❤️ Hi there! I'm Michael 😊👍

[Michael Honkanen]

❤️ Hi there! I'm Michael. You'll probably notice pretty quickly that I enjoy using GIF images. 😊 Hopefully, they're useful to somebody out there besides me just having fun creating them. haha

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❤️ About me...

When I was three years old, my younger brother became sick with spinal meningitis (Wikipedia link). In the process, my brother became deaf with an almost complete hearing loss. This difficult situation provided a unique opportunity for my family and I to become fluent in American Sign Language (ASL). My brother was not sent away to a deaf or hard of hearing school. He grew up with us, his hearing family, and we were active in the Deaf community.

As a former police officer and federal investigator, I often used ASL to communicate with and serve members of the Deaf community. Currently, I create simple, step-by-step ASL courses, books, downloads, etc for Able Lingo ASL (my website).

My ASL journey continues to evolve and there's always something new to learn. I'm fluent in 4 languages: English, ASL, Spanish, Indonesian. It fascinates me how learning is a never-ending journey of improvement. The more I think I know, the more I find out I don't know. 😊 What a journey.

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❤️ I first noticed this Sign Language Forum website a few years ago and thought it was pretty neat. I finally got around to setting up a profile and posting something. So here it is.

I hope you guys are having a wonderful day. Wherever you are in your ASL journey, I wish you all the best. I'm sending positive vibes your way. 👍