Been quiet lately

It's been relatively quiet in these parts lately, which is a good thing. I've been prepping for this year's Deaf-Blind Camp in MD, where I'm looking forward to working with KC again. I haven't seen her in almost two years. It's been WAY too long. One of my additional duties at camp will be to mentor some less-experienced interpreter-guides, which I'm also looking forward to.

I'm still awaiting approval for the application I filled out to be the "personal assistant" of my deaf-blind friend JJ. He's received a grant from a local agency to have people come in and interact with him, keep him caught up on current events, help him with emailing since his neuropathy has largely robbed him of the ability to read braille, and so on. I told JJ's mom that I also want to do some tasks for them that aren't listed in the very open-ended description of job duties. For one, I want to help compile his medical records, which are comprised of a huge amount of complex information, into computer files that can be printed or burned onto a CD every time he goes to a new doctor (a regular occurrence). And I want to mentor the local interpreting students who are in their practicum class. This last item will have benefits for both JJ and the students -- he will get to chat with new people, and the students will get experience working with deaf-blind consumers. That's huge, as there are a lot of interpreters who refuse to take deaf-blind jobs because they THINK they can't do tactile signing. If we can get the student interpreters on board with signing into a deaf-blind person's hands, they won't be intimidated by the prospect when an actual job comes up, so this is a case where everybody wins.

In other news, I downloaded an interesting scanner app for my iPod Touch, and I've found an intriguing way to use it in conjunction with weather.com. If I see severe weather warnings on weather.com for a particular county, I take a look on the scanner app (5-0 Radio) to see if that county's emergency services have a stream. If they do, I listen in and find out just what's going on in said county. Though with the Tornado Watch and Severe T-Storm Warnings that we're currently operating under even as I type, I might as well listen to my own city's police and fire radio streams. Doggone, but Mother Nature's in a grumpy mood today.

5-0 Radio has also got some streams for ham radio repeaters and railroad radios. I can't help but think how I'd have LOVED to have had access to these things when I was a kid. I used to tune in to distant AM stations when I was in grade school. I made a whole list of stations by call letters, frequency, and city of origin, as well as a map where I could look up said cities. I used to love it. So my grandpop got me a multi-band radio including shortwave, weather, aircraft, and others, and I used to love THAT, too. Honestly, I think I'd have run this 5-0 Radio app 24/7 if I'd had access to it 30+ years ago.

Yeah, I was a nerd. Still am. And darn proud of it. :-)