Sarah and I

I arrived in New York by Chinatown Bus for a job interview more than 3 years ago. It was around 6 AM in the morning. The stench of Chinatown is pretty repulsive, to say the least. Standing on a street named East Broadway waiting for Kaybee to arrive, the sky slowly brightened as the skyscrapers on Lower Manhattan illuminated against the sky.

Prior to the trip, I had been to New York only twice but each time, it was very superficial visits. But not after this.

Kaybee was kind to let me stay with her in Hell's Kitchen. Later, after the job interview, I went to kaybee's place. There I got to meet her roommates. Normally, I am cautious and wary of meeting new faces. That is who I am. But kaybee's roommate, Sarah Pack broke through easier than committing a sin. How? She said something outrageous that made me like her instanteously.

She was saying, "Did you know that ... umm ... I often get free rides on cabs here in New York because of this [she pointed at her breasts]?"

From that point, I was hooked with her. Sarah went on to explain that most of the drivers are Arabs, Indians or dark-skinned guys. They always stared at her big breasts. She said it was such a nuisance but she knew that it excited them as well. Sarah said that they often declined her money to pay for fare. One time, Sarah told me that one guy personally thanked her for riding in his cab. She rolled her eyes and said, "At least, they are happy."

The next night, I was drunk and hungry. Sarah suggested a 24-hour diner on 11 Avenue by 49 Street. Today, the place went out of business. But when we entered the premise, it was cozy. WE munched bacon, sausage strips, eggs, pancakes and fried potatoes. It was fun chatting with Sarah as she mentioned about things in life from 2 AM to 5 AM. It was only the second night after I was formally introduced to her.

Her thoughts, frustrations and aspirations are similar to mine. We were able to change the subjects liberally as things go by. I hate the people who said, "Let's back to this subject ..."

IN fact, Sarah told me she HATED it!

It is no secret that Sarah and I am not in shape like many people. We are out of shape beings who struggled to deal with the issues surrounding ourselves. Sarah did not get big on "purpose". Her medical condition required her to take steroids which caused her to grow by size. Not her fault. I was able to divulge my frustrations on her, and her on me about our appearances.

When I moved to New York, and if I needed a timeout from the daily drama of New York Life, I simply paged Sarah and asked if I could come by and chat. She'd say, "Why bother to ask? Just come!" I ended up staying for hours and one time, for two days in a row.

One time, Sarah paged me to tell me to come over to her place for a dinner. When I arrived at her door, I saw Sarah standing by her apartment door. She said, "Bad news or good news?"

I opted for bad.

"I got locked out."

Good?

"I ordered the food from 9 Avenue diner and they're already here. We are going to eat at [pointing at the neighbor's door]."

I said, "You kid me or what?"

The old irish woman came out of her apartment and motioned us to enter her kitchen where we dined at her kitchen table. Throughout the dinner, we laughed, laughed and laughed about having our dinner at some stranger's home. We stayed about an hour before Kaybee finally got home and opened the door for us.

That is so Sarah. If things comes up in her face, relax -- it'll pass eventually. There are moments that I could not figure out what's going on in New York -- little tidbits that puzzled me. Sarah was there to explain that. I learned to appreciate New York through Sarah. One time she ordered ice cream shakes. I told her that I was not interested. She said, "Trust me on this."

It was homemade ice cream shakes from some restaurant on 9 Avenue It was heavenly. She introduced me to a lot of things and for that, I appreciated her very much.

It was such an unfortunate that three persons I knew and loved, Chanda Smith, Jake Temby and now Sarah Pack are gone. But I like to think that they are somewhere else to prepare one massive party for my Grand Arrival someday.

Yeah, that is probably the reason.

Cheers,

R-

If You're Bored In Sioux Falls ... !

This is amusing. 18 years old guy was caught having sex with ... a dummy. And he may have to register as sex offender, just because he was caught with his pants down fucking a mannequin.

Where did it happen? In Sioux Falls, South Dakota!

Cheers,

R-

1st Deaf Hunger Strike!

In Flint, Michigan, Ryan Commerson has decided to go on a hunger strike in order to force the Michigan School for the Deaf, Detroit Day School for the Deaf and the state of Michigan to change the policies and procedures related to ASL and Deaf Education.

For years, the state of Michigan has largely neglected the needs of Deaf children. Today, more and more people wanted the best for their children who are Deaf, the state of Michigan and its two deaf schools refused to comply with the changes.

For months, Ryan Commerson has pleaded, pressured and fought to get the schools to recognize ASL at these schools but these schools rejected, manipulated and blocked him from achieving something positive for Deaf children in Michigan.

For further information on this fiasco in Michigan, check the link at Starving for Access :: One Man's Mission.

Jeers to the MSD & DDSD for its plantation mentality on Deaf children in the state.

Note: Ryan is already tall and thin. Just don't get too thin, Ryan. Hang in there!

Cheers,

R-

An Update About NBC's SURFACE

Greetings! I got an email from Michael Krajnak who attached the message from Marc Hirschfeld regarding the hiring of a hearing actress as deaf character.

They do not get it. I understood that they could not find any. They could have stroll up to Gallaudet campus, I'm sure someone there would have done the job. They chose to get in touch with talent agencies. These talent agencies are well-known for ignoring Deaf people's aspirations.

R-

From: Hirschfeld, Marc (NBC Universal) >
Cc: Olmstead, Kahlil (NBC Universal)
Date: Mon Nov 21, 2005 01:24:26 PM EST
Subject: Surface

Michael,

I wanted to respond to your letter regarding your concerns about the actor who portrayed Lee's deaf girlfriend in the episode of Surface a week or so ago. For financial reasons we needed to hire a local actress who was proficient with sign language. Our local casting directors sent a notice regarding the upcoming role to approximately 50 talent agents in the Southeastern United States and only received a handful of submissions. Several were auditioned and the actress that booked the role was the only one that was the right fit physically with Ian Anthony Dale, who plays "Lee". We were told that she was proficient in sign language but clearly that was not the case and there was no one on the set to supervise her signing.

We apologize for her performance on the episode and will supervise this more closely in the future. Thank you very much for bringing this to our attention and thank you for being a fan of "Surface".

Sincerely,

Marc Hirschfeld
Executive VIce-President, Casting
NBC Entertainment

JuneAnn LeFors Is Xian Nut

June Ann LeFors Is One Xian Nut! This bitch has no right to capitalize the death of Sarah Pack to fit in with her twisted agenda of promoting Xian religion. By reading her entry, June Ann LeFors is what I termed as: Fundamentalist Xian. That kind of group is nuts. They try to justify the means of something hocus pocus to define what is wrong with their lives.

Sarah is not a friend of June Ann LeFors just because she is friend to Melissa Yingst! Let's be honest here. June Ann LeFors has been greatly brainwashed by Xians to a point where if she sees a face on a palm tree, she'll say that it was done by the act of Jesus Christ.

May June Ann LeFors rot in Hell for what she wrote about Sarah Pack! Even I'm certain that Sarah would roll her eyes at June Ann's condescending comments. Sarah and I occasionally discussed about our distaste in fundamentalists (be it Islam, Jews or Xians). We loved to poke fun at them. Know why? Because we knew they were idiots.

Perhaps the best lesson for June Ann is yet to come when one of her own brats drop dead, then I'll say something about her God doing NOTHING for her! That would be amusing to see how she reacted to it. She is one big delusional bitch, issuing her opinions on everything else that she's better. Well her sin is what? Pride and narcissism. These will be the downfall of her life.

Know Who Tom Willard Is? Tom Willard used to be Editor-in-Chief for the national newspaper for the deaf, Silent News. He was pushed out of Silent News after his repeated conflicts with the owners of Silent News.

However, that is not the issue here. He was placed on persona non grata from Rochester Institute of Technology. Why? Because he tried to offer the business card to one swimmer in the locker room. Tom thought it was no big deal.

Look at Tom's face, he does fit in the image of a ... pervert, by any means. I'm sorry to say this but let's use common sense. He does look like one, is he?

I think he should know better than to offer his business card to a "prospective model" in a locker room. That, to me, is creepy thing to do. That is more of solicitation, in my opinion.

Not only that, he's 48 years old. Why was he on the RIT campus? To cruise? What was he up to? If he wants to cruise, go to Gold's Gym or any local gyms in Rochester instead.

Anyway, Tom Willard is correct about one thing -- he was deprived of due process. But it is tacky to know that he would lurk around the college campus to solicit students for his "photography" exhibits. And it is tacky to set up his own website to whine about it.

Good thing, it rained today. Am working on logistics to get myself to New York immediately to pay my respects for Sarah Pack. I am entertaining no supplicants today!

Cheers,

R-

Damming The Stream Just For Fun

Trying to deal with the untimely death of my good friend, Sarah Pack, I took my parents' digital camera out on the exercise walk. I thought of this particular stream that I once told Sarah a long time ago. She asked me if I had a picture of this particular activity that I did. I told her that I did not take the pictures of that before. Tough luck, I guess.

What activity is this? Well, many years ago, my brother and I biked around the neighborhood, we stumbled upon a park called "Riverside Park". It is one lousy, cheap park for anyone to hit on -- it only has baseball field, basketball courts and tennis courts. That's it. Nothing else.

But if you go to the edge of the park, there is a small forest with an abandoned road down the hill -- many kids zoomed their bicycles down the hill. There are some trails that you can BMX yourselves throughout -- but the chances of you flipping over your bikes are pretty high. It happened to me. At the bottom of the hill lies a small stream that flows into Appomattox River.

This particular unnamed stream is not fast moving stream. In fact, it is pretty small and slow. My brother, Gary and I had this amusing idea -- to dam the brook and see if it will back up the stream as much as can be. Just like the Hoover Dam turning the Colorado River into Lake Mead.

We went back home and brought the equipments necessary to build the dam. But we also organized the sticks and rocks that sits next to us because we were aware that the hearing kids that zoomed by the stream can be vicious. They'd try to attack us -- we'd hurl these weapons back at them in force. And yes, it happened twice or thrice. Anyway, Gary and I discussed about this particular brook, we brought two small wood boards to insert on the ground level to give the sand/dirt some support to push the water back.

We also brought small shovel and two 1-inch width pipe to have water flow into the pipes as we did not want the water to overflow the dam. So we pushed two boards down and quickly pushed dirt on the main stream and hurrily dig some more sand/dirt to build up a little -- it was about 2 feet tall and about 6 feet width.

Voila! It worked. Gary and I looked at the stream that steadily build up against the dam, the vacancy of water flowing into the river. We inserted the pipes -- it worked like charm. Sure enough, we hung out and played around a little but always came back to keep an eye on the build-up of stream against the dam. The dam held very well as the stream went as far as can be.

It was getting darker. Gary and I left for home. Later in the evening, a storm occured. Gary quickly mentioned me about the brook. I said "FINISH GONE!"

Next day, we went back only to see the different stream going in its path -- yes, the dam was gone, I guess the downpour overwhelmed the dam and rushed its way to Appomattox River.

Either way, this project still ranked as one of the fun moments in my childhood life. Call it lame if you want to but it is for me.

Today, I went to the brook to look around -- The brook is still there. Of course, Sarah and I joked about this particular brook. I think it is fitting that I posted these pictures that I took today.

Cheers,

R-

For One, A New Adventure Has Begun!

I posted the entry for Sarah Pack last night as she wanted to share the message to her blogreaders and friends, our friends crisscrossed each other, especially in the blogosphere. Her blogsite can be found at Just Wondering Outloud.

Then after that, Sarah and I chatted each other through the pager until 3 AM, then I told her that it was bedtime for me. We bid each other good night. It turns out that it was the last time that we would have this conversation as she passed away this morning.

Her entry, A Message from Sarah Pack ... was her last testimony to our readers/friends through my blog. Perhaps it was a message for me from her heart.

It was Sarah who gave me the book whom the title eluded me at this moment. It was a book about the interesting tidbits of New York. When I was down, I simply had to page, VP or IM her and we'd go on hours of conversations about anything else.

I know I have a bad habit -- when I get excited or wanted to laugh, I tend to raise my hand right above my ears and lightly slapping on my head in an incessant act -- perhaps 4 or 5 times just enough to express my excitement or laughter. Sarah loved that -- she always smiled so hard when I do that. If she joked, and I did not do that motion, she'd say: "What's wrong? You don't like what I said?" I'd smack her off by slapping on my head just to shut her up. She'd grin.

Sarah was introduced to me by her roommate and my close friend, Kaybee of urban versus rural, three years ago and from there, Sarah and I was pretty close until the end.

Sarah certainly knew me bit that much. Let's say we shared a lot of things with each other. She was great, funny, classy and intelligent. Sarah has certainly helped me in many ways from A to Z -- she was a great listener, storyteller and adviser when I needed one. She certainly was a fan of my blogsite. She would page/IM/email me whether if I plan to update the blog.

Rest in peace, Sarah. I shall miss you very much.

Oh, Sarah, thanks for everything! You did so much for me when I was in New York -- for that, I appreciated this very much. Love you lots.

XOXO,

R-