Picture this:

I get home from work on Tuesday evening and begin cleaning the house. I then start the organization for a meal that I hoped would be something different. See, yesterday marked the beginning of our third year in the house. On the 14th of April 2008, two major things happened that changed things for the better. First, after three months of hard work, we moved into the house. The place wasn’t finished yet, the living room was still a building sight, there were still tools everywhere, our bedroom was just about finished, The spare room hadn’t been touched yet, my computer / music room still needed furniture and there was still a whole in the floor in Emma’s sowing room where the builder had sunk the pipes that had been surface mounted by the previous owner. Still though, we were too relieved to have the main work done to care about the work that was yet to do. We’d installed a new heating system, replaced all the windows and internal doors, fitted new floors into five rooms, blocked up a fire place and dozens of other jobs.

The second thing was me starting my new job with Fujitsu who were contracted by the houses of the Oireachtas. For the non-Irish people who read this, the Oireachtas is the main government office. It is where the government chamber is where parliament meets. The job description was specific but actually not entirely accurate. What I thought was a sideways move was actually a nice step up. The employer I worked for before was terrible. I can definitely say, the best move I ever made was away from that last company. I had a lot of accessibility challenges at the start but they got sorted out as time went on.

So, I wanted to celebrate our mutual success yesterday.

After cleaning the house, I set about preparing the food for yesterday. I marinated some vegetables with some mixed herbs, and I peeled potatoes. Everything was going well. I’d even bought a new table cloth so it would look a little different.

Yesterday, I made sure I got home early and I roasted the chicken, flavoured the potatoes with other herbs and roasted them too after partially boiling them before hand. I also did some mash potato as well. For starters, I did Chicken and vegetable soup and for desert, I picked up her favourite as well.

I tell you all this to make you hungry. hahahaha. Oh, and to explain that I put a lot of thought and work into it. I probably don’t do it as much as I should so I’d some brownie points to score. hahahahaha.

Right. So everything was going well.

Emma got home and I had everything ready right on time. I mean, everything was sitting ready. It was perfect timing.

I sat her down at the table, pored her drink and went to serve the soup.

Here’s when things began to go very wrong.

I touched off a glass on the table and sent liquid everywhere. Ok, not everywhere, it wasn’t a very big glass but you know what I mean. It wasn’t the best start.

No. It gets worse!

After the starter, I heated up some sauce for over the chicken.

It was some weird stuff. I don’t even remember what flavour it was. It probably would have been very nice though.

Most of these packets are microwaveable.

I even got someone to read out the preparation instructions before I used it.

Not once did they tell me that this packet cannot be put into a microwave.

Most packets like this can so I hardly gave it a second thought.

I put it in and turned on the microwave.

Bangs, cracks and pops could be heard from it.

Emma said there were blue and white sparks lighting up the kitchen.

No, not really a good sign. Is it?

I could possibly have just turned it off from the switch but there was so much noise coming from it I thought it would be safer to do it from the trip switch instead.

So, that’s what we did.

Have you ever smelled slightly singed microwave?

It’s not as nice as roasted chicken.

But it’s certainly stronger.

Hahahaha. All I can do now is laugh.

It didn’t ruin things though. We had another sauce that was used in its place. You know, one spare just in case I decided to try blow up the house or something like that.

She still enjoyed it. Even though I almost ended our second year by ending the house.

Ha. Why she puts up with me I’ll never know.

Maybe it’s the dramas from time to time?

So, here’s to another two years.

There’s a nightmare I have reasonably regularly. I’m not one for analysing dreams or anything like that, but this one is kind of obvious so to see what others thoughts are, I’m posting it here.

My question is: If someone is in your house and your there as well, would you (A) tackle the intruder and defend your property or (B) leave and just let the person take what they want.

My answer seems to be (A). If your in my house, I don’t care if I’m out matched, I’ll do what ever I can to get you out.

So, let me give you some backround. About five years ago, I lived in a horrible apartment at the back of a housing estate in Raheny in Dublin. The area it’s self was very nice but I was in a secluded part of it and security wasn’t great. I never really worried about it at the time though.

Years later however, I have a repeating nightmare about returning to the place to find the door unlocked.

Two things happen after this. The first is I look around and nothing is strange and the dream finishes with me assuming that I must have just walked out without closing it.

The alternative ending though is that I walk in and find the place completely trashed with a lot of things missing. I call the gards and then a friend or two to ask what I should do. The dream ends with me inspecting the place and seeing what is missing.

Last night, I had a different dream along the same lines.

I was finishing locking the house up for the night. I’d just teddered the dog and was locking up the living room.

For some reason, I could hear change being collected up stairs. I don’t know why I heard that. It’s not like I ever have money in the house It was a weird thing to happen. Two seconds later, I felt a breeze from the kitchen coming from the direction of the window. Three things happened next really quickly. I slammed the kitchen door quickly and locked it and pulled the key out, ran towards the bottom of the stairs and shouted loudly and with as much confedence as I could muster. At the same time, I heard someone walk down the first three steps toward me. After that, I woke up.

Weird isn’t it?

I’ve been in the situation where someone has been in the same apartment as me without me knowing. I’ve also been in the situation where I’ve walked in to find someone standing in front of me. I know what I would do with reasonable certainty so it’s weird that this keeps coming up.

So, what would you do if someone was in your house or apartment?

Disregard the law. I know what’s legal and what’s not.

I hate junk mail.
The amount that I recieve seems to be increasing lately.

This morning, I was letting the dog out before starting the walk to work. He was his usual giddy happy self as he always is in the mornings. I opened the front door and he jumped out before I had a chance to get it open all the way. At the same time, I heard the letter box being pulled back.

With fright, I very loudly shouted “HAY!”.

With that, he dropped his bag or what ever it was he was carrying.

I opened the porch door and the dog raced out. Now, the dog didn’t care that he was delivering junk or even there at all. All that was probably going through his mind was, “need a pee, need a pee, going to walk, need a peee, yay! it’s morning, need a pee.” But, to the fella at the door it must have seemed that the dog was not as friendly as he actually is.

As he very quickly left the garden, I heard him mumbeling and cursing to him self.

I have to say, it gave me great pleasure to get back at them for a change. I know, their just doing a job. But I hate the rubbish they put through my door every day of the week. Not even Sundays are free of it!

Wow I’m in a bad mood this morning.

So, yeah, blah blah blah, I got the promotion and that’s fantastic. I’m actually delighted. Well, I was. until I was told of a conversation that went on with the people I’m about to be working with and my boss.

Now, I’m use to this conversation. People are still stupidly blinded by the misconseption that because I cant see, I cant do certain parts of the occupation that I’ve chosen.

Fine. If you don’t know me, I’ll except that from the outside, it may seem that certain parts of networking and server hardware can pose certain accessibility problems. But, I equally expect and demand that if you know me then that stupid misconseption should be resolved a long time ago.

So, to find out that people who should know me and who have worked with me all be it from a distance still think I cant do my job pisses me off so much that I’m livid while typing this. More than livid. I’m some word that I cant think of at the moment.

I am amazed! shocked! stunned that people still doubt my ability because of something they see as a disability. I’ve argued before that blindness isn’t the disability, the environment you are in is what disables you from doing something. If universal design policies were adopted by manufacturors of hardware and developers of software then nothing would be inaccessible. Hay, It’s not a perfect world. Not everything is accessible but that’s where independent problem solving comes in. fine, if your troubleshooting cabling on a switch with hundreds of ports then your going to need to figure out a way of tracing the cables. but if your sighted is it really that different? if anything it’s harder. Loads of cables that are the same color and your trying to figure out what one your disconnecting from the patch panel? Na. I know from experience it’s equally as difficult for you as it is for me. The only difference is I use touch to determine the wire I need to disconnect.

Give me any IT related problem or system and I promis you, no, I will bet you everything I have that I WILL find a way to access it. Even if that means pulling the thing apart first. I have never found a system that I couldn’t get access to with some work and determination.

But, I’m through explaining my self. I’m through defending my ability any more than the people I work with have to. Sure, assess and judge me on my qualifications, skills and performance, but if you keep bringing the fact I cant see into it I’m through. I will no longer put up with this. I have to say though, my boss is great. he has always been open. I understood that he had reservations when highering me. He discussed them with me and I convinced him that he had nothing to worry about. I’ve proven this to him as well over the past two years. I really appreciate that he saw past it and continues to do same. It just really annoys me that people who know me just as well cant or don’t.

Before I got here, there were similar conversations. Will he be able to do this, will he be able to do that, what if blah blah blah blah blah. That was fine at the time. I understood that they had most likely not met someone with a visual impairment so therefore couldn’t be expected to understand that their worries were unfounded.

I have no problem explaining to people and demonstrating even at times that something can be done without sight. That’s not the issue.

I’m just tired.
Now, I’m going into a new job, learning a lot more in the process but I’m going to have a battle on my hands. A battle to constantly proove my self. A battle to show that they do not need to treat me any differently because I cannot see.

I’m tired of it.

I was looking forward to learning without this being a factor.

I’m pissed off.

I’m insulted.

When will this end. When will I be able to get on with things without this coming up. It’s stupid. It’s high time that people saw past it.