How I define beauty...

I am going to atempt to describe what beauty is to me. I am blind so beauty as you know it as a sighted individual is a totally different perception, if you will. ?A sighted person can say he or she does not really care how a person looks, that it is what is in their heart that matters, and I believe many folks are sincere about their efforts to see it that way, but your eyes, your vision and the perception that has been imprinted in your mind by the media, books, internet and even your parents when you were a child, strongly affects how and what you will call beautiful.

I did have sight when I was younger, no I never saw 20/20, but I could appreciate beauty. As examples of this was how I viewed my wife and our children, They were physically beautiful to me, and that beauty was obvious to anyone looking at them. So in that case the outer appearance was genuinely beautiful. There was no need to exert too much effort to view certain people as beautiful just by their appearance, and I believe that for sighted people it has not changed much. When a man sees a beautiful woman, he takes notice and no one needs to rienforce what he can clearly see with the naked eye. The same holds true for a woman who sees a handsome man.

I have reached a very interesting point in my life. I have entered the 55th. year of my life. And I have been unable to see faces, so with that the ability to see outward appearance and it's beauty,for the last 22 years. Was it difficult for me at the start? You bet it was! I still viewed those I new to be beautiful as such, but when I expressed my acknowledgement of such beauty it was not accepted based on the persons perception and understandin I no longer could see their features. So in fact they felt I had no knowledge of their beauty. This was very difficult for me since I wanted my then wife to believe me when I told her she looked beautiful. You see we are raised to want others to notice a new item of clothing, a new hairstyle, a new weight, and so on. There is nothing wrong with wanting and needing to be noticed.

As a blind man however, I do see beauty. I believe I see beauty better than when I could actually see. All the clothing, make-up, hairstyle or gain or loss of weight, do not affect how I view a person. You see, I now put much effort in listening to what and how a person expresses their thoughts and feelings. It is like when you read a book and fall in love with the main character, you have a mentalt picture of what you believe he or she looks like. You may never get the opportunity to see that person in real life, but what if you did and they did not live up to your expectations? You see, when I view a person as beautiful, their outward appearance can not change that for me. They could be exactly as I picture them to be or totally the opposite, but to me they are one and the same. While you may be dissapointed in who your beautiful character turned out to look like, that never enters the equation in my determination of how beautiful I percieve, or if you will, see a person. I actually can see a man as a very beautiful person much quicker than a sighted man can. Not only because a man for the most part does not feel inclined to look for beauty in another man, physical beauty that is, this hinders his ability to see the inner beauty. This actually works in reverse when a man sees a beautiful woman, he may be so blinded by her outward appearance that he fails to see how rotten, or ugly she really is as a person. So you see where I have an advantage over you? Can I be fooled? absolutely, I can label a person as beautiful only to find out they are no good. But at least I was not fooled by outward appearance. The amount of time and energy put into looking beautiful does not go unnoticed by a blind person. I care of how I look and I appreciate it when a person does something special so that I may notice them, for example if a woman takes the time to get dressed up for me and wears a nice perfume I deeply appreciate it, you see she is putting aside all those misconcieved ideas that I cannot appreciate her beauty cause I cannot see her with the naked eye. All that is missing is a ssimple discription of her article of clothing, such as the color and length of her dress the style and color of her shoes or boots, and even the way she is wearing her hair that day. These are the things she would want me to notice if I could see. A man with sight may not notice all these details and she will definitely notice he did not. So by my asking what she is wearing I am showin much more interest than he who could see it all. As a blind man I have learned not to take anything or anyone for granted.

While a man may notice his girlfriend is looking good, he may figure she already knows he noticed her so he may not express himself, and this is viewed by her as him not caring enough to notice how she went to such time and effort to look good for him. This very girl or woman may walk by me and I will acknowledge the scent of her perfume, and even though I can't see her she feels I noticed her and paid more attention to her then her own man did.

I am not saying that being blind is a good thing, I am not saying that I would not trade places with a sighted man in a second, all I am stating is how I as a blind man sees beauty, how in fact beauty does rest on the eye of the beholder, whether blind or not...

The 28th. day of Dec...

Three mor days til 2011. Many folks reflect on the past year and either are pleased with themselves or not. Based on how they feel they begin to make resolutions for the New Year. Sometimes what we need to do is to finish what we started before we go on a new venture.

Times are harder than they have been in many years. Planning and sticking to our good plans will help us to make it through difficult times. When things are going smoothly again we need to check ourselves to see if we are still on the right track, or if we are going down the old path which will get us in trouble again. No one needs to point out the pitfalls for us, we no them all too well. Save a little for a rainy day, that is such an old proverb, but it holds true to our day, and it will still be going strong when we are no longer here.

I started my journey into the 55th. year of my life on Dec. 11th. I hope to stay healthy and to enjoy my family. I feel pretty good and when I feel down, recognising that as a road I don't want to take, I do my best to convince myself that all will be okay. All the pieces to the puzzle which make up my life are no longer here, Some are missing never to be found again. So, with this incomplete puzzle which makes up my life, I go on making the pieces that remain fit nicely to make a nice and happy family portrait. We can't and won't always have things the way we would like, but we don't need to just be satisfied with what we are left with, we can improve on what we have left to work with. Another old saying is, "there is always room for improvement."

Just being alive is a blessing. Enjoy life and deal with the trials which come your way the very best you can. Seek help when required and always strive to be the very best you can be. Even if no one notices, you know, and when it comes down to it, thats all that matters, we must be happy with ourselves, and yes, even love ourselves before we can honestly love someone else....

Window's live mail...

I was a loyal Outlook user until it started acting up on my new PC, so I ran with Gmail for a few weeks. Gmail is a great email provider but I don't like their inbox page to much. It was fine after I cleaned it up but I wanted a page just dedicated to my inbox and outbox. I decided to look at Windows live mail client. It is not an internet search page or and instant messenger page, as I thought it was, it is a page dedicated to your email. I was able to send my Gmail mail account via IMAP to this page. It was sooper easy. I now feel comfortable having all my mail at a glance and easy to use format.

I also like the fact it reccognized my Gmail id and password. It seems to be working out, time will tell. If you are running Window's 7 you can easily access this page once you have opened an account, by typing wi in the search box. You can also do what I did, I dragged and dropped the windows live mail icon to my toolbar. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Things are fine...

You know, it was Dec. 21,1991, when my mom's terrible journey with cancer ended. I still remember her vividly. I think I always will. Not only because I loved her as I did, but also because during that time in my life I was losing my eyesight very rapidly and I wanted to take mental pictures of those I loved to recall as memories when I could no longer see them. That actually came quicker then even I expected. By 1994, just 3 years later, I could not make out faces anymore. So I guess it was a good thing I did save those memories.

I however do not like the memories I have of my mother in her hospital bed in the room nearr the kitchen at our old house on Richmond. I also have a very vivid picture of her in Puerto Rico in the funeral home and I clearly recall how her finger nails stood out long and polished. I want to say the polish was a soft pink. I no longer feel that heavy weight come over me when I think of these memories. No, I have not stopped loving her or wishing she was here, but I am sure she wanted me to get on with my life. And I have. Added to those sad memories are all the good ones I have, and it helps to balance things out.

My then wife, and children were a blessing to me since they helped me make it through those and other difficult times. I have been blessed with a great family. I have been given the gift of five beautiful granddaughters who my mom would be crazy about if she were here.

While life has not been easy, it has been good. I expect to be around for many more years and this date will always be remembered as the date my mom passed but also as the date we moved into our new home on Kildare in 1994. So if one is to believe in such things it marked and end to my moms suffering and a new beginning for us in a new home.....

What has changed through the years?

Well, much has changed. The color of my hair, my weight, my vision and other things. But what I feel has changed the most is my attitude about life, simply put, the way I look at things has changed. My looking at things differently has made some dramatic changes in my life. I feel for the better, even though some would argue that point.

The most drastic change I would say is that of my religious beliefs. You see, I was a Jehovah's Witness and I lived my life for the most part as one. Yes, that included knocking on people's doors at the break of dawn to give them what I believed to be good news. I also publicly spoke before hundreds of people on several Bible topics. I took this very seriously since I did not want to mislead anyone.

From about 1991 I began to change in my way of looking at what I had been taught and what I was teaching. I began to notice things I did not like or completely agree with. I won't go into any details about that. It was strong enough however to cause me to slowly stop attending all meetings and to stop teaching my childrn the way I had been. I still taught them right from wrong and I still believed there was a God, so this I still instilled on them. It was how I felt about God that changed. I started to view God as even more merciful than I was thught to believe. I saw a God who loved all people, regardless of their religion or lack thereof. I could no longer believe that God would destroy all those who weren't Jehovah's Witnesses, base on that fact alone. The God I got to see now is a God who loves all people and takes no pleasure in the pain and suffering of his creation. I used to believe in a total destruction of our present earth which would then open the way for a paradise where we, those surviving Jehovah's Witnesses, would live along with those brought back to life by Jesus Christ, to live an everlasting life. I still believe there will be changes in life, life as we know it, but I no longer believe the earth will be destroyed and rebuilt just for a certain religion. God is too good for that. I base that on the fact that he is our father, and what father would not give life and happiness to all his children if it was in his power to do so?

Other things that have changed are the way I look at things and descisions we make. For example, divorce is something I never talked about and to think of it as something I would do, was just out of the question. However, I see things differently now. I am also more accepting of people and the reasons they do or for that matter don't do certain things. This has brought about a more peaceful me. I can take things a lot better than I would in the past. No, I am not saying I approve of everything a person may do,, however, I am much more willing to listen and accept a new way of thinking if my way is flawed. I want to be a better , more informed individual. I want to learn different cultures and why people think the way they do.

We all have had our own share of pain and suffering in life and each one of us has dealt with it in the best way we knew how to. What a wonderful thing if we would share our coping mechanisms with others and learn from them as well.

Life is so short that we, I believe, need to love and become a person who others want to love and to be around. Never taking anyone for granted or looking down on those with less than us or being envious of those who have mor than us. We must live our lives the best we can and allow others to do the same....

I know you are reading...

Remember I blogged about finding a way to access my Gmail by adding a gadget to my igoogle page? I had searched the internet for ideas on how to add a shortcut to my start menu which would take me to my inbox. I could not find anything. I did find that others had the same question with no results.

Well, to my surprise today after I had blogged about my way of placing the gadget on igoogle and then selecting igoogle as your homepage, I discovered when checking my Gmail that google place a link to a new option. Can you guess what that option is? Yes, their new idea is to place gmail on your homepage whether that homepage be Google or Igoogle. Did they steal my idea? Well I guess the "big boys" can do whatever they want.

I know this will be a hit with many folks since you can read and respond to your gmail much quicker now. I wil continue to use gmail simply because it works well with my screen reader.

Hey you guys who look for cookies or whatever it is you do with our blogs and ads, send a little of your riches from this idea my way...

Thinking back...

I am thinking way back. About 48 years ago or so. I was thinking of the cold winter days in my childhood. I remember walking the five blocks to school. I was cold but I moved pretty fast, so I got to school fine. I now think of my mother, she walked me to school and then had to walk back home. I remember feeling the direction of the wind and figuring out if she would be walking back home with the wind or against it.

Our school was warm and cozy. I would go home for lunch. Most of the time I would eat chicken noodle soup and a sandwich of lunchmeat. That was at the time my favorite lunch.

Our house was heated with oil. We had a hut in the back yard which enclosed two huge tanks which would be filled with the oil. In the start of winter my grandfather would have the oil delivered and pumped into the tanks. Depending on how cold the winter was, this had to be done a few times during the heating season. I would enjoy watching the driver unreel this long hose from his truck and insert the spout into the tanks one at a time. He would talk to me while this was getting done. I don't recall what we talked about. Just stuff I guess. I recall likeing the smell of his truck. The fuel was diesel and it had a unique smell, I have always related the smell of diesel fuel with warmth. I never gave it much thought till now, but it stands to reason I would associate that smell with warmth since the truck which delivered the oil which kept us warm ran on diesel fuel.

There are other scents which make me think of certain things or events in my life. I guess this is not unique to me. What is unique is the fact that a scent which brings something to mind for me may not have the same memory for someone else. That is just one example of how cool life can be if we take the time to stop and smell the roses...

Working with and around Google...

I was til last week a loyal user of Outlook as my email client. When it decided to freeze-up and take with it all my inbox, I decided it was time to move on.

I always had Gmail as my email provider, Outlook was just the tool I used to access my mail. I went to my Gmail directly and removed all the ads I could and made it user friendly. I was then trying to place a shortcut to my inbox on my start menu. I could not do it. The closest I got was to place a shortcut icon on the desktop. I was not satisfied, so I did some searching. To my surprise I was not the only person trying to do this with no success. I was not about to give up. I kept thinking till I came up with a unique idea which worked perfectly.

I know someone is going to take credit for it but what the heck. Here it goes:

Create an igoogle page.
Make Gmail one of your gadgets.
While on your igoogle page select it as your only homepage.
You do this by clicking on the link which reads: make igoogle your homepage.
Now whenever you go to the internet your igoogle page will pop up with guess what? Your inbox! You cand read and compose mail right from there. How cool is that! I cleaned-up my igoogle page and the only gadgets are my inbox and the Chicago Tribune.

So you see, where there is a will there is a way....

Don't get discouraged...

You know when things aren't going right? When all your good dreams and ideas seem to have been flushed down the toilet? Well, don't lose faith! There is always hope as long as there is life to be lived.

I once saw my life as a grandfather with all my children and their children having dinners and such things which families do together. A few years ago however, things changed which kinda put a little twist into those plans. I thought it could never happen now as I would like. But, to my joy, they can happen if we are willing to adjust our way of thinking. As an example, my children their mom and their children, and me of course, had a very nice dinner yesterday. My son Dave had to work so that was the only draw back. It was very nice and everyone had a good time.

This is how things can work out if we are willing to adjust our thinking and give a little. I know that to some it just is not right to do things this way, I was one of those thinkers not so long ago. But, one only robs oneself of a pretty good life if one is not willing to give a little.

Life is way to short and it will end a whole lot quicker if we choose to live angry and always seeking revenge.

So, smile,laugh,dance,sing and enjoy life with those you love and love you....

Sure got cold...

No big surprise, it got cold on the first day of December, in Chicago. I remember when I was a kid I really did not mind the cold weather outside if I could still go outside. I did not enjoy it however when I would go out preaching with my mom or dad. My toes would practically freeze off. I did it the whole time feeling I was pleasing God. Maybe I was maybe I wasn't. Only God knows. All I know it was damn cold out there. I loved to get home and just warm up by the floor register in the downstairs hallway. Home was shat it was supposed to be, a welcome site. I can't recall not ever wanting to be at home. Even after I grew up, and wherever I lived, home has always been a welcome place to be. I guess that is primarily because I view my home as a safe haven, no not heaven, but haven, a place where I can escape from the crazy world.

I think life for those who are not able to feel so good about going home are missing so much. How and where do folks like that relax?

Anyway, about the cold. I have often heard that the cold is good to kell germs, I hope that is true cause there are plenty of germs making people sick.

About freezing. I thought a few times in my life I would freeze to death waiting on a bus or train. I recall going to Union Station and waiting on a Metra train, I was sitting on a bench which was frozen itself. I remember shaking so much that I wondered if the guy sitting next to me could feel it. I thought that if I had to wait another minute, I would surely die. Well, I did not die. I thawed out in the train. I really was not looking forward to arriving at my destination since I would have to leave my warm seat, but if I did not get up I would have ended up hours away from home. I recall other times waiting for the CTA and walking and hopping by the corner just to keep the blood pumping. Unlike today, there were not shelters where you could hide from the wind. I am sure that there are people, young and old, who are going through the same things I went through. It's part of life in the Midwest....