Oof.

[mrissa]

Please tell me something nice in the world, here or on e-mail. My back has gone totally nuts. I swear C.J. was not beating me with a stick this afternoon, nor Mark or Timprov this evening now that I'm home, but that's about what it feels like. Beaten with a stick, vertebrae knocked out of kilter. No particular reason for it that I can see. So tell me something that's good in the world you live in. Please? Extra points if it's also the world I live in.

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[mrissa.livejournal.com]

So far what I've been able to find is their company webpage, here (http://www.viewplus.com/); OSU is being snitty with me about showing staff homepages. But the professor's name is John Gardner, his department is physics, the institution is Oregon State, and one of the main things he'd worked on last I was there was an embossing printer with much better resolution than a standard Braille printer. It was one of those things that I had taken for granted people had because the technology was there. Until I worked with John, I didn't realize how much technological ability can be hemmed in by human indifference.

John's a great guy, very funny and very cool. He lost his sight in his early 40s and decided he'd rather be a blind guy with a sense of humor than a dour blind guy. So he collects blind jokes and really enjoys telling them on himself. (Not least, I think, because he enjoys other people's initial shocked reactions.) His wife left him sitting on a bench about a third of the way down the Grand Canyon while she hiked further, and he scared a park guide about half to death that way. "I'm very good with the cane," he grinned at her.