Okay, y’all. I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but to-day I wanted to talk about some of my fascinations and obsessions with various things. Making ice cream, for starters. Like, with a giant commercial machine.
I can’t remember how it began, or what prompted it, but in 1999 or 2000, I came across a very weird appliance at a special school held in a small church that helped children of immigrant parents with various things. I believe it was called Even Head start. It was a little heavy and completely made of metal, probably stainless steel. It had two perpendicular cylinders that were shaped like mini-trumpet bells. If you stuck your finger down the top cylinder, you’d find a wire mesh underneath. I’m not sure what was inside the second cylinder, though. Anyhow, whatever was put inside would drip down the bottom through two small vents located underneath, which would most likely contain a cup. What was even more interesting was that I didn’t find any electrical parts to it or anything. Maybe it was a manual appliance, or maybe they removed the electrical components. It had a broad concave square base to it, and I thought of building a ceramic sculpture of it, in hopes that someone might recognise it. Since then, I had always pondered as to what it could have been.
- A juice strainer?
- A masticating juicer?
- A sausage stuffer?
- A meat grinder or mincer?
- A fruit press?
Anyhow, the metal texture was sort of bumpy. I also vaguely remembered coming across a similar device, but it appeared to have more missing parts. I felt like it was close towards the end of the school day, and our parents were picking us up to go back home. I was going to Kindergarten thrice a week, and twice I went to the school for immigrant parents. We were kept busy and engaged while they learnt important things, such as how to be a better parent, understanding child development, and possibly a third component which I can’t remember anymore. We ate lunch in the main room where there was a stage, and sometimes when I went out, there was a weird refrigerator a few feet away from the main door into the church. I remember climbing inside and trying to close the door behind me. If I were only two feet and eight inches tall, then I would have most likely been able to get inside without bumping my head against the top part of it. I thought it was some strange car at the time. My mum also showed me how to scoop popcorn out of a Cretors Goldrush cabinet popcorn popper that was at the local tyre shop. The kettle, which was already red hot, was uncomfortably close for me to use the scoop, though, so someone usually did it for me.
Interestingly enough, though, it wasn’t the first time I actually tried popcorn, for I distinctly remember using our microwave oven to make some, and how they sometimes got slightly burnt. Anyhow, one of my brother’s caregivers showed me a little nook inside the Red Lion Hotel, which no longer exists, and they had many self-service options, including a big air-cooled ice machine, a vending machine, and a microwave specifically programmed to pop popcorn. There may have been a vending machine that dispensed coffee, though.
My mother used to take me to WinCo Foods a lot, which is an employee-owned grocery store that allows people to buy items in bulk quantities. Because of that, they often had a lot of automatic dispensers that used a telescope mechanism, such as those for refilling water jugs that sit on top of hot and cold water dispensers. They also had coffee and nut butter grinders. In both of these instances, they consisted of a metal box with a lid on top of them. Sometimes there’d be a hopper sitting on top of the box, shaped like a pyramid, with the bigger part facing up and funnelling towards the machine. They had a knob to adjust the coarseness of the grounds or thickness of the butter. My mum called them a tambo, which I think could also refer to a tumbler. Actually, it refers to a drum, while a tolva refers to a hopper.
Also in Kindergarten, my teacher once invited me and a few other blind kids to bake some cookies at this small church, but I think I knew that stoves and ovens were generally hot, and I cried and squirmed, trying to get away from the potentially dangerous source. Of course, I later knew that they would never let me get close to anything like that. A year later, probably in March or April of 2000, I got to help make pizza at a pizza parlour, and I mostly prepared the tomato sauce. I constantly kept saying, ‘Harmony’s making pizza!’
Fast forward to second grade, when I was due to have a supernumerary mesiodens extracted in December of 2001, I was given a tour of our school cafeteria because I had expressed interest in how can openers worked. I don’t remember what prompted me to become obsessed with them. Maybe I had read about them in some of the readers I was using in school. Anyway, one of my teachers ended up giving our family one as a Christmas present. The one at the cafeteria was able to open large cans, so it was shaped like a cube with a big lever on top of it, wereas the little ones were made of plastic and sat nearly upright. Their dishwasher sat on top of the counter, as well, since it was supposed to wash a bunch of plastic trays we used to have at the time. Our main course was placed on the square at four o’clock, the round salad bowl at six o’clock, and the long silverware compartment at nine o’clock, and additional square compartments for snacks, desserts, and drinks at eleven, twelve, and one o’clock, respectively. The square on the top right corner had a round dip etched into it, sort of like the ones you’d find in a saucer to hold a cup. Interestingly, my teacher’s aide thought I wouldn’t be able to balance a tray and hold my cane in my right hand, so they had me hold onto a plastic tub with multiple compartments with a handle on top. My mobility teacher later worked with me on having me work on pinning the tray with the under side of my wrist and the left side of my chest or simply balancing it on the palm of my hand with my fingers curled around the top of it for better security. Most sighted people usually held their tray with both hands, which I am not sure if it would have a greater chance of slipping if someone accidentally tripped (every school kid’s worst nightmare!) By the way, my brother used a cane made of four PVC pipes connected to four L-shaped joints, so that it’d feel like pushing a lawn mower in front of you. This was so he wouldn’t have to worry about sweeping it to and fro.
I got to check out some camping gear in third grade when our class did an all-day outdoor camp field trip, and that later prompted me to be obsessed with how propane grills worked, or compressing air in general to make liquid air. My favourite experience was hanging off the handle of a well pump, and when I smelt something that I thought were bananas were actually alarm pheromones from a swarm of bees that fortunately never stung us! I was, however, afraid of hearing sudden loud sounds, like balloons popping, like when some people set up a science demonstration at school, provided by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.
In December of 2002, when I went to pick up a present (which turned out to be a Yamaha PSR292 digital keyboard) at this church that one of my teachers attended, I came across a warm-feeling metal thing that I thought was some kind of coffee dispenser. It was sitting on the counter, though, so I don’t think it was a vending machine. Later, I learnt that many drip coffee and espresso machines could be plumbed from a direct water intake line, as opposed to having to constantly refill a reservoir. Additionally, the machines were often preheated to keep a certain temperature. I later realised the former when my mother took me to one of her friend’s homes, and I found a refrigerator with a set of tabs shaped like a cup on the freezer door. Most of them had two of them, while others only had one, with a switch that let you choose ice or water. That’s when I wondered, How does the water get into the fridge? Speaking of fridge, the Primo Cappuccino Dispenser felt a lot like those countertop mini-fridges, with the exception that it has a hole in the front.
My speech language pathologist that I was seeing at the time showed me a recording of how her tea kettle sounded, too. Anyhow, I was also fascinated with thermoses and Air Pots. This was because my mum had a large thermos that I spent hours playing with in late February! I also remember unjamming one of the bathroom blades that circulated hot air from a heating light bulb, as well. All of us thought it never worked, and nobody ever bothered to fix it. Then, one of my friends told me that if you covered a light bulb with papier maché, let it dry, then smash it, you could use it as a maraca!
Later that year, our school went on a field trip to tour a bakery, and we were read the classic tale about the red hen who tried to get help from all the other farm animals to harvest the wheat and make the bread, but since no one helped, yet they all wanted to eat it, she ended up enjoying what she had worked so hard to achieve. I don’t remember much about that trip, but I think they talked to us about how they used conveyors to transport the various products to different rooms. On that same note, I later became obsessed with using pneumatic tubes whenever my mum went to the bank’s DriveThru. The same teachers who had previously taken me to that church years before took us to the training centre for the blind, and I got to make an egg salad on the stove. That’s when they told me about the time I was too scared to use one! And even up to this day, I am still uncomfortable about being around hot surfaces, so I wear gloves whenever possible.
Towards the start of summer vacation, we got to learn about bugs, so I got to learn how to make papier maché to make the three segments. I later learnt how to make a piñata, as well. Strangely enough, though, I have no recollection of learning how to make terrariums, although we did learn about birds and stuff, and about creating reptilian habitats.
My favourite time of year was the summer going into fourth grade. My mum got up really early to buy some skirt steak for making Carne Asada, and it was really bright and sunny that I could hear the notes of my synaesthetic perceptions ringing in my head, as they related to the colours I was supposedly seeing. It was around C3 as the drone, with the notes of G4 and G#4 in alternating sequence. In fact, later that year, I heard the perfect theme song that closely matched with the different sounds I associated with various appliances! It was the NBC Nightly Business Report opening theme song on PBS.
As I entered fourth grade, my mobility teacher sometimes took me to various stores where I and a few other blind students got to check out various aisles, such as the toys and electronics section. The kitchen and home appliances were the ones that immediately got my attention. I remember asking how people made ice cream, and someone told me that you needed an ice cream maker to do that. So, whenever I went to Goodwill, I always looked for any unusual contraptions. I soon found something that was most likely what I was looking for. It was a large plastic bucket with a metallic cylindrical bowl with a paddle in it, which was attached to a machine that held it in place. This was the most basic type of making soft-served ice cream, as it relied on the temperature of crushed ice and salt to make it really cold. I also kept a lookout for any centrifugal juice extractors, as the one we used to have stopped working. Also, when we lived in the apartment complex, I marvelled over the shiny and sleek rubbish disposal units they had beneath some of our neighbours’ sync. Unfortunately, ours didn’t have one, and they wouldn’t put one in for me and my brother’s safety. They did let me figure out how to assemble one, though; it reminded me of the time I checked out a food processor! In fact, I enjoyed taking apart things that no longer worked to see how they worked. I once discovered a toy that didn’t need batteries to operate, yet it could still talk. That’s how I later learnt about the gramophone and phonograph. When I was little, I sometimes used the chord organ to mimic the sounds of appliances, like the motor of the coffee grinder. My speech pathologist also showed me how to use a steamer to make apple sauce.
Since my family and I constantly moved and never changed schools, I ended up riding the special-ed bus, which meant that there was an assistant on board in addition to the driver. Anyhow, she told me that for Christmas, she got a wood pellet stove. I didn’t know what that was, of course, but one morning, she brought some of the pellets, which felt like the broad shaft of a pencil, but obviously much shorter. I later learnt that they were poured into a hopper that fed a small amount at a time into the burn chamber using a spiral-shaped auger. One of my favourite PVS kids shows that year was Zoom. I found it fascinating when the kids were in the middle of mixing or blending something, and then it suddenly faded out–I didn’t know how they did that until I later learnt about audio editing! I also remember being obsessed with how fish tanks worked whenever we went to Petco, as well, and I usually found one at Goodwill. My dad finally brought one over, and I was fascinated by how a metal piece vibrated the closer you moved it to the pump, so I figured that it must’ve used some kind of magnetic induction.
One afternoon, when I went to visit my school’s library, I happened to overhear a grinding and whirring sound at around 415 hertz. I asked the librarian what it was, who said that it was a laminator. Of course, I asked to feel it, but they told me that it was unfortunately very hot, and that I’d have to wait until it was cool for me to look at it. I never did, that is, until sometime in 2018 when I visited a FedEx printing centre!
Whenever my mother and I went out in late October or early November, like in the evening, and it was pouring outside, I imagined the sounds of red and purple, as well as yellow and green, based on the sequence of G4, C5, Bb4, F5, and E5 on the piano. My mother had then gotten a new Oster liquidiser, which I enjoyed playing with. She also got an analogue microwave oven that used dials instead of an overlay with buttons underneath the screen. We later ended up using a liquidiser to mix a milkshake at the training centre. Are mobility teachers were having us learn how to organise grocery shopping lists to show to our personal shoppers, so that we would buy the right ingredients for the recipe we would be making that week without having to make too many turnarounds from one aisle to the next. I never learnt to identify aisles based on their letter and number combination, and my Spanish-speaking mother must not have been aware of this as well, for whenever I asked her to take me to a specific part of the store, she always took a long time trying to get to it based on what each aisle contained. We also made birdhouses in their woodworking shop, as well.
In fifth grade, my mobility teacher once took me to a place called Kitchen Kaboodle to buy extra stuff for making an Apple Strudel, so they needed something that could turn apples and make them into round slices.
When it was nice and sunny, I sometimes heard a truck pull up during recess, usually after lunchtime, and I went over to investigate what was going on. After going to the corner of the boiler room almost every day and listening intently, I came to the conclusion that someone was using a ramp to load or unload something from it. I only knew this because I’ve ridden in busses and vans with powered lifts to raise and lower wheelchairs, and they had the same kind of whirring sound to them. Eight years later, during an unexpected encounter at my high school, I met the driver of the truck who remembered how I had always hung out when they were unloading the milk for the school’s cafeteria!
One Saturday evening in September or October of 2005, my mother took me to see a friend of hers that she had previously met at Even Head Start, and I wandered into the kitchen in hopes of finding a milkshake mixer, for that was what I had been obsessed with at the time. I’m not sure if I thought that an ice cream machine and a milkshake machine were the same, or if they were different. But sure enough, I found something that resembled a mixing head with a slender spindle with a bunch of ridges on the bottom, which was placed inside a stainless steel cup. Many years later, I finally got to order my very own, and I learnt that swirling it around and pumping it up and down while the spindle spun made the shake very nice and frothy, and, what’s more, it was almost exactly like the ones you’d find in small diners and shake shacks, too! I later realised that there were differences in soft-served ice cream machines and batch freezers, shake or frozen Slushie machines as well, some of which could actually be installed in an ice cream van or mobile stall. They usually had a water storage container, a couple of syrup lines, and a carbonation tank, plus the usual assortment of compressor parts. I’m not sure if this system dispenses any flavours as it mixes the base, but nevertheless I got to use one at a convenient store nearby! The cup was actually mounted on a pre-cooled cup holder, which then rose up into the unit.
One Sunday evening in late July or early August at the end of sixth grade, my mother took me to church, and, being bored, I wandered up the balcony steps to see what I could find. I found a big wooden table with lots of tubular things coming out of it. Four years later, I figured out that it was a pipe organ, and even later, I finally got a chance to play it!
When I entered seventh grade, I really wanted to take home economics, which was sort of like the sighted version of daily or independent living skills, but of course, there were major liability concerns, plus there wasn’t a dedicated assistant who was trained or who specialised in that kind of area, although usually teachers of the visually impaired are more likely to be familiar with these things. But maybe not. Some vision teachers also have training in orientation and mobility, and it was usually they who taught independent living skills. I was also really looking forward to learning how to make projects at the school’s wood shop, but again, that always came to naught. Fortunately, I got to take a woodworking class at the centre, which was mostly designed to help people overcome fears about approaching and using dangerous machinery with no vision as opposed to actually developing skills to be a cabinet maker. They later switched gears and started teaching home improvement classes, though. For similar reasons, I was not able to fully participate in science lab experiments, so I ended up having to read about how things worked, like making dry ice in a cold chamber, which I got to feel when someone showed me inside their ice cream van.
At the end of eighth grade, our school went on a grocery-shopping field trip. For whatever reason, though, I stayed on the bus while everyone made their purchases. I remember my homeroom teacher telling us about how to make our informed decisions based on the brand of the product or their generic names. I think what they were trying to say was that certain products were more widely known than others because of advertisements, commercials, and billboards, versus lesser-known brands that people might not actually know about. I realised that since I came from a family that only spoke Spanish, no one ever bothered telling me what brands of products we were purchasing, so that if someone asked me, what brand of chicken nuggets do you prefer? I’d shrug and look confused. At the same time, though, they might have said, ‘Well, why didn’t you ask?’ Logically, this makes sense. One of the elements of the acquisition of knowledge is through enquiry. The other being life experiences, social customs and traditions, and more. But how do you know what to ask for if you have nothing to start with? Once I later made that discovery, though, I always made sure my mother told me what brand it was. But when technology had advanced, I got to use services like Aira, Be My Eyes, and Seeing AI to learn about my favourite products! Somehow, not having this knowledge made me feel self-conscious, as if it were somehow my fault for being ignorant about things like that. I had also felt like one of my blind relatives were more ahead of me in that area, probably because they had better hearing, and because they were an only child, so they didn’t often have to compete for attention. They could even identify the brand of product based on how it was packaged, and I eventually learnt to do this as well. Once, when I posted a status update on Facebook about how I had finally found the mysterious toy with an electric cord (I always thought that was strange) to be an Easy Bake Oven by Hasbro, people were, like, ‘Oh, those have been around for a long time.’ Well, duh! How was I supposed to know that? Of course I knew they have been around for a long time! Hadn’t I just mentioned seeing one a long time ago? I just happened to finally find out what they were called.
As previously mentioned, I became obsessed with propane grills when I learnt that some grills came with a built-in piezoelectric igniter, and someone at the camp showed me how to light the gas using a long lighter that was shaped like a gun. My assistant track coach later told me that I was probably a pyromaniac, although I got full satisfaction of turning it on even though I didn’t actually light the grill that time when we went to the outdoor café the school sometimes let the students run during the spring. Anyhow, I think he was probably joking, but I am not sure. My mother also showed me how to strike a match, and I was elated at having discovered how to hold them so that the flame wouldn’t rise up and touch my skin, for, if you’ll remember, I was always skittish around being too close to hot things! So, even up to this day, I prefer to use long lighters.
At the start of my first-year division of high school, I finally, finally got to take a cooking class, but my specialised teachers and school teacher had to make a compromise about it. The school would only allow me to be in it if I had a dedicated assistant, either from the school or from the regional service provider to help me out. They immediately helped me label the measuring cups and spoons and started using canisters with Braille stickers. It was a good thing our kitchen was always organised. We knew what every single drawer and cabinet was used for. I thought it was a shame our kitchen couldn’t be organised like that. So, one night, I did just that. I organised our kitchen the way we had it set up at school. But then it went back to how it was before, since my mum just randomly put things wherever she felt like it. I also thought it would help my older brother, who is DeafBlind, since if he knew where everything was, he would know where to go to and therefore wouldn’t’ continue making messes in the kitchen every night! That would have really helped my mum a lot, but oh well.
I even bought my own set of measuring cups and spoons, as well as a pastry cutter. And in school, we used a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer to mix almost all of our ingredients, while I got to use a hand mixer at home. I got to check out a commercial proofer, which was simply a warm metal cupboard with lots of shelves. And later that school year, I got my first bread maker and got to make some wonderful loaves with it!
A short while later, I read that places like McDonalds and Burger King used a deep fryer to cook their potato chips, also known as French Fries, so I thought about getting one. In my sophomore year, I got a wonderful opportunity to check out every commercial appliance being used to manufacture faerrie floss, snow cones, and popcorn! And how did that all come about? Our school put on a field day a week or two before the start of summer vacation, or just a week before the seniors graduated. It turned out that the cotton candy machines had a bubble-shaped dome with a square-shaped hole cut into it, which reminded me of some of those rubbish containers where you push a spring-loaded panel to toss your things inside. Anyhow, my teacher of the visually-impaired simply asked the person operating it if I could feel how everything was done, and I got to feel how they swirled a cone around in an anticlockwise direction around the spinning head in a body that felt like a wheelbarrow! By the way, when I had one of those talking Franklyn Language Masters, I happened to be researching cotton and candy one day, and the phrase Spinning Jenny stuck with me ever since. I don’t remember much about the snow cone machine, except that they either put pre-made ice cubes into the machine, or maybe it drew water into a reservoir, froze it, and then crushed it into ice shavings, dispensing the syrup at the same time. According to what I read on a rental party store, they’re built very similar to the popcorn cabinet machines. The shaved ice simply comes out of a chute into an insulated box down below. The bounce houses were powered by a high-powered blower that was kept running consistently. I also got to feel how a dunk tank worked.
When I was taking gourmet foods, I got to learn about how various cultures prepared various dishes, including pasta, rice, salads, drinks, and, towards the end of second semester, cake decoration. I got to use real cake-decorating tips, parchment paper, or maybe it was a pouch, a flower nail for making roses, and a turntable to place the cake on. I also learnt how to cut the bottom off the cake with a fishing line or dental floss. But we began with making soft pretzels and tarts. The class I took the previous year was mostly focused on food and nutrition, as well as emphasis on food safety, the temperature danger zone, food storage, cross contamination, first aid, and fire prevention. And yes, we were all quizzed on this stuff. In fact, having this prior knowledge was what had allowed me to take my food handler’s certification exam without having to study!
In June of 2010, I attended a six-week summer paid internship opportunity, which helped blind students gain financial independence as well as a chance to develop career interests and learn independent living skills. Since my job interests were not yet fully developed, I ended up working at a hospital kitchen in the food services department. Unfortunately, it was mostly pretty boring, as the primary duties were very basic, like lining trays, capping cups of sour cream, wrapping silverware, as well as sorting them and cleaning carts. Of course, back then I didn’t question it at all. I just went with the flow. But looking back, I thought it would’ve been a great opportunity for me to learn how to use a soft-served ice cream machine, a soda fountain, a Slushie dispenser, etc, or making espresso. The only thing I liked about working in a hospital was, since I had begun reading books about teens dealing with cancer or other chronic illnesses, mostly written by Lurlene McDaniel, that I was surrounded by medical equipment that I wish more were accessible to use by a blind person.
After I had left, I had enough money to buy my very first order on Amazon, and I was on my way to exploring new ventures! I got the deep fryer, which my mum said used a lot of oil, most of which had to be reused, so as not to waste it. So, whenever she used it for making Spanish rice, it’d always have that smell of potato chips.
In my junior year, I finally got a chance to learn how to use some laboratory equipment in my chemistry class, such as an autoclave and a water distiller. Speaking of which, I got to attend some blindness-related science and programming camps where I got to use an Optacon, which uses a series of black and white photosensors to create a set of vibrating shapes underneath your finger. I also felt a thermoform machine that uses heat and a vacuum to mould a plastic sheet of paper around a template. A similar machine is the PIAF Machine.
You might’ve probably thought about how, at this age, when kids turn sixteen, they can immediately start driving and start holding a job after school and on weekends, usually working at a petrol service station, a fast-food joint, or maybe doing cashier work in a store, etc. Because over seventy percent of us blind folx are often unemployed or underemployed, I, of course, never got to do any of those things. And now that I am reflecting on this, I often think, How can I ever make up those deficiencies that other kids my age have probably took for granted? And now, I’m hoping that by getting a job doing food production or food-service would not only allow me to better understand how machines work, but also refine my prep and cooking skills, as well!
Not much of interest happened in the months that followed, but one thing that intrigued me was how my mobility teacher encouraged me and another student to feel how an automatic helium balloon dispensing kiosk that we found worked. And then that’s when my fascinations with amusement rides began. Before, I was scared of going on rides that looped the loop and other things, lest my hearing aids fall out, but I soon realised that in most cases, they were securely held in place. Plus, the rides usually went upside down for no more than a second, and I barely registered the sensation of going upside down! I felt like I had celebrated a major milestone, and I got an even bigger reward when I met a former space shuttle astronaut who walked us through the entire experience of going into the orbiter, like launching, docking, undocking, and landing, as well as what they did when they were in the actual space station! I always wanted to hear, from the inside point of view, what each event sounded like, so it was unfortunate that they hardly had any stereo recordings of their space journey in a capsule or shuttle. Plus, he even told us that with the absence of gravity, you hardly know where your body is positioned in space! That’s because our vestibular and proprioceptive senses rely on gravity.
Oh yeah! Every two years, my school held a mach car accident demonstration to show prospective prom goers the dangers and consequences of drunk-driving, now called distracted driving. Since I had always liked flying and going on thrilling rides, I really enjoyed the idea of having a Life Flight helicopter very nearby. Later, I got to ride in a Robinson R22 helicopter myself!
When I participated in more school activities, especially those that involved the outdoors, I was sometimes attracted by the aromas that wafted from the concession stand, and I wondered what things they were doing there. Towards the end of my school career in 2012, my teacher’s aide showed me the popcorn cabinet, since it was cool and not being used. All I had to do was scoop it out and sprinkle some seasoning into the bag. They had it in one of the classrooms because the teacher, who sometimes taught students with learning disabilities, often used it. Some of my other favourite activities I enjoyed doing was operating the 32-channel mixing board in our auditorium and designing sound effects for The Wizard of Oz, a senior spotlight, and Misalliance. I briefly took part in a robotics club, which wasn’t very accessible since it primarily used a graphical interface rather than a text-based programming environment. That’s when I learnt how to use a CNC milling machine to automate the process of building something, almost like three-D printing.
I learnt later that year that I’d be going to attend a ten-month transitional programme where I’d get to do a lot more cooking, baking, mixing, and blending, as well as doing chores daily or weekly. That’s where I got to learn how to tune pianos, and I learnt, quite indirectly, that the school sometimes taught students real story math problems by actually engaging them in starting a business, like roasting coffee and distributing the beans! So, by the end of the programme, in 2013, I had not only developed a liking for soda, which I had always disliked because of its stinging sensation from the carbonic acid, but I had also come to appreciate coffee and tea, after someone gave me some silk iced latte for me to try. Seeing how obsessed I was with using a Keurig brewer, the programme director generously offered me a Hamilton Beach thermal carafe coffee maker as a graduation present! Even up to this day, I continue to use it from time to time. But I am glad to say that I finally found a Keurig 1.0 brewer at Goodwill! Still, it was unfortunate that I had to find out the hard way that drinking coffee on an empty stomach was not the best idea ever… I nearly died several times! I couldn’t even finish the coffee slurp and taste event I was given an opportunity for me to attend.
Also, when I first registered to vote, I learnt that people sometimes used an accessible voting machine. I’ve always wanted to learn how to use one, but that has still yet to happen.
In early 2014, I thought about branching out from the food preparation industry when I was looking for a commercial electrolysis or laser hair removal system that was portable for me to use at home, but I learnt that many of them came from disreputable companies, so I learnt my lesson. Still, why does at-home equipment always has to be of such poor quality when you could get commercial or studio equipment that really works?
Shortly thereafter, I went to a store called Fries Electronics, which unfortunately doesn’t exist anymore. When they told me that they had various kitchen appliances on display, I was super ecstatic. It was rare to find physical products that weren’t inside a box! Sighted people could get a lot of satisfaction of just going through still images or watching live videos, but unfortunately, that doesn’t work for blind people, which also has the added risk of hurting yourself if you’re not careful, and there are sharp blades to look out for. The guy there even called me an appliance freak. Still, that didn’t stop me from learning about the SodaStream or the Precision Induction Cooktop, which I heard about a long time ago in September of 2003. Supposedly, the heat was generated by a resonant magnet and radio waves, which only heated up metal things like pots and pans. I also came across several coffee pots with portafilters by De’Longhi, pots with single-serve pod compartments by Ninja, and still even more with steam wands and milk-frothing capabilities by Hamilton Beach and Mr. Coffee. But my favourite was the Nespresso Vertuo line, which operated sort of like a CD rom drive, especially because it opened and closed with an electric mechanism, and because it spun the rim of the pod-shaped capsule to scan the barcode.
My mum was fascinated with some of the snow cone ice shaver machines in 2015, so we got a Hamilton Beach manual-style one, which was later replaced by an electric one. She ended up getting a few more machines for her friends and relatives, like one made by Nostalgia, or one that recently got discontinued, which had two onboard syrup pumping compartments. On the same note, I thought about learning how to make snow ice cream, using real fresh snow from the sky, as long as it wasn’t contaminated from the ground.
I briefly thought of going into woodworking in 2016 when I took an extensive woodworking class at the Centre, but my obsession soon wore off because I had to concentrate on getting better following my traumatic experience in Arizona! That wasn’t my only trip, though, for I had gone to San Francisco, and then to Denver. During one of those trips, I asked if I could go into the full body scan backscatter x-ray booth at one of the airports so I could possibly implement the layout in any of my future manuscripts, and that was quite interesting indeed! There were two semicircular walls with an opening on either side. Both of them had a transparent covering, and from what I read, there were two rollers that rapidly spun around you within half a second to capture your entire body, but only a generic figure would be displayed on screen. I thought it might be useful in a medical setting, though. Still, I didn’t want to miss anything, so I did my best to stay active, even if I had to stay at home most of the time and be bedridden. Unfortunately, I did miss an opportunity to job shadow a blind DJ, or an amusement park ride operator, though. I even took a break from one of my favourite hobbies, which is flying in gliders and sky-diving. Just before going to my third trip that ended disastrously, I managed to get a helicopter ride, which the founders had later written about on their social media channels! Here is a quote from them.
‘Do something amazing,’ is a phrase we use at Oregon Helicopters because for most people, it is pretty amazing to get to fly in a helicopter. Today we were amazed.
Harmony arrived at our hangar early for the helicopter ride they had scheduled. Before the flight, they showed a keen interest in the aircraft we have in our maintenance shop.
They knew the technical names for the various parts of the planes. They knew the aerodynamic principles of helicopter flight.
Running their fingers lightly over the helicopter, they asked a lot of questions and listened intently to the answers we gave.
After the ride, which was their first in a helicopter, they described helicopter flight as a swinging sensation.
While waiting for the cab they had called, they described some of their other plane rides to us and told us about their experiences skydiving – ‘it feels like being pushed backwards more than falling”.’
The cab arrived, and we escorted them outside, warning of the step down out of the building. They asked if it was the side entrance to our hangar. It was.
Thanking us on parting, Harmony said THAT they would like to fly in the helicopter again and hoped to bring some of their family next time.
And so concluded our time with our first blind passenger. Besides being completely blind, they are also hard-of-hearing.
They had called and scheduled the ride themself, coordinated travel across town to get to us, and gone flying in a helicopter they could feel but not see.
Many people who fly in a helicopter with us have to challenge themselves to go a little outside their comfort zone. Invariably, they are all exhilarated for having done it.
Any one of the steps necessary to achieve what Harmony did today would have been well outside our comfort zone. And yet, they made it happen seemingly with ease.
Perhaps they have long since left even the concept of “comfort zone” behind and is the freer for it.
Today we witnessed someone making happen what interests them.
It was amazing.
In late 2017, though, I started taking ceramics classes, with a wheel-throwing class in 2019, as well as a pro-audio course. I briefly picked up sewing, knitting, and crocheting in early 2018, but I soon ran into financial issues, and I had to pawn and sell as many things as I could. I was able to afford getting my first ham radio licence, but I wasn’t able to follow through some of the things I wanted to get, such as a generator for emergency operations or an HF radio rig.
My former vision teacher, whom I’m still friends with, once took me out bowling, and I casually mentioned about wanting to feel what things were going on behind the scenes by exploring a lane that wasn’t being used, so that there’d be no risk of getting anything caught by moving parts. In fact, my mobility teacher asked the manager at the bowling alley to give our group a brief tour, so they took us to the very back, where I heard a loud whirring sound at around 100 Hertz and lots of hissing from the fans, and they showed us the pins that were being used.
When I began ordering from places like McDonald’s and Burger King more frequently through UberEats, I sometimes encountered a problem where their soft-serve machines for making shakes and ice creams had stopped working. I later found out this year that this problem has gotten worse that it created so much public attention from the #RightToRepair group that the Federal Trade Commission was going to start looking into it! That’s how I heard about Charles Taylor. The ones that McDonalds uses has a hopper with a refrigerator and agitator to keep the base mix cool and fresh, while the smaller ones don’t. They also have complex menus, which suggests that they might be using a Unix or modified Windows or Mac OS with a simplified graphical interface. A third-party company therefore invented a Raspberry Pi-based system that could potentially solve the problem caused by the automated heating cycle used to disinfect the sauce wells, cylinders, and syrup lines. I even found a manual that guided you through the entire setup process.
I think that about covers my fascination with these machines, and it is my biggest hope and dream that, thanks to help from CASA of Oregon and the IDA programme, the business classes I’ll be taking to refine my business plan that I had already drafted, and anything that might be left over will hopefully be put on a credit tradeline account with a low interest rate after several years of responsible credit use! With help from SCORE and North Star, I would possibly like to consider starting a coffee stall or mobile concession unit, or possibly find a second person to help me manage a food truck. I was also able to visit a party rental supply store and got to make popcorn totally on my own, and I also got to visit a food cart manufacturer, as well!
UPDATE: Well, well, well, this just keeps getting better and better! Why, I was kindly given an opportunity for me to develop and use my barista skills at a Recovery Cafe that had hopened up about a year ago!
In fact, the vocational rehabilitation agency I’ve been working with told me about the Randolf Sheppard Vending Facility Act, and I thought I could also do accessibility testing and research to make these machines more accessible to the blind and DeafBlind! Hopefully when I get out of debt I’ll be able to afford to be a little more extravagant, for everyone deserves to splurge a little and have some fun.