Five String Guitar

Perfection.
Five String Guitar I seem to have gone away from here for a jag.Life got busy, and as always, travels at the speed of life, which tends to speed up exponentially as per the number of "things" one has on the many burners.Spring sprung of course, ions ago, and now we sit in springs purgatory awaiting the dogs days that the summer seems to promise and deliver.I am still "here" of course, s...
Tech Wed, Jun 03 2009

Walk In Silence
Five String Guitar I am complicated and I will be the first to admit it.I share my day with you as it started with rain (much needed and much appreciated due to the grass seed planted a few weeks ago that requires constant water), but the day   leapt quietly into sunshine and warm summer like breeze.My complications are internal as I sat in the glory of the backyard, an took in the soli...
Art and Storytelling Tech Thu, May 14 2009

Words.
Five String Guitar Word are powerful. Written and spoken alike. Through a media like movies or music, words can make, move and improve us. They can also shred, bruise and batter us.A word can be read in a manner that transforms and shifts the paradigm from one end of emotion spectrum to the other.The written word is powerful to be sure. But when spoken, a weak word can become powerful. ...
Language Tech Mon, May 11 2009

Searching The Engines For Acceptance.
Five String Guitar "Sitemeter" amuses me.You know of the widget of which I speak, yes?The green widget icon thingy on some if not most blogs, that allows us to see track our visitors.As much as I like the data it provides on towns, counties and countries of my now over 14,000 visitors that grace my silly space here, I like drilling down a bit further to see how they found me, or what li...
Tech Wed, May 06 2009

Bring On Change
Five String Guitar May brings change, as do all months, weeks and days. May offers more hope as the trees and vegitation of these semi northern climes, spring to life. Pun intended of course.Today was a day of mixed bagged, licorice allsort variety. Domestic chores, followed by brief breaks in the mix of wonderful sunshine and spits of rain.The late afternoon offered up yet another firs...
Tech Sat, May 02 2009

A Year Of Digital Sound.
Five String Guitar Time is the equalizer it seems, when one is trying to gain back some of the lost art of comprehension.For every bad day where the roar of the tinnitus, or the poor quality of the conversation due to background noise, there are golden days where I stumble at first; then adjust; then roll with the topics de jour.I had the good fortune of being invited out last Wednesday...
Art and Storytelling Tech Tue, Apr 28 2009

The Roar In My Head.
Five String Guitar The buzz and hum that dogs my inner auditory nerves, is at times unnerving. Rumble and roar from tinnitus is so much a part of my life, that at times acceptance is the only way to deal with it.It drowns out conversation at times, and that is not what I need.I need some quiet up there to hear the conversation that I so miss and crave.I had a wonderful Sunday, except fo...
Language Art and Storytelling Tech Sun, Apr 19 2009

There Are No Accidents In The Universe
Five String Guitar There are no accidents in the universe, in my beliefs of life and in my experience. We ramble about the planet doing what we do, living our lives, and change is happening.I spent a great deal of my life in search of happiness, and discovered that searching and seeking usually brings about more of the same searching a seeking.I was, and am, content in my new life for t...
Culture Sun, Apr 19 2009

Conversations With Myself.
Five String Guitar I need to spend more time here.I catch myself drifting aimlessly at times, searching for something to occupy my new found "free time". I like having the time now, it's just that I need to spend it more focused. I drift.After the mundane chores of dinner, dishes, laundry, homework checks, and bill paying are complete; I still go to old auto pilot and think about drivin...
Tech Fri, Apr 17 2009

Just Breathe
Five String Guitar There is no "normal" for me. Acceptance of that statement/fact is huge for me, and it puts me in a new space that requires constant review and challenges. I struggle to develop a better mental toughness most days, that is required to bring me out of a place and space where I often drift to in my hearing and balanced challenged world.In the past eighteen months I have ...
Art and Storytelling Tech Sun, Apr 05 2009

The Way My Brain Works On Special Occasions Mystefies Me.
Five String Guitar So it is the big "Happy Birthday Guitar Boy day" and I may or may not have messed up already!So aware of the day, and making it special especially in light of recent events, it was first and foremost in my mind all last week, and took precidence over all other sceduled events.It dominated my thoughts and grocery planning.My cleaning and laundry was based on the day ar...
Language Art and Storytelling Tech Mon, Mar 30 2009

Interpreters For The Challanged.
Five String Guitar Tinnitus has seemed to raise it's ugly rubber extrusion factory sounding head lately.No stranger to this am I. But now it is getting rather annoying. Especially now that I need better comprehension , all the time, in my cochlear challenged world.Being back in the world of business and commerce, reinforced my view that passion or compassion for "hearing challenged" las...
Tech Fri, Mar 27 2009

Discovery Mode
Five String Guitar The wonderful souls and denizens of this earth, at times seem so set in their ways. I suspect I was no different at times.We have routine, ideas, ideologies, philosophies, opinions, and "shades and blinders" we put on to keep things the way they are.What a great loss that can be, if one travels the roads of life, never changing direction because "that's the way we alw...
Art and Storytelling Wed, Mar 25 2009

Ever Changing Life.
Five String Guitar Just as I suspected, life at the speed of life carried on. The snow retreated and there were shades of brownish/green grass rearing their darling spiked and shriveled heads, as spring made a subdued entrance last week.It had been my hope, to be back at full QWERTY by springs birth, but life got busy, and I am back at five strings, with full intention of doing somethi...
Art and Storytelling Tech Mon, Mar 23 2009

News
Five String Guitar I have been thinking of a new blog. I am in a place right now, where I want to move forward. Life in a cone of silence was the beginning of a new journey in my deafness.Five string was the next step as I rehabilitated.I will be shutting this down, and going with some new writing in a new spot, with a new them.I will advise y'all of my new place soon.David
Tech Tue, Mar 17 2009

Janet Lorraine Sweet
Five String Guitar Life is a journey of self-discoveries. For many interested in being than in just busyness, that self discovered person is most worthy of respect.Janet, my loving wife of 19 1/2 years was such a person.Janet lived, the last of her life, with no fear, no doubts, no unnecessary cravings, no extreme emotions. No egotistical actions ever graced her world. Selfless always, ...
Art and Storytelling Tech Tue, Mar 10 2009

It is a profound and penetrating place when we put it all...
Five String Guitar It is a profound and penetrating place when we put it all together. When we figure things out.Many writers have tried to define the subject of love, and since the beginning of time, man has quested the definitive answer to "what is love".Many assume "love" graces them in a relationship, and perhaps it does, albeit too briefly and fleeting. Others assume love has a phy...
Art and Storytelling Thu, Feb 26 2009

Easy To Do.
Five String Guitar In this new chapter of my life, post September 2007, and living deaf for all intents and purposes, I do many things now, that I had little patience for pre-medical implosion.Activities that I always wanted to do, had the noblest of intentions, but never followed through.So what changed?Most of my activities and disciplines that are part of my routine, are, for the mos...
Art and Storytelling Fri, Feb 20 2009

Needing "9's"
Five String Guitar I'll tell you this: If one happens to be profoundly deaf, and ones method of "hearing"is through a plastic stick hanging on your ear, that only functions if a magnet is strapped on tight to the side of ones melon.And if indeed you walk like you're in the a wind tunnel at the National Research Center for hurricane testing, regardless of the calmness that exists in th...
Tech Wed, Feb 18 2009

Sunshine And Family Days.
Five String Guitar It is "Family Day" here in our province of Ontario. An official holiday, and a new one to help offset the winter blues. It is indeed a long time between official holidays. Not the ones that we take as vacation, but the ones as that are arbitrary in nature, and force employers to close up shop to give the employees time away from the mining of salt, or whatever ones la...
Tech Mon, Feb 16 2009

The Day The Muzak Died.
Five String Guitar I sort of half expected the elevator I was in yesterday, to fall silent. At least for one minute, out of respect. But the quick seven floor upwards journey and the return downward trip, continued to play the Muzak. No breaks or pause on my quick in and out and up and down trip.Yesterday of course, Muzak filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company that pio...
Tech Thu, Feb 12 2009

Curve Balls
Five String Guitar As I wound up week two in my graduated return to work after a five hundred day medical absence, I spent the evening reflecting on the changes that seemed to give me pause for reflection.The reality of the changes, were in the fact that really nothing changed, except me.This epochal moment I owe to a comment on my last post. The comment came from Ann.And it hit me ov...
Art and Storytelling Sat, Feb 07 2009

The Fatigue Of Noise
Five String Guitar I'm tired.Dog tired.Not the physical tired from work, or play or shoveling snow. No this is a mental tired from sound.Abundance of sound from all sorts of voices, being fired at my auditory nerves in increased velocity and numbers as I wade into the sound infested working world.Week two of my back to work program started on Monday and I played a bit more with phones a...
Art and Storytelling Tech Wed, Feb 04 2009

Work To Work
Five String Guitar I miss the simple life.Seems like only yesterday when I could bounce up from bed, jump in shower, dress, jump in bat mobile make stop at "Fourbucks" and "bang" I'm in the office.Those days are but a distant memory.Mornings are different.Rise daily, just after five am. I attach cochlear magnet to head, but put processor on only at half volume.Shhhhhhhh, we need to wake...
Art and Storytelling Tech Fri, Jan 30 2009

Speeder
Five String Guitar The day was odd to begin with. Mixed up morning, with emotions all over the map.Speeder had a bad night, and I, in my deaf night world, missed his behavior that spelled out how quickly he had begun to slide.Janet missed it not.Dan was up and startled me by asking if I had a razor he could use to shave with.I was a little shocked by the 14 year old's request."Why"?"Wha...
Art and Storytelling Tech Tue, Jan 20 2009

How About Some Medical "Quiet"!
Five String Guitar Monday did not creep in like a silent morning by any stretch of the imagination. Most days I plop magnet on head after some silent wandering and coffee making. Even at that point, I choose to go at 1/2 of normal volume. Sort of ease into the day in the old volume department if you will. Remember that I am an early riser, so sound is not as important as I travel solo f...
Art and Storytelling Mon, Jan 19 2009

Give Me Some Of That Stimulus Dough!
Five String Guitar The Government is interested in it's denizens input, with regards to spending billions on a stimulus package to jump start an economy that withers on life support as I type. I, like many, have a few ideas, and a few questions. If you want a place to start, I will spend any money you give me. I promise not to hoard it in one of your new fancy shmanzy tax free uber savi...
Tech Culture Sat, Jan 17 2009

New Technology To Take Into The Jungle
Five String Guitar Life seems to be kicking into a new gear. One that I have not used in some time. As quickly as temperatures dropped into the minus thirty range this week, my schedule and to do list grows in inverse proportion as the mercury.Monday was the meet with a rehab specialist and the HR person at the place where I toiled for the past ten years, and hopefully many more. All wa...
Media Language Tech Thu, Jan 15 2009

Music To My "Ears"
Five String Guitar As Dan's guitar playing talent and aptitude grows in leaps and chords, so does the need for trips to the music store. He has good "stuff" in terms of guitars. With a Gibson SG electric, and a Yamaha acoustic, as well as his "first" guitars which includes a Washburn acoustic and a B.C. Rich electric.His amps are what intrigues him and drives his creativity as well as t...
Art and Storytelling Tech Sun, Jan 11 2009

The "Fixer" Will Return.
Five String Guitar Yesterday I received an email from the "Functional Rehabilitation Specialist" for the Insurance company that has kept a continuous flow of money into our humble household, while I mended. The heart of the message was a request to partake in a meeting with the specialist and my companies Human Resource Manager, next Monday.While I have been "cleared for take off" fo...
Language Art and Storytelling Education Tech Sat, Jan 10 2009

Canine Costs.
Five String Guitar After four years of dealing with the rogue cells that make leukemia happen in Janet's young system, seventeen months of my rehabilitation in both hearing and walking like I could get on a trampoline if I dared, and two months of talking Guitar Boy to deal with a huge planter wart on his big toe; Speeder decided he needed some medical attention.His left eye seem to be...
Tech Thu, Jan 08 2009

Years End.
Five String Guitar Well It would not go down as my favorite year, but certainly not one that I loathed.It was a year that came in to being in total silence in my world, but will go out with noise through a man made cochlear implanted device.The year that gave me sound on my left side, also saw two operations to give me sound on my right that have yet to produce an inkling of noise. Just...
Art and Storytelling Tech Culture Wed, Dec 31 2008

Going From A to Z
Five String Guitar After just under five hundred days on an ambitious medical recovery, I will embark on a graduated return to the world of business.As I weigh in, and wade into my once upon a time daily ritual, I will be oh so aware that I am different. I am of course a cyborg in the true sense. My cochlear implant being the artificial portion of my system is not only evident upon sigh...
Art and Storytelling Tech Mon, Dec 29 2008

Telling The Story Over And Over.
Five String Guitar In the mid morning, tomorrow, I will go back to the place of business that I toiled at for the past ten years. I have not been back at my office since September 8, 2007. That date was my personal 9/11, when I had the cold, that grew to laryngitis, then possibly bronchitis, then on to pneumonia, then.......a misdiagnose at emergency as a headache and given Demerol. A...
Tech Culture Wed, Dec 17 2008

An Annual Reflection
Five String Guitar A year ago yesterday, I was in the cone of silence. That eerie underwater like place where profound deafness exists. I was 20 days out of hospital, and deaf. I had no balance, and had just graduated from a wheel chair to a walker.Two years ago yesterday I was training for another 1/2 marathon.Yesterday was my birthday.I spent it taking care of the family, and putting ...
Art and Storytelling Tech Mon, Dec 15 2008

Hope and Need
Five String Guitar As I was lying in bed last night, sans cochlear ear processor as always, the tinnitus did its usual "crank up the volume" that happens once I remove my magnet for the night. Last night was louder was usual. I did my "I hope this tinnitus simmers down so I can sleep" routine.Nothing.So I removed the word "hope", and replaced it with "need", as I needed it to quiet down...
Art and Storytelling Tech Fri, Dec 12 2008

Finding Christmas.
Five String Guitar I just read a post by JoJo, about Christmas being hard to find this year. I have to agree and it got me thinking.Last year at this time I was deaf as Douglas Fir and living in a cone of silence that was even more aggrivated by my inability to walk more than five feet without falling, thanks to my Labyrintihitis. It caused for extreme frustration and aggravation arou...
Art and Storytelling Tech Mon, Dec 08 2008

Liminal Space
Five String Guitar I’m trying to figure out where I “fit in”?I am at present in a liminal space.A Liminal space is the psychological, neurological, or metaphysical state of being on the "threshold" of, or between two different existential planes. I live in a world between profound deafness and hearing. I am technically profoundly deaf. Yet I have a cochlear implant surgically imbedded ...
Tech Culture Sun, Nov 30 2008

Does Having A Cochlear Implant Make For A Not So Good...
Five String Guitar Every morning starting at eight, the first of eight boys arrive at the door.Our house, for one reason or another, is the "gathering area" for a group of eight grade nine boys.They all went to grade eight together, and became fast friends. When the scary prospect of hight school was discussed in August amongst them, they thought it best to travel together, in a pack, t...
Language Art and Storytelling Tech Wed, Nov 26 2008

Medical Agenda!
Five String Guitar The writings in this space at one time were about my world of deafness. Life in a cone of silence chronicled the daily musings of a late deafened guy and how he sees the world that he no longer hears.The often daily ramblings of words, soon morphed into the world of cyborg technology, after my implantation of a cochlear device to give my digital hearing. I then detail...
Tech Tue, Nov 25 2008

Cochlears and Cancer Consume Us
Five String Guitar Monday was another "not so good" one on the quest to become bilateral. The cochlear clinic had set up a test, that I was to partake in, to measure what indeed was going on with non-functioning right side cochlear implant.I was ushered into a booth and sat in a very comfortable chair. One fit for 60" Plasma screen viewing. They scrubbed areas on my ear lobe and forehea...
Tech Thu, Nov 20 2008

Positive Spins
Five String Guitar If one reads the national dailies that grace our doorsteps in the morning, one would assume we are in the depths of a recession, if not indeed a depression. Yet in this country, more cars were sold last month than in the October of one year earlier, when we were humming along.I went out yesterday to pick up some bobbles and what not, to spread some joy around the neig...
Tech Mon, Nov 17 2008

I Like This Place!
Five String Guitar In the six months since my cochlear implant was activated, my comprehension has grown enormously. Back in May of this year, when the audiologist first pumped through a series of beeps, and I heard sound for the first time since my sudden deafness in September of 2007, my world has slowly started to come back to me.Odd at first, and almost comical in sound, voices slow...
Language Tech Thu, Nov 13 2008

Finding Normal.
Five String Guitar I was trying to get a fix on what the new normal is in my life. My thought came from a comment, in passing, to someone yesterday when I said, it will be nice when things get back to normal.Not sure what "normal" is these days. Since September of 2007, I "hear" only with the aid of a cochlear implant. I walk using sight and touch, as my inner ear balance mechanism is l...
Tech Tue, Nov 11 2008

Trading Klondikes For Health
Five String Guitar Next week I go for a mapping on my working cochlear. I want to try something different to get my comprehension on the phone in particular up a notch. In two weeks I will have Advanced Bionics (the manufacturer of my CI) and my audiologist run a few tests. They are actually going to do some electrophysiological measures with my cochlear implant.Not sure what all that m...
Tech Thu, Nov 06 2008

Figuring Out Why Sounds, Sound That Way.
Five String Guitar In the world of Cochlear Implants, and in many cases of new technology hearing aids, the technology is baffling to me.Although a cochlear implant and a "hearing aid" are as different as night and day, the way the sound is processed is similar. At one time hearing aids were analog. Now new technology presents the sound in a digital format. I have never worn hearing ai...
Tech Wed, Nov 05 2008

Deaf As A Sheet At Night.
Five String Guitar It is just after 6 am here, and I (sadly) have been up for 2 hours. I seem to sleep a lot less these days when I have the bed to myself for some reason. Since Janet's hospitalization 13 days ago, I imagined lazy sleep filled mornings in a sprawling pose, taking up 85% of the nocturnal real estate.Didn't happen.I am of course deaf as a Egyptian cotton sheet at night. W...
Art and Storytelling Tech Thu, Oct 30 2008

Quit Teasing Me Hot Dog Guy!
Five String Guitar I am a total mysophobia. This is also commonly referred to as germaphobia, is the fear of germs. Most people have heard of this fear and some have made fun of it, but it's a serious issue. Germaphobes are afraid of the illnesses and uncleanliness associated with germs. This can lead to a stunted social life and makes my day hell at times.Abbie reminded me of this in ...
Art and Storytelling Wed, Oct 29 2008

My Left Sided Life.
Five String Guitar I suspect my right side just refuses to cooperate and treat itself to the concerto that the left side has been feasting on since May. Today was to be "bilateral boot up day", and damn it all if no sound came out to fire at the neurons on the right side. Magnet strapped on tight, twitching and pulsing to beat the band, as my audiologist "pumped up the volume". But na...
Tech Tue, Oct 28 2008

Looking For My Sixth String.
Five String Guitar I am two days away from the activation of my second, and right side cochlear implant.The one that will give me bilateral sound.It is hard to get excited about a new bilateral sound and what that brings to my concerto in light of my wifes medical woes.She has voice now, as the 5 days of radiation has shrunk the tumor enough to give her voice back Although it is a quiet...
Tech Sun, Oct 26 2008