Carin’s Guide Dog Diary: Day 3

Grrr. There’s never enough time. Never! Last night, after I wrote that entry, I went to send it to the computer, but Autumn ran back to the room and said lock the door lock the door! So I did, apparently she was running from David! He’d ordered pizza, apparently he and Amy have hollow legs. Anyway, he called the pizza guy a spic, which pissed off everyone around him. This morning, if I can catch Autumn, we’re going to talk to the instructors about this David probem. We already spoke to him about having respect for our space and it got us exactly nowhere. Also, he was threatening to tackle Rain Man just for fun. There’s something wrong with that boy. I don’t want to live in fear for the rest of my training.

Autumn and I just laid down and talked for a long time. I didn’t nod off until close to 12. But oh my body had me awake at 5 for some unknown reason.

I’m happy. I’ve finally tamed that devilish alarm clock. God damn that thing is like a rebel guide puppy. It has a mind of its own! But I now know how to set it so if David plays with Autumn’s power bar it’s no big deal, I’ll just set it for her later and show her how. I love the comradery that happens at guide dog schools. We all help each other. I helped Frank with his phone, Amy helped me with the alarm clock, I love it. Everybody helps everybody.

Oh, I like Bernard now. He’s hillarious. Apparently the reason he was sorta creepy was he had a fever when he got here! The poor guy. Now we can’t shut him up. But I llike him.

David is in here again. I guess we’re not talking to the god damn instructors! Eeeee! I’m going to lose my mind. Going to lose it! Lose it! Real soon! Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

I forgot to mention the dinner chimes. They ring these pretty chimes when it’s time to eat. I guess that way nobody can say that they missed dinner cause they didn’t know.

This morning they fed us pancakes and sausages. Mmm.

Tonight we’re having yoga. They’re going to teach us stretching exercises to prevent shin splints. Cool! Yoga! Isn’t that the most awesome thing?

Almost time for class. Damn damn damn when are we going to deal with this? She claims he’s going to respect boundaries. Let’s see.

Mmm. Today’s lunch is a club sandwich and I’m trying the shrimp salad for dinner.

This morning we’re doing commands and then we’re going to Juneau in downtown San Rafael. Yee ha, man on a leash time! At least the locals are used to it. I just learned how to do the formal recall correction. Pretty straight forward. The dog starts screwing around, you just yank it back past your leg cause that’s where you want him to go! That went really well. I think I’ve got all the obedience commands down. Sweet. Went out on my first Juneau harness walk, sans rug, thank god. Ick that would be bad. Those rugs are all ripped to hell. Man it feels good to be walking with a harness again. We got to try the 3 hop ups, one for speed up, one for come on, doggy, focus, and one for ok we’re close to something but I can’t quite reach it. I think I’ve got them down. It’s all about the intonation. Got the lefts and rights straight, har har. I think I’m starting to know where I’m going. Gimme my doggy now! Gimme gimme gimme!

Autumn *says* we’re GOING to talk to the instructors. She claims she didn’t really want him in the room this morning. I can’t keep up with this, and I told her so. God damn. Everyone else I love to death.

Sylvia’s wrist is still bugging her, poor woman. I guess she’s 77 years old. Um, wow. Amy fell! Ouchers! She’s now crash junior. We’re droppin’ like flies! Don’t get booted Amy! Please please please!

Lunch was good. I liked the clam chowder. I didn’t get to try the chocolate mousse though. Oh well, we’ll get it for supper.

We went and talked to Jen about David and they said they’d talk to him. Should be interesting.

Now it’s lecture time. Controling your guide dog. Ok that was embarrassing. I fell asleep for a second. Um, that was a woops. Then I did more obedience and I think I’ve got it. It’s sit, down, stay, then formal recall where you make him stay and then you make him heel. So I think we’re going to the downtown lounge for more juneauage.

Uh-oh. They just called David to the office. This could be awkward. Oh I hate the way my body gets when it’s stressed. Hope there’s time to visit the john.

Well we went over to the lounge, and I was able to help Carmen with her email. I went out on another Juneau walk with more lefts in it, and wow, I could go faster!

David is officially an asshole. The guy went and laid on Amy’s bed because we said he couldn’t come back into our room. What a class act.

Mm dinner was good. Shrimp salad and chocolate eclaires. I’m an idiot though. I asked for iced tea and forgot that it’s just cold tea. *Ug*! There’s a note to all Canadians. It’s not your iced tea! And I was even warned! God I’m an idiot head.

Now David’s refusing to come to dinner. Like what the huh? He’s a strange individual.

Wow, it looks like a short update today. There’s not much left to happen, just yoga. But who knows? Maybe I’ll run into Seizure Augustus, or Seizure Augimpus as she is now calling herself because of her little fall. She seems to be fine now. I’m worried about Sylvia though. She’s at the doctors. That’s never good. I have to return Carmen’s pen. Autumn wanted to write down all the commands and stuff so we teamed up and wrote them down. Man I’m jealous of Al. He brought his own laptop with wireless access. If I had that I could email these from anywhere and not have to use the public computer at specified times.

My feet really cry out when I’m standing in the halt position. I hope that gets better.

Is there anything else I can say? Damn it I went back to give Carmen her pen and I missed the phone! Aboo! Please leave a message, please please, I’m on my knees! Voicemail? Lemmy check! No message damn it oh no! Let’s see if it was mom and dad. They never leave messages, the silly ones. I have no caller ID here! Arggy! I’m listening to the silly spanish collect call music. Ah come on hurry up and reject the call and then phone me back, ok? Come on! I don’t have long now. Well it wasn’t mom and dad. Arg must go to yoga now. Must pee first.

That was good, but I didn’t make it to pee. It’s hard to lie still and relax with a full bladder. But that was good. My muscles feel much looser. I finally met another of the continued assessment girls, her name is Nancy and she has one hell of a lot of arthritis. Poor girl. But I’ve never seen yoga perform such a miraculous transformation on someone. She went from “oo ee aaa” to “this feels much better!” and the instructor asked her if it really felt better, and she said yes! Wow! How cool is that? There I go again.

I met Nicole, the other continued assessment girl, and she has the cutest little voice. She said we were laughing so hard they could hear us down in the retrain wing.

I don’t think dear old Matt is getting a guide dog. We saw him trying to lead a puppy in harness back out into the driveway without help. Oops. The dog’s name is Martin. Wouldn’t it be funny if you knew a Martin like I do, and then you had a dog named Martin? Oh boy.

I think that’s about it for today. Woe! A short day! Holy crap! Or at least a short summary. Tomorrow we get our four-legged woofer friends.! I’m going to try and send this now, maybe it won’t look as bad as last time.

Carin’s Guide Dog Diary: Day 2

Well, I survived the first day. This morning was an interesting start. Amy had a seizure and Jill had to yell for help. I was in the shower when
it happened. I miss everything.

Frank’s cool. He can speak many languages. So he makes a point of speaking to the kitchen ladies in Spanish or some kind of philipino dialect. I like Frank. He seems nice. We don’t like Dave. He creeps us out, Autumn and I. We locked our door and he rattled it this morning! Gotta go to the dayroom. I wish Autumn would come.

They’re taking meal orders. mmm ravioli and chili. or some tuna salad or salad with blue cheese. we see Tamara and now Audrey and Jessica. Wow everybody loves gdb. Ooo Mike Delross. Uh-oh code of conduct time. god communication protocol again? ug. Ooo! Yoga tomorrow. I just met Sue…Sullivan, and Laurie. She’s a sweetheart. Man they take care of us, shopping, checking the mail, all that good stuff. Man there are a lot of churchies.

We have our leashes now! Heehee! I feel like such a non-newb. Tamara has a chihuahua. All these extra dogs. Ooo now we have Juneau the rug. I did my first heeling. And the damn slip collar. Live rings, dead rings, aaaa! But I think I got it, just one feels right, and the other one feels W R O N G! The way it works is there’s this collar, and you have to slip the chain through one ring and the other ring goes onto the leash, and you have to put the collar on the right way or you have no correction room. It’s hard to explain but I think I have it. Wow don’t mess with Carmen. She ripped Juneau’s head off.

In day room. waiting for puppies that aren’t our puppy. I got to heel a puppy. His name was Morgan. He was a wild one, I had to give a lot of corrections just to get him to heel. Man I can see how I let Babs away with murder. Now I got to walk Tania. What a cool dog. I didn’t have to give her much of a correction at all. But my corrections are all off kilter. Too hard when they should be softer, too soft when they should be harder. Silly Tania got her paws all caught in the leash. What a cutey. It’s hard watching them leave with the puppy. They even have an O and M! They have everything!

Sad news! Amy’s going home! She had a seizure and you have to be seizure-free for six months before you can come here, I guess, and boom! she has to go home! I don’t get that. Seizures happen and you never know when, so how can you get excluded? Plus, people get seizure dogs, so it’s not that you can’t take care of a dog. What the hell? so we’re chipping in to get her a stuffed puppy and we’re brailling a note. I feel like crying, I have to figure out a time to go see her, the poor woman. I really liked her.

I’m going to have to use ye old communication protocol real soon I think on David. He’s always in our room. But he is nice. He’s just uber annoying, and he’s never gone. I know his room-mate is Bernard, so who wants to go there, but e gads does he have to be all over Autumn? Gonna have to think a bit to figure out how to approach it. He really is not a bad guy, I don’t think he’s evil or anything, but he creeps me out. We even locked our doors because we were afraid of him. And he rattled our door, I think it was a joke, but oy yoy yoy.

Amy gets to stay! she gets to stay she gets to stay she gets to stay!
Gotta talk to her later.

I just did some obedience work with juneau the rug dog. Now I correct too hard. Damn you Babs what have you done?

Ok, so much to catch up on. Where do I begin? We ran over with Laurie from admissions and got Amy a stuffed dog. Then we ran back and went to the downtown lounge and we all walked around holding the end of this PVC pipe thingy that they called a modified sighted guide tool. They took the other end and then we read traffic and aligned with it. I apparently rocked, which is a miracle because my instructor used to say “I don’t want to have to line you up like a chess piece.”

Oh, I forgot to mention we got a tour of the downtown lounge, and how cool is that? It has:
A kitchen with a water dispenser. Here I was buying a water bottle.
Computers that apparently have minds of their own because they spontaneously forgot they had authorizations. Oh well, they will heal.
A TV room, and I think that’s about it.

So we came back from that, brailled out Amy’s note and put it in the bag, and oh my the fun began.
We were all in Amy’s room to give her her gift. She gave us all hugs. She is the coolest woman. I have to have a long, long, long chat with her. I have much to learn, she is the wise one. Anyway, when we were all in there, this dude charged in and started talking to us all really fast. I can’t simulate it except to say that he reminded me of Rain Man when he goes “two minutes to wapner…gotta get my boxer shorts…K-Mart.” So he’s going at us really really fast, and we realize that he was one of the continued assessment dudes. Oh boy. I think he’d confuse the dog. I can just hear it. Juneau left right sit down stay. Holy crap what am I supposed to do? So we’re all doubled over because he’s so hillarious. And we all vowed that before class was out, we would watch Rain Man because of him.

And then stuff started to go straight to hell. Not in a bad way, but a look how immature we can get kind of way. We started nicknaming each other. Amy became seizure Augustus because that’s what she named the stuffed puppy that we gave her. I became rubber gills..well..long story time. I said that the Ottawa school was held together by spit and rubber bands, which made Autumn laugh and laugh and laugh, and then I said I was stuffed to the gills after eating Chili and pear crisp, and she thought that was hillarious. I was going to be Canadian fish, but she thought rubber gills was funnier. Ok, so we’ve got Amy and I. Frank became drank because that’s what they wrote in his braille card at our seat assignment. By rights, I should have become Crin, but I’m not complaining. A few braille mistakes won’t kill me. So Frank is now Drank, or Jrank depending on what it says. This guy is hillarious. He’s so easy to make turn red. Now, the rest of them took longer. Autumn became Heave ho because…long story. David decided to show his assholery in more vivid colour today by attempting to football tackle Autumn for no good reason. Oh yeah, this dude keeps dropping change all over our room, which could get us in trouble when puppy comes. Oh, we spoke to him, it’s gotten us nowhere, and now this apparent physical violence is not sitting well with me. Autum and I are coming to see the instructors. Anyway, I called Autumn a human projectile because he was threatening to throw her over the entertainment centre. So then I said something about heaving her, and I was like, not heave like puke, heave like heave ho! So she’s Heave Ho! Jill is Rec because…long story again. When we first met Matt, AKA Rain Man, he said something about not liking the south because there were way too many red-neck evangellical christians out there. And we said something about someone and Jill said, “Oh lord!” and the way she said it, it sounded like she was one of those. So she’s now Rec. Ok this is mean. Sylvia is now crash because she fell today pretty good and messed up her wrist. Carmen is Ave Maria because she sings all the time. Meredeth is smoky the bear because, oh my god our innocent little Meredeth smokes! I saw Bernard, who we now call snooze, getting a smoke from her! Yeah you can guess why we call Bernard Snooze. Al is Mouse. And David? Well? He’s Pizza Booky. He was Booky because he was being a book nird and not talking to anyone, so we called him booky because it had a double meaning, and then he ordered pizza, and so we called him pizza booky. He’s also been known as Jingle bells because Matt called him that when actually it was one of the staff’s puppies going by. He was called Elvis because he can do a pretty good Elvis impression and did he have another nickname? I don’t think so. So we have now nicknamed our class the class of oceans 11. We don’t know what happened to no. 12, but oh well.

What else can I say? Oh! Two things.

1. Everybody here loves dogs, I mean not just likes dogs loves them. Has puppy raised them, has career change dogs, I have never seen a more dedicated group of people from the admissions staff right down to the kitchen staff. Um, wow.

2. I had a little interview thingy with all four instructors where they asked me if there was anything else they needed to know when it came to matching me with woofer. I said I liked working with the second puppy better because she didn’t require a lot of correcting. They all had puppies in there and the whole room smelled like woofer. I asked them questions about how to prevent the dog from licking people’s coffee cup, and the chewing thing, and they said they’d give me a gental leader! I love these people.

So, Wednesday will be the beautiful day. Now, must transpose this, and fall down to sleep.

Carin’s Guide Dog Diary: Day 1

Holy crap it’s happening. I’m on the plane. I’m on the plane I’m on the plane! Man oh man what an early rise this morning. I’m so glad I packed yesterday afternoon. It was such a relaxed day yesterday. I had everything planned out. I was actually able to enjoy having mom and dad around. It’s funny. For this trip, I really didn’t want mom and dad to drive me to the airport. I thought I wouldn’t be able to say proper goodbyes to people, pack, etc. but because I started packing on Friday, I really didn’t have to do much packing once they got here. I could just hug them. I could hug grandma too, she sent me some money! Sweet! Much love to Grandma. I mean I’d already taken out the American money and all that, but unexpected dough is always a pleasant surprise. Anyway, I got all packed and got up this morning and didn’t have to do much last-minute preparing. Ok, this was funny. We left at 5 in the bloody morning. My flight was at 8:40. That should have given us enough time to have a nice
breakfast at this truckstop that dad likes, right? Wrong! Bzzz! Sound the buzzer. Not if you’re my dear old dad and decide you’re going to try and take a shortcut to Highway 25. We end up wandering aimlessly around *guelph*! for a half an hour. So guess where we ate breakfast? At the airport! Ouchers on the pocketbook. I couldn’t believe it when, at around 5:30, dad says, um we’re at Victoria road. Oo there’s York Road. Uh, chief? that’s in Guelph still! *arg*! And that was the part I was the least worried about. I figured mom and dad knew how to find the airport. Arggy.

We get to the airport, and holy crap this group of two in front of us take forever to get processed, and we managed to lose dad! He went to the washroom and took forever to find us again. I was starting to worry the group in front of us had been flagged as a security threat they were taking so long. Well they weren’t getting shoved over to the side, so that was good. Anyway, at 7, we finally get seen, they stamp my passportt and look at my ticket and give me a bording pass. They tell me I should get my butt back to the waiting area by 7:30 and they’ll help me through. So we wolf a breakfast so fast and then we go use the washrooms. So they take me back to the waiting area, and we twittle our thumbs for another 20 minutes! Gees! I would have eaten much slower if I’d known we had 20 more minutes. Then they started taking me through the various gates, etc. and holy crap I felt like the hot potato in a game of, well, hot potato. First dude leads me through and this scary woman asks me where I’m going, but starts to smile as soon as I tell her I’m going to get a guide woofer. Then, they pass me off to a security dude who leads me through this area that’s beeping and beeping and beeping. I have to take all my stuff that I’m taking on the plane with me off. So that’s this elba doodad, my fanny pack, my purse, my coat, and even my cane! I told them the elba was a computer, and I didn’t even get asked to turn it on. Awesome! Then I get everything back and the security dude hands me off to this woman who hoofs me through a gate almost to the plane, and then two flight attendants decide to help me. It’s really weird watching your luggage get put on the belt. After every leg of the journey and each time I was passed off to someone else, it took everything not to ask if they had my bags. Not that I’m complaining about how they treated me or anything, it was just a lot of pass-offs. They were pretty cool, telling me how many rows back the washrooms were, where the life vest was god forbid I ever need it, the jazz about the oxygen masks. I’m in a window seat. There’s a dude two seats over in the aisle seat. He seems pretty nice. We haven’t said much to each other, but he was cool enough to help me with the jammed final section of my stupid cane. Ha ha, cane, your days are numbered once again! I can’t believe this is actually real. It’s 10:15 now, so 7:15 California time. I still have lots of flying time. I wish this stupid headache would go away. It’s not horrible, but it’s annoying. Luckily I brought some Advil with me. Man I hate saying goodbye. I suck at it. I always feel like I’m being rushed off elsewhere. The goodbye was so quick with mom and dad. I said I’d let them know when I was at San Rafael. Those poor souls, having to drive home now. They’ll be driving about as long as I’ll be flying. I’m so excited! Heehee!

Man there was this weird older lady in a wheelchair. While we were waiting to be the hot potatos in the great old hot potato game, she kept referring to all of us as the cripples. Ok, that’s one way of putting it. My poor confused parents. They somehow thought I was flying directly into San Rafael even though I’d been telling them it’s San Francisco! It’s San Francisco! They kept asking people where the flight to San Rafael was. Oy yoy. But I love them. God the airport was a zoo. Just to get from parking to the airport was all screwy, and then we had to find the floor we were supposed to be on, which wasn’t exactly easy. But at least finding food wasn’t hard. They had pictures of knives and forks directing us there.

I didn’t get a chance to get headphones. I was really sleepy when they were coming around with headsets. Apparently you get to keep them now. Allrighty then. Poor Steve, having to share a rented headset with someone else. That would have sucked balls.

I’m so restless. I know I still have just under four hours to go, but I’m so restless. It’s funny. If I’m riding the bus, I’m not nearly this bad. But then again, I’m never riding the bus to woofer school.

God I hate being short. The call button is out of my reach. Not that I need anything right now, but if I did, I have to bug the dude two seats over and ask him to push it for me. Stupid shrimpiness.

I hope poor Steve got some sleep. When you have to get up at 4 to catch a plane, that’s one thing. When you’re just awake because everyone else is running around getting ready to leave, and you have a stupid cold, that just sucks. There’s a baby on the plane who isn’t very happy. Not fun, not fun at all. Guess there isn’t much else to say yet. I’ll say more when I get settled in my room. I wonder who my room-mate’ll be. Stop hurting, you stupid head! Ok, I must be crazy, talking to my own head. Hopefully no one’s bored yet. Now maybe I’ll go write a list of questions I want to ask the instructors. Well that didn’t take long. I swear I had more questions. I’m sure I’ll think of them. Man I hope the time-change doesn’t mess with me. With all the sleep deprivation I’ve had, I hope I sleep like a baby. Oh, guess who I get to meet tomorrow? Sue…Sullivan? She said I meet her tomorrow. Man it was cool calling and getting my phone number. They say when we arrive in San Francisco it’ll be 20 degrees! How cool is that? Man over the last week I’ve been saying How cool is that? a lot. Should stop doing that. Maybe I should stop writing for a while until I have something useful to say. only 3.5 hours to go. Gick I’m restless. Damn I’m tired. Must remember my cane when the flight is over. It had to be stowed. It must be the relief that this is actually happening. I was actually able to have a nap. Slept for a half-hour. Man the lady who does the French has trouble. Oh, the weirdest thing happened when I was getting on the plane. One attendant asked the other if I could read French braille. French braille? What the? I said it wasn’t my native tongue. What did they have in French braille that they wanted to give me. That was weird. Oh crap I wonder if the seatbelt sign is on. Well nobody’s telling me to shove this underneath. Ooo we’re supposed to arrive early. 20 minutes early. Hope the instructors will be there. Only 2.5 hours to go then!

Man I feel like a fool. They came around offering drinks and I asked for a snack, fully intending to pay, but they somehow teefed a little bag of cornchips from the first class snack stash. Oops. And they not only got one for me, but they got one for the dude sitting in the aisle seat of this row. I feel bad, I haven’t spoken a word to him. For some reason I’m shy. All I know about him is he likes to read, from the amount of page-flipping I’ve heard. 55 minutes to go. come on come on come on! Man I wish I knew what to do with my garbage. I don’t want to set it on the tray like some kind of shlub. But this isn’t like the bus where there’s a garbage bag beside me. My head still hurts damn it.

Well, I’m off the plane! I’m now sitting in the bus. I’m the only one here. We arrived early. It was lucky I wrote down the instructor’s cell number. I phoned her and said hey dude we’re early. She’s like ok come to baggage claim. My god that time at baggage claim was the longest ever. But finally both my bags showed up, safe and sound. So she led me out here to this bus and gave me a sandwich, a cookie and a water! She even told me where I could get more water if I wanted it. She’s off getting more students. Get this. Some people do worse than I did in Ottawa. They bring so much luggage that the instructors need a cart! A cart? Good lord! She said I packed “quite reasonably.” This is good to hear. Hahaha. So anyway, she led me here, and I’ve now eaten a turkey sandwich. I had a scary moment where I thought the turkey was going to disagree with me and I was going to lose my lunch right on this bus. Ouch that’s a loud horn. Hope that doesn’t mean anything bad. But luckily for me, I didn’t hurl. That would have been uber embarrassing. So I’m sitting here, waiting, apparently seven more are coming, I want to meet them. I wanna meet them now now now! I wonder which one of them will be my room-mate. Maybe none of them will be, and it’ll be one of the other four that I guess are driving? I don’t know. Heehee I’m in the GDB bus! So far I’ve met Jen. She seems nice, we had a good giggle all the way to the bus so that’s cool. Come on it’s almost noon, I wanna meet more folks. She was impressed that I wrote down her cell phone number and had it on me to call her. Well duh, that’s what they gave it to us for. But maybe I’m just anal about making sure I get where I’m going, hahahaha. Damn my head it still hurts. I felt sorry for the flight attendants. They were getting yelled at by some woman who thinks she’s so important because she’s in first class and knows french,and she thinks the french lady said the wrong flight numbers or something. She wouldn’t leave them alone! I managed to learn that the dude sitting in the aisle seat lives in Toronto, goes to Greenwood College, and was visiting his aunt at Burkley. Man it’s warm in the sun. Heehee it’s nice here. Guess I’ll stop for now and eat my fig newton now that my stomach settled down. Ug that was scary. Ok it’s now 12:10. I really hope someone shows up soon. Is everyone lost but me? 7 lost people? Holy lord! I know it only seems like an eternity because the plane landed at 11 and I guess it took a while to get my bags and get out here. But eek eek I hope someone gets here soon cause this is mildly spooky. Ok this beast decided to get all weird. Ok it seems fine now. Icky I’m sweating. It’s 12:15. Ok I took my coat off. Jebus I’m hot. Met one person, Jill. has four kids and a grandbaby. not my room-mate. Two more people just joined us. Sylvia and David, seem to be together. *What was I smoking? They were just on the same flight. David is a highschool senior, I don’t know what to make of him. He’s very quiet, but when he speaks, he’s a total asshole. I didn’t think much of one of the guys from my Ottawa class either though and he changed, so maybe this’ll be the same. Sylvia is very much older than young David! Oh god I was stupid to think they were together. I guess Sylvia lived in Oakville at one point. Met my room-mate, Autumn. This could be interesting. She’s happy to have a Canadian Room-mate so she can come to Canada sometime. Ok then. She’s a ball of energy. Carmen is a quiet lady. David won’t get off his phone. Very odd. Bernard sounds like my friend Anton. He scares me a little. He had a giant suitcase. He’s weird. Later on, he fell asleep while they were reading the code of conduct/contract. And I don’t mean drift off, I mean snore snore snore! Um ok. He doesn’t speak much, and when he does, he mumbles and talks very very slowly. Then there’s Amy. I think I’ll like Amy. She’s from South Carolina. She not so proudly says her town was the birthplace of the KKK. She made fun of Autumn for treating me like some kind of alien entity, being Canadian. Then she said, “Well, now you can go back and say you’ve officially met a redneck hillbillie.

Have I got everyone? Autumn and I, Jill and Amy, David and Bernard and Sylvia and Carmen. Yup. So we all took off, and went for a bus ride that seemed to take for frickin ever! Then we finally arrived, and one by one, they led us to our rooms. My room was right after this funky loading lounge thingy, so that confused the hell out of me. My room’s pretty cool. They even brailled out instructions for the phone! How cool is this? Oh there I go again. But you can dial a number and get your class schedule for the next day, the menu, and all that stuff. Pretty sweet.

Then the alarm clock, ug the alarm clock. Now that I’ve mastered the beast, it’s all cool, but it was a stubborn sucker. It also helps when you find the switches on the sides. Uh-huh, that was not so brilliant.

They took us for a tour. If I could just tie things together from one side of the hall to the other, I think I’d get it. But I can find the day room, dining room, my room, which his key, and the computer room. I know where the nurse’s room is if I need it, because it’s right by this buzzing laundry room. I’m happy. The dryers are stacked, but the buttons are in the middle! I won’t need a stool like in Ottawa!

It felt like I could never unpack. I’d just get started and the phone would ring, or I’d have to go somewhere. We had to go and meet at 5 and they had to read out the boring stuff, and, er, Bernard had a nap. We met the rest of the class then. There’s this slow but sweet lady named Meredeth I think that’s how you spell it, a loud rehab counsellor dude named Frank, and a guy named Al who seems very quiet and stuff.

Then we went for dinner! Mmm prime rib! And espresso ice cream. and then I wonder why I’m still awake. But I’m gonna keal soon. I’m finally unpacked and stuff. I’ve felt very anti-social today, but there’s so much to process! But this place rocks! I think that’s everything for today. If I think of anything else important, I’ll throw it in another entry.

Odd Combination Of Things Number 3

Sorry for not having this posted sooner, but between seeing a friend I don’t see much, setting up my new computer, going away to see family, seeing something that made me profoundly upset [possible post to come on that one], running around getting a bunch of things done so I don’t have to think about them anymore, getting a cold that my family gave me, having Carin’s family stay with us for a couple of days and now seeing her off to California for a month, there just hasn’t been a lot of time or energy going into the site lately. I’ll do my best to work on that, but I apologize if the next little while is a bit light, I’m feeling kind of out of it these days.

As usual, some of these links might not work by the time you see them. I’m going to keep saying that because I know if I don’t I’ll get yelled at by retarded people, and I don’t like getting yelled at. It makes me angry and I tend to lash out and not act very nice.

Ok, let’s go.

*I agree with everything in this column accept for the title.
the problem with digital downloads is the DRM *and* the music.

*Nothing bad happened and I’m sure it won’t end up being a huge story, but this made me chuckle so I’ll throw it in.
Not-so-precise Swiss army unit mistakenly invades Liechtenstein

*And maybe it’s for the best that the invasion was a mistake, since according to
this,
Swiss tanks have trouble surviving collisions with farm tractors, so they’d probably be screwed in an actual war.

*Here’s an
amusing article
about remote-controlled pigeons and other equally valuable technologies and what they could mean for the future.

*If you’re looking to get yourself one of those
beer launching fridges
I mentioned
last week
and really, why wouldn’t you be,
here
is the official site, featuring lots of explanations of how it works, a video of the thing in action and contact info for the great man who invented it.

*It’s stuff like this that makes me want to kill somebody. Police near Sarnia pulled over a man who was driving 40 kilometres over the posted speed limit of 80 and watching a television that he had mounted on his passenger side visor,
and all they could give him was a $295 fine.

*On a similar note,
it is not ok to shave while you drive,
especially when you’re a safety expert who helps police with accident investigations.

*Note to criminal masterminds everywhere: It is never a good idea to
offer cash to young children if they’ll piss in a cup so you can use their urine samples as your own at your parole hearing.

*Also, if your job is making drug deliveries, you might want to consider getting drunk *after* you get the loot out of your car, just in case you happen to
drive into a state trooper’s cruiser.

*Then again, if that happens you could always
try to claim that if you had only not let the unicorn drive, none of this would have happened.

*Sign number 3144952 that the world has gone completely friggin nuts:
Organizers of a children’s entertainment festival tried to have the Three Little Pigs removed from a show so as not to offend Muslims.
Thankfully, logic and reason prevailed for once.

*I’m not sure what’s stranger. The fact that there is such a thing as a mailbox in which you can put an unwanted baby, or that a fully grown drunken man smoking a cigarette was
able to fit himself inside of one.

*If you’re looking for something to read after you’re done here, consider trying to track down some of this year’s contenders for
oddest book title.
My favourite? “People Who Don’t Know They’re Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It”. Yes, I know that one was technically from last year, it just happened to be the funniest one on the list, followed closely by “How Green Were the Nazis?” a book about, yes, the environmental policies of Hitler and company.

And speaking of being done here, I think that’s all for today. I’m hungry, I’m tired, I’m finished. I’m also buried in email, but I can always use more, so feel free to send along anything you think I might be interested in. I’ll be back with more later, including the first of Carin’s guide dog diaries. See you soon.

A Shining Star

I knew something was missing in that hodgepodge. Man, even though my sleep is much better, thanks to probably a decreasing list of things to do, and sleepytime tea, my sleep is still somewhat screwy and that leaves me absent-minded and doing a lot of stupid stuff. Like today for example. Every time I went to leave the laundry room, I’d go the wrong way! Like, what?

There’s one big thing that I meant to mention in that last post. Ah hell, maybe that’s for the best, maybe it deserves its own post anyway. That big thing is that Star Computer Services is awesome! If you need a computer, I’m sure he’d build you a fine one. But more importantly, if you’re a blink and you need a computer, you should so talk to him. He is the best access technology vendor I’ve seen in a long time. Let me make a list outlining his awesomeness.

  • When you contact him and tell him you want a computer, he will tell you exactly what your computer will consist of. Most other vendors just give you sizes and stuff, but not brand names.

  • He’s damn fast! He’s an email fiend, and he knows his stuff.

  • I’ve seen two examples of his handywork, and they’re both fine, fine machines.

  • After you get your machine, he’s actually good for the tech support if you need it.

  • He sells other stuff, and at good prices too!

  • When you buy stuff through him, he tells you how you can claim it on your taxes for medical expenses. How cool is that?

  • And here’s the coolest. When he had to send something to Steve through the mail that Steve had to sign and send back, he brailled on the outside of the envelope, and made a line you could feel where he had to sign. This man thinks of everything.

I want this man to be in business when I need my next computer, so if anyone needs anything access-technology-related, I highly recommend you check if he sells it, and give him a try!

Thought Hodgepodge

I just felt like posting about a bunch of stuff, and since this is going to be the last bit of sanity I have before my life gets turned upside-down by guide dog school and puppy’s arrival, not that I’m complaining, I figured I should take it!

So it’s 3 days to go, can you believe it? I know I can’t. Strangely enough, it feels more unreal now that I can look at the tickets, my travel insurance letter, the American money I got than it did when I was waiting for the package. Things are falling o so smoothly into place.

I’m looking forward to the weather there. This week has been awesome here, but today it chilled right off. A few days ago, they were threatening a winter storm for this weekend, which sent my guts into knots. When was the winter storm? This weekend! When do I fly out? This weekend! But the threat of nasty blizards seems to have lessened. Now that I’ve said the weather looks good in California, I’ll feel like a rubber ducky because it’ll rain and rain and rain! Ah it’ll still be fun.
But I may have jynxed myself today by doing the unthinkable. I may have sent myself into peril by, *gasp*, deleting a chain letter. It claims if I delete a letter telling people how much I love them, hateful things will happen to me. Even if I send it on, but not to enough people, hateful things will happen to me. What is that? Message of love from the mob? Tell your family you love them or else…we’ll wack you and everyone you care about? God I hate those forwards. I hate the tone, I hate the guilt, I hate it all. They assume I don’t tell the people I love how much they matter. What if I do, and what if I, horror of horrors, use my own words to say it? But if a plane bound for Sanfrancisco out of Toronto crashes on Sunday morning, I guess we’ll know why, hahaha. Wow I feel evil.

But the best part about getting this forward was what the person sent it said on the top. She said, “Sorry.” Sorry? If she didn’t want to send the forward, and felt she needed to apologize for it, why did she send it? Did someone have a gun to her head? Did they tell her they’d personally make sure bad things happened to her if she didn’t send it to 50 people right now? What was up with that?

And here’s something baffling. A commercial came on for some Crayola product, and at the end, they said, “Look for it in the Crayola aisle.” Crayola gets its own aisle? Ok, this is how I picture an aisle. It’s got two sides, each with multiple shelves. Crayola needs a whole one of these just for its stuff? Holy crap that’s a lot of Crayola, and I must be out of touch when it comes to the sheer amount of drawing supplies out there!

Is that really all I can think of? Damn that’s disappointing. I swear I’m forgetting something, but my mind is so muddled with things to remember to pack, remember to do, when my parents are coming to help me with some last minute jobs, all manner of crap. I’m going to try and do something cool. I’m going to keep a journal of what guide dog class is like, and I’m going to email it home to Steve who’s going to slip in as me and post it for me. If I’m lucky, I’ll even get a picture of my new puppy to put up! Yea! We can post photos now!

So If I don’t post something before Sunday…you’ll probably be glad to be free of my jabber for a while. Hope it warms up again so we can all enjoy it!

R.I.P, Richard Jeni

I was saddened to hear about the weekend suicide of Richard Jeni, who was without a doubt one of the world’s greatest comedians.

I’ve noticed a few searches in our stats looking for information on what happened to him, so I thought I would print this statement from his family.

A statement from the family of Richard Jeni 

Often times, when we are faced with a sudden and tragic loss, there is a natural curiosity – a need to know what exactly happened.

The family of Richard Jeni would like to put to rest any assumptions as to the cause of Richard’s death. Despite the fact that the coroner’s office has publicly stated that a suicide ruling will take two weeks, pending the results of an autopsy, Richard Jeni did take his own life.

Rumors have been circulating as to the cause of his death and have included speculation of Richard being depressed over the state of his career or a physical ailment. His career was not even addressed by his specialists when they were trying to diagnose Richard’s illness. In fact, he had just enjoyed one of his most financially rewarding years to date. He was consistently creating new material for his busy touring schedule, and during the last week of his life, he had meetings scheduled with Chris Albrecht, Chairman and CEO of HBO, to discuss future projects following his last HBO special. In actuality, the past few years had been more prolific than ever. As his agents can attest, prior to his illness, Richard only missed one engagement in over twenty years, and that was due to weather.

The truth is: earlier this year Richard Jeni was diagnosed with severe clinical depression coupled with bouts of psychotic paranoia. One only needs to have a family member or friend with a mental illness to understand that there is nothing rational, predictable, or fair about these diseases. Mental illness is as serious as any physical affliction and can be just as devastating.

He was not down or blue, he was ill. If you knew Richard, you could understand, this was as much a shock to those close to him, as it is to his fans and colleagues. Perhaps Richard’s passing will encourage people to have sympathy, compassion and understanding for those who are afflicted with mental illness. As we are all trying to make sense of this, take time to remember the joy and laughter Richard brought to the countless people he touched during his much too short life.

As for me, I don’t have much to say in terms of a eulogy, I think his friends are doing a much better job of that than I could ever hope to do. But since I’m here and writing about him now, I guess the best thing I could say is thank you. Thank you for the years of laughter your work has given to me and to anyone else who considers themselves fans. Thank you for helping me through a lot of bad days, for forcing me to smile and laugh when those things felt impossible. But most of all, thank you for giving so much of yourself to make the world a little bit happier and a whole lot funnier. I’m not much for all that religious stuff, but I hope that wherever you are now is treating you well, and I hope you realize how much we’ll miss you here.

Not Everything that Looks Stupid is Totally Stupid

A week or so ago, a friend of mine sent me these two complaint letters from a group of blind people who call themselves the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians. One was complaining about the commercials that the CNIB put out that say “not everyone who looks blind is totally blind. 90% of the people we assist have some vision.” and show either a woman using a white cane and ogling a construction worker who takes off his shirt or a boy waving his hand in front of a dude with a cane and then getting a shock when the dude waves back. The other complaint letter was in reference to a proposal to have a channel which would have an audio description of all its programming instead of people needing to press the sap button to turn it on.

When I first received the letters, I couldn’t bring myself to read them. I was already mad. I love the fact that these advocacy groups exist, when they advocate for reasonable things. Some of them are very extreme and they’re the ones that get attention. Usually, they try and say they speak for all of us, which they obviously do not. They claim that their way is the only way to do things, and refuse to believe that everyone does things differently. Somewhere in the US, I forget where and wouldn’t even know where to begin to google such a thing, there was a proposal to put audible signals, the chirpy cuckoo things, at every traffic light. I figure hell, if that’s what they want to do, and they can do it, go ahead. That wasn’t the stance of the NFB, National Federation of the Blind. They decided to stand out there protesting, saying that this reflected a feeling that we couldn’t cross the streets on our own. Only in your opinion, buddy. People who can see don’t have to follow traffic patterns. They watch for the little white man with the walk sign. This is just the same. But they stood out there making a scene, saying that none of us wanted this. Hey dude, if you don’t want it, there’s a simple solution, don’t push the button! What if your mom just went blind and hadn’t mastered listening for traffic and the audible signal made her feel safer crossing streets? Sure, I think you should learn how to listen in case the chirpy cuckoo thing breaks, but if a city wants to put the signal in, for god’s sake let them!

This isn’t the only time the actions of theNFB have pissed me off. They have training centres across the states, and I’ve heard more than a few rumbling rumours that if people come there with guide dogs, their dogs are shunned because they are looked down upon. They are forced to be separated from their dogs and train with a cane! Um, excuse me? If you got a dog and went to a decent school, it’s because you were good with a cane. This is a pile of bullshit.

So, it was with more than a little bit of dread that I read these letters to see what they had to say. I was going to slow-roast them here, in that light. But now that I’ve read them, I’m more torn than ever.

Let’s start with the CNIB commercials. Ok, I’ll admit when I first saw the commercial, I was offended. I thought, “So what are the totally blind clients? Chopped liver? Do we not matter? Is it more important to have vision and be served by the CNIB than to be totally blind?” I already felt like a lot of the products sold by the CNIB required you to have vision to use them even though they claimed to talk.

But then someone told me what the commercials were like, and I laughed! I thought it was great that the tables got turned on the kid who waved his hands in the face of the dude at the bus stop. People get so confused about blindness. They think we live in a world of blackness, and they can’t understand that there are degrees. Some of us see light, some of us see light and shadows, some of us can see better at night but worse in the day, some have the reverse problem, some can see objects but don’t ask them to read a sign, some of us need large print, and up it goes.

When I asked someone at CNIB about it, they said it was because they were hearing that people who had some vision loss felt they couldn’t approach the CNIB because they weren’t blind yet. So these commercials were trying to make them feel there was a place for them.

So I thought, great! The commercials are jokingly saying, we’re not all totally
blind. I thought that, as a side benefit, maybe it would stop the staring that goes on every day. To the people who stare and gawk, don’t think I don’t know. Sometimes I’m with friends who either stare back or tell me what’s going on. So I thought maybe these commercials might make people think twice about staring at me like I’m some kind of circus act.

But the letter objecting to the commercials is claiming the opposite is happening to them. People are actually getting stopped on the street and told that the person stopping them on the street has seen the commercials, and now they know the truth, that the blind person really can see and is just pretending. Some kid tried to mimic the commercial, and unfortunately got a nasty surprise when the blind guy grabbed his hand and told him to stop it. So people are actually noticing an increase in bullshit because of these commercials. Part of me thinks the people doing the harassing would have found another reason to do it anyway. Dicks are dicks, and one commercial isn’t going to cause a transformation from decent guy to super dick. But it sucks if it’s contributing to crap. I’ve never had anything weird like that happen, but maybe I’m just lucky.

Another claim made by the complaining group is that if the CNIB is trying to make it clear that they have services available to people who have some vision, why aren’t they mentioned. Ok, obviously these people haven’t worked in advertising. Neither have I, but I know that if you spent a whole commercial just listing services, you’d get the attention of exactly no one.

Their last claim is that the white cane will lose its effectiveness as an indicator of low vision because people will think of the commercial and think the person using the cane can see anyway. If people do, they’re stupid. It says right in the comercial, *some* vision. Already, some people have no regard for the white cane, or for the pedestrian for that matter. Steve’s cane that got turned into a pretzle at a street corner is a testament to that. I don’t think the commercial will change the minds of anyone with, well, half a functioning brain. And the rest are already stupid.

And then there was the other letter that got sent about the audio description being added to a channel. They’re claiming that adding it to only one channel promotes segregation, and it should be automatically on on every channel. Ok, whatever.

First off, I don’t think your average TV-watcher wants to have what they’re seeing described audibly, the same way they’d be irritated if everything they were hearing was automatically scrolled across the screen as if they were deaf. Description is becoming available more and more through the TV’s secondary audio program, you just have to push a few buttons, and if the description is that important to you, you’ll figure out the buttons you have to press.

Second, just adding it to one channel is going to cost approximately $25 a year. Are these people actually thinking we can all afford $25 per channel that exists? That’s a lot of dough!

The point of this channel is it’s a neat idea, having it on automatically. If you go to it, you know you’re going to get description. But it would be ridiculous to have it on everywhere. You would piss off more people than you would help, and why do that when the SAP option is perfectly available on most TV’s?

Ug complaint letters. Somehow I feel like this post has gotten away from me. I don’t know how to feel about the first one. I think it’s over the top, but if this commercial campaign is actually causing problems, then the CNIB should know about it. The second one is just ridiculous. What they’re asking for is never going to happen and they look like whining babies.

Something Tells Me This One’s Not a Career Criminal

Do I really need to say anything? Taken from the Guelph Mercury.

Criminal calls police for help breaking into church

STEVENS POINT, WIS. (Mar 7, 2007)

If only all criminals were this helpful. A 24-year-old man called police to tell them he was trying to break into a church but he wasn’t having much luck.

Police said the found the man waiting at St. Paul’s Lutheran church. He told them he had hoped to be married in the church and was trying to use a metal shovel to break through the doors. Officers searched the man and found marijuana.

He then invited them to his home, where he told them they would find more drugs. They did. He showed them his stash of marijuana and stolen prescription drugs.

It’s Not really that special, it just made me laugh.

The Next Phase in the Guide Dog Saga

I hope this post doesn’t bore too many people, but I thought someone might be interested in this, so off we go.

I got my acceptance package from Guide Dogs on Wednesday, and it’s pretty cool. Man, these people think of everything. They even sent luggage labels with pictures of dogs on them that you’re supposed to stick on your bags so the people picking you up at the airport know they’re your bags! How absolutely super awesome cool is that? When I saw the sheer pile of paper in the package, I sort of cringed. But then I saw the computer disk, and it seems that everything they sent in print, they put on the disk. I should have known, their application package was just that cool.

Then I saw my tickets! Now that is a cool feeling, looking at the tickets for the flight that’s going to take me to doggy school! March 18 is going to be an early, early morning. But that’s ok, I probably won’t be able to sleep, I’ll be so excited.

I started reading over the files on the disk, and couldn’t help but be amazed at how thorough they were. They said when a good time to visit would be, they detailed all the stuff they had in their dorms, they even gave the wifi key out for anyone who was interested in using their wireless network. Again, how cool is that? They mentioned things to bring, things that were provided, and things that I wished the school in Ottawa had mentioned, like the fact that you’re going to be bringing home more gear than you came with, sparky, so don’t pack your bags to capacity or you’ll be sorry. I remember that moment when I realized how stupidly I’d packed when I went to guide dog school last time, and was very happy mom and dad were driving me back to Guelph, because otherwise I would have been screwed.

I kept reading over files. There was a file to help you explain things to friends and family, a file with their smoking policy, the contract that you have to sign, their code of conduct, a file explaining what would happen if the unthinkable happened and they decided they had to take the dog back and you disputed it, a welcome letter, an overview of some stuff, even a file explaining what a typical day of training would be like! The school in Ottawa never did that. I didn’t know what the hell I was in for at all. Then I saw a file called communication protocol and I was too curious. I opened it, started to read, and all I could think was my oh my oh my.

Ok, this file was created to help resolve conflicts between students. It explicitly told you not to talk behind the person’s back to other students or staff, and to go to them directly to solve the problem. I totally agree, but we’re all adults here, has it really been proven to them that they have to explicitly spell this out for people? Based on what I’ve seen with their other info, I’m saddened to think that it has. Ug what kind of petty bullshit happens during classes? I know they’re stressful, and by the end of Ottawa’s class, I was getting a bit cranky, but I knew why I was cranky, so I tried my best not to take it out on anyone. That’s what journals are for. Write it out and do the best you can to understand it so you can put it away. I think my favourite line is ” If your intention is to prove the other person wrong and yourself right…there is no possibility of resolution.” Can’t you just hear the strains of “now children, play nice” right about now?

It goes on to explain how you should come to the person and talk about it with them, and if that time is not a good one for them, schedule one. They felt it necessary to *tell* you to thank them for talking to you. In great detail, they tell you how you should say what the problem is and let them paraphrase it back so you know they heard it. Then they should say their side of it and you should summarize it back, and then come up with a plan to fix it, which you must follow through on, of course.

Oh, my, god. I feel likeI’m back in grade 6. Maybe we should get out the penny jar and everyone has to put in a penny when they put another person down. I’m not mad at the school, they obviously feel like this is necessary based on years of experience. I’m more disappointed that that’s the experience they had.

Then I got a call from the nurse at the school. They even have nurses on staff. It’s a good thing she called, because my doctor is full of crap. You have to send in a medical form, which he filled out, and the asshole told them I had chronic fatigue with an unknown cause! Me? Chronic fatigue? I don’t think so. Sure, there was a time when my health took a plunge, but that was situational, which means, um, it’s not chronic!

Just process that for a while. If I was on a guide dog selection committee and I read that someone had chronic fatigue, I’d think that because of all the walking and training, maybe this isn’t for them. I could have been nixed because of that damn false statement! The doc and I are going to have a talk, trust me.

Then he didn’t even bother to put down what medicines I take. Ok, if you’re going to say the wrong things sometimes, the least you can do is not omit the right things the rest of the time. He has my damn file. And if he needed clarification, couldn’t he have talked to me? Oh well, lesson learned, and luckily for me, no harm done. He won’t be filling out any more forms, and if I have to have him doing it, I’m going over it before it goes out!

Soon, I will be there, and I know I’ll be in good hands if all this stuff is any indication.