Thursday, March 4, 2010

Here is a shot of the hall in Michael's new home for the next few weeks.  Yes, he knows the hall doorways are pink.  Oh well, can't win them all.  He's already worked out a system for finding his way around by counting the steps to where he's going.  In this case, it is twenty six steps down this hall to his door.  He still stops to double check though because he doesn't want to walk in the wrong door.

Michael was issued his new computer today.  A great moral booster!  With only 30 minutes of computer time at this point, he is feeling frustrated as this is what he wants to learn. His appointments keep conflicting with the computer training and he's missed a couple.  Hopfully, next week the schedule will be adjusted and he'll get to have more computer instruction. There's a program on this computer called "Jaws".

It allows the computer to talk to him and tells him what is on the screen and what he is typing.  One challenge is having to learn the proper placement of his fingers on the correct letters.  Somehow, he's missed learning to type in high school and college (poor planning on his part).

We got some packages today.  One full of shirts from his friends at Fort Riley.  Like we said before, they called him "Lassie" because they didn't want to say "Malarsie".  They wore them to see him in Washington and when they left they decided to make and sell them for him.  We got an email telling us of the huge success they've had and how many have been grabbed up by Michael's friends all over.  They wanted Michael and the family to have some and they followed through on the joking comment Michael made about his own shirt.  As you can see from the front and back views, he got his wish.

Another package came from somone in Albuquerque.  It is done in braile and at this point, Michael doesn't know what it says.  Maybe in time............

After Michael finishes classes he is able to leave and do some exploring. With the help of a GPS and a few wrong turns, a friend of mine and I were able to get Michael to the beach. Unfortunately we didn't get there until almost dark and, as you can see, it was a little cold.  Michael was a little worried as we were going there and getting confused by the GPS.  I guess a couple of middle aged women trying to manuever in a strange city with new and unknown technology could be stressful to a young man with no clue as to his whereabouts.  The cliche' "blind leading the blind" suddenly comes to mind.  He mentioned maybe he should have stayed at the school where there was a dance planned- a dance where Michael and two other guys are in their twenties and everyone else a senior citizen.  Fortunately, we made it to the beach and got him back to his room before midnight.

We went down on the beach to feel the sand and check out the ocean.  The waves were gently rolling in and Michael walked out onto the sand with us.  He was standing there when all of a sudden I grabbed his arm and said "we gotta run!".  Those gently rolling waves had been swallowed by a mini'tsunami and we were nearly submerged by it.  Luckily we got to higher ground and narrowily excaped disaster.  Michael was thoroughly disgusted with us and could hardly wait to call and tell his dad how we had tried to get him washed out to sea. 

Overall it ended up being a pretty good day and we like seeing Michael enjoying himself.  We hope you like seeing it as much as we do.