I filed my first motion with the court today. It was painless. And I had a nice conversation afterwards with one of the court interpreters who told me he was from Mexico City. Odd thing was that during our entire conversation not once did either of us slip into Spanish, but once I left and he started chatting with a group nearby, I could hear them going back and forth in Spanish. I wonder if we were just being polite with each other, or if he assumed like I do sometimes with other people that I just didn't speak the language? Next time I see him I'm going to have to say hola.

Finding a job in this economy is practically impossible, but for some people, the opportunity doesn't even exist because of perceived misconceptions.

Several months ago, a $4 million national disability awareness campaign hit the airwaves with high hopes for increasing employment among people with disabilities.

Their purpose was to create a series of ads meant to show that hiring people with disabilities could be an asset rather than a detriment. So far their efforts are paying off, and the ads are hysterical.
The source.

Someone called 'fake' asked a very important question on Metafilter. He wanted help and information because his friends from Russia were about to walk into a situation he wasn't comfortable with:

The program promised a job offer in advance, but didn't deliver. They said they would send one via email, but failed there, too.
Her contact in the USA barely speaks English, doesn't answer her calls but does answer mine. He has asked her and her friend to meet in NYC tonight around midnight, with promises of hostess work in a lounge. Yes, I know how horrific that sounds- that's why I am working all possible angles here.

All the answering meta peeps pooled their resources and may have averted a potential trafficking situation. What some of these people did was dangerous and courageous. Of course we'll never know if these women were in any danger to begin with, but what the internet can do in these types of scenarios is amazing.
via The 19th Floor.

I haven't written in this thing for months. For one I've been busy. I realize it's not much of an excuse. I keep repeating to myself that work stays at work, and while I'm at home the hobbies must take over, which for the most part has turned out splendidly. Of course the easiest hobby to manage has been my love affair with television, but now that network tv has more of an interest in lukewarm storytelling I find myself watching less of it than usual. Then I look at Newsvine, which has been run amok with trolls and this blog that is just screaming for a new layout, and well hibernation just seems so much more interesting. That is until I start thinking about work again.
Moveabletype has become convoluted. There's just no way I could take my blog's current configuration and succesfully upgrade it into a different layout. So I'll be shifting everything over to WordPress in the next few days. In the meantime, I think I'll try to get back in the swing of things.
I missed this.

I sat through my first video hearing for immigration court. Have a client detained in detention facility and the hearings are still live but on tv. The screens are even wide enough to show the detainee, the Trial Attorney and counsel, and even the judge. It was a three-way extravaganza that could have easily accommodated a fourth had we needed to outsource an interpreter since the court's was temporarily missing. He strolled in half an hour later, and it was business as usual. The judge asked his questions through the screen.
Immigration court is just fascinating. Fascinating...

test
edit: permissions will be the death of me! Thank goodness I own this domain. Error logs have saved the day!
Second edit: permissions and php on this server hate each other damn it!!

It's a yearly thing I suppose, but I'm sitting here trying to ignore the sinus infection that's attempting to develop, tinkering away at all my sites. MT hasn't behaved in months, and I know I need to upgrade. I logged into blackglass, and I started checking the stats. My domain still gets some pretty decent traffic for being somewhat inactive. And yes, shame on me for not doing much with it this last year, but I have plans. Working in the real world just put them on hold for a while.
Back to the stats- looking at the referers was like glancing at an internet graveyard. There were two dead links, but 4 links lead to blog entries written by a dear friend dating back to 2002! I haven't heard from him in years. It was almost heartbreaking. He's still so popular, that I can only hope he's still writing.
I hope you're well, where ever you are, Machine.

Glee recently aired an episode called "Wheels." The episode focused on one of the supporting characters who happens to be a paraplegic, though in real life the actor is not. He can walk. Of course, many in the disability community are upset and disappointed that a real disabled actor wasn't cast in this role, and they saw this episode as more of an insult.
So, who cares? I don't. I found the episode to be very sweet, and I enjoyed the fact that tv shows are no longer shying away from characters with disabilities.
A year ago, two years ago, longer than that, when you'd see a character with a disability on the screen, it was mostly meant to tug at your emotions. Bring out the kleenex because here's the pity party. Mary is in a wheelchair, she can't do shit. Really. This cop will save the day. And everything is perfect again. On tv.
On Private Practice the disabled doctor, Fife, is a jerk. I totally hate and love him. I want him to hook up with Naomi, and I want the writers to go there. I like that he's not treated differently. He's a freaking doctor! And he's disabled in real life.
And then there's Glee. I remember high school, and inaccessible areas, and having to miss out on certain things. I thought, if people could just understand what it was like to be me, then maybe kids would be nicer. Glee isn't out to preach, nor is it perfect. But if it makes even just one person think, then I'm not going to criticize it for having an abled actor in a role that might have gone to a disabled actor. I won't when it's bringing us to the forefront.

This will show up on RSS, and I'm sure someone will freak. Oh my god, she's alive.
Have been. For a while. Newsvine has been taking up my time. I write there sometimes, and then sometimes I just link to stuff.
I've been debating about using this blog to talk about the issues that come up at work. No, not about work, but the law. Yes, yours truely has found herself some legal work, though for the time being I do mostly translation stuff. I think it might help though if I started writing down some of the interesting immigration principals I run across when I'm sent to do research for a client.
Nope. No confidentially breaking here.
It's all just thoughts though.

TOUCHDOWN!!!!!!!