My Special Eyes

Welcome to episode 90 of the Book of Donovan. I am Donovan. Today is Tuesday, October 20th, 2026. I don't even remember what the number on the calendar is concerning days of alcohol retirement.

Hang on a second, I'll go check. And through the magic of editing and a pause button, Today is 1,244 days of alcohol retirement. I don't really have an agenda for this episode other than one thing that I'd like to talk about.

So I guess in a way I do have an agenda. I think I just lied to you. My apologies. I didn't mean to do that. So a few weeks ago, I went to the eye doctor, something I have been putting off, not necessarily dreading, but putting off because, honestly, I didn't want to spend the money.

I didn't want to spend the money for the eye exam. I also didn't want to hear that after 20 years, I was going to need glasses. Now, you may be asking, 20 years, what are you talking about? Let me explain.

And I think I've mentioned this before. Hell, I may even mention that I was going to the eye doctor. Honestly, I can't keep track of this stuff. And I'm a terrible podcaster because I'm not going to go back and review my previous episodes and go, did I talk about this? I guess I could use the wiki that I created with the aid of Claude Code, but I'm lazy.

So anyway, in 2006, I had LASIK. Prior to that, I had needed some type of corrective lenses, whether that be glasses or contacts, since I was in fourth grade.

And I wore glasses up until I think I was 16 when I got my first contacts. And you may, I don't even know if they're still around or not, but you may recall Pearl Vision Centers. There was one in Tifton, Georgia. I was living in Fitzgerald at the time because that's where I'm born and raised. And so we actually went to Pearl Vision Center here in Tifton because

that's where I live now, got the eye exam, and then got contacts. Now, growing up, I was the type of person that I could not stand anything to touch my eyeballs. You know, even trying to put eye drops in my eyes was, I mean, it took a bit, all right?

And so you can imagine how this, trying to learn how to put contacts in, was a feat. It was such a feat that I got such a headache after finally getting them in because they made me, and rightfully so, they made me put the contacts in, take the contacts out, and put the contacts in like two or three times to make sure that I got it down.

And I remember laying in the back seat of the car on the way home with such a massive headache, and, yeah, I had the contacts in. And not only did I go from wearing glasses to contacts, I went balls to the wall and got the 30-day, don't-have-to-take-them-out-but-once-every-30-day contacts.

Probably not the best thing to do for someone who had just started wearing contacts, but it also lessened the amount of times that I had to take them out, put them back in, etc., etc. I think they've now determined, probably sometime long ago, that wearing contacts for 30 days was probably not the smartest move.

And then they went to like once a week or once every two weeks, which is honestly, in my last couple of years of wearing contacts, that's kind of where I went. I even started buying my contacts from 1-800-CONTACTS, you know, my special eyes.

And then in 2006, I had LASIK, which, to pardon the pun, was eye-opening because no longer did I have to worry about getting up in the middle of the night and not being able to see to go take a piss because if you know anything about eye prescriptions, both of my eyes were

negative 3.5. I was basically blind except really, really close up, all right? And so I definitely had to have corrective eyewear, whether that was glasses or contacts. And honestly, in the last couple of years, I had started just reverting back to wearing glasses. So LASIK was, again, pardon the pun, eye-opening. It was fantastic, and I loved it because once they were done,

I had 20-20 vision. Now, granted, I did have some side effects. And those side effects were, I was more sensitive to bright lights. Driving at night, lights were, I had the halos.

Let's put it that way. And I still don't like driving at night. But for the longest time, I mean, you know, it was great. I didn't have to worry about not being able to see when I got up in the middle of the night to take a leak or anything like that.

I could wear the type of sunglasses that I wanted to wear. Then around about 2015, and I had heard this, I'd never, ever, ever had a problem seeing up close. I was nearsighted, which meant I could see close up, but I couldn't see far off.

Never had an issue being farsighted until 2015. When I started my company in 2015 as an IT professional and MSP and all of that, I started noticing that I was having a little bit of difficulty reading like MAC addresses and serial numbers and things like that on devices.

And so eventually, we got these from Amazon, these readers, and I mean, you can get them from Walmart and all these other places.

I think my current ones are like plus 2.25, but seeing far off, I was still fine, but I was starting to develop an issue with being farsighted, which apparently is a common thing for someone who had LASIK once you get into your 40s, because in 2015, I was 45.

And so I just, I dealt with that. And then my wife had, she was diagnosed with young cataracts. And then to illustrate how bad her eyes were, I think her prescriptions were like negative six point something in each eye. She was basically blind.

And so in 2023, we got cataract surgery for both our eyes. Everything went off without a hitch. And then it was almost like the universe had just been holding out and said, okay, we didn't need both of you not being able to drive.

So, bam, now it's your turn. And I started noticing that I was having a little bit of difficulty seeing far off. It was subtle. It was specifically in my right eye to start with. I could sit and watch television, and I got to noticing that things were a little hazy, a little blurry, you know, the text.

And I would close my left eye, and then I closed my right eye, and everything was crystal clear with my left eye until it wasn't. And so it just started getting progressively worse. And so I bit the bullet because I was also concerned that was I developing cataracts because there was no way I could drop another $11,000.

Yes, yes, I know. Pick yourself up off the fucking floor, dude. $11,000 to have cataract surgery for my wife. I had to literally borrow the money from one of my kids. And, you know, we worked out an arrangement, and I'm paying him back, you know, so much per month.

But anyway, I went to the eye doctor. No cataracts, no other issues. Minor scarring, but nothing major from the LASIK in 2006. I'm sorry, 2005. My bad. I had my wisdom teeth removed in 2006.

2005, we were still living in Fitzgerald. 2006, we had moved to Tifton, and that's when I had my wisdom teeth cut out. All four of them at once. Joy. It was fantastic. Yes, that was dripping in sarcasm.

All right. So 21 years ago, my bad. So yeah, anyway, basically I've got my prescription over there, but my eyes aren't anywhere as bad as they were when I was in fourth grade or right before I got LASIK. I'm like negative one in something, negative point something, any other. But I also

have, I think, 2.5 is what I need for correction on reading up close. And so I was like, I'm going to try Warby Parker. You and I have seen the commercials ad nauseum over the years. They always tout, you know, the $95, blah, blah, blah, blah. And if all you need are basic corrective

lenses, then that's true. But I needed, I didn't want to do the traditional bifocals. And Warby Parker only does progressive lenses when it comes to that. They don't do traditional bifocals.

So I was like, okay, we're going to go with that, right? $520 for these glasses, $520. They were precision progressives, which is supposed to make it. Apparently, the traditional progressive, and even the eye doctor explained this to me, it kind of narrows your field of vision, and on the periphery, things are blurry.

So I went with the precision. I got the transition lenses because, you know, my eyes are still sensitive to bright lights. And I got them yesterday. I like the frames. I got them yesterday. I put them on and holy fuck, far off, great, I could see.

But trying to sit at my desk and look at a computer monitor or computer monitors and I'm roughly 18 inches probably away from the screens, I couldn't see the damn screens. And I mean, I could try to play this game of moving my head up and down and finding the sweet spot, but I was like, no, no, no, no, no, this is not going to work.

I took them. I walked around outside. The transition worked great. I could stand at my office and look across the pond and damn near see all kinds of details from a football field length away. But I think I decided yesterday I had made an error that I am not going to be the

kind of person that can use progressive lenses for certain. I might could do traditional bifocals, but again, as I said, Warby Parker does not do that. Fortunately, they have a 30-day money-back guarantee slash exchange. I could have just said to hell with it, got my money back, send the glasses

back and do something local. But I was like, I sent an email to their help at warbyparker.com and I gave them my order number and I said, look, I tried it. I know it's only a day. It's customary to give yourself two or three days to try to get, I just don't think I can get accustomed to these. It's just not working. I mean, I'm literally having to take them off to be able to see the screen. And as they pointed out, and I understand this, going with single

vision, which is what they call when you don't get progressives. The single vision will probably not going to help me when trying to sit here and look at my monitors. That's fine. I'll just take the damn things off. The eye doctor did give me a separate prescription for doing computer work.

Problem is, I don't have the funds to buy two pairs of glasses. Now, granted, when you're doing single vision, that extra cost for the progressive lenses, it's not there. So I think it's going to cost me $220. I've got to send my glasses back, which they immediately sent me a label, printed it

out, put it on the box, put it in the mailbox. It's going out today. They've already issued a new order to make me new glasses as soon as they get these in. So I'm hopeful, if nothing else, I'll wear these as my daily driver, so to speak, like whenever I'm actually driving or

watching television where I really do need to be able to see the images more in detail. I'm sitting here, you know, if they're not usable sitting in front of a computer screen, that I just won't wear them, and eventually I may see about getting a pair made with the other prescription.

We'll see. But, yeah, that's my experience with Warby Parker. I don't have anything negative to say about them right now. I mean, honestly, it takes too damn long to get the glasses. It can take up to 14 days to, you know, once your order's submitted and all of that.

And I mean, they give you, you can track it kind of like you can with a pizza at Domino's. You can track it, order received. They're making your frames, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, QA, and then they get shipped. And honestly, from the time they said they ship them to the time I got, I think I got the notice, it was either Wednesday or Thursday of last week to let me know that my glasses had shipped.

And then I received them yesterday on Monday. So that timing's not bad. i just don't see why it takes 14 damn days to make glasses i'm pretty confident that if i went to one of the local eyeglass places and and we've we've got uh honestly we've got family what i call friends of the family where we normally get our glasses done for the kids and my wife and all of

that but i i don't like where they're located they're located in downtown tifton and so the Parking is just complete shit. You know, it's angled parking, which is better than traditional parallel parking because I can't parallel park where the fuck.

But the problem is with the angled parking is if you park next to a big-ass vehicle, you're playing a game with death almost when you're trying to back out and not get rear-ended and not in a good way.

trying to get out of there and so i was like you know i'm just going to give warby parker a shot and i did and we'll see how these glasses turn out i mean best case scenario they work for me i just can't wear them while i'm working on a computer looking at staring at these uh these screens um worst case scenario i i get a refund and i have to go somewhere local and just see if

we can work something out better. I don't know. Anyway, that's my story. That's all I have to add today. I'm also going to be using a different way of editing and producing this episode. I've been trying Logic Pro because I'm doing the Apple Creative Suite thing because I've been learning Final Cut Pro for video. I'm trying to stop paying Adobe almost $20, $23 or $24 a month for

using Audition, even though I've used Audition for over a decade now. I can't wrap my head around Logic Pro. I've got a friend of mine who sent me some stuff, some tutorials that he made. I just, I can't wrap my head around it. It's probably a great program if you're a musician, and that's what you're using it for, because that's my understanding. That's what it was targeted for

initially, but it's just too much. So I'm going to be playing around with Audacity 4.0 with the plug-in and some other settings that I've worked with AI to help me figure out as far as some EQ of the voice. Basically, I said, here's my workflow in Audition. How can I replicate that

as closely as possible using audacity 4.0 and that's what we're going to be attempting to do in this episode wish me luck uh i'll put in the show notes if i wound up reverting back to audition to get this one out if i couldn't couldn't get the sound like i want it but otherwise uh that's that's what it's going to do i also had uh cloud code uh build me a little project uh so that i can

do i can basically upload upload the mp3 to it and it'll level everything out to uh negative 16 luffs which is the sweet spot for uh for stereo audio um for vocals that kind of thing anyway i want to thank you for taking the time to listen to this i know you've got other better quality podcasts to listen to so if you made it this far thank you for the well the raw audio audio showing about 20 minutes.

So thank you for taking the time to listen to me for basically 15 to 20 minutes. Get back to your day. I hope you're doing well. Take care of yourself and your significant others if you have them in your life. Call up some friends you haven't talked to in a while.

Hug your loved ones. And I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks for listening. Ta-ta.