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I turned on the TV this morning to catch Mike Barz interviewing Darren Therriault on his participation in the Silent Pepsi Commercial:

Good Day Chicago.

A big thank YOU, hand wave and shout out to Michelle who took the time to type out the transcript and send it to me:

Announcer: For a lot of folks, the best thing about the Super Bowl are the commercials. This year one of the most creative ones comes from the folks at Pepsi that’s because the entire spot is silent. It’s designed to being awareness to the Deaf community, it’s closed captioned, as well, for us so don’t adjust your volume on your set, just watch.

(Commercial plays)

Announcer: Tell you what, it definitely gets your attention, and one of the big stars of the commercial, that’s what I’ll call you, the man in the passenger’s seat, Darren Tourot (sp?), who is also, you’re not an actor, but you’re an employee of Pepsi and welcome to the show, we appreciate you coming by.

Darren: Thank you.

Announcer: How did this all come to be for you? Did somebody approach you at work and say do you want to star in this commercial?

Darren: Yeah, exactly. That happened over a year ago. Clay Wesser(?) from Plano, Tx. He came up and recognized that I was Deaf and working in Chicago, and so he came up to me and asked if I wanted to participate in the Super Bowl, and I’m like ‘Really? Are you serious!?’ (Announcer laughing) and I said, OK, I’ll give it a try, and I had more time to think about it over the year.

Announcer: I’m sure there are a lot of people at home thinking you are Deaf, since birth, correct?

Darren: Yes.

Announcer: But you have particularly an implant that you can…(Darren agrees). It really raises awareness, this commercial, for the Deaf community, my understanding is that’s a running joke in the Deaf community, is that correct(referring to the commercial)?

Darren: Right, right.

Announcer: So what is the overall goal for this commercial?

Darren: Yeah, you know, my passion is to be able to increase the awareness in the Deaf culture as well as with people with disabilities. Because, you know, it’s been awhile, and I thought that PepsiCo has treated me so well and I have learned so much about the diversity and the inclusion, and I had to do something to give back. And this is my way of doing it.

Announcer: So you work in the IT department, is that correct?

Darren: Yes.

Announcer You’ve been working there for a year, and now you’re the big star, the face of this. You know, and speaking of this, raising awareness for the Deaf community, as we were chatting right here you’ve got the implant so now you can hear with 90% of sounds?

Darren: Yes

Announcer: So, but it’s been like, you compared it to a rusty faucet, turning it on after 30 years (Darren laughs) explain that to me.

Darren: Yeah, it’s almost like when you turn on the implant for the first time, I, uh, it’s almost like you haven’t used the water you know in the faucet for over 20 years and then you turn it on, and then all of a sudden it’s yellow and rusty, you know, and it’s not clear, and you can’t drink the water yet or you can’t make use of it. So, and then after it gets cleaned out, you start to hear.

Announcer: Yeah, so how long were you, did you go without, ‘cause you read lips.

Darren: Yes.

Announcer: And obviously sign. How long did you go before you got that implant, how old were you?

Darren: I started it about five years ago.

Announcer: Oh really!?

Darren: So, I was only 40 years old when I had my first implant.

Announcer: I can’t imagine what that must have been like. With all these sounds that you had never heard before.

Darren: Right.

Announcer: Yeah.

Darren: Like the birds, and all the other sounds that I normally could never hear. It just amazes me.

Announcer: Yeah, well, we appreciate you coming by, (to camera) Darren Tourot, works for Pepsi, now is a big-time star, so I will be his agent, I will take, um, (to Darren) I’ll only take 4%, is that OK? (Darren laughs) So you can see him on the commercial Super Bowl Sunday and certainly go to our website if you want to find out some more information about that, it’s great to meet you (shakes Darren’s hand) and good luck with everything.

Darren: OK, thank you.

Dear Anonymous Commenter who left a nasty comment at 11:10 p.m. on Friday night:

Unfortunately, you had too many f-bombs and b-words in your comment for me to allow it on this site. One previous f-bomb comment was enough for me to let through already.

You accused me of planing (I think you meant planning) this whole thing for money. I think you’re missing something here. I drove up to the window and explained that I couldn’t use the speaker and ordered two small milkshakes, one vanilla and one chocolate.

If Mr. Steak ‘n Shake Manager had simply taken my order and given me the milkshakes, I would have been merrily on my way with a happy son by my side, with both of us enjoying our treat. Even if Mr. Manager argued and then completed the order and we had gotten our shakes, it would have been just another bad day at the drive thru and I don’t think the TV stations nor WLS Radio would have picked this up. Unfortunately, Mr. Manager’s actions and denial of service turned this into a different result.

As for what’s going to happen after this, I do not know. We have a meeting with Steak ‘n Shake’s representatives and I would like to see improved access at their restaurants.

Stay tuned.

Fox News Chicago covered the Steak ‘n Shake Denies a Milkshake story:

Deaf Woman Says Steak ‘n Shake Refused to Serve Her

How ironic is it that I can’t access a news story on the web because it isn’t captioned? I dream of the day when it’s all accessible!

Here’s ABC New’s coverage:

ABC News

It is not captioned, but the story is below the video.

Fox News is covering this at nine and ten p.m. tonight and tomorrow morning.

This week’s Disability Blog Carnival focuses on the theme, “What Professionals Should Know About Disability” and is hosted over at Ryn Tale’s Book of Days.

If I had a dime for every time a professional predicted an outcome for a child with a disability based on what they “learned from many years in the field,” I’d be a millionaire.

Make that a zillionaire.

I’ve heard the same stories over and over from families: “My (insert professional) said that if I did (whatever it is they’re recommending) then my child would (fail, succeed, you name it) so I better follow their advice or (earthquakes will happen, the world will end.)

No kidding, I would be rich, indeed.

So here’s what I wish professionals knew:

Park Your Bias at the Door

You may feel strongly about a certain course of action, but pushing it isn’t going to help either one of us. It is one thing to share your personal belief system and your knowledge in a way that helps me to expand my own, but it’s another when you steamroll it over me or have an agenda of your own.

Expand Your Skills

You may be trained in one direction, but take a look at your profession and see if it can be expanded in other ways. Make sure you have the skills in all areas. I once had a pediatric audiologist tell me, “I don’t have much experience around deaf and hard of hearing adults.” If you’re in the business of working with children, make sure you’re familiar with the adult world they’ll be growing into.

This is My Journey, Not Yours

I do value the input that professionals have given me over the years. What annoys me is when they don’t like the direction my choices are going in and they express their opinion. Keep in mind, this is my life and my journey. Even if your professional opinion differs from mine, have the graciousness to expand your views to respect mine.

Finally, I’d like to share some tips over at Hands & Voices for those who work in early intervention with deaf and hard of hearing babies:

A Parent’s Wish List for Early Interventionists.

My oldest son’s Stanford Achievement Test results came in the mail last week. I glanced through them and was surprised to see results equal to 6th and 7th grade results. There were two results that said “PHS.”

What does “PHS” stand for, I asked the school counselor. That means the student scored “Post High School,” or college level, she replied.

Oh cool, my son at least had two results in the PHS range.

When I showed David the results of his test, he said, “But Mom, that test was so easy. How could I score so low in some areas?”

I shrugged. Maybe it was a bad day–everyone has an off day, you know?

I was at my friend Beth’s house over the weekend and she asked me about David’s scores. She was showing me her daughter’s scores and going through the papers, explaining that one of the forms was just a sample.

Uh oh.

I went home and looked more carefully at the test results. I was indeed looking at the sample results and interpreting them as David’s results. The paper that I thought was simply a deaf norm comparision was actually the test results for David. He scored a “Post High School” in every catagory.

David was happy to learn that his brain cells were working fine.

Mom, however, is still trying to figure out where hers went.

Twenty four point six million.

Read that again.

$24,600,000.

A pretty big number, eh?

That’s how much the head honcho at Tyson collects to run the world’s largest meat processing facility. The Proxy Governance firm believes that Tyson executives are over-paid: Proxy Firm Says Tyson CEO Paid Too Much.

If you remember awhile back, I had a culinary adventure with two bags of Tyson chicken parts. The outside of the bag showed beautiful white pieces of chicken. Inside both bags were mostly fatty chicken parts with a few white pieces tossed in.

So hearing that the Tyson CEO is collecting a huge amount of compensation for his job just makes me mad. How about directing the company money to produce a quality product instead?

Listen up, Tyson–you need to cut the fat from the executives’ pockets as well as your product.

Dr. Robert Davila’s book, Moments of Truth: Robert R. Davila, the Story of a Deaf Leader,was recently released and it is on my pile of “books to read”.

I first met Dr. Davila at the Chicago Hearing Society Volunteer Lunch in October, 2007. He is shown above with Jill Sahakian (CHS Director) and Mary Clark. Bob was the keynote speaker and he shared stories of growing up deaf in a large Hispanic family. His father passed away from a heart attack when he was a young boy. After he became deaf at the age of eight, his mother put him on a train to head up to the residential school over 600 miles away. Dr. Davila learned to speak Spanish at home and learned English and American Sign Language in school.

Aaron at Aaron Cues has a wonderful summary of Dr. Davila’s recent speech at the Illinois Mom’s Night Inn: A Chance Encounter with Dr. Robert Davila.

Dr. Davila impresses me with his resiliency and his strong work ethic. I look forward to reading his book: Moments of Truth: Robert R. Davila, the Story of a Deaf Leader. I’ll be sharing it with my kids as well.