Thinking About LASIK

I’ve worn contacts or glasses since I was in high school and have been passively following the laser eye surgery arena ever since. The idea of a permanent solution to my moderate nearsightedness has always been appealing but as I watch new procedures come into fashion every few years, I’ve always told myself that the longer I wait, the safer and better the procedures will be. For instance, can you imagine getting radial kerototomy ten years ago only to find that more modern procedures such as LASIK can give you better vision with fewer side effects? When is the procedure that causes zero side effects and gives you 20/10 vision going to come out? Next year? In 20 years? Who knows.

Although much of it could very well be marketing, it does seem like laser surgery may have reached a point where it’s accurate and safe enough to really be worth it now. They’ve got the procedure down to about 15 seconds per eye, zero pain, and a healing period of less than a week. Additionally (again, could be marketing), they are able to map your eyes much more exactly than ever before, resulting in a much better chance of 20/20 or better vision after surgery.

Following is a list of considerations that I’m personally weighing:

Positive

• Surgery seems safer and more accurate than ever before.
• I’ve heard that when done well, surgery can actually give you better eyesight than you’ve ever had in your life.
• From a marginal benefit standpoint, the longer in your life you wait, the less the total benefit will be.
• My vision is one step away from where my current contacts can no longer be used. I wear CIBA Night & Days and keep them in for a month at a time. They are great, but they do not correct for astigmatism.
• Every time I keep my contacts in extensively, I feel like I am somehow doing damage to my eyes, even if slightly.
• When giving my eyes a rest from contacts, wearing glasses can be a pain. Also, I need new ones.

Negative

• Surgery is still not 100% safe and it likely never will be.
• My buddy Smadden said his surgery went perfectly but as a result of his super clear vision, he now sees floaters. Apparently, most people get floaters at some time in their life, but the clearer your vision is, the more noticeable they can be. That sounds weird.
• Wearing glasses can be a benefit sometimes… like on first dates or job interviews/meetings.
• You have to wonder if this field will keep progressing and when the next big breakthrough will be. If the next big breakthrough is great and it’s very soon, better to keep waiting.

I’m curious to hear if any readers have had refractive eye surgery performed and what their experiences have been like. What specific procedure did you have and what’s your vision like now? Any side effects like halos, floaters, etc?

Or did you decide not to get surgery for a specific reason? I’m looking for both positive and negative information here.

Airplane Seat Etiquette

You know the feeling. The plane has just reached cruising altitude, you’re about to whip out your laptop, and bam… the person in front of you reclines their seat all the way back and effectively reduces your personal space by about 20%. I’d estimate it only happens to me on maybe one out of every five flights, but when it does, it can really ruin the chance to get any work done.

This weekend, on an Alaska Airlines flight back from the Future of Web Apps conference, I found myself in an extremely tight row and the guy in front of me reclined his seat all the way back before the plane had even finished its climb. Great. This was a sub two-hour flight and it wasn’t even at night so why the need to assume the position like this? I lowered my tray and placed my compact 12-inch Powerbook on it thinking I could at least get some work done, but upon opening the lid, I found that it was physically impossible to place the laptop in any open position and type on it at the same time. This is a tiny laptop and it was hanging halfway off the front of the tray and into my abdomen. Unbelievable. I know I’ve been in a similar situation before and it wasn’t this bad so I assume Alaska has eliminated some legroom or I was just in a really bad row. The distance from the front of my headrest to the back of the other person’s headrest was only about 20 inches.

The situation continued to irritate me throughout the flight. The guy in front of me was even leaning forward for most of the flight! His only saving grace was that he looked a little bit like Stan. I actually pretended he was Stan for the duration of the flight in order to reduce my anger towards him.

Other things I did during the flight:

• Used my tray as a drumset for a minute
• Issued random kneejerks into the seatback just to interrupt his train of thought, whatever it was
• Whipped out my camera and took a few pictures (with the autofocus assist light on “high”) from right above his head

(Update: Yes, yes, I know this doesn’t really help the situation.)

All in all, I’m not sure any of this had much effect, but it really got me thinking about proper airplane seat etiquette. I personally only recline my seat under two circumstances:

1. If the flight is over 5 or 6 hours and the person behind me isn’t Jeff Veen or Tom Watson size
2. If there is nobody or a small child behind me

Old guy (right): leaning back with the seat upright… good. Jason Santa Maria lookalike (left): leaning forward with the seat reclined… bad.In other words, I only recline my seat if it does me a material amount of good and it doesn’t do anyone else a material amount of bad. I had a debate in the office with someone else about this and he felt the opposite. He said “when someone in front of me reclines, I recline also”. To me, this is like child abuse. Someone else does it to you so you just continue the cycle of abuse. Bad.

I suppose the ideal thing to do would be to just ask the person in front of you to kindly move their seat back upright, but as average sized 5′ 11″ guy, what are my grounds for expecting this courtesy?

In the midst of my ruminations, I remembered a product I’d heard about several years ago which actually prevents airplane seats from reclining: The Knee Defender. I remember thinking at the time that it seemed like kind of an inconsiderate device to use, but I’m changing my attitude about that now. I’m buying one, although I will only use it on appropriately short flights and only if I’m in a tight row. There are really only two drawbacks to the device as I see it:

1. They must be applied with the tray down and before any reclining takes place (wouldn’t have worked on my flight because the Stan lookalike was so trigger happy with his recline button).
2. They are kind of conspicuous so the flight attendants might notice and the people next to you might give you weird looks and/or think you’re a jerk.

What is everyone else’s policy towards seat reclining? Am I alone in my conscious restraint of the recline button?

Interesting note: On the Knee Defender page, there is a quote from the Washington Post that says “If the guy won’t compromise, whip out your Knee Defender.” I don’t see how this would work since the attempted “compromise” would appear to occur after the seat is already reclined and thus not subject to the Knee Defender. C’mon Washington Post… do some actual reporting! :)

The Volkswagen Eos: What Took So Long?!

I’ve wondered for at least ten years now why Volkswagen never made a Jetta-like car with a retractable or convertible top. I owned a 1999 Jetta VR6 once which I loved but ended up moving up to a Saab 9-3 because I just love convertibles. I really only had five requirements which led me to the Saab:

1. Manual transmission
2. Usable back seats
3. Under $40,000
4. Probably not American
5. At least *reasonably* masculine

Volkswagen seemed like the perfect company to build a car like this but the only ragtops they had in production at the time violated the last requirement: The Cabriolet and The Beetle.

A few days ago, I happened to be driving by a VW dealer and saw what looked a little like some sort of Jetta convertible. Holy crap! A quick check online revealed that this new car is the Volkswagen Eos. And it’s not just a convertible! It’s a retractable hardtop!

Starting at $28,000, this is the car I would be buying right now if I drove more than 30 miles a week and was in the market for a car. It’s fast but not too fast. High-end but not so expensive that you’d worry about a door ding here and there. And how can you not love the retractable hard top? I haven’t even driven one yet but if it drives like a typical Volkswagen, it’s probably money on the road.

UPDATE: Apparently, this thing has a power sunroof too. I’ve never seen that in a convertible or retractable hardtop before. It’s also reportedly the top-selling convertible in Europe right now.

Low Involvement Fantasy Football

I just got totally screwed in our ESPN.com employees-and-alumni fantasy football league by the worst keeper rules I’ve ever seen. It’s a $200 $300 league too so it hurts twice thrice as bad. I don’t even want to get into the specifics, but let me just say, if you participate in a keeper league, be damn sure the people making the rules use standard keeper rules and don’t make up their own on the fly.

I feel crippled. And yet… I will still dominate.

If you’re already in enough fantasy leagues or you’re looking for a less “effort intensive” way to play some fantasy football, head on over to the Newsvine Hi-Lo Fantasy Football Challenge. The Hi-Lo Challenge is much quicker than full-roster fantasy football in that all you need to do is pick two NFL teams each week: one that you think will score a high number of points and one that will score a low number. The difference in their actual scores is your score for the week.

The catch — much like a “survivor pool” — is that you can’t pick the same high team or the same low team more than once during the season.

You can create up to 8 different entries and join a different group with each so as to play against different friends, colleagues, and people you’ve perhaps never met. So head on over to the Hi-Lo Challenge and test your football prognostication skills…

70 Year Old Newsviner Gets On The Ohio Ballot

Old Fogey working the phones in Coshocton CountyPeople often tell me that we don’t toot our own horn enough at Newsvine. Record traffic, record unique users, a rapidly expanding groundswell of contributors, and we don’t issue press releases, pump our chests out, or thumb our noses at competitors every time something cool happens over here.

Every so often, however, something *really* cool happens, and one of those somethings just happened.

Newsvine writer and community favorite Jerry “Old Fogey” Firman has just worked his way onto the Ohio ballot in the race to replace embattled Congressman Bob Ney in the U.S. House of Representatives. For those who aren’t familiar with the situation, Ney has been implicated by witnesses in the high profile bribery case involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

So who is this “Old Fogey”, you ask?

Well he’s a 70 year old retired Army aviator and newspaper man who provides some of the most enlightening and insightful commentary you’ll see around Newsvine. Although we think he’s giving the site a bit too much credit, he says in his column:

“I must admit that running for any office or even thinking of politics was very far from my mind when I first started to write on Newsvine. Newsvine got me off my duff and made me realize I should be doing something for my friends and neighbors instead of mowing grass and going to Texas for the winter.”

Although Newsvine is not in the business of endorsing political candidates, we’re more than happy to help spread the word of Firman’s candidacy. It’s a shining example of the positive effect online communities can have on individuals. Sometimes you don’t know what you’re capable of until you find the right environment.

No one knows how successful this underdog citizen’s bid for an Ohio congressional post will be, but win or lose, we’ll learn a lot about the civic process from his candidacy and his column.