By BitcoDavid
I hope you all had a great New Years holiday. Since my days of wearing lampshades have gone the way of the pterodactyl, my last vice consists entirely of food. Like all Jews, to me the last day of the year means one thing and one thing only – Chinese! I’ll be running a lot of laps, and doing a ton of crunches, to pay the tab for all those fried dumplings and scallion pancakes.
Attorneys Pat Bliss, right, and Reginald Gracia speak to the Florida Commission on Offender Review on behave of Felix Garcia on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2014, in Tallahassee, Fla. Garcia, a deaf Florida man who supporters say was framed for murder by his brother has a chance to get out of prison. Garcia is serving a life sentence for the murder of Joseph Tramontana Jr. during a 1981 Tampa robbery. (AP Photo/Steve Cannon)
It was a difficult but rewarding year. Felix Garcia got a shot at clemency, and a shot at parole. Though neither worked out the way we had hoped, we did see a few small victories in his case. Sachs Media contacted me to write a letter for the parole board – and I not only worked on it for hours, but spent a fortune over-nighting it to Florida – only to have it go unread, at the hearing. Thankfully, my readers here, did read it, so I don’t feel the work was wasted.
We had a great Supporter Contribution from an attorney who presented an argument for why he believes Felix should not be released. Pat Bliss handled our rebuttal. Although we disagree with his premise, we welcomed his objective and informative input. DeafInPrison.com is always looking for well written and thoughtful alternatives to our point of view. This particular attorney was reticent about coming forward and speaking his mind, in the decidedly Left Wing Blogosphere. I helped him create a screen-name and guaranteed his anonymity. A courtesy we will always extend. On the other hand, if you want some 80,000 people knowing who you are, we’re able to help with that as well.
It hasn’t been a good year for the police. An individual for whom I hold great respect and admiration – MadMike – promised me a piece from the pro-police perspective. He’s a former law enforcement professional, and a university professor. To add just a soupçon of irony, the school he teaches at, is none other than Kent State. He’s working on a post, as we speak, and I’m sure it will be emotionally moving and highly edifying.
I’ve had a number of personal ASL adventures. A total stranger walked up to me at Northshore Mall, after Meetup, and signed “You Deaf?” to me.
DeafInPrison.com / Google Images
Even more impressive, was that he thought I was lying when I signed back, “No – Hearing.” I attended a holiday party where some were Hearing and some were Deaf, but the rule was, voices off. I was there – and signing – for a good 4 hours. I even gave a Deaf man a ride home. Think about how significant that is. I followed route directions, from a person who cannot talk. I’ve had 2 sections of “Conversational ASL,” at Beverly School for the Deaf, and am in the process of getting a Sign tutor. Someday, I might be able to do all these posts in Signed video.
Speaking of video. We are about 3 quarters of the way through our complete system upgrade. Some machines haven’t been replaced for 8 years. 8 years to a computer is like 15 to a dog. My video editor is now a quad core Xeon, with 3 SSDs and 6G of DDR 1066. Many of you already have better tech than that, but if you saw the poor old workhorse that I was using, you’d get what an upgrade this is. I built my video editor 8 years ago, with parts that were bordering on obsolete – back then. And it wasn’t without a tear or two, that I waved goodbye, as the big green truck hauled it to its final rest.
I’ll never tell.
My mail server and my main workstation are the last two machines to go. That should happen this coming month. We’re running Win7 Pro, and although it’s 15 years late, we’re finally in the 21st century. LED projection, and then of course teleportation are my next challenges.
Most people are glad to see a year go, and pin their hopes on the coming one. While I do have really high hopes for 2015, I can’t call 2014 a bad year. In fact, from the point of view of DeafInPrison.com – it’s been a great year.
Here’s WordPress’ annual report.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 25,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 9 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Click here to see the complete report.
BitcoDavid is a blogger and a blog site consultant. In former lives, he was an audio engineer, a videographer, a teacher – even a cab driver. He is an avid health and fitness enthusiast and a Pro/Am boxer. He has spent years working with diet and exercise to combat obesity and obesity related illness.
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