OT: White stick

"elyob" wrote ...

Quoted message said:

Man, that was hard work. Was walking a friend home tonight. He's
registered blind. He says "take my white stick, close your eyes, pretend
it's your [censored], try and walk the route".

Sure, I'm up for it. I'll admit to cheating 3 times, taking bloody ages,
and walking out on three roads. If that's not the hardest thing ever ..
just give me something easier.

Meanwhile, he called me back, as I wandered up the centre of a
neighbouring road ... he knew where he was, where I was, and I was
probably about to be run over. He did say that he often walks into
people's gardens, so I suppose practice makes perfect. But it was probably
one of the toughest challenges I've had in life.

Around 1990 I recall meeting two guides from Jackson Hole Mountain Guides
who were guiding two blind men up Middle Teton. Just watching one of the
guides talk one of the clients through the boulder field at the entrance to
Garnet Canyon was awe inspiring.
--
mark

elyob said:

Man, that was hard work. Was walking a friend home tonight. He's registered
blind. He says "take my white stick, close your eyes, pretend it's your
[censored], try and walk the route".

Unfair. He had practice, you don't.

ObTopic: I half-heard someone on radio recently talking of an organised
club for blind cyclists riding tandem with volunteer pilots. Sounds
potentially like normal club rides with added goodness. Anyone here
familiar with these things?

Aside: we really should teach children braille as standard in primary
schools. Most of them will never need it and will forget it. But for
those who do need it many years on, it'll be so much easier to
re-learn a childhood skill than to acquire it from scratch at a
less-receptive time of life and in the throes of a major crisis.

--
not me guv

Quoted message said:

Aside: we really should teach children braille as standard in primary
schools. Most of them will never need it and will forget it. But for
those who do need it many years on, it'll be so much easier to
re-learn a childhood skill than to acquire it from scratch at a
less-receptive time of life and in the throes of a major crisis.

Lets master the teaching of literacy and numeracy first. There's still some
way to go. :-)

"Nick Kew" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

elyob said:

Man, that was hard work. Was walking a friend home tonight. He's
registered blind. He says "take my white stick, close your eyes, pretend
it's your [censored], try and walk the route".

Unfair. He had practice, you don't.

I'm aware that I was thrown in the deep end, it wasn't really a huge test
and he's far less proficiant than you'd have thought. He's only been blind
for a year or two so had to learn this skill himself. The five pints we had
had before certainly didn't help either!

Quoted message said:

ObTopic: I half-heard someone on radio recently talking of an organised
club for blind cyclists riding tandem with volunteer pilots. Sounds
potentially like normal club rides with added goodness. Anyone here
familiar with these things?

I've been trying to find a tandem so I can take this guy out next summer.
Any details on this club would be appreciated.

Quoted message said:

Aside: we really should teach children braille as standard in primary
schools. Most of them will never need it and will forget it. But for
those who do need it many years on, it'll be so much easier to
re-learn a childhood skill than to acquire it from scratch at a
less-receptive time of life and in the throes of a major crisis.

This guy doesn't know braille, but with all the talking books and computer
readers etc, is this such a requirement? Certainly he browses the internet
regularly.

elyob wrote on Thursday 22 December 2005 12:38:

Quoted message said:

I've been trying to find a tandem so I can take this guy out next
summer. Any details on this club would be appreciated.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/ram/2005_51_wed_04.ram
--
Regards
Alex
The From address above is a spam-trap.
The Reply-To address is valid

"Alex Potter" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

elyob wrote on Thursday 22 December 2005 12:38:

Quoted message said:

I've been trying to find a tandem so I can take this guy out next
summer. Any details on this club would be appreciated.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/ram/2005_51_wed_04.ram

Thanks Alex.

Nick Kew said:

ObTopic: I half-heard someone on radio recently talking of an
organised club for blind cyclists riding tandem with volunteer
pilots. Sounds potentially like normal club rides with added
goodness. Anyone here familiar with these things?

It must be about ten years ago (or perhaps even more) that I went out as a
voluteer pilot with Harborne Cycle Surgery (Part of the QA College (for
peeps wot can't see))

I don't know if they still do it
--
Cheerful Pedalling
John Mallard

sorry, I meant to add the url
http://www.qac.ac.uk/enterprises/cycle.html

Hey! Look mum! I'm Top Posting!
;-)

Quoted message said:

It must be about ten years ago (or perhaps even more) that I went out
as a voluteer pilot with Harborne Cycle Surgery (Part of the QA
College (for peeps wot can't see))

I don't know if they still do it

--
Cheerful Pedalling
John Mallard

vernon levy said:

Quoted message said:

Aside: we really should teach children braille as standard in primary
schools. Most of them will never need it and will forget it. But for
those who do need it many years on, it'll be so much easier to
re-learn a childhood skill than to acquire it from scratch at a
less-receptive time of life and in the throes of a major crisis.

Quoted message said:

Lets master the teaching of literacy and numeracy first. There's still some
way to go. :-)

One of the old and IMHO serious problems with our education system,
where "our" seems to apply to at least all of the Anglophone nations,
is that we let bright kids sit around bored out of their skulls while
we try to coax the idiots and disiclined to catch up. IMHO it's far
more of a waste, socially speaking, to let a bright kid go to waste
than a stupid one.

--
Chris Malcolm [email hidden] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

elyob said:

"Nick Kew" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Aside: we really should teach children braille as standard in primary
schools. Most of them will never need it and will forget it. But for
those who do need it many years on, it'll be so much easier to
re-learn a childhood skill than to acquire it from scratch at a
less-receptive time of life and in the throes of a major crisis.

Quoted message said:

This guy doesn't know braille, but with all the talking books and computer
readers etc, is this such a requirement? Certainly he browses the internet
regularly.

Several months ago I was pleased to see that someone had added to the
public notice explaining a local monument a braille panel so that
blind people could read about it too. If they stood on a chair. The
public notice was mounted high up on poles. The braille version was
fastened to the bottom of it. I'm only a little under average male
height, but I couldn't even reach the bottom edge of it.

--
Chris Malcolm [email hidden] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 09:50:41 +0000, Nick Kew
<[email hidden]> said in
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

ObTopic: I half-heard someone on radio recently talking of an organised
club for blind cyclists riding tandem with volunteer pilots. Sounds
potentially like normal club rides with added goodness. Anyone here
familiar with these things?

I know two brother, both of whom are registered blind, who ride
tandem. The one who can (probably) see a barn door at five paces
pilots. And Bob, the bike mechanic and Pride of Reading (hurrah!)
also has a tandem which is piloted by volunteers from the local CTC.

Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken

Just zis Guy said:

I know two brother, both of whom are registered blind, who ride
tandem. The one who can (probably) see a barn door at five paces
pilots. And Bob, the bike mechanic and Pride of Reading (hurrah!)
also has a tandem which is piloted by volunteers from the local CTC.

There's an elderly guy (with small g) I've ridden with with Cambridge
CTC who has ARMD which is quite common in the elderly and gives you
decreasing central vision. Normally he would only do left turns with
often longish detours as a result because his vision didn't allow him to
make right turns safely. On the CTC rides we would shepherd him round
the right turns. He cycled something like 6000 miles a year at an age
well into his eighties.

--
Tony

"The best way I know of to win an argument is to start by being in the
right."
- Lord Hailsham

Chris Malcolm said:

Several months ago I was pleased to see that someone had added to the
public notice explaining a local monument a braille panel so that
blind people could read about it too. If they stood on a chair. The
public notice was mounted high up on poles. The braille version was
fastened to the bottom of it. I'm only a little under average male
height, but I couldn't even reach the bottom edge of it.

Ohh.. do tell where this is..

...d