Deaf Man trying to find his place in a Hearing World

Upcoming weekend

2011-03-03T22:42:00.000-08:00

Hey All--

Well end of another week, so glad Friday is here! I have been busy typing up a paper for my LAST Saturday Class of the Semester! It was an airport planning class, that met every Saturday from 8am to 4:30pm, very long but since it talked about aviation I didn't mind it too much. Just dragged, and waking up at 6:30am, for an 8am class is not fun to do but it was only once a week.

We had a chilly week, but then it started getting nice again. We had another Tornado Warning Sunday, so we had to go to the basement and take cover. The storm ended up being only literally 5 minutes passing our city so we were like "that's it?!" Oh well it did kind of screw up the TV and Satellite, so our TV actually kind of froze for 2 days. I missed all my shows I normally tape! :(

Thursdays means Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice for me, glad I get to watch those again. I miss Glee, can't wait to see it again next week.

I got four more Plane models in 1:400 scale. They are American Airlines MD80, Virgin America Airbus A320, Delta Air Lines Boeing 767-300, and finally my personal favorite, TWA L1011. Cost about 95 bucks total, YIKES! :(

I am still trying to get my plans for Spring Break a bit more concrete, Chicago is still where I am planning to fly to, it's a matter of can I make it on the plane with the flight loads, and during Spring Break? It;s very risky but I'll try it! Will be quite an adventure.

I work Saturday Night from 5-9pm, and Sunday 12-5:30pm, typical weekend. Looks like more rain, I wish the nice weather would come back! It is march for god's sake!

I had a craving for Oreos and Twizzlers, so unhealthy for me but you know how you get a sugar rush craving so, I had to buy it. I'll regret it later I am sure.

Until then, hope ya'll have a great weekend! :)

Alex

Weekend is over!

2011-02-27T18:20:00.000-08:00

Hey All--

Weekend has now come to a close. It wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be, friends were out of town, I had to work all weekend too.

I did figure out some plans for maybe going somewhere for Spring Break, hoping to hit up Chicago to see some friends if the flight loads work out.

I worked 12-6pm Friday, then 12-6pm also Saturday, then today, Sunday I worked 12-5:30pm.

We're supposed to be getting some storms, wind and Tornado's. As good as an implant is, I still sleep with the implant off, so I hope I wake up if there is a Tornado siren going on somewhere! Maybe Dorothy can give me a call to wake me up!

I read that Glee won't return for another week, kind of sad! :( I really love Glee, anyone watching the Oscars tonight?

Lady Gaga will be in Chicago tomorrow, but still too far away from me, her new "Born This Way" music video will be released tomorrow, I cannot wait for it!

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Alex

Weekend So Far

2011-02-26T16:42:00.001-08:00

Hey All-

Saturday here, not much to do. Been working all weekend. Trying to think of places to fly to. I had a funny incident with my Cochlear Implant the other day.

I was holding my Umbrella in the rain, and suddenly everything went quiet. I felt around and realized the magnet on my head detached itself and flew off my head and attached itself to the metal rod of the Umbrella...Guess it didn't wanna get wet either!

Yesterday, I had to decline a State of Illinois Credit Card at work. Little ironic that it got declined, shows the financial ruins of our state doesn't it?

No plans for Spring Break yet, I have been so slow in traveling. I haven't flown since October when I went to Los Angeles with a friend. Had a good time!

Weekend is going good so far, hope you guys are enjoying yours. Need some warm weather soon!

Alex

Born This Way-Lady Gaga Song, My Thoughts

2011-02-26T16:36:00.000-08:00

First time I heard the song, my instant reaction was “hmmh, this needs to be a ballad” It has good upbeat moves, and certainly something one can dance to in the clubs. I think when I pre-read the lyrics without hearing the music I formed my own version of it, and it came out to be a ballad.

Maybe Whitney Houston can perform this song as a ballad, as Lady Gaga mentioned on the Grammy’s last night. A lot of people have messaged me knowing I am a big fan of her, and wanted to know what I thought. The sentence I kept saying was “it’s not THE lady gaga song, I feel that title still goes to “Bad Romance” but, I really have never heard such beautiful lyrics in my life.

Most of you know by now that I am Gay. If you didn’t, you know now. I am not one of those guys who bawled my eyes out first time I heard the song, because I had to sit and think about it. Many proclaim it to be an anthem for gay people. While I can see how many can interpret it as that way, I truly think it is a song for EVERYONE. She covers it in all genres’ races, orientation and whatnot.

I heard it a lot, put it on repeat, watched it on the Grammy’s trying to get into it and like it, the way everyone else has, but something didn’t click with me yet. The song is great, why can’t I relate to it yet? Did the music really need to be a ballad for me to “like it” or was I not letting myself be more open minded?

The song opened talking about what her momma said, and leading to how everyone is perfect, maybe that’s why I couldn’t relate to it just yet? I didn’t see myself as perfect, we all have mistakes, but then I hear her singing “god makes no mistakes”. That is certainly true.

I kept listening, really analyzing the lyrics (maybe more than I needed to) this song was supposed to be THE hit of her, and relate to everyone, so I was determined to find it. The song came on the radio again today, on the way to work so I figured, Ok going to listen to it again.

Then out of nowhere it just hit me, I was “born this way”, and I sure as hell didn’t choose to be gay and sure as hell didn’t choose to be deaf too. All the folks who were against me for being gay, and asked why I chose it, look at me. I am Deaf too, that’s my disability, why the hell would I CHOOSE to be gay, and make my life twice as hard. I didn’t make myself this way, God did.

She sings it word for word, I am on the right track, he didn’t make any mistakes, because I was Born This Way. It left me smiling, and just really appreciated she took the time, whether in 10 minutes or 5 days to write a song everyone can relate to.

So family and friends, love and respect everyone for who they are, if you believe in Capital HIM, respect what he did, he created everyone the way he had us in mind, race, orientation, and disabilities. Love them and me for who we are.

Alex

1 Year of the Cochlear-Implant-Activation November 11th, 2011

2011-02-26T16:30:00.000-08:00

"What?"

"I didn't hear you?"

"What's that noise?"

"Did you hear that?"

Those are sentences I would have said a year ago. Now, One year later, I hardly, if ever, rarely say those words as a result of my being Deaf.

On the first day I was "turned on" and by that I mean by the machine, yes a machine turned me on, imagine that! All I heard was a fizzle, and beeps of sounds. Very confusing to me at first but, the more important thing was I was HEARING those sounds naturally. The first few days would be confusing, mumbled sounds, and nothing really clear.

Everything was just too loud to me! This was quite funny as I was always the guy who asked to have things turned up. Now after the activation I did a 180 and would ask for things to be turned down. It always sounded like people were yelling at me and it hurt my ears and head. I wondered how hearing people survived this?!

Then I remember one moment driving home from the hospital after one of my numerous check ups, I heard this clicking sound in the car. I never heard this before and it alarmed me. I was convinced something was wrong with the car. That's it I decided, I was pulling over to figure this sound. The sound happened once again as I turned off the road and pulled over, but would stop when I was going straight. This had me absolutely dumbfounded. I proceeded to call my mother with the mind I was going to have to call a tow-truck. Imagine this, standing outside on the highway off the hospital 2 hrs away from home not knowing what the hell was making this clicking sound. I explained everything I was doing to my mother, and I heard a short laugh, and then a brief of sympathy going "Oh, Honey, thats the turn signal!" Me "the turn signal makes a sound?" I proceeded to turn on the turn signal and sure as hell, *click* *click* *click* I'll be damned! My mother proceeded to add "this is going to be a long month for us isn't it?!"

I also remember random moments of sound, the first time I heard a raccoon, but most people won't care that I heard a raccoon, but this is the amazing thing. The raccoon was nowhere near me. I was hearing it from SO far away. I now discovered not only could I hear things naturally I could PICK UP sound from far away. This truly was remarkable for me.

Some noises that became irritating for me but I got over it was the crackling of paper, jingling of keys, and the worst part was in my computer class. 26 people clacking away on the computer actually gave me a headache, Hearing every beep, chime, ping, clack, and click. Oh how did you guys do it?!

Then the big thing for me, FLYING! Oh, how I longed to hear the sound of the engines naturally, the wind whistling by, the announcements, the chime and pings. I could hear some of them on the hearing aid, but not as loud and clear as I would on the implant. I took my first inaugural flight with Southwest Airlines of course to Boston, and sat back and truly enjoyed everything I was hearing. Soon after 70 plus flights I have taken I am very good at recognizing just about every sound made on the aircraft, am able to follow along most announcements, that is if the flight attendant or pilot is actually speaking real clear...I really enjoyed it.

Music has also changed quite a bit for me. I have shyed away from country music and gotten more into pop, RB and just my rage of music has really changed. I like it, yes I still play Britney Spears so get over it people hahaha.

It has been a remarkable year for me, hearing things for the first time or hearing things in a more clear-er way. Family's voices, friends voices, I have enjoyed every moment of it, and look forward to the next year and developing and fine tuning my ears! Who knows, perhaps I will get my 2nd implant done!

Alex

1 Year Anniversary of the Cochlear-Implant--October 23rd, 2010

2011-02-26T16:26:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys-

It's been a long year, but I had my one year anniv in October and November respectively for the surgery and for the activation. I wanted to share them here for those who were interested.

October 23rd, 2010, marks the one-year anniversary of my Cochlear-Implant Surgery. I don’t even know where to begin to talk about the impact it has had on my life. I spent almost a year debating whether to have it done or not, what my friends and families thought, should I go for it? What would the impact be on my life, school, work and relationships with friends and more.

I could start with meeting people who had the implant. I was amazed how well they were doing with it, whether bi-lateral or dual. It blew me away and completely impressed me. I came home to talk to my family and friends about it, and thought I’d like to check this out. I talked to close friends, and family and in time, I decided for once I need to be selfish, and do what I wanted. Truth of the matter was, I wanted to HEAR. Feel like I belonged in this world.

Go back to the night before the surgery, I was terrified. Did I make the right decision? No backing out now, am I really going under again? Never fear, I was amazed at all the support I received from everyone the night of the surgery it was a great thought to have just before going under.

Then it came time to prep for surgery. Get blood done, IV in, it’s time to go to sleep. I don’t remember anything around that time, just being asked to count backwards from ten. Next thing I know, I am awake.

Of course letting people know I made it through the surgery was my first task, and everyone wanted to know the ONE burning question…”What can you hear?!” Me “NOTHING YET!”

It was amusing trying to explain to people the surgery was just to insert the magnet inside the head, and the true part would come barely a month later in November.

Thinking back the previous year, and to think has it really been a year since I had the surgery? It indeed has.

The surgery, and implant, has really strengthen my relationships with my friends no doubt and family too. It certainly brought up awesome conversations, hilarious moments in trying to hear things or recover my surgery.

I also think back to my first flying trips after the implant, when I took my first flight on Southwest Airlines to Boston on their inaugural flight out of STL. It was my inaugural for hearing and theirs for flying! It was so amazing getting to hear the sounds of “flying” that I had not heard before the surgery.

Then I think back to my first concert with Reba McEntire in February, and BOY what a difference it made to listen to country music and hear the twang and what not. Same for Lady Gaga concert, I was also surprised what I could pick up and hear and understand.

Then, trying to see a movie in 3D at the theaters wasn’t exactly a success story either. The glasses would knock off my implant on the head, so I had to decide, be blind, and hear the movie but not see, or be deaf, knock off the implant but be able to see the movie. Talk about having a Helen Keller moment! J

Going on my first international trip period on the implant was awesome for me to experience because I had to figure how to charge my batteries, and keep up with it while overseas. Getting to hear the dialect and language of Japanese folks versus American/English folks was very neat experience for me also.

I could go on and on, and most people won’t read or comment on this and that’s fine. I just want you to know, when you whine and complain, stop and think for a second that you are able to HEAR people whine and complain. For 22 years I was not able to do that. Now I can hear it, and try to be a part of the hearing world. Step by Step, day by day.

I never take anything for granted now, and it truly does give me the gift of life in a way because hearing is so much a part of it. I am very thankful for everything and the opportunity this has presented me. So much has been achieved in just a year, and I have only just begun. We ain’t seen nothing yet!

Once again from the bottom of my heart, I thank each and every single one of you who have been there for me, through likes, comments, messages, wall posts, texts, phone calls, visits, just asking how I am is sooo much appreciated. I am excited to share it all with you, and as long as you keep asking I will keep sharing!

One Year ladies and gentlemen, one year. It’s been an amazing ride.

Alex

Cochlear Updates

2009-09-03T18:09:00.000-07:00

Hello Folks-

This will be the LAST update for now until the day of my surgery, which is now scheduled for OCTOBER 23RD, 2009, A Friday Morning.

I met with the surgeon Thursday, August 27th. I got to see my CT Scans, which showed everything was normal, and all the holes that were supposed to be there, were in fact there!

We went over my decision on which ear, I remain to stay with the left side so far, and which company I chose-AB Harmony. Surgically, he had some concerns or rather cautions about operating in my left ear with an AB Harmony magnet. It seems surgically for my surgeon at least it is just a tad bit more difficult to operate and insert the internal piece, the magnet, from AB Harmony than it is with Nuclear Freedom.

However, that did not defer me and I still stood by AB Harmony and after double-checking my options with my Audiologist I confirmed AB Harmony was what I wanted to go with.

So with that we went to the secretary’s office, and got word and confirmation that October 23rd would be the date of surgery. I am very very excited to finally have a date to look forward to. It has been almost a year of checking things out, going through insurance process, getting appointments set up. Quite a whirlwind. Meeting with family and friends to make sure they were in the know, and getting their support, advice and suggestions. I take all of your thoughts and suggestions to heart, and in the end I chose with what was the most comfortable for me and what would further improve my lifestyle as well.

Keep in mind; I am NOT GOING TO BEGIN HEARING IMMEDIATELY OUT OF SURGERY. The surgery is simply the insertion of the magnet, internal piece of the cochlear implant. It will be up to 3 weeks possibly AFTER the surgery before I can put the external implant on, also known as the speech processor, and then be “turned on”. Even then, when they turn my speech processor on, I am not going to start suddenly hearing and understanding everything at once. This is a VERY long process and will take a lot of support and importantly PATIENCE as I work with my family and friends in going through therapy and sessions and meetings and whatnot.

I believe I have to meet twice a week for a month after the surgery then it is a gradual process depending how well I advance and whatnot. So I do NOT want to disappoint you all and you wonder why I am not hearing/understanding anything right after have my surgery. This is not an instant surgery unfortunately. We all would love that to be the case, but alas it is not.

Also, I have been asked by STL if I would be interested in participating in a research program, I would be paid by the hour and reimbursed for mileage and parking expenses. It is an entire year, meeting every 3 months. It should not be conflicting with my work and classes but I think I will try it out and see how it goes. If I see it is conflicting then I will drop out, but certainly something worth checking out for sure!

So I ask for your patience and support as I go through with it, there are going to be times I will be very frustrated, times I may think, I am not going anywhere, it is up to you folks to keep me going too, and remind me it is worth it in the end!

This is pretty much it, and all I will do is wait until day of surgery. If you have any questions or comments please leave them here, you may contact me through face book, text however you have my information. I want you all to be as educated as I am with the process, so you all have an understanding also of what I am going through too.

Thanks everyone!

Alex

Cochlear Update Round Two!

2009-04-22T22:59:00.001-07:00

Hello Folks-

As promised I would keep you guys updated. I had my second round of appt today in STL back at Barnes-Jewish. Cherise was kind enough to come with me to the appointment, and true to our relationship as friends, we of course got lost at the hospital! It was a long two hour drive, but thankfully one of my other good friends, Joe T, texted me to try and be there with me in spirit so thanks for that Joe! Appreciate the support from everyone who texted or left a message.

We got to the hospital about an hour early, but of course, Lucy (myself) and Ethel (Cherise) got lost right as we walked in. Apparantly my room was on the other side of the hospital, so after calling my father a million times, stopping to ask different hospital personals literally 5 times we finally found the room we had to go, 40 minutes later :)

Luckily, I arrived into the office JUST in time to fill out some paperwork, and do all that. They for some reason assigned me an ASL interp, which I specifically told them I didn't need, the poor guy sat in the room making conversation with Cherise barely moving his fingers to sign.

I went into the testing room, and I had a series of test this time WITH my hearing aids on. I of course failed as usual which is what we want! I was really surprised how bad I did. The first sequence of the test was to click a button anytime I heard a sound, I did that.

I had to do this with both hearing aids, one off and the other on and vice versa. Same thing with one word speech, a word would be spoken and I had to speak it outloud what I thought was said. She said I got one more word right out of my right ear over my left ear.

Then the last was to repeat a sentence I thought I heard or interperated, and I know Cherise had so much fun with this. I came up with the most weird sentences, for example I had to say whatever I thought I heard regardless of how strange it was because they were also testing to see how well I could interprate it. One sentence I said was "The bear is fishing in the car" Which we know doesn't happen, but it is what i heard!!!

That was all done, took about one hour and a half. We met back in her office, and she once again reiterated what the surgeon said and that she felt strongly I am definetly eligible for the cochlear implant! So I am now 2 for 2!!! *thumbs up!* I should hope so if I thought I heard "the bear is fishing in the car" I mean honestly!

The audiologist said the next step now is to wait until we hear from the insurance company, once we are contacted regarding that, we can now begin the pre op surgery appointments which involve meeting a few "-ologist" doctors, radiology, and neurologist and whatnot. Each of them I have to meet with and as long as I continue to meet the satisfaction of the CI requirements, they will continue to approve it for me as I meet each doctor. This is simply how the process goes.

However long that takes, I would be scheduled for surgery, most realistically by end of summer, anything sooner would be fantastic but not likely. I do have concerns of it starting right around school time but I frankly have no choice. After the surgery, i will be given 2 weeks or so to heal before I go back to be "turned on". I have to then go back up for 6 weeks, 2 times a week to continue the mapping and such. This is going to be a pain and hard on me, for those who are unfamilair with my location it is a 4 hr round trip drive everytime I go to STL ahhhh, but hopefully if it all works out in the end it is worth it!

Anyhow, that is the updated for now, so to recap, the audiologist (after the surgeon also) has also approved my CI Surgery for go ahead to meet the next doctor, next step is now to wait to hear from the insurance which may take up to a month, who knows. Then after that is to schedule an appt to see radiologist regarding the cat scan I believe.

Thanks again for all the support, and leave a message if you have any questions!

Alex

Cochlear Implant Updates

2009-04-03T22:20:00.000-07:00

Hello All-

After literally months of talking to people, and meeting with University, I was finally approved so that My Dad’s insurance had agreed to pay for the Cochlear Surgery. So with that good news, the next step was to contact a Doctor in St. Louis. Naturally I bothered Abbie so much about this I probably drove her Blackberry nuts.

The day had come for me to go meet the Doctor in St. Louis, April 2nd, 2009. Yes, the same day Abbie was to get “turned on”. This was not planned. So I couldn’t sleep the night before, and one of my good friends signed online to talk to me and relax me and it made me more jittery. I sent more texts to Abbie trying to get reassurance.

That morning, Thursday I rode up to St. Louis with My dad and Mom in tow. We got to the waiting room and I am just sitting as nervous as heck. Finally they called my name to come inside. I walked in the room. I hadn’t been to a hospital since I had my surgeries YEARS ago.

We wait and chat and the doctor came in. He asked if I did ASL I said no, I speak and use cued speech. He took the wax out of my ears so I felt super cleaned after that process! I love having my ears cleaned for some reason, it tickles me and feels so good! He reviewed my medical history and we told him what happened and when my hearing loss happened. He FINALLY figured out what happened to me that had caused my hearing loss! It was such a relief! I had what was called Lasic during Diuretics. It was a toxin that entered my body to help fluid control and that damaged my nerves.
My mother started crying thinking that she had caused it. Doctor said “nothing you could have done, he would have died if it wasn’t for that, you did fine”. So then he questioned my speech. He was amazed how well I spoke and so clearly, and asked where I learned about it. I mentioned learning cued speech and how well it has helped me to function in the Hearing World, and be able to talk and communicate well with hearing people too on top of lip reading and all. He described it as “spectacular” and was amazed and blown away.

After a couple more minutes he said “Alex, you are 100% a prime candidate for the cochlear implant, in fact if this goes through I’d love to see you go bilateral!” *thud* I nearly fell off the chair. I immediately thought of Abbie who probably would have squealed with delight hearing that news, or though maybe at the moment she’d be hearing it in the form of chipmunks, I digress…
He said we have to do another hearing test which we did later in the afternoon. He said I would probably be able to hear the water falls, horns honking, the wind, birds chirping in the morning. My mom started tearing up, and it was hard not to get flustered to hear this possibly happening for me. He added that he wished he met me when I was a lot younger but he said I will benefit from it now because I am able to communicate orally, and lip read and I am well tuned with hearing aids I would be ok and adjusted.

So with that I went to go take the hearing test. I failed, miserably, but that’s to be expected :) . I was given 50 words on each ear, and got 5 out of 50 right on right side, and 3 out of words on the left side. I am as deaf as I possibly could be! Some more tests were done, and we met back with the doctor. He said up to this point, everything is leading to a promising event of my getting the cochlear implant. He feels very strongly I’d benefit from it so with that, we scheduled another appointment for April 22nd to meet with the Cochlear Implant team and possibly get a CAT Scan also to check out the Cochlear too.
I am very excited at the possibilities of this so far, as soon as I got out of the hospital I became a busy bee texting Abbie a million questions about it all. She has been very helpful in directing me to some websites and people and I already have gotten a package so far to check things out.
I am excited for this possible new journey and cannot wait to see and HEAR the outcome of this all! I hope I soon become a Bionic Man! 

Trip around the Country!

2009-03-15T10:44:00.000-07:00

Hey All-

I flew around the country of the USA for 3 days, and wanted to share the trip here with you all!

Trip Report

Alex

Life as a CSA-Part 2

2009-01-19T18:10:00.001-08:00

Hello All. I wanted to go into the next topic. COS or also known as Customer of Size. This simply refers to passengers who are to large to sit in an airline seat comfortably. However be aware this does not mean if you are fat, or obese you cannot sit in the seat. Southwest Airlines has a unique rule in that if you are too large to sit in your seat comfortably and you require too raise one of the arm rest to sit, you will be required to purchase a second seat at the lowest cost possible at the time of booking. Why do we impose this on our large Customers? We do this for the safety of you, and those passengers sitting around the obese passenger. No, I am sorry to say this is NOT discrimination at the least. Southwest has been sued many times for this and have never lost, because it is not discrimination at all.

What safety is we talking about one would probably ask? As much as you as an obese person claim you have the right to the seat, and should not have to pay for the second seat, that Customer who purchased his seat next to you does not have the right to have his seat taken up by the obese person next to them. This is why require them to purchase the second seat. We get many more complaints about passengers whose seat was taken up by an obese passenger than we do by the obese passenger complaining about having to purchase an extra seat. It is uncomfortable situation for the airline employee, for the obese passenger and especially for the passenger who has to sit by them.

Someone has asked “I saw a guy use a seatbelt extension and he didn’t have to buy a second seat” Once again; we are not concerned about how large you are in front of even by side or anywhere. Our guideline rule is “if you must raise the armrest to sit in a comfortable position you are required to purchase a second seat”.

“But, the flight isn’t full, why are you making us purchase a second seat?” We do this for CONSISTENCY. So if the flight is full on the next time you fly Southwest, you cannot say to the agent “well they didn’t make me book a second seat last time”. This is why we do this, we strive to maintain consistency.

The good news is, if one can find any good news in all of this. If there is even ONE seat open on board the aircraft, YOUR SECOND TICKET WILL BE REFUNDED, CASH BACK. You simply need to call the Customer Service folks and they will be happy to do that process for you.

Drunk People…Oh Lord are they everywhere. Drunk People cannot be blamed on us, no way no how not ever. YOU chose to drink that beverage, once you do so, you are at our discretion of whether you can fly or not. If you show signs of being drunk, you will not fly at all. I don’t care WHO served you the alcohol, no one forced you to drink it. If you continue to resist against us you will be arrested and escorted off the airport property.

More to come! Questions or Comments leave them here!

Life as Customer Service Agent for a Major Airline

2009-01-17T17:50:00.001-08:00

I know quite a few of you fly a lot, and some may have never stepped on board the aircraft! Kind of surprising but they are out there. I know a lot of you may have seen or heard about the show “Airline” which featured one of the major airlines to fly in the USA, Southwest Airlines. As many of my readers probably know and personal online friends I used to work for this airline back in 2007. It was a great time, and I absolutely LUV-ed every minute of it even the tough times. I wanted to type this up because I got so many questions that seemed to make the airlines and employees of the airline out to get you, and screw up your travels. I promise you, we are NOT out to do that. If we were to do that, not only does it make it hard on you guys, it makes it harder on us, because to the passenger it is about ONE person and that is all they care about. We as an airline not only have to care about you, but every single other passenger traveling at that moment too.

One of the most asked questions I have been asked was “Why do Airlines overbook?” While some policies differ from airline to airline, the basic reason is, we usually have a high rate of people NOT showing up for the flight. We overbook to compensate that and fill up seats that would have otherwise gone out as empty. It also is a way to raise revenue also. We get to keep your money if the passenger does not fly, however at Southwest if they contact the airline; they may be re issued a refund in the form of a travel voucher to future travel on Southwest. Most other airlines have this same policy but they also require a cancellation fee of upwards to 150 dollars. Kind of sucks. So what happens when everyone does show up? This is when we do deny boarding. Keep in mind it is AGAINST THE LAW to deny boarding on an airline WITHOUT asking for voluntarily passengers. We always seek them first to see if anyone does not mind taking another flight. Depending on the airline the reward for volunteering to be bumped could be an upgrade to first class, or a refund of the ticket you purchase in a voucher, or an extra 400-800 dollars in flight voucher. It’s pretty nice isn’t it?! On my shifts, I never had to deny anyone boarding, I always was able to find someone willing to accept a voucher. If you have questions regarding overbooking, and denied boarding please ask!

Two examples of flights being oversold, we had a Flight to Phoenix out of St. Louis, it was a Boeing 737-700, and it held 137 passengers. We were overbooked to 142 passengers and they all showed up. Oh no! My partner made announcements that we were in an oversell situation and that we were seeking volunteers to get off this plane. In return they would be issued a refund of their ONE WAY segment, and a 200 dollar voucher added on to it also because we would not be able to get them out of St. Louis within the four hour limit. I had to collect the passengers boarding passes for those who did want to volunteer. We were able to get 137 passengers OFF the plane, and find five passengers, who were willing to be bumped, issue the travel vouchers, and board another 137 passengers onto the plane, in 17 minutes! Yes, that is correct, 17 minutes; we actually were able to push the plane 3 minutes early! This friend is TEAMWORK. Another situation was we had a huge oversell, we had an aircraft that held 122 seats and it was overbooked to 140 people! This was clearly not going to work and we were not in the mood to deny 18 passengers. We called Chicago Midway Airport where Southwest bases one of the aircrafts and asked for a 137 seater, which is our biggest in the fleet. This way we would only oversell by 3 passengers. Chicago agreed and swapped the 122 seater for a 137 seater. When the plane had arrived into STL, it turned out three people did not show up, we had 137 passengers for a 137 seat plane! Wow, we got LUCKY! We were happy, and the Customers were happy too.

Finally one more event that people ask. Why do they delay our flight and the account of weather and storms, when I am looking out of the airport and it is sunny and not a cloud in sight! I was ALWAYS asked this in my shifts. Passengers seem to think the planes magically appear at the gate and take us to the destination we are booked to. Well folks, I have to say sorry this is not even true. You have to realize the planes are 100% likely coming from another destination that may have bad weather in that city. That is why, your St. Louis to Dallas flight in St. Louis which is sunny and cloudless is delayed for 1 hour due to snow, because the plane is stuck in say Chicago or Boston. Then they sometimes seem to understand but there are some that have to see it to believe it. Obviously we cannot show them the snow covered runway in Boston or Chicago but they just have to take our word for it. We want nothing more to get you on time and safely, but safety is every airlines NUMBER ONE PRIORITY. We will do everything we can to get you there on time, but Safety comes first. So we apologize that we delayed that flight or cancelled it not allowing you to get to Hawaii in time for your drink at the beach because we were concerned about your safety and may possibly have prevented a plane crash or something. We will never know, but please take that into consideration the next time your flight is delayed or cancelled, it is for a SAFETY reason and we probably have a very good reason for doing that.

I will bring more stuff to my blogs upcoming, I will discuss in flight incidents, medical situations on board, death, drunk people, why the fees and changes and “nickel and diming” passengers and a big issue is obese people taking up two seats, which we call COS-Customer Of Size. This is probably another blog in itself. Hope you have a good weekend!

Alex

2008 into 2009

2009-01-01T18:51:00.001-08:00

Well, well, well. Two Thousand Eight. What. A. Year. So many things happened to me that I couldn’t believe possible to happen for me. I cannot even begin, but where to start?! I guess probably at the beginning of 2008!

I started off the year a bit distraught from my bad experience working at a major airline. I had to leave for unfortunate reasons, so I was left without a job and not in school. I had spent rest of 2007 sitting at home on the computer doing nothing. Life was wasting away and fast. I didn’t like it. I was a bit confused in my life right now. I was about to turn 21 in Feb and a lot of the goals I had set for myself personally hadn’t been accomplished yet.

I always knew I was bisexual at least, I never questioned that. I stumbled by happen chance to a website about a deaf man who was also gay. Hmmh, to my surprise there was someone else like me?! I know that was probably a stupid question but for a guy who lived entirely in the hearing world, and where being gay was still not the most open thing ever, I was shocked to see it. I logged on to his website started talking to him and grilled him 50 million questions. I couldn’t believe it, I met another gay man who was also deaf too!

I met so many more deaf people online. In 2008 I met more deaf people online or in person then any other year as far as I can remember all thanks to Seekgeo’s site, www.seekgeo.com I of course had to go visit him and his boyfriend Jes to hang out and be around someone else who was deaf like me. As I had never had that.

I began to meet more gay people in the spring but not deaf just hearing. I soon found my comfort level and was amazed to meet and hang with people who were also Gay and bisexual like me. We had things in common and that was great to me. But alas, I was still alone and lonely. No girl or guy really gave me a chance to date me or try me out or anything.

Then one Sunday after work, the weight of being gay weighed on me and I broke down and cried. Not ashamed that I was gay, but the fact I was hiding it from my mom. I couldn’t stand lying anymore. The people I was seeing, where I was going. I wanted to be able to say I lived a life of truth. To quote a guy I know from a TV show I watched “I have been called names, had stuff thrown at me, and been humiliated but if there is one thing I can say above the rest, is that I never, ever had to live a lie” I agreed and wanted to be like him.

So come June 26th, 2008, ironically pride day in St. Louis, I came out to my mother and to any other friend who wanted to know or asked me. My mother then said, “well finally it’s about damn time, do I need to buy you condoms? When can we go to the gay bar?” I was so relieved, and was mad I hid it for this long. Of course she was ok with it, she already knew! She just wanted me to tell her on my own time.

The rest of the summer went ok, continued to hang with friends I went to a gay bar too which wasn’t to bad either! I traveled a bit more, meeting more people when possible.

Then in September I met a guy. I don’t know where we are right now but he is a great guy, cute I might add ha-ha, and we are enjoying the time together and that really is all I can ask.

I think 2008 turned out better for me then I expected. I learned SO much from that year from friends and families, met so many people in just 12 months, and finally met someone who is giving me a chance. Where will it go? I don’t know, I may have my heart broken by him or I may end up moving with him. I don’t know, just go with the flow is all I can say.

2009 may be harder for me, now that I am out, and seeing a guy, I stand to lose a lot for those who are against gay people. But to those who don’t want to get to know me because of that, it is entirely their loss and I don’t aim to waste my time with them. I do look forward to 2009 more now that I met a lot more of my goals and setting up new ones for myself.

So, thanks 2008 for teaching me a lot, and 2009 I welcome you with open arms and hope whatever happens in 2009, it was done in my best interest, and I will know in the end why the things that happened, happened.

Alex

Cued Speech Vlog/Blog

2008-11-26T23:24:00.000-08:00

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.

Voting for the First Time

2008-11-05T13:16:00.000-08:00

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

Sucker Balls

2008-11-01T18:45:00.000-07:00

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

The Abbie Experience Part 2

2008-10-19T00:25:00.001-07:00

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

The Abbie Experience-Part 1

2008-10-18T22:51:00.000-07:00

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

Typo's and Random IM convos

2008-09-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

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.

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

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

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: 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

chris: do you have Herpas AIM?
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

ATrude777: i got an email that the title says LAPTOP-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-rated
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 I have a big mouth

me: so do I but im big talking wise
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!!!

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)

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

Ok that's it for now! Hope you enjoyed some!

Alex

Shopping at Target

2008-09-02T18:28:00.000-07:00

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

Going through a Drive-Thru.

2008-08-27T21:39:00.000-07:00

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!

Trips, and Mileage Runs!

2008-08-24T16:09:00.000-07:00

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 offer!

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 Miami, Florida-MIA. I will be flying St. Louis (STL) to Chicago-O’Hare (ORD). Then two hour’s layover in ORD. Then I will be flying the famous Boeing 767-300 aircraft.

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 MIA Airport. I will get off the plane, and I have literally 52 minutes in MIA Airport. Yes, you heard. No, I will not stay overnight in Miami, go see the city or stay in a hotel. No need to. Not the point of my trip.

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 Canada, Mexico, and Caribbean and sometimes Hawaii also. 35,000 and beyond, sometimes 40K, 45K, again it depends on destination and class of service (Coach, Business or First Class), such as Europe, Asia, that sort of thing. In my case, I am doing what is called a Gold Challenge where I must fly 5,000 elite POINTS within a three month period, once I meet that, I become Gold Elite Status and I get the benefits with American Airlines, like I listed up above.

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 you are probably just wondering HOW many miles, hours, and flights I have flown on?! Good question! I have so far up to date, flown 214 flights, flown 133, 830 miles, and flown about a total of 353 hours of flight time so far! Where have I been flight wise? Here is a route map showing it!

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 18^th, same as the Walk for Hearing event. So I decided to fly up October 17^th, and return October 19^th.

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 2^nd busiest airport in the United States in terms of passenger movement. Once I got the itinerary underway, she and I texted back and forth making sure the times worked out and they did. BOOK IT, CONFIRM IT yelled Abbie to me through the text. Ok, Ok! I AM BOOKING!!!

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!

Alex

Finding a Parking Spot...

2008-08-22T13:56:00.000-07:00

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

Growing up with Cued Speech

2008-08-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Losing a Pet

2008-08-13T17:37:00.001-07:00

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

George Carlin "Airline Announcement" Subtitled!

2008-08-09T12:46:00.000-07:00

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

To Seek, or not to Seek! Trip to SEEKGEO!

2008-08-08T18:48:00.000-07:00

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!

Trip, Music, Stories and more!

2008-07-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

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

Happy Thursday!

2008-06-26T12:43:00.000-07:00

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

Updates and more!!!

2008-06-13T15:08:00.001-07:00

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

Researching to get hearing back.

2008-05-29T20:32:00.000-07:00

What if you were given the chance to regain your hearing back? Ya, you heard me, or rather read it right, what if you were told you were given the chance to hear again? Something would happen that you would literally get your hearing back. Would you be excited? Mad, or think nothing of it. I ask because there is new medical information coming out about doing stem cell on the hair cells inside your ears. Doing so if this worked would basically regrow the nerves damaged in your ear, and your hearing would be able to come back!

I understand this could be a huge controversy, but if you were given the chance to hear again, would you? I know I would. Yes, I wear hearing aids, yes I can communicate in the hearing community and all but there is SO much I am still missing out on. Understanding the radio, music, talking to people without having to read lips. Watching movies without subtitles or captions. I would like to be able to do that. Oh, also use a phone too! Even better, be able to work in jobs that I am able to hear/understand in.

Basically, Scientists are trying to learn how to restore hearing by inducing the growth of new hair cells. This works as I said through stem cell research and replacements and all.

“Traditionally, scientists have considered people's hair cells--and good hearing--to be irreplaceable. However, genetics research, work with stem cells, and studies of the delicate architecture of the inner ear now suggest that it may be possible to replace lost hair cells and thus restore hearing. And Steyger's research on how certain drugs damage hair cells may someday prevent others from facing a silent future.”

Sounds promising don’t it? To be able to regain hearing in a more permanent way. What a beauty! I would to hear and see what you guys think, and ask if this becomes official and approved, would you guys with hearing loss, and find out you are eligible for this would you go through with this?

Here is the link to the article-- Please note the article was written basically two years ago, so imagine what if any progress has come out since then.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_20_169/ai_n16533041/pg_3

Alex

Making a Difference

2008-05-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

I think I’ll get to the point of this blog. I had mentioned before how I was rarely ever accepted in the deaf community because most deaf folks didn’t accept me for who I was. The choices I made and the things I do or don’t do. I mentioned the situation that happened with me at a restaurant between my parents and a group of deaf people. I never understood WHY I couldn’t be accepted for who I was.

They gave me reasons but they seemed pretty bleak. I could talk, I didn’t know Sign Language, and I was damaging myself by doing Cued Speech. Name it, I heard it all. I was being mainstreamed, I was not attending a deaf school, and I was wearing Hearing Aids. I was doing everything “Wrong”. *sighs* I don’t recall telling them what they were doing was wrong, disrespecting their lifestyle or choices or anything.

It was events like these I stayed away from deaf people. Deaf events, clubs organization. It was always the same story. I got really tired of it. However, I knew I had to eventually learn ASL at some point, so I ventured online to check some resources. We already know how I came across Geo’s site. Why did I stick around? I was sure I’d get bashed again and questioned for my choices; I mean it seemed everyone else did it!

I thought ok maybe for once these people will be different. I ventured to the chat room introduced myself. They asked me questions getting to know me. I said I didn’t know Sign Language. *screech*. I also said I called myself Hearing Impaired. *screech*. Wait, what was that? No one said anything to me…I just got oh cool, well welcome here! Wait, what did you say?! WELCOME HERE?!” Wow, that’s new to me! I thought something was wrong here, where are the questions or statement’s saying I am doing something wrong? There wasn’t any!

Holy mackerel! Amazing, people actually accepted me! What’s better is people like Geo went out to reach me and tried to learn more about me. Not ONCE, EVER questioning my choices, just nodded his head, understood why I did them and accepted it. He of course would voice his opinions and say I don’t agree with some thing’s you say about yourself but that’s fine. As long as you understand why. Holy, cow, someone taking the time to explain and teach me WHY some people didn’t agree with my life style.

He went on to explain why some deaf people don’t like it when I used Hearing-Impaired. By Gosh, I finally understood. Here was someone instead of going after me for calling myself Hearing-Impaired, he explained why, and made me understand. Then left it up to me to go on. I of course will still call myself H-I for awhile because it is just what I used for so long. I won’t easily forget. However because someone like him took the time to go on and explain, I became more open minded and was willing to change it a bit to more of Hard of Hearing, or even Deaf.

When I take a step back and look, to see the difference in this wonderful website with Geo. I look at Abbie who has a CI. I look at myself with Hearing Aids, and Geo who has neither. We are all so different but we still are part of the community of being Deaf. I really agree with the statement “we sleep in silence, too” It really is true, during the day, we use whatever resources we can use to make our day better, whether it is using ASL, a CI, Hearing Aids. However at the end of the day, we still join together in silence. We are truly a wonderful group and I look forward to every night getting on the computer and sharing the laughter and jokes with Geo and Abbie and others online. I really feel like I belong.

It is my hope that if you are one of those who don't accept people like me to maybe one day accept us into the deaf community, and to understand the choices I made. All it took was someone like Geo to change my outlook and make me understand and want to be a part of this wonderful deaf community. Teaching me ASL and continuing to educate me in the deaf culture and all. There truly is no better teacher then experience itself.

Alex

Loads of Music Videos!

2008-05-19T20:49:00.000-07:00

Little Past Little Rock-LeAnn Womack

She's Somebody's Hero- Jamie O Neal

What Do you Say?- Reba McEntire

Who'd you be today.-Kenny Chesney

I'll Take that as a Yes!-Phil Vasser

She Didn't have Time-Terri Clark

Take My Breath Away- Jessica Simpson

Dirrty-Christina Aguilera

Check Up On it- Beyonce

I Love Rock N Roll- Britney Spears

Born to Fly- Sara Evans

I Love You- Faith Evans

Upgrade Ya- Beyonce

Deaf Pride

2008-05-16T11:09:00.000-07:00

Deaf Pride has always interested me in so many ways. The way the culture is formed, the stance on things they believe in, pride itself, what they wish and inform others of. Deaf Pride is very strong and not one to really be messed with. People of Deaf Pride have been very stringent on who belongs to the community. They have been known to reject even deaf people who were not born deaf! By this standard, I would not be able to be part of the deaf pride community because I lost my hearing at the age of 2 and a half or so, I was born hearing and became deaf.

What’s more…you must be fully ASL user (not me), Must not wear hearing aids or CI, (I wear HA in both ears) among other things. Here is my question. Why do you guys go so far to even reject your OWN people that don’t fit that “mold”?! I feel like I am an outsider looking into your community, because I don’t use ASL. Simply I wear Hearing aids. Why is it so wrong for me to want to hear? Why, can I not be allowed to want to hear my parent’s voice? Maybe if I had a child, I would love to hear their voice.

I could never, ever wish a disability like being deaf on my own child. Yet I have seen some deaf parents who have this deaf pride, celebrate when their child is born deaf! Maybe I really, just don’t understand it, maybe I am not supposed to. However, wishing your child to be deaf, to not be able to hear, is supposed to be about pride? Pride that your child cannot hear?

We have other prides, Gay Pride, Black Pride. Those are fine. They show support, equality, make sure that everyone is treated with respect and equally as well. While they do show pride of being who they are, this is fine. Gay Pride goes on to make sure laws are equal for themselves, in gay marriages, it was all about equality. Black pride did the same, showed support for black people. Made sure racism was non existent and slavery was abolished and again on equality. That black people got the same rights and equality as white people in everything else.

Basically, I am trying to understand why with Deaf Pride it harbors things and sometimes can be negative, whereas Gay Pride shows respect and equality, and black pride shows equality as well as making sure racism doesn’t exist in this world.

Alex

Visiting Geo of seekgeo.com!

2008-05-14T10:02:00.000-07:00

Hello All! Before I even start, this blog is about meeting Geo of seekgeo.com. So if you have not heard or seen the video of us meeting I encourage you guys to do so now.

Someone is Visiting

But first I want to go backwards here. How and why did Geo and I decide to meet up? It all started back in January when I was bored one night and watching one of my other deaf friend’s videos on youtube.com That video finished, and this guy popped up as next result of Video. It was about this guy meeting his boyfriend online. I saw that he was doing ASL, which always interests me, but then I almost did not even watch it because I didn’t know ASL. However I noticed that he used subtitles!!! Wow! This guy really reaches out to all of us. So I watched him do the video, and started watching the others each video grabbing me with more interest, discussing the CI, Sign, Closed Caption, I started to realize how much in common we had through the topics he discussed.

I went to his website, and noticed a “Seekgeo” was in the chat room. I messaged him and asked “Are you the same Seekgeo doing the videos on you tube?” He said “I sure am”. So we got to chatting through his chat room and occasionally on AIM when we were not busy. In time we quickly found out how much we were alike, I was so surprised. It was to the point we were finishing each other’s sentences because we knew exactly what we were discussing. Then he would teach me ASL online web cam as I was very interested in learning. It was to the point we decided we had to meet up. We were having a great time chatting online; we decided to take it further and meet up and hang out. Of course we kept this a secret for awhile to surprise the rest of the seekies!

So May 10^th was the decided date and when it rolled around I of course was very nervous. I headed to the airport parked the car and went inside to pick up my tickets as I was flying for free. Since I used to work for a major airline I still had connections to fly for free or at a cheap discount, so that’s also why I was able to allow this trip. So I met up with my former co workers and hung out for a bit. Soon it was time to board *deep breath* the trip begins!

I landed into Denver where I had to switch airlines and connect to united express, one of the few airlines that actually fly into Pasco, Washington. We got on board and I texted Geo to let him know I was finally on my way! We took off and I saw gorgeous beautiful sceneries.

Anyway, we got near landing into Pasco. We were running about 30 minutes behind due to air traffic in Denver. Landed into Pasco at about 7:30pm. I texted Geo to let him know I had arrived so they could come to the airport to come get me since they were only a few minutes away.

They texted me to let me know they had arrived. The moment of truth! I walked out and of course saw Geo waving his hands and Jes video taping, typical seekgeo style! I don't need to explain what's next the video did that for us!

Went to his apartment and caught up a bit talked about my long day of traveling, watched a movie then headed to bed. I was so tired from traveling.

Next day we went hiking as you saw from the pictures, went to lunch and then headed to an ASL movie thing being held by Sprint Geo was at. I thought it was very cool and interesting to see.

Two hiking Videos

Headed back and more movies! You can never go wrong with movies!!!

Monday we watched the movie "Sweet Nothing in my Ear" by Marlee. Very good movie raised some valid points on both sides. Then we played a game which I lost at, miserably ha-ha.

Back to bed as I had to be up early to go catch my flight home! Woke up Tues, and went to the airport said good bye to both of them and began my long day of traveling home.

I wanted to say I truly, absolutely had an amazing time hanging out with them. Geo is everything in person as he is online. Funny, great sense of humor, and so much fun to be around with. I definitely encourage for those who haven't met him to do so!

I am now off to unpack and all! Have a great day!

Alex

Guess It's my turn now...

2008-04-30T15:33:00.000-07:00

Yes Folks, a new blog, background and header. I will explain these new changes for me.

Firstly, you all noticed a cloud picture in the banner. This to me represents freedom more then anything. The freedom to move about the country, whether in a plane, train or cars.

I absolutely love to fly, no denying it what so ever. When I was feeling down, and troubled by the things on the ground, I would go hop on a plane (this was when I used to fly for free), and go take off somewhere, anywhere. Houston, Chicago, Phoenix, Los Angeles, the country was at my finger tips. The freedom to do so was amazing. We would take off, and I would see the clouds coming closer, and closer then finally we are eye level with it. Flying above the clouds, gives me a relaxation for me. I sit back, sigh, close my eyes, and feel the rush of wind flow under the wings giving us the lift. The clouds flying by speeding at 500 MPH. I truly feel happy then, so I like this banner as it shows a small representation of what I like.

The color Blue. I like Blue. Just a plain fact, more preferably Blue and Black is a nice mix for me. Blue represents the sky for me, the freedom as I mentioned earlier. Blue means a lot to me, it represents coolness, yet a feeling of being so blue, then suddenly your cool, cool blue! Blue is even a song by some people like "Blue" by LeAnn Rimes which I subtitled earlier in my blog.

Just an update of things to come, I hope this site is a bit more appealing and please let me know if there any other changes you wish to see!

Alex

Music Videos Galore

2008-04-29T00:15:00.000-07:00

How do I Live- LeAnn Rimes

Gimme More- Britney Spears

Life Goes On- LeAnn Rimes

Commitment- LeAnn Rimes

These Boots are made for Walking-- Jessica Simpson

Alex

Subtitled Music Videos

2008-04-26T21:28:00.000-07:00

Any Man of Mine- Shania Twain

Blue- LeAnn Rimes

There Goes My Life- Kenny Chesney

Piece of Me-Britney Spears

Dancing Queen- ABBA

Alex

Bringing Sexy Back!!!

2008-04-24T17:36:00.000-07:00

SEXYBACK-- JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE

Yes, folks, I am bringing sexy back, as the song suggests. Actually if you REALLY want to win my heart, you would inform me that sexy never left me! I had it along!!! Actually…That’s not really where I am going with this. There comes to a point where sexuality is brought up in everyone’s life, not so much as orientation or style or gender etc. What is sexy to you? When do you feel sexy? There are times I feel just downright ugly, though so many people say oh my gosh you are looking great today! Then, there are times when I feel so sexy I could rip my clothes off and then some go “please don’t”:-).

It was a week ago when I was leaving work. The sun was out, it was absolutely gorgeous out. I was wearing my business suit as I was on my way to Chicago, and had to head to St. Louis to catch a flight out there. I walked out of the mall, stepped into the outside. I put on my glasses, swung my backpack up on my shoulder and bam, it hit me. My god I feel sexy. The wind was blowing a bit, breeze running through my hair and sunglasses. It felt like all eyes were on me! I felt sexy and by god I was going to WORK IT!

Sexuality is always sometimes an uncomfortable issue with many and some they love to discuss it. People share their fantasies, desires, what they really want to do with that one guy they saw shirtless down the street or the girl they got a glimpse of walking out of the store. Most of us feel ashamed to admit the “secrets” and some are not. I am not really discussing who is a virgin, who is not, when you had sex, your orientation, quite frankly that’s none of my god damn business. What I want to open up is your mind and thoughts of what is sexy to you?

Is it when you are dressed up? Wearing sweatpants? Is it always about looks? For me sexuality and being sexy is most usually sense of humor and confidence. My lord you come up to me, wearing glasses (ok yes that is one of my guilty pleasures), wind blowing through your hair, and you crack a joke with me and show yourself with confidence, I could probably just melt and I don’t even know your name!

Do I want to stare at the hot girl in the magazine modeling or the shirtless guy who is clean shaven out of the old navy underwear magazine? No I really don’t, that is not sexy to me. Yes, they do look attractive, but I don’t know them. I don’t know their personality, style, etc. Some people have admitted they feel sexy when they don’t try it! It’s usually when maybe driving in the car sunglasses over eyes, wind blowing through the air, or working out.

Then there is the actual sexual act itself. A lot of people get off with satisfaction of having sex, and that is great! But a lot of people are surprised when I say I would turn down sex with someone. Why do I need it? I get my pleasure out of simply being with the person, knowing them. Watching a movie. Cuddling, having a conversation. Probably the best time ever for me, is when I am with a friend, maybe it’s a guy or a girl who knows. We are just hanging out and having fun, being with each other enjoying our presence. Nothing is more thrilling or satisfying for me then that. I don’t need sex to full fill my pleasure all the time.

I am a romantic guy at heart. I love it when I can slip the girl a random note to say I am thinking of you. I text message most of my girl friends on valentines day to say hey thinking of you and hope you are having fun on v-day. Many of them reply back and thank me for doing so; they didn’t even get a happy valentine’s day from their boyfriend, yet managed to get a simple text where I took no more then 30 seconds to type out. Quite a shame to hear. I enjoy whispering sweet nothing in their ears. Going out in the rain and making out would be a fantasy of mine. However just a bit hard to “just do” as I would have to carry an umbrella or take my hearing aids out! All of a sudden the fun just got a bit ruined!

Yes I am the nice guy out there, the one all the girls and guys keep asking for. I am here folks!!! Don’t have to look anymore. Now I am going way off topic. Anyway I thought maybe we could spice things up a bit here, and bring sexy back! What makes you feel sexy? When are you at your “sex-iest!”?

Alex

Why was cued speech chosen over ASL?

2008-04-23T17:32:00.000-07:00

My parents chose cued speech over ASL for me because they felt it was the best way for me to grow up as normal as possible in a hearing environment and to talk and function in life. How did they discover cued speech? They read it in a sesame street magazine telling of a story of a little girl who was profoundly deaf like me and had limited speaking abilities. When she started on cued speech, immediately could talk and function normally and go to mainstream school. My parents saw me in this girl's story and wanted to try it out and it was then the same day that phone call was made by my mother and as they say the rest is history.

I lost the hearing around 16 months. I was speaking and making words and sounds but some people could not understand me. I had some residual hearing which helped a bit but not enough for me. Mom and Dad could understand me because they were attuned to how I spoke, my dialect and body language with my words. They were still frustrated I was not speaking fluently or well enough they wanted to find something to help. American Sign Language was not, nor did it ever help me. Once they learned of cued speech they saw how well I would be able to learn and catch up to my hearing friends.

After the phone call was made, trips were made to Chicago, and Baltimore where cued speech is well-known. They attended camps and meetings, orientations and such, and finally they were ready to start with me. Immediately, within DAYS they saw results. I could now SEE visually how to say the word. I didn't need to hear it! I was seeing how the lips formed, and would mock it like babies do. If I said it right, parents would cue good or nod their head. If I didn't, they would say bad or try again and believe me it took P-A-T-I-E-N-C-E. As most know there are only 8 cues, then you go on beyond it forming it around the lip, nose, chin, side, face, outer area and throat.

Learning Cued does not mean I am able to cue myself. I am only taught to read cues and read lips. Soon in progressing plus speech therapy I was able to be fluent in speaking English. I have a speech dialect which sounds a lot like a British accent, oddly enough. Now most people LOVE British accents, which is just dandy with me so I try to play it off when I can muwahaha. However, next step was now to find a person who would be willing to become a cued speech transliterater. This did not take long at all, we would use someone who used to baby-sit me.

She flew out to Baltimore to attend a cued speech camp to learn. When kindergarten rolled around, it was time to show the school they were wrong, I would be successful, and I would be able to talk, and I would not be mentally retarded. First day of school, I sat in the front row, teacher spoke to the class in a normal way, I would watch my transliterater, and read the cues and understand what was being said. When it was my turn to speak, I remembered how to say it based on what I saw and would speak it!

Schools were amazed at how well I progressed and how quickly, we obviously proved them wrong. With a bit of help, using cued and my residual hearing, I was able to speak as normal as possible. I could be understood and communicate with most of English speaking people. I succeeded well in school, making good grades, and graduated in HS with honors. I credit the success to cued speech.

Lastly, this was going to be a controversial topic. I understand that everyone does not agree with cued speech and how it is used with the Deaf and Hearing Communities. I wanted to share about my life and the choices that were made. Furthermore, to share why the choices were made by me and the parents, and to let people know the results of the choices I made. Please remember, this is my life story, I am not saying I am better then anyone else based on the actions and choices I made. Just remember that I believe I am a better person for me because of the choices I made, and that is all that matters. Thanks for reading.

Alex

More Subtitles galore!!!

2008-04-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

More Songs and Videos by Shania Twain, Trisha Yearwood, and Christina Aguilera. Hope you can enjoy one or more of these songs!

Alex

What Made You Say That--Shania Twain

I Turn to You- Christina Aguilera

I'll Still Love You More- Trisha Yearwood

You're Still the One- Shania Twain

UP!-Shania Twain

Forever and for Always- Shania Twain

Don't Be Stupid!- Shania Twain

That Don't Impress me Much!--Shania Twain

I Go Back...

2008-04-15T15:30:00.000-07:00

I Go Back to memories, dreams, thoughts, and hopes. The title of this blog is from a song, one of my favorites, “I Go Back” by Kenny Chesney. Kenny is one of my all time favorite singers because I swear he reads my mind. Nearly every song he sings about I have lived, thought about or experienced, ONE way or another. “We all have a song that somehow stamped our lives, takes us to another place and time…” What’s yours? This song would be mine because the entire lyrics of the song embodies my life, one way or another. I am 21 yrs old, it may seem young to a lot of you folks, but really, it isn’t. That’s 21 WHOLE YEARS. For my age, that’s a very long time, yet it flew by in a blink of an eye.

For those familiar with my blog you see I went through a lot of my troubles and such. With my surgeries, hearing loss, verbal abuse about my choices in both the deaf and hearing world. That doesn’t matter anymore, I made it through and am better because of whom I am and the choices made. A lot of people usually have a eureka moment. I sort of had one today taking a walk around the campus at SIU-C here in Southern Illinois. I felt FREE. Independent. I was taking a role as a college student to do my own thing. It was like I was a Pilot, taking control of my aircraft (life) and taking off for the wild.

Walking around campus, it was a gorgeous day, near 60 degrees. The classroom I was supposed to go was right near a walk way so I decided to take a walk around and people watch and observe. I saw young couples in love, holding hands, making out in the corner. I saw people walking by on the I-Pod, ignoring the sounds of nature and people around them. I saw people roller blading through or riding a bike, nearly knocking someone over. But, that’s sort of the thrill of it; you never know what’s coming next.

“Suddenly this crazy world made more sense to me
Well I heard it today and I couldn't help but sing along
Cause everytime I hear that song...”

The song “I Go Back” just popped in my head as I took a walk, enjoying the scenery of things like the picture above. I heard it in my head and by god just like the song, I couldn’t help but sing along. Making me think and go back to my thoughts, memories and dreams.

“I go back to a two toned short bed Chevy
Drivin my first love out to the levvy
Livin life with no sense of time
And I go back to the feel of a fifty yard line
A blanket, a girl, some raspberry wine
Wishin time would stop right in its tracks
Everytime I hear that song, I go back”

I think back, to when I got my first car, a 2002 ford Escort ZX2. Bought it during spring break, march of 2004. I was so happy, proud and excited. It was amazing. I also go back to when I went out with the first girl who actually LIKED ME?! WOW! We didn’t go to a levvy but we did meet at a church concert, and had a great time. It was during summer, and we really did have no sense of time. The summer just flew by. I wanted the summer keep moving and never stop, never turn into fall and the harsh winters.

‘After graduation and drinkin goodbye to friends
And I go back to watchin summer fade to fall
Growin up too fast and I do recall’

Graduation, oh man. Probably one of the best, yet saddest times of my year. 2005, my graduation year was so hard, such a struggle. I lost both my grandfathers, and lost one of my best friends, more so like a sister or 2^nd mother to me in July, after graduation. It was time to be an adult once I stepped off the stage, come graduation day. Enduring the final summer as a high school student. Attending summer set concerts here in my hometown, hanging with friends. Taking sip of alcohol when we knew we were not supposed too. Meeting other friends and then going to one of their friends house to go swim, hang out and stay up until 1:00am just chit chatting and thinking back. Man, I go back…growing up to fast really did happen.

‘And I go back to the loss of a real good friend
And the sixteen summers I shared with him
Now "Only The Good Die Young" stops me in my tracks
Everytime I hear that song,’

Like I said, I lost a good friend also, she was only 42 years old. So young, it is true sometimes it seems like, only the good DO die young. What does that say for us oldies?! *smirks*. She was truly a dear friend, and the time spent here on earth was nothing short of amazing and really made ya feel like you were her best friend.

My day uberly rocked!!! Work went by fast, I got my paper back and it was a B! WOO HOO! Then I found out one of my favorite actress, Vickie Lawerence is coming to town to do a show/presentation! I loved her from The Carol Burnett Show as well as Mamma's Family! Coming home from class my left hearing aid battery died, and It makes me terribly off balance with only one working hearing aid. What did I do? I grabbed the wheel, braced my knee, cruised to 60 MPH, and grabbed the battery. Took my aid out, switched the batteries, threw the sticker off and voila, back into my ear! I. AM. GOOD!

Anyway, we all have a song that stamped our lives, what’s yours? What song when you hear it or see it on TV makes you stop in your tracks, and your memories, dreams and ideas come pouring back to you.

Here is the song/video I GO BACK-KENNY CHESNEY Subtitled for you folks! :)

Alex

Shania Twain Galore!!!

2008-04-14T15:30:00.000-07:00

DON'T!-SHANIA TWAIN

FROM THIS MOMENT ON!-SHANIA TWAIN

I'M GONNA GETCHA GOOD!-SHANIA TWAIN

and finally....
MAN!...I FEEL LIKE A WOMAN!-SHANIA TWAIN

More Videos to come! Hope you enjoyed!

Alex

Two Music Videos-Subtitled

2008-04-07T23:48:00.000-07:00

Shania Twain- When You Kiss me

Robin Thicke- Wanna Love You Girl!

Hope you enjoy these Videos, songs and the artist!

Alex

3rd time is NOT the charm!!!

2008-04-02T17:08:00.000-07:00

I hear all the time about third luck always being a charm. Not so in my case!! I woke up already running late after oversleeping somehow. That’s what I get staying up talking to friends. So I flew into the shower and washed as quickly as possible, and left my house at 9:30am for my work shift at 10am. Very windy day, traffic was quite busy oddly for a 9:30am time of traveling. Oh well! I pulled into the parking lot at the Mall where I currently work.

I got out of the car and turned; saw I left my ipod in the thing. So I set my backpack down and was about to climb back into the car when *SWOOOOSH*. Wind blows out of nowhere and *SLAMS* door goes shut. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh shit!!!!!!!

The car is now locked with the ipod inside and my key in the ignition…Engine running and all. How freaking lovely!! To make it worse I could now not open my store now because my key was inside the car. Now, not only have I stupidly locked myself out of the car, with the engine running. I now have prevented myself from entering my store. This is JUST wonderful. I immediately contacted my boss/manager in another city to let her know what happened. Waited till she said the usual “oh Alex that’s so typical of you...” Then said she would call my co worker to let her know to bring the key so they could enter the store as I await for my lovely, darling mother to come bring me the 2^nd set of keys.

I called my mother and explained what happened. *SIGHS*. Laughter followed as this was my THIRD time of doing this. Told you 3^rd time is NOT the charm here!! I explained again what happened and why it was urgent and imperative she get here ASAP! She said “ok I am on my way over……if I can find the key...” *GROANS*. Then…out of nowhere I forgot I had my bipod actually turned on! Blaring music…and what song comes on next?

Sounds of quick violin music comes through, with a slight beat and then...”Let’s go girls!!!” Oh no…please dear god. Don’t let it be that song….No…..I pretended I didn’t hear her just say that. The familiar introductory music played again then the next line...”I’m going out tonight I’m feeling all right!” Ah hell No, I ain’t feeling all right, I am feeling downright STUPID!

“MAN…I FEEL LIKE A WOMAN” started playing by the lovely Shania Twain! Oh no...Of ALL the songs to be playing LOUDLY in a parking lot, at work, is Shania Twain. People just don’t like me today…

“Gonna let it all hang out..wanna make some noise”

“Really raise my voice, ya I wanna scream and shout!”

Ya, I wanna scream and shout, TO STOP THE SONG AND IN FRUSTERATION!!!! Dear god, why me?! I mutter a few curse words only I can hear and just sit on the engine, feeling it vibrate under me while the wind is blowing... Oh ya, the WIND. Stupid wind that shut my freaking car door shut so I cannot enter my work place while happily listening to “Man, I feel like a woman...”

“The best thing about being a woman….

Is the prerogative to have a little fun…

Oh oh, get totally crazy, forget im a lady

Men’s shirts, short skirts, wanna go wild

ya doing it in style…”

I got crazy…I am wearing a men’s shirt…doing it in style? If locking my car with key in ignition is stylish then Hell I should be the best fashion designer in the world because I have got S-T-Y-L-E baby, its FIERCE!

“Oh, oh, oh, get in the action-feel the attraction
Color my hair-do what I dare
Oh, oh, oh, I wanna be free-yeah, to feel the way I feel
Man! I feel like a woman!”

If being a woman and feeling like one means locking yourself out? Then yes, by god I DO feel like a woman! I don’t think I had time to color my hair...do I dare?

Have mercy, I see Mom pulling up! She called me to ask where I was parked at. I answered I am the idiot standing outside in my uniform with my backpack on playing Shania twain. You cannot miss me. She finally pulled up, and then….no sooner did she, I heard the next line of the next song come on…

“Oh baby baby…oh baby baby.

Oh baby, how was I supposed to know…

That something wasn’t right here..”

AWWW HELL NO! NOT BRITNEY SPEARS- HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME!

I flew back to the car, with key in hand, unlocked it and opened it up and unplugged the ipod! Wooooo. SILENCE! Thank god!

With that said and undone, mom continued to laugh at me. I said “thanks” and went inside the store to start my work shift, 30 minutes later…

“I get totally crazy
Can you feel it
Come, come, come on baby
I feel like a woman”

I feel it!

CI Update, and subtitling.

2008-03-31T19:45:00.000-07:00

Hello All. My oh my it is storming big time here! The start of Tornado season falls upon for those of us who live in Tornado Alley. Even though Tornado alley is more specified for the states of Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and so forth, tornados hit everywhere. Just as commonly in Missouri and Illinois, this is where I live! Right now the wind has been howling, hailing, lightning, and thunder like you wouldn’t believe. Hope there’s no tornados! What jokes do you guys have planned for tomorrow for April Fools Day?! I have nothing so far, I have to work for 4 hours then go to class to turn in my dreaded 6 page paper!

My paper was about the type of skulls we had to observe in a museum located at my university and we had to write about 1-3 paragraphs, 3 pages minimum about the skulls and any information we could add for it to the paper. Mine ended up being 5 pages typed and one resource page. Not to bad here!

I wanted to update some folks about the CI scenario. My insurance company with SIU-C denied me the CI. So, my dad is going to look at his insurance and check to see if his supports CI. If it does and we think it will, they will switch me to my fathers insurance this summer, so I can go ahead and start seeing CI teams and figure out if this really IS the best thing for me, or if I am better off leaving it as it is and maybe trying out digital hearing aids? I want to thank everyone who showed support, emails, IMs, comments, whatever it was I appreciated them all! I was disappointed to know but figured my insurance would not cover it. In fact that and hearing aids were the ONLY two things not covered under my insurance. Figured!!

I will keep you guys updated as we go along. Should be interesting! I also wanted to add on to what Geo mentioned about protesting subtitles in vlogs, but not protesting it in movies and TV’s. He pointed out to me that a lot of those people who did not support subtitles on his website and many others still supported subtitles on TV and movies. Ok why?

That really is a double standard. I understand some deaf folks want to protect ASL and keep it going. But, some have to face the fact; there are just some people who will never learn ASL. I have heard people go, well “ok if they want to understand my vlogs in ASL, they need to learn ASL themselves”. Ok then My response to you is, “you want to watch my movies without subtitles, go get your hearing back and learn how to understand voice without ASL”. Wow, not that easy now is it?

You have to understand why people do it. It is to reach a wider audience, since not everyone can learn and do the language. Do you expect the English to not translate all the Chinese movies into English for the hearing people to understand then? Do we have to go learn their language then? ASL is a language, a national recognized language. In fact, it is the 4th most used language in the country and maybe the world. Not everyone is going to learn it, so if you want to start your vlogs, be prepared to be asked “will you consider subtitling it” for deaf, non ASL users or even hearing folks who don’t know ASL. You want to be heard by everyone right? Then be prepared to reach out to everyone.

Mike McConnell said it best; use what you know to relay information. However, be sure to MAKE it available for everyone as best as possible, whether it is in ASL, cued speech, subtitles, voice over, whatever is needed. I support sites like Geo’s because he reaches an audience for EVERYONE. He signs, and he uses subtitles. If he had not done that, you can bet I would never have come to his site. I am not willing to go seek out people who don’t try to at least seek me out that is by allowing subtitles.

Sure, I am going to attempt to learn ASL and such. But voice and subtitles will always be my number one usage. I will be prepared to relay it as best as I can, whether by subtitles, signing, cueing, again whatever it is! I already did in a way. If I was going to use your attitude of “well they just need to learn our language then” I would not have subtitled the 6 videos I did for you guys so you guys could understand the video. After all, I should have just said “go learn how to understand voice and get your hearing back” Right?

All I really ask is, once again be open minded. Respect what everyone knows and uses. Also, I have had a lot of people ask me to view their vlogs. Guess what I can’t, why? It is all in ASL, and they refuse to or won’t subtitle the video or provide a written/typed transcript. So I cannot enjoy what you guys are! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a vlog by Geo of his site to go look that has subtitles. Sayonara!

Alex

What's next... a CI?!

2008-03-25T17:56:00.000-07:00

Hello All! I hope everyone also had a great Easter! I spent mine with my family in southeast Missouri for the majority of the day. They got hit by an ice storm awhile back so we got to see a lot of the ice damage as well. Here is a picture of my friend and me at my Aunt’s house. I am the one holding the boot cup :)

I am at the point in my life regarding my hearing loss where I want more out of my ears. Ya I am quite a demanding person aren’t I? I have been talking to one of our famous CI bloggers, Abbie, and I found she and I had A LOT in common regarding our hearing loss and the situations involving it. She asked me the same question everyone else asked me before, “Why didn’t you get a Cochlear Implant?” At the time it was offered my parents declined it because of how new and still on going the CI was. Plus the doctors felt I would get by and along just fine using a hearing aid, reading lips and using Cued Speech.

They were right! I did get along just fine. I used cued speech through my whole time during school, being mainstreamed. I heard all the sounds I wanted to hear with the hearing aids and spoke to people by reading lips. However, I entered the real world. College, jobs, etc. I was noticing all of a sudden, the hearing aids weren’t giving me the ability of what I REALLY wanted to do; this was to become a flight attendant or at least work for the airlines. The majority of the jobs in the airline business require the capability to understand on all phone types, understand announcements, and have the ability to communicate to people at any type of situation.

IF, and I do state IF the CI works and offers me the capability to be able to do this..? God Damn it I will get in a heartbeat. Of course there are always, always risks in everything, I absolutely understand it. After talking to people like Abbie, who have gotten the CI, and then people who have not gotten it for other reasons, like Geo, I wanted to educate myself and hear from both sides, people who chose not to get it and people who did, like Abbie. I heard pros and cons.

Starting with someone like Abbie. So far I have been very pleased with her results on how she is doing with her CI. We feel confident I would have excellent results with the CI. I of course will be going to see a CI team at some point to actually be specific and ask the questions and be sure I can have them answered. I am very confident if I go through with it, my therapy and recovery time will go extremely fast and easy. I would be able to do the things I want to do, and be a flight attendant, can you say fasten your seat belts?! The CI so it seems like would be able to offer me the three specific things I cannot do with the hearing aids, ability to understand people without text, understand announcements and phones, and use equipment on board the aircraft and at the airports.

Now, I wanted to speak to someone who declined it, and ask why. This would be Geo. He gave specifics on his video and I was very moved to see someone like his own mother accepted him for who he was. Now I am not concerned about acceptance to be quite frank with me, I will do what I want to do to make me happy. If it means getting a CI, then so be it. Geo expressed his concerns about me getting a CI and I appreciate the concerns because they are real and very valuable information. It also brings me to another option, digital hearing aids.

Digital hearing aids seem to keep being better and better. I have heard testimonies of how well it works for many deaf and HOH people. This also peaks my interest because I run the chance of ruining the ears by getting a CI. I don’t want to play it safe though. However I am willing to check it out. Anyone else has any advice or experiences they want to add getting a digital hearing aid? I got them when I was in 6^th grade (I am 21 yrs old now) and they did not work well for me at all. So I had switched back to analog hearing aids, and frankly they are getting quite old.

I am hoping after meeting with the CI team that it meets my satisfaction of what I want from it. So far it sounds amazing and something that could REALLY help me in doing a better job and getting the job I want. It truly would make me so happy and I really would be living my dream of doing that stuff for the airlines. I am very sad to see people are bothered about getting a CI. What’s wrong about people getting CI? Big deal, let them chose what THEY want to do. It is their life, let them live it. Let’s not be so judgmental of our choices and just accept that’s what they chose and move on!

Now…I better start practicing my lines for flight attendant if this Cochlear Implant deal works out for me….”To fasten your seat belt slide the flat end into the buckle, to release lift up on the buckle. There are six emergency exit doors...two forward exit, two rear and 2 over the wing……..”

Helping...or Providing Needs?

2008-03-21T13:43:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone enjoyed the last 6 clips of the captioned videos I did! I truly do love, I LOVE LUCY and always wanted everyone to enjoy them also. That is why I proceeded to add captions to the ones I could do so we call could enjoy them using subtitles. I understand many people are against it, but that’s fine.

I wanted to ask you all a question and see your thoughts on the whole thing. I was in a discussion with another deaf person about captioned videos. I was very excited to be able to help other deaf and hard of hearing people be able to see my videos. Wait, what did I say wrong here? Apparently I used the word Help. I was informed by this deaf person, that many, many people do not like the word help and prefer to call it providing needs.

I was taken aback. I was shocked to be quite frank. Why can we not use the word help? I was informed many view it as “rescuing” them. Also that it just wasn’t an accepted form for most deaf, and hard of hearing people. But, we ARE helping people are we not? We are providing assistance, whether it is a hearing aid, whether it is subtitles or captions, or something. Instead most of them prefer to simply call it providing needs. To me, it sounds pushy to ask for a need, versus simply asking for help.

I use the word help because I need it. I need HELP in HEARING or UNDERSTANDING people or videos. I ask for help when someone needs to repeat something. I ask for help in turning on a caption so I am able to understand the TV show. I don’t ask them to provide a need. However, I DO understand the view some deaf and hard of hearing people have on using “provides needs” over “helping/help”. I am not ashamed to admit I need help.

Another example I was given was when interpreters are asked why they want to learn ASL. They respond “I want to help them”. Immediately I think “oh that’s great!” I am glad to see they are taking an active stance to help them. Once again, WRONG-O! That’s the wrong thing to say according to some deaf and hard of hearing people. They are supposed to say “I would like to provide needs…” HUH?! So, why can’t they say “we would like to help them”? I don’t see it as rescuing someone, but some do. Can they not be proud of wanting to help someone?

Anyway, in closing I wanted to ask what you all thought about using help versus providing needs. I always grew up on using the word help, because we were providing assistance, helping basically! Yet, this does not seem to be accepted by most folks. I see nothing wrong in using the word help and will not be ashamed to admit to it if I need help in trying to hear something. I have never used provide needs, it just wasn’t used in conjunction with my disability. So, what are your thoughts, and if you use help, why? If you prefer providing needs, please state why!

Have a great day and weekend folks!

Alex

Captioned Videos to laugh at!

2008-03-19T10:06:00.000-07:00

Hello Folks-

I spent some time editing and captioning some videos ,2 clips from I LOVE LUCY, and a brief comic clip from Mama's Family. Enjoy them!

Lucy-Vitameatavegamin

Luxy and Ethel-Chocolate Factory

Mama and Eunice having laughs!

Hope you enjoyed them! :)

Alex

The Miracle Child

2008-03-09T14:24:00.000-07:00

Oy! If anyone watched the recent log by Geo of www.seekgeo.com, you will see one of the mistakes he made. Hilarious. I actually did my own stupid stunt vacuuming. I turned the vacuum cleaner on, and I heard it go on, so I vacuumed my entire floor. Then I stopped, and looked to see my floor still remained dirty! HUH?! How can this be?! I looked, and DOH! Stupid, stupid stupid... I had forgotten to switch the button to FLOOR instead of TUBE. So I vacuumed my floor while the floor button was off! DOH!! *smacks head against wall* I blame Geo for this!! His mistakes rub off on me now!! :)

Anyhow, you are probably wondering why I just titled this blog “The Miracle Child” I am talking about me. Why am I a miracle? I will divulge into this more, but I wanted to talk about a huge, medical problem I had concerning my stomach among many things that nearly took my life the day I was born. I mentioned some of things of what happened in my first blog and how it leads up to my hearing loss. However many people wanted to hear more specifics of what actually happened to me and how I survived the unthinkable.

February 1^st, 1987 was the day I was born. At 10:50am history started to be in the making. My mother gave birth to me. This was not going to be any normal birth by ANY standard. When I was being created in the womb, the skin cells concerning my stomach failed to develop stomach skin. So my organs inside, particularly, my intestines, both small and large, liver, spleen, stomach, kidneys, bladder, everything but my heart and lungs. They remained in my chest cavity. The organs that I highlighted spilled outside of my body and were formed inside their own sac, attached to the umbilical cord. I virtually had a hole in stomach skin. So you would be correct in thinking I did not have a belly button and to this day still do not.

No one knew this was going to happen. Mom had one ultra sound, maybe two, but both were at early stages to figure the sex I believe and to make sure there were no problems early on. When my mother went into labor, the organs came out first, and then I came out immediately. My mother remembers the silence following after and a huge loud “UH OH” from the doctor. No mother wants to hear that UH OH while lying on the bed trying to give birth. It was every mother’s worst nightmare. Immediately they apologized to my father and said “we have to get the baby out, no time to cut the cord” The doctors had my mother keep pushing until I was full out, then brought me away. One hand holding the baby the other holding my organs in the sac. The doctors were adamant from the start I was not going to survive. There was not a maybe or if, I was not going to survive. They told my parents I was going to die; there was nothing they could do. Every baby who had this before me died, why should I survive?

They rushed me to the operating table to close me up and try to insert the organs back inside me. They succeeded in doing so but had no hopes of survival for me. Then they flew me by helicopter to the St. Louis hospital, Cardinal-Glennon in St. Louis, Missouri. They did a few more operations for me. My parents drove up later two hours after giving birth to me. Yes, TWO Hours later. They came in, grandparents drove up etc etc. Just sitting around waiting for me to die. Parents were in the waiting room still wanting to pick a name out for me. They didn’t want me to die without a name. They were thinking either Alex or Andrew, they wanted an A name for me to continue the initials of A.S.T. Doctors came out and said we did everything we could, but we don’t think he will make it through the night. I do want to prepare you for the worst, and start calling family and friends. I had already crashed twice, and “died” twice from my heart stopping, and somehow “came back”.

The unthinkable happened though. I made it through the night. Doctors said “now, hold on, we doubt he will make it through the week now He is still very weak. By the way I was actually born late, 3 days late; I was not a premature baby. Then something else happened, they found my trachea and windpipe had been enclosed. They were trying to figure out why I could not get off the respirator. A nurse spoke up and figured it was something involving that. They figured it out and operated on me more, about 5 surgeries on my neck. That was fixed.

More operations happened, more and more to fix me up. Each not knowing if I’d make the next night. I was given a medication so my body would not reject the organs. The side effect was that I could lose my hearing, some all or maybe little. Parents really didn’t have a choice, if I did not take it I WOULD die guaranteed, no ifs or but.

I remained in the ICU for nearly 2 months, and then regular room for the third month. Babies around me were dying of different things. Parents had to deal with me and then being surrounded by other parents who were losing their child to different things. Slowly hoping I would not become another causality of the ICU. They decided to name me Alexander, for Greek being ‘Protector of Man”. Fitting isn’t it? Finally after three horrendous months, when doctors were absolutely sure nothing else was wrong, I was given the ok to go home.

The day I got to go home, was a miracle for my parents. They never, ever thought they would get to take me home. Doctors, nurses everyone knew me on that floor. Calling me the miracle baby, or child. Doctors stated medically I should have died, there is no reason I should have lived. Perhaps there was a higher God that needed me for something and was not going to let me die no matter what.

My poor mother every day she would drive two hours back and forth to visit me all day every day while my father worked at a local news channel. 8:00am the visiting hours opened up, mom was there. 8:00pm when visiting hours closed, mom came home. She was so afraid of leaving me in case it was the last time I was going to be alive for the night. She did all this while being 24 years old, married to my father, and going to college all at the same time.

I don’t know how she did it. I know she couldn’t do it again. But I told her, she didn’t know she COULD NOT do it. She didn’t sit to think if she could do it or not. She just DID IT. Didn’t ask questions didn’t sit and cry (ok maybe she did once in awhile ha-ha) but she didn’t know she couldn’t take care of me. She just did.

Doctors claimed I was the only baby east side of the Mississippi river at the time of my birth to survive the medical condition I had. Another boy, 2 years older then I also had it but if I recall he did not lose is hearing like I did. Also my situation was much worse I had a stage 3 of the condition whereas he had stage 1 I believe.

So what did I have exactly? Glad you asked. I had a condition called Omphalocele. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalocele

This website talks a bit about it and such. Very informative. It is still rare, so you cannot find much information about it but the case itself is not unknown. Doctors use my case in St. Louis and all over with other doctors to try and figure out how I survived when no one else had survived it before me.

This is my story and I hoped this brought a better understanding of what has happened to me and eventually lead to my hearing loss. I became stronger as a result of this, and while I don’t remember anything, I see the pictures, the stories my mom says through her tears and just only sit back going “thank you” and wondering why I survived. I don’t take much for granted that’s for sure, and always, always appreciate the friendships I develop along the way, online and in person and hope I make a difference in each persons live as they do for me no matter how small or big it is.

Alex

Can I get an AMEN?!

2008-03-04T12:31:00.000-08:00

My fellow single Men. I understand the frusterations of not being able to find a decent girl. Another girl shares the sentiments and would like to share some things.

In the wide world of dating, there are many options. Do you go for the flashy guy with the smooth smile, or the dude in the corner typing away on his laptop? The following are reasons why I think my fellow females should pay more attention to the quiet geeks and nerds, and less attention to the flashy boys.

1.) While geeks and nerds may be awkward, they’re well-meaning 9 out of 10 times. That smooth dude with the sly grin and the spider hands? Wonder what HIS intentions are... plus, I’ve never had a geek guy not call me when he said he would. Score major points THERE.

2.) They’re useful. In this tech-savvy world, it’s great to have a b/f who can make your laptop, desktop, and just about anything else that plugs into a wall behave itself.

3.) They’re more romantic than they’re given credit for. Ok true, their idea of romance might be to make up a spiffy web-page with all the reasons why they love you, with links to pics of you and sonnets and such... but hey. It lasts longer than flowers, plus you can show your friends.

4.) Due to their neglected status, there are plenty to choose from. You like ‘em tall and slender? There are plenty of geeks/nerds who are. You like ‘em smaller with more meat on their bones? Got that too.

5.) They’ve got brains. Come on now, how can intelligence be a bad thing?

6.) Most are quite good at remembering dates. Like birthdates and such, especially if they know it’ll make you happy. Due again to their neglected status, they’re more attentive than guys who “have more options”. Plus, with all that down time without a steady girlfriend, they’ll likely have mental lists of all the things they’d love to do once they GOT a girlfriend.

7.) Sex. Yep. Sex. I’m not really familiar with this myself, but I’ve friends who’ve been intimate with geek guys and it’s raves all around. They say a virgin wrote the Kama Sutra... all that time thinking about sex, imagining sex, dreaming about sex, (they are male after all) coupled with a desire to make you happy? Use your imagination.

8.) They’re relatively low-maintenance. Most can be fueled on pizza, Twinkies and Mt Dew. No complicated dinners needed here, so if you’re not the best cook, eh. Can you order a pizza?

9.) Most frequent bars as often as slugs frequent salt mines. You won’t have to worry much about your geek guy getting his “groove” on with club hotties because, frankly, he’ll be too busy rooting around under his computer wondering where that spare cable went. You won’t have to worry about him flirting with other women because, 9 out of 10 times, he’ll zip right by them in a perfect b-line towards the nearest electronics store. I’ve seen this happen.
Me: “Eww. Victoria Secret’s Models... They’re so skinny. How is that feminine? You can see her ribs!”
Geek Guy: “ooooooo...”
Me: “Hey!” *notices he is staring lustfully towards the computer store*
Geek Guy: “What?”
Me: “Never mind...”

10.) Although he may not want to go to every outing with you, you can arrange swaps, as in, you’ll go to his Gamer Con dressed as an elf princess if he’ll take you to the ballet. Plus, if he doesn’t want to go someplace with you, you won’t have to worry much about what he’s up to. You’ll probably come home to find him asleep on his keyboard in a sea of Mt. Dew cans with code blinking from the screen. It’s ok. He’s used to this. Just toss a blanket over him and turn out the light.

11.) His friends aren’t jerks. I can’t stress this enough. You’ll more likely get “Omg! A GIRL!! Can I see?!” than “Hey hot stuff back that ass up here and let me get some grub on...” They’re awkward geeks too and will, 9 times out of 10, treat you with the utmost respect and, more than likely, a note of awe. A cute girl picked one of their clan to date? It could happen to them! Hope! Drag some of your single girlfriends over, open up a pack of Mt. Dew, crack open the DnD set and get working. Nothing impresses geek guys more than a girl who can hack-n-slash (well ok maybe if she can code... a geek can dream).

12.) They’re rarely if ever possessive. They trust you, so you can be yourself around them. You like to walk around the house in a ratty t-shirt for comfort? He won’t care. He does too! They won’t get pissy if you don’t wear make-up or don’t want to bother primping your hair. If you gain a few pounds, they won’t try their best to make you feel like crap.

13.) They’re usually very well educated. Physics majors and the like. See #5. You won’t have to listen to him blathering on about his car (ok maybe a little), he’ll have loads of other interesting things to talk about. Politics, world events, how much the chicken burgers down at the local place rock, so long as you douse them in hot sauce...

14.) You’ll almost never have to hear, “Yaw dawg whazzap!!” plop out of their mouths. Unless it’s in jest. They spell properly, use correct punctuation, and are able to tell the difference between the toilet and the floor. They almost never get “wasted”, so you won’t have to worry about coming home to find him and his friends passed out on the floor amidst a pile of beer bottles. Mt. Dew cans, perhaps...

15.) And the final reason why geeks and nerds make great boyfriends: They actually give a damn about you. Not how you look (though that’s a plus), not how skinny you are, not how much make-up you primp yourself up with, but they like you for you. That kind of thing lasts longer than “DaMN baby you got a fine ass!!!” Believe me.

So to my friends, there IS hope, god know I am one of them!

Link--http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sfo/66795671.html

Everybody's Someone.

2008-02-25T14:44:00.000-08:00

Hello All—

Why can’t we be accepted, or fit in? What does it take to be fit in to this deaf world of yours? Do I have to take off my hearing aids to be accepted? Do I have to learn ASL, or not talk? Forget I learned cued speech? I see a lot of people like me, those who got CI’s, etc; have their back be turned against them.

Why? As I have come to learn posting via deaf read, and the comments, individual people chatting with me, pretty much no one agrees with my lifestyle or what I did. Example, I call myself Hearing-Impaired for a reason. My hearing was just that, impaired. I do call myself disabled, because I just am that, disabled. I don’t call ANY of you that, because I respect everyone’s choices and opinions and lifestyles. Yet…I am the one who’s told I did the wrong thing. I am calling myself the wrong label. Etc.

All my life, I have been continuously bashed or told off that period, I did the wrong thing. I shouldn’t be wearing hearing aids because I am allowing hearing people to make a profit of my disability. I have abandoned the deaf world apparently by not learning ASL and such. I don’t understand it. The deaf people talk about having their world, and such. Is it wrong to want to hear? Is it wrong to want to be accepted by everybody HEARING and DEAF? I am sorry I chose a life style that is not agreed by many people here.

I don’t remember much about actually losing my hearing, but I remember the day that reality actually HIT me that there was going to be things I just could never, ever do in my life. I would never be able to 100% talk to hearing people without having to read lips. I will never be able to be a pilot for a commercial airline or a flight attendant, my one true dream I’d love to succeed maybe. Sitting there being frankly told, you won’t be able to do it. Until technology exists to allow it I won’t.

I struggle enough trying to identify myself as a person, now I have to find a label for the deaf world, whether its hearing impaired, deaf, hard of hearing, whatever the label is. I love that though..the labeling. Deaf people talk about wanting to be created equal, yet you enclose yourself into the deaf world. You label yourself as deaf, you are angered at people who get Cochlear Implants, who get hearing aids, or who might actually would like to try and hear?!?!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying every deaf person treats me this way, but I sure run into a lot of them in public, and unfortunately people from deaf read don’t help either. I remember a situation sitting at a pizza restaurant. Mom and I were talking and she is cueing to me and talking vice versa. A group of deaf people came up to my mother and signed “what are you doing to him?!” Mom looked back and shook her head and I don’t know sign. So they took out paper and pen, and the basic gist of the conversation was, my mother did the wrong thing by not teaching me ASL, and teaching me cue. My mother was a bad mother for not putting me in a deaf school. She didn’t do the right thing. I was going to grow up feeling alone, and secluded in “my own world” and the hearing people would never accept me, nor would the deaf people. I was ashamed of the deaf people and “left the deaf world”.

Well…what does that say about anything? They didn’t step back and look to see how I functioned as ME. That was extremely rude of them to tell my mother those things. Not ONCE did we go up and tell them, you should have learned cued speech, or you should have not learned ASL. No we minded our business, but they did not. They insulted me and my family for our life styles. Not once, have I EVER insulted the deaf people and their choices. What is there to insult?! Absolutely nothing.

I don’t know much what else to say, but I do ask this of you and all deaf people. Take the time to sit back and THINK. Do you REALLY want to tell people and bash them for the choices they make? Is it really that wrong to WANT to hear, and by all means, if they have the chance to hear, to let them go for it? If it means getting a cochlear implant, getting hearing aids, god forbid, and stem cell research issues comes up, you can bet I’ll be first in line to get it if possible. I am sorry I offend you people by calling myself hearing-impaired. I am not sorry for the life choices I made or my parent’s made.

There a few people who are like me and fully understand where I am coming from. There are also those who don’t agree with my decisions, but why are they different? They showed RESPECT, and all they said was “I don’t personally like how you call yourself, but that’s how you chose and if it fits you then so be it” That was ALL that needs to be said, and I have the utmost respect for people like them, you know who I am talking about.

Alex

Hearing/Understanding-What's the difference?

2008-02-21T14:02:00.000-08:00

Good Afternoon All!

I really should be focused on trying to figure out how to set up my online class at SIU-C but I find this more intriguing! J

A topic I wanted to talk about, I assume is one of a common thing but leads me to GREAT frustration among the Hearing World. This is basically the actual difference between calling myself deaf/hearing-impaired yet still able to hear just about everything.

Basically, if I wear hearing aids I am deaf, and I cannot hear anything right? WRONG. Yet most hearing people cannot fathom that type of explanation. They seem to think it is an all or nothing situation. When I meet people all the time, I explain in simple lay man terms I am Deaf, though to be nit picky I consider myself hearing-impaired. I simply say Deaf because some people really just don’t want to hear the specifics. Example if a guy comes up saw my hearing aids he would probably ask “Are you deaf?” I’d respond “Yes”, leave it at that and move on. If the conversation goes further I’d be willing to explain more specifically my hearing or lack of it really.

Basically though, I have a 75% hearing loss in my left ear and 80% loss in my right ear, yet essentially wearing hearing aids virtually brings almost 100% of it back! So this allows me to be able to hear just about any type of noise. However and unfortunately my nerves inside my ear were damaged. So that means that I cannot UNDERSTAND conversations on the phone, in person, etc WITHOUT the aid of text or lip reading or anything. However a lot of hearing people just do NOT seem to understand that concept.

I will go out in public, and be on my cell phone talking to someone. I am stopped by a public person and go “Aren’t you deaf?” I would respond “yes” or “hearing-impaired yes, why?” They’d go “but, but your wearing hearing aids...and you’re deaf. You’re not supposed to be able to hear!” In my head I am thinking “...and precisely dear...WHERE does it say I cannot hear? Are you stereotyping as I figured?” I then explain, in the simplest terms, Yes I lost a lot of hearing, but I wear hearing aids which helps aid me to hear so I am able to hear most of the noise and sounds in the environment. They treat it as if it’s the MOST amazing news they ever heard. My gosh, a machine, that like, actually allows us to hear again?! My lord what will they think of next, something that allows people to see better?! Oh wait… ;-)

I don’t know if it is simple ignorance or something, but people seem to link, deaf=not hearing. We all know in the deaf community there are many, many levels of hearing loss. Yet for hearing people there is only one. I remember another situation where I was with new co workers, and we were discussing music. I offered my music advice and suggestions, which I enjoyed listening to in my car and favorite songs. The silence was unbearable, and one goes “ya right you cannot hear music your deaf right!” DOH! *goes off to bang head against the wall*.

I once again explained how my hearing worked and with the hearing aids, and how I can hear words, and music, but I cannot understand what people say unless I have the song memorized, or I am reading along lyrics, subtitles, text, etc, list goes on! The questions are absolutely hysterical too. Can you drive? So like how do you dance to music then? Ok then, if your deaf, then you can read Braille right? (Hahaha, yes I was actually asked that by a co worker...). Oh here is the kicker…Can deaf people have sex? *screeches to a halt—WHAT DID THEY ASK?! Yes you heard me, oh sorry perhaps ill re type it or sign it again... CAN...DEAF...PEOPLE...HAVE...SEX? Hmmmh, I sit and think to figure out a response to that. Then I thought, if they want to ask me a stupid question, I’ll respond with a stupid response. I’ll say to them “That’s a good question! I don’t know, lets go home and find out, have sex all night and THEN you can tell me if deaf people can have sex, agreed?!” J

I DO understand some people just don’t think, and what’s normal for them, maybe hard to figure out for different people. But as far as I am concerned there is nothing to hear to make sure you doing good. Ok maybe being deaf has an advantage for the guys; you don’t have to hear the dreaded question from the girls in bed asking the guys “is it in yet?” *smirks*

That’s basically it. This was more so a rant then anything and to share my own experience and questions. Hope you found this funny and a good read as always!

Alex

Trying to fit in...One sign at a time.

2008-02-19T19:59:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys-

First off, I want to thank everyone for the support and praises I have heard from each and every one of you. It means a lot to me! I also want to thank those who are reading but didn’t leave a comment, again thanks for reading! I also read all comments and take them to heart, and again anything you want to hear from me or anything send me a message I’d be glad to give an opinion about it.

This blog is going to be about how I lived in the hearing world as a hearing impaired person. You may be wondering, wait; we all know what it is like. You do, but in this situation, I grew up in a hearing world, with hearing people, friends and families. I virtually and literally had NO contact with any deaf people. This means I talked to people, I never did ASL, or attended deaf meets, etc etc. Take a look at the next paragraph and tell me not so much what’s wrong with the situation but see how my life was.

Alex to a hearing person-Hey Dude what’s up?

HP (Hearing Person) - Hey Alex not much just chilling

Alex-Sweet, you all going out tonight?

HP-Ya we are wanna come?

Alex- Nah, I gotta go home and study for a test but thanks!

HP- Ok bro no problem see ya!

This situation involved me and a hearing person talking face to face, no ASL was involved no interpreters or anything. Now I am going to run into a deaf person on the street in the next story.

DP (deaf person) - He waves to get my attention notices my hearing aids. He signs and goes hey do you know ASL?

Now, I am like a deer in headlights. How can I communicate to this deaf person? He wants to talk to me because he thinks I know ASL. But, I don’t! What to do?! I shake my head and speak but I circle my lips and go can you read my lips? Unfortunately he doesn’t and only does ASL. This is a HUGE communication barrier on my part. I sort of shrug and go Im sorry and sign it a bit and go I don’t know ASL.

By now you’re probably thinking what on earth is the point of this? Glad you asked. I am trying to get you to see how I lived my life and the frustrations I had with deaf people as a hearing impaired person. Basically when deaf people talk about the frustrations of living in a hearing world, I didn’t have that. My frustrations came from interacting with deaf people. Not knowing ASL was the key point. A lot of people may actually see my situation but in reverse or something.

For example, when I first started going to deaf meeting. I was used to simply clapping and all. However, when speeches were finished, I stood up to clap! Immediately, I was the only one clapping but surrounded in a wave of shaking hands. “Oops” I thought, I sat down embarrassed. Sort of funny I thought. Also shows how used to the hearing environment I was!

I wanted to talk about a story where I went to a Deaf Event where I felt like I was in the minority. Do remember this is from a non-ASL person’s point of view. Mom and I go to the deaf program at JALC to check the place out. We both do not know any sign language. So once we arrived there, we had like 5 people come up to us and start signing to us. I did not have a CLUE what they were saying. I only knew finger spelling and that was it. This professor came up and starts signing my name and I said or rather signed to the best I could Y-E-S. I felt so stupid! He clapped and said “oh good, good, wonderful!!!” I'm thinking “why?” They kept signing some more of course I cant understand a word, and my mom and I looked at each other and were like "lets get out of here, LETS GO FIND ANGIE! (Angie is the coordinator for this program and was someone I could easily communicate to without ASL)

So mom and I took off running to her office, we found her and told her what happened, and she said “ohh I see you met Paul” (who was the professor who signed my name) I said “ya if that’s his name?” she said “ya it is.” We walked back down together. We went back into the room, and it was really quiet (since most of them were signing) and then as we are signing our papers, I heard a HUGE slam as if someone dropped something. It startled me so I screamed like a girl a bit and said “oh my gosh, that scared the crap out of me. Then I looked around and realized no one else heard it and then I said out loud, "WAS I THE ONLY ONE WHO HEARD THAT NOISE?!" my mom and Angie laughed, at they way I said it without thinking.

Then we found a table and sat down, and we kind of talked amongst ourselves... Well rather we talked, and the rest signed, then like I really felt like I was in the minority here. Even though I am deaf/Hearing-Impaired like they are, I can talk and read lips and not be able to do ASL like they could! They all had a clique, something to belong to, I did not. Then people were signing and acting out skits and stuff, and we had a speaker come up and he tapped the microphone and said "ok, can anyone hear me?" this is when I lost control of myself and started laughing abruptly thinking, your asking a room full of Deaf people if they can hear him? I actually heard the room chuckle a bit, while my mom laughed and so did Angie. I assumed he did it as a joke, since a lot of the others also laughed along.

One of those, you had to be there. Then one last funny thing I did, when you clap in sign language you wave your hands in the air kind of shake 'em a little bit and such? Well I forgot that. So every time we "clapped" I started to clap my hands and would clap once or twice, then id forget and start waving my hands in the air. I totally felt like a dork for forgetting. It never failed every single time I start to actually clap then remember and then id wave the hands. Too funny. It was a very fun time and I had a great time. I just got to learn sign language one of these days.

Once again, I want to reiterate that this was MY situation. I typed this out for people both hearing and deaf, to see the light hearted situations I found myself in. Even though I am hearing-impaired, I was so used to being surrounded by hearing people I had to literally readjust, and what was normal for deaf people was not for me. Hence my surprise reactions and thoughts to the different situations. I hope you enjoyed seeing a different side of another hearing-impaired person and enjoyed the irony and situations that had played out in front of me.

Cued Speech-My Story

2008-02-18T12:13:00.000-08:00

Hello All!

Glad to see your here reading about Cued Speech. I understand this is a very controversial issue for many involved, myself included. Deaf People are either against it, support it, or mutual, they don't care too much to see both ways. After my parents found out about my hearing loss, the first thing they did was to seek about ASL. However my parents were adamant from the start that I was not to go to a deaf school. They were at a doctor's office for one of my regular check ups when my mother came across a story about cued speech in a sesame street magazine. Most of us are already familiar with cued speech, whether you support it or not. A basic description is it is based on the sound/phonetics of the speech, and not so much the visual aspects of it. A quick look on youtube.com or google.com will yield you many search results.

My parents were fascinated by cued speech and learned using this would widen my vocabulary and help me learn to speak as well. They contacted some people through the magazine to get some more information, and figured this would be a perfect tool to aid me when I am mainstreamed. My parents pulled me out of the deaf school to put me in kindergarten. The deaf school apparently was not going to have that. Battles ensued, back and forth about what was the right thing to do for their child. The deaf school wanted me to stay put and raise me in a deaf world surrounded by deaf people. They knew I would be a role model for other people, but my parents did not want that. They wanted me surrounded by hearing people and to grow up like them-hearing.

Battles however STILL went back and forth. Meetings were held, but the stance was always the same. Deaf school telling my parents they were doing the wrong thing. Parents saying no, we want him raised in a hearing environment and he will learn cued speech. If I recall lawsuits almost were brought up or threatened by the schools as a legal ground to hold me at a deaf school, but don't hold me to that. It was a really bad time for everyone.

I was placed to enter kindergarten, by then I had the vocabulary of a hearing kindergarten student. I stuck with cued speech all the way until now. I had a cued speech interpreter all throughout elementary, and High school.

Of course only learning cued speech, meaning I am able to read it but not able to be fluent in actually cueing it. This allowed me to communicate with many people deaf and hearing who were able to talk or speak enough I was able to read their lips. Unfortunately I was not able to talk to deaf people who only did ASL. So I was still stuck and lost and left out of the deaf world because of that. You can believe I was harassed and bashed and called everything in the book for leaving the deaf world and going to the hearing world. I was told my parents did the wrong thing for myself; I didn't help the deaf people's case in trying to be a community. I no longer belonged and I was shunned. That was fine, I had hearing people who accepted me and embraced me. It was a shame I couldn't see the same with deaf people. Why the reason? I don't know, I have guesses but I won't say them here. They have their reasons for being upset at me for taking the direction I went and the choices my parents and I made.

Now I am finished with High School, I have entered the real world. I went to go work for Southwest Airlines, and this broadened me to more deaf people then ever. Every day almost I was meeting Deaf Customers, and I could not help them one bit. I felt so sorry for myself and for them but then thought no, I am the one that needs to teach myself. After being surrounded and such and struggles of my self in the job I took a leave of absence with the airline, and am currently trying to go back to school in college. With this I hope to become fluent in ASL. I went online to search stuff on you tube and such and came across Geo's site- www.seekgeo.com I was absolutely fascinated by the vlog content and surprised to see people like him signing online and using subtitles for people like me who could not follow along.

I got to speak to Geo and many others and was lead to the live.yahoo.com site as well. Oh my gosh, there was MORE OF THEM?! Immediately I was surrounded by all these deaf people who were using ASL, and I was literally like deer in headlights. So I felt it is now my duty as a hearing impaired person to learn ASL and build a bridge between the hearing and deaf community. I don't mean to become an interpreter, but simply have the flexibility to speak to the hearing and sign to the deaf and vice versa.

I still support cued speech and always will because of the huge success I have had with myself. I promote it for educational purposes, and beyond. Cued speech not only helps deaf people but hearing people who for some reason cannot speak well or have low vocabulary experience. Deaf people seem to be threatened by cued, but correct me if I am wrong about that. I do promise cued speech will NEVER replace ASL. ASL is a beautiful language and it is an art in itself and to see it expressed in so many ways and different languages is fascinating. It is everyone's choice to take the road they want to, and the direction they want to. But please, be respectful of the choice they made, and not every thing is for everyone.

I was lead to that’s site for a reason, why not sure just yet. But so far I am meeting many online people. I am being pushed to learn ASL as expected, however I hope they respect my decisions I made with cued speech and know I will never leave cued speech and will continue to support cued every way I can. With that, I hope to become fluent in both cued and ASL and broaden my knowledge, vocabulary and language in everything!

Thanks for reading!

Alex

How did I lose my Hearing?

2008-02-17T20:27:00.000-08:00

Hello All!!

When we meet other people with hearing loss, the first question is always typically, how did you lose your hearing?! I was born hearing to hearing parents. I had a medical condition that somehow stopped my skin cells in my stomach to stop forming. This allowed my organs, more particuarly the stomach, liver, intestines, bladder, kidneys, and so forth to spill out of my body. Basically everything but my heart and lungs were outside of my body in a sac. Doctors had to immediatly close me up and rush me to St. Louis hospital. I ended up having over 30 surgeries, 27 on my stomach, and 5 on my neck (was also not born breathing). I was at the hospital for three months recovering. The doctors had to give me a medication to help me survive, unfortunatly the side effect would cause me to lose hearing. They were not sure how much loss would occur IF any. Parents had to sign a waiver agreeing they were warned of my possiblity of a hearing loss, and doctors would not be held accountable for causing my hearing loss.

Fast forward two years later, mom dropped a pan besides me. I didn't even flinch. Mom got concerned and worried, and suddenly remembered the doctors warning. It had come true for them. Their son actually lost hearing, but to what degree? They waited a week doing their own home testing and some sounds I responded to, some I did not. They took me to a hearing test locally, and it was official. I was diagnosed as profoundly to severely deaf, with 75% hearing loss in my left ear and 80% on my right ear. However I am not convinced that is totally correct because I can hear some voices. I listen to music very normally, and can hear cars, trains, loud rumbling noises, thunder, etc etc without hearing aids.

So then it was time to get hearing aids for me. We went to a doctor in St. Louis and tried different ones and I put it on. Immediatly I started screaming and crying. What was this thing coming into my ear?! It was LOUD! It was coming from EVERYWHERE! Finally my mother said to me without looking "Alex?" I immediatly turned into her direction and for the first time I heard my mothers voice and actually recognized it. Mom started crying as did Dad and they believed they finally found something that worked for me.

We left the hospital and I was distracted by everything I was hearing! The hearing aids brought back essentially 90% of the hearing back. With my hearing aids I still cannot hear birds chirping or VERY low soft sounds. But I am able to hear pretty much everything, UNDERSTANDING is a bit different, and I will discuss that later in other posts. Then a Trans World Airlines Boeing 747 roared over head and I was actually silent, but not because I didn't hear it. Believe, me I heard it! But I was more amazed, and I turned and looked at the plane and pointed. Thus was born my desire to go into aviation. But again thats another topic! :)

That's the story of how I loss my hearing and a little bit of the background of it. Coming up I will discuss, topics such as "But your not really deaf are you?" as well as "Hearing/Understanding-Whats the difference?" and many others including Cochlear Implants, Cued Speech, Sign Language and many things!

Thanks for reading!!

Alex

Deaf Man trying to find his place in a Hearing World

Upcoming weekend

Weekend is over!

Weekend So Far

Born This Way-Lady Gaga Song, My Thoughts

1 Year of the Cochlear-Implant-Activation November 11th, 2011

1 Year Anniversary of the Cochlear-Implant--October 23rd, 2010

Cochlear Updates

Cochlear Update Round Two!

Cochlear Implant Updates

Trip around the Country!

Life as a CSA-Part 2

Life as Customer Service Agent for a Major Airline

2008 into 2009

Cued Speech Vlog/Blog

Voting for the First Time

Sucker Balls

The Abbie Experience Part 2

The Abbie Experience-Part 1

Typo's and Random IM convos

Shopping at Target

Going through a Drive-Thru.

Trips, and Mileage Runs!

Finding a Parking Spot...

Growing up with Cued Speech

Losing a Pet

George Carlin "Airline Announcement" Subtitled!

To Seek, or not to Seek! Trip to SEEKGEO!

Trip, Music, Stories and more!

Happy Thursday!

Updates and more!!!

Researching to get hearing back.

Making a Difference

Loads of Music Videos!

Deaf Pride

Visiting Geo of seekgeo.com!

Guess It's my turn now...

Music Videos Galore

Subtitled Music Videos

Bringing Sexy Back!!!

Why was cued speech chosen over ASL?

More Subtitles galore!!!

I Go Back...

Shania Twain Galore!!!

More Subtitled Music Videos!!!

Two Music Videos-Subtitled

3rd time is NOT the charm!!!

“Oh, oh, oh, get in the action-feel the attractionColor my hair-do what I dareOh, oh, oh, I wanna be free-yeah, to feel the way I feelMan! I feel like a woman!”

If being a woman and feeling like one means locking yourself out? Then yes, by god I DO feel like a woman! I don’t think I had time to color my hair...do I dare?

“Oh baby baby…oh baby baby.

Oh baby, how was I supposed to know…

That something wasn’t right here..”

AWWW HELL NO! NOT BRITNEY SPEARS- HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME!

I flew back to the car, with key in hand, unlocked it and opened it up and unplugged the ipod! Wooooo. SILENCE! Thank god!

With that said and undone, mom continued to laugh at me. I said “thanks” and went inside the store to start my work shift, 30 minutes later…

“I get totally crazyCan you feel itCome, come, come on babyI feel like a woman”

I feel it!

CI Update, and subtitling.

What's next... a CI?!

Helping...or Providing Needs?

More Videos of Captions, Lucy and the Grinch!

Captioned Videos to laugh at!

The Miracle Child

Can I get an AMEN?!

Everybody's Someone.

Hearing/Understanding-What's the difference?

Trying to fit in...One sign at a time.

Cued Speech-My Story

How did I lose my Hearing?

“Oh, oh, oh, get in the action-feel the attraction
Color my hair-do what I dare
Oh, oh, oh, I wanna be free-yeah, to feel the way I feel
Man! I feel like a woman!”

“I get totally crazy
Can you feel it
Come, come, come on baby
I feel like a woman”