Web Accessibility
I first witnessed a visually impaired person trying to use a website in 2007. That person was my neighbor. She was trying to check her e-mail on AOL.com after the site had been redesigned. She had memorized the home page and with her limited sight she could navigate to her email. After the redesign, she was lost.
We took the train to Philadelphia together and bought the JAWS screen reader and she learned how to use it. Meanwhile, I downloaded JAWS at work and started to train myself. I was amazed at how difficult it could be to navigate through some websites using JAWS.
After witnessing the difficulty my neighbor had using a screen reader, I decided to make this website fully accessible for screen readers.
My goal at work is to make all of our websites accessible to people with disabilities. Creating accessible websites is fairly easy for the most part. The difficulty is getting people to understand how simple it can be to make websites accessible and how much freedom accessible websites can give to people with disabilities.
My Apartment
A lot of changes have taken place to my apartment and the house since the last time I took photos in 2005. My landlord repainted the house, put on an addition, and moved into the house. Take a look at photos of my apartment and the house in spring of 2008.
The Burner Grates
![[ Burner Grates ]](img/burners.jpg)
This black and white photo has made me happy for years. In college I removed the burner grates from the stove in the most horrible apartment I have ever lived in. I placed them on some paper in the parking lot and snapped some photos with my old 35mm camera.
I always took pride in developing beautiful photos myself.
(Right: Burner Grates, 1999)
Best Recipes
Digging through numerous old, battered, stained, and falling apart cookbooks to find recipes got frustrating. That frustration lead me to build this website which includes my favorite recipes that are easy to reference. All the recipes have been made and eaten by me as well. Any disgusting or just plain gross recipes, like the infamous grapefruit upside down cake, have been banned from this website.