Hope's Notes

  • hope everyone is having a happy Thanksgiving! Today, my plans are to go to my Aunt and uncle’s. My Uncle is the chef of our family, so he’ll be doing most of the cooking. I made cookies yesterday with my caregiver to bring over there.

  • Yesterday I went to the state’s aging and people with disabilities office to file my appeal. We were there for quite a while. The lady at the desk was very helpful, she got the form submitted for me.

  • The state’s lead worker who did my assessment called me on Wednesday. She told me they were denying my services. I have to file an appeal, and hopefully get someone to represent me for the hearing. On a normal day I could probably argue that whole thing myself. However if I loos the argument it means my services are denied for the forseeable future.

  • #Readathon is on hour 21! I can’t believe I got through four books that fast. Well I did. I went to my folder of legal documents, and pulled something. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/pape… Yeah, I have one of those, no I didn’t write them.

  • The epic book I'm reading now!

    .I’m about a hundred pages from finishing Claim of Privilege, which is about a military airplane crash in the 1940s, and how the state secrets privilege was born. This case was taken up to the supreme court. Unfortunately it happened to be in the post world war ii era, and the court ruled that the government didn’t have to disclose the accident report to the families. Here’s the link for the book,. Long book is well… uh,long, and long Amazon links are annoying, I put this into a shortener, but it is the Kindle edition. is.gd/tmxg82

    #Readathon.

  • .I’ve just finished book number 3. This one by Dr. Michael Heiser. www.amazon.com/Supernatu……Teaches-Unseen-Matters-ebook/dp/B016LT2YHA/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&s=digital-text&sr=1-3 This was a great book! I think I’ll take a break for a while, before starting the next one, which is about how the state secrets privilege came about. It happens to be 352 pages, should take 6 to 7 hours. #readathon

  • Just finished the book about leaving mormonism and becoming a Christian. Now on to one written by a jurror from the case from 1995. Should be short, it’s on Audible, so I can speed up narration a bit.

  • Event survey.

    Let’s do a quick survey, normally there’s an opening event survey, but I didn’t see one this time, so I’m going to try and do this based on past questions.

    1. Where are you reading from? Oregon, US.

    2. How many times have you done Readathon? I think this is my sixth or seventh. I didn’t do it twice each year. I started in 2017, kept it up for a while, then took a break. I haven’t done one since 2021.

    3. What book are you most looking forward to? I’m looking forward to all the books. Well I got four for the event today. They all encapsulate my interests in some way. Do I think I’ll finish all of them? One is kind of long, so I’m not sure.

    4. What snack are you most looking forward to? I have a lot of those here, and most of them are sweet lol so any of them.

    5. Are you planning to read the entire 24 hours? I know this isn’t a question they usually ask. However I’m always curious. The answer is yes, if the books last that long

  • Well, it’s nearly 5:00 here, and will be time to start #readathon ! My first book will be one I got on Kindle, about a Mormon who left, and became a Christian. It’s this one. www.amazon.com/Mormonism……-Journey-Calvary-ebook/dp/B00K5W1EQW

  • #Readathon is coming up Saturday. I didn’t find the sign up page for it, but I’m still planning on participating. I haven’t done this since 2021, and so far, I plant to get at least four books. I’m making sure their fairly short, though. By short, I mean 300 pages or under.

  • Oh yeah, and I’m going to participate in Readathon this weekend, if it’s still happening. No signups, and no action on the events Twitter/X account. I’d like to do it anyway, but if it isn’t happening, I probably won’t.

  • Apartment maintanence man issues.

    For a long time, I suspected that the maintanence man that works for my apartment complex did not take me seriously. When my caregiver noticed problems with the heater vents, and cracks in the wall. I was correct about my suspicions. I also have a refridgerator that’s been leaking since August. An appliance person was here the 28th of last month, the first day I had with this caregiver, and he said it was just a slight leak. He found the rubber part that was leaking. He did take ice out of a tube in the freezer that wasn’t supposed to have it in there. He said it was a slow leak, which at the time didn’t seem like it was the case, because it was flooding the carpet next to the kitchen. He also said he was going to try to get a replacement fridge in here soon. Apparently, there was a lot of water building up in there. My caregiver said that every Monday and Thursday when she comes to work, she has to clean a large puddle off the floor. The main maintanence man they have, not the appliance guy, usually doesn’t follow up with me anyway, so I had her call him. He texted her right away, and asked her to send pictures of the walls. She did so, and also texted, and with some coaching, she isn’t all that tech savvy, emailed me the pictures. The maintanence man called back in a few minutes. He asked her the following question. “I noticed a water pitcher in the fridge, is that getting spilt?” Uh… no dude! That’s the system I use to keep up with my diabetes insipidus, and 19 out of 20 times I never spill that thing, even though I fill it all the way. Also, if I do spill it, it’s usually a small amount, on the floor next to the fridge, not on the carpet! What a ridiculous question!! Also, he wanted to put her contact information down, instead of mine. She does not live here, and I could possibly get my housing terminated if he does so. Although I’d need to ask the housing authority about that. I suppose the one thing that he doesn’t know is that I’m an honest an accurate records keeper, and he doesn’t seem like he is. He said the appliance guy came here on the 25th of September, not the 28th.

  • This week's events.

    This week, my new caregiver and I went grocery shopping. We also did my filing that never got done with the last two caregivers. We worked on laundry and carpets yesterday. She brought over a spot carpet cleaner. My last caregiver said she couldn’t figure out a carpet shampooer. I had the annual housing authority recertification appointment on Wednesday. I got the email from the caseworker telling me how much my rent would be that afternoon. My dad took me to Botox yesterday, because it was at 3:00 PM, I rescheduled the next one for the morning. I have my yearly service eligibility assessment on the 17th. I’m between casewrokers right now, because the lady who’s supposed to be managing my case is currently on a leave of absence. The fill-in is out working from home right now with an injury, so a lead worker, who I’ve never met, will come ask me very personal questions on the 17th. We also have to deal with mileage, because the new caregiver had a question about it, and doesn’t want to not document it whenever she takes me somewhere, like the last caregiver did. Which is unfortunate, because we weren’t limited in where we went. I currently get 11 miles a week, 44 miles per month, that’s what the state pays for. Apparently, even on long-term care, those miles are limited to one store of your choice. This is ridiculous, and they should just say 44 monthly is 44 monthly. The last caregiver didn’t claim or document the mileage, unless we were going to the pharmacy or doctors appointments, etc. This is why I got to go skydiving. I did offer her to pay for the mileage, like I’ve done on previous trips out of town with another caregiver, and have payed for the mileage. The state said that this is based on how far the store is. The nurse case manager who was here to sign the caregiver off on filling meds said we should pick a store further away. We do have those, so we could definitely do that. The state also said that I have to use prescription delivery. The pharmacy I switched to lost their delivery driver a while ago. However it seems to be the only pharmacy in town that gets meds on time.

  • Last Thursday, and today.

    On thursday I had my first shift with a new caregiver. She’s been really good! We just finished the second shift a little bit ago. Tomorrow we have plans to go grocery shopping. We just started morning shifts, so I have to move everything around that was scheduled in the afternoon. On Wednesday, I have an appointment for yearly housing recertification. I had to change that one from the afternoon to the morning too. It was originally scheduled for later in the afternoon. We got to my unkept files on our second shift. Yeah, there were papers everywhere, from the last two caregivers, who just left them laying around. We’re starting to reorganize everything.

  • Explaining my lack of posting status.

    My current caregiver and I had a back-and-forth last Thursday over what she considers to be me shipwrecking my conscience and possibly rejecting faith… Uh… she’s a non-believer. I reported her to the agency for attending to personal erends on her shifts. It continued today, and she’s given the position back to the agency for replacement. I really need prayer about who the next caregiver will be!! the Current person said i was complaining about her. I’ve had major issues with this over the weekend and it’s really affected me. I’ve been extremely anxious. I’ve also had a headache that hasn’t gone away yet.

  • My caregiver called out sick yesterday and today, so I’m having a case manager from the agency come in and fill medication boxes. I take lots of meds so it’s helpful to have those to keep track. When I open the windows to get some fresh air circulating, there was some construction going on outside. A maintenance man was putting in a new window for an apartment near me.

  • Last week, I did the thing I’ve been needing to do for almost the last year, I bought a new computer! Everything’s all up and running now, and working perfectly! I’m still tweaking little things, installing extensions, preferences, etc. I’m sure that in a couple days, I’ll have everything all finished.

  • The parachute's name was Dave.

    No, I have no idea why Dave. That’s just what my instructor said that particular parachute’s name was. I asked him why not name the parachute wings? Because you know, I mean they kind of keep you up in the air for a few minutes and let you fly around. Oh, then he told me, they have parachutes that do zero G, and go faster, so I was like, why not zipper? Not sure why we’re naming parachutes, but OK. I guess it’s just something they do up there. Anyway, we did a whole bunch of spins. After the spins, the parachute would swing each time. That’s what makes you weightless!! I mean of course you’re definitely weightless on freefall. It’s the biggest wall of wind you’ve ever felt. When I say the biggest wall of wind, the person who was with me, and went for the first time, my caregiver’s friend, I don’t think really believed me. You actually lay on your stomach on the wind while freefalling. The whole time we were flying up there in the airplane, my left leg was right near the instrument panel. I was about to tell the pilot, if you need help flying, my leg will take over lol. Of course I tried to move my leg. I just didn’t put it right next to the flight panel. However the plane was really small. I was sitting on a pad on the floor, the pilot had a seat, my instructor was behind me, and the other two were in the back. Both times I went last time, I got to put my foot out on the tire. this time there was a step out there. I’ve been able to do the procedures all three times. I did pay for the entire package. I got video clips. The instructor mounts a gopro camera on his wrist. He recorded 7 short video clips of us all excited and cheering like .banshees before we boarded the plane. I said it’s my birthday and I’m turning 40… in the video!! I’m going to just post the link here, although the URL is location-specific, I’m going to shorten it. I couldn’t get it to play on the website. I downloaded the files and was able to get them to work. Apparently they don’t give out well… public… dropbox links anymore so I can’t put the files up there, and just post that. I tried sending that to a friend, and he said it made him log in.[https://is.gd/dLvZpy]

  • I leave here in a few hours to go skydiving!! I’m definitely looking forward to doing something I haven’t done in almost 20 years. Am I a little nervous? Sure I am, but that’s a normal part of the process. Oh, and things are different like 20 years later. I’m sure it’s still going to be fun though, no question about that!

  • Using chat GPT for accessibility and document formatting.

    A couple weeks ago all 6 weeks of the Depp V heard transcripts were unsealed. This includes all the side bars. However, they’re all image PDFs. We all know that I followed that case last year, when it was televised. I really don’t need to read the entire transcripts over again, just all the side bars that weren’t streamed. It’s easy to fix image PDFs with screen readers that hve built-in OCR programs. In fact, that’s what I use to fix most of them now. However, it does present a structuring issue. If I could put something in the text files to tel me when the side bars were happening, I’d be able to find them easier. Wait, if I could make them into web interfaces, and read them in the browser, I could read them easier. If I could put HTML headings when a side bar begins, I could really start to have a good document structure happening. That would take me days. Probably weeks, maybe longer, depending. If I could find someone to do this for me. Nah, too expensive. If I could find something to do this for me. Hey, what about chat GPT? I’ve never really used GPT in my life, except for to play around with it for like a half hour or so. This is how the process will most likely go. My OCR program will turn the image PDF into cleartext, so the screen reader can read it. I’ll take the text out of the virtualized results buffer and place it into a text file so that I have kind of like a forensic working copy. I’ve lost converted documents before, and have had to re-convert.I usually make a second file to edit from after that. Copy and paste the documents into the editing file. I’ll give GPT the increments from that file. I’ll place the increments into GPT with the following prompt: 1. Find: May I approach? may we approach? counsel, please approach. your honor, may we have a side bar? Counsel let’s have a side bar. Judge, can we come side bar? 2. place opening HTML head and body tags in the document. 3. Place level 2 headings whenever the words, “may I approach? or “may we approach?” or “counsel, please approach” or “may we have a side bar?” or “your honor, may we have a side bar? or “counsel, let’s have a side bar,” or “Judge, “can we come side bar?“in the document. 4. Finish the document by closing the head and body tags. I’ll take the GPT output and paste it into an HTML document named for that particular transcript. I’m thinking all this should work fine. However I’m not really sure. I mean, I tried to do this for a case in 2014 and failed because we didn’t have GPT, oh and it was only one 148 page document that the screen reader’s OCR program choked on. Although I’ve done them since then and it’s been fine. Here’s the prompt generator I used. hallanalysis.com/chatgpt-p… .

  • My caregiver told me that she was leaving on a week long trip a couple days ago. She won’t be back to work until most likely next Thursday which is the day before my birthday, and the day before we go up to go Skydiving. Needless to say, I was a bit upset. Things happen, but usually not sudden out-of-town camping trips.

  • I had an epic time at the fair today! I’m pretty sure that we went on almost every ride there was. I think I’ve spun a decent amount, and now I’m done spinning, but only for a short time. I’ll be going skydiving in exactly 15 days for my birthday. those parachute spins are the most fun things!

  • I’ll be going to the fair today. Something I haven’t done in like 10 years. My caregiver’s son will be taking me on rides. Should be fun

  • This article actually made me really realize I’m 21 days from turning 40. I’ve followed the case of Wikileaks and Chelsea Manning for 13 years. It’s been 10 years since the judge made the decision in that case. I was turning 30 when that happened. https://thedissenter.org/ten-years-after-the-us-military-verdict-against-chelsea-manning/?link_id=13&can_id=9628d61b9603a5a80293c4bd515b0ad6&source=email-freeassange-update-roger-waters-calls-on-the-world-to-join-the-choir&email_referrer=email_2008996&email_subject=freeassange-update-australians-to-blinken-bring-julian-assange-home

  • We floated the river yesterday.

    Yesterday was a lot of fun. In the end we didn’t start until 4, because my caregiver forgot to bring her truck to work, and the inner tubes were in her truck. She had to run back to her house to get them. The river was pretty shallow in some spots where we were floating. I got stuck on a rock twice and had to push my tube off lol. That’s OK I knew exactly how to let the tube hit rocks without me doing so. The way you do this is if you’ve ever seen bridge pose, that’s exactly what you do. You just want to get the lower half of yourself off the tube, so you don’t hit anything.

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