Waking Up Blue

So I woke up

No not blue as in sad, lonely and depressed. I mean blue as in the color.

Well the story behind this is a little long so here are the highlights.

Not long ago I had some pain in my left shoulder and neck so went to bed. My wife called the ambulance and gave me some baby aspirin. Within a few minutes I was being whisked away to hospital and after a long and sleepless night was admitted and tests showed I had had a heart attack.

I was taken down to the operating room for some procedures to look at my heart more closely and after clearing a few blood vessels was sent to recovery.

There I began to feel really awful, faint, coughing and nauseous. I was surrounded with lots of people doing their own thing as I passed out.  I think I remember lots of talking and stuff but my mind is pretty fuzzy over this matter. Then I remember telling someone I wanted to be sick.

To this I heard the reply,"You gave us a bit of a shock there. You were a pretty strong shade of blue for a while."

Well if you want to have a big heart attack I guess that being in a hospital recovery room is the place to be.

Upon release though I was told to radically change my lifestyle, and one of the major areas to change is my diet. So I have spent my time recently looking for healthier options in eating and this inspired me to add the Healthy Eats Cookbook Store to my range of book stores on amazon.com.


Why not take a look at Healthy Eats Cookbooks today.

New Pinterest Board Additions

I love board games of all kinds. My favorite at the moment is a guessing game called "Headbands" Each player  wears a headband into which a card is slotted unseen by that player. He or she then has to ask questions such as "Am I a fictional character?" or "Am I alive?" The other players who can see the card say only "Yes" or "No" in answer to the question. When time runs out the player has to remember their own  answers t as they answer the next players questions.

That is not easy. The first player to win three tokens wins the game. Lots of fun and laughs for all.











Follow William's board Games on Pinterest.

New Additions to My New Citizen Pinterest Board

Recently I have been working on a new series of "New Citizen" gifts,  greetings cards and apparel.

All of these items as well as several others from a wide  variety of zazzle designers are included on my new updated board.

Take a look at this new board by following the link below.



Follow William's board U.S. Citizen on Pinterest.

Smaller Home

In the Summer I moved home. Well actually I moved to a new city.. With the move I also moved to a much smaller hiouse. Downsizing from 1600 square feet to just over 1100 square feet.

This meant losing lots of storage space and so I opted to buy some space saver bags.

As the Summers are quite warm here in California's central valley, over 100 degrees I didn't need my blankets. So into the storage bags they went. Now with  Winter coming it is time to break out the blankets for a few weeks.

I have found the storage bags to be of great value. They shrank my blankets nicely so I could store them in a closet, packed nicely between shelves. Taking up very little space. They have leaked a little air in over the months but this has not been too serious as their volume has not increased too much.

My favorite   Space Saver VacuumStorage Bags  they proved to be the most robust and reasonably priced as they came in a variety pack.

Follow this link to find vacuum storage bags on amazon.com  

Canon Vixia HFR 600 Review

A few weeks ago I became a member of a local PBS television station in order to learn some new skills and also improve my blogs and Youtube pages.

I took a look at a wide range of  video cameras before settling on theCanon VIXIA HF R600 which was roughly in the mid price range for good quality video camcorders.

The first thing that strikes with the Canon Vixia HRF 600 is the size, This camera fits into the palm of your hand and is very light.

The size and lightness does pose a problem with camera shake, but this is easily prevented by the use of a tripod. All good photographers and videographers should use a tripod anyway.

Your movies are stored on an SD card which slips neatly into position within the body of the camera. The card does slot in at an angle so it does take some thinking about the first time you use the camera.

As a visually impaired user, I have found the  controls on the Canon VIXIA HF R600 straightforward and have created a couple of videos, posted on Youtube.

This is my Low Vision Kitchen video, this shows good color and definition characteristics I believe.

You can find the Canon Vixea HFR600 and a wide range of other cameras and accessorries at my Fresno Camera and Video Store powered by Amazon.com.

"I am the Alpha Bitch" T-Shirt

My wife and I work on coming up with new designs for our products all the time.

Recently  she created a mug with the slogan "I am the Alpha Bitch" for our Zazzle store.

It was such a good idea, that I played around with it and came up with this range of Long and Short sleeved T-shirts and hoodies and sweatshirts.

"Alpha Bitch T Shirt

Shirts are available from prices below $20 and are shipped directly to your home for a reasonable charge.

The shirts are available to order at Alpha-Bitch Shirt They will arrive early in the New Year.

Or you can visit our Online Store to see our latest shirt designs.

Add Closed Captions to YouTube Videos

Recently I attended a workshop at a local television studio which aimed to help increase the numbers of viewers coming to peoples YouTube channels.

One of the most simple tips on offer, though often the most time consuming was to add closed caption subtitles to your videos.

I was unconvinced by the idea. After all it can take hours of work.

So I came home, found a video on my channel which had no dialog, but some great sound. It lasted just a few minutes and in two years had had a mere 48 views.

So as you can see not a particularly good view number. I ran the video through the closed caption program two days ago. In the interveening time the number of views  since adding descriptive closed captions of the sounds the number of views has risen to 76 views.

That is almost doubling the number of views in just forty-eight hours. This is just a basic video of a train passing through a railway station.

So now I see the value of Closed  Captioning I'll be working on closed captions a lot before I publish a video in the future.

Take a look at the latest Amazon Deals  

Take a look at my new Amazon store for both DSLR and Video Cameras.  Fresno Camera and Video

Wow! A Whole Year

Welcome.

What can I say. I hadn't realized a whole year had gone by since I last posted!

It has been a busy year, that is all I can really say. I moved home across California. I tried to learn Braille, I did suceed in learning grade one Braille but my fingers were not sensitive enough to go beyond that. Still now I can read the sign telling me which bathroom I am about to walk into.

Then there is all my work on new designs for my zazzle stores and my second hand or used bookstore on amazon.com has needed a very large supply of books this year.

On top of all that I have taken up TV production. I am working in a local public service TV channel planning a program to be aired next Spring that will look at issues in the blind community and aim to provide some education in the use of adaptive technology.

So lots going on.