With frickin' laser beams.

Due to a change in my insurance on June 1st, I had some money in my Flex Spend account that was "Use-It-Or-Lose-It." I decided to get LASIK. Sadly, the way the money falls, I can only get one eye done this week, and in two weeks can get the other one.

Yesterday, my dad drove me to Dallas, where, after a cuppa  and an omelet at Café Brazil, we went to the Cattle Call Eye Center, and they prepped me for eye surgery.

Actually, the prepping involved getting a name tag on the chest (kinda smart, given their volume), paying their marketing person from a Health Savings Account card and from a Flex Spend Account card, and then going into the "Relaxation Room."

In the Relaxation Room, they had a fan for some white noise, and the lights were turned low. There was a decent stereo playing music. An attendant who was not a nurse had me lie down in a leather couch, and put a blanket over me (it was cool in there.). She then gave me two pills and a cup of water. The first pill, I was to swallow. The second pill, I was to let dissolve under my tongue. I knew that they were for anxiety, but because I'm not Anthony Michael Hall, I asked what it was before I took it.

"Oh, it's just Vicodin," she said. I asked her if she was sure about that. (My stomach doesn't much care for Vicodin, and I hadn't read anything about getting scheduled narcotics with the surgery.)  She checked up. "Oh, I mean Valium. To calm you. I knew it was one of those V drugs." Noting that the stereo was now playing Enigma's Chant music with the Gregorian Monks and the heavy thump-thump that makes it a favorite for booty music, I remarked that if she said "Viagra," I was going to have to point out that I am a married man.

They put a silly mesh shower cap thing on me, with gauze over my ears, and walked me into the eye surgery room, where they lay me down, and wedged my head in, and swung a machine over my face. The doctor, an officious guy who had patients to hustle through, was talking to his intern as he struggled to push that machine as close as possible to my eye, cramming it down against my nose and brow: "Note the pronounced brow ridge. It and the significant bridge on the patient's nose cause some difficulty in getting the machine down to the sunken orbital," he said. I informed him that I preferred the term Cro-magnon and that he could commence with the "occulectomy"*.  He laughed, and cranked that mutha down onto my face, asking if I was okay. I admitted that it was uncomfortable, but bade him continue, please.

They used one laser to cut a flap into the cornea, and another to then shape the lens of my right eye so that it was the correct shape to focus light between the lens and the cornea onto the retina, so that I can see without glasses. He then taped a plastic shield onto my face, and sent me on my way.

They had an in-house glasses shop there, where a dude swapped the prescription right lenses in my glasses and sunglasses for zero-correction lenses, for $20, while I waited. Great work at a great price, actually. I gave him cash, and no paperwork was done, so that might have been a side job. Hey, it never hurts to ask. :)

The doc pushed for me to get plugs to hold in extra tears to prevent dry-eye. I just didn't have the cash. I'll probably do it when I go in again in two weeks.

So today, my right eye is good with no correction. I have to put drops of some kind in, every waking hour.

This was what I found, first thing in the morning. My wife assures me that it looks better, now.


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*Forgive me for not having heretofore been conversant with the correct terminology for such a procedure, which I was facetiously suggesting he perform.

Interesting story developing.

On April 17th, a fertilizer plant blew up in West, Texas.
At least 15 people were killed, mostly first responders.
Hundreds were injured. Hundreds of homes were obliterated, destroyed, or damaged.

There were two very newsworthy types of fertilizer there at the plant: anhydrous ammonia, and ammonia nitrate.

--Anhydrous ammonia is scary stuff. It is highly reactive to oxidizers, and gives off a caustic gas. It is stored as a liquid, in tanks. It is used in the production of methamphetamine.
--Ammonia nitrate is a plastic solid, and was used in the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City. It's highly explosive, but is more stable than Anhydrous.

News people cast around, talking to people who didn't know what they were talking about. I saw news stories early speculating that the firefighters had sprayed water onto reactive substances, causing the fire and explosion. I saw references to them responding to a re-kindle.

At this point, they still aren't exactly sure what caused the fire.

Blame came, as it always does. Someone HAS to be to blame.
If Texas governor Rick Perry hadn't realized that his political aspirations for the national stage were ended in 2012, I hope that he realizes now that it's over. Political cartoonists and pundits in California, Illinois, and the east coast all tore into Perry, for his recent attempts to woo investors to Texas with his quite correct claim that Texas is booming. In his radio spots, Perry cited no income tax, and less interference by regulations for Texas' success. His critics seized on this as Exhibit A in the case of why half a Texas town was blown off the face of the earth.

The truth is, that West is a hub community, in the midst of farmland. A fertilizer plant and seed company would certainly have been an economic engine there, 60 years ago. The town grew around it. These things happen.

But now, we find that BATFE[IEIO] and the Texas Rangers have an open case of Possession Of A Destructive Device against one of the paramedics who was a first responder with the West Volunteer Fire Department, and who lost friends in the blast. You can see the newsies champing at the bit to connect this with the cause of the blast. And I'll admit that it would make a helluva story. Haven't we all heard the tale of the firefighter who is a secret arsonist, and been amazed? What better story than to find out that this small-town medic wanted to be a Walter Mitty with Münchausen syndrome-by-bombing?

But it's not necessarily the case. The BATFE boys are in town. The Rangers are in town. They're looking under every rock for ANY clue as to what might possibly has caused that fire. So if Mr. Reed was into making homemade firecrackers in his garage, this is not a good time for him. If he's fulfilling a lifelong dream to make his own recoiless rifle in his basement, these guys might get a bit twitchedy, and put a case together on him, out of something to do.

But time will tell.

**EDIT**
Looks like it was components for a pipe bomb which Reed had. Ruh roh.