Max Decibel...

Next Friday we are borrowing space in maintenance and we will be finishing construction (hopefully) on our Personal Listening (ipod, etc) Sound Level Meter Manikin. When he's done we will be unveiling our newest member of the audiology department: Mr. Max(imum) Decibel. Pictures will be forthcoming :-D

:)

I hear tiny voices and the pitter patter of tiny feet outside my office door. :) Love it

Sunday 'fun'

My dryer started making a thumping noise last weekend when I was doing laundry. The property manager was there today checking on some things and thought it was fine to use but he was gonna order the parts he thought were needed to fix the drum, so I did use it. BIG mistake.

I'm sitting in my room reading when the little thump turned into a series. Of rather large bumps. I got up and ran in to see if I could do anything only to have the dryer turn off suddenly. I opened the door to actual flames shooting out of the back. FLAMES! I pulled the clothes out of the dryer- mostly a comforter so just about everything came out in one clump and threw it across the room then ran to the kitchen for the fire extinguisher. Shot that yellow powdery stuff straight into the dryer drum. After I was pretty certain the flames were gone I called building manager and he practically flew over to check it out. I turned off the breaker to the dryer and building manager has deemed the dryer possessed. I'm getting a new washer/dryer (stackable combination unit) as well as new fire extinguisher and smoke detectors- just because.

Needless to say I had some adrenaline going for a while.

not an alaska thing...

I've been having a real hard time finding the motivation to clean sometimes. My apartment is so little it's both really easy to get messy and really easy to clean up so i tend to get lazy about it. Most of the mess is clothes and paperwork that I need to file or shred to be really honest (I HATE folding laundry). So I've created a little schedule- cross your fingers that I can actually stick to it. I figure even if I miss a day I can do 2 on one day. But essentially, each day of the week is devoted to a different room. There aren't as many room as days of the week so Maybe I'll actually be able to do this. We'll see.

Disappearing into the abyss

So I dropped off the face of the earth again. Sorry. Partially cause there hasn't been much going on. Partially cause I've been out of town on a few trips lately. First it was New Mexico for an Indian Health Services Audiology conference. Then a few weeks ago it was to anchorage just for fun (and I apparently needed it cause I'd been getting pretty difficult to deal with I've been told) and most recently, right now actually, to Portland for a training workshop called Dangerous Decibels. My goal is to get the program up and running in my region.

My hope is to start locally at the schools and health fairs- way more entertaining to have some of this set up than having literature out about hearing aids and hearing protection. I wanna get the ball rolling and hopefully get some involvement from maybe kids from the high school or a sympathetic elder/community leader to help get people interested and get my foot/feet/booty in the door. Ultimately the class was designed as about an hour long program for 4th-5th graders but is very easily adopted to all age groups- including adults. Feel free to google Dangerous Decibels and check out their online program.

I've been collecting the parts to make a manikin who will help test the kids iPod (or other media player) and see how loud it actually is (ease parental fears) and see how long someone can listen at that volume and be 'safe'. Ultimately it's a really cool tool that will be able to travel with me to schools/sports venues/health fairs and be a real hands on and informative tool. And mom is collecting clothes for it so he's not sitting in the back of my office all naked and stuff.

So that's the poop. If you get a hankering for more info and I'm not delivering... Get ahold of me (email, comments, grapevine) and fuss at me.

Ohhhhh.... I almost forgot. My days ARE getting shorter. And by that I mean it's dawn as I'm waking up and the sun goes down by about 11/midnight. It's still in the 50s so pretty comfortable most of the time. Unfortunately, it's also been raining so the road near my house is super muddy. Ok. Till next time...