She's smarter than me!!!

Egypt that is.  So the story starts back in August when I was still learning the school. It first started with me hanging onto Natalie and having Egypt heal at my side.. (she has special powers) So anyway we went through the school a few times and I would have never guessed Egypt paid any attention to what we were doing. Evidently she did. So lets flash to today. Amazingly I went to school on a saturday for study gorup. I did absolutely nothing, but I offered help. Then thankfully that ended and it was time to go home. So Egypt, Natalie and I were walking through UTSA and Egypt seemed like she was on the ball. Except when she sniffed an invisible something on the ground. So time went on and i told her to make a right turn next to a building. Little did I know I didn't know where i was. So Natalie told me it was a stair case that I hated to use. It was the one we used back in August. So we got to the bottom of the stairs and the only direction I could remember was to tell Egypt to go left. Then I told Natalie "Crap I don't remember where to go now." Then Egypt started taking some initiative and started walking the way we would use back in August and Natalie told me that it looked  like Egypt knew where she was. She knew more than that. So remember, the only command I gave her was to turn left at the bottom of the stairs. So she started walking the route and she was making the turns and everything flawlessly. Then she adapted that route that was never used to the route that we use everyday to get back to my jeep. So we were walking down the side walk and she turned onto a down ramp to get on the striped line for the handicap parking lane. Natalie said that she even appeared to looked to the left down the street for traffic. So it was clear and we set off again for the Jeep. While we were walking there was a handicap sign that had been hit so it was all bent and in the walk way. So Egypt slowed down quite a bit and made sure that i got past it safely without hitting my face on it. Then we continued to walk and she stopped and was looking at me for direction. I figured she recognized the car so I encouraged her to continue walking and as I did that Natalie unlocked the car and I was shocked that egypt found it on top of everything else she did. I was speechless. So when she jumped up in the car she was wagging her tail because she knew she did a good job so I gave her a jackpot *(which is a lot of treats to let them know they did an awesome job). She was so proud of herself . I can tell that because she looses all composure when I give her praise, even if she's working. It was so amazing I guess I kind of got a taste of when a parent is proud of their kids.. She is going to get a little bit of peanut butter with her dinner tonight.

Because I know everyone!

I received an award! For being the nicest person on blogger. Just kidding its for being fat on thanksgiving.Check it out here it is
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So honestly in the 2 minutes it took me to copy and paste it... I forgot what it was for. But what I do remember is that we award it to five people.




So my number 1 is...... drumroll please.... Natalie . If it wasn't for her i can almost gaurentee I wouldn't ahve a guide dog or alot of the other good stuff I have in my life...Including my Mac.

My number 2 is my family. And the reason they are all number 2 is because there is tomany of them haha, but they have all supported me in the good times and bad

Number 3's are Nat's parents I'll call them N&K  They have always been good to me and We have some good laughs even if it is at my expense

Number 4 is Erin . Nat's twin. Who would I watch T.v. with and she makes some awesome cookies.
And my number five...  Is my mac. I'll call him Alex simply because of the fact that is the name of the voice it uses to read to me. How in the world would I post blogs without you.

Well as you can see with the posting of my laptop I don't really have the most friends haha  sad huh?

 P.s. my family has names to. I'll put them with their first initials because I don't know if they want their names up R.C.M.N.J.R.E.

If I break a glass and nobody sees it, did it really happen???

It's very possible. So I think there is a reason I don't clean that much. It's probably because I'm lazy, but also cause I mess everything up. So here goes the tale...

It all started on tuesday. I was actually in the mood to clean (shocker to those who know me I know). So I decided to vacuum up the bedroom and the bathroom. Why the bathroom you say? Well, I thought it would be easier then sweeping. so anyway, I'm vacuuming the bedroom and doing an awesome job in the room till the container on the vacuum is full. So I go outside to clean it out in Egypt's poo-can , and decide to look at the filter. IT WAS FILTHY! Now this is a brand new vacuum that has only been used maybe twice. I really wish that wasn't a lie. So i thump the filter on the floor a bit to get all the grime out. I swear there could have been an ant colony with all the dirt/muck in there. Now I'm pretty disgusted at this point and bummed because i have to go vacuum the room again to make sure i didn't miss anything... I did. I had to go clean out the vacuum again when I was done. So this is where it gets good. I decide that it would be easier to vacuum the bathroom, so I wouldn't have to fiddle around with the broom and dust pan... Good idea, but when it gets put into action its ridiculous. I Get close the one of the rugs and I step on it so it doesn't get sucked up into the vac. Well I wasn't paying attention to the other rug that was one inch away. Literally. So I hear the vacuum gagging on the other rug and i have to shut it off real quick which isn't as easy at it sounds. I am in the middle of panicking and trying to touch the power pedal, but i keep pushing the release so the handle will pivot. But I finally got it and the vacuum was saved. The rug got a little jacked up but nothing a little toss in the washer can't fix.

So now to yesterday! Another story with the vacuum. I decided to vacuum the living room. So I make all the precautions of moving the chairs asking Natalie if she could move the ottoman, and making sure nay loose wires are outta the way. So the whole thing is going without a hitch till I am 99.9% done. I hear a noise that sounds like a piece of paper got sucked up, but no... It was our extra 80 dollar mac charger!!! I shut the vacuum off as soon as I heard Nat say Oh No! So we check the wire and the entire side of it was completely stripped. At the time I was pretty bummed about it, but now its pretty funny. This vacuum has it out for me and/or my possessions. THANK YOU FOR THE VACUUM TASCHE!!!

Now to today. I woke up at about 6:30 this morning. I could have sworn i heard some glass breaking, and also my neighbors stupid dog was outside my window barking. So I was tired of laying in bed, and had nothing to do. So I fed Egypt earlier and had her do all her business for the morning. So then I get on my laptop and start listening to music. And for some reason I decide to clean again...Bad idea. So remember that broken glass??? Well it stayed in my mind the whole time, and thats what makes this story ironic. I remembered the dishes got washed I guess maybe yesterday... Shows how well I remember. So I start to unload them and everything is going well. Then I get to the plates. I hate plates. No matter how quiet you are trying to be... They make it impossible. I touched 2 plates together and you'd swear it sounds like someone just threw a rock through your window. I manage to get all the plates stacked and ready for moving, without waking anyone in the apartment/the dead. And.......... Success!!!! I didn't break the plates. Now its times to load what little dishes are in the sink. A few bowls and silverware, no big deal. Then I find a little vase that I spent about an hour cleaning tuesday. It was very groovy( and I mean it in the details, not the way hippies use it) I thought i would put the vase in the dish washer, but didn't because I heard Natalie wake up and I didn't want her to come out and see what I had done yet. So I go and tell her good morning and that I was cleaning. So after that I go back to the kitchen and... You guessed it. I knocked the vase of the counter and it shatters all over the floor. I couldn't believe it!!! All that work to clean it and get the ancient dust off, just to have it smash all over the floor. So I'm pretty ticked because there went my morning of silent cleaning. And for a blind person thats not exactly the easiest thing to do. Good thing Natalie was awake... She came and swept for me. I didn't want to move because i was bare foot and knowing my lousy luck my first step would have been on the biggest most jagged piece of glass... After that I wasn't much in the mood to finish.

So if this is some kind of hint that I shouldn't clean, I wish I would have taken it. O well I was trying to help Nat out a bit. She's been busy with school and Guide dogs of Texas stuff. And for me cleaning from now on... I RETIRE!!!!! haha Thats a line from scarface. thanks for checking in again everyone, there is more to come.

First Days of Guide Dog school

The first days Of guide dog school were... What's a good way to say... frustrating. Don't get me wrong everything was excellent, but knowing you were going to get your dog in a few days was murder. We did a lot of simulation work called Juno , but I'm not going to go to far into that because I don't know if I'm allowed to. Juno is the general named used with the majority of guide dog schools for their simulation dog. So we did work with juno for three days and then were paired up with our dogs. They do a lot of evaluations, and ask alot of questions to pair you up with the dog that best suits you and your personality. In my case, I wanted a mellow slow paced dog. When I could see I walked very slowly, not because i was cautious, but because I was just slow. (I get it from my dad) So With all the interrogation and evaluations they paired me up with Egypt. That day dragged on like you wouldn't believe. It was like someone kept setting the clock back an hour every hour it was horrible. So finally they called me to introduce me to Egypt. I practically ran down the hall way when i realized i didn't know which room to go to. After They got me into the room I sat . and. sat. and sat. for what seemed like hours. Then. She walked in. No. it wasn't Egypt. I practically had my arms open a smile on my face and was saying come here Egypt. But NO! It was the supervisor. She told me Egypt would be coming in in just a minute. So needless to say I was a little disgruntled. But then My instructor came in with egypt. It was awesome. Egypt came up to me wagging her tail and she licked me and sat down in between my legs. It was one of the best moments of my life. So after that we got to take our dogs back to our dorm room for some bonding. Egypt and I were regulars in the music room. She would lay down at my feet while I played the guitar.Now after this day... The real training started

Well that was the first three days of guide dog school I'm going to sum up a bit of it so we can get the story going a bit more. there were some intesnse moments there at the school though don't worry I'll put those in for sure.

*****IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER******

I like to tease Natalie a lot in person and in my blog. But she is actually very good to me. She doesn't starve me, and she isn't all that grouchy. Sometimes she can be though haha. But on a serious note, which rarely comes from me, She treats me well and has my safety,health, and sanity in mind.

P.S. If you are interested in the life of a puppy raiser check out Nat's blog.

Should have stayed home

Sorry folks this has been a slow uneventful week. But today was almost thrilling. It all starts when I woke up. I didn't have to go to spanish today because there was a test and i have my test scheduled for next week. So you know what that means... Why of course... Sleep in. Well... It didn't happen... Egypt heard my alarm go off and so she took it upon herself to make sure I was up and serving her breakfast. Now usually she won't pester melike this unless she really has to go to the bathroom or she has some other reason unbeknownst to me. Now here is a glimpse of what she does. She will get up and I'll still be mostly asleep and i feel a nudge with a cold wet nose, or the weight of her head resting on the side of the bed right next to me. If a slight amount of time goes by these actions intensify, and she starts this heavy sigh type of breathing. If I could see i bet i would be looking into the biggest set of puppy eyes I've ever seen. Now from many sources they have told me that Egypt has this look down to an art. She will display these eyes to many people when she is just sitting and I always hear the all to common "OOOOO look at the dog!" Or "Omg It's a dog" Which translates to me as "blah blah blah CAN I PET IT!!!!!!".Soooo. back to My story.. My day of sleeping in was cut extremely short. Even though I do wake up and feed egypt at 830 every morning,I got the guilt trip for about a minute till i got outta bed and fed her and took her outside to relieve. I think she was just bored this morning because she was jumping all around even after she went to the bathroom. This is normal behavior for her, but today it was a little more intense. So I stayed up the rest of the morning and I went to take a shower. Little did I know that people get grouchy when I shower in the morning because i use all the hot water. Now the grouch Waited for a little while to shower too, Even though I told her there was plenty of hot water she went ahead and waited about an hour to shower. So moving along We headed to the dreaded school on friday. I decided to leave my backpack and laptop at home so i wouldn't get distracted with the glories of the internet when I should be paying attention in history class. BIG MISTAKE. When I got into class the professor told us we were having a pop quiz, and when everyone started to complain she explained to us her type of pop quiz. All we had to do was write our name on a sheet of paper and get the names of 10 other people and have it in alphabetical order, then we turn it in. Now this so called quiz would give us 5 extra points on our next test. So I'm there kicking myself for not bringing my backpack and about to leave. But I decided to ask someone for a sheet of paper so I could try and get this done. I found someone right next to me. She didn't understand english all that well though. So she gave me a paper and got my info down for me, I thought she was going to give it to me , but she turned it into the professor for me. With just my name. haha. She was really nice though so I give her props. I wonder if i'm still going to get the points. O yeah i forgot to mention that after we turned in the paper we were free to leave. So i was in class for a total of 5 minutes... Wish i was joking about that. So after that i go and wait outside of Nat's class so We could go home after she got out... What a wonderful day at school.

TRUELY a Halloween Nightmare

Hmm... Where to start. At the point of nearly starving to death or almost getting run over by an old lady behind the wheel of a Walmart shopping cart? I'll just start from the beginning of it all. I thought it was going to be a normal day of just sitting around and relaxing, clearly I was wrong. I can never remember what we have to eat here at home so I'll go raid the pantry and sometimes the fridge to find absolutely nothing to eat. So i grabbed a sleeve of ritz crackers that were in the pantry and decided this would be a good snack. Well that good snack ended up practically being my whole ration for the day. So I asked Natalie if we could go to walmart to pick up some groceries so we could eat something besides the dust we breath in. Natalie told me we could go later because she was doing laundry, which I later realized meant she was watching an America's next top model marathon. So I retreated to the bedroom to put myself in a self induced coma to slow my metabolism so I could save my strength for the day. (I really just took a nap and didn't realize it till my phone rang and scared the life outta me) So I finally annoyed Nat enough to get her to take me to walmart. Here is where the real nightmare begins. It all started out well enough, we walked in and nothing is out of the ordinary... Till SHE showed up. Nat and I were looking for nacho cheese because I love nachos and I have been dying for some lately, when an old lady who Nat describes as looking like The Penguin from the batman movies comes down the isle. Now I don't know if none of this lady's senses work but she walked right down the isle and Nat tells me to watch out so I panic and don't know where to go. Natalie kindly moves out of the way so the lady can go around Egypt and I. But NO! the lady strolls right up to me and Egypt, making Egypt move and trip on my foot. She didn't say a word to me or acknowledge that I even existed... I have no clue how she drove herself to Walmart, if she has that same attitude on the road she has got to have one hell of a driving record. .. Anyway. I was really upset at this rudeness, I usually brush everything off, but i guess it was the complete lack of acknowledgement of my existence that got me mad. So I fumed a little bit about the lady for a few minutes just loud enough so Nat could hear me. She was pretty ticked too. When all of a sudden I hear a bark in the store. My first thought was is there a stray here in Walmart??? Then Nat and I thought it might be a crazy kid screaming. So we brush it off. So we go to the check out line for the first time. (I wish I was making that up) When some kid says "OOOO look at the dog!" And he comes and pets Egypt. Now if he was 2 years old I would have been ok with it, but no this kid was like 13 Nat told me. Lucky for him Natalie was the one who caught him petting Egypt and told him not to. So we inched along the counter when we realize that we don't have eggs or a cake pan for the cake Nat wants to make. So we get out of line so we can go get these 2 items. Remember I am about to eat anything that has the misfortune of coming too close to my mouth. So when we go get this cake pan we hear a bark again, sure enough it was real. But it was a fellow service dog. I don't really have much to say about him because he was an assistant for a woman in a wheel chair. But on our way to the eggs... This other woman had a german shepherd in the store... I think the dogs halloween costume was to be a service dog, because the moment it saw Egypt it started to lunge and growl at her. This leaves me silently apologizing to the lady with the wheel chair, it was not her dog after all. I'm not going to lie this dog scared the crap outta me simply because i thought we had solved the mystery of the unknown barking. So the dog scared Egypt as well and I had to calm her down a bit and assure her the dog was gone. Well that dog made me a liar. We were heading over to the check out counter when who do you think we saw... You got it the german shepherd. It lunged again and this time barked a few times confirming my suspicion to his bark. So it scared me again and I gave it a mad look. I don't know if he saw me, haha It was just my reaction to things, I always make a mad face. So I'm all stressed out with that dog and then I'm hoping a manager wasn't going to come and talk to me about my dog being disruptive when she did nothing at all. But it didn't happen. The cashier had my back, without realizing it. She always sees us walking around in walmart and said Egypt was good. This so far has been my worst time ever going out somewhere with Egypt. From old ladies that try to run you down with a shopping cart, to roudy dogs in the store, it was truely a nightmare. The good thing that came out of this whole ordeal is that I found out which cheese I like with my nachos and I'll never by the wrong one again. Thanks for reading and I'll have more to post to catch you up on some of the past with Egypt. Happy Halloween and be safe.

Intros

Hi everyone! My name is Darrell Garza, I am 21 years old and am currently a student in college. I plan on getting my degree in kinesiology and doing something with it, haha. I got a guide dog 5 months ago I sort of had a blog going about it , but i was having a hard time posting. Now I have a Mac book pro... and it's awesome. Well enough about me for now... Now to Egypt. She is... How should I put it??? Perfect? Yeah I'll go with that. She is a yellow lab born on July 11th 07, She has stunning brown eyes from what I hear and a pink heart shape on her nose. She is a very mellow and relaxed girl, she is a lot like me laid back with no worries. She is an excellent worker too. She alerts me to many things sometimes when she doesn't have to and she is very cautious. She takes very good care of me and if I do slip or bump something and she notices it, she gets upset. If I didn't have egypt I don't know what I would do. Yeah thats a bit dramatic but it is the truth. I went blind in Oct. of 06 and for about a year and a half I just bummed rides off of peoples shoulders and that is more or less how I got around. Then I met my girlfriend Natalie. She did the shoulder thing for about a month or so then started asking me to use my cane(which I got in 4th grade). I wasn't to keen on this idea simply for the fact that I was a bit self conscious of myself with the cane. So I didn't use it (wish I did. you'll find out why). Natalie wasn't going to not let me use the cane so she started telling me she was going to run me into stuff on purpose (I thought I'd call her bluff). She wasn't bluffing! Haha. Some of you might be upset at this I know i was, but it was for a good reason, and I'm not bitter anymore. So i started using my cane for my own safety, it also came in handy for tripping Natalie up when she wasn't expecting it. So this went on for several months, as each one passed my frustrations with the cane built up. I had a super tall cane which wasn't bad, but if it got caught up on a tiny pebble or grain of sand it would rocket up and stab me in the arm pit which hurt really bad or it would get me in the chest and I could almost swear there was a jouster around. So one day after threatening my cane to hell haha, Natalie thought she would research guide dogs. So we looked at several schools which all seem great, and I choose the one that sounded like it was just right for me. (It was actually the first one she told me about and I stuck with it but we still looked at the other schools) This was back in August of 08 by the way, I didn't know how long the program was going to take but when I found out i was a little bummed. The program took a month to complete which is about the average with all the other schools. So being that i am a college student it was kind of out of the question unless i wanted to bomb every class and take them again the next semester. So a couple months went by and then I started getting serious about filling out the info I needed for the school to accept me. When I finished the requirements for admissions I impatiently waited for an answer from the admissions office. One day I decided to call the school and see if they had gotten my info and the woman that started the change of my life told me "Have you checked your email? You've been accepted!" And as you can probably tell... I talk a lot. Well this wasn't the case for me at the moment. The lady actually had to say "hello?" because believe it or not i was speechless. This was at the end of March, and my training began on May 25th. So I tried to keep myself busy not counting down the days, which didn't happen but somehow they melted away. Days were ticking away and before I Knew it, it was May 24th and I was nervous as hell because I've never been away from my family for so long. So now I am going to let my fingers, your eyes, and my/your ears relax and I will start telling you about the guide dog school summed up of course and get you up to speed with my and Egypt's everyday life.