Early intervention came in on Tuesday for our first appointment. I’ll be honest — I had no idea what to expect. The only thing I knew going into it was that our therapist’s name was Lisa (I know, pretty easy for me to remember). I have to say that I think it went well.
The first visit was just to get Will to warm up to her. He thought she was cool, because she came with a bunch of toys. However, he wouldn’t let her touch him at all, and he made sure we knew he was in control of the session by walking out several times.
She told me he’s very smart, and that sometimes means it’ll take longer to talk, because they are too smart for their own good. I can tell you that is case here. He has compensated so well with everything else; he really has no need to talk. Hence, why we are where we are. He does mimic well. That means he’ll say the word at therapy, but the question is if he actually retains any of it. So far, we haven’t.
This will probably be a long process and we’ll just have to take it one word at a time. . .
Sighhhh, to get the first half of the story, read here.
Okay, now that everyone is caught up, I just wanted to update everyone since I am getting emails asking how I am. Well, the estrogen is not working at all. I have a call into the OBGYN and am waiting to hear back. I am pretty sure the next step is an ultrasound and then surgery (I think they called it a hysteroscopy). I am trying not to completely freak out, but you know, it’s in my nature. LOL Seriously, it is what it is, and we move on from there.
I’d love to hear from anyone else with this problem, since I hear it is quite common (though no one I know has had this happen).
Last week was a pretty good week. My week started off with an email from a New York Times reporter wanted to interview regarding a post I wrote about Amazon’s frustration free packaging. Once I picked myself up off the floor, I emailed him back and told him it was okay to call. I had a great conversation with their technology reporter, and I went on my merry way. Seriously, my heart was beating about 400 miles an hour while this was going on. I asked for him to let me know when it gets printed, and I thought that was the end of it.
On Thursday, I was super surprised to get a call from the New York Times again! This time they wanted to send a photographer to my house to get pictures of me and my kids! I ended up with 2 hours to get me and the kids ready and clean the house. It went well, I think, and I hope to find out soon when the article will get printed.
I feel incredibly blessed right now even though my mom is teasing about when Oprah is going to be calling.
I have been writing a lot about Dragon NaturallySpeaking Software lately. I absolutely love how it saves me time writing posts. If you see the post before this one, it is almost 700 words. I used the software and with editing (mainly because I decided to reword things), it took less than 10 minutes. This software is a bloggers dream. Life is so much easier when I can write a 700 word post in the little bit of time I catch here and there during the day. The best thing is that I am not the only one who thinks so:
Drew of the BenSpark has put together a great little video demonstrating Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Drew has been blogging for quite some time and he might just be one of the best mobile bloggers that I know. He is probably more famous for his picture a day work as he is an excellent photographer. But I can’t help be amazed at how much content he creates and the high level of quality in that content.
He’s definitely a blogger that employs best practices when he finds them. And based on this video, it looks like he might see some potential in Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Now I am not trying to put an endorsement in Drew’s mouth. Time will tell, but I do think he is off to an excellent start.
You’ll notice in his video, that the sound quality of his video is excellent. That’s actually an important aspect for Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I don’t mean that you need good video quality or sound quality in a video to make Dragon NaturallySpeaking work. However you do need a good microphone, and it should be a noise canceling microphone at that. The better the sound quality, and the better able your microphone is to remove other background noises, the better your system will be able to recognize the words that you say as fast as you say them and transcribe them accurately.
Now Dragon NaturallySpeaking comes with a noise cancellation microphone that works very well when you buy it out of the box. Drew is working with a download version that does not come with a microphone, and so he had to supply his own.
As I write this article, I am using a wireless headset microphone from Logitech. I’ve been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking for almost two years now, but I’ve just recently untethered myself from Dragon NaturallySpeaking and started using a wireless headset microphone with noise cancellation capabilities. Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 does have the capability of working with Bluetooth wireless microphones, but my particular microphone runs on 2.4 GHz wireless technology. Now if you live in a household or work in an office environment where there are a number of systems or phones or microwaves, you may experience some interference with this particular headset. In that case, you will probably be better served with either a Bluetooth headset or a headset that is capable of being plugged directly into your computer through the microphone plug or through USB. I don’t have that issue, and so I do get excellent quality with little to no interference at all.
So if you take an interest in Dragon NaturallySpeaking and want to try it for yourself, I highly recommend that you get a boxed version of the software which you can order from Nuance online. You can even get a good deal on a Bluetooth wireless headset and a bundled option from Nuance. If you’re looking for entry level pricing, you can start using the software and get a headset microphone for as little as $99.
To put that in context, I’ve taken three typing classes over the years to boost my typing speed and spent essentially three semesters practicing at typing. It wasn’t the only thing that I studied, but I spent a lot of time building up my typing skill. With Dragon NaturallySpeaking, you can invest $99, invest an hour installing the software (I’m being very conservative with that time estimate) and as little as 10 minutes training the software to recognize your voice before you can be off and running typing at 150 words per minute!
That is pretty amazing, and well worth the value of $99. Not to mention if you spend a little extra and get a wireless headset microphone, you can pace around your room or your office, you can exercise, or do a number of different things other than sit at a computer desk staring at your computer all day long. $99 basically gives you your freedom,and who wouldn’t want to type at 150 WPM for $99?
Best regards,
Brett Bumeter
www.softduit.com
My name is Brett Bumeter, and I wrote the article above and 4 1/2 minutes. The article is about 659 words long, and that translates into 144 words per minute. Add in two minutes for editing, and that’s still 100 words per minute!
Well, we have a guy coming tomorrow to get an estimate on fixing the floor in the basement. Actually, we have been told by three companies that we have no drainage tile, so I know that’s what they are going to tell us. We are having the company that gave us the lowest estimate 2 years ago come again to see how much the price has went up. They are coming tomorrow night. If we fix the floor, we can actually finish off the basement, so this is our project for this year. The only thing I really worry about is where we are going to put all the stuff we have in basement while this is going on. We have boxes full of stuff, a bed, furniture, etc. As you can tell, a lot of stuff. I have a feeling I am going to have to give up my garage space for a while. If we finish off the basement, it will give up an addition 500 sq ft of livable space (which we desperately need!) Plus, I am hoping to add another bathroom, since we currently only have one. I am keeping my fingers crossed that this estimate comes in low, so we can get going on this.
Early intervention came in on Tuesday for our first appointment. I’ll be honest — I had no idea what to expect. The only thing I knew going into it was that our therapist’s name was Lisa (I know, pretty easy for me to remember). I have to say that I think it went well.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=849a6615-0945-4ae5-962e-3ac671e43054)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=9f7fa81f-9c85-4857-b5a6-b4014cb5251f)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=4cc6709d-78fd-4ac2-9234-a95584687774)
