I have two simple questions:

1)      How hard is the lens in the average person’s eye?

2)      What does the Tecnis IOL look like?  As in – show me a detailed photo.

It’s a bit tricky to ask the doctor. He is busy and has a very carefully scripted thing he tells all patients and he leaves little time for questions beyond the superficial.  And when your time’s up, man it’s up.  Out you go to see the cashier.

As to the first question, that seems a simple question but Google has proven unhelpful.  There are a few medical journals that have that sort of thing in papers but those are behind paywalls.  I personally have dissected eyeballs but they were not human, they were from long-dead animals, and they had been soaked in formaldehyde for a long time.  Any of those reasons would have accounted for the yellow, rock-hard nature of the lens.  I want to know how squishy mine is right now.  No particular reason; I’m just curious.  I have asked at the doctor’s office (not the doctor because I forgot until he was gone) and nobody really knows; at least with enough certainty to tell me because apparently medical personnel must be certain and their answers must be traceable to a source.

Number 2 has yielded some good info.  The website of the manufacturer has lots of technical gobbledygook which I loved but no actual photographs nor any details as to its manufacture.  Perhaps it’s still under patent or something.  The model they showed me at the doctor’s office was unique (it had a series of rings on a flat surface and so reminded me of a Fresnel lens but the website refers to it being a ‘diffractive lens design’)  and so I wanted to explore the physics of it but again, the doctors and nurses don’t really care about that stuff.  They care about whether it’s the right cure for me and how to get it in there.  Beyond that, they don’t care much.  I might be able to catch a glimpse before the procedure but my eyes are not working too well up close at the moment (hence the surgery) and I’ll be under a bit of anesthesia (more for the calming effect) and may not have the brain power to initiate such high level discussions.  In fact, I doubt it. 

I don’t care about being labeled a flaming nerd – in fact I rejoice in it.  It’s people like me that invented the lens implants to begin with.  But if you’re not in that community, it’s surprisingly hard to find the detailed data you want.

I need to get some projects moving and completed; particularly the old guitar tremolo circuit.  That one has been hanging over my head for a year and has sort of taken on the character of a job.  Not good.  So Saturday, I figured I’d knock out some stuff after Evan left to return to his last semester at the university.

I went to tackle the tremolo.  Aaaannnddd… it didn’t work.  After some tinkering, I got frustrated and walked away.

Then I figured I’d work on my wooden handplane project.  That is going well but I reached a point at which I need to use the blade and its associated hardware to size the opening in the middle.  But I don’t have a blade.  Doh!  I went and ordered a nice iron and cap iron from the guy who wrote the book.

So I figured I’d take my airsoft pistol outside and plink at some cans.  It began to misfire.  Doh! Again!  I went and watched TV with Melissa for the rest of the day.  You can’t fail when watching TV unless you consider watching TV itself to be a failure.

Sunday, I looked at the gun.  It’s pretty cold outside and the act of letting off pressure from the propellant gas lowers the temperature of the magazine even more which seems to be making the seals start to leak.  Perhaps due to stiffening of the O-rings due to low temperature.  Also, the magazine has a teeny little piece of plastic that seems to lock the slide back after the last BB is fired which broke off and was jamming the follower.  According to the almighty interwebs, I’m the only one to ever experience this which is pretty unusual.  I disassembled the magazine to get the fragments out and now it feeds pretty reliably until it gets cold again.  Apparently, cold weather is not that great for airsoft.  Now the slide does not lock when the last round is fired but that is not a big deal.  I think I need to start loading the BBs from the top rather than using the speed loader since the speed loader occasionally lets go of the follower and it snaps to the top with a bit too much force for my liking.  That may what broke it to begin with.

On a side note, I bought this pistol because it is at least 10 times cheaper than a real gun and you can fire it in the back yard without scaring the neighbors or accidentally killing anyone.  Plus, no gun range fees.  But apparently I’m the only person over the age of 14 to have ever bought one since all the video tutorials on youtube are voiced by teenaged boys who can’t drive yet and, in many cases, whose voices have not changed yet.  Oh well.  I’m enjoying plinking in the back yard so no big deal.

Then I went to look at the tremolo.  I looked for parts that may have been in backwards (like the transistor) and then pulled all the alligator clips off the bypass switch and soldered on actual wires throughout to make sure I had a good ground connection.  The presence of lots of hum was making me believe that was a problem.  As soon as I hooked it back up to the battery I knew it was working.  I tinkered with it awhile and was quite happy.  I felt like the king of the world actually.  So I fired off some self congratulatory emails and tweets and decided to call it a day.

Also, Mel and I tried out the Main Street Tavern (which is new) and were pleasantly surprised with it.  It’s always good to find a good new restaurant in town.  I’m always a bit bummed when the kids head back to college and the house gets quiet.  These little successes made the day a bit more pleasant.

I had to conclude that it’s just time to tune it up.  I know that should be obvious – it’s everywhere on the net that you have to tune up planes even when they’re new (unless you pay a lot of money for the best ones) but I guess I’m just lazy.   My first task was to flatten the sole.  I drew some marks on the sole with a Sharpie and then started scooting it on a piece of 120 grit sandpaper stuck to a marble floor tile.  I was surprised to find that it was quite out of flat.  There was a hollow right behind the mouth.  Deep down inside, I had sort of thought that flatness was over rated but Mr. Finck says otherwise.  I kept going with finer grits of sandpaper and now the sole is flat and almost shiny. I waxed it up (Boeshield T-9 actually) and called that part done.  I’m actually surprised at the amount of metal dust generated.

I had recently sharpened the iron but figured it was a good time to touch that up so I did.

I then had a go at the wooden plane blank.  THUNK!  Nothing.  I tried this and that, up to and including, gripping differently, tinkering with the depth, pushing harder, pushing harder still until I heard something in my elbow go *POP*, angling the plane, holding my arm against my body and using only my legs, and I don’t know what all.  It never got any easier until I became exhausted.  I finally relaxed my death grip, focused on holding it steady and putting a little weight on the proper end depending on where I was on the work, and just pushing. I was thinking “just one more shaving and then I’ll go to bed.” Then it just started working; not necessarily easy but doable.  I started peeling little shavings off – not end grain but 45 degree grain.  I kept checking for flatness and squareness like Finck suggests and eventually got it right. 

I’m still not sure what happened; I was too tired to do any more and so went inside.  And of course, the plane blank was as it should be so no need to mess with it further but I need to go cut off another angled piece or get a piece with some end grain and try that again.  I need to capture that moment again and commit that to muscle memory.  My arm aches today but I may have stumbled onto “The Technique” at long last.  I didn’t think there was anything more to it than pushing hard.  It would seem that I am wrong.

What surprised me most in all of my hand-tool explorations is how much the little things matter.  I had assumed in the beginning that one simply sharpened an edge and then bashed away with a mallet until done.  Watching Roy Underhill with a drawknife or a morticing chisel would lead you to that conclusion.

Maybe I’ve crossed the threshold.

Evan on the other hand has another whole week.  But this week was marked by the visitation of The Girlfriend.

Evan hasn’t bothered much with steady girlfriends in recent years.  He preferred to have many friends of both sexes and not be bothered with a relationship.  But I guess this one changed his mind.  He has always played his cards very close to the vest and so I never felt I knew much about her until she came.  It was a mild surprise when he announced that he would go visit her before Christmas and she would visit us after but I was glad of the opportunity to see her for myself.

I’m happy to report that the visit went well.  I don’t think Mel and I are guilty of any huge faux pas; time will tell I guess.  She seems to fit in with us pretty well.  All her family is really into sports so there’s a bit of a disconnect.  I like to watch college football on TV (and occasionally live and in person) but don’t like to actually do any of it.  But I can’t see that being a show stopper.

I am now scheduled for January 31.  Of course, at no point in the process did my own convenience enter ento the process.  I know the date but the time will not be assigned until the day before.  But on the plus side, I got to choose which lens implants I wanted.  It does not matter much – the difference between them on your life is minimal.  I chose the Fresnel-like implant because it will allow for easier close-in vision and because they look cool: like the lenses seen in lighthouses.  There is a post-op visit the next morning.

Then the other eye will be done on February 7. 

I can recall from the time I had LASIK that a lot of measurements were done on my eyes right before the surgery and up to now, none have been made.  Perhaps they will do that right before the procedure.  Either that or they made some measurements and didn’t tell me.  I think the latter may be true since I looked into several devices in quick succession but was not told what they were or whether any results were saved.  I know a lot about image processing from my job and so I could easily believe that a quick succession of images were saved and analyzed to derive some necessary values. That seems to be the way of things in the American health care system now: run tests but hide the results from the patients to avoid being sued when the patient shows the results to some other doctor.  Not that I’m suspicious or anything.

The doctor and staff are nice enough but obviously are used to dealing with people who meekly walk in and accept whatever the doctor advises and just want to know what the out of pocket expense is going to be.  I guess I’m like that too but I want to know more technical stuff.  Sadly, he did not budget enough time for all my questions but Wikipedia has proven quite useful.  The vast majority of information about this sort of thing is dumbed down into comic book form and the hard core information hidden behind paywalls.  I can have that info if I want to join the society of ophthalmic surgeons or whatever.  This irritates me but I will get the info I want in the end.  I can sneak in a question in between the times when the exam is done but before I walk out the door.  The doctor seems willing enough to share all this; he just seems unused to anybody asking so he only budgets time enough for his schpiel  and perhaps one superficial question from the patient.  I don’t want to ask anything during the procedure because I don’t want anybody to get confused and miss a step. 

One way or another, it’s going to be interesting.

I’m not terribly happy about this since I’ve always associated cataracts with old people but facts are facts and I’m pretty close to being unable to drive with my left eye.  The right seems fine but he assures me that the cataract is there and will grow pretty quickly to be a problem.

The good thing is that this is very common surgery and the success rate is very high so there shouldn’t be a problem.  I had LASIK before so I’ve been through something similar.  Insurance will pay for a fixed focal length lens replacement but nowadays they have variable focus lenses that are very cool.  I look forward to the consultation where I’ll find out what will work best for me.

I first priced shotguns and these are pretty reasonably priced if you look for sales. Of course, I’d need to get a membership at a club somewhere so that I’d have a place to shoot as well as all the catapults and stuff.  Either that or drive two hours to Steve’s and clutter up his yard with bits of clay.

I also priced a handgun for target shooting but these are terribly expensive.  I’ve never met anyone with only one; most guys if they have a gun at all, will have several but I’m not sure how they justify the expense.  I decided instead to buy an airsoft pistol.  These are much more reasonably priced and are accurate reproductions of the real thing and you get to shoot at cans in the back yard and not worry about hurting anybody or bothering anyone with the noise.

Evan and I have already had some good fun out there with it.

The shotgun is still on my list though.

Anyway, after the entire fall spent out of town working, I enjoyed lots of time off.  The kids both came back from the university and we spent lots of time doing stuff and generally getting caught up.  The highlights:

Evan accepted his job offer from ABF in Fort Smith.  He didn’t want us all to road-trip over there to look for apartments though.

Erin managed to get all A’s even though she was sweating most of them.

Linda came up for Christmas.

I found out from the ophthalmologist that I have cataracts and will need to have lens replacement surgery.

I bought myself a Kindle Fire, an airsoft pistol and some other goodies.

Evan spent a few days with his girlfriend Cassie up on St. Louis and then she came down here at New Years and they went on down to the CRU thing in Fort Worth, TX.

Lots of stuff happened. I’ll try to fill in a few details soon.  It’s hard to write anything amusing though now that the kids are away and I’ve been so busy at work.

We did get the Christmas presents wrapped and put under the tree.  And the old TV that has been occupying the space in front of the fireplace for a month has now been cut up into little pieces and put out on the curb.  As redneck as this sounds, it’s what the city recommended.  We have the choice of putting it on the curb and hoping it will fit into the garbage truck’s hopper, calling and scheduling a special pickup where they bring out a pickup truck (ha!) for $30, or cutting it up into smaller chunks to insure that it will fit into the garbage truck.  Typically for me, I chose the cheap option and took it apart and cut up the larger chunks.  That in itself was pretty interesting – there’s quite a lot of stuff in an old projection-style TV.  I kept the wheels to use on another project, the speakers, and the lenses in front of the projectors. 

Facebook and Twitter are full of final exam woes posted by Evan and Erin.  This is dead week at both campuses and finals start Monday.  I guess that means they’ll be home next week – I should clear off my desk so Evan can put his stuff there. 

I started a guitar tremolo box but ran out of the necessary parts so it is sitting idle until I can get to the store and buy capacitors and such.

I have mostly been out on my workbench trying to achieve final mastery of sharpening.  I’ve watched several videos on how to properly sharpen a card scraper and last night, I think I finally got it.  I tried the tack of exerting less pressure than before and this seems to have done the trick.  So now, I just need to get to work on something.

So I guess I haven’t been sitting totally idle.  Tonight is the Christmas party with our Sunday school class so the holiday celebrating has begun.

I had to try several things to get and keep my tools sharp. I invested in a bench grinder and a diamond plate and when those proved insufficient, I bought a set of Arkansas stones and now I think I have a sharpening routine that will work for me.

The legs hold up the table which is pretty much all that matters so I will now move on. I have a long list of things; the hard thing will be to pick one.