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Thursday: eyeglasses, fairies and their gear

I took off from work a little early yesterday to go to the eye-doctor.  Traditionally I have had very good vision – 20/20.  A few years ago I started getting head aches from staring at the computer screen for too long so I went to an eye doctor and got a gentle prescription to ease the eyestrain.  I think it had an anti-glare coating on it too in order to reduce the effects of the fluorescent lighting.

They were recently and tragically lost, then found and subsequently scratched all to hell.  So it occurred to me that its been five years since my last eye-exam and this might be good time to get some new glasses for work and get my eyes checked out.

The optometrist was excellent. She was very personable and was easy to get along with.  She did a whole battery of tests and for the most part I did great.  I could read not only the bottom line of type but also the copyright info at the bottom of the screen.  She showed my right eye some more letters and they were all very clear and I was feeling pretty good about my eyesight.  Then I covered my right eye and she asked me to look at some more letters.

I couldn’t make out that there were even letters there!  I would have thought it was a trick except that she didn’t seem tricky.  I tried to focus my eye on some gray blurs and eventually managed to make out the letters, but it sure was enough to tip her off that my left eye needed some help.

So in the end she complimented my sight and the wisdom shown in coming in.  I still have a very gentle prescription and for most things I don’t have any trouble with my vision.  Driving at night and playing catch and reading and everything: still top notch.  I guess my right eye compensates for the loser-eye.

They showed me a ton of glasses and I was so over whelmed that I told them I needed to come back with a fashion consultant.  They all assumed I meant my wife and they got a hearty chuckle when I returned with my eight-year-old daughter, Chloe.  I showed her a pair of glasses with rounded frames and she made a sour face.  I showed her a pair that had no frame, but had the lenses screwed straight in to the arms and she laughed out loud.  Eventually we settled on some rectangular glasses that were a little stylish but wouldn’t make me feel out of place or anything.  In fact, she settled on the same pair to which I was partial in the beginning.

They should be in within a week or two.

On the way home we stopped at a pet “boutique” called Pristine Pooch.  There was one guy minding the store with his four Italian gray hounds (Bruno, Rocco, Meena and Vito).  They weren’t very friendly dogs and although he encouraged us to bring our own dogs in I think that would be a very bad idea.  They had a lot of silly looking doggy jackets and scarves along with special food and grooming tools.  I bought some new shampoo (eucalyptus and peppermint) and a pair of pig-ears.

Finally we stopped at what was once a homeopathic store.  It was called, like, Star Angel and Moonbucket or something.  Its now being run by someone who specializes in fairy apparel and paraphernalia.  Yeah, they need gear.  Chloe fell in love with a green fair wand and a kit to make your own petal people.

In the end it was an excellent little errand.  Chloe is good company on expeditions like these.  It was very cold out (20-ish) with snow and ice everywhere.  It was fun.  I hope she liked it as much as I did.

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A day off for Rob: christmas shopping and a day at the “beach”

Yesterday I took the day off.  Chloe’s brownie troop went to an indoor waterpark after school.  The waterpark is in a vast room the size of a small stadium.  They have some a couple of large water slides about three stories tall that actually go outside and then come back in.  Yes, its all covered and everything but the kids said that the walls were still ice cold.  It was only about 25 degrees yesterday when we went, so I guess they couldn’t help the walls of the slide getting cold.

The air inside the place is comfortably heated to about seventy degrees.  The water, though was only about 70 as well.  Nobody was going to freeze to death in seventy degree water, but its also too cold to really relish the warmth and appreciate the difference between the nastiness outside and the paradise inside.  We took the whole family and the kids had a great time.  All four kids had an awesome time.  Me?  I never got in to it and was just biding my time until I could leave.  The other grown ups who were there were moms of the girls from the brownie troop and I didn’t feel comfortable talking to them either.  They weren’t stand-offish and didn’t do anything to make me feel uncomfortable.  In fact, I was the stand-offish one.  No good reason.

In the morning me and Liz did some xmas shopping and I had a quick 45 minute meeting with people at work.

My cough seems to be finally subsiding.  The dogs are good.

My computer has, over time, gotten slower and slower.  I hear that the established advice is that people should reinstall windows every so-often to clear all the crap out.  What kind of lousy OS has to be REINSTALLED every year or two because it gets too gummed up with junk?!  Ugh.  I would love to get away from Windows, but it’s the platform that runs all my favorite stuff.  Some games.  Some stuff for work.  If Mac ever gets a big enough piece of the pie I think I’ll switch.

So last night I nuked my c: drive and reinstalled windows.  Yes, I formatted the c: drive after making a backup.  Then I reinstalled Windows XP Pro and applied 63 security patches followed by 36 more patches to bring it up to date.  I think I still have a ton more to go.  I have to put back my favorite applications and games and stuff, but I’m confident that it will start running better now.

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A day off - xmas shopping and waterslides


A day off

Indoor Water Park Hotel - Family Friendly Vacations - CoCo Key Water Resorts

[Obvious] One in four children does not consider their father “a close family member” and most consider soccer players better role models

Telegraph

[via Fark.com]

Overall, 26 per cent said they did not think of their father as immediate family.

No, this is REAL news.  I don’t know how large the sampling was of boys and yes, I readily admit that the US is not the UK, but HOLY cow!  What’s up with this?! 

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Tewksbury Florist & Greenery Inc.

Tewksbury Florist & Greenery Inc.