Ageless Passions by Karen Putz

Category: Uncategorized

  • Twenty Teenagers and the House is Still Standing

    Yesterday was David’s birthday party and we had twenty kids in the house.   Wait, I take that back, not twenty kids, but twenty large semi-adults.  

     Twenty teenagers. 

    It was amazing the amount of food they can polish off.  I was digging into the freezer to pull out extra dessert.  Not a single piece of pizza was leftover. 

    Tomorrow, my oldest kiddo turns fifteen.   Next year, this time, he’ll have a driver’s license.  Can I please turn back the clock?  This is moving way too fast for me.   I rememember when I once had a six- four- and two-year old and I was complaining to my mother-in-law about the day from down under.  “Hang on to this day,” she said.  “Before you know it, they’ll be grown and gone.”

    I couldn’t see that far ahead, I was trying to survive being outwitted and outnumbered by tiny bodies with stubborn minds.

    So here I am, with a teenager who is going to be a sophomore this fall.  I’m all too concious of the fact that I have just three summers left before he goes off to college.  That’s it, three summers.  It’s amazing how quickly I’ve gotten to the point where I’m counting down the time I have left instead of the minutes until Daddy gets home to release me from Toddlerville.

    But my neighbor always chuckles when I talk about this.  She tells me I’m worrying for nothing, because kids today leave home at the age of…

    Thirty.

    She should know, she’s got an adult kid who’s still at home.

    So Happy Birthday to my oldest kiddo.  You’ll always have a room here in the house.

     

     

  • Bob Harris–Business Owner

    Bob and his wife, EvieAlthough I’ve known about Harris Communications for years, and ordered several of their products, I met Bob Harris for the first time last year at the Deaf Expo in Chicago.
     
    “How did you begin the company?” I asked Bob when I stopped by his booth.  Harris Communications has been around for a little over 25 years, but Bob was an accidental entrepreneur.  He actually holds a PhD. in Psychology and his venture into business began entirely as a fluke. 
     

    While he was working as a psychologist, Bob began to learn about real estate and investing.  To communicate with a real estate partner, Bob looked into finding TTYs at a reduced cost.  This lead him into the world of distributorship, and Bob started the tiny business out of his home, beginning with TTYs and expanding into other products.  Harris Communications outgrew his home office and is now one of the leading companies for deaf and hard of hearing related products and services.  Bob no longer practices as a psychologist and devotes his time to expanding and growing his business.  Today, the company employs over 30 people and has an online store.

    Bob encourages deaf and hard of hearing youth to pursue career exploration in high school and seek out deaf and hard of hearing adults in different jobs and professions.   “From my experiences in growing up, it helped trememdously whenever I met such an adult with a specific occupation,” said Bob.  “It planted a seed of thought in my mind and helped me figure what I wanted to do in my future work.  For example, I learned from people who worked as doctors, entrepreneurs, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, engineers, attorneys, judges and teachers.”

    Bob encourages parents to consider leadership and career exploration camps for deaf and hard of hearing children and to give their children books about successful deaf and hard of hearing adults in various careers.

     
    To read more about Bob and Harris Communications:

     

  • Deaf American Gladiator Competitor Wins!

    “Hey, check this out!” said the hubby, pointing at the TV.  A handsome guy stood next to Hulk Hogan on the American Gladiators show.  As he turned his head, I noticed a cochlear implant on his right ear.

    I had never watched American Gladiator before, but I did cover the death of Shelley Beattie, the deaf American Gladitor who played Siren for several seasons.  I settled on the couch to watch Brick Reilly, who works as a tree climber in New Jersey, compete against Toby, a father of two from Tennesee.

    According to the American Gladiator website:

    Brick Reilly is a 27-year-old tree climber from Springfield, New Jersey. He was born deaf and has always deemed athletics an important escape from the realities of life. Though Reilly recently had a cochlear implant which gave him the ability to hear, he never used his disability as an excuse in his life. He works as a mentor for deaf children in the New Jersey area.

    During the introductions, it appeared that Brick was handling the conversation well– I wasn’t sure if he was looking at an interpreter in the background or not.  Two teachers and a group of children from an oral deaf school appeared on screen to wish Brick good luck.  Brick responded in sign: “In the end, I’m going to win!”

    Despite a rough start, Brick pulled ahead and had a 12 and half second lead going into the Eliminator contest, an obstacle course that determines the final winner.   Halfway through the obstacle course, Brick landed on his shoulder and appeared to be in tremendous pain.  He finished the course ahead of Toby and was declared the winner. 

    All that work seems to be worth it, as Brick walked off with a new SUV and $100,000 cash.  Correction– Brick won that episode and he’ll go on to compete for more.  The finalist will win at the end of the season. Congrats to Brick–you rocked that episode!

  • What A Weekend, And It’s Not Over Yet!

    So how’s your Memorial Day Weekend going? 

    Are you having an adventurous weekend, like I am?  

    On Friday night, we piled into the van to head up to Christie Lake with our friend Mike and his two kids.  We had a late start and arrived there around midnight.  The oldest and the youngest kid fell asleep shortly before we arrived.  When we pulled up into my parent’s driveway, I tapped David on the shoulder to wake him up.  His hand lashed out and whacked Steven in the face.  Steven woke up crying.

    We ushered everyone up into the house and the kids were settled into bed after a few rounds of picking on each other.  The rest of us didn’t get to bed until three a.m.

    The next day, my dad informed me that he couldn’t find the plugs for our ski boat.  A few weeks ago, he decided to get the boat ready for us, but he somehow misplaced the plugs.  We tore the house upside-down looking for the parts but couldn’t find them.   I drove over to a local boat shop to pick up extra plugs.  I took one look at the plugs and I thought they were a little bigger than what I remembered.  I had them look up the specs for our motor, and they insisted they were right size.

    We spent most of the day Saturday putting the pier in the water.  We have a new pier system that was much lighter than our old one, and it took us a while to figure it out.  The water was cold, but not too unbearable. 

    I was holding up the end of a pier, waiting for the guys to bring out the next section and I watched Steven slowly wade into the water.  All of a sudden, he let out a gasp.

    “What’s wrong?” I asked.

    “My balls!” he said, oh-so-matter-of-factly.

    I let out a huge laugh.  My ten-year-old had never used those words before.

    “It feels like my balls are covered with snow,” he explained.

    By this time, I was laughing so hard I could barely hold the pier up.

    “Or like they’re in a refridgerator!” he continued.

    Good gosh, the kid cracked me up!

    The new pier system didn’t let us off easy.  We ended up with scratches and bruises from wrestling it into place. 

    This morning,  Joe, Mike, my dad and I headed up to the shed to take out the boats.  The plugs didn’t fit–they weren’t the right size.  So we decided to put the pontoon in the water instead.  I backed up the four-wheeler and the guys hitched up the pontoon.  As I was pulling it out of the shed, there was a huge “snap!”

    The hitch bar broke in half.

    Fortunately, we were able to use Dad’s SUV to get the pontoon in the water. 

    Later in the afternoon, a mechanic came out with spare parts and plugged up the engine.  “You can go ahead and put the boat in the water,” said Dad.

    But the way the weekend was going, I had a feeling that we should check out the plugs and make sure nothing was leaking.  I went to get the hose to hook up the engine “ears” and the darn hose wouldn’t budge.  It was a tangled mess inside the automatic Sunbeam hose winder.   Once we finally got the water running and the ears hooked up, I started the boat and checked the engine.

    So far so good, no leaks on one side.  I checked the other side.

    Holy Moley, water squirting out!  “Cut the water,” I told Mike as I ran to shut off the engine.  Water was pouring out over the wires. 

    “Are you sure you tightened up all the plugs?” I asked the hubby.  He was sure.

    We ran it again to see where the water was coming from.  Shut it off again. 

    “You’ve got a crack!” said Mike.  Sure enough, it looked like the water was coming through a crack in the engine.

    Lovely, just lovely.

    I hope you’re all having a better weekend!

     

     

     

     

  • Deaf Mom World Moves to WordPress

    I buckled.

    It started a few months ago with Stephen Hopson from Adversity University.  He began to encourage me to move to WordPress.  I actually transferred the blog over to WordPress months ago, but then chickened out.  Blogger was too comfortable and the control panel over at WordPress made my eyes cross.

    Then Wendy Piersall from Sparkplugging (you may know her as Emom) told me, “You need to get your blog off Blogger and over to WordPress so you can do more with it.”

    Yeah, that was burning in the back of my mind for a while.

    Then at SOBCon ’08, one of my “business plan” goals was to do it.  Take the leap.  Move the blog.  I selected Top Hosting Center to park my blog (great service, and they donated funds for interpreters for the SOBCon!). But first, I told myself, I gotta go to Hawaii.  Gotta take care of my folks, ya know?  No time for messing with plug-ins, themes or all that code stuff.

    No sooner did I get back and then Glenda Watson Hyatt from I’ll Do It Myself Blog asked me when I was going to get rid of the kiddie blog.

    Enough, already, you people!  Just an hour ago, I finally settled on my theme and moved the blog over.  I know, I know, I have a lot of work ahead of me to get the rest of the links up on there and figure out why some of my plug-ins aren’t loading up.  (Lorelle, babe, come back!)  There have been several people who’ve kindly tried to help me take the training wheels off and fly solo with WordPress.  Thanks to Meryl, Stephen, Glenda and Michelle for all the advice and encouragement!

    I’m calling it a day and going to unwind with the hubby and kiddos, some chocolate and TV!  So enjoy the new template, because tomorrow I may mess it up.

  • Lenny Kepil, Computer Engineer

     

    When I asked Lenny Kepil to tell me about his job as an Engineer at Tellabs, my brain cells became tied up in knots when he explained what he does. 

    The product that I support at Tellabs is an Optical Transport Switch,” said Lenny. “The system is designed to take a variety of subrate circuits (existing optical signals moving at a rate less than the line-side and transport them to their destination on a  fiber line divided into 44 channels.  Likewise, the destination system will receive and distribute the channels back into individual subrate signals towards their final destination.  The system is currently used with the new FiOS Internet/Broadband TV program at Verizon.”

    Let’s put it this way:  Lenny makes sure that all aspects of the system are operating properly in a network.

    When Lenny was growing up, he struggled in school. “Since I was not a child of the ‘internet age,’ my parents relied on doctors, teachers, church, and family members to decide how to handle my hearing loss in regards to my education,” said Lenny.

    Lenny was placed in his local school with basically no support services.  He was described by his teachers as aloof and not paying attention.  The teachers suspected that he had a learning disability and a short attention span.

    Totally frustrated one day, his Mom vented to a woman while at the grocery store.  Another woman overheard the conversation and suggested that she take Lenny to the Chicago Hearing Society for an evaluation.  The tests showed that Lenny’s IQ was just fine and hearing tests showed that he was deaf—not hard of hearing.

    Lenny transferred to a junior high that had a program for deaf students but he continued to lag behind and his grades were still low.  “Since my sister was a straight-A student, I started to shut down because all I heard was ‘You have to do better, high school is next year, you’ll never go to college, etc.,’” said Lenny.

    Lenny’s grades improved in high school and his parents and teachers encouraged him to consider college.  Lenny refused—he decided that he didn’t want to deal with any more schooling after such a long struggle to learn through the years.  His parents gave him an ultimatum: go to NTID at the Rochester Institute of Technology or get a job and move out.

    Lenny decided to pursue Data Processing at NTID, but discovered that he didn’t qualify to get into NTID, because he “lacked the necessary skills to succeed.”  Phone calls from his parents and teachers were enough to get him into NTID on a probationary status.

    Of the 93 students that entered the same time that Lenny did, only three of them graduated with A.A.S. degrees. 

    Lenny was one of them.  Lenny went on to graduate with a Bachelor’s degree from Rochester Institute of Technology and a Master’s degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology.  He worked for Lucent Technology for almost 23 years before moving on to Tellabs.

    So if you’re struggling in school and thinking that college is an unreachable path—just think of Lenny and know that you too, can succeed.

  • United Airlines–Are You Listening?

    The service industry ain’t what it used to be…

    This morning, my friend John sent me the link to a story about poor customer service on United Airlines:


    Not-So-Happy Flying

    Last week, I wasn’t so happy with United Airlines myself. After two phone calls trying to get them to load a subtitled movie into the plane, I learned that I was going to have to create a new law to get the airlines to comply:

    Dreaming of Accessible Airline Movies

    Closed Captioning on the Airlines–We’ll Need a New Law

    But let’s talk about service.

    On the flight to Oahu, we were surprised to discover that there wasn’t going to be any meal on the flight. We just assumed that on long flights, something would be served. We settled for five dollar boxes of assorted snacks.

    Did I mention how crowded the plane was? Not only were we packed together like sardines, but there literally was no room for me to work on my sister’s laptop–I couldn’t open it all the way and had to squint to see the angled screen. They built that plane to squeeze in the most people they could.

    The service on the way to Oahu was a heck of a lot better than on the way back. On the way back, we were served… one drink. The entire eight hours. This was in contrast to our arrival flight, where the staff came around several times to offer water and directed us to the back to get other drinks. (How about running that service cart twice on long trips?)

    When I walked in the back to inquire about water, three of the staff were talking and I stood there for a minute before they acknowledged me and I asked for water. The staff person scooped up half-melted ice and poured in warm water.

    Lovely. Just lovely.

    I couldn’t wait to touch down.

    Have you had similar flight experiences? Share your story in the comments.

  • Hawaii School for the Deaf and Back Home Again

    On Friday morning, our last full day on Oahu, we headed over to the Hawaii School for the Deaf and Blind. We were met by Harry Hayler, the school counselor, who gave us a tour of the school. The school currently has 72 deaf and deaf blind students and no students who are blind. All of the blind students on the island are in other schools.

    The school was down to 20 students at one point and nearly closed. The deaf community rallied together and they were able to save the school from closing. The school averages about 80 students per year and teaches with the bi-cultural, bi-lingual philosophy of American Sign Language and English. “We often have middle and high school kids who transfer here for the social opportunities,” said Harry.

    After we left the school, we headed over to Hamanuma Bay, a state park which is a frequent spot for snorkeling. We were fortunate to spot some mongoose (mongeese-plural??) running around:

    And all this time, I thought “mongoose” was just a brand name for a bike!

    Our final activity of the day was to head over to the Hilton Hawaiian Village for a hula show and fireworks. While we were waiting in line for the show, I spotted hearing aids on a woman in front of us. My sister began talking to her and we learned that she was from Washington, near the Canadian border. She and her kids joined us during the show.

    The Hilton Hawaiian Village is a beautiful place that has beach access right outside the towers. I would definitely consider staying there if we head back out to the island again. Here, you can see the flamingos that were on the grounds:

    On Saturday morning, we drove along the shore of Diamond Head on the way to the airport–this was a nice, scenic drive. We had one final view of the beautiful ocean before heading home on United. Speaking of which, the service was sorely lacking on the way back. United needs to take a lesson from Southwest on how to provide great customer service.

  • A Whale of a Time in Oahu

    Yesterday was a day of adventure. Early in the morning, we headed out to Wai’anae Boat Harbor on the north shore of Oahu to board the Hoku Nai’a for a dolphin cruise. We almost missed the boat, as we couldn’t find the entrance to the harbor.

    The boat captain was a gal named Joyce with nine years of experience. She explained that it was difficult finding the dolphins in the last couple of weeks. I wasn’t expecting much but all of a sudden, we saw a whale. We followed the whale for a bit. Marine rules dictate that boats must stay 100 yards away, but we were much closer than that when the whale arched gently out of the water. It was quite a sight to see. I have pictures of the whale blowing water straight up, but I can’t get the pictures to show up properly on here. I’ll see if I can add it when I arrive home.

    My mom became quite seasick and couldn’t enjoy the ride. I felt really bad for her as the crew served some delicious hamburgers right off the grill. After we left, Mom started feeling better on the way back to the hotel so we decided to stop at Pali Lookout. That was well worth the drive as the view was simply stunning.

    Back at the hotel, I headed out to the beach and finally got myself into the water. I rented a surfboard and asked the staff for the “free, five second lesson.” Line yourself up against the wave, paddle to get it going, stand up and ride it out, the guy said. Ah, simple enough.

    So I spent an hour trying to find a decent wave to ride for longer than five seconds. The waves were only a foot or so high and far too gentle to get enough momentum to ride it out. It was still fun to try and I definitely want to come back and try it again someday. I think the hubby and kids would love surfing as well.

    That night, we decided to try the buffet at our hotel, the Waikiki Marriott. It was a meal that was well worth it. For twenty dollars, you get an incredible buffet of prime rib, roasted turkey, pork loin, Thai seafood, tofu with watercress and veal ragout. There were many more dishes and side dishes to choose from. The desserts were out of this world, especially the creme brulee which is one of my favorites. My compliments go out to the chefs at the Marriott.

    Tomorrow, we head home in the afternoon. I’m not ready to leave but I sure miss the hubby and kids. And the dog, too!

  • The Dole Plantation and a Hula Show

    Good grief, it’s already Thursday. Our time here in Oahu has flown by. Yesterday, we headed out to the Dole Plantation on the northwest side of the island. A small train took us around the plantation where we viewed the various crops that are farmed there. Can you guess my favorite plant? It wasn’t the pineapple, it was the plant that makes…

    Chocolate!!!

    After the train tour, we sat down to have pineapple icecream with fresh pineapple on it. That alone, was worth the trip. The next best part was the incredible gardens on the site. There were an abundance of beautiful hibiscus flowers in every shade imaginable. We were planning to go to the botanical gardens, but I think the Dole gardens took care of the botanical craving.

    We grabbed dinner and then dropped off Dad at the hotel. His feet weren’t holding up anymore and he decided he was going to call it a day. Mom, Linda and I walked over to see a hula show, thanks to Stephen Hopson’s advice: Free places to go on Oahu. This show featured local talent and some older dancers:

    After the show, I discovered that I sat on some bird droppings and decorated my very favorite capri pants. I spent the rest of the night washing out my clothes. So a word of advice for those who are going to see the hula show on the grass: bring a towel to sit on!