So I found an ophthalmologist, and I went today.
5 minute read
September 29, 2008, 10:22 PM
So I found an ophthalmologist, and I had my appointment today. I went to Rodman & Engelstein, and I’ll just say this – this was definitely a different procedure from when I went to Dr. Patel in Fishersville.
First of all, I took a half day off from work, and took Metro up to Silver Spring. First of all, one has to wonder who peed in the train operator’s cornflakes this morning. The train was a Silver Spring train, which meant that it ended its run at Silver Spring rather than going all the way to Glenmont. I usually hate those kinds of trains because they don’t go where I need to go, but this time, I was going to downtown Silver Spring, so I didn’t particularly care. It was there, and I caught it. This guy came down REALLY hard about the whole going-out-of-service thing. “ATTENTION CUSTOMERS ON THE PLATFORM, THIS TRAIN IS OUT OF SERVICE! DO NOT BOARD THIS TRAIN!” And he repeated this a few times before the train was completely berthed. And of course, despite being all like that, he didn’t even bother to change the sign to the “NO PASSENGERS” sign. He kept it on Red to Silver Spring.
Then getting there, I filled out the customary mound of paperwork for when you’re a new patient. After that, it was time to get started. First they checked the pressure in my eyes. Then they looked at my eyes with a microscope, checked my existing prescription, and tested my vision with glasses on. Then they dilated my pupils. This is where things changed. After this, they take you out of the exam room, and have you wait in another waiting room while the drops work. I played Tetris on my phone, and that certainly became a challenge as my pupils dilated. I ended up having to close one eye and hold the phone way far away to play. And the technicians would occasionally come by to check on how well the drops had worked. First time, they said I was almost ready but needed to ripen (my term) a little more. The second time, I was ripe, and was taken into a second exam room. There, they looked at my eyes with the microscope again, tested my vision without glasses, and then figured out what the new prescription would be using the phoropter.
Continue reading…Categories: Glasses, Personal health
How do you think a “Gatsby cap” would look on me?
2 minute read
September 24, 2008, 12:44 AM
The shoe swap worked!
< 1 minute read
August 21, 2007, 2:15 PM
I think I might just do this whenever it rains. Just to recap, since it was raining hard when I was leaving the house, this morning, I wore my Crocs on my commute, and packed my dress shoes and dark socks in a grocery bag inside of my regular work bag. As expected, the Crocs got soaked, with a considerable amount of water streaming across Georgia Avenue in the morning. But who cares? They’re made of rubber. Then when I got to work, I made coffee, sat down, and put on my socks and my dress shoes. And the professional is ready to start working, and is all warm and toasty. No cold, wet shoes all day for me. That would have made for an awful day.
Then when I leave, if it’s still raining, I’ll switch back to the Crocs for the Infoshop walk (it is Tuesday, after all) and then the Metro ride home.
Categories: Shoes
It’s raining…
< 1 minute read
August 21, 2007, 6:23 AM
I think today will mark the first time I’ll have had to wait for the bus in the morning in the rain. It’s raining this morning, and so this will be an interesting experience.
I think I’m also going to take a cue from some of my female Metro companions today as far as footwear goes. Some of them will make their commute in sneakers and then change shoes once they get to work. I’m thinking that with this weather, I’m going to commute in my Crocs, which I don’t care about getting wet, and then switch to my nice shoes once I get to work. The thought of spending all day in wet, nasty shoes is a bit beyond my tolerance threshold.
Otherwise, though, today’s my Infoshop day, which means that rather than going straight home after work, I swing by ye olde Infoshop after work and say hi to Maddy and whoever else is there. The Infoshop is a fun place. I’ve barely beaten the rain on a few occasions going over there…
For the first time in a long time, I have bought new pajamas.
< 1 minute read
July 12, 2007, 7:03 PM
The last time I got new pajamas was on October 19, 2002. That was when I got two pairs – blue and green. To give an idea of the timeframe, I was living in Potomac Hall back then. But yeah, here’s the last time I got new pajamas:
Categories: Clothing
A whole bunch of miscellaneous stuff I’ve been meaning to show you…
3 minute read
June 17, 2007, 10:07 AM
I realized recently that I’ve gotten a little bit of a backlog of stuff I’ve been meaning to show you that I’ve captured with my cell phone over the last week or so. So here we go.
So there you go – photographic proof that deer do wander through the vacant lot next door. Apologies for the blurry picture, but this is the cell phone, and not Big Mavica.
Categories: Fire alarms, Photography, Shoes, Silver Spring, Washington DC, WMATA
It wasn’t on the scale of others, but it wasn’t bad, either.
8 minute read
June 11, 2007, 9:51 PM
On June 10, 2007, I was in Washington DC for the demonstration protesting the Israeli occupation of Palestine on its 40th anniversary. All in all, it was a nice day, and despite the lack of numbers that some of the anti-Iraq war demonstrations I’ve been to have commanded, it was still a strong demonstration. The march started at the Capitol, and marched to the Ellipse.
First of all, though, to clarify: This was not an anti-Israel protest. This was also not an anti-semitic march. We were demonstrating against occupation. If we demonstrate so vigorously against the occupation of Iraq by our own country, why should we sit idly by while there’s a longer-standing occupation going on? After all, the saying goes that “occupation is a crime from Iraq to Palestine.”
My day went quite true to form. I met up with my anarchist buddies at Dupont Circle, where we were having our own black bloc feeder march to the main march site. The march was nominally under the banner of Students for a Democratic Society, otherwise known as SDS. However, turnout was not as many had hoped. This was not like the SDS-organized blocs of J27 or March 17. There was only one person carrying anything that said “SDS” on it. This was by and large DC’s usual gang of anarchists and their supporters, many of whom I consider as friends. You had me, Jeff from the Guerrilla Poets, Luke and his bike, and a number of others that I know from the Infoshop. I made the comment, in jest, “Okay, Jeff and Luke are here, so now it’s official.” There were also two young women who were dressed normally (vs. all-black) in the group.
Categories: Activism, Black bloc, Clothing, Friends
It’s here! It’s here! It’s here!
2 minute read
February 22, 2007, 11:42 PM
Well, my new computer has arrived! So how is it, you ask? I don’t know. I haven’t opened it yet. It’s very much still in the box. I’m writing to you tonight on the Gateway. The Dell showed up a little sooner than I expected, and I wasn’t finished moving out of the old computer yet. So I’m still on the old computer. I bought a transfer link cable for $20 after work, but then I realized on the way home that I can use our wireless network to bat files around between computers. Dad’s computer is going to be the temporary home for all of my stuff. Also, when you consider that I just dropped a big chunk of change on two computers (the laptop is still in transit), the cable is going back to the store unopened and I’m getting my money back.
It still hasn’t quite dawned on me yet that it’s really the end of the road for the Gateway. It hasn’t sunk in yet. Of course, it didn’t truly sink in that the Previa was going away until I spent the time cleaning it out a couple of hours before it started the trip from which it would not return.
Once I finish moving all my stuff onto Dad’s computer, though, it will finally be time to truly retire that old Gateway. I will shut Windows down for the last time. I will reboot off a floppy, destroy my old partitions, and reformat the hard drive. I will then power down, and start disconnecting cables. Everything will be disconnected, and removed from my desk. And then when we arrive at the bottom, meaning that the desk is completely bare, I’m going to start setting new stuff up. The new computer will go into place, and then my present monitors and speakers will return, my current keyboard and mouse will return, and then we’ll fire the beast up and bring it to life!
It seems that we did it…
2 minute read
November 13, 2006, 10:12 PM
Categories: Clothing, DC trips, National politics, Retail
And the change is made!
< 1 minute read
September 23, 2006, 5:45 AM
It’s September 23, the first official day of fall. And that means only one thing: Long sleeves and the Chuck Taylors come back out for their own season. And I’m so glad about it, too.
It seems to be a little known fact that I actually dislike short sleeves. I don’t know why, but I just do. I’d wear long sleeves all year (regardless of whether I wear shorts or not), but the weather just won’t permit it during some of the warmer months. But now, with temperatures dipping to fall-like levels, I welcome the change back.
And my preference for long sleeves shows in how I schedule the change, too. Last time, I changed over to long on September 24 (coinciding with a very large protest that day), and changed over to short on April 24 – that’s seven months long, and five months short. Then this year, it was slightly less than five months on short sleeves. So there you go.
Weirder is to decommission the Crocs and other summer footwear that I’ve been wearing for the last several months. I’ll probably replace the sandals (being pretty cheap as it is), and the Crocs will probably return next year.
I feel very dressed-down today…
3 minute read
July 14, 2006, 11:22 PM
At work, every Friday is blue jean day. Pay a dollar to Children’s Miracle Network, and wear blue jeans that day. For the past two years, I have shunned blue jean day every single Friday. I’d never worn blue jeans to work, and saved my dollar each week. I did this primarily because I didn’t have any blue jeans that fit right.
However, now that I’ve lost some weight (the same weight loss that lead to the April 26 wardrobe malfunction), I gave an old pair of blue jeans a try. Much to my surprise, they fit, and fit quite well. This pair of jeans was one that was in good condition from a long time ago. I bought these jeans on August 19, 1999, on a trip to Pentagon City and Potomac Mills with my friend Andrea Fox. I was 18. This was the week before I’d started my freshman year of college. In other words, this was clothing bought before the so-called “freshman 15” came on. So I am doing quite well, thank you. And I have room to maneuver in these pants, too. So I am just awesome.
So where were we going with this? Oh, yes.
So I wore the jeans. Add my tie-dye shirt to that mix, which is a few different shades of blue. Then add to that a pair of backless Faded Glory sandals with tan leather straps. And no socks. All in all, I felt rather dressed down today at work.
This is a shirt that got me some attention…
< 1 minute read
May 11, 2006, 12:07 AM
Today going to work, I went with a different shirt than usual. My regular shirts are simple. Solid, and with a few buttons on the front.
Today? Tie-dye. When I was putting away my winter clothes on Tuesday, I found a new shirt that I’d forgotten about in the bottom of things. I figure that I probably got it from Mom either last Christmas or the Christmas before that. It was tie-dyed – blue and darker blue. It fit me really well, and so I took the tags off and introduced it into the regular clothes rotation. And thus Wednesday was the first day it was out.
And what did the coworkers have to say? It was a very nice change from my regular wardrobe, and that they liked it. And the best part? The comments were unsolicited. I just kind of went about my business, and the comments just kind of rolled in.
So now this brings me to an interesting question. I need to get some more warm-weather shirts anyway. More tie-dye? It’s an idea… I’m going to go price shirts at the mall tomorrow where the shirt came from (Steve and Barry’s University Sportswear) and see how feasible that might be.
Categories: Clothing
My feet were going commando today…
2 minute read
March 26, 2006, 4:46 AM
After receiving an anonymous message through my Instant Messenger that sandals with socks were a major fashion no-no (even though Sis has told me that for years), I finally kind of had one of those what-the-hell moments. So I left the socks at home.
You may recall I did this once before – last year. I wrote about it in the Journal at that time.
The funny reaction I got was when I realized that sandals without socks is basically like going commando for your feet. No socks is like going without underwear, after all. A coworker overheard and said, “You did not just say what I think you just said!” I repeated myself, and they admitted then that they didn’t hear the word “feet”.
Also, a few unrelated things… first of all, the construction site where they’ve been rebuilding Route 608 in Stuarts Draft is now what I would describe as “drivable with extreme care”. The road is technically closed to traffic, but VDOT can’t fully block it off due to houses, a farm, and a business along that stretch of road that still have to have access to the outside world. So I drove it today as a little side trip. The road is definitely straighter and higher than it was before, and it will have curbs and storm drains, which the road previously lacked. Supposedly, it’s to be complete in August (moved up from the original October completion date), but I’ll believe that when I see it. It will certainly be nice going the regular way again, rather than taking this lengthy detour through a somewhat windy road, where people have a tendency to drive too fast.
And on a second unrelated note, I went to Charlottesville yesterday, by way of Crozet. They’re filming parts of Evan Almighty in Crozet, where they’ve built a giant ark for the movie. I took some pictures of it with my cell phone, and I’ll show you those once I get them all downloaded.
Categories: Shoes, Stuarts Draft
New Chucks!
2 minute read
February 25, 2006, 12:23 AM
Categories: Shoes
Food for thought
3 minute read
December 4, 2005, 5:14 PM
First of all, some food for thought regarding the war in Iraq that came in the form of a letter to the editor in the Staunton News Leader, printed here in its entirety:
If the United States military stays in Iraq 10 more days, 10 more months, or 10 more years will the outcome be significantly different? – Tom Long, Mount Solon
I wonder that as well. I personally lean very strongly towards saying that it was never our business to invade Iraq in the first place.
Thought I’d share that.
Meanwhile, I can’t believe I didn’t hear about the protests against global warming until I read about it in the newspaper this morning. I was like, wow. Not much happened for this one in DC from what I could tell on DC Indymedia. I did, however, find the new Climate IMC site. This is an Indymedia site specifically for climate-related news.
Categories: Anti-war, Clothing, Computer, Homestar Runner