I had to come back home a day early without Amanda due to a problem with my hearing aids. Despite my troubleshooting of one dead left hearing aid, I apparently missed moisture in one of the tubes, which led to me hurrying back down here and going to the audiologist.

Okay, false alarm, but I was going to go in anyway. Needed new molds made, and I got to hear about some new hearing aid advances, which, of course, is always a subject that gets my attention.

Oticon has released a new model called the Synchro, which is basically one level up from the aids I’m currently using, the Oticon Adapto models. The really big differences here have to do with the way in which the directional microphones on the hearing aids work. On the Adapto, there are really only two ways in which the microphones can work — they can either focus on a narrow amount of noise while still allowing background noise or they can act as a sort of omnidirectional microphone. That limits the Adapto’s ability to — well — adapt to some situations well, since its intelligence is limited to two preset programs stored within the hearing aid itself. With the Synchro, there’s apparently quite a bit more flexibility. Instead of two programs that the aid depends on, the Synchro model does a form of parallel processing, considering several different noise scenarios at once. Based on whatever scenario seems best at the time, it will adjust the volume of the aids to whatever’s most appropriate for that situation. In addition, the Synchro improves on the Adapto’s noise cancellation and feedback cancellation systems, which makes it both better at isolating sounds and better at preventing other people from getting annoyed at hearing aid users because of the whine generated when the aid doesn’t have a tight seal. Both are good things.

Oh, and let’s not forget that a wide selection of colors is available: beige, light brown, dark brown, light gray, dark gray, transparent, yellow, orange, pink, purple, blue, and green. For some, I could see where this would be nice. Personally, I like the clear ones — my audiologist had a display of some of the available colors out.

In addition to that, I’ve been doing some web site work. I’m planning to update the naturalaxis web site with a new layout that depends entirely on CSS (which, I admit, puts me a little behind — there are lots of other sites that have long since gone to CSS-only layout control, but better late than never). I’m also hoping to redo the portfolio section to be more of a case study section on one or two good projects.

In addition, I’m still working with Evergreen’s Web Team and Access Services actively, though progress is a little slow. I’ve also thrown together an informational web site for the Enrollment Growth DTF, which I’m serving on for the duration of the academic year — it has yet to be approved, so, thus, has not been posted.

I’m looking forward to seeing my good friend in Port Townsend. It should be a good weekend.