Hello All!
Lots of you all who read know I do cued speech. However I am only fluent in I am able to read it. It is quite fascinating to read and see because you can compare the mass difference between ASL and Cued.
I asked a buddy of mine who is also fluent in both ASL and Cued and he happily obliged to do a tiny Cued clip to show us all what it's like. I thought we have vlogs in ASL, lets have one in Cued!
Thanks again for doing this.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Voting for the First Time
November fourth was truly an amazing and historic day. No matter who you chose history was going to be made. I was able to vote for the first time in my life as a 21 year old. I reside in Southern Illinois, which is primarily a Republic area, while central and north Illinois was primarily democratic. Everyone urged me and others to vote. I have to admit it kind of got a bit annoying though. While yes we have the right to vote, and people fought for the right, let me remind you they also fought for us to have the CHOICE. We have great freedom in being able to decide if we want to vote or not. Do not look down on those who chose not to vote, that is their RIGHT as much as it is yours to vote too. Those who did not vote should not be looked down upon or that entirely defeats the point of living in this great country of ours.
Now as I mentioned earlier I did decide to vote simply because of what was being offered here. This was history in the making. I was deciding between an African-American president on the democratic side and also the possibility of the first woman vice president too. No matter the outcome and I truly was looking forward to seeing who own, it was going to be historical and it was going to be in our kids social studies books. So I wanted to be able to vote in this election and help decide along with everyone else whom I believed would serve us best as the president.
I walked into the building and it at first didn’t really mean much to me. It wasn’t hitting me so to speak; after all I was simply filling out a ballot and then sending it off. However I opened the ballot and looked and was struck at the power I had under me. I saw names you wouldn’t expect to see appear. A woman name under the vice president ballot. A name belonging to an African American as a president ballot. It was just amazing to me and immediately I felt a sense of pride almost.
I put down my choices and put it in the ballot. The woman said thanks so much and she mentioned if it was my first time? I said yes how did you know? She goes your smile, its showing pride. With that I held my head up high and walked out of the building almost wanting to tear up because of the freedom we have to do so many things in this country.
When we got the outcome of the president, and who won, I was anxious to hear the speech. McCain gave an outstanding speech. He showed great, and immense respect to acknowledge that the USA had spoken. Courage and respect and triumphant was shown. He spoke with honor and I was almost just as proud to know he had a part in this campaign and did his own service for the United States. For that, I thank you McCain and good luck to you in anything else you do. He said it best that the families probably suffered more than the candidates themselves and I certainly agree.
It was on to Obama’s speech, and I couldn’t help but swell in pride and agree on many things. First off the bat, he mentioned the word “gay” in his speech. I don’t care where you come from, that is just honorable. It is a bit sad that HAS to be a big deal for him to be able to mention that word, but he did. There was no booing from anyone, and it was probably nice to hear him include that word along with everybody else, white, black, Jewish, Asian, straight or gay. I agreed with everyone else, change DID happen to America,
I believe we finally as a Country matured enough to be able to accept having Obama as a president and the popular vote and electoral vote proved that too. I am sure it was great for the African Americans to see one of their own get elected and I as a white person couldn’t be more proud of them too. They fought through a lot and they truly do deserve to finally have a president too.
One remark I heard from someone on TV a black person who was being interviewed, said, “we didn’t just elect a black president, we elected a white and black president. He hoped this showed that blacks and whites as well as anyone else could finally come together in this great country. Obama represents both of us, white and black. We should proud of that too.
I was disappointed to see results of other elections such as the events in CA, AZ and FL. However was really irked me was to see Arkansas make a new rule not allowing ANY single person to adopt a child or have foster kids. The target was gay people however I guess to be “equal” they included straight, single people too.
“Arkansas voters approved a measure banning unmarried couples from serving as adoptive or foster parents. Supporters made clear that gays and lesbians were their main target.”
LINK HERE
Anyhow, for those who voted, thank you for doing so. For those who didn’t, there is another one in four years! Congratulations to Obama and his family for this great accomplishment. McCain, I wish you the best of luck in whatever you do. I look forward to the next four years.
Alex
Now as I mentioned earlier I did decide to vote simply because of what was being offered here. This was history in the making. I was deciding between an African-American president on the democratic side and also the possibility of the first woman vice president too. No matter the outcome and I truly was looking forward to seeing who own, it was going to be historical and it was going to be in our kids social studies books. So I wanted to be able to vote in this election and help decide along with everyone else whom I believed would serve us best as the president.
I walked into the building and it at first didn’t really mean much to me. It wasn’t hitting me so to speak; after all I was simply filling out a ballot and then sending it off. However I opened the ballot and looked and was struck at the power I had under me. I saw names you wouldn’t expect to see appear. A woman name under the vice president ballot. A name belonging to an African American as a president ballot. It was just amazing to me and immediately I felt a sense of pride almost.
I put down my choices and put it in the ballot. The woman said thanks so much and she mentioned if it was my first time? I said yes how did you know? She goes your smile, its showing pride. With that I held my head up high and walked out of the building almost wanting to tear up because of the freedom we have to do so many things in this country.
When we got the outcome of the president, and who won, I was anxious to hear the speech. McCain gave an outstanding speech. He showed great, and immense respect to acknowledge that the USA had spoken. Courage and respect and triumphant was shown. He spoke with honor and I was almost just as proud to know he had a part in this campaign and did his own service for the United States. For that, I thank you McCain and good luck to you in anything else you do. He said it best that the families probably suffered more than the candidates themselves and I certainly agree.
It was on to Obama’s speech, and I couldn’t help but swell in pride and agree on many things. First off the bat, he mentioned the word “gay” in his speech. I don’t care where you come from, that is just honorable. It is a bit sad that HAS to be a big deal for him to be able to mention that word, but he did. There was no booing from anyone, and it was probably nice to hear him include that word along with everybody else, white, black, Jewish, Asian, straight or gay. I agreed with everyone else, change DID happen to America,
I believe we finally as a Country matured enough to be able to accept having Obama as a president and the popular vote and electoral vote proved that too. I am sure it was great for the African Americans to see one of their own get elected and I as a white person couldn’t be more proud of them too. They fought through a lot and they truly do deserve to finally have a president too.
One remark I heard from someone on TV a black person who was being interviewed, said, “we didn’t just elect a black president, we elected a white and black president. He hoped this showed that blacks and whites as well as anyone else could finally come together in this great country. Obama represents both of us, white and black. We should proud of that too.
I was disappointed to see results of other elections such as the events in CA, AZ and FL. However was really irked me was to see Arkansas make a new rule not allowing ANY single person to adopt a child or have foster kids. The target was gay people however I guess to be “equal” they included straight, single people too.
“Arkansas voters approved a measure banning unmarried couples from serving as adoptive or foster parents. Supporters made clear that gays and lesbians were their main target.”
LINK HERE
Anyhow, for those who voted, thank you for doing so. For those who didn’t, there is another one in four years! Congratulations to Obama and his family for this great accomplishment. McCain, I wish you the best of luck in whatever you do. I look forward to the next four years.
Alex
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Sucker Balls
Hello my friends! How was Halloween for everyone? I had a great time. October was an awesome month for me, getting to meet few friends and traveling once again to Philly and New Jersey. It seems every month I like to start it off with a bang about something funny with me. Today was absolutely NO exception.
First, I want to explain a bit about my hearing and how I understand people. While I am oral and can speak fluent English and read lips pretty darn well, even from the sides sometimes. I met a man who challenged me to no end. It certainly wasn’t any anal rice as abbie graciously shared with us. However this certainly was on par with sexual innuendos.
I was sitting at work on my laptop minding my own business when this young college student walks in. I spoke up and said, “Good afternoon how can I help you?”
He walked around and said something but because I read lips I couldn’t understand him. I asked him “Pardon?”
He turned to me and said, “Do you sell any sucker --*incoherent word*?”
I was almost taken aback at this request and was convinced I was not hearing him or reading his lips correctly. All I caught was sucker something.
I said, “Excuse me I didn’t understand what did you ask?” I recognize he had a heavy accent from what seemed to be Nigerian or somewhat.
He said “sucker balls (in my head OH BALLS!), do you sell any sucker balls I need one to play with today”
My eyes just rose at this young man. I was thinking really dirty stuff of course i.e., is this man gay and he is bored and wants something to suck on? Or better yet he hasn’t “had any” and he is desperate? I was like this isn’t a sex shop here!
So I once again asked him to repeat one more time, and this time I straightened up, flared my nose and burrowed my eyes to focus right on his lips. Trying all my powers to hear and pick up everything he was saying. And what came out of his mouth.
“I said, do you have any sucker balls? You know that you bounce and play with sometimes”
Now I am convinced he is being serious at this point. Without trying to embarrass myself and probably more than likely misunderstanding him I asked him to describe it. I thought maybe he was thinking of a candy they suck or something.
I said, “Sir, can you describe this sucker ball? Is this something you eat, lick or what?”
Now HE was taken aback and stared at me like I was the idiot and didn’t have a stinking clue what he was saying. He probably was thinking, “ok this boy is strange asking about my balls or something!”
I just stared at him with the utmost respect and straight face I could manage to keep my composure trying not to laugh at the ideas raging through my head. Over and over I was thinking sucker balls, sucker balls, what on earth…
He then said “No! These balls are black and white sometimes you can kick them-- *he then proceeds to stand back and attempt a field goal kick in front of me which if there really was a sucker ball he would have done so--* ,and score with them!”
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! SOCCER BALLS” I yelled, probably scaring the balls out of him! I continued, “Oh you mean soccer balls!!! Ok I get it now—and no we don’t, sorry”
He looked at me probably trying to figure out if he should run for it now or laugh at me. Either way, I wouldn’t have blamed him at this moment.
He continued and said, “Yes yes, now you understand SUCKER BALL (I still was hearing and reading sucker..Oy!). He then asked, “Do you have any sucker teams?”
At this point I let out a HAHA and immediately clamped my mouth shut. I could have said so many jokes at this point but I felt the poor guy had been through enough with me. I told him “no I don’t believe we have any soccer teams around here”
He thanked me for my time and told me I should speak to the manager about getting those sucker balls. Apparently, they sell well around here.
Alex
First, I want to explain a bit about my hearing and how I understand people. While I am oral and can speak fluent English and read lips pretty darn well, even from the sides sometimes. I met a man who challenged me to no end. It certainly wasn’t any anal rice as abbie graciously shared with us. However this certainly was on par with sexual innuendos.
I was sitting at work on my laptop minding my own business when this young college student walks in. I spoke up and said, “Good afternoon how can I help you?”
He walked around and said something but because I read lips I couldn’t understand him. I asked him “Pardon?”
He turned to me and said, “Do you sell any sucker --*incoherent word*?”
I was almost taken aback at this request and was convinced I was not hearing him or reading his lips correctly. All I caught was sucker something.
I said, “Excuse me I didn’t understand what did you ask?” I recognize he had a heavy accent from what seemed to be Nigerian or somewhat.
He said “sucker balls (in my head OH BALLS!), do you sell any sucker balls I need one to play with today”
My eyes just rose at this young man. I was thinking really dirty stuff of course i.e., is this man gay and he is bored and wants something to suck on? Or better yet he hasn’t “had any” and he is desperate? I was like this isn’t a sex shop here!
So I once again asked him to repeat one more time, and this time I straightened up, flared my nose and burrowed my eyes to focus right on his lips. Trying all my powers to hear and pick up everything he was saying. And what came out of his mouth.
“I said, do you have any sucker balls? You know that you bounce and play with sometimes”
Now I am convinced he is being serious at this point. Without trying to embarrass myself and probably more than likely misunderstanding him I asked him to describe it. I thought maybe he was thinking of a candy they suck or something.
I said, “Sir, can you describe this sucker ball? Is this something you eat, lick or what?”
Now HE was taken aback and stared at me like I was the idiot and didn’t have a stinking clue what he was saying. He probably was thinking, “ok this boy is strange asking about my balls or something!”
I just stared at him with the utmost respect and straight face I could manage to keep my composure trying not to laugh at the ideas raging through my head. Over and over I was thinking sucker balls, sucker balls, what on earth…
He then said “No! These balls are black and white sometimes you can kick them-- *he then proceeds to stand back and attempt a field goal kick in front of me which if there really was a sucker ball he would have done so--* ,and score with them!”
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! SOCCER BALLS” I yelled, probably scaring the balls out of him! I continued, “Oh you mean soccer balls!!! Ok I get it now—and no we don’t, sorry”
He looked at me probably trying to figure out if he should run for it now or laugh at me. Either way, I wouldn’t have blamed him at this moment.
He continued and said, “Yes yes, now you understand SUCKER BALL (I still was hearing and reading sucker..Oy!). He then asked, “Do you have any sucker teams?”
At this point I let out a HAHA and immediately clamped my mouth shut. I could have said so many jokes at this point but I felt the poor guy had been through enough with me. I told him “no I don’t believe we have any soccer teams around here”
He thanked me for my time and told me I should speak to the manager about getting those sucker balls. Apparently, they sell well around here.
Alex
Sunday, October 19, 2008
The Abbie Experience Part 2
Saturday, Oct 18th, 2008. The day Alex gets’s the full treatment of, “The Abbie Experience”. Ladies and Gentleman I cannot begin to tell you what a joy it was to meet this wonderful woman. We clicked immediately online and in person. I have read her blogs, and we truly have the most absolute hysterical moments online as well as her blogs. This certainly didn’t fail for me at all today. Sure enough in due time we immediately launched into what I call “Operation Alex and Abbie Field Day”.
It started when we went to get coffee. Coffee of course should be like any normal time and day right? Walk in, order your drink and food and off we go! No biggie! Wrong-o! Not with Abbie and Alex in tow! We left the restaurant and settled in the car. As we pulled out, immediately I panicked thinking I lost my sunglasses. Where are they?! OMG I can’t find them! I looked and looked and suddenly saw it in my coat pocket as abbie cleverly suggested to look. Ok great time to go! “Wait now where MY sunglasses” came from Abbie. By this time I just laughed and goes of course, now see what its like to lose glasses! She found hers in due time and NOW we were ready to set off to go walk 3 miles!
We drove out to the area after getting gas, which by the way did you know in New Jersey you cannot pump your own gas?! I kid you not! I was fairly stumped, and it launched into a story and conversation about pumping gas on your own or having someone else do it for you! Naturally funny stories came out of this conversation as well. Abbie was quick to notice my cute, non-southern accent of what seemed to tip of as British Accent. I don’t know why, how or where, but it never fails. Everywhere I go it is always “oh you speak British are you from London?” Me “uh No…” Anyhow, we arrived at the park and set out to sign up and such and get our wristbands that Abbie had posted a picture of.
We met some people that Abbie mentioned on her blog as well so I was happily meeting some new people as well. All these folks were so nice and welcoming and it is always a great time to meet new people too. However out of the corner of my eye I saw something yellow fly by at quick speed. It was around my head, and Wayne one of the guys around me gently brushed it away. No big deal. However the yellow jacket came flying back and decided Abbie would be the next target.
It buzzed around and around and dived for abbie. She ran away and brushed it off. I of course laugh my ass off once again. However this yellow jacket meant some serious business. In no time it went after Abbie and dived into her shirt, which I saw but abbie didn’t notice, as she was so busy flailing her arms. She calmed down and we thought the yellow jacket was gone! Problem solved we got back into conversation when- “Ow, shit something bit me!” And like the dreams of every straight guy on planet earth, a beautiful gorgeous woman starts stripping.
Actually, it was more like gasping, then flailing of arms once more again. A bit of slap here and there, some legs danced up and down, no, nothing sexual at all. Just good ol abbie trying to avoid another admirer however in the shape of a yellow jacket. Within seconds abbie gave all of us an amazing strip show, she flung her jacket down. Peeled her left shirt down over the shoulder trying to find this darned yellow jacket. I am by now of course laughing hysterically, smiling having a great time at Abbie’s expense. Plus a wonderful strip show to boot! As abbie kindly mentioned on the walk, it went from being a deaf walk to more of a catwalk on the runway! I give abbie a ten for the amazing show!
Anyhow, we finally could get the walk started. A woman gave us a speech, and she started the speech of with “Ok, I don’t know if anyone can hear me but.” to which I did an unexpected snort laughing at the irony of what she just said to us. However I calmed down and continued to listen to the speech. All this while Abbie is madly typing away on her blackberry to ensure she was not going to die from being stung by a yellow jacket and she could continue the “cat” walk as planned!
Once she was convinced she was not going to die, she was not allergic to the yellow jacket; we set off with our walk, abbie, myself and Wayne in tow. This made for a great walk and conversation as Wayne and I were both into planes and aviation, leaving abbie clueless on how to talk “plane-ese” and chimed in when she could relate something to her Reno trip and her misfortunes of flying incidents. Hehehehe.
We continued the walk, talking, getting to know each other, sharing stories. It truly was a wonderful time! However we had to figure out how to set up our walk positions. Wayne had a CI on his right side, while Abbie had a CI on her left side. I am bilateral with hearing aids so I was stuck in the middle between them, with Wayne being on my left and abbie on my right! Why, I ask do I wind up in the middle? :-P
We then soon ran into Debbie another blogger whom Abbie spoke with online. She is true to her word as abbie said and an amazing woman to speak with. I truly enjoyed listening to her talk and her beautiful New York accent! We walked back and finished our walk. We grabbed some food and chatted some more. Within seconds, another yellow jacket appeared! My Lord, them yellow jacket must gossip or something and told them jackets about Miss Abbie ha-ha They went after Abbie again, but this time went by Debbie. Debbie RAN like hell and the jacket went after her, I am screaming it’s the apple DROP the apple! It seemed the yellow jacket liked apples! Debbie comes running back and Abbie who must be visually impaired now too screamed it’s on the apple, drop it, it’s on the apple! However closer inspection once Debbie returned saw abbie was actually seeing the stem of the apple.
Yellow jacket was gone and we were all settled once and all. We took a picture of our wristbands, which again abbie posted. It was time to go home and grab some lunch before hitting Six Flags! Lunch was pretty normal as normal can be in the household of Abbie! She was in the hallway fixing the window and I came up to her to show her something on the blackberry. You know how us blackberry users always have our nose in it trying and checking things out. Just as I walked up to her and commented something about the blackberry, she slammed a lever down on the window with such a loud CRACK as she pulled it down and as quickly as she did that and made such a loud noise she turned and looked at me with the most sincere “Ya?!”. I immediately burst out laughing as did she and I just started crying, Usual, typical Abbie reaction!
We made our way to six flags, discussing the difference between a Quad and a 4-Wheeler. Also farm machines, which is known in my area, however not so with her. We arrive to six flags and I am ready to start the day of riding coasters! Yee Haw! We set our for rides only to find…broken. Not working. Broken…3-5 rides were all broken or being tested or something. This was not turning out to be a good day ha-ha. We wanted to go on Kingda Ka, as we both had never been on it. It was and I quote…” Experience the thrill of a lifetime as you shoot 45 stories high at 128 mph on our world-record-breaking Kingda Ka — the tallest, fastest roller coaster on Earth.” However this was gonna be a three hour wait, NO THANKS!
We moved on to other rides, riding some virtual ride, as well as the dark knight. All fun rides but we still wanted Kingda Ka. We set on to go on Batman. It was said to be a 120 min wait however this really didn’t turn out to be that long. Abbie is texting her buddies as I text mine when out of the corner of my eye I see a raccoon, a four legged furry animal raccoon hopping across the lawn into some tree area. A big commotion was made with some other people and Abbie fearing the worst after her yellow jacket rightfully clutched her blackberry as if holding it was gonna ward off anything, and leaped up onto the banister and pushing me towards the raccoon as if I was gonna defend her from it. I looked her with a “you want me to do what now?!” to her responding with a “I ain’t getting no rabies, getting stung was good enough for me!” I half started wondering if she was gonna introduce us to another strip show with the raccoon but this was not the case!
The raccoon scurried around up the tree and then back down and leaped into the garbage. People were hanging around trying to get a picture of this raccoon. It was the first time n my life I ever ran across a raccoon at a theme park, but then again, I had to remind myself, I was with Abbie. We went on batman freezing our Asses off as usual. We made good time to go ride Medusa, which was another fun, and awesome ride as well! We walked around; almost closing time for the park when we saw Kingda Ka was wide open to ride! We dashed our way there for a ride of a lifetime!
We get in line and watching the ride in apprehension thinking are we making a mistake now or what?! We line up to go on the ride; we are the last group of people before they shut the ride down. We sit down and buckle up. The guys come around to check our seats and we are ready to go. He gives thumbs up and we are ready to gooooo-WAIT! STOP THE RIDE. The Hell?!?! We sit for 5 minutes with no word. We are now stuck on the track, “trapped” inside the car if you will, with no freaking clue what is going on. Abbie has her CI out and I am deaf as deaf can be so we are heavily relying on our lip reading to really not much success. We figure something is wrong “no shit?!” and we sit and wait; I mean what else can we do?! We waited a good 20 minutes or so sitting on the track, texting making fun of this situation. We think it is like an Omen now, and others thought so too. About 4 others had gotten off the ride as well.
We just stayed on in the cart, I found a way to blame Abbie for this LOL. Finally we are ready to go, I think…Nope we waited again. Now we are good to go! This ride is a fast ride, and goes straight up near 45 degrees into the sky, you climb over a brief hill, and then you shoot straight down into the ground but last minute curve has you shooting straight across. It is fast, exhilarating and not something I was willing to repeat. I had my eyes closed for a few then it remained open the whole time. Fun ride, so glad it was over and I had to piss like a mother F---. I had to go so bad I was almost crying. As we were pulling up, I started to hear chanting…”ONE MORE TIME, ONE MORE TIME, ONE MORE TIME” I said to abbie what they were chanting and immediately an “ok, no Christmas cards for them from me anymore!” I was like “omg I have to pee and I don’t know if my bladder can tolerate another ride like that!” Didn’t have a choice… with another cry of “ONE MORE TIME” he waved his hand, stuck his thumb and we were clear to go. We blasted off once again and I swore I had pissed my pants. I was convinced I was pissing my pants.
Just as the ride got over we were slowing down, abbie somehow managed to pick her arm and swing it across my face proudly announcing “I found my car there it is in the parking lot, it’s there!” I truly wasn’t very concerned at the moment. I wanted to ensure any of my urine remained in my body until I could pass it in a normal bathroom setting, and that my heart was still beating and blood would come rushing back into my body. Yep, I was cleared and good to go. I couldn’t believe we went on it twice AFTER being stuck on it for almost 30 minutes!
We got off the car and headed to Abbie’s car to head home. This thus ends another day of, “The Abbie Experience”
Alex
It started when we went to get coffee. Coffee of course should be like any normal time and day right? Walk in, order your drink and food and off we go! No biggie! Wrong-o! Not with Abbie and Alex in tow! We left the restaurant and settled in the car. As we pulled out, immediately I panicked thinking I lost my sunglasses. Where are they?! OMG I can’t find them! I looked and looked and suddenly saw it in my coat pocket as abbie cleverly suggested to look. Ok great time to go! “Wait now where MY sunglasses” came from Abbie. By this time I just laughed and goes of course, now see what its like to lose glasses! She found hers in due time and NOW we were ready to set off to go walk 3 miles!
We drove out to the area after getting gas, which by the way did you know in New Jersey you cannot pump your own gas?! I kid you not! I was fairly stumped, and it launched into a story and conversation about pumping gas on your own or having someone else do it for you! Naturally funny stories came out of this conversation as well. Abbie was quick to notice my cute, non-southern accent of what seemed to tip of as British Accent. I don’t know why, how or where, but it never fails. Everywhere I go it is always “oh you speak British are you from London?” Me “uh No…” Anyhow, we arrived at the park and set out to sign up and such and get our wristbands that Abbie had posted a picture of.
We met some people that Abbie mentioned on her blog as well so I was happily meeting some new people as well. All these folks were so nice and welcoming and it is always a great time to meet new people too. However out of the corner of my eye I saw something yellow fly by at quick speed. It was around my head, and Wayne one of the guys around me gently brushed it away. No big deal. However the yellow jacket came flying back and decided Abbie would be the next target.
It buzzed around and around and dived for abbie. She ran away and brushed it off. I of course laugh my ass off once again. However this yellow jacket meant some serious business. In no time it went after Abbie and dived into her shirt, which I saw but abbie didn’t notice, as she was so busy flailing her arms. She calmed down and we thought the yellow jacket was gone! Problem solved we got back into conversation when- “Ow, shit something bit me!” And like the dreams of every straight guy on planet earth, a beautiful gorgeous woman starts stripping.
Actually, it was more like gasping, then flailing of arms once more again. A bit of slap here and there, some legs danced up and down, no, nothing sexual at all. Just good ol abbie trying to avoid another admirer however in the shape of a yellow jacket. Within seconds abbie gave all of us an amazing strip show, she flung her jacket down. Peeled her left shirt down over the shoulder trying to find this darned yellow jacket. I am by now of course laughing hysterically, smiling having a great time at Abbie’s expense. Plus a wonderful strip show to boot! As abbie kindly mentioned on the walk, it went from being a deaf walk to more of a catwalk on the runway! I give abbie a ten for the amazing show!
Anyhow, we finally could get the walk started. A woman gave us a speech, and she started the speech of with “Ok, I don’t know if anyone can hear me but.” to which I did an unexpected snort laughing at the irony of what she just said to us. However I calmed down and continued to listen to the speech. All this while Abbie is madly typing away on her blackberry to ensure she was not going to die from being stung by a yellow jacket and she could continue the “cat” walk as planned!
Once she was convinced she was not going to die, she was not allergic to the yellow jacket; we set off with our walk, abbie, myself and Wayne in tow. This made for a great walk and conversation as Wayne and I were both into planes and aviation, leaving abbie clueless on how to talk “plane-ese” and chimed in when she could relate something to her Reno trip and her misfortunes of flying incidents. Hehehehe.
We continued the walk, talking, getting to know each other, sharing stories. It truly was a wonderful time! However we had to figure out how to set up our walk positions. Wayne had a CI on his right side, while Abbie had a CI on her left side. I am bilateral with hearing aids so I was stuck in the middle between them, with Wayne being on my left and abbie on my right! Why, I ask do I wind up in the middle? :-P
We then soon ran into Debbie another blogger whom Abbie spoke with online. She is true to her word as abbie said and an amazing woman to speak with. I truly enjoyed listening to her talk and her beautiful New York accent! We walked back and finished our walk. We grabbed some food and chatted some more. Within seconds, another yellow jacket appeared! My Lord, them yellow jacket must gossip or something and told them jackets about Miss Abbie ha-ha They went after Abbie again, but this time went by Debbie. Debbie RAN like hell and the jacket went after her, I am screaming it’s the apple DROP the apple! It seemed the yellow jacket liked apples! Debbie comes running back and Abbie who must be visually impaired now too screamed it’s on the apple, drop it, it’s on the apple! However closer inspection once Debbie returned saw abbie was actually seeing the stem of the apple.
Yellow jacket was gone and we were all settled once and all. We took a picture of our wristbands, which again abbie posted. It was time to go home and grab some lunch before hitting Six Flags! Lunch was pretty normal as normal can be in the household of Abbie! She was in the hallway fixing the window and I came up to her to show her something on the blackberry. You know how us blackberry users always have our nose in it trying and checking things out. Just as I walked up to her and commented something about the blackberry, she slammed a lever down on the window with such a loud CRACK as she pulled it down and as quickly as she did that and made such a loud noise she turned and looked at me with the most sincere “Ya?!”. I immediately burst out laughing as did she and I just started crying, Usual, typical Abbie reaction!
We made our way to six flags, discussing the difference between a Quad and a 4-Wheeler. Also farm machines, which is known in my area, however not so with her. We arrive to six flags and I am ready to start the day of riding coasters! Yee Haw! We set our for rides only to find…broken. Not working. Broken…3-5 rides were all broken or being tested or something. This was not turning out to be a good day ha-ha. We wanted to go on Kingda Ka, as we both had never been on it. It was and I quote…” Experience the thrill of a lifetime as you shoot 45 stories high at 128 mph on our world-record-breaking Kingda Ka — the tallest, fastest roller coaster on Earth.” However this was gonna be a three hour wait, NO THANKS!
We moved on to other rides, riding some virtual ride, as well as the dark knight. All fun rides but we still wanted Kingda Ka. We set on to go on Batman. It was said to be a 120 min wait however this really didn’t turn out to be that long. Abbie is texting her buddies as I text mine when out of the corner of my eye I see a raccoon, a four legged furry animal raccoon hopping across the lawn into some tree area. A big commotion was made with some other people and Abbie fearing the worst after her yellow jacket rightfully clutched her blackberry as if holding it was gonna ward off anything, and leaped up onto the banister and pushing me towards the raccoon as if I was gonna defend her from it. I looked her with a “you want me to do what now?!” to her responding with a “I ain’t getting no rabies, getting stung was good enough for me!” I half started wondering if she was gonna introduce us to another strip show with the raccoon but this was not the case!
The raccoon scurried around up the tree and then back down and leaped into the garbage. People were hanging around trying to get a picture of this raccoon. It was the first time n my life I ever ran across a raccoon at a theme park, but then again, I had to remind myself, I was with Abbie. We went on batman freezing our Asses off as usual. We made good time to go ride Medusa, which was another fun, and awesome ride as well! We walked around; almost closing time for the park when we saw Kingda Ka was wide open to ride! We dashed our way there for a ride of a lifetime!
We get in line and watching the ride in apprehension thinking are we making a mistake now or what?! We line up to go on the ride; we are the last group of people before they shut the ride down. We sit down and buckle up. The guys come around to check our seats and we are ready to go. He gives thumbs up and we are ready to gooooo-WAIT! STOP THE RIDE. The Hell?!?! We sit for 5 minutes with no word. We are now stuck on the track, “trapped” inside the car if you will, with no freaking clue what is going on. Abbie has her CI out and I am deaf as deaf can be so we are heavily relying on our lip reading to really not much success. We figure something is wrong “no shit?!” and we sit and wait; I mean what else can we do?! We waited a good 20 minutes or so sitting on the track, texting making fun of this situation. We think it is like an Omen now, and others thought so too. About 4 others had gotten off the ride as well.
We just stayed on in the cart, I found a way to blame Abbie for this LOL. Finally we are ready to go, I think…Nope we waited again. Now we are good to go! This ride is a fast ride, and goes straight up near 45 degrees into the sky, you climb over a brief hill, and then you shoot straight down into the ground but last minute curve has you shooting straight across. It is fast, exhilarating and not something I was willing to repeat. I had my eyes closed for a few then it remained open the whole time. Fun ride, so glad it was over and I had to piss like a mother F---. I had to go so bad I was almost crying. As we were pulling up, I started to hear chanting…”ONE MORE TIME, ONE MORE TIME, ONE MORE TIME” I said to abbie what they were chanting and immediately an “ok, no Christmas cards for them from me anymore!” I was like “omg I have to pee and I don’t know if my bladder can tolerate another ride like that!” Didn’t have a choice… with another cry of “ONE MORE TIME” he waved his hand, stuck his thumb and we were clear to go. We blasted off once again and I swore I had pissed my pants. I was convinced I was pissing my pants.
Just as the ride got over we were slowing down, abbie somehow managed to pick her arm and swing it across my face proudly announcing “I found my car there it is in the parking lot, it’s there!” I truly wasn’t very concerned at the moment. I wanted to ensure any of my urine remained in my body until I could pass it in a normal bathroom setting, and that my heart was still beating and blood would come rushing back into my body. Yep, I was cleared and good to go. I couldn’t believe we went on it twice AFTER being stuck on it for almost 30 minutes!
We got off the car and headed to Abbie’s car to head home. This thus ends another day of, “The Abbie Experience”
Alex
Saturday, October 18, 2008
The Abbie Experience-Part 1
Hello All! It has been awhile since I blogged last time but this weekend I got to meet the wonderful Bionic Woman-Abbie Cranmer. Stsrting with Oct 17th, the day of my arrival! Of course to visit her means to be prepared of a lifetime of goof ups and hilarious moments! It all started the minute I landed right into the Philly Airport! We had it planned literally to the minute, I was due to land at 7:20pm into Philly, but I knew Chicago-O’Hare airport and Philly airport were absolutely prone to delays. So I told Abbie to arrive around 7:30-7:45pm or so. Considering delays and how long it takes to taxi, get off the plane and get to baggage claim etc etc.
With this in mind we were all set. I am in the plane enjoying my snack that American so kindly NOT charges us to eat. We then passed the Cleveland Airport at exactly around 5pm, which makes it 6pm Eastern Time. I started getting worried because I knew about within 20 minutes we would start descending and it was nowhere near this so called 7:20pm arrival time. Sure enough at 6:15pm eastern time (one hour and 5 min before I am scheduled to land) I hear announcement we will be descending for Philly now. Me “whoa shit!” We soon landed at 6:50pm. Exactly 40 minutes early, for once I was not happy to be arriving so early! I texted Abbie to announce we had arrived and she texts back “your kidding me?” I replied “nope!”
The good news though however was we were due to have a lengthy taxi annnnd our gate had broken down! So we were waiting for another gate to open up so we could pull up to it and deboard the plane. Finally after 10 min of waiting we pulled up to the gate. This was now around 7:00 or 7:05pm or so. Abbie said she was still about 40 minutes away. Already the plan to meet up exactly seemed to be falling apart LOL. So I took the time to wander around the Philly Airport, although I had flown through this airport before, always fun to check out airports. The time really did pass though.
In no time Abbie announced she was pulling up and I was standing under the American Airlines and British Airways sign under Terminal A-East and she pulled up with her cute little dog too! Said our Hello’s and threw the bag in the car and off we went back to her place! We arrived back, and planned what to eat. We settled on Asian food and went to go pick it up. We talked all the way to and from and grabbed the food. Came back and chowed down on Asian food. I will never, ever be tired of Asian food!
So then we shot the bull talking and such before heading to bed. I had to be well rested for the next day, a 3 mile walk, six flags and an entire day of what I like to call.” The Abbie Experience” :)
Alex Trude
With this in mind we were all set. I am in the plane enjoying my snack that American so kindly NOT charges us to eat. We then passed the Cleveland Airport at exactly around 5pm, which makes it 6pm Eastern Time. I started getting worried because I knew about within 20 minutes we would start descending and it was nowhere near this so called 7:20pm arrival time. Sure enough at 6:15pm eastern time (one hour and 5 min before I am scheduled to land) I hear announcement we will be descending for Philly now. Me “whoa shit!” We soon landed at 6:50pm. Exactly 40 minutes early, for once I was not happy to be arriving so early! I texted Abbie to announce we had arrived and she texts back “your kidding me?” I replied “nope!”
The good news though however was we were due to have a lengthy taxi annnnd our gate had broken down! So we were waiting for another gate to open up so we could pull up to it and deboard the plane. Finally after 10 min of waiting we pulled up to the gate. This was now around 7:00 or 7:05pm or so. Abbie said she was still about 40 minutes away. Already the plan to meet up exactly seemed to be falling apart LOL. So I took the time to wander around the Philly Airport, although I had flown through this airport before, always fun to check out airports. The time really did pass though.
In no time Abbie announced she was pulling up and I was standing under the American Airlines and British Airways sign under Terminal A-East and she pulled up with her cute little dog too! Said our Hello’s and threw the bag in the car and off we went back to her place! We arrived back, and planned what to eat. We settled on Asian food and went to go pick it up. We talked all the way to and from and grabbed the food. Came back and chowed down on Asian food. I will never, ever be tired of Asian food!
So then we shot the bull talking and such before heading to bed. I had to be well rested for the next day, a 3 mile walk, six flags and an entire day of what I like to call.” The Abbie Experience” :)
Alex Trude
Monday, September 29, 2008
Typo's and Random IM convos
We all know we have done typo's and had hilarious one or two line convos that just have to make you pause... Well I found a huge collection of them and decided to share them with ya here! Hope you have some good laughs!!! Some of these are very old and some recent, these are just a collection of things... also atrude777 is me in other AIM convos.
girl: omg it is so not over rated, kissing is like the biggest thing in my life, it HAS to be perfect!
me: well how do you know what is a good kiss or a bad kiss?
girl: well if the guy does this (makes a fishy face) its a bad kiss, like one of my ex B/F's did. if they passiontaly go with the flow, then its an awesome kiss.
girl :lol ya I can put ANYTHING in my mouth!
me: okkk..
girl: omg, thats not what I meant! gross!! ewww
me- i am laughing sooo hard, it was so funny!!!
Alex-"OMG I realized how much I play the "These boots are made for walking" song. The other day I was missing my boots and I said "where my boots at?" not thinking, and mom yelled at me to stop singing (cause it is a line in the song) and my sister yelled "STRUT URSELF COME ON!" which was the line after u say "where my boots at" and I go "omg iv been listening to this song to much"
Tom: ahh got my 30mins of total comedic stupidity
Alex: u said u were watching it, i didnt know u were on the show too.
Tom: oh funny
Alex: u said u were watching it, i didnt know u were on the show too.
Tom: oh funny
atrude777: etc etc
atrude777: excefcises*
atrude777: excercices
atrude777: excersises
Andrew: no Big Macs for her I guess lol
atrude777: excerzises
atrude777: WTF?!
atrude777: E
atrude777: X
atrude777: C
atrude777: E
atrude777: R
Andrew: nope
atrude777: S
atrude777: I
atrude777: Z
atrude777: E
atrude777: Excersize?
atrude777: lmOA
atrude777: lmao*
atrude777: excercise
atrude777: THERE WE GO!
Andrew: LMAO
atrude777: for the love of god that was really sad
Andrew: No that's still wrong lmao
Andrew: exercise
Andrew: that's how you spell it
atrude777: shut up
atrude777: excefcises*
atrude777: excercices
atrude777: excersises
Andrew: no Big Macs for her I guess lol
atrude777: excerzises
atrude777: WTF?!
atrude777: E
atrude777: X
atrude777: C
atrude777: E
atrude777: R
Andrew: nope
atrude777: S
atrude777: I
atrude777: Z
atrude777: E
atrude777: Excersize?
atrude777: lmOA
atrude777: lmao*
atrude777: excercise
atrude777: THERE WE GO!
Andrew: LMAO
atrude777: for the love of god that was really sad
Andrew: No that's still wrong lmao
Andrew: exercise
Andrew: that's how you spell it
atrude777: shut up
chris: YES it raining
ATrude777: i dont like lord of the rings
ATrude777: and i wish it was raining so im not changing the hoes
ATrude777: hose*
chris: hoes
chris: lmfao
chris: i know what someone is thinking
ATrude777: i dont like lord of the rings
ATrude777: and i wish it was raining so im not changing the hoes
ATrude777: hose*
chris: hoes
chris: lmfao
chris: i know what someone is thinking
ATrude777: PARTY FOR TWO!!!!!!!!!!!
mike: haha
ATrude777: IT JUST TURNED ON!
mike: whos turned on?
chris: *raises hand* :-[
chris: Fuck I dont care, I just screwed her on that car
mike: haha
ATrude777: IT JUST TURNED ON!
mike: whos turned on?
chris: *raises hand* :-[
chris: Fuck I dont care, I just screwed her on that car
chris: do you have Herpas AIM?
ATrude777: herpes?
chris: Herpa2003
ATrude777: ohh lmao
ATrude777: herpes?
chris: Herpa2003
ATrude777: ohh lmao
ATrude777: whats easy did she give u a handjob under the covers right in front of ur parents is that what u were saying?
"friend"- no i had my wee wee in her vee vee
"friend"- lol
ATrude777: HAHAHAHA
"friend"- no i had my wee wee in her vee vee
"friend"- lol
ATrude777: HAHAHAHA
ATrude777: i got an email that the title says LAPTOP-GET THEM FREE
ATrude777: i miss read it as LAPDANCES-GET THEM FREE
ATrude777: i miss read it as LAPDANCES-GET THEM FREE
ATrude777: u wanna know the dumbest thing i did on AIM
ATrude777: i tried to IM my friend natalie
ATrude777: and i hit my own screen name and kept iming myself
ATrude777: and it was repeating everything back
patrickMDW: HAHAHA
ATrude777: and i thought she was mocking me
ATrude777: so i got mad
patrickMDW: alex....wow.
me: so ya kissing is like over-ratedATrude777: i tried to IM my friend natalie
ATrude777: and i hit my own screen name and kept iming myself
ATrude777: and it was repeating everything back
patrickMDW: HAHAHA
ATrude777: and i thought she was mocking me
ATrude777: so i got mad
patrickMDW: alex....wow.
girl: omg it is so not over rated, kissing is like the biggest thing in my life, it HAS to be perfect!
me: well how do you know what is a good kiss or a bad kiss?
girl: well if the guy does this (makes a fishy face) its a bad kiss, like one of my ex B/F's did. if they passiontaly go with the flow, then its an awesome kiss.
me:damn you love those things dont you?
girl: ya this is my first expereince eating one
me: uhm expereince? mite wanna re-phrase that??
girl:shut up, you know what I meant!!!
me: ya, sure did and I winked.
girl: ya this is my first expereince eating one
me: uhm expereince? mite wanna re-phrase that??
girl:shut up, you know what I meant!!!
me: ya, sure did and I winked.
girl: ya I have a big mouth
me: so do I but im big talking wisegirl :lol ya I can put ANYTHING in my mouth!
me: okkk..
girl: omg, thats not what I meant! gross!! ewww
me- i am laughing sooo hard, it was so funny!!!
then she was trying to bite something off her soda, and i said why are you biting that?!?!
girl: im trying to get it off (clamps hand over her mouth)
girl: im trying to get it off (clamps hand over her mouth)
fallenmike14 (8:47:17 PM): what ever sinks your ship
ATrude777 (8:48:01 PM): you mean floats your boat?
fallenmike14 (8:48:05 PM): same thing
ATrude777 (8:48:01 PM): you mean floats your boat?
fallenmike14 (8:48:05 PM): same thing
Ok that's it for now! Hope you enjoyed some!
Alex
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Shopping at Target
Ahhh, the glorious mornings. Waking up to go to work. I went off to Target to do some shopping! I was desperate to go buy the new DVD’S that had come out, Desperate Housewives Season 4, and Ghost Whisperer Season 3. They were on sale which made it all the more better! I also noticed on the tag it said with a purchase of the DVD I could get a 10 dollar gift card too at the cash register! I grabbed both DVD’s, and grabbed some TV dinner’s for my lunch at work. I was feeling quite cheery. My friend matt who works at Target told me a hilarious story about how he thought a raccoon got into his house and licked his face when it was actually a dog… LOL
I then went to the cash register and put down the items I was going to pay for. She scanned everything and the total came up to exactly 100 dollars even. At first I was shocked it was that much and questioned the price going wow that is a lot of money, then remember what I was buying and realized oh that is actually cheaper then I expected. The cash lady then said to me “would you like 10% off that?”
I then realized she was talking about the gift card, but thought she said 10 dollars.
I said “yes” I then expected her to hand over a 10 dollar gift card.
She said “let me re do the purchase and switch it and I can give you the ten off now!”
I said to myself oh fantastic, I don’t even have to come back and she will take it off for me, perfect!
She then asked me to sign some paper work and needed to see my ID, Address that sort of thing. Now I’m like what?! All that for a gift card discount?! I never had to deal with that for my work?!
She then explains how the discount worked and said I should be approved about the card in a few days. Now I am completely baffled, I thought I was only supposed to get a gift card from her…
She is printing all this stuff for me, and I’m signing shitload of stuff still baffled, not even hitting me on what I am doing. I thought this is seriously taking to damn long for a quick purchase.
She goes on to say thank you for my business and that my card will come in the mail in a few days after I am approved! She showed me a receipt where I got 10% off. This oddly enough came up to exactly 10 dollars, since 10% of 100 is ten!
I again thought ALL this for that? Did I mishear her say something? Did I sign some contract and it flew over my head? I walked out of the store, went back to my work to look over what EXACTLY I signed.
I looked it over and realized, oh snap. I signed and got myself a brand new CREDIT CARD from Target, and my purchases I made, 100 of it, but now only 90 dollars (remember 10% off!!!) was charged to this new Credit Card instead of my other one! *GULP!*
Oh CRAAAAAAAAAP. I DID NOT need a THIRD Card in my wallet, no way, no hell! How did I go through the whole thing without an inkling of an idea I was signing for a credit card. Did I not hear something?! Ugh...So now I have a new credit line opened, which I have to figure out how to pay off because the APR is OFF the CHAIN-25%!!!
I then also have a charge of 90 dollars to the Credit Card too. Ugh. You know what the best part out of the whole thing is?
I didn’t get my 10 dollars gift card. :)
Alex
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Going through a Drive-Thru.
People go through drive thru’s all the time! It is almost second nature for most people. I on the other hand, had never gone through a drive-thru. It was my thinking deaf people just couldn’t use them. After all, they didn’t have subtitles, no way in hell I could understand the person speaking to me. I would just go inside and order instead.However, I found myself having to utilize a drive-thru for the first time last year back in 2007. I had just landed from Las Vegas in STL, late at night, around 10:30pm. Most McDonalds I knew were open all night in St. Louis. So I drove to one near my apartment and drove up.
“Damn”
The Lobby was closed. Crap, crap, crap…I was starving too! I didn’t feel like making anything back at my apartment. Then I looked and remembered the drive thru was open. Hmmh. Should I go for it? Well, if I want to eat I have to!
I pulled out my cell phone and called the one person on planet earth who would be able to help me out!
“Mom? Hi, it’s Alex; I need your help getting through a drive thru please”
“Alex? What… I thought you were in Vegas, and why are you calling so late, ALEX its 10:30 AND YOU WANT TO EAT NOW?!”
Well! I heard THAT loud and clear through my Cell!
“Mom, I am starving to death and McDonalds has a drive thru open and I need your help getting through, so I wanted to know what to expect.”
“Oh Geez Alex, it’s late. But all right, first you need to figure out what you want then pull up to the window. A loud beep will ring through alerting you drove over the hose type thing on the ground. You may or may not hear it (I actually didn’t). Then someone is going to speak and probably say “Welcome to McDonalds, May I take your order”
I acknowledged the instructions so far, and I pulled up to the machine. I was half expecting THIS guy to pop out at me! :)
I didn’t hear a beep. Hmmh, maybe I didn’t pull up close enough—HELLO WELCOME TO MCDONALDS, MAY I TAKE YOUR ORDER PLEASE?! Rang through the window and right into my face!
I told him I wanted a 6 piece chicken nuggets, a Large Coke and medium fries.
“Now Alex, he is going to repeat your order and ask would you like anything else, you then say No, and he will tell you how much the price is and then depending on the location you pay at the first window and get the food in the 2nd window or you do both at the same window”
I said “No thanks, that’s all” after I heard a 2nd line come through (had no earthly idea what he said…) and I DID hear him say the price though! $6.35! I had a 10 dollar bill so I was good! I had forgotten this place only accepts cash through the drive thru so luckily I had cash on me! I was a good boy, and didn’t gamble in Vegas!
I drove up to the first window and handed him my Ten. He gave me the change back and told me to proceed to the 2nd window to pick up my order. I thanked mom for all her help, said Love ya and good night and hung up. Good Old momma for doing that for me! I pulled up to the 2nd window, and got my order, asked for BBQ sauce! Gotta have the BBQ Sauce!!!
Got my order, and I drove home. I was so excited I was able to go thru a drive thru. Yes I had my momma help me, but could have easily misunderstood them and screwed up my order even more. But now I know that I can go through a drive-thru now!
Has anyone else had any experience going through a drive thru yourself? Funny incidents, horrible incidents? I would love to hear them!
Has anyone else had any experience going through a drive thru yourself? Funny incidents, horrible incidents? I would love to hear them!
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Trips, and Mileage Runs!
Many of you all know I love to travel. I do it a lot and I enjoy it so much. Well I have two more trips coming up one is a mileage run and one is to visit someone else. I sometimes fly for the fun of it. Yes, I know, it is weird. Some people collect stamps, I collect Airline Miles. Whose miles do I collect? I typically fly on American Airlines. Yes I know I am an employee of Southwest Airlines, and used to work for them but I do like to fly First Class occasionally, something, Southwest Airlines does not o
ffer!
I will catch another Boeing 767-300, back to ORD, and hopefully upgrade to First Class in the process as well to try and sample out one of the brand new business class seats they offer in Business and First Class. It is luxurious and so comfortable and relaxing to fly in. I land back into ORD, to connect again to one of the last flights back home to St. Louis (STL) Airport. I then am done with my mileage run, and I go home. I wait a few days, and see my mileage has been posted.
ffer!
What is a mileage run you ask? Thanks for asking! It is people like me who truly are crazy, nuts and simply pay money to the airline to fly them to a destination, without leaving the airport, and turning right around back to where they came from. I have done this a lot. I am doing another mileage run on American Airlines to
A huge wide body plane, with two aisles in the plane. (This is not the first time I have been on a wide body, but would be the first time on a Boeing wide body and a 767 no less!)
Then I will fly this aircraft to
I will catch another Boeing 767-300, back to ORD, and hopefully upgrade to First Class in the process as well to try and sample out one of the brand new business class seats they offer in Business and First Class. It is luxurious and so comfortable and relaxing to fly in. I land back into ORD, to connect again to one of the last flights back home to St. Louis (STL) Airport. I then am done with my mileage run, and I go home. I wait a few days, and see my mileage has been posted.
What do the miles offer exactly?! Well again glad you asked! Airlines typically offer two sets of miles you have regular miles which can be earned by regular flying, hotel stays, credit card purchases really anything. Then you have what is called ELITE Miles. These elite miles are ONLY earned by actually flying on the airline and for every mile you fly actually you get on elite mile back in return. After so many miles you then become and have an elite status. The program differs for every airline, but in American Airlines, after reaching 25,000 elite miles you become Gold. The benefits then help you out in the future. It can be anywhere from free upgrades to First Class, priority in check in, fast lane for security, being able to check bags for free without having to pay for it. It really varies for every airline. What if you are not trying to be elite but just want to earn miles with the airline? That is fine too! Most airlines offer a free, round trip ticket in coach domestically within the 48 states after 25,000 miles. That is the minimum. Then again it varies by airline per program.
In AA’s case, 25,000 miles gets you a free, round trip coach ticket domestically in 48 states. 30,000 miles gets you a free, round trip ticket to
Naturally, every time I fly and travel to visit someone, I try as hard as I can to be booked on American Airlines to continue the mileage. This is why I urge anyone who flies, whether 5 times a year or once a year, to SIGN UP for the mileage program, it is free and easy to do. If you all have any questions, comments feel free to ask me here how you can earn your way to possibly flying first class as much as you can!
Now, who am I exactly visiting? I will be flying to Philly to go see the Bionic Woman, Miss. Abbie Cranmer! I whined to her that I had to see her SOME weekend, and she goes “Well get your damn ass up here!” So we collaborated on a weekend, and she got the idea it would be super awesome if I flew up for the “Walk for Hearing” event (which she mentioned and I linked to) and attended this with her while visiting her at the same time! I agreed and got to looking for airfares. The date we agreed on was weekend of October 18th, same as the Walk for Hearing event. So I decided to fly up October 17th, and return October 19th.
I found a great deal on American Airlines, for 200 dollars round trip. I would be connecting through Chicago-O’Hare International Airport once again! Oh boy. This airport is known for tremendous delays, and is one of the world’s busiest airport, and the 2nd busiest airport in the
So, with that, my itinerary was booked! So yet another trip begins for my next mileage run! I am looking SO forward to meeting Abbie and sharing a wonderful weekend with her. We have had so many fun times chatting back and forth it is literally going to be like seeing an old friend again. I hope Philly and your town is ready for me cause once I arrive, it is gonna be a rowdy weekend!
Friday, August 22, 2008
Finding a Parking Spot...
Anyone ever play the game; find a spot in the Car parking lot?! I just had to play it again today! Not fun! Add that to raining non stop, thundering, lightning, and I didn’t have my umbrella as well. This is how my lovely Friday began for me…
I woke up at 8am with the plan to LEAVE on the dot at 8:15am to get there by 8:30am to have time to park around, walk and find my new class. I noticed it was raining everywhere, sideways, up, down name a direction it was doing just that! Oh shit. I was going to need my umbrella because I knew the closest parking lot on campus near the building I was going to have class in still required a walk in the rain.
I went to my car to get my umbrella to put it in my backpack. Uh Oh..It wasn’t there. What the H?! I texted mom to ask where the umbrella was because I hate getting wet in the rain, and getting wet period. People who know me know I am very stringent about that. Plus I wear hearing aids too and it gets wet all the time when I don’t have my umbrella. Now before anyone says take it out, and put it away. Exactly how? I put it in my pants and my backpack, but if its raining my pants will still get wet as does my backpack and it HAS happened before so I won’t do that again.
I was so frustrated that I couldn’t find my umbrella. I never misplace, someone had to have borrowed it or took it to use this morning. It is always in my car or backpack so once I see it is raining I can grab it quickly with ease. It was to the point I seriously was going to skip the class on the account of no umbrella. Ya ridiculous ain’t it, but I was seriously wondering where it was.
With the rain not showing any signs of stopping, I sighed and thought I gotta go. I got in my car and drove to the parking lot. Of course I was really running late and didn’t get there until 8:45am, for a Nine am class. I got to the parking lot and time to play the game! I set my pod to play music because this was going to be a long time. I drove around, in circles. Around, and around where I stop, nobody knows!
I continue to drive, and it seems as soon as I passed a spot, some car pulled out and I couldn’t get in! Nuts! Argh! I keep going again. If I took a test on every space and concrete barrier I passed in the parking lot I’d have an A for the semester! I continue to drive around over and over. Same thing again, another car always coming out and I keep missing it!
I was also texting mom at the same time to figure out WHERE MY DAMN UMBRELLA IS! No one knew and I was getting impatient but oh well, my concern at the moment was to find a parking lot! I turned another corner and then saw a Guy coming out from my right. Hmmh, is he leaving? I saw him take his keys out. Yes he was pulling out! (No not sexually Mind you!) But while we are on that subject, pulling out in time doesn’t always make it safe sex! Use condoms! Ok after that public announcement I shall move on…
I saw him unlock his car and get in. I crawled my car up behind to ensure no one else was gonna come in from behind me and take my spot. I tightened my grip on the wheels. Placed my foot on the gas and brake ready to pull in. He slowly backed up, and I slowly came in to ensure once again I had this spot. I was coming for one thing, to kill—Oops I mean to take the parking spot! It was now 8:59am. One minute left till class started. He pulled out finally! I flew right in, probably nearly killing everyone else walking by. Got into the spot, flew out. Thankfully the rain STOPPED right then!
I looked up thinking un believable. What I was going through. Ok dokey! Now I ran to class as fast as I could hoping it wouldn’t start raining again! Finally saw the building, got to the 2nd floor, and found the classroom. Only one minute late! Not bad at all!!!
This now ends my parking lot game! Glad to see I won this one! Alex-1 Parking Lot-0! I hope everyone has a great Friday!
Alex
I woke up at 8am with the plan to LEAVE on the dot at 8:15am to get there by 8:30am to have time to park around, walk and find my new class. I noticed it was raining everywhere, sideways, up, down name a direction it was doing just that! Oh shit. I was going to need my umbrella because I knew the closest parking lot on campus near the building I was going to have class in still required a walk in the rain.
I went to my car to get my umbrella to put it in my backpack. Uh Oh..It wasn’t there. What the H?! I texted mom to ask where the umbrella was because I hate getting wet in the rain, and getting wet period. People who know me know I am very stringent about that. Plus I wear hearing aids too and it gets wet all the time when I don’t have my umbrella. Now before anyone says take it out, and put it away. Exactly how? I put it in my pants and my backpack, but if its raining my pants will still get wet as does my backpack and it HAS happened before so I won’t do that again.
I was so frustrated that I couldn’t find my umbrella. I never misplace, someone had to have borrowed it or took it to use this morning. It is always in my car or backpack so once I see it is raining I can grab it quickly with ease. It was to the point I seriously was going to skip the class on the account of no umbrella. Ya ridiculous ain’t it, but I was seriously wondering where it was.
With the rain not showing any signs of stopping, I sighed and thought I gotta go. I got in my car and drove to the parking lot. Of course I was really running late and didn’t get there until 8:45am, for a Nine am class. I got to the parking lot and time to play the game! I set my pod to play music because this was going to be a long time. I drove around, in circles. Around, and around where I stop, nobody knows!
I continue to drive, and it seems as soon as I passed a spot, some car pulled out and I couldn’t get in! Nuts! Argh! I keep going again. If I took a test on every space and concrete barrier I passed in the parking lot I’d have an A for the semester! I continue to drive around over and over. Same thing again, another car always coming out and I keep missing it!
I was also texting mom at the same time to figure out WHERE MY DAMN UMBRELLA IS! No one knew and I was getting impatient but oh well, my concern at the moment was to find a parking lot! I turned another corner and then saw a Guy coming out from my right. Hmmh, is he leaving? I saw him take his keys out. Yes he was pulling out! (No not sexually Mind you!) But while we are on that subject, pulling out in time doesn’t always make it safe sex! Use condoms! Ok after that public announcement I shall move on…
I saw him unlock his car and get in. I crawled my car up behind to ensure no one else was gonna come in from behind me and take my spot. I tightened my grip on the wheels. Placed my foot on the gas and brake ready to pull in. He slowly backed up, and I slowly came in to ensure once again I had this spot. I was coming for one thing, to kill—Oops I mean to take the parking spot! It was now 8:59am. One minute left till class started. He pulled out finally! I flew right in, probably nearly killing everyone else walking by. Got into the spot, flew out. Thankfully the rain STOPPED right then!
I looked up thinking un believable. What I was going through. Ok dokey! Now I ran to class as fast as I could hoping it wouldn’t start raining again! Finally saw the building, got to the 2nd floor, and found the classroom. Only one minute late! Not bad at all!!!
This now ends my parking lot game! Glad to see I won this one! Alex-1 Parking Lot-0! I hope everyone has a great Friday!
Alex
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Growing up with Cued Speech
I want to discuss Cued speech, the advantages it has and why it should be offered as another option along with ASL. ASL is a wonderful language and a great tool used to communicate with the deaf people in the community. The language is strong, beautiful and there are so many types ranging from different countries. It has done well for the deaf community for many centuries and has no signs of going anywhere. However there is another type of tool that some deaf people use, myself included. Many are against it for so many reasons, but I would like to discuss it and show that it should be offered as a great option along with ASL too.
When my parents found out I was deaf they did what most every other parent would do, turn to the books and people to learn about ASL. They tried to learn the language, sent me to a deaf school, and I tried to learn it. I just was not picking it up at all. ASL just was not working for me at all. It was slowing my ability to talk, and my parents wanted me to be able to talk as well. My mother was in the doctor’s office one day and came across a sesame street magazine with an article discussing cued speech. They gave an example of a girl, my age, which had the same loss I did and was trying to talk and how much cued speech had helped her so much and how it was a much better tool in terms of oral and lip reading.
To quickly brief you on what cued speech is, there are eight cues, or hand shapes if you will. Focusing only on, around or near the lip, side of mouth, throat and side of face. These eight cues create the visible aid to see how words are formed. Each movement of that cue reflects one enunciation. So if a word has 3 enunciations, like dou-bl-u, for W you will see three movements. This signifies the word has three enunciations.
My mother was amazed how quickly the girl picked up on the cueing, and how quickly she learned to talk, and read lips and how she excelled in reading and her vocabulary. This really peaked her interest as at the moment ASL was not working for us. She called the number in the article to inquire about cued speech and rest was history. She got hooked on it and learned it.
I was pulled out of the deaf school, with much protest as you can imagine. Parents were doing the wrong thing; they were not doing what was best for me or the deaf community. That sort of thing. It seems many protested against me learning cued because it pulled me away from the deaf community; it supported hearing and oralism, basically anything that was not “deaf”.
Once I started learning cued how to read it and the “cues”, my speech improved dramatically along with the help of speech therapy. I was able to visually see the words, and how they were pronounced, and once I saw it, I could sound it out with my voice. ASL could not help me with it nor would it ever in my case. My reading skills soared as well and my vocabulary got big also. However it should be made clear, cued speech is NOT a language nor has anyone ever claimed it to be. It is simply only a tool used to aid us in speaking capabilities, and lip reading. I wanted to be sure and clear that myth up, and those of us who know cued don’t ever try to claim it as a language nor have I really heard that either.
Again, only speaking for me and situation, cued speech worked tremendously for me and in my situation. ASL would not have worked for me, and given me the ability to do the things I can do now being deaf. I tremendously support cued speech for everything it does, and strongly advise it for at least educational purposes. ASL is by far the better one to use to communicate with other deaf people who know ASL. ASL is the linkage and I respect and understand that. However I wanted to bring up cued because it does exist, you cannot ignore it and it has made great strides in this community also. I cringe when I hear people talk to parents of deaf people bringing up only ASL and nothing else. I am not cringing that they are bringing up ASL but am cringing they are leaving out the option of cued speech too. It could be maybe cued will work better then ASL for that child’s situation, and just very well maybe it will not. You don’t know until you check BOTH options out.
Like with everything else there are disadvantages that need to be brought up. One is, it is not widely known. It is very hard to find someone else who also knows or understand cues. Cued Speech is not used as an accommodation for events such as plays, concerts, meetings, and speeches. It takes a long time to learn, between six months to a full year to be completely fluent in Cued speech. It is universal in the sense that once you learn cued, you can go to any country and use cued speech to translate that language.
I am taking the time to learn your language, ASL but I want you to acknowledge that there are other options to learn such as cued speech. I thoroughly enjoy learning ASL with my friend Geo and others through books and such. It is very exciting to learn a new language of any stature, and ASL is certainly no exception. I just want to be sure that cued was not left out and that it was a viable option to consider as well.
When my parents found out I was deaf they did what most every other parent would do, turn to the books and people to learn about ASL. They tried to learn the language, sent me to a deaf school, and I tried to learn it. I just was not picking it up at all. ASL just was not working for me at all. It was slowing my ability to talk, and my parents wanted me to be able to talk as well. My mother was in the doctor’s office one day and came across a sesame street magazine with an article discussing cued speech. They gave an example of a girl, my age, which had the same loss I did and was trying to talk and how much cued speech had helped her so much and how it was a much better tool in terms of oral and lip reading.
To quickly brief you on what cued speech is, there are eight cues, or hand shapes if you will. Focusing only on, around or near the lip, side of mouth, throat and side of face. These eight cues create the visible aid to see how words are formed. Each movement of that cue reflects one enunciation. So if a word has 3 enunciations, like dou-bl-u, for W you will see three movements. This signifies the word has three enunciations.
My mother was amazed how quickly the girl picked up on the cueing, and how quickly she learned to talk, and read lips and how she excelled in reading and her vocabulary. This really peaked her interest as at the moment ASL was not working for us. She called the number in the article to inquire about cued speech and rest was history. She got hooked on it and learned it.
I was pulled out of the deaf school, with much protest as you can imagine. Parents were doing the wrong thing; they were not doing what was best for me or the deaf community. That sort of thing. It seems many protested against me learning cued because it pulled me away from the deaf community; it supported hearing and oralism, basically anything that was not “deaf”.
Once I started learning cued how to read it and the “cues”, my speech improved dramatically along with the help of speech therapy. I was able to visually see the words, and how they were pronounced, and once I saw it, I could sound it out with my voice. ASL could not help me with it nor would it ever in my case. My reading skills soared as well and my vocabulary got big also. However it should be made clear, cued speech is NOT a language nor has anyone ever claimed it to be. It is simply only a tool used to aid us in speaking capabilities, and lip reading. I wanted to be sure and clear that myth up, and those of us who know cued don’t ever try to claim it as a language nor have I really heard that either.
Again, only speaking for me and situation, cued speech worked tremendously for me and in my situation. ASL would not have worked for me, and given me the ability to do the things I can do now being deaf. I tremendously support cued speech for everything it does, and strongly advise it for at least educational purposes. ASL is by far the better one to use to communicate with other deaf people who know ASL. ASL is the linkage and I respect and understand that. However I wanted to bring up cued because it does exist, you cannot ignore it and it has made great strides in this community also. I cringe when I hear people talk to parents of deaf people bringing up only ASL and nothing else. I am not cringing that they are bringing up ASL but am cringing they are leaving out the option of cued speech too. It could be maybe cued will work better then ASL for that child’s situation, and just very well maybe it will not. You don’t know until you check BOTH options out.
Like with everything else there are disadvantages that need to be brought up. One is, it is not widely known. It is very hard to find someone else who also knows or understand cues. Cued Speech is not used as an accommodation for events such as plays, concerts, meetings, and speeches. It takes a long time to learn, between six months to a full year to be completely fluent in Cued speech. It is universal in the sense that once you learn cued, you can go to any country and use cued speech to translate that language.
I am taking the time to learn your language, ASL but I want you to acknowledge that there are other options to learn such as cued speech. I thoroughly enjoy learning ASL with my friend Geo and others through books and such. It is very exciting to learn a new language of any stature, and ASL is certainly no exception. I just want to be sure that cued was not left out and that it was a viable option to consider as well.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Losing a Pet
It is true, when you lose a pet, it really does feel like losing a family member. One who protects you in every way. I lost my dog, Cubby, a Male German Shepard, suddenly out of the blue Monday afternoon. The cause of death was undetermined but was lead to believe it was simply heart failure, rather a collapse of the arteries. My dog was only 9 yrs old, just hitting his prime in dog years. He had a good 2 or 3 yrs left of his life.
I had just woken up and showered, and heard my mother come in for lunch. I walked out to say hello and make quick plans for the afternoon, Plans that were never going to happen. We talked maybe 2 or 3 minutes. Mom went outside to the garden to do something. I noticed my dog, Cubby didn’t follow her outside. He always did that, no questions asked. This should have been a concern to me but for some reason I pushed it away.
I walked into the living room to say Hi to my brother Jordan. I noticed Cubby lying down in the living room hallway sleeping. I thought how odd he is sleeping he doesn’t do that when we are home. I yelled his name to wake him up so we could take him outside. He didn’t move. How odd again. I motioned towards him calling his name over, stamping the floor trying to get him to wake up. I still thought he was just in a deep sleep. Then, I noticed his tongue was sticking out. It was like someone had wacked me in the stomach, I knew without thinking anything else he was dead.
But how, or what happened?! He was just alive an hour ago, we took him out, he was fine! I ran to him, and screamed his name, half hysterical, half furious no one saw anything. I shook him a bit, screaming his name again begging him to wake up. I kind of pushed his chest a bit, stupidly thinking it would get his heart going. I listened for breathing, and looked. Nothing, he was not breathing at all. I felt for his heart and gasped immediately. No heartbeat, in fact his body was extremely warm. He had just died not minutes before I walked in the room.
I started crying, couldn’t believe he was gone and again furious as to what happened. Did he really just collapse out of the blue like that?! A perfectly healthy, 9-Year-Old dog, like mine die suddenly? Not possible, I refused to admit it! I called mom in the house half sobbing, telling her cubby was dead or something was wrong with him. Mom freaked and jumped over him doing the same thing I had been doing. I kept saying stop, he is gone, and he is dead. But nothing. Kept going on. Finally after 5 or 10 minutes we accepted reality, my dog had passed away, yet so unexpectedly which created a shock and horror among us.
I called my grandma over, while Mom called her b/f over too. I called Dad to let him know what happened. We all came over and just grieved together but still so stunned and stumped as to what happened. Did he choke? No, we would have heard him. Gagged? Poison? Something killed him; dogs that healthy do NOT drop dead! Not at all. I didn’t want to wake up on that day to find my dog, dead in the living room hallway. Hell No.
We buried him outside Monday afternoon besides the garden near a bench. He is buried under the shade in the trees area. We buried him with a couple of toys, and his dog bowl. Mom kept his collar. We let my other dog, Dugout out with us. She walked near the grave, sat near her, and rested her head on the grave. She then perked up (I think she smelled him) got a bit excited, and started to dig at the grave, then stopped. She started to listen to the grave with her ears perked up. She then whined and lay back down. This was enough for me and I lost it again. I just couldn’t believe it had happened.
I went through my first day without him, and it is so very hard. I miss hearing him walk across the wooden floor. When I come home from work, I hold my breath and sigh, and listen. But, no barking from him signaling he is ok and ready for us to come home. When the doorbell rings, the silence is deafening. No barking at all, just the doorbell ringing. I sigh and go answer the door, not having to block the dog from escaping out of the house. I miss tripping over him in the kitchen as he tries to get some food from me. I sigh when I see a clump of black hair. That darned dog always had to shed! No more, shoot I might be missing the shedding!
Anyhow, I just wanted to share my feelings about what happened on that horrible day and what I had to go through. I hope no one ever goes through what I just did in the manner it was handled. Oh the vet called and thinks the dog died due to heart failure, rather collapse of the arteries. She did not want to say heart attack because according to her dogs do not have heart attacks. Whatever it was we won’t ever know.
He was one of my friends and was always there for me. I could always turn to him. I thought a nice song could help this blog as well.
"I Turn to You-Christina Aguilera
Alex
I had just woken up and showered, and heard my mother come in for lunch. I walked out to say hello and make quick plans for the afternoon, Plans that were never going to happen. We talked maybe 2 or 3 minutes. Mom went outside to the garden to do something. I noticed my dog, Cubby didn’t follow her outside. He always did that, no questions asked. This should have been a concern to me but for some reason I pushed it away.
I walked into the living room to say Hi to my brother Jordan. I noticed Cubby lying down in the living room hallway sleeping. I thought how odd he is sleeping he doesn’t do that when we are home. I yelled his name to wake him up so we could take him outside. He didn’t move. How odd again. I motioned towards him calling his name over, stamping the floor trying to get him to wake up. I still thought he was just in a deep sleep. Then, I noticed his tongue was sticking out. It was like someone had wacked me in the stomach, I knew without thinking anything else he was dead.
But how, or what happened?! He was just alive an hour ago, we took him out, he was fine! I ran to him, and screamed his name, half hysterical, half furious no one saw anything. I shook him a bit, screaming his name again begging him to wake up. I kind of pushed his chest a bit, stupidly thinking it would get his heart going. I listened for breathing, and looked. Nothing, he was not breathing at all. I felt for his heart and gasped immediately. No heartbeat, in fact his body was extremely warm. He had just died not minutes before I walked in the room.
I started crying, couldn’t believe he was gone and again furious as to what happened. Did he really just collapse out of the blue like that?! A perfectly healthy, 9-Year-Old dog, like mine die suddenly? Not possible, I refused to admit it! I called mom in the house half sobbing, telling her cubby was dead or something was wrong with him. Mom freaked and jumped over him doing the same thing I had been doing. I kept saying stop, he is gone, and he is dead. But nothing. Kept going on. Finally after 5 or 10 minutes we accepted reality, my dog had passed away, yet so unexpectedly which created a shock and horror among us.
I called my grandma over, while Mom called her b/f over too. I called Dad to let him know what happened. We all came over and just grieved together but still so stunned and stumped as to what happened. Did he choke? No, we would have heard him. Gagged? Poison? Something killed him; dogs that healthy do NOT drop dead! Not at all. I didn’t want to wake up on that day to find my dog, dead in the living room hallway. Hell No.
We buried him outside Monday afternoon besides the garden near a bench. He is buried under the shade in the trees area. We buried him with a couple of toys, and his dog bowl. Mom kept his collar. We let my other dog, Dugout out with us. She walked near the grave, sat near her, and rested her head on the grave. She then perked up (I think she smelled him) got a bit excited, and started to dig at the grave, then stopped. She started to listen to the grave with her ears perked up. She then whined and lay back down. This was enough for me and I lost it again. I just couldn’t believe it had happened.
I went through my first day without him, and it is so very hard. I miss hearing him walk across the wooden floor. When I come home from work, I hold my breath and sigh, and listen. But, no barking from him signaling he is ok and ready for us to come home. When the doorbell rings, the silence is deafening. No barking at all, just the doorbell ringing. I sigh and go answer the door, not having to block the dog from escaping out of the house. I miss tripping over him in the kitchen as he tries to get some food from me. I sigh when I see a clump of black hair. That darned dog always had to shed! No more, shoot I might be missing the shedding!
Anyhow, I just wanted to share my feelings about what happened on that horrible day and what I had to go through. I hope no one ever goes through what I just did in the manner it was handled. Oh the vet called and thinks the dog died due to heart failure, rather collapse of the arteries. She did not want to say heart attack because according to her dogs do not have heart attacks. Whatever it was we won’t ever know.
He was one of my friends and was always there for me. I could always turn to him. I thought a nice song could help this blog as well.
"I Turn to You-Christina Aguilera
Alex
Saturday, August 9, 2008
George Carlin "Airline Announcement" Subtitled!
Hey Everyone!
For those who have kept up with my blogs know I am a huge fan of flying and aviation. I also love comedy and being funny. It is just something I do and say sometimes without thinking about it. People who know me know I typo like crazy on AIM, and blurt out sexual innuendos without thinking about it. It almost always results in extreme laughter and a great time. One of my favorite actors and comedian was George Carlin. He did have some racist and not so good jokes and history back then but one thing I always loved to listen to was his special edition of Airline Announcements. I took the time to subtitle both videos for everyone to enjoy. This is one of the MOST watched videos on you tube and anywhere else, and I know some are frustrated with the lack of subtitles. Well, you don't have to wait anymore! Here they are!!! Please enjoy them!
Airline Announcement Part 1
Airline Announcement Part 2
Alex
For those who have kept up with my blogs know I am a huge fan of flying and aviation. I also love comedy and being funny. It is just something I do and say sometimes without thinking about it. People who know me know I typo like crazy on AIM, and blurt out sexual innuendos without thinking about it. It almost always results in extreme laughter and a great time. One of my favorite actors and comedian was George Carlin. He did have some racist and not so good jokes and history back then but one thing I always loved to listen to was his special edition of Airline Announcements. I took the time to subtitle both videos for everyone to enjoy. This is one of the MOST watched videos on you tube and anywhere else, and I know some are frustrated with the lack of subtitles. Well, you don't have to wait anymore! Here they are!!! Please enjoy them!
Airline Announcement Part 1
Airline Announcement Part 2
Alex
Friday, August 8, 2008
To Seek, or not to Seek! Trip to SEEKGEO!
It was time to go visit Geo and his Boyfriend, Jes. I was very excited. This was going to be one of my longer flights I had taken, 4 hours and 15 minutes from St. Louis to Seattle, then 2 hours changing planes before catching a quick hop, skip and a jump over to Pasco!
I had remembered Abbie’s sweet, frantic but hilariously funny, fiasco with Continental Airlines and her sight seeing all over the country and prayed this would not happen to me. I checked in at the ticket counter, and was asked if I would like to upgrade to First Class for a fee. Damn right I was going to! I swiped my credit card, and the machine spit out a flimsy boarding pass with ALEX TRUDE AMERICAN AIRLINES FIRST SEAT-4A SMOKING-NO. Well, I made a joke to myself saying the smoking should be yes, for I, I am indeed, Smoking Hot ;) Ok I am done dreaming now, moving on; I have a plane to catch.
I walked down with my carry on bag in tow heading to the first class security lane. I showed my ID and boarding pass and got through. It took me only 5 minutes to get through, ROCK ON! No having to take off my legs, arms, watches or anything. Swift and sweet! I walked down the concourse of C in Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. Bit bored, but busy for a Saturday evening. I was looking up at flights and noticed an inbound aircraft; also American Airlines from Seattle a bit delayed. I inquired about it at the gate and this is the response I got from the agent. “The American Airlines plane was about to take off before it nearly collided and smashed into a landing Southwest Airlines jet. It had to return to the gate and file some paperwork before taking off fro St. Louis” OH. MY. GOD. You tell me this NOW before I am about to take off, on the same airline, same aircraft I might add to the same FREAKING DESTINATION?! *sighs* I think I was going to be drinking big time on this flight.
I hung near the gate waiting for our flight from Seattle also to arrive, before dropping off the cruise ridden, plane flown and Alaskan people off the plane. It was soon time to board. I grabbed my bag and pass and lined up when they announced first class boarding. The agent paused and looked at me with a “you-think-you-riding-first-class-honey?” I smiled, handed her the pass and said, “thank you ma’am” Her face then turned to a “damn-he-sho-is!” I got on board and sat down in my seat-4A. I watched everyone else board, I like people watching ha-ha.
Doors soon closed, and the announcement came on. This was a Boeing 757-200 so this meant we had IFE on board. This stands for In-Flight Entertainment. Only the safety briefing was subtitled and even then, not every sentence was subtitled. I was surprised. I know the whole announcement and have it memorized so was shocked to see not everything was subtitled. Shame!
We backed out and headed to the runway and we took off. So far so good! No diverting, no engine failure or anything like that! I rule! We climbed to cruising altitude and hit 39,000 feet! Flew across Missouri and hit some severe storms in Kansas City area. I looked out the window to see the engine shaking quite a bit from the turbulence. Dinner was served and was fantastic!
Pretty soon after our four hours had passed we were landing into Seattle Airport after passing Mt. Rainer. Absolutely gorgeous! We landed, after flying over downtown Seattle, seeing space needle, and many other stuff was amazing. Landed, and headed over to the S Satellite concourse. We sat and waited for 15 minutes waiting for them to open the jet bridge! Good lord! They all stampeded off the plane and I walked about oh, say 3 or 5 miles to get off the plane into the airport. No I am joking, but man I swear it felt like a good 5 miles! I wandered into the concourse and immediately got lost. Yes, I Alex. S. Trude got lost in this airport. Why?! They switched out gates!!! We were supposed to be in the A concourse but we wound up in the S Satellite concourse! This meant I had to take the train! So I walked all over changing trains THREE SEPARATE TIMES, and rode the train four separate times. Good lord I was changing planes way more then planes here! “Planes, Trains and Automobiles!” How appropriate now!
Finally we reached the C concourse and I waited around for the boarding to begin for Pasco. Finally about 5 or 10 minutes before departure they announced us to begin boarding. So off we went to the 76 seater plane that was a PROP! Propeller! *gulp* I don’t do props! I sat down and turned to face the landing gear right in front of me. Oh goodie, so if the landing gear collapses I’ll be the first to see it! I rock again! Flight attendants come on board introduce themselves and we taxied out. They announced it was a non stop flight. Non stop? No I INSIST that it stops! *reference to George Carlin*.
We took off and began the short little 30 minute flight hop to Pasco. In no time we began turning for Pasco and *thunk* Landing gear comes out! Oh praise the lord it’s out, we can land!!! Woo hoo!!! We soon touched down back in Pasco! Hooray! I texted Geo to let them know I landed. But no response. Err did they forget me?! *sniff* 5 min go by…ok WHERE ARE YOU GEO?!?! Finally *vibrates*, ah ha a message! Geo “whoa, on way now, Damn u for moving fast, see ya in a few!” He was on his way! Soon in no time they pulled up we said our Hello’s and jumped in the car to head back to the apartment! I jumped in the shower, and then we all headed to bed to rest up for the next day!
I had remembered Abbie’s sweet, frantic but hilariously funny, fiasco with Continental Airlines and her sight seeing all over the country and prayed this would not happen to me. I checked in at the ticket counter, and was asked if I would like to upgrade to First Class for a fee. Damn right I was going to! I swiped my credit card, and the machine spit out a flimsy boarding pass with ALEX TRUDE AMERICAN AIRLINES FIRST SEAT-4A SMOKING-NO. Well, I made a joke to myself saying the smoking should be yes, for I, I am indeed, Smoking Hot ;) Ok I am done dreaming now, moving on; I have a plane to catch.
I walked down with my carry on bag in tow heading to the first class security lane. I showed my ID and boarding pass and got through. It took me only 5 minutes to get through, ROCK ON! No having to take off my legs, arms, watches or anything. Swift and sweet! I walked down the concourse of C in Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. Bit bored, but busy for a Saturday evening. I was looking up at flights and noticed an inbound aircraft; also American Airlines from Seattle a bit delayed. I inquired about it at the gate and this is the response I got from the agent. “The American Airlines plane was about to take off before it nearly collided and smashed into a landing Southwest Airlines jet. It had to return to the gate and file some paperwork before taking off fro St. Louis” OH. MY. GOD. You tell me this NOW before I am about to take off, on the same airline, same aircraft I might add to the same FREAKING DESTINATION?! *sighs* I think I was going to be drinking big time on this flight.
I hung near the gate waiting for our flight from Seattle also to arrive, before dropping off the cruise ridden, plane flown and Alaskan people off the plane. It was soon time to board. I grabbed my bag and pass and lined up when they announced first class boarding. The agent paused and looked at me with a “you-think-you-riding-first-class-honey?” I smiled, handed her the pass and said, “thank you ma’am” Her face then turned to a “damn-he-sho-is!” I got on board and sat down in my seat-4A. I watched everyone else board, I like people watching ha-ha.
Doors soon closed, and the announcement came on. This was a Boeing 757-200 so this meant we had IFE on board. This stands for In-Flight Entertainment. Only the safety briefing was subtitled and even then, not every sentence was subtitled. I was surprised. I know the whole announcement and have it memorized so was shocked to see not everything was subtitled. Shame!
We backed out and headed to the runway and we took off. So far so good! No diverting, no engine failure or anything like that! I rule! We climbed to cruising altitude and hit 39,000 feet! Flew across Missouri and hit some severe storms in Kansas City area. I looked out the window to see the engine shaking quite a bit from the turbulence. Dinner was served and was fantastic!
Pretty soon after our four hours had passed we were landing into Seattle Airport after passing Mt. Rainer. Absolutely gorgeous! We landed, after flying over downtown Seattle, seeing space needle, and many other stuff was amazing. Landed, and headed over to the S Satellite concourse. We sat and waited for 15 minutes waiting for them to open the jet bridge! Good lord! They all stampeded off the plane and I walked about oh, say 3 or 5 miles to get off the plane into the airport. No I am joking, but man I swear it felt like a good 5 miles! I wandered into the concourse and immediately got lost. Yes, I Alex. S. Trude got lost in this airport. Why?! They switched out gates!!! We were supposed to be in the A concourse but we wound up in the S Satellite concourse! This meant I had to take the train! So I walked all over changing trains THREE SEPARATE TIMES, and rode the train four separate times. Good lord I was changing planes way more then planes here! “Planes, Trains and Automobiles!” How appropriate now!
Finally we reached the C concourse and I waited around for the boarding to begin for Pasco. Finally about 5 or 10 minutes before departure they announced us to begin boarding. So off we went to the 76 seater plane that was a PROP! Propeller! *gulp* I don’t do props! I sat down and turned to face the landing gear right in front of me. Oh goodie, so if the landing gear collapses I’ll be the first to see it! I rock again! Flight attendants come on board introduce themselves and we taxied out. They announced it was a non stop flight. Non stop? No I INSIST that it stops! *reference to George Carlin*.
We took off and began the short little 30 minute flight hop to Pasco. In no time we began turning for Pasco and *thunk* Landing gear comes out! Oh praise the lord it’s out, we can land!!! Woo hoo!!! We soon touched down back in Pasco! Hooray! I texted Geo to let them know I landed. But no response. Err did they forget me?! *sniff* 5 min go by…ok WHERE ARE YOU GEO?!?! Finally *vibrates*, ah ha a message! Geo “whoa, on way now, Damn u for moving fast, see ya in a few!” He was on his way! Soon in no time they pulled up we said our Hello’s and jumped in the car to head back to the apartment! I jumped in the shower, and then we all headed to bed to rest up for the next day!
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Trip, Music, Stories and more!
Hello Ladies and Gentleman! How you all doing?! I have been so amazingly busy the past month or so working and hanging with friends once again. I am trying to maximize my summer days here in good old Southern Illinois before school starts for me in August! I have been busy doing more music videos so be sure to check that out also!
I did endure a tiny setback once again about choosing Cued Speech over ASL. My mother ran into an interpreter who works for a local community college. They got to talking and that person found out Mom and I attended the same meeting for incoming deaf college students at the college. They made more small talk, and she said “what on earth was that thing you were doing with your hands?! It looked like you were waving it all over making fun of yourself!” Mom said “It is called cued speech, and it has worked very well for us for many years” The Interp said “well what was wrong with sign language, it is the best language to use and you should have used that for your son instead of this cued thing” She continued on to say how Mom had made a poor choice and should have stuck with something that was well known (ASL) and I would have blended better with the community and such. There really was not much else to say, it was obvious she had her own opinions and mom already made her decision about me a long time ago. The interp did admit how hilarious we were at the meeting so I’m glad she noticed that.
No updates on the cochlear side. My new hearing molds are in I believe. So sometimes next week I may need to pick them up. Can’t wait to see how they are!
I got my bill for my Classes in the fall! I hope financial aid works out for me!!! Ugh! I can’t wait though to go back to school, I am looking forward to my one Aviation Class I am planning to take there called Aviation Mgmt. I am also taking a Math Class (yuck…) as well as Anthropology 2, and Art 2 also!
Oh, more updates on the Great Lakes Airline incident story on them changing my flight times. The Airline was saying I need to fax my ticket over for the refund and I’m saying “ticket?! I haven’t had a ticket in 8 yrs airlines stopped issuing tickets long time ago!” Since everything is done by email or sent online. So I’m panicking going American Airlines didn’t send me a ticket how I can send u a proof of ticket?! I don’t have a paper ticket so I said to the agent all I have is an e-ticket but it’s online by email I cant fax that to you.
She goes "sir you may print off the e-ticket off your email and fax that in as a copy"
"Oh...what’s the fax number then?!:-D"
Talk about a lapse in judgment. I just absolutely was not thinking at all. When I worked at Southwest, we did not have tickets, only etickets or boarding passes so I was used to how we did things at the airline I worked for an was convinced I messed up on something with American Airlines and their “tickets” ha-ha. However glad to say my refund should finally be processed now and I expect the money back in 1 or 2 cycling bills!
I am really preparing now to go visit Geo and Jes July 26th! I am really looking forward to it! Haven’t seen them in over 2 months, and as much as I love this state I am ready to leave it again! I miss flying too! Haven’t flown in over 2 months! Abbie flew, and a bunch of you guys did also for the Reno Convention and Geo and Jes did now it’s my turn!!! Hopefully I can upgrade to First Class!!! I will start packing probably middle of next week, collecting things for the big pack Friday night. I work every day now except tomorrow so the week will fly by fast!!! Will definitely bring my camera and expect a huge blog when I come back!
Oh I also finally got myself a Blackberry curve!!! Abbie kept bugging me to get one and I knew Geo had one and heard good things from them so I gave in and bought it. Verizon who I am with offered me a nice discount to upgrade and so I went in. Walked around, looked for phones that had high hearing aid compatibility and nothing beat the Curve. They looked at my account and saw I had previously worked for SWA and had an employee account with them and said because of that they could offer me a higher discount. In fact walking around the store thinking what to upgrade, I couldn’t stop singing the song “upgrade you” by Beyonce. Such a catchy song and one of the songs verizon actually used in a commercial! So I walked out of the verizon store with a blackberry in my pocket and 123 bucks less. Yep only cost me 123 dollars to buy the phone! Not a bad deal at all in my opinion! So now of course I have been BB like crazy! That’s blackberry-ing pervs!!!
I think that is it for now! Have a great weekend and safe travels if you go anywhere!!!
Alex
I did endure a tiny setback once again about choosing Cued Speech over ASL. My mother ran into an interpreter who works for a local community college. They got to talking and that person found out Mom and I attended the same meeting for incoming deaf college students at the college. They made more small talk, and she said “what on earth was that thing you were doing with your hands?! It looked like you were waving it all over making fun of yourself!” Mom said “It is called cued speech, and it has worked very well for us for many years” The Interp said “well what was wrong with sign language, it is the best language to use and you should have used that for your son instead of this cued thing” She continued on to say how Mom had made a poor choice and should have stuck with something that was well known (ASL) and I would have blended better with the community and such. There really was not much else to say, it was obvious she had her own opinions and mom already made her decision about me a long time ago. The interp did admit how hilarious we were at the meeting so I’m glad she noticed that.
No updates on the cochlear side. My new hearing molds are in I believe. So sometimes next week I may need to pick them up. Can’t wait to see how they are!
I got my bill for my Classes in the fall! I hope financial aid works out for me!!! Ugh! I can’t wait though to go back to school, I am looking forward to my one Aviation Class I am planning to take there called Aviation Mgmt. I am also taking a Math Class (yuck…) as well as Anthropology 2, and Art 2 also!
Oh, more updates on the Great Lakes Airline incident story on them changing my flight times. The Airline was saying I need to fax my ticket over for the refund and I’m saying “ticket?! I haven’t had a ticket in 8 yrs airlines stopped issuing tickets long time ago!” Since everything is done by email or sent online. So I’m panicking going American Airlines didn’t send me a ticket how I can send u a proof of ticket?! I don’t have a paper ticket so I said to the agent all I have is an e-ticket but it’s online by email I cant fax that to you.
She goes "sir you may print off the e-ticket off your email and fax that in as a copy"
"Oh...what’s the fax number then?!:-D"
Talk about a lapse in judgment. I just absolutely was not thinking at all. When I worked at Southwest, we did not have tickets, only etickets or boarding passes so I was used to how we did things at the airline I worked for an was convinced I messed up on something with American Airlines and their “tickets” ha-ha. However glad to say my refund should finally be processed now and I expect the money back in 1 or 2 cycling bills!
I am really preparing now to go visit Geo and Jes July 26th! I am really looking forward to it! Haven’t seen them in over 2 months, and as much as I love this state I am ready to leave it again! I miss flying too! Haven’t flown in over 2 months! Abbie flew, and a bunch of you guys did also for the Reno Convention and Geo and Jes did now it’s my turn!!! Hopefully I can upgrade to First Class!!! I will start packing probably middle of next week, collecting things for the big pack Friday night. I work every day now except tomorrow so the week will fly by fast!!! Will definitely bring my camera and expect a huge blog when I come back!
Oh I also finally got myself a Blackberry curve!!! Abbie kept bugging me to get one and I knew Geo had one and heard good things from them so I gave in and bought it. Verizon who I am with offered me a nice discount to upgrade and so I went in. Walked around, looked for phones that had high hearing aid compatibility and nothing beat the Curve. They looked at my account and saw I had previously worked for SWA and had an employee account with them and said because of that they could offer me a higher discount. In fact walking around the store thinking what to upgrade, I couldn’t stop singing the song “upgrade you” by Beyonce. Such a catchy song and one of the songs verizon actually used in a commercial! So I walked out of the verizon store with a blackberry in my pocket and 123 bucks less. Yep only cost me 123 dollars to buy the phone! Not a bad deal at all in my opinion! So now of course I have been BB like crazy! That’s blackberry-ing pervs!!!
I think that is it for now! Have a great weekend and safe travels if you go anywhere!!!
Alex
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Happy Thursday!
Hey Hey Hey! Howdy folks! How are you all doing?! I want to apologize for not getting those videos out! Over stream was down for almost a week and I was not able to upload, adding or view any videos or subtitle them. However they are working again and I already added two more videos! So patience, the videos ARE a coming, yes they are a coming!
I hope everyone read Abbie’s Blog about her chaos flying. Honest to god. I told her before got the flights booked, nothing would happen. I mean Hell, I have flown over 200 times, as she quoted me and nothing to that degree has ever happened to me before! I laughed, I cried, chuckled, and cursed the airlines, just knowing this only happens to Abbie and no one else. My word.
Now, because this happened to her, guess what. Oh yes, My flights are now going to be screwed…Sure enough I got a phone call from Great Lakes Airlines notifying me my flight from St. Louis back home was pushed backwards to 5:30pm departure. Instead of the 7:30pm departure I had previously booked online. Why is this bad? I am due to arrive into St. Louis from Seattle on American Airlines at EXACTLY 5:30pm. This is going to make me miss connect and miss my flight and force me to overnight in St. Louis. *sighs* Now under normal circumstances it is illegal for an airline to change their schedule and make you miss connect under the same itinerary, however because I booked these two flights as SEPARATE itineraries, each airline is not required, nor will they help accommodate me to find a place to stay overnight or fix it so I will not miss connect. It is not the airlines fault at all in this situation; I did this to myself by booking two separate reservations, but OY! This is going to be a royal pain in the BEHIND! I shall let you know how it goes when I do this trip!
Speaking of airline and aviation, I had decided NOT to accept the interview for the job I was checking out at Southwest Airlines. It was to time consuming for me to figure a time to do the interview. I also had family coming out of the country I had not seen in awhile and knew it would be one of the days the airline would schedule my interview. Plus I also have my trip to visit Geo and Jes and while I am sure the new position would have been flexible in letting me go on the trip, the idea of just starting a job then requesting time off to go on vacation in the middle of it all, ALSO did not appeal to me.
I also got back from the audiologist. I got my ears remolded so I can get new molds. I have not had a mold change since 2004. FOUR YEARS AGO!!! We discussed the digital hearing aids and such. I was shocked to find out I actually already HAVE digital hearing aids! I said oh man my hearing loss must be greater then I had imagined. It is at 90db for my right ear, and 95db for my left ear. So I was a bit saddened thinking my hearing could become greater if I switched to digital hearing aids, but apparently this is not the case. He said I have one of the best digital hearing aids and says because of my hearing loss, he did not recommend me to go buy another one because it would only improve so little if that, and did not want me paying upwards to 800 dollars per ear to get this done. So we discussed the CI. Always a tense topic here but needs to be discussed.
He claimed I was a very good and prime candidate to get the CI based on his opinions and facts. He suggested going see a CI team in St. Louis or Chicago even and get some more advice from them. He says because I can already talk and hear with hearing aids my recovery time would be much better and faster and thinks I can really benefit from it. I am of course weary of it but a bit excited at it. Could it be the next step for me in my life in advancing my hearing? I am not sure. It is a very heavy decision to think of involving my family, and friends and even co workers. We all know my true desire to work in the airline industry that is never going to change. It is in my heart, blood and soul. Aviation is who I am and what I do. If there is anything I can do to make my life work better or to be involved with the airline industry I would be willing to do it. That is where my passion lies. So next step now is to contact a CI team in STL and just seek advice. No decisions have been made or anything, just simply seeking advice.
Nothing new has really been happening for me since the last blog. Busy working as usual and hanging with friends. Another sunset concert tonight! I should be able to go very excited! Then my friend and I will have what we call a “subtitle movie night” since we both require subtitles to watch our favorite movies! Woo Hoo!
Have a great weekend folks and I will be back to upload more videos!
Alex
I hope everyone read Abbie’s Blog about her chaos flying. Honest to god. I told her before got the flights booked, nothing would happen. I mean Hell, I have flown over 200 times, as she quoted me and nothing to that degree has ever happened to me before! I laughed, I cried, chuckled, and cursed the airlines, just knowing this only happens to Abbie and no one else. My word.
Now, because this happened to her, guess what. Oh yes, My flights are now going to be screwed…Sure enough I got a phone call from Great Lakes Airlines notifying me my flight from St. Louis back home was pushed backwards to 5:30pm departure. Instead of the 7:30pm departure I had previously booked online. Why is this bad? I am due to arrive into St. Louis from Seattle on American Airlines at EXACTLY 5:30pm. This is going to make me miss connect and miss my flight and force me to overnight in St. Louis. *sighs* Now under normal circumstances it is illegal for an airline to change their schedule and make you miss connect under the same itinerary, however because I booked these two flights as SEPARATE itineraries, each airline is not required, nor will they help accommodate me to find a place to stay overnight or fix it so I will not miss connect. It is not the airlines fault at all in this situation; I did this to myself by booking two separate reservations, but OY! This is going to be a royal pain in the BEHIND! I shall let you know how it goes when I do this trip!
Speaking of airline and aviation, I had decided NOT to accept the interview for the job I was checking out at Southwest Airlines. It was to time consuming for me to figure a time to do the interview. I also had family coming out of the country I had not seen in awhile and knew it would be one of the days the airline would schedule my interview. Plus I also have my trip to visit Geo and Jes and while I am sure the new position would have been flexible in letting me go on the trip, the idea of just starting a job then requesting time off to go on vacation in the middle of it all, ALSO did not appeal to me.
I also got back from the audiologist. I got my ears remolded so I can get new molds. I have not had a mold change since 2004. FOUR YEARS AGO!!! We discussed the digital hearing aids and such. I was shocked to find out I actually already HAVE digital hearing aids! I said oh man my hearing loss must be greater then I had imagined. It is at 90db for my right ear, and 95db for my left ear. So I was a bit saddened thinking my hearing could become greater if I switched to digital hearing aids, but apparently this is not the case. He said I have one of the best digital hearing aids and says because of my hearing loss, he did not recommend me to go buy another one because it would only improve so little if that, and did not want me paying upwards to 800 dollars per ear to get this done. So we discussed the CI. Always a tense topic here but needs to be discussed.
He claimed I was a very good and prime candidate to get the CI based on his opinions and facts. He suggested going see a CI team in St. Louis or Chicago even and get some more advice from them. He says because I can already talk and hear with hearing aids my recovery time would be much better and faster and thinks I can really benefit from it. I am of course weary of it but a bit excited at it. Could it be the next step for me in my life in advancing my hearing? I am not sure. It is a very heavy decision to think of involving my family, and friends and even co workers. We all know my true desire to work in the airline industry that is never going to change. It is in my heart, blood and soul. Aviation is who I am and what I do. If there is anything I can do to make my life work better or to be involved with the airline industry I would be willing to do it. That is where my passion lies. So next step now is to contact a CI team in STL and just seek advice. No decisions have been made or anything, just simply seeking advice.
Nothing new has really been happening for me since the last blog. Busy working as usual and hanging with friends. Another sunset concert tonight! I should be able to go very excited! Then my friend and I will have what we call a “subtitle movie night” since we both require subtitles to watch our favorite movies! Woo Hoo!
Have a great weekend folks and I will be back to upload more videos!
Alex
Friday, June 13, 2008
Updates and more!!!
Hello All!!!
I have been extremely busy working non stop, hit over 70 hours in the past 2 weeks and a half. I should know, just got paid today woo hoo! Friday the 13th IS good for something! :)
Just wanted to update you guys a bit in what has been going on lately. I have been practicing my signs a lot, and encouraging my close friends, all whom are hearing to learn ASL with me. Couple of my friends have been very encouraging and are just as enthusiastic to learn with me. In fact I went to a concert with a friend of mine, and he has always been fascinated by ASL. He never really had a reason to learn it until he met me. Of course I don't claim to be fluent in ASL myself but I definitely knew a lot.
He told me to talk to him in ASL as much as I can so he can pick up as we communicate. I said no problem I'd be happy to do so. At the concert, it actually became useful as the music was so utterly loud, he could barely hear me talk, and he cannot read lips. So what to do?! We whipped our hands out and started signing!!! For the first time I actually thought "damn this is just cool!"
I never really had a full opportunity to communicate in ASL fully, except when I went to visit Geo, and found myself really enjoying this new language and sharing it with my hearing friends also.
We found ourselves really relying on the ASL usage during the 2 hour concert, and I left with my friends and even after the concert was over, we kept signing on the way back to his place. I just thought it was so damn cool!
It is always fun to learn new languages with your friends and using ASL as one of them is an excellent way to become close with current friends, deaf or hearing and it just gives us something else to talk about, or rather Sign about! Like I said it definitely came in handy during the concert.
Some other things going, for those who had not heard, I am traveling back to Pasco to visit Geo and Jes again for an entire week. Will be flying on American Airlines via Seattle, out of St. Louis and my hometown, Marion, so I have 3 flight legs to get on before arriving! I arrive at close to midnight his time, which is two am my time. I am gonna be so tired after traveling all day I don't think anything is gonna wake me up, well except a few things like a can of COKE!
A cousin of mine who has been serving with the air force and stationed in Italy is coming home near end of June for a couple of days before he goes back to Italy! I am very excited and have not seen him in a long time. Will be a ton of fun!
I have a prospective job with Southwest Airlines, that I am checking out. It is a computer job, and basically no phone usage in the job except the usual to pick up and make a phone call here and there. In other words the phone should not really be a heavy burden for me if I chose to interview for the job. I do not know the pay just yet, am currently conferring it with the manager right now, and if I chose to continue the interview, it is done in Dallas and I would have to move to Dallas if I am offered the job and would be working at the Southwest Airlines Headquarters. I don't usually like to announce any prospective jobs that I am researching, but at this point It is like what the hey. I will let you know if I chose to actually interview for the position or not.
Also, finally, SUBTITLING!!! I have hit over 100 videos for me to subtitle. I realize some don't really care, and some do, but even if one person enjoys my subtitling the videos, that is good to hear! I realize not everyone shares my taste of music and artists and singers but I still have a lot of fun and enjoy doing them. There is one video I did not do, and I want to thank Abbie for doing so and that is "Ring the Alarm" by Beyonce. Thanks Abbie!!! As of now I have 117 videos as of now subtitled. Many different songs, and artists. So here is a link... Alex's subtitled Videos.
Please enjoy the songs and videos! More will be coming later!
Hope everyone has been having a great Friday the 13th and have a great weekend everyone!!!
Alex
I have been extremely busy working non stop, hit over 70 hours in the past 2 weeks and a half. I should know, just got paid today woo hoo! Friday the 13th IS good for something! :)
Just wanted to update you guys a bit in what has been going on lately. I have been practicing my signs a lot, and encouraging my close friends, all whom are hearing to learn ASL with me. Couple of my friends have been very encouraging and are just as enthusiastic to learn with me. In fact I went to a concert with a friend of mine, and he has always been fascinated by ASL. He never really had a reason to learn it until he met me. Of course I don't claim to be fluent in ASL myself but I definitely knew a lot.
He told me to talk to him in ASL as much as I can so he can pick up as we communicate. I said no problem I'd be happy to do so. At the concert, it actually became useful as the music was so utterly loud, he could barely hear me talk, and he cannot read lips. So what to do?! We whipped our hands out and started signing!!! For the first time I actually thought "damn this is just cool!"
I never really had a full opportunity to communicate in ASL fully, except when I went to visit Geo, and found myself really enjoying this new language and sharing it with my hearing friends also.
We found ourselves really relying on the ASL usage during the 2 hour concert, and I left with my friends and even after the concert was over, we kept signing on the way back to his place. I just thought it was so damn cool!
It is always fun to learn new languages with your friends and using ASL as one of them is an excellent way to become close with current friends, deaf or hearing and it just gives us something else to talk about, or rather Sign about! Like I said it definitely came in handy during the concert.
Some other things going, for those who had not heard, I am traveling back to Pasco to visit Geo and Jes again for an entire week. Will be flying on American Airlines via Seattle, out of St. Louis and my hometown, Marion, so I have 3 flight legs to get on before arriving! I arrive at close to midnight his time, which is two am my time. I am gonna be so tired after traveling all day I don't think anything is gonna wake me up, well except a few things like a can of COKE!
A cousin of mine who has been serving with the air force and stationed in Italy is coming home near end of June for a couple of days before he goes back to Italy! I am very excited and have not seen him in a long time. Will be a ton of fun!
I have a prospective job with Southwest Airlines, that I am checking out. It is a computer job, and basically no phone usage in the job except the usual to pick up and make a phone call here and there. In other words the phone should not really be a heavy burden for me if I chose to interview for the job. I do not know the pay just yet, am currently conferring it with the manager right now, and if I chose to continue the interview, it is done in Dallas and I would have to move to Dallas if I am offered the job and would be working at the Southwest Airlines Headquarters. I don't usually like to announce any prospective jobs that I am researching, but at this point It is like what the hey. I will let you know if I chose to actually interview for the position or not.
Also, finally, SUBTITLING!!! I have hit over 100 videos for me to subtitle. I realize some don't really care, and some do, but even if one person enjoys my subtitling the videos, that is good to hear! I realize not everyone shares my taste of music and artists and singers but I still have a lot of fun and enjoy doing them. There is one video I did not do, and I want to thank Abbie for doing so and that is "Ring the Alarm" by Beyonce. Thanks Abbie!!! As of now I have 117 videos as of now subtitled. Many different songs, and artists. So here is a link... Alex's subtitled Videos.
Please enjoy the songs and videos! More will be coming later!
Hope everyone has been having a great Friday the 13th and have a great weekend everyone!!!
Alex
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