In Georgia, I was a partial owner of a construction company and a construction manager for over 10 years. We’ve built a number of residential homes and have also done a wide range of remodeling jobs. I have over 23 years of experience in doing construction work and have now built 19 homes from the ground up. I am skilled in every aspect of home building, from framing, trim work, cabinet installation, deck building and siding. Some of my specialties are tile work of all sorts, including custom made tile showers, designs for kitchen and bathroom remodels, and being a fabricator of solid surface countertops.

In the next few weeks, I will soon have a new website up showing all what we have done in the past and what we are capable of. I will also have a SVRS set up soon. For any deaf clients, I will give a 10% discount. Contact me and I will be happy to give a proposal for any work that you want done around your home.

Crossway Construction
Fine Homebuilding & Renovations/Professional Handyman Services and Repairs
713-231-8551 (V) 832-475-1760 (Text Only) cnjshirley@aol.com

No related posts.

Continue to read the full article…

Related posts:

1. Evolution: It’s Everybody’s Evolution
2. Upgrading site…
3. Sign Language for Babies and Toddlers

No related posts.

Just recently, as you might know, I founded Evolution. It’s mainly about what my thoughts on issues and want to express about. Want to know? What’re you waiting for? Go check it out!

http://www.evolution1.us/

Oh wait… I need one more author. Interested? E-mail me for more details.

mhtut@att.net

Hope you have nice one!

Related posts:

1. Evolution of DPHHH to HDN

• The Deaf community is not important enough to hear Family Life’s message or
• Family Life’s message is not important enough for the Deaf community to hear.

Period. Whether that is the intent behind their actions matters not since this is how the actions are perceived by the community.

He made certain to tell me that even though they do not provide interpreters, they do “other things.” When I asked what these “other things” were, he replied that they let interpreters volunteer their time sometimes at the conferences. I asked if his speakers, stage crew, light and sound crew, and other staff members volunteered their time as well, to which he replied no. Let me first say, that anyone who really knows me knows that I volunteer my interpreting services probably more often than I should, so I am not opposed to volunteering. It should not be expected, though. Interpreters provide a valuable service and it is a lot to ask of someone to give up two to three full work days as a volunteer. Not only this, but there is no quality control standard over most volunteers. Oftentimes this means an uncertified and/or unqualified signer is pulled in to interpret without any knowledge of our Code of Professional Conduct. These paying Deaf patrons want to know when they attend a conference over a sensitive matter such as marriage that they can trust their private matters to not be leaked back to the very small Deaf community. At least with a professional interpreter, they have a better chance of receiving this standard of service. Although volunteer interpreters can also be professional interpreters, oftentimes volunteer equates to unqualified.

Carl also informed me…wait for it, this is the kicker…that Family Life is gracious enough to waive the registration fees for the interpreters. Ummm…huh? I told him that would be the equivalent of the college I teach at waiving tuition fees for me to teach. Do they charge their other staff members registration fees? Of course they do not because the staff members are working. They should be paid, not pay to work. At a $129 per person or $258 per couple (not including hotel stay) registration fee, there is no reason that this organization could not afford to pay for interpreters. I reminded Carl that if they really had faith in God as an organization, they should trust that He will provide for their interpreting funds just as He has provided for many of their other initiatives.

I asked Mr. Boykin this, “If you were on trial in a court in China, do you think it would be sufficient if you were provided a volunteer English interpreter?” The answer is of course not, especially with imprisonment or worse at stake. How much more imperative is it for someone to have clear communication when it come to saving a marriage and to the eternal life and death message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Can you tell me, according to the Christian faith, any message of import above that of salvation? I think not.

Sadly, after all of this, I realized that my time and breath had been wasted because Mr. Boykin’s response was just to say that it was an “unfortunate situation.” I let him know that it was unfortunate because Family Life would no longer have my support, the support of my family, the support of my extended family, nor that of many of my friends. How can I support an organization which so blatantly is discriminating against an entire people group? It pains me to speak ill words of a Christian organization because, having been an atheist until the age of nineteen, I know that these types of incidents are exactly what turn people further away from the Christian faith and misrepresent the whole. Despite that, I think it is important to bring all things to the light to allow people to see and make judgments for themselves. Thanks for listening and perhaps one day this Christian organization and others like it will learn what it means to love.

Leyel Hudson
Interpreter and Professor of Interpreting
leyelhudson@gmail.com

Related posts:

1. Leglislative Forum planned for Houston – GHID
2. Business Convention and Expo of the Deaf!

There are three categories in this survey:
1) Deaf/Hard of Hearing individuals
2) Working interpreters
3) Interpreting agencies

You can answer two parts of the survey if you are a working interpreter that also is owner of an agency or if you are a deaf/hard of hearing individual that also works as a Certified Deaf Interpreter (CDI) or DI.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/bonniegoben

Thanks for your participation and assistance! If you have any questions, please contact me at BJGoben3@gmail.com.

Satisfaction with Sign Language Interpreters in Texas Survey
www.surveymonkey.com

Related posts:

1. Texas Governor’s Committee on People with Disabilities

My first reaction was to disagree with him. I initially focused my attention on the fact that he’s got the credentials and experience to get any promotion available for him, or easily get a new job within a matter of days. His degrees show many qualities that a successful professional ought to have, which most companies would definitely want. Then it struck me. I was ignoring a piece of information that made his argument valid: his disability playing against him to achieve his goals. And that is what got me thinking.

Truth be told, any kind of disability do work against smart people in many ways. First, getting a good job is challenging as it is. Scratch that. Getting ANY kind of job during economic recession is difficult. I never really realized the adversities presented in the process: some decide to hide the fact that they have a disability to improve their chances of getting a job. Others don’t, but companies often do not call when they realize that candidates use a relay service. Hearing people have many challenges during the face-to-face interviews. How do those really go for people with disabilities? I cannot begin to imagine. The possibility of frustration from one after another is just one of a few examples of all the problems that people face in order to get in.

Second, the work environment is a jungle on its own.  With many ways of discrimination, such as bullying, omission, un-equal remuneration and lack of opportunities to advance, are just a few where disadvantages are reflected.  It doesn’t matter if you have the experience, the know-how or the credentials with the conviction, people are likely to take you for granted, maybe even toss you to the side.

Still to this date, I believe that companies are very passive when dealing with this situation. They need to step up and make an effort to be more disabled-friendly. Like Bangalore, where companies are understanding that the disabled are a great resource, and are changing their culture to take advantage of this talent.  Below is a snippet of an article from a firm at Bangalore.

“Of late, Bangalore’s private firms, including IT companies, are showing considerable amount of interest in training and recruiting persons with disabilities,” said M Srinivas, chief executive of the Karnataka chapter of National Association for the Blind.

“However, one thing has to be kept in mind — companies don’t recruit disabled people out of sympathy, but because they are efficient,” Srinivas said.

Now consider this deaf friend of mine who has a lot of experience in the computer field, and worked for several companies in the industry. I’m quite sure he had helped companies in ways that they may never realize. Of all the companies he has worked for, only ONE company was really disabled friendly.

Creating this type of environment is hard and takes time. But in the long run, it’s a good change for both disabilities and business alike.  The variation of possibilities and such diversity could dramatically improve and impact companies’ outlook regardless of products or services they provide.  This is especially in the realms of technology where deaf people heavily rely on.  There’s just too much talent wasted, and if done right and put to good use, the rewards for the effort would be much more than compensated.  I, Oswaldo Rodriguez, am a hearing person and never understood what it took for disabled people to get and maintain a good career until now.  I am currently working with a deaf person, and he has proved himself time after time. He’s one of the most valuable assets of the company, and nobody takes him for granted. Not even himself.

Related posts:

1. Ready, Set, Work! (Ages 16-18)

Judgment and reputation are two words that constantly revolve around us. There’s no way to avoid it unless you isolate yourself from the world. First, let’s clarify the definition of judgment. Judgment is the process of forming an opinion or evaluation by discerning and comparing. There’s a saying that we shouldn’t judge people. What they mostly mean is we don’t have the right to say someone is right or wrong in a subjective situation. This includes nice or rude, smart or stupid, humble or egotistic, pretty or ugly, awesome or suck, and so on. Ultimately, the sentimental value should hold true, but realistically, has anyone ever kept their end of the bargain? Think for a moment: your subconscious is the one and only thing that determines judgment and that is based on your own personal experience. In that area, there is an insurmountable number of opinions formed in every second, intentionally or unintentionally. Simply put, it is human nature. We judge.

Next, we have reputation which is the opinion of the public toward a person, a group of people or an organization. Reputation is an important factor that let people define who we are, but it is also entirely up to us how we reflect ourselves. Here’s an example, there is a video game called Mass Effect (a role playing game). It allows you to build and control your main character as well as the outcome of the game. There are groups of non playable characters (NPC) which you can converse with. In each dialog, three major choices are given in order to respond – positive, neutral, or negative. Every response you choose, NPC react accordingly. What’s revealing is how NPC behave differently towards a character depending on its reputation. The more positive you respond, the more helpful they are and vice versa if there is a negative response. The kind of reputation varies depending on the action we all make. Now imagine us in the real world, we all have our own characteristics and decide how we carry out our lives. The characteristics and the type of judgment we exhibit determine our own reputation.

The combination of judgment and reputation go hand in hand. People judge on the result of what you do, what you say, and what other people say about you. It’s not the question of who you are, but a question of how you conduct yourself towards others. The nature of those two aspects has a mysterious way that affects people. They can break or make you. When a topic gets mentioned about deaf community, there’s something that needs to be said as a group regarding reputation. There are certain things that rub people the wrong way and others who enjoy our culture. Granted, it’s not just only deaf, but hearing as well. However, we are the minority and we get a lot more attention than others. Therefore, we are scrutinized much more than hearing. Here are a couple of links that came to my attention from twitter related to deafness. What caught my eyes wasn’t so much about the news, but what was said in the comment section. Some of them were harsh, but certainly understandable.

brazilliandanny
Ive Bartended about a dozen ASL parties. I am a tolerant person and have no beef with any religion, race, group, ect. But in 10 years behind the wood deaf people were by far the most rude and ungrateful patrons I have served.

phughes
I was working an event for HLAA (Hearing Loss Association of America) in Nashville, TN recently. Their Gala Ball started with a tribute to the founder of the HLAA (formerly SHHH) who had recently passed away. His widow was there. There were people who had been with the organization for 20 years giving eulogies. Except, nobody would stop talking!

These people knew that the event had started, they just didn’t care. You have to understand that they have a myriad of hearing assistive technologies at these events: open captioning, sign language interpreters (on huge screens so everyone can see,) IR systems to plug directly into hearing aids and cochlear implants – hooked directly up to the sound system. These people were asked to stop talking 5 times before the program started, and it still took 5 minutes into the presentation before people quieted down……….I don’t hate deaf people, but I do lack sympathy. If you want to be treated well by the world I have some advice: stop acting like an asshole.

momoichigo
What I noticed from experience is they seem to think society has wronged them. I’m sure society has wronged them, but it also wronged many other people. Furthermore, they make it confusing and virtually impossible to not offend them. Half of them think it’s offensive to be called hearing impaired. Half of them think it’s offensive to be called deaf. Then, they retaliate by calling people who aren’t deaf, “hearing people”. It just all seem very childish to me. You don’t see blind people being offended for being said to be blind. It is what it is. If you can’t hear, you’re deaf. I eventually settled and decided I am going to call them deaf, whether they like it or not. If they don’t they can just suck it up, because that is who they are.

winterface
I used to volunteer at a place on the weekends that had several deaf people, and its always weird, One minute they will just be a little standoffish and the next complete jerks. I’ve only met one nice deaf person. The rest for whatever reason have been really rude.

You can read the rest here and here

One might ask, why should we bother to care what others think? That’s probably a typical response that most of you would answer. The attitude of “I’ll do what pleases me and if you don’t like it, then you can shove it” is common with the kind of people that like to believe that they live in their own world and nothing they do affects anyone. There is more concern about self and less concern about others. In retrospect, why should hearing people even care about us in the first place? Imagine ourselves asking these people for help and they just don’t give a hoot about deaf community itself. We just may never have the luxury of technology, services or whatever it is we need to survive. The judgment we make and how we establish ourselves should be delicately handled.

This isn’t to say that we should conform to please others. It is more of an obligation to seize, correct and educate deaf and hearing. The last thing we need is to create more bitterness and stereotypes that could potentially taint the image of deaf community and/or possibly hinder any progress to better the community. There’s no real easy solution. But before we can solve the problem, we first must correct our line of thought and change our attitudes. Bottom line, quit being a jackass, build up patience, develop a method to communicate–not just for yourself but others as well. Respect one another, educate, and whatever it is that we can do to help each other. Whether you like it or not, we all need each other. Everyone is connected in one form or another. We may not see it, but it is there if we look beyond the superficial.

In the end, you have to ask yourself – define your own reputation or let others define it for you. The choice is up to you. If you choose to inject your negative attitude around you, then you can certainly expect the same treatment from others. Best practice is do onto others as you would want others to do to you. How you conduct yourself and the values you live by are what define you and our culture. YOU are the most important influence in today’s world.

No related posts.

My roommate scolded me, “Tsk, you should have checked Netflix and Redbox first to see if it had captioning or subtitles.” No, I didn’t check before I rented the movie, but in this day and age – practically every movie has either captioning or subtitles that most of us don’t even think to check anymore, right? It was silly to think that I could have vested so much importance into a cute animated movie to help me unwind, but the fact is – I was extremely disappointed!

At first, I thought I was alone. I must have gotten a bad DVD somehow. Just my luck, huh? Then over the next few days, I began to see steady streams of complaints from friends and fellow Deafies asking about the captioning on “Up.”

First it was a “marketing decision.” Then it was a “manufacturing error.”

In a country where closed captioning is considered mainstream, this was a pretty big shock. Pixar (and Disney) released their newest full-feature animated film to all major rental companies without captioning or subtitles. If you required captioning in some form and wanted to watch “Up,” you were out of luck. Well, no… not exactly. If you wanted to watch it bad enough, you could buy the retail version. Conveniently, the retail version has captioning along with the bonus features.

Pixar considers closed captioning/subtitles a bonus feature. Really? Shame on you, Pixar. Back in the heyday, captioning might have been a luxury but today, it is expected. In a place where we have captioning practically everywhere, it is expected of major motion picture companies to produce their movies with captioning.

After a pretty big uproar from the community, Pixar has announced that they will release a new batch of DVDs that includes the bonus features to rental companies.

Let’s analyze what Pixar meant by “marketing decision.” Could it be that they wanted (or needed) to save money by removing the bonus features? Surely, the animation giant would already have all these features someplace. All it would take is a little manpower (and technology) to integrate them with the feature film. So it couldn’t be about saving money. When I sat down to think about it, the only (and most obvious) answer came to mind. If adoring fans wanted to watch “Up” bad enough, they’d buy the DVD, right? Or maybe not. It may be safe to assume that in this economy, Pixar might be suffering just a tad bit just like the rest of us. Apparently, they thought the best way to boost sales was to force those of us who require captioning to buy their DVDs. Lame.

Let’s look at “manufacturing error.” Error? Yeah right. A complete set without bonus features conveniently ended up at rental places while the other batch (WITH bonus features) ended up in retail stores? A mistake can’t get any more perfect than that. For Pixar’s sake – let’s believe for a second that it truly was an error. With the movie being passed through so many hands from start to finish, it’s appalling to even think that everyone could have missed that.

Thousands of devoted fans have become disgruntled customers overnight. I guess Pixar just never accounted for how many there are of us out there. And by “us,” I mean those who need captioning to enjoy their movies and those who just like to have captioning on their screen. If everyone stands together and makes one united voice, we can truly make a difference.

Let this be a message to Pixar and anyone who will listen. Captioning is NOT a special feature!

No related posts.

Related posts:

1. UPDATE – Taste of Technology in Houston
2. Update Information on Deaf Protest
3. UPDATE: 2nd Houston Deaf Forum Meeting – CANCELLED