Ever Changing Life.

Just as I suspected, life at the speed of life carried on. The snow retreated and there were shades of brownish/green grass rearing their darling spiked and shriveled heads, as spring made a subdued entrance last week.

It had been my hope, to be back at full QWERTY by springs birth, but life got busy, and I am back at five strings, with full intention of doing something a little different soon.
Well, as soon as I can figure out what that is.

I suspect that the curve balls got fast and furious in the past little while, and then the carnival left town.
It got quiet.
I sat alone.

Guitar boy was busy with his March school break, doing what 14 year old's do best. X-Boxing until thumbs are red. Downloading until heard drives are bulging at the seams. You tubing until the last cow comes home.
Ahhhhhhh youth!
But then he upped and went to a buddies for an extended sleep over.
Wham!
I was alone, and it felt odd.

As I eluded too earlier, I wanted to move on and find new ground.
A new begging if you will.

In the end, I am back here, and perhaps for a while. I like it here.
Five strings is still my life, and my concerto. It best defines the musings of this boy at this time. MY liminal world and how it sounds.
It still sounds like 5 strings.

So on I go. Ahead I forge. Me and Guitar boy making our way in the world. Trying to stay away from the glowing temptation of cheap and easy fast food; and hoping to get healthier as our new focus is just us boys.

Still challenging the world of analog sound daily. Wishing I had the ability to deal with analog sound instead of a hugely expensive on-board PC that changes every "tick and tack" and "This and that" to ginormous strings of zero's and one's.
But it is my lot in life to live in the CI world. So I just need to "suck it up".

Some days are diamonds, and some are stone. Some are downright granite God Damn it!
But as you know; We all have 83 problems, and I am not about to attempt to lessen that load for the simple reason that as I do; another pops up.

Thanks for hanging around my friends, I missed you!
Missed you a lot, more than you know.

I miss a lot of things, but I find it easier if I just keep busy and not think too much about what I miss.
I open cupboards, and boxes, or find a photograph from healthier happier times, and I crumble for a bit.
Head down, I fight temptation to look up and curse the heavens.
"Why am I alone"? I want to scream.

Even Speeder checked out on me, and I really needed him for the longest time.

But life is funny. And forgiving, challenging, and passionate in many ways.

But it is also ever changing.

Warmest,

David

News

I have been thinking of a new blog. I am in a place right now, where I want to move forward. Life in a cone of silence was the beginning of a new journey in my deafness.
Five string was the next step as I rehabilitated.
I will be shutting this down, and going with some new writing in a new spot, with a new them.
I will advise y'all of my new place soon.

David

Missing Joe's Clothes

I, like you, want the economy to get back on track.
I, perhaps unlike you dear reader, have a disparate basis to wish some reasonable good fortunes in these troubled times:
I want my stores back!

I say this after just returning from my supermarket.
No, grocery store is probably a far better term, as there never has been anything "super" about my "No Frills" store.
Basic stuff. Not a huge choice or variety. You pay a nickel a bag if you really need one, or, like me, you bring your own. You fork out a quarter to borrow a cart.

There is no Kobe or Wagyu beef. There is not a sight or smell of sashimi or sushi. You won't find any fresh croissants. There also is no olive bar, fresh pasta bar, or Gelato bar to spend your hard earned bucks on.
It's no frills silly.
Basic stuff, good prices.
I figure on a big shop, my cart of goods cost $30 less than the national fancy chains that offer up steamed cups of lattes while you shuk and suck back their PEI Malpeque oysters that were just flown in for the weekly flyer.

No sir, this is no frills! But today it was NO carts, NO parking, No bananas left at $.59/lb. The line ups to cash out snaked all the way to the skids of no name coffee.

Here is my beef: I used to have a free run at the aisles. Pre- sub prime crash, I had at most, 2 people in line ups ahead of me.
Boom! It hit, and the good people got nervous.
They all started to come to my store!

Now I'm no financial guru. Nor did I have a crystal ball to foresee the times we are in. In fact I have been a frugal shopper for many years.
It just happens to be in vogue now!

I certainly don't mind sharing my neighborhood store, in fact I used to talk ad nauseam about it to fellow workers.
"Dave" they'd say
"They sell cheap food"
"It's not cheap" I would reply
"It's inexpensive"


I like nice clothes, nice labels and quality. I cringe at the prices, but believe in paying for quality.
Years ago I discovered an upscale mens second hand store. Nothing but top notch, high end stuff. But worn, at one time by someone with a much bigger line of credit than me, and taken to store to be sold at a fraction of the cost.
Boss, Prada, Gucci, Canali. All the wonderful labels that are lovely to look, lovely to hold........but never made it home because paying $600 for a sports jacket is just silly.

I discovered the store by chance, and fell in love with the $1,000 wardrobe I could own, for a couple of hundred bucks. I was even more delighted when I discovered that the local sports anchor at a big Toronto affiliate, was the same size as me.

It was an arrangement made in heaven.
One that would put me in Canali, Boss, Prada and the likes for next to nothing, for the next fifteen years!
Top quality 100% cotton men's dress shirts, some even monogrammed with cool initials not even close to mine, for $18 a pop! Designer jeans that boy toys played in whilst yauching I suspect, could be snagged for under $25.

You see, being on television nightly in the biggest market in Canada, Joe and the likes of his ilk were given top labels in exchange for promotional consideration.
"Joe_______'s wardrobe provided by Harry_____. clothier to gentlemen".
It should of continued with...
"and eventually given a good home and worn by David P"

Joe got new duds every month.
Joe was smart.
Joe did not make a million bucks.
Sure, Joe was the 11 o'clock sports guy on a big station.
Still, it's not New York. Toronto affiliates do not pay much.

Joe would take his nice stuff in to "my second hand store" at the end of each month. The owner of the store knew that Joe and I were both a size 42. So Steve, the owner would phone me.
I would race down to pick up my new $750 jacket and pants for about $170.
Joe, the sports guy, got 50% of the consignment deal, and nicely augmented his income.
It made all three parties happy!

Anyway, so I go deaf and go on long term disability. I spend the next five hundred days dressed in old Nike and New Balance pants, that I would nicely coordinate with shirts given away at the Half marathons I ran in.
The economy tanks while I was napping and the world discovered my secret store.
And Joes clothes.

I go back to work four weeks ago, but prior to my revival in the work place, I figure my clothes need a restoration that might go by the name of Canali or Prada.
I drive in to the tiny plaza that houses the clothing replay store.
Steve, the owner who I have been seeing for over fifteen teen years, looks a little shocked to see me.

"Dave, great to see you, but I don't have anything in your size" Steve exclaims.
"What about Joe's clothes?" I inquire with a little pissiness in my voice.
"Got a waiting list a mile long" he informs.

My second hand furniture store has line ups now.
My clothing guy can't get me in Joe's old/new clothes any more.
No Frills has gone viral, and I can't even park.
The cheese guy who sold wonderful cheeses out of a warehouse in an industrial park now has a waiting list.
The baker that sold hot lovely bread from a stall in a parking garage, has more business than bread.

So you see my dilemma. The economy tanks and the world discovers my world of inexpensive luxury, and good value that I have been a patron of for twenty years in many cases.

I want things to get better so I can get back to being cheap again.

I want Joe's clothes again!

Warmly,

David

Easy To Do.

In this new chapter of my life, post September 2007, and living deaf for all intents and purposes, I do many things now, that I had little patience for pre-medical implosion.
Activities that I always wanted to do, had the noblest of intentions, but never followed through.

So what changed?

Most of my activities and disciplines that are part of my routine, are, for the most part, easy to do. Yet as I realized many years ago, what's easy to do, is even easier not to do.

Yoga, I do daily. I will skip one day a week to change it up for something new to try, but yoga is something that gets at least 6 out of 7 days in my mornings. Previous to my slow recovery, I always wanted to do yoga. I bought mats, DVD's, cool pants, and music to go with the theme.

As most things at the time, it got shelved, I always got busy, and then it got forgotten. I can remember quite clearly about five years ago, watching a Yoga work out video on television. I said to myself "That looks easy to do, I want to start that"
Easy to do I thought, but I found out quickly that it was easier not to do.

I started simple yoga when I got out of the hospital after a 90 day stay, back in December 2007. My body ached from lying in a coma at first, then recovering in a bed for months. The simple stretches took forever to come together, but man they felt good.

My diet was crazy in the "old hearing world". Busy, on the run, and living in airport lounges, airplane seats, hotels, and cars five or six days a week, dictated a grab and woof eating lifestyle. Oh sure, I always had the good intentions. "Starting Monday I will pack an apple and some tuna on a crackers for my lunch." I announced faithfully, with full intentions, every Friday night.

Easy to do, right?
Easier not to do.

Today I eat on average 4 to 6 fruit servings a day. Most of it through a morning smoothie. Vegetables get the same treatment. If I can't get fresh veggies from my crisper, I do a "Greens" drink mid morning or afternoon.

Exercise I was always pretty good on. Having run in a couple of half marathons in my past, and countless five and ten kilometer events, running kept me in good shape. Daily running, for the most part, was part of my life.
When I lost all balance due to Labyrinthis in 2007, I was afraid running would exit stage left.

Imagine my lovely surprise when I discovered that it was easier to run then walk, when one has no balance.
Picture a ten month old baby, who can only crawl. One day they stand up and pitch forward as they attempt movement. We, and they, anticipate the crash, but they just "give er" and run on a forty five degree angle, defying gravity it seems.
That is my running technique at present.
I am slower, but funny as hell to watch.

I found discipline that I never had before. Possibly out of necessity to survive, I structured activities, gave them time frames and goals. I became obsessed with getting as close as I could to "normal".
Being deaf, and having no balance were and are two things that I cannot change. So I pushed myself to a healthier body to compensate if you will. I have enough challenges with those two beauties, so having a stroke or heart attack, or other ailments that can be prevented, became my healthy preoccupation.

Being deaf, and out of work, I had time to read, work the mind, and learn more. Television quickly lost it's appeal with closed captioning, so I read.

I read topics that in past I always wanted to read.
In fact I had bought the books years ago.
I can even remember saying repeatedly years ago; "Next week I want to get a book and study 'Buddhism, zen, traditional Chinese Medicine, eastern philosophy, Mac computers, routers, chess, international finance, orchids, vegetarian recipes.......insert your pet curiosity here________"

Easy to do.
Easier not to do.

But time and change of attitude gave me cause to read these books. Re discover old novels, favorite authors and great literature.
Time and discipline allowed me to follow stories in the newspaper, and magazines that in past, would of been clipped and put into my "To be read" file.
We all have one of those right?
I had the thickest one I bet.

I read everything I could get my hands on, and developed new tastes as a result.
I bought books on ASL (American sign language) and DVD's to learn a new way to communicate. I worked tirelessly with speech therapists on speech reading (lip reading but more involved), and learning voice volume control, in my new world of not hearing one self speak. (Man at first I was soooooooo loud I was told!)

After my cochlear implant, I worked like a dog to hear again. This new world of sound was now "sound 2.1"!
A digital version of my old analog life, that required me to buy Dr. Seuss books with CD accompaniment, to learn the new digital way of words. That was, and is my toughest battle, and I have a whole new appreciation for "Hop On Pop"!


Today, my routine might scare away many. My discipline scares me, and I am first to call me "anal" about scheduling my reading times, my eating times, my menu, my exercise, and yes, my even more important family time.

Old David always said, "Dan, when Dad has time, you and I will play that Chess rematch"

Easy to do, I suspect.
Easier not to do. At least in my old world.

Easier to get so busy and lost in this world of "stuff" that it got put off. Living the "Cat's Cradle" song was something I never thought would happen.
Now, my little amazing Guitar boy is so busy, that I hear all my old excuses from him.
"Dad, I promise we will have that rematch on the weekend".
Then his buddies come over.
I pick up my chess book and study famous opening moves.


Perhaps I have a little more motivation then old David, and maybe even a little more motivation than most denizens some days.

Matters not.

My mindset now is to keep doing what I have been doing for the past fifteen months. Never to falll back into the "easier not to do" routine!

Today I my "day off" as I do a gradual return to the work world.

Today I kept the same routine as every day.

And you know what?
It is getting easy to do!

Warmest,

David

Figuring Out Why Sounds, Sound That Way.

In the world of Cochlear Implants, and in many cases of new technology hearing aids, the science of it all is baffling to me.

Although a cochlear implant and a "hearing aid" are as different as night and day, the way the sound is processed, is similar. At one time hearing aids were analog. Now new technology presents the sound in a digital format. I have never worn hearing aids, my world of hearing went from the ears and working cochlea that God gave me, to a surgically implanted array of electrodes and a tiny computer the size of my finger nail embedded millimeters inside my head. The show and tell of the system is the mic and the BTE (behind the ear) gizmo, that attaches to a magnet, that sticks to the tiny computer, that is implanted in my head, that takes the sound, that sends it to the man made electrodes, that fires it at my brain...........
and this is the sound that Jack built!!!
Whew!

Digital aids (both hearing aids and cochlear implants) work in a different way than the everyday world of analog sound that most of world hears by in our Horton Hears a Who ear.
Digital devices, take the signal from the microphone, and convert it into "bits" of data - ("0s" and "1's") - numbers that can be manipulated by a tiny computer in the processing part of the system. This makes it possible to tailor and process sounds very precisely, in ways that are impossible with analog aids. The bits representing the sound are analyzed and manipulated by algorithms (a set of instructions) to perform precise, complex actions, and are then converted back into electricity, which is finally changed back into sound that gets fired at my auditory nerve, or in the case of a digital hearing aid, goes into the ear.

This process happens very rapidly: there are several million calculations occurring in the processor per second. The numbers can be manipulated in almost any way imaginable, and this is what gives the digital hearing processor its big advantage. The binary numbers can perform numerous complex calculations that create very precise sound in theory.
The process is how I understand it and really a compilation of many discussions with audiologists, medical people and some users.
Best way to illustrate is to walk through my world:

You say "Hello David" and my sound processor picks up speech and environmental sounds It then codes the information and send it to implanted part in my head, through the use of radio waves and a magnet. The implanted part of the system transmits signals to the auditory nerve, which carries them to the brain.

A cochlear implant does not correct hearing loss. In fact, it bypasses the normal hearing pathway, in which sounds travel through the outer, middle, and inner ear to reach the auditory nerve. (You see, my inner stuff got broken in a "medical firestorm" 14 months ago, So we need to bypass all the broken parts). A cochlear implant stimulates the auditory nerve directly. The brain then learns to take this electrical code and "interpret" it as speech. All of this happens as fast as your gums flap.

So what I "hear" is a really a mile long string of zero's and one's or digital code.

Someone had to write that "code" or turn the "sound" into a string of zeros and ones, so I could interpret it.

What got me pondering this way too complicated issue, was listening to the new President elect speech last night. I have never heard Obama's voice in my hearing days, so as I listened to him talk, my version of his voice is through a long string of digital code. "Binary speak" as I call it. I have no idea if it is how you hear him. I have not a single memory of his voice to draw on, since I was "introduced to him, long after I lost my hearing. No memory to use. So it is purely a mechanical algorithms.

My question, or where I really am going with this post, is this: Is what I "hear" (as all this process happens), just an interpretation of a software writers interpretation of the sound?

Perhaps what also got me thinking of this, is a more general thought on music and sound.

Is what we hear, and how we feel about what we hear in life, our own interpretation of it. Or is it how everyone hears it. Do all sounds, sound the same to everyone? Does Bob Dylan sound the same to me as he does to you?

If not, then that would explain likes and dislikes. I like a certain sound or feel in my old music listening days. Lets say that I liked Jazz. Is it because of my upbringing, my hard wiring, a product of my genetic code, or because of how I "heard" it or how my brain interpreted it?

I like a certain actors voice. Some people don't. Is it how I or we interpret it, or is there more to it?

If all sound, is our own personal interpretation of it. Then what I hear now, is really how that sounds, sound like to a software writer. The person who wrote the code, that fires the string of zero's and one's at my auditory nerves, writes them as he hears them. Calls them how he sees them really eh? What if this person and I don't hear ear to ear?

Phone rings and I now hear "braaaaaaaaaaaacccccccccccccccckkk". It never sounded like that before I got a CI. It used to "brrrrrrinnnnnnnggg". Is it because my writer interpreted it like a "brack" sound in his world, so he wrote the code based on that.

Many things sound different. Speeder's bark is quite different. I often wonder if it is because the writer never knew his sound, or his personality, so how could he even be close? I know my brain plays a huge part in this digital system. My memory is accessed in nano seconds when I get sound. This is huge in voice recognition. If I had no memory everyone would sound the same.
Memory access is key as it places the nuances of speech that my memory serves me with, of that person. Bad side to that is, when my son talks, I hear him in his "old' voice, before it changed. So this 14 year old boy sounds like a little kid. It changed when I had no hearing for 9 months.

I don't know, just got me wondering about the person that wrote my software, and if he or she was a jazz fan, or if he heard a doorbell differently than I did in my old hearing life.

Probably more important things to do than think about this, but it does indeed provoke thought.

What if the writer was Celine Dion fan?

Yikes!

Warmly,

David