Angel, While this is a fine goal in theory, for both personal and financial reasons it will not happen in practice. Were I in the position Mr. Damery is in I would probably be doing the same thing. And I say the following without a trace of snarkery toward him or his skills, because I've been in parallel situations, but one does what one must for the "Dog and Pony Shows," which is precisely what many of us call trade shows. You become incredibly proficient at what you need to be when it's needed for practical reasons. I had a good friend who was 100% hearing, but her partner was 100% deaf, and she was one of the best signers I've known. She used to pride herself, and justifiably, on the fact that deaf individuals would insist that she could not possibly be hearing and be able to sign like she could. She literally fooled them (not intentionally, mind you) into believing she was deaf simply because of her fluency and depth of vocabulary in sign.
I am almost slack-jawed at the idea that anyone sighted could ever become good with tactile reading of Braille. I could actually visually read Braille, at least at the word level, upside down and backwards (literally) when I was doing drill work with some of my students when I worked at the Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind. There was no embosser that did a cheat I would have loved to have had, with the actual letters printed alongside the Braille embossing. But I learned as much as I could in the context where I had to use it so that I knew whether or not I was getting the answers I was supposed to be getting. Brian
