The Benefits of Massage

Hello all. Yesterday, I took Mason to a Georgia Guide Dog Users Meeting yesterday. We started out the morning by discussing items such as animal control, and airports, (both something that could be part of a later post.) Also, we got to interact with a bunch of people who were either dog handlers, applying to be dog handlers, or raising puppies to be guide dogs. In the afternoon, we had a class on giving dogs a massage. We found out that massage is a good way to diagnose and treat many different ailments dogs get. Not only does it help sore joints, but it is a good way to find out if your dog has tumers or any sort of discomfort. I could go on in greater detail and discuss all the books and research, but I'd rather not bore you. Basically, massage is something that is highly beneficial for our 4-legged friends. Also, they definitely enjoy it.

New Living Situation

Hello all. A new semester of college began for Mason and I last month, and with it came some changes. For the last 2 years, we lived on campus. It was convenient because everything we needed was in walking distanse, I could easily attend activities on campus or meet for class related stuff outside of the scheduled class time, and it made it much easier to get connected my freshmen year. However, with a new year came a new rise in rent. Unfortunately, my income did not rise with the rent so I had to decide what was more important, having everything a few steps away or having a bank account I could actually survive off of. This was especially easy to decide since Mason and I never spent weekends there, and would probably spend less time there since I would be in class fewer days this semester. Since my mom lives close to campus, and there are several KSU students in her neighborhood I could get rides from, I decided that it would be best to move back there. After all, we were there half the week anyway. lol
Mason loves this new arrangement because he gets a fensed yard and a constant playmate through my mom's maltese. As for work, he still gets plenty of that since we still spend a lot of time on campus. So, this is definitely going to be a new experiense for us, and so far, things are working out.

NFB and Dogs at Conventions

Last week, I attended the national convention for the National Federation of the Blind. This convention is held every July, and consists of many different conferenses to keep us updated on blindness in our country in subjects such as new laws, and new ways things are becoming accessable to us. Also, they have many different items in the exhibit hall for us to look at and possibly buy. Basically, it's an event I allways enjoy attending.
Now, for the dogs. Some dog guide handlers bring their dogs to convention, while others leave them at home. This was the first convention I attended since getting Mason, and after much deliberation, I decided to leave him with my mom. The reason for leaving him was stress. At an NFB national convention, a dog will have to endur 3 thousand people, possibly getting hit with canes and stepped on, and a lot of other dogs. There are many more stressers involved, but you get the idea. Some dogs handle it fine, and Mason might have. However, I decided to leave him in case I forgot how intense it would be since I hadn't been in 3 years. Will he go next year, I don't know. All I know is that kind of thing allways depends on the dog, the handler, and the location. However, this is something I enjoyed doing, and something I can't wait to attend again next year.

We Aren't Second Class Citizens!!!

Orlando, Florida (July 7, 2011): The National Federation of the Blind at its national convention today voted unanimously to demand fair wages for blind workers. The convention is being attended by 2,900 delegates from across the United States and Puerto Rico. On Wednesday, July 13, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will vote on the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), which contains language reauthorizing the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended. The Rehabilitation Act is supposed to provide services to disabled Americans so that they can obtain competitive employment, but Title V, Section 511 of the proposed Rehabilitation Act language references Section 14(c) of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which allows certain entities holding special wage certificates to pay workers with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage. Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said: “Language endorsing the antiquated practice of paying the blind and other workers with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage, which is based on the fallacious premise that disabled workers cannot be productive and do the same work as their non-disabled peers, has no place in legislation designed to increase competitive work opportunities for workers with disabilities. We believe that this language, in effect if not by design, is a Trojan Horse provision that will inevitably lead to the placing of workers with disabilities in subminimum-wage sweatshops. We demand that the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee either amend this bill to remove Title V, Section 511, or simply vote down the entire bill.”

I guess you are wondering what aall that stuff I pasted above is all about. Basically, congress is looking at signing this bill that would make it legal to pay people with disabilities a subminimum wage for the same work done by everyone else. I don't remember what the exact amount is, but I know it's less than $4 an hour, a wage that no person can live on in these times. Living expenses aside however, the idea that people deserve a smaller wage because of a disability is absolutely rediculous! Some may say that the disability keeps the person from being productive, so the wage is fair. However, if that's the case, it would be more fair to give that person a task they can do well instead of docing that person's pay. Also, people have said that they have to start paying this subminimum wage to keep compaanies from going bankrupt. However, all you have to do is take a look at the salaries of the top executives of these companies, and you will see that this is far from true. Basically, this bill should not be passed, and there is no excuse for congress to let it do so. In a perfect world, it would never have been proposed in the first place, but it has been. So, it's our duty to make sure it doesn't become law and that every person, disabled or not, gets the earnings he or she deserves. To help get the attention we need, comment on this poast, and visit my facebook page to like or comment on my note, "This is disgusting."

The Milestone and Kapten Plus

You may recall the stuff I wrote about a year ago about some of the tech devices made for the blind while I was working at a place called the Visibility store. Like I said, some of them I owned, and some I didn't. Recently, I aquired 2 new devices that weren't in existance at the time. These are the Milestone and the Kapten Plus.
The Milestone is basically another blind friendly MP3 player. Like the Victor Streem, (a device I mentioned a year ago) you can store data for it on an SD card. However, unlike the streem, it also has a small amount of internal memory. Also unlike the streem, you don't have to separate everything in to separate folders for the device to know where it needs to go. Also, the Milestone can be a day planner and bar code reader, but I haven't bought the extra software needed for that.
The Kapten Plus is a new GPS system. It's around the size of the smaller Ipods people were buying at one point. It has to ability to use either buttons or voice commands, whatever you feel the most comfortable with. Also, you can mark a particular location, and it will remember it later. You can travel and have it just announce what you're passing, or you can enter in a particular route for it to follow. Also, it has the ability to find points of interests in your area such as eating establishments or other types of businesses.
Basically, these are handy little devices that I think many people can get great enjoyment and use out of. Also, the small size of these devices and everything they can do just goes to show how much technology is progressing.

Blindness

As some of you may know, a moovie called Blindness came out a few years ago. It was based on a book written by Jose Saramago, and the plot was based on everyone in the world catching this disease that made them go completely blind. In the moovie, the military put all the people who caught the disease in isolated compounds to keep the disease from spreading. However, the wife of one of the men in the compound somehow never got the disease even though she claimed she did in order to be able to stay with her husband. Throughout the moovie, the people went to the bathroom in whatever place they happened to be at the time, and "made love" with whoever was handy no matter the location. They also thought over food and attacked each other like savages, and the one sighted woman was in charge of taking care of everyone. Basically, the moovie made these people out to be involids who had less self control than most animals.When this moovie first came out, the National Federation of the Blind staged a protest. I didn't see what the big deal was untill I decided to watch the moovie last week just ton get an idea of what it was about. I was planning to read the book as well, but the moovie had me too disgusted to do so. How are we supposed to show the general public that blind people are exactly like everyone else when Hollywood is allowing stuff like this to be released. Furthermore, why blindness? Out of all the disabilities out there what makes ours so diserving of the horrible things shown on this film? I hate to break it to ignorant people who don't know any better, but blindness is not a random contageous disease, and blind people are just as able to care for themselves and others as anyone else. Why people think it's amusing to make it look otherwise is something I will never be able to understand.

A Tribute to Scouting

This poast was enspired by a conversation I got in to last night. Right before I started 8th grade, I got involved in scouting. As most of you know, I ended up making eagle. Recently, I've become a committee member for the troop I used to be a part of. A lot of people used to ask why I did scouting and now ask why I'm on the committee when there's tons of other stuff I could be doing. My answer is this. As for scouting, I know most people find it to be childish and borring. However, these are people who either never were involved in it or who had a bad experiense with it. The truth is, scouting not only teaches you many life skills you will use in every part of life, but it helps you grow and mature as a person. Also, I feel that scouting was beneficial when it came to my understanding that blindness, or any other disability for that matter, doesn't have to stop you from living and enjoying life to the fullest and contributing to society. Sure, I've allways been told this growing up, but having someone tell you that and discovering it for yourself are 2 entirely different things. As for being on the committee, I ddecided that since scouting had a great impact on my life, it was only right for me to try to gove back by helping the boys that are currently in the troop achieve the same satisfaction and growth that I got. What better way to do this than to stay involved with the troop. So, for those who ask in the future, there's my answer. On that note, I'll definitely say that I would not be who I am today if it wasn't for my involvement in scouting.