Hello and welcome to the HumanWare
See Things Differently podcast.

Each month, join your hosts Peter Tucic,
Rachael Ramos and David Woodbridge as we bring you engaging interviews from
guests, interaction from our one of a kind distribution partners, stories
that will take you off the beaten path, current promos, shows
where you can find us and so much more.

So stick around.

Welcome.

Good morning, good evening. Afternoon.

Good day.

One of these days

I'm going to get that intro actually down
where it'll be something you will know.

Peter does the same way
every single month.

But until then, you do know that
now it is the third Thursday of March.

Welcome to another episode of See Things
Differently with HumanWare - the podcast.

Hello, Rachel.

Hello, Peter.

How are you doing?

What's going on in your March land?

You know, March is looking like it's
going to be a warm month.

I cannot wait for spring.

I'm going to furnish my patio.

It's going to be amazing.
I'm ready for it.

We're going to have an episode on patio
furnishing coming up.

Actually,
I think that could be a theme for April.

May. David, how is your patio and
how are you doing over there in Australia?

I'm doing extremely well, and I'm loving
the fact that it's now cooling down.

So the humidity level
is doing a lot better.

So it's no longer sitting at 98% humidity.

And I'm having cooler days because of course we're coming into, you know, proper

Spring, not spring.

You guys always confuse me.

We're coming into autumn.

Sorry, in this part of the hemisphere.

And then it's winter.

So this is my favorite time of the year.

Now. Well, I will, because I know everyone
is used to your podcasting prowess.

And we will point out
that you are actually on location.

You are committed, you are working.
You're on the road.

So you're coming to us from a remote location,
not your typical home studio set up.

Right? Absolutely.

So you're bearing with us, like, just
just coming to us live, which is awesome.

And that's the beauty of podcasting,
right?

We can always join for even some months.

One of us, or multiples of us
may not sound as good as at other points,
depending on where we may be.

But this month, in March, there are
two things we're going to focus on.

And the two pieces it is,

International Women's Month, first of all.

And secondly, we are going to be talking
about orientation and mobility.

And in doing both of those,
we have a very neat set of segments here.

Of course, we will have an interview and then we'll talk about some tips
and tricks, and we'll have a bit of a hot take segment
and look at a cringeworthy story.

Joining us is somebody who I think we're
all going to be very excited to hear from.

Someone who is joining us from across
the pond is actually in Glasgow,

Scotland, Michelle Young,
but we're very glad you could join us.

And Michelle is a orientation
and mobility instructor.

She is visually impaired herself and has actually- I've read some pieces online that you've done for different cane
travel and different experiences.

And I know your story is awesome,
but we'll get into some of that.

But welcome to See Things
Differently With HumanWare the podcast and thanks for coming up.

Thank you very much for having me, Peter,
David and Rachel.

It's so nice to be here.

We are fired up and I guess you know, in looking at orientation, mobility
and kind of talking about our stories and all of us here are,
I mean, myself and David and Rachel, we're all totally blind and certainly received
training for a long time.

But I know you are not necessarily new
to vision loss, but cane travel and sort of the orientation
mobility side of things wasn't something you necessarily grew up with
from a very early age.

You came into this a bit later, right?

I mean, you came in
not as a young child, correct?

That's right.

I was born
with a congenital eye condition, but it was fairly non-aggressive,
as it were.

And then I developed a secondary one
which, is quite degenerative and quite so.

I have glaucoma and that's degenerative.

So it's becoming more and more it's
taking more of my vision as I get older.

So for the first kind of 15
years of my life, I never used a cane.

And then I was very reluctantly introduced
to cane travel.

And like any teenager, when handed a cane
or handed anything that stands out,

I was not particularly
keen to adopt the cane, and was very restricted by my own mentality, I suppose.

But my real sort of come to Jesus universe
moment was when I was in my late 20s.

I worked with Daniel Kesh,
who's an echolocation and flash sonar specialist, and he introduced me
to a completely different methods of orientation
or mobility structured discovery and, and, you know, change the length of your cane,
do structured discovery, use echolocation.

These are all completely foreign concepts,
but they totally revolutionized how I traveled
and how I went through life.

Can we unpack that a second?
I am totally blind.

And I'll tell you
the first 15 years of my life as someone who absolutely should have been using a cane
and did use a cane at school, don't get me wrong, but never, ever
wanted to take the cane outside.

And I'm sure I don't know, you know, when Rachel and David, if you had this
sort of experience as well.

But I was embarrassed
and I was totally blind.

I mean, I would, I would rather
and I think it's because, you know, it was easier just to hold my mom's wrist
and then and then eventually her elbow.

Right.

As opposed to or just have friends, you know,
I would just be bumping into things or I was too embarrassed
even going out with friends at times because I didn't want to use the cane.

And you,
you talk about in the article

I read about realizing
that you could be far more confident, and just that kind of dawned on you
at some point that walking through, you know, life with a cane was empowering.

And I- it sounds cliche.

I absolutely had the same experience,
and eventually realized like, well, if I want to go do things,
if I want to be as independent as I can be, and independence
will look different for every one of us.

But the cane was going to be how

I was going to get
there, and I had to get over that.

I don't know that- not embarrassment,
but just that kind of shame factor that, yeah, you're probably the only one
unless you're at some sort of convention.

You know, the only one with a white cane in the room or in the space
you're in, but that it is going to be something that gives you lots and lots of
of empowerment and confidence.

I had that exact same piece.

Did that happen
because you saw somebody, you know,
you were with somebody else using a cane because that's how it happened for me.
Or did it just was it just something you're naturally like,
well, I got to get out.

I got I've got to start doing
these things that I want to do.

I was 16 years old.

I was at high school and I had a crush, and my crush used to walk home for lunch.

And one day I was going to the hospital and he said to me,
oh, do you want me to walk you?

I'll walk with you to the bus stop.

And of course, 16 year old me
was just dying at this point and I thought, I've got to walk.

But it was-
the sun was really, really bright.

And at that point I'd been learning
cane skills around the school.

So people had seen me learning cane,
but I wouldn't.

I didn't use it at school because I had enough vision
where I could manage and say, but outside, darkness
and such were becoming very problematic.

And we were crossing a road and we got to
the little island and I tripped over the curb and fell right on my knees in front of the object of my affections.

And he just turned to me, deadpan,
and said, you know, if you were using that
stick thing they're teaching you to use, that wouldn't have happened, would it
not just be more sensible to use it?

Perfect! I love it! And I was kind of like, yeah,
probably would.

So I sat on the bus on the way
to the hospital and it was in my bag.

This is what makes it funnier.
It was in my bag.

You had it with me and I got to
the hospital and I unfolded the cane.

When I got off the bus and I used.

And that was my, you know, eureka moment
of I'm going to use my cane.

Because in actual fact, you do look much more silly when you're
banging into things and tripping over things than when you're moving
through the world with a bit of grace and a bit of confidence, using your cane
and when I work with young people, look, as
an organization, I work with Luke Cukier and they work with young people,
and I tell that story and I get a lot of
laughs from the teenagers because it's quite real, even though I'm much older
than they are in their eyes.

It's really relatable for them.

And I think you've got to find it has to be something that's relatable
to someone else to make you use the cane.

Whether it's, as you say, seeing someone traveling through the world
independently and, you know, people that wheelchair users
talk about, you know, they're not bound to their wheelchairs,
their wheelchairs give them independence.

They enable them to get out and live life.

That's what cane or I taught a dog.

For some people, a cane or a dog enables
you to do it.

It's not something to be embarrassed
about.

It's just how we interact with the world.

Did your family also,
in a sense, enable you not to need to use a cane
because they were able to help you, right.

You would take someone's elbow
or someone was always going to tell you if maybe there were some stops, or
because a lot of times, especially for me,

I would just rely on my family
who knew my needs and who didn't push me to use the cane because it wasn't
something that, you know,

I didn't need to do it around them
because I could rely on their help.

And it got to the point
where, my mom, I'll never forget this.

Once somebody got ahold of her
and told her, like, listen,
you are not helping the cause here, right?

And we got to a store once,
and she said, where's your cane?

And I said,
what do you mean I'm not using the cane?

I was probably in about eighth grade,
so maybe 13 ish here in the States.

And she goes, well, if you don't have it
with you, you're not coming in the store.

And I was like,
whoa, whoa, whoa, stop the car.

Like,
wait a minute. That's not how this works.

And she said, yes, it does.

And she went into the store
and just left me outside.

And I told the story.

I bring her on the road.

And we told this story
a couple of years ago at an event for parents called
We Have Been in Your Shoes or something like that.

I forced her to come on the road and present with me, and she's like,
I didn't do that.

And it's like, oh, yes, you did.

But I'm curious, you know, did
your family also, you know, even if, like you said, school was trying to teach you,
but maybe there wasn't a carryover.

Well, it's interesting
because I did a lot of masking as a younger child pretending to see it
like, a lot more than I could.

So when the cane arrived,
my family were generally and my friends were like,
you don't need that. Why?

Why have they given you a cane?

You don't need this cane.
Why are you using your cane?

And there was a lot of pushback
initially from my family, and I had a friend who was a cane user.

So he and I would spend time together,
and I liked spending time with him because he used his cane and
I use my cane, and it felt quite normal.

And his parents were like, you see, they were like, well,
you don't work without your cane.

You have to use your cane.

And if they were driving
to somewhere in the car, they'd be like, do you both
have your canes before we drop you off?

My family growing up,
you know, I had cousins and friends and everything,
and we don't just run around together.

And it was very much
I just did everything all the other kids did.

You know, I roller skated, I baked,
I had so many accidents and injuries because I'd like, crash into things that
fly off curbs and nobody made the connect.

It was just I, my mom was a young mom, and so I think she didn't
have any experience of blindness.

She didn't have it.

And so she just kind of was like,
okay, well,

I know she's got this eye condition, but
I don't really know what it means for her.

So I just want her to do
everything that everyone else does, and I'm sure she'll figure out.
That's awesome.

Doesn't sound like responsible parenting
what I say when I say it out loud.

No, it's just like.

But it's it just I think it
it did me good, though, because I do feel know
that there are situations where I know a lot of people who are in my situation
or I don't have the confidence.

I couldn't do that.

And I'm very much
just, well, I'm just going to try it.

I'm just going to suck it and see.

I'm going to see how it goes,
you know? We'll figure it out on the fly.

There's a flip side to it
because I grew up very fortunately, you know, I had access to riding a bike or shooting baskets
and out in front of the house.

I grew up in a suburban cul de sac, so it wasn't like
some crazy urban environment, but it was-

I was out there with sighted kids doing
what kids do right, playing tag and playing football and playing,
just running over and absolutely taking out mailboxes in the process
and falling down all sorts of stairs and things.

But I think, yeah, it as much as it
that is the, the counter is,
well you did do all these things and you know, you were exposed to them
just with all the kids around you and you weren't using a cane
when you did that.

So it was kind of like, well,
your muscle memory was developed.

You're kind of problem
solving skills were developed in a sense.

But then definitely when it came
time to get out in public and actually be self-sufficient, you started to see
all these sort of cracks emerging, right?

You go from kind of not being, you know, this, this cane user.

But not only do you then thanks to love discover,
you know that you want that, you want it.

You want to use the cane and you get into clearly developing
kind of this understanding.

But then then you meet Daniel
or you, you kind of encounter

Daniel and you learn
not only about other kind of the own.

I'm sorry, but you become an instructor
and you really lean into it.

Right.

And can you talk a bit about that?

Like,
because that is the best I love that yeah, I did, I kind of had a bit of
it was I'm a bit of an evangelist. No,

I definitely I'm very much I like working
with children and young people.

I work with adults too,
but I enjoy working with them because

I feel like a lot of the work that I do is with the
the whole unit, the families, the friends.

And it's really important
to talk to kids about situations like you talked about
with your mom, seeing you know you because they want
you have to be, you know, the cane shouldn't be in mom's hand bag.
The cane should be in your hand.

And being visible
and you being comfortable with it.

And when we- I work for an organization
in Scotland called Visibility, and they are one of the local
kind of blindness organization, and they brought Daniel Kesh to the UK
to teach, to work with young people, but also to teach
some of us to instruct in echolocation.

So there were four of us,
all visually impaired, who spent 2 or 3 weeks with Daniel, sort of learning
and walking around the streets of Glasgow.

When you do lean into it,
it's very doable, and if you're out there doing it,
it becomes easier the more you encounter and the more you allow yourself to do it,
the more you can do.

And then becoming and realizing that not everyone who is blind
will make a good O&M instructor.

Because blindness doesn't
necessarily equate to good skills, but because I had teaching experience,
and it's something that teaching and coaching
is something that I have other skills.

And I found that I really enjoyed it
and could relate to it really well.

So Daniel said, you know,
would you like to, you know, become an instructor,
would you like to work with me?

And I said, yes.

And so I was able to travel and instruct for him in various places
at West Ham and with other instructors around the world teaching,
you know, the echolocation piece.

And also in the States
you do way more structured discovery type teaching
than we do here in the UK.

Structured discovery is a very-
we do it to be route based mobility.

And when you know doing qualifications
here in the UK, it's very difficult as someone who for, you know, 15
or so years has been a real proponent and advocate of structured
discovery to then go back to, you must hold your cane in this position and you must hold your cane
in that position. And why did you cane-

And I'm like, and I think my cohort
found it incredibly useful to have me.

I was the only visually
impaired person on the class, and they were like, why is your cane
like a foot longer than it should be?

And I would, I would teach them.

And so we'd spend all day learning.

But at lunchtime
and then at the end of the day, they would say, can you teach us about this
and can you teach us about that?

So they got the standard teaching, but
they also got the alternative teaching.

And I feel like there are now 21 O&Ms
who have gone out into Scotland who are really more
they're far more broadly qualified and far more broad
than their sort of peers are.

And I think what the takeaway from me
for that was, they said, what you talk about
just makes a lot of sense because you're- if you're a blind person
talking to us about why this, why this is good and why this makes sense,
and the lecturers are two sighted people telling us, well, this, this and this,
but actually you as a blind person, you're out there loving it
and doing it every day.

And what you say makes sense.

And this leads me back to the echolocation
piece when I first encountered Daniel
and I've met Daniel, and certainly a lot of people have seen Daniel
because he's been on, you know, different shows and things over the years.

People would ask me
and I think for, for Rachel and David,

I'm sure people are like, well, you know,
do you, do you do this echo stuff?

And what they imagine
is that we walk around kind of doing a clicker
sort of approach and, and I would say, no,

I mean, we naturally use echolocation
all the time.

I tell people, you can hear buildings
and I'm sure I get some funny looks, but when you walk by a very tall building, you can tell
there is something way above you.

Or if you walk through a carport, right?

You can tell all the echoes are different and you don't have to click,
but you can if that's helpful.

Or even if you walk by a fence, you can
tell if it's wood versus chain-link.

And those are all environmental clues
that can kind of help you realize where you are.

I've just learned how to get to Sydney
Airport, and one of the things that I do is I see when I get from the baggage
claim area back to the train system, there's a very high ceiling,
and then it slowly goes down to almost like a tunnel,
because I've walked down to the station, and it's right at that point where the assistant remains, you know,
to take you up to the loo and so on.

And it actually works really well
because I can actually feel and the sound changes
as you go from a very tall space and very open to a very closed
in, lowered roof type stuff.

And it's just so automatic that, you know,
I just don't even think about it.

It's absolutely amazing.

It's when I when that type of stuff
is taken away from me, it's like, where's my sixth sense gone?
I want it back.

So yeah, it does work really nicely.
Definitely.

I was just going to say
one of the things that Daniel will say, he's- he and I are good friends,
and I'm, I'm really pleased that we've been able to sort of remain friends and colleagues that he says,
I didn't invent echolocation.

Blind people have been doing it
since there were blind people.

But one of the things that I also find is
a lot of people who I teach, they explain,
but they don't have the vocabulary to to describe what they're hearing.
They don't have the words.

So it's almost like enabling them
to describe what they're doing and to be able to use it. Because, again, exactly what Rachel said.

It's you can tell the difference
between a wooden fence or a chain link fence or a glass,
a glass window wall and a brick wall.

But what does that actually mean?

And a lot of the work that I do, I'm
not teaching people that sound means that because they know that.

But what I'm then teaching them
is especially here in the UK, we're taught we're not taught to think for ourselves, and we're not taught to use common sense
and logic and problem solving.

We're taught about look for this landmark,
look for that landmark.

So I'm saying, okay, if you're in Glasgow City Center,
for example, and you're hearing the building,
which is brick, but then you start to hear glass,
that could that's probably a door.

So then you can start swinging your cane,
looking for a door panel.

And so a lot of what I do is,
you know, just bridging that gap between what seems like almost supernatural,

Daredevil type stuff to actually
bringing it back to day to day stuff.

I love it.

And the other piece
and you talk about this and I think for anyone who, whether you're a seasoned cane user
or someone who's newer to using a cane, is the type of
can you use and how do you even know the length of that cane?

You know, and everyone will have
a different preference, as to what?

As to what cane they like.

I'm personally, I'm an Ambutek user.

I like a heavier cane.

I like just that weight.

You know, and I like a rolling cane tip.

But I was working with a friend of mine
who is a distributor of ours who's newer-

You know,
they were losing a lot more vision, and it's just started using a cane
a bit more.

It's a very tall guy,
probably six foot eight ish. 6'10'' ish.

And his cane was like, up to his, like.

I mean, your toes rib cage. And I'm like,
what are you doing?

And my thought was, oh,
I think he has an identity cane, right.

Which is what I refer.

We refer to it
here, meaning, you know, more.

So I'm low vision.

I have some, I have some vision.

But, you know, you'll know this and I and
I was telling him, you've got to find-

You're going to be so slouched down and you're not going to have any time
to react to anything.

If you do find some obstacles
with a cane that short.

So can you talk a bit about,

I guess, I guess
just in that for those who are out there, because we will have lots of listeners
who maybe are newer, you know, to vision loss or who are just kind of like, well,
I should be using a cane a bit more.

Not that everyone
will want to choose the right cane, but you talk about three
different types of canes.

Can you can you summarize that
into what you kind of talked about in your your three types of cane piece
that I, that I was reading about?

Sure.

So we so here in the UK we call them we call them simple cane, a guide cane
and then a long cane.

And I think a simple cane is what you guys
would call an identity cane.

Which essentially that's kind of wrong
until it does exactly what it says on the tin and lets people know
that you have a vision impairment.

It's not intended to find obstacles
or detect anything.

It's literally
just there as a baton to show.

It's like a badge to say
I am visually impaired.

A guide cane is the next step up.

From that.

A guide cane again, not really supposed
to be used the way a long cane is, but you can use it
perhaps to check the height of a stair or to tap to see how far away
a barrier is.

Again, they're very light.
They're not very robust.

The and they're not supposed to
and they're short.

They're not supposed to be, used on the ground,
but they are a great sort of bridge for people
who are maybe losing their sight.

They're losing their sight later in life.

They're uncomfortable
with the idea of going straight to a long cane, and then you have to have the long cane, which is the one that most people
who are blind are using all the time.

It's the one that you can swing back
and forward.

They come in
all different shapes, sizes, materials.

There are a dozen or more different tips
you can put on the end.

You know of your cane, depending
on the terrain and what you're doing.

And those are the canes
that really facilitate, you know, commuting and traveling
and independence and enable you to detect obstacles and, you know, curbs and steps and do all that.

But, you know, get a long cane when when kids are young,
get a long cane in their hand, get, you know, be comfortable
with your cane and be proud of your cane.

You know, the

I think also people don't understand
and structured discoveries is extremely important
to learn about the surroundings.

And we do so much of that here in the National Federation of the Blind
and many places support and promote that.

But there is a lot of technique
to using a cane properly for you to be able to use this cane
most effectively and most efficiently, and to benefit you
the most, you need to learn how to use it properly from somebody who can teach you
how to use it properly, and why two point touch is better than sweeping
or constant contact, and why this technique or that technique, and even learning
things like pre-cane skills, using some pre-cane skills in combination
with cane skills.

Yeah, well,
I know this time went by very fast and just really appreciate your time,
Michelle.

And I believe you're going to stick around
with us for the next segment here.

But thank you so much for coming on, talking a little bit
about your experience yourself.

It's just great to have and even to have another
an international flavor to See Things

Differently with HumanWare podcast,
it's tremendously appreciated.

So thank you for being here.

It's absolutely my pleasure.

I'm not sure how often Glaswegians get caused to be called international flavor,
but I will take it.

Thank you.

We're going worldwide,
so we're starting with Scotland.

We're going out from there. So thank you.

Welcome back
to See Things Differently the podcast.

And this is going to be our hot take piece
Michelle is still with us.

And why not if you're talking O&M and you want to have an issue
that can be debated by blind people here and far everywhere, there's going to be
the classic cane versus guide dog.

Not necessarily debate, but really we're
always asked and I, I personally, have not ever had a guide dog
and we can get into that in a moment.

But you know,
we all have different thoughts here.

And, David,
I know you're a guide dog user.

And, Rachel,
I think you were a guide dog user.

Although as long as I've known you, you
you haven't had a dog.

But before we get into
whether user or not.

Michelle, are you a guide dog? Yes.

Are you a primary cane user?

I am a guide dog user, yes I am. Oh nice.

I know it's scandalous.

I love it personally.

I have never gotten a guide dog
for two reasons.

Number one, I never went and took the time
to go get my first guide dog.

And I think this is really
what got me because I went from high school to college.

I did not take the time, I didn't
I didn't want to go and get and kind of spend the time to get a dog
for the amount of time it would take.

And then secondly, being,
you know, now I'm a father, so I've become a lot more responsible with age,
but I certainly was not, you know, really feeling the whole taking
care of the dog aspect of owning the dog, feeding the dog, taking the dog out.

It's very, very important.

And I certainly now would probably commit
to it a lot, and I would certainly do it.

And I've seen the empowerment
that a dog can bring.

But I personally have always been
a cane user.

Floor is open.

Michelle, I guess I'll start with you.

And why?

Why the dog? And certainly.

When do you say no dog today or no dog?

In this scenario, we're going to go back
to the back to the back to the white cane.

So very quickly.

I was 17 when I trained with my first dog.

He had some problems.

And then I very quickly
got matched with the second one.

So I spent about four years,
when I was much younger with dogs,

I had two very unfortunate dogs, and I
said, no, no more lucky white heather.

Clearly I'm not meant to use dogs.

And there was a massive gap I moved.

I lived in Vancouver,

I traveled all over the world
using my cane, and I was perfectly happy.

Came back to Glasgow and thought, I'm
going to go on the guide dog waiting list.

I went back and forward joining up because I just wasn't sure,
because one of the key things that you've just said is looking after
a dog is a lot of responsibility.

You can't just fold it up and throw it
in the cupboard at the end of the day.

And there are all sorts of things
to consider when you have a dog.

So for me, the big things to consider
where I do a lot of traveling, how will the dog cope
with the amount of international traveling and the varied environments
that I encounter?

And also, we have a lot of access refusals with dogs here, particularly in the taxi
and Uber environment.

That was my number one, reservation
for getting a dog because I thought, I do
I want to deal with that.

Can I deal with this arrival anxiety
all the time?

But for me, you know, I am confident
and a confident and competent cane user guide
dog mobility enables me to be faster.

Then I walk pretty quickly with my cane.

But I also have arthritis, in my wrist
and in various parts.

So sometimes using a cane for,
you know, long distances and, you know, a full day out,
it can get quite tiring.

And I just feel like because I'm doing
the navigating the dog takes all the stress
of finding the obstacles away and dog use combines
very well with echolocation, because you can still use
all those echolocation techniques, but you can still listen for canopies and,
for ceilings, flooring, and buildings.

And you know, you can use cues like when you hear a building
and you can use that effectively.

And I think it's very important, however, that you should never just go
straight to a dog.

I think it's really important
that the fundament and I will, you know, I will die on this hill.

People should know how to use a cane
and people should keep up their cane skills when they have a dog,
because too often here in the UK, especially our wait in Leicester
can be 3 or 4 years right now for dogs and people are just becoming
isolated and trapped because they do not have the cane skills
and so many places here.

It is absolutely a prerequisite
to even get a dog.

You have to have
some very solid foundational, not just cane skills, but orientation
and mobility skills in general.

So it's huge.

David, what about you as a dog user?

How long have you been a dog user?
What are your thoughts?

Yeah, why why the dog? Do I have to admit
to how long I've had guide dogs?

You could tell us how many you have had.

That's much nicer.

I've had. I'm up to my fifth guide
dog now.

I actually quite like the fact Michelle
that you said keep up cane in schools, because that's always say to people, okay,
you've got a guide dog, it's taking you places, it's obstacle avoidance,
it's doing this, it's doing that.

But if your guide dog gets sick
or it's a noisy environment or anything else might happen,
you must be able to still use your cane.

I use my cane all the time because
sometimes I just think, you know what?

I don't want to walk my dog today.

I just want to go for a stroll around
the bike park and have a bit of a relax, or I'm going to go to a place where I know
it's going to be a rock concert and it's going to be 96dB.

I'm not going to expose my dog
to that level of noise.

I was getting a

Uber from the airport, to where I'm staying,
you know, in Adelaide.

And for some odd reason,

Louise and my guide dog kept
wanting to go off the footpath.

And for a minute.

This is a really busy part of the airport.

I do not want to be stepping off a path
unless I have to.

So I got my cane out
and I thought, I'll just walk out.

And it was literally
about five inches of space between a bunch of trolleys and the curb.

I thought-

Oh, that's what she was trying to tell me,
because half the time

I go,
what are you doing, you silly animal?

And it's like, oh, actually, she's being
a really good guide dog at the moment.

So having my cane also takes
that stress out of me thinking what's the dog doing is the dog
being distracted versus, no, your dog is actually doing
a really, really good job.

So yeah, I always use
my it's always in my bag as a standby.

And I find it really good.

So people that sort of say kind
versus guard dog, it's like, well, actually no, it's both together.

Rachel, what about you as someone-

So I mean, you
you used to dog for a while.

I know you've been on my team since 2018
and you haven't had a dog since then, but when? When did you have a dog?
And what are you?

What are your thoughts?

I guess as someone who's been a
in the adult kind of space with both, both setups.

So I used to guide dog
way back in college.

So it was a while ago
now, and she was great for that time
because obviously there's lots of crowds.

You know, talk about lunchtime
in the dining hall, tons of crowds, or you go in from class to class.

And the dog just did wonderfully
at guiding me, through the crowds.

And they are obstacle avoiders.

As we've all said,
your cane is an obstacle finder.

When she kind of just
developed some stress and couldn't handle
0
634
00:31:27,318 --> 00:31:30,555
the responsibilities of the job anymore,
and we found that out when, she just kind of stopped
in the middle of the street one day.

It was just like, no, I'm not going.

And I said, well, we need to go
because there's a car coming right at me.

So it was, became an unsafe situation.

So it was a very sad time
because I had to end her- our working career early.

And the school came in and dealt
with all of that.

But I noticed after,
you know, having used a guide dog for two and a half years
and you find so much more with your feet and with the cane,
than you do with a guide dog.

So I do miss the speed and agility
that a guide dog brings.

But also, there is a lot to be said for,
walking with my cane.

I also walk pretty fast.

I'm, usually on a mission
when I'm out on a walk.

And so, just using your cane in a way that is safe
and that works.

It is different than a guide dog,
but I'm glad that I've had the experience of using both, mobility aids, if you will.

And those who travel with their guide
dogs, I, I love it because, sure, like Michelle mentioned, there
could be a little bit of arrival anxiety.

Will I get a ride?

Will the driver just drive away
and leave me, or will I have a great interaction
doing all of the travel I do for work

A cane works for me.

It's so much easier to kind of fold up
and put in the seat pocket and put my carry ons where they need
to go, and and I'm off and on my way.

But I do love watching great guide dog teams, and I know the
the advantages that they can bring.

And certainly you learn lots
and lots of techniques for correcting and, you know, getting the dog to be the dog
you expect.

I mean, it's there is so much there.

You build a very, very,
very special relationship.

I mean, people and dogs
have had very special relationship, but this is a whole different level,
in fact, this one, because I was thinking, you know, do I really want to-

A new guide dog now and,
you know, just use the cane and but I'm so independent
and because I do a lot of, like, karate stuff
and I do this and that in the community.

And so,

I just wanted to keep my independence.

And there's nothing nicer than just
getting off of the train late at night and just saying, find the stairs. Yes.

So, yeah, it's great to talk about,
I think for anyone listening, remember, feel free to send us
send us feedback, send us feedback. [email protected] .

Thank you so much Michelle
for joining us and being here
for both of these, segments.

So thanks again.

Thank you guys.

In my wanderings,

I wandered down to Victoria virtually and found one of our colleagues down there
from HumanWare- Larissa Byass.

So. Hi. Thank you very much.

Now, can you tell me first?

So firstly, what
what made you interested in joining HumanWare?

And, and I guess part of that question is
what's your background?

And then how did you end up
going to HumanWare?

Yep. Okay.

My background is I am an orthoptist.

So I've worked in private clinics
and hospitals.

I've worked in research.

I worked in epidemiology research.

I've also coordinated clinical trials.

But I got into HumanWare
I used to work at Guide Dogs, in New South

Wales, and I used to recommend
a lot of HumanWare products.

I liked the products.

And then when I moved back to Melbourne,

I was offered a job at HumanWare, and
I thought, well, I like these products.

So yes, okay, cool.

Well, that makes sense.

So what parts of Australia
do you cover?

Because I'm assuming you know the one person you don't actually do
the whole of Australia.

So what parts of Australia
do you pretty much do?

No I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

Yes I cover, Victoria, South
Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania.

So half of Australia I suppose, is that
mainly I mean is that appointment based

Do you visit clients?

Do you visit organizations. So in Victoria-

Definitely.

Home visits and user based as well as, organizations in other states.

It is predominantly
visiting organizations.

When I do, make a visit to another state, sometimes an organization
may want me to visit someone in their home or in their office, but that's usually
determined by the organization's.

Yeah. Okay.

So what's sort of the process?

So somebody brings
up, HumanWare is on and I'd like a demo of, say, the new Prodigi for Windows device.

What happens to that process?

So if they're in Victoria,
where I'm located, then I will contact them and we'll
organize a time for me to come over, and I'll bring in and do a demo
if they're in another state.

And they contact us directly,
I would probably recommend that they visit their local or contact their local organization.

And then I would contact
their local organization, giving them the heads up, and sort of help
link those two together.

And in some situations we could, post out a device to the end user.

Depends on what the device is. Yeah.

And we could do a virtual demonstration
where they would have it there in front of them,
and I could talk them through it.

Or sometimes it's just a virtual
demonstration where I have it with me and we have a virtual, appointment,
and I can talk them through it that way, as well as a HumanWare person
that, you know, across all the devices.

But do you want to just want to mention the ones that you're primarily
responsible for?

Yeah. Okay.

So I probably deal.

Well, I definitely deal with the low
vision products, more so than the Braille.

Especially now that we have you on board.

So we've got our Explore range.

So there are electronic magnifiers.
They're quite portable.

We've got the Explore 5,
which is quite small, five inch, that has just recently been upgraded to have a USB-C charging port
instead of the old micro USB with.

So that's nice.

So we can get rid of that silly Micro
USB cable, thank god.

So that one's quite portable.

Good for like, sort of just like spot reading tasks,
taking me the shops to a restaurant, all that sort of stuff.
We've got Explore 8.

That's a little bit bigger.

If you've got a low to moderate
vision impairment, that's probably quite sufficient
for you to be able to sit down and read the newspaper or,
you know, a book.

We've also just recently released
the Explore 8 stand.

So that's available now.

And then we've got the Explore 12,
which is bigger again, a little bit less portable,
but fits into a laptop bag.

And that's also available with the stand.

That's, that's
always been available with the stand.

So that's our Explore range.

We've also got the Reveal16
and the Reveal16i there are desktop, less portable options.

They've they've both got a 16 inch screen.

And the reveal 16 is just live magnification
and the 16i has OCR which is text to speech basically.

And then we've got a new product
which is Prodigi for Windows.

It's just come out.

So that is live magnification and OCR that's available on your Windows device.

So it's just a software program
that you can purchase and if needed,
if you don't have a document camera, there's a document camera
that you can purchase along with it.

Yeah.

So that's, that's our newest low vision product.

So we've got you in, in the sort
of the southern part of sort of the southern-ish part of Australia so you're for sort of like,
so you're demoing and showing people stuff
and everything else.

What happens with, technical support?
There's a couple of different ways you can go about this.

You can contact
me directly if it's a basic, blindness device query.

Often I can help,
but if it's a little bit more technical and you again, you've contacted me
directly, I'll usually say

I'll have to get back to you
and talk to one of my experts.

So if you want to talk to an expert,
in regarding Braille devices, then it's probably best
that you contact, head office.

And, if you call us on 0296862600, and then you select blindness tech support that will take you through to Arthur,
and Arthur will be a lot more equipped to help you than I will in the more technical issues.

Or you can email us on
[email protected] .

If it's low vision products then you can also contact our head office
or you can contact me directly.

My direct contact is 0488298819.

And my email is Larissa which is

L A R I S S A dot

BYASS [email protected] .

So thank you for coming on.

If people would want to get in contact
with me at HumanWare myself you can email me
[email protected] .

Welcome back to the Cringeworthy Story of the month.

And in really keeping
with this O&M theme.

And I'm sure David and Rachel,
you have done this.

I recently had an instance where had I
not been prepared, I would have had a,

I mean, I, I really
I learned because of a previous story that I needed to be prepared.

So I was actually in a hotel room,

I had gone down to the vending machine
to get a actually to get some tea.

There was a tea station in the lobby.
When I went down there.

I unfolded my cane and, you know, to leave
the room, I walk down, I am down there.

And I folded my cane up to sit down
and have a cup of tea, and the elastic band snapped in my cane,
and I was reminded of a time.

Now, fortunately,
I was all right because I had a spare right up in my room and I thought, oh, I'm
going to go get my spare cane.

But I was reminded of a time in Toronto
where I'm at the airport and I did not have a spare cane
and a luggage cart- one of those big, unwieldy luggage rolling cart machines that you're supposed to
take, like 19 suitcases on, ran my cane over and broke it.

And I was at the beginning of a trip,
and it was not good.

It was not good.

I was like, oh, dear.

And I had no spare at the time.

And this was early in my travel endeavors.

But, I did
I mean, to talk about cringeworthy.

I didn't have a mobility aid. Right.

And I'm in a, you know, an airport around in a very unfamiliar environment
with a cane that while it was functional,

I mean, it really was serving an identity
cane kind of purpose at that point.

As we talked about earlier with Michelle,
I basically had no usable cane.

I had something I could hold in
front of me to give people the semblance
that I am going to, you know, I'm blind and I'm going to need some assistance
here.

But I, I had
I had no tip, and I was in big trouble.

And I learned from that point forward
to always have a spare.

Have you ever had issues, either of you,
where you've run into just these snafus and I have a lot of these these crazy snafu stories, but this one,
these cane once always stand out.

And I've now broken
a couple of canes over the years.

But how about you guys?

I broke a cane at, an O&M conference.

That's the best place
ever to break a cane.

That was my safety net story.

It was a great place to break a cane
because there were people who knew how to fix it or who was like,
you know what?

We have a spare at our table.
I'll go get you one.

So I feel very fortunate.

That was my safety net.

If you ever.

And from that point on, I always carry your spare cane in my backpack
because you never know.

It is a wild world out there.

Do we ask how you broke it, though?
Yeah. What'd you do?

Somebody ended up tripping over
it and ended up breaking it.

So keep a spare with you at all times.

So this is a
this is a funny, cringe worthy moment.

So I don't know if I told you this
guys this story, but I do karate. So,

I walked in there one day with my white cane and I had my cane out,
which is fine.

And then I had this person come up to me and
say, don't you know the rules of the dojo?

And I went, pardon me.

And I said, no,
using your bow staff off the mat.

Why are you
why are you waving it around like that?

That's extremely dangerous.

Don't you understand there's young children around?

Or you can hit with it.

And I said, it's a it's
a white cane for blind person.

They went, what? I said, it's a cane.

It's not a bo staff.

And they go, I'm so sorry.

It just looked like one of the real bo
that we use for karate.

Know it not.

And I think when we're kids,
we all lose our canes, right?

We don't we don't remember where they are.

Like, we forget them.

We don't want to use them.
We leave them at home.

We leave them at school.

And it's like, I don't know, you know, there's nothing worse about trying
to get on a train and having your cane just disappear out of your hand between
the platform and the train onto the track.

I have heard of this
happening on an airplane as well.

Someone who was a very good friend of mine
lost a cane this way from the edge of the jet
bridge into the plane.

Went straight down and they- so they decide to get on the plane
because they're like, well,
I'm not going to hold up the line here.

And they're sitting and someone brings
their cane and says, yeah.

The baggage team
figured somebody dropped this.

It's like this white cane came
falling through the jet bridge.

You know? They rescued it.

That's amazing, I love that.
Well that's good.

I have left multiple canes.

This happened
more than once on the roof of the car.

Now, you might think, Peter, why would you
put a cane on the roof of the car?

And I'll tell you, with two really young
kids, oftentimes I will fold my cane.

And as I'm getting them in the car seat, instead of throwing it into the front
where I sit,

I put it on the top
so I can get my kids in the car seat and then just automatically get in
the car.

We're driving away and I hear it and
I'm like, oh no, no, no, no.

And it was gone.

Like we were like cruising. At that point,
there's nothing I could do.

I think the moral of the story
is always carry around two canes.

If you at least you want
be using an spare one.

Keep that in mind.

Don't have your own cringeworthy stories,
although we would love to hear them. [email protected].

If you would like to share a cringeworthy cane story
and I will be gathering, I have-

I have received a couple of very lovely,
pieces of feedback, that email address.

So thank you to those of you
who have sent, something in anyone who you know, anyone
who would like to send it in further, we can definitely comment on them
on a future podcast.

So thank you.

All right everyone, it's time for the tips
and tricks part of our show.

And today, keeping with the theme of O&M
and we do have an O&M device, an orientation, a mobility product
called the StellarTrek.

I'm going to talk a bit about map
browsing mode, and some of you may have heard me do demonstrations on this in the past
because it's not new to HumanWare what map browsing mode allows you to do
is it lets you virtually simulate a location, right?

So you place yourself at a virtual, spot
and you can move around the map as though you were walking the street grid
at that location.

So I'm sitting in my basement here in Chicago, and I'm actually going
to virtually, we're going to walk around, the neighborhood of a friend of mine who just moved into a new condo
and the River North area of Chicago.

And I was just over there,
and I dropped a landmark at that location.

And now I've come home
and I actually want to check out and see what bus stops are around there.

So I'm going to pull up that location,
and we are going to virtually walk around some of his streets so that when I actually go there in person,
I will know the lay of the land.

All right.

So I have my StellarTrek and I am going to select a landmark
from my list of recorded landmarks.

And these could either be voice tags
or they could be text depending on or address depending on
how you want to save your landmark.

So I'm going to press the go to key,
which is above our directional arrows.

On the StellarTrek we have two buttons.

We have a button that contains a hash mark
that has our back button and the right button.

So again above our directional arrows, the left button is back
and the right button is our.

Select a landmark or go to key.

We're going to press that
go to button here.

Select a landmark as your destination. 55 landmarks Costco Chicago, Illinois.

Press confirm
to start route in pedestrian mode.

So you heard
that Costco is my first landmark.

Now these are
you can sort these in many different ways.

You can even sort them by the cities
that you're in.

And I have lots of landmarks.

I do a lot of travel,
and I love to drop landmarks, even just at entrances to parks
when I'm with my kids or, where certain bus stops may be, you know,
if they're, if I, if I don't want to just look at the map,
if I just want the landmark to be spoken.

So I use this in these landmarks
in many ways, but the one I want to find
is actually the, the, the.

I have this sorted oldest to newest.

So Costco was recorded long and long ago,
but I am going to move to the left here, sort and enter an address.

After we have enter an address

KR, Chicago, Illinois.

Press confirm
to start route in pedestrian mode that just says KR and that is because
that is what I've named this landmark.

And it says that if I press confirm right
now, I would be guided to that landmark.

But I don't want that.

I'm going to press my down
arrow, and I have some other options here of what I can do with a pre
saved or recorded landmark

Start in motorized mode, press
confirm to start route and motorized mode.

If I wanted vehicle instructions,
I would choose this, but I'm gonna press my down arrow
one more time.

Enter map browsing mode, press confirm to enter
map browsing mode from this location.

And at this point, this is where and again
I can move down and I could delete this landmark or rename this landmark
if I had a bad recording, maybe there was a bus
driving by or something.

I could rerecord it once

I'm in a quieter environment,
but at this point I want to enter the map browsing mode at this location,
so I'm going to press confirm.

Entering map browsing mode.

You are currently on West Institute
Place heading east and we hear that I am currently again,
I've simulated this location.

I'm on West Institute Place
and I'm heading east.

If I push my where am I button,
which is our bottom left key below our directional arrows
near 314 West Institute Place.

You hear that
I'm told the address that I'm out.

So I'm standing in front of 314
West Institute Place here in Chicago.

I am facing east.

So if I press my up arrow
I will walk forward or east at this point.

So let's go forward
and see where we end up in 281ft four way intersection with stop sign West Institute Place crossing North Franklin Street.

So I'm now at Institute and Franklin,
and I hear that this intersection has a stop sign.

And I will hear
if it's a three way or a four way.

Now, what that doesn't tell me
is, you know, is it a four way stop?

I will tell you right now,
this is not a four way stop.

Franklin is a quite a busy street.

But Institute Place has a stop sign
at this intersection, so I could, you know, turn left or right.

Let's turn right
and let's actually walk again.

We're heading east. We get to this
intersection, we're going to turn right.

So I'll press my right arrow
on your right, North Franklin Street.

We've turned right. We're on Franklin.

And now if I press my up arrow, we will be
heading south because we've turned.

We're heading east. We've turned right.
We're now heading south.

I'm going to press my up arrow and walk
south to the next intersection in 295ft, four way intersection with traffic light North Franklin Street, crossing West Chicago Avenue.

So this is a pretty big intersection.

Franklin
in Chicago, in the River North area here.

And we hear that it has a traffic light.

Now, at this point, you know,
I hear it's a four way.

And I could certainly go left or right.

Let's turn right though, and let's look back down
on your right, West Chicago Avenue.

So now I'm going to be heading west.

I'm going to hit my up
arrow and walk west in 413ft four way intersection with traffic
light West

Chicago Avenue
crossing North Orleans Street.

So here's Chicago in Orleans.

If I press up arrow again,
I would continue straight.

And again, we're heading west on Chicago.

At this point,
even when you're in virtual map browsing mode,
you are able to pull up list of landmarks.

And those also do contain transit stops here in North America,
as well as in some other spots in Europe.

We have not found consistent
transit accuracy, so we do not have, transit stops overlaid on these maps.

These are HERE maps

I am going to press and hold my where am I key to pull up a list of
landmarks that are around me?

What's around 55 items? 1- 37 Sedgwick Bus Station, 65ft.

Press confirm to enter route preview
in pedestrian mode from this location.

And we hear that there is a bus stop
right away.

The bus stop is shown
the number 37 Sedgwick bus stop.

And what happens is again,
the transit stops will be listed here to certainly
and in North America.

And I can move left
and right through this list.

Now I've just pulled up
every single landmark that is around and we here again that I have some options
even within.

So let's just,
you know, if I pull up these landmarks, even though I'm virtually browsing,
if I press my down arrow,

Enter route preview in motorized mode,
I can get a route preview for this, but I'm gonna keep coming down. Report
point of interest.

Press confirm
to report invalid point of interest.

You can report this point of interest
to us.

That would be necessary
if you wanted to flag an old business.

You know, if there was something
that was no longer around.

We're not we are certainly not
the keepers of these maps HERE.

Maps is and the data could be out of date.

And if you find businesses
that are out of date, these will then if you flag them,
they will be sent to us.

The next time you turn your unit on
and connect to Wi-Fi.

And we would be able to then
get in touch with HERE maps and report this as being a bad landmark set
as a possible destination.

Press confirms this at this point
of interest as a possible destination.

So here we have
the set as a possible destination option.

And this would be
where we are able to save this number 37 bus stop as a landmark, meaning
it could be chosen as a destination.

A landmark does not have to be
a destination.

You certainly could have landmarks
that you maybe never want to navigate to.

Maybe just again, something you may walk
by that you want to be notified of, but you don't want to ever see them
as actual, destination.

If I come down one more enter route
preview in pedestrian mode, press confirm to enter Route
Preview in pedestrian mode.

From this location,
I can enter preview even in virtual mode.

So this can be very useful depending on where it is you want to start
and end, and a very helpful feature allowing you to get the lay of the land
or understand where and you know the street grid
is or where locations are of things.

Before you go to a hotel
or before you go to that, friend's house, or before you go to that
restaurant you want to walk to and this is different from previewing an
existing route or route you have walked.

This is a way to virtually place yourself
at any given point and walk around to understand and build that
environmental literacy of that location.

And that is our
tip and trick for this week.

All right, everybody, time to talk about where we will be,
where you can find us in upcoming shows.

From April 8th to April 10th,
we will be at the principals of the schools for the blind, or POSB
Stem Institute, that will be taking place in Fremont, California at the Best Western
Plus Garden Court.

That will be a great time
to come see Rachel.

She will be there holding it down,
and right after that, she will continue to be in California with Kevin
and some other HumanWare representation.

And we have presentations at the CTE BVI.

We love our acronyms in this field.

The California Braille Transcribers
and Vision Teachers Conference, that'll be taking place from April
10th to the 13th at the San Francisco Airport Marriott.

So come see us at either of those events.

And as we get into the summer and the late spring,
we'll look at other things in Europe and summer shows and lots of fun places
where you can come say hi and who knows, maybe even tell us
you're a fan of the podcast.

Thanks everybody.

If you have comments or suggestions,
we'd love to hear from you.

Please send them the [email protected]

That's [email protected]

We'll see you next month.