HA HA HA HA

This fan has a referee's jersey with "BLIND" where the name would go.

I saw a fascinating article about the improvements in cochlear implant technology that are allowing deaf cochlear implant users to discern music for the first time.

Now, cochlear implants are a volatile topic at best in the culturally Deaf (note the capital D) community. So can music be, if the implication is that the dominant (hearing) culture is treating the Deaf community like its members are somehow broken, inferior, etc. So I will tread lightly on both topics, other than to say that I support every competent adult who makes the decision to do what's right for them personally: if they want a cochlear implant, I say fine, go and have the surgery. If they dont want one, then I say fine, nobody should have any kind of medical procedure they neither want nor need, and that goes double for a treatment as invasive as major surgery.

But once a person decides to get a cochlear implant, I can't help but hope that the best possible technology is available to them. That's why I'm ecstatic that Cis are improving to the point where the users are gaining the ability to discern between musical tones. It's not just for the sake of the music, but for the increased precision in the capability of the CI devices themselves.

I hope that the new, improved technology becomes the standard ASAP, if it isn't the norm already. Heck, if someone is going to take a step as dramatic as having cochlear implant surgery, they should get the most possible "bang for their buck" out of the device. Here's to ever-more precise discernment between different tones.

Blogger is beta-testing a new freebie feature that allows voice mails to be sent by clicking a button on a web page. (Actually, it could permit phone calls as well, but I don't have it set up that way -- I set everything to go directly to voice mail.)

So go ahead and click away. When you do, you enter info so the automated thingy will call YOU (so there are no long-distance charges to you) and you can leave a recording. No fuss, no muss.

Have fun! :)

That was quick. I've had to rearrange my SuperShuttle reservation already. Actually, what I did was cancel the return trip to the airport, as we're now going to be attending a talk on Saturday morning on technology and the deaf-blind. (Figures that they'd schedule that particular topic for the final day of the conference, grrrr...)

Long story short: instead of leaving from KC's to go directly to the airport, now we'll be attending the talk on Saturday morning and I will be able to get a shuttle from the hotel (where the talk will be) to the airport. LA's version of paratransit is, allegedly, not over-fond of having people carry luggage onto a ride, but OH WELL. This one time, when KC and I travel to the conference from her apartment and my next destination will be the airport, I'll have no choice but to bring a suitcase. Such is life.

I'm psyched about this conference. :)

Boy, did everything fall into place quickly for this Tech conference!

I found a surprisingly reasonable fare (once I switched airports from Burbank, which is close to where KC lives, to LAX), and as an added bonus, both of the flights are nonstop. Then I checked out SuperShuttle for door-to-door service to and from the airport to KC's apartment complex. We'll be staying at the apartment complex, rather than at the hotel where the convention is, to save money. LA's version of paratransit can get us to and from the conference sites. KC reserved a guest apartment for me in her complex, so we'll be staying in the same building.

11 hours ago, I didn't even know this conference EXISTED, and now everything's set for me to be in attendance. Now if THAT isn't the proverbial Sign From Above, what is?

Boy, today has been one for the books.

It started when I found out that the Phantom whom I am making the Phan Club scrapbook for is going to the San Jose Sharks. I learned this from a fellow fan, whose ticket agent called him. I couldn't find confirmation online, but I did get it verified in a different way. I texted a friend of mine who has known someone else on our roster since his college days. She texted HIM, and his response, regarding his erstwhile teammate, was, "Ya, he's gone now". Arrrrrgh...

So, though I am still awaiting confirmation from any "official" sources like the Phantoms or Sharks sites, I have no reason to doubt the fellow fan and LESS-than-no reason to doubt the friend-of-my-friend. So I have decidedly mixed feelings here.

For Brian Boucher, I'm ecstatic, since he has been a particular favorite of mine since he turned pro ten years ago, because he really does belong on an NHL team and not in the minor leagues. He has been superb for us and he is reaping the benefits of that. GOOD for him.

For the Phantoms, I'm frustrated, because we have had the best goalie tandem in the league all season long, and I was looking forward to a LONG playoff run with Boucher and Munroe as our goalies. Both of them have been outstanding and the Phantoms fan in me is frustrated that we won't see that pair of goalies on our roster in the postseason.

For me, personally, I'm all kinds of aggravated because I really was looking forward to presenting my player with his scrapbook, in person, at the Phan Club banquet. All three years that I've done this, something has come up to prevent me from giving a book to the person I chose at the start of the season. I have had guys sent down to the Phantoms farm team in the ECHL, I have had guys called up to the Flyers (at least that's a happy reason for a player to miss the banquet), I have had players get loaned out to another team, and now this. FARGITY FARG FARG, can't I make ONE scrapbook for a guy I pick, and actually get to hand it to him myself?

Well, anyway... on to the next couple of things.

I got a registered mail package from England. This caught me totally off guard, as I was absolutely NOT expecting anything in the mail from anywhere, let alone registered mail or from another country.

I opened it and laughed my head off. It's mini AM and FM radios I ordered well over a year ago, probably closer to two years ago, and completely forgot about. They were inexpensive, and they were meant to replace a couple of mini radios I had gotten online eons ago that were ruined when they got wet. (Washing machines and mini radios in pants pockets are a bad combination. Just so you know.) I absitively, posolutley, 100% forgot I ever ordered these -- that's how long it's been since I sent the check. (A check, mind you -- who requires payment by checks anymore?) So for them to show up today was a nice little boon.

But these things aren't even the biggest news of the day. I heard from KC. She asked me to interpret for her at an assistive technology convention in March. So I will be in California for a few days in March, seeing all the latest assistive tech. And bet your RUMP I will have a stack of contact cards to hand out because if THESE people can't tell me how to train to be a trainer, no one can.

Oh, and plans are under way to attend the NFB (National Federation of the Blind) convention in Louisville, too. That's around the first week of july; I'll have to have a look at their website for more details.

What a day. And it's not even 4 PM yet. The way things have progressed so far, I can't imagine what's next.

So it's been a productive couple of days...

For those whom we spoke to offline on Saturday, I'm glad to report that the signatures we were waiting for have come through. Contingent on the Other Individual's loan being approved, everything should proceed smoothly from here on out. In a few weeks, we can add one more item to the "One Less Thing to Worry About" file.

Yesterday was the Flyers Wives Fight for Lives Carnival, and Mark and I went. I love the Carnival. :) I always enjoy getting to have a word with the players, particularly the Phantoms and Phantoms alumni on the Flyers who know us by sight (and, depending on which individual we're talking about, sometimes by name as well). It's pretty gratifying to give back a little thanks to some people who not only work their tails off, but occasionally end up injured (yikes), all in the name of trying to win some games and entertain the fans. So I got to welcome a few people who are recently returned from injury back into the lineup, tell one Phantom that he should have the fans sign the cast on his wrist since he's busy signing autographs for all of us :), congratulate a few people on some excellent performance they've had (such as our captain who had two goals and two assists the night before the Carnival), and -- highlight of the afternoon -- congratulate Riley Cote on his first-ever NHL goal. I can't begin to describe how happy I am when I see someone like him, a genuinely nice and down-to-earth person who has had to work his tail off in spades for the achievements he's had, have a dream come true and make it to the NHL. I love to see the Good Guys of the Universe have their hard work rewarded with real success.

So, all in all, we had a good weekend, to say the least. :)

Apparently even good "stress" can result in a migraine, however -- I took the last of the Imitrex this afternoon and have a call in for the prescription to be renewed, as it had no refills left on it. But you know what? For THIS kind of stress, I'll just deal with the headache and not gripe too much. ;) With luck, it'll be entirely gone by the time I have to take minutes at the Phan Club meeting tonight.

OMG!!!

The BBC has FREE Doctor Who EBOOKS!

If you thought I used my XO a lot before,as the song says, "you ain't seen NOTHIN' yet!" Now, between surfing and reading ebooks, I might NEVER put it down. :o)

If these charges are true, this is obscene beyond description and I hope the corporate thieves responsible for this FRY.

Health Net sued for insurance cancellations

Health Net Inc. is being sued by Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo for promising medical coverage and then dropping patients if they needed expensive treatment.

In a suit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, the City Attorney accuses Health Net (NYSE: HNT) of using "misleading information" to gain members in the individual market and then using the information against them to delay coverage.

The suit states that Woodland Hills insurer used untrained salespeople to collect people's medical histories, used purposefully misleading forms and did not review the information until after they filed claims.

"The application is essentially a trap for the unwary that maximizes the possibility that it will contain errors or omissions that defendants can later use as a purported basis for rescission," the suit states.

The city attorney says Health Net went as far as to create a secret unit in its organization to cancel policies, and that it provided benchmarks -- including goals for numbers of rescissions per year and dollars in claims denied -- and bonus payments to employees for reaching company goals.

"The division met or exceeded its goals every year, denying more than $35 million in claims between 2003 and 2006," according to the city attorney's news release.

Delgadillo also said Thursday that in addition to seeking civil penalties, he is initiating a criminal investigation of individuals associated with Health Net's bonus payment program for cancellations, and he is examining statements made to the California Department of Managed Healthcare regarding these payments.

"This is a matter that Health Net takes very seriously," the insurer responded in a prepared statement. "We have a long-standing tradition of providing health care coverage to people in need." The company said it paid nearly $200 million in claims for its 110,000 individual members in 2007 and that state regulators are already reviewing the claims made by Delgadillo in the filing.

If they really did intentionally skew the odds toward incorrect data collection, then use that as an excuse to drop coverage of subscribers requesting health care, and especially if they set goals for and rewarded employes for denied claims, they deserve to be raked over the coals for the miserable thieving scumbags that they are.

SWEEET! I just installed software called accessx on the XO.

It allows a disabled user to adjust the way the keyboard behaves. For example, if someone can only hit one key at a time, they can enable the StickyKeys feature and then to get a capital letter, first they can press the SHIFT key by itself, then they can press the letter they want capitalized.

There are also ways to use accessx to control things like whether or not a letter will be repeatedly entered when its key is held down.

On an XO-accessibility mailing list I belong to, there is discussion about a text-to-speech synthesizer (so that everything a person types is pronounced audibly by the computer). I think the XO's version of this software is not quite ready for prime time, so I will hold off on installing it. But I'm all happy that I've taken one baby step toward setting up an accessible XO.

I've made some tweaks to the appearance of the blog page. If anything is displaying strangely, do let me know. My email address is on the left-hand side of the page. (You'll have to manually tweak the address to get it to work... I have a bit of anti-spam defense in there so I don't get junk mail from every automated spambot in the universe.)

Thanks.

Got a song stuck in your head? Want to get rid of the earworm? The best way to do so is to listen to said song from start to finish.

Here are a few online jukebox sites that can help you accomplish that. Type in the name of the song and the artist, and have at it:

Songerize.com
Seeqpod.com
Songza.com

Have fun! :)

Rest stop. Guess where? ;o)

We are about an hour from home.

LOL

A bus just passed ours on the highway. In the dark, it was easy to see that their TVs had a hockey game on.

It was the team bus. I see they do homework like review game video while they travel.

Have a safe trip home, guys -- we'll see you on Monday.

NUTS! The linesman got in the way of the puck in OT and caused Albany to get an odd-man rush. The River Rats scored and won. Fargity farg farg... #%&$!!!

Time to head home.

A nice clean sheet of ice, ready for the Phantoms to come out and kick some posterior. :o)

We're at the Times Union Center.

Miracle is the movie for the ride to Albany. Great film! :o)

And... we're off!

Provisions for the Phantoms Phan Club's bus trip to Albany.

Everyone's here but the bus.