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Laser Vision (Pre-Op)

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Pre-Op

I have been considering LASIK surgery for a number of years now, keeping an eye on my prescription to see if it was changing, asking various doctors if they thought I was a candidate and talking to friends that have had the procedure. Cost was always an obstacle, as was the fact that I only have two eyeballs.  They tend to not heal themselves if you lose your vision.

I’ve worn glasses since forever and for the most part don’t mind them. They got in the way of playing catcher in Little League baseball but so did contacts due to the sand the catchers mask tends to pick up. My vision was such that I couldn’t get prescription Oakleys or other wraparound sunglasses for wearing while riding my bike and I made due with a pair of “old guy” prescription inserts for the Bolle sunglasses I wore. Continue reading “Laser Vision (Pre-Op)”

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OHT: Section 4 (Part 1)

Britt’s backpack has been around since the mid-eighties. Someday I want to sit down and write out a memoir for that pack.  It may have gone on more good trips than I’ll see in my lifetime.  A replacement internal-frame pack in Britt’s size has been found and ordered, so this was the old pack’s last trip.  It wasn’t dangerous or exciting, as some of its earlier trips were.  But it had one last  long weekend in the woods with good friends and clear skies and a bright moon, and I hope that was enough.

2013 01 22 Britts Pack

We began our walk at Lick Branch, where we’d left off hiking a couple of months ago.   The trail was level for a bit before beginning a long, slow, all-afternoon climb.  Our camping spot was perfect, on a flat spot just above a tumbling bluffline of big sandstone blocks, and a barred owl called through the woods as we set up.  We never saw the owl, but he sounded close enough to touch.  Worn out, I went to bed right after supper. Continue reading “OHT: Section 4 (Part 1)”

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We’ve moved! Websites, that is.

Hi!  Aly and I put a lot of work into our family website/blog over the holiday season, and we made a big push to not only finish a ton of old blog posts but to jump ship from Blogger too! We made this new website from scratch to contain our blog and our photo gallery. Now that it’s all in one place, and mostly running on WordPress, it should be easier to maintain and update in a timely manner.

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Time Machine

“If the pure and elevated pleasure to be derived from the possession and use of a good telescope were generally known, I am certain that no instrument of science would be more commonly found in the homes of intelligent people.” —Garrett Serviss (1901) Pleasures of the Telescope

Scope Nights Forecast

The forecast for tonight and the following four nights calls for rain and clouds. After a dry summer and a drier autumn, what caused the sudden switch to wet weather?  Why did we go straight from drought to downpour?  Continue reading “Time Machine”

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Monkey In a Boat

2013 01 05 Boats at Deview

Our young friend Monkey has been nosing around the edges of our kayaking hobby for a few months.  She and her family went with us one warm day last summer on a Remmel-to-Rockport trip.  I think they all enjoyed it, but I think Monkey enjoyed it a little extra.  Since then she and Mandy have talked about boats several times. She spent a few days with us over the holiday break, and it worked out that I could take her on a group trip to Bayou Deview on the Saturday before school started again. Continue reading “Monkey In a Boat”

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Snow Days

Mandy’s out of town, leaving Bryan and I with quiet days home together on holiday break. On Christmas afternoon, it began to rain, and slowly the rain started freezing on the roof and on the bushes and on the trees. And on the street. And then it was ice. And little pine-tree branches fell on our house. And then it was snow. It snowed for hours, and when we woke up the next morning, we had more snow than I can remember seeing since I moved to central Arkansas.

2012 12 26 Snowy Doghouse

Like a little child, I put on my boots and my rain pants and I went outside. But like the grownup my father taught me to be, I shoveled our sidewalk and then our driveway, throwing the white stuff off into the yard, making strips of piles of snow alongside the pavement. I love snow. I love looking at snow, and playing in snow. I even love shoveling snow. I love every single thing there is to love about snow. Continue reading “Snow Days”

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Foster Dog

A couple of weeks ago, my coworker Kristin noticed a stray dog outside her office window.  I went out to say hello, and found that the dog was so afraid that he’d freeze anytime he saw a person, even far away.  I stood still for five minutes or so, and he stood still too, just terrified of me. I felt awful for him but went back inside, hoping he’d go away and we wouldn’t see him again.  I didn’t think there was anything I could do.

He was back again the next day, and was just as scared.  I called the animal control place in Little Rock but they didn’t have anyone they could send to catch him.  And then it was the weekend. Continue reading “Foster Dog”

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Festivus (For the Rest of Us)

We’d settled into the afternoon when Monkey sent me a text. ‘Can we come over and meet Foster Dog?’ Of course. Come on down.

2012 12 21 Festivus Aly

And, since it was Festivus, it seemed appropriate to just go ahead and get the Festivus Pole down from the attic and pose for photographs with it. Bryan made chai again – it’s been his holiday-break project to perfect an easy and yummy recipe – and had a nice visit and a sort of aborted version of the Airing of Grievances. And Monkey and I tried to be appropriately serious and grumpy looking for our Festivus Portraits, but somehow that just didn’t work out very well.

2012 12 21 Festivus Monkey

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Merry Christmas (Observed)!

First there was Christmas (observed) at our house.  Since Mandy’s always in Tulsa for the first half of her holiday break, we always open presents either before or after that trip.  This year, Saturday the 22nd was the day chosen to observe the gift-giving part of our holiday.  We kept things pretty simple this year, and most of our gifts to each other involved needed outdoor gear.  A stack of books grew as we opened our presents, too, as it always does.

2012 12 22 Gifts

We’ve tried to move away from using lots of wrapping paper and toward reusing gift bags and lidded boxes.  But I think some of our presents may have gone a little too far away from ‘festive’ toward ‘cheerlessly utilitarian.’ Continue reading “Merry Christmas (Observed)!”

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Goodbye, Diane

Our friend Diane was hit by a car in November, while riding her bike.  She spent over a month in the hospital, in a coma, before her death last week.  I think it was hard for everyone who’d known her to wrap our heads around the loss of such a beautiful person, in such a difficult way.

2012 12 15 Diane

I feel a little self-conscious for taking it so badly, since I hadn’t known her as well as many of our other friends had.  Is it because I feel sort of responsible for bad things that happen to cyclists in LR because I was involved with trying to make things better?  Is it harder for me because my granny died in such a similar way?  I don’t know.  When it comes right down to it, loving people means knowing we’ll hurt when we lose them. Continue reading “Goodbye, Diane”