Last Friday was interesting. The Mid-Valley (encompassing the Yuba-Sutter and outlying towns) experienced blackouts and violent storms starting Thursday night and into Sunday. I slept peacefully through the storm but woke up Friday morning at 5 to some tremors. The winds had hit gusts of 65 mph and was buffering the house. Then the power blinked off sometimes around 6 a.m. I woke up at 7:30 a.m. to a dark house. I went to work and arrived at 10 a.m. to find everyone standing in the main hallway — in the dark.
I thought as a Deaf person, that it was strange that people were standing in the dark talking when we have a naturally lit kitchen with floor to ceiling windows. It’s too dark for me to “hear.”
The day was spent updating the web from any laptop that had a card before the internal battery ran out of stored power, until the ITs set up 6 working computers running off two gas powered generators. That allowed the Appeal-Democrat to pull off the day’s real “daily miracle” as Editor Len La Barth coined it in a note to Readers in the Saturday’s paper. There’s a picture in our Staff Photography Gallery of a few of us crowded in the back hallway pulling off the miracle. That’s Gordon Webb, the IT Assistant, standing in the back with a hand to his forehead. Yes, it was rather stressing.
The weekend was uneventful. Power was restored at my home by 5 p.m. Friday evening and our phone on Sunday morning. Thousands are still without electricity, though.
Today (Monday) is basically catch-up day before the next series of storms hit us.
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I have a couple announcements.
David Kur let me know via e-mail today that a brand-new
CalDeaf.com has been launched today. It is a calendar listing all of Deaf-related events taking place in California alone.
Features are:
-Browse hundreds of deaf events in California!
-Bookmark the website and you’ll never miss any more deaf gatherings, expos, or events!
- Discover and share events with your friends
- Post your events and pictures of past events… and more
- Search for upcoming events by keyword, month, week, or day
- Sort events by region
- Event pages can include photo galleries, videos, and maps
- Receive reminder emails, and send your friends emails about the events
- Sign up for notifications of new events
- Comment on events, either by text or video
Finally, a home for the California Deaf Community. Once you’re there, you’ll never want to leave!
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Next, FREED has a list of Support Group meeting for 2008.
Cross-Disability peer support group meets every second Wednesday of the month at 10 a.m. at the FREED office, 508 J Street, Marysville, CA.
Hearing Loss support group meets every third Wednesday of the Month at 10 a.m. at the same location mentioned above.
Contact Information: Claudia Hollis, (530) 742-4474 voice and TTY.
Cool.
Got a question? Something you want to bring to my attention? 
