'Tis the Season to Be Cutting

I know I have some stuff to still blog--Moab, Half Ironman, and Japan. I have to do a bunch of pic editing for that, so I am going to put it off again.

What's going on? Well, just got back from soccer, which I have taken up recently. I still have my high school cleats even! I also have a giant bruise on my shin because my high school shin guards are nowhere to be found.

Last year I started a tradition of getting surgery each spring, so I decided to go for it this year. I put some pre-tax money in my health savings account which I am going to spend on Lasik. (Cool NYTimes feature on how it works here.) The doctor said I had big pupils (I took it as a compliment) which can sometimes complicate the procedure, but I was like "Yo, how important is my sight?--let's overclock my eyeballs." and he was like "Sure, I will take your money." Anyway, I negotiated him down from $1,600 to $1,300--which in pre-tax dollars is under $1,000. I would have spent $250 on new glasses and contacts anyway, so an extra $750 to continue my transformation into a cyborg is worth it. (That's the sort of math I do at work--mismatching pre- and post-tax dollars to come up with a figure that seems good.)

I asked my doctor guy about the Waveform Lasik procedure (which is like $5,000 and not what I am getting). He has the machines and could do it if I wanted to but he made a compelling argument not to. It's big claim to fame is accuracy (down to 1/1000 of point). He told me a little about eyeballs.

First, he said your prescription can easily vary +- 0.25 within a day.

Second, we never even notice the variation. To prove it, he put the fancy glasses on me and flipped me 0.25 either direction--the proverbial is this better or this. The point is that your body adapts and adjusts. So to charge $5,000 for really accurate software that measures your eyes down to, for example, -4.2507 is pretty stupid if -4.0 and -4.5 are somewhat indistinguishable. Your eyeball, he says, is a lot like jello--pretty amorphous.

Third, the handbook that comes with the machine says that he could potentially adjust the software's result by +-10%. Again, accuracy down to 4.2501 is useless if a guy can adjust it to 4.6501.

Finally, he says that in about 20% of his cases he has to do minor touch-ups a few weeks later. Why? Microscopic scar tissue affects your vision.

Anyway, I plan to be doped on valium Saturday night. Everyone's welcome--BYOV (bring your own valium). Recovery time--4 hours!

Also, Columbia rejection came in the mail today, I am going to Stanford in the fall. KTHXBYE.