2009 May |

SB 68 Hearing Aid Bill on ABC News

Jim and Julie Chavez and Dana Craig are featured in the news segment on ABC News covering SB 68 which would provide insurance coverage for hearing aids for Illinois residents. A big thank you goes to Senator Ira Silverstein who has worked hard from the beginning to push this bill through.

ABC News on SB 68 Hearing Aid Insurance Coverage (captioned)

The most surprising stance of all is the one taken by the Illinois Academy of Audiology opposing the bill for all ages and instead supporting it only for children.

I’d like to see Illinois become the second state (Arkansas is the first) to pass a bill providing insurance coverage for hearing aids for residents of all ages. It’s the right thing to do, as Senator Ira Silverstein stated in a recent meeting with the proponents and opponents.

May 31st is the deadline to get this bill moved to the floor or extended into the fall session. The time is now–call the Senators in Illinois and tell them to support this bill.

For more information and a list to call:

Hearing Aid Action

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Z, The Next-Best-Thing to Being There

“Impromptu gatherings are always the best,” said Karen Calvin on Saturday night. It was nearly two a.m. and the last of our friends were about to head out the door.

It started out as one of those weekends where we planned to work on the basement with our friend Mike. Mike had been coming over with his kids for several weekends and tackling the basement with Joe. Joe emailed another friend, John Sullivan. “We need a tall guy to hold up the drywall,” he said. Tempted with free beer, John said yes.

Another friend, Dennis O’Brien volunteered his labor and joined us after installing some Z’s all day. His wife Laura and son Shawn came over. Laura texted the Facebook Queen, Lori Krakora, and told her to come on over with her kids. Lori brought her kids, and three other friends of ours–Todd and Karen Calvin and Mark Riedel.

The guys put up just two pieces of drywall and called it quits.

So we spent the night gathered around the kitchen table yakking and laughing. The kids were off playing somewhere in the house– we didn’t hear a peep from them. We talked about everything under the sun: the stinking economy, the difficulty of keeping a business going during hard times, our kids, our future– and our childhoods.

Connecting with Kent from Colorado

It was getting late, probably near midnight, when we decided to call our friend Kent from Colorado. Kent was part of our deaf investment club which disbanded not too long ago. So Kent joined the party virtually through the Z videophone.

“Damn, I wish I was there!” he said.

“Dude, you are here!” I said. We passed the Z-340 around and yakked some more. After Kent hung up, Julie and Jim Chavez called at one a.m. So we planted the Z in front of us and chatted away with the Chavez’s while munching on potato chips. There were grease marks all over the Z-340 from being passed around. Earlier in the day, the Z survived an encounter with spilled milk. I sat back and watched the conversations around me– marveling how neat it was that friends from far away could join us and be involved.

I think we’ve got a new slogan for Z: The next-best-thing to being there.

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Deaf Nation and SOBCon’09

Last week, I was scheduled to speak at SOBCon’09 with Glenda Watson Hyatt but I ended up working at Deaf Nation in Ponoma, California. I drove down to Chicago on Thursday to meet with some customers and then headed over to Hotel 71 to find Glenda. Glenda and I have been online buddies for about two years, but this was the first time we met in person. As soon as I walked in the hotel and spotted her smiling face, I ran over for a hug. Sitting right next to her was Amy Derby, another fellow blogger who happens to be hard of hearing. Amy and I met last year for lunch at Chili’s. We mistakenly walked into a Baker’s Square and have been craving pie ever since.

The three of us chatted with Lorelle VanFossen, Liz Strauss (who looked quite hot with her new haircut!) and Chris Brogan (who looked great, minus hair!), then paused for a picture with others from SOBCon:

Glenda and I managed to communicate in a variety of ways. I used my super lipreading powers, she pulled out her fingerspelling skills and we connected. Occasionally we had a third person, an interpreter or her trusty alphabet sheet to rely on.

I flew to Pomona, California the next day and Glenda went on to rock the audience at SOBCon’09. Take a look at some of the blog reactions:

Is Your Blog Disabled?

Twitter Reactions

You Can Be on Oprah and Larry King

Making Me Cry

While I was sad to miss this year’s SOBCon, I was thrilled to join the Z Team at Deaf Nation in Pomona, California. My team mate, Jack Busenbark, cracked me up as he brought some super-sized bottles of Hand Sanitizer and insisted that we all practice “safe sales” in light of the Swine Flu: