Hi! Happy wet Sunday! I was just out in the rain doing cane practice with the O&M guy. I had a lesson in climbing stairs, too. Remember to find the edges of the steps and check for the depths of the stairs. If you Google cane travel on stairs you will find several different videos.
One more time: I have not viewed these. I would not know the good ones even if I had. It is up to you to be the savvy consumer of the information. If you decide to use the skills from one or more of the videos please get someone to also watch it and to go with you a few times. We only have 82 subscribers and we don’t want you breaking your necks!
OK. Enough for the public service/CYA (Cover Your Ass) announcement.
Monoculars: we compared my little $20 one from Amazon to the O&M guy’s $600 one and there was not a lot of difference in quality of what you are seeing, whatever that is called, view? Mine is fixed magnification, 7x.
That may be a problem for some people but the more options, bells and whistles and geegaws the more confusing it is; yes? We are trying to eliminate confusing.
Monoculars are not only good for bird watching like I want to do but they are also good for orientation. The O&M guy said I could use it to locate the street signs so I can walk towards them. Once a little closer I could use my monocular to actually read the signs. Maybe even figure out where I am. Yippee!
Oh, the one I have is from RoXant. $19.95 on Amazon. It is teeny tiny and you can wear it on a cord (provided) with everything else that seems to be hanging around your neck since you started to lose your vision.
Man! It is really raining!
Oh, OK. Mindful of what I am doing here, I also want to mention a couple of other O&M things. First if all is the Trekker Breeze +. It is from Humanware and is $800 but if it is as cool as the O&M guy says, it may be on my Christmas list. One of his other clients has the Trekker Breeze+. He really likes it. The Trekker Breeze + webpage says it has a GPS and verbally announces names of streets, intersections and landmarks as you walk. It also can tell you what is in the local area. The Trekker Breeze + would appear to be good for finding your way around in unfamiliar territory.
A couple more things and this page will be long enough. First thing: in orientation use landmarks; don’t count steps. If you are on your way to the neighbor’s house, know you have to cross the broad driveway, go to the bank of mailboxes and turn right, for example. Landmarks are generally always there. Cues are useful but not always there. A cue would be a yappy dog.
Second thing is coastlining. Coastlining is hugging the side of the road when you walk. That way your cane can let you know where all those landmarks you are supposed to be paying attention to are.
OK. Back to you later….it is really raining.
Written 8/21/2016