Day 1 in Oklahoma City

I made it! Oklahoma is FLAT! But I am having a great time here. I got up at 3:30 a.m. (2:30 a.m. Oklahoma time) and made it to the airport by 5 a.m. to catch my 6 a.m. flight. When I got there, I discovered that my flight was delayed an hour. That was fine because my layover in Cincinnati was one hour instead of being two hours and there was plenty of time to catch my connecting flight. The flight was uneventful and Jennifer was right there at the OKC airport to meet me. We had a fun and busy day yesterday and met lots of new people. Also met Joyce and Shari, who have blogs as well. Also met Terry Portis, his wife, Denise, and their new hearing ear dog. Mike Royer arrived last night and I hope to meet him today. (Royer is my maiden name and I'd love to see if we are related!) Jennifer and I are volunteers so we worked the silent auction table for four hours. There are 75 vendors with all kinds of booths to cater to the deaf and hard of hearing. I skimmed them yesterday but plan to take my time checking them out today, especially with the ones with the phones.

The opening session was well done and there were three screens up so everyone could see. I know I am sitting in a "loop" or special sound system because what I hear in my processors is so clear and crisp with no extra noise or interference. There are interpreters signing in the front of the room and of course there is close captioning on the screens. Jennifer commented that no one is going to look at the speaker because they will be looking at the screens! The keynote speaker was Dr. I. King Jordan, who was the former president of Gallaudet University and he was very interesting. He spoke about the recent controversy surrounding the new president of Gallaudet University and how there is no one way to be deaf or hard of hearing today. There are many degrees of deafness (some with other disabilities) and how what works for one person does not always work for another. We also went to a reception with some great Mexican food and got our pictures taken. We went back to our hotel room before the reception was over. I was fading fast and couldn't keep my eyes open.

Jennifer and I are having a blast and we are great roommates. We are staying at the Marriott Renaissance and it is very nice. Our beds are wonderful and I slept like a log the minute my head hit the pillow. I feel human today after my shower and cup of coffee. It is interesting sharing a room with another person who is deaf because we don't have to worry about waking each other up and can make all the noise we want! If you want to read her version about yesterday, go here!

Jennifer and I are going to take a walk this morning and see what is in this downtown area that we are in. I need to find a sweater - the convention center is COLD and I'm having a hard time staying warm. This afternoon I'm going to sit on a forum for Cochlear - they asked me to when I visited their booth yesterday. We're going to go back to the Convention to meet up with Joyce, sit on some seminars, and just have fun! More later. . .