Travel Considerations For Disabled Individuals

Most do not stop to think about their daily tasks, and ease of accessibility when traveling outside of the home. On weekends, we may travel to shopping centers, gyms, churches, and other organizations where we can easily get out of the car and walk into. We have the comfort and accessibility to get into the car, drive where we need to go, complete our daily tasks, and travel back home. Depending upon what the activity is, it may take a few minutes, or several hours if it's a longer task to handle.

Do we stop to consider the accessibility options available to families with a disability? Have we thought about some of the challenges that other families might face when enjoying a day outside of the home while caring for a child with a disability? There are a few things we should consider when we are out and about this weekend, and ways we can be more considerate of others with special needs. Here are a few things to think about:

Traveling

For some disabled individuals, a wheelchair or motorized scooter may be required to transport themselves from place to place. With this in mind, it's important to consider how these individuals are able to transport themselves from place to place. Since most average cars are not equipped with options such as ramps and devices that lower platforms to the ground, it makes traveling difficult unless specialized equipment has been installed within the family vehicle.

Most city transportation options have the ability to accommodate those with special needs, allowing them to travel around town with more ease. However, it's important to consider the location of bus or transit stops in relation to the home of the special needs individual. Not to mention, the amount of time waiting for a bus or transit service to pick up an individual. It's not as easy for special needs children to hop into a car and get to where they need to go.

Travel Companion

Most individuals with special needs do not have the means to operate a vehicle by themselves. Even if they were to take public transportation to get to where they need to go, the chances that they are able to travel without the assistance of another individual is very slim. As a result, traveling and getting out and about can sometimes be difficult because of the busy schedules of the caregiver. Planning a trip ahead and ensuring the caregiver has a suitable amount of time to assist the special needs child is a requirement in order to plan a successful trip out.

While Out

After the caregiver has assisted the special needs child with getting out and about, there are additional obstacles that must be considered. The location of the store, event, or activity can play a big factor when considering the safety of the special needs individual. Traveling in an area with a high amount of traffic can easily become unmanageable and dangerous. As a result, avoiding public facilities where large amounts of people or cars are is usually avoided.

Most public places feature accessible options for getting into and exiting the building. Ramps can be of big assistance when pushing a scooter or wheelchair. However, areas with steep inclines, bumps, or narrow areas pose a big challenge for someone in a wheelchair. It may be nearly impossible to travel through these areas, and even harder to travel into buildings that have even a few minimal steps.

What Can Society Do?

As you can imagine, special needs children face many obstacles when they are traveling outside of the home. It requires the practice, patience, and love of his or her caregiver to ensure they are safe and remain safe outside of the home. For the average individual, we should respect and remember these challenges when we come into contact with an individual with special needs. Ensure you are moving to the side to allow for extra space can be a big help when you see someone in a wheelchair. Additionally, offering assistance to caregivers who may be struggling to push a wheelchair can help. A lending hand can always help and will be greatly appreciated by the caregiver. Furthermore, one of the most important things we can do as a society is shown respect, and a genuine smile when we see a special needs individual out. A simple smile and compassion can make a big impact on the individual's day, as well as the caregivers. Consider spreading a smile this weekend when you are outside of the home!

Permalink

Are Truck Inspections Enough?

As a motorist, you probably take multiple commutes across your city or town each and every day. In fact, most individuals spend nearly eighteen thousand minutes per year commuting within their cars. This equates to twelve straight days that Americans average each year in their cars! With all of this time spent on the roads, it becomes more than important to make sure that we are remaining safe while traveling to our destinations.

We can discuss some of the most typical areas- like distracted driving and drunk driving. However, there are particular areas that should be evaluated more thoroughly that may be overlooked by the average driver. These areas include other larger-scale automobiles and trucks. Commuting with, beside, and around them can always become an obstacle even for the most seasoned driver. But, what are truck drivers and the local government officials doing to keep us safe while traveling with larger big rigs?

A typical truck inspection

Truck inspection stations can be seen along highways and roadways across the United States. For drivers, inspection stations may be a burden to commonly travel through and stop. It puts a halt on the driver's time progress being made while commuting, however enforcing these stops and ensuring they are enforced to all truck drivers is essential for every motorist on the roads.

Typical truck inspections include tire pressure checks, engine visual checks, brake inspections, and any overall areas that appear as a potential threat to other motorists. It's up to the truck companies to ensure these inspections are enforced and that all drivers are abiding by the processes set forth by the government.

Weigh Stations

Weigh stations are most important in areas where the elevation increases, like mountainous areas. Traveling down steep inclines can put a lot of strain on the brake systems of trucks, so ensuring trucks are following proper weight guidelines can help prevent brake malfunction in the event of an emergency.

Furthermore, weigh stations are enforced to reduce overloading of trucks, which can damage our roadways and infrastructure systems. Excessive amounts of weight not only cause potholes and damaged asphalt, but they also can raise concerns for other motorists traveling around trucks. In the event a truck needs to make a quick turn, or dodge another motorist, trucks carrying a lot of weight can cause a detrimental outcome when involved in an accident. As a result, weigh stations are heavily enforced among truck drivers, and can provide hefty fines if they are broken.

What motorists should watch for

When traveling down a busy street or highway, it's important to remember the obstacles that truck drivers face while commuting. It's difficult for them to see other vehicles passing or around them because of the numerous blind spots that are a result of their height above ground. Additionally, they are carrying a lot of weight, so maneuvering quickly can easily become difficult in comparison to a typical driver in a smaller car. Furthermore, cars should give ample space to truckers as it may be more difficult to make turns and fit into roadways or bridges that are tighter in space. As much time as the typical American spends motoring the roadways, remaining safe as well as helping a truck driver to make a more successful, safer route to their destination can make all the difference.

Permalink

Talking To Teens

The Dreaded Drunk Driving Discussion

Talking to your young ones and teens can sometimes be a challenge. Initiating conversations related to things like drunk driving, distracted driving, and even the typical talks about growing up through puberty can sometimes be obstacles that we drag out. It's never a topic anyone wants to discuss, but in order to parent our young ones into successful, positive thinking individuals, we have to have these types of conversations.

Drunk driving can be one of the hardest to talk about because it's a gray area where some teens don't seriously think about. Most of the time, the teenage mindset automatically thinks it's is invincible. It's easy for them to think that a drunk driving accident could never, and will never affect them. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. That's why it's extremely important that parents take the proper steps to talk about the dangers early on.

There are a few ways that parents can start the conversation and make strides to develop a meaningful lesson.

Give Them Examples

Depending on where your live might determine how many examples you can actually provide. For families in more urban areas, it's nearly impossible that a news story has not taken the headlines of your local network, covering a story on distracted driving. Share these stories with your teens, and every time an accident makes the headlines, make sure you are reinforcing this with your teen.

Another great way would be to share personal stories or eyewitness accounts you have had with drunk driving. Share an experience you may have had growing up, or explain any accidents you may have witnessed. Provide details and locations for the occurrences.

Give Them Statistics

There are plenty of resources online that can help with this approach to the conversation. For example, Kraft Law has developed a heat map that outlines some of the locations throughout Texas where drunk and drugged driving accidents have to take place. Additionally, the guide provides the number of drugged driving accidents that have taken place throughout the state over the past several years, in comparison to drunk driving accidents. There are many other resources developed by local and state governments that help to outline some of the drunk driving statistics that may be experienced in your region as well.

Give Them Support

One of the most overlooked areas that parents forget about when it comes to drunk driving is offering support. In the event that your teen has had a drink or two when they were not supposed to, offer them support. Don't allow your teen to feel as though they cannot call home if a mistake has been made. Offer them support and ensure they are aware that they can call and ask for a ride home if they need to. The same concept goes for a friend who may be in charge of driving your son or daughter home. Make sure they know that they can give you a ring before they get in the car with someone who has been consuming any alcoholic beverages.

Your Duties As A Parent

As a parent, you have a moral and emotional obligation to keep your teens safe in all aspects of life. Drunk driving is not an area that should be taken lightly, or looked over. Make sure you are setting up a plan and taking one of the approaches outlined above to show your teens how dangerous drunk driving can be. Most importantly, let them know that you are available if they need to talk to you, or need to make a phone call home if they are stuck in a dangerous situation.

Permalink

PicMonkey Collage

I use PicMonkey all the time to create a daily photo collage. It's really easy to use and there are some basic graphics tools that make it easy.

Blurry Collage

One thing I notice recently is that photos that I upload from my computer are slightly blurry. I notice that this only happens in the College Editor. Photos that I upload to clean up don't appear blurry.

Whenever I save a Collage, the final product is blurry, whereas the original files were perfectly fine. No matter how I played around with the settings, the images always appeared blurry.

Simple Workaround

If I create collages from DropBox or from Pic Monkey's Hub the Collage doesn't appear to be blurry.

If your using PicMonkey, you should plan on uploading images from Dropbox or using the new PicMonkey Hub.

Permalink

Credit Card Charges

Here's a recent post on Reddit on why it's very important to keep an eye on your finances:

This is not an isolated story. Many people don't pay attention to their credit card bills.

I know first hand because I used to work in the billing department at an online customer support center. I would get calls from very angry customers complaining about a charge appearing on their credit cards. They usually would request refunds for many months back.

Unfortunately we could not credit back charges that were more than 6 months old. We would tell customers that it's their responsibility to monitor their credit cards. At the time, Credit Cards companies agreed with this policy and would not credit back charges of more than 6 months. They would remind cardholders that they are responsible for their charges.

The key lesson here is to monitor your credit card, especially the debit card - where small re-occurring charges could be hidden between typical charges.

You may think your finances are in control, but the lesson of MPTPWz1026 father cost him $3,600.

Permalink

Big Mistakes in Business

What were the biggest mistakes high-tech leaders made in the past year? Here's what they said at Silicon Summit II:

• Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos: "Investing in Living.com, which isn't, and Pets.com, which is a dog."
• Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: "Not always taking the patience we need on certain innovations."
• Michael Bloomberg: "We didn't hire enough people."
• Darien Dash, DME Interactive Holdings CEO: "We were impatient last year and we didn't just focus on getting our products out."
• Sony CEO Howard Stringer: "We should have had 2 million more PlayStation 2's available before Christmas."
• AOL Time Warner VP Bob Pittman: "Speed. ... We don't move quickly enough."
• Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang: "Focus on the long term. I think people got reactive in this marketplace trying to see too much that wasn't there."
• Gateway CEO Ted Waitt: "Trying to do too many different things and losing sight of the core basics it takes to make our customers happy."
• Nancy Peretsman, Allen & Co.: "Not acting on what we knew to be true."
• USA Networks CEO Barry Diller: "Not selling all the companies short represented here today, other than our own."

Silicon Summit II was held on March 11, 2001.

Permalink

Nine Predictions for 2009

In 2009, Tom Askacker put together a document for "Nine Predictions for 2009."

This is a parody document of typical outrageous things that people predict that will never happen. Oddly enough all the predictions will hold true for 2017!

Click on image to download the PDF document..

Tom Asacker writes, teaches, and speaks about radically new practices and ideas for success in chaotic times. He is an independent brand adviser and author of critically acclaimed books including A Clear Eye for Branding and Sandbox Wisdom, and his latest, A Little Less Conversation. Visit www.tomasacker.com to learn more.

His website has lots of interesting news and views on world events and how you can be inspired to do great things...

Permalink

Quality Assurance Testing Graphics

Here are some additional quotes/images that I have collected over the years. Most times I’ll send these in Slack as the movement seems appropriate.

If you’re in Quality Assurance testing, I am sure you’ll find the right moment to use these images/saying:

Quality has Moved, see the next issue...

There's no turning back..

"Yes! You are Correct Sir!" - usually appropriate when an Engineer asks an obvious question, such as "Is Code freeze tonight?"

Poor Planning on YOUR part does not automatically constitute an emergency on our part.

Permalink

List of Internet Graphic Site

When you're looking for special discount deals on high-quality graphic/web design tools and resources, there are various site that should visit. Each site of these sites have some area of speciality to be considered when building up a graphic library.

I have come across many different libraries in my quest to find a good resource for vector images. Usually I am looking for some cool Isometic designs, or some cool website site objects. These are the sites that I most often visit.

Mighty Deals is one of the first site you should visit. Founded and managed by the team behind Webdesigner Depot (one of the top web design blogs in the industry), it has exactly the kind of deals creative professionals find appealing.

Inky Deals is another great platform to find high-quality deals on top design tools and resources. It's part of a network of websites and portals maintained by a team of passionate graphic designers, web developers, and creative marketing professionals. They usually run some good combo deals where you can get various designs for a low price.

Deal Fuel -- another great platform for web developers, graphic designers, and creative professionals to find regularly updated discount deals and bundles related to the most sought after design tools and resources.

freepik - They are currently creating hundreds of free vectors daily. Discover our exclusive content! Find dozens of free vector graphics every day, all designed by Freepik. They have some free graphics, as long as you promise to attribute the source of the graphic on your website/flyer. Monthly subscription is $9.99 a month for access to 152,300 vectors.

VectorStock - "Millions of Royalty Free Vector Images. VectorStock is the world's Premier Vector-only Image Marketplace." You can find all sorts of quality vector graphics here. $50 gives you the right to download 50 images.

Stock Unlimited - 600,000+ Visuals for Businesses & Professionals. Affordable Stock Photos, Vector Graphics & Cliparts are available. $9 a month access or $69 for a years access to all their photo and vector images.

CreativeMarket - great collection of Graphics and photos. They have a group of special designers who come up with very creative designs. This is a great place to get flyers and website graphics. They have all sorts of Fonts and package deals that are worth looking into. Prices are per deal. Awesome Isometric collection

Graphic River - Part of the envatomarket family, they have 530,181 Fonts, logos, icons and more. Discover their huge collection of hand-reviewed graphic assets from our community of designers. Currently running at $29/month to access all their files - including Codes, Videos, Audio, Photos, 3D Ocean.

CG Vector - Good selection of free vectors. This is a good place to start with some basic vector graphics. Download files are in stored in RAW format. Macintosh users should use The Unarchiver to uncompress the files.

Medialoot Unlimited - Lots of good files. They don't have any Isometric images. Member is now $14 a month. Their selection appears to be smaller than others, but they still have a unique collection that other graphic sites don't have.

Permalink

Disease: When It Strikes & How You Can Help Others

Perhaps a close family member or friend of yours has recently visited their family doctor, and returned with a rather concerned look on his or her face. Going to the doctor can sometimes be an experience that is rather frightening for some, because of the unexpected results that can come from discussions from your doctor. Just remember, it is your doctor's obligatory duty to prepare and inform you of the worst possible situation for any type of condition you may be experiencing.

Because of this, many avoid going to the doctor all together. Some may feel as though they are already juggling enough in their daily lives, and do not want to concern themselves with negative results their doctor may provide. For others, a lack of time or concern is another reason they may not visit the doctor. Your health is your number one backbone, and without it, you would not be able to function properly. Taking time out of your day, to go visit your doctor and receive regular checkups is vital for your routine maintenance for your body.

How You Can Help When Bad News Strikes

It may have started off as a regular checkup. A woman goes and visits her primary care facility, and finds that she has an irregular lump under her skin. The doctor may have scared her into believing that there is a high risk that the area is cancerous, and she should keep immediate care from a cancer facility.

Whether or not the bump is cancerous will only be able to be determined by a specialist who deals with cancer and tumors. A primary care doctor can only provide advice on what they may think the cause of the raised area is from, but they cannot properly diagnose the situation without receiving a body scan.

As a friend or family member to the individual dealing with such circumstances, there are plenty of things that you can do to assist with the process. Depending on how the individual reacts to news will determine how you need to treat the situation. Some people may become easily devastated, and shut down. In this situation, you need to act as the support structure that helps them to get through the situation. Do some research, and help them get to their next step in the process. Research cancer facilities and help them locate the best possible care facility in their area. Extensively research doctors and review their ratings and what others have to say about their level of treatment.

Furthermore, you may have an individual who takes the situation lightly, and does not concern him/herself with the seriousness of what the doctor may have determined. In this situation, you need to be the leader that discusses the importance of the situation, and offers aid and assistance for them. You need to be persuasive with your actions, and develop a plan where you can quickly inform them of the seriousness of the issues at hand, and how they should proceed. Though the doctor may have stressed this during his/her initial visit, reinforcement from friends and family members will help to reiterate the consequences of avoiding treatment for the issues at hand.

Why It's Important To Show Support

As an individual who may have recently received bad news from their doctor, it's easy to feel down upon yourself, and become frustrated. For the individual dealing with the situation, there may be outside events taking place in his/her life that are already stressful enough, and they may feel as though they cannot handle any additional negative news or events. Furthermore, the individual may feel as though they are already unlucky, and when devastation may strike, they may give up easily.

As a family member or friend, it's always important to be there for those whom you care for. Just put yourself in the shoes of your peers, and think about how you would seek their support when they are in need of assistance.

Permalink