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September 14, 2010 10:42:16
Posted By gregwagner
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Mar has multiple speaking engagements this week. For our partnership, it is going to be very beneficial to have videos of her speeches that we can combine with videos from my speeches. I bought a camera and tripod while in college since I was focusing in film and video editing. I even made my own 42-minute film as my senior project, but that is beside the point. The point is that I needed to get this equipment to Mar so she can film her speeches in order to build the most solid groundwork as we expand this idea and turn it into a legitimate company.
Mar is in West Falls Church and I can take the bus from my house to work for only 30 dollars a month. The only way to efficiently get to West Falls Church is taking the DC metro…in rush hour.
I left CEB almost a year ago at this point, which is really the last time I had ridden in and beyond Metro Center during, or even near, rush hour. My Lord, what a mess!
I was fine riding into Metro Center, the transfer station for the red line, but then I was greatly reminded of one reason why I left CEB. The metro train doors opened, a wave of people came out and then another wave crammed in to standing room capacity with less than an inch to move. I’m carrying my gym bag with my camera inside, have a tripod in my hand (that was just longer than my bag) and my right side is physically and neurologically damaged. And it remained packed the entire way.
By all accounts and reason, I have the right to ask the car if anyone will give up their seat for someone with a disability. However, knowing the DC commuters, it is futile to ask unless you have a cane or are elderly. As much of a right as I have to a guaranteed seat, no one believes it when they look at me. I appear healthy, strong and fully-abled so there is no reason anyone will give up their seat and stand in the barrage of commuters.
To further prove my point, as soon as a seat opens up people barrel towards the seat to be the first one there, not giving any time to ask around to see if anyone needs a seat (like a guy with a full bag across his body). DC has always been a very self-driven town and the mindset is overly pervasive in those who use Metro daily. There really is no win, and I should not have to justify myself by explaining my disability every time I ask for, or take, a seat. It’s not fair to me, but I have to defend myself due to that selfish mindset that everyone infers that I have (because they have it).
It really makes for a miserable situation and commute, which I dealt with for a year and a half. Riding the metro at peak hour just once reminded me why I left. I may be making a bit less in this current full-time position, but the saving grace of my current commute is worth every penny considering the time and convenience for me personally and the amount of comfort and impeding exhaustion placed on me physically.
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September 13, 2010 06:54:17
Posted By gregwagner
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Quick thought.
You go to the gym, or chose to take part in any endeavor, to get stronger, smarter and ultimately to succeed. Why then, do I see so many people half-assing it at the gym? If you are taking time out of your day to do something, you owe it to yourself to push yourself to be the best. If this is the case, which know it is because everyone talks about how much they want to improve their bodies and their health, why are people settling for mediocrity?
I’m pretty freakin’ strong, but other people can be and are stronger than me. Yes, others may lift more than me, but look at what I have lived through. Remember how my body is impaired and it changes your perspective. Others may match what I can lift or lift one or two bricks more than me, but the right side of my body is stroke-effected. My sensations are dulled, my right side feels weaker than my left and I cannot react as rapidly with my right side, yet I still manage to oulift almost everyone at my gym. The few places where others lift more than me don’t bother me or how I view myself because I know how strong I currently am, and the thought of how strong I could be if my right side felt exactly as my left just makes me smile with pride for how far I have gotten myself thus far.
Sure, I’d probably be stronger and better off if my right side were the same as my left, but here is the thing. Each day at the gym, I am strengthening my body and increasing how much my right side can independently do. Sure, I’d be able to do more, but I’m doing so much more now than I ever was before. Each day I get stronger. As strong as I may be if my body was balanced, that’s where I’m going to be in 5 or 10 years. The journey makes it all the more meaningful. However, the only reason I am going to be there is because I strive as far as I can. For me, I’m striving to be normal, but I’m gaining so much more in the process.
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September 12, 2010 07:45:01
Posted By gregwagner
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Today was my first solo drive. I drove up to the gym in the morning, showered, pumped gas for the first time in my car and drove to Virginia to meet my friend at her apartment for a brainstorming session regarding Determination.
Important tidbits learned from that trip: I hate 495. Determination is going to be great the initial phase in a 3-part program. We have an awesome company name and everyone wants to make this into a successful program. Oh yeah, and even driving home I still hate 495. Most importantly, this speaking and life coaching program is going to happen! Now hearing back from the publishers I sent packages to next week will be an incredible bonus :)
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September 10, 2010 08:12:24
Posted By gregwagner
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So just so everyone knows, after 3 years of going through the process of being able to, I am now a fully licensed driver.
This process took so long. 3 years ago, at this same time, I was in and completing driver’s education. From there I had to have 6 hours behind the wheel with an instructor, but mine had to be specialized in working with adapted equipment. Tim Jones, my instructor, was one of the greatest people who could have been brought into my life. He taught me how to drive and gave me the exact equipment I needed. I bought my car, waited for the state to approve my equipment and then finally got my left foot accelerator, spinner knob and hand signals put on my car. Just before the blizzard hit, I realized that my controls were installed for a right handed person. (When I clicked my left turn signal, the right one turned on and vice versa! Ugh…) I waited to get the equipment swapped, survived the largest blizzard on record for MD and finally got all my hours behind the wheel to go get my license.
I go to Hagerstown’s DMV because that is where Tim told me to go. It’s an hour away, but Tim tells me the people are used to seeing disabled drivers and it is the best place to go. Get to the DMV and they do not have my driver’s ed certificate on record. Of course they start loading them electronically less than a year after I had taken my driver’s ed course. I go home, my parents and I tear my room apart and we find my certificate in a box—one of the last places we looked, of course. Turn around, go back to Hagerstown, one hour away, see 2 or 3 people fail the test as I am sitting in line, get out on the course and pass with only having 4 points taken off.
What a long, exhausting day and process…but it is done! I never have to go through it again and I can now drive a car, something that most everyone in my life never thought I’d be able to do on my own or at all. Wow, I guess I really have come far. This was the last thing that really separated me from others and their independence. Sure I’m still disabled, but can we really call me that now? I may have handicapped tags, but I am no longer handicapped.
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September 9, 2010 03:49:55
Posted By gregwagner
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My marketing packages for An Uncharted Life should be arriving to the NYC offices in the next couple days. Everyone, that I have shown the letter I wrote to the publishers, absolutely loved the letter and how I structured it. Now I just wait and, if I don’t hear back, I will have my next plan of attack. It’s already figured out.
The only thing is that I will have to execute that plan before June next year because…I will be moving to Colorado next year. My best friend is graduating with his Master’s degree and it is perfect timing for him and I to not only live together, but do so in Colorado. He loves nature and hiking as much as me. We will live right by the mountains and be easily within driving distance to the city where we will be working most likely. Determination, and the partnership it is developing into, will be at a developed enough stage that I can expand it into the western part of the country. It’ll be developed and expanded enough that the framework can run itself and all Mar, Suzy and I will have to do is get more members to join this program we are developing. So many more details to come. Suzy, Mar and I are meeting next week, but I just wanted to keep all of you posted and let you know that everything is moving in the right direction!
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