A day in the Life of...

RantWoman presents a day in the life of...

Dear World


RantWoman is aware of vast streams of electronic data about people's shopping habits, media consumption, dining practices, literary and sporting predilections. In that spirit, RantWoman hereby offers a snapshot of a recent day.


Fog out of domicile to bus stop. Bus as a 15-minute headway so RantWoman is imprecise in her timing and does not even fret.

Perform various wakeup routine activities on bus including morning vitamins and eyedrops as well as the hairstyle of the day which also happens to be the hairstyle of the month, year, decade...., a French braid.


--RantWoman, can you REALLY do eyedrops and braid your hair on the bus?
--Sure, no question as long as the bus is not too crowded; I have only been practicing for decades.


Get to destination stop. Undercaffeinated. Locate source of caffeine enroute to destination. Minimart? Desparation. Frappuccino and a cup of ice. Sweet enough to rattle teeth, but the meeting will go MUCH better post caffeine.


Clear the last couple bucks off a gift card and tote caffeine to meeting.


(Meeting is a good meeting but not ready for blog time)


Back to return bus stop. First bus that comes by; downtown. RantWoman needs...tablets...the PAPER kind. Thank you Office Depot; RantWoman is sick of the kind with no binding across the top.


Next stop: the Verizon store.
Digression to cellphone vendors: RantWoman is an evil demanding customer service problem. RantWoman DREAMS of being able to walk into a cellphone outlet, even one located smack in the middle of downtown real estate and encounter a live human who could both interact with RantWoman's questions about smartphone accessibility features AND sort out some discounts that would not bankrupt RantWoman! If RantWoman were to encounter such a knowledgeable well-informed customer service rep who by the way thought RantWoman's questions fun and interesting instead of a burden, she would HAPPILY pay SOME price premium over her experience wading through cellphone website jargon with her screen reader. This point is on RantWoman's mind both because of what did NOT happen before she came to #CTTAB and because of having to adapt about something that DID happen at #CTTAB.


Next destination: the LEAP room at Seattle Public Library. RantWoman learned that hoped-for functionality in library branches of Screen reading and screen enlargement software is still hoped for; RantWoman already had enough experience terrorizing frontline staff about accessibility features at the Verizon store and is grateful actually to hear that she should not even try at library branches yet.

Next stop the monthly meeting of #CTTAB
RantWoman is a meeting junkie, but RantWoman tries to be selective and to spend her energies on meetings where she learns a lot, people are receptive to her ideas, people are inclusive in spite of challenges. Snacks attentive to a number of dietary threads never hurt. #CTTAB meetings rate highly on all these RantWoman dimensions. The February meeting was awesome on the energy front; RantWoman hereby gets to rant and ramble about various threads including some things that are challenges.

Dear Mayor McGinn. RantWoman apologizes for the cellphone going off during your visit. RantWoman is not sure WHY she has not figured out how reliably to silence cellphone sounds when they intrude but she cannot.

RantWoman is especially humble about this problem in light of your comments about E-Waste, something RantWoman's somewhat retro e-gizmo profile has inadvertantly been doing her part to minimize. RantWoman is to the point where her wireless carrier is exhorting her to upgrade. RantWoman MEANS to upgrade but RantWoman is vexed not even to have figured out the basic silence the phone quickly on the fly function by the time she needs--and really wants--to upgrade.

Mr. Mayor, RantWoman has all kinds of thoughts about Fiber to the Home:
--Your press conference about the Gigabit Squared project mentioned the idea of putting wireless equipment on 12 SHA communities.


For the record, RantWoman lives in a SHA community; RantWoman would consider enough income not to qualify for a SHA community or a housing subsidy a good problem to have but in the meantime here RantWoman lives. New WiFi and broadband options might offer all kinds of ways to demonstrate that high-capacity internet could make a big impact in people's lives.

For example, compared to many neighbors, RantWoman is quite mobile, but spends a lot of time and energy figuring out how NOT to have to go anywhere or how to schedule her life to be efficient in the face of all sorts of transit realities. RantWoman would be TOO happy sometimes to be able to participate in a meeting remotely; RantWoman thinks some medical monitoring options sound cool but also has privacy reservations.

RantWoman is also comparatively tech-enthusiastic so RantWoman can think of all kinds of angles to start talking. Unfortunately many of RantWoman's neighbors are even slower adopters and tougher customers than RantWoman. RantWoman has learned that such promises of brave new access to technology have been made in the past and not come to fruition. What could be different this time to deliver results for this population?


RantWoman applied awhile ago to join the Citizens Telecommunications Advisory Board. There is another T in there and RantWoman has forgotten what it stands for, hence #CTTAB. RantWoman's application was not accepted but RantWoman is a meeting junkie and has been learning a LOT just attending anyway. RantWoman enthusiastically conveys that thought to all the people who came to the meeting and will NOT get selected to fill one of the two open slots.

RantWoman also conveys the following process thoughts: agendas customarily put the public comment at the beginning. RantWoman thinks this ensures that public comment time stays in the agenda. RantWoman can usually be counted on to have something to say but often prefers to say something in response to something that comes up over the work of the meeting. So far #CTTAB chairs have been very generous on this score. RantWoman shared this comment with a whole room ful of potential #CTTAB attendees but RantWoman notes that we should all take care that things do not get too unwieldy.

So far #CTTAB chairs have been very generous even when RantWoman sometimes jumps in without waiting to be recognized. The jump in without waiting to be recognized is a blind people in meetings issue RantWoman has experience with in many contexts including meetings she runs and meetings where she and other blind people participate. That might be something else to think about.


Thanks to David Keyes for noting all the people in the room tweeting. RantWoman realized she could summon tweets for people she is already following to her not very smart mobile device but decided that monitoring during the meeting was too distracting. RantWoman is glad to look after the fact and see some really cool threads in people's Twitter bios.


RantWoman's next day offerings to tweet stream, edited  slightly:
Really jazzed by last night's #CTTAB meeting.

No Bandwidth to tweet / follow during #CTTAB mtg but I see cool Twitter profiles in the tweet stream

Re #CTTAB Dear Mayor McGinn doing my part to fight e-waste by not upgrading cellphone I have not yet figured out how reliably  to silence.

Re #CTTAB Dear Mayor McGinn, too busy thinking about relevant content, #accessitility, #a11y, to care about supercharged e-upgrade cycle.

Thanks to #CTTAB chair @RobDolin for reading off the white board including the hashtag for the upcoming Digital Inclusion Summit #DISummit13 .


To #CTTAB, #DISummit13 folks, re accessibility start w #CSUN13 and see other hashtags in the stream

Re #CTTAB Forgot to announce Cool #accessibility trivia: newly elected Rep Cyrus Habib, D 48, is totally blind and has been since childhood.



To #CTTAB More important than Blind, Rep Cyrus Habib, D48 is Vice Chair of WA House Technology and Econ Dev Cmttee