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My glasses make me feel so fine…

May 4, 2023, 9:38 PM

It’s funny how things work sometimes.  For 22 years, I had one pair of glasses and wore that pair every day.  The glasses varied over the years, going from nearly round in 2001, and slowly becoming more and more square as I upgraded in 2005, 2008, and 2010.  Then in 2016, I switched from wire rims to plastic.  But even with that change, I still only had one pair with my current prescription, and kept old pairs as spares.  I mean, glasses were expensive, ya know?

Then a couple of things happened.  First, I discovered Zenni Optical, after Elyse got an extra pair of glasses from them that were branded by FaZe Clan.  This ensured that she would have an extra pair after she had her own glasses emergency when were on a trip back in 2021 (her old glasses came apart in a way that wasn’t fixable while we were outbound), and it also meant that she could now rotate between pairs.

Then, last October, my glasses were destroyed by the airbag when the original HR-V got totaled back in October.  The following day, I practically turned the house upside down looking for my old pairs of glasses, and I couldn’t find any of them.  I don’t know what happened to them, but they were nowhere to be found.  Go figure.  The day after that, I went and got new glasses made at LensCrafters, so that I would be back in business on that front, getting an updated prescription for glasses with a slightly updated design.  I initially got single vision lenses in order to have glasses in an hour, since I was going on that trip to Tennessee, and needed to be able to see right away.

After we got back from Tennessee, I got the lenses upgraded to progressives, because that’s what you have to do when you’re mature like me.  When I was talking to the guy at LensCrafters to get measured for progressives, I made sure to get the pupillary distance from him, so that I could “get a cheap spare pair on Zenni”.  He gladly gave it to me and explained how it needed to be entered in.  Cool.  I ordered the progressive lenses for the glasses that I already had from LensCrafters, and then I ordered a spare pair later from Zenni, in blue.  The Zenni glasses showed up first, before the new lenses from LensCrafters did, so I set the Zenni glasses aside, since the idea was that this was a spare pair, and I didn’t want to get used to progressives on a cheap pair, when my LensCrafters glasses cost me several hundred dollars (under the assumption that “more expensive” means “better”).

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Categories: Glasses

New couch!

May 29, 2016, 6:30 PM

Sometimes, you just have to go out with the old.  After fifteen years, I finally got rid of my old futon from college.  In other words, this:

The couch in my living room, photographed 2014

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Categories: Elyse, Furniture, Glasses, IKEA, Melissa

Time to redefine my look…

May 11, 2016, 8:59 PM

…and by that, I mean it’s time for new glasses.  I’ve worn glasses since January 2001, and I’ve had four pairs of glasses since then.  The first pair, which I had from 2001 to 2005, had wire frames and more or less round lenses.  Then the second pair, from 2005 to 2008, had squarer lenses with really round corners.  I had my next pair for only two years, 2008 to 2010.  Those continued the squaring trend, with corners less round than before, but still a bit of curve in them.  My current pair, since 2010, is another evolution in the same vein, with fewer curves and more squareness, plus more definition on the sides.  It’s funny, though – with that last pair, I picked the antique finish on the frames.  However, after almost six years of use, I think it’s now closer to a silver finish than antique.  So even though my prescription barely changed, it was time for new glasses.

I had actually been looking forward to my eye exam last week for quite some time, because I was tired of my existing glasses.  Therefore, I had taken plenty of time to think about what I wanted to do on my next pair.  I figured that if I didn’t do something significantly different, then I would probably do another evolution on what I was doing now.  However, the latter would essentially be an admission of defeat for a new style, and I didn’t want to do that.  So with a new prescription in hand, I went and tried out a bunch of different glasses to see what I liked.

My first stop was Lenscrafters, and my first test was this pair:

Not bad?

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Categories: Glasses

A number of things to discuss today…

October 14, 2010, 9:48 PM

So I have a few things that I’d like to discuss with you today. First of all, I got a new netbook! I got the HP Mini 210, in black. Looks like it ought to be a pretty solid netbook computer, and for how I do computing on the go, it ought to work pretty well. My biggest complaint about the Lappy is that typing would give me fits, because the keyboard didn’t hold up too well. The left control key broke off, and typing would cause nearby keys to fire as well. This new computer has a “chiclet” style keyboard, which actually kind of reminds me of a Mac keyboard. And this thing weighs about three pounds. And this is what the Mini 210 looks like:

HP Mini 210 netbook

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So here are the new glasses…

October 1, 2008, 7:06 PM

So this is what I look like in my new glasses:

New glasses

As you can see, these are a bit squarer than my old glasses, which were themselves a bit squarer than the pair before that. It’s a nice progression there.

My father said I look handsome and smart in my new glasses. Meanwhile, I was not too pleased with the smile in this photo. It looks forced, doesn’t it? I took it on my office Mac first thing in the morning, and I had not had coffee yet.

But those are the new glasses, and so far, I like them, but they still need a minor adjustment, as they’re slightly up on one side, and I’m noticing it. But I think we have a winner.

Categories: Glasses

So I found an ophthalmologist, and I went today.

September 29, 2008, 10:22 PM

So I found an ophthalmologist, and I had my appointment today. I went to Rodman & Engelstein, and I’ll just say this – this was definitely a different procedure from when I went to Dr. Patel in Fishersville.

First of all, I took a half day off from work, and took Metro up to Silver Spring. First of all, one has to wonder who peed in the train operator’s cornflakes this morning. The train was a Silver Spring train, which meant that it ended its run at Silver Spring rather than going all the way to Glenmont. I usually hate those kinds of trains because they don’t go where I need to go, but this time, I was going to downtown Silver Spring, so I didn’t particularly care. It was there, and I caught it. This guy came down REALLY hard about the whole going-out-of-service thing. “ATTENTION CUSTOMERS ON THE PLATFORM, THIS TRAIN IS OUT OF SERVICE! DO NOT BOARD THIS TRAIN!” And he repeated this a few times before the train was completely berthed. And of course, despite being all like that, he didn’t even bother to change the sign to the “NO PASSENGERS” sign. He kept it on Red to Silver Spring.

Then getting there, I filled out the customary mound of paperwork for when you’re a new patient. After that, it was time to get started. First they checked the pressure in my eyes. Then they looked at my eyes with a microscope, checked my existing prescription, and tested my vision with glasses on. Then they dilated my pupils. This is where things changed. After this, they take you out of the exam room, and have you wait in another waiting room while the drops work. I played Tetris on my phone, and that certainly became a challenge as my pupils dilated. I ended up having to close one eye and hold the phone way far away to play. And the technicians would occasionally come by to check on how well the drops had worked. First time, they said I was almost ready but needed to ripen (my term) a little more. The second time, I was ripe, and was taken into a second exam room. There, they looked at my eyes with the microscope again, tested my vision without glasses, and then figured out what the new prescription would be using the phoropter.

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Categories: Glasses, Personal health

New glasses!

May 18, 2005, 11:02 PM

So I went to the ophthalmologist today, and I’m happy to announce that my eyes are quite healthy. I also got new glasses, as expected. My new glasses are copper-colored, and are more more squarish than round. So I ended up going with the suggestion by one coworker who said I should get square glasses. I also hope that the other coworker doesn’t consider these new glasses as “old fashioned”.

So what do my new glasses look like? Let’s pull out my “hat mannequin”, which I acquired back in 1996 or so from a store that was going out of business, and let’s model some glasses.

First of all, this is my old pair, which I have been wearing since January 2001:

Old glasses

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Categories: Glasses

New glasses – it gives you a chance to update your look…

May 15, 2005, 7:27 PM

I’m going to the ophthalmologist’s office on Wednesday to get my eyes examined, mainly to see how much my vision has changed since January 2001 when I last got things checked (that’s when I first started wearing glasses). My guess is that I’ll probably need to get new glasses when it’s all said and done. Ask my coworkers at Wal-Mart, and they’ll tell you that I have occasionally remarked that I need new glasses.

So… as a result, this gives us the chance to update my look. And glasses do make quite a difference. Compare for a moment:

Glasses:
With glasses

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Categories: Glasses, Myself