes. Well, I knew if I chose the walk on the road I’d have wet feet for the rest of the day and I had just completed my first trek over the water.

I started over the water with a seemingly longer stretch than my first block bridge I conquered. Mark, my travel instructor, was there and asked me if I needed a hand. Three times he asked and three times I declined his offer. Sort of like Peter did in the Bible.

To be continued…

Funnel and Sieve

A couple of weeks ago two other students, our supervisor Dave, and I traveled to Kansas City to visit Missouri's version of our orientation center. It's called Alphapointe. It is much different than ours. It's different physically and philosophically.

The building itself is only seven years old, and still smells new, where ours is ... well, a hell of a lot older. Alphapointe is all on one floor, where our orientation center has six floors, seven if you count the basement and we do use the basement. Alphapointe is located out in what seemed to me to be an office park-like area. Away from the city. In Des Moines we're located smack dab in the middle of the city.

In my opinion the most important difference is between the philosophies of each orientation center. While Alphapointe has an environment of a sheltered workshop where workers assemble writing pens for the federal government and manufacture plastic bottles for VA hospitals, it seems like they funnel their clients in that direction. It seems to me that they teach their clients specific skills to reach their goal of employing them.

The goal at the Iowa center, in contrast to Alphapointe, is to give the students tools they need to be competitive and independent in their daily living. Don't get me wrong, we work hard at the center and we earn the tools we have when we leave the school. Since we have the tools to cope in the day to day activities it takes to secure a job and hold onto any career that we choose, I believe we have a stronger center than other states do.

As I've noted in this writing the Kansas City center tries to funnel their students toward a certain type of employment. The Iowa center is like a sieve, students venturing out to do whatever career they are interested in. Now, everyone isn't successful, but everyone has the green light to try out what they are interested in. I think we are pretty capable of doing anything, except drive a cab, or fly a plane, although with the computers on board, piloting a plane may be more realistic than driving a car.

In short, we are given the tools to achieve whatever we want to achieve. It's like teaching a person to fish, not just feeding him the fish.

Pound cake

I'm at home for the next week and a half and wanted to try out my culinary skills. I've been cooking with shades on at the orientation center for the last three months and wanted to see what it was like to cook AND see. It was pretty easy, but not as easy as I thought cooking without shades would be.

We got a new mixer so I looked at the recipes that came with the manual to see if any of the recipes tripped my trigger. I really wanted to try out the new mixer. Well, the double chocolate pound cake looked pretty damn delectable.

The recipe called for a lot of the good stuff that bakers use. Flour. Now that's taking my cooking to new heights. Sugar. I didn't mix up the flour and sugar, nor did I toss the flour into the garbage can. Baking powder, milk, REAL butter and few other ingredients that raised the carb count for each slice of cake.

I cooked the cake on Wednesday and added a drizzle of chocolate glaze Thursday morning. The verdict: well, I'd give it a B. I thought it would be a bit more moist. The flavor is excellent though and I won't have much trouble getting rid of the cake to friends and family. A scoop of ice cream would be a fine addition to the cake.

The mixer worked great and I would be negligent if I didn't mention that my wife helped me most of the way. Comments like, "You don't have throw the ingredients into the bowl, just let them drip." Or, "How did cocoa powder get into the utensil drawer?" Really, Chris was a big help and I don't think the cake would have turned out as good as it did without her help. More later.

Questions and answers

I received an email from a friend, Kelli, who commented about my blog and had a few questions for me. I'll answer those questions here as I'm sure you will find that they pertain to my blog.

First question, "How do I operate the oven?" Well the controls all have Braille labels next to them and I try to read them, but really have memorized which controls are where. To regulate the temperature the oven always starts at 350 and every time you push the button it beeps and increases or decreases by 5 degrees. You have to pay at least a little attention to the beeps to know what degree your oven is at.

Next question. "Do I plan to have any adaptions in my house?" Yes. I plan on labeling some things in Braille, especially in the kitchen. I already have puffy, brightly colored stickers on the microwave and stove. Chris marked the washer and dryer too, with markings to help me know the controls on those appliances. Having the Braille labels will help me remember the Braille code and reinforce what I have learned at the center.

Last question. "To read emails, is there a computer audio function that reads it aloud or how does that work?" Yes, there is a function, both at home and the center. Those programs are called screen readers. I use a Mac at home and there is a program called VoiceOver that reads the text on the screen. I also use Zoom which magnifies the screen image. At school I use the PC program JAWS which is the only way I can read email or for that matter do anything at all on the computer. Listening to the computer is much quicker than reading magnified text. The larger the text the slower you read.

Both programs, JAWS and VoiceOver are nice. JAWS is more powerful, but not by too much anymore, and one important thing to remember, VoiceOver comes FREE with the Mac. JAWS costs about a thousand bucks.

Thanks Kelli for the email and continue to have fun working in Colorado. Since I was the one usually falling off my bike, it's much safer having one of my friends piloting the tandem than me riding solo.

More later.

Graduation

Hello again from Des Moines. After two days of rain it looks like the rain is finally over. Today will be my last day here for two weeks, as we will be having our summer break/vacation. It's a sad day for me as one of my good buddies has completed his stay here at the center. Jim is graduating today and will return home.

He was my walking buddy and we did a lot of other things together. Along with another buddy, Terry, we would go out to eat breakfast and dinner together. At night we would all sit down and talk about the day's events. They would drink coffee and I would drink a diet pop. I will truly miss my buddy Jim.

Along with Jim there were two other students leaving as well. RJ graduated and John will take off to attend college in Illinois.

More later.

I'm on!

Well, I'm writing this from my monitorless computer at the center. I usually talk to Chris on the phone, dictating my blog to her, or wait until I get home and enter a blog from my own desk top. Hopefully I'll be able to add to my blog at a more regular pace.

The editing process is a bit more difficult for me here than it is at home, so bear with me.

I've had a pretty good week with travel and Braille. Those two classes were giving me fits the past couple of weeks. I was getting more than a little bummed out.

I was getting no where in Braille. I was not feeling the dots very well. The teacher gave me a new workbook which would be similar to reading a large type reading book. The spaces are a bit larger than the normal Braille book. It makes reading the Braille much easier for me. I always could remember the dot placement but couldn't feel the dots.

In travel I was getting lost or walking off the sidewalk. Yesterday I traveled around the court house without an incident. The last time a deputy sherif stopped me twice and asked me if I needed help. I told him that I was in a class and could get back alright. He didn't want me to walk back. I finally had to take off my shades to convince him that I could make it back on my own.
More later.

"Shaft"

My white cane is a very important tool to the blind. After thinking about it, I think a cane is the most important aid that a blind person has. Mine is so tender to my heart that I gave it a name. Shaft goes with me all over Des Moines and while I'm home too. It is there when I wake up and there when I go to bed. My wife thought it would be fun to have a contest to name my cane. So, if anyone has any names that I could give Shaft, let me know. I'm warning you though, I am very fond of Shaft. It will have to be something that strikes a chord with me or I'm keeping the name Shaft.

I have two canes, my white cane and a fold up cane. I use the fold up cane when I take a bike ride. I fold it up, place it on my rear rack bag and use it when I get off the bike. It's really neat how it snaps to attention and very easy to fold up. It's similar to tent poles that utilize shock cords. But it is heavy. About twice as heavy as my white cane. It also gets caught in cracks in the sidewalk very easily. It's like combing your hair that has a few tangles in it and your comb gets hung up in the tangles.

My white cane, on the other hand, is lightweight and goes over cracks as smooth as a Lexus drives over bumps in the road. I must say that Shaft is my favorite. I don't even have a name for old foldy. It's a real clunker. Maybe I should trade the clunker in for one that gets better mileage.
More later.

Alicia

I want to tell you the story of one of the students at the school. Alicia is a pretty young lady whose life changed dramatically in November of 2006. She was riding in a vehicle that went off the road, rolled and ejected Alicia from the vehicle. She was sprawled on the highway, bleeding, in and out of consciousness while the ambulance was speeding to assist her and take her to the hospital.

Because of the accident and the massive internal bleeding which caused irreversible damage to her optic nerve, Alicia will never see again. Only blackness, no light or even shading will she ever experience in her lifetime. It's like having to wear our sleep shades 24/7. Even with the shades on I can see a little light and darkness.

Alicia sometimes seems a bit down, melancholic and sometimes she is happy, laughing and really funny. Alicia is quick witted and makes all around her laugh. I don't think she wants pity or sympathy, she only wants people to understand what she is going through. She is so observant that she knows when I steal french fries off her plate.

Alicia wasn't born blind, she never even wore glasses, so blindness is all very new to her. She knows what she needs to do to become more independent and it bothers her that she isn't as independent as she would like to be.

Recently she has been doing much better in traveling class, even went to a doctor's office solo. Some might not think that is too big a deal, but it was for Alicia and the other students at the school who knew about it.

One regret I have is that I was not attending the center when she had her 7 course dinner. Rosemary turkey, mashed potatoes and homemade gravy, chocolate lust cake and a few other dishes to make it 7 courses.

If I misrepresent Alicia or give any information which is incorrect I'm sure she will let me know, loud and clear.
More later.

Buddies

Let me tell you about a couple of my buddies. I've been doing a lot of things with three of the students here: Jim, Terry, and Ian. They all have different eye conditions. Jim has RP, Terry has macular degeneration, and Ian is an albino which predisposes him to visual problems. Jim and Terry are about my age and we do quite a few things together. We go out to eat, joke around, and do some walking together. Jim was a CAD (Computer Aided Design) operator until three years ago when his vision became too poor to operate the CAD. He hasn't driven for about eleven years but still gets around quite well. He has some of the poorest vision of all the students.

Likewise, Terry doesn't see very well either. He has had macular degeneration most of his life, has never driven a car, and is possibly one of the funniest persons I've ever known. He has a line about everything and is quick on his feet with his wit. Although he's had eye problems most of his life, he was a state champion pole vaulter in 1970. He ran his own business for 25 years and might start the business program that the school has. That program deals with vending machines--filling them and repairing them. That job is something our program can train people to do.

Ian just graduated from high school last spring and has some vision problems associated with his albinism. When you think of a person who is an albino, you think of no pigmentation in his genes. He has white hair and very white skin and usually wears long pants and a long-sleeved shirt along with a hat when he goes out. We go out to eat together quite frequently and we end up usually going to the same place. He ends up ordering the exact same thing from the menu every time! His vision is not as poor as my other two buddies' vision. He is planning on attending college in the future.

Hopefully after everybody's done with the school my buddies and I can still keep in touch. More later.

Business class

Three times a week we meet for a class called the Business of Blindness. The class alternates between three different times during the week. In this class we discuss all sorts of things that affects us and the people around us. We may have a speaker come in to discuss resume writing and interviewing for jobs, a counselor come in and tell the younger students what they will need to do to get ready for college or our director will discuss various items relating to blindness.

On Friday she talked about alternative ways of doing daily chores and other things. She read an article from Kenneth Jernigan telling about how different ways of doing things is fine and dandy. Just because it is different doesn't make it a bad thing to do. For instance, he wrote about how a blind man and his wife differed on brushing their teeth. She applied the paste to her toothbrush and was annoyed once when the paste fell into the sink before she got it into her mouth. He was surprised when he heard that was how she got the paste to her mouth. He simply bit off a small amount and never lost his toothpaste to the sink.

This is just an example of how a blind person can achieve almost anything, only they may have to do it in a different way than a sighted person does it. More later.

Eating Out

I've mentioned eating in the Home Ec room with the 3 course and 7 course meals, but I'd like to tell you a little bit about the times we go out to eat. A lot of the time we just walk out to the Court Ave area and eat at a couple of our favorite restaurants. Often there are just two or three of us going, and occasionally a half dozen of the students go. The two favorite places seem to be The Royal Mile and Fong's Pizza. The Royal Mile is a bar/restaurant with a very good fish and chips meal. The price is right. You can get two big pieces of battered up fish and thick french fries for about six bucks. Another place just about across the street is Fong's Pizza. It used to be a Chinese restaurant for many years, and then it changed with the times to be a pizza place. The pizzas are excellent with a variety of styles and toppings. The atmosphere at Fong's is friendly and they have vintage rock and roll playing in the background.

Occasionally we'll head out of the neighborhood by bus or in cabs to visit a couple of other favorites. One of my favorites is the La Hacienda restaurant, where I went for my first solo travel trip. The Mexican food there is excellent, the service is the best I've ever seen, and the prices there are very, very reasonable. The trips we take in the bus to the different restaurants are always fun because we get to sit and talk and laugh and tell jokes. In the future I hope to write about some new restaurants we visit and the adventures that go with them. More later.

More travel

I'm going to different places in my travel class. Tomorrow I solo to the Fareway grocery store. It's an important location because Fareway will be the grocery store that will be used most often to buy my food for cooking class.

To get there I first must walk a couple of blocks to catch the #3 bus out to Fareway. Once the bus drops me off I must navigate down a nice wide walkway to the front of the mall which houses the grocery store. While I'm walking down that nice wide walkway I cross three drive lanes. There didn't seem to be much traffic on the drive lanes when I visited the store twice last week. Mark, my instructor, accompanied me on those trips. After walking to the front of the mall I must go through two doorways to actually get into the store. Then I will walk to the service area and ask them for a token from Fareway. There will be no doubt that I made to Fareway. Of course I will have my sleep shades on. More later.

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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