Standard Mischief

Last time I went in for an eye exam, my regular doctor wasn’t there. I like my regular doctor because he’s ex-military and understands peep sights, 6 o’clock holds and minutes-of-angle. He’s also the first optical professional that didn’t laugh when I told him my dominant eye sometimes switches. For these reasons I like going to him even if he’s at the awful discount chain around here called For Eyes. I just take my prescription from the Doctor and leave.

The other reason I like him is because he’ll take walk-ins, which is handy if you get flunked on you eye test the day before by the Maryland MVA. The last time I went I had a competent substitute doctor. Since there were no customers, I was able to talk directly to the Optometrist, and I asked when she could fit me in. She said right away, so I asked her if she would provide me with my pupillary distance if I paid her in cash (saving her maybe 2-3% in credit card processing fees, though I’m sure as a professional, she paid her share of taxes in any case). She agreed and then started the exam.

She also showed me how she takes it, and she merely had to read the scale right off the phoropter, which is the big, bulky, “try different lenses until you can see the eyechart” tool. My measurement is 59.9 mm, (though 60 mm is close enough when you get around to ordering.) While optical professionals are required by law to give you a copy of your prescription, the pupillary distance number is left off, even though it you’re going to need it at some point. The excuse is that this is the responsibility of the Optician that actually fits your glasses. If so, the last three Optician I had order my glasses did it wrong (although one used a proper measuring tool after I refused to accept the wrong frame size she chose using a scientific wild-ass guess instead of the tools of her trade).

With my prescription and pupillary distance, I then hit up a few web pages to understand how glasses are fitted, and then I placed my order at an online retailer called Zenni Optical. Getting ready to order, I went over my old, broken glasses with a metal ruler with a millimeter scale. That let me get the proper size of the frames themselves, including bridge the width and the bridge sizes.

There’s about six sites online to order glasses from, so feel free to pick your favorite. At Zenni Optical, at least you can tell that they’re not spending any profits on the site itself, because it’s awful. I spent about two hours browsing the frames before I groked what was going on. The very cheapest frames were like $8, but what they don’t tell you is that not all frames fit all heads. Even worse is the fact that you can’t enter in say, the width of your head or your pupillary distance and be shown only the frames in stock that would fit. Eventually I got it right, but I looked at the return policy to be sure the risk/reward ratio was acceptable to me. It was. Including shipping I could have re-ordered glasses online nine times in a row before breaking even with my last pair of “fitted” glasses.

I’ve shown my pair to several people, telling them I bought them online and asking how much they guess it cost me. Everyone was amazed at the price. My first pair cost me about $12 plus maybe a bit for shipping, (I don’t have the receipt handy). Mind you that’s bare-bones with a UV coating only. There are also “memory” flexible frames, eyeglass tinting and line-less bifocals to chose from. Zenni lets you order a frame only for half the cost of the frame + lens price, so I would highly recommend ordering yourself some spare parts at the same time if you are as rough on equipment as I am.

Even if you’re happy having someone locally to yell at if things go wrong for your primary pair of glasses, I would highly recommend you get yourself a few backup pairs. As a minimum, I’d say that you need a spare pair of eyeglasses in every glove box, every range bag and every Katrina Kit. Nowadays that does not cost a fortune.

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This post was inspired by Linoge’s, though mine is solely based on my real life experiences and is completely payola free. I’m not your healthcare provider and I’m not dispensing medical advice, (and this sentence is a magic incantation meant to ward off a lawsuit).

I used to bring in my old belt-buckle to the Tandy leather store in Rockville, Maryland, where the clerk would gladly pick a dyed blank off the rack and customize it for me. He’d spend about two minutes and cut the blank to length, rivet on my old buckle, and punch any needed holes. For under twenty I’d walk out with a rugged plain black or brown belt that lasted about two or three times as long as any name brand belt from the department store.

“Rugged enough” means being able to rack the slide on my pistol one-handed by snagging the rear sight on the edge of the belt. [1]

Sadly, the Rockville store (which seemed always slow) closed. I’ve found a few okay belts local, but never as good as what I used to get there.

I’ve just looked, and Tandy is on-line. Even better is that their 80% finished (no FFL needed) leather belt blanks, (with a slot already cut and snaps installed and ready), are on sale now at 50% off. Even better than that is coupon code 9bret-cr-10 , which will give you $10 off (or almost free standard shipping). I’ve got a few on order as of today. Hopefully the quality will be up to their past high standards.

I hope everyone has something to cut the belt to length. If you don’t have the proper punch for the belt holes, in the past I’ve used a pin punch, using a 2×4 to back the belt up and punching from the finished side first, and then again from the back. Leather dye is also available at Tandy, but I’m going to try the shoe “touch-up” dye I have left over from another project. I got that at Wal*mart.

Normally I’[d wait for the belts to arrive to tell you for sure that they as good as I expect, but the 50% sale says it ends this Tuesday (30june2009).

[1] Only practice this drill with the pistol unloaded. Remember the four rules.

Uncle reminds me about my favorite cheap (but good) booze:

Pikesville Rye is a “Maryland” style rye that used to be made in Pikesville, Maryland. Now it’s made in Kentucky by Heaven Hill. It’s absolutely the very best deal in American Rye Whiskey, and I’m not the only one who feels that way, there are positive reviews all over theses tubes of interwebs.

Until today, I’ve only seen it in 750 ml glass bottles in the $11 to $21 dollar range. Let me assure you that the eleven buck stuff tastes the same as the 21 dollar style sold in the upscale shops.

Today I was out and about and found the 1750 ml size for $22. I almost bought out the stock, as I’m having to go in wider and wider circles to find the stuff, but there’s something about a plastic bottle that screams “rot gut”.

I’m sure that plastic packaging doesn’t affect the taste in any way, but I’m gonna decant mine. Spare me the “winebox is a superior package” comments, plastic is cheap (unless it’s “polymer”).

Pictured also is the coffee scoop to make sure that I only pour myself a single instead of a double by mistake, and a repurposed furikake drinking glass.

Liquor taxes vary considerably from state to state but around here, the cheapest stuff in the whiskey isle goes for $8 per 750 ml and $16 per 1750.

Violent Acres is out. While I throughly enjoyed stories like Drastic Measures to Reduce Debt, quality has slipped, and she has admitted to selling out (I hope she got a good price). While it may be true that she’s still writing at least some of the content, somehow the magic isn’t there.

Dave Rock is in. In between showing how to MIG weld and blowing up Ford air-bags, Dave finds time to videotape himself scrapping out air conditioners near the peak of the scrap metal market, and also engaging in the practice of “crushing household articals” (sic). I also enjoyed his cheapest man alive series, parts 1, 2, and 3.

Watch long enough and you will see a self-employed trash-picking millionaire with too many damn cats and a crazy ex-wife who shows off the dirty little feminist secret of “equal rights” in regards to child custody under Crown law. If you learn a thing or two about replacing wheel bearings, you will undoubtedly lose a few IQ points watching the Redneck Rollercoaster.

Lest you think I’ve started splogging, let me assure you that is not the case. This is a “cranky consumer” post.

I use copper scrubbers to clean gasket surfaces on engines and surface rust on steel because they’re softer than the surface I want to clean. Unless of course you buy copper plated steel scrubbies. Yes, I did look, and no, there is not any fine print anywhere on the package that states that these “copper scourers” will both rust and stick to your fridge magnets. Good thing I didn’t ruin anything expensive or irreplaceable.

I’d call that fraud. It also looks like I’ll have to go shopping with a magnet from now on.

Zero replies from an email sent ten days ago shows that http://quickie.com/ cares about how they are perceived in the marketplace.