The Mind of Brian Charlson

Yes, like many people, I make New Years resolutions. In past years these have included losing weight, finishing educational endeavors and fixing up the house. This year my resolutions will be few but, I hope, life changing.
I resolve to take better care of myself. That means lose weight, do more exercising, monitor my blood sugar more regularly and keep medical appointments rather than coming up with reasons to postpone them.
I resolve to read 120 books again this year but, this time, I will take time selecting them so that I learn from them rather than just being distracted by them. This means that I will read at least 1 non fiction book for every 4 fiction titles. I will read at least 12 books from the list of the books everyone should read.
I resolve to finish at least one major project started but not finished in years past. These include learning to play the ukulele as well as my mother, learning to play the guitar rather than playing at it as I have done for many years, learning to weave with either a table top loom or with a card loom with the assistance of a friend in North Carolina. There are others too numerous to list here.
I resolve to keep in regular touch with friends and family. That means sending birthday, anniversary and Christmas cards as well as calling them on the phone from time to time. Even if they find it difficult to contact me, I want to keep in touch with them.
I resolve to make a difference in the lives of blind and visually impaired people, both as individuals and as a group. This may be through my work at the Carroll Center for the Blind or through my association with the American Council of the Blind. Too many of us are unemployed; too many of us are socially isolated; too many of us are without access to technology and what that can do for one’s quality of life. As someone who has all of these things while others do not, I need to do what I can to bring these essentials of life to others.
Finally, I resolve to take time to thank those around me who make what I have and do possible. My family, my friends and colleagues. I will also take time to thank my creator in whom I believe but seldom find time to acknowledge.
There you have it. Now to put it all in practice. There is the rub.

I don’t know if I have mentioned in one or more of the posts here that my wife, Kim Charlson, is the Director of the Braille and Talking Book Library at the Perkins School for the Blind. Well, she is and because of that, I get a heads-up on any event that her library is holding. Recently, the BTBL at Perkins held an authors event featuring authors who have written books about the Red Sox. In addition to hearing two authors talk about their books, I got to meat Carl Beane, the voice of Fenway Park and Johnny Pesky, a former member of the Red Sox whose number 6 was just retired during the last game of the 2008 season.
Carl volunteers at the Library reading books on sports for inclusion in the BTBL’s collection and Johnny was there because he was co-author of one of the books.
In addition to all of the talk about books, my friend Rick and I got to talk about the Seeing Eye Single Tour and Rick pulled together a wonderful sound track of baseball songs that were played over the sound system before and during the event. The crowd sang along with Take Me Out to the Ball Game and Sweet Caroline.
Before the event got started, I got to have my picture taken with Johnny. It turns out that both of us are originally from Oregon and we both are big fans of Red Sox outfielder Jacoby Elsberry, another Oregon boy. As you can see in the picture, my mouth is a little open. That is because Johnny was asking my advice on women. After losing his wife a couple of years ago, he is courting a woman, again from Oregon, who he dated before he was called up to the majors.
All of those who attended the event were able to get their picture taken with the 2004 and 2007 World Series trophies. I had to take a moment to look them over by touch before I allowed the photographer to snap the shot. I ask you, how many times are you going to have that chance? The trophies themselves are about two-feet tall and a foot and a half across. The base is a cross-section of a baseball surrounded by a series of flag poles crowned with triangular pennants. The polls in the front are shorter than those in the back creating a kind of open arch effect.
After the event, but before everyone left, I got a chance to take a look see at a World Series ring. Carl Beane let me hold his 2007 ring and explained all of the stones and their arrangement. He tells me that he now keeps his 2004 ring in a lock box at the bank but brings it out from time to time because he says that like your first child, your first World Series ring is special.
Now I have a couple of new books to read, a couple of new friends in Carl and Johnny and a few new stories to tell my friends and family over the years.

One of the things I try to do between work and family is to read. On an average year I read about 100 books. Most of them are fiction, but I set myself the goal of reading at least one non-fiction for every 9 fiction. Most of the time this comes in the way of cookbooks or books on history of some kind.

This year I have started to read books on baseball as part of getting ready for my Seeing Eye Single Tour of 6 baseball parks in the Northeast. I must say that it takes a little getting used to a conversational style of writing to get through most of these books. In the Big Popi book, he must have said “Dude” a thousand times.

Because I am blind I have to turn to a very few sources to locate braille, audio or e-text books. Here is a web site I used after a friend of mine, Judi Cannon of Watertown, Massachusetts pulled this list together for her employer the Perkins Braille and Talking Book Library Accessible Books on the Red Sox and Baseball. It not only lists books that have been produced for the Library of Congress, National Library Services for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, but those recorded at the Perkins Library itself. She also mentions a video about baseball that is audio described.

I also read books from Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic and Book Share. These are both not-for-profit organizations; RFB&D uses volunteer readers to record both pleasure and text books, and Book Share where volunteers and members scan books and then place the results online for members to download and read.

Let me know if you have any additional locations I might get books on baseball from. What are your recommendations for titles and do you have any ideas on locations for additional information on baseball. For now, enjoy these books and enjoy the sport of baseball.

It’s safe to say that I read, on average, a couple of hours a day. Some of what I read is in hard copy, in my case embossed Braille magazines and books, but most of what I read comes to me in the form of audio recordings or e-text.

One of the devices I use to access audio recordings and e-text is the Book Port from the American Printing House for the Blind . The Book Port is the size and shape of a television remote control and has three columns of six buttons each on it’s face, runs on a pare of AA batteries and uses a compact flash card for storage. It has a stereo mini jack and a type 1 USB port. It does not have a speaker although it does have a built-in microphone.

While I have used the Book Port to play books from Audible , I primarily use it to play books from BookShare , Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic , pod casts and books I have scanned and converted to MP3s with the Kurzweil 1000 OCR program.

Because this $395.00 device can both play audio files (MP3s and WAV) and has a built-in text-to-speech synthesizer (capable of reading txt, doc, brf and DASIE formats) it is my primary must-take reading device. In a pinch I can use it as a digital recorder or turn it sideways and use it as a Braille note-taker. Being able to quickly replace the batteries also allows me to extend it’s use when taking a long trip, unlike my laptop or my PDA.

I keep a 1gb compact flash card in it with a combination of pod casts, audio books and e-text books. This means that I can hit the road with upwards of 20 pod casts, or 4 audio books and still have room for 100 e-text books. The real problem is in deciding what to take.

I don’t find the voice of the speech synthesizer all that good so I find myself falling back on e-text when I can’t find what I want to read in an audio recording. I also find myself dedicating particular flash cards to particular types of content; the pod cast card, the e-text card and so on.

In addition to offering a higher quality/easier to listen to speech synthesizer, I whish that APH would switch to a type 2 USB port. I have to plug in the Book Port, select a number of files for downloading and go out to lunch. Luckily, the download utility that comes with the Book Port allows the user to queue up files during the day and let them download over night.

Links used in this post:
American Printing House for the Blind

BookShare

Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic

Kurzweil Educational Systems

One of the many ways I access books these days is by downloading them on to my computer and then on to a portable device. The Perkins Braille and Talking Book Library offers it’s patrons access to a downloadable audio book collection called Unabridged, a subset of the Overdrive collection offered by subscription at many public libraries.
To access the books you must be provided a library card number and pin. You use your browser to access the unabridged.info web site and then browse the books by category, author or title. There are a limited number of copies of each book so you may be asked to place a hold on a book you want rather then downloading it immediately. You get an email message when a copy becomes available.
After you download the books you want to your computer you then need to either listen to the books on your computer using Windows Media Player or download them on to a portable device. The portable device must allow for the playing of protected WMA files.
I use a MUVO Mix from Creative Labs . It costs about $50.00 and holds about 3 books at a time. About the size of a cigarette lighter, the MUVO has only six buttons and runs on a single AAA battery. You can easily locate them for sail on the usual gadget online stores or go to the Perkins online stor .
I am now reading my 20th Unabridged book and expect that I will count on this source for books more and more as the years go on. I think it is fair to say that I will change to a more feature rich and higher capacity playback device when one becomes available.

Links used in this post:
Perkins Braille and Talking Book Library
Creative Labs
Perkins Online Store