Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

This reached me via Ada Palmer: a survey that is looking for disabled students to describe their experiences with the adaptation of classes to the pandemic this past spring, to develop plans to fix problems in fall.

https://uconn.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dnIYM4NW6EJVoW1

They're trying to reach a lot of people, so please share this wherever you think is appropriate.

I organized a Seattle-area Friends of Captain Awkward meetup for today, and it went very well, I think: seven or eight people (I can't remember now whether the "seven" included myself) talking for a couple of hours (though one left early) about a variety of things. One turned out to be someone I vaguely knew from Usenet days, and used to see on LJ occasionally; another I remembered from her posts to the Captain's blog; and there was at least one woman who decided to come to the meetup despite not having delurked.

During the organizing, at least two people said things along the lines of "I wish I could, but that specific day won't work because…" But when we were actually there, two other people said they wouldn't have been able to make it, but were in town for the day (from Olympia and Anacortes, respectively).

The tea at Bauhaus wasn't as good as the last couple of times I've been in (I think the water wasn't quite hot enough this time), so for my second cup I had chai, which was fine. The place was also less crowded than I expected from the previous meetup there; we started earlier, and it was quite a bit less crowded by the time we were ready to leave. If I organize the next one, I may try starting at 3:30 instead of 2:30; on the other hand, we ended when we did because people had plans for later on. The other downside of Bauhaus as a location is that there are only a few small tables downstairs, and no elevator; I'd forgotten exactly how small the downstairs was, and had been hoping to find space there. So it's convenient in the sense of easy to get to (Capitol Hill, lots of nearby bus stops), but not accessible for anyone who has problems with stairs. I think I will ask for more accessible suggestions for the future.

How much trouble would I be likely to get into for picking up a theodolite* and moving it, and its protective orange traffic cones, out of the wheelchair ramp that it's blocking?

And is that more trouble than I would get for "accidentally" knocking it over while trying to use the ramp? I don't actually want to break anything; I want people to be able to use the ramp and wheel or walk down the street in my neighborhood.

I called in a complaint about this a few weeks ago, and was told it would be dealt with. It was, for a day or two.

Recently, the theodolite has been there for a short time every weekday morning, occasionally while I'm walking past; it may be there at 9:00 and gone at 9:15. Today I noticed it when I was coming back from the drugstore about 1:00. I spent some time on the phone with Bellevue City Hall, and after looking up the contractor, the woman asked me to repeat the details of what it was blocking, and then connected me to the city employee who is working on that project. I got his voicemail, and left a message despite the greeting starting by telling me that it was Tuesday the 12th.

As a side note, even if you wanted to, you couldn't "just" use the other side of the street, because that sidewalk has been fenced off, for the construction project in question.

*A surveyor's instrument, on a tripod.

A FAQ should not be a 5.3-megabyte file that I have to download and open in Acrobat.

Of course, if they'd used plain text, they wouldn't have been able to throw full-page photos of various government officials at me, nor insist on a blue background for the material.

I am tempted to write and ask them how this complies with their requirement to provide services to the blind and visually handicapped; were I a resident of the state in question, or if I had a vision impairment not corrected by my bifocals, I probably would.

Better, it turns out that there are actual FAQs elsewhere on the site. So my issue is less one of accessibility than of bad site design and worse labeling.