Eighth Month Home

To start the month of March, Eve and I finally moved into our temporary office before making the large move later this year. At the end of this week, I celebrated my 29th birthday. Although it was my birthday, it was quite eventful with a dog off leash in the student union at work, and a bus that broke down on the way home. Thankfully, we made it home safe just about a half an hour behind.

The Sunday after my birthday was quite eventful with Eve and I doing as much preparation as we could for our state National Federation of the Blind (NFB) convention taking place later in the week. The NFB is the largest consumer organization of blind and low vision people across the United States and Puerto Rico. The NFB’s mission is to not let the characteristic of blindness or low vision define one’s future.  

Once our state convention occurred later in the week, we were able to get there safe and sound with no access denials or issues with TSA. I attribute this to using our small airport that has a TSA crew that usually knows exactly what to do. I wish it was this simple everywhere I traveled across the country. What made the start of this trip even better is that the Sacramento paratransit service has amazing staff that were even willing to go find us at the airport when we were placed in the wrong pick up area.

During our NFB state convention I ended up stepping down as the student division Vice President, as I will no longer be a student after March of next year. In addition to stepping down as the student division Vice President I am now the secretary for the Guide Dog Division. Our NFB state convention did not only consist of the business of the organization, but we heard from the San Francisco LightHouse for the Blind on their efforts to make video games accessible, the California School for the Blind in their efforts to update the guidelines for educating blind and low vision students throughout the state, updates from AIRA and Be My Eyes on their efforts to implement artificial intelligence into their apps, and much more. Aira is a visual interpreting service for the blind and low vision, where a live interpreter helps describe anything in one’s environment that is needed. For example, on my way home from the NFB state convention I used this service to get Dippin Dots out of an inaccessible kiosk. Be My Eyes has a similar concept to AIRA, but the difference with Be My Eyes is that it is a free service run by volunteer visual interpreters. These interpreters do not have the same abilities as Aira interpreters do to see the location of a user for example or to gain access to one’s screen to assist with an inaccessible website.  

In addition to all of the business related to this convention, Eve and I had some interesting and unexpected encounters with other animals, while Eve was going to the bathroom. An example was this rooster that was not the biggest fan of Eve and @kristentheguidingeye. 

Eve and @kristentheguidingeye looking intently at a rooster.

Unfortunately, right after our national convention ended, we went right into another convention with California State University. Northridge (CSUN) hosting their annual assistive technology conference in Anaheim, where many of the new assistive technology related to blindness or low vision would be debuted. It was a great time to catch up with old friends and make new ones while also testing out all of the new gadgets. Some of my favorite gadgets that I saw this year were the Tactonom graphics reader, the Monarch and the OKO app. The Tactonom is a tactile graphics reader that allows one to feel the tactile graphic while also audibly giving key features of a given graphic as one scans the page. The Monarch is the first braille display of its kind that allows one to see more than one line on a braille display making tactile graphics possible to explore on a braille display. Prior to the Monarch most braille displays only had one line of braille making exploring graphics impossible with only one line of text. The OKO app is an app that can read the traffic signal with just one’s iphone camera. This opens so many doors for those who are blind or low vision, as prior to this one who was blind or low vision had to depend on the flow of traffic to determine if it was safe to cross the street, but with OKO it gives blind or low vision users added confirmation of when it is safe to cross the street.

Eve and lindsay standing under the CSUN Assistive Technology Confrence sign.

Eve not pleased that she was being disturbed during one of her session naps.

Eve taking a nap on one of my coworkers shoes after sessions ended for the day.

After the CSUN Assistive Technology conference ended, Eve and I went to Disneyland with a friend. I have to say Eve did really good not going after too many popcorn kernels or other food. Although she did well not going after the food on the ground, she was not happy to be placed in the kennel as I went on Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance for the first time. Some of the cast members commented to me how good her lungs were as she barked the whole time as I was on the ride. I felt so bad afterwards as I was not expecting her to do so. One plus of going into Star Wars land was that I discovered another good relieving area in Disneyland. My favorite part of this particular relieving area is that there is no gate that one has to struggle to open before giving their dog the release command to go to the bathroom. After going on Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, we went on Thunder Mountain. This ride I had to kennel Eve as well, but she seemed to do better as it was in an open space with people around her. What made this experience even cooler was that a cast member named Adam assisted us in getting back to the kennel to get Eve. When I found out his name I jokingly said, “Do you want to meet Eve?” When I said this, he laughed at me as he was often asked as a kid where Eve was. The last ride of the evening that we rode before going back to our hotel was It’s a Small World. For the first time ever, Eve tried to sit between me and the friend that I went to Disney with before I got her to lay down on the floor at my feet. I really wish I got a picture of her doing this as it was adorable. I wish I could say we had a successful Disney trip without an @uber denial, but unfortunately as I tried to book our ride back the driver denied our ride after I mentioned that we were both blind and could not safely cross Harbor Boulevard to get to him. If he denied our ride for this very reason, I can only imagine how fast he might have canceled our ride if I mentioned that I was traveling with Eve. Thankfully when my friend tried to book a ride to the hotel after I got the denial the driver was more than happy to take us where we needed to go.

To end the month of March Eve and my sister @loveuleslie celebrated their birthdays a day apart. I think my favorite part was getting this picture of them, as it shows how much Eve loves her as she does me. 

Happy Birthday Eve!

Happy Birthday Eve and Leslie!