The Life and Times of Me

Hi everyone and welcome to all. I hope this finds everyone well and behaving themselves. Well...I'm guessing most of us know who is *not* behaving himself? That's absolutely correct, our dear asshole-in-chief! The one who has returned to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for his second--and hopefully final--term. I'm hoping and praying he actually gets impeached and literally thrown out on his not-sorry ass, but perhaps that's just me. After all, I'm a nice guy who cares and I think people know that by now.





It's been a few weeks, so I think some updates are in order. First off, I've been using my free eReader a bit more. Ya know, the one from the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled. I've not used it yet to read any material from BARD, BookShare or NFB Newsline but those accounts are configured on there. I have however, used the device as a Braille display alongside my trusty MacBook Air and I'm starting to use them together. I'm happy to report that the device works well, and apparently I got lucky because the other brand of eReaders which were sent out by the National Library Service have a lot of problems. At least this is what I've read. This other company is one which I'd never even heard of before, so I therefore cannot comment further. But the HumanWare devices seem to be doing the trick for me and the other patrons who received them. The other thing about my eReader is that I can have it work in English Braille American Edition as well as the new Braille code. This is a big plus, since I grew up on EBAE and have yet to learn the new code. But there appears to be information online concerning the new code, so that's going to come in handy.





I started attending a Friday-morning Bible study with a neighbor at his church. It's a lot of fun. This is my first Bible study in years. I'm currently not able to follow along with them unless this neighbor reads me the passages, but I found an online resource that appears to be very usable and accessible. I'd like to thank Richard Turner for including a link to this resource on his website. Those who want to can check him out at http://www.turner42.com , and the Bible resource is at http://www.optasiaministry.org . It seems to be a lending library with a ton of Bibles as well as various Biblical reference material. I've tried out Blue Letter Bible and YouVersion, but the Optasia Ministry seems to better fit the bill for me.





Finally, I'd like to inform readers that I'm having a medical procedure done next month, so you might not hear from me again until after that is complete and I've healed up. It is an out-patient procedure though, and the surgeon who is performing it did a hernia repair on me several years ago. He was trained by none other than my father, and is very good. So in the meantime take care all, and stay out of trouble.

Hi everyone and welcome to the beginning of August. Hope you're all doing well. Good, me too. I know it's a bit early in the week, but I wanted to get this out to everyone. I honestly wasn't going to publish this week, but recent events have led me to change my mind.





I would first like to draw your attention to the following blog post. Click this link to read it: https://applevis.com/blog/end-era-message-founder-we-announce-closure-applevis . Some might've already seen it. I first discovered AppleVis a few years after its inception, which was when I acquired my first Mac. My brother sent me a link to the website, and I looked it over. I thought I'd register on there, so I did just that and you probably know the rest. I actually new a little bit about Apple though prior to joining AppleVis, because I used at least 2 of the AppleIIE computers with speech. VoiceOver hadn't come out yet, so the speech I used was provided by the Echo/Cricket synthesizer. Some of you might remember those days. I used a neat little program called Textalker. This was by no means a screen reader according to today's standards, but one could program various words and phrases into it. There was also an on-board demo which used a few different voices. I and my family had a lot of fun with that thing.





I'll skip over my use of DOS and Windows, although that was my foray into the full-fledged screen readers of today. I got my first Mac on December 27, 2013. That was 8 years after VoiceOver was released for the Mac. As you might expect, I had to get used to new ways of doing things on the computer. But it wasn't long before I was up and running. At the time Apple stores were conducting training sessions on various things, and I believe I only needed one of those. The trainer with whom I worked was very knowledgeable and patient with me. I acquired my first iPhone in 2018, and attended 2 training sessions at a different place. But the guy with whom I worked was also very knowledgeable and patient. What's more, he is a VoiceOver user so he was therefore able to patiently guide me through the initial steps of using my iPhone. I'm now on round 2 for the Mac and iOS.





I am saddened to see AppleVis go and hope that something can be worked out by the end of this month in order to keep the lights on. But I also have a deep understanding of what led to this decision. First and foremost, I for one am so glad that the founder of AppleVis is on the road to recovery and hope and pray he makes a full one. I also agree about the near-constant negativity plaguing the website as of late. I've said this before and I'll say it again. Nobody and nothing is perfect, with the exception of whatever deity one believes in or not at all. I realize that some do not like Apple's way of doing things, but please don't ruin it for the rest of us. I for one am very impressed with the work done by the company thus far, and know they will continue doing great things. For example, some of you are aware that I recently acquired a pair of hearing aids. I'm very happy with the hearing aids thus far, and thanks to the accessibility team at Apple I can independently adjust them if and when necessary. That is just one thing, but there are other reasons why I like Apple, not the least of which is that I like the fruit of the same name.





I was going to post about the recent political news, but I'll just say that even though I didn't vote for Donald Trump I'm glad he's okay. I for one don't want him to win again, for obvious reasons. That's it from me for now. As always please take care, and please remember to always wear a face mask where required.

Hey everybody. I'm just posting this little update to check in on y'all and give a bit of a progress report. It seems Dreamwidth is chugging along as usual, and that's great to hear because I love it here.





And now for the update from my neck of the woods. Drum-roll please! I got the hearing aids, and I'm wearing them as I write this. The brand is Jabra, which I hadn't heard of before for the most part but these seem to be doing the trick. As with anything new, I'm still getting accustomed to them but that's okay. I already had an incident with them. It seems the volume on at least one of them went way down, even when I had them at full volume. I was afraid it might've been a malfunction of the hearing aids themselves, but as I found out just yesterday this wasn't really the case. I was at my parents' 2-flat again for a Fourth of July cookout, and I had my father take a look. He has worn hearing aids, and is therefore familiar with them in general. Upon examining mine he immediately noticed some earwax on one of them. The earwax was blocking the part that actually delivers the sound. So he proceeded to clean both of them off, and after dessert he cleaned out my ears again. Then he put my hearing aids back in my ears, and sent me on my way. But I definitely recommend this brand, and for those of you in the area I also recommend the audiologist who sold them to me and my father. I never would've thought to go to Costco for hearing aids, but this guy is very knowledgeable and patient.





For those of us using VoiceOver on an iPhone, the app that controls these hearing aids is a bit confusing but it appears you don't even need the app. I first tried out this app without Screen Recognition, and it left a bit to be desired. But with Screen Recognition on, the app was slightly more accessible to me. However, thanks to Apple's wonderful and extensive settings app on iOS all I have to do is go in there to make any adjustments. The Jabra website, which seems to be pretty accessible with VoiceOver for the most part, indicates that these hearing aids will automatically adjust the settings based on location of the wearer. I guess at this point it's too soon to tell as I haven't been many places, and also because of the afore-mentioned incident. However, if the company's own website states that their product will adjust automatically then that's pretty accurate. The app to which I'm referring is called Enhance Pro, and I believe it's available on Android as well as iOS. I have yet to find a way to obtain a user guide/manual in accessible format, but hopefully that'll happen very soon.





Well folks, that's all for this entry.

Hi everybody and happy Friday once again. Not much to speak of again this week. As a matter of fact, I've decided to stop publishing here regularly, unless something of note happens--good or bad. I'm finding that I have a lot to do, and I therefore haven't had as much time to devote to this journal. I have 3 separate journals now: this one, a gratitude journal, and one on my smartphone which I'm currently using for health-related stuff. I've also had other things to do.





But fear not, I've been feeling just fine. I'm going for another dental implant next week, but that shouldn't be a big deal. Additionally, I've decided--with the help of my parents of course--to get a pair of hearing aids. I was diagnosed last year with Eustachian-tube dysfunction, and just last month I was fitted for hearing aids. I tried out 2 brands, and have made the decision as to which brand I'll take. So they are now being custom-made, and should be ready in a couple weeks or so. My hearing has been muffled.





Well...that's all for now. I'm not ceasing publication here on the mighty Dreamwidth for good though, so stay tuned right here for future goodness. I would however, like to once again thank everybody who has worked on Dw, for their tireless efforts. This is not goodbye, so I will write again soon. Take care, be safe, and please do the right thing on 5 November. I am of course talking voting. Rumor has it that we *could* have a convicted criminal for our next president. Let's hope and pray that doesn't happen, not only because he already served 4 years in office. He did that and fucked up big time, if you ask me.

Hi everyone, not much time again. So I leave you with this. What if there were no assistive tech in the world?

Hi everybody and welcome back to Friday. Yes indeed, I took a bit of a hiatus last week. Truth be told, I got busy yet again and the result was no entry. But I'm back and badder than ever!





I hope everyone is doing well. Good, me too. Not much to speak of again, but I have been testing out another new scanning app. I received word from the developers of said app that I can talk about it. I am part of a group of beta testers for an app called Envision Assistant. I honestly haven't done much with the app due to a rather hectic schedule, but this one has personality. I think that is what sets it apart from the other apps of its kind which I've seen. Let's hope that I can get better with my aim over time, and this app will grow.





Well...I think that's all for this week. Until next time, I bid y'all a fond farewell!

That's right folks, this was not a very eventful week again. But I'd like to inform those of you eclipse fans out there, of a nice little app that will be helpful in viewing Monday's total eclipse. The app is called Eclipse Soundscapes, and is available for iOS and Android. The website for this app is http://www.eclipsesoundscapes.org , and it can be gotten in the App Store and the Google Play Store. I discovered the app several years ago, and am definitely going to make use of it on Monday. So until next week, happy eclipsing everyone!

Hi everyone. Not much again this week, but let there be no more hate.

Hello again everybody and welcome to a rainy Friday. I hope y'all are doing well. Good, me too. The week has been very good.





I've continued to play with my iPhone 14 and love it. This phone of course has 2 cameras, and earlier in the week I was able to read most of the contents of a microwavable Banquet meal which I had for supper. I'd say this experience was perhaps the best one yet in terms of scanning. I used Microsoft Seeing AI to get the job done, and the meal was quite tasty. Maybe not so healthy though, but only time will tell on that one.





Well...I'm off to a fundraiser later today so I think that's going to have to do it. What's more, my Mac is repeating the message "auto-saved draft at (insert time of day here)". So until next time, ya know the drill!

Hi all, hope all is well. Good, me too. I'd like to talk tech yet again this week. I realize that's something I do a lot, but here I go again.





I've written a lot on these pages about Apple and my love for the tech giant. I don't think I'd go so far as to call myself an Apple fan boy, but I'd like to talk briefly about a new app. I discovered this one while perusing AppleVis yesterday. It is simply named Sport, and I think the name says it all. I've never been much of a sports fan, due to the fact that I've always only been able to sense light and dark. But this app will change that. I've been to a handful of sports events throughout my time on this Earth. In fact, perhaps more than a handful since some of my family members played sports. But I am very happy with Apple's sports app because of its accessibility. So thanks once again to the tech giant for making something wonderful and increasing my independence. Perhaps they should be termed an "independence company" as well, lol.





Well...that's all for today. Talk again next week. Be good!