I heard this joke on a Joel Osteen broadcast and got a good laugh. Hope you enjoy it, too!
An elderly man had a serious hearing problem for many years. He went to the doctor and was fitted with this new high-tech hearing aid that allowed him to hear 100% again. He came back to the doctor a month later for a check up. The doctor said, “Wow, your hearing is perfect. Your family must be so excited that you can hear again!” The elderly man said, “No, I haven’t told my family yet. I just sit around and listen to the different conversations…and so far I’ve changed my will 3 times.” 
Here is a free online advocacy course for Deaf and Hard of Hearing folks called, “Making Your Case.” It is both captioned and signed. Take advantage of it – we all need to work together to make positive changes in the laws and policies that affect us.
http://www.mncdhh.org/makingyourcase/
It just came to my attention that there will be a Cochlear Implant Health Fair this Saturday, September 18; 8am – 2pm at the Sheraton Denver Tech Center Hotel in Greenwood Village, CO. For more information, follow this link: http://www.hearinghealthfair.com/parking-agenda
This is a heartwarming story I came across about a Christian ministry that purchased digital hearing aids for a little HOH girl in China. Her deaf parents live in poverty and had no means of purchasing high quality hearing aids for her. Enjoy!
To Answer a Grandmother’s Prayer – Hearing Aids for Lu Jia
As of March 4, 2010, most YouTube.com videos will have a CC button on it that will allow users to view automatically generated captions. What a treat for deaf or hard of hearing people who – up until now – have been shut out of YouTube videos.
The speech recognition technology is far from perfect, but Google, who owns YouTube, expects to improve it. Users also have the option of editing the generated captions to make them more accurate.
Thank you, Google, for caring about accessibility for hearing impaired people!
As I mentioned in a prior post, I recently caught my first open captioned performance at the Denver Theater. The show I saw was the musical, Wicked. The cast, the props and the special effects were exceptional. I really had a good time and would love to go to another open captioned performance again.
At the time of this writing, all open captioned performances are held at the Buell Theater. You will want to take care to purchase seats that will give you a good view of the captioning screen. The captioning screen is located to the far left of the stage (as you face the stage), so the best sections to be in are the D or E sections. You can view the seating chart here.
My seat was in the D section, row A, seat 1, so I was 3 rows back, the first seat next to the aisle. This was too far to the right for me to see both the captioning and the performance at the same time. I had to physically turn my head to every time I wanted to switch from watching the captioning to the performance, or vice versa.
I would recommend getting seats that are further to the left, at least 6 or 7 seats in, so that you can see both the captioning screen and the performance at the same time.
Visit the Denver Theater web site to see a list of upcoming captioned performances. ASL interpretation is also available on certain dates. If you go, be sure to come back and share your experience with us! Enjoy!
On Sunday, November 15, we went to an open captioned performance of Wicked at the Buell Theater in Denver. We had a wonderful time and I will be sharing my experience in an upcoming post. But first, I wanted to post upcoming performances and dates where open captioning will be available for December 2009 – June 2010. All of these performances are for the Buell Theater:
- Spring Awakening, Sunday, December 13, 2009 at 2:00pm
- Little House on the Prairie, Sunday, December 27, 2009 2:00pm
- Legally Blonde, Sunday, February 14, 2010 2:00pm
- Mary Poppins, Sunday, April 4, 2010 at 1:00pm
- In the Heights, Sunday, May 9, 2010 2:00pm
- Young Frankenstein, Sunday, June 27, 2010 2:00pm
For more information visit: http://denvercenter.org/planyourvisit/PhysicalAccessiblity/OpenCaptionedPerformances.aspx
People with a hearing loss easily misunderstand the spoken word. After all, there are certain sounds that we don’t hear very well, particularly high-pitched sounds such as s, f, sh, etc. In addition to that, there are so many words that sound similar because they rhyme.
So it happens quite often at our house where one of us will misunderstand what’s being said. This happened to me recentlhy, and I’m still chuckling over it, so thought I would share it with you.
Family Member: “I threw the drapes away. They didn’t look good.”
Viki: (Startled, I’m thinking to myself, how could that be? We don’t have any drapes in the house. We use blinds for all our window coverings.) “What do you mean?”
Family Member: “They were moldy.”
Viki: (Light bulb clicks on) “Oh, you mean the GRAPES. I thought you said DRAPES!”
Hee hee! 
Joyce Meyer is a well-known Christian inspirational speaker. She will be at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado:
Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 7:00pm
Friday, October 16, 2009 at 10:00am and 7:00pm
Saturday, October 17, 2009 at 10:00am
Sign Language interpretation will be provided for each session. A section will be reserved until 30 minutes before the start of each session. For more information, go to http://joycemeyer.org/OurMinistries/Conferences/denver09.htm
Admission is FREE, but expect to pay for parking.
In my prior post, “How NOT to Startle a Hard of Hearing Person,” I inadvertently left out a real gem of a tip. Therefore, in addition to the 4 tips I listed on that post, I would like to add one more:
5. One of the most effective ways to get the attention of someone who is hearing impaired without startling them is to flip the light switch on and off.
My family particularly uses this approach to get my attention when I am on another level of the house then they are. If I am upstairs and they are downstairs, flipping the hallway switch on and off is an excellent way to get my attention. But it also works well when trying to alert someone who’s in the same room as you to your presence.
Just don’t be annoying about it. Flip the switch on, wait a second or two, then switch it off. Repeat as needed. 
