Eyetest...

So, firstly, it's been coming for a while, but I am joining the legions of middle aged progressive lens wearers.  I'm getting kinda tired taking my glasses off to read things or my phone.  

The trouble with getting new lenses is, however, getting the eye test.

This shouldn't be a problem except for one little thing.  My optician has got it into her head that I have or rather have a high probability of getting glaucoma, or the Normal Pressure variety thereof.  The reason for this is I have, apparently, got an atypical formation of the optic nerve giving me larger cups than usually.  Three years ago when she spotted this she had me go off and see a specialist, fortunately M had Microsoft "gold standard' insurance at the time who ate all of the $1300 bill.  The end result was a couple of hours of testing and a short chat with an avuncular specialist who thanked me for bringing him the most interesting eyes he had seen all day.  However, the tl:dr version was a) I don't have Glaucoma, b) I have little risk of developing Glaucoma and c) it's a complete harmless mutation.

This isn't good enough for my optician.

So she made me do another Field of Vision test.  For those that don't do these horrors it involves staring at a white blank space with a dot in the middle and clicking a button every time you see a faint grey blob appear.  It's dull, tedious and after about 3 or 4 minutes my eyes are watering with the strain of staring at the screen.  And no, blinking just doesn't help.

Anyway, she did the test and the machine said I had a borderline result as there was a patch marked on my retina where I'd missed something.  Funny thing.  Last year when I did the test I had the same result WITH A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PART of the retina.  And the time before that?  Yes, you guessed it.  A different part of the retina...

Now, the former scientist/engineer in me tends to think that positive results which can't be repeated over time which are used to draw a conclusion (i.e. that parts of my retina are failing) are probably wrong.  Anyway, again she isn't satisfied and now wants to start annual optic nerve thickness measurements so we can get a baseline trend...  Even though this was done at the specialist and they were all perfectly normal.

I accept that she is doing her job, but, like with the $170 bill I just had for seeing my Doctor and having my blood tested, just another issue I have with US medicine.

A conversation....

We went out for dinner on Friday with a mixed bag of friends.  One of them was a co-worker of M's who used to be a Marine.  We got onto politics for a while and he said some things that I found interesting.  He's ex-military, enlisted and self identifies as Republican.  OTOH, as far as he's concerned Obama has done the stuff the military needs doing and let them get on with their job without vast amounts of political interference.

He basically said that he just couldn't see himself voting for Romney nor Santorum and will either vote Obama (again) or not bother.  I have a feeling this election will feel a lot like 2004...

Update on Deadbeat Clients

Spoke to the 'representative' of the deadbeat client who have stiffed us out of $14,000... apparently the problem is they owed the US government a fair bit of money.  They've offered us $1000 a month for the next 14 months.  I've said yes, assuming they pay the first installment this week, as promised and then we can play it by ear.

If they owe tax and salaries, as they appear to, then we're quite low down the list of creditors.  Better than a poke in the eye... but still, it's annoying.

Crickets....

I am noticing that the usual suspects (mostly libertarian blogs) are rather silent on the current news du jour coming from Florida.