Teej's Secret Box

On the morning the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I was given the opportunity to take a tour of my old high school (Patrick Henry High School (PH) in Roanoke, VA) along with my former classmates.  Only this was not my old high school by a large scale — everything has indeed changed for the better.

When I went to high school, access was free and open, with everyone coming and going almost at will.  This changed just a couple years after I left school, when they posted security guards at the main entrance – blocking anyone who does not have permission.  Quickly after that, security has tightened thanks to the other school events in the area and around the United States.  Getting a tour to refresh your memory at a high school suddenly becomes a precious commodity.

Back in the good ol’ days, we would have snow days, where the heater system would barely keep up (not to note the irrational fear of the school system for 1/4 inch of snow on the roads.  As former school superintendent Toto said, “Snow days?!  What the heck is a snow day?!”  Considering that he hailed from the north (Syracuse, I recall), it is indeed a funny thing to experience.  During the hot days of the summer, windows would be wide open, and the fans would be humming along all over the place.  Not ceiling fans — the 3 feet large fans on the floor blowing in and out from the classrooms.

We grew chest hairs walking between classes over several separate buildings on a campus.  Although it is not much of a journey compared to Rochester Institute of Technology’s campus (with the dorms and classrooms located at least a quarter mile apart), it is still a challenge during the frigid days.  The crowd grew so much due to the change from Junior High (6-9/10-12 grades) system to Middle (5-8/9-12 grades) the year I entered high school in 10th grade.  Thus, a few trailer classrooms were set up, and used for the rest of my school years.

Eventually, it became clear that the whole campus needs to be changed, so they demolished 3 of the 4 halls, the auditorium, administrative offices, library, and gymnasiums.  With the last remaining hall, they built a new single system.  For those familiar of the old campus — it’s the one with the cafeteria that was used as a base for this new building.

They added a new floor, and expanded outward toward Grandin Road.  There is a huge face visible from the road, filled with tinted windows across the expanded parking lot.  The circular parking lot between PH and Roanoke Valley Governor School got expanded to give the teachers and students at RVGS some parking space.

Entering the building from the parking lot that now expands onto where the former gym used to be, you are introduced to a huge PH logo on the carpet below, and a spacious hallway topping out 3 floors high.  To the left is the new basketball court and sports center, and to the right is the new art and theater space.  Toward the back are the regular classrooms, along with a spacious library, computer lab, and cafeteria space (still serving the same lousy reheated foods since 1961!)

The sports center is much expanded, allowing for visitor locker rooms (in the past, visitors would take the opposite sex’s locker room, which can be an issue on days both female and male sports teams face each other).  There is a reserved space for wrestling, ROTC, track above the court, free weight room, and more storage and usage space being built (and hopefully completed by January.)  There is also a physical therapy room, perfect to help treat injured players on location.  Behind the sports center is a brand new football stadium, replacing the old Victory Stadium in downtown Roanoke that have been demolished.  There are still construction undergoing to create new fields for variety of sports including baseball and softball.

The art center includes an auditorium big enough to handle a single class level size (500 or so seats).  There is a choir room/backstage space, along with a music room, and several classroom targeted toward the advancement of the art and music.

The library is extensive, much larger than the original library.  The computer labs located on a floor above the library add more options for the students to further their education online.  The teacher space is expanded, with several offices, phone room, and a number of private lockers.  Each classroom contains a private computer for each teacher’s use, and many different options for teaching the students.

To “protect” (read: punish) the students, there are security cameras located at strategic locations, along with chain fences that would lock out spaces away from the curious during after-school periods.  Classrooms can and are usually locked when not in use, requiring our tour guide to pull out a huge key chain to gain access for us to check out the rooms.

At the main entrance, there are two oversized pictures of the two state championship basketball teams from the ‘88 and ‘92 — which both were nationally ranked (#6 and #9, not higher due to a single loss to our cross-town rivals at William Fleming for both seasons.)  Trophies adorned both sides of the entrance, along with hall of fame honors including 3 of my classmates.

The biggest treat of this tour is the attendance of Woody Dean, former head coach of the Patrick Henry basketball team.  Long since retired, the school board decided to honor him by naming the basketball court after him, which is pretty cool.

It was a wonderful tour, despite the little memories that remains.  This is a brand new place capable of taking our current students far in a safe environment.  Boy, are we so lucky we got out when we did?

Back in the late 80s, I was riding with a deaf friend in his brother’s car – a Pontiac Fiero.  Among the accessories in this car is a small rectangle device resting on top of his dashboard.  This device, plugged into the cigarette lighter outlet, was meant to flash red anytime an emergency vehicle is nearby.

I have not seen this type of device anywhere since then, despite the obvious value of notifying deaf drivers, especially in a busy community, or areas with blind spots.  I could recount the several near encounters I have with emergency vehicles that seemily popped out of nowhere despite my eternal viligeance.

Searching the net, I believe I found this device, which has been discontinued (not made anymore): ESP EXTERNAL SENSORY PROTECTOR or CAR-ALERT (MODEL H-108)

There is a company that holds a 2002 patent on an inclusive Emergency Vehicle Alert System (EVAS) which requires a transmitter to be placed in an emergency vehicle, and a receiver within the vehicle and communicate via “DC Voltage signals”.

This is not an all-inclusive solution, and requires a sender and receiver — a difficult solution when budgets are tight in communities around the country and the world.  What I would strongly prefer is a device that listen for audio cues, and translate it into certain signals (including possibly the direction the sound is coming from), so that deaf drivers would be better prepared for any potential surprise around the curve/buildings.

So I am turning to you, my audience:  Do you have something like this?  Are you aware of anyone who is making a self-contained EVAS?

This is the first time in ages that I feel so happy being so extremely exhausted.

Being deaf is a very draining experience, when I have to put in such extreme focus on what other people are saying utilizing my meager hearing range through wonderful yet limited hearing aids.

Hearing aids only amplify the sounds to the very limited capable range ears can absorb.  A normal ear could hear from about 20-30 decibels upward to about 135 before it start to become too painful to tolerate.  Hearing loss is measured by the lowest level of decibels an ear can detect.  Many people have mild hearing loss that makes very subtle sounds very hard to hear.  The loss is usually not noticed, and happens due to normal use of the ear.  Moderate hearing loss would start to affect the ability to hear silent voice sounds (such as “s”, “ch”, and the like).  The basic hearing aids would easily solve both hearing loss.  Severe hearing loss is associated with the inability to hear anything softer than nearby loudspeakers.  Profound hearing loss limits you to extremely loud sounds such as a revving jet engine.

Usually by that point, a person would be feeling the sound before they would hear it, especially when the other senses are more attuned to those effects.  After all, the brain is a very elastic computer.  When they do not get any signals from one sense, they would expand the ability to absorb extra signals from the other senses to take over the space that would have gone to waste.  This is why Deaf people notice a lot of things beyond normal hearing people.  They pay close attention to subtle things.  This is why I easily detect flickering CRT monitors with low refresh rates, and vastly prefers LCD flat screen monitors for my computer.  We notice the diming of lights due to device overloads, so some interpret it correctly when the microwave finish their cooking, not needing to hear that “ding.”  Our range of vision is huge, and is sensitive to motion, as we rely on it to notice waving hands of our peers wanting our attention.

Unfortunately, as elastic as our brains are, beyond a certain age, it starts to become quite a bit less elastic.  This is why children have great ease being bilingual, while adults struggle to understand the unique rules that conflicts with their concepts.  Dyslectic children need to learn by memorization instead of phonics, or they will be forever doomed to struggle on reading into their adulthood.  This explains why doctors are keen to provide deaf children with cochlear implants as early as possible — to minimize the window of time the brain would use to start drifting toward the other senses, forever losing the ability to fully interpret the sounds we hear as well as a hearing person would.  To those, it would be just pure confusing static, akin to watching a foreign movie without subtitles, perhaps worse.

Unlike a cochlear implant that is designed to go directly to the nerves, the hearing aid still utilizes the full ear system.  Deafness is usually caused by defects within the ear, instead of the nerves to the brain, giving cochlear implants a huge advantage over hearing aids.  However, I still use hearing aids at this time.  With that choice, in order for me to hear voices and associated sounds, the 50-70 decibels sounds (and beyond) are amplified to above my ear’s lowest limit.

There is a side effect with the use of hearing aids.  The amplification effort worsens my deafness at a much faster pace than a normal person.  Think of the warnings you get for operating in an environment with loud noises.  This is how I am able to hear — by hearing loud noises.

I was born with severe hearing loss — 85 to 95 db at a minimum.  An audiogram taken several years ago noted that my ears are now incapable of hearing below 105 to 115 db.  Eventually, I will have to consider the possibility of cochlear implants as an effort to retain my ability to hear.  However, noting the decline of elasticity of my brain as I age, cochlear implants may not restore my hearing to any reasonable level.

This amplification of sounds is taxing to my ears, especially when there is excessive background noise.  Due to my hearing aids’ single microphone, a single tiny point absorbing, mashing, and focusing sound into a tiny tube out to my eardrum, it is difficult for me to hear sounds in specific direction.  Digital hearing aids have certain tricks that they use to try to get around this limitation, with a variety of successes.

Despite the cheats, I still am dealing with a mash-up of sounds.  Left alone, I am only able to comprehend basic words, with one test pegging my interpretation skills at 20%.  To help me understand people better, I also rely on lip-reading.  However, both combined, I probably can comprehend 40-80% of the words being said right away.

Just as much as my digital hearing aids do, I must cheat.  I try to be aware of the subject, and narrow down to the most logical words that could fit the sounds and the lips movement.  When we first meet, I would assume ahead of time that you would say, “How are you?” or “What’s up?”  But if you say, “Salutation,” I most likely will not understand you.

Familiarity with the person helps in a big way.  The more I am familiar with the person, the easier it is to understand the person’s words.  The way the person speaks also help a lot.  Deep British accent is a huge struggle, causing even the simplest questions to be incomprehensible.  Deep southern drawl is amazingly easy to understand, especially with the lighter-weighted vocabulary (no need to speak in big fancy words, ya know?!)  Polite society tends to follow the same scripts — and those who do not follow it would throw me off badly — Inquiring to a product at a store would usually bring an immediately understandable statement: “We’re sold out.”  However, someone recently chose to say, “It’s all gone.”  That took me a while to actually understand.

Listening, focusing, and understanding the surrounding — on top of trying to take some actions on the information provided is incredibly taxing.  With my energy becoming low, I would become snippy, and have great difficulty remaining polite and respectful toward others.

It does not help when certain people are stubborn to the point of refusing to use the wonderful technology of instant messaging, which makes life so much more normal for me.  It also does not help when certain people also refuse to express key information via e-mails, as certain co-workers are noted to do these days (they seems to have a love of using the telephone, and hunt-n-peck on their keyboards, despite being paid six figures salary to be an programming expert.)

It especially does not help when your close friends steadfast refuse to learn sign language, not even the basic finger-spelling that makes life so much easier for me.  Just the simple act of signing the first letter of a word I’m tripping on would give me a huge advantage in understanding you, and allowing the conversation to flow much further.  If you watch my father sign, it is totally incomprehensible to someone with a strict ASL background.  However, most deaf people usually understand him quite well, despite the heavy use of “homemade” signs.

I beg everyone who knows me to put in the effort to learn how to fingerspell the alphabet.  This way, words I can not pronounce properly, I could spell.  Words I do not understand, you could spell at least the first letter.

* * *

So when my reserves are low, I get tired, cranky, and very unfriendly toward others when they continue to depend on me while ignoring my limitations.  I am already at a point in my life where I am starting to consider putting a requirement that my future girlfriends know at least basic signs and/or have a willingness to meet me halfway by starting to learn sign — a huge limiting factor considering the ignorance of society toward our handicap.  So why am I happy right now, although I am so exhausted that my body hurts?

I had my reunion this weekend, and met so many wonderful old high school friends.  But that is a subject for my next blog posting.

Imagine that you are hurt. Not just hurt, but really sick. Sick enough to find yourself in the hospital for weeks and weeks. Imagine that the treatments to help heal you also hurt you. Radiation, chemotherapy, and heavy dosage of toxic-yet-helpful medication. Imagine the hospital room. Sterile, plain, with not much to do other than that lone TV with limited channels to watch. Boredom would creep onto you, no matter how often your dear family and friends would visit.

Now imagine that you are 8 year old in this very situation.

This is part of the goal behind Child’s Play charity.  This charity was founded on an outrage against a certain columnist decrying video game players, and grown to an international affair, with supporting children hospitals found as far as Australia and Egypt. Most have put together a wish list on Amazon.com, enabling us to give an actual gift for use (or re-gift) to those children in a state of recovery. Games, movies, books, and music are all chosen to help stock the hospital’s library, and will all bring a smile or two. For some hospitals, only Paypal is possible, but definitely will be used to stock up their libraries.

After all, a happier patient recovers far faster than a sad patient. I have donated a significant chunk of my bonus money from last quarter for this for the local Phoenix hospital, and my hometown’s hospital in Roanoke. If you plans on donating this holiday season, please consider this as one of your options.

Direct link: http://www.childsplaycharity.org/

Just click on one of the icons on the map, and you will be redirected either to the hospital’s wish list on Amazon.com, or a Paypal link.

Background: http://www.childsplaycharity.org/about.php

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

I was at Toys R Us today pursuing the “Buy 2 Wii games, Get 1 free” deal that is going on this week.  As a result, I have three new games, and a fond memory that most likely will drive me for a while.

Unfortunately, I discovered a ploy by the company in attempting to minimize their damage by holding back the vast majority of their supply while trying to clear out older titles.  Whether it may be to ensure sufficient stock for the upcoming Black Friday holidays, or to minimize the lost profit from this generous deal, it is never good to see a clearly well-stocked cabinet all reversed in a statement of “not for sale.”

While pursuing the meager options, a very kind gentleman with a teenager boy in tow, were checking out the options, unaware of this deal.  He is bemused by the high prices Nintendo have commanded for their games, despite the age of some titles.  After explaining the deal, and continuing to explore the options together, I felt compelled to ask him how he play the games.

You see, this well built gentleman is missing an entire left arm and half of his left leg — a recent victim of a tragedy that was not explained.  Iraq?  Afghanistan?  Ford Pinto?  I do not know.  I am curious of how he would control games with a controller that is meant for two hands.  He was more than happy to explain how it all worked — showing how he could wedge it against his good leg, and dance among the buttons with his hand, becoming strikingly good at it, enough to boast of his prowness.

Surprisingly, despite what some thought, he says that the Wii is actually the hardest console to play on, since the nunchunk and the wiimote are both independent of each other, with buttons on both side of the controller.  He bemoaned the difficulty of playing Super Mario Galaxy, but thanks to ArsTechnica, I was happy to report that the game support the use of Gamecube controllers, which is much easier for him.  However, he did point out that he love to use the wiimote to point at the screen to capture star bits and shoot at enemies and strategic characters.

There were clues that this was an event that occurred several years ago.  He is well adjusted to his life, and very much in a happy mood overall.  This is what drove me to ask the question, which is clearly taboo in society.  It is not, especially for people like us with a handicap.  I am deaf, and is more than happy to explain what that entails, while he lost an arm and leg (boy, California housing prices are insane…), and is clearly happy to explain on how he adjust to his new life with his old love.  He mocked Guitar Hero, calling it a game that plays music he’ve played a long time ago on a REAL guitar.  And look at it, the cheap plastic frame… *shudder!*  This was a MAN of music, let me tell you.

The lesson I have learned?  Do not be afraid to ask, especially if that person is happy.  The other lesson I am becoming aware of?  I need to see if Nintendo could find a way to wield the Wiimote with the nunchunk for some of the games, just so that people with only one hand could control it with greater ease.

Time to write them a letter.