Visual Joys

I got a new set of eyeglasses this week.

I've been fussing about apparent chronic eye-strain in my left eye and finally got to the family ophthalmologist for a checkup. The whole process took about an hour to complete.

Turns out it has been almost three years since my last vision checkup. I had to look up that post on my Blackberry to verify the date during the office checkup. Wow.

Good news was that my eyes are 100% healthy outside of the ocular performance.

I was told that the Rx I had been issued by a last-minute optometrist during my last visit was a bit too strong. So he dialed back the strength in one eye a bit and boosted in in my left eye a tad, also tweaking the astigmatism adjustment in it a bit as well.

I had to pick out my new frames by myself this time. After about twenty minutes of looking through the selections at the local mom-and-pop optical store we love and use in town I went with the very first set of frames I picked up; Adidas's "Inspired full rim model a787" in brown.

They look quite sporty yet refined. I went with the full-rim this time as these are very sturdy and rugged feeling, but the modern style compliments my personality and lifestyle pretty well.

Lavie and Alvis loved them.

There is a bit a curvature to the lenses in a wrap-around style and optically it is taking my eyes a bit of time to adjust, but now-where near the issues I encountered with my last sets.  These frames also have a polarized sunglass clip that I got allowing me to cut-down on the price of getting a 2nd pair of Rx sunglasses.

My left-eye still feels a bit strained but considering it's been working overtime for the past three to six months, and I still have to adjust to these new optics, I can see much better now right out of the box.

Visual Linkfest

Welcome to A Moment of Luxury - Lavie and I have started watching this new PBS series. The host, William Stubbs, turns out to be a local Houston boy and has a very pleasing presentation of his style. Yes, it is about interior decorating primarily but it is very classy and enjoyable. He reminds us of a mix of Lavie's dad and her uncle.

Flickr: Lost America's Photostream - there are some wicked-awesome visual treats in this flickr collection. Great colors and lighting at night for abandoned Americana materials and locations.

I found this King Kong NY wallpaper over at Social Wallpapering that has become my favorite Vista widescreen notebook wallpaper of the moment. It's a graphic from the King Kong movie and the colors and patterns work great for me for the sparse icons I have on it. Still looking for something for the dual monitor desktop....  I also like this wallpaper Heritage Flight 2 especially for the colors of the P-51 Mustang. However the colors of the buildings in the background are too vivid so I will have to do some color work to mute them out a bit first.

BLDGBLOG has had a number of great posts lately:

BLDGBLOG: Buildings and books - from whence I found the Lost America's photostream on flickr.

BLDGBLOG: Sounding Rooms - which essays on hidden rooms and the mysteries they bring to mind.

BLDGBLOG - bonus: this mini-post links to a public-domain book Secret Chambers and Hiding-Places by Allan Fea which provides some creepy and fun stories on hidden rooms. Oldie but goodie!

Arch Daily - Really neat new architectural blog that has loads of stunning modern designs. Lots of great supporting images with the posts.  Every day a new post comes up it is a joy.  I want to be an architect in another life. One of my college buddies played on the UH football squad and was in the College of Architecture program. He was always working on these models. Quite the contrast the big stocky football player and his delicate construction-board design models..Sample post: The Barn House / Buro II.  I love it!

Kong - freeware - For some reason this post has a Kong undercurrent. Kong is a freeware online/offline overhead shooter game with spectacular play and visuals.  Really fun. I spotted this one over in a review at freewaregenius.com. Seems to play well on our laptop/desktop systems.

--Claus