Karl & Susan, pt II

Hullo folks,

Saturday was groovy, went to a ‘music party’ at a house of a family obviously very into world music, many musicians showed up and so we all played upbeat jigs and folky songs. I didn’t have my guitar so drummed along on the various percussion they had laying around. The family’s music room was jam packed with instruments from all over the world, very very cool. People were playing all sorts of things that I’ve never actually seen but only heard of being used musically e.g. spoons, jews-harp, jugs, a part of a glass organ? Others played fiddles, mandolins, banjos and guitars. Oh and someone whistled into a mike. Mostly the men played instruments whilst many of the ladies danced around in the middle, however we did swap around some. Awesometastic fun, not quite experienced anything like it, felt like from another time if you know what I mean? One very happy house in the middle of another nowhere.

Oh Maya was there also, she asked me again if I could come in and broadcast some of my music or playing, I told her that I can bring in a CD of music and talk about how I compose, she seemed happy with that and so we exchanged emails. Got back late after all that.
Right, onwards, I spent Sunday-Monday with Karl and Susan at their place, the main reason for me staying over was to plan for a workshop I have been asked to do.

A workshop you ask? Although I mentioned it in the previous post let me elaborate. You might remember I mentioned going up to Visit ‘Austine School for the Deaf’ a few more posts ago, well Karl as a teacher there, is organising a ‘Leadership Camp’ and asked me if I would do a presentation and activity with about 30 deaf high schoolers as part of their Leadership weekend. I was surprised by his request but interested in seeing what I could do.

His idea was that I could talk about being a deaf student at University in England and show the high schoolers what my animation degree was like. With that in mind, Karl asked if we can do something interactively with the kids so they get to have a hands on experience.

As I said before, the act of animating is very, very time consuming and I’ve only been given 1.5 hours to do it all in! None-the-less, this is what I did with Karl, brain-storm a little and do lots of thinking. Finally after a few experiments it was decided that if I could split the workshop into two halfs, I could introduce the students to the basic principles of animation via pen and paper and drawing keyframes to create a very shot and simple flipbook. Then using that as an introduction to the methodology behind 2D animation, I would take them to the Computer Labs in Austine and load up either some animation software, or even a basic online ‘flipbook creator’. There is a flash online-based one that allows you to draw into the computer in black and white line-drawings and then play them back in sequence.

Go and have a go now! It’s a lot of fun!

http://www.benettonplay.com/toys/flipbook/flipbook_maker.php

Some awesome ones have been made so far by other people:

http://www.fabrica.it/flipbook/topvoted.php

I’m going to stress the point of how computers today have really helped the animation industry by allowing the workflow to be much quicker and far fewer stages required to create an animation than say in the old Disney days.
So with the plan of what to do with the deaf students sorted, all that is left for me to do tomorrow is make a quick PowerPoint presentation and burn some examples of my animations I’ve created at University to a CD to show them on the day.

Karl and Susan spent the rest of Sunday evening teaching me more ASL of which I tried to my best to assimilate even though I was quite tired from stressing over this workshop!

Karl and Susan Signing

“Karl and Susan Signing”.

Karl also cooked us a spicy chicken-sausage risotto thing served with 2 slices of pineapple, a surprising and interesting meal, he could definitely open a restaurant I told him. I did the dishes afterwards to show my gratitude despite their grumbling that I didn’t need too, har!
Since Karl and Susan are both profoundly deaf, they have a fully equipped out apartment with really cool technology, I have some basic things back in England such as vibrating alarm clocks that go under the pillow and flashing strobe lights for fire alarms etc but what really impressed me was what the deaf now get in the US for communications totally free.

For example, they had a camera phone system that worked over their cable internet connection, it was mounted on top of the TV which you could then use to call up other deaf people who had the same system and sign visually to them. Not only that but the provider of the technology “Sorenson” had an operator assisted relay service in which you could connect to an operator and have them dial any land-line number in North America and then they would relay your signed conversation to the hearing person at the other end, interperting their spoken words back to you. The service was offered 24/7 and both the hardware and service were completely free. All you needed was a broadband internet connection.

I had actually heard the company name “Sorenson” somewhere before and was trying to place it all night until I went to find out more on their website: http://www.sorenson.com

If you notice on their website at the bottom there is a link “Looking for Sorenson Squeeze?” which made me suddenly remember the first instance that I knew of the company, Squeeze is a highly efficient video codec (compression/decompression) that was recently introduced to the default Flash MX Multimedia package as it gives you good quality video images at very small file sizes. It then all fell into place as I realised that Sorenson could use their video compression technology to streamline the videophone service to work better over the internet. Clever stuff. I am very impressed with this company, providing cutting edge multimedia developments for the Internet and also offering a great communications tool to deaf people entirely for free. Go Sorenson!

Another great communications freebie for the deaf here is an online service called “Nextalk“, this allows you to make text based phone calls to people around the States. In the UK there is a similar BT-sponsored service called ‘TypeTalk’, however you have to use a special text-phone and pay for all the calls. Fortunately you can get some money refunded due to the extra amount of time calls can take. I’ll confirm that the service is good enough but awkward enough that I don’t make regular use of it.

Well back to Nextalk, and this is freeware software that you can download to make calls from a computer! Excellent, if you use the software to contact other people with the software, then essentially you have the functions of an Instant Messenger application, however what’s special about Nextalk is that they also have a relay service in which you can (in a similar way to the Sorenson service except text-based instead of signing) type in a conversation on your PC to an operator who then dials the landline number and speaks to the person for you, typing back any responses. What’s more.. this service is again totally FREE! I was stunned to find out that the Nextalk pay for all the phone call charges to anywhere in North America, so essentially so long as you don’t need to make International calls, you can communicate for free to any hearing or deaf person. Fab!

So what else?

There was also a doorbell that was connected to a light in their living room which would flash on and off to alert you if there is a visitor, I actually have a simple version of this in England where the main light will flicker when the doorbell is pushed, but it’s quite faint and easily missed. Karl and Susan’s system was a massive strobe light sat underneath a chair, it fully illuminated the room, useful for having a mini disco/rave, plus you couldn’t miss it, in fact it woke me up the following morning when Karl came back from Austines for a quick breakfast!

Then there was the TV, which answered a question I’ve had in the back of my mind for a while, how is the subtitling of programs in this country? That is one thing that England have gotten right, if you dial in ‘888’ to teletext, it will provide text of the conversations on nearly all broadcasted programs, a life-saver for me to be able to read what people are talking about on the TV. Well I’m pleased to report that the subtitling (known as Closed Captioning here) is also excellent. Karl flicked through the hundred or so channels they had and about 99% of them had subtitles! Excellent! Hmmm, only one minor niggle though, all the captions were in capitals which will take a little bit of getting used to for me as in both the UK subtitles and internet chatting, talking in capitals usually indicates a raised or shouting voice.

E.G.

“NO! YOU CAN’T BE HAVING AN AFAIR WITH TOM, OH DICK, YOU HAD BETTER WATCH YOUR BACK BECAUSE HARRY WILL GO ON A RAMAGE IF HE FINDS OUT!”.

(approximation of your average soap these days, not that I watch any..).

Anyhow, small quibbles,

So, Wow! I am genuinely thrilled to see so much helping the deaf in this country, it really will make every day life easier for me should I get a similar set-up.

Waffling a lot today!
Slept over at Karl and Susans to the Monday, getting tired, will quickly try and give a very brief account of this day:

Karl and Susan both went to work whilst I had the apartment to myself. It’s a lovely place, I’m somewhat used to living and visiting in the homes of artists and ‘creative types’, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but quite often they all tend to be ‘horders’ and pretty much clutter up the place with their possessions, I have a theory that because artists tend to need all these tools and materials to create art, they build up a tolerence for ‘mess’ and so continue to fill up their living places with stuff. The point being, Karl and Susans apartment had zero clutter, it was almost zen-like, just the things you need for every day living and barely anything else. I’ve never seen anyone have so few things! Quite refreshing actually. You feel like you can breathe properly and really stretch out in all the space. I think I need to learn to have a little more of that in my life. Keep some rooms very clear and minimal and bundle away work equipment to their own dedicated rooms so that can enjoy and benifit from from worlds.

So, to pass time I did a little more research on the net and found out that my Dell Laptop order has been shipped, 2 weeks ahead of schedule, woo!! Then played some guitar as I had bought that with me, and then walked to town. The apartment is in Brattleboro and just a 5 minute stroll from the town centre. I mooched around and checked out Guitar shops, played a nice two-channel ‘Traynor’ amp which reminded me of the Birmingham (UK) based Laney amps, cheap and cheerful. I recommend it’s clear cleans, its overdrive was good at lower-moderate settings however got pretty gritty and nasally when cranked, I think I’d prefer to put an overdrive pedal and use for more gain.. Hmmm. Had an amiable chat with the guitar shop owner whose name was ‘Eddy’. He said he was impressed with my guitar playing, I seem to be getting that a lot these days when I wander in to guitar shops and demo their gear, or perhaps they are egging me on for an easy sale. Hehe, well afterall the compliments have only been occurring recently so maybe I am doing something right.

Arg, damn it, stop the waffling..

Mmmk, after guitar shops, got lunch in cafe to take away, ate BLT sandwich and slice of pizza on a bench outside the Brattleboro Courthouse. It was a lovely day. Went back to Karl and Susans, realised I had forgotten to buy them a thank-you gift, waddled back to town quickly, puzzled on what to get, decided on wine, hunted for place with wine, found one, was asked for ID, showed them UK drivers licence but they could barely recognise the photo which was me in my long hair days. Arf, was ok in end, went back again, napped and waited for Karl and Susan to finish their days teaching.

When they did show up, they told me they were going to Boston on friday for a weekend away, invited me, I said yes, will be staying at their place from Wednesday to Sunday. They seemed to appreciate the wine gift and I earned a hug and big smiles, aw.. 🙂
(waffle, waffle..).

Karl then drove me and Susan to see a VW Jetta he spotted for sale for $2000, was in ok condition but needed some minor work, uncertain if worth it, had a cookie (not a waffle unfortunately) and hot chocolate from ‘Dunking Donuts’ then went back to Chucks place in Putney. Watched bats swoop around as it got dark before saying goodbye to each other.

I watched a DVD movie with Chuck ‘Pieces of April‘, pretty good film actually, had heartwarming ending however DVD was pretty scuffed up and parts of the last few scenes were corrupted.. boo Netflix! Aaah finally, that’s about it, off to bed with me!

[/waffle]

One thought on “Karl & Susan, pt II

  1. Great feeling isnt is? that one about being in a happy house in the middle of nowhere.. Thats what I loved about being in Vermont I think your blogs are hilarious especially the one of the catapillar and the tracking arrow!!!picture Your sense of humour is alive and kicking. And oh yes bynthe way I am sure the workshop will be a fantasic sucess Love it all MUM

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