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Say What? ~ Connecting the Deaf & Hard of Hearing of Y-S to the Community and Beyond

Archive for the 'Assortments' Category

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Perks of Being Webmaster

October 8th, 2008, 5:47 pm by Hana

The last couple of days I’ve been busy building out new pages for the www.appeal-democrat.com, soon to be unveiled. The most recent release was the Comics voting form, which is currently running until October 19. Pick your next comic strip for the newspaper’s print Comic section, here.

Right now, I have 3 projects on the desk being reviewed, and at least 10 pending. A lot of planning goes into building new sections or pages, even if it is a one-time thing. It begins with an idea that processes quickly into discussion with Internet Operations Director Courtney Lopez and often includes Editor Len La Barth, Internet Managing Editor Steve Nelson, and the Publisher (currently Interim Publisher Debbie Baggett).  When all is agreed on, I begin creating it.  The building process often varies: most of the time I use a module provided by the Corporate, other times I may build it from scratch. When it’s finished, it goes through a review before it is turned public. Often, my work is sent to the Corporate for incorporation into the site.  Seems pretty straightforward and simple, doesn’t it?  In my experience, I’ve noticed that the hardest part seems to be in the details, either in design or the content.  I’d say my chief delight is seeing it online and being used.

Each time I see a work online, I think about how I arrived at this place and where I’m going. Twenty years ago, the Internet was unknown or a vague knowledge.  I was going to be an Illustrator for children books, with a minor in English.  Then all of a sudden, I saw my Macintosh turn from a machine for typing out my essays and reports with the occasional disk game, into a machine that went online and took me around the world!  Friends started talking about MMORPGs, chatrooms, viruses, customizing their computers, discussion boards and web sites.  My art classes started including computer graphics and designing for the Web.  Nine years later, I’m taking classes online from the comfort of my home or during my lunch breaks at work for an advanced degree in Web Development.

Although I’m not drawing or writing like I thought I might end up doing, I’m still doing those two things to some degree in the Web field.  There are other perks that come with the job that I had not realized, such as seeing comics 1 to 2 weeks ahead, testing out games before putting them on our sites, chatting with other webmasters, getting some freebies from vendors.  Like today, a friend that I made while working on a site project, shipped over some manga toy figures for me after finding out I am a big geek about enjoy Japanese manga and anime.  Sweeeet!  (Thanks B!)

By the way, did you know that in addition to tracking your Fed Ex packages, you can also see who signed off your Fed Ex package if a signature was required?  I discovered this feature today while obsessively tracking two of my Fed Ex packages!

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Snakes, frogs, and mice

September 25th, 2008, 6:52 pm by Hana

I was telling my colleague, Steve Nelson, Appeal-Democrat Internet Managing Editor, about the snake that appeared in the office just about 10 feet away from our desks. He had been out of the office when this happened. The snake looked like a young one, just 10-11 inches long and delicate-looking. It had a dull greenish-brown color to it, with diamonds on the back. We don’t know where it came from — a hole somewhere — or how nobody noticed it until Reggie, a Creative Designer, was returning to her desk and saw it just laying there next to her chair curious about where it was.

Steve doesn’t like snakes.

I don’t mind snakes. I’m used to seeing the occasional snake slithering across my yard out in the country, and I had a babysitter who had a snake for a pet. But what made this interesting is this is the second snake I’ve seen in here in the six-half years I’ve been employed here. The first one was a two-foot long green garden snake that suddenly materialized in the hallway between the Advertising and the Creative areas late at night. I was a production assistant and webmaster, working the third shift when a colleague named Marci, shrieked that there was a snake.

Of course I was curious and went over to look, along with fellow production assistant, Jeff Nelson. We corralled the snake into an empty trash can and released it outside.

This little snake was no different, I grabbed a cardboard box and with Jake Schafer and Reggie’s help, managed to get the baby snake into the box and Jake released it outside. A few minutes later, I told Jake I hoped it wasn’t a pet snake because it was near Devon’s desk. Devon is the Creative Manager and is known for having unusual pets, including a hermit crab. (It was not her pet snake)

What is a mystery, is how animals get into the office.

Yep, a couple animals have managed to show up in the office. It’s not like we see them slipping in through the doors.

A few years ago, when Joe Calderon was the editor, we were having new carpet put in the Newsroom/Creative area. When one part was done, we’d get shifted over to the new portion so that the carpeting crew could do the other portion. While the crew was ripping up the old carpet in the area where reporters now sit, they discovered a mummified adult frog. We wondered if it was the same one we’d hear croaking in the night. I don’t think so — because my colleagues have reported hearing it afterwards. Unless there are indeed ghost frogs. The poor mummified frog was properly disposed of, after some colleagues took pictures of it for their memory books and the Internet.

When I started working here six half years ago, I heard about a gray mouse scurrying through the main kitchen where we take our breaks in. I went in there to try and see it, saw it for a brief moment slipping into a closet in the kitchen late one night. I told the editor at the time, Laura Nicholson, that there was a mouse in the kitchen and she had mouse traps set out. Since then I haven’t heard about a mouse in the kitchen anymore. Mice are OK as long as they’re not indoors, in my opinion.

I wonder what else will show up.

(Peers around)

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Dear Home … Part 3 The Finale

August 11th, 2008, 1:27 pm by Hana

The last of Susan Stacy’s experience at Grizzly Camp:

* A note from Hana: This year’s Grizzly Camp, was themed Hippie, so you’ll see a lot of tie-dyes, face paint, jewelry craft.

“I saw the  rope course on [your blog].  This was a great experience for the kids even though they are a lot braver than me.  I am  frighting of heights therefore  I will not dare to go up.   The group A — age 6 to 9 was very brave to give it a try and went up  to about, Good Lord I guess about, 15 to 20 feet up.

As you  can see, the green field  is where we did  part of our Olympic trial,  which included carrying a cup of water, full of holes to the next can.  The first to fill the can wins the game.  Then the water balloon toss, in which the three teams get five balloons to throw to the other half of your team.  Whoever got the most balloon still standing, wins.  The last was the frisbee toss.  If the frisbee landed in a certain area [that matched the team color], they get points for their team.  If it landed in a hula hoop in that area, the team got double points.

The only thing I didn’t take picture of the pool relay is because I didn’t want to get my Sidekick wet.  It was pretty wild.  We had three groups like I mentioned before — the Red, Blue and Green Groups.   Each team split into two, one to each side of the pool.  A teammate would jump into a inner-tube, kick and paddle as fast as they could to the other side where another teammate would to take their place and paddle back.  The team that finished first, won.

Each team made a flag related to their color group and the staff who work at Grizzly Creek Ranch,  chose  the best.  I was in the green group and was called the ” Nature Warriors.”  Blue group called themselves “Blue Haze.”  Red group called themselves “The Golden Hippies.”

Miss Deaf California, Amanda  Folenderof, came and joined us for dinner and the dance along with her guide counselor,  Jessica  (Miller  –  I ‘m not sure).

The rest and the last pictures was of the our theme “Hippie” dance.  I know it is kinda dark.  We had  different dance games. You might have to ask Carita as I am not good with music.  King, Queen, Prince and Princess were chosen.

King Bryant
Queen Ali
Prince Jack
Princess Emily

Finally at the end, we all stumbled into bed and off to dreamland.

On the last morning,  after breakfast,  each  group, A, B, C and the CIT (CIT stands for Counselors In Training) gave a show for their parents. They all went home  happy, tired, full of  good memories, with a gift bag before noon.

To the bear last roar,
Susan”

Attached pictures after the jump.

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Dear Home … Part 2

August 8th, 2008, 1:55 pm by Hana

From Thursday evening e-mail:

“Yupee.  Today is olympic day.  3 team and no break for staff today, hippie dance tonight.

Got my first bullseye and scored 33 pts!

–SStacy”

photo201.jpg

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Dear Home …

August 7th, 2008, 5:20 pm by Hana

photo194.jpg

Susan Stacy, green shirt on far left, with Eve, Kayla, Simonka, Meg, Brea, Neva, and Jessica, e-mailed me about her time at Grizzly Camp for the Deaf/Hard of Hearing.  She is currently there until the end of the week, as a counselor for a group of girls at the camp.  She reported that there were about 59 kids at the camp, from age 6 to 17, coming from varied backgrounds: CODA, SODA, KODA, Deaf, and Hard of Hearing.  (the abbrevations stand for children of Deaf Adult, Sibling of Deaf Adult, Kid of Deaf Adult. The term KODA applies to those under 18 years old. )

Grizzly Camp is a chance for children to get together and have fun in a deaf environment.

On Tuesday, she e-mailed:

“Thought you might want to write a [post] about Camp Grizzly.  I’m having fun and good times.

I thought I’d grab this time to write while the girls are showering.  Today we went down a mile to a pond for fishing. My girls group, the youngest got a 15 inch trout. Oh boy was I proud of her!

I took another girl to walk back up the hill to the pool because she is slow and I thought the group would catch up with me, but no I got there a good 7 minutes, yippee for an old woman.

Tomorrow some of the campers, about 30 of us, will be up to go fishing at 6:30 AM.  I am looking forward to the walk.  We had good laughs over stories and skits the young teenagers did tonight.
It is at Portola right off hwy 70 and a mile into the woods. This is a nice place, about 10 to 15 degrees cooler, poor you. (note from me: It’s 90 degrees here in the Valley)  Got 6 girls, keeping them busy with archery, arts & crafts, rope course, field activities and pool.  Other activities: scavenger hunt, camp fires, and skits.  Food is good.

As for sleep, I go to bed at 10:30.  Jessica (the other counselor) likes to stay up late and I’m up early so it balanced out well. Will keep you posted  … I’m sending some pictures.

–SStacy”
The pictures were taken with her SideKick II.  See more after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Around Y-S • Assortments | 2 Comments »

The Missing 11th Commandment

August 7th, 2008, 12:24 pm by Hana

Probably something that should have been in the commandments…

internet_comic.jpg

My professor for Introduction to Computer Systems, had this in his presentation on Internet basics.  :)

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Relief is colored bright sunny yellow

July 31st, 2008, 4:42 pm by Hana

I know what the feeling of relief is. It is the color of bright sunny yellow, a sense of true weightless, a happy festival feeling, all mixed in together.

I’ll tell you why.

My next-door neighbor informed my husband on Tuesday that he had observed a Sutter Co. Sheriff’s car in our driveway on Sunday morning, when we were sleeping.  Whoever it was, knocked on the door, and when we didn’t answer, left.

My husband wondered what it was all about so he called the Sheriff’s department, but it was after business hours.  The only information he could get was that they were trying to serve civil papers to our address.

Civil papers?  What?  Us?  One of us?

Were we in trouble?

We spent the night wondering what the civil papers could be all about.  I asked some close friends what civil papers were and what it could possibly be for.  One friend joked in an Instant Message that I was now “wanted.”  I scoffed it off, but still worried that it was some crazy charge because we live in a crazy world.

The next day, while I was at work, my husband called them again during business hours.  This time he was able to get better information.  It turns out that they were looking for someone who used to live at our address almost two years ago.

I literally sagged.  Then I felt euphoric seconds later.

Man …

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Tidbits

May 15th, 2008, 12:28 pm by Hana

Update on a previous postThe days fly by so fast for me. I didn’t realize how many days had passed since the post “Would Rather E-mail Me,” because I have an update on it.

I got his e-mailed consultation on Monday May 5th (the phone conversation was on Friday, May 2 morning). Ironically, his title was Customer Success Manager. Since then, I’ve been told by four people — unrelated to me in any way — in face-to-face chats that 1) he had no business asking what impairment I had, 2) he was patronizing in his insistence to e-mail me and 3) I should have told him off in the best way.

True, I could have used the VRS (Video Relay Services). It’s more natural sounding and doesn’t have pauses. Yet I have to admit that the pauses come from me not immediately replying because I’m thinking. Anyway, next time I will use the VRS.

******

ADA in ASL Podcasts

I received an e-mail that the first ASL Video podcast has been launched from the Disability Law Lowdown. It’s linked in my sidebar. Check it out and keep an eye on this series. They are also captioned for those who don’t know ASL which is good for those who are in professional fields and might have a deaf client/consumer.

******

Relay on Facebook

The other day I happened to notice SprintIP’s blog announcement that they had created an application on Facebook. It gave instructions on how to find them. So I logged in to check that out. I searched for”sprintip” and found two results. One was for SprintIP and the other was a group that discussed how fun it was to abuse SprintIP by doing prank calls, drunk calls, making the operator say bad words. Nice. (insert sarcasm). How about shutting them down?

Posted in: Assortments • On the Deaf Grapevine • • | Post a Comment »

Thanks, Greetings from Marysville!

April 10th, 2008, 4:10 pm by Hana

atta3906.gif

Sent over from Cynthia Fontayne of Greetings from Marysville. Visit her blog here.

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Happy Birthday, Say What!

April 2nd, 2008, 5:50 pm by Hana

I just realized that this blog “Say What?” has officially passed its one-year mark on March 28th. While I am not the type of person to tell my blogs Happy Birthday! (I’m terrible at remembering birthdays), I suppose I should mark it somehow with a post.

So far, I’ve written 148 posts here with 192 comments. I’ve still a ways to go.

I happened to see this today Why Blog? Reason No. 92: Book Deal. Some blogs that hit it big online, are getting a book deal. One of them is I Can Has Cheezburger, which is rumored to have a book in November. I Can Has Cheezburger is one of my favorite visiting spots. They have hilarious pictures of animals or objects with human-like features that seems to say something, and always manages to make me crack up.

I doubt my blog will ever make a book deal, but maybe my other blog that I operate under my psudeoname. Hmmm… A thought worth thinking.

Doesn’t it sound funny, “Happy Birthday, Say What!”

Say What! It’s your birthday! No, really?! How old? One year old? Wow!

Humorous Pictures
see more crazy cat pics

I gotta go and lie down… Birthdays are good cause for a nap.

________

Posted in: Assortments | 2 Comments »

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