It’s been a while since i made a topical post of substance, and this won’t be one either. I’ve had a lot going on the past month, and as much as i love blogging, it takes time and focus, both of which have been in short supply lately. Instead i thought i’d just give a personal update full of miscellaneous ramblings on assorted topics.
My Eyes
A few weeks ago i had my yearly eye exam by Dr. Lancaster at Atlantic Eye Institute. This is the eye doctor who with much work and skill enabled me to wear a contact lens in my left eye (I haven’t been able to see much of anything from my right eye in several years). The contact manages to stay in and has a profound impact on my distance vision. I’d been told by eye doctors for years that because of my eye problem i would not be able to wear contacts. Dr. Lancaster loves a challenge and is a very skilled and talented doctor at fitting special cases (me) with contacts.
I’ve had a cataract forming in both my eyes for a few years, but at this point, the impact on my vision has been slight. Last week i talked with Dr. Lancaster about cataract surgery, not just because of the cataract, but also because by replacing the lens in my eye, which is a part of the cataract surgery, i had read that people like me with very poor vision could experience an improvement in their sight beyond that achieved by getting rid of the cataract.
He surprised me by agreeing and told me that I’d need some preliminary exams by several specialists to see if my left eye and retina were stable enough for the surgery and if the cataract surgery would actually improve my vision beyond just removing the cataract. Yesterday, i saw an eye doctor who specializes in retinas and his evaluation result was that the retina in my left eye would be up to the surgery. To my surprise he also said that their might be some possible things which could be done for my right eye involving three separate surgeries. I’m not jumping on that bandwagon yet. At this point i’m most interested in improving the vision in my good eye.
The next step is to see a cataract surgeon next month who can run some tests which can determine if my vision could actually end up better than it has ever been before. My best vision corrected by the contact from Dr. Lancaster has been 20/70 and that matches the vision i once had in my 20’s before it began to get worse. If the cataract surgery has a possibility of making my vision better than 20/70 than i’m going to pursue that. The downside is that because of my eye condition (CFEOM 1) there is risk. Knowing that there is an option for my right (bad) eye makes me willing to accept a small risk. This next exam with the cataract surgeon will help determine the risk. My mom who has the same eye condition that i do, just had cataract surgery and it was successful and her vision did actually improve.
I’ll post more updates as i learn things.
My iMac
I’ve had the new iMac for a little over a week now and we are getting used to each other. I’ve configured it to work mostly the way i want it too, increasing the fonts’ size, decreasing the screen resolution, setting up the trackpad gestures the way i want and adding in my essential programs like Evernote and Dropbox, and getting all of my pictures and music onto the iMac and working in iTunes and Photos.
The biggest challenge i’ve had has been getting Photos to work in a way i like. It removed all my carefully organized folders and sorts my pictures the way Apple thinks i should access them. We are still doing battle over this, but i think a workable truce will be possible. I also had difficulty figuring out how to get pictures out of Photos so i could post them on Facebook or this blog. The community in the OS X subreddit were very helpful and this problem is solved.
Using a trackpad has been an adjustment. I’ve been using a mouse for about 25 years now, but i made a change to Apple’s Magic Trackpad because of its use of gestures. That has been a positive experience, though it still is not natural to me. 25-year-old habits take a while to break.
The very best thing about the iMac is the display. The screen is soooo crisp and bright that reading on it is sheer joy. And my collection of 520 desktop backgrounds has never ever looked this good. I just sit amazed looking at the desktop picture.
The iMac is fast. Booting into my Windows 7 computer takes about 2 minutes and then an additional 3 minutes before it is actually useable as everything loads in the background. The iMac goes from off to fully useable in 30 seconds. It loads programs and switches programs in a snap.
eBay
I raised enough money to buy my iMac with only a few glitches along the way. Overall it was a surprisingly pleasant experience. I am continuing to sell my CD collection to raise money to replace my 8-year-old uninterruptible power supply (which keeps my iMac, cable modem and router running through the power fluctuations and interruptions we experience here in Florida during thunder storms) and to increase the memory on the iMac. In case you are not aware, surge protectors and uninterruptible power supplies have an effective life of 2 to 3 years because the power surges and spikes gradually wear out the protective devices inside the surge protector over time.
I’ll continue after those funds are raised to set aside money to get a new iPad later this year. That may or may not happen depending on what Apple actually does with its new iPad model and on how much money i am able to raise as i finish selling my CD’s. Last year’s new iPad was a horrendous error on Apple’s part. In order to make the iPad thinner, they decreased the battery size and hence the battery life. Tell me anyone who would say they want a thinner iPad with less battery life? Battery life is a key feature. Thinness is nice, but certainly not worth sacrificing battery life for.
I hope to get back to more topical posts on theology, tech stuff, and music soon.