Maggie Rogers at the Armory: Accessibility Check

Ok, that question that everyone is asking about: how accessible was the Armory and how was the music?

First part of the question is definitely what I want to talk about, but starting with the music – amazing. NowNow was the opening band. I’ve been listening to their music and interviews so was familiar with their music and story. They were awesome and hope to see them more in the Twin Cities since they’re a Minnesota band.

Maggie Rogers was everything I expected. She has an amazing voice, lyrics that were bringing people around me to tears, and the dancing! There was so much energy in the room.

For the accessibility portion, well, the Armory was absolutely nothing like the Varsity or Palace. I think they can do better and here’s how:

Have dedicated ADA seating closer to the stage. Paying the same price for a ticket and having the dedicated seating in the back of the balcony sucks. This seating is a half a block away from the stage. Why not have some reserved ADA seating closer to the stage in the balcony and also closer to the stage on the main floor? I did decide I wanted to be on the main floor and of course, the tallest guy stood right in front of me. My chair does raise up, but I’m not able to move around for a better view on a packed floor. I liked being on the main floor but it would be nice to have a little bit of a protected area for people with mobility needs. The images below show what I would have seen from a distance in the ADA seating in the balcony, my driving to the main floor and my view of the concert stage from closer up on the main floor.
- Tip for concert goers who use wheelchairs: Get there as soon as the doors open to try to get standing room places closer to the stage in the balcony or on the floor.

Train your staff better. I’ve been so impressed with staff at the Palace and Varsity because all of them go out of their way to make sure you find the ADA seating and that you have what you need to have a great experience. The Armory was good at noticing us in line and leading us over to the elevators where they checked our bags and tickets. That was good. The difficult part was that each person leading us led us to another person who would then lead us to another person. We got on the elevator and the elevator guy saw we didn’t have wristbands. So, had to go back down so we could get wristbands. Waited for the elevator again, and rode up to the balcony and the elevator guy said ADA seating was right there at the back and told the other people there’s a chair on the side, which there wasn’t. He did eventually bring a chair back up, but it was confusing and no one was there to help the other group or us. We tried to walk closer to the stage to see if there was any room that would work to see better, but it was already pretty packed on the stage end of the balcony.
- I repeat – Tip for concert goers who use wheelchairs: Get there as soon as the doors open to try to get standing room places closer to the stage in the balcony or on the floor.
Elevator wait times were excessive. At the end of the concert, we waited in a line for the elevator and the elevator didn’t seem to be coming. After probably about 10 minutes, we gave up and went to see if there was another elevator. There was another elevator on the other side which came more quickly. Made us think about what would have happened during an emergency or fire. No one is going to pick up my 300-pound wheelchair and carry it down the stairs… You have to use the elevator to get on the main floor or balcony levels from the street level.
- Tip for wheelchair users: There is a 2^nd set of elevators at the back left facing away from the stage. They seemed to faster than the ones on the right, which is where they’ll take you for the ADA seating in the balcony and also go to the parking.
- Tip for people who don’t need to take elevators and take them anyway: Take the stairs if you are able to take stairs. When you don’t, that means we get to wait even longer. I shouldn’t need to say it, but think!

I will go to future concerts at the Armory because I love going to concerts, but I know that accessibility isn’t the greatest for me here. I will plan on getting there earlier and carve out some space on the main floor knowing that I’ll be stuck there until the end of the concert because there won’t be a way to get out. That’s probably not terribly safe, may damage my wheelchair, but, I’m paying for an experience and don’t want to be relegated to the back of the room.

My Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a short story about a 19^th century woman who probably has depression due to having a baby. She is forbidden from socializing, writing, pretty much doing anything by her “psychiatrist” husband who prescribed a “rest” cure. Mental health treatment in the 19^th century sucked! So she is forced to stare at the yellow wallpaper and finds herself becoming even more despondent. The yellow wallpaper becomes her symbol of the woman and the many women at that time being trapped in society’s expectations.

This story and John Green’s Crash Course episode about The Yellow Wallpaper, got me thinking about what my yellow wallpaper was. For me, it was Transition Plus. After high school graduation, many students with disabilities go to transition programs until they’re 21 and I’m sure many students and parents find them to be a valuable option to continue working on educational goals.

I was 18 years old and found myself going every day to a single room located in a building in a business park a couple miles outside of town. That was where our Transition Plus program was located. At the time, it seemed like a good way to get ready for college. But, I found the classes were remedial, didn’t seem very interesting to me, and I was bored. I sometimes felt like I was looking on the outside of myself in there. I despised that feeling where I was so despondent and felt trapped even though my para and teachers were trying to make it work for me. Part of the reason was because I was in this segregated building and I wanted to be included with the outside world. This isn’t what I thought I’d be doing. My friends were going off to college and I was in a place I didn’t want to be.

I’m not taking anything away from people who find these programs helpful in transitioning to life after high school. And, the staff were great and trying to do everything they could to help me like Transition Plus. But the first time I wheeled into that building, I felt anxious and depressed. I wanted to get the heck out of there and never look back. I couldn’t get past feeling trapped in a place and life that I didn’t want to be in. I did get everything in place to start taking classes at Century College that spring, but still had to go to that single room in that building outside of town until I said “no more.” I quit Transition Plus that spring and never looked back.

My yellow wallpaper is exclusion. What is your yellow wallpaper?

My ideas for improving my Transition experience

Why not have transition programs that are located in our public college and universities? I just needed a para to help me during my college classes while at the college. That would have been my least-restrictive environment to continue working on my individual education program (IEP) goals.

Next up

MAGGIE ROGERS at the Armory! Can’t wait to hear this favorite in person!

Light on video

Would you hear me out

If I told you I was terrified for days

Thought I was gonna break…

Oh I am finding out

There’s just no other way

And I’m still dancing

At the end of the day

If you leave the light on

Then I’ll leave the light on

Appearances may be deceiving OR how something might appear accessible but in reality…

Here’s a quick story of what was to be a short walk with my mom, on a lovely sunny day, to the new accessible little park down by the lake. And when I say accessible, I mean NOT really at all accessible for me or probably any other wheelchair user. In fact, they probably could have left the curb cut out because people are only going to get more stuck the further they go.

Part 1 – “Lovely day for a walk to the lake”

Says my mom, all the time! It’s a holiday in the U.S. so I went along. I drove my chair while my mom tried to keep up. I wasn’t even on the fastest speed.

Part 2 – Look the newly redone little park even has a nice curb cut

Says my mom. One car and bike go past and the next car stops to let us cross the street to the park. Mom takes a couple pictures because really, it’s nice that our township redid this park and tried to make it more accessible. Right? We should post and tweet about that, it’s a good thing.

Part 3 – ZZZ WRONG!

We start our way down the black, rocky path which is wide enough for a wheelchair. So, that’s good. My wheels begin to sink as we near the bench. We maybe should have stopped here. But, thought it would be easier to turn around if we went down to the turns or to the bottom of the path. Again, WRONG! We got to the lower turn on the path, and my drivewheel was spinning deeper and deeper. I was spectacularly stuck.

Part 4 – Dad to the rescue

Mom can’t get me unstuck. Mom calls dad. Dad drives the several blocks to the park. Dad also thinks maybe we can get turned around on the larger rocks at the bottom of the path. Both mom and dad are able to help drive and push me to the bottom. I didn’t go into the lake. I swore. Dad swore. Mom maintained her calm, positive outlook on the situation. Dad gets me out of my chair and carries me back up the path where my mom holds me on the bench. Reminder for all, I use a wheelchair, because I am not able to sit independently, let alone walk. My dad wrestles, pushes, drives, swears his way up the path with my chair until he passes us on the bench and gets it back to the solid curb cut. Mom and dad carry me from the bench back to my chair. (Sorry, no pictures of dad pushing chair since mom was holding me on the bench and dad was pissed – imagine the pictures we could have taken!)

Part 5 – MOM, YOU’RE INCORRIGIBLE and when designing for accessibility, perhaps someone should do some user testing to see that it’s actually accessible

Nothing more to say about adventures with mom part. Really, I do love my adventures with my mom. Even though we seem to get stuck at times…

Whoever designed this park and whoever from our township thought they were making a park that was wheelchair accessible were wrong. I doubt that anyone tested this out with an actual human being who actually uses a wheelchair. I use a power chair and the path failed horribly. I don’t even know how someone who is using a push chair would make it on this path. It’s not packed down solid enough.

The flowers are lovely… I just don’t get to see them up close, anymore.

NEXT ACCESSIBILITY CHECK: Maggie Rogers concert at the Armory in Minneapolis later this month.

Pride, Prejudice & Accessibility

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that this blog must be in want of a classic accessibility check and a Mr. Darcy and Miss Elizabeth Bennett.

Jane Austen’s books are great, but Pride and Prejudice is one of the perfect examples of what is it that constitutes 19^th century love. Take Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. They don’t even like each other and it takes several months and an insulting first proposal before they know enough about each other to overcome the pride of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth’s prejudices. I loved this book!

I also love Bookshare and wouldn’t be the reader I am without it, but the web reader’s pronunciations of abbreviations can be irritating. For example, instead of saying Mister Darcy, the web reader says M – R and pauses like at the end of a sentence then says Darcy. There are 61 chapters in Pride and Prejudice and each has at least 10-30 Mr.’s and Mrs.’s in them. The mispronunciation of abbreviations kind of ruins the flow of the story. This doesn’t happen in every book I read, so I don’t know why sometimes it reads properly and other times the web reader doesn’t.

I sent a note to Bookshare asking if there was a way to have the web reader for Bookshare pronounce abbreviations like Mr. and Mrs. as Mister or Missus. But, there isn’t. So, if you’re looking for a good accessibility project, figure out how web readers can better read abbreviations. It’s 2019, time to figure this out. By the way, I read my draft of this post using Read Aloud in Microsoft Word before copying it to WordPress. Read Aloud reads the abbreviations correctly. Bookshare doesn’t work in Microsoft Edge although it’s supposed to be coming soon. Maybe that will work better?

Hang on a second, weren’t you at an outdoor concert?

Yes at Surly Festival Field. Accessibility was great and I thought that the music was ok. More of my parents’ nostalgia bands than the types of music I like best.

Accessibility report for Surly – get there early to get accessible parking. We got there by 5:30 and gates opened at 5:00 and did get a parking spot. We had to walk about a block and a half from ADA parking to where they were taking tickets. Not sure if they would have let us in at the exit gate which was closer to where we parked. We did exit from there and that was convenient. They had a ramp to a raised platform by the sound booth so were able to see over the crowd of people and didn’t have to drive on uneven ground. Pretty good seats although the platform also filled up pretty quickly with several of us using wheelchairs, a couple knee scooters and others who needed accessible seating. I would definitely go to concerts there again.

Justin in wheelchair and dad beginning to drive up ramp to raised platform

Justin and mom smiling at each other, crowd and stage in background

Busy week coming up

Can’t wait to see John and Hank Green on Sunday! Anyone who reads my blog knows just how big of a fan I am! I have tickets in the 7^th row at the Pantages Theatre. I’m excited that they have wheelchair seating so close. Usually in theaters like this, I end up paying the same as everyone else but the only choice is to sit in the back row. That’s annoying! Especially, if you also have hearing loss like I do!

We’re also going to try to go see Elizabeth Warren at Macalester on Monday. I want to hear from as many presidential candidates as possible to see who I like best.

My brother leaves for college on Thursday… more on this later.

Justin in wheelchair in front of poster that reads "I think that stories, and each other, are the most valuable things that we have." Hank Green

Turtles All the Way Down book, poster, bag and tour pamphlet

For my web accessibility friends out there, I was trying to find if using the WordPress Tiled Mosaic is accessible. I used the Tiled Mosaic for the grouped images like I have for the concert pictures and pictures above from John and Hank Green events. I just can’t tell if people using screen readers can hear the alt text for the individual images or if I should just add them as individual images. Let me know what you think works best. Thanks!

Ready for AFC Wimbledon, Art & Writing

Six days till the new season

We get to play seven new teams this year. As many of long-time readers know, I LOVE AFC Wimbledon football (aka soccer). Love the idea of fan-owned teams and the story of the club. Excited for the new season and going to The Local in Minneapolis to watch some matches.

Art

Hung out at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts on Friday – very accessible and air-conditioned. I have long believed in the stories that paintings and pottery tell, shaping the world around us. Sparked some ideas for my next book and was a cool place to hang out on a hot day.

Writing

Feel as if I’m always working on my first draft of my second book, a realistic mystery about a girl with cerebral palsy. I’m using my own experiences more in this book. This was a more draining week because I was writing about hospital experiences – they’re not the greatest life experiences…

For a break from that, I keep editing my first book, a thrilling romance with a little bit of sci-fi.

Shoes

First time wearing cool shoes in about 8 months. Here’s my past 8 months of footwear.

Here are some pictures of my footwear and one of x-rays of the pins in my newly straightened out big toes. I started PT last Monday and working on putting a little weight on my foot so I can help out more with transfers. I still have a bit of pain (around 4 out of 10 now) but nothing like it was before the surgery (8), couple weeks after surgery (9), and the rest of the time with the casts on (6 or 7).

Dad working on wheelchair footrests with Justin's feet strapped in

Justin sitting in wheelchair with casts on legs

Smiling Justin laying on bed with casts on each leg propped up on pillows

Photo of X-rays showing pins through right and left big toes

Justin and dad in front of theater marquis for sold out Interrupters April 3

“Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road”

Green Day has this quote from the song, Good Riddance (Time of your Life), that I keep listening to over and over and over. I am at a turning point in my writing career, with my first book I wrote and I just can’t decide whether or not to throw it away. It’s hundreds of hours of working on this novel and let’s be straight, it is terrible. I didn’t expect that I would write a “good” first draft. Not sure if anyone is capable of writing a good first draft?

I’m having more fun writing my new book giving voice to a young woman with athetoid cerebral palsy (CP) who uses a communication device. As a young man with CP, I haven’t found many main characters who look or sound or experience life like I do. We need more main characters who speak with communication devices or use wheelchairs or whatever. I need to be able to see me or someone I can relate to in the books I want to read.

I’m also at a turning point in college. As some of you may recall from previous posts, I tried to take an online class. It didn’t go exactly well and I dropped the class. And I am at a loss as how I want to keep learning or what I want to learn about. In college, I can get CART captioning that I need during a lecture or class. If I’m taking a class at a private or community Art or Literary Center, I’m not sure that they’d have to provide CART captions. I have some research to do to figure this out.

Lastly, you know about the toes, probably. My big toes are STRAIGHT. It still is a pain in the butt, but it’s less than before. No casts, check. No pins, double check. I have PT on Monday so can start working on transfers and building my strength again so I can get back to one person helping me with transfers instead of two. Here’s a picture of my dad adjusting my foot rests to work with my cast-free feet.

Speaking of the road, we did have an overnight road trip to see my grandma and grandpa for the 4^th of July. My mom wanted to spend her birthday with her parents in Pipestone. Happy birthday mom! My first road trip in a long time and it was fun hanging out with my family! My parents and I are making plans now for a big road trip next spring to D.C. and Philadelphia. I want to go to the Disability Policy Seminar in D.C. in March 2020.

This is the video of the Green Day song I mentioned from YouTube.

Also, here’s a White Bear Pioneer Press photo of the Manitou Bears that Shine and a link to the Manitou Days Facebook post about my being recognized as a Bear that Shines. That was really nice and I’m honored to be recognized!

And here are a couple pictures from our Pipestone road trip.