So I'm running a little behind today. The truth is, I really have nothing new to say. That is, until I remembered I taped something yesterday that may be helpful for readers. Today's topic is.. disability awareness and celebrity influence. This can be a very powerful tool to bridging the gap of understanding between the disabled and nondisabled community
You see, I recently discovered former American Idol finalist Elliott Yamin has been coping with type 1 diabetes all of his life. This amazing young singer went on to become a top selling artist, his recent album is in the top 3 of the Billboard . He had to overcome many difficulties in his personal life, including his parents' divorce. All of this made him feel isolated and alone at times. As a result, Elliot dropped out of school at the beginning of the ninth grade. After having a total of 40 jobs, his boss noticed his singing singing talent and encouraged him to go for his dreams. The rest is history. Elliott is now part of an organization named Inspired by Diabetes which raises awareness of the disease.
You can find more information about the organization at their website:
So earlier this week, I discussed the importance of accepting oneself in terms of one's differences and/or disability. Recently, I found that goes perfectly with this concept. This article illustrates how one child sees a million possibilities in his future and accomplishes every one of them with the help of his parents.
To see where he is now and for the entire article, go to:
Well, Thanksgiving is over. I had a wonderful, but busy weekend with my family. The first part of the weekend was spent out of town with relatives. We are helping my Aunt Ginny get ready to put her house on the market. It's been a very long process. I had no idea it would take this long. Anyway, we arrived home on Saturday safe and sound- tired as dogs. Tim and Carrie came to visit and spend the rest of the weekend with us. It was a nice time to get together, but I am glad to be home.
Looking back, I have grown a lot over the years. But today, I realized there is still a lot I have to learn about myself. To make a long story short, what I am talking about is acceptance, both from self and other people around you. This is an essential part of building confidence and independence in oneself. Sometimes, friends and family can do things to instill this confidence within you, other times, you have to do it yourself.
Parent to a disabled child, Dan Habib knows exactly what I am talking about. After learning his son had cerebral palsy, his life began to fill with uncertainty. While spending time with Samuel in the hospital, one doctor suggested that he create a video, documenting the daily struggles of a family with a disabled child.
The end result is inspiring and eye-opening. You can read the following article for more information.
So I had planned on doing something completely different for today when it dawned on me that today was the day before Thanksgiving. Don't get me wrong, I had been thinking and arranging the days off for my personal assistants; but I hadn't really had time to sit down (no pun intended ) and think about it. Things have been pretty hectic around my apartment- days full of organizing and reorganizing, trying to remember EXACTLY where I put everything in my very own place.
There have been a lot of firsts for me- both good and not so good. Here are just a few of them.
My very own Christmas tree. My mom bought me a pre-lit one with colored lights . All we had to do was set it up.
My first heat and electric bill. Luckily, it wasn't that much because I moved in halfway through the month
My first maintenance. They have to get me a new dishwasher because ours doesn't work. We learned that surely after moving in.
Things with my roommate are working out pretty well. She spends most weekends with me, until she can move in permanently in December. This will hopefully be on the 12th, since her semester ends at that point.. one thing I will say, things are definitely easier and more fun when she is around.
Anyway, enough about me. What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?
Debbie
PS. There is not going to be a post on Friday because I am going to be spending time with family
So I finally did it. I'm officially moved into my new apartment. It's starting to look a little like home the longer, I stay here. There is still a lot to be figured out such as finding more personal assistants to fill my extra time slots, keeping with the budget etc. Anyway, I thought I would share some of the process with you.
I am going through a lot of changes right now. Both physically and emotionally. I thought it was bad before, boy was I wrong! Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I'm finally moved out on my own. It gives me a sense of self I have never experienced. Now that I'm on my own, I feel a lot of pressure on myself to make this work. To prove to myself and others I can actually do what I set out to do. But now that it's happening, self-doubt is creeping in. I guess that's a part of life. It's kind of ironic because earlier this week I had found a blog post on the exact subject. I added it to the inspirational stories link.
Anyway, I guess I need to remember it's not really in my hands.
In a very recent post, I started talking about a Swiss company's snow avalanche life-jacket and then somehow ended up writing a drive-by-proposal for a migratory spa town, which the likes of Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan would set up during a wildfire event in southern California in the hopes of attaining — in the middle of a coronal maelstrom — psychic rejuvenation within its protective walls, because rehab centers, county jail cells, Starbucks and other celebrity landscape du jour have earlier failed to give them what it is that they seem to always be photographed seeking.
I then stated briefly that through their insulated windows they would be privy to “a cinematic struggle better than what is shown at a theater on Hollywood Boulevard.” Or an analogue surface of the sun.
A few days hence, I discovered some photographs from the United States Geological Survey that might as well have been taken from these imagined mobile therapeutic chambers.
To be more accurate, these sublime scenes of wildlife escaping the fires and then returning to a devastated landscape were captured “using a 'camera trap,' a camera wired with motion sensors to automatically take photos when the sensors detect movement in the camera’s field of view.”
Quoting further:
This camera trap is on the former El Toro Marine Base, an area that burned last week in the Orange County Santiago Fire. This particular area was the southernmost extension of the fire, where it crossed over a toll road into this small peninsula of habitat surrounded on the other three sides by urban development, small agricultural fields and the main part of the former Marine Base.
It's yet another extensive surveillance system, one that monitors, in this case, “elusive, often-nocturnal animals” as they inhabit a “complex landscape of open spaces, roads and urban areas.” In other words, it isn't too dissimilar from the one stalking the streets of Los Angeles.
So this will be my last post for a while, considering I will be moving into my apartment on Saturday. But you guys know all of that. That's why I announced Debbie questions week. I am expecting a lot of you to participate. Please don't disappoint me. Chuckle. I am just kidding; no pressure. I can't seem to reiterate the main point of this blog enough. It's for you-the readers.
On to today's post..
In the recent months, I have covered a variety disabilities and disability topics. But up into recently, I realize I had forgotten one. Why? The answer is quite simple really. The disease is not often mentioned because it's quite rare and there is no known cure for it. What disease am I referring to? It's called Craniodiaphyseal dysplasia . According to Wikipedia, this is a extremely rare genetic disorder, which causes calcium deposits to build up the skull; this dis figures the facial structure and decreases a person's life expectancy. The plight of this disease became known through a popular movie in 1985 called The Mask. It depicts some of the real-life struggles encountered by 16-year-old Rocky Dennis, who lost his life because of the disease
Again, thanks to my TiVo, I was able to record the movie and play it back to write down the interesting facts I learned.
Here are just some of what I learned. Keep in mind, the movie is old, so some of the facts are not up to date. But I figured this would be a good place to start if you are looking for some research.
1. At that time, this disease occurred in only one out of 22 million births.
In an undated BBC Newsphoto essay, Katrina Manson writes:
During Sierra Leone's brutal 1991 - 2002 civil war, dozens of people were executed on the Aberdeen Road bridge in the seaside capital, Freetown.
Their bodies were thrown into the fishing waters below.
While most of those who could afford to get out of the country did, others hid anywhere they could manage.
And one of the places where people took refuge away from the violence happened to be the bridge itself. Over a hundred people, we read, sought shelter there as executions took place above.
Today, the bridge is home to a family of six.
For such a nontraditional house, dwelling and domesticity still take on some characteristics that are all too conventional.
The entrance, for instance, is “via a rickety wooden ladder and small rectangular hole in the concrete base.” It's a porous boundary, in other words, clearly demarcated. A spatialized event.
There is a cooking area, which is presumably separate from where the family sleeps. Concerns for ornaments and a sense of ownership are evident in the wall mural containing “images of helicopters, drums, animals and black people and white people living in harmony.”
The wife cooks.
Perhaps in another nontraditional house in a more politically and economically stable location, one hopes to hear of their inhabitants and their mode of living changed fundamentally.
Because surely it would be interesting to find out, among other things, that after living in a private space station orbiting the moon and the earth in a figure-8 trajectory, a young married couple have decided to forgo messy genetic exchanges altogether and instead rear clones of themselves exclusively. There's something in the habitation modules vibrating in concert with the solar flares that cancels out prejudices and moral inhibitions.
And that a suburban family transplanted into cave no longer waste their time worrying about jobs or the children's education or where they sleep. Their deep, dewy and spatially indeterminate abode has inspired them to follow a metaphysical lifestyle unknown to everyone in the history of monasticism. They don't eat breakfast. They can now move as if gravity is optional.
You used to vote Democratic, but after squatting in a mall undetected for years, you now vote Republican.
Living in a dam would be ridiculously fun. But to hear that the only things that have changed are your mailing address and monthly mortgage payments, and that you've made yourself a generic kitchen, bedroom and salon fitted with ornaments ordered from William & Sonoma, Bed, Bath & Beyond and Ikea, respectively, could get disgustingly boring fast.
The view may be spectacular but what if the view can cause the emergence of photogenic extrahuman abilities?
Public Fountain by Charles Goldman is a “self-contained, portable and solar powered fountain. It is designed to bring the gathering point — that the traditional urban fountain often is — into the city's more tangential zones.”
Of course, there needs to be an army of autonomous Goldman fountains, self-aware and self-driven water features in a continuous balletic performance on the streets and sidewalks and all of the public spaces of Manhattan, replicating above ground the island's subterranean channels of sewage and contaminated hydrology, forming geometries and patterns that only the bastard petri dish love child of Busby Berkeley and Piet Mondrian can imagine.
It's a deterrestrialized river-on-wheels.
In unairconditioned neighborhoods where hacking fire hydrants is a favorite and necessary summertime activity, they spurt a refreshing frothy gaiety.
And in trash-hewn alleys and neglected parks, they offer respite — an oasis in the urban desert — to the homeless, drug addicts and prostitutes.
Or maybe they will render E8. That will be the most awesome public fountain ever!
It's hard to believe, but in less than three days I will be moved into my own place. I know I keep reiterating that simple fact, I guess I am still trying to convince myself it's not a dream. I have come a long way over the years. Been through a lot the past few years. I didn't think I would ever end up here-about to embark on this new journey.
I know, I know. What does all this have to do with my disability blog. In all honesty, it really doesn't have anything to do with it. Looking back at this blog, I've come to realize I haven't given you much personal information, regarding my disability etc.. That is partly why I'm announcing next week to be Debbie questions week. This is the time where my readers can feel free to e-mail me specific questions regarding my life, disability, and coping mechanisms that I sometimes use just to get through a difficult day. Whatever it is, I will try to answer each question as openly and honestly as possible. Please make sure all the questions are reasonable. (You know what I mean)
I am doing this for two reasons. First and most obvious, so that my readers can get to know me of a bit better. But also so I can get to know my readers better, giving me more insight into what they need and expect from my blog. Not to mention, there is the added bonus of not having to write for a week. This will be especially helpful since I'm not quite sure when I will have my Internet hooked up in my apartment. A lot of things are still up in the air yet. Seriously, though, I do love writing for this blog; however, I'm not sure how much more writing I can do on my own without a little participation from you. So please participate.
I still have one more post on my sleeve, so don't start writing just yet. But I do look forward to getting to know you through your e-mails and questions during next week
Whether it is the spectacular result of a collaboration between Chetwood Associates, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, an ancient Greek myth-maker and ILM special effects supervisors or not, the Wind Dam is truly something to behold, either digitally or when fully realized.
The dam, which would be located over a gorge at Lake [Ladoga] in north-west Russia, includes a cup-shaped spinnaker sail, believed to be the first of its kind, which will generate renewable energy by funnelling the wind through an attached turbine.
The spinnaker shape is similar to the mainsail of a yacht, and is thought to be particularly effective in capturing wind.
Project architect Laurie Chetwood, said that the shape of the sail was influenced by functionality and a desire to produce something “sculptural”.
No doubt Chetwood and colleagues will next propose to gouge a network of artificial valleys in the Tibetan Plateau and then install thousands of these lepidopterian wind turbines to alleviate China's energy needs. A new kind of prayer flags billowing between jagged peaks and ridges, simultaneously symbolizing Tibet's complete colonization and echoing the last few sighs of a dying culture.
Extrapolating a bit further, why not bore a Turrellian complex of tunnels through the world's mountain ranges, specifically those soon to be depleted of their glaciers, wherein wind turbines are strategically inserted. Bolivia may not supplant Venezuela as South America's premier energy producer, but its sonic landscape will surely generate billions in tourism revenues. Andean folk pipe music writ large.
I'm sure you all heard about the recent forest fires in California. They've really caused a lot of difficulty for the families in the area. Many of them will probably end up having to rebuild their homes and and lives as well as create new memories. Why am I saying all this? Partially because I am running out of new topics for my blog seeing that I will no longer have the extra cable channels at my fingertips in order to give me new ideas after next week. But mostly because I think this story can give people hope no matter what you are going through.
You see, a local news man's family actually lives in California and survived to tell about it. All this last week, his sister has been reporting by phone, giving people an up close and personal look at the devastation. Janet Cane and her family were evacuated from their homes when wind no Valley swept the fires up to 2 miles from their home. In the end, 750,000 Californians were evacuated and 2000 homes were destroyed. Among all of that destruction, six homes in their community were spared including their own. But not everyone was so lucky.
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Citation:
Citation for TV Program: "Life after The Fire" News segment Bill Spencer reporting, ABC channel 7 WXYZ Detroit, News at 11 pm, November 5, 2007.
So I'm running a little behind on my blog. Not too bad, considering that I've been working for three weeks now. Things are going well. It's hard to believe, but in less than a week I will be moved into my very own apartment. Boy, time passes so quickly. Of course, that will mean some changes on my part. No more extra expenses and less time for myself. Therefore, I will be asking my readers to keep an eye out for disability issues or articles that might be of interest to others. Please keep me in mind and let me know if you come across something. That's my request for the day. I am always available by e-mail.
Anyway, onto today's post. A friend actually e-mailed me this article and I found it quite interesting. It basically asked the question, "What makes someone beautiful?" The answer is quite surprising. But you can read that for yourself.
Speaking of avant-garde wear, the Swiss company, Snowpulse, is selling an avalanche protection gear that can protect skiers and general hikers if they happen to get attacked by a mountain.
Following are some of their selling points:
Similarly to a life-jacket used in the sea, the Life Bag keeps you on your back and your head out of the snow. It’s the best solution to avoid being asphyxiated.
Snowpulse airbags offer a high added value option: the automatic deflation of your airbag. The airbag deflation creates a cavity around the victim. This cavity is a real help to extract the victim and also provides 150 Liters of air to breath if you are buried. Survival time is therefore drastically increased.
Up to 20% of avalanche deaths are due to traumas. Snowpulse airbags are the only one designed to protect your head and thorax against shocks.
What the company should manufacture next is a model that can increase survivability if you happen to be buried in a hundred feet of snow and perhaps at a deeper stratum.
Let's say you and your adventure buddies are traversing a little explored valley in the Rockies. The snow is freshly fallen, the smell of pine perfumes the air, the sun gently pricking your frozen cheeks. And then you hear a low rumbling sound, and it's getting louder and louder. But even before you notice that an avalanche is racing towards you, the motion detectors built into your Life Bags Xtreme® automatically trigger rapid inflation so that in nanoseconds you are enveloped in a protective bubble stocked with supplies to last weeks. Your companions, too, are safely domiciled inside their own caverns, to which your wearable anti-avalanche home plugs in instinctively with filamental tunnels. Under all that snow, a quaint mountain hamlet forms.
And perhaps this has been planned all along. You're a new breed of extreme property developers intent on developing a new ex-urb of Denver located deep in the wilderness. Avalanche urbanism.
Or: you're hiking through parched landscapes on the periphery of Los Angeles. And as predicted by FEMA, a perfect firestorm appears from behind a ridge, soon to engulf you and your companions. Of course, no one panics, because everyone's wearable anti-wildfire homes swell to form a protective bubble filled with supercooled air. And since there's a minibar, everyone waits out the fires.
Through insulated windows, you see a cinematic struggle better than what is shown at a theater on Hollywood Boulevard. Disaster tourism.
Others think that they're experiencing some sort of therapeutic cleansing. It's the new California spa town: mobile, ridiculously trendy and a passing fad.
