Sunday, September 09, 2007
Dancing in Front of the Fireplace
I have developed some numbness in a couple of fingers on my left hand which makes it difficult to perform certain tasks. It is hard to clip the fingernails on my right hand which is not a problem at the present time but it could be if my hand starts to looks like that of Freddy Kruger or Edward Scissorhands. I have trouble lifting things, especially dishes. My usual m.o. is to remove them with my right hand and place them in my left hand before I place them in the cabinet. It is only a matter of time before I drop several dinner plates. I also have a problem slicing things on the cutting board. When the numbness first appeared I took a slice out of one of my fingers. But here is the real kicker. I have real trouble trying to type. My sense of touch has deserted me. I can wind up with the same characters repeated seven or eight times or else the character can be missing entirely. Lots of words wind up like Bspttttt or phfaaaaat.
I thought that I had come up with the perfect solution. I purchased a copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking. This is speech recognition software. I had owned a previous copy many years ago, but it proved to be highly unreliable. The new program had been “greatly improved” so I decided to give it a whirl. I got it up and running in “no time” and started the training segment. One must read a couple of selections and the computer is supposed to recognize your voice. I tried a few sentences of my own. “Arkansas” came out two words with absolutely no similarity in any shape or fashion to “Arkansas.” I let out a shriek and complained “Not that you dummy!” The computer came up with a fairly accurate phonetic version of my shriek and it got the “Not that you dummy!” 100% correct. I vaguely recalled that in the earlier version you could say “correct that” and the computer would backspace and erase the last word that you had typed in. I spoke very crisply into the microphone, “Correct that” and the computer typed out “correct that.” I knew then and there that this software was not exactly going to be a piece of cake.
I deleted my document and started anew. Since we are still remodeling our house I decided to write a document that did not contain “Arkansas.” I mentioned that the tile person was coming to look at our fireplace. Somehow the computer entered the words “dancing around our fireplace.” Now I had no intention of dancing around the fireplace. In fact I can’t remember a single person dancing around a fireplace unless maybe it was an ancient Druid. Perhaps a group of Indians dancing around a pole with a maiden in distress affixed thereto with the intention of starting a bonfire would qualify. On the other hand maybe it was some other group dancing around the bonfire. In any event I finally mastered the proper technique. You speak slowly and clearly and hit the backspace or delete key with a vengeance when necessary and then try, try again. Or as W.C. Fields once said, “Try, try again and then quit. There is no need to make a %@*** fool of yourself.” Whoops! It appears that the software is preprogrammed not to use certain words. The copyright must be owned by Disney.
Communication has been a problem between my wife and I for some time. We were walking along a trail in Sedona and she said, “We have to stop killing our rain deer!” I got a little worried, but I did not want to stop in my tracks and look at her strangely. She repeated, “I think that it is going to rain, dear!” And just the other day as we were riding in the car she read an article to me. After the headline I was mystified: “How to add ears to your wife.” I finally stopped her and asked her to read the article again, but this time a bit slower. She read ”How to add years to your life.” Now this is not a one-way street. She hears me utter strange things as well.
So maybe this computer program is not so strange after all. It just thinks that I need a second wife.
