Grant Laird, Jr. Blog

ASL Video - Approx 3:38 Minutes Long

Last weekend, Grant and his girlfriend went to 5th Annual Silent Night Deaf Ministry Scholarship Benefit at Lover Lane United Methodist Church (LLUMC) in Dallas. This is his 2nd time to attend – last time, he went there and watched World First Deaf Solo Rode Sailboat around the World presentation.

It was enjoyment overall along silent auction, entertainment, presentation, and wonderful dinner & dessert including brief presentation from DISD Trustee Dr. Edwin Flores. Grant won one of the bidding, he received “A VIP Wine Tasting Event for 20” event worth $750 according to certification. He never been there before and looking forward to it!!

Kudo to Rev. Dr. Tom Hudspeth and his team for wonderful event again!

Also, she kept saying how important that parent stay activity in their deaf children during school times. It is clearly that our community has a long way to go. Katie’s dream is to establish an unbiased information network to all parents of deaf children. Yes, that would include sign language, cochlear implant, hearing aid, oral methods, etc. The Bottom line is to get best communication and education for deaf children.

It does of the highest importance that parent understand what it takes to raise deaf children otherwise the children will be lost forever.

If you live in Texas and want to get with Miss Deaf Texas Katie Murch for show and presentation, contact them!! Grant promised it is best investment you ever get for your local event, whether it is for deaf or hearing audiences.

More information about Miss Deaf Texas, go to http://deaftexas.org/wp/miss-deaf-texas/

To learn more about LLUMC Deaf Academy, go to http://www.deafacademy.com/ 

Check out pictures, go to Grant’s Flickr Album - click here

Grant Laird Jr.
http://blog.grantlairdjr.com

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Several weeks ago, Grant sold his selling item through craigslist.org for 300 dollars cash. Next day, Grant and his girlfriend went Home Depot and purchased a new air condition unit for 399 dollars which means he would pay the difference. It’s no problem.

When they approached cashier, he skipped self-service checkout because he doesn’t want to deal with many 20s in cash into a machine. They are already in line for human cashier but this young man from self - checkout jumped and wanted them go there. (He watch four machines) He hesitated but agreed to go for it. He immediately scanned all items including an air condition unit with his wireless scanner gun. He gave all 20s in cash ($300) to self-service checkout man — he took it the money. Apparently he’s trying to force-rush the money (20s dollars) into self-service checkout machine and it got stuck big time.

He called his manager lady to look into it. Unfortunately, she had to open a self-service checkout machine to clean out stuck dollars out. She gave us 100 dollars in 20s back, but they told her one more 20s is missing. Manager said no because machine said we only put 100 dollars into a machine. What’s more, self-service checkout man told manager that Grant screwed it up? Grant’s girlfriend (wear hearing aid) overheard him and speak out. She told manager that this self-service checkout man screw it up and want last 20 buck back. To make it a short story, they got all money back and went back to a human cashier line.

If it wasn’t for his hard of hearing girlfriend, he may not hear what self-service checkout man told manager and may end up longer to fight back through paper and pen. Who knows?

Home Depot Store
Jupiter Road
Garland, Texas

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Over years, Grant have been enjoyed playing video games from Atari 2600 to Nintendo to Xbox 360. Even he is not biggest player in the world, but he would try to buy few good games and play whenever he could with his busy schedule. He acknowledged that only several games that he would play like crazy. (countless hours and never get tired of it)

Half-Life Screenshot with Subtitle (Picture - Courtesy of DeafGamers.com

In past recent years, he noticed that many games on box cover like Xbox 360 and others with picture on it (beautiful drawing, details, specification and others) but what annoying him the most — it has no screen shot picture on it!! The reason he likes to see the real screen shot picture on a retail box because he likes to play “first-person shooter” (similar to Doom2 or others) style not other game mode style. Not all retail boxes reveal it.

Last weekend, Grant and his friend went to GameStop store. He almost buys a game called Darkness, but he has hard time tell if it is first-person shooter style because it has no screen shot picture and doesn’t say anything. He can’t even check out demo at a store either. As results, he didn’t buy it.

Back of Half-Life Retail Box Coverage - Example: Lack of good screenshot picture with dashboard on it

He feels it is important to have few screen shot pictures on back of a retail game box before he decides to buy it. Let’s say we will look at GameStop.com website — it has some screen shot picture on it, but it doesn’t look like real tho. It would have shown the gun, hands, health status, weapons, all that works. (Sort of dashboard) This is example, it has screenshot pictures but no details on it. He didn’t look at all titles, but you fully understand the issue. Same thing goes to a magazine such as Game Informer. (hard copy version)

Hopefully, some of the game manufacturers saw this message, and maybe they will improve in future printing. Another solution is downloading demo through your Xbox Live account with Internet access and check out games before you purchase. (Note: not all games available in demo)

P.S. Oh yeah, it would be a bonus if they would put “subtitle available” on a retail box along other specifications — it would help deaf gamers very much. There’s another way around by go to http://www.deafgamers.com/ and see if this game has subtitle in it or not.

By the way, if you are first-person shooter fan, you should check it out - list of free games. (Both old and new)

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