fractalnavel

boring personal drivel; very skippable...

going to the optometrist is always fun, all kinds of neat optical toys.  it's pretty entertaining.  not the wait, however.  things were running quite a bit behind.  thankfully, the people who work there on the floor were generous with their time and help in picking out frames and lenses, etc.

specs on self

about time i got new glasses.  the pair i have i got four years ago, and they are barely adequate now.  and i broke the hinge on one side the other day, so now i have the classic geek tape repair going.  the picture above is similar to the set i'll be getting, but it will be a couple of weeks.

i need to invest in fairly indestructible frames, and they were much pricier than the high-tech titanium ones i was drooling over.  these are nearly as thin, however.  and i'm going to try the anti-glare coating.  i tried that years ago, and loved it, except it was impossible to keep them clean.  it's supposed to be much better now.  also, for another fifty bucks, i got that transitions thing.  we'll see; it may pay off when driving an open jeep, and for hiking (i got so tired of switching between sunglasses and reading glasses to look at maps on hikes in recent years), etc..

see, i now need glasses for driving, especially at night.  a pair of presecription sunglasses would be nice.  but what i just needed to buy - they're pricey.  came to over $600.  wow.  and that's after half-off on the lenses - ! well, it's an investment in my life.  i could have made them half of that price i suppose, but it may have ended up costing the same in the long run. (or yes, i could learn to be more careful, but after thirty years of this, i know myself better than that.)

part of the problem is that i'm taking a shot at the progressive multifocal lenses again.  i need both distance and reading correction, and they're too different to get a decent compromise prescription, or so i'm told.  well, i'll take a shot at it.  i tried it some years back, and i never could get used to the warping of objects.  i suspect i'll run into the same again.  if i need to replace them with single-focus lenses, i lose the extra hundred bucks that i paid for the progressives.  and then i would have to go with a compromise prescription, because juggling two different sets of glasses would be silly (as in that remark about hiking above), not to mention the expense.  and no, there's no cheap off-the-shelf stuff that'll work.  sigh.  well, like i said, it's an investment.

some year i'll probably have to get prescription sports goggles, for the skiing, sailing and biking stuff.  but not yet.