Well, dag-nabit, looks like we’ze got ourselves a little planned protest on our hands.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeehaw!

Where to begin, where to begin?

“I’m only sorta gimpy. I can get there by myself.” I told a curb side check in agent for American Airlines. He smirked and let out a laugh and I went on my way into Tampa International Airport to start my trip on Tuesday morning. I had my Eastman backpack swung over my shoulders, dress pants on and my “trusty” cane in hand as I navigated the terminal and made my way to the airside concourse.

American Airlines made it real easy on me and helped me out the entire way to and from Burbank. Being it lead onto the plane by a Stewardess in Tampa or the ticket-agent trying to get me a replacement flight to Tampa from Dallas if I didn’t make that conneciton flight (more on that later)… AA kicked ass in their service.

The big thing about this that upset my parents and extended family was I was going 2200 miles by my lonesome as my first trip solo. Not to mention I’m still a gimp to one extent or another, walking with and without a cane at times.

Not like I needed to care about being gimpy once I got on the streets of LA.

If there’s one difference that is night and day in La Cuidad de Angels compared to Tampa/St. Pete and the suburbs, it’s the fact that pedestrians have the right of way. Here in Florida, I’d get run down sooner than a car actually wait to turn during a green light. In Los Angeles? I got honked at for not walking and waving cars on at an intersection. That was the biggest adjustment, and the most pleasing.

The other thing that hits me hard every time I am out there is getting used to being surrounded by minorities. Mexicans, Japaneese, African Americans, etc…. One huge eclectic mix. Here in the south, people can only hold closed minded views and hold fear when thinking about situations like that. Me? I fucking LOVED it.

Sure, there is the idea you could get jumped by a gang here and there — that was before I did some thinking and observing. Grandma’s were out walking with canes, unmolested by teens hanging out and kids walking around with CD players weren’t being attacked… I think that gives you an idea it’s safe to be out and about during the daytime and not so intimidated…

At any rate, half the reason I was able to do this trip was my buddy out west, Mark Albracht who I know from SkyscraperPage.com. Me and Mark have known each other a while and have been friends for the past year +…. He had picked me up at the airport and we also spent some time in Hollywood looking around and stuff. It was fun to be out there and see some of the places that I have only heard about (the Kodak theater, the Egyptian….. The Walk of fame…).

Damn, there is so much to talk about and yet I am just rambling through it. And at the same time, there is little to talk about because I didn’t do much while out there. While I liked being on my own on a trip, I would have loved a peer with me (not a parent) to enjoy some of the things that I passed on or didn’t spend enough time with.

Of course, the trip did have it’s low point – my birthday . The day started off as it normally did in LA but I had an appointment that morning. A long overdue ABI checkup. What went so bad? Being forced into an MRI that i didn’t want to have done, having to sit around for four hours until I had the prodcedure, then being in physical and emotional pain with how I was dealt with by the staff… To summarize my birthday was to summarize my life: spent with me trying to look good, voyaging, meeting a friend, being duped by a faux ally, pain, humiliation and ultimately ending alone. Great attitude, wouldn’t you say?

Oh, I forgot to add the part about Burbank. Saturday morning I left my hotel (after barely getting any sleep) to encounter the worst fog I had seen first hand since I was a kid. The flight was grounded until almost 9 and could have made me miss my conneciton flight home… And like I said, a ticket agent stepped right up and arranged things for me if I did miss my connection. Luckily, once airborn, we made up time lost and actually came in ahead of schedule (but still not enough time for this guy to grab a meal while on the DFW International concourse.

I’m planning on getting away some more in coming weeks. A trip to NY for instance…. Who knows where else. Where I’m wanted and where I’m curious would most likely be it.

This is going to be a doozy of a week for me — trying? Challenging is more like it.. Lonely as well as interesting…

LA’s fine, the sun shines most the time… and the feeling is laid back….
John’s a gimp and tends to be a wimp and he has a habit to… keep on lookin’ back.

I’m going out west all alone for the first time in my life. A trip on my own itself would be a challenge but one that takes me 2500 miles without a saftey net is something that troubles the shit out of my family… and me to one extent or the other.

But I want time away form them. I need time away from them and thsi suburb (but going to the sprawl of LA is almost as bad). I’ve been stuck imobile for almost a year and now that i have my mobility back, the only thing that I want to stop me is finances and being able to pay for trips where I want to go.

Oh, there is that little matter of my birthday on Thursday too. Not that I am looking forward to beign 25 years old and basically not where I want to be. I’m trying to make headway but… Heh… I’ve accomplished a bit that I never intended too and I have things everyone accomplishes by now — except me — looming over my head. This trip is one of them… Most people do shit on there own by now or have done it once or twice. I haven’t. That’s got to change.

It’s Tuesday while I write this and it will be Wednesday afternoon when I finally get around to finishing and I have to tell you — I’m thankful… I’m greatly thankful.

It’s been two days since Hurricane Jeanne went through Florida… Two days or an eternity for those who lost power during the storm and haven’t gotten it back. It feels like an eternity because, in the Florida sun, the warmth gives away to the uncomfortable humidity and makes living feel attrocious. At least for the non-outdoors person like myself.

The storm went through Sunday and I lost power around 11:45 in the morning. Soon after my text messenger stopped working properly and I was cut off from friends who would later tell me they didn’t lose power or cable over the duration of Jeanne’s lashing of the Tampa Bay area..

It didn’t tkae long for food to spoil, or my parents to insit we gobble up ice cream and what not before it went bad. Outside, the wind howeled and I waited patiently for one of the trees in our yard to give-way to the relentless wind torrent and snap or tip over. Fortunately that never happened. Or unfortuantely? The thing si a very ratty Indian Rosewood that we would probably be better off without in our yard with it’s adventurous roots.

Time inched on and all you could do was try to read in poor light conditions or watch the storm. I kept thinking back to the fact we are so dependant on electricity that it isn’t even funny. Television? Computers? Even cell phones that worked, appliances, etc… This dependance is compounded in the Sunshine state because of the need for the ever-present air-conditioning if you are going to get through on hot and humid day.

By six or seven in the evening, the wind and rain had relented enough to venture outside. I honestly NEEDED to be outside at this point. Cabin fever not only was driving me nuts, but being stuck with my parents and older brother — I felt cramped. I felt stuck. Of course, I wasn’t leaving the yard as the wind still gusted to 50 MPH at times, but it was better than being on the inside — starring otu into the overcast and blustery conditions.

We got power back around 11:45 Sunday night (miraculously). The only reason we had it is because our house is on the same power circit, it would seem, as the stop light at the intersection several blocks away. It was a relief to get cold again from the AC… not just cold but drier than it had been with the windows open and the humid air flowing through the house.

Yet there are neighbors still without power. WIthout cable… And it could very well have been me and my family still trying to get by without power… so like I said, I’m thankful…

And I’m rambling without even putitng up something of substance.

I’m still a gimp, as I like to say. But I’m going away on my own for most of a week in a couple of weeks. Maybe that can be taken as a birthday present for myself or just a desperate need to get away. That being said – I’m going away… Way away. Californi-a.

The big thing is that this is on my own. It’s rather sad that I’m going to be a quarter century old and this will be the first time I’ve been on a trip by myself or been at a distance from my family without having some caretaker looking over me (that usually being a nurse… hello nurse! ).

It’s part of that innocent quality to my life I guess. Never having to fend for myself. But at this point, I have GOT to get away. Away from my family and away from this house. Even if I spend the entire trip in a hotel in Hollywood, too afraid to do anything, it’s a hell of a lot better than being stuck in the suburbs.

I’m supposed to have a tuneup for the ABI (hearing device) and speak to my doctor out there as well with regards to my health. But that’s supposed to take half a day and I’m going out to Hollywood for five… Craptastic!

It was sort of an interesting thing to happen and cool that it happened to me but at the same time, it aggravated me… No, not just that, it infuriated me.

Last nigh, a representative from Warner Brothers Home Video emailed the webmaster of Boltsmag.com — namely moi — and tried to recruit me to help sling their product on the web. The product in question is the Stanley Cup Championship DVD which shows highlights of the Tampa Bay Lightning season along with Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final and the Lightning being crowned as Champs. It’s a DVD I very much want to be able to enjoy….

But I can’t. No sir, I can’t invest a couple of bucks in the DVD knowing it’s going to a company that didn’t complete the DVD and put it on the market. I can’t invest in a company branch that does it all the time with their sport DVDs. The Warner Brothers Stanley Cup Championship DVD lacks Closed Captioning for the Hearing Impaired and I happen to be hearing impaired.

Lets roll back the clock to more than a year ago with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers winning the Super Bowl…. It was a cap on a dream season for the Bucs and I quickly went and bought the DVD that Warner Brothers Home Video produced that had the entire game — or a likeness of it — along with season highlights and a pre and post game show (so they claimed).

What I found out, cruelly, was when I tried to view the season highlight package (which is always an incredible job done by NFL Films) I got pictures and sound but no clue what the narrator was telling me. No clue what miked players were saying. I could see games and relive moments but not find out what people were blabbering about at any given moment…. Was this a joke? I went to the actual game and they had the network video feed but — what is this? Not only is the video feed replaced by the respective teams radio commentary men but — no closed captioning. I had no clue what was being said by Buccaneer radio man Gene Deckerhoff or the Oakland Raiders respective play-by-play radio man.

So I could see but I couldn’t really enjoy the DVD. I wrote off a scathing letter to Warner Brothers Home Videos and got offered a free DVD of my choice as if to say “Sucks to be you – have one of our movies we can’t move on us!”

This isn’t an isolated incident with DVDs and lack of closed captioning. While major motion pictures are captioned on all DVDs, DVDs tend to be loaded with extra features such as commentary tracks and featurettes. Neither of these are captioned so that the hearing impaired can enjoy these additional features they are paying for when they buy DVDs. To make matters worse, Universal Home Videos doesn’t even use Closed Captioning but instead relies on Subtitles (much like you would see on a foreign film) with their movies. It becomes difficult to follow the film if the text is set on a white background or over a bright object. You lose entire sentences or entire conversations because of the setting of a scene.

And it gets worse from there. Trimark Home Video has the rights to NBC’s Saturday Night Live on DVD — which is both syndicated on TV and broadcast on NBC with full closed captioning… Trimark couldn’t be bothered to add this captioning to their DVDs of Saturday Night Live. Just as Rhino Home Videos couldn’t be bothered to add captioning to their DVD palette which includes children’s TV series like Transformers, Jem, GI Joe… Not to mention their Monkees DVD’s…. Or their original offering of South Park DVDs. (I have no clue if Rhino is still responsible for publishing South Park DVDs at this time. This may have changed).

With the Baby Boom population aging and their bodies failing them to one degree or another, why is it that the Home Video industry gets away with this? Better yet, with 22-34 deaf and hard of hearing Americans out there, why does the movie industry think they can ignore this demographic when it comes to their home video sales? Even more pertinent, why doesn’t someone stick the Americans With Disabilities Act in their face and tell them to shape up or ship out?

It’s an ironic story that Warner Brothers tries to get someone to help sling their DVD — for free — on the web when that person can’t even enjoy the product. It’s even more ironic that no one in the deaf community or elsewhere in America makes a fuss out of this… It’s one of the great dupe jobs going on in the entertainment industry for the sake of the almighty buck.

Dear god, I hate all the empty space that is showing up on The Stonegauge lately… It’s not like I’m spread thin on he Internet or anything, it’s just that I haven’t wanted to rant about anything that I could rant about. I mean, really, how many times have I already stated what a sham Iraq was? Or how incompetent / dirty the Bush administration comes off? It’s like shooting fish in a barrel to be honest with you.

I have been parlaying a lot of time toward my new online endeavor along with trying to help out the search engine placement for Rocheleau Cabinetry… Building an online community is tough but with the amount of downtime i have, it should be no problem. There is a problem however and that is trying to bring in people who already have message board communities and cliques of their own that they don’t want to abandon. I’m not much one for spamming but I am on for recruitment of smart people.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it’s cloudy and rainy here in Florida. I don’t think it’s anything close to what people up north have dealt with lately but it’s miserable. You can’t believe how humid it is to boot. That makes it even worse.

Speaking of weather, how come it’s so friggin’ impossible to find the Tropical Update on Weather.com? It’s only a glut of people who need to know what’s brewing out in the tropics that could lead to potential hazards. Not like that’s important… :rolleyes

It’s always tough to change a habit…. but in these times, you just have to do it…

I am talking about switching from Internet Explorer to Netscape…

With the threat of attack or exploiting IE that has been all through the news, I figured it was best I go about changing web browsers for the time being. I’m not even sure if Netscape 7.1 is that safe either but I am using it as my default browser now and it’s going to take some getting used to clicking on NETSCAPE instead of the little Internet Explorer Icon.

I still haven’t been posting much on the site because I want to make statements on here and not personal diatribes. My anecdotes aren’t that funny or I tell them better one-on-one with close friends instead of telling them to the masses all at once.

I got into a little argument last week with Melanie over politics. She is indifferent towards them and I am urging her to see “Fahrenheit 9-11″ and we got into a dispute because of the purpose of the film and shit like that. It made me realize there’s something worse that comes out of partisan politics and corruption than just disgust — apathy. Anyone who is elected will be corrupt because power corrupts, money corrupts and the President of the United States is the key to both money and power.

Meanwhile I bought a couple of domain names and have some visions of grandeur. I’m not saying the names because it could lead to trouble… But it’s something to pass the time with.

Speaking of passing the time and domain names, I’m almost done with Rocheleau Cabinetry Inc’s web site. It’s not the most excellent design in the world but it’s good enough for government work. Hopefully this will help me pay off some debt.

And what else is there? My buddy Bill left Entec and is happy about that but of course also struggling because he wants to be doing something most of the time now… I’m in the same boat because I am getting around better now but still don’t have much to do besides trying to push myself to do more things online and offline.

I’m trying to keep myself busy… Maybe that means a lot more Stonegauge from now on because I don’t have hockey news to cover on Boltsmag.

Song of Susannah kicked ass.

In my review of the sixth part of the great sage and imminent wordslinger’s (Stephen King) magnum opus – The Dark Tower — I have to say that for the most part Song of Susannah made up for any and all problems that I had with his last entry to the series (Wolves of the Calla) and was probably the most constant and tension filled book in the series for me — probably a bit more than The Drawing of the Three and The Waste Lands . Compared to Wolves which I fought at times to finish up, or Wizard and Glass which lost my interest because of how far off course the story ventured, this was an absolute pleasure to read.

“Dude, stop with the praise and give me an idea what happens already!”

OK, I don’t want to play the spoiler but of course in all reviews of anything (movies, books, TV shows) you get an idea of what is going to happen in a review…. In Song, the first gasp of the novel establishes the need for the ka-tet to be repaired… Beamquake. It gives a new idea of the sense of urgency of the mission to the Dark Tower (but of course gives no idea on what they need to do there). Eddie is in shambles because Susannah has gone through the Unfounded door, Father Callahan is going insane because he’s found out he is a character in a book, Jake Chambers is still pissed off at losing his best friend because of “Frank…..Fucking….Tarvery” and of course Roland is…. Roland. A bit rational even when there is pressure afoot.

Only taking place for a short time in the borderlands between Mid-World and Thunderclap, the story spends a good deal of time in New York City of 1999 and Maine of 1977. It puts some explanation of story flaws in past Dark Tower novels and it doesn’t exactly sink with the Stephen King side plot. That was my biggest beef with Wolves of the Calla — King writing himself into the books… But you know what? It works now. You see how it works. King had written in the past about what would happen if he met Roland in person and basically you get to see that for real in this story.

Something really bit at me though and it was something I don’t know if it’s real or not. It’s excerpts from King’s “Diary” between 1977 and 1999… I don’t know how much is fake and how much is real — but if there is reality to his wife telling him not to walk a certain route and the fact he predicted 6/19/1999 (O, Discordia!)… It’s just chilling to the bone. There’s no other way to put it.

Susannah gets a lot of pages in this book — and to some degree things did get boring with her dealings with Mia (the other inhabiting her body) and that might be the weakest part of the story… That or a rehash of the ending of The Waste Lands (and no, it ain’t Blaine the Mono) might piss some people off. But it’s not going to be years until we see the conclusion of the Dark Tower saga. Episode 7 — The Dark Tower — is due out later this year.

Long Days and Pleasant Nights to ya, I beg. Life for your crop and thankee-sai… Song of Susannah is a pleasure to read.