Happy belated birthday, Julianka!  Many many happy returns of the day to you!

And by the way, all public events are required under ADA to be accessible. I really want to go to the Fest the next time it is in California, so those of us who need accommodation (I am in a power chair and on a ventilator)should get moving on making sure the changes happen the next time.

Funny thing, I'm used to advocating for the deaf.  I have deaf parents and used to be a sign language interpreter.  Now I need to get used to advocating for my husband and me.  

About the ADA:  Wow, that's right--I'd forgotten that after nearly 10 years of not interpreting anymore!  *All* public functions must be accessible to all.  Many times I'd be hired to go to a town meeting or school board or community event just in case deaf people showed up.  The deaf people didn't have to ask ahead of time.  

It should be that way for all of us but I think at the very least the Fest committee could find out from us if/what accommodations we need.  It *is* the law.

Thanks, Gerard.  I thought that the organizers used to do a better job with this but I wasn't having physical problems in 2001 (last time I attended) so maybe I'm wrong...or things have really changed!     You're right about the admission.  I hadn't thought to ask for it back but it was a two hour drive for us one way...

Hi you guys,

I haven't posted in a long long time but have been lurking and keeping up with DS news and the daily episodes you guys are doing.  

My husband and I went to the Fest on Saturday.  I mostly wanted to see friends, hear the presentation on time travel, and then enjoy watching Jonathan Frid and the cast reunion.  

The last time I went to a Fest was in 2001.  If I'm not crazy, I seem to remember that there were volunteers to help meet the needs of disabled fans.  Am I nuts or did that happen?  Well, anyway, my DH and I both have spine issues now and both of us need surgery.  We are still ambulatory but can't stand for more than a few minutes at a time.

Anyway, I saw some of my friends and that was wonderful.  Both my hubby and I totally enjoyed the time travel presentation.  We left our seats (in the back) and went to get lunch and visit the merchandise room.  We got back around 2.  I knew the room would be crowded because of Frid and then the reunion.  But what I didn't figure on was that there wouldn't be a single seat left, not even way in the back, last row.  People are standing up all over, packing in like sardines.  People in wheelchairs aren't in the front, like I thought they'd be, they're all over.  Some people in the chairs are asking the standees to please move because they can't see.  There's also no volunteers around.

Hubs and I went from back up to the front searching for friends.  There's lots of chairs empty except for purses or programs—you know “saved for others” seats.  There's also a bunch of “reserved for Marcy” seats, most are empty.  One of my friends tells me, if Marcy's volunteers all don't show up, maybe we could sit there.  So Ted and I sit.  A woman (a volunteer I recognized from before) leans over right off and says, “You can't sit here.”

I say, “My husband and I are disabled in that we can't stand.  Can we sit here and see if all the volunteers show up?”

She goes, “Well, then they'd be for the stars.”

About she also didn't say, listen, let's go find two chairs for you.  I don't care if we sat in the back of the room up against the back wall.  All we needed was to sit down.  But she said nothing.

Ted and I went back out to the table where people had originally registered us.  I thought, okay, maybe on the original online form there’d been a place to indicate you needed accommodation as a disabled person.  So I asked the one guy.  He didn’t know, referred me over to Anne.  So I asked Anne the same question.  She didn’t answer my question but she did say, “You need to find a volunteer and tell them you need to have a seat.”

I said the only volunteers I’d seen were sitting down in the front and there weren’t any chairs in there.  Anne goes, “Well, I don’t know what to tell you.”

Guys, I was shocked.  She repeated herself, like maybe I was deaf.  

So my husband and I left.  We didn’t see Jonathan Frid nor the cast reunion.  We’d driven over two hours to spend the day and had spend only three hours there. I mean, I might have been able to manage sitting on the floor but not my husband.  There was no point in staying.

I looked on the registration form at the website today and I’m seeing that there IS no place to indicate a person is in a wheelchair/needs a chair/needs any accommodation.  ?? ??

I figured I would write to Jim Pierson or whoever’s in charge of the Fest now and suggest they add that to the form.  Then wouldn’t they consider having a place set aside for people who need it?  You know what else?  There *are* deaf fans of DS out there because they can get captioned versions of it now…but deaf people sure can’t come if there’s no interpreters and no way to request them, right?

I did enjoy spending time with my friends, though.  That part was good.

(to make up for my silly-ass mood I'll try to make you a copy if you like)

That would be so cool, thanks!  

   Wow, beautiful job, DStoDA.  You have a lot of talent! 

Connie,

I see my MIL struggling with Lyme disease.  She has some really bad spells.  I'm sorry you're suffering with it.     I hope the antibiotics work and that you're in the "gets worse before it gets better" stage.  Most important thing:  take care of you.  I'm sure everyone understands why you can't post or IM now.

BTW, that is a great picture of DS 

Cassie

I have a question about Firefox Mozilla.  I dl'd it and gave it a try so I could avoid using IE.  I set Mozilla as my default browser but when I tried to install the google toolbar, it wasn't loading onto Mozilla, it was going to IE!  Another problem I have is that some of the webpages are designed to go with IE ... I mean, this is hard to explain.  Some of the pages look screwed up on Mozilla.  Got any advice?  How can I get around that?

thank you,
Cassie