Next Year in Jerus… I Mean Baltimore

June 11, 2010 By Lori 2 Comments

Moving to Baltimore

Way too many things. Last month was the first month I haven’t posted here since July 2005. Probably wouldn’t have even noticed except for the missing link on the Archives page. Very busy with work. I am enjoying my projects, but wish I was working on them when there wasn’t so much else going on.

Our trip to Florida and Baltimore was nice. Good to see the families. Karen and I are moving to Baltimore next year, probably in March. Almost did it a few years ago, but the economy crashed and we got stuck here. Thanks to K’s sister offering to rent our house, we can now go for real. It is a huge move. I have lived in California for 20 years and K’s been here a long time too. I like Baltimore a lot, but do not have enough experience there to imagine what it will be like to live there. We will be near K’s parents and that will be good. They can use our help. I really like all of K’s friends there. It is very easy to hang out with them. It will be awesome to live near my friend Kim again. Will also be nice to be on the same coast as my family again!

There are so many things to do. Karen has to take her licensing test for being a social worker in Baltimore. We need to find a place to live. K needs to find a job. I need to get hooked up with the Baltimore web development community that I am assuming exists. There is tons of stuff I need to do for my business. Have not had the time, money, or brain to do what needs to be done. AND, we have to pack up our house and somehow manage to drive 4 cats across the country in a Corolla.

Part of my business plan is adding some work/business stuff here on LBnuke. This site has about 1000x more traffic than my business site. It is the site I like to work on and the site that people I know visit. Of course I will keep my business site. I don’t want to connect that site to this site. Too personal. When I have bits of free time, I have been adding little changes to this site. The theme is new. Same design as before, but wider and better organization of information. I will be working on it until at least the end of the summer. Got some great suggestions from Lou Anne at Be-Found!. If you need some SEO services, I would recommend her highly.

The summer is turning out to be busy as usual and things will only get busier as we get ready to move. I will miss it here, especially the weather! Baltimore will be a new adventure. I think I am ready for it.

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Perspectives of Autism from My Family

April 25, 2010 By Lori 16 Comments

perspective

I have been different from other people for as long as I can remember. Over the years, I have had many different diagnoses, opinions, and treatments that were not quite right. My parents have tried to get me help since I was a little kid, but no one really knew what to do with me.

I was a smart but strange kid. I didn’t understand things, especially people. I didn’t fit in. I thought school was dumb. I thought a lot of things were dumb. Turns out a lot of them are, but many were not as black and white as I thought at the time. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I began seeing shades of grey.

During my early years of school, I barely talked at all and spent a bunch of time in the principal’s office. My teachers and school psychologists thought I could be normal if I tried harder. If I would just be like the other kids, they would like me and wouldn’t be so mean to me. I just wasn’t “applying myself”.

It wasn’t until 5 years ago that I finally learned what is “wrong” with me. I have Asperger’s Syndrome. Autism. I sometimes wonder what would life have been like if we knew that when I was 3 instead of when I was 38? It is hard not to think of all the “if”s.

Would I have been a happy kid? Would I have finished college? Would I have never wanted to kill myself? Would my parents have had a happier and less frustrating life? Would they have had support and not had to figure everything out for themselves? No way to know and generally a bad place to take my brain.

For Autism Awareness Month, I would like to write about autism from the perspective of the people who are closest to me. They have been there for me through the best times and the worst. I think that acknowledging and documenting their experiences is an important part of increasing autism awareness and would like to thank them all very much for answering so honestly and thoughtfully.

I asked 5 questions each to my partner Karen and my parents Gloria and Ron (M&D). Here are their answers:

Continue Reading Perspectives of Autism from My Family »

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Happy Birthday to Me

January 28, 2010 By Lori 3 Comments
Harvey Fierstein in Fiddler on the Roof

Harvey Fierstein in Fiddler on the Roof

Today I am 43 and having an awesome birthday. Last night K took me to see Fiddler on the Roof with Harvey Fierstein at the Golden Gate Theater in SF. It was awesome! I think it is possible that he was born to play Tevye. Perfect. I was really wishing my family was there too. We used to listen to the 8-track of Fiddler on the Roof in the car all the time when I was younger.

Not sure what I will do the rest of the day. Kind of happy not having a plan. It is nice getting to spend the day with K :D Going to She’s Geeky for the next 3 days at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. No idea what to expect, but I love the idea of it! Had to miss Design4Drupal at Stanford last weekend. Went to the first session and then found out I had to work. It would have been a great opportunity to learn from some of the best, but it will also be nice to have some money! Luckily, DrupalCon is in San Francisco this year, so I will still be able to get my fix.

Ok, back to my regularly scheduled birthday now :)

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A Friend In Need

December 8, 2009 By Lori Leave a Comment

Sometimes it is hard to be an aspie. I am very lucky because no matter how hard things get sometimes, I have people who can, and do, help me out. If it weren’t for those people, especially my family and Karen, I really don’t what my life would be like now. It is likely that I would be homeless or dead, but instead, I am happy and warm.

Most people are not as lucky as me. My friend aspietalk is having a very hard time and will be homeless in a couple of weeks. She has recently started to get connected with services that may help, but the process of getting help is slow and painful. Tons of red tape and disorganization that is difficult for even the most healthy and organized of people, and seems to be purposefully impossible for people who face various challenges due to health, psychology, and/or life situation. I will not rant about that now.

I am writing this to let people know about aspietalk’s situation and give a shout out to anyone who may be able to help with a donation to help her get through this time without ending up homeless again. She has been through too much for too long and really needs the help of kind strangers right now.

Please visit her site and use the PayPal Donate button to give what you can. While you are over there, I recommend reading her posts. She has a really amazing way painting pictures of her thoughts and experiences with words.

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All Drupal All The Time – Too Bad I Can’t Breathe

November 6, 2009 By Lori 1 Comment

Writing on the iPhone. Hard to breathe. Shaky. Strangely okay besides that. Sometimes writing helps. Been very busy lately. All Drupal all the time. Besides from the insane learning curve and non-intuitive UI, I am in awe of its power and flexibility. After more than 15 hours of video tutorials and reading tons of docs, I am finally understanding how it works and how the code is organized. I am learning while building a site for an awesome organization. Will link to it when it is done. If all goes according to plan, it will launch around Jan. 1st, 2010. Not mentioning the org. because there is a board and I don’t know if things like that have to be decided about, but if someone who knows the answer and wants to post it in the comments, go for it :) I haven’t used Drupal to build a site since version 4.1 other than keeping my test site updated. Been wanting to learn it for real for a few years so very happy to finally get around to it. Still, it makes me appreciate the simplicity and clean code of WordPress even more than I already do. Been having some small jobs besides from that.

Me & K went to Monterey for K’s 40th birthday and had an awesome time. Happy birthday K! We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium to see the seahorse exhibit. It was amazing. We also saw lots of sharks and rays and other random sea creatures. We stayed overnight at a nice bed and breakfast and got home the next day in time to give Halloween candy to kids. Not so many kids this year.

Still hard to breathe but not so dizzy anymore. Sometimes it is kind of annoying to be me but most of the time I like it. Enough writing for now. I think it helped some.

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Filed Under: Autism / Asperger's, Geekery, Random Tagged With: , , ,