Sup Pacific Northwesterners!

Urbanade

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Sup, just found this web forum on this early Monday morning while I wait for visitors. I'm a 22-year old guy living in Portland, Oregon. I do have a hearing disability, my left year is pretty much useless, and my right ear has a 97% loss, so without my hearing aid, I basically hear nothing.

With my hearing aid, the recovery is amazing and just about 90% of my hearing is restored. I love listening to music or the radio, even though the lyrics get to be difficult to understand at times, so usually instrumental-only music is the best.

I currently work at the Airport as a Jet Marshaller and equipment driver out on the runways and the ramps, have been there for about 6 months now. I'm a very out-spoken and stubborn person, have my share of stories and on-going issues about deaf employment and schooling, but I'll save those for a later post.

Sign Language is a second language, and I hardely use it since I learned how to communicate in ASL back in middle school. I attended mainstream school and never had any deaf friends except for one man, Justin Yeoman who was killed as a pedestrian in an automobile collision, the other driver was DUI.

Middle School life was good, I had a few run-ins with the crowd that get off by picking on just about everybody, but it didn't take me long to get that settled. For two years, I did journalism for the community paper and randomly changed roles from Feature Writer to Sports, and finally Editor in Chief.

High School was one of the best times of my life, I produced a series of television shows and documentaries that made it onto the cable network, gaining recognition in The Oregonian and whatnot. My high school also built a brand new television studio and theater, so my involvement in those skyrocketed to being a producer/director for daily community news shows, football and basketball games. I performed on stage in front of an audience of 800 people on a regular basis, and won the Bronze Medal for improvisation in the State Actors Competition.

After high school, I abruptly left video and theatre behind, and went to see the country by rail. I took so many train trips across the nation, I can't even count how many trips I made each year. This allowed me to visit other cities, colleges, and friends/relatives. There's more to this part of my life, but I'll ramble on later.

Now you know something about me, and I look forward joining the community here, you all seem like a great bunch!

~Urbanade
 
Welcome to AD! Enjoy your stay! ;)

I am curious about your 'issues about deaf employment and schooling'. I hope you will share with us someday! :thumb:
 
welcome to alldeaf! Enjoy your stay as much as you can. :) Thanks for sharing a little about yourself. :)
 
Nice to see a fellow Portlander here :thumb:

What high school did you go to? Me - alumni of Central Catholic.

Hope you've been staying warm on your job the past weekend and today. Wasn't it crazy with this ice storm? I saw 3 cars literally sliding and crashing into each other in front of me on Interstate 84 this morning at 7:15 and then I saw another car sliding off onto a grassy slope. What an exciting commute it was ;)

Enjoy posting away on AD!
 
First of all, Welcome to AD! When you mentioned Justin Yeoman, it brought me a surprise because he was my classmate at Oregon School for the Deaf. I've known him for several years because we rode on the same bus to school until I got my license and stopped riding on the school bus. It was a real tragedy of what happened. Somehow, I feel like I do know you... maybe you can PM me and tell me your name? Anyway, enjoy posting and sharing here on AD.
 
Thanks for the warm welcome! Roam4Life, I'll be sending you a pm message shortly. Meg, I'll keep quiet about the high school name, but think of green and white Broncos :)

I have some pretty good winter clothing, comes from snowboarding experience, so working in freezing conditions outside at the airport is really a no big deal. Though, with everything thawing out now from the recent ice storm, the airport's getting kicked into high gear to play catch-up time. I'm scheduled to go in at 3 am as usual.

Magatsu, like I said, I'm out-spoken and stubborn, so I have a lot of views, experiences and tests regarding treatment of deaf and disabled people. One wouldn't really consider me as entirely disabled, though I'm technically "deaf/hearing disabled"... I'm still capable of ordering a meal at the drive thru speaker, but often times I'll test them out by going straight to the window and ordering there. Just did it at Taco Bell a few hours ago, manager was especially nice and I thanked him for his efforts. However, I'll save more for new posts and when I'm wide awake!

And the smileys on the right... My oh my, never thought I'd see those on a public forum! lol!
 
Welcome to Alldeaf Urbanade! It was a nice 'read' with your introduction--when you've indicated that you did some traveling by train throughout the country (hopefully and eventually later you'll be able to share some of those experiences here in the appropriate forum here )...could you briefly share with us AD'ers the best part of the country that has greatly given you such a profounded impact above any other place you visited?

Anyhow, hope you will enjoy your stay here and once again, welcome aboard! :)
 
Welcome to AD!!

You sure sound an interesting guy!!.. Keep that way.. :D
and thanks for nice & great introduction!!
 
Hi,

Welcome to AD and enjoy your stay here! ;)
 
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