RESIDENTIAL SECTION OF HEAVEN (and something about Congress)

This is too good. I MOVED OUT TODAY (Friday, Sept. 4th)!!! Did you think it would ever happen? I have moved back into Wachovia Place. I've lived in this apartment complex for 2 years previously. But this apartment is WAY COOLER than the previous one. It looks out from the porch onto a courtyard with a fountain (instead of the street view the last one had-- fountain vs. traffic, hmmm). And then there's the whole not-driving-but-living-right-downtown thing, which gets high marks from the expert panel of judges, including Igor, that cranky old guy from the former Rostroslovenia-ich-sky-dom.

And, yeah, I've lived in my own place before, since the wreck, for a month, but that was just a test run. Seeing if I could even do it, what accomodations I'd need to make, etc.

And let no one think that just because I'm THIS excited about moving out, that I'm excited to move away from my parents. They have been so amazing and supportive through all of my trials and tribulations (of which there have been 42 raised to the 42nd power), so take the love I already had for 'em (which everyone knows was freakishly high) and multiply it by the biggest number ever dreamed of, plus one-- that's how much love I have for 'em, at the least for even just putting up with the verbal abuse I dealt out almost daily for the past two years (I'm getting better about that). And it's not like I just said "Well, bye". I'm still gonna see them at least weekly, 'cause A) I don't drive right now and attend a school which isn't on the bus-line, & B) I want them to be a large part of my life anyways 'cause C) I love 'em.

And yesterday, I found out that I -might- end up before CONGRESS!

Wha-whatt? Did you say Congress? What the...? Okay, some of these facts may be slightly wrong, but it's 2:00 in the morning, so it's too late to fact-check, and I'll correct later. The back-story is that post-therapies, I started going to a gym recently bought by the hospital, the Accelerated Sports Institute, or ASI. Basic therapies pretty much get you to the point where you can, to the best you can, do activities of daily living (ADLs), like walking, kicking your parents' butts in video games, or feeding yourself (just kidding, kinda, on one of those). ASI's deal is that they help you do those things, but help you do them so much better. And they can tailor their program to what you need. For instance, one of my goals is to drive again someday, what I consider to be the last hurdle of recovery (true, that's a hurdle that can be worked around, but at an ouch-painful cost of convenience). And yesterday, the folks at ASI invented some games that purely work on my reflexes, which right now is one of the weakest areas of my driving skills.

Now, they have a federal grant proposal that has already been accepted for review. They're just putting the final touches on it. What ASI wants to do is start a program, called Wounded Warrior, which helps wounded soldiers regain the physical abilities needed to get their lives put back together well.

I'm their 1st brain injury patient (I'm pretty sure). VERY true, not all brain injuries are the same, I've learned. But there are very often similarities. And so if they help me achieve success, that opens up all kinds of possibilities. Step one of using Jeff to achieve this goal is that they have been video-taping me in some parts of my workouts (yes, with my permission, this has my blessings). I asked yesterday, and apparently, from the video-tapes alone, you can see my progress (and I haven't been going there long, around 5 weeks).

So yesterday, I was talking with one of the owners, Darren Holmes, who mentioned that if the grant proposal clears the next few hurdles, he might be going before Congress to present it. And here's the double-edged kicker:

HE MIGHT TAKE ME WITH HIM, AS LIVING PROOF THAT THIS PROGRAM WORKS. I -MIGHT- GO BEFORE CONGRESS!

Yes, oui, si, later on, I had the requisite fourteen heart attacks. I even followed with a fifteenth, just to be on the safe side. Stay tuned to Jrox for further developments. (You can sign up to get Jeff-Knox-news by email on the right)