Bell1945's blog

Eyesight Changes

As I said before, I had cataract surgery scheduled for last Tuesday, 4 January.  And it was quick and easy.  By the second day, I could take off the eye patch (a transparent plastic shield with an archery-target pattern of air holes) so I started looking around.  And it was bright!

Sometimes I noticed a small, bright circular arc on the left side of my right eye.  I figured it was probably the discontinuity at the edge of the lens.  (Dr. Oliver, my ophthalmologist, later confirmed).  But by the third day, it was gone.  My brain decided to tune it out.  Go, brain!

Third day, I also noticed in the kitchen that the overhead light seemed really bright.  (Our lights are fluorescent behind diffusion panels.)  I tried looking through only one eye.  Right eye:  ultra white.  Left eye: slightly creamy.  Verrrry interesting.

I decided to try to capture the two views by altering a photo.  Then I decided to try mimic what it looked like before the surgery.  

Phil Stith kindly offered to let me use his picture of Old Salem in the snow as my standard photo.

My current view through my right eye:

Switching to my left eye,

 Before my surgery, my right eye was corrected to 20/50, with blurriness in the middle.  (My corrected vision 12 months before the surgery was 20/20.) 

 There you are.   Amazing improvement.

I need cataract surgery

Went to my new ophthamologist today.  The verdict is that my right eye is above the borderline for needing corrective surgery.  My left is corrected to 20/20.

The idea of surgery on my eye hasn't freaked me yet, but I have a while yet.

There are some complications.  It is possible to correct an eye to a no-glasses state.  But that won't work for me.  The reason is that the image size in my right-eye uncorrected eye would be so different from the corrected image size on the left that my brain couldn't cope.  

One approach is to wear a contact lens in the left eye only.  Another is to correct close enough to uncorrected that my brain could cope and use glasses that correct each eye appropriately.  'Course, if my left eye deteriorates (there is evidence of cataract there already, just not to an extent that requires correction), then there's a similar dilemma -- correct the left to uncorrected, and the right eye still needs help. 

I asked about correcting both eyes to uncorrected vision.  (a) Insurance won't cover it. (b) Even if I paid for it, I'm undertaking risk on a 20/20 eye for no good reason.

Sigh.  Dilemmas galore.

I did learn that the procedure takes only 15 minutes (after prep).  After a follow-up the day after, about 30 days of a selection of eye washes.  And that's it.

Since my insurance won't deal with everything until January, I have a little time.  

Not time to stew, I hope.......

Didn't take my own advice

For a long time, I have advised friends not to argue with someone that compliments them.  Even if you don't agree, I used to say, just say "thank you" quietly and think ("but here are the reasons you're wrong").

 And at my high-school reunion, did I take my own advice?  No, I did not. 

 Several people said "You look just the same."

 Now I've lived with myself all these years, and I've gone through flattop, preppy side part, long-haired grad student, permed, preppy again, then non-descript.  My hairline has gradually pushed back and I have a natural tonsure.  My first gray hair was at age 26 and now all my ID's say "Hair: gray".  

My weight went up to 192, then down to 140, then (thanks to Nutriment) back to 170 and then 178.  My waist is only 4 inches larger than the 28 it was in high school, 'though I've rearranged the mass considerably.  I've shrunk an inch in height.

But "you look just the same" was a compliment, and I should have just said "thank you."  Instead of trying to prove them wrong...........

So, belatedly, thank you, old friends.

 

65

Nine years ago, and a day, I was focused on my coming birthday and self-referentially, on *why* I was focused on my coming birthday.

The answer, in excruciating detail, is here: http://star-property.offthisweek.com/56.html.  The short answer is that I had from age 10 focused on reaching 55 years on the earth, based on the realization that I would be tragically old when the millennium rolled around, namely 55.   So 55 sort of stuck in my mind as a goal post.

When the year 2000 arrived, I was, uhh, not quite 55, so the 10-year-old's calculation was suboptimal. 

When I reached actually 55, I ran a kind of victory lap.   Coming close to 56, I began to wonder with Peggy Lee, is that all there is?

No, that's not all there is.  Since then, I've mostly been retired, but fully employed.  I have medium-term projects and short-term projects, and I spend time doing dumb stuff during the week so we don't have to do  it on the week-ends when the jerks are about.

That said --------  don't you hate that expression.  So why did it come to mind, I wonder?

This birthday came upon me slowly without metaphysical speculation (Miss Fairfax, "The Importance of Being Earnest").  Saturday, I deconstructed the basement to find the electric chainsaw.  Bought chainsaw oil.  Straightened the garage back out.  Had an early dinner then headed to Shakespeare Theatre in downtown Washington to see "All's Well That Ends Well."  We thought we were leaving far too early, but we didn't count on the Transformers.  Turns out they were filming the next Transformers movie in town, and we were re-routed one block from where we wanted to turn left.  We and half the population crept by the Natural History Museum and its sisters until we could head north.    At the last I reverted to the usual approach to our parking garage, only to hit another unannounced road closure.  After the play, it looked like a straight shot home, but again, they closed the road on us, I made an erroneous left turn onto what turned out to be the entrance to I-395.  I wobbled down the road and actually took the correct exit near the Pentagon and I looked like a sage in getting us out of town in record time.

Here it is the birthday day and I am without extensive plans.  That's what I prefer.  Kate gave me a great book (a kind of encyclopedia about evolutionary biology), which I've browsed through a little.  Tonight a favorite dinner and a nice wine.  This afternoon?  Possibly some wood-turning.  No, wait!  Every year, Kate imposes a book-buying moratorium for 1 month before my birthday.  Lest I buy the book she's planning to get me.  AND THE MORATORIUM IS OVER!  So maybe I can go buy the collected works of Harlan Coben, especially the Myron Bolitar series, and Jeff Lindsay's Dexter series.  Now *there*'s a birthday bash.  

 

See you at the bookstore.

Longest case of jet-lag I've ever had

Kate and I flew to Hong Kong two weeks ago, 15 September (arriving Thursday evening, 16 September).  We visited with our friend Tom Parenty and his wife Zhi Yang (family name Zhi; given name Yang).  We saw many interesting and wonderful things.  Made many observations.  One of which was that, unlike Moscow, we relaxed when in Hong Kong and mainland China.  

We moved around, from Hong Kong (population 7M) taxiing to Shenzhen (pronounced "shen jen", population 8.9M, where all your Apple products and many HP products are assembled); later flying 733 miles to to Wuxi (rhmyes with moo chi; population 4.24M; flight distance about that of New York to Chicago) to get to Suzhou (rhymes with Cujo, but not as frightening; population 5.9M); then taking a day trip to the Immense Lake (Tai Hu) where Tom and Yang have their third home.  

We had dim sum every morning for breakfast with lots of different cuisines.  We were guests of honor for two dinners, where we were the least well dressed.  About a week on the ground and we only had rice twice.  The affluent do not put their dishes on rice; rice is filler for those with insufficient means.  

We took about 800 photos.  Okay, I took 650 and Kate took 150.  I'm still struggling to make sense of it all.

We had  a wonderful wine experience (about which more later some time).  We visited a small furniture factory run by a friend of Tom and Yang's.  We had a nervous-making ride to  Wuxi airport, our final approach greased by an old classmate of Yang's.  As Tom says, in China, connections are currency.

Did I mention that Hong Kong and the other cities are in the subtropics and that we roasted in the heat?

We arrived back in Virginia late Thursday night last week, six days ago.  Last night was the first night I slept half normally.  About time.  We're flying to Seattle for grandson Elliott's third birthday celebration.

"Man cave"?

Yesterday was Labor Day.  I suggested to the beauteous wife that we could go to my coffee shop (Greenberry's in Reston).  

I was surprised that she was reluctant.  When I asked why, she said she didn't want to invade my "man cave."  Besides my aversion to trendy phraseology, I didn't think of the coffee shop as (a) mine, (b) male, or (c) secret.  

We went, but she got the flavor in about 5 minutes.  And as my friend Bruce wasn't there, she was ready to book.  So we did.

Updating to Snow Leopard

I put off upgrading to Snow Leopard because I didn't want to risk my web apps.  Last week, I decided it was about time.  

I checked on my backups (check), then Thursday morning, I started the process.  

The basics went well.

When I started to check my web apps, things weren't so rosy.  The database wasn't there.  Oops.  Or so I thought.  

I then charged in with every random thought that came to me.   The result was reinstalling MySQL, php, phpMyAdmin, retrieving my databases from Time Capsule (not straightforward, but thank God for Internet help pages), downloading a new version of CodeIgniter, and then laboriously updating every CI app.  But only as I need them.

Back to normal.  But a circuitous route to just where I was.

Googling Quoz

I have just begun reading/listening-to William Least Heat-Moon's book Roads to Quoz.  I picked it up because I had so enjoyed his first book, Blue Highways.  My mom gave it to me in the early 1980's.  That book tickled my fancy because the premise is the author's circumnavigating the United States.  And using the smaller roads, the ones marked in blue on road maps.  Starting from Missouri, he first had to get to the coast, visiting his Scottish ancestor's grave in South Carolina.  Native American that seeks his European heritage.

When I saw Roads to Quoz, I added to my basket.  Didn't know the word quoz, but I figured all would be revealed.  And in the opening section, he talked about his fascination with the 17th letter of the alphabet (Q), his wife with a similar obsession (so much that he calls her "Q"), and finally quoz.  It is to him a curious wonder, one unexpected and not sought after as much as noticed.  With this preamble, he and Q set off towards the Arkansas mountains and I traveled along.

The next day, I decided to check for multiple meanings of quoz, and possibly for its etymology.  Google is as good a choice as any.  The first six entries recapitulated Least Heat-Moon's definition.  The seventh was a link to an economics site.     It was Charles Mackay's Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds from 1848.  Economics?  1848?  So I linked over and ended up in chapter 13.  While the book is best known for the economic bubbles (the South Seas bubble and tulipomania), chapter 13 talks about the catch-phrases of mid-century London.

Quoz! was a sure fire laugh riot.  

Following that was "What a shocking bad hat!"  [Ed. Anyone watch the credits after House, M.D.?  "That's some bad hat, Harry!"]  This one derived from a hatter seeking election in Southwark, who courted voters by saying "What a shocking bad hat you have got; call at my warehouse, and you shall have a new one!"  It is unreported whether he won or not.

The next all-purpose line was "Hookey Walker," from a song lyric, later shortened to "Walker!"

After Walker! lost popularity came the anonymously created "There he goes with his eye out" or ".... her eye out."  

And a host of others, trailing along

• "Has your mother sold her mangle?"

• "Flare up!", an exceptionally long-lived favorite.  The newspaper named Flare Up! folded when the phrase lost favor.

• "Does you mother know you're out?"  Good for young men with a high opinion of themselves.

• Then there was "WHO are YOU?," a phrase that could arise naturally, to much merriment.

• "Cherry ripe!"  from a song.

• "Tom and Jerry."

• The poetic "The sea, the sea!"

• "Jim Crow" from a vaudeville minstrel song.

Whatever.  Our age isn't afflicted with such limited powers of expression.  We're cool and have been since the '40's.  Ish.  Wassup, anyways?  You know?  Snap!  Totally!  Talk to the hand.  Dyno-mite! 

Help, I'm drowning.............

One-shot Jack

Deer hunting this year was my second and my niece Rebecca's first.  Last year, I got the only deer.  A lowly spike horn.  

This year, brother-in-law Mike offered me the use of his 10-foot stand.  Last month, we'd moved it to behind the shack/lodge, about 100 yards.  Compared to last year, the deer hunting experience was much different. Rather than looking through a 100-yard tunnel through the  trees, I was up in the air (cooled by same) with a 350 degree viewpoint.

Deer-stand2

Saturday morning, I headed out alone at 6:30 AM. Central Standard Time.  Talk about cold.  Minus 2 degrees.  I climbed the tripod and settled in.  I stayed till just after 9:00, my toes starting to lose feeling.  I had seen nothing but heard one nearby shot.

Back at the shack, everyone else was already in.  Brother Mike was the shooter and we had the job of bringing his 8-point buck in.  My niece Megan (planning to pursue a job as a physician's assistant) began learning how to field dress.

[Ed.  I don't know for sure, but I suspect field dressing a moose is just like field dressing a deer.  Just on a grander scale.  Might take more skill not to screw up in a smaller work space.  Just sayin'.]

At 2:30, we were out the door.  It was up from minus-2, but under 10.  I sat in the tree about 40 minutes.  I was watching NW from my stand, right where the bait was on the road, right where the deer path was visible in the light snow.  I glanced over NE to see a deer looking straight at me.   At least straight toward my stand.  I was higher than a deer would normally look. 

View-annotated

Took me a while to confirm that the deer had antlers and to move verrrrrry  slooooooowly to my right and raise the rifle to my shoulder.  In turning right, I changed my angle just enough that I aligned the two trees near the deer with another tree fairly close to me.  Most of the deer was behind the trees.  So I aimed like my father-in-law had told me:  right where the deer probably would emerge.  When it did, I shot.  I looked out and saw nothing.  But the deer had gone about 10 yards further away from me and expired.

There I was without a hunting knife and without the expertise to use one.  But the good news was that I had a good reason to get in out of the cold.

Opening day, two deer and the rest of the season, nothing.

Just before we headed south back to civilization, my father-in-law told me that if I kept up (two seasons, one shot each, two deer), everyone would start calling me "One-Shot Jack."  High praise.

The trouble with a virtual workshop

I'm doing a little modest woodworking.  One project, for example, is extending the molding around the opening for the clothes washer and dryer.  When we replaced our dead dryer, we found that the smallest full-size dryer is larger than our 7-year old one, just enough bigger that the bifold door scrapes the dryer door when it is opened.  

Laundry-clearance

While the full-credit solution would be to tear out the (non-load-bearing wall) with the door and move it out a couple of inches, we're not going to do that.  It's too big a job for me to do well, and too small to deal with finding someone competent and oversee them to do the work.

Two solutions occurred to me:  one is rounding the edge of the existing doors so that the doors wouldn't touch each other; the other is removing the molding, installing 3/4 " wood around the door frame, then putting the molding back on.  Best of all, would be to combine the methods:  molding extender and rounded doors.  

So, what do I need to do?  The wood I found is the right thickness, but a little too wide.  And too long.  So the order of events is this:

• rip the extender wood to the right width
• prime and paint the extender wood so that it will match the existing moulding
• miter the ends of the extender wood
• nail up the top piece of extender wood
• cut the vertical pieces of extender wood to length
• nail up the vertical extenders
• nail back up the original moulding.

What could be simpler?  And I have table saw for ripping, a work table for painting and priming, a miter saw for mitering and cutting to length, and a router (with router table) for rounding door edges and extender pieces that don't fit neatly over the existing mop board.  Virtual workshop to the rescue.

The problem is swapping out the unused equipment to make room for what I'm doing.  First I haul out my excellent work table.  Table saw and extension cord out and set up.  Rip like crazy.  Put up table saw, sweep, and put out drop cloths for priming and painting.  Set the painted pieces aside, remove the drop cloths, and set up the miter saw.  Get out the shop vacuum to clean up the sawdust.  Miter ends.  Utter foul imprecations when I find I've cut the pieces too short.  Back to Lowe's to get more wood.  Swap out the miter saw and swap in the table saw.  Swap out table saw, swap in the painting workspace.  Wait the requisite time.  Swap out painting context, swap in miter saw.  Install top piece.  Discover, unpleasantly, that the vertical pieces will have to be routed to fit over the mop board; or I'll have to remove the mop board (and the quarter round cover the hard-wood edges), install the vertical, then trim the mop board to fit.  Choose Plan A, and ratiocinate a plan to get the routing right the first time.  So I don't have to buy even more extender wood and start over.......

Compare this thrashing to a real workshop with the various tools in their places (with bright shiny faces), me just walking place to place, all the equipment attached to a central dust collection system.  

Bliss.  

And a dream, never to be realized.  Sigh.

[Gallery of project]