Week From Hell – Morphs Into Digest Post

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By BitcoDavid

Finally, a post. Let’s start with the fact that today’s 4/20. Those of you who know what that means… know what that means. As I understand it, Denver is embroiled in a huge, high profile celebration of this (very) unofficial, unconventional and controversial holiday. You can say what you want, but I’d be willing to bet that if the Tsarnaev brothers were 420 friendly, the Marathon thing would have gone down much differently. “Dude – we forgot to blow up the Marathon.” 

And speaking of the Marathon, that – is where my week began.

Massachusetts no longer informs you when your drivers license expires. One day you’re drivin’ the ol’ Ford Escort, just livin’ the dream – and the next, you’re cellin’ up with Test-tube Annie. So, in order to prevent that from happening, I needed to go get my eyes checked. Well, I wasn’t about to drive into Boston for the optometrist appointment, so I was relegated to public transportation. Now, as it turns out, taking the “T” to Boston from the Woob, is akin to the labors of Sisyphus. 7 hours, 8 miles of walking and 45 dollars later, I’m packin’ a doctor’s note, telling the RMV that I’m good to drive. Ever see the movie, Brazil?

Boston looked more like Beirut. Cops, G.I.s, M.P.s, Feds, Swat goons and Blackwater mercs lined the streets, armed with machine guns and grenade launchers, driving in humvees and 4-wheel drive Technicals. The only things that were missing from the scene, were Blue- Thunder helicopters and Sherman tanks.

Me, learning sign. Photo courtesy of the iphonephotoblogger - Marsha Graham

Me, learning sign.
Photo courtesy of the iphonephotoblogger – Marsha Graham

Wednesday night, I attended my first ever ASL meetup. Marsha Graham from AnotherBoomerBlog took me under her wing, and helped me navigate the linguistic challenges of being the only non-signer.

I learned man, woman, husband, wife, dog, love and most important of all, nice to meet you. I’ll be signing like a native in no time. (Yeah, right.)

I really had a great time, and can’t wait until this coming Wednesday, when I’ll get to go again. Fight all day – sign all night. Works for me.

Sadly, Marsha couldn’t offer the same aid in navigating the Northshore Mall, which sprawls over more acres than a Colorado cattle ranch. I wandered around amid the DKNYs and Cinnabons, like the steel ball in an arcade game. By the time I finally found my poor old Ford Escort, I was considering doctoral classes in Mall-rat culture.

When I attended the Symposium on the Deaf and the Criminal Justice System, I managed to get 2 live posts up. I did that, by going to the Career Department of Bridgewater State University, and bumming a seat at one of their PCs. They were great about it, but that’s not what I want to do.

Here's the link, but good luck. Even their own techs can't navigate Verizon's site.

Here’s the link, but good luck. Even their own techs can’t navigate Verizon’s site.

Now, I could post from my phone, but it would take me a week to get anything usable, trying to type on that dinky little, stupid keyboard, and squinting at that 2″ screen.

Or, I could drop 600 bucks and get me a Chinese made iPad, but then I’d be typing on some sort of touch thingy that’s made for tweeting and sexting with teenaged girls. No, I need a friggin’ computer.  So, as 2008 as it may be, I went and grabbed an old lappy.

The Darth Vader of telecoms – Verizon makes a little cell-phone box called a jetpack. This little gadget allows you to take your own 4G hotspot wherever you go. Great, but I also need access to my network. I have tons of images, files, and programs that I use for putting up all these awesome blog posts.

So, you’d think that years as an IT pro would make setting up a VPN a snap, right? Wrong! The Verizon gizmo doesn’t play nice with fixed IP addresses. I tried Dynamic IP aliasing, RRAS, IIS – you name it. I finally got it to work by using a Japanese client/server progie called SoftEtherVPN. It’s free, and it may just be the best networking tool I’ve ever seen.

Anyway, now I can go to things like the ASL meetups, and blog live! How cool is that?

Finally, here’s 2 embeds that Marsha Graham sent me via e-mail.

[scribd id=137104457 key=key-1z569ohlbfspx2wcfz3r mode=scroll]

This is the About page for the New England Innocence Project. It’s a PDF embed, so all the links should be active.

[scribd id=137105606 key=key-335qghbdw61689twoce mode=scroll]

This study is a year old now, but the info is still valid.

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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Comments (5)

  1. anotherboomerblog

    “Sadly, Marsha couldn’t offer the same aid in navigating the Northshore Mall…”

    Assuming to parked where I told you was the best place (next to the food court) I could have directed you back through the court and out the back door between the Ladies’ room and the Pizza place. LOL It is a big mall. My friend Bud (haven’t seen him there recently) and I used to walk it at high rates of walking speed to get some exercise before the Meetup. 😉 See ya next Wednesday!

    You also learned American, Sign, Baby, Brother, and Sister. I KNOW you remember Baby. 😉

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