Good day fellow blog readers , in this blog I'm taking a complete twist away from technology to talk about a special day.

In case you haven't guessed it yet, "yes," I'm referring to Father's Day.

Its amazing how every one is in such a rush to get a special gift for that very special dad.

However, lets take a moment and reflect on what Father's Day actually is.

I'm not going to sit here and preach about God and such, but in my opinion, Father's Day is that very special day on which we give thanks to our dad. After all, Dad is always there when ever you need a shoulder to cry on.

Dad is always there when you need to head down to your local car dealer or music store to buy your first car, or in my case my very first guitar.

On Canada Day of 2005, I had the opportunity to help residents of a local nursing-home celebrate the occasion by providing background piano music while they feasted on cupcakes and punch. What I didn’t know until later was that a little boy and his mother were present as well.

When the child showed an interest in the dog attached to the piano leg, a friend, who worked there at the time as an Activities Co-ordinator, explained that the lady playing the piano was blind, and that the dog was actually a guide dog.

“Really?” He asked with growing interest. “Is she related to Ray Charles?”

The mother instantly felt the need to launch into damage control.

“Shh!” she admonished.

“But is she?” the young lad insisted.

“Be quiet!” his mother hissed.

Dear fellow AEBC members: 

I would like to start by thanking you for having reaffirmed me as your president for a second year.  I am grateful for your support and I hope that we can continue to work together to move our beloved AEBC in a direction that is beneficial to us all.  We have elected two new members to our board and we have bid goodbye to two other members.  I can assure you though that our two departing members will not be too far away from where the action is.  In my update for this month, I will do my best to summarize some of the highlights from our conference. 

Dear fellow AEBC members:

Well, we are almost here! Yes, just a few short weeks before our 20th AGM and I think that each and everyone of us should be very proud that we belong to an organization that has managed to stay on its feet for this long despite very rough and choppy seas! These seas are probably going to remain rough and choppy for a while longer but I know that we will weather it all.

For those who may not be aware, a group of former students of the W. Ross Macdonald School for the Blind (formerly the Ontario School for the Blind) in Brantford, Ontario have organized and are attempting to bring a class action lawsuit against the province of Ontario.

As detailed in this article from the Toronto Star, as many as 1000 former students could be affected, and the group is seeking $200 million in damages for acts of physical and sexual abuse that are said to have taken place from 1951 to the present.

There are a lot of conflicting opinions about the relative accessibility or inaccessibility to blind consumers of the Android platform from Google. 

I have been involved in the testing, development and evaluation of accessible mobile devices for well over 10 years.  I have used some of the very early proprietary devices, the phones running Microsoft's Windows Mobile, Symbian, the blackberry OS, Apple's iOS and Google's Android.

The 2012 Canadian National Goalball Championships are taking place this weekend in Vancouver, British Columbia. 

Proceedings are being broadcast live with full narration at http://www.goalball.info/canadian.php, and a schedule of the games is posted on that page.

What is goalball?

More often than not, we seem to ignore the frightening reality that like it or not, disability is only a fraction of a blink away.  Many of the mainstream world may choose to believe that they can avoid disability.  That if they ignore it, it will just simply go away and that if they don’t think about it, it will probably never affect them.  Right?  Wrong!

Believe it or not, disability can affect anyone.  Disability does not discriminate and it can make anyone its victim whenever it wants and wherever it chooses.  From the youngest to the oldest.  From the tiniest of babies to the oldest of persons. 

Today I learned I am making a fashion faux pas, but apparently I am in very good company.    Hilary Clinton is one of the most powerful and well known women in the entire world.  Hillary Clinton and I both wear “scrunchies”.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the styling mechanisms of long hair, a scrunchie is a fabric covered elastic used to secure hair into a pony tail, a bun, a knot or any configuration pulled away from the face.  The Globe and Mail posted a blog entry this week about Mrs.