It's been a day, and I'm still trying to get used to these new glasses. Unlike my previous two pair, these have frame completely around the lenses, which my eyes keep darting to the side to see.

But it is nice to be able to look at the screen and the keyboard. My typing really declined in the past two weeks, and it is amazing to see how fast I can go when I can actually see the letters on the keys (no, wife, I do not have them memorized yet. And suspect I never will).

We were on the basketball court a little over two weeks ago at our youth meeting when one of my lenses just decided to fly out, without provocation. Knew before it hit it was going to be bad, and it was. Shattered into a dozen pieces on the concrete.

Fortunately the wife drives us to and from these things. I was certainly too blind to legally control a vehicle. So I was stuck wearing my old glasses, which had to be at least five years old or older. And stuck looking for an optometrist, because the one we had used for over 20 years died last November.

Really enjoyed going to Dick. He was an avid bird hunter, and we always killed the time talking about sage grouse, one of my favorite subjects. (His brother, on the other hand, who uses the family's Chinese name rather than the anglicized version, is an avid sage grouse poacher who just recently got some just desserts in court.) And he loved his brittany's.

When discussing his family origins, Dick showed me a Chinese currency bill that his mother sent from the homeland. And then gave it to me when I spent so much time examining it. Carried it in the wallet for many years, but it's in with the coin collection now.

Don't have much choice for optometrists in this community, so I made an appointment with the folks who bought Dick's practice.

And got checked out by a pimply-faced (literally) Dougie Houser. Nice enough guy, quite professional, but I felt like I ought to be taking my computer to him, not my optics.

My last pair of lenses were tri-focals, which are basically bifocals with a small reading spot that lines up right down your nose.

Hard to read, looking down your nose. Also found out that they did not get my feet into focus.

This can be critical when you're wandering around in Nine Button's neighborhood, or scrambling around the talus slopes in the Ferris wilderness.

Also makes it hard to find arrowheads.

But, of course, I have to have my distance vision as good as it can get. Have to be able to count critters from miles away.

So we agreed I should get one pair that fixed the feet problem, while keeping distance vision. And a second pair for reading.

After running all the tests, he commented my vision is doing really well, for my age. This last comment did not get him any points, and may have generated the "pimply" comments above. But he was confident he could fit a prescription in one pair that would do all three.

Had to go with glass lenses again. Used to be that was the only way to get extra photo-grays, which are essential in this country, but they have that in plastic now. But plastic lenses do not last. Not even with the diamond coating. The dust and grit on the binocs and scope kept wearing rings in the diamond coating.

Hard dust we have out here.

After I came in for my third replacement pair under a one-year guarantee, they decided I should probably stick with glass lenses.

So far, so good. Don't have to take off the glasses and lean in close to see this screen, and can actually look from data tables to the entry screens without putting glasses on and off.

We'll see when I try to use them with binocs or the scope.